Skiing and Getting Sick

Yesterday we (Benji, Heidi, Patrick, Michelle, Tony & Glen) went skiing at Massanutten. We had a great time! We got there and I tried in vain to get my borrowed ski boots on. I took them back out to the van and rented some instead. I rented a locker for $1. The thing was, it charged a dollar every time you opened it. I put in my duffel bag and forgot that my cap and gloves were in there. I soon realized it and opened my locker to get them. I retrieved them and closed it again and inserted another dollar. As I turned the key, I did it wrong and opened it again. I put in another dollar. I went out to the ski slope and got ready to get on the lift. I saw Tony giving his gloves to Benji. I had a brain wave and remembered that I had seen another pair of gloves in my bag. I went over and gave Tony the key so that he could retrieve the gloves. Another dollar...

I had a great time skiing Rebel's Yell most of the evening (we went night skiing). One time someone cut in front of me and I executed a radical maneuver to avoid them. I fell and my skis popped off. I tried in vain for about twenty minutes to get my ski boots back on my skis. I finally trudged back to the top of Rebel's Yell and asked a ski patrol guy for help. He said it was one of the weirdest things he ever saw, and said that he didn't have a clue how to get it back on. So they sent me back down on the ski lift; they called it downloading; not how I usually think of downloading =). On the way down I met Patrick and Michelle coming up. I told them my skis broke, and Patrick was like, "Yeaaahh... Sure...." They had called and told the guy at the bottom that I was coming, but he had forgotten all about it. As I was coming in, I could tell that he didn't see me, so I yelled "DOWNLOAD!" a couple of times. He finally heard me and stopped the lift. It was pretty late in the game when he finally managed to get it stopped and two young ladies had almost landed in my lap because they were about to ride up on the chair that I was coming down on. My ski boots also got stuck under the lift and it took a little wiggling to get them out.

On the way up in the lift one time we had fun laughing at first timers Tony and Glen as the tumbled and swerved down the hill. One time Benji, Patrick, Michelle, and I were all at the top of Rebel's Yell together. Patrick went first. He went almost straight down! He was flying! I came at only a slightly reduced speed behind him. Benji was quite a bit slower than I was and Michelle was slower than us all. I came over a little rise in the hill and I see Patrick clomping as fast as he can in his ski boots up the hill. He had gone too fast. As he was flying down the hill, his skis decided to stay where they were, and he kept going. He did a complete somersault in the air and landed on his feet. He was running for all he was worth back up to his skis cuz he wanted to beat me to the bottom. I started roaring with laughter as I flew by him. Needless to say I beat!

As we drove out of Massanutten all of a sudden our headlights illuminated two cop cars sitting beside each other. The one turned on its headlights, did a U-turn, and fell in behind us. Tony who was driving and I who was in the passenger's seat were the only ones who noticed it. We were both like, "Oh crap..." It followed us a bit to see if we would go any faster. We didn't. He turned on his lights and Tony pulled over. He came up and asked for registration. I dug through the glove compartment looking for it. I handed it to him. He said that that was the insurance. I called Dad to ask him where it was. He wasn't sure. The cop finally said "Forget it..." About that time the other cop went by with his lights on chasing someone else. He said that he would have to issue a citation for going 57 in a 40. Some very uncomplimentary things were said about cops while he was back writing out the ticket. It was a bit nasty how they had it set up there. People are coming down this hill in automatics and are going faster than they are trying to... I later thought about it that another reason that he followed us for a bit before turning on his lights was that it would have ruined his buddy's speed trap. The ticket ticked Tony off so much that later when we stopped to eat (none of us had had supper and were famished) he didn't eat anything. We jammed out to the Shrek soundtrack on the way home.

We all stumbled wearily and sorely to bed at about 1:30 AM. Patrick stayed at our house for the night rather than driving all the way home. This morning when I awoke, I could barely move, I was so sore. I slept til 11:30 or so. I tried to get up and then I realized: I was sick. Jeff Nisly (of Software Builders) emailed me the other day saying that some computer programmers from Kansas thought that it was about time I updated my blog. Well, they got their wish. With this next portion, I think maybe the old saying comes into play, "Watch what you wish for, or it might come true."

