Weather at padre island |

So my fiancé refuses to let me spend money on a hold on suitcase and so I have become really good at fitting EVERYTHING I want and need into a cabin bag, which includes all my make up and toiletries included in the limited liquid allowance.
Here is what I have invested in....
Toiletries
Instead of buying liquid shampoo and shower gel, I buy dove soap and a shampoo bar, I also buy solid deodrant
a travel sized tooth paste which is big enough for both myself and my fiancé. And it also comes with a travel tooth brush
I have invested in travel pots which hold my mouth wash, face wash, sunscreen, conditioner and leave in conditioner - I have curly hair so I just let my hair air dry over there so no need for a hairdryer or straighteners etc.
I travel with hyaloronic acid, retinol, vitamin c and niacinamide in single dose pods, they fit flush in my liquids bag but I'm pretty sure they won't need to go in because they are in sealed little pods.
Make-up
I have baught stackable mini travel pots which holds my foundation, SPF 50 face cream, night cream and face primer...it lasts me up to two weeks! They deceivingly hold a lot!
I have invested in the milani all inclusive face pallete which has a contour bronzer, blush,eyeshaddows and highlighter, The better than sex Mini travel mascara and I'll also take with me a lip stick and eyebrow pencil.
I also baught the real techniques mini travel brushes which comes with a small travel bag and it fits in my bag so easily! And a mini perfume atomiser which I can fill up with my own purfume.
I am in the fortunate situation where I can use my fiancé liquid allowance as he will use the hotel toiletries. But If I wasn't I'd just buy tooth paste, mouth wash and sunscreen over there... personally I can't skip the conditioner, they usually don't cater to my hair type abroad.
Clothes
All together I have taken 8 items of clothing Which can all be dressed up or dressed down.
This concists of 2 co-ord which is 2 crop tops, a skirt and a pair of shorts
A pair of trouser which pairs perfectly with both the tops from the co-ords
and a black and white tee-shirt which goes with all the bottoms,
in addition I have also packed an extra dress which can be worn both in the day or the night.
All in all this makes 11 outfits.
I will also travel in gym clothes, so I can use the gym over there and I will wear that with a pair of trainers.
For PJ's I have taken 2 light weight nighties from Primark and a satin dressing gown.
2 white bras 2 black bras and 7 pairs of knickers, I have also packed a nice bit of lingerie.
2 swimming costumes - one to wash, one to wear. And one swimsuit cover. I also baught a waterproof phone case which means I won't have to leave my phone or money off my person when going into the water and I even managed to fit a thin beach towel in...just incase!
I also packed laundry detergent sheets for hand washing items of clothing whilst I'm away, they don't take any room up in your bag or liquid space.
Shoes
I will be taking over a pair of flatform sandels from river island which go with all my outfits, they are pretty and won't be hard to walk in on uneven floors so they will look great for a night time shoe.
I am also taking over some hiking sandels so I can go on some beautiful long walks in comfort
And some flip flops to quickly chuck on for getting around the hotel and for walking around the beach.
That is my bag packed into one cabin bag and everything that I will need fits perfectly!
My other hack is I laminate my eyebrows and eyelashes and dye them so I look made up with out wearing any make up, this is great when your just going to be lounging buy the pool and don't plan to wear make up.
I also get my an acrylic manicure and pedicure 😉
On the flight I always take a face pack and a foot pack with me, my ipad which I download movies from netflix too, a pair of head phones and a book, this way i don't get bored and when I arrive my feet and skin is prepped to look and feel great!
I hope these hacks can change the way you travel and save you some money for spending abroad!

Hola a todos; Soy Estadounidense de padres mexicanos. Mi pregunta es, porque la percepción de la comida mexicana está tan, pero tan distorsionada. Me refiero a que, cuando alguien va a un restaurante “mexicano” en Estados Unidos, Canadá, Reino Unido, incluso en países “hermanos” como Colombia, Brasil, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica etc la comida siempre es Tex-Mex. Nunca verás que esos lugares sirvan platillos como Cochinita Pibil, Pipián Rojo, Chiles en Nogada, Mixiotes, Sopa Tarasca etc. He escuchado muchas personas de estos países decir que no les gusta la comida mexicana, o que está “sobrevalorada”. O mi favorito, cuando un Estadounidense dice: “I could have had better food at my local Taco Bell”, y el restaurante que no le gustó vende fajitas, queso dip, nachos etc..
[Cuando alguien dice, “he probado la comida mexicana y no me pareció algo bueno, estaba más o menos, esta sobre valorada, y lo que probaron fueron los burritos, tacos, chimichangas. Por ejemplo, nunca te dicen, he probado el Pipián verde y no me gusto].
Tampoco ayuda todos negocios de México-Americanos que venden aberraciones como birria con Maruchan o sus tacos de “al pastor” todos grasosos con salsas aguadas y bien corrientes de una troca. Ni siquiera ellos sabes de platillos mexicanos como los Mixiotes, Sopa Tarasca etc. Pero eso sí, allí están con sus banderas mexicanas en la calle, aventado cohetes a los policías. Dan vergüenza y ASCO!!

What will you be doing with this PC? Be as specific as possible, and include specific games or programs you will be using.

This is a rig for my wife. She is using an older pc of mine sans a new 3060ti she bought awhile ago when we thought we would upgrade. She will be playing various coop games from d4 to dead island to borderlands to stardew etc. I would like to also weigh a little bit of my budget towards AESTHETIC since we already have the gfx card.

What is your maximum budget before rebates/shipping/taxes?

$800 can even consider up to 1k if you think its a good choice for this or that

When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Note: beyond a week or two from today means any build you receive will be out of date when you want to buy.

Would hopefully be available to buy now to very soon.

What, exactly, do you need included in the budget? (ToweOS/monitokeyboard/mouse/etc)

Already have gfx card, mouse, keyboard, monitors, smallish ssd. Meaning ill need tower, cpu, heatsink, ram, mobo, fans, probably will want to get at least some ssd and m2. psu.

Which country (and state/province) will you be purchasing the parts in? If you're in US, do you have access to a Microcenter location?

SF Bay Area no access to a Microcenter.

If reusing any parts (including monitor(s)/keyboard/mouse/etc), what parts will you be reusing? Brands and models are appreciated.

EVGA 3060ti XC 8gb and a GSYNC Dell Monitor.

Will you be overclocking? If yes, are you interested in overclocking right away, or down the line? CPU and/or GPU?

No

Are there any specific features or items you want/need in the build? (ex: SSD, large amount of storage or a RAID setup, CUDA or OpenCL support, etc)

Some nice lights and nice case aesthetic would be appreciated, nothing ultra gamer but something nice

What type of network connectivity do you need? (Wired and/or WiFi) If WiFi is needed and you would like to find the fastest match for your wireless router, please list any specifics.

Currently using a Powerline Adapter will switch to hardwired soon.

Do you have any specific case preferences (Size like ITX/microATX/mid-towefull-tower, styles, colors, window or not, LED lighting, etc), or a particular color theme preference for the components?

Mid or bigger, nice case window with some nice stylish but not ultra gamer looking. Maybe something pink and light gamer gurl like.

Do you need a copy of Windows included in the budget? If you do need one included, do you have a preference?

Not sure but leave you can factor it in if you want.

