Franz Josef Glacier, NZ (film scan)

I was tagged by Zhu!

A: Age you went on your first international trip: 2 years old, when my family moved to Canada.

B: Best (foreign) beer you’ve had and where: I used to drink really dark English ale, the darker the better. Newcastle Brown sort of dark. But then I discovered the local versions of the wheat/white beers like Hoegaarden from The Netherlands and Germany’s Hefeweisen. Belgium has witbier. I like the fruity, summer beers — more refreshing.

Beer Bistro, Toronto

C: Cuisine (favorite): It’s probably a tie between Thai and Indian, but I love sushi, too.

D: Destinations, favorite, least favorite and why: Favourite — I am pretty fond of Switzerland, visually and gastronomically. Say what you will, the whole country is one big postcard. You could say the same for New Zealand, too, although they have more variety of climate. Least favourite — ?

Gandria, on Lake Lugano, Switzerland

E: Event you experienced abroad that made you say “wow”: Everyone knows about Oktoberfest, but “Silvester” (New Year) in Germany is pretty crazy! Especially along the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, the city’s red light district. But if you’re at all spooked by large-scale fireworks, I highly recommend you do not go.

F: Favorite mode of transportation: I love to mix my modes of transportation — too long on anything makes me restless. I never get motion sickness, which helps, so bus, train, boat, motorcycle, taxi, camel, anything goes. I’ve gone horseback riding a bunch of times, but I’m a little scared of horses.

G: Greatest feeling while traveling: when people make an assumption about where I’m from by how I look, and I completely shock them when I open my mouth and speak. Canada is an immigrant country, and many people either forget that or simply aren’t aware. I believe I’m a good ambassador for Canada, however, and am always looking for opportunities to up-end stereotypes and racial biases.

H: Hottest place you’ve traveled to: for both dry heat and humid heat, Australia. I prefer dry heat, though, six months in the tropical north of Queensland sapped my energy.

I: Incredible service you’ve experienced and where: I don’t actually like service, I am a self-serve sort of person. I’ve had good service everywhere, maybe it’s because people who look like me are usually the ones serving.

South Simcoe Railway

J: Journey that took the longest: it probably was not the longest single trip, but fourth-class rail in Thailand from the Malaysian border to Bangkok was overnight and took FOREVER. There is no guaranteed seating, and the toilet is literally a hole in the train floor. There was lots of mekong whiskey-fuelled drunken singing, chickens, and taking turns sleeping and standing because there were more people than seats most of the time. I don’t think fourth-class rail even exists anymore on Thai trains?

K: Keepsake from your travels: I steal airline blankets, ssshhhhh… (I use them for picnics and outdoor shoots!) Pictures are my only keepsake, and even then I have big gaping holes of time with no photos at all because I didn’t own a camera. I try and find local music to bring home, too, CDs with covers I can’t read. Music is universal.

L: Let-down sight, why and where: I remember seeing the Sydney Opera House for the first time. It was smaller than I’d expected (see how postcards can be so distorted?), and the sails didn’t look white to me. It’s the most photographed thing in the harbour, but I lost interest right away.

M: Moment where you fell in love with travel: I can’t remember a time when I chose to stay at home when I had the means (and even times when I didn’t), so I would say always.

Swiss Guard at the Vatican

N: Nicest hotel you’ve stayed in: hard to say, but the best hotel BED I’ve ever experienced was a weekend at the Grand Hyatt New York, at Grand Central Station. It was like sleeping on a cloud. I wanted to take that bed home with me!

O: Obsession—what are you obsessed with taking pictures of while traveling?: Food, street scenes (when I’m feeling brave), children and the elderly.

P: Passport stamps, how many and from where?: I’m nearly at the end of my fourth passport (since 18), and I don’t know if I can count them all. Some countries I’ve been to five times (Germany), four times (Netherlands), lots of transit-type trips, and one trip in 2003 involved 8 different airports around Europe.

Q: Quirkiest attraction you’ve visited and where: I was travelling with this English bloke north through Australia, and he managed to convince me to detour with him to find The Pub With No Beer. It was literally in the middle of nowhere (like many things in Australia are), and it took ages to get there. I probably shouldn’t tell you this but The Pub With No Beer is a lie: they have beer.

