I tend to reply “Thank, I grew it myself”

I don’t exactly go respirator-shopping super often, and I of course have no idea what stores around you stock, but dn my experience, yellow and black are pretty widely available, and I don’t think that I’ve ever personally seen white or green in the wild, but I’ve also never specifically gone shopping for them either, since my main use case is for things like spray paint so I’m mostly concerned with organic solvents fumes.

Another one I’ve gotten a lot of good mileage out of

I once joked to my wife that avocados need to get better prizes because I always seem to get the same one- a little wooden ball.

Now, anytime I’m in the kitchen preparing something with avocados, I’ll let out an audible groan of frustration.

Which always prompts my wife to ask, usually from the other room “What’s wrong?”

To which I always reply “Another wooden ball”

Always good for a groan and some eye rolls from the wife. She never seems to see it coming.

So you know how geese fly in that V-formation to reduce air resistance?

You know how sometimes the one arm of the “V” is longer than the other?

You know why that is?

Best told while you’re just out shooting the shit walking around outside when you can point out some geese acting like you’re just pointing out another fun nature fact.

There’s no one answer

People work different schedules, the schedule I personally work has me working slightly more hours than average overall but I have more days off, so I’m free on a lot of weekdays, other people have more flexible schedules or work nights or weekends

Some people have PTO they can use, some have cool bosses who will just let them take time off whenever they want to, some people are those cool bosses or are self-employed and can set their own schedule

Some people are unemployed, some are retired (I’ve seen a lot of older folks at some protests near me)

Others are financially secure enough to be able to take the hit and think little to nothing of it

Others make sacrifices in order to make it work (if I had to take off without pay, I’d be out a few hundred bucks, it would hurt but I wouldn’t be ruined for it, I might have to skip out on a few things I’d like to do, maybe cut some corners and buy cheaper groceries, cancel a subscription or two, borrow a couple bucks from friends or family, put a couple things on my credit card to pay off later that I otherwise might have paid for outright, or maybe work some overtime before or after it to make up the difference, but nothing I couldn’t recover from fairly quickly.)

And with some exceptions, not everyone is going to every protest, some may only make it to a couple, some may make it to all or most of them, some may not be able to make it to any but may find other ways to help

N95 is probably better than nothing, but for these purposes it’s probably far from good enough

Most pepper sprays and such are oil based, and n-rated respirators are not oil resistant. For that you really want an R-, or even better P-rated mask for oily mists.

Disposable masks suitable for that do exist, but more often you’re going to find reusable cartridge-based ones which will have some additional ratings that probably aren’t relevant to specifically pepper spray but could maybe be relevant for other

White labeled cartridges are suitable for acid gases like chlorine

Black labeled are suitable for organic vapors like from paint thinners and other solvents

Yellow are suitable for both

Green are rated for ammonia and methylamine

There’s been a few studies on this, and most of the supposed remedies have been found to be little or no more effective than just rinsing with water or saline.

That said, in theory, I feel like baby shampoo is probably a pretty good bet, it makes sense on paper. Most pepper sprays are oil-based, soap/shampoo is a surfactant so it helps to rinse out those oily substances with water, and baby shampoo in particular is non-irritating to the eyes.

There’s a few purpose-made products for this, I’ve seen a few recommendations for sudecon wipes from first-responder types. I have no recommendations about how to best get your hands on those sorts of products in case you’re worried about leaving a paper trail.

For my own personal kit (that I just try to keep well-stacked for any eventuality, I have pepper spray on my dog’s leash so I figured I should know what to do if I even accidentally mace myself) I’ve settled on sterile saline eye wash and baby shampoo. Haven’t had to use it yet, so I can’t attest to the effectiveness, but I figure it’s gotta be better than nothing

And it makes enough sense on paper that I figure if nothing else maybe I’ll be able to placebo effect myself into believing it did something.

