Save on Domains & Hosting

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So, most of you know that I love to build websites. At one point in time I actually had 45 domain names registered (I've been building up since 1999). Domain names are the names that end in .com or .net... But, I don't usually have all of those active because the hosting for those would be ridiculously expensive if they weren't all generating income. So, I just have several dormant domain names out there. I guess maybe I should sell them before they expire. Anyways, I always have a few domains expiring and a few hosting accounts which renew each year and I have found that it can get pretty expensive so, I have a list of my coupon codes which I try and use at checkout when purchasing from Godaddy.com. Just be sure you remember your total before you plug them in so you know the discount was applied.

Here's the Godaddy.com discount list as of today, I haven't tested all of them, but there are a ton to choose from.
*OYH1: Get 10% off any Godaddy order with this coupon. No maximum.
*OYH2: Get 5$ off any Godaddy order of 30$ or more.
*OYH3: Get your .COM for 6.95$ ($2 off)
cjcwinner: .COM Domain Transfers for $6.95/yr
cjcdeal: 15% off on orders of $75 or more
cjcdollar: $1 off Coupon
*cjchost: 20% off Shared Hosting Plans (This one is my favorite because I purchase hosting by the year.)
cjccoupon: 10% off Coupon
ZINE1: 10% off any order
ZINE2: $5 Off any $30 Purchase
ZINE3: $6.95 .COM Registration or Renewals
goox025afc: $6.95 .coms. Not sure if it works for renewals. (from Google Ad)
gdm0702: two .nets for $10
LOL65: $5.99 .net buys (not renewals)
catalog1: $20 off a $75 order
OYH3: $3 off / $6.95 any .COM (renewals too... just used it)
BTPS7: 20% any order of $50 or more
BTPS255: 25% off any order of $100 or more
OYH1: 10% off whatever
OYH2: $5 off a $30 purchase
BTPS50: 50% off .co.uk domains
BTPS4: 10% off anything
chill1: 10% off
chill2: $5 off $30
chill3: $6.95 .coms
hash1: 10% off
hash2: $5 off $30
hash3: $6.95 .com registration
gdd1101c: 10% off any order of $40 or more
The only code I could get to work for .com renewals is: cjcbentld
TDNAM is one of the newest Domain names auction that Godaddy created.
TDNAM: Code: cjcbentld Discount: 15% off TLDs
TDNAM: Code: gdbb776 Discount: 20% off TLDs
TDNAM Code: gdbb776 - $2(discount) If you got a domain name that you liked for $5 you can use this coupon to get it for $3 much less of a registration fee.

TIP 1: Never select auto-renewal on anything, because if you forget to renew it yourself, which can happen, then you won't get a chance to insert your discount codes. They just bill you full price. I found out the hard way. :(
TIP 2: If you need 2 SSL Certificates, choose to buy only 1, and they'll offer you a second one for 1/2 off during checkout!

Tell your friends and anyone who runs a business so they can save too. BTW, I can create your site or blog for you too if you'd like, I do it for fun and I don't charge a lot for it because I love doing it. LOL. Let me know if you were able to save.

* = I tested the code today.

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Cute Baby Shower Invite

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So, I just got the cutest baby shower invite. I just have to say that a lot of time went into the invite alone and applaud the person who made them. (You know who you are.) Thank you! I am posting the basic instructions here, I hope I don't offend her, I just figured others out there would love her idea.

Materials used by crafter (I am taking a guess): Tin with lid, Ribbon, Twine, Brad, 2 sheets of solid Cardstock different colors, 1 sheet of double sided patterned cardstock, rubber stamp, ink pad, adhesive and printer to print invite and address.

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Basic Instructions: (This is roughly a 3" tin)


  1. Measure the tin's height just below the lid and all the way around overlapping a bit, cut solid cardstock to fit and stamp cute designs on cardstock. To save time you could use a patterned pardstock or paper and just cut it to fit. This one was 10.25" x 1.25"

  2. Measure Ribbon to fit around tin and enough to tie at the top, glue ribbon on base of tin, then put the cardstock strip over it and adhere it to the tin. This one was 13" of ribbon, but give yourself extra if you'd like.

