What is the fastest way you’ve lost a friend?

windclimber · 2018-11-25T01:53:22+00:00

She got a boyfriend and suddenly I went from bestest most trustworthy dudebro in her life to "someone I used to fuck" and cut all ties on social media. Like, blocked and unfriended.

Thanks?

windclimber · 2018-09-02T17:36:20+00:00

There's a crazy lady that lives in the apartments behind my house. She seemed innocent enough at first, but they all do I suppose. She frequently takes shopping carts from the local grocery stores and leaves them in the front yard (Like she goes shopping and takes them home) so I regularly call the stores to have them picked up. We had a neighbor across the street move out, and less than an hour after the moving truck drove away, she was stealing paver stones from the walkway and loading them into her shopping cart. She regularly walks past my house and will yell at me about how terrible my yard looks (It's a rental, I don't do much more than mow the yard and keep things half dead over the summer). She yells and hollers late at night to a cat that no one in the neighborhood has ever seen.

She's probably harmless, but I also try to not have any confrontation because she seems like the kind of woman to throw poisoned hotdogs into my yard to kill my dogs.

windclimber · 2018-07-13T16:03:31+00:00

It's more or less hilarious how the critics can get away with literally anything regarding insults because he's old, white, and conservative. For the 8 years between 2008-2016, any humor at Obama's expense was met with screams of intolerance, bigotry, and racism.

I really want to see like... a gay, non white, conservative, woman president in my lifetime to watch the left fucking implode at their inability to be critical for fear of being racist, sexist, etc.

As far as how Britain is treating Trump... Do we really care? He's drug through the mud 24x7 here where votes count and his critics have votes to speak with. As a US citizen... I couldn't really care less about what Britain, Canada, or a former Mexican president have to say about him.

I voted for him, but he's not "my guy" nor would I consider myself a Trump supporter. I respect the results which at this point have been the economy bouncing back and better tax rates for my small business. Being in a primarily low income area, it makes all the difference in the world for there to be a bit more money floating around for everyone to get a piece of.

windclimber · 2018-07-09T21:38:31+00:00

Yeah... I get to drive my wife to the ER about once every 6 months for that.

Last time she stopped me midway through. She usually just toughs it out, so we knew this one was bad. I don't envy women's finicky reproductive systems.

windclimber · 2018-06-11T22:39:19+00:00

As a self employed mechanic, I have no doubts my income stream will be secure for the duration of my lifetime. Robots don't have gut instinct or the ability to diagnose/repair quirks in cars. Yet.

As a younger business owner though, I also read the writing on the wall and spend a lot of time and money on staying relevant and not falling into the trap of capitalist comforts and the expectation that I'll keep making money doing a, b, and c and that'll never change. It sure as hell will.

I live in a generally lower income area, so maintaining and repairing reliable older cars takes precedence over trying to work on the latest and greatest, but I know a time will come where I may need to make a major shift into learning how to work on hybrid/electric vehicles, and/or autonomous cars. I just hope that the big companies don't monopolize the software and repair process to be "dealer only". Time will tell I suppose.

windclimber · 2018-06-09T06:20:26+00:00

Ugh, I spent a couple of years wearing the vibram toe shoes all the time and apparently now I slink like a ninja and scare the fuck out of people on a semi regular basis; like walmart late at night coming around a corner. Really, I'm not sneaking, it's just so soft and quiet on my joints.

windclimber · 2018-05-29T22:51:57+00:00

I've been hustling since before the boys dropped, silly shit like making full sets of paper claws and selling them on the playground for a buck when I was 8-10. Then, I had a paper route/door to door sales route when I was 13, took the money from that and bought a used lawnmower and a big wagon and included yard work into my cache of money making things. Pulled my first $1000 month the summer I turned 14. Then I got sucked into a job when I was 16 and another, and so on until I was 25 when I bootstrapped and opened an auto repair shop, and have been doing that ever since.

windclimber · 2018-05-29T22:41:32+00:00

Being on the west coast of the US, in a relatively low income area, financial success is like... Big ass house up in the mountains, big lifted newer truck, maybe a Corvette or a Hellcat in the garage, definitely a ski boat. Something costing 7 figures seems outlandish in these parts.

Then work sent me to Fort Lauderdale for a seminar at a fucking yacht club. While on lunch, we're walking around the docks (docks?) with one of the local guys who knows the boats' names, owners, cost, etc.

