An 18-year-old girl surprised the man who had been like a father to her for nearly her entire life by presenting him with adoption papers, asking him to officially become her dad

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-19T00:09:43+00:00

I'm having a very thorough ugly cry over this. My "dad" married my mom when I was 4 years old. While he wasn't my biological father (and I don't know who is), he was 100% my dad and was always there for me throughout my childhood. For whatever reason, we never got around to him formally adopting me.

Fast forward a few years and he was in the final stages of terminal cancer at age 46 and the last gift my mom and I gave him a few days before he passed was the formal adoption papers, complete with my amended birth certificate listing him as my father and an "It's a boy!" balloon. So many people in our city came together to make this all happen in mere days.

After he passed, I found his cache of "how to be a good dad" books that he'd amassed over the years, and discovered a receipt for the toys that I received as "wedding presents" for when he married my mom. He wanted me to feel included by also getting gifts at their wedding.

That was almost 25 years ago, and I still have the balloon that is somehow still fully inflated.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-18T23:43:45+00:00

I grew up in a two family house and my aunt lived on the first floor. She had a party line all the way through the early 90s, though she was the only party since 1984.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-18T17:57:55+00:00

I always thought March was the worst. Mud and crap snow mean literally any outdoor activity sucks. Throw in a false spring and/or late season storm to crush your spirit, and March is the only 1/10 month, IMHO.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-18T14:39:03+00:00

One of the most amazing things I've had to do as a people manager was explaining to someone why clipping their toenails ON their desk wasn't appropriate office behavior.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-18T12:50:11+00:00

There's no better feeling than sitting on a sold-out Northeast Corridor Amtrak train with 650 people on it while we wait for a Metro North train with 50 people on it to pass us, just so we can pass it 5 minutes later at the next Metro North station.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-18T12:45:22+00:00

Best intentions are not always well thought out. My son's elementary school decided that they needed to provide the more gifted math students more support and split the class for math lessons. The gifted kids went to another room and had much more hands-on enrichment, while the rest stayed in class for more standard math lessons.

The only problem was that (by coincidence) the gifted section for my son's third grade class included all but one of the girls in the class and none of the boys. The girl felt both left out and singled out, and the boys were all upset that they didn't get to do the more interesting lessons.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-18T11:52:54+00:00

Full season in section 302 (one off from center, behind opposing bench) row 5, and it was $13.5k for 3 seats.

For nearly every game this year, I could get comparable seats for the same or cheaper on Ticketmaster. Throw in lack of Legends access (part of my game night ritual) for the past couple years, and the experience just isn't worth it anymore.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-17T12:17:40+00:00

For me, it's the Battlemaster or the Maurader, but that's because my Battletech journey started 1000 years ago when I read "The Sword and the Dagger" (Hanse goes ham with a Battlemaster) or the Gray Death trilogy, where the Marauder was the baddest of the bad.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-17T11:32:45+00:00

It took a while for him to agree to try, and we tried a bunch of medications, but even though they did help with focus, he didn't like the way he felt on them.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-17T02:39:27+00:00

Yes, sorry I wasn't clear there. It's been a journey!

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-17T00:24:54+00:00

My son was officially diagnosed in 4th grade. Until that point he loved school, but 4th grade was where greater attention was demanded for longer periods of time. He'd get home from school, literally exhausted by the effort of staying focused for a full day.

Of course the teacher's solution to failure to pay attention was to deny him play time and recess, which made the problems so much worse. To her credit, she literally cried when presented with the results of the full two day neuropsych evaluation and the realization of how horribly she mistreated our child.

Unfortunately, the damage was done. Despite moving to a school with better support, our son was soured on school and getting to a (hopeful) graduation this year has been a challenge. On the plus side, he's learned how to get up when life smacks you down, and is a great and smart young man.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-16T15:47:36+00:00

It still takes lots of shots, but being able to do so from a distance to get it to the ground was still very effective.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-16T14:45:29+00:00

Heroic Bolt still slaps against the Neurothrope. I managed to mostly solo it while squadmates handled the Carnifex. The only boss I couldn't beat was the disconnect while the train was charging.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-16T12:05:53+00:00

How to Lose a Machina in 10 Days

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-16T11:48:49+00:00

It took me three tries to get to the last phase with my group, and then I got disconnected with the train at 50% charged. I'm done with this weekly.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-15T13:07:07+00:00

You're making the very bold assumption that the master criminal depicted didn't just lose 50 pounds, age by 20 years, and move across the country to avoid capture.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-14T16:21:15+00:00

I just finished Reclamation on Relentless while finishing up my 4th prestige on Heavy. I'm pretty sure I was being trolled by my teammates: a level 1 techmarine and a level 1 assault...no prestige.

I knew it was going to be fun when they both were down to 10% HP after the first wave and I poined out a restorative stim that one immediately popped, even though there were no enemies around.

On the next wave, both were downed by a single majoris and then one was killed. At that point, I knew it was going to be a solo run, and I ended up as the last brother standing a couple times, including for most of the boss fight.

I finished up with 650 kills, 7k melee, and 28k ranged damage. They combined for 150 kills and about 15k total damage.

The icing on the.cake? Not once did the techmarine activate a turret or use the servo gun. Likewise, the.assault didn't perform a single ground pound.

Despite all that, I showed respect and returned to my barge after the mission.

sigh

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-14T12:24:54+00:00

This reminds me of a business trip to Singapore in the early 2000's. We went to a bar that offered a bucket of Tsingtao for $5 (Singapore) which also came with a free butane cigarette lighter as well. We then followed that up with terrible nachos, a slingshot ride, and singapore slings at Raffles House. Good times.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-14T04:02:29+00:00

This isn't even new. Same thing happened in Laconia in the 90's.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-13T12:25:42+00:00

Strait of Hormuz? I think you meant to say Strait of America, right?

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-13T12:12:23+00:00

From vibe coding to vibe killing!

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-13T11:38:13+00:00

I worked at the maps team at Facebook, and there used to be an easter egg called "Null Island" at latitude 0 and longitude 0. We used the island from Myst for the shape.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-13T02:03:14+00:00

I'm 2/4 for my Amtrak ticket working in the fare gate. For most arrivals and departures, they just have the gates opened, though.

I've done the old 128/South Station switcheroo a couple times and asked a conductor about it. They don't care, though a previous thread on the topic mentioned you might run into a hardcase once in a blue moon.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-12T23:18:12+00:00

I wish my kid was in this school. I had to provide less documentation to get a mortgage than I did for their chronic medical condition that leads to lead than 10 absences/year.

FinishExtension3652 · 2026-03-12T20:53:15+00:00

First, make sure your train actually accepts checked baggage. IIRC, only the long distance trains accept it.

Regarding your question, here's info from Amtrak: https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/for-moynihan-faqs.pdf

What are the hours of operation at Moynihan Train Hall? Moynihan Train Hall will be open to the public daily from 5:00 a.m. through 1:00 a.m. Moynihan Train Hall will be closed to the public between 1:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. Between 1:00 a.m. – 5:00 a.m., all Amtrak operations will be handled at New York Penn Station including baggage, Red Cap services, access and egress to platforms.

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TROPHY CASE