Words Of Guidance

Namaste and welcome. I've been working hard on getting caught up with the blog, and I'm excited for people to check out some of my new work. As the years go by, my blog mentality is changing. I'm using this blog more and more as a home for writings that might not have a place in my books.

There's lots of new work here, and I'm still adding more. But blogs are weird. I mean the way they are organized. As you read, you go down, of course. But as you go from one piece to the next, you have to move up--the top being the newest. And the more I think about it, the more I realize the different needs of different readers.

So, perhaps you want to know what's new. If you're after the brand new stuff, you can scroll down or click on these: a poem about fall, a story about buzzards, some writing notes, some car writing, more thoughts on writing, words on my first march, a D.C. mission, and some words about the good old sweat garage.

Or, perhaps you haven't been here in a long while. In which case you might want to check out: the sparkling forest, thoughts on soccer and sound, a link to free music, a NYC mission, the spider walk, a big travel piece with writing and photos, or some wild static.

And if you've never been here. There's all kinds of stuff, such as: one from the old bike tour days, a piece about President Obama's Inauguration, some barefoot weirdness, thoughts on things, and of course, the always popular, travels with Marley.

Thanks again, and have fun and safe travels,

Jeff

green and gold and the magic of fall

I started walking today

without any words in my head,

just walking,

out the door,

up the sidewalk,

make a right

and down the street.

but when I made

that right turn

I saw something beautiful.

it was October,

leaves were starting

to change,

still lots of green

but the gold was growing.

down low,

the locust trees

were almost all gold.

up high—

and here comes the beautiful thing—

the tulip poplars were still very green.

high above

the neighborhood rooftops,

my eyes found

one big and very unique

poplar tree.

its great bulbous canopy

was nearly all green

except for a pocket

of golden leaves,

near the center of the tree.

the golden patch

stood out exquisitely

in the true and even light

of a rainy afternoon.

I saw this poplar

tree and now the words

were springing up

in my mind.

but Marley didn’t

want to just stand there.

his dog-eyed

view of the world

was taking him forward.

he had lots of smelling to do,

lots of p-mail to check.

“okay Marley,” I said.

as we walked on.

then,

maybe fifteen minutes later,

we came to the turn-around moment,

one of the happiest

parts of the walk.

once we turn around,

I am no longer walking away.

now, I am walking back,

back to the pages that

are waiting to be filled

in my writing room.

I walked a little faster

on the way back.

now, not only did I have the

writing to look forward to,

but I had this poplar tree

with the golden patch in the center.

and I was singing the song

in my head as I walked along:

“I’ve been to Hollywood.

I’ve been to Redwood.”

then we came to the place

where I saw the poplar

tree for the first time.

I looked above the rooftops.

there it was,

with leaves undulating gently

to the subtle action of the air,

a quivering image

made from trillions

and trillions

and trillions of cells.

the tree had a confident stance,

tall, straight, with leafy chest

puffed out proudly,

and in the center

a huge

ten-foot

heart of gold.

Bike Lights Are Pretty Bright These Days

I decided I'm not going to document this summer's trip on the blog. I'm not feeling it. It just doesn't feel right to divide up a big beautiful summer adventure into little posts on a blog. I still believe that books are the best way to tell these stories. I'm not saying I'll never blog about another summer adventure. I probably will. I'm just saying that right now I'm not. But I am going to write about the road.

There's something I have been meaning to write about. It happened a little while back, just another evening in the universe. I needed to go to the store, and I decided to ride my bike. It wasn't dark yet, but the sun had set. It was twilight, that great time of the night that I love. I rode to the store, locked up, and did some quick shopping.

When I came out of the store, I saw buzzards flying and bedded down for the night in the tall pine trees behind the grocery store. Also, there were buzzards on top of the store (I couldn't see them, but I knew they were there from my other observations). As I was unlocking my bike, I heard a big horn go off--one of those can-sized air horns. A store employee was trying to scare off the buzzards. It made me kind of sad. Some flew away. But I had a feeling they would be back, later. The store wasn't open that late. Or maybe they would go somewhere else. There were lots of great trees around.

I was thinking about the buzzards as I got on my bike and turned on my lights. I have a set of bright lights: a strong two-watt light in the front, and a super blinking red light in the back. They really do have some great bike lights out there these days. The LED technology makes things possible. I was also wearing my bright green safety vest. I didn't really need the lights to see the road. I had them on just for safety.

