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)

It seems the battle for the Racquette has gotten heated. The Winter Wizards have decided to fall back into the North, but they aren't leaving us empty handed. They've cast one last spell to bring in the spring. With this little bit of snow, we've found something surprising, Winter Armor! If you were on the winning team during the Yule Quest, your loot has FINALLY arrived. The list of recipients is also available. Come get your LOOT Also, I promise future rewards will be quicker in arriving :)