Most shoes aren’t really built to be resoled these days, they’re out there and if they can be they usually make it a selling point of that shoe, they’re usually a good bit pricier than other comparable shoes as well, probably gonna be about $250usd at the low end

Coincidentally I actually just sent my hiking boots out to be resoled. I have a pair of Danners, they cost probably around $450 new, and I’m getting their full recrafting service, so new heel counter, shank, resole, goretex lining, and if my shoe had any broken hardware that’d get replaced too, cost I think $260. Just a simple resole would be cheaper of course, and if you have a decent local cobbler they could probably beat that price.

I’ve had them about 4 years, and at this point the sole is pretty well-worn-out but the uppers are still in pretty good shape. They’ve been worn pretty close to daily, and have some hard miles on them.

I definitely feel that I’ve gotten my money’s worth, before these I probably got new boots every 2 years or so and usually spent about $200 on a pair, so if these last me another 4 years (and I don’t have any reason to think they won’t, but there’s no guarantee what misadventures my boots might go through in the next 4 years) I’ll have even come out a bit ahead on them vs buying cheaper boots.

These are hiking boots, so I’m not exactly keeping them mirror-polished or anything, so care is pretty minimal, clean them with saddle soap once in a while, wipe them down with mink oil or whatever your preferred leather conditioner/waterproofing stuff is a couple times a year (I generally try to do at least twice a year, maybe a bit more frequently if they’re getting a lot of hard use- getting really dirty, worn in the winter or near the ocean where they may be getting salty, etc.)

Also not shilling specifically for Danners, I’ve been very happy with them so far, but there’s plenty of other brands out there that are as good or better, and of course everyone has their personal preference. My next pair may or may not be danners, I do have my eye on some boots from higher-end manufacturers if my budget allows.

I’m sure it’s more complex than I’m making it out to be, but each gas in the air has its own freezing/melting boiling/condensation/sublimation points, so I’d imagine you could just kind of take advantage of that

Basically just cool it down to x temperature at y pressure, and all of the carbon dioxide should be solid, the oxygen a liquid and the nitrogen still a gas, and they’ve all sort of separated themselves out. Fish out the dry ice, siphon off the oxygen, and you’re left with nitrogen.

Might need to do a couple more rounds of that on each of those to account for other gases in the mix depending on how pure you need it to be, but in theory I imagine it could be that simple (again in practice I’m sure there’s probably a lot of details I’m missing)

My wife and I keep our heat pretty low, usually 60°F, which is usually pretty damn chilly for indoors

But when you step in from single digits outside, 60° feels downright toasty.

We have a heated mattress pad, keeps all of the heat inside the blankets

This is a big oversimplification, but the bacteria that causes tetanus basically lives in the dirt. If dirt can get to it, it can have tetanus on it. And I don’t know many dogs that are above picking things up with their mouth from the ground.

There’s of course the old myth that it’s caused by rust, rust really has nothing to do with it, it just happens that if you leave something made of iron/steel outside, it tends to rust and also get dirty.

The bacteria also lives in the digestive systems of a lot of animals, so if something might have pooped on it, there’s another way for you to be exposed to tetanus, and again a lot of dogs are willing, even eager, to eat poop.And of course there’s no shortage of people and sources that are happy to tell you that basically everything in the world has a bit of poop on it in some form or another.

Also, remember that part about tetanus living in animals’ digestive systems? I hope so, it was only one paragraph ago. That includes humans, there’s a pretty good chance you have tetanus already living in your gut. In your digestive tract it’s not an issue, maybe even beneficial (we still have a lot to learn about our gut microbiomes) it’s only really an issue if it makes its way into your bloodstream/lymphatic system, which it normally can’t do except through a wound.

And deep puncture wounds, like from a dirty needle, rusty nail, or dog’s canine tooth, are kind of the ideal place for tetanus to do its thing, like most bacteria it likes things warm and moist, and your body checks those boxes nicely, and it likes a low-oxygen environment and there’s not a whole lot of airflow at the bottom of a puncture wound.

Doesn’t even need to be single shot

I’m sure that theoretically you could be so surprised by the recoil that you’d somehow cycle the bolt and pull the trigger to fire a second shot, but trying to imagine how that could actually happen only conjures up some pretty wild Rube Goldberg scenarios for me.

