u/DirtyOught

when i pick up a new hobby or task or project, i hyperfocus on it and all the details. i research endlessly about the perfect way to do it, and am often left completely unsatisfied if i dont reach 99% perfection. even getting 80% of the way there, others would say "WOW look at what you did!". where I see all the imperfections.

this takes over EVERYTHING i do.

when getting new septic lines installed, i took 1mo researching. by the final quote the contractor said "wow... you sure do know a lot about septic for someone not in the industry"

My best example is me trying to grow grass in our back acre. we are surrounded by woods and have a wild native flowers/praire but our main "lawn" was bare dirt. so i wanted grass for dogs and future kids to play in.

I'm not a "mid-aged lawn guy". i roll my eyes at lawn nuts. We have tons of woods, wildflowers, landscaping and other things to care for that i can't be out there just watering grass. "i dont want a golf course, just some grass" is what i said at the start.

But then it snowballs. I hyperfocus and fixate on everything about it and it consumes my mindspace.

Today... we have grass everywhere. Better than i could've asked for 3mo ago when it was all dirt. My former self would've been thrilled.

But now im in the stage of hyperfixating on all the imperfections. looking at precipitation forecasts, calculating fertilizer, adjusting ph of soil, wondering why one section is brown, worrying about it, thinking if i need irrigation system next year, no thats $10k you idiot. how could i get enough sand in my backyard to level it out, do i scalp it next spring like the lawn nuts do, i should start watering our rainfall hasn't been over 1" in a week, i need to sharpen my mower blades, the tilt of the mower is 1/4" off, i need another soil test. i shouldn't have laid nitrogen down without rain fall ugh, i have 15% crabgrass, no one else notices but i see exactly where it is, wow that rain cloud missed us by 1/2 a mile and i could've used the rain...etc

I stopped just now and said "wtf. this is exactly what i wanted and more. why am i back to hyperfixating on this. i have other things to do"

This happens with everything i do. I cannot stop it. I have always called this "hyperfixating" but that might be misunderstanding it. just figured i share to see if others do this too. its a gift in that my wife is often very happy with projects/tasks/how i care for things, and i has made me very good at my job... but its a curse because i can never just do something once and be happy. and i often am left disastistfied

moved to upstate SC from Ohio Valley and trying to understand difference in summer thunderstorms/rain.

in Midwest, we could go june-aug without much rain. but when we did, it was more predictable via larger fronts moving in. higher likelihood of knowing if you’re getting rain on a certain day.

in SC, our weather forecasts are similar to tropical areas (ie Florida). you could see 10 straight days of “20-45% rain”. and those days are a “mix of sun, mixed clouds, might rain, who knows… no rain rest of the day, JUST KIDDING HERES HALF AN INCH FROM A SMALLER RAIN CLOUD”

From what I understand the Midwest was driven by fronts of mixing air.

SC driven by ground humidity and constant cycle of heating the moist air until it rises and mixes with cooler air above. Unlike passing through fronts (but they can still happen).

ground instability in moisture and hot temps create rain pockets and scattered clouds. That rain then kinda sits on the ground due to lots of factors: humidity Makes it hard for it to evaporate quickly + clay soil makes it linger longer + etc. then sun heats it up again. And repeat the cycle of scattered thunderstorms and rain pockets throughout the summer.

unless there is a front coming through, it’s often useless looking at rain forecast in the area. Might happen might not. And if it does, it’s usually for 1-2hr max.

is this about right? What other nuance am I missing?

current have Toro electric 60V with 2 batteries.

I live on 1+ acre of lawn and my Toro is generally fine for daily lawn clippings. But I hate having to charge multiple batteries.

I also have one big oak tree that produces lots of leaves. In the fall, I simply blow them out and mulch them with mower. But my toro batteries only go so far on one charge. my Biggest complaint currently isn’t the power but limited life before the battery goes out

I do have woods (2 more acres) but their leaves stay contained in the wood line. maybe I’ll use the blower to make a trail in the fall to walk through. Backpack would help

Husqvarna 150BT seems to be the highest CFM and best blower for residential before jumping up in price to commercial $500-600+ range.

currently on sale for $300 at Lowe’s.

anyone have this? i feel like it’s what I need Given my electric Toro is generally fine and I want gas for longer life and a little more power in fall. I know I can get a BIFL blower at $800+ but that feels overkill

You’d think boomer-era parents would opt out of AI. 

Father been using GPT more and more and early successes with it (like asking “who was in this movie”) led to him thinking it was amazing. Now it’s his go-to and trusting it over me sometimes. 

