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Post by Rockhobbit on Jul 29, 2011 9:12:05 GMT -5
Rocks...........how did it start and where am I now. I began to collect rocks as a little girl but never knew what to so with them. Then ebay came about and I learned that I could buy prettier rocks then what I could find. During the Ebay buying, I found this Forum and joined in 2006. I started learning about rock tumbling. Finally something to do with all these rocks! Then one day I bought a slab of 'Primivera' from a girl named Jamie. Such would develope a friendship that would last to this day. Soon after purchasing that slab, I began to communicate via email with Jamie. I ended up moving to Arizona for a few months and got to meet Jamie face to face. She took me rock hunting and introduced me to the addiction! It's all her fault! We rock hunted all the time, she showed me how to follow the source, how to kick the rocks and more. She even set me up on a blind date with a guy named JC. It just didn't click for us. Sadly, I moved back to Texas after a couple of months and missed Jamie terribly! I had to find rock hunting here in Texas.........I HAD TO! I WAS JONESING FOR ROCKS! I searched the internet knowing that most of Texas was private property, and found a place called Woodward Ranch. They let you come on their ranch and hunt but you had to pay $2 per lb. No prob, I was only gonna get a couple of lbs. ;D During this time I was really involved in RTH as Rockhobbit and Jamie even joined as Desert Dweller! I continued to make friends and learn about rock and tumbling. Then I had a wonderful idea that had never been done. What if a bunch of us on the board could get together at Woodward Ranch and meet each other face to face? Would it work? Would we all get along? I set it all up, and yep, it worked, we all got along as we had known each other for life we had a blast and hence my addiction worsened! Ed, (aka Stoner) gave a cabbing lessong on a tiny cabbing machine that Don and Dorothy brought to the cabin and off I went. I had to have one! I wanted to make the beautiful pieces he brought to show us! Jamie came to the get together as well and gave me some more instruction on how to find the good rocks! I visited WWR a lot during the next 2 years and used the lessons that Jamie had taught me and started building a cabbing machine from an old broke down one I had bought. Circumstances had me moving back to Arizona where my friendship with Jamie, my rock hunting and cabbing became untameable! Then...................when all is wonderful..........Rodney and Jamie planed a get together at Burro Creek, AZ. A gentleman named Steve (aka Rocklicker and yep...he licks rocks!) was attending. He demonstrated this thing called 'wire wrapping'. Ding Ding Ding...........here we go again..........Sheri has expanded her addiction! Fast forward 2 years and we have another Burro Creek get together. Don and Dorothy have moved on in their addiction to Silversmithing! I get a lesson from Don and here we go again! So there it is..................I am a full blooded Rock hound from the beginning to the end. Whats next for me? Faceting? Jamie and I still rock hunt a lot, Diane (aka Drocknut) comes down for a few months and rock hunts, we cab and wrap. Life is good as a Rock Addict! No 12 step program for me..........I am not ready and will NEVER be ready to give my addiction up. Giddy up little quad, Giddy up...........there are rocks to hunt in them thar hills! So, whats your story?
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Post by jakesrocks on Jul 29, 2011 11:06:04 GMT -5
Sheri, I was lucky enough way back in the early 50's, to attend a Jr. high school that had a rock club. We had an extra shop class room that was set up with everything, right up to a 36" H.P. saw. We went on weekend rockhounding trips, and learned how to cut and cab our finds. I was also lucky enough to have an old rockhound that lived right down the street from me. He had an old Army surplus Dodge Power Wagon, and he'd take me along on weekend trips out to places that are now either off limits to rockhounds, or are covered in asphalt and concrete. During summer vacation we'd go for a week or more to hunt rocks. We'd sleep under the stars, and cook our meals over a camp fire. When my old friend passed away about 25 years ago, his wife called me and said that he wanted me to have all of his rocks and equipment. I hauled home several tons of rocks, but by then I had my own equipment, so I helped her find buyers for the equipment. Several years ago when my wife and I moved to South Dakota, I packed up over a ton of rocks and minerals to bring with me, and gave the rest to a cultural center that had youth programs about rocks and minerals. Don
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Jul 29, 2011 12:55:26 GMT -5
*L* Mine is a long story so I'll try to keep it short. Back in the 1950's my dad met a rockhound at his work and became a little infatuated with the hobby. He got one of those little Sears-Roebuck six inch cabbing units and started taking me on a few trips to the Mojave desert to hunt rocks. My sixth grade teacher was a rockhound so had gotten me interested in rocks somewhat earlier. My dad lost interest fairly quickly and went back to his taxidermy but with me it took hard. From then on, when he took me deer hunting, my rifle would be leaning against a tree and my pockets would be full of rock. Fortunately, many of the spots he hunted had great rocks ( ie: Davis Creek and Black Butte Reservoir in California). In addition, my dad always bought piece of crap used cars so on our annual cross country trip to visit the Okie relatives, he invariably broke down somewhere in the Dakotas and I got to hunt pet wood and agate while he hitchhiked into town for car parts. Hit a lot of desert locations on these trips too and found some cool jasper and geodes in Oklahoma.
