Jumped on a job near the refineries once where the ground looked like packed dirt but turned out to be a old buried concrete slab that had cracked underneath. Set a mat on it and watched it sink about three inches before we pulled the truck back. Made me a whole lot more careful about where I park ever since.

Wow yeah I gotta admit I was kind of skeptical when people first started bringing this up. I hiked through there two years ago and honestly thought it was just a fluke or bad weather. But seeing more and more folks say the same thing makes me think it's actually a real problem with volunteer turnout down there. That section near the James is already confusing enough with all the side trails and creek crossings, faded blazes would be a nightmare. Kinda makes me want to reach out to the local club and see if they need help before things get worse.

After 45 minutes the wheel was somehow wobbling worse than before I started" - yeah, that sounds about right for a first try. One thing though: you mentioned spoke tension being off, but you might be confusing tension with the actual truing process. Spoke tension is about how tight each spoke is (measured with a tensiometer), while truing is about adjusting the rim side to side. You can have a wheel with wildly different tension on each side, but if the rim runs straight, it's technically "true" even though it's not built right. The wobble getting worse usually means you were turning the wrong spoke nipples, or you were overcorrecting by tightening too many spokes on one side without loosening the other side first. Try starting with the tightest spot, loosen it a quarter turn, then tighten the two spokes around it an eighth turn each, and see if that helps next time.

My buddy Mike put a smart thermostat in his 1920s house and it caught fire.

Four years in the trades and I finally learned that the cheap shortcut is almost always the wrong one. It's wild how that mentality creeps into everything, not just elevators.