The difference 6 months of daily gesture drawings made for my character work

I started doing 5 minute gesture sketches every morning back in March, just random poses from Croquis Cafe videos. Last night I went back and looked at my stuff from February and the difference is NIGHT and day. My proportions actually look like a real human now instead of some weird alien creature. The funny thing is I didn't even notice it happening, it just sort of clicked after about 80 sessions. Anyone else have a practice habit that slowly transformed their art without them realizing?

Overheard a guy at a Bali coworking space say he books flights through a VPN

He claimed he saved $140 on a ticket to Bangkok just by switching his location to Indonesia before searching. Has anyone else tried this with flight bookings or is it mostly hit and miss?

Can we talk about hitting 500 episodes watched in a year?

I just hit 500 episodes watched this year and it surprised me. That was my number after checking my tracker app last night. Part of me thinks it's impressive dedication to stories, but another part worries I might be watching too much. Does reaching a high count mean you're a great fan or just wasting time?

Old timer told me to ditch my quick-grip clamps for pipe clamps on face frames

Met a guy named Jerry at the local Woodcraft in Portland last spring. He said my face frames would stay flatter with old school pipe clamps because the quick-grips flex too much. I tried it on a 10-door job and he was right, the joints came out way tighter with no gaps.

Chatted with a plumber at Home Depot who said I should stop using sharkbite fittings for my basement reno

My buddy laughed when I showed him my plan and said sharkbites are for emergencies only. Now I'm wondering if I should redo the three joints I already put in last week. What's the real lifespan on these things hidden behind drywall?

I logged my tenth year of no write-ups on a heavy check

Just finished a C-check on a 737-800 and my lead told me my inspection sheet was clean again. That makes a full decade of annual heavy checks with zero findings from QA. It hit me because I remember my first year, I had three minor write-ups on similar jobs. Anyone else track a streak like this, or am I just weirdly lucky?

My friend's AI portrait made me think about the 'no effort' argument differently

I used to say AI art wasn't real because it took no effort. Then my friend, who can't draw a straight line, made a portrait of his late dog using an AI tool. He spent over a week typing in hundreds of different prompts, mixing parts of other images, and tweaking small details like the color of the collar. He showed me the 50 failed versions before he got it right. The final picture made him cry. How can you look at that and say there was no human effort or feeling in it? The tool did the drawing, but he did the hard work of guiding it with his memories. It's not the same as picking up a brush, but it's not nothing either. Has anyone else seen an AI image where the story behind it changed their mind?

I thought I could patch a 4 foot ceiling crack in my Denver job in an hour. It took me three days.

I was reading a trade magazine from 1998 and found out the average finisher back then mixed a bag by hand in under 90 seconds.

Has anyone else come across old stats or methods that make you appreciate modern tools a bit more?

Just realized I've filled 500 pages in my bullet journal

I was setting up my new notebook and counted the old ones. It's been about two years and three books, all from the same brand, Leuchtturm1917. It really hit me how much of my life is in those pages, from grocery lists to big plans. Has anyone else hit a page count that made them stop and think?