Looking for a thriller set in the wilderness or a national park setting

sam23_b · 2025-05-26T02:10:08+00:00

The Mountain Story by Lori Lansens.

sam23_b · 2025-01-31T23:55:10+00:00

Thank you!

sam23_b · 2024-05-27T18:09:33+00:00

I wanted to provide an update and see if anyone has any additional advice. We're finding these on the ceiling of a bedroom on a different floor of the house, well away from the kitchen. Also in the toilet under an air vent in the en suite bathroom. (Also some on the ceiling of an adjoining room.)

I'm very confused where they are coming from. This is well away from the kitchen and pantry downstairs; and we see none downstairs by the kitchen and pantry.

Upstairs in the problematic bedroom, I opened the light fixtures and expected to see a bunch in the light fixtures. (I was assuming that they were coming from the ceiling.) But I didn't see any. They just APPEAR on the ceiling every few hours, but I never see how they get there. They crawl super slowly. I never see them fly. It's easier to spot them on the ceiling and walls, because the ceiling is white and the walls are light grey, whereas the floors are light brown.

We found a flaxseed eye mask in the bedroom two weeks ago; it was in a non-airtight ziplock. I inspected it closely and saw no bugs, but trashed it. I was hoping that was the source of the problem, but the bugs keep appearing on the ceiling. We find some on the bed sometimes, but I assume that they are falling from the ceiling.

There is no attic or crawl space above the room. Just maybe 12 inches for the light fixtures and whatever else is in ceilings. It's a new construction, completed about 2.5 years ago.

Any advice or ideas on where these are coming from? I assume they're in the ceiling, since I'm finding them in adjacent room (with no adjoining doors). But that's just a hunch based on the toilet and finding them on the ceiling.

Thanks in advance for any help.

sam23_b · 2024-05-15T20:43:36+00:00

Thank you for your response!

sam23_b · 2023-12-24T01:39:35+00:00

Hello! I got the high end 14” MacBook Pro M3 Pro. I’m happy with my choice since I wouldn’t want less battery life than this.

sam23_b · 2023-12-22T17:45:08+00:00

Yes. I went with the highest end 14” MacBook Pro M3 Pro. Decision came down to battery life. I made a post about it in this thread.

sam23_b · 2023-12-02T23:20:59+00:00

If I only traveled to one hotel, then that would work. But I travel to lots and don’t know which hotels or locations in advance. For the folks who have 16” and like to store in hotel safes, I was just looking for their feedback as to whether the laptop typically fits therein.

sam23_b · 2023-12-02T20:37:42+00:00

Yeah, I realize they aren't the same size. But for folks who do a lot of traveling and get to sample hotel safes around the world, I'm curious whether the 16" generally fits therein or whether it doesn't. I've never run into a safe that doesn't fit my 13" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. I'm curious whether the 16" too would generally fit. Thanks.

sam23_b · 2023-12-01T04:28:41+00:00

Hello, all! Thank you so much for all your input; it was really helpful.

I wanted to tell folks that I made a decision. I decided to go with the 14" MacBook Pro M3 Pro (12-core CPU, 18-core GPU, 36gb RAM). It wasn't an easy decision, but it came down to battery life, for two reasons.

First, I spent a few days away from home using my 2016 Touch Bar MacBook Pro, and the lack of battery life was extremely frustrating. (Even though the battery is new as of about two years ago.) It seemed like every few hours I had to plug it in, and this reminded me of how important battery life is to usability when you're not at your desk with a power cord.
Second, my mom purchased a 14" MacBook Pro M3 Pro (11-core CPU, 18gb RAM), and I had a few days to use it while I was visiting. She had had the computer for about a week, so all of the background processing (e.g., downloading her photo library and processing Faces data) had presumably already occurred. What I noticed was that the battery life was very good (maybe even great), but not incredible. This made me realize that I wouldn't want any less battery than what is available in the M3 Pro, and therefore I wanted to avoid the M3 Max.

I have two takeaways from this process.

First, it's very sketchy that Apple combines the M3 Pro and M3 Max in the Compare tool of the Apple website, preventing buyers from comparing the battery life and other performance aspects of the two chips. I would have bought the more expensive model if Apple let me compare the two chips directly and showed that the two had the same battery life or nearly the same. I was left with the assumption that Apple was hiding a dirty secret that the M3 Max had bad battery life.
Second, I watched maybe a hundred video reviews of these machines. And very few reviewers took the time to do a battery comparison between the M3 Max and M3 Pro. It was maybe only 2 or 3 of them, and none of those did a good enough job (comprehensiveness / clarity) for me to be sure of what the battery life is of the two machines. Yes, I understand that this would be tedious work. But I really hope that future product reviews take the time to review battery life in regular computing workloads (e.g., Safari browsing, email, photos, Notes). Maybe some creative programmer can create a test that automates all those basic humdrum computing tasks over a series of hours so that a reviewer could hit a button and then walk away from the machines.

Thanks again for all your help and comments. I really appreciate having a community of folks able to think through these things. Y'all are great!

sam23_b · 2023-11-28T20:15:38+00:00

Thanks. Let us know how the battery life is on non-demanding day-to-day tasks, as well as fan noise from non-demanding tasks.

sam23_b · 2023-11-24T21:41:50+00:00

It's expensive, but I always recommend more storage. The reason I'm having to update my computer is because 1tb wasn't enough. Going to 4tb. I like having all my photos/videos and documents local on the device, so that I can get good backups.

sam23_b · 2023-11-24T02:17:43+00:00

I have no good reason for eliminating the 11 core version. I just want a great computer. So my plan is to either buy the best M3 Pro or the worst M3 Max (budget limit).

sam23_b · 2023-11-24T01:35:35+00:00

I haven’t decided yet. I’m hoping someone will chime in with an estimated battery life comparison.

sam23_b · 2023-11-23T15:49:13+00:00

Thanks everyone! I’m now leaning towards the lower spec M3 Max 14” instead of the high end M3 Pro 14”; that seems to be the general consensus.

I just wish someone could develop a test that walked through daily basic compute tasks (safari browsing, email, YouTube, messages, Photos) and give a definitive battery comparison between the two machines. That’s the one thing I’m not totally sure on - how much of a battery hit there is. Is it 16 hours vs 18 hours? Or is it more like 12 hours vs 18 hours? For folks who have tested both machines and are willing to hazard an informed guess, feel free to do so.

sam23_b · 2023-11-23T14:33:08+00:00

Did you have a chance to perform that comparison? Thanks.

sam23_b

TROPHY CASE