#and for safety reasons its good actually that the pond is far from the house and a bit annoying to get to

[isfjmel-phleg]

Have I actually finished any writing lately? Goodness no. Is that going to stop me from sharing something unfinished for no reason? Also no.

This is the beginning of an unedited, unfinished short piece featuring a younger Delclis and Elystan (about eleven and six/seven). They’ve never been close, but, for a change, I want to examine a time when things weren’t so strained between them. This bit is mostly Delclis and his tutor; Elystan is so far an off-stage threat (until Delclis gets roped into entertaining him and accidentally finds out that it’s possible for them to have fun together--at least, that’s the plan).

Delclis pressed his nose to the cold windowpane and glowered out at a landscape that had never done him any harm. “Why does it have to rain?”

“Rain” was perhaps not quite the right word in this case. It was too weak. Rain dribbled down from the heavens, drop by glittering drop, to bless the open-armed world with a refreshing taste of dihydrogen monoxide. The meteorological events currently in progress more closely resembled the results of dousing some unsuspecting acquaintance with the contents of a bucket for a lark, with endless encore performances featuring larger and larger vessels. Puddles on the garden paths were forming their own miniature lake district. Oceans roared down the drain pipes. Bleary torrents cast the view from the window in a murky overlay, as if Endean House and its grounds had sunk into the pond like a modern-day Atlantis.

“Well,” said Mr. Davell, Delclis’s tutor, a little too brightly, “remember what we talked about when we studied clouds?”

Delclis raised an eyebrow at him. Of course he remembered. Precipitation was something mere children studied–Elystan was probably learning about it now–and Delclis was a seasoned scholar with more than a decade’s worth of impressive experience behind him. Mr. Davell was missing the point entirely.

“I mean, why does it have to rain today? Are you sure we can’t finish work on the treetop rest? Not even if we bundle up and wear galoshes?”

After a few too many times of being caught perched in precarious positions on tree branches with his books, Delclis had combatted the grownups’ fears for his safety by drawing plans for a wooden platform with a seat in the fork of an oak tree. Mr. Davell had approved the project as not only good exercise but also useful practice of mathematics and engineering, and he had helped Delclis obtain the wood and tools. The two had spent long hours on ladders, hammering and sawing and chattering about geometry, and they had nearly finished. The “treetop rest,” as Delclis had dubbed it, would have been completed this afternoon.

If the weather had not had other ideas.

Delclis thought he had made a perfectly reasonable suggestion for compromise. But Mr. Davell shook his head. “Afraid not. If you had an accident–”

“I would be very careful. I wouldn’t fall.”

“Perhaps not, but I might. And your mother would have my head if you caught your death of cold.”

Delclis slumped deeper into the window seat. “I never catch cold. I think I have immunity.”

Mr. Davell put a hand over his face and said nothing for several minutes. He did this sometimes when Delclis had perfectly reasonable arguments. Delclis had concluded that these sudden silences must be visitations of prayer that had overcome his tutor. Which was commendable, but Delclis wished that these conferences with the Almighty would stop interrupting conversations just when they were becoming interesting.

He picked up the nearest book, something about deciduous trees of Central Western Corege, a topic which ordinarily fascinated him but now seemed to fling the afternoon’s disappointments in his face. Sighing, he set it aside only to find that Mr. Davell was conducting a hurried exchange at the door with Mrs. Melbray, Elystan’s nurse.

“Of course,” he was saying, and Mrs. Melbray flew past him and descended upon Delclis. Her brow was furrowed and her eyes dark-rimmed, but that was a natural result of having to spend any significant length of time with Elystan.

“Would you please be a dear and sit with him for a while?” she asked. “The poor thing has been asking and asking for you, and I haven’t had any–well, it was a long night.”

“But I’m busy,” said Delclis. “Lessons…”

“Have been over for the last hour,” said Mr. Davell.

“Doesn’t he have a bad cold? It’s probably better if I don’t go. You don’t want two of us ill on your hands.”

“Fortunately,” said Mr. Davell, hoisting his pupil off the window seat and shepherding him toward the door, “you have immunity, as you were just saying. Come now, it won’t hurt you to entertain your brother for a little while. You can read to him from your book.”

Before Delclis could argue that one shouldn’t waste the sacred truths of botany on an uncaring heathen like Elystan, Mrs. Melbray was thanking him with the overwhelming profusion of one whose life has been saved as she conveyed him across the gallery and into the other wing, where she ushered him into Elystan’s room and abandoned him there.

[theofficersacademy]

Continental winds from the north take up their arms as the long daylight hours wane, and drive out the last of summer’s oppressive heat. As cooler air follows behind, signs of the vibrant harvest season bloom across Fodlan. Hunting dogs pull eagerly at their leashes, scythes are taken down to reap golden fields, and celebration rises in feasting to give thanks for another bountiful year.

The students and faculty sent out on the investigations of the Relic rumors have now returned to Garreg Mach, and life is once more back to normal. The students of the Blue Lions house do not get to rest long, however, as the Church has a new mission for them... The Five Great Lords of the Roundtable have received a threat to the relic Thyrsus’ safety. Aware of the situation surrounding the Relics in the previous moon, they have made a formal request for aid to protect one of the Alliance’s most sacred treasures. In spite of the Alliance’s Founding Day celebrations, the Blue Lions of Faerghus find themselves packing up for a trip to Gloucester territory...

Blue Lions Mission: Protect the Thyrsus!

We are back on our regular season rotation, and this one belongs to the Blue Lions! As before, threads using tasks from the Blue Lions board must contain a Blue Lions character as a participant, but there are also non-mission tasks available to everyone without restrictions.

It soon occurs to everyone involved that sending the Blue Lions during a time when the Alliance celebrates its independence from Faerghus is a gaffe at best and a serious insult at worst. The prideful lords outwardly take the assistance in stride, but in private you are all relegated to heavy labor and busywork in preparation for the festivities, far from the Thyrsus you're supposed to be protecting. It might be more tolerable if it wasn't for this feeling that the lords somehow blame you for the mixup, and not the schmoozing cardinal that arranged the mission in the first place...

BL Mission Task Board

Dozens of lords coming into the Gloucester Estate means dozens of horses that need to be stabled up and taken care of for as long as their owners are here. The tedious task of taking care of these animals has, unsurprisingly, been dropped on your lap. This morning, shortly after putting out some horses to pasture, a Demonic Beast attacks. You’re able to fend it off, but the horses have fled in the confusion. Hopefully you can round them all up before their owners begin to miss them…  

A personal invitation has been extended to Lord Acheron, fulfilling what rumors say is a political favor. You have the distinct honor of escorting him and his elderly aunt to the festivities. Remember to nod and smile. [grants Heavy Armor +1]  

This year, House Gloucester holds the distinct honor of hosting the Crescent Moon Ball, the formal ball meant for celebrating the Alliance's Founding Day this moon. Dress up and observe the latest fashion trends, schmooze like the good little nobles you are, and hit up the local hotties. You might get some information about the Alliance’s Relics for your trouble...  

Tourney time! Leicester takes pride in their own brand of knighthood and chivalry. The Horsebow Moon has always been a prime time for archery competitions and jousting. Try your hand at the games, and show off your skill with a bow! [grants Bow +1]  

Part of training to be a young Alliance noble is participating in mock roundtable meetings, and the three-day event this year is made even more exciting by the presence of students from backgrounds outside of the usual big names in nobility. According to Golden Deer students, the script is the same every year, and you prepare to state your facts for and against declaring war on Almyra. Yet when the meeting begins... you discover that the topic is actually about separating from the Kingdom. Bullshit your way through it and try not to offend anyone.

NEW! You’re given the bad news with the typical aristocratic tact: it would be prudent to recuse yourselves from the investigations as they are carried out. That is to say, that many of the Alliance knights won’t allow you to enter the Gloucester mansion to see the crime scene for yourselves. It seems like not everyone got the memo, though, as a pair of greenhorn knights seem willing to escort you inside. They’re suspicious, but if you act like you’re suppose to be here hopefully they’ll let it slide. [grants Authority +1]

NEW! Your investigations bring you to the hunting forests, sitting on the border between the counties of Gloucester and Riegan. As you make your way through the murky forest, pushing your way past overgrown brush and hedge, you spot a brilliant red light gleaming in the darkness. When you approach, you recognize Thyrsus... but see no hand that holds it. Moving under its own power, it fires a potent Ragnarok spell over your heads. Well.... unfortunately there hasn’t been a “Combat Against Flying Weapons” elective for you to take. You’ll have to improvise as you go! [grants Any Weapon +1]

Non-Mission Task Board

It’s time for the seasonal fishing tournament! This year, however, it seems a strange mixture of fish has been added to the pond. Why do these fish have teeth!? And why does this one give off an electrical shock!? Some anglers might find this just an exciting change to the ordinarily boring tournament, but others might feel they need to investigate the sabotage... Or perhaps YOU’RE the one who dumped these exotic fish in the pond. [grants Axe +1]  

Legend has it, any who chance to sit beneath the boughs of the old willow tree at the far back of the courtyard fall subject to a curious charm: they find their tongues tied if they should attempt to speak a lie, and they find themselves compelled to obey any instruction given them by another party, no matter how silly or untoward. Most sensible students diligently avoid this tree lest they find themselves put under its spell, but some braver souls take up a seat - after all, it’s the perfect place for a high stakes game of truth or dare. Is the legend true, however, or is it merely a matter of vain pride? [grants Reason +1]  

A new trend has swept over Garreg Mach in these early autumn days of the Horsebow Moon. Various notes have been springing up around campus. Some claim to be looking for love. Others simply want to yell into the void about a frustrating assignment they’ve been given. And yet others might bemoan the presence of ghosts in the monastery’s halls… The letters are many and varied. The one thing they have in common is the fact they are all anonymous, and there is an implicit understanding that discretion is required to play the game. Will you take up a mystery pen pal?  

The students return to the monastery with some answers, but more questions than ever before. What information you manage to uncover is swiftly censured by the Church as they continue to formulate their response on this matter. For those who live their lives pursuing knowledge, it’s time to bust into the restricted sections of the library and really start looking for the answers you deserve.

NEW! You spot a new, unsigned flyer tacked onto the school bulletin board, “Assistance Needed. Battle prowess required. All interested parties, please meet with me at the back of the marketplace.” You meet with a tall, cloaked figure with dark-lensed spectacles and white hair peeking out of his hood. He can’t introduce himself, but he at least elaborates on his mission. You are to travel to an abandoned quarry in Faerghus and gather a bag’s worth of Nepenthe Ore. Of course, there’s a catch: a large spider-like automaton guards the quarry, frightening away intruders with strange noises and a powerful beam of concentrated magic. No one knows who built it, but regardless you’ll need to figure out a way to get past it.

NEW! A small flight of wild wyverns have roosted in the mountains nearby, resting before their next leg in their journey to their wintering grounds in the east. You could observe them from a safe distance and take notes on wyvern behavior and social interactions... but that’s some nerd shit. You’ve heard stories of knights leaping onto the backs of wild stallions and taming them with sheer grit and determination. Would that philosophy work on a wyvern? It’s on you to find out! [grants Flying +1]

NEW! Each and every class of students has upheld the time-honored tradition of organizing a “House Prank” to pull on their beloved faculty members, and your class will be no different. With the stress and excitement of the upcoming Battle of the Eagle and Lion palpable in the air, it’d be good to get a little harmless mischief in and have some fun. At your professor’s expense, of course.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the divided task board work?

This season’s mission is assigned to the Blue Lions. Therefore, tasks from the ‘BL Mission Task Board’ must be undertaken by someone that is affiliated with the Blue Lions.

Tasks from the ‘Non-Mission Task Board’ have no house restriction and can be undertaken by anyone.

These aren’t the only threads I can do, right?

Of course not! These are just prompts to help give some ideas of possibilities. You’re always free and encouraged to make up your own threads. You’re also more than welcome to worldbuild on your own, using these prompts as a base.

How do I claim the skill points?

In order to qualify for the skill point, the thread must clearly allude to the listed task and preferably feature the task being completed; however, the point can still be claimed even if your muses narratively fail the task (failure is sometimes just as fun to write as success, after all). You do not need to message the masterlist to claim your skill point.

Can I only do one task?

Nope, you can do as many as you’d like with as many different partners as you’d like! You can do the same task with more than one person! However, you can only claim the skill point for each task once.

What if my partner leaves or drops a skill point thread?

If the dropped thread has at least 2 notes (not counting likes, only reblogs with replies in them) and you have hit at least 400 words on your end, you may still claim the skill point.

Remember to use (and track!) the #toa open tag for any open threads, and you can also post a link to your open thread on the appropriate Discord channel! If you have any other questions or concerns, shoot us a message through the masterlist or on Discord!

[johaerys-writes]

Playground Love, Chapter 5: Fireflies and Angel Wings

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: Aran Trevelyan/Tristan Trevelyan

Summary:

Aran and Tristan are childhood friends. Best friends. Brothers, almost. They’ve been inseparable since the moment they met, one rainy autumn day underneath the maple tree in the school playground.

Best friends don’t fall in love with each other. Surely not.

The new chapter of mine and @oftachancer​’s collaborative fic, featuring her OC Aran and my OC Tristan Trevelyan, is up! Where Aran’s first kiss ever isn’t quite what he expected... 

Read more on AO3!

*******

There were floating candles on the surface of the pond, pinpoints of light reflecting the evening sky. Aran sat on the ledge of the gazebo, leaning back against its walls, feet dangling over the mirror-smooth water. Up at the house and through the gardens, music ebbed and flowed. Strings and piano whispering their plaintive melodies as people danced and mingled and chatted, celebrating the day’s achievements at the Grand Tourney and sharing their expectations for the following day. Somewhere in the house, Tristan was being gladhanded by strangers over his showing at the jumping trials that morning. Deservedly. He’d been brilliant, placing first in his bracket and second overall, all strong and prideful. The look in his eyes as he rode…

Aran rubbed the back of his neck as a shiver ran through him despite the warmth of the evening. As though he were capable of anything and so bloody pleased about that fact… It had sent things tightening all through Aran’s core, uncomfortably. Other places, too.

Then again, a breeze could set him off these days, he reminded himself, watching the candles float and bob.

Tristan’s legs, though. The way they flexed as he posted from the saddle. The straight line of his spine. The ferocity of his smile.

“Aran!”

Crap. Shit. Fuck. He tugged his knees up to his chin as Josephine leaned over the low railing from the inside of the gazebo. He flushed at her bright smile, returning it nervously. “Hey, Josie!”

“What a day!” she gasped, settling in on the bench behind him.

“Yeah.” He winced as his voice cracked halfway through the word. He cleared his throat. “Yes. It was.” She wasn’t laughing; she was a good friend. He glanced up to see her offering her cup of punch and smiled gratefully, gulping and passing it back. “Thanks.”

“The candles are pretty,” she said, leaning against the rail to watch them. “Like stars.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” he grinned and listened to her giggle in reply.

“We’re alike, I think. Don’t you?”

He thought about her penchant for ruffles and things that glittered. How they could set each other off laughing with absolutely no reason. The time the summer before when he’d found her crying under the eaves. “Yeah, ish.”

“Would you…” she began, sounding suddenly breathless, “would you want to go out?”

“We are out,” he wrinkled his nose, confused.

“Oh, yes, I suppose we are.” She rested her chin on her hands, “I meant… Would you like to go out, sometime, with me?”

He ran his tongue over his teeth; they still felt too strange, too smooth, without his braces. “I don’t know; it’s supposed to rain the next few days. Where did you want to go?”

“Ottilie said you know your way through the maze.”

He chewed his lip, “Yeah.”

“Maybe you can take me through it?”

Aran nodded. “Sure.”

She flushed, happy in an instant. “Great.” She touched his shoulder. “Let’s go now.”

“ Now- now?” he asked, very aware of the still uncomfortable level of alert inside his hand-me-down slacks. They were far too long for him, benefit of having been Sam’s before they were his. His mother had pinned the legs up and every movement set the safety pins rubbing against his ankles. The waist was too wide, too, held up by suspenders beneath his jacket. Maybe she wouldn’t notice? No, it was Josie. She noticed everything. “It’s… the candles, though.”

“They’ll still be here.”

He hugged his knees, swallowing nervously. “Uh… no, thank you.”

“Please! It’s an adventure! Don’t you like adventures?”

“Sure.”

“So let’s go!”

“To the maze?”

“Yes. I’ve heard it’s a-maze-ing.”

Aran snorted, grinning, and the pun was almost enough to convince him. But the last time he’d been in there only a few days before, he’d become transfixed with Tristan’s back. With his sweat, like wings, dampening his shirt in the summer heat. He bit his tongue hard as his body tightened further. Stop, stop, stop. No, he was not getting up any time soon. “I’d rather just sit here.”

“May I join you then?”

Aran stared at her. “Uh…” But she was already climbing carefully over the railing to sit beside him on the gazebo’s ledge. They were of a height. Too close. He hugged his knees tighter. “Sure,” he answered belatedly. Not much choice now. “How’s the party?”

“Oh, the music is so wonderful!” she enthused. “And there are those little shrimp cakes again this year. Lady Trevelyan really knows how to throw a ball.”

“Aye.” His voice dropped inexplicably into his toes on the syllable. And he saw her lips twitch. “No laughing. Gazebo rules.”

“It’s sweet. You’re growing up.”

“Piss off.”

She smiled, turning to him. “We’re all growing up. It’s good. It’s normal.”

“Right. You get prettier and my throat develops a mind of its own.” His throat and the rest of him as well. It was like trying to govern a sea of cats, just moving through his day.

“You think I’m pretty?” she asked softly.

He frowned. “What? Of course you are.” It was dark, but he was pretty sure her cheeks were darkening. “Not that that’s all that matters,” he added hastily, remembering Winnie’s angst over their father calling her just that word. Demeaning, she’d snarled, fingers snapping. “You’re smart. Really clever. Sorry.”

She leaned towards him and he could smell the soap on her skin and the perfume waves that she’d walked through in the house that had attached themselves to her. Then her lips were on his and Aran froze, blinking. What? Why? Was all he could think for a long series of ineffable seconds. He’d never felt anyone’s lips on his own, except his mother’s and his sisters’, and this… wasn’t that different. Soft and pleasant.

He squinted when she ducked back. Was he supposed to do something? Say something? “Uh… thank you?”

She beamed at him. “I really like you.”

“Good?” He itched the side of his nose. “I like you, too.” Maybe she wanted to be his sister, too. She could have just asked.

“Maybe, if we go to the maze, you can show me how much.”