I have not been this sick for a LONG time. For you vitamin aficionados, consider this: The last ten days is the first time in the last couple of years that I stopped taking my multi-vitamin (we have been out). Now I get sick for the first time in years. All of my shoulders and the back of my neck is totally stiff and hurts if I move just a little bit. I have a fever. One time I touched the metal chest beside my bed and jerked back in pain at how severely cold it felt. I haven't had the privelige of losing consciousness. When I am awake, I hallucinate. When I am asleep I dream nightmares. My throat hurts. I have a roaring headache. I have experienced different kinds of headaches. One kind where the pain twists through my head, another where it is at my temples, and another where it is a double headache. Both halves of my head ache with a strip of no-hurt running right down the middle. I alternately sweat and shiver. Pile on the blankers, throw them off. Analgesics moderate my suffering somewhat, but not entirely. I feel the need to put my life in order so that I am ready to die, for two reasons: 1. I feel like I might die. 2. I think I have a better idea of what hell is like. I have briefly thought of suicide, but PTL only briefly; I am in retention of my intellect enough to realize how stupid and retarded that would be. Disjointed poems and songs run through my head; portions of The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe:

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping...". "Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow ...surcease of sorrow" "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me---filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,"

Amazing how much of that applied to me! Also Simon & Garfunkel's Homeward Bound:

But all my words come back to me In shades of mediocrity Like emptyness in harmony I need someone to comfort me

I am on the Youth Committee and so we are having tonight's New Year's party at our house. I am course am sick... grrr... Mom brought me some of the pizza they had for supper. I guess it was because I was sick, but it was most unusual: About thirty seconds after I would eat each piece, my south end would rumble for about 5 seconds. Man, if everyone would be sick all the time, the world's energy needs could be solved in a hurry. As a precaution, I put on some clothes before they came. I would never live it down if in my hallucinatory stumblings I ran out in front of the entire youth group in my skivvies. If my writings tonight seem to ramble and seem a bit off the wall, it is because I am still sick. I am writing this from my room on a laptop with a Wi-Fi connection to our network. Let's just say that I'm getting my hangover earlier than most people do on New Year's Eve.

Funny Comment on Rachel's Blog

LOL! Rachel posted a funny comment:

hmm hans left a comment on my xanga.. and he wanted to talk to me on the phone not too long ago... *gives topic some thought* *runs away screaming in terror* j/k

Of course she doesn't mention the content of my comment:

You should immediately seek professional help. The symptoms are quite serious.

Which was in reply to this post on her blog:

I...am updating!*gasps from the crowd*
But...what am I updating about?
I...do not know!
So...there!

And the reason I wanted to talk to her on the phone (which lasted all of 9 seconds)? To ask her if Ted had a certain CD that I was going to get him for Christmas.

Here is a transcript of our chat:

ted says:
did you read rachel's comment on her xanga?
starrsoft says:
which one?
ted says:
in reply to the one you left
starrsoft says:
nope starrsoft says:
lemme check
starrsoft says:
LOL!!
starrsoft says:
hilarious
ted says:
=)
ted says:
CJ says:
=)
starrsoft says:
don't blame the poor thing; tell her i hope she doesn't have nightmares
ted says:
heeheehee
starrsoft says:
that whole line of thought for me might induce some sleep screaming and walking
ted says:
CJ says:
tell him i laughed

