I found my old DVD of the first season of 'Lost' and it made me think about how we watch things now.

Last week in my Denver apartment, I popped in that first disc from 2004 and realized we used to wait a whole week between episodes, but now my friend and I will crush an entire new season of something like 'The Bear' in a single Saturday, which is wild when you think about it, right?

Update: The day a simple keypad swap turned into a crawl space nightmare

Got a call to replace a faulty keypad in a nice house over in Brentwood. Pulled the old one off, saw the wire was chewed through, easy fix. Followed it back to find the whole run through the wall and under the house had been turned into a mouse buffet. Spent six hours on my belly in that dirt crawl space re-running 22/4. Anyone have a better way to protect wire runs from rodents besides just conduit?

Got schooled on foundation work at a demo day in Cincinnati

Watching a crew tear down a 1920s garage. They found the old footers were just rubble in a trench. No rebar, no real concrete. The foreman said 'That's why your porch sags, kid.' Made me rethink every quick fix I've ever done. How deep do you guys really go for a solid base on a small project?

I watched a guy at the state park spend 20 minutes trying to light a fire with wet kindling he found on the ground.

Shoutout to the binder at the Chicago fair who called my headbands 'sloppy'

She showed me how to pack the cores tighter with a curved needle, and my last three books look way cleaner. Anyone have a favorite thread weight for that technique?

PSA: My air fryer started smoking like crazy from a simple mistake

I was in my kitchen in Denver last Tuesday, trying to make a quick batch of frozen potato wedges. I preheated my Cosori air fryer to 400 degrees, threw the wedges in the basket, and walked away for a minute. That's when I saw thick, gray smoke pouring out the back. I ran over and pulled the plug. Turns out, I had left a tiny piece of parchment paper from my last cook tucked under the basket, and it got sucked up against the heating element. The whole thing smelled like burnt plastic for hours. I had to take the basket and drawer outside to air out. In my experience, you really have to double-check that the basket is totally clear before you start. Has anyone else had a close call with something small causing a big smoke problem?

Had to pick between a $300 crimper and a $80 one for a big harness job on a King Air. Went with the cheap one.

I had to pick between a big monthly spread or a tiny daily one for my work notes.

Went with the daily pages, and it's been way better for keeping track of my meetings. I just use a simple dot grid notebook and give each day its own space. Anyone else find that smaller sections help them focus more?

I thought those cheap oil filter wrenches were junk until my neighbor showed me his trick

I always bought the big metal band wrench for my oil changes, thinking the plastic cap kind would just break. Last weekend, my neighbor Mark loaned me his, a simple 76mm cap tool from the auto parts store. He said to tap it on with a rubber mallet first, and it worked perfectly on my stubborn filter. It cost him maybe $8 and saved me from a huge mess. Has anyone else found a simple tool that turned out to be way better than the expensive option?

Cut the wrong joist in my attic last Tuesday and had to fix it before the drywall crew showed up.

I was up in the crawl space over the garage in my house in Bellingham, cutting a new opening for a vent. My sawzall blade skipped and I took a chunk out of a load-bearing 2x8. I had to sister in a new 8-foot piece with a dozen 3-inch structural screws and a tube of adhesive. Has anyone else had to patch a structural member in a tight spot like that?