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Skydive [16 Jul 2009|12:49pm]

mesila
[ mood | crazy ]

Since 21 June I've been staying with my mother in Rancho Cordova, a suburb to the east of Sacramento.

During this period, I experienced a week of hospitalization following a really bad staph infection in my right buttock, a pimple that decided to inflame itself to Death Star proportions, which drove me to a fever of 104 degrees and got really scary. When I got out of the hospital and started spending time with Mom, who's 80 years old and has 5 heart bypasses, kidney failure and respiratory troubles, we realized together that she's getting worse every day and probably won't live much longer. She can barely walk and talk and yet has been driving me to downtown Sacto to the methadone clinic EACH MORNING.

We had a talk yesterday and realised this was just not going to work. In order for me to get to the clinic on my own I'd have to take about 4 different buses and I'd barely make their hours. I cannot drive a car, I never have been able to drive. She doesn't want me to wake up one morning and find her deceased and be essentially stranded in her condo.

This is why she's offered me one hell of a birthday present this year: fundage to get set up in an apartment back in San Francisco, where I can independently function. We were going to wait until 1 August but because of some fairly lame red tape involving transfer from one methadone clinic back to the one I was going to in the City, I have to go back tomorrow.

I have a LOT of very EXTREME mixed emotions about all this. A very large part of me is feeling exactly like I am cutting and running when Mom probably could really use my help. This is the first time in my 18 years on methadone maintenance that it is significantly negatively impacting my life--were it not for this clinic bullshit I would put up with the heat and the pollution of Sacto and stay with her. I tried to convince her to come to the city with me but she just can't handle the stress of moving right now, plus she hates the City about as much as I love it.

She has become basically dependent on Percoset and Vicodin herself so she does understand that I cannot just walk off the clinic and expect to be functional at all.

I have to remember that she offered this to me, I didn't talk her into it, and it actually sets her mind at ease more if she can see me get set up with a place to live instead of worrying about what will become of me after she's gone.

I have, over the past couple of years, incessently whined about the emotive hell of losing Deek. This really puts all that in a seriously different perspective. Deek may have fallen out of love with me. But he is not DYING right before my eyes. My mother and I have always been fairly close and she's always been there for me.

I want to be there for her but we both know I just can't be and it's because of methadone. It makes me think that getting off it might be something I should perhaps try to do once I actually get settled. At very least I should work towards reducing the dose I get so that I can have a future in which this kind of situation won't affect any other future relationships with people. It's stupid that methadone is so over-regulated that people maintained on it become chained to their clinics, but that's the way things are and I can't change that.

I feel exactly like I am jumping out of a plane for the first time and have no idea whether I can find the rip cord on my parachute before I hit terra firma, and terra firma hits me. I have to be very, very careful with the money alloted to me and choose wisely when it comes to apartments. Thankfully!!! the steep SF rents are bending under the weight of BadEconomicBullshit and so I'm finding apartments on Craigslist that are actually under four figures.

Since I'm going to have to have my computer and most of my possessions hauled out of here next week, I'll only have my laptop to net with. I'll post again once I'm back in the City and have established a WiFi connection...

I hope I'm doing the right thing here and that this is not happening just because my Mom is so sweet and/or her mind is flaking. If I can have my druthers, please let her get better enough to see me get settled and in good mental shape, because I know for sure, amidst all this unsurety, that this IS something we obviously BOTH agree we want to see happen.