Dear, Dates @ Olive Garden, & Wedding Bells

I must admit to a deliberate misspelling in my title. I spelled "Deer" as "Dear" so that it would go along with this post's theme. But, for those that didn't know, here are our family's hunting adventures: Heidi and Dad went hunting together during muzzleloader season. They took both muzzleloaders. They thought both had been (muzzle)loaded. Some deer came walking along. So as to avoid having Heidi blown into the next dimension, Dad was the one that raised his gun to shoot one of the deer. Dad drew a bead on it. He pulled the trigger. BANG! The cap went off. The main charge didn't. It wasn't loaded. He grabbed the other gun (which was) and tried to aim, but the alerted deer had vacated the area in record time. Benji got a deer in the woods that uncomfortable, old fashioned way with a muzzleloader (which btw are .54 cal with .50 sabots). Another time Dad was sitting in the office and he saw some deer run across the field, so he went out on the porch with his .243 to shoot them. He forgot to take the safety off. So he spent a few desperate moments trying to get the safety off. He then shot one. Another time he was on the phone with Lorene when he saw two deer run across. He stuttered, stammered, and yelped something to Lorene on the phone and slammed it down. He ran out and shot both. He has said before that he needs to write a book: Hunting for Dummies or City Slicker's Guide to Hunting. One night as Patrick and Michelle (Michelle lives in our basement, works at at GRT/GRC, is Patrick's gf) were coming home from church, they saw an injured deer dragging its hiney across our yard. It's total back end was injured. Another deer was running along beside it. The other deer would run a bit, and then wait for the injured one. They sat and watched it for a while; Michelle was begging Patrick to put it out of its misery. So he finally got his 12 gauge and put a load of buckshot into it. At this point both deer took off. When we came home, Patrick asked if he could use our flashlight to find it. We gave him a spotlight and a big flashlight, and we all (Myself, Benji, Kristi, Michelle, and Patrick) went down in Patrick's truck to look. Later Dad brought our truck down (with Heidi, Darren, Brandon, and Dietrich in it) to help look. Finally after about an hour, everyone except Benji and Patrick went in. They finally found a puddle of blood and tracked it for a long (1/2 mi, through woods) ways. They lost it at Cedar Run. They finally came in about 1:30 AM. Now IMHO someone had some messed up priorities as far as sleep and deer are concerned... =) btw, I misspelled (purposely) two words in this paragraph; if you find them, leave a comment. (Pretty sly trick to get people to leave comments, eh?)

A couple of weeks ago Mom & Dad went on a date to Olive Garden. As they were eating, their waiteress came over to them and asked them if they knew the man that had been sitting across from them. They said, "No. Why? Didn't he pay?" The waitress laughed and said, "No! On the contrary he paid for yours, too! He handed me two $20 bills and a note saying that this is to pay for the dinner of the couple across from me: the man with the beard and his wife." Mom & Dad were a bit shellshocked. Dad, in typical fashion, had compiled a total bill of $20 for the two of them. The rest went as tip to the waiteress. Later we speculated: Did this guy do this regularly? Had he decided to give because he saw Mom's veiling? Had he seen the hole in Dad's sock and felt sorry for these poor people? Had he just been in a generous mood? In any case, they greatly appreciated it, as did, I am sure, the waiteress.

There has been an interesting comment thread over at 'Nina's blog:

LOL christmas is a comin and the bells begin to ring . . . ( uh we wont say WHICH bells)
Posted 12/6/2004 at 2:31 PM by JOYOFTHELORD

Wedding bells?
Posted 12/7/2004 at 8:55 PM by cowgirlfan_15

Who's getting married? I wanna go!
Posted 12/8/2004 at 10:52 AM by gospelpianist

It's me. [hey! you never told me!]
Posted 12/8/2004 at 6:50 PM by klone343

Yeah right, Ted! Naomi, I would think you would know the answer to that one...JUST KIDDING!...Love Comes Softly!......I am just teasing! [trippy, you are a trip as always! It was such fun reading your comment! I'm still trying to figure out what you said, though.]
Posted 12/8/2004 at 8:40 PM by TRIP_ME_UP

Ted is getting married.. to Nina! [Sisters....]
Posted 12/9/2004 at 6:57 PM by CJ91

Who told you? [Who didn't tell ME would be a more pertinent question Mr. Robb!!]
Posted 12/9/2004 at 6:58 PM by klone343

An angel.. the bells are already ringing up there! [It took me about five readings of the entire comment thread before I realized what you were saying...]
Posted 12/9/2004 at 7:00 PM by CJ91

Hahaha.
Posted 12/9/2004 at 7:00 PM by klone343

I'm so funny
Posted 12/9/2004 at 7:01 PM by CJ91

Ok guys, the wedding is in 10 years from now and you're all invited. We'll be having chocolate cake with white icing and yellow decorations and all the cups will be pink. So make sure you don't miss it. [Way to take charge!]
Posted 12/9/2004 at 9:58 PM by klone343

are you sure it isnt more like just three years? [A change of plans? erm, Susie, that would make 'Nina 18 and Ted 20... Don't get in such a rush...]
Posted 12/10/2004 at 12:43 PM by JOYOFTHELORD

