u/kirkl3s

I just got the basic biogents trap as a birthday gift - which is great. But everything I'm hearing is that you need the CO2 modification to really make it sing. So I just ordered that for $120. But now I need to buy a CO2 tank. I found a 5 pounder on FB marketplace for $70. But then I need to spend another $30 to get it filled. And if I don't want to have to refill the tank constantly, I need the CO2 timer which is $200 (!!!!!!). Oh and I need to change out the scent packs monthly.

So, even with a gifted trap, I'm looking at a $400 of set up costs, plus monthly costs of $30-$50 to keep the thing functioning. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to send the trap back - there's no way it's worth it. Is it?

My 9/yo son is pretty dishonest and I'm kinda at a loss for what to do about it. He lies mostly about little things pretty constantly and he's pretty bad at it so we normally catch him. He faces consequences when he lies, but he seems impervious to learning lessons from these consquences.

A great example of this - is this evening we allowed him to bring his Yoto player up to bed to listen to stories until lights out. We set a sleep timer on the Yoto, told him to put the Yoto away when the sleep timer goes off and we warned him that we would check up to make sure he did as he was told. We warned him of consequences if he continued to listen after the sleep timer went off. Even knowing all this, he decides to restart his Yoto after the time goes off. We catch him, of course, and now he's not allowed to listen to his Yoto tomorrow or have it in bed anymore. The real kicker is that this happened a few months ago so we banned the Yoto from bed and only gave it back to him this week in the hopes that he could be responsible - but he blew it almost immediately.

He'll also lie about brushing his teeth and will even go so far as to stand in the bathroom with his toothbrush turned on so it sounds like he's brushing. He sneaks treats he's not supposed to have. He does everything he can to get around parental controls on our TV to watch shoes he's not supposed to watch. He's cheated on tests in school. He's stolen my wife's jewelry to give to a friend. He gets caught constantly and always faces consequences, but he goes off and just does something stupid and dishonest at the next opportunity.

As he gets older, I'm trying to give him a bit of leash to learn responsibility and gain some autonomy, but I'm increasingly reluctant to do that because he just blows every opportunity to show me he can handle any responsibility.

So I'm wondering if others have had luck dealing with this. Consequences, heart felt discussions on morality, chiding - none of it seems to get through.

I've got a dope fireplace that is going unused because I got an inspection that said it needs to be relined, which would cost $10k (it's got two flues - so $4k per flue). But the guy doing the inspection is also the guy that relines chimneys which makes me suspicious of his recommendation. Is there some sort of a neutral party that does chimney inspections or are they exclusively done by chimney sweeps?

I'm a frequent pool customer during the summer and I've generally been pretty pleased with the DPR pools over the years, but they kinda seem to suck this year. The pools I visit seem consistently understaffed, requiring the lifeguards to close off the deep end or a different portion of the pool; they're really strictly enforcing certain rules that make the pools less enjoyable (like no food, no swim masks, horseplay, tricks off the side of the pool etc); they're calling breaks early and ending them late; lots of pools are closed for maintenance; the pools that are open are poorly maintained and the bathrooms are dirty.

I'm mostly EOTR, so I'm wondering if it's just the pools I frequent or if this stuff is happening system wide.

Looking to visit a few outside of my immediate neighborhood this week. Ideally looking for something with shade, some fun stuff for kids and ideally a bit of old-school municipal charm.

word for word, this might be the most densely packed r/iamveryculinary bait I’ve ever seen.

Loud noises can be frightening to birds, golden retrievers and (apparently) the denizens of this sub. After reviewing all of the posts following every firework display, flyover and unidentified boom, I figured it might be possible to allay a lot of folks anxiety this summer by helping you define and understand the strange noises you might hear in the coming months.

So, you’ve heard a loud and scary noise - what’s your first step? It should absolutely not be to assume that DC is under attack! Terrorism and military invasion are actually extremely uncommon in this city. The last time DC was attacked by an enemy military force was in 1814, over 200 years ago! DC has never suffered an aerial attack from a foreign military. With that in mind, you can probably safely assume that noise you heard is DC is not a military invasion.

Now, terrorism does, unfortunately, happen a bit more regularly in DC than military invasion, but it’s still extremely rare and generally highly localized. No terrorist has managed to destroy the entirety of DC or kill everyone in the city yet. With that in mind, it’s pretty safe to assume the noise you heard is not terrorism!

Bearing in mind that invasion and terrorism are quite uncommon, let’s think about things that are more common in DC:

- Firework displays! These happen almost weekly in DC to mark all manner of occasion. These include the Fourth of July, sporting events, concerts, and city sponsored celebrations. On top of organized displays, launching fireworks is a common pastime for regular citizens in DC.

- Military flyovers! Military planes frequently fly over the city for funerals, sporting events, head of state visits and all other manner of occasion. The military also typically announces these flyovers ahead of time.

- Cannons at Arlington! The army maintains a battery of cannons in Arlington for ceremonial reasons. This battery drills weekly and participates in many events over the course of the year.

So let’s sum up the above. Planes flyover and booms are made regularly in DC for all manner of perfectly safe and non-life threatening reasons. By contrast, plane noises and booms rarely portend mass death and destruction. If you hear a plane or boom this summer, you should be able to instantly and reasonably assume that you are not in immediate peril.

kind of a boring story but I have come into possession of just over two lbs of frozen sea scallops. These scallops are in a deli container and frozen into a mass that is not really divisible without thawing the whole. So, when I thaw these things I’m going to need to cook all 2 lbs at the same time.

I know 2 lbs is too much for one person, but how many friends should I get together to help me eat these things. 4? 2?6?

I would also love everyone’s favorite scallop recipes.

I’m pretty sure that one of you all created this post as a honeypot for content for this sub…

I’m hosting a get together and planning on doing a Filipino style lechon pig roast. I’ve roasted a few pigs before with varying success and I’m wondering if anyone has any good resources for this style. Planning on a 30lb pig on a rented spit roaster over charcoal.