Extra info or particulars:

*Hope I didnt overshare anything or didnt share something let me know

Race Information

Name: North Olympic Discovery Marathon
Date: June 4, 2023
Distance: 26.2 miles
Location: Port Angeles, WA
Website: https://nodm.com/
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9203074533/overview
Time: 2:48:46

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	Sub 3	Yes
B	Don't bonk	Yes

Splits

Mile	Time
1	4:09
2	4:04
3	3:55
4	4:00
5	4:05
6	4:05
7	4:12
8	3:57
9	3:49
10	4:00
11	4:08
12	4:06
13	4:05
14	4:03
15	3:59
16	4:04
17	3:52
18	3:56
19	4:00
20	3:59
21	4:06
22	3:52
23	4:02
24	3:42
25	3:32
26	3:57
27	4:00
28	3:54
29	4:12
30	4:04
31	3:46
32	3:55
33	4:02
34	4:16
35	3:45
36	3:37
37	3:53
38	4:03
39	4:02
40	4:02
41	4:03
42	3:58
43	3:55 (pace)

Training

This was my first marathon I had ever run. I decided to run this marathon after getting hooked into running last year after deciding to run a local 10k last April. I was in ok shape at the time due mostly to playing soccer, so I finished that 10k in 43:29, but decided I wanted more.
From this, I decided to make the step up to a half marathon which I decided to run in October of that year. At this point, I joined a local training program where I was able to run with a great community of people and have a weekly routine to follow. Note I had previously run a half marathon about ten years ago, but I did not train properly at all for it and completely fell apart. For this half marathon, I was able to run it in 1:23:17. From this half marathon, I learned that proper nutrition and pacing is essential, because I struggled to get through the last 5k. At point I craved even more... I wanted to do a full marathon.
I discovered the NODM marathon through some buddies that I ran with in my training program and decided this was the one I wanted to run. I had June 4 set in my mind as my goal and started training for it this year in January.
Wednesdays were my workout day. These varied in type and intensity. It varied from hills, to intervals, to tempos depending on the day. Saturdays were the long runs. These progressed in length and duration as the training programs went along. I worked my way up to a peak of 36k on these days, but I ended up having 6 runs of 30+km over this training block. During most of these runs I ended up doing some tempo work on tired legs. I wasn't originally planning on doing this many long runs, but the training program I was in lined up with a different marathon, which was run 1 month earlier. I ran on 3-4 other days as well doing fully aerobic runs, I tried to run at least 5 times a week in total.

Pre-race

I ran a test run at race pace 4 weeks before the marathon and felt like it was doable over the whole distance: https://www.strava.com/activities/9017090186. My final long run was the following weekend
The last 3 weeks were tapered. They consisted of dropping the overall volume by about 10-15% a week, but this was from reducing duration, but not number of runs.
In the week of my race, I ended up changing my diet to more carb heavy food. in the last 3 days before the race, my meals consisted of oatmeal in the morning, pasta for lunch and pasta or another high carb meal for dinner. Lots of fresh fruit was consumed as well. The night prior to the race, I had sushi consisting entirely of yam rolls, but this was a smaller meal that more of the previous ones. The morning of my race I had a meal consisting of oatmeal, bananas, and coffee.

Race

Weather on the morning of the race was ideal from a temperature perspective, but there was a 15km/hr WNW headwind that we had to run into. Because the race was point to point and running to the WNW, we had to run straight into a headwind for the almost the entire duration of the race.
The race started at 7:30 am local time. There were 280 total runners who ran the marathon. I started near the front, but not right at the front. There were no pace signs, and from last year I saw the winner finished in just over 3hrs. I went in with the idea that I wanted go out conservatively and work my way towards my eventual goal pace, so I didn't deem it too necessary to be right at the front.
The first 7 km were a gradual uphill on a paved trail in the forest with not a ton of notable features. A lot of runners went out really fast right away, but I avoided the temptation to speed up to the front and went mostly on feel. I planned to race mostly on heart rate instead of pace, because I find it a much better indicator of the amount of effort I am exerting when running. My intended HR for the race was going to be around 165, but for the first while I was averaging under 160, so I was running at a very comfortable pace. Over the first few km, I ended up passing people one at a time without changing my effort, until there were only 2 people ahead of me.
The next 12 km were a gradual up and down through some roads in and around the City of Sequim. It was in this area, that because there was a lack of trees and protection, the headwind could really be felt. I continued maintaining what I felt to be the same effort, and at around km 17 I ended up passing the person who was currently in 2nd place, so there was just a single person ahead of me at this point.
The next 10km were on paved trails through some farmland outside the city. I ended up catching up to the person leading the race at this point and passed them just before the halfway point. I was still taking gels every 6km, and water at every aid station, so I was making sure to stay to my plan. This to me was no-mans land because I did not expect to be in the lead at any point. I felt really good at this point, so I decided to start pushing it a little bit for the second half of the race. There was 1 big gully in this part, but nothing else of note.
The next 8km were the hardest part of the whole race, there were a ton of hills, gullies and sharp turns that needed to be navigated around. There were a couple spots where I had to slow down a bit to avoid slipping as well, since the hill were quite steep. Also it was during this portion of the race that I ended up having to weave around a whole bunch of half marathon runners. There was a half marathon going on at the same time that started at 8:30 at the halfway point of the marathon. I avoided running into anyone and managed to make it to the bottom of the hill for the final stretch of the race.
The final 5km of the race was along the waterfront, but because of this the wind was blowing straight at me without any barrier whatsoever. I felt really tired, but decided to try to keep up the same effort and finish strong. I didn't know where the other marathon runners were, so I didn't want to take any chances. I ran with whatever I had left in the tank and finished strong, but felt completely spent. I crossed the line in a time of 2:48:46 and I couldn't have been happier with the result.

Post-race

Immediately after the race, I was presented an award and had a local media rep take a few words from me, but honestly I was just really spent. When this was done, I found my family who had several bottles of water and gatorade waiting for me. I had these and a couple protein bars, bananas, yogurt, and a muffin. Even though I felt like I couldnt eat anything after finishing, I know I needed to refuel properly.
I'm planning on taking the rest of the year off from training for a marathon, but I may end up running a half later this year. Since I've qualified for Boston, I may train towards running that next year, but for now, I'm taking the week off to recover.
Made with a new race report generator created by herumph.

