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[info]oldmaninnastix
ATTENTION ALL WHO STRAY HERE


The oldman has taken a hike(some would say that happened a long time ago). You can find him

HERE


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On the road again.....
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[info]oldmaninnastix
Josh, Luke and Mark, 20-somethings.. lifelong friends about to hit the road in a few weeks.

Any of you interested in following their road trip (ending up at Burning Man) can sign up with 'em for their on-the-road updates and photos.
Should be GRAND FUN!


VagaBender




HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY
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[info]oldmaninnastix
Here is an email I got today from a friend. I'm pretty sure she wrote it herself, but maybe it's one of those circulating emails. It certainly could, or maybe, should be. It made me smile and think about all those who I could send something like it to.
So I put it into cyberspace and address it to everyone, including men. Imagine who you know who might send this to you and then consider sending it to them.




THIS IS FOR ALL THE PHENOMENAL WOMEN IN MY LIFE! THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR LIVES WITH ME AND BEING A PART OF MY JOURNEY.. SOME OF YOU I SEE OFTEN, SOME I HAVEN'T SEEN FOR SO LONG (TOO LONG) BUT SOMEHOW WE MANAGE TO TOUCH EACH OTHERS LIVES, EITHER IN PERSON, BY PHONE OR E-MAIL. I APPRECIATE EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU. YOU HAVE MADE ME LAUGH, CRY, TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT MY SELF, QUESTION WHO I AM, BROUGHT ME MUCH JOY, BEEN SO SUPPORTIVE AND LOVING NO MATTER WHAT I WAS THINKING OR DOING. GOD I AM SO THANKFUL! AND ON THIS MOTHER'S DAY, WHETHER YOUR CHILDREN ARE GROWN, STILL GROWING, NOT HERE YET. NEVER BEEN OR NEVER WILL BE, ALL OF YOU HAVE NURTURED ME IN SO MANY WAYS AND FOR THAT I WILL ALWAYS GRATEFUL.


SO ON THIS MOTHER'S DAY I SAY A HEART-FELT THANK YOU AND REMIND EACH OF YOU THAT YOU ARE LOVED!

WISH IDA THOUGHT OF THAT
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[info]oldmaninnastix


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Fading to black..
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[info]oldmaninnastix
well.. it just feels like I am done with the "oldmainnastix" journal for awhile.. (it really is getting old writing here.)
Maybe I'll be gone a short while.. maybe a long while, maybe the whole thing is done with ..it's hard to say at the moment. But wow! ..it certainly has been a creative, and meaningful ride for me for nearly 4 years...I have [info]mindslide to thank for that in that I had never heard of "live journal" (Thankyou Kristen) before accidentally landing on her LJ and thinking "what is this?!".. ..and then from that, after a few days of thinking that I could have my own little "soapbox".. a place where I could have my say no matter what it was.. was immensely appealing to me! And so it began.

..and a big thanks as well.. to all of you who have listened to my "mind drizzles" and often shot back usually favorable comments at me, especially you, Debbi and you Trish and Wailaki, I thank you all.


But now, on the threshold of Patti and I driving back to our farm in Iowa..(the lawn needs mowed already!)and to spend some time away from city life and for my spirit to reconnect again to my own home turf, I also feel the need for some big change in my relationship to this web community, and to livejournal, and to put behind the old..that is, the old-man-no-longer-much-in-the-sticks and grab hold of the new.. whatever that means in actuality.
It is all something that has not yet bubbled up into my consciousness, but I know it will as time goes by.

So until it does present itself, it is fade-to-black for me... Ta Ta For Now! bill :-)

Video Testing..mp3 testing as well..
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[info]oldmaninnastix
I am also in process of creating my own mp3 playlist that I and YOU can also listen to while reading/writing and surfin' around the web. well, if you are so inclined and have high speed. I will, of course, be putting on only the music that my own spirit resonates to.. that makes me dance on the inside. This web shit is all good. Click HERE
for the first one,(more later) then open another browser window to continue on your flight in virtual space.Ok.. let's see if this works for anyone. (later) well, yeah it does just ducky.

modem users.. give me some feedback on approximately how many minutes this takes to load into your computer, if you want to. There is a little lag time even for high speed after punching the Play link.
Also..for some reason all videos load in at full volume sound..so be careful, ..a couple of times (while wearing earphones), I have nearly blown my eardrums out. So turn your volume on low at first or be really quick and reduce the quicktime volume before the movie plays..