Did he not already? “Jo-“

Then her lips were on his again and he sat there, hugging his knees, trying to figure out why this was happening. She made a kind of sighing sound and her fingers touched his hair lightly. That was nice. He liked when she played with his hair. And when Tilly did. And Miranda and Winnie. It was soothing. Not like Tristan’s fingers when they barely brushed his ear and sent heat shuttling down his spine. He frowned, and she drew back.

“You’re right,” she breathed. Was he? he wondered. Right about what? “Let me know when you want to go to the maze? I’ll be in the ballroom, okay?” she whispered and then fled up into the gazebo and across the lawn. He watched her go, her skirt flapping in the evening breeze.

What the actual Void?

Read more on AO3!

[officialleehadan]

Stone’s Throw

It was the silence that heralded trouble.

Olivia crept through the house on silent sockfeet. The cool twilight filtering in through the windows let a deceptive peace to the beach house, and the warmth of the sunset was beginning to fade.

And her house was quiet.

Silence was always bad.

The kitchen was half-dark and quiet, which was why Olivia didn’t see the pile of half-eaten formerly-live crabs that littered the floor.

She stepped down, stepped on the horrible slimy remains, and hit the floor with a thunderous crash and a great deal of startled cursing. When she tried to get up, her hand came down on a definitely-still-live crab, which immediately took offense and latched on to two of her fingers.

Olivia, quite reasonably, shrieked, and slung her hand out, launching the crab across the room. wBarely stunned, the crab flipped onto its feet, and raised its claws, ready for the next round.

“Oh you’re a dead water noodle,” she seethed to herself as she extricated herself from the mess of dead crabs, live crabs, and shells on the floor. “Whistle! Where are you, you furry wet tube sock!?We talked about this!”

(But they were so tasty I thought you might want some.)

The voice came from the kiddie pool in the living room. Her impossible familiar must have watched her sneak right past.

“No shells on the floor!”

(But crab is good! And there were so many and you said you like crab so I brought you some.) Whistle poked his head out of his pond, glistening and cute if she didn’t know what a pain in the ass he was. (I thought you would want to share!)

“Not all of them are dead!”

(You said you wanted a whole one!)

“I said I wanted mine cooked, water noodle!”

She made for him and he immediately bolted, leaving a trail of water across her laminate floors as he scampered away, no doubt for the dock and the relative safety of the deeper water.

Olivia gave chase, skidded on the water, slipped, swept everything including her lamp off the table, and kept going.

Whistle stopped long enough to squeak at her from the hall corner, and it was his undoing.

“Gotcha!” She said, as she snatched a beach towel off the back of the couch and pounced on him. “Oh no you don’t. It’s almost bedtime and you are not vanishing on me again!”

(Let me out!) he wailed and thrashed. Although smaller than his seagoing cousins, Whistle was still a fully-grown river otter, and was plenty strong. Olivia held on with grim determination and marched up the stairs, latching the custom otter-proof gate behind her. (I just brought you dinner why are you so mad at me? Meanie! Orca-face!)

The custom otter-proof gate cost a fortune and was one of her most prized possessions. The latch took a key, which hung high up on the wall. So far, Whistle hadn’t figured out how to get around it.

“Stay,” she told him, unmoved by his continued complaints, and dumped him into the bathtub, before turning on the water. Immediately distracted, he darted under the water and began splashing happily. “I’m gonna clean up your-“

Her feet hit one of his toys, a hard round ball with a bell inside, and she crashed to the floor again, this time directly on top of two more of his sharp, multi-pointed toys.

“Sonova-“ she swore and tried to extricate herself from her familiar’s you’d, only to come face to face with the otter himself. “Oh no you don’t! Back into the bath tub!”

(Playtime!) He crowed instead, and kept upon the bell-ball. He missed and rolled away, a tumble of paws and tail. Never one to stay down for long, he bundled himself up again and lunged for the open door. (Crabs!)

“Oh the hell you do!” Olivia snarled and caught him by the tail. “I have to clean up your mess, Water Noodle. You don’t get to make it worse!”

(But I want my crabs!) he protested. Olivia, not moved at all, chucked him into the half-full bath and patched the sliding glass door behind him. (Let me out! Letmeoutletmeoutletmeout!)

Familiars containedc Olivia tossed a couple of his toys into the tub with him in the hopes of keeping him entertained long enough for her to resurrect her poor kitchen.

The last time he brought in live, mobile, seafood, one escaped and hid under the dishwasher, where it died and stank.

She shouldn’t have taken her eyes off her fuzzy menace.

The glass shower door shattered with a phenomenal crash.

Olivia turned slowly, eyes narrowing in absolute fury.

“You did not,” she said, voice trembling in rage. “Just throw your rock at me.”

She knew he had his rock. He always had his rock, tucked safely away in his arm-pouch where it was safe.

She even knew he threw it sometimes when he was mad.

(I want out!) he demanded, completely unrepentant as he floated on his back in the still-filling tub. (And give me back my rock!)

“That’s it,” she hissed, and was pleased to see him cock up in the water, alarm on his furry face. “Because I love you, you get a three second head start.”

He squawked in alarm and dove out of the tub, pausing only to dodge the broken glass and snatch up his rock before he shot of down the hall towards the back door, and freedom.

Olivia took three steadying breaths, promising herself that she wouldn’t actually strangle her beloved familiar, before she gave chase.

+++

Beastly Familiars:

Animals will be animals, no matter how intelligent. Sometimes animals will be… well… Beastly.

Nothing but Trouble

Bad to the Bone

Oil and Water

Master of All

Hunting Practice

Under the Desk, Up on the Bookcase

Mouse Hunters

Hooter

Bandit

In the Walls

+++

More Stories!

+++

Support me on Patreon

[nationalparkposters]

Best Things to Do in Lassen Volcanic National Park

Best Things to Do in Lassen Volcanic National Park: A steaming, hissing, and bubbling landscape, Lassen Volcanic will be unlike any other national park you'll ever visit. A place that will hold fast to your memory banks and won't let go for years to come. When you come here for the first time, get ready to discover a mystical place with a destructive and tormented history. Located in the Cascade Range in northeastern California, for some strange reason, this is one of the lesser-known National Parks in America. This makes it a blessing in disguise for savvy travelers who will experience fewer crowds and untouched beauty. Established in 1916, Lassen Volcanic National Park is home to all four types of volcanoes found on Earth: composite, shield, plug dome, and cinder cone. This vast area typically experiences two seasons – summer and winter. It seems there is little room for the in-between climates of spring and fall. Winter conditions can be expected from November through May, while much warmer conditions exist from June through October. Lassen Peak is considered dormant at present, but the park remains an active volcanic area, with many hydrothermal spots. Scientists are quietly confident that it is not a question if Lassen Peak will erupt again, but when. The last eruption was in 1915. Lassen Volcanic National Park Highway Stop by the Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center and pick up a printed road guide, then hit the open road for a 30-mile wondrous journey around the east side of the park. The road connects the northwest and southwest entrances of the park. Travel in either direction and expect to stop and get out often, as there are numerous roadside highlights offering spectacular views. You can also download a roadside audio tour or purchase the audio CD at park stores, the visitor center, or online. This road passes many of the highlights described below. Sulphur Works As one of the park's main hydrothermic features, it can be described as a bubbling mudpot that is always performing a show. Spewing hot thermal air and gases, do not be deterred by the heady aroma of rotten eggs – that's just part of the sulfur fun. Roadside interpretive plaques explain the history behind the area; the mining operations and hydrothermal history. It is located in the southwest section of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Trek the Numerous Trails You will want to bring a good map of the park with you, as many of the trails overlap and it's easy to get confused as to which trail you're on. One of the more popular hikes is Nobles Emigrant Trail. Part of the California National Historic Trail, it is the site where more than 250,000 emigrants traveled to gold fields and rich farmlands in California back in the mid-1800s. It was the greatest mass migration in American history. And of course, there is the epic climb to Lassen Peak. Visit the Historic Loomis Museum Built in 1927, this museum is housed in a historic structure and is small, but a very interesting way to learn about the history of the park. Benjamin Loomis built it to house his collection of geologic exhibits and park photos. Ranger-led programs are often held in the plaza outside, and the Lily Pond Interpretive Trail is just across the road. Note: the museum is only open in the summer. Lake Helen This high-elevation lake with its strikingly blue water is the perfect place for honing your photographer's skills. Stunning views of Lassen Peak in the background make for an amazing setting for the ultimate shot, especially during magic hour (right around dusk, when the light hits the mountain just right). Be prepared for colder weather much of the year – in fact, ice could remain on the lake into early summer! Lake Helen was named after Helen Tanner Brodt, the first woman to climb Lassen Peak back in 1864. It is situated 8,200 feet above sea level, and the drive up is phenomenal. Manzanita Lake Located in the northwest section of the park, Manzanita Lake is a popular destination for camping, fishing, kayaking and in the winter, cross country skiing and show shoeing. Warmer temperatures invite the visitor to swim in the shadow of a spectacular, and as of now, quiet volcano. This area makes a great home base for exploring Lassen Volcanic National Park, with a large campground and modern facilities and cabins. Hike the 1.5-mile trail around the lake for the most amazing views. Other wintertime activities involving sledding the small hills on the lake's northern shore and in the Chaos Jumbles Area. Destruction Area When Lassen Peak last erupted in 1915, gigantic rocks rained down from the sky, hot gases and spewing ash decimated the surrounding forests, and a massive violent mudflow was unleashed that flooded the river valley. Many of the rocks in the area were literally tossed of the volcano and flung here from the blast of the eruption. Walk the Interpretive Trail and get a sense of what happened a little over 100 years ago. It is the best way to truly appreciate the significance of this National Park. It is an easy ½ mile long path and is accessible to strollers and wheelchairs. Bumpass Hell Despite the name, this attraction is actually a lot of fun to explore. It is the largest area of hydrothermal features in the park. Here you can walk among the bubbling, thumping hissing symphony of sights and sounds that show off the amazing features of this volcanic valley. The Bumpass Hell Trail is 3 miles roundtrip, with about 300 feet of elevation gain. Just be sure to stay on the boardwalk for safety reasons – venturing off of the trail is extremely dangerous. This area does see a lot of snowfall each year, and because of this, the trail does not typically open until July. Kings Creek Falls With the areas of destruction come the immense beauty of a roaring waterfall and peaceful meadows. The Kings Creek Falls Trail is 2.3 miles roundtrip with about 500 feet of elevation gain. Once you reach the falls, you will see a spectacular water drop of 70 feet on a sturdy overlook perched on a cliff. There are two ways to reach the falls, but by far the better of the two is the Upper Cascades Trail. The Cascades Foot Section is a good way to make your return journey from the falls, with recently-built rock steps that offer gorgeous views. Click here to see the Lassen Volcanic National Park poster. Rob Decker is a photographer and graphic artist who had the rare privilege of studying under Ansel Adams in Yosemite National Park when he was just 19 years old. Now, Rob is on a journey to explore and photograph all 61 of America's National Parks. He's creating WPA-style posters to help people celebrate their own national park adventures — as well as encourage others to get out and explore! Join the growing community of 75k+ National Park enthusiasts to receive insider deals and updates. See why 75k+ National Park fans have already joined... https://national-park-posters.com/blogs/national-park-posters/best-things-to-do-in-lassen-volcanic-national-park?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=Sendible&utm_campaign=RSS

[dead-dialogs]

Adventures in Roasting Dead People, ep. 1

I was watching Godless on Netflix with a friend of mine the other night (great miniseries, go watch it, it has lesbians), and without getting spoilery, there’s several characters who work for a mining company back east who I would very much like to be dead (spoilers, they do not, much to my disgust). They’re vile, awful people, and not just in a mustache-twirly “hu hu hu, i’m the antagonist of this program!” way. My friend said at one point, “man you really have a retroactive bone to pick with mining companies,” and after contemplating it for a full day, I do really have a retroactive bone to pick with mining companies. So strap in folks, it’s about to get salty as hell in here.

Under the cut because it got long: 

First, a little background - mining has been A Thing in the Americas for millenia, dating all the way back to the Archaic period. The oldest known mining site in the Americas dates back at least 10,000 years, and we’ve (by which I mean archaeologists and not actually myself directly) been finding copper bells all over Central America and the American Southwest dating back to somewhere in the range of 900 AD. But it’s not really until the Spanish show up that we begin to see the “furious scramble to rip everything possible out of the bosom of the earth” type of mining that I think most of us are familiar with. Spanish mines were run largely on slave labor - first the indigenous peoples, who died in massive numbers between the forced labor and the Columbian Exchange diseases, and then imported Africans (although by this point most of the slave labor force had been diverted to cash crops rather than mining). Jamestown was founded for the purpose of mining for English interests, which is part of the reason almost everyone starved on multiple occasions.

In 1829, we get our first truly American gold rush, in which white people flagrantly disregard the fact that the Cherokee were definitely here (meaning North Carolina and Georgia) first, followed by the 1849 California Gold Rush that everyone knows, the 1859 Rocky Mountain Gold Rush, the Black Hills Gold Rush in 1874, and the Klondike Gold Rush in 1899. These are where we get that Stinky Pete caricature of the prospector - grizzled, gray bearded, rocking the suspenders and the beat-to-shit felt hat - although that’s also wrong, if we’re talking about the average characteristics of prospectors. People of all ages, including women and other minorities, came in droves for a chance at placer or surface gold.

And then the mining companies show up.

(Stinky Pete, for anyone who hasn’t seen Toy Story 2)

Now, to be fair, mining companies do have a pretty fair reason for existing. Most gold (and silver, and copper, and coal and uranium and and and) needs lots of startup cash to get at - with surface gold (and maybe silver?? idk I’m not a fucking geologist don’t @ me), all you really need is a big ass pie tin and the patience to stand in a cold creek all day swirling dirt around. Maybe a pickaxe and/or shovel, if you’re real ambitious about it. Once the surface stuff is played out, however, you need lots of labor and equipment to dig down far enough to start mining veins. And with things that aren’t as sexy as gold and silver, like coal for example, no one wants to be mining that shit alone in their backyard unless they’re some kind of like, goddamn sociopath or whatever.

However. Mining companies are still the fucking scum of the earth, if for no other reasons than those that make all groups of more than four people (men) motivated by Having Shit just absolutely fucking awful. Oh, Mining Industry, how do I loathe thee, let me count the ways:

#1 - They exploit the shit out of previous inhabitants.

Now, do not get the wrong idea, the humble, individualistic prospectors of the gold rush days do not come out of this unroasted - the Georgia Gold Rush was a direct motivation for the Trail of Tears, the reason why we only have one tiny corner of a reservation in Colorado is because the territory was the epicenter of a major mineral boom, the Black Hills Indian wars were a direct result of prospectors breaking multiple treaties to mine an area sacred to multiple tribes, and I’m sure we did something fucking horrible to the indigenous peoples of Alaska during that gold rush, too. But in general, mining companies spelled disaster for Native Americans more than individual miners did, because mining companies have lobbyists who can “encourage” Congressmen to “protect” “business” “interests” by “reigning in” the US Army’s approach to land treaties in the west. (Which is itself a very fascinating story that I will definitely have to tell later because woof did we fuck that up real bad.)

But if that’s not enough for you to find deeply upsetting (congratulations you’ve got some racist ideology happening and you should get that checked out), mining companies were also awful to white people too!! (And also black people like whoa, but like, there’s a solid 40 years in there where slavery’s still legal, I think everyone pretty much called that.) Mining companies were notorious for illegal land grab tactics (usually aided and abetted by government agents in charge of land distribution and incorporation), and also for obtaining already claimed land by any means necessary. If that meant paying you to leave, cool. If that meant burning down your house, also fine. If that meant shooting an assortment of people living on said property, that’s just business. We call this shit the Wild West for a reason, and it’s not just because of cattle rustlers. This shit lasts more or less up to the 1890s, specifically 1893 when the US Census Bureau and a guy named Frederick Jackson Turner declare that the frontier is closed. (I don’t know why, like 50% of Nebraska still doesn’t qualify as “populated”.) However, what does not end in the 1890s is how absolutely shitty mining companies are to the people who work for them.

#2 - They exploit the shit out of their workers.

I know, I know, capitalism is deeply broken, #staywoke, etc. etc., this isn’t news. But almost literally nowhere else is that more evident than extractive industries, and mining in particular. Even if you jump the pond back to England where the concept of industrial coal mining really got its start, mistreatment of workers (particularly children, see image below) was shockingly bad.

In the US, mining companies primarily targeted immigrants fresh off the boat from places like Ireland, Greece, Italy, and eastern Europe, and then once slavery had been (nominally) dealt with, they started going after newly freed slaves. What do these groups have in common? Extremely limited resources, lack of concrete physical ties (often their possessions could fit in a few suitcases, and very rarely did they have extended families present to share the burdens of living expenses, childcare, etc.), and very low levels of social respect. Listen, guys, WASPs have been shitty to immigrants since we were immigrants - if I had to write an essay that started “What I learned in History School is,” that’s probably the one constant I’d put down. And in the wake of the Civil War, sure slavery wasn’t legally a thing anymore, but people still really really wanted it to be a thing. (And don’t even get me started on the whole pre-war “We’re not racist, we want to enslave poor white people too” argument, like jesus.)

So mining companies in particular figured out a way to do this that was completely legal. Recruiters would sell you what seemed like a great gig - paying work, no experience required, a house provided for your family, a well-stocked general store for all your physical needs. We’ll even pay for your travel expenses! What they don’t tell you up front is that they’re going to pay you in what are essentially Chuck E. Cheese tokens called scrip, redeemable only from that well-stocked general store, which is selling goods for up to 5x what the rest of the country is paying for them. Some companies would allow you to exchange their gross Monopoly money shit for actual US dollars, but they’d tack on a nice little “exchange fee” which, like, they’re already paying you next to nothing, so it’s not like you can actually save anything to leave.

Another trick that mining companies (and also railroads, which kind of go hand-in-hand for most of the 19th century) used to cut labor costs was to rent convicts from jails. So like, basically slavery? But legal slavery. Because of course no one actually wanted the 13th Amendment or anything. Jesus.

This is all awful, you’re thinking, why would people just let this happen? As far as I know, the earliest mining strike in the US is in 1865, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, as a result of the mining company cutting wages after the Civil War (literally the earliest they could get away with it, since the Union Army needed iron for the war). The US Army sent the USS Michigan up from Chicago twice to put down the strike at the request of the company. For the most part, mining strikes arise from pay disputes and/or crazy hours, with union recognition coming in a close second. As we get into the last half of the 20th century, strikes about health and safety concerns start to come up, but honestly the Industrial Age is a hellspace of work-related terrors, so I guess that didn’t really ping anyone’s radar before then? Who knows.

