And some days you’re the windshield. Today I feel like the fly.
Yesterday, the U. S. and Canada extended their restrictions on travel between countries due to the coronavirus, putting my trip to Barbados in jeopardy. I’ve sent an inquiry to Canadian officials to see what the policy on travelers merely transferring between flights is, but even without an answer yet, the prospects don’t look good from the sites I’ve checked.
Which should I list first? The good news or the bad? Let’s leave the good news for last.
I purchased travel insurance for my (very long) flights, but only to cover illness or death. I’m not dead, and technically, I’m not sick. So, I may lose my entire payment. Which is not an insubstantial sum. I did cancel the hotel room I’d booked in Toronto and will get full refund on that, but that’s a paltry sum.
The good news is that I’m flexible, and in doing some additional research, I’ve found I can get a cheaper and shorter round-trip flight two weeks later that goes from DCA to MIA to BGI (that’s Washington Reagan National to Miami to Grantley Adams [Bridgetown] for those not up on their IATA airport codes. Since I booked my lodging through Hotels.com, it may be a simple matter to switch my lodging by two weeks. If not, I can get a full refund and just book something else.
But this is all on me. In the past, I’ve been able to fly from IAD (Dulles International Airport), usually on United Airlines, but this time United couldn’t help me. Thus, I turned to one of the travel aggregators I’ve looked at in the past. That was my first mistake; I’ve rarely found the travel deal that suited me this way. My second mistake was first trying Hipmunk, even though I remember reading they’d shuttered their doors earlier in the year. Well, on to Kayak, which finally found me the flights I eventually booked. Had I been less eager, I would have found out (as I did later), American Airlines has routine flights to Barbados. Either Kayak’s search algorithm is completely whacked, or the dates I chose are somehow not on anyone’s calendar.
While I wasn’t watching, Google added Flights to their arsenal of web technologies. And sure enough, that’s where I found the American Airlines flights. Sigh.
So, I’ve learned an expensive lesson. At my age, you’d think I’d be past making stupid, rash mistakes. But I guess I’m not.
My last post was all about planning for retirement, and possibly considering moving abroad where life is more affordable. I’ve now taken the first step toward that goal!
Encouraged by the offer of a “remote work” visa valid for up to a year by the island country of Barbados, I decided to take some of the voluminous vacation time I’ve accrued and under the guise of burning some personal time off (PTO), I booked travel and lodging for the first week in September. I discovered very quickly that it’s not easy getting to Barbados from here! It turns out I will need to fly out of Washington Dulles airport to Toronto, Canada, stay overnight, and then catch a direct flight to Barbados. I guess the world isn’t beating down the doors to get there.
Sunset in Barbados
I don’t mind so much a six hour trip turning into an overnighter (as long as it’s planned), what concerns me right now is the COVID stuff. Canada is currently prohibiting visitors from the USA from crossing their borders. I don’t know how that applies to transient air travelers. I’ll have to check into that. Then too, Barbados requires a negative COVID test from within 72 hours of arrival. My insurance will cover the test, so all I’ll need to do is find a place that can do it in the time frame specified.
Reading up on the “Welcome Stamp” as it’s called, the Internet is the best in the Caribbean, and the facilities are plentiful. Broaching the topic of working remotely with my employer is something I haven’t done, yet. That could be a tricky issue, as the company culture is to work in an office. COVID has changed all that (which is what prompted this whole thing in the first place).
As the old saying goes, “More will be revealed.” Stay tuned…
Fully aware that I tend to take on a new project or a new pastime by diving head-first into it, only to have it subside — if not die out completely — after a while, I’m now spending some time researching my future.
I recently received a statement from the Social Security Administration (SSA) reminding me I should make my annual review of my statement and projections for what I expect to earn once I reach retirement age.
A few years ago, I would have shrugged off the idea of retiring. Or of even being near retirement age. But that was then, this is now. The fact is, I’m 68 — soon to be 69 — and the way things are going politically, economically, and culturally has gotten me very concerned. There is an election coming up this November that may be the most important in my lifetime; the outcome of that could really push me into going. Or staying.
Going. To this point, I have pretty much set myself to staying put. I bought my home three years ago, and I like it a lot. It’s in a nice neighborhood, has all the amenities I want, and is a 30 minute drive away from my daughter and grandkids. But, calculating realistically, my retirement savings, stocks and Social Security will put me into a new “quality of life” category. My needs aren’t great, but the cost of living when my regular paycheck stops may be too high to keep me here.
