Vent: My sourdough starter just hit 14 days and it's still flat

I've been feeding it twice a day with 50g of rye flour and it just won't double. Anyone else have a starter that took forever to get going?

TIL I've been torquing head bolts wrong for years because of a bad habit from my old boss in Wichita.

He always said to just 'go by feel' on a Cummins 5.9, so I never used a proper torque angle gauge. Yesterday, a guy at the parts counter asked if I was using one, and I felt like an idiot. It finally clicked why I've had a few come back with minor leaks. Anyone else get stuck on a bad practice they learned early on?

Pro tip: I found out the exact temperature window for a perfect finish on a big pour

Read it in an old trade manual from the 80s, says 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit is the sweet spot to avoid crazing. Anyone else have a go-to temp range they swear by?

My buttercream turned into soup right before a birthday party

Honestly, I was decorating a cake for my friend's party in her Dallas kitchen last Saturday. I added the butter straight from the fridge and the whole batch just turned to a runny, greasy mess. I had about 45 minutes before people showed up. I panicked, but then I scooped it all back into my stand mixer bowl and stuck the whole thing in the freezer for 15 minutes. After it chilled, I whipped it again on high for a solid 5 minutes and it came back perfectly smooth and pipeable. Has anyone else fixed a broken buttercream this way, or do you have a different trick?

My new propane forge cracked after just six months of weekend use

I got a two-burner Devil's Forge last fall, and the ceramic wool lining split right down the middle last weekend. I was working on a set of fireplace tools, nothing crazy, just normal forging heat. Everyone online says these things last years, but mine didn't even make it through a single season of hobby work. I patched it with some refractory cement for now, but it's a real pain. Has anyone else had a major failure with a relatively new forge lining?

Just realized a lot of people don't know how to spot a satellite in their star trail shots

I keep seeing photos labeled as 'meteor' or 'plane' that are clearly satellite trails. A satellite line is a steady, unbroken white dash, while a meteor is a colored streak that often fades. Planes usually have a dotted line from blinking lights. It matters because calling it wrong changes the story of the image. I learned this after taking over 200 long exposures from my backyard in Boise. Has anyone else had to correct friends on this, or am I just being picky?

My big pot of chili almost turned into a disaster last night

I was making a double batch of my cheap chili recipe for the week when I realized I only had half a can of kidney beans left. I was already at my stove in my kitchen, so I just grabbed a can of black beans and a can of corn from the pantry and threw them in. It actually turned out better, and the whole pot cost less than $8. Has anyone else had a missing ingredient turn into a happy accident?

A shop foreman said my torque wrench technique was 'all in the wrist'

He watched me tighten a head bolt and pointed out I was pulling from the elbow, not a smooth full-arm motion. I switched to his method and my readings are way more consistent now. Anyone else get called out on a basic skill they thought they had down?

Update: My sourdough starter turned 100 days old yesterday and I'm weirdly emotional about it.

After three failed attempts that ended in moldy goo, this one survived a kitchen flood, a week in the fridge when I had the flu, and my cat trying to knock it off the counter, so hitting triple digits feels like a real win.

Had a weird call at a dentist's office in Springfield that made me start checking for hidden motion sensors behind every piece of furniture.