The next cool thing was I discovered rock shops and met an old gentleman named Buster Sledge. This guy was one of the original discoverers of the Berkeley Thunderegg beds, Stone Canyon, and other famous old sites. Heck his Stone Canyon expedition was even mentioned in my beat up 1952 copy of Dake's California Gem Trails. I had met my first famous rockhound and I was enthralled. He even sold me my first rock hammer which I still have somewhere and it was his old one with his name scratched on it. My first rockhound hero.
Anyway, from then on I was hooked bigtime, at least until I discovered girls which sadly curtailed the hobby until I figured out I could make them stone jewelry gifts to gain favor. Sadly though, High School and Jr. High were mainly taken up with guy things like sports, fishing, shooting, cars, motorcycles, girls etc pretty much in that order *L*.
Then came college and, though bitten by the biology/zoology bug ( especially the marine phases of the sciences) and working for a scuba shop, I had a friend who was a young geology/paleontology prof, and another who was a arrowhead collector. So, I got first into the arrowhead hunting and then back into he rocks as both were often found in the same place. Again began making rock pretties for the other pretties too. Met my wife, a biology grad student, while on a Desert Biology fieldtrip and after being successively dumped by my first real love and my rebound who left me to go study the crab fishery in South America. Man it took hard with my wife to be, and we both loved desert camping so really got into the hounding and, though the rock thing and camping have since faded for her, I've never really been out of the hobby since. Though there were some breaks when I took up black powder shooting, long range pistol shooting, sailing, horseback riding etc. Have hounded all over the west, Dryhead diggins in Montana, all over California, Graveyard Point, Oregon all over, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico ( Big Diggins, Baker Ranch) all over Texas ( Woodward, Bishop, Lambert etc etc). Hounding opportunities were much improved when I quit the biological research foundation and went to work for the Ag dept which got me lots of farm and ranch friends with access to private lands. Then we bought our ranch at Hornitos and I spent 17 years prospecting poppy jasper etc up there. Finally decided Commiefornia sucked and was just getting suckier by the minute so I thinned my collection and moved to God's Country, Texas.
We'd vacationed and rockhounded here a lot and loved it so figured why not move here, especially since I was now retired, Texas has no state income tax, and you get huge bang for your home buying buck in Texas. Plus the whole cowboy and horse thing with 3000 acres to roam which weren't bad neither. And of course, this part of Texas is uberconservative which I like, folks are totally gun and horse crazy like me, and there are neat places to hunt rocks. I swear, I thinned my rocks before I moved and probably have, in under three years, accumulated more than I got rid of.
And of course I found all you lovely folks at the RTH a few years ago which is a cool substitute for my lost rock club and the friends I left behind when I moved.
*L* Well that's my story, much abridged if you can believe it, too......Mel
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Post by tanyafrench on Jul 29, 2011 12:58:59 GMT -5
Hi Sheri, Don and Mel, you are so much further along than I am. My rock addiction began a just few years ago with a trip to Arizona, Utah and Nevada where I picked up rocks at every stop. My husband asked what I was going to do with them and my response was to mail them back home (We had flown to Phoenix) in several FRB's. My son Chris had begun wrapping stones (from a tutorial by Randy) and did a great job so that made me want to get a tumbler so I could tumble some for him. I got a little 1.5 Lortone, it is still running almost 24/7. Later I got a dual 3 lb Lortone which is still running 24/7. I have a Thumlers 15 lb'er but it died. I won a Dremel from Adrian in a competition and I began drilling my stones and wrapping a bail on them. I also do bead work and chain maille. Now my son Chris Perez and I have a booth every Saturday at an old Farmers Market in Dayton, OH which is an upscale art deco type market. You are juried to get in and interviewed. We were selected so we are thrilled. Don, Jakesrocks, has encouraged me all the way and helped in many ways as well. He is the best to ask questions of and get accurate info from.
