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Cool- Sounds like your issues with Cedars are the same as my issues at work with the Olives, Ash trees, Blackberrys... the list goes on
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May 24, 2013 16:33
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Used Sunlight sales posted:I'll take a look at some Red Wings just because you guys said so. Red Wings have saved my toes/feet many many times, they are worth every penny. Be sure to clean and treat them regularly and they will last forever even under heavy duty. Just don't try to drunkenly impress your friends by breaking a beer bottle off on your shoe. That was the time the red wings almost claimed a toe.
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May 24, 2013 20:04
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I'm sorry guys. My woman left me and I am having a hard time dealing with that, especially at this time of year. I'm going to check out for awhile. 
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May 25, 2013 12:50
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Sorry to hear it. We will be here when you are ready to come back, and/or if you want to vent to someone. Keep your head up and stay busy.
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May 25, 2013 12:55
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Take care of yourself mate and come back whenever your ready.
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May 25, 2013 13:27
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I'm sorry to hear that man. If you need to step out to clear your head, feel free to come up to Wic. First few rounds are on me.
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May 25, 2013 17:05
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When my dad was alive, he did ranching in SD, and mostly did Herefords. Mean rear end bulls though....
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May 25, 2013 19:00
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Used Sunlight sales posted:I'm sorry guys. My woman left me and I am having a hard time dealing with that, especially at this time of year. I've found that the best thing is work. Distraction. Just taking it out on some trees or some dirt or something. Yeah, that's it. Go on a tree slaughtering expedition. Split some wood from dawn till dusk until your jeans are soaked all the way to your boots. It worked for me. (Wear sunscreen)
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May 25, 2013 19:33
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Used Sunlight sales posted:I'm sorry guys. My woman left me and I am having a hard time dealing with that, especially at this time of year. Man, that sucks... do what you gotta do, take your time. First thing I did was get in my jeep and drive west, I ended up halfway across upstate NY. Kinda surprised I didn't get a ticket on that run, driven in anger doesn't really describe it.
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May 25, 2013 20:36
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kastein posted:Man, that sucks... do what you gotta do, take your time. Its scary how quickly your brain just throws out the fear of bodily harm, I've done some stupid poo poo driving right after relationship problems.
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May 25, 2013 21:22
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Used Sunlight sales posted:Maybe I can get a mod to change the title to 'Dump trucks, skid steers, epic beards and other ranchy things.' South Central Kansas. Where about? Might have to drop by and epic beard bro out. :-D Sorry to hear about the lady problems.
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May 25, 2013 21:28
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thanks for all the support guys, it means a lot.  Ebola, I'd PM you, but you don't have them. It's a very very small community and I've been pretty careful posting clues that would point to where I live. I don't mind sharing poo poo with you guys, but I really really like my privacy and anonymity.
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May 25, 2013 22:43
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USS, thanks for the thread. Good luck with the wife, it's a bummer to hear that you're dealing with the domestic poo poo on top of everything else. It's been a hell of a read, but I hope you can get some stability at home, for your own sanity.
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May 26, 2013 03:45
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She came back, we talked for about 14 hours and things are good.
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May 26, 2013 21:48
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That's one hell of a long talk, but I'm happy for you.
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May 27, 2013 02:54
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Glad to hear things are back on track
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May 27, 2013 04:54
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Used Sunlight sales posted:thanks for all the support guys, it means a lot.
