by Brian Clarey, Eric Ginsburg, Jordan Green and Daniel Wirtheim

It’s a simple fact: Small cities like ours, with populations below 300,000, are invisible. Plano, Texas. Fort Wayne, Ind. Gilbert, Ariz. This is the company we keep in terms of population.

But more than 1.6 million souls call the Piedmont Triad home, the 33rd largest metro area in the country, sandwiched by the Jacksonville, Fla. area and Virginia Beach, and just a few hundred thou behind the Triangle.

That most of the world thinks the word “Triad” refers to a transnational Asian criminal operation — drugs, counterfeiting, trafficking, extortion, a little white-collar fraud, the whole deal — is another matter entirely.

The point is that our cities are tied together by more than geography, that our fates are entwined. Winston-Salem wouldn’t be Winston-Salem without Greensboro just a piece down the road. And the biannual furniture markets in High Point, the Third City, are the two most important events in the state in terms of economic activity and longevity. It may not be enough to entice people to live there, but the Furniture City brings a lot of heft to the table.

Strange, then, that we are not all citizens of the Triad. But for now, the mantle goes out only to a select few: those who make their home in more than one of our big cities, able to leap Business 40 in a single bound.

And this much is true: There are more of us every year.

Lina Fleihan Urmos: Food-truck traveler

Lina_UrmosLives in: Greensboro

Travels to: Winston-Salem and High Point

Owning a food truck changed everything.

Lina Fleihan Urmos spent a chunk of time — about 15 years — living in DC, New York and LA, far away from her hometown Greensboro, but she moved back around 2005. She could see the city changing on visits to see her family, and Urmos was growing tired of getting lost in huge cities. She thought that maybe here she could make a difference.

She didn’t immediately jump into the family business running Ghassan’s, but made the transition over time. And when the restaurant launched a food truck in August, she started traveling to Winston-Salem for various events, including Wake Forest football.

Urmos had some familiarity with Winston-Salem already — she attended Bishop McGuinness High School in Kernersville, among other things. And Ghassan’s already traveled to High Point for the biannual Furniture Market. But now, Urmos’ time in Winston-Salem has risen sharply thanks to the truck.

“I think we’re really lucky to have the Triad here because we’re not only having to focus on Greensboro,” she said. “We can tap into High Point and Winston-Salem and I don’t think a lot of other cities have that ability.”

But it isn’t just convenient for business; Urmos said she’s started spending more time in downtown Winston-Salem, frequenting places like Tate’s, Single Brothers and Ziggy’s.

“It’s nice to get a change,” she said.

— EG

Kendall Doub: Itinerant muralist

Kendall DoubLives in: Winston-Salem 

Travels to: Greensboro and High Point

Muralist Kendall Doub wants to spread his “artistic fairy dust” as far as he can. Lately, that’s meant increasingly frequent trips from Winston-Salem to Greensboro.

Doub kicked off 2016 by beginning a new mural in downtown Greensboro, one that picks up a visual thread he started with a painting of a cardinal in High Point in mid-2014. He’s been working with Jeff Beck, one of the folks behind the new Urban Grinders coffee shop and art gallery, and idea man Ryan Saunders on the duo’s No Blank Walls project. The one Doub began this week will be his third in Greensboro, including an installation inside Urban Grinders that Beck originally planned to be temporary but that everyone liked too much to scrap.

Doub is actively involved in the arts scene in Winston-Salem, leaving his mark on numerous walls including a section along the edge of the new Artivity on the Green art park downtown.

“Winston seems to be really leading the way in that regard, but Greensboro is starting to catch up and there’s a lot of kinetic energy there,” Doub said.

He’s hopeful that High Point — which he described as more conservative and cautious — will start to see the benefit of public art and murals once it’s demonstrated in both other Triad cities.

Artists, Doub said, are the most likely to bridge divides between the area’s urban centers, recognizing the potential of nascent cities that can be molded “like a pile of wet clay.” He just hopes that others follow that lead.

— EG

Joy Cook: Inter-city strategist

Joy Cook3Lives in: Greensboro 

Travels to: wherever

Since launching her public relations firm in 2010, Joy Cook has looked beyond Greensboro to build her client base.

Doing business in each city in the Triad means navigating unique social and professional networks that are sometimes difficult for an outsider to break into.