#3 - They exploit the shit out of the environment.

Though there are some small-scale environmental consequences of non-mechanized mining, the advent of the mining companies in the west was the beginning of a number of very serious environmental disasters throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th century. In particular, mining for precious metals is a goddamn nightmare, for a couple reasons:

There’s a reason they’re called precious metals -- there’s not huge quantities hanging out in one spot very often. Therefore, it takes significantly more invasive procedures to get the same volume as other mining products.

Separating ore requires a lot of work: pulverizing ore, smelting (which requires a large and steady feed of fuel to keep temperatures high enough to reliably melt out metals from ore), and in the late 19th century, industrial chemists discovered that mercury and cyanide did a much better job getting gold out of ore than fire did. (Side note: if you have a 19th century/Victorian au for any piece of media involving hackers, they’re hereby required to be industrial chemists. Those people were borderline supervillains.) In addition, arsenic and sulfuric acid are really common products of the ore smelting process, so all of those highly toxic substances just get, like, dumped into the environment.

So right away, you have some cool deforestation, massive erosion, and pollution of the local water system, which is 100% guaranteed to fuck up the ecosystem. Fish die, vegetation dies, catastrophic erosion causes huge damage to the landscape, which is great. The practices that cause those things also have a tendency to cause more explosive disasters like:

Fires - Coal mines in particular have a habit of exploding with very little warning, but any mine can hit a coal vein or a natural gas pocket and become a fire hazard. Even after “safety” lamps (which still contain open flames, so like), faulty lighting and sparks from tools and machines could send a mine up in flames within the space of a minute. In precious metal mines, the use of high explosives like nitroglycerin and dynamite was much more common, making fires a much greater danger.

Collapses - Collapses are another danger of mining that uses high explosives, but they’re certainly not limited to fire-based catastrophes. Mines are highly prone to filling with water (they’re basically just very large wells if you don’t pump them out frequently), and water has a tendency to cause erosion and make wooden support beams rot very quickly, making the danger of thousands of pounds of rock and dirt falling down on top of you highly likely in mines that didn’t observe strict safety standards.

Gas leaks - As I mentioned above, pockets of natural gas were a common danger in mines, and not just for their potentially explosive properties. If you’ve ever heard the phrase “canary in the coal mine,” this is where it comes from - miners would carry canaries (or occasionally other warm-blooded animals) down into the mines to signal potentially deadly levels of toxic gases, particularly carbon monoxide from burning lanterns and other equipment in confined spaces. If the canary stopped singing (because of illness or, more frequently, death), that was time to get the fuck up to the surface.

When a mine was played out, most of the time it was cheaper to just buy new equipment for the next mine than to bother with dismantling and hauling the equipment out of whatever (usually mountainous) place it was in. In many places (particularly in the Rockies), this concept filtered down to the individual miners - you can still find ghost towns full of furniture, dishes, etc. that people just left rather than go to the expense of packing everything up and trying to get it down out of there again. So mines would just be left as-is - they’d fill up with water, equipment would be left to rust, tailings piles (the waste products from ore processing, which are these super unattractive piles of sludge) continued leech arsenic, sulfuric acid, cyanide, and mercury into the water table every time it rained. 

(Tailings piles from a mine in Silver City NM)

Abandoned mines continue to be an environmental hazard - PSA: Be extremely careful around abandoned mines, and if they haven’t been blocked off/otherwise flagged by the Forest Service, Parks Service (national or state), BLM, or assorted law enforcement agencies, please report them to the relevant authorities.

So that’s just an overview of the many reasons that mining companies fucking suck - individual mines had their own varied levels of grossness, but as a whole, mining companies are vile and everyone associated with them in fiction should have horrible things befall them. If you’re interested in more information about the history of mining and mining companies, I might post my bibliography for this in a separate post.

If you found this informative, entertaining, or weird enough that you want to see more, drop me a line at dead-dialogs.tumblr.com or at macy.franken@gmail.com with your history questions, and consider kicking a few bucks into my KoFi.

[heartwoodtree01]

What You Need To Know About Pruning Bonsai Trees

Tips on Exactly How to Build a Tree House

There are pieces of equipment that can be considered important, when you are thinking about professional tree surgical treatment. The tree surgeon need to have accessibility to a stump grinder for stump removal, a skid loader or 4x4 tractor for clearing as well as moving particles, a log truck with cable for relocating large logs, as well as cranes or container vehicles for lifting and also reaching limbs that are hanging over houses. Without proper equipment, it can be difficult to complete particular elements of this kind of procedure, relying on the scenarios. There are some people that will certainly have discerning tree removal and others might make use of professional tree removal to change untaught land right into a beautiful, natural building site.

In the 19th century, pine tree farmers noticed that the sap from evergreen could be collected and condensed with several bi-products that could be similarly marketed, making the "tree sap boom" so successful. http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&contentCollection&region=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage#/tree trimming Material oil might be considered coughing, and also scratchy throat, and also some soaps, as well as glues were additionally refined, with turpentine as the key bi-product. Evergreen additionally started to be collected around this time on a commercial level ravaging forests to make paper, and build houses.

A Great Tree House Experience

The chinese elm tree, ulmus parvifolia, is understood for its fast growth to provide fast color. The chinese elm is among the easiest shade trees to transplant and can grow over 6 feet in one year if cared for properly. The american hophornbeam, carpinus caroliniana, is an under-planted color tree that, throughout the fall leaf change, glows brightly in yellow-gold shades. The hairless cypress tree, taxodium distichum, is an exceptional clean color tree commonly adjusted to grow well on a range of soil types. The hairless cypress leaves do transform yellow briefly in the fall, however the bald cypress small leaf size requires no raking. The fish pond cypress shade tree, taxodium ascendens, is a great tree to grow around pond-houses as well as wetland yards, but need to not generally be grown in well drained locations. The fish pond cypress roots increase from the water, swollen and large and are called cypress knees.

Ask how many employees a tree company has. Because tree work is very dangerous, and also takes special ability, it is vital that the right people are there to do the job right. Who desires an amateur or inexperienced worker taking down a huge oak tree over their house? not me! a good and credible tree company need to contend least a couple of top climbers with over 2 years experience in large removals. A company like jl tree service inc has over 18 top tree mountain climbers with many years of experience in large eliminations and crane removals, 3 certified arborists & 1 certified safety pro on staff - this is what you wish to search for.

If you are not experienced with tree climbing spikes, after that you certainly should opt for long spikes. They will help you in climbing trees in the thickest range. Tree climbing spikes comes in different varieties and also designs to cater for a man or women's selection. It is vital to get safe climbing spikes which make the task of climbing a tree less of a difficulty. There are many great things about climbing spikes. You need to analyze the requirements you have as well as require time web the best kind gotten in touch with tree climbing spikes to your needs.

Reasons to Get a Cat Tree House

One of the most important reasons why you need a tree service is since it promotes safety. Some trees have a tendency to grow as high as your house as well as a few of the branches end up being vulnerable and can trigger crashes. They can also damage some of your residential or commercial properties in case a tropical cyclone or hurricane hits your town. Having a tree service lessens the risk of having any accident. Service providers likewise make sure that your trees are safe to technique or are planned for any kind of natural calamity by ensuring that they do regular branch eliminations, tree-trimming or perhaps safeguarding the trees themselves.

There are a lot more reasons behind hiring a tree service supplier, yet the ones discussed above are the most important and also ones. A healthy tree uplifts the beauty of a house, yet when it is out of shape or diseased, it presents potential danger. Hiring a reputable tree company in your neighborhood is the only method to insure that your home stays beautiful as well as free from risks connected to trees.

An additional important point to seek in a certified tree care company is that the company is fully insured with workers settlement and also obligation insurance. The tree company need to have a minimum of 1,000,000 each incident and 2,000,000 general accumulation for general obligation, and 500,000 for workers settlement. It is not wise for a resident to hire a tree service that is not insured for lots of reasons, the most important is - do you value your house, cars and truck, as well as belongings? if so, after that make sure to hire a company that is fully insured!.

Cat Tree House - What is Available For Your Kitty Cat?

Beyond of our arena we have all the brand-new fake trees. Well they are really not that brand-new. Actually in 1901, theodore roosevelt tried to stop utilizing live trees and find alternatives for the white house. There are all sort of options to choose from today. Most typically plastics are made use of but you can additionally find trees made from paper, wood, and also metal. There are even some glass ones available. An advantage of these trees is that unless you break them they can be made use of year after year and also can still be enhanced up. It is additionally more difficult for these trees to capture on fire. In addition to this; they will not bungle your house by shedding pine needles everywhere. There are some drawbacks of having a fake tree. One was pointed out already; they can break or discolor in color gradually. When they do break or break an additional also worse problem is produced. These made to help save the setting by not cutting down trees items wind up in the very place we are trying to fill up much less. The land fill; as well as unlike their live counterparts these trees do not bio weaken extremely well. Besides that though a fake tree can be a great setting savor and a true blessing to your pocket book as a result of it's life span compared to a real tree.

It is that time of year when several households will certainly be preparing to install their xmases trees. Everything begins either by obtaining your tree out of the attic room or storage place, or going and also picking out the perfect tree from a tree farm or local store. No matter which method you start with, if you have a cat or two in the house you need to consider a couple of potential dangers when preparing this annual routine.

As soon as you have your tree up and decorated it is now the moment to become imaginative in maintaining your kitty far from the tree to maintain your decorations safe from its curiosity. There are a couple of things that you can try to keep your cat far from the tree. You can place foil or more sided tape around the tree, they do not such as the feeling of it and will often times stay away. Another strategy to try is to place citrus skins or fresheners around the tree; pet cats do not such as the odor of citrus and also will stay away. You can additionally spray your cat with water each time it tries to obtain near to the tree and it will certainly quickly keep away. I have actually found that using the canteen to be one of the most effective and simplest for me to do. Attempt every one and also find one that will help you and also your cat.

Dog Houses - There Are Options to Go With Tree Houses

Pine trees are likewise useful shade trees for houses as well as landscape yards. Such perennial shrubs as camellia japonica and azalea shrubs must have year round shade for proper flowering. The camellia shrub and the azalea plant will certainly endure just on unusual events if planted in the full sun. The dogwood as well as redbud trees benefit from evergreen color where they flower generously. The cherry laurel tree, laurocerasus caroliniana ait, is an evergreen shade tree that is covered with great smelling white flower clusters in march. The cherry laurel tree is a rapid growing tree, in some cases growing 6 feet each year. Eucalyptus trees, eucalyptus cinerea, are evergreen shade trees, but the 'silver buck' eucalyptus tree typically is limited to planting in the cozy temperatures of areas 8-11. The exceptional menthol scent of all parts of the eucalyptus tree makes it especially preferable where smog and various other air contamination is problematic. The loblolly bay tree, gordonia lasianthus, is commonly called the loblolly bay magnolia tree, and also the flower fragrance, white shade, and form resemble a small flower bloom of the magnolia.

[gracieminabox]

@nerdqueenenterprise​ did her “50 headcanons” for Chris and Phil and, well, I got inspired to do mine, too.

(Why yes, I should be doing homework right now; why do you ask?)

Cut because looooong.

What does their bedroom look like? Phil owns his own house, an unassuming bungalow just outside the BOQ complex, where Chris’ last apartment is. After the Narada, when Chris can no longer manage the seven-floor walkup, he moves in with Phil. (Years later, they think about buying their own house together; surprisingly, it’s Chris who’s too attached to the bungalow to want to leave it.) Their bedroom is on the far west side of the house. It’s larger than the guest room, but still not ridiculously big, and has hardwood floors with several plush Bajoran rugs (Phil got most of them as gifts from the traditional midwives with whom he apprenticed while completing his fellowship). Their bed is enormous, with a wrought-iron, slatted headboard, matching end tables, and two large wardrobes. Chris sleeps closer to the door to the room, Phil to his left; there’s a decent-sized window to Phil’s left. There’s an en suite bathroom there, too, with pale green tile and lots of brushed steel furnishings. 

Do they have any daily rituals? As long as they’re together, kissing one another awake. Phil makes breakfast while Chris reads the news. They take turns in the shower (except when they don’t have to go into the office, when they can get aware with sharing the space, if you know what I mean). Whenever they can - they try to make it a daily thing, but can’t always - one will bring the other coffee mid-morning and/or they’ll have lunch together. At night, they go to bed at the same time, and sex or not, they always kiss goodnight.

Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do? How often? Phil’s exercise regimen is focused largely on flexibility. He does tons of yoga and alien variants thereof, and he swims and weight trains.  Chris’ exercise regimen is fast and furious. He runs, he weight trains, he swims, he rides horses, he surfs, he does it all. After the Narada, obviously, his exercise routine must change considerably; swimming becomes his primary form of exercise, and he lets Phil teach him some yoga, too.

What would they do if they needed to make dinner but the kitchen was busy? Chris is not allowed within two meters of the kitchen under any circumstances. It’s a public safety matter, really. He can go near the replicator and the coffee maker, and that’s it. So the kitchen will never be busy, because it’ll be Phil in there, virtually always.

Cleanliness habits (personal, workspace, etc.) Chris is meticulous about hygiene, but in terms of his living environment, he’s not particularly neat. Phil is neater than he is, but he’s not a nag about it. Chris is in charge of laundry, doing dishes, and when they get a dog, feeding her; Phil’s in charge of cooking, vacuuming, and cleaning the bathroom. (Sample conversation: “Will you ever aim your scrub top into the hamper properly, Dr. Boyce?”/“D’you really want to talk about aim while I’m cleaning the bathroom, Admiral Pike?”)

Eating habits and sample daily menu They’re both pretty healthy eaters. Chris is more prone to forgetting to eat if he’s working his ass off on some kind of project. At breakfast, they both drink coffee, Chris with an obscene amount of sugar in it, Phil with milk. When they don’t have a lot of time, they usually eat cereal, yogurt, or a piece of fruit; when there’s more time to play with, Phil makes bacon and eggs. (Phil’s a vegetarian, but makes an exception for bacon, because bacon is Chris’ favorite food.) On special mornings, maybe pancakes or French toast. Lunch is, all too often, whatever they can grab - a sandwich in the Academy cafeteria, leftovers from last night’s dinner, that little baggie of pretzels hidden in the bottom desk drawer. They both try to remember to pack something a little more filling, but whether or not they actually do is anybody’s guess. For dinner, either Phil cooks - usually something simple, like pasta primavera or loaded baked potatoes - or they get takeout. There’s a pizza place on the Academy grounds that delivers until 0300. Phil developed a taste for Andorian fusion food when he was doing his fellowship and turns Chris on to it too. On special nights, they go out to dinner.

Favorite way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time Chris has a tendency to feel guilty about not working, but Phil, who knows Chris’ workaholic tendencies well, reminds him that he’s a workaholic who has earned a break, and that the time he enjoys wasting is not wasted time. Chris swims, plays guitar, watches TV, and sometimes just sits there talking and laughing with Phil. Phil wastes time by trying new recipes that he’s not so sure about.

Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging Phil’s favorite indulgence is sweets. He has a sweet tooth, even though he tries not to indulge it very often. He always does when they go out to dinner, though; the little place up the road makes a sinful tres leches cake. Chris’ is also food based, but he favors a good steak. There is nothing better than a perfectly medium rare piece of synthetically-grown beef.

Makeup? Neither of them wear makeup, unless they’re covering up bite marks and hickeys left by the other.

Neuroses? Do they recognize them as such? Chris definitely has a higher neurotic component than Phil does, although even Chris’ is pretty chill. He’s just more prone to anxiety, especially when he’s young. He’s better at recognizing it now than he used to be.

Intellectual pursuits? They’re many and varied. Phil loves his chosen fields, but he likes to dip into areas outside his typical daily practice; that’s why he knew who Leonard McCoy was when Chris first recruited him, from browsing neuro journals. Chris has always been interested in humanitarian aid and how to most effectively mobilize for its delivery; he became much more so after Tarsus.

Favorite book genre? Phil will read whatever, as long as the characters draw him in. He loves medical mysteries, for obvious reasons. Chris loves psychological thrillers and dystopian novels, and if you mention his small collection of romance novels, he will deny it to his dying day.

Sexual orientation? And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general? Phil is bi. He knew he was in first grade, when he got a crush on a boy in his class, and told his mom. She just smiled and ruffled his hair and said they’d talk about that in a couple of years. Chris thought he was a garden-variety heterosexual until his early forties, after Divorce #2, when he realized he had feelings for Phil. It took him a few uncomfortable years to adjust to the idea of (a) being attracted to his best friend and (b) being attracted to a man at all. He rarely slaps a label on it, but he’s bi. They are both aggressively “live and let live” regarding who’s sexual with whom and to what degree.

Physical abnormalities? (Both visible and not, including injuries/disabilities, long-term illnesses, food-intolerances, etc.) Chris’ mobility issues are the most obvious item. When he’s having a particularly bad pain day, he uses a wheelchair; on “average” days, he uses his cane. Every once in a while, he has a particularly good day and can manage without his cane, though this is fairly uncommon. His kidneys are still a little fragile as a result of the rhabdomyolysis he experienced while recovering from the Narada experience, and within a few years he has to take a daily medication to maintain optimal kidney function. He’s got several food allergies, notably to fruits; among the known ones are cantaloupe, cranberry, and mango. Phil doesn’t have much in the way of any of these things. He maintains exceptional health his entire life. He does have a mild allergy to an enzyme used in some dessicated Vulcan foods, including protein nibs, but the worst he gets if he eats them is hives.

Biggest and smallest short term goal? (This is a tough one to answer for a couple who’s been together for-fucking-ever.)

Biggest and smallest long term goal? Grow old together.

Preferred mode of dress and rituals surrounding dress Uniforms for work, obviously. Phil favors wearing a lab coat at the hospital, but never bothered when he was shipboard. Chris has a small pocket sewn into the inside of his command tunic into which he slipped his favorite picture of him with Phil. They both keep civilian suits, which they often wear to fancy dinners (and to their own wedding) and a fair selection of casual and athletic attire.

Favorite beverage? Phil’s favorite alcoholic beverage: martini, very dry. Phil’s favorite non-alcoholic beverage: hot orange spice tea. Chris’ favorite alcoholic beverage: whisky. Chris’ favorite non-alcoholic beverage: water.

What do they think about before falling asleep at night? Mostly about their plans for tomorrow, always with at least a little spared thought for each other. (Sometimes a lot of spared thought for each other, let’s be real.)

