#writing slower and in smaller chunks has also helped with like

[reitziluz]

wishing u well!! u r great and cool and im cheering for u!!

oh! thank you!

it's been a p good couple of days. i've been recovering from the nightmare this month has been and the crisis mode i had to go in. it unlocked something in me, and i've been able to do things shittily and "wrong" in the way where they still actually get done.

i may complain about the Dreadful Chunk of dialogue i'm working on, but actually it's also incredibly juicy shit and i can't wait to finally inflict it on people!

hope you're having a great day!

[the-east-art]

It Took Luke Paneling Ramble

Okay just some rambling about the paneling in It Took Luke (BUY IT NOW BUY IT NOW). Gore warning! It Took Luke was writted by Mark Boucard and illustrated by Bayleigh Underwood (@iceghosto - HIHGLY recommend their art is so good). Although I’m not here to discuss the story really right now, I’m here to ramble on about my thoughts of how Bayleigh Underwood uses paneling in the book - to be honest this is mostly thoughts I had while analyzing the book, and I’m hopeful that writing down my observations will help them to stick in my mind more firmly - so you reading them is just a by product of that. 

Loosely speaking, Underwood has three-panel heights per page - a top, a middle, and a bottom, usually having each section divided in two, either in half or with one panel taking up �� and the other taking up 2/3. By no means is this a hard rule or anything, just a pattern. The first few pages are pretty action packed so they don’t really follow this pattern: page 1 is two sections and pages 6,7,8, and 9 are all divided into four sections. However a quick glance will show that the 3 section pages are the ‘norm’ - they take up a good chunk of the exploration pages or the book where we feel we are between major dramatic beats. Three is a natural number that people are drawn to, three section pages give the characters time to breath and stretch into the space without taking up so much that it feels TOO important. If I did my job right I should have a few 3x2 pages shown above that show the pattern - you may notice that the majority is not all of these have the horizontal length even with the page justification - again an indication of regularity. I would also noticed that the 2/3 and 1/3 divisions alternate.  

So here are three section pages that don’t follow the 3x2 pattern or use it in a unique way. Here’s a subtle subversion - a crack in the facade. Still divided up into the 3 panels high, two sections of which share the space, but all are on a subtle diagonal now. When an action beat is in a three-sectioned page it usually compensates for only taking up a third of the page by then stretching clear across the page horizontally, rather than sharing the space with a second panel - as we can see when ‘It’ took Luke. Taking up more space means that we dwell on this section of hte page longer and see it as being more important than if it was divided in half. While still three panels tall, each of these panels stretch across the entire page, and all of them have a diagonal line - a diagonal line indicating action. Notice how this diagonal line is more severe of an angel than the one previously illustrated. 

These two pages I really like as well: In the first page we have two full length horizontals, and in the middle one a half cut panel - the smaller the panels being loosely the smaller amount of time we are witnessing - we are too assume that Sal looking at the monster and reaching for a distraction are happening mere seconds apart, if not simultaneously - I also like the little bonus panel showing Sal grabbing the flour - because it doesn’t match the typical panel layout and lies above all other panels, it feel booths important and sudden. I mention the second image because while it uses the ‘exciting’ version of the 2x3 format (the tilted angle version) it divides that top right panel in half to imply the slice of a blade! We don’t actually even see Sal wind up or follow through or make that swing - we just see the hairy lines and the sound effect and our brain puts the rest together. Really clever! 

I’m not really going to go into depth about pages that are 2 panels mostly because they are used less often and they are more straightforward to me - an establishing shot follow by the explanation. The half panel space is used most often for added background details, or to make us focus more on a character for a period of time. Two panel high pages therefore feel slower, since less information is being shot at you and the largeness and detail invites you stay a while on those sections. I will point out this page which uses a 2x2 format to enhance the feeling of verticality that comes with stairs. 

Following this we can see four-panels tall pages about as we would expect them to be read - the smaller panels mean that we are focusing closer at smaller periods of time - in the beginning of the story this is conversation, dialogue, exposition. The squad is chatting, this takes less time than climbing through a building, and we need more panels to change character POVS and give them chances for more word bubbles. The things that happen in four panel tall pages are to be perceived as happening faster - with smaller panels your eyes may dart past them faster, and smaller moments are highlighted (this is also done sometimes in three panel tall pages by dividing the horizontal space into 3 rather than 2). 

There’s WAY more cool paneling and WAY WAY WAY more cool art in this little book than I could possibly discuss all in this post (I actually had to cut part of it because of some internet related issues) and obviously I'm really just talking about panels right here! Talking about the way that the characters are placed, the lineart, the ways lights are darks are used action lines is a WHOLE OTHER THING, but it was really fun to analyze :3 If you haven’t I highly recommend buying It Took Luke - It is a horror, a tragedy, and filled with gore, but if you can manage that it is a great read and honestly such eye candy for the reader. 

[rin-and-jade]

Oops.. I’ve Lost Track.. : A Post about Unintended Time Traveling

Have you ever mistook that today’s thursday and not a wednesday even if you’re so sure? Have you ever wondered why time flies so fast while nothing’s done for the day? Or maybe when those “five more minutes” promises turned into hours until its too late?

Then you might have problems with keeping track, managing, and predicting how long it takes to do something,, this is called time blindness. Which is common among neurodivergent folks.

So it was time travel..?

Surely, but not as fun as how movies convey them. Time blindness can affect people in different ways, such as:

Losing track of days, hours, or to minutes; not being aware how long it has been.

Have a faster/slower sense of internal clock. Meaning, minutes can feel like hours or vice versa.

Problems being on time to appointments, events, and etc; due to faulty predictions on how long it takes for something, such as dressing up or driving to the location.

Trouble remember when was the last time you ate a meal and drank water.

Over-focusing on a specific task/ interest and miss a huge chunk of your routine (compensating or catching up).

And more..

It often affects people with ADHD; but not always limited to autism, depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, bipolar, CDD, and even a byproduct of constant stress itself!

For the plurals out there:

There’s it’s own set of experiences + the addition of the general ones before, such as:

Time looks disoriented due to switching and lost sense of chronological anchor (can’t remember the previous moments to make sense how long time has gone by).

What happened long ago e.g. 1 month, felt like it happened last week. Vice versa.

Alters perceiving sense of time in different, varying speeds.

And, with the addition of CDD’s high comorbidity with other conditions that may worsen time blindness.

Systems can have a harder time due to the existing amnesia barriers that fragments memories, and sometimes this can be super stressful to deal with--but fret not! For whoever needs some tips, i gotchu.

What should i do??

Let's get straight to the point, here's the steps:

Create a routine. If you're prone to missing work or leisure due to it, or need to get things done on time,, having a planned schedule or routine will be the most important part. You can do this in any way preferred, for example, sticking to a 7-day plan that has your school/work/breaks in it already,, or if you're sporadic, you can pre-plan what to do for the day and jot them down as the goal.

Make use of accommodations. Set designated alarms,, maybe for your meals, or hydration reminders, or if you don't want to overshoot that gaming session. Putting clocks that can be visible in your vision also can help keeping you on track. Create checklists to keep track of your chores or whatnot. Maybe write down notes on today's progress, anything with your own creativity!

Break work into smaller steps to ease up. Sometimes procrastination can accompany time blindness, leaving us to do 0 work until its near deadline or the day is almost over, separating the tasks to smaller bits and do them in pieces on your own pace. And sometimes your focus is prone to wander to places if the task is too long or tedious/boring, so this also helps.

Be aware of which activities you're prone to forget time. List or remember them so whenever you wanted to hop back in a special interest, actively remind yourself beforehand and you may make use of number 2.

Lastly, commit to it. This is where all the magic is at, and there will still be days where it tumbles apart and you miss a couple of things.. don't worry, we all are never perfect, there'll always be a day or two where everything's messy and miss that deadline or other stuffs. You haven't failed, keep going.

I hope this could serve you hope that your time blindness is 100% manageable, this post is for every neuro-spicy folks (and systems) out there who's struggling with it,, and i hear your struggles! Feel free to add on your experience or engage with the post if you have any further questions.

(This post is applicable to everyone in need)

- j

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Perfect Timing.”

Alright everyone. I am beginning to realize that maybe expecting myself to write a story every week day with a job and trying to get into grad school and writing a second novel might be a bit..... excessive?

So I am going to try for three times a week. I hope you all stick around :)

And I hope you enjoy today’s story as well. 

Adam stood with his hands behind his back, feet spread to shoulder width. He would never have noticed by himself, but the men and women around him stood a little straighter and stepped a little faster under his watchful eye. Once upon a time they might have only hastened their work if he directly asked them too, but just his mere presence these days could send his crew scurrying to do their work. He hadn’t really changed anything about the way he commanded his men. He was firm when he needed to be but allowed for brevity when it would suit the situation.

However, a few years and some tough lessons was slowly shaping him into the kind of man who could command thousands, sharp posture, calm confidence, and a keen eye. 

But then again anyone who could appear professional while wearing high top heelies was a man to be reckoned with.

Sunny walked up next to him her pearlescent white armor glowing under the light as she leaned on the shade of her matching spear. Her head was held high like his. Where once she had been locked up, and defensive, she now stood with the calm confidence of someone who understood what control meant.

Together they had come a long way.

She tilted her head, “You really think he’s going to let you race this…. It’s a million dollar piece of military hardware, they don’t stand a chance.”

Adam didn’t move, hands still clasped behind his back as he  stared up at the F-90 Darkfire he was preparing for the race, “I wouldn’t be so sure…. I’ll be lucky to come in last place.”

Sunny frowned confused, “I saw those shuttles, they were junk shows.”

He lifted his head as the F-90 was rolled across the deck.

“This is a race, it isn’t combat. She was built for dogfights which means she is going to be heavier than the others. Wing tip to wing tip she is also going to be a little longer than the other shuttles and jets making maneuvering around obstacles more difficult. Sure she likely has a more powerful engine, but that can be as much of a detriment as it is a leg up.”  He gestured in the vague direction of the race course, “We are going to be racing through the planet’s smaller rocky ring. It has an unusual amount of larger, thick chunks which we are going to have to manuver around: the kind of conditions you might see in science fiction movies when they talk about an asteroid field. Asteroid fields are generally too far apart to cause any real issue, but here the rocks are dense, and my flying is going to have to be on pont, having a more powerful engine is going to make her more touchy, and my fitness on the controls is going to have to be absolute.”

Sunny tilted her head listening as he continued. She liked it when this side of him came out. There was something about the analytical, logical side of Adam she found….. Very appealing.

He walked forward to examine the jet himself, “Furthermore, I don’t know if you noticed, but there were a few jets there that weren’t exactly junk shows. A few of them were pretty top of the line, and most of them were built for racing. Lighter, sleeker, faster, and with more engine control than mine.

A lot of my maneuverability is lost out of the atmosphere. This isn’t about how well you can manipulate wind currents, this is going to be all about the very minute rotation of the rear and and wing engines. Their wings are smaller and closer in meaning they are going to rotate more easily than me.

She walked up with him and put a hand on his shoulder, “You forgot to fact in one thing.”

He frowned and looked up, “Oh, what did I miss.”

She smiled slightly, “The skill of the pilot, and I know for a fact that we have the best pilot this side of Andromeda. You can have the best plane in the world, but if you have a shit pilot, then a good pilot in a flying trash can has a chance of winning.”

He Smiled, “Thanks, I needed that.”

He stepped back, “Still it doesn't pay to be too cocky. I have a feeling these people have raced this before, they are going to know what they are dealing with, and I am going tinto this completely blind. This is a test to see if my instincts are better than their practice…. Who knows it could be a very close run thing.”

He moved forward to do an extra check on the outside of the ship despite having a whole team of people to do it for him. Adam had learned to delegate a lot of his responsibilities onto others to avoid burnout, but this was one thing he never left to other people. He came back after a thorough check of the ship and stopped next to her.

His head was tilted to one side as he looked at the machine sitting before him.

“It is missing something.”

Sunny turned her head to look at him, “What?”

He smiled, “Do we have anyone here who has experience with graffiti?”

***

Donavan Red met him when he entered the hanger, wearing his flight suit and holding his helmet under one arm. He had gone for some of his more simple equipment. Didn’t want to give the guy an excuse to blame his skill on technology.

Red looked him over.

“Nice suit, princess.”

Adam just smiled thinly looking around at the other pilots, “I see I might be under-dressed.”

To be far though, he wasn’t exactly sure what he would have described the dress code, if he had to put it on an invitation. 

The most apt description seemed to have been.

Dress for Pissing contest.

The men and women wore their uniforms in the same way NASCAR drivers might, covered in logos and patterns. Some of them were clearly custom ordered with personal designs on the backs or the helmets, some sporting flames, others cartoon animals, one guy was just covered in black and white skulls.

The affect up close was ok, but from a distance he just looked like an over excited dalmatian, or maybe some kind of flamboyant cow.

A few of them went for color themes, neon red on black. Neon green on blue.

Most of them tried to coordinate with the matching colors on their ship, each trying to outdo the next.

Red smirked.

The docking bay light began to blink red as the airlock was engaged, and the all turned to watch as the doors opened, and Adam’s jet rolled into the docking bay. She was simultaneously both very impressive and very not impressive. She was an instrument of war, and he rockets lined up on either side of her wings said as much. Adam had once considered her rather sleek in comparison to other jets of the day, but looking at her now in comparison with the racing planes and he couldn’t help but compare her to a pitbull or a bulldog next to greyhounds or whippets.

She rolled up slowly and Red raised an eyebrow.

“A whose guy huh?”

Adam smirked, “I don’t know, I kind of like it.”

They both looked up as the F-90 stopped in place, and along her side in delicate blue cursive script was the name Cinderella. The man who had done the graffiti  had even taken the time to add some stylized pink roses to the front and end of the word giving it a finished look.

Donavan seemed both amused and annoyed at the same time.

The men and women around him turned to look over ridicule dying on their lips as they saw the smirk on his face.

It was made pretty clear.

He was going to beat them, and when he beat them, he was going to have a princess logo on the side of his jet, never mind all of their cool paint jobs.

Donavan frowned but then turned to everyone, “Alright load up!.” Adam did as ordered, switching seats with the young pilot in the cockpit and strapping himself in. he adjusted his controls, did a quick once over, and then pulled some power from his engine.  There was going to be an overwhelming desire to go fast, but he knew that speed wasn’t going to win him this race.

The jets began lining up next to each other, and to his surprise, one of the sleek racing models sidled up next to him, and when he looked over, he saw Donovan Red cambering into the cockpit.

That didn’t exactly bode well, but what was there to do about it.

He felt cool oxygen spilling  onto his mouth and nose as the orange tinted visor dropped down over his eyes. He opted not to use the heads up display preferring to see everything around him as he was flying. 

They were all in a line now, and up ahead a large projection appeared on the docking bay doors.

Red lights began to blink as the docking bay was cleared of everyone except for the jets.

The image of a woman appeared on the screen before them.

It was one of the women he had seen before in her cut off jean shorts and tight tank top.

“Ladies and gentlemen start - your - ENGINES!”

All around him the room was filled with a roar as the group of people pushed their engines to an idle.

He could feel the jet underneath him as it thrummed and whined vibrating into his gloves and down into his skin.

His very bones could feel the trembling.

“The course is simple, one lap around the rocky interior ring of the planet. Rules are only this, no leaving the ring, no weapons, and no teams, every man for himself. If the race moderators see any of this, you will be thrown from the race.”

She smiled and leaned back to reveal two green flags in either hand.

She began to wave them.

“On your mark!”

He took a deep calming breath forcing his hand to relax.

“Get set.”

He felt his heart beating  hard against his ribcage, his stomach crawled up into his throat, and he felt the sudden and overwhelming need to pee.

“GO!”

THe airlock doors shot open faster than they should have been able, a clear sign someone had bypassed safety protocols. Caught off guard by this, Adam shot out of the gate slower than he would have liked. Already the racing  jets streaked ahead, their quicker sleeker designs looking right at home against the blackness of space.

He had to remind himself that in space, without wind resistance, sleek didn’t mean shit.

If he was good enough he could have piloted a brick to win.

He gave more joice to the engine and shot forward. He cut under one of his other opponents and then cythed up next to a second.

He was there for only a moment when he saw something coming in from his right.

Instincts had him move fast, and he turned horizontal  shooting upwards just as another jet tried to push him out. He was flying over the two of them now, and gave another burst shooting forward and past them.

This open stretch was the only time he was going to be able to use the power of his engine to his advantage, so he gave her a little more juice and shot forward catching up quickly with the racing models at the front. Two of them cut sideways attempting to block his path. He cursed, forced to fire his engines backwards so as not to go crashing into them. 

The ring was approaching quickly now, and he could see very clearly that they had not been kidding. The belt was dense, less mate out of fine sand, and instead made up of billions of rocks some the size of him, others the size of cars, and even some the size of large houses. It was the strangest sort of formation he had ever seen around a planet, and he wondered idly how they stayed in orbit.

The two jets ahead of him cut right and then left as a rock came barreling towards him.

He shouted and rolled to the side barely avoiding a head on collision, his instincts saving him where his active brain could not.

He snarled.

“Pull it together.”

There was no time to be thinking, there was only time for flying.

WIth a practiced hand he toggled a switch on the side of his thumb, and his helmet was suddenly filled with the sound of music and drums. His brain focused inward and stopped thinking. He shot over and then under rolling between rocks just inches away on either side. Off to his right the planet below was glowing with the light of it’s star, a lightning blue halo around it where the atmosphere glowed.

He cut the left dove down and then rolled up.

He could see the other jets ahead of him cutting in and out through the rocks. His breathing grew even, his body relaxed, his brain heard nothing but the beat of the music and saw nothing but the obstacles ahead of him.

One of the jets pulled up next to him from behind recklessly rolling around one of the rocks. They were racing wing tip to wing tip now.

They cut right and left under and over he rolled left they rolled right. They were shaky just hanging on, but his flying was smooth.

Up ahead one of the other jets lit up with glowing orange as a set of flares broke from it’s back end shatting against the debris behind it.  Rocks were thrown off their normal course and went smashing into each other turning the rock field ahead of them into a meat grinder. Adam shot forward and dived downward while rolling tight, behind him the racer was unable to replicate the move and a piece of rock caught their wing sending them spinning off to the side and out of the ring.

Adam dodged a piece of debris coming in from his left, flipped upside down and shot diving upward and then righting himself just under the jet up front.

He could see the leader now, and recognized it as Red himself .

The jet above him attempted to drop down and knock him out of position, but he gave a burst to the engine and shot forward.

The jet behind him punched downward and nearly collided into a rock before pulling back into the palace.

Adam took their place in second.

Red could see him coming.

Another set of flares was released.

He checked his forward momentum and rolled three or four times to his right. G forces tugged at his consciousness forcing blackness to the edge of his vision. He tightened the muscles of his chest and stomach forcing blood back up into his head as he breathed out in short controlled bursts.

A rock flew overhead, he cut low, bumped up and then executed a rolling turn over a massive rock pulling in behind red and just up to the right to avoid another burst of flares.

The two of them were fighting for the front now.

And red was good, he knew how to handle a jet, but so did Adam.

They roared past a field of rocks splitting apart as a massive chunk came between them. Adam roared forward, and panicked for a single moment as he saw an impenetrable wall of rock appear just before him. Then a crack appeared. He fired the forward engine and cut horizontal passing through an opening that left him only feet to spare. Rock rose up to meet him, and he rotated his engine up dropping vertically before cutting sideways and passing under a rock. Teeth gritted, he punched upward passing through a gap just as it closed behind him.

A yell of exertain escaped his lips as he pulled straight up cutting up the side of a massive mansion-sized rock before diving right back down into the thick of it.

Red was gone, he didn’t see him anymore.

Was he up front?

And then the sleek black jet dropped down from above cutting him off.

He cursed and swerved low past another rock forced to cut diagonal back into line.

He pulled up wing to wing with the men again.

They dove, they pulled up and they took a wide turn ac coordinated together as a military formation never more than four feet apart.

They were going faster than they probably should have reacted. second by second he rolled left Red went right. They both met in a dive rolling past each other, wings almost touching before cutting upwards mirroring each other in opposite directions. The sound of the music melded with the path of his flight.

They were racing side by side just as one of the other jets roared over them careening out of control in a desperate attempt t o reach front. They watched him dive pull up cut left, and then a rock rolled right into their path. The two of them barely had time to react as the rock hit their right wing and then sent them slamming into the next boulder. There was an eruption and a brief ball of fire as oxygen was consumed from inside the cockpit. Debris blossomed up around them in a miniature explosion.

