Writing Wrongs

Wrapped up some stuff at work, finished taking the class which was interrupted yesterday.

Called to make an appointment for the mobile home park interview for tomorrow afternoon, but the manager is only there mornings, so made it for Friday morning. They said the paystubs will work for employment verification, no need for a letter. But they needed everything printed out because it has to be faxed. I guess they are not set up with eFax. :-(
 
Lunchtime dropped off the appraisal check with the loan arranger, their office is around the corner from the mfg rep. On to MV for dr. appt. but was so early had lunch first, Sono Sushi, which has been there forever but I have not been there in forever. Maybe 20 years? Empty a 2 pm, but very fast service. Excellent shrimp tempura, the only fail was there was broccoli tempura. All the other veggies were my faves. Long long shrimp. $11.

Then to Dr office, a bit early but it was a slow day and she saw me 15 minutes early. Got prescriptions for an anti-inflammatory for the elbow and a new BP med, and a request for a PT appointment. And then had my ears dropped but the nurse forgot about me, so it was 50 minutes not 30 before she did the ear wash. The right ear is still blocked, left ear seems okay. She called another nurse, who took a look and decided to send me home with another does of ear drops to soak in overnight, and then for another hour before I come in tomorrow for another wash.

Back to work, signed up for more classes. Vets called, since she will be sedated, no food for Domino after 9 pm.

Home, fired up the PC, cranked out a pound and a half of paperwork for Friday's interview.

Took the cat carrier out of the closet, straightened out the towel and sprayed it with "Bliss Mist". Kaan immediately walked inside, turned to face out and laid down.

single serve lasagna nuked for dinner, channel surfed but nothing caught.

VPNed to work, emailed HR asking for a verification letter (the loan folks still need it). Last time I faxed them, they may have ignored it as a non-company fax.

Looked at the uke class info in the catalog, it says to bring a pick. I thought I had one in my trumpet case. Took out the case, opened it up for the first time in 2 years, did not find a pick. Did find:
Several mouthpieces for trumpet and French Horn
A straight mute
A pair of drumsticks
Two soprano recorders (both wooden, one made in Germany the other in Israel)
A tube of toothpaste
A receipt from Thrifty car rentals
A few pieces of stick trumpet marching band music. A hand-written part for "Bubbles Was A Cheeleader"
The alumni edition of the UW fight song (laminated).
A full-sized book of popular tunes for piano & voice
Some of my Seattle All-City High School Marching Band year pins.

So I guess I need a uke pick. I once saw a gadget which can cut a couple of picks out of a credit card. Found one on Amazon - way too expensive. There is also a book, available online they said, but the music store which hosts the class has a non-intuitive web site, so I'll buy one in class. Or maybe online elsewhere, it's the standard Hal Leonard book.

9 pm, hid the two food towers in the closet after checking for cats.

Shot up, took meds, and here I am.

Edit add: Got a notice that someone un-friended me. The handle did not ring a bell.

Plans for tomorrow:
Up early to bring Domino to the vet by 9. Well, up when the alarm goes off.
Home, dose the ears, Kaiser MV for ear wash reprise
Football

Almost not worth the typing.

Work started with a 15-minute weekly meeting which two of The Usual suspects drew out past the allotted hour nitpicking over something better discussed off-line. :-(

But it was an hour in which I didn't have to try to find something to do which looked like work.

While in the meeting, the loan broker from the mfg called, I had to let it go to voicemail. She was supposed to have called Friday. She followed it up with email to my home mailbox, which I logged into. Three loan offers from two lenders. Bottom line is all three were more per month than I had been led to believe was a conservative estimate. Two were from a CU which has expanded to be a major mfg homes lender, the other was a Father & Son bank which did the same thing. All three had interest rates higher than they should be in these interest-free times. The CU played this game of offering 3% lower interest for a 5-year loan than for a 15-year loan, but the way that math goes is the monthly pay-out is $200 a month more for the longer-term loan. Boo, hiss. The bank's loan is 20 years, the monthly and interest rate splits the diff between the two CU offers.

There's a medium-term advantage in paying off the loan in 5 years, but I was looking for a bigger immediate advantage.

