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Fifteen Years of Failed Prophecy

https://bahai-library.com/pdf/b/balch_failed_prophecy.pdf
This tells the story of a group of "Covenant breakers" who claimed the world would soon end.
Some highlights:
On April 29, 1980, members of the Baha’is Under the Provisions of the Covenant (BUPC) entered fallout shelters to await a nuclear holocaust that they believed would fulfill the prophecies of Revelation. In the first hour, they expected a third of the world's population to perish, and they claimed that over the next twenty years, the planet would be ravaged by starvation, disease, revolutions, and natural disasters. They believed that by the year 2000 God's kingdom would be established on earth and a thousand years of peace would ensue.This prediction was only the first in a long series of failed prophecies that would test the faith of the BUPC. Between 1980 and 1995 the group’s leader, Dr. Leland Jensen, set twenty dates for the battle of Armageddon or lesser disasters that would lead up to the Apocalypse. In this paper we will examine the long-term effects of these failed prophecies on the BUPC.
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The BUPC are a small Baha’i sect based in Missoula, Montana. Their founder, a chiropractor named Leland Jensen, was expelled from the mainstream Baha’is in 1960. During a doctrinal dispute following the death of Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha’i faith, Jensen aligned himself with a schismatic leader named Mason Remey who claimed to be the second Guardian. However, Remey died a few years later and his followers split into rival factions, each proclaiming a different Guardian. In 1964, after becoming disillusioned with the infighting, Jensen and his wife, Opal, moved to Missoula where they opened a chiropractic clinic. Although Jensen once had been a highly acclaimed Baha’i missionary, he had stopped teaching the Faith by the time he got to Montana.
Then in 1969 Jensen was convicted of sexually molesting a fifteen-year-old patient. During the trial, several women testified against him, and he was sentenced to twenty years in the Montana State Prison.
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After studying the Bible and Baha’i writings, Jensen understood that his mission was to establish the Baha’i Universal House of Justice after the world was cleansed of evil and apostasy by a nuclear holocaust.2Jensen immediately began tying together diverse strands of Bible prophecy, Baha’i teachings, and pyramidology to substantiatehis claims. He recruited many followers in prison, and after being paroled in 1973 he founded the BUPC in Missoula. By the end of the 1970s Jensen also had attracted followers in Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas
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One of the most significant events in the history of the BUPC was the recruitment of Neal Chase, a spiritual seeker from Wisconsin who proved to be brilliant at synthesizing Jensen’s teachings with other prophetic beliefs. Chase’s most notable contribution was to bolster the “proofs” for Jensen’s mission byincorporating the prophecies of George Williams, leader of an obscure nineteenth-century Mormon sect known as the Morrisites (Anderson 1988; Chase 1990). According to Chase, Williams predicted that Christ would return in Montana’s Deer Lodge Valley where the Montana State Prison is located. The anticipated date of Christ’s return, August 9, 1969, happened to be the first full day that Jensen spent in the prison, which Chase claims bears a striking resemblance to Ezekiel’s temple described in the Bible.3By 1990, Jensen, then 76, had turned much of the responsibility for interpreting the scriptures over to Chase.
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Jensen died unexpectedly on August 6, 1996. Chase has taken the helm and members seem to be taking the transition in stride. Neither the group’s apocalyptic rhetoric nor its routine activities appear to have changed. However, Jensen’s death is likely to have serious repercussions because Chase is disliked by some influential longtime members.
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Jensen and Chase repeatedly claimed that the predictions were tests. After the 1980 prediction, Jensen pointed out that Matthew 24:37 says that the “coming of the Son of Man [Jensen] will repeat what happened in Noah’s time,” which according to Baha’i teachings is that Noah predicted the flood several times (Baha’u’llah 1931). Noah’s first predictions separated the “sheep from the goats” so that when the flood finally happened only the pure-of-heart remained. By the 1990s, Jensen was referring to the 1980 prediction of “God’s fire drill” and a “practice run."
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During the first BUPC meeting after the prophecy failure, Jensen gave an emotional speech in which he exhorted his followers to capitalize on the reprieve: “Rise and Shine!” he shouted. “Establish the kingdom! Teach as you never have before!” Although he had brought a large box of books for members to distribute, not one was taken. The BUPC were extremely confused and demoralized, and attendance at meetings dropped precipitously.
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In 1991, Jensen established a twelve-person governing body called the Second International Baha’i Council (IBC) whose stated purpose was to lay the foundation for the Universal House of Justice, whichJensen expected to govern the world after the apocalypse.5The IBC quickly came to dominate the lives of its members as its meetings steadily became longer and more frequent. IBC members engaged in endless wrangling over administrative details, writing projects, plans for establishing the world government, and discussions of other members’ personal affairs, including martial problems, homosexuality, and gambling.
In contrast to the informality of previous years, the BUPC took on increasingly bureaucratic character despite the fact that by 1990 the group probably had fewer than one hundred members nationwide. The IBC elected officers passed numerous “laws” governing the conduct of BUPC members, and conducted its meetings according to Robert’s Rules of Order. To deal with more mundane matters, local BUPC “councils” were formed in Montana, Colorado, and Wisconsin. City and county councils were established in Missoula, each with its own officers and formal responsibilities.
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The first IBC was established by Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith. The BUPC’s IBC was an exact replica of the first.
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Ever since the 1970s, Jensen had claimed that Mason Remey’s son, Pepe, was the Guardian, but Pepe steadfastly refused the title. After Pepe died in 1994, Jensen began hinting that Chase might be the next Guardian, but many members disagreed.
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The website of the BUPC:
http://www.bupc.org/
Among other things, it says:
Jesus Christ was a Messiah, as the word Christ means Messiah, or specifically Messiah Ben David which, when translated, is 'The Anointed Son of David'. Jesus was a descendant of David who was anointed with the Holy Spirit and had the mission of proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God on Earth. Jesus also told us of the One who would actually bring this kingdom in the future, who would be the Second Coming of Christ, or another descendant of David anointed with the Holy Spirit. The 2nd Christ has come fulfilling prophecy by Name, Date, Address and Mission being seated on the Throne of David and bringing an everlasting dynasty of Davidic kings as promised by God in the book of Psalms.
I will not violate my covenant, or alter the word that went forth from my lips. Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David. His line shall endure for ever, his throne as long as the sun before me. (Psalms 89:34-36)
This Covenant of an everlasting dynasty of Davidic kings are the guardians of the Baha'i Faith seated at the head of the Universal House of Justice or House of the Lord as prophesied in the second chapter of Isaiah:
It shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many people shall come, and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:2-4)
Baha'u'llah is the founder of the Baha'i Faith. He fulfills prophecy as the Second Coming of Christ (Mark 8:38). Just as Jesus the Christ did not come fulfilling the peoples expectation, neither does the Second Christ, Baha'u'llah, appear as the people might imagine. Instead, He appears fulfilling detailed prophecies of all the worlds religions as to the promise of a great World Redeemer who is to appear in the end times and unite all the people of the earth.
Baha'u'llah made a strong Covenant passing the throne of King David to his son 'Abdu'l-Baha, making 'Abdu'l-Baha the CENTER of His Covenant. 'Abdu'l-Baha then delineated His Father's Covenant in the sacred Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha, which is the CHARTER for the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven (see page 144 of "The World Order of Baha'u'llah" for more).
In the Will and Testament, the line of Davidic Kings from Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha entitled AGHSAN (BRANCH: see Zech. 3:8 KJV) continues for ever as the presidents of Baha'u'llah's Universal House of Justice (UHJ) which is the "House of the Lord" prophesied by Isaiah and the other prophets. The purpose of the lineage and throne of David is so that we can recognize the true UHJ or true HOUSE of the Lord from fakes, frauds and imitations. Groups of people that claim to have organizations or administration, but have no descendant of King David as the 'sign of God' as the executive or chair, are therefore disqualified as being from God, and are only man-made institutions.
There is also:
http://www.bupc.org/genealogy/genealogy-of-christ.html

This is the Genealogy of Baha'u'llah, The HEIR to the THRONE OF DAVID, showing His lineage from Bostanai (the exilarch: exiled Davidic monarch) the son of King David.

http://www.bupc.org/chart-explanation.html
This Genealogy Chart is in the form of a human being showing that all the Manifestations of God, in reality, are one and the same person, that is one and the SAME SOUL, sent to earth to represent the One and Same Only True God.
Likewise, all the diverse peoples of this earth are united as one soul in many bodies by turning to this one single representation of the BODY or temple of God as depicted on this genealogy chart.
This is the prophesied RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD for all humanity.
With the destruction of the World Trade Towers this is the ONE SIGN and ONLY SIGN that a "wicked and evil and adulterous generation" (Matt. 12) shall be given.
Jesus said, 'destroy this temple [BODY] and I will raise it up again'. He said that God would accomplish this in three days and three nights.
This refers to the day of Mohammed, the day of the Bab and the day of Baha'u'llah, which are the three days following the day of Jesus, in which these "spiritual suns" guided all mankind.
submitted by Seeker_Alpha1701 to exbahai [link] [comments]

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas

As I mentioned before, in Vegas you see slots already in the airport. While we were waiting for our luggage, people already sat at the gambling machines. I, myself, wanted to try slots in a better atmosphere than an LED-lit airport. Anyways, it seemed funny to play games on a big touch screen and I made sure that Vegas is a gambling paradise. We, though, put only so much money in the slots to get the free drinks.
After a few hours, I was already walking through the Vegas strip. It was interesting to observe the gigantic hotels, countless lights from slots, cozy Americans and the bewitched tourists that all were just thinking of how to faster spend all of their saved up money in the slots.
It was surprising just how many people were heading every night exactly to Caesar’s Palace. Well, it wasn’t a surprise, considering that this hotel was enormous, the casino space was even more enormous, but even all of that was topped by the shopping mall, which, of course, was also full of slots. There were 16 restaurants in the same hotel space. And have I mentioned that the second-largest nightclub in the world Omnia nightclub Las Vegas, was also located here? While I and Dāvis were walking around the hotel we got lost a few times and it was very complicated to talk of a place to meet.
The New Year’s party for us continued for two days and two nights. We met the most real American party groups as well as girls with whom we spent together nights. Unfortunately, the fast pace of Vegas meant that all of those people already packed their bags and left by 2 January. But my friend and I wanted to relax a little bit after all of the partying.
In the following days, we went to the Grand Canyon with a helicopter. We ordered a helicopter tour, which started in Vegas, flew to the Grand Canyon and flew back to Vegas. This tour made us feel a bit like celebrities, considering that a limo drives you from hotel to the helicopter and then you take off and fly over the whole Las Vegas. The helicopter landed next to the Grand Canyon. We also got to enjoy a glass of champagne and some snacks, which was offered by the tour. The canyon has been created by washing the Colorado River through granite rocks for thousands of years, leaving a unique and glorious memory of the wonders nature can bring. While flying over the I couldn’t take my eyes off of this amazing beauty. By the way, the Grand Canyon is almost the size of Latvia. Truly worth seeing, if you happen to be in Vegas and want to experience something exclusive with a dose of adrenaline.
To balance out cultural wonders with scandalous events, on this night we chose to enjoy Las Vegas Titty Time and went to strip club. The easiest way to get there was to go to the Vegas Strip and check out the advertised offers. It wasn’t long before we got offered a good price, as well as a limo that will take us there. Then we got offered an even better price, then a cocktail, then - a private lap dance and in the end, we got offered a meal. At that moment we couldn’t resist their offer anymore and we went to a strip club. We didn’t even know where they were taking us, but we wanted an adventure and we wound up in Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club. The place was just like my expectations of what an American strip club should look like - big neon signs, angry-looking bouncers, a bit dirty atmosphere and a lot of foreign girls. While there we exchanged our money into one-dollar bills and went straight to the dance hall. I haven’t ever seen someone work that hard to earn one dollar. The view was quite enjoyable, to be honest, I had imagined it being a bit different, but striptease is like a delicate choreographic dance - there was nothing vulgar about it, only erotica. Definitely, only a confident woman can show herself off like that. Their feminine bodies helped as well. Their breasts were rarely real, though, mostly it was just some surgeon’s masterpiece. As a big female lover, I can say, that what allures me more is the naturality.
We got offered lap dances and when we heard the price, we were surprised. Only twenty dollars. I would even say that that is unforgivably cheap for us just to try it once. We started buying dances for each other, till cash in the wallet was nearly gone. We thought of a challenge to invite all of the girls in the club for the lap dance to get the “full experience”. Personally, my favorite was the only girl who had real breasts. Some of the girls wanted us to take the “private room” for 120 dollars. Some even offered the special “private room” for 500 dollars, but as they implied, it was more than just a dance. I politely declined as I didn’t think I had to pay someone for that.
In the following days, we continued to do stuff that is in any Vegas tourist to-do-list. For example, we went to Gordon Ramsey’s famous Hell’s Kitchen restaurant. Dāvis, my companion on this trip, as well as partly its initiator had reserved us a table, but we still had to wait in line. At the start, we just chatted between each other, but it seemed like this hour will be spent in boredom, till girls, who were standing in front of us, turned around. One girl, who later turned out to be a literature teacher for middle schoolers, said that our language seemed interesting to her and asked where are we from. At that moment, the girls' openness didn’t surprise me, all the people in America were unusually nice and ready to start a conversation with strangers. Of course, girls were also intrigued by our unusual language and exotic European charm. Dāvis and I were as well intrigued by the girls’ exotic and alluring American charm. Long story short, two tables for two turned into one table for four. After the restaurant we persuaded the girls to spend the following evening together, going through the smaller Vegas streets and bars.
One more adventure was going to Death Valley. We rented a yellow Ford Mustang convertible, to really enjoy this trip. It’s really unbelievably hot there, but the locals say that during nighttime you might freeze. Death Valley is something everyone should see in their lifetime. The Vegas hotels disappeared pretty fast and all we saw was large, vast desert and majestic mountains. I would call it a surreal view, honestly pretty unbelievable that there is something like that on the Earth. While walking through the vast salt lakes you get the feeling like you’re in a “Star Wars” movie on some distant planet. Just standing in the middle of the field gives an illusion that you are somewhere far from civilization because wherever you look, there is no sign of life.
When back in the city we again focused on something more worldly, such as going to clubs. Interesting, that even on 7th January, which was just a Tuesday, Omnia nightclub was filled with people. I’m talking thousands. Well, the party wasn’t anything special, compared to the New Year’s party. Maybe I just wasn’t in a party mood. But then I saw a beautiful blonde standing next to the bar and, quite naturally, went to her and we started chatting. We didn’t talk for long, because I took her hand and we went to the middle of the dance floor. We danced all night till the club was about to close. The girl had a very short, tight dress and she didn’t have any panties on. From time to time I checked her dress, which was constantly sliding up, so the whole club wouldn’t see her nakedness. The moment when the music stopped, we were holding each other and making out. After getting back into reality, I realized that I have no plan on what to do with this beautiful girl further. We went to a hotel pool. We started talking about life in the USA and in Latvia and how they were similar but also so different. I didn’t want the romantic evening to end, so I thought of a plan. In American movies, couples always go skinny dipping. I persuaded the girl to jump in the water with me, naked. I hadn’t thought of water being so cold during the night and we froze in a moment. Good, that I could save the situation by offering a warm shower in my hotel room. She agreed. We went to shower together and warmed up so much that we didn’t even get to the bed. The next morning the girl quickly took her things and disappeared. When I checked her Instagram account I understood why - she had pictures with her husband (or boyfriend) and children. Now I have experienced the saying that goes - What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
submitted by MrHunter2020 to u/MrHunter2020 [link] [comments]

Why the Legion is Doomed to be Destroyed in a Total War with the NCR.

