Hi folks, looking for a mix or rational/value + perception here on a new car purchase.
I’d like to buy a new family car. We have one infant, two small dogs, and expect to drive around a couple of grandparents on occasion. We live in a big city and don’t put a ton of miles on the vehicle outside of occasional weekend trips.
I’d also like the car to be perceived well at work. Not that it has to be a flex, but something about our 2015 Subaru Forester just doesn’t say that I fit in with the other management members at work. My family is pretty hippie though, so Hummers aren’t an option (for example).
Since it is a family car safety does matter to me a great deal.
I’ve got some budget flexibility (up to $60k), but I’ll admit that I’m a little miserly. Anything cheaper is better, but I am looking for value + a decent perception.
Honestly, the cost parts that bother me are high maintenance, expensive insurance (we live in SoCal), fuel economy, etc. I recognize that I am even potentially irrational here willing to spend tens of thousands on a car, but ongoing costs really bug me from a budget standpoint.
No hard rush on purchase, so if there are ‘24 or ‘25 models I should wait for, I’d love to hear those too.
Thanks!

Hi folks!
I was wondering if anyone had recommendations for Western Washington or even upper Oregon.
We have a senior pup who has been backpacking before but we are looking at things under 7 miles round trip with not terrible gains. He can be dog reactive so backpacking has been nice for us to do vs a traditional campground
He has been to Indian Heaven Wilderness before (shudders in so many bugs). We would be looking at July so we wouldn’t be surprised by the bugs again haha. I’ve been looking at sheep lake near Tahoma and a couple others on all trails but any personal recs are very much appreciated :)

I used to frequent Kingscote Lake as a go-to spot for a one-two night trip. Nice. Quiet. We used to always rent our canoe from this nice little family-owned resort/campground that would deliver the canoe to the beach for you and were very reasonable with their prices.
Does anyone know what became of this resort? The website is gone. Was it taken over by Deep Roots Adventure? Not thrilled with the cost of a canoe for just one day through them.

Any recomendations? We love to swim in waterfalls and maybe jump a few feet off some rocks. Any good spots near the trails end for this? I know we can probably just jump in any lake up there and cool off, but I'm hoping to find a really awesome spot on a river or between lakes or something we could hang out at and jump in to cool off. Willing to hike, but not like 5 miles.
Thanks in advance!
Walleye, if you're willing to share your walleye spot...you're a bit crazy, but I like you. Share please.

