Test

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing.

Huh, I guess I can blog at work. I'm afraid, too, though. One because Big Brother's always watching (my friend "accidentally" chatted while in school and got an email busting her for it). And two because I don't want Big Brother to figure out that blogger exists and block it. I have some interesting blogs that I read at lunch and I'd be sad if they were blocked. Okay, the second reason is really why I'm scared to blog at work. Not so much the getting in trouble part.

Better go, they're watching...

Spring Break 2007 - Week 1

It's spring break. So what have I been doing?

1) Work. Bloody work. Our database was supposed to switch over to another system during the break so most of us busted ass to get everything in before the switch. Because let's face it. We all knew that the new system was gonna suck for at least the first six months of operation. Anyway, so for the first few days of break I worked and what happened? The people who were stupid enough to decide to switch us over during the busiest time of the year exercised some common sense (amazing...) and decided that the system wasn't ready and postponed it indefinitely. So I worked my ass off for nothing. Well, maybe not nothing. At least it won't be so crazy when I go back after the break...though I do get paid to do work after the break and not during the break, but whatever. Trying to find the positive here.

2) Packing. We're preparing for our big move in a couple of weeks and we need to have most of our stuff out next week. We haven't done much yet, but I'm sure Week 2 will be more productive.

3) House Stuff. Termite inspection, house insurance, paint colors (still working on it), and procurement of some new comfy chairs.

4) Cat-sitting. I spent a good portion of this week cat-sitting/house watching/plant watering at my parents' house. I had a great deal of fun playing with my parents' cat. Her name is Callie and she's about a year old so she is quite entertaining. I can't wait to get a cat when we move in to our new house. I'm also looking forward to bringing home our dog from the mother-in-law's house. Hopefully they'll get along and be great friends.

Messy, Messy

It's been a stressful couple of months. It's not completely over yet, but at least I can stop cleaning my house every other day. And I can stop worrying (hopefully!) that I'm gonna have to run home in the middle of the day to pick up dirty laundry. I've never had a house so clean before. The counters and kitchen sink were cleaned and scrubbed more times in the last couple of months than they have been in the last two years. We even removed the hamper from our house and have been stuffing dirty laundry into laundry/grocery bags and shoving them in our cars until I did the laundry. We're not slobs, but we're also not compulsively clean either. Anyway, we're really enjoying having a hamper again and, judging from the current state of my house, we're also enjoying not having to be super clean. I think we're taking it to the extreme, though, because my house is quite messy right now. I was using this tissue as a book mark. I finished the book a week ago and the tissue ended up falling to the floor. So I dropped the tissue last week and I just took a picture of it now....so therefore this tissue has been on my floor for a week. Yep, I've been looking at this tissue for a week. It's in the area between my bed and the window and since I also sleep on that side of the bed, I don't think my husband has seen it yet. I'm guessing that he hasn't b/c he probably would have picked it up by now. I kinda want to leave it there. It's like this tissue represents my frustration with cleaning every other bloody day and it's rebelling for me. I also want to see how long it will stay there before Lance picks it up. Yes, I'll leave it there, I don't want to pick it up.

I'm gonna go pick it up.

Touching a Neuron

Like many Americans tonight, Lance and I watched American Idol. When I was single, I watched Seasons 3 & 4, but not fanatically and I really didn't care if I missed an episode. Now American Idol is DVRed. Watching it as a married couple is a lot more fun for me. I don't know why. Maybe because Lance is a captive audience for whatever comments come out of my mouth as we watch it. Or maybe because we "draft" contestants at the beginning and bet a cookie on the outcome.

Watching tonight's episode, I started thinking about the first time I watched American Idol which then led to thinking about the first time I saw one of the Season Finales. My "boss" often uses the phrase "touching a neuron." And although I'm not really using it in the same context as she does, I think the phrase still applies to what I was feeling tonight. As I heard the familiar theme song tonight, it was like "bing!" and my mind immediately went to Cheree and my memory of her insisting that we take a study break to watch the show. And then I heard the theme song again and it was like "bing!" and my mind wandered back to the first time that I ever saw a season finale for the show. We had just arrived at one of the Vegas hotels on our post-grad school trip and Cheree had insisted that we watch the finale in our hotel room before we went to get dinner. Isn't life interesting? All of our experiences either touch a neuron and connect us to our memories or they are neurons waiting to be touched in the future.

