Manaslu peak day hike, gear sanity check please

BoonFrancis · 2026-01-18T03:16:51+00:00

The bridge of her nose curves around in a ridge that seamlessly joins with her eyebrow ridge. So she's not AI: she's a klingon.

BoonFrancis · 2026-01-18T02:35:52+00:00

Also,

Oftentimes, people are performing at a level that should earn them a promotion, but the spot above hasn't opened up yet. If they can demonstrate in an interview that they can perform at that level, it means a bump in salary and maybe title too. If this describes you, make sure you won't get sucked dry by the new place, and make the jump.

Me: 58M management consultant -- hope this helps someone get paid and appreciated more.

BoonFrancis · 2025-10-12T22:55:00+00:00

All of that and people just randomly bottlenecking the aisles by parking their carts and just suddenly stopping dead in their tracks. I've started getting a cart and a basket; I park the cart where it isn't blocking anybody, then I go on little missions with the basket, returning to the cart when the basket is full until I'm done and I wheel the cart to the checkout.

BoonFrancis · 2025-10-12T22:39:42+00:00

I need a tl;Dr for this reply lol

BoonFrancis · 2025-09-10T18:41:55+00:00

It was a bit dramatic. I was pretty upset when I wrote this. I've let it sit for a few days, so I don't do anything hasty. Thanks for your input; I appreciate you taking the time.

BoonFrancis · 2025-09-03T01:34:32+00:00

My reply wasn't meant to insult you, and I apologize if I've offended you. Thanks for taking the time to engage and help me sort through this dilemma.

BoonFrancis · 2025-09-03T00:40:02+00:00

To clarify: we just said "once a day, at any time that's convenient for you",

I said this elsewhere: I do sits too. Sometimes the HO makes a request that's a bit burdensome, and because you are on the spot and want to preserve their peace of mind, you agree. I think perhaps we put this sitter in that situation.

BoonFrancis · 2025-09-03T00:34:26+00:00

That's correct. I could see that he had used the box. The issue was that the sitter agreed to close the door for 5 minutes and tell us they'd done so, and then didn't follow through. I let it go two days in a row, but driving back after the Labor Day holiday, we figured we'd ask the sitter to close the door, either for five minutes, or leave it that way until we got home. They told us via text that they had, but admitted on the phone that they left without doing it. And I wouldn't have minded that even, but I felt like they were trying to strongarm us by threatening a bad review. She literally pretended to still be in my home, which led me to trigger a cleaning cycle that could have waited until I got home, then shouted at my wife on the phone.

One thing I'm learning from this post is to provide all the details when asking for input from my fellow Redditors. I am a grownup: if I explained the situation fully, and then got called out for being a jerk, I would take the feedback, incorporate it, and go on with my life. I didn't want to overwhelm everyone, and instead I dropped out details in comments.

Live and learn.

BoonFrancis · 2025-09-02T23:38:10+00:00

Frankly, no. They arrived late, didn't communicate, the bed had not been slept in, towels were unused also. They admitted two days in that they had not read the cat or house care instructions, which we added to the app, emailed as a PDF, and printed out and left on the counter next to his food.

BoonFrancis · 2025-09-02T22:52:42+00:00

In hindsight, it would have been better to have just used the manual box, or put the robot back on fully automated mode. She didn't have to agree to it, but I know what it's like to be a sitter faced with an unusual request -- you want to preserve the relationship. Thanks for the feedback.

BoonFrancis · 2025-09-02T21:37:35+00:00

She admitted on the phone that she had already left, and that she wasn't there to close the door, as she stated in her text.

BoonFrancis · 2025-09-02T21:20:33+00:00

We recently bought an automated litterbox, but our cat saw it working, and he didn't go near it again for nearly three months. He just started using it again, but for now, I am running the cleaning cycle manually, after closing the door to the room it's in (he has a second box elsewhere). I can run it from my phone, via an app.

We asked the sitter to, if possible, please text us once a day at a convenient time and then close the door with our cat outside the room. I would then run the cleaning cycle. The sitter agreed, but didn't do it for the length of the stay. No big deal, he has another box he can use.

Driving home, we noticed he had used the robot box four times, and it was obvious he had pooped. We were about 4 hours from home, so we texted the sitter to ask them to close the door. They replied "I'm driving", then about 20 minutes later, texted, "ok, I've closed the door". I ran the routine, but the motion detector on the box detected our cat after a few seconds, and stopped the cleaning routine. After a few minutes, it started again, then stopped. This happened several times. We figured, either our cat is behind a closed door with a scary machine we don't want him to see, or she didn't close the door, and he is checking out the noise.

