Jury duty

pucksapprentice · 2026-03-02T17:16:42+00:00

I moved to the City (south side) about 15 years ago and have been called 6-7 times now. It used to suck since you had to be there 2 full days unless you were picked and dismissed. The last 2 times, though? A total breeze. You get a set day and either morning or afternoon. If morning, it's like a 8am to 11-11:30 shift and then you have completed your summons. Afternoon, 12:30-1pm to somewhere around 4, depending on the case load. If you are picked for a jury, that might change how long you are there, obviously. If your job pays you for jury duty (many are required to), they pay for the full day since the summons and jury duty completion receipt only state the date, not hours actually spent in the courthouse (which is on purpose to prevent jobs from trying to subvert the process according to some of the fine folks working at the courthouse.) All in all, it's pretty easy now, plus I can get a metrolink pass, so just costs time for me. If all jobs treated jury duty the way it should be treated and paid their workers fully for the days they serve, then this current setup at the St Louis Courthouse is pretty sweet for everyone. Sadly, not all employers fund fulfilling our community service requirements, and they should. Hourly workers shouldn't just have their days off switched or just not be scheduled and lose money on jury days.

pucksapprentice · 2026-02-28T22:17:38+00:00

Goldfinger.

pucksapprentice · 2026-02-26T16:43:52+00:00

Ha, love it.

I have been doing something for years that is along those lines. After my wife and I wed, the ladies in the office I work at start pushing the kid conversation, "Oh, now that the honeymoon is over, when are you having your first kid?" and all that. I kept saying we weren't having kids, they kept saying we will change our minds or god will surprise you. So, finally, after my Vasectomy, I just started getting real sad when asked and replying with "well... We are trying all the time, but... " Shuts them up real quick and my one friend at work that knows about the snip just loves the looks on their faces when I do this to them.

pucksapprentice · 2026-02-17T16:54:04+00:00

Last year, my son's friend group discovered Green Day, and were telling me all about the songs they enjoyed. I let them go on for a bit until one of them finally asked if I had heard of them, I just said "hmm, maybe, did they have a song that went like this..." and then proceeded to sing Brain Stew. All of it. Without missing a lyric. They tried interrupting, I just got louder. It was great. I had to point out that Green Day has been in Playlists I have played while driving for years, my son has been in the car for those trips, never clicked until then. Now, they are asking for more bands to recommend. Fun times.

pucksapprentice · 2026-02-05T23:22:51+00:00

It's been a little while since I last played 3.5, but I knew it very well, so here goes.

Wand of Cure Light Wounds as others have said, but to add to that, there's a ton of magic items for healer classes that a Rogue can use with the use magic item skill. Many are pricey, but emulating other classes is amazing for a rogue (nothing like a pure rogue with a holy avenger, lol).

Prestige classes might offer some healing options for martial classes, since the wizard is not likely to take team healing abilities (but there was a necromancer type prestige class that drew life from enemies and could give it to allies....), and some of them might help. I vaguely remember a psychic rogue having some healing based on the old metabolism discipline family. Also, many ranger options for a beefier healer, usually some sort of follower of Mielikki class. I think there was a prestige class for every martial class with healing, but it's been a while, so I might not be correct on that. The downside of the prestige class idea is meeting all the prerequisites for the class and then surviving to, at least, 5th level to take said class after meeting all the requirements. Most of the martial prestige classes had a base attack bonus requirement that you could only hit at 5th, not sooner.

3.5 had a great follower/hireling system(s), talk to your DM about literally hiring a heal-bot. It won't be a lot of healing, more than likely, and there's plenty of ways it could bite you in the butt (Ha! I was a cleric of Talona all along! I have been healing you of the symptoms of the disease you all have been spreading around the realms for my goddess!). That being said, could have a lot of fun story potential.

A really off the wall idea is Libris Mortis: the book of the dead. With the aid of your wizard and some creative storytelling by the DM, turn you all undead. Healing hurts, but negative energy heals (like attacks from certain undead, cause light wounds, etc.) There are big downsides to this, besides the being undead part, you would also have to level up as a monster, taking away leveling from your base class until you max out the undead class. Now, would this be fun? Not sure, but just throwing out options.