On a side note, I really rooting for Lakisha and Melinda.

Resurrection

[Side note: I changed the look of my blog, but now my archive list is screwy. The year for the blogs is wrong. It says that I wrote it a year and a month before I actually did. So...2005=2006, 2006=2007, January=February, February=March. Don't know what's going on, hopefully it'll be fixed soon.]

After months of silence, I'm back. Not sure where I went to, but back I am. Oddly enough, I'm resurrecting my blog because I am currently unable to comfortably talk. I've been sick for more than a week and although I'm feeling better, my asthma's acting up. So now I can't talk without coughing. Ha, ha, a speech pathologist that can't talk. Anyhow, I'm taking 1/2 day since I do need to go in this afternoon.

A lot has happened since my last blog. A lot of frustration and anger, but a lot of good as well. The good has far outweighed the bad. There were times where I wanted to rip my hair out, but through it all I knew it would all work out in the end. I'm a fairly cynical person, but I do believe that things do have a way of working themselves out and that things happen for a reason. Life continues to reaffirm this belief.

Anywho, the last time I posted, I promised pictures from Seattle. Seattle was a long time ago but here's a couple of pictures anyway.

There's No Place Like Home

What a crazy couple of weeks. I enjoy traveling and all, but it's good to be home and it's nice knowing that I'll be staying put for a few months. Mid-August took me to Kathleen's wedding and to Seattle for a week. I was home for a week and then was off to Kyle's wedding and to Maui. Fall break is in a few weeks and I have big plans for it. Thankfully, none of my break plans involve an airplane.

Pictures? I'll get to it. I have a lot of pictures from Seattle and not too much from Maui. The weddings were quite different, but they were both totally worth the trip. Mijares...uh...Balagtas' ceremony was the longest that I've been to and Kyle's was by far the shortest. Picture/trip posting will have to wait as I sense that I am in a kind of rambling kind of mood. I'll save it for when my brain returns from wherever it happens to be right now.

Need to shower, check on Lance, and knit before bed. Over and out.

Procrastination

[Note: This picture has absolutely nothing to do with tonight's blog, although I'm sure I could center my rambling's on the pair of socks that I completed last spring. They were the first pair of what I hope will be many more to come. See, I told you I could write about my sock and I could go on, but I'll spare you. Anyway, the sock's making an appearance because I felt like having a picture to accompany the blog. However, I didn't have an appropriate picture and decided to take the opportunity to show off my sock. Sorry, back to the blog.]

So when I first switched to blogging on Blogger after a few years with Xanga (and a few good months of regular blogging), I noticed that I was having a difficult time blogging regularly. My blogging was sporadic, at best. At the time, I speculated that my inconsistent blogging was due to one of two reasons:
1) I had begun to associate the computer with being at work and therefore did not want to turn on the computer at home, or
2) I had really been using blogging as a way to avoid studying during grad school and now that I had graduated, I didn't have anything to avoid so I therefore didn't blog.
Well, tonight I discovered the answer to that question. My sporadic blogging was due to Reason Number 2. When I was consistent with blogging, I was really just avoiding the unpleasantness of studying. I was procrastinating. And since after grad school I didn't have anything to put off, I didn't blog.

So how did I come to this conclusion? Because as I write this, I'm supposed to be writing a letter of recommendation. My evening was filled with laundry, cooking, and packing, and I'm bloody tired and would love to go to bed, especially since tomorrow's gonna be a doozy. So am I being responsible and writing the letter? No. I'm having a difficult time with it, to be honest. It's not like I don't want to recommend the person that I'm writing the letter for. It's just that I'm a little stuck right now. And what was the first thing I thought of (other than "Dear god, I'd love to go to bed.")? I thought, "I know! I'll blog!" So tonight's blog is brought to you by our dear friend and enemy, Procrastination.

Y'know, my sophomore year in high school my english teacher kept harping about the honors kids being procrasinators...what a pain...crap, it's almost midnight...

