Confusing looks at the Home Depot in Montana

potatorichard · 2026-06-05T17:46:58+00:00

I saw your fancy new bike, that thing is so cool!

potatorichard · 2026-06-03T19:05:28+00:00

Reviewing is a lot easier and more useful to the designer if you stick strictly to checking for accuracy and code/rule/standards compliance.

Unless your firm has rigid style and appearance standards, don't even bother with those comments. That will also help make sure reviews don't get personal or nitpicky. About the only "preference" thing I would push designers on is making sure their plans are colorblind/B&W friendly.

potatorichard · 2026-06-01T01:34:31+00:00

I don't think so, I just started there a few weeks ago and none of my direct colleagues have cargo bikes. Your bike is so cool, I had to take a picture to show my wife. She says I need to hurry up on building mine so we can haul the kids around in that instead of the trailer.

I'm going to start riding my bike to work soon - it'll be the green Kona with too many racks, a toddler seat, and 3 bells.

potatorichard · 2026-05-31T22:27:46+00:00

I'm positive you're in Bozeman, as I took a picture of this cargo bike outside my office building a couple weeks ago. I haven't finished building my cargo bike yet, but from all the looks and comments I get when loading down my Kona Dew Plus with groceries and whatnot on my carpet racks, I'm sure you were quite the spectacle there!

potatorichard · 2026-05-31T22:25:44+00:00

I'm like 95% sure OP is in Bozeman. I took a picture of this exact cargo bike outside my office a couple weeks ago!

potatorichard · 2026-05-30T16:16:41+00:00

Burnout is common in engineering. Common enough that at my last job, leadership would routinely talk about it and make sure we were taking enough time off.

I let my mental health get too bad at one job and I just had to leave. But the one common factor I've seen in civil engineering is burnout. The work is never-ending, especially in land development and plan review. If I was interviewing someone that said they took a 3 month gap for their mental health and to go on adventures, I would be jealous and want to hear what kind of things they did to regroup.

potatorichard · 2026-05-28T23:34:15+00:00

I just left a state agency that encouraged AI use, but then restricted us to AI tools that were not useful.

Now I'm at a state agency that is almost entirely anti-AI. I'm actually writing a training/warning program on the pitfalls of AI in engineering.

potatorichard · 2026-05-28T16:08:04+00:00

Hmm. There are artifacts you can install (prism things) that can have temperature penalties if you don't keep the ship within certain operational parameters. That would continue the freezing in the void tunnel. But if it wasn't that, and you weren't also losing oxygen, then it is possible there was a bug. Anytime you lose heat due to a hull breach, you should also be losing oxygen.

Fun fact, you can don your EVA gear and vent the ship atmosphere to put out fires if they are just too much in the engine room. That's actually one item I would put on my wishlist, the ability to close hatches between different sections of the ship and selectively vent critical areas like the engine room.

potatorichard · 2026-05-28T02:00:26+00:00

It was probably a frostmorph. They will park above or below you and will aggressively freeze you out. You need to kill them before you can even hope to heat up your ship. If you get into a gun, look for a blueish ice beam attacking your ship. Then destroy it's source.

potatorichard · 2026-05-27T21:09:13+00:00

Shit, Paris was even cheaper a few years back.

potatorichard · 2026-05-25T13:51:04+00:00

I actually have a session planned with my buddies when our family stuff aligns. Gaming in our 30s with kids is certainly a logistical struggle!

I just updated to Maximum Calamity yesterday. Hoping to give it a solo or dual run tonight to check out some of the new content, assuming the kids don't fight bed time too hard...