The email needed rent verification for the last 2 years. Last night I had faxed in a request for the year I have been living here, and got it, so I phoned and asked how to get the same for last year, different address but that company bought the company which owns the place I moved to, so the nice lady gave me my old account number and I faxed that in and they sent that paperwork to me. Twice. I am so happy I kept my nextiva.com fax account.

Next was 2 years' salary verification from the new company. Email to Payroll got me the fax & phone for the HR department which has the form for the lender/landlord to fill out. Too late to phone the east coast, so I faxed a request. With luck they will send the form tomorrow before I get to work.

Work stuff, took a class on IPv6, the new internet protocol standard. After an hour of pretty interesting and mind-bending info, the guy says they are about to run out of tape, so the teacher says change it. End of lesson. Back to the course catalog, there are 5 more sessions. I enrolled for the next one. Will take it tomorrow.

Home, didn't feel like going to BASFA. Probably won't for the rest of the football season.

Watched most of the MNF game, but was disappointed with it being mostly a defensive battle. Points excite me, tackles don't.

Caught up on LJ & FB, went online to make appointments. Domino needs her rabies shot and while I'm at it, she need some serious mat removal under sedation. And I penciled in a follow-up doctor's appointment for my elbow, which is hurting in places more consistent with having banged it than just tennis elbow. Maybe an x-ray is in order. Maybe drugs.

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Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Hearing test @ Kaiser
UPS pickup

This morning I noticed the dumpsters were empty as I drove to work.

Work started with running the script a couple of times.

Sizzler for lunch, just had the salad bar. A miracle has happened, thanks to way too much construction across the street (what had long been an empty square block now had three huge multi-story office buildings going up) they got rid of the meridian which prevented a left turn out of the Sizzler lot, and now it has a 2-way left turn lane. Convenient for me, but definitely an accident magnet. Speaking of which, I took a look at the other passenger side tire, and it is seriously scraped too. I thought about replacing two tires with Michelins, but even at Costco they are too expensive. They car has Goodyear tires, so I made an appointment at Goodyear to get that one replaced Saturday.

Back at work, tech support stole my machine, so I had nothing to do all afternoon. I punted, found some make-work.

I went online to buy paper packing tape for moving, but U-haul is 1/3 the price. I'll go there and get some book boxes and tape and start boxing things up. It won't be pretty, but I really need to make an early start. Slow & steady this time. My lease is up January 24. I may move out earlier if I find a nice place with a low enough price. Janice said I should buy a mobile home, but she doesn't understand that I have zero downpayment. She bought her condo 30 years ago with downpayment $$ from her folks, so it doesn't sink in.

Besides, I want to rent, not buy. I don't want to have to deal with taxes, maintenance and insurance. I want to be able to move to be close to work or shopping or whatever.

I thought about a Costco run, but the piles of food in the freezer were calling to be made into something better than a TV dinner, and the sun was still out and the dumpster was empty so I went straight home.

First run was putting the trash can with the cat clumps and some assorted unused litter onto a dolly and hauling it to the dumpster. Next trip was the clumping litterboxes and all their parts & accessories. Final run was the kitchen, livingroom and office garbage.

But I was still smelling cat poop when I got back to the apartment. Followed my nose and saw Kaan had crapped on the welcome mat, which is just inside the front door. It's fall colors, perfect camouflage for poop. It would have been easier to clean up if I had not stepped in it once. Luckily I keep a container of Clorox wipes handy. And Lysol spray. And no-go kitty repellent. And I am so glad I kept the bedroom door closed, because that's Kaan's Plan A.

Online, did some stuff. There was a lot of FB stuff to respond to. Checked on the eBay listing for the Toyota original radio/CD player, which ends at noon tomorrow. No bids. :-(

Plans for tomorrow:
Blood pressure check
Work
Manicure
YOTB

Work, support person broke my machine, which is what we have been trying to do all week. Details are NDA.

Lunchtime deposited a check & got cash at the CU, then to Carl's for chicken tenders.

Afternoon, elbow is still hurting. Shoulder too. Made a doctor's appointment for tomorrow morning.

Home. Thought about going to a podcast some friends were doing, but thought about rush hour traffic and stayed home, baked some fish fillets, nuked some frozen veggies and watched some TMZ.

And watched the cats. Domino continues to make every move by Kaan in her direction into major drama.