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May 27, 2013 17:34
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Have a sunset. Just a typical damned old Kansas sunset.  In addition to my relationship flustercluck a bunch of stuff businesswise came up, not so much ranch work, but i've spent a lot of time on the phone in the last week. I got a little work done saturday, yesterday and today. Saturday morning I was about half mile away from the landing cutting trees. My machines have air ride seats in them because I pimped them out when I ordered them. If you're going to plan on spending a thousand hours in a piece of machinery, make it a nice one if you're going to be the guy in it. So anyway, half mile away from the landing, off in a canyon that's a real fucker to get to, I go to put a little more air in my seat...and when I let go it doesn't shut off. It just keeps pumping and pumping air. I'm bouncing around to gently caress in the cab, now the seat is tossing me towards the ceiling at a fairly dramatic speed. I'm already on rough ground, now imagine me trying to shut the machine down, stop the hydraulics, get to level ground and lower the arms all while holding down the air release to let the air out of my seat so it doesn't blow the fuckin bag. You need two hands to operate the machine and one to hold that lever and there isn't even room for dog in the cab (drat right she'd ride with me. When I run heavy equip that has room she rides with me.) Got it shut down and safe finally, dug around behind the seat and found the harness, so I unplugged it and started the machine. Fired right up, seat air compressor not running? Check! Too bad that harness also has the seat safety switch wiring in it. New plan, I went poking at the switch itself. Couldn't find anything, so I took the rubber skirting down and started poking around. I found a red wire and unplugged it. I couldn't see the bastard, but I can 'see' with my fingers pretty well. I took a picture with my phone, sure enough it was the power wire for the compressor motor.  I limped back to the landing and without a way to put air in the seat it was sitting on the floor with zero spring in it. You just can't operate that way in an operational environment. I went to the shop to scrounge for a momentary switch, my first idea was to cut the red wire, splice in a momentary switch on extended pigtails and tucked somewhere that I could reach it. Of course I went to Mecca first to see the parts break down, how much a new switch cost, how to take it apart, etc. New switch assembly, 137 bucks, and yes they have one in stock.  gently caress that. I'll just go get a four dollar momentary switch from the parts store. So I got it, made the pigtails gathered up all my crap to go back out to the pasture. Got out there and decided to plug it in and see if it was going 'fix itself.' Of course it had it had fixed itself and I wasted the better part of the morning running around finding poo poo. Seriously. What else do you do but shake your head and go on about your day. Sigh. I still have the parts in the machine to fix it if it does it again. Next project was moving to the next landing, I'm kicking rear end and cutting lot faster than I ever thought I would. Should have been fairly uneventful, I did a an unloaded run with the trailer to check clearances first, and no problems. So I loaded up the first machine and made it across the crossing that is a little sketchy, around the first tight turn, added power and didn't make it to the top of the hill. gently caress. I should have bought new tires last week.  On a sidehill and pointed uphill without enough traction to move forward. Being loaded heavy there's no choice. I have to back up, and there's a really tight corner that I am not sure I can make, if I can't, it's into the pond. So I started backing down the hill and the tail of the trailer catches. Double gently caress. I didn't think of that.   Now what? Go get the other machine, switch to the bucket and build a ramp! What would you have done? The tracks are from the the second machine, the one I used to build the ramp. I used the weight to compact the soil so it would be stable and hold the weight of the other machine.   I hopped in, actually put on my seat belt (who does that?) and backed it off the trailer.  It started to slide a little to the right just as I was balancing off the folded ramps. I won't say my bung didn't pucker a little bit, but it ended up being a lot less dramatic than it could have been. Without 12,000 odd lbs of machinery on board, my Dodge drug the trailer right straight up the hill. Reloaded the machine and off I went. Here's the corner and hill I got stuck on. I spread the dirt out that I used to make the ramp with and carried on.  Some of my typically  ranch roads.  I got some cutting done and all the sudden the machine started going into overheat protection made.  It's under 95 and I'm not even working that hard. I tracked up to on top of the ridge and let her cool for a few minutes then hit the reversing fan to clear the coolers. Temp didn't fall like it should and I know it's full of coolant.  Time to pop the hood.  Triple gently caress. That's not a hole in the cooler you see, it's a relief cut for the dip stick because engineering poo poo is hard y0. You are correctly seeing almost 1/3 of the surface area blocked with dirt. When I was changing oil in these things a couple weeks ago pop filled them, looks like he missed a little bit. The fill tube is right above there, I thought I had a picture of that. Back to town for a case of brake cleaner to flush all that crap out.   And after:  It's going to need a little more work next time I get over there. Only took me three cans to get to that point. I know the best way would have simply been an air flush with solvent to get all the oil out, failing that, hot high pressure soapy water. Or even better a steam cleaner, however I own zero mobile versions of any of those things. So It was brake cleaner a couple times and hope I don't catch the machine on fire.  I ran a few more hours and it heated up a little on me, so it will get cleaned again. here's a Before/after.   I went back down there and cut the stuff on the right side of the frame, got distracted and went nuts for about 30 minutes slaughtering trees. I have to go back over there, maybe I'll remember to get another picture. Soon precious, soon. 
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May 29, 2013 01:59
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That post was a roller coaster  
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May 29, 2013 02:29
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Do you ever keep the equipment in the field or does it all come home every night? Also you never told us which field (you took a picture of your field and your neighbor's) was in better shape and why.