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[16 Jul 2009|11:47am]

osunbaby
knows what is for me is for me, but I sure hope what fills my eye is mine sometimes.
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[16 Jul 2009|11:45am]

osunbaby
has knows what is for me is for me, but I sure hope what fills my eye is mine sometimes.
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[16 Jul 2009|01:38am]

insaneqt3_14159
I'd move to Mars, but I hear that the neighborhoods don't have much atmosphere.
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[16 Jul 2009|12:52am]

insaneqt3_14159
There's no such thing as being too prolific @teh_skeptic, and if I could I'd follow you twice to make up for the one who stopped following.
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Mood, Creativity, and Psycho-Babble [15 Jul 2009|07:58pm]

xi_o_teaz
As I'm re-upping my Psycho-Babble proficiency, I'm coming across quite a few memes that I am finding anywhere from "interesting" to "intriguing" to "inspiring." All emphasis is mine, for my own reasons. I'm going to post them here in my LJ primarily for my own reference, but feel free to comment or do your own free-associations on these posts ;-)

From wiki's page on Mood:

According to psychologist Robert Thayer, mood is a product of two dimensions: energy and tension.[2] A person can be energetic or tired while also being tense or calm. According to Thayer, people feel best when they are in a calm-energy mood. They feel worse when in a tense-tired state. People often use food to regulate mood. Thayer identifies a fundamental food-mood connection[3] , and advises against the reliance on food as a mood regulator. The low energy arousal coupled with tension, as experienced in a bad mood, can be counteracted by walking. Thayer suggests walking as a means to enhanced happiness.

A recent meta-analysis found that, contrary to the stereotype of the suffering artist, creativity is enhanced most by positive moods that are activating and associated with approach motivation (e.g. happiness), rather than those that are deactivating and associated with avoidance motivation (e.g. relaxation). Negative, deactivating moods with an approach motivation (e.g. sadness) were not associated with creativity, but negative, activating moods with avoidance motivation (e.g. fear, anxiety) were associated with lower levels of creativity.[4]
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Health Care reFramation [15 Jul 2009|07:33pm]

xi_o_teaz
I've long been for Universal Health Care. I don't think that people should feel "entitled" to it, but I do feel that living in this world as we do--living in this meme we call "civilization", with an already overintrusive gummit, etc.--the gummit should provide for the people. Providing this to every citizen makes sense on every level, IMHO.

Yes, I realize that the difference in the above (and below) paragraph(s) are merely semantical, but as anyone who has dealt much with the 3rd Circuit knows, Semantics are very potent. Sometimes, "all the difference in the world" can be made by merely changing the "packaging" of a message. Re-Framing is but one example of this in action.

I was just reading about where the US Health Care Reform is at, and I saw:

He also reversed a campaign stance against requiring everyone to buy health care coverage.

"I'm now in favor of some sort of individual mandate..."


My understanding of most of the rest of the PostModern 1st World is that most countries just "take care of people when they're sick." I know that it's paid for in the taxes, but people (particularly 'mericans) don't like to be told they "hafta" pay money for it. If they would have just Framed that up as "we will do whatever it takes to make sure than anyone who needs medical attention will get what they need," I'd imagine the opposition would be less (though not completely gone).
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Point. [16 Jul 2009|01:19am]

mr_six
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )
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Release #51 [15 Jul 2009|05:59pm]

lj_releases

[marta]
[ mood | indescribable ]

New Features:

  • Added optional location identification when creating a new entry or editing an old one. The user can push the “detect” button and it will automatically fill in general location based on IP. For more detailed location Google Gears, Wi2Geo, or a Wi-Fi connection is required.
  • Paid users can now create a nickname or "Note" which only they will see when viewing the "lj user" tag or when viewing the other user's profile.
  • Pingbacks will now be enabled for Basic and Plus accounts. Pingbacks are currently only available for use for LiveJournal entries and links; external pingbacks have been disabled until they're able to be used correctly (we're waiting for other pingback-enabled sites to upgrade to the newest version).

