Ahh, the maps were so good. I remember using the extremely detailed hand drawn map to help me locate the Cavern of the Incarnate, and other cool locations. I am sad that I didn’t keep them.

I loved reading through the manual for Morrowind with the copy we got on the original XBox. I read all the class descriptions, details about the schools of magic, and had a whole character planned out before starting the game. I didn’t get into tabletop gaming until much later, but looking back, that manual really captured the same feeling of reading through the D&D players handbook and picking out a race, class, background, etc.

I think that feeling is why it’s still my favorite PC game.

Some still are. Bigelow I think.

But loose leaf tea is much better quality anyway and avoids the issue of what’s in the bag entirely. They also have ceramic filters so you can completely avoid having plastic in contact with hot water

Inspiring

Are you talking about the adapters that let you run network through your electrical circuits? Because that’s different from PoE. PoE is running power through the network cables so you get power and network with one plug, so kind of the opposite of that.

I can confirm that using electrical infrastructure for network is really not great.

A lot of tea for me, especially earthy flavors. Shou Puerh tea is like a magical grounding experience for me every time I drink it. I love coffee and drink that daily, but when I really need to just be I break into the puerh stash.

For evenings I like a lot of herbal teas. Rooibos is probably my favorite. Lately I have been drinking a lot of lemon ginger tea with a splash of apple cider vinegar before bed.

Similar situation here. I was raised home schooled for all of my education. Got a GED, good score on the ACT, got a 4.0 in the community college where I got an associates degree. The problem is parents who homeschool because they don’t want their kids to turn “woke” or be “converted” by exposure to the fact that non-straight, non-cis people exist. A lot of the time, the emphasis is only on indoctrination, and there is little or no actual education involved.

I have been to homeschool conferences - there are some good resources there, and a LOT of really pretty awful stuff like this article mentioned. People like the author are so incredibly impactful, even if they don’t realize it. They may never see results but those seeds matter. Even if the parents don’t get it, the kids will.

At a conference last year, there was a speaker talking about parenting difficult children (Kirk Martin with Celebrate Calm). He was presenting very much a solid gentle parenting approach (though he didn’t call it that) that is very contrary to the culture of a lot of homeschool groups. He spent a lot of time unpacking his experiences as someone who grew up with really strict physical discipline, the impact it had on him, his experience being a parent - kind of leading people on a journey from where they might be to where they should be as parents.

He also spent a bit of his talk on how the Bible doesn’t teach us to raise our kids to fight in a culture war and just really pretty clearly calling out a lot of the toxic far right christian-nationalist talking points. Sure he made a lot of people uncomfortable, but those thoughts will stick with them.

After his talk he was spent over an hour talking with people outside of the conference room answering questions. His next talk was packed as well.

Anyway, all that to say - I know it can take a lot out of someone to deal with people in those environments, but it is absolutely impactful and so desperately needed.

It honestly changed my life when I started meeting with friends at specific times each week to lift weights. Having it be an actual appointment that would affect others if I didn’t show up made all the difference. I was super excited to be there and never missed a day.

Then their schedules changed and they are no longer available when I am. I still like working out… but it’s so hard to make myself do it and I am super inconsistent now. It depresses me to think about it