So, where to? That’s what I’ve been researching. I love to travel, as I’ve documented here many times. Could I move to another country and live comfortably there? Thanks to the Internet, I can do all the research I want from the comfort of my sofa!
One of the best sites I’ve found, and visit often is International Living. This may be the granddaddy of ex-patriate (expat) living, since it’s been around since 1979. Today, it’s a pretty data-rich web site that offers a subscription service on top of its free articles. I may take advantage after some more investigation. I started out with a couple of places in mind, but only one I’ve been to and the other is likely too expensive to live on a pension: Costa Rica and Austria. Surprisingly, though, some other countries have popped up that I want to look into further. They are
Portugal. This seems to take the top spot every year for expat retirement living.
Panama. With the U. S. Dollar as its currency and ties to the U. S., this ranks high.
Costa Rica. Beach living or mountain living. It’s all there, and it’s al Pura Vida.
Malta. European/Mediterranean. I know little about Malta, but its location is gravy!
Belize. English is the official language (it was formerly British Honduras). I didn’t see any expat communities when I was there, but I know they are in off-the-main-road settlements.
What about staying in the U. S? Well, once again, the November election might have a big influence there. One site, Best Places To Live has a quiz that you can enter your likes and dislikes, and it will suggest locales that have the specifics you’ve entered. Three times, in my limited experience with the site, has Hot Springs, Arkansas been the result. It even shows real estate listings, and some of the homes there going for less than half what my home costs, look quite nice.
I don’t have to make that decision right now. But the SSA says I have to start taking distribution of my allocation when I turn 70. Better to start planning now, right?
I feel like I wasn’t looking, and then the world changed.
A brief history of Linux: In 1991, a 21 year-old Finnish computer science undergraduate at the University of Helsinki named Linux Torvalds announced that he was going to develop an alternative to Unix, an operating system developed, trademarked and sold by AT&T (Bell Labs) and the University of California at Berkeley. What began as a project to provide an affordable (free) computer operating system to interested hobbyists, has become one of the most dominant OSes today.
Tux – The Linux Penguin Logo
As one might expect of an experimental bit of computer code, it didn’t gain immediate acceptance. I remember attending a Linux User Group (LUG) some time in the 1990s and getting CDs of the software, for the cost of the CD. Certainly cheaper than buying Windows!
But it was complex, and required a computer programmer/user mindset, whereas Apple and Microsoft continued to focus on making their computers more “user friendly” so that the geek factor wasn’t necessary.
For a number of years, I focused on my work, which consisted mainly of working in Unix, Windows, and occasionally Mac environments. Then, sometime around 2008, I found I had an older Mac laptop, then known as an iBook, which could no longer run Apple’s latest and greatest operating system. I liked traveling with this portable, so I looked for an alternative. That alternative turned out to be Ubuntu Linux, which had been created by a South African company named Canonical, and was first introduced in 2004.
Ubuntu Logo
(Side note: Ubuntu’s product numbering follows its release schedule and is notated as two-digit year-dot-two-digit-month, so the first release was 04.04). There was a version created for the PowerPC chip, which was the CPU used at the time by Apple, so Ubuntu became usable on Mac hardware. In fact, I installed it as a dual-boot system, so I could choose either Apple or Linux on startup. I have a memory of sitting in a shopping mall in Las Vegas outside an Apple Store, using their wi-fi, but on a Mac running Linux!
Linux took a back seat in my computer pursuits for a while, as I had no real use for it. But I did keep my hand in, using the nifty Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualization software. In fact, I started when this product was a version 5, and as of this writing, version 15 is current! Virtualization allows one to set up a machine-within-a-machine. These days “containerization” is all the buzz, with terms like Docker and Kubernetes being tossed about, which is just another form of virtualization. Using Parallels, I would download an interesting-looking Linux “distribution” (the Linux name for a software delivery) and create a virtual machine (VM) running it. As my work became more and more online-based, I found it handy to install a (legal) version of Windows into a VM, thus allowing me to use Windows-specific capabilities.
