Background
Canary Islands is a Spanish archipelago of volcanic nature located in the eastern Atlantic ocean, just west of southern Morocco. The chain of islands extends for approximately 490 kilometers (300 miles).
Canary Islands is both geologically and climatologically almost identical to Hawaii, and as such, international tourism has been the main pillar of its economy since the 1960s.
The Event
At around 10:15 PM of June 22nd, 1976, emergency services in all the main seven islands received a flood of calls, with people reporting having seen a strange and frightening phenomenon taking place in the night sky. Most of these callers described what they were seeing as 'a gigantic explosion of light' or 'a massive ball of fire', and all of them said the phenomenon seemed to be taking place somewhere far in the west. These accounts were quickly confirmed true by local authorities, since the 'explosion of light' in question shone for several minutes before dissipating.
Many witnesses also added having seen one or two much smaller red lights moving strangely before the 'explosion' took place -rising from the horizon or from behind the mountains at very high speed, although others added that the lights flew following 'a zig-zag trajectory'.
No sound was heard or reported regarding the phenomenon, and no consequences seemed to follow except for a frightened population.
A foreign tourist vacationing in the island of Gran Canaria took the only known legit picture available of the phenomenon, from the balcony of his hotel room in Maspalomas. Here you can see a bigger version of the picture with enhanced contrast.
Here's a drawing extracted from an official report made by the Spanish Air Force. The drawing depicts a description of the event made with the information gathered from witnesses reports in the western coast of Gran Canaria. The mountains in the drawing are a depiction of the silhouette of Tenerife, the island immediately west of Gran Canaria. In order to understand the extreme magnitude of the 'explosion of light', please take into account that Tenerife is 70 kilometers (44 miles) away and its tallest peak -Mount Teide, which is in fact Spain's tallest mountain- is 3,718 meters tall (12,198 feet). Here's a real picture of the landscape depicted in the drawing, for a better perspective.
Hong Kong's bulk carrier vessel Osaka Bay was sailing from Capetown (South Africa) to Southampton (United Kingdom). The event took place when she was some 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of the island of La Gomera, and her crew did also witness the phenomenon. Here's a drawing made out of their witness reports.
The crew of the Spanish Navy's corvette Atrevida (F-61) observed the phenomenon as she was sailing just south of the island of Fuerteventura. Her captain's account of the event;
"At 22:27 local time of June 22nd it was seen, for the first time, a bright light of an intense bluish yellow color, taking off and rising in altitude towards our position... Once it reached certain height (15º-18º) it stood still, turning its light projection and showing its light source. It remained like that for approximately two minutes, before bursting into a large circle of bright bluish yellow light that remained in that position for forty minutes even after the original preceding phenomenon had faded away.
Two minutes later the light source split, its lower half being smaller and standing in the middle of the circle of light, turning into a bluish cloud as the split half that had originated this bluish mass faded away. The upper half gained altitude while describing a fast but irregular spiraling trajectory, vanishing afterwards. None of these movements had any effect whatsoever on the initial circle of light, whose features remained the same, partially illuminating land and sea, which leads to believe that it wasn't an object far in the distance, but rather close".
Here's the translation of local newspaper excerpts detailing the event;
"It was spotted between 10:15 and 10:30 PM and, according to one of our journalists who has his residence at Valle de Aridane (La Palma island), at that time he observed something that looked like a rocket emerging from the sea and flying towards El Time peak shining with an intense red light. The same phenomenon was spotted in Tazacorte (in La Palma island too). The ferry Villa de Agaete, sailing from Las Palmas, could observe a great shining at exactly 10:20 PM, shortly before docking in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The shining, which lasted about five minutes, appeared like a rocket that had come out of the sea". - El Día (June 23rd, 1976)
"Last night, at around half past ten, a strange object was spotted from several points of our region, especially in the areas of Gáldar and Telde (Gran Canaria), where most phone calls we received in that regard were from. Our callers explained to us that it was a round object that grew massively in size as it rose, clearly defined before it began to fade.
The aforementioned phenomenon began as a couple of red objects that moved in zig-zag, forming into some sort of spiral whose lower half ended in three clearly differentiated but overlaying stripes with some degree of separation between them. They were of a very bright red color and faded gradually. On top of these stripes there was what looked like two powerful blue focal lights, which began to diminish in intensity too before turning into a thin haze afterwards". - La Provincia (June 23rd, 1976)
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Thanks to these accounts and description of the events, calculations could be made in order to ascertain the phenomenon's origins. At the moment of its beginning (which many witnesses described as a rocket taking off) the sun was already 13.7º under the horizon and its azimuth angle was 307º (northwest). Setting a hypothetical POV in the geographical center of the archipelago (28.50º N, 15.75º W, just north of Gran Canaria, it was calculated that during it's first phase (the 'rocket lights') the phenomenon was located some 762 kilometers (473 miles) straight west, at an approximate altitude of 46 kilometers (28 miles). By the end of its final phase (the 'explosion of light') it had traveled to a point located at around 1,062 kilometers (662 miles) west and had risen to a final altitude of 90 kilometers (56 miles).
These calculations became a very important piece of data, we'll get back to them later.
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The UFO/Aliens narrative (AKA the press cherry-picks the statement of one particularly imaginative witness in order to sell a story of very questionable credibility)
Being the 1970s, almost immediately certain sectors of the press began talking about UFO -and subsequently about aliens, even though there was no further evidence to suggest such thing. The local authorities (the Army especially) focused their efforts into reassuring the population that there was nothing to fear, while at the same time gathering all the information they could gather in order to investigate the phenomenon.
In June of 1994, exactly eighteen years after that night, the Spanish Army declassified the 107-pages long investigation report of what by then it had been baptized as the "OVNI de Canarias 22/06/1976" ("Canary Islands' 06/22/1976 UFO"). Back then very few people in Spain had internet access, and as such the release of these documents went unnoticed for most people. However, many journalists rushed to get a copy of the report, and many of these worked for UFO/paranormal magazines of dubious scientific accuracy. And, aware of the kind of reaction they wanted to generate from the public they target, they focused in just one part of the report; Dr. Padrón's story.
Francisco Julio Padrón León (who passed away in 2013) was a general practitioner that lived and had his office in the rural municipality of Gáldar, which is located precisely in the northwestern part of the island of Gran Canaria (and precisely, where a lot of people reported witnessing the phenomenon. Unlike most witnessed, however, Padrón told Spanish authorities a much more extravagant version of the events.
