u/AliMcGraw

I want advice from AITAngel posters, not AITA posters. Like, I absolutely hate this kid my daughter is friends with, but I don't need AITA teenager input, I need the sober minds of AITAngel. Can we make an advice post where people ask for local advice? I need it, I hate this kid so much.

Can anybody point me to an attenuator on Amazon that'll ship quick, that uses a UHF connection? The radio side is UHF female.

Cheaper (but still functional) is better, my kid is hunting using a homemade antenna of PVC pipe and measuring tape!

Hello all, my 13-year-old got his extra license and I am a mere tech (and frankly it was a big lift that I only managed so I could take him to ham events!). We got him a Yaesu FT-710 for his birthday and now I need a power source. Given when I paid for the damn HF radio (and I got a bargain!), I'd like to be as economical as possible for the power source, but it needs a power source!

His birthday is Monday and I am in driving distance of Milwaukee so I can totally go up and buy something but he can also wait a week and get something shipped. His "ham shack" is his desk which is under his bunk bed (desk and shelves), and he has a covered semi-outdoor space as well for soldering, antenna use, and miscellaneous ham activities. We have "normal" outlets in the house but higher-power outlets in the garage (my electric car plugs into the garage).

The house was built in 1945 so I trust no electrical in the house to run anything cool. It's more likely to short out half the house. The garage is better!

I mentioned this in a thread and I wanted to highlight it as a post: If it is at all possible, join a teen/adult or kid/adult book club. (Libraries often host them!) Read The Hunger Games with teens in your life, or The Mysterious Benedict Society with younger kids! Choose for your adult book club something all the local kids are reading, and have that as your next book and invite the kids whose parents are in your book club to read along with you and come to the meeting. Nothing will reignite your love of reading like reading some kinda dumb teen fiction, but discussing it very seriously with teenagers who ADORE it. It's an easy and quick read for you, but it's an intense read for the teens in your life, and hosting a discussion where the kids talk about their takeaways and the adults share (carefully!) their thoughts is an absolute delight.

Another idea in this vein is, my middle schooler's English teacher told me he wasn't doing very well at "annotating texts" or reading closely. So I thought long and hard about a book he'd enjoy, and I settled on "Good Morning, Midnight" (2016), which is about a non-specific apocalypse on Earth where the only survivors are a grumpy astronomer and a spaceship coming back from Jupiter. I read one chapter and annotated it as if I were reading it for a college class, writing thoughts in the margin and underlining important passages, and then he'd read my chapter and argue with my annotations in the margins, and then read the next and annotate it. And then I'd read his chapter and argue with him, and go on to the next one, and we went back and forth, having a conversation in the margins and highlighting everything we thought might be worth writing a paper about (or arguing about).

The "carrot" at the end of the "stick" of reading a novel he wasn't totally sure he wanted to read (although he liked it!) was that he'd get to watch The Midnight Sky, which is the worst possible movie adaptation of a book ever, because it's not really a book that lends itself to adaptation AND ALSO the science is insane, which pleased my science-loving kid.

On the very last page we both signed our names and dated when we finished it, and I've seen the book on his "most important books" shelves next to the novels he's reading for school.

Read with kids! Reignite your love of reading dumb books, and discuss books with kids and teenagers that are HUGE to them, even if they're routine to you. You'll learn to love dumb books again if you get to read them with kids!

I have a new period drama pet peeve! When someone pats a baby or a toddler on the butt and you can hear the plasticy sound of a modern diaper.

Cover it up in post!

When Rocky rolls aboard Grace's ship and is creating havoc and Grace reverts to a junior high school teacher and says, "My hand is up!" and expects Rocky to stop moving around and start listening.

I didn't catch it on first watch, but my mom taught junior high for 30 years and on rewatch the entire scene after "My hand is up!" cracks my shit up. It's so perfect. It's such a teacher way to talk!

I notice a lot of you finish edges and all gold to lettering and so on -- how do you decide when to do that, and which tools exactly do you use? I'd like to give it a try but with my luck I'd buy the wrong thing!