S: Splurge; something you have no problem forking over money for while traveling: the most amount of money I’ve spent at any one time on goods was in 2007 when I had two leather jackets custom made in Fez, Morocco.

T: Touristy thing you’ve done: dress up in traditional clothing and pose for a cheesy photo, in Volendam:

(Volendam) a German, a Canadian, a Dutchie, and an Englishwoman walk into a bar...

U: Unforgettable travel memory: some near-death experiences involving the ocean (before I taught myself how to tread water), river surfing on the Kawarau River in Queenstown, NZ, on a ferry boat racing to Mersing (Malaysia) because there was a man on board bleeding to death who needed to get to the hospital, the shared taxi racing to Malaka for Chinese New Year (we all thought we would perish), and other adrenaline-fuelled events like bungy jumping over the rainforest in Australia. I have a pretty good memory for moments where I felt like I was in danger!

V: Visas, how many and for where?: with a Canadian passport there aren’t many places that require visas, but my old passports have visas from Thailand, Australia, and other places. The most colourful one is from Thailand.

W: Wine, best glass of wine while traveling and where?: I don’t drink wine anymore, but I still love sangria, especially homemade with Santa Rita merlot (from Chile).

X: eXcellent view and from where?: the views from my former office on the Sunshine Coast are pretty spectacular. Actually, much of British Columbia is pretty amazing.

Lower Joffre Lake, BC (film scan)

Y: Years spent traveling?: After moving to Canada, I travelled with my parents to the Philippines once but mostly regular trips to the USA. I’ve been travelling solo since I was 18. I’ve only travelled with a companion internationally on three occasions in 21+ years (Stuart, Cetin, and Tyrone).

Z: Zealous sports fans and where?: If you’re at all familiar with the sectarianism in Glasgow (Celtics vs. Rangers football clubs), it’s only a little less intense in Edinburgh, where I sat in the Protestant section wearing the “wrong” colour, i.e., something that had a bit of green on it. (Protestant colours are mostly blue and also orange.) They asked me to take off my shirt but I turned it inside-out instead.

Possibly related posts:

1. Wherein I Explain Why The Sky Reminds Me Of Beer I know what you’re thinking. “She walked home in a...
2. Danish Wedding I shot a Danish wedding tonight — my first. How...
3. Things To Do In A Heatwave I’m not usually a beer-drinker, but on a record hot...

Michelle + Jamie from Gail Edwin-Fielding on Vimeo.

March 20, 2010
Rouge Concept Gallery
Toronto

Behold, a video slideshow of a wedding I shot last month in an art gallery. This is the largest number of photos I’ve used for a single slideshow (248) because a) I had a hard time narrowing down the photos, and b) their first dance song (U2′s “All I Want Is You”, running at 6:30) is pretty long, anyways.

It was my first time to shoot in an art gallery, so everything I learned I will apply to my next art gallery wedding in July (different gallery). Biggest challenge? Space, right up there with the fear that I’ll knock over a $900 vase… it is a very real fear! I never drink when I’m working — booze and expensive camera equipment don’t mix — but that doesn’t apply to anyone else, of course. Everyone gets pretty merry!

If you have a fast internet connection and a fast computer, a higher-quality viewing experience can be found at my ImageLegacy site (it’s around 90MBs, so it’ll take a little while to load). [Update: contest is closed, so I've removed the video.]

Ahem, there is one slide difference between the Vimeo slideshow here and the version hosted at ImageLegacy. With 249 photos, I doubt you’ll notice what it is unless you view the ImageLegacy version first (though I think it will be pretty obvious why I excluded it from the Vimeo version), but you’ll get a prize if you do…

What’s the prize, you ask? A free print or card of your choice. My photos are displayed on the web, but after a recent meeting with an artist for a collaborative project, I’ve been thinking of showing more of my work in print. My ImageNation website is now using Fotomoto to offer small prints, cards, or you may send any of them as e-cards. Check out the archives, click on a photo, and you’ll see the Fotomoto links below. I’m debating whether to set it up at gailatlarge.net, as the ecommerce option for that particular site design is PayPal only. I’d have to do some tweaking in the current layout to show the Fotomoto links. If you prefer a photo over at gailatlarge.net, let me know what it is and I’ll print it.

