As a #writer, I am a “pen guy”. I have to hurriedly extract myself from Office Depot/Max and the like, lest I blow my budget on writing implements, like a variety of assorted colored ink pens. I have to remind myself to break the notion to stare and try, on the little sample pad, the assortment of colored stylographs.
So it is with particular trepidation that I, during my continual “#2023 winter of decluttering” came across an envelope, obviously owned by a late relative, inside of which was this peculiar “Sheaffer’s” pen, which turned-out to be a fountain pen!
Yes! And with enough ink still inside for who-knows-how-long and which I could immediately write with! OMGosh, where is my broncho inhaler! lol
I therefore had to research deeper, to make sure that my fascination with this ancient reservoir pen scribe tool wasn’t an act of encroaching lunacy! It must be another message from beyond from my genetic trainer, with the following “8 reasons” attendant. Who knew?? Timing IS truly everything. https://www.thepencompany.com/blog/pens/fountain-pens/why-fountain-pens-are-back/
I hope this inspires you to correct your “script” signature like your teachers once admonished you to practice! However, beware that I am the luckiest to have FOUND this stylograph, because of today’s prohibitive pricing for same, is like getting ink for your multi-functional copier, I think! (“Oh pleez! When will prices discount instead of increasing, please? in our lifetime? Oh! I just noticed that gasoline is down by a dollar since the beginning of the year!) Thank you, Hope.
Her Dad is 95, living alone in New Jersey and has appointment to see a specialist about a serious medical diagnosis and his Home Attendant, who is from Senegal, is to accompany him.
From Utah, Pam, the daughter, one of four siblings who rotate in regularly and is charged as his health proxy, calls the morning of the appointment to find out that their main Home Attendant has taken an unscheduled vacation which the agency did not notify her of and with an hour to go, her dad is with this newcomer and still not up, dressed and fed. Livid but trying to remain cordial, she asks to speak to the replacement Attendant, Temish – who is from Ghana. She wonders to herself why the Agency sends no candidates from The States who can speak better English and are assimilated into American culture these days. A fight with them is for a future day. For now, the appointment is crucial.
When she tells the new Attendant of the magnitude of the appointment and how they have to be picked up in an hour, all the replacement says is, “
I know. I know…” This is one of Pam’s pet peeves and the following conversation ensues:
“This is an important appointment.
I know.
You guys are getting picked-up in an hour.
I know.
The sky is blue gaga today.
I kn-n-n… (stuttering ensues)”
“Stop saying ‘I know’! If you knew, then you’d be up and Dad would ‘know’ he has an appointment. He is still not up, has not eaten breakfast and doesn’t remember this.
Never say to me, ‘I know’ – better to say “I understand” and then do not fear asking questions for further guidance.
Nobody “know” all, especially since you’re not from here in The States. Nobody “know” all who cannot be educated – not even me. With my Dad I can help you with and I must help you hear me – to know him and our customs better. Do you understand?”
[silence]
“I don’t know you, Temish
So to me, your mind is like and bread box with half of a loaf inside.
To me you know nothing of our ways.”
[more silence]
“I used to say, “I know…” to the elders who tried to teach me when I was growing up right there where you are right now. It is like a mental block by a stubborn child who does not want to hear nor be taught.
Except that now, adult-looking people use it as a crutch when they come to our country, trying to hold onto their own culture and not assimilate into the western lifestyle, while not admitting it. In your case, it is dismissive of me trying to help.
So, Never say, ‘I know’ because you likely don’t know. Instead, think of something to ask or add as a reply to the conversation – and with that, you will complete the communication.”
“Okay.” (progress?)
A steamy book by a new Author crossed my desk during the recently past holidays. “Brave New Woman (Brave New World)” by Lena Rose [Independent, October 31, 2018; 197 pages] is the kind of book I have never read, afraid it might plant sexy seeds in my mind, which I might not be able to grow when I put it down.
I am admiringly amused by the stalk of Indian corn on the cover as a phallic symbol – a hint of what’s to come (pun intended). Here, Rose combines historical facts with the theme of forbidden love, into an erotic thriller which hooked itself to my bedside table by the third chapter; I read a chapter nightly before I turned the light out to sleep during the past couple of weeks. I don’t want to hint at the story-line, lest I spoil the drama for you, but the twists and turns had me rooting for one of the main characters, who reminded me of the 1973 hit song by Cher, “Half-Breed”.