Even if the Legion were to win the Second Battle of Hoover Dam and conquer the Mojave Wasteland, they'd merely be buying themselves a little extra time and simply stall their inevitable demise. Note that the following analysis assumes that the Legion won the Second Battle of Hoover Dam and that the Courier died in Goodsprings.
To start off this analysis, let's begin with a run-down of the respective weapons, equipment and gear of the respective ranks of the NCR and the Legion going into the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. Beginning with the NCR garrison at Hoover Dam. The NCR Trooper comprises the core of the Republic's colossal armies and is the prime component of the NCR Army. A superb combination of volunteers and conscripts whose degrees of training, motivation, combat experience and access to equipment vary across the ranks, they're some of the most disciplined, most professional soldiers in all of the Wastes.
They're outfitted with modern military-grade ballistic vests that offer excellent protection against small arms fire, shrapnel and melee weapons alongside steel helmets. The NCR Army battalion that's stationed at Hoover Dam in particular is fully comprised of battle-hardened, fully-trained volunteer veteran NCR Troopers that are armed with 5.56 × .45mm NATO Marksman Carbines, 5mm Assault Rifles, 12-gauge Riot Shotguns and .308 Sniper Rifles to supplement their standard-issued 5.56 × .45mm NATO Service Rifles.
The NCR Patrol Ranger is one of the finest, most elite warriors in both the NCR military and the Wastelands, overall. Having survived a brutal training regimen that's so ludicrously difficult that 8-out-of-10 aspiring recruits wash-out, these purely volunteer harbingers of death have little to no equals in terms of skill, fighting prowess and strength.
They're outfitted with a suit of hand-made First-Generation Combat sporting a knife sheath, a hydration pouch and spiked spurs for unarmed combat that is impervious to any and all small arms fire, shrapnel and melee attacks. They're armed with 5.56 × .45mm NATO Marksman Carbines, .308 Sniper Rifles and .44 Magnum Trail Carbines.
The NCR Heavy Trooper is not only the elite heavy shock infantry of the NCR Army, but is also the proverbial sledgehammer through which the Republic may crush its enemies and obliterate all that may threaten its values.
Having earned their distinctive armor through immense sacrifice in blood, sweat and most of their young lives, they're the absolute best-trained, best-equipped, most battle-hardened, most professional, most skilled, most fanatically-devoted warriors in the whole of the NCR Armed Forces (rivaled only by the legendary NCR Veteran Rangers). Warriors that are more than willing to fight to their absolute last breath in defense of the Republic and all that it represents.
They're outfitted with NCR Salvaged Power Armor, suits of T-45d Power Armor that were captured from the Brotherhood of Steel during the Brotherhood War that have had their joint servomotors removed and their back-mounted power cylinders replaced with custom-built energy modules and built-in air-conditioning units so that Power Armor Training wouldn't be needed to wear them.
And while they're no longer legitimate suits of Power Armor in that they're no longer powered, they're still some of the absolute best and most protective suits of armor within the Republic's entire mammoth arsenal. Completely invulnerable to all but the most powerful conventional firearms, highly-advanced energy weapons, specialized ammunition and high-powered explosives, they can truly absorb Hellish amounts of punishment. They're armed with 5.56 × .45mm NATO Light Machine Guns, 5mm Miniguns, Heavy Incinerators, Flamers and Missile Launchers (albeit rarely).
The NCR Veteran Ranger is a living, breathing legend walking amongst the ruins and ashes of the Old World, drawing inspiration and hope from soldiers and citizens of the Republic as well as fear and terror from enemies and all those who dare to oppose the NCR.
Fabled for their unmatched fighting prowess, envied for their flawlessly unequalled marksmanship technique, feared for their unrivaled warfighting skills, awe-inspiring for their unsurpassed pugilist talent and legendary for their innate mastery over hardcore survivalist skills, the NCR Veteran Rangers are the absolute finest, best-trained, most battle-hardened, most professional, most skilled, most-elite and all-around most bad-ass warriors in not only the entire history of the Republic military, but also the whole of the Western Wastes, as well.
Centurions and Praetorian Guards of Caesar's Legion, Knights and Paladins of the Brotherhood of Steel and even the Republic's very own NCR Heavy Troopers have learned to shudder in terror and fear at the mere mention of the mythical phenoms of the Wastelands that are the NCR Veteran Rangers
These fabled guardian angels of the Republic are outfitted with the equally legendary Black Armor, a hyper-advanced suit of Third-Generation Combat Armor consisting of a highly-flexible vest of incredibly-rigid high-impact armored plating with adjustable straps on both the sides and the shoulders and a built-in throat protector that's mounted on the vest.
Combined with the state-of-the-art rounded-shell ballistic helmet sporting built-in lamps and infrared/visible light projectors as well as the complimentary highly-sophisticated armored mask with built-in low-light optics, an incorporated locking mechanism that joins the mask itself with the helmet shell, ear covers with built-in membranes that confer additional protection without inhibiting the wearer's hearing and built-in air filters, the mythical Black Armor is well-deserving of its stellar reputation.
As you can see, the NCR's forces are extremely heavily-armed, well-equipped and armed to the teeth with the absolute latest in top-of-the-line, high-powered firearms and state-of-the-art, highly-sophisticated energy weapons as well as superbly well-protected with an abundance of different varieties of military-grade body armors with varying degrees of effectiveness and even Salvaged Power Armor.
Now it's time for an evaluation of the Legion's weapons and technology. The Recruit Legionary is the primary foot soldier of Caesar's army and comprises the vast majority of the Legion's ranks. Trained and conditioned from before they could walk to become the perfect warriors, Recruit Legionaries are incredibly well-conditioned and in phenomenal physical shape, owing to a savagely intense training regimen that even the NCR Rangers would envy. Despite said conditioning, however, they're still the equivalent of literal cannon fodder with little-to-no actual skill in firearms usage and maintenance.
They're outfitted with a suit of makeshift featherweight armor that consists of sports equipment with bits and pieces of scrap metal atop a cloth tunic that's all lashed together with leather straps. An armor that's so weak that it couldn't even protect its wearer against the likes of a straight razor.
They're armed primarily with a "Machete" (what's really a lawnmower blade that's lashed to a stick) and "Throwing Spears" (what's really even bigger sticks with pieces of sharpened scrap metal fastened and jabbed into the tips), though they can rarely get their hands on firearms (albeit damn near broken ones) such as .357 Magnum Revolvers, .357 Magnum Cowboy Repeaters, 9mm Pistols, 20-gauge Single Shotguns, 20-gauge Caravan Shotguns, 5.56 × .45mm NATO Varmint Rifles and 10mm Pistols.
The Prime Legionary is the centerpiece of the Legion's fighting force and the core component of any Legion formation. Having survived 5 years in Caesar's forces, a remarkable accomplishment in and of itself, Prime Legionaries are no longer mere cannon fodder but are now the main frontline fighting force of the Legion. With the accompanying improvement in weapons and equipment as well as adequate firearms skills to make the promotion that much sweeter.
They're outfitted with the exact same armor as before, only with a slight improvement in protection. It still can't protect the wearer from shit, however. They're armed with the standard-issued "Machetes" and "Throwing Spears" though they also have much better access to more advanced weapons than before.
Melee weapons, such as Machete Gladius', Power Fists and Chainsaws, and firearms (of decent quality), such as 10mm SMGs, 12-gauge Sawn-Off Shotguns .44 Magnum Revolvers and .308 Hunting Rifles are all available to them in significant quantities.
The Veteran Legionary is the oldest, most experienced, most elite warrior within the lesser ranks of the Legion and is also the precise scalpel to the blunt, destructive warhammer of the Recruit and Prime Legionaries.
Having survived a full decade in Caesar's service, a monumental achievement in its own right, Veteran Legionaries are the elite rapid reaction force of the Legion that's tasked with neutralizing particularly tough adversaries that their lesser counterparts can't defeat and typically remain in reserve until otherwise needed for tipping the scales of a pivotal battle or campaign in the Legion's favor.
As they're the oldest Legionaries (a lot of whom have been with Caesar since day 1), they're also the most experienced, most capable Legionaries who are in their absolute prime in regards to martial prowess and physical resilience. They're second only to Centurions in terms of skill and experience, which is reflected in their improved access to superior weapons and equipment. They can also use and maintain firearms with frightening levels of efficiency.
They're outfitted with the same armor as before, though with even better protection. Still couldn't protect you from anything meaningful, though. They're armed with the usual standard kit in addition to melee weapons such as Fire Axes and Power Fists as well as firearms (of mint condition and with virtually unlimited access to) such as .44 Magnum Revolvers, .308 Hunting Rifles, 5.56 × .45mm NATO Marksman Carbines and 12.7mm SMGs.
The Decanus of the Legion is the lesser officer beneath the Centurion and is responsible for tactical small-unit operations and squad-level leadership. While not too different from ordinary Legionaries in terms of skill, equipment and even appearance, they still have slightly better access to weapons hence they deserve a separate segment.
Recruit Decanii can get access to 9mm SMGs and 10mm SMGs unlike Recruit Legionaries, Prime Decanii aren't any different from Prime Legionaries and Veteran Decanii can get access to 12.7mm Pistols unlike Veteran Legionaries (not a real improvement, I know). Everything else is exactly the same.
The Centurion is the absolute apex of the Legion's strength and the top field commanders of Caesar's armies, second in authority only to Legate Lanius and Caesar himself amongst a tiny select few of other superiors.
Having survived 15-20 years of a long, arduous life of fighting in Caesar's name (a completely unimaginable phenomenon, indeed) before finally earning the treasured armor of the Centurion (which they can decorate with the trophies of their fallen enemies at their leisure), Centurions are the absolute most elite, most skilled, most battle-hardened and ultimately the most dangerous warriors in the entirety of the Legion.
To even BEGIN to qualify for Centurion status, one must have fought in and survived numerous Legion campaigns as well as slain countless opponents in battle alongside the time requirement. All to ensure that only the finest of Caesar's warriors ever reach that level of authority in his Legion.
As the oldest, most experienced warriors in Caesar's army, the Centurions comprise the old guard of Caesar's army, most of them having served their lord since the very beginning. Their status all but ensures that they're reserved for only the absolute deadliest, most lethal of assignments that even Veteran Legionaries can't handle. They're ultimately only deployed if absolutely necessary.
In order to ensure that his Centurions can both accomplish their missions without even the slightest chance of failure and protect themselves without difficulty, Caesar has granted them unlimited access to the absolute finest weapons in his Legion's arsenal and has seen to it that they have acquired the absolute sharpest firearms skills that money can buy as a corresponding reward for their reaching Centurion status.
They're outfitted with Centurion armor which, while legendary amongst the Legion, really isn't that special. It's actually just Veteran Legionary armor with some cool decorations on it at the end of day.
Pieces of T-45d Power Armor on the right arm, the sleeve from a suit of NCR Ranger Patrol Armor and the pauldrons from an Armored Vault Suit on the left arm, the boots and shin guards from a suit of First-Generation Combat Armor on the lower legs, the crotch/thigh guards from a suit of NCR Ranger Patrol Armor on the upper legs, gloves from a suit of Leather Armor on the hands and a Super Mutant Brute chestplate on the torso, to be exact.
Realistically speaking, Centurion armor would be just about useless against virtually any weapon in the NCR's arsenal. Even a single 5.56 × .45mm NATO round fired from a basic Service Rifle would most certainly do the job, flawlessly.
They're armed with basic melee weapons such as Machete Gladius' and Chainsaws as well as high-tech melee weapons such as Thermic Lances (which are actually just repurposed metalworking tools) and Super Sledges in addition to powerful firearms such as .308 Hunting Rifles, 12-gauge Hunting Shotguns, 5.56 x .45mm NATO Marksman Carbines and even .50 BMG Anti-Materiel Rifles (albeit rarely).
Now we must now examine what will inevitably be a huge problem for the Legion even if they were to win the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. The Legion, even though it does in fact have access to some top-of-the-line weapons, only has them in an extremely limited capacity and strictly reserves them for only the highest-ranking, most elite Legion forces and field commanders.
The overwhelming bulk of the Legion's troops have little-to-no real firearms and what pitifully little that they can get their hands on are in extremely piss-poor condition. Not that it would matter, considering the fact that they don't have the proper training that's necessary to actually use them, much less maintain them.
The vast majority of Caesar's troops rely almost entirely on primitive makeshift melee weapons and their own martial prowess to fight their battles, which inevitably means that the Legion has to avoid direct engagement with NCR forces, instead relying on subterfuge and guerilla warfare to combat the Republic.
And it gets even worse for the Legion when one considers that the higher that its troops advance up the totem pole, the fewer Legionaries that it finds at the higher levels. A direct consequence of the Legion's overprioritization of quality and individual skill in combat is that it inevitably results in an extremely small cadre of elite warriors and field commanders surrounded by a sea of lesser soldiers and officers.
Combined with the fact that the Legion is only 34 years-old by the events of F:NV (meaning that even if one were to ignore things like inevitable attrition all throughout the Legion's war-filled history of expansion and conquest, they still wouldn't have that many Veteran Legionaries/Decanii and Centurions) as well as the fact that attrition over the years must be taken into account (the First Battle of Hoover Dam and the Legion's invasion of Colorado alone absolutely devastated their elite ranks), it's only obvious that the Legion's elite forces are relatively puny.
Furthermore, we know for a fact that there's enough Veteran Legionaries/Decanii for them to form a few of their own exclusive Centuria (a Century is 80-men-strong, I might add), with the Red Okie Centuria being a prime example of this. This definitely suggests that the Legion has at least a couple hundred Veteran Legionaries/Decanii at its disposal. As for Centurions, it's a little known fact that they're so incredibly rare in the Legion that they're actually explicitly ordered to not enter combat until absolutely necessary (i.e self-defense or if they're ordered into battle by a superior).
This, along with the fact that they're never really seen in any meaningful numbers in-game until the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, strongly suggests that there might only be at most several dozen Centurions in the whole of the Legion (there definitely wouldn't be over 100 of them). Either way, however, the Legion's elite forces are so pathetically tiny that they couldn't possibly justify the Legion having any meaningful amount of high-end weaponry.
The NCR, on other hand, doesn't have these problems as 1. the NCR prioritizes protection and firepower above all else for their forces and 2. even their most basic troops have exclusive access to essentially unlimited supplies of all manner of firearms and explosives as well as highly superb protection in the form of military-grade body armor.
Meaning that the NCR not only has a hopelessly insurmountable edge in firepower, technology and protection over the Legion, but that soldiers of the NCR also have a far higher life expectancy than their Legion counterparts, as well. All but ensuring that the NCR has a vastly higher volume of surviving battle-hardened combat veterans relative to the Legion that enables for the Republic to easily distribute extremely invaluable, ultimately irreplaceable combat experience and lessons learned in battle across the entirety of their military to a far greater extent than the Legion.