I started riding up the hill. I was still thinking about the buzzards, because as I rode up the hill I could look over and see them in the pine trees to my left. Then I felt my right pocket vibrate. I pulled over to the right side of the road and took the call. It was my mother. I forget what we talked about. Because soon after I picked up my phone, a car pulled over next to me. It was a Camero or something, some blue sporty thing. A young guy was driving with a young girl sitting next to him. They weren't teenagers, but they were younger than me. I was still on the phone, but I looked at them. They had the windows down. I sensed their fear. The driver said, "Are we being pulled over?"

Wow. I just looked at this guy. Were my lights really that bright? I guess some combination of the lights and my official looking vest and my helmet, and maybe even the phone. Or maybe his guiltiness was part of it. Jeez. I just looked at this guy and couldn't believe it. And I was still on the phone.

"No, man. I am not a cop." I could see him and the girl relax a little. They had gotten away from a beast that wasn't really there. Now they were free. But for a few moments, they were trapped and busted.

The car drove off and I finished the phone call. A very weird and wonderful moment on the side of the road. I thought about it, did a little Sherlocking, but it was hard to get any firm conclusions. People do things and people think things. Go out into the world, and things will happen.

Well, it'll make a good story, I concluded. I got back to riding. Same old road, but different thoughts. I kept thinking. It had to have been because of the lights. My lights were on the flashing mode--which kind of makes a hectic strobing that does resemble those car-top police lights. And there's the brightness. The light really carries. Like I said, bike lights are pretty bright these days.

Desperation Days -- Phish 2011

The desperation days were upon me. It was June. Soon it would be time to leave. I still had lots of pages to write so I could get to the last sentence of the book. The goal was to keep the wordflow going--write a good book and get to the end and then celebrate with a road trip. I had to finish the draft before I left.

I was used to writing all day and all night. The writing days had been good. I just kept on moving forward. One of the biggest challenges to the modern writer is little thing called writer's distraction. There's a lot going on. You have to focus.

And what do you do when Phish comes to town? I knew I had to see them play, but I also knew I had to write. Phish was playing two shows. On Saturday, I wrote during the day and went to the show at night. On Sunday, my day was occupied. My plan was to skip the show and write at night. Then I got the idea: why not do both. I would go to the show, bring my notes, and sit there and write with pen and paper. Phish would play and I would write.

This writing mission actually worked better than I ever thought. The show was about three hours and I wrote about ten pages. I sat near the back, near the trunk of a great tree. I wore ear plugs and I sat on the ground. A lady named Carol came over to talk with me a little bit, but for most of the show no one said anything to me. I just sat there and wrote. Phish was working. I was working. It really felt good.

Later on, these two guys stopped by and I got one of them to take a photo of me. I needed to document the desperation writing (see photo below).

The title, desperation days, is just what happens when you get deep into a book. Every moment becomes this precious thing, and you work all day and night, as much as you can, just moving toward the goal. The desire to write is so great that it's incredible. But you still want to live your life and have fun--maybe go to a concert or two. The mind makes things possible. I'm glad I got the idea to do both. Desperation days call for creative thinking.

The thing with desperation days is that you know they are happening. I even told Carol that I was in my desperation days. I said, "I absolutely have to finish this book before I go on the road." She seemed to understand. She was sitting maybe thirty feet in front of me. She liked to look back every so often. I just kept writing. It's the only way.

The Museums Are Like Libraries

It was Ilyse and Travis and I on this D.C. mission. Travis thought of this photo. I took it. We were outside the National Gallery of Art. I believe the Allen Ginsberg photography exhibit was gone at this point. It was almost closing time, but we still went inside and enjoyed the permanent collection for about thirty minutes.

Museums are like libraries for the fleeting fine art moments of time.

One Night in Princeton -- I Could Write Ten Pages About This

Travis and I went to the Shawangunk Mountains of New York for another training trip. The climbing was great. And driving by New York City was an exciting thing. We almost stopped on the way back. But Manhattan was a little out of the way, and we were fatigued from an all-day climbing session.

We went to Princeton instead. Princeton, New Jersey. It was right on the way. We got there around eleven o'clock on a Saturday night. We unpacked the folding bikes (Travis always keeps bikes in the car) and we set out to explore the campus.

