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The NEW 52 – It’s like Area 51 but with a 2 instead.

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Which means it’s probably full of interesting military tech and has an awful lot of misinformation floating around about it – so not much unless you really like aviation history, and things like the A-12 Oxcart or the SR-71 Blackbird. Both fantastical pieces of machinery, but not aliens though – sadly.

So what’s on the horizon for today you might ask? More snow shoveling to be precise. Not much, only three inches or so. A quick glide over the property and that’ll be sorted out without issue. However, the bigger issue is storage of all this gods be damned snow. I have banks of it three, almost four feet tall. The space between our drive way and our neighbours is perilously close to full. We’ve both had to give up a couple of feet of driveway itself, to be able to hold the stuff. Our drive which could usually hold four large vehicles without concern would be down to three, and the third would need to be a sedan or smaller. Once you’ve gone skiing, and snowshoeing and tobogganing and skating, and maybe snowmobiling, the draw of the snow diminishes greatly by every single passing day. Plus the cold makes me itch, and I generally hate being house bound 24/7. The wind/air here hurts the face – intentionally. BAH!

Closing out the busiest work week I’ve had in a while, so I look forward to cuddling up with a book, or perhaps being able to dabble in some creative writing. Slow week on that front I’m afraid. The paid work takes precedence over the hobby stuff. Gotta keep the internet flowing somehow!

Speaking of internet, are you guys watching The Book of Boba Fett at all? The last two episodes were weird. Like surely this could have been saved for Mandolorian Season Three, right? Not that I don’t love Grogu and Mando mind you. Just seems out of place, or a weird tie in, and Ashoka & Luke too. I know we’re about to head into SpinOff madness but that seems ill conceived. But if you’ve read my writing you know I’m not one who should complain about the state of someone else’s writing – Ha!

“Ma’am, we have a serious problem…”

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Says the tall solid woman dressed in blue medical scrubs. Her hair pulled taut in a messy ponytail. Wisps of her dark Auburn hair stuck to her face where she had obviously been sweating. “What seems to be the issue Dr?”  Replies the very short and severe looking commanding officer of the Righteous Chord. “It’s the fire teams ma’am, their stasis is being constantly interrupted by something, we don’t know what though.” The doctor responds in a dry rasp. “Are the sleeved soldiers affected aswell, or just the walking tank crews and fire teams?” The CO asks after a brief pause to wipe her nose with a handkerchief. “It’s isolated to just the fire teams and tankers ma’am. At least our last seventeen diagnostic scans tell us so.” The doctor is quite weary, trying to stand at attention, but also leaning heavily against the bulk head of the vessels main thoroughfare. She is wrestling with fatigue and slowly succumbing to it. “Have a seat Ms?” Replies the CO. “It’s doctor Tam, ma’am. We are stumped. And it’s only getting worse the longer we leave it.” She is really frazzled now, fingers cradling her temples, and knees about to buckle. From out of sight a folding chair is offered by one of the CO’s retinue. CO Austenmire looks down and taps a few commands into her wrist communicator and glances toward the free standing chair to the seated dr Tam. “Can you be ready for a debrief with the weapons teams and the other attending medical personnel? Let’s say ninety minutes from now. Go eat, shower and prep for a grilling from command.” Barks commanding officer Austenmire.

Her retinue break away suddenly to start talking into ear pieces and wall mounted comm’s terminals setting up the meeting among the higher ranking members onboard. The usually bustling ship is vacant with the large fighting force locked away in their stasis sleeves for the months long journey out to UB313. The echoing of the retinues chatter is freely bouncing down the central corridor of the vessel. No other noise is present to cancel it out. The majority of the ship is unused, and only the bare minimum of running lights are turned on. In the dimness of the hall the exterior field of stars is easy to see.

After a few deep breaths dr Tam pulls her hands from her face and notices she is alone in the halls, the CO and her entourage left soundlessly. The only hint she didn’t hallucinate the whole encounter is a flashing meeting notification from CO Austenmire and a quickly counting down timer which reads eighty one minutes and forty two seconds until she needs to report to the engineering sector on decks eight through twelve. Not being mechanically inclined the good doctor has never ventured down that far into the belly of the ship before.

