#Mosquito Control Equipment

[thesightstoshowyou]

Shoot for the Moon

Bo Sinclair X GN Reader

Warnings: None. Just fluff. Who am I?

~~

Keys jingle as you cut the engine. The thrum ceases and a moment of tranquil silence passes before the nighttime sounds rise to life all around. Crickets and frogs chirp, night herons splash, a barred owl calls. Cypress, oak, and maple trees creak and rustle in a gentle breeze. Car door hinges squeal as you slip from your vehicle and your boots swish in tall grasses as you make your way to the trunk.

Carefully, you unpack the telescope, flashlight, guides, and notepads. The scents of damp earth and decaying wood wash over you as you move. Already, the oppressive Louisiana humidity sticks your hair to your forehead, yet you wear a jacket and jeans to protect your limbs from mosquitos and ticks.

Satisfied with a small, nearby clearing, you meticulously set up your equipment. You peek through the eye piece and adjust the telescope’s position incrementally. Little flashlight clutched between your teeth, you scratch notes on the illuminated portion of paper before repeating the process.

An hour or so in, you abruptly surface from the lull of peaceful concentration. At first, you’re not certain what distracts you, but then you recognize the silence. All the wildlife has gone quiet, disturbed by something close by.

You frown and quiet your own breath, tilting your head to listen intently. To your left, a sharp snap; twigs underfoot. Something stalks through the brush, just out of sight.

A bear, maybe, or a stray dog. Your mind whirs with the possibilities, but you will yourself to stay calm. Nothing you can’t handle.

However, when a man emerges from the tree line, your heart stutters. Fear and confusion take root in your brain and you must consciously fight back the panic to keep your thoughts clear.

Where the hell had he come from? There isn’t a town or house around for miles, as far as you’re aware. You’d carefully chosen this particular spot for that very reason.

The man saunters toward you, hands buried in the pockets of the deep blue coveralls he wears. His pace is leisurely, every step measured and deliberate, meant to instill dread. You can’t make out the details of his face through the gloom and the cap perched atop his head does you no favors.

“Yer out here awfully late,” he notes, the pleasant drawl of his voice disturbing the hush of the clearing. He nods toward the crescent moon hanging low in the sky as though you need his help to tell it’s nighttime.

“Could say the same about you,” you respond, slipping the flashlight into your palm. You could blind him if he gets too close.

He stops his advance about twenty feet away, head tilting slightly as he studies you and your equipment. “Folks out this late don’t often have the best intentions.”

Pot, meet kettle. You resist the urge to call him out and instead motion to your telescope. “Just star gazing. I wasn’t aware this was private property. I’ll go—

“Nah, s’not private. Yer good, sugar.” He takes a few steps closer. The muscles in your shoulders tense. You swallow thickly, mind racing. What now?

You speak before you can stop yourself, “I, uh, I just found Saturn. It’s nice and clear tonight. Wanna see?” The man stops abruptly, obviously taken aback. He’s silent for a moment, contemplating.

“…Yer serious?” he questions. His steps are tentative now, cautious. You caught him off guard, it seems.

Roll with it. “Yeah!” You wave him over and allow the excitement to take control of your vocal cords, “And the Milky Way is so pretty right now. We can look at that next….”

He’s close enough now that you can make out the incredulous expression on his face…his very handsome face. The scents of engine oil, burnt grease, and metal hit you and the outfit suddenly makes sense. Still, you question why he’s out for a midnight stroll in such a remote area wearing his work garb.

You scoot out of the way and instruct him to look through the eye piece. He shoots you one more skeptical glance before carefully leaning over and peering into the telescope. You smell him now too: Cigarette smoke, faint aftershave, and woody musk that is not at all unpleasant.

You watch the exact moment the man spots the planet. What you can see of his face lights up and he shifts his body in toward the telescope, hunching more to get a better angle through the eyepiece. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he murmurs, hand coming up and hovering over the finderscope, hesitant to touch. You can’t help the grin that spreads across your face.

“So beautiful, right? Do you see the rings?”

“Sure do,” he replies, straightening and flashing you a hesitant, crooked smile. Your thoughts are almost derailed by the charm of it, but the eagerness to teach keeps you grounded.

“Here, scooch over a sec, lemme just readjust it….” You quickly check your notes then fiddle with the telescope. You’re overly aware of the man standing next to you, but he surprises you with polite silence, hands on his hips, apparently content to watch you work.

“Here, look,” you excitedly tell him as soon as it’s adjusted. With a quizzical expression, he leans down again, though there’s more enthusiasm in his movement this time.

“…What am I lookin’ at?” he asks, glancing over at you expectantly.

You giggle and mutter a quick, “Oh right,” before launching into an explanation. You gesture and describe, the animation in your voice and knowledge on the subject captivating the stranger.

He watches you speak with a mixture of admiration and bemusement on his face, like he can’t believe he’s listening so attentively, but doesn’t want to miss a word. All previous tension evaporates as you show him the charts you’ve drawn and move the telescope to and fro.

“Oh, and you should be able to see Phobos right now—

“What’s yer name, darlin’?” the man interrupts suddenly. You glance up at him and realize just how close he stands. Your shoulder brushes his chest, his body heat palpable. You’re glad for the darkness when your cheeks burn.

You do your best not to trip over your own name when he smirks, sudden shyness drying your throat and making your heart skip a beat. There’s irritation there too, annoyance with his smugness. You’re easier to read than you’d hoped, apparently.

“Bo,” he tells you as he holds out his hand. You turn to face him and accept his outstretched palm. It is then you notice your watch.

“Oh christ, it’s late. I really gotta go!”Hurriedly, you gather up your notes and pack away your equipment. Bo watches quietly and you can tell by the way he stands so stock still that he’s contemplating something.

You don’t give him a chance to decide on whatever it was he was planning when he entered the clearing.

“I, uh…I was gonna come back on Thursday if, you know, if you wanted to learn more.” Bo blinks at you, genuine surprise on his face. You’re just as shocked by your own words. Offering to meet a strange man with questionable intentions, alone, in the middle of rural Louisiana to teach him amateur astronomy?

Have you lost your damn mind?

Yet, the way he’d engaged with the subject and how eagerly he listened makes you think there’s something more to this man. The initial trajectory of your meeting had changed, hadn’t it? There was a spark, a yearning for connection. He wants to learn, and you want to teach.

That, or you’re completely delusional.

“Next Thursday?” You nod at his question. He tips his head again, like he’s thinking. Slipping his hands back into his pockets, he shrugs. “I can try and make it.”

**

He does make it on Thursday. You do too. And again on Saturday. And the following Friday. And Monday.

Sunday finds you seated on a blanket, Bo at your side, flashlight in your mouth and pen in had. Around you, the nighttime creatures sing their songs. Your trusty telescope points to the sky, ready to capture the comet you’re tracking.

You’re relaxed in his presence now. You’ve decided to attribute your initial meeting to simple chance. He hasn’t given you a reason not to trust him, and you’re not going to look for one.

Your name murmured in a hushed and careful tone breaks your reverie. You hum in response before lowering the flashlight and glancing up. The look in Bo’s baby blues freezes you in place and brings heat to your cheeks.

He’s closer than you anticipated. He removed his hat at some point and his dark hair is ruffled like he hastily ran his fingers through it. That self-satisfied smirk you tell yourself you hate pulls at the side of his mouth and there’s warmth in his eyes as they trace the curve of your lips.

“Been tryin’ t’kiss ya for the past ten minutes,” he teases, his hand reaching out to playfully flick the pen in your hand. You release a breathy laugh as your heart flutters in your chest like a trapped bird.

“Oh, um…s-sorry,” is all you can manage, mouth curving in a weak smile. Your teeth worry your bottom lip when Bo slides closer to cradle your face in his palms.

“Looks like I finally get t’teach ya somethin’ huh?” he jokes, lips ghosting across yours.

You huff, “Oh shut up,” but there’s no real bite to your words. Bo chuckles affectionately and smoothes his thumbs over your hair.

His next words are soft, the vulnerability in them meant only for your ears. “You been real sweet, darlin’. Ain’t nobody taught me anythin’ like you.”

“Oh,” you breathe, moved by his admission. The gratitude in it warms you deep in your chest. Bo wrinkles his nose.

“Alright, enough a’ that. Turnin’ me into a fuckin’ sap.” Your next scoff and eye roll is cut off when he finally claims your mouth in a searing kiss.

Overhead, stars twinkle, your silent spectators.

