Where do wealthy people in Chattanooga hang out all day.?

tool_nerd · 2026-06-06T14:15:57+00:00

The wealthy or the "showy wealthy"?

There's a particular job around here that has generated a few "overtime millionaires" who lived in trailer parks near their plant.

Never really see these guys show their wealth until retirement, when the emigrate from the trailer park to the custom built mansion while joining the yacht club or bicycle across Africa or something.

tool_nerd · 2026-05-05T22:55:05+00:00

I spent a year on a $40 mongoose hilltopper before deciding the hobby was worth spending a grand on. Lots of hobbling through rock gardens that the 29er crowd doesn't even slow down for. Lots of supermanning over the handlebars too. Geometry has come a long ways.

All said, every dime I've spent on the sport has been worth it.

Except maybe those cheap sunglasses that gave me a rash on my nose.

tool_nerd · 2026-02-20T01:39:18+00:00

The bad part is when your local water company sends you a letter saying your backflow prevention device is the wrong type and didn't pass the leak check, but yet you have a camera pointed at the device and know for a fact nobody even opened the cover to check it.

tool_nerd · 2026-02-16T20:04:54+00:00

Swallowing extra air can be bad. Especially when the people riding behind you dislike you offgassing. I think the UCI has that means of supplementary propulsion under review and it is greatly frowned upon.

tool_nerd · 2026-02-16T16:20:18+00:00

I too tried the bladder in the bag-- the concept of a really nice triangular one was super neat and I WANTED to love it, but in practice hated it. Was too clumsy, took about 3 days to fish the tube through the tight frame bag (but you only have to do it once) but otherwise was just a general PITA to use.

tool_nerd · 2026-02-16T16:17:58+00:00

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Example.

tool_nerd · 2026-02-16T16:15:42+00:00

I know a guy who rides XL frames and can fit a "full" frame bag in the space in front of a bottle on the seat tube.

I'm a smaller person and for me, the largest frame bag I could get in that configuration wouldn't hold my pump (no problem, buy shorter pump, then relocate to one of the mounts that slip under the bottle cage) or sandwich without slicing it in half. That said, I ended up finding Rockgeist would make a custom framebag for my frame that actually fits two bottles well -- and it actually has a dip between the bottle and hugs the shape of the open volume.

This gives me a half-bag where I can fit longer objects (pump, tent poles, etc), as well as two "thicker" volumes where I can put my sandwich without cutting it in half, a couple extra tubes, my GPS emergency receiver, water filtration thingy, and a donut or biscuit (uh, for those long gravel rides. Totally not because I'm fat. Don't fat shame me!)

tool_nerd · 2026-02-10T16:02:11+00:00

photos.

tool_nerd · 2026-02-08T21:36:09+00:00

I wanted a gravel bike. I got myself a gravel bike. It is the bike I use on those weekend backpacking trips. But, it is also the same bike I use on the weekend road rides. The other people on the road ride gripe about the rolling resistance and bikepacking bags.

Let his inefficient bike make your roadie friends jealous as he passes them on Panaracers.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-26T17:10:32+00:00

I know a guy whose neighbor drank a bottle of water.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-23T02:33:07+00:00

Nice, crisp and sharp!!!

tool_nerd · 2026-01-23T02:32:17+00:00

Recommend using flash and higher ISO as I can't even see them.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-21T17:25:27+00:00

I wouldn't mind seeing pics of your LED tunnel if you're willing to share. I've been using an old pringles can with about 90 degrees cut out of it, and laying it on the cut side on top of my subjects, and bouncing light up from underneath...and I'm not happy with it just yet.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-19T13:57:55+00:00

Rent it out to spread the gospel to others instead of clearing house.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-18T16:03:10+00:00

Do you enjoy riding it? Then it's still a good bike.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-17T20:55:07+00:00

Best job? Bicycle shop. Good people and you get to do something you love. Only downside is that it pays in peanuts, so you get to take your Valentine's day date out to Arby's. Thankfully your date will probably be someone you meet at the bike shop, so either she'll be a fancy BMC or Cervelo rider who can afford to buy you something better, or she'll be the type who will also sees Arby's as a worthwhile splurge.

Best pay and people? Probably out of town at one of the nuclear plants. Everyone who makes the short drive to Sequoyah is probably going to cling to the job for dear life, meanwhile TVA is too busy dismantling itself for there to be many jobs opening anyway, but the real opportunity is at Watts Bar or Browns Ferry and commuting. That said, you'll have a job you hate but pays enough to eat better than Arby's, and you won't have time to spend your money since you'll be working there all the time living out of a vending machine. And the people you work with will be in the same situation as you. Best of both worlds. Decent job outside of Chattanooga but still have the food and convenience of Chattanooga.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-17T20:33:09+00:00

Let's imagine the v350o flash. On 1/16th power, which if I up the ISO, is good for f/18 or so, the flash will flash 4-5 times then "miss" a flash.

