Tomorrow afternoon will mark the first "official" step towards building our dream house. We are closing on the land at 3:30, and it will be a huge relief after all that these lenders have put me through. I have never met such a non-commital bunch of people before in my life. They won't answer yes or no to any question; the answer is always, "Probably, but I can't guarantee it." It gets infuriating after a while, but tomorrow will put some of that to an end and we will then set off on the long process of building a house. With all of the insanity going on in the neighborhood lately, our decision to move has been thoroughly reinforced.

We have already started the process of aquiring our wetland permit, which must be accomplished before we can get building permits and is supposed to take four to six months. We had all of the wetlands on the property delineated and surveyed and will be submitting the survey as part of a package. We have only interviewed one builder so far, and while we liked what he had to say and it seemed like he would do a very good job, the price was a bit high. We still have many more to interview, and a long road ahead of us, but when everything is done it will be so worth it.

If you have read this blog before, you will know that both Andy and I are officers in our Homeowners Association. We don't enjoy it at all, but no one else would do it, so we volunteered three years ago. It has been three years of hell, and I have had enough.

There is a renter that is in a house down the street from us who has been causing a lot of problems. We have sent several certified letters to the owner of the house, who lives on the other side of the state trying to rectify these problems, but they have continued. I even spoke to the homeowner on the phone once, several months ago, and she was the biggest bitch I have ever spoken to. I told her that the fence was falling down into another neighbor's yard, that there were problems with where the tenants were parking their vehicles, and that the house was in a horrible state of disrepair. She was a real jerk and said that it was hearsay; that she wanted proof that these issues hadn't been taken care of. I said "Fine, I will provide photos for you next time since you are unwilling to believe what I am telling you" and she agreed. Well, we got some more complaints from the neighbor behind these people that the fence is just rotting to pieces and she has been forced to make repairs on it herself, but that even those are not holding very well because the wood is so rotten. We went back there to take photos of it, and she was right, it was hideous. She showed us how she had been forced to take out all of her flower beds because of the massive amounts of weeds creeping through the other side. The fence had huge gaps and ugly repairs made to it and over all looked like crap.

When we were walking back home afterward, the shitbag renter of that house came out and chased us down the street screaming obscenities at us for photographing the fence because it was his, and we hadn't talked to him about it. We told him we were not obligated to deal with renters, that we are a HOMEOWNERS Association and he went off the deep end and threatened to call the cops, at which point I told him, "do it, we haven't done anything wrong, we had permission from the homeowner to take photos." Apparently the owner of the house is a relative of the scumbag renter, and that is why they don't want to believe that he is trashing their house, which he is. Some other neighbors stopped (that had formerly been officers of the Association) and tried to tell him he was in the wrong, and he tried to chase me down the street to our house at which Andy told him he had better not take another step in that direction. Andy would have beat his ass right there in the street.

So, I am resigning from this crappy, non-paying position on the association. I want it to be effective immediately, and I actually wanted to throw all of the books papers and other association garbage into the road and be done with it, but instead we are going to have to call an emergency meeting. I want out as soon as possible. When I was the maddest, right after this altercation, I wrote a letter that I want to send out to the neighborhood but Andy won't let me. I will publish it here, because it makes me feel better, and obviously I know I can't send it out, but it sure would be fun. I can't wait until our new house is built and we can move! Here is the letter:

Dear Homeowners,

I am happy to announce that we will no longer be officers of the Blankety Blank Homeowners Association. Thankfully we are building a new house and moving far away from this shitty neighborhood filled with assholes. Sorry suckers, but you are going to have to deal with this crap yourselves from now on. Hope you're happy.

The experience of being officers in this association has been one of the worst of our lives, and we truly feel sorry for whoever takes it on after us. They are pretty much doomed. The fucktards that are renting at 123 Blank Street can't keep their shitty house and fence from falling down and want to blame it on everyone but their own cheap lazy trailer trash selves. I hope they burn in Hell. The jackass that lives at 456 Blankety Street screamed and yelled at us because we didn't come down to his house after the hurricanes and make sure he was okay. For these reasons and others, it is our pleasure to leave this neighborhood.

Have fun!