Scores of battle-hardened NCR Troopers that distinguish themselves on the battlefield go on to enlist with the NCR Rangers upon receiving an invitation to do so (fun fact: the vast majority of NCR Ranger recruits and even NCR Rangers themselves are/were NCR Troopers who earned their new status while serving in the NCR Army), earn the coveted Salvaged Power Armor and become NCR Heavy Troopers or earn promotions to positions of authority in the NCR Army (prime examples being Colonel Cassandra Moore and Colonel James Hsu). All of the above information will have colossal long-term consequences for the Legion, at the end of the day.
With that out of the way, let's move on to the main argument itself. The most positive estimates of the Legion's total numbers and military strength would be at best 5,000-8,000 troops. Then we must take into account the fact that the Legion is going to suffer massive losses (easily numbering into the thousands) taking Hoover Dam from the NCR as the NCR garrison here is extremely well-defended, well-supplied and heavily-fortified by both an entire battalion of elite, battle-hardened NCR Troopers and God only knows how many NCR Patrol Rangers, NCR Heavy Troopers and NCR Veteran Rangers.
Combined with the fact that General Oliver's Compound is extremely well-defended with force fields, a turret system, NCR Veteran Rangers, NCR Heavy Troopers, elite NCR Troopers and an absolute labyrinth that's filled to the brim with all manner of booby traps ranging from rigged shotguns, bear traps and mines of all types to grenade bouquets and overhanging objects (and given that you see a pile of fresh Legionary and Centurion corpses at your feet whenever you enter the Compound during the "Veni, Vidi, Vici" quest it's more than safe to assume that Legion casualties will be extremely massive just securing this area alone), this only serves to bolster my claim that thousands of the Legion's troops will perish at Hoover Dam even if they were to take it.
With only a mere fraction of their original number (that 5,000-8,000 will have been massively depleted after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam), now the Legion has to set out and secure the rest of the Mojave Wasteland, which will prove to be completely impossible over time. The Legion will find next to no tribes to assimilate as they exterminate the Powder Gangers, Fiends, Vipers, Jackals and the Kings in all of their endings.
And while the Legion still has the Great Khans and the Boomers, they won't help much. The Great Khans are down to little more than a pitiful rag-tag band of holdouts after both their ass-whipping at the hands of Mr. House and their decimation at Bitter Springs by the NCR. A fact that only gets worse when we subtract the women and female children (breeding stock), the elderly, the sick and the disabled (killed off immediately) as well as mention the fact that the Frumentarius Karl does say in his journal that the Legion would have to decimate most of the tribe, anyways. Meaning that the Legion will at most get a couple paltry handful of warriors from them.
As for the Boomers (assuming that the "Volare!" quest isn't completed) will prove to be more than a huge cost than a real benefit to the Legion. The Boomers' artillery alone would kill hundreds, if not thousands, of Legionaries with the Boomers themselves, armed to the teeth with Missile Launchers, Fat Mans, Grenade Machine Guns, Grenade Launchers, Grenade Rifles, 5.56 x 45mm. Marksman Carbines and 5mm Assault Carbines in addition to Mr. Gutsy combat robots and Sentry Bots, killing hundreds and even thousands more before the Legion finally conquer them.
Also consider that the Boomers, who worship their artillery and weapons with a near religious reverence, will by no means let their weapons fall into the hands of savages. Thus we could easily see them sabotaging their artillery (how hard would it be to load an artillery shell and lob a frag grenade down the barrel, after all?; and given that the Boomers only have 3-4 artillery pieces it wouldn't take long to do) and munitions stockpiles (just a few bricks of C4 could easily destroy all of the Boomers' weapons and ammunition supplies) to keep them out of Legion hands, which only adds insult to injury.
Even worse for the Legion is that when we subtract those Boomers that died in battle (most likely all of the adult males), the women and female children, the elderly, sick and disabled the Legion will have only a handful of male children to their name (remember that the Boomers are a really puny tribe that depend entirely on their firepower to survive) which means that they will have achieved nothing despite their massive losses incurred from conquering Nellis Air Force Base.
Then we also consider the fact that the Legion doesn't enslave civilized communities or Independent Towns unless under extraordinary circumstances (as evidenced by Siri over at the Fort who hailed from an Independent Town in New Mexico and was a medical student there prior to its destruction by the Legion).
Of course, it wouldn't matter as even if they did, the entire New Vegas area is completely evacuated by the NCR in the event of a Legion victory at Hoover Dam as evidenced by Arcade Gannon's Legion ending where he's convinced to remain in Freeside (all of Freeside, North Vegas, Westside, East Vegas and the Strip, which is really just a resort for NCR tourists rather than an actual community, are evacuated with those few that don't make it out, Arcade included, being killed by the Legion).
And when we consider that Nelson was butchered, Camp Searchlight irradiated and Nipton destroyed by the Legion with Goodsprings being left alone and Primm just falling under Legion authority (no point in enslaving the town anyways considering how it's just one big retirement home alongside Goodsprings which is also evacuated by all save a few old, stubborn folks) then it's blatantly clear that the Legion will have very few civilized people left to enslave.
With an even smaller fraction of survivors thanks to their conquest of Nellis AFB (in addition to hundreds more casualties against the Mojave Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel, the Kings and what's left of House's Securitron police force and the Chairmen) the Legion will soon realize its folly and discover that both holding the Mojave Wasteland and continuing their advance West is literally impossible.
The Legion's logistical situation and acquisition of supplies will soon prove to be an insurmountable nightmare within mere weeks of their occupation of the Mojave. The loss of Nipton, Camp Searchlight and Nelson will serve to severely hamstring the Legion's logistics with the eventual deaths of New Vegas, Primm and Goodsprings only complicating the Legion's supply lines even further.
As 99% of the Strip's revenue comes from NCR tourists and soldiers on leave and given how the Legion will most likely tear down the casinos and ban whores, booze, chems and gambling under Caesar's law, the Strip will eventually shrivel up and die due to loss of revenue. North Vegas, East Vegas, Westside, Freeside, Primm and Goodsprings, which are entirely dependent on Republic trade and commerce for survival, will eventually suffer the same fate as NCR trade and business abandon the region out of both fear and hatred for the Legion.
Especially after the Legion's successful assassination of President Kimball which will see him martyred and ensure that the NCR will cut off all ties to the fallen Mojave Wasteland. With all of the Mojave's communities and towns dying off, the Legion's supply lines will crumble and face imminent collapse within only a few months time (Hoover Dam isn't a viable supply route as while it does allow the Legion to cross the Colorado River in force it's just too far to provide adequate, long-term support) which will only serve to doom the Legion's occupation of the Mojave Wasteland.
We must also take into account that the Legion will need every last man, Denarius and resource at its disposal if it so much as hopes to hold the region and continue the advance West. Which will force Caesar to relinquish the Legion's entire empire East of the Colorado in order to do so. In Legate Lanius’ own words, the Legion's expansion campaigns in the East have been faltering badly as Caesar's obsession with Hoover Dam, New Vegas and the West has seen the Legion's full strength syphoned off towards Hoover Dam as part of Caesar's plan to overrun Hoover Dam, conquer New Vegas and eventually invade the West.
Imagine the Hell that the Legion will have trying to secure the Mojave Wasteland, which will prove to be so bad that the Legion heartlands will have to be left defenseless, lawless and chaotic just to even begin to make such an ambitious feat even remotely feasible. Some would probably argue that Caesar would surely never abandon the East just for the tiniest, southernmost tip of Nevada and just one little city but I'd advise you to reconsider.
Caesar explicitly states that while the Legion does have their own cities back East, NONE OF THEM are ANYTHING like New Vegas. Why is that such a big deal, one might ask? It's simple, really. While the Mojave Wasteland was relatively untouched by the nuclear holocaust that was the Great War, thanks to the quick and decisive actions of Robert Edwin House, New Vegas is at best a total dump and at worst an absolute shithole.
Filled to the brim with disease, essentially overrun with Raiders, bandits and common criminals of all stripes, absolutely crushed beneath the iron heel of a colossal drug-addiction crisis, bursting at the seams with abject misery and poverty and rampant with starvation, New Vegas is without a doubt little more than a massive dumpster fire.
Things are so bad in that cursed place that you actually have children chasing rats in the streets just to survive, locals constantly complaining about hunger pains and withdrawals and scum ranging from the Fiends to random little hooligan punks constantly ransacking the place.
Westside, the South Vegas ruins, East Vegas, North Vegas and Freeside are all Hellish nightmares that are almost completely hopeless causes, at the end of the day. Even if one takes into account the diamond in the rock, the New Vegas Strip, you still wouldn't find many reasons to be impressed.
What you have is a tiny wealthy resort community that still looks like a dump (though it's still a major improvement from the rest of New Vegas), has highly dilapidated infrastructure (the Tops Casino still has a giant hole on the side of the building) and is surrounded by a wall that's held together with spit, grit and a whole lotta' duct tape.
And while the Strip is safe, orderly and prosperous by the standards of the Mojave Wasteland (a very shit standard, I might add), it's ultimately a very terrible place by the standards of the rest of the post-apocalyptic world (i.e. NCR territory and lands under Legion control). If Legion cities can't even match the standards of that shithole, what does that say about Caesar's willingness to hold them? Especially in light of what he'd be gaining in return?
Furthermore, Caesar often tends to view himself as a mere barbaric king of the Gauls, with his Legion being nothing but one big nomadic tribe of savages without a true home or purpose in his eyes, which is extremely depressing. Caesar sees New Vegas as a true city, a true capital, a true home for both himself and his Legion, a true Rome that he can rule over and could preside over a true empire in. And the West as that very true empire that he so desperately relishes.
Do you honestly believe that Caesar wouldn't trade his current empire (which he clearly holds in very low esteem and almost regrets ever conquering it) for his new Rome and a stepping stone towards eventually conquering his new Roman Empire (the stepping stone being the Mojave Wasteland)? He'd trade the whole of the East for New Vegas and the Mojave Wasteland in a heartbeat and in doing so will seal the Legion's fate and imminent doom.
With the Legion having completely relinquished the East (and therefore cutting themselves off from their resource base, source of revenue/income and escape route, in the process) their supply lines and logistical network in chaos and having absolutely no source of replenishment and reinforcements for their ranks, the Legion will slowly but surely disintegrate, trapped in a permanent holding pattern in the Mojave that'll bleed them dry and drain them of all their resources.
The NCR, meanwhile, will have simply dug in at the Mojave Outpost and fortified their defenses there. They'd have most certainly brought in the 3 VB-02 Vertibirds (which are armed with Gatling Lasers, Missile Launcher racks and Mini Nuke Launchers and outfitted with heavy armor) that were conducting combat air patrols of the NCR military base just a few miles away from the Mojave Outpost.
Far from stopping there, however, Colonel Royez (who's outfitted with the Scorched Sierra Power Armor which is a fully-operational suit of heavily-modified T-45d Power Armor upgraded with onboard medical systems capable of healing any injury and an improved back-mounted power pack from a suit of T-51b Power Armor that will be capable of resisting nearly all of the Legion's weapons and armed with a Plasma Caster chock full of overcharged Microfusion Cells so incredibly strong that it can kill a lvl. 50 Courier in Power Armor with just 2-3 hits!) and his men (NCR Heavy Troopers armed to the teeth with Gatling Lasers, Plasma Casters and Tesla Cannons as well as NCR Troopers armed with Tri-Beam Laser Rifles, Multiplas Rifles, Laser Rifles and Plasma Rifles) will also redeployed there from the same military camp, as well.
Republic artillery pieces can also be deployed there to help bolster the outpost's defenses, as well. A massive network of bunkers, pillboxes and trenches all along the hill below the outpost as well as machine gun nests, sniper nests, minefields and razorwire can also be established to further enhance the impregnable defensive perimeter of the new frontline. Once all of this is done, the NCR will then proceed to flood the outpost with tens of thousands of NCR Troopers, NCR Heavy Troopers, NCR Veteran Rangers
And when coupled with the fact that the Mojave Outpost is atop a high hill, is flanked by mountain ranges on both sides (which will completely prevent the Legion from attacking its flanks and rear), is right on the border with fully-controlled Republic territory (which will make it impossibly easy to keep well-supplied and will also ensure that Republic reinforcements are plentiful and easily available) and the fact that one could see everything up to Primm and Nipton from the Mojave Outpost (that particular area is also wide-open, completely exposed and lacks any real cover which means that any Legion force of any meaningful size would be spotted from miles away day or night which in turn will prevent Legion surprise attacks), the Mojave Outpost will truly become a 100% impregnable fortress.
To make things even worse for the Legion, there's absolutely no bypassing the Mojave Outpost either as the only areas that can allow such a short cut around the Long 15 are completely and literally impassable. The Big Empty is often described as a wall to any living thing approaching it, the Divide is little more than a death trap and is completely avoided by the Legion for obvious reasons and Death Valley is so inhospitable that even the NCR, with its fleet of military cargo trucks and Vertibirds, flat out avoids that area out of habit.
Any army stupid enough to try and cross through these areas will not return alive under any circumstances. Which in turn ensures that only through the Long 15 can the Legion hope to invade the West and given that the Mojave Outpost is purely impenetrable and that the Mojave Wasteland is completely entrapped with mountains and the Colorado River, the Legion will be completely trapped in the Mojave Wasteland and will never be freed from their holding pattern there.
The NCR simply bides its time and let's the Legion wear itself out and tear itself apart trying to hold the Mojave Wasteland, occasionally fending off Legion assaults on the Mojave Outpost whilst inflicting heavy losses on the Legion, launching several limited-scale offensives here and there so as to deplete the Legion's ranks even further and deploying NCR Veteran Rangers into the Mojave Wasteland so as to ambush Legion supply caravans and patrols to worsen the Legion's logistical nightmare.
After almost a year, the Legion will finally be vulnerable, it's forces stretched absolutely thin down to their absolute breaking point, their supply lines and logistics completely exhausted and expended alongside their supplies as a whole, the Legion's ranks reduced to little more than a tiny skeleton crew, the Legion completely scattered across the entire Mojave Wasteland unable to guard it or defend it any longer and the Colorado River at its back, with absolutely no way of escaping their inevitable demise.
At this moment, the NCR finally attacks with a full-scale assault across the entirety of the Mojave, completely and utterly destroying the Legion in its entirety and killing/capturing Caesar himself as Republic forces swarm across New Vegas and wipe out his Legion all around him within mere hours, days if the Legion is lucky. And so the NCR-Legion War finally draws to a close, with the back of the Legion broken forever and ceasing to exist.
Either way the Legion is fucked with a Legion defeat at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam being a mercy killing at best for the Legion.
(Sources are down below in the comments section).
submitted by GodBlessTheNCR316 to Fallout [link] [comments]