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Anyway.. this video was taken 3 winters back. Then 18 year old Jesse from Eugene,Oregon (a good friend of my daughter Brie) had never been sleigh riding (city boy!) before visiting on our Iowa farm. This short clip is his first ride in the snow on a ski-sled. He flies over a terrace and actually manages to make it to the bottom of the hill without crashing. It's a moment of absolute pride and happiness for him. We made a memory, Jesse! ..and here it is.. just for you. :-)bill






Cherry Blossoms...
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[info]oldmaninnastix

(Warning: boring LiveJournal entry below)


Spring has definitely sprung in the DC area.. in fact it has become hhhhhooooottttttt! (that's "hot" for the mentally impaired trying to figure out what that word was.)

So.. Patti and I decided that it was safe to get out of our 9th floor apartment for the first time this winter and drive down to the tidal basin here in Washington, to take in the warmth of the spring day, and walk around the green grass a-growin'.. and of course to take in all the beautiful and exploding cherry blossoms.

Yes sir ree bob.. that's what Patti and I decided to do..
along with 16 billion other people having precisely the same idea.

It really was NOT a great idea because of the traffic.. tons of folks all looking for a parking spot, the same as we were.

After an hour of creeping along at the proverbial snail's pace among the cars and tourist buses, (it felt like we were trapped in a slow moving parking lot) all of us searching for some place to stop and park so we could get out and just walk around awhile.
But alas, it was not meant to be.
We finally gave it up, and just took a couple of exceedingly unimpressive photos from the car and then wrangled our way back home again.

Altogether it was a 2 hour trip of driving in stop-and-go traffic.. a half hour to get there (about 3 miles) and then creep-along traffic for the next hour.. oh slow.. a turtle could waddle as fast.. and finally another half hour back home.
ummmm yeah great fun... and fancy that, those cherry blossoms all smell exactly like car exhaust.

Ok then, it's roll up the windows.. air conditioner on.. snap a couple of pics for this entry, and it's Welcome to Washington, DC's Cherry Blossom spectacular ..and attending tourists. Whoopee Ki Yi Yo get along little doggies... and.. let's get out of this! I think I need a nap.

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Maybe we will try to do the National Cathedral in a day or two.. take pics/feel holy. At least in this town, the parking lots for the pious are never, ever full..


God, don't sit on this!
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Teaching the daughter to fly (revisited)
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[info]oldmaninnastix
When my daughter Brie was visiting here a short time ago... I decided that she was old enough now, and also.. that it was time for me to reveal a long and closely guarded family secret to her:
..that sometimes members of our bloodline inherit the incredible ability to actually levitate!

Neither my mother nor my father could do this unusual feat, however there has been handed down through the generations an old story about my now-long-gone Aunt Pearl (on my mother's side) who used to be able to jump farther than anyone.. In fact she could, uh.. 'jump' so much so, to such a great distance, that people of her generation avoided her, thinking that she was part-witch, or some other superstitious foolishness. She died alone many, many years ago.. poor old Aunt Pearl.. never finding love nor having any children of her own... cursed by the narrow minded paradymes of her generation.

Early on in my life (if any of you have been tracking my LiveJournal in which I previously revealed to the world this ability of mine), I discovered as a youngster that I too had inherited this incredible power to actually lift my self off the ground and float in any direction or height that I wished. It has been something, this ability of mine to fly ...that I have up until now.. kept as a closely guarded family secret, revealing it to no one other than my own mother, when I was a child. And.. for almost the whole of my daughter's life, I have known that she too inherited this astounding ability to lift-off the ground.. Since day-one, I had always watched her closely wondering "what-if.."

..and then, one day it came..
When she was just learning to walk as an 18 month old.. she too lifted off the floor several inches. I quickly and gently pushed her back down, shaking my head "no".. Fortunately we were alone at the time.. and no one else saw what she had done. From that moment on I kept a "eagle's eye" on her life.. but she never did it again... and I suspect had long forgotten the whole incident.



Fast-forward 18 years to the present...
Daughter visits her old man on the ancient family farm here in Iowa.




