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Saturday, November 17
A Dead Man's Tongue
I write medieval. 1170 medieval, which is when The Fifth
Knight is set. A lot of people said that it wasn’t a good time period. Too far
back. Too remote. Readers wouldn’t engage. Hmm. I’ve never been sure about
that. Because people were still people, even in 1170. While there have of
course been huge changes to us and our world in the last 800 years, many things
remain the same. As people, we have our loves, our hates, our struggles to deal
with whatever the world throws at us.
And
boy, can the world throw stuff. War, disease, famine and death is still a
pretty good summary of what people have to face across the world of 2012. You
can also add in tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes. Same as it was in 1170.
And for all of these terrifying things that happen, we don’t fear them or react
to them in a detached way. We fear them because we fear for our loved ones, for
ourselves. The desire to protect, to keep safe is as old as humanity.
(Those of you who have stopped by to find out about the
Dead Man’s Tongue are probably by now getting restless. Don’t worry, you’ve not
been mis-sold.)
One
of ways medieval people tried to keep themselves safe, to ward evil and harm
from them was to appeal to the saints. The medieval church had a very strong
culture of sainthood. The saints had been born ordinary people, but had lived
their lives and died with such devotion to and sacrifice for God that the
church had canonised them.
A
pillar of the culture of sainthood was the concept of relics. In modern day Catholicism,
you have classes of relics. First class relics are the bodies of saints or
parts of their bodies, including bones, soft tissue and hair, and yes, a tongue.
Such relics are housed in churches built and dedicated to that saint and are
the subject of great devotion. Second
class relics are taken from the clothing of the saint. Third class relics
include anything touched by the saint, or by touching an object to a first or
second class relic. The belief is that people who pray to these relics can be granted favours by God.
And
did medieval people ever need those favours. In 1170, people lived a harsh
live, with a life expectancy of late forties for the wealthy (and considerably
lower for the poor). Things we (at least we in the privileged western world)
take for granted were enormously risky for our 1170 dweller, who had access
only to herbal medicine. Childbirth, a
chest infection, a broken limb, a bad dose of food poisoning: the vast majority
of us, thank goodness, can come through all these in one piece. Modern medicine
sees to that. But without modern medicine, so much becomes life threatening.
If
illness weren’t enough, there were risks of crop failure and starvation.
Famines and food shortages were a regular feature of medieval life. Throw in
wars and conflict, where just one injury could be enough to end a life and we
begin to see why people sought protection where they could. For many, their
devotion to the saints was all they had. So to have relics, to have a link to a
saint in your possession, was hugely valued.
The
containers used to keep relics in are called reliquaries. Those containing
first class relics are fabulously made of gold, silver and precious stones and
can be found today in churches across the world. But in my research for The
Fifth Knight, I came across the far less grand thread-boxes. Archaeologists
have found at least three dozen of these in women’s graves going back as far as
the seventh century. Tiny boxes, with scraps of material and herbs, a defence
against harm. Heartbreakingly, one of the finds was in a baby’s grave.
You
could argue that such practice is consigned to the history books and has no
relevance today. But pay a visit to a church such as the magnificent Saint Anthony’s Basilica in Padua, Italy and you will see devotion to a saint’s
relics as real as it would have been in 1170. Saint Anthony’s tongue is indeed
on display in a magnificent gold reliquary. It may be shrivelled and black, but
it is still recognisably a tongue.
Many
would think it strange that thousands of people go to see it every year. Under
normal circumstances, most of us would turn down the opportunity to see a human
body part. But it’s when you look around the church, you see it’s not about that.
There is photo after photo of loved ones. People have placed them there, asking
for the saint’s help. In the remarkable Museum of Popular Devotion next door,
there are hundreds of exhibits people have submitted to show their prayers
being answered. Many of these are in picture form and have no words to explain
them. They don’t need to. They show people ill, in car accidents, in peril at
sea. Child after child falling from a balcony, a window. One even shows a
burning TV! But in all, Saint Anthony is represented as having intervened, as
saving the loved one.
I
think the women who kept their thread-boxes would understand those pictures immediately, no matter how
many centuries separated them. A hope, a plea, that loved ones will be kept
safe from harm, that they can be kept safe from peril. I don’t think that ever
changes. So yes, I write medieval. But it doesn’t feel remote to me.
If
you’d like to read a story about thread-boxes, and a woman who kept one, have a
look at the tale of The Red Cap in Fifth Knight Tales. These are free short stories about other
characters in the world of The Fifth Knight.
And
if you read The Fifth Knight, you’ll find out if her prayers were answered.
Note: The Fifth Knight can be found on
Kindle Serials. At this time, only
US customers can purchase the serialized format. The book will be released in
complete format by Thomas & Mercer in 2013.
4 comments:
Absolutely fabulous post. The relics exhibition in the British Museum was incredible too and high status reliquaries were crystal as well as gold and silver. I look forward to reading the novel and how exciting for it to be a serial too.
Sir Benedict Palmer returns to Germany on November 1 2016!
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About Me
E.M. Powell’s medieval thrillers THE FIFTH KNIGHT and THE BLOOD OF THE FIFTH KNIGHT have been #1 Amazon bestsellers and a Bild bestseller in Germany. Book #3 in the series, THE LORD OF IRELAND, was published by Thomas & Mercer on April 5 2016. Born and raised in the Republic of Ireland into the family of Michael Collins (the legendary revolutionary and founder of the Irish Free State), she now lives in northwest England with her husband, daughter and a Facebook-friendly dog. She is also a contributing editor to International Thriller Writers The Big Thrill magazine, blogs for English Historical Fiction Authors, reviews fiction & non-fiction for the Historical Novel Society and is part of the HNS Social Media Team. Find out more by visiting www.empowell.com.
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Tag Archives: liturgy
What pain has dwelt in silence too long? What muted scream of terror unheard? What outrage ignored as, around you, life after life after life is devastated? What pain in you? Find one such pain, right this moment. Now, draw … Continue reading →
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Monthly Archives: August 2017
Listening to a recorded course on Chinese history* a few months ago, I was struck by how descriptions of “gridlock” in the late Ming dynasty government of China sounded much like the US government in recent years. Typically, Americans draw comparisons – apt or not – with ancient Rome, but perhaps late Ming China (which fell in 1644) might also offer some cautionary lessons.
Some comments by the course instructor, Prof. Kenneth J. Hammond, stood out in this regard:
“New ideas about integrity and individualism contributed to a moralization of political life that let to gridlock in government.”
“… debates and controversies at [the royal] court tended to be framed not as issues for compromise and pragmatism but as black-and-white moral issues.”
some groups “came to act almost like political parties in pursuit of their moral programs, treating their political rivals as agents of evil rather than simply gentlemen with differing ideas.”
According to Prof. Hammond, this situation had its origins in the thinking of the prominent neo-Confucian philosopher and court official, Wang Yangming 王阳明 (1472-1529), who held that all individuals have an “innate knowledge of the good.”
Being neither an expert in Chinese history nor a student of Eastern philosophy, I am not in a position to comment in depth on this interpretation. However, the influence of Wang Yangming’s moral intuitionism among the literati in China at that time, the inability of the government to grapple with multiple problems, and the ultimate end of the Ming dynasty, are all known facts.
Recent politics in the US has been marked by extreme, intransigent positions, mainly on the part of an influential minority, and a tendency for two main partisan sides to talk less and even impugn the motives of the other. The influence of one particular thinker, Ayn Rand (1905-1982), on some members of the US government, is arguably a key factor in this devolution.
This is admittedly a shallow comparison, but not much worse than many comparisons of the US and Rome. The advantage of looking at a range of possible past parallels to one’s current situation is in drawing lessons from them so as not to repeat history.
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Playlist Register
The Playlist Search Engine
Benefits of Having an Online Music Playlist
Benefits of Having an Online Music Playlist
Do you love listening to music online? If yes, then there are many benefits that you stand to enjoy by simply creating an online music playlist and listing to the music. Here are some of the advantages of having an online music playlist:
Accessibility
This is the main advantage of having a music playlist online that you can listen to. With the help of online-based software, you can create a playlist and play the music on your devices provided you have internet connection. You can search for any music and add it to your playlist with just one click. Some platforms may even allow you to download the music for free
Choice and variety
This is another major advantage as it gives you access to a wide variety of music online. When it comes to finding music online, your choices are infinite. In fact, your choices keep increasing everyday as more and more people continue making and uploading music online. If you want to make a playlist of old songs, like the ones sang in the 1960’s, you can simply search them and add to your list. You also get to choose music that you like only. And if you feel removing a certain song from your playlist, it is as easy as walking in the park.
Fewer commercials and ads
Listening to music from a TV or radio can be distracting because of commercials, ads, news, etc that usually interrupt the playlist. This is done to full their endorsements and program which they need to fulfill. Creating a music playlist online that you can listen to will save you from these annoying ads and commercials. The music will be playing back to back. This is good considering the fact that they are only your favorite songs.
Personalize
You can create playlists of music you like and listen to it anytime. When exercising, at work or even driving, you can switch on and play the music anytime to enjoy your favorite songs. You will have the option to repeat, shuffle, play, and pause, add and delete some songs in your playlist or even repeat one song severally. Your playlist will also not become monotonous because you will be able change the playlist to songs that you like.
Quality of sound
Listening to music from a physical sound system may lead to distractions as you listen to the music such as sounds distractions, environmental problems, etc. This may cause poor quality of sound. However, if you create a playlist online and listen to online, you will not have such problems. In addition, the quality of music will be better when you listen to music online.
Conclusion
There you have it! As you can see, there are many reasons why you would want to create a playlist online. This is very important especially if you like listening to music and you want to have all the songs you like in one playlist. You will also have access to many songs.
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A number of years ago I was working for a large international retailer (UK based) as a lowly cashier, I was in regular contact with the part-time staff, who were mostly older ladies.
When one of them was about to turn 65 we decided to start a staff collection in order to organise a birthday bash for her among the staff, mostly organised by another of the long time staff. There was no coercion involved and everybody was willing to chip in €5 (no more was asked for or accepted). Low-hours and school-age staff were also not asked to contribute.
Unfortunately the shop manager (an up-tight little so-and-so) got word of the collection and party. The next day word came down to the floor that there couldn't be a collection and that if he heard there'd been a party that heads would roll. Seemingly we were breaching company policy by running the collection, and by organising a staff party (all this was bs naturally).
By this stage we had a nice amount of money collected (about €1,000 IIRC) and we did not know what to do with it. Nobody wanted it back, but we were under scrutiny. So it was decided that we'd get something nice for the birthday girl and it would be presented to her at her family's birthday party, nicely circumventing the manager.
LINK
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“Trump opts against announcing steel and aluminum tariffs Thursday after fierce White House blowback” []. “President Trump has decided against announcing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on Thursday after 18 hours of frenetic push-back from inside the White House and on Capitol Hill, two people briefed on the decision said.” Note the sourcing.
“Trump invites steel and aluminum industry to White House” []. “President Donald Trump summoned steel and aluminum executives to the White House on Thursday amid speculation he may impose tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum imports. Plans for Trump to make an announcement were thrown into doubt amid internal wrangling over the decision. Some White House officials, including chief of staff John Kelly, were not fully briefed on the Commerce Department’s plans, according to a senior administration official familiar with the process. This official was not authorized to publicly discuss the internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.”
Politics
2020
“Bernie Sanders Wants Congress to End U.S. Support for Yemen War. Saudi Lobbyists Fought Similar Measures Last Year” []. “A BIPARTISAN GROUP of senators unveiled legislation on Wednesday designed to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The resolution — introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; and Mike Lee, R-Utah — attempts to use the War Powers Act of 1973, a Vietnam War-era law that limits the president’s power to wage war without congressional authorization, to disentangle the U.S. from a campaign that has claimed thousands of civilian lives and led to .”
2018
“Is a wave rolling in for House Democrats? Potentially competitive districts and candidates build strength” []. “The number of Democratic challengers to House incumbents in the 2018 elections has continued to go up, from 455 on September 30 to 510 on December 31. However, 510 is no longer an unprecedented number. At the end of the year before the Republican wave election of 2010 there were 522 GOP challengers to Democratic incumbents filing with the FEC.”
“The Midterms and the Turn Leftward” [Sean McElwee, ]. “Democrats will take the House, probably winning around forty seats. Despite what you’ve heard, Democrats won’t just be winning upscale suburbs, but will pick up a basket of seats, ranging from highly educated and upscale to working-class and rural. They will make their biggest pick-ups in ten key states, though CA, FL, NY, PA, and TX alone will deliver enough seats. Here’s how.” Since gridlock is our friend, I don’t mind the Democrats flipping the Senate, but I think flipping the House means impeachment, which will tear the country apart and culminate in Pence (and that’s the best possible outcome. Pardon my pessimism.
“To counter Trump chaos, Democrats promote ‘stability’ candidates” []. “Think of Ralph Northam (military background, doctor, lieutenant governor) who won Virginia’s gubernatorial contest last November. Or think of Doug Jones (a former prosecutor who promised he could “work with Republicans better than Roy Moore can work with anyone”) in December’s Alabama contest. Or think of Conor Lamb (military background, former prosecutor) who’s running in this month’s special congressional election in a Pennsylvania district Trump won by 20 points in 2016. It’s chaos vs. stability. It’s reality-show background vs. military/prosecutor backgrounds. And it’s excitement vs., well, a little boring.” You know what it is? It’s Blue Dogs. That’s what it is. . Rahm Emmanuel has risen from the grave!
liberals: stop trying to appeal to working class voters who weren't energised by hillary or the small % that voted trump — they are irredeemablealso liberals: we should admire *real* conservatives like Reagan and invite never-trumpers like Frum and Kristol into the
— ☭ Socialist Republic of the Moon ☭ (@AGreenNewDeal)
NC: “For the first time in anyone’s memory, nearly all 170 state legislative races in North Carolina will feature both a Republican and Democratic candidate” []. “In past election cycles, districts drawn to strongly favor one party often failed to draw more than one candidate. The 2016 general election included 73 districts in which just one of the major parties fielded a candidate. Republicans didn’t have a candidate in 30 House races and four Senate races; Democrats didn’t have a candidate in 28 House races and 11 Senate races.”
TX: “Want More Women to Vote? Here’s an Idea: Stand Up for Them” [Laura Moser, ]. From 2017, still germane.
2016 Post Mortem
“Did Facebook Really Charge Trump Less for Advertising?” []. Another take on the Trump vs. Clinton on Facebook ads: “So did Facebook actually charge the Trump campaign less? There are two things worth noting here: The first is that [Trump’s Brad] Parscale and [Clinton’s Jennifer] Palmieri probably don’t know what each other was being charged on Facebook — and, further, Parscale and Palmieri both benefit from the narrative that Trump was undercharged and Clinton over-. (Parscale can claim to be a digital-campaign Facebook genius, and Palmieri can claim that the Clinton campaign was screwed over by Facebook.). The second thing worth noting that while [Antonio] García Martínez was asserting [in the original Wired article] that Trump got a bigger bang for his buck on Facebook because his ads effectively mimicked the sorts of ‘provocative’ content that perform well on Facebook (I’m trying not to write ‘clickbait,’ but it’s the same genus), he didn’t himself claim, as Parscale and Palmieri did, that Trump’s CPM was lower.”
