Steellover

So, Congratulations to the Michigan Wolverines, college basketball champions.  Just for fun, I fill out one of those bracket sheets every year, even though I am not the hugest basketball fan; I don't pour over every stat or look over those computerized Pomeroy ratings and what not; I just go with my gut feeling.  This year, that meant, among other things, that the team with the best record (Miami Ohio at 31-1) would advance to at least the top 16 (They didn't; they lost in the first round), that High Point would upset Wisconsin (They did!), and that Connecticut would return to the final four (They did) and that TCU would beat Duke (They did not.).  I got a lot of things wrong, as it turns out, with one key exception:  Michigan was something like 29-3; my dad was a Michigan alumni, and I wanted to see dad's alma mater win a championship.  So I picked them to win the whole big shebang.  And they did!  I shoulda put money on it, but again, I'm not enough of an expert to really risk that kind of bet, and I don't really gamble much anyway.

As a kid, I was tall for my age, but I was never much of a basketballer.  Too lanky; you know the whole "White Men Can't Jump" cliche? Well, that was me.    Some of these little short guys would toast me in 2 on 2 games, even though I would be a head taller than them, plus my shot wasn't all that consistent.  We lived on a hilly street with no park nearby, so maybe if I had a basketball hoop as a kid and had practiced more, I would have been decent, although probably not nearly good enough to play for dad's alma mater or anything like that.

On another note, This blog had over 140 views today, and something like 60 yesterday, despite my not having actually posted anything since Friday or Saturday.  At the same time, I got a message from a bot asking me if I was interested in submitting to "Her" despite her living on the opposite side of the country.   And yes I know "She" was a bot; yesterday I got a message, but today its "Profile Does Not Exist."  I think there is a coincidence; whenever the site is besieged with dating site bots, they will auto-scan everyone's profile.  Again, shout out to Villanelle and the staff for having to deal with this kinda crap.

Does anyone ever wonder how they came up with the idea of a giant rabbit that sneaks around laying eggs in people's houses?  

Rabbits are mammals; they don't lay eggs.  Now, the Easter CHICKEN; THAT would have made more sense.

I've also wondered how they pick the date for Easter. It's never on the same day, like for example Christmas, or even on the same Sunday, like for example the first Sunday in April. Sometimes it's on the second or even the third Sunday in April, sometimes it's super early, like late March.  I suspect that the Pope and his Cardinals just sit around over some Vatican beers, and just arbitrarily pick a day that they don't have a golf game, or something.

Anyway, Happy Easter. The idea of a man, preaching love, redemption, compassion, and hope, can suffer all kinds of horrible, excruciating torture just so some ordinary F***up like me can get into heaven, or some higher dimension after death, well, I can actually support that- and I do.  I won't tell you what to believe, but I do support the underlying message of Easter, albeit without the silly egg-laying rabbits.  Although those chocolate cream filled eggs you get at the store, well I have a weakness for those I must admit.

You ever drive around and see some commercial vehicle, van, or even a big truck, and on the back it says "How's my driving?  Call 1-800-etc."

Well, I've always wanted to call one of those numbers just to say, "You know, truck #3112 was driving fine.  He was going the speed limit, he slowed to allow me to merge, and seemed to be a very safety conscious driver."  I bet nobody ever does that.  The sad thing is, it's pretty much guaranteed that the only time anyone ever calls one of those "How's my driving" numbers is to complain about their driving.  Which is kinda sad, but that's how it is.

Although, what's even sadder is, if I ever DID call the number, it would probably automatically register it as a complaint, and I'd end up getting the driver in trouble anyway.  Well, that's all I got.  What can I say; it's pretty slow this weekend.  Went on a nice bike ride through the hills though.

In my life and experience as a submissive, I can honestly say that I am not a pain slut, and my pain tolerance isn't quite where I wish it was. But that does not mean that I don't occasionally enjoy (or rather, sometimes deserve, depending on your point of view...) the occasional hard discipline.  

I've been on the receiving end of all but one of these instruments, some of which were slightly painful but deliciously fun, others which were more painful but yet, if I deserve such discipline, then I obviously REALLY pissed her off- and it's a badge of honor to be able to take it, and hopefully, catharctic and satisfying for her to administrate it.  I'll rate these in order of, well, impact: 

1::  Basic flogger, or cat o-nine tails:  Deliciously disempowering, harsh yet playful.  I love being on the receiving end of this one.  Although if she's in the right mood, she can totally unload on you with this one and it WILL hurt.