That night he had been called in person to check on a local patient at her home, and the doctor had called a taxi in order to reach the patient's residence; Padrón lived in the town of Guía, and the patient lived at a small parish some 10 kilometers away (6 miles) named Las Rosas. Padrón, his companion and the taxi driver claimed having observed the phenomenon when the car was covering the last two kilometers of the route (at that point, a very narrow and barely paved rural road). Or more specifically, Padrón and the taxi driver claimed having bumped into it; because, according to the statement, at that moment the car's headlights illuminated a sphere that was floating right in front of them. The Padrón and the taxi driver described it as measuring some 30 meters (98 feet), slightly bright and slightly translucent. They (the doctor, especially) described seeing two humanoid entities inside the sphere, surrounded by what looked to be inner aluminum structural parts of the sphere. These figures were, per their statements, between 2.5 and 3 meters tall (8'2" to 9'10"), one taller than the other, and they were dressed in red skin-tight suits. Padrón claimed that these beings stood facing each other, apparently interacting among them but didn't seem to notice his or the taxi driver's presence. It then began to grow in size until (his words) "becoming as big as a 20-story building" and began ascending. At this point of his statement he said he went to check on her patient, after which he told all people present at the patients' home, inviting everyone to go outside and check by themselves what he claimed he had seen. By the time everyone joined Dr. Padrón to watch, the sphere was already very big, standing high in the sky and then it flew away at extreme speed ("faster than any aircraft I've seen in my life", Padrón said in the report) leaving a trail of blue smoke behind before vanishing in the distance, towards Tenerife island.
In his individual report, the taxi driver made just a very skimp corroboration of Padrón's statement, omitting most details of his version of the phenomenon. It was just a few sentences long. The taxi driver was a man in his sixties (and wore glasses) of very little formal education -in fact, his preliminary handwritten statement had to be redacted to correct numerous grammar and spelling mistakes.
As for the companion (a relative of the patient, who was traveling in the backseat), this man only describes seeing "intense bright light everywhere" and noticing "both the doctor and the taxi driver's agitation". He claimed the amount of light, plus the fact that by sitting in the backseat the taxi driver and the doctor's bodies blocked his view, hadn't allowed him to see what Padrón claimed having witnessed.
The declassified document contained many more witness reports gathered from the same area, but none of them matched Dr. Padrón's story about a sphere with two humanoids figures in it; every other description -most of them provided by locals- mentions the same enormous disc of light in the west night sky. A car mechanic and his wife described it as "a car's headlight thrice as large as the full moon". A school teacher mentioned having seen it from his house's window through a pair of binoculars when it began to fade, noticing its "fog-like appearance, and the night stars could be seen through", and mentioning what looked like a couple of bluish beams inside. A farmer explained in his statement that it looked like "a fire spot", he too mentioned seeing "two blue lines" in it. Not even the sick woman Padrón had come to provide medical attention to nor her relatives confirmed the Dr.'s description of the phenomenon, matching instead everyone else's.
That didn't stop the journalists working for UFO/paranormal-themed magazines or even some journalists working for reputable newspapers from disregarding all these credible witnesses and instead focusing on the most outlandish one; Dr. Padrón. In summer of 1994, several of these Spanish magazines like Enigmas, Año Cero or Más Allá rushed to publish a drawing depicting Padrón's description of the 'humanoid figures dressed in red' in their articles, not only making absolutely no mention of any of the other witnesses but also claimed that the propulsion system of the alleged 'alien spacecraft' had scorched a nearby onion field -the area is full of that type of crops- and that posterior chemical analysis of the scorched terrain had yielded wildly unusual results. We'll come back to this point later.
Sketch depicting Padrón's (unique, literally) description of the event. Yes, someone from the Army - more specifically from the Air Force- was tasked with sitting down next to this guy and spending a good deal of time drawing whatever ludicrous thing Padrón felt like coming up with.
Something worth mentioning; these publications made heavy emphasis on Padrón's education -he was a GP, after all. As in, as extraordinary as his claims were, these were being made by a man of a high level of education, intelligent and therefore (in the eyes of many) automatically worth of credibility. In fact, the patient's relative traveling in the taxi's backseat -a farmhand that had never received formal schooling and was illiterate- said in his witness report that one of the reasons why he did not question Padrón's statement was precisely the abysmal difference in education between him and the doctor, and kind of assumed that if an educated man like Padrón said that such thing had indeed happened, then it must have been true.
A local newspaper interviewed Dr. Padrón shortly after the documents were declassified. And by then, eighteen years after that night, Padrón added some more details to his already bizarre account, providing these journalists with something that wouldn't have been out of place in an episode of The X-Files (which back in 1994 had begun to be broadcasted in Spain, with significant success). Back in 1976 Padrón had already added in his statement that he did not feel fear but 'a strange sense of wellbeing and excitement' in his encounter with the alleged spacecraft; now he was also saying that these beings -which never communicated with him in any way, per his account- had not only the ability to erase anyone's memories off their brains, but they also can "make you see whatever they want you to do for months or years, replacing an 'energy' [his word] in your brain". If these statements weren't absurd enough, Dr. Padrón warned the journalists about not taking him seriously, because in the last three years he "had observed that anyone who had been skeptical of my statements and hurt my credibility in public has passed away within six or seven months, all of them to cancer, eight people in total so far".
Although the documents that included the description of his ludicrous story hadn't been declassified until 1994, ever since 1976 many journalists had managed to get in touch with Padrón and hear his story -the doctor himself wasn't exactly quiet about it either -and some of these are allegedly the cancer victims Padrón would've been referring to. There's no way to check the veracity of that, since the only source of that statement was Padrón himself.
Between 1976 and 1994 the doctor's story circulated in a somewhat obscure manner, being referred to in some UFO articles here and there -and adding their own artistic depictions of his outlandish story. Padrón was already telling any 'paranormal' journalist willing to listen about the scorched onion field. Turned out, back in June of 1976 a farmer in the municipality of Guía did indeed notice an area in one of his onion crops that seemed to have been burned, but that man had specified that that hadn't happened until the morning of June 24th, a good day and half after Padrón's alleged 'alien encounter'. What is more, although the cause of these burns couldn't be ascertained, they were indistinguishable from fire damage. To this day it's thought that these burnt onion plants were nothing but the result of vandalism or a prank. Some UFO skepticism authors have raised the possibility of the doctor himself being responsible.
Picture of one of the many onion fields in Guía and Gáldar. To this day, Dr. Padrón's 'scorched onion field' remains a running joke among the older residents in these municipalities.
At the time Padrón even managed, out of sheer insistence, to get that soil tested. Surprisingly to no one, all chemical, physical and radiological analyses performed yielded no unusual results. The sampling and testing was conducted by Hungarian-Spanish physician Alejandro Carlos de Gyorko-Gyorkos, who at the time was curious about paranormal phenomena and had interviewed Padrón many times in 1976. According to a journalist for Naukas (A Spanish online science and technology magazine that specializes in skepticism and debunking of pseudoscience), in 1992 Gyorko-Gyorkos described Padrón as a man that "interprets everything he comes up with as real". By 1994 Padrón was also claiming that the Spanish Air Force had threatened him with legal action to silence him, and that Gyorko-Gyorkos was a man whose "ethics he'd rather not talk about". Padrón had never mentioned these alleged legal threats at any point before June of that year, precisely once the documents were declassified, a coincidence that hadn't gone unnoticed.
