@PlacidPenguin (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞

@PlacidPenguin As far as I know, it did not. It was just the dust from the factory on the wrapper.

@PlacidPenguin No, she had some other heavy metal though.

@PlacidPenguin If she did she wouldn’t need a new phone.

@Barney

/giphy purple yay

@PlacidPenguin

@RiotDemon

@woodhouse
You get to stay.

@PlacidPenguin @woodhouse sorry folks, I’ll be a little late to the welcoming party.

@TaRDy

Wouldn’t have it any other way.

@TaRDy

@CaptAmehrican I stole the name from Archer awhile ago and stuck with it.

EDIT: I am an amateur lumberjack (meaning I know how to split wood with an axe at a very basic level). But since I moved to Texas, I live in an apartment and have no use for my limited skills.

@woodhouse I was going to make the Archer connection…

Hmmmm, maybe not so much…

@PocketBrain If you squint really hard, we’re basically twins.

@carl669 I really did split those logs, we were camping on Lopez Island in Washington (where I’m from) for my birthday.

I’m a beer/bourbon kind of guy. I love a good IPA.

And no, I have no issue with profanity (as long as it’s not used aggressively in an email to us :P).
ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪

@woodhouse PNW FTW

That actually explains a lot about the beard tho

@woodhouse you passed. although i would have picked vodka. welcome and hope to see you around the forums!

@metageist They get handed out at birth up there.

@ACraigL All of the phrasing jokes are pretty good. I’m actually a couple of seasons behind, the last season I watched was the Vice one. I think the Bob’s Burgers crossover is one of the best moments in the show. But, honestly, the whole show is pretty great, especially the first couple of seasons. LANAAAAAAAA!

@narfcake shh bb is ok

@medz Come up with ideas like this post

@medz Vacation!

@medz

@galmaegi and @hollboll had a BBQ recently to celebrate the fact that they could just give all of their work to @woodhouse.

@hollboll
If you ever wanna see more chocolate truffles, you’re gonna have to work for them.
You have been warned.

@PlacidPenguin I wasn’t even invited.

@woodhouse Evidently, neither were we.
/giphy sad BBQ

@2many2no We can have our own BBQ, without them!

@woodhouse Well, OK, but it wouldn’t be the same without them. What do you think, @conandlibrarian?

@conandlibrarian They are excellent teachers!

@conandlibrarian

@galmaegi

@duodec I could use a good axe.

@Barney

/giphy Barney purple axe

@duodec

@duodec What about Hultafors Agdor trekking axe? Helko Werk Voyager? Wetterlings?

@woodhouse A dwarvish axe would be an acceptable substitute, as long as it was really dwarf-made and not some elfin counterfeit.

@duodec I basically look like dwarf, but I’m a normal height. Would that be acceptable?

@woodhouse A woodhouse made axe would be an acceptable substitute and would not be considered an elfin counterfeit.

@compunaut I think you are overcomplicating things…

@duodec I have two in arm’s reach but you can’t have this one because we need it to keep the light from making noise

And you can’t have this one because we need it for emergencies

So what I’m saying is I guess you’re out of luck

@Moose Who needs a first aid kit when you have an axe?

@woodhouse There’s no issue that can’t be resolved with an axe.

@DaveInSoCal @woodhouse True but its nice to resolve it with style and panache, and not with a Fiskars orange-handled machine-edged utility thud.

@moose thats ok, neither of those bears the signs of dwarvish manufacture… your light-silencer in particular looks a bit elfin. I’ll hold out for a @woodhouse - made.

@DaveInSoCal I’ve been told that you should never bring one to a gunfight…
Or something like that.

@Moose hey, i donated that axe for fuko!

@katylava @Moose

The one in the ceiling, or the one on the floor?

@PlacidPenguin @Moose the one on the floor

@katylava

I like that carpet.
(After hardwood floors, I like dark carpets.)

---

There’s always the next Fuko… Just give @ChadP a heads up before the next one. He owes us a Fuko day video.