After a lengthy conversation with her explaining all of this.. and revealing it all to her wide-eyed wonderment and amazement, we both agreed that now was the time for her to consciously try her hand at it herself.. to see if she could do it.. and experience for herself this unique capability of ours.
We had some breakfast, and headed out into the yard on a lovely spring morning in March, where I could further explain the theory and demonstrate the complete technique to her..



I lifted off first to show her exactly how it was done.. demonstrating to her the particulars of being in a certain "frame of mind" (although it really is a certain frame-of-beingness).. that allows a perfect state of limbo-like stasis between two opposing energy forces, the earth below and the sun above... sensing both these incredible forces "as-one". Then, the subtle shifting of emphasis from one energy pull to the other.. thus allowing actual movement of the body inbetween these two forces.
After I finished my own demonstration (and LOTS of talk on my part), we decided it was time.. after all these years.. it was finally time for her to experience this family-phenomena. Following my explicit instructions.. and a little energy help from the old man.... well.. as you all see..

O yeah!!!! You got it!!! Rock and Roll, daughter! You are there!....

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After a couple of short "runs" with me below and being her safety net, we decided it was time for her to try it completely on her own.. I stood back, grabbed the camera and took the next photo.. AND having to emphasize to her more than once, "don't get cocky!.." (kids love driving parents up-the-frickin'-wall with their stunts!) and..bruises from an ill-performed energy-shift are not fun! (of this I know all to well.)


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..but I could tell already.. she's got style and she's got grace and it would not be too long before she would be out-performing-to-perfection her old pops.. doing things that I would never have dared even to try..



After "playing" for awhile in the yard.. lifting off no more than a few feet because of trees and electric lines overhead, we decided to walk down into the corn field and away from all overhead obstructions, where we could move on to the next lesson... one that seriously ramped-up the danger level.

I talked a great deal to her about the fear that would be felt when one is a hundred feet off the ground! .. and that this fear, if you let it.. well, it can kill you. As for myself, being quite experienced from years of multiple lifts throughout my life, I no longer feel any fear whatsoever... and occasionally I go way-high.. if the weather is good enough to do so.. (no wind is important.. and night is better, in that no one can see me.. and spin out of their minds from seeing a body floating around way up there in mid-air). I informed her that she was to concentrate fully on keeping "in-line" with the energy fields.. and not how high she was going... and that it was exceedingly vital to subdue the fear of being high.. if she was to maintain this position of freedom and not come crashing down sideways like an out-of-control kite. I gave her the camera and showed her exactly how to do it.
She was dumbfounded.. and yelled up at me to "not go so high.. come back down!"
..and so I did.. But I had to laugh at her.. I think it freaked her just a little. my going up that high.

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But now the real test was at hand. She was apprehensive to be sure... and rightfully so. (as was I.) but I said "as soon as you feel the fear, let up.. and you'll come right back down... just don't get cocky!"..
Confidence with practice is good.. but false confidence can kill you if you're not careful.. know the difference.
Now... now.. it was her time to try... "You'll be fine.." said I "just keep the energy lines straight!"

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As she lifted off and up, I could see she was beginning to waver off to the right side, and I yelled up at her to "straighten it up!"..

She yelled back down to me "poppeee!!.. I don't like this!"


I managed to get off one picture as she gently came back down to the ground...a little spooked for sure.

"hmmm" I said..."I think that this is enough for one day."
And so we walked back to the house... to make some hot chocolate..
walked back in silence..
two wonderful smiley-faces, ear to ear...
and a day in the Life to remember...
Isn't it all just grand!

...and may all we Fools everywhere..
(even you, dear reader..)
have just the grandest of all Aprils.. and beyond.

(we deserve it!;)



hahaaaa..
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Your President Speaks His "Mind"
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[info]oldmaninnastix
The President explains the virtues of his Social Security plan -
Tampa, FL, Feb. 4, 2005.


WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: "I don't really understand. How is it the new
(Social Security) plan is going to fix that problem?"



Verbatim response:
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PRESIDENT BUSH: "Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are
calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise
based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of
parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple
that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those
with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more
likely to be -- or closer delivered to that has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases.There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.
Guess that clears it up."