It was a great night to see Princeton. College kids were walking around. I was going out of my mind overhearing conversations. We biked around, stopped to listen, rode up and down some cool ledges and ramps and hills, and at one point I said, "I could write ten pages about this night."

It's true. I really could. But not right now. We saw hemlock trees and heard the silly talk of young passersby. We finished the coffee we had and then got more coffee. We kept biking. The buildings were all lit up. All the old stone buildings and the lights reminded us of Loyola in Baltimore, another campus that was good for cruising.

One highlight for me was this moment that happened by this fountain. I had been mostly observing everything that was going on. My camera hand wasn't quite as active as it often is. Anyway, we were by this fountain when I got the idea for a photo. I told Travis to ride by slowly. I knew how to set my camera, and I got the shot on the first take. Here it is, a combination of the fountain lights and Travis on his bike and the Princeton night:

Training For Summer (And the Drums of Old Rag)

The days are really filling up. It's fantastic. I love it. So much to do. I won't use the four-letter B-word like so many people do (you know, B-U-S . . . ). That word gets overused and it often has a negative connotation. Everything is okay. Every week I'm awake for about 112 hours. That's so much time. It really is.

I only have a few months till I'll be on the road with Travis and Graham. I need to get ready. I have books to write before I leave. I have books to read too. There are climbing techniques to learn. We're going to Yosemite. And there will be many days of rock climbing. It's time to train and get in shape.

My mind is pretty tough--writing days and book days will do this to you. But sitting all day is not the best for the body. I've been riding my bike more. And I've been climbing more. It's the only way. The best way to train for something is to do that something that you're going to be doing.

Recently, I've been climbing a lot with Travis. We've been talking about big walls. Yosemite has many great big walls. We've been climbing locally and also going on weekend trips.

One weekend trip took us to Old Rag. Travis and I went with Hilary and Graham. We drove down on a Friday, camped, woke up, then climbed to the top of Old Rag. We went up and over and found the rock climbing area. Old Rag is great for hiking, but you can also climb there. Anyway, Travis and I got up on the rock. Hilary was reading. Graham went off to explore. Then I heard a banging. Graham had found a dead branch and was banging on a dead tree with it. I heard this and I saw this from up on the rock. I really enjoyed his drumming. It was really beautiful. "Graham, that's beautiful," I said.

"I'm just banging on a dead tree," said Graham. "I might be getting bored." I told him to keep drumming, but he could only do it for so long. Travis knew a cool place, a nearby ridge. And Graham went off to explore the ridge.

Travis and I kept climbing. It was nice being up on the rock. We could look down and see Hilary with her book. And we could look off and see Graham on the rocky ridge. The sun was out. The buzzards were flying nearby. Everything felt right. And I could still hear that great hollow wooden tune that Graham had been drumming with a big broken branch and a dread tree trunk that was lying on the mountainside.

Crazy Times At The Symphony

The plan was to write all day and then go to the symphony at night. The writing went well, and then it was evening, time to pause the writing and eat some food and then go outside for a walk. Then I got dressed. My writing clothes were too casual. I put on some nicer pants and a button-up shirt. As for shoes: my main dress shoes were my leather boat shoes, and they had become my indoor house shoes (for the winter). So I wasn't in the mood to take them outside.

I saw my old brown dress shoes and they spoke to me. They were dusty. They had been hanging out in the shoe holder on the back of my door. They were more than ten years old, but they were good shoes. They were the oldest shoes I had. But they still fit. I laced up my old brown shoes. It was time to go.

My mother and I drove to the symphony building, an old high school building in Annapolis, Maryland. We parked the car in the big parking lot and walked toward the building. My shoes felt more comfortable than I remembered, as if there was more cushioning or something.

When I got to the sidewalk by the old brick building, I noticed that a few little rocks had stuck to the bottoms of my shoes. When you're walking on a smooth hard surface, little things that are stuck to your soles tend to stand out. I heard the scraping, stopped, looked shoeward, and pulled off some of the little rocks. My mother saw me. I said, "I guess there's something sticky on here from a long time ago." You see, I hadn't worn the shoes in years.