So great we'll arm teachers in Florida. I grew up in Florida, my teacher used to lose his temper and throw chalk at my head. I'm glad they'll have guns at all times now. Everything is fine.
Teacher: He was reaching in his bag, how was I supposed to know he was just getting a ruler? Sorry.
— beth, an alien (@bourgeoisalien)
“The Parkland Teens Fighting For Gun Control Have The Backing Of These Huge Organizing Groups” []. Hopefully that doesn’t lead to decapitation, as with Black Lives Matter.
Realignment and Legitimacy
“What We Really Learned From Mueller’s Indictment Of Russian Trolls Is That Internet Providers Know Everything” [Thomas Frank, ]. “Experts familiar with evidence collection say Mueller likely tapped into enormous communications archives maintained by internet companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and gained access through laws that require companies to turn over records. ‘The thing that is not sufficiently appreciated is that the evidence of all of the crimes in the world has become digitized and is largely in the hands of American technology companies. They are de facto intelligence companies. Internet companies are doing the NSA’s work now,’ said Andrew Keane Woods, an expert in cybersecurity and international law at the University of Kentucky College of Law.” Depending on the quality of the data, yes. Spitballing here, but if the intelligence community can “tap into” data for “all the crimes in the world,” convert that data into Steele-style oppo, and then convert that oppo into a FISA warrant, they can p0wn any member of the political class; after all, “.” Of course, one might go one step further than assume that because this can be done, it has already been done. Not that I’m foily.
On corruption:
My unpopular opinion: I'm unconvinced that the endemic self-dealing of the Trumps and Kushners is substantively worse than the usual policy quids exchanged for post-term corporate-and-foundation gig quos.
— Jacob "Blockchain" Bacharach, LLC (@jakebackpack)
Conservatives are direct: They just reach into the cookie jar and grab what they want. With Democrats, there’s always a layer of indirection and often a lag: They get their cookies through their foundations, on K Street, or their book deals. Or their Presidential libraries.
“A Dozen Democrats Want To Help Banks Hide Racial Discrimination In Mortgages” []. “[N]ext week, the Senate is set to vote on a ]Tim] Kaine-sponsored bill that deliberately undermines the government’s ability to enforce laws against racial discrimination in the housing market.” Kaine was Clinton’t running mate in her unsuccessful 2016 run.
Institute For Supply Management Index, February 2018: “No sample has been reporting consistently stronger results than ISM manufacturing where the composite index rose to 60.8 in February, Strength lies in new orders… ” []. “This sample, in contrast to actual data from the government that are comparatively flat, continues to carve out one of its very strongest runs in 70 years of data.” And: “This was above expectations of 58.6%, and suggests manufacturing expanded at a faster pace in February than in January” []. And but: “Based on these surveys and the district Federal Reserve Surveys, one would expect the Fed’s Industrial Production index growth rate remain about the same as last month. Overall, surveys do not have a high correlation to the movement of industrial production (manufacturing) since the Great Recession” []. And: “What they’re saying: ‘Employment is one of our biggest challenges. No labor available,’ said one purchasing manager in the food, beverage and tobacco products category” []. “‘Labor market continues to be tight for supply chain talent in the Southern California area. Overall economy is strong,’ added another manager, in the transportation equipment sector.”
Purchasing Managers’ Manufacturing Index. February 2018: “Growth eased very slightly over the last two weeks of the PMI manufacturing sample… Despite the month-end slowing, the month’s results are among the best of the last three years… New orders, the most important of any reading, lead the strength…” []. “These results point to a strong first-quarter start for the factory sector though the directional signal does contrast with definitive data on the sector which opened the year on a weak note, specifically declines in January durable goods orders and no change for manufacturing in January’s industrial production report.”
Construction Spending, January 2018: “Capital goods readings in Tuesday’s durable goods report were weak as is nonresidential spending in today’s construction spending report for January, weakness that held total spending unchanged in the month” []. “Housing is a larger category than nonresidential spending reflected in the total year-on-year rate which is at 3.2 percent, moderate but respectable. And public spending, which is a separate category concentrated in educational building and roads, is also contributing, up 1.8 percent on the month and 8.2 percent on the year. And spending here, given the outlook for new deficit spending, could prove to be an accelerating for the construction outlook.” John Maynard Keynes, courtesy phone! However: “There continues to be significant backward revision to the date – this month was downward. The rolling averages declined. Also note that inflation is grabbing hold – and the inflation adjusted numbers are showing contraction in this sector” [],
Personal Income and Outlays, January 2018: “Core inflation did noticeably rise but not more than expected, at 0.3 percent in January but not enough to lift the year-on-year rate which holds at an as-expected 1.5 percent…. These results fit in with the Federal Reserve’s expectations for a gradual upward trend for prices but they don’t accelerate the outlook” []. “Spending data are soft, up only 0.2 percent overall and marking a weak first-quarter start for the consumer… Reflecting the drop in taxes, the savings rate popped back higher in January, up 7 tenths to 3.2 percent. The gain in income is a positive not only for the savings outlook but the spending outlook as well. This report, despite the monthly weakness in spending, points to economic health, specifically rising income and gradually rising prices.” But: “The savings rate declined and remains at 21st century lows. Consumer spending growth was lower than income growth year-over-year” []. On the savings rate: “The backward revisions are driving this analyst crazy – especially the year-over-year numbers which are jumping around massively.” And: “The increase in personal income was slightly above expectations, and the increase in PCE was at expectations” [].
Personal Income: “Crumbs? Bonuses tied to Trump tax cuts said to boost U.S. incomes by $30 billion” []. “The Bureau of Economic Analysis raised its estimate of how much U.S. incomes rose in the first month of the year in response to widespread reports of businesses handing out onetime bonuses after the tax cuts became law. If those bonuses hadn’t been included, incomes barely would have risen in January. The BEA also estimated that the tax cuts reduced personal taxes in January by a $115 billion annual rate. The result: Disposable income — mostly what Americans take home after taxes — posted the biggest one-month gain since 2012. Disposable incomes leaped 0.9%. How accurate are these numbers? Hard to say…. The BEA admitted it based its calculation on “news releases” of companies that announced the bonuses. How, when and to whom those bonuses are paid won’t show up in the data for several months.”
Jobless Claims, week of February 24: “Today’s personal income & outlays report points to economic health as do initial jobless claims, down 10,000 in the February 24 week to a lower-than-expected 210,000 for the best reading in 49 years” []. And: “This was lower than the consensus forecast. The low level of claims suggest relatively few layoffs” [].
Retail: “Is This the Last Chapter for Barnes & Noble?” []. “In terms of its long-term strategic plans, Barnes & Noble is focused on the following four key elements: “1. Strengthening the core business by enhancing the customer value proposition.” And certainly firing all the full-time employers is the obvious first step to take in doing that…. If I want to be depressed by a retail environment, I can go to Sears. Rather, I . So where’s Barnes & Noble’s Unique Selling Proposition, here?
Banks: “HSH Nordbank sold to private equity group, ending sad chapter in German banking: []. “The €1 billion purchase price [from Cerberus and J.C. Flowers] was more than the [Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein] could have hoped for a year ago. But it hardly makes up for the €10 billion- the two governments have poured into the bank to bail it out after an ill-advised foray into shipping loans that made HSH Nordbank the global leader in maritime finance but nearly sunk it when the sector went into a slump. Total losses could reach €14 billion depending on whether the state has to pay off guarantees.” Oof.
Commodities: “Mexican election to pose limited risks to positive mining outlook: BMI” []. ” new report by BMI Research states that a possible victory by frontrunner presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador poses “minimal downside risks to an otherwise strong outlook” for Mexico’s mining industry. According to the market research firm, the populist candidate’s policy goals would indeed represent a major shift from the current administration and that is why they have stoked investor fears around a possible disruption in the country’s trade relationships and recently liberalized energy sector. However, when it comes to mining, BMI forecasts rather positive results.”
Energy: “Democrats urge DOI not to cut offshore oil royalty rates” []. “The Democratic members of the Senate and House of Representatives natural resources committees wrote a letter that expressed concern that the [Department of the Interior’s] plan to cut the royalty rate from 18.75% to 12.5% would deprive taxpayers of billions of dollars in revenue while being a bonanza for the oil companies involved.”
Shipping: “UPS announces further expansion of its Worldwide Express service” []. “UPS said this week that its UPS Worldwide Express Service now is available in 124 countries and territories. This service provides customers with guaranteed delivery on the next possible business day by 10:30 a.m., 12 noon, or 2 p.m., based on destination. UPS said individuals and companies of varying sizes can use it, but it is geared towards ones with time-sensitive international shipment. It is now available in nearly areas making up 96% of global GDP and 93% of real imports.”
Manufacturing: “Evolution due for automotive logistics as manufacturers drive changes” []. “[Transportation Intelligence’s] Automotive Supply Chain and Logistics report suggests that while artificial intelligence (AI) and the demise of diesel tend to be the two subjects that hit the headlines, a switch in materials used for making cars may be just as important. ‘Less talked of than autonomous guidance or electric propulsion, is the use of different materials for the ‘frame’ of the car,’ it said. ‘Certain manufacturers, such as Jaguar, already use aluminium construction, although most vehicle manufacturers (VMs) at present use steel alloy to deliver a lighter vehicle.’ The report claims a renewed interest in power-weight ratios will ‘amplify’ the need for materials with better performance than steel, causing changes to automotive logistics. In particular, it notes the growing of role carbon fibre.” Interesting in light of the steel and aluminum tariff discussion above.
Infrastructure: “Trump willing to take GOP heat to push 25-cent-a-gallon fuel tax hike, senator says” []. “The somewhat sketchy reports that President Trump would support an increase in the federal motor fuels tax came into sharper clarity today after several lawmakers said they were told by the President that he would back a 25-cent-a-gallon hike, to be imposed at one time, and that he would take the heat from his own party to get it accomplished.” He’s learning, albeit slowly and in fits and starts.
Tech: “Determining The Average Apple Device Lifespan” []. “In I argued that active devices is a breakthrough in quantifying the value of Apple’s business. The first insight is into the size of device (read: user) base, the second is in the resilience of that device base (2/3 in use). Now we see the third insight: the specific length of time or duration of use per device–a proxy for user satisfaction and loyalty. This I (and Deming) argue, is the most important measure of the health of a business because it speaks of the future and not, as all other figures do, the past. I’ll show in the next post how this single number allows us to calculate the net present value of Apple’s future cash flows, or, by definition, Apple’s enterprise value.” Readers, methodology?
Five Horsemen: “Facebook, leader of the pack until Amazon Friday last October, now occupies last place” [Hat Tip, Jim Haygood].
NakedCap Mania-Panic Index, February 2018: Yesterday’s slump drove the mania-panic index down to 37 (worry) [Hat Tip, Jim Haygood]. Readers will recall that I’ve been whinging about how CNN’s Fear and Greed Index is lagged, sometimes by as much as four days, and Haygood generously volunteered to create a similar index in chart form. (I’ll leave it to him to chime in with methodology in comments).
“Why health care in Latin America is better for retirees” []. Example: “After her attentive, unhurried and caring consultation, Pilar asked my wife if she’d like to have the tooth fixed right then and there. She and I were stunned and unprepared for this, but after a pause to consider the situation, we agreed. Thirty minutes later, the dental work was done so well we couldn’t even see the location of the original problem. We paid our $75, said ‘adios’ and enjoyed my wife’s improved smile.”
“State Lawsuit Claims That Individual Mandate Penalty Repeal Should Topple Entire ACA” []. “In their complaint, filed in federal district court in the Northern District of Texas, the states argue that the repeal of the individual mandate penalty in 2019 is fatal to the ACA and, as such, the entire law should be struck down. In summary, they argue that the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate as a tax. Now that Congress eliminated the individual mandate penalty beginning in 2019, the mandate is no longer enforceable as a tax and thus is no longer valid. They further argue that the entirety of the ACA relies on the mandate and, without the penalty, the entirety of the ACA is also unconstitutional…” It’s like the ACA was designed to maximize attack surfaces, rather than minimize them.
Net Neutrality
“The Wired Guide To Net Neutrality” []. “The future of net neutrality is now in the hands of Congress and the courts. Twenty-one state attorneys general, led by New York’s Eric Schneiderman, sued the FCC in January to block the new rules and restore the old ones; so did several consumer-advocacy groups. An industry group representing Facebook, Google, Netflix, and other internet companies has also vowed to join legal fights to preserve net neutrality.” That “industry group” is the Internet Association, and I have yet to see what “vowed to” means in practice. Fine words butter no parsnips.
“There also are politically strategic reasons for Republicans to endorse net neutrality, since it does not allow for indirect censorship of political ideas. Numerous liberal media organizations are owned by major service providers, which will be able to favor their own content, while Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and other conservative media are noticeably not owned by a giant cable or wireless provider. If Republicans realized the importance of such disparity in vertical integration of service providers owning content providers, they surely would not support a policy position that hurts news outlets sympathetic to their party” [].
Class Warfare
“Rejecting W.V. Deal, Over 50 Counties Will Continue Wildcat Strike Tomorrow” []. “Yesterday, many expected the West Virginia teachers’ strike to end as union leaders and Governor Jim Justice announced a deal to temporarily freeze PEIA health insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and prescription costs. Governor Justice also agreed to create a commission to resolve the long term problems with PEIA…. Earlier today, teachers throughout the state voted down the deal proposed by their union leaders and will continue their wildcat strikes tomorrow. Some counties voted down the deal by margins of more than 85%.Many teachers prefer that a long-term fix is passed now by the legislature to address the state’s PEIA health insurance program by increasing taxes on fracking to control skyrocketing out-of-pocket costs. Hundreds of teachers rallied on the Capitol, chanting ‘A Freeze Is Not a Fix.’ ‘This is not what we wanted. Like I said, we have sold out and caved into what the legislature and governor wanted,’ said AFT member Amber Brumfield on Facebook today.”
Good to see the Democrats rallying behind the West Virginia teachers:
Nick the Intern wanted to speak with you today about our office standing in solidarity with teachers striking in West Virginia.
— Lee J. Carter (@carterforva)
Well, one Democrat…
“The State of American Wages 2017” []. “Rising wage inequality has been a defining feature of the American economy for nearly four decades. In 2017, with an improving economy, all deciles in the overall wage distribution have improved, meaning most workers finally have higher hourly wages now than in 2007, the labor market peak before the Great Recession hit. However, large gaps by gender, race, and wage level remain, and some of these gaps are increasing. Rising inequality means that although we are seeing broad-based wage growth, ordinary workers are just making up lost ground rather than getting ahead. The bottom seven deciles have seen annual growth of hourly wages of 0.5 percent or less since 2000.”
