Spaulding Smails

That's exactly what I did at the last house and it looked great. Added some horizontal cross braces as well for some detail since it just had vertical slats. We may do that on these as well. It would be super easy to pull off the wood trim I put around it and replace it with steel. We have a blackened steel fireplace in the master bedroom, so if we go that route, we'd probably just blacken the steel.

I had a unique condition in our new house where barn doors were the only practical option. Stairs on one side, so no swing door. Wet walls on both sides of the opening, so no pocket doors. And, we have 12' ceilings and wanted a minimal header. So, the result was building some 11'3" x 2'6" biparting barn doors. Used some leftover reclaimed oak we had from another part of the house over 3/4" plywood cores that were glued and pocket screwed together. The build was fun, but hanging them is going to be a challenge.

All of this is so true. I recently left a neighborhood where I was on the board for a spell and still keep in touch with many of the neighbors. Small neighborhood. 30 homeowners. The crap that's going on right now is incredible. One of my old neighbors forwarded me an email and it was both infuriating and comical. People on absolute power trips over irrigation of the common areas. The amount of vitriol and hate spewed is so over the top. I can't tell you how glad I am that I live on property with zero restrictions now. It's HOAs. Little League boards. Small non-profits. Volunteer organizations. In those types of groups, there's more people on a power trip than not it seems. My hypothesis is that there's an inverse relationship between the amount of power someone wields in their day job to the amount of power they crave for these other organizations. I'm not sure if it's correlation or causation. Using my old neighborhood as an example, there's several folks that are fairly successful business leaders. In some cases with 9-figure budgets to manage and hundreds of employees. And they're the most chill folks, even when in a position of authority. Meanwhile, the people thumping their chests wield minimum power in their careers or are retired. So, I'm not sure if they're in those positions because they crave that power or if it gets to their head because they don't know how to deal with it. But, the observation is spot on.

Like @TexEx15 said, I have two of the Move units. Sound pretty good and connectivity is solid. We use it out back when sitting around the picnic table by the BBQ pit or on the other side of the house on the covered patio. Keep another one at the guest house. Seems to be the best option for Sonos portability. Holds a great charge too.

Yep. Bullwinkle. My dad took me and some buddies down to the marina so we could watch it when they tugged it by. So, I'm guessing I'm one of those dots on the pier. I think I was about 8 or 9. Absolutely massive.

Not saying it wold be impossible, but It would have to be a hell of a bridge.

League average OPS is .727 so far this year. Bregman at .662 and Abreu at .527(!!!!) is so concerning. No idea what the average OPS is for those corner spots, but it's got to be higher than .727. That .200 delta for Abreu is no fluke. I remember reading an article two weeks into the season when he was batting around .300 that raised cause for concern based on the swing and miss rate and the abnormally high BABIP for that small sample set. Sounds like it was spot on.

Totally worth it. The experience is as good or better than the course itself. Just absolute first class from the time you pull through the guard shack. It'll go to 11 when the permanent clubhouse is built. If you can pull off staying in one of the cabins, do it. The lighted par 3 course is a freakin blast after a nice dinner. I'll be back there in two weeks. Playing with a good friend that's a member.

Not sure if they shed in trees, but I know they shed in kitchen ranges. First time I took my GF (now my wife) to the deer lease when we were dating, I opened up the door to the old pier & beam cabin, turned to my right, and there was a 6' coachwhip shed contorted around the burners on the gas range. She wasn't too thrilled. Also saw a massive blue indigo that afternoon coming back from the blind. That ranch in Live Oak County was very snakey.

I mentioned it up thread, but mine is plumbed to the well also so I can top it off if necessary. The red float circled shows the water level in the tank. This is a pic from a few weeks ago right after we had 2" of rain, so about 20,000 gallons. You can kind of see the plumbing beneath the float where the plumbing from the well ties in. The big 6" PVC in the back is the overflow (which I still need to re-route around the retaining wall). The little shed style building in front is the pump house.