This will be the last statement I ever make before I disappear forever. I’ve heard that this kind of a thing is quite common for those who finally grow a conscious and decide to leave for good. I personally don’t know anyone else apart from a few people I used to work with who knew about this, so here we go. My name isn’t important, but you can call me DD. When I think about it, I’m not important at all, I’m just the messenger or whistleblower, so anything else that would further “incriminate” me isn’t important either. What is important however is this story. It’ll probably be swept under some rug no doubt, that’s the usual approach to these things, the words “conspiracy theorists” has a strong negative vibe to it, we can thank the boys at Langley and the Pentagon for that one. They have been responsible for more cover ups and lies than anyone else on the planet, except for a few. Well anyway, spoiler alert; there’s a derelict object orbiting Ganymede which is one of the moons of Jupiter… Now that I have your attention let’s begin.
I work for NASA. Well, that’s half-truth really, if you saw my real credentials, you would say that I worked for NASA, and that’d be that. The truth is I’ve been free lancing for various intelligence agencies, some named, some not, for about the last 10 years... Most of the other guys that worked with me were sort of the same, varying in different fields. My job was to delete or remove all the UFO evidence the government “accidentally” let slip into the public eye. We call them UAP’s I’m not sure why the different name but that’s what we call them. What often happens is one of those idiot Astronauts goes for a spacewalk on the external side of the ISS and gets too wild with a camera and boom one of those things is front and center of the next biggest conspiracy to hit the internet; or one of those weather balloons go up for some science experiment or something and they catch one zooming on by. Let’s face it, its been happening a lot these days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cover up and eradiate everything, whilst Tech Giant companies continue to sell to everyone on the planet a personal camera to record anything they want, with the ability to upload it.
You can only suppress this kind of thing for so long before the conspiracy theorists finally get enough evidence together to make most denials look suspicious at best, and if you keep denying it, well you just look dumb. One thing everyone must know about the Governments of the world, they really care about how they appear to the public, in their little Geopolitical world its known as Optics, its part of their control apparatus. But that’s another story.
So, with the Ganymede object. It requires context that it’s been seen by almost every major Government in the world. Before the James Webb telescope gave us detailed images, we were getting shots from Hubble, and so on and so forth. So, when you think about it this object sort of throws a whole wrench into well... Everything. As far as we were aware at the time when we found it there was a… damn I’m not sure what it was but shit... its strange. It looks like a space station sphere within a toroid, roughly 900 feet across in diameter, it or they both look as though they counter rotate. I think; around each other which is how it is maintaining its orbit, it’s hard to tell, because the body of it doesn’t have any patterns or distinctive features or something along those lines. Juno got too close to the thing, and made it shoot out a ping. So, they had to make it out to be a bunch of random sounds and disruption in downloads for those who wanted the pics from the Jovian planets moon for the mainstream media to keep the all the people calm. The media told everyone that Juno was disrupted, and communication would be shut down for a bit until the proximity was past. Sometimes I think those types of cover ups work a little too well. Juno got a lot closer, and no one was aware. That’s when people like me take over and we work to figure out as much as possible, and then cover the rest up.
The color of this thing shimmers from time to time, we couldn’t tell whether it was some sort of technology, or defensive camouflage or something that had been busted from the internals, or even if it had been naturally made to be iridescent, what we do know though however is that it emits little to no radiation, there is zero heat, and it has no life signatures whatsoever. Throughout this you will notice how behind the eight ball the intelligence services were when it came to this thing and can sometimes be with other of these major world altering revelations sometimes. But I digress.
So, we quickly began covering up everything, and gave it a name, Little Rock. Stupid and probably insulting but that’s what we call it as it looks like a rock anyhow. We tried dating how long Little Rock had been orbiting Ganymede, though without any form of reference it was anyone’s guess, quite possibly before life even existed here on Earth. There is another thing we had to verify about it, we had to make sure of this, but it has a giant freakin hole in the center of it, one of the guys who I worked with has been looking at UFO’s for quite some time, looking for offensive capabilities and the such, he told me that the hole could have been made by either a huge comet ramming through it, at some point in the past or, some other form of kinetic weapon that was shot through it. This evidence was in the images that Juno spat out and it’s like it’s been blown to pieces. We couldn’t make heads or tails as to how.
Moving along, we fast forward to why this has taken so long coming out. After the Juno cover up, we had to get on top of this thing before other Governments decided to move on this, so we launched another satellite in secret almost straight away, this one was launched by one of SpaceX’s rockets; they made a big show that it was only launching more of the Starlink satellites, but one of them had an Ion drive on it and slung shot itself around the planet to move into the trajectory of making it to Ganymede and hopefully running into Little Rock. Well, it worked. The Satellite we sent was called Nemo, it got into an orbit with Ganymede and has produced some more detailed photos of Little Rock, and well its worse than we thought.
Surprise to everyone we aren’t alone in the universe. I think I should just rip that band-aid off and let everyone digest what I just said. And yes, I meant that, we are not alone. We have the proof, but by now I think everyone’s suspicions are just confirmed.
Nemo was shot down, by probably the same thing that got Little Rock maybe? Whatever it was it had been hanging around after Juno passed it or it could have always been there, we aren’t sure. This thing looked like some inactive debris, so Nemo approached it and was instantly destroyed. When we looked at the play back footage, which took longer than we wanted it to get back to us, it looked like a small object had approached Nemo, it had a strange physical look which puzzled everyone, the only way to describe it would be the Angel depictions from the Genesis section of the bible like a sphere within a sphere.it was just bizarre.
The playback showed that as soon as Nemo got there it began moving and changing its orbital direction to meet Nemo, so we have limited information as to what it was and why it did it. When we saw the initial playback one of the four-star Generals who was there with us at the time told us all to copy it to his files for the Pentagon and delete the original. We had to do it but after that we all theorized about what our best guess was. The best one I remember was that it was some sort of proximity drone that activated too late when Little Rock got hit, went dormant again, then when Nemo turned up it went active and did its job. We think it’s a proximity drone since it never attacked Juno, because Juno didn’t get too close like Nemo did.
Now we get to the best part. Somewhere along the line the drone must have been scanning the wreckage of Nemo and figured out its origin, keep in mind that we didn’t leave one of those dumb golden plates on Nemo like Voyagers got, that pretty much says come and get us. So how it made the connection is a mystery to us. What happened next was very scary, we got the same frequencies that Juno picked up earlier here on Earth. For reference there is loads of space junk up there above our heads, and some of it woke up. To be specific the one that woke up is a bit infamous, it’s called the Black Knight Satellite, this thing has been in orbit for the longest time around the south pole; we had originally assumed it was a hunk of debris from the Mir station years ago, but as of more recently we thought it was something else, the conspiracies surrounding it say it is an Alien spacecraft, and well its true. We keep an eye on these things in case, and for the most part it stayed dormant all these years we have never had a way of getting to it without it being obvious or reckless, at least to my knowledge. When those frequencies started, post Nemo getting wrecked the Black Knight decided to start moving in a certain direction and it began emitting a frequency like the one that Juno read. Though it was softer and didn’t emit consistently it bleeped a few times then stopped and started moving.
From what we understand the Black Knight began moving towards Europe where it dropped something out of a holding bay onto a collision course with Earth. You guys should have seen the amount insanity that caused with the intel community, and NASA practically pooped themselves as this payload slammed into the Siberian tundra about 400 miles from anything remotely resembling human habitation and no one knew why or what it was.
That’s when the race had been on, every Government that wanted to see what it was, were sending everything they had up that way. The Russians had a huge head start and were pretty much all over it setting up quarantine stations and a huge facility over the top of what had struck the Earth. We were watching via spy satellites and stealth craft, whilst I’m told we had spies and wet work teams on the ground which made sense because we got photos from the inside of their makeshift facility. Our first reports showed that they’d been excavating it for days, it was a large 3 meter by 3-meter black cube. I’m serious it was a cube, with a lot of... well, I’m not sure, but the images we got back made it look like some sort of sludge. Like this oozing red sludge. The Russians were keeping away from the stuff as it probably freaked them out. They were instead sticking probes in it, taking samples and trying to figure out what it even was. The sludge was given a wide birth, as it was expanding out of the cube, the initial containment zone had been expanded, and was growing daily from the imagery we got back. This was concerning to us, and there had been talk of dropping all kinds of ordinance on the site. As far as we are aware we were moving into different defcons, which is a state of readiness for war.
It must have been something that happened because the cube emitted a pulse. This was read like a seismic event over in that region. For some reason the sludge apparently stopped moving. It just stayed in position and then it calcified. The info we got said the pulse made it crystallize and it looked like a ruby. Within the crystal were sacks or at least they looked like small gross little wiggling sacks full of puss and bile, like larvae or maggots looking for a meal.
No one exactly knew what had been going on, although they did know one thing, these larvae couldn’t be reached by anything, how we figured that out was easy. The Russians have some of the best drilling equipment on the planet and some of the largest and strongest diamond tipped filament drills in the world. Keep in mind that these types of machines and tech are specialized and leave a paper trail. They cost an exorbitant amount of money and are often from overseas corporate manufacturers. So, for secret projects they need a finer touch or end up leaving a large fingerprint on everything. In normal situations Governments will often pay using a black budget that no one can audit or talk about during a live parliament session. This relates to us because we were the ones who the Russians were buying extra drills from and our hardware to crack this structure. If Russia already had the equipment and they were buying more from overseas Manufacturers, it meant they needed help getting into it, and they didn’t care if it was obvious.
These larvae sacks eventually were dissected out of the crystalized structure The Russian government had stopped buying excessive amounts of drills, we heard. Now these larvae weren’t like the ones you find in movies, they looked like tiny little specs, which eventually grew to the size of human bodies, looked like a body bag that had veins and a lot of discharging sludge coming off them, they would wiggle around every now and then like a caterpillar moving around on a leaf, We knew that they didn’t get them all, but the willingness to continue wasting resources was weaning, they got a few of them and left the others, their scientists had found thousands of these things apparently, but they had just sealed off the cube and the word was they planned to fill the whole thing with concrete, or something worse.
The ones they extracted were moved to another facility and we only have sparring reports and rumor as to what had happened since their scientists are tight lipped and every spy that got close to this vanished. I’ll say this without any context. Its human. Somehow someway it’s human or at least appears to be. It has from the documents that we were able to obtain and translate, a human type of body with a working nervous system and humane features down to a detail. On a cellular level their cell structures and makeup of their nucleus is different though, they are harder to destroy, and the life cycle is elongated before undergoing mitosis. There was some speculation as to why they were birthed in those living larvae sacks, the theory went by some of the brains of the freelance contractors and the intel community that in order for any of those things to survive here they have to be birthed from this planet. which would include adapting their immune systems and growing on this planet. You can imagine the absolute nightmare fuel that brought about. This was when the higher ups really considered just dropping a nuke on the whole area and blowing it all to Jesus; and if I’m being honest, I don’t really blame them for wanting to do that. But somehow level heads prevailed, and they decided that if anything was going to happen the Kremlin would be the one to deal with it but if it went beyond their borders, it would be a NATO issue.
We had gotten assurances from higher ups that all data would be shared as it was increasingly obvious to every country involved. The negations meant that the Kremlin was prepared to drop any ordinance they had to deal with it. This wasn’t the best approach but there was an assumption from everyone that NATO would step in if something went sideways even if it was still in Russian territory. Things were very tense in those rooms, I’m just glad I’m not there anymore.
Here is the part that should scare the pants off anyone; we know for a fact that the larvae sacks eventually hatched, or something, and they all came out looking like humans, well they were birthed into various ages, some were 40 odd some were in their 20s, some female, some male. It was as if the birthing sacks had a set expectation of development, not only that, but they had ethnic diversity, meaning they had different racial traits and backgrounds. Some were Caucasoid, others Hispanic, Asian and so on. The Russians were smart enough to photograph and fingerprint all the ones that they had pulled from the ruby structure and thank God they did. Another weird coincidence was that when they ran the DNA and fingerprints most have matching DNA strands to those who have gone missing globally. Yeah, that’s right missing persons cases that have been all over the world, not just in the Russian region but globally. But the differences in their cell structure meant that these things weren’t those missing people, so that was its own pandoras box.
Now that we have caught up, The worst part. They lost them. They literally broke out of their containment zone and ran off into the Siberian tundra, most of them nude or in hospital gowns, those damned idiots lost them. What we know is before the giant jail break. Is that they had been attempting the communication process and education with these hybrid humans, but it hadn’t gone very well, somehow one of them had figured out some information that they shouldn’t have, and even though they were housed in one of the most sophisticated dark gulags they got, these hybrids got out, this isn’t some old soviet era dump, its an actual top level place where they were housing most spies and just pure evil people the Russian Government hated but couldn’t kill. They housed them there moving everyone else out and the Hybrids, they could communicate without anyone else knowing. So, they got out and are in the wind now, and everyone is losing their minds trying to find them. Good luck, I say.
I had to blow the whistle on this one, what the hell is being done to find these people? And what are they going to do if they catch them? I don’t know and don’t want to know, they killed everyone who knew too much and that includes me. so I’m gone, I’m out, I’m leaving this mess behind me, this will be one of my last broadcasts, don’t expect anything in the future, they are probably going to try and find me, but I’ll head off grid and stay off grid forever ill step back if anything ever comes about from this.
Just one more thing before I go, this is more of a thought that we played with in game theory classes during the strategy meetings. When the owners of the Little Rock station had a let’s call it a “security measure” in place to activate Black Knight to have all of this happen with the Cube and the Hybrids, and let’s say it’s a contingency to make sure their civilization survives, who were they fighting? and why were they losing. Food for thought.
DD