Some skepticism authors have elucubrated about the possible inspiration for Padrón's 'tall men in dressed in red spacesuits'. Not exactly very original.
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Explanation (1994 and 2001)
The 1976 document concludes that the origen of the 22/06/976 UFO -although in reality the Spanish Air force used then the acronym FANI (Fenómeno Aéreo No Identificado', 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon') when referring to it- was unknown. In 1994 these paranormal journalists presented such conclusion as an automatic evidence of aliens, or at least UFOs in the sense popular culture depicts then. In reality, as anyone can notice upon checking the report, 'unknown' means precisely that; unknown. At no point in the report the authors bring up rebuttals for any possible logical or rational explanation, but rather they conclude that back in 1976 there was just not enough evidence to provide an accurate explanation of its origin.
The same report contains the transcription of precisely Dr. Gyorko-Gyorkos's opinion about Dr. Padrón's reasoning (safe to assume, by then had already made up his mind about the man) in a military court. In the transcription, and in what looks like a generous maneuver to dismiss Padrón's claims without going as far to humiliate him, Gyorko-Gyorkos explains a military judge that that night Dr. Padrón, possibly overworked and sleep-deprived, misremembered what had seen and his fatigued psyche had create a mixed recollection with what he had seen and what had crossed his mind. As for the taxi driver, this man was probably highly impressionable -apparently the Dr. had behaved in a very excited manner during the phenomenon- and thus in a way Padrón had 'passed' his delusional belief onto him. The military court ruled that "Padrón's credibility could not, for the time being, be corroborated".
Of course, at this point of this writeup a question still lingers; what was whatever thing close to a million and half people saw in the night sky back on June 22nd, 1976? First, let's go over the world's state of affairs at the time, because this is one of these 'mysteries' in which history had been hinting at the answer almost from the beginning;
In 1976 the world was still amidst of a low-key conflict between two superpowers with lots of political tensions; the United States (plus NATO) versus the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (plus other members of the Warsaw Pact). AKA, Cold War. As part of the Western Bloc, at the time Spain had been a long-time ally of NATO. However, the country wouldn't become a NATO member itself until 1982 -which was so controversial within Spain that a referendum would be held in 1986 questioning Spanish people's desire to remain in the military alliance.
As such, while Spain was a Western ally, back in 1976 it was not really 'in the game' yet, especially when taking into account that, unlike in other countries, NATO membership wasn't that welcome. Please notice the year the Spanish army declassified the documents; 1994. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (and with it , the fall of the Iron Curtain) helped lower the stakes this international poker game, and as such the world would learn about all sorts of crazy things that had been going on at both sides of the conflict in absolute secrecy.
Earlier in this writeup there is a data-based description of the phenomenon's behavior, but most importantly, it's ballistic trajectory. Adding to that, countless witnesses had described seeing either one or a couple of lights 'taking off like a rocket'. Let's remember; it had been ascertained that it originated at about 700 kilometers west and had moved further west in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean while reaching an altitude of 90 kilometers -which is about the lower thermosphere. This had already raised the first suspicions among the members of the Spanish intelligence services, suspicions that gained weight in 1994 -and that likely led to the declassification of the report- when much clearer and straightforward communication between the United States' government and Spain's allowed for a more open investigation of the sort of testing the Americans were engaging in. In 2001 an article of research journalism, coauthored by science journalists Ricardo Campo and Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos finally identified what was behind the 1976 aerial phenomenon.
Campo and Ballester had already noticed its ballistic trajectory calculated in 1976. In 1999, suspecting already who (country) was the 'culprit', they accessed Jonathan McDowell's database of ballistic missile launches. Previous to that Campo and Ballester had failed to find any useful information in NASA's archives, as none of the launches in their registry matched the evidence, and prior to that -right after the 1994 declassification, in fact- they had traveled to Moscow looking for the possible explanation there. Russian military authorities had adamantly denied their involvement in the phenomena, which directed the investigators towards other leads (while at the same time not disregarding the possibility of Russia being behind it after all.
Finally, Campo and Ballester bumped into these two rows of the database. First column indicates the launch identification number. Second and third, the date (in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Fourth is GMT time (which, adjusting for a compilation error, coincides with Canary Islands' GMT+1 local time when the phenomenon took place). The fifth column tells the type of missile, the sixth on identifies the launch platform and finally the seventh one indicates who was responsible for the launch.
Simply put, the information in these rows means; on June 22nd, 1976, two Poseidon C3 thermonuclear missiles were launched from US Navy's submarine USS Von Steuben), at 20:16 and 20:17 GTM.
The database does not include location (that information remains classified) but during their research Campo and Ballester learned from McDowell himself that the US Navy's eastern test range covers from Cape Canaveral (Florida, US) all the way Ascension Island. The location of the 1976's phenomenon falls well within such range.
From here, Campos and Ballester offered an explanation of its optics. The Poseidon C3 missile carries several 40-kiloton nuclear warheads (normally ten) -for comparison, Little Boy was a single 15-kiloton bomb. Once the two 400-kiloton missiles detonated in the thermosphere, the quick expansion of extremely hot atmospheric gases reflected the sunlight back to Earth, even though by then in Canary Islands the sun was already well below the horizon and the sky was pitch black; at 90 kilometers of altitude, these expanding gases were still in direct path of the sunlight. This reflection is what made the phenomenon appear so bright and big in spite of the 700+ kilometers of distance between witnesses and its source.
Campo and Ballester's article provided also an explanation for other similar events -albeit not that espectacular as the one pertaining this writeup- that had taken place in the islands between 1973 and 1979. All except one were found to be the result of other American thermonuclear tests, with the exception of this one seen south of the archipelago in 1979 -and finally acknowledged by Russia in 2017, although they did not explain what exactly it was.
Conclusion
TL;DR: It was a couple of thermonuclear missiles launched in secrecy by the US Navy in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The 'aliens' witness was, to put it mildy, an individual with an extreme tendency to make ludicrous statements and a marked need to be the centre of attention.
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Campo and Ballester's work is available online for free, and anyone who speak Spanish can check the story of their investigation for themselves.
This is not to say that the whole 'aliens' narrative died down. To this day, the story of the 1976 phenomenon continues to be shared sometimes in media as 'proof' of UFO/aliens, even though it's literally neither -coincidentally, failing to mention the vast amount of evidence pointing at a thermonuclear test. In June of 2016 several newspapers published articles remembering the phenomenon in its 40th anniversary, and pretty much all of them reminded the reader right from the headline that the 'mystery' had long been solved.
Links and Sources
"Two red giants riding a missile" - Excellent article in the aforementioned online magazine Naukas written by Ricardo Campo himself on the phenomenon (Spanish)
The Spanish Army's declassified document on the event. It can be downloaded for free as a 107-pages long PDF
2016 Article (Spanish)