Building from her home base, Cook volunteered on the UNCG Alumni Association Board of Directors and helped found the Spartan Legislative Network, while also serving on the Guilford College Board of Visitors.

She expanded her client base in Winston-Salem and High Point around 2012 and 2013. Joining the North Carolina chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, which held its yearly kickoff meeting in Winston-Salem, and attending graduate school at High Point University were critical steps. Cook managed Bernita Sims’ successful mayoral candidacy in High Point in 2012, following suit with DD Adams’ successful reelection campaign to Winston-Salem City Council in 2013.

“Once I started working with Bernita and DD, it definitely opened up more opportunities,” she said. Cook also worked on LaWana Mayfield’s successful campaign for Charlotte City Council, and is managing Adams’ reelection campaign in Winston-Salem again this year.

Expanding her public relations practice into politics is a natural move for Cook, who graduated from the NC Institute of Political Leadership in 2012. Her interest in politics also manifested in organizing candidate forums through the Spartan Legislative Network in 2011 and 2013.

“In my public-relations work I’m organically transformed into a strategist,” Cook said. “It takes real strategy to work. In DD’s case, she was up against pretty solid tea party opposition. There’s a very thin line between public relations and political strategy. It was telling the stories of DD’s work; her story is much bigger than what is going on with Herbalife. It’s about making sure their social media reflected who [the candidates] are. And it’s also about making sure they’re accessible to their constituents.”

Working with Adams, an inveterate networker who is active in her sorority and who enjoys a statewide political profile thanks to attending the 2012 Democratic National Convention as a delegate, opened a lot of doors for Cook.

“DD introduced me to her network,” Cook recalled. “It was smooth sailing after that.”

Cook wound up facilitating a training session for the Alliance of North Carolina Black Elected Officials, thanks for Adams’ introduction.

“She has been instrumental in helping some other politicians understand social media strategies for constituent engagement,” Cook said. “She has connected me with these organizations that have supported my business and become customers.”

Much of the Cook’s front-end work with clients takes place online, but at some point she usually ends up meeting them face to face. She either commutes to see them or they come to her office. The geographical distance is the least significant of the barriers between the three cities.

“I’ve been fortunate: My whole career at UNCG I commuted from Mebane,” Cook said. “Being in Greensboro is exciting; everything’s 30 minutes away, so it’s not a big deal.”

– JG

Jay Pierce: The wandering chef

Jay Pierce credit Jordan GreenLives in: High Point 

Works in: Greensboro

When Jay Pierce moved with his wife and two children to Greensboro in 2006 so he could take the job of executive chef at Lucky 32, they looked at houses in the Lake Daniel and Sunset Hills neighborhoods.

They wanted to live in an old, established community with large trees, but they found themselves priced out of the market in Greensboro.

Ultimately, they found what they were looking for in Emerywood, High Point’s elite, old-money neighborhood.

“I like to tell people I have the smallest house in the nicest neighborhood in High Point,” said Pierce, who now holds the position of executive chef at Marshall Free House. “I chose it for the neighborhood. I chose it for the street. We have pecan trees in the front yard, so I’m constantly picking up kindling. My dad tells me it’s the biggest pecan tree he’s ever seen.”

Having previously lived in Orlando, Fla. and New Orleans, where hour-long commutes are common, the drive from High Point to Greensboro didn’t seem daunting.

“It takes you 30 minutes to drive to work,” he said. “The hours I work, I don’t drive in rush hour. I listen to loud music and get amped up. At the end of the day I get to check out and leave work behind.”

The tradeoff is that he misses out on the opportunity to hang out at places like the Green Bean and Crafted in downtown Greensboro.

It should come as no surprise that as a chef, a lot of Pierce’s experience of High Point’s cultural life centers around food.

“I love to eat at any of Paul Riggan’s restaurants,” he said. “Blue Rock Pizza is my favorite. You can get pizza and beer, and there are vegetarian options. A friend of mine just took over as executive chef at Blue Water Grille who used to work for me at Lucky 32. Paul Riggan is the shining light of High Point. Roma Pizza is really good. It’s a decent walk, but my son and I have walked to the Dog House. The Dog House is a really cool hidden gem.”