  3. Inside: Measure inside of tin to make sure your invite will fit. This one is cut 2 5/8" x 11 5/8" from a double sided sheet of patterned cardstock. Fold into 8ths so it will be approx: 1 1/2" x 2 5/8" folded. Ink all edges including folded creases on both the front and back sides.

  4. Add Brad to the top right corner.

  5. Type out your invite onto a sheet of cardstock cut into 8 different strips of 1" x 2 3/8" and adhere each section in each of the spaces of the folded double sided cardstock in the order that you need them. (Remember you may want to space it out perfectly when you're typing it out so you have enough room to cut in between each section.

  6. Fold and tie around the folded invite with twine or ribbon so it stays folded. Insert into tin & tie ribbon.

  7. Type out your addresses and print them on Clear labels and adhere to the outside of your tins.

  8. Deliver your invites by hand or mail them in small cute USPS Priority Boxes with bubble wrap or packing peanuts.


Here's what the invite says. I will separate each section with a dash (-) and leave blanks where you can fill in the rest for your Baby Shower Invites:

Snips and Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails... - The time has come to celebrate, ______'s nearing her due date - Let's fill her drawers with lots of blue, When it comes to boys, she has no clue - Bring something soft, he'll have sweet dreams. Something with ______, ______ sure to beam!! - So, come for fun, we won't stay late. We'll go for dinner and fun, it'll be first rate. - Day, Month, Date @ Time. Meet at ____ house to carpool. - RSVP Regrets __________ - That's what little boys are made of!!

You can of course tailor it to your Baby Shower's needs. :)

4 comments:

Baby Name Ideas?

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What about Linark or Clanda? LOL Just kidding!

So, to all my family that keeps asking me what our son's name is, I just want to say that picking a name for our son is the hardest thing ever. I have this thing about names being the same with anybody else's we know or could know. As most of you know we've been trying for several years now, we had our son's name picked out for probably 2 years now. Then one of our friends had a baby and named him that name. Clark and I swore to never tell anyone so no one would STEAL it and we never did tell anyone but they took it without knowing and now we have to start from scratch. (Nope, won't tell what name it was because we actually don't like it anymore and don't want to offend anyone.)

Here's what each name goes through:

  1. Can't be anyone's name in our neighborhood, ward, we work with or ever met who might live close by us.

  2. Can't be a name in our family's or even extended family who may still be alive. To prevent confusion of course.

  3. Can't be a name that someone might like for a future son or daughter of theirs.

  4. Can't be a unisex name or a name that would or could maybe be used by girls and boys.

  5. Can't be a shorter version of someone's name or be shortened and then get confused with someone's name who already exists.

  6. Can't rhyme with Winegar.

  7. Not super weird to say or spell, like adding an extra letter where you don't need it.

  8. Can make cool initials if possible. For example: W.O.W. but not E.E.W.

  9. Can't be a hybrid name, for example: Renesmee.

  10. Has to sound okay in English, Spanish, Portuguese and maybe French.

  11. Can not be a bad word or vulgar word in another language.

  12. Can be someone we knew while growing up as long as it meets 1-7.

  13. Can be original maybe an old name which hasn't been used much.


LOL. So as you can see we have a lot of requirements to meet. Obviously we don't know everyone and can't prevent duplicate names in schools and things but we just want to shy away from names of people we know. If one for sure screams out to us and is like "my name is ____" then we'd do it without even going by our 1-13 rules but nothing like that has happened yet. So, we get to take our time. I am sure we'll have a few names at the hospital to pick from and when we see his face for the first time it'll come to us. We may not tell until he's born, unless we know for certain 100%, so you'll have to wait and see. Of course if we know 200% then for sure we'll tell.