Childhood illnesses? Any interesting stories behind them? Chris is fairly prone to colds and flus. When he was very young, about two or three, he got strep throat and spiked a fever so high that his mother panicked and rushed him to the emergency room, thinking he must’ve had Tarkalean flu, even though there was no reasonable way he could’ve contracted it. (The incident was one of his father’s major clues that his mother’s medication wasn’t working well anymore.) Phil is, again, exceptionally healthy. He did break his clavicle falling off his bike when he was first learning to ride. When he was eleven, he fell through the ice on the makeshift ice rink on the pond in the backyard; his eldest brother, Charlie, pulled him out of the freezing water and got him inside and warmed up before any harm could befall him.

Turn-ons? Turn-offs? Too many to give a comprehensive list, buuut... Phil’s turn-ons include the way Chris smells after he’s just taken a shower or after he’s just worked out (yes, the smells are different, shut up), the way Chris’ hair gets so much curlier when it’s wet or when it’s humid outside, and the sound of Chris’ voice. Chris’ turn-ons include Phil’s many kinds of smiles (soft, sly, sexy, giddy, pensive, open, loving), how Phil’s hair flops down over his eyes no matter what he does to stop it, and literally everything about Phil’s hands. Their mutual turn-offs, in general, are arrogance, xenophobia (or any other bullshit marginalizing viewpoint), and willful ignorance.

Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil and nothing to do, what would happen? Chris would probably doodle starships. Phil would probably doodle nonsensical shapes and start shading them differently.

How organized are they? How does this organization/disorganization manifest in their everyday life? Chris is very organized at the office and not even a little bit organized at home. His home office is, as he calls it, “an organized pigsty.” Phil is not allowed to move things in the office. Phil does, however, have permission to, for example, clear Chris’ crap off the kitchen table before they eat, or pick up Chris’ dirty socks, or put the cap back on Chris’ toothpaste. Phil is considerably neater than Chris is at home, but at work, he’d forget his own name if he weren’t wearing it around his neck. His assistant at Medical, Martha, is the one with a memory like a steel trap; she’s a fixer of things and Phil’s right hand.

Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all? They’re both brilliant, and were brilliant students. Everything came naturally to Phil (he was one of those students who did well without having to study), but his favorite subjects were biology and English. Chris’ best subjects were physics and analytical geometry, but his favorites were the social sciences.

How do they see themselves 5 years from today? Safe and happy, on Earth, in their little bungalow, with a garden and a dog and an in-ground pool in the backyard where Chris can do his exercises and a greenhouse where Phil can grow orchids and Jim and Len come over for dinner three times a week.

Do they have any plans for the future? Any contingency plans if things don’t work out? Phil asks Chris this, after Jim’s back and Chris is recovering from the Daystrom attack. He asks Chris what he wants. Chris thinks about it, and ultimately decides that what he wants most is to grow old with Phil. He has to make peace with the fact that he can’t go into space again, not in his physical condition; and that, plus the fact that his Starfleet career’s put his life in danger on a regular basis lately, means that Starfleet’s lost a lot of its allure for him. Maybe he’ll semi-retire. Maybe he’ll totally retire. Maybe he’ll just teach. Who knows? His priorities have changed, though, and what he really wants now is to be a good partner to Phil. Phil liked space travel just fine, but it wasn’t a driving force for him like it was for Chris, so he can happily do without it. He wants to continue to be useful to as many people as he can, and he can do that for as many species as possible while with Starfleet, so his plans are to stay dirtside at Medical and keep helping people until he can’t anymore. (And, of course, to grow old with Chris.)

What is their biggest regret? Chris’ is waiting so long to figure out his feelings for Phil and depriving them of all that time they could’ve been a couple. Phil tells him time and time again not to let that bother him - after all, they’re together now, and that’s what matters - but it still nags at Chris. Phil doesn’t believe in regrets.

Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy?  They are each other’s best friend and have been forever. Other than each other, Phil would say his best friend is his elder sister Sarah. Chris’ is his high school best friend Erin. Both would also consider Number One an extremely close friend. Worst enemy? Nero and Khan both duke it out for the top spot.

Reaction to sudden extrapersonal disaster (eg The house is on fire! What do they do?) They both manage crisis for a living. They figure out what has to be done and they do it. They feel emotions about the crisis, but they shelve them until what has to be done gets done. They wait until they’re in a private space before they let their emotions show.

Reaction to sudden intrapersonal disaster (eg close family member suddenly dies) Chris’ immediate reaction is to fall back on practicality. He needs something to do. It’ll be days of relative catatonia before he actually feels the emotions full-force. Phil’s immediate reaction is shock, followed by tears.

Most prized possession? Chris’ is Vince’s class ring. He didn’t find out what had happened to his grandfather’s Starfleet class ring until after his grandmother had died, when he went back to the Mojave ranch house for the first time in decades and started sifting through what was there. It was in an envelope, in a closet, with Chris’ name on it in Vince’s handwriting. Chris put it on and then never took it off. Phil doesn’t have a prized possession until he and Chris get married. Then it’s his wedding ring.

Thoughts on material possessions in general? They like things, but they can also do without things. Does that make sense? Like, they’re certainly not materialistic, but they also aren’t entirely immaterialistic. They value what possessions they have, and when trying to get something new, always want something high in quality, no matter what it is.

Concept of home and family? Chris has a dysfunctional family history and an insecure attachment style. Phil came from a loving, close-knit family and feels secure in his attachment. Polar opposites. Phil has to kind of lead by example, to demonstrate to Chris what a positive home and family are supposed to look like, which means Phil is an instrumental part of Chris’ concept of home.

Thoughts on privacy? (Are they a private person, or are they prone to TMI?) Chris is more prone to what one might actually call TMI. Phil is more prone to, shall we say, socially inappropriate conversations - but without knowing it. (Discussing birthing positions in graphic detail with a riveted expectant parent while others look on in horror and Chris just winces and sips his drink.) When it really matters, though, they’re both private people. (Oh, that reminds me - Chris has instituted a list of “banned” words for when Phil is discussing his work. Membrane, for example. Placenta. Sac.)

What activities do they enjoy, but consider a waste of time? They reach a certain point in life where they don’t consider anything a waste of time, because they’re just trying to soak up their time together.

What makes them feel guilty? For Chris, it’s reflecting on how much pain he put Phil through over years of not knowing - or maybe of stopping himself from consciously knowing - how Phil felt about him. Phil refuses to participate in Chris Pike’s Self-Flagellation Hour and just gently tells him to put away the guilt. Phil’s guilt is rooted in every person he’s not been able to save.

Are they more analytical or more emotional in their decision-making? Chris is almost wholly analytical in making command decisions and almost wholly emotional in making personal decisions. Phil has more balance in both professional and personal situations, incorporating not only the clinical details but also his patient’s illness narrative, their values, their social support, economics, geography, etc. into his clinical decisions.

Would they consider themselves a Type A or Type B personality? Neither of them are entirely either one, but Chris leans more Type A and Phil more Type B. Chris is much more take charge, go-go-go, all go no quit never give up never surrender. Phil can absolutely be that way in a crisis, but his default is calmer, more relaxed.

What recharges them when they’re feeling drained? For Chris, it’s exercise. For Phil, it’s sleep, or cooking. For both of them, it’s sex.

Would you say that they have a superiority complex? Inferiority complex? Neither? Neither. Phil has a very realistic picture of himself. It could be argued that Chris has a mild inferiority complex, especially early in his life, but it’s more that he’s incredibly insecure, even if he pretends to be profoundly confident.

How misanthropic are they? Chris can be sometimes, when life just gets to be too much to handle. Phil virtually never is.

Hobbies? Chris plays guitar, swims, reads, and looks at the stars. (Yeah, yeah, he looks at the stars for work, too; whatever.) Phil cooks, reads, does yoga, and collects antique medical journals.

How far did they get in formal education? What are their views on formal education vs self education? Chris graduated high school a year early to join Starfleet. He has an undergraduate degree in xenosociology, with concentrations in diplomatic relations and humanitarianism, and a Ph.D. in military strategy and tactics. Phil has two undergraduate degrees - a BS in biology and a BA in psychology - a masters of public health with a concentration in multispecies health education, and an MD. He holds three board certifications, one in ob/gyn, one in emergency medicine, and one in general surgery. They share an opinion that the important thing is that someone learns, not how someone learns. Formal education, self education, whatever - as long as they continue to learn, that’s what matters.

Religion? Both are agnostic. Chris leans atheistic, though he would stop short of using that term, and he maintains an open mind. Phil is more of a “pure” agnostic in that he doesn’t believe that the existence, or lack thereof, of a higher power is something anyone will ever be able to comprehend. Phil could absolutely be considered spiritual, though; he does believe, and pretty firmly, that something bigger than himself exists, though whether someone wants to call that “god” or just “the universe” or something else is up to them.

Superstitious or views on the occult? Neither are particularly superstitious, though they certainly respect the diversity of viewpoints they’ve encountered in their travels.

Do they express their thoughts through words or deeds? Both. Phil tends to be more verbal, Chris more action-based, but both of them are variable in how they express themselves.

If they were to fall in love, who (or what) is their ideal? Chris chronically falls in love, to habitually disastrous ends. He craves connection with others, and when he finds it, he’s determined not to let it go, even if it’s so clearly not right. The only time he hasn’t felt like he’s had to compromise something about himself in order to love another person has been with Phil. That makes Phil his ideal. Phil’s had several casual relationships with people - historically, he’s actually been with quite a few more people than Chris has - but he’s been in love exactly once. Chris is his ideal.

How do they express love? They say so. Often. They’re both pretty verbal people, especially Phil, and they both love hearing that they are loved. They touch. Often. It takes a little bit of time to adjust to physical affection in public, but once they do, hand-holding or arms around shoulders or waists or little exchanged kisses are common. They spend time together. They have date nights, they debrief and cuddle together on the couch after hard days, they go on trips together, they have dinner together every night. They exchange gifts. Chris knows Phil prefers a plasma stove to the electric one they have, so he gets him one. Phil knows Chris likes better water pressure than what he has, so he pays for upgrades. They help each other. Phil helps Chris with PT, Chris helps Phil with household chores, Phil makes dinner, Chris drives more. They ease one another’s burdens.

If this person were to get into a fist fight, what is their fighting style like? Chris is a muscled, combat-trained man. He’s gonna win most one-on-one fights. Against more than one person? He’ll hold his own, but it’s a toss-up as to how he’ll do. Phil’s a pacifist to his core and avoid fighting at any cost - he even despised carrying a phaser on away missions when he was shipboard and prided himself on never firing one after the required training at the Academy - but my dude can throw a hell of a punch if he needs to. (Charlie taught him how to, when their sister Sarah had a boyfriend who was hitting her, so they could go kick his ass. They did - though Charlie did most of the actual ass-kicking because Phil was only fourteen - and said boyfriend never came near Sarah again. Phil still doesn’t know where Charlie learned how to fight that well.)

Is this person afraid of dying? Why or why not? Chris is. He accepts it as an inevitability, and the risk of death as an occupational hazard; but when he’s been close to death before, yeah, he’s definitely been afraid. Phil’s not afraid of death as a concept. He just hates the idea of being without Chris.

[transcriptroopers]

Army Jargon Masterpost

It’s finally here! ScriptSoldier’s Army Jargon Masterpost. This is a list of army slang as best as I can recall it, but I do not consider it fully complete. This is the slang I can remember as best I can or with as little input as possible. As such this masterpost will never be entirely complete and will be updated periodically, so check back frequently and make sure you’re always up to date! A note: I have avoided putting most of the more offensive slang, but there is some slang that has sexual allusions and probably others too. It’s hard to fully weed everything out. I’ve also only gone up to battalion level because that’s as far as the average soldier is probably worried about, but there’ll be more information on my military units post. Please also remember that this is  1) An ARMY Jargon post, so no kidding there’s no AF/USMC/Navy slang on it. 2) Jargon can often be specific to certain parts of the army or even certain units, meaning I’ve inevitably missed some and there will inevitably be slang on this list that’s uncommon except in certain circles. It’s jargon. By nature it’s impossible to fully catalog it.

Was this post informative? Entertaining? Eye-opening? Then consider supporting SPC Kingsley on Patreon!

AAR: After Action Review. A constructive criticism session upon completion of a task or mission.  ACH: Advanced Combat Helmet. Also see Kevlar. Ack-ack: artillery fire, especially anti-aircraft. In one of my units, we used “ack-ack” to sound like duck quacking, and it was a mocking noise to make when one talked for too long/too fast. Across the pond: deployed.

ADA: Air Defense Artillery. My branch. AER: Army Emergency Relief. A loan program for those in sudden need for emergency funds. A difficult process; one must either already be negative on bills or need the cash that instant. Preparatory loans are not allowed. AIT: Advanced Individual Training ...and a wake up: military unit of time. Accounts for the days left until a given date, plus the date itself being accounted for as “a wake up.” So if you had three days left in the field, you might say “two days and a wake up.” It makes people feel like there’s less time left because on the final day, the hardest part is just waking up. AO: Area of Operations.  Arms: with “present arms,” refers to your salute. Otherwise, refers to your weapon.

As you were: return to your task, ignore my previous command. At ease: an actual command, but is also used to say “relax” or “shut up and listen up.” BA1100N: A hazing gag. The soldier is sent to find a “B-A eleven-hundred November,” which said in that manner sounds like it might actually be a real item. The joke is that the soldier runs around asking everyone where to find one until they realize that a BA1100N would spell...”balloon.” BAH: Basic Allowance for Housing. When you’re married, living off post, or in other certain situations, the army gives you a monthly allowance for housing. It’s based off of the mean monthly living rate for the area, so garrisons in pricier areas give higher BAH. Barracks rat: an enlisted soldier who never leaves the barracks, an introvert. BAS: Basic Allowance for Sustenance. When you’re married, living off post, or in other certain situations, the army gives you a monthly allowance for food. It’s based off of the mean monthly food rate for the area, so garrisons in pricier areas give higher BAS. BAS can also mean “Battalion Aid Station.” Battalion: a unit of about 400 to 800 troops lead by a battalion commander, a battalion XO, and a sergeant major. There’s usually three to six battalions in a brigade. Battery: in ADA, “companies” are called “batteries” for no particular reason. Battle buddy: most common in training like BCT and AIT. A comrade who accompanies you. You can’t go anywhere without a battle buddy during training, which includes going to the DFAC or the gym or the PX. Battle buddies must either be in gender pairs (mxm or fxf) or two and one (2mx1f, 2fx1m). Battle-Rattle: tactical gear, especially the gear designated specifically as “combat gear.” BC: Battalion Commander. Can also mean “battery commander” in ADA units.

BCGs: Birth Control Glasses. Very ugly standard-issued glasses. BCT: Basic Combat Training. Beer-thirty: after work, where you can change into civilians and drink beer. Beer vouchers: cash, especially cash received as Per Diem. Behoove: Look, this is a real word, not slang, but army people use it so much it makes me think it’s not a real word. Every soldier has been told, “It would behoove you,” with “behoove” sounding more like “behoooooove.” Blue Falcon: “buddy fucker.” One whose actions directly and negatively affected a comrade. Blue on Blue: friendly fire Board (the): a promotion board, typically consisting of NCOs from the soldier’s unit or the unit above them. Soldiers must pass the board to be eligible for promotion, and it includes basic army knowledge, knowledge appropriate of the rank you’re aiming for, correct wear of the uniform, and proper etiquette when addressing the board. BOHICA: “Bend Over, Here it Comes Again.” Literally, to be fucked by your unit repeatedly to the point of absurdity. Boots ‘n ‘chutes: Airborne slang; all of your gear/equipment. Brass: super high-ranking officers, like flag officers. Sometimes includes colonels. Brass can: a container used to harvest spent shells from a rifle range. Typically just an empty ammo can. Breach and clear: a fireteam entering a building and performing threat assessment, including firing upon enemies if needed. Brokedick: a soldier on profile, especially one that is on permanent profile and can’t do PT. Broken: on profile, i.e. disabled. Especially of those with chronic pain and/or who can’t do PT. Bubblegut: indigestion, food poisoning. Results in a bubbling gut and diarrhea. Butterbar: a second lieutenant, so-named for their golden bar rank. Often implying incompetence. Cadre: another real word that is used a lot in the army for a specific purpose: those who train other soldiers, specifically of one whose primary purpose is this. Cattle car: a method of mass transportation, which sometimes might actually be a cattle car. Charlie Foxtrot: a clusterfuck.

Chow: food, typically a complete meal. CIF: Central Issue Facility, aka where you get your tactical gear. CIF is also used to refer to gear received from CIF. Civvies: civilian clothes, particularly of a soldier’s civilian clothes. Clear (one’s weapon): to safely ensure that a weapon is unloaded and placed on safe. Clearing barrel: a stationary barrel or box with sand or sandbags inside. While clearing a weapon in it, any accidental discharge will harmlessly hit the sand. Combat arms: branches of the army whose members are likely to see or be involved in a combat situation. Includes roughly 33% of the army population. Company: a unit of about 70 to 250 soldiers, led by a company commander, a company XO, and a first sergeant. There are usually three to six companies in a Battalion. Command of Execution: the part of the command on which soldiers execute the command. Can be a command on its own (fall in) or a command preceeded by a preparatory command (left face). Command voice: a good, strong, clear voice.  Counseling: a verbal and written statement addressing a soldier’s actions. Can be good or bad. Counselings stay in the troop’s file for up to two years. CP: Check point. Can also mean “command post.” Death Blossom: firing your weapon wildly and randomly in hopes of hitting something. Detail: a task, an assignment, especially a menial one like setting up before a ceremony. Often requires being voluntold. DFAC: Dining Facility. Basically a cafeteria where enlisted eat free. 