Not Phallic

Yes, the ginormous jar of pickles has returned to my house. All hail Costco! I love these pickles, they're so large and juicy and yummy. And this huge jar is actually cheaper than some of the smaller jars. Granted, some of those smaller jars are worth the price. For instance, Vlasic has some deliciously spicy pickles. However, there are also a bunch out there that my pickle critical taste buds find inferior to the yumminess of this large jar from Farman's. This jar has actually been sitting on my shelf for quite awhile. I told myself that I was not allowed to enjoy these pickles until I finished the two jars of not so scrumptious Safeway pickles that I bought when my husband suggested that my big pickle jar took up too much space in the fridge. I didn't want to buy the Safeway pickles, but for some reason I just couldn't find any other pickles when I was at Safeway that day. Anyway, so it took me awhile to finish those Safeway pickles, because they just weren't yummy enough to eat as a snack so I actually had to pair them up with a pickle friendly meal (i.e. a sandwich). It also didn't help that I was secretly purchasing the Big Papa whenever Safeway had them in stock. But yes, I finally finished the Safeway pickles and now my Farman's Home Style Kosher Dills are hanging out in my fridge until one by one they are plucked out of the jar and onto my plate. In fact, I think I'll have one right now...

And yes, I did find that the return of the big pickle jar to my fridge was exciting and important enough to blog. :)

The Last Day

I have sad news to report. Very sad news. Today is my last day of summer vacation. The kids don't come back until Friday, but I return tomorrow. Where did my vacation go? It went by so quickly. I didn't do nearly as many things as I wanted to do. In fact, what did I do? Oh yeah...I worked. Yes, I worked during my vacation. Does anyone else see how wrong that statement is? It's like being back in high school and having evil AP teachers assigning huge massive projects to do over the break. One year, my class walked into our AP history classroom to see "Vacation Homework" written on the board with several time consuming junk for us to do. We tried to point out to our teacher the oxymoron behind "Vacation Homework." She laughed long and hard. Anyway, I digress. I worked this summer and worked and worked and worked. Why did I work? Long story short -- I'm a damn fool. I covered for three (well, four if you count me) speech pathologists and for some reason every single family in my school's district decided to refer their kids over the summer.

Nah, I guess my summer wasn't so bad, well other than I didn't really have any days off. I did have most afternoons off to play with Lance. And there were some fun things this summer. Joseph got married and now he has someone to keep him in line. Oh, the picture is from the wedding. The pictures that I tried to take of Joe and Rahel during the reception and stuff didn't come out. Anyway, so that was one fun thing this summer. Oh, and Girls' Night was fun. We just made yummy pizzas and talked but it was quality girl time with none of those troublesome boys around.

Anyway, now the summer's almost over. I'm spending my last day off with Lance. We're going to the movies, Wal-Mart, and the library. And then it's back to school tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to going back, but I am excited to see what the new year will bring. We have a lot of new teachers and I'll, of course, have new students. Oh and Matt will be a part of my complex this year so that should be fun. I also noticed that work was more fun last year than my first year so hopefully it'll be even more fun this year. I think it's because I more or less know what I'm doing, I'm comfortable with the people that I work with, and I've finally discovered the secret to therapy. Although it is important that the kids have fun and that they learn during therapy sessions, it's just as important that I have fun, too. So I feel like playing Go Fish, then we're playing Go Fish.

Here we go again...

The Library

I love the library. The people who invented the public library system are genuises. A system that allows people of all socioeconomic classes access to books, music, movies, and even the internet for free? Brilliant.

While I was waiting for a librarian to find my CDs and books earlier this week, I entertained myself by watching a mother and her two young children. She was inquiring about getting a library card for her son and the librarian who was helping her explained that her son couldn't get a card until he was able to write his full name on the card. He was able to write his first name but couldn't yet write his last name so he didn't get a card that day, but watching them brought back memories of my first library card.

My parents introduced me to the library at a young age. I spent many days in the cool, air conditioned building with my parents, looking for books to take home. I really wanted my own library card so I learned to write my name for the sole purpose of getting my library card. My dad taught me and I practiced and practiced. As soon as I was able to write my name in the little box on the card, I went to the library and happily received my own green card to borrow books on. I was still really young, so all of the letters on the card were really shaky and not at all straight. And while I was able to write the letters of my name, many of them were formed incorrectly -- the "a" was formed with a circle and a line that weren't quite connected and the "n" didn't have the initial line, just the curvy part. I even put a hyphen between my first and last names. The red library card came out when I was a teenager. As I signed my name in grown up cursive, I was really sad. Luckily the librarian let me keep my old, green card and I still have it in my room at my mom's house.

