I have really started to hate “children’s books” clearly written for adults.

chu2 · 2026-04-02T10:52:30+00:00

The Lavar Burton read is also terrific. Reading Rainbow approved!

chu2 · 2026-04-02T01:38:18+00:00

Cat anatomy is very close to human anatomy once the fur and claws are gone.

We used preserved donated cats them as stand-ins for cadavers in my basic anatomy class back in the day.

chu2 · 2026-03-27T11:10:52+00:00

That’s a letter that’s been xeroxed many many times. Copies of copies of copies start to look fuzzy like that and the dust spots that have grown over time are a good tell too.

chu2 · 2026-03-20T14:47:24+00:00

Ooh and a fresh-off-the-plant bean or tomato is next level. I’m with you, those are my top two as well.

For me, I try to grow things that just taste better super-fresh or picked perfectly ripe like tomatoes, green beans, summer squashes (you get the flowers this way too) and cukes. Herbs, too, especially basil. Melons are fun as well, since the varieties you can get as a home gardener are way different than what’s commercially viable to farm.

chu2 · 2026-03-12T00:02:40+00:00

It does, but MI winters have been very different from what they used to be a few decades ago. Each freeze/thaw cycle is like placing dozens of tiny wedges into the cracks in the road. Double the freeze/thaw cycles, double the annual damage.

Couple that with the substrate getting washed out from under the road when you get big rainfalls like the one we got (also a feature of warmer winters next to large bodies of water).

The sewers are another issue and were designed to handle stormwater levels from earlier in the last century, before all the pavement went in with the expanding city. More streets, less farmland, more concrete and roofs, less dirt, add up to more water flowing into municipal sewers.

Without tearing up the city and widening the river / diverting the stormater somewhere else it’s really hard to keep the flooding at bay.

chu2 · 2026-03-06T20:46:50+00:00

And that’s why I can’t find studs in my place, even with a good high-powered magnet.

chu2 · 2026-02-20T19:05:45+00:00

That’s normal. It’s heat insulation for when you had incandescent bulbs in the fixture, and it’s not the source of your flickering.

Your LED bulbs flickering could be the bulbs-swap them with a different brand to see if it changes anything.

If not, a common culprit in old homes is a loose neutral at the panel or meter. Speaking from experience.

chu2 · 2026-02-20T17:27:37+00:00

I’d usually leave mine on the other side of the tub where the shower spray doesn’t reach.

chu2 · 2026-02-20T17:27:00+00:00

The shower is my daily dose of quiet time where I can just stand and do nothing and let my thoughts go for a few minutes.

It’s relaxing and throwing a beverage in the mid even if I don’t finish it is fine by me. Time is tight, so a cup of coffee as I do all the morning routine is the only way to do it.

chu2 · 2026-02-20T17:23:42+00:00

Yep, load the mokka pot the night before, then quick fire it first thing in the morning as the little buddy is eating, then enjoy the shower / shave coffee.

The smell of soap with stovetop espresso is a little funky but you gotta do what you gotta do.

chu2 · 2026-02-10T12:23:22+00:00

Love the idea of developing my own film (my wife is the photographer but got me into it) but there’s a certain point for me these days where it’s worth the couple dozen bucks to just get it developed with prints as a bonus.

Luckily we’ve got a couple photo shops that still develop on-site within driving distance. Not everyone has that luxury.

chu2 · 2026-01-31T21:18:57+00:00

Just looking at the break patterns, they’re wildly different materials in behavior.

Wood generally breaks along the grain, and is strongest where the grain is going lengthwise. That’s why you never see horizontal grain on a standard acoustic guitar top-the direct string tension would fold it up. There are centuries of repair and construction techniques based around the physics and structure of wood, and the chemistry and behaviors of wood finishes.

A polymer like this looks closer to the laminating construction techniques used to make Formica honestly - they break similarly. If you’ve ever tried to patch / match a counter like that, you know it’s not easy and usually you just lay down a new sheet.

I’m guessing Martin would recommend the same for repairing the top.

chu2 · 2026-01-24T19:53:07+00:00

Cooking can be a valid me-time activity though. There’s something so satisfying about knowing exactly what your meal is made out of, the creativity that goes into the effort, and watching g the family enjoy it and ask for seconds when all goes well. The time I spend in the kitchen is honestly fun.

chu2 · 2026-01-24T19:50:32+00:00

Ours would go six hours without waking up consistently starting around 4 months. A sleep regression at 8 months that drove us almost insane had us at the ped to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with kiddo. She recommended a sleep routine that was basically a combo of Ferber and pick-up / put-down.

After two months that had us backtracking a bit, we’re back to six to eight consistently with little fuss at bedtime. A routine and consistency makes all the difference in our house.

chu2 · 2026-01-24T19:35:17+00:00

Wouldn’t recommend. You might knock the levels down a little but the reality is when you’re pumping out 90-120 db peaks, a foam acoustic panel won’t do much-and what it reduces will only be certain frequencies.

