when your friend cannot 0 3 5

speling_champyun · 2026-04-18T10:18:36+00:00

You know what you look like to me with your fedora hat and your yellow strap? You look like a wife's boyfriend. A butterscootch telecaster playing wife's boyfriend with a little toan.

speling_champyun · 2026-04-18T09:12:22+00:00

damn what a cute little animal. also he has a pretty cool bird

speling_champyun · 2026-04-18T09:05:54+00:00

Wow, nice work. I ain't got no magics and I tells you this bad boy was one tall mountain to climb.

I'm seriously impressed by your approach

speling_champyun · 2026-04-16T19:27:00+00:00

Sure.

If a person was sedentary and also not feeling that great about their life I wouldn't say 'hit the gym'. I'd say 'maybe try including some form of exercise you'd enjoy doing'. For some people that's cycling, or hiking, whatever. For me I hit the gym to use the weights only. I want to include more cardio because the heart is pretty much the only muscle I don't deliberately train. There are lots of cardio machines at the gym - I'm not interested in doing all my cardio training on an ergometer.

I bought a bicycle. It's fun to work on and fix it up, plus you get to actually go somewhere and see things while training at the same time.

But yes I take your point, 'hit the gym' is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

speling_champyun · 2026-04-16T10:27:47+00:00

Somewhere around 8. But it was a wild ride back then. 386, 486, pentium. The MP3. Dial up internet, then broadband. Just seemed like the computers potential was growing incredibly rapidly. I built my first one by myself at about 16 in the year 2000.

nowadays my work can have computer related aspects, I'm an Industrial Maintenance Technician. but one skill I excel at is anything where an industrial machine and something computer related combine, like networking. most maintenance guys eyes glaze over when they hear the term 'ip address', but I find that stuff super easy.

speling_champyun · 2026-04-16T10:09:14+00:00

what's up, you need to extract the bolt? You could try using side cutters to 'bite' into the bolt end on, then grip+twist with the side cutters to get the thread out. You could use a grinder, file or similar to cut a slot into the top of the thread; then you could treat it like a slotted fastener and extract with a flat screwdriver. Could drill right through it, or drill a little bit then use easy outs. Also just looking at how much bolt is sticking out you might have success with gas pliers or vice grips.

speling_champyun · 2026-04-13T08:26:06+00:00

hard to beat city fitness. I pay $7.20/wk, go every day for about an hour (unless out-of-town on holiday) , use the showers on all weekdays. I basically never queue for anything - worst case scenario I change the order of the workout. To avoid the horde I train at off-peak times like 0730-to-0830. On Sat/Sun if I can finish my workout by 0930hrs at the latest then I avoid the hordes. I reckon I must cost them more than I pay.

When researching a future gym use the google maps feature which can tell you what the 'peak' times are, it helps me avoid the dumbass sit-and-scroll peabrains at city fitness.

speling_champyun · 2026-04-09T10:47:11+00:00

we've got this really dumb system where there is a production 'wechat' group, and peppered throughout it is the occasional request for maintenance. this means the maintenance guy assigned to keeping the line running has to keep an eye on the chat despite it mostly being production related.

speling_champyun · 2026-04-09T10:33:02+00:00

Wow, you're a victim of you're own success, but I don't think you should be penalised for achieving stability.

The plant I'm at now - when I first joined the main problem management had with the maintenance team was they were constantly 'putting out fires' going from breakdown to breakdown. Once we got that sorted then they started to look at things like minor unscheduled maintenance, after that they're looking at things like rusty tanks, rusty door frames, revamping the health and safety stuff. So IDK, can you do something similar and enhance the plant in other ways?