Jen and Andy

I was looking at my site stats and came upon a few sites that have ripped off my stuff with no link back to me. I think it is amazing how easily people will take someone else's stuff and try to pass it off as their own, and not even save it to their own hard drive, but use it as it is, stealing bandwidth as well. I found this one who displays some of my original artwork, with no credit to me or a link, and kindly asked the author to give credit, with a link back to my site. No word yet on that one. (Update- she has taken my artwork down). I found this other one that uses Andy's photo of our property in North Carolina as a background to her MySpace page.

I don't mind people sharing the stuff from my site at all, but I think it would be nice if they would provide a link back to show where they got it from or ask permission, and at least not steal my bandwidth as well. It is just common courtesy, I think. I mean I have used photos from other sites as well, but I save the photos to my own hard drive and upload them from there so they use my own bandwidth, and I always link to the originating site for credit. Isn't that the way to do things?

Today as I was out and about I spotted the PostSecret book at Barnes and Noble and had to have it. If you have never been to PostSecret, it is a very interesting site that posts people's deepest and darkest secrets that are mailed to the author via creatively decorated postcards. It is truly fascinating and the site owner, Frank, regularly posts new postcards so there is always something new to see. The book, which was published late last year is a nice hardcover book made up of photos of some of the best and most interesting secrets. If you have a secret to tell you can mail it in and feel the ensuing liberation like all of those that have before.

You may remember the post I wrote in November about the nutty neighbor of ours at the front of the hood, who painted their house a sickening orange hue. When I turned into the neighborhood that day, I almost ran off the road in shock. Well I almost did the same thing today when I came home and found that the entire house had been repainted yellow. Now don't get me wrong, I consider it to be a vast improvement, I was just really surprised that they did it. I had thought we were going to have to live with that orange monstrosity forever, or at least until the Homeowners Association (us) could take legal action, which could be a long and drawn out process. Phew! That is a relief!

Update: I just noticed something odd. See the last photo to see that they painted absolutely EVERYTHING on the house yellow, including the door, doorknob, lock, windows, house number, etc. That is quite a strange way to go about things, but on the bright side now you can't tell that they are using bedsheets for curtains in the front windows.

So last night was the big awards ceremony. I was dressed in a black dress with a little beading, black hose (curses on the human that invented those things) and some fairly dainty black flats that hurt my feet pretty bad, but were not unbearable. And I wore make-up! I am typically one of those "all natural" types, or at least mostly natural and generally only wear mascara. I added a little face powder, eyeshadow, and even lipstick to the mix and I didn't look too terrible.

As for photos, the occasion wasn't very condusive to photography being that it was so dark, but I had Andy take some pics of me when we got home, with my make-up still on. It turns out that he is a terrible photographer, and all of the pictures turned out a bit blurry. Oh well.

It was a very interesting ceremony; quite dramatic and the awards given were impressive. The top award winner brought in a haul of $18,000 plus two custom trophies. Andy didn't win anything beyond his original award that he got back in July, but as one of the nominees he was invited. We put in an appearance, but we left pretty early and were home just after eight o'clock. I know, we're lame, but we also get up at 4:30 every morning so we had a good excuse.

You may not know this about me, but I am not a "dress up" type of person, at least not anymore. Andy won a major award at work in July, and since he did we are invited to the Superior Achievement Recognition Awards ceremony tomorrow evening in Cocoa Beach where the top awards for the year will be handed out. Someone will walk away with $10,000 at that ceremony, so it is not small potatoes. I think it will be a fun event to attend.

Well, anyway, as you might guess, an awards ceremony like that calls for some nice clothing. Andy and I are totally casual people, so the last time we dressed up was about five years ago, and the clothes no longer suit the occasion. It is a nice thing that Andy won money for his award, but I think we spent more than he won just on clothing to attend the ceremony. We had to buy everything new all the way down to shoes, but we are ready now. I will post some pictures of the event if possible; wish us luck, for Andy that he wins a top award, and for me that I don't trip on my fancy shoes and hurt myself!

This Winter Olympics, I have been watching a lot of curling, mostly women's, and I have to admit I find it rather fascinating. It is such an odd sport and it took days of watching and the commentators explanations before I had any idea how the scoring went, but it is just neat. It almost strikes me as more of a bar game than an Olympic sport, but I still like it. I wish we had curling here in Florida; I would like to give it a try.