We went inside, got some coffee, drank it, then got ready to go into the big room where the symphony was warming up. Like a good concertgoer, I made use of the bathroom before taking my seat. It was then I noticed the problem. The soles of my old shoes were falling apart. Little chunks of old rubber had broken off. I saw them on the bathroom floor. I locked myself in a stall and looked at my soles. They looked like shit, full of parking lot pebbles and dust and dirt, and also around they edges they were breaking. Little chunks of rubber broke off like little brown icebergs. Okay, I thought, I'll just have to walk carefully.

I walked as easy as I could. I tried not to bend my soles. This was hard. You bend your soles a lot when you walk. I walked slow and easy--a floating shuffle step. The area by the auditorium doors was all crowded. Good cover. I casually looked down. Little brown rubber chunks on the old granite floor. I smiled. It was funny. But I also felt a little self conscious. My big fear was that someone would see my shoes and the rubber chunks and call me out. I was not in a crowd of drunken rock and rollers. Classical music fans are usually pretty sharp. Did they see me? Did they notice? Was anyone following the bread crumbs my shoes were leaving?

Instead of the main isle, I took the side isle. I walked to my seat with cool confidence. It's the best way anyway. Once I was seated, I was safe. Of course I had to explain my old shoe breakdown blues to my mother. Luckily no one was sitting right next to us. I took off a shoe and showed her. They sole looked even worse, with big cracks and crevasses and jagged rubber edges.

The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra started playing. I tried to enjoy the music, but my mind was going wild about my old shoes. The shoes themselves provided some craziness, but there was also the walking. Challenges walking, walking blues. I felt trapped. I felt trapped in a crazy kind of way. When your shoes fall apart at the symphony, you can't really walk around in stocking feet. I looked down. I enjoyed the music, but it was impossible to turn off the flow of thoughts in my mind. The craziness had found me. I was in my own story. But what would happen?

The big work that night was the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor. I dug this piece, and the soloist was good, of course (you don't become a touring soloist unless you got it), but my mind kept going back to my shoes. I had taken my feet out of the shoes. My theory was that they heat from my feet was warming up the rubber and facilitating the breakdown.

I heard the music. I watched the musicians. All their shoes looked so good. All black and shinny under the bright lights above the stage. When the music got wild and crazy, it seemed to be soundtracking right along with my mind. A tightness was building in my bladder. I was contemplating one word at this point: intermission. I had to walk to the bathroom. And I had to wear my shoes. But my shoes were getting worse. My big fear was that the whole sole would just cleave off, and someone would notice and call me out. Because how do you hide from your shoes?

Intermission time came, and I took the less-traveled side isle (right by the auditorium wall), and only a few chunks fell. The floor of the auditorium was carpeted. I left a few chunks. Then I left a few more chunks in the hallways and the bathroom, where I checked my soles again. The crevasses were getting bigger. The broken off chunks were getting bigger too.

I slow-walked back to my seat. "It's getting pretty bad," I said to my mother. "Big pieces are falling off now." I decided to pick off the ones that were hanging on. They came off very easy. Some were as big as Matchbox cars. I put these chunks in my program and wrapped them up. Like I said, I was glad no one was sitting next to me. I was sitting near the end of a row, near the wall.

And when the gig was over, I walked out of there and I felt about one inch shorter. I dumped my sole debris in the garbage and walked out of the building without looking back. It was a big relief to be outside. More rocks than ever stuck to my soles in the old parking lot, but everything was fine. I had embraced the craziness of the night. And I was excited to write about it. And my mother and I were laughing about the incident. We talked about the music. Yes, yes, the music was great. The soloist really knew her Mendelssohn. But we kept going back to the shoes. And I was thinking about my footwear in a whole different way.

When I got home, I carefully put the old shoes back in the holder on the back of my door. I might not ever wear them again, but there was a crazy beauty to those shoes, and that was something that was worth saving.