My dream is to get a saw and something to make cabs. If I get a saw I may just cut preforms and tumble those. I am trying to speed up the time from start to finish so if I tumble them then I may have to invest in a Vibe Tumbler of some kind.
The down side is I live in Ohio and we just have Flint Ridge Flint about 175 miles from me. I generally purchase stones from others and really love to get scrap from cabbers, they are flat and I can drill the finished product for a bail a lot easier.
I am retired so this is a second life for me. I am loving every minute of my rocks and hope this hobby just continues to grow. You will see RTH names through this because I certainly would not be as deep into this hobby (addiction sounds like something to loose and I don't want to loose this) as I am now and it is a little income that at least pays for my hobby, well close anyway. RTH'ers have been there and I learn just by reading the threads and seeing the rocks.
Blessings to all Rock Hounds! Tanya
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Post by Rockhobbit on Jul 29, 2011 14:53:23 GMT -5
This is way cool! I love these kinds of stories!!
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snuffy
Cave Dweller
Member since May 2009
Posts: 4,319
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Post by snuffy on Jul 29, 2011 16:16:04 GMT -5
Well, my story started over 50 years ago.I was a kid way out in the country with no close neighbors to play with and a lot of creeks to explore.There were large chunks of pet wood all over the bottom of them and I tried my best to get 'em all home. I would get the tractor and pulled a slide that we had made to transport cows when they got down and take them to the house I used this to haul my rocks home.Got a car wife,4 kids, sports,4-H,livestock shows,job,cattle ranching,several gardens every year,kids through college.Didnt do a lot of hounding during this time.About 25 years ago, bought a Lortone 45c tumbler from our local rockshop,talked to the lady about buying a saw,she said oh no,you dont want to do that,the blades are so expensive.Forgot about it.Didnt tumble for a lot of years after that.About 3 years ago,pulled my 45c out of the garage and thought,maybe I'll tumble some pet wood. No idea where to get grit anymore, about that time we got a computer,found The Rock Shed on it,and a link to this site.All I can say is I'm making up for lost time now. ;D
snuffy
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Post by tanyafrench on Jul 29, 2011 19:01:59 GMT -5
I agree Sheri, I hope everyone writes a story here. I love reading them.
Tanya
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Post by tntmom on Jul 29, 2011 19:58:30 GMT -5
What a great thread Sheri!
My story is short and simple. I've always had a hobby that I immerse myself into obsessively. It didn't start with rocks though, it was fish tanks for about 15 years give or take. I got into saltwater coral reef tanks and went as far as hiring a contractor to build a custom 6 foot tank right through my living room wall. I was propagating corals like crazy until my daughters 9th birthday when she was given one of those toy rock tumblers as a present. It came with the little starter kit and was ready to go. As the tumbles progressed I found RTH and saw what those silly rocks could end up looking like. That was the beginning for me. Realized very soon that I wanted shiny rocks of my own and needed a "real" tumbler. I've had 6 total so far during the course of my hobby (4 running now, 2 were junk). Couldn't stop at tumbling though, I picked up a 7" tile saw and bought every type of diamond bit you can imagine for my dremel. Once I got the dremel figured out, I realized I love making cabs. So then came my 8" Ameritool. Also learned to wrap thanks to Randy and joined two rock clubs thanks to Woody! Been on a couple of field trips too, and discovered that I love digging holes and listening for the distinct "ting" sound of an agate when your pick hits it!