https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/13u9t3m/my_father_always_kept_the_shed_locked_today_i/Part 1:
The darkness around us was oppressive, cloying and total. Anywhere we weren’t pointing our flashlights would turn into a solid wall of black, impenetrable shadows. But we could hear something. As we walked further down the hallway, we heard soft footsteps and giggling.
Sometimes, it sounded like it came from directly behind us. At other times, it would come from the rooms all around us, the endless rooms that split off the hallway on both sides. We found some strange things in those rooms as we walked slowly, the gun raised in my hand and the bowie knife raised in my brother’s.
There were corpses in some of the rooms. Many had partially mummified in the dry, chilly air down here. Others were clearly fresher. One woman was hanging from the rafters with a note pinned to her chest. I looked back at Gil when we reached this part of the hall. We had stayed out of the rooms since the incident with the little boy, but some deep innate curiosity needed to know what was on this note. Gil nodded at me, and we walked forward side by side, scanning every corner of the room and looking behind smashed-out fish tanks and torn sofas covered in black mold for any signs that we weren’t alone in here. Once we were both satisfied, we returned to the young woman hanging in the center of the room.
She had somehow climbed up to the ceiling, opened a panel and found a sturdy enough beam or rafter to tie the rope to. Yet there was no ladder or anything remotely tall enough to reach the ceiling nearby. It was somewhat of a mystery. I explained this to Gil, who looked somewhat confused- and alarmed. He clearly hadn’t realized it until I pointed it out to him.
I turned back to the woman’s corpse, picking off the note, which had been stuck into the front of her blouse with a huge wooden splinter. Gil kept a look-out while I read, shining his light back and forth in a circle across the room, holding his ridiculously huge knife in the other hand like some sort of medieval swordsman. I saw with increasing horror that the note appeared to have been written in the woman’s own blood. Looking at her body, I saw a deep slash on her left arm, one that had clotted days ago. I looked back down at the desperate message this dying woman had left for us.
“To anyone who finds this,
“My name is Michaela Mansfield. I came in here by accident through the sewers underneath the town of Caplin. My two friends and I went exploring and got separated after a girl in our group twisted her ankle. I went forward alone to find help while my other friend stayed behind with the injured girl. After perhaps a day of being lost, my flashlight started to die, and I thought I was going to die with it. And then I saw fluorescent lights up ahead. They were flickering and looked like they might sputter out at any moment, but it was the only hope I had. I followed the lights and found myself in this hallway. When I tried to turn around and go back, the entrance to the sewers had disappeared. It was just a hallway that seemed to extend forever, the one that has haunted me for weeks now.
“Please, if you find this note, tell my parents what happened to me. Take my golden locket and return it to my mother and father as proof. I hope you have better luck getting out of here than I did.
“Goodbye, and may God forgive me for what I’m about to do.
“-Michaela.”
I looked up at Gil, with one eyebrow raised. I saw he had been reading the note over my shoulder rather than keeping a look-out. I sighed, deciding not to say anything.
“We can’t take the locket,” I said. Gil shook his head.
“We have to take the locket,” he said.
“They’re going to think we had something to do with this girl’s death if we just show up randomly with a piece of her jewelry. Actually, I think I remember when this girl and her friends went missing. It was on the news. Her parents were pleading for anyone with information to come forward. I think the cops were acting on the suspicion that it was murder or kidnapping or something. But they probably just went exploring without telling anyone and never came back.”
“We’ll wipe it down and send it anonymously through the mail with a note explaining what happened,” he said. I sighed, giving up. He was right. It was the right thing to do. But I’m sure many innocent men have gone to prison over trying to do the right thing. I pointed to the note.
“This doesn’t help us at all,” I said. He shrugged.
“Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t. It doesn’t really help us formulate a plan, but it does give us information. For example, now we know that this place probably connects to a lot more places than the shed. We might be able to get out through dozens or hundreds of exits. If it connects to a random sewer over in Caplin, then it could connect to places all over the county.”
“True,” I said, “but what if it connects to some alien world? Or to a black hole? What if it connects to some point in the void between galaxies and we get sucked out to our deaths?” He simply shrugged again, seeming apathetic to these possibilities.
“Well, in that case,” he said smugly, a half-smile forming on his lips, “our deaths would probably be a lot quicker than they would at the hands of these creatures down here.” Then he started laughing. It sounded eerie in this dark, forlorn place, where everything smelled like yeast and the floors were all wet substrates growing strange jungles of alien molds. He reached forward and took the golden locket off of the woman’s neck, placing it carefully in his pocket. We started walking out of the room together.
“Also,” I said, “the note seems to imply that the entrances are temporary. She couldn’t find her way back out after she got in here. What if they’re all like that? What if they’re like… I don’t know, lobster traps, or Venus fly traps, or something? They draw people in here, and then once they’re inside…” I stopped speaking as soon as I realized I heard someone following us.
I heard running footsteps. A high-pitched giggling started, then was cut off. We both stood there in the darkness, our flashlights pointing forward. Then the voice of that demonic little girl started up, high-pitched and somewhat inhuman-sounding. Her words all had a strange hoarseness to them, an uncanny valley sound as if she were only imitating human emotions and human speech.
“Adam’s ‘It’, but he won’t play,” she said sulkily, her voice bouncing off the walls, the rapid beat of the footsteps approaching nearer and nearer. “He says his throat hurts. So I guess I’m ‘It’! You better run!”
“God dammit,” Gil said, swinging his giant knife around from side to side as if he were going to bat a mosquito with it. His light flashed and wavered as he tried to keep a watch on all sides. But I knew she was coming from behind us. I could feel it. I kept my light shining down there, the gun raised, trying to emanate a calm I didn’t feel. Then I saw a flash of blue, zigzagging crazily past a chair leg and the snapped remains of a folding table, tiny legs pumping at a superhuman speed. She looked like little more than an approaching blur.
“Listen to me very carefully,” I said, trying to keep my gun pointed on her. “We need to cut off her head.”
“What?!” Gil said. “Why?”
“Last time, bullets didn’t work on…” I began, but then she was on us, no more than a few feet away, jumping over the discarded junk that intermittently appeared on the sides of the hallway. And then I felt myself knocked over by a tremendous force that took the air right out of my lungs.
I still had my hands crossed in front of me, one holding the gun and the other the flashlight. The skeletal face of the creature was mere inches away from my own, biting and gnashing madly. I could see small muscles in the back of her mouth working furiously. She was pushing down on my arms with all of her strength, which was far more than such a small body seemed to suggest.
The gun was pressed closely to the front of her chest. I was about to pull the trigger when I felt the weight start to lift off of me. I saw Gil behind her, wrapping his arm around her neck and pulling her back. She still gnashed and bit in a mad frenzy, small droplets of blood and saliva dripping off her mouth and into my face. She kicked her body back and forth like an enraged snake, freeing her neck from Gil’s grasp. He went to grab her, and her skeletal face opened up wide, the jaw hanging halfway down her neck.
With the speed of a cat snatching a mouse, she leapt forward, snapping her jaw around some of the fingers on Gil’s left hand. I saw his index and middle finger disappear into her mouth, and he began to scream in agony.
I was scrambling back to my feet by this point. I ran at the girl, using all of my body weight to push her. She went tumbling on the floor, her mouth flying open as she landed hard on the wood. Two mutilated fingers flew out, rolling across the floor and disappearing into a dome of black mold. I was sweating heavily now, drops of perspiration rolling down my forehead and stinging my eyes. I tried to wipe them away, thinking of what to do. My mind screamed at me to shoot, to empty my entire magazine into this little monster, but I knew in my heart that it would just be wasting bullets. Deep down, I knew what I had told Gil earlier was true- we had to cut off her head. Just like in the old myths of vampires or demons, I had a deep instinctual feeling that fire or decapitation would be the only way to deal with her, and as for fire, we had no flamethrowers.
“Gil!” I said. “Get ready!” He was holding his spurting hand tightly against his chest, still grasping the bowie knife in his right. His face was alarmingly pale and white, and I wondered if he might not just pass out right here and doom both of us. But he hadn’t dropped the knife, even while fighting the writhing monster, even while getting his fingers bitten off. He is stronger than he looks, I reassured myself.
A sense of calm and clarity overcame me then, and I saw what I needed to do. The demonic girl was getting up, growling and spitting and laughing. I ran over and stomped on her back, putting my full weight on her body to drive her back down. Then I took the pistol and shot her through the back of the kneecaps, one bullet for each.
She wailed as dark red blood poured out of her small legs, turning her head almost all the way back to try and bite me. Her hands were changing, the small fingers lengthening and darkening into sharp, black claws, and I knew our time was running out.
“Now!” I yelled, and Gil ran forward, using his right hand to swing the bowie knife. I watched it fall in a descending arc, as if in slow motion, watched it approach the spitting skeletal face that looked at us with black eyes and unfathomable hatred. It went clean through, and was so sharp that for a split second, the head stayed there, the face blank, looking like it was still attached to the body. Then it tumbled forward, dark blood spurting out of the neck and staining the white and gold molds underneath with its crimson hue.
Gil fell back against the wall, breathing fast. He dropped the bowie knife on the floor. I saw his flashlight, still on, had rolled against an ancient wheelchair that was probably new back in the 1960s. I stopped and grabbed it, shoving it in my pants belt so it would give me more light to work with. Gil still had his hand clasped to his chest. Slowly, I put my hands forward and grasped his injured hand by the wrist. He inhaled deeply, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes.
“We’re going to need to wrap it in something,” I said. He nodded. I took off my shirt and started ripping long slices from the bottom, then wrapping them around his hand tightly in an attempt to slow the bleeding. When I got to the fingers, he flinched and seemed to waver on his feet. I reached a hand out in case he was about to fall over, but he managed to steady himself. “All done,” I told him as I put my shirt back on, which was missing the bottom third portion now and looked rather absurd, almost as if I was wearing a woman’s crop top.
