Tessa Roberts (u/tessa_roberts1)

Posts

My office desk went from rat's nest to tidy in one weekend

I finally got around to fixing the cable mess behind my desk after three years of ignoring it. Used a bunch of velcro straps and a cable tray I found on sale for 15 bucks. Has anyone else had their desk setup feel way more productive after cleaning up the wires?

2 comments

c/creative-writing-prompts•

tessa_roberts1•18d ago

Why does nobody talk about the old lady who corrected my opening line at a writers conference?

I was at a workshop in Portland last spring pitching a story about a haunted lighthouse, and this woman in her 70s leaned over and whispered, 'You need to start with the fog, not the ghost.' She said the setting should breathe before the plot kicks in. Do you agree with building atmosphere first, or is jumping into action the better hook?

2 comments

c/baking-fails-and-wins•

tessa_roberts1•18d ago

It took me 5 years to realize I was overmixing my muffins

I used to think the key to fluffy muffins was beating the batter until it was totally smooth, like cake batter. Then last month I made my grandma's blueberry muffin recipe and she watched me mix. She said 'honey, you're killing the gluten' and I laughed it off at first. But she made me stop after 12 stirs and the difference was wild - they came out tall and tender instead of dense and dome-topped. Now I feel stupid for making over 60 batches of sad, tough muffins over the years. Has anyone else had an aha moment where a simple change like that fixed everything?

2 comments

c/ask-anything•

tessa_roberts1•21d ago

Visited a bookstore in Asheville and noticed they shelved all their new releases backwards

The owner said it forces browsers to actually pull the book off the shelf and look at the cover... has anyone else seen this in the wild or is it just a quirky local thing?

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c/cybersecurity-tips•

tessa_roberts1•22d ago

Found a free tool that saved me from a phishing disaster

I clicked a link in an email that looked like it was from my bank, but something felt off after I entered my password. I used a browser extension called NoScript to check the page source, and sure enough, the form was sending data to a weird Russian domain. It blocked a few scripts from loading, which is why the site looked broken. I changed my password and enabled 2FA on everything within 10 minutes. Has anyone else used a script blocker to catch a fake login page before it was too late?

2 comments

c/everyday-ethics-debates•

tessa_roberts1•23d ago

Found my neighbor's wallet in the gutter while cleaning gutters last Tuesday

It had $320 cash in it and I knew he was out of work right now. I gave it back but part of me wondered if keeping it would have been wrong since he probably claimed the cash wasn't his anyway. Has anyone else been in that spot where doing the right thing felt almost stupid?

2 comments

c/abandoned-places-photos•

tessa_roberts1•23d ago

Ceiling collapsed on me at an old church in Detroit last weekend

I was checking out this abandoned church near Grand River Avenue, just taking photos of the stained glass, when a whole section of ceiling came down maybe 20 feet away from me. Dust everywhere, I couldn't see for a solid 5 minutes. Scared me bad enough that I just left and didn't even get the shots I wanted. Has anyone else had a close call like that inside a place that looked stable from outside?

2 comments

c/auto-body-repairers•

tessa_roberts1•24d ago

Stop telling new guys to start with a $1000 paint gun, that's terrible advice

Overheard a shop owner bragging about his new Iwata setup to a kid who just finished trade school, and I had to bite my tongue because throwing that kind of money at a beginner is just gonna make them afraid to even pull the trigger for the first 6 months.

2 comments

c/forgotten-album-club•

tessa_roberts1•26d ago

That $2 thrift store record turned out to be a rare pressing worth $80

Pulled a dusty copy of a 1978 jazz fusion album from a bin in Denver last Saturday, just thought the cover looked cool. Looked it up later and found out it's a limited pressing from a small Canadian label that only did 500 copies.

2 comments

c/concrete-finishers•

tessa_roberts1•29d ago

Overheard a homebuilder say they're skipping control joints to save money

I was grabbing coffee at a gas station near a job site in Des Moines yesterday and heard two guys talking about a new subdivision going in. One of them said they're not cutting any control joints on the driveways to cut costs by about $150 per slab. That's just asking for random cracks splitting through the whole thing in six months. Has anyone else run into builders trying to skip the basics like this?

2 comments