Working on my boat engine issue I diagnosed it with more experience than him and going through my trouble shooting slowly figuring out things. He sends a GPT-list of “what’s wrong and how to fix it”. Had to tell him it was completely wrong, and would damage my boat if so. ”my boat doesn’t even have a carb, and running it like that is doing more damaged than good. plus I ruled out half that stuff. trust me I don’t want to ruin this engine”

Makes me want to scream “WHY DONT YOU TRUST ME? Why GPT is more trustworthy than me??”

Other day I saw it lead him astray instead of doing old school basic thinking. 

dad: “Yeah boat battery is dead. GPT told me this orange light means it’s wiring issue or battery is cooked”

Me: “dad… that orange battery means the charger is turned off. you didn’t tell GPT about this charger model number or anything for it to look up. It just spit slop back and sounded confident and you blindly follow it. Watch…” *flick* “see now it’s green and charging”

Later that day I get a text: “GPT said it would be charged in 6-8hrs. 7 hours in and it’s back 100%. It was right again”

Smh

Diagnosing an issue where my outboard fails at higher RPMs then fails to startup again. I can recreate on muffs, but then a quick search told me NOT to do that as the prop needs water resistance.

It was upping from 750 RPM idle up towards 4000-5000 RPM max over 30-60seconds.

Is my only option to take it to the lake and just have a buddy tow me back every time I wanna see if I fixed "worked or not"?

Or can I do this on muffs in a way thats safe?

• Triglycerides: 60
• Cholesterol: 236
• HDL: 68
• LDL-C: 156
• CLDL Calc: 12

Primary care doctor didn't seem as concerned and just said via message: "work on exercising more and some less fats in diet".

However, due to my family having hereditary issues with cholesterol and heart disease in family, I realized my tests were bad and needed action. So im starting with 3mo of sat fat < 20g per day (which might not be enough in the long run, but gets me started).

The struggle comes from the fact that I am highly active. My TDEE is 2700calories, and during the summer closer to 3k calories a day, just to maintain my weight.

I go to gym to weightlift 3x a week, 2x a week for cardio and sport, then am on my feet outdoors working on our property for 8hrs a day 5x a week. Then on the weekends, I do water sports.

this along made me frustrated when my primary care doctor said "exercise more to lower your cholesterol." as I feel i sometimes do too much and need more rest for my body.

Regardless. Somedays can be very hard. Like today, after lots of activity, I am starving. I could eat an entire jar of peanut butter, eat a whole bag of almonds, eat an entire chicken, then fill up on carrots and potatoes and broccoli and it not be enough. Days like today I am quick to get to 20g of sat fat. Days where I'm inactive are easier because i can just fast and "not be hungry" and eat low calorie, low fat and veggies and be fine. but today is rough...

anyone with high TDEE that is also very active struggle on this?

grandpa 2018 F150 2.7L-4v SuperCrew 50k miles was passed down to us.

SO wants it to last forever. low miles. and never get rid of it. but after researching, I’m realizing that’s not realistic. It needs used Otherwise it’ll deteriorate.We already have a truck of our own we arent getting rid of so it’s hard for us to use it enough.

we have 2 options

1. low miles and sit In driveway.

try and take it for spin once ever other week. Tow the boat with it on occasion in summer. Buts that’s all. Likely will never break 100k miles.

2. let my dad take use it

more frequent driving. Towing boat to lake and back. Good usage. Maybe 3-5k miles a year added.

3. let my dad have it as primary driver. all of above but also more miles and some 1k mile trips to their hometown and back throughout the year. 10-15k miles a year added

we are debating what to do with it to “make it last as long as possible” but avoid it just deteriorating. And are completely against selling. SO was initially saying “only small trips, no road trips because I want it to last forever and don’t want to run up the mileage” but maybe more usage will be better for it?

Right outside our garage we have a 15ft maple tree. in the summer, spiders come out and make tons of webs connecting from the tree to the garage and to our cars. I'm fine with letting them be under the deck and around the landscaping, but we cannot walk out our garage at night without blowing through tons of webs and potentially big spiders (around july)

Do we just spot kill individual spiders on sight? or can we hang a type of bait?

before my lipid test results:

always been "healthy" and had a "everything in moderation" american diet. exercise daily. very active. never ate donuts, sugar drinks, sweets, or the ""worst junk"". intermittent fasting. get my meat n' potatoes and throw in some veggies.

