So last year, Emily and I were asked to participate as judges in a beauty pageant. Certainly a first for me. I played the part, albeit a strange one. I felt we were fair, and picked the right girl, but we got out of there as soon as we could so as to avoid angry mothers. Now I get a call. They want me to emcee the event this year. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. They said it's all scripted. Thank goodness for that.

We just got back from a great weekend in Chicago. We took Emily's Mom, Dad and Brother up north with us. We hit the Field Museum for the King Tut exhibit, the Shedd Aquarium, and an awsome Blackhawks vs. Blues game with my Bro ---front row seats on the glass, no less. I won't write about all that we did...there wasn't much that we didn't do. C'mon, walking 10 blocks in the rain trying to catch a cab, walking around the Chicago Water Tower, Eating Awesome food, 9 year olds trash talking us at the hockey game, Giordano's pizza, hanging out on the roof of my Bro's place (39 floors up), Eating more food, Sponge Bob in 4-D, Hiking up and down Michigan Ave, Eating even more great food, 40,000 people running underneath my feet in a cold drizzle..of course, they were running a marathon up Columbus and I was standing over them on E. Wacker, but it had never happened to me before. Check out the new pics and videos.

It's been a while since my last post. Maybe I'll post more frequent, but the odds are I won't.

I'm going to try to keep the typing down ---Emily is asleep close by, but tossing and turning. I just turned on the ceiling fan. Hopefully that'll help, but who can tell? Pregnancy is a weird thing.

I watched an old ('94) Cruces video tonight, or pieces of it. I really have never watched one of those things in their entirety. It's an odd thing, knowing that you've aged and that you don't resemble that person that is supposed to be you on a recorded piece of history like a video tape. I wonder if my kids will ever watch any of those tapes. I'm sure they'll laugh.

Oh, Rohan got attacked by a volleyball net rope at church. Rope burn right over his left eye. I don't know how he does it...

I bought the Chronicles of Riddick trilogy this weekend. I had only seen Pitch Black out of the three flicks. The animated short film was okay, but not necessary. It's something that I'm ashamed to say thatI would have done ---throwing something in that you think people will find interesting just because you have the ability and means to do it, yet that doesn't make it a good idea. Anyway, long story short, I actually liked CoR. I know that the critics hated it, but come on, what is this movie anyway? It's not Gone with the Wind, it's just plain old action/sci-fi. Hey, I liked Alien 3 when no one else did. I kinda like the character anyway. He's an outer space Mad Max. I hope they do another sequel, even though I'm probably the only one.

I don't know if I ever posted this before, but I found this in a text file from a little over two years ago. I was quite amused, as Rohan had just started to really talk in full sentences. He's still fond of monsters...although I think he now makes the distinction from girls.

2003.11.18 age 3yrs.3mo.
Rohan, as he's putting a female action figure in a thomas the train car: "He fits!"
Daddy: "Yes, but that's a girl, so it's a she...boys are he's and girls are she's, and that's a girl."
Rohan: "Yeeaaah! And He fits!"
Daddy: "No, boys are he's, and girls are she's."
Rohan: "Yeeaaah! Girls are mossers."

The Amazing Rohan Does it Again.

This time he managed to fall into the Ohio River. Yeah. Not something I've ever done in my lifetime, but we are talking about the Amazing Rohan. Remember, he's amazing, because after all of his misadventures he's still alive. My dad took Allie and Rohan to Fort Massac at Metropolis, IL. and while walking along down by the river (no there was no van) Allie got up on a washed up log and walked along its length. Of course, Rohan tried to do the same and fell with one foot in the water and one still on the log. Dad said that Rohan panicked, tried to scramble back onto the log, and flipped head over heels into the water. He started screaming hysterically, and it took awhile to calm him down. Dad told him not to worry, that they would dry him off as soon as they got back to the truck. However, upon regaining his composure, Rohan informed him that he had been upset only because he was worried that "the sharks" were going to bite him.