The switch back to crystal litter and the quiet automated boxes is a win. The computer room no longer smells like durian.

Photoshopped the company picnic pix, mostly volleyball. Some good shots, most made better by severe cropping. They are on a USB drive, I'll bring those to work tomorrow.

Quicken said the DMV took my money for driver's license renewal. Yay. Mine still has a couple of months left on it. almost exactly.

Plans for tomorrow:
Doctor
Work
YOTB rehearsal

Wanted to sleep till 9, but Domino woke me up at 6:30, a rare occurrence, so I checked my blood sugar and it was 108, a little lower than I want to be, though not in panic range. Had a scoop of ice cream and went back to sleep.

Around 9 or 9:30 KCEA fired up on the radio (my weekend alarm - it's the radio station of one of the local high schools, they mostly play 1940s music except when they are broadcasting the school's sports games). ( The rest of that story )

Had a lot of little things to take care of, including walking to the apartment office to pick up a package. There were two. One from my Baltimore sister (she warned me something was en route) and one from ancestry.com. My sister sent me a cute t-shirt with pictures of a lot of musical instruments on it and the text "plays well with others". And an amusing drinks cup which is a replica of a telephoto lens. It's amusing, but since the bottom is the narrow end, it may tip over easily when filled. The "shade" is also the cover, but they didn't make it with screw ridges, so it's easy to knock off.  I'll probably just put the cup on my desk at work for show. Right now I have about a dozen coffee mugs there from places I have visited, mostly Starbucks mugs.

About noon I finally packed up the Nexus and the camera and drove to the park & ride, and took light rail to downtown Mountain View. A good move, the place was packed for the street fair. It was huge this year. All the way from the start of Castro Street to El Camino, booths side by side on both sides of the street. Not quite a mile. The whole Wells Fargo parking lot was a kiddie area, with all kinds of bouncy houses, slides, a climbing rock, bungee bouncing, and this amazing thing where the child is inserted into a large plastic globe which is inflated and sealed, and slid into a huge pool of water.



The kiddie area used to be on one of the side streets, all of which were closed for a block in both directions from Castro. But unlike other years there were no food trucks, and only two or three food vendors on each side street. Possibly on purpose because Castro Street is restaurant central for Silicon Valley. One thing I saw is far too many restaurants which were there 3 years ago are no longer there. The best Thai place is now Mexican. Double Rainbow ice cream has gone through a few changes and is now a European bakery and Greek grill. Lots of changes, but very few empty storefronts.

There was a lot of eye candy, but not as much skin as I expected from a sunny 93° day. My walk started well, a few feet ahead was a woman wearing a floor-length shift made of a clingy material, and when she walked it stretched and became translucent, showing off her thong and very attractive bottom. It was also awkward taking photos because there wasn't much room between the path between the booths and the sidewalk.

On one of the side streets I bought a turkey leg and lemonade, and found a seat in the shade where I could sort of watch the big screen Comcast set up showing the Oregon football game. The turkey leg was overdone, I only ate half, but the lemonade was good.

I have been looking for a hat with a soft wide brim and perforated crown (baseball caps don't work for photography) but the ones I have seen online were $90 or so. Found just what I was looking for, in my size, at the fair, for $20. WIN!

I kept hydrated and took my time walking the length of the fair and back, stopping at the Greek place for baklava when I felt Hgl going low. It was soggy, which is a major FAIL. At 4 I was at the light rail station, apparently I had just missed the train by 8 minutes, the next one was at 23 after. But the train was in the station and air conditioned so not a bad place to wait. 

Back to the park and ride, and then home to the air conditioned apartment. There were 6 college football games to surf, so I did that before, during and after dinner. After he finished his treats, Kaan jumped up on my lap and head butted me a bit, finally jumped up to the top of the recliner and pwned that. Somewhere before then I had grabbed Domino and trimmed her claws, she had been getting them caught on things. She didn't hardly resist, but jumped right off when I was done and hid in the computer room. She's still here, curled up in a corner, asleep. Snoring from time to time. Last time I looked, Kaan was at the top of the tall cat tree.

I did the ancestry.com DNA test and got it sealed and ready to mail. Also filled out my annual "how far do you drive to work one way/how many miles do you drive per year" survey. I have put 3k miles on the car since I bought it May 21. That's about on track for 12k per year, but much of that was two trips to Morro Bay, much more driving than usual. So I'm guessing 10k.

