Running On Empty So, Make a Wish...

Having been told that I am no longer welcome in this house, and I should leave as soon as possible, I have been frantically looking for a new space. Not having much luck.

It’s tourist season and that’s where the big bucks are.

Between work, medical appts., and packing I am running on empty. I am exhausted.

I have never felt so alone.

I awoke this morning at about 4 am, and listened to a meditation tape – which helped calm me, but didn’t help me get back to sleep. So I got up, dressed and went out for breakfast (something I haven’t done in a while) then made my way to church for a weekly service of healing. And what a blessing that was.

The service was well attended and after Communion, there were more than a few of us who needed to receive a personal blessing and laying on of hands. Compared with some of the others, my problems seemed small. But they loom large in my life. I prayed for stability, inner peace, my present landlord, a few friends, my sister, our military, and a place to call home. May it be so.

I make a wish even as I pray.

More later.

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Moving On, Again.

Sorry posting has been light of late, but with work, Doctor appointments, and preparing to move I have had little time to do anything else.

Hope to have the movers here in a few days. It's a difficult time of year to move around here, since this is high season and all attention is on the tourists and their needs. But, things are working out and as soon as I have most of my stuff packed up, I'll be off on a new adventure. Some things will go into storage at a friend's garage, the rest I hope to take with me, if there is room.

I gotta tell you, that going from home owner to homeless person in less than two months has been challenging and more than scary, but, what?, we move on.

Stay tuned.
More later.
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You Can't Make This Up: Vol. 35434.

Today was one of those errands-on-a-planned-route days. Meaning, start with the closest and then circumnavigate so that the last stop is closest to your best route back to base. Or the other way round. Saves time and fuel. You know what I am talking about. But this day there were twists and coincidences that made me go, hmmmmmmmm!

First up: 8:30 am. And I stop for an iced coffee and plain bagel. A car exactly same colour as mine pulls up in front of me in the parking lot. The driver smiles as we both get out at the same time and says, “nice car, you like mine?”

“Oh absolutely. Do you like mine?”

Then she stops and takes it in…it’s the striping.

She says, “No, I like YOURS better. Those stripes are so beautiful.

I say nothing, just smile. She looks a bit unhappy.

I get my coffee and hit the road to the first errand.

CAMP Rehoboth: where I want to drop off a cell phone and accessories for battered and abused women’s use. It’s early and the meters are not yet in effect. Having dropped off the phone I head back to the car to find another Corolla (a red one) parking behind me.

“Do you have enough space to back out,” he asked. Then “how do you like your Corolla?”

“I like it fine.” He’s eyeing the car and can’t quite figure out why it is different.

“Is it new?”

“Yes, to me, it is. Actually it’s a 2005 model”

There is this befuddled look on his face as he wishes me a good day and goes about his business. Was it the striping?

Moving on to the Auto Gallery where I bought the car, to have it washed, the place is teeming with folks eyeing the classic cars on the lot and as my car gets hand washed a crowd begins to gather. It’s the stripes again. Jeez!

Next up was an appointment where condo owners and businesses share the parking lot. As I pulled in there was a guy getting out to his car – again the exact same metallic blue colour – and he paused, stared at my car, then looked at his car. (This is getting to be too funny) As I exited my car, he greeted me and asked what year my car is, how many miles, where was it purchased, and - - - where did I get THOSE STRIPES???

At first I debated whether I ought to give him the info or not. But, hell, there are so many colour combinations to play with I thought, why not. So I gave him one of the Auto Gallery’s Cards and went on my way.

At this point I was starving and stopped for a burger and, yes, you guessed it, another Corolla – a beige one – parks beside me. This is unbelievable. He asks how I like the car, and off we go into Toyotaland. He notices the stripes and bemoans that he wasn’t offered those by his dealer (in Ohio!). I explain that my dealer suggested them to set the car apart.

“They do,” he said. And then walked in the restaurant.

I drove back to the house with mixed emotions. Did the stripes offend some Corolla owners while making others happy at the difference? I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t care. The interesting thing is that Toyota owners remind me of the Honda moped owners in NYC back in the 60s when the commercial tag line was “you meet the nicest people on a Honda” and I can honestly say that about Toyota Corolla owners in 2007.