I am absolutely amazed that my son Rohan is still with us. He flirts with death all the time...and he's five. Tonight, he and his sister Allie shouted their "goodnights" from their bedroom, and then we heard what sounded like a boulder crashing through to the first floor. Rohan had managed to flip head first off the top bunk, over the safety rail mind you. He smashed though the keyboard shelf of Allie's desk, ripping it from the desk itself. On top of that, or should I say underneath it all, a shattered bottle of nail polish. That's gonna bring up the varnish on the wood floor. We ran into the room and found that he was already on his feet crying. He ran to Emily as I knelt over the whole mess. Allie was standing beside me, and I asked her to grab Elena and take her to her room. Allie then proceeds to try and walk barefooted though the rubble. I throw up and arm, barring her way, and advised her intelligent self to go around the other way. Rohan managed to almost do the same thing about ten minutes later. Then as he was sitting in Allie's lounge chair with a bag of ice on his head, he managed to flip it over on top of himself. After I got though cleaning the mess, Allie advised us that Elena's foot had been bleeding, but that "it was almost dried now"......just wonderful. I'm just blown away.

My friend Kirk has included this blog in one of his links, so I thought that I ought to put up a little update.

My daughter Elena Estelle turns ONE today!!!!!! Rohan had his birthday two weeks ago (on some other person's bday :D ) and had a pretty good time. He starts kindergarten this year. Allie is almost done with her last bit of vacation with her dad, so we're looking forward to her getting home.

We're going to be moving soon. We're buying our first (most likely last) house and we close in two days. It's a great house built in 1920, and we can't wait to start working on it. We're turning the attic into a bedroom for Rohan, and we're combining two rooms on the second floor into a master suite. We'll hopefully tackle the kitchen this coming spring. Some people keep saying,"Oh, get ready for a huge headache..." even knowing that I do this sort of thing for a living every day. I've been demolishing and rebuilding since I was thirteen. Guess to be me is a real headache.

Saw one of my aunts yesterday for the first time in many years. Mentally challenged. Pulled up in my Mom and Dad's driveway in a mini-van as we were making pieces for a pergolla. Didn't know she could drive ---really didn't know who she was for that matter. My mom reported updates to my Dad later that night. Her oldest is almost out of juvey since he's almost twenty-one. Won't tell you why he's there, and don't ask if he forced some boys to allow him to perform felatio on them in a jr. high bathroom under threat of violence, because I won't comment. Her daughter is back home with her, since being in foster homes since the age of twelve. She's eighteen now, and I guess she thought it was smart to go home to mom, even though mom's boyfriend was the one who raped her six years ago. Sure that dude's gone, and my aunt's current husband is in prison for fifteen, but I'm just thinking that "home" would not be the best place to be living if living is what you want to do. I haven't even seen these kids for over fifteen years. Craziness. God be with them.

The band finally got a decent rehearsal space, all thanks to our drummer Joe. Maybe we'll get back to playing out. Who knows?

What else....what else...

We've said goodbye to our landline, and I don't think we'll be picking it back up at the new place. Kind of a nice feeling.

I guess I'm about to dive back into the joy that goes along with moving. Ordering new checks, throwing away all the free address labels that we've collected over the past two years from VFW mailings :). Calling ump-teen places to change our mailing address. Changes our mailing address at ump-teen more places online. Doing the mailing address change thing with the post office. Then hoping no bills get lost in the mail. Yea.

Something died somewhere hidden in the hall bathroom this past weekend. Now our bedroom closet which is beside the bathroom is eminating a nice sweet odor of death. Lovely, lovely, lovely. We've been having to sleep with a candle burning at night, hoping that the cat doesn't decide to burn the place down.

Guess that's all for now. Gotta go start baking Elena's cake, so Emily can frost it when she gets home.

So I haven't blogged in forever. Oh well, what can I say.

I copied this short bit from an email that I sent to some friends. It's about my trip with the wife and kids to go see "Batman Returns". Enjoy...

Just saw it. It was pretty good from all that I gathered. I say this, because of course it was a typical night at the movies for the Cooks.

We stop at the good ol' IL Center 8, and I run in to buy tickets. One girl is tapping a stack of Father's Day Sith posters on the counter, and while I'm wondering how I could score one, I almost miss the other girl short change me a ten dollar bill. I question the amount of change given, and she apologetically slips my ten-spot through the window. After walking out I kick myself for not asking for a poster to make up for the small misunderstanding. We drive around for a bit to kill time, knowing that the less time spent sitting in the theater, the less fussy Elena will become. I tell Emily about the two movie girlies, the posters, and the short-changing. Emily tells me I should have been cute and gotten that poster. Imagine ---my wife shaming me for not flirting.