Some six years ago, my home office decided having a computer server in our local office would be a good idea, so we purchased a Dell PowerEdge T420. We specified no operating system pre-installed, because Windows would have added to the cost, and I wanted to run Linux, instead. Two Intel Xeon ES 2430 v2 processors, 32 GB RAM and 2 TB of hard disk space. Although not top-of-the-line, it was definitely a server-class computer. On it, I installed CentOS 6.x. Short for Community ENterprise OS, this is a free “downstream” version of the enterprise-level Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). This was a solid system for the years I used it.
CentOS
However, things change. CentOS released version 7. Sadly, there was no in-place upgrade path, which meant a complete re-install would be necessary to stay current. I didn’t bother. Then, came version 8. And the notice that version 6.x would reach end-of-life November, 2020. That’s just four months from today. Well, I’m only running a sandbox server, so I could probably just have kept on running version 6, but I don’t like the idea of running unsupported software. Because ultimately, something breaks. Murphy claims, “at the worst possible time, too!” So, I decided to take the plunge.
This was an opportunity to upgrade the server memory as well. Thirty-two gigabytes was a lot when we bought the machine, but the software produced by my employer now requires a minimum of five servers, with a total minimum of 56 GB. Why not add another 32 GB while I was upgrading? I searched and found suitable memory chips, and decided to go whole hog and added 64 GB, for a total of 96 GB total. The cost? Less than $!50. Now, using virtualization software (VMware Workstation Pro) I can run all five servers inside my one, and still have eight gigabytes of system memory “breathing room!”
Installing the memory was a breeze. The machine has 12 slots for memory, in two banks of six (to support two processors) allowing for a grand total of 384 GB (12 x 32 GB)! But then the problems began when I attempted to install CentOS 8.02. After several failed attempts, I reached out to the CentOS community support forum, where I learned that the Dell hardware was now too old for CentOS, and was no longer supported.
Dell PowerEdge T420 (the T indicates “tower”)
Huh?
Okay, I’m going to try to be understanding here, but it isn’t easy. One of the supposed benefits of Linux – at least to my understanding – is its great compatibility with older hardware. Yes, I get it: Red Hat wants to be at the cutting edge of technology, to keep its offering current and powerful, but Linux has shown a remarkable adaptability for different chip architectures, storage, networking, and other technologies. It seemed the “offending” component for me was the disk drive controller, something Dell refers to as its PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) . Like so much else, improvements have been made to this part of the computer, and Red Har decided to remove support for it.
What to do? After looking at the product support matrix, I decided to look for another Linux, and settled on Ubuntu, once again. Another major player in the Linux marketspace, Ubuntu has probably done more to make Linux mainstream than any other company. And I learned they’d just released their latest Long Term Support (LTS) version, 20.04. So, I downloaded it and attempted to install it.
Nope.
After a bit of hair pulling and researching, I gathered that once again the problem was the disk controller. Or, rather the way Linux could (or could not) handle a disk array. I found the solution was to partition the disk in such a way that Linux would be able to see its core folders/directories and save the excess for just storing data.
So, that’s what I did. Overall, I’m happy that I had the opportunity to learn much more about Linux, file systems, disk controllers, computer hardware and a host of other items. But it seems that while I wasn’t looking, Linux grew up. And the result isn’t a golden swan. It isn’t an ugly duckling, either, but installing and maintaining Linux has become a whole lot “geekier” than it used to be.
On the headstock of every guitar is the legend — the logo — “C F Martin & Co. Est. 1833.”
The Iconic Martin Headstock Logo
Considered by many (most?) in the music world as the premier acoustic guitar maker, the name Martin alone speaks volumes when mentioned in music conversations. Has there been a superstar guitar player singer-songwriter who hasn’t played a Martin?
The company has been an innovator in the manufacturing of guitars. Its use of woods, bracing, and shapes have defined the industry. The “dreadnought” was a Martin creation, and its most iconic guitar is probably the D-18. A used D-18 can sell for thousands of dollars!
Now, I’m going to admit I’m a bit of a “gear slut.” When I was younger, having a name brand guitar was a grand desire of mine. I lusted after the Gibsons, the Fenders, and yes, the Martins.
The past ten years have been good to me. After my divorce, with no alimony to pay, I found myself making good money, and so I found I could afford to buy my dream guitars.