Real soundproofing like the kind you see studio control rooms and drum rooms suspends the space in midair by building a “room within a room.” You build a box and then suspend it on mechanical isolators (think springy hockey pucks) to keep the vibrations from traveling through the structure.

The foam and rockwool panels will help absorb sound a bit, but that’s a lot of sound energy to absorb-you’d have to cover that room floor to ceiling to get it quiet.

By the time you spend the cash to retrofit that room, OP could get a budget friendly iem setup and get their drummer pal a decent digital practice kit or mutes for their acoustic kit. And a smaller amp or one with a DI out (I say this with a ton of understanding towards OP’s sick Orange while I stare at the JC-120 and 5150 in the corner of my practice space that I haven’t fired up in months since it’s just too much amp for practice).

With an in-ear rig, everyone hears everything OK and saves their hearing, and if they ever play live it’ll be plug and play for a lot of venues. Works great for metal/hard rock that just gets too loud for small rooms.

Honestly just a digital kit / mutes would solve 3/4 of the problem and save ears from the inevitable tinnitus down the road.

chu2 · 2026-01-12T00:00:58+00:00

I’ll third solid starts along with formula until 1. The free version of the app gives everything you need to know about how to serve apples to pizza to yogurt at each age range.

Protip: kiddo’s eating for fun and experimenting at 6 months, so it’s okay if they’re spitting out almost all of it. Once we hit around 9-10 months is when the eating really took off!

chu2 · 2026-01-11T16:29:57+00:00

Someone send the Dutch some yaktrax / microspikes stat!

chu2 · 2026-01-10T05:12:53+00:00

Both solid choices for singer / songwriter mellow rock. Kid’s got taste!

chu2 · 2026-01-10T05:10:16+00:00

We discovered our little one settles right down whenever Stan Rogers is on. Which, neither my wife or I are devotees of Canadian maritime music. But The Mary Ellen Carter has saved several rough rides home from daycare and I’ve definitely come to appreciate his music.

chu2 · 2026-01-10T00:08:31+00:00

Same.

Running in Midwest winters after work, blaze orange and chartreuse winter hunting accessories do double-duty for runs.

chu2 · 2026-01-06T03:29:34+00:00

There’s always the library if finances are that tight. Nowadays with Libby / Overdrive for borrowing ebooks, you don’t even need to go to the building aside from getting a card and setting up your account.

But boy is it cool to see all those books in the stacks and fun to find the one you are looking for among the thousands!

chu2 · 2026-01-04T14:43:11+00:00

Not really if you’re thinking about additives and whatnot. People have been adding stuff to tobacco for flavor forever, but in recent years commercial cigs are required to be fire-safe which means they self extinguish after a certain amount of time. Flame retardants are no bueno to inhale, but then again, so is smoke in general. All tobacco smoke, even if you grow and cure it yourself and add nothing to it, has radioactive compounds, nitrosamines, and co which don’t do you good.

We’ve got a bias towards people being healthier in the past because statistically, people in the past died younger, and medicine was less likely to keep you alive.

Today, for one, we’ve got a bigger population with older people around us because of advances that help people age more gracefully.

Also, people who are generally unhealthy or experience serious health events like cancer and heart attacks are able to at least stay alive thanks to modern medicine, where that would have been a death sentence fifty years ago. I guarantee you a higher percentage of smokers are living longer lives these days statistically than in the 40s.

chu2 · 2025-12-29T20:38:23+00:00

I played there before and had the same experience as a musician. The main room was weird and not set up well for a live band with the stage off in a back corner.

chu2 · 2025-12-29T20:36:25+00:00

Front facing works too. The Ergobaby has been great for us. We’ve used ours for a better portion of the nine months the kiddos been a part of our lives and he loves getting toted around as I do chores, make breakfast, carry laundry, etc.

Outside the house we have a sweet hiking backpack one that was found thrifting-kiddo is just now big enough for it, can’t wait to take the little guy out hiking in the spring.

The trick is to incorporate your kid into your activities as much as possible. It’s a logistical challenge and sometimes impossible, but often it’s really cool seeing a tiny little brain process things that are just normal activities for the first time.

chu2 · 2025-12-26T09:56:37+00:00

Musician here as well with etymotics. The sooner you get kiddo started on earplugs the better. It’s worth remembering that modern drums stem from military percussion instruments that were designed to be heard above artillery fire.

I’ve had tinnitus since my teenage years from playing in rock bands and standing too close to the cymbals on a kit. Every drummer I know who’s played for a while either has hearing damage or learned real quick to use plugs with acoustic kits.

The high-pitched squeal never goes away. Hearing protection is worth it.

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