Are you Fearless?

On Friday night, Garrett and I met some friends from our ultimate team for dinner and a movie. We went to see the movie called 'Fearless' with Jet Li. This is supposedly Jet Li's last martial arts movie, so we were definately interested to see it. I've enjoyed most of Jet Li's other movies, and I usually like martial arts movies. So off we went to see the show.

First, though, we had dinner at Milestones, where it took forever for us to get a table. Surprisingly, this wasn't due to the staff, although later our wait probably was, when we waited for our meals. This was because they only had a few tables and lots of booths, and five people need a table not a booth. Combine that with a group of people at our future table who ate their dessert VERY slowly and you get our half an hour wait.

Finally, we sat down and ordered appetizers right away, because we were all starving. Luckily, they came quickly, and good thing too, because our meals too eons to get there. I would have wasted away if I hadn't nibbled on the spinach dip. Our meals came with much fanfare (provided by us and our hungry stomachs) and we chowed down before heading out for our movie. At least we didn't have to spend a ton of cash on movie theatre food - we were all still full from our belated dinner!

The movie was pretty good, although it was a little more bloody than I usually like martial arts movies. It wasn't as fantastical as some (ie. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - floating and flying through the air) but it still had some really neat scenes and good visual effects and cinematography. Garrett really liked the movie and he gave it two thumbs up. I'd say it's a renter, but sometimes it's better to see the action on a big screen.

Cat Attack!

Today, when I got home from school, I let Pumpkin outside to play. I was outside for a bit taking care of my planters and she followed me around a bit, climbing some trees here and there. At one point, she climbed up too far and was sort of stuck. I was coaxing her down when she just decided to go for it and jumped down about 6 feet. She was OK! She was off and running again.

I decided she was fine and went inside to turn on the news. Next thing I notice is Pumpkin on the floor beside me - with a BIRD!! That's right, my little kitty caught her very first creature - a little grey birdie. Luckily, it was already dead. Not so luckily, it was INSIDE my house and Pumpkin immediately started playing with it. Now, I was very proud of her for actually catching something, but I did not want the bird and its feathers in my house. I grabbed a paper towel and the cat (with the bird in her mouth) and carried them promptly upstairs and out the door. Pumpkin then proceeded to play with the bird for the next 20 minutes. She had a ball of a time, throwing the bird into the air and pouncing on it, batting it around, biting it and carrying it around. Probably one of the funniest moments I had while watching her, was seeing her get a mouth full of feathers that she couldn't really get out - the feathers were stuck to her wet mouth. He he, silly cat.

She's inside now. The bird is still outside. I'm hoping it will be gone by the time I leave for school tomorrow.

Je Dodge Bien

Tonight my dodgeball team had their first game. My friend Trevor and I formed this team and joined the semi-competitive Edmonton dodgeball league. At 9pm tonight, we met up at a nearby elementary gymasium to venture into the world of dodgeball.

The concept of dodgeball is simple, although the rules can be complex while you learn them. Basically, don't get hit by the ball and try to hit other people with the ball. Seems basic enough. Then you add important rules like "Don't hit people in the head" and "No bad sportsmanship". Next, you throw tricky ones in like "The ball is dead as soon as it hits any other object, including the wall, ceiling, floor or another person" and "If you catch a thrown ball before it hits the ground, the person who threw it is out, and you can bring a player from off the bench". There are more rules, but I've mentioned the main ones. This last rule, notable, can really turn the tide of the game. For example, say you have 2 people on each team left on the court. Team A throws a ball and Team B catches it. Team A loses a person, and Team B regains a person. There are now 3 on 1. See? Tricky!

Tonight was a lot of fun, although we all soon realized it was a lot more work out there on the court than we had anticipated. I was breathing hard within seconds. There are a lot of moving objects to keep track of - flying balls, running people - as well as you need to find balls rolling around to throw back at the other team. Luckily, we have lots of subs on our team, so we switched up quite often to give ourselves a break.

I'll try to take some pictures sometime, although I'm worried about having a camera in a small enclosed area where numerous balls are flying around. We'll see.

Oh yea, our team name is the title of my post. We have several people on our team from Quebec, so we thought it would be fun to incorporate that into the team name, while still bastardizing the french language. Hey, it's funny. "I dodge good." (P.S. 'dodge' isn't actually a french word. I think that makes it even funnier)

Worst Tim Horton's ever

I'm sad to declare, but I think the worst Tim Horton's is in Gibsons.