Its not easy to pen a good novel – or “novella” as she describes it. Lena employs all the right ingredients: the inciting incident, complications, crisis, climax and resolution in the graphically described erotic narrative. Her vividly accurate descriptions show the research she must have done into that period of American history.
The line spacing throughout the pages makes it an easier on the eyes read. Yet, missing is a publisher company name (she can make one up which suits her) on the lower back cover (with logo), and a title page preceding the Table of Contents. Also, maybe a dedication page would be cool there too!
Upon conclusion, she unabashedly asks for reviews on the same last page – before the reader can fully digest the final scenes. That gave me pause, seemed slightly dilettante (I guess because of eagerness for her first self-published book to do well) and therefore, I compliment this story with four-out-of-five fountain pens and recommend you add it to your library bookshelf.
*Pickkhitt: which bringz to mind…another classic record from my pre-radio DJ days, listening to “Musicradio77WABC, New York City” You know I always end a post with a song
I wasn’t looking for another space book to review, but when I returned “Endurance” to the library and then browsed the “New” section, this cover caught my eye:
The rocket men featured are astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders; the crew of Apollo 8.
“Rocket Men”, penned by Robert Kurson, is historical, educational, suspenseful. Those are but a few of the adjectives I can use to describe this incredible book, which is necessary reading at this juncture in American history, given the inexperience we have in the Oval Office currently which has the country in a similar snit as back in 1968. It reads almost like a novel, except it really happened!
Whether you grew up as an American with the “space race” and NASA by your side like I did, or (especially) not, this is a riveting must read!
Kurson had a great planned layout for this book. He gets right into it with the beginnings of the space race and builds some drama as the Russians leap way out in front. Then after he sets up the moon as a goal versus events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert Kennedy getting assassinated, the ongoing unpopular Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination and the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he goes into the personal stories of Frank Borman, then back to NASA, Jim Lovell then back to NASA, Bill Anders and back to NASA and the strife of our country at that time. I found one of the most endearing qualities of this read to be how he wove the struggles and faith of the astronaut’s wives and families into the story of “Rocket Men”.
We are suddenly launching Apollo 8 before the middle color photo pages! You need to read how they got to that point. Twenty-four chapters, a great Epilogue and Acknowledgement section, plus easy to comprehend diagrams. I couldn’t put it down except to sleep, eat and do my own work.
Its the story of the space race between our USA and the Soviet Union (Russia) and the genius of NASA’s group of scientists, which eventually led to the Apollo space program more particularly. Feeling that we were losing the race, a bold president challenged the nation to be better and win. My favorite president, John F. Kennedy, is mentioned often, because if it were not for his famous gauntlet of words thrown down before the Congress of the United States in 1961, we would have lost the race to the Moon to the Russians. Ironically, within the genius brain-trust that made Apollo 8 a success was Wernher von Braun, a former Nazi Germany rocket scientist, who was responsible for Hitler’s V-2 campaign against London and other European countries, late in World War II. This brought to mind a movie my parents took me to called “Operation Crossbow”, which recounted Europe’s response to the V-2 Campaign. You never know who will become your helpful bedfellow in this life.
The improbable success of the Apollo 8 moon mission is the focus of the book and by the time you finish reading, you will feel, like I do, that its success was something that was “meant to be”. If you ever doubt there are such circumstances, this book will change your mind. Names from my youth like Yuri Gagarin, Sputnick (“fellow traveler”), Laika (Russian for ‘barker’) and Alan Shephard are revisited and for me, personally, all while I was a teenager learning how to become a young man.
Did you know that in all, twelve Americans walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972? I must have known this, but in truth, those mission almost became commonplace back then! Unbelievable that our men flying to the Moon became routine at that point in time! Since Apollo 17, though…we have never returned there. It is fifty years later.
Remembering the name, Chris Kraft (how can one forget such a unique and appropriate handle?) and his quote on page 323, “never more courage than on anything we ever did in the space program”, because they accelerated it in order to meet the, by then late, President Kennedy’s deadline challenge.