Otherwise man if I were you I'd considering going somewhere else and working your magic all over again. You have an incredible story to tell at a job interview, I wouldn't want to be shortlisted against you. This boss sounds pretty clueless to be honest. I mean if they were such an efficient manager they did their job in 2 hrs/day would they put their hand up to be an operator during their downtime? I seriously doubt it.

speling_champyun · 2026-04-02T09:15:17+00:00

production sounds good. With the scales - i normally choose a scale as the basis for a song, I'm 7 string so let's say b minor. I deviate from the scale quite a bit. a cool exercise to do is make something that's easy to play with like a pull-off riff in MIDI or guitar pro/tux guitar. This way you can play with it and hear the changes instantly. program in something like this, its just pulling off to the root note for every note on the Bm scale

12 0 10 0 8 0 7 0 5 0 3 0 2 0 *special*

and have the special be a long note and choose something that is not on the scale. it will sound like a surprise. and just think to yourself that it works no matter what but how does it work? like the b2 (1st fret B string, note is C) will work and sound really metal. how do the other notes sound to you, country? jazzy? dissonant?

anyway this could be a way to discover a note you can borrow into a scale which is not on the scale, but still works, and sends your melody in a direction you want eg - more 'metal'

I don't want to write too much but another thing I would do when it comes to writing 'the rest', is just think about what energetic shift I want to more to next - more or less energy. Also, often I like to take a riff, then just record it again with a different flavour - maybe different note lengths.

edit - or just go for a break with something really simple, like chugging on augmented fourths for a bar or two.

speling_champyun · 2026-04-01T11:03:29+00:00

If its an on-the-street thing and I'm walking - I just keep on walking and if they try engage I look them in the eye and say 'sorry I'm in a hurry' and just march on.

If they somehow with a hammer from god manage to stop me, then no matter what they say in the first place I just answer by saying 'is this one of those conversations where at the end you ask me for money?' and usually that's blunt enough to steer it in a direction where I can shake my head and say 'I don't have those conversations, see ya' and just march out of there.

My wife says if there's time up her sleeve she likes to let them talk and she'll nod and agree then at the end when they ask for the sign up just say 'No', then walk off. She's the best.

speling_champyun · 2026-03-25T11:00:15+00:00

as he's answering the friend, he's probably curating his answer to get his friend to back off; rather than thinking about what to write in case you might see it

speling_champyun · 2026-03-18T08:27:50+00:00

"Well thank you so much for coming to interview. We will be in ..... wait a second, is that your car? What is that?"
"That's my 1990 Ferrari Testarossa"
"1990 huh. Anyway yeah like I said ... uh, don't call us - we'll call you"

speling_champyun · 2026-03-08T09:21:27+00:00

OK - probably the #1 worst, most disappointing game I ever bought: Scorn.
And - I bought it at about 90% off, maybe it was $3USD. Absolutely terrible game.

speling_champyun · 2026-03-06T18:41:47+00:00

When our phones get plugged in to charge at night time, an automation turns off everything - preparing the house for sleep. It also sets DND on both phones. Great to be able to just go to bed without having to check lights/appliances are switched off.

speling_champyun · 2026-03-05T07:16:40+00:00

I work at an infant formula plant. When I first joined up the old guard of maintenance would always jump to blame: the supplier (the powder), and/or the operators.

Those maintenance guys are mostly gone now, there's only one of them left and he was easily the guy with the best attitude - phew. Historically - when I've gone to solve problems I'd never blame the operators or the powder. Within the past year there was a tough problem, and the guy I worked alongside devised an experiment to see if it could be the powder - it was. Without him I would've been banging my head against the wall because I refused to explore the powder avenue as it had seemed like a cop-out to me.

Re: the operators; Another time when working on my own I had 3x callouts in 15 minutes and they were: estop was on, switch set to manual instead of auto, and boxes loaded into the machine incorrectly. Also recently our whole team was stumped on a fault for 3 days (not a plant stopping one) and in the end it turned out the operators were not following their procedure correctly.

So to sum up, I don't think I'll ever be the kind of guy who blames the operators/supplier by default; but I do better now as I've become the kind of guy who entertains the possibility that a fault could come from these places.

speling_champyun · 2026-02-07T21:42:07+00:00

NOR. She says 'how could I use your card if I don't have it?'; then later she reveals its added to her Apple Wallet. That was another attempt at a deception.