Who’da thunk it?

More later.

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OK, so here it is...

The weather finally turned sunny so I ran out and took this shot of the new buggy. I would like a name for the vehicle, so if you have any ideas, please leave them in comments. Or, email me privately if you are shy.

This car is neither male nor female, so choose the name you think fits the time, place, and the lovely colour. And don't forget the stripes. They sat the car apart from others in the area.

I recently had the 5K service performed at a local dealership and the experience was nothing short of amazing.

To read about the first service experience, click HERE.
More later.
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Caps on Cards at Gas Pumps

Guess I got rid of the White Monster just in time. I now fill the tank every two weeks and it costs less than half what what I used to spend in a week. Nice change, that. I had no idea about these caps.

This from AP:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - So you're at the gas station filling up your vehicle, and without warning the gas pump shuts off. What? The tank isn't full, and you know your credit card isn't over its limit.

``Using my Visa card, I commonly hit a limit and I would be standing there scratching my head,'' Shawn Bloomfield, who pumps premium gas into his SUV, said from his home in Allentown, Pa. ``I would always assume it is the gas station setting a limit on how much gas I could purchase. It felt like a ration scenario.''

As the price of gasoline continues to rise, rules to prevent credit card fraud at the nation's pumps are confusing consumers who just want a full tank of gas.

Caps on transaction amounts - or the total dollar amount of gas a customer can pump into their car - are limiting some drivers of gas-guzzling vehicles.

Read the rest HERE.

More later.

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Indiana's Own Matthew Shepard

But, with a twist...Absolutely Disgusting. This from KOS:

Three young men in Jackson County Indiana said they were so freaked out when 'propositioned' by Aaron Hall on April 12th, that they proceeded to beat the 100 pound, 5'4 man for hours, using their fists, boots, dragging him down a staircase while his head slammed into each step, and then throwing him in a ditch and leaving. Aaron managed to crawl out of the ditch and out into a nearby field, where he died, alone and naked.

Sound familiar? A bit like the story of Matthew Shephard? Then why no coverage outside of Jackson County, Indiana?

Is the lack of coverage due, perhaps, to allegations that Hall is gay? Or that no one is sure that these allegations are even true?

You see, the story is even stranger than it appears. Some contend that the young men made up the story about having been propositioned so as to use the 'gay panic defense,' in hopes of getting a more lenient sentence. Apparently the thinking was that exposure to homosexuality is so frightening that well... heck, anyone would go crazy and beat the hell out of a guy for hours, then toss him in a ditch to die.

A number of Hoosier bloggers have wondered at the lack of local coverage. In the interest of promoting this case, I thought I'd bring it out here for your perusal. This is a horrific crime, and while I don't promote the kind of overdone sensationalism (carried on for weeks at a time) evidenced on CNN and Fox News, this man's death should draw some notice. It should serve as a warning, at the very least. Whether Hall was or wasn't gay isn't the point. The fact that the teenagers used this as their defense... speaks volumes.

This from the Bloomington Alternative... one paper that did cover the story:

Crothersville is a town of 1,500, located midway between Louisville and Indianapolis just off Interstate 65 in the southeast corner of Jackson County.

According to the U.S. Census, it is 97.6 percent white, and 75.4 percent of its residents 25 or older have high school educations. The national average is 80.4.

It's not the sort of place that makes big news often. One of the more recent times was in 2005 when a 10-year-old Crothersville girl named Katie Collman was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered.

"Ironically, it was Terry Gray, Garrett Gray's father, who served as the Collman family spokesman during the investigation and court proceedings," the Times reported.

The Collman case was big news. Indianapolis Star-columnist-turned-Internet-blogger Ruth Holliday noted on May 8 that it "had a lot of twists and turns." A search of the Star Web site turns up more than a dozen stories.

Yet the Star has left the Hall murder to the Jackson County media, the never-to-be-trusted Indianapolis and Louisville television stations and bloggers like Advance Indiana's Gary Welsh, who has covered the story in depth and, along with Holliday, has questioned the lack of major media attention.

A search of the Star Web site for Aaron Hall returned zero stories.