Adam greeted his teeth, eyes wide .

What was once a race suddenly turned into a battlezone. He and Red dove together rolling around the debris desperately trying to avoid getting cut in two. At these speeds, one hit would be the death of them. His heart raced in his chest as he pulled forward cutting  in the triangle made by three boulders side by side. Red mirrored him below.

A chunk of metal shot towards him, and he toggled his right wing burst just in time, lowering his left side just in time for the chunk to go flying past him. He pulled up with a gasp as a massive chunk of rock cut up before him. Red shot below and he rolled over the top coming into second place.

Up ahead a mining barge ascended through the line of rocks.

Adam roared with exertion as he pulled up and leveled out shooting right under the attached arm of the barge. Red lights erupted over it’s hull in a proximity warning as he went just inches overhead.

The barge driver, clearly spooked twisted to the side and the arm of the barge rolled with it, catching a boulder and sending it flying towards the grouping next to it, there was a sudden explosion of rock and again he was forced to roll to the side. Up down, over and under, cything between lines of rock.

He was almost hit once, then twice.

He toggled the forward engines, slowing himself down and then shooting straight up before continuing forward.

The rocks around him were rolling unpredictably colliding and then exploding into smaller pieces. There was no way he was making it through that alive.

He was rolling diving spinning twisting, and then, he felt it…. Something he had only felt on occasion. The world around him went silent, everything seemed to slow, and he was filled with…. With a feeling. It was like light, bursting out from his chest, rolling up through his skin and into his head.

He entered a moment of perfect execution. He cut into a tight roll his wings cything through the minute gaps between debris with timing so perfect it shouldn't have been humanly possible. Rocks passed by him at hundreds of miles an hour inches away  from the glass of his canopy, one wrong move and he’d be dead. He cut through a gap that gave him inches on either side rolld right dove down, turned left, spun once and then twice, and made a completely vertical ascent. Rocks flew past him on his right and on his left.

Up ahead he could see a gap slowly closing before him. He opened up his engine and shot forward so fast everything was a blur.

The rocks collided behind him as they snapped shut, and he flew into the clear firing forward to slow himself, and then red was there too descending from above spinning and wobbling, almost out of control and careening directly towards a house sized boulder.

He panicked firing up and down at the same time and sending him into a spin.

He was heading directly towards the rock .

WIthout thinking Adam locked onto the rock, and fired. A rocket under his wing detached and shot forward exploding violently just in time for Red to pass through unharmed. Red jolted awkwardly and rolled to one side. Adam cut past under from right to left and rolled straight over red to avoid a rock.

There was a moment where the two of them were staring at each other through the clear canopy.

Eyes met for an instant, and Adam could see the wide eyed fear on the man’s face., Then Adam rolled ahead ducking under the last rock and then bursting out into space.

He let the F-90 have her moment, and completely opened the engine shooting forward and cutting through the finish line which flashed bright green. In that moment He was hit with such a sense of exhilaration and joy that he couldn't imagine anything better. Who needed drugs, who needed love, who needed any of that when you could fly.

Hed did a triumphant loop whooping the whole way.

Of course, a feeling like that can never last long and slowly began to fade away. THe reality of what he had just done was both terrifying and amazing to the point he felt his body begging to shake. The tension and fear he had been holding back exploded inside him just like that joy and he found his hands trembling on the joystick.

He let it overtake him. He had been like this since he was young and fighting it would only make things worse. Despite his shaking hands he flew back to the docking bay and landed his jet with the precision of a surgeon. Finally when the engine was off and the flood stable underneath him he slumped back in his seat shaking and racked with rolling tremors. He closed his eyes and breathed long and slow.

Behind him the others came limping in.

None of them were completely unscathed, at least one person was dead. His hands continued to shake as the airlock doors shut, and as soon as the room was pressurized, he opened the cockpit. As soon as it did, Sunny came running into the room and up the ladder. SHeleft her spear on the floor and helped him to climb out.  His legs were shaking and he almost fell if it weren’t for her support.

She knew him too well, sitting him down on the lowest step and kneeling next to him.

“Are you ok?”

He grinned at her, “That was…. Holy shit.”

He held up his hand to watch the shaking, “I’m having an earthquake.”

It was just then that Red jumped out of his jet onto the floor. He staggered when he did but pushed away the men who tried to help, “What the ever loving FUCK just happened. The field had NEVER been like that. Jaz DIED out there, what the FUCK.” 

The people milled around in confusion.

Red turned to him, eyes narrowing as he stalked over. Adam sighed and looked up as the man stopped to stand over him

“I’m sorry, I’ll get out of your hair.”

The man paused confused, “What?”

“I broke the rules. Means I forfeit.”

Red looked almost nonplussed, “What are you on about?”

Adam slowly took to his feet taking a few more deep wreaths to steady himself before drawing to his full height. He was stead now and looked down at Red with an unwavering gaze. He held out a hand, “I used weapons during the race, that was against the rules. These weren’t flares to move the rocks. I used a targeted missile during the race and that means I broke the rules.”

Red stared at him.

Then he snorted, “Damn the rules. You saved my ass.” he turned to look at his people, “I am more than man enough to acknowledge that.” HE turned back to Adam, “You saved my life you crazy bastard. I am not even sure how you are still alive ….. Because that flying…. That was….. Holy fuck.” He grinned and took Adam by the shoulder, “you shaking, man.” He held up his hand to show a tremor, “Me too, now let's go get some drinks and talk this out. I owe you after all.”

The two of them walked off through the forest of shaken pilots, “You are the kind of man I can see myself doing business with.”

[jackest-jack]

I would very much like to hear about your spooky scary Sirens, pretty please 🥺

AJKSJAKISJAJAJF Ok so I almost had a heart attack when I saw you were following me because YOU’RE SO COOL so thank you

I already wrote about my spooky scary sirens over here, and they have pictures and I would be willing to write a short thing with them later but for right now I’m gonna pick a different thing and blab about it.

The most fleshed out and cohesive thing I have is the vampire band nerd slasheresque story with a police chase followup as well as a separate zombie apocalypse thing, so ig I’ll go with that. More under cut and warning for like a lot of gore and death and angst. I’m also only doing the first part of that because this is taking a long ass time

I came up with this in junior high, and I was in band, and I noticed that each instrument section had different personalities sort of, so I made characters around that and put them in a horror plot where they all die horribly, because what else are you gonna do? This is gonna be a plot rundown and it might get real long. (It is no longer a rundown. Its just unedited word vomit.)

anyways a bunch of friends, who I’m just gonna call by their instrument names, go camping in the woods for a couple weeks. They all take one car and set up in the middle of fuckin nowhere.

Clarinets a vampire pretending to be a high schooler for kicks, because she was 15 when she turned 5 years ago and got dragged away to the magic underworld (basically a series of safehouses and towns for the supernatural) and she wants a letterman goddamnit.

She gets adopted into a friendgroup despite her best efforts, and gets dragged along on the camping trip in the small car and close quarters with a buddy system and she hasn’t eaten anything substantial in like two months and its proving to be a problem when she starts thinking of her friends as snacks instead of people.

one night, percussionist gets up to go on a 3 am lake walk. But, the buddy system. So he takes Clarinet, who never seems to sleep anyways, with him.

They’re on the edge of a lake littered with huge old chunks of driftwood, looking out over the water, when Percussionist steps on something sharp. It went straight through his sandal and he pulls it out without much trouble, but “that nail looks kind of rusty and I’m Pretty Sure I’m bleeding a little bit, oh I hope I don’t need a shot-“

she falls on him like a cat on a wounded songbird. She has enough of her mind left to cover his mouth and stop the screams as he slowly loses blood.

He tries to fight back. He does. he jams the nail deep into her throat and twists away, but she catches his wrist and slams him backward, a sharp stick going through his stomach, sticking him bloody at the base of an old driftwood branch still attached to its old tree.

She stops draining just before he dies. And she waits, and waits, and waits. Finally, hours later, the corpse takes a deep gasp and its eyes fly open. It begins the excruciating process of pulling itself off the tree.

his wound is closed less than a minute later.

he comes to and sees her sobbing on the ground, bloody streaks under her eyes from where she tried to wipe away her tears with hands soaked from putting pressure on his stomach in a feeble attempt to save him.

“Vampires, huh?” He says, half joking, half looking for an explanation.

—-—

they’re sitting around a small campfire, and Clarinet tells him that he’s a vampire, he needs blood, he cant go back to camp or he will eat his friends. She leaves to find him something substantial before he loses it.

back at the original camp, its around sunrise. Flute notices a small trail of smoke not far off, realizes that Percussionist is missing, and gets French Horn to help him look for their idiot friend (and maybe put out a small fire.)

They make it about 3/4th of the way to the smoke when flute trips on a tree root and scrapes his knee. About a mile away, Percussionists head perks up.

He distantly realizes that he just left the campfire that he’s supposed to stay at, but he can‘t seem to care. The hunger doesn’t gnaw at him or hollow him out. Its not like looking for a fix either. Its an itch in his whole body, a near unavoidable function of his being. The hunt is as natural as a cough, a spasm of muscles to take away the awful itch.

He moves faster than he ever could before, and just to see if he can, he jumps up and begins running across the branches of trees. Its slower, but sneakier; his prey won’t see him coming.

Finally, he reaches them. He jumps on the smaller one, sending it crashing to the ground. It’s blood is what brought him here. He sinks his hollow teeth into its neck and begins feeding.

There is a scream and a crash as the taller one runs away. Thats ok. He only needs one.

———

French horn, for her part, is freaking the fuck out. The sun had just peaked over the horizon and orange light was streaming through the trees when everything went to shit.

The pale thing had fallen on Flute, and the noise he made… she was almost certain he was dead now.

She kept running. If she could make it back to camp, then maybe she could get help, or maybe leave before the rest of them died too.

She charges through a thicket, sharp thorns scraping and tearing every inch of her as she shoves her way through. She shuts her eyes as she goes, to avoid the thorns poking them out.

When she comes out the other side, she feels her gut sink.

She doesn’t recognize the trees or bushes around her. She doesn’t see a path.

She’s lost.

She wants to break down, to scream and cry the injustice to the heavens, to kick and punch and fight the thing that killed her friend, to sit down and rest and have a moment to breathe, to be home-

She picks a direction and runs.

———

Percussionist stops draining Flute just before he‘s dead, following the instinct that drove him to where he is.

He wants to be horrified. He does, really. But he was so hungry, and the itch is still there, waiting beneath his skin to pounce on him again. But for now, its gone, and he can think clearly. He can move without the instinct tainting his every twitch.

He turns to look at the person he drained and sees-

He sees his friend. And it hits him all at once.

He killed a person, a person he knew, a person he cared for, and he had been powerless to stop it. He didn’t even know- he didn’t realize- he would never have done it if he-

but he knew he would have. Even if he knew. He would’ve killed Flute, and he hates himself for that.

So he sits by the body of his dead friend, maybe in solace, maybe because some instinctive tick tells him to. He doesn’t want to know. He refuses to.

When Flute sat up and gasped, Percussionist could‘ve sworn he had a heart attack (even without a functioning heart.)

To Flutes credit, he made it through Percussionists halting and confused explanation before letting himself ask about the smell.

”what smell?” Percussionist asked, and lifted his nose to the air.

He got his answer. The smell of blood, salty and sweet and with a coppery tinge to it drifted through the air, leaving a hunger and odd comfort sitting in his gut. It reminded him of smelling baking cookies from the kitchen as a kid.

A leaf crunched, and he snapped out of his trance. Flute had stood up and broken into a run, faster than any human could’ve gone. After the person that had been with him.

After his friend.

Percussionist sprinted after him.

——

He had the chance to notice how fast he was really going, now that he could think through the hunger. He practically flew through the forest, leaping over a fallen log half his size that blocked his way. He ducked and dodged branches that threatened to slash his face, and if he were running for something else he may have threw his head back and laughed.

As it was, he was following the occasional red flash of a windbreaker that he could barely keep up with without being hit by a tree.

He could heal now right? Did he really even need to be worried about being hit by trees?

He let one slap his face just to test, and he felt the stinging pain all across his face as a deep cut opened across his nose and eyes. He faltered as his vision went red with blood. A second later, it was gone, and he could see again. ….And he‘d lost flute. Great.

He sniffed the air, remembering how he’d been able to smell the blood, and tried to look for his friend.

He could smell the whole forest. Sap and pine and rotting leaves, rotten flesh and mushrooms and a skunk miles and miles off, the sweet sting of honey and dew and campfire smoke, and over it all, the most lovely smell-

Well, looks like he couldn’t find him that way. He thought for a moment, and groaned. He could just follow French Horn and get to her first!

He began running again.

———

Clarinet had just made it back to the campsite, a live deer kicking around over her shoulder. She would’ve killed it, but she couldn’t quite figure out how without losing any of its blood, and since she drained and seriously injured Percussionist he would need a lot of blood-

and the campfire had a suspicious lack of vampires around it. Great. She could only hope that no one had cut themselves-

She stopped as the scent of blood hit her nose. She cursed and took off running, dropping the deer as she did.

——

French Horn thought she was going to die when she heard a bush rustle and snap behind her. She had stopped for a rest, thinking she was safe (if very lost). She was braced for her death when Percussionist crashed through the bushes.

”Oh, good, you’re still alive. We need to go like right now.”

Before she could protest, he grabbed her wrist and began pulling her away. With his very cold, very pale hand.

”Wait. Was it you?” She said, planting her feet.

”Yes.” his voice was solemn, and his eyes downcast. “But unless you want Flute to get you, we need to go”

She tore her wrist out of his grasp.

“Flutes dead. Flute’s dead and you killed him!”

And Flute hit her from the side. He sank his teeth deep into her neck, but only for a moment. Then he pulled back, looking horrified and ran away.

French Horn stands up dazedly. “That was…”

”Yeah.”

she lifts a hand to her bleeding neck where the bite is still gushing blood.

A rustle of trees comes from the side, and Clarinet skids to a stop in front of them. She takes in the situation and drops to her knees, tearing loose a piece of her shirt and holding it to the holes in French Horn’s neck.

”Wheres the third?”

French horn points to the copse of trees he disappeared into.

”I think we might actually be jinxed.” A pause, then “That was supposed to be a joke. Go after him. He’s heading towards the camp, and chances are he won’t be able to stop himself a second time.”

Percussionist nods, and then stops. “How do I get there?”

”just run straight! GO!”

and he does.

———

Clarinet gently explains to French Horn that vampires are real, and that she is one. When asked why she isn’t bloodthirsty, Clarinet answers that she has a lot of blood left in her still, and that she’s not all the way changed, and that the change will, in her words, “Stink. Its kind of the worst thing you’ll have to go through, and it’ll take way longer since you have blood, and you may not notice at first.“

French Horn pursed her lips. “Theres no way to stop it?”

Clarinet shook her head.

”Okay. Okay, shouln’t we help Percussionist?”

Clarinet swore. “You won’t be much help in the state you’re in, but I can drop you off by the camp. Pack our things and be ready to go.”

Clarinet scooped French Horn up and took off into the woods.

———

Percussionist got there just as Tuba was ripping Flute off of his neck.

Despite Flute being the smallest out of all of them, and Tuba being the strongest, he was struggling to keep the scrabbling, biting Flute away.

So, Percussionist did the only logical thing and full body tackled Flute, trying to hold him down. It worked, sort of. Long enough for Tuba to start running. Long enough for Sax and Trombone to see what the ruckus was.

Flute burst out of Percussionists grip, grabbed Trombone and ran.

Sax sprinted after them, and percussionist was left in the dust, standing dumbstruck as they all dashed off. He snapped out of it when Trumpet pressed an axe to his shoulder and told him to not move.

———

Flute knows this: he is very hungry. He also knows that blood tastes very good.

His last two meals escaped. He thinks he let the first go, but he can’t seem to remember why. The second was ripped away from him by someone like him, which was rather rude.

But this one won’t get away. He is far to hungry to let that happen.

He feeds as he runs, draining the squirming thing dry, pinning its flailing limbs against his chest. It stops wailing eventually.

He slows as he becomes able to think clearly again. He holds the body in his arms and revels in the fact he is no longer hungry. Then, he looks at the thing he drained.

And it’s his friend. He feels his stomach drop, and a hollow pit grow in his chest. His friend is dead, and it’s his fault. He tells himself there’s nothing to do but run, so he does.

Really, though, he just doesn’t want to see what she’ll become.

———

“What did you do to them.” Said Trumpet, each word slow and dangerous. She lifted the axe off his shoulder, and he felt relief before he realized she was lining up to take off his head.

He may be able to heal, but he did not want to see how far that ability stretched. Not like this, at least.

He swallowed his fear and asked, ”What makes you think I did something?“

She barked out a harsh laugh. “You go missing in the middle of the night with Clarinet, who still isn’t back. Flute and French Horn go to look for you and have mysteriously disappeared. Tuba came running from this direction, bleeding like a stuck pig. And here I find you, in the center of it all.”

Ah. He was fucked. Time to implement the worst plan ever, considering how fast Trumpet was.

”that’s- that sure is some pretty overwhelming evidence that I did something. I swear I didn’t, though but I know you won’t believe me so I’m just gonna RUN!”

He ducked under the axe she swung at his head, and took off running into the trees. He glanced behind him to see her struggling to keep up, and grinned. He was actually getting away with his head, and beating Trumpet in a footrace for once-

He turned back around just in time to see the tree that crumpled his skull.

———

He wished he could say he didn’t feel every excruciating twitch of his skull righting itself as he laid there. As it was, it was painful enough he was functionally passed out.

Which is why he was surprised to see trumpet dragging him by his feet deep into the woods.

Not half as surprised as trumpet, who dropped his feet and swore when he sat up and gasped.

”What the hell? You were dead! that killed you!” She yelled.

Percussionist was still reeling from how much growing his skull back sucked, and latched on to the first thing he noticed.

”Did you steal my shoes?”

”what are you?” She asked in a tone that was decidedly horrified.

He fiddled with a piece of grass somewhere to his left. “A vampire, as of yesterday. Really though, why do you have my shoes?”

“Not important. What do you mean as of yesterday?”

”Last night, really. Me and Clarinet-“

”Clarinet and I.” She said.

”Whatever. We went on a walk and turns out she’s always been a vampire, and then she did the vampire thing, and now I’m a vampire, and things have just been spiraling from there-”

”That explains a lot, actually. Who else is a vampire?”

Percussionist, feeling slightly more alive, realized they weren’t by the camp anymore.

”Where are we? Why do you have my shoes, and why are you so calm about this?”

”oh.” She said. “I may have made an action plan for something like this. You know, in case of murderers, or if supernatural stuff was real.”

”thats cool. Why steal my shoes?“

”I was framing you for murder.”

an awkward silence settled over them.

”We should get back to camp. Stop more people from getting vampired and all.”

”Yeah. Lets do that.“

———

Sax skidded to a stop in front of Trombones body. She was limp, and pale, and by all accounts dead. He whipped out his phone to call anyone, anyone at all, and pitched it into a tree when it read no service.

He sat, and he cried by his best friend, who always made the shittiest puns, who was the worst at sports, who thought anything with soulmates was stupid but still read all the stuff he suggested her. Who was dead.

He was still crying when she sat up and latched onto his neck, draining him dry.

———

French Horn and Clarinet ran across Tuba, who was holding gauze to his neck where he had been bit. French Horn was starting to feel slightly feverish, but otherwise okay.

”Guys! Are you okay? The weirdest thing just happened.” He said.

”We need to leave.” Said Clarinet. “Now.”

”No argument here. Have you guys seen Flute? He was with you last time I saw him.“

French Horn and Clarinet shared a look.

“I’ll go find him. You two pack. we leave before dusk.”

They watched as she disappeared into the leaves.

”Whats going on?” Asked tuba, a hint of worry in his voice.

French Horn took a deep breath in before saying “Vampires are real.”

Tuba burst out laughing.

“Oh. You’re serious.” He said as he hefted a tent into the back of the van.

”you don’t believe me.”

“How could I? I haven’t seen any proof that they exist.”

She threw a bag of trash in the van with more force than nessecary.

“What attacked you then?”

At this he paused. “I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a vampire.”

———

Percussionist and Trumpet made it to where Trombone was crying over Sax, the late afternoon sun reflecting off of their now pale skin.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. He’ll be alright.”

