39.5

Hey. I'm typing this from our NEW LAPTOP COMPUTER!!! Ain't i cool? It's great - reasonably fast, has a pretty, widescreen screen, and a keyboard that is pretty nict to type on. Plus, there's a WiFi receiver, and it was absurdly cheap.

However, since it was built by not-me, it's got tons of crap on it that we will never use. Of the "40 gigabyte" hard drive, there's 21 gigs free, with the rest taken up by preloaded applications, software, and a whole ten gig partition containing the files needed to "restore" the computer to its original state. Karen was the one who sat through all the introduction stuff, like "Do you want to setup your internet connection through HP's Award Winning internet service provider right now?" Click no... "Are not you sure you don't want to stop continuing?" Uh... ???

So i'm gonna totally get this computer with a nice, fresh, install of XP on here. It'll be great. And with all things electronic or mechanical, i'll enjoy figuring it out. :)
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39.0

Sometimes when i don't take any pictures, i feel like i have nothing at all to write about. And, while i did take no pictures today, i did lots of stuff which i can write about if i want... like, oh, i got up with the kids, watched absolutely nothing on the TV, ate grilled cheese, watched this silly flash animation and went to work. I worked from 1:30 to 10:30, but i was on the unit for three hours. The other seven hours i spent taking a kid to a doctor's appointment 45 minutes away (knowing NOTHING about the appointment besides which hospital and the kid's name - no time, doctor's name, problem... good thing i can improvise) and had Young Life.

YL was weird - someone connected with Wedgwood died last week. I didn't know the person and have no connection besides knowing how totally horriffic that situation is, so my heart hurts and goes out to those who are closer. But the clients, especially from that part of Wedgwood, were really subdued. Quiet. Weird.

38.5

Two things today. The first - i don't know what in the world is up with the timer on our oven at work. See if you think it's as absurd as i do.

It's digital. Cool. You push "Timer" and the four number display, which usually shows the (wrong) time starts blinking 00:00, on for one second, off for one second. Cool. You need to set the timer for, say, seventeen minutes because that's how long it takes to get broccoli perfect. So you push the up button. The timer numbers go up by ones, but they're still blinking in a on/off second which lasts two seconds. If you hold the up button, the numbers will change twice per second. So this is what you see:

00:01 - 00:02 - (nothing...) 00:05 - 00:06 (nothing...) 00:09 - 00:10 (nothing... so far we're doing just fine, no problems. Cool.) 00:40 - 00:50 WHAT THE CRAP???

I guess the geniuses who programmed the little internal timer computer thought "Hey, once the user holds the button down long enough to reach 00:10, they're obviously gonna be timing a large number of time so we should go ahead and start counting minutes by tens!!!" Those geniuses must not have gotten the memo from the geniuses who thought "Hey, when people push the 'Timer' button, we should make it blink on for one second and off for one second so everyone can tell that it's in Special Timer Mode and nobody will get confused and think that it's 00 o'clock and 00 minutes!!!"

The other thing was that our house has been a Big Mess for the past few days. So i decided to have Houston help clean it up.

Me: Houston, you can't do anything fun until you help clean up (as i'm playing a game on the computer having a lot of fun because i already did a lot of work today - i made sure to enjoy it very very much)
Houston: Daddy, can I play with my cars?
Me: Sure! But you can't have any fun, because you don't want to help clean up.
Houston: But Daddy, why can't i have any fun?

He ended up in his room because he simply would not help. He was up there for about two hours, even eating dinner up there, because boys who don't clean up can't have fun with us down here. Happy ending: it's now cleaner than it was because Houston did decide to help. He put away dishes, cars, and books. And helped with laundry. Video.
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38.0

I kind of forgot to post the whole video of Houston and Katrina and me falling onto the bed. It's after the break. So check it out. Except make sure you ignore what mess exists in the bedroom...

One of the girls i used to work with is getting dreadlocks. She's white. They're gonna be really fat. Like, the enormous snake like dreads some people have. Today she said "Aren't you glad that your favorite resident is finally getting dreadlocks?" I was like, "Um... okay?" And on reflection, she is one of my more favorite residents. But really i am kind of glad. I've been telling pretty much everyone who will listen to get dreads, but mostly the kids of African descent, since dreadlocks are kind of a traditionally, naturally African hairstyle which makes no apologies to White American aesthetics. Everytime one of the black kids gets their hair straightened i tell them i'm really grumpy at them. Dude, that straightener stuff kills your hair - makes it the texture and fragility of dried out straw. At least the way the Delta girls do it.