Funny - I'd had the same thought - about the couple, I mean - but didn't say it first. Obviously. [Yeah, that was obvious. Very witty comment. That last sentence wasn't sarcastic; I don't think...]
Posted 12/10/2004 at 6:08 PM by gospelpianist

Hey, I'm rotfl!!! [Uh, no offense, Naomi, but it's ROFL. =)]
Posted 12/10/2004 at 6:11 PM by gospelpianist

great minds think alike [so do the not so great]
Posted 12/10/2004 at 8:32 PM by CJ91

Ted, gross decorations. [Ha! I found an out!] The wedding is [so like totally] off. well in [you know, like] 10 yrs. I will be 25 [oh, my goodness] :S and than i will probably be married by than [erm, isn't that supposeed to be "then" not "than"?] soooo.....
Posted 12/10/2004 at 10:00 PM by cowgirlfan_15

Whoops, Ted, looks like your bride's getting cold feet! [praise the lord! I was starting to think he was a goner... *whew*]
Posted 12/11/2004 at 10:17 AM by gospelpianist

Doh, [Doh?!?!? Doh!?! Is this to say that you wanted this?] guess I should've check w/ her before I decided on ze decor. [glad you didn't]
Posted 12/11/2004 at 11:59 AM by klone343

In case nobody knows it was 'Nina who suggested 10 years. Also in case nobody knows 'Nina coulda deleted all these comments, but she preferred to keep them on. =)
Posted 12/11/2004 at 4:39 PM by starrsoft

Update:
Ted IMed me and asked me to add his latest comment. I think that he was getting worried after I told him that the Youth Group was talking about it this morning at breakfast (we all met and had a wonderful breakfast).

In case nobody knows, it's all a big fat joke. [Yep! We know! And it sure is funny!]
Posted 12/11/2004 at 5:34 PM by klone343

Update #2:
As Ted said: "you tried to misspell misspelling but misspelled the misspelling" I tried, in my first paragraph to misspell misspelling and misspelled but I accidentally spelled them right!

Eternally Rumsfeld and Unsolomonic

Even though it makes fun of Prez Bush and Cabinet, here's quite a funny op-ed:

Eternally Rumsfeld (go read the read the rest of it)
By Harold Meyerson

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8, 2016 -- President-elect George P. Bush announced today that he would reappoint Donald Rumsfeld to another term as secretary of defense. Rumsfeld has served in that position since he was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001. After serving two terms in George W. Bush's administration, Rumsfeld served an additional two terms in the subsequent administration of President Jeb Bush. His 16 consecutive years heading the Pentagon is the longest uninterrupted tenure of any defense secretary, and that doesn't include the nearly two years he served in that post under President Gerald Ford. Rumsfeld is 84.

Meanwhile The Post takes a convulted, hypocritical view of the Solomon Amendment that's being challenged in the courts. Here's the crux of the issue at hand:

Numerous law schools, because of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays and lesbians, balked at assisting military recruiters, on the grounds that school policies forbid helping organizations that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. When the military, after the Sept. 11 attacks, started enforcing the law more aggressively, the law schools went to court, arguing that it violated their First Amendment rights.

They state they issue in a straightforward way, but then they go on (emphasis added):

In the meantime, however, the law schools face a difficult question. They would never allow a private employer who openly discriminated against gays and lesbians -- or, for that matter, against Catholics or African Americans -- to avail themselves of their career services.

LOL! These are the mainstays of discrimanatory Affirmative Action!! Then they go on; they don't want the military there, but they would like to get liberal lawyers in the military to bridge the "cultural gulf that already divides elite universities from the armed services." Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Oh, and decrying a practice that they themselves are practicing.

Power Line has done a much better job covering this: Philosophizing disgrace, An Unsolomonic decision, Unsolomonic...and unfair, Unsolomonic...and erroneous. Also notice that Power Line came up with this Unsolomonic title way before the Post did.