Does it ever!

the revolution shall not be brought to you by corporate tv....
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[info]oldmaninnastix
"We are in the midst of the greatest boon in grassroots creativity in ages. Tools once available only to a professional elite are now being taken up by everyday citizens. Just as weblogs let millions of people become part of "the media," so too are new tools empowering individuals to create video, audio, playlists and other works of personal media and to share them with a global audience.

The personal media revolution is turning multimedia. Digital stories, video diaries, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads, music videos, fan films, Flash animations, student films – all kinds of short multimedia works have begun to flower. Alas, the most compelling ones are scattered across the Web or hidden away on thousands of PCs, laptops and closed networks. These works deserve a wider audience.

Ourmedia.org is an open source media project that seeks to expose, preserve and advance works of grassroots creativity. Individuals, communities and organizations have begun telling digital stories that enthrall, entertain and often move audiences to take positive action. Plain text or the cool detachment of "objective" media do not come close to matching the emotional power of multimedia stories laced with personal narrative.

Ourmedia is three things in one:

1. a destination web site at ourmedia.org that serves as a repository; we offer free storage and free bandwidth for your media, which gets exposed to a global community;
2. a media registry based on open schemas that will let other web sites tap into the network and share their own media content;
3. soon, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing amateur, hobbyist, semi-professional, and professional works.

Unlike other initiatives that are pure-play stand-alone web sites, Ourmedia's vision is to bring personal media to millions of desktops through playlists, video jukeboxes, visual albums, and built-in media libraries. Members upload works with a range of rights, from Creative Commons-licensed works to public domain works to fully copyrighted works.

Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive are supporting this project with free storage and bandwidth for grassroots media. But Ourmedia is more than a repository that preserves works for the ages. We'll serve as a resource center and learning toolkit for creating rich and compelling works; our members are creating their own topical community spaces; and we’re building tools that will let anyone search for digital media, download it and reuse or remix it, with proper attribution.

Supporting this project are thought leaders in the creative community, technologists, educators, and digital-preservation librarians. Rather than relying on a paid staff, we have built a do-it-yourself platform that lets users anywhere in the world upload material, download shareable media, rank their favorite works (coming soon), and offer commentary and tutorials. All for free.
Over time, we expect Ourmedia to grow into the world's largest collection of home-brew media."

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[info]oldmaninnastix

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[info]oldmaninnastix
Here's a step-by-step short tutorial on how to set up a free video blog (vlog) should anyone be interested. (and a great example of some young folks at it.)

..and also for us aging boomer bloggers who are not quite ready yet for bingo, drooling and gazing all droopy-eyed at a wall, you might want to explore the ageless project, perhaps even register and make a few more friends outside our LJ community..

playing with videos..
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[info]oldmaninnastix
    ..and trying to figure out how to post my own in due course.



    and don't even bother with the below links if you're modem.. also, if anybody knows what/who music this is on Christine's birthday, let me know.. I like it lot.




    Christine's Birthday


    Bonnie & Clyde

a pouring of the empty into the void...
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[info]oldmaninnastix
There is definitely not a lot of LJ posting going on in this corner of the virtual world, that's for sure.. Adventures and writable ideas tilled-up by adventuring is at a minimum in this frozed-up, pre-spring brain I call 'home'. ..mostly I am just having a little bit of "cabin fever" to deal with.. which is always the worst in february and march I have noticed, no matter where I happen to be, city or country.

I've been spending a lot of time on the computer, trying to get together a slide show of reject photos to put on our official live journal adventure site.. for future use.. and..catching an occasionally movie, cooking dinner, going on bundled-up walks and pestering Patti..(which is grand fun.. but hardly interesting to anyone else). well.. what can I say..?.. it's life in inaction..



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slices of life...
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[info]oldmaninnastix
rummaging thru some ancient negatives taken by my mother about 1950, I come across a couple of the old man and his team of work horses... I took the half-century old negs into my darkroom and made a couple of prints..
This is the world that I and my sister grew up in.. Before our father and mother had purchased a small Ford Ferguson tractor, he used these horses to till the 120 acres of fields. We were a poor dirt farm family, but we never wanted for anything as children.