Doggone: another real (ish) word I’m including. A polite swap for “goddamn.” Donkey dick: a metal fuel nozzle that attaches to gas cans for easier fueling. Down range: (1) on an active range, actively shooting on a range (2) deployed Drill and Ceremony: formal marching techniques, marching commands, so on. Earpro: ear protection, usually small insertable ear plugs. Standard battle-rattle. EOF: Escalation of Force. The steps you have to take when before escalating to deadly force. They often include things like ordering to halt, demanding identification, informing you have a weapon, express intent to fire weapon, things like that. There are exceptions and every unit’s EOF is different. A unit in a non-combat zone would likely have a much tighter EOF to avoid any incidents. ETS: Expiration Term of Service: soldier’s contract has expired, soldering is “ETS-ing,” or preparing to leave the army. Often a process involving numerous paperwork, appointments, classes, and returning gear. Eyepro: eye protection, such as goggles or safety glasses. Standard battle-rattle. Fall in: formally, assemble into the proper unit formation. Informally, gather around, come closer. Fall out: formally, dismissed from a formation. Informally, permission leave or go somewhere. Fart sack: sleeping bag Field/Field Exercise: essentially, a war game. Your unit goes to a specified location where you’ll live (usually in tents outside) and perform various training exercises/war simulations, usually those relevant to your MOS. These can last for a day or two to several weeks. There’s often no showers, large tents with a couple dozen cots each, and a few port-o-johns. Fireteam: a unit of three to four soldiers. Fireteams are broken down from squads and contain a team leader. There are usually two to three fireteams per squad. Flag/Flagging: aiming your weapon at someone, usually on accident while carrying it wrong, and usually only briefly. FOB: Forward Operating Base, a secure base of operations that are typically either very close to enemy cities or pushed very far toward enemy territory.

Fobbit/Fobgoblin: Derogatory term, refers to one who never leaves the FOB and has a low chance of seeing combat. Fort Dragg: Fort Bragg, North Carolina. So-called because it’s a drag to be there. Fort Lost-in-the-woods: Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. So-called because of its isolated location.

Front Leaning Rest (Position): push ups, or the position one assumes before beginning push ups.

FUBAR: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. Full-bird: an O-6 Colonel, so-named for their rank, which is an eagle. Used to differentiate between “colonel” and “lieutenant colonel” who are both referred to as “colonel.” Fuzzy: an E-1 Private, due to the bare velcro patch on their chest from having no rank. Gas chamber: training in which multiple soldiers are exposed to tear gas, made to recite something, (such as the national anthem or the Army Song) and then exit calmly. Guaranteed to encounter in BCT, may or may not enter again throughout the rest of the army. G.I. Party: a unit-wide cleaning effort. Can be a whole squad or a whole company. Usually of the barracks. Gig line: properly aligning your uniform so that the top, pants, and belt are a straight line.

Glass House: a house outline made of engineer tape. Used to practice breach and clear methods. Green berets: special forces, so-called because of their unique green berets. Groundpounder: Infantry, or any other unit in similar conditions. Grunt: ground soldier, particularly of infantry. ”Half right, face!”: the command that sets a unit up for doing push-ups. When we’re in formation and that’s what we hear, we all know what’s coming. Hero: used to mock a troop, particularly one who’s too enthusiastic or gung-ho. High speed: good, exceptional. Said of an exceptional soldier or of impressive equipment. Hooah: “Anything except no.” An acknowledgment, an agreement, a cheer, a greeting, a compliment, etc. Hot (of a range): if the range is hot, there are currently people firing. Hot shit: in the civilian world, this is a good thing. In the army, it means you’re garbage. IBA: Interceptor Body Armor. Kevlar vest. Standard battle-rattle. IED: Improvised Explosive Device. A homemade bomb hidden along roads and paths that vehicles and personnel are likely to follow. ID10T form: a hazing gag. People send lower enlisted out to find an “I-D ten tango.” Spells “idiot form.” Kevlar: though we do use a Kevlar vest, we specifically use “Kevlar” to refer to our helmets. Standard battle-rattle. KIA: Killed in Action. Died as a result of combat. KP: Kitchen Patrol. Junior enlisted have to assist the cooks in the DFAC as a regular duty. Can also refer to a “KP Tent,” which can be a pop-up DFAC in a field environment. Jimmy dean: an unheatable lunch. Usually has like a can or box or juice, a can of vienna sausages or beans and franks, a can of pringles, and maybe a granola bar or fruit cup. An inferior lunch to an MRE because it’s not hot. Jody: an imaginary archnemesis in the civilian world who’s stealing your friends, your significant other, your car, your dog, and everything nice in your life while you’re away. Joe: a soldier, usually one E-4 or below. Johnny-on-the-spot: timely, being in exactly the right position at exactly the right time. Latrine: toilet. Either a port-o-john or a full bathroom. Leave: Vacation time, holiday time. Must be approved by unit, can only be taken for as long as you have leave days. You earn 2.5 leave days per month, giving you 30 leave days per year. LES: Leave and Earnings Statement. Bi-weekly report documenting your earnings and leave accruement.  Lieutenant First-Class: A captain, so-called because a captain’s rank is merely two first lieutenant ranks. Often implies incompetence.  Lifer: people who remain in the army until retirement. Lima Charlie: loud and clear. Radio slang.  Lost in the sauce: Overwhelmed and confused, poorly comprehending Lottie, Dotty, Everybody: absolutely everyone, implying no exceptions. Also sometimes rendered as “ladi dadi everybody.” Also a cadence.

M16: standard rifle. 

M9: standard pistol.   Make a hole!: move, get out of the way. Usually said when a higher-up is cutting through a bunch of lower enlisted. Make the walls sweat: performing physical exercise so intensely that the walls develop condensation.  Medboard: getting medically discharged. Can also refer to the board of physicians that make such a decision. MedCorps: Medical Corps. MIA: Missing in Action. Mike: minute, as in “ten mikes until end of day.”

Move with a purpose: hurry up, make a concentrated effort to get somewhere. 

MP: Military Police   MRE: Meal, Ready-to-Eat. A portable, long-lasting, calorific meal for when soldiers don’t have access to a DFAC.

Muzzle discipline: properly carrying your weapon, especially so that it never points at another person accidentally. MWR: Morale, Welfare, and Recreation. Basically a rec center that has board games, books, wifi, sometimes a movie theater and food, sometimes a computer room. Nut-to-Butt: Quite close together, such that you’re actually pressed against the person to both your front and your rear. PCI: Pre Combat Inspection. Ensuring you have all of your gear and it’s operational. PCS: Permanent Change of Station, i.e. transferring from one post to another. PEN-15 Report: a hazing gag. The nomenclature when written looks like “penis.” PFT: Physical Fitness Test. We must complete a PT test twice a year to “maintain our physical fitness and combat readiness.” It’s just push ups, sit ups, and a two mile run.  Platoon: a unit with about twenty to forty troops, a platoon leader, and a platoon sergeant. There’s usually three to five platoons in a company. Pog/POG: A shitty soldier, a shammer. Pronounced like “rogue.” I’m under the impression that infantry also use this to differentiate between infantry and other soldiers, i.e. “People Other than Grunts.” Poggy bait: goodies, sweets, munchies. Pronounced like “hoagie.” Police call: picking up the trash in an area, usually in groups. POW: Prisoner of War. PowerPoint Ranger: one who’s often tasked in the unit with creating lectures, especially those with PowerPoints. Preparatory command: In a two part command, it’s the opening command, the part that makes soldiers ready obey the command of execution. Ex: “Left face,” left is preparatory, slight pause, then execution command, “face.” Not all commands have a preparatory command. Present Arms: the salute command. “Present” is the preparatory command and as such there is a slight pause between it and “arms.” Pricky six: A hazing gag. Sending a junior enlisted to a staff sergeant and asking them “do you know where I can find a pricky six?” E-6 is a staff sergeant’s nomenclature, so the question actually sounds like “a prick E-6?” Usually results in the E-6 smoking the junior enlisted for “calling them a prick E-6.” Extra tricky because the prick-6 was in fact an actual radio. Profile: Soldiers on profile are usually either ill or wounded such that they can’t do PT. Some soldiers are on permanent profile due, others receive a temporary profile for things like a sprained ankle. Some profiles only prevent certain exercises (i.e. no running, no jumping) and some prevent all PT.

PT: Physical Training. We have morning PT before starting work, usually around five a.m. to seven a.m. It sually lasts forty-five minutes to an hour, but can run longer, and is usually done by platoon or company. PT is usually a broader catch-all for physical exercise, ergo PT one morning may actually just be a game of basketball. PX: Post Exchange. Can be something as small as a corner store or something as large as a mini-mall. Usually at least has basic supplies (socks, 550 cord, sunblock) and goodies (candies, sodas, sometimes sandwiches). Larger ones can have food courts and several vendors and stores within.  Range: rifle range. We have to qualify on our weapons every arbitrary period of time (could be every two years, could be every six months) on the range. Ranger roll: (1) rolling one’s cap to adjust its wear on the head (2) rolling clothing very tightly to take as little space as possible. Rangerific: either means “a little too enthusiastic to where it’s annoying” or a sarcastic (sometimes sincere) “fantastic.” Depends on context. Rats: rations, i.e. food Rear D: rear detachment. The remnants of a unit after the rest of the unit has deployed. Red Berets: Airborne soldiers, so-called because of their uniquely red berets. Red on Red: enemies firing upon themselves. Relaxin’ Jackson: Fort Jackson, so-called because supposedly Fort Jackson is the easiest location to do basic training. Reveille: that really popular bugle call you always hear at daybreak. Not necessarily used to wake soldiers up anymore, but if you’re outside when Reveille sounds, you must turn toward the post flag (and you better know damn well what direction it’s in) and salute it until Reveille is over.

ROE: Rules of engagement. Like the EOF, it annotates how soldiers should react when engaging with others. It usually asserts that you have the right to return deadly force but you must exert minimum force on unarmed opponents and other such directives. Again, different for not only units but for stations as well.  Roger: affirmative. Roger-dodger: An enthusiastic affirmation. Is often said sarcastically. RPG: Rocket Propelled Grenade. Flying death. RSOP: Reconnaissance, Selection, and Occupation of a Position. Scouts terrain to determine its suitability and then prepares it for emplacement/maintains it for the unit. RTO: radio operator, can be but isn’t always necessarily a 25C. SATCOM: Satellite communications, usually referring to a satellite radio. Say again?: repeat your previous statement. Proper radio etiquette for requesting a repeat of information. SAM: surface-to-air missile. SAW: Squad Automatic Weapon, a Light Machine Gun. Screaming eagle: an airborne soldier or airborne unit. Shake and Bake: formally it refers to an extremely impressive barrage of explosives; informally it’s a positive encouragement or an expression of achievement. Sham: to be lazy, to cut corners, to get out of work. Shamshield: an E-4 Specialist, so-called because they often delegate all work to lower-ranked E-1 thru E-3.  Shamurai: a master of sham. A soldier who’s so lazy it’s impressive the lengths they go to avoid work. Shit hot: unlike hot shit, this is a compliment meaning “excellent, surpassing expectations.” We were often told “either you’re shit hot or you’re hot shit.” Shit-on-a-shingle: chipped beef on toast. It almost looks like sausage gravy, but with long pale strips of meat that look like skin. Tastes like ass. Can also be an exclamation of surprise or disgust. Sick Call: Enlisted must turn in a sick call slip to visit the TMC. It’s turned in before PT. The soldiers are then transported to sick call, which identifies their issue and whether they actually need to make an appointment at the TMC. Simply receiving things like ankle bandages or cough medicine does not require a trip to the TMC. Sick Call Ranger: a soldier who is constantly going to sick call, usually for numerous and exaggerated ailments. SITREP: Situation Report. 

Skillfully acquire: to obtain without going through the proper procedures/paperwork, i.e. stealing Smokin’ and Jokin’: hanging out, break time, cigarette break.  Smoking: punishing a troop with physical exercise.  SNAFU: Situation, Normal: All Fucked Up. Implying everything is fucked up but considering how frequently things are fucked up, this actually makes things normal. Soup Sandwich: a complete fuck up, a disaster. ”Start Pushing:” get down and do push ups. Used by a superior to a lower enlisted when they need to punish someone but they aren’t bothering going through the formal commands of getting them to front leaning rest. ”Stay in your lane:” literally, to remain in your appropriate lane on a firing range. To enter another’s range, especially when the range is hot, could result in a shooting incident. Informally, it means “stick to what you know.” Squad: a unit with about six to twelve troops led by a squad leader. There’s usually three to five squads in a platoon. TA-50: unit-issued CIF, tactical gear. Take a knee: kneel (with one knee, such that you could still shoot from the remaining knee if you needed to) to listen to a leader give a brief. Can also simply mean “take a break.” Tan berets: rangers, so-called because of their unique tan berets. To standard, not time: a task must be completed until it is properly done and how much or how little time it takes does not matter.  To the Color(s): apparently its proper name is singular, but I always heard it plural??? Anyway, often used after “Retreat” to signal the end of the work day and the daily lowering of the flag. As with Reveille, you must face toward the flag and salute it until To the Colors is over. TOC: Tactical Operations Center. Also sometimes cut into TOC and BTOC with B standing for “battalion” to separate it from the brigade TOC. I worked at TOC for a while myself; that was fun. Top: a nickname for a company First Sergeant. Between familiar soldiers, “top” can be used instead of having to address your first sergeant as “First Sergeant.” Troop: refers to any enlisted soldier.  TMC: Troop Medical Center. Can be as small as a trailer or as large as a clinic. For receiving basic treatment not requiring a specialist. Includes vaccinations, medications, eyeglasses, and so on.

Tracking: following, comprehending Voluntold: when leadership ask for “volunteers,” and then wind up choosing people to do a detail, making it less “volunteer” work and more “voluntold.” Walker: one who walks instead of runs for their PT test due to a permanent profile. Weekend Warrior: National Guard. Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot: what the fuck XO: Executive officer. At the company level this is usually a first lieutenant, right-hand to company commander.  Zero dark-thirty: Obscenely early in the morning, such that it is still essentially the middle of the night. Zonk: a very specific command given before beginning PT. Without warning the leader of the unit will say, “zonk!” and troops have ten seconds to get out of sight. If they succeed, they get PT off. If they fail, they continue to do PT. Theoretically. Sometimes they still get let go. An infrequent but joyful occurrence. Soldiers sometimes refer to this as “getting zonked.”

Zulu time: Greenwich Mean Time. Explanation here. Zulu time is often used on reports, especially reports that go across time lines.

11 Bang-Bang: Infantry, so-called because their MOS is “11B.” 15 minutes prior: Even if a company formation is to be held at 0600, your platoon sergeant will want you to arrive prior to that to ensure all is well and no one is chewed up. Therefore, leaders will often ask you to arrive 15 minutes prior, meaning 15 minutes before the appointed formation time. This can be compounded, resulting in 15 minutes prior-to-15 minutes prior-to 15 minutes prior, or forty-five minutes early. 249: M249, aka SAW. 50 cal: a .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun 550 Cord: Paracord, a small, thin, durable rope cord. Military’s duct tape. 9 mil: standard pistol (Beretta)

99Z: “Combat Ninja.” An imaginary MOS to describe those who excel in combat. Phonetic Alphabet While this isn’t strictly speaking military jargon, it’s essential to know, so here I am including it.

A: Alpha B: Bravo C: Charlie D: Delta E: Echo F: Foxtrot G: Golf H: Hotel I: India J: Juliet K: Kilo L: Lima M: Mike N: November O: Oscar P: Papa Q: Quebec R: Romeo S: Sierra T: Tango U: Uniform V: Victor W: Whiskey X: Xray Y: Yankee Z: Zulu

[openbook-izel]

An Ice Jog in the Park || Ricky and Izel

@rickycorderbro

Izel wrapped her scarf around her even tighter. With a cat, a man who was still a lot of a mystery, and, well, Reza, these long jogs she went on in the morning helped keep her on top of even the smallest stresses. Not that she didn't love all three, and not like she wasn't used to a loud house, it was a loud house full of people and creatures she hadn't lived with before. It was... an adjustment. Especially the cat. Frost coated the crunchy leaves that covered the forest path - an open air one that people frequently walked along, well lit and close enough to town that she could hear cars rumbling in the distance. Didn't mean she was travelling carelessly, just that this was safer than most. In the distance, she could hear kids laughing, and a smile spread on her face. It was so Christmassy, even with Christmas gone. As she kept running and the laughter grew louder, she came across the familiar sight of a small pond, one that was full of ducks in spring and fish in summer, but now was frozen over. Kids were sliding on it in their winter boots, playing at ice skating. They had to be... eleven, twelve, maybe? No parents to be seen, which was the only reason she slowed down, momentariy mesmerized by the reflections of their auras in the ice. At least, until she saw something move under the ice. Well. "Hey, you!" She called, kinda futilely as they ignored her. "Uh, that ice isn't very thick!" They still weren't listening. Shoot. She couldn't see anything moving not, but it had been a big, dark shadow, not just some fish. She carefully stepped off the path and two steps down the bank. "You need to get off the ice!" One of them had definitely heard her now, meeting her eyes briefly before turning back to play. Izel groaned, holding onto a tree for balance as some gold stepped into her peripheral vision, but she didn't pay attention at first, her eyes scanning for that ominous shadow.

Ricky luxuriated in the snap of the air filling his lungs as his legs propelled him down the path. School was rapidly approaching and with it, the need to keep himself in absolutely peak condition. He'd made a habit of beating his own records and he wasn't going to stop that now. So every morning he was out running along the freezing paths that ringed the UMAC campus and the surrounding parts of the town. As he ran he saw a woman stepping down the embankment next to a pond, apparently yelling at the kids who were on it. He slowed and pulled his headphones out, and as he drew close to the pond was hit in the face with the unmistakable smell of rot and death. Something was in that pond that shouldn't be. He slithered down the snowy banks til he was roughly around the woman he'd seen yelling, "That's some thin fucking ice, y'all! Get the fuck off it before I hit you with a goddamn stick. I've got pretty good aim! I'll do it!" Not an auspicious start... but... if it worked... it worked.

Izel startled as a voice boom next to her, almost losing her grip on the tree and sliding onto the ice herself. She almost snorted at his threat, completely surprised, and finally glanced over at the guy by her. And froze, mesmerised by the swishing and swaying of the two layers of his aura, both brilliant yellows like buttercups or a sunset on the sea. Even the dark edges on the outsides couldn't stop him looking like actual liquid sunlight. Izel wasn't sure how long she stared, but it was certainly three seconds too many and she quickly turned her gaze back to the children, who had stopped to stare at him, trying to judge if he was serious. The way he'd yelled., if it had been Izel she'd have been off in a dash, but the kids had clearly decided that come hell or highwater they were going to ice skate. They were clearly ready to get into the swing of puberty. And her companion was probably many things, just not human, so in all probability he'd believe her if she pointed out the real problem with this pond. "-​hggggh​- Looks like they aren't liste- ​there​!" She pointed, her heart started to thump. It hadn't been a trick of the light, there was something there. "Something under the ice. That stick throwing might be a good idea." It wasn't going to earn them any friends in the community, but better than dead kids, right. "Or actually, maybe not. We don't want to piss off whatever's under there. If we go round, we could get closer," she gestured. Closer to that shadow wasn't a fun idea, but sticks also hit the ice and she didn't want that thing to get angry.