Ours is for drinking water. We ended up drilling a well also, but only use that for irrigation and hose bibs. I ran a separate loop at the house / garage for the hose bibs so they run independent and don't draw off the rainwater. I also plumbed my rainwater tank to the well so I can fill it in the event we go through an extraordinary drought, though after seeing the volume I'm collecting I feel pretty good about avoiding that scenario. My system is nowhere near as elaborate as @troph's setup. The gray water concept is brilliant. And for the record, I absolutely think there's a market for what you've built. I'm banking on the fact that water independence will be a huge selling point in a decade or so. I'll post some pics early next week. The collection system is pretty simple. Just replaced traditional downspouts with schedule 40 PVC that we painted a galvanized color to match the roof. You realistically only need PVC at a grade below the top of the tank where the water column will max out, but we opted for all PVC so the aesthetic was consistent. The style of our house is pretty traditional, so there was no need to hide the downspouts. Just paint them. I'm guessing @troph's setup is more modern. I have about 8,500 SF of roof between the three structures that ties in to a 6" PVC main line before dumping into the water tank. Ours is a round galvanized tank with a liner. We used AgriTek out of Round Mountain. Very knowledgable and easy to work with. They installed the tank, and I had my plumber do the piping and equipment. The pictures I post next week will show the pump and filtration system. We have two pumps (for redundancy) then a sediment filtration system and a UV filtration system all mounted inside a small pump house adjacent to the tank. http://www.agritekwaterworks.com/ Though I did a well also, that's where the savings is. Plus, the water is 100X better than what I can pump out of the ground. People have commented about "how good" our tapwater tastes. I'm about $50K all-in for my 56,000 gallon system including the tank, equipment and all the piping. But, I had over 1200 LF of PVC installed based on how far everything ran, and I bought the PVC at the absolute peak of the supply chain crisis, so that number inflates the material cost significantly plus the labor to run (and bury) all those lines to the tank. The tank itself was $25K installed and the equipment (pumps and filtration) were about $10K.

This last section is so incredibly true. Love your statement about being closer to the resource. My dynamic has shifted from wanting to have a badass lawn with tons of irrigation to behaving rationally and smart about where things are expended.

0.35" last night near Henly. First round went well north of us, but got a strong little cell came through around 10:15 last night. For the record, I'm so stoked about my new rainwater collection system. 56,000 gallons. Between the house, garage and guest house, I get about 10,000 gallons for every inch of rain now. So, that little cell last night provided us with about 3,500 gallons.

Separate topic for a different day, but you're 100% correct. The entire bar for meat grading seems to have moved dramatically over the last 10-20 years. I can remember splurging on prime beef in my early 20s for a special occasion and it being a really, really good cut of meat. Now, prime seems to be middle of the road from a quality standpoint and what they pass as "Wagyu" at HEB is not the delicacy that Wagyu was in the past. I'm jealous of your source, BTW. There ARE some legitimate local producers in Central Texas that are actually cranking out some really nice beef. I'm fortunate to have a good friend that raises Black Angus, so we get a side of that every year. Last year, he finished it with Icelandic seaweed, and it was fantastic.

Sounds like the Pink Pussycat Cabaret (aka the PPC, aka "The Bank") on Richmond Ave in Houston. Totally nude. BYOB. 18+. As a senior in HS, we would go there every month or so. We'd bring beer at first. Got pretty brazen and actually brought a pony keg in once. They had a VERY pregnant stripper. And a one-armed stripper who would rub her nub on your head while giving you a dance. Good times.

Absolutely. There's thousands of them out there. But, there's also thousands that aren't as successful as they could be because of the lack of business acumen. And, there's plenty that enjoy their trade and make great (but not amazing) money because they don't want to deal with the business side. They want to work 8 hours and make a solid living, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. I have four license holders that were former business owners that work for me that decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze to be a business owner. My argument was simply that the blend of a college degree and a license in the trades is damn near a golden ticket. I'm not a license holder in any trade, so I'm 100% reliant on the talented tradespeople around me. Again, there's plenty that have made it big without a college degree, but I do think it's a significant value add when you can combine the two. One of the things that I've noticed is that there's a sweet spot for the ones that are good (but not great) at the business side, whether you have a degree or not. They can typically run 6-8 employees without any issues. They can touch most of their jobs and effectively manage their people without the need of middle management. Maybe one office manager or a bookkeeper. Anything less than that, and they have to be swinging a hammer or turning a wrench to make it work. Anything more than that, and they get to the point where they need help running the business, so they need to almost double in size to substantiate the added overhead. Growth is plateaued, not linear, and many are content with staying small and not having the headaches that come along with a growing business.

