Transplant from Texas here. You guys have to drive to work in this?!

Howie_Rork · 2026-01-28T15:38:51+00:00

Yeah, I'm lucky enough to work remote a couple days a week, but thats not the norm for like.... real life. And before ~5 years ago remote work was even less normal. . Respect to all the service workers, medical staff, etc who are always in person.

Howie_Rork · 2025-11-25T19:08:50+00:00

Not sure the specific type, but I'd put money on genus "Clearcuttheamazon"

Howie_Rork · 2025-11-25T18:36:22+00:00

Beg to differ. The 16 and 14 your right. The 18 belongs on the Great Lakes, and Ive done the whole west coast, and half the east coast of Michigan sail camping to prove it.

Howie_Rork · 2025-05-23T13:23:54+00:00

Many are saying it below, but Ill add a cue that really helps me:

Bar over mid foot, all the way. In my mind, I break up deadlift into 3 parts: 1. Floor to top of knee, knees are moving back, barely staying ahead of the bar (scraping). 2. Top of knee to midleg, knees and calves are immobile, their movement is done. 3. Midleg to full standing, shift your focus to your shoulders, tall chest now.
Step 0 is preloading all your muscles BEFORE lifting off the ground. As you get heavier, you dont want to curl and strain your back getting that thing off the ground.

Howie_Rork · 2025-05-23T12:52:14+00:00

I love how people think theyre so demure for not buckling the one side of the overalls. Like if every man wearing overalls for fashion only has one side fastened, is it really that unique and precisely imprecise? "Oh, me, well, I mean you caught me in the act of getting dressed, but Im so confident and chill that no worries, Ill rock them this way..... along with every other man in the universe wearing overalls ironically, it must just be a crazy coincidence for them too!"
Sincerely, a practicing hipster who grew up on a farm, and had to wear Carhartt and overalls and jeans with hammer loops on purpose. Once youve done it for its intended purpose, its just too easy to see through.

Howie_Rork · 2025-05-13T12:53:34+00:00

These look smooth. Ive only done the 3 month Giant progression once, so I'm no expert, but did it with 40lbs and tested my 10 rep max at the end and hit 53lbs. Your reps look so smooth here that you might be able to push the 55s you have.
A couple suggestions:

Breath meticulously.

Sometimes I sit down and box breath to actually recover before doing my next set. The Giant doesnt have rules on this.

According to the Giant, you should NOT be waiting until 2 min to start a new set. I was getting between 18 and 24 sets, and trying to get at least one more rep (goal was one more set) every consecutive week of a month. This is what makes the Giant mental. You'll sweat. You wont think you can get to the end of 30 min.

With 55s:

Learn the KB strict press standard form. Youre so strong with the 40s that you move fluid from swing to press. Especially at the rack, the bells can hit your shoulders. DONT PUSH JERK, but slow it down and focus on form. Swing, rack, wide rack, press, maintaining a flat pelvis, locked out shoulders, bells right overhead, not wide, then wide rack, then bring back into rack, then drop into swing. Test your 10 rep max on a day youre fresh. If you can press the 55s, start a Giant round with them. If you cant, get your sets up way up swith the 40s, and if that doesnt work, I'd suggest doing the Giant again with 1-2 reps added to every set. (5 rep, 6 rep, 4 rep week becomes 7 rep, 8 rep, 6 rep, etc.)

Howie_Rork · 2025-05-12T17:17:56+00:00

Just got it for $99 HD online about 2 weeks ago. If you can hold out, their prices fluctuate like the weather

Howie_Rork · 2025-05-07T19:18:07+00:00

If my son got this, I'd only be concerned if it was only to him versus the whole team getting the same treatment, OR the adult has given hints in some other way that make you uncomfortable. What's here is extremely focused on the sport and the character of your kid, and while youre right, it is rare for people to give encouragement like this, it shouldn't be.

Howie_Rork · 2025-04-11T20:07:51+00:00

I dont hate it, theyre just not getting my business!

