Mason wizard of waverly place

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I’m a regional AeroPress 2nd place holder (losing against the three time current regional champion), and lost in the first round against our current national AeroPress champion in the national championship. When I’ve spoken about my experience it had some interest, so I thought it might be a good thing to write a little summary of my findings.
An AeroPress Championship is a competition in which you brew a coffee with an AeroPress, normally at the same time as two other competitors, which then normally three judges taste, without communicating with each other, and then choose the best-tasting one, by pointing to the winning cup. The name of the contestant is written under the cup, and switched places before the judges taste them, so there should be no way of knowing who’s cup is which.
There are three rules that must be observed:

1. You can’t use more than 18 grams of ground coffee.
2. You must present a coffee of at least 150ml.
3. You have to brew and present it within 5 minutes.

You can grind and heat your water before the timer starts. The beans for the competition will normally be ones from the organizers or sponsors of the competitions. They are the same for everyone. They will be made available for the participants 10 days before the competition, either for pick-up or by sending them to you. You’ll get one bag of 250 grams of beans, and another bag of the same size the day of the competition.
In those 10 days, you can experiment with the beans all you want. Keep in mind that if you use 18 grams of beans each time, you can only brew 13 cups, so be mindful of how you use the beans.
For me, the best strategy was first picking up a well-renowned good water for coffee in my country. You can try different waters and do a cupping first if you really want to nail the water first, but it takes a lot of effort (you have to brew each water independently), and I don’t think you get much out of it in the beginning.
From there use a well-known to you recipe that you normally use for the AeroPress. For me, it was the James Hoffman Method:

• 12g beans
• 200ml water
• 100º C water
• 2:00 shake, 2:30-3:00 press.

Now you have a baseline for what it tastes like, and you can experiment. The good thing is that all variables are defined and there is somewhat of a golden zone.
Water: You should look for a well-renowned water for being good for coffee in your country. Other than that, I know that Calcium, Magnesium, and alcalinity are important for coffee extraction, but not enough to tell you the exact proportions, sorry. You can go as deep on this as want. You can use a Britta or BWT Filter, you can buy water packets from specialty coffee vendors, or you can create your own with distilled water, and then calculate the quantities of sodium bicarbonate and magnesium sulfate you need to add to get the quality in the water that you want. This will give you very marginal gains in terms of taste, much much less than having a good recipe, so I’d say that unless you know what you are doing, at most buy a few easily available and well regarded waters, and with your recipe determined, try which one tastes best.
Temperature: Most recipes recommend brewing between 80º C to 100ºC, so try 3 brews changing only temperature, 90ºC, 80ºC, and 100ºC. I recommend trying with 90ºC first because it is more likely to being close to optimal, so you’ll have a decent reference to start from. The generally accepted wisdom is that darker roasted coffee is preferably brewed at a lower temperature, and lighter roasts at almost boiling temperatures. I’d say lately the lighter roasts being better at boiling points affirmation has been more in contention, especially with experimental fermentation coffee. In any case, taste is king.
Brew time: Most recipes start from at least 1 minute. Since you have a 5-minute time limit to make and serve the coffee, I would recommend not brewing more than for 4 minutes. Keep in mind that you’ll also have to prepare the AeroPress, pour the water, and cool down the coffee in that time. Technically the longer you brew it, the sweeter the coffee will be, but extraction can be sped up with stirring. Stirring is less likely to be consistent brew to brew so be wary of that, since you’ll be going round through round with the same recipe, and its a good thing to be consistent.
