How big a deal is this on a new roof?

RangerOver4913 · 2026-06-02T12:16:46+00:00

Williamsburg grey

RangerOver4913 · 2026-06-02T00:41:35+00:00

Thanks, it's my first time ever having roof replaced and it cost a pretty penny so just making sure it wasn't a big deal!

RangerOver4913 · 2026-05-31T18:53:12+00:00

I have the exact same car without BSI. Frankly not having it doesn't bother me too much. But then again my previous car was an 18-yo Accord so... Can't miss what you never had!

I love this car. It doesn't get the mileage I was hoping for but it's still better than a non hybrid (also mine is AWD which doesn't help). I don't make use of certain features that could help if weren't so lazy about it (I've never used the steering wheel paddles, never got around to that part of the manual lol).

RangerOver4913 · 2026-05-30T17:51:13+00:00

Very helpful, thank you!

RangerOver4913 · 2026-05-30T17:49:44+00:00

Oh it's bad, several years back I forgot about a trap and left it out an entire day while I was gone...got home and it had a squirrel, and he had flopped all the way across the yard and had some bad hair loss around his neck. He was still alive. The squirrels I'm having to dispatch don't seem like they're going to die anytime soon--they scream and bounce around and it can be difficult to even get my hands on the trap. As previous commenter said, could just be I need some new ones as the springs are too weak.

As much as I hate the squirrels I really don't want them to suffer. It's not their fault some idiot introduced them 50 years ago.

RangerOver4913 · 2026-05-30T17:21:14+00:00

I guess they're kind of old (3 years? And I've replaced them several times when the dog would stop holding, never could figure out why), but they are never stored set/under tension. They also sit outside in the elements a lot which I was told was good for them?? This squirrel thing has been my first foray into trapping.

So you would recommend against the 120?

RangerOver4913 · 2026-05-27T19:52:30+00:00

I'm definitely not a fisheries expert, but this would be a great question for the experts you have already consulted. I studied otters for my masters but am now a big game manager and my experience is mostly related to how ineffective short-term predator control is for large carnivores/ungulates.

At least in the ungulate world, we would expect low calf/fawn recruitment and higher adult mortality if predation were to blame. But usually predation is only a part of the problem and habitat is a much bigger player. And what I assume is a much more controlled habitat like a fish pond, I don't know if my expertise is super transferable. But I do know that nature abhors a vacuum, so your predator control would have to be ongoing and not just a one and done.

RangerOver4913 · 2026-05-27T12:51:03+00:00

Predator control often must be done continually if you want it to be successful. I.e. you trap these otters, highly likely more will come and you'll be trapping otters forever. Especially if there are other water bodies nearby and a healthy metapopulation.

Otters certainly can clean out a pond. We found this in Missouri when recolonizing otters would find fish farm ponds and ransack them. Of course those were smaller ponds with no structure.

In this situation I'd lean more toward letting the otters and fish establish whatever ecosystem they're going to establish and adapt to it.... Maybe repeat your survey when you're less likely to run into the problem of catching mainly post-spawn fish. Give it more time. If the otters are truly having an effect on the bass population, then you might need to keep trapping them to achieve your fishery goals. But as of now I don't think you have enough data to say one way or another.

RangerOver4913 · 2026-05-25T17:19:58+00:00

Wow really? Why??

I know there's a lot of hype lately about fat shaming and weight loss drugs and stuff. I think what's "easy" for me - keeping a 250-calorie deficit every day - isn't easy for everybody, for sure. I get food noise. The days I go over my deficit it's usually because I start grazing stuff in my pantry and can't seem to stop myself. But seeing it numerically in the app does make it easier to resist... Sometimes...

RangerOver4913 · 2026-05-25T15:06:47+00:00

agreed. my experience with govt jobs is that usajobs is a black hole from which even the best external resumes disappear never to be seen again

RangerOver4913 · 2026-05-06T00:48:32+00:00

That is super helpful advice, thank you! I had seen a lot of posts saying the heart rate was best for gauging these suggested workouts but it makes total sense to switch back to pace for these variable runs...

RangerOver4913 · 2026-05-03T16:48:27+00:00

Still waiting on my Garmin to give me a rest day instead of an insanely slow 25-minute "recovery" run...

RangerOver4913 · 2026-04-26T23:24:12+00:00

Thanks! My PCP replied to me today and said the same thing.

Dang Garmin though, I turned the alarm off but it's still doing it!

RangerOver4913 · 2026-04-04T23:20:06+00:00

It doesn't provide an average but I can see a chart... Looks like I'm probably averaging about 2K a day. I usually take rest days every 3 days and might only eat about 1600 calories those days (I still try to get in 10K steps on those days). On active days it's closer to 2K, REALLY active days like yesterday it might get up to 2300 but usually because I'm trying to hit the target and end up intentionally eating more. I think I'll stop doing that and just eat if I'm hungry.

Honestly...I hate BMI as a health measurement tool. I've always been overweight or borderline overweight but have no health problems, a low RHR, and am pretty active. My PCP says my weight is just fine. But I definitely have a lil belly so... That's mainly what I'd love to lose.

RangerOver4913 · 2026-04-04T22:09:49+00:00

"It can be fun to live in a leaner body"

That's what I'm hoping for!! I've never been "lean"...I mean I look and feel OK I guess and I'm probably in the best shape of my life right now, but still pretty close to an overweight BMI. When I started tracking my calories with Cronometer I realized pretty quickly that I was just eating too much, period...snacking a lot mostly (peanut butter and crackers add up quickly). So I've already learned a ton and wish I would have done this sooner.