If you can figure out the slide difference between the two videos (tell me when it appears in the video at ImageLegacy.com), send me an email. Include in your email a link to one picture from either the ImageNation archive or the GailatLarge.net archive, select a print/card size and email me your choice. That’s it! First one to email me these two things: 1) correct answer + 2) a link to a photo from any of my galleries will get a free print/card in the mail.

Update: Nigel won and chose this photo, which will be printed 8×10 by Fotomoto and winging its way to him in India next week. Thanks for playing!

Possibly related posts:

1. More Bandwidth Please Sheesh! I finished this slideshow not long after I arrived...
2. Fancy + Rod: The Nuptials Slideshow Fancy + Rod’s Wedding: Entrance + Ceremony from Gail Edwin-Fielding...
3. Scramble Scramble from Sam Javanrouh on Vimeo. A time-lapse video by...

I didn’t notice this until Tuulikki brought it up more than two years ago (click on the pic for Flickr comments), but I use my left eye exclusively at the viewfinder. And, come to think of it, it is the first eye that opens in the morning. The first thing I do to wake up is to read info on my iPod Touch (after the cats walk over me and poke me to feed them), and I still only use my left eye! My right eye is shut tight, and this is involuntarily. I thought about it this morning when I noticed that I unconsciously kept my right eye closed until I went to exit my bed.

I wonder if it’s because my brain knows that my right eye has poorer vision than left, so it sends a motor signal to leave it at rest for as long as possible? Is one part of my brain so dominant over the other that it can’t manage both eyes until the whole noggin wakes up? I have no idea.

Anyway, I’m curious to know whether my particular eye/hand coordination is common. I use my left eye, but I’m mostly right-handed with some ambidexterity. From observing other people, this is a rarer combination than I thought, but maybe it’s a perception.

Possibly related posts:

1. Website Design Poll As I have recently been designing websites, I have a...
2. Pronunciation Poll Over the weekend I watched the whole preview movie of...
3. Gail At Large [Photography] Is Live! Since June evaporated before my eyes and I’m a quarter...

Last night I got into a rather heated debate with a friend about who pays for dinner on the first date. I will hold off on stating our opinions so as not to influence this poll in any way (until later!), but I think my close(r) friends would easily be able to guess what I said…

Anyway, my friend are I were completely divided over who should pay for the first date, so I put forth the question to people at work today… the selection zone was anyone who walked near the printer closest to me, haha! The dating question started another debate but I don’t think I’ll be polling THAT one… besides, most of the people I work with have been married or in a relationship so long they’ve totally forgotten who paid what and when.

Since this is a hypothetical situation, let’s assume a few things so it’s easier to answer (or not, we’ll see):

1. It’s a date between a man and a woman (it was a gender debate, sorry to exclude anyone) who are romantic interests
2. The date was arranged mutually, there was no official “date asker” or discussion about the tab/bill
3. This is a FIRST date, with no discussion of a second date
4. This is a blind date, i.e., first meeting for both people
5. Both people are currently employed
6. It’s a dinner date, but not fancier than business casual

I’ve answered similar polls, and there are a bunch I could link to, but I want to hear your answers first. I’ve randomized the possible choices to avoid bias, and I’m leaving this poll open for 30 days. I’m really curious about this one! Feel free to write a comment — the poll is anonymous, anyway. Most people just vote.

(By the way, the photo wasn’t from a date, it was just a random sushi meal with a friend. Mobile phone pic from 2006.)

Video for today: ABBA’s “Money Money Money”. This first video makes me laugh, but then I saw the official one from 1976 and I had to paste that one in, too!

Possibly related posts:

1. American Poll on Bush’s Iraq Policy U.S.: New Poll Indicates Majority Of Americans Disapprove Of Bush’s...
2. Pronunciation Poll Over the weekend I watched the whole preview movie of...
3. Website Design Poll As I have recently been designing websites, I have a...

I was listening to a CBC Radio program today where people called in to discuss how they were introduced to books as children and which books got them hooked on reading. In the course of the discussion it struck me that parents reading to children seemed very much a Western, Developed World activity. The first time I’d ever seen this was in a Disney movie or on North American television, because it certainly didn’t happen at home.