2:  Leather paddle.  Again, this shows her who is boss (and it sure as heck ain't me!) and I can definitely feel her wrath when she unleashes it.  It can be a harsh, sharp sting, a deep bruising impact, or a playful spanking.  Whichever it is, is not up to me.

3:  Leather crop.  These things sting- and hurt just enough to let me know- hey, you better stand there and take it like a b**ch.  Just what a sub needs for light punishment.

4:  Fiberglass crop.  These things REALLY sting- and it hurts. You'd be surprised how much these little rods can hurt when she wants you to hurt. This is the point where it crosses the line from playful BDSM to more serious punishment.

5: The Wooden Paddle.  For when a sub REALLY screws up.   This is about my maximum limit.  The one time I've had to use a safe word, was when I got hit with this a few times, and it brought me to whimpering like a baby. (Did I deserve it?  You'll have to ask her!)  I was proud, though, to have stood there like a man, for her sake, but this is where things get serious, as in serious pain.  This is not playful light bondage anymore.

6) Bull Whip.  She never went that far, luckily, as these things can do some serious damage, leave serious marks, and you'd have to be a serious pain slut for this- and it would take some experience and skill on the part of the wielder not to do serious damage.  By my own admission, I'm not there yet, but if I ever screw up bad enough for her to try... well, that's really up to her, not up to me (isn't that the point of all this anyway?)

I've also seen even more severe instruments of torture- studded paddles, paddles with needles, some serious stuff that is literal torture.  That stuff is for the real extreme players out there.  At this point I'll say, stay safe, play safe, respect limits- especially your own.  

Anyway, that's all I got for now.  

"Congratulations! You are now a premium member!" 

So I finally pulled the trigger and upgraded my membership after being on the site for, gee I think it's been at least six years now.   I can't even remember when I first joined, but I just thought it was time.  Not because I think it will help me find a partner more easily, or anything like that, but I figured I would do it to support a good cause and a great website, which has helped me through a lot of stuff (both good and difficult.)   I mainly peruse this site for the blogs, articles, and forums rather than the personal section anyway. And thanks to all of you guys- staff and fellow bloggers alike, who allow me to share my thoughts and whose thoughts I have shared.

So, pat myself on the back... unless someone else wants to turn those pats into a hard spanking...  Aw heck, I'll just keep it short and to the point today.

Sometimes I just feel the need... like every man.

Okay, obviously, maybe NOT like every man.  

But I can't help or change who I am, or what I want, though I may try.

Sometimes I feel the need:

To be abused, degraded, defiled, and defiled.  To be whipped, spanked, and abused.  To give up control, let go of my cares, fears, longings, despair, and everything else that has been troubling me, clouding my mind, and focus on HER.  To block everything else out, and make HER the object of my worship.  To grovel at her feet, worship her boots, bask in her power.  To become a slave to her cruelty.  To experience taste of leather on my tongue and feel the sting of it on my back.  To be humiliated, chastened, belittled.  To suck her strap on, and to be a little naughty cock slut for Her amusement.  To be used, abused, and discarded.  Because the erotic high in such a power exchange is closer, more intense, and more soulfully intimate than most men can ever imagine.

And sometimes, I feel the need to make cringe erotic blog posts.  I generally try to refrain from doing so, as it's, well, cringe and unbecoming.

But I can't help or change who I am, and what I want, though I have tried.

So I just got back in town a couple days ago, after cleaning out a multitude of stuff I had stored at my parents house.

It's amazing the amount of stuff people collect and save, things which may have been meaningful once but which have long since lost their importance.

For example, I found:

-Old college history notes, from several different classes.

-A box of old Star Wars figures.  Worthless, essentially, because they were "not in their original package."   Because they were TOYS that were intended to be played with- and they were!- as opposed to just collected and sitting on a shelf. But yet, they apparently sat in my closet for over 30 years.

-A couple term papers that I had apparently written in seventh and eighth grade, but that was so long ago I didn't even remember writing them.

-Some old school report cards. Turns out I got a C in physics?  That was actually my favorite class!  I guess I wasn't as good at physics as I wanted to be.

-A bunch of old legos.  Including this one really cool space ship I was proud of building back in the day.