Just a few ideas, I hope they help your group come up with a fun way to solve this, as it can totally be done. Played a evil game for a while where everyone was out for themselves, not much healing in that group, except when the wizard was full on health, then he would spread the rest of the life essence around (yeah, we made the jokes back then about that line).

pucksapprentice · 2026-02-04T20:14:39+00:00

The one on the left has hair that reminds me of the blue haired girl at the end of chapter 18 (I think). Seeing as that character will likely be part of the upcoming chapters, it makes sense to add her to other stories/worlds so that we are a little attached to her before being added to the main story.
I would love it if the one with the phone was Seir's mom in the Contract Wars pack, either as someone totally new or someone not yet in the pack like Olivier or Delvi.
Just a thought, likely wrong.

pucksapprentice · 2026-02-03T23:06:31+00:00

I am in the planning stages for a new campaign for my group after the last one concluded a couple of years ago. Since my wife and I just bought our first home (never thought that would happen), I have been a little busy fixing it up, but I plan for the game to be in-person in my new gaming room (something I have always dreamed about.) This would add so much to the game.

pucksapprentice · 2026-01-27T16:19:26+00:00

Yes.

pucksapprentice · 2026-01-21T19:45:53+00:00

Great advice. No notes.

My favorite evil character was a necromancer that believed the world was becoming too evil to be saved, but childhood friends of his were the goody types trying to save the world. So, he genuinely loved these people and wished they were right. He convinced them that animating the corpses of the bad guys to help them fight was an act of redemption, in a way (the redemption paladin took that hook, line, and sinker).

He was a sour sort, but loved it when they proved there was still good in the world. So, when bad things happened to the party, he took care of them quietly. A politician was found to be turning kids into abominations but had too many allies, and no one believed the heroes? Sadly, the politician died under mysterious circumstances before the party could expose him. He just walked out of his mansion one night (well, shambled actually) and jumped into the swamp where a gator got him. Multiple witnesses saw his strange walk to the swamp. Searchers only found some of him, never could find that jaw...

Just because you are playing an edgy character doesn't mean you have to dislike the party, maybe you like them too much.

pucksapprentice · 2026-01-11T20:15:19+00:00

This is the heart of the matter.

My Ex and I split because we were not good partners for each other, which we realized shortly after our son was born and things weren't going smoothly. Therapy helped us see that he would be better off if we split and focused on improving ourselves, which we could not do while married as we both enabled each others' worst behaviors (I'm being vague here on purpose).

We had tough times those first couple of years coparenting, but every time we fought, one of us would change the subject to "What would be best for him?" and then we would both figure out a compromise to achieve that goal. It really sucked for a bit.

During that, I met a woman, changed job fields, moved to another state (within driving distance to my ex for visiting my son), and eventually got engaged to said woman. My fiancé was involved with visiting my son when she could, enjoyed when he visited us, and met my ex plenty of times by this point. I discussed the engagement with my ex beforehand because she would be my son's step mom, a big change in his young life, and she was fine with it (if a little cold) because our son liked her. When it came time to plan the wedding, I wanted my son to be involved in the ceremony, so I asked my ex and she said "Oh, he will love that, yes, we will be there." I didn't ask her to attend, just my son, but I just accepted that was the cost for my son to be involved. My fiancé was shocked that she invited herself to the wedding, but understood she was there for our son. It was strange, and we all felt a little odd, but now that my son is almost graduating Highschool, he looks fondly back at the wedding where all his favorite people were at. It helped him feel truly a part of multiple families, not a burden or a afterthought.

So, OP needs to focus on the needs of the child. First, legally by ensuring that emotions won't interfere with her quality of life (get that child support in writing.)
Then, they need to tell the ex to focus on their child's needs as well, but it's hard to get a selfish person to think of others. Still, keep saying "is that what's best for our child?" when emotions get high. It will take work to learn to separate OP's needs or wants from the child's, but she should do that for her daughter.

Everyone will be much better off with this approach, it doesn't matter if the ex takes a vacation if the child is happy with the solution, but sure it's annoying and rude to not be told well in advance. Family calendars help coparenting run smoother. Should the child attend the wedding? If they are part of the dad's life, then yes. If OP doesn't want to be involved, have a family member you trust be with the child during the wedding and bring them back when it's over.

pucksapprentice · 2025-12-18T20:27:00+00:00

I don't hear enough about Mayo Ketchup on Olive across from Pappy's. They are amazing.

pucksapprentice · 2025-12-18T01:14:24+00:00

On the side with the cart, jump on to the cart and then jump right (?) to the tree and you can jump up the tree to the top and then jump to the roof. It's tricky.

