From MyChamplainValley
Just two days after the Notch Road opened for the season a tractor-trailer nearly got stuck on Thursday when the driver went around the chicanes designed to prevent trucks from driving onto the narrow, twisting road.
Todd Sears, with the Agency of Transportation, says a tractor-trailer was driving up Route 108 from the Cambridge side around 11:26 a.m. when it used the left-hand lane to drive around the chicane. The truck continued up the road before using a parking area to turn around and head back toward Cambridge. Sears said there was no stuckage.
A spokesperson for the Vermont State Police says troopers reported to the scene, but the truck was gone by the time they arrived.
The Agency of Transportation installed the chicanes in April hoping they would prevent the notorious issue of tractor-trailers getting stuck in the narrow turns. Despite multiple signs telling truckers to turn back, multiple tractor-trailers will get stuck throughout the season, leading to a costly and time-consuming process to get them out. The chicane is meant to mimic the winding turns that the trucks would get stuck in if trying to pass.

Conner sat listening to music while the history class droned on endlessly. What is the point of learning history? War never changes, right? It seemed tedious. What does history have to do with how powerful and cool a mech is, or how sweet it is to be a mech knight?
"When the darkness came from outside, only the humans knew what was happening. It was war, war from outside the peaceful galaxy. War that had started when the Milky Way first showed the twinkling signs of life. One insane intelligence, old as time, would not tolerate another living galaxy. Each must be consumed by its own weight, and only death may prevail.
Humans instinctively knew this, as the chosen ones, the T-Cells of the galaxy. When their alien friends started getting ravaged and marauded by the scouts of the Dark Beings, humans responded, retaliating with unbridled ferocity and driving the otherwise unstoppable enemies back into the darkness.
It was a frightening time, and it only got worse when the massive cloud of shade was identified as the locust fleet that had sailed for billions of years, the Silent Empty Eternal Darkness Sailors, as they called themselves. They were nothing but dormant hives, sleeping forever, ready to wake and kill and self-destruct, make the galaxy dead. They could have done so, but humans stood in their way, an unpredictable enemy, capable of war.
That is why human worlds were directly targeted by their commandos. Massive singular monsters of ungodly visage were deployed to human worlds, spawning armies of miniature satraps of the horrors, to pillage and assault human worlds, turning them into hellscapes of death and destruction. The alien friends of the humans did not sit entirely idle, they helped by selling powerful new weapons and armor to the humans who kept retaliating against the Dark Beings with ever more powerful and vengeful mech."
Conner perked up at the part about the mech. Various famous chassis flashed across the screen in cool paint and poses with alien worlds in their backdrop and accounting for their neatly colored camouflage plates. He paid attention to the famous battles, where humans had defeated the Dark Beings in honorable combat.
"Conner, do you know what made your clan's father and mother such great mech knights?" his teacher asked.
"They learned from their mistakes." Conner sighed.
"They learned from other people's mistakes. They studied all of our defeats, all the times the Dark Beings annihilated entire battalions or overwhelmed our defenses. It is a much heavier volume. We learn little from victory except that now the enemy will try to better themselves again. When they win, they use the same tactics again - that's when we win. We don't use the same tactics again, for they will be ready when we try. We conceptualize and learn their thoughts, through their actions. They do not understand us. It is our only advantage, for each progression of our tech is met by another evolution of their monsters. Someday we will not be able to make a stronger bullet to match their stronger armor. We must anticipate a limit to this war, and fight accordingly."
"I can only anticipate getting into a mech and fighting bugs!" Conner had said. His teacher had given him that look. Nobody else got that look. Conner got it everywhere. He thought back to those days, he'd really thought he'd see action, in a mech, fighting bugs.
The rest of his class went on to become mech knights. All of them had seen action. Of course, none of them were left alive, and few of their mech were salvaged. Except, Pharlie.
Her mech was the third in a row of ones hit by a single plasma beam of the enemy. While the first two were instantly blown to atomic dust, her mech was only knocked over and set on fire. The ejection seat in the cockpit had the one and a half seconds needed to egress the mech knight safely.
She'd spent some time in relieved-of-duty status on Maranda Beach before she insisted they give her something to do. They quickly evaluated her and decided she wasn't fit for duty in a mech. Something about 'shutting down the Berserker Program' and 'protocols preventing reinstating anyone who qualifies to pilot a Berserker Mech'. Not happening under Admiral Khaspa.
"How's getting into a mech and fighting bugs, Conner? Still anticipating it?" Pharlie asked her old classmate.
"You are under my command. Watch your tone, I run a cruel shift." Conner grumbled.
"Aye, Skipper." Pharlie cringed, realizing the bureaucrat Conner had no sense of humor anymore. She decided to make it her personal mission to work on that. Conner with no humor didn't sound fun.
That scene in the classroom was a long time ago, but it was with Conner like it just happened. He hated Pharlie, because she stood for his humiliation, and wanted to humiliate her, but then he hated himself for feeling that way. He resolved to leave her be because he didn't want to feed his own calloused resentments.
"We've got work to do. We are reassigned to military surplus salvage. This job just keeps getting better. I used to think I would somehow be tested on a battlefield to save the galaxy, but out here I just get tested by boredom. I don't even feel the shame of these janitorial jobs anymore, I'm numb to it." Conner said to Pharlie, the next time they spoke. Pharlie realized he was trying to be nice to her and asked him:
"You'd rather be dead, or be me?" She wondered.
"Yeah. You don't know what it is like flying around delivering stuff and counting crap. I hate it. I could've made an actual difference." Conner complained personally.
Pharlie smiled and said: "You'd have made no more difference than the rest of us did. You don't know what a victory against the bugs costs, do you? You think you just have to stand there bravely shooting back and if you die, oh well, otherwise it's all glory. It's never like that. It hurts, it hurts a lot, because you don't die. Everyone else does. And for what? We just play the same game again next weekend, and it never changes."
"That's war." Conner nodded. "What am I doing? I bring supplies to remote outposts. It's pointless."
"Not anymore, they reassigned us to go pick up supplies, remember?" Pharlie pointed out.
"Oh yeah - don't remind me, just when I though my life couldn't be more tedious or pointless." Conner fell silent, realizing he sounded weak and small, complaining so much. He wished he was stoic, but he had a chance to confide in Pharlie, and he had taken it. Pharlie said:
"You're right. But let's make the most of it." And she smiled, so Conner decided that letting someone know just how miserable he was wasn't entirely a bad thing. He just wished he could somehow just be good with it, without having to use drugs or somesuch. He really felt like his combat skills were going to waste, sitting on a ship for long years, asleep and going around picking up supplies. As Pharlie had pointed out, they weren't even delivering them anymore, new mission, go get all that stuff the aliens made over the centuries for the war effort.