Bug fixes:
  • Cyrillic MSN interstitial disabled for Opera users
  • Improved performance of admin/schools/pending.bml so that it should no longer time out when called with arguments (LJSV-653)
  • Made all content on create.bml https instead of mixed secure/insecure content
  • Fixed bug that prevents some users from accessing their message center inbox (LJSV-351)
  • Fixed bug that incorrectly routes http requests with a trailing period after livejournal.com
  • Updated http://www.livejournal.com/bots to point to the current atom stream at http://atom.services.livejournal.com/atom-stream.xml
  • Corrected typo on sponsor.bml page (LJSV-632)
  • Made change to handling of javascript/html cleaner

Enhancements:
  • Embedded videos now show up correctly when viewing entries in a moderated community queue (LJSV-363)
  • A community maintainer can now see if an entry is marked explicit while it is still in the moderation queue (LJSV-617)
  • Changed the MSN icon and alt-text in user's profile
  • Video placeholders now have an alt tag for accessibility
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Beat 360º 7/15/09 [15 Jul 2009|08:30pm]
ac360blog

Ready for today’s Beat 360°? Everyday we post a picture – and you provide the caption and our staff will join in too. Tune in tonight at 10pm to see if you are our favorite! Here is the ‘Beat 360°’ pic:

US President Barack Obama throws out the first pitch of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game on July 14, 2009 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri. (Photo by: TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Have fun with it. We’re looking forward to your captions! Make sure to include your name, city, state (or country) so we can post your comment.

__________________________________________________________________________________ Beat 360° Challenge

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Tonight: Text 360° [15 Jul 2009|08:14pm]
ac360blog

AC360°

Questions are piling up around the murder of a Florida couple, Byrd and Melanie Billings.

The Billings family, who had 16 children – many with special needs – were shot and killed in their home on July 9. Nine of the children were home and three are reported to have seen the intruders. So far, seven suspects are facing murder charges and local authorities are pursuing an eighth, according to Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan.

Sheriff Morgan will be on our show tonight, giving the latest details of the ongoing investigation. Do you have a question for him?

Let us know!

Send us a text message with your question to Text your question to AC360 (or 22360), and you might hear it on air!