~Krystee
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Post by roy on Jul 29, 2011 20:33:32 GMT -5
i think as kids we all pick up agates out of the gravel i did for as long as i can remember but thats all i did for years my hobbie at the time was my son coaching him through baseball, football, wrestling .wrestling became a 9 month a year deal and when he went off to collage i went on vacation to az with my wife and motherinlaw got bored and went out in the dry river beds looking for critters started picking up rocks and thats when the light started getting brighter i brought home a 100lbs of garden rocks or so i thought !when we got home there was a rock show here in town i went and holly crap you can cut , tumble ,grind ,pollish rocks in to these incrediable shapes and make things !! this was three years ago i have got a 10,12,18,6, inch saws 2 tumblers and a vibe a flat lap ,a bull wheel and a genie , a highteck diamond flat lap for my flat work and a richardson grinder and pollisher and my backyard is rock storage forget the garden theres no room any more and i found my self on the board of my local rockclub. this new hobby is great i've got to meet some awesome people both on this site and in person and i look forward to meeting more of you in the future this site has a lot to offer and i 'am glad to be a part of it ! thanks sheri for sharing your story roy
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Post by bobby1 on Jul 30, 2011 0:02:39 GMT -5
I got started looking for rocks in high school when I went to visit my aunts and uncles who were into rockhounding and cab cutting. My uncle Keith taught me to cab in 1958 and I have been doing it ever since. I did have some slow times when I spent 7 years in the Navy and didn't always have access to lapidary equipment. I really got involved after I got out and as well I went to college and took some metalsmithing classes so I could do something with all of my cabs. This was during the Indian jewelry craze. Concurrently I worked for Kodak for 21 years followed by 18 years in the pharmaceutical industry. I taught classes at a rock shop in lapidary, jewelry making and casting for 15 years prior to retiring 3 years ago. I moved to the Gold Country, built a large workshop and now I indulge in a lot of lapidary work and travel about displaying my case at gem and mineral shows. I also expend a bit of time on various forums reading about everyone else's experiences. Bob
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,711
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Post by Fossilman on Jul 30, 2011 1:03:48 GMT -5
I'm second generation rockhound........Had three uncles start in the 50's,I was taught some of it in the 60's(mostly agates),than got away from it till the late 80's,than it was fossils and dino bones. Been at it ever since....Hunted alot in North Dakota and Montana(lived both places)than moved out to Oregon,the land of "rock heaven",now I'm getting into most all rocks,minerals,petwood,fossils and dino bone....... Teaching my grandkids now about rockhounding............Its great......
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Post by Rockoonz on Jul 30, 2011 1:14:18 GMT -5
For me it started in High school with the jewelry shop class in the 70's. For Elizabeth it started when her parents bought a house from a rockhound and she got to go through what he had left behind. We both drifted into other interests, eventually each other. We were married over 10 years before we discovered that we both had rocks in the head. Like I tell people, once our marriage got on the rocks it got quite a bit better.
Lee
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blessed
spending too much on rocks
Member since January 2010
Posts: 329
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Post by blessed on Jul 30, 2011 11:34:13 GMT -5
No great story for me. I have thought about polishing rocks for a long time but had no idea how to go about it. About 4 years ago my neighbor showed me some of the rocks he had polished and his tumblers. I had to have one. A double 3 lb. Lortone. This got me going, hooked for life, I hope. My neighbor, Jack, Passed on this year. I had the privledge of building a solid Oak coffin for his ashes. I sure hope they put some of his polished rocks in there too. James
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Post by tanyafrench on Jul 30, 2011 19:03:55 GMT -5
Let's keep this thread and the top for a while and see who else answers the call.
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StoneCrazy
spending too much on rocks
Stone Crazy
Member since July 2011
Posts: 331
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Post by StoneCrazy on Jul 30, 2011 20:12:11 GMT -5
Hi guys, My story is simple, so far, Hehe. My husband and I would walk the beach, I'd pick up pretty stones and diamonds you can find at Sunset Beach in Cape May. Next thing I know he bought me a tumbler and I'm tumbling away. But my mouth seems to be watering with all the pretty stone you guys post on here. So who knows what I'll get into next.
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
Posts: 1,077
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Post by elementary on Jul 30, 2011 21:38:40 GMT -5
I've always been a collector, and I've always been obsessive, and I've always enjoyed science.
Growing up collecting was baseball cards, football cards, coins, and books. As I went through college and for the first 10 years after graduation, book collecting took off to absurd levels ('obsession begins where common sense ends' originates from personal experience). I'd dump my quarterly bonuses - thousands of dollars - into my book collection. It grew to the point that I actually had a fully stocked library in my house. I still have the books, over 5000 at last count, but as you can guess, when I got married, my book collecting funds shrunk - and then my employer went bankrupt. Stick with me now, all this is relevant. I went back to school to become a teacher. After finishing grad school, I found a position as a fourth grade teacher. Guess what the science focus is for this age? Yep - earth science. So I decided I'd buy a collecting guide for Southern California. I felt that the students would be better served by holding the rocks and minerals than just looking at pictures in a book. I drove out to Gem Hill to check it out and as I drove through the desert, flashing by the Joshua Trees and smelling that desert air and seeing that gigantic sky, I felt like I was coming home. It didn't matter that what I picked up that day was junk. That desert emanated a siren's call like nothing else I have ever experienced. During my breaks, I would take four days and hit four distinct locations in southern california. Acton, Castle Butte, Kramer Junction, Lavic Siding, the Hauser Beds, Turtle Mountains. I would come home with my pickup loaded with material, all organized and all labeled. (Obsessive, remember. My garage is 100% labeled for all material that I've collected, and for material received from other sources that I could I.D.) I then went online and found the Ventura Gem and Mineral Society. There I met an amazing and knowledgeable group of rockhounds, Mel being one of them. I started tumbling and cutting my agate nodules, falling in love with those dang earth eggs, and bought every book I could on rocks. I joined this forum and began meeting incredibly talented and generous people from all over Hating when I couldn't identify what I owned, myself and others (Mel and Steve being the two I distinctly remember on that conversation) decided an Agate/Jasper identification guide would be a nice thing, which led to those downloadable books we put out. That was about 15 months ago. Now I've moved away from tumbling - I guess the mess kept on getting on my nerves - picked up a Pixie, then a Titan - and I'm now starting to cab for the first time. Hopefully will have my first cab I've ever made posted soon. (Since I admitted my cabberginity in my club's newsletter two months ago, I've been mercilessly teased - so I really gotta get my first one done.)
