I finally finished a piece after 6 months of nothing

Wasted 60 bucks on a crappy drawing tablet last month

I saw this no-name tablet on sale for $60 and figured hey it can't be that bad for sketching. First day the pen stopped working in the corner of the screen and by day three the USB cable was already loose. It just sat in my drawer after that because every line I drew looked like a wobbly mess. Has anyone else fallen for one of these cheap tablets or do you have a budget one that actually holds up?

Had a boiler tube leak on a job last week and the fix was a real pain

I was doing a retube on a 250 psi boiler up in Milwaukee and everything was going smooth until I pressure tested it. One of the new tubes had a pinhole leak right at the backsheet weld. Took me three tries to get the weld to hold because the gap was too tight for my 6010 rod to get good penetration. I ended up having to grind it out and use a smaller tungsten to reach in there. Anybody else run into this kind of problem on tight tube layouts?

That one week I ruined six yards of expensive Italian wool

I was working on a custom suit for a client and kept making tiny mistakes with the cutting pattern, ended up wasting about $300 worth of fabric before I realized my seam allowance guide was loose. Has anyone else had a string of bad luck like that where you just couldn't figure out the simple stuff?

Hit 500 yards of carpet installed last month. Finally paid off my truck.

Ngl, I was keeping loose track but didn't realize I crossed 500 square yards of carpet installed in January alone. I run my own landscaping business but picked up extra carpet work from a buddy in Denver. Has anyone else hit a number that surprised them like that? How do you track your yardage for the year?

A senior tech told me I was reading wiring diagrams all wrong, and he was right

Been doing avionics for about 7 years now, and I always thought I was pretty good at tracing circuits. Then this old-timer, Frank, watched me work on a 737NG in Phoenix last month and just shook his head. He said I was reading the diagram like a book left to right when I should be following the power flow from the source to the load and ignoring everything else on the page. I felt like an idiot but I tried it on a tricky hydraulic pump relay issue the next day, and I found the short in about 10 minutes instead of an hour. Now I tape a piece of paper over the parts of the schematic I'm not working on so my eyes don't wander. Has anyone else had a basic habit like that totally changed by a grumpy senior tech?

Finally beat that 4 player boss after 5 attempts last night

My group and I were stuck on the Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion final scenario for like 3 hours. We kept forgetting to use our items and that cost us every time until round 7. Anyone else have a board game boss that took way more tries than expected?

The whole "don't feed chickens scraps" thing is way overblown in my opinion

I've been keeping chickens for about 4 years now here in Austin. Last spring I had a neighbor tell me I was gonna kill my birds because I threw them some leftover pasta salad. But I've always given them kitchen leftovers (within reason, you know) and they're fine. Healthiest they've ever been actually. My vet even said a little variety is good for them as long as you avoid the bad stuff like avocado pits and raw beans. So where did this idea come from that chickens can only eat layer feed? Anyone else get lectured about this and just ignore it?

Compared staying in a hostel dorm versus a capsule hotel in Tokyo last month...

The hostel dorm was $30 a night but I got zero sleep because of snoring, while the capsule hotel was $45 and I actually woke up rested, so the extra $15 was totally worth it for noise control.

Pro tip: It took me 3 years to stop using a multimeter on every single wire

I used to test every wire I touched with my Fluke before doing anything else, even if I just pulled it out of a harness an hour ago. My old lead at the repair station in Phoenix drilled it into me that you never assume a wire is dead or clean. Last month on a King Air pitot-static check, I spent 45 minutes chasing a bad connection that turned out to be a loose pin I already tested twice. That changed how I work because now I focus more on the physical connection first before grabbing my meter. I still test, but I look for bent pins or corrosion with my eyes before I ever clip a lead on. Has anyone else had to unlearn a habit that slowed you down more than it helped?