My fish tape snapped inside a conduit run yesterday

Was pulling some Cat6 through a tight bend in an old office building and heard a loud pop. Had to cut the cable and start over, which wasted about 45 minutes. Anyone got a trick for getting a broken tape out without having to re-pull everything?

PSA: Saw a deck in Seattle with the posts just sitting on gravel, no concrete at all.

A guy at the meetup in Austin said something about keycaps that stuck with me

He was showing off his build, and when I asked about the keycaps, he just said, 'I don't buy sets anymore, I just hunt for the one perfect key for each spot.' He had a board full of mismatched caps, each one he really liked. It happened last month, and I've been thinking about it ever since. Has anyone else tried building a board like that, one key at a time?

That week in '09 when we had to lift a 15-ton generator onto a hospital roof with a 40-year-old mobile crane.

Remember that Tuesday last fall when the Edmonton Chat site just... went down for like 8 hours?

Showerthought: A flight attendant in Tokyo showed me the real power of packing cubes

She saw me struggling to close my bag at the gate and said, 'Rolling is good, but cubes make a system.' I switched to using three medium cubes for clothes, and it cut my packing time in half. Has anyone else found a specific tool that made carry-on way easier?

Found a weird trick for a tough clinch on a draft horse

I was working on a big Belgian yesterday, the kind with feet like dinner plates, and I just could not get the clinch to sit right on the last nail. My usual method of a quick tap with the clinch block wasn't cutting it. Out of ideas, I called up my old mentor, Frank, who told me something I'd never heard: try a drop of hoof oil on the clinch point before you drive it. I was sure he was messing with me, but I had a bottle of Fiebing's in my truck. I put one tiny drop on, drove the nail, and it folded over smooth as butter on the first hit. He said the oil reduces just enough friction to let the metal bend without cracking or springing back. I've been shoeing for a while and never thought of that. Has anyone else used a little lube for a stubborn clinch, or is this some old-timer secret?

Question about a stubborn client's hair color that wouldn't lift evenly

After three failed attempts with a standard 30 volume developer, I finally got a clean, even base by mixing a small amount of clarifying shampoo directly into the lightener before applying it to her resistant sections.

Shoutout to my friend who finally got me to watch 'Severance' last month

I put it off for ages, but we did a full season in one weekend on her couch in Chicago. The show hooked me so hard I forgot to check my phone for like three hours straight. What's a show that grabbed you that way from the very first episode?

Was sure a hoof stand was a waste of money until a vet in Boise said something.

I was trimming a big draft horse for a client and the vet, Dr. Miller, was out for a checkup. He watched me hunch over and said, 'Your back's gonna be shot by fifty, man. That stand isn't for the horse, it's for you.' I bought a basic one the next day. How many of you guys use one regularly, and did it take you a while to get used to it?