Lowell
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chassroc
Cave Dweller
Rocks are abundant when you have rocktumblinghobby pals
Member since January 2005
Posts: 3,586
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Post by chassroc on Aug 1, 2011 11:29:40 GMT -5
When I moved to Massachusetts ( lots of rocks but few that polish ), I used the local rocks to make borders for all the gardens and walkways; my local rock hounding days started B4 I knew what it was called.
7 or so years ago, I bought my wife a rock tumbler and rocks and supplies from Kingsley north and it sat for months so I started using her present. Found on-line rock shops and Bobs Rock Shop and other websites and rocktumblinghobby.com. Bought some rocks but it wasn't long before I started planning vacations around rock hounding in the West and craft classes in the South.
Made the jump to Cabochons and silver smithing and Opals and Turquoise and when I retire in the very near future, the addiction will become even more complete.
My wife does use her tumbler these days to tumble glass (leftover from stained glass projects). Charlie
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Post by Rockhobbit on Aug 3, 2011 14:59:10 GMT -5
Wow, cool stories! Keep em' coming!!
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rocpup
spending too much on rocks
Pink Limb Iris
Member since March 2011
Posts: 465
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Post by rocpup on Aug 4, 2011 15:07:38 GMT -5
My father worked for the railroad and we lived out in the middle of nowhere and the only good thing about a rock was to pick it up and through it at something. One summer day when the folks were away there came a knock on the door. When I answered it, there was a Hobo who said he was hungry. From all the advise hammered into my head we were told to shut and lock the door on these people. Well this guy was different he had in his hand three rocks and he said he wanted to trade for a sandwich. There were lots of rocks along the railroad tracks and I said goodbye. He said again they were special and he told me they were agatized fossil snails. Well he had me hooked. I told him to wait while I made him a sandwich. Shure enough the rocks were agatised snails. That was my first collectible rocks and who knows what happen to them. Twenty years latter after moving to Washington and walking along the river banks fishing found another agate and another and another. Then to Sears to buy a small saw and grinder. The rock pile is much bigger than it needs to be that we are retired living both in Washington and Yuma AZ. But the spark is still there and I have a jar full of agatetised snails. Don
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racevw112
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since August 2010
Posts: 174
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Post by racevw112 on Aug 5, 2011 8:48:45 GMT -5
I have always been interested in rocks and fossils, but never did know where to start. I have always picked up rocks from since I was a kid, really like petrified wood. So, a few years back at work one day a co-worker had a fossil on his desk and I asked him about it. We got to talking and he pointed me to several fossil clubs and such on the internet. So, myself and one of my sons took off with the fossil hunting and having a great time. Then two years ago I was doing some searching and found rock tumbling. I had a tumbler when I was a kid, but did not have the patience to complete any tumbles. So, I thought heck that is what I can tell my wife to buy me for my Birthday, a tumbler. I then joined the Rockhound group at work. My mom still had a lot of the rocks that I collected as a kid and she gave them too me and I polished them.....Which I think is super cool because I collected them over 30 years ago. I have since bought another rotary tumbler, a vibrating tumbler, that I have yet to try, and a Highland park machine that I'm rebuilding amongst other things. I just need more time to cut and make some cabs. Myself and one son likes looking for the rocks and fossils, the rest of the family is not into it all, which is fine. In fact when we went on vacation this year, we made a stop at Sterling Hills Mine to do some digging in the rock pile, me and my one son dug rocks, while the rest of the family went and did laundry. Now people at work are bringing me rocks to look at and they call me Rock Man. One last thing, the folks on this board are really helpful and very friendly.
Lyle
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