The Frugal Capitalist - a consumerist FI/RE story

I would like to think my FI journey has been unique. I’m a super spender in every sense of the word. I’m also pretty much in the middle of the FIRE journey and that isn’t something I see written about often. There are lots of stories of those in their last year, should I or shouldn’t I pull the trigger, those in their first few years of full retirement, and beginners. However, I’ve noticed a lack of those that are pretty much in the middle, maybe not even that serious about FIRE as a driving goal, but instead use the principles to be a better capitalist.
My story has nothing out of the ordinary beyond some rational choices and being overly conservative with our money, and an overwhelming desire to build businesses. We may not make it to FIRE early in life; we are having children and FIRE is not our number one concern or priority. As I’ve earned more I’ve absolutely let lifestyle inflation happen and we are 100% ok with that. The reason I wanted to tell my story was to tell the story of how these principals will always improve your situation at nearly every income level and I dream of a society (American) that can begin to see beyond the now.
\Before we begin, anytime I write something that shows I had/have extreme privilege, I promise I feel it and much as you see it. It would just be exhausting to call it out every time so consider this my one acknowledgement that I have had it WAY better than almost everyone in human history and I do feel guilty about that most of the time.*
I’m 35 years old and my wife is 30 and as of today we are roughly 60% of the way to FI/RE with a baby on the way.
I grew up in a lower middle class household in the midwest in a town you’ve never heard of but you’ve seen dozens of them. Both my wife and my childhoods were pretty traditional for the time in middle America, but most of this post will be from my perspective. For middle America it didn’t feel like we had much, but we had enough at all times. We were absolutely paycheck to paycheck, but there was some excessive spending and a gambling addiction. Divorced Parents when I was young enough to have really vague memories, but all in all I would say it falls right at an average American childhood in the 80s-2000s
My exposure to money was basically watch and learn. I had a bank account setup when I was old enough and told to save some everytime I made money “pay yourself first”. Something my parents didn’t really do much of, but at least they knew enough to try and teach me that. From there I was on my own and learned some bad habits, even though I always knew I shouldn’t be spending I just did it anyway. No matter how insane a purchase I made felt, there were others out there doing it way stupider, but being praised for it more. I began to embrace the research process to get the best thing that’s also the best value. Cars had a sweet spot at 4 years old from lease turn ins. I learned I could buy a 4 year old, low mileage lease, drive it for a year and sell it private party a year later for what I paid. My average age for owning a car must be like 9 months, but I have only had 1 or 2 instances where I lost a lot on a car. I began applying these principals of Capitalism to everything from bikes, to lodging (sleeping in my car), to growing my own food vs buying it. Nothing was off limits in the pursuit of living a life of luxury that was outside my income. See I wasn’t trying to live frugally for the sake of living frugally. I was doing it for the purposes of getting all the best and most luxurious things cheaper than the average consumer pays for the ordinary.
Some perspective, because frugality is a spectrum and I’m on the extreme end (spendy).
When I’m into something I go for the absolute best, every time. Some examples of things I bought before I was 25 while never making more than $50,000 a year and sometimes way less:
I was starting to think that nothing made sense. For the most part, I knew what my friends made; most of the time it was more than I was making and somehow I always had more, newer and cooler stuff than them, but they were the ones struggling with money. I almost never struggled with money even for the years I was near the poverty line for my income while taking on student loan debt or during a 4 month stretch of job loss where I was denied unemployment.
I really only saved for the short term. I would save for a goal, buy whatever that goal was depleting my savings or investments then repeat. I learned early on that having cash on hand would always get me the best deal and therefore made my meager salary go farther.
It wasn’t until I was around my mid 20s when a conservative and rich aunt told me about Dave Ramsey that I really started to embrace what FI/RE was and could be.
It’s hard to explain my relationship to DR, but what he was saying was truly life changing, but not for the reason that most people say DR changes their life. DR didn’t teach me a new way to look at money, he was simply the first person to even think remotely similar about money as I did. That at almost every income level, spending less than you make is really all that matters. If you live by that principal and apply a loose plan you should at least be able to survive in our current society. Up until this point in my life I felt I was the only person who felt I was doing well with money and I didn’t think I was doing that well. I always felt my spending was out of control and I could be so much more frugal. I actually remember the exact event that made me stop having debt when I was at my lowest NW.
I went to sign up for the Pigman triathlon short course, it was my favorite race and they did it twice a year. It was 90 minutes away from home so it was a perfect weekend trip for me. I went to register and didn’t have the $65 to write a check (yep, I’m old). I was going to put it on my credit card, but couldn’t find my wallet. I knew the number was printed on the statement so I went and opened the mail it was in. The amount of interest I was paying that month was something like $71. I got so pissed that if I had no debt I would have had the money to go do my race. I swore off debt at that moment and never looked back.
I was learning the FI and Dave Ramsey principals through an expensive trial and error process, but it was when I read DR’s book that it gave me justification that my instincts had been right about money and this guy proved to me that it works. I felt he was wrong about a few things, namely his aversion to credit cards never made any sense to me; later his conflicts of interest with investing. I hate debt far more than is rational, but credit cards are not debt and making 2% on every purchase for no additional effort? That’s foolish because it requires no additional effort in my daily life and has an immediate return.
From there I went on to Mr Money Mustache.This was my guy. Not only did I agree with him on a lot of stuff, but he was cool. Even if I was not making all the same choices he suggested I could at least follow his logic of thinking on nearly all of them. His suggestions always made me have an internal question of “Yeah, a minivan is the most logical vehicle for money savings” That’s how I ended up with a Honda Odyssey. However, I still was using these savings to be able to afford a more expensive lifestyle in the hobbies I loved and luxury is the rest of my life. From there I dove in deep into FI/RE blogs and knew that my next savings goal to add should be early retirement, and while it wouldn’t always be the number 1 goal or even a major priority, it would always be on the list. That was 9 years ago and is as close a start date as I can guess.
After digesting all the information I could I decided to go the “large income route” to achieve FI/RE. I love buying shit too much to lean fire so I knew the only shot I had was to get my income way up. It basically needed to double. When we decided to start my wife was still in college and I was working a lower paying accounting job and working part time at a running specialty store. I had also just started an additional part-time contract job timing races across the midwest. Between us we were making around $40,000 a year. Still living pretty large on that in our small, but insanely affordable condo.
Since I sorta had a gig economy work/life including one that was a 40 hour a week full time job I knew that going all in on working was my answer to FI/RE. I was not short on opportunities to make money, and I just needed time to do them all. I started with my accounting job. I was still pretty new to the accounting field with only 6 years of experience up to that point. Rather than try to earn more I took the gamble of working for a non-profit for $26,000 a year. In it for me was being 25 years old and having the title of Accounting Manager, managing a multi-million dollar budget, reporting to a board of directors, and having a small staff. From where I am today in my accountingcareer I can draw a direct line back to accepting that very low salary for a position I was under qualified for and figuring it out as I went.
The person I replaced was retiring so the systems were…..ancient to say the least. After learning the way the old guard did things I immediately began automating everything; tuition payments, contributions, tax documents to donors, reporting to the board, and anything else I could automate I did. This had the surprising effect of making me bored as hell most days.
It took me about 6 months to turn a 40 hour a week job done by hand into about 12 accomplishing even more tasks. In the beginning I fucked around but that gets old quick. Playing Hearthstone or Diablo for 6 hours a day in your office isn’t as fun as it sounds, trust me on that. I was working a couple part time jobs at this point, all of which were in my passion topic of racing, running, and outdoors. The problem was that I was so bored during the day that I wasn’t motivated to do much of anything the rest of the time.
It was important for me to always be in my office during business hours to help or answer questions, but as long as I met all my deadlines and my Board was happy with my performance, always made the non-profit the priority when I was there; then I felt comfortable spending the rest of my time there focusing on starting my own business. If it became too much I would drop the business before my boss even knew something was happening or off.
I applied all this additional time into focusing on Race Timing and Race Management. I had spent the last 7 years or so racing at these events any chance I got. It was one of my favorite places to be so the idea of being able to be PAID to be there? I was very entranced by this line of work. Through some connections I had made at events I started working for a guy who was kind of a prick but had the industry knowledge I needed. I worked for him for pretty cheap - $250 per event that I worked. This meant that I would leave after work on Friday, drive between 2-4 hours, sometimes stay overnight (slept in car), would work the event by myself and drive home to be back to work Monday morning. I was learning a lot and especially a lot of what NOT to do in business from the company owner. He was the definition of small business. It was just himself and sometimes he would hire friends or family to work these events with him. He hired me as a contractor on a per event basis and for the entire time I worked for him he only ever hired a couple of my friends when I said I needed help.
This guy was very smart and knew the technology better at the time than I do still almost 10 years later, but he was a fucking trainwreck. Here are some of my ‘favorite’ highlighted memories:
I learned almost everything I know about how to run a business and the way I operate today from watching him during this “apprenticeship”. I was taking races every weekend they were available cause $250 was a lot of money and working a bunch had the added benefit of not spending as much. Once I started to do his accounting I learned this guy is making FUCKING bank. This bumbling fool is making north of $200,000 a year in this business and he can’t even invoice people or just be polite. One event a year that we did together I was getting paid $250 and he was clearing $15,000.
This motivated me so much. I saw the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The curtain had been pulled back. I saw a hole in the marketplace and I was going to fill it.
I was saving as much of my timing money and running store money as I could. I went from saving $0 for retirement at 24ish to saving about $8,000 a year. I knew it wasn’t going to be enough and so I just kept committing to working more and more, and at this point I was just saving to start a business. FIRE principles applied to our life, but really only for the goal of investing in a business. After a few years of some job moves in Accounting to timing more events, to doing the finances for the running store I had gained a sizable amount of knowledge and set forth on a huge life change.
I was going to start my own race timing business and move to where the races are, where I’ve always wanted to be, Colorado.
We made the move happen in a frugal way, staying with family here while my wife stayed with my folks for 6 weeks (she’s a saint). This was the only way we could afford this move, and was to save every penny possible along the way. We sold our beautiful house in Iowa for $150,000, exactly what we paid and bought a $300,000 fixer up that when the wind blew made the whole house shake. Double the money and a way worse house.
I quickly found a full time job that would pay the bills; one I was also able to automate and optimize to give me more time throughout the day. From there I spent all my free time building another new race business. From everything I learned from my ‘mentor’ I knew everything I didn’t want to do so I decided to model the business around some basic principles:
My theory was simple. If we charge way above the amount where everyone is fighting over margins, we can hire the best and afford to give each client a ton of attention to detail. An event planner is busy, they don’t want to think about the timer. If they are worrying about you then you fucked up.
We started slow, but my margins were strong enough that I was squeezing out around $50,000 a year my first year. I bought all my equipment for cash based on my hatred of debt. This allowed me a ton of freedom to pick and choose the work I wanted to do. It also started my reputation of “They are good, but you’ll pay for it.” A compliment I could not be more proud of.
All along the way I’ve always had an accounting job full-time to which I follow the same plan I’ve done for the last 12 years.
All along the way I was still involved at the retail store I discussed earlier. Since I’m never one to turn down someone paying me for work I did accounting and consulting for this retail store. Through a series of circumstances I took full ownership of this company in November 2019. (I did pay for it, but it was the result of an untimely death of a close friend. A situation that I wasn’t planning on for many years to come.)
As of today FIRE principles have helped me build a very privileged life. My events business is 100% shut down, but it doesn’t matter. I was able to pay my employees a sizable lump sum each for not working this year and since I run the business with no debt we only have $800 a month in liabilities. Compare this to some of my friends in the industry who have multiple leases on cargo vans,a warehouse they rent, six figure debt on equipment; I don’t think many of them will survive this.
The Running Specialty store I now own is in the exact same situation. Our one competitor in town is struggling because they have very high rent and are part of a franchise. I purchased our building and we pay cash for our inventory. My fixed expenses are very low and since my front line staff is working during a pandemic I just gave raises to everyone, averaging about 20%.
As of today I’m about 50% of the way to FI. I could likely just quit my accounting job and live from my businesses but I see no reason to do that. I’m having too much fun and have really been enjoying my money. I think the uniqueness of my approach is that I embrace a lot of modern culture but just attempt to do it in a more frugal way. Like most 30somethings that get a taste of success I made sure to buy a sports car. I’ve been into cars my whole life and it’s my greatest weakness for sure. Rather than go to a dealership I bought an immaculate 2004 911. After fixing some mechanical issues which made the purchase price cheap I only have about $30,000 in the car. It’s worth about $35,000 now. I think Mr Money Mustache would beat the shit out of me for buying that, but I got the dream car I had on my wall as a kid AND it’s costing me very little compared to my income, net worth and the fact that I learned everything I could about the 911 market and bought something worth more than I paid.
The major changes that have happened in the last 6 months are really what motivated me to write all of this down, because so much of what I knew in FI/RE has changed, and it feels like it’s all for the better.
There is no denying I’m a workaholic. The only thing I can say is that I really do love the grind. I’m friends with most of my clients at this point and owning a running store is like the coolest thing in the world. What changed in the last few months was my approach to investing.
As my income has risen, and there have been no new businesses for me to start since my time was pretty optimizely spent; my investments just kept growing.
6 months ago I was sitting on $200,000 in pre tax and $300,000 in after tax and savings.
I always felt that I can quit my accounting job and focus on my businesses when I hit $1,000,000 net worth. The thing that doesn’t get discussed much is that $500,000 in investments is a super boring spot to be.
For a person like myself who likes to be in charge of his own destiny seeing that $300,000 in after tax move with the market was annoying. I wanted it to go faster, but also I just felt so not in control. COVID has proved to me that I’m comfortable with the market for long term goals, but it’s dog shit for an entrepreneur that likes to see their money work. I believe in the market 100% and I’ll always keep my pre-tax money in low cost index funds, but I also believe in myself and it turns out I believe in myself way more than I believe in the market.
I have had rental properties in the past and was very happy with how I did. Even had some major issues that I fixed, appliances broke, water heater flooded and I needed to replace the floor, etc. No big deal, YouTube these days and you can do almost anything and just hire a pro when it’s something critical like electrical work that I’m not comfortable with.
One of the reasons I avoided real estate for so long was the HCOL here in Northern CO. It’s stupid here and you won’t make money unless you get in the vacation rental business and that’s just not for me. I’m a lazy workaholic at my core- I look at maximum return for the least effort. At the time I was trying to solve this problem I had a new creeping problem. The running store I owned was 13 hours away in my hometown and I was getting tired of coming back to work staying at either of my parents. Not because we don’t get along, it’s just a lot to ask of older parents. Plus there is an obligation to do a lot of socializing when I’m there to work plus working remote for other jobs it’s just better to have some space of my own.
I do not make enough to afford a proper second home. Also, that would defeat the entire purpose of purchasing the running store in the first place. Why bother if there is a 3 year break even just to afford a place to stay when I’m there, doesn't make sense.
Looking at non-traditional options I found a cabin in the woods that was fully furnished for $55,000. It was adorable, secluded, hard to access, right on the water and perfect. A house in my hometown at $55,000 would have been an absolute shit hole likely with bullet holes. This is in amazing shape, a 55 minute peaceful drive to my store and everything I love about nature.
The drive is not a big deal since I’m only there roughly 6 weeks a year. We also decided that is where we will spend 100% of our family vacations. I’ve spent the last decade travelling for work. Unlike most FI/RE folks I have little to no interest in travel to foreign lands. My own little slice of secluded land where I can hunt and fish is all I’ll ever need. Henry David Thoreau once wrote “I quite think I would enjoy a quiet life in the woods.” We paid cash.
Owning a property near my hometown and the location of my business opened up an opportunity to work my savings even better. I immediately started looking for rental properties. Applying my rules of least effort for my return and looking at many properties I settled on a beautifully remodeled 3 br condo, a $130 a month HOA fee to do all maintenance and made a cash offer of $122,500. Yes, it is mathematically better for me to leverage into a mortgage, trust me I know this I’m an accountant. My decision to pay cash is a risk aversion strategy to the max. Limiting how much I pay in interest goes back to that guy who couldn’t register for a race because I had to pay interest. Now, if it takes me a couple months to find a tenant at some point it doesn’t matter to me financially. That has value to me and it’s more valuable than the leverage a mortgage provides.
A little digging found that when these do come available to rent from other investors they are getting $1,300-$1,400 a month in rent for ones that are not remodeled. I’m confident I’ll be able to get these amounts which will earn me almost a 4x return over the rental market where we live in CO. Sure, a conventional life wouldn’t be to live in the mountains full time and have your cabin in Western Illinois, but it’s the most cost effective way to have both. I’ve found most people have their vacation homes or second homes in the opposite scenario financially. They live in the less desirable places and spend big bucks on the vacation home.
6 months ago I would have never guessed all of that was the plan, but the power of saving money has opened up so many opportunities for success in my life. As of today I’m casually looking for rental property number #2 in that area and I may try to learn how commercial financing works by putting 50% or more down while keeping the entire amount in a bond fund to pay off if it gets uncomfortable for me.
FIRE is no longer my primary goal. It would be nice to be able to walk away from my CFO position at some point; for now I like the insurance, salary and it’s a super fun job, so why leave? My goal now is diversification as that is what has worked for me to survive this pandemic and in nearly every life situation I’ve experienced.
If I had only done my events business when it got very successful I would be in trouble today as we have 0 clients, 0 revenue and no horizon for when that ends. Instead, we ran the business with FI principles and that business can just be dormant.
Same thing happened when retail was shut down. The month of March is usually our 2nd best month of the year, and this year we only did orders over the phone and delivered them, we were down 90% for 8 weeks. However, since I operate with no debt, we own the building and pay for inventory in cash we bled far less than our competitors. In fact, it has allowed us to take advantage of savings on reduced price inventory.
The last 2 months has seen me getting heavily into real estate from my after tax brokerage account. We were able to get a beautiful cabin by being the buyer who offered cash. There were other offers, some for more, but they all needed financing. Being overly conservative and having a large cash cushion is such a large contributor to success. It allows you to act from a place of confidence and action. When the deal is available, whether it’s business or personal you will be able to act and act first.
From here we are back to our usual ways. Every month we max 401ks & 457s, and then save whatever we don’t spend to keep buying more rentals. At some point I’ll stop buying them, but I can’t tell you when.
Whatever is left we spend on whatever we feel like. I’ve gotten a little out of control on vehicles lately. I keep talking about how much we spend and while I really don’t keep track here is one example so you know i’m not lying:
Current cars - I don’t count these in my networth but totalled it’s around $120,000
2004 911 4s
2016 Tesla Model X P90D
1987 Volvo 760 turbo
2017 Toyota Sienna Limited
I’ll be honest, even listing those out on a FI forum is embarrassing, but before 2020 we have never made more than $100,000 in a year. I just always save up for what I want, pay cash whenever possible and put significant effort into getting the best value.
I’m not as frugal as most of the people here, and I’m very comfortable with that. As long as I’m maxing my retirement accounts and investing in my businesses then I enjoy buying luxuries, toys and conveniences all the time.
Since it’s my favorite buy on my FI track here was my process from my “Should I buy a 911” spreadsheet.
Buying an exotic sports car is unheard of in the FI community, but it shouldn’t be. If it’s truly a hobby you love then my 911 is a steal.
I’ve owned that car for almost a year, and spent almost a year researching before purchasing it and as of today I could sell it for roughly $5,000 more than I paid. Along with that I’ve had a blast every time I drive it and spend a lot of free time enjoying it. In every purchase I make I feel it’s important to maximize your value. So far the 911 is a great example of excess American consumption done right.
If we just keep our investments on auto-pilot I shouldn’t need to work anywhere (other than rental properties) in 10 years or less, at age 45 and 40. We could do it much sooner if we really wanted to adjust our lifestyle but for now, that doesn’t seem necessary. To me that’s the beauty of the FI/RE movement. It’s personal and no matter how much or little you embrace, every little change you make will improve your financial life.
Reading individual stories is my favorite part of this community and I sincerely hope you enjoyed mine.
****I was somewhat vague on details, but at some point I gave up and figure if someone wants to figure out who I am it won’t be tough****
TL;DR - Took FI/RE principles and applied them to become a very efficient spendy pants and will still finish early.
submitted by ScrumptousLoL to financialindependence [link] [comments]