Woo hoo!

Look what came in the mail today! Woo hoo! I was hoping that it'd come when Lance was gone because I knew I'd need a pick me up to get me through the week. I just ordered it on Friday and it's already here. Yea!

The Power of the Ring

Over the years, I think I've been fairly tolerant and open to Lance's interests. I've played basketball with him, went hiking and geocaching with him, and have embraced his video games. And while I've been open and willing to participate in his interests, the one thing that I haven't taken a liking to is ESPN Radio. I'll watch sports with him and I'll be interested enough in it to ask questions, but I just have not understood the fascination with ESPN Radio. Why in the world would you want to listen to bunch of men (there really aren't that many women on this station, I've noticed) pratter on endlessly about sports? Why in the world would you want to analyze a player's performance and then argue about it for hours on end? When Lance turns it on, I usually protest. Since he's generally the one driving, I generally lose the battle and am forced to listen to babble. I try my best to tune it out, but sometimes it seeps in and I feel like I'm being tortured. It is perhaps the one thing that we have an ongoing "discussion" about.

Now a few months ago, Lance left a copy of his ESPN Magazine on the couch. We were about to go out and I was sitting on the couch waiting for him. Bored, I picked up his magazine and started flipping through it. I came across an article promoting Michael Greenburg's book. Now for those of you fortunate enough to not know this, Michael Greenburg is the co-host of the popular morning ESPN radio show, Mike and Mike in the Morning. Remembering that Lance used to listen to this show years ago when he was up studying at midnight (it airs from the East Coast), I decided to read the article. I am ashamed to admit that I was entertained by the article. A few days later, Lance and I were browsing in Borders and he decided to go look for the book. Thrilled that Lance wanted to read a book, I bought it. We came home and over the next few days I was amused at the sight of my husband reading, laughing, and (I kid you not) tabbing funny portions of the book. I was also a little jealous. That stupid article was really funny and I really wanted to read the book. I eventually got my chance at the book and am sad to report that I really enjoyed it.

It was also around this time that Lance discovered that podcasts for Mike and Mike in the morning were being posted on the ESPN website right before he left for work in the morning. He got really excited and began downloading the podcasts to listen on the drive to and from work. One day he came home, excited to share a portion of the broadcast that he thought I'd enjoy. I listened to it and couldn't stop myself from laughing. Was it possible that I actually enjoyed a program on ESPN Radio? It was a fluke.

Now that it's summer, Lance has been staying up later and listening to the first part of Mike and Mike in the morning. Some nights I'm up with him (I'd be up with him more if I wasn't working ESY but that's a blog to save for later), so I listen to it with him. And gosh darn it, I enjoy it. A lot of times I don't know what they're talking about so I have to ask Lance but darnnit, I like listening to it.

For the last few months, I've suspected that my wedding ring has magical powers and is brainwashing me into believing that sports are fantastic. Now don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed casually watching sports in the past. However, my interest has generally been limited to UH sports and to whatever Lance was making me watch at the time. But this morning I actually contemplated downloading Mike and Mike in the Morning to listen to at work. Somebody help me, the Ring is brainwashing me. Over the past year and a half it has convinced me that not all Jack in the Box food is disgusting and that some video games are worthy of being obsessed over. And I've been alright with that. But now it has gone too far. It is conspiring with Lance to trick me into thinking that ESPN Radio is something to be listened to instead of something to be turned off. The only way to combat its powers is to summon all of my k*spiciness. Where are my knitting needles?

My First Sweater

Okay, so it has no sleeves. Alright, it's not a sweater. It's a tank top. But I'm calling it a sweater b/c anything that's knit is a sweater in my head and calling it a sweater makes me feel accomplished. Anyway, the purple tank top is finally done! Hurray! I've been working on this sweater off and on for a little under a year. It would've been done sooner, but other projects kept calling out to me. In between starting the sweater and finishing it, I think I finished three hats, three scarves, and a pair of socks. Is that it? Oh, and

I'm also deep in the middle of Lance's blanket and I was (I just finished yesterday) at the tail end of a fourth scarf. I think that's it...