Grind size: Start with the grind size recommended for the AeroPress for your grinder, and go finer until you notice astringency (it dries out your mouth) and go one step coarser. That’ll be the perfect grind setting for you. They’ll most likely offer you a few different grinders during the competitions, but if you don’t know the perfect setting for your recipe on that grinder I would refrain from using them, even if they are much more sophisticated, because it’ll most likely produce different effects on your recipe. It has been said that grinding twice, first very coarse and then those ground beans to the final desired size may be beneficial, as it may be a way to reduce ultrafines and create a more even grind, and the current AeroPress World Champion has certainly done so, but I do not think that she won solely because of that.
Proportions of coffee and water: This is a difficult one. The AeroPress can hold at most about 300ml, and that would be pushing it. If you brew normally some of that will bypass the coffee without actually extracting much, which will the reduce the strength of the coffee compared to using the inverted method. This is not necessarily a bad thing just something to account for when trying recipes. Since you can use only 18g or less and the AeroPress can only hold about 300ml you have two upper limits here, which coincidentally makes for a somewhat golden zone ratio, as that would be 1 part of beans to 16 parts of water (also normally expressed as 1:16) You can manipulate it by using more water after brewing but it is a good reference to have. I’ve seen people go as low as 1:20 and as strong as 1:10. So that would be 10 grams and 20 grams of ground beans for 200ml of water, respectively. It has been said that bland coffees benefit from using stronger ratios, and flowery and experimentally processed coffees from milder concentrations to let the smells and taste develop, but I’d say it is very bean specific. Just determine it according to your own taste.
Filters: According to the official rules you can use any kind of filter as long as you use the normal filter cap from the AeroPress itself. You can use official paper filters from AeroPress itself, the fairly recently produced official metal Aeropress filter, or a cloth one if you want. I’ve also seen competitors using two paper filters at the same time, and Aesir filters, which are a premium type of filter said to provide more clarity.
Other considerations: Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that the judges will taste the coffee short after brewing it, so if it is still hot, it will not be judged favorably. I have an external thermometer so I’ve determined that the optimal serving temperature for me was 65ºC, which I managed to reach quickly by switching the coffee from mug to mug a few times to get it to cool down quickly, because the heat of the coffee will dissipate in the cold mug. Optimal drinking temperature has been said to be 60ºC, so I keep it a little higher because I don’t know how long the judges will take to cup the brewed coffee. Keep in mind that the judges will base their judgments of your coffee by sipping the coffee (loudly) from a spoon, much like cupping, so the whole brew won’t be judged as such, just those sips. Make sure you optimize taste for this, then.
While calibrating your recipe keep in mind to only change one variable at a time, and in order to do comparative tasting I would actually recommend using more than one AeroPress if you can to keep the brewed coffee temperatures similar at the same time.
On the day of the competition I’ve seen people spread out their beans to filter out defect beans which can improve flavor. I’ve also seen the Kruve and other sifters being used to filter out the ultrafines after grinding, as they have a tendency to overextract and taste bitter. If you have it and want to use it do so by all means, but otherwise I wouldn’t even entertain the thought.
Final thoughts: I would like to clearly state that I only wrote this out to put a method to my own process of optimizing a recipe for a specific bean as a learning process, and that the most important part of participating in an AeroPress competition is having fun, getting to know other people that have the same passion as you, make new friends and grow as a person. At the end of the day, you can think you have the best recipe ever, but if it is not according to the tastes of the judges there is nothing you can do, so relax and have fun. You are likely to see people who have been years in the industry with very expensive tools, but don’t let that intimidate you, because in my experience they are as likely to win as the newcomers if their recipe is more according to the tastes of the judges. Everybody there will share the same passion as you for the beverage, so take the opportunity to make some friends in the industry.
I hope this text gives you a little bit of direction in the search for the perfect AeroPress recipe! Also, feedback is extremely welcome!