One of my favorite quotes from the book came from his mention of the deadline challenge our great President Kennedy threw down, “Only by attempting ‘the impossible’ would a nation truly find out who it is…”
Another one is from Borman’s wife, Susan, who after being criticized for showing emotion after her husband Frank’s first launch on Gemini 7 said, “But…I have come to realize you can’t be all things to all people. So I decided not to pretend and not to try to hide my feelings – I decided to be myself.” The Author equally writes about how Marilyn Lovell and Valerie Anders coped and showed strength and concern for the safety of the sudden mission – in different ways.
This book is real life history, which is so very worthy your time.
Earlier than half-way into the book, Kurson so aptly employs the description the lift-off of the troubled and slightly untested Saturn V booster rocket on that fateful morning in December, 1968, that I had to go find the video on YouTube!
Even the Epilogue is an epic as it reminds us of how Apollo 13 had an explosion which almost doomed the crew. Great job, OMG…
For me, as a personal “by-the-way”, this story reminisced these launches, which were on the news daily back in those days. My father insisted on us watching the evening Walter Cronkite CBS News at dinner time, because our dining together was mandatory; a good thing that I didn’t like then, which, in retrospect should be more emphasized in today’s American families. Space stories are reminders that our earthly “problems” are petty when viewed against the dark vastness of the universe, of which our planet is a beautiful, but tiny dot.
If you’ve never looked up into a dark clear night sky and wondered which, besides the moon, of those twinkling lights are planets and which are stars, or been curious about the cosmos, astronomy or manned human space travel, then you can stop reading right now – this book review is not for you.
On the other hand, if you look up into the night sky and wonder about our place in the universe, this book is a must-read for you and it might convince you to look up with a renewed understanding of our delicate, fragile place in the vastness of space!
I, and many of my “Baby Boomer” generation were fascinated and captivated by being included in every manned launch into space in the 1960s and ’70s. Being that there were only seven television channels of the day and three of them network (CBS, ABC and NBC), when there was a launch from Cape Canaveral (later to become Cape Kennedy and the Space Center), it was like a national address by The President (which we are sadly lacking these days also)!
Having recently finished another great book, who knows, maybe this will become another regular sub-category of this ole blog, until such time that I am reunited with my musical “children” and beyond. The name of this fantabulous tome is, “Endurance: A Year In Space, A Lifetime of Discovery” by Scott Kelly.
He weaves in and out from personal to NASA professional stories, with believably weird dreams which sometimes draw back the curtain for the next scenes of his space play, in a way that made me think, “this guy must have kept a diary or has one helluva memory!” Truth be told, when you read the final acknowledgements, you realize the collaboration that it took to put these thoughts together in a readable, informative and entertaining fashion.
Pages 304 – 305 offer Kelly’s most profound critique of our behavior on earth, visa v random and unnecessary gun shootings, one of which touched his sister-in-law, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Arizona and my favorite quote from the book. I love his call to us earthlings, “We have got to do better.” Major words of advice from a perspective which deserves our respect; too bad many of our bad actors (politicians included) cannot be shot up into space as a sentence in “zero-g” for a while to gain some humility!
To the above paragraph’s end, Kelly describes how well he and the cosmonauts from Russia work together at 17,500 mph (or the closets kmph) without the drama below, along with those from Japan, Italy and Great Britian (the “U.K.”). I like how he mentions learning how to curse in Russian in a jovial way, between “CQ”s (Crew Quarters) visits, describing it as “much more complex!” While different protocols exist, they all co-exist accurately, performing over 400 experiments, with the most important thing in-mind: survival. You will learn what it is like to ascend at the top of “a big bomb” and return through our planet’s protective atmosphere.
For Kelly and his brother Mark, Identical twins who were raised in West Orange, New Jersey, and who could hardly focus enough to study their grade school lessons and pass to the next grades, instead, wanting to “jump off of things”, to suddenly develop the discipline to achieve U.S. Navy fighter jet pilot flight school because of (in Scott’s case) reading the 1980 book by Tom Wolfe, “The Right Stuff”, is truly remarkable.
“Endurance…” Is full of accurate, informative insights about the nuances of becoming and being an astronaut (or cosmonaut) and what it is like to live and work on the International Space Station (ISS). He often refers to his long-time female companion, Amiko, who awaits his return; she too works for NASA!