-A box of football cards from the early 1990s.  None of them are really worth anything though.

-Some old model ships, old sailing ships, but the masts and rigging were all broken.  I have no place to display these old model kits now, or even back then.

- A couple old model airplanes, which used to hang above my bed.

- A bunch of old "Car and Driver" magazines because I liked cars.

- A couple rolls of those old weird looking pennies;you know; the ones that just say "One Cent-United States of America" on the back, like from the 1950s style.  My grandma had given me these, and I'd just stashed them.  According to those coin guide books, most of them are probably worth about... One Cent.

-Old soccer team photos from when I was like 13 or 14.

-A bunch of old "Metal Forces" magazines because I liked heavy metal music. (I still like some of that old stuff now and again, for example Iron Maiden.)

-Newspaper clippings from the last time the 49ers won the Super Bowl.  It's been over 30 years. Maybe they're due, though in all fairness, Lions, Vikings, and Browns fans have been waiting a lot longer than that. 

Just, mementos of a life lived long ago.  I could not hang on to all of it.  In the end, I kept one soccer team photo, some old books, a couple of the music magazines, and the rolls of old pennies, and I gave the football cards to a neighbor kid.  The legos will probably be donated, and the old Star Wars action figures will probably end up adorning my cabinets at work, just for laughs and grins.  The rest, well, I filled up an entire garbage bag and a recycle bin with stuff I just don't need to save anymore.

Sometimes you just have to learn to let go, and live your life in the present.  That was part of this whole trip; letting go. I will not forget the memories of that house though.  I spent probably the last night I'll ever spend in my old bedroom.  Just alone with the memories: Of running up and down the stairs, laughing, wrestling around with my brother, playing games with the family, sitting around the TV cheering on the 49ers, countless Christmases, Thanksgiving meals with all the extended family and cousins, and endless joy at all of them.  The neighbor kids bopping in and out, Dad grumbling and grousing around, Mom making us breakfast before school and nagging at us to get our shoes on.  And even in hard times, it was a sanctuary against the turmoil and trouble of the world.  I'll always hold on to that. 

But being there in the empty house, all alone, was a strange, forlorn and lonely experience. Now I know how Mom must have felt living there alone these past few years, with the laughter and banter of us kids, and of Dad, only an echoing memory.   I've already talked about this at length in previous posts, so I won't dwell on it anymore here.  But I will say it was refreshing to get back in town, back to the present day, with work, social events, and a fun weekend coming up.  Maybe I'll go snowboarding this Sunday. Looks like they got a bunch of new snow.  Mom has settled in to her new place, and she suddenly has far more social interaction, at the meals in the common area, than she ever did these last few years living alone.  I think this has helped lift her spirits.  She seems to be doing okay, so that is good.

I used to be a long distance runner, once upon a time, and honestly, I used to love it.

It started about the time my youth soccer career wound down, when I realized that out of something like 200 kids competing for maybe sixteen roster spots on the high school soccer team, I was in over my head as far as landing a spot. So I signed up for cross country in high school instead.  

I was never the fastest sprinter; lots of guys could beat me in a 50 yard dash, but over a mile or two, I could typically hold my own against, or even outrun, most of the other kids, many who didn't have the stamina to go an entire mile without stopping.  So I thought I would sign up.  Though, I quickly realized that as with the soccer club, these were the elite runners in the school.  Guys who could average under six minutes per mile over a three mile course. I wasn't ever in that league.  But a spot on the squad was ready for me, and I was happy to do it.

Running is a very individual sport. You are competing mainly against yourself, always trying to improve on your own course time.  The first year, I suffered from tendonitis in my ankles and shins, but the next year I improved; and my junior year for some reason was my fastest year (not sure why I was a step slower the following year but that's how it was.)  In the races, I would typically finish in the lower mid-pack, which was respectable, but certainly I was no "Kyle Larson On Foot."  But that was okay.  The races were held on this system of trails up in the hills of the San Francisco Bay Area, and it was a roughly three mile course.  Race day was kind of like a big celebratory event where you'd hang out up in the hills with your respective school, wait for your race, then go for it. The adrenaline would be with me for the first mile, but afterwards, after the first big uphill section, you'd settle into your stride and just keep the pace until the next big climb, a steep uphill sprint at around mile 2.2.  Coming down the back stretch, you always hoped you'd have enough gas to be able to sprint to the finish, and hopefully pick up a spot or two before crossing the start/finish line.  Sometimes I did, and I was in a few photo finishes for that coveted 24th place spot (out of maybe 40 racers.)  