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No Need for Hate Crimes Law [15 Jul 2009|08:35pm]
booman_tribune
There are no Hate Crimes in America and any facts you hear or see reported to the contrary should simply be ignored as irrelevant to the debate on whether we should have a federal hate crimes law. Nebraska saw a 3 percent increase in violent crimes reported to authorities in 2008 compared to the previous year, the state Crime Commission said Wednesday. Hate crimes increased by 14 percent. [...] During 2008 there were 98 incidents reported involving crimes motivated by hate. This is a 14% increase from the 86 reported in 2007. Racial bias accounted for 62.2% of the total hate crimes while Sexual bias accounted for 14.3%. Ethnic bias accounted for 12.2% and Religious bias accounted for 11.2%. Of the hate crimes reported, 36.7% involved destruction of property and 33.7% involved simple assault. Because we all know that hate crimes law being proposed by the Democrats would be used to silence God fearing patriotic right wing Christians, etc. by denying them the 1st Amendment right to free speech. Even if the law that is being proposed doesn't say that: SEC. 8. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION. Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by, the Constitution. Well, we all know you can't trust judges to follow the law. And we all know how zealous federal officials are about investigating and prosecuting these so=called hate crimes already. Nosy bastards: KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A Kansas City man who was the driving force behind an effort to bring civil rights-era offenders to justice is preparing to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder to jump-start efforts to find criminals because "people are dying and memories are fading." Alvin Sykes is widely credited with the idea behind the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which authorized up to $135 million over 10 years for investigations of civil rights-era killings and established a permanent cold case unit in the Justice Department. Why can't these people just let it go? Don't we have enough problems in this country without stirring up all these ancient animosities. I mean, no one makes a big deal about race anymore, right? Should GOP senators treat Sonia Sotomayor as contemptuously as Democrats treated Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, they should expect Hispanic hostility for a generation. [...] They archly demand that conservatives accord a self-described "affirmative action baby" from Princeton a respect they never for a moment accorded a pro-life conservative mother of five from Idaho State, Sarah Palin. Well, okay, maybe some folks have a residual hangup on race. And maybe a few aren't too happy about teh Gay either. The Seattle Times is reporting that owners of well-known Seattle gay bars have received anonymous notes that threatened to poison customer's drinks with toxic ricin. Bar managers are maintaining a "business as usual" stance, and don't expect the threatening letters to greatly impact business -- but that doesn't mean they're not alerting drinkers to keep a watchful eye on their libations. They have also posted signs warning patrons. The letter claimed, "I have in my possession approximately 67 grams of ricin with which I will indiscriminately target at least five of your clients." But murderous impulses? Perish the thought. Houston, TX – The dignified notice of services attending the interment of Seaman August Provost appeared in the Houston Chronicle on July 9th: ”SEAMAN AUGUST “B.J.” PROVOST III 29 A courageous soldier, passed away (Thurs) 06-30-09 while serving in the U.S. Navy @ Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, Ca. Visitation (Fri) 07-10-09 from 10am-11am @ Wright Grove Missionary Baptist Church; 9702 Willow Street. Funeral services will begin at 11am. Interment: full military honors will be given in his honor at Houston National Cemetery – (Gate-time 2:30pm). Boyd Funeral Home.” As a gay sailor who had not yet been outed and discharged under the provisions of the 1993 DADT law, August Provost was eligible for “Full Military Honors.” [...] Seaman Provost was brutally murdered, shot multiple times as if by execution. His body was found partially burned in a guard shack, probably the work of a killer intent on covering up his gruesome handiwork. Seaman Provost had confided in his family and to his same-sex lover that he had been harassed for being gay for the better part of a year by someone on base. But he would not report any of this to a superior, lest in the name of the same body of law that now covers him with honor, he be investigated and summarily drummed out of the military for being a homosexual. So, someone finally worked his evil, and Seaman Provost died, vulnerable and unprotected, a gay man like so many tens of thousands of others who vow to protect and defend the very nation that will not do the same for them. May the family, and Seaman Provost’s bereaved lover, to whom the honors of the nation refuse to extend in President Obama’s America, find comfort for their loss. So Senators, when it comes time to vote on this hate crimes bill, just ignore the reality and vote like FoX News wants. Because the only hate in this country that deserves to be punished is the hatred of liberals for Real Americans like Sarah Palin. Just ask David Letterman.
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‘Person of interest’ sought in Florida killings [15 Jul 2009|07:51pm]
ac360blog

CNN

Law enforcement officials in western Florida are looking for a woman they want to question in connection with the killings of a couple known for adopting many special-needs children.

Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said authorities were looking for Pamela Long, and called her a “person of interest” in the slayings of Byrd and Melanie Billings, who had adopted many developmentally disabled children.

Morgan said Long is a real estate agent and had rented property to one of the suspects arrested in the case.

“We believe Miss Long has significant and substantial information we need to conclude this case,” he said.

Long, who has several aliases, gave investigators information early in the case but they have not been able to reach her since, Morgan said.

The sheriff said there was a “gaping hole” in what was otherwise a well-executed crime: “Why was the security system not disabled?”

“The execution was basically flawless,” and authorities believe the suspects “entered the compound with the belief that they were not under surveillance,” Morgan said.

Keep reading…

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Saving the past from the present [15 Jul 2009|07:14pm]
ac360blog

Program Note: Joe Johns traveled to South Carolina to do some genealogical research of his own, tracing Michelle Obama’s roots to a plantation in South Carolina. To see his process and findings tune in tonight, AC360º, 10PM ET.

The main farmhouse in Bernice, Louisiana.
The main farmhouse in Bernice, Louisiana.

Allison Davis
AC360° Fellow

The earliest memories I have of Bernice, Louisiana, are through the eyes of a grumpy 10-year old, sick of being shuttled back and forth between Shoney’s, Wal-Mart and an old courthouse near the center of town. It was in that tiny courthouse that my mother spent hours searching through dusty and yellowing papers for a mention of her great-great grandfather’s name.