[infinite-orangepeel]

EAGLESCOUT!STEVE/PERV EDDIE WIP EXCERPT FROM CH. 1

Capture the flag is all fun and games until it’s time to clean up the equipment and Steve is wandering through the woods trying not to infect himself with poison ivy like the better half of his troop did an hour ago. Now being treated by their resident Scoutmaster/Chief of Police–Jim Hopper–with calamine lotion and an eye roll.

He’s out on his own.

Strategically voyaging through the underbrush in search of the blue team’s flag. It’s the last one on his list and he’s dying to get back to basecamp to snag a refreshing post-win lemonade with the rest of the troop. Already salivating from the promise of tangy sweetness.

The sun is about to set. Sky blushing pink while the owls hoot from the branches of pine trees. Calling out to each other in harmonious song as the day comes to a close.

Steve’s back is sticky and warm from directing the game. His cheeks are flushed, exposed thighs bitten up by mosquitoes despite multiple reapplications of Deet, and his glasses keep slipping down the bridge of his nose from the slick sweat coating his brow bone.

To be honest, despite the itchy heat and craving for something ice cold down his throat, Steve looks forward to rare moments like this one.

In which he can breathe easily in the reverie of temporary independence.

No one to perform for.

No one to stop him from humming a tune under his breath and stopping every so often to investigate a patch of blooming elderberries.

No one to chastise him for plopping an unwashed piece of fruit under his tongue and taking his time to savor the sweetness.

No one to point fingers and accuse him of gluttony.

Out here in the quiet, Steve can pretend all that exists are the mourning doves, rabbits running from foxes, and the subtle breeze kissing the lakeshore.

He’s content. He’s at peace.

He’s—

He’s choking on his spit at the sight of the terrible scene in front of him—two men dancing with Satan beside a picnic table.

Two men entangled in an inconceivable fashion.

Two men running their hands over each other’s skin; half naked.

Two men–

Together.

Together in the way that only a man and his wife are supposed to be once they’ve married in the church, sworn vows, and moved into the modest house at the end of the cul-de-sac beneath the weeping willows.

Steve racks his brain. Unfolds the information–the proof from the good book–that every belief he holds relies on.

The verse, he thinks–thoughts spiraling out of control, ingrained savior complex kicking in, What about the verse? Don’t they know it? Didn’t their parents warn them? It’s—Hebrews 13:4; ‘Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.’

They’ve yet to notice him. As if he’s camouflaged amongst the pine trees. Khaki blending in seamlessly like he’s just another part of the natural landscape.

In a sense, he is.

The first of the two men sinks to his knees like he’s praying for mercy as Steve has done all his life in the back of the chapel. He gazes up at the other man like he is God. Like he alone holds the divine power to cleanse sin, turn water to wine, and carve Eve from Adam’s rib.

Except, Eve doesn’t exist in this version of the story.

Eve is nowhere to be found and Steve feels like he’s entered a parallel universe where none of the former rules apply. Where this strange subset of humanity has scorched the Earth, burned the devoted ones at the stake, and anarchy now reigns.

The second stands above him in the widened prideful stance of a known pariah who foolishly believes he can outrun impending rapture and escape eternal damnation if he is clever and quick enough on his feet.

Steve can’t see his face, because similarly to the vile act he’s committing, the man is concealed by a vexing darkness. Curly tendrils of wild hair obscure his identity.

It’s odd. Unlike anyone else Steve’s ever known. Overgrown and hanging well past his shoulders. It doesn’t make sense.

Only girls are allowed to wear their hair like that. Boys like this—boys like him get sent away for such infractions. Excommunicated for their betrayal to patriarchal norms.

Men are supposed to look like men.

This man does not.

This man seems to toe and test every line and boundary like nothing can touch him.

Steve tries to get his feet to move so he can turn and run and disappear into the forest like the rest of God’s innocent creatures–the field mice, the deer, the fish in the pond–find somewhere hidden to seek asylum and preserve his fragile righteousness.

But latent curiosity slithers around him like a serpent with a fatal bite.

No cure.

No remedy.

Steve has no choice. All logical thought abandons him and perhaps for the first time in his life, he allows himself to simply watch and feel.

The man who doesn’t look all that much like a man leans a ring-covered hand back onto the rickety table like it's his personal throne and feeds his–his—genitals to the parted lips of the first.

Steve brings a hand to his own gawking mouth, ducks behind a tree to better shield himself, and tries to stall his racing heart.

“Lemme fuck your throat, baby. Open wide—wider. C’mon now play nice for me. If you’re not gagging on my cock then you can take it deeper,” the man rasps out as he thrusts his hips forwards and ensnares his black tipped nails into the hair of the kneeling man like vicious talons, “Good boy–there we go. Someone’s learned their lesson since last time, haven’t they? Stay open for me, sweetheart—keep that tongue nice and relaxed.”

thanks so much for reading !! please let me know what you think, feedback is always motivating and helpful 🥰

taglist (message me to be added or removed at any time <3): @estrellami-1 @disastardly @ilovecupcakesandtea @the-redthread @asbealthgn @bestofbucky @vampireinthesun @carlyv @shrimply-a-menace @lordrrascal @jjoesjonas @malachitedevil @anxiouseds @gay-little-bitch @jhrc666 @pinkdaisies1998 @mcneen @perseus-notjackson @eiddets @corroded-coffin-groupie @three-possums-playing-human @stevesbipanic @plutoshelm @arkenstoned @indiearr @they-reap-what-we-sow @gleek4twd @bunnyweasley23 @livingoutload @a-little-unsteddie @novelnovella @rugbertgoeshome @neverlandwaitingforme @anglhrts @madigoround

[iww-gnv]

It’s not the disease-carrying mosquitoes, the scorpions, or the 22-kilogram tanks full of pesticide strapped to his back that Wendell Van Pelt fears. It’s the heat. This summer, while spraying insect-killing chemicals in the gardens of the rich in Greater Scottsdale, Arizona, Van Pelt has endured temperatures well in excess of 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Stepping past velvety green lawns and lagoon-like pools on his rounds, the field training manager at Mosquito Squad, a pest control service, has at times felt like he's “living in an oven.” But Van Pelt has had respite from the scorching conditions: a cloak of cooling power wrapped around his torso—a vest filled with ice. “I love it,” he says, describing how his backpack filled with pesticide or natural repellent seems to amplify the effect: “That backpack is almost pressing the cold into your back. It just feels fantastic.” Van Pelt knows that heat stress can be very dangerous. Everyone should be mindful of the risks, he emphasizes. And due to climate change and multiple recent heat waves, awareness of those risks is growing around the world. Millions of workers who toil outside, or in indoor spaces where temperatures can climb to unbearable levels, are increasingly adopting special strategies to cope. Cooling garments—vests, hats, and scarves—are among them.

[Read the rest]

[usafphantom2]

Tap photos ☝️

though only around 300 saw combat. Like most late war Luftwaffe projects, the aircraft would ultimately make little difference against overwhelming Allied air superiority.

The Me 262 possessed several features that would be used in postwar jet fighters, such as swept wings, heavy nose armament and full span wing slats. Its chief advantage lay in speed - it was over 100 mph faster than the P-51 Mustang - so hit and run attacks were often employed against Allied bomber formations. The Me 262’s engines, however, needed careful throttle control to avoid stalling, making fast acceleration and deceleration difficult. It was particularly vulnerable on takeoff and landing, a fact that Allied fighters took full advantage of.

Fighter versions of the Me 262 mounted 4x30mm cannon and, later, 24 R4M rockets on underwing racks. A hit from any of these would usually be enough to down a bomber, though pilots had little time to aim as they flashed through Allied formations. The type is believed to have shot down up to 500 Allied aircraft for 100 losses, an indication that it may have posed far more problems had it been available sooner.

As a fighter-bomber, the Me 262 could carry two bombs on undernose racks, while retaining two cannon. It proved ill-suited to the role, lacking an effective bombsight and having poor downward visibility, and though regular missions were flown from late 1944 they achieved little. In addition, a number of aircraft were lost to Allied flak, particularly in attacks on airfields. Other Me 262 variants included a small number of reconnaissance aircraft fitted with cameras and some radar-equipped 2-seaters used as night fighters on an experimental basis.

Pictured:

1) Messerschmitt 262 V3 prototype takes off under jet power for the first time at Leipheim, 18th July 1942. Note the original conventional undercarriage and an Me 321 glider in the background.

