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.

Congratulations @Susan Dodds for having the highest tonnage score for our Spring Quest! She will receive the $300 gift card to Big Spoon and she will receive our spring champion shirt And congratulations to all members of Maire’s Marauders! Each of you will receive our spring quest shirt as well. Later today or sometime tomorrow we will offer the shirts to be available for all other adventurers to purchase. The link will be active for 7 days only, after 7 days all orders are final and no extra shirts will be available! We will text all adventurers the link for the shirts and post it around the Forge for your convenience. We will celebrate this victory on the top of Mt. Arab! Tentatively scheduled for April 19th. All are invited to attend the hike!

Well, sort of. We're entering the last week of our Spring Quest with the holdover form the winter wizards' spell! But that's okay, it kept many of the monsters at bay so far... but they will come. It is the FINAL week of our quest. and I'm sure many of you are wondering what the winning prizes will be-- details to come. But here's the moment you've all been waiting for-- SCORES Maire's Marauders: 884,127.6 Tyler's Tacticians: 698,894.4 Richard's Retainers: 456,895.9 Joe's Jolly-Rogers: 746,426.3 Gavin's Grenadiers: 659,729.6 When the monsters come, points change hands quickly. Your random events will get... violent.. to say the least. One more week. May the Adirondikraken have mercy on your team.

Monsters, Apothecaries, St. Patrick himself, even the Duckichaun has gotten involved! Be careful out there, and even if you haven't been assigned a team, be sure to draw your random event! This time things are different, only one random event will buff you, all other events will effect your team, other teams, or they will give you prizes. And yes, some of them are just.. plain... mean... But you'll recover! Get out there and LIFT, HOIST,... uh... LIFT!!

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)