The doors whirl open with a soft swishing noise and a slight jingle as dr Tam passes over the threshold. No guards are stationed out front by the doors, and inside is a bustling hive of activity. The temperature inside the debriefing room is about fifteen degrees warmer than the hallway. Inside the large room is a faux wooden table about thirty paces long and about ten wide. The back of the room is a floor to ceiling window that over looks the ship yard dry docks, and the storage mezzanine where the walking tanks are usually stored and repaired. Twenty meters below the mechanics are pushing their maglev tool boxes around the hull of the drop ships and scout vessels, while there are clusters of apron clad armorers working diligently at their work benches. The vision is soundless through the two foot thick concrete glass window pane. Built to take explosive decompression from a failed hanger door in the dry docks, or various types of explosions from all the artillery stored in the caches. Inside the room is a constant stream of buzzing, pings, printers and muffled intermingled conversations.

A side door opens a few moments later and the room goes silent. In walks commanding officer Austenmire followed by Admiral Mark Garneau. The wiry gray admiral looks like he used to be a very imposing man in his younger says. He carries himself with the bearing of a man who knows his own importance. A large man with a charcoal gray moustache is the last to enter the room. He sits down to the right of the admiral, and opposite CO Austenmire. The three look drawn and unhappy. The tension in the room is palpable. With a flick of her wrist CO Austenmire dims the lights with a wave and calls the debriefing to order. “We’ve been given to understand that their are several serious issues with our tankers and fire teams stasis in transport. I call on the good doctor Tam to lead us through what we know, and what we are going to do about it.” With a snap of collars and heads turned in unison the room full of superior officers and unit commanders all look directly at doctor Tam. With her palms pressed against the table top, she forces herself to stand. The warmth of the room and the glare from those present bring her thoughts into focus. Stepping away from her chair she walks to the side of the room with the view screen on it, and picks up a clicker and laser pointer. “Ok, so do we need a primer on the logistics surrounding stasis, or can I dive right in?” She says while looking around the room. CO Austenmire interjects ” We’re all as clear as we need to be on the standard stasis sleeves doctor Tam. Our issue, and yours concerns the specialized fire teams that are a key component of our upcoming mission. Without them we will be at a serious disadvantage. So – if you will, proceed.” Her remarks are sharp and concise. Dr Tam clicks through her deck to the suitable page. “Right. So – the issue is, our tankers are having their stasis interrupted for longer and longer intervals, and at an increasing number of instances. They are essentially experiencing waking paralyzed nightmares and migraines of increasing strength. At the current rate they will likely not be able to fight, nor maintain any kind of grip on reality to be of any use. As they are being driven mad by a long and pervasive bout of straight out torture. And there’s little we can do about it at the moment. I’ll take questions in a moment. Please. Yes – we have tried to decant four members from each task force, both the fire team and the walking tank crew, to no avail. We can’t seem to wake them up. At all. Not with chemicals, not with stimulation, not even with the electrodes buried in their brains. We’ve attempted a reprogrammed Morning Rays Protocol and nothing is working. So – Now I’ll open the floor to suggestion.” The room erupts into chaos.

Part Eighteen: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

How do you solve a problem like 51?

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But not centimeters of snow! Thankfully. We did not get the one foot of snow that was potentially forecasted, although more snow is coming later on today. My back thanks you! Four inches is manageable every couple of hours.

Speaking of puns, I added at least one visual pun into my latest report. Made me laugh, I wonder if anyone else will clue in to it. Fun tip, having worked so hard Monday through Wednesday, plus some light work this previous weekend I now get to enjoy a lighter day – Go Me! Much appreciated by my brain, wrists and sense of musical whimsy. I did bust out some music yesterday as I was nearing the end of laying out my first draft.