“Them Against Us: A Travesty of Two Nations” []. “The rich would do wise to read a Tale of Two Cities tonight; the same way hubris prevented the aristocracy in Paris from knowing their own limitations, greed and arrogance is blinding the gentry to the suffering of the vast of humanity. God have mercy on the poor when the next economic downturn arrives at our doorsteps. Likewise, may the poor have mercy on the rich when the middle class join the impoverished in collective destitution.” I don’t agree with everything, but it’s a fine rant, and written from the heart.
The old is dying and the new is struggling to be born:
— Iʟʟᴜᴍɪɴᴀᴛɪ Cᴀᴜᴄᴜs ᴅsᴀ☠️🥀 (@IlluminatiDSA)
News of The Wired
“Pedestrian Deaths Remain Near Historic High Governing” [].
“Huawei reveals the Matebook X Pro – like a Macbook Pro but without the duct tape” []. Oooooh, a spill-proof keyboard! I lost a MacBook Pro to a spill. I’m not yet in the market for a new laptop. However, I’d love to escape the Apple jailecosystem, Apple keeps insulting me as a professional with its product decisions, and I could get a Matebook X Pro and (presumably) slam a linux distro on it. However, my workflow demands an outliner wtih precise requirements. Currently I use the simple and wonderful , which looks like this:
As you can see, the requirements are (1) a single pane (I don’t want to be dragging stupid tree structures around, or be required to label the branches); and (2) outlines are created with simple keystroke commands. I also need to be able to export to HTML. Readers, just so I can get my head into this, can any of you steer me to a linux outliner that meets these requirements?
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Readers, feel free to me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (Tracie Hall):
Tracie Hall: “Early morning, low light—just testing my camera setting, but ended up actually liking this picture—I love how the tendrils of vines just curl until they find things to wrap around.”
I believe this tendency to twine is called “,” which would be a good Word of the Day if it is, in fact, the right word. Readers?
Readers, I’m running a bit low on plant images. So, whether you’re from the tropics or merely anticipating mud season, we’d like to see what you’ve taken.
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Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the NC fundraiser. So do feel free to use the dropdown and click the hat to make a contribution today or any day. Here is why: Regular positive back both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of small donations helps me with expenses, and I factor that trickle in when setting fundraising goals. So if you see something you especially appreciate, do feel free to click the hat!
About Lambert Strether
Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered.
To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.
What about the kids with allergies? Or the ones who’ve had bad experiences with dogs?
Methinks that the dogs should be left out of the schools, unless they have a blind handler who needs assistance. BTW, one of my high school friends was blind and he had a Leader Dog. Very well trained, both of them, and they made an excellent team.
Admittedly, this is a private business so not directly comparable but…I read about a law firm that had 13 cats. They said they won quite a few prospective clients due to them and lost only one. And more people don’t like cats than don’t like dogs. Dunno re allergy rates, though.
I was hoping Lambert would pick it up, but Ian Welsh has an interesting guest post looking at a Neo-classical economic interpretation of the lack of incentive a “good guy with a gun” has to intervene in an active shooter situation, here:
I believe the conservatives’ response would be that if the armed guards or teachers don’t throw themselves in front of the shooters, they should be fired. Because sending laborers to die under threat of unemployment otherwise is preferable to them than inconveniencing property owners.
That being said, I don’t think they actually are being serious in their calls for arming teachers, or that Good Guys with Guns will stop all crime. Like so much with conservatives, their arguments are in bad faith, about stroking their base’s egos rather than solving problems. To build on Yves’ post earlier today, gun owners don’t want to hear that proper gun use requires intensive training and practice, that’s hard, or that they might not have the inherent talent needed to be responsible with a gun. So the NRA says “you just need to be a good guy.” Not a trained good guy, not a seasoned good guy, you just need to see yourself as a good guy. And this being America, everyone thinks they’re a good guy.
Yes. Ian Welsh is one I get in my inbox. Almost always worth the time to read his thoughts.
At what point will we Americans, as a society, realize that we have f***ed up our collective lives so badly that we need to stop talking about each immediate crisis and recognize that we have really messed up. “We need to stop talking about ….” really means those talking heads currently paid to push the narrative. Those who are severely impacted and aware don’t count – yet.
Based on my interactions with others, I suspect that time will not arrive until many of those in the upper 10% to upper 5% finally realize that the upper crust (0.01%) are really taking them, as well as the true plebs, to the cleaners. We aren’t close yet IMO.
Typical POV I see: As long as my life is good, the system works. Everyone else must have done something to deserve what they’ve got. For perspective, I am retired with sufficient SoSec to cover my day-to-day expenses so I interact daily with others who are relatively secure financially. From what I see, nothing yet registers with people.
I believe you’re right. I put it this way in a comment the other day over on Ian’s blog in regard to climate change:
The great majority of boomers just don’t get it. The world they were raised in is not our world. The great majority of anyone younger than the boomers do get it. As their “me generation” grasp on power continually weakens with age, we’ll be there to tear the power from their selfish hands.
Welsh handles a lot of subjects very well, but his inclination to turn to Adam Smith to provide a theory of social motivation is myopic to the point of stupefication. A quick look around the world and a longer one through history provides plenty of examples of societies that devise ways of rewarding self-sacrifice. Of late in the news, you’ve got the Kurds, Palestinians, and ISIS for starters. My preference is to restrict guns, but it wouldn’t be difficult to gin up a Shooter of Shooters hero medallion, complete with financial and social rewards. Why Welsh, who pushes for social forms that embrace cooperation, mutual recognition etc, here falls back on the neoclassical egocentrism he usually calls out is hard to understand.
Think FDR’s wretched rabble pushing his back, wildcatting, striking, organizing and communizing through the 30s and WWII–with, oops, forgot, strong intellectual, judicial and social support, oh well. The commies were far and away the best organizers then, so it’s a good thing they’ve taking over our leading political party today! There’s always a silver lining. (No sarc tag, too depressing)
It’s not too well known, but the Bonus Army was in the planning stages of ‘Occupying’ Humordor again in 1933, and Bonus Army WW1 vets were the first to go into CCC camps when FDR established them early in his term. They were exempted from the requirement that men had to be under 25 to enroll.
The problem is that TPTB scare very easily… or, maybe it is just the matter of the 99s interfering with the TPTB money-making machine a bit too much. They just don’t have the time or inclination to mess with the 99s and their demands. That is why when 99s finally get up to something (like a semblance of a revolution), the counter-action is swift and violent. Nip that pesky problem in the bud… at once! The way things are going, the 99s don’t stand a chance. They would if they had the luxury of organizing… but the time needed for that also gives TPTB all the time to undermine and eventually destroy any real action. My sense is that we’ll have to wait for the dislocation caused by the climate change to effect any transformation. The climate change – let’s hope – will not only pick on the poorer and poor (99s); it will indiscriminately attack us all… leading to equality-for-all destruction… Maybe then transformative acts will come… maybe.
Wells Fargo & Co is examining its wealth and investment management business for potential customer harm, and has found that some customers were overcharged because of technical-system errors, according to a securities filing on Thursday. …
The bank’s board of directors is looking in to whether wealth and investment management customers experienced inappropriate referrals or recommendations, according to its 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The review includes rollovers for 401(k) plan participants, certain alternative investments and referrals of brokerage customers to other businesses.
Additionally, a review of fee calculations in Wells Fargo’s investment and fiduciary services business has found that some customers were overcharged due to “incorrect set-up and maintenance in the system of record,” according to the filing. Wells is now trying to determine the extent of damages and root cause of the problem. …
One way to perhaps tell if these were truly “technical errors” is to see if the errors ever went in the customer’s favor, since bad programming should somewhat randomly go one way or the other, not just in the bank’s favor every time.
It seems to be the law of the universe – what goes around, comes around! Mr. P not only spoke, he showed fancy videos for all to see… and then apologized for not being able to show the real thing. The audience smiled enthusiastically… It was a performance made for the US audience – at least the one ensconced in the pentagonal building. He even asked (tongue-in-cheek?) for people to send in names for some of the new systems (maybe the penta-guys can get creative).
Mr. P has the advantage that rooskies’ defense industry is much less driven by profit and more by nationalistic pride and dedication to the cause (i.e., protecting their country). The designers probably play WWII red army songs as they attempt to out-draw and out-design the yanqui. When Mr. P said “Nobody wanted to talk with us on the core of the problem. Nobody listened to us. Now you listen!” I was reminded of that Helen Reddy song, “I am a woman, hear me roar…”
OMG look at those terrible people! They want to eat our children and stop our elections! We must have tactical nukes costing billions right away so we can kill them all with a few teensie-weensie nuclear blasts! Before they infect us with their…um…I don’t know, their horrible…shopping habits?
More Russian meddling. I wonder how soon liberal Democrats will start “sowing discord” by making Putin’s videos go viral to reinforce their McCarthyite Red Scare?
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We really do need a master of realpolitik in this country. And no, it’s not Kissinger. Bad as Bismarck was, he, personally, did nothing like the bombing of Cambodia. If only there were an American Talleyrand…
The next system introduced was a cruise missile with a nuclear power plant which makes any anti-missile system practically useless. Cold air that enters the missile at the front is superheated by a special nuclear reactor, exits at the rear and gives the missile an enormous thrust. (In the early 1960s the The U.S. had a development program for such a nuclear driven Supersonic Low-Altitude Missile (SLAM) but it did not succeed.
The Supersonic Low Altitude Missile or SLAM was a U.S. Air Force nuclear weapons project conceived around 1955, and cancelled in 1964. SLAMs were conceived of as unmanned nuclear-powered ramjets capable of delivering thermonuclear warheads deep into enemy territory. The development of ICBMs in the 1950s rendered the concept of SLAMs obsolete. Advances in defensive ground radar also made the stratagem of low-altitude evasion ineffective. Although it never proceeded beyond the initial design and testing phase before being declared obsolete, the design contained several radical innovations as a nuclear delivery system.[…]
The use of a nuclear engine in the airframe promised to give the missile staggering and unprecedented low-altitude range, estimated to be roughly 113,000 miles (182,000 km) (over four and a half times the equatorial circumference of the earth). The engine also acted as a secondary weapon for the missile: direct neutron radiation from the virtually unshielded reactor would sicken, injure, or kill living things beneath the flight path; the stream of fallout left in its wake would poison enemy territory; and its strategically selected crash site would receive intense radioactive contamination. These characteristics would have also made the weapon impossible to test and control.[1] In addition, the sonic waves given off by its passage would damage ground installations.
I wonder if Bush pulling out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty may have had something to do with this development? Or when Obama put all those nuclear-tipped missiles near Russia’s borders claiming that they were to defend Europe against all those Iranian nuclear missiles that never existed. As that old boxing saying goes, everybody has a plan – until they get hit!
One could probably add that on February 2, 2018, the U.S Department of Defense released its Nuclear Posture Review. This updated nuclear doctrine specifically target Russia and China, as does the National Security Strategy.
I’m hazy on the detail. IIRC, the administration announced a strategy that shifted focus from the global war on terror to great power conflict.
In the abstract, that seems reasonable to me (in the absence of any credible international institutions to reign in the nation states). I like realpolitik*. But I question the ability of our military, our defense community, and our intelligence community to execute any strategy unless the metric be spending extraordinary amounts of money to blow great numbers of faraway brown people to pink mist, period**. (Certainly not victory as dull normals know it. If we’ve won any of our recent wars, then where are the parades?)
* At least as compared to liberal interventionism. Why can’t we accept that 9 times out of 10, to be generous, our intervention makes matters worse for those we have “a responsibility to protect”?
** One wonders how much the neoliberalism-driven dominance of contractors has to do with this. After all, if they “win,” they “lose” the contract, right?
Maybe they’re ‘cottoning’ on to the international bombshells within. This is also a serious message to the folks like Tom: In our country we control the Arms Industry – more bang for less $$$$$. In your country the MIC controls the Government – more $$$$ for less bang. The biggest concerns of implementation of UN Agenda 2030 and multilateral monetary system has been what to do with them.
trəmp/
noun: trump; plural noun: trumps
1.
(in bridge, whist, and similar card games) a playing card of the suit chosen to rank above the others, which can win a trick where a card of a different suit has been led.
a valuable resource that may be used, especially as a surprise, in order to gain an advantage.
On everything from tax cuts to healthcare to the environment, everything where he has done anything he is following the R playbook. Even in the areas where he made tractable heterodox promises (e.g. Infrastructure) he basically backed off and released a half-assed and very GOP plan.
At this point calling him a Closet Democrat feels like an almost despertate attempt to shuffle blame for GOP polices off onto the party that is not in power. Or a claim that guns are so central to GOP orthodoxy that even speculating about a change requires shunning. Either way the point seems desperately weak. Erratic yes. “Closet Democrat” no.
No worries. A Tory minister says ‘keep cooking and carry on’. Yeah, the same guys organizing Brexit. Maybe the UK can import some more Russian gas like they did recently. I’m sure that the Russians would be glad to oblige and the gas itself doesn’t know where it comes from. If it was good enough for the US to keep bringing in Russian gas, I’m sure the UK can do no less.
On a more serious note, that article seems to indicate a structural flaw in the UK’s use of gas. Maybe a new gas storage plant needs to be built or the old one refurbished, even if the government has to pick up the tab. Or is the newly introduced factor of gas price volatility seen as a by the UK gas industry? I’m sure the US would love to supply this gas but it is more expensive than what they have been getting and if the US itself had to import gas recently, how reliable a source would it be?
Here’s some more evidence for the “being poor is bad for your health” file:
~American Psychosomatic Society
The study measured how two lab tests known to stimulate stress affected the cortisol levels of 997 adults aged 54 and older. Study participants also gave detailed information on parental education, used as a proxy for childhood socioeconomic status (SES), their own education, income, and wealth. The findings were stark. The more time across the lifespan that a person had low SES, and the lower their status (money and education), the slower their recovery time from heightened cortisol levels triggered by the stressor. So, for example, those with low SES throughout life had a 46% slower recovery rate than adults with high SES all through their lives.
And here’s a . From the abstract:
Methods We used data on 997 adults 54 years or older from a multiethnic, multisite United States study to examine associations between life course SES and cortisol response to a laboratory stress challenge. Informed by life course theory, we hypothesized that lower child and adult SES would be associated with lower reactivity (i.e., smaller increase in cortisol) and a slower recovery rate (i.e., slower rate of decline in cortisol after the challenge).
Results In demographics-adjusted multilevel piecewise linear regression models, low child and adult SES were associated with a 19% (95% CI = 4%–50%) and 27% (7%–55%) slower recovery rate compared with high child and adult SES, respectively. Compared with participants with stable high SES, those with stable low SES had a 48% (16%–70%) slower recovery rate. Differences in reactivity by SES were small.
Conclusions Our results support the hypothesis that low SES throughout life affects the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and in turn the ability to recover from exposure to acute stressors. This mechanism can help explain how socioeconomic disparities contribute to disparities in chronic disease.
If you mean ” the money to buy hair cosmetics” , I would say no, not just that.
Enough money to buy good quality food the knowledge and interest to do so makes the body able to support healthier hair follicles which can grow more better-quality hair on their own, without cosmetic assistance.