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May 29, 2013 02:59
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I keep it in the field. we're two miles back in the brush, it's a long haul back. In the pic in question, I'm on the right side. The left has barely any leaf and no litter cover on the ground. On the right, we've got some old grass left from last year, new cool season growth and the warm season grasses are starting to wake up.
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May 29, 2013 03:21
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I'm kinda surprised you haven't put a winch on the Dodge by now. I had a winch on my old bang-around-in-the-woods-mobile, took it off when I scrapped it, then didn't end up putting it back on till a few months ago when I decided to finally deal with it and added a hidden winch mount for the bumper I'd already built. It's pretty nice to not really have to worry too much, as I've got the winch with 100 feet of cable, another 100 feet of spare cable, a handful of D-rings, a 20 or 30 foot recovery strap, two tree savers and a snatch block with me at any given time. I've actually been planning to add another snatch block or two to that list. I guess a winch big enough to haul that truck plus anything you happen to be towing out of a sticky spot would be enough money to make it wiser to simply avoid getting stuck.
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May 29, 2013 05:35
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What's the point if he's cutting down all the trees? 
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May 29, 2013 19:42
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Hey before I forget, again, be careful if you get a wild hair up your rear end and want more power out of that Cummins in your big truck. Don't just go hog-poo poo wild and pump the fuel pressure way up, you'll eat the camshaft that way some old timers say.
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May 30, 2013 15:03
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Still playing watch the radar and the skies. Storms blow up here in 30 minutes sometimes, it can get pretty intense. Had some wacky poo poo go past the ranch this morning while I was working. I'll post pics when I get back from my trip... I get a big enough winch the do everything I would need, I'd have to buy a D6 to move and power the winch. I've really never had a use for one, anchor trees are either way too far or at the wrong angle. A lot of guys around have had winches, but self recovery winches just aren't used around here. I suppose you city boys don't always have access to heavy machinery or tractors and 3 inch chain. Places where us country boys get stuck, no trees, but plenty of yellow or Green iron around to help out. I have a 3,500lb winch on the front of my RTV 900 and it's not quite up to the task. I have been stuck with it numerous times and actually had a successful self recovery using the winch maybe once. I tried a couple different 'land anchors' forget what they are called, and there wasn't one that worked in all the conditions that I might encounter in a day. Mud, to sand to high centered and maybe a few more tossed in for good measure. The most use I have gotten out of it is during burning season. I've used that winch many many times to pull poo poo out of the way or simply as an already attached two line that I can get to fast to hook a piece of debris and move it. That all being said, i've gotten pretty good at not getting stuck. When you work alone and there's no one to help you out, you have to call someone to help you get everything moved and dug out. It can really turn into a project, occasionally, if you're hosed up bad enough and the right people hear about it, it will become a spectator sport. Too bad we haven't had enough rain in the last two years to do anything but just make the dust calm down. IV8, it's a 40 year old dump truck with jesus knows how many miles on it. She's running fine the way she is and I need to learn to shift better, not more power. I'm going to be on the road for a few days. I'm attending a conference...that I am being paid to go to....they are paying mileage, for a room, meals, AND giving me a stipend. How about that? edit: Weather this morning that went blasting past the ranch:   Back side of that sucker:  VVVV Our dogs go to his house, he's leaving on a different trip saturday morning. My woman gets back friday night to get the dogs, and I get home late saturday and hopefully things aren't totally hosed when I get back. If I was leaving for a length of time I would either have pop check on things or get my neighbor to do it. Things just sort of should maintain themselves. Two years ago when I was racing karts, we were on the road almost every other weekend. It's been done before. Good question though. Cows pretty much stay where you put them as long as they don't want to leave. Ya just gotta make them want to stay until you get back and can figure out what they want/need next.
Used Sunlight sales fucked around with this message at 18:08 on May 30, 2013 |
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May 30, 2013 17:55
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How does that work with all the stuff you have going on at home? Your dad fill in, or are things sustaining enough you can get away with it?
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May 30, 2013 18:02
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Used Sunlight sales posted:I tried a couple different 'land anchors' forget what they are called, and there wasn't one that worked in all the conditions that I might encounter in a day. Mud, to sand to high centered and maybe a few more tossed in for good measure. I've used a few different kinds of production ones and they have all pretty much been poo poo. What has always worked for me is 3 pickets, a sledge hammer, and 50-100 feet of webbing. Hammer two in angled away from the load about 3 feet apart. Wrap the webbing around the two of them as many times as it will go, secure both ends however you like (to the pickets, to each other with a water knot...it doesn't matter). Now take the third one and put it in the middle of the loop you just made between the first two. Spin it until you've cranked all the slack out of the webbing and then hammer it into the ground as well. Pull against the bottom of the forward-most picket.