But mostly, I was in my own head, listening to the rhythm of my breathing and my feet hitting the dirt, or the pavement if it was a practice run, thinking of school related stuff, music, or girls.  And by the way, there were a couple super athletic girls on that squad who I thought were HOT!  You really were, literally, chasing girls while doing cross country.  A couple of them were faster runners than I was, (Faster than a lot of the guys actually) which I honestly thought was pretty sexy back then.

The practice runs were fun; we'd go anywhere from three to up to ten miles on the hilly, paved bay area streets, and it was always an adventure. The summer after high school, I'd go running at night, just because I enjoyed it, and it beat running during the hot, humid summer days.  Running at night was more fun anyway.  The runner's high you'd get was better than any drug, this euphoric feeling that is indescribable.  I do kind of miss that.  So yeah, I loved running and it was one of the few things I enjoyed about my high school experience.  

I can't really keep it up these days though.  It is too hard on my knees and joints; the last time I tried to get back into any kind of distance running, I would get sore for up to a week afterwards, and at best, I was only a shell of my high school running prowess.   So these days, I stick to just mountain biking, hiking, and snow boarding; which are still great exercise, but a little easier on the old joints.  Anyway,  with that, I'll leave you with a Music Corner:

What better song encapsulates this post than this one:

I got a lot of flack for my love of Iron Maiden in high school; it got me derisively labeled a "hesher" or a geek, or at best, a Beavis and Butthead type, which this last description was probably closest to the truth, sadly.  There were not a lot of metalheads at that school, but nonetheless I found people to bond with over our love of running, rather than music.  This particular Maiden album had a distinctly "Brighter" sound than the five preceeding ones, in a way that was hard to explain.  I guess it was more melodic, less gritty, but still heavy, and still had that trademark Steve Harris bass line and dualing Murray/Smith guitar duo to keep it real.

So anyway, that's all I got for now.

When lately it seems like my whole world is dissolving, everyone I know seems to be struggling and my head is constantly spinning with no solace or comfort anywhere... I just decided to say, heck with it, lets talk about something positive and fun.

People assume soccer- European football- isn't popular in America.  The thing is, it IS!  But it's popularity is different here. In the U.S, Soccer is a recreational sport, but it just isn't as big of a professional, spectator sport, like in the rest of the world.  The rule of thumb is, if you are a great soccer player as an American kid, you grow up to be a great football or basketball player as an adult.

Almost every dude I knew played on an organized youth soccer league of some kind of other when they were a kid.    Probably like 70 or 80 percent of kids did in my old hometown, at one time or other.  In the town where I grew up, soccer was just as popular- perhaps more so!- than little league baseball.  That's where the term "Soccer Mom" got popularized.  My mom was a soccer mom for five years. 

The first couple years, I wasn't that good, and neither were the teams I was on.  The more I played and got a better feel for the game, had better coaches, teammates, and what not, the more I improved, and the more fun it became.  I've always felt that playing a team sport is really a valuable thing to do as a kid.  You learn a lot about teamwork, discipline, both winning and losing, and it's a shared experience, plus, it's a good way to get excercise.  I certainly wasn't the most athletic kid on the field, but even some of the pudgy, non-athletic kids out there had fun playing.   My parents never forced me, but there was probably a bit of peer pressure involved because, well, all the other kids played.    Plus, it was a fun thing to do.  Practice after school was fun, and I looked forward to the games each Saturday. Much more fun when you are on the field, having an actual hand in the success (or failure) of the team, as opposed to, for example, sitting in your chair screaming at the 49ers the next day (which I gotta be honest, I did plenty of as well.)  It was certainly a lot more fun though when our team won.

Which we started to do more of, my third year. I turned 12 that year, and the team I was on finished at around 4-5-1.  Not a winning season, but an improvement over the two previous one-win seasons for sure, and I certainly savored each of those wins.  I typically was a defense man, which was where I excelled; I didn't have the speed or the footwork to be a striker or wing, but I was generally good at slowing down or stopping opposing teams' attacking formations, although the best of the best, future star kids would still give me trouble.  Depending on whether the teams utilized a 4-2-4 or a 4-3-3 scheme, I was either labeled "Defensive End" or "Left (or Right) Fullback" and different coaches used different terms, but the position and skills were the same.

