Can we talk about the 1,200 mark I just hit in my bullet journal?

I was flipping through my notebook this morning (a Leuchtturm1917, nothing fancy) and realized I've logged over 1,200 individual tasks since I started in January. That's about 40 tasks a week just from my daily logs alone. What surprised me is that I actually completed about 85% of them, which I found out by scanning back through my migration arrows and X marks. I never would have guessed I finish that many, feels like I'm always leaving things undone. Has anyone else ever counted their completed tasks and been surprised by the number?

Talked to an older ham radio guy at breakfast and it got me thinking about dish design

I was at a diner in Tucson last Saturday and this retired engineer saw my notebook with satellite frequency scribbles. He said I was overthinking the reflector shape and that a simple offset feed works better for most free signals than those fancy prime focus builds. He pulled out a napkin and drew what he called a "cheap pizza pan setup" that he used back in the 80s to catch NASA weather satellites. Now I'm wondering if I've been making this too complicated... has anyone else gone simple and seen better results?

Can we talk about that $80 wireless bridge I bought on a whim?

Last month I grabbed a wireless bridge from some random online store to skip running a cable across a parking lot. Figured it would save me a few hours of trenching. Got it hooked up and it dropped signal every time a delivery truck rolled past. Total waste of 80 bucks and a whole Saturday. Anyone else get burned by cheap wireless gear when a simple wire would have worked?

Hit 50 nights in hostels across Europe this year and I'm split on whether it's worth it anymore

Had a line cook tell me mise en place is overrated and I laughed at first

I was working a Friday dinner rush near Portland last week and my new guy kept skipping his prep. He said he works better on the fly and mise en place just slows him down. I was ready to write him up but then I watched him handle a 50-cover walk-in without breaking a sweat. He never missed a ticket and his station was cleaner than mine at the end. Am I wrong for letting him keep doing it his way or is there a line somewhere?

Update: That 'quick' brake pad replacement on my Subaru took 6 hours instead of 1

I thought it'd be a simple afternoon job, but the caliper pins were seized solid from rust. Had to drive to three different auto parts stores to find a slide pin kit nobody stocks. Has anyone else had a supposedly quick car repair totally blow up on them like this?

That student who shouted me down in the library last week still bothers me

I was sitting in the campus library on Tuesday, just reading a book on historical free speech cases for my poli sci class. A girl I'd never seen before walked up to my table, saw the cover, and said that book was "harmful" because it included quotes from people who held racist views 100 years ago. She told me I should only read materials that "uplift marginalized voices" and that engaging with old arguments was a waste of time. I tried to explain that understanding bad ideas is how we learn to counter them, but she cut me off and said I was part of the problem. She walked away before I could even finish my sentence, and I just sat there feeling like I'd done something wrong for wanting to learn. Has anyone else had a situation where a single student decided what you could read or study?

Tried to hide a camera in a smoke detector in my kitchen, my neighbor spotted it in 2 minutes

Last Tuesday I put a small lens inside a fake smoke detector from Amazon, $15 part. My neighbor came over to borrow sugar and looked right at it. He said 'is that a camera or are you just really worried about burns?' I didn't even know what to say. Has anyone had luck with a different household item that doesn't look so obvious?

The analog camera bug I found in my dad's old workshop

I was cleaning out my dad's garage and stumbled on a old VHS camcorder from the 90s. Found out it still had a tape inside with three hours of our family dinners recorded. Really made me think how we traded real memories for cloud storage no one ever looks at. Anyone else ever dig up old footage and feel weird about it?

Appreciation post: the diver who talked me out of quitting after a bad day at Port Fourchon

I was about to throw my gear in the truck and drive home after a rough 80 foot dive where my comms kept cutting out. This old timer named Mike saw me packing up and just said 'first time your gear fights you, huh?' and offered to help me tune my through-water system right there on the dock. He showed me a trick with the earphone placement that made everything clear in like 10 minutes. Has anyone else had a random guy on a job site save your whole day like that?