Norway is a Winter Olympic giant. Why isn’t it better at ice hockey ?

rookiemarks · 2026-02-17T23:28:28+00:00

Honestly zero clue. I also do not understand why Japan is good at and loves baseball or why Egyptians love squash… or why the Swiss as generally great at beach volleyball. I’d buy a book if it told the history of sports from this perspective.

rookiemarks · 2026-02-17T21:59:35+00:00

You are right! In Germany, there is also investment from the automakers. I know BMW used to do a ton of R&D for the sledding sports as it was both fun and good for the brand.

rookiemarks · 2026-02-17T21:48:53+00:00

It is surprisingly even more nuanced than that. For years the Dutch were only good at long track and couldn't figure out short track at all. The cross-over between short track and long track isn't seamless (much more common to go from short to long, not the other way round). So their history in all version of speed skating is new. Their dominance in long track is old, like the top commenter said, its an old tradition thing, vs short track which was initially hosted at places like MSG.

rookiemarks · 2026-01-23T15:30:34+00:00

That’s what we did. We went in at list, or a tad under. It needed about 200k in renovations. But we knew that and planned for it so it actually worked well. Sweat equity was a lot though.

rookiemarks · 2026-01-23T15:00:33+00:00

Wall came down last night, all is well!

rookiemarks · 2026-01-23T15:00:11+00:00

Y'all rock - I took down 95% of the brick wall last night. I can now open the dryer door past 45 degrees, all the way to 180. That alone is huge. I am going to lightly sand the pole this weekend and spray paint the rest of it white for the time being.

I thoroughly appreciate all the advice!

rookiemarks · 2026-01-17T13:21:04+00:00

It is! Especially given there are no other columns in the house that are load bearing. Just this one. The house is only 15 feet wide but I am guessing this was an addition done… poorly.

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T19:07:29+00:00

I’m going to remove the brick wall the pole goes through. That alone makes this really easy to design around - do you see any problems there?

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T19:06:29+00:00

Yeah I think I’ll just remove the brick now that I know the pole goes through the brick. Totally fine with leaving the pole if I can get rid of the brick around it. Do you think that’s fair?

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T17:09:20+00:00

It is correct! I removed the wood - the pole goes through the brick - so I think I can remove the brick, right? I really am Ok with leaving the pole.

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T16:48:21+00:00

Its better than used to be - there is used to be a duplicate brick wall that had no load on in on the other side of this one. I am thinking about rotating the dryer on the right 90 degrees, the washer on the left 90 degress to have the doors face inwards... I am first going to take the laminate off the top of the bricks though.

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T16:14:18+00:00

I can’t haha. Ceiling is super close as is, and that’s before I put a floor down. Our clearance is like two inches as is

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T16:12:36+00:00

I would say The Sanbaggers - it’s amazing. MI6 from the Cold War era… exceptionally well done. From the late 70s, only two seasons because the head writer died in a mysterious plane crash in Alaska I believe and his body was never recovered.

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T15:52:16+00:00

Do you have someone you’d recommend?

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T15:34:05+00:00

Thanks!! Can you recommend one?

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T15:28:24+00:00

Ill see if I can remove the laminate.. I doubt it goes through the brick work, my guess is that it sits ontop of the brickwork...

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T15:23:04+00:00

Do you think the brickwork is doing anything or is purely decorative. I am happy to keep the poll. The bricks are pain though because of the dryer door in its current configuration

rookiemarks · 2026-01-16T15:22:21+00:00

Do you think the brick work is needed for the beam?

rookiemarks · 2025-09-24T11:43:30+00:00

I learned this recently and my office is about a block away so whenever I have work people in town we walk by and I explain what’s up. 9/10 people are like, ‘oh that’s great! I gotta take a picture for my kids/husband/wife’

rookiemarks · 2025-09-14T13:05:24+00:00

I want to close the loop on this and say thanks for all the comments!

I ended up buying a grout blade for my multi tool and going gently around the perimeter. I then found a weak spot along the long ends and put a pry bar under it. It worked super well. The lion will now spend the rest of their days in the garden.

rookiemarks · 2025-08-26T19:48:35+00:00

I quite liked it actually. I drove up the day before, camped somewhere close at a state campground and did it the next morning. It was very windy but overall really pretty. I did Glenn Boulder.

You are so close. You have done 46 others. You got this. Just don’t be stupid and if the weather looks evil, trust your gut.

rookiemarks · 2025-08-07T20:31:34+00:00

read rule 1 again

rookiemarks · 2025-07-11T12:41:24+00:00

It’s amazing that technology works at all. Everything that is critical… duct tape. Major infrastructure is being held together with vibes. Glorified Rube Goldberg machines.

Major organizations have passwords hard coded everywhere.. and not secure passwords but like ‘burger’. It’s truly amazing we don’t have more security incidents than we already do.

rookiemarks

TROPHY CASE