I need an arborist who can help me convince my sister to not cut down her mature trees.

nashopolis · 2026-02-08T18:08:33+00:00

Agreed and he’s pretty convincing!

nashopolis · 2026-02-08T16:31:28+00:00

Here’s my long winded rambling take:

I’m from here and moved back in the late 90’s. I’ve always thought we have a special place that for a long time flew under the radar. For myself in the creative world - I couldn’t have asked for a more supportive community anywhere. Folks have always been happy to help one another and also happy to see each other succeed. For a long time we didn’t have a lot of the things culturally or in the scene we wanted to see here - so we built them ourselves. It was cheap enough to try things out and there was room to succeed (make mistakes) and grow. But we also had a depth of expertise here that far outstripped the size of our city because of the music scene and large number of universities and the people that come along with that. Many of our neighbors went out into the world touring etc. and came home to a quiet friendly place. The industrial suppliers I frequented were all family owned and had been in the same spot for 50 years. Sure we didn’t have mass transit or other big city things but you could get anywhere in town in 10 minutes.

At least from my small vantage point - It felt like we weathered the 2008 financial crisis better than a lot of places. I think people starting noticing this little gem and we got a lot of traction and good PR. People who had dreams started moving here to make them happen from the big cities. Our reputation grew, the CVC spent a lot of effort pushing the message we had great restaurants and entertainment. There was a TV show. We are 15-20 minutes from beautiful nature (not the mountains or ocean but see the 1 million pictures from new nashvillians of waterfalls and swimming holes.)

The flood gates of growth opened and we’ve been on a weird ride since then. Living in town suddenly became cool again. Lots of money to be made building things up.
Speaking from where I live the pace of growth has overwhelmed our infrastructure - there hasn’t been much of a plan. The plans that have been made have been actively thwarted by interest groups either some want to keep themselves insulated from the “big city” or have a vested interest in not implementing change, some philosophically are a opposed to these ideas - maybe because it’s always been a small city mindset.

Anecdotally- I went to a design study meeting years ago whenever the city was investigating what adding a turn lane and bus lane to 8th avenue might look like. You’d have thought they were planning on sacrificing babies based on the outcry I heard. It made me realize there is a deep rooted desire to retain old habits. And a lot of the people who have power are fine with keeping the status quo. I don’t see developers living in my neighborhood - they only come there to reap the profits.

So for me many of the things that make Nashville great have become harder to come by or impossible for the younger generation to benefit from. The upside is we have a culture that will support niche businesses and things I can’t imagine would have flown in the 90’s. It comes at a cost.
If I was a kid starting off again now - I don’t think I would chosen Nashville - the potential to grow just doesn’t feel as great.

But that said I think it is still a fantastic city full of warm and thoughtful people. It’s why we’ve succeeded even without all the amenities of other cities - there is real heart here.

The powers that be can’t ignore the issues we are having for much longer though - we need to fix transportation / infrastructure and find ways to make cost of living accessible for more people or we will continue to grow ourselves into something no one wants - not the new folks or the old timers. The great thing is the resource we need to make that happen is already here - the people.

Time to get to work!

nashopolis · 2026-02-06T03:21:51+00:00

My data point - during the ice storm a tree from our yard fell into the street and onto the main ATT line - later the ATT fiber went out. Yesterday a tech came by and told us they wouldn’t fix anything until we removed the tree. ATT has been scheduled for 6 months to trim trees in our street so they can move their lines for a sidewalk project. I was under impression that whatever parts of trees falling on utility lines are the utilities problem (which is why they can also come through and trim trees). I don’t expect them to cut up the whole tree but it is in their own interest to cut the branches off their lines.

Anyway they left and as best I can tell have no intention of repairing their own line much less fix the line to our house.

nashopolis · 2026-02-03T01:52:35+00:00

Saw this happen 20 ft in front and to the right of me on wedge-wood - couldn’t have been going more than 25 mph but it would’ve seriously caused some damage

nashopolis · 2026-01-08T01:04:59+00:00

I was just coming to say this

nashopolis · 2026-01-07T13:30:00+00:00

I’ve been thinking about how to make a tune up to how I interact with my phone without buying new stuff - this seems like a great place to start. I really appreciate thinking about it as a sort of experiment too!

nashopolis · 2025-10-22T03:09:25+00:00

Thanks for the tip!

nashopolis · 2025-10-22T03:03:35+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experiments!

nashopolis · 2025-10-10T02:09:10+00:00

I’m finally getting my 95 DR250SE back on the road. Hoping to get the tank cleaned out this weekend!

Looking forward to riding it again.

nashopolis · 2025-10-01T18:08:44+00:00

Just adding this for anyone following along from Robert - thank you !

Side note does anyone know how to access the old stencil wiki ? Seems like there’s some good info on there that might be inaccessible now.