Rhema loomed in the distance. "We are picking up artwork on this world. Are you kidding me? The manifest shows it is categorized as artwork. So this community of variety-hour aliens have compiled some kind of treasure trove of fine art. This is asinine." Pharlie offered.
"That's enough of that." Conner chastised her formally on the deck, but he was smiling as he said it. He loved having her there stating his real feelings. "The mission is to acquire this propaganda, it is deemed useful to the war effort."
The world was like melted orange-cream covered in brown fog, a desolate radiated landscape below testified to the destructive power of the Unknown. The same Dark Beings had taken shots from the darkness with precise aim and killed some of the older aliens, such as the Frendsikeel. Long ago the peaceful otter people had lived happily on Rhema, inviting trade via broadcast.
After meeting an assortment of artist-aliens wearing shimmering dark-colored robes and cowls, the human delegate collecting military surplus accepted the crates of fine art, packed for their shipping across the stars, trusted to nobody except the human military to safely transport it.
"Conner." A call came in from Supply Command Unk Gheldin, Conner's commander. "You just earned me a promotion. The patrons of Rhema have instituted a check as a downpayment on our services. It's enough to build an entire warship. These aliens are loaded and just became our daddy. You're doing good work out there, the war effort thanks you!"
"I'll be sure and handle with care." Conner saluted diligently.
The next world was Arienta, populated by what was left of aliens who looked like huge anthropomorphic tarantulas.
"We've perfected a drug that can induce Star Sleep in humans. They said it was not possible for such belligerent minds to Star Sleep, but our colony of volunteers have allowed us to test every kind of euphoria and pleasure-inducing drug we could on them. Most species wouldn't have such a supply of volunteers, but humans come from far and wide to live as our guests, accepting our hospitality for their entire lives, saying they don't ever want to leave." The high priestess of the Blue Light Watchers, Rhoxa Billi, explained the doped humans lounging around everywhere.
"They look like slackers, sir." Pharlie said loudly.
"That's enough of that." Conner admonished her, but was smiling, glad she said what he was thinking. He faced the high priestess formally and said:
"We'll take this drug, and thank you for your hard work." Conner waved his fingers in the spiritual way to show he knew the sacred gratitude of the Blue Light Watchers. He'd studied how to do it on the way over, practicing it for days until he was confident he could do it right.
The next stop was Basilik, an industrialized wasteland where the Sunder had hundreds of thousands of giant humanoid machines, in loincloths, working tirelessly to drag massive monolithic super metal beams across rollers, up ramps to assemble indestructible mech chassis to sell to the humans.
"Sir, we take shipments from here all the time. What are we here for?" Pharlie asked.
"Not a what, a whom." Conner said.
The casket of the revered Exalted Inquisitor Eshka Layenna was loaded on board, but it was not made by Sunder. No, it was tech from some other society, preserving her eternally in a state of dormancy, a kind of molecular stasis.
"We're taking her back to the ones who put her in there. They have a gift for us. She is our gift for them. The Sunder have agreed to this, in the name of the war effort."
The Desperado star sailed to the nearby Kriesene system where an old gravity cloud that looked like a planet had hundreds of planet-sized moons dancing around it like an insane ballroom.
"The shoals around their world will make this somewhat dangerous to traverse. We have a map, given to us by the Sunder, so we should be fine." Conner told Pharlie.
"Danger, eh? Kinda like it, don't you?" Pharlie teased.
"That's enough of that." Conner said without any real command in it, smiling.
The Skiesene had a moon-sized space station named Thoughtfulness where they conducted much of their trade with each other. They looked like dark-shelled nightmare creatures, some kind of H.R. Giger prophecy had remembered these creatures long before humans had met them.
Conner witnessed their massed warriors, in stasis, embroidered stole draped over them, crouched motionless atop pedestals with twenty-yard tall tapestries depicting their many victories in bloody combat. They sat there in a great hall in their various forms and armors, but always hideous monsters, reminding him of the Dark Beings vaguely, except devoid of insectoid features.
The Skiesene were delighted by the delivery of their goddess, Eshka Layenna. A time without bloodshed was declared, and the Skiesene offered a shipment of their finest warriors, in egg form.
The Skiesene Khan grinned with uncannily human-looking teeth, but in its grin was a sharpened beak that could pierce the solid dome that was their head, with no eyes or ears, at least not in one place, for they had sensory all over their bodies.
"Uh, thanks. We could always use some special, uh, special forces." Conner accepted the eggs, as he was under orders to do. They were preserved until called, using a key to deactivate the stasis they were in. Then they would serve the orders in their minds, to obey their human commanders.
"I hope they don't have to facehug us and chest burst us." Pharlie chuckled.
"That's enough of that." Conner told her, smiling.
The last stop was the world of the Beebee, aliens who looked like cats wearing incredibly fancy clothing.
"We've tailored new uniforms for the human armies. You'll like them." The Master of Design, top official of the Beebee, told Conner, purring as he went.
Conner put one hand on his elbow and one holding his chin, trying to keep a straight face, when he saw the uniforms.
"They are a little small, don't you think?" Conner looked at the feline models in the uniforms meant for human soldiers.
"And kinda derpy with all those frills and colors?" Pharlie offered further criticism.
The Master of Design seemed to think the uniforms were being complimented, anticipating no other response. It took a moment to sink in that the humans were mocking all their hard work.
"All of the specifications for armored clothing were met. These uniforms will preserve your body temperature in very extreme conditions and will slow ballistic projectiles so that they cannot penetrate the cloth, but instead have their kinetics splattered outward and also the colors shift to the mood of the wearer. You can make it camouflage if you like. We worried that human sizes made dispensing millions of these uniforms impractical compared to making an adjustable size. Try one on." The Master of Design was not offended, but stood his ground, his hair puffing up making him look sophisticated and official. His whiskers twitched handsomely at the end and he gave a prolonged blink.
"They still look silly, why so many frills?" Pharlie chuckled.
"That's enough of that." Conner sighed.
The humans were about to leave and board their ship when Conner spotted an ancient mech standing next to the star port.
"What's that?" he asked.
"The tomb of Drastic Conner Mcfarley, the mech knight who defended our world, surprising a lone scout of the Dark Beings and engaging it in single one-on-one combat, saving our world. Drastic Conner Mcfarley died in his mech during the battle. The scout retreated and left us unharmed." The Master of Design said.
"Why'd it leave?" Conner asked, but recalled what his clan father had done. He awaited the answer he knew:
"Drastic Conner Mcfarley disarmed it, but left its capacity to retreat intact. It is believed he deliberately used this measure of engagement, in order to ensure the enemy would not retaliate by bombarding our world. When one of them dies, the world they die on gets destroyed. He might have survived the battle if he'd just killed it when he had the chance. We know this. He sacrificed himself to save us."
"That's right." Conner nodded. He and Pharlie felt solemn, realizing how far their journey had taken them, all the way to where it had began for them. "We're him, and we won't let you down."