Game VII.B 2020: BINGO! Rules, Roles, and Registration

There will be two games running during July:
Game A: Percy Jackson Hosted by isaacthefan and German_Shepherd_Dog
Game B: BINGO! Hosted by oomps62 and Penultima
You will be elderly.
Your knees will know the second it thinks of raining.
Both of your hips have been replaced and even your artificial hips need new hips.
You're no spring chicken. Maybe an autumn turkey.
You’re happily retired, and with your fully raised kids raising your grandkids, there isn’t much left for you in the house you raised your family. It would be so much better to still have your own private place, but within a larger community filled with other seniors!
Fairview Senior Center is the place for you. A place to make new friends and live a carefree lifestyle. Just see some excerpts from the brochure!

Fairview Senior Center- Beginning a new chapter of our lives, together.

Unfortunately, we all eventually come to the point in our lives when we need a little more help and full time care. If you’re a fall risk, for example, and need to be transitioned to life in a wheelchair at a place with full time caregivers. When that time comes, Sundown Estates Nursing Home is there. You can refer to their informational packet, with some excerpts below:

Sundown Estates- A safe place to put your family.

General Mechanics

There will be two teams the Seniors (town) vs Staff (wolves)
  • The beloved seniors residing at Fairview Senior Center. Grandpas, abuelas, omas, and bubbes. They’re retired, their kids are long grown and now raising their own kids. They’re living out their golden years among their peers, participating in retirement activities, the most sacred of which is BINGO. Unfortunately, someone keeps stealing the BINGO prizes donated by the seniors’ families, and they are not happy about someone getting between them and their BINGO games. Every day they’ll vote to remove someone from Fairview Senior Center
  • The staff at the Fairview Senior Center. The staff are greedy and stealing BINGO prizes from the seniors. Every night, the staff will deem someone as a “fall risk” and have them shipped out to Sundown Estates Nursing Home for being such a troublemaker.
  • The Seniors win if they can eliminate all of the Staff
  • The Staff win when they outnumber the remaining Seniors
Each phase, we will reveal:
  • Who was the vote target, how many votes they received, and their affiliation
  • Who was sent to Sundown Estates Nursing Home and their affiliation

Roles

Each role may exist 0 or more times.

Seniors

Name Description
Bubbe Ruth She’s got the greatest soups in the facility. Come over to the Fairview Family Style Kitchen where she’ll whip you up a soup that’ll cure any ailment you have! Every night she will choose a target and their target is protected from being sent off to Sundown Estates Nursing Home. Cannot target the same person more than 3 times per game.
Opa Benjamin He doesn’t have much to say, but he’s very perceptive. He seems to know things that nobody else does. Every night he will choose a target and find out the target’s affiliation.
Grammy Beverly Nobody owns the power of persuasion like her. Give her a minute and she can convince you to do just about anything. 3 times per game, she can submit a call for the next phase to have a double vote.
Papa Herman Has he ever told you about his time in the Big One? Sit down, you’re going to be here all night listening to his war stories. Every night, he will choose a target and that target will be unable to complete their action. Does not affect items. Cannot select the same target more than 3 times per game.
Grandma Carolyn She’s got friends everywhere and they keep her informed about goings-on all over town. 3 times per game, she can choose to see the role of a player at Sundown Estates Nursing Home.
Gramps George He’s a bit of a troublemaker - he’s got a new prank to play just about every day. Every night he will choose two targets to swap. Actions done onto his first target will now be done onto his second target and vice versa. Cannot target any person (either as Target 1 or Target 2) two phases in a row.
Mawmaw Rosie She loves her mystery stories, especially Agatha Christie and Murder, She Wrote. She loves to investigate any little mystery she can find. Every night, she will choose a target and they will find out who their target submitted an action for that night, if any.
Abuelo Manuel That old back injury keeps him up at all hours of the night, so he may as well look out the window and see what’s going on all over Fairview Senior Center. 3 times per game, he can choose to spy on a player and see everybody who visited that player in the night.
Memere Rita Any grandmother would do anything for her children and grandchildren. Memere Rita sees everyone as her family. Every night, she will choose a target. If her target was scheduled to be shipped off to Sundown Estates Nursing Home, she will be shipped off instead.
Mami Anna An avid casino visitor and gambling fanatic, Mami Anna will use any tactic at her disposal to win at BINGO. 3 times per game, she can choose to target a player and have them sent to Sundown Estates Nursing Home.
Grandparents Regardless of if they’re a Pawpaw, Nana, Opa, Mummo, Abuela, or Mami, you better be prepared to get off of their lawns. While they don’t have actions, they can vote every day and earn items.

Staff

Name Description
Nurse The one in charge of everybody’s medical records… whether or not they’re accurate, who knows? Every night, they will have a player classified as a “fall risk” and have them shipped off to Sundown Estates Nursing Home.
Groundskeeper Someone’s gotta shovel the sidewalk and make sure that the paths around Fairview Senior Center are flat. Unfortunately, with this guy around, you’ll never find any evidence of crimes. Every night, they will be able to choose a player’s affiliation to obscure. Has 33% chance of failure. Cannot target the same player twice in a row.
Hall Monitor Retirement doesn't sit well with him, he needs a job to feel a sense of purpose. Despite being a Senior, he's more than happy to work with the Staff. They will begin the game as a Grandparent on the side of the Seniors, but will join the Staff if they would have been sent to Sundown Estates.
Cafeteria Worker An expert at making everybody’s favorite comfort foods, which results in their target entering a food coma and falling asleep early. Every night, they will choose a target and that target will be unable to complete their action. Does not affect items. Cannot select the same target more than 3 times during the game.
Office Manager A master at forging paperwork. Every night, they will choose a player and that player will show up as Staff to investigators. Cannot select the same target twice in a row.
The Administrator The Fairview Senior Center simply couldn’t function without them! They are immune to being sent to Sundown Estates Nursing Home as a result of night actions or items.
Game Room Manager Absolutely loves BINGO and runs the show! How could anybody ever suspect them? They will show up as being on the side of the Seniors when investigated
Security Guard Patrols around the senior center, doing “routine checks”. If he saw how rowdy the BINGO games got, he’d be sure to shut that down. Once per game, they will choose a player to visit and every visitor to that player gets sent off to Sundown Estates Nursing Home.
Volunteers When it’s not your job on the line, it can be even more difficult to resist the temptation of lifting a few prizes. After all, there are so many! Who’s going to miss a couple? Although they have no special abilities, they work with the rest of the staff.
No matter who is banned from Fairview Senior Center, the staff will always have the ability to deem seniors as “fall risks”.