Anyway, after finishing the sweater, I immediately put it on and danced around the house. The bloody hot house in the bloody hot sweater. I thought I was smart for choosing to knit a tank top b/c I figured that it'd be cool since it's a tank top and it has no sleeves. I failed to account for the thick yarn. Good grief. Wearing a sweater in Hawaii in the summer when it's humid b/c it's gonna rain is a bad, bad idea. Dancing around in it is an even stupidier idea. Anyway, I'm telling you this to account for the (ahem) horrendous picture of me. Also, my photographer was not focusing on taking the picture b/c he was too busy thinking that he married a crazy person. Oh and he was busy thinking about how he was gonna imitate my happy knitting dance when we went to Popo's the next night. He got rave reviews from the relatives. I sometimes suspect that he's just using me as material for a future stand up comedy act.

Finally

Okay, okay, I'm sorry. That was a long time of blog neglect. I finally posted the second day of our DC/Penn trip. I kept doing it in parts so I actually started the blog a long time ago. I posted the pictures on April 1, which is why the date for that blog is April 1. Whoops. :)

I'm sad to report that our desktop has fizzed out. We lost everything, including all of our pictures that we hadn't had the chance to print out which were, sadly, most of them. Anyway, that's it for the trip posting, I guess, until Lance takes our computer to someone to see if we can retrieve our pictures. That's his summer homework.

DC and Penn: Day Two

Day 2 started way too early in the morning with breakfast at 6:45. We were on the road by 7:30 and started our day by sitting in traffic. Traffic into DC from Maryland was not so fun, but I passed the time by sleeping. Thankfully, I didn't miss too much, as the scenery was not great. It was weird to see so many trees without their leaves. Where was spring? Lance took this beautiful picture of the Washington Memorial. We saw this memorial so many times during the trip, but oddly enough we didn't actually visit it. Oh, an interesting bit of information about the Washington Memorial: The Masons started building the Washington Memorial, but they ran out of money about a third of the way into it. The government took over and you can actually see the point on the memorial when the building of it changed hands.

Our day was really hectic. Once we got into the city, we picked up a local expert who gave us a tour. He was really good and was chock full of information. Huh, I guess if you're going to be a "local expert" then you gotta be stuffed to the brim with information. Anyway, one of our first stops of the day was to another memorial. This time it was the FDR Memorial and it was one of my favorites. Like many of the other memorials, they had engraved a bunch of quotes on the walls/floor. The FDR Memorial had a lot more than some of the other memorials, but then again, he was in office for a long time and therefore had tons of opportunities to say memorable things. Then again, he was also in office for a long time because he said memorable things. Anyway, I took a picture of one of my favorite FDR quotes:

Visiting all of these memorials that were dedicated to honoring the many great men of our history actually made me sad. We used to have so many great leaders leading our nation and now...well, now we have Bush. When I was in my last semester of my undergraduate studies, I was lucky enough to take a fabulous US History class with a fabulous teacher who really made me think. One day she asked the class if we thought that the government should be allowed to restrict the rights of thousands of people based on nothing more than their skin color (this was in 2001 when the government was pretending that the Bill of Rights did not apply to their citizens who were Middle Eastern...oh wait, that's still going on). Being opinionated, I raised my hand and said no and that our nation would be taking a step backward if we allowed the government to do so. Anyway, I saw this quote at the memorial (but for some reason, I don't have a picture of it):
"We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization."
I read this quote and I laughed out loud. We have taken so many steps backward as a nation under Bush. What would these great leaders of our nation think of us if they were still alive?

After visiting the FDR Memorial, we headed to Arlington Cemetary. I'm not sure if I would be comfortable paying respects to my loved ones amongst tourists, but I guess if you're important enough to be buried at Arlington, then you're gonna be important enough to have a lot of visitors.

Arlington Cemetary was the home of one of Robert E. Lee's family members. The story is that the Union started using it to bury Civil War soldiers basically to piss him off. Apparently, he had met with President Lincoln before the Civil War (to possibly head up the army from the North) and agreed with the President on everything -- except for slavery. And as a result, he headed up the army from the South instead. The family member who had owned the property failed to pay taxes on it so ownership of the property went to the government. The Union, feeling slighted by Lee, decided to bury soldiers there.