So I guess if it’s your first time shooting, don’t do it with any kind of repeating firearm in a room full of mouse traps, ball bearings, umbrellas, boxing gloves, etc.

It’s an extreme outlier, but you guys did just have a very well-publicized mass shooting there barely over a month ago (fuck man, it feels so much longer than that)

And to boot, a random civilian struggled with and took a gun from one of the attackers.

You probably won’t find yourself in that kind of situation, and I certainly hope you never do. But these kinds of things can happen anywhere. I’m quite certain that Ahmed el-Ahmed didn’t have “hold a gun” on his to-do list that day, but nonetheless it happened, however briefly.

And if you ever do find yourself in that kind of situation, it’s best to know how not to hurt yourself or others with that gun you’ve unexpectedly come into possession of.

I don’t have a specific video recommendation handy, but I’m sure if you punch “how to safely clear a [pistol/revolver/rifle/shotgun]” into YouTube you’ll get 10,000 good results.

As a general overview though (and bear in mind that there’s countless models of firearms out there, so there’s bound to be some outliers that don’t quite fit into this.)

Step 0. Make sure you are keeping the muzzle pointed in a safe direction and your finger off the trigger at all times.

Step 1. If there’s a removable magazine, remove it.

Step 2. Pull back the slide/cocking handle/bolt/pump/lever, if there’s a round in the chamber, this should eject it. There’s an important reason to do this after removing the magazine, because releasing that mechanism will load the next round from the magazine there is one in there.

Step 3. Repeat that at least 1 more time to make extra sure that another round didn’t get loaded. Keep going until no round ejects. For some guns where the magazine isn’t removable, like some pump action shotguns, it can sometimes be quicker or more convenient to do that repeatedly than to remove the rounds manually.

Step 4. Lock open the action of the firearm and visually confirm that there is no round in the chamber and nothing in the magazine well.

Step 1R. (if you are clearing a Revolver.) Release the cylinder

Step 2R. Press the ejector rod to eject the rounds.

Step 3R. Visually confirm that all of the rounds have ejected.

Gonna start referring to my extended family as being “negatively charged” then

I don’t really cross dress, but I have a pair of heels kicking around for a Halloween costume (Monty Python Lumberjack) and I occasionally trot that costume back out.

I basically went to payless (back when that existed, I guess the modern equivalent in probably mystery Amazon brand shoes) and found a pair that more-or-less fit. Staff was actually pretty helpful, apparently around October a lot of guys wandered into payless looking for heels for a Halloween costume. They pointed me right to where the biggest heels could be found.

I think getting a cheap pair was the right move, because they pretty quickly stretched out to better accommodate my feet. I have fairly wide feet even by male standards, and actually found them to be reasonably comfortable all things considered after they broke in (which didn’t take long, those shoes definitely weren’t designed for the stresses of a 200-whatever pound man moshing in them at a Halloween concert)

The harder part was trying to find a bra that even remotely fit my frame.

I work in 911 dispatch, so I frequently have to go back and relisten to calls I’ve taken to see if I heard something correctly

It was very weird at first hearing my own voice played back at me so much, but it’s something you get used to after a while

But even after 7 years on the job, if I think about it my voice on the recording never sounds quite right to me.

It does freeze well, so that’s a good option. Normally I do that, but in this case i actually pulled the shoulder out of my freezer trying to free up some space in there so I kind of didn’t want to fill it right back up.

If you’ve done a whole shoulder on a rotisserie I feel like you’ll appreciate this idea too- I’ve been to a couple parties and done it once myself where we roasted a whole lamb over a fire. I don’t have any pictures handy but look up “lamb al asador” to get an idea of what the setup looked like. If nothing else it’s a hell of a centerpiece to have for a party.

Just as a heads-up, unless you’re cooking for a lot of people or really like leftovers, you may want to look for a smaller cut than a whole shoulder because it is a lot of meat. After feeding my party guests (it wasn’t a huge party, but) and sending most of them home with leftovers, I still had enough left over to have it for lunch every day for the next week.