We return to the movies after Emily and Allie argue for ten minutes about where some friend of Allie's lives. (??? ---such important issues.) We walk into the building, and Rohan bee-lines for the water fountain. Nothing good will come of that, I know. We file into the theater and shuffle into a row near the back of the room, but not near enough. Allie has a spiral fracture below her left elbow, and because of it's location (or dislocation I should say) from the growth plate, she doesn't have a cast, but a robot arm thingy that when bumped she's in tears. This does happen while we're trying to get the kids seated, and she does erupt into tears. After some verbal caressing, she settles down to her usual somber self.

For fifteen minutes, we sit through the bad theater trivia advertising slide-show, which loops at least three times. I look over and Allie and Emily are starting to fight. Emily is telling her that she can't go swimming with her Dad's family like he said that she could next weekend (what a moron), and she's starting to do her quiet mopey crying bit like her favorite slacker rocker has blown his head off and she can't find a candle to light and has no flannel to wear to the vigil. After trying to assure her that we're only thinking of her well-being, we get her to stop crying (again), and she drops her head to stare at the floor.

Previews start. Rohan keeps rubbing his eyes and says that they're burning. I tell him if he's tired, he may want to close his eyes. He says he's not tired. Elena keeps wanting to be passed back and forth between Emily and myself. Emily has brought fries in from Sonic to give to Elena to keep her quiet, so we take turns with one of us holding her and one of us shoving fries into the lil' guppies maw. Allie the 9-year-old vacuum keeps eating the fries, Emily keeps snapping at her, and Allie returns to more staring at the floor like it's full of reflections of happiness lost. I can't imagine what she's going to be like as a teenager. I'm definitely hiding my Cure cd collection.

Rohan's Velcro movie booster seat keeps falling over to one side, and although he requests my help in the matter, his simultaneous attempts to remedy the situation thwart my efforts to help him out. The result is something out of a Peter Sellers flick.

During the Dukes of Hazzard trailer Rohan says his eyes won't stop burning and starts to cry. I get up, take Rohan to the bathroom, rinse his hands, rinse his eyes, let him do his usual cycle with the hand dryer, let him stop at the water fountain (please let him have an iron bladder), and then march him back to his seat.

Movie starts. Rohan wants to know when does he turn into Batman. Elena starts crying. Emily leaves the theater with her. The kids are more concerned where their mother has gotten off to than what's on the screen, and so they keep turning one-eighties in their seats thinking that they'll find her. Rohan's movie seat slips to the side at least several times during these visual recon missions.

Rohan still wants to know when does he turn into Batman. Rohan then gets on my lap for round one of the twenty minute twist and squirm game (at least ol' B.W. turned into Batman.) Rohan then has to go pee. My Dad claims the kid sat all the way through Sith and then hit the bathroom running after the credits started to roll, but I guess Batman doesn't hold the same curiosity for him. I take him to the bathroom during the Arkham Asylum fight; guess I'll have to catch that one on the dvd. I look in the stall to tell him to hurry up. This is what I see: Rohan levitating over the bowl gripping the bare rim of the toilet like a prize gymnast on the parallel bars. I checked...just because...and we'll say that the guy before Rohan didn't have good aim. Hell, the last twenty guys. Anyway, this means of course I definitely can't skip the ritual of the washing of the hands. However, I did make him skip the hand dryer much to his disappointment and gave him a quick lesson in shaking them dry.

After being reseated and watching more of the movie. some gunther guy gets up to go to or go do whatever and trips on our diaper bag that Emily has forgotten ---both ways. I locate the bag and shove it under the seat in front of me. Rohan is thirsty. I tell him he can wait.

Rohan declares that he is now tired and wants to sit on my lap for round two of twist and squirm. After twenty more minutes of this wonderful activity Emily returns from the outside world. She hits Allie's arm on the way in. Allie starts to cry. Emily hushes her up. This probably happened during a meaningful scene; I wouldn't know. Emily asks for her keys. I throw Rohan into his booster seat. It slides to the side. He starts to complain, I shush at him. I fidget through all of the wrong pockets trying to locate the keys, while of course Rohan is trying to tell her that the guy has turned into Batman, and not quietly I might add. By this time I'm sure that the people behind us are just loving their choice of seats. After giving her the keys, she asks where her purse is. I'm sure that gunther guy kicked it high and low, and for the life of me I just cannot feel where it's at. No other choice. I get on my f***ing hands and knees and start to peer under the seats. Even as a kid I never crawled on a theater floor. What a lovely place it is. As soon as my eyes start to adjust to my new surroundings, Emily hisses in my general direction that she meant the diaper bag. I look at her, soooooooo happy that my hands are coated with theater floor residue. I shove the diaper bag at her and hope that she catches my glare. Emily hustles off and I climb back into my seat.