It is weird to think how some things are considered sports and some aren't for Olympic purposes. Andy says "Ice Dancing? How is that a sport?" but I totally disagree and pointed out the incredible moves the ice dancers make and that they are extremely athletic. What do you think constitutes a sport? Is something like curling properly classified as a sport? What about ice dancing, or bobsledding, or luge? Does the athlete need to be "athletic" or just focused? Is it the amount of danger they subject themselves to in cases like the skeleton? What is it that makes a sport worthy of the Olympics?

I have been really lucky for a long time with my blog. My commenters are intelligent, and leave good and thoughtful comments. Some of you will even tell me when I am wrong, or you disagree with me, and I appreciate that. Unfortunately, I have been getting some transient commenters who think it is funny to leave mean nasty comments. It has only happened a couple of times, and I guess that they think they are pretty smart. Just know that any comments that do not add any value to my blog and are only posted for the sake of being mean will be deleted instantly. If it continues I will change the settings so that all comments must be approved by me before they are published. Disagree with me on an issue? Fine, say so. But don't resort to name calling and nastiness. It will not be published here. Get your own blog if you have something to say.

Update: The nastiness has continued by the fantastically wonderful dogcrap_green@yahoo.com. It is quite fitting that he calls himself by the name of "Dog Crap" because it is a pretty accurate description of him. He claims in his Blogger profile that one of his favorite books is the King James Bible, but I can assure you that the languge he uses did not come from THAT book. He is no longer welcome here. Apparently it bothers him that I write about my poor innocent neighbors, and it causes him to call me all kinds of nasty names like f@#$ing c%^&. I am sorry Mr. Dog Crap, but these people waived the right to their privacy when they brought drug dealing into my neighborhood, threw beer bottles at my house, created noise disturbances every night and all of the other rotten things they have done, such as harboring an attempted murderer. The cops haven't been able to do much about it, save for arresting one of them, so I am going to have some fun with it since I can't do anything else. If they had any self respect they wouldn't parade around drinking and driving and smoking pot in the front yard anyway. So stuff your opinions up your ass. No one around here wants to hear them; if they did, they would visit one of your sorry little blogs.

Our little girl dog Annabel, fondly known as Miss Belle or Bella, has a real flair for decorating. Recently when she decided that she would not be contained in a pen or baby gated area while we were gone at work, she discovered a new talent, interior design. Left to her devices she finds all kinds of things that could be placed differently for better Feng Shui, or something like that. The magazines and books were all wrong today so she set us straight as you can see in the photo. She must have decided that the books were too new and unused looking so she "antiqued" the corners of my book on palm trees with her teeth and gave some of the magazines a torn rumpled look for the right effect. Who knows what design improvements she'll make tomorrow. I can hardly wait.

So today is Valentine's Day. Holidays are really weird to me because when I was a kid, my parents owned a flower shop. Holidays were the busiest times of year and were extremely stressful. I even grew to dread certain ones, and Valentine's Day was the worst, because in the flower industry it is the busiest. VD, we used to call it, and it was hated almost as much as the other meaning of those initials. We also never went overboard on the holidays with gift giving and cards and such, and that is totally fine with me, because that stuff is a lot of work. I mean I enjoy certain elements of the holidays, especially ones that give me time off from work, but then again they are just days to me.

I have a habit when things are particularly busy or I am not prepared for a holiday to "opt out." I will tell Andy, "let's just skip Valentine's Day this year", or something like that and we will just pretend it didn't happen. And that's what we did today. We had too much crap going on and I just said "forget it." I even opted out of Christmas the year before last. I am a real grinch, aren't I?

This morning before work I was taking out all the kitchen trash and one of the cans wasn't quite full. I went into the downstairs bathroom to empty the small trashcan and there disaster struck. Or, more accurately disaster had struck a while ago, but I just then became aware of it. When I pulled the trashcan away from the wall, I saw a huge patch of dark mold. I called Andy over (who was thrilled, by the way) and he got a crowbar and pried the base board off. Apparently there is a leak, and the drywall got all wet, but we didn't notice it until the mold showed up. The affected area is behind the toilet, so it stands to reason that we wouldn't notice it. We gated off the bathroom to keep the dogs out, but the bathroom door open so the area could dry out, and had to leave for work.