” All your money won’t another minute buy” –Kansas
Oh really? All THEIR money will buy them whole decades more lifespan that what poor peoples’ meager money will buy for poor people.
searchers have long known that the rich live longer than the poor. Evidence now suggests that the life expectancy gap is increasing, at least here the United States, which raises troubling questions about the fairness of current efforts to protect Social Security.
“Here’s some more evidence for the “being poor is bad for your health” file:”
I know all about this. We grew up poor and I have the bad teeth to prove it. I had partial denture at 24.
I grew up in Scotland where dental care was covered for children…..but not the bus fare to get you to the dentist.
Of course one of the benefits of growing up poor, it made me very thrifty, and that enabled me to retire at 55.
…I think flipping the House means impeachment, which will tear the country apart and culminate in Pence (and that’s the best possible outcome. Pardon my pessimism.
You only need a majority in the House to impeach, but there is a 2/3 supermajority required in the Senate to convict. If that doesn’t happen, no Pence. Are you speculating that 10+ Republican senators might vote with the Democrats?
I suppose if enough thought Pence would have a better chance at reelection in 2020 than Trump, they might do it. It may be more likely that they would stay the course with Trump and if they don’t have the presidency in 2020, they’ll just go into obstruction mode to make whoever the Dem pres is look feeble, something they’ve turned into an art form.
Remember, according to current rules regarding filibusters, dry powder etc., it pretty much only takes one Republican rep or one Republican senator to block anything the Dem majority might want to do ;)
Yes, I’m aware that the Senate must vote to convict; I lived through the Clinton impeachment. Just because the House Democrats can only bring a bill of impeachment won’t prevent them from doing it, even if it will “never, ever come to pass.”
The new chairman of the Federal Reserve questioned why struggling borrowers can’t discharge their student loans in bankruptcy.
“Alone among all kinds of debt, we don’t allow student loan debt to be discharged in bankruptcy,” Jerome Powell told members of the Senate Banking Committee Thursday. “I’d be at a loss to explain why that should be the case.” …
Is it possible the the Fed chair knows less about “why that should be the case” than the average NC reader?
Or do the rules of decorum of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body prevent Powell pointing out the obvious?
Those are two good questions, but miss the impish implications of what he is saying. My guess is he knows student debt is not allowed to be discharged in bankruptcy, them’s the rules, but thinks the rules makers are corrupt and/or stupid, and is politically correct enough not to call them that to their faces.
I think we are getting a new dose of FED volatility, someone that won’t always have Wall Street’s back. Hope springs eternal.
That sends a signal to the Administration about what the Fed will allow them to do on student debt before 2020 if the Administration is sharp enough to pick the message up (a dubious proposition right now, I think).
You know there are conditions on arming teachers. They will be trained in how to use a handgun to take out that bad guy with an assault rifle, one shot, like the President demonstrated with his finger gun “pequuui! dead!”. Trained, though maybe not as well as the police are trained, you know like these 7 guys:
Authorities in San Francisco released body camera videos on Tuesday of a dramatic shootout in which police officers fired their weapons at least 65 times in 15 seconds at a murder suspect.
“Nobody was struck by gunfire during this incident. The evidence in the case so far indicates Armstrong fired two rounds from a weapon, and that seven officers fired 65 rounds from their department-issued weapons,” SFPD Commander Greg McEacher.
Genius. Our Best and Brightest at work. Why are these people in charge?
So that it is not inconsistent, I believe, until we have taken guns away from both the police and individuals, until then, if someone wants to defend him/herself in the meantime, that should be an option.
And this quoted incident reinforces the point that, unless they are secret service agents protecting the president, we are better off with something similar to the UK when it comes to arming the police. But secret service agents are also human. And we can’t be sure if they wont’ react, from time to time, like the rest of us.
Furthermore, for people concerned about a police state in any nation, an unarmed police state can’t be worse than an armed police state.
With the caveat that I know nothing about the proper way to arrest someone, they do look like a slapstick act. One cop while several other cops are falling all over him and still on his back does a few shots. They act like it’s a complete surprise, despite them knowing they were trying to arrest a suspected armed murderer. If I got the immediate area right, it’s not as densely populated as much of the city. Of course, with around 850 thousand within 47 square miles that’s not saying much. These are the very people that are supposed to be protecting me. Marvelous. Just marvelous.
““State Lawsuit Claims That Individual Mandate Penalty Repeal Should Topple Entire ACA””
This might be interesting. I don’t agree with the lawsuit. I’ve seen the arguments for the entire ACA depending on the Mandate; they strike me as convoluted, questionable, and dependent on questionable assumptions. Furthermore, they’re subject to factual test, which is now set to happen. Either the system collapses without the Mandate, or it doesn’t. Time will tell.
If I was the judge, which isn’t at all likely, I think I’d dismiss it out of hand. What Congress makes, Congress can unmake. If they want to run the experiment, so be it. And the argument as reported misses the point: the MANDATE itself is constitutional only because it’s a tax (which Dems denied at the time). Not the whole bill.
And I agree with Lambert’s point that the whole thing is remarkably bad legislation, loaded with points of attack and unforeseen glitches.
I’m skeptical about the usefulness of Asymco’s methods to estimate average or median device lifespan.. Today we have 2 billion cumulative Apple devices, of which 750 million are retired. Over the last 5 years, device lifespans have increased from 5 quarters to 17 quarters. He claims from that this number alone, the value of the enterprise can be calculated. Longer lifespans = higher valuations.
According to the method presented, the time it takes from today to retire a cumulative total of 2 billion retired devices will provide another lifespan estimate (L.) Suppose sales fall (Blackberry-style) and cumulative devices sold over time flattens out at around 2.5 billion. We’ll get the new lifespan estimate, L, when 80% of all devices ever sold are retired (instead of 33% for today’s estimate.) I’d argue that the new lifespan, L, will be even longer than today’s 17 quarters, probably much longer – despite the fact that the enterprise value would be decimated. My guess is that one could display increasing lifespan over time curves for Next, Nokia, Blackberry, etc as sales were declining.
I have a Netflix recommendation: the documentary “.” It’s about a non-profit doing job training by having people plant trees in a SE DC park. I found it inspiring to see the good intentions of all involved, heartbreaking to ponder the life situations of the trainees and a sobering reality when it comes to the actual implementation of policies that sound wonderful in the abstract. We’re a long way from 1934 or even 1965.
Just because the Versailles Democrats are pushing “stability” candidates does not mean they will win their primaries. If the Our Revolution, DSA, Justice Democrats, et al win the primaries it will be a very different world.
I’m assuming they were hit by a car with a driver. Whether or not the pedestrians are distracted, the driver should have had control of the vehicle and be driving safely and that includes watching out for obstacles, like pedestrians.
The photo in the story shows pedestrians at a zebra crossing….which means they have the right of way while crossing.
The prevalence of SUVs and trucks doesn’t help. With a car a pedestrian sprawls over hood and into the windshield. With a higher fronted vehicle the pedestrian gets knocked onto the road and under the wheels with a much greater chance of a fatal head injury even at relatively slow speeds.
A somewhat recent phenomenon where I live is that practically everyone (not me!) rolls through stop signs if they don’t see anyone coming. Sometimes they don’t even slow down. Hard to know whether this comes from permissive law enforcement or deteriorating driving skills. When I lived in NYC it was the opposite situation. Pedestrians would jaywalk at will knowing that any driver who hit a pedestrian had the book thrown at them. Plus of course in NY there’s a much higher pedestrian to car ratio than most places. Strength in numbers.
Anyhow I consider the local situation an interesting study in mass psychology. Perhaps it’s just a passing fad.
Aaah no, I do not think so. With the agreement that there too many reckless drivers, I have had people walk out between two large parked vehicles right into the middle of the street or right into the crosswalk and I have the green light. Sometimes without a device and without looking for traffic. One time someone crossed the multi-lane one way street against the light while texting and never looked up. Fortunately for the fool all three front cars saw him and stopped. Not that he ever looked the entire time.
Even in California there are some situations in which the state will recognize the laws of physics as the higher authority especially. Pedestrians have given me literal feet of warning. Only near Divine luck saved them. Of course, they often act like it’s your fault.
Although in fairness some drivers, and bicyclists, as well as pedestrians act as if the rules don’t apply to them. However drivers are cocooned in metal and airbags so they are likely to survive. I don’t understand some of the nonchalance of people protected only by air.
Perhaps many of the people who are distracted, aggressive, or nonchalant drivers become distracted, aggressive, or nonchalant pedestrians once they alight from their vehicles. I’ve watched people who have cut off other drivers in mall parking lots in contests to get the parking spots closest to the doors, then walk through the driving lane to the door cursing other drivers who have to slam on their brakes to avoid knocking them over. I’ve watched mothers and fathers in school zones (30 km/h where we live), roar to the curb in no-parking zones, climb out of their cars, and usher juniors jaywalking over to the school opposite, rather than walk 50 feet to the crosswalks.
Perhaps culling information on how many of those traffic fatalities were also drivers might be interesting.
Re:
The article identifies distracted driving (i.e., smart phones) and marijuana as possibly contributing to the nearly 6,000 pedestrian deaths in 2017 and asks if the increased death rate is the new normal.
I’d say possibly not, since trends toward hybrid/electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles represent new dangers..
It’s Quiet… Too Quiet
Electric vehicles (EVs) — and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) when operating in electric mode — are much quieter than vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (ICEs). In fact they are so quiet that pedestrians and bicyclists often don’t hear them coming. A study by the found:
“For one group of scenarios, those in which a vehicle is slowing or stopping, backing up, or entering or leaving a parking space, a statistically significant effect was found due to engine type. The HEV was two times more likely to be involved in a pedestrian crash in these situations than was an ICE vehicle.” (BF added)
The risk of vehicles that are too quiet is well known, which is why the government is requiring automakers to add noise to EVs and HEVs. Some EVs and HEVs are equipped with pedestrian alert systems, but many are not. And, since automakers just managed to moving it to 2020, this particular risk will be around for a few more years.
I’ve Got It, You Take It
A thornier problem may arise with autonomous cars. Namely, how well will they able to not only see pedestrians and bicyclists, but also communicate with them? The article lays out the problem:
Whether we’re at a crosswalk, a traffic light or just walking out in the middle of the road, we’ve learned since we were young that it’s important to make eye with the drivers of approaching cars. But that’s not going to be possible with autonomous cars.
People and cars will need to communicate in some other way. With no universally agreed on method for doing this, my own research, and that of a number of tech companies, automobile manufacturers and startups, is exploring using different types of visual signals – akin, perhaps, to a driver waving a person across the street or flashing the car’s headlights to signal their yielding the right of way. Doing that turns out to be quite complicated.
There’s no clear resolution of how to solve this problem and the Feds aren’t any help in this area either, as the article notes:
“Despite federal guidelines on stationary pedestrian traffic signals in today’s transportation world, there are no standards for vehicle-to-pedestrian communications at the moment.”
So while robot vehicles may eventually allow passengers to get stoned and look at their smart phones to their hearts content, pedestrians and bicyclists will still need to navigate their way around a new category of risk while on the road.
OEMs are adding noise makers and they usually activate only at lower speeds. The study cited above found that at highway speeds EVs/HEVs were no more likely to be involved in a pedestrian crash than ICE vehicles. I’m not sure what the rules are for all the existing EVs/HEVs already out there that aren’t equipped with the noise-making devices.
Thanks very much. From the blog post, the programmer really knows what they’re talking about, so there’s hope. (The last time I researched this, I came up with Leo, which is workable, but requires Python and is more than a little clunky.)
Another reader suggested emacs, but I don’t really want to enter the emacs world. I’ve already tried, and I don’t think it’s for me. The learning curve is too steep.
Adding: I for the high points, and it really does look like this meets my requirements. Looks like I’ll have to fire up my back-up laptop, which is some version of Ubuntu, and try it out. (The software is from July 2015, which shows you when I last tried to solve this problem; current Macbook Air purchased “early 2015.”)
The NC commentariat really is the best commentariat!
UPDATE :
I finally had a chance to download and test. I’m deeply appreciative of programmers who create tools for the rest of us, and I’ve shared a more extensive version of my comments with him on his site. In brief, though, I found the user interface for creating “nodes” very balky. Everything is entered in a text box discrete from the outline, and requires a command to start, erase placeholder text, and save. After that, it’s a pretty decent outliner, though, and I’m hopeful that it will get even better over time. I’m certainly encouraged to see the project.
The underlined portion shows exactly what I do not want. I want to be able to drag whole paragraphs (nodes) around without creating labels for them. Programmers seem deeply unable to make the tree abstraction fade into the background. In general, they insist I label the node (paragraph), and insist that I manipulate my paragraphs through their clunky tree widget, instead of just dragging the paragraphs around as siblings, parents, or children.
Anyhow, still thank you, and I’ll install it and test it. Just not this evening!
I would love to see it, but alas, Netflix doesn’t show it :(
Netflix, which really used to show a broad, diverse, and obscure number of movies has really fallen down on the job. I am thinking of quitting them, but they still have a much bigger selection than anyone else I have found
Ha, I love a good ambiguous headline – so would this be the ‘California border wall’ between SoCal and Mexico, or the one between CA and the rest of the country? If the latter, I wonder if Trump could hit up CA librul squillionaire Tom Steyer, he of the ‘Trump es un desgraciado maldito! (Se habla #resist)’ TV ad series, for financing?
So earlier today I noticed an email from ‘Movement for a People’s Party’ in my inbox saying that they had their platform mostly worked out and now was the last chance to submit things…. Being a huge policy nerd I of course jumped on the chance. They already had a weak version of a job guarantee on there so I decided to not bother criticizing that and just made 3 suggestions:
1. Ranked Choice voting is not all it’s cracked up to be. It isn’t precinct summable so it would require centralized counting. It is nonmonotonic, which means you can get a better result by not voting. Say you and a friend would vote 1. Stein 2. Bernie 3. Clinton. The other people that have already voted went:
8X Bernie > Clinton > Stein
7X Stein> Bernie > Clinton
10X Clinton > Bernie > Stein
If you and your friend do vote Bernie gets eliminated in round 1 and then Clinton (your last pick) wins 18 to 9. If you and your friend don’t vote then Stein gets eliminated in round 1 and Bernie (your 2nd choice) wins 15 to 10.
STAR voting is soooo much better, and more expressive leading to a consensus pick. You just score each candidate 0-5 and the winner is the candidate that was ranked higher by more voters between the two highest scoring candidates. It’s all explained much better here:
STAR voting is only for single winner elections which is good because that means it can be adopted at any level of government. If you want to do multimember districts for congress that would require a federal law change too and then a switch to a cousin of STAR called Reweighted Range voting.
Voting systems where you can score each candidate independently are always much better than ones where you have to rank them.
2. Since we have already locked in 6 feet of sea level rise by 2100 don’t make tearing up nuclear plants a priority, besides they are developing newer ones that run on waste and are fail safe.
3. Require all news outlets to be Non-Profits whose mission is strictly to inform the public and have fixed public funding for them and an ethics board to ensure balance.
