u/YourCousinMoose

I'm working today with some people I don't normally, and I have the pleasure of coaching a 19yo kid. Good guy, smart, works hard. I made a comment about "and that's why I do it for Dale"

For context, I'm (32y) an industrial mechanic and we're doing shut down maintenance at a sugar refinery. I was showing him some tricky stuff and how to finesse your way through some interesting work.

Anyway, he was like, who?

I, taken aback, asked him if he didn't know who DALE EARNHARDT was? He just kinda shrugged.

So it got me thinking, we're at an era where younger people aren't going to have heard of Dale, The King, or a lot of other legendary guys - regardless of Nascar or whatever other sport they competed in, unless we talk about em. I spent the next hour or so chatting up with him, preaching Dale. Now he knows who The Intimidator was.

Any of you ran into this sort of moment, what'd you do?

I've been so down and depressed, it started slow. Back in January I quit the booze and weed, started medicating for bipolar, 2 months before that I moved in with my woman and her kids. Love em, they're amazing to and for me, life is awesome. Like Tony Soprano said, to paraphrase, I got life by the balls but I still feel like a fuckin loser.

Socially I feel inept, which is strange, I'm usually fluid and fun to be around. Haven't fit in at my job yet, almost 5 months in, and all I can focus on in life is the broken shit and the stuff that costs me money.

I have these random sex dreams, jezebels and rags, drowned in booze and rolled in cocaine, always faceless, nameless, and without any contest to whatever I want to do. Fighting, I have these dreams where I'm always in some combative scenario defending my family or my territory, I get terrified and try to wake myself up by looking at my hands, instead I'm sucked into another layer of dreaming, tricked into thinking I'm awake. Finding myself in front of a tall mug of beer, I'm not some raggedy logger in saloon tipping his bartender wife with a kiss, I'm a fuckin mechanic and this is a dream, so I throw myself in front of the mirror to look at myself, to try and wake up, and I do, screaming.

It makes no sense. I'm not some war veteran, I'm not some street survivor, I'm just a guy that lived hard, drank hard, fucked hard, drugged hard, faught constantly, and walked away from all that like it was nothing.

Now I'm bored. Went to therapy today, she asked me what I do to excite myself, how do I intellectually challenge or stimulate myself, how do I trigger my adrenaline? I don't.

So, to keep from running off and leaving this beautiful life I've built with my future wife and these kids behind, I've got to figure out how to get my dick hard without drugs, alcohol, promiscuous sex, and fighting. I live in bumfuck no where and work more than I'm home, so this will be an interesting conundrum to work through.

Thanks for reading.

Recently I bought Penn States TBC system, which seemed like a good investment, and for some I am sure it's been a delight. For me, the live center end developed a wobble and, I dunno, the bearings let go or something, it's floppy and loose. So I emailed support and sent a video, and they replaced it. The unit they replaced it with is off center. I said to myself, this is bizarre, and I checked my lathe, my center to center tool shows I'm dead on, my live center and the drive that came with the TBC system line up well, so I know it's the new system that's off.

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I was wondering if a live center like this or something like this would do the trick. I could put this up against my bushing and it would stay center and without using too much pressure, not damage anything? Of course bushings are something we replace after so many pens anyway, but what are some methods used to turn between centers that don't use the penn state system?

I made a pen for my father in law using a pen kit from Penn State, the EDC Big Ben click pen kit. I've made big Ben and cigar pen kits in the past that were amazing to write, and I always use Monteverde inserts for the improved inks and smoothness. For whatever reason on this one pen, you can feel the tip of the insert wiggle around in the nib. When you look at it, it looks snug and you can't really see a gap, but you can even hear it clicking when you're writing cursive or are writing fast enough.

What are some things I can do to make this stop or to get the insert to fit more snuggly? For this pen and future pens. At almost $20 a kit and using damn near $20 blanks, I don't want there to be a fundemantal mechanical issue like this. Thanks in advance.

I made a pen for my father in law using a pen kit from Penn State, the EDC Big Ben click pen kit. I've made big Ben and cigar pen kits in the past that were amazing to write, and I always use Monteverde inserts for the improved inks and smoothness. For whatever reason on this one pen, you can feel the tip of the insert wiggle around in the nib. When you look at it, it looks snug and you can't really see a gap, but you can even hear it clicking when you're writing cursive or are writing fast enough.

What are some things I can do to make this stop or to get the insert to fit more snuggly? For this pen and future pens. At almost $20 a kit and using damn near $20 blanks, I don't want there to be a fundemantal mechanical issue like this. Thanks in advance.