On May 3, Welsh, who is an advocate for hate crimes legislation in Indiana, wrote a column titled "Why Won't the Star Cover The Hate Crime Killing of Aaron Hall?" He noted that the paper "has been silent" about the Hall case but that editorial writer RiShawn Biddle argued in his May 1 Star blog that a hate crimes law would not have prevented Hall's murder.

And this from Gabriel Rotello at HuffPo: The Gruesome Death of Shorty Hall: Indiana’s Matthew Shepard

The story of a horrifying murder in rural Indiana has begun making the rounds of the blogs, where it's being compared to the crucifixion of Matthew Shepard.

The victim in this new outrage wasn't called Aaron 'Shorty' Hall for nothing. Shorty was 5-foot-4 and weighed a mere 100 pounds. In beefy rural Indiana, that passes for almost invisible.

On April 12, Shorty was allegedly beaten to death by Coleman King, 18, and Garrett Gray, 19. They subsequently confessed to police that the beating began when Shorty allegedly made a gay pass at them while they were all drinking beer at Gray's home.

The description of what happened next is horrific, a savage assault that eerily echoes the tortuous death of Matthew Shepard. This time it took the form of a relentless beating that went on for several hours at Gray's house before Shorty was finally dragged down the wooden stairs, his head banging loudly on each step.

King and Gray told cops they beat Hall again at the bottom of the stairs, threw him into a pickup truck and continued beating him as they drove down a remote dirt road.

Once there, one of them had the audacity to send a friend a cellphone photo of the dying Shorty. Then they dumped him, naked but still alive, in a ditch. According to weather reports, it was 39 degrees that night.

The next morning they returned and found Shorty's broken and lifeless body in a field near the ditch. He had apparently crawled out for help, found none, and died alone in the dirt.

A few days later they returned, wrapped the body in a tarp and hid it in Gray's garage, where police found it after being alerted by the recipient of the cellphone photo.

A sensational torture/murder hate crime like this seems like a slam dunk for major media attention, but so far it has received almost none.

Perhaps part of the reason is one of the case's odd twists: Some have publicly suggested that in fact Shorty made no sexual advance on Gray and King and that he was not, in fact, gay.

Instead, it's been suggested that the two teens cooked up the gay angle because they believed that in homo-hating Indiana, it would help excuse their murder.

In the twisted teenage wasteland of their minds, the theory goes, the so-called 'gay panic' defense is still operative in Indiana: If you simply say your murder victim made a queer pass at you, you'll probably get off lightly.

It's impossible to tell if this version is true. But that's no reason for the media to ignore this story. In fact, in a weird way the tale is at least as significant if Shorty was not gay.

The reason begins with the fact that Indiana remains one of just five states that refuses to enact a hate crimes bill. Why? Because such a bill would cover -- you guessed it -- gays.

The latest version failed in the state legislature again this February, and the executive director of the antigay American Family Association of Indiana, Micah Clark, credited "concerned Christians" with scuttling it.

If such Christians hadn't furiously lobbied the Indiana Statehouse about this bill, Clark said, it "would have passed easily." He smugly added, "The good guys won on this issue."

Shorty Hall's lonely death indicates otherwise.

I'm not suggesting that if Indiana had passed a hate crimes bill last February then this horrific murder would not have happened. But I am suggesting what law schools have taught for generations: "The law is a great teacher."

One of the reasons for hate crimes laws is to teach: to send a powerful lesson that the kind of savage bigotry that leads to violence and murder based on race, ethnicity and other factors -- including sexual orientation -- is a profound offense against the moral foundations of our society.

Hate crime laws send the lesson that violators will not be treated more lightly for such crimes, as they traditionally were, but punished more sternly.

When a state like Indiana stands almost alone by refusing to send such a message, it unavoidably sends the opposite message. And in rural Indiana it does so in a place teeming with vengeful right wing Christians who continue to infect the young with a vile hatred of gays. That leads to a combustible combination.

So in this tragic case, whether Shorty was gay or not, or made a pass or not, isn't the larger point.

The larger point is that Shorty's killers appear to have imbibed a profound lesson from the homo-hating Christians of their state and the simpering cowards in their state legislature, who would apparently pass a hate crimes bill "easily" if it didn't include the gays despised by so-called concerned Christians.