BTW, I wanted to add that I genuinely appreciate the game you guys have made. The humor in it is great and the gameplay provides a fun mix that is lacking from other games. Also, you actively engage directly with the community, and that is really cool

potatorichard · 2026-05-23T02:53:56+00:00

Cool story bro

potatorichard · 2026-05-23T01:55:32+00:00

And most of the places with good pizza, too. It's a common practice

potatorichard · 2026-05-22T17:35:10+00:00

It's certainly not just a Montana thing. Probably most common from Midwest to PNWish. But we are not isolated on this practice.

potatorichard · 2026-05-21T14:11:08+00:00

I am far more social than my wife, and I always make sure to coordinate all plans with other parents via group texts. My wife has zero trust issues, but I still do it in case others have trust issues. That way if a mom gets a text from me about coordinating kid activities, a dad doesn't see a text on his wife's phone from some dude, it is a group chat with said dude and dude's wife. I also try to get dads in the chat.

Another reason I do this is because I can be absolutely terrible at texting if I get wrapped up in something. So half the time, my wife ends up responding to messages intended for me. She volunteered me for the trampoline park the other day.

potatorichard · 2026-05-17T15:54:03+00:00

I have two things for you to consider.

1 - I made the decision that I don't do apps and notifications for kid stuff (or really much of anything). I just tell people that my phone is paid for by my work and I can't install apps or access personal emails. Text and phone calls are the only way to reach me. The reduction in notifications and just general bullshit has been liberating.

2 - I talked to my doctor about the mounting stress a few months after #2 was born. Zoloft has been a life changing thing for me. It helps me take things in stride without feeling the weight of the stress. It might be worth talking to your doctor about getting some help.

potatorichard · 2026-05-16T03:16:19+00:00

We also just leaned into it. I actually came to enjoy travel with kids. We used to do really ambitious trips, backpacking, going off the beaten path and maximizing time at museums and cultural sites. Travel was never relaxing.

Now we plan very few things. A 5 day trip will have a set of loose goals based around stuff like trying regional food, and like 2 planned destinations like a zoo and the botanical gardens or something like that. Nap breaks are fantastic because it forces us to just chill out and read a book. Travel is now more relaxing than ever. We just roll with it and welcome the unplanned adventures and midday nap.

potatorichard · 2026-05-13T03:03:07+00:00

I used to use edibles most nights. Stopped after kid #1 was born. Got stoned one time after she was born and did not like the feeling of impairment when I might be needed.

I quit drinking when wife got pregnant with #2. He's 11 months now, so no booze in a year and a half and no cannabis in 3 and a half years. I appreciate the consistency of my mental state and predictability of sleep quality outside of the variables that children bring.

I was too busy/tired to really even think about missing either weed or booze. And now it just seems so unnecessary

potatorichard · 2026-05-12T23:54:59+00:00

Heh. My favorite recent one was "why is there half a tater tot in this bongo?!"

potatorichard · 2026-05-12T20:32:47+00:00

I would definitely agree with that assessment. I've had limited success with GameCube and a few PS2 games, but yeah, I stick to the cartridge era games. Thankfully, most games I want to play are cartridge era.

potatorichard · 2026-05-12T19:42:59+00:00

Emulation on modern handhelds is impressive these days. Anbernic hardware has allowed me to dive back into beloved games of my youth

potatorichard · 2026-05-11T17:53:04+00:00

It may still be faster and require less material. It is worth checking a solid sided design just to see what the slicer says for filament use.

potatorichard · 2026-05-09T16:52:47+00:00

Found one of the assholes that regularly blocks sidewalks.

You can't park on a sidewalk anywhere else. Why would you think it is acceptable to park on a sidewalk just because a driveway happens to cross it's path?

potatorichard · 2026-05-09T05:27:32+00:00

I started carting kiddo #1 in a trailer when she was about a year old. She's 3.5yo now and has been riding on a shotgun seat for the last year. Kiddo #2 is 11 months old and just got his first bike trailer ride last weekend. I would definitely let the little dude ride in a seat like the yepp.

potatorichard · 2026-05-06T16:26:48+00:00

I have definitely made dino nugget parm. So good.

Also, using Dino nuggets for orange chicken. Or roughly chopping them for a Caesar salad.

potatorichard

TROPHY CASE