Trombone looked up at him and snarled, all teeth and rage, and Percussionist jumped back.

”He’ll end up like me, won’t he.”

Percussionist nodded.

”I don’t know what world you’re living in, but this isn’t fucking alright!”

Trumpet walked over and knelt in front of Trombone. She held out her hand, and Trombone scrambled away.

”I don’t believe you would hurt me. Not right now. I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”

”so what?” She scoffed. “I still did it. Should I just go on existing as whatever I am now? Just kill people so I can live?”

”Actually,“ Percussionist said, “we can live off of different types of blood.”

Trumpet looked back and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Shut up you twatwaffle, can’t you see this is a delicate moment?”

”just figured it would be some good information to have.“ he said.

“Are you seriously telling me my angst fest was for nothing?” She asked.

Percussionist leaned against a tree. “Oh, don‘t worry.” He said. “Theres still plenty of angst about the immortality.”

“Sax did always say he wanted to be sixteen forever.”

Trumpet rolled her eyes. “Lets go home.”

Trombone reached out to take Trumpets hand, and Sax shot up and clamped his jaws around her throat. Trombone grabbed Trumpets wrist and pulled her away as Percussionist peeled Sax away.

”Let him.“ choked out Trumpet. “I‘ll be one of you either way.”

”Absolutely not!” Said Percussionist. “Trombone, go find literally anything else with blood.” Sax kicked and snarled in his grip. “Hurry! I’m not sure how much longer I can hold him.”

———

“Flute!” Yelled Clarinet. She had been looking for him for an hour now, and still couldn’t find him.

She was walking along an old trail that went out of use years ago when she almost tripped over him. He was curled up in the shade of a tree, hiding away in a hollow.

“What do you want.”

”I want to take you home.” She said.

he laughed. “Something like me doesn’t deserve a home. I killed people, and I knew there was another way, but I did it anyway. Just leave me here to rot.”

She remembered when she’d been like this. She had forgotten to eat, had slipped up. Its not a hard thing to do. When you’re a vampire, you brain tricks you into feeling fine by your old standards until you‘re so hungry you can’t stop it.

She believed it was all her fault, though. The only way someone had gotten through to her was something they had called twisting the knife. She had always called it shitty.

She sighed. “I wanted to say sorry.”

He poked his head out a little, peering up at her. “You didn’t do anything.”

”But I did.” She said. “I drained percussionist dry last night, and then I left him to find you. I watched while you attacked your friends, and now, I’m giving you a chance to fix the harm we caused. What will you do with it?”

”You made me like this?” He asked.

”Yes.”

he lunged at her face, fingers clawing for her eyes. She turned around and ran for the campsite, making sure he was behind her, and praying that he would forgive her for the stunt she just pulled.

———

The campsite was packed, and Percussionist and Trombone had made a game of who could catch the best songbird for Sax. Sax was less murderously inclined, though it was hard to tell if it was because the blood he had consumed or trumpets growing nonhumanness.

After the third or fourth time of watching Sax suck down a bird or squirrel like a juice box, Tuba was forced to admit that maybe vampires were a little real.

(He noticed his neck wound had already scabbed over and was halfway gone. He was afraid to ask if he was becoming one.)

The sun was slipping behind the tops of the trees when Clarinet charged out of the forest, leapt over the van, And yelled “Flutes trying to kill me!”

Flute burst into the clearing and lunged at Clarinet. Percussionist stepped in the way.

”What happened?“

”She did this in purpose! She said she dropped you in the woods to kill us!”

Percussionists blinked. “No she didn’t. She told me to stay where I was while she got something for me to eat.”

he stopped yelling. Now, he just looked confused. “But she turned you.”

”Yeah? It was an accident. She obviously regretted it.”

Percussionist backed off, and Flute looked at clarinet.

”why did you say all that then?”

“You were’t gonna come with me if I didn’t. Besides, you were spiraling and this was the easiest way to stop that.”

”Sounds like the shittiest way to stop it, too.” Scoffed Tuba.

She sighed. “Yeah. It was.”

”Hey,” asked sax. “Are any of us still human? I know me, Percussionist, and Trombone aren’t-“

”Percussionist, Trombone, and I.” Said Trumpet.

”-And I saw you two jump over my van, but whats up with the rest of you?”

”Basically,” said Clarinet, “anyone who was bit is or will become a vampire, depending on how much blood they had left in them after the bite. Was there anyone who wasn’t bit?”

everyone was silent as they all glanced at each other, looking for anyone who could say yes. It quickly became awkward, and was broken by Clarinet muttering “Fuck.” quietly under her breath.

”Who all, um, died today?”

Flute, Sax, and Trombone slowly raised their hands. Clarinet squinted at Percussionist, which prompted him to say “What? I died last night.”

French Horn yelled “past twenty four hours, dingus.”

He rolled his eyes and raised his hand.

”Alright. You three,” -she made a sweeping gesture towards the three with their hands down- “Are going to have the worst couple weeks of your life. Take a few days off of everything. Don’t go to the hospital. Stay isolated. Call me when the pain’s mostly over.”

Tuba’s lips pursed. “What, exactly, is going to happen to us?”

”The way it was explained to me was that your body slowly cannibalizes itself. It sucks.”

”hm.” He said. He looked very troubled.

They got in the van and drove through the night.

For now, they rest. A short break, before they have to figure out the rest of their lives.

[hobbylogics]

Ideas: Overall Effects in Style

Pen spinning is complicated and it can be really helpful to break it down into concepts like notation, speed, difficulty, and so on. Using these concepts, we can try to understand how they work together to make an overall effect.

Which “Part”?

Learning concepts in pen spinning are really helpful. Things like notation, difficulty, and execution. Concepts help us understand pen spinning by expressing them into smaller, and easy-to-follow chunks.

Except, all of these parts are seen together, not one at a time. You can’t watch pen spinning separately by extracting the difficulty from the spinning in the same way that a video can be experienced separately in audio and video. The only way to watch pen spinning is by watching every part together. Unless, of course, we try really hard to focus on analyzing one particular thing in a pen spinning video.

In the big scheme of things, each concept we come up with to describe something about pen spinning only slightly affects the performance because there’s a too many things that make up that final performance.

Greater than the Sum of its Parts

The relationship between all pen spinning elements ultimately creates an overall effect or feeling. The feeling that a pen spinner creates makes us use different words like “ugly” or “pretty”. This overall effect or feeling is something that can’t be described by the final numbered scores in a World Tournament, because we need to read the judges’ comments to really know how they feel.

Often times, the overall effect of a pen spinner is something that we can’t even put into words, it’s only something we feel when we watch it. The reason why we feel a certain way is more about how certain elements in pen spinning work together to contribute to that final feeling.

Creating an Effect

Let me use an example with style elements to help explain effects.

Mesi’s combo for “All Highlight Promo” has a harshness to the finisher (0:11/mm:ss) that is very eye-catching to me.

I’m also aware that the final catch with his thumb looks a bit misplaced, but considering the era and the confidence of this combo it doesn’t bother me too much.

Personally, I’ve always thought the way Mesi does Scissor Spin to FL TA is one of the best. And there’s a reason for why it feels that way to me.

I looked into some of Mesi’s other clips, and it isn’t one particular thing he does that creates that harsh effect in his finisher. Instead, there’s a lot of different things that are happening that help contribute to this feeling in his “All Highlight Promo” finisher:

The speed of the pen is not consistent during the finisher.

Scissor Spin to FL TA is typically a linkage that will always slow down during the Scissor Spin, and the ThumbAround is usually executed a lot faster. This gives a feeling of a slower build-up to the final payoff. A slower Scissor Spin that builds up to the final ThumbAround.

The pen shakes from the force of the ThumbAround, even as he holds on to the pen.

The arm and wrist movement during the FL TA moves his hand upwards, as if exaggerating the final trick to give it more impact.

Whether this was intentional by Mesi or not, it tells us that an intuitive understanding of how to influence the final effect can help you accomplish it.

Side Note: I used the word effect in this section of the article even though I talked about overall effect. This is because the overall effect is more about the general feeling, and the effect that Mesi created in this example is more about the finisher than the entire combo.

Final Words

Pen spinning is not just about the elements that it is composed of, such as execution, but it is about how everything fits together. How these elements interact and support each other is why pen spinners might feel “powerful” or “elegant”. It can be a good idea to improve your creativity or your presentation, but sometimes it can be more useful to remind yourself what your original goals were.

“Ideas:” is part of a series I mentioned in a previous blog post where share some of the ideas I have about pen spinning. Unlike some of my other articles, this one was not written with the goal to teach. Instead, it’s my way of sharing some of my own personal discoveries as I keep learning and practicing pen spinning. Hopefully I explained my ideas well enough for you guys to follow!

Extras

This video explains an idea about how our physical laws never cause anything, they only help describe it. Very helpful for me in order to find the right words to explain my ideas in this article.

There’s a moment in this interview (16:32/mm:ss) where Michael League talks about how he thinks music theory explains music, but it isn’t a formula for music. He also talks about how he writes music better the more abstract he thinks about it. Some interesting points that stuck with me because of how it can apply to pen spinning.

[butterflyinthewell]

Do you think that Lightverse Prowl would like Daredevil? (The Netflix show, I mean.) It seems right up his alley.

Actually, Daredevil might annoy Prowl because the way Matt ‘sees a world on fire’ feels like a cheat.

I’ll explain why. Buckle in, it’s infodumpin’ time!

* * * (Note: Everything beyond this point is headcanon!) * * *

[Prowl oh-so-gracefully dodges an explosion.]

I try to make things written from Prowl’s perspective as authentic as I can, and I did that by reading some books by blind authors, reading Livejournal blogs by blind bloggers, watching blind Youtubers and talking to a blind person IRL. I’ve had people ask me if I’m blind IRL because of how I write Prowl, and they were surprised when I said no.

Lightverse Prowl is not some super remarkable superhero, he’s just an average bot with ninja skills. He has ‘average’ senses for a bot that might seem heightened compared to a human, but compared to other Cybertronians they’re nothing special. All he’s done is hone them like a finely tuned instrument. 

His story arc (which still isn’t finished) is not about overcoming his disability, it’s about him overcoming the notion that he is broken, useless and less deserving of life than able-bodied bots. It’s about overcoming the shame society instilled in him. It’s about him learning to say “I am worth something and I deserve to be loved.” 

Here’s why Daredevil would bother Prowl:

I’m aware that most blind people have some light perception. Prowl doesn’t because of why he’s blind, so he “sees” literally nothing. It’s not black, it’s not any color, it’s just nothing. Try looking at the wall behind you through the back of your head. You can’t because you don’t have eyes there. That’s how the blind-from-birth lady who was in my church choir explained it to me. She had prosthetic eyes and was totally blind all her life. Her description made so much sense to me. (She was also really cool and said no questions were off limits to her, so I asked a lot and learned a lot until her family moved away.)

Prowl doesn’t have optics or a visual processor. Being a robot means his CPU (brain) is arranged a little differently and functions differently than a human, but for all intents and purposes he has zero way to experience vision, retain visual information or even understand it. Imagine a human born without eyes, optic nerves, a lateral geniculate nucleus or an occipital lobe. (Not sure if a human could survive with a brain like that…a lot of that stuff also relays sensory information across various parts of the brain.)

With that in mind, you can’t just slap optics and visual processors into Prowl’s head and call him fixed. His CPU “filled in” the empty space. Cybertronians have “neurons” that grow like steel wool fibers inside their skull casing as they age and experience life, and removing that to install visual processors would be like chopping off your parietal lobe or cerebellum to put in the occipital lobe, optic nerves, LGN and eyeballs.

Prowl being a fictional robot gave me a huge playground to play with how he hides his blindness in a way that can fool people into thinking he can see, and here’s what happened:

The oscillator technology Prowl uses is somewhat inspired by pinart boxes. They’re those things where you stick something into one side and an impression of it appears on the other side.

[Pictures of pinart boxes with hands and parts of a person’s face imprinted in the pins.]

The main difference is the “pins” are much smaller (think of the tiny screws in watches or glasses) and self-contained in a frame kinda like spark plugs in a car engine. Getting this tech installed inside the top of his skull casing was pretty much major surgery done in a back alley, and Prowl lost chunks of his “childhood” memories because the installation caused some damage even though the medic* who did it was very careful. So he can remember being protoformed, but everything else is spotty for awhile until he reached the Cybertronian equivalent to young adulthood.

*He was a former Decepticon gone neutral…and NO it was’t Lockdown.

The visor is what collects the light. It’s got a bunch of tiny sensors and each one corresponds to a pin. Those sensors detect light waves and translates them into vibrations in the pins, which Prowl feels in his face plates because the setup is connected to the tactile receptors for his face. The vibrations are tiny, and he had to learn how to understand them before the technology became useful to him. Now it’s second nature, he thinks about it as much as you think about breathing.

A strong vibration means bright light and a weak one means it’s dim, and none means it’s dark.

[A graphic showing the different light wavelengths that shows how small the visible light spectrum is. From slowest to fastest it goes: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Above violet it goes to ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, Gamma rays. Below red it goes to infrared radiation, microwaves, radio waves.]

Color is just light vibrating at different wavelengths, so the oscillators vibrate at the speeds corresponding with a color’s wavelength. Colors moving towards red feel slower than colors moving towards violet. 

Prowl can’t tell you something is burgundy or lime green or stuff like that. Color is hard for him to understand and the names of colors are just necessary vocabulary words he sometimes uses. 

He doesn’t quite remember which color combinations you mix to get a new color. The only one he has memorized is red and blue make purple.

If you asked him to match up an outfit it might be a disaster; he had to learn what colors “go” together by rote and that’s not information he can always recall quickly. Clashing colors are fascinating to feel, but visually awful. 

Distinguishing shades is hard unless one is very light and the other is very dark– like azure vs midnight blue. One would have a strong vibration (bright) and the other a weaker one (dark), he would say “it’s blue” to both. Two shades that are very close together are indistinguishable to him. 

His favorite deflection for people who ask him to pick out colors is a deadpan statement: “The darker one, but I’m not your decorator. Go ask Jazz if you want that. He’s better at style than I am.” XD

He’d say Earth tones are his favorite colors to deflect the “what’s your favorite color?” question– because Earth tones tend to “go” together.

[Prowl prepares to leap into the unknown.]

The oscillators have some major weaknesses, too.

Prowl needs light to use them. Anything dimmer than a full moon is too dark.

They’re the most accurate at close range. He would be able to pick up your facial details if he’s nose to nose with you. 

From across a room (about ten feet away) he just senses that a person is there, he’ll get their body shape, some info about their coloring, where light and shadow are falling on them and the movement of their gestures.

If you’re a hundred yards away– you at one goalpost at an American football field and Prowl at the other– you’re just an artifact moving against the background. He’ll sense your general shape and coloring. You won’t register much on his oscillators at all if your clothes and skin manage to blend with the environment (ie a kid dressed as a scarecrow sitting on a hay pile), if the environment behind you is moving (ie sparkly water or something flapping in the wind) or if the light level is low (ie at dusk or dawn or nighttime with poor lighting).

Prowl can read the text off large billboards from about ten feet away if the colors contrast enough and he can read a newspaper headline if he gets close to it in bright light. For reading, he prefers Braille. Discovering that on Earth is, in his mind, one of the greatest things ever because he loves to read.

Depth perception is a difficult concept for Prowl. He can’t tell if something is just small or a big thing that’s far away unless its signal “grows” when he approaches it. His audios are better at judging distance; he can tell you almost exactly how far away a sound is.

Prowl had a mystical experience that let him see temporarily, and he didn’t realize that he was experiencing sight. He found it terrifying and confusing until the “guide” inside the experience pointed out that “yes, you are seeing” and helped him understand what was happening. Weirdly, he still had access to his oscillators, so he was using them in conjunction with his temporary sight to sort of make sense of things. 

He didn’t gain a full understanding of sight before the experience ended and he wasn’t able to retain any memory of anything he saw when he woke up because he doesn’t have the “parts” that store the information. The most he can do is say “Well, I saw the stars in the sky and a wall” but he couldn’t tell you what the patterns in the wood grain looked like or that he watched stars twinkle.

I know the oscillators don’t seem like they make sense, but Prowl isn’t human. Also, the data doesn’t represent visually. It’s not like Daredevil or Geordie LaForge. It’s purely tactile, so there is no way to visually represent it in any way that will make sense. The only way to interpret Prowl’s lack of visual perception ‘visually’ is remove the TV screen completely. 

And that’s the whole point. I refuse to “cheat” when I write Prowl’s blindness. 

By the way, his visor looks a little like sunglasses. He doesn’t have to fake looking people in the eyes, but he’ll turn towards people or appear to look down at something he’s doing with his hands. He’ll get closer to things like he’s looking at them, and even Jazz sometimes forgets that he is not actually seeing. He’s feeling through his visor. 

The visor doesn’t replacing using his hands, though, and sometimes he’ll use his hands to confirm what he thinks his visor is telling him if something is close and / or safe enough to touch. 

[Prowl rests his hand flat on the wall in front of him.]

The weaknesses in the oscillator tech is why Prowl learned to use his other senses instead of depending purely on his visor. Like Yoketron said: “It is the Cyberninja, not the weapon, that is important.” Sometimes tech breaks and light isn’t always going to be present. 

Prowl turns his oscillators off when he’s alone. His proximity sensors do a fairly good job of keeping him from crashing into things in familiar surroundings. He can hear how big a room is, and 99% of the time he can feel it if a person is sneaking up on him because they disturb the airflow. They might get a bit closer to Prowl than they would a sighted mech, but they’ll still get noticed and clobbered. 

Have you ever felt a weird “gap” in your perception in a really quiet room and turned to see somebody standing right behind you? Bam, there you go. You’re perceiving a change in the air flow and reacting by turning to look for why. 

Most people don’t pay too much attention to this, but I tend to because my silly autistic brain doesn’t filter sensory perception very well and I can’t avoid noticing it. Sometimes I can sense people walking up the driveway outside my house because my room is right by the front door. That really freaks me out. O_o;;

The only reason Prowl has the oscillators at all is because he has to pass as non-disabled. Autobot society is kind of shitty to flawed mechs (their vernacular for disabled mechs, basically). Most disabled mechs are missing components necessary for life and would never become conscious or function, but some rare ones do. Society doesn’t make any distinction, though, and doesn’t test a disabled bot to see if they’re conscious before they scrap them. 

Disabled mechs are broken down for parts and can even get hunted down for “wasting” resources by being alive!!! The anti-flaw thing is the massive skeleton in the Autobots’ closet and that rhetoric is all over their society.

Passing as able-bodied is a matter of life and death. Somebody has to be very, very careful to reveal a disability to someone else. People considered to be flaw-sympathizers can get in trouble for hiding a disabled mech. Yoketron risked his life and career on more than one occasion for a disabled mech, and he’s also kind of the reason Prowl and Jazz ended up meeting later on down the line. 

Yoketron is also the reason Prowl got back in touch with navigating the world as a blind mech by making him wear the blindfold. (I screeched at my TV when I saw him wearing that thing, omg…) The oscillators are a tool like a talking watch, white cane / dog guide, screen readers and Braille are tools, but Prowl was using them like optics and putting himself more at risk of being caught. Yoketron used the blindfold as a compromise (so visitors to the dojo wouldn’t realize Prowl was actually blind and to keep Prowl from “cheating”) to make him utilize all of his senses and be aware of what is going on around him. The blindfold didn’t come off again until Prowl mastered his blind skills. 

Prowl didn’t master that until just before Yoketron sent him out to find himself. From then on, he learned to use all of his senses while fighting or doing “ninja” stuff.

[Prowl wearing the blindfold while mid-flip.]

[Yoketron looks proudly at Prowl after removing the blindfold.]

Just for fun, here’s some photoshop of what you see if Prowl takes his visor off. Excuse my terrible photoshop skills. The pictures I used were low quality when I screencapped them to do this. There’s one from before and after he got the armor mods.

[Two images of Prowl. One without samurai-like armor and one with it. Sans visor, the top half of his face is smooth because he doesn’t have optics. There is a small circuit board with pins on the bridge of his nose for his visor to hook into.]

Wow, this post got really rambly! XD Sorry! If anyone is still here at this point, here’s Lightverse: 

http://archiveofourown.org/series/283542 * * * (Note: Contains NSFW content!) * * *

[componentplanet]

How Do SSDs Work?