I remember, as a boy of maybe nine years, when the Gemini project was first announced by NASA and I glued together a model of the spacecraft. Even then, the prospect of human space flight and survival that Mr. Kelly writes about was the stuff of science fiction movies like “2001, The Space Odyssey”! Its a reminder that I have lived to see ‘the future’ scientifically, if not sociologically.
We have come a long way from the late astronaut, Ed White’s first spacewalk during the Gemini IV mission, and NASA doesn’t publicize astronaut’s names like they did when I first started following their space exploration programs during Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, it seems. I wonder why? Maybe because they are a little leery after the Challenger and Columbia disasters, of the worst-case scenarios? These are bound to happen and may again on our way to Mars; another of the cool things about Scott Kelly’s book – he is always making the case that this is why he is making himself a human Guinea pig!
Being a huge fan of H2O, I think his best personal take from being on the ISS for so long is, “Nothing feels as amazing as water/Rain is a miracle.” File that one under ‘Reality Check’/things we take for-granted!
This book which reads three-hundred-and-sixty-five pages, while the actual number of days that Scott Kelly spent on the ISS in “zero g” is 340, it is close enough for me to give him a “year” if you add the wonderful, color photo pages. A great a read as this can only be blessed with five-out-of-five heavenly space shuttles!
As always, I will answer your spaced-out comments.
And now for something completely different for my blog: A Book Review!
First and personally, I am so proud to have finally found and tied into the public library here in the land of Spanish Moss. It always takes a while to humble myself again and do these things – maybe deep in my soul I should own a library! Oh I do, and it is just vinyl record albums. I digress again.
In the Autumn of 2017, I had three titles on my list of books to read and one of them was a no-brainer, when I heard about it, Maria Sharapova’s autobiography. I have always been one of her fans.
Why now? I knew I had to begin to read again because I was in a writer’s limbo, and you know that, as I stated in past blogs, in order to write well you have to read much. So let’s get to it!
I just finished reading Maria Sharapova’s first autobiography,“Unstoppable – My Life So Far” with Rich Cohen in record time (for me)! Masha (her real name in “Russian) weaves a compelling and enlightening story, with candid diary clips throughout that I could only put down to sleep, eat and run my own work errands. If you’ve ever wondered what life is like for a major player on the Women’s professional tennis tour as a girl becomes a woman, this autobiography is a must read and a real page turner.
It is the first sports autobiography I remember reading since The Roy Campanella story, as a teen, and more recently, “Namath” about my main New York Jets quarterback, whose style and ability I grew up admiring, although I must have read Mickey Mantle’s and others through the years.
I learned that we share admiration for Monica Seles, whose audible power release as she hit the ball (some call it a “grunt”, but it is more sexy than that to a man’s ears, believe me, I’ve had sex with many women who make the same sound when they orgasm) first turned my attention into women’s tennis back in the 1990s. Indeed, Ms. Seles’ story of rising as a teenager achieving stardom on one of the biggest stages in sport, the Pro tennis tour is similar to Ms. Sharapova’s!
The Author also emulates Lindsay Davenport, whose classy game I too came to admire and shows respect for another of my favorites to watch, Serbian, Jelena Jankovic`. We learn about her coaches and even a favorite brand of shoes in these pages.
She used what I call the “sandwich” format for this first part of telling about her life. Using this format allowed Ms. Sharapova to recount her life, so that the reader can get to know her better and it works. She started with the present unjust failed drug test scandal drama and then retraced how she got to this point, while setting up her feelings about going forward with her career and life. The major theme was to tell her side of the suspension story to help clear her name of being associated with doping and I commend her for that. Hell, the substance they flagged her for was not even on the list of illegals throughout 99% of her career, and something smells very fishy about how it was suddenly added. It is almost like the suspicion East Germans who were competing in the Olympics were under, back in the Cold War days.
There is a nice pictorial section mid-way through and I like how neutral her cover photo is and how she describes her relationship with her main motivator, Yuri, her father and their initial trek following the ugly Chernobyl, now part of Ukraine, melt-down, eventually into Sochi, Russia and on to Florida as unknowns when she was a little girl with a huge racket.
She speaks about what I have often wondered while following women’s tennis: her main nemesis, Serena Williams. Oddly, she only mentions her older sister, Venus once. I would have like to have read her comparison of their games.