Anyway, i miss my Karen. We've been kind of not seeing each other very much, with our schedules and she's kind of exhausted from all the baby-growing she's doing. :) Did i mention yesterday that i felt the baby move????? Yeah, i felt the baby move. Color me a happy father! With a big thick crayon!

And finally, in what has become a disjointed, rambling post, one of those Dross ones i've mentioned... U2's song Vertigo, you know it? Yeah, the really cool guitar riff is totally on the left channel. Completely on the left channel. This makes it extremely difficult to listen to with headphones. One wonders if the trendy black iPod that came preloaded with a bunch of U2 songs had that one on it, and if it did, if it was a special mix, or if the iPod has fancy (and actually useful - i'd pay a little extra for this feature) crossfeed processor like the $199 headphone amp that Dan reviews here.
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Wooo Hooooooo!!!

I felt the baby move!!! It was like... a bump... on Karen's tummy...

SWEEEEEEEEET!

37.5

Rice! We ate rice for lunch today, and it was delicious. Jasmine rice cooked perfectly by the rice cooker i got for a birthchristdaymas gift last year (at least i remember who gave it to me - thanks Mom and Dad (right Karen?)). But Katrina, who hates to have dirty hands was kind of wigging out every time she'd get rice stuck to her hands, which was every time she gave up on the fork. A lot.

And then, to top it off, a guy cut in front of me and my lovely but tired and needy children in the grocery store. It was okay because i'd been prepared to wait a lot longer but a new lane had just opened and the dude had a gallon of 2% and packs of strawberries. But the guy behind me said kind of loud "Hey Baldie, the line starts back here!" Uh? He was wearing jogging pants with shiny leather oxfords! ...and i'm not sure why that tops anything off, i just felt like saying that.

37.0

In church today i thought about some stuff. First, i'm a liberal. In this country that word carries a lot of political meaning, having to do with big government, socialistic tendencies, stuff like that. But more fundamentally, the term Liberal - especially when contrasted with the word Conservative - means looking for progress, hoping for change. So i think as followers of Christ we should see this world and how screwed up it is and work to change it. It makes me wonder why so many American Christians vehemently believe that being Conservative is the ONLY Biblical political position. Probably because most people are convinced that things were better back when. You know, golden tinged nostalgia. And if we could just get back to when nobody was divorcing each other and nobody had sex before they were married and ho-mo-sexshulls were put in jail, well then we'd all be way closer to the way God Wanted It To Be. But really, things were screwed up back then, things are screwed up now, and things are going to continue to be screwed up (and in amazing and imaginative new ways!) so my job is to take our little sphere of God's creation and take it closer to the Kingdom of God. I'll try to change stuff, i'll try to show by example that the attitudes of the world are wrong. I'll do things like loving everyone, being a faithful hubby and teaching my kids.

The other thing i thought about was that when i see people cry, i totally start to cry just out of sympathy. The end of the service today was a very moving show of people who admit that things are messed up and who want to Get Better through the merciful gracious power of God. Couples were coming up front to stand beneath a Jewish style prayer shawl and they were sobbing and stuff, and here's me sitting in the seat, with joy overflowing in pretty much every part of my life (besides the "i can't make myself go to bed" thing) with tears leaking out of my eyes. I guess i just think that sadness is so sad, yet so sweet and pure. Karen was interpreting, so she was giving me looks like "Awww". And then i thought i was done, and this girl walks past, doing the mascara saving teardrop dab, and poof, there i am crying again. Humph.
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36.5

Most people write blog entries once or twice a week. I wonder what that's like. Karen, hilarious Mir lady and me are the only ones of which i'm aware who post every single day without fail. So with that in mind, i wonder how much dross Katrina and Houston and Limbuds (and their kids?) will feel like they're wading through just to get to nuggets of interest. I guess i could try to choose some favorite posts... but with so many posts, not much seems to really stand out. Quantity over quality?