📷 thisdayinaviation.com

2) Flown to U.S. forces at Frankfurt by a Messerschmitt test pilot on 30th March 1945, this aircraft was unpainted due to bomb damage at its assembly plant. It crashed the following year during testing in the United States.

📷 defensemedianetwork.com

3) Two seat night fighter equipped with Neptun radar, captured at Schleswig in May 1945. It’s unclear how many combat sorties were undertaken by night fighter Me 262s, though some sources claim several RAF Mosquitoes were shot down. The ‘FE’ serial number on the rear fuselage was applied to aircraft selected for evaluation in the U.S.

📷 defensemedianetwork.com

4) One outlandish Me 262 variant mounted a 50mm cannon in the nose for use as a bomber destroyer. Two prototypes conducted flight testing, but this configuration was never used in combat. The aircraft pictured here, captured at Lechfeld, crashed while being flown to Cherbourg for shipment to the United States.

📷 key.aero

[freewillacquired]

In a world ravaged by a virus that primarily creates monsters, nasty encounters are in no short supply. When Rain begins to hear heavy footfalls—when she feels them practically shaking the ground beneath her, she figures she's about to have another.

Cursing under her breath, she unholsters her gun.

The days were blending together in depressing ways now. Nemesis was shocked at how quickly things had gone to hell after the Hive and Raccoon City Incidents. It had taken him quite a while to regenerate after the city's "sanitation," but once he was on his feet again, he realized the gravity of what was happening to the world.

Alone and with nothing left to do in his current mutated state, Nemesis had taken to showing up at Umbrella facilities unannounced, and destroying as much of them as he could. The digital feed supplied by the retinal implant attached to his right eye and sewn up into his head gave him a lot of useful information, especially after his mind was liberated from Umbrella's control. May as well put it to good use, right?

He'd acquired more clothes and equipment this way, with the boots and leather trenchcoat-style getup being standard issues for a creature called a Tyrant, which he apparently now was. They seemed just about the only things that were going to fit his... unique body shape nowadays.

Learning about himself and destroying Umbrella assets were good pastimes, but Nemesis was extremely lonely. The few survivors he came across now and then either screamed and ran from him or shot at him. Bullet wounds were nothing more than annoying mosquito bites to him now, thanks to his thick hide, but even so... it was demoralizing. All he wanted to do was help. He was almost getting used to being alone all the time, by necessity rather than desire, until that unexpectedly changed. While exploring a city one day, he rounded a corner and-

"Raaaain!" Nemesis bellowed the moment he saw her, unable to contain his excitement upon seeing her. "Oh... ny god!" He couldn't believe his eyes. Well, eye. He still had two, but one was... indisposed. In a move that probably looked damn near ridiculous to the other, he lifted his hand... and waved to her. "I'n so glad... to see you! How... are you... alithe... right now?" he tried to ask, his massive chompers getting in the way, as usual.

Nemesis couldn't get his voice to be anything other than a monotone growl, and with monstrous teeth and a noticeable lack of lips, his speech was something of a garbled mess. It took him a while, but he'd learned to make certain sounds in other ways, using his throat and tongue. Essentially, he'd had to relearn how to speak. Some sounds and words, though, were lost forever. None of that did anything to curb his enthusiasm at seeing Rain alive, however. Was he finally losing his mind? Hallucinating, maybe? No, the target identification system is identifying her as Rain... Right now, Nemesis didn't care either way. Just the sight of her was one for sore eyes, since his last clear memory of her was being at death's door.

"I thought... the anti-thirus... didn't work...?" he said, his elation at seeing her alive completely overriding his common sense. Nemesis wasn't thinking about the fact that Rain wouldn't recognize him anymore, or about how negatively she would likely react to seeing the hulking beast before her. Not to mention his tentacles, rooted at the backs of his shoulders, which were excitedly coiling and undulating in their own right, reacting to his surprise and happiness. He batted one of them with his hand. "Cut it out...!" he admonished the obnoxious appendage. It recoiled temporarily before returning to its idle activities.

Then it dawned on him, especially with how she had her gun at the ready. Oh no... she has no idea who I am. "It's Natt," he said, laying his hand on his chest. "Natt... Ad-di-son." How pathetic is it that I can't even say my own name correctly anymore? he thought grimly.

[stevishabitat]

Also keep in mind that most feral cats, if healthy, tend to be clean. They know where to find food and water and generally take fairly good care of themselves and each other.

Cats that look visibly scruffy are almost always lost pets.

They don't have the local knowledge and experience to fend for themselves outdoors if they've been abandoned or got loose, or are somehow unable to get home.

If you see a cat that looks like this, offer water and contact a local rescue group (not animal control or humane society/SPCA).

Don't offer food. If an animal is dehydrated or suffering heat illness, food can make them sicker. Just offer room temperature or slightly cool tap water, in a shady location if you can, to encourage them to rest in the shade.

The rescuer may ask you to try to keep the cat in the location until they can get there to pick up. If you don't feel comfortable approaching the cat, or have to leave before they arrive, let the rescue person know that. They will often put the word out to volunteers willing to come "hold for pickup" to be sure the cat doesn't vanish.

Cat rescuers are often equipped with carriers/humane traps, know the signs of emergency injury/illness, and usually come with microchip reader in hand to check the cat for a chip.

For the love of all felines, keep your cats indoors! Get them neutered, vaxxed, and microchipped. And get them a breakaway collar with reflective tape, a bell & tag in case of an escape.

If there are feral/community cats in your area, you can provide water in a shady location during hot weather. Make sure to dump, clean, and refill it regularly to avoid mosquito breeding, algae, water-born illnesses, etc.

[xtruss]

Twenty-Five Years Before The Wright Brothers Took To The Skies, This Flying Machine Captivated America

First Exhibited in 1878, Charles F. Ritchel’s Dirigible Was About As Wacky, Dangerous and Impractical as Any Airship Ever Launched

— June 11, 2024 | Erik Ofgang

“When I Was Making It, People Laughed at Me a Good Deal,” Charles F. Ritchel Later Said. “But Do They Did at Noah When He Built the Ark.” Illustration by Meilan Solly/Images via Wikimedia Commons under public domain, Newspapers.com

Charles F. Ritchel’s Flying Machine Made a Sound Like a Buzzsaw as its pilot turned a hand crank to spin its propeller. It was June 12, 1878, and a huge crowd, by some accounts measuring in the thousands, had gathered at a baseball field in Hartford, Connecticut. The spectators had each paid 15 cents for a chance to witness history.

The flying machine—if one could really call it that—was an unsightly jumble of mechanical parts. It consisted of a 25-foot-long, 12-foot-wide canvas cylinder filled with hydrogen and bound to a rod. From this contraption hung a framework of steel and brass rods that the Philadelphia Times likened to “the skeleton of a boat.” The aeronaut would sit on this framework as though it were a bicycle, controlling the craft with foot pedals and a hand crank that turned a four-bladed propeller.

The device did not inspire confidence.

“When I was making it, people laughed at me a good deal,” Ritchel later said. “But so they did at Noah when he built the ark.”

A self-described “professor,” Ritchel was the inventor of such wacky, weird and wild creations that a recounting of his career reads as though it were torn from the pages of a Jules Verne novel. Supposedly friends with both P.T. Barnum and Thomas Edison, Ritchel for a time made a living working for a mechanical toy company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he designed talking dolls, model trains and other playthings. But he was more than just a toymaker.

Left: Charles F. Ritchel filed more than 150 patents over his lifetime. Right: Ritchel's 1878 patent for his flying machine — Photographs: Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

Some years after the flying machine demonstration, the inventor proposed an ambitious attraction for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World’s Fair): a “telescope tower” that would rival France’s Eiffel Tower. The design consisted of a 500-foot-wide base topped by multiple nested structures that rose up over the course of several hours, eventually reaching a height of about 1,000 feet. After this proposal was rejected, Ritchel launched a campaign to raise funds to build a life-size automaton of Christopher Columbus, which the Chicago Tribune reported would speak more than 1,000 phrases in a human-like voice, rather than the “far-away, metallic sounds produced by a phonograph.”

By the mid-1880s, Ritchel claimed to have filed more than 150 patents. Not all of them were fun. He invented more efficient ways to kill mosquitos and cockroaches, a James Bond-esque belt that assassins could use to inject poison into their targets, and a gas bomb for use in land or naval warfare.

