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As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
Best wishes for a wonderful and magical new year!
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10-09-2006, 01:01 PM
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#1
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Wannabe Snowbird
Join Date: May 2002
Concierge Level: 7
Posts: 34,137
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The Where's Santa?? Trip Report *Completed*
I thought that since this is a part of the world that very few people ever get to experience (me included) that I would share some of Dan's experiences and pictures that he took on his last work trip.
The Adventurer: DH, Dan. He's been Up North numerous times, but this was the furthest ever for him.
Dates: Oct. 2-Oct. 6/06
Destination: Eureka, Nunavut -- 700 miles south of the Top of The World. (about 80º Latitude for anybody who is into geography) It is also just to the East of the Magnetic North Pole. If you have a good atlas, it might be fun to follow along!
Ok, on with the TR:
To get to the Far North from Winnipeg, it takes time. Lots of time. Dan left Sunday, Oct. 1, in the late afternoon. His destination for the night was Ottawa. At 9:00 Monday morning he hopped on board a plane destined for Nunavut. Nunavut is Canada's newest Territory and emcompasses a fairly good chunk of Canada's North.
Iceberg! Dan's first sign that he's somewhere extraordinary.
Icebergs racing in the Hudson Strait -- nearing Iqaluit (north of Quebec)
Houses in Iqaluit. They are on stilts because of the permafrost. If they were built on the ground they would melt the permafrost and everything would settle.
Dan had a stopover in Iqaluit. He is still nowhere near his final destination yet. Next stop, Pond Inlet. It’s on the Northeast of Baffin Island.
Looks pretty cold!
This is at the airport at Pond Inlet. The funny characters on the top of the sign are the Inuvialuit language of the Inuit people. I assume that it says Pond Inlet. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
They had a brief stopover while some passengers and luggage unloaded before they continued on to Nanisivik. This is also where Dan’s luggage stayed for 1 night. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]
Dan however, carried on, not knowing that his luggage was not coming with him. He only had his laptop and his camera with him at this point. No winter gear at all. His parka, boots, mitts, etc were all in his luggage. Fortunately, the people in the North are the friendliest people you will ever come across and quite literally gave him the shirts off their backs. More on that later….
When you think of the Arctic, I think that most people think of snow, ice, flat, and polar bears. I was surprised to learn that there are many mountains and canyons up here. You can see some of the tough terrain in this photo from the plane.
The sun is starting to set. It’s only 5:30.
Nanisivik is on the Northwest corner of Baffin Island. I like the icicles hanging from the sign. This really was a milk run – up and down and up and down, but this is really the only way that the northern residents can get to “civilization” and back.
He still has about an hour until he hits Resolute Bay, which is his destination for the night.
It’s 6:00 and there’s another sunset picture, this time as they are taking off from Nanisivik. Back in the air, they have to hop to Cornwallis Island, where Resolute is.
Finally they land, and this is when Dan discovers that his luggage didn’t make it with him. Luckily, the owner of the hotel he was staying at had a spare winter coat and boots to lend him. At the hotel, Dan bumped into a guy he knew from work, who very graciously lent him some (clean!) underwear. And a man that Dan had never met and will likely never see again, gave him 2 clean shirts and a brand new package of 3 pairs of socks.
It was a very long day of travel, and he’s still not there yet! If I’m calculating right, after taking into consideration the time zone differences, he was traveling for 10 hours. Remember, he hasn't even left the country!! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Fortunately, he had a day’s layover in Resolute, which gave him the opportunity to make arrangements to find his luggage, and plan a few things for work. Another surprise in Resolute was how “civilized” it was. They actually had a real hotel – private rooms and private bathrooms. I can’t tell you how many times Dan has stayed Up North and has had to stay in more dorm-like conditions. He had high-speed internet. The phones are goofy because they use a satellite so when he phoned me it was like when you are watching the news and the reporter is half-way around the world, and there’s that delay thing, but it was nice to be able to talk to him!
Coming up…. Eureka! |
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10-09-2006, 01:11 PM
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#2
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Uncle Duck
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Paradise, CA
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 18,048
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
Cool [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] (literally).