Hi RAV4 Club,
Looking to join in by purchasing a new RAV4 Hybrid Limited real soon. What was the buying experience like for everyone?
Were there any negotiation tips you used to get the deal that you wanted?
Right now we're in the South looking to buy from a dealer, was told it was in stock and they quoted this on top of MSRP of $44,268:
799$ in Dealer installed Equipment: Nitrogen
Tint
3M Hood and Door Guard
$695 in CalTex Interior and Exterior Service Protection plan
Am I just hosed to have to buy these?
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Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear in human beings may occur in response to a certain stimulus occurring in the present, or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk to oneself. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat (also known as the fight-or-flight response), which in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) can be a freeze response.The term has been diversely applied to cover all activities in which altered states are systematically utilized to investigate, augment, or enhance the human condition. These activities include the ritual and ceremonial practices of traditional shamanism, various forms of meditation, trance, yoga, lucid dreaming, sensory deprivation, and the controlled use of hallucinogenic or entheogenic substances.It is typically injected, usually into a vein, but it can also be snorted, smoked, or inhaled. In a clinical context, the route of administration is most commonly intravenous injection; it may also be given by intramuscular or subcutaneous injection, as well as orally in the form of tablets.The onset of effects is usually riley and lasts for a few hours.

My mother & father was raised in a yes/sir no sir environment,especially the time period they lived in. So, we all who were in the south was raised that way, which I taught my daughter growing up, you say thank you, yes mam, no sir,Mr. So and so, no adults by their first name, etc.
Her being grown and on her own now, the conversations are dad “It feels weird calling my boss by her first name, who is near old enough to be her grandma.”
I dare get into work politics. I still tell her, you have to be a chameleon, navigating a fine line in certain situations and cultures.
I get corrected so many times being polite just because it’s habit. “For those who grew up similar, how are you relating similar values to your kids?” I’m evolving, yet I still retain what has imprinted in my veins.

