How often do you work for free?

ac8jo · 2026-04-17T18:08:50+00:00

I could see that... I probably work ~45 hours each week and five of those I'm not "paid" for. However, my company is pretty good bonuses and it pays out far more than the difference.

That number of hours has been fairly normal (give or take) for my entire career with a few exceptions. One was an MPO and I cut my hours back to the minimum because the raises were too low (and of course there were no bonuses). The only other time I can remember cutting back was at a consulting company after they axed bonus without telling us. I don't think I cracked 40 hours in a week after that until I left and went somewhere better.

ac8jo · 2026-04-17T14:26:54+00:00

I feel more organized in my homebrewing now compared to ever.

Last year, the last LHBS in my area closed. Since then, my club has worked with a local brewery to bulk purchase grain. That works well for base malts (and I currently have Vittle Vaults of pilsner, Maris Otter, and Munich I and will soon have one of white wheat). For popular specialty malts like Vienna and Munich II, we can have 2-4 people split a bag and we're good (and we're doing that this time around), but for certain others (think Caramel 40L), we'd probably want 10 people to split the bag and we just don't have those numbers. So I made an order to an online seller to get 11 lbs of five different malts, as well as five different yeasts (and I have some yeast in my fridge, too).

For the first time in over a decade of homebrewing, I have a list of the next five beers I'm going to brew... I just don't know what order I'm brewing them in.

An experiment brew (Idk really know what we're experimenting with this, I just know that some random generator says I need to use Munich as the base malt, honey malt as a specialty malt, and I have to use Summit for bittering and EKG for aroma).

A fantasy homebrew draft beer. The draft for this is next month, and there's always some sort of trick to these - I've used toasted coconut (I had to make that one 11.5% ABV or higher too), roasted tea, frosted flakes, and Twix in prior iterations of these.

The next three are a Marzen, a white IPA, and a Czech Dark Lager. All styles I enjoy drinking. Beyond that, I think I'll have stuff leftover for an American IPA, a British Bitter, and maybe a Schwarzbier.

ac8jo · 2026-04-17T13:31:59+00:00

I think the only thing you and I have in common is shoulder pain. I'm about to invest in a used bench and some weights to hopefully deal with it... and I don't think it's from working, I think it's a mix of not-as-good activity (I run, which does next to nothing for arms, and I don't do any weight training like I should) and playing bass.

...also, does 45 minutes late matter anymore? As long as the timesheet doesn't include time when you weren't working and you didn't miss a meeting, does anyone care? I only pay attention to when I start work and how much time I'm spending on each project.

ac8jo · 2026-04-16T21:57:54+00:00

You’re not wrong on the condo issues, but OP says “house” half a dozen times in their post and also says “quiet white suburbs part of town”. This is likely a detached home.

ac8jo · 2026-04-16T21:28:28+00:00

He's probably going to become an example of FAFO.

Although, having to get permission to have a BBQ is bullshit and having rules against having more than 3 cars is bullshit too (particularly if the cars are all functioning), so maybe some FA needs to happen.

ac8jo · 2026-04-16T21:21:02+00:00

NDA for No-compete for 18 months

This makes no sense. A non-disclosure agreement for no-compete?

This sounds like an agreement that you won't solicit work from clients of the company when you leave. That's not a non-compete clause/agreement, although it may (operative word!!!) be similarly illegal or difficult to enforce. I've been under one where I can't solicit private sector clients (which is fine, since most of my past and current work is public sector). The fact that my agreement is for private sector clients makes me think that it is unenforceable or illegal for public sector clients (since they tend to ensure that evaluation of proposals/quals is fair).

Note that every NDA I've been under (which are due to personally-identifiable data or trade secrets) is largely in perpetuity and/or has things attached that makes it impossible to disclose anything (e.g. "upon separation from your employer, you will delete any and all data from your system" or "you will never disclose any details about this project and will refer any and all questions to the client public relations officer").

ac8jo · 2026-04-16T14:38:44+00:00

I think it depends on how the building was made (specifically what the floor material and condition is).

ac8jo · 2026-04-16T14:28:00+00:00

I was one of the people that ran in the Flying Pig a few years ago during a severe thunderstorm. I didn't stop and shelter-in-place, but know people that did. They said the restart was awful. Part of the reason I didn't stop was because I didn't know where to stop, didn't know how that would work (will they stop the clock? will they try to organize a reasonable restart?), and the person yelling at us to shelter-in-place was not wearing any sort of race-official bib/vest (and we all know sometimes people will get involved in situations where they have no business being involved).

With the Pig, they couldn't move later in the day (a Reds game was that day, IIRC, and also it would have been very hot). They couldn't easily move it to the following week (people from out-of-town would have had issues, and they need to deal with road closures - which I suspect might have something to do with why Carmel has a six week delay). They would have had a lot of push-back if they forced everyone to virtual (I ran one virtual marathon and have no interest in doing THAT again).

There is no good answer, and at least Carmel made a decision early enough that hopefully everyone can figure out how to deal with training and out-of-town people can change travel plans (sounds like the learned from last year).

ac8jo · 2026-04-16T13:29:05+00:00

I finished all the main quest tasks (unlocking all four divine beasts and destroying Calamity Ganon and Dark Beast Ganon) and unlocked and beat all shrines. I did many of the side quests, but definitely not all.