He acknowledged that a couple times a year he considers moving to Greensboro. Both of his children attend schools in Greensboro, and he wants them to be able to hang out with their friends more easily.

And yet, as a self-proclaimed “citizen of the Triad,” Pierce sees engagement with the region expanding rather than contracting.

“High Point is the sleeping giant,” he said. “I could just as easily be working in Winston-Salem; I can get from my home to downtown Winston-Salem quicker than Greensboro. Since it’s a different county, it doesn’t have quite the same pull on my kids. My son takes trumpet lessons n Winston-Salem. On Sundays, my wife and I go to Winston-Salem. As the kids get older, I think we’ll be in three cities more than two cities.”

— JG

Morgan South: Commuting for fashion

Morgan_SouthWorks in: Winston-Salem 

Plays in: Greensboro

Her fashion career began in Greensboro, where she studied apparel and marketing at UNCG and managed a store for Ivy & Leo boutique. It was at Ivy & Leo, Morgan South said, that she got her first big break.

“The guys from Greensboro Fashion Week came into the store, and they asked how we could be a part of Fashion Week,” she remembered. “And I asked them how I could be a part of Fashion Week.”

Now, after two productions, South is the administrative coordinator for the Gate City’s autumn event, which kept her in town until she took a job at Hanesbrands in Winston-Salem and moved to Forsyth County.

“I was a Greensboro girl,” she said. “I never went to Winston-Salem. Literally never. I had no idea about anything. I would go to Raleigh or Durham all the time, but I never came to Winston-Salem.”

She’s lived outside the city since May and is still finding her feet.

“I still don’t know anything about Winston,” she said. “Every place I’ve heard about, I’ve learned through work functions and lunches.”

She likes the Porch Cantina, she said, and everything else in the West End Mill Works. Her daughter Chloe, 2, likes the children’s museum. And she liked downtown from the moment she saw it.

“I feel like Winston-Salem’s downtown is a little more advanced than Greensboro’s downtown,” she said. “It’s more unique and artsy.”

Even so, old habits die hard. She’s in Greensboro several days a month for Fashion Week, and finds that her social life has not moved across the Triad with her.

“It’s weird,” she said. “When I’m looking for something to do I automatically look for Greensboro. That’s what happened on the Fourth of July.

“All of my friends are in Greensboro,” she continued, “and it’s like I don’t know how to make friends in Winston-Salem.”

— BC

Justin Catanoso: One good journalist

Justin_CatanosoLives in: Greensboro

Works in: Winston-Salem

Justin Catanoso is doing what he’s always wanted to do. He’s a foreign correspondent on the climate-change beat and the director of journalism at Wake Forest University.

With support from the school, he’s covered the two most recent UN Climate Summits in Lima and Paris, and every summer he takes students to Rome for a course in travel journalism. And Catanoso said that it was only possible because he stayed in the Triad.

When he moved to Greensboro with his wife in 1987, Catanoso had no intention of staying. The young reporter wanted to make it big in Washington, New York or Philadelphia. But he knew he had to start out small so he took a reporter’s job at the News & Record, which assigned him to its Winston-Salem bureau.

“When we moved to the Triad in 1987, both downtowns were dead,” Catanoso said. “They were scary dead… There were no businesses, it was unbelievable.”

He covered the first layoffs at RJ Reynolds Tobacco, among other stories relecting the city’s painful transition from manufacturing. It was a far cry from Philadelphia or any of the places where he truly wanted to be. But as Catanoso made sense of the city through storytelling, he realized that what the Triad needed as much as anything was a good journalist.

In 1999, Catanoso assumed the position of the Triad Business Journal’s first executive editor, and moved to Greensboro’s Westerwood neighborhood.

As his résumé grew, so did the cities around him. Investors were taking chances on downtown businesses and coalitions were formed in both Winston-Salem and Greensboro to urbanize their respective downtowns. And now that he was raising children, the once ready-to-leave Catanoso realized that the Triad might be a more comfortable place to live than Philadelphia.

He continued to work two jobs — at the Triad Business Journal and as an adjunct professor at Wake Forest — before he assumed the role of director of journalism at the university. It was there that he met a tropical biologist who took him to Peru and persuaded him to write about climate change.

Catanoso said that staying in the Triad and building meaningful connections were more important to his success than being where many of the nation’s esteemed journalists were.