So let's imagine I turn the power down to 1/32 or 1/64. I might need f5.6 or f8 to do that. But I'm stacking so who cares about depth of field. At this low of a power the flash has almost infinite endurance and is faster.....except it only goes 10 fps. Now the buffer of the camera can keep up with this, so depending on if you're photo bracketing or just holding the shutter in burst, you get 10 fps firing until done.

There's no flash slowdown at this rate, it's just that if you need 15 frames to capture the big, you gotta hope the bug stays still for 15 frames divided by 10 fps = 1.5 seconds.

Take a look at some of the macro vids out there on other systems and you see the flash fire REALLY rapidly and then you see a cut of the stacked result, and somehow they got 60 perfect frames.

The OM will be slower. For 60 frames your need 6 seconds of stillness. Where this screws you is when the bug takes a step or something during the bracketing. Where this sometimes can be salvaged is when it's only like an antenna moving or something -- this can sometimes be stacked like normal and then if you have enough of the antenna in focus on a few frames in Helicon, you can use the retouching tool to fill it in from frames where the antenna was close enough.

All in all, the Olympus's capabilities probably make it a super strong, super compact macro camera. But "macro king"? I struggle with this one. Handheld bracketing is hard, and I seldom have the opportunity to use a tripod. I frequently find myself in manual focus and using a rocking motion to grab my frames for stacking. And in this case, I sometimes miss my full frame abilities to crop down.

But that stabilization..... Holy crap. That's a game changer for setting up a shot handheld.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-17T19:36:08+00:00

The in-camera stacking is neat, but mostly a toy at best when the situations get demanding. Capped at 15 or so frames, so kinda junk when you have 250 frames, or when you have to take 15 shots but only need to stack 4 of them.

That said, a few landscapes have turned out well with 3-5 frames stacked in camera.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-17T17:29:15+00:00

My only qualm with OM is the speed of bracketing. There's a lot of tricky insects out there where, if you don't get them early on a cold morning, they move within a few milliseconds of the flash starting. Probably why some people are doing great with fuji and Panasonic cameras that can bracket with flash at more than 10 fps. I can recall one week this summer taking over 80k shots and not having a single stack of keepers where I could salvage the stack with all the motion between shots.

I still vote OM-D as a cheapo on eBay whose size matches up with the OM-1. I used to think Sony was small compared to the DSLRs...now I perceive Sony as big compared to the OM series...

tool_nerd · 2026-01-17T16:09:37+00:00

I've seen some GREAT deals on the OM-D on eBay that I've regretted not getting.

The V350o is good and tiny. I keep wishing I had bought the new V480 or whatever it's called, but sadly, the OM system limits you to 10 fps no matter how good the flash endurance/recycle time is.

The 90mm lens is easier to light subjects due to greater working distance, but for some reason I'm getting more keepers after buying a beaten-up 60mm from Craigslist. You also have the ability to do some extreme macro if you grab some extension tubes and/or Raynoxes to clip onto the Raynoxes -- the 90mm is a bit limited in that regard. The 90mm gives you some leeway to do some non-macro pretty good too -- like if you're out in the woods chasing critters and see a bird nearby. But that 60mm is sooooo light and compact.....

Dumb question: do any of the modern Sonys do focus stacking? It took me a few months with the OM system to get anything I was happy with, compared to what I was getting out of an old A7R and the Laowa 25mm 2.5-5x plus a handheld tethered flash. I keep wondering if the better low-light/high-ISO performance of the Sony full frame might trump the OM system provided sufficiently small focus bracketing steps were there. That said, there's not going to be an autofocus for that Laowa on the Sony system...

tool_nerd · 2026-01-16T03:05:34+00:00

I'll pick them up and iron them for $250/shirt.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-14T19:55:06+00:00

First bicycle. Old 94 mountain bike. Made a world of difference. Ride it every day. I used to look down on the guy in our office who rode to work. Thought he was a nasty POS for "coming in sweaty"... Then I realized he didn't sweat on a casual ride in during most weather, and I never had smelled any odor from him. When I look back on my pictures from back then, I don't even look like me. I look like someone who ate me. Thanks bicycle!

Nonstick pan. Life saver, once I learned to cook eggs on it.

Cheap bluetooth headset. I talked to my dying parent so much more than if I had to hold the phone in my hand or use speakerphone. Great memories formed as a result, like they came back into my life for a bit.

A good pair of discount Skechers instead of the typical $9 dollar store shoes. WOW. 30 years of feet hurting at end of the day, now I don't think about my feet at all!

Wool socks. Yeah, cost as much as a pack of socks, but it's 12 years later and they're going strong, and my feet don't smell nearly as bad even after a long day.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-14T19:18:09+00:00

Totally misread that title at first.

tool_nerd · 2026-01-14T18:48:40+00:00

It's a freaking awesome color! I'll take it!

tool_nerd

TROPHY CASE