Bingo

Bingo Prizes (Items) will be earned by playing BINGO! Details of how BINGO is played will be outlined in the Phase 0 event, but in summary:
  • During Phase 0 players will have a chance to submit things that would be on their werewolf BINGO board
  • Each player will be assigned a unique BINGO board
  • When players find things in the threads that meet their BINGO criteria, they can call BINGO and submit their card to win an item
  • You can only have one item at a time. If you currently hold an unused item, you will not be eligible to win a new one until it is used.
Item Actions
Local Coupon Book Causes the full voting results from the phase it is used to be posted.
Manicures for Two Learn the name of one other player who shares your affiliation.
Deck of Cards Causes your vote to be counted triple for the current phase.
Fresh Garden Produce Basket Choose a person and see everyone who voted for them in that day’s vote.
Hand-knit Hat and Scarf Choose a target and learn who they submitted an action on that phase.
Scrabble Choose a target and prevent them from voting AND completing their night action.
Wine and Cheese Basket Choose a target and redirect their action onto another player of your choice.
Weekend Getaway Stay at a local hotel Choose a target. If they’re on the opposite side as you, they’re sent to Sundown Estates. If they’re on your side, you’re sent to Sundown Estates.
Massage Gift Certificate Choose a target. Nobody can visit them that night.
Lotion Gift Set Choose another player and render them invisible to any investigation that phase.
The Game of Life Choose a target and see which role visited them that phase.
Fresh Bread Assortment Choose another player. Anybody who visited them will now visit you. Anybody who visited you will now visit them.
Coffee and tea variety sampler Choose someone and if they submitted an action, guarantee that it succeeds even when it wouldn't have otherwise.
Box of Chocolates Choose to use your action and anybody who commented “first” will have their action fail for the next 3 nights.
Crocheted Doily Find out any players who visited you the night you use this action.
MP3 Player Prevent a player’s affiliation from appearing in the post when they’re sent to Sundown Estates.
Homemade Soup Protect a target from removal from the house (vote or night action) for that phase.
Floral Arrangement Remove 3 votes from your target.
Werther’s Originals Send your target to Sundown Estates.
Beaded Necklace and Bracelet Replicate the action of your first target onto your second target.
Cozy Wool Socks Privately reveals role on death to your target.
Wind Chimes Shows full vote tally from any previous phase
Leather Bound Journal Allows player to send a message upon their death to another player. This message may not exceed 150 characters, including punctuation. This item must be submitted at any point before the end of phase before that player’s death, and may not be changed after submitting.
Grand Canyon Puzzle Target someone in the current phase to publicly reveal their vote

Rules and Additional Information

Activity

If you fail to vote or submit a night action for 3 days total, you will be removed from the game.

Alt Accounts

We will not be allowing secret alt accounts for this game. Alt accounts which are publicly known are fine.

Editing Comments

If you are editing comments, it should be made clear why you’re editing. If you made an error, use strikethroughs on the information you want removed, but don’t delete it. If you want to add something, put it at the end what you’re adding. Do not share information, then immediately edit your comment to hide what you said from others.
Do not delete comments

Codes and Keys

Comments in this game should be in English and free of encryption. We ask that players do not try to find workarounds to this. Previous Removals
If you have been removed from 2 games in the past 12 months for inactivity or rule violations, you may not sign up for this game.

Discontinuation of the word “lynch” in HogwartsWerewolves Games

You may have seen the post “Hogwarts Werewolves and Social Justice” come up in the last week. If you haven’t read it already, we highly encourage you to read and discuss it with the rest of the community.
In short, as a mod team community, we believe that we should no longer use the term “lynch” in light-hearted fashion. As a Mafia-based community, many of our games revolve around phases often framed as “night kills” and “day lynches.” The word “lynch” has a long legacy of anti-Blackness and murder of Black people, Indigenous people, and members of other marginalized groups, and we feel that time is well overdue to examine what it means to continue using it as a descriptor of gameplay. While “lynch” is established Mafia terminology, it is also a word that is painful for many people to hear. We should not justify continuing to use it because it is still used commonly elsewhere. It is inappropriate and cruel to make a game out of generational trauma.
Again, we encourage the community to read the entirety of the post (linked above), as it provides further context for this decision, as well as discussion of alternative terms that can be used. We understand that this is a significant change in the way that we talk about our games, and mistakes will happen. We are not out to punish you if you forget to use an alternative word and we will apologize if we do. We are all working to be better people, but we’re all human and we need to be kind to each other while we all work towards removing lynch from our game vernacular.

Signups and Timeline

Signup using THIS LINK. Signups close at 10pm EST on Tuesday June 30. Role PMs will be sent out shortly after.
Phase 0 will start when role assignments go out (which will be shortly after the sign-up deadline. Phase 0 will last for approximately 2 days, though the confirmation period will be limited to the first 24 hours of that time.
Phase 0 will end at 10 pm (Eastern) on Thursday, July 2nd, and Phase 1 will begin shortly after.

Edits

  • Limitations on use for roles added to their descriptions
submitted by BINGO_Host to HogwartsWerewolves [link] [comments]

Used SUV or truck

Hi all,
I have been in the market for a used car. I am from North Eastern Mass. I am going to college next year and plan to go somewhere in New England or Colorado. I love to ski, so I need a car that'll be able to handle the snow. I've been looking at a lot of 4wd and awd cars. My budget is 12k max (preferably 10 or under). I will definitely need a SUV or truck just for the space to put stuff. My question is what will be a good reliable car for me that'll get me to the mountains safely. Also I preferably would like a vehice with something bigger than a 4 cylinder. My sister has a subaru tribeca and it can barely get out of its own way. Right now my top choices are 4runner, 3.5l v6 rav4, F150(I've found cheap ones with low mileage in my area but don't know if it'll fit my needs), Ford Escape, CRV and Pilot. I also was wondering what you think of used ford intereceptors. I know its usually a gamble but I've heard good things about the awd systems.
submitted by AidanR03 to whatcarshouldIbuy [link] [comments]

I'm down for all this sports gambling, but it will have major repercussions. It will create gambling addicts that didnt have access to it so easily. Gambling addiction ruins lives.

My dad had a huge gambling addiction when he was alive. In Colorado you have to drive to the mountains to get legal gambling. I cant imagine how much worse it would've gotten if it was this easy being able to legally gamble on sports via an app
submitted by levywasbry_ to unpopularopinion [link] [comments]

I took the trip, and got the 100%

So I played this game in 2018, finished it but really just endured it, I did not play the game as it was meant to be played. Frankly, I hated it and the mozying. And all the horse riding. Cut to 2020, the pandemic, and I've been stuck inside. Further, I heard the game added a fast travel to the camping spot, which really opens things up quite a bit. So I did a replay. And I got in deep. Hunted like it was the end of times. Spoke to everyone in camp. Traveled everywhere. It helped that I had an understanding of the Hunting Challenges and the Exotics Challenge, so I was knocking down heron's and the like from the moment I was anywhere close to St. Denis.
I didn't think I would consider going for 100%. All those challenges. The 3 card blackjack hit. The stupid dominoes. Having to pick every plant again.
But I kept playing. I kept doing things. No matter what I was doing, I would check the RDR2map webpage in case there was a bone or a catcher of dreams or a rock. Yeah, I cheated with the map. But lord knows it would take 500 hours to discover all that stuff on your own, on top of the fact that it would be the ultimate grind. Because this process was gorgeous and amazing and truly one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had, but it was a grind.
And once I finished the rock carvings and dream catchers, I basically was like, "I have to go for 100%. There is no other option in life." And then Hosea and Lenny died and instead of not caring (like I was in 2018) I was crushed. All the talking and hanging out in camp had an impact. I was immersed.
Yesterday, I completed the final hunting challenge by FINALLY finding a bat. Bolger Glade. And I got the squirrel and it was complete. 100%. I was so satisfied. I am genuinely glad I played this game, my opinion of it completely changed. The fast travel from the camp spots made it significantly more feasible, that made a humongous difference. It was still a lot of horse riding, but I kept changing horses often, so I could bond with a new horse, making it that much less tedious.
Highlights: The story is very well done and engrossing. Guarma is hilarious and absurd. St. Denis is amazing. The challenges, while a grind, were very satisfying overall. Man that Legendary Panther was tough. Two times I tried and two times I was dead before I heard a thing. Got it on the 3rd try by staying on my horse and getting thrown on the first attack but not killed. The graphics. Huge highlight, the game is just gorgeous. It is easier to play a game for over a hundred of hours when it looks that good. And the world is incredibly dynamic, especially the animals. That part of it is an epic achievement. Also, the varied areas of the map. You've got your northeast forests. You have your South East Louisiana area. You've got the plains of middle America. You have the long, flowing rivers of the Mississippi. You have southeastern America and Mexico, and the deserts of the west. And you've got the Mountains of Colorado. Truly epic in scale and diversity of environments. Huge highlight. Fast travel from camp. Game changer. The camp interactions were a blast. Just hanging out in camp and eating stew or being an asshole to Micah or singing into the evening was beyond hilarious and awesome. I loved it. I did almost none of that in my first playthrough.
Lowlights: Hunting little birds was hard work. Some of the challenges were really stupid.(i guess they needed 10 for each, so some were fluff) I am not sure what they could have done with the gambling challenges but the dominoes and having to hit 3 times in black jack just was awful, because it wasn't even a grind, you weren't doing anything, just hitting or enduring a game. "Hit me." "Sir, you have a 19." "My man, was I unclear, GIVE ME A CARD." The exotics challenge wasn't even a lowlight for me, I blew through that one because I had all the plumes way before I even unlocked the challenge. So that was actually fun.
So my lowlights are limited. This is my favorite game of all time. And if you asked me in 2018 what I thought, my answer would have been far different. Anyway, if you got this far, thanks for reading. This post is definitely tl;dr.
submitted by johnmd20 to reddeadredemption2 [link] [comments]

After hearing my neighbors arguing over the literal dumbest bullshit...

This happened 5 minutes ago. I overheard my neighbors outside, and one guy was literally shouting about how the Cherokee need to hop on a boat and go back to their country.
The fuck is wrong with some people?!
EDIT: Some backstory, I'm in Colorado and the dude felt like he was ripped off losing money at Cripple Creek (a gambling town in the mountains).
submitted by RoccoIsATaco to Vent [link] [comments]

PLACES TO VISIT IN U.S.A

1 The Statue of Liberty
📷
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York, in the United States of America. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, to celebrate the friendship the two endured during the American Revolution. Over the years, the Statue of Liberty has symbolized the freedom and the democracy of the United States. It serves as a popular tourist attraction, where visitors can learn about the history of Liberty Island and explore museums and exhibits on site. The best times to visit are Autumn and winter, if you want to avoid longer lines and waiting times. Depart on the ferry before 2 pm. The Statue of Liberty would take around 2-3 hours. If you want to visit both the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, allow 5-6 hours for your visit. @Travel All Around The World
2. The Grand Canyon National Park
📷
The Grand Canyon National Park, in Arizona, is home to much of the immense Grand Canyon, with its layered bands of red rock revealing millions of years of geological history. Viewpoints include Mather Point, Yavapai Observation Station and architect Mary Colter’s Lookout Studio and her Desert View Watchtower. Lipan Point, with wide views of the canyon and Colorado River, is a popular, especially at sunrise and sunset. The best times to visit the Grand Canyon are March through May and September through November when daytime temperatures are cool. Five to seven hours according to park surveys, but if you really want to see the beauty of The Grand Canyon you should spend at least 2 day here. @Travel All Around The World
3. The Yellowstone National Park
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The Yellowstone National Park is a nearly 3,500-sq.-mile wilderness recreation area atop a volcanic hot spot. Mostly in Wyoming, the park spreads into parts of Montana and Idaho too. Yellowstone features dramatic canyons, alpine rivers, lush forests and gushing geysers. Yellowstone is known for its red-tinged canyon walls and awe-inspiring natural wonders like Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs. It's also home to hundreds of animal species, including bears, wolves, bison, elk and antelope. The best times to visit Yellowstone National Park are from April to May and between September and October. It takes longer than two days to really experience the Yellowstone area. @Travel All Around The World
4. The Golden Gate Bridge
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The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. It was the longest suspension bridge in the world, with a total length of 2.7km. You can see the Pacific Ocean on one side and the San Francisco Bay on the other. More than 10 million people visit the Golden Gate Bridge each year. The best time to visit it is either September or October. This is the best time to explore this place as the fog dissipates and the temperature becomes warm and enjoyable. 45 minutes to an hour, is good time to explore, enjoy and take some photo for your profile. @Travel All Around The World
5. The Glacier National Park
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The Glacier National Park is a 1,583-sq.-mi. wilderness area in Montana's Rocky Mountains, with glacier-carved peaks and valleys running to the Canadian border. It's crossed by the mountainous Going-to-the-Sun Road. Among more than 700 miles of hiking trails, it has a route to photogenic Hidden Lake. Other activities include backpacking, cycling and camping. Diverse wildlife ranges from mountain goats to grizzly bears. The best time to visit Glacier National Park is during the summer months of July, August, and September. June and October are also lovely times to go. To make a Glacier National Park trip worth it you need at least 3-5 days. @Travel All Around The World
6. The Niagara Falls
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The Niagara Falls is a city on the Niagara River, in New York State. It’s known for the vast Niagara Falls, which straddle the Canadian border. In Niagara Falls State Park, the Observation Tower, at Prospect Point, juts out over Niagara Gorge for a view of all 3 waterfalls. Trails from the Niagara Gorge Discovery Center lead to other viewpoints. The Aquarium of Niagara is home to Humboldt penguins, seals and sea lions. The best time to visit Niagara Falls is June to August. While summer is consider as a peak season. Based on this plan of the day, you should be spending anywhere between 8 to 10 hours at Niagara Falls and surrounding area. there is plenty of thing near to Niagara Falls. @Travel All Around The World
7. The San Antonio River Walk
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The San Antonio River Walk is a city park and network of walkways along the banks of the San Antonio River, one story beneath the streets of San Antonio, Texas, United States of America. Lined with bars, restaurants, biking trails, and museums, the Walk has become one of the most popular tourist spots in the state and is one of America's largest urban ecosystems. The San Antonio River Walk boat tour connects you to the city's culture, history, architecture, and timeless charm. The best time to visit San Antonio is from November to April, when the weather is comfortable and suitable to take a boat tour and Sightseeing. 2 days on the Riverwalk, ideally it will take 3-4 days. It is most beautiful decorated at time of Christmas, try to visit at that time too. @Travel All Around The World
8. The Las Vegas Strip
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The Las Vegas Strip also known as Las Vegas Boulevard,is the most recognizable street in Las Vegas. Lined with upscale casino hotels, the neon-soaked Strip is quintessential Las Vegas. As well as gambling floors, the vast hotel complexes house a variety of shops, restaurants, and performance venues for music, comedy and circus-style acts. Attractions like the soaring, choreographed Fountains of Bellagio and the High Roller observation wheel draw crowds.
submitted by UtkarshAcharya to u/UtkarshAcharya [link] [comments]

Suggest me a book about a girl new in town/enemies-to-lovers

Could someone suggest me a book where a woman moves to a small town and meets male? Maybe enemies to lovers?
Doesn’t have to totally fit the description, I’m open to suggestions.
I read The Gamble by Kristen Ashley and also The Hating Game and I’m not ready to leave those tropes lol
If it helps you even more, some stuff I liked about those books: - Girl new in town - Small town with welcoming people (what I loved about the Colorado Mountain series by Kristen Ashley) - Alpha male who is a softie on the inside - Enemies to lovers -They’re confined in the same space (like unhoneymooners)
Thanks!!
submitted by septemberless to RomanceBooks [link] [comments]

Forza Horizon will always be my favorite Horizon festival.