So I have an official version of Splatoon 2 and It’s Octo expansion DLC. Nothing wrong there. I am wanting to download a mod that changes some levels in the dlc however, will I get banned for doing so? My switch is usual just in sysnand anyway since I only use it for hacks, so if I play the modded dlc in flight mode and then turn it off when I’m not playing the mod will I be ok? I wanted to check since the mod’s page said it was not Wi-Fi safe.

We've been talking for a year and I know that throughout that year she's liked me at several points. I know she liked me at the start, I know she liked me during a party we both went to, and I know she liked me a few weeks ago. I don't know if she's liked me in between, or if she currently does. But a friend told me that her best friend told him that she wants me to ask her to prom, confusing I know. I asked her and she said yes. But ever since we've been having good days and bad days. The bad days usually entail her leaving me on delivered for several hours, leaving me on opened, sending dry snaps, stuff like that. We've been eachothers #1 best friend on Snapchat for over a month now, so I know she talks to me more than anyone else. But I don't know. I just want something to happen or to get a straight answer, but I don't know what to do about it. I don't wanna just straight up ask how she feels because I don't want to lose a prom date if things go south, and prom is still like 3 weeks away so I don't want to wait that long either. I don't know, it's just some days we are good together, but the bad days are bad. I don't know, I'm just confused.