Spot on. That's a great question about the chicken and the egg. And to your point, how many of us know exactly what we want to do for the rest of our lives when we're 19? If my kids go that route, I would agree that the preferred sequence would be college then the trades. Plus, I think there's value in the overall college experience, the social aspects, and everything that goes along with that point in your life when you can be a little carefree without too many obligations. I think going back to school after a 5 year stint in the trades would be really tough and require a ton more discipline. Unless the degree is specific to a job like a computer programmer or chemical engineer, the value in my eyes from the sheepskin on the wall is more about learning how to learn, how to manage your time, and finishing what you started. Heck, I got my degree from UT in Chemistry, and I'm running a plumbing / electrical / HVAC business. The skills I use from my time at the 40 acres (personal discipline, time management, presenting in front of a crowd plus the obvious math and logic) are key, and I can honestly say I honed them during those four years on campus and they pay huge dividends every day.

As the owner of a trade-based business, this topic is very near and dear to my heart. The comments about an aging workforce are very real, and in the 10 years we've been in business, the demand for trades has far outpaced the supply of skilled labor during the entirety of that stint. It has lead to a massive uptick in wages which I feel is more of a correction of value rather than an over-reaction to demand. I get on my soapbox often at work imploring recruitment of younger folks to join the trades. But, it's difficult, hot, sweaty, dirty work, and it's not very enticing if you don't see the big picture. I'd love to see a continued push towards apprenticeship programs. College isn't for everyone. And, with a little direction, the trades can be a wonderful way to give people some direction and purpose. I have dozens of stories of people who got their life on track because of the trades. If we could find investment for grants and scholarships for the trades similar to what is put forth towards higher education, it may create an incredible amount of value to the workforce as a whole and help to curb cost of living over the long haul (though that's a completely different topic). Additionally, the majority of these trades (especially the licensed ones) have defined apprenticeship programs that create a clear career path. So, the ROI on those investments should be equal to or more than the investment associated with a grant or scholarship to a university. For plumbers in Texas specifically, the culmination of that career path is a Responsible Master Plumber (RMP) designation. This is a step beyond a Master Plumber certification, and includes a fair amount of business basics. There's still a huge amount of great tradespeople who are shitty at running a business. In my eyes, if someone can couple a business degree with a license in the trades, they are almost guaranteeing a six figure income by the time they're 30 with the upside to make significantly more than that. All that being said, there's still so much value in a higher education. I'd just like to see more diverse offerings that provide an equitable solution that solves problems and meets the needs of more people entering the workforce by providing them with viable skills that are marketable for the entirety of their life.

I'm convinced the damn texts popping up on my monitor cost me some points.

After not setting foot in one for over a decade, I made the mistake of visiting a Fuddruckers a few weeks ago. What a shitty meal and a horrendous experience. Close to $20 for a burger, fries and a drink. Bland food. No condiment bar. Apathetic and lazy staff. The entire experience was utterly depressing.

I had a discussion a while back with a friend: Do you gut in the field or gut at camp? It seems like it's more of a landowner preference, and maybe depends on photos. I grew up gutting in the field. But, since we've had our own place, I load everything up to bring it back to camp to either gut / skin / quarter from the A frame, put the guts in a big tub and go dump them when I'm done. I've never shot a nilgai, but I can see that being a major PITA to do it solo.

Agreed. This is much more of a WANT than a need.

That's interesting. As a lefty who struggles to do anything right handed, I'm the exact opposite. I shot a lever action 30-30 as a kid. Got a LH bolt action 270 as my HS graduation gift and still shoot it to this day. I was in the stand hog hunting this weekend with my son and his new bolt action 308. No shots fired, but it was so foreign for me to reach over the scope to chamber a shell. On the other hand, I've never owned a LH semi-auto shotgun. I shoot an O/U for dove and upland, but I've just gotten used to a RH semi-auto for ducks and geese. I think I'd fumble around at this point trying to convert to a LH shotgun. But, pistols are another story. I've never been a big pistol guy, but have a couple of 9 mm semi-autos and a 45. All RH. I was plinking the 45 with my son this weekend, and thinking how much more natural a LH pistol would be. This is still on my bucket list, but at $6K for a pistol, it's pretty far down the list of priorities. https://cabotguns.com/left-hand-1911s/

I'm a week late here, but if in the Austin area, reach out to Southern Shutters in Manor. I bet they'd sell you a pre-primed tilt bar for cheap.

Same. We have a bunch of the quart size plastic containers like you get when you order Lupe Tortilla's or Pappasitos. Perfect for chili gravy, leftover carne guisada, etc. I'll occasionally have to add a bit of beef broth, but other than that, it freezes really well.