@meh Right now I’m wearing a pair of Red Wing Iron Rangers, but in that picture I was wearing a pair of Clarks Bushacre 2’s.

@woodhouse cool i like my IRs but i don’t wear them as much as my moc toes bc the soles are so comfy. Don’t have any clarks, currently wearing some danner mountain lights which are not approved by my work dress code but neither is chatting on a forum, reading reddit, or using company IM to bullshit with my coworkers all day.

you don’t carry a saddleback leather bag, do you?

also i never asked, do you like guacamole?

@meh I’ve been tempted by the moc toes for many months now, but never pulled the trigger. The sole looks awesome one them. Danners as well, they look great.

No Saddleback, that’s a bit out of my price range (unfortunately). I’m in the market for a new leather bag, though.

And yes, I’m a big fan of guac.

@woodhouse keep it that way, saddleback does not make good products, in the way that beats are not very good headphones. what kind of bag are you looking for?

@meh I’ve always thought they seemed overpriced, but not necessarily low quality. Though, I’ve never actually held/used one. I’m mostly looking for a briefcase style bag, I usually just have to lug stuff around since my commute is pretty long. I have a canvas one right now, but it’s kinda floppy and kinda low quality. Any suggestions?

@woodhouse My wife got me a nice ‘ebags’ laptop/briefcase in 2013 that is still going strong. Often overstuffed, but thats my bad.

@woodhouse there was a time they were neither overpriced nor low quality, but it was a long time ago. the company has seen a lot of evolution, several executive changes, financial revamping and turn over, production and materials supplier change. it’s very far from the small family operation it presents itself as. it’s an interesting albeit silly dramatic story for someone who is a leathery nerd such as myself. also a tumultuous debate as the company seeks and has a sort of Apple/Jobs-like following in the bag world via their owner and marketing strategy.

anyway, yes, i’ve got lots suggestions assuming you’re looking for a bag with leather that is at least of similar quality to your boots. i’ll report back a little list in just a bit.

@meh Interesting, good to know! I’ll keep an eye out for your list, thanks!

@woodhouse Perhaps you need one of these:
/image Florida Coast rigger bag

or maybe
/image Bucket Boss briefcase

@compunaut Who am I, Tim ‘The Tool Man’ Taylor?

@woodhouse Just trying to solve the floppy, low-quality bag issue. Perhaps you’re too far gone already

@compunaut I usually carry my laptop, some snackies (trail mix FTW), and some notebooks/pens or a book. No tools, at least not on my commute to work every day!

@woodhouse I want to start by saying the leather bag world is absolutely huge right now, and there are literally hundreds of company’s making similar bags to what I’ll list here. This is really just a few off the top of my wee head.

Marlondo Leather, China - Fairly reputable Chinese importer. No way around it, this guy got his start knocking off Saddleback Bags. The last few years he has earned a rep for making some new, more original designs. The prices are good, and the materials are really more than up to par relative to Saddleback’s Mexican imports.

Whipping Post, Mexico These guys used to be made in the same production facility as Saddleback in MX, but have since changed. The bags are well priced and use better leather than SBL ever did, I know a few people with their stuff and they are well liked.

Koch Leather Messenger, Arizona He makes really nice stuff, using some of THE best leather in the world (Horween, Chicago, IL), and he makes it by hand, including handsewing, in Arizona with his wife. The designs are very simple which helps the cost stay low. He’s willing to do extensive customization.

Colonel Littleton, Tennessee Okay, these are some of the priciest bags in America, but including bc its a great company and nice to look at. Stylistically, they’re a little old western which may not suit everyone. Craftsmanship and customer service wise, they’re pretty much the gold standard.

Moose Leather Shop, Washington Another higher end offering, but premium stuff out of Seattle. Excellent Horwen Leather, handmade one at a time, and really well reviewed by people I know who own them.

Filson, Washington Okay, Filson is mostly canvas accented with US made English bridle leather. But it’s real, super duper heavy 22oz cotton twill, and it’s made in Seattle, WA and has been for a real long time. Canvas has merits has being very durable and much lighter than leather. I carry a Filson duffle as my carry on.