Casting a smile at the women next to him Ricky turned back to the children on the pond... who were decidedly not paying attention to him. He was just about to start shouting at them again when the woman pointed at the ice. Ricky pushed aside the fact that she seemed to have some form of knowledge about.... who he was... and instead looked at the shadow swirling under the pond's far-too-thin ice. "I know. I can smell it under there." He turned to fully look at the woman who was.... unsettling in the extreme. She looked at him... and then she looked inside of him.. and Ricky was a little shaken up by it. He cast his gaze about for a stick that was big enough to scare but not big enough to hurt and found one not too terribly far away "Please don't judge me for trying to hit children." he murmured before yelling again "OI! I am a goddamn lifeguard and I will beat you for lacking water safety." He started to skirt the pond in an attempt to get closer to them, "YOU HAVE UNTIL THE COUNT OF FIVE, AIGHT?! I'M HELLA SUPER SERIOUS RIGHT NOW."

"Wait, you can smell it?" Izel defaulted in surprise, even though it was kinda pointless now. "Does it, uh, smell fishy? Amphibiany? Rotting meat-y?" If he could tell it'd be a nice little thing to know what was inevitably about to try and eat them. Here was hoping it would stay in the pond and not be able to get out even if it did break the ice... and she was kinda hoping it would be blissfully unaware of the kids stomping on its home. "Hey, no judgment here," she muttered, following him through the undergrowth, careful not to slip through the banks. On the bright side, life guard. On the not so bright side, not an ice rink guard. Were those even a thing? Without warning, he bellowed again, right in her ear. Blissful silence followed as the kids stared at the guy, unsure whether to believe him. They didn't even need to wait for him to start counting, though. Something banged on the ice hard enough for it to echo. Rather, something banged under it. Now the kids were listening. "Come on!" She started to encourage them, but a second loud bang echoed loud enough to rattle the ice, and with that, a small crack started to spread. The fear in those kid's eyes matched the weight of her heart. "That way," she pointed frantically to the edge closest to them, hoping they'd take the hint as she started to climb between the trees to them. "So, fun question, how fast can you run? Because we might need to leg it out of here once we get them off the ice. Or fight. Probably both. Come on!" She urged the kids again. Another bang, so loud she felt it in her bones. Izel reached into her bag and pulled out her iron baton. Just in case.

Ricky kept on moving as she questioned him, "Rotten. Fish left out in the sun too long. Putrid." The shadow was moving again and he was less than pleased about that fact as it looked like the kids were still staunchly ignoring him. He really hadn't woken up wanting to throw things at children and yet... here he was. His plan was thwarted however by whatever was under the ice suddenly deciding it wanted to be on top of the ice. He could feel the bang resonate in his bones and picked up speed, "Oh fuck this stranger things bullshit your ass is staying in the upside down." the kids started to run towards the edge of the ice and the woman who was still moving next to him pulled out "Is that a goddamn police baton in your purse?! Jesus christ, lady." He shrugged as they moved, hitting the ice and sliding to push a kid closer to the edge "go the fuck home, pipsqueak. I can run decent... i'm distance, not speed. but.... I can move."

"Not police, no. So you don't go on jogs expecting to get attacked?" Izel panted, catching herself on another tree, catching another kid by the arm and dragging her onto the bank. The girl was trembling in her blue aura and as much as Izel wanted to comfort her there were three more kids on the ice. "Get on the path, run, call your parents, go!" She said instead, patting the girl on the shoulder before moving onto the ice herself. Two off, two to go. "Moving is good, moving is definitely good!" Talking while trying to herd terrified children while not exactly the definition of chill herself wasn't her strength. "Come on, move!" She encouraged the two remainers, green and yellow blurring together with how tight they were clinging on to eachother. Before they tried to get any closer, another bang rumbled beneath them, and what had been a crack became a hole between them and the kids, a pruny, withered, rotting hand grasping at the ice as the thing started pulling itself out of the water. "Get the kids, I'll distract" she said, her voice dropping quiet. She really hadn't signed up for water vampires, but she was the one with the weapon, and Regan had once pointed out that the undea were her specialty. She really, really, hadn't signed up for the ice they were on to start feeling unsteady, either. However, as it looked around, it didn't choose the trembling tweens who had woken it from its slumber, but the two bigger sources of heat standing on its pond.

 "I'm a 6'4" dude... nobody fucks with me when I run, but I catch your point." As a rule, Ricky wasn't the biggest fan of kids. Babies... he loved. Kids? Not so much. He grabbed the third kid and shoved them, not particularly gently, towards the edge of the pond just as the ice finally shattered... a gross hand reaching through as a herald of the walking corpse that followed, "Oh jesus titty-fucking christ. Really?! What the shit? I"m so not the fuck on board with this!" He nodded as she hissed under her breath, sliding as gently as he could toward the last remaining child on the ice "If you don't start moving toward the edge I swear to god I'm going to feed you to whatever the fuck that is. Put some hustle on. GO!" the child finally gathered up the mental fortitude to start movin and Ricky turned back towards the stranger "What're the chances it's territorial? I'd ask about hungry but it seems kind of a moot point. Think if we run fast enough and far enough it'll leave us alone? Because I don't wanna get anywhere near that goddamn thing."

Izel stumbled backwards, watching the creature. Her feet were carefully planted on the ice, so that she wasn't the one to fall to the ground, but as it climbed up and out of the ice. She tapped her rod against the ice, hard enough to be heard. "Here little monster monster, here little monster monster." She muttered, suddenly feeling like this was a very, very bad idea. But she'd caught its attention alright, away from the life guard and the final child. It lunged and she dived sideways, using momentum and the miracle of the slippiness of ice to put a fair distance between her and the lifeless, soulless, it. But even though it hadn't touched her, Izel suddenly felt a cold settle inside her unlike anything she'd felt in Ashkent before. She watched it as she scrabbled to her feet again, unable to shake that horrible cold. She watched as the jaw it cracked on the ice uncracked loudly, jerking back into position piece after rotting piece. Oh god. But she was no longer the warmest thing on the ice, so its attention turned back to Ricky. "No idea, let's not find out, my car's that way, run!" With her sense of balance now officially askew, it was hard to slide back to the edge at the speed she wanted to. Grabbing one of the girls' hands, she started leading them up the bank. Territorial would be nice, but she was starting to think that thing was a zombie and she really didn't want to have to try and outrun another. "Dude, come on!" She grabbed another kid, starting to pull them alon but still watching behind her. She didn't want to leave the stranger, nor any of the kids, behind. She wasn't that kind of a horror movie survivor.

As the.... whatever the flying fuck it was... dragged itself out of the ice Ricky looked in horror at first its rotting face and secondly how his new companion was offering herself as bait to the trundling monster. "Oh are you crazy!" He hissed as it lunged for her and he managed to get the last child off the ice. The minute he'd gotten all the kids on the bank he started to slide across the ice, gaining as much speed as he could before sliding at the monster and taking it out at the knees. Unfortunately whatever it was seemed to be colder than the pits of his father's icy heart, and Ricky's teeth immediately started chattering in his skull. He scrambled up as it lunged for his ankle, icy fingers burning as they only briefly brushed him before he'd managed to put some distance between himself and the monster. He made it to the bank and scrambled up on all fours as the woman beckoned to him "run run run run" he managed to chatter out as he picked a child up by the back of their coat "where's home? Where are your parents? Come on. Talk. We gotta get the fu-" he barely managed to censor himself as the young child looked at him wide eyed "we gotta get outta here and you gotta get home. So start talking so this nice if somewhat crazy lady and I can get you safe."

Izel didn't need to be told twice, grabbing the kids she had and sprinted through the crunching leaf layer onto a more recognisable path. She couldn't scoop up them like he did, wasn't strong enough to carry a child that size for any considerable distance at this speed, but they weren't so young they were slow, and one pulled out of her hand and barreled way ahead of them. "Peaberry road!" One of them yelled at Ricky. That was doable. Her car really wasn't so far away. Izel looked behind her, checking just to see they hadn't left anything behind. They hadn't, nothing but it, standing in the middle of the path, staring at them with blood thirsty eyes but unmoving, a statue. Waiting, but not hunting. Suddenly the body attached to her right arm sank like an anchor, slipping on some black ice and taking Izel with hi, "Oof. It's not following!" She yelled at the others, quickly scrabbling to her feet. Only for the kid to take her down again. Ouch.

Ricky focused on running and running alone until he was sure they'd put a decent amount of distance between them and the creature. When a child finally coughed up an address he heaved a sigh of relief, though the relief did little to help the cold that still burned inside of him paradoxically. When he heard his companion slip and fall he dropped his charge "run. At least to the end of the block, and wait for us." As he turned to help the strange woman back up he looked back at the beast that hunted them. Apparently it didn't want to go to far from its home and stood on the path staring, rotting mouth gaping and black eyes fixed on them "well that's some fucking nightmare fodder." He muttered as he knelt down in front of the kid who kept falling "hop up on my back. This isn't turning into a zombie movie where we die because you can't walk on ice." With the child gripping firmly onto his neck he offered his hand to the woman. "I think we're in the clear. But I'm coming back with a goddamn flamethrower and some dynamite because that shit's not right."

Izel took Ricky's help getting back to her feet, eyes still focused on that ghostly creature. The scariest thought was that perhaps it wasn't a monster, just a person stuck under the ice so long that they'd lost control of themselves. That they were going to wander around and finally stumble across someone they could eat, come back and discover the horror of it all. Zombies decayed when they didn't have enough to eat, vampires went feral, it wouldn't have been impossible. Even if it had just tried to eat them, and Mr. Handsome Lifeguard was right and it was nightmare fodder, just couldn't help feeling a little sympathy for it. Just mostly fear and disgust. "You know, that's a solid plan, but maybe find out what it is first? Just in case, you know, it isn't killed by dynamite." A shiver ran down her spine as she took his hand, and she counted the kids in front of her. All of them accounted for, as they still hurried away from it, just in case it caught its breath and decided to give chase. "When on Earth did it get this cold?" she wondered once it wasn't in sight anymore. "Call your mom," Izel told one of the older ones, holding out her phone, but he reluctantly pulled out his own phone and started dialing. Up close, Izel realised she knew that one at least, his name was Tommy.

"It didn't get this cold. That ​thing​ is that cold. Where it touched me I thought my ankle was going to freeze off. It's definitely responsible for the cold. Probably why the pond was frozen as well as it was. Definitely the thickest ice I've seen yet this year." The monster didn't seem like it was going to follow them and he watched as it slunk back to its pond and sank back below the ice. "You know what happens when you hit something wet with a flamethrower? The same thing that happens to everything else. You ruin its day." Shivering, Ricky took a couple deep breaths, looking around at the kids they'd saved, "Y'all are dumb as shit. I want you to know that. Grade A+ dumb. So help me if I see anyone out on the ice again this winter I'mma huck some rocks at you and leave you to that thing." Turning to the mysterious woman he held out his hand, "Ricky Cordero."

Izel looked at him quizzically, before it clicking, the ice touch she'd felt spreading through her. "That... definitely makes sense, actually." So not a zombie, but something like them. She watched with mixed feelings as the thing vanished into the treeline. "Okay but ruining something's day is only a good idea if you're sure they can't ​-hgggh-​ ruin your day back." The kids looked at Ricky, up close suddenly looking scolded. He really ​did​ tower over them. They nodded, then turned and started running down Peaberry road. "Do you think at the end of all this they're more scared of that, or of you? Because I think I'm a little scared of you after that," Izelf teased, still sounding as nervous as she felt. But she grasped his hand in a solid shake. "Izel Evans. I don't usually meet people while almost getting... whatever that was going to do, but it's nice to -​raspberries​- meet you."

Ricky laughed broadly and deeply as he looked at the retreating backs of the kids. "Lifeguard status for life. I recognize some of them and I've definitely yelled at them before. I'm not super scary." he thought for a moment of the razor sharp fangs hidden behind his fake teeth, "At least I'm not scary all of the time." He cocked his head curiously at their conversation. The woman exhibited a couple of tics but Ricky turned into a seal and had gotten into a fight with a mermaid the other week. He couldn't judge anyone for something outside of their control. "Ms. Evans. Always nice to have a partner in crime with a baton of buttkicking when going up against crazy weird ice zombie things. Sadly this is not the first time recently I've met someone while almost dying from a supernatural attack. But hey! Gets me outta the house, meeting new people, all good. Except for the near death."

"I feel like everyone in this town fits in the 'not scary all the time' category, no matter how hard they try." ​Izel​ replied jokingly. Her head rocked hard into her neck as she glanced around briefly, just incase anything was sneaking up on them. "Happy not to let anyone get too hurt." She shivered, cold lingering inside her, like when you'd stood in the rain so long that your knew it would hurt once you got back inside. He looked like he do with it too. So much for a calm, brain clearing run. It wasn't exactly the first time she'd met people in life or death situation either, but she liked to pretend those were a serious minority. "Let's definitely hope for less death in the future. Where abouts are you based?" Her car was drawing close, and as much as she’d love to chat, she did have things to get back to.

"Awwww come on. I put so much effort into being terrifying." Ricky joked as they walked, noticing Izel looking over her shoulder at where the monster had been. "I feel like we got pretty lucky." He jammed his hands in his pockets and shook his hair out of his face "Poplar Ridge Apartments. But I drove here. My Jeeps just a block or so away. In a seemingly zombie free zone." He looked down at the woman as they walked towards her car where he was determined to see her in, "Sometime you'll have to let me buy you coffee as a "oh thank god we didn't get eaten by a zombie." Celebration." He beamed his most charming smile. She seemed like a sweet lady, but he was determined to figure out why she looked at him like she ​knew​.

[anniesadventuresabroad10]

Washington DC

December 27th-30th 2016

I love big cities, I adore museums, and I get unreasonably emotional when surrounded by a lot of history- so naturally I’ve wanted to visit DC for a while now.

My last visit was in 2005 with the rest of my elementary school’s Safety Patrol- and while that trip was fantastic, I wanted to see the city my way and visit the nation’s capitol before the end of Obama’s term.

And so I went. Equipped with my backpack, camera, and far less planning and fewer spreadsheets than normal, I hopped on a Greyhound bus on Tuesday afternoon and arrived in DC with just enough time to be hopelessly turned around in Union Station, have an argument with a metro card machine, and find my hostel before thinking about dinner.

I dropped my bag and headed to a taqueria that came highly recommended and also happened to be 87 feet from my lodgings. Aside from the usual surprise at my dining alone, the staff of El Sol was exceedingly friendly and brought me one of the best margaritas I’ve had (it was probably more tequila than lime, but I’m not complaining!). The chips and salsa were excellent, and the pork in my quesadilla was pretty near perfect. I could easily see why the Washington Post called it the best taqueira in DC. After dinner I returned to my hostel to recharge and plan out the rest of my trip!

For a day that started with a confusing quest for hostel pancakes, my second day in DC was unexpectedly fantastic. After breakfast, I set off into the bright and brisk morning with some vague idea of visiting the National Mall and embracing my inner Leslie Knope. Upon arriving at the dusty green, I set my boots towards the Washington Monument (mostly because none of the museums opened until 10).

I got some great shots and appreciated the opportunity to reflect in the shadows of Washington’s legacy on the current political climate and what can be done to improve the state of things. The visit also provided yet another wonderful excuse to listen to the Hamilton Mixtape again because it was, you know, relevant and whatnot.

Leaving G Wash behind I strolled to the WWII memorial, admiring the wreaths and thinking some more, mostly about the high cost of freedom and how cold my hands were getting. My next stop was clearly visible at the other end of the reflecting pond- The Lincoln Memorial towered above all, trees, people, and ducks alike. I skirted agitated families, had a chat with Abe while reading his 2nd Inaugural Address, and took a few more pictures before taking my leave.

Walking in a nearly straight line from the memorial, I ran into the queue for the Natural History Museum and decided to join it. Cards on the table, I LOVE museums- particularly those for natural history. There’s something comforting about the combination of science and history that just fills me with so much joy. In my happy nerd haze I did get a bit overwhelmed at just how many amazing things there are to know and see and learn- I’m sure the neat rocks, John Muir quotes, National Park pictures, and color chemistry display had something to do with it.

I followed the Natural History Museum with a scarfed down street hot dog and a stroll through several sculpture gardens on my way to the Air and Space Museum. The part of me that never really quite stopped wanting to be an astronaut was giddy with excitement, and the rest of me was pretty pleased too. I sacrificed any cool points I may have had and went through the exhibits with a dumb grin on my face while pushing buttons and exploring all the ways humans have devised to fly.

Stepping out into the sunshine, I realized that I had just enough time to tour the Library of Congress. After a brisk walk around the Capitol, I got my bag searched, grabbed a brochure and then had to actively remind myself how to breathe.

The architecture of the Jefferson Building is breathtaking enough, but add books and a ton of quotes about how great learning is? Full on heart eyes. My favorite parts were the exhibits on the top 40 most influential works of American literature (something about acknowledging the power of books and stories that gets to me  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and seeing Jefferson’s library-Jefferson and I may not agree on much politically, but the man did know how to appreciate books. Seeing the main reading room was also quite special, I would have loved to spend more time there, but evidently you need a better reason than “I want to be around books” to obtain a pass. It was an excellent visit.

Feeling a few steps beyond peckish and following a cousin’s recommendation, I decided to try the Founding Farmers. The place was crowded with locals and tourists alike and there was a warm buzz that bounced off the exposed brick and ironwork. After waiting nearly 90 minutes for a table (I had nowhere else to be and they had books about farming, pamphlets from the ND farmer’s union, and plenty in the way of people watching to tide me over) I was seated at the end of a community table and ordered a drink from my waiter who seemed mildly surprised at my dining alone. The clover club cocktail was an excellently balanced combination of gin, lemon, grenadine, and whipped egg white and was exactly what I hadn’t known I wanted after such a long and busy day. For dinner I ordered the chicken and waffles and was given a plate of food so delicious that it made me question if I’d ever actually had chicken and waffles before. Next time I’m in DC I’ll definitely try to come back.

Full, exhausted, and warm I headed back to my hostel, ready to take off my boots and turn in so I could be well rested for Thursday’s adventure.

The sky was grey and the drizzle was undecided on my second morning in DC, which meant my first order of business was finding a cozy local coffee shop from which I would plan out my morning. I wandered into Ebeneezer’s, which was full of people happily enjoying the brews and not talking to one another. I ordered a honey lavender latte, and it was fantastic- just sweet enough and wonderfully floral without tasting like soap. I read and journaled for a bit before deciding to walk over to the temple of American justice- the Supreme Court. They had a delightful exhibit about the building’s history and construction. After taking a gander at the famed spiral staircases, I found my way to the ground floor to join the queue for a courtroom lecture and used the wait time as a chance to sit and admire the spectacular great hall and its Christmas tree.