It’s funny as a kid, youth, teen, early twenties I could not work in silence, I had to have music on, but after working for many years in open office spaces, I’ve come to love working quietly. I can on occasion, if I don’t have to pay attention to critical elements, listen to loud music and sing along as I work. Mainly doing pie charts, and bar graphs, and scatter graphs though. Not the table portion. A mixture of Motorhead, The Beatles and The Blue Stones, followed up by Wolfmother and Status Quo. That’s my go to musical line up these days. Hood and loud too. Which is fine because I work from home, and don’t live on top of my neighbours. I guess I’d have to invest in some seriously high quality head phones if I ever go back to working on site when Freelancing, or go back to an in-house design position. I like the zero commute time too much though. Chasing dollar bills has always ended badly for me. I guess if the work/industry is amazing I could potentially do it again. But coming from large market alcoholic beverages with massive start of the year marketing meetings with air travel, fancy hotels, meetings in swanky spaces, free drinks, great food, famous guest speakers and late night parties for days on end, you’d be hard pressed to improve on the type of perks I’ve known over 16 years affiliated with that industry. Work hard and play even harder was a common refrain amongst the C-Suite types.

Yeah – so. Still writing a bit every single day, and haven’t forgotten about my short story series. I’m working through some character moments in my head before I write out anything. I am trying to get these last six or so chapters to land properly. Going to require some footwork on my end. I’ll keep you posted.

50! – We Reached 50 Days and all you got was tinnitus.

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EÈEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE – isn’t that delightful. Is your inner ear issue accented or other? Muah- muah. Now that’s cleared up.

Big fifty day milestone. I feel like this is a sort of AA meeting. Hello my name is… and I have been writing for fifty days – small smattering of applause. Not that big a deal, but I’m kind of happy I’ve stuck with it.

In happy news, I will have the first polished draft of my report done today, just shy of 100 pages. It’s a hefty document, looks lovely. Three days of real work, plus a Sat/Sun combo of a couple hours of front end work. Not to mention I did a fair amount of leg work well before I had any of the data sets. Things like building out my templates, and setting up colour palettes in various programs, and gathering the specified font families. Not hard work, but time consuming. I’d much rather have that tucked away so i can start the heavy lifting, than wait until the raw data comes in and then have to do all that stuff before i can really begin. I’m lazy, i want as few obstacles in the way so that i can complete a task. Set my foundation, then come in like a nutter and tear through the work as quickly as i am able. I also proof my pages as i go, since there are so many colour coded tables.

So big 50! Wow – what can I say, glad to be here. Happy some of you have chosen to follow along. Today’s big to-do is about three movies i recently watched. Some good, some moderate, and some heavy cheese (a.k.a Fromage) if you’re of the Much Music & Ed The Sock era like I am.

First up was “Nobody”, an action packed mix of John Wick & The Equalizer, with some snappy banter and blood soaked fighting. I liked it a lot. Big fan of John Wick franchise too. This was my favourite of the three films I saw over the Christmas holidays, which I had never seen before. I should also mention, these were all watched at home, not in a proper theater, with candy, drinks and massive screen and sound. Could have played a part in why movies two and three didn’t land so well. They were far more spectacle based. If you like watching men in their fifties fight, shoot and drink their way through trouble then Nobody is great.

Second up was Venom: Let there be Carnage. Followed in the first ones footsteps, fun, goofy and kind of silly. I liked it, but if I’m going to rewatch a Spider-man adjacent film, I’d watch into the spider verse for a fifteenth time. That was great, in 3d imax and on my home screen. Tom Hardy is great, Venom is funny. Carnage has a size issue, he’s a touch too big for my recollection. But I like Woody Harrelson, so I can see past that. It does show as a $70 million movie and not a Marvel tent pole at $150 million dollar movie. But the small focus is kinda nice. Not world saving, but a select few people. Lower stakes to deal with.

Third, and what I found to be disappointing was Suicide Squad 2. Lots of body horror, which I wasn’t expecting. Plus I kind of hate Peace Keeper. Maybe he’s funnier and more congenial in the prequel tv show he’s now got, but he didn’t do it for me. Harley felt like an afterthought, and most people weren’t compelling. However, Polka Dot man was unexpectedly great. You get a sense of the guy, and feel for him and his interdimensional polka dot disease. King shark was a lazy groot knock off. Didn’t add much to the plot. And why are so many DC characters essentially just a rebrand dead shot, or whomever Will Smith was in the first one. Idris Elba felt wasted. I think the issue was I heard so much hype around it I had unreasonable expectations for it. It only landed at my feet with a damp thud. Sploot.