Anyway, Karen and i played four games of Rummikub tonight, to intentionally spend time together. It was cool - i get along with my wife! Crazy! We also cleaned up together, which rocks because i can actually see progress being made before my very eyes! For me, unless i'm alone and there's some kind of dance music playing, "cleaning up" is just a short way of saying "struggling fiercely against infinite distractions and frustrations while alternately ignoring and bossing around my kids." Before Houston was born we had friends come over every Tuesday night (from which sprang the Tuesday Night Song) and Tuesday afternoon Karen worked. So i could put techno on and get the house really quite presentable in under an hour. I really enjoyed it. That's partially where my love of sweeping got developed. I really like sweeping. Mmmm, sweeping. When i was in junior high, in Peru, we had chores, which was mostly just sweeping out classrooms, where jungle mud tracked in on bare feet would turn into silty dust all over the universally unfinished hardwood floors. I didn't enjoy sweeping then, probably because the dust would easily get airborne. I wish i'd had sweeping compound (sawdust impregnated with something a little sticky like wax to make dust easier to sweep up). Okay, that's probably enough dross for today. Sorry guys.

Oh... uh, we went to the store, and Katrina made two grizzled, alcohol-and-tobacco-voiced biker dudes laugh very much just by looking at them all cute. She's so cute that her cuteness can even make smelly wildhaired old guys cute!

36.0

We went to see the butterflies today! It was cool. There's these butterflies which have clear wings! Cool! There were more butterflies flying around than i've seen there - actually, more than Karen has ever seen, which is more impressive. Um... besides that, i worked. You know, working with boys is verry interesting, because i can figure them out sometimes. Maybe it's just that the Crossroads program puts more emphasis on head stuff, or if guys just are more engaging on the cerebral level, or if we just get more high functioning kids. Who knows. But i still really miss the girls. Girls kick butt.

Um... i got two new computer games today, so i think i'm gonna play them. I haven't played any computer games besides Chuzzle for months and months. Besides Trackmania. So i'm kind of looking forward to it. Wish me luck against the evil hordes. Or the computer controlled bots or race cars or whatever. My organic synapses will reign supreme!!!!!!11

35.5

We saw Placenta Limbuds Moore today! In ultrasound! He or she is about a foot long and weighs one pound. Sixteen ounces and twelve inches! Isn't that cute? I guess it's a good thing that people weigh more than a pound per foot. I'd need to lose over 180 pounds to get back down to one pound per foot. I bet Atkins and weight watchers couldn't get me anywhere close, man!

Right. So i continue to be uncommonly tired and with an owie stomach. So i think i'll go ahead and try to get to bed uncommonly early. I told Karen she could sleep as long as possible in the morning. :)

Oh! We also ate pizza with Karla and Linda, to whose blogs you may click in my links section over <--- there, and it was really fun. There's seven very young people in our three families, and with that small number of years split up between so many humans, one is guaranteed some fun. Especially when all three moms walk off to get pizza and i'm left by myself with four little girls and three little boys to entertain. Funny faces! Pretending like the weakest "gimme five" hurts like crazy! Gasping like i'm scared! Giggles!!! Juanito happy! One of the ladies nearby saw the three moms, seven kids, and me, and was heard by someone wondering aloud if we were all one family. Heh. Maybe in Utah, lady! But then Keith arrived, and him and Karla are all cozy and stuff because, you know, they're married... so poor nosy-lady's wondering mind was probably put at ease a little.

35.0

Houston carried my camera around for a long while taking pictures. He captured there his favorite two cars. Tonight i asked him why he likes them so much, and pretty much it's because they have cool lines and words on them. He's into complexity. Go Houston! That's actually pretty cool, because if you're like me, you remember a favorite toy or two, lost to the mists of time, which we remember fondly but can only describe vaguely. Well, Houston has documented well his two favorite cars.

And speaking of mists of time, tonight Houston and i read about Sarah and Abraham.