I live in an area where there's a ton of vintage goods / collector's shops. Many have been around for a long, long time, but a brand new one just opened up in a pretty high-traffic area. I went to check it out, and the shelves were totally sparse. Like I've seen more stock in a cramped comic-con booth than I have this entire store. On top of that, they're only open 5 days a week.
I've been mulling over starting my own retail store and just starting to look into the costs associated I'm totally baffled as to how they could pull this off. It feels as though even if someone were to buy their entire stock in a day, they wouldn't be able to make rent for more than 2 months.
Are some of these stores a base of operations for another business? I knew a comic book store like that didn't make any money, but instead the owner held a monthly comic convention and he'd use the store to advertise it.

My high school job was working at the CVS in small town East Bumblebutt*, and my absolute favorite aisle was the one with all of the pipe tobaccos. Every night as I faced the store, I found reasons to linger amongst the various bags and secretly sniff them. It always disappointed me that they smelled completely differently when smoked by my geography teacher outside during lunch breaks!
Teenage Smells PG is having her moment today with Or du Serail by Naomi Goodsir. A light dab opens with a sweet apple (barely fruit and closer to blossom), moderate amounts of honey that is not cloying, a touch of rum and a hint of tobacco. Within 30 minutes the fragrance blooms to reveal a soft flower and the tiniest hint of coconut, as the tobacco deepens. After 2 hours, it's full on sweet pipe tobacco, and I'm in heaven. After 8 hours, I can still catch a whiff when I raise my arm to run my hands through my hair.
This is the fragrance you

• bring on vacation with you for when you go to dinner somewhere with white tablecloths, where as the night goes on and people get closer they wonder what is it that is making you smell so deliciously, quietly refined
• wear on a chilly day while curled up with a good book and a Trader Joe's trail mix, dreaming of an Edwardian romance featuring you as the hero/heroine
• take to your business meeting for just a hint of something elegant that lightly wafts around you as you expertly present your work

Perfumer: Bertrand Duchaufour
Scent Notes: Top notes are Mango, Red Berries, Apple and Sweet Orange; middle notes are Rum, Coconut, Mate, Ylang-Ylang, Artemisia, Sage and Geranium; base notes are Honey, Tobacco, Beeswax, Vanilla, Amber, Oak Tree, Labdanum, Cedar and Musk
Silage: Moderate (within 4 feet)
Longevity: Good (6-7 hours at 70 degrees and 72% humidity)
Cost: $4 for a sample, $187 for a 50 mL bottle
Worth It? Absolutely. This is a gorgeous, solidly unisex scent that is an all season pleasure, well crafted and highly enjoyable to wear.
*Leave a comment below if you are also small town born and bred!

I'm trying to cut down on the amount of real flowers we're using, to cut down on both budget costs and waste. (Most of the florists near me hover around $350 for a bridal bouquet, which we can do, but once you add a wedding party of 8, and family, and table decor, etc our decor budget of 1.5K doesn't cut it.). The wedding is at the end of the year in southern/central Virginia, colours/theme is just Fall in Virginia. I am thinking a real bouquet and maybe primary centrepieces, then use alternatives for everything else.
I really love the look of paper flowers, origami flowers, japanese folded flowers etc. And I think they would look great for boutenierres, corsages, and some decor. I prefer these to fake-but-realistic-looking plastic or silk flowers, I enjoy how they look handmade/crafted and think they'd complement the real flowers better. But all the resources (aka reddit posts) I can find are on DIY-ing them yourself. I really don't want to make them myself. (I'm doing my own calligraphy because I'm an avid fountain pen gal, but I know making my own decor would really stress me out. Even if they turned out beautiful - I would, personally, be miserable during the process.).
So my actual question - does anyone have experience buying these types of flowers? Any recommendations on vendors/sellers, or general tips? Etsy has so many options, it can get overwhelming without recommendations. Please and thank you!!

PC was a new pre-built, purchased in 2021, ABS Master Gaming PC :

• Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (free upgrade to Windows 11 upon release)
• CPU Type: Ryzen 5 5000 Series
• CPU Name: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
• GPU/VGA Type: GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
• Memory Capacity: 16GB DDR4
• SSD: 1 TB M.2 NVMe

PC has been perfect until this past week. A few days ago i noticed significant dips in download speed. Last night I got really bad desktop lag just moving my cursor around and when trying to open/close browser windows or PDFs. I ran a passmark performance test:
CPU Mark 21322.0 - 85th percentile
2D graphics mark 958.1 - 82nd percentile
3D graphics mark 146.6 - 4th percentile (significant issues here, obviously)
memory mark 2490.6 - 47th percentile
disk mark 23035.3 - 88th percentile
I'm not very knowledgeable in these matters, admittedly. Would appreciate any insight figuring out what I need to address. I verified by graphics card driver is up to date.

Storm Bow

• Maximum Damage reduced to 110 (220 on headshot)
• After an arrow has been fully drawn for 0.2 seconds, the arrow will become ‘supercharged’, and will have its damage increased to 130, and its projectile speed is increased to 130 m/s.
• Charge Time decreased to 0.632 (from 0.732 seconds)
• Recovery Time increased to 0.6 seconds (from 0.5 seconds)
• Projectile Radius decreased to 0.125 meters (from 0.175)
• Draw progress is now preserved when using Wall Climb. However, Arrows will lose the supercharged effect and you'll need to wait that 0.2 seconds again to supercharge it again.
• (Potential addition) Now has up to 30% damage fall-off, starting at 40 meters, and reaching max fall-off at 50 meters.
• Added a visual indicator around the reticle that gradually fills as the arrow becomes charged. The indicator turns orange when your arrow becomes supercharged
• When Hanzo's arrows become supercharged, there is a subtle shimmer effect and sound (on top of the already existing subtle draw sound) See Hanzo’s Storm Bow ability in Heroes of the Storm for reference.