Here at ExtremeTech, we’ve often discussed the difference between different types of NAND structures — vertical NAND versus planar, or multi-level cell (MLC) versus triple-level cells (TLC) and quad-level cells (QLC). Now, let’s talk about the more basic relevant question: How do SSDs work in the first place, and how do they compare with newer technologies, like Intel’s non-volatile storage technology, Optane?

To understand how and why SSDs

are different from spinning discs, we need to talk a little bit about hard drives. A hard drive stores data on a series of spinning magnetic disks called platters. There’s an actuator arm with read/write heads attached to it. This arm positions the read-write heads over the correct area of the drive to read or write information.

Because the drive heads must align over an area of the disk in order to read or write data (and the disk is constantly spinning), there’s a non-zero wait time before data can be accessed. The drive may need to read from multiple locations in order to launch a program or load a file, which means it may have to wait for the platters to spin into the proper position multiple times before it can complete the command. If a drive is asleep or in a low-power state, it can take several seconds more for the disk to spin up to full power and begin operating.

From the very beginning, it was clear that hard drives couldn’t possibly match the speeds at which CPUs could operate. Latency in HDDs is measured in milliseconds, compared with nanoseconds for your typical CPU. One millisecond is 1,000,000 nanoseconds, and it typically takes a hard drive 10-15 milliseconds to find data on the drive and begin reading it. The hard drive industry introduced smaller platters, on-disk memory caches, and faster spindle speeds to counteract this trend, but there’s only so fast drives can spin. Western Digital’s 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor family is the fastest set of drives ever built for the consumer market, while some enterprise drives spun up to 15,000 RPM. The problem is, even the fastest spinning drive with the largest caches and smallest platters are still achingly slow as far as your CPU is concerned.

How SSDs Are Different

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” — Henry Ford

Solid-state drives are called that specifically because they don’t rely on moving parts or spinning disks. Instead, data is saved to a pool of NAND flash. NAND itself is made up of what are called floating gate transistors. Unlike the transistor designs used in DRAM, which must be refreshed multiple times per second, NAND flash is designed to retain its charge state even when not powered up. This makes NAND a type of non-volatile memory.

Image by Cyferz at Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0.

The diagram above shows a simple flash cell design. Electrons are stored in the floating gate, which then reads as charged “0” or not-charged “1.” Yes, in NAND flash, a 0 means data is stored in a cell — it’s the opposite of how we typically think of a zero or one. NAND flash is organized in a grid. The entire grid layout is referred to as a block, while the individual rows that make up the grid are called a page. Common page sizes are 2K, 4K, 8K, or 16K, with 128 to 256 pages per block. Block size therefore typically varies between 256KB and 4MB.

One advantage of this system should be immediately obvious. Because SSDs have no moving parts, they can operate at speeds far above those of a typical HDD. The following chart shows the access latency for typical storage mediums given in microseconds.

Image by CodeCapsule

NAND is nowhere near as fast as main memory, but it’s multiple orders of magnitude faster than a hard drive. While write latencies are significantly slower for NAND flash than read latencies, they still outstrip traditional spinning media.

There are two things to notice in the above chart. First, note how adding more bits per cell of NAND has a significant impact on the memory’s performance. It’s worse for writes as opposed to reads — typical triple-level-cell (TLC) latency is 4x worse compared with single-level cell (SLC) NAND for reads, but 6x worse for writes. Erase latencies are also significantly impacted. The impact isn’t proportional, either — TLC NAND is nearly twice as slow as MLC NAND, despite holding just 50% more data (three bits per cell, instead of two). This is also true for QLC drives, which store even more bits at varying voltage levels within the same cell.

The reason TLC NAND is slower than MLC or SLC has to do with how data moves in and out of the NAND cell. With SLC NAND, the controller only needs to know if the bit is a 0 or a 1. With MLC NAND, the cell may have four values — 00, 01, 10, or 11. With TLC NAND, the cell can have eight values, and QLC has 16. Reading the proper value out of the cell requires the memory controller to use a precise voltage to ascertain whether any particular cell is charged.

Reads, Writes, and Erasure

One of the functional limitations of SSDs is while they can read and write data very quickly to an empty drive, overwriting data is much slower. This is because while SSDs read data at the page level (meaning from individual rows within the NAND memory grid) and can write at the page level, assuming surrounding cells are empty, they can only erase data at the block level. This is because the act of erasing NAND flash requires a high amount of voltage. While you can theoretically erase NAND at the page level, the amount of voltage required stresses the individual cells around the cells that are being re-written. Erasing data at the block level helps mitigate this problem.

The only way for an SSD to update an existing page is to copy the contents of the entire block into memory, erase the block, and then write the contents of the old block + the updated page. If the drive is full and there are no empty pages available, the SSD must first scan for blocks that are marked for deletion but that haven’t been deleted yet, erase them, and then write the data to the now-erased page. This is why SSDs can become slower as they age — a mostly-empty drive is full of blocks that can be written immediately, a mostly-full drive is more likely to be forced through the entire program/erase sequence.

If you’ve used SSDs, you’ve likely heard of something called “garbage collection.” Garbage collection is a background process that allows a drive to mitigate the performance impact of the program/erase cycle by performing certain tasks in the background. The following image steps through the garbage collection process.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Note in this example, the drive has taken advantage of the fact that it can write very quickly to empty pages by writing new values for the first four blocks (A’-D’). It’s also written two new blocks, E and H. Blocks A-D are now marked as stale, meaning they contain information the drive has marked as out-of-date. During an idle period, the SSD will move the fresh pages over to a new block, erase the old block, and mark it as free space. This means the next time the SSD needs to perform a write, it can write directly to the now-empty Block X, rather than performing the program/erase cycle.

The next concept I want to discuss is TRIM. When you delete a file from Windows on a typical hard drive, the file isn’t deleted immediately. Instead, the operating system tells the hard drive it can overwrite the physical area of the disk where that data was stored the next time it needs to perform a write. This is why it’s possible to undelete files (and why deleting files in Windows doesn’t typically clear much physical disk space until you empty the recycling bin). With a traditional HDD, the OS doesn’t need to pay attention to where data is being written or what the relative state of the blocks or pages is. With an SSD, this matters.

The TRIM command allows the operating system to tell the SSD it can skip rewriting certain data the next time it performs a block erase. This lowers the total amount of data the drive writes and increases SSD longevity. Both reads and writes damage NAND flash, but writes do far more damage than reads. Fortunately, block-level longevity has not proven to be an issue in modern NAND flash. More data on SSD longevity, courtesy of the Tech Report, can be found here.

The last two concepts we want to talk about are wear leveling and write amplification. Because SSDs write data to pages but erase data in blocks, the amount of data being written to the drive is always larger than the actual update. If you make a change to a 4KB file, for example, the entire block that 4K file sits within must be updated and rewritten. Depending on the number of pages per block and the size of the pages, you might end up writing 4MB worth of data to update a 4KB file. Garbage collection reduces the impact of write amplification, as does the TRIM command. Keeping a significant chunk of the drive free and/or manufacturer over-provisioning can also reduce the impact of write amplification.

Wear leveling refers to the practice of ensuring certain NAND blocks aren’t written and erased more often than others. While wear leveling increases a drive’s life expectancy and endurance by writing to the NAND equally, it can actually increase write amplification. In other to distribute writes evenly across the disk, it’s sometimes necessary to program and erase blocks even though their contents haven’t actually changed. A good wear leveling algorithm seeks to balance these impacts.

The SSD Controller

It should be obvious by now SSDs require much more sophisticated control mechanisms than hard drives do. That’s not to diss magnetic media — I actually think HDDs deserve more respect than they are given. The mechanical challenges involved in balancing multiple read-write heads nanometers above platters that spin at 5,400 to 10,000 RPM are nothing to sneeze at. The fact that HDDs perform this challenge while pioneering new methods of recording to magnetic media and eventually wind up selling drives at 3-5 cents per gigabyte is simply incredible.

A typical SSD controller

SSD controllers, however, are in a class by themselves. They often have a DDR3 or DDR4 memory pool to help with managing the NAND itself. Many drives also incorporate single-level cell caches that act as buffers, increasing drive performance by dedicating fast NAND to read/write cycles. Because the NAND flash in an SSD is typically connected to the controller through a series of parallel memory channels, you can think of the drive controller as performing some of the same load-balancing work as a high-end storage array — SSDs don’t deploy RAID internally but wear leveling, garbage collection, and SLC cache management all have parallels in the big iron world.

Some drives also use data compression algorithms to reduce the total number of writes and improve the drive’s lifespan. The SSD controller handles error correction, and the algorithms that control for single-bit errors have become increasingly complex as time has passed.

Unfortunately, we can’t go into too much detail on SSD controllers because companies lock down their various secret sauces. Much of NAND flash’s performance is determined by the underlying controller, and companies aren’t willing to lift the lid too far on how they do what they do, lest they hand a competitor an advantage.

Interfaces

In the beginning, SSDs used SATA ports, just like hard drives. In recent years, we’ve seen a shift to M.2 drives — very thin drives, several inches long, that slot directly into the motherboard (or, in a few cases, into a mounting bracket on a PCIe riser card. A Samsung 970 EVO Plus drive is shown below.

NVMe drives offer higher performance than traditional SATA drivers because they support a faster interface. Conventional SSDs attached via SATA top out at ~550MB/s in terms of practical read/write speeds. M.2 drives are capable of substantially faster performance into the 3.2GB/s range.

The Road Ahead

NAND flash offers an enormous improvement over hard drives, but it isn’t without its own drawbacks and challenges. Drive capacities and price-per-gigabyte are expected to continue to rise and fall respectively, but there’s little chance SSDs will catch hard drives in price-per-gigabyte. Shrinking process nodes are a significant challenge for NAND flash — while most hardware improves as the node shrinks, NAND becomes more fragile. Data retention times and write performance are intrinsically lower for 20nm NAND than 40nm NAND, even if data density and total capacity are vastly improved. Thus far, we’ve seen drives with up to 96 layers in-market, and 128 layers seems plausible at this point. Overall, the shift to 3D NAND has helped improve density without shrinking process nodes or relying on planar scaling.

Thus far, SSD manufacturers have delivered better performance by offering faster data standards, more bandwidth, and more channels per controller — plus the use of SLC caches we mentioned earlier. Nonetheless, in the long run, it’s assumed NAND will be replaced by something else.

What that something else will look like is still open for debate. Both magnetic RAM and phase change memory have presented themselves as candidates, though both technologies are still in early stages and must overcome significant challenges to actually compete as a replacement to NAND. Whether consumers would notice the difference is an open question. If you’ve upgraded from NAND to an SSD and then upgraded to a faster SSD, you’re likely aware the gap between HDDs and SSDs is much larger than the SSD-to-SSD gap, even when upgrading from a relatively modest drive. Improving access times from milliseconds to microseconds matters a great deal, but improving them from microseconds to nanoseconds might fall below what humans can really perceive in most cases.

Intel’s 3D XPoint (marketed as Intel Optane) has emerged as one potential challenger to NAND flash, and the only current alternative technology in mainstream production. Optane SSDs don’t use NAND — they’re built using non-volatile memory believed to be implemented similarly to phase-change RAM — but they offer similar sequential performance to current NAND flash drives, but with vastly better performance at low drive queues. Drive latency is also roughly half of NAND flash (10 microseconds, versus 20) and vastly higher endurance (30 full drive-writes per day, compared with 10 full drive writes per day for a high-end Intel SSD).

Intel Optane performance targets

The first Optane SSDs have debuted as excellent add-ons for Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake.

 Optane is also available in standalone drives, and in a variety of server roles for enterprise computing. At the moment, Optane is still too expensive to match NAND flash, which benefits from substantial economies of scale, but this could change in the future. NAND will stay king of the hill for at least the next 3-4 years. But past that point, we could see Optane starting to replace it in volume, depending on how Intel and Micron scale the technology and how well 3D NAND flash continues to expand its cell layers (96-layer NAND is shipping from multiple players), with roadmaps for 128 layers on the horizon.

Check out our ExtremeTech Explains series for more in-depth coverage of today’s hottest tech topics.

Now read:

The Worst CPUs Ever Built

Happy 40th Anniversary to the Original Intel 8086

The Myths of Moore’s Law

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from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/210492-extremetech-explains-how-do-ssds-work from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2019/12/how-do-ssds-work.html

[worldsentwined]

Comics, trust, and stories that I didn’t expect to break my heart

In which I am still not over the 9-page update and keep discovering new ways that it has messed me up.

(Warning: May contain SSSS spoilers, so if you haven’t caught up, don’t read under the cut!)

So as anyone who’s talked to me about the current state of Stand Still Stay Silent knows, I’m still trying to process what Those Pages mean for the comic going forward. (Mostly by entertaining lots of crack theories and writing “nothing bad happens to anyone” AU fic). But I’m still pretty shaken, not just by the actual events but by the tonal shift they represent. 

I’ve written before about how the events of those pages change the comic from what I always thought it was - a post-apocalyptic story with some dark/horror moments, but carried along by a spirit of friendship and adventure - to something I can’t really describe. I suspect it will be a long time before I can see the shape of the overall story again. (Especially because it’s very slow-moving - as far as I can tell, in the past month we’ve covered approximately one day in the story.)

Anyway, this transition has also made me excessively sensitive to the possibility of unexpected tragedy in other works of fiction. I’ve been reading a lot of fanfiction (even before the Events) and I realize I’ve come to really rely on those helpful Archive Warnings on AO3. Especially the “major character death” one. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I have a lifelong dislike for stories with sad endings, especially when a favorite character dies. It’s turned me off series before (I read through a bunch of the Fables comic a few years ago, but then my favorite character was killed off and I just...stopped) and I’ve gotten to the end of many books and thought “well I really liked that until the end, and now I don’t.” (This isn’t to say that character death can’t be done well, but I feel like it happens more than it needs to - it’s not, for me, a satisfying story element.) And I doubt traditionally published fiction will ever adopt an archive warnings method in any kind of formal way, though sometimes I wish that was a thing.

But at least with a novel, I can go through the reading experience in a matter of days and then move on to the next story if I don’t like how it ends. (Ongoing series are a bit more of a risk, but the actual reading process is broken up into smaller chunks). With webcomics, updates come a page or two at a time, and mostly at a rate of 1-4 pages a week. It’s a slower way of reading, and I like it for a lot of reasons - it gives the story space to take root in my mind, and allows for lots of time outside the story to think about possibilities. The waiting is less excruciating than the whole “oh crap, I just read this book and the next won’t be out for over a year” thing, even when the writers/artists take chapter breaks or go on hiatus. I imagine this is a bit how people who watch daily soap operas or even keep up with television shows as they come out experience their media. 

In any case, the downside of webcomics is - well, as I’ve now seen with SSSS, the frequent exposure makes it easier to get attached. It’s an investment of time for the reader, especially if one starts reading the story near the beginning. Plenty of comics I’ve come across late, which means binge-reading the archive and getting a hefty dose of plot before waiting for updates - not so different from reading a novel. But I found out about SSSS before it even started (I got into reading A Redtail’s Dream a few months before it ended, so I knew there was a new comic coming.) I had to get little bits of it at a time, and each new development revealed more of the story. I remember the shock when we discovered that the main comic was set 90 years after the prologue - there had been lots of speculation, but I think most of us expected a shorter gap - and the screaming excitement when we finally had a name for Braidy. As the story has gone on, there have been plenty of dark moments, but it’s always come back around to feeling more hopeful...until now.

The thing is (and now we get to the whole reason I’m writing this post) it took over seven hundred pages and nearly four years for SSSS to get to this point. If someone binge-read the archive a year ago, they’d have had years of content that all pointed in a hopeful direction, no matter how bad things got. They’d have missed the agony of the weekend cliffhanger when Reynir got scratched (and we didn’t yet have the reassurance that it didn’t break the skin) which, until the Tuuri arc we’ve just experienced, was the most scared I’ve ever been for a character in this story. And I’m not trying to be like, some kind of SSSS hipster (”I was reading before everything was on fire!”). What I’m saying is, if such a drastic tone shift could happen with SSSS, a story with years of history and story development...what’s to stop it from happening in any other comic?

This isn’t coming completely out of the blue, although I realize I’ve been rambling on without explaining my motivation for writing. See, last night I stumbled upon a comic called No End, and I binge-read the entire archive. It has over 500 pages, plus extras in between chapters, and is on its eighth chapter now. It’s a post-apocalyptic setting, socially much grittier than SSSS (in that it’s not safe to trust anyone, especially the military, and that’s before you start worrying about the zombies). It’s more of a standard zombie apocalypse story, but very character-driven and with a generous dose of romance (I already ship some things SO HARD, and some of them are actually canon. Also, everyone is some shade of gay/bi/pan/ace which is delightful). Sure, it has its dark moments, there’s a fair amount of body horror and gore and omnipresent danger. But, like, that doesn’t seem to be the most important part of the story, it’s more about character relationships and adventure.

Wait. Hang on a second.

Sure, it has its dark moments, there’s a fair amount of body horror and gore and omnipresent danger. But, like, that doesn’t seem to be the most important part of the story, it’s more about character relationships and adventure.

Does this sound familiar? It should, because up until recently I would have said the same thing about SSSS. And now, despite the fact that I just read something I really like, that I think some of my friends would like based on the fact that they like SSSS, I’m scared. I’m scared to get attached to these characters, (even though it’s too late for me, I’m already attached) because there are already elements set up that could lead to future tragedy, if the authors decide to take it that way. I’m scared to invest myself emotionally in yet another story that could take its setting in the logical direction and kill my faves. And I’m scared to recommend this story to other people, because what if it goes that way? 

TL;DR, SSSS has given me major trust issues, and I don’t quite know what to do about it. But if anyone else reads No End and wants to talk to me about it (or suffer with me in my anxiety) let me know, I guess?

[strmyweather]

RP Cut #2: Non-Scale Victories

I will freely admit that I’m posting this ‘timeline’ mostly for my own benefit, so that I’ll have it to refer back to at a later date; it may not be of tremendous interest to anyone else. But as I type this, I have 24 hours to go until the ‘finish line’ of my second Renaissance Periodization cut. I’m once again feeling pretty satisfied, proud of the journey, and, in most ways, dramatically more prepared and mentally ‘settled’ about the endpoint than I was after my first cut. However, the one concept that continues to make me (irrationally) anxious is the prospect of slightly higher bodyweight potentially impacting my CrossFit movements—thus this post.

Objectively, I do recall from my last cut-to-maintenance transition that the concept of improved fueling / increased glycogen stores pretty effectively offsets any slight bodyweight bump. However, I’ve been CrossFitting for over five years and just gained the bulk of my gymnastics skills within these past six or seven months. In other words, I’m still so new to this ‘toolbox’ that any performance fluctuations (which I’ve long been accustomed to with a barbell) still feel irrationally frightening on this new playing field—like, but I could do FIVE strict pull-ups yesterday, and today FOUR feels hard; therefore THE WORLD IS ENDING! (…My coach is continually talking me off the ledge in this regard. :))

At any rate, this is one reason why I kept track of certain gym accomplishments (a.k.a. ‘non-scale victories’) as the cut progressed. I am definitely not someone who PRs barbell movements on a cut (quite the contrary; my strength has suffered significantly this year), but my gymnastics have improved literally beyond all recognition, of which I am very proud. As such, I wanted to keep track of my performance milestones at various bodyweights along the way, so that I’ll have this mental tool for the inevitable struggle bus days. When sets of handstand push-ups feel impossible, it might help to be able to look back at this post and say to myself, no, your bodyweight is NOT the issue, because you did this same thing in a metcon when you were TEN POUNDS heavier! It’s just time for a rest day, that’s all. :)

Without further ado, I give you RP Cut #2: the Non-Scale Victory Edition! :)

Week 1 average: 148.4 lb (although, admittedly, about a pound of this was Bagel Bloat from my massive cheat weekend in NYC just prior to starting the cut—I had been averaging 147.4 prior to the trip) Non-scale victory: recaptured a 193# back squat (which is only 7# off my all-time best despite weighing 20-25# less than I did at the time I achieved that PR).

Week 2 average: 146.4 lb Non-scale victory: 2 sets of 5 unbroken handstand push-ups (single abmat, no plates) in a metcon setting!

Week 3 average: 145.3 lb Non-scale victorIES: five unbroken strict pull-ups! three unbroken ring dips! 4 sets of 50 unbroken double-unders! ...It was a big week :-)

Week 4 average: 144.2 lb Non-scale victory: PRed Fran at 8:28. Definitely still on the slower side, but I was thrilled by consistently large-ish sets (thrusters as 14/7, 8/7, and 9 unbroken; pull-ups as sets of 3-5 the whole way!). Afterward, my coach made the point that I likely could have gone faster for competition purposes by doing smaller sets, but that this was the right approach/stimulus to use for training.

