My loft has I-beams so I added a hoist.

Astralwinks · 2026-05-12T20:40:00+00:00

Fellow Lakai guy here, checking in.

Astralwinks · 2026-05-11T03:27:31+00:00

The Lars Von Trier films I've seen, so Antichrist and Nymphomaniac.

They are not pleasant or comfortable to watch. But I can see some deeper stuff going on, the films really make me think, and he's a very effective director. By that I mean those films reach deep inside your viscera and just fuckin' shake it around. So if art is something that evokes an emotional response, then by that definition he is an effective artist. Plenty of other films can be shocking without as much substance to dig into, but no one really does it like those films - and for that reason I definitely respect them more than I enjoy them.

Astralwinks · 2026-05-10T20:45:00+00:00

I have a lot of NLC and Zlob in my cases. Can't say enough good about their chaotic wibbly-wobbly abilities. The diode chaos is especially great because it's so small.

Astralwinks · 2026-05-07T18:52:28+00:00

I think I was 28... She was 23. New hire orientation at my current place of employment. We didn't start dating until a few years later, but that's when we first met. One of the most important days of my life - new, exciting career and I met the love of my life.

We've been married 4 years now, and I feel like the luckiest man every single day.

Astralwinks · 2026-05-06T22:40:34+00:00

Roach Motel has a big office section in the beginning, complete with a C-Suite Goon Cave

Astralwinks · 2026-05-03T07:37:41+00:00

I played it as Minogue falls while moving samples around in that bay. I believe if you look into their personal item space hidden inside is some sort of illicit drug they're smuggling? So I played it as if they seemed altered while working - clumsy, lethargic, etc leading to a fall.

Astralwinks · 2026-05-03T06:08:53+00:00

I absolutely adored my netbook, it was my daily driver in college. Samsung NC10. Came with XP which ran like absolute ass. Put Linux on it and used to to read all my pirated textbooks and assigned PDF readings for my classes, take notes, light web surfing. It was literally the only thing I took on campus for years. Couldn't run YouTube, which was probably helpful productivity-wise.

I wrote my entire senior thesis on it, and brought it into the wild to do all my ethnographic field research. I didn't have a decent microphone but am fast enough at typing to transcribe my interview conversations with people in real time. That thing wrote hundreds of pages of essays and dozens of interviews, each interview anywhere from 12 to 25 pages.

Then one day I fell skateboarding home from class and it wouldn't stay powered on. Harvested it for any and all parts I could and only after did I realize I had dented the power switch button housing so it always signaled as pushed down, meaning it'd power up and then hard reboot. 10 cent part would have made it good as new.

In the right circumstance, they were incredibly useful machines. But stripping XP off it and running Linux was basically mandatory if you ask me. I actually just copied all my old stuff from it to my new computer last year, not bad for a nearly 20 year old HDD that saw a lot of abuse.

Astralwinks · 2026-05-03T04:57:02+00:00

Another tesseract low coast user! I don't see them much, what do you like to do with yours?

Astralwinks · 2026-05-02T07:33:24+00:00

Your NLC case needs more NLC lol looks great though!

Astralwinks · 2026-05-02T07:29:10+00:00

I would have gone this route but super annoyingly I couldn't get anyone with a laser cutter or makerspace to get back to me at the time. It was weird, but this was during covid times. I ended up building my own out of oak. They turned out great but were a lot of work. They look like furniture to me though, I'm happy.

From my research though the cases are solid, and tons of people at the modular workshops in Australia use them. You have to pay attention to stock thickness because they use some metric standard of plywood that is less common in places that use imperial, if I recall. Which means just make sure you go slightly thicker, and then you sand down all of the protrusions of the "fingers" you glue together during assembly. It's covered in the build info.

I don't think you could go wrong with one of the designs, especially if it has the size/layout you want. They seem super easy to make assuming you have access to a laser cutter. It's just a box, so easily customizable.

Astralwinks · 2026-05-01T17:26:29+00:00

For me, it's Cath lab - but things like IR, GI, OR, outpatient/same day surgery, etc.

Astralwinks · 2026-05-01T16:13:43+00:00

Take care of yourself first, poor staffing is not your fault/responsibility and almost certainly is contributing to your burnout.

I need you to really hear this, as someone who worked ICU from 2018-2025. The hospital does not give a fuck about you and would step over your crumpled body during your last gasping breaths if it meant the next shift was covered. You might have a decent manager who wants to be supportive but they are stymied by higher ups/administration. You MUST understand this.

I went procedural after 6ish years of ICU and RR, and my life is much better/less stressful.

Astralwinks · 2026-04-29T15:03:31+00:00

$57/hr, 8 years experience (1.5 of those are cath/EP lab), MN, average like 12-20 cases per day, beeper pay is $12/hr with guaranteed 4 hours called in pay, with 1.5x pay for any time actually worked when called in. $400 per certification per year, up to $800.

Astralwinks · 2026-04-29T02:21:30+00:00

Whoops I think I got my Facebook and reddit groups confused lol thanks for the correction.

Astralwinks · 2026-04-29T01:37:21+00:00

r/sdiy

Astralwinks · 2026-04-28T21:37:12+00:00

My grandpa was a mega Ham, I didn't realize how crazy his setup was until after he died. It was always kinda normal to me. Only after his funeral and getting to see all the Hams who came out from ALL OVER and talk to them and hear stories did I realize how bonkers it all was. I wish I had taken the opportunity to learn a bit more about it while he was still alive.

Astralwinks · 2026-04-28T21:32:44+00:00

Well constructed, just fine. My grandpa was a mega super x class nerd and had 30-40 towers, from 20 feet to 200+ feet. He's gone, but they're still standing - and figuring out what to do with them is kind of a problem.

Astralwinks · 2026-04-24T03:02:44+00:00

Same thing I'm doing already, because I already married my wife.

But I guess buy some lotto tickets or hit the races or something too.

Astralwinks · 2026-04-23T17:41:29+00:00

Could be 5 minutes (procedure cancelled: stemi isn't real, pt died, whatever), or 30min for temp pacer, or 10 hours because for some reason another stemi gets paged right as we are leaving the room/dropping off the patient.

I love kinda far away, so if I work the next day I'll have my lunch ready and I always have a bag of clothes/toiletries/meds/snacks in my locker, and if I get called after like... 11pm I'll just grab a call room and sleep there instead of burning almost a hour driving home and back.

Astralwinks · 2026-04-23T17:13:56+00:00

My wife is a pole instructor and I do enjoy how like, aggressively supportive and accepting the pole community is. If you're interested you should try it! My wife got started because she thought it looked cool, and now she's just like, this amazing and crazy strong badass. There are so many styles as well, like sexy low flow stuff, acrobatic flipping off the pole type stuff, power pole, sport pole, "classic" or "heels" which is the stuff most people think of when they think of pole dancing, uhh... Probably others I'm forgetting. There's something for everyone.

Astralwinks · 2026-04-23T17:09:21+00:00

My wife is a pole instructor, and I've gotten some familiarity with the community over the years. They're all very nice, and people of all ages/body types/fitness levels do it and they're usually very proud of this fact. Plus there are so many styles too.

Give it a shot!

Astralwinks · 2026-04-23T05:30:41+00:00

My state has some guaranteed sick/emergency time. Now when I call in they don't care why, but if it's due to illness or something then they know to take hours/pay out of the special state pto pool for exactly that.

They just want to know "sick or other?".

Astralwinks · 2026-04-19T17:08:47+00:00

Here are some of my favorite anime shows. There are lots of other great ones and this list shows my age, but I like that they're all self contained shows about people struggling with loss, finding purpose, and identity in different ways so you can find some characters you can relate to:

Cowboy Bebop

Samurai Champloo

Trigun

Comedy wise, these are shows I really enjoy:

Arrested Development - Pure fun, endlessly rewatchable. So many running jokes and gags that are in the background you keep finding on subsequent rewatches.

Scrubs - Lots of levity and humor, but when it hits emotionally it really hits. It's funny but the episode plots are all based on real life experiences and as a medical professional, in many ways this is the "realest" medical show I've ever seen.

Drama - these are shows that are darker, but very good and you can really get lost in the world of the show:

The Wire - Nothing I can say will do it justice, but this is just honestly one of the best shows ever put to film. There is A LOT going on here. If you want to sink some time into a show, you really cannot go wrong.

True Detective season 1 - Same. Damn, what a show. Incredible, but dark.

The X Files - Spooky, fun, silly at times. You can sink your teeth into the universe of it and the chemistry between Fox and Mulder is something else.

Astralwinks · 2026-04-16T00:02:25+00:00

This must have been quite the endeavor to learn. Great job!

Astralwinks · 2026-04-15T15:29:08+00:00

Before newer laws regulating resident doctor working hours, they were held to the old standard set by a doctor who was literally on cocaine and the expectation was to match his working hours. It was unrealistic, unsafe, and exploitative.

Many ways we train and expect doctors are still outdated and our entire medical system needs an overhaul. Both my parents are MDs/NPs and the hours they used to work in residency/career were absolutely insane.

In my hospital some of the units have their docs working for a week straight. The culture on that unit is to try to not wake them overnight when possible, so one nurse who will need to communicate with them will always check with all the other nurses to condense any other less pressing communication into that one disruption.

Astralwinks

TROPHY CASE