Yet never in his career was his quirk-forward blend of genius and foolishness more apparent than on that June day in Hartford. Because the balance of weight and equipment was so delicate, Ritchel was too heavy to fly the craft. Instead, he employed pilot Mark W. Quinlan, who tipped the scale at just 96 pounds. Quinlan was a 27-year-old machinist and native of Philadelphia, but little else is known about him. The record, however, is crystal clear on one count: Quinlan was very, very brave.

When preparations for the craft were complete, the crowd watched in eager anticipation as Quinlan boarded the so-called pilot’s seat. The airship rose 50 feet, then 100 feet, then 200 feet. Such a sight was uncommon but not unheard of at the time. The real question was: Once the craft was in the air, could it be controlled?

The first heavier-than-air flight (in which airflow over a surface like a plane wing creates aerodynamic lift) only took place in 1903, when the Wright Brothers conducted their famous flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. But by the late 19th century, flying via lighter-than-air gases was already close to 100 years old. (This method involves heating the air inside of a balloon to make it less dense, leading it to rise, or filling the balloon with a low-density gas such as helium or hydrogen.) On November 21, 1783, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d’Arlandes completed the first crewed, untethered hot-air balloon flight, passing over Paris on a craft built by the Montgolfier brothers. Later, balloons were used for reconnaissance during the French Revolutionary Wars and the American Civil War.

A drawing of the Montgolfier brothers' hot-air balloon Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

But free-floating balloons were, and still are, at the mercy of the winds. While balloon aeronauts can achieve limited control by changing altitude and attempting to catch different currents, they can’t easily return to the spot where they took off from, which is why even today, they have teams following them on the ground. Mid-1800s aviation enthusiasts dreamed of fixing this problem, which led to the development of dirigibles—powered, steerable airships that were inflated with lighter-than-air gases. (The word dirigible comes from the French word diriger, “to steer”; contrary to popular belief, the term, which is synonymous with airship, is not derived from the word “rigid.”) While some early aeronauts successfully steered dirigibles, none of these rudimentary airships could truly go against the wind or provide a controlled-enough flight to take off and land at the same point consistently.

In 1878, Ritchel was unaware of anyone who had successfully taken off in a dirigible and landed at the same spot. He hoped to change that with his baseball field demonstration. A month earlier, Ritchel had exhibited the airship’s capabilities during indoor flights at the Philadelphia Main Exhibition Hall, a massive structure built for that city’s 1876 Centennial Exposition. But there is no wind indoors, and the true test of his device would have to be performed outdoors.

After rising into the air, Quinlan managed to steer the craft out over the Connecticut River. To onlookers, it was clear that the aeronaut was in control. But as he flew, the wind picked up, and it began to look like a storm was gathering. To avoid getting caught in the poor weather and facing an almost-certain disaster, Quinlan steered the craft back toward the field, cutting through the “teeth of the wind until directly over the ball ground whence it had ascended, and then alighted within a few feet of the point from which it had started,” as the New York Sun reported.

Ritchel's dirigible, as seen on the July 13, 1878, cover of Harper's Weekly Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

The act was hailed far and wide as a milestone. An illustration of the impressive-looking flying machine was featured on the cover of Harper’s Weekly.

“The great problem which inventors of flying machines have always before them is the arrangement by which they shall be able to propel their frail vessels in the face of an adverse current,” the magazine noted. “Until this end shall have been achieved, there will be little practical value to any invention of the kind. In Professor Ritchel’s machine, however, the difficulty has been in a great measure overcome.”

Across the country, observers hailed Ritchel’s odd but impressive milestone in flight. In the years and decades that followed, this achievement was forgotten by almost all except a select group of aviation historians.

Wikipedia incorrectly lists the flight of the French army dirigible La France as the first roundtrip dirigible flight. But this event took place six years after Ritchel’s Hartford demonstration, in August 1884. Why has a flight so seemingly monumental in its time been relegated to the dustbin of history?

Given his eccentric nature and creativity, it’s easy to root for Ritchel and think of him as a Nikola Tesla-like genius robbed of his rightful place in history. The reality of why his feat was forgotten is more complicated. As Tom Crouch, an emeritus curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, says, it’s possible Ritchel’s craft was the first to complete a round-trip dirigible flight. But other aircraft in existence at the time probably could have accomplished the same feat in favorable conditions. “La France made the first serious round-trip,” Crouch says.

Additionally, while Ritchel’s machine worked to a point, it wasn’t a pathway to more advanced dirigibles. Richard DeLuca, author of Paved Roads & Public Money: Connecticut Transportation in the Age of Internal Combustion, points out that the hand-cranked nature of Ritchel’s craft made it nearly impossible to operate with any kind of wind. “On the first day, he got away with it and directed the ship out and over the river and back to where he started, and that was quite an accomplishment,” DeLuca says. “But the conditions were just right for him to do that.”

Dan Grossman, an aviation historian at the University of Washington, has never come across evidence that any later pioneers of more advanced dirigible flights were influenced by Ritchel. “There are a lot of firsts in history that got forgotten because they never led to a second,” Grossman says.

An artist's depiction of the La France airship Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

The day after their first successful public outdoor flight in Hartford, Quinlan and Ritchel tried again at that same ballfield. This time, the weather was less cooperative, and the wind came in sharp gusts. Still, the pair persisted in their attempt. “Little Quinlan, even if he does only weigh 96 pounds, has confidence and nerve enough to go up in a gale,” the Sun reported. Up he went about 200 feet, but this time, the wind carried him away with more force. Quinlan was “seen throwing his vertical fan into gear, and by its aid, the aerial ship turned around, pointing its head in whatever direction he chose to give it.” Although he could move the ship about, “he could not make any headway against the strong wind.”

Quinlan descended about 100 feet, trying to catch a different current, but the wind still pushed him away from the ballfield. He raised the craft, this time going higher than 200 feet, but still couldn’t overcome the wind and was soon swept off toward New Haven, vanishing from sight like some real-world Wizard of Oz.

Eventually, Quinlan safely brought the airship down in Newington, about five miles away from Hartford. The inventor and his pilot were unfazed by this setback. They held more public exhibitions that year with a mix of success and failure—including an incident that nearly cost Quinlan his life. During a July 4 exhibition in Boston, the machine malfunctioned and continued to rise, soaring to what the Boston Globe estimated to be 2,000 feet. Quinlan couldn’t get the propeller to work, and the craft continued to rise, reaching as high as 3,000 feet.

Terrified but quick-thinking, Quinlan tied his wrist and ankle to the craft and swung out of his seat to fix the propeller, using a jack-knife he happened to have on him as a makeshift tool. The daring midair repairs worked, and the craft gradually descended. Quinlan landed in Massachusetts, 44 miles from his starting destination, after a 1-hour, 20-minute flight.

Per Grossman, the human-powered method Ritchel attempted to utilize was doomed from the start. “In the absence of an internal combustion engine, there really was no control of lighter-than-air flight,” he says.

Ritchel stubbornly refused to consider powering dirigibles with engines and did not foresee how powerful a better-designed aircraft truly could be.

“I have overcome the fatal objection of which has always been made to the practicability of aerial navigation—that is, I have made a machine that can be steered,” Ritchel told a reporter in July 1878. “I claim no more. I have never pretended that a balloon can be made to go against the wind, and I am sure it never could. It is as ridiculous as a perpetual motion machine, and the latter will be invented just as soon as the former.”

Left: A page from Ritchel's ballooning scrapbook National Air and Space Museum Archives. Right: The scrapbook covers the years 1878 to 1901. Photographs: National Air and Space Museum Archives

Even so, Ritchel was influential in his own way. “He was one of the first to really come up with the notion of a little one-man, bicycle-powered airship, and those things were around into the early 20th century,” says Crouch. After Ritchel, other daring inventors launched similar pedal-powered airships. Carl Myers, for example, held demonstrations of a device he called the “Sky-Cycle” in the 1890s.

Ritchel stands as one of the fascinating early aeronauts whose work blurred the line between science and the sideshow. “I refer to them as aerial showmen, these guys who came up with the notion of making money [by] thrilling people [with] their exploits in the air,” Crouch says.

According to Crouch’s 1983 book, The Eagle Aloft: Two Centuries of the Balloon in America, Ritchel and Quinlan took the airship on tour with a traveling circus in the late 1870s. Ritchel also operated his machine at Brighton Beach near Coney Island. He sold a few replicas of his device and later attempted to develop a larger, long-distance version of the craft powered by an 11-person hand-cranking crew. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this idea failed to gain momentum, and Ritchel faded from the headlines. Soon, the exploits of new aeronauts would upstage him, among them Alberto Santos-Dumont’s circumnavigation of the Eiffel Tower in 1901.