That lesson is this: If a queer comes on to you in Indiana and you kill him, pipe up about it because you just might get a pass. And hey, if you happen to kill someone who isn't queer, just call him queer anyway and you still might get a pass.

Concerned Christians in Indiana may have no problem with that. But I'm betting that Jesus would take a dimmer view.

And so am I. If you read this pass it on.

More later.

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A Brand New Day - And a Good One

Oh, the title is just a hat tip to Al Kooper, (and if you don't know who he is, you should, we're talking Blues Project, the Original Blood Sweat and Tears, so click on his name and see what you have either missed, or enjoyed without knowing he was behind it)

Had the day off today due to scheduled doctor, dentist, and therapist appointments in the morning and an appointment for scheduled maintenance on the “new” buggy. [Yes, I will post a picture when I have the time and the weather cooperates. Stop asking!]

The three morning appointments were much needed for my physical and mental health and well-being, but it was the afternoon appointment that really threw me off.

This is the first vehicle I have owned alone, the first time I have had any maintenance done at a dealership and I was prepared for the worst.

OK, so I got out my trusty road atlas to find the fastest, most direct way possible. Did a “mapquest” search by the address in the phone directory and plotted my course. Gave myself what I thought would be enough time in the event of a snag in the directions and off I went. Winding my way over back roads and feeling very proud of myself as I listened to a CD and thinking I would be there in plenty of time. (Ahem!)

When I arrived at the address the dealership name was right where it ought to be according to mapquest, but the building and parking lot were empty. There is grass growing through cracks in the pavement. Not a sign of life anywhere, so I parked and went up to the door.

They moved! It wasn’t far away but the notice was worn and rain erased most of the print giving the exact location. All I could decipher was “two miles north” --- and so I drove off in that general direction only to find myself, well, lost.

By this time I was late for my scheduled appointment so I pull off the roadway and, having been aware enough to remember to bring along their phone number, I called…by now I am not a happy camper and I am late…which makes me very annoyed. I hold it in check as the person who did the scheduling answers the call. She’s very sorry about the mix up and there is no problem about being late. Turns out I was less than a mile from the new location and I arrive in just a few minutes.

As an aside, there was a cement truck bearing down on me to the point that I thought this scheduled appt. would be unnecessary. But he finally passed me on the left and blasted his horn repeatedly as he did so. Guess he had someplace to be in a hurry.

As I pull up to the service doors they open for me and I drive right in. (I am ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille) I gather up all relevant papers and enter the service department. She (Janet) looks up and says I bet I know who you are – you’re my 1:30 appt. and I am so sorry that you had to drive all over the county to get here.

I say nothing but give her the scheduled maintenance booklet so they can check off what they do and put their stamp on it. I am very skeptical.

People are friendly. They ask if I need anything. I am on guard. Not used to this kind of treatment. And NEVER from an auto dealer. Jeez!

She enters info to generate the paperwork for the 5,000-mile maintenance, shows me to the “owners” lounge, and disappears.

In the lounge area there are 7 or 8 other Toyota owners watching TV (Fox New is on and one person is watching, which does my heart good) or reading as their buggies are being serviced. None of us know one another, but there is chatter going on that after about 5 minutes I am as involved in as all the others. They love their cars. They love this dealership. They love the maintenance staff – even know some by name.

This is amazing to me. I am so effing naïve!!!

In a little over an hour the car is ready and I was at the cashier’s corner paying up. Well, it turns out that all the work done cost less than if I had taken the car to a place like Jiffy Lube.

Yes, it’s a bit of a drive, but well worth it to do business with friendly folks who get to know you and your car and its history.

Hey! Could Spielberg make this up?

All in all, a very good day.

And now it’s martini time. Prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised…Cheers!

More later.

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Outing a Gay Homophobe

Is it fair? I mean, to out an 18 year old foaming at the mouth nutcase? Well, read this and you make that decision. I know I have. The little turd gets what's coming to him. Oh, and if anyone thinks he's too young for this sort of treatment let me remind you that a member of my church, a 19 year old, just shipped off to Iraq today while this little bastard gets to spew hate without making any kind of sacrifice.