“I loved the stories that I got to tell as a journalist in the Triad,” Catanoso said. “I loved them and I thought they were just as important as they were in any city in America… We believe in the place we live. Every community needs a good journalist.”

Follow Justin Catanoso’s coverage of the issues affecting climate change at Mongabay.com.

— DW

Lonnie Albright: The cops’ barrister

Lonnie Albright credit Jordan GreenLives in: Greensboro 

Works in: Winston-Salem

As police attorney for Forsyth County, Lonnie Albright appreciates the benefits of living next door in Greensboro. Specifically, it’s nice to avoid the awkwardness of encountering adverse parties at the grocery.

During his 26-year career as an attorney in private practice in Greensboro, those kinds of run-ins would occur periodically.

“I was at Bestway a couple years ago,” he recalled. “This immigrant from Russia was in line with a bottle of wine. I had represented her husband in a divorce. I reasonably ascertained that she did not hold me in high esteem. I wondered if I would be wearing that bottle of wine. I bid her a quiet baka and left the store.”

Both Lonnie and his younger brother Clyde live in Greensboro and commute to other jurisdictions to practice law for county governments; Clyde is the county attorney in Alamance.

Lonnie Albright has an ideal background for a police attorney. For starters, he knows from firsthand experience what it’s like to wear a badge: As a former deputy sheriff, Albright and future sheriff BJ Barnes worked together on the vice-narcotics squad of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office. As an attorney, he practiced nearly every kind of law, from family and criminal defense to personal injury litigation. He sued the highway patrol and represented bank-robbers as a member of the federal defense bar, which gave him the opportunity to appear in the federal court in Winston-Salem.

“For eight years I was a sworn deputy sheriff,” he remarked. “That’s given me an appreciation for what these young men are going through and will have to go through. I have no idea why anyone would want to be in law enforcement today. They’re underpaid and underappreciated.”

He holds the same respect for the detention officers who staff the Forsyth County jail. “I do legal updates for the detention officers, and I’m their in-house counsel,” Albright said. “They’re getting updates a lot quicker than they would in other counties. They all are good people. They want to do a good job.”

After experiencing what he considers a mid-life crisis at the culmination of 26 years in private practice, Albright was hired on with Forsyth County in January 2013. He immediately liked the change of scenery.

“I get to listen to music; I listen to public radio,” he said. “Occasionally the traffic is a little jacked up.”

— JG

Sarah Hinson: Boomeranger

Sarah PicLives in: Winston-Salem

Dates someone in: Greensboro

Despite growing up in Clemmons and moving back to Winston-Salem after a several year absence to attend UNC Asheville and Savannah College of Art & Design, Sarah Hinson didn’t really ever spend time in Greensboro.

“We would go to like, College Hill [Sundries bar] on Saturdays to do karaoke and just be around different people,” she said of her friends, but it didn’t extend beyond there.

And for the most part, she didn’t have a problem with that.

She’d moved back to the Camel City shortly after finishing graduate school in 2014 to take a job as a copywriter at Wildfire. She still works there, and lives in West End. For the most part her orbit kept her around downtown Winston-Salem, despite occasional trips to visit a coworker who commutes from Greensboro.

But when Hinson started online dating, she set her radius to include Greensboro, figuring that’s the farthest distance she’d consider.

“Thirty to 40 minutes seemed totally doable,” she said, “Especially [because] the gay community is of course even smaller than the single, straight community, so I definitely wanted to be a little more open-minded for the locations I was willing to meet people.

“Winston is a small community,” she added, noting that it could be awkward to run into someone if things didn’t work out and might lead her to avoiding certain places. She went on dates with a few different people, all of whom were coincidentally from Greensboro, before meeting her current girlfriend who also lives in the Gate City.

The two are about to celebrate their one-year anniversary.

There are some downsides to dating someone in a different city of the Triad, Hinson said.

“If we want to just hang out and watch a movie, it’s complicated,” she said, adding that her girlfriend has a dog, which requires additional planning.

But it’s really not a significant barrier, Hinson said, adding that she appreciates the time once or twice a week in the car that allows her to catch up on podcasts or listen to a playlist. She’s grateful for all the new places she’s experienced that she wouldn’t ordinarily go, and dating someone in Greensboro gives her a nice break from Winston-Salem, too.