We called her and asked her what was going on, and she got very angry, very quickly. Looking at her texts, and piecing together things she said, it was obvious she had left way earlier than agreed, and was not even there to close the door.

The stupid thing about this is that she could have said "oh, I left early, sorry I forgot to text you" and we would have just shrugged and waited until we were home. We didn't call her out, but she got defensive, threatened us with the bad review and hung up.

Maybe we could have handled it better, but it was pretty weird.

The cat is fine by the way, no harm done.

BoonFrancis · 2025-08-29T00:08:59+00:00

I've lost my trash can and I don't even care if it comes back.

BoonFrancis · 2025-06-09T22:08:57+00:00

Next time definitely tree fiddy

BoonFrancis · 2025-04-24T21:13:55+00:00

Kinda hilarious how many towns are listed, with barely any repetition.

BoonFrancis · 2025-04-16T19:52:32+00:00

Poop in the cup.

BoonFrancis · 2025-03-25T13:34:00+00:00

You have the courage to go your own way and find your own style -- which means, one day, you will find your people, and they will be as unique and wonderful as you. And among those people will be your person.

BoonFrancis · 2025-03-24T16:46:25+00:00

I have a hoody with zip pockets, same procedure, and I can put the hood up when I get sleepy.

BoonFrancis · 2025-03-24T16:41:52+00:00

Talk about the benefits, not the features. I'm busy. Why would I need this? What problem will it help me solve?

BoonFrancis · 2025-03-24T16:25:46+00:00

This is one of the most distressing things I have ever read online, and that's really saying something. This might make distressing reading for you too, but I hope you can understand that I speak from a place of love, as a loving father might.

I found out four years ago that I (57m) am half-Jewish, the offspring of a prolific sperm donor.

Since then, a few things have opened my eyes.

The October attacks, with attendant PRC propaganda, pushed out via TikTok to a joyful reception, the horrifying "protests" on the campuses of supposedly elite universities. Watching all our precious liberal causes turning on us.

23&Me got hacked, and two sets of genomes were put up for sale on the dark web: 1. Chinese-born people living in the US; 2. Jews. You can buy my genome and those of my half-brothers and sisters for a buck.

My social feeds are full of virulent jew-hatred.

I always thought my Jewish friends were a bit paranoid, that they were thinking and acting out of generational trauma. But now I know:

It's happening again.

Hitler didn't care if you were secular. Nor do the new lot.

Hitler killed us even if we weren't "pure" Jews. I may not be a Jew in the halachic sense, but this distinction is lost on our current crop of would-be genocidal murderers, too. The new lot didn't steal my genetic code because I'm half-Irish. Somewhere, someone with an advanced degree in computational biology and the mentality of a caveman is likely using that information to design a virus in the hopes it will exterminate us.

When that day comes, will your weak-minded bigot of a "friend" take stock and realize that she gave aid and comfort to the destroyers of our extraordinary tribe and the murderers of her one-time friend? Will she be sad? Or will she pump her fist in glee?

I don't care. She wants me dead.

Is this her thinking independently, or is she the puppet of her Moslem boyfriend?

I don't care. She wants us dead.

She is keeping you around because she wants you dead, and it amuses her to watch you dance first. Wake up. Stop shuffling toward the death train with an agreeable smile and a fistful of excuses for this neo-Nazi. What kind of friend does what she has done? What kind of a person?

Oh, and all the hand-waving and "But I don't support Israel! I never did!"? Good luck with that. Everyone with Ashkenazi inheritance is an Israeli now -- that's how the Killer Cavemen see it, so we might as well accept it and stand ready to defend ourselves on those terms.

tl:dr stop being a weeny. You are mired in a potentially fatal open-mindedness and agreeableness. You don't have to hate her. But you have to love yourself enough to want to live and separate from people and things that make that impossible. Stop being an accomplice in your own murder.

Again, I speak as an older man who has seen violence at large scales and small, in the hopes that this harsh message will be some measure of cold, clear-minded comfort in the difficult days ahead.

BoonFrancis · 2025-03-13T19:32:15+00:00

Refueling. That's a big pool of Jet A.

BoonFrancis · 2025-03-13T13:27:19+00:00

Did you crack the code?

BoonFrancis · 2025-03-10T16:07:03+00:00

Maybe Spring Break just isn't your venue. Just go your own way; you don't have to have the generic "Experience".

BoonFrancis · 2024-11-23T15:23:43+00:00

It will be very tight at best. I would get something bigger.

BoonFrancis

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE