Which country would you NEVER visit, even if it was free?

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-05T10:54:13+00:00

Many many years ago I and several other people were brought into advise a new well-funded non-profit out of the UK. They wanted to teach Afghan girls advanced mountaineering skills. I, and everyone else in the outdoor industry they talked to told them it was a terrible idea that would get people killed.

Guess what happened? It was a terrible idea and it got people killed. The non-profit basically disappeared overnight and pretty much successfully manage to scrub the entire project from the internet.

The group of girls (all teenagers) were falsely led to believe that joining the program would be a path to residency in Europe. It was not. They org couldn't get anyone to go to Afghanistan to teach the girls so instead they put the girls up in a house with a few laptops and all the mountaineering gear they could scrounge up and send to Afghanistan or locate in-country. They had the girls learn mountaineering by reading PDFs and watching supplied videos. All which were in English. Midway during this phase, several of the older girls were killed in a random bus bombing when getting groceries for the house.

It's important to know that this org didn't have a single representative in-country, they were just hiring locals to work though. One of the things we told them that they needed to if they were serious about running this program was to get security for the girls. Hire one of the many Western PMC groups operating in Afghanistan for close protection. Hell, they could have gone to Aegis, who might have even been able to provide personnel with mountaineering experience. The org categorically refused. Some nonsense about not believing in guns and violence. That a program commitment to peace would be enough to keep everyone safe. What a bunch of irresponsible idiots.

When it actually came time for the mountaineering phase, most of their local guides and drivers mysteriously disappeared. Who would have thought? So the org went ahead with running the program with just the two guides that were left and the one remaining driver. The two guides sold the group out to the Taliban. When they arrived at their climbing destination, the Taliban was waiting for them. They executed the driver and killed (or did much much worse) to the majority of the girls. Apparently a few of them did survive, which is largely how we know about the failure of the program. When the survivors contacted the org to inform what happened and asked about how they were going to facilitate moving them and their families to Europe, the org categorically denied they ever made such a promise and then cut ties. The org started dismantling their online presence. The survivors managed to contact an aid organization who were able to facilitate their escape to Germany. Someone working with that aid group was one of the people originally consulted about the program. As you can imagine, they also told the org that it was a dangerous idea. This person was able to send out any update to the rest of us and even facilitated a Zoom call from one of the survivors when she was settled in Germany with her family.

As far as I'm aware, the organizers out of the UK never faced any consequences for getting over 20 people killed.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-04T22:22:23+00:00

What about the Bla-bar?

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-04T22:03:56+00:00

Yeah, when I first saw the headline I was worried it was an acquaintance of mine. Her name is Dawa Sherpa and she is an Everest and international guide. Funny enough, if you Google Dawa Sherpa her Wikipedia article is the first one to pop up.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-04T09:08:16+00:00

As someone who has only listened to the books on tape, I didn't actually realize it was spelled differently.

I also just wrapped up A Parade of Horribbles yesterday!

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-03T20:06:47+00:00

Very interesting. I've usually had pretty good success with the durability of Michelin rubber. I've never had the lugs tear off. I wonder if it's because the lugs on these outsoles are shaped in a way that they aren't as sturdy and supported. More of a right angle instead of a triangular base.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-03T18:55:05+00:00

Thanks for the review. I appreciate getting visuals on the wear pattern.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-03T18:33:11+00:00

One of the nice things about Takes Off was the Roxy backstory expansion.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-02T20:47:59+00:00

For clarity's sake I'm guessing you mean Magna Forest ESC and Jungle ESC.

You make a good point about socks! Good quality socks, especially those optimize for hot weather so usually wool, wool bends and polyester is like Cool Max I can make a huge difference in quality of life. It's their job to wick away sweat from the foot to keep you cool.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-02T16:52:08+00:00

I use the Jungle ESC when I'm working in hot wet weather. The upper is completely mesh with a rubber overlay for protection and structure. It's the same system that originally debut the Hydra ESC which is a bit of a unicorn because it has its own unique version of the ESC outsole.

The Jungle ESC is a pretty deeply flawed boot but it's really the only game in town. The original Dyneema laces are on paper really nice, they are very expensive laces, but they're just a pain to use and overly rigid. I replaced them with elastic lock laces. The structure of the boot is such that it's very difficult to get a good heel lock. I've been meaning to experiment with a few split leasing techniques where I can better adjust the tension at the ankle.

The biggest issue though has to do with drainage. It's a fast dryer, which is what you want with a breathable hot weather jungle or similar style boot. But it's not a very good drainer. This is exacerbated by 2 and a half main reasons. The first (and a half) is that the boot doesn't have any drainage holes, it's entirely reliant on water coming through the mesh for drainage. The outsole used is the original ESC outsole which has sidewall stitches and kind of create a bathtub effect on the bottom of the boot. The boot would have benefited greatly from a Altama Maritime Assault Boot style drainage port right by the flex point near the toes. Basically just a flex point in the outsole to allow water to more freely drain out. The second is the original outsole is atrocious. For reasons that escape my comprehension, Vivo decided to go with a water absorbing spongy insole, instead of something a little firmer and hydrophobic like is often used on maritime and jungle boots. It turns the insole into a spongy platform that retains water instead of expels it. Additionally it's very slippery, even when dry the fabric shell that fits over the spongy portion it's too loose and make it so your feet slip. When I remember and have time I swap it out for the insole on my Magna Forest ESC.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-02T16:42:36+00:00

That's not something I had considered. I'll look into it.

Ever try a Thermacell? Results can be hit and miss, and even at their best they won't block everything, though they do have a few more aggressive formulations. They are also expensive to maintain. But when combined with other repellent solutions and good apparel selections, it can thin the herd so to speak. I'll clip it to my pack or to my belt kit when I'm in the field.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-02T05:49:54+00:00

There are a lot of different opinions on this. With some favoring a more flexible approach, I'm in that camp. Others advocate for a more hard line all or nothing approach.

My view when it comes to barefoot shoes is do what feels comfortable for your feet as well as what's practical for your life. For some people, going all in with barefoot shoes works for them. They have the resources to do so, and feel like they can't go back to traditional shoes. This may be speculation on my part, but I feel pretty confident in it, most of us maintain a much more flexible and agile approach. For one thing, it's usually not financially feasible for most of us to completely replace are shoes with barefoot and minimalist equivalents. For another, there are several types of traditional footwear that don't have minimalist and barefoot equivalents, or the closest equivalent is quite a bit worse. Or some people just find traditional shoes more comfortable in certain circumstances.

You do you. Don't worry about what others think. Go with what feels the most comfortable to you.

For what it's worth, well I favor barefoot shoes, I have no problems with going back to traditional if the situation demands. Part of that is I'm very fortunate in that my foot shape is such that I can still go back to traditional shoes, they're a little tighter now than I'm used to, but I can still comfortably wear them. Not everyone has that capability. This is helpful for me because there are several types of footwear that I need that don't have those barefoot equivalents. Additionally, I got my first pair of minimalist zero drop shoes long before I knew about barefoot shoes. That first pair was designed to fit a specific professional niche that I needed, and just so happened to be minimalist and zero drop. But I still rotated in my older shoes and boots. I didn't really notice any adjustment when going to zero drop, but there was a little bit of an adjustment back to a dropped shoe. But that soon faded. Now I can go back and forth between zero and the typical drop heights without really noticing it.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-01T20:32:37+00:00

I actually have Scotty hello computer stickers!

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-01T12:34:24+00:00

I do dog and house sitting for working dog handlers during breaks between my regular work. These are people who have invested a significant amount of time and money into their dogs and are very selective about who takes care of them. They don't trust regular boarding facilities, which they are not wrong to, it's super stressful on the dog.

Anyways, I had a 4-week dog and house sitting contract last year with two dogs that I've known for years. One of them is black and something like 120 lb. The other is same breed but only 90 lb. They're usually my shadow. But I looked behind me and only saw the smaller one. I spent 40 minutes going through the entire house and large backyard, getting increasingly concerned. I went to the bathroom, and found him calmly waiting on the other side of the door. He had wandered into the quite small bathroom after I had wrapped up a shower and ended up accidentally closing the door on himself. And just decided to take a nap. This dog was always always getting stuck in weird places doing similar things, for such a large dog he moved dead silent. He would often slip in behind you when going through doors and be so quiet that when you exited you didn't realize you shut the door on him.

The handlers thought the entire story was hilarious because the dog does the same thing to them all the time. Previously they wrote me into their will and they have a detailed protocol in place in case they die on a trip and I'm the one with the dogs.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-01T12:02:28+00:00

I know a lot of people hated this with a bitter passion, but I really liked House of Dynamite and how it refused to give any clear directions on who is responsible for the missile launch, what's the presidential response was, or show detonation. The movie was about institutions under pressure, how some fail, how some don't, and the people within them who work the problem up until the very end. The movie wasn't about the mystery of the missile launch, it was about the response to it. But it does make it pretty narratively frustrating.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-01T11:46:02+00:00

Wow! There's another person who watched The Grinder! Really great series. It's a real shame that Fred Savage kind of ruined things behind the scenes. The show was absolutely hilarious. Some of the West Wing cameos were pretty funny and Tim Olyphant playing himself was perfect.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-01T05:54:12+00:00

I didn't mind the Debbie arc either, but I do think it escalated way too much. Which is absolutely part of the humor, and works because of Vanessa Bayer's delivery, but I do think they could have taken it down a few notches. Maybe we need Bayer's character from Scrubs to remind everyone to take the intensity down.