Note

• These are a huge array of changes to how Hanzo’s Bow works. There is now a sharp increase to how fast and powerful Hanzo’s arrows after the bow has been fully charged, encouraging players to take their time. Along with this, the projectile size has been changed to reward accurate and carefully aimed shots. Noticeably, 0.1 seconds of the charge time has been shaved off and added to the recovery time. This adjustment aims (no pun intended) to reduce the overall appeal of spamming, and make Hanzo more reactive with how he can use his weapon. Hanzo is a marksman-style hero with a single shot weapon, so landing your hits should be rewarded. The addition of Supercharged arrows will also give Hanzo more options on how to deal with certain threats. You'll have to quickly make a decision of whether to quickly fire an arrow that isn't as lethal, or patiently waiting a little longer after charging for a supercharged one that is much more powerful.
• The small change to keep arrow preserved will help keep Hanzo fluid and quick. The change, however, has the new effect of removing the supercharged effect from an already drawn arrow. So he won't be able to climb up and one-tap you instantly, but he'll still be able to fire his arrow immediately.
• Originally, while I was making these changes, the charge and recovery values were swapped (charge time being 0.1 sec longer, recovery time being 0.1 sec shorter), but I didn’t think it would work well to reduce spam. I kept bouncing back and forth between such ideas, but I’ll settle for this direction for now. To hopefully have the best of both worlds, I added the small 0.2 second delay before an arrow becomes supercharged.
• One excuse of why Widowmaker is sometimes exempt from one-shot gate is that she’s a hitscan, so shots either hit or miss (allegedly, there’s less of a luck factor and more skill involved). With this logic in mind, if Hanzo’s one-tap arrows were much faster, there would be “less time” for them to travel, and as such, less time for some poor sap to walk around a corner and be served a delicious arrow. This change will affect Supercharged arrows only, as they one-tap

.
Storm Arrows

• Damage remains the same (at 75)
• Cooldown increased to 10 seconds (from 8)
• Arrow count reduced to 4 (from 5)
• Shot recovery time increased to 0.3 seconds (from 0.25 seconds)
• For each arrow NOT fired, Storm Arrow's cooldown is decreased by 2.5 seconds. (Not firing any arrows will not incur it's cooldown)

Note

• In Season 9, Hanzo’s Storm Arrow ability was buffed to compensate for his one-shot being dumpstered. However, now that his one-shot on 250 HP heroes (The new norm) has returned, he won’t really need these changes anymore. However, instead of just flat reverting those changes. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least try and make further adjustments to this ability to move away from spam.

.
Wall Climb
(Should really affect all Wall-Climbing Heroes)

• Wall Climbing is now a fixed 8 meters per second, regardless of movement speed. (For Hanzo, this is an Increase of 0.85 m/s. For Genji, this is an Increase of 0.2 m/s).
• Wall Climb can be used again if you get off the wall while you still have duration left.
• Added a gauge to show how much of Wall Climb’s duration has been used, which will immediately refill upon touching the ground like normal.

.
Lunge

• Restores up to 0.5 seconds of Hanzo’s Wall Climb when used (can’t exceed the cap of 1 second).
• Has a little more upward impulse.
• During Lunge’s initial dash, Hanzo will now slide up incoming inclines instead of immediately getting stuck. Now working similarly to how other dash-type abilities work.

Note

• Lunge now has a new effect of restoring a small duration of Hanzo’s wall-climb. Lunge and Wall Climb are often used together, and this new mechanic will give Hanzo players more potential with their roll-outs and raise the skill expression of how both abilities can be used (whether together or separately). Just imagine seeing Hanzo start doing wall jumps.
• Lunge will now work similarly to other lunge-like abilities to decrease the chance of getting stuck on small upward inclines, and give more freedom to how this ability works with the environment.

.
Dragonstrike

• Cast time reduced to 0.85 seconds (was 0.91)
• Arrow travel distance before dragons appear reduced to 8 meters (was 10)
• Dragonstrike length increased to 50 meters (from 40)
• Dragon speed decreased to 12 m/s (from 15)
• Dragonstrike’s damage ignores damage resistances.
• Can now damage constructs (I.E. Turrets, Immortality Field)
• Cost increased to 2000 (from 1850 (For reference, the same as Cassidy’s Deadeye))

Note

• Dragonstrike has always been a lackluster ultimate for a very long time now. It has always felt like more of a normal ability. The only real use it sees is as an area denial tool, but it’s not really good at that either. Instead of removing this function, these changes lean into that aspect.
• The cast time and distance before the dragons appear being reduced is a small but potentially big change to the pacing of the ultimate itself, as before, the effective cast time of Dragonstrike was about 1.41 seconds (0.91 sec cast time + 0.5 second delay before dragons appear). Now, it’s only 1.25 seconds.
• The length increase makes Dragonstrike a tad bit better as an area denial tool (which is what the ultimate is usually used for). With the speed being reverted, it persists in an area much longer. Just to clarify, in Season 10’s midseason patch it’s speed was increased by 25%, this change moves that 25% increase to the length instead.
• The introduction of ignoring damage resistances makes this ultimate better against tank-y compositions without having to scale the damage incredibly high.
• Altogether, these changes make Dragonstrike faster and more lethal without technically making it faster and more lethal.

PC was a new pre-built, purchased in 2021, ABS Master Gaming PC :

• Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (free upgrade to Windows 11 upon release)
• CPU Type: Ryzen 5 5000 Series
• CPU Name: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
• GPU/VGA Type: GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
• Memory Capacity: 16GB DDR4
• SSD: 1 TB M.2 NVMe

PC has been perfect until this past week. A few days ago i noticed significant dips in download speed. Last night I got really bad desktop lag just moving my cursor around and when trying to open/close browser windows or PDFs. I ran a passmark performance test:
CPU Mark 21322.0 - 85th percentile
2D graphics mark 958.1 - 82nd percentile
3D graphics mark 146.6 - 4th percentile (significant issues here, obviously)
memory mark 2490.6 - 47th percentile
disk mark 23035.3 - 88th percentile
I'm not very knowledgeable in these matters, admittedly. Would appreciate any insight figuring out what I need to address. I verified by graphics card driver is up to date.

Be warned there is a massive text wall incoming. Feel free to dislike and move on.