So they had a conference call where everyone got to vote on the adoption of the things that got submitted. The only one of mine that got mentioned was the 3rd one; which passed.
What else passed:
* Requiring the FDA to consider herbs and plants as medicine.
* Not allowing state patent licensing offices to have written tests.
* Encouraging the public to have a meat free diet.
* REQUIRING ALL food sold to be certified organic.
so here is what I raged out and sent to him:
Mandatory certified organic? You might as well just change the name to movement for an authoritarian dictatorship party. Do you even know what it takes to get certified organic? It takes at least a few years of no pesticide use on that plot of land. So that means that we would have to stop farming entirely for a few years. So besides being entirely unrealistic to expect to pass it would probably force most of the country to starve to death just because you have a few people who think they should be able to dictate how other people eat. We already have one anti-science party we don’t need a left wing version that wants to pretend we can wave a wand and instantly have green energy and organic food. While you are at it you might want to add a plank saying that no one is required to vaccinate their kids because it causes autism. And so much for idolizing direct democracy on the blockchain if you aren’t even willing to do with basic democracy now, you clearly got my amendment on making news non profit but decided to ignore the other hard truths I submitted about nuclear power and that ranked choice voting isn’t feasible for anything but local elections; and even then it messes up enough that people repeal it.
This movement is a complete waste of time
Conservatives and neoliberals have always wanted to destroy the public schools. This is just a new way for them to try. My idealistic side would like to believe such a crass move would inflame the public. But our dear Democrats are so enfeebled, so visionless, such a phony opposition that their response is predictable: they’ll have a few days of tantrums, raise a few million dollars on the issue — and then either quietly drop it, or craft a “compromise” or cosmetic distraction and allow enough Democrats to vote for it to ensure passage, all the while insisting they were “fighting” for something or other. Meanwhile, yet another dystopian conservative fantasy gets implemented. It’s a very bipartisan policy.
I’m a big outliner fan, and I really like Workflowy (other than the name) It is browser-based, but has very nice app versions. It may not match your needs, of course. What I like is that it has infinite levels, and you can jump into a section so that it is your entire top-level outline, then jump in deeper or jump back out. I find it a really elegant way of dealing with arbitrarily deep outlines, without having to do a lot of collapsing, or stare at a crazy-deep nesting…
Thanks! Since there is a *.dmg, I downloaded and installed it. This is the closest so far, since after a little fiddling, I was able to “drag boxes of text” (nodes) around, without fiddling with a tree widget, which is exactly what I want. (We can also see the brain damage cellphone-optimized UI/UX does for machines on which one actually wishes to do productive work: With Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, now increasingly neglected even on the Mac, Menu Items and Command Keys were paired and visible, so there was an easy path to proficiency from menu to keyboard. Cellphone designers, owing no doubt to their small screens, systematically hide functionality, and so in Workflowy we have a sparse menu structure with no outline commands on it at all, and then keyboard commands only for outline manipulation, and those hidden away.
Still, this is by far the best so far, and it works on linux, too (not going there with the browser; too risky. What I don’t like is the fact that I have to log in to use it; I don’t especially feel like sending all my content over the wire to Workflowy. I want an application, not an app, if that’s the behavior that “app” implies.
I didn’t even realize there was an application version on mac or linux. I use it in a browser (maybe not for long!) and on an ipad. It is unfortunate that it is only available in software-as-a-service form, even if it is basically free. I would gladly pay for a standalone version. OTOH, they have a very nice system for sharing certain branches, for collaborative outlines, a benefit of the cloud dependence. I think the ipad app has an offline mode, which would imply that it doesn’t need any computing from any server.
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Screw Compressor TOP 30-37 kW
The most important components of the compressor is manufactured and processed at FINI to ensure kvalitetoch performance: screw block, intake regulator, check valves ...
This makes it possible to have control of all of the production and quality of the compressor.
Centrifugalfläktsventilationen controlled by a thermostat and the optimized design the oil / air cooler enables driftav compressor in the most demanding surroundings.
Maintenance is made easy through large doors and all components are easily accessible, making maintenance easy and efficient.
Operation and monitoring the achievement of the advanced "NRG" control box. You can program a weekly timer for operation start and stop. It is also possible to control up to 4 x compressors simultaneously under "Main / Support-compressor" principle.
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The website will be selling the digital assets like Images, illustrations, Photoshop templates, Htmltemplates, Vectors, wordpress themes.
Some free assets will be available for download.
Website should allow anyone to register and keep their digital assets for sale. Some percentage (5%-10%) on the sale value.
Check the scope of use of APIs of
I'm just one guy- an underground artist wanting to sell postcards, notecards, zines and such from my website. I have my own site hosted on Godaddy, and my html code is 30 years out of date- but it's funky and reflects the character of the artwork. I want to be able to add "buy now" buttons to the items, but don't want to create a generic "web store"
...explain things (basic English speaking is a must).
3) Don’t apply unless you are an expert and very proficient with the technologies outlined in the link below, i.e. bootstrap, html 5, css, element modifications, accordions etc.
4) Proficient in responsive design (template we have is responsive) and troubleshooting.
5) Hourly rate below $10USD.
a. We ideally
...projects and can provide a portfolio
This job is to use an existing wordpress template purchased from Template Monster and modify it to the following specifications:
- 30 page website (sitemap below) + blog page which will be hidden for launch.
- Code Change - Add a lead capture form on the homepage.
- Images for the pages and the selection to be done by
...[iniciar sesión para ver URL] to write "free product" promotions. Each post requires a description of the product and how to get it. Here are a few examples of the posts you would be writing. You basically start with a template and fill in the details.
FREE Bandana Gift From Marlboro (21+ Only) - Yo! Free Samples
[iniciar sesión para ver URL]
I need an HTML FULL experienced developer to amend and fix my WHMCS template design.
*Do NOT apply if you don't have experience working with WHMCS templates. I will not reply to your bid if you do so.
Please provide me with samples of your WHMCS template works.
NOTE: My current template is outdated, thus, it is causing miss compatibility with the
I want a good website designer and developer to develop a website containing a home page with top bar & images slider and other 2-3 sub-pages. The developer can suggest any template any of the following templates are ok to use:
- [iniciar sesión para ver URL]
- [iniciar sesión para ver URL]
build website from ( html , css to laravel )
i have an html and css design and need to build the website to laravel :
1. Use Laravel Last version to code the website.
Notes -
I have 6 PSD files. -
I aslo need a Control Panel using any free bootstrap templates
- You are required to anlayze the system.
-
Hi,
DEVELOPMENT BEFORE PAYMENT
PLEASE IF YOU CAN'T WORK BEFORE PAYMENT, DON'T WRITE!
I want you to kindly check on this website [iniciar sesión para ver URL]
I want the following things for it :
[Sign up and payment]
[Login Page]
Email
Password
User Dashboard
................................
SEARCH
[PROFILE]
[COMMUNITIES] {INNOVATORS ( CHAT ), INVESTORS
1. Convert PSD files to html/css files using Bootstrap Framework.
2. Use Laravel Last version to code the website.
Notes
- I have 6 PSD files.
- I aslo need a Control Panel using any free bootstrap templates
- You are required to anlayze the system.
- I have three levels ( User, Admin, Teacher)
- You also require to make the API using JWT auth and Dingo
[iniciar sesión para ver URL] is the world's BEST "all-in-one" marketing software.
One of its core features is a great drag-and-drop website builder.
However, Simplero doesn't currently have any pre-built templates or themes for customers to use. Right now, they have to build everything from scratch.
We want someone to create multiple themes for Simplero&...
...a very simple website to be converted into wordpress. The old website has some static pages with links and few contact form. Everything is very plain and simple.
I NEED THIS IN NEXT FEW HOURS, because its not a time consuming job. i can do it myself but due to less time i am looking for a helping hand.
You should be completely free and ready to start
I want to build a website to post pictures and videos of some sexy models(not porn, thank you:)), with a paid membership to make a profit.
Please check my objective website([iniciar sesión para ver URL]) carefully, the webmaster is using a Wordpress theme——Cutomizr(don't know whether is a free or pro edition). My goal is to make some modifications...
I need a website built that is fully responsive and mobile first. There will be 4 pages in total. If you are awarded the bid and do a good job I will be needing more templates built and will rehire the winning bidder.
- No server side code is required, please only provide the front-end code (HTML, CSS, JS)
- Do not use CDN's, please have all libraries
We are Finalee (pronounced "Finally"). We are an ad-free, clutter-free app that shows you the closest businesses for the following categories: Restaurants, Bars, Coffeeshops, Dessert Places, Things to Do, and Places to Stay (hotels, motels, etc). We do NOT allow ads, ratings, comments, or reviews. Just results. Our app is LIGHTNING fast and ULTRA clean
...elements.
If you have worked on social network / Job board / community website design thats a great plus.
its a 15 cores pages work + a roughly 15 of declined pages/internal pages/elements such as form, button, headers .... ( administration design is not required but email templates yes) so there are 30 pages minimum in total + elements.
Job should
...elements.
If you have worked on social network / Job board / community website design thats a great plus.
its a 15 cores pages work + a roughly 15 of declined pages/internal pages/elements such as form, button, headers .... ( administration design is not required but email templates yes) so there are 30 pages minimum in total + elements.
Job should
...have downloaded a few freeHTMLtemplates. There are certain things I like in each of these websitetemplates. I would like someone to customize a website template for me using some of these ideas. I am not concerned about content (can use typical filler content for now, I will write my content later)..... Just want the website to be a customized...
...elements.
If you have worked on social network / Job board / community website design thats a great plus.
its a 15 cores pages work + a roughly 15 of declined pages/internal pages/elements such as form, button, headers .... ( administration design is not required but email templates yes) so there are 30 pages minimum in total + elements.
Job should
...articles, users can sign up as members for free and get personal online advise. Users can also purchase a Welcome Pack that helps them when they first arrive in Australia, with concierge welcoming services and products students look for when they first arrive.
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Looking for an experienced Drupal Developer for a 6-week project starting end of May - Mid June. Full website build. Must be based in Melbourne, Australia.
Required skills
• At least 2 years of solid experience focusing primarily on Drupal CMS architecture and development with Drupal 8
• Very strong experience with all aspects of Drupal development
We are hiring a web designer who will develop and design a website for our group, using either WordPress theme or an html template to design our website in the same format as [iniciar sesión para ver URL] Our website will have five pages.
We currently have these themes and templates for use (if you find one of them suitable to work with otherwise
...shouldn't be too 'uptight', it should be slightly creative and modern.
This is the HTML theme that we are going to use for our website [iniciar sesión para ver URL]
The logo should kinda follow this aesthetic, but you are free to take it any direction you think is needed.
We'd prefer that the main color is
Hi all,
I'm looking to create 4...
I'm looking to create 4 sites each with a different proposition but using the same HTML template (found here: [iniciar sesión para ver URL]).
There is no need for an e-com element but query forms are required.
Please feel free to ask me about the project if anything is unclear.
Deadline; 15 days to the templates (+ 15 days of smaller work load to help the back end developers on issues while integrating the back end with the front end)
I'm needing to hire a developer/team to help finalizing a web application.
The application is written in Flask and it is deployed on the Heroku. The templates are generated in Jinga2, which
...Project:
Me, a back end developer and a front end developer. This posting is for back end development. If you know someone you like to work with, for front end development, feel free to suggest it to me.
The application is meant to manage team members and clients.
Bellow the list of what needs to be done, for more information, I'll need to send a Non-Disclosure
...Advert page, email notifications. Some HTML/PHP design work may be required. Most functions that a job website has will be required. The web site is online for you to view and manipulate. I can provide the link. I have some PHP and HTML knowlege but not the time to do this. I can provide links to free PHP templates of the functions I mentioned if requir...
I'm looking someone to customize a SearchWP supplemental engine search results page based on the default Avada search.php.
Here is my need:
- I have an Avada 5.4 based website: [iniciar sesión para ver URL]
- I have the SearchWP plugin that extends the wordpress search capabilities. More information at [iniciar sesión para ver URL]
In addition to the default gen...
this website will contain the following
-Home page, Prices page, Schedule page and contact page
-home page will contain space for a picture of me with the website as the background and room for a paragraph on what life coaching is With the headline "Why hire me?" along with a button where people can email me to book a free 30 minute trial.
We have a static website (HTML/CSS/Js files) and we want to port it to ProcessWire Pages/Fields and Templates. We are not expecting the full site to be porter to ProcessWire. We only want 3 Templates to be defined/configured and some 5-6 Pages to be implemented. This project is mainly a pilot test to see if ProcessWire is the good platform for us.
...extremely simple OpenCATS careers site that is template driven through a total of 10 HTML snippets and one CSS snippet. OpenCATS experience is not required, this is purely an HTML/CSS editing job.
I have made some improvements to the default OpenCATS careers HTML/CSS template by removing a table, updating buttons, and making the CSS a little more
...re-build a website with unique style, yet easy navigation.
Website must turn out SEDUCTIVE, working perfectly without any glitches.
I need a complete re-haul of [iniciar sesión para ver URL] website. It is on WordPress and currently hosted at GoDaddy.
Website needs to be transferred to a managed WP Engine Personal Plan.
Main Priorities For The ...
...specifically want: ([iniciar sesión para ver URL]).
This is a full turnkey project, building a full website to be hosted on OpenCart or similar platform... TBD
You will need obvious skills: Java, MySQL, HTML, CSS, PHP, OOP, Java, Java Script, and knowledge of API Connections, understanding on how Data base file collection intgrates
... as well as the HTML for the form. We would like someone to add CSS styling to the form, and then create a nice landing page to host our various ebooks. All design work MUST be completed using Visual Composer and we will not accept any landing page plugins.
You can view an example of the current landing page and form on our website here: http://buzzbuilderpro
*********************************NOTE*******************************
DO NOT BID UNLESS YOU HAVE READ THE ENTIRE REQUIREMENT. PEOPLE WHO CAN DELIVER WEBSITE/LOGO and CONTENT WRITING TOGETHER SHOULD BID OTHERWISE DON'T.
DON'T BID IF YOU CANT DELIVER WHAT I AM ASKING.
DON'T SEND YOUR RESUME WHICH IS NOT RELATED TO MY PROJECT.
DON'T SEND UNNECESSARY
...this doc for the advantage of creating and developing this website that would not work or achieved, it’s important that you inform me rather than just accepting the project. For more details about this project please contact me?
I don’t need a readymade themes and templates in this website design.
Freelancer that accepts these projects will provide
The website is about being able to manage corporate events by allowing a selected number of people to register to different activities.
This website will be used by four different types of persons. Users, Admins, Super Admins and Hostess
List of webpages required:
- Home page visible by all. I need another page where I can enter HTML code so it will
I would like to fix menu on my website [iniciar sesión para ver URL] , it’s based on CMS King Media, which is based on free http://www.question2answer.org.
I added custom links to the menu in php because this script doesn’t allow for that through admin panel, and first 3 links in the menu are original (NAJNOWSZE, POPULARNE, WYSOKO OCENIONE), and the rest of them
The existing website at [iniciar sesión para ver URL] is not mobile device friendly. It uses one stylesheet.
