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Spaulding Smails

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Everything posted by Spaulding Smails

  1. I watched this in its entirety a few years ago. And again this morning. Thanks for posting. Like @TwiceHorn said, these genre-bending things bring me so much joy. THIS is the kind of stuff that I love about our country. There's a great book called Mexifornia by Victor Davis Hanson. I talks to the historical significance of assimilation in California and the thin line between keeping national pride and heritage and insulating yourself against outside influence to the point of boxing yourself into a corner as an ethnic community. But, these Mississippi Chinese examples and my Sri Lankan buddy are shining examples of our melting pot country. Now back to the LULZ pics and vids!
  2. I'm buddies with a Sri Lankan guy that grew up in Lafayette. Not super thick, but the Cajun accent is there. Loves to duck hunt, deer hunt and fish. Always has a lip full of Copenhagen. Freaks people out when they've spoken to him over the phone and meet him in person.
  3. I have a golf rangefinder that I have on long-term loan. Played in a golf tournament at least two years ago. Invited by a buddy. He put together a team last minute. I kind of knew the third guy but had never met the fourth. Fourth guy was from Houston. He left right after golf and left his rangefinder in his cart. We found it after he left. I was headed to Houston the next week for work, so I volunteered to sync up with him. Got his number from the third guy. Texted him when I was on the way, and he never responded. Tried to reach out to him on two other occasions when I was headed to Houston. I even verified the number was correct. Zero replies. Nada. Hence the long-term loan situation.
  4. Man, that really sucks. With the additional context, I say.... screw those guys. Go full no-lube on them. Six months and you got that?!?! When I first replied, I figured you had a trim carpenter do it for $500 or something over a few days without any shop drawings. Or maybe it was a relative or buddy. But, $1,250 and six months!?!? I'd ask for a full refund or replacement. That's blasphemy. I owned a high-end luxury remodeling company for 12+ years with our own in-house millwork / cabinetry shop. We cranked out some awesome stuff. What you got was a DIY hack-job that I bit my lip about because I was trying to be nice. If someone who claims to be anywhere near a cabinet shop sold you that, I'd be demanding a refund.
  5. Damn. Just saw the link. That's a full inlay in that image. WAY more expensive to build, but would definitely look awesome in that powder bath. @harpercollins not sure if he gave you shop drawings to approve or if you paid him in full yet, but that's a big miss on several fronts if that's what he was supposed to build. The image you sent is probably a $2,500 vanity from a good cabinet maker.
  6. Looks like plain sawn White Oak which is very grainy. It would have to be stripped down, but I'm a big fan of the Rubio Monocoat products. It's expensive, but it doesn't need to be sprayed on, and provides a low sheen in several different colors. Link below and an image attached. Trimming out the drawer fronts with the Shaker style trim may dress it up some too. https://www.rubiomonocoatusa.com/
  7. Corn is tough in small areas. Worth a shot, especially if you want beans and squash to trellis up it naturally, but I've never had much luck with it, and an old gardener friend of mine told me that you needed. Squash and beans will take off, especially green beans. Throw some cucumbers in there too if you like 'em. They're pretty bulletproof as well. Okra does great through the summer if you can get enough water to them. Those four seem to be the ones that I have the most luck with.
  8. Typically the threshold weatherstripping continues on the secondary door beneath the astragal. Maybe they cut it back because it was dragging? I'm guessing you could pull both doors off the hinges and affix new threshold weatherstripping to both doors, then cut to length to narrow the gap. It looks like there's a multipoint bolt that drops into the threshold from the astragal, so you may have to modify the new sweep to go around that. Assuming both doors have standard grooves, those replacement threshold weatherstrippings are super easy to install. It takes 10X as long to get the doors off the hinges as it does to actually install the weatherstipping.
  9. My buddy fished with Austin Young out of Charleston a few years back and loved it. He's a great photographer too. https://www.aceoutdoorscharleston.com/
  10. Took a pretty nice axis Saturday night at the ranch. Tipped out full velvet. Not as big as the one I shot a few years ago, but should make another nice mount. Right at 29" main beams. Then, this crew showed up right at dusk last night at the cistern in front of the house. That one in the middle is legit. I'm thinking he's pushing 34". Hoping to take my son out this coming weekend to see if he sticks around.
  11. @4th and 5 that's finominole. Assuming you broke par? I pulled my usual routine Sunday. Mostly consistent, a few amazing shots, and some absolute blow ups. Amazing punch shot on 1 (par 4), then drained a 30 footer for bird. Pull the tee shot on 2 (par 3) to a waste area. Double. Par on 3 (par 4). Stick a 6 iron to 5' on 4 (par 4). Bird. Drain a 20 footer for bird on 5 (par 5). So, I'm -1 through 5. Up and down through the middle, then finish double, par, triple, double for an 82. Been working to draw the ball more consistently, and that's occasionally turning into a pull hook. Goal for this year is to minimize my mistakes and get away from those big numbers.