Fists of Havoc

In my opinion, striker is the worst subclass in the game. If we start with PvE and supers we come across fists of havoc. The titan class is plagued with roaming supers so it gets a lot of competition. Obviously Bladefury is by far the best titan roaming super. But other supers (Glacial Quake, Hammer of Sol, and Burning Maul) all have excellent damage far exceeding that of fist of havoc. It is clunky and doesnt feel smooth to play. It doesnt really offer much and could use a rework.

Thundercrash

Thundercrash… Let me start by saying this is by far the riskiest one-off super in the game. It is meant to burst a boss, however bosses have plate mechanics that wont let you deal damage with the super. If it does let you then you better hope its an in-bounds boss so you can hit it. If it is you better hope that its not flying and you plummet to your death. If it is you better hope it wont kill you with a stomp when you get there. If it doesn’t you better hope that you dont loose too much dps on the travel to the boss, and back from the boss or blow yourself up if you try to dps while moving back to a well. If all that happens you have to pray that it has good hit detection as many bosses simply will slide you off them and cant be hit. And if the stars align and it hits… congratulations you just used your super, and your exotic slot (cuirass) and wasted a lot of time and stress to do the same damage as a base needlestorm in 8 times the duration. Good job buddy.

Knockout

For aspects we got knockout. Your standard light “unpowered melee is counted as powered” aspect, except that this one is outclasses by a fragment (spark of feedback) well at least it heals. No? That got removed? Alright well health restarts. Whats that? A single tick of burn got you stopping it? Well it provides a nice ability loop. Well that was before bungie took out the opportunity to refresh the buff. Currently it doesnt provide much. Wont even win you a fist fight in PvP.

Juggernaut

Next we got Juggernaut. It costs your class ability which is leagues better for survivability, even if you run thruster. It’s low health and directional and wont save you from much in PvE. Ok I suppose its a PvP aspect. Oh… the other two are better? Doesnt provide nearly as much as void for defense? Mm im sure it has some ability loops. Or not…

Touch of Thunder

The other two aspects are not what an aspect should provide. Touch of Thunder on the other hand is great. Unfortunately it only buffs 2 grenades; Pulse and Lightning. One for PvP and one for PvE. Storm grenade got gutted and the blind upgrade is borderline useless. Thats fine though because what it does for these grenades is great. The only complaint here is that it doesnt have exotic support. Every other class has a plethora of grenade exotics, but Titan is stuck with Ashen Wake, which seems to have a cult built around it but wont do much in high end content. The other option is hoil, but even with this exotic your ability uptime will be lower than that of Solar, Stasis, or Strand. Even void has volatile spam for the downtime.

Conclusion

Overall arc titan lacks resistance and sustain like the other arc subclasses, but also lacks any meaningful ability loop, supers, exotic support, or even basic aspects. It could use a touch up.

Hi FJ community!
I'm here with a couple of questions because sadly I need to sell my FJ, but I have some questions about what it might be worth given its condition.
For context, the car was my late father's that I inherited, and while I love the car so much it no longer its my lifestyle or budget considering the amount of work it needs to pass inspection this year. I've never bought or sold a car before, let alone one that people constantly tell me is "worth something" or "a collector's item" and I don't know how real that is / don't want to be duped out of money that might be on the table. It was my dad's favorite thing and it's hard to finally part with it, so I just know he'd want me to be smart about this. Any advice y'all could give me from the perspective of FJ lovers / FJ owners would be much appreciated!
Specs are down below for specifics but the long story short is that the car has frame rust damage that I don't want to pay to weld considering I don't drive the car much anymore. Google is telling me that to sell a vehicle that isn't passing inspection, I should post it on Craigslist as "a non road worthy vehicle" and essentially part with it for parts, but I'm concerned about pricing it wrong or doing that if there's a better way.
Given the specs below, does anyone have a gut feeling about how much this should be selling for? If it's not much, that's okay, but I could really use the money and don't want to make a mistake here. Also if anyone has any tips for selling a car in this condition, I'd appreciate the advice! Without my dad I'm flying blind with Google and there's a lot of conflicting info out there.
Specs:
Model: 2007 FJ, maroon with white top and roof rack Mileage: At/around 215,000, it's at the shop so I don't recall the exact number Interior Condition: Decent but could use detail cleaning, no actual 'damage' past normal wear and tear Normal Maintenance Needs: Likely needs some new brakes, rotors I'm not sure of Exterior Condition: Dented back bumper, but not significant just on one corner. The rest of the car body is fine, but the real damage is to the frame which has "significant" rust. I got one section welded and patched last year that got me through, but the mechanics tell me sections of the back bumper area are "rusted out" as well as part of the frame towards the front of the car. They said it's something that could "probably be welded" but at this point would probably cost more than I want to pay considering I drive the car maybe twice a month since moving to a city. (I do take the car out weekly to get things moving, but as far as real / highway drive time that's 2x a month now)
Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read and respond, I appreciate it!
tldr; Need to sell a 2007 FJ with frame rust damage and high mileage but not sure how to go about pricing that or doing that.... any advice welcome!