And so I did. I had played acoustic for so long that I went into adding electric guitars to my collection. I bought a Taylor acoustic, learning that Taylor had become a major force in the business even though it’s a new (1974) company.
But it wasn’t until just a month and a half ago (May, 2020) that I obtained my first Martin. I had been playing my KLŌS travel guitar exhaustively — because of its size and indestructibility, mostly — and liked the idea of “parlor” size guitar, and I spied a “Little Martin” with built in electronics (pickup). The price was right, and so I purchased a LX1RE.
Little Martin LX1RE
It’s a fine little guitar — I don’t think it plays as well as my KLŌS, but the sound is fuller.
Then, I spotted Musician’s Friend’s Stupid Deal of the Day, offering a Martin OMC 15ME Streetmaster in Weathered Red, and went crazy. I bought it. And here it is!
Martin OMC 15ME Streetmaster (Weathered Red)
The cutaway makes it possible to play further up the neck, and it has electronics built-in as well. The wood is mahogany, which supposedly gives it “warmer” tones. I’m still letting it acclimate, but my first impression is that it shines as a strumming guitar, but maybe not so much as a finger-picker. Given that I’m a lousy finger-picker, I don’t see this as a problem.
And now… There’s a short scale Fender Telecaster I’m eyeballing…
Using the term “Menu Bar” should be a dead giveaway that this post is Mac-oriented.
I don’t want this to appear to be a whiny complaint, so I’m going to try to make it “constructive criticism” mixed with a call for ideas.
First, a brief history: After Apple introduced Mac OS X (“ten,” not “X” and now known as macOS), a major upgrade from the “Classic” Mac OS9, many new features began finding their way into the operating system. One of those features is officially called “Menu Extras.” According to Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, the left side of a Mac’s menu is occupied by “traditional” icons (Apple, File, Edit, View, etc.) and the right side is where these menu extras go. Apple has its own set, but developers have been busy at work.
Apple Menu Extras
Looking through the MacUpdate web site, where I check every day for new and updated Mac software, it’s become more and more obvious that a lot of utility programs present themself to the user via a menu extra — usually an icon the sits in the menu bar.
I confess, I like the handy availability of these items. I like seeing the time, weather, memory usage, network connectivity and a variety of “quick-look” items I would otherwise have to open an app or utility to view. I also like the ability, no matter what I’m doing, to click and view my calendar, do an Internet search, check my clipboard items, configure a Bluetooth device, activate AirPlay, and a number of common activities without having to put aside work I’m doing.
The problem is — and I’ll admit to being part of it — is that my menu bar is getting crowded. I purchased a very helpful utility called BarTender 3, that lets me toggle the visibility of my choice, but even that only masks the issue. At this writing, I have 15 visible and 16 “hidden” items. That’s 31 items that have taken roost in my menu bar!
Now, I wonder. My creative mind isn’t what I’m known for, and it certainly isn’t paying the bills, but here’s a suggestion for any developers who might be reading this and looking for a new project: How about a single menu extra that when clicked, reveals all the others, and lets one click on a selected item? Parallels Toolbox paves the way for this, but it only offers the tools Parallels includes.
Parallels Toolbox, Mac version 3.9.1
There are a number of useful utilities included, and I may begin replacing my single-purpose utilities with it. A new feature, shown in the image above, is “Hide Menu Icons.” Parallels Toolbox has the ability to identity an action I’m taking and can suggest using one of its features. For example, when I am giving a training, I use a Mac to display my presentation on a large screen TV, and Parallels Toolbox automatically offers to use Presentation Mode (muting alerts, popups, etc.).
In a way, I’m currently playing a juggling act using Bartender. Its own menu extra is used to toggle between “visible” and “hidden.” It has some other options I won’t go into here, but it’s one of those programs I feel is worth every penny I spent on it. Another one is TotalSpaces2. But that’s another topic, for another day.
The latest trend to sweep the online world is the craze known as “virtue signaling.” No one by now has likely been untouched by this madness. It seems to be more infectious than COVID-19. And because it is transmitted online, no one is immune unless they “self-quarantine” by pulling the plug.
According to Urban Dictionary, virtue signaling is defined as “To take a conspicuous but essentially useless action ostensibly to support a good cause but actually to show off how much more moral you are than everybody else.” Exactly.