Me: "They lived waay a long time ago."
Houston: "Before I was born?"
Me: "Yeah, before you were born, before I was born, even before Jesus was born!"
Houston: (gaped for a second) "Wow. That's a long time ago. Before the... before the guy who brings the mail was born?"
Me: "Yeah... before the mailman was born!"
Houston: (flinging one hand in the air for emphasis) "Wow, so then we'd look outside and there would be no mail!!!!!"
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34.5

I'm at work right now, and i've got some paperwork still to do, so i shouldn't write much. Which is a good thing, because i haven't much to write! Plus, i really don't like keyboards besides my own. I think that if we go to Alaska, i'll totally take my keyboard and plug it into our laptop so i can enjoy my insane clicking action. And you KNOW we're gonna need some kind of proper mouse - touchpads are neat for a minute and they get the job done, but mouses are about infinity better for most things. Especially games like Unreal Tournament and Solitaire! I pwn joo in Solitaire!

Behavioralism. That's what we had a training on this morning at Crossroads. Our therapists recently attended a conference or seminar on "Cognitive Behavioralism" and have decided that they - the whole Crossroads program - fits that model, but we're a lot stronger on the Cognitive tip than the Behavioral tip. A quick run down of the concepts, and then my personal reservations. Behavioralism says all behavior is learned, and can be changed through applications of reinforcement. Pavlov's dogs - bell rings they get food. Repeat. Bell rings, dogs salivate, expecting food. Stimulus response. The Cognitive aspect aknowledges that we're sentient, thinking beings and can learn to modify our own behavior.

So in our training, we decided to experiment with three of the kids, offering totally behavioralistic interventions to see if we can modify behaviors. We're gonna praise this one kid like crazy if he gets up by 7:30am, even though he's really supposed to be up by 6:45am. If he gets up later, we'll give him only minimal attention. Importantly, there will be no punishment, since punishments nearly always fail to achieve the desired result. This will be interesting, but i've got my reservations.

This intervention might work incredibly well for this one kid. He might not even realize it - that's behavioralism. But we've got eleven other kids who can see what's happening to him and cognitively want what he's getting, like "he gets to break the rules yet he gets really nice staff attention!" That little scenario played out on Delta too many times: kid is unworkable so gets special consideration which the other kids want, so they emulate the unworkable behaviors.

Hmm - never mind about the "not writing much" thing. I'll quit now, though, and do my paperwork.

34.0

Over the last couple of days, Houston and Katrina have taken 249 pictures on my camera. Some of them are totally blurry, some of them have been deleted forever, like the one of me right before i got in the shower... and some are actually pretty good. I'll toss some up for the ___more___ section.

Today i felt totally useless. I mean, i had all these plans - go to the mall, go shopping, maybe call one or two of my friends.... nope. Nothing. I didn't even get to take a very good nap, since when Katrina, Houston and i all went to our beds for a little siesta, some dude came and knocked on our door right as Mister Sandman was creeping up to me and Katrina, which prompted ear-splitting baying from Graham, and scaring sleepy guy far away. It's great that you protect us, Graham, but my ears are not the enemy. Sigh.

Attention Defecit Disorder has been shown to be neurologically based. Brain scans have shown that ADD brains have different activity than normal brains - although Wikipedia says that the image-producing research is controversial. But we'll say that the disorder really exists. I think sometimes i have it. Caffiene helps, and my ability to function is because i try really hard, but on some days like today, i can't do anything! That was today.

I got Vegemite! I ate some!

Then later, i walked down to this house where we met a bunch of people i didn't know who attend Mars Hill, and it turns out there's us and two other households right in this little tiny section of neighborhood who go to MHBC! I spent half an hour or so talking to this one couple who has a two year old son. We'll be knocking on their door one of these days this summer.
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33.1

No picture today, because i'm going to try an experiment and go to bed tonight. Like, before midnight. Yes, i know, tomorrow there will be newscasts all over the country, perhaps WORLD, about how the air level went down because so many people gasped an amazed gasp when they read that. Or maybe i'm being grandiose?

Do you ever wonder if you had a really quick response barometer in a church, which happened to be perfectly airtight and rigid, where everyone was singing the same song, if you'd notice a change in pressure when everyone took a breath? I do. I think just plain singing wouldn't make any measurable barometric change, but if everyone took a deep breath and squeezed their breath (that's a Valsalva Maneuver) the air pressure would drop. A little.