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10-09-2006, 01:25 PM
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#3
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PassPorter Message Board Manager
 PassPorter Guide Author
Community Rank: Legend VIP 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Maidstone, Kent, UK
Concierge Level: 3
Posts: 190,285
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
I'm so glad that you're doing this trip report - I'm learning a lot already. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/082502yes_prv.gif[/img] I can't believe how long Dan's travelled for and he's not even there yet [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/jawdrop.gif[/img] and how beautiful the sunsets are - somehow you don't think of that part of the world as having beautiful sunsets. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/ukid.gif[/img]
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10-09-2006, 01:30 PM
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#4
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Community Rank: Explorer 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Cypress....Deep in Southern Illinois, close enough to see the Kentucky blue grass
Posts: 9,546
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
AWESOME pictures of the sun.
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10-09-2006, 02:00 PM
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#5
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Community Rank: Explorer
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Kissimmee, FL
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 10,481
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
Wow what an experience!
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10-09-2006, 02:12 PM
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#6
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Wannabe Snowbird
Join Date: May 2002
Concierge Level: 7
Posts: 34,137
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
Tuesday, Oct. 3/06.
Dan is in Resolute today, and it’s a layover day. He didn’t get any pictures because he was busy working with the airline trying to track down his luggage. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif[/img] It turns out that when they stopped at Pond Inlet, the whole plane was emptied, and nobody’s luggage continued on from there. So the airline ended up chartering a plane (isn’t that ironic!! Ah, the ways of the North! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) to specifically go collect the luggage. They told him he would have it before he went to bed tonight. And he did.
Wednesday, Oct. 4/06
Ok, back to the TR.
They left Resolute at 7 am in a Twin Otter. It was about a 2 hour flight.
Again, showing some of the mountainous terrain of the Far North
Dan works for the Government of Canada. His job is to keep the environment healthy. He cleans up nasty things that are bad for us like mercury, lead, diesel fuel spills and asbestos. The reason why Dan is up here, is because a long, long time ago there was a fuel spill. Now they are trying to determine what kind of microbiobial thingies are in the soil. There are certain microbiobial thingies that will eat the fuel residuals left in the soil.
First they used this big Caterpiller to dig down to the point where the soil was frozen solid.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t deep enough for the samples he had to take, so here’s Dan chipping away at the frozen soil with a hatchet
Boring picture, but I just thought you might like to see what Dan does when he works “in the field”
There is a manned weatherstation in Eureka, and there’s a population of about 20 people. This is the geographical co-ordinates.
The Post Office I can understand, but Customs?? [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] Dan thinks that somebody might have just stolen a sign and stuck it up there! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/roflmao.gif[/img]
After they finished their work, the did a little touring around, because after all, how often do you get the chance to see stuff like this?
An Arctic Wolf. I am sorry if anybody finds this picture too gory, but they had just killed a Muskox and were resting after their big meal. It’s nature. :shrug:
A few more of the pack.
A cool picture of Dan’s pilot and a wolf.
However, the wolf got a bit too curious, and right after Dan snapped this shot, he suggested [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] that the pilot should maybe get back to the truck. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
Dan calls this his Thelma and Louise photo! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] It’s standard procedure for the pilot to hold the throttle on take-off, and the co-pilot is also holding the throttle to ensure that it doesn’t slip back during take off – because “that would be bad”. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img]
The herd of Muskox (minus one of their buddies now [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img])
To be continued, because there's lots more photos from today... |
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10-09-2006, 02:42 PM
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#7
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Community Rank: Explorer
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: second star to the right
Posts: 13,308
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
Very interesting glad you are sharing - speaking of sharing I think I'd go commando before I wore someone else's underweaer - even if they were clean BUT it does say a lot that all those guys were willing to help Dan.
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10-09-2006, 02:47 PM
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#8
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Wannabe Snowbird
Join Date: May 2002
Concierge Level: 7
Posts: 34,137
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
More Wednesday, Oct. 4th
To beat a dead horse about how far north they are, this photo of the sunset was taken at 3:30 pm.
