Can we talk about people not tramming their vises properly?

I used to think a few thousandths off was no big deal for most jobs. Then last month at the shop in Portland, I had a part come back with a .005 step on one edge. Checked the vise with a test indicator and the thing was tilted side to side by almost .003. That one bad part cost us $40 in material and 2 hours of rework. How often do you guys actually check your vise alignment before a job?

Got chewed out for not greasing the swing bearing every shift

Last month a veteran operator pulled me aside after I finished a 12 hour shift on the Ellicott. He said I was going to burn through a $4,000 bearing in under a year if I kept ignoring the grease fittings. I was only doing it every third day. Now I hit all 6 points right after my morning safety check. Has anyone else had to change a bearing early because of lazy maintenance?

Grandpa gave me a 1970s Tonka dump truck when I was 8 and told me not to play with it too rough

Hit 50 rejection emails yesterday and something clicked

I've been sending short stories to lit mags for about 8 months now. Kept a spreadsheet of every submission. Hit exactly 50 rejections yesterday. That number surprised me. It made me realize I wasn't learning from the nos. I was just collecting them. Now I'm going back to study each rejection instead of rushing to the next submission. Anyone else track their submission stats like this?

I had to choose between climbing spikes and a bucket truck for a backyard job

Honestly, I showed up to this job in a tight suburban yard in Phoenix last Tuesday and realized my bucket truck wouldn't fit through the gate. So I had to pick between using spikes on this big old mesquite tree or renting a lift for 300 bucks on the spot. I went with the spikes since I was already there, and my foreman called me like 'you sure about that?' Well, I got the tree done but scraped the bark up way worse than I wanted and the homeowner gave me a look. Has anyone else had to make that call last minute and regret it?

That moment I realized I'd been winding yo-yos backward for 30 years

I was showing my nephew how to do 'walk the dog' at the park last weekend, and some kid maybe 10 years old comes up and says my spin was totally off, then he flipped my yo-yo around and suddenly it actually slept right - has anyone else had a toy moment where you felt like you'd been lied to your whole childhood?

Had to pick between a LED light therapy mask or a basic red light panel for my studio

I was setting up my little esthetics room in Portland last spring and needed to offer LED treatments but had a tight budget. I went with a cheap handheld red light panel instead of the $300 mask because I could treat more areas at once. Has anyone else found that the cheaper panels actually work just as well as the fancy branded devices?

Hit 1000 motherboard repairs and it got me thinking

I passed 1000 motherboard level repairs this past Tuesday on a old Dell Optiplex from 2012. The cap blew right next to the CPU socket and I swapped it in 15 minutes. Never thought I'd keep count when I started fixing these things out of my garage 4 years ago. Has anyone else hit a weird milestone that just surprised you?

My kitchen backsplash looked terrible 6 months ago but now it's night and day

I finally got around to redoing the grout on that old tile after putting it off since last summer. The original grout was cracked and dark in spots no matter how much I scrubbed. Anyone else have luck with those grout colorant pens or is redoing it all the only real fix?

Soot fell straight into my eyes while cleaning a double-flue on a steep roof in Pittsburgh last Thursday

I was leaning over the crown trying to reach the second flue and a clump of loose soot dropped right past my goggles, had to finish the job basically blind and then spend 20 minutes flushing my eyes out with bottled water from my truck, has anyone found a better way to keep debris out when you're in a weird position?