So I have a pretty tame instagram profile, a bit about my work and travel, and recently I put up a photo playing beach volleyball so I was shirtless. Long story short I received a request from this wealthier guy into some odd kink play (I don’t kink shame).
He started just flirting with me and I chuckled said thank you and said I wasn’t interested. He then said he didn’t need me to be interested he just enjoyed domination and wanted to “give me money”. I’m doing fine financially but it seemed intriguing. I’m not exaggerating at all, I went to his place and just hung out with him a bit and let him “worship my body” (his words not mine).
I made it clear that I wanted nothing sexual, so no handjobs, no oral, nothing. I was flaccid the entire time we hung out and he seemed to be fine with it. He went on his knees and counted 1000$ and said “thank you for letting me serve you” or something weird along those lines. I asked him if he was sure and he kept saying yes.
When I got home I checked in with him and made sure that was fine cause that’s a lot of money. He said it’s a fetish he has having a fit guy take his money. I’m not spending the money cause I keep waiting for him to ask for it back. But we are still chatting and he wants to do it all over again. I’ve also met another guy who did something similar but gave me 200$.
I guess this is a new opportunity? I’m not sure if I should pursue these guys further cause it seems like a situation that could go sideways. What should I do to protect myself and be mindful of.

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Let's say naturally biadialectal is someone that naturally speaks in both accents. Forced biadialectal is someone that has one natural accent and puts on the other.
Bilingualism can also mean having two natural languages, or having one mother tongue and one that was learnt and can be spoken too (forced or naturally).
I don't think people acknowledge enough this idea that inconveniences a lot of people every day. I understand why Bidialectism exists when growing up both in Brazil and Portugal, at a time when European Portuguese wasn't common in Brazil. As a child you can feel out of place for various different reasons, one of which is always sounding different. This manifests in people laughing or looking at you weirdly every time you utter a word. So you start changing your accent and then suddenly you have to keep up conversations in the two separate accents and separate situations. Speak with one dialect in one country, speak with the other dialect in other country. That's all fine until the two realities mix.
I'll mention the example of two people that go through this very publicly: Gillian Anderson and Sandi Toksvig (an actress and a presenter, respectively).
Gillian has US parents, childhood in the UK, teenage years in US, then adult life in the UK/US.
Sandi Toksvig has US parents, childhood in US, teenage years in UK, then adult life in the UK.
I believe Gillian Anderson has gone the controversial route of being caught publicly speaking in both accents, and people ask what is going on. She'll state both are her natural accents but really what it means is she has probably kept up a secret speech pattern where she chooses to avoid sounding odd and will emulate the speaker, but if it happens behind closed doors, no one knows. If it happens in public people catch on and call that out.
Sandi has admitted once she speaks in an American accent when tired (because she grew up in NY) but moved as a teenager to the UK and has since built her career as a UK TV presenter. Which means she has purposefully not spoken (unless ironically) in an American accent but maintains her British accent as put-on and openly admits to that. But these realities always conflate, so when you speak to family you always use the natural accent, British friends with British accent, American friends with American accents, and then avoid interactions where the two meet because one side will find it strange. Sandi when out and about in the US will probably not speak in a British accent, but if filmed, yes.
This creates a really weird situation if you're aware of everything, and it's the kind of agonising awkwardness that puts The Office to shame, but nevertheless a reality when you live in two countries with different dialects and keep up familiarity in both, trying to navigate social queues and integrate without always being subject to ridicule.
Adults that move countries only as adults then to not put on accents anymore because they're comfortable in their own skin, but their twang might naturally shift, but they won't speak in two different ways.

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Welcome to the monthly Low Hanging Fruit megathread. This is a containment area to post all the stuff from places we would normally deem too toxic, so don your biohazard suit and bring us back some glowing nuggets of radioactive waste!
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BRDspeed Nirwads!

Payments will be spread out over a period of 5 years, $2000 for each year. We can make a registered contract. Send me a pm if you know someone 33rd degree or higher that can help us. First payment will obviously only be made if the gangstalking has stopped for a year. We believe it's the list of the order of Malta, a 33rd degree masonic sect.

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In my case, my partner and I should have a paid for home in a modest community, pensions and retirement accounts fairly in place. Looking at 60 for me and 63 or older for partner as target dates.
My older sibling lives in an apartments. At 62 retired without a retirement plan of things to do and is struggling with that. Works part-time and has not touched her retirement accounts.
My brother is a hot mess, constantly dips into his 401ks and sold his home recently and is spending that money. Has no plan other than to work. Great guy, no financial management.
Younger sister super diligent,plans to retire at 55 and has all of her ducks in a row. Most savvy financially of all of us. Very involved in her community and can't get wait to get out to do more volunteer work.
We are all over the place! How about you all? Is there a pattern regarding retirement with you and your siblings or not?

Looking for some recommendations of places people have had good experiences with (generally good, as in they haven’t screwed you big time- you know what I mean). Nothing fancy, it’s a 2009 civic.

Hi,
This is probably a long-shot, but does anyone have a connection with Maison d'enfants de Unterhausen?
It was an orphanage for displaced children. Located in Reutlingen, Württemberg.
A high proportion of children there were Polish. They were going to be placed with new families in France.
My mother was placed there in 1948, and left soon after with her mother and immigrated to Australia.
While in Unterhausen, she was with Mousey, Margarite, and the home's director Mme MacVeigh, and Frau Schmitt.
There seems to be very little information available out there. Some documents are located in La Courneuve.
Thanks

Hi fellow ents - I’m here in dharamkot and wondering what are some nice places which y’all recommend. Any of you here right now? It seems to be super crowded

My partner and i recently got a puppy. We are looking for someplace to bring him to help teach us how to train him properly.
He is smart and learns fast, but we are having a hard time sifting thru contradicting information we find on the internet.
Does anyone have recommendations of places in the area?

Hello, fellow Redditors! Today, let's talk about the serene beauty of lakes. Whether it's a hidden gem nestled in the mountains or a vast expanse of water stretching as far as the eye can see, lakes have a unique charm that captivates us. They offer a peaceful escape from the bustling city life, a place to unwind, and connect with nature. Share your favorite lake destinations, memorable experiences by the water, or breathtaking photographs that showcase the tranquility and allure of lakes. Let's discuss the diverse ecosystems, water activities, and the sense of serenity that lakes provide. Join the conversation and let's celebrate the enchantment of lakes together!