“It feels like my hand’s on fire,” Gil said in a hoarse whisper. “We’re going to need water, too.” I was feeling the start of dehydration pangs myself.
“That girl, Michaela, her note said she was stuck in here for weeks. That must mean there’s water. Assuming her counting was correct, seeing as there’s no sun or sky to go by. If there was no water, she would have died after a few days, especially being on the move,” I said. I was hoping that we would find food as well, but it wasn’t really life or death. I knew that we could potentially go weeks without food and still live, even though it would feel extremely unpleasant and weaken us physically. I sighed, shining my flashlight at Gil.
“Ready to keep going?” I asked, and then the lights started turning back on. Most of them were still either out or flickering on and off rapidly, but enough of them were lit to see down the hall.
“Oh, thank God,” Gil said. “At least now we’re not walking through this junkyard in the fucking dark.” Up ahead, I saw something new as well. It looked like the hallway forked off. I pointed at it, and Gil’s eyes widened. “Finally, after walking for endless miles, this place does something!” As we neared it, I saw there was even a sign. One pointed left, reading, “To Veriden”. The other pointed right, reading, “To Rusty Township”.
“Hmm…” I said, “I’ve never heard of either of those places. They’re definitely not in the county.” Gil’s dark brown eyes looked past me, into the room behind us, and they widened. I reached for the pistol, turning quickly, but I found nothing but a mostly empty, half-lit room. Against the corner was a vending machine and a soda machine.
“Oh thank God!” I said, running forward, reaching in my pocket for some money. Then I remembered I had left my wallet at home. After all, I thought we were just going into the shed. Gil strode right past me.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said, taking the butt of his bowie knife and smashing the glass of the vending machine. “You don’t need money. Who’s going to call the cops, the walking undead and demons here?” He pulled out brands I had never heard of: Overholser’s Beef Jerky, chocolate bars with caramel and peanuts called Eisenhearts, Took’s salt-water taffy and Riza’s fruit snacks. The other vending machine was no less alien, as I smashed it with the butt of the gun and found Springy’s Lemon-Lime Soda, Kanna-brand cola and Saint Kristoff’s Ginger Ale, among others. Not one of the brands was recognizable from our world.
We tore into the food with ravenous hunger, chugging bottle after bottle of soda. It all tasted similar enough to what we expected, though some of it was rather strange. The ginger ale, for example, had small silver shavings on the bottom of each bottle, their trademark gimmick, and Gil swallowed them and nearly ended up choking. I smacked his back hard, laughing.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to drink those,” I said sarcastically. We were filling up our pockets when the drumming started from down the hall. It was so sudden and loud in the otherwise perfect silence that I jumped nearly a foot, spinning around and taking out the gun. It was becoming second-nature to me by this point, and so much adrenaline was constantly pounding through my body that I was as jumpy as a cat.
The drumming grew louder and fast. It reminded me of the drums some ancient Aztecs must have used when cutting out the hearts of prisoners of war. It had a deep, primal beat to it that would be useful for stirring people up during acts of savagery and violence. It was coming from the direction labeled “Rusty Township”. I could barely hear myself think over the intensity of the drum beats. I tried to motion to Gil that I would go first since I had the gun but that he should stay right behind me, but he looked like he was just smiling and nodding and likely hadn’t understood a bit of what I was trying to communicate. Sighing, I started forward down the corridor.
I peaked my head around the next corner, where a doorway opened up into a huge gymnasium. The ceiling towered over me. I saw dirty, disheveled people standing in a semi-circle around a metal coffin that was stood up on one end against the back wall. Blood was pouring out the bottom, following a river of clotted gore that stretched across the gymnasium and curved off to the right corner. The people surrounding the metal coffin were laughing, clapping their hands and cheering, stomping their feet in time with the beats. I saw scurvy blossoms and festering sores across their faces and exposed skin. And, for the first time since we had gotten lost down here, there were windows around the edge of this massive chamber, windows showing the outside world. I ran over, looking out.
I saw a city on fire, the buildings burning and sending up thick, black plumes of smoke. It reminded me of what Berlin at the end of World War II must have looked like. Fronts of houses had collapsed inwards, the streets were cracked and filled with debris and I saw bodies hanging from lampposts up and down the street. Many of them were so old that the ropes were starting to fray. Some of the bodies had started to mummify, with thin, papery skin clinging tightly to desiccated muscles and hanging jaws.
Around the corners of houses and alleyways, I caught glimpses of strange shapes: crouching half-animal, half-human beings who carried sledgehammers and long knives, robed figures who seemed to float over the devastated and cracked ground, and children with red skin who I saw crawling up walls on all fours like geckos.
The drums stopped as suddenly as they had started. My ears were still ringing. I turned back to the semi-circle of sickly, dirty people. They had stopped their clapping and dancing and cheering, and now just stood like statues, staring at Gil and me with flat, dead eyes.
“You shouldn’t stare into the Township,” a thin woman with filthy black hair said. A strange accent crept into her words, one that I had never heard before. “Strange things live in there, and they come out when the drums stop.” She stepped forward, whispering. “We keep them away by giving a sacrifice every time the drumbeats come. The blood satisfies the ones in the city and the others in the halls. We will all have our turn in the coffin, sure enough.”
Another member of their group stepped forward and opened up the metal coffin. I saw long, thin spikes sliding out of a body, and then a pale form fell out, landing on the dirty floor with a wet smacking sound. The smell of coppery blood in the air was now overwhelming. Gil and I both gasped in unison as we saw this form on the floor was a person, a young woman in fact, almost totally drained of blood. Dozens of puncture marks were sliced into her face, neck, stomach, legs and arms. An expression of pain and horror was frozen onto her dead face, her wide, staring eyes looking up at the ceiling.
“You killed her!” Gil said, aghast, still clutching his mutilated hand close to his body in an unconscious gesture of his anxiety and fear. “Why? Why would you put someone from your own group in an iron maiden?”
“Iron maiden?” the woman with the black hair in front responded. “Aye, that’s as good a name for it as any. We call her the steel mistress in my world, in my time, and the steel mistress sees a lot of use…” She gestured out the window, her face emotionless. “You see my world, after all. It is a place that always reeks of death, and more often than not, reeks of fire too.”
“What part of the United States is this?” Gil asked, gesturing out the window. The woman frowned.
“I do not know these ‘United States’,” she said, shrugging.
“What country are you from?” he asked.
“Why, Victoriat, of course. But Victoriat only has three states. Rusty Township was the capitol, until ‘twas attacked by the Black Hand Allegiance soldiers. We’re all refugees from Rusty here,” she said sadly.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I said to Gil under my breath. He nodded, sighing.
“Can you tell us how to get back to the stone steps? Big, circular stone steps that go around and around?” Gil asked the woman in one last attempt to get a sensical answer out of her. She nodded her grimy face.
“Aye, in the center of the Undergraves,” she said, pointing past the iron maiden and the dead body on the ground. I realized that there was a sign up on the ceiling in front of the next corridor, one pointing left and saying, “To Rusty Township center” and one pointing right and saying, “To the Undergraves”. The sign was so covered in dust and specks of black mold that it was no wonder I hadn’t seen it.
“Do you have any maps of this place?” I asked the dirty woman and her friends. They all shook their heads.
“There are no maps of the Undergraves, but the stairs be at the center. You just take a right here and follow the path straight. Ignore all forks to the right or left, just keep following it straight…” We were walking away fast now, trying to leave these lunatics behind. “But you’d be mad to go there now after the drums just stopped!” Her voice was fading rapidly as Gil and I ran forward.
“Those people were fucking nuts,” Gil said. “Killing each other just because they think the blood keeps away demons.”
“Brother,” I said through heavy breaths, “if you and I lived down here for a few months, we would be just as crazy as those people.”
As we jogged into the Undergraves, I realized the walls were turning into something organic and pulsating, like being in some huge intestine. Massive forks to the left and right appeared every few hundred feet. From them, dark shapes appeared, stepping forward. They moved shakily, blurring as they stepped to the right or left randomly, their mouths opened wide and seeming to be filled with blackness. Their eyes looked like pure black sockets, and the rest of their body was no more than a shaky silhouette of shadows. When the first few stepped forward, I didn’t know what to do.
I gingerly raised the gun, deciding better safe than sorry. They were coming at me fast, jerking randomly, their skin seeming to writhe and shiver as I stared at it. As they got within ten feet of me, a deep burning heat started to fill my body, as if I were standing in front of an oven. I started shooting, one bullet for each of their center mass, and they dissipated into smoke. I watched the black stuff curl back into the red, pulsating room they had just come out of. The sense of heat dissipated instantly, but my skin still felt warm and strange.
We were running through the Undergraves now. Miles of slick gore covering the floors, strange tissues growing across the rooms and tumor-like sacs covering the fluorescent lights, which even here flickered endlessly across the ceiling.
In many of the rooms, I saw people strung upside down from the ceiling, their ribs sliced open. Strange, hunched figures sliced the meat into strips, preparing it and drying it. One of them looked at me with its pig-like face, its bovine legs walking across the sticky floor, slowly and uncertainly at first, and then running for me. I was running low on ammunition by this point. Gil came from behind and disemboweled the creature as it raised its butcher’s knife. It had been so focused on me that it hadn’t noticed him jogging up with his blood-stained bowie knife in one hand.
“I can’t run much longer,” Gil said, panting. I nodded wearily. Neither could I. “My hand is still on fire, too. I really should have gotten medical attention, like, twelve hours ago…”
Part of me wondered if the stairs were even here, or if we had been lied to, sent into the worst part of this strange hall to become sacrifices to these abominations. We had, after all, put our lives in the hands of a band of lunatics.
But at this point, we had nowhere else to go but forwards.