The next year though, we were undefeated. This was the best coach I ever had; he was really willing to pull you aside and individually work with you on techniques and help you fine-tune your game, which most amateur youth-league coaches didn't have the time for.  We finished the season 10-0, and some of those games were lop-sided, high scoring games. As a 7th grader, I was on top of the world, even though I can't say I was the star player. For the playoffs, the top three teams had a round-robin playoff format. Each team played the other two, and if any team lost both, they were eliminated, if there was a tie, then the championship came down to the top teams in regular season points (1 for tie, three for win; we were the top of the league with 30 points.)  We easily won both playoff matches, dispatching the first (3rd ranked) opponent 3-0, and then dominated, 5-0 over the second place team.

But then, for the championship, as it worked out, we had to face the second place team again, and that match was to take place the very next day.  We barely had time to celebrate beating them in the playoffs before we had to prepare for them again, this time with the stakes raised, for the big trophy.  

It did not go well. They were motivated by revenge, we were complacent, perhaps thinking it would be an easy match.  Even professional teams and college-level teams fall into this psychological trap, and we were mere kids; seventh and eighth graders.  NOBODY seemed to show up ready to play that day.  After the game ended- a 3-0 loss, I remember filing off the field, unable to face my teammates, or even my dad.  We all went out for pizza afterwards but it was like eating cardboard; I just had no appetite.  I was absolutely crushed.  I remember playing decently that day, but the whole team just seemed listless, guys were walking back down the field between plays, and the other team was just fired up and hitting on all cylendars. I came home, showed Dad my second-place medal, and hung it dejectedly in my room, where I brooded the rest of that afternoon... like a sullen and defeated seventh grader.

So it was wait till next year mode. The end of soccer season was always a little sad, like the holidays were over; NOW what do I do on Saturdays?  

Next year came, a new team, and this time it was a travelling team that played teams from other towns.  I was in eighth grade then. And right out of the gate, we won our first game 7-0.  Again, it was gonna be a good year.  It was especially fun going to other towns and winning on the road, and feeling like we were defending our home turf, that being the park where we practiced and held our home games on.  We finished 9-1 that year, and I remember a couple really exciting games that year.  The playoff format for that year was more of a typical semi-finals followed by a championship; they abandoned the round-robin tournament format for some reason (and to be honest that never made sense to me anyway.)  

Our playoff game, against a team who we had beaten 5-3 earlier that fall, was just an utter clusterfuck of a fubar from the start.  First of all, they told our team that kickoff would be at 3:30 on a Thursday afternoon, a school day, instead of a Saturday.  For whatever reason.  Except, they bumped up the kickoff time to 3:00- and didn't bother to notify our coaches or parents.  The other team were made aware of it before we were, and were thus, far more prepared and organized while we were just scrambling to get everyone to the field on time.  A lot of us kids who were in private schools didn't even get out of school until 3, so Mom had to grab my uniform, cleats, and shin guards, and take me directly to the game while I changed in the car. Public school kids got out earlier, at 2:30, but even some of those kids were rushed.  But again, because the other team was forewarned about the kickoff time change, they got a chance to warm up before hand.  We did not.  In fact  a few of us (including me) actually missed the first 10 minutes of the game, by which time we were already down 1-0.

We were completely unprepared and disorganized, and it showed.  Worse yet, they had been practicing, and had perfected, this new offensive strategy, some complicated crossing formation with the wings and midfielders, that utterly caught our defense unprepared- that included me.  Their offense was unstoppable, and even if we had been organized and prepared, we probably couldn't have figured it out to stop it in time. They just utterly destroyed us; it was a humiliating blowout. And a bitter end to the season, somehow this ending was even worse than the disappointment in the championship the year before.

That was also the end of my soccer career.  After 8th grade, most kids either went on to play for high school soccer teams, or focused on other high school sports (typically football or basketball.) I chose cross country, as the competition to make the 16 man high school soccer team roster (with typically up to 100 kids trying out) was pretty intense; you pretty had to be all-star caliber to make the cut, and sadly, by my own estimation, I knew I just wasn't quite there.  That's okay though. I liked doing the running thing.  Maybe I'll do a post about that sometime.  