This afternoon Andy cut out most of the damaged piece of wall. He had to go to school this evening, so he can't mess with it anymore, and I am prohibited from using that bathroom until the leak source is discovered and fixed. He might stay home from work tomorrow and work on it. It appears that some of the mold has crept behind the vanity, but strangely enough we have a brand new, nicer vanity sitting out in the garage that we have intended to install for a long time. There is also a brand new sink out there, but we would have to find a countertop. Here is a picture of the area after all the nasty mold was cut out. The fun around here never ends!

This morning, I talked Andy in to going back out to the property to root and roam around a little, and so that I could take more pictures. He sharpened the machete, and we set out for the north part of Merritt Island to our lot. We mostly explored areas we had been through before with fairly well established trails, but when we were hiking along the back of the property we decided to cut a little path toward the interior of the lot where the grasses weren't as thick. We got to a clearing, and Andy started chopping a path off the clearing through the thick tall grasses. He said something to me about going slow so that we wouldn't "meet" a pig. Well, not long after that there was a low rumble of a growl of a wild boar who we had gotten too close to, and we both started running out of there. We never saw him, but he certainly knew we were there, and warned us not to come any closer. It scared me nearly to death; my heart was pounding.

I was looking around for information on wild boars in Florida after I got home, and it turns out that we own that pig, as it occurs on our land- they are actually considered livestock. Isn't that weird? It is legal to hunt them on private property year round, with the land owner's permission. I don't know what we are going to do about that pig, or others that may be out there. Perhaps we will trap them or allow someone to hunt them, but I couldn't kill one myself. They are not exactly favorable to have on the land because they like to wallow in bodies of water, and when they do, they pee and poop in the water too. They are destructive to property due to how they uproot plants, and most importantly they can be mean.

So anyway, we had an adventure. It was definitely interesting, but a bit scary. I have added the photos I took today to my Flickr slideshow of the property, click on the photo above to be taken to the slideshow. The new pictures are at the end.

I saw this meme over on Poppy Cedes and decided to do it, so here goes:

1) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.
"Success came in the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1927, but it required the 11 counties along the waterway to obtain title to the existing property and turn it over to the Corps of Engineers." -History of Brevard County Volume 2

2) Stretch your left arm out as far as you can and see what you touch.
A black dog (Louie)

3) What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Winter Olympics

4) Without looking, guess what time it is.
4:45 pm

5) Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?
4:43

6) With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Winter Olympics on TV, dogs tags jingling as they walk, clicking of the keyboard

7) When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
About a half hour ago when I was cleaning the pool

8) Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
My e-mail, then Poppy Cedes

9) What are you wearing?
T-shirt, bummy pants, flip flops

10) Did you dream last night?
Yes, I dreamed of baking and eating skinny french fries- I really would have preferred curly fries or stek fries, but that was the dream

11) When did you last laugh?
I laugh all the time, so I can't remeber specifically, but it was sometime today

12) What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Some bird artwork that I love by Lori Prell

13) Seen anything weird lately?
The orange house at the front of my neighborhood

14) What do you think of this quiz?
It is okay

15) What is the last film you saw?
Sybil (on TV)

16) If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?
Lots more animals

17) Tell me something about you that I don't know.
I had my hair cut and colored today

18) If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Make common sense rule

19) Do you like to dance?
No

20) George Bush
I don't discuss politics on my blog

21) Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Sophie or Ramona

22) Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Teddy or Drew

23) Would you ever consider living abroad?
Sure

24) What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
Welcome!

I regret that the national do not call list did not affect charities. I just don't want to talk to these people on the phone, and it seems that they call all the time. We get at least one call a night from a charity wanting money, and even if we donate, they just call us back in two weeks and want more. If we tell them "no" most of the time they will send the pledge notice anyway in an attempt to trick us into donating. I answer the phone even though we have caller ID, because I am never sure who it is calling, and I don't want to miss an important call, but I think I am just going to stop answering altogether, because no matter how much we give, they always want more. All I want is to be left alone in my own home and to be able to choose my own charities to donate to without being hassled all the time.