After a while the movie ends, we get up and walk to the lobby. There is Emily at the box office counter with three movie girlies, including the human calculator. Elena is on the counter, holding one of Emily's hands, bouncing up and down, waving to the drooling girlies going ga-ga over baby party tricks. In Emily's other hand is a Father's Day Sith poster.

Score: Mommy 1 --- Daddy 0.

Up next, Fantastic 4.

I'm about to go to bed. Elena is quiet...she's been asleep for about two hours now. Emily has Rohan at the E.R. His breathing became short tonight and he complained about his chest hurting. He's been coughing so much the last couple of days and regular cough syrup just isn't helping at all. They've been there for almost three hours now, and she just called saying that they've been put in a room in same day surgery to await a doctor, since the E.R. is too full. Poor Rohan...I hate seeing my little boy have to go through this.

We enjoyed a nice Super Bowl Sunday at our friends' house in Belleville. Thanks again for having us Doug and Jess!!!

My Dad is recovering from having a torn retina re-attached. He's not being too patient with the healing process. I think after you reach the age of 60, patience is all but gone. The poor man needs a vacation from health problems...and so does my Mom for that matter, but wow, is that another story.

Have I been absent for a while or what?!?!?! :)

Maybe I'll start blogging again. I haven't really been online much, or around the computer much for that matter. Life has been really different for the last five months or so, but it's starting to return back to normal...the normal that preceeded Elena's birth, I guess. It feels nice, really. No big opinions to spout out right now, or nothing monumental to say ---I just thought I'd throw some sort of post up, put out the signal that I'm still here.

I'm going to bed now...hoping that I hear from Emily soon...

Staring at the months. Wow, have they really gone by that fast? Let's see if I can give a brief synopsis on what's going on in my life.

My daughter, Elena, is now two months old. She's finally taking to me, as she's a mommy's girl. Since she was born, she would freak out when she realized that it was evil Daddy holding her, but she's starting to chill out. She looks like Emily, so that's awesome. It's a first for one of her children.

My dad had back surgery in September, and we took care of him for a week or so, until he was able to get along by himself. He's going to have a re-reconstructive surgery to his intestinal plumbing on Nov.1, so the adventure isn't over yet. Hopefully in the months following this upcoming surgery, he'll regain his physical strength. He's gone from around 190 pounds to around 140. He looks much too weak and old for being 60.

Since my dad has been down, we haven't been working together, so I had to get another job. I now work for some friends of ours at their fireplace and lighting studio. I work on the sales floor and out in the field doing installs. I'm learning a lot in an area of building that I have no experience in. Namely dealing with different gas pipe installation configurations, installing gas logs and fireplaces, mantels and cabinets, etc., etc., etc. The hours are different than what I was used to and are a little longer also. My work day was always 7 to 3:30. Now I don't go in until 8:30, and usually get home before 6. Although some nights run late, as I didn't get home tonight until 8. So, it's not so cool as far as family time is concerned, but it's not long term. I'm sure my dad and I will be back working together some time after the new year.

Heavy Wishing hasn't been playing at all recently. I think that it's killing us. Our schedules have been so crazy, we just haven't been able to hook up. Also, we lost our long-time rehearsal space, so that's the main factor in why we haven't gotten together. We have a show coming up on Nov.6 (I think), so now all efforts on are just preparing for that, no matter what. We have some new material that we started working on at the beginning of the summer, but now it seems so far gone, we'll really have to bust ass getting it all together in time for the show.

In other Derek music news, my old band Cruces will be reuniting for a show this coming Saturday night in Carbondale at the Hangar 9 with another band that we played with in the 90's, the Waxdolls. We had a rehearsal last night ---the first time that we've played together in over 2 years. It was very surreal. Honestly, it was as if the band had never broken up. Sure, we were rusty here and there, and I think that the guys were kind of hard on themselves for mistakes that I really didn't hear. That's to be expected though, but from where I was standing, I thought it sounded great. If we sound as good or better than Sunday night, we'll be in good shape. Dave from TDOHW took a lot of pics of our practice that'll I'll be posting on the Crucesrock.com site soon.