Planning on visiting this Saturday with FLP. I have season FL to Kings Island (my home park) so i'm used to never waiting. I've heard FL at Cedar point tends to get long waits sometimes. Can I expect waits to at least be less than 30 minutes with FLP or how bad does it get?

This will be the last statement I ever make before I disappear forever. I’ve heard that this kind of a thing is quite common for those who finally grow a conscious and decide to leave for good. I personally don’t know anyone else apart from a few people I used to work with who knew about this, so here we go. My name isn’t important, but you can call me DD. When I think about it, I’m not important at all, I’m just the messenger or whistleblower, so anything else that would further “incriminate” me isn’t important either. What is important however is this story. It’ll probably be swept under some rug no doubt, that’s the usual approach to these things, the words “conspiracy theorists” has a strong negative vibe to it, we can thank the boys at Langley and the Pentagon for that one. They have been responsible for more cover ups and lies than anyone else on the planet, except for a few. Well anyway, spoiler alert; there’s a derelict object orbiting Ganymede which is one of the moons of Jupiter… Now that I have your attention let’s begin.
I work for NASA. Well, that’s half-truth really, if you saw my real credentials, you would say that I worked for NASA, and that’d be that. The truth is I’ve been free lancing for various intelligence agencies, some named, some not, for about the last 10 years... Most of the other guys that worked with me were sort of the same, varying in different fields. My job was to delete or remove all the UFO evidence the government “accidentally” let slip into the public eye. We call them UAP’s I’m not sure why the different name but that’s what we call them. What often happens is one of those idiot Astronauts goes for a spacewalk on the external side of the ISS and gets too wild with a camera and boom one of those things is front and center of the next biggest conspiracy to hit the internet; or one of those weather balloons go up for some science experiment or something and they catch one zooming on by. Let’s face it, its been happening a lot these days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cover up and eradiate everything, whilst Tech Giant companies continue to sell to everyone on the planet a personal camera to record anything they want, with the ability to upload it.
You can only suppress this kind of thing for so long before the conspiracy theorists finally get enough evidence together to make most denials look suspicious at best, and if you keep denying it, well you just look dumb. One thing everyone must know about the Governments of the world, they really care about how they appear to the public, in their little Geopolitical world its known as Optics, its part of their control apparatus. But that’s another story.
So, with the Ganymede object. It requires context that it’s been seen by almost every major Government in the world. Before the James Webb telescope gave us detailed images, we were getting shots from Hubble, and so on and so forth. So, when you think about it this object sort of throws a whole wrench into well... Everything. As far as we were aware at the time when we found it there was a… damn I’m not sure what it was but shit... its strange. It looks like a space station sphere within a toroid, roughly 900 feet across in diameter, it or they both look as though they counter rotate. I think; around each other which is how it is maintaining its orbit, it’s hard to tell, because the body of it doesn’t have any patterns or distinctive features or something along those lines. Juno got too close to the thing, and made it shoot out a ping. So, they had to make it out to be a bunch of random sounds and disruption in downloads for those who wanted the pics from the Jovian planets moon for the mainstream media to keep the all the people calm. The media told everyone that Juno was disrupted, and communication would be shut down for a bit until the proximity was past. Sometimes I think those types of cover ups work a little too well. Juno got a lot closer, and no one was aware. That’s when people like me take over and we work to figure out as much as possible, and then cover the rest up.
The color of this thing shimmers from time to time, we couldn’t tell whether it was some sort of technology, or defensive camouflage or something that had been busted from the internals, or even if it had been naturally made to be iridescent, what we do know though however is that it emits little to no radiation, there is zero heat, and it has no life signatures whatsoever. Throughout this you will notice how behind the eight ball the intelligence services were when it came to this thing and can sometimes be with other of these major world altering revelations sometimes. But I digress.
So, we quickly began covering up everything, and gave it a name, Little Rock. Stupid and probably insulting but that’s what we call it as it looks like a rock anyhow. We tried dating how long Little Rock had been orbiting Ganymede, though without any form of reference it was anyone’s guess, quite possibly before life even existed here on Earth. There is another thing we had to verify about it, we had to make sure of this, but it has a giant freakin hole in the center of it, one of the guys who I worked with has been looking at UFO’s for quite some time, looking for offensive capabilities and the such, he told me that the hole could have been made by either a huge comet ramming through it, at some point in the past or, some other form of kinetic weapon that was shot through it. This evidence was in the images that Juno spat out and it’s like it’s been blown to pieces. We couldn’t make heads or tails as to how.
Moving along, we fast forward to why this has taken so long coming out. After the Juno cover up, we had to get on top of this thing before other Governments decided to move on this, so we launched another satellite in secret almost straight away, this one was launched by one of SpaceX’s rockets; they made a big show that it was only launching more of the Starlink satellites, but one of them had an Ion drive on it and slung shot itself around the planet to move into the trajectory of making it to Ganymede and hopefully running into Little Rock. Well, it worked. The Satellite we sent was called Nemo, it got into an orbit with Ganymede and has produced some more detailed photos of Little Rock, and well its worse than we thought.
Surprise to everyone we aren’t alone in the universe. I think I should just rip that band-aid off and let everyone digest what I just said. And yes, I meant that, we are not alone. We have the proof, but by now I think everyone’s suspicions are just confirmed.
Nemo was shot down, by probably the same thing that got Little Rock maybe? Whatever it was it had been hanging around after Juno passed it or it could have always been there, we aren’t sure. This thing looked like some inactive debris, so Nemo approached it and was instantly destroyed. When we looked at the play back footage, which took longer than we wanted it to get back to us, it looked like a small object had approached Nemo, it had a strange physical look which puzzled everyone, the only way to describe it would be the Angel depictions from the Genesis section of the bible like a sphere within a sphere.it was just bizarre.
The playback showed that as soon as Nemo got there it began moving and changing its orbital direction to meet Nemo, so we have limited information as to what it was and why it did it. When we saw the initial playback one of the four-star Generals who was there with us at the time told us all to copy it to his files for the Pentagon and delete the original. We had to do it but after that we all theorized about what our best guess was. The best one I remember was that it was some sort of proximity drone that activated too late when Little Rock got hit, went dormant again, then when Nemo turned up it went active and did its job. We think it’s a proximity drone since it never attacked Juno, because Juno didn’t get too close like Nemo did.
Now we get to the best part. Somewhere along the line the drone must have been scanning the wreckage of Nemo and figured out its origin, keep in mind that we didn’t leave one of those dumb golden plates on Nemo like Voyagers got, that pretty much says come and get us. So how it made the connection is a mystery to us. What happened next was very scary, we got the same frequencies that Juno picked up earlier here on Earth. For reference there is loads of space junk up there above our heads, and some of it woke up. To be specific the one that woke up is a bit infamous, it’s called the Black Knight Satellite, this thing has been in orbit for the longest time around the south pole; we had originally assumed it was a hunk of debris from the Mir station years ago, but as of more recently we thought it was something else, the conspiracies surrounding it say it is an Alien spacecraft, and well its true. We keep an eye on these things in case, and for the most part it stayed dormant all these years we have never had a way of getting to it without it being obvious or reckless, at least to my knowledge. When those frequencies started, post Nemo getting wrecked the Black Knight decided to start moving in a certain direction and it began emitting a frequency like the one that Juno read. Though it was softer and didn’t emit consistently it bleeped a few times then stopped and started moving.
