Canopyflyer

Brilliant.

You are the Universe experiencing itself.

Playing a high level (19th) home brewed adventure. I'm playing a Dragonborn Twilight Domain Cleric, my wife is playing a Sea Elf Paladin Oath of Vengence. There are two other players in the party a Tortle Warlock/Bard and Triton Ranger.

The party runs across a large chamber absolutely filled with various monstrous insects and other nasties, with the latest BBEG at the other end of the chamber. In between are chasms, and other obstacles. Basically, the entire room was designed to wear us down before we get to the BBEG.

My wife's Paladin has Gauntlets of Storm Giant Strength, so her strength is 29 AND she's hasted. So my nearly 300 pound armored Dragonborn Cleric climbs onto her back and casts Spirit Guardians...... at 9th level.

Then my wife runs as fast as she can. Her movement was 120 and she was able to leap over all the chasms in the way. I rolled for Spirit Guardians and damn near maxed out the damage and the DC was 22... There were THREE monsters left, besides the BBEG, and they were severely bloodied and easily dispatched by the other two characters, at range obviously. Also, the BBEG had to use one of its Legendary Resistances to save against Spirit Guardians, and with smart work from the Warlock/Bard and Ranger its next two LR's got used up and we killed it in 3 turns.

Our DM was too impressed to be pissed.

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant Who was very rarely stable

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar Who could think you under the table

David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raising of the wrist Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill

Plato, they say, could stick it away Half a crate of whiskey every day

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle Hobbes was fond of his dram

And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart "I drink, therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed

Hobbyist cook here that owns one of the best duel fuel ranges (gas top, electric oven) on the US market. A Wolf DF304 and yes, I'm damn proud of it. It is by far the best cooking range I have ever used. Unlike its predecessor, a Dacor RSD30, it has stood up to very heavy use over the years.

I love to cook with gas. I have cooked on resistive electric and they are terrible.

With that said (induction supporters, it's time for you to just wait a bit, I know you're just cracking your knuckles to put me on blast).

My next range, or cooktop will be induction. A friend of mine has an induction cooktop that is comparable to Wolf. It actually is pretty nice... For the most part. My issue with induction really is not how it cooks, but rather the weird noises that will sometimes come from either the cookware, or the cooktop itself. It's a high end induction as well (Viking I think). So I'm not talking about some cheap stove from a box store.

But as far as how well it cooks, I really do like induction. It does all the things that gas does well; instant temperature control, gets really low for simmering, gets really hot for searing or other high heat cooking. I also like the fact that induction doesn't produce any carcinogenic combustion byproducts. I've always had a high flow vent above any gas range I have owned. My wife used to have the bad habit of not turning on the fan when she uses the stovetop. Yeah, that doesn't happen now.

The bad news is... It's a Wolf which is designed to last 20 years in a professional kitchen. While mine sees heavy use for a home kitchen, that's peanuts in comparison. A Wolf will literally last a lifetime in a home. It would really pain me to junk this thing prematurely. If we stay where we are, the kitchen will need to be remodeled in the next 5 to 6 years. At that point my stove will be 15 years old, so we might just replace it.

54m here.

Started in my early 30's. I still have some hair on top, but it's not much, just enough to run a comb through. Though these days I keep it so short that combing or brushing isn't practical. From a distance I look like I'm wearing yamaka the color of my skin.

The last thing I want is to do like my Dad did. Grow a few hairs long enough to wrap around my head. One of my brothers fancies himself "a renaissance man" (yes, he's a fucking idiot) and has grown his hair long enough to have a pony tail.... That originates from the front of his head. Yes, it looks as bad as you are imagining.

The one thing I did luck out on, is I have almost no gray hair. The woman who has been cutting my hair for the last 17 years even asked me what hair coloring I use. It took three hair cuts for her to finally find a gray hair on my head, but she was convinced I colored my hair until that point. My beard is about 30% gray. I'm getting more gray hairs on my head now.

Solid recipes that tend toward being simple and easy to make, but still taste great. I have several of his books in my cookbook collection. With that said, I don't reach for them nearly as much as some others. For reference cooking is a full on hobby for me. I have multiple bookshelves full of cookbooks.

His "Kinda Spaghetti Bolognese" is a family favorite and I make it several times a year.

As to what I think of Jamie himself? Honestly, I don't know anything about him, other than he's British. Entertainment celebrities is not a subject that holds any interest for me.

In the pantheon of cooks, whose recipes I've made:

He's a LOT better than Rachael Ray (but who isn't?).

But not quite as good as a Julia Child, Ina Garten, Charlie Trotter (RIP), or Jonathan Best.

First drink? 19

First time actually drunk? 21

Last time drunk? 29

Number of times actually drunk: 3 I find it really an unpleasant feeling and not just the hangover. Being drunk and not having complete control of my body, the weird fog in my brain. Yuck... Couple that with the hangover the next day, it's just not worth it for me. I never saw the point of going out with a group of friends to just get "wasted".