I literally just got back from the stripclub and first thing I think of is to get this story down for you fine gentlemen.
I will provide background information where relevant, including the norms of the particular stripclub.
I've been into dominant women in general for a long time, and I've been into the fantasy of findom, but have never done it. Mostly because I have no interest in trying to make it happen over the internet, and it seems as if that's really the only place you can do it. But if I ever happened across a woman in real life that is into it? I could do it.
So, I've been giving strippers a second thought. I know, strippers aren't really findom, they just charge a lot for their services. But this was different.
Now I'm not a regular at stripclubs or anything. I'll go to them about twice a year on average, just to have some tits in my face. But I recently started thinking, hey, wait a minute, strippers love money, that's what they're there for. What if I got into findom with a stripper? And so this was the second time in a month I went to my stripclub, and it happened. Here's how it went down:
I sat at a table. Girls dancing on three stages. This place is topless only, so tits out, g-strings on. I order a beer. In a short time, a woman walks up to me and introduces herself. She sits down, we chat for like a minute, but I'm no stranger to these things, I know what I want, so I just ask for a dance, she says sure and we get up.
Her looks: Average height, fairly petite, absolutely perfect natural tits, with HUGE nipples. Just amazing nipples. If you like big nipples, this would be your girl. She had long blonde hair down to her tailbone.
So we go into the private room. It's small and dark. Total privacy, it's not one of those big open lap dance rooms. She gets on me, grinding, normal lap dance.
The style of lap dance at this club: Tops off, bottoms on, HEAVY touching. The girls grind on your dick, and will appreciate you having a hard on too and they target it like a Hunter Killer robot. Also, the cost is 20 dollars per song (HEYO that's already findom, am I right?) So 5 songs, about 25 minutes of grinding, would cost about 100 bucks.
Sometimes dancers will start jerking you off through your pants, sometimes they don't. This girl started doing so. Boner laid out along the thigh, hand wrapping as much as it can around it over the pants and stroking.
A couple songs go by, her perfect tits are in my face, she seems real cool, I shoot for it, I ask "Can I suck on them?"
Background: If the vibe is good and relaxed, sometimes I'll ask that. 50% of the time they're totally okay and say "sure" and shove their nipple in my mouth. The other 50% they'll say no sorry and I'm like no biggie it's all good.
She says, "for 500 dollars."
Right there, my heart leaps in my chest. No fucking way should that cost 500 bucks. She just doesn't want it to happen and this is a polite way of rejecting me. I kinda laugh it off and say "that's okay, a little rich for me."
Anyway, she's grinding, hand working, tits in my hands. The atmosphere is very calm and intimate, voices low. She brings it up again. Asks for 500 bucks. In a very alluring way. I am now already in a sub space. I politely refuse.
I know what you're thinking. This isn't findom, this is just a stripper trying to milk a dumb customer for an easy extra.
But things come around.
In the silence that follows, I dare a statement: "But I like how you keep asking."
She looks at me. A bit caught off guard herself. She says "hmm?"
We look at each other. "I like assertive women. Aggressive women."
I think it clicks in her head, then. She knows what I am. She grinds more, keeping the pace up hard. She asks for 500 again, naturally.
I say, "all I have is 200 in my wallet". This is a lie, I have about 250, but I'm sandbagging her cause my mind is spinning. Also, I only ever mean to spend a max of 100. Just me saying I have 200 is a rush.
She says, "go to the atm and get more money out."
My brain is going wild now. I say it. "You can take everything in my wallet."
"200 dollars?"
"Yeah."
We're both feeling a lot more free at this point. Gently, while her right hand is stroking me through my pants, I take her left hand, and place it on my neck. She immediately knows what to do, like an instinctual animal. She squeezes, starts choking me while grinding. Pushes my head hard back against the wall. She's not gentle, she does it nice and hard.
Then she just keeps it up. Tells me she wants me to go to the atm and get more money. I'm strong though. She says do it for your "Goddess 'insert stripper name'". She definitely knows what I am now. She has officially taken on the role of dominatrix.
"I have 250 in my wallet," I say, spilling the beans. It was an absolute rush.
"Give it to me."
We go back and forth, and she knows the lingo. I almost busted a nut right there but didn't. In the end, we do our final song, she stands up. Time to pay. I wanted to do it nice and paypig style, so I open my wallet and hand her the bills, counting it out to 250.
"Thank your Goddess for taking all of your money," she says.
I thank her, in a daze.
"Are you coming next week?" she asks.
"Yes," I say.
"Good, and next time there will be punishments for not doing everything I say."
We make arrangements and I leave.
All in all, we did maybe 5 songs. So it normally would have cost 100 bucks, so I basically paid a surcharge of 150 for her to indulge this kink.
And memories last forever.
Well guys, should I go back next week? I'm not a poor guy but I'm not a rich guy either. There's no way I could ever sustain this, but as a short term life experience, I feel like I have to, don't I? It was sort of a fantasy come true for me.

I realize this may not be the right place to post this, but figured the pet parents here would have the most experience with the topic of dog seizures and possible causes. Both of our dogs had grand mal seizures within 3 days of each other with no prior history of seizures. I’ll try to be thorough with things, but it will be long.
Dog #1 (Jupiter) Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, female, 101 pounds, 6 years old. Takes trazadone for anxiety and Proin for urinary incontinence.
Dog #2 (Selene) Border Collie, female, 46 pounds, 4 years old. History of elevated liver enzymes for unknown reasons and serotonin syndrome caused by trazadone.
They have both been OFF of flea/heartworm meds for several months because of the elevated liver enzymes. So we can rule that out as a cause.
We had an exterminator come to the house on Tuesday April 23rd. He used two products, one inside (permethrin based) and one outside (fipronil based). [ASPCA poison control and the manufacturer of these chemicals were consulted and both agree that these should not be connected to the seizures] They are never outside alone. They both try to eat grass sometimes. The area they use is just lawn and then rocks with some weeds growing in them.
5 days later (Sunday Apr 28) dog #1 starts wretching just before breakfast and that transitions into a grand mal seizure lasting approximately 2 minutes. Recovery was quick, maybe 10 minutes, was taken to emergency vet. Thyroid testing (normal), chest/abdomen X-rays (normal) and blood tests (normal except slight elevated bilirubin). Sent home on seizure watch.
3 days later (Wed May 1) dog #2 wakes up with our alarm, runs from couch to bedroom door and immediately goes into grand mal seizure that lasted 5 minutes. Urinated and defacated during seizure. We had cameras all over to keep an eye on the other dog at this point. Recovery was slower, she didn’t even try to stand up for 15 minutes. Went immediately to emergency vet. All bloodwork came back normal.
*At this point our vet is sure it’s got to be environmental. We throw out dog food, dog treats. Empty and thoroughly clean and sanitize water bowl. Wash all dog toys and their toy box. Mop all floors, clean all rugs, wash all walls. Moved and wiped down every piece of furniture. Power washed the foundation where pesticide was applied. We even washed the garage floor because that’s where they go in and out. We went back to making their food for them, so no more kibble after the seizures. We bought a totally different brand of treats too. I even crawled under the deck to make sure there weren’t rodent baits or anything under there. They only get RO water, which is the same water we drink.
May 7-Dog 1 goes for yearly vet exam and vaccines. No issues. Heart worm negative.
May 10-Dog 2 goes for yearly vet exam and vaccines. No issues. Heart worm negative.
Vet gave the “all clear” to put them back on heartworm/flea prevention after being off of it for several months. I decided to wait and make sure they were good before giving their preventatives because I know they all have a seizure risk and didn’t want to introduce more toxins to their systems.
Today, 18 days since first seizure, dog #1 starts wretching just before breakfast (same as before the first seizure) and it immediately transitions into another grand mal seizure. Lasting about 2 minutes, similar to the first seizure. She comes around after 5 minutes, drunk walks 10 feet and then vomits bile/foam. Call the vet immediately and vet has us pick up levetiracetem and start it right away. She goes back to the vet tomorrow for further testing—ekg and urinalysis.
We are wracking our brains trying to figure out what kind of environmental thing could be causing this. They don’t swim or go into any water sources. We do have farm fields around us, but the dogs don’t go there and haven’t been out during spraying or anything. They haven’t eaten anything strange outside. Previous owners of this house had cats and a dog. Our neighbors dog hasn’t had any problems (they also used the same exterminator on the same day we did). My dogs don’t really get into anything in the house, don’t chew. They have not had flea/heartworm preventative for the last 4 months (see above). The only thing I’ve found that the vet hasn’t brought up is toxoplasmosis. I do plan to have the water tested again (it was tested one year ago and water was fine, but slightly elevated nitrates, which is why we only give RO water)
We may never find an answer to what is causing this, but in the hopes that someone may have a lead for us, I’m asking for your help redditors.
If it helps we live in northern Indiana near-ish to Lake Michigan. We have lived in this house since last fall, it’s rural (we lived in city previously). There are stray cats, squirrels, lots of chipmunks, turkey and deer that are around all the time. House was built in the 90s so lead shouldn’t be a concern as far as the paint goes.