The main reason is because they hire incompetent people.

Mom and I went there for lunch today. Mom had a Wendy's burger, but I was going to order her a french vanilla cappucino from Tim Horton's, along with my sandwich combo. Before I had even been helped at the front counter, Mom already had her food. This is not because there was a line. Oh no, it just took forever for someone to walk over to the til and take my order. Once they got there, 'Bob - In Training' was unable to put my order in the til, because he was 'In Training' and didn't know how. So 'Timmy' came over and finally entered my order, then slowly proceeded to make my drinks and get my donut.

I figured since I waited so long for my drinks, my sandwich would be just about done. Silly me. No such luck. In fact, as I walked over to the sandwich area, I proceeded to watch for another several minutes 'Sally - In Training' and 'Julio - In Training' argue about making the sandwiches. 'Sally' then yelled at 'Doug - In Training' to come and make the sandwiches because 'Julio' didn't know how and she didn't want to teach him. Eventually 'Doug' came over and slowly prepared to make the sandwiches, while 'Sally' spent the next period of time organizing bacon on wax paper. Why? I have no idea. There was no bacon on my sandwich.

While 'Doug' slowly made my sandwich (as well as those for the lineup of people now behind me), I watched in amazement as 'Julio' spent the entire time trying to shove his hand into a latex glove. Sweaty hands do not go into a latex glove easily (trust me, I wear them all the time in the lab). Seriously, dry your hands and start with a new one. Shouldn't he be working? Oh wait, they don't work at this place, I forgot. And why is everyone 'In Training'? Where are the 'Trained' people?

Finally my sandwich saga was over and I huffed out to Mom to tell her how incredibly moronic everyone at Tim Horton's was. She was wondering what was taking me so long.

However, our story doesn't end here.

Mom drank a few sips of her french vanilla before asking me 'Does this taste right to you?'
One sip and I knew. 'NO!! This is the worst tasting drink I've ever had.'
I went back in and told them there was something wrong with my drink and I wanted a new one. They obliged. I brought it back out to Mom - same problem. Disgusting.

Back in we went, and chanced upon the assistant manager, who actually seemed to have a clue. He smelled the drink and could tell right away that there was a problem. He checked the machine and told us that it was down and he couldn't give us another french vanilla, because something was wrong with all of it. I wondered whether no one else had noticed the problem with the drinks? Were the other customers drinking it? Ew!

Instead, Mom and I got a caramel toffee cappucino. As we headed to the van, we sipped this one and - you guessed it - it was off as well. We dumped it in the garbage and left. That was enough of that!

So, if you plan to go to the Gibsons Tim Hortons, be patient (it is NOT fast food), be cautious (make sure your food isn't bad before you eat it) and be lenient (of the imbeciles employed therein).

The new Hallmark Cards

After the conference, Mom, Dad and I headed back to Gibsons. While there, Mom and I took some pictures of her newly (well, new to me, but a few months old for Mom) renovated store. Here are the pictures for the family abroad!

Hallmark in its new location, looking towards it from the front of the mall:Up close. There's Mom!And the inside view:Looks good, doesn't it? I was very impressed with it. It looks great inside and just feels very comfortable, in terms of shopping and finding what you need.

Time to present

The last day of the conference, the last session and the second to last oral presentation. That was me. That was when I was presenting. I was the second to last presentation of the entire conference. So I had that much more time to prepare (and be anxious) for my talk. However, I didn't feel that nervous until during my session, as I waited through the other talks leading up to mine. My talk went quite well, especially because the four talks before mine were so dull that the audience was basically sound asleep. I was able to wake people up, mainly because I spoke clearly and made a good presentation.

Mom and Dad both came out to see my presentation. It was really nice to have their support. Troopers that they are, they sat through the entire session of talks in anticipation of mine. Here is Dad and I before the talk, in the poster room:This is us again, in the conference room where I was going to present.Here is my title slide:And me getting set up with the microphone at the beginning of my talk.Lastly, this is me at the end of my talk, as I answered questions from the floor:I had a lot of interest generated by my talk, and several scientists complimented me on my talk, which was really encouraging and makes me excited to continue my research.