Walmart x2

Walmart #1: The other day Heidi told me to, if I ever stopped by Walmart, to pick up a Snickers bar and a model of a PT Cruiser for her to give as Christmas gifts. The next day she told me to forget about those things at Walmart. I looked at her blankly and said, "Huh?" She repeated, "You can forget those things that I told you to pick up at Walmart, that Snickers bar and a model of a PT Cruiser." A light dawned on my face and I said, "I already did!"

Walmart #2: Be wary of jeans bought at Walmart. I bought a pair of cargo jeans at Walmart a couple of months ago and they came with a bit of an unwanted feature: an automatic unzipper. I mentioned earlier this way in which I fixed the problem with safety pins, and how it turned out that the safety pins weren't so safe after all and because of their strategic placement... I have discovered another thing (here I go again with parentheses; I am happy to have Michelle working at GRT/GRC: she makes coffee everyday, unlike my earlier situation) with my drinking copious amounts of coffee, my jean's unique feature and the subsequent solution inhibits expedious dispensing with resulting necessary tasks.

I'll finish up with some funny quotes from Ted's blog:

Monday, December 06, 2004

Then I went to Family Christian Stores while Andrew was ordering pizza from Papa John's for his birthday. I got 2 new CDs. Falling Up - Crashings and Day of Fire - (self titled). Haha it was funny when I was checking out there was just this guy and girl about my age working behind the counter and he says "That's a good CD." Then shows it to her and she says "That's a good CD." He says "I already said that." Then she said to me "It's more important when I say it, right?" and I'm like "Yeah sure." Then I hand them my Perks card and she punched it 3 times instead of just 1 and he says "I think she's hitting on you."

His nickname is "Chick Magnet" in case no one knows... =) I gave it to him when we were at a girl's bday party and all the girls were giggling and giggling and whispering because two of the girls had a crush on him. LOL!

Saturday, December 04, 2004

we got home around 11. Went to bed and got up at 6:45. Showered and ate real quick and went to Fauquier High School to take the SAT. 4 fricken' hours of sitting on a solid wood chair. It's hard on the donkey I tell you. Anyways, I think I did alright on the test but we shall see when the results come. Hehe it was funny getting on towards lunch time, all around the room you could hear stomach gurgles. One was so weird sounding and everyone had to keep from laughing.

Ted, they don't call it the SAT for nothing... =)

Impossible Situations, Increasing Storage, and Wasting Energy

I taught Sunday School for the first time two weeks ago and for the second time last Sunday. I told my students (10-11 year olds) to think of an impossible situation that they were in the God could help them with. The memory verse was, "For nothing is impossible with God." I had a boy and a girl who went to school together. The girl said her impossible problem was making the boy disappear. The boy said his impossible problem was getting the girl to be quiet. They both wrote a prayer to that effect. Christian love and brotherly kindness all around...

I read an interesting article in Forbes entitled Too Much Information (bugmenot.com; UN: "schmoe"; PW: "schmoe"). The article's point was when you get terabytes of information in a database, a single query can take days to run. A new company Netezza (sidebar of Too Much Information) makes computers with processors and memory (with a basic database program on it) embedded in the hard drives. The query is passed to the processors which query the data on their hard drive(s) and then only return the relevant info. A query that took 10 IBM mainframes 10 days to process now takes 30 minutes on this company's machines.

This was all incredibly interesting, but for me not very practical (our database is a mere 40 GBs). What I did find interesting is some new advances in magnetic storage that by Going Vertical (sidebar), disk capacity can be increased tenfold.

There are also some interesting quotes about the massive amounts of data storage space (that dude has an interesting tech blog) being utilized:

"A decade ago the biggest data centers in the U.S. had 10 terabytes of storage, and there were only five or ten of them. Today we have customers with 2 or 3 petabytes," says Gil Press, senior director of open software at EMC, the manufacturer of disk storage systems in Hopkinton, Mass. Visa, the credit card company, manages more than a petabyte, or 1,000 terabytes. EMC says one of its biggest customers, a global retailer, expects to buy 3 petabytes of capacity this year (not all from EMC). Two years ago the same company bought 300 terabytes.

Storage shipments this year will top 22 exabytes-or 22 million trillion bytes-of hard disk space, says market researcher IDC. That is four times the space needed to store every word ever spoken by every human being who has ever lived, and it's more than double the amount sold in 2002. By 2006 storage shipments will nearly double again, IDC estimates.