The first ground hogs say early spring! But you never can tell. Have some more snow on the way today. Another foot to the pile. I’ll have to rest up as it’ll really give my back a once over if it’s wet and heavy!

Melty Brain & Eye Strain.

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Fought hard against the report today, went deep into the trenches and was bested by it. Dry eyes and a melting brain. Hard to think straight. Sore left eyeball for my troubles. Thought I could possibly complete the robust beast today, but no such luck. On the upside I have only 60% of what I should have had to do tomorrow left to complete. Perhaps trying for that extra 40% was just too much. But why put off until to tomorrow that which you can do today? Well – eye strain and melty brain for starters actually. Twenty pages was a solid goal, going over was silly. No chance I was going to pull off the full last forty in one six hour uninterrupted day. A+ for effort though.

Know your limits and play within them! Or else try not to melt your brain by doing too much with it all at once like a fool.

Tomorrow marks day 50! Do I have something fun to say? Any new pertinent information to share? A rant to glide into, or perhaps a movie review? Who knows, you’ll just have to wait and see.

Good morning, good afternoon and good night.

It’s February 1st : An exploration of Day 49.

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Almost to fifty, if you can believe that. This wasn’t so much a new years resolution as an attempt to grind out some time in my schedule to do any sort of writing I could on a consistent basis. And on a couple of select days that has prompted me to write new and interesting materials. It’s not all Pulitzer worthy text, which I am aware, but genre-esque space science fiction fun. Easy reading if you will. My question now is, how long do I keep the streak running for? Until I finish book two? Most likely yes. Then I might take a break. Or, after I complete the last six or seven more chapters I’ll switch gears and write a few more autobiographical one off’s to pad the page count a bit. Make it feel like the 99 cents through Kindle is worth it! Ha.

Or I’ll feel like painting or sculpting or it’ll get warm enough to do some wood working. I find it unpleasant to handle chisels in sub zero temperatures. If it’s around zero or above i can make it work.

Had a solid work day yesterday, and today is shaping up to be a good one too. Invoices out means paid invoices coming back in, in the near future. Just resting my wrist for a shake while I quickly clack this out on my phone via thumbs. Have to make the effort to get up and walk around. Shake out those shoulders and legs. Get limber! Stay healthy out there people!

Day 48, and it’s going to be a busy one.

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Lots to do, lots to do today. Also have to get my eye sight checked today. Fingers are crossed that I still don’t need real prescription glasses. Trying to hold off, as once I give in my eyes will deteriorate more rapidly in my middle age. Paid work is still rolling in, which is fantastic, so good there for now. Big – big job I’m working through now. If I can get a good chunk out of it today, like I did on Saturday and Sunday then I will be able to sleep better knowing I am making progress on it. Still have thirty odd pages to go of the raw data to assemble. My wrists will sing come Friday!

Might need to be a little less present in writing my connected short story series this week. But who knows. I have to take breaks to eat and move, so maybe I’ll get a sense of some story beats I just have to get down on paper.

All the best on this, the last day of January. Just think, you’ll never have to do this day again!

Sunday – Sunday, and other musical madness.

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You guessed correctly, today is Tuesday! But in all seriousness it is Sunday January 30th of the year 2022. This is day 47 of my writing every day campaign and I have thus far written seventeen new chapters this year. A fair few of them are under a thousand words, and on occasion I have written a little over that threshold. I have found that to be manageable. Writing some of the three thousand word or longer chapters in book one melted my brain for the day, so I’m trying not to do that. Or if I feel that’s how a scenario is going to play out I’ll break the writing up over two days to save my brain some trouble. Although if I’m in the groove and it all comes pouring out I might just have to go with it, and save my once over after review for the second day.