Rohan snuck off at Emily's salon today with some shears and cut a huge chunk out of his bangs. The only way Emily could fix it was to give him a buzz cut with a number 4 guard. When I got home from work and saw him I almost cried. My dear little boy has no hair left! I had spoken to her earlier in the evening, and she said that he didn't want to eat dinner. He told her that he wasn't hungry. When she asked him why he replied,"My belly hurts, 'cause you balded me." Only Rohan...God love him.

Maybe I'll write more soon, maybe not. Life is crazy these days. At least I found this small bit of time to write.

Good night.

Wow.  Sure, Iraq was better off with Sadaam.  Whatever. What a bunch of evil bastards he and and his sons were.

It doesn't really matter to me what we spend at "sit-down" restaurants.  All in all, the cost is all relative to what you're getting.  However, if I try and extend that rational to fast food, I really don't expect to pay that much, especially at a burger joint.
 
Take for instance, today we went to Dairy Queen.  I left the house with $23 for food and ice cream, thinking that surely that was enough.  Wow, was I wrong.  Here's what we ordered:

• Me: Mushroom and Swiss double burger, Large onion rings, small drink
• My Wife: Chili-n-Cheese Dog, Reg. Fries, small drink
• Both kids: Chicken Strip Kids' Meals.

This came out to almost $19!!!  Come on.  The price of soft-drinks is getting so crazy, we always choose small drinks.  Well, I guess they caught on, because they charge the hell out of those now.  The worst is Hardee's...but lest I digress.  This left me with just a little over $4 for ice cream.  The kids each got a "token" in their kids' meals for either a small cone, an ice cream sandwich, a dilly bar, or $.39 off a blizzard.  Well, of course our kids wouldn't opt for the entirely free route with each of them wanting a blizzard.  Rohan was putting up a good fight, not wanting to eat his chicken, so I got Allie's blizzard long before he was ready for his.  Good thing I went up to the counter only wanting one.  Even with the token, the total came to $2.46.  That left me with a little over a buck and half for Rohan.  SOOOO....I had to go home and grab some more money and come back, because an almost four-year-old would not have grasped the hopelessness of my situation, and would have been way less than agreeable about the whole thing.  Needless to say, the whole thing sucked rocks.  To think: that if Emily and I had wanted any "Royal Treats" (I'll say they're for royalty) and maybe large drinks, we would have spent almost $30.  For Dairy Queen...I don't think so.

Received some really generous gifts from some friends of ours in a band called Basic just for helping them out with a website. This really wasn't necessary, and I just wanted everyone to know what cool people Leah and Reid are. If you read this, thanks guys. It was really nice of you to do that.

In other news: IT WAS STILL HOT TODAY. This is all because I said to my Dad this past week that it had been a pretty mild summer thus far. Today, the heat index rose to 110 degrees. By 10am my fingers and palms were wrinkled like raisins, like when you're a little kid and your mom says that you've played in the tub too long. Again, we quit by two in the afternoon.

It was so damn hot today. We quit around 2:30, because it we had had enough. I wasn't quite keeping up with my fluids...I was just busy. Around 2:00 a headache started to set in and my neck started to ache, so it was definitely time to call it quits.

When I finally got home, I straightened the kitchen for about 20 minutes, then took a shower, and then started work. However, the heat had affected me so much, I worked until about 6:30 this evening, and then crashed in bed for about an hour. Now I'm back at it for a bit before bed.

We watched Blow Out again tonight. This was last week's episode that we missed. The season finale is on tomorrow night...no...Thursday night, I think. Maybe not...whatever. Anyway, we've been hooked on the show, and we're dying to see what happens. Hey, having owned a salon, it's a pretty interesting show.

I can hear Rohan singing in bed from here. Funny.

Most disappointing show for me from this past week: The 4400. I did not want it to be a series, especially one that is almost an exact rip-off of the X-Files. I was a die-hard X-Files fan for seven years, waiting for the truth. Then when Mulder left, I gave up on the truth. If the producers of the 4400 think that they can do the same thing, they can just forget it. They main two characters don't even have any chemistry...there is nothing interesting about them. A show that I think has some great chemistry amongst the two main players: Touching Evil. Now that's a show that I hope comes back for a second season.

