My flight to Mexico City cost half as much this year

I booked the same trip for this October as I did last year, and the price dropped from $580 to $290. The only change was switching my search from a Tuesday to a Wednesday morning, which I read about in a blog post. Has anyone else found a specific day that works best for certain airports?

Talked to a retired operator at the Port of Tacoma and he changed my mind on sediment checks

I was grabbing coffee near the yard and got talking to a guy named Frank who ran a cutter suction dredge for 30 years. He said he never started a shift without checking the sediment sample from the exact spot he'd be working, not just the general area survey. He told me about a job in '98 where the survey said fine silt but they hit a patch of old concrete rubble that wrecked a pump because no one checked the specific spot. I've been skipping that step to save time, but now I'm thinking it's worth the extra 15 minutes. How many of you actually pull a fresh sample from the exact cut point before you start?

I paid $300 to get my great-grandma's locket 'professionally cleaned' and they stripped the patina right off it

Walked into a bike shop in Portland and saw a full wall of old Campagnolo tools

It was a small shop on Alberta Street, and the owner had them all hung up like art, even the weird ones for 70s bottom brackets. He said he got them from a retired mechanic who closed his shop in 1990. What's the oldest or most obscure tool you still use on a regular basis?

Warning: A sudden silt surge in the Mississippi delta almost took out our pump impeller

We were working a channel near Venice, Louisiana, when the suction head hit a pocket of pure, thick silt that the sonar didn't catch. The whole rig shuddered and the pressure gauge spiked past 80 psi in a second. I killed the pump flow and had the deckhand back us off slowly to clear the line before anything locked up solid. Anyone else had a close call with unexpected bottom material that the maps didn't show?

Found my great-grandpa's old axe head in a barn corner, it was a total wreck

It was under a pile of old hay, covered in rust and the handle was long gone. I spent about two weekends cleaning it up with vinegar and a wire brush, then put a new hickory handle on it. The old stamp from 'J. Miller & Sons, 1912' is clear as day now. Has anyone else brought a tool back from looking like junk?