All I can remember about reading was that we learned it in school, not from our parents. This isn’t a criticism of my parents, though, I’m old enough now to comprehend the economic realities of immigration and generational differences in raising children. My parents were constantly working — they had multiple jobs when I was growing up and we were mostly latchkey kids. If there was a parent at home we had to tiptoe around the house because that parent was busy sleeping between shifts. It was expected that we would learn how to read and enjoy books regardless of whether we were read to or not, but it became an individual rather than a shared activity.

The three of us read books voraciously (we even competed with each other in speed-reading), but it was mostly because it was a) free (hooray for public libraries!), and b) something we could do on our own. None of us attended camp or were enrolled in any extracurricular learning or sports activities; we just didn’t have the money. I’ve mentioned before that libraries saved our childhoods — they really did! In the summertime we practically lived in the Winnipeg Public Libraries.

I can remember our parents reading out loud from devotionals and the Bible, but casting my mind way back to childhood digs up nothing read for “fun” (read: secular). When I babysat other people’s kids in high school it was assumed that I would read them bedtime stories, and we’ve read books to the five Ms since they were small and they love it, but it’s definitely not something we grew up with.

Was this a typical immigrant-kid-from-Developing-World experience? Maybe the kids getting read to were less of a majority than I perceived. That’s what I’d like to find out, but since most of the readers here are the silent kind I’m going to do it non-scientifically by just asking yes or no and leaving any additional information up to you to comment on.

Do you remember your favourite childhood books? Have you held onto them? (I loved the Heidi stories, they probably influenced my two trips to Switzerland. Asterix and Obelix. Nancy Drew. Sam Campbell’s A Tippy Canoe and Canada Too series. But I don’t have any of them now…)

Possibly related posts:

1. My Books Travel, Too Back in May, I hosted a brunch at my place,...
2. Look What I Found… From the dusty archives of primary school in Winnipeg, Manitoba....
3. Storytime December 19, 2006 Pentax K-1000 Holly‘s older boy, engrossed in...

Beano was tagged by Krisanne in Facebook, but he couldn’t come up with 25 things that humans would find interesting. So here is my first meme of 2009. I think some people would know some of these things, but I don’t think any one person would know all of these things.

1. I once had a job in Australia pretending to buy product from an Irish guy selling knock-off perfume on the street. There was a few of us switching various accessories like hats and sunglasses and playing along with the script. It was a real eye-opener watching consumers behave like sheep.
2. Over the years I’ve spent New Year’s Eve in Scotland, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Cuba, Canada, and USA. Notable ones: Christchurch, New Zealand (I was hitch hiking with three Kiwi guys), and New Orleans, USA (it was hit by arsonists).
3. My father’s real family name, the name on my birth certificate, the name I graduated with in high school, and the name on my current passport are all different from each other. I also have an official UK document in one of my expired passports with another name.
4. I have a scar on my left leg from a near drowning in an oceanside cave in Australia. The tide was crashing in gigantic waves and washed out my exit from the cave; I was trapped inside until a couple from Brisbane came and rescued me.
5. I’ve been spat on (and not by accident).
6. I wouldn’t eat bananas growing up, but I’ve learned to like them as an adult, as long as they’re not fully ripe. They make a quick, nourishing meal when I’m on the run. But overripe bananas still make me gag.
7. I was bitten by a small dog once, and have been a little apprehensive of dogs ever since.
8. I would like to donate blood, but I’m disqualified due to previous residency in the UK.
9. I never tried seafood until I was 18 years old for religious reasons, but didn’t actually enjoy it until I was 20 when a random stranger, who picked me up on his bicycle when I was walking home late one night in northern Australia, took me into his home and made me a seafood marinara. I was so hungry it tasted like the best meal of my life. I never saw him again.
10. I’ve had food poisoning three times: street vendor hot sauce in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, a green curry gone bad at office lunch on the Sunshine Coast (BC), and one other time… I can’t quite remember what I ate, I only recall that it was while I was an SFU student.
11. I was first proposed to by an Englishman. He ended up marrying the first person he dated after we broke up, and later divorced her. Then he married a Filipina! (Another one, not me.)
12. I wasn’t born in a hospital. My mother was without assistance at the time — not even a midwife was around when I decided I was ready to enter the world. You could say I was born impatient and stubborn.
13. I was born in a Muslim region, but there are no Muslims in my family.
14. The last smoking-enabled flight I was on was Balkan Airlines, 1995: Bangkok, Thailand to Sofia, Bulgaria, then London. I sat next to a German who offered me Camel cigarettes without filters, which he bought in Bangkok because they were cheap and unavailable in Germany (for good reason!). The Bangkok-Sofia flight was at least eight (rather turbulent) hours that I recall, and pretty gross since we were both smoking filterless Camels!
15. I went camping by myself once, about 11 years ago. I borrowed a tent and a bear whistle (it was in BC bear country!).
16. I have yet to take a photography class. (I’m not opposed to it, I just haven’t done it.)
17. Since I hosted Ramon Stoppelenburg of LetMeStayForADay.com in Vancouver back in 2003, two Canadians and an American who met me in the East years later said they recognised me from his website.
18. I’ve never bought a car, but I’ve owned three cars in my life, between the ages of 17 to the present.
19. I still have my tonsils, wisdom teeth, appendix, and the other internal parts that I was born with.
20. As a kid, I was so superstitious I was absolutely terrified at the prospect of turning 13.
21. I was born with a head of stick-straight hair, which strangely began to turn naturally curly after I graduated from high school.
22. My longest-surviving relationship was two years, and it wasn’t with anyone who I married.
23. (Because I get asked this question, and related questions, often:) I am undecided about trying to have children.
24. Three popular film titles I’ve never watched: Titanic, Fight Club, There’s Something About Mary.
25. I was hired for a temp job once because of my handwriting.

