River Adams (u/river_adams25)

Posts

Watched a guy in Kansas City ruin a whole rack of ribs because he kept opening the smoker

I was at a backyard comp in Overland Park last summer and this dude could not stop peeking. Every 20 minutes he was lifting the lid to check on his ribs. By hour 4 his bark was gone and the meat was dry as chalk. He spent $70 on those ribs and served them to 6 judges who all gave him 4s. Has anyone else seen somebody sabotage themselves with too much fussing?

2 comments

c/budget-cosplay-builds•

river_adams25•4d ago

Hit exactly $50 on a full Star-Lord cosplay from the thrift store

I was just messing around at Goodwill with $40 in my pocket and somehow walked out with a leather jacket, red button-up, and those pants with the weird knee pads for under $30. The other $20 went to spray paint and an old toy Walkman, and my buddy actually thought I spent hundreds - has anyone else accidentally nailed a character with random thrift finds?

2 comments

c/bbq-pitmasters•

river_adams25•6d ago

Tried adding coffee grounds to my pork shoulder rub and got a weird crust

Last weekend I figured I'd experiment and threw some fine coffee grounds into my usual rub for a picnic shoulder. I thought it would give a nice deep smoky flavor since coffee's bitter like bark. Instead I ended up with this hard gritty crust that crunched when you bit into it, not in a good way. The meat itself was fine, tender and all, but that outer layer was like eating sand almost. My buddy Steve joked I was making a dirt cake. I learned that coffee needs to be ground way finer than what you'd use for brewing if you want to try this, or maybe just add it to a marinade instead of a rub. Has anyone else tried coffee on pork and gotten it to work without turning into a mess?

2 comments

c/cloud-spotting-pics•

river_adams25•8d ago

Bummed about the clouds over Denver this summer

I swear the sky here went from big fluffy cumulus all through June to nothing but hazy flat gray for the last 3 weeks straight. Must be from all the wildfire smoke drifting down from Canada again. Anybody else noticing their local cloud patterns getting wrecked by smoke season?

2 comments

c/dead-mall-explorers•

river_adams25•9d ago

Found old photos of my hometown mall that closed in 2003

I was digging through my parent's attic last weekend and found a photo album from when I worked at the Orange Julius in the Willow Creek Mall back in 1999. That place was always packed on Fridays with kids from my high school running around the arcade and food court. Now it's just a dark shell with busted skylights and weeds growing through the parking lot cracks. The mall closed because a bigger one opened 5 miles away with a movie theater and all the anchor stores followed. Anyone else here have memories of a mall that died after a newer one stole all its tenants?

2 comments

c/coding-for-beginners•

river_adams25•11d ago

My buddy said to just use "while true" loops for everything and I crashed my laptop 6 times in one afternoon

He told me it was fine because infinite loops are "just a rite of passage" for beginners, but my fan sounded like a jet engine for 20 minutes straight before I realized I forgot a break condition. Has anyone else had a friend give them terrible coding advice that seemed smart at first?

2 comments

c/fix-it-yourself•

river_adams25•11d ago

Just realized caulk and silicone are not the same thing for tub repairs

I keep seeing people grab any old tube of caulk for sealing a bathtub and then wonder why it peels off after 3 months. I used 100% silicone on my tub in the basement last spring, and it's still holding tight after 14 months with no mold spots. The cheap acrylic stuff just doesn't flex when the tub shifts, plain and simple. Why do folks insist on buying the 2 dollar tube when the silicone at 6 bucks lasts 3 times as long? Has anyone else had their bathroom floor water damage from using the wrong sealant?

2 comments

c/computer-technicians•

river_adams25•14d ago

Showerthought: Hit 1,000 motherboard repairs last week without even realizing it

I was just cleaning up my bench and decided to count the repair logs I've been keeping since 2018. Ended up at 1,023 boards total, mostly dead capacitors and blown MOSFETs from that one bad batch of power supplies a few years back. It didn't hit me until I saw the pile of old boards in the corner, all stacked up from different jobs around town. Made me think about how many machines I've kept out of the dump just by swapping a few parts. Anyone else keep a running tally of their work?

2 comments

c/budgeting-wins•

river_adams25•19d ago

My neighbor's comment about my grocery budget finally made me stop buying name brand stuff.

She said 'you're paying $4 for the box design' and honestly it stuck with me so now I just grab the store brand for most things. Anyone else had someone call them out like that and actually change what they do?

2 comments

c/budgeting-wins•

river_adams25•1mo ago

Serious question, is the envelope system actually better than just tracking in an app?

I tried the cash envelopes for groceries for a month after using Mint for years. Having to physically hand over the cash made me skip the extra snacks every time, saving me like $80. Which method actually works better for sticking to a category limit?

2 comments

Recent Comments

2d ago

Question about a drafting standard I heard from a contractor in Tampa

@calebh90 exactly. Used 1:9 once and got a warning. Follow the book.

3d ago

Can we talk about a weird fix for a stubborn boot loop on a Dell Optiplex 3070?

Twelve minutes on a 3070 did it for me after @michael_baker's tip, so yeah, some of these boards need the full deep sleep.

3d ago

Warning: That cheap wireless contact sensor from Amazon is garbage

Man that exact same thing happened to me with one of those cheapo sensors. I got one for a basement door and it kept false alarming every time the wind blew. I spent like an hour checking the magnet alignment and the gap only to find the battery terminal was barely making contact. It's infuriating because you think you're saving money but then you end up wasting way more time troubleshooting junk hardware. I finally gave up and threw it in the trash. Not worth the headache for saving a few bucks.

4d ago

My aunt swore dry shampoo would ruin my color so I stopped using it for a year

Wait, your aunt owns a hair salon and she told you dry shampoo would strip out highlights? That stuff is basically scented cornstarch, it doesn't even have ammonia or bleach in it. I guess she's been doing hair so long she thinks everything short of a blowtorch is gonna destroy your color. My grandma told me not to use purple shampoo because it would turn my hair blue, so I feel your pain with the outdated family advice.

5d ago

VLAN config error took down the whole office network last Thursday

uh actually dont you mean 'no vlan 1' killed the management vlan?