Plunging disk drive costs make this possible. Ten years ago a gigabyte cost $500. Today it's a buck. So why not save everything? In fact, why not save it twice, keeping backups in a remote spot in case disaster strikes? Doing just that, KeyCorp, the Cleveland, Ohio bank, will have 200 terabytes under management by the end of 2005, up tenfold in three years.

As I mentioned earlier, I got three 160 GB drives. I want to get a quad drive external Firewire casing for those three and another 160 GB drive I have for a total of 640 GB of storage. Puny in comparison to the numbers bandied about above. =)

I read an interesting column in Forbes (in case you're wondering: Yes, I did spend the evening reading Forbes cover to cover. I also took a very nice 1.5 hour nap. Both of these things were possible because Kids Klub was canceled because of a double-booked gym) about (don't you hate these long comments in parentheses that make you go back to the beginning of a sentence and start over to comprehend what in the world the sentence started out trying to say?) The Virtue of Waste. It makes an interesting read. It talks about how 6,600 watts of energy are needed to power a laser with a 20 watt output.

The author (coauthor of The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, The Birtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy and Hard Green: Saving the Environment From the Environmentalists) says this is an unavoidable result of the second law of thermodynamics. He finishes up:

This much is certain: It is by throwing energy overboard that we maintain and increase the order of our existence. Waste, in other words, is as virtuous as order, as virtuous as a tidy room, clean dishes, plaque-free teeth, a sterile operating theater or ice in the refrigerator. You cannot get or maintain such things without dissipating energy. Life and growth being inescapably dissipative processes, waste is as virtuous as life itself.

Certainly a different viewpoint from CW (I read the Washington Post; maybe my view of CW is more liberal than it should be), but an interesting and intelligent argument.

Mennonite Bloggers

Wow! The known (to me) Mennonite blogosphere has just about doubled! I feel like Christopher Columbus (my middle name is Christopher) except instead of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria I have a satellite dish (wonder what CC woulda thought of that?!?) that in modern parlance could be termed my figurative surfboard. I was surfing and found a girl's blog where she was just raving how in love she was with her boyfriend Morgan. I knew that the girl was a Mennonite and that she had gone to Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute because I had found her site on the SMBI blogring. I had found the SMBI blogring from Darrell's girlfriend Naomi's blog.

Darrell and gf Naomi

Anyway, after about 10 minutes (ok, not quite, almost) of reading what a great guy that Morgan was, I wondered if there might just be the tiniest glimmer of a possibility that this was the same great Morgan guy that I knew as Nicole's brother. I dismissed the thought as being too unlikely. I kept reading (surprising since I'm usually not riveted by girls gushing over boys (unless it's me that they're gushing over  )), and saw that they had gone to Connecticut to see his sister. At that point I knew it couldn't be the Morgan I knew, because his one and only sister didn't live in Connecticut; she lived HERE! Then I kept reading and it said his sister's name was Nicole. That piqued my interest again, but I came back to the fact that they didn't live in CT. Finally the post said, "Thanks Ivan and Nicole for everything..." The Nicole I know happens to have a husband named Ivan. The Morgan I know happens to also have a brother-in-law named Ivan. (which says the same thing as the last sentence, I just did it for the blondes who might not make a connection ) So it was the girlfriend of someone I knew!

She (Dee, it seems, is her name, or at least part of it) went on to say that, "Today is another day of detention" Then she quickly adds, "for one of my students, not for me =)" If she assumes someone might think that the detention is for her, watch out Morgan! jk! Congrats! It sounds like you're a lucky guy! You too Dee! I don't really know you, but now I know you bit better! => Oh, and btw, I love how Dee ends her post, "Adios to all my amigos! Much amor [love] goes out to ya'll!" That's my kind of Spanish!

For those of you who don't know, Morgan works for Choice Books in New York City. He mentioned and mispelled Kenneth Coblentz in recent post, as well. His twin brother Matt also has a blog. Dad's is forcing me to go to bed... it's 12:39 PM... I could say more, but I can't... (isn't that a contradiction?)