Oh and, uh, I’ve been known to make a leather bag myself here or there for rather little if one actually gets me to do it. I don’t own a business or have a website, but you can look at my instagram at mmckmegan and message me if there a design you have in mind. What I can promise is a good bag at a great price, what I can’t promise is a fast timeline or that I’ll be able to do what you want. There’s a few morons around these parts who wear belts I’ve made.

@meh That’s a solid list! The one I have now is kind of a knockoff of the Filson design. I’d love to get one of those, but they are pretty pricy. Just have to find an excuse to pull the trigger on it

@woodhouse that’s the spirit! don’t worry, the more bags you buy, the less pricey they seem…

@meh Just like boots!

@woodhouse and then just wait until they need resoling…

@meh I took a quick look at your instagram, your stuff looks awesome! Cute dog, too

@woodhouse why thanks. and she’s a pretty good dumb ol doggo. thinks she’s a cat, tho. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

@meh Mine is supposedly half German Shepard, but he’s a big doofus. I think he’s just a mutt who loves to cuddle.

@meh
Can’t claim it’s cheap.
But it is for real.
http://www.krsaddleshop.com/subcategory/Briefcases
One of a number of their designs:

The leather goods business of King Ranch originated in those chaotic years following the Civil War. During the War, the Ranch was raided and looted by Union troops. When the hostilities were finally over, Captain King re-established with the forethought that ranching in South Texas demanded not only good men, horses, and cattle, but also outstanding gear. He needed saddles that were durable, yet lightweight, comfortable to ride, yet easy on the horses’ backs. Unsuccessful in finding saddles of this quality, he hired experienced craftsmen who could make them and soon began operating his own saddlery.

The fame of King Ranch custom saddles and durable leather goods, which carried the Running W brand, quickly spread throughout the Southwest and brought with it the need to fill orders for outside customers. The aim was to offer ranchers and cowboys, in an ever-widening territory, saddles and accessories of a quality and style suited to meet every need of the harsh range.

@f00l These bags don’t look too bad, can’t speak to how good their leather or hardware is. Not that some of the ones I listed above are totally innocent, but I don’t care for how they seem to imply US Made goods. The prices are right, because despite their all-American feel and “Hertitage” section, their bags are imported. Likely China or Mexico. I will credit that they do put ‘imported’ at the bottom of their product details - some places don’t even do that. Also, their ‘saddle stitched’ messenger is not saddle stitched anywhere on the bag. The description is careful to say the straps are “two hand” stitched, but it is not a saddle stitch and the body is machine stitched. I have nothing inherently against imported bags, only when places seem to try to intentionally mislead folks to believing something is American made. (edit: I do want to point out that I’m aware that they make some of their goods in the USA…those are also labeled on the details page. I would assume their primary US operation makes saddles)

On being American made should anyone be searching for a bag like that on Google or Etsy:
A good rule of thumb, if something is made in USA it will be very loudly blazoned on the site. If it’s hidden or hard to find, talks about ‘heritage’, or a ‘store location’ or ‘designed in ___’…it’s imported.

@meh
Fair enough.
I had a friend who wrote copy for them - back in the 1980’s. At that time, all their goods were made locally, and their saddles and tack were what you found on the ranch, unless someone brought their own.

From personal experience I can tell you the saddles 30 years ago were quite good. No personal experience of saddles since then. : (

I suppose everything that scales to the general public and luxury department stores falls prey to the cost cutters. I had hoped their stuff was still all US made, but I didn’t spend enough time on the page to go to through the listings, and wouldn’t have known what to look for.

FWIW, the King Ranch owns ranchland in Mexico (has for more than a century I believe - perhaps far longer). If they are importing their KR leather goods, I would guess they do their leather production on or near one of the Mexican spreads. At least I hope so. It would be pretty sad if the King Ranch stuff was coming from China.