The Adventure of the Snowy Night and the Buzzards

I knew the snow was coming, but for a while I wasn't paying attention. I was upstairs writing on my old Smith-Corona, working hard and writing in the groove. Then the power started to flicker. I knew the snowfall was for real. We lost it for a bit, but it came back. I turned out the lights and worked at the typewriter with just my headlamp. I wrote three wonderful pages. Then I played some guitar. It was around 11:00 at night. I came downstairs and everyone was going to bed. Some more guitar, jamming in the key of D. Then I looked at Marley--and I could see the big snowfall outside the front windows--so I knew it was time to go out. Normally, I would cringe at taking a long break from writing, but on this night I felt good; my cells were churning away with total splendor. And when things feel good, I've learned to keep moving forward. Thirty years on a planet will do something to you. Thirty-one will do more--so my point is not the exactness of the age, but rather the experience. If the wisdom is flowing, I blame my thoughts and the phone calls (to VA & CA & CO) & of course the lesson I learned from the Great Buzzard--but that is skipping ahead, and so I will pause, sip, think, and then write logically. I must also scrounge up a new page because this one is almost full. Yes, I wrote this thing with pen and paper, but we'll get to all that later.

So I geared up & Marley & I went out the front door. It was a dark night, but the world was white. About eight inches had fallen. My neighbor was shoveling and I saw him and talked with him for a few seconds. "Well, I'm going to go exploring," I said, & my words could not have been any truer. First, we ran up the sidewalk. The fresh snow felt great. Marley ran with big bouncing strides--into the night! Nowhere to go but forward. A playful mind comes easy in the snow. Feet can find the old forgotten joys. Up the street, snow on cars, streetlight glows, the Great Quiet of snow, a quiet I love--the stuff must really dampen sound. But the sky was clear--very nice out, 35ish for sure. 32 and up is heavenly.

Then we left our neighborhood & went running down the street. I decided to let Marley lead the way. Of course we followed our usual walk route, but Marley tended to go to the great powder path of the road. But I led him back to the sidewalk, and we ran on. I had to stop and ventilate, take off my gloves and unzip my jacket. Running in the snow felt great & for a few moments I had a great life vision--I've always been moving forward and going where my good steps take me. "This is most certainly a real life experience," I thought.

And down the road I saw my first plow truck. It looked like a monster. Then we walked down the hill. I saw two people. Marley saw them too but he didn't care. He had his p-mail to check and with all the snow his job was harder (the inbox will fill up). I followed the two guys down the hill. They went to meet three other guys who were shoveling in the road. All five guys were standing by this giant snow mound, like the kind of mound you see near parking lot peripheries in the winter. But this big 7-foot high mound was in the road. One guy had a snow-skate, a skateboard deck mounted on top of a snowboard-like bottom. In the pre-communication moments, my mind ran wild--I thought this kid was going to ramp off the mound and do something terrifyingly cool. But he just piddled down the hill toward the mound.

"That's some pile you got there," I said to the kid with the yellow jacket and the cigarette.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Hey is that a husky?" but he didn't even give me a chance to answer before he was off talking with his buddy.

"Oh, I see," I said. "It's a car."

A car had been stuck on the hill and in the road and these guys had covered the car with snow, which was probably a terrible idea--but they were young and perhaps they knew the owner.

Now that other people were involved, my night was getting weird. A car roared down the hill, threading the needle between the kids & the car/snow mountain. "Asshole," said one kid. The driver was going way too fast for the conditions. It was time to get off the road. I went a little farther down the hill, then off the road to the right.

I knew instantly what I had to do. Forget those silly boys, the buzzards are the thing to see. So I went down, just a little farther, until I was standing in the right place so I could see the place where all the buzzards had gathered. (I say buzzards, but you could also say vultures. They were turkey vultures.)

"This is where they live," I said to Marley. Bang! A snowplow clipped a curb. The birds didn't care. Marley sat down in the snow. I looked at him as he looked at the birds. He saw them. Words formed in my head & I wished I had a tape recorder: I saw the buzzards, thirty or forty buzzards resting in the treetops, creatures about the size of turkeys, dark birds silhouetted against snowy branches & a light-colored sky.

The birds were sleeping on treetops, branches, and on top of a nearby supermarket where the heat was surely welcome. Marley and I watched them for minutes. They were mostly still. But sometimes: a fluttering of wings, which sounded wonderful. If I had wings, I would flutter them all the time.

Then Marley began to growl. He was pointing to a dark spot in a bush top. I thought it was actually just a dirty old plastic bag. But no. It was the lone vulture, sleeping down low away from all the others. It was about 20 feet away, a big black bird with shaggy feathers. No need to look at the far away birds. Here was my subject, my teacher. This bird was the one. "Marley, be nice, no growl." Marley looked at me. "We must treat this animal with respect."