In my opinion the first horizon was a perfect blend of music, cars, and speed; I will never forget the feeling of driving past the rivers of the Colorado River weaving past blurs of cars and racers as you try to push the limits of speed. Walking on a Dream blasting as you see the sun setting fall below the Rockies and slowly giving way to the stars above.
Racing cars of unimaginable cost like the Cobra 452 or the Ferrari 458 and maybe even the Agera as you drive through the canyons and mountains as the moment you leave them thats when you see it. Fireworks, lights, colour and cars driving towards the festival in middle of an entire valley as the night has only begun. The cars call you, the booths are filled, spectators cheer you on and the bass blasting in your ears as the sound of the engine ever so often makes itself heard. This was forza horizon.
Who can forget the masterclass breakout of the original in 2012 that did so many unconventional things for a forza game that was a huge gamble. They won. I would love to see the Colorado state make a return to form in a future title because i feel like that's its home and identity. Honestly it was the only festival to me that felt like a real event id go to and stay for all days of racing. It felt like the game celebrated you, the racer for making forza what it was and always will be. The celebration of cars, speed and the player; the music only further made it impeccable with a soundtrack i find in the top 5 games i ever played.
submitted by Dodsone3 to ForzaHorizon [link] [comments]

How to stay Out of a Casino when you are close to one

This will be partly a question and partly a rant.
I'm thinking about going to the great smokey mountains soon. Unfortunately some geniuses think the best location for casinos are in the middle of the wilderness and there is one in the great smokey mountains area. They always do this. Vegas....middle of a desert. Lake Tahoe... also up in the mountains. Same for the casinos in the Colorado mountains.
Anyways I read some of the horror stories around here as a reminder that I'd much rather do ANYTHING than gamble. Still, I know I can easily find myself walking through a casino. If I do find myself walking through the casino then it probably wont be long until I'm in a very dark place. I've thought about not taking any plastic cards with me and only carrying so much cash. I think that's the right answer? That way I can only spend so much if I do go to the casino. My bank would be an hours drive away.
submitted by Grahf0085 to problemgambling [link] [comments]