I’m currently reading the ninth and final book of a series and I am at once both eager to read it, and sad it’ll all be over once I’m done. I could go back and read it from the start, but I want to read new stuff, not constantly go back to my comfort materials. I’m starting to feel the same way about my painting and sculpting. I definitely feel the draw to recreate characters I’ve done before, but then I also really want to try other things out as well. Case in point; do I try yet another Ninja Turtle or give Killer Croc a go, because I’ve never tried sculpting him before. Do I upgrade my Hellboy bust or try a full figure space man instead. I lean towards static busts, but a dynamically posed full figure of a person would be really good practice. I haven’t tackled hands or feet in a long time.

I also have to wonder whether my use of silly titles plays into how widely seen these blog posts get some days. Now “widely seen” is doing some seriously back breaking lifting here. Widely in the sense of what I write is around twenty five people, so do with that information what you will.

Could be a busy week, but it should be a good one. Kids are off for a PA Day on Friday, short week! Enjoy your weekend!

“So I pull out both of my guns and I start blastin’…”

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Rumbles the wiry looking armorer named Piotr, as he makes finger guns and swings both his arms around in what he believes to be a cinematic manner. The huddle of onlookers rapt with attention. “No you fucking didn’t.” Barks Brian, the wispy armorer in his custom worn leather apron draped with tools and wiping off his hands on an oil soaked rag standing at his work bench opposite Piotr. “How the fuck would you know – Bri-Yen! You weren’t there.” Snarls Piotr defensively at having his epic story telling moment interrupted and questioned in front of the gathered crowd. “Two reasons Ole P. One, up until recently absolutely no one could get a gun, of any make or model. And two – we went through Torus Station academy together and you’re a terrible shot at anything that isn’t constrained directly within the palm of your hands. So give it a rest, would you.” Smirks Brian, as the gathered group of men and women surrounding Piotr break off from the scrum and slowly meander back to their work stations in clusters of two or three. The armorers work benches are gathered together in a bull pen at the back of the machine shop. Out of the way of the mechanics busily upgrading the drop ships, and retro fitting the newest gun ships with the new tech the armorers are building. The majority of the crew aboard the Righteous Chord are entombed in their stasis sleeves, or their personal walking tanks in preparation for the coming battle. With roughly nine weeks of travel time the gun Smiths and armorers have lots to do, and a finite amount of time to do it in. Only the mechanics and the armorers are up and awake so that they can utilize all of the available shop time, and dedicate themselves to the job at hand. Tasked with building and maintaining the weaponry for the first military offensive in centuries. There is a tension in the air for the as of yet untested fighting force. Slowly turning back to his bench Piotr picks up a syringe full of nanobots and a series of hex keys. “Hey man, we all know my stories are shit. I’m just trying to keep morale up, you know. We’re all pulled so taut right now. I just wanted a chance to get Magdalena close by, you get me bruv?” Exclaims Piotr. Looking across their adjoining work benches Brain gives him a half smile with a wave off. “Oh like Magda would ever have anything to do with you bud. Ha. No chance!” He laughs in a staccato burst. “You should talk there buddy boy. I know how sweet on Mimi you are. That mountain of a lady eh? Trying to die by Snu-Snu?” He barks in a raspy laugh. “Oh hey – shush, keep it down. I could get in real trouble if the lieutenant finds out about our fraternization.” Brian waves his hands in a hush it motion, palms pushing down towards the floor. The two go silent for a moment. They both readjust their data screens which hang on swing arms with tilting action. Readjust their magnification light rigs and reread their job sheets for the fiftieth time. Going down their respective checklists as they upgrade various pieces of weaponry with the neural link nanotech. The upgrade will give the fire teams several fractions of a second boost when aiming and choosing targets in a swarm. It’s a process heavy upgrade, but well worth it against the strangeness of what could be waiting for them at UB313.