Casino

Monday at the conference was a grueling 17 hours of science. We started at 8:30am, and had sessions up until 10:00 at night, followed by a 2 hour poster session. I skipped out briefly to meet Andi for dinner for her birthday - Happy Birthday Andi! Then I dutifully went back and continued to attend the talks. The poster session was a little better, because we had free drink tickets and I met some of the other grad students attending.
Tuesday was a little better because there were only sessions in the morning, while the afternoon was given to us as free time, or you could go on an organized boat tour of the Vancouver harbour. Seeing as I grew up around Vancouver, I didn't feel the need to see it all again on a boat, so instead, Mom came out to visit me and stay the night. I met her around noon and we went to the shopping mall nearby to have lunch at Whitespot. Yum! I miss Whitespot when I'm in Edmonton. They just don't make it the same out there. We shopped for a bit, but got a little bored of it, so we loaded up and drove out to the casino. We diddled around for awhile, playing some slot machines here and there. Finally, I decided to go try to chase a little old lady off one of the machines I liked (I didn't really, she was already gone by the time I got to her), and just as I'd walked away from Mom for a few seconds, she started calling me back in her excited 'I've won something!' voice. She won 200$!! Not bad hey?! Too bad she could only win once I walked away - turns out luck isn't passed on as a genetic trait.
After the casino, we drove out to meet Kyle for dinner. We saw his place - a nice big house, perhaps a little messy but what can you expect with 3 boys. We went to Red Robin's for dinner, where we had a delicious meal. Mom took a picture of Kyle and I after dinner:We dropped Kyle off at home and then headed back to our hotel, where we mostly relaxed for the evening, watched some tv and then went to bed.

Goodbye Island, for some time

On Sunday, we visited some more with Grandpa Zimm and Eileen before we headed back to Nanaimo to catch the ferry.Once back in Vancouver, Kyle drove me out to my hotel for my conference, where I checked in and dropped my stuff off in my room. We then had dinner together in the little pub in the hotel, before he headed back to his place and I headed to the conference. There was a session starting Sunday night already, so I duly went to that and started to learn some more science (and how to stay awake and look like I was paying attention!).

Family extravaganza Part 2

Much of the Cyr clan had assembled at Granny and Grandpa Cyr's by the time we arrived back from the Legion. Uncle Don and Aunty Cindy arrived sans children, who were all busy or working and couldn't make it. Uncle Derrick and Aunty Marnie came with my cousins Brandy and Garret. We all visited and chowed down on the amazing meal Granny had prepared for us. Fish, roast, meatballs and several salads. Very yummy. Here are some pictures: Once it cooled off, we left the carport and went inside to continue the merriment.
It was a long day, filled with relatives, and by the end we were all pretty wiped. We readily hit the hay.

Family extravaganza Part 1

Woke up feeling refreshed and relaxed Saturday morning. Kyle and I had breakfast with Granny:Once we were all dressed and mobile, we hopped in Grandpa Zimm's truck and went over to visit my uncle Larry and aunt Shannon and my new cousin Hayley. She's a little cutey who is pretty shy, but eventually warmed up to my mom and I. She didn't like Dad, however, and kept a safe distance from him throughout our visit.She didn't really stay still and was blurry in several of our shots, but we did manage to get a few good ones. Next, we had lunch at the famous J&L's drive-in restaurant. This place has THE BEST burgers out there. We took a few pictures before our burgers arrived.Next, it was off to my cousin Steve and Daniel's, with their two boys Ethan and Ryan. My aunty Carol and uncle Ron came by as well. After our visit, we went to the Legion, where we met up with Grandpa Zimm and uncle Larry for the meat draw.After the Legion, our visiting wasn't over, as we headed over to Granny Cyr's again for a BBQ with the other side of the family. To be cont'd...

Off to Vancouver!