From what we understand the Black Knight began moving towards Europe where it dropped something out of a holding bay onto a collision course with Earth. You guys should have seen the amount insanity that caused with the intel community, and NASA practically pooped themselves as this payload slammed into the Siberian tundra about 400 miles from anything remotely resembling human habitation and no one knew why or what it was.
That’s when the race had been on, every Government that wanted to see what it was, were sending everything they had up that way. The Russians had a huge head start and were pretty much all over it setting up quarantine stations and a huge facility over the top of what had struck the Earth. We were watching via spy satellites and stealth craft, whilst I’m told we had spies and wet work teams on the ground which made sense because we got photos from the inside of their makeshift facility. Our first reports showed that they’d been excavating it for days, it was a large 3 meter by 3-meter black cube. I’m serious it was a cube, with a lot of... well, I’m not sure, but the images we got back made it look like some sort of sludge. Like this oozing red sludge. The Russians were keeping away from the stuff as it probably freaked them out. They were instead sticking probes in it, taking samples and trying to figure out what it even was. The sludge was given a wide birth, as it was expanding out of the cube, the initial containment zone had been expanded, and was growing daily from the imagery we got back. This was concerning to us, and there had been talk of dropping all kinds of ordinance on the site. As far as we are aware we were moving into different defcons, which is a state of readiness for war.
It must have been something that happened because the cube emitted a pulse. This was read like a seismic event over in that region. For some reason the sludge apparently stopped moving. It just stayed in position and then it calcified. The info we got said the pulse made it crystallize and it looked like a ruby. Within the crystal were sacks or at least they looked like small gross little wiggling sacks full of puss and bile, like larvae or maggots looking for a meal.
No one exactly knew what had been going on, although they did know one thing, these larvae couldn’t be reached by anything, how we figured that out was easy. The Russians have some of the best drilling equipment on the planet and some of the largest and strongest diamond tipped filament drills in the world. Keep in mind that these types of machines and tech are specialized and leave a paper trail. They cost an exorbitant amount of money and are often from overseas corporate manufacturers. So, for secret projects they need a finer touch or end up leaving a large fingerprint on everything. In normal situations Governments will often pay using a black budget that no one can audit or talk about during a live parliament session. This relates to us because we were the ones who the Russians were buying extra drills from and our hardware to crack this structure. If Russia already had the equipment and they were buying more from overseas Manufacturers, it meant they needed help getting into it, and they didn’t care if it was obvious.
These larvae sacks eventually were dissected out of the crystalized structure The Russian government had stopped buying excessive amounts of drills, we heard. Now these larvae weren’t like the ones you find in movies, they looked like tiny little specs, which eventually grew to the size of human bodies, looked like a body bag that had veins and a lot of discharging sludge coming off them, they would wiggle around every now and then like a caterpillar moving around on a leaf, We knew that they didn’t get them all, but the willingness to continue wasting resources was weaning, they got a few of them and left the others, their scientists had found thousands of these things apparently, but they had just sealed off the cube and the word was they planned to fill the whole thing with concrete, or something worse.
The ones they extracted were moved to another facility and we only have sparring reports and rumor as to what had happened since their scientists are tight lipped and every spy that got close to this vanished. I’ll say this without any context. Its human. Somehow someway it’s human or at least appears to be. It has from the documents that we were able to obtain and translate, a human type of body with a working nervous system and humane features down to a detail. On a cellular level their cell structures and makeup of their nucleus is different though, they are harder to destroy, and the life cycle is elongated before undergoing mitosis. There was some speculation as to why they were birthed in those living larvae sacks, the theory went by some of the brains of the freelance contractors and the intel community that in order for any of those things to survive here they have to be birthed from this planet. which would include adapting their immune systems and growing on this planet. You can imagine the absolute nightmare fuel that brought about. This was when the higher ups really considered just dropping a nuke on the whole area and blowing it all to Jesus; and if I’m being honest, I don’t really blame them for wanting to do that. But somehow level heads prevailed, and they decided that if anything was going to happen the Kremlin would be the one to deal with it but if it went beyond their borders, it would be a NATO issue.
We had gotten assurances from higher ups that all data would be shared as it was increasingly obvious to every country involved. The negations meant that the Kremlin was prepared to drop any ordinance they had to deal with it. This wasn’t the best approach but there was an assumption from everyone that NATO would step in if something went sideways even if it was still in Russian territory. Things were very tense in those rooms, I’m just glad I’m not there anymore.
Here is the part that should scare the pants off anyone; we know for a fact that the larvae sacks eventually hatched, or something, and they all came out looking like humans, well they were birthed into various ages, some were 40 odd some were in their 20s, some female, some male. It was as if the birthing sacks had a set expectation of development, not only that, but they had ethnic diversity, meaning they had different racial traits and backgrounds. Some were Caucasoid, others Hispanic, Asian and so on. The Russians were smart enough to photograph and fingerprint all the ones that they had pulled from the ruby structure and thank God they did. Another weird coincidence was that when they ran the DNA and fingerprints most have matching DNA strands to those who have gone missing globally. Yeah, that’s right missing persons cases that have been all over the world, not just in the Russian region but globally. But the differences in their cell structure meant that these things weren’t those missing people, so that was its own pandoras box.
Now that we have caught up, The worst part. They lost them. They literally broke out of their containment zone and ran off into the Siberian tundra, most of them nude or in hospital gowns, those damned idiots lost them. What we know is before the giant jail break. Is that they had been attempting the communication process and education with these hybrid humans, but it hadn’t gone very well, somehow one of them had figured out some information that they shouldn’t have, and even though they were housed in one of the most sophisticated dark gulags they got, these hybrids got out, this isn’t some old soviet era dump, its an actual top level place where they were housing most spies and just pure evil people the Russian Government hated but couldn’t kill. They housed them there moving everyone else out and the Hybrids, they could communicate without anyone else knowing. So, they got out and are in the wind now, and everyone is losing their minds trying to find them. Good luck, I say.
I had to blow the whistle on this one, what the hell is being done to find these people? And what are they going to do if they catch them? I don’t know and don’t want to know, they killed everyone who knew too much and that includes me. so I’m gone, I’m out, I’m leaving this mess behind me, this will be one of my last broadcasts, don’t expect anything in the future, they are probably going to try and find me, but I’ll head off grid and stay off grid forever ill step back if anything ever comes about from this.
Just one more thing before I go, this is more of a thought that we played with in game theory classes during the strategy meetings. When the owners of the Little Rock station had a let’s call it a “security measure” in place to activate Black Knight to have all of this happen with the Cube and the Hybrids, and let’s say it’s a contingency to make sure their civilization survives, who were they fighting? and why were they losing. Food for thought.
DD