New here, so apologies for the donkey brain…
I live near an entrance to the Buckeye Trail so I’ve been exploring it gradually. But trying to read the maps, it seems at times it joins a regular road with no sidewalk or bike path. Is this accurate? I understand not every mile can remain off the beaten path but it seems odd for big chunks to be on roads with 45-55mph speed limits.
For reference I’m near the Greenway Corridor in Lake County which connects north towards Headlands Beach and south towards Girdled Rd Reservation

A few days ago I got an engine overheating warning on the instrument cluster. I went to a local mechanic who said nothing was wrong and it must have been an erroneous message. No problems since then.
Yesterday I filled up my gas tank and ten min later on the freeway noticed it said my range was like 30 miles and the gauge was nearly empty. I was sure I'd filled it up.
Gradually, throughout the day, the gas gauge went up to full and the mileage range went up to full too. But it was very gradual. Like an hour later it went up to halfway and a few hours later got up to full.
Weird.
Anyone had issues like this?
It's a 2021 SXP.

I’m a plumber. A damn good one, too. New construction? I’ve done it, residential, high rise, and industrial. Service plumbing? Damn fine service plumber when I have to be, Funny business you see in dirty movies? Fuck no. I worship my job, but I hate most customers so I try not to do service. Renovation? Yes, I can fit ten pounds of shit in someone else’s five pound sack.
If my grandchildren’s grandchildren want jobs in the pipe trades, the jobs will be there. If you want me to lay a fat pipe in your death star, that’d be ten fat republic g’s. Mars rockets have pipes in them, Starships will have miles of pipes in them, shit you seen in alien covenant has pipes in them,maybe your mom if she she’s pretty enough, and if robots get to the point where they can troubleshoot well enough to do my job, they’ll go skynet and kill us all anyway. I’m a plumber, ain’t no ding dong gpt taking jobs from me.