  12. How far of a run from the spigot to the trees? I've previously DIY'd a similar setup with this type of product. You can either buy a kit or mix and match at Home Depot. Not ideal long term, but worked for a year or two. Get it set up, then throw it on a timer. Plus, you can cut the supply line to length so you're only irrigating the trees and not wasting water between locations.
  13. Two years ago, I went helicopter hog hunting in Dilley about this time of year. Only shot two pigs, but it was still a blast. Group shot 12 total. The previous year on the same hunt, they shot just over 200. The highlight of the flight was when we jumped a BIG mature buck. Couldn't count points, but he was at least a mainframe 10. He was bedded down, hopped up and ran about 20 yards before jumping over a little briar patch. When he landed on the other side... POP! Both antlers flew off. Never seen that in my life, let alone in the air. I had my GoPro running, but that buck was on the other side of the chopper. We circled for a bit to see if we could find an open spot to land and find the sheds, but it was so incredibly thick that we would've had to land 200 yards away and wade our way through some crazy dense brush. 16774F0C-FB87-4778-B561-EBC02CDFEFBF.mov
  14. PEX is far superior for freeze protection. That study that Risinger did was very informative. A properly built house should have PEX insulated on all exterior walls BEFORE spray foam or batts insulation. It's a belt and suspenders approach, but it makes a huge difference. And, I agree on the manifolds @drt. They're cool, but not practical. I'm also a big fan of running hose bibs on a separate loop. This allows you to shut off water to the bibs an drain them completely prior to a freeze, and it allows you to put a loop in for a softener to the house without it affecting water for irrigation. Lastly, I'd highly recommend a leak detection system. Phyn is my favorite, but Moen makes a good product as well. Some insurance providers are actually offering rebates if you install one, and rumor has it Chubb, Pure and a few others may require these to be installed to maintain coverage. It's <$4,000 installed and worth every penny to prevent a catastrophic flood. Phyn's technology is pretty amazing. It's programmed using sonar and can detect minor leaks, let you know exactly where they are, and allow you to shut off water to one area or the whole house remotely via the app. https://phyn.com/products/phyn-plus-smart-water-assistant-shutoff-v2 I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but I do own a plumbing company in Austin. We install several per month, and the reviews are fantastic.
  15. Saw this elsewhere. So freakin' cool. How amazing would that be to hook into that big girl with downtown as your backdrop!?!? Also, someone said he looks just like Bob from Bob's Burgers.
  16. Tell me about it! To make matters worse, canceling golf made me want a massage instead. I had to call my private masseuse on short notice to fit me in which caused me to have to push back my dinner reservations at Uchiba. That, in turn, made me stay out later than I planned. So I overslept this morning and had to push back the departure on my private jet to Aspen this morning. The entire day was REALLY rough and spilled over to today. Utter chaos.
  17. I had plans to walk 9 holes after work yesterday. I was expecting upper 70s, so I threw a pair of shorts and a golf shirt into the truck in the morning. Needless to say, this weather miss derailed those plans. Haven't seen a whiff this big on a forecast in ages.
  18. I previously owned a little cabinet / millwork shop as part of my general contracting business. I had it for roughly five years, the last three of which it operated on it's own income statement as a division of the larger business, but not as an independent entity. It was always about break-even, but filled a niche for our business, so I kept it around. In late 2023, we started to get pretty slow. So, I sold it to my employees (two brothers) as an asset sale 1/1/24. They bought the fabrication equipment, and a few other assets and took over the rent. No A/R, no liabilities, no nothing. Just an easy transactional sale. It ended up being the greatest thing ever for BOTH parties. I wasn't focused on it, and it was at a remote location away from our HQ, so it was a rudderless ship and never destined to grow with me continuing to be involved. On their side of the fence, their productivity was lousy and we had some quality issues at the end as well. They were paid a great salary (above market), and had good benefits, but I felt like they weren't profitable, so it was hard to bonus off that to drive better performance. And they never saw any incentive to work harder, so they admittedly were doing a half-assed job. So, it was a catch-22. They were also burdened by the overhead of my company, so they didn't feel like they could market / sell to other companies because my target margins were too high to cover those expenses. I saw them last week. They were down YOY compared to 2023 revenue, but they BOTH made way more money. They have their own website and are selling to other contractors and homeowners. I couldn't be happier for them. They don't need/want the benefits we offer. They're now more efficient, produce better quality, and were operating with an independent contractor mindset rather than the perspective of being a cog in a much bigger wheel where they can fly under the radar, and do just enough to keep a paycheck. They're getting after it and cranking out work instead of trying to do things that we needed for our company, but don't necessarily benefit them directly. They're operating a simpler business that's making more money. And, I'm benefitting from it because their prices to me (with their profit built-in), are now MUCH lower than my cost was with them in-house. It's an absolute win-win. Sometimes, we all get complacent. Both employers and employees. I admittedly failed as a leader with my cabinet shop. And they admittedly didn't perform like they should have when they worked for me. It sucks for the people that do work hard and contribute but are faced with losing their jobs. And, I do worry that we'll see the pendulum swing too far the other direction which may lead to disruptions in federal services or worse. But, I think the end result is a net positive. We may be adding more people to the workforce, but hopefully that lifts the bar for productivity and output. Go kick ass in your job, make money (or save money) for your company (or the US taxpayer), and work your hardest to be underpaid every day so you can justify that promotion or raise. Or have the balls to go out on your own and do it yourself. That mindset should be the same in both the public and private sector, and I'm optimistic this is at least a representation of that mindset.