Left: Alberto Santos-Dumont's first balloon, 1898. Right: Santos-Dumont circles the Eiffel Tower in an airship on July 13, 1901. Photographs: Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

Despite many earlier dirigible flights, Crouch and Grossman agree that the technology only became practical when German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin built and flew the first rigid dirigible in the early 1900s. Over the first decade of the new century, Zeppelin perfected his namesake design, which featured a fabric-covered metal frame that enclosed numerous gasbags. “By 1913, just before [World War I] begins, Zeppelin is actually running sightseeing tours over German cities,” Crouch says, “so the Zeppelin at that point can safely carry passengers and take off and land from the same point.”

For a brief period, airships ruled the sky. (The spire of New York City’s Empire State Building, built in the 1930s, was famously intended as a docking station for passenger airships.) But the vehicles, which use gas to create buoyancy, were quickly eclipsed by airplanes, which achieve flight through propulsion that generates airflow over the craft’s wings.

While the 1937 Hindenburg disaster is often viewed as the end of the dirigible era, Grossman says that’s a misconception: The real death knell for passenger airships arrived when Pan American Airways’ China Clipper, a new breed of amphibious aircraft, flew from San Francisco to Manila in November 1935. “Partly because they flew faster, they could transport more weight, whether it’s people or cargo, mail, whatever, in the same amount of time,” Grossman explains. “They were less expensive to operate, they required much, much smaller crews, [and] they were less expensive to build.”

Airplanes were also safer. “Zeppelins have to fly low and slow,” Crouch says. “They operate in the weather; airplanes don’t. An airplane at 30,000 feet is flying above the weather. Weather, time after time, is what brought dirigibles down.”

Today, niche applications for passenger airships endure, including the Zeppelin company’s European tours, as well as ultra-luxury air yachts and air cruises. But “it’s always going to be a tiny, tiny slice of the transportation pie,” Grossman says.

Crouch agrees. “People still talk about bringing back big, rigid airships. That hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t think it will,” he says.

The USS Los Angeles, a United States Navy airship, in 1931. Photograph Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

In some ways, Ritchel’s flying machine was a microcosm of the larger history of dirigibles: fascinating, fun and the perfect fodder for fiction, but ultimately eclipsed by more efficient technology.

As for Ritchel, he died, penniless, of pneumonia in 1911 at age 66. “Although during his lifetime he had perfected inventions that, in the hands of others, had brought in great wealth, he died a poor man, as he lacked the business ability to turn the children of his brain to the best advantage to himself,” wrote the Bridgeport Post in his obituary.

Even so, the public had not forgotten the brief time three decades earlier when Ritchel and his airship ruled the skies. As the Boston Evening Transcript reported, his flights captured “the attention of the world. In every country and in every language, newspapers and magazines of the day printed long stories of the wonderful feats performed by the Bridgeport aviator and his marvelous machine, of which nothing short of a cruise to the North Pole was expected.”

— Erik Ofgang is the co-author of The Good Vices: From Beer to Sex, The Surprising Truth About What’s Actually Good For You and the author of Buzzed: A Guide to New England's Best Craft Beverages and Gillette Castle: A History. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Thrillist and the Associated Press, and he is the senior writer at Tech & Learning magazine.

[coffee-in-veins]

Hi hi! I've only played the Crimson Court dlc once so I've never wondered about this before, but I was reading a fic that mentioned how the Fanatic has a cure for the curse. Do you have a headcanon on how he got that? I can't recall whether is it a definitive cure or if just temporary, because if it's a definitive cure that's very impressive!

hello hello! hope you're fine and thank you for the ask :}

now i feel like Crimson Curse expert all of the sudden but i'm honoured you're asking me about it ^^

regarding your question - it is true! one of the ways to cure your Crimson Cursed heroes is, in fact, hunting the Fanatic, as defeating him drops a consumable item labelled simply as "The Cure":

Tooltip reads:

Its origin and ingredients unknown, but this tincture will quell the Curse. (sic)

and it's a consumable that, if used on a cursed hero, permanently cures them from Crimson Curse, regardless of its stage. the cured hero can be re-infected but this is the only way to cure the Curse before endgame (where you have the Sanatorium being able to do it after defeating the final boss of the Court) and without defeating any of the CC bosses (the event "A Veil Lifted" which cures all of the infected).

this item also can somewhat explain how Fanatic is keeping himself Curse-free while fighting the infected, but from the looks of it, it comes at the expense of everyone around him. which is doubly funny (and a lot more insidious in-universe) if you consider that the only place you cannot get an encounter with him is... well, the Courtyard itself. the very "den of the plague" he is trying to purge. ironic, isn't it?

i understand the game limitations of why it is coded like that. the in-universe lore implications (or rather theories) of those limitations, however... well. let's look closer, shall we?

some people speculate that Fanatic cannot enter the Courtyard because he doesn't have "the invitation" that you get if you kill the Gatekeeper mob. this would indicate that he respects the authority of Bloodsuckers over the Court, which is... weird, for a zealous fanatic. why would having no invitation stop him? he could just get in and do his job. I can understand why the Heir(ess) would try to play "nice" with a den of Bloodsuckers just near their town: if you won't play by Bloodsuckers' rules, Bloodsuckers won't play by their rules either, and Hamlet, in canon, is in no shape to withstand an onslaught of pissed mosquitoes. the town is a sitting duck, and in no position to anger the neighbour substantially. especially considering already present threats from other areas (canon swine attacks on villages, brigand raids, as well as Shrieker raids from the Weald and attacks on ships from the Cove). Hamlet cannot afford to piss the Court off all at once.

unlike a single, highly skilled man who (supposedly) has no base and just hunts those things everywhere they happen to be. wouldn't he be able to get away with this? he should be, right. he has the equipment. if you win, you get bloodsucker-fighting trinkets.

however, I have a much more prosaic and dark headcanon: he's scared to go there. Fanatic knows how risky it is, he knows that he’ll get killed if he steps into the Courtyard. so he simply... doesn’t. he doesn’t go and actually try and fix the problem, he’s “treating” the symptoms.

and by “treating” I mean stalking infected humans.

who are weaker than “true” Bloodsuckers. who are confused, maybe ill from extreme body transformations, probably scared of themselves, of their changes and sudden urges and can barely control themselves. villagers and travellers who would probably trust “a holy man” who promised them salvation from this odd ailment.

and all those people... end up on pyres.

think about it. when you meet him in combat, there are always - and I do mean always - people burning in the background. hell, even your own heroes end up on the pyre during the fight. we also know that surrounding areas, too, have suffered from Bloodsuckers. the initial quest is about a man who died from mosquito bites after he found a way into the Courtyard - which, again, dismantles (at least, for me) the idea of Fanatic being unable to get into the Courtyard if he really wanted to.

the town event after the Court is revealed reads:

Intolerable! Clouds of mosquitoes and other, less identifiable pests continue to descend upon the Hamlet with maddening persistence! Illness and irritation abound (sic)

so mosquitos canonically pester people around. mosquitos which, canonically, can transfer this Curse. it's not just your heroes who succumb to the Curse. it's just that as an Heir(ess) you, personally, are only bothered with your heroes, as their well-being and symptoms cause you to haemorrhage money and you can't simply dismiss them. therefore, Fanatic always have an abundant amount of bodies to shove into the flames.

seriously, with the number of pyres he needs, the dude has to constantly chop wood every waking moment of every day that he's not out there hunting your parties.

and that got me thinking.

he always has wood. he always knows when your party which consists of infected leaves towns. he always has bodies burning.

