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dieucla98

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  1. For those in Austin looking to get into woodworking or expand their shop, check out Assmbly - it's a hacker space and they have some kick ass tools. 12" Laguna jointer, 15" powermatic planer, 2 sawzstop, a resaw, 3 band saws, drum sander, huge CNCs, etc etc... It's a bit of a process to get access but it only costs $100/month. I just went this weekend for my first squaring sessions and was able to square up a decent amount of maple in just over an hour. Using my own jointer, planer, and table saw, that would have taken 3 hours plus with all the setup time and just the inefficiency of my tools vs there's. Highly recommend it - great for beginners (tons of lessons) and seasoned woodworkers. They also have a metal shop and other tools not related to woodworking as well. https://asmbly.org/space/woodshop/
  2. They're not wrong - Walnut is really pricey these days and yes, you can get something close to the look for cheaper. What you got was not that. I'd have gone alder plus a darker tone Rubio monocoat but with two coats. Alder won't have the lovely variation Walnut has but it takes stain wonderfully and Rubio is amazing. And alder is cheap (Rubio is not...).
  3. How do you grow if not through things like product or service? Ya, you can restructure debt or reduce opex... But that's a one time lever. And no one is going to pay a multiple on a one time lever.
  4. Again, we seem to be focusing on the predatory PE firms that make more of their ROI on fees from third parties. I doubt that's the majority as it's a risky play (and I honestly don't even understand the economics of those firms). Many firms keep original owners on as share holders to some degree and most get the best ROI by improving the companies they buy in order to get maximum multiples from the next buyer. What "next buyer" is going to look at a gutted company with zero remaining culture, lack of discipline, declining assets, restructured but increasing debt loads and think "gee, I'd gladly play 10x EBITDA for that". That's just not how it works. And the due diligence process is exhaustive - if your company has been beaten down by PE and your employees are pissed to hell and ready to leave, that's gonna come out.
  5. Pretty much this - the medical industry is hopelessly complex.
  6. Currently work in PE so call me jaded. I get the viewpoint of many regarding PE firms but understand that there are a gazillion firms out there and only the shit heels are making the headlines. For whatever reason (I have my guesses), the PE firms focused on the medical industry seem to be having the most visible fuckups lately. There is also a huge difference between a two man "PE" team and a full fledge team of investors. The two man team here is more like a family office than a typical PE environment. You don't really have any checks and balances with a 2 man team but when the investment team is 50+ professionals, you're going to have a ton of discussion and opinions before making stupid decisions. Stupid decisions result in both scenarios but considerably less in the latter. I'll speak for our firm on the ethics and human side of the house - our investment philosophy is buy the people first, idea second. We require existing management to stick around for at least a year to ensure the business keep ticking, the culture stays in place, etc... Because ultimately, that's what we bought. We don't have strict playbooks for every investment, everything is tailored for each individual company. During COVID, when a lot of competitors to our companies were laying off people, we did not ask for layoffs at any one of our 20+ companies - we injected more capital to ensure everyone could make payroll. We aren't unique in this approach either. Many firms behave like this, we all, mostly, just don't make headlines.
  7. Re-staining is a bitch - damn near impossible to get all of it removed and then it acts as the foundation for the new stain so you never really know what the final "mixed" color looks like, not to mention it will mix different on different parts of the wood depending on the level of stain you left there. Basically, it ends up splotchy and more grainy looking. Only option I'd do sand, prime, sand, prime, sand, paint which is a fuckton of work in and of itself and would waste the oak (you may as well have used pine or alder). I say you get your money back or have them remake it. It looks like they use the minwax walnut stain - I recognize it from my early days of woodworking when I was too cheap for anything good. Feel for ya, man - hope they make it right b/c they goofed bad. Thinking a bit more about this... That level of splotchyness makes me think this is pine where they didn't use any pre-conditioner prior to staining. Oak is usually way kinder to stains than that.
  8. Great race, but holy shit the coverage was awful. You'd see these big shakeups in the top 10 and get to see the action two laps later.
  9. Russia can't march through Kiev. They sure as shit ain't marching through Europe.
  10. Rhum agricoles are my fave. Speaking my language.
  11. Plenty of great liquors out there. I'm not going to miss bourbon.
  12. It's not a bit. This dude has one of the more overinflated senses of self importance on this site and that's saying a lot. He cares about himself and that's the end of it. He is what we all despise about the Republican party in a nutshell.
  13. Go back to explaining the "complexities" of frequent flier miles.
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