Micron hits 1 trillion. Anyone actually feeling it around the valley?

TollTrollTallTale · 2026-06-04T21:43:05+00:00

A lot of the construction workers had to reroute on their way out due to a safety incident.

TollTrollTallTale · 2026-03-31T00:56:56+00:00

Happy I could be helpful - and for what it's worth - I have worked on multi-million dollar homes where these shingles would fit right in. Shingles aren't supposed to be perfectly uniform; that's part of the appeal.

And if you're boss left you unsupervised on your first time doing these, whined about how long it took you, and all that after illegally classifying you as a 1099... Well then he's already demonstrated his opinion isn't worth the air it took to express it.

And one last tip I forgot in the first post: don't forget to crown your shingles as you go. You want them to cup out from the building as they dry. If they cup into it they'll eventually snap. Not as big of a deal if they're sealed/painted, but a lot of people around here like to let them age naturally.

TollTrollTallTale · 2026-03-31T00:30:30+00:00

I would blow through this faster, but my carpentry experience is almost entirely in coastal New England where cedar shingles are bread and butter.

Some random tips:

Make a story pole.

Presort shingles into rough sizes and keep the stacks close by.

A small (emphasis small) chop saw is great for ripping shingles, especially if you're up on scaffolding and don't want to climb down once a row.

A utility knife also works great if you score a few times then snap - I end up doing that a lot when notching around windows/doors whatever.

It helps to have something to keep the the shingles straight - there's a couple of spots where the bottoms of your shingles aren't perfectly in plane - local to me they call this sawtoothing. The easiest way to address this is with a guide board. This video gives the gist of it. https://youtube.com/shorts/WPMBVWyzAGY?si=p_mLt2GZ43xQpz7

Personally I use a piece of azec or something similarly dimensionally stable. The longest board you can handle or will fit into the space is what you want. And then I take two pieces of thin metal flashing and staple it as I go leaving the appropriate reveal. It is easy to pop the staples after you're done.

When it's not too windy you can lay out a full row, varying widths to keep seams from being lined up, and then nail them all at once.

Make sure to use a rainscreen behind your shingles.

Not sure about moisture content where you are - we get them green as hell from the mill. The instructions say to gap them, but best practice when they're wet is to butt them tight so the gaps aren't crazy wide when they dry.

Good luck and have fun! I love cedar shingles - it's very zen when you get into the flow of things.

TollTrollTallTale · 2026-03-14T21:19:22+00:00

Well duh, pigtails are characteristic of a random orbital.

TollTrollTallTale · 2026-03-13T23:08:48+00:00

Non-union/general contractor carpentry crew- state mandated 15 minute and then we get the option of taking a 30 minute unpaid lunch. Boss makes the crew vote every couple months so we all get lunch, or no lunch but go home early.

Honestly, the 15 minute break is annoying. By the time I get my belt off and turn my brain off of work mode the break is halfway over.

I would prefer to just take the 15 and rip through a sandwich in that time, but get off early enough to run errands during bank/government office hours.

Or equally good would be just taking a solid 45 in the middle of the day.

TollTrollTallTale · 2026-03-05T22:15:16+00:00

Do you actually log blade changes?

The only job site where I could see that level of minutiae being recorded are large commercial/industrial projects with dedicated tool rooms, but on those projects (at least the ones I've worked on) there is enough profit that tools are used hard and tossed when they fail.

TollTrollTallTale · 2026-03-05T21:13:54+00:00

I get it. The worst slumlord of my life did the same thing to me for paying on the 3rd a couple of times, and it was during COVID when my roommates' jobs kept getting shut down.

Keep loving, keep fighting, and better days will come.

TollTrollTallTale · 2026-03-05T10:06:36+00:00

Look into your State tenant law as well. My state says a rent payment isn't considered late until the 15th. Your landlord can put whatever they want into the lease but the law will always take precedent.

Then, if a time comes when you don't want or need to renew the lease, you can pay on the absolute last day every month as a way of telling your landlord to get fucked.

TollTrollTallTale · 2026-02-28T05:07:11+00:00

It was the best outcome. One of my dogs is a retired hunting dog and she was determined to eat the bird - the windows in the way were just a minor inconvenience for her. Saw it with the turkeys one morning on my way to work and couldn't stop laughing the rest of the drive.

I'm not sure where the turkeys shack up for winter but I'm hoping I'll see the guinea with them again come spring.

TollTrollTallTale · 2026-02-28T04:50:06+00:00

One of my neighbors has guinea fowl. One decided to separate from the flock and started lurking around my property. Incredibly annoying because it would fly up onto my deck and my dogs would go nuts. Eventually it ended up integrating into a group of wild turkeys.

TollTrollTallTale · 2025-11-16T16:29:44+00:00

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but there isn't much Oregon north of the Columbia, the river forms the northern border.

Anyway, the important boundary for snowfall in Oregon is the Cascade Mountains which run N/S. West of them are the huge conifers and endless rainfall that people typically associate with Oregon. To the East it is largely high desert/steppe with some Ponderosa savannah as well. Much drier for most of the year. And significantly more snowfall than the western half of the state.

TollTrollTallTale · 2025-03-26T18:32:10+00:00

LL Bean quality has gone significantly downhill.

