I second the use of shellac. I've been using shellac on a maple cabinet project I'm working on right now.

Maple is a proper bitch to sand because it's so hard. I wouldn't recommend sanding higher than 180 at most of else you risk glazing the wood, which makes it hard for your finish to work. Also any alcohol finish is going to dry extremely quickly and be very finicky to work with... Particularly on a very large continuous surface like a desk. It's not impossible, but absolutely, definitely, practice first. Figure out your brushes, your mixture, your technique all ahead of time. When you hit that desk there's no turning back and it's go time.

I tried over a dozen different oil and gel based stains for the project, and shellac was far and away the best looking, due to maple's exceptionally tight grain, and high tendency to blotch.

Good luck! I really enjoy working with maple, but boy is it a challenging medium.

Home Improvement projects are finally progressing at a decent clip. I've been stuck under some hangups that have made progress slow. We're looking into purchasing a new mountain bike for my daughter. I'm really excited to get out and do some singletrack with her and try some new things. It's a super exciting opportunity for her and I! :)

This is exactly what Luxembourg did with their public transit recently. They realized they were spending more in upkeep/salaries/HR/computer systems/policy/etc, and just ripped it all out, and made it free.

It's so much simpler, and so much nicer!

What purifier did you pick up? We got one that was well recommended, and our Air Quality Monitor has basically said it's doing nothing. It's been pretty frustrating.

Go team cloth! We cloth'd both of my kids. Not always fun, but it's better for the environment and a ton cheaper!

did you get the conversion to 2e from that discord server? (I dont remember which)... I've always heard good things about that AP, and since I'm beginning to close in on the end of the one I'm running, I'm trying to keep my head up for what's next.

I've run Age of Ashes, which... needs some massaging, and if you're interested, I would recommend a pretty heavy rewrite of book 1 to reframe the motivations of the PCs. Once that is done, I think the AP would be magnificent. But without it... it's a little weird.

Quest for the Frozen flame is awesome, and I'm dying to run it as more of a "one month interlude between games".

I majored in Geology.

I thoroughly approve of your post and empathize with your struggle. :D

That's great! Good luck!

Trying to figure out how to stain the maple cabinets I built. It's been harder than anticipated... But progress is progress. One step at a time and all that.

I am all for this. I absolutely cannot wait for it to be released!!! Super Mario RPG was absolutely one of my favorite games as a kid. I've been jonesing to pull in back out lately... This will be so much fun!

Holy god, I never thought I'd see someone else mention DCSS in the wild!! I used to play that a bunch about a year or so ago. Truth be told, I kind of miss it once in a while. Devilishly hard, but I did manage to break into Hell once. Even killed one of the pandemonium lords.

Shit... I might start playing again.

Agreed. Dude broke into a home and stole alcohol from a family in Vermont. Not interested in anything with this guy in it.

That's wild to me! I didn't register all that long ago, but you admins approved me app in minutes. Thanks for all your work, we appreciate it!!

Yeah, agree to this. Nice to be a part of a well tended community with some nice folks. Keep the engagement coming!

Y'all are great! I love the demonstration of commitment to retaining what makes this instance special. I'm happy to be a part of it, and fully support your decision. :)

I played the crap out of borderlands... until one day I asked myself why... and... I never picked it up again. After that switch was flipped, the whole series just fell apart on me.

You know, that's a good point. Facebook may be littered with ads, but at least they are relevant to my lifestyle. My wife has purchased a fair few things she saw from Facebook ads. Reddit ads pretty much are universally uninteresting garbage.

For the last month or two I've been building a set of cabinets/room dividers to hide my TV in (There's a TV lift under there!). Construction has gone well, and I got a lot of the doors built this week (hooray! I was pretty nervous about them). But now I'm starting to butt my head up against learning how to stain wood, which I have very little exposure to... so... that's been challenging. Hopefully I'll figure something out... it's turns out maple is pretty tough to stain.

Yeah, that's the thing... I think back to some of the communities I used to be a part of decades ago, and the size of them... I miss those communities. I'm ready to return to a smaller internet.