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May 30, 2013 18:13
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two days of hell, two days on the road and I de-tracked my cutter about two hours ago. I'm at home eating and getting tools to head back to the brush to fix it. I'm planning on time lapsing the repair. FML. edit: Yeah, it's been a long day. I'm about to crack the cameras and see what they have for the day. I might do a youtubery thingy if there's anything good to string together. The teeth are supposed to be inside the flanges.   edit2: the fix: http://youtu.be/KY_agE2R_3k Used Sunlight sales fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Jun 4, 2013 |
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Jun 3, 2013 20:00
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Sorry in advance for the double post. Hi, my name is Used Sunlight Sales and I'm an Alcoholic. It's been exactly eight years since my last drink. 
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Jun 5, 2013 05:10
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Well done!
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Jun 5, 2013 13:55
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Congratulations! Keep being strong.
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Jun 5, 2013 17:30
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Nicely done! Good work on fixing the track, too.
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Jun 5, 2013 20:03
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Used Sunlight sales posted:Hi, my name is Used Sunlight Sales and I'm an Alcoholic. It's been exactly eight years since my last drink. I know I'm really late on this, but huge congrats! My dad is coming up on 20 years. My best has been 6 months  I'm lucky to go 12 hours without a drink these days. As much as I hate AA's "higher power" bit, I'm probably going to go back this week - there's a mostly-LGBT AA group in Dallas that I used to attend. It's a pretty good drive (about 20 miles, different county), but I've gotten to where I think AA might help a bit.  e: VVV I'd love to find that middle ground, but it seems like every time I try to find it, I wind up shitfaced for about a year. And  poorer from buying lovely avatars  It really does seem like there's no real middle ground for some alcoholics, but I'm speaking mostly based on my own experiences (my own alcoholism + family + friends alcoholism).
randomidiot fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Jun 6, 2013 |
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Jun 6, 2013 09:07
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This may not be appropriate, and I certainly don't know anything about alcoholism, but it seems strange that there's no middle ground where you can have a few responsibly and not go on a bender.
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Jun 6, 2013 09:21
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EightBit posted:This may not be appropriate, and I certainly don't know anything about alcoholism, but it seems strange that there's no middle ground where you can have a few responsibly and not go on a bender. It's not that there is no middle ground. A lot of it is influenced by personal experience/perspective, so it is different for everyone and they subsequently project that onto other people. For me, I don't care much about other people and what they do as long as they aren't ruining their lives/driving drunk, etc. I've got friends who are essentially functional alcoholics - go to bars nearly every night and get hammered, but everything is walking distance for them so who cares? Having said that. Used - congrats! It's hard work, but keep it up!
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Jun 6, 2013 09:39
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some texas redneck posted:And Speaking of your avatar, where is it from? It's so... disturbing and I can't stop looking.
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Jun 6, 2013 12:17
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That was a really cool video. Glad to see the Cedar-Slayer back on its 'feet.' And cool to see two operators operating to restore a fellow operator to operational status for continuing operator operations. Treefighter approved.
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Jun 6, 2013 12:38
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I always wondered about rubberband tracks. So it works more or less like the serpentine belt on a car? Pull back the tension pulley, slip it over and crank it back out? Do they make metal tracks for those? I would think just breaking the track, driving off/back on, and snapping it back together would be easier. Though I know metal track has plenty of downsides, too. Edit: also I randomly thought of this thread at like 4:00 this morning, and suddenly got the joke of your username. Chillbro Baggins fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jun 6, 2013 |
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Jun 6, 2013 15:20
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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EightBit posted:This may not be appropriate, and I certainly don't know anything about alcoholism, but it seems strange that there's no middle ground where you can have a few responsibly and not go on a bender. Of course there's a middle ground, most people that drink alcohol reside there. Others? Either a predisposition to it specifically, just like some people go overboard with many other things in life; or a lovely life and nothing else to live for, don't want to use any drugs that are more difficult to obtain or illegal or that could show up on drug tests a couple of days later when trying to get a job. I'd probably stop drinking if I have any hope or future, or could smoke pot without any repercussions instead.
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Jun 6, 2013 20:04
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MrOnBicycle posted:Speaking of your avatar, where is it from? It's so... disturbing and I can't stop looking. The Amityville Horror
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Jun 6, 2013 20:34
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