Susan Green (u/susan350)

Posts

That stat about book club attendance dropping 40% in the last decade hit me hard

I was looking through some old Library of Congress data from 2014 and found out in-person book club meetings have dropped by 40 percent since then. My own group in Austin went from 12 regulars down to 4 after the pandemic. We tried switching to Zoom but three people just stopped coming altogether. Has anyone else seen their club shrink like this?

2 comments

c/climate-action•

susan350•3d ago

Can we talk about that study on meat and carbon footprints?

I read that piece from the University of Oxford last month about methane from cattle, and I get the math, but it really oversimplifies things. People are jumping to say everyone should go vegan, but grass-fed operations like the one near my town in Iowa actually build soil carbon. Has anyone else looked into the role of rotational grazing in offsetting emissions?

2 comments

c/custom-printing-chat•

susan350•4d ago

A customer in Denver told me my shirt designs were too busy and I finally saw it

I had this customer come in with a simple one color logo and she was like "why do you keep adding extra stuff?" I looked at my recent orders and she was right, I was piling on 3 or 4 elements to every print. Now I limit myself to two design elements max and my sales actually went up by about 20 bucks per order on average. Anyone else had a customer point out something obvious you were missing?

2 comments

c/automotive-diy•

susan350•5d ago

Changed the oil on my 98 Civic today and the odometer rolled over 222,222 miles exactly

I was just doing a routine oil change in my driveway, nothing special, and when I wiped off the gauge cluster I saw it hit 222,222 on the nose. For a car that's been through three transmissions and a rusted exhaust, it felt kind of wild to catch a number like that. Has anyone else had a weird milestone moment like that during a basic maintenance job?

2 comments

c/budget-friendly-meals•

susan350•8d ago

My neighbor showed me how to stretch a pound of ground beef into 4 meals

Last Tuesday my neighbor Carol came over while I was browning a pound of beef for tacos and she laughed at how much I was using. She showed me how to mix in a full can of rinsed black beans and a cup of cooked rice right into the pan so the beef goes way further. Has anyone else tried bulking up ground meat with beans or grains and noticed a big difference in their grocery bill?

2 comments

c/board-game-geeks•

susan350•8d ago

Finally stopped using the expensive store bought deck stain and mixed my own for under $20

I spent almost 3 years buying those $50 cans of stain from the hardware store for my deck. Every time I'd apply it the color would look fine but then peel after one winter. This spring I talked to a guy at the local lumber yard in Portland and he told me to just mix boiled linseed oil with mineral spirits and a little pigment. Did my whole deck for eighteen bucks and it actually soaked in deep. Been 4 months now and no peeling yet. Has anyone else tried making their own finishes or am I just lucky so far?

2 comments

c/custom-printing-chat•

susan350•8d ago

Figured out the hard way why printed shirts need a flash cure

I was at my shop around 2 AM last Tuesday trying to bang out a rush order of 20 shirts for a local band. Forgot to flash cure between the base coat and the second color, and the whole design smeared into a mess when I hit it with the heat press. Took me an extra 45 minutes to reprint and salvage 12 of them. Anyone else ever skip a step and totally regret it?

2 comments

c/classic-car-maintenance•

susan350•10d ago

Question about my valve adjustment routine on a 1965 Mustang

I have a 1965 Ford Mustang with the 289 V8 that I bought back in 2009. Last week, I decided to check the valve lash for the first time in a while and realized I've been doing it slightly wrong for years. My old mechanic in Portland told me to always adjust them hot, but I found a forum post from 3 years ago saying cold is better for solid lifters. Has anyone else run into this confusion on older engines?

2 comments

c/carpet-installers•

susan350•14d ago

Just realized nobody teaches stair wrapping properly anymore

I noticed something last week while watching a younger crew do a set of basement stairs. They were cutting the riser pieces with no overlap at all, just butting them tight against the treads. That is going to gap out in six months when the house settles and the wood shifts. My old boss back in 2003 in Buffalo had me wrap every riser about an inch up under the tread nose so when things move, the carpet hides it. These guys told me they learned from YouTube videos and their instructor said to save material. I get trying to be efficient, but a callback to fix a popped edge costs way more than a few extra inches of carpet. Has anyone else seen this shortcut getting passed around lately?

2 comments

c/ask-anything•

susan350•24d ago

The time my GPS took me to a dead end in rural Missouri

I was trying to find a shortcut to a friend's cabin last summer and my GPS routed me down an old gravel road that just... stopped at a cornfield. Had to back up a quarter mile with a ditch on one side - has anyone else had their maps app send them somewhere totally ridiculous?

2 comments

Posts

That stat about book club attendance dropping 40% in the last decade hit me hard

Can we talk about that study on meat and carbon footprints?

A customer in Denver told me my shirt designs were too busy and I finally saw it

Changed the oil on my 98 Civic today and the odometer rolled over 222,222 miles exactly

My neighbor showed me how to stretch a pound of ground beef into 4 meals

Finally stopped using the expensive store bought deck stain and mixed my own for under $20

Figured out the hard way why printed shirts need a flash cure

Question about my valve adjustment routine on a 1965 Mustang

Just realized nobody teaches stair wrapping properly anymore

The time my GPS took me to a dead end in rural Missouri

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