While spectroscopically characterizing nearby ultracool dwarfs discovered in the Gaia Second Data Release with the TripleSpec spectrograph on the Palomar 200'' telescope, we encountered a particularly cool, nearby, new member of the solar neighborhood: Gaia DR2 3106548406384807680 = WISE J064336.71-022315.4 = 2MASS J06433670-0223130. The $\it{Gaia}$ parallax corresponds to a distance of 13.9 $\pm$ 0.3 pc. Using our TripleSpec spectrum we classify W0643 as spectral type L8, and measured a heliocentric radial velocity of 142 $\pm$ 12 km s$^{-1}$. When combined with $\it{Gaia}$ astrometry, we determine a Galactic velocity (heliocentric; $U$ towards Galactic center) of $U, V, W$ = -109, -91, -12 ($\pm$10, 5, 3) km s$^{-1}$. We estimate that W0643 passed within $\sim$1.4 pc away from the Sun $\sim$100,000 years ago.

A classic region of band termination at high spin occurs in rare-earth nuclei with around ten valence nucleons above the ¹⁴⁶Gd closed core. Results are presented here for such non-collective oblate (γ = 60°) terminating states in odd-Z ¹⁵⁵Ho, odd-odd ¹⁵⁶Ho, and even-even ¹⁵⁶Er, where they are compared with neighbouring nuclei. In addition to these particularly favoured states, the occurrence of collective triaxial strongly deformed (TSD) bands, bypassing the terminating states and extending to over 65h, is reviewed.