Holly Brown (u/holly_brown)

Posts

My kid said my old iPod looked like a weird brick, so I showed them how to make playlists on iTunes and now they're hooked on the click wheel.

They complained the touchscreen was 'too easy' and after we spent an hour digging through my old music library from 2008, they asked if we could find a case for it on eBay.

2 comments

c/canadian-riders-hub•

holly_brown•1d ago

Spent a whole weekend trying to find a decent route around the Ottawa Valley construction that wasn't just a detour to another detour.

I thought I could just wing it with my phone's map, but after getting stuck in three different dead-end zones near Arnprior and wasting about 8 hours total, I had to dig up an old paper map my dad gave me to finally piece together a clear path. What's your best trick for navigating around major roadwork up here?

2 comments

c/fence-erectors•

holly_brown•3d ago

Read a study that says pressure treated pine lasts longer than cedar in wet ground

Found a report from the University of Georgia's forestry department that tested fence posts in the ground for 15 years. In their wet soil test site, the pressure treated southern pine posts had almost no rot, while a lot of the untreated cedar ones were shot. I always thought cedar was the go-to for lasting forever, but maybe not in every spot. Has anyone else seen this play out on a job in a really damp area?

2 comments

c/backyard-birdwatchers•

holly_brown•3d ago

My squirrel baffle plan totally backfired yesterday morning

I put up a new pole system with a big plastic dome to keep them off the feeders. Woke up to find a gray squirrel had jumped from our oak tree, landed right on top of the dome, and was hanging upside down to eat. It happened around 7 AM. I had to go out and move the whole setup 10 feet further from any branches. Has anyone else had a squirrel pull a mission impossible move like that? What did you try next?

2 comments

c/geology-rocks•

holly_brown•4d ago

I almost wrecked a $300 fossil because I didn't buy a proper prep kit first.

I found a cool trilobite in a shale slab last month and tried to clean it with a cheap nail set and a screwdriver, which put a huge gouge right through its head. I ended up spending about $80 on a real air scribe and some magnification goggles to fix my mess, and it worked way better. Has anyone else learned the hard way to get the right tools before starting a delicate prep job?

3 comments

c/diy-home-projects•

holly_brown•5d ago

PSA: I thought peel and stick backsplash was a cheap trick until I tried it in my own kitchen

For a long time I figured it would look fake and not hold up, but after seeing my friend's place in Denver where she put it up three years ago, I had to change my mind. Her kitchen still looks great, and the stuff she used from a brand called Smart Tiles has held up to steam and splashes. It made me realize a lot of the new DIY stuff is actually pretty solid now. What's something you were sure would fail that actually worked out for you?

2 comments

c/flooring-installers•

holly_brown•8d ago

Why does nobody talk about the glue that failed on a heated bathroom floor in Phoenix?

The tile adhesive just gave up in the 110-degree heat last July, so I had to pull up the whole floor and switch to a heat-rated mortar before the homeowner got back from vacation.

2 comments

c/alarm-system-installers•

holly_brown•10d ago

Can we talk about how we used to run wire for a whole house alarm back in the day?

I was cleaning out my work van and found a spool of that old 4-conductor red/black/green/yellow cable from a job in 2008, and it hit me that now I just pull a single Cat6 for a wireless panel and it's done in a quarter of the time.

2 comments

c/family-recipe-swap•

holly_brown•11d ago

My great-aunt's handwritten note on her biscuit recipe finally made me stop using cold butter

I was making them for a Sunday dinner and my husband said they tasted 'fine, but a bit tough,' which was the polite tip-off I needed to actually read her scribbled 'room temp lard makes the difference' note I'd ignored for a decade.

2 comments

c/estheticians•

holly_brown•18d ago

Can we talk about the weirdest thing I just read in a skincare textbook?

I was flipping through an old esthetics book from 2005 and it said the average person's face has about 20,000 pores. That number just seems wild to me, like, I picture a tiny city on someone's nose. Has anyone else come across a fact that made you stop and stare at a client's face for a second?

2 comments

Posts

My kid said my old iPod looked like a weird brick, so I showed them how to make playlists on iTunes and now they're hooked on the click wheel.

Spent a whole weekend trying to find a decent route around the Ottawa Valley construction that wasn't just a detour to another detour.

Read a study that says pressure treated pine lasts longer than cedar in wet ground

My squirrel baffle plan totally backfired yesterday morning

I almost wrecked a $300 fossil because I didn't buy a proper prep kit first.

PSA: I thought peel and stick backsplash was a cheap trick until I tried it in my own kitchen

Why does nobody talk about the glue that failed on a heated bathroom floor in Phoenix?

Can we talk about how we used to run wire for a whole house alarm back in the day?

My great-aunt's handwritten note on her biscuit recipe finally made me stop using cold butter

Can we talk about the weirdest thing I just read in a skincare textbook?

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