Week 5 average: 142.6 Non-scale victory: basically blitzing through a metcon that included both TTB and HSPU (two relatively new skills for me), and staying consistent with both. Did all the sets of 10 TTB as 6/4, and sets of 5 HSPU as unbroken 5s (albeit again to just one abmat, no plates).

Week 6 average: 141.2 lb Non-scale victory: weighted pull-ups with a 10# plate! Also, sets of 4 HSPU with 10# plates—something I had struggled with as recently as three weeks prior—felt EASY. (The high point of this week was the moment when my coach grinned at me after a particularly sharp set of those and said, “See, this is why, when you get salty about stuff, I say to you, ‘remember when you couldn’t do a handstand push-up negative?’” :-))

Week 7 average: 141.0 lb (but this was a bit artificially inflated because it was the week that I ‘should have gotten’ my period; in reality, this was also the week I broke the 140 barrier / saw a couple of weights in the 130s for the first time ever in my adult life!). Non-scale victory: not a big flashy accomplishment, but I was pretty pleased when I felt basically fine / barely sore at all after doing the equivalent of about 90 pull-ups in one training session.

Week 8 average: 140.9 lb (but again somewhat artificially inflated, this time by being home for the holidays) Non-scale victory: non-gym-related, but: going home for 2.5 days for Christmas and meeting both of my goals, which were (1) getting my protein in every day and (2) eating and enjoying normal food without ‘cracking out’. I was also proud that I could recognize the exact moment (on the morning of the third day) when I was starting to lose my restraint, and was able to use the clock as a tool to reel myself back in.

Week 9 average: 138.7 lb Non-scale victory: there were three this week: (1) got my first truly RXed handstand push-ups (abmat + 25-lb plates), on New Year’s Eve, (2) did 50 burpees in 2:58 (!), and (3) did a set of 10 easy unbroken toes-to-bar that felt as though I could’ve kept going!

Week 10 average: 138.1 lb Non-scale victory: ‘graduated’ to performing official muscle-up attempts! I have all the ‘pieces’—five strict pull-ups, three strict dips, sharp transitions on the low rings, strong hollow swings on the high rings—I just have to figure out the combination of mental cues that allows me to put it all together.

Week 11 average: 137.2 lb Non-scale victory: sets of two RXed HSPU in an EMOM setting—that actually felt dramatically easier than the singles I had done two weeks prior! Also, coach started programming my wallballs with the 20# ball—which I obviously despise, but also secretly love, because it feels like a vote of confidence. :)

Week 12 average: 135.4, with a nadir of 133.7 lb (!!!) Non-scale victory: sets of 3-4 unbroken false grip ring pull-ups (which feel weird and uncomfortable, but several of the boys in the gym spontaneously commented on how good they looked and how “you just add a little kip in there, and [you’ve got your muscle-up]!”, which felt really good to hear. :)

…I’ll soon link this post back to the fuller/longer one detailing more of the multidimensional ins and outs of this second cut, but thought that the above timeline deserved its own section (in the interest of partitioning the various aspects into manageable ‘chunks’, rather than writing my usual rambly novel :)).

I’m very much looking forward to maintenance—to sleeping through the night again, to having more than one tablespoonful of peanut butter per day, to NOT feeling freezing cold all the time, to watching my butt and legs reappear, to having creamer in my coffee once in a while—but honestly, the biggest reason is that I truly cannot wait to ‘feel strong’ again. This cut has served its purpose and I’m grateful that I tackled it when I did, and with the degree of dedication that I did—but, as CrossFit athletes, we ‘specialize in not specializing’, and I have felt rather one-dimensional for the vast majority of the past year. Objectively, I’ve knocked FORTY POUNDS off my bodyweight in the past 11 months (whaaaaat?!?)—so now let’s see about sticking some of that weight back onto the barbell, shall we? :)

[cynthiadshaw]

Perspective & Advice for Those Facing Insurmountable Odds

Throughout our journey with Voyage, the one thing we have learned over and over is that hidden within every challenge is a blessing or opportunity. It’s up to us to determine whether a challenge we face will be a step back or the catalyst for a step forward.

We had the honor of connecting with some of the city’s brightest leaders and role models and we asked them our question of the month: What is the best advice you have for someone who feels like they are facing insurmountable odds.

Below, you’ll find their advice and links and other info so you can learn more about them, their work and how to connect with them. We’ll be interviewing many of these amazing individuals in the coming weeks, stay tuned.

Alex Hernandez | Photographer and Filmmaker

First of all I would like to say thank you for taking the time to read this, my advice for someone who is facing insurmountable obstacles is to never give up, even in the worst circumstances there is always a way out, take a second to clear your mind review your situation, ask yourself where I am standing up and where do I want to go?, make a plan, choose daily tasks to help you get closer to your goals, always remember that every challenge is a new opportunity to grow and learn, wake up early, go out and fight for what your dreams, be grateful for what you have, say “thank you” more often, and if you go to bed at night feeling that you are not working hard enough for you goals, is probably because you are not working hard enough.

@artisticlensstudio @alexhdz artisticlensstudio.com

Elizabeth Sisk | Family Portrait & Lifestyle Photographer

Elizabeth Sisk Photography

My advice to anyone feeling like they’re facing insurmountable odds would be to persevere and try to remember that everyone faces adversity at some point in their lives and it’s those periods of adversity or challenges that help us grow. I’m a strong believer that everything happens for a reason, so trying to find the lesson in whatever challenges you’re facing can really help change your perspective of the situation and even embrace it.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced was after my daughter was born, the adjustment from being an independent, carefree adult to putting her needs before everything else was incredibly difficult for me. You’re exhausted, giving all of yourself to this baby, and you have to dig deeper than you thought you could to just make it through another day. Eventually things started to get a little easier and coming out of the new baby fog I felt like I could do anything. Because of that journey, I started my photography business where I always try to extend grace and compassion to families who are dealing with the challenges of parenthood while giving them the gift of captured memories in this phase of their lives. That’s something all parents cherish and appreciate and I don’t think I would have the same sense of empathy, strength, patience, or passion to give that to families without my own motherhood journey.

elizabethsiskphotography.com @elizabethsiskphotos

Frank Sanchez | Dark Age Tattoo Artist

The best advice I can offer for anybody that feels they’re facing insurmountable odds is that you have to keep a positive attitude and be optimistic, you have to believe things are going to get better and put that energy out there in the universe, the mind is a powerful tool and you have to learn to rewire yourself to try and be successful and happy. Some of the most influential people in history have had to overcome truly difficult challenges and you have to look to them for inspiration and at the same time remove yourself from situations or individuals that you feel are holding you back.

Everyday we wake up is a new chance and a new beginning to try and become a better version of ourselves, you have to keep investing in yourself whether that’s spending more time picking up new skills that might bring new opportunities or improving your overall health whether it’s through yoga or hitting the gym more often.

@franciscosanchez_tattoo franksancheztattoo.com

Vanessa Contino | Model & Nursing Student

Photographer- Tony Redmer MUA- Stephanie Cantu Agency @Wallflower

The best advice I can give to someone who is facing insurmountable odds is to breath, take some “self-love” time through out the day and I think that will allow them to relax and focus on postive thoughts. I often think that in moments in life we are thrown a curved ball but we get to write our own outcomes and our own destiny and many time someone might forget that.

@vanessa_s_contino wallflowermanagement.com/girl_portfolio

Cortney McBride | Blogger & Probation Officer

To your friend who does all the things, the social butterfly who attends all the events, who brunches every weekend, who attend events during the work week, who is already on to go, and who is always busy with a social event. There might be a reason behind this, there might be a reason why your friend stays busy and is always on the go.

The moment I stop, even for a second, the moment I’m at home alone with my thoughts is the moment all the thoughts flood back into my mind. The thoughts of my divorce, the thoughts of friends walking out when I needed them most, the urge to drink alone at home begin. The worst part, the depression and anxiety start to get the best of me and put me back in that dark place I was in for the most part of last year. There’s a reason I’m always out, there’s a reason why I seem never to be home, even if it is just walking the dog. There’s a reason I’m always out and about, why my social calendar is booked, and why I like getting away and going out of town on the weekends, it is because I have to. I have to do all the things all the time because of my chronic depression and anxiety, because sitting and being still is a trigger for me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a cup of coffee on my back patio with my dogs too, and I also enjoy a slower pace sometimes, but for the most part I have to have something in the future planned. Sometimes thinking about those plans in the future are the only things that gets me through the day. My life last year was consumed with so much emptiness, self-doubt, not feeling like I was enough. I try very hard to not go back to those dark days. So, I keep going, I go to all the social events, grand openings, concerts, new brunch spots and coffee places, I keep moving.

So many people have said to me, “”Your weekends look like so much fun,”” and trust me they are, but the reason behind all the fun isn’t so fun. At first getting out and being social exhausted me and it would take me hours to actually get out of bed, shower, do my hair and makeup, and to actually walk out of the house, and I still feel this why sometimes. But, this is what I had to do, this is what I knew I had to do, I couldn’t stay cooped up in a house by myself with no human interaction, and I knew this. I’ve suffered with depression and anxiety since I was a teenager. I’ve suffered with this so long that I know my triggers and I know how to attempt to pull myself out of it. I say attempt because as I’ve gotten older when I get into a depressed or anxious state, it takes me longer to pull myself out. My energy level in my 30’s is just not what it was in my teens and 20’s, which I’m assuming is normal.

I’ve also heard, “”How do you afford to do all of this?”” Well, nosey person, most of the things I do are completely free, cheap, discounted, or a special event that’s a set price, and also I have this thing where I’m also good with my money and don’t over spend. Although, I’m not going to lie it’s happen a time or two. Being out, being social, doing all the things, it’s my therapy and my coping skill so that I don’t fall in to another battle with depression and anxiety. I know I’ll always struggle with my anxiety and depression and that’s okay, it’s a part of who I am. I’ve learned to say no to things I don’t want to do, and yes to what I what to do. I’ve learned to take care of myself, and do what makes me happy. I wake up every day and just try to be a better person than the day before, so that I can leave this world a better place than what I found it.

If you have a friend that looks like they have it all together socially, is always on the go, is always out having fun, brunching, at the new coffee shop, at all the new grand openings, and doing all the things. There might a reason why this friend appears to living their best life, so offer to go to brunch, the farmers market, dinner, coffee or wherever with them. Who knows, maybe you’ll have fun and pick up a new hobby, or learn something new about yourself or your friend.

@cortney.mcbride

Bryan Gonzalez | Athlete | Trainer | Nutritionist

Every one deals with their own insurmountable odds, but not everyone knows how to handle these situations. For me it’s simple, the only time you fail is when you stop trying. No matter how hard it gets or how impossible something may seem you must continue to fight and maintain a positive outlook. Just remember there’s always someone out there who has it worse than you, be grateful and keep fighting. Life is a battle but the real battle is within yourself.

@_bryan.gonzalez

Victor Uzoigwe | The bearded Champ

For every odd that you face that is too great to overcome, look at it as if it is something ta you have been through already and then disciple your mind to teach yourself for odds that are too great it can be resolved cause at the day of the day is either you fail or you succeed but the choice of failure or success is left to how much you want to overcome those odds.

@iamvctor

David F Wilson | Car Enthusiast

Life is full of ebbs and flows, realize even a tsunami ends in a calm ocean. Break down the insurmountable odds you’re facing into smaller chunks, and remember to keep your faith- & know this too shall pass.

@dfwscars

Ian Bartlett | Photographer & filmmaker

I have built an ongoing friendship with some of the subjects in my Bikelife project and have chatted with them on this very subject.

First of all I would say without hesitation that we have all experienced a situation or period in our lives that we felt we could not overcome. Its important to know this because in the age of social media it could ‘appear’ that your peers are having a wonderful life when you are going through difficult times and nothing could be further from the truth. Feelings of depression and anxiety are certainly more common than we are led to believe but just by opening up the subject up for discussion helps break down the misconceptions that you have to deal with these feelings on your own.

I feel that talking is the best form of helping you to process your thoughts. Find someone you don’t mind sharing your thoughts with. It can be a person you confide in or better still a professional, trained with the skills to help decipher what it is you’re going through. This needn’t be a financial burden as there are charitable organisations out there such as the Samaritans that will listen to you or help you find a group session.

There are some self help practises you can do which really have really helped me in the past. Mindfulness is a great technique to help you keep a positive mind. Most feelings of insurmountable odds are just that. Feelings, and all cases, there is light at the end of the tunnel…

In this day and age, its easy to get caught up in other peoples lives via social media platforms. This can have an extremely negative effect on your thoughts and drive you to a negative place. I would suggest turning off notifications or even temporarily removing social apps. By doing this you can eliminate some of the causes of your ill feelings and focus your attention to more productive, positive goals. The aim is to find a solution to the issue at hand but first you must make your mind healthy.

Its important to take a break once in a while. Exercise, walk, run, cycle etc. For me, cycling and photography is a great form or meditation because it takes my mind away from what can be an otherwise stressful life.

@bartlettville @thebartlett

Angel Williams | photographer and visionary

My advice for someone who is going through something insurmountable would be to take it one day at a time, don’t stress over what you can’t control, and trust and believe that God wouldn’t put them through anything they couldn’t handle. You have to go through a couple storms here and there to appreciate the rainbow.

eyeconicimages.zenfolio.com @eyeconic.imagess

Tammy McQuirk | Chief Visionary Officer & Owner and Antonio Morales | Managing Director

CEI J Photography

Antonio and I have been in the janitorial/facilities business for a combined 30 years of experience.

Starting our own company and breaking away from Corporate America was extremely scary! We have faced several challenges along the way so this question is very close to home.

Our advice for anyone facing insurmountable odds, personally or professionally is to: Seek out the positive in every challenge, learn and grow from it.

Take the risk, there WILL be challenges and if you feel overwhelmed it is because you are strong enough to handle it.

Consider these challenges to be tests of your strength and don’t let yourself down.

Make sure your circle is filled with positive, supportive people.. personal cheerleaders. Persevere in Prayer.

Look at each challenge as an opportunity.

At Tamrak, we believe quality drives probability..so keep swimming!

tamraksolutions.com @TAMRAKSOLU @TAMRAKSOLU Tamraksolu@gmail.com

Sydney Asafu-Adjaye | Creator of Lit Therapy Candles

Do your best to focus on gratitude, love, and humility. There is always something to be grateful for. Life is a beautiful blessing in itself, (especially when you’re abundantly healthy!) so make a conscious effort to focus on the beauty that is effortlessly all around – nature, laughter, good comfort food, creative expression, shelter, clothes, friends, family, animals, taking that cloud nine nap(lol), listening to your favorite song, random acts of kindness, dancing … the list goes on! Remember that like attracts like, so be a magnet for good by being good to the best of your ability each day. You are so loved, heard, seen, and cared for always. Xoxo~ Stay Lit!

@lit_therapycandles @littherapycandles Etsy.com/shop/LitTherapyCandles

Hunter Wilson | Portrait Photographer

If you are in a season where you feel like you’re sprinting in the fog, seeking clarity, and you have no idea how you’re going to find your way… The best advice I can give is to know what outcome you want to happen. You have to have a vision for what true north looks like for you. If you feel lost or overwhelmed, ask yourself these three questions to get unstuck: 1. What do I want? Why do I want it? How am I going to get there?

HunterWilson.Photography

Dan Maitland | Commercial Film Producer At Meticulous Image inc.

Whatever insurmountable odds you face, it is okay if a victory of those odds benefits you positively, but it is exponentially more motivating if it helps others who deserve the ability to excel. Ask yourself, do your actions lead to elements that are inherently righteous and beneficial to not only yourself but also others? Compile these motivators as fuel to propel yourself and other forward.

Meticulousimage.com @themaitlandimage

Neko Savvy | Rapper | Singer | Songwriter

My best advice to people who are facing insurmountable odds in whatever it is they may do is to dream like crazy, live in the now, and keep the future organized. Stay consistent in your work & true to your belief system. Stay confident but humbled. Never stop learning even when you think you know it all! Put your happiness first and make sure to love yourself through the ups and downs. What are downs without ups? Stay persistent and consistent. Be YOU! Be understanding. and last but not least, stay patient.

@nekosavvymusic @nekosavvy Neko Savvy on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Youtube, Apple Music, etc) youtube.com/watch?v=KgxgJ5QZY4k soundcloud.com/nekosavvy/neko-savvy-808-prod-icon-south

John Lee | PMP – senior program director of job recruitment company and life long fitness athlete

There are people alive today who accumulated more wealth in 1 lifetime, with companies they started in basements, comparable to entire generations of iconic family dynasties.

There are doctors with law degrees, and lawyers with medical degrees.

There are single moms running corporations, and single dads operating restaurant chains.

There are world champions from dirt poor neighborhoods, and spelling bee champions raised in 3rd world countries.

I can go on and on, but needless to say, we, as people, are meant to overcome insurmountable odds. We don’t have to look far to find people of every background who became wildly successful even if it looked as if they lacked the tools, the time, the opportunity, or the luck to accomplish much.

Insurmountable odds are only insurmountable at the time, but every changing second could bring a change in circumstances, resources, mindset, and opportunity. As long as you continue to become the best version of who you can be, while staying open-minded to the changing world around you, the right opportunity will present itself.

Valerie Munday | Plus-Size Fashion and Lifestyle Maven

Photo Credit: @irinaand3dogs

When it feels like everything is against you, it can be so easy to cave in. It’s important to remember that under the heaviest pressure and most difficult circumstances, we are given the opportunity to grow. Always, always take that opportunity, even if it isn’t the one you thought it would be.

valorelai.wordpress.com @valorelai @valorelai

Dr. Scott Silverii | Servant Pastor & Author

Some of the best advice comes from hard-earned life experience. After surviving an abusive childhood, twenty-six years in law enforcement, and standing on the brink of suicide, my best advice for someone who feels like they are facing insurmountable odds are these three truths:

1. I want to encourage you to anchor yourself to people who are invested in your well-being.

2. Prayer makes everything possible.

3. My anchor promise for better days is Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

scottsilverii.com @scottsilverii @BrickBreakersChurchForMen

Nitae | Musician | Stinger | Songwriter & Performing Artist

@its_thatguyphat

I’ve always been told, “When you feel that nothing’s working for you, take a step back, be still, breathe, pray, and know things will always work out for the good of you.” There’s no task or obstacle put in your path that you cannot conquer. When odds are against you, you be still, analyze things, find another way to kick it’s but, but one thing you never do is give up. Life is only trial & error, so in the great words of Aaliyah, “Dust yourself off & try again!”

@Iamnitae @Nitaenitae music.apple.com/us/artist/nitae/1350029554

Jacob Rangel aka ScuddiCutz | Barber

My advice would be to never give up always believe in god and let him handle your tribulation, let that trouble make you stronger ask for help and watch god do his work.

dapperbarber.co

Trichelle Mcafee | Photographer at Specialtee Photos

The best advice I can give for someone who is facing insurmountable odds is to not give up. Your journey may seem hard but the journey you are on is shaping you to become the person you need to be.

@specialteephotos

Kishan Patel | Digital Content Creator for 360 Wraps

@MeltingMiniMedia and @KBPatel228

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door” – Milton Berle.

This quote was in my senior yearbook when I graduated high-school in 2014, and it has been in my mind ever since. I moved to Dallas in August 2018 not knowing anyone but a few family members, and worked at a job I grew to hate after a year of being there. I picked up a camera in November 2018 and taught myself anything I needed to know to get to where I am at now. If you keep working hard and just be a good person, then the sky is the limit. You should never be scared to ask for help, I would not be where I am today if it wasn’t for the friendships that started by me simply asking “How do you do that?”. There is always someone out there that can help you improve. Assuming you know everything is the last thing you want to do because that shuts your mind down to new perspectives and ideas that actually challenge you to do better. There is always a brighter side!