Chapter 1: Unexpected Encounters
Narration: The sun hung high in the clear sky, casting a golden glow over the pristine shores of Maui. Naruto Uzumaki and Killua Zoldyck found themselves in this breathtaking paradise, both seeking solitude in the rented mansion on the secluded beach. Little did they know that their paths were about to intertwine in the most unexpected way.
Scene: The mansion's balcony overlooking the azure ocean.
Naruto (muttering to himself): "This place is incredible. So peaceful. It's the perfect spot to unwind."
Killua (leaning against the balcony railing): "Tell me about it. I never thought I'd find such tranquility here."
Naruto (turning to Killua): "Hey, I didn't expect anyone else to be here. Guess we're in the same boat."
Killua (smirking): "Guess so. We might as well make the best of it, right?"
Chapter 2: Exploring the Island
Narration: As Naruto and Killua discovered their shared solitude, they decided to explore the enchanting island together. Days turned into nights, laughter and conversations filled the air as they delved deeper into each other's lives.
Scene: A pristine waterfall hidden deep within the island's lush jungles.
Naruto (splashing in the cool waters): "This is amazing, Killua! Who knew we'd stumble upon such a hidden gem?"
Killua (grinning): "Yeah, it's like we're the only ones in the world right now."
Naruto (swimming closer, their bodies inches apart): "I'm glad you're here with me, Killua. This place wouldn't be the same without you."
Chapter 3: Secrets Unveiled
Narration: Amidst the idyllic island backdrop, Naruto and Killua found comfort in each other's presence, slowly unraveling the layers that concealed their true selves.
Scene: A moonlit night on the mansion's veranda.
Naruto (looking up at the starry sky): "You know, Killua, there are things I've never told anyone before. But something about being here with you makes it feel right."
Killua (softly): "You can trust me, Naruto. We're in this together."
Naruto (taking Killua's hand): "I... I'm scared. Scared of being alone. Scared of never finding someone who truly understands me."
Killua (gently caressing Naruto's cheek): "You're not alone anymore, Naruto. I'm here for you, always."
Chapter 4: The Dance of Hearts
Narration: As their connection deepened, Naruto and Killua found themselves entangled in a dance of emotions. The line between friendship and something more began to blur.
Scene: A secluded spot on the beach, their footsteps creating imprints in the sand.
Naruto (heart racing): "Killua, there's something I need to say. Something I've been feeling for a while now."
Killua (captivated by Naruto's gaze): "What is it, Naruto?"
Naruto (voice barely above a whisper): "I'm falling in love with you, Killua."
Killua (smiling softly): "I've been falling too, Naruto. Let's take this journey together."
Chapter 5: Embracing the Depths
Narration: The waves whispered their secrets as Naruto and Killua surrendered to the depths of their love. They explored the beauty of vulnerability, letting their bodies and hearts intertwine in an embrace born of passion and affection.
Scene: Their bodies entwined beneath the moonlit sky, waves crashing against the shore.
Naruto (tracing his fingertips along Killua's skin): "You're everything I've ever wanted, Killua. Being with you feels like coming home."
Killua (pulling Naruto closer, their bodies pressed together): "I've never felt this way before, Naruto. You've awakened something in me I didn't know existed."
Epilogue: A Love to Remember
Narration: Their time in paradise drew to a close, but the memories of their love remained etched in their hearts. Naruto and Killua returned to their respective worlds, forever changed by their profound connection.
Scene: The mansion's veranda, their fingers intertwined.
Naruto (voice filled with longing): "Promise me, Killua. Promise that we'll find each other again."
Killua (pressing a kiss to Naruto's forehead): "I promise, Naruto. Our love will endure, no matter the distance."
Narration: And as the sun set over the horizon, Naruto and Killua held onto the echoes of their love, knowing that their souls would forever be connected by the memories they created in that secluded Hawaiian paradise.

I’ve just watched an infuriating YT video that is very transphobic. And it makes my blood boil to know that a lot of people in the comment seem to agree with the video.
So in the video, the guy used this example to prove his point: “If you put 100 men and 100 trans women on a deserted island, there will be no life left in 100 years.” or something like that, I don’t remember.
If you’re going to use this kind of example to prove your transphobic point then at least USE THE RIGHT STATISTIC.
According to an article from the University of California San Francisco, “Worldwide estimates for transwomen are 1 in every 30,000 people.”
So… statistically speaking, if there were only 200 people left in this world, then you could ONLY find 1 or 2 trans women (if you were lucky) to put on YOUR STUPID ISLAND, WHICH MEANS the 100 men and 98-99 women could still reproduce as much as they wanted and the community on that island would still thrive no matter what.
And someone in the comment even said something like “Queer people just let LUST consume them, therefore, they will go to hell.”
WTF??? Do you even know what lust means? By dictionary definition, lust is a very strong sexual desire. Lust is not exclusive to any gender, any sexual orientation, or any label. So yeah, welcome to hell.
And it is delusional and completely out of touch with reality to even say that LGBTQ+ is a trend and blame it all on the media. Let me say this, it is not a choice or a trend. We’re BORN this way. According to the Statista website, a survey conducted in 27 countries shows that “7 in 10 people identify as heterosexual. Around 3% of respondents declared to be gay, or lesbian, while 4% identify as bisexual. Additionally, 1% are pansexual or omnisexual”. As you can see, we are just a minority group in the population. If anything, we are NOT responsible for the extinction of humankind blah blah blah…
The only reason why you happen to see more LGBTQ+ on any social media nowadays is that the world is becoming more accepting and supportive of us. We ARE NOT TRYING TO brainwash anyone or make this a trend. We just simply encourage people to be themselves and love themselves for who they are.
p/s: It’s 3 AM and I can’t sleep because I’m having this imaginary argument in my head. Anyway, happy Pride Month 🌈

Just had an idea. In the bar with the day number, name, and date, I'd love to have a weather icon with sunrise, sunset, and temperature next to the date.
I use that for planning to check that I go somewhere at the right time to see the sunset and stuff like that.
The temperature is probably the hardest thing - I'm not even sure that data is available. But it should be the average temperature on that date. That would also require a setting to select Fahrenheit or Celsius.

There is a star island above lookout landing. It says I am at the island when I look at my map but I have looked above and below me and its just not there!! Am I missing something?

We all know that magic has profound implications on what worlds would look like. Depending on how common and inexpensive it is, it could knock a setting far away from the classic Middle Ages Europe inspired aesthetic. I'd argue that - in PF2, at least - druids and other primal magic wielders have the most power to shape your world and worldbuilding.
Most spells in the spell lists are geared towards combat and adventuring (naturally), but here are the most practically powerful primal spells:

Healing
- Stabilize (lv0)
- Heal (lv1, H)
- Remove Paralysis (lv2, H)
- Restoration (lv2, H)
- Restore Senses (lv2, H) - Note that this only helps magical sensory problems, not congenital or nonmagical ones. Still useful.
- Remove Disease (lv3)
- Summon Healing Servitor (lv5, H)
- Regenerate (lv7)
- Reincarnate (rit3, H)
Sustenance
- Create Water (lv1)
- Purify Food and Drink (lv1)
- Create Food (lv2, H)
- Enhance Victuals (lv2, H)
- Plant Growth (rit4)
- Control Weather (rit8, H)
Construction
- Expeditious Excavation (lv2, H)
- Shape Wood (lv2)
- Shape Stone (lv4)
- Control Water (lv5)
- Wall of Stone (lv5, H) - Note that the wall is only an inch thick, so it would only be useful for things like fences.
Labor
- Summon Animal, Fey, Plant, or Fungus (lv1, H) - Note that these don't hang around for long, so they wouldn't be long-term servants.
- Summon Giant (lv5, H) - Same note as above.
- Primal Call (rit5)
Other
- Commune with Nature (rit6) - Good for getting some general answers.

Imagine what the effects of all this would be. Even a level three druid can heal wounds, aid with food (creation, purification, and enhancement), help with construction (excavation and wood), and summon creatures to help with other tasks (briefly). This is crazy, and these effects have to be considered when thinking about what it's like to live in your setting.
With these sorts of benefits, you'd have a lot of people lining up to become a druid and learn druidic magic. I would argue that you would maybe one level three druid in most villages, with more in larger settlements. This would mean that most people would have enough food and water to not starve or die of thirst, which is, by itself, world-changing. Once you get to relatively high-level druids (level 7), you'd start to see traveling groups of druids, performing invaluable services like the Plant Growth ritual (for coin or other benefits).
In my setting, this has led to the practice of leaving a bit of green space in the center of each settlement for a druidic grove. There, druids can commune with nature and practice their arts. Larger settlements have multiple groves throughout the city. The Green Faith has become a neutral, protected class in warfare - druids aid all sides equally, and are generally spared from attacks.
What do you think? Are there other spell schools that have practical benefits? Do you have other ideas for how these magical practicalities can be factored into a setting?