It was a big bird at the top of a not so big bush, bending the branch that it sat on. But it was a stable position. The bird seemed tired. He or she had just weathered an all-day rainstorm that had morphed into 8 inches of snow. It was deep in bird REM, so much so that I worried about it. "But if the bird was dead, it would surely fall," I thought. Birds live outside on much colder nights.

Soon the guys that were by the car/snow mound walked away. Marley & I continued down the street to the shopping center where more plow trucks were working hard, cashing in on the crop of snow. These plow drivers must know about coffee. They probably go all night and go all over trying to get as many plowing gigs as they can. The one guy was ramming forward, then speeding in reverse back across the parking lot to where he started so he could bite off another chunk. I guess it was easier than turning around. It's not often that you get to see a car doing 20 in reverse in a parking lot. It looked dangerous. But the driver was in control. The best part for them (besides the cash) was surely the ramming of the plow into the big pile at the end of the lot. People rarely get to ram their cars into stuff. Marley seemed like he was ready to walk back. And I was too.

So back we went. I of course had to stop again for silent council with the wise old buzzard. Marley did not growl. The bird was still there. I crouched down low so I could see this animal's beak silhouetted against a white backdrop. The bird rested smoothly like an ancient champion. I was thinking about evolution & and quote of my own that I should ask my friend about, when a plow truck came to the street corner where I was standing. The car/snow mountain was nearby, and so I acted. I flagged down the plow truck. They rolled down a window. "Hey, how's it going?" I asked.

"Good, how's it going?"

"I just wanted to tell you guys that there's a car in there." I pointed.

"What? Stop playin'," said the driver.

"No, he's right--I see the mirror," said the other man in the car.

"I wanted ya'll to know & I don't know what the right thing to do is. Maybe you could radio."

They weren't really sure either, and they drove off to make more money on the next gig. I checked for traffic & went to the snow-covered car. I put my right glove (which was the first one I grabbed) on my left hand & started uncovering the car. The moment I touched the car, a big blue flash filled the sky! Lightning, or perhaps a power outage. Then darkness, a flicker, and then the street lights were soon back. I went back to uncovering the car. It was a Chrysler. I made it so you could see the lights--reflective I hoped--in the front and back. It was no longer a beautiful snow pile waiting to get rammed--it was a dangerous obstacle & I knew that I had done the right thing. Shit, I might have even saved a life.

We walked home, walking around fallen limbs & being careful not to walk under sagging branches. Marley was still checking the smells & marking his territory with urine. A few cars drove by & I was reminded of the lonely beauty of the road late at night.

Then in our neighborhood, I saw a big truck stuck in the snow at the top of the street. The guy got out. I went over. He had a plan & a shovel, but I noticed him looking at me in a bit of a weird way. Yes, it was almost one a.m., but lots of people were out on this starry night.

And as I walked off, I realized it was the glove, the black glove on my left hand. Being a righty glove, the glove's thumb faced out, not in, and it looked as though I had a horribly misshapen hand. Oh well. I had work to do.

I went inside. Got a seat, paper, pen, blanket, cup, & my emergency Chivas. I knocked the snow off the crape myrtle branches (always good to ease the burden), leashed Marley to the tree, made a fine snow/scotch drink. And then I sat there on the front steps for an hour or so & wrote this story with warm hands, cold feet, and the sound of dripping snow water with also the sporadic clashing blasts of distant snow plows bashing into curbs and concrete.

And now I will take these cold handwritten pages & finish my drink . . . . ah . . . . cold drinks stay cold a long time outside on winter nights, & I will take Marley, who's all balled up in his Husky Glory, and we will go inside and enjoy the easy warmth of home.

[Note to the reader: As you know, I wrote this whole thing by hand that night, with my headlamp of course. It's nice to look back on these pages because you can see how I was writing faster and messier as the night went on. I was getting tired and I didn't want to stay outside all night. But I had to write the whole thing and get to the end. And I knew right away that this would be a nice thing to put up on the blog, but I wanted to keep it as I wrote it. So now, as I re-typed these pages, I only changed typos and major errors. I resisted the urge to add or edit. This piece is how I wrote it that night, with all those &s (something I often do to save time when I'm journaling or writing by hand). Thanks to the lone buzzard, and thanks for reading, Jeff]