@MeltingMiniMedia MeltingMiniMedia.com

Jessica RyAnn | Model

DK Productions

From experience I would have to say stay focus and retain a consistent level of confidence . It can definitely be hard with the world of social media and it may seem like everyone is doing what you want to do and they are reaching certain levels that you aren’t. I’ve been hard on myself about this plenty of times. One thing that I’ve learned is that you can’t compare your journey to someone else’s. That’s what makes us special, our individuality. Gods timing is everything! Remain focus, stay consistent, and know that at the end of every storm there is a rainbow.

kollectiveye.com

Melissa Wise | Holistic Massage Therapist & Teacher

When life happens, and it will, make sure that you have a strong faith in God, Creator, Universe whatever you believe in, be open to love and support from your friends and family and remember that NOTHING is permanent. Stay true to yourself, listen to your intuition and allow change. Whatever it is that you are facing is not life working against you, it is not God punishing you, it is the impermanence of existence happening and how you respond to it will have a lot to do with your survival and outcome. I personally was led to massage therapy, the study of meditation yoga and Ayurveda (all Eastern modalities), Reiki and Sound therapy. Meditation was the biggest game changer for me. A teacher once said, “praying is talking to God and meditation is listening to God.” I realized I had been doing the talking all of my life and when I sit in meditation on a daily basis, (8 years now) I have been guided by the messages from God. I believe mediation is the core to ones healing. It may be the one trauma or life event that ‘wakes us up’ or gives us PTSD but meditation is a process that peels the layers of trauma, pain and dysfunction that may have been stored in the body for a lifetime, to heal us on a soul level. Meditation does for the mind, what the gym does for the body. ~ Melissa Wise

wisebodmindsoul.com @wisebodymindsoul @wisebodymindsoul

Taylor Schmitt | Photographer

Facing insurmountable odds happens to everybody, you must accept them and take them as experience and lessons.These hard times prepare you for the future to progress for what you will become. Outlook and attitude are everything in the times you viewed as insurmountable, you must look at the positives of these moments and take lessons from them to better your future in life.

@txsvisuals

Latice Williams | owner and cake decorator of Sweet Tooth Custom Cakes

The best advice I would give anyone that’s facing insurmountable odds is to keep your eyes on the prize. If you get knocked down down, cry about it but get up and keep going. Rejection is just God’s way of saying not yet. For all the no’s you get, 1 yes will trump them all. #KeepGoing.

sweettoothcc.com @sweettoothcc

    Becky Fernandez | Artist Manager | Creative Director

Adversity is a good thing. It is an opportunity to learn and grow. Facing hardships brings out an inner strength in you that you otherwise would of never known you had. We all go through life where everyday is not promised. We will have setbacks, failures and disappointments along the way. I know that God will never give me more than I can handle and I’ve learned to live life a day at a time. Talk to people who maybe have gone through something similar. Take a deep breath, be grateful and find a reason to celebrate the small things. And most importantly, trust God.

Soundartmedia.com @beckyfernandez @soundartmedia

John W Preston Jr. | Husband | Father | Artist & Realtor

Keep facing it. Show up every single day, and face whatever stands between you and your greatness. I do not believe in anything being insurmountable if you consistently give all you have within. Will times be hard? Yes. Will you walk alone at some point? Yes. Will their be naysayers? Of course. Think about it this way, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and wiser. Everything that you face will subside. They say the storm runs out of rain eventually, but you won’t know if you give up. Everything you desire is right on the other side of your consistent effort. The late Nipsey Hussle conveyed a powerful message through one of my favorite songs entitled “I don’t stress”. The message that is: Don’t stress out, poke your chest out(meaning have courage), and when it’s your turn bring the best out.

shotbyjwes.com @jwes_

Jamie Lynn Moreland | Newborn and Family Photographer

My advice would be to simply show up in whatever way you can. Every day is an opportunity to show up for yourself creatively and professionally, to do the best work you can, and to be an example for your family or community that no matter what success means to you, it’s also an ongoing series of choices that shape your journey. Even under perfect circumstances, success takes vision, persistence, and the faith to keep working toward your goals even when it seems like they might be out of reach. So even if your circumstances are less than perfect or the trajectory of your path has changed, there is always a benefit in showing up and continuing to put one foot in front of the other in the journey towards your goals.

poppyandbellephotography.com @poppyandbellephotos

Daniel Gunn | Artist & Architect

Photo Credit: Daniel M. Gunn

The best advice I could give someone that feels like they are facing insurmountable odds would be to first take a step back and analyze what the obstacle is in their life or situation that is impeding them from moving forward. I believe that it is common for everyone at some point in their life to encounter odds that they feel are impossible to overcome. Taking a step back allows one to see the bigger picture, break it down and bring the issue into greater focus. The next thing that I would suggest to someone is to have faith that the insurmountable odds that they are facing will shift in their favor. Never give up and be persistent no matter how much the odds seem to be stacked against you. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. My faith in God has helped me to overcome many obstacles throughout my life whether it was in my career, personal goals, or other areas. With the faith in size to that of a mustard seed anything is possible to accomplish.

danielmgunn.com @dgunnart

Marci Allen | CEO & Creative Director

@oralallen82

While there may be situations in life that may feel like they are insurmountable, there will always be creative ways to solve the problems you are facing.

Whenever I begin to feel overwhelmed or feel that there is no way out, I remove myself from the moment and look at the problem from a different perspective. Sometimes a simple change can make a huge difference.

Regardless of how hard or impossible something may seem, each of these hurdles or obstacles can teach us something; look for the lesson in the challenge. Remember to be kind to yourself, ask for help, change your perspective, analyze the issue, come up with a plan, and then execute said plan (rinse and repeat as needed). Your biggest hurdle today can be your greatest victory tomorrow!

hirunadesigns.com @hirunasoaps

Steven Nguyen | Pharmacist

I feel like it’s best to break up the task into small goals that can be accomplished. Aim to complete those small goals a step at a time and before you know it, you’ve conquered something that was insurmountable!

@dapper.qd

Jacqui Daniels | clinical herbalist & botanical glass engraver

I don’t know that this is “the best” advice, but these are things I turn to when I feel like I am facing insurmountable odds. When facing insurmountable odds we tend to feel alone in our struggle, so I find it helpful to look to ancestors for guidance. My grandmother in particular is one I turn to most often. She was the picture of strength, compassion, and guiding light, and always made me feel like there was nothing I couldn’t do. I have an old picture of hers, with a common saying on it, right by my bed as a reminder:

Give me the strength to change the things I can, Accept the things I can’t, and wisdom to know the difference

I also have a practice of writing down all of the things that no longer serve me that I wish to change or get rid of in my life and then on another sheet I write down all of the things I would like to manifest. I then burn the sheet of things that no longer serve me and then plant the sheet of things I wish to manifest. It is now a seed that will grow as long as you continue to nourish and feed the things that you wish to grow in your life. It is a nice physical thing you can do to literally get rid of, grow, or transform the things in your life you wish to.

nettleguruherbs.com @nettle_guru

Zikeyah Austin | Fashion Model & Actresses

I feel like you should never give up. We all have experience down falls within our life. Some people can’t overcome. They hold on to the pain. But for most, to break though and keep fighting , against all odds shows tremendous courage. I been there. I believe having faith, ambition and heart you can achieve your dreams.

@rayalvarde @experienceellie

Michelle Knight | Health and Wellness Coach, Speaker and Consultant

For the question of the month. Here’s my response: 1. Use your strengths. 2.Remember, you have survived your worst days. You can get through this challenge too. 3. Rally support – get caring people around you who can guide, assist and support you. 4. Take it one day at a time.

realsolutionscoaching.com

Joseph Williams and Ebony Williams | Conscious Love Strategists

Joseph Williams

Acknowledge the pain, your doubts, your present lack of faith. Feel it. Then ask yourself, what is this here to teach me? Know that EVERYTHING unravels in your favor. It is not happening to you, but for you. Shift your point of reference and your point of view will soon follow.

jandecoaching.com @jandecoaching

Obioma Faison | Head Chef B.Y.O. Chef LLC

This takes me several years back when I thought I’d lost everything. I felt powerless as life made decisions for me. Through all the uncertainty only one thing made sense, food. In the midst of my odds, cooking became my place of solace, healer of my hopelessness, and my source of strength. With a heart filled of fierce passion I realized I was destined to share my culinary passion with the world. Embarking on my journey I transformed my passion into my craft; modernizing and rebirthing any traditional dish I could get my hands on. And now, I am happy to say my journey has taken me from the darkest pit to beyond the stars. From weddings, to city sponsored events, to culinary competitions I never imagined any of this was possible. No matter what you encounter in life, you must realize it’s only for a moment, someday you’ll look back to see the reward of your perseverance.

@byochef

byochef.catering

Rafael Garcia | 3D Artist and Videographer and Latin Recording Artist

The key to success is failure—You’re not going to succeed at every single thing that you do and that is absolutely okay. The important part in life is that when the time came, you tried. Go out there and try.

rafael.works spoti.fi/2SGGF9U @yorafarafa

Chris D. Bentley | Broker | Owner of Bentley Fine Properties

Take a step back and ask for help. Believe me, if you’re going through something, someone else already has and there is a really good chance that they’re willing to help you.

ChrisDBentley.com BentleyFineProperties.com Facebook: Chris D. Bentley youtube.com/c/ChrisDBentley-LuxuryHomeSales @chrisdbentley

Eliseo Mendoza | Wolfshot | photographer

My best advise would be to never give up on your style and vision and keep being weird. Now in days every photographer edits the same. It’s really amazing to see some of the new photographers put out some weird awesome content.

@wolfshot15 eazyymendoza8.wixsite.com @wolfzy15

Crystal Rippers | BAND

Rip it and Grip it!!!

open.spotify.com/artist/4cjEMPImJ7hT0L1vsIt8Zz?si=l1eoxFUuQOWZMAZYfp8KKQ youtube.com/watch?v=BP2yhRYrLec crystalrippers.com

Lauren Vaughn & Browning Vaughn | Professional Organizers

We would be lying if we told you we never get overwhelmed on organization projects. There are days we feel it won’t get done. What gets us through our toughest days, both at work and in our personal lives, is keeping perspective on the situation in front of us. All of us are guilty of blowing things out of proportion and feeling overwhelmed. Take a step back. Take a deep breath. What steps can you take to change the situation that is overwhelming you? Make an action plan. We are big believers in to-do lists. Worrying about the situation will not make it go away. We also cannot stress enough the importance of a positive attitude. Even in our lowest moments, we often force ourselves to smile and laugh at ourselves. It gives us an extra boost of energy that gets us through the tough days. Give yourself a break every once in awhile! You seriously deserve it!

liferefinedco.com @liferefinedco @liferefinedco

The post Perspective & Advice for Those Facing Insurmountable Odds appeared first on Voyage Dallas Magazine | Dallas City Guide.

source http://voyagedallas.com/2020/03/01/perspective-advice-facing-insurmountable-odds/

[dangerouslylazydinosaur]

The 5 Best Home Juicer Reviews & Buying Guide for 2018

In today’s fast-paced world, people are always searching for ways to do things quicker, including essential activities like eating. Since fast food performs poorly regarding a person’s long-term health, we’ve decided to write about a healthy version of fast food – freshly squeezed juice.

Someone as busy as a nurse could definitely benefit from buying a juicer as their job isn’t easy by any stretch of the term and they could use a glass of nutritious beverage in the morning.

Making your own juice is fast, good for your body, and will only take you a couple of minutes. What’s not to like?

The only thing that will make this happen is a juicer. And today, we’re discussing which is the best home juicer available for purchase today.

Why buy a home juicer?

To help you understand just how incredible juicing is, we are going to talk about some of its main benefits. This section is a must-read for anyone who is trying to preserve/improve their health.

Better nutrient absorption

It’s no secret that freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices are packed with vitamins and minerals. However, many are not aware that it is much easier for your body to absorb nutrients from juice than from whole foods.

The reason for this is that the juicing process removes fiber and other solids, and liquids take much shorter to digest. This means that all that good stuff will be in your bloodstream in no time.

Boost your immune system

Nurses spend a lot of time around ill people and are constantly exposed to bacteria and viruses, so having a few shots of nutrition-dense drinks per day will help strengthen their immune systems.

In case you happen to contact the flu, a cold or any other airborne disease, the nutrients from the juice will assist in flushing out the toxins from your body.

Improved weight loss

Those who are struggling with a bit of extra weight should try juicing. You see, a juice is filled with nutrients which are essential to keep the body functioning properly, but at the same time, it is low in calories. This is a perfect combination of features for anyone who is trying to lose those persistent pounds.

Improved cognitive functions

An increase in mental sharpness is often reported by those who drink fresh juice. This happens due to the improved blood circulation which transports oxygen throughout the body, including the brain. The chances are that your mood will improve, you will feel calmer, and more focused during the day.

People who wear compression clothing because of poor circulation should give juicing a shot.

Trying new fruits and vegetables.

It’s not a sin to dislike a particular vegetable or fruit in their raw or cooked form, but we advise you to give these foods a second chance by juicing them. Many have found that their least favorite produce tastes much better in liquid form, and some have even decided to try foods which they’ve never had before.

We say that this can only be a good thing as different fruits and veggies contain different vitamins, enzymes, and minerals so eating as many kinds as possible will probably benefit you.

Save time

Most of us are racing to do all that we need to do in the short period of time that we have before going off to work, so saving a couple of minutes can be a precious thing. Juicing allows you to spare some time on food preparation as it is swift and will give you a far more nutritious breakfast than any other food you could make in the same amount of time.

Types of juicers

Centrifugal juicers

This is the kind of juicers that can be most commonly found. They have a fast-spinning metal blade which separates the solids from the liquids with the help of a mesh filter. These devices are suitable for juicing fruits while they’re not optimal for leafy greens such as spinach.

They are relatively affordable and fast, but the high-speed blade might kill some enzymes and nutrients from the produce, and they generally give lower yields than the masticating type.

Masticating juicers

Also known as cold-press juicers, these devices have a slower operating mechanism which doesn’t create heat. They are more expensive than centrifugal juicers but are less noisy and give juice of better quality.

What to know before buying a juicer?

Easy to use

Ease of use is a factor which is often overlooked by folks when buying a juicer. It is, nevertheless, an important one so, please pay attention to it.

You certainly do not want a machine which takes a long time to assemble/disassemble, especially in the morning, when you’re still not fully awake. So, fewer parts equal easier to use.

Also, make sure to look for a juicer which doesn’t have too many functions as this will only make it more complicated to operate.

Some other characteristics which will give you more convenience are a large feeding tube and a large disposal spout. The first feature will allow you to throw in larger chunks of fruits/vegetables into the juicer, while a big spout will enable you to juice higher volumes without having to empty the waste or clogging the machine.

Noise

Noise-level of the juicer might not seem like a big deal, but at the second thought, you will realize that there are some strong reasons for buying a quiet device. For example, if juicing early in the morning, a noisy device might wake up your family or even your neighbors, and this is something that everyone would want to avoid.

Generally, high-speed centrifugal juicers tend to be the loudest while slow, masticating ones are much quieter. Our advice would be to go for the latter.

Wattage

The power of the juicer plays a significant role in extracting juice from fibrous vegetables such as sprouts, spinach, and kale. If you plan on juicing these vegetables, you should look for a device that packs at least 400 watts; anything less will probably not give you the desired result.

Of course, more power means a higher electricity bill but it will give you better quality juice, and you’ll save money on buying less produce.

Dimensions

Before buying a juicer, check how much space you have available in your kitchen. Remember, many of these devices are pretty bulky so make sure that you can fit it in your living space. However, keep in mind that smaller is not better as you might have problems juicing larger volumes or feeding the device with bigger chunks of food.

Cleaning

Relating to our first point of this section, try to find a juicer that doesn’t have many parts. The more parts it has, the more difficult it will be to clean. On average, a device with 5 to 7 pieces can be considered a simple juicer so let that be your guide.

Price

When speaking about juicers, the price usually determines quality so do not try to save a few pennies by buying a cheaper model. For example, high-speed centrifugal juicers tend to be cheaper but give lower quality juice and use more produce so, in the long run, you will actually be wasting money.

Slow, masticating juicers are pricier but more efficient as they create less waste and give you more juice than a centrifugal model would for the same amount of produce.

Top 5 Best Home juicers

After we’ve learned what are the things a good home juicer should have, now is the time to put this newfound knowledge into use. We’ve browsed the market and found top-performing products, and now we’ll review them based on previously mentioned standards. Let’s see how they fare and which one you should get!

1.Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain

The 800JEXL is a 1000-watt powerhouse of a centrifugal juicer which is currently one of the most popular products of its kind on Amazon. Its manufacturer, Breville, is a reputable company, so there is no reason not to look into this device a bit further.

Firstly and most importantly, this juicer is very user-friendly and does not feature any complicated functions and controls. It has a wide feeding tube, with the diameter of 3 inches which can easily fit half pieces of fruits. There are two speeds, a high and low one so you can pick whichever suits the moment.

Secondly, the 800JEXL is relatively loud, which is common for centrifugal juicers. This might not suit some people who do not want to disturb others by juicing early in the morning.

When it comes to size, this juicer is big and heavy which is understandable as it is made from titanium and steel. However, there are many bigger models, so its size isn’t so bad.

Speaking of cleaning, the device has only two parts so taking it apart to wash it should not be a problem.

Last but not least, Breville 800JEXL comes at a relatively high price so you might want to look into more products before deciding which one to buy.

Pros

Gives quality juice

Efficient

Offers two speeds

Cons

Expensive

Bulky and heavy

Noisy

2. Omega J8006 Nutrition Center Juicer

The J8006 is a masticating juicer that hails to us from Omega, a company that needs no introduction. It is one of the top-sellers on Amazon and has more than 3.500 reviews that tell you why.

This device is versatile, so besides juicing, it can be used for making nut butters as well as other, general food processor purposes. With this multi-functionality comes a broader set of controls than you would typically find in this kind of machine, so it might be a bit complicated to use for some.

One of the top benefits of this device is that it operates really quietly, which is a characteristic that everyone would love. It is highly efficient in juicing anything from fruits to vegetables and creates minimum waste while providing excellent juice.

Its dimensions amount to 14.5 x 6.5 x 15.5 inches which makes it an average size masticating juicer. Cleaning the device turns out to be slightly less convenient than one would expect, due to it having several parts that need to be disassembled.

Omega J8006 is one of the pricier products of its kind, but it’s still cheaper than the previous model we reviewed.

Pros

Minimizes waste

Gives quality juice

Versatile

Cons

Not so easy to clean

Complicated to use

3. Breville BJE200XL

Breville’s products are so good that we decided to throw in one more of their juicers into this review list.

Same as the previous model from this company, the BJE200XL is a straightforward, centrifugal juicer. It’s very user-friendly as its controls are simple and it has some great properties such as a large feeding tube.

As with most other centrifugal devices, this one too makes a fair amount of noise that cannot be silenced in any way. The reason for this is the 700-watt motor which spins the blade at 14000 rpm. It can chop anything you throw in it, but it will do it loudly.

BJE200XL’s dimensions are 9.5 x 8.75 x 16 inches so it can be considered an averagely sized juicer. The body is made from heavy grade polymer while the cutting blade is constructed of stainless steel. The construction of the device is not complex, and it has only five removable parts which can be disassembled for cleaning in no time.

When it comes to price, this juicer will probably be affordable to most. It is more than two times cheaper than some other products in this article and offers excellent value for the money.

Pros

Simple to use

High-powered

Easy to wash

Cons

Noisy

Not for juicing greens

4. Hamilton Beach 67650A

If you’ve ever shopped for kitchen appliances, then you’ve probably heard about Hamilton Beach, a leading company in this field. Today, we’re taking a closer look at their 67560A juicer.

This one is a centrifugal juicer and is a good option for people looking for a plain and effective device. Its controls are easy to figure out, and it has a large feeding chute (3 inches) so that you don’t have to chop the produce a lot before feeding it into the machine.

Speaking of noise, this device is as loud as an average high-speed blender, and if this doesn’t suit you, look for another product. The motor packs 800 watts of power (1.1 horsepower) which is a pretty high score in this aspect.

Regarding size, the juicer is 9.13 x 13.19 x 16.34 inches big so that it might be slightly larger than some other centrifugal devices. Cleaning the juicer is not very difficult, but there are some parts which might be troublesome, such as its filter basket.

All in all, this is a good quality product that offers immense value for a competitive price.

Pros

Easy to use

Affordable

Powerful

Cons

Noisy

Relatively bulky

5. Cuisinart CJE-1000

Last but not least, we have a product from Cuisinart, another world-class appliance manufacturer.

CJE-1000 is a centrifugal juicer with a 3-inch diameter feeding tube and a 1000mL pitcher to catch the juice. Unlike many other devices of its kind, this juicer is operating relatively quietly, which is a huge advantage.