We all know that magic has profound implications on what worlds would look like. Depending on how common and inexpensive it is, it could knock a setting far away from the classic Middle Ages Europe inspired aesthetic. I'd argue that - in PF2, at least - druids and other primal magic wielders have the most power to shape your world and worldbuilding.
Most spells in the spell lists are geared towards combat and adventuring (naturally), but here are the most practically powerful primal spells:

Healing
- Stabilize (lv0)
- Heal (lv1, H)
- Remove Paralysis (lv2, H)
- Restoration (lv2, H)
- Restore Senses (lv2, H) - Note that this only helps magical sensory problems, not congenital or nonmagical ones. Still useful.
- Remove Disease (lv3)
- Summon Healing Servitor (lv5, H)
- Regenerate (lv7)
- Reincarnate (rit3, H)
Sustenance
- Create Water (lv1)
- Purify Food and Drink (lv1)
- Create Food (lv2, H)
- Enhance Victuals (lv2, H)
- Plant Growth (rit4)
- Control Weather (rit8, H)
Construction
- Expeditious Excavation (lv2, H)
- Shape Wood (lv2)
- Shape Stone (lv4)
- Control Water (lv5)
- Wall of Stone (lv5, H) - Note that the wall is only an inch thick, so it would only be useful for things like fences.
Labor
- Summon Animal, Fey, Plant, or Fungus (lv1, H) - Note that these don't hang around for long, so they wouldn't be long-term servants.
- Summon Giant (lv5, H) - Same note as above.
- Primal Call (rit5)
Other
- Commune with Nature (rit6) - Good for getting some general answers.

Imagine what the effects of all this would be. Even a level three druid can heal wounds, aid with food (creation, purification, and enhancement), help with construction (excavation and wood), and summon creatures to help with other tasks (briefly). This is crazy, and these effects have to be considered when thinking about what it's like to live in your setting.
With these sorts of benefits, you'd have a lot of people lining up to become a druid and learn druidic magic. I would argue that you would maybe one level three druid in most villages, with more in larger settlements. This would mean that most people would have enough food and water to not starve or die of thirst, which is, by itself, world-changing. Once you get to relatively high-level druids (level 7), you'd start to see traveling groups of druids, performing invaluable services like the Plant Growth ritual (for coin or other benefits).
In my setting, this has led to the practice of leaving a bit of green space in the center of each settlement for a druidic grove. There, druids can commune with nature and practice their arts. Larger settlements have multiple groves throughout the city. The Green Faith has become a neutral, protected class in warfare - druids aid all sides equally, and are generally spared from attacks.
What do you think? Are there other spell schools that have practical benefits? Do you have other ideas for how these magical practicalities can be factored into a setting?

I’ve been having fun creating “new“ scenarios for the B99 squad with AI chatbot. Not sure if anyone likes reading made up stories but visualizing this one really entertained me.
The first is my “script” version. Then the case from Jake’s point of view and then one from Rosa’s.
Script:
Agents Mulder & Scully join Detectives Jake Peralta and Rosa Diaz to solve a case where frogs fell from the sky.
Title: The X-Files: Brooklyn Nine-Nine Crossover
INT. PRECINCT - DAY
Detective JAKE PERALTA is sitting at his desk, eating a bag of chips. Detective ROSA DIAZ walks over.
ROSA DIAZ Peralta, you won't believe what just happened.
JAKE PERALTA What is it, Rosa?
ROSA DIAZ Frogs. Frogs just fell from the sky. Literally.
JAKE PERALTA (eyes wide) Frogs? Falling from the sky? That's insane.
As they ponder the situation, Special Agents FOX MULDER and DANA SCULLY from The X-Files enter the precinct, flashing their badges.
FOX MULDER (looking intrigued) I heard there's a case involving some unusual phenomena?
DANA SCULLY (following Mulder) Yes, we're here to investigate the reported frog rain.
JAKE PERALTA (stammering) Uh, hey, I'm Detective Jake Peralta, and this is Detective Rosa Diaz. We didn't call for any X-Files help.
FOX MULDER (sly smile) Sometimes the truth finds its way to us, Detective Peralta. I have a hunch that there's more to this than meets the eye.
DANA SCULLY (resolute) We'll assist you in finding out what's happening. Our expertise lies in investigating the unexplained.
ROSA DIAZ (deadpan) Great. More weirdos.
INT. FROG RAIN SITE - DAY
The group arrives at the location where the frog rain was reported. The ground is littered with frogs of various sizes and colors.
JAKE PERALTA (staring at the frogs) This is unreal. How did they fall from the sky?
FOX MULDER (observing) I suspect some sort of atmospheric anomaly or disturbance. But we won't know for sure until we gather more evidence.