I would like a new dedicated stylesheet developed that uses the existing HTML and makes the website compatible with and look good on common mobile (phone and tablet) devices.
I can make adjustments to the HTML myself. I would like to confine HTML<...
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WCTV Sports Presents: Boys Varsity Basketball
By ChristianFernandes
WCTV Sports will be covering the entire seasons, home and away, of Viking Basketball for the Varsity Team. The games will replay Monday Nights at 7pm and Thursday Nights at 7pm on the "Education Channels". Comcast 97, Verizon 28. We also have a new interview show called "Off the Court" with host Paul Geigle. He will be interviewing head coach Brogioli, on what happened in the games in the previous week and what the team will be looking forward in the immediate week. The interview will replay at 6:30pm on the education channels before the game replays. Also look for our videos to appear on our "Video on Demand" page if you happen to miss the replays.
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Donate
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Nokia and Nokia N8 are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nokia Corporation.This website is not endorsed nor affiliated with Nokia Corporation.
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Best Buy is surely aware of their crappy reputation for crappy customer service, it seems they just don't care. Perhaps they still manage to do enough business that losing a few pissed off customers doesn't have enough of an affect on their bottom line to matter. But then, I do know that they were using a secret shopper company to find out how their employees were doing ... I know because I did a few secret shopper assignments there, and they earned horrible ratings from me then. Just as they do for today.
Of course, I have fired off a letter to their corporate customer relations people. The text of which is below the fold. I don't think much will come of it. One other time (out of many) I had a problem that I tried to address through them, I had to bring the BBB into the picture to get things straightened out. At best, the shitty employees may have to find another line of work. I recommend landscaping.
Today, I entered the Best Buy store in Knoxville, TN for the purpose of purchasing a Kenwood car CD player/stereo for my daughter for her birthday present. I had already done as much research as I could online at BestBuy.com but I still had a couple of questions. After waiting several minutes in that area, I was finally approached by an employee who asked if I was finding what I needed. NOT if I had questions or needed any help.
I said that I was looking for the Kenwood player/stereo that is on sale and also had a $40 gift card offer. Before I could even ask my question, the employee interrupted me and said that was an online only offer. I said that I would then order online and pick up in store. He said that they were rarely available in-store and the site will always say they are, they really aren't. I said that was not my experience and tried to state that I had checked several models before decided on the Kenwood and some showed available and some didn't. But he interrupted me again to further discourage me from trying to take advantage of the gift card deal, I suppose.
I was getting irate and decided to clarify with a manager, and possibly also get my still unanswered questions addressed. So I went up front, asked for a manager and proceeded to wait for 20 minutes. I finally gave up, went to your competition's store and ordered the item from one of the wifi connected computers they have available for customers to use. I returned to the store and picked up the item.
Now, I still had questions - namely when I could arrange for installation and did buying online still qualify for the free install. I also needed to purchase a cable to connect an iPod to the CD player/stereo. I returned to the car audio area where I stood around for nearly 30 minutes where I was totally ignored by the boy working there, the same one that was rude and short with me earlier.
While waiting, I just happened to see a sign that said that HD enabled CD players/stereos came with a free $40 gift card! I have no idea and can't even begin to guess why that employee lied to me about the sale offer. Surely he could have not known! That sign was right there in his department!
So now for the finale ... I took the Kenwood player I had bought over to the returns area, set it on the counter and told the girl that I wanted a refund. I was obviously hacked off, but instead of just doing what I asked, the girl gave me attitude and said she needed to call a manager. Another woman came over and got in on the attitude game, which only served to further enrage me. A manager finally arrived, asked what I needed and I told him a refund. I tried to address my grievance with him, but he just blew me off. The woman rang up the refund, but while doing so, made a big show of slowly taking everything out of the box to check for missing parts, presumably, even though I told her that I had not even had it outside of the store.
Your customer service standards must be horribly low to allow this kind of employee behavior to go on. I had hoped there was some kind of improvement, as I actually had a rather pleasant experience in that same store about a year ago when they worked with my insurance company to replace some items that were stolen from my home. It was a long drawn out, confusing and often frustrating affair, but it was made OK by the kind attention and empathy from the staff that was there that day. That is the one, ONE, time that I left with a positive experience from that store. Over the years, I have made many, many purchases amounting to thousands of dollars. But never again.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Cough Cough Gasp!
There oughta be a law, or at least it should be a justifiable reason for tossing someone out the fourth floor window ...
We have a new employee being trained. She must literally bathe in her cologne. To make it even worse, it is the kind I detest, even at normal levels - sickly, sweet, flowery granny perfume. Gag! I seriously have a headache and my eyes are watering. There is almost a visible cloud around her. What's weird is she is young, attractive and very much not the type one would think would wear inappropriate amounts of cologne to work.
I may leave for the rest of the day. This is unbearable. What I really need is a good excuse to take several days off ... *sigh*
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Thankful for ... what exactly?
Of course, the "in thing" to do this week is to recount all the things one is thankful for. I seem to be having a bit of a problem with that ...
It's like this ... I could name things that I am thankful for, but each one is followed by a "BUT" which contradicts the good. Like, I am thankful for the nice house I live in, BUT I have no idea how I am going to pay the rent this month. Or, I am thankful for my kids, BUT their issues and difficulties are tearing me completely apart. See what I mean?
For months, I have been wallowing in a depression that is deeper and darker than any I have ever been in before. Along with that, I have anxiety issues bordering on full-blown panic attacks. I thought I also had a good measure of paranoia going on, but I have since discovered that I don't. People really don't like me or want me around ... it wasn't just my imagination! That's such a relief! So, in my never-ending quest to make everyone happy, I will be retiring back into my little hermit world where I won't piss off or offend people just with the mere fact that I exist anymore.
Have a good holiday, folks. Be thankful you aren't as screwed up as I am.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Fascism at Freecycle
Freecycle.org is a community based group devoted to minimizing the volume of trash that goes to landfills. This is accomplished through the use of Yahoo Groups, one for each city or region. People post the stuff they have to give away, others reply saying they want it. The giver decides who gets it and the two parties make arrangement to transfer the goods. People also post things they are looking for, and this can get out of hand ... I've seen people asking for tanning beds, sea-doos, laptops, video cameras ... not exactly household cast-offs. But each group has one or two, or more, moderators. These are the people that keep the groups running smoothly, which is usually the case, but it all goes to hell when one of the moderators gets too big for their britches.
Being in between jobs this past week, I decided to clean some of the junk out of here. On Monday, I posted a list of items to the Knoxville Freecycle group for giveaway. I waited and waited for it to post. I believe that all messages to the group have to be approved by one of the moderators first. After 8 hours and no post, I wrote to the moderators to find out how much longer it would be, as I had some other things planned and would run into a scheduling problem if my list didn't post soon.
A bit later, still no post, and I found out that Yahoo Mail was having an issue with a worm running rampant, and I figured that was causing the delays. So, I wrote again, asking the moderators to NOT post my message, because I was out of time and couldn't wait any longer. I planned to try it again later in the week. Again, I got no response. I posted to the Chit-Chat list for the group, asking if anyone had a direct email address for either of the moderators, and I included a tiny rant over how crappy they were being about this.
Then, my message posted. Fortunately, one of the first respondents was a gentleman that was able to meet me on my schedule, so I gave the items to him. Later that night, I got an email from one of the moderators, Dyanna Abbot, saying that I was banned from the group.
I wrote back that I would appreciate a reason. This went directly to Dyanna's email address. No reply. I wrote and asked again. No reply. I wrote to the .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) ... finally! A reply from the other moderator, Kim. She said she had been offline for a few days, but would look into it. That was four days ago. In the meantime, I wrote to Dyanna again, and again. I have yet to receive the courtesy of a reply.
A quick search turns up another Yahoo Group made up of people who were kicked off of the Freecycle Knoxville group for no reason. There are 20 members. Taking into consideration the number of people that wouldn't bother joining, one can only imagine how many more people Dyanna has dumped off the group like this. And why ... if there is any reason at all. I get the feeling that Dyanna just likes to throw her weight around and kick people off whenever they annoy her. Isn't that mature? I think that if she can't handle being a moderator of a group that size, then she needs to step down. What's really scary is that this lady, having issues with handling adversity, breeds and raises pit bulls as a business. Isn't that lovely?
At this point, I don't give a shit about being in the Freecycle group anymore ... I just want an answer. Maybe someone else can get one from this childish woman ...
Saturday, May 13, 2006
What a crappy week
Just how is it that everything that can go wrong, will go wrong? I think the fuck-up fairy beat the crap out of me with her damn wand or something. Gah!
The job. Ohmahgawd the job. I want to weep just thinking about the job. I had a really good interview for a really good job a couple weeks ago. They said I would hear something by this past Monday, and to call if I didn't hear from them. I didn't hear from them, so I called. Their HR had no record of me whatsoever. None. Not my resume, not a notation on the calendar for my interview appointment. Nothing. Nada. They said they would call the manager I interviewed with. That was Monday.
Wednesday, I find that my cell phone battery is not holding a charge like it should. Which is not a good thing while I am hoping to hear back from other job possibilities. But I still have some time on the Service Plan. I was at Best Buy anyway, so I asked about it. Dude in the cell phone area was clueless, so he sent me to customer service. She tried to help, but could only tell me to call the 888-BESTBUY number. I tried to do so on the way from there to the grocery store. They have some really crappy hold music. I tried again at home, same thing ... on-hold hell puncuated by the nasally robotic voice telling me that my call IS important.
Next morning, I get a rep on the phone. She said I needed to get a service order from the Best Buy store. I told her the store told me to call. So she transferred me. The next person had no idea ... she was an order taker. She tried to transfer me, and the line disconnected. I called back, explained again. Was transferred again. This time I got someone in wireless. They said that they could repair my phone, I would have to send it in. I told him all I need is a battery. He said they had to test it, and it would be $36.95 plus shipping each way, what is my Visa number please. Uhh no. I have a Service Plan. No charge for batteries that don't charge. He said my warranty is expired, the phone is almost two years old. Duh! I have a Service Plan! TWO years! He transferred me, I was on hold for 15 minutes and gave up. I was supposed to be, ya know, like doing my job. Such as it is. But I did take another moment to fire off a nasty gram to their customer service department.
That night I called from home. This time I only had to talk to three people, only one of whom is likely a US citizen or even located on this continent. "Ello, this is Bob. I am sorry to hear of the problem you have, but we will correct problem as soon as it is possible." But, I have a new battery on the way, one that should hold a charge, at no charge. I WILL get my money's worth from that stupid Service Plan! And yes, Bob, you are most certainly, without a doubt ... the man.
I want that two hours of my life back though.
Next we have this lovely web host. This web host used to be the most excellent web host ever. Customer service was better termed TLC. Their clients raved endlessly about them. Him. It's a small company, one man op. He says that his work and personal life has become extremely chaotic and he doesn't have the time to devote the the hosting service. A week of this would be understandable, given the circumstances. Even a month ... ups and downs, slowness, database errors, DNS problems. But it has been 6 months of this. I was one of the most loyal, defending the service when others were complaining. But it finally got to me. Maybe it was the emails that got dumped, one of them maybe a job response or something important. Or maybe it was the 404s when trying to access any part of my site. So I posted on DSLReports that I was done, over it, and was getting hosting service elsewhere.
Not long after that, I get an email from the owner. Asking me not to leave. That he was putting the final tweaks on the server to make it more stable and the outage I experienced was the final reboot of the server. I don't know whether to laugh, cry, get mad or what. I certainly have no clue how to answer. But I have signed up with another host. I may keep this one going ... photo storage, let my daughter use it for her sites, as a test bed. I can't completely walk away. Not yet.
And the new host. I placed my order just after noon. They say it can take up to 24 hours to complete order, but 2-4 is more usual. My order still is not complete. Everyone else is saying it only took a very short time and they were up and running. But oh no! Not me!
Finally, we have Netflix. The service we love to hate, and hate to love. I just joined back up recently. A co-worker got me interested in "24" (I'm always running a day behind the rest of the world, maybe one day I will actually watch an episode of "Lost"!) Co-worker insisted that I get the previous seasons on DVD and watch those too, to catch up. With each season running $35-40 a set, and there being 4 seasons out, I figured Netflix to be the more economical way to go. So I queue up the "24" seasons, one after the other, and get ready for some hard-hitting, slam-bam, gut punch, blow your face off rockin' Jack Bauer action. Yeah! I have now watched the 5 disks of the 6-disk 1st season set. The 6th was in the mail today. I had two eps left on disk 5 to watch. When those were done, I put #6 in. And nothing happened. No disk in the drive. I took it out and looked closely ... geez o pete! It's cracked! Not just cracked, but one side is completely broken! AND it isn't even disk #6! It's another disk 5! (Oh and look! My free two weeks is up! Instead of a two day turn-around, it's now four or five. Idiots.)
Folks, it's the ending of the season! This is toe-curling, chair arm gripping, holding breath, wide-eyed action here! Who else is gonna get killed? Will the bad guys get caught? Is Kimberly gonna do hard time? Will Tony and Terri make it back to CTU? Will Jack make it out of the prison-that-doesn't-exist with daddy terrorist? Will the Senator put the smack-down on that evil bitch wife of his? I have to wait until at least NEXT WEDNESDAY to find out! Aaauuuuggghhh!
It's time to get into my jammies, snuggle under the covers with my kitties, and The Chronicles of Narnia: A Horse and His Boy ... this week needs to be OVER!
Friday, September 30, 2005
To Sleep ... Perchance to Dream
I have quit smoking three other times in my life. Each time I was pregnant. None of those times was anywhere near as torturous as this is now. Sure, the withdrawals could have been overshadowed by pregnancy symptoms, but I had super easy pregnancies. Really. Go ahead and hate me now, ladies ... I had not one moment of morning sickness, none of the many usual complaints ... a bit of ankle swelling in the ninth month with my first, and some back aches with the third. I could probably start a riot by telling how easy my second and third births were, from my 5'1" small boned frame ... but I digress.
That said, I would rather be pregnant right now, than going through nicotine withdrawals. Read on for the gruesome details ....
Insomnia ... no one told me about this shit! Holy crap! I am usually a champion sleeper. It's bed time, lights out, I'm gone. ZZZzzzZZZzzz. My problem has always been a lack of will and desire to wake up in the morning ... not getting to and staying asleep! Sweet Jesus on a pogo stick! This is surely the root of madness, this sleep deprivation. I cannot keep my thoughts together or even carry on a cogent conversation. And I can barely stay awake during the day. My boss really loves that. But he is sympathetic ... and supportive. However, putting my head down on my desk and napping would be pushing the limits.
Brain gooze ... probably a corollary to the insomnia: I am stupid as a box of rocks these days. Speak to me and it will take a full 30 seconds for me to comprehend what you just said. I went to get my nails done this evening. The girl asks if I also want a pedicure. Pedicure? Yes ... you get toes done too? My toes. *blank stare* Yes, you want pedicure on you toes? ... Now granted, she is Vietnamese and is working hard on her English skills, but I can usually understand her just fine. It isn't the accent or language ... I just could not comprehend the word "pedicure" ... I am sure she thinks I lost my mind.