The Meeting With the Contact
In one of Unity’s darker and less maintained districts, several miles down an unassuming maintenance tunnel, Aster knocked on a rusty steel hatch. The moment her knuckles finished rapping on the metal door hidden mechanisms squeaked as an internal bolt was undone and the door swung open. She heard the soft ween of servos as they struggled against the bulk of the door.
Without a moment of hesitation Astarte strode through the door knowing full well that the dark corners of the room could have held a waiting ambush. It did not do to show any fear when dealing with the mysterious shadow league. She had heard from Greyson how the contacts valued confidence above everything else. She wasn’t sure why, but had followed the advice anyway.
The contacts never worked through proxies. They had no known dead drops. And were notorious for handling everything in person.
It was a strange practice since logic dictated that information brokers as influential as the Shadow league should act with much more caution. But that same flaunting disregard for common convention was the trait that unnerved Astarte the most.
It unnerved her because it proved that the powerful brokers had nothing to fear.
Maybe it was arrogance, but her instincts said otherwise.
The door closed behind her, the harsh clunk telling her that she was now locked in. Soft lights in the room flicked of a slowly grew brighter to a level comfortable to human eyes. Aster’s cybernetic eye went red and flickered through several different spectrums of light as it scanned the room.
“An interesting piece of hardware.” A soft murmuring voice said from behind the desk in the center.
Astarte momentarily ignored the voice as she finished her scan. Her eye picked out only a single camera behind a fake patch of wall that looked completely normal from the outside. She focused on the camera, telling the rooms only other occupant that she was fully aware of the device.
Her scan complete she turned her head to focus of the short fuchsia froglike person within a bubble-like excursion suit. No word in the Union’s common tongue, or her own could pronounce the name of the person before her. Instead the Union had simply labeled them as Toxoid amphibians. A rather cold, but concise name.
There were many defense mechanisms used by prey species to ward off predators. Some opted to be big, strong, and move in large herds like the Trikes. Some just flew away. Others hid. But very few instead went for the survival strategy of being very visible and toxic as hell.
The creature before Astarte was one of only three Toxoid species in the Union. While safe to members of their own species, their skin could instantly paralyzed and kill any non-deathworld species on Femeri. And if Astarte had touched that bright purple skin she would be instantly floored with the worst pain imaginable. Not dead, but really wishing she was.
The Union definition of Toxoid was any highly toxic species, regardless of the atmospheric conditions. Though this particular species did in fact come from a world with high methane and ammonia content, less then Venus, but still deadly to Terrans. The only reason they weren’t classified as deathworlders was because the low gravity and gentle nature of their star made the claim seem a little absurd compared to your average Deathworlder.
The Toxoid met her gaze and held it without fear. Knowing that Astarte wouldn’t/couldn’t do anything to harm them. There face was pulled into a constant smile. Though this was a factor of their facial structure and not any sort of actual pleasure. This, matched with their small colorful appearance gave off the vibes of something small and harmless. An instinct she would have to actively suppress.
“Surprising, most of your kind are overwhelmed with nurturing instincts upon first seeing me. Especially females of your age.” The creature commented. The internal translator of her suit taking the creature’s hypersonic humming and giving it a squeaky, almost cartoonish, tone in galactic common.
“I’ve encountered your kind before, and the pain I felt that day from just one touch is enough to wipe away any cute impressions.”
The creature made a sounding like birds chirping “So its true, humans really can touch us without dying?”
Astarte grimaced at the memory “Yeah, but I sure wished I was dead. Only touched them with my hand, but in seconds my whole body was wracked with the worst pain my nerves could conjure. Couldn’t black out either.”
The Contact looked amused “And yet you survived.” They said pointedly. “We are in our own ways more dangerous than deathworlders. Even the Kruhur leave our few ships alone. As do most pirates. So why would you attack that particular merchant ship six of your Terran years ago?”
Aster wasn’t surprised by their knowledge, the sources of the shadow league stretched far and wide. “They had something I wanted, so I took it.”
The big eyelids of the Toxoid closed slowly. “Yes, weapons grade plutonium. I heard you made good use of it. Such inventive weapons too. Most think fusion weapons are pointless in space compared to pulse cannons and conventional missiles. Leave it to a human to find a way to make good use of an underutilized weapon.”
Astarte kept her face placid, but on the inside she was roiling at the knowledge that the Shadow League knew about the shield breaker cannon.
“You needn’t worry” the Contact continued “the Union doesn’t know, and even if we stole the plans we would be troubled to find crews with the nerve to detonate a super critical mass of plutonium within their own ship. My kind are quite cowardly compared to your people.”
“Fools rush in where angles fear to tread.” Astarte remarked absently. Downplaying their achievements.
The Toxoid leaned forward “and yet those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.”
This time Astarte couldn’t hide her surprise. “Kennedy? Really?”
More bird chirps “Yes, I am quite amused by human history and the words of your past leaders. Your people strove for the stars long before they had the proper technology to reach them like every other species, on a high gravity world no less. And despite these hurdles you made it to your moon in record time, had stable colonies on a barren world like Mars, and launched one of the most interesting if a bit crude ships. A ship you recently purchased. Had you not met the Union so soon then I believe your people would have continued to shock the galaxy. In some ways your people were cut short, and yet in other ways they were given the opportunity to leap into the future. You are most intriguing, and it would be folly to not keep an eye on you. The Union believes your people to be on the decline, soon to be no longer a threat to their might. I am of a different opinion.”
It was surprising to meet a person who had her completely figured out. From just the subtext Astarte was sure this contact knew all her plans and secrets, or had at least a few very good guesses. And seemed to want to help her out.
Astarte gave the Contact a shrewd glare. “What are you playing at?”
Their heavy eyelids dropped into a lazy half blink before opening back up. She thought the gesture was either one of annoyance or amusement. “A favor, given to the right person, can pay dividends in the future.”
“And what kind of returns are you looking for?”
Another half blink. It probably meant amusement. “That isn’t for me to say. You’ve had a very positive relationship with our agents in Femeri, or Orion as you Terrans call it. it is the League desire to continue nourishing that relationship.”
Suspicious, but one didn’t deal with the galaxy’s most powerful info brokers without some ominous undertones. “Then I take it you know why I’m here.”
Another long blink, this time fully closing their lids. “Yes.”
“Can you tell us where it is?”
“No. Amaterasu was thorough in covering their trail. I can only say that its still on Unity.”
Fuck. Why can’t things ever be easy? “Can you narrow down our search?” Astarte asked changing directions.
“Yes. Property info, delivery schedules, informant reports. And much more. It’ll take time to narrow things down.”
“I’m not short on manpower. Or patience.”
“Good. Now there is just the matter of the price.”
“I get the sinking feeling that you’re not talking credits.” Astarte stated dryly.
“An accurate feeling.” The Contact retorted. “We are an organization of information brokers and middle men, but even we need our own middle men. We cast a wide net to pull in much, but sometimes our needs require a more direct approach.”
“Spies?” Astarte guessed.
“Yes, or simple muscle to get what we need. Lately that muscle has been disappearing, I’m sure you noticed the aggressive way the Station Security treats your kind.”
“Yeah, the charges they tried to stick my men with were downright asinine, never would have stuck.”
Another long blink. “Yes, but the Union doesn’t need to make them stick. You more than most should know that the Union will imprison individuals on suspect of a crime before an investigation can be done to assure innocence.”
Astarte almost heard a click in her head as she connected the dots. The charges had seemed absurd and unfounded, and she had wondered why they bothered. But the Union could, in cases of an extreme crime, arrest and imprison without a trial or evidence. It was one of the major ways the Unions legal system differed from the local laws of the Sol system.
Guilty until proven innocent. It was the precedent that had gotten her mother imprisoned when Aster was four. While they had arrested a terrorist responsible for thousands of deaths and billions in property damage, they didn’t actually have the evidence. And once the lack of evidence had been undeniably proven in a court room Lucile’s sentence was ended and her record expunged of the black mark after spending ten months in the prison on Parox.
Asters throat was tight “How many have been…”
“Thousands. Tens of thousands. I would like to give you a better number, but someone has done a remarkable job at obfuscating that information. People are arrested on petty misdemeanors, if any, and then prosecutors from the central office apply some grander crime. They’re taken to a holding facility, where they stay for a short time before a ship comes to take them to parts unknown.”
“And no one’s done anything about this?”
“Oh, no. There were plenty of riots. But shouting, screaming Deathworlders committing acts of arson and clashing Station Security did little to sway the public. And after the ADCU was born things got even worse for the Terrans.”
“Motherfuckers” Astarte growled through her teeth. She didn’t know where all those people went, but everything so far pointed to some sort of genocide. Unity was purging itself of its Deathworlder nuisance.
“Yes, as effective as the ADCU has been at rooting out actual criminal organizations they have also been a highly effective at smother discontent.”
“And what do you want me to do about it.”
Their head tilted to the side. “You already have an in road with one of their top Officers, one who is the personal protégé of Chief Gin.”
“Do you want me to see where they’re taking people, or figure out why?”
“Both if possible. This has all the odious whiffs of politics, and the League needs to know why the Union is making such bold moves. Any and all information you dig up will be appreciated.”
Astarte drummed her fingers on the desk as she worked through the problems. Something dangerous was happening in the heart of the Union. Something that threatened her own plans. She had idly wondered why Amaterasu had been so bold in making their terraforming equipment disappear, why openly slaughter an entire office of insurance investigators? But now she saw it was par for the course her, and she was only now noticing the rot.
The contacts request was also in her own best interest. She needed to know where this all led.
But you never took the first offer. That was just good business. “It seems to me that our own investigations might help you in yours. I don’t see why we can’t do both at once.”
Another long blink. “You won’t be overextending yourself?”
Aster scoffed “of course not.”
The amphibian’s permanent smile became a little wider, “good. Its always a pleasure working with a professional.”
The contact then reached under their desk to retrieve a small flash drive, preloaded with all the info Aster needed.
“Just a heads up” Aster said as she retrieved the flash drive. “Our plans usually end in chaos and bloodshed.”
“Oh, I know. I’m looking forward to it.” the contact said with a self-amused giggle like gurgling water.
Their business concluded Astarte stood to leave. But the door she entered through didn’t unlock itself. Instead a hidden panel Astarte hadn’t noticed during her scan slid open and revealed a hidden stairway.
Astarte blinked in surprise before shaking her head. never underestimate the Shadow League.
She walked through the door, and ascended several flight of stairs until she exited into the reception room of a small law firm. The Drohodron attendant nodded their furry rabbit like head and gestured towards the exit.
The ride home was mostly uneventful. A group of SS tried to tail her, but some speed walking and a sudden turn down an alley was all it took to shake them.
She left the tram station and entered the industrial district where her ship was moored. She had been so relaxed on her walk back that she even began to whistle a jaunty little tune. She almost mixed the gentle thump behind and slight rush of wind as a blade swept from behind her, nearly taking her head off.
She had only an instant to lean forward to avoid the strike. With the strike barely avoided she took one step forward before drawing Tenken in swinging overhead chop.
Two green tinted blades strapped to her attackers wrists rose into a crossed guard to catch her sword the two of them struggled against each other’s strength. Aster was surprised at the strength the assassin possessed.
They struggled for a few seconds before breaking apart just as swiftly as they had met.
They both took several steps back and began to size each other up.
The assassin was short, standing at maybe 160cm. Their tight-fitting clothes marked the assassin as both human and female. Two curved blades were attached to the assassins wrists, looking like the curved pincers of a praying mantis, which matched the mantis-like mask she wore.
The assassin despite her failed sneak attack, and their inconclusive clash, had the gall to look smug. “Glad to see you haven’t grown weak in our time apart, Daisey.” The assassin gurgled through a heavy voice filter.
Previous/Patreon/Next