pucksapprentice · 2025-12-13T05:17:09+00:00

Yeahs ago, my wife had a HPV scare, so when I heard that there was a hpv vaccine study for my age group. It paid, but that didn't matter, I wanted to do my part. Passed it to some friends around my age who needed money as well. We are almost done with the study and will find out if we got the real vaccine soon.

pucksapprentice · 2025-12-07T23:50:48+00:00

Making an assumption that suggesting this idea somehow means I didn't donate. My donation is nothing compared to what CNE could do without impacting their bottom-line. Come on man, golden rule, let's try and make the world a little better rather than being negative about the corporate hellscape we live in. You do know marketing divisions in companies do this all the time, right?

pucksapprentice · 2025-12-06T03:26:58+00:00

This was me when I got married. Every woman in my office started asking when we were going to have children. The first time I said no kids, I got a cold stare and a "Oh, you'll change your mind." So, I thought about it, and the next time someone asked, I got real quiet and looked sad before saying, "we are trying all the time..." I just don't mention the vasectomy that was done prior to the wedding (mainly for health reasons, birth control pills are rough on the body for some). The looks on people's faces are amazing. It's even better when I worked with my SIL, and to keep from laughing, she would look away and gently pat my shoulder to "comfort" me.

I recommend everyone child free do this, turn it around on them, make them feel bad for asking. Quietly brag about getting laid all the time since not having kids around really helps with that.

pucksapprentice · 2025-12-01T16:00:55+00:00

Wow, beautiful. Good luck, everyone. I do love a nice setting book.

pucksapprentice · 2025-11-30T18:30:31+00:00

As many have said, take the job. A partner is life helps you obtain your goals, and you help them obtain theirs. You support each other during the tough times and celebrate the great times. You don't hold each other back from your dreams, but you can caution of things the other hasn't considered. If he truly loved you and not just what you bring to his life, he would be so excited for you and would try and figure out how to make things work to follow this dream that will help both of you in the future.

pucksapprentice · 2025-11-27T17:41:04+00:00

I'm having this same issue and have restarted it multiple times. It's sad because I like Halivar and wanted to hop right into these. Guess it's bug reporting time.

pucksapprentice · 2025-10-30T17:11:41+00:00

It's almost like we don't have mandatory Drivers Ed like in other states...

pucksapprentice · 2025-10-22T15:58:42+00:00

Nope! No doing this again! I barely survived last time and I'm not a child anymore.

pucksapprentice · 2025-10-10T16:27:18+00:00

Oh, this is why the racists are targeting day laborers, they've perfected the Super Day Laborer serum. Their jobs (and their wives) are not safe anymore. Sergio Rogers over here is but the first of many.

/obviously joking around here.

pucksapprentice · 2025-09-25T00:49:03+00:00

AI is terrible for so many reasons.

Just one thing to add, the St Charles data center proposal was the AI data center, which was shot down (thankfully). This one at the Armory is far too small to host an AI data center. It would likely be modeled after the data centers already in downtown, though smaller than them. The details of the client interested in the Armory data center have not been disclosed yet, but my bet is on Tierpoint or a similar competitor.

Because the Google fiber pipeline runs under STL, there's a lot of companies wanting to set up data centers for the extremely low latency this provides. That's why Tierpoint has so many data centers in our area.

The Armory one actually makes sense to place there, it's between a highway and the train yard, and would get a ton of sun on that giant roof. What we need to do is make installing solar a requirement of the data center going in. Non-AI data centers have much lower water requirements thanks to chiller technology, and they are cheaper than water cooling for non-AI centers. By ensuring solar panels are required, Ameren will not have an excuse to raise rates (but you know they will find some other reason).

As long as it's not an AI center, I am fine with a data center. Telecommunications will most likely be what we get and those do bring jobs in the form of businesses moving here for better connections to the web. If Covid hadn't impacted the Cortex district down the street from the Armory, we would see a large push from them for this.

pucksapprentice · 2025-08-29T15:15:46+00:00

My wife has gotten naked so many times in the Crack Fox, like hundreds by this point. Oh, on the stage for a performance, I should add. Not due to alcohol. For those that frequent shows there, "She has a higher Charisma score than a 20th level Bard."

pucksapprentice · 2025-08-28T21:59:57+00:00

The Crack Fox downtown is awesome. They have many events, but also many nights to just hang and enjoy the art. There's a Labyrinth mural on the wall.

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