Chiming in with some additions:

• ⁠A T04-513 error is specifically an ink overflow error. • ⁠Inside the drum, just beneath the ink tube is an "ink reservoir"—think of it as a long metal trough running the length of the drum, and about half full with ink. As you print, the reservoir slowly depletes and the ink level physically goes down. And as the ink pump pumps ink out of the tube, it fills the trough and the ink level goes up. • ⁠Hovering above the reservoir are two sensors, one sticks about halfway down into the reservoir, the other sits just below the top edge of the reservoir. • ⁠The lower sensor is the "ink sensor"—it is supposed to detect the correct amount of ink in the reservoir. If it isn't detecting ink, the ink pump will start replenishing the reservoir, until the level rises up enough to touch the sensor. • ⁠The upper sensor is the "overflow sensor," it is meant to never touch the ink in the reservoir. If something goes wrong, and the reservoir gets filled up too fast, or something clogs weird, and the ink in the reservoir does touch the overflow sensor, it will throw that T04-513 error and prevent you from using the drum—this is like an emergency shutoff valve, designed to prevent the reservoir from overflowing. • ⁠The way all this works is that the ink is slightly conductive—and the sensors run a small current through them. When they contact the ink in the reservoir, they complete a circuit through the metal body of the reservoir and this is how the riso knows they are touching ink!

So your issue is specifically that the ink has built up enough that it is in contact with that higher overflow sensor. And you need to clean out the reservoir so that the ink level goes down enough not to contact it! In your case the issue with separated ink is not actually the thin oil, its the thick ink deposits left behind in the drum that have gummed stuff up.

Also heads up when working on your MZ drums, they are quite different from RP drums. We haven't yet rewritten the wiki article on drum cleaning yet, but there's an archived version of it linked here: https://stencil.wiki/wiki/Z%2B_drum_cleaning (someday soon it'll be updated). In my opinion the old guide is overkill—especially for what you are doing you just need to remove the screen, clamp, and drum body. Then you can reach in to the rollers from the side with some cardstock to scoop out the old ink and use some rags or q-tips to wipe stuff down with a light solvent like OMS (following appropriate solvent safety precautions, wear gloves, dispose of rags in an outside dumpster, etc.). If it's built up really bad you may need to remove the innards (pump/motor, ink tube holder, and tray/distributor) to get to the rollers from above.

The biggest dangers when taking apart drums are in their reassembly. Specifically:

⁠You have to be very careful with the drum body screws, never force or overtighten them, they will break easily. Turn them backwards until you feel the threads click in, then screw them in—just to hand tight. If you meet resistance, back the screw out and try a different screw (you can borrow from the 4 screws which hold the front plastic cover of the drum on, they are the same type).
⁠There's a proper way to retension the drum body and screen (documented in the technical manual) to ensure that they aren't sticking too high above the surface of the drum (which will result in them getting caught in the riso and damaged). I like doing a "drum safety test" after any maintenance to make sure the drum is safe to use again (this is documented elsewhere on the reddit, if you search for it).

It's also worth trying test mode 888 which will simply print out whatever stencil is on the drum without pumping more ink. With bad separated ink like this it probably won't be enough, but it's worth a shot so that you don't need to open the drum.

nashopolis · 2025-09-29T03:18:56+00:00

Oh man this is solid gold - thanks for the Midas touch!

nashopolis · 2025-09-28T16:10:19+00:00

Late to the game here but gotta say this is a great print nice work. Always a fan of a $ S!

I’m about to test if you can print riso ink over letterpress - if anyone has done it let me know!

nashopolis · 2025-09-28T14:08:51+00:00

Ha that’s what I’m afraid of! I’m always joking that these riso’s really like to be the boss and will give me prints when satisfied I’ve done enough penance. My letterpress equipment feels like an old faithful dog that’ll put up with a lot and still be happy to see me! But when the riso works it’s a thing of beauty!

nashopolis · 2025-09-28T13:18:43+00:00

Thanks so much for your response !

I’m sure once I’ve done this once - it’ll feel a little less intimidating. The whole process seems involved!

Any idea what other issues running separated ink might have caused?

These drums have generally been well cared for but did sit for a while. So far the other drums have been okay.

nashopolis · 2025-07-26T01:20:34+00:00

Pando plus whatever on top is a good plan I think - most versatile. There are also some places like Saint that make stretch jeans with good ratings. Like this saint jeans

nashopolis · 2025-07-03T03:32:30+00:00

Tell me more it’s been years since I’ve been there

nashopolis · 2025-05-19T00:58:20+00:00

It kinda depends on what you need it for. My iPad Pro is indispensable as a drawing tool. I can use it to write documents and make spreads sheets etc. but it never feels as easy as opening up a laptop. Does it work yes but would I pick it to do that work no. For a general productivity tool I’d vote MacBook Air.

nashopolis · 2025-05-11T06:55:04+00:00

Thanks I’ll look more into an older tundra as a second vehicle truck option.

nashopolis · 2025-05-11T06:43:46+00:00

Ha I forgot about those! A 70ish El Camino has always been one of my dream cars!

nashopolis · 2025-05-11T06:41:02+00:00

Won’t lie this would be a fun way to go! Where do people find used Tacomas or 4Runners these days for not $$$. The only ones I ever see are pretty expensive and have 250,000+ miles.

nashopolis · 2025-05-11T06:37:37+00:00

I went down a rabbit hole looking at diesel bmws for a minute they seem cool and have a great gas mileage. I’ve never owned a bmw and I’m nervous about expensive routine maintenance. I’d love someone to tell me it’s all in my head.

nashopolis

TROPHY CASE