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station this is chris earl with kcrg tv

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i have you loud and clear chris

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mount air native peggy whitson is back

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in space on the international space

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station for expedition 50 51 will follow

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this launched back in late october her

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crew docked with the iss in mid-november

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and throughout the recent past we've

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caught up with peggy a handful of times

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as an iowa native to see what she's been

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seeing and experiencing as part of nasa

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in fact we last talked with her on the

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morning show exactly two months ago

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today here on kcrg tv 9. good morning

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peggy although again i suppose morning

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yeah it's actually getting to be

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afternoon late afternoon for me now i'm

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on greenwich meantime so it's six hours

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so a simple question to ask right away

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and i'm curious about this when you look

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outside of your window or the nearest

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well actually right now we are flying

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over the atlantic

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and uh coming up on western side of

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africa and actually

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flying over africa is really pretty

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especially the northern parts where the

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sahara is

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just because of the peach color that

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comes in reflected light off of

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off of the sands down there so it's

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actually very beautiful area to fly over

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but at any point in time because our

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planet is 80 percent water you you have

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an 80 chance of

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seeing water when you look out the

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window but the even the water and the

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clouds are actually very dramatic very

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beautiful and especially just seeing the

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i know you have months and months on

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this expedition what are two of the more

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notable scientific experiments and

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trials that you and the rest of the crew

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well one of the big experiments that i

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that i've already gotten started on is

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called packed bed reactor it's a way to

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separate

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gases and liquids in zero gravity

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that's important for us in understanding

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how to optimize and develop our fuel

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technologies and other

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gas liquid mixtures

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in future technologies in space but also

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just the basic science of understanding

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how systems work with the lack of

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gravity also helps us

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optimize

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systems in manufacturing on earth as

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well so that's one area that i'm

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interested in obviously being a

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biochemist i'm also interested in

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some of the studies looking at immune

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function

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or we're doing another very interesting

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one it's a collaborative international

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investigation where we're looking at how

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fluid shifts may affect

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how our eyes work

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because we've seen some damage

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to our eyes during space flight and so

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we're trying to better understand and

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characterize why sometimes it's

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reversible why sometimes it's not uh and

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just to understand that so we do a lot

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of interesting studies looking at things

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that might be contributing to

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peggy we've chronicled many of your

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expeditions your flights into space and

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i'm curious how did christmas treat you

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well this is actually my second

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christmas in space and we had a

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fantastic time actually

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uh on we we had our big christmas dinner

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on christmas eve and uh handed out our

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presents then

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uh but the one thing that we did that

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was probably the most fun is we had

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arranged shane and i had arranged to

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have some frosting brought up and so we

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did a cookie decorating contest and a

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friend of ours who is into decorating

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cakes and cookies on the ground was our

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judge and so we had a contest to see who

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could decorate the best cookies i think

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the the guys seem to be pretty into it

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but i think it's only because i made it

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and peggy i noted when we saw your

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christmas socks the red and the white

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ones from earlier i noted that they were

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out of this world possibly the worst

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joke that was told in iowa for today but

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we always appreciate your time and

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continued safe travels and we hope to

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catch up with you once you're back in a

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few months after expedition 51. thank

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thank you for your interest i'm happy

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that iowa is so interested in space

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station this is houston acr that

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concludes the kcrg tv portion of the

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event please stand by for a voice check

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it is a real honor to be able to touch

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base with the international space

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station and that's what we're doing

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right now visiting with commander shane

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kimbrough commander on the international

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space station commander thanks so much

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hey it's great to be with you today

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happy holidays to you and

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tell us a little bit about how you're

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spending this holiday season up at the

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well we had a nice weekend we got an

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extra day on monday we had monday off as

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well to celebrate the christmas holiday

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and what we did was shared it with our

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russian cosmonaut colleagues who

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their christmas isn't until january 7th

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so we had them down for a nice dinner on

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christmas eve

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we actually got some

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cookies out and showed them how to

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decorate christmas cookies and we

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actually had a contest with them they

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did very well actually they actually won

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the contest so they were very creative

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and we just watched some christmas

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movies got to call home and uh tried to

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there's no losers if it's a christmas

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cookies competition that's that's the

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good thing about that i'm sure it always

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ends well with everybody in their

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christmas cookies but uh

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i'm sure a long way away from your

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hometown of killeen to be up in outer

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yeah i had the good fortune of being

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born at uh fort hood

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so right next to colleen and

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unfortunately i didn't live there very

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long because my dad got stationed to

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oklahoma shortly after i was born but

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that is where i was born i really grew

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up in the atlanta area from most of my

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tell us about the uh the mission right

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now that you're on up there at the

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well we're on uh what's called

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expedition 50 right now so we're proud

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to be part of that

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my crewmates are amazing we've been

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really doing a lot of great work a lot

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of science a lot of research

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we're now kind of shifting gears we're

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getting ready for two spacewalks that

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are coming up on january 6th and january

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13th so

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starting this week we're really getting

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focused on those events it's always a

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big deal when you send people outside in

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space so we're going to be prepared and

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ready and to go on january 6 and the

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i would imagine and i don't think that's

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something most of us down here think

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about the prep work for that walk

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outside in outer space

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to make sure that everyone's safe but

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also that that time is maximized and the

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yeah that's a great point and we have

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such a great team on the ground in

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houston that's uh that has prepared us

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before we left and then now that we're

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up here we're going to have conferences

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with those folks still they're sending

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us up procedures every day to get our

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spacesuits ready i was working on the

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spacesuits today

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getting them ready to go and we'll have

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procedure reviews and many things like

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you mentioned just to make sure first of

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all that we are safe but then that we do

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maximize that time that we're outside to

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once again those spacewalks coming up on

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january 6 and january 13th and then

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commander how long

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will your mission at the space station

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we're currently uh scheduled to land at

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the end of february early march time

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frame so we'll see how that goes that's

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me and my two russian crewmates

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um the other three crew members that are

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up here a french astronaut american

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astronaut and a russian astronaut they

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got here about a month after we did so

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they're scheduled to land in the uh may

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wonderful well again commander shane

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kimbrough we really appreciate you

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taking some time to visit with us uh

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happy holidays and hope uh there's a

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couple spare christmas cookies from the

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cookie party that you get to munch on

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yeah we will thanks for having me and it

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was great talking to you happy holidays

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wonderful

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thank you