https://www.reddit.com/SipsTea/s/663vNtKq7W
Watch the above video, that's what I am looking for in a partner. No matter what, we laugh and enjoy the moment. I want a person who has similar style of humor and sees life with a lighter lens.
Here's what my onlyfans say- - male, 38, decently built, human - likes to make silly jokes to keep people smiling - rides motorcycles but doesn't know how to wheelie, but something tells me he doesn't care - can read, write, speak - must be educated with an MBA atleast, and something tells me he's an engineer by education as well - likes to hog, not a hog though - has a dog dad personality, some call him Jon Wick, only way to find out is to mess with his dog. Basically, he doesn't need to do anything, the dog takes care of himself - doesn't own a gun, no kids, no wife/wives, no parents, no doubt, no limit, no no - can hold a conversation, your purse, your dog, your bank details etc. - welcomes tips from his onlyfans ;) - is low maintenance, must be low standard human being - doesn't give a hoot about your caste, creed, color, religion, nationality, age, your mum, your paternal uncle, your day (😜) - can't believe he's 38, doesn't look or act like it. How the heck does he do long distance riding! - is raunchy and wild, but you need to bring it on - wears suits to work - you can't beat him at tennis or table tennis and if you did, may the non existent gods bless thy ass - enjoys photography, ofcourse for onlyfans - his contribution to cooking would be to preparation but has no active understanding of how food is made, ridiculous - on days when he cooks you a breakfast in bed, a butt pinch is how your need to show appreciation - can afford a good tip in a restaurant but appreciates it if people earn it
Here's what my dead mom might want, and I may or may not want the same, so tread carefully - please be funny and able to hold a conversation - please don't be a jerk, a gentleman my son is so be nice - doesn't care if you're the most beautiful person in the world but if you don't know how to use that pound of a brain he's a walker - be prepared to have a heart attack because of his silliness, I'm dead because of him! - enjoys range of conversation topics and appreciates anything goes by keep it all light - able to read between the lines of the onlyfans comments above - be around please - ex boyfriends are welcome as long as they are in another dimension
P.S- I don't hate kids, I just don't want my own or anyone elses to stop me from living my life how I want.
P.P.S - intimate shots of armpits upon request and tips on onlyfans

So I have some family drama... side info: my stepbrother had to leave the house 15 years ago because my sister claimed he touched her, afterwards she explained she wanted it so she basically ruined our family, she once claimed my stepdad touched her as well, wich was also a lie. She then left our family to live with a boyfriend she knew for 2 weeks. My mom wanted her to come home after a party she wasn't allowed to go but instead she stayed at his and got scared to come home. So basically my mom told her she could live at his.
The boyfriend she went to live with (she was then 20 or something, me 16) turned out to be pretty oldschool 'men don't do any houshold chores, the woman does it all'. Is what she claims... but after her pathological lying history I don't know what to believe anymore. She got knocked up and had a son that has been spoiled by his grandmom (dad's side, he basically lived with her) and his parents on the weekends (she still barely looks after him).
Fastforward to 14 years later, we get a call after not hearing from her for 12 years (I always tried to contact her on her b-day and on christmas, but she never picked up). She wanted to leave him, she was afraid he would do something to her. Me (shortly living at my parents again after breaking up with my boyfriend) and my parents get very worried and do everything in our power to help her figure out how to leave. It took us a year to convince her to come to us on a day she could get off of work that he wasn't home either (he was unemployed due to ptsd as a prisonguard).
My mom owns a 3 bedroom house that she rented out and became free again so she decided me and my sister would go live there. Me a student who works a part time job to get by did not have a say in this (with only 1000€ a month and average studio rent being around 650€ could not find something on my own). My mom decided we would pay 800€ rent in total a month. In the beginning we agreed to pay 400 each since we each had our room (I decided to give her the main bedroom which is the largest because I wanted the room with built in shelves for my art supplies).
After she got shared custody of her son, he came to live with us every other week (I don't have and don't want kids) I like my quiet after coming home from a hard day at work at the store or my unpaid internship). After this custody we decided she would pay 3/5 of the general costs like water and electricity, since her son only lives with us part time. But I discussed with her that she would also pay 500 euros for rent and myself 300 since they get 2 bedrooms and I only have one. (Because when you get housemates you each pay per room).
She agreed at first but then discussed it with my mom, who for some reason is not okay with this. She told my mom to tell me (not even stand up for herself, the older one) that she doesn't agree.
My question is, AITA for making my sister pay more because they rent 2 rooms and I only rent one?