Plans:
List my S3 phone on eBay, also the Toyota original radio and one of the in-dash units too.
Tomorrow:
Watch football
5 pm meet Janice for coffee to hear about her trip to Fiji and the sudden death while she was away of the father of two children she often babysits. I'd met him and his ex (mother of the kids) many times at Janice events, and at the park. He was way too young for a heart attack, I thought, but Janice says there were heart issues from his childhood. He was very Type A, which didn't help.

But I planned for it, so no biggie.

Lots of Hard Work™ today. Starting with hauling the tall trash can of clumped litter out to the dumpster, I think it weighed about 60 lbs. Vacuuming up under the litterboxes was nasty - I need to fashion something to cover the gap between the edge of the litterbox and the crap receptacle. Duct tape may work. Anyhow, while I was vacuuming, the stupid machine ripped up a rubber litter catcher mat because the rollers didn't disengage when I pulled the hose out of the holder so I could use it without the roller part. The litter is basically sand, and it clogged the machine. Twice. Burning rubber smell, and no suction from the machine, it appears to be dead. They were on sale online so I ordered a new one tonight.

But to finish up I pulled the spare out of the storage room (when I lived in a townhouse, I had one vacuum upstairs and one downstairs). It works fine, but it needs bags, and the last one I have is in it right now. Ordered more of those too.

All of that was hard work. After rehydrating and reclining and being a cat magnet, it was time to get on with the plans.

Fry's, picked up copies of Doom 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV for about 1/3 of GameStop prices. Also got a USB 3 hub because the Nexus guide said I could use USB to transfer my music from the phone. I looked at vacuum cleaners but those are commission items, and I couldn't get rid of the clueless salescreature in the cheap brown plaid jacket, and I didn't like the prices. Good thing, it was cheaper online. Also on the shopping list was a stand for the Nexus. I found a case similar to the one I have for the Kindle Paperwhite, and also a very nice compact folding stand. Bought them both. The stand worked great, the case not so much - the photo on the package showed the case becoming a portrait direction stand, which is what I wanted, but when I got it home and opened it up, it was landscape mode, so that's going back.

Next stop, Starving Musician, bought a music stand very similar to the one I already have, with the differences I wanted: more intuitive way to raise the height and fold/unfold the legs. Got it home and found that the holder did not fold down, which is a FAIL, but the one from the old stand does, and was easy to swap (they are made by the same company). So I'm set. While I was there I also picked up a couple of their world famous bumper stickers, and got the biz card for the guy who does the used instrument buying, whom I have dealt with before, and he's now the owner. He may have been the owner then, too, I don't know.

Next stop, Petco, I had a 20% off coupon good for everything if I bought $20 or more of pet food. The cats have emptied the food tower in the dining room, and the one in the kitchen is low, and the 20-lb bag I ordered online won't arrive in time so I bought two $14/7# bags of food - one of their usual, anmd one of the hairball prevention version, which I mixed up at home and it filled both towers with a little left over. While I was standing up, mixing in a big bowl on the tray table, Kaan jumped up on the recliner and started eating out of the bowl. He followed me to both towers as I poured the stuff in.

Back to Petco. I spent a lot of time looking for a bed for Kaan to put on the patio. None of the cat beds were half big enough, neither were the affordable dog beds. Finally splurged and got him a medium sized dog bed for $50. But with the coupon it was $40. And I also got some Littermaid litter, because the Arm & Hammer odor-free isn't.

The new huge Safeway is next door to Petco, and I needed bananas and ice cream and frozen dinners, which I got, as well as splurging on 12-oz bottles of diet Coke instead of the much more affordable cans. Buy 3, and it's at a discount, so I have 3 8-packs. They fit in my lunchbox better than the 20-oz bottles, but the funky sawtooth bottoms don't stand up well on the fridge wire racks. But being able to cap them means they won't go flat overnight. A miracle - got everything on my list and nothing I didn't need.

Home, it took three trips to unload the car, what with the music stand, pet stuff, Fry's bag and groceries. The it was patio time.

Kaan loved his new bed:


Next was the USB hub connection from the Galaxy phone to the Nexus. Total FAIL, Google music did not see the phone. Not a total loss, I can use the hub in my laptop survival kit.