Nerves on fire ... oh yes, this is fun. It is not so bad today, but the last two days, I felt like every nerve ending in my whole body was a live wire ... sizzling, snapping, sparking. Little tonic jerks in my legs kept me bouncing my leg lest I look like I have cerebral palsy or epilepsy. Stand up, sit down, pace, pace, pace. And I itch ... dear sweet God in heaven, my arms, back and tummy itch all to hell and back! Dig, dig, dig. Pace, pace, pace.
Fooooood! I am eating compulsively. I am trying to stick to relatively healthy stuff ... nuts, trail mix, pretzels. But I have already gained two pounds. I think that is from the two Sonic burgers, onion rings and Ched'R Peppers I ate Sunday. With a side of scrambled eggs and toast (I couldn't decide if I wanted breakfast or lunch). The lasagna and cheese Texas toast for dinner probably didn't help much either.
I will refrain from describing what happens to the food I eat later on ... that would probably qualify as an over-share. TMI and all. I'll just say that it is just adding to my misery ... several times a day ... and leave it at that.
I am taking Wellbutrin to help with this. That may be what is keeping me from ripping anyone's head off. But I should still avoid crowded places that annoy me anyway, like Walmart or Kroger. I have such a lovely redheaded temper to start with. I do hope this does not get ugly.
One very hopeful note, I do not have any compulsive desire to smoke a cigarette though. None. Perhaps because I know what it feels like to smoke again after a long period of not smoking ... now that, my friends, is miserable, and is something I do not need. I do miss it as part of my routine ... while driving, on work breaks, after meals, with my morning coffee ... but I have not had the thought, "I need a smoke!" It just ain't happening. I guess this truly is my time to quit.
Keep me in prayers and thoughts though ... this ain't over by a long shot.
Friday, July 09, 2004
Another Yahoo Loser
Introducing .... the mindpuke of Brian_TN_2003. Yet another Yahoo IM loser who spends his day trolling through Yahoo profiles, looking for women to harrass. Interesting ... this is a young one. One would think he would have better luck in real life. No wait ... looking at that pic, he is better off on the 'Net. Then again, the rest of us would be better off with him in a cave somewhere.
From: brian_tn_2003 08 Jul 2004 14:14 PDT - wow ur son is a loser and I don't know why so many guys are coing after you ... you look ugly as hell to me
Gee Brian ... so very mature and classy coming from a "thug" like you (you look more like a wannabe). Perhaps I should be a little more forgiving, seeing as how you are just a child, and totally without a clue. Scary to think that you might reproduce one day ... but that would require a female willing to put up with your shit. Better get really rich ... that would be the only thing you would have to offer anyone.
Everyone ... let's let Brian know what a total slimeball loser he is ... [email protected]. Or just fire up your Yahoo IM and let him know that way.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Loser alert!
Wow ... there are really some whacked out people out there. Take, for instance, ssmith1627 ... that's his Yahoo IM handle. Mr Smith was the first fucktard to have his Yahoo IM mindpuke published here ... wayyyy back in July 2003. I got a lot of mileage out of that post ... but I digress.
Since then, I have had several more fucktards send me random IMs on Yahoo. What a bunch of losers! It appears that these guys troll through Yahoo profiles looking for women to send messages to. The digital version of "Hey baby ... you come here often?" Except that when they aren't actually face to face with a lady, they tend to get really vulgar and disgusting. What is really retarded is my Yahoo profile clearly states that I am "Single, Not Looking" with a further diatribe on people with reading comprehension problems, plus a link to the above post.
So here we are ... almost a year after I first encountered ssmith1627's wit and wisdom. Today, he sent me several more messages.
From: ssmith1627 29 Jun 2004 13:34 PDT Why don't you just go kill yourself and save us from having to read your garbage?
Sunday, April 04, 2004
On the other side of 40
Yep ... I made it here. I am 40 years old. The big day was actually four days ago ... I tried my best to ignore it. It didn't work. It happened anyway.
In some ways, I still feel like a 20-something. I like pop music, most trendy clothing styles (I do have my limits though) and I "think" young. I seem to remember when I was a teen-ager, my parents seemed like horribly old fashioned fuddy duddies. They liked music that was from way back when, and polyester ruled their closets. Ehh ... my kids probably think the same of me. I do get some strange looks when I sing along with the radio to the latest hit. Who knows?
Sometimes I feel like I am playing house ... when I am doing really "grown up" stuff. Like opening a new bank account, or applying for a loan. That's stuff that grown ups do! What am I doing here?
Older and wiser ... mmmaybe. Maybe not. I've learned some of life's tougher lessons. But there are still a lot of things I haven't figured out yet. I have yet to decide what I want to be when I grow up. The latest "interesting job" I have considered is travel agent. What a kick that would be!
Physically I really feel older. Aches and pains that I never had before are now a constant. I get tired easily, where I used to be able to go and go and go. I used to be able to eat anything I wanted and never gain a pound ... now I have to watch what I eat to keep the scale from creeping up even higher. The lines on my face, the gray in my hair and age spots on my hands are a constant reminder that time marches on.
Life and love ... Huh? Oh yeah, that. I gave up dating for general peace of mind. Too many freaks, assholes, and emotional retards out there ... yes, Jim, I am talking about you. Robert and Kevin too. And both Davids, and also Tony. Six losers in ten years. And people wonder why I am so cynical and jaded. Heh ...
Family ... I worry incessantly about my parents. They, too, are getting older. And their health is a primary concern. Daddy had a heart attack a few months ago ... not a big one, he didn't even know he had it until it was found during a routine check-up. Both of Mom's parents had Alzheimer's. I'm already seeing signs of it in Mom. She's told me the same story three times in the last week. I hope I can get my kids good and grown up before Mom and Daddy need my care full time. Is it selfish to want a few years all on my own with no responsibilities other than to myself?
Three teen-agers ... that's enough to age anyone, especially in my situation. Having a kid with bipolar disorder is the stuff that nightmares are made of. We are through the worst of it, but it isn't over by a long shot. My son will have a constant struggle with this for the rest of his life. My dear darling daughter, my baby girl, has hit the teen-age years big time. She's 14 going on 35, very smart, very sophisticated in many ways ... and of course, knows it all. Heh ... I was that way too at that age. I was so amazed at how much smarter and wiser my parent became from the time I was 16 until I was 21. These are the challenging years.
Everyday life ... as I become more and more knowledgeable about politics and current events, the more I question what I believe in. I am neither a lefty or a righty, Democrat or Republican ... I just have my own ideas about things, my own opinions. Some are way liberal, some swing all the way over to the conservative extreme. Most are in the middle. I read and read and read ... and I remain confused on many things.
Where my life is going .... good question! Heh ... I want to get more involved in mental health advocacy, but that tends to be a mostly volunteer thing and is very time consuming. It's all I can do to put in my time at work, take care of the things at home and not pass out before bedtime. I'd like to do something with computers ... web site design and administration. But most job descriptions require years of experience in applications I don't have access to, and many require a college degree. If they'd just give me a chance!
There are many things in my life thus far that I wish I could go back and do over. Don't we all? But when I reflect on everything that has happened, where I've been and what I have done, I can see how it all strings together, that I had to experience one thing in order to be ready for something else later on, or to be in the right place for some later event. Then that leads to wondering ... where is all of this headed? What's next?
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Bah! Humbug!
It's time for my annual holiday grumble ... bear with me.
I don't like this time of year. At all. And it's not just the holidays and the attendant madness. I may have a touch of Seasonal Affective Disorder ... becoming a little depressed and a lot more irritable as the days grow shorter and the weather colder. It may also have to do with the fact that many of my life's tragedies and crises occurred during the autumn months. September, October and November mark anniversaries of events I would rather not have had to experience. So far so good this year .... but just last week they laid off a bunch of people at work. I was terrified to the point that I could barely function. Despite reassurances from our supervisors that the lay-offs are done, we are fine ... we still can sense the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. The general attitude sucks these days. Go figure.
And then the holidays ... every year I wonder if I will make it through without seriously going off the deep end.
I hate crowds. And this is a new development in my personality. I used to love being where the action is, part of the crowd. I hate it now ... I hate going to the mall, sitting in traffic, Walmart ... ugh! I just don't like being around a lot of other people.
Holiday crap is already on display in stores. I went to the grocery store last night and they had Christmas carols playing throughout the store. It isn't even Thanksgiving yet! WTF??? It's almost become clich頴o rant about the crass over-commercialization of the holiday that is supposed to be a celebration and remembrance of the birth of Christ ... so I will let other pundits take on that task.
My baby girl will be with me this whole four day weekend though! Four wonderful days with the smartest, sassiest, most beautiful young lady in the world. (I may be just a bit biased here ... get over it!) She continually amazes me with her intelligence, insightfulness, and level of integrity and ethics. She's only 13 but already has a pretty good grip on life. I wish I had been so "with it" when I was her age. But still I worry ... life still has some rough knocks and surprises in store for her. But that's supposed to "build character" right?? She'll be OK ... no, she'll be better than OK. She's gonna have the world by the tail. It is so amazing watching this young woman develop ... like a beautiful butterfly emerging from a cocoon. It's breathtaking.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find [Me], when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity. - Jeremiah 29:11-14 [NKJV]
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San Andreas (2015)
Despite never enjoying them, I end up getting wrangled into seeing a surprising amount of disaster movies. Inexplicably, somewhere along the line, this genre became the #1 most formulaic, clichéd, and predictable art form since….
Since, uh….
Well, fuck.
I wanted to put something funny here, but I actually can’t think of something less daring than disaster movies. For the uninitiated, lemme sum up:
Protagonist is some form of seismologist or otherwise an ill-respected professor of natural disasters. He (this character will be male 100% of the time) predicts whatever flavor of disaster is on its way, only to be mocked by his peers. Quickly giving up on humanity, he will set out to rescue his estranged/divorced wife, who hates him, and his daughter, who also hates him. There may or may not be an “other man,” but if there is, he will absolutely be a spineless sack of shit who abandons the protagonist’s family in their great time of need.
The Hollywood sign will also fall down.
After rescuing the family in question, they will immediately see the error of their ways and become a happy family unit once more. And there you have every disaster movie ever.
Now that you’re caught up, let’s take a look at San Andreas, which, shockingly enough, features the San Andreas fault line as its primary antagonist. That’s that underground earthquake-machine that’s been sitting around waiting to go kablooey for the past couple centuries, if you were wondering.
This movie stars The “Please Call Me Dwayne Johnson” Rock as its protagonist, standing out as the single risk this film considered worth taking. Well, if John Cusack survived the end of the world, then I don’t think The Rock needs to worry.
<Wrestling music intensifies.>
“But wait!” the hilariously large team of writers screamed unanimously. “If we cast The Rock in the lead role, who will give all the seismological exposition that audiences definitely all want?” Thus, Paul Giamatti found his way into the film. Not that I’m complaining, because it means Paul Giamatti’s in the film. Mr. Giamatti (who I would honestly watch eat a tomato if someone considered it worth filming) plays the hero of another story, popping up briefly to inform the audience of what exactly the fuck is going on. He’s a professor of seismology who, yeah, has been predicting it all along, only to be mocked, ridiculed, and promptly ignored. Sound familiar?
It sounds kinda like the aforementioned hilariously large team of writers (I’m sure three people were required to put together the least risky movie ever made) may have gotten some script samples mixed together, awkwardly leaving in the classic disaster protagonist as a side character, who never interacts with anyone else in the film and just sits in Caltech explaining what’s going on. This leaves room to have an action protagonist – The Rock.
The Rock is a double-extra-good rescue ranger fireman helicopter guy, as the movie is quick to point out to us. I attribute this to his ability to rip car doors of their hinges, as it’s the only thing of note that is actually shown to us, rather than told.
He’s also on the poster, so that makes him cooler.
With its single deviation from structure out of the way, San Andreas proceeds to behave exactly the way I expected it to – in fact, I spent much of my time in the theater doing my best to predict how each plotline would culminate. The only time I was wrong was when I thought Han from Fast and the Furious would live. The Rock has his obligatory estranged wife, distant daughter, and the “other man,” played here by Ioan “Please Give Me Work” Gruffudd… who I’m a bit confused about [Editor’s note: Me too. I thought for sure that name was a typo!].
Mister Fantastic starts out seeming like a really cool guy – he cares about his family, tries to be understanding of the situation he’s in, is passionate about his work, and seems to honestly care about his girlfriend’s daughter in a genuinely non-creepy way. About half an hour in, however, he realizes that he’s the boyfriend of the protagonist’s wife in a disaster movie, and quickly turns his attitude around by spontaneously transforming into a spineless sociopath. How long did it take the director to tell Ioan Gruffudd that he wasn’t the main character? Poor bastard shouldn’t have left New York.
“Oh God, where am I?!”
Carla Gugino plays the wife/mother, who has four unique attributes: She is seemingly indestructible, she lacks any form of supportive undergarments, she has no sense of when not to bring up painful subjects, and she has completely forgotten how to properly emote. Her expression of choice in this film is “pained smile,” no matter how inappropriate that particular expression may be. Prying into memories of your long-dead daughter? Pained smile. Being held at gunpoint? Pained smile. Your fiancée abandoned your still-living daughter in a collapsed car? Pained smile. Who knew it was so all-purpose?
Rounding out our central cast is Alexandria Daddario as the daughter, who is surprisingly white considering her Italian mother and Samoan father. Possibilities of a mailman-incursion aside, she’s actually a pretty good character, exhibiting a pleasant combination of vulnerability and strength, and she clearly paid attention when her father taught her survival techniques. Of the film’s cast, she is the most efficient survivor despite having the least resources – The Rock always has access to some form of vehicle and supplies, making his accomplishments less impressive than Daddario’s, who is on ground level and on foot through the entire film.
Also important is that her eyes are the color of the sixth circle of Hell. Fortunately, I find that focusing on her chest takes the edge off of her optical soul-rape.
Just stop! Don’t look at me like that! It makes me feel unclean!
You may notice that I’ve paid more attention to the characters and just general quirks than I have to the plot itself. That’s for a reason – the entirety of San Andreas‘s plot is the family attempting to reunite through the disaster, with occasionally glimpses of Paul Giamatti looking very concerned. There are a few side characters, such as the news crew who make their way from the opening scene over to Caltech, and a pair of British brothers who bring some much-needed comedy to a film that’s overall far too serious.
If you were (for some reason) sold on San Andreas because you heard that Roy from Arrow was in it – you’ve been lied to. Duped. Fleeced. He shows up in an intro scene for about ten minutes and is never seen or heard from again. We don’t even learn whether or not he lived through the disaster.
Other than that, it’s mostly just a lot of this:
Gets boring pretty fast.
Ooh, hey. I bet they solve this with a bomb somehow. Worked in fucking Sunshine, and I think that was a slightly bigger problem. For that matter, it also worked in Sharknado, and… yeah maybe a bomb isn’t the best idea after all.