So, what names do you guys like for your own kids? So, we can make sure to avoid it because we would hate for people to hate us if we stole their names. Plus if you tell us, we won't use it.

Here's some baby name picking & ranking sites: BabyNameWizard & Social Security Admin

Note to Clark: Do not post names we have thought of here.

3 comments:

C.E.R.T. Training

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We'll we're officially done with our CERT Training and we'll be getting our certificates in the mail soon. Phew!
Here's what CERT really means: The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations. Using the training learned in the classroom and during exercises, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help.

After 18 hours (throughout 4 days) of training we had to put our training to use in a trial run. I was freaking out the whole time. I don't know if I'd actually helped anyone or made them worse. Hopefully with more practice I'll get better and have more confidence, so I could actually save someone instead of injure them. Clark of course, was cool and collected and helped me through the whole thing. He thought the practice exercises were fun. LOL Guys!  It's hard to help people when I'm prego, but I guess disasters don't really happen when you're ready, right? The volunteers we rescued were some great kids who put on the Halloween makeup and fake blood and guts oozing out of their bodies. It made it more real, they should totally start a haunted house.

I'm glad we took the course because I do feel a bit more knowledgeable about how to address certain things that could happen in the home and in the neighborhood, but the thing that they stress is that that more we know the better we'll be able to save ourselves (which they said was 1st priority), our family (2nd priority) and then our neighborhood (3rd Priority) if we had to. So, I would recommend everyone take this course because it definitely provides you with great info on how to help yourselves even if you don't ever get the chance to help others, at least you know how to help yourself and your family.

I did get to use a Fire Extinguisher for the first time. It's pretty easy! Here's a pic of us with our Fire Extinguishers and our cool new Hats and Vests.

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Click here to see when the next CERT Training class is in Pleasant Grove. Oh and if any of you want to borrow my CERT book just let me know.

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My Favorite Holiday...

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Halloween!!! Okay, so these are Quick & Easy Halloween Party Menu ideas I found online and posting them all here so I never forget them. These are not my original ideas but I did find them on various sites and these are the best ones I've found for this year. Hope you like them. If you have a cute idea leave me a comment with it, so we'll always have it. If you make any of these recipes email me the pics, I'd love to see them.

Ducky Cupcakes

halloween duckies

Bake a regular batch of cupcakes and frost them with orange or green icing.  Top with a marshmallow rubber ducky for extra edible fun.

Eyeball Cookies
Spread frosting on vanilla wafers. Put one Life Saver® on each wafer. Place a chocolate chip in the middle of the Life Saver®. With the red gel icing, draw bloodshot lines on the frosting.

Fingers of Doom - Dessert

halloween spooky fingershalloween spooky fingers
Spooky pastry fingers with almond nails.

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 egg
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 2/3 cup flour
1 tsp banking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup almonds, whole blanched
1 tube red decorator gel

Cream the butter butter powdered sugar. Mix in egg, and extracts until creamy. Sift and add the dry ingredients. Blend to make a soft dough. Wrap and refrigerate dough until it is easy to work with (about 15-20 minutes). Roll into a finger shapes about 3” long and ½” thick (They will rise when baked so make them smaller than you'd like the finished finger to be.) Place finger on lined cookie sheet. Using a butter knife lightly press a flat nail bed shape at the end of the finger and cut 3 lines in the middle of the finger to form knuckles. Bake at 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for 3-5 minutes. Put a bit of red gel in the nail bed and press the almond fingernails into the end of the finger. Tip: Make a small indentation into the end of the finger where it would've been severed from the hand. You can later squish some red gell in there to make it look like a bloody stump. Makes 2 Dozen cookies.

Bloody Fingers - Salty Treat
Prepare your usual recipe for meatballs, but instead of making typical round meatballs, roll them into long fingers. Carefully brown the fingers, and serve them with your favorite spaghetti sauce for dipping.  Add fingernails by putting slivered almonds near the tips.