Propped up the Nexus, launched the Kindle App, read a little, almost fell asleep so I took a nap for an hour. Felt low, took a reading, Hgl was 70. Had two Mounds snack-sized bars, and made dinner, ate it outside and finished reading Margaret Atwood's The Year of The Flood. Not her best work, I was glad when it was over, and did not want to read the sequel. About 10 years ago I read what could be called a prequel, Oryx and Crake, which was a better read as I recall.

Next up is David Gerrold's The Voyage of the Star Wolf because it was on sale for 99¢ and because the last thing I bought of his was garbage - a compendium of his dreams. Actual REM sleep dreams, not his dreams and aspirations. Ho hum. So far this new book is not thrilling, he spends too many words describing the surroundings (as Pournelle says in his intro, it reads like a screenplay script). But I suspect it will get better once the setups are out of the way.

Dinner was a Marie Calendar beef pot pie - they have changed their cooking technique and the crust no longer browns. And there seems to be less inside the pie.

Hooked up the Nexus to the PC and uploaded a bunch of music. Worked fine. Speakers in the Nexus are okay, but not nearly as good as Marketing claims.

Plans for tomorrow:
Fry's return
YOTB concert
Watch some football

Played with the Nexus 7. I am very pleased with it.

Accomplished at work what I had set out to finish, and also verified a bug was fixed in today's latest build. It was a fairly complex setup, took about an hour.

Manicure revealed that Michelle (owner and the one who does my armor plating) is a Vietnamese beauty pageant winner. She is gorgeous, and I would love to have her model for me. Two of the other workers are also quite pretty.

Lunch at Dairy Belle, grilled cheese was delicious. But the one and only employee disappeared when I was ready for my chocolate dipped cone. Boo, Hiss.

Home, Kaan pooped on the bathroom rug. I need to remember to keep that door closed when I'm away. Nice to have a washing machine, for events like this.

Band rehearsal, we practiced most of the pieces on the menu for Sunday's concert. Mostly whipped through them, but there was some remedial work because this was the first time we had a full turnout since Summer started. Boss man says this is the best band ever. A large part of this is how big it is, and how very completely the parts are covered. Not many concert bands can boast four tubas or four Euphoniums, or enough trombones to cover every part 3 times over. And we have a killer trumpet section.

I took home my copy of the Carmen suite, it was copied awkwardly, needing two page turns. Scanned it and printed it out so it just needs to be flipped once.

Bought a beater baritone horn on eBay. There were about six which were candidates, but this was the only one with a rotatable bell, and billed as ready to play. I'll sell my 4-valve to Starving Musician if the eBay one lives up to the claims. Shipping cost 1/3 of the total price, but still under $300 which is half what Starving's cheapest goes for. I expect about $800 for my current one.

Time to check my blood sugar level and go to bed.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
???

So to speak. Not that kind :-(

Lots of miscellaneous stuff got done at work. Toyota said they needed the actual original signed Reg17 so at lunchtime I went home and got it, and dropped it off at their business office for the DMV lady who was out to lunch. I emailed her and Customer Relations gal that I had done so, and when she was back from lunch DMV lady replied she would bring it in tomorrow. I really don't think this will happen, because she is a non-native (Arab) speaker and at the DMV she probably talked to a non-native (Mexican or Chinese) speaker and was told she could get the plates "if no one else has that name". Well, I have that name.

---

On my way back to work I stopped by BestBuy intending to buy a Nexus 7 and refuse delivery on the one their online people lied to me about. They told me on the 7th it had shipped and would be in my UPS box in 2 days. UPS tracking says they did not actually get it to them till the 13th, and if I see it by the 16th I'm lucky.

But looking at the Nexus, it is a lot bigger than I expected, and heavier. It may have only a 7" screen, but the bezel is another 1.5 inches or more. The Kindle Fire HD is on sale, so I fired up my Amazon app and ordered one. It should be in the UPS box Friday.

