Serious question, has anyone else had a batch of kraut go too soft?

My neighbor in Portland tasted my red cabbage kraut about a year ago and said it felt mushy, like it lost its crunch. I realized I was letting it ferment in my kitchen, which gets pretty warm. I switched to keeping the jar in my basement where it stays cooler, around 65 degrees. Now I let it go for three weeks down there and the texture is way better, much more snap to it. What other spots in the house do you all use to keep temps steady?

Just realized my old way of running wire in attics was a huge fire risk

I was on a job in a 1970s house in Phoenix last month, and the homeowner asked me to add a motion sensor in the garage attic. I found the old alarm wire from a past system just laying across the blown-in insulation, right on top of the ceiling joists. The installer had just let it sit there, and over the years the insulation had piled up and buried it completely. My boss told me that's a major code violation now (it can overheat), and we had to rerun the whole line in conduit. I've been checking every attic since. Has anyone else run into this and found a good, fast way to secure new wire up there without crushing the insulation?

Appreciation post: I thought slice of life anime was boring until I watched 'March Comes in Like a Lion'

For years, I avoided shows without big fights or magic systems, thinking they were just about nothing happening. My friend kept telling me to watch 'March Comes in Like a Lion', and I finally gave in last month. The first episode felt slow, but by the third, I was completely hooked. It's not about shogi, it's about the main character's loneliness and the family that takes him in. The way it shows his quiet pain and small moments of comfort hit me harder than any battle scene ever has. It completely changed my view on what makes a story good. Has anyone else had an anime genre they totally misjudged? What show proved you wrong?

My foreman in Toledo said a 4-foot level is a crutch for bad line work

I argued for a week, but after laying a 50-foot run of soldier course without one, I finally get it. Anyone else forced to ditch a tool that made them better?

Overheard a kid at the mall say he got his first card with a $500 limit

It made me think back to my first secured card with a $200 deposit in 2008, and how different the starting point is now. I realized I haven't kept up with what's actually good advice for building credit from scratch these days. What's the best first move for a young person now, a secured card or something else?

Vent: My streaming app kept crashing during the new season of Severance

It took me almost two hours to figure out the problem was my old smart TV's storage being full. I had to delete a bunch of unused apps and clear the cache just to watch episode three without it freezing. Has anyone else had this happen with an older Samsung model?

Showerthought: I keep seeing guys at our shop skip the final torque sequence on Duramax L5P injector hold-down bolts.

I watched a new tech just zip them down with an impact last week, and now that truck is back with a blown head gasket because the uneven clamping warped the rail.

Had a real head scratcher with a flange gasket on a Friday afternoon

Last week at the plant, we were buttoning up a feedwater heater after a maintenance window. I'm talking final torque on a big 24 inch flange, feeling good. My apprentice, Kyle, is handing me tools. We get it all sealed, pressure test, and there's this faint, steady hiss. Not a roar, just a whisper. We spend an hour re-checking every bolt, convinced the new gasket was bad. Finally, my foreman Mike walks over, listens for two seconds, and goes 'You boys check the old gasket came off clean?' Kyle's face went white. Sure enough, a skinny little ring of the OLD gasket was still stuck in the groove, so the new one never seated right. We felt like real geniuses. Anyone else ever been fooled by something that simple?

Had to pick between a granite countertop or quartzite for my kitchen remodel in Boise

The granite was cheaper at $65 per square foot, but the quartzite from Brazil had this amazing movement in the stone. I went with the quartzite because it felt more unique, even though it cost about 30% more. Anyone have experience with how quartzite holds up to daily kitchen use compared to granite?

I swore I'd never watch a show about a chess prodigy, but The Queen's Gambit proved me wrong