The ice is forming and that means that the ships are done for the season. In the summer this community is serviced by ship – supplies are brought in, including that Cat (tractor they used to dig with) and the truck that Dan was using.
This picture showing the canyons, was taken at 10,000 ft. They are only flying 3,000 ft over the top of the land. That’s some pretty deep canyons, baby! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img]
The luxurious [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] interior of the Twin Otter
More of the incredible canyons
A glacier
Just one of those really cool pictures that you luck out and get sometimes
Coming into Grise (pronounced grease) Fiord. You can see the grey ice forming. Grey ice is the start of the pack/sea ice.
This is Dan at the Air Passenger Shelter at the Grise Fiord airport. It looks like they could use a coat of paint on their signage, but I’ll bet it’s tricky finding a warm enough day to do it! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
They had to fly into Grise Fiord to drop off some of the people that were working with Dan in Eureka. Finally they were able to head back to Resolute….where Dan was “stuck” until Friday because there were no planes for a couple of days.
Resolute Bay Airport. It’s a bit darker than it looks due to the lights outside, but this was taken at 6:30 p.m.
Coming up…. What happens when Dan has too much time on his hands!! |
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10-09-2006, 02:58 PM
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#9
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RED SOX NATION!!
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Connecticut
Concierge Level: 9
Posts: 136,854
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
Such amazing pictures Donna [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/082502yes_prv.gif[/img] Thanks for sharing Dan's trip with us [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] Can't wait for more !!
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10-09-2006, 03:25 PM
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#10
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Wannabe Snowbird
Join Date: May 2002
Concierge Level: 7
Posts: 34,137
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
What happens when Dan is bored! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img]
A picture of the landscape around Resolute. I was surprised to see the lack of snow there.
The hotel where Dan was staying in Resolute, is owned by a man who is a collector of all things “Northern”. He has gone so far as setting up a small museum.
Muskox
Arctic Wolf
Dan and a Narwhal tusk
Dan making friends with a Polar Bear
Look out, Dan, a wolf!!! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img]! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/rofl2.gif[/img] [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/rofl2.gif[/img] Yes, guys, Dan IS this goofy in real life! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/love.gif[/img]
An antique knife carved out of a whale’s rib. The hotel guy paid $3,000 for it! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/ukid.gif[/img]
Muskox tusk carving. Dan’s not sure what the beluga and girl are carved from
That’s it for the pictures. Dan boarded a plane on Friday morning at 6 a.m. and eventually arrived in Ottawa at 6 p.m. (11 hours due to time zones) He was up bright and early Saturday morning and caught a flight to Toronto, and eventually arrived home at 10:30 a.m.
Anyway, I hope that you found this more interesting than boring. I figured that since so few people actually set eyes on the Far North, that this could be something that Globetrotters would think was cool!
Oh, and in case anybody was wondering... Dan didn't see Santa. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/pout.gif[/img]
[img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] |
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10-09-2006, 03:43 PM
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#11
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Community Rank: Trailblazer 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: MI
Posts: 5,570
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
Wow, thanks! Those were some beautiful pictures!
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10-09-2006, 04:00 PM
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#12
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PassPorter Message Board Manager
PassPorter Guide Author
Community Rank: Legend VIP
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Maidstone, Kent, UK
Concierge Level: 3
Posts: 190,285
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
What a cool report - those photos were awesome and that one of Dan with the wolf is a real classic! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/rofl2.gif[/img] Thanks for sharing that with us Donna! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/waytogo.gif[/img]
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10-09-2006, 04:23 PM
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#13
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Community Rank: Explorer
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: second star to the right
Posts: 13,308
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
Dan meets a polar bear and almost got eaten by a wolf - you shouldn't call the poor man a goof [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]
Thanks for sharing this with us - it really was interesting.
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10-09-2006, 05:08 PM
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#14
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Missouri
Posts: 4,595
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
Very cool! Thanks for sharing!!!!
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10-09-2006, 05:41 PM
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#15
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Community Rank: Explorer
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Bennington, NE
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 10,556
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Re: The Where\'s Santa?? Trip Report
How neat! Thanks.
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