My favorite quote is from her father, Yuri, who said, “When you let your brain overrule your gut, you screw up your life.” Wow, my mentor used that philosophy and so do I programming my radio shows and identifying hit music through the years! Even though I borrowed it from the library, I will gladly purchase it for my private hardcover collection once I move into my own home.
Nice job, tall lady!! Whatta twenty-first century Fox. You are a “hit” and I’d look up to you without insecurity, rating your book with five out of a possible 5 tennis rackets.
My degree from the University is in English and Communication. I am a bit of a “wordsmith” in the tradition of the late William Safire, who penned the “On Language” column in the Sunday New York Times magazine.
Not a snob by any means, certain trends or linguistic fads get my Capricorn “goat”.
Recently, and I mean that I didn’t notice this until this year, 2015, I feel it disengenuous when I hear “Thank you SO much.” It is almost like the person saying that is almost hoping that the receiver will accept what they know is a knee-jerk bullshit common statement!
When I was raised, everybody said a version of “Thank you VERY much!”, if they had to go beyond just “Thank you.”
So when did this battle of the adverb/adjective, “very” versus the multifunctional “so” begin? My answer is when the laziness created by cell phones and other personal devices that have cause lowered educational standerds began: the advent of the “information superhighway” begat by techno inventions.
Sad to think that if most people are left to their own devices, they will take the easy way out, turn their brains mostly off and do the wrong thing like texting or paying too much attention to their telephone while driving.
This is all part of the reason that “Thank you VERY much!” is so much better than the lazy and lame, “SO much” we hear these days. I even heard an MSNBC TV news female anchor use it when receiving the toss back from a reporter the other day. I almost became nauseous.
For you, my reader, who was not an English major in college and do not understand what all the fuss is about, I will now define according to http://partofspeech.org/
“In verbal and written English, the word “so” has multiple functions. It can act as an adverb, a conjunction, a pronoun, an adjective, or an interjection depending on the context.”
While “like many words in the English language, the word ”very” also serves a double function. It can be used as an adverb or an adjective depending on the context.”
The solution could be to combine the two as in this version of the British “Keep Calm and Carry On” series:
Yet, I want to see “so” deleted from the modern appreciation lexicpon altogether! Its slang leanings are fake and lame, rolling off the tongues of (mostly) female hipsters with captious intentions.
Listen, now that I have brought this to your attention and according to your generation (or if you even care), please analyse the preference. Most of we Baby Boomers will agree with me and/or go “Oh Wow! I’d heard that trend but not really paid any attention to it – it did sound kind of weird…” lol Other younguns might find this column superflous or even dumb. And that last part is what I am getting at: the dumbing-down of our society and in this case, lingustic culture and traditions for the worse. Now, for a little musical punctuation for my points above:
“Thank you so much is becoming way over used and doesn’t come off as genuine anymore. It’s almost as if everyone were hypnotized into saying Thank you so much instead of the good old Thanks a lot.” – http://english.stackexchange.com/
And now…I will unleash my over three decades as a radio broadcaster upon a review of a radio station that is the only one I currently like to listen to…, “Rooshkie Radio, WSNR”, Jersey City.
The first time I ever heard of Russians, “Boris and Natasha” were cartooned Russian agent caricatures I used to watch on “Rocky, The Flying Squirrel” show as a boy. On the nightly news back then, Chet Hutley, David Brinkley or Walter Cronkite would talk about the “cold war threat” from them and quote the newspaper, “Pravda”. Simultaneously, the movie, “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!” premiered to my young consciousness and then, linguistically via the Cuban Missile Crisis during President Kennedy’s administration in the early 1960s, when then, First secretary of The Soviet Communist Party and Prime Minister, Nikita Khrushchev performed his shoe-pounding rant at the United Nations’ General Assembly.
Then came the dancers at club “NV” Nashville and my meeting my fiancee`Inna via our “Cafe Skype”.
All of which obviously begat these days when I listen daily in the car on my commute to work and my laptop to “Rooshkie Davidzon Radio”, WSNR 640. The AM radio station’s music has a wide variety and very cool, often hip playlist; the Russian talk is helpful to my learning the language of my fiancee` who lives in Ukraine, but is part of the Russian speaking population there (there are two linguistic factions in Ukraine). I bet the old communist establishment of the Soviet Union is turning in it’s grave at the sound of this American-style, non propagandist radio station’s format!