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t get a little misty-eyed upon being seated in the chamber where so much history has happened. Even just seeing the chairs where the justices sit while hearing oral arguments was a bit chilling (especially when I began to consider the still missing ninth chair). The lecturer did an excellent job of explaining the appellate system and the functioning of the court while bringing home the enormity of what the judicial branch is responsible for.

As I left the court, a bit shell-shocked and star-struck, I didn’t have much time to dilly dally as I had a walking tour to meet! Though the day was rainy and cold our guide, Ingaborg, was cheerful and told the stories behind the monuments exceedingly well. I gained a greater appreciation for the memorials I’d seen the day before and was able to see the monuments I’d missed. I vaguely remembered the Korean memorial from my last trip, those silently watching statues were just as striking this time around as they were ten years ago.

I also really loved seeing the MLK Memorial in person, and the pictures I took don’t do it justice. There was more to it than I was expecting, instead of just the relief carving, there was a bit of a story all built around the “out of the mountain of darkness, a stone of hope” quote. The FDR Memorial was also very lovely and seeing the Jefferson Memorial at sunset felt rather special- if also very cold and windy.

With the tour ended, my stomach growling, and my knees more than ready for a break, I went off to find dinner at the famous Shake Shack. I found my way to the metro in the gathering darkness and emerged in the middle of a crowd headed to watch a Capitols game. The crowd was also present in the restaurant- nearly every available surface had someone eating on it! I found a perch to eat my fairly good burger and drink a solidly mediocre chocolate shake before leaving, feeling much more energized and patient. I had an early night in order to rest my joints and prepare for my final day in DC.

Friday dawned bright and cold, and I was up and ready for adventure fairly early. I dropped my backpack off at the Union Station luggage storage before heading to Foggy Bottom in search of good coffee and the White House. The cafe I was hunting for was closed for New Years, so I settled for Starbucks to warm and wake myself up as I wandered. The White House was thoroughly barricaded but still neat to look at. I also really liked seeing the National Christmas Tree and Menorah.  

I was able to stop at the American History Museum for a little while and really adored it. I saw Julia Child’s kitchen, the original Star Spangled Banner, old lab glassware, and the Classical shirtless statue of George Washington. It was pretty great! I did leave the museum before I’d seen everything because I had someone very exciting to meet and a new museum to see!

Due to some wonderful luck and great timing, I was able to see one of my very best friends and favorite people in the entire universe. My friend and her mom had tickets to the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, and happened to have a spare. The new museum is absolutely gorgeous and is very well thought out. Each exhibit is packed with so much rich detail and there’re so many things to look at! It’s a beautifully done museum and I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to see it. It was also incredible to see my friend because I miss her like crazy and she’s wonderful, so I relished the opportunity to catch-up a bit, and it was great to see her mom again too!

After a great lunch in the museum’s cafe, I said my goodbyes and dashed to Union Station where I collected my bags and headed to the bus stand. I arrived back in Raleigh thoroughly exhausted from my travels, and a bit glad to sleep in my own bed. It was a really lovely trip, and I’m very glad that I decided to listen to the travel bug that’s been biting at my ear for so long now.

I don’t know where my next adventure will take me, but I know I can’t wait

[notfran-blog1]

wrist mala prayer beads shop

wrist mala prayer beads shop

mala yoga jewelry bracelet I recently saw a Buddhist prayer bracelets from Tibet, as well as it got a number of skulls on this. I just wanted to know typically the meanings of the skulls and what kind of plea is being done along with this necklace. The erronea in question (the "mala bead") is a popular theme in Buddhism. This a lot more impermanent. A head after housed a existing human and is now just simply a skull. We far too are impermanent, and this also is definitely a reminder not to help be too focused on material stuff, but even more, it is some sort of tip to focus far more on doing each of our Buddhist practices. Types of Skull Mala Beads There are several types of skull da?inas. There are da?inas manufactured of yak bone, steel, wood or other materials with each bead toned in the form regarding a human skull. Actually type of mala is not utilized by Buddhists in Tibet, it is now somewhat common amongst Developed practitioners to remind by themselves of the impermanence of life. An additional type of mala will be made from typically the our bones of Buddhist practitioners often from small hard drives reduce from their skulls soon after death. These practitioners present their bones as the final altruistic offering. There are several internet websites which often provide malas made out of these kinds of Buddhist practitioners, and is particularly assumed their bones are usually imbued with the auspicious connection between their life-long practice. For anyone who is thinking of getting the mala constructed with the guttae carved since skulls, it would be best for you to have one main made of the material apart from bone. Since Polly Turner recommends, �It is often suggested that will malas of heel bone : whether human or perhaps pet bone - should just be used by accomplished yogins, because ritual objects constructed connected with bone are assumed to have karmic impact on. � The worthiness of Mala Beads Bracelet mala rosary bracelet First regarding all, there is nothing like Mala Beads Necklace, beads equivocada (or garland) is a very conventional thing and people possess started wearing it while a bracelet to incorporate several fashion statement or style. A Mala Bracelet provides 27 beads plus the "guru" bead traditionally used for yoga and plea, are the most recent trend in wearable yoga, along with designers making mala Necklaces that combine gem stones imbued with potent systems along with sacred meaning to infusion your practice. A Japa Mala Serves A couple Reasons 1. helps to hold a count of typically the number of moments the actual mantra is chanted a couple of. when you close your eyes and try to concentrate on the particular concept, the perception in the bead on your fingers really helps to focus these are the main advantages for using japa mala. Several believe that will the material of the actual mala-wood, gemstone, crystal, seed starting, etc . has some innate energy linked to it that also plays a part in the focus or results attained by simply chanting. Can Da?inas Always be Worn as Fashion? We was wondering if the item seemed to be disrespectful to employ skull beads in precious jewelry. I mean, Often the guttae I wanna make use of usually are traditionally used as erronea prayer beads. I just wanted for you to use one bone wooden skull bead on some sort of thread for a necklace, but I desired further perception into the matter. Plea beads are used by simply members of various strict cultures such as Both roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Anglicanism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Bah�'� Faith to help count typically the repetitions involving prayers, air or devotions, such as the rosary of Virgin Mary throughout Christianity and dhikr (remembrance of God) in Mahometismo. They may also end up being used for relaxation, safety from negative energy, or perhaps for relaxation. Typically any mala is used to matter mantra repetitions throughout a sadhana practice. An individual shouldn't do a sadhana practice without three issues: empowerment, reading transmission, along with explanation. Sometimes this tip is relaxed, but they have necessary to get admission. If you wish to use a equivocada for some additional objective, that's fine, and it's tantric sadhanas that have the actual restriction, not malas. And it's okay to do meditation routines such as meditating on the breathing or loving-kindness, even without professor or instruction. In respect of your bone mala, I actually avoid want to sound scary or alarmist, however a bone tissue mala can cause particular problems in case it was not properly created or is not really used efficiently. So you should ask a teacher for permission and aid in selecting a calcaneus mala. It is certainly disrespectful. Sorts of Mantra Wishes The particular mantra is not prayers, but are a cement method of dwelling on which means, or possibly a truth. For example, "Om Mani Padme Hung" means that the particular body-speech-mind of Buddha can be found via compassion and intelligence (Padme is the lotus, which contains it's rooted in the particular magnetic at the bottom part of the pond, and also grows up into the particular light along with opens for you to a beautiful great smelling flower, it represents wisdom). So, as you say any kind of mantra, you are putting attention on to offer. There is usually no prayer; there is no request to the higher power. What Is the Strongest Sanskrit Rule? The most effective Sanskrit mantra is the most effective one- Aum was often the first lesson Mahadev imparted. Any time Mahadev took often the form of Anaal stambh (the pillar connected with fire), and when Lord Bramhan and Lord Vishnu wasn't able to find the beginning connected with the end of computer, right after that they both conceded to Mahadev, sat The pup down and it evolved into your day of Consecration connected with Mahadev and is famous as Shivratri. Mahadev with that morning spoke for you to both Jesus Bramha as well as Lord Vishnu on necessary matters, and also the first make a difference was the rule Aum (Shiv Mahapuran). Aum will be the path to genuine mind. Mandukya Upanishad sentirse 7 and Chandyog Upanishad section 8 describe all of our 'self' as the latest state regarding turiya. Awareness being in several expresses wakefulness, dream sleep, serious sleep without ambitions, in addition to the fourth beyond deep sleep, but when often the mind understands, conscious. This kind of fourth condition is described similar to samadhi and also allows one to to have regular communication with their atma as well as which self which will be part of The almighty. Inside Mandukya Upanishad, Aum is usually the mantra to always be in experience of that 4th state. In an earlier component of meditation, one particular obvious the word Aum and heard his / your ex sound. Within advanced deep breathing, one starts hearing the actual sound Aum by him self and quickly gets to typically the meditation state. Aum is the sound created by means of the earth rotating on its axis. A meditative imagination was in sync with that and in the full good state, hearing often the planet's sound and resting by it. Very just and basically described by Why when do we hear Together with all this particular, and typically the fact most mantras are usually pronounced starting with Aum, Aum is the nearly all potent Sanskrit mantra.

[nbntv-blog]

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Lyft, the transportation on demand company that is heading to a $15 billion IPO in 2019, is racing ahead with its autonomous vehicle plans. TechCrunch has learned that it is acquiring the London-based augmented reality startup Blue Vision Labs and unveiling its first test vehicle to advance its vision for self-driving cars.

The first car from Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving initiative will be the Ford Fusion Hybrid. Lyft’s use of a Ford Fusion apparently isn’t associated with the partnership the two announced last year. Other AV companies have used the Ford Fusion as a platform for integrating self-driving technologies.

The Ford Fusion (now with Lyft autonomy!)

While the integration of Lyft’s autonomous technologies and a Ford car is impressive, perhaps more meaningful is the company’s acquisition of Blue Vision Labs, a startup out of London that has developed a way of ingesting street-level imagery and is using it to build collaborative, interactive augmented reality layers — all by way of basic smartphone cameras.

Blue Vision will sit within Lyft’s Level 5 autonomous car division headed up by Luc Vincent (who joined the company last year as VP of engineering after creating and running Google Street View).

The startup and its staff of 39 (everyone is joining Lyft) will also become the anchor for a new R&D operation in London or the San Francisco-based company, focused on that autonomous driving effort. Level 5 is stepping up a gear in another way today, too: Lyft is unveiling a new vehicle that it will be using for testing.

Blue Vision has developed technology that provides both street level mapping and interactive augmented reality that lets two people see the same virtual objects. The company has already built highly detailed maps that developers can now use to develop collaborative AR experiences — it’s like the maps of these spaces become canvasses for virtual objects to be painted on. Over time, we may see various uses of it throughout the Lyft platform, but for now the main focus is Level 5.

“We are looking forward to focusing Blue Vision’s technology on building the best maps at scale to support our autonomous vehicles, and then localization to support our stacks,” Vincent said in an interview. “This is fundamental to our business. We need good maps and to understand where every passenger and vehicle is. To make our services more efficient and remove friction, we want their tech to drive improvements.”

People familiar with the acquisition tell us Blue Vision is being acquired for around $72 million with $30 million on top of that based on hitting certain milestones. Lyft has declined to comment on the valuation. Blue Vision had raised $17 million and had only come out of stealth last March, after working quietly on the product for two years. Investors included GV, Accel, Horizons Ventures, SV Angel and more.

This deal is notable in part because this is the first acquisition that Lyft has made to expand its autonomous car operation, which now has 300 people working on it. At a time when many larger companies are snapping up startups that have developed interesting applications or technologies around areas like AR, mapping, and autonomous driving, there may be more to come. “We are always evaluating build versus buy,” Vincent said when asked about more acquisitions. But he also acknowledged that it is a very crowded field today, even when considering just the most promising companies.

“I don’t have a crystal ball but arguably there are quite a few players today, including big tech, startups, OEMs and car makers. There are well over 100 [strong] companies in the space and there is bound to be some consolidation.” Lyft earlier this year also inked an investment and partnership with Magna to integrate its self-driving car system into components it supplies to car makers. But it also might face other pressures. The company counts Didi and GM among its investors, and both of these companies are making their own big strides in self-driving technology and each has inked deals to have more partners using that tech, in part to justify some of their own hefty investment.

Lyft, of course, will hope that acquisitions like Blue Vision will give it more leverage, and make it one of the consolidators, rather than the consolidated.

Blue Vision’s use of smartphones to ingest data to create its street-level imagery and mapping is crucial to Lyft’s quest for scale. In effect, every Lyft vehicle in operation today, with a smartphone on the dashboard, could be commandeered to become a “camera” watching, surveying and mapping the roads that those cars drive on, and how humans behave on them, using that to help Lyft’s autonomous vehicle (AV) platform learn more about driving overall.

In the race for data to “teach” these AI systems, having that wide network of cameras deployed and picking up data so quickly is “game changing,” said Peter Ondruska, the co-founder and CEO of Blue Vision.

“The amount of data you have affects how much you can rely on your system,” Ondruska said in an interview. “What our tech allows us to do is to utilize Lyft’s fleet to train the cars. That is really game changing. I was working on this for eight years and you have to have a lot of data to get to the right level of safety. That is hard and we can get there faster using our technology.”

Lyft up to now has really concentrated its business presence in North America, and so this marks at least one kind of way that it is expanding on the other side of the pond. It opened its first European office in Munich earlier this year, a sign that it’s looking to this part of the world at least for R&D, if not to expand its business footprint to consumers, just yet. Vincent declined to comment on whether Lyft would get involved in autonomous trials in London, nor whether it would expand its transportation service there.

Another key area that is worth noting is that Blue Vision’s “collaborative” VR, which lets people look at the same spot in space and both see and create interactive, virtual figures in it, could be used by Lyft either to help drivers and would-be passengers better communicate, or even help passengers discover more services during a journey or at their destination.

When Ondruska first spoke to TechCrunch earlier this year as the company emerged from stealth, ride hailing applications, in fact, were one of the use cases that we pointed out could be helped by its tech.

Peter Ondruska, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, [said] that Blue Vision’s tech can pinpoint people and other moving objects in a space to within centimeters of their actual location — far more accurate than typical GPS — meaning that it could give better results in apps that require two parties to find each other, such as in a ride-hailing app. (Hands up if you and your Uber driver have ever lost each other before you’ve even stepped foot in the vehicle.)

Blue Vision isn’t the only company working to develop these virtual maps for the world. Startups like 6d.ai, Blippar and the incredibly well capitalized and wildly successful AR technology developer Niantic Labs are also building out these virtual maps on which developers can create applications. Indeed, Niantic’s Pokemon Go game is the most successful augmented reality application to date.

Large media companies have also been investing building content for these platforms, and investors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into startups like 6d, Niantic, Blue Vision, and others that are building both software and hardware to usher in this new age of how we will, apparently, all soon be seeing the world.

The development of these new platforms will go a long way toward ensuring that more useful applications are just around the corner, waiting for users to pick them up.

“One of the reasons why AR hasn’t really reached mass market adoption is because of the tech that is on the market,” Ondruska told us earlier this year. “Single-user experiences are limiting. We are allowing the next step, letting people see the right place, for example. None of that was possible before in AR because the backend didn’t exist. But by filling in this piece, we are creating new AR use cases, ones that are important and will be used on a daily basis.”

The deal marks Lyft’s tenth acquisition, according to CrunchBase. In 2015, Lyft acquired the disappearing messaging company, Leo, to bring the company’s messaging expertise in house. Two years later, the ride-hailing company went on an acquisition tear, hoovering up FinitePaths, YesGraph, DataScore, and Kamcord. The first three seem like strategic acquisitions to bulk up mapping and marketing efforts  internally; but Kamcord, a social media network for video sharing, seemed a little farther afield.

For more on Lyft’s bigger plans for AV, watch the video below of Vincent talking about the company’s roadmap (so to speak).

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Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives – TechCrunch Lyft, the transportation on demand company that is heading to a $15 billion IPO in 2019…

[theinvinciblenoob]

Lyft, the transportation on demand company that is heading to a $15 billion IPO in 2019, is racing ahead with its autonomous vehicle plans. TechCrunch has learned that it is acquiring the London-based augmented reality startup Blue Vision Labs and unveiling its first test vehicle with Ford to advance its vision for self-driving cars.

The first Ford car from Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving initiative will be the Ford Fusion Hybrid. It’s the culmination of a yearlong partnership the two companies had announced last September and will be hitting city streets “soon” the company said.

The Ford Fusion (now with Lyft autonomy!)

While the integration of Lyft’s autonomous technologies and Ford’s hardware is impressive, perhaps more meaningful is the company’s acquisition of Blue Vision Labs, a startup out of London that has developed a way of ingesting street-level imagery and is using it to build collaborative, interactive augmented reality layers — all by way of basic smartphone cameras.

Blue Vision will sit within Lyft’s Level 5 autonomous car division headed up by Luc Vincent (who joined the company last year as VP of engineering after creating and running Google Street View).

The startup and its staff of 39 (everyone is joining Lyft) will also become the anchor for a new R&D operation in London or the San Francisco-based company, focused on that autonomous driving effort. Level 5 is stepping up a gear in another way today, too: Lyft is unveiling a new vehicle that it will be using for testing.

Blue Vision has developed technology that provides both street level mapping and interactive augmented reality that lets two people see the same virtual objects. The company has already built highly detailed maps that developers can now use to develop collaborative AR experiences — it’s like the maps of these spaces become canvasses for virtual objects to be painted on. Over time, we may see various uses of it throughout the Lyft platform, but for now the main focus is Level 5.

“We are looking forward to focusing Blue Vision’s technology on building the best maps at scale to support our autonomous vehicles, and then localization to support our stacks,” Vincent said in an interview. “This is fundamental to our business. We need good maps and to understand where every passenger and vehicle is. To make our services more efficient and remove friction, we want their tech to drive improvements.”

People familiar with the acquisition tell us Blue Vision is being acquired for around $72 million with $30 million on top of that based on hitting certain milestones. Lyft has declined to comment on the valuation. Blue Vision had raised $17 million and had only come out of stealth last March, after working quietly on the product for two years. Investors included GV, Accel, Horizons Ventures, SV Angel and more.