Trip summary - 33 nights:

• Spain: 10 nights in total
  • Madrid: 3 nights
  • Sevilla: 3 nights
  • Granada: 2 nights
  • Barcelona: 2 nights
• France: 6 nights in total
  • Paris: 4 nights (day trip to Versailles)
  • Lyon: 2 nights
• Italy: 15 nights in total
  • Turin: 2 nights
  • Milan: 3 nights (day trip to Lake Como)
  • Venice: 2 nights
  • Bologna: 1 night
  • Florence: 4 nights (two day trips, one to Siena, San Gimignano and Pisa and one to Montepulciano, Pienza and Montalcino)
  • Rome: 3 nights
• Spain: 2 nights in total
  • Madrid: 2 nights

This was my first time organizing a multi-city trip, so even after months of research and organizing, there are some things that I would do way differently.
What I learned:

• I live in Panama and we decided to get a round-trip ticket to Madrid because it would be cheaper than flying back from a different city. It sounded doable while we were comfy at home but after a month of non-stop traveling, we realized what a huge mistake that was lol. We were so incredibly tired that we would’ve rather paid more to be able to fly back home right away instead of going back to Madrid first.
• I’m glad I took my time researching and booked popular places months in advance. I traveled in May and the lines were incredibly long, especially in Italy. It was still worth it even when we had to pay a small fee for pre-booking.
• It was a mistake going to Bologna just for one night. We went only because we had an extra night and we thought it’d be cool to go there to try the food since we’d heard so many good things about it. We had breakfast, which was good but nothing out of the ordinary but the real disappointment was dinner. We went to Trattoria da Me because of the good Google reviews, and it was just meh. It would’ve been better to spend an extra night in Rome or Florence.
• I saw a lot of advice about not staying just one night in a place because of how tiring it is, so I thought two nights would be fine for the smaller cities. Yeahhh, no. I’ve since learned that three nights is much better and doesn’t make me feel as frazzled as just two nights. YMMV, though.
• The trip was way too long for us. Even though our days weren’t packed full of activities we were still exhausted halfway through the trip. We still enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong, but I think it would’ve been better to just do one country and only two to three weeks max.
• Train travel is awesome! So much less hassle than taking flights and we really appreciated getting to our destination right in the city center.
• I would never travel again with a suitcase for a multi-city trip. I took a backpack and my mom, who is 69 years old, took a carry-on-sized suitcase. I had no issues with my bag but being the good daughter that I am lol I also carried my mom’s luggage and we struggled on public transportation. If you’re planning on taking taxis then this may not apply but I wouldn’t personally do this ever again and taxis may not even be doable in places like Venice where water taxis are insanely expensive.
• If I could travel back in time and rearrange our itinerary this is what I would change while still keeping the same countries and the same amount of nights:
  • Spain: 10 nights in total
    • Madrid: 4 nights
    • Sevilla: 3 nights
    • Granada: 3 nights
    • (We loved everything we did in Barcelona but the city itself wasn’t very nice. It was crowded and dirty, and we didn’t think it was worth the detour to go there.)
  • France: 7 nights in total
    • Paris: 7 nights (three day trips, one to Versailles, one to Lyon and one to Strasbourg)
  • Italy: 16 nights in total
    • Milan: 3 nights (day trip to Lake Como)
    • Venice: 3 nights (day trip to Verona)
    • Cinque Terre: 3 nights
    • Florence: 4 nights (two day trips, one to Siena and one to Montepulciano, Pienza and Montalcino. Originally we got a guided tour for both trips and while we loved the second one, we think it would’ve been better to just visit Siena on our own.)
    • Rome: 3 nights
• However, if I could start over from scratch, I would’ve just focused on Italy and left Spain and France for future trips. We did so much because we felt like we had to do as much as possible but now I know that’s not always the best.

