Some of you may have noticed my absence last week. On Friday April 3rd at about 2:00 am I got up out of bed too fast and passed out from the lack of blood flow to my brain. I have always had a history of falling when I get up too fast, but it's never made me pass out. This condition is known as orthostatic hypotension. It was especially bad before I started lifting. I hadn't had this problem for years now and didn't think it was an issue until that Friday. On the way to the ground I hit the left side of my head and the base of my neck, almost tearing my ear in half in the process. The result? A concussion and four stitches. As well as a major red flag that my thyroid medication is underdosed. This is the first concussion I've ever had. I'm hoping it's the last as well. But it has taught me some valuable lessons that I needed this year. So here is what I've learned: 1. Your brain needs idle time We spend a tremendous amount of time over consuming information. I realize now that I constantly bombard my brain with inputs. From podcasts to books there are very few of those precious moments where my brain can sit still. For some of you this might sound like a kind of hell. For me it took a bit more adjustment than I would have liked. I spent hours staring at my boring, white ceiling. I couldn't read, I couldn't listen to anything, I couldn't get up. It was just me and my brain. It was quality time with the only person in I should know best: me. It's amazing what staring at a ceiling or taking a walk without a podcast can do when your brain is already healthy. When you're concussed, it's mandatory. I realized that this idle time is what allows your brain to reconnect with the world around it. So many of us buy into woo woo nonsense like "grounding", or "chakras" when the answer is staring us in the face. The whole time it was just sitting with the silence that brings you back to the world around you. There is no need to live forever when there is an eternity in every moment if you'd stop to find it. That, by the way, is me getting a little woo woo.

My friends, this post will be an aside from what I normally post in Skool. Some of you were alive for the first moon landing. Some of you don't pay attention to these things. My life has always been absorbed in focusing on the real progress of humanity. I'm obsessed with things that grow, and in my lifetime alone we have become such a capable species, though many would tell you this is not so. I created Bjorn to feed my family, yes, but also to improve the lives of the people in St. Lawrence county. I continue to work on this project in the hopes of learning how to build systems that foster life in extreme environments. The gym, "the Forge" is just such a place. We come to the gym to improve our bodies by the method of physical stress. We forge new muscle, greater bone density, and relationships with other people hoping to better themselves. If this project is successful, so many of you will be immersed in a system that dramatically improves your lives and well-being. I can't wait to see that for you, as I have for so many already. But there is an even tougher system other people far smarter than me have built on the Artemis II rocket, which will be launching humans to orbit the moon this evening. These "life support systems" allow life to survive or even thrive in extreme environments. Few of you know, but before I started learning foreign languages, my intended field of study was in engineering life support systems in space (for plants, it's a long story). Space is a terrifying place. Everything outside of this planet is hostile to life. The lack of gravity degrades your muscles and bones, the constant cosmic radiation destroys your DNA. The Astronauts who go into space do so at great risk to themselves. And yes, they work out a lot. While I'm not trying to get any of you to become astronauts, I wanted to share with you a passion of mine that comes along with some very exciting news for humanity. While we often get bogged down in the weather-like world-shaking events on the news, missions like this one afford us the opportunity to reflect on just how far we've come as a species, how much we've actually accomplished, and how wrong the mental models our favorite news sources provide to us may be.

1. The Spring Champion will be winning a T-Shirt AND a $300 gift card to Big Spoon🥄 courtesy of @Rose Rivezzi (if you’d like to learn more check out https://bigspoonpotsdam.com) 2. The winning team will all get Spring Champion t-shirts. BUT sooo many of you loved the Hero of Yule t-shirt that I’ve decided to make it available for purchase to all players! The link will be available after the winning team is announced and will only be available for 7 days, after that the 2026 Spring Champion design will be gone forever. We will text you the link as well as put it here for you to order 3. We will take on a mountain! ⛰️ On Sunday April 19th we will hike Mount Arab to celebrate our victory and all adventurers are welcome to attend! IF the weather is bad (and I mean actually bad not a little bit of rain bad) we will reschedule to the following weekend. 1. Unfortunately the live Q and A today has been cancelled due to an unforseen gnome invasion. We will be back at it next month though! Just 2 more days to our Quest! You got this!!

That’s all for meow

Team Scores: - Maire's Marauders- 287,359.80 - Tyler's Tacticians- 273,356.00 - Richard's Retainers- 188,167.20 - Gavin's Grenadiers- 222,333.00 - Joe's Jolly Rogers- 304,536.40 Don't you forget, the first week's scores are NEVER indicative of how well your team will do! Next up! 1. The Apothecary's wares have been flying off the shelves! But don't fear, we will be able to order some at today's discount if we've sold out of your favorite flavors 2. The Fae folk have come to our aid! And just in time too- Random events start tomorrow, there will be prizes galore! 3. A few goblins have rearranged the forge floor over the weekend. We'd apologize for the inconvenience if we weren't so busy dealing with the goblin infestation (The forge is now more spacious, but the garbage and recycling have migrated to a different part of the facility)