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I don't remember this car (in the photo below).. but then I was only 5 years old at the time.. The barn you see there in the background served many purposes in my growing-up childhood.. Often it had bales of hay stored inside for the cattle to eat thru the winter months. There was also my first "bag swing" attached to the inside peak of the roof that I would swing from one side of the barn to the other.. totally scary stuff, but we loved it. And later after obtaining my first BB gun, the old barn served as my "hunting ground" for sparrows and pidgeons... I would wait for them to fly in thru a high open window on the backside. Wild country cats would burrow into the warm hay in winter and in deep hay pockets would give birth to their kittens. I would hear their muffled cries and then try to dig them out so I could pet them and love them. (of course I always put them back.)
The barn also served as the place where I and a somewhat older neighbor farm girl had propositioned one another with the old familiar "I'll show you mine if you show me yours".. I insisted she go first..which she magnanimously did and after which I somewhat reneged on our bargain.. ah, but the memory!


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Our father died about 4 years after this photo with a massive coronary attack..too many rolled cigarettes, too much animal fat (meat 3 times a day for working men, was my mother's motto), and as well probably way too much stress, with 2 kids to take care of. One fine fall day while I was in 4th grade in the little school, he started his "checking out" procedure.
My sister and I hid in the barn to get away from the chaos that was occurring in our nearby house.. the little tractor left running in the field as he dragged himself back to the house. My mother could barely get him into the car by then, to get him to the doctor's office 7 miles away.

The barn is gone now too. (It finally fell down, and I burned it one day but I don't remember when.)
That car is long gone to where ever old cars go.. the horses gone as well, of course. The tree and the ground are still there, but little more in that particular direction. The house of course is still alive.

There is no other place on this planet that I am so connected to... such history!
In the spring, Pioneer Princess and I will return for some time there in this magical place (for me anyway)in western Iowa that I will always, always call "Home"...





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[info]oldmaninnastix
Another on-the-road journal is in process..Luke, Josh and Mark.. three 20-something crazies who have known one another since grade school in Oregon.. full of piss and vinegar and lookin' for love and adventure on the high road (and occasionally the low road too, I suspect)...
aaahh.. I remember those days myself... hell, I still have a little bit of the steam left in me.. at least the last time I checked the dipstick.

Anyway, their website is/will be at:
VagaBender

.. bookmark'em.. It should grand fun for all...




Heart Day....
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[info]oldmaninnastix
..and a Happy, Merry Valentine's Day to all.. chocolate, flowers, candy, lotsa lovey pets & stuff to our loved ones.. a day to offer Care and well-wishes to all..especially to our own selves with whom we share everything. :-)
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..and a good romantic/semi-comedy movie (which is to say that it is not tooo soppy & cute & stupid, thank goodness) to see: "In Good Company"..






If you're a dog lover....
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[info]oldmaninnastix
you should see this dog show act. Truly entertaining and amazing video footage. make sure your sound is on.. modem users will take a couple of minutes to load in..

Image server off line
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[info]oldmaninnastix
The service that Patti & I use to remote load all of our photos has been attacked by hacker assholes...

Imagewiz.net is just a small family business and the malicious hackers have done a massive denial-of service on them, overloading their servers and because of it have now successfully put him and his family out of business.
Evidently he can't prevent continuing future attacks to his servers and he has decided to shut down his very successful, 4 year old business.

It's a shame.. The hackers like to justify their actions by telling themselves that what they do improves the whole system.. (and to a point that is true, I think).. but.. BUT.. the big problem with that prevailing attitude is that the malicious code writers and the spammers and the petty thieves, all together seem to be winning.. (they are like cancer attacking it's own host body) and they seem to doing a successful job of bringing down the system of which they are a part of.. and ..turning the internet into something less of a service to humankind than what it was and could be.

For all their geeky intellectual superiority when it comes to computers and the web and writing code, they seem to be too fucking stupid to get that. or they are just simply evil and will die horrible deaths in due course.

Anyway.. until Patti and I find another photo service to our liking, our photos may and may not appear here on our LJ.

suggestions as to other image sites?
(none with ads attached)



what better day than today...
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[info]oldmaninnastix
.. to put on my birthday suit.?..









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circa 1975..

me smiling at the sun, Patti sneakin' around with her nosey camera!




In about 10 hours I will have put in a full 60 years of attitude and silliness, love and laughter... with a few tears sprinkled in along my way.
I will have treated my Time fairly well I think..
..and in turn my Time has done OK by me as well (what a ride it's been and.. it ain't over yet!)

so then ..just happy birthday to me!



DAMN! 60! who'da thunk?

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