Speaking of singing at church, we sang a traditional hymn today, and our leader totally paused, like TOTALLY arbitrarily paused, between certain parts of the song. "...On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.......... (wait) (look around a sec) ........All other ground is sinking sand." If people want to do that when they're performing on their own, no problem. But when you're leading an enormous group and make them pause just because you like to hear the piano notes fade artistically, you're just power tripping. I felt seriously distracted, just trying to sing in the proper places. And that's what bugs me. My focus is supposed to be on Christ, and my aknowledging that He is what i want to be like, i shouldn't have to use my brain processor time trying to guess when we're going to start singing again. Part of me wanted to keep tempo and blast out the song on my own, the way it is supposed to be sung. I love our church the people i know who go there, (and i love everyone, even if i don't know them) and our song leader is totally talented. But i don't think he pays enough attention to tempo and correct (or at least regular) note placements in the bar. Or whatever - i don't know the formal language, but i know that "regular" is four (maybe three for some songs) beats to a bar, four bars forms some kind of phrase. You can't add or subtract beats or bars or anything without your music becoming irregular. And if you're irregular without a really good reason, it's called "wrong."

Hmm, i didn't know that bothered me so much. Mmmm, Journaling Therapy. Now i'll go talk to Karen about it and get some Wife Listening to Me Therapy.

33.0 Vid-e-blog!!!

Okay, today i'm gonna do a video blog entry. According to some thing i read by someone who probably hasn't the foggiest clue what he or she is talking about, they're the latest thing. Like, a "paradigm shift", or maybe a "quantum leap" or perhaps "light years ahead of its time." All of those phrases nonsense, of course. So thanks to YouTube and... well... me... here's a video. I'll do a transcript of the video also, once i get it edited. :)

Okay, whew, i finally got it done. It's rendering. Rendering takes a long time with this program. I used a 5/4 time signature (among others) song by Shpongle. I should have used a different song, but that one's pretty cool anyway. But nevermind about the transcript - i'll just do a little synopsis. I woke up tired. Karen and Houston were sleeping on the couch, sort of. Then we ate breakfast while the kids sang with full mouths. Then i played the airplane game with the kids, and then Karen read to Katrina who sang, and Houston whimpered. Not pictured is the part where me and my progeny take a trip to the Office Depot to buy a laptop computer. Turns out it's not a scam or anything, but we did have to pay tax and $35 in shipping. But they didn't steal Katrina and demand that i buy a $1,800 Toshiba before they gave her back to me. I was only a little worried. Back on the video is the part where i zooooom to work. Woo hoo. Then work begins with a moment of (what, on video, seems to be akward) quietness in the office, but then Kristen who i've mentioned many times, says "Can i borrow on call keys guys?" and Aaron says "No." Boy, my coworkers can sometimes be funnier than circus clowns. Then we went on a walk to buy frozen bread dough, pizza sauce fixings and cheese because the Wedgwood kitchen forgot to send pizza for the meal of pizza which was on the menu tonight. I kicked the soccer ball and made silly jokes. And maintained total confidentiality. Then my batteries wore out, so i didn't get any more video until Beth told me "Don't get me on your video!" Whatever, she's totally cute.

And that's about it! :)

32.5

We went to the circus today! As is always the case, it was buckets of fun. Buckets i tell you. Houston and Katrina are not demonstrative in their enthusiasm besides "Daddy, can i play a game on your computer?" and "Book!?! Book!?!" Yeah, besides those cases, and a few others like them, we've got a couple of stoics on our hands. They look, they gaze, the don't blink, their mouths hang open. However, months after we were at the circus last time, about two years ago, Houston would randomly say "Remember the lions?" So the enthusiasm is there, but like a tsunami, the immediate result isn't impressive, but they are pretty big deals. Hmm, kind of a weird analogy there. But i can't think of a better one.

