MrZee

What’s “flat chat”? I don’t/haven’t ever done AA. I know a lot of bits and pieces - my mom kicked the habit through AA 25ish years ago.

I had close to two years once in the past. And a year or so another time. Complacency and “forgetting” what it was like are the insidious things that led to me relapsing. “I can drink responsibly” was such an easy lie I told myself because things were feeling easy. Thankfully I’ve learned that lesson and plan to not forget it.

44 days, I take it?

The first few days and weeks were the hardest, of course, but around two months in it would also get a lot easier for me. That’s when it stopped becoming such a frequent thought and I’d even have days where drinking wouldn’t come to mind. Stay strong. Keep it up!

Thanks! You can do it!

I don’t know how many times I had quit drinking before it stuck. Never quit quitting.

I lost track of when I had quit drinking a year or two ago. I was pretty sure it was during the first quarter but couldn’t remember if I quit in 2021 or 2022. I’d tried searching through old messages and stuff but didn’t have any luck.

I just figured out that bank statements would tell me. Looking back, my last liquor store purchase was late March 2021… so I just hit 4 years sober a week or two ago.

I haven’t felt a desire to drink in a long time and it’s really really nice. I went through the worst 6 months of my life last year and worried at the start of it that I would find myself “needing” to drink. But somehow, I never even felt tempted. It kinda blows my mind. 1,465 days without alcohol. That’s a lot of days.

There’s no way in hell I’m drinking today. No question.

Per the article itself, the town voted 47% Trump, 51% Harris in the election. The article title calling that a “Trump-loving” town seems disingenuous.

I suspect the problem there revolves around “how fast can you produce hydrogen?” Generally, oversupply events (and resulting negative prices) are brief. To take advantage of oversupply / negative prices, hydrogen production (or other energy storage) needs to be able to convert energy to storage very quickly.

I don’t know much about hydrogen plants, but I would guess that they aren’t super “peaky” — meaning they don’t have the capacity to ramp up and generate a lot of hydrogen quickly like they would need to really take advantage of the situation. If that is the case, hydrogen plants can still take advantage (simultaneously helping the grid and helping to stabilize prices) but not to the extent we would like.

“Worker owned and non profit companies should have a free pass to be anti-consumer,” sounds like the less popular opinion to me.

My friends and family absolutely know and see what is happening. When I go to the park and walk, I often hear people talking about what is happening (from the angle of “this is insane; how are they getting away with this.” The lady that manages the corner store that I chat with sees what’s going on. The people I work with are very aware.

Most of the people I know are scared and feel powerless to do anything about it. Of course, some are more aware than others and some are more scared than others, but they are at least moderately aware.

BUT, I live in a very liberal city and the people I just talked about are people I choose to associate with. My sample is heavily skewed.

I also run into a lot of people that are pro Trump. Drive 10 miles outside the city and you start running into a lot more MAGA folks. There are also people that avoid politics and are good at sticking their heads in the sand. Somehow they manage to remain unaware. Ignorance seems to be a concerningly common American trait.

BTW, OP, there’s a good chance the “both sides” people you know are republicans but are embarrassed to admit it. They’re the quiet trumpers — the ones that chose to elect a criminal who tried to violently overthrow the government four years ago. Unlike the rabid, loud MAGA folks, they are uncomfortable talking about this stuff because they know people find their views abhorrent. They use “both sides” as a method to indirectly defend their views without having to admit to having them.

Either that or they’re willfully ignorant about what is going on around them. But I find willfully ignorance and Repubicanism go hand in hand.

In order:

Finished building a wood “skirt” for under my daughter’s bed frame (to prevent her cat from using Underbedland as her jungle gym in the middle of the night). Used 1x5 pine. Cut some decorative edge work on the pieces. I attached the skirt that goes on the long edge of the bed with hinges (recessed into the skirt), so that she can lift up the skirt and store stuff under the bed. I put on magnetic latches so cat can’t do the same. Stained it and finished with polyurethane. It was gold practice on finishing work.

Took apart the passenger door of girlfriend’s truck and fixed a bunch of stuff. I disassembled and cleaned the window switch (yay, the window rolls up again!). Cleaned and lubed the window mechanism. Spliced two cut wires on the door lock. Replaced some missing bolts. Rewrapped wire bundles. Wrapped loose wires. Rerouted wires so they wouldn’t get cut again, made and installed a vapor barrier (the original was MIA). After seeing how bad things were in that door, I need to do the other doors too.

Started some serious setup work on an acoustic guitar (Gibson hummingbird). Fret height was pretty variable. I leveled the frets. Started recrowning all the frets - got through half of them. Once I finish recrowning, Next will be setting neck relief, cutting nut slots deeper (first fret action is currently atrocious), adjusting the bridge down, and maybe some intonation work.

Fully disassembled a Walter Creed 9mm pistol that somehow had sand inside it. Thoroughly cleaned everything, oiled, and reassembled. I seem to have fixed it, but haven’t tested everything yet.

Designed a folding adjustable arm rest to mount on top of the center console of my truck. (Designed, not built. Yet)

My best guess is to use a spray lacquer for enamel, such as this:

https://a.co/d/ixJ7knW

I suspect the “brass” over zinc that is on that clip isn’t just brass - if it were brass plated zinc, I’d be totally comfortable using that spray lacquer over it. Instead, it’s probably some type of brass colored paint (or paint containing actual brass.

This means that you have mystery paint (and mystery “enamel”) that you are trying to coat. Because of that, no matter what top coat you choose, there is a chance it won’t work well and the solvents in the top coat could melt/harm the clip.

But… if I were in your situation, I would try the spray above and cross my fingers.

If you go that route:

Gently dab a bit of rubbing alcohol somewhere that you won’t be too sad if it hurts the finish. Give it a little rub. If it doesn’t mess with the finish, then you’re probably good to use rubbing alcohol to do final cleaning before top coating with lacquer.

Spray a tiny bit of the lacquer on a something (like the corner of a paper towel. immediately rub it on a spot on the clip to do the same type of test. Is the finish ok? Then you’re probably good to proceed.

Before spraying, clean the clip gently but thoroughly with dish soap and water. Rinse well. Dry well.

Give the thing a good rub with a soft cloth and rubbing alcohol to get any other remnants/grease off the clip before painting.

Give the clip a light coat of spray enamel. Follow directions for ambient temperature and recoat time. Give it another coat a bit heavier. Maybe even a third.

Let it dry and cure for a long time. The lacquer will seem completely dry and “done” after a day, but it won’t be fully cured. Giving it time to fully harden before messing with it too much.

Other notes: dust is your enemy. It’ll stick to your top coat while it’s drying. Try to minimize dust and similar nasties.

If you haven’t done used spray cans much, learn to use them first. Do a practice pass on something you don’t care about. It’s really easy to put on too much and have your clearcoat run. No fun.

This person is correct.

I’ve finished, painted, sealed, and repaired enough stuff to know that “maybe try clear nail polish” is a terrible idea for OP.

Nail polish is very hard to get to go on smoothly over a large area and OP is very likely to end up with an uneven or marred finish. If you just put down nail polish, you are not going to get a lasting finish on much of any material without cleaning and degreasing it first.

I would clean/degrease (I don’t know what to use as I can’t tell what the material is). I would lean toward using some type of spray top coat (again, I don’t know which product because I don’t know the material). You still need to know how to spray on finishes, but I find it much easier to do well than brush on finishes.

Yep. Ken Chang is a comedian and does LinkedIn satire.