I need advice on selection of a job. I am fresh graduate with masters degree and I have software engineer job offer from ford and a startup from Salt Lake City.
I love going to office and love hybrid environment where i can choose whether to go or not by my own.
The job in ford is in Dearborn Michigan which is 9 miles from Detroit MI.
Since I am an international and my OPT start on couple of weeks, I need to decide asap so that i can plan moving new place depending on what job i am taking.
I have heard bad things about Detroit and Dearborn Michigan. I have heard that it's not safe there.
I believe salt lake city is more safer than Detroit/Dearborn.
Salary wise Ford is paying around 20k more than startup and job is very similar.
I thought that working on Ford than a startup might give me a good boost and having a mentor in Ford might give me better growth compare to startup.
But safety and people saying live in safe place is kind of not giving me good vibe.
Any suggestion please !!

I just hiked the Smith Peak trail beginning on 5/27 until 5/29.
Day 1 - 15mi distance, 5600ft elevation gain The first 7 miles of the Smith Peak trail, up until Smith Peak itself, was well marked. Smith Meadows was swampy, requiring a bit of finesse to dodge the muddy water. After the meadows we entered a forest that was obviously burned years ago. We followed a stream with plenty of fresh water that we could drink. We entered another swampy region right before approaching Smith Peak itself.
After Smith Peak, the trail continuing to Harden Lake becomes overgrown, wet, and almost invisible going uphill. The brush and the perspective of looking from low to high ground made it almost impossible to see any signs of trail without GPS. From miles 7-15, we were entirely off-trail, basically cross-country hiking. It was a grind.
The grind only got more sufferable - once we got to the 7000ft mark, snow became an issue*. Around 7500ft, the snow was 4-7ft deep. The snow was hard packed and icy so was traversable with regular shoes, but I would recommend snow shoes. Crampons wouldn't help much but would be better than nothing.
We could not quite make it to Harden Lake. The snow was too heavy and we could not keep a fast enough pace to make it before sundown. We found a patch of flat, dry ground surrounded by a wall of snow and made camp. I was getting worried. Temps were dropping, my shoes were wet, and all I could see around me was snow. I scrapped together some damp wood and managed to make a fire. At this point I knew we would be fine.
Day 2 - 8mi distance, 300ft elevation gain I woke up to a great view of Rancheria Falls across the valley. Made some coffee and we were on our way. We decided to head the way back that we came, but would break it up into 2 days. We first had to get up a 300ft climb of snow. We had to be careful in some parts because the snow melt creates hollow sections under what looks like 7ft of snow. Step in the wrong place and you can fall through.
The trail was way easier to spot heading downhill. We made great time back to Smith Peak. Took maybe 4 hours. The trails, even though easier to spot, were very overgrown.
We stopped a half mile before Smith Peak. You'll know you're in the right place if you see a patch of flat dry ground with no trees and a creek alongside it. Some fallen trees on the perimeter made for perfect firewood. I made a fire ring there with some granite. The perfect campsite as far as I'm concerned.
Day 3 - 7mi distance, 0ft elevation gain From our camp site, it was all downhill from here. Getting back to the dam only took us 3 hours. I saw more people on this day than I saw the first 2 days combined. In fact, I had only seen 2 people near Smith Peak the days before. I don't think anyone besides me and my partner went beyond Smith Peak. It's treacherous and cross-country in the wilderness beyond.
​
*I've heard reports that the snow line is 6500ft. Based on my experience, it is more like 7000ft now.

I prefer PayPal F&F but also accept Venmo, Cash App, Google Pay, Zelle and Amazon GC.
Where applicable, titles are split. MA = Movies Anywhere, GP = Google Play
​
May Universal Reward Titles (MA) - $3 Each **Only available prior to June rollover**

• 12 Monkeys 4K
• Assault On Precinct 13 (2005)
• The Black Dahlia (2006)
• Being John Malkovich
• Fifty Shades of Grey (Theatrical or Unrated) 4K
• I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
• Larry Crowne
• Snow White and the Huntsman (Theatrical or Extended) 4K
• This is 40 (Theatrical or Unrated)
• Welcome to Marwen 4K

FEATURE SELECTION

Battle: Los Angeles / Lockout (Double Feature) HD MA - $6
The Flash Complete Eighth Season HD Vudu - $6
Game of Thrones Seasons 1 thru 7 HD GP - $22
House of the Dragon: The Complete First Season HD Vudu - $6
How to Train Your Dragon Trilogy HD MA - $7
The Hunger Games 4-Movie Collection 4K (iTunes) - $12
The Kingsman 3-Movie Collection 4K - $12

• Secret Service & Golden Circle iTunes code, The King's Man MA code

The Man Who Fell To Earth 4K Vudu - $5
The Mummy Trilogy HD MA (Brendan Frasier) - $7
Planet of the Apes Trilogy (Rise/Dawn/War) 4K (iTunes) - $10
A Quiet Place 2-Movie Collection 4K (iTunes or Vudu) - $8
Rambo 5-Movie Collection 4K (iTunes or Vudu) - $17
The Smurfs 3-Movie Collection (MA) - $10 (First movie 4K, HD for other 2)
Star Trek Original 6-Movie Collection 4K (iTunes) - $22

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) up to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Star Wars Complete 11-Movie Collection (Skywalker Saga, Rogue One, Solo) HD GP - $30
Thor Complete 4-Movie Collection HD GP - $9
​