@f00l Mexico has a pretty rich history of leather tanning and crafting and they produce high quality raw leather and finished goods, so it’d make a lot of sense for them to maintain a facility there. Like you said, tons of old American manufacturers have moved part or all of their production to Mexico. J Peterman, Frye, Wolvering and Red Wing boots all have major operations there in addition to maintaining small US facilities. Still, a lot of people, especially in leather goods, want that American style marketing so a lot of places push the boundaries on how far they go without actually saying ‘Made in USA’.

@meh
Amazon Gold Box Deal today
Men’s work boots.
https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=lp_16276085011_gbps_tit_s-3_bb19_06e691d7?rh=i%3Afashion%2Cn%3A16276085011%2Cn%3A16276085011&ie=UTF8&lo=none&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&node=16276085011&lo=none&field-enc-merchantbin=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Thoughts? Recommendations, if any?

@f00l Wolverine still makes decent boots, even the imported ones. Those prices are pretty good, I don’t think you can go wrong. I wouldn’t buy the moc toe because the appearance of a welt is artificial and it’s gonna come unglued just as soon without being as functional or comfy as the other ones there. Can’t speak to the other brands but the Wolverines are a good buy IMO.

@meh
Thx. Mostly I am in sandals if I can be, but sometimes they won’t do.

@woodhouse Sorry I’m late to this thread. Welcome to meh. My bag suggestion would be a Tom Bihn. Not outrageously expensive and hand-made by employees who are treated well in your home state. I used their Empire Builder every day for eight years and it still looks brand new. Last month I switched to a Cadet because I’m carrying less stuff around. I can’t recommend these bags or the company highly enough.

@SSteve the Tom Bihn founders bag is calling my name. It’s just hard to justify, even though I kinda hate the bag I have now.

@Kidsandliz I love this idea, but wouldn’t it be more fun to get the broken one?

@woodhouse Early on they did this once with a speaker dock and the winner got a new, unrefurbished, not returned, not damaged one. We get enough broken stuff in fuko’s : ) I mostly suggested it as a sort of side comment on your axe skills so that you could put them to practical use at meh and then list that on your resume as a legitimate job related skill. You know, in case you needed to apply for a job with the Texas mafia or something. You could have people guess both how many pieces and how many strokes of the axe it took to do the deed.

I used to take people camping for a living. One winter I lived in NW Ontario near James Bay where we heated with wood, had outhouses only (got to 40 below on a regular basis), no electricity, water from the lake through 6’ of ice…and I can tell you first hand, frozen wood does not split. The axe bounces. You have to bring it inside to thaw it to be able to split it into smaller pieces for the wood stoves. Generally though I put a wedge in an axe created first split and used the sledgehammer on the wedge to finish the split (well unless the axe was wedged well and I could hit the floor a few times with the wood while the axe remained stuck in it). It was faster that way for me and kept us from having axe marks on the porch and/or inside in floor.

@woodhouse Use a maul- that way you’ll get some bits crushed too.

@PurplePawprints I was! As you can see from my profile, I’ve been around as a lurker for awhile (my one Meh purchase - the T-shirt from November. Wearing it today). I’m still fairly new to the forum, though, since I mostly just read the write-ups and checked out the deals. Shortly after I moved to the Dallas area, I found out that they were located here, and the rest is history!

@DaveInSoCal I’ve always written it as “axe”, but I can’t vouch for the historical or grammatical accuracy of that spelling.

@woodhouse and here I though it was a pun on southern (ax for ask)

Anyway
http://grammarist.com/spelling/ax-axe/
and (for the USA)
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ax%2Caxe&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=5&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cax%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Caxe%3B%2Cc0
and (for the UK)
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ax%2Caxe&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=6&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cax%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Caxe%3B%2Cc0

You are welcome

@DaveInSoCal @woodhouse

For such a segment, would it be 1 question a week, 1 question per person per week, or multiple questions per person per week?

I have a bunch of questions already.

@PlacidPenguin You can feel free to ask me any (axe or non-axe related) questions whenever you want. So long as there isn’t a prohibitively large volume of questions, I can keep answering them.