These images of the town differ greatly from my mother’s. She thinks back to summers spent on her grandmother’s farm, hearing stories of her ancestors and sitting on the very same porches of the houses they built.

Bernice, a town of 1,809 people in northern Louisiana is known for being east of Shreveport and close to Arkansas. It is where my mother proudly grew up and, as I found out, it is more than just a town of box stores and fast food restaurants. It is where my mother’s family owns about 283 acres of land that later turned out to be the key to unlocking our family genealogy.

Thirteen years ago my mother decided to make good on a promise that she made to her grandmother: to document the family history. She set out to trace our family legacy as far back as it would go. She began her search with only a few pieces of information: she knew the names of her great-great grandfather, John Payne, and his son, Allen, and she knew they were both former slaves. Armed with only these pieces of a much bigger puzzle, my mother and I flew back to Bernice to start putting it all together.

Most family histories are woven with tales of triumph and travels of ancestors, of knowledge of when it all began and how it all played out. For us, it was the occasional visit to a sprawling farm in a sweltering small town that served as the only glimpse of our background. I hardly had any knowledge of my mother’s heritage. To me, my family history began with my father’s birth in Ohio and my mother’s in Louisiana. Even my mother had lost touch with her 12 year-old self who had once known every tree and rock on the family land. Our past was being eaten by our present.

Many understand the desire to connect with the past. Especially among black communities, so much depends on the tracing of our roots. But the obstacles involved in building that bridge from past to present are at times nearly insurmountable.

There are no census records for blacks before 1870 and often times slave owners never noted the names of their slaves. Our family is relatively lucky; my mother was able to find land records that placed her great grandfather early on in her search. History has a way of being evasive, however, and trails went cold, records lost. Needle in a hay stack? A cake walk compared to searching through decades worth of faded documents just to find mention of a single name with no proof it was the correct one. My mother, the sole family historian, was often compelled to give up.

Fortunately for us, she didn’t. Though it took her nearly 13 years, she has given the family something beyond just a plot of land in Louisiana. I never understood why she was so excited to find a decaying marriage license or a birth year in a census record or a record of the sale of my great-great-great grandfather John Payne to his owner, Daniel in 1840. All of these add up to something so much greater than fading ink.

My mother’s search, pieced together by land deeds, records of slave purchases and census records, tells the story of John and Nancy Payne, two slaves from Alabama, who had a son, Allen. Allen purchased 40 acres that, with the help of my great-grand mother Mary Jane, later expanded into 312 acres between 1887 and 1922.

While his father was sold for 25 cents in 1840, Allen was worth $100 as a farmer in 1870. We now know when he was married and when he had children. He opened a school, helped build a church. From captivity was borne a life, from tragedy was borne a legacy.

For my mother, the trail has gone completely dead, she can do no more without a team of historians behind her, but the goal has been accomplished. Our history is one with shaky dates and gaps in years, but it is ours.

Last August, I returned to the 283 remaining acres for the Payne family reunion, the first I’d been to in almost a decade. I helped my mother compile her many years of research into a story that she gave to our entire family. As I shuffled through more than a decade of her work, I began to realize what the sum of countless flights to Louisiana and hours spent with my mother in courthouses and libraries meant – an incredible story that brought a new found sense of pride and unity to Allen Payne’s descendents.

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Comets C/2009 K7, 2009 K8, 2009 K9, 2009 K10 (SOHO) - MPEC 2009-N50 [15 Jul 2009|07:40pm]
hohmanntransfer
Dated 1634 UT, noted at 1833 UTC. - [direct]
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Comets C/2009 J10, 2009 J11, 2009 J12, 2009 K6 (SOHO) - MPEC 2009-N49 [15 Jul 2009|07:40pm]
hohmanntransfer
Dated 1628 UT, noted at 1833 UTC. - [direct]
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Did Pay-To-Play Probe Cause Rattner's Resignation? [15 Jul 2009|06:34pm]
muckrakerfeed

So: is Steve Rattner stepping down as the Obama administration's car czar because of the investigation into whether his private-equity fund used pay-to-play tactics to win business from New York's public pension fund?