I flew out on Friday around 10am, arriving in Vancouver around 11:30. I gathered my luggage and bussed out to the ferry terminal. In fact, I had a pretty good bus ride, considering all my busses showed up coincidental with my arrival at each stop, so I didn't need stand around too much waiting. The only poor part of the trip was the curvy road to the terminal, which made me quite motion sick. I had foolishly started reading my book on the bus, which I used to be adept at back in my Vancouver days. However, I have apparently lost my tolerance to reading and riding, so I quickly started feeling quite ill. I didn't get sick or anything, but once I was at the ferry terminal, I had to sit for awhile and sip a gingerale to allow my stomach to settle back down. While I was on the bus feeling sick, a gentleman (significantly older than me, but not elderly) on the bus tried to talk me up, and eventually I had to tell him that I just wasn't feeling well and I couldn't talk to him very much. He still talked to me intermittently, then at the end of the ride, wrote his number on a newspaper and gave it to me. What did he think I was going to do?! Call him? He's a stranger. It was weird.

Anyway, I met Mom and Dad soon after that, and Kyle shortly thereafter. We had ourselves a drink at the restaurant, then hopped on the extra ferry sailing over to the Island. Granny and Grandpa picked us up, took us out for Chinese food and then drove us out to their place. We were all pretty tired by that point, so we hit the hay.

Leaving tomorrow!

I'm off tomorrow morning! I finished my talk tonight and managed to squeeze in some really neat new data. Turns out all my crazy work yesterday really did pay off! I have some great stuff to show at the conference, so I feel pretty excited about it. I have my 'presentation' outfit all picked out so I look respectable, and I plan to practice my talk several more times before I have to do it live. I shipped Pumpkin off to Bonnie's (thanks Bonnie!) while I'm gone, so hopefully they get along well. Now all I have to do is finish packing in the morning, then off to the airport! I will try to blog while I'm gone, but no guarantees until after this weekend, because I'll be visiting family and I'm not sure if I can get on the internet. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Silly busy Kim

Since I am going to a conference in a few days, I thought it would be a great idea to squeeze in a few last experiments in case they worked and I could put them in my talk. Silly me. So today, I got up early to get a jump-start on my work. I scurried around and worked and worked, realizing half-way through that I had taken on too much and there was no way I was going to get everything done. I ended up staying late, so it was a really long work day.

I have learned my lesson, though. I am not doing one of the major experiments until after my trip, and I have taken a few other items off my list as well.

One Soggy Pumpkin, One Soggy Cat not Mine

Tonight Pumpkin went outside after dinner while I worked away inside. She generally comes in and out through the evening, mainly to see if I'll go out with her or if I'll give her food. Tonight, she started with this pattern, however after awhile I hadn't seen her for quite some time. It started to get dark out so I went out several times and called her name while shaking her treats. No luck. Well, I figured she would come back eventually, so I wasn't too worried at that point.

However, then the thunderstorm started.
'Sweet,' I thought. 'Pumpkin should be inside in no time. The thunder should scare her.'

After 10 minutes, she hadn't appeared. The rain, however, had appeared, and with a vengeance. It was POURING.
'Alright, she's got to come in now. She won't want to stay outside and get wet,' I thought, as I called her name repeatedly from my doorstep.

No luck. No cat.

Now I started to worry that the thunder had totally scared her and she had run off. Maybe she couldn't find her way home from where she ran. Upon consultation with Garrett, I suited up in raincoat and boots, with flashlight and kitty treats in hand to wander around the neighborhood. I walked around the block, calling her name and shaking her treats. No Pumpkin. I did, however, find another kitty who appeared to know that the sound I was making meant kitty treats. At first, I thought I had found Pumpkin. But no, this was a black and white kitty that proceeded to follow me for a block, hoping for a hint of the yum-yums. I didn't give it any treats though - I didn't want it to keep following me!

After no sign of my cat, I headed back home, worried now about what could have happened to her. I had left my back door open so that she could come in while I was gone, but the downstairs door to my suite was closed and locked. But, lo and behold, guess what soggy creature I found sitting outside my suite door? Pumpkin! I was glad to see her, although angry at her for staying away so long. I gave her some treats and then dried her off with a towel a bit. She then spent the next half hour licking all the water off of her. Here are some (bad) pictures of my soggy kitty:I couldn't get any good pictures of her because she wouldn't stay still at all. Ah well, I'll teach her that trick next.