— EG

Patrick Lui: Straight outta Hong Kong

20160101_114338Lives: Winston-Salem

Works: Greensboro

Patrick Lui was just 23 years old when he came from Hong Kong, one of the most urban environments in the world, to Winston-Salem where he would be studying classical guitar at the UNC School of the Arts.

It was 1988, and the Triad bore even less resemblance to Hong Kong than it does now.

“I kept asking the bus driver: ‘Are we there yet?’ I was like a little kid,” he remembered. “In Hong Kong, you don’t drive 45 minutes for anything.”

He had been told that Winston-Salem was one of the largest cities in the American South, but when he finally saw it, he had trouble getting his head around his new environment.

“I thought, This couldn’t be it,” he said. “Winston-Salem is a city.

“Think about this boy from Hong Kong,” he continued, “landing at that excuse for an airport at 1 a.m. I was freaking out.”

After completing his undergrad, he finished his masters at Arizona State University and then found himself lured back to the City of the Arts & Innovation.

“A few of my friends talked me into performing with their guitar trio,” he said. “We did that for a while, and since then they have both gone off and I am still stuck here.”

He’s stayed for the fertile arts scene, and because he bought a house 11 years ago near Hanes Mall that he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to sell for a while. But really, he said, the job is what keeps him here.

Just before he bought the house, Lui took a job running the guitar program at Weaver Academy, Greensboro’s arts high school. [Disclosure: My son is in that program.] And there he’s stayed.

“I have thought about moving to Greensboro,” he said. “But the thing about being from Hong Kong — to get three miles might take 20 minutes — in terms of an actual commute it’s not that bad. And like all Americans, I love my car.”

— BC

Lee & Loring Mortensen: Local tourists

Fam2Live in: Greensboro 

Play in: Winston-Salem

Their day-to-day lives are completely ensconced in the Gate City. Lee spent time at Downtown Greensboro Inc. before becoming executive director of the Greensboro Farmer’s Curb Market. Loring is the public and community relations officer for UNCG’s Weatherspoon Art Museum.

They’re long-term residents — she came in from Washington, DC in 1990; Loring dates back to 1982.

But they both have a taste for city life, and at least a couple times a month that means shooting down Business 40 to Winston-Salem, their 15-year-old daughter Skye in tow.

“We always forget how quick it is to drive there,” Loring said.

“Traffic here is nothing like DC,” Lee added.

It’s far enough away from home to be different, yet close enough for spontaneous day trips.

“It gives you a different perspective,” Lee said. “The sense of place is a little bit different. The topography is just interesting.”

They like Hoots Flea Market, Hoots Roller Bar, and pretty much anything at the West End Mill Works.

“The Olio is a standout,” Lee said.

Lately they’ve been getting into Small Batch brewery and are ticking other restaurants off their list one by one.

“We also like to go spelunking around the vintage shops,” Lee said.

“We’ll pick an event,” Loring said, “and then just drop three other things into it.”

“If you approach it as an adventure,” Lee said, “as if you’re a tourist, then you can have a lot of fun in a few hours.”

Loring documents these trips on his Instagram: portraits and moments and meals instead of couch time, Netflix and chill.

“We don’t watch a lot of TV,” Loring said. “We’d rather drive to Winston-Salem. “We like to go out and experience something real.”

— BC

Reggie Delahanty: City guy

Reggie DelahantyLives in: Winston-Salem 

Works in: Greensboro

There are multiple benefits to being a city employee and living outside of the municipality where you work, Reggie Delahanty said, and he’s far from the only city employee to realize it. In fact, he said, it’s a trend.

Delahanty, the small business coordinator for the city of Greensboro, moved to Winston-Salem from New York City — where he grew up — to attend Wake Forest University, and only left briefly to attend grad school Georgia Tech and live briefly in Atlanta. He returned to manage field operations for the Census in Forsyth, Stokes and Rockingham counties and held a few “random” local gigs, but working for the city of Greensboro was his first Gate City job.

The downside of living in a different city is that he only experiences Greensboro between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., and misses out on daytime life in Winston-Salem.

“That’s challenging because you kind of feel like you’re left out of the whole of the city,” he said.

But there are perks. Several actually.