Just because it is a low-noise machine, it doesn’t mean that it lacks power. Quite the contrary, its motor has 1000 watts, and the blade spins at a speed of 14000 rpm. It chops fruit and hard vegetables efficiently, but it isn’t the best option for leafy greens.

The device should be cleaned right after juicing if you want to prevent cleaning difficulties in the future. It is quite simple to take apart, and the entire washing process shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

At 15 x 11.8 x 19 inches, CJE-1000 is a pretty big juicer so those who lack countertop space in the kitchen should probably look for some other model. Regarding price, we can place this product in the mid-range category, but it is well worth it.

Pros

Quiet for a centrifugal juicer

SImple to use

Affordable

Cons

Large

Not good for leafy greens

Conclusion

As you can see, the world of juicers is versatile and abundant so finding a product that suits your needs should not be a hard task. The benefits of this appliance are more than evident, and the best part is that you do not have to break the bank in order to purchase one.

Based on our personal preference and the type of juicer, the Omega J8006 Nutrition Center Juicer seems like a clear winner here, and the best choice overall.

Investment in your health is the most important thing you can do in your life and by getting one of these devices you are doing just that. Also, remember always to check other people’s experiences and reviews before you spend your money on a product.

Source: https://thingsnurseslike.com/best-home-juicer/

[wepinkconnoisseurbouquet]

The 5 Best Home Juicer Reviews & Buying Guide for 2018

In today’s fast-paced world, people are always searching for ways to do things quicker, including essential activities like eating. Since fast food performs poorly regarding a person’s long-term health, we’ve decided to write about a healthy version of fast food - freshly squeezed juice.

Someone as busy as a nurse could definitely benefit from buying a juicer as their job isn’t easy by any stretch of the term and they could use a glass of nutritious beverage in the morning.

Making your own juice is fast, good for your body, and will only take you a couple of minutes. What’s not to like?

The only thing that will make this happen is a juicer. And today, we’re discussing which is the best home juicer available for purchase today.

Why buy a home juicer?

To help you understand just how incredible juicing is, we are going to talk about some of its main benefits. This section is a must-read for anyone who is trying to preserve/improve their health.

Better nutrient absorption

It’s no secret that freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices are packed with vitamins and minerals. However, many are not aware that it is much easier for your body to absorb nutrients from juice than from whole foods.

The reason for this is that the juicing process removes fiber and other solids, and liquids take much shorter to digest. This means that all that good stuff will be in your bloodstream in no time.

Boost your immune system

Nurses spend a lot of time around ill people and are constantly exposed to bacteria and viruses, so having a few shots of nutrition-dense drinks per day will help strengthen their immune systems.

In case you happen to contact the flu, a cold or any other airborne disease, the nutrients from the juice will assist in flushing out the toxins from your body.

Improved weight loss

Those who are struggling with a bit of extra weight should try juicing. You see, a juice is filled with nutrients which are essential to keep the body functioning properly, but at the same time, it is low in calories. This is a perfect combination of features for anyone who is trying to lose those persistent pounds.

Improved cognitive functions

An increase in mental sharpness is often reported by those who drink fresh juice. This happens due to the improved blood circulation which transports oxygen throughout the body, including the brain. The chances are that your mood will improve, you will feel calmer, and more focused during the day.

People who wear compression clothing because of poor circulation should give juicing a shot.

Trying new fruits and vegetables.

It’s not a sin to dislike a particular vegetable or fruit in their raw or cooked form, but we advise you to give these foods a second chance by juicing them. Many have found that their least favorite produce tastes much better in liquid form, and some have even decided to try foods which they’ve never had before.

We say that this can only be a good thing as different fruits and veggies contain different vitamins, enzymes, and minerals so eating as many kinds as possible will probably benefit you.

Save time

Most of us are racing to do all that we need to do in the short period of time that we have before going off to work, so saving a couple of minutes can be a precious thing. Juicing allows you to spare some time on food preparation as it is swift and will give you a far more nutritious breakfast than any other food you could make in the same amount of time.

Types of juicers

Centrifugal juicers

This is the kind of juicers that can be most commonly found. They have a fast-spinning metal blade which separates the solids from the liquids with the help of a mesh filter. These devices are suitable for juicing fruits while they’re not optimal for leafy greens such as spinach.

They are relatively affordable and fast, but the high-speed blade might kill some enzymes and nutrients from the produce, and they generally give lower yields than the masticating type.

Masticating juicers

Also known as cold-press juicers, these devices have a slower operating mechanism which doesn’t create heat. They are more expensive than centrifugal juicers but are less noisy and give juice of better quality.

What to know before buying a juicer?

Easy to use

Ease of use is a factor which is often overlooked by folks when buying a juicer. It is, nevertheless, an important one so, please pay attention to it.

You certainly do not want a machine which takes a long time to assemble/disassemble, especially in the morning, when you’re still not fully awake. So, fewer parts equal easier to use.

Also, make sure to look for a juicer which doesn’t have too many functions as this will only make it more complicated to operate.

Some other characteristics which will give you more convenience are a large feeding tube and a large disposal spout. The first feature will allow you to throw in larger chunks of fruits/vegetables into the juicer, while a big spout will enable you to juice higher volumes without having to empty the waste or clogging the machine.

Noise

Noise-level of the juicer might not seem like a big deal, but at the second thought, you will realize that there are some strong reasons for buying a quiet device. For example, if juicing early in the morning, a noisy device might wake up your family or even your neighbors, and this is something that everyone would want to avoid.

Generally, high-speed centrifugal juicers tend to be the loudest while slow, masticating ones are much quieter. Our advice would be to go for the latter.

Wattage

The power of the juicer plays a significant role in extracting juice from fibrous vegetables such as sprouts, spinach, and kale. If you plan on juicing these vegetables, you should look for a device that packs at least 400 watts; anything less will probably not give you the desired result.

Of course, more power means a higher electricity bill but it will give you better quality juice, and you’ll save money on buying less produce.

Dimensions

Before buying a juicer, check how much space you have available in your kitchen. Remember, many of these devices are pretty bulky so make sure that you can fit it in your living space. However, keep in mind that smaller is not better as you might have problems juicing larger volumes or feeding the device with bigger chunks of food.

Cleaning

Relating to our first point of this section, try to find a juicer that doesn’t have many parts. The more parts it has, the more difficult it will be to clean. On average, a device with 5 to 7 pieces can be considered a simple juicer so let that be your guide.

Price

When speaking about juicers, the price usually determines quality so do not try to save a few pennies by buying a cheaper model. For example, high-speed centrifugal juicers tend to be cheaper but give lower quality juice and use more produce so, in the long run, you will actually be wasting money.

Slow, masticating juicers are pricier but more efficient as they create less waste and give you more juice than a centrifugal model would for the same amount of produce.

Top 5 Best Home juicers

After we’ve learned what are the things a good home juicer should have, now is the time to put this newfound knowledge into use. We’ve browsed the market and found top-performing products, and now we’ll review them based on previously mentioned standards. Let’s see how they fare and which one you should get!

1.Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain

The 800JEXL is a 1000-watt powerhouse of a centrifugal juicer which is currently one of the most popular products of its kind on Amazon. Its manufacturer, Breville, is a reputable company, so there is no reason not to look into this device a bit further.

Firstly and most importantly, this juicer is very user-friendly and does not feature any complicated functions and controls. It has a wide feeding tube, with the diameter of 3 inches which can easily fit half pieces of fruits. There are two speeds, a high and low one so you can pick whichever suits the moment.

Secondly, the 800JEXL is relatively loud, which is common for centrifugal juicers. This might not suit some people who do not want to disturb others by juicing early in the morning.

When it comes to size, this juicer is big and heavy which is understandable as it is made from titanium and steel. However, there are many bigger models, so its size isn’t so bad.

Speaking of cleaning, the device has only two parts so taking it apart to wash it should not be a problem.

Last but not least, Breville 800JEXL comes at a relatively high price so you might want to look into more products before deciding which one to buy.

Pros

Gives quality juice

Efficient

Offers two speeds

Cons

Expensive

Bulky and heavy

Noisy

2. Omega J8006 Nutrition Center Juicer

The J8006 is a masticating juicer that hails to us from Omega, a company that needs no introduction. It is one of the top-sellers on Amazon and has more than 3.500 reviews that tell you why.

This device is versatile, so besides juicing, it can be used for making nut butters as well as other, general food processor purposes. With this multi-functionality comes a broader set of controls than you would typically find in this kind of machine, so it might be a bit complicated to use for some.

One of the top benefits of this device is that it operates really quietly, which is a characteristic that everyone would love. It is highly efficient in juicing anything from fruits to vegetables and creates minimum waste while providing excellent juice.

Its dimensions amount to 14.5 x 6.5 x 15.5 inches which makes it an average size masticating juicer. Cleaning the device turns out to be slightly less convenient than one would expect, due to it having several parts that need to be disassembled.

Omega J8006 is one of the pricier products of its kind, but it’s still cheaper than the previous model we reviewed.

Pros

Minimizes waste

Gives quality juice

Versatile

Cons

Not so easy to clean

Complicated to use

3. Breville BJE200XL

Breville’s products are so good that we decided to throw in one more of their juicers into this review list.

Same as the previous model from this company, the BJE200XL is a straightforward, centrifugal juicer. It’s very user-friendly as its controls are simple and it has some great properties such as a large feeding tube.

As with most other centrifugal devices, this one too makes a fair amount of noise that cannot be silenced in any way. The reason for this is the 700-watt motor which spins the blade at 14000 rpm. It can chop anything you throw in it, but it will do it loudly.

BJE200XL’s dimensions are 9.5 x 8.75 x 16 inches so it can be considered an averagely sized juicer. The body is made from heavy grade polymer while the cutting blade is constructed of stainless steel. The construction of the device is not complex, and it has only five removable parts which can be disassembled for cleaning in no time.

When it comes to price, this juicer will probably be affordable to most. It is more than two times cheaper than some other products in this article and offers excellent value for the money.

Pros

Simple to use

High-powered

Easy to wash

Cons

Noisy

Not for juicing greens

4. Hamilton Beach 67650A

If you’ve ever shopped for kitchen appliances, then you’ve probably heard about Hamilton Beach, a leading company in this field. Today, we’re taking a closer look at their 67560A juicer.

This one is a centrifugal juicer and is a good option for people looking for a plain and effective device. Its controls are easy to figure out, and it has a large feeding chute (3 inches) so that you don’t have to chop the produce a lot before feeding it into the machine.

Speaking of noise, this device is as loud as an average high-speed blender, and if this doesn’t suit you, look for another product. The motor packs 800 watts of power (1.1 horsepower) which is a pretty high score in this aspect.

Regarding size, the juicer is 9.13 x 13.19 x 16.34 inches big so that it might be slightly larger than some other centrifugal devices. Cleaning the juicer is not very difficult, but there are some parts which might be troublesome, such as its filter basket.

All in all, this is a good quality product that offers immense value for a competitive price.

Pros

Easy to use

Affordable

Powerful

Cons

Noisy

Relatively bulky

5. Cuisinart CJE-1000

Last but not least, we have a product from Cuisinart, another world-class appliance manufacturer.

CJE-1000 is a centrifugal juicer with a 3-inch diameter feeding tube and a 1000mL pitcher to catch the juice. Unlike many other devices of its kind, this juicer is operating relatively quietly, which is a huge advantage.

Just because it is a low-noise machine, it doesn’t mean that it lacks power. Quite the contrary, its motor has 1000 watts, and the blade spins at a speed of 14000 rpm. It chops fruit and hard vegetables efficiently, but it isn’t the best option for leafy greens.

The device should be cleaned right after juicing if you want to prevent cleaning difficulties in the future. It is quite simple to take apart, and the entire washing process shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

At 15 x 11.8 x 19 inches, CJE-1000 is a pretty big juicer so those who lack countertop space in the kitchen should probably look for some other model. Regarding price, we can place this product in the mid-range category, but it is well worth it.

Pros

Quiet for a centrifugal juicer

SImple to use

Affordable

Cons

Large

Not good for leafy greens

Conclusion

As you can see, the world of juicers is versatile and abundant so finding a product that suits your needs should not be a hard task. The benefits of this appliance are more than evident, and the best part is that you do not have to break the bank in order to purchase one.

Based on our personal preference and the type of juicer, the Omega J8006 Nutrition Center Juicer seems like a clear winner here, and the best choice overall.

Investment in your health is the most important thing you can do in your life and by getting one of these devices you are doing just that. Also, remember always to check other people’s experiences and reviews before you spend your money on a product.

Source: https://thingsnurseslike.com/best-home-juicer/

[thingsnurseslike]

The 5 Best Home Juicer Reviews & Buying Guide for 2018

In today’s fast-paced world, people are always searching for ways to do things quicker, including essential activities like eating. Since fast food performs poorly regarding a person’s long-term health, we’ve decided to write about a healthy version of fast food - freshly squeezed juice.

Someone as busy as a nurse could definitely benefit from buying a juicer as their job isn’t easy by any stretch of the term and they could use a glass of nutritious beverage in the morning.

Making your own juice is fast, good for your body, and will only take you a couple of minutes. What’s not to like?

The only thing that will make this happen is a juicer. And today, we’re discussing which is the best home juicer available for purchase today.

Why buy a home juicer?

To help you understand just how incredible juicing is, we are going to talk about some of its main benefits. This section is a must-read for anyone who is trying to preserve/improve their health.

Better nutrient absorption

It’s no secret that freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices are packed with vitamins and minerals. However, many are not aware that it is much easier for your body to absorb nutrients from juice than from whole foods.

The reason for this is that the juicing process removes fiber and other solids, and liquids take much shorter to digest. This means that all that good stuff will be in your bloodstream in no time.

Boost your immune system

Nurses spend a lot of time around ill people and are constantly exposed to bacteria and viruses, so having a few shots of nutrition-dense drinks per day will help strengthen their immune systems.

In case you happen to contact the flu, a cold or any other airborne disease, the nutrients from the juice will assist in flushing out the toxins from your body.

Improved weight loss

Those who are struggling with a bit of extra weight should try juicing. You see, a juice is filled with nutrients which are essential to keep the body functioning properly, but at the same time, it is low in calories. This is a perfect combination of features for anyone who is trying to lose those persistent pounds.

Improved cognitive functions

An increase in mental sharpness is often reported by those who drink fresh juice. This happens due to the improved blood circulation which transports oxygen throughout the body, including the brain. The chances are that your mood will improve, you will feel calmer, and more focused during the day.

People who wear compression clothing because of poor circulation should give juicing a shot.

Trying new fruits and vegetables.

It’s not a sin to dislike a particular vegetable or fruit in their raw or cooked form, but we advise you to give these foods a second chance by juicing them. Many have found that their least favorite produce tastes much better in liquid form, and some have even decided to try foods which they’ve never had before.

We say that this can only be a good thing as different fruits and veggies contain different vitamins, enzymes, and minerals so eating as many kinds as possible will probably benefit you.

Save time

Most of us are racing to do all that we need to do in the short period of time that we have before going off to work, so saving a couple of minutes can be a precious thing. Juicing allows you to spare some time on food preparation as it is swift and will give you a far more nutritious breakfast than any other food you could make in the same amount of time.

Types of juicers

Centrifugal juicers

This is the kind of juicers that can be most commonly found. They have a fast-spinning metal blade which separates the solids from the liquids with the help of a mesh filter. These devices are suitable for juicing fruits while they’re not optimal for leafy greens such as spinach.

They are relatively affordable and fast, but the high-speed blade might kill some enzymes and nutrients from the produce, and they generally give lower yields than the masticating type.

Masticating juicers

Also known as cold-press juicers, these devices have a slower operating mechanism which doesn’t create heat. They are more expensive than centrifugal juicers but are less noisy and give juice of better quality.

What to know before buying a juicer?

Easy to use

Ease of use is a factor which is often overlooked by folks when buying a juicer. It is, nevertheless, an important one so, please pay attention to it.

You certainly do not want a machine which takes a long time to assemble/disassemble, especially in the morning, when you’re still not fully awake. So, fewer parts equal easier to use.

Also, make sure to look for a juicer which doesn’t have too many functions as this will only make it more complicated to operate.

Some other characteristics which will give you more convenience are a large feeding tube and a large disposal spout. The first feature will allow you to throw in larger chunks of fruits/vegetables into the juicer, while a big spout will enable you to juice higher volumes without having to empty the waste or clogging the machine.

Noise

Noise-level of the juicer might not seem like a big deal, but at the second thought, you will realize that there are some strong reasons for buying a quiet device. For example, if juicing early in the morning, a noisy device might wake up your family or even your neighbors, and this is something that everyone would want to avoid.

Generally, high-speed centrifugal juicers tend to be the loudest while slow, masticating ones are much quieter. Our advice would be to go for the latter.

Wattage

The power of the juicer plays a significant role in extracting juice from fibrous vegetables such as sprouts, spinach, and kale. If you plan on juicing these vegetables, you should look for a device that packs at least 400 watts; anything less will probably not give you the desired result.

Of course, more power means a higher electricity bill but it will give you better quality juice, and you’ll save money on buying less produce.

Dimensions

Before buying a juicer, check how much space you have available in your kitchen. Remember, many of these devices are pretty bulky so make sure that you can fit it in your living space. However, keep in mind that smaller is not better as you might have problems juicing larger volumes or feeding the device with bigger chunks of food.

Cleaning

Relating to our first point of this section, try to find a juicer that doesn’t have many parts. The more parts it has, the more difficult it will be to clean. On average, a device with 5 to 7 pieces can be considered a simple juicer so let that be your guide.

Price

When speaking about juicers, the price usually determines quality so do not try to save a few pennies by buying a cheaper model. For example, high-speed centrifugal juicers tend to be cheaper but give lower quality juice and use more produce so, in the long run, you will actually be wasting money.

Slow, masticating juicers are pricier but more efficient as they create less waste and give you more juice than a centrifugal model would for the same amount of produce.

Top 5 Best Home juicers

After we’ve learned what are the things a good home juicer should have, now is the time to put this newfound knowledge into use. We’ve browsed the market and found top-performing products, and now we’ll review them based on previously mentioned standards. Let’s see how they fare and which one you should get!

1.Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain

The 800JEXL is a 1000-watt powerhouse of a centrifugal juicer which is currently one of the most popular products of its kind on Amazon. Its manufacturer, Breville, is a reputable company, so there is no reason not to look into this device a bit further.

Firstly and most importantly, this juicer is very user-friendly and does not feature any complicated functions and controls. It has a wide feeding tube, with the diameter of 3 inches which can easily fit half pieces of fruits. There are two speeds, a high and low one so you can pick whichever suits the moment.

Secondly, the 800JEXL is relatively loud, which is common for centrifugal juicers. This might not suit some people who do not want to disturb others by juicing early in the morning.

When it comes to size, this juicer is big and heavy which is understandable as it is made from titanium and steel. However, there are many bigger models, so its size isn’t so bad.

Speaking of cleaning, the device has only two parts so taking it apart to wash it should not be a problem.

Last but not least, Breville 800JEXL comes at a relatively high price so you might want to look into more products before deciding which one to buy.

Pros

Gives quality juice

Efficient

Offers two speeds

Cons

Expensive

Bulky and heavy

Noisy

2. Omega J8006 Nutrition Center Juicer

The J8006 is a masticating juicer that hails to us from Omega, a company that needs no introduction. It is one of the top-sellers on Amazon and has more than 3.500 reviews that tell you why.

This device is versatile, so besides juicing, it can be used for making nut butters as well as other, general food processor purposes. With this multi-functionality comes a broader set of controls than you would typically find in this kind of machine, so it might be a bit complicated to use for some.

One of the top benefits of this device is that it operates really quietly, which is a characteristic that everyone would love. It is highly efficient in juicing anything from fruits to vegetables and creates minimum waste while providing excellent juice.

Its dimensions amount to 14.5 x 6.5 x 15.5 inches which makes it an average size masticating juicer. Cleaning the device turns out to be slightly less convenient than one would expect, due to it having several parts that need to be disassembled.

Omega J8006 is one of the pricier products of its kind, but it’s still cheaper than the previous model we reviewed.

Pros

Minimizes waste

Gives quality juice

Versatile

Cons

Not so easy to clean

Complicated to use

3. Breville BJE200XL

Breville’s products are so good that we decided to throw in one more of their juicers into this review list.

Same as the previous model from this company, the BJE200XL is a straightforward, centrifugal juicer. It’s very user-friendly as its controls are simple and it has some great properties such as a large feeding tube.