I even approached my primary care doctor about "family history of heart disease and how i can be preventative. as im concerned about my own diet needing some improvement. i feel bad about eating out 1-2x a week and wondering if i need to focus on keeping sat fats down" . The response was that I was perfectly fine:

>look, thats a very normal diet. i myself eat out 3x a week at [fast food places], we are okay, you can metabolize that just fine as we are young. no need to worry. remember everything in moderation.

cool.

after my lipid test results:

158 LDL.

i looked back at my food logs to see what my sat fats were, never paying attention to them. 40g+/day on average. one day even hitting 60g. That particular day seemed very much "moderate" as i was always told:

• balanced bacon/egg/potato breakfast
• trail mix snack
• chicken quesadilla lunch
• steak n potato n veggie dinner
• sweet treat blizzard on a date night

...but the breakfast had the worst things possible for sat fats, trailmix carried more SF than i would've known, lunch had tons of hidden cheese, restaurant steak dinner was filled with butter and red meat, and that "rare ice cream" packed nearly 20g by itself.

so i guess my definition of moderation is now changed compared to what i've grown up with.

i may not even be able to eat in "moderation" due to hereditary and may have to very strict <10g.

But even if i can be, moderation would now defined as < 20g SF a day. moderation means having to plan my meals in advance. having to think about whats included in ingredients and looking at labels, and sometimes eating things i dont love so i can make room for a few things i do like. and unlike my doctor said, it means only going out once every other week, and having to pass on the fried, cheesy, beefy foods from resturaunts. and maybe 1x a month making room for that "sweet treat"... but it still has to be the smallest size. or 1x a month having a some pizza... but it being a slice or 2. not filling up on it.

so sure i wasn't eating 1/2 a dozen donuts in the morning for breakfast...but the "balanced diet" wasn't really as moderate as i thought.

(software engineering)

staffing recruiter reaches out about a role in my field that is my exact niche, which is very rare. so i inquire and setup intro call. its with a brand name company i'd love to do that work for.

all the basic questions were 100% about that niche background and I impressed them (since its my job and i have deep experience in that niche area)

they then setup the interview with the company.

>"dont worry there's no live coding assessment"

easy.

first 2min the HM starts talking about the role... its not that niche, but something else completely. I ask to clarify that its indeed not for the [niche] team.

HM:

>correct. we have [niche] team here. but this is not for that at all. in fact they are not even hiring.

I continue with the interview. completely out of sorts given i wasn't prepared to talk about this other area of my experience. but i flutter along.

then they give a live coding test. I don't blame them, but the staffing recruiter for misleading me or not having their shit straight. nevertheless, i knock it out of the park, but thats besides the point.

i then go back to the staffing recruiter and explain what happened.

>"must have been miscommunication on their side, i cannot believe that and am so sorry. idk why they would miscommunicate with us!"

then i got to thinking...

I dont think it was ""miscommunication"". the company was definitively NOT hiring for their [niche] team, and i was even suprised from the start about this opportunity to begin with.

Then i remembered that my Linkedin is catered for that niche role. my title, previous roles, and experiences all reference that [niche].

i think the staffing recruiter just relied on AI for messaging me, then coming up with technical questions to see how good I was

he was young, non-technical and early in his career. no way he knew what to even ask. and those questions were very specific. the hiring company obviously didn't supply those questions to ask so where did they get them?

AI.

They had a "software" role to fill. Then Found me.

Then fed my Linkedin into AI to send the initial message, which then ended up catering itself to my own described niche.

Then used the same AI to create "filter" questions to see if they wanted to pass me to next stage. Those questions then based themselves off my own background which is the niche in my Linkedin title. When the recruiter did the initial phone call, i blew it out of the park because i sounded smart and hit the high notes of all the AI "good answers" it gave them. Then they passed me to the hiring company for the real role, which is in my field, but was not the niche at all.

Lovely.

I’ve been doing it just out in the grassy yard. then realized that dribbles of chlorine water might be killing my grass.

and even tiny piles of skimmer bugs and debris end up SMELLING

160 LDL today

a year ago it was 120. I have family history of heart disease and known it was something I had to address. slimmed down and assumed my score this time would be better.

I was astonished by my 160 LDL. my wife was 96 LDL with same diet just lesser amounts.

then i realized the last 10 days have been the worst diet in memory. due to travel and vacation I’ve had fast food, burgers, fries, chocolate, and literally an entire meat lovers pizza.

I did do the test fasted and 2 days removed from my bad travel diet. but curious how much of a play the last week had.

a 100-130 LDL would make sense in my normal diet and hereditary higher LDL. 160 seems crazy unless all that junk really makes up a bulk of the reason