I have a LOT of “I had to pee so badly once I…” stories, but they are far too embarrassing to have on the web. I don’t mind telling you in person if you ask.

I’m not going to tag anyone, but if you do this, please put a link to it in the comment or email it to me if you prefer not to share it with the internets.

Possibly related posts:

1. Relief A clipping from this blog when I was in London...
2. Oh Look — I Found a Cairns Photo … and it comes with a story: me, between Cairns...
3. Where I’m From Alvin (my younger brother) just uploaded his first round of...

Sticker on the cable bag of my Maxtor external firewire drive, purchased over the weekend.

I’m currently on my third external firewire drive. The first two are 250GBs, this one is 500GBs. Someone suggested that I get a 1TB (terabyte) drive, but I’m willing to wait — prices will always decrease for storage while capacity increases.

I have several archiving methods which include making a backup of a memory card download direct to DVD even before I cull any dud photos or do any editing. That DVD of full unedited originals gets filed chronologically.

I shoot on average 1,000 photos or more per month, so I burn a backup of about a month’s worth of shooting and editing and file that, too. Additionally, I archive each quarter of a year’s worth of photo libraries (2008 Q1, Q2, etc.) over to an external drive, separate from any other archiving.

I only keep three months (one quarter) of photos on my G4 PowerBook at any one time because it travels quite a bit and it only has an 80GB hard drive. All my email is stored on other servers (.Mac, gmail, the office, etc.), and my documents, calendars, address book, and bookmarks are synched with iDisk to Apple’s servers. I can retrieve them using any browser and can access most things from my iPod Touch.

Basically, if my PowerBook G4 ever fails, the only things I lose are the applications, which are no big deal. The only area I haven’t covered is if my house collapses or explodes because I need to move either the DVDs or an external drive with full backup off-site.

Are you a big archivist? Or are you willing to take a technological gamble? It’s time for a poll!

Possibly related posts:

1. Making the Most of Winter I was supposed to go ice skating at Nathan Phillips...
2. The Flying Fieldings Digging through the archives to see if there are any...
3. A Geeky Observation: Laity Farm Revisited OK, I go on and on about Flickr on this...

Umbrella Drink (not mine)
Swan & Firkin Pub
Bloor West, Toronto

Whoa! The past two weekends and the weekdays in-between have been the busiest I can remember since I moved here. I didn’t even get a chance to write about the previous weekend, and now another weekend has passed and it’s Monday?? How can this be?

Well, first things first: I’ve said before that I’m not much of a meme-r, but I promised Anf I would do his meme back on April 25. Yikes, that’s a week and a half ago.