Probably.

First, let's recap: New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has been conducting a broad investigation into whether investment funds paid politically connected middlemen to help them win contracts to manage state pension funds. Rattner allegedly arranged for the private-equity fund he co-founded, Quadrangle, to pay $1.1 million to the political consultant Hank Morris to help the fund win business from the New York pension board. Morris has since been indicted and charged with selling access to the board. The SEC is also conducting its own investigation.

Here's the evidence that suggests Rattner's unexpected departure is probe-related:

• The very day -- Monday -- that Rattner's departure was announced, both the New York Times and Reuters reported that Cuomo's probe of Rattner and Quadrangle had intensified. (Rattner is a former Times reporter and a close friend of publisher Arthur Sulzberger.) The following day, the AP reported that Cuomo is seeking a civil settlement with Rattner.

• In an email that Rattner sent to friends in February announcing that he was taking on the car czar job, he wrote that after 26 years on Wall Street, "I have begun a new phase of my life, in the public sector." As Slate's Mickey Kaus puts it: "Short phase."

• Rattner is a committed Democratic loyalist. He's a major fundraiser for the party, and his wife, Maureen White, is a former DNC finance chair. Given those ties, it's not hard to imagine that he could have been convinced to fall on his sword for the good of the president he helped elect -- a president who can ill-afford to see the man he put in charge of the auto bailout enmeshed in a Wall Street scandal.

• The Washington Post reports that some senior administration officials were taken by surprise by the abrupt announcement Monday of Rattner's resignation.

• Private equity expert Dan Primack, who has watched Rattner and Quadrangle closely, thinks there's a there there. Primack twittered Monday:

Steve Rattner just stepped down as auto czar. Know this: Rattner will be in the news again before end of summer, and it won't be about cars.

• Rattner -- who's not known to be media shy -- and Quadrangle have been notably mum since the resignation announcement.


Still, there's evidence on the other side:

• The major task that Rattner was hired to do for the government -- getting General Motors and Chrysler into and out of bankruptcy -- has been achieved, and far more smoothly than many expected. The Times reports: "A person who has worked with him in Washington said he understood that Mr. Rattner had decided to leave because his role on the task force had come to its natural end."

• Sources are saying that neither Rattner nor Quadrangle are likely to face criminal charges in relation to the pension fund probe.

So there you have it -- we report, you decide. But for ourselves, lets just say we're leaning in one direction on this one...


Late Update: One more point on the "yes" side of the ledger: The Treasury Department's statement on Rattner's departure said that he "has decided to transition back to private life and his family in New York City." That's pretty much the equivalent of saying he resigned to spend more time with his family. And we all know what that means.



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LA Sketchbook: Out of Van Nuys [15 Jul 2009|11:35am]
la_observed
In honor of Sherman Oaks adding a new precinct of ex-Van Nuysians, here's the latest by Steve Greenberg. For the heck of it, here's my timeline of San Fernando...
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US: No plans to meet with NKorea at ASEAN meeting (AP) [15 Jul 2009|06:27pm]
nkoreanews

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (R, seated) visits the newly built Taedonggang Tile Factory in Pyongyang in this picture released by North Korea's official news agency KCNA late July 14, 2009. KCNA did not state expressly the date when the picture was taken. Picture released July 14, 2009. REUTERS/KCNAAP - The United States says it has no plans to meet with North Korean officials at a summit in Thailand next week.


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Open Thread [15 Jul 2009|07:03pm]
booman_tribune
It's a perfect summer day here. More days like this please. Even though it is too nice out to blog (unless you are patio blogging) there is plenty to talk about. What's on your mind?
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