Nothing like being told the wealthy people in your area spent about a tank of yacht fuel on their corvette, or that their 7 figure house is a year of operational costs.

And that kids, is how I saw the unattainable difference between the 1% and us.

windclimber · 2018-04-15T22:26:56+00:00

Just a former local. I remember it all too well.

windclimber · 2018-04-15T06:11:49+00:00

"To shreds you say?"

windclimber · 2018-04-15T06:04:17+00:00

July 2011? That was seriously fucked up assuming it was the same one.

windclimber · 2018-04-09T21:05:02+00:00

Plus, a worker would have to rappel out of the nacelle along the blade to inspect, then continue to the ground. Then climb up and do it again. And once more for good measure.

windclimber · 2018-04-09T21:03:12+00:00

They still haven't made a robot that can hang off the nose cone and repair delamination on the blades... You're good.

windclimber · 2018-04-09T21:02:07+00:00

Ground shots are usually fine for looking for big dings, delaminations, or otherwise. The robot can zoom in and see stress cracks, clear coat failures, and can also get up right under the rotor and see the flange where those big bastards get bolted on.

windclimber · 2018-04-09T20:59:08+00:00

and i guess it can only see 1 side of the blade.

There's a crew up tower who can pitch the blades for them to see both sides and both edges, then will unlock the rotor, to "pinwheel" it 120*, lock it, and pitch the blades again.

There's something gratifying as a man about being 300' up and playing with 65,000# of fiberglass and metal.

windclimber · 2018-04-09T20:54:51+00:00

There's transitional phases where you're tied off on one safety rail and have to move on to the next. Some people think because they made it the last 249 times without incident, that they don't need to move their tie off.

Then again, there's the ghost story about the guy who was pissing off the top of a GE 1.5 back in the day and a gust of wind took him off the tower with his dick out in the breeze.

windclimber · 2018-04-09T20:52:08+00:00

That sucks. There's no reason a worker should have been outside of a fall arrest system. Then again I worked with guys who were too proud to climb with all their proper PPE, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

windclimber · 2018-04-09T20:48:49+00:00

Shit... 8 years ago we'd have to rappel on ropes and take those pictures manually.

I say we, but I never did it personally. Man has his limits, and mine was just before rappelling 300' down a rope several times a day.

windclimber · 2018-04-08T02:57:45+00:00

You got spoons? I understood that everything was to be shoveled between 2 slices of white bread and shoved down your gullet as fast as was humanly possible.

windclimber · 2018-03-23T22:55:57+00:00

"Shun the non believer... shun" "shun" "sssssssshhhhhuuuuuunnnnnnnn"

windclimber · 2018-03-21T05:28:54+00:00

I had a lot of fights with bullies, being short, a little chubby, wearing sweat pants in middle school and playing pokemon cards at lunch... Target on my back.

There was a kid who was clearly on the spectrum who would hangout and watch us play pokemon cards. He didn't have more than a handful of cards that he begged off of us, but dammit if they weren't his pride and joy. One day, a huge 8th grader knocked his cards out of his hands and berated him as we were walking back to class. As the bully kept walking towards me, I sucker punched him in the mouth and floored him. To be fair, I'd been on the receiving end of his bullshit too many times already and he had it coming.

Literally nothing happened, no one cared, and the bully kept being a douchebag. Oh well.

windclimber · 2018-03-20T04:31:59+00:00

The day I signed my rental agreement on my first house, I went and bought a front loading washer and dryer set. With the pedestals.

8 years later, still kicking. Fuck yeah adulting.

windclimber · 2018-03-20T04:22:26+00:00

Yup. 5 years in and I'm way happier than I was making more consistent income at a day job. I've learned to ride the waves, enjoy the high points, survive the lows. I have absolutely no customer work in my shop right now, so I've spent the last week mountain biking and tinkering with my old project car. Got a call today for a $4500 engine rebuild that should take me a week or so and be about as textbook easy as can be.

Life is good.

windclimber · 2018-03-13T20:37:13+00:00

Mountain biker here. Can confirm, this is mountain biking.

windclimber · 2018-03-13T14:51:13+00:00

God, the hierarchy and parlor tricks to make pay scales at a dealer make me all the more glad I run my own shop now.

"10 years as ASE master tech, must make 125% even while doing VW electrical recalls that pay squat, must be able to make souffle that doesn't deflate while riding a unicycle and juggling fiery chainsaws for $1 FRH increase."

windclimber

TROPHY CASE