The Legendary Lou Smit

Andrew Louis Smit has been variously described as “a legend”, an “ace”, “superhuman”, an “American hero”, and a “delusional old man”. Everyone who met him seemed to consider him the consummate gentleman. Here is a photo of Smit with a couple of red herrings. Who was this guy who showed up three months after the crime, in a three-piece-suit, with a toothpick in his teeth, and re-investigated the entire casefile? How the hell did that happen in the first place, and how did he reach such a wildly different conclusion to the police?
The Myth
The Lou Smit myth is best encapsulated in this obsequious documentary from 2002. Here is the basic narrative (with a few quotes taken from that documentary):
It was three months after the crime. The District Attorney, Alex Hunter “feared the police investigation was getting nowhere. To help, he decided to bring in the best homicide detective he could find.” Legendary Colorado detective Lou Smit was pulled out of retirement. Though he thought that the Ramseys were probably involved (based on what he had seen in the media), Smit kept an open mind. When he began studying the crime scene photographs, he noticed a few things that made him start questioning the media’s narrative. Gradually, he found more and more evidence of an intruder that police had overlooked. “The police were angered at Smit's increasing suspicion that they were wrong - and angered, too, that prosecutors in the District Attorney's office were beginning to listen to him.” Smit’s objective consideration of all the evidence eventually led him to conclude that an intruder must have committed this crime, leading him to openly support the Ramseys, resign from the case in protest, and make all his evidence public.
This narrative is repeated in countless TV interviews and books by the Ramseys and others. As you can see from some of the comments made on this subreddit (1, 2, 3) a lot of people genuinely believe this is what happened. The key message is that Lou Smit was extremely experienced, and therefore trustworthy. The police did not have homicide experience, but Smit did. Unlike the Ramsey-hating cops, he was a “seasoned investigator” who “knew his stuff”. Even Lawrence Schiller, the most respected historian of this case, is open about his personal admiration and affection for Lou Smit.
The fact is, Smit was experienced, there is no denying that. But that doesn’t explain his involvement in this case. The trouble with the Glorification of Smit is that it hugely simplifies the circumstances of Smit’s hiring, it misrepresents the actual status of the case at that time, it misstates what his role really was, and tells us absolutely zero about how he actually approached this case.
Smit did not just identify “new evidence”--he removed a huge amount of evidence from consideration, with little or no good reason for doing so. He changed the entire conversation, he treated the Ramsey case as though it was a totally different case, and succeeded in changing the definition of what could and could not be considered “relevant evidence”. He did all this at a time when the two most credible suspects in the case had not even been formally interviewed. It was a devastating sleight-of-hand trick played on the American justice system.
This post is an attempt to show exactly how that happened, to separate the facts about Lou Smit’s involvement from the mythology.
The District Attorney’s Office
The myth tells us “the DA feared the police investigation was getting nowhere. So he brought in Smit to solve the case.”
In fact, the Boulder District Attorney’s office had been attempting to steer the police investigation away from the Ramseys for three months before Smit was hired. Their behavior was highly unusual: In the real world, the police’s job is to investigate, then the DA’s job is to prosecute. Once a suspect is charged, the DA can start plea bargaining and negotiating with the suspect. But in this case, the negotiations began the day after the crime, long before the Ramseys had even been formally interviewed. During those first three months, the DA’s office handed over police reports, the autopsy report, and crime scene photographs to the Ramseys. The DA’s office invited the Ramseys’ defense team to inspect key pieces of evidence. The DA’s office refused to provide police with search warrants for basic pieces of evidence such as clothing items and phone records. When evidence testing began at the CBI, Pete Hoffstrom from the DA’s office immediately informed the Ramseys, and then actually attempted to halt testing until “arrangements [could] be made to allow a representative from the Ramsey family to be present”. When Patsy gave handwriting samples, she did so at an informal meeting at Hoffstrom’s home. By February 1997, the DA’s office was meeting regularly with the Ramseys’ lawyers to “build and maintain trust”, while aggressively urging police to investigate “intruder suspects” like Bill McReynolds.
The behavior of the DA’s office only makes sense if they were working on the assumption that the Rameys were innocent from day one. They simply would not have done the things they did, if they were not working on that assumption. We know for a fact that Pete Hoffstrom was speaking with John Ramsey’s lawyer Mike Bynum on December 27th, the day after the body was found, and that Hofstrom immediately called police to lobby on behalf of the Ramseys that very same day. Mike Bynum was a former employee of the District Attorney’s office, and close with many in the office. Another one of John’s lawyers, Bryan Morgan, was a close personal friend of Hofstrom. At one point in the investigation Hoffstrom remarked:
”I’m not stopping my breakfasts with Bryan. I’ve known him for 20 years.”
There is no way that the involvement of several friends and respected colleagues in the Ramsey legal team did not influence their approach to this case. It is also difficult to imagine, based on the number of mutual friends they had, that Hofstrom did not know or at least know of John Ramsey and his family prior to the crime. Let me be clear - I am not suggesting any kind of coverup. I think Pete Hoffstrom and the others in the DA’s office, who had received a biased, emotionally-charged picture of the “brutality” of this crime from the Ramseys’ lawyers, genuinely believed the Ramseys were not capable of the crime. Therefore they believed that by trusting the Ramseys, they would eventually uncover the evidence that led to the intruder. They would then catch that intruder, the police would be humiliated, and the DA’s office would ultimately be vindicated for their early vote of confidence in the parents.
By February 1997, the DA’s office was clearly frustrated at the lack of “intruder evidence” being produced by the police. None of the DA’s favorite suspects could be connected in any way to the crime scene, or had anything like a coherent motive--Linda Hoffmann Pugh, Bill McReynolds, Jeff Merrick, Joe Barnill, etc.--nobody known to the family had turned out to be a credible suspect. Police were just not finding anything to connect a single “intruder” to the crime. Though they were finding a significant amount of evidence connecting the Ramsey family to the crime--fiber evidence, physical evidence like the pineapple, handwriting similarities between Patsy and the note, indicators of a dysfunctional family environment--these and other details were slowly building up to a picture of the reality of that night. In the real world, successfully eliminating some suspects and zeroing in on others would be viewed as progress. But the DA’s office did not view it that way. When that documentary says “the DA was unhappy police were getting nowhere”, what it means is, the police investigation against an intruder was getting nowhere. The DA was unhappy that the police were getting somewhere he didn’t want them to be, and weren’t finding the intruder evidence the DA had expected them to find.
The DA’s bright idea: “Cataloging” the casefile
In February 1997, after their repeated attempts to interfere in the investigation, the DA’s office did not have access to the full casefile. They (and the Ramseys’ attorneys) believed the Boulder police were wrongly focusing on the family, and wanted access to that casefile. The DA, Alex Hunter, approached police about gaining access to the complete casefile. Hunter made out that his reasons were purely administrative. He proposed hiring somebody to “catalogue and index” that casefile as a way of “preparing the files for eventual transfer to a prosecutorial team”. As Schiller tells us:
Hunter told [Police Chief] Koby his plan, and the chief agreed, as long as the DA’s personnel did not interfere, second-guess, or reinvestigate.
When testifying under oath in a later case, Alex Hunter was asked what Lou Smit’s job actually was, and he again repeated this idea of “compiling” and “indexing” information, clarifying that Smit was not hired as a “field investigator”.
I advised the police department that I was going to hire an investigator to help me compile information coming into my department from the Boulder police department and from the various labs that were working the case and from other areas that were involved in the investigation … I hired Lou Smit to be “my” investigator in the sense of fulfilling the DA’s job, which would be … getting a case sort of ready for trial. Um. Lou set up I thought a sophisticated indexing system … He was not hired to go out into the field to do field investigation. [Hunter adds in passing that he also hired another investigator, Steve Ainsworth, at the same time “to look at the evidence coming into us with a defense attorney’s eye”.]
The Smit myth does not really line up with Hunter’s stated purpose here. If he really hired Smit because he thought “the police investigation was getting nowhere” and he wanted an experienced homicide detective to crack the case, he never actually said that was what he was doing. In fact, he pretended that it was all part of the administrative function of his office, “getting the case ready for trial”, and specifically assured police he would not be second-guessing or reinvestigating anything. The way Hunter describes it, Smit was hired as a kind of filing clerk.
Smit’s background
If, theoretically, you wanted to hire somebody to catch an “intruder”--if you wanted to look at kidnappers, drifters, serial killers, psychopaths and social outcasts--Lou Smit was the ideal candidate. Smit prided himself on his ability to “profile” psychopathic killers, his past cases included abductions, spree killings, and kidnappings.
At the time he was hired, Lou Smit was widely known because of one case, a case that he completed in 1995, just a year before Jonbenet’s death. This was the case of Heather Dawn Church. It was Smit’s greatest claim to fame, and he had solved it in a heroic fashion. The Church case had been unsolved for three years when he was hired by the El Paso Sheriff's department to reinvestigate. From a Denver Post article:
El Paso Sheriff's Detective Tim Shull worked under Smit on Heather's murder and recalled Smit's focus on the casebooks. "Lou prides himself in the organization of the casebooks, and that's how he gets a lot of his cases solved. He would take all those case books - and there were 18 of them - home and read them at night. He reorganized the case, and labeled it a "burglary gone bad.”
Eventually Smit discovered “a crime scene photograph showing a window screen slightly out of alignment and a set of fingerprints taken off the window that had never been identified”. Smit suggested running those fingerprints again--a wild gamble, since they had already been tested unsuccessfully years before--but this time, the prints were traced to the killer--a disturbed serial killer who Smit characterized as a “violent sexual predator, pedophile and psychopath”. One article notes that “The conviction exonerated the father, Mike Church, who had been under suspicion in the case.” The killer’s confession aligned exactly with Lou Smit’s prediction that it was a “burglary gone bad”:
[The killer confessed that] he had entered the home through a window, and Heather had surprised him. He strangled her there in the house and took her body out to dump it in a remote location.
What a coincidence! That’s what supporters of Smit say about this--what a coincidence that there was this other child homicide five years earlier, that also involved an intruder who left very few traces, that also involved a window in the home that police had overlooked which contained crucial evidence, that also involved an intruder who didn’t originally plan to kill the child, that also involved a thorough “reorganization” of the casefiles by Lou Smit. What an incredible coincidence that this case happened so soon before the Ramsey case, and was similar in so many ways!
Here is my whole point. It’s not a coincidence that we view these crimes as “similar”. If you take a step back and look at it rationally, it is easy to see that the “similarities” between the two cases are not coincidental at all. This is a very clear example of an investigator trying to fit the later crime into the mold of the earlier crime. If you stop trying to do that, if you take Smit’s theories out of the equation--you will see there are several obvious differences: Heather’s body was found thirty miles from her home. In Heather’s case the motive was straightforward--burglary, followed by murder to protect the killer’s identity. There was no carefully-hidden sexual assault. There was no redressing of the victim. There was no ransom note pointing to a fake terrorist-ransom-kidnapping that never happened. There was no use of household items to create elaborate weapons. In Heather’s case the parents were cooperative, even though they were suspects. There was a reasonable indication of forced entry--a bent window screen--with an unidentified fingerprint directly on top of it. The circumstances of the reporting of the kidnapping and the discovery of the body were totally different.
The only real, proven similarity between the two cases is totally superficial: they are both cases of a young girl murdered in her home. The idea that there is any more meaningful resemblance between the two crimes only makes sense if you accept several of Lou Smit’s unproven theories as fact.
This is what Lou Smit did in this case. He stopped us from looking at the Ramsey case on its own terms. He made us look at it according to a formula--according to a set of assumptions predicated on its perceived resemblance to Lou Smit’s “experience”. In order to do that, we have to be extremely selective, we have to filter out all the suspicious circumstances in which the body was found, and all the evidence pointing to the family, and simply pretend that Jonbenet’s death was a straightforward kidnapping case.
Smit’s initial view of the case
A big part of the Lou Smit legend is the idea that when he first joined the Ramsey case, he thought the Ramseys Did It. He has said this in multiple interviews, and his story is always the same. Here’s the version he gave when testifying under oath in 2003:
Q: When you first came on board with the Boulder District Attorney's office, what were your initial thoughts about the case?
Smit: It was just things that I had heard on the news. I hadn't -- I had paid somewhat attention to it because it was a high-profile case in our state, but the very first thing that you heard on the news was that there was a little girl that was brutally murdered in her home, and that there were no footprints in the snow. I remember that as being part of the newspaper articles. And also that there were no signs of forced entry; that a ransom note had been written inside the house.
And my initial impression was that, if I was going to initially look at the case, I would look at someone inside the house. That was my initial feelings on it. I didn't have any idea who killed JonBenet. And even if it was somebody in the house, I was thinking, How do you determine who it was in the house to do that? So these thoughts were in my mind initially when I came to work for Alex Hunter.
Read carefully: “I didn't have any idea who killed JonBenet [...] If I was going to initially look at the case, I would look at someone inside the house.” This is carefully qualified, conditional language. He puts himself in the position of a detective on the scene on day one (though that is not exactly the situation he was in in March 1997) and says in that situation he hypothetically would look at a resident of the home. But if you look for his actual answer to the question he was asked, he carefully avoids saying what his opinion was. “I didn’t have any idea who killed Jonbenet”. Its a non-answer. Dodging the question.
This would, of course, be a perfectly acceptable answer if Lou Smit really had been totally undecided at the time of his hiring.
What he consistently fails to mention (and what Alex Hunter also fails to mention) is that Lou Smit had already expressed at least one firm opinion on the case to Alex Hunter before he was hired. And that opinion ran strongly against the theory of the Boulder police. From a 2001 Rocky Mountain News interview:
[DA Alex Hunter] wanted [Smit] on his team. First though, Hunter asked for Smit's take on the now-infamous ransom note found in the Ramsey home. "I told Alex, 'Look, I don't know if you're going to hire me, but I'll give you a freebie," Smit recounted. "Whoever wrote this note did not do it after the murder."
The notion that the ransom note definitely could not have been written after the murder obviously contradicts any theory that the parents were involved. It obviously contradicts any theory that the note was “staging”. It obviously contradicts any theory that the killing was not premeditated. This is an opinion Smit and Alex Hunter specifically discussed before he was hired.
We also know that Lou Smit was already at this early period, comparing the Ramsey case to the Heather Dawn Church case. Detective Steve Thomas met Smit before Smit was introduced to the other officers, and notes, “[Smit] spoke at length about Heather Dawn Church, as if the murder of that little girl might be the blueprint for this case too”. In an article from the Denver Post, entitled New Detective Joins Case, published March 14, 1997, the day after Hunter asked Smit to work for him on Ramsey, and three days before he actually starting work at the DA’s office, Smit is again commenting on the Church case:
”The answers [to the Church case] were in the case books, when you went through them and really analyzed the case file."
So while Smit may claim he was thinking about the case the way the media told him to--the historical record indicates he was already at odds with the RDI theory, he had already made up his mind about certain key details--he had made up his mind it was an especially “brutal” crime, that the note could not have been staged after the killing, and that the Church case could be his blueprint--he had made up his mind on all of these things, before having reviewed a single police report, before having seen a single photograph.
And he and DA Alex Hunter specifically discussed this before his hiring.
What Work Did Smit Actually Do?
Katie Couric: You went into this case thinking the parents had committed this crime, or think there was a good chance they had.
Lou Smit: Yes, but I still had an open mind the other way too, Katie.
Couric: What was the first thing that you observed or saw in your investigation that lead you to believe, “Hey, maybe there’s somebody else who did this?”
Smit: You know Katie, it was the second day I was on the case. The very first photograph that I’d seen of that basement window—the window was wide open. And I said, “Wait a minute, take a look at that.” That was one of the light bulbs that went off, and one of the red flags that I’d seen.
So, according to the Smit myth, as he settled down to begin his indexing and cataloging, he first considered that the intruder theory may be true on his second day of the case after viewing a crime scene photo.
Lawrence Schiller’s book Perfect Murder, Perfect Town tells us what actually happened:
On March 13, Smit agreed to work for Hunter. That same day the DA walked upstairs to the sheriff’s office and asked Epp to lend him Steve Ainsworth for his investigation [this is the person Hunter says he specifically hired to look at the case from the point of view of the Ramseys’ defense]… Lou Smit and Steve Ainsworth formally joined Hunter’s team on March 17 ... That same afternoon, Smit and Ainsworth began examining a list of suspects the police might not have investigated fully.
Smit and Ainsworth were hired on the same day, started work on the same day, and immediately started working together investigating intruder suspects.
One of these “suspects” was Kevin Raburn. Schiller goes on to describe Smit (who Hunter tells us was “was not hired to go out into the field to do field investigation”) visiting jails, bars, clubs and restaurants, to investigate Raburn. This is how he spent the first weeks and months of his involvement on this case.
Smit was also promptly introduced to the Boulder Police Department. He announced to them, in this very first meeting: “I don’t think it was the Ramseys”.
In the summer of that year Smit investigated an unnamed “transient man”, a lead which he says “was obtained from the Ramsey attorneys and their investigators”. Later that year Smit, who “was not hired to go out into the field to do field investigation”, flew to Tennessee, arrested Kevin Raburn, and brought him on a private plane to Colorado, in handcuffs. (Raburn was eventually cleared. As were many other “intruders” nabbed by Smit that year, such as this suspected intruder from California). The police (the same police who supposedly were on a "witch hunt" against John Ramsey) faithfully investigated all of Lou Smit's new "suspects" - not one was remotely credible.
Note just how different this is from the Smit Myth. The myth paints Smit as completely undecided, “open minded”, patiently investigating the photos and gradually beginning to doubt his own beliefs in the Ramseys’ guilt. In reality, he was investigating “intruder suspects” on the first afternoon he was hired, and when first introduced to the cops he was informing them of the Ramseys’ innocence.
Smit himself has admitted that his “indexing and cataloguing work” did not take place until later. Under oath he clarified that when he first arrived at the DA’s office “the only information they had was the ransom note itself”, and that “initially” his work consisted in “help[ing] any investigation”. When he finally did get around to his indexing, the result was a highly selective compilation of “intruder evidence”. He did not simply “compile, catalogue and index” the files. In fact, he reorganized and shifted the emphasis of the casefile toward an “intruder”, adding significantly to the casefile with several entirely new theories that he himself came up with.
Smit was obviously applying the exact method he had used to solve Heather Dawn Church--picking out random details from crime scene photographs and taking a gamble on the assumption that they were the clue that would break the case. The intruder’s footprint (actually Burke’s), the intruder’s pubic hair (actually from Patsy’s maternal line), the intruder’s scarf (John’s), the intruder’s bike tracks (Burke’s), the intruder’s flashlight (John’s), the “scuff mark”, the “ruffled bedcover”, the “stun gun burns” (actually abrasions)--all these things and many more were inserted by Smit into the case as “important pieces of evidence” [See my posts on the Carnes ruling for specific rebuttals of Smit’s various theories].
Actions speak louder than words. No matter what Smit says (or carefully implies), no matter what Hunter says, no matter what his defenders say, Smit’s actions speak for themselves. Smit was hired to “sort of prepare the case for trial”, and that’s what he did - prepared the case for the trial against an intruder. It is very clear, from day one, he was building a case against a hypothetical intruder. He never once pursued or identified a single “lead” that did not point to the “intruder theory”. This is not something that emerged gradually over time - this is something that he worked on religiously from the very first day he was hired. And it is exactly what the DA’s office hired him to do.
Why was Smit so Biased?
The obvious question is why? Why was he so committed to the intruder theory? How could a supposedly diligent, respected investigator be so profoundly wrong in so many different ways, and also so confident in his own errors?
A common answer is “Smit was paid off”. I disagree. Though Smit was, obviously, hired on the assumption that he would find “intruder evidence”, I don’t think he ever took part knowingly in any conspiracy to cover up the truth. There are four factors, in my opinion, that influenced Smit’s misguided approach to this case.
1) The first is obviously his background, particularly the Heather Dawn Church case. Catching lone-wolf psychopathic killers was Smit’s speciality. This was his job. Smit caught the bad guys. He had been through the experience on more than one occasion of bringing closure to a grieving family--and this would have to influence him. We know Smit was discussing Heather Dawn Church in relation to the Ramsey case before he started work, and he was still discussing Heather Dawn Church in relation to the Ramsey case years after his resignation. Just look at Smit’s enthusiasm, his genuine optimism, when he said, in 2002:
Smit: We will be able to positively identify the source of that hair. And if it belongs to our killer, that will be the most-- that will be the strongest piece of evidence. Just like the fingerprint in the Heather Dawn Church case, that could be the strongest piece of evidence in this case. One hair.”
The hair has been identified as belonging to Patsy ramsey’s maternal line.
2) The second reason was that Lou Smit had personal reasons to sympathize with the Ramseys. Patsy Ramsey was a cancer survivor. When Smit became involved in the case his wife Barbara had recently been diagnosed with cancer. A man like Lou Smit would not have missed such a coincidence. He spoke on more than one occasion of the Ramseys’ religious faith, and said repeatedly that God had guided him onto the case. On June 6, 1997, he met privately with the Ramseys and invited them into his camper van to pray with him “that someday this nightmare will end and we will find the killer of our daughter.” John Ramsey said many times in interviews that he believed Lou Smit had been sent by God, and I am sure John Ramsey made a point of saying that to Lou Smit. As police chief Mark Beckner said, “Lou was a nice man and very religious. I believe he became emotionally involved with the family and in my opinion this clouded his judgement to the point where he could not accept the possibility that the family was involved.”
3) The third factor is the environment of the DA’s office, whose employees were also, for their own reasons, vehement supporters of the Ramseys. This created a dangerous dynamic--the DA’s office was not a place of rational discussion, but a group of “yes men”, encouraging each other’s hunches and intuitions, no matter what. That sort of environment is not at all conducive to a murder investigation.
4) The fourth factor, which may seem counterintuitive, is Smit’s intelligence. Lou Smit was, by all accounts, even according to his enemies, a smart guy--a good, solid investigator, not an impressionable person and not a person who could be hoodwinked easily. Though that helped him in earlier cases, it harmed him here.
Let me give an example: a man called Linus Pauling. Pauling was one of the most intelligent and best scientists of the 20th century - without question. A founder of the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology. A Nobel Prize winner. New Scientist ranked him as one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time. Yet late in his life, Pauling chose to aggressively endorse a theory of Vitamin C as the cure for all kinds of ailments, including cancer, the common cold, AIDS, cardiovascular disease, etc.
Though his views were thoroughly discredited by clinical trials, Pauling continued to come up with ways of disputing those who disagreed with his theories. It reached the point where Pauling was advocating highly-questionable studies, while turning a blind eye to more sensible ones, dismissing them as some sort of conspiracy by the medical establishment against his theory. This well-respected, talented, charismatic scientist was ignoring the hallmarks of his own profession, due to his devotion to this specific cause. A theory--that he obviously considered to be extremely compelling--led him to abandon the objectivity and restraint that his profession demanded. He even wrote very persuasive books like How To Live Longer and Feel Better, though countless medical experiments have conclusively proven that there is no actual evidence to support his claims.
This is simply something that can happen with people who are mavericks, who build a reputation on being right when everybody else is wrong. Someone very bright becomes fixated on an idea, and precisely because they are bright, they are able to constantly rationalize their own position. Their confirmation bias feeds on itself, and everywhere they look they see confirmation that they are, indeed, correct. This is not a rare phenomenon. It’s something we see in politics every day. Whatever side of the political spectrum you are on--look at the people on the other side, look at how profoundly they hold their beliefs. We can recognize, I think, that there are perfectly intelligent people who just happened to get it really wrong.
The Ramseys were Lou Smit’s Vitamin C. I dont think Smit was “paid off” by the Ramseys any more than Pauling was paid off by Vitamin C companies - a combination of factors in his background simply made him view the Ramseys in a specific way from the very beginning, and they encouraged and supported him, until it developed into a cycle in which they encouraged each other because of mutual interests. How to live longer and feel better? Find a good cause, and fight for it. That’s what Lou Smit tried to do.
I confess that I am always very hard on Lou Smit. Though I doubt it would bother him that I, and so many others, criticize him so strongly. In a way, it is a testament to Smit’s intellect that he was able to be so creatively wrong in so many different ways. He had so little to go on--a leaf, a “scuff mark”, a couple of tiny abrasions--and he worked his magic. Lou Smit was a guy who made something out of nothing. A less intelligent, less courageous person would not have been able to do that. And like Linus Pauling, he did it because it was something he profoundly believed was right. So you have to credit Lou Smit for his guts and his commitment to this case. But please do not confuse that with thinking he was right.
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