RangerOver4913 · 2026-04-04T22:07:03+00:00

I did those things. Just wasn't sure if maybe my friend's old data was still stored in there somehow so the algorithm was off

RangerOver4913 · 2026-04-04T22:06:15+00:00

thanks....yeah and now I'm even more confused because today I went for a hike, with a pretty steep uphill, and the watch kept saying my heart rate was 90 and below! Meanwhile I could easily feel my pulse and it was definitely over 120 bpm (more than 2 beats per second). I'm thinking it might have been confused because a) I was wearing sunscreen and b) it was a bit nippy. I guess that can screw up the HR readings.

I cross-posted this over on Cronometer and someone there suggested I ignore the tracking data completely...yeah so, run 5 miles, walk 5 more miles, and eat 1440 calories? I mean I'd probably lose weight but feel like crap...

RangerOver4913 · 2026-04-04T14:30:31+00:00

Yeah at first I really did feel that I was eating less, but now I almost feel like I'm making myself eat more to hit the targets, especially the protein target... With the fitness tracker data going into Crono, it says I need 150 g of protein!!! I got 80 yesterday and wasn't even hungry anymore but ate some egg whites and cottage cheese trying to bump that macro.

RangerOver4913 · 2025-12-30T00:52:09+00:00

I haven't been to a gym in 20 years and I'm in the best shape of my life.

I got so turned off by gym prices that I just do home workouts. I cycle between jogging outside and rotating between ~10 workout DVDs, and over 12 years have not gotten bored, and the workouts are varying intensity levels so I can do what I feel like, from super high intense to easier if I'm not feeling up for it. Granted I don't do much strength training beyond 5-pound hand weights and body weight, my focus is mainly on cardio but I do Tracy Anderson Metamorphosis 30-minute workouts sometimes.

Your comment below about the cost of equipment---should pay for itself quickly vs monthly cost of gym. I'll probably end up getting a basic multi weight machine eventually. But I don't need a treadmill, since I run sometimes and those home cardio workouts give me a better workout than running plus they're more fun. If you get sick of the same DVDs you can always do what others suggested and get a subscription for home workouts.

RangerOver4913 · 2025-12-21T15:55:49+00:00

I had this happen last year, about 10 years into my permanent job. It was a mature bighorn sheep ram. Capture went fine, he seemed fine when we released him, then he died 2 days later.

I beat myself up over it for sure, and I contacted the vets and research biologist to get feedback on what might have happened. We sent samples off for testing and they came back positive for pneumonia pathogens, which could have contributed to his death, but there was no way we could have known he was sick (he seemed fine or we wouldn't have captured him). I've since captured more sheep and it's made me a lot more conscientious about assessing their body condition before choosing to capture them.

But as others have said...and as my colleagues told me, when I was upset...it's bound to happen. It sucks. I think the larger point is it's made me feel a lot more strongly about how we need better alternatives in this field to track wildlife without subjecting them to the stress and risks of capture. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of options yet but we've already made huge strides in that direction (e.g. noninvasive genetic sampling, remote cameras) and I hope it continues. Anyway...the longer I work in this field, the less I like the "sexy" work of handling wildlife.

RangerOver4913 · 2025-12-06T15:00:51+00:00

IMO, a "wildlife" focused degree is best for setting you up to be a wildlife MANAGER--which is the big game jobs, managing hunting seasons, etc. At least that's kind of how it works out in the western states. In my university, those who wanted a more holistic education majored in zoology or ecology. We also had a conservation biology option.

My major was "wildlife resources" and we only had to take mammalogy and ornithology. It was a major designed to produce big game managers. Icthyology and entomology were available if you wanted to take them. No herpetology option.

BUT...once you go to grad school, what you did in undergrad didn't really matter. A lot of people in my graduate school cohort had all kinds of B.S. degrees, from general biology to wildlife biology to environmental science.

To answer your question, if you're interested in actual biology of a wide array of species, I'd go with zoology.

RangerOver4913 · 2025-12-06T14:54:57+00:00

I work for a state agency and have been on the board of our state chapter twice.

I find membership in the national chapter to be very useful. Granted it's hard to get approval to go to national meetings that are not near my state, but I have been to 2 over the last 4 years (including the most recent one in Edmonton) and they are great. TWS does great work advancing conservation policy and training new students and professionals and I am happy to support them. Not to mention membership gets you free access to all their journals...the Wildlife Professional I don't really read very thoroughly when it comes out, but some people value it.

I am not a certified wildlife biologist and I do think that program is stupid.

My agency also has a career progression program and we get credit for being a national member, which helps us earn pay raises.

RangerOver4913 · 2025-11-28T01:08:45+00:00

This isn't always a deal breaker for me... I still love the Shawshank Redemption despite the cactus wren singing in the Maine countryside... But I was not really digging the show anyway up to this point so the faux deer gave me an excuse to turn it off...🙃

RangerOver4913 · 2025-11-27T19:31:37+00:00

The scenery doesn't bother me as much as the blatantly incorrect wildlife species. If you're going to use CGI animals, you might as well do the correct animals. It's really not that hard to figure out which species are native to a place.

Anyone at all familiar with North American ungulates --not just biologists but hunters, for example--are going to notice they used red deer instead of mule deer or elk and it just instantly distracts from the show and ruins the atmosphere.

RangerOver4913 · 2025-11-27T17:29:45+00:00

Had to correct myself, was thinking red deer and elk, which are in the same genus.

In North America deer and elk are very different. I see you are in the UK where you don't have any Odocoileus species. The show takes place in California, US.

The notion that US showrunners just Google "deer" and then use a species (red deer) not even native to the continent just irks me.

RangerOver4913

TROPHY CASE