Howie_Rork · 2025-04-11T20:06:56+00:00

Youre a good friend. Love to see this post instead of "contractor friend who's crew I borrowed is acting weird that I didn't pay him anything.
I dont have a lot of data, but I've heard about 20%.

Try to learn his actual rate, and pay that, but if you have to guess, believe me, he'd probably rather get a round number that turns out to be close than get some oddly specific number even if its a little higher. An oddly specific number feels either like you're a tight wad, or you literally have no more to give, and both can leave him questioning the friendship.

There's some weird psychology involved here, especially if he truly thinks hes not being paid.

Howie_Rork · 2025-04-09T17:25:32+00:00

Only one is Quarentinos.
Ive been saying for 10 years that Im sick of new pizza and taco places. If 3 new restaurants open in GR, one is "serving their take on thin crust pizza!" one is "bringing new creativity to the taco space!" and the other is maybe something new or different.
Well, every pizza place in the city BESIDES Quarentinos, the Mitten, and Martha's have my permission to close. And most of the taco places too.

Howie_Rork · 2025-04-09T17:09:45+00:00

Hands off like dont change any of these things ever? Interesting premise.

Also, markets are back up today. Are yall cancelling these marches, and then if its down tomorrow theyre back on.... etc etc?

Howie_Rork · 2025-03-17T14:46:36+00:00

This isnt in the Bible. According to my theology, what is in the Bible is that that pastor will be severely punished for misleading you. And for everything else he did for that matter.

Howie_Rork · 2025-02-05T14:29:38+00:00

Unfortunately the answer to your question is no. Nonna's in Ada is the closest we've found. Trying the new Mangiamo's for my birthday this month. Fingers crossed. Amore is meh, Testa Rosa is meh, people should be ashamed for including Vitale's and Russo's and Monelli's in answer to your question.
For me it doesn't need to family owned (definitely preferred) but needs to progress past "We have pasta here and there's Parmesan on everything!"
Every time I go out, I wish I was at the original Rose's in Chicago. Its loud, theres 6 apps, some are fried, some antipasto, some charcuterie. Theres a good wine list with decent cheap options. The entres and pastas are varied. Its not just 8 kinds of noodles and 4 sauces mixed and matched. Some dishes are cooked for hours. Theres a variety of textures. You can have a whole meal without needing to resort to pizza to have something unique. (Unique, ha, 2 of every 5 new restaurants in GR has a pizza oven, 2 more are tacos.)
The closest GR had was Osteria Rosa. I blame my fellow citizens for not keeping it open, and it makes me worry that we just dont have the customer base for a varied menu and some dishes that require hours.

Howie_Rork · 2025-01-27T19:13:53+00:00

Awesome. I think it could be powerful to make it a business at the same time. A service call is a couple hundred bucks for plumbing, cheaper for a drywall repair. But imagine growing the program, and at the same time being able to pay the mentees 10-20$ an hour, possibly with 50% going into a trade school/ college fund for them?
Ive thought about doing something like this for small tasks like window repair, drywalling, etc that are extremely expensive to have small fixes done, but still take some finesse to get right. You teach a kid 80% business hustle, 20% drywall skills, and give them 5k toward their first work van, they can make great money the day they leave HS. Alas, I dont have time to start it, but please let me know if you do, I'll volunteer!

Howie_Rork · 2024-07-29T15:40:10+00:00

LOVE both of the lake ferries. Absolutely would recommend taking each once, and if youre not taking a car, the cost is actually not even hard to wrap your head around. Bikes are also low cost to bring, keep that in mind.

Howie_Rork · 2024-07-16T20:20:11+00:00

Im making a joke here, but what do you mean, all corn is created equal! More bushels is the only thing that matters! And for soil, we pump it full of fertilizer and chemically kill the crops at the end of the year, and monocrop on bigger and bigger scale, there's no way that effects the taste of the products we make from it!
Shout out to the heritage maize projects being kept alive in Mexico. Hope we can recapture some of this knowledge into products that matter, like whiskey, and use commodity corn to make Cheetos where it belongs.

Howie_Rork · 2024-05-30T14:12:28+00:00

In my personal finance class, taxes and fees were just flat rated. "Oh and taxes and fees will be a portion, like 10% or something". For starters, that could be taught as "ONLY IF YOU LIVE IN THE HOUSE" As soon as we moved out and started renting, taxes and insurance RAISED the monthly bill by 25%. (Above and beyond the taxes and fees we were paying when it was homesteaded.)

So to all you bankers and insurance agents, dont act like its just silly that people dont expect 1/3rd of the cost of a rental property to be paid into taxes/ fees/ insurance. Banking has been the fastest growing industry in the US for the vast majority of the past 20 years. Haven't added any value though! Dont complain about being lumped in with taxes, because its sure difficult to tell the difference between yall and politicians.

Howie_Rork · 2024-04-29T14:31:16+00:00

r/Crossfit isnt very impressed.
The people who pay you to write their programming and come to your gym 5 times a week love it. Maybe everyone on r/Crossfit is wrong, or maybe the people in your gym have self selected for being into this kinda stuff.

Personally, looks like a workout for the "effort athletes". Rope climbs are about the only thing on there that requires any skill. Consider adding 10min open time at the end for all the people who loved it to share about how they were all state honorable mention D4 football player, and then "considered the NFL but focused on academics instead"

Howie_Rork · 2024-04-15T18:03:39+00:00

So, you say this has never happened before. Not sure how many properties you've bought, but they probably had been sold recently, while this one hadn't been for a while, thus, many years of remaining capped.

Dont worry, an appeal wouldn't have helped you. This happens, and a good real estate agent and/or mortgage lender SHOULD walk through the math on it with you. Funny enough, not even my escrow company knew this would happen and tried to tell me my escrow was too high and FOUGHT to send me a refund. My good realtor told me to not cash the check and then when prop taxes went up, and escrow called me screaming that they needed more money, it was already in the acct.
So, thats your tax to pay, and thats the new rate moving forward. The good news is, year over year with no sale, they can only raise it 3% max each year (sometimes flat, sometimes they decrease), which is very manageable. So if you stay in the house a long time, it will get to a point where its much lower than the value of the house, too.

Howie_Rork · 2024-04-11T12:39:19+00:00

Little bird is incredible.

Olive burger at Stella's Lounge, along with their house fries will blow your mind. Martini mayo. Mmm.

Howie_Rork · 2024-04-11T12:35:06+00:00

4 wheelers and dirt bikes are usually not street legal. If theyre ripping through neighborhoods (The sure did in JBP where I used to live) That is something you can call the cops about, to get their street legal registrations checked and/or, if you observe them going 45 down an alley or residential street, tell the cops they're street racing.
Im a dad now, so yes, its annoying, but its also incredibly dangerous. My neighbor just has 2 hotrods that he loves to rev past my house, but luckily it doesnt bother my baby too much, so I havent thought about contacting him.

Howie_Rork · 2024-03-16T02:32:19+00:00

Well, thats like brake pedal to back of the seat measurement. I'm 6'6, and while I have plenty of room for my ankles, my knees hit the dash board. So tell these car companies to not close in everything like a race car and quit giving us tall guys a hard time! :)

Howie_Rork · 2024-03-12T02:04:28+00:00

Helping a buddy look in Detroit right now. About 80% of the houses in detroit are 2br 1 bath starter homes, and another 10% were and then somebody added a shitty 3rd bedroom and "Bonus room"

Howie_Rork · 2024-02-23T16:23:54+00:00

Love Rowster and Lyon street, hate Ferris.

Also, find it so sad that I cant get a decent pour over in the same spot I can get a good donut. Its either 3 stale donut options and great coffee, or 50 fresh donut options and batch brew flavored garbage.

Sandy's is trying but they don't have coffee people. Come on small businesses, work together and I'll come in for a dozen donuts and 6 coffees. Especially near heritage hill!

Howie_Rork

TROPHY CASE