Anyway, there was a lot of walking in the cold, but we got to see the sites of the Kennedy graves and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Changing of the Guard:

The guards are patrolling in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 24 hours a day, not out of fear that someone will vandalize the tomb, but out of respect for the soldiers who gave their lives. We got to see the Changing of the Guard and watched as a school group presented a wreath.

After spending a lot of time in the cold, we headed back to the bus and went to the World War II Memorial. This was another impressive memorial and one of Lance's favorites. They had a wall with gold stars on it for every American gave their lives in World War II and they had a wreath/pillar for every state in the United States. We took a picture of Hawaii's, but some of Lance's students are in front of it. I'd prefer not to post pictures of students without their permission, so here's one of me and Lance (the one way on the other side says "Pacific"):

After the War World II Memorial, we said goodbye to our local expert and headed to lunch. We went to some kind of Naval military area that I can't remember the name of right now. They had this really yummy sandwich place. You had to order your sandwiches by filling out this form and they had tons of stuff to choose from. Ooh! And we even had pickles with it! I shared my love of pickles with some of Lance's colleagues. I guess they finally realized what a weird wife he has. The Navy place also had a ship that was also a Musuem, kind of like the ones they have in Hawaii. Lance really enjoyed looking around and playing captain. They also had their cannons all over the place. Heh, heh, heh...

After lunch we went to Mount Vernon. We had to pass through Alexandria to get there and about halfway through what looked like a main street of the town, I realized my big mistake. The street was lined with shops, shops that were potential yarn stores. Why didn't I realize this sooner? How many yarn stores were there in that first part of town that I had missed? I was quite disappointed with myself, but y'know, I was distracted. Distracted by what? By bagaong. Bagaong? Yes, bagaong. On our hour long trip to Mount Vernon, I realized that although I have grown as a person since my intermediate school days, a part of me really hasn't changed over the years -- 13 year old Me found obnoxious 13 year old boys annoying and 25 year old Me still finds obnoxious 13 year old boys annoying. One of my young companions on our trip discovered that the phrase, "Like bagaong?", resulted in laughter from the other teenagers. The best part was that this phrase, along with with the phrase, "Helloooo-ohhhh", was said over and over and over again for the entire hour or so it took us to get to Mount Vernon. The teenagers laughed again and again (I kid you not. They still found it funny after an hour of it). Even better, he was sitting right behind us. By the end of the trip, some of the younger boys (y'know, the dorky followers who were trying to be "cool" and impress the girls on the trip) started saying, "Like bagaong?", to themselves as they walked around.

Anyway, my torture finally ended and we arrived at Mount Vernon. The place was amazing and huge. Washington's home was kept in pristine condition, but we weren't allowed to take pictures to preserve the integrity of the house. We could, however, take pictures of the outside of the house. The main house was surrounded by a bunch of other buildings, including a spinning room! They had a special room to spin fleece in yarn! And guess what! There were sheep at the house! Sheep!



After Mount Vernon, we returned to Alexandria for dinner and for a ghost walk/tour. This time I made sure to keep my eyes peeled for a yarn store. Lo and behold, I found one! I excitedly started simultaneously pointing at/hitting, hitting Lance, and screeching, "Look! Yarn store!" I was shocked when I found out that our restaurant was within walking distance of the yarn store and I jokingly suggested to Lance that we skip dinner to go to the yarn store. Imagine my surprise when Lance actually went up to our tour guide and asked him if we could meet the group at dinner. We raced to the yarn store, bought some yarn, and raced back to the restaurant. We actually made it in time for dinner! I credit our speedy walking/running and my amazing display of restraint in the yarn store. It helped that the store was having what looked like a stitch 'n bitch and I didn't really feel comfortable in the store. I did, however, manage to get some pretty yarn that I'm planning to turn into a pair of socks.

After dinner, we went on a ghost walk/tour of Alexandria. It was super cold and Lance and I had already killed ourselves racing to the yarn store and back, so going on a ghost walk was perhaps the last thing that I wanted to do. It was cool walking around the town and seeing their homes and stuff, but the tour really wasn't worth the freezing. We finally got back on the bus and headed back to the hotel. Thankfully the kids were tired and the bagaongs and the hello-ohs stopped for the day.