For one, Delahanty said he is able to approach the position more objectively, with no personal stake in a specific neighborhood and to maintain a social network that is largely disconnected from Greensboro. The lack of a vested interest coupled with his outsider’s perspective and knowledge of what’s happening in Winston-Salem makes him better at his job too, Delahanty said.

Plus, it allows him to separate his personal and professional lives, meaning that people don’t approach him in the grocery store and ask work-related questions. Living in Winston-Salem while working in Greensboro actually lets Delahanty clock out.

— EG

Gail Bretan: Interfaith networker

Gail BretanLives in: Greensboro

Works in: Winston-Salem

When Gail Bretan became the director of Jewish life at Wake Forest University, her engagement with Winston-Salem didn’t stop at the borders of the campus, or even the workday.

Bretan is now involved with several interfaith groups in Winston-Salem beyond the scope of her job, including an interfaith panel at Brenner Children’s Hospital and a book club. Plus, she’s on a Novant Health ethics committee and has attended Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem, too.

“For being there less than two years, I really have been involved in a lot of things, and I’m still very involved in Greensboro,” Bretan said.

She’d grown used to her seven-minute commute to Jewish Family Services in Greensboro, but doesn’t mind the trek to Winston-Salem. As soon as she started in her current role, Bretan had a radio with Bluetooth and a CD player installed in her car so she could listen to audio books and NPR. But the longer rides are also time for her to privately reflect.

Bretan has considered moving to Winston-Salem, and said if she won the lottery she’d buy a second home near Wake Forest so she could host people for Shabbat or spend nights in either city easily. But for now, she owns a house in walking distance to a grocery store and is content to stay put.

She worked in Winston-Salem before, long ago as the director of an occupational health clinic, but working in an academic rather than an industrial environment is an entirely different experience. This time around, Bretan said she’s happy to benefit from nice communities in both cities.

The biggest drawback, she said, is that there are “so many wonderful things” to do in Winston-Salem and Greensboro that sometimes, two things she’d like to attend are held in each city concurrently.

— EG

Rachel Walker: New regular

HeadshotFinal_002Lives in: Greensboro 

Works in: Winston-Salem

Rachel Walker started to feel like she belonged in Winston-Salem when the coffee shop near her office started recognizing her and knowing her drink order, and it helped when she finally learned her way around without relying on Siri.

Walker, who works at marketing and advertising agency Common Giant, moved to Greensboro as a transfer student at UNCG. She stayed in the Gate City after graduating, lives downtown and commutes to Winston-Salem.

“I love being connected to Winston-Salem and Greensboro,” she said. “The benefit is having more of an appreciation of the Triad.”

Walker’s growing connection to the Camel City doesn’t negate her connection to the city she lives in — she’s involved with Preservation Greensboro and the Guilford Green Foundation, among other things.

“I love the relationship that is growing between the two cities, and [I] can see a near future of the two working in tandem towards a more creative and community-friendly Piedmont between businesses and neighbors,” she said.

— EG

Luke Whitten: Coffee-culture keeper

Luke Whitten courtesy photoLives in: Greensboro

Works in: High Point

When Melissa Michos, the manager of Spring Garden Bakery & Coffeehouse near UNCG, approached Luke Whitten about managing a new location in High Point, it felt like a natural fit.

Whitten operated Greensborough Coffee on State Street in Greensboro in his mid-twenties, and after the business went under during the recession, he worked for Fortuna Coffee and Whole Foods. Just as important as his business background, Whitten, a Greensboro resident, was familiar with High Point.

“I grew up in Thomasville and came to High Point to hang out at the mall,” he said. “I know it pretty well. I have friends who live in High Point.”

He’s noticed subtle differences between the clientele at the two coffee shops. The mannerisms of many of his customers at the old Greensborough Coffee reflected the store’s proximity to the elite Irving Park neighborhood.

“High Point’s a little more homier; it has more of a small-town feel,” Whitten said. “There’s a lot of regulars. Greensboro is a little more spread out. There’s a lot more space and people come in from different parts of town.”

The downside of managing a store in a different city from where he lives is being dependent on a car for transportation, but the time on the road could be worse.

“I wish we could get to work a lot easier,” Whitten said. “I wish we could bike or take public transportation. Having to be on the road, people go really fast. Otherwise it’s not that bad.”

— JG

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