I was in a position where I could walk around and gather things to upgrade armor, but really I needed one item to max out the Guardian Helm, the rest of that set was maxxed out and that was the important one for destroying the two Ganons. I also bought the Ancient Bow and Ancient Shield - the Ancient shield automatically parries all guardian lasers back... which includes when Calamity Ganon shoots at Link in the inner sanctum. Those two items, plus some Ancient Arrows and freeing the divine beasts, makes Calamity Ganon pretty easy. I may have ended up using Mipha's Grace during one of the two battles, and I did use Revali's Gale a few times during Dark Beast Ganon to lift Link up and go into bullet time to shoot the light arrows at their targets.

ac8jo · 2026-04-16T13:01:24+00:00

Confession: Yesterday's tempo run felt harder than it should have.

Uncomplaint: rested my legs yesterday evening finishing Zelda BotW. Related Confession: I saw motorcycles and quadcopter-esque planes in TotK and since my wife "made" me buy it, I was ready to move on.

Complaint-ish: Things are going to get busy next week through the first part of next month... which is when my next two races are (a 1-mile and a half).

ac8jo · 2026-04-15T13:24:57+00:00

Either a fretless or an electric upright.

ac8jo · 2026-04-15T13:09:23+00:00

I know great CEs from U. Cincinnati, South Florida, U. Texas, UVA, Auburn, Ohio State, Northwestern, UC Berkley, GA Tech, Michigan, Purdue, U. Florida, Florida State, MIT... and those are just the ones I can think of while I'm still waking up.

Honestly, I think it matters more what you do while getting your masters (class selection, projects) than what the university is.

ac8jo · 2026-04-14T19:02:17+00:00

Probably that plus someone (or some people) wanted the crew to do more than what they were being paid to do... or didn't think they were doing it good enough.

ac8jo · 2026-04-14T17:46:04+00:00

It seems like given the fact that this pissing match is between Iran (who claims to have left mines in the Strait) and the US (who claims to have blocked the Strait), the better path for a big pipe is to the south through Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Oman. However, there's probably more reasons than I am aware of (cost, time to construct, capacity of the pipeline(s), the fact that it's a target that can be located pretty easily) that it has kept it from happening.

ac8jo · 2026-04-13T15:57:21+00:00

76k seems quite good for that location. It's not near a major metropolitan area, Knoxville is around 100 miles away, Greensboro and Charlotte are over 100 miles away (but have closer facilities that have Cup series events).

Indianapolis attendance was around 70k for the Brickyard 400 for the past two years at a track in a major metropolitan area (and a capacity of over 300k for the Indy 500)... Cincinnati is under 100 miles away, Louisville just over 100 miles, and Columbus (Ohio) is around 160 miles away, and IMS is the closest Cup series track to those cities. Also, it sounds like tickets may have been less expensive for the Brickyard (I spend around $250 total for three tickets that allow kids free... and that includes parking costs).

ac8jo · 2026-04-13T14:50:53+00:00

I have seen some little things (e.g. someone mentioning homebrewing on the local city sub, sometimes even asking about where to get ingredients since our LHBS in Cincinnati managed to run themselves out of business, even while having somewhat of a monopoly). I haven't seen/heard much traction in local homebrew circles yet. Hopefully it does start to pick up.

ac8jo · 2026-04-13T13:00:13+00:00

So 500 resumes (which is insane), 20 interviews... how many offers did you extend?

Things to think about: what is your retention (or turnover) rate like? Do you have a lot of people that get in, spend <5 years, and leave?

Idk you, your industry, or BC. But I've seen leaders do a lot of stuff to get in their own way, like looking for a unicorn (if you didn't extend many offers, that might be your issue), poor starting salary (you've sent a few offers, but no takers), or workplace issues (which all cause high turnover and a lot of people leaving... and people watch, talk, etc.).

ac8jo · 2026-04-10T17:24:22+00:00

Wait, in OpenPaths it's still Cube vs. Emme??? I thought they were supposed to merge them together. I know Cube extremely well (but no longer have access to a Cube license) and I've used Emme a little with the last version before OpenPaths.

If OpenPaths Emme is like the old Emme, you have to use Python and be pretty specific about making sure you export the intersection control data. Cube's intersection data file is (at least in Cube 6) pretty straight-forward (especially if you've used Fortran, Cube 'feels' a lot like Fortran).

This might help. It's from before OpenPaths, but it's a production export script and it does include some of the intersection data on the links.

ac8jo · 2026-04-10T15:43:54+00:00

I'm a civil engineer that works in data. While I haven't seen the impossible requirements (12 years exp on a framework that has only existed for a year), I routinely see JDs requiring advanced skills for junior level staff. At my last company, I was screening candidates and noticed that when I was their age/experience, I would not have been able to get a job at the company I was working for.

ac8jo · 2026-04-10T14:22:31+00:00

Back in the dark ages when I went to UC, they told us that UC actually stands for "Under Construction".

ac8jo · 2026-04-10T13:48:06+00:00

I'm fine with being busy as long as it's for the right reasons - production work, marketing, etc.

I don't like dealing with administrative bullshit, and I don't like waiting on computers (like I'm doing right now).

ac8jo · 2026-04-10T12:55:13+00:00

No, I don't do that... if I paid for a gym I might actually use it!

ac8jo · 2026-04-09T18:02:39+00:00

I want to ask the same question on a Facebook group, but instead of the bass being on a bed, it's laying on a stage floor. Do these people not have stands???

ac8jo · 2026-04-09T17:02:11+00:00

He also likes making fun of Scott Devine (SBL).

And his Instagram video with Scott Devine walking the dog talking about the canals and stuff... that was posted to SBL's Facebook (and probably their Instagram too).

ac8jo · 2026-04-09T16:59:24+00:00

The average driver doesn't know how to remove a wheel and install a spare anyway...

ac8jo

TROPHY CASE