4K Movies:

• American Psycho (Unrated) (iTunes or Vudu) - $5
• Annihilation (iTunes) - $4
• Arrival (iTunes) - $4
• Atomic Blonde (iTunes) - $4
• Big Hero 6 (iTunes) - $4
• Black Panther (iTunes) - $4
• Cinderella (2015) (iTunes) - $4
• Cloverfield (iTunes) - $4.50
• Cold Pursuit (iTunes or Vudu) - $4
• Coming to America (iTunes or Vudu) - $4.50
• Daddy's Home (iTunes) - $4
• Daddy's Home 2 (Vudu) - $4
• Despicable Me 2 (iTunes) - $4
• Dirty Dancing (iTunes or Vudu) - $4.50
• Doctor Strange (iTunes) - $4
• Dragged Across Concrete (iTunes or Vudu) - $4.50
• Exodus: Gods and Kings (iTunes) - $4.50
• The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (iTunes) - $3.50
• Fast & Furious (2009) (iTunes) - $3.50
• Fast & Furious 6 Extended Edition (iTunes) - $3.50
• Furious 7 Extended Edition (iTunes) - $3.50
• Fifty Shades of Grey Unrated (MA) - $4
• Fifty Shades Darker Unrated (MA) - $4
• Fifty Shades Freed (Theatrical & Unrated in iTunes) (MA) - $5
• Finding Nemo (iTunes) - $4.50
• Gemini Man (Vudu) - $4
• G.I. Joe: Retaliation (iTunes) - $4
• Gods of Egypt (iTunes) - $3.50
• Heat: Director's Definitive Edition (iTunes) - $4
• Hellboy (2019) (iTunes or Vudu) - $4
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army (MA) - $5
• Hercules (2014, Dwayne Johnson) (iTunes) - $4
• Hustlers 2019 (iTunes) - $4
• Incredibles 2 (iTunes) - $4.50
• Invisible Man (2020) (MA) - $5
• Iron Man 3 (iTunes) - $4
• John Wick (iTunes or Vudu) - $4
• John Wick Chapter 3 Parabellum (iTunes or Vudu) - $4
• The Jungle Book (2016) (iTunes) - $4
• King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005) (iTunes) - $4
• Life of Pi (iTunes) - $4.50
• Lightyear (MA) - $4.50
• The Lion King (2019) (iTunes) - $4
• The Little Mermaid (iTunes) - $4.50
• Lone Survivor (MA) - $4.50
• The Martian (iTunes) - $4.50
• The Maze Runner (iTunes) - $4.50
• Midway (2019) (iTunes or Vudu) - $4.50
• Mile 22 (iTunes) - $4
• Minions (iTunes) - $4
• Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (iTunes) - $4
• Monsters University (iTunes) - $4.50
• Mulan (1998) (MA) - $5
• The Mummy (2017, Tom Cruise) (iTunes) - $4
• No Time to Die (007 James Bond) (iTunes) - $4.50
• Not Another Teen Movie (Sony Buff Pass) (MA) - $4
• The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (MA) - $4
• Pet Sematary 1989 (iTunes or Vudu) - $4.50
• Pet Sematary 2019 (iTunes or Vudu) - $4.50
• Pitch Perfect (iTunes) - $4
• Ralph Breaks the Internet (MA) - $4
• Rocketman (iTunes) - $4
• The Sandlot (iTunes) - $4.50
• Scream (1996) (iTunes or Vudu) - $5
• The Secret Life of Pets (iTunes) - $4
• Shrek (MA) - $5
• A Simple Favor (iTunes or Vudu) - $4
• Sing (iTunes) - $4
• Source Code (iTunes or Vudu) - $5
• Spider-Man: No Way Home (MA) - $5
• Spies in Disguise (MA) - $4.50
• Starship Troopers (Sony Buff Pass) (MA) - $4
• Super 8 (iTunes or Vudu) - $4.50
• Terminator: Dark Fate (iTunes or Vudu) - $4
• To Sir With Love (Sony Buff Pass) (MA) - $4
• Top Gun 1986 (iTunes) - $4
• Toy Story 1995 (iTunes) - $4.50
• Transformers: Age of Extinction (Vudu) - $3.50
• Warcraft (iTunes) - $4
• Yesterday (MA) - $5
• Zootopia (iTunes) - $4

HD Movies ($3 Each):

• Aloha (MA)
• American Beauty (iTunes or Vudu)
• Antlers (GP)
• Bad Boys (MA)
• Battleship (MA)
• Beauty and the Beast The Enchanted Christmas (MA)
• Bridge of Spies (GP)
• The Call of the Wild (MA)
• Cars (GP)
• Coco (GP)
• The Darkest Minds (GP)
• Den of Thieves (iTunes)
• Django Unchained (Vudu)
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (GP)
• Encanto (GP)
• The Equalizer 2 (MA)
• Free Guy (GP)
• Hardcore Henry (iTunes)
• Hereditary (Vudu)
• Ice Age: The Great Egg-Scapade (Collection of shorts) (MA)
• Into the Woods (MA)
• Lightyear (GP)
• Mary Poppins (1964) (GP)
• Monsters University (GP)
• My Little Pony The Movie (2017) (iTunes, Vudu, or GP)
• Onward (GP)
• Raya and the Last Dragon (GP)
• Red Sparrow (MA)
• Rush (MA)
• Scarface (MA)
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (GP)
• She's Having a Baby (iTunes or Vudu)
• Spider-Man Homecoming (MA)
• Spider-Man Far from Home (MA)
• Spirit Untamed (MA)
• The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (Vudu)
• Super Troopers 2 (MA)
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Unrated Special Edition (152 min) (Vudu)
• Terms of Endearment (iTunes or Vudu)
• Thor: Love and Thunder (GP)
• Toy Story (GP)
• Toy Story 3 (GP)
• Toy Story 4 (GP)
• Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (MA)
• Trolls (2016) (MA)
• Turning Red (GP)
• Venom (MA)
• Venom: Let There Be Carnage (MA)
• Widows (MA)
• Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year (MA)

Has anyone ever got a season pass for one of the ski resorts and not paid all of the installments? I'm just curious what happened. I got a Lake Louise pass for the 22/23 winter but I only ended up going 4 times due to the conditions, and because my physical address is different than my billing address the payments didn't go through automatically. Lake Louise have emailed me for the remaining payments (around$350), but I'm just wondering if anyone has not paid these before and whether anything actually happened?
(Edit to add: I know Ski Big 3 do not do anything, they don't send it to a debt collector or stop you from getting a pass again in the future, however I am not sure on Lake Louise's policy is the same)

Just got back from a week long stay at Boardwalk for our anniversary. Brought along our two little ones (2.5 and 10 months).

