Did you have any trouble with the bridge lender's seasoning requirements?

Respectfully, @seth_martinez21, I gotta push back on that a bit (and hey, I respect your experience). The tool swap was a bigger deal than you're giving it credit for, at least in my book. I've been running the same mix design for years and never changed my water content, so when I switched to the float shoe, the finish was noticeably better from the first pour (no joke, night and day difference). You're right that technique improves with time, but that float shoe lets me work the slab slower and catch the cream before it dries out, which is huge. A power trowel going too fast can burn any finish, sure, but the float shoe actually forces me to slow down (you know, like a governor on a truck). The warehouse floor still looks solid after three winters, no scaling or crazing, so I'm sticking with the shoe.

Last year I would have rolled my eyes at this but then my nephew started asking why we don't have a "tree guardian" after we read The Lorax together.

Nah I gotta disagree with you on that one. Aim assist can feel way too heavy handed in games like Apex or Call of Duty, it almost plays itself sometimes. On PC you have full control and if you miss, it's on you period. Siege on console is straight up broken without mouse aiming, but even with aim assist, stuff like Overwatch or Valorant just feel wrong with a thumbstick. The precision just isnt there for flicking or tracking at high levels. I get why people like controller for comfort but for actual skill expression, mouse is the only way.

You ever just stare at a piece of paper and wonder what its deal is? @alice_wilson73 you're totally right though, once you know about grain direction its like a switch flips in your brain. I remember messing up a stack of endpapers real bad because I thought "eh close enough" and they curled up like potato chips. Had to redo the whole thing and it taught me to check grain on everything now, even the scrap stuff. Its one of those lessons you gotta learn the hard way I guess.