Here goes:

Things I’m Passionate About

• being a responsible pet owner
• being the person that my husband married (and not losing sight of her)
• travelling in a way that respects the culture I’m exploring
• becoming a better photographer
• aviation and the thrill of flying
• increasing funding for cancer research and reducing the stigma of lung cancer

Things I’d Like To Do Before I Die

• solo in an airplane
• scuba dive
• paraglide
• take a niece or nephew on a trip with me
• reach every continent (I have a couple left: South America and Antarctica, but I barely touched Africa)

Things I Say Often

I make a conscious effort not to overuse phrases. If I do, feel free to call me on it and tell me what those are!

I’m also in a very small minority of Generation X native English speakers who do not say ‘cool’, ‘dude’, ‘awesome’, ‘chick’, or if someone is ‘hot’.

Books I’ve Read Recently (in the last year and half, anyway)

• Timbit Nation: a hitchhiker’s guide to Canada
• Lonely Planet: Cuba
• Lonely Planet: Iceland
• Morocco: a quick guide to customs and etiquette
• Fodor’s Morocco
• The Kindness of Strangers

Songs I Could Listen To Over and Over

• “My One And Only” – Oscar Peterson
• “(Night Time Is) The Right Time” – Ray Charles
• “The Messenger” – The Tea Party
• “Guaglione” – Perez Prado Orchestra
• “I’ll Be Your River” – Cyndia Lauper
• “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” – Jeff Healey

Traits I’m attracted To In My Friends

• adventuresome
• fun and funny
• trustworthy and reliable
• understanding

In a related post, check out this list I did back in February 2005. I was disappointed to see I have only covered ONE of the places on my “Nine Places To Visit” list since then: Cuba. That’s it?!? It’s settled, I’m doing a road trip to Quebec City before the end of the year. It’s the only place on that list I can drive to; the others average around a thousand dollars or more for the plane ticket!

Possibly related posts:

1. The ‘Four’ Meme In a bid to try and get my mind off...
2. It’s Open Season in Iceland I laughed on the subway when I read this.* I...
3. Chucho Valdes (a speckly scan of the cover — yeah, I need...

(DON’T CHEAT BY SCROLLING DOWN FIRST!)

It takes less than a minute. Work this out as you read. Be sure you don’t read the bottom until you’ve worked it out! This is not one of those waste of time things, it’s fun.

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to go out to eat. (More than once but less than 10)
2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)
3. Add 5
4. Multiply it by 50
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1758… if you haven’t, add 1757.
6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should have a three digit number. The first digit of this was your original number. (i.e., How many times you want to go out to restaurants in a week.)

The next two numbers are YOUR AGE!

THIS IS THE ONLY YEAR (2008) IT WILL EVER WORK, SO SPREAD IT AROUND WHILE IT LASTS.

Anyone have a guess at how this works?

Possibly related posts:

1. Michael Turns 4 It was Michael’s 4th birthday on Thursday, and apparently he...
2. Dancing Twins Twins by Allan & Cheryl So cute! The last time...
3. What You WON’T See Me Doing in September http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdw0rks/26521021/ A photo of a hen party in Dublin‘s Temple...

This preference also has a lot to do with screen width, and my market research experience tells me that using Twiigs’ simple polling feature won’t give me a chance to cross-tabulate the answers with the size of your screens… hmmm… I’ll have to rework the question a little bit, then.

The list looks rather long, but decide your type of screen first (wide screen – greater than 1024×768, narrow screen – less than 1024×768, or if your preference is for either size), and now there are only four three* possible answers. And no, there isn’t a “no preference” option. This poll is for the opinionated folk

* [Update: argh! I had to change the options, because they didn't make sense! A flexible width site has no alignment, silly me! It stretches to both sides. Maybe you thought I meant the text, but I actually meant the whole site. Sorry, changing the questions reset all the votes to zero! But at least it reduced the list.]

(If this is too much thinking for a Tuesday, there’s a silly poll further down!)

All done? No opinion? Can we have the silly poll now?

OK, but I didn’t make this one up, someone else did (and has 39 votes at the time of this writing):

Possibly related posts:

1. Pronunciation Poll Over the weekend I watched the whole preview movie of...
2. American Poll on Bush’s Iraq Policy U.S.: New Poll Indicates Majority Of Americans Disapprove Of Bush’s...
3. Work Website Finally Live You might notice on the left panel the links to...