Bizarre movie

Tonight Bonnie and I rented a movie called 'Mrs. Harris'. I often end up watching wacky/weird movies with Bonnie - for some reason, the combination of the two of us results in choosing weird movies from the rental place. In any case, this one was about Mrs. Jean Harris, who dated this guy called Dr. Howard Tarnower. Loosely based upon a true story, Dr. Howard was the guy who created the Scarsdale diet (from back in the 70's or 80's, I believe). Basically, he treats Jean quite poorly for 14 years, while prescribing her a myriad of drugs to treat her depression, which she becomes addicted to. She is also addicted to him for unknown reasons and would rather die then leave him, despite his numerous mistresses. In the end, during a withdrawal bout, she goes to his house, supposedly to say goodbye before she kills herself. Instead he ends up getting shot and dying, and she is put on trial for his murder. The movie is filmed in a unique format, focussing on her trial with flashback/testimonials from the people around them during their lengthy relationship. The movie was interesting in that the format was unpredictable, however it was fairly slow and a little bit boring at parts. I enjoyed it overall, but probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone. In the end, you aren't really sure whether Howard really was killed accidentally, or whether she had intended to kill him from the get-go.

Bad vacuuming neighbours

My normally great upstairs neighbours deciding they would vacuum their apartment. At 7:30am!! At first, I didn't know what the sound was. Is that a big truck outside my house? Did they start building the house in the empty lot just a ways over? No, turns out that was the vacuum cleaner. What were they doing?! Sunday morning! People sleep in on Sundays, and still, even if I wasn't sleeping in, 7:30 is earlier than I get up on a weekday. Eventually they finished and I went back to sleep.

Nessie's revenge and much more

Happy Birthday Garrett!
To celebrate, we had a birthday party at the West Edmonton Waterpark, the mammoth indoor water world seen below:Normally, entrance into the waterpark is a whopping 27$/person for the day. With our birthday party rate, we each paid a meagre 15.50$ AND Garrett got in for free. However, the waterpark doesn't let you bring in any food for the day, except for a birthday cake. I figured that a cake would have been a little messy, so I made cupcakes and we chowed down on them midday. Other than that and a brief lunch, we played in the wave pool and on the waterslides for 5 hours. It was so much fun! I had forgotten how much fun the waterslides could be - the last time I went was when I was a lot younger. I didn't go on any of the scary rides, but others of our group did. Here are some pictures of Garrett going down the 'Sky Screamer'. The purple slide is the one called 'Nessie's revenge', as mentioned in the title of this entry.We rented tubes as well, and enjoyed riding the waves on them, however I had one scary moment when the wake of the wave caught me and my tube and I went flying. All of a sudden I was on my tube, the next I was flying on top of the wave towards these kids in the water below me. As I flew uncontrollably through the air/wave, I thought for sure I was going to land on top of and take out one of these little kids (well, they were probably 13 or so) when the wave finally brought me down. However, as I was descending, the wave also swept the boys out of the way and I landed in between 3 closely packed people without any incidence of impact. Not bad hey? To top it off, my tube landed on top of my upside down, with me in the middle. Voila!

Several of my friends saw me go flying. Afterwards, Joelle and I were cracking up about it while everyone else was searching for me. Garrett and Joel didn't see where I ended up (which was far away from them and where I had started) so they were looking for me and couldn't hear me yelling to them (it's noisy in there). Perhaps they thought I was drowning somewhere, but nope! I was fine. After that, though, I took a break from the wave pool. Instead, I piled our tubes on top of Joel (Garrett's brother - notice the resemblance?).He's also sitting at the table next to Garrett - perhaps better for comparing their orange hair.Here's a picture of us at our deck chairs just before lunch:After a long day of fun, we disbanded and Garrett and I headed over to Garrett's parents house for dinner and cake. We were pretty tired from the waterpark, but stayed awake to meet up with Graeme and Karolina in the evening for coffee and a board game. It was a long day, but hopefully a good birthday for Garrett!

Football frenzy

On Friday night, Garrett and I and a crew of friends went out to the football game. The Eskimos were playing the Stampeders in a rematch from Labour Day, where we (Eskimos) got walloped. I don't know the exact score and it's probably better that I don't. So on friday, our team came out to save face from their embarrassing loss a few days earlier.

Going to the game was part of the 'Garrett birthday extravaganza'. We got a group rate and some semi-decent seats. Well, we were up high but you can see everything just fine. The stadium is actually quite huge. It can cold 62,000 people, and we managed to pack it quite full on Friday with 48,000 people. The Eskimos started out strong to take the first quarter 16-0, however the second and third quarters were very mediocre and in the fourth quarter the score was 26-22 for the Stampeders. It was looking bleak for us by the end of the game, but in the last nine seconds, we scored a touchdown!!! Right on! The crowd went wild and we jumped around and cheered. It was really fun. Then, luck of all things, we picked up a fumbled ball and scored another touchdown in the last two seconds of the game. Bam!! Eskimos came out way on top and we were all pretty excited at the end.