Recent events have spiked the generation of these expressions of moral outrage. It seems that every CEO, company president, spokesperson or media relations representative now feels it necessary to publicly proclaim their position of dancing with angels.
Two examples, both occurring on the same day, underscore the point. The first is the Twitter post by Reverb, an online marketplace for musical gear, akin to an eBay for musicians. Reverb has been very visible on their web site with their holier-than-thou attitude. When Michael Fuller, founder and president of Fulltone guitar and bass effects (pedals) posted online his reaction to news of rioting and looting, Reverb reacted by issuing a public statement proclaiming they were “suspending” sales of Fulltone products on their site, and would be donating proceeds from current sales to some nebulous “racial justice organization.” Huh?
This is virtue signaling as its “finest.” Note the wording. Reverb doesn’t say “canceling,” “terminating” or using otherwise strong language to distance themself from Fulltone. Rather, the use of the word “suspend” suggests they will resume their original practice at a later date. They also don’t specify to which organization they will be donating their selling fees? Fuzzy, much? Sheesh.
Second, is the email sent out by Sarah Friar, CEO of Nextdoor.com. Nextdoor is a social media site meant to focus on neighborhoods nearby one’s home. It offers announcements, for sale items, services, advice and community news. Ms. Friar had to join the virtue signaling crowd by sending her blog post to all registered subscribers. Her message begins, “Let me say it unequivocally: Racism has no place on Nextdoor.” Uh, does racism have a place anywhere?
I don’t believe that at my age, I’m overly naive. Over the years, however, I’ve also learned that “feelings aren’t facts.” My career working with data, combined with life experiences, tend to make me look unemotionally at facts, trying not to let emotional baggage influence investigation. A correlative saying goes, “You can have your own opinion, but you can’t have your own facts.” There is a tendency these days for “scientific investigators” to disregard facts that don’t support a prior conclusion. That isn’t science, it’s ideology.
It’s one thing for a company to promote its “clean” technology, recyclable products, “fair trade” practices, and so on. But virtue signaling just seems to me a form of chest-beating and false braggadocio.
It’s kind of funny to say that one has a friend he has never met in person, but a friend nevertheless.
My first foray into the world of the Internet was the original “Music For A New Age” (MFNA) — this site (in its original form). The worldwide-web was new and promised to change the way technology was viewed and used. It fulfilled that promise. As someone in the field of technology, I was fascinated and wanted to learn how this new technology worked. It was easy! So, I hand-coded the site (HTML is just text with embedded “tags” that describe how the finish page should be rendered by the viewer: the browser).
At first, it was all about storing links I used frequently. Today, we use “bookmarks” to accomplish this, but I liked pulling up a page with clickable links that would take me anywhere I wanted to go. I had recently become a fan of what was then (and to some extent, still) called “new age” music. I found artist sites, publishers, streaming audio, and a wide variety of related content. I put them all into my site’s pages. I even started writing reviews.
My intention was not for it to become a review site, but since the ‘Net was still young, my site actually found itself on the new “Google” first page. As a result, it attracted the attention of a number of musicians, artists and like-minded fans. Before long, I began to get requests to review albums. As a result, I began to receive review copies, pre-release copies, and commercial copies of CDs. Some were even signed by the artist. Grammy award-winners such as Paul Winter and pioneers of the genre such as Constance Denby sent me their music.
While I was thrilled to be sought out by recognized artists, what really struck me was the quality of the music being produced by “unknowns.” To this day, I think I have a better understanding of the complex and mysterious workings of the recording industry. There are truly outstanding musicians out there who for reasons still hidden, do not get a shake from the big name producers.
Dino (“Dee”) Pacifici is one of those unheralded artists. A multi-instrumentalist, Dee has been self-producing his own CDs since the 1990s. He would send me copies of each release, sometimes even test pressings, never asking for anything in return. His music was tremendous, so I wrote reviews never knowing if anyone was reading them.
Despite his awesome talent, Dee was not a full-time professional musician. So, some time around 2004, he stopped producing albums. By this time, he and I had become “Internet friends.” I would send him Christmas cards, and we became Facebook friends.
Recently, I was listening to the weekly broadcast of Night Tides, a program airing live over the radio and Internet on Sunday nights, and the announcer mentioned new music from Dino Pacifici. I did the proverbial double-take, and fired off a message to him. He replied and said he’d returned to composing and had released some new music, called A Collection of Shadows.
