A neighbor told me the scooter rentals actually paid for those speakers.

Look at it this way, Dave's seen some stuff but that doesn't mean scuba is always the wrong call for shallow water. Surface supply is great for the comms and never running out of air, sure, but for a quick 20 foot hull inspection or a simple line recovery, dragging all that hose and a topside compressor setup is a total pain. You lose so much time just getting the gear on and the tender organized, and for a job that's over in 40 minutes, that overhead just isn't worth it. Plus a lot of those older guys forget that a modern scuba setup with a good dive computer and a loud horn for signals is plenty safe if you are doing your pre-dive checks right. The real problem is guys skipping the buddy system or not watching their gas, not the gear itself. End of the day it depends on the job, but for me scuba is still the right tool for quick and shallow work.

Wait, does using dish soap on hardwood actually ruin the finish long term... I always thought it was fine if you used a little. The dust thing makes a lot of sense though, dry stuff mixing with wet lube just turns into mud basically.

Wait, do you really do that pre rinse thing for nonstick pans? I used to always give mine a quick rinse before the dishwasher too, thought it was just being thorough. But after my wife caught me scratching our favorite pan with a metal spatula she was pretty upset. Now I just scrape the food off with a wooden spoon and put it straight in the rack. Honestly I wish I had listened to her earlier because that coating is delicate. Since then I check the sink for anything sharp before I toss a nonstick pan in there.

Yeah, that's rough. Winter failures are the worst for sure.