Sooo, that's it for now. Overall I still loved our trip and I'm already saving up for our next destination (maybe Japan?).

Hi all, it’s been a dream of mine to experience Japan in a slightly different way than most. I’ve seen people tackle the challenge of cycling across japan with the objective of losing weight in mind or just to experience something different. I have no idea how far I can cycle, but I am a 23 year old individual that goes to the gym 2-3 times a week and I am also planning on buying a bicycle very soon to see how is my stamina with “long range” rides and how comfortable I am with the idea in general. (I haven’t riden a bicycle in a few years and also never long range) I have a couple of questions: 1) is 3000km / 90d a realistic goal? 2) Should I buy an electric bicycle to increase my range so I won’t have to rely all the time on my own power to mobilise? 3) since I also plan on bringing acamera + lens and clothes, how realistic is such an idea overall? (months are likely Sep. to Nov.) 4) Any recommendations for preparation etc?

I'm not a huge credit card person, so I don't know a ton about what I should/shouldn't have but I know it's an area that we've outgrown our current setup. We're in a very good position financially in our life and I feel like I'm not getting the most out of my money. I've been using the same credit card I got in the military 15+ years ago and just have been so busy that I haven't really addressed this part of our life.
CREDIT PROFILE
Current credit cards - Only one, with Navy Federal that is 15 years old, has an 11% interest rate and a 30k limit
Credit score - 820+ across the board
Oldest credit card account age with you as primary name on the account - 15+ years
Number of personal credit cards approved for in the past 24 months - Zero, I haven't done anything on my credit beyond pay my current CC and we got new cars a bit ago.
Annual income $ - Our HH income is >200k
CATEGORIES
OK with category-specific cards? - Yes, I use my current card for basically everything and then pay it off immediately
Estimate average monthly spend in the categories below.
Dining $: ~1000-1200, mostly restaurants.
Groceries $: 1000-1200 a month
Gas $: <200 a month, I work from home generally and my wife has a <5 mile drive
Travel $: 5000-10000 a year. We probably spend 2-3k on flights and 2-4k on hotels on average.
Do you plan on using this card abroad for a significant length of time (study abroad, digital nomad, expat, extended travel)?: Probably 30 days a year max via travel.
Any other categories: We spend probably 1000 a month between Amazon, Target and other retail stores (clothes, etc)
Any other significant, regular credit card spend you didn't include above?: I pay about 500-700 dollars in other bills with my credit card a month(cell phone, USAA insurance, etc)
Can you pay rent by credit card? We cannot pay our mortgage by CC
MEMBERSHIPS & SUBSCRIPTIONS (delete lines that don't apply)
Current member of Amazon Prime?: yes
Current member of Costco or Sam's Club? Costco
Currently paying $13.99/month or more for Disney Bundle (Disney+ / Hulu / EPSN+) or other Hulu services? T-mobile pays this
Current member of Chase, US Bank or any other big bank?: Charles Schwab (all my investments) and Navy Federal
PURPOSE
What's the purpose of your next card (choose ONE)?: I would like to get more travel rewards to help absorb some of our travel costs.
If you answered "travel rewards", do you have a preferred airline and/or hotel chain? Most of our travel is international. We will probably be doing more Caribbean and South American travel the next few years as we just moved back from Germany and did a lot of Europe/SE Asia/Africa the previous 5 years.
Do you have any cards you've been looking at? Chase Sapphire Reserve and Capital one Venture X, but I don't know if they fit our needs based on spending.