Oh yeah, we bought the first season of Reno 911! on DVD. I highly recommend it.

Okay, so I used to dress off-beat when I was younger, and I'm still all about expressing who you are through how you dress, but sometimes you have to look in the mirror and draw the line. I saw a girl at the grocery store the other day who took the cake for the worst accessory ever. She had kool-aid blue hair with about two inches of out-growth, some piercings, baggy pants, bum looking shirt, you know, the usual punk-slacker fair. But the crowning glory was the racoon tail that was hanging down the middle of her butt. I guess if there was any doubt before, I've finally lost touch with today's youth.

As it would seem, I have been busy. Very much so even. Every weekend has been so full of whatever nonsuch, I can't get work done that I've put off during the week. I don't begrudge the weekend activities, as they are almost always full of family and/or friends. It's just that I've been behind in all of my deadlines for quite some time now. I actually should be caught up by tonight though...just in time to get down and dirty on one project that I've been anxious to get back to, since this past March. If things would work out the way that we hope for them to, this would be the only project that I work on for quite some time, as I am to stay on as webmaster. Yes, that would be my wish, but we shall see.

Emily doesn't have long to go til her due date. Yet we have a busy month of birthdays to get through before that. Maybe all of the trudging excitement will induce labor just a little bit early. I'm being pressured to start the name picking process. Of course, we don't know whether it's a boy or a girl, so I'm sure like last time, it will involve both of us sitting at Barnes & Noble with baby name books shooting ideas off to eachother, with the both of us responding,"Ehhhh..." So it goes.

I just heard this on Futurama and thought it most hilarious: "So I ended up here, making pies out of shoes."

That's just great.

This is an interesting piece of news, and even sad in reflection. Rather than focus on the fact that this Confederate Soldier's widow lived to the incredible age of 97, I am drawn more to the story of who she was married to. Even though they were only briefly married during the twilight of his years, her connection to something that is now so far gone in our history, to me is thrilling. It was such a sad time for our country, with wounds that are probably still felt, especially in southern communities. It is a shame that a great majority of the war's stories die around us on a daily basis. Some oral histories, because of their obscurity and remoteness, are gone forever.

My Grandfather was a Cossack, part of the cavalry in the Czar's army before and during the Russian Revolution. This of course meant that he was on the losing side of that ordeal. His life's experiences were so rich, and I only wish that I was not so young, being the age of five years old, when he died. I would have loved to sit and listen to him speak. I remember him holding me and talking and singing to be, but that's pretty much it. One of my Uncles seems to know more stories about his life than does my mother, but if I don't sometime take the time to sit down and catalog those stories, they'll someday pass away forever. Oral histories are so valuable! I'm ashamed that I never begged my mother to teach me to speak, read, and write the Ukrainian language when I was younger. The dialect used by my family will also someday needlessly pass away. All I know are a handful of phrases that I was taught to say to make my Grandfather smile. Less talk and more action on my part is in order, so I must begin my endeavor to learn more about him soon.

In this picture, my Grandfather is on the left, his uncle in the middle, and his brother or cousin in the foreground on the right. The photo must have been taken sometime between 1912 and the Revolution, as he would have been in his twenties.



This is one of the few pictures that I have of me with my Grandfather. It was taken around 1975, with my Mother and Grandmother also in the shot.

Ray Charles was too young to leave this world. In his stead, now there is a void. May he find peace.

Emily and I just finished watching Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator. Everything in this movie was going on when I had just started high school, and skating meant everything to me. I refuse to believe that was seventeen years ago. Nothing else mattered then. We'd stay up all night, try to sleep from about seven in the morning until ten, then get up and go skate until the evening hours. No repsonsibilities whatsoever. It just doesn't seem real. I said that I'd skate forever. Well, forever lasted for about five years. Every once in a while I get on my old board in the garage, and tap around a little. I don't believe I'll ever skate hard again. My knees are blown from those wonderful years that I did. Growing up and skating in a small Mid-Western town didn't touch the scene that was going on out West, and I thought I was missing out. Maybe I was ---or, maybe I was lucky.