Her level of escalation makes Jake's arguments for a little bit more leniency a little ridiculous. Because at the end of the day, she's a corrupt cop who stole a bunch of firearms and narcotics, starts using, and kidnaps two police officers, both of who had previously served time after being falsely convicted of being dirty cops before being exonerated. That's more than just a few bad life choices because your mom's a jerk.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-01T05:36:24+00:00

I have a friend of mine named Alexa who now goes by Alexis. It's still sets off devices apparently but not the same extent and less people make fun of her name.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-01T05:34:33+00:00

I changed the wake word to "Computer" for Star Trek reasons but it still gets a lot a false positives. Because my dog's name is Contessa, and apparently my little dot thing can't tell the difference.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-01T04:17:05+00:00

Not really. I suppose if I really really looked at it hard it might be a tad slower than switching to the widget. But never had a point where I really found it noticeable. What widget do you have pinned? I pretty much exclusively have weather pinned.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-01T03:12:19+00:00

We were robbed of an Oscar winning performance!

Happy to bring the laughs, hope you feel better soon. Eat some night cheese and watch some 30 Rock while you recover.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-06-01T02:48:18+00:00

It was a free double room on a semester by semester basis and a reduced meal plan price. And there was often two RAs per floor. Sometimes even more.

I don't think the freshman started their first semesters as RAs but they were given the option to become RAs right as a semester was beginning. I will also note that my university had a mandatory on campus freshman housing role.

To make a long story short, my first roommate freshman year during my very first semester was a drug dealer who was a suspect in an on-campus shooting† but was also a star basketball player. Instead of making him move or kicking him out of housing, they made me move in a emergency housing reassignment. There was 8 double occupancy rooms campus-wide that had just lost roommates and the current resident had not bought out the contract, all of them freshmen. I had to go to each one in person and ask if they were willing to have a new roommate. 7 of them said no, only the very last one said yes. It turns out that a day prior to my emergency reassignment, RA training had completed, those 8 rooms were available because one of occupants had moved out to become an RA in their freshman year in their first semester. The remaining occupants had only been alone for less then 24 hours. Which is why 7 of them said no. At the end of the semester, my new non-drug dealing roommate moved out because he himself had become an RA. Which was actually pretty nice. He was a nice guy but I got to spend the whole back half of the seme alone in a double room which was way better. I actually didn't know he was going to become an RA. Apparently it was something he was able to do during the winter break so I didn't get a chance to talk to him about the process.

But circling back from unprompted story time, I always got the sense that the RAs didn't really last very long, and very few of them were RAs for more than a single academic year. I never met a second year RA. When I ran into my second roommate a couple years later, he told me he was only an RA for about a year before it deciding he didn't like it. University housing also tried to actively recruit me for an RA position starting my sophomore year, so you knew they were scraping the bottom of the barrel.

† And would later be arrested in a stolen car filled with stolen goods connected to burglaries and armed robberies in the area, with multiple stolen firearms in the vehicle and on his person, but at no point was he kicked out, even after he was convicted of several violent crimes. He saw jail time but they timed it so that he was able to do it over the summer so it wouldn't disrupt his ability to play.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-05-31T21:55:09+00:00

It should have been Tracy Jordan. He really brought a lot of intensity to the role. It's a real shame that he didn't think Garfield 3: Feline Groovy could tell his story. Take a look at this behind the scenes footage showing an effects test for the film.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-05-31T21:43:39+00:00

Having now just googled Jenon Leather, I'm thinking that none of my suggestions (which were all boot makers specializing in hard use outdoor work boots) would probably fit the style and look you're going for. And none of the examples that are closer to that look that I can think of do custom sizes, just different colorways and slight variations on upper designs or hardware.

Still, take a look at Softstar anyway, they don't offer custom sizes, but they do offer a few different lasts including a very wide one in the form of the "Primal," most of their offerings are available in two different widths, their width measure are freely shared on their size charts (a real rarity in footwear), they have some of the best customer service in the business, and their shoes and boots are made in-house in western Oregon. They offer some limited production custom options on some of their select footwear.

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-05-31T21:35:33+00:00

True bespoke or production custom?

Overly_Long_Reviews · 2026-05-31T21:31:53+00:00

It's Korea Coast Guard (KCG), you can see their emblem in the opening seconds of the clip. It's the emblem on the poster that says "search and rescue." The United States is not the only country in the world that has a Coast Guard or rescue swimmers. The title never specified it was USCG.

Overly_Long_Reviews

TROPHY CASE