We headed home then, but not before we saw two cockroaches!! It was super gross. They were huge and they were heading down the stairs with all the people. It was bizarre. We couldn't understand how cockroaches could survive in Edmonton - I suppose because it's been such a warm summer, they've been proliferating. Apparently people who have moved here from other places have brought them to Edmonton in their luggage, but they must mostly die in winter.

Happy anniversary Amanda and Ray!

Today is my sister and brother-in-law's three year anniversary. I dug up some pictures from the happy event several Septembers ago, just to reminisce about the lovely wedding and great party. The ceremony was held at a beautiful bed and breakfast, in the gazebo which spanned a pond.Here's the family!The happy couple.Later, at the party, the bride and groom cut the cake.Ray and I enjoy a dance, boogying down on the dance floor. I have to say, it was a really great party.It's been hard these past few years with Amanda and Ray living so far away from me! I miss them and miss all the fun times we used to be able to do on a regular basis. However, I know sometime in the future we will leave near each other again, it's just a matter of waiting.

Here's wishing them many more great years!

New dresser

I got a new dresser the other day, and I was very excited about it because I've had this tiny little three-drawer deal for the past five years. Over this time, I've slowly packed more and more clothes into it so that it's bursting at the seams. It would always push my shirts to the back of the drawer when I opened it, and tumble them down in behind. I'm sure many of you have expreienced this at one point or another, and can appreciate how irritating it can be.

The other day, I found out that Garrett's mom had a dresser she wanted to get rid of. Score! So the other day, we loaded it into a truck and brought it over to my house. Here is it:Isn't it great? So many drawers! So much space! I also really like the mirror on top. It makes me feel like I have grown-up furniture.

Pre-Fall Brawl

Garrett and I played in an ultimate tournament this weekend in Edmonton. It's called Pre-Fall Brawl and consists of mostly Edmonton teams, so we know many of the people in the tournament and have a really fun time with them. Plus, it's nice to play at home, so that you can shower and sleep at home, rather than camp or stay in a hotel.

The weather was absolutely fantastic this weekend - hot hot hot, sunny sunny sunny. We slathered on the sunscreen and spent the day in the sun. On Saturday, our games went really well and we ended up winning all of them. Garrett and I ended up missing the last game, because we went to a family BBQ at his parent's house, but our team seemed to do fine without us, so it was no problem. In the end, we were ranked third, because there were 3 teams with a 4-0 record and we had the lowest point differential. But no big deal, we were out mostly to have fun, rather than stress about winning.

The BBQ at Garrett's parent's house was really fun. His mom made a great spread of food which we availed ourselves of thoroughly, after our day of exercise. I met some more of Garrett's aunts and uncles, including his aunt and uncle who currently live in Russia. It was really neat to talk to them about what Russia is like nowadays - seems pretty crazy to me actually. In any case, we topped off dinner with a light game of soccer with the kids (that includes Garrett and I - we're still kindof kids at heart anyway) followed by some relaxation and visiting, before I headed back home tuckered out and ready for sleep.

Our first game today went quite well. We won and moved on to the semi-finals. We started out dominating that game, getting the score to 4-0 before the other team called a time-out. This team is actually a really good team, so we were surprised they were putting out such a meager effort up to that point. After their time-out, they really started pulling it out and came back to a 4-4 score in the next four points. For the rest of the game, both teams fought hard to bring the score to 6-6, with one more point to win it because of time restrictions. In this last point, we were so close a few times to scoring, however it ended up that the other team took it and finished the deed. Arg!! Most of us really wanted to beat that team, but no luck. So we decided to fire up Greg's portable battery and plugged in the blender to make some cool slushie drinks and relax in the afternoon sun.

This evening I worked on my computer a bunch. I have a lot of work to do in the next few months and I feel like I'm busy all the time. I haven't put up many posts lately because I haven't done very many interesting things except work on my computer! I'll try to get more interesting soon, but no guarantees.