Jack-O-Lantern Face Pizza

halloween pizza
Make a Jack-O-Lantern face on frozen cheese pizza or ready-bake dough by using pepperoni slices and other ingredients. Arrange face ingredients and cook pizza according to manufacturer’s instructions. If you're using dough, you can shape the dough to make it look more like a pumpkin instead of the perfectly round circle.

Witches Brew

halloween skeleton cups
Mix up your favorite green or red punch, then pour the concoction into skeleton hand glasses or other Halloween-themed cups.  You can also fill glasses and cups with red, green, orange or black candy and use them as decorations or Halloween party favors.

Cemetery Cake

halloween graveyard cake
Create a 'graveyard scene' on a sheet cake by adding Peeps®-shaped ghosts, pumpkins and cats. The 'graves' can be made out of chocolate dipped wafers, or any oval or circular-shaped cookie.

Worms In Dirt

halloween worms
In individual Halloween-themed cups, place a gummy worm at the bottom, and then fill half way up with chocolate ice cream.  Sprinkle crushed Oreo’s™ at the top, and add a few more gummy worms to make it look like worms are crawling out of the top.

Creepy Cake

halloween creepy cake
Bake a regular cake and frost it with orange, black or green icing.  Decorate the cake with gummy worms and candy eyeballs.

Brain Dip

halloween brain dip
Fill a plastic brain mold with a pretty pink shrimp dip for the ultimate gross-out grub on Halloween. Recipe

Spiderweb Guacamole

halloween spider dip
Make a batch of your favorite guacamole, then use a piping bag filled with cream cheese to draw a spider web on top of the dip.  Place a plastic spider on top for a good scare.

Pumpkin Dip Bowls
Hollow out a few mini pumpkins and place dips & salsa in them. You can also hollow out a large pumpkin, line it with plastic wrap, and put chips or other foods inside.  Plus you can use markers, stickers or paint to decorate the outside of your pumpkins.

Orange Pepper Jack-O-Lantern

halloween orange pepper
Hollow an orange pepper and draw a Jack-O-Lantern face on the side. Fill with any dip or cheese and serve with crackers as a tasty appetizer. if you decide to carve the face out, make sure it is thick enough that it won't ooze out.

Halloween Sucker Display
Hollow out a small pumpkin and stick suckers in it.  This makes a great table centerpiece.

Pumpkin-Shaped Food
Use a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter to stamp out cookies, sandwiches, and cheese slices to melt on burgers.

Pigs-in-a-Blanket or Mummy Dogs


halloween mummy dogs
Wrap little smokies in crescent rolls, then after baking, garnish each one with a Halloween pick instead of using regular toothpicks. And add some eyes using mustard on the actual smokie for an added spooky effect.

Candied Apples
This is a fun new twist to carmel or chocolate dipped apples. Instead of using a popsicle stick, use an actual stick! Go outside and pick some good strong sticks, make them the correct length and shave off the end. Clean the end if you want but remember the part of the apple it's stuck in does not get eaten.

Witch Hat Cookies
Ice a cookie with chocolate frosting and place a Hershey’s Kiss in the center to make a witch hat.

Candy-Filled Hands
For a fun party favor kids can take home, fill plastic hand-shaped goody bags with a variety of Halloween Candy.

My Fave! Chocolate Pretzel Wands

halloween wands
½ package of Ghiradelli Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
Package of Pretzel Rods
Halloween Sprinkles
Microwave Safe Mug
Parchment Paper
Cookie Sheet

In a microwave safe mug melt the chocolate chips (you want to use a mug so that when you dip the pretzel rods, the chocolate will go about 1/3 way up the stick). Dip pretzel rods in chocolate and sprinkle them with sprinkles over parchment paper (you can also roll the sprinkles if you prefer, but you will use a lot more). Lay on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper until chocolate has hardened.

2 comments:

Vanessa & Yadira's Birthday Celebration

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Just some pics of Vanessa's (Abraham's Wife) and Yadira's (Vanessa's Mom) Birthday Celebration at my brother's house in Eagle Mountain, UT.

