Which side wins: scrubbing a cast iron skillet with soap or just rinsing it?

I used to scrub my cast iron with just hot water and a chainmail scrubber for 10 years, scared soap would ruin the seasoning. Then last month I caught my buddy using dish soap on his and now I swap between both methods depending on how greasy the pan is. Has anyone else switched sides on this debate or is it a hard line for you?

My $7 fountain pen hack actually saved my bujo habit

My color bowl cracked mid-foiling on a bride last Saturday

It was $45 gloss I had to throw out and re mix while she sat there with foil packets hanging off her head, anyone else had a tool fail at the worst possible moment?

Tried using a shop vac instead of a brush on a heavy creosote job yesterday

Got way more packed-on stuff out than I expected, but the filter clogged in about 10 minutes flat, so now I'm wondering if anyone else has found a good filter setup for wet or sticky jobs?

Shoutout to the front desk lady at the dentist who remembered my name 6 months later

Tried parking my truck in a compact spot at the Lowe's lot yesterday

I figured it would save 2 minutes walking from the back row but I spent 8 minutes trying to squeeze out of the door without hitting the SUV next to me. Learned that compact spaces are a trap for full-size trucks no matter how good you think you are at parking. Has anyone else had a dumb parking gamble backfire on them?

My brand new total station gave bad readings on a site in Austin last Tuesday

I was setting control points on a 12-acre residential development just north of downtown. The unit said everything was fine but I kept getting closure errors over 0.05 feet. After 45 minutes of re-shooting the same backsight, I pulled the battery and found a hairline crack in the tribrach adapter plate. Swapped it with my backup unit from the truck and the errors dropped to 0.01 feet. The dealer said it was probably a casting flaw from the factory. Cost me half a day of layout work and I had to push the concrete pour to Wednesday. Has anyone else seen these tribrach plates fail like that on a newer instrument?

That time a collector at a con told me my bag-and-board method was ruining my comics

He said using standard bags with the flap inside was creating pressure marks on the covers, so I switched to resealable bags with no flap and started backing every book with a full-size board, and has anyone else gotten weird storage advice from a random stranger at a show that actually ended up being right?

Why does nobody talk about how dealerships give out bad torque specs?

I was at a local Chevy dealer last week picking up parts for a 2023 Silverado and the service writer casually gave me a torque spec for the lower control arm bolts. I double checked it when I got back to my shop and it was 30 ft-lbs off from what TIS says. That could have snapped a bolt or worse on a customer's truck. I asked the tech next to me and he said they just use whatever the old guys tell them. Has anyone else caught dealers passing around bad numbers like that?

Just realized I've been watering my succulents completely wrong for 3 years

I used to water them just a little bit every few days because I thought too much water would kill them. Turns out they want a good soak and then to dry out fully. I killed like 5 nice echeverias before I figured this out. Anyone else make this mistake when they started with succulents?