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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> spike [mailto:spike@rainier66.com] <br><b>Sent:</b> Thursday, June 20, 2013 10:04 PM<br><b>To:</b> 'spike'; 'ExI chat list'; dan_ust@yahoo.com<br><b>Subject:</b> happy solstice!<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>hapPy SOlsTlce EvERyoNe!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Splke<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.0pt;color:#575757'>Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>It wasn’t drugs that did this! There is a perfectly logical explanation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I climbed Mission Peak to watch the city lights come on as the summer solstice approached. So I went up there, but since I was hiking I didn’t bring my glasses: I need those only for reading. More later, I want to send this message right on the minute of the solstice, which is RIGHT NOW, 10:04 PDT, so HAPPY SOLSTICE EVERYONE!</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>OK so I have been trying for years to send a solstice greeting to my friends on ExI right on the minute of the solstice and in all those years, this is the first time I ever managed to make that happen. I had to cut short my previous explanation in order to get that message out on the minute. So here is what happened: there were solstice festivals here and there in the area, pagan rituals, nekkid bike rides and so forth, but I didn’t go to any of them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I went up Mission Peak from which a prole can look out over the entire Bay, and this was such a gorgeous evening for that, waxing gibbous moon, Venus and Mercury right together, clear skies, 20 degrees, just perfect, and so I was up there looking it all over, and realized that this hip new phone I have allows me to send email, but since I was going for a hike I hadn’t brought my glasses, so everything was a blur closer than about a meter from my face. I hit the wrong key or something and couldn’t get the soft keyboard to come up, but I kept messing with it until I realized it was a handwriting recognition pad, but I had no stylus so I was trying to form letters with my finger but I couldn’t see a thing and I wasn’t about to ask some young passerby to read it for me, no, I am soooo not going there, and staying not there, and I wasn’t going to ask a fellow geezer to borrow his or her reading glasses either, far too undignified. So I had to write the letters and kinda guess if I had them approximately right and in the right order. So when I arrived home a few minutes before the solstice, I find this apparently drug-addled post from Your Humble Servant, and had just enough time to write a sane-appearing solstice greeting but not enough time to write out this explanation for the first one.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>That’s my story, and I am sticking with it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Parting observation: I have been climbing Mission Peak above Fremont California for nearly a quarter of a century. This observation I share with great pleasure: the air is sooooo daaaaamn much cleaner now than it was back in those days, so much clearer, one can often see fifty miles on an evening such as this. I remember back in the late 80s when most of the time you couldn’t see much more than Fremont and maybe as far as Oakland in good conditions. Today you can see way down to the south end of San Jose, way out across the bay to San Francisco, way up above Oakland from up there. Life is good.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>