@woodhouse

1. Favorite type of wood to chop?

2. Favorite type of wood to not chop?

3. What does an axe smell like?

4. Does the smell of a tree temporarily influence the smell of an axe?

5. Thoughts on gummy bear handle for an axe?
   /youtube gummy bear resin axe handle
   

@PlacidPenguin First off, I don’t mean to overstep my qualifications here. I’m far from an experienced lumberjack, it’s more of an occasional hobby.

1. Yes

2. Things that are not wood

3. Wood or plastic and metal

4. I would presume this to be true

5. I respect that guy for taking it seriously. I wouldn’t have the patience to do that haha

@woodhouse
OK you can block all my posts now.

1. Chop Suey?

@f00l the food, or the System of a Down song?

@woodhouse

Your choice.

@f00l meh.

@woodhouse
Meh rather than Mediocre? You appear to possess taste of fine distinction sir.

@f00l

@Kidsandliz oh fuck. we gotta get on this shit.

@carl669 That’s a wash. You’re not making any progress with comments like that.

@woodhouse
"oh shit. we gotta get on this fuck."

Is that better?

@f00l Nailed it!

@Kidsandliz @carl669 That graph showed a considerable amount of fuckage during the early 1800s, which seemed curious to me. A Google Books search in the date range reveals what should have been obvious:

It’s not the cuftom in Suffolk to let the calves fuck fix or feven weeks. It’s just Google insufficiently parsing the long s, ‘ſ’, which incidentally fully fell out of favor in accordance with that fuck dip on the fuck vs. shit graph.

@brhfl Interesting. Hadn’t thought of that. Still when you look at the more recent history, @carl669 has some work to do.

@connorbush

Are you a ‘people person’ and/or can you tease people without them wanting you held accountable for the teasing?

@PlacidPenguin Dude, you’re releasing industry secrets.

@PlacidPenguin so I’m told.

@KDemo I can neither confirm nor deny my intentions in sharing this particular photo. But it was @galmaegi and @hollboll approved.

@woodhouse - Nipping any problems in the bud, as it were.

@woodhouse

@dashcloud the interview process begun with emailing back and forth with @hollboll, and I did some writing samples to get an idea of how I write. I did a phone interview with @dave, and then a face to face with @hollboll. There may or may not have been some literal hoops to jump through.

As for the tickets, I plan on stealing all the fun ones. They can try to stop me, but I’ve set up some barbed wire and a gate around my desk.

The last game I finished was Final Fantasy XV. I thought it was a lot of fun, but kinda plodding in the middle. I’m a huge FF nerd, but I definitely miss the turn based combat. I dunno if I’m in the minority on that.

Looking forward to seeing your tickets!

@dashcloud follow up: I’m super excited for Mass Effect: Andromeda and Zelda (but I didn’t get a Switch preorder, so that might be awhile).

@woodhouse they clearly don’t want us to buy it yet as mario is scheduled for release “holiday 2017”

@thismyusername I know, right? They pulled this same stunt with the NES Classic. I would have bought like four of those as gifts and for myself, but instead I built a RetroPie machine. I’m dying to play Breath of the Wild, though.

@woodhouse So, as a FF fan, you’ll probably enjoy Jason Schreier’s FF retrospective series, which is slowly making its way through all of the mainline games: http://kotaku.com/tag/final-fantasy-retrospective. Each one also has a video of the first chunk of the game, which is great for the earliest titles.

@dashcloud I have a massive amount of respect for Jason Schreier as a journalist, I will definitely check it out! I just played through IX again on Steam, and started VI recently as well. I pretty much always have several saves across the series that I jump into sporadically.

@woodhouse - So they have you convinced that the barbed wire is to keep others out??
Mwahahaha

@KDemo the barbed wire is my own doing. You think they /voluntarily/ share an office with me?

@cinoclav
Who’s Rush?
Would I have ever heard any of their stuff?

@cinoclav
I love Rush. I had most of their albums on vinyl at one point (my parents might still have them). I actually sent @dave a Rush song today.

/giphy hipster

@woodhouse The rest are dismissed, you are now the only CS person who counts to me. Btw, what song?