---

1-on-1 with the boss went well, he showed me his photos of the finished White Wat of Chiang Mai (he had seen mine from 2005 when it was just starting to take shape). And he had not seen my Morro Bay stuff, so I showed those to him. He was impressed by the breach photos and the flukes. And he said ok to my taking time off next week to do it again. So I put in for Mon-Tue. I have no commitments for the weekend, so the plan is to drive down on Saturday, and spend 3 nights, with trips on Sunday and Monday, though Sunday I may do a fishing charter or go to the Hearst Castle. I've never been there, but then again, it's a lot of walking.

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Something of possible passing interest to susandennis: A couple of days ago I saw a note on Logitech's site which said they heard all the moaning and groaning of the customers, and added a menu item to the UE radio which converts it into a Squeezebox. So tonight I took my UE off the eBay pile and applied the patch, and now it's in the bathroom synced to the bedroom radio. The kitchen & computer room boxes are synced to each other - but I could syn them all if I wanted. Something the UE won't allow.

---

I was at the bat cave Starbucks earlier, but their wi-fi was dead slow, and windows had 11 updates to install, so I came home and am using the laptop to wrote this. The update took no time at all with the 5GHz connection.

Domino is glaring at me. I moved the TV tray rack against the wall, and moved the floor fan from the bedroom to in front of it. Lately her two favorite places to hide and make more mats in her tummy fur have been the space behind the TV tray rack and the space between the legs of the floor fan and the bedroom wall. I set up a tray table in the bedroom and moved the table fan there, she may decide to hide under there, which is okay because it has a lot more space.

Left to do tonight:
Dinner
Find a particular episode online from season 1 of Who Do You Think You Are?
Make hotel reservations for th weekend trip

Up late again. Every time I have some event at night I push bedtime that much later. Woke up at 9:30,  totally surprised me. Got to work an hour later, still stumped by the issue from the day before. Finally got the Expert to go over the bug with me, decided it was a new bug.

Usually when we find something this blatant, we install the previous build to see if it was there then. The test case docs indicated it was working in a build three months ago, so I fired that one up - and it did not work correctly. The tester only checked to see that the right error messages displayed, he did not check that the feature actually worked correctly. So I went back about a year, and it still failed.

Something this important doesn't usually make it through so many tests unnoticed, so I emailed engineering with the "is it a bug or a feature?" question. They are looking into it. May not have an answer till next week, what with vacations.

So I went on to the next one on my list, and got that written up in a format which automation can turn into a test suite. One test case is really about 40 tests this time.

Home, sausages, corn & sauerkraut for dinner. Took out the garbage, and then put the tall wastebasket into which I had been dumping the cat poo, wheeled it out to the dumpster and unloaded. It was all in a big black trash bag, tied up, so no worries. While I ate I watched HLN's play by play of the trial where this redneck who killed his stepson and blamed his biological son, is trying to get his son off the hook by saying he lied when he blamed his son. To me it looked like they did it together.

Managed to assemble the cargo holder. The instructions did not point out that the netting had an up side and a down side. Once I figured that out, and realized there was a much neater way than theirs to set the tension strap, it only took a couple of minutes.

Domino parked herself on the couch for the first time in months, and let me cut off a lot of her mats. But when I started getting near the worst ones she made rude noises and got ready to be elsewhere, so I left it at that. She has very fine undercoat fur, and it gets tangled easily.

The "World's Best Cat Litter" turns out to be the worst for the machines - it doesn't clump neatly, and it seems to intensify the urine smell. I had to vacuum the area all around the machines because it spills out the sides. Back to Arm & Hammer, but I need to make sure I get the right type.

One of my photog friends is now editor in chief of an online photo magazine, NSW stuff, but not pron. I subscribed and looked at the first issue (which someone else edited) and the last two (which he did) and have to say his is a vast improvement. But we differ a lot on what we like to shoot and look at, he's a lot more hardcore than I am, and is more into what they call Fashion™ - models wearing tons of makeup, or ludicrous wigs, or lots of bling. But out of the two issues of his I looked at, there were only a couple of pieces I would have sent pink slips to.

Toyota failed me again. No contact from the customer relations person. I emailed her at 9:55 pm and she answered 10 minutes later that her child was injured at school. I suppose I believe her, but doubt if that took up so much time that she couldn't have texted me sometime today.

Also, I phoned to find out if the business office had my check, but they transferred me to the used car office and it went to voicemail. I didn't have time to go there today, anyway.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Manicure
Toyota
YOTB