u/echoioio

Moved to Durham from the Midwest to be closer to the best beaches in the world. Durham is good for my work, which often spills into the weekends, but still too far from the beach, apparently.

I’ve only made it to the beach four times this summer, and of those, only one trip has been passable body-boarding surf. Either it’s so rough I’m beat up after 30 mins, or worse, like right now, it’s completely placid. Back when I moved to Durham, I thought I could make it out here every weekend, but it’s still actually a huge investment in time and energy.

Are there online resources that will help me gauge whether to pack up and make the trip? One of the best body boarding days ever was out on Bear Island last year the day before Chantal made landfall, so random. How do I learn when the waves might be good?

I've read a couple by Elaine Pagels this year. As a person raised atheist, I really loved her sympathetic but still historical writing. I bought Bart Erhamn's book on the Gospels of Judas, but haven't gotten into it because the first chapter was so boring. I read most of Tom Holland's Dominion, but it's kind of a bunch of vignettes, I didn't get much out of the second half.

Anybody got any great recs in this area? I'm really interested in the subject matter, didn't learn any of it in childhood, but my attention span is also shot due to social media so it's very difficult for me to read boring stuff.

Im curious about>> first through third century beliefs about Christ, the evolution of beliefs about eucharist/communion, early martyrs, medieval Christianity, why did Calvinism ever seem like an improvement, the American revival/second great awakening, and generally what is Orthodox Christianity?

Time to sharpen my carbide chisels for the first time, but the green wheel I bought a while ago doesn’t fit in my harbor freight bench grinder.

Can’t seem to find a wheel anywhere that will.
Get a new grinder? Can’t seem to find one that matches the wheel I bought.

So what combo of wheel and bench grinder are you guys using to sharpen carbide tipped chisels? Guess I need to buy both.

I've done a couple retaining walls, this one would be my tallest at 40 inches in the center of the length. The site has pinch points: 48 inches between the slope to be retained (STBR) and the screen porch corner, trees near the top edge of the STBR, and a long french drain along the whole length of the toe of the STBR.

Client wants cost savings and hates the look of cmu blocks. I'm considering 6x6 posts with deadmen and 4 inch drain in gravel behind the wall. How long would the deadmen have to be—is 2 feet long enough? Especially with the drain and if I put a lot of them?

One more question—the slope is concave, but most retaining walls are straight or convex. My instinct is that concave would actually be stronger, but I can't find any posts or designs of other people building concave walls out of timbers. Anybody got strong thoughts one way or another?

Thank you good people of reddit

https://preview.redd.it/lnayhgg0nu8h1.jpg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=05ed0f8e19992999066aeb3a2604d1038234c4d3

https://preview.redd.it/5nxdugg0nu8h1.jpg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77650b89d6c66d8e2b8c6fc122e17bb964db3789

https://preview.redd.it/o26pchg0nu8h1.jpg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a330eb1d67f0eb3d7b57b554cc54324e8e95b3f7

Workwear request—I’m on the ground constantly, lots of flagstone work, and the toes on my composite/steel toes just burn through in a couple weeks and start falling apart completely. Haven’t had a pair of boots last a year since I started this work. Anybody have good recs? Most recently i had a pair of Kodiaks with extra rubber on the toe and they’re trash 10 months later.

I’m interested in carrying the cooler up front and wondered if anybody had any pics they could share of their front rigging

I’m interested in carrying the cooler up front and wondered if anybody had any pics they could share of their front rigging