I believe he's leading a cult.

there has to be someone who helps him. if you tried to play the game you know how much everything costs. food, equipment, items, tools - it all costs money. you can meet Fanatic everywhere, anytime, unless you're following a very specific boss route. so someone informs him of your movement. someone provides him with all he needs to sustain himself and his fires. and frankly, if surrounding villages do start succumbing to the Curse and the guy offers a solution, albeit a horrible one... well... it's Darkest Dungeon. we all know those guys would accept without thinking twice.

that's why you never see him deep in the Courtyard - he doesn't have to throw himself into real danger to feel accomplished, to stroke his self-righteousness and to be convinced that he's "helping". he has a lot of victims - that's true. but that is not helping with the root of the problem.

now, regarding why and how he has the Cure.

well, he is clearly shown to be the priest of the Light (considering his relics), or at least, he believes himself to be one. based on Vestals, Crusaders, and the altars you can find and purify in Ruins, the Light canonically can create miracles if you do it favours and believe hard enough. considering that the guy is called Fanatic, we can safely assume his belief levels are off the charts. and he has a lot of "martyrs". so... that may upset a lot of people, but I think the Cure (and the reason why you cannot get it made) is made out of those burned people. it's martyred ashes and holy water and a lot of self-assuredness. after all, holy water canonically harms cursed heroes (stress and blight if I recall correctly) if they are in a Bloodlust state. so it does something to their cursed bodies. just not enough.

if it's distilled and mixed some more, and purified by a person who sees himself as infallible... well. who knows. but the purity seals, the prayer beads and the overall Light symbolic on the Cure's bottle, mixed with previous awful things happening in DD universe (from Outsiders bonfire having Swine instead of a pig to all of the messed up occult rituals, all of the messed up practices of the Church of the Light, and Ancestor of all things...), it wouldn't surprise me to have this be the basis of the Cure. suffering. pure, distilled, holy (in the most horrible way of that word) human suffering.

wouldn't it be poetic too, in a way? horrible, sure, but... interesting? pooling the suffering of dozens so that the suffering of one could be lifted. the moral choice it presents.

I wish we knew better about the cure. I wish it provided this moral question. I wish heroes had some barks about using it. but alas. we can only speculate, as far as I'm aware. so, I'm speculating to my heart's content.

hope this theory was fun for you to read :}

[floridensis]

i have no idea why i feel so compelled to apply to this job for mosquito control technician but i do

im totally underqualified but i want to be like look i can handle it i got this

but i probably dont got this. id be happy setting up traps and collecting specimens and stuff like that but im not so sure about operating equipment. im frail and rapidly falling apart

it IS a student position, but it expects you already have your associates and are working on your bachelors but im just finally starting to feel like i can complete my associates degree before im 30. lol.

but i have people who can back me up and say im good im a fast learner about the entomology stuff i can probably do it fine as long as its ok if my legs fall off

[quirkwizard]

Do you have ideas for evolutions and training for Quirk Colony? (For some reason, I love thinking about the possibility of ants becoming more diverse, being able to do more than turn into small objects and thus really look like a small army lol) And just in case it's not too much to ask, do you also have ideas for hero/villain names? :3

Hello wiz, I am curious about "Scourage" and how the quirk works. How would it evolve? Also if they suck from a sick person does it infect whoever they inject the serum into?

Hello!!I was wondering how would training, equipment and evolution for your quirk Spyder/Cluster work?

Considering how similar "Spyder", "Colony", and "Scourge" are, I'm covering these together. Oh, and if you want any kind of names, anything based around royalty, swarms, or the names of the animals would all would work for Quirks like these, such as Ant Queen or Cluster King.

There isn't much need for equipment for these three. There isn't much that could help deal with the drawbacks or better utilize the animals. There could be small additions for the costumes, like bladed weapons to help draw blood from the mosquitoes, tools to be used with the cluster of ants, or some special helmet to cut off the user's senses to focus on the spiders. Maybe they could have jars filled with their bugs to throw at people. Otherwise, first aid kits could help other people and the user is they need it. Training for these three would come down to the user learning to better control and focus on the insects they make. For example, the user could make them run around in a small, dark maze to get a better connection to them before moving on to doing it in multiple mazes at once. On top of that, the user could learn how to make more of their animals at a time in order to better utilize their various abilities. I do think that the user could make the insects stronger, but they wouldn't gain new features like flight, at least not so soon. As for bigger evolutions, the user could work to increase the number of bugs they have, how much control they have, and how good those bugs are at what they do. Ants could make larger constructions, spiders could make more silk, and mosquitoes would see greater increases in themselves and others from the serum.

[nerdydowntherabbithole]

Hello are we giving area ideas in that case I have one and can make many many more :D

1. A swampy marsh with opaque, murky waters with monster kelp that burst from beneath the waters to catch things at the surface, complete with alligators(and/or salamanders/eel lizards), mini leviathans, and BIG MURDER MOSQUITOES. Like noodleflies but worse. Violently worse.

2. Cliffside or ravine-like area with a sharp drop into either the ocean, a river.... or just solid ground. Filled with rusted pipes and nonfunctional machinery, old, worn-down rope bridges to move across.. and possibly some still-functional-but-malfunctioning machinery that lashes out at fleshy creatures.. but perhaps not at other machines? Consider: iterator connects to and controls large mining/construction equipment??? Eh? Eh??

3. A lively, blooming garden with shockingly little creature life... until you stick around to find just how many plants there eat flesh, hm? Full of monster kelp, pole plants, mimics of bat flies and blue fruit, and flytraps, though all far bigger and more common than the norm...

Hope these help or inspire you ;D

OHOHOHOHO ALL INCREDIBLY GOOD YES THANK U

[southsydneypestcontrol]

South Sydney Pest Control

Our professionals are highly skilled and certified in pest management, using cutting-edge creative methods and eco-friendly solutions to efficiently solve pest problems. To keep abreast of the most recent industry advancements and approaches to pest management, our crew regularly attends trade shows and yearly Risk Management conferences.

South Sydney Pest Control is a leading pest control company that specializes in the eradication of various types of pests, including termites, rodents, bed bugs, and other common household pests. The company has been in operation for several years and has built a reputation for providing efficient and reliable pest control services to residents and businesses in South Sydney and the surrounding areas.

The company was founded with the aim of providing high-quality pest control services that are both affordable and effective. Since its inception, the company has been committed to delivering outstanding customer service, ensuring that every client's needs are met with the utmost care and professionalism. Services Offered by South Sydney Pest Control

South Sydney Pest Control provides a wide range of pest control services, including:Termite control Rodent control Bed bug control Cockroach control Spider control Ant control Bee and wasp control Mosquito control Flea control Silverfish control Bird control Pre-purchase pest inspection

All of these services are designed to help clients deal with pest infestations in their homes or businesses effectively. The company uses the latest pest control techniques and products to ensure that pests are eradicated quickly and efficiently.

Why Choose South Sydney Pest Control?

There are several reasons why South Sydney Pest Control is the preferred choice for pest control services in South Sydney and the surrounding areas.Experienced Technicians: The company's technicians are highly trained and experienced in dealing with various types of pests. They are equipped with the latest tools and equipment to ensure that the job is done right the first time. Quality Products: South Sydney Pest Control uses only high-quality pest control products that are safe and effective. The company ensures that all its products are environmentally friendly and do not pose any risk to humans or pets. Affordable Prices: The company offers competitive prices for its pest control services. Clients can be assured that they are getting value for their money. Outstanding Customer Service: South Sydney Pest Control is committed to providing outstanding customer service. The company's staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and always willing to help clients with their pest control needs. Emergency Services: The company offers emergency pest control services, which are available 24/7. Clients can contact the company at any time, and a technician will be dispatched immediately to deal with the pest infestation. Guaranteed Results: South Sydney Pest Control guarantees that its pest control services are effective. If the pest problem persists after treatment, the company will come back and re-treat the area free of charge.

[usafphantom2]

SAC Crew Dog Shenanigans: A Cruel Prank on the Aircraft Commander

It was late May in 1989, a time of year when the sun barely goes down in Fairbanks Alaska. Our crew, R-122, with the 42d Air Refueling Squadron, had flown from our home base, Loring AFB, Maine, to Eielson AFB, Alaska in our KC-135 A model for an Alaska Tanker Task Force tour.

The Strategic Air Command (SAC) was still in control and the KC-135s still used “hard crews.” That meant, you got put on a crew and you stayed there. They were the only people you really flew with. You got to know them well, for better or worse.

We were a young crew, the Aircraft Commander (AC) was a newly assigned Captain who’d previously been a FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot). FAIP went straight to the left seat and never flew as copilots. Our Copilot, who was more experienced than the AC, had around 1,000 hours. The Navigator and I were pretty green, only being recently qualified. Three Officers, AC was a Captain, the Copilot was a 1st Lieutenant and the Nav was a 2nd Lieutenant (or Butter Bars as we called them.) I was a lowly A1C, Airmen First Class.

After arriving, we settled in, getting all our localization briefings. These were so that we knew what we could and could not do while in town, both operationally and just in general. Stay away from the moose which were taking care of their newly born calves, don’t mess with the bears, avoid a DWI at all costs, and of course, don’t screw up any airplanes. We were staying at the BOQ, or quarters, on base for the TDY crews and the one thing I noticed about our quarters was the blackout curtains in all the rooms. We found out, over time, they were definitely needed. Another thing we found out; the unofficial State Bird of Alaska is the Mosquito. Those things were brutal.