Listening to this station daily (and appreciating their radio elements) augments my Pimsleur Approach Russian CD lesson learning that I began in April of 2012. They have a full spot (commercials) load and the many telephone numbers of the advertisers, spoken in Russian, has helped me learn to count from zero (“нулевой” or “nul”) to twenty (“двадцать” or “dvadtsat'”) in Russkiy!
Their production is entertaining; the image elements enlightening and even when the automation fucks-up, it doesn’t take away from this very American-style terrestrial “Rooshkie” radio station. They have a featured traffic reporter girl, Natalia Bystritskaya, who is bubbly, humorous and in a “good mood” always!
The all-important morning show is anchored by a man who I call “the Russian Frankie Crocker” because of the jazzy background music bed that he does his talk over, Vadim Yarmolinetska.
His laugh and self-deprecating way of handling caller and topics makes him easy to listen to even if you cannot translate or understand every word. I always get the “flavor” of what they are discussing!
Another notable listenable is Alexander Grant who, I determined a “sleuth” journalist personality without the benefit of understanding all of the words in Russian. It is awesome how with the power of just a few linguistics and a background in radio formatics I can decipher subject of their talk shows.
I love their production, the spontaneity of how they handle callers and even when the automation burps. Their image liners and fill bumpers are really the creative “radio” that I learned to love when bitten by the bug back in 1972 at Adelphi University’s WALI/WBAU.
When not talking, WSNR is eclectic;(boring) especially after seven o’clock U.S. eastern time and on weekends. Weekdays, the live over-the-air broadcast ends at 7p.m. but can still pick up the stream of music online. Sundays they are over-the-air all day until seven p.m., including a sports talk show Sunday evenings. The music mix is eclectic where you’ll hear everything from traditional Slavic folk and acoustic tunes to Barbara Streisand, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Abba, Tina Turner and any electronica club jams that slip-in, (much less than when I first found this station, by-the-way) remind me of the hot Russian chicks I played for at club NV in Nashville, TN, circa 2004! I do not have to understand every single word in order to know what is going on due to my radio intuition and knowledge of the radio clock and vocal inflections! I notice a dearth of male American R&B or dance vocalist artist on WSNR’s musical playlist, however. How about some Sylvester from the disco days?!
** My advice to Mr. Gregory Devidzon, President of “Davidzon Radio” is do not sell-out to any U.S. radio corporations like Clear Channel! Please! пожалуйста!! Also, Advice:Please install and use the “cough switch” more! I hear too much coughing over the air! WTF? It is needlessly rude and unprofessional.
If you do, you will lose your radio station’s unique identity, political posture and entertainment values. Take it from someone whose radio career was abruptly discontinued by the corporatization, deregulation and automation which hit us beginning back in the early 1990s.
This is their website url, http://www.davidzonradio.com/index.htm and you can also dial them up streaming on any number of sites like tunein.com/radio/
As one of my LinkedIN.com comrades, Yuri Neshitov put it regarding my Russian learning methods, “You are at better position with learning Russian because love is the best teacher, tutor and assistant in this job… you a lucky man!”
Pickhitt: I give WSNR Four stars **** out of a possible five for live radio content in this day and time as a former radio personality. This is likely a brokered deal with WSNR.
One thing I recommend is that they add a PLAYLIST or “now playing” to their website so that we what tunes we are listening to after talk hours on line and so we can support the artists whose music they play! As a former radio junkie, I love that I cannot understand all of the bad news of the day and commercials! Otherwise they would be just another cookie-cutter station I would not listen to as a professional. lol I dig their hourly station ID production and choice of filler music also!
I pay particular attention to understanding the words that I can make-out when I hear the word “Ukraine” mentioned during their hour or half-hour news updates these days, knowing that my Inna, is in Kiev and political turmoil is spreading via a corrupt Russian-puppet regime “President” who should resign….
and more recently, “Namath” about my main New York Jets quarterback, whose style and ability I grew up admiring, 
although I must have read Mickey Mantle’s and others through the years. 
Achilliad's Blog! 