Out of curiosity, I disassembled the DM-1 battery to see how much space it had inside. It had a little bit.
Out of curitosity, I disassembled an old UV-5R craddle charger to see how big the charging board was. It was pretty small.
Out of curiosity, I looked through Aliexpress for a minuscule USB-C PD 9V board. It was pretty cheap.
I cobbled them all together inside the DM-1 battery, and now it's an USB-C rechargeable battery. The original pins still work for the original craddle (which has a very big board, with very sparcely placed components).
I am very, VERY sorry for not taking pictures of the process, for whoever's interested.
But the USB-C PD board looks like this, and the charger board looked kinda like this (this one is actually not like mine but seems to have all the guts in the same place. Mine had a big cutout near the DC jack, and it had written "A55.VER03-040415", probably made in 2015, when I bought the UV-5R. Mostly like this one but that pic is really bad)
I made a cutout to the side of the battery case for the USB-C jack, a small hole for the charging LED (I could keep it!), soldered everything correctly and hot glued everything in place.
I wonder how much it would've costed them to add this by default. I understand they're really fighting for every penny, but that's a very nice quality of life upgrade.
Disclaimer: I've just built this. I still don't know if that'll burn my house down. Everything seems to point out that it's gonna be fine. My tests showed that the board didn't heat up and that it could properly charge the battery a little, so I deemed it doable enough. I decided going with 9V because some USB-C chargers don't support 12V, and those who do, when I tested 12V charging, the IC probably reached north of 80°C in two minutes. At 9V it doesn't even warm it up. 10V buck converters were way too big to fit. Although I made it "original craddle compatible", I still don't know if that backfeed into the USB-C PD board will cause damages. Chances are I'll never use the craddle again, so I don't really care. I will report back if it blows up or catches on fire. If I don't report back, it's all fine and dandy. Unless I died in the fire. Check my Reddit activity to see if I did. If you ever do this, do at your own risk.

The Loot Randomizer mod got me thinking about this. The really cool thing about the loot randomizer is that you get/have to discover a lot of the game yourself, finding out what gear drops where and planning how to build your character and farm in tvhm/uvhm. You can’t rely on online sources like the wiki for how to farm or find gear, it’s like you’re the first person to play the game.
Another big area in which the game has a huge built up meta is building the character itself. Syngergizing your action skill and abilities, knowing what abilities go together, etc. In the same vein as the loot randomizer, we could make a skill randomizer (with some restrictions. Certain skills would group into skill trees together, some could only go with particular action skills but may be in odd places) and make the player use their knowledge of abilities and how they work together to build. For example, with Maya you may not get cloudkill, but get b0re and converge together and be able to wreck shop like that. There’s also the downside that you might get completely useless skills, like Silence the Voices for Zer0. You couldn’t rely on external builds, you’d have to figure out how to construct your character and what gear to use yourself.
Now, this is obviously a terrible idea in terms of game balance, but I think as long as it avoids crashing the game it could be very fun to play around with. What do y’all think, and what would be the most broken (for good or bad) skill combinations? What restrictions would need to be in place?

This is for some reason so specific to Helldivers content. Every time I see a YT vid recommended that has an ai image as the thumbnail, showing some random bs that isn't in the game like an armor or weapon, I click the three ellipses and press "Don't Recommend this Channel" because they were so lazy and annoying to see. Okay not just that. I normally give people a watch and it's basically always low effort content as well, surprise surprise. But the thumbnails! I get it, less effort to screencap an image (as long as that even takes, c'mon) and the intrigue of the weird picture from people who don't really know about bad ai practices or just don't really care about it DOES likely lead to more clicks. But having an actual image of the weapon, enemy or your own helldiver is so much better!
Then one channel I liked watching videos from started doing it as well and I stopped watching. I kinda felt bad at first, thinking it was a little unfair of me. Like, is this the beginning of the same situation as content creators making videos with clickbait-y titles and thumbnails, but at this point it's just a really well-known and self-aware kind of "meta" that people just have fun with and overexaggerate on purpose, plus benefitting from more views? Like yes that's lazier than coming up with a good thumbnail pic as well, but most people I like watching know how and when to do that and if it does end up being repetitive, I just don't even think about it because I like the content from them itself.
But no, this is different, the ai thumbnails are annoying and ultra lazy. Plus the influx of ai art usage is really despised in the art community and rightfully so. I'm sure many, many people feel the same way as me and don't wanna see ai crap used that way. So why not turn it all around and commission actual, real art for thumbnails? It's so eye-catching and I'd click in a heartbeat! Yeah, there are things to keep in mind like art can't be rushed, so that doesn't always work with people's upload schedule and it costs money, but if you generate revenue from YT I can almost guarantee you'll net more in the end for using a nice, stand-out thumbnail! But at the very LEAST, take a pretty screenshot, which is fun to do anyways! -and use that instead of pumping out more ai garbage like a normal content creator!! Please!
Alright, go support artists. Sorry for so many words, thoughts?

Good afternoon legaladvice ,
I am dealing with quite the conundrum, my previous employer (based in Florida) cut communication with all of us after not paying my salary and my supervisors salary. I went 3 months without salary and was promised that things were being "addressed" and funds were being reallocated to make up for the lack of pay. It was a company that I helped start and get moving, and I operated as the Construction Manager, and the job was not a typical one for many months before we got things moving smoothly.
However, things started to get weird and there was a lot of failed attempts at communication and my boss began funding another project with the money our company was bringing in (unbeknownst to the team) and ended up embezzling money for one of my projects, breaching contract with our client, embezzling money we were paying for medical insurance, that he had cancelled without informing us, and not filing any tax codes for several different states.
I have spoken with the Labor and Wages department whom told me that there was essentially nothing that they could do, I have spoken with several law firms, and I spoke to a small claims attorney, but have been continually told that there is not much they can do, and they keep recommending me to one another. It has been a very frustrating circle of failed attempts, I find it hard to believe that someone can have people work, dissolve a company and not be held liable for doing so. I have built up a lot of debt in the time spent trying to find solutions, and I am currently working as my own employer in the meantime. I have spoken to all of the team and communication has not been made to them regarding these matters as well, and my previous boss is walking around and running a new company (the one he was funding without our knowledge) like nothing had ever happened.
If there is any information or direction that you all can help me with, it would be greatly appreciated. I have documented a lot of what has gone on, including keeping copies of my signing for my salary position and the contracted payment plan that it garnered, as well as when my insurance lapsed and my pay stubs regarding the matter.
Any advice or knowledge regarding this matter would be extremely helpful, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this and I look forward to hearing any productive advice that you may have.

Hey Dads, First off thanks a million for the advice and support here. I'm in IT and this and Sysadmin basically consume my days.
Ok on for the question and context. Our little boy is 8 months now. We live down in the Tampa, FL area and while the stroller has been good so far I am thinking of graduating to a separate car seat setup give our larger SUV (GLE 350). My MIL initially complained about the weight of putting it in her car and honestly I can see her point with her age. I don't mind spending extra money to have strollers for different purposes (up to 3) and just think the one trick pony idea has sort of run its course with us.
We'll probably still travel with it, but around town in Florida, it is a hot poly lined stroller. He is still sitting backwards and not sure how much longer that will be for as he is growing fast (25 lbs).
So any care to show off your setup and why you like it? Especially if you came from the Doona. Again, I think I'm looking now for more purpose built items vs all in ones since I can afford the extra space.