Current Age: 54 and I enjoy 1 to 2 glasses of wine at dinner with my wife around 3 or 4 times a month. Once in a great while I'll get a 6 pack of beer. Usually when a local brewery has their Dark Doppleboch out.

From my youth: 1970 Buick GSX Stage 1

From my 20's: I started autocrossing at age 19 with a 1985 Corolla GT-S. Which for those that know Toyotas, know that the Corolla GT-S was the North American version of the AE86. Which is ONE of the greatest platforms Toyota has made. It ended up being my favorite car that I've ever owned. Adjustable struts/shocks, sway bars that would look at home on a semi truck and Hoosier tires. Plus some minor mods on the engine, which was also used in the MR2 of that era (4A-GE). It was a ferocious little car and I won a lot of autocross events with it. I was even keeping up with some of the MR2's, which at that time (late 80's) were the greatest autocrossing cars on the track.

Now that I'm in my 50's, having participated in multiple forms of auto sports, then left that for skydiving... My opinion about cars is this:

A "fast" car is just less slow that its competitors.

Given that I've been north of 225mph with NOTHING around me except for a parachute. Cars are booooooring.

That I've met personally?

Don't know, but here's a list that I consider the coolest people I've personally met and I'll give a brief synopsis on how I met them:

Neil Armstrong: Went to get a haircut in Loveland, OH where I was living at the time. Walked into an old school barber shop that was on Loveland-Medaira RD, just down from Krogers. There were three men in the shop, the barber, who was cutting the hair of a man in the chair, and one more who was reading a newspaper, so I couldn't see his face. The barber finished up and looked at the gentleman reading the newspapers and said; "Neil you're up next." The man put the newspaper down and I found myself face to face with the first man to walk on the moon. Yeah... It was a trip to say the least. He lived in the town next to Loveland and he was there looking for a new barber, as his previous one was a bit of a creep.

Paul Tibbets: My Demonstration Skydiving team was performing in an airshow at Lunken Airport on the east side of Cincinnati. Col Tibbets was there as part of a Hiroshima presentation. After my team wrapped up after the show I toured the displays. I had my team shirt on and walked up to the table where he was sitting. He asked a few questions and said my team and I were really brave doing demo jumps... Yeah.. the guy that dropped the first nuclear bomb called my team and I... Brave... Rather a surreal moment for me. He was really interesting to talk to.

Chuck Yeager: Gen Yeager drove the pace car for the 1986 Indy 500. My high school marching band also was marching in the parades and around the track. Yes, I'm really old, I was 16 that year. Some friends and I were walking around the campus where we were staying and actually just ran into him... Literally. I knew who he was, but none of my friends did not, so I didn't say anything. He gruffly dismissed us and walked off. Yes, we did apologize for running into him.

James Doohan: He gave a presentation at Indiana University Southeast in the early 80's and my Dad took me to see it. He never announced that he was staying afterward and for some reason my Dad and I hung around after most everyone left. There was only about 8 people that were in the auditorium and we got time to talk directly to him. He was the type of person that you just... Loved. He was an actual good person who was also very intelligent. I actually cried when he died in 2005.

Anyway, that's my submission of people that I think of as "cool" that I had direct interactions with. Other's than that I would consider cool:

John Young: Robert Crippen, in an interview, stated that his heart rate while Columbia was sitting on the pad, for its first launch was over 140. John's was 70. Yeah, John Young was sitting on top of thousands of pounds of brand new untested rocket and wasn't bothered in the least... FUCK ME. If that ain't cool, I don't know what is. I never got to meet him, unfortunately.

If you find yourself throwing away a lot of stale moldy bread...

Freeze it.

When you need it, take it out the night before to thaw in a sealed bag. Or if you want toast, just throw the frozen slices straight into your toaster.

This also works for most cakes and other baked goods.

How about...

Inside the damn airplane. It was a Beech 18 with Pratt and Whitney Wasp Jr engines used for skydiving operations. The pilot was also the drop zone owner (DZO). The DZO normally kept 3 loads worth of fuel in the plane and I got on the 4th load.

We take off and are on climb out and about 200 feet off the ground it gets... quiet. Did you catch the previous paragraph where I mention the plane had two Pratt and Whitney Wasp Jr engines? I mention that, because those engines are loud... Like really really loud. We crashed in a corn field off the end of the runway. It was like being in a car accident, except a whole lot more noise and grinding metal and quite a bit scarier. With that said, no one was hurt and there was no fire, because there was no fuel in the plane.

All but one person in the crash got out and jumped into the other Beech 18 and did our jumps.

Yeah, skydivers are a bit of a different breed, no doubt about that.

As far as closest to an airliner accident. I saw the remains of United 232 in Sioux City IA about 4 hours after the crash. My parents and I were on the way to see my oldest brother and his family that lived in Sioux Falls, SD at the time. We passed by the airport on I-29 which is less than half a mile away. It was far enough to see the debris and rescue crews working, but not close enough to see the victims... Thank god.

Seeing that accident, plus a strong love of aviation ignited an interest I have had ever since to learn as much as I could about aircraft incidents. I probably should have pursued a career in aircraft accident investigation, not sure why I never did.