One of the first things that happened when we got into the building: a slim, blond, heavily made up and severe looking lady approached us and said "You ride horse?" in a very thick eastern European accent. Think "You rrride horrrse?" I knew she must have been a performer too, but even though i seem to ooze suave self confidence from every pore and an aura of uninhibited extrovertism sparkles around me (or whatever) i get a little shy-ish about approaching people to talk to them sometimes. Now if it's a moped gang or a guy working on a telephone switch box, i'll go strike up a convo because i'm practically guaranteed that they want to talk about whatever they're doing. But a circus lady? Circus ladies - circus people - are a little scary. Like Gypsies or carnies, one imagines that they're world-wise and earthy, with heavy makeup and a tinge of sweaty must. It turns out that she was in a few acts, so during the intermission i saw her and went to say "Good job, i'm having fun" but she didn't really speak much English, and it was loud, so i talked to this roadie guy. He was quite friendly and willing to talk. Circus roadies get $300 per week cash, with room and board. "Tax free!" he said. He said that his wife and he did concessions, and saved up $44,000 in two years. Savings! Pretty good gig if you can put up with ceaseless travel, long hours, weird coworkers and generally adventure.

Another thing about the circus today was that there were very, very many residential groups there, with variously limited and aged people with their alert looking staff. It was interesting to see what staff looks like On Assignment. There were the very firm guidings of the mentally disabled man and the holding down of the hand of the kid who kept trying to swat passers by... And boy was i glad to be there with my sweet Karen and our little ones.

We all had a fantastic time. Next time there's a circus in town i would love to manufacture some reason to go visit them, and just kind of chat, getting the impression of what life with the circus must be like. I was watching the clowns, and was thoroughly unimpressed. Maybe it was the matinee group of clowns and the superstar primadonna clowns were still asleep... but they pretty much sucked. Our Young Life Club skits are a whole lot more funny, and are thrown together with only a few days preperation. Like, how about the Games Two People Can't Play skit? "Let's play a game!!!" "Okay, let's play duck duck goose!!!" Silliness ensues. These clowns instead jumped rope very badly and stood around.

Then i went to work and played basketball. I'm fast, strong and dense. Like, kids run into me, and they kind of ricochet off. But i am a horrrrible shot. I can't make anything. Oh well.
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32.0

Karen told me she didn't have anything to say today. And really neither do i. Partly because we've kind of decided to buy an extremely cheap laptop if we can find one... something new but incredibly basic. So i've been searching the internet, but come up with nothing.

I went to the store today with Houston. He's cute, and while one on one can be counted on being so well behaved he's almost angelic. I love it. And then i went to work, where i got to do Young Life, and my stupid armpits were the center of yet another joke. I squished a hamburger patty with it. I also found that stuffing pillows into my clothes to make my butt or gut look bigger actually just looks dumb. It's funnier to just walk oddly and pull my pants up really high.

Right, well, that's kind of it. If my life was an episodic show for the entertainment of the public, i would have to offer deep discounts on tickets. Except the part where i squished hamburger. Oh - i also messed up about seven times playing Lean on Me for the kids. I was doing so bad i could feel myself blush. Stupid vasodilation of cutaneous capillaries.

31.5

Last night, in a fog of sleep deprived fatigue, i set the alarm clock for, you know, the other six o'clock. I woke to the noise of the phone "ringing"... i think most people kind of get a little mad at themselves for doing that. But not me. I try really hard not to do it, but when it happens, i get extra sleep! Which rocks!!! Of course, this is the first time it's happened in... i don't know, three years?

I got home and really wanted to go for another walk. But the kids needed food. The bagel store is a great option, but it costs money and stuff and is pretty much a whole lot of carbs, so instead i cooked some corn on the cob, hamburger steaks, bread and oranges, wrapped the hot stuff in aluminum foil and an old towel and set off for who knows where. It was really cold, so i wanted to go somewhere close, but since Houston asked so very nicely, we went to Calder Plaza again, which is only 1.6 miles away, but up and down a couple long hills.

Anyway, the little picnic was really fun and good, but the walk back was AGAIN miserably cold for both kids. I don't know what's wrong with me, but the sun comes out and i get all giddy like "Hey! Let's go for a walk when the wind chill is down to 23 degrees! It's fun to have my hands turn purple! And my little girl looking at her poor little bright red handsicles in confusion because they probably hurt like crazy is a great experience! Taking off my coat to wrap around her and tie the arms in the back of the stroller and trying to jog all the way home to keep my T-shirted torso warm is a great time! When i ask Houston how he's doing and all he can do is shudder out the word "cccoollllldd" means everyone is having a ball!"

So i think i'm gonna have to go ahead and ask myself to feel free to check weather dot com before i decide to trek all over the place. Dumb me.
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