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Property Values down but Property Taxes Up?

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Funny how the housing market is going down yet, the property taxes are going up? I don't know much about taxes, government or politics but it just doesn't seem right. They are crazy, we had to go appeal our property valuation notice the other day. Hopefully, it comes down in value. Next year for sure it'll be even lower at the rate we're going. I'm not paying taxes on an amount I couldn't even sell my house for, that's just ridiculous. It's not my fault the gov doesn't know how to budget their funds and so they feel the need to rip me off by increasing my property taxes. To fight it, you have to present them with at least 3 comparable homes which have sold for a lower value than your home. Not hard to do in this economy, however if you don't have a good Realtor to help you then you're pretty much out of luck. Some Realtors don't want to help you because they probably think it'll lower their commissions or property values even more. How do you expect to get referrals in this economy if you're not even willing to take 10-15 min out of your day to help someone lower their Property Taxes. I mean if a Realtor could save me at least $100-$200 any given year, I'd for sure be telling my friends and possibly even use that Realtor to help me relocate or sell my home. Duh!! Realtors are crazy and it sometimes makes me want to be a realtor cause I sometimes think I could do a better job. But only sometimes! The property values will continue to drop no matter what Realtors do to "protect" it. It's a buyer's market and that means, BUYERS will determine the drop or increase in market. If a Realtor can't help me lower my taxes one year, then I can't believe that the same Realtor will try to look out for my best interest when I decide to buy.

If you don't have a good realtor then here's some things you can do to help yourself out. The following can be found online for free. Especially, if you live in Utah County.

1. Know your homes details: Bedrooms, Baths, Square Footage (without garage), year built, acres, garage square footage, and serial or parcel number.

2. Know which neighbors sold recently and which homes are exactly like yours: You'll want to get homes which have sold and which are relatively the same as yours and write down their addresses and we can search for their info online. Usually ones in your neighborhood are best. On your list you can have 3 homes which have sold relatively close to your homes stats and then maybe another couple homes which you know are exactly the same. So you can compare your property values to theirs.

3. Search for Parcel Numbers: Go to UtahCountyOnline.org > "Online Services" > "Search Land Records." Then select "Interactive Map based Parcel Search" and enter your serial or parcel number in the " Zoom To Parcel" section and click GO. You should be able to view your neighbors parcel numbers and if you can't then zoom out and you'll get a better view. Write down the parcel numbers to all the homes which you outlined in #2, you'll need it in order to see what their Property Values are.

Apple Grove Parcels

4. Compare Property Values: Now, go to the home page again. Go to "Online Services" > "Search Recorder's Documents" then click "Property Values". You will then want to type in the parcel number for the property which you need the values for. Print each one.

5. Take it to the County: Call the number on your Property Valuation Notice and tell them you'd like to make an appointment to Appeal it. Then they'll send you a paper in the mail and you'll be able to fill it out and take it to them on your appointment date.

From these steps and the sheets you now have you should be able to see if you are being charged more or less than your neighbors for their taxes. Your taxes are based on the value of your home (the higher your market value the higher your taxes) so if you have an exact duplicate home of your neighbor (like in our area) then you can see if either one of you is paying more or less than you should and you can use that information to appeal your property taxes. Also, if you do this and present the info to a realtor they will be more likely to use the houses you pulled up in your search than they pulled up in their search, afterall we know our neighborhood better than they do and we might have a preference for which houses to put on their comparison sheets. :) Hope this info helps you in saving some money this year or any coming years. I'll let you guys know if we were able to reduce our Property Value to what it really is or at least closer to what it is so I can let you know if this works for me. I know it's worked for a neighbor of ours but that's because they just bought it.