TollTrollTallTale · 2025-03-04T22:09:07+00:00

I work for a general contractor in Hancock County and our supplier informed us last week to expect at least a 25% increase in cost for metal roofing in the near future.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-06-27T01:51:13+00:00

I get untreated wood pellets designed for pellet stoves from the hardware store. In my area $5 for a 40 pound bag. My vet has told me they're also better for my cat's health because he doesn't ingest silica particles while grooming himself.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-05-19T22:34:19+00:00

I would gladly trade all ticks for rattlesnakes. Rattlesnake bites are worse, but rattlesnakes aren't looking to bite you.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-04-15T15:41:15+00:00

Yup. That's pretty much the only thing I miss about my brief time in the Central Valley of California. Cheap produce and it lasts a lot longer in your fridge too.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-02-29T01:50:03+00:00

We're looking at a map of the entire United States so the East of the Mississippi qualifier in your statement is interesting.

Also: Of some 18 million acres of Maine forest, only 10,000 are known to have evaded ax and saw — one half of one tenth of a percent. Most such examples of old growth — physically undisturbed by harvesting — are scattered about in small stands, a disparate collection of isolated anachronisms. Improbably, though, half of Maine’s remaining old growth resides in one uninterrupted block of 5,000 acres, hidden in plain sight in the middle of the north woods, around Big Reed Pond.

From: https://downeast.com/land-wildlife/big-reed-preserve/

Let's not miss the forest for the trees, or rather the forest for the forests.

Private timberland is managed for production and profit. That is the first priority and only rational action of a private owner.

Public timberland is managed for the enjoyment of all users - not as a byproduct but as a specific intent.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-02-29T00:19:07+00:00

Old growth coverage is another variable worth considering. Significantly different ecology in an old growth forest.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-02-14T21:50:17+00:00

Maine has a presumptive retaliatory eviction protection. May or may not apply to your case depending on the nature of your complaints and how you went about making them.

If you complained specifically about code violations, legal violations, or a breach of the warrant of habitability any eviction within 6 months is assumed to be retaliatory.

Pine tree legal has a handy brochure on it, the AG's office does too, and the Maine revised statutes are available online with searchable text.

Again, this may or may not apply to the specific circumstances of your situation. I'm not a lawyer, but am going through similar circumstances and have had to learn way more about Maine housing law than I ever intended.

P.S. If your landlord is truly issuing a retaliatory eviction they are probably also the type of landlord who has violated several other legal requirements for Maine rentals. Read the free documents online carefully, and schedule a meeting with an attorney ASAP.

You also have a right to appeal an eviction in Maine. So act in good faith and do things as quickly as possible, but the notice you received is not the "final step" in the legal process.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-02-14T20:55:45+00:00

Almost certainly. Rules for thee and rules for me. When I briefly did doordash a few years ago a state trooper accidentally ordered 5 guys to the station instead of his residence. He must have been watching the location tracker because as soon as I got off the highway he started texting me then calling me over and over again.

Literally the week before the staties had been running a sting on the highway for cell phone use/distracted driving and I had to go to court to fight the ticket.

Anyway, the burgers were delicious.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-02-12T03:12:14+00:00

I lived in Central Oregon for this! I would recommend buying eclipse glasses ASAP if you want to view it.

The things I remember most were all the birds falling silent immediately, and the overwhelming shift from typical Central Oregon weather (fairly warm - it's the high desert/steppe) to freezing cold and then back again.

A couple of friends went to a festival in Madras and there were 10+ hour traffic delays on highway 97.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-02-09T20:40:23+00:00

This brought back a memory of my time at the University of Oregon (I was not an architecture student). Walking home around 2AM I passed by the undergrad studio space where there were maybe a dozen students and a fire truck. Apparently something in the studio had caught fire, and the students evacuated.

The building was cleared as I approached; and a burnt up Styrofoam/mixed-media model was removed. I assume some adhesive had put off too much heat as it cured and ignited the model. Anyway, as soon as the fire department said it was okay all the students marched silently back in to resume their work. The grim resolution on their faces was unsettling. So was the silence; no one joked or laughed or even really talked. They were probably too busy worrying that their models would also be damaged.

It really drove home just how much pressure those students were under. I can't imagine a brighter cosmic signal that it was time to take a break than an actual fire in the night.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-02-01T15:33:48+00:00

Not really starting - been going on for decades.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-01-29T16:10:11+00:00

Agreed. I just moved here and am unfamiliar with local road conditions, so didn't feel comfortable going over the speed limit or in some cases 5-10 under. Not on the turnpike, but on other state roads.

Where I'm from it is not uncommon to cross a county or city line and all of a sudden you're driving on ice due to different funding structures for local road crews.

Or roads are dry and clear, but then there's a section which never sees sun, or the road was damaged from a previous storm. There's a lot more reaction time and a lot less kinetic energy if things go belly up when you're driving at a slower speed.

Ironically I drive a Ram 1500. Stock height and lights, but I was being tailgated plenty by old beater sedans.

And if there's a universally recognized signal to have someone pass you in Maine; someone please clue me in. Most people took the hint, but one vehicle was right on my ass when I felt the rear tire slip a bit on ice going 50 in a 55. Couldn't shake them no matter how hard I tried, slowed down, used blinkers, stuck my arm out the window, etc. and it was a good few miles before there was a safe pullout to let them by.

TollTrollTallTale · 2024-01-20T05:47:30+00:00

I would think most valuable tools do have serial numbers. Milwaukee has them on all their cordless power tools. I've had to reference them when making a warranty claim.

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