• First time staying at Boardwalk (1 bedroom, standard view DVC villa). Didn't care much for the room (has the same layout as many of the older DVCs like Saratoga, Boulder Ridge, Beach Club) and the villas are in desperate need of a refurb (the couch was disgusting with all kinds of stains on it and made our skin itchy). The resort itself is okay but could use more classic QS food options (having no mickey waffles available at the resort is a sin!). We absolutely loved the location, loved being able to walk to both Epcot and HS and just going for a stroller around Crescent Lake. We spent most of our time at those two parks (didn't want to deal with a double stroller on the buses for MK and AK).
  
• Went to Typhoon Lagoon for the first time for the DVC Moonlight Magic event. It rained most of the night, but there was a brief moment when the rain stopped and we spent some time in the surf/wave pool and the lazy river. Really surprised they didn't cancel the event or make people get out of the water when lightning was in the area, especially since the pool at our resort was closed and the Skyliner was down.
  
• Tried Roundup Rodeo BBQ this trip. We enjoyed the theming, food was delicious (not authentic southern style BBQ by any means, but still good).
  
• Had a lot of rain (we were due for a rainy trip, our last four trips over the past year had little to no rain), but we made the most of it, including doing some of the community hall activities at the resort, hanging out in the baby care center to feed/change kids while waiting out the rain, and grabbing our ponchos and waiting in the shorter lines for rides.
  
• Stickers! Our older kid is going through a terrible 2s phase right now and we did our best to calm her down/get her to behave (we don't stay in the parks all day and keep her sleep schedule). Luckily some great CMs out there helped us out with providing us stickers for her to keep occupied. Those little things go a long way!
  

Hi, I have been experiencing right foot pain for over two years that is making my life incredibly limited. I am an otherwise healthy 36 yo woman, nonsmoker, active (I was super active before the issue), I have consistently excellent labs, negative rheum labs, eat healthy, take vitamins, etc etc. It's not diagnosed, but I admit I'm a sensitive body--I feel a lot of things deeply both physically and emotionally. This is a long story, I've been searching high and low.
I want to preface this long story by saying that I don't like to doctor hop. Other than one very rude wacko podiatrist who I refused to go back to, the rest have dismissed me because they had no idea what was going on. I still have one podiatrist who is nice but doesn't know where to go from here and am seeing a spine ortho as I will explain lower. Keep in mind too please that 100% of symptoms are on my right side. My left side is pain-free.
The foot pain started as a stabbing pain inside the foot, in the ball area and between toes 2&3. For a few months, it was just at night and briefly. As time progressed, it moved into pain all of the time but worst at night. I saw a foot ortho who prescribed PT, which I did for 8 months with zero progress--and I do my exercises--and he did a cortisone shot. No effect. It is not a morton's neuroma, the pain cannot be replicated by pressing or squeezing my foot. By the 4 month mark I had to cut down on almost all activities and spend a lot of my time icing. It remained stabbing pain, located between toes 2&3 in the ball area (but solidly in the inside of the foot) but also a stabbing just at the top of my arch below toe 1 on the underside (sort of where that crease is). It also started to feel incredibly raw on the ball of my foot after standing or walking too long. I could not and cannot walk on concrete without intense pain. I can walk on grass or woodchips for much longer, such as I can walk 2 miles in the forest with less pain than half of a block on concrete. I subsequently saw 4 podiatrists, got 2 more cortisone shots (one in toe 2 that was developing hammer toe and another under toe 2 on the ball), tried 2 antiinflammatories at different times, started gabapentin, did infrared therapy, did more PT with ultrasound, did more PT with TENS and more steroid patches, all with no effect. MRI #1 in fall 2021 showed nothing other than mild bursitis. If anything, it was getting worse.
Fast forward to August 2022, 2nd foot MRI and I had been complaining about right hip/lower back pain and finally foot doctor #5 referred me to a hip guy, who didn't feel my hip is an issue as I had full mobility, and he referred me to a spine ortho. I had a lumbar MRI. Found a disc herniation and tear touching the nerve on L5/S1, which would explain the foot pain area. Had the back injection of steroid and numbing agent. A glorious 4 hours without pain until the numbing agent wore off. No lasting change. Sent me to pain management, who increased gabapentin. No change. Was sent to a rheumatologist for labs, all within normal ranges. Saw podiatrist #5, new insoles (I've wore Rx insoles for at least 6 years because of my levels of activity, 5 sets total). Pain management doc did nerve test - no marked results. Back injection #2, another 4 glorious hours without foot pain but then it came back.
By October 2022, I had also developed lumbar back pain. I had experienced it mildly for years when I would walk long distances on concrete or in crowds, but it always went away overnight. The back pain just intensified until early 2023 when there were days and weeks I couldn't go anywhere from it. I saw a physiatrist who told me he didn't know what it was and I should just be prepared to live with it. I'm 36 not 86, how rude. My entire foot was numb, my heal hurt, my foot was on fire, and still stabbing. My outside shin stabbed and was numb often too. Upper thigh starting to be numb. Was referred to another spine ortho who did shot #3, another 3ish hours of relief and then stabbing and flooding pain. I asked for another lumbar MRI since the pain had changed so much since August.
The spine doc then felt that removing the now very herniated and torn disc might help, especially since I also had disabling back pain and three positive tests after the numbing injections when my foot felt good. Did that on May 12. I'm healing well and I don't regret it, but sadly I woke up from surgery with lots of right leg pain. My foot was on fire in the hospital. They sent me home with a little Vicodin and for the first week or so at home my foot burned, especially at night, but that was about it. Once I started weening off the Rx pain meds onto Tylenol (and still taking gabapentin) the foot started to hurt more. It hurts to curl it like it has for a long time, it hurts to spread my toes, and toe 2 is uncomfortable, and it feels raw and fiery most of the time. Much worse at night. Heal pain has been better, thank goodness. Per instructions, I have been walking as much as I can. At first, I could do it on concrete and while my foot still burned constantly, it was doable. Now, without pain meds, concrete walking is tough again. I did 2.2 miles on a forest path and that was ok but by the end I was raw. Ice helps temporarily. I have to walk to heal my back, and yet it is getting to be really painful. OTC pain meds make absolutely no difference. I am not seeking pain meds, I am just sharing that it helped. I want a diagnosis and a treatment plan.
My foot feels hot both in the nerve burning sense and to the touch. I'm at a loss. I've seen 10 doctors and 4 PTs all of whom have no clue what is going on. I have tried every treatment recommended. I have taken the gabapentin. I have done my PT exercises -- that honestly made it worse. I have asked for consults at fancy far away hospitals and I've been rejected because they don't know what it is and my MRIs and Xrays are fine. My life is at an absolute stand still. I have to drive/be driven everywhere and I have to say no to anything that involves a lot of standing or walking. And my husband and I want to move forward with our family, this started when I was 34.
Where do I go from here? What might this be? Your thoughtful responses are appreciated for any leads, suggested diagnoses to explore, types of doctors, or something else. I want to move forward in my life.