@cinoclav

I believe the context was if Canada, Peru, and New Zealand merged into one country, what the national anthem would be for the new country, to be named “Zanadu”. I sent him the ridiculous 11 minute long video for “Xanadu”.

@woodhouse And I thought we had interesting conversations at MY place of work… All I can say is thank goodness you didn’t choose THIS Xanadu:

@cinoclav

@dave…

@cinoclav Ha, that was my suggestion. I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I’d heard the Rush song before.

@dave It’s not like that one gets a lot of radio play. You really have to be a big Rush fan to know it well.

@woodhouse Oh, man, that video is awesome. They weren’t models of moderation, were they? I had all the Rush albums on vinyl up through Signals. I have a handful on CD. And I well remember the days when music videos were mostly films of the band pretending to play the song. Here’s one I remember watching in the pre-MTV days:

@mikibell She has not. I believe that I may have been thrown to the wolves on that one. I suppose I will learn as I go.

@woodhouse

Be wary of @KittySprinkles and @mfladd. They have been known to bite.

Also watch out for @PlacidPenguin because… ‘reasons’.

@woodhouse good luck and God bless…it was nice knowing you!

(pretend that is a shark!)

@PlacidPenguin You can bite through a computer? Have I been mislead my entire life? I thought I was safe!

@mikibell Aww… (Are you off your meds?)

@Barney aren’t I always off?

@mfladd Don’t bogart the super soldier serum.

@dashcloud I’ve already made up the cot behind the barbed wire fence in my office. I’m here for the long haul.

@woodhouse Well that at least saves on rent…

@Kidsandliz if I didn’t have a dog it would save a ton on gas and mileage to just sleep there.

@conandlibrarian I’m from the Pacific Northwest, so getting caught in the rain is more of a lifestyle. I am indifferent to pina coladas.

@PlacidPenguin You’ll have to elaborate, as @hollboll has left us temporarily for her vacation.

@woodhouse

So basically, @hollboll without warning broke the news to me that Elmo is a puppet, thus crushing one of the notions I have still from childhood.

And she enjoyed it!

@Thumperchick

/giphy creepy greeting

@Thumperchick Happy Friday to you too

@Thumperchick
Good grief.
You had me checking my phone to make sure today is Saturday.

@PlacidPenguin That’s an excellent (and oddly specific) question.

This is kind of a boring answer, but I was doing B2B CS before I moved to Texas. This would be a company representative sending in requests, so usually higher-level stuff than normal CS questions. So we would get a lot of odd reporting requests or things our systems weren’t able to handle, and I would have to come up with creative solutions for the really off-the-wall requests. Mostly me monkeying around with Excel formulas and formatting until my hair fell out. There’s a reason that “Excel 2013 Formulas” and “VBA and Macros for Microsoft Excel” are still on my bookshelf.

@PlacidPenguin I really like the Ben and Jerry’s core ice cream, they do a peanut butter cookie one that is amazing.
Pic:

I also love mint chocolate.

@woodhouse guess that answers whether you have a peanut allergy or not… Yes, there is a checklist

Unless you enjoy using an epipen…

/8ball Was this my question for “Let me ax you a question” ?
Without a doubt

@mikibell I would definitely be dead if I had a peanut allergy.

@woodhouse I definitely favor the Salted Caramel Core. If you haven’t tried that one, don’t blame me for your future diabetes.

@cinoclav Nice! The strawberry one looks amazing too. I try to limit my ice cream intake to once every couple of months…

@woodhouse Strawberry cheesecake? Or is there one I haven’t seen yet? A strawberry core ice cream would be kind of awesome. While I don’t partake too often either, the craving hits once in a while and it can’t be denied. This is another current favorite. Reminds me of childhood.

@PlacidPenguin I am usually a pretty passive driver, in that I don’t typically use my horn or gesticulate at people. If (and this seems to be typical of Texas drivers, in my brief experience) people don’t use a signal and merge aggressively, I will definitely give them a honk.

Snow is a whole 'nother ballgame.

No wonder, I’ve been pronouncing it wrong all this time…