Getting around on base wasn’t a big deal as you could usually get a ride, but getting off base could be a problem. There was a “shared” vehicle that a local Boom Operator maintained for the crews to borrow. It was a beat-up old station wagon with wood paneling and sharks’ teeth painted on the front fenders, like they do on fighter aircraft. It worked, if it was available, but demand was high.

We were allowed to take an Air Force vehicle, usually an AF blue 4-door pickup truck, but there were restrictions because it was an “Official” vehicle. One of the more important rules was that you could not park at a bar. Sneaky aircrews had figured out a way to get around this rule. While you couldn’t park at a bar, you could park at a restaurant that happened to have a bar. This was our loophole.

One day, we ventured out around town. The guys wanted to sample the local cuisine, so we found a place with freshly caught and cooked salmon for lunch. Then, we drove up the road to visit the “North Pole”, not the real one, but a very small town north of the base that took about two minutes to drive through. Remember that Garth Brooks song, “Nobody Gets Off In This Town”? Pretty much described the entire area, with one exception… most people actually like it up there, even with all the hardship.

One of the things that amazed us while we were driving around was how much junk was laying around. Along the highways you could see piles of cars, airplanes, equipment and just plain junk, but the scenery was still awe inspiring, even with all the trash.

Towards the evening, we decided to head to a local restaurant that “happened” to have a bar. We planned on having dinner and then over to the bar for a few drinks, maybe even finding some suitable company. Well, most of us anyways, the AC was married and a pretty strait-laced guy, so he was just enjoying the scenery.

Driving under the influence of alcohol was a very big no-no, and the Air Force was really cracking down around that time. A DWI was a career ender for officers and enlisted alike. So, I was elected to be the Designated Driver. It was tradition that the Boom Operator drove and the Officers liked to be chauffeured around. This night, I didn’t mind not being able to drink and was happy to drive the crew around.

So, we sit down to eat, and everybody orders beers, Coronas to be precise, and the conversation turns to drinking stories. I’m not sure why he wanted to tempt fate, but the AC started bragging that he had never been drunk. He drank, he wasn’t a teetotaler, but he’d never gotten drunk.

The Copilot, who was a bit of a prankster, took this as a challenge. So he decided that the AC had waited long enough. He left the table, and grabbed our waitress ask her to add a shot of vodka to every beer given to the AC. She obviously didn’t have a problem with it. Our poor commander never suspected a thing.

Fast forward an hour or two and our prim and proper AC is lit up like a Christmas tree. So much so, he asked me for the keys to our pickup so he could go pass out. Thinking it was unlocked, I told him so, and off he went stumbling out to the parking lot. Unfortunately (for him), I was wrong, the truck wasn’t unlocked, but he was so drunk he decided to just pass out in the bed of the truck. Of course, before he passed out, he’d gotten sick and threw up all over the side of our nice clean, blue “Official” Air Force pickup. Remember that salmon we’d had for lunch, yup, the side of the truck was covered with it. Pink shows up really well on blue.

A few hours later, with the sun still lighting up the sky, we come out and discover him, wake him up, razz him for a bit, and climb in the truck to head back to the BOQ. He takes the normal AC seat when driving, which is the front right seat, with the Nav and Copilot in the back, and, still drunk as a skunk, proceeds to constantly ask us what happened. A few minutes into the drive, a moose walked out on the road ahead of us, but we were in no danger of hitting it. It was still several hundred yards in front of us, but our fearless leader started screaming “Watch out for the moose, watch out for the moose”. Nearly scared me right off the road. He spent the rest of the ride apologizing like only drunks can. He kept saying, “I ate dinner, and I only had a few beers, why am I so drunk?”

He was thoroughly confused and a bit embarrassed for the next few days. He was constantly asking us what had happened and how he had gotten so drunk. He really had no clue. Finally, feeling bad for him, I let him know what had happened. His reaction was priceless, but he really was a good sport about it. He did vow to return the favor to our mischievous Copilot, but in the end, he never got his revenge. Fortunately, he didn’t hold a grudge either.

We had a great six weeks on that trip with many accomplishments. We were able to go to Shemya AFB, on the Alaskan Aleutian Islands. While there we got to fly on an RC-135S, and the AC was able to get his first experience at Receiver Air Refueling. Later, we flew a Russian Bear Bomber intercept mission, and then on the day before my birthday, we flew a mission over the International Date Line, so I got to experience my 21st birthday twice.

We returned to Loring six weeks later, having learned a lot about ourselves, our aircraft, and our jobs.

Note: I didn't take any pictures on this trip, I don't think I even owned a camera at the time, so I've included some relevant patches.

@tcamp202 via X

[incyrayinc]

Spooky bastard I'm reworking the lore for

Their name is Veri and their species is called a 'Deceiver', they are kind of like among us imposter, but it's a sophont-hunting specialist predator that puppeteers corpses and eats souls. Veri themself though is a weirdo who's decided mosquito-style parasitism is more ethical, and is actually a good guy!

Veri is, in fact, a tentacle monster wearing taxidermy

Additional notes wow!

Due to their eyes being flat, their depth perception is also actually rather garbo- their is no depth to the individual eye for judging distance, and they are entirely dependent on binocularity for depth perception when the eyes are static. You can catch them doing the bird head thing when they need to judge a distance sometimes- Veri especially after they loose one eye

Movies and video games look laggy AF to Veri at normal 30-60 fps; special settings for games or special viewing devices are needed for pleasant viewing

Film/ect. is expensive to produce for Deceivers due to the special equipment needed, so they often lag behind in that tech

Deceiver hearing is distributed; all of the exterior tentacles have vibration detection organs inside, and so they have fullbody full 360 hearing. Hearing is more like touch for them; it’s something experienced with one’s whole body, in all directions. The individual quality isn’t amazing, but the input from all the tentacles combined works like a compound eye to produce a singular larger perception that registers changes really well, but not always small details when they’re further away. Hearing range is slightly into ultrasound and slightly into infrasound, with additional perception of vibrations transmitted through surface contact, similar to how a lot of insects hear (but not to the capacity of an elephant; they can feel the boombox through the vibrations it makes in the floor, but not an earthquake)

The Deceiver sense of touch is similarly spread out, but much more uniformly detailed. Exterior tentacles all have a great sense of touch as they are ALL manipulators, but interior ones have very little.

Motor control is octopus-like; interior nervous system tentacles send basic commands to the limbs, which then coordinate specific movements using their own nervous tissue. This can be used to arrange complex configurations by sort of loading up a blueprint and sending it to the whole body to carry out in a emergent manner like a nanobot swarm.

Interior tentacles host visceral organs, such as vocal organs and brain. The entire configuration of a Deceiver is highly variable, and there is no front/back or top/bottom; they have no built in symmetry and instead adapt bodyplans on the fly. They DO however have a built in sense of proximal/distal, and a singular vestibular organ that determines the body center, and aids in understanding of spatial position

Extended image descriptions below the read more/cut!

Extended image descriptions:

[ID: Image 1:

The sketches include:

Veri facing the viewer with one eye missing, stating "Hi, Leo". A nearby note reads: 'looses an eye during demon hunter arc'

Veri with one shoulder covered by a plate armor pauldron, and another sketch showing their helmet with an alternate faceguard design with a shark-tooth pattern. A note reads: 'thinking about injuries and armor'

Several sketches of Veri drawn in a scruffier style reminiscent of the video game Don't Starve. One of them shows Veri simply standing in an A-pose with a mildly unhinged look about them, another shows them in active mid-air pose with frazzled fur and holding a serrated glass cutter sword, and one more shows their face and neck with a spikes collar. Nearby notes read: 'Thinking about Don't Starve-ifying them. Would be a glass cannon with very hard stat management. Playstyle would revolve around intentionally taking damage to maintain a low health attack rate boost, then dealing in horrendous stat management aftermath.'

One final note at the bottom reads: '…I can't code' and is accompanied by a crude sketch of a canine character gritting their teeth in a smile and angry crying. END ID]

[ID: Image 3:

The note at the top reads: 'What is the function of Deceiver helmet? Why does Veri never take it off? Do other Deceivers wear this? Is it cultural or just Veri Being Veri? Does it provide a protective function? Deceivers don’t actually have a head, they are entirely distributed organisms built more like siphonophores composed of separate tentacles that share the same constructed soul. So there is no cranium/central brain to be protected by a helmet. So why helmet? Maybe they use it as a face, in the event the decide to forge a mrore personal identity. Other creatures have faces, and that’s an important part of an identity. The face of their taxidermy disguise is not theirs; it’s stolen. So, maybe the helmet is them making their own.'

