Haha, that’s a good call. I certainly should have. I was pretty new with the torch so I suppose I was focused on the task at hand.

And it was just the tip™️. The last inch or 2 on the fork of a small lift won’t make a lot of noise compared to the torch.

I was using the forks as a workbench to cut a piece of 1/2" steel with an acetylene torch. I thought I had enough overhang to make it work.

Those forks ended up about 1.5" shorter after I finished my cut.

This was the push I needed to switch to Graphene. The Gemini offer popped up for me a couple of weeks ago. The only options were something like ‘Yes’ or ‘Not now’. No option to say never, which of course means they would bug me again and again.

So I reported it as Spam and made the jump.

I can relate to coming back from a long layoff. I was out pretty much all of last year due to a persistent back tweak. The programs I use taper up the volume over the first 3 or 4 weeks. As I got back into it this year, I just repeated the first week of a program over and over, gradually increasing the weights as my fitness returned.

When I felt like I was stalling, I moved on to the next week, repeating it until the next stall. And so on. This is a pretty conservative approach that makes sure I’m ready for the added volume.

Absolutely. 4 movements in a workout is plenty, IMO. Depending on your rep/set scheme, you may be over doing it if you’re coming back from a long layoff.

Start tapering in some accessory work as you acclimate to your routine.

If you’re feeling completely wiped workout after workout, take a closer look at your volume and intensity. Too much of that can be a problem. Head over to Barbell Medicine and see what they have to say about session RPE (sRPE).

When I had it, my only symptoms were in my nose, too. Not nearly as bad as you, but I constantly felt like I had a bunch of water up my nose… The same feeling you get when you swim on your back underwater. It was a really weird sensation.

This is spot on. A family member of mine is a high school teacher and faces everything you laid out. I’d add the seemingly constant threats of lawsuits and violence to further illustrate the untenable atmosphere.

Not necessarily. It varies by manufacturer, and some manufacturers use both methods for the various HD’s they make. Both work just fine, and both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Former industry guy here.

Some HD’s park the head on a plastic ramp at the OD of the platter stack. I don’t see that structure in your picture.

Others park the head on the platter itself. This area is always not usable area, since contact isn’t great for data integrity. This is a simpler solution but comes at the cost of reduced data capacity.

I don’t recall if this park area is on the ID or OD (it’s been a long time), but the position in your picture is reasonable since it would cost less disk area…

I’d argue this is their best album. Full of bangers! 🤘