“Have you heard the news? The admiral won’t pull any of our moles out of UB313 prior to the offensive. He’s just going to hang them out to dry. Poor fuckers” whistles Piotr barely above a whisper. Looking up from his bench Brian says. “Did you hear their last reports? It’s loopy, abso-fucken-lutely ape shit. Seems the good doctor has been cooking up some kind of engineered super soldiers from extra body parts or some shit. Sounds like a fun guy to work for.” He snorts, his face flushed. “Well he’s most likely responsible for a lot of the missing passenger ships, and long haulers that disappear out at the far reaches. Wouldn’t put it past him to have sewn a few folks together and brain washed or tortured them into wanting to die while fighting. Yeesh. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about that Dr. Mengele bull shit. Fucking Psycho nutter.” Brian stops short, turns his eyes to his bench for a moment, as a small group of mechanics walk into view pushing wheeled carts and passing along soundlessly behind them. The squeal of a squeaky wheel a dead give away that they were approaching. The noise now slowly receding into the distance. The two bench mates are fairly well attuned to hiding their illicit conversations behind hammer blows and other machine shop sounds. Never can be too sure who in The Company might be listening in. Not that two mid tier armorers would warrant too deep an investigation, it’s best to not poke the bear as it were. Taking a few breaths inbetween bursts of conversation the two men’s hands glide over their work. Updating algorithmic packets to rifle scopes and targeting nodes on the triple action short burst carbines. Wiping away squeeze out from oil and grease spigots the two work tirelessly on the nanotech upgrades. Over the PA system garbled messages pass back and forth between departments, and the six shifters get notifications for a call to rest. Brian and Piotr are not ghost crew, and are instead working triples daily until they arrive into Charon’s orbit in a few more weeks. Hammer blows and welding spatter are followed intermittently by a smattering of discussion.

The bull pen where the armorers work is a bustling u shaped congregation of work benches, magnetically levitating tool boxes, and portable metal work stations and racks. Though the mechanics are all dressed in red, the armorers are not so uniform in their dress. A fairly recent addition to both the Torus Station academy as a viable path of study, and to the duty roster on any sizable vessel in The Company’s employ. They hadn’t had the chance yet to vote on a specific colour coded jumpsuit, so they wore whatever colour they used prior to switching into the valet come squire roles they occupied now. Not all of them wore aprons or tool belts. Even the oil stained hands wouldn’t set them apart from the mill wrights or the mechanics onboard. If they felt the need for legitimacy as a singular entity rather than an offshoot of some other department then they’d have to press HR for a chance to gather a vote or undergo some heavy negotiations with the higher ups. In a time of impending strife, nobody had time for that.

Much like the mechanics and most of the other trades people the armorers lived in pods within five hundred meters of where they worked, and were a tightly knit family, as far as working together was concerned.

After the third shift change bell finished tolling the bulk of the armorers broke away from their benches and made their way back to the dormitories. Another day down, with six hours to rest, and then another forty nine days left to go. The lull of a steady stream of work kept many of them too tired to think all that hard about the impending carnage. They knew for certain that they had a technological advantage, but unlike the frozen in stasis sleep soldiers, the fear of the unknown was eating at them around the edges of their subconscious.

Entering through the environmental control doors into the cool air of the common room, some went straight to the showers to clean off, while others sat in their couches and keyed in their meal options for dinner. The large red clock was slowly counting down the six hours they had inbetween triples, so it’ll be another fast meal and quiet night aboard the Righteous Chord for both Brian and Piotr.

Part Seventeen: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

The last frigid Saturday of January 2022.

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We are all nearly one full month into the year now. Heading into an equally cold February, but with paid work on the docket, and a healthy family – thus far.  Had a morning with cartoons and helping to dress the kids dolls in new clothes. Attempting to trouble shoot a doll whose eyes no longer open when it sits up, and making everyone scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Doing a lots of nothing, looking at memes and thinking about how to approach some new work that came in yesterday afternoon. I have all the ground work laid out, templates, tables and colour palette, and a new design based off of their supplied brand style guide. It’s going to be a real looker when done. I just need to give it a good think so that I reads properly and I don’t have to adjust it a tonne later on. Think it through now, will save a lot on revisions later. Is my thinking anyway. Doesn’t always play out as planned, but I think I can do a little extra on this one.

As a freelancer I work as the projects come in, so my days vary wildly in regards to how busy I am. When it rains it pours, and then I get streaks of quiet time in between. Allows me to do alot with my kids that I wouldn’t have been able to do in prior roles. All the better for me!

Come on springtime sunshine, green grass, warmth, and flowers.