There's a whole lot of other stuff you can see from the Utah County Recorder but this is the most valuable info and I don't have time to get into all of the cool stuff you can find on there. But if you have time just click on all the links and type in your Parcel number to get the cool stuff. You can also look up homes for sale in your neighborhood using: UtahRealEstate.com or look up your neighbors and other stuff on Zillow.com. (Zillow isn't my favorite but you may find some homes for sale that you wouldn't have found otherwise. Zillow, just doesn't seem to have the most accurate property values because they didn't even have our house on map maybe yours will be there.)

Oh and BTW be a good neighbor and let someone know if your Property Values are lower (for an identical property) than theirs because they'll appreciate it and maybe make you some cookies. Remember, this is free public information and so it's not like it's a big secret.

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Excited for Super Saturday!

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So, I decided to make the following for Super Saturday. Turquoise Apron, Cherry Apron, Eye Spy Bag, Hand Stamped Family Picture, Family Tree and Personalized Soap.

Turquiose Aproncherry aproneye spy bagstamped family picturehand lettered family treepersonalized soap

I'm so excited to make them, just 1 and a half more weeks before I get to make these fun projects. Special thanks to Mary, Natalie & of course their HFPE Committee for coming up with such clever projects for us to make. I wanted to make all of them but of course I could only pick a select few. I hope mine turn out as cute as the examples.

3 comments:

Tempus Fugit

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People always say to live each day as if it were your last. I disagree with this cliched advice. If I knew today would be my last, I would probably be irresponsible, reckless, and selfish. I would say some goodbyes (including a video to my unborn son), feel sorry for myself, attempt to up my life insurance policy, and then start a frantic rush to do a bunch of crazy things I've always wanted to do.


I would quit my job (or at least not show up), and then I would go buy a Nissan GTR and drive extremely fast to the nearest place that would let me strap on a parachute and jump out of an airplane. I would dine at expensive restaurants without regard for cost, calories, or nutrition.


GTR


I might charter a jet to some luxurious resort on a tropical island so that I could watch the sunset listening to the waves lap against a private beach of fine white sand with my arms wrapped tightly around my beautiful, loving wife. The lightest of breezes would whisper through her straightened, glossy hair, tickling my arms and face with its gentle flutters.


Tropical Beach


After a moonlit stroll along the water packed sand and an inadvertent, but pleasant, dip or two into the warm tropic waters, we would retire to our penthouse sweet to eat chocolate fondue and find the perfect ending to my last day in each others' arms.


Sounds pretty amazing. In fact, I got so caught up in it, I wrote quite a bit more than I intended and digressed from the point I was trying to make--which is that it would be pretty stupid to try and live each day like that.


After a day like that, if I woke up the next morning still alive, I would be extremely stressed. Eventually I would figure out some way to pay for my worldly indulgences without the benefit of a huge life insurance payout. But if I tried to live every day like that, I would quickly kill myself or at least jeopardize my health. I would be bankrupt in a matter of days or even hours and would lose the ability to provide for myself and my family.


Instead of trying to live each day as if it were your last, what if you lived each day as if you'd been given only two to three years to live? What kind of legacy would you try to leave? You would still have to live within the regular limits of reality, but you would have the urgency of a life on shortened time. How would you show your love for your family and friends? What would you value most? What great feats would you attempt? Could you change the world? If not the whole world, the world of some? How would you prepare to meet your maker? Would your shortened time and looming mortality affect your faith or belief in a "maker"?


As I've contemplated this concept and answered these questions for myself, I've gained insight into what I want to do and be and increased my resolve to live accordingly.


I'm sure that without a real reason to believe my time is limited, it won't be easy to maintain the urgency and focus I'd feel otherwise. No one knows the expiration date stamped on their life by unseen heavenly powers; we only know our days our numbered. Thus, time should always be treated as the most precious of resources. Once it passes it can never be regained. For all our trying, we can never get more or less of it allotted to us. We can only decide what to do with the little we have. How will you choose to spend your time?

2 comments:

21 Weeks Pregnant!

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21 weeks exactly! On another note, Plato is looking fluffy and we need to give him a haircut soon.

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