In spite of this, I feel bad about saying no to these people, and tonight I even hung up on one because I just didn't have the energy to deal with it. Does an unlisted number keep you from getting on these people's lists or do they find you anyway?

Today at lunch, I decided to visit the property we are buying, to remind myself why I am working so hard to make it all happen. We are now with our second lender and signed papers yesterday with a closing planned on February 28th. I had to get an extension on the closing date from the seller. Anyway, it has been a major headache, and I thought a trip to the property would rejuvenate me.

It turns out that I was right. It was so beautiful and serene out there. All I could hear was the wind moving the leaves in the trees. And when I got to the pond I found a pleasant surprise. Apparently the pond is inhabited by a resident alligator! It may be only one of several, but it is the first one I have seen out there, and it was exciting. The alligator was about five feet long and was basking half in, half out of the water on the opposite side of the pond from where I was standing. I have to say that I am pretty impressed with my new animal neighbor. We see lots of alligators at work, but I have never lived with one. Click on the picture to see the alligator better.

Well, the GlobalFlyer II finally took to the air this morning after seven am while we looked on, shivering. It was quite cold waiting out there for the take off, at least for us Floridians. Everything was announced over the loud speakers so we knew what was happening, like when the GlobalFlyer II's engines were started, and when the official from the FAA placed the seals on the hatch. It was all very exciting. We were positioned at the shuttle midfield landing site which is approximatley halfway down the landing strip. The GlobalFlyer screamed past us still on the ground and ate up so much runway before it took to the air that it was well past us. Still, it was very neat to be a part of this potentially historic event. Click on the picture to enlarge. My picture isn't the best, but it was all that my frozen little fingers could take at that point!

I should have known that any vehicle destined to launch or take off from Kennedy Space Center would be subject to delays, and the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer II was no exception. This morning before sunrise we were out at the Shuttle midfield viewing area poised and ready to watch the GlobalFlyer take off the 15,000 foot runway. Unfortunately, the take off was scrubbed due to unfavorable winds and a small fuel leak.

While we were out there in the dark waiting, my friend Julie and I tried to edge closer where we would be able to get a better view, and Julie grabbed my arm and said "There he is!" I was like "What, who?" and she said "I don't know- it's that guy I saw on Oprah!" It was Richard Branson, of Virgin Atlantic, and the TV show "The Rebel Billionaire," standing right in front of us. It was shortly thereafter that it was announced that the flight was scrubbed for the day, and we all left. The photo above is of all the cars leaving the site and a bunch of the news vans parked to cover the event.

According to the website, virginatlanticglobalflyer.com, the next attempt is scheduled for tomorrow morning between 6:41 and 7:06 am. Rest assured I will be there!

Working at the space center can have its advantages. I was lucky enough to score a pass to view the GlobalFlyer II takeoff, scheduled for tomorrow morning at first light. If you are not familiar with the GlobalFlyer II, it is an aircraft built to try to fly farther than any other aircraft ever has, non stop. From the website, virginatlanticglobalflyer.com:

..NASA's Kennedy Space Center will be the launch site for "The Ultimate Flight," which will see Steve Fossett pilot the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer aircraft in order to set the record for the longest flight of all time. Steve Fossett - aviation’s most prolific record breaker - will fly over 700 miles further than any aircraft or balloon has flown...

I am pretty excited to get go to the big event and will definitely be bringing my camera. Hopefully I will get a few good shots to post tomorrow.

Some interesting facts about the GlobalFlyer II:

• Steve Fossett, the pilot, is planning to fly the plane 26,084 miles in about 80 hours.
• Fully loaded, the Global Flyer II carries more than 18,000 pounds of fuel and the aircraft is 83% fuel by weight.
• The GlobalFlyer II is powered by a single slightly modified Citation Jet 2 engine (which I actually used to work on when I was an aircraft mechanic).
• The aircraft is equipped with two autopilots to allow the pilot some limited sleep periods and to take human error out of the planned route.