From Dan Savage at The Stranger:

Tyler Whitney is a young conservative activist—he’s serving as webmaster for the GOP’s most rabidly anti-gay presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, leads an anti-gay group on his college campus, carried a “Go Back in the Closet!” sign at anti-gay protest. On his MySpace page, Whitney says he’s interested in meeting, “any conservative college student in the DC area that is interested in fighting the left.”

And Tyler Whitney is gay, and he’s just been outed.

Read the entire piece - and don't forget to read the comments below the post.

Gay Paraders Outnumber Pope's Audience!

Now this is fun! From a friend in Australia:

SAO PAULO: An estimated three million gays, lesbians and transvestites have paraded down the main avenue of Brazil's business capital, Sao Paulo, to condemn homophobia, racism and machismo.

"This is the biggest parade on the planet," Tourism Minister Marta Suplicy said. "Our city is again showing that it respects diversity."

The Sao Paulo Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transvestites Parade Association said warm temperatures of 31C had helped draw more than last year's 2.5million marchers.

Military police estimated that about a million people jammed into the skyscraper-lined Avenida Paulista, but there were many more in surrounding streets. About 900 officers were on duty to help maintain order.

The Pope, on a five-day visit last month to Brazil, the world's most populous Catholic country, attracted fewer than a million to listen to his calls to reinforce traditional family values.

During the parade, bands played on 23 trios eletricos, or huge trucks, with their music blasted from massive loudspeakers. Marchers, many wearing feather costumes, unfurled a giant rainbow-coloured flag.

"I'm proud to parade," said Jose Alves Filho, a 42-year-old hairdresser. "Here there's no violence, only fun."

Sponsors included Brazil's state energy company, Petrobras, and the state-owned Caixa Economica Federal bank. Along with Ms Suplicy, Sport Minister Orlando Silva also attended. The Governor of Sao Paulo state, Jose Serra, and city Mayor Gilberto Kassab were at the parade.

The parade, which was officially sanctioned for the first time, is seen as a major cash cow, attracting about 300,000 Brazilian and foreign visitors, who boost the receipts of hotels, restaurants and shops.

A study this year by consumer research consultants Insearch found Brazilian gays were above-average wage earners and spent 40 per cent more on leisure than heterosexuals.

Last week, an estimated one million evangelical Christians marched in Sao Paulo to protest against homosexuality and the gay pride parade.

Reuters

More later.
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Bless them, and send Them off to War...

I have mixed emotions. No, that’s not true. I know we were wrong to invade Iraq and the fact that we are losing so many young men and women in Bush’s folly makes me cringe. It is in that context that I relate the following from church service yesterday.

A sweet, beautiful, devoted, member of the church who happened to be the crucifer for the service, is going off to war in Iraq this very week. He can't be more than 19 year old!

During the service the Rector took a break to anoint this young man and bless his medal of St. Michael.

As he knelt at the altar with his back to us and his head bowed, The Rector offered up a blessing that brought tears to my eyes then - - as it does every now and then since.

Although he kept politics out of the blessing and praised this young man for all he did and does for the parish, it was clear that The Rector had contempt in his heart for the mis-administration responsible for this war in the first place. The parents were obviously proud of their son, but you could see the anxiety and fear in their eyes. There are currently over sixty members of the church serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Their names are listed every week with the prayer list in the bulletin.

I pray for this young man, Dustin, every time I think of him. And in that way I guess I am praying for all the other Dustins sent where they should not go. He is National Guard, by the way, not Army, and should be home in case of another national disaster if one should hit the east coast, which is very possible this year.

I know. What I am really saying is that young people like Dustin, who haven’t begun to live life yet, shouldn’t have to fight in Bush’s fuckery at all.

More later.

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Just what kind of fuckery is this? We've passed the 3500 mark of dead military personnel in Iraq and this is part of the problem.

NYTimes June 8, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Don’t Ask, Don’t Translate

By STEPHEN BENJAMIN

Atlanta

IMAGINE for a moment an American soldier deep in the Iraqi desert. His unit is about to head out when he receives a cable detailing an insurgent ambush right in his convoy’s path. With this information, he and his soldiers are now prepared for the danger that lies ahead.