But yet, those five years I played organized youth soccer were among my fonder memories- even the tough playoff losses, though bittersweet, were not without a certain fondness for the whole experience.

So anyway, if you've read this far and managed not to be bored, thanks for letting me share.  I've been dealing with a lot.  I wanted to get something more light-hearted out there to talk about.

All last spring and summer, the house was infested with these stink bugs. If you don't know what these are, they're like Box Elder bugs, except smaller, and they have a brown "X" on their backs.  But even worse, they smell like rotten cucumbers when you squash them.

If that sounds gross and creepy, well, it is.  These things were everywhere.  They would sneak in through tiny cracks in the back windows and the back sliding glass doors, but despite my efforts to seal up the cracks- they'd still get in.  I tried spraying for them outside, around the windows and door.  Didn't work; these things were immune to that particular bug spray.  So I tried laying duck tape, face up, next to the base of the windows and the door.  That... KINDA worked.  As in, it would trap roughly 40-50 percent of the stink bugs that snuck in, and after a couple weeks, the tape would be covered in dead stink bugs.  Fine but... what about the other 50-60 percent?  These would be crawling across the ceiling and windows, hanging out on the house plant, or, just randomly, you'd find one crawling on you, on the book you were reading, or even on your plate of food. ICK!!!  It got so bad that I ended up leaving the vacuum plugged in at all times, and every day, or even every couple hours when I was home, I'd use the hose to vacuum them up. But I always told myself, keep your hopes up, hang in there, because once it's winter, they'll die off; the cold weather will kill them.

It didn't. 

For one thing, it's been a fairly mild winter.  But even when temperatures dipped into the low 20s or upper teens, somehow, these things survived.  Like they are freezer proof or something.  To be fair, I don't get as MANY of them as before, but I still deal with them- I killed six of them yesterday, including one that had jumped onto my hand and was crawling on me, and another one that appeared on the cover of a book I was reading.

House ants and spiders suck, but they usually don't stink when you smash them.  Wasps suck, but they are mainly outdoor pests.  These things, however, are just the fucking WORST.  I have finally broken down and called an exterminator, who will be here in a couple days.  Hopefully that will at least turn the tide of battle.  (And as I write this, what should just buzz by overhead, but another one of those wretched stink bugs.  ARRGH!)

On another note, in a few weeks, I'm not sure when, I'll probably make what will be my last visit to my old childhood home, where I grew up and lived for over 19 years.  Almost every year since then, I've gone out and spent time there for Christmas, and for the last 12 or 13 years, I've visited with mom for a couple weeks every summer and hung out there.  But she's leaving it finally, to move to a smaller assisted living place. I do not disagree with her decision, in fact I probably would have insisted on it myself, sadly, because it's come to that.

In those long years- decades, since I grew up, moved on and lived my adult life, I've seen the old neighborhood slowly fade.  The old neighborhood kids are all gone, and even, in most cases, their families are as well.  A lot of the open spaces we played in are either fenced off now, or developed.  Tall trees now screen out the view of the valley and ranch below where we played as kids, which is too bad, as it was always relaxing to be able to look out over the valley and enjoy the view, which we can no longer do.  The town has changed a lot too, become way more fast-paced and less laid back, with Silicon Valley tech millionaires pushing out the blue collar and middle class professionals like us.  They are about to tear down our shopping mall, and the old high school and K-8 Schools I went to are no longer recognizable.  It feels like everything I knew there is dying or dead, but that's just me- it actually hasn't, so much as, it's just moved on.  Only memories are left now, but I'm grateful for those.

In a way, now I kind of envy the kids whose parents moved around a lot growing up, or who lived in different places. You don't get as attached to places, and don't get those nostalgia vibes like that, so you learn to adapt much easier, and so when it's time, it's easier to let go.  So... I'll go back, pack what's left of my stuff there (mostly stuff like old yearbooks, and old toys like legos and what not, that I'll probably end up donating.) and it will finally be the end.  The last real trip "home."  Even though it hasn't been "home" now, for decades.  But, I can't say I won't be sad to finally let go.  Mostly good memories there, of course over 19 years, it wasn't always sunshine and roses because when you're growing up, things happen.  But one thing should be said- none of the "Bad" memories there ever involved stink bug infestations.

So that's all I got.  Thanks for reading, see ya.