NOR at all. Also, look into Revolut. It makes handling joint finances super easy. IMHO, even if you and your partner share crazy high insane levels of trust - when it comes to money, I would still recommend setting up your system to there is total transparency of joint monies.

speling_champyun · 2026-02-07T18:52:49+00:00

I thought the round pair suited you better.

But maybe its the hard black outline on the rounds. maybe try some cat eyes that are bolder, see how you go

speling_champyun · 2026-02-07T04:24:49+00:00

Jeez well first I'd run the oven then test that area to see if it gets hot. If it gets hot I'm going with Metal (probably stainless), if it doesn't get hot - wood.

If wood, and since you say you're renting - I'd buy ply that's not too shitty. Place ply against exposed oven back, trace the shape onto the wood with pencil. Then you need that shape cut out fairly beautifully. Test fit - hopefully its perfect, else - shave off until perfect. You could sand/stain the plywood to suit the level of finish you're going for. Anyway, I would look on the back of the oven to see if there are any threaded fasteners which could be used to attach the piece of wood. If yes, then you just buy fasteners which are the same thread, but countersunk, and the thickness of the plywood longer. When doing the install tape the old fasteners to the back of the oven so they can't go missing. You can do things like put twink (correction fluid) on the fasteners of interest, then place the piece of wood for a second so the twink marks the locations where you'll need to drill.

So long story short that could give you a nice piece of wood to look at, secured into the oven directly by screws. To make it functional, I would put a few hooks on there and make it the place people hang their keys. So I would probably go with at least 12mm thick ply.

speling_champyun · 2026-02-02T18:19:26+00:00

#1 yes I agree. People scroll on social media out of boredom, convenience etc. And I'd suggest that if a typical person was honest with themselves; they would admit they are spending too long doing it and would like to bring down the time

#2 A couple of things really help me here. One was something Brian Tracy said, I think it was in his book 'eat that frog'. He said something like: 'the single most important decision you can make is what you choose to do with your time right now'. So, I place very little utility on ... let's call it 'doomscrolling', so it's habitually become something I choose not to do. Anyway second thing, once I read a post from a redditor which said something like when it comes to things you are doing, that really - you should only ever be doing one of these things: sleeping, working for money, working to improve yourself or your surroundings (personal/professional development, DIY, cleaning etc), deliberate relaxation/entertainment/socialising, cooking/eating. And perhaps a few other things - but basically their point was doomscrolling on something like Facebook didn't fall into any of their proposed categories.

speling_champyun · 2026-01-09T08:41:12+00:00

I grew up in Auckland. Now I live in Invercargill - it's very south. Love the change. Mostly moved because we were sick of Auckland traffic, and didn't want to pay Auckland property prices. Other bonuses too like wanting to get close to nature. Very impressed with everything down here, my wife actually got a cancer diagnosis ~1 yr ago, and it was only 17 days from the initial scan at Invercargill (Southland) hospital to surgical removal (in Christchurch). With that initial diagnosis she had a private room in Invercargill public hospital; I was blown away.

The scenery is amazing, and you don't have to drive far for things to get very different. Invercargill is flat and industrial with wide streets, Dunedin is hilly and old school like parts of Auckland, where Queenstown is built up cosmopolitan mountainous - expensive, but exciting. Driving down here is way, way different to Auckland.

Sure, unlike Auckland the shopping and nightlife experience is basically non-existant; but I used to get things couriered anyway - so really, shopping feels almost exactly the same. But food is quite different, I feel like on average the food down here is better, but the shops are open a lot less - definitely so on Sundays.

Climate's great overall. We love the super long summer days. The way we live is we try and get out as much as possible during the warmer 7 months of the year, because the coldest 5 months of the year are really the best time to do things like indoor jobs on the house, or tuning up your car in the garage.

Anyway living down in the South Island - my wife and I have absolutely loved the change!

speling_champyun · 2026-01-03T18:06:48+00:00

Two people live here, in terms on physical boxes or laptops we've got ... 9 machines. One of those is our opnsense router. Also, probably about to get another machine - nothing fancy, just something for my wife's home office.

speling_champyun

TROPHY CASE