DANA SCULLY (starting to collect samples) Let's begin by examining the frogs and their surroundings. We need to rule out any logical explanations.
JAKE PERALTA (looking at Mulder) Are you thinking extraterrestrial involvement, Mulder?
FOX MULDER (smiling) That's always a possibility, Detective Peralta. However, it could also be a result of a natural phenomenon or a man-made experiment gone wrong.
ROSA DIAZ (skeptical) Or maybe someone dumped a truckload of frogs from a plane. Seems more plausible.
As they continue their investigation, the group interviews witnesses and gathers more information.
INT. PRECINCT - NIGHT
The group assembles in the precinct, going through their findings.
JAKE PERALTA (showing a report) We've interviewed several witnesses who all claimed to see a bright light in the sky just before the frog rain. Some even mentioned hearing strange noises.
DANA SCULLY (pensive) These accounts of a bright light and unusual sounds align with typical UFO encounters. We should investigate further in that direction.
FOX MULDER (agrees) We also found some peculiar biological anomalies in the frogs themselves. It's as if they've been exposed to some unknown substance or energy.
ROSA DIAZ (getting frustrated) Can we skip to the part where we catch the culprits and wrap this up? I'm not a fan of frogs.
JAKE PERALTA (smirking) Alright, Rosa. Let's focus on tracking down any leads related to the light, noises, and any potential experiments in the area.
INT. SECRET LAB - DAY
The group uncovers a hidden laboratory in an abandoned warehouse, filled with strange equipment and scientific apparatus.
JAKE PERALTA (amazed) Whoa, look at all this crazy stuff. It's like we're in a sci-fi movie.
FOX MULDER (examining equipment) This lab seems to be experimenting with interdimensional travel. They might have inadvertently caused the frog rain by disrupting the fabric of reality.
DANA SCULLY (discovering a journal) I found a journal. It appears to contain detailed notes on these experiments. We might find answers here.
As they dig deeper into the lab, they find evidence linking the experiments to a mysterious organization with a hidden agenda.
INT. SHOWDOWN - NIGHT
In a climactic showdown, the group confronts the organization responsible for the frog rain.
JAKE PERALTA (holding his gun) NYPD! Drop your weapons and surrender!
A group of operatives surrounds them, but Mulder and Scully use their skills to outwit them, while Peralta and Diaz provide backup.
Finally, they manage to apprehend the organization's leader, who reveals their motives and the reasons behind the frog rain.
INT. PRECINCT - DAY
Mulder, Scully, Peralta, and Diaz return to the precinct, filing their reports and closing the case.
JAKE PERALTA (relieved) Well, that was something else. Thanks for your help, Mulder and Scully.
FOX MULDER (grinning) No problem, Detective Peralta. It was a pleasure working with you and Diaz.
DANA SCULLY (to Peralta) Remember, the truth is out there. And sometimes, it's stranger than fiction.
As Mulder and Scully prepare to leave, Peralta and Diaz exchange looks, pondering the mysteries that lie beyond their usual cases.
FADE OUT.
Jake’s experience:
It was just another day at the Nine-Nine, filled with the usual chaos and hilarity. But little did I know that things were about to take a wild turn. The precinct received a call about a bizarre incident: frogs falling from the sky. Frogs! I couldn't believe it. This sounded like something straight out of a sci-fi movie.
As the call came in, I was sitting at my desk, indulging in my usual shenanigans. The bullpen erupted into laughter as I performed my "Die Hard" reenactment with a stapler, but the laughter quickly subsided as Captain Holt announced the case. He assigned me and Rosa to work with a couple of federal agents named Mulder and Scully. Apparently, they were experts in dealing with the strange and unexplained.
I was beyond excited. Working with Mulder and Scully? It was like a dream come true. I mean, who wouldn't want to solve a case with the legendary paranormal investigators? But at the same time, I couldn't help but feel a little intimidated. These were the people who had faced aliens, monsters, and government conspiracies. Meanwhile, my biggest concern was finding the perfect nickname for Terry's biceps.
Mulder and Scully arrived at the precinct, and I couldn't help but be starstruck. They had an air of mystery and intrigue about them. Mulder had this intense gaze, always searching for hidden truths, while Scully was a no-nonsense, rational thinker. They were the perfect balance, and I knew we were in good hands.
We sat down in the conference room, surrounded by evidence bags filled with frogs. Mulder began discussing various theories about extraterrestrial activity and government experiments gone wrong, while Scully remained skeptical, leaning towards a more scientific explanation. It was like watching an intense debate between two brilliant minds.
As the discussion continued, I couldn't resist interjecting with my own outlandish ideas. Maybe the frogs were spies from a secret amphibian agency or victims of a teleportation experiment gone awry. Mulder seemed amused by my enthusiasm, but Scully gave me a look that said, "Please, stop."
Together, we began combing through the evidence, interviewing witnesses, and following leads. Mulder and Scully's experience and expertise brought a whole new level of insight to the investigation. They taught us to look beyond the surface, to question everything, and to never rule out the possibility of the extraordinary.
Rosa and I quickly realized that our different approaches to solving cases could actually complement each other. She brought her trademark badassery and razor-sharp instincts, while I brought my boundless energy and willingness to think outside the box. We formed an unlikely but effective partnership.
As the investigation progressed, we uncovered a secret laboratory hidden beneath a seemingly innocent pet store. It turned out that the store owner was conducting bizarre experiments, using a weather-altering device to make the frogs rain from the sky. His motivations? Well, that's a whole other story.
In the end, we apprehended the culprit and restored order to the frog population. Mulder and Scully shared their final insights, leaving us with more questions than answers. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to them, knowing that we had been a part of something truly extraordinary.
Rosa’s experience:
I leaned against my desk, rolling my eyes as I watched Detective Jake Peralta enthusiastically wave a piece of paper in the air. Mulder and Scully from the FBI? Seriously? What kind of case had landed on our doorstep this time? I took a sip of my coffee, bracing myself for whatever bizarre scenario Jake was about to throw at me.
"Rosa, you won't believe this!" Jake exclaimed, bounding over to my desk like an overexcited puppy. "Frogs! Frogs falling from the sky! This case has X-Files written all over it!"
I shot him a skeptical look. "Mulder and Scully? Really, Jake? You think they're going to solve our frog rain mystery?
Jake's eyes lit up, his voice full of childlike wonder. "Think about it, Rosa. Frogs are just dropping out of the sky. It's unexplained, it's weird, it's perfect for the X-Files team. Plus, who wouldn't want to work with the legendary Mulder and Scully?"
I grunted, not exactly convinced. But curiosity got the better of me, and I reluctantly followed Jake to the conference room. As I entered, I saw two figures standing by the whiteboard, deep in conversation. Mulder, a lanky man with an intense gaze, was scribbling something on the board while Scully, a composed redhead, observed him with a mixture of amusement and exasperation.
I took a seat at the table, crossing my arms over my chest. "Alright, Mulder, Scully. What brings you to the Nine-Nine?"
Mulder turned to face me, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. "Detective Diaz, I've heard of your reputation. A tough detective with a sharp mind. I believe our collaboration could yield interesting results. After all, the truth is out there, even in the form of falling amphibians."
I raised an eyebrow, not entirely convinced by his charm. "Fine, Mulder. But I have one condition. No nonsense, no wasting time. We do this my way, got it?"
Mulder nodded, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "Agreed, Detective Diaz. We're here to help, not hinder."
I glanced at Scully, who had been quietly observing our exchange. "And you, Scully? Any thoughts on our little froggy situation?"
Scully let out a small chuckle, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "Well, Detective Diaz, I've seen my fair share of strange cases, but this one definitely takes the cake. Let's get to the bottom of it."
With that, our unlikely team was formed. Mulder, Scully, Jake, and me, united in our pursuit of the truth behind the raining frogs. We gathered our evidence, interviewed witnesses, and analyzed the meteorological data, all the while trying to keep Jake's enthusiasm in check.
As the days turned into weeks, our investigation took us down a rabbit hole of government experiments, conspiracy theories, and even ancient myths. Mulder's unorthodox theories and Scully's scientific skepticism clashed with Jake's wild imagination and my unwavering pragmatism. But somehow, amidst the chaos, a strange camaraderie began to form.
Together, we dug deep, uncovering a hidden plot involving weather manipulation and a disgruntled scientist seeking revenge. We confronted the culprits, unraveled their twisted motives, and brought them to justice. And when it was all over, we stood together, victorious.
As Mulder and Scully prepared to leave, I found myself feeling a hint of nostalgia. Despite our differences, our unconventional partnership had been strangely effective. I offered them a rare smile. "Thanks for the help, Mulder, Scully. It's been... interesting."
Mulder grinned, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. "Likewise, Detective Diaz. Remember, if you ever need assistance with the unexplained, you know where to find us."
I nodded, realizing that even in the face of absurdity, there were connections to be made, friendships to be formed. And as the X-Files agents walked out of the precinct, I couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, there was more to this world than met the eye.

Hi 26 looking to meet new people and hopefully make some friends while doing so i am hoping to improve my social skills and learn new things along the way.
Some of my hobbies are gaming, listening to music and watching anime and some sports.
At the moment my go to games have been the new mw2 ow2 just got dead island 2 but i play many others as well
My favourite anime at the moment has been castlevania on netflix highly recommend checking it out i have watched tons of others.
Hope to hear back from some people and have some interesting conversations

I have a gap at the top of my garage door between the door and the wall. There is a weather strip on the outside of the garage already, but because the door is angled it doesn't reach far enough to seal anything. Is this something I can fix myself or should I be calling a professional?
Here's a photo of what I'm talking about, you can see where the light is coming through: https://i.imgur.com/jQIAg2H.jpg

Hey y'all, thanks for being here, I want to thank my parents, my friends.. Oh, sorry, I dont know how to start writing those things, so I guess I should start from the beginning? Here i go:
It was a sunny day in 1996, when a sweet young lady had a contraction and... Oh gosh, sorry again. I will fast forward a bit.
Well, as the title says, I am 27, and I'm brazilian. Let me cut the chase and answer the top 3 questions I get all the time.

Yes, we are forced to play soccer from an early age. You need to play at least 1 soccer game every week or else... oh boy, things get messy
Yes, all South Americans learn how to dance at the age of 2, I may have missed a few classes, tho.

3 No, not every brazilian has a big booty, I know you weren't ready for that, I'll give you some minutes to process it, and then we can go on.
Ok, now a bit about me, what do I like? Great question, let's see, I love movies, specially thriller, some of my favorites are Shutter Island, final destination, the pursuit of Happiness, inception and a lot more, we can talk about movies for, like, 30 minutes then I will get bored and change the subject but you got the idea.
I love series too, especially comedy, Friends are my favorite ones, and Ross and Rachel shouldn't end up together. Do you think you can change my mind? Try it, I dare you!
I like to work out and stay active, probably because of all those years forced to play soccer at school, now my body needs it. I have a cute border collie too so if you read all this and thought "omg he is so boring, I can't stand anymore" then just bear with me a little longer and you can see Loki in all his glory once you pm me.
I like to go out with my friends, and play some games together, I own a small collection of boardgames so if you are into that we have something to talk about too, my favorites are single player rpgs but I love playing coop games as well.
If you want to get an idea of what I look like, I'm 5'10 (177cm), brown eyes, and hair, and we can exchange pictures at any time.
You read this far? OMG, ME TOO! Send me a chat request, and let's see how it goes. Just behave yourself cause I am legally allowed to handcuff you.
See you soon! :)

Weather at padre island