The illustrations include:

Veri's helmet/face, which is reminiscent of roman gladiator helmets, but with a faceplate/muzzle covering the lower part of the face. An accompanying notes reads: 'face is entirely sealed, as Deceiver eyes have no-clip'

The RAM stick style snapping mechanism that holds the muzzle part of their helmet on, with a note reading: 'Snapping system inside like a RAM chip. The muzzle keeps the helmet on firmly, and can only be removed from the inside'

A side-view cross-section of Veri's helmeted head, showing a mass of tentacles inside and one of their flat disc-shaped eyes hover slightly above the helmet surface. Adjacent is another sketch showing the circular, pupil lacking eye from the front. A note reads: 'Deceiver eyes are actually flat discs that hover just above the skin… or helmet. They can be ‘scroll wheeled’ forwards and back to project them above the correct surface, but no further than 1in/4cm. (pulling them out further than that will Rip Them Out, and permanently maim the Deceiver)'

A sketch of a circular, glowing, multicolored object labeled as a 'soul', with the notes: 'Deceiver eyes are supernatural, and allow them to directly perceive souls. THey can also see into ultraviolet and infrared, and the frame rate is 200 fps. This is some OP vision, and it’s like that to facilitate studying and impersonating other sophonts. (also gives them great reflexes) Deceivers cannot smell, however, and are thus entirely sight/sound/touch dependant.'

A sketch of several intertwined tentacles, with the three at the top having spiracles on them. Notes nearby identify the top set of tentacles as tri-syrinx vocal organs, and the bottom ones as the brain, and the whole group as 'interior tentacles'. END ID]

[skuaspestcontrol123]

Mosquito Control Services in Delhi-NCR: A Necessity for Healthy Living

Mosquitoes are more than simply annoying insects that annoy people and make it difficult to sleep. They are also well-known for being carriers of the Zika virus, dengue, malaria, and chikungunya, among other serious illnesses. The issue of mosquitoes is made worse in an urban area as densely inhabited and rapidly expanding as Delhi-NCR by a number of factors, such as increased building activity, standing water, and inadequate drainage systems. To protect the health and welfare of the locals, this circumstance necessitates the provision of efficient mosquito control services. Prominent businesses like Skuas Pest Control offer specialist mosquito control solutions to assist in managing and getting rid of these dangerous pests.

 Why Mosquito Control is Crucial in Delhi-NCR

The vast urban terrain of Delhi-NCR makes it a prime location for mosquito breeding grounds. The perfect environment for mosquito larvae to flourish is found in waterlogged places, open sewage systems, and stagnant water in drains. The situation gets worse when monsoon arrives because more rain means more places for mosquitoes to grow, which increases the number of diseases spread by mosquitoes. Given the health risks that mosquitoes pose, prompt action through mosquito control services is essential.

 Targeting the larvae and eggs of mosquitoes is an essential part of effective mosquito management, in addition to getting rid of the adult insects. Entire mosquito control services guarantee that the cycle of reproduction is disrupted, lowering the danger of disease transmission. In order to eradicate mosquitoes at every stage of their life cycle, expert services like Skuas Pest Control are useful in this situation. They provide a variety of focused treatments.

 Services Offered by Mosquito Control Experts in Delhi-NCR

 The majority of Delhi-NCR's Mosquito Control Services involve a mix of interventions aimed at both controlling mosquito populations and keeping them from returning. Among the well-known companies in the area is Skuas Pest Control, which provides a range of customized solutions for homes and businesses.

 Fogging: One of the best ways to manage adult mosquitoes is to fog them. Insecticides are sprayed into the air by a specialized fogging equipment, killing mosquitoes upon contact. Skuas Pest Control significantly lowers mosquito populations while ensuring resident safety by using non-toxic, eco-friendly fogging agents.

Larvicide Treatment: Treatments with larvacide are essential for preventing mosquitoes from maturing into adults. This medication aids in interrupting the mosquito breeding cycle by specifically targeting larvae in locations with standing water or moisture. Skuas Pest Control targets mosquito breeding areas around homes and buildings with long-lasting, safe larvicides.

 Biological Control: This approach targets mosquitoes directly using agents or natural predators without endangering the ecosystem. Biological solutions are provided by Skuas Pest Control, such as the use of products based on bacteria to kill larvae or the introduction of fish that consume mosquitoes in bodies of water.

Preventive Measures and Consultation: Controlling mosquito infestations primarily involves prevention. Skuas Pest Control offers thorough consultations and recommendations on how to stop mosquitoes from reproducing, like cleaning gutters, installing screens to keep mosquitoes out of the house, and eliminating standing water sources. Additionally, their professionals provide advice on barriers and treatments for outdoor areas that can help to further lower mosquito activity.

Why Choose Professional Mosquito Control?

Expert mosquito control services extend beyond common do-it-yourself remedies, such as insect repellents and mists. Although home remedies could offer short-term respite, they seldom tackle the underlying source of the issue. Skuas Pest Control uses cutting-edge treatments that provide long-lasting results while focusing on mosquito breeding areas to provide long-term protection against mosquitoes.

 The health component is also another important advantage of hiring a professional mosquito control company. With the number of dengue and malaria cases rising, especially in the monsoon, professional services lessen the chance of outbreaks in homes and workplaces. In addition, certified pest control experts only utilize safe, government-approved pesticides, guaranteeing that their techniques are efficient without endangering people or pets.

Conclusion

Considering the health hazards that mosquitoes in Delhi-NCR pose, it is not only necessary but also a convenience to engage in professional mosquito control services. Skuas Pest Control provides a range of mosquito control options that are customized to meet your unique requirements, guaranteeing that your house or place of business stays a safe haven free from illnesses spread by mosquitoes. Their eco-friendly, efficient treatments improve the general health and comfort of Delhi-NCR people by reducing mosquito populations.

 Making the first step toward a healthier, happier life for anyone seeking to protect their health and enjoy a mosquito-free living space is to get in touch with a reputable service provider like Skuas Pest Control.

Comments

[ontimetreelopping]

The Benefits of Land Clearing

When it comes to land clearing, there are many different factors that must be taken into account. These can include the environmental impact of the process, safety concerns, and the overall cost. In order to ensure that the work being done is completed properly, it’s important to hire a professional with the right experience and equipment. This can help to prevent any unnecessary costs and delays in the completion of the project. Before beginning any land clearing project, it’s necessary to create a clear plan of action. This will allow you to identify any potential obstacles and determine the best method of clearing the land. It will also help to ensure that all applicable regulations and permits are being followed. It’s also essential to consider the environmental impact of the work being performed, as well as any local ecosystems that may be affected by the land clearing process. There are a few different ways that you can go about clearing land, from manual methods to mechanical processes. Manual land clearing involves using hand tools like axes and hoes to remove vegetation from the ground. This is often used for small areas where precision clearing is necessary. Mechanical land clearing involves the use of heavy machinery like bulldozers and excavators, which can clear large tracts of land in a relatively short amount of time. These machines can be dangerous to operate, so it’s a good idea to hire experienced professionals for this task. Once the land has been cleared, it can be used for a variety of purposes. In agricultural settings, it’s often used to prepare soil for planting crops or grazing livestock. It can also be used to reduce the amount of invasive species and restore native habitats. In construction projects, it’s used to clear space for roads, railroads, and utilities. In addition to making property more usable, land clearing can also improve the overall look of a property. Unwanted bushes, shady trees, and dead trees can make a yard or property look messy and overgrown. By performing land clearing, these plants can be removed and replaced with healthier ones that add beauty to the property. Another benefit of land clearing is that it can help to control pest populations. Overgrown vegetation can provide shelter and food for a variety of pests, especially during rainy seasons when water pools in dense areas. Additionally, rotting tree trunks and branches can attract mosquitoes and rodents. Land clearing helps to reduce these pest populations and prevent them from spreading to other areas of the property. If you’re thinking about hiring a company to perform land clearing, it’s important to shop around for estimates. The cost of the service can vary significantly depending on the size of the area that needs to be cleared, how quickly it needs to be completed, and the terrain that is involved. It’s also a good idea to check out customer reviews before choosing a company to work with. via https://ontimetreelopping.wordpress.com/2024/09/23/the-benefits-of-land-clearing/