I’ve been in my little bubble in the interbay/Ballard area for a few years now. I had an appointment in downtown Queen Anne early this morning. When I left my appointment the weather was so nice I decided to explore. I walked all the way to the space needle and decided to take the 8 to Cap Hill. Wow was it so nice! I know Seattle has a bad reputation but things are better. After venturing cap hill I decided it was time to go home. I went to the bus stop and the 8 was running 28 minutes behind!! I decided not to wait and took the light rail. I’ll admit, the light rail was a bit confusing and had to ask people for directions. Ended up getting off at university instead of Westlake. I thought to myself oh well it’s a nice day and I have plenty of time. I walked to Pike Place and explored the market and it was a blast! I felt like a tourist in my own city. So many people were out and about. When I decided to go home I had to take the D line from 3rd and Pike and it honestly wasn’t too bad! Get out there and explore! Seattle is a beautiful city!

I have been offered CSE there in the first round of counselling there and require reviews of the college and the branch.
Other option I have is Thapar, Patiala, Punjab (Computer Engineering) as if right now.
(Though for my parents Amrita is better cause South India has better crowd acc. to them)
Also I am acclimatized with Kerala as I have spent 2-3 years of my life there so settling in with food or weather shouldn't be a problem imo.

I have been offered CSE there in the first round of counselling there and require reviews of the college and the branch. Other option I have is Thapar, Patiala, Punjab (Computer Engineering) as if right now. (Though for my parents Amrita is better cause South India has better crowd acc. to them) Also I am acclimatized with Kerala as I have spent 2-3 years of my life there so settling in with food or weather shouldn't be a problem imo. educational_info:

Beyond the Ear: Using Neuroscience and Music to Fight Stress Our latest album combines sci-fi elements with music theory and neurobiology to create unique sounds that can help halt your fight-or-flight response.
Beyond the Ear: Dreaming in Space isn't your typical music album. It’s divided into three groups of two tracks each, matching heart rate zones. The evolving white noise and ambient sounds help guide the listener through a calming labyrinth, leading to a state of deep relaxation. This album is perfect for:

• anyone struggling with sleep issues or difficulty falling asleep
• those who experience background anxiety, chronic stress, or a lot of pressure
• people who have trouble maintaining focus because of restlessness

Listen to the album on Spotify or Apple Music, and read our blog post on Medium to find out why the album is meant for your brain, not your ears, and how to listen to it to maximize its benefits for your mental health (there's also a discount promo code in there).

A place for members of LifeSouthBlood to chat with each other

SONGS IN:

• Bloodhound Gang - The Bad Touch
• Bo Burnham - Welcome To The Internet
• Rob Cantor - Shia LaBeouf Live
• Flight of the Conchords - The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)
• Lil B - Fuck KD
• Lonely Island - Threw It On The Ground
• Grant MacDonald - Ram Ranch
• Biz Markie - Just a Friend
• Monty Python - Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
• Monty Python - Lumberjack Song
• The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)
• RXKNephew - American Tterroristt
• Tenacious D - Tribute
• Team America - America, Fuck Yeah
• Ween - Piss Up A Rope
• Weird Al Yankovic - Albuquerque
• Weird Al Yankovic - Amish Paradise
• Weird Al Yankovic - Trapped in the Drive-Thru
• Kanye West - Lift Yourself
• Zack Fox & Kenny Beats - Jesus Is the One (I Got Depression)

VOTE HERE

Round 1 Results
Round 2 Results
Lifesaver Results
Honorable Mentions: * Barenaked Ladies - If I Had $1,000,000 (17 Votes) * Jon Lajoie - Show Me Your Genitals (16 Votes) * Weird Al Yankovic - White & Nerdy (16 Votes) * Thundercat - Dragonball Durag (16 Votes)

Got the game a month or two after pc release. Played same world. Nearly done the plains. Looking for mistlands now. I remember when onion seeds came out it took me a while to find them. I went to mountains that i mapped out the base and though most of the mountain was greyed out no seeds spawned. That being said will i have a hard time finding mistlands? I didn’t travel more than half way south for trader. Maps pretty empty east west and north.

Flying a Cessna 182A for skydivers and have an issue with it only burning fuel out of the left tank during flight. On the ground the engine runs just fine if the fuel is selector is on left, right, or both however, once airborne at 10,000ft switching the fuel selector to right kills the engine and it will come back on if running it on left or both. I checked the fuel caps and both are venting and the tank vent on the left hand wing is working as well. Any idea what it could be?

Hey everyone,
Does anyone have any insight into whether this detour route (from Google Maps) going around Horne Lake is advisable or not?
https://i.imgur.com/gC2ouoV.png
The official Transit BC detour is to go around Lake Cowichan/Youbou to the south, but that seems far away if you're driving in from Nanaimo.
Does anyone have experience with the Horne Lake route? Thanks!