It has been a bummer of a weekend. I spent most of the day on Friday trying to get things squared away with our original lender for our land loan only to have them waffle back and forth and still not make a final decision. Even the vice president of the stupid company couldn't or wouldn't make up his mind. Tomorrow I am forced to start the process all over again with a new lender, and I am not exactly looking forward to it. I have given the original lender long enough to get their act together, and they haven't so this is it. It made for a crappy weekend though, having to worry about it. So I tried to come up with things to do to keep my mind off it.

This morning, Andy and I went to a home and garden show at the Melbourne (Florida, not Australia) Auditorium to get ideas for the new house. We saw some interesting things, but the show was pretty small so it didn't take us long to work our way through the whole thing. It was worth it for a couple of interesting ideas we got in the process, and it was kind of fun.

On the way back home we stopped at my favorite petstore, Incredible Pets. That place is amazing; they have everything from birds and bunnies to turtles and hedgehogs. They even have animals such as sloths and toucans on display. We spent a long time there marveling over the different animals. I especially love chameleons, and always have; I could sit and watch them for hours. I would love to have one or two but chameleons are notoriously difficult to take care of, so I have always resisted. I am coveting some Russian tortoises as well.

We also "discovered" a type of bird that we had never seen before, called a Gloster Canary, more specifically the Corona type that has a funny little crown of feathers on its head making it look like one of the Beatles in their "mop top" days (see the picture). I fell in love with those little guys and we might seriously consider getting one or two after we move to the new house. They are not as demanding as a big bird like Charley, as they amuse themselves, so it wouldn't be too hard to care for them, and they sing beautifully. Of course if we got any we would have to name them after the different Beatles- they are too cute.

In the course of looking at all of the animals and oohhhing and aaahhing over them I asked Andy if he knew how lucky he was that we only have four dogs and one bird. He knows. I sometimes think I should have had a career as a zookeeper or something, just so I could be around more animals. They are so amazing.

If you tried to view my blog earlier today, you would have been greeted by an unfamiliar screen and the words "No site is currently configured at this address" just as I was a little while ago. Apparently, the server that hosts my blog suffered a fatal hard drive crash and had to be replaced. My blog was reconstructed from the latest backup files at the host, and everything seems to have come out okay. I did lose one post, one about my terrible memory problems lately, so it is doubtful that I will be able to reconstruct that one. I will be back to post more later, the outdoors are calling!

As you can see by my "about me" section, I have always loved birds, and always enjoyed watching them in the wild. I never really lived with a bird before until two years ago when we got Charley, our eclectus parrot. Since living with him, I have noticed that when I look at birds, I now look at them in a different way. I look at them more as individuals with unique personalities, as I know they are based on silly Charley. I never knew how sweet, sensitive, creative, and loving a bird could be, or that it could get mad, annoyed, or just plain needy.

There are not many people I would recommend a pet bird to. Not because they aren't great, but having a pet bird is a hell of a responsibility, almost like that of having a child. You have to be willing and able to put in a lot of time with the bird in order for it to be happy. One would think that a bird would be an easy pet because it lives in a cage, but for the bird to be happy and well adjusted, it needs to spend as much time out of its cage as possible. For your bird to be truly healthy, it needs to be fed a pelleted diet, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables daily. We give Charley fresh food and water twice a day in addition to his pellets. Seeds are full of fat and are nearly devoid of nutrients so they do not make a good diet for a bird, especially one that lives in captivity and isn't flying around burning off the fatty calories.

The picture in this post is of Charley, eating his afternoon meal, with his beak covered in food bits. He gets it all over himself but it makes him happy, so whatever. It makes me even happier now when I watch birds in the wild to know that they are not only beautiful creatures that are blessed with the ability to fly, but have their own interesting characteristics, and their own individual traits. I am glad to say that I actually "know" a bird, and am flattered that he is happy to "know" me.

I would love to write about something more interesting, but my day was absolutely consumed with waiting and worrying about getting lender approval for the land we have a contract on. I worried so much, and what happened at the end of the day is that we now have potentially two lenders that want to give us the money. The one I found yesterday, and the original one who came to their senses once they realized what they stand to lose by not giving us the land loan, which is our business on not only this loan, but also a construction loan and then a mortgage. We will probably make a decision tomorrow on who we will go with, based on some additional information that we need, but the very stressful part is over now, at least. Phew!

I'll try to post something good and interesting tomorrow, instead of all of this financial rot.