This deal is notable in part because this is the first acquisition that Lyft has made to expand its autonomous car operation, which now has 300 people working on it. At a time when many larger companies are snapping up startups that have developed interesting applications or technologies around areas like AR, mapping, and autonomous driving, there may be more to come. “We are always evaluating build versus buy,” Vincent said when asked about more acquisitions. But he also acknowledged that it is a very crowded field today, even when considering just the most promising companies.

“I don’t have a crystal ball but arguably there are quite a few players today, including big tech, startups, OEMs and car makers. There are well over 100 [strong] companies in the space and there is bound to be some consolidation.” Lyft earlier this year also inked an investment and partnership with Magna to integrate its self-driving car system into components it supplies to car makers.

[gallery ids="1736064,1736065,1736066,1736067,1736069,1736070,1736071,1736072"]

But it also might face other pressures. The company counts Didi and GM among its investors, and both of these companies are making their own big strides in self-driving technology and each has inked deals to have more partners using that tech, in part to justify some of their own hefty investment.

Lyft, of course, will hope that acquisitions like Blue Vision will give it more leverage, and make it one of the consolidators, rather than the consolidated.

Blue Vision’s use of smartphones to ingest data to create its street-level imagery and mapping is crucial to Lyft’s quest for scale. In effect, every Lyft vehicle in operation today, with a smartphone on the dashboard, could be commandeered to become a “camera” watching, surveying and mapping the roads that those cars drive on, and how humans behave on them, using that to help Lyft’s autonomous vehicle (AV) platform learn more about driving overall.

In the race for data to “teach” these AI systems, having that wide network of cameras deployed and picking up data so quickly is “game changing,” said Peter Ondruska, the co-founder and CEO of Blue Vision.

“The amount of data you have affects how much you can rely on your system,” Ondruska said in an interview. “What our tech allows us to do is to utilise Lyft’s fleet to train the cars. That is really game changing. I was working on this for eight years and you have to have a lot of data to get to the right level of safety. That is hard and we can get there faster using our technology.”

Lyft up to now has really concentrated its business presence in North America, and so this marks at least one kind of way that it is expanding on the other side of the pond. It opened its first European office in Munich earlier this year, a sign that it’s looking to this part of the world at least for R&D, if not to expand its business footprint to consumers, just yet. Vincent declined to comment on whether Lyft would get involved in autonomous trials in London, nor whether it would expand its transportation service there.

Another key area that is worth noting is that Blue Vision’s “collaborative” VR, which lets people look at the same spot in space and both see and create interactive, virtual figures in it, could be used by Lyft either to help drivers and would-be passengers better communicate, or even help passengers discover more services during a journey or at their destination.

When Ondruska first spoke to TechCrunch earlier this year as the company emerged from stealth, ride hailing applications, in fact, were one of the use cases that we pointed out could be helped by its tech.

Peter Ondruska, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, [said] that Blue Vision’s tech can pinpoint people and other moving objects in a space to within centimeters of their actual location — far more accurate than typical GPS — meaning that it could give better results in apps that require two parties to find each other, such as in a ride-hailing app. (Hands up if you and your Uber driver have ever lost each other before you’ve even stepped foot in the vehicle.)

Blue Vision Labs, which builds ‘collaborative’ AR, emerges from stealth with $14.5M led by GV

Blue Vision isn’t the only company working to develop these virtual maps for the world. Startups like 6d.ai, Blippar and the incredibly well capitalized and wildly successful AR technology developer Niantic Labs are also building out these virtual maps on which developers can create applications. Indeed, Niantic’s Pokemon Go game is the most successful augmented reality application to date.

Large media companies have also been investing building content for these platforms, and investors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into startups like 6d, Niantic, Blue Vision, and others that are building both software and hardware to usher in this new age of how we will, apparently, all soon be seeing the world.

The development of these new platforms will go a long way toward ensuring that more useful applications are just around the corner, waiting for users to pick them up.

“One of the reasons why AR hasn’t really reached mass market adoption is because of the tech that is on the market,” Ondruska told us earlier this year. “Single-user experiences are limiting. We are allowing the next step, letting people see the right place, for example. None of that was possible before in AR because the backend didn’t exist. But by filling in this piece, we are creating new AR use cases, ones that are important and will be used on a daily basis.”

The deal marks Lyft’s tenth acquisition, according to CrunchBase. In 2015, Lyft acquired the disappearing messaging company, Leo, to bring the company’s messaging expertise in house. Two years later, the ride-hailing company went on an acquisition tear, hoovering up FinitePaths, YesGraph, DataScore, and Kamcord. The first three seem like strategic acquisitions to bulk up mapping and marketing efforts  internally; but Kamcord, a social media network for video sharing, seemed a little farther afield.

For more on Lyft’s bigger plans for AV, watch the video below of Vincent talking about the company’s roadmap (so to speak).

via TechCrunch

[dizzedcom]

Lyft, the transportation on demand company that is heading to a $15 billion IPO in 2019, is racing ahead with its autonomous vehicle plans. TechCrunch has learned that it is acquiring the London-based augmented reality startup Blue Vision Labs and unveiling its first test vehicle with Ford to advance its vision for self-driving cars.

The first Ford car from Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving initiative will be the Ford Fusion Hybrid. It’s the culmination of a yearlong partnership the two companies had announced last September and will be hitting city streets “soon” the company said.

The Ford Fusion (now with Lyft autonomy!)

While the integration of Lyft’s autonomous technologies and Ford’s hardware is impressive, perhaps more meaningful is the company’s acquisition of Blue Vision Labs, a startup out of London that has developed a way of ingesting street-level imagery and is using it to build collaborative, interactive augmented reality layers — all by way of basic smartphone cameras.

Blue Vision will sit within Lyft’s Level 5 autonomous car division headed up by Luc Vincent (who joined the company last year as VP of engineering after creating and running Google Street View).

The startup and its staff of 39 (everyone is joining Lyft) will also become the anchor for a new R&D operation in London or the San Francisco-based company, focused on that autonomous driving effort. Level 5 is stepping up a gear in another way today, too: Lyft is unveiling a new vehicle that it will be using for testing.

Blue Vision has developed technology that provides both street level mapping and interactive augmented reality that lets two people see the same virtual objects. The company has already built highly detailed maps that developers can now use to develop collaborative AR experiences — it’s like the maps of these spaces become canvasses for virtual objects to be painted on. Over time, we may see various uses of it throughout the Lyft platform, but for now the main focus is Level 5.

“We are looking forward to focusing Blue Vision’s technology on building the best maps at scale to support our autonomous vehicles, and then localization to support our stacks,” Vincent said in an interview. “This is fundamental to our business. We need good maps and to understand where every passenger and vehicle is. To make our services more efficient and remove friction, we want their tech to drive improvements.”

People familiar with the acquisition tell us Blue Vision was acquired for around $72 million with $30 million on top of that based on hitting certain milestones. Lyft has declined to comment on the valuation. Blue Vision had raised $17 million and had only come out of stealth last March, after working quietly on the product for two years. Investors included GV, Accel, Horizons Ventures, SV Angel and more.

This deal is notable in part because this is the first acquisition that Lyft has made to expand its autonomous car operation, which now has 300 people working on it. At a time when many larger companies are snapping up startups that have developed interesting applications or technologies around areas like AR, mapping, and autonomous driving, there may be more to come. “We are always evaluating build versus buy,” Vincent said when asked about more acquisitions. But he also acknowledged that it is a very crowded field today, even when considering just the most promising companies.

“I don’t have a crystal ball but arguably there are quite a few players today, including big tech, startups, OEMs and car makers. There are well over 100 [strong] companies in the space and there is bound to be some consolidation.” Lyft earlier this year also inked an investment and partnership with Magna to integrate its self-driving car system into components it supplies to car makers.

But it also might face other pressures. The company counts Didi and GM among its investors, and both of these companies are making their own big strides in self-driving technology and each has inked deals to have more partners using that tech, in part to justify some of their own hefty investment.

Lyft, of course, will hope that acquisitions like Blue Vision will give it more leverage, and make it one of the consolidators, rather than the consolidated.

Blue Vision’s use of smartphones to ingest data to create its street-level imagery and mapping is crucial to Lyft’s quest for scale. In effect, every Lyft vehicle in operation today, with a smartphone on the dashboard, could be commandeered to become a “camera” watching, surveying and mapping the roads that those cars drive on, and how humans behave on them, using that to help Lyft’s autonomous vehicle (AV) platform learn more about driving overall.

In the race for data to “teach” these AI systems, having that wide network of cameras deployed and picking up data so quickly is “game changing,” said Peter Ondruska, the co-founder and CEO of Blue Vision.

“The amount of data you have affects how much you can rely on your system,” Ondruska said in an interview. “What our tech allows us to do is to utilise Lyft’s fleet to train the cars. That is really game changing. I was working on this for eight years and you have to have a lot of data to get to the right level of safety. That is hard and we can get there faster using our technology.”

Lyft up to now has really concentrated its business presence in North America, and so this marks at least one kind of way that it is expanding on the other side of the pond. It opened its first European office in Munich earlier this year, a sign that it’s looking to this part of the world at least for R&D, if not to expand its business footprint to consumers, just yet. Vincent declined to comment on whether Lyft would get involved in autonomous trials in London, nor whether it would expand its transportation service there.

Another key area that is worth noting is that Blue Vision’s “collaborative” VR, which lets people look at the same spot in space and both see and create interactive, virtual figures in it, could be used by Lyft either to help drivers and would-be passengers better communicate, or even help passengers discover more services during a journey or at their destination.

When Ondruska first spoke to TechCrunch earlier this year as the company emerged from stealth, ride hailing applications, in fact, were one of the use cases that we pointed out could be helped by its tech.

Peter Ondruska, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, [said] that Blue Vision’s tech can pinpoint people and other moving objects in a space to within centimeters of their actual location — far more accurate than typical GPS — meaning that it could give better results in apps that require two parties to find each other, such as in a ride-hailing app. (Hands up if you and your Uber driver have ever lost each other before you’ve even stepped foot in the vehicle.)

Blue Vision Labs, which builds ‘collaborative’ AR, emerges from stealth with $14.5M led by GV

Blue Vision isn’t the only company working to develop these virtual maps for the world. Startups like 6d.ai, Blippar and the incredibly well capitalized and wildly successful AR technology developer Niantic Labs are also building out these virtual maps on which developers can create applications. Indeed, Niantic’s Pokemon Go game is the most successful augmented reality application to date.

Large media companies have also been investing building content for these platforms, and investors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into startups like 6d, Niantic, Blue Vision, and others that are building both software and hardware to usher in this new age of how we will, apparently, all soon be seeing the world.

The development of these new platforms will go a long way toward ensuring that more useful applications are just around the corner, waiting for users to pick them up.

“One of the reasons why AR hasn’t really reached mass market adoption is because of the tech that is on the market,” Ondruska told us earlier this year. “Single-user experiences are limiting. We are allowing the next step, letting people see the right place, for example. None of that was possible before in AR because the backend didn’t exist. But by filling in this piece, we are creating new AR use cases, ones that are important and will be used on a daily basis.”

The deal marks Lyft’s tenth acquisition, according to CrunchBase. In 2015, Lyft acquired the disappearing messaging company, Leo, to bring the company’s messaging expertise in house. Two years later, the ride-hailing company went on an acquisition tear, hoovering up FinitePaths, YesGraph, DataScore, and Kamcord. The first three seem like strategic acquisitions to bulk up mapping and marketing efforts  internally; but Kamcord, a social media network for video sharing, seemed a little farther afield.

For more on Lyft’s bigger plans for AV, watch the video below of Vincent talking about the company’s roadmap (so to speak).

Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives Lyft, the transportation on demand company that is heading to a $15 billion IPO in 2019…

[roseacisco]

Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

Lyft, the transportation on demand company that is heading to a $15 billion IPO in 2019, is racing ahead with its autonomous vehicle plans. TechCrunch has learned that it is acquiring the London-based augmented reality startup Blue Vision Labs and unveiling its first test vehicle with Ford to advance its vision for self-driving cars.

The first Ford car from Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving initiative will be the Ford Fusion Hybrid. It’s the culmination of a yearlong partnership the two companies had announced last September and will be hitting city streets “soon” the company said.

The Ford Fusion (now with Lyft autonomy!)

While the integration of Lyft’s autonomous technologies and Ford’s hardware is impressive, perhaps more meaningful is the company’s acquisition of Blue Vision Labs, a startup out of London that has developed a way of ingesting street-level imagery and is using it to build collaborative, interactive augmented reality layers — all by way of basic smartphone cameras.

Blue Vision will sit within Lyft’s Level 5 autonomous car division headed up by Luc Vincent (who joined the company last year as VP of engineering after creating and running Google Street View).

The startup and its staff of 39 (everyone is joining Lyft) will also become the anchor for a new R&D operation in London or the San Francisco-based company, focused on that autonomous driving effort. Level 5 is stepping up a gear in another way today, too: Lyft is unveiling a new vehicle that it will be using for testing.

Blue Vision has developed technology that provides both street level mapping and interactive augmented reality that lets two people see the same virtual objects. The company has already built highly detailed maps that developers can now use to develop collaborative AR experiences — it’s like the maps of these spaces become canvasses for virtual objects to be painted on. Over time, we may see various uses of it throughout the Lyft platform, but for now the main focus is Level 5.

“We are looking forward to focusing Blue Vision’s technology on building the best maps at scale to support our autonomous vehicles, and then localization to support our stacks,” Vincent said in an interview. “This is fundamental to our business. We need good maps and to understand where every passenger and vehicle is. To make our services more efficient and remove friction, we want their tech to drive improvements.”

People familiar with the acquisition tell us Blue Vision was acquired for around $72 million with $30 million on top of that based on hitting certain milestones. Lyft has declined to comment on the valuation. Blue Vision had raised $17 million and had only come out of stealth last March, after working quietly on the product for two years. Investors included GV, Accel, Horizons Ventures, SV Angel and more.

This deal is notable in part because this is the first acquisition that Lyft has made to expand its autonomous car operation, which now has 300 people working on it. At a time when many larger companies are snapping up startups that have developed interesting applications or technologies around areas like AR, mapping, and autonomous driving, there may be more to come. “We are always evaluating build versus buy,” Vincent said when asked about more acquisitions. But he also acknowledged that it is a very crowded field today, even when considering just the most promising companies.

“I don’t have a crystal ball but arguably there are quite a few players today, including big tech, startups, OEMs and car makers. There are well over 100 [strong] companies in the space and there is bound to be some consolidation.” Lyft earlier this year also inked an investment and partnership with Magna to integrate its self-driving car system into components it supplies to car makers.

[gallery ids="1736064,1736065,1736066,1736067,1736069,1736070,1736071,1736072"]

But it also might face other pressures. The company counts Didi and GM among its investors, and both of these companies are making their own big strides in self-driving technology and each has inked deals to have more partners using that tech, in part to justify some of their own hefty investment.

Lyft, of course, will hope that acquisitions like Blue Vision will give it more leverage, and make it one of the consolidators, rather than the consolidated.

Blue Vision’s use of smartphones to ingest data to create its street-level imagery and mapping is crucial to Lyft’s quest for scale. In effect, every Lyft vehicle in operation today, with a smartphone on the dashboard, could be commandeered to become a “camera” watching, surveying and mapping the roads that those cars drive on, and how humans behave on them, using that to help Lyft’s autonomous vehicle (AV) platform learn more about driving overall.

In the race for data to “teach” these AI systems, having that wide network of cameras deployed and picking up data so quickly is “game changing,” said Peter Ondruska, the co-founder and CEO of Blue Vision.

“The amount of data you have affects how much you can rely on your system,” Ondruska said in an interview. “What our tech allows us to do is to utilise Lyft’s fleet to train the cars. That is really game changing. I was working on this for eight years and you have to have a lot of data to get to the right level of safety. That is hard and we can get there faster using our technology.”

Lyft up to now has really concentrated its business presence in North America, and so this marks at least one kind of way that it is expanding on the other side of the pond. It opened its first European office in Munich earlier this year, a sign that it’s looking to this part of the world at least for R&D, if not to expand its business footprint to consumers, just yet. Vincent declined to comment on whether Lyft would get involved in autonomous trials in London, nor whether it would expand its transportation service there.

Another key area that is worth noting is that Blue Vision’s “collaborative” VR, which lets people look at the same spot in space and both see and create interactive, virtual figures in it, could be used by Lyft either to help drivers and would-be passengers better communicate, or even help passengers discover more services during a journey or at their destination.

When Ondruska first spoke to TechCrunch earlier this year as the company emerged from stealth, ride hailing applications, in fact, were one of the use cases that we pointed out could be helped by its tech.

Peter Ondruska, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, [said] that Blue Vision’s tech can pinpoint people and other moving objects in a space to within centimeters of their actual location — far more accurate than typical GPS — meaning that it could give better results in apps that require two parties to find each other, such as in a ride-hailing app. (Hands up if you and your Uber driver have ever lost each other before you’ve even stepped foot in the vehicle.)

Blue Vision Labs, which builds ‘collaborative’ AR, emerges from stealth with $14.5M led by GV

Blue Vision isn’t the only company working to develop these virtual maps for the world. Startups like 6d.ai, Blippar and the incredibly well capitalized and wildly successful AR technology developer Niantic Labs are also building out these virtual maps on which developers can create applications. Indeed, Niantic’s Pokemon Go game is the most successful augmented reality application to date.

Large media companies have also been investing building content for these platforms, and investors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into startups like 6d, Niantic, Blue Vision, and others that are building both software and hardware to usher in this new age of how we will, apparently, all soon be seeing the world.

The development of these new platforms will go a long way toward ensuring that more useful applications are just around the corner, waiting for users to pick them up.

“One of the reasons why AR hasn’t really reached mass market adoption is because of the tech that is on the market,” Ondruska told us earlier this year. “Single-user experiences are limiting. We are allowing the next step, letting people see the right place, for example. None of that was possible before in AR because the backend didn’t exist. But by filling in this piece, we are creating new AR use cases, ones that are important and will be used on a daily basis.”

The deal marks Lyft’s tenth acquisition, according to CrunchBase. In 2015, Lyft acquired the disappearing messaging company, Leo, to bring the company’s messaging expertise in house. Two years later, the ride-hailing company went on an acquisition tear, hoovering up FinitePaths, YesGraph, DataScore, and Kamcord. The first three seem like strategic acquisitions to bulk up mapping and marketing efforts  internally; but Kamcord, a social media network for video sharing, seemed a little farther afield.

For more on Lyft’s bigger plans for AV, watch the video below of Vincent talking about the company’s roadmap (so to speak).