  19. Add this to the long list of failures for both privately and publicly funded infrastructure improvements and development opportunities for the Coastal Bend. Corpus Christi and Nueces County have over a century of corruption and bureaucratic entanglement that have kept my hometown as a laughing stock. Home Port. The Packery Channel "resort" and development. Schlitterbahn. The new Harbor Bridge engineering fiasco. The Desal Plant. The list goes on and on....
  20. 220-221. Whatever it takes. You are correct. Griddle is the correct term.
  21. In my last house, I had a bad ass 48" Viking range with an integrated cast iron skillet in between the 4 burners. It was an early 90s model that I got, along with a SubZero fridge/freezer off a demo job in Tarrytown that the customer didn't want, so we did some horse trading on the price and I got the appliances. She was a former chef and upgrading to a 60" Le Corneu. That Viking range had been meticulously maintained. My wife is an amazing cook and took great care of it as well. It was PERFECTLY seasoned. When we sold the house, I hired a cleaning crew to do a deep clean after we got all of our stuff out. I walked in at the end of the day, and they had pretty much done this exact same thing to the cast iron skillet on that Viking range. It had been completely stripped down to bare metal. My jaw hit the floor. Luckily, the guy that bought the house didn't give two shits about cooking, so he probably didn't even notice.
  22. Minimal risk to shutting off the water. If you have concerns about pipes busting, then shut it off ahead of time, but make sure to open hose bibs to get any residual water out. Only real concern arises when you turn the water back on. If your pipes / fixtures are older, the sudden increase in pressure can cause issues. Just turn it back on very slowly.
  23. Woke up last Friday with a sore right calf. Did some squats, lunges and deadlifts the night before, so I assumed it was a strained muscle. Pain came and went throughout the weekend while I was duck hunting and wade fishing down at the coast, but nothing major. It got worse Sunday overnight and kind of culminated with very acute pain Monday morning, then subsided. I elevated it, iced it, and took some Ibuprofen, then went to work. I was thinking maybe gout, but wasn't sure since it was more in the muscle than a joint. The pain ebbed and flowed throughout the week, and it was a little swollen and slightly warm to the touch, so I made a doctor's appointment this morning. The doctor said he thought it was a muscle strain and “a less than 1% chance it’s a clot, but let’s do blood work to rule it out.” Guess I’m the lucky 1%. They ordered a stat ultrasound, and I was able to get one at 4 PM today. For the record, I just turned 45. I'm very active and never sick. Work out 3-4 times per week including running 10-15 miles per week. No traumatic injuries. No surgery. A tad overweight, and probably drink more than I should, but normal BP, don't smoke, and eat pretty clean. BUT, I had what I think was covid in late December. That's the only thing I can think of that may have caused it. It's hell getting old.
  24. Man, I had to sneak booze at 24 that Christmas! My wife's aunt has a great house on a cool farm, so they always hosted Christmas. But she strictly forebode drinking because her husband was a recovering alcoholic. At least my wife warned me before we got married. She said "just keep a bottle in your truck and bring a styrofoam cup so they can't see it." Of course, I was the only one drinking so it was way less fun. Found out about a decade later that the same husband had a nice little grove of the devil's lettuce in the back 40. He was (and still is) California sober.
  25. I grew up in Corpus Christi. I'd never been to the mountains and had never seen snow. First time I saw snow was a trip to Colorado when in 2007 when I was 27. I got married in June of 2003. Spent Christmas that year in Corpus with my family. Spent Christmas 2024 in East Texas with my wife's family. This was pre iPhone, so I was getting call after call from my parents, sister, aunts, uncles and drunk cousins saying how amazing it was to have a White Christmas. In Corpus Christi. Meanwhile, I was sitting in the living room with no snow, no TV, no music, and no entertainment with my wife's teetotaling family. 20 years later, and I'm still pissed about it.
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