Reports like these are regularly sent from military translators’ desks, providing critical, often life-saving intelligence to troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the military has a desperate shortage of linguists trained to translate such invaluable information and convey it to the war zone.

The lack of qualified translators has been a pressing issue for some time — the Army had filled only half its authorized positions for Arabic translators in 2001. Cables went untranslated on Sept. 10 that might have prevented the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Today, the American Embassy in Baghdad has nearly 1,000 personnel, but only a handful of fluent Arabic speakers.

I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended the Defense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 percent of my class and then spent two years giving our troops the critical translation services they desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.

But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member is found to be gay.

My story begins almost a year ago when my roommate, who is also gay, was deployed to Falluja. We communicated the only way we could: using the military’s instant-messaging system on monitored government computers. These electronic conversations are lifelines, keeping soldiers sane while mortars land meters away.

Then, last October the annual inspection of my base, Fort Gordon, Ga., included a perusal of the government computer chat system; inspectors identified 70 service members whose use violated policy. The range of violations was broad: people were flagged for everything from profanity to outright discussions of explicit sexual activity. Among those charged were my former roommate and me. Our messages had included references to our social lives — comments that were otherwise unremarkable, except that they indicated we were both gay.

I could have written a statement denying that I was homosexual, but lying did not seem like the right thing to do. My roommate made the same decision, though he was allowed to remain in Iraq until the scheduled end of his tour.

The result was the termination of our careers, and the loss to the military of two more Arabic translators. The 68 other — heterosexual — service members remained on active duty, despite many having committed violations far more egregious than ours; the Pentagon apparently doesn’t consider hate speech, derogatory comments about women or sexual misconduct grounds for dismissal.

My supervisors did not want to lose me. Most of my peers knew I was gay, and that didn’t bother them. I was always accepted as a member of the team. And my experience was not anomalous: polls of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan show an overwhelming majority are comfortable with gays. Many were aware of at least one gay person in their unit and had no problem with it.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” does nothing but deprive the military of talent it needs and invade the privacy of gay service members just trying to do their jobs and live their lives. Political and military leaders who support the current law may believe that homosexual soldiers threaten unit cohesion and military readiness, but the real damage is caused by denying enlistment to patriotic Americans and wrenching qualified individuals out of effective military units. This does not serve the military or the nation well.

Consider: more than 58 Arabic linguists have been kicked out since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was instituted. How much valuable intelligence could those men and women be providing today to troops in harm’s way?

In addition to those translators, 11,000 other service members have been ousted since the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was passed by Congress in 1993. Many held critical jobs in intelligence, medicine and counterterrorism. An untold number of closeted gay military members don’t re-enlist because of the pressure the law puts on them. This is the real cost of the ban — and, with our military so overcommitted and undermanned, it’s too high to pay.

In response to difficult recruiting prospects, the Army has already taken a number of steps, lengthening soldiers’ deployments to 15 months from 12, enlisting felons and extending the age limit to 42. Why then won’t Congress pass a bill like the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”? The bipartisan bill, by some analysts’ estimates, could add more than 41,000 soldiers — all gay, of course.

As the friends I once served with head off to 15-month deployments, I regret I’m not there to lessen their burden and to serve my country. I’m trained to fight, I speak Arabic and I’m willing to serve. No recruiter needs to make a persuasive argument to sign me up. I’m ready, and I’m waiting.

Stephen Benjamin is a former petty officer second class in the Navy.

More later.

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Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes...

It's been a week since my last post and - - - it HAS been a week. Oy! Everything from moving my place of business and directing contractors, electricians, and security installers to DMV and insurance surprises to purchasing a "new" car.
Monday (yes, that would be Memorial Day) thru Thursday was spent moving out of one retail space into another. All furnishings, decorations, cases, cabinets, displays...you get the idea...and making sure all ended up in the identical positions in the new space. The work crews are wonderful. This could have been more of a nightmare if they decided to be difficult and had frequent hissy fits. But they were and are, extremely helpful.
The personal madness had to do with auto insurance and involved the sale of one vehicle and the purchase of another. Those went smoothly for the most part with a hiccup here and there and that's thanks to a friend with an auto gallery who took great care throughout the process.
Blessings all around.
More details when the dust settles. Literally.
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