As with most other centrifugal devices, this one too makes a fair amount of noise that cannot be silenced in any way. The reason for this is the 700-watt motor which spins the blade at 14000 rpm. It can chop anything you throw in it, but it will do it loudly.

BJE200XL’s dimensions are 9.5 x 8.75 x 16 inches so it can be considered an averagely sized juicer. The body is made from heavy grade polymer while the cutting blade is constructed of stainless steel. The construction of the device is not complex, and it has only five removable parts which can be disassembled for cleaning in no time.

When it comes to price, this juicer will probably be affordable to most. It is more than two times cheaper than some other products in this article and offers excellent value for the money.

Pros

Simple to use

High-powered

Easy to wash

Cons

Noisy

Not for juicing greens

4. Hamilton Beach 67650A

If you’ve ever shopped for kitchen appliances, then you’ve probably heard about Hamilton Beach, a leading company in this field. Today, we’re taking a closer look at their 67560A juicer.

This one is a centrifugal juicer and is a good option for people looking for a plain and effective device. Its controls are easy to figure out, and it has a large feeding chute (3 inches) so that you don’t have to chop the produce a lot before feeding it into the machine.

Speaking of noise, this device is as loud as an average high-speed blender, and if this doesn’t suit you, look for another product. The motor packs 800 watts of power (1.1 horsepower) which is a pretty high score in this aspect.

Regarding size, the juicer is 9.13 x 13.19 x 16.34 inches big so that it might be slightly larger than some other centrifugal devices. Cleaning the juicer is not very difficult, but there are some parts which might be troublesome, such as its filter basket.

All in all, this is a good quality product that offers immense value for a competitive price.

Pros

Easy to use

Affordable

Powerful

Cons

Noisy

Relatively bulky

5. Cuisinart CJE-1000

Last but not least, we have a product from Cuisinart, another world-class appliance manufacturer.

CJE-1000 is a centrifugal juicer with a 3-inch diameter feeding tube and a 1000mL pitcher to catch the juice. Unlike many other devices of its kind, this juicer is operating relatively quietly, which is a huge advantage.

Just because it is a low-noise machine, it doesn’t mean that it lacks power. Quite the contrary, its motor has 1000 watts, and the blade spins at a speed of 14000 rpm. It chops fruit and hard vegetables efficiently, but it isn’t the best option for leafy greens.

The device should be cleaned right after juicing if you want to prevent cleaning difficulties in the future. It is quite simple to take apart, and the entire washing process shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

At 15 x 11.8 x 19 inches, CJE-1000 is a pretty big juicer so those who lack countertop space in the kitchen should probably look for some other model. Regarding price, we can place this product in the mid-range category, but it is well worth it.

Pros

Quiet for a centrifugal juicer

SImple to use

Affordable

Cons

Large

Not good for leafy greens

Conclusion

As you can see, the world of juicers is versatile and abundant so finding a product that suits your needs should not be a hard task. The benefits of this appliance are more than evident, and the best part is that you do not have to break the bank in order to purchase one.

Based on our personal preference and the type of juicer, the Omega J8006 Nutrition Center Juicer seems like a clear winner here, and the best choice overall.

Investment in your health is the most important thing you can do in your life and by getting one of these devices you are doing just that. Also, remember always to check other people’s experiences and reviews before you spend your money on a product.

Source: https://thingsnurseslike.com/best-home-juicer/

[themoneybuff-blog]

How much should you spend in retirement?

I spend a lot of time talking with people who have retired early or are otherwise financially independent. From a purely anecdotal point of view, Id say most of these folks are well-adjusted. They work to maintain balance in life, and especially with their personal finances. That said, Ive noticed that a lot of retirees early retired or otherwise struggle to know how much they should spend. I believe this dilemma exists for a couple of reasons: First is the life expectancy problem. You dont know how long youre going to live. If you did know the precise date of your death (or even the year of your death), retirement planning would be much easier. Youd be able to say, Okay, I have ten years left and $300,000 in the bank. Based on that, I should be able to spend $30,000 per year. But you dont know when youre going to die, so a lot of retirement planning becomes guesswork.Second is the question of what your money is for? Do you want to leave a legacy for your children (or somebody else)? Do you want to maintain a chunk of change for possible end-of-life medical issues? Or do you want to use your wealth to live life to the fullest while you can? In my case, my ideal would be to die broke. If I could spend my very last penny on the last day of my life, thatd be perfect. The general response to these two problems is to follow what has been dubbed the four-percent rule. Generally speaking, its safe to withdraw 4% from your portfolio every year without risk of running out of money. (There are a lot of caveats to this guideline. To learn more, follow that link to my Money Boss article or wait for that story to migrate to Get Rich Slowly in a few days!) The AAII Journal the monthly magazine from the American Association of Individual Investors has published two articles in recent months about the problem of spending in retirement. Lets look at what they have to say. Im going to link to and quote from both AAII Journal articles below, but be forewarned that the AAII Journal lives behind a paywall. People Who Spend Too Little in Retirement In the first article (from the April 2018 issue), Meir Statman asks, Are you spending too little in retirement? To paraphrase the author, your financial life can be divided into two basic stages. During the accumulation phase of your life, youre building wealth. During this period, you work hard and invest wisely. If youre careful (and fortunate), youll build a wealth snowball by maintaining a large gap between what you earn and what you spend. The folks who create the widest gap are likely to accumulate more wealth more quickly than those with smaller gaps.During the consumption (or preservation) phase of your life, you shift from earning money to spending money. After you retire (and remember, the definition of retirement is no one fixed thing), your income is sharply reduced. You might not even have an income. Instead, you live off the money you accumulated during the accumulation phase of your life. During the accumulation phase, Statman says, self-control is an important trait. Financial discipline and conscious spending allow smart savers to build large nest eggs. But heres the thing: The very same qualities that help people during the accumulation phase of life actually hinder them during the consumption phase. Statman writes: Excessive self-control is evident in the tendency to spend less today than our ideal level of spending, driving us to extremes beyond frugality. The prospect of spending money inflicts emotional pain on tightwads even when it might otherwise be in their interest to spend. Its ironic, he notes, that saving is difficult for the young, but spending is difficult for the old. What good is building a stockpile of wealth if you dont actually use that money? We need not feel guilty about spending our hard-earned savings on ourselves, Statman writes. But hes careful to point out that, Some people derive no pleasure from spending on themselves. He urge these people to consider spending on others. Give money to family members. Actively contribute to causes that are important to you. Find ways to use your money while youre still alive instead of leaving a fortune when your dead. Grasshoppers and Ants in Retirement The second article (from the June 2018 issue of the AAII Journal) is about grasshoppers and ants in retirement. This piece is more academic than the first, but its also more interesting. Many academic studies show that retirees, particularly wealthier retirees, spend down their nest egg much slower than economic theory would predict, the authors write. This excessive thrift is a mystery to many economists who dont understand why individuals would make sacrifices during their working years in order to live better in retirement if they dont have the intention to spend down their savings in retirement. Why not go on more vacations, buy a larger house, or drive a nicer car early in life instead of setting money aside that is never spent? This tendency is especially puzzling since the average retiree doesnt exhibit a very strong desire to leave a bequest. On the other hand, there are indeed people who act as grasshoppers in retirement, spending lavishly so that their savings run the risk of depletion. Heres one way the authors describe the difference between ants and grasshoppers: When ants receive a windfall in retirement (such as an inheritance), they spend about $5 more each year for each $1,000 they receive. When grasshoppers receive an inheritance, they spend an extra $260 per year. This means that when a grasshopper receives an inheritance, it will be completely spent within four years. Now, based on what we all know from the fable of the grasshopper and the ants, wed expect that ants would be the heroes in this situation, right? Theyre the ones wholl come out ahead in the long run. Not so fast. While the ants should feel some relief that theyre not going to run out of money in retirement, the authors say they could take some lessons from grasshoppers: Grasshoppers are behaving much more like economically rational life cycle consumers than the ants. Why did the ants save up all that money if theyre not going to spend more in retirement? This is especially puzzling if ants dont have a strong desire to pass this wealth on to their children or to charity. How Much Should You Spend in Retirement? These articles are interesting from a psychological perspective, but they dont offer any practical takeaways. The real question is: How much should you spend in retirement? Heres my advice: Determine your current annual spending. If, like me, your spending fluctuates from year to year, calculate a three- or five-year average spend. Call this number your current annual spending.Determine your safe spending level. You can use whatever method youd like for this, but for simplicitys sake, Id say use the afore-mentioned four-percent rule. Take your entire net worth and multiply this by four percent. If your net worth is $1,000,000, for instance, youd get a result of $40,000. (If youre risk averse, either leave home equity out of the equation or multiply your net worth by three percent.) This number is your safe annual spending.Compare the numbers. Find the difference between your current annual spending and your safe annual spending. If your current spending is greater than your safe spending, you should probably cut back. But if it your current spending is less than your safe spending, give yourself permission to spend more if you want. Usually when I write at Get Rich Slowly, my aim is to get people to spend less. From my experience, most people struggle with spending too much rather than spending too little. That said, Ive certainly seen the opposite. In fact, sometimes the reluctance to spend borders on hoarding. Ultimately my advice comes back to my long-time motto at this site: Do what works for you. Obviously, you dont need to spend more money. Nobody needs to spend more. But be aware that if youve been a prodigious accumulator of wealth, you do have the freedom to put that money to use whether for yourself or for others. https://www.getrichslowly.org/retirement-spending/

[joefnolan80]

Online Auctions: How Internet & Technology Are Changing Auctions

When you think of auctions, do you think of using the internet?  Hopefully, by the time you are done reading this article you will have a better understanding of how the internet and technology is creating a new world of “online auctions.” Before I explain how online auctions are changing the name of the game from the live auction standpoint, let’s first get Wikipedia’s definition of an auction:  “An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder.  (“Auction,” n.d.).” I like the Webster definition of auction better since I am in real estate and it explains the word auction as “A sale of property to the highest bidder.”  (“Auction,” n.d.).  With those definitions and the help of the internet, we have “online auctions.” Like many others that are reading this, I myself have always been interested in buying and selling, or just knowing the value of something! Currently, I am writing this article while watching and bidding on three auctions online. I am bidding on a 1935 John Deere Model A tractor in Arizona, while watching a farm sale of equipment line-up in Oregon and a real estate sale in Nebraska, all with the comfort of a cup of coffee.

What are Online Auctions?

When people think of online auctions, most people think of Ebay.  Ebay is an auction company in some ways, but when they have the “buy it now” option, that is not an auction because how many other people would like to “buy it now” too.  Ebay has set the stage for online auctions in the minds of people that are new to auctions.  Also, another thought that people might think of for online auctions is waiting until the last minute to bid.  Today, that doesn’t exist as much, and is referred to as “sniper bidding.”  The reason it is less popular today is because of the wide reach of the internet giving more and more online bidders stronger signals.  Sniper bidding was just someone that had the fastest internet, and if two or more bids were sent in simultaneously with one second left, the bid with the faster internet would overtake the slower internet bid.  If you are curious about your internet strength when doing online bidding, go to the website www.fast.com and test your strength of internet there.

A “soft close” is what most online auction companies use today. I will explain these in more detail later in the pro and con section of this article.

There are some basic tips for a new buyer or seller in the auction world, but let’s first look at the history of auctions.

Auction History & Importance

If you are new to the auction world as a buyer and seller, it is important to remember the basics of an auction before heading into a sale. Even though an auction may not be your first choice for shopping, I would urge you to attend an auction to see if you enjoy the atmosphere.  Also, by going to an auction and looking at items to buy without having a set price tag, it is quite different compared to normal shopping, not to mention the energy and rush of bidding on something and winning or losing will leave you feeling energized.  Besides, you are not going to walk into Wal-Mart and buy an antique decoration or mid-century furniture piece right off the shelf.

Going to a live auction allows a greater understanding of what goes on for an online auction.  On Wikipedia, live auctions have a long history, “having been recorded as early as 500 B.C. According to Herodotus, in Babylon auctions of women for marriage were held annually. The auctions began with the woman the auctioneer considered to be the most beautiful and progressed to the least. It was considered illegal to allow a daughter to be sold outside of the auction method.” Today, auctions are held everywhere and for everything. With the help of the internet, a buyer from Mexico can connect and purchase from a seller in Iowa, with just the push of a button. It is definitely a smaller world then we realized. Most auction companies have been around for quite a long time, and have auctioneers that know the value of items, in which that value hasn’t been registered on paper or online.

Live Auctions vs. Online Auctions

Going to school to become an auctioneer was a goal of mine, and to have the world champion chant was in my thoughts. I believe the world champion chant is not calling on the auction block at a live auction, but the brains behind and setup of an online auction, and  its’ software. It is good to know how live auctions work, and not just be involved in the technology side of online auctions.

There are many differences between live auctions and online auctions, but a lot of the auction companies are headed more online, with some companies now doing both live and online. One reason for going online vs. live auction is that all buyers have an equal playing field.

Online auctions mainly break down and remove the physical limitations of live auctions such as geography, presence, time, space, and a smaller target audience. Auctions have evolved from live auctions to online auctions with the help of technology.

I heard a week ago that 80% of homeless people have a smart phone, not a flip phone, but a smart phone. I also know that 95% of statistics are made up on the spot, but if even, let’s say, half of that is true, it is still a big number, my point here is “smart phone.”  So if 80 percent or 40 percent of homeless people have a smart phone which could give them internet access, then I would think the rest of the population in the United States would have internet by now. Anymore, a live auction is more of a one-day auction focusing on a local area, turning into a social event. I am not saying live auctions are bad or gone forever, but there is a place and time for them and now an option to do a hybrid of online and live.  Now with the help of the internet, your potential buyers are everywhere as long as they get approved to bid and have great internet connection. With an online auction, a buyer can go to many auctions on the same day, like I am doing right now, and the quality buyers are online doing their homework.

That brings us to another great point for online vs live auctions. Online auctions are mostly setup 3-4 weeks in advance before the auction closes, so it gives you a significant amount of time to research and do your due diligence before hitting the bid button or putting in a max bid.  This is great because on the same date as a live auction, you might have a wedding or a graduation party you are to attend, but you really want to buy that 1969 Chevelle SS that you already test drove or that chunk of land you looked at two weeks ago. There are auctions on just about every day of the year, making them no longer a one-day event. And there are auctions that you can bid on any time of day, and those are online auctions. So, if you are not able to make it to a live auction, go to 3-5 online auctions at the same time and day.

Every auction is different, anywhere from an auto auction to a livestock auction, or a real estate land auction to a local charity auction, or maybe an equipment auction to a storage unit auction. One thing is for sure, and that is, there will be plenty of energy and excitement at a live auction, a silent auction, or even a seal bid auction. People think that there is not as much excitement on an online auction as a live auction, but I assure you, a person can get very carried away doing online auctions as well.

Pros & Cons of Online Auctions

One of the coolest things about bidding on online auctions is that you can bid from the comfort of wherever you are using your desktop computer, laptop, your mobile phone, maybe even a watch. For example, you could be on a fishing boat or a mountain top and also be buying something on your phone. Also, folks are looking online on their phone and going home or to their office to bid on a desktop computer. The percentage of desktop vs mobile bidding is about the same right now. Online auctions are moving more towards mobile or on a watch, to not miss a bid. Once, I was bidding on an online auction and got outbid, however, I was not by my phone, but did get a notification of “you are outbid” on my smart watch. Luckily, because of this new technology, I did bid again on my watch just in time to win the auction. If it wasn’t for the notice of being outbid, I would have lost the deal. Every online auction I have been a part of, will send you a notification of being “outbid” or having the “high bid.”

Another pro of online auctions is you can put a “max bid” and walk away from the auction and it will continue to bid for you up to the max bid you set. For example, the high bid is at $100 and your max bid is $1,000, if someone else bids $200, your max bid will kick in and bid $300. My favorite thing about online auctions is that there is a “soft close” on most online auctions today. Like I mentioned before, the sniper bidding is less and less today. A “soft close” is, as the seconds or minutes are coming to a close and there is a bid right before the closing, it will add more seconds or minutes to the clock, allowing more bids to come in. A buyer should like this because of not ever having an excuse for missing an item. A seller enjoys the soft close because there will never be a missed bid and, in return, will get the best price. It is going to be interesting to see what comes next for bidding.

A lot of auction companies are also charging a buyer’s premium on top of the closing price. A buyers premium is an extra charge on top the highest bid and is often a percentage of 2-10 percent.  For example, an item sells for $100 plus a 10 percent buyer’s premium, equaling a final total of $110. This is a con for buyers and sellers both and only benefits the auction house or company hosting. A lot of times the buyers premium goes to the auction company for marketing/advertising or the use of online software. A potential buyer does not like to see buyers premiums because it is educating them to bid at least one bid less. A seller does not care for this either, making its’ item sell for one bid less, which then makes the value not a true market value. Therefore, an auction value sometimes is not a true number of what something is selling for unless you do some more research on the extra charges like a buyers premium. Today more and more items, especially real estate property are selling on auction. In fact, I bought my home on an online auction (www.auction.com) and had a good experience.  Also, the company I work for in real estate, Farmers National Company, did about 1,200 real estate land auctions in the last five years.

Another pro of online auctions is that most of them will allow you to look at items 3-4 weeks before the bidding, enabling you to make a wiser choice and max bid.  Having a budget or number in mind before bidding starts is very smart also. It may seem simple to have a budget and say you’ll stick to it, however, when emotions run high and the item or property you want is on the line, it becomes very easy to surpass your budget. A good example of this is buying the neighbors property, because it is next door, but values might be worth more because of location. An online auction is not as bad in that instance, but in the case of not knowing who your neighbor is or could be, might be worth more. Even though most might believe that a con to buying on an online auction is not knowing who you are bidding against, I believe it makes a person have a sharper pencil with a real value. As an auction company, it also takes a lot of time and responsibility to put on a live auction. From renting the fairgrounds to having port-a-potties to insurance to setting up two weeks in advance to buyers picking up their items two weeks after the auction. If attending a live auction, it is good to come early, allowing you to have time to browse the inventory or property longer. After the auction, the buyers pick up their own items, because they are responsible for the logistics. With online auctions, most of the time and responsibility is done before the auction closes.

The Future of Auctions

I believe that the future of auctions is just starting to get good with online auctions, and we are just now in the early stages. With mostly all folks having internet and a smart mobile phone, for the millennials and the next generation to come, it will be second nature for them to bid online for auctions. Auctions are not a last resort anymore for selling, especially now with the help of online auctions. Some used items that sell for new prices include art work, sports memorabilia, and antique items that are now selling for new records thanks to online auctions. Buyers and sellers are more educated and knowledgeable on values today than they have ever been, meaning you are going to be less able to “get a good deal” anymore. What I am saying is, the dealer price and auction price are coming closer together because there are values out there for anyone willing to do a Google search on pretty much everything that is sold. Just look at Facebook, when you sell something on its marketplace, it tells you that it was sold and for what price. Therefore, I don’t think it would be too long before Facebook would have some sort of online auction selling like Ebay, or maybe even the powerhouse of Amazon. If you search #onlineauctions on Instagram, there are only 4,500 times that have been posted, so it is just starting to get into the social media world. Online Auctions are a win-win for both the buyer and the seller making buying and selling simple and quick to get what you would not get anywhere else.

In the end, you will not be disappointed when you find your dream piece of property at the perfect price. Eventually, you will be frequently attending live or online auctions and finding the deals of the day all around you.  You can become an expert by being knowledgeable in other fields of life, by simply researching something to buy or sell in an auction. This will be extremely beneficial to your brain and your bank account, and you will fall in love with the wonderful experience, prices, and unique items, causing you to have a better view on how online auctions work. I hope these tips help you to become an avid auction-goer and expert bidder in the auction world, especially with online auctions.

This post is part of the 2018 Future Leaders Committee content generation initiative. The initiative is directed at further establishing RLI as “The Voice of Land” in the land real estate industry for land professionals and landowners. For more posts like this, click here.

About the Author: Rodney McConnell is Real Estate Broker with Farmers National Company in Washington State, serving the Pacific Northwest. Rodney is an active member of RLI, serving on the 2018 Futures Leaders Committee and working on his Accredited Land Consultant (ALC) Designation. Rodney is a Territory Manager with 10X Auction in the Pacific Northwest, providing online auctions.

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from News About Real Estate https://www.rliland.com/online-auctions-internet-technology-changing-auctions