A Collection of Shadows – Cover
True to his nature, he offered a Yum code (I had to learn this was how one downloads music from Bandcamp, which is one way music is marketed these days). I have thus downloaded his pieces (they may be heard on the site without requiring a code) an am once again enjoying some terrific music from a terrific talent, and a terrific human being.
I’ve heard it said that “history is written by the winners.” I think there’s a lot of truth in that, and it’s one of the reasons I tend to shy away from reading autobiographies. After all, doesn’t everyone want to paint the most positive picture of themself possible?
My father wrote his autobiography.
He was a bit vain, and felt that he had something to leave to posterity. Apparently this view was not shared by publishers, so he self-published it via Vantage Press, a vanity publisher that closed its doors in 2012.
Yet, I did find his book interesting. Of course, I’m an “interested” party, so I’m not unbiased, but oddly enough, I learned things about my father from his book that I never knew growing up and while he was alive (he passed in 2005). Yes, there were the self-congratulatory opinions and deflections of character defects (he takes no responsibility for his divorce from my mother, for example), but when seen from the perspective of an eye on history, there were some real gems about how power and diplomacy work.
So it was with this caution in mind that I picked up the autobiography of one of the world’s greatest guitar players, Eric Clapton.
My musical tastes diverged from my earlier blues-rock leanings in the 1990s, so I lost track of Clapton’s career for a while. It wasn’t until my daughter gave me his “From the Cradle” (she knows me better than I know myself at times) that I even had a Clapton recording on CD!
Yet, when I saw that he had written an autobiography, and since the coronavirus has had us all self-imprisoning, I decided to read it.
More surprisingly than anything else to me, is the amount of humility that the book encompasses. Clapton reveals his insecurities, his flaws and does not spend a lot of time on a pedestal. His fans have done that for years, but even though he admits he played the “virtuoso” role at times, and succumbed to the excesses of the star lifestyle, he is generous with his praise for others, often relegating them to the pedestal, instead. He reveals that journaling was part of his life, and it’s apparent with his recall of names – not just of band members, but managers, roadies, barkeepers, neighbors, business associates, and women (lots of women, which I found a bit surprising given his sexual insecurity as a youth) that he wrote a lot of the details and names in his journal.
There is a definite tone change later in the book. I suspect some of his early writing took place before he entered recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. He speaks frequently and eloquently about his recovery, and it’s a driving force in the creation of the Crossroads Centre in Antigua that he funded and built. Many of his actions (performances, guitar auctions, appearances) are now the basis for supporting this recovery center.
I’m not sure where Clapton has colored his story. There is a lot of bad behavior described, and he’s quite open about his character failings, which seems to me surprising, given that autobiographies are often the mechanism by which one attempts to justify oneself. So, this autobiography is more like a journey to redemption for one of the world’s great guitar talents. And, if the autobiography is to believed, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
I’m reminded of a saying I use frequently when discussing IT (the common abbreviation for Information Technology — a label that has evolved over time): “If it ain’t broke, break it! Then fix it!”
Although I frequently use it while finger-pointing, I confess that I’m guilty of the same thing from time to time. This is such a time.
For years — since I turned this site into a WordPress blog site, in fact — I have used the same WordPress theme. I didn’t customize it other than use my own header image, and it’s worked pretty well for me (given that I don’t promote the site, and so only get the occasional drive-by reader). Now that people are housebound due to the Coronavirus lockdown, new projects start taking shape. I’ve acted on a few.
One example is that I completely cleaned up and reorganized my guitar and photo “studio.” Putting guitar hangers on the wall has stalled, since I’m researching the best solution. I also bought and assembled a bookcase that I’ve put into my living room, giving me some much needed storage space for guitar and computer gadgets.
Back to the topic at hand: Looking at the site, it began to seem to me to be in need of a visual overhaul. There are so many great WordPress themes to choose from, I started exploring. This is a more emotionally wrenching experience than I would have thought, because not every theme works well with my idea of layout, content, posting style and so on. WordPress has a “live preview” capability, but even that doesn’t always render a final verdict. Activating and publishing a new theme has been my solution. So far.
I’m not convinced that the current them is the final product, yet. But this form of experimentation is good for whiling away some time. And right now, that in itself, is a good thing.
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