So that’s San Andreas, I guess. Was it any good? Uhh… well, if you like disaster movies it’s okay. If you’re looking for a complex story or characters, this may not be what you’re looking for.
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About The Author
Alex is a borderline-hermetic, overopinionated, Chaotic Neutral critic, author, gamer, and overall dweeb. When not mocking others of lesser fandoms, she is creating wildly-overthought character builds for Dungeons and Dragons, listening to punk rock, or trying to come up with the next great American novel (which inevitably fails on account of her attention span). She's a big fan of using parentheses and dashes way more than any self-respecting writer should, and firmly believes that character development and strength are far more important than actual narrative, storyline, or atmosphere. In the coming years, science will prove this theory to be indisputably correct. She has a Tumblr page, but don't expect to find anything of worth on there besides pictures of kittens and backsides. She also has an infrequently-updated blog.
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When I first got wind that a new bar was opening in Costa Mesa, I was not that interested. But then I heard that it would have good pub food, cocktails made with fresh ingredients, a pretty extensive whiskey collection as well as small-batch spirits, they had my attention! I anxiously awaited its opening day but today, the wait was over.
The tavern is dimly lit, designed with reclaimed scaffolding planks and brick walls and reclaimed barn wood housed the spirits in the bar. It has a long bar and a small set of bar tables with red tufted leather backing. The walls are decorated with a variety of taxidermy, slightly reminiscent of a hunting lodge. The overall vibe is pretty laid back and casual and would be a place you’d want to go to hang out with your friends.
We ordered kobi beef (their spelling) and chicken mole sausages, although their menu also includes rabbit, wild boar, turkey and a handful of others. The sausage dogs were complex with layer upon layer of flavor. We also ordered a cilantro caprese burger, cabanossi slim Jim bar snack and truffle herb fries.
Kobi Beef Dog
The kobi beef dog was topped with pancetta, giardiniera (Italian pickled vegetables), garlic aioli, tomato chutney and arugula on a toasted bun. The sausage had a good snap when you bit into it.
Chicken Mole Sausage
The chicken mole sausage was both sweet and savory, with creaminess from the garlic aioli and quail egg, the golden beet relish added a bit of acid, and topped with siracha for some heat.
[…] Beach – From the former sous chef of the Playground, Priscilla from Taste of Orange CountyFinally a Neighborhood Bar in the OC – Wild Goose Tavern, Costa Mesa, CA – I guess SNF was there too, maybe they got there later that me.Mi Casa es Su Casa – […]
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Chef Uniforms: Chef Coats and Shirts
Our chef coats and cook shirts come in many different styles and colours. We provide multiple ways of customising our chef jackets and cook shirts such as embroidery and screen printing. They can be monogrammed or customised logo with embroidery.
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The ZBS Radio Hour Returns
At 11am and 7pm Pacific Time / 19:00 and 03:00 GMT, join us for the latest episodes of our two adventures in the ZBS Radio Hour.
We begin with Part 12 of our Steampunk Jack Flanders serial, Steam Dreamers of Inverness. Just a reminder of the story:
While traveling upon the great zeppelin, The Illuminato, Jack, Mojo, and Claudine discover an island floating in the sky. On the island is a giant stupa guarded by a woman who is part machine and part plant. Andola RUX 77 is the creation of the renowned scientist, Dr. Werner von Falkenstein, also known as The Mad Botanist! After various twists and turns, Jack & Mojo end up with Andola in The Mad Botanist’s laboratory, along with bubbling beakers and sizzling bolts of electricity. They find themselves encased within two large glass domes, where they are gradually transformed into something not quite human.
And then at the bottom of the hour, there’s the first part of a new Roger Gregg serial: The Last Harbinger
The story begins as a strange Harbinger is sent on a mission to a place called Moloch. Moloch is an absurd world where the vanity of the élite compels them to spend more cosmetic surgery than on medicines for the poor, a world wherein a twisted religious ideology applauds the materially well-off while condemning those who have no homes, a world rapidly devouring its own environment. In short: Moloch is a civilization swallowing itself — sound familiar? The Harbinger has the truth. But can truth alone save such an absurd world?
“The Last Harbinger” is a satiric parable for our times. Also featuring Phil Proctor of Firesign Theatre.
Become A Sponsor
Radio Riel offers sponsorship to individuals and businesses that would like to contribute to our efforts in bringing our eclectic variety of music and programming to Second Life residents and listeners on the Internet.
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Northeastern University: Admission & Tests
Here is a quick review of Northeastern University general admissions procedures, application policies and fees, as well as desirable SAT and ACT college test scores that you might need to have in order to enroll at this school.
Application Fee
Northeastern University requires a fee paid when you submit an application for admission.
The undergraduate application fee at Northeastern University is $75.00. The graduate application fee is $75.00. The first-professional application fee is $65.00.
SAT Test Scores
Scholastic Ability Test is a typical element of the application process. 42 percent of applicants at Northeastern University completed the SAT test.
Most applicants who took SAT scored from 640 to 770 on Critical Reading, from 650 to 800 on Math, and from 620 to 760 on Writing. Judging from these numbers, if you got above 730 in SAT Critical Reading, 760 in SAT Math, and 720 in SAT Writing, this should make you safe for being accepted at this school.
Test Section
Minimum Score
Desired Score
Safe Score
SAT Critical Reading
590
700
730
SAT Math
610
730
760
SAT Writing
570
690
720
ACT Test Scores
American College Test is a typical component of the application at Northeastern University. 43 percent of applicants submitted results of their ACT test.
Most applicants who took ACT scored from 30 to 36 on Composite, from 26 to 36 on English, from 26 to 36 on Math, and from 6 to 10 on Writing. Thus, if you have got above 34 in ACT Composite, 33 in ACT English, 33 in ACT Math, and 9 in ACT Writingthen it will be good enough to get accepted at this college.
Learn More About Northeastern University
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Iran Hostage-Release Bargain Is Upheld by Supreme Court
The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the legality of the U.S.-Iranian agreement that led to the release of the hostages.
The unanimous judgment allows the July 19 transfer of about $2 billion in Iranian assets to the government of Iran and to an international claims tribunal. President Carter agreed to return Iran's money, which was frozen in American banks, in exchange for the release of the hostages.
The government also hopes the ruling will avert a foreign policy crisis that might have occurred had the court prevented the United States from keeping its part of the bargain.
In the extraordinary circumstances that confronted Carter, the court said yesterday, American tradition and American law combined to give him the broad authority to act without congressional approval.
The authority was, for a time of peace, as broad as any granted to recent presidents. The agreement nullified lower-court orders, changed the law unilaterally and disposed of billions of dollars. The court said the most relevant judicial analogy was President Truman's effort to seize steel mills, which the court struck down in 1952.
But Justice William H. Rehnquist, writing for the court, stressed that the ruling was narrow and applied only to this situation.
Dames and Moore, a California engineering firm that brought the case, was one of hundreds of companies holding contracts with the government of Iran before the hostage-taking in November, 1979. The crisis left them with no contracts and no payments for any work they might have already done.
Over $8 billion in Iranian funds was in American banks at the time. Carter froze that money in retaliation for the seizure. The companies then sued to get what they considered their share and courts across the country placed holds, or attachments, on some of it pending resolution of the claims.
Under the Jan. 19 agreement, however, Carter agreed to return the money to Iran. All but $2 billion has been returned. Of that amount, a billion is to go to the international tribunal set up to settle outstanding claims.
The companies argued that Carter's action illegally stripped the courts of their power. That, they said, required approval of Congress or at least of two thirds of the Senate.
Because of the impending deadline for transfer of the money, the court accepted the case on an emergency basis and resolved it in seven days, as fast as it has ever handled any major case, delivering its opinion on the final day of its term. A packed courtroom listened for 15 minutes to a tribute to retiring Justice Potter Stewart before Rehnquist announced the results in Dames and Moore vs. Regan, Secretary of the Treasury.
The public needs no reminder of the events that precipitated this controversy, Rehnquist began. "The question presented by this case touch fundamentally upon the manner in which our Republic is to be govered."
We are "acutely aware of the necessity to rest decision on the narrowest possible ground capable of deciding the case," he said.
His 31-page opinion, coupled with a one-paragraph concurrence by Justice John Paul Stevens and a 1 1/2-page limited dissent by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., then ticked off each of the companies' arguments against the government.
He said the president had not stripped the courts of jurisdiction over the claims. Instead, the agreement changed the law applicable to the cases. Even though Congress did not approve this, Rehnquist said it was permissible.
The attachments ordered by courts were properly nullified by the president's actions, Rehnquist wrote. His authority to do that came largely from the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, under which Carter declared a national emergency when the hostages were seized.
That law, Rehnquist said, constituted "specific congressional authorization to the president to nullify the attachments and order the transfer of Iranian assets." Its language, the provision saying the president can "nullify, void, prevent, prohibit, transfer" foreign property, is plain, Rehnquist said.
Then Rehnquist addressed the president's power to "suspend claims," the actual court proceedings which were under way to determine whether the companies were actually owned debts by Iran. That is the most difficult question, he said, because nothing in any law specifically allows the president to do what he did.
But many laws regarding foreign disputes imply "congressional acceptance of a broad scope for executive action in circumstances such as those presented in this case." Among those laws are measures enacted in the 1800s and acts passed to help settle post-World War II claims with Yugoslavia, China and East Germany, Rehnquist said.
There is no direct authority for suspending the claims, he said again. But Congress's prior enactments may be considered to "invite" independent presidential action.
That history, combined with the court's own rulings giving the president great authority in foreign affairs, justifies the suspension of the claims, Rehquist said.
The court rejected the companies' contention that the nullification of the attachments violated the Constitution by taking property without just compensation. The companies never actually owned the money being attached, he said, so it can't be taken from them.
Rehnquist said the court would not now rule on whether suspension of the claims -- the court proceedings -- violated the Constitution for the same reason. The companies may still seek their money at the international tribunal, Rehnquist said. If that doesn't work, they can return to the American courts.
Fred Barbash, the editor of Morning Mix, is a former National editor and London bureau chief for The Washington Post. He has also been an editor at Politico and Reuters, and was the managing editor of CQ Weekly magazine.
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Canada has increased trade opportunities for meat processors by focusing on 10 priority markets, according to a new report from the Harper government.
The 2011-2012 Agriculture and Agri-Food Market Access Report outlines the actions the government has taken to extend access in the established markets of Chinese Taipei, the European Union, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, and the USA, and to open new opportunities in the emerging markets of China, Indonesia, India, and Russia.
“The government of Canada is undertaking the most ambitious trade expansion plan in Canadian history. We are working hard to open new export markets in the world’s emerging major economies while continuing to strengthen and expand existing trade relationships. More exports mean more jobs for Canadians and sustainable long-term growth for Canada,” said an opening statement from Gerry Ritz, minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, and Ed Fast, minister of International Trade.
“Re-opening, maintaining and expanding market access for Canadian agriculture and agri-food products is an important part of our plan. With annual exports worth over $40bn in 2011, the agriculture and agri-food sector is a key driver of Canada’s economy.”
Negotiating trade
Beef highlights include restoring access for Canadian beef under 30 months of age (UTM) to South Korea, with projected economic benefits of $30m by 2015, and achieving access to the Chinese market for Canadian UTM deboned beef. The report estimates that the Chinese market could be worth $110m once full access for Canadian beef and cattle is achieved.
The government has also negotiated an increased in the most-favoured-nation (MFN) beef tariff rate quota (TRQ) for hormone-free beef in the US, with exports, from 20,000 tonnes to 48,200 tonnes by August 2012. “This increase creates the potential for enhanced economies of scale for exporters and a more predictable trading environment as the likelihood of the quota reaching its threshold is reduced,” states the report.
Other achievements include the lifting of avian influenza-related restrictions on Canadian poultry in Japan and the lifting of a temporary ban on Canadian animal by-products in Indonesia, which was imposed after Canada’s 18th reported BSE case.
The report also highlights the work done by the government to challenge US country-of-origin labelling, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) appellate body recently confirming that the US is violating its trade obligations by insisting on country-of-origin labelling of meat products.
“We were able to coordinate a very complex and successful process to gather evidence to support the discrimination claim,” said John Masswohl, executive director of international relations at the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) in the report.
“Our case did not solely rely on legal arguments, but required hard data from producers. Because of the close cooperation between the Canadian government and the industry, we were able to collect this information, which was instrumental in putting forward a strong case.”
Meat industry welcome
The report has been welcomed by Canada's meat industry. Canadian Meat Council (CMC) executive director, James Laws, said: “International trade is crucial to the health and competitiveness of Canada’s livestock and meat sector since this country produces significantly more meat than its 34.9 million citizens can consume.
"Canada’s livestock producers and meat processors have the production capacity, technical knowledge, high quality products and international expertise to compete and win in the international marketplace."
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Winning Against the Odds
They were outmanned and outgunned, but the Mexican troops made up for the lack of numbers and firepower with grit and determination. An expensive civil war had left Mexico in debt to Britain, Spain and France. But shortly after the war ended, Mexico was forced to suspend repayments in order to rebuild their infrastructure. This didn’t make their benefactors happy and now the French were coming to either collect or take over.
After suffering heavy casualties, the Mexican Commander General, Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin, withdrew his army to Puebla. The small town was still heavily fortified, having survived the civil war, and Zaragoza’s troops immediately began additional preparations, digging trenches to connect the two hill-top forts sitting just north. When the French force of 8,000 infantry and cavalry arrived on the fifth of May, 1862, they assumed their victory would be swift. The inferior Mexican garrison of only 4,000 men now had no way to retreat.
But when a show of arms failed to intimidate the Mexican troops, the French attacked. They foolishly expended most of their ammunition in an initial, ill-timed advance and quickly ran out. They were surprised by the strong showing put forth by the Mexican army, who spilled out of the forts and fought hand-to-hand on the hillside between them. After three infantry advances the French retreated, having lost more than five times as many men as their underestimated foes. Today, El Dia de la Batalia de Puebla (The Day of the Battle of Puebla) is known simply as Cinco de Mayo, and serves as a reminder of the power of determination and teamwork against overwhelming odds.
Sometimes it’s easy to lose hope when faced with a foe who seems to have everything working in their favor. The competition can seem too organized, prepared and well-funded. But history is full of stories illustrating the power of the underdog. Those who most desire to win the day often find that their own creativity and ability to pull together are all they need.
Who’s your biggest competition?
What advantages do they have over you?
How can your team overcome the competition despite their apparent advantage?
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Stafford Ramp Access
Not the average thing to get involved in, and this ramp and stair was an interesting project to do. We are quite proud of the result and that is why it is on the website as it solved quite a few dilemmas in such an elegant way. It all started because the very large commercial site had no pedestrian access along its longest street frontage, and some wheelchair bound persons could not access a couple of premises easily. The development predates some aspects of accessibility, plus the council at the time required no drive access along the frontage, and had insisted on a 300mm strip of land being granted to council. Local state and council politicians were approached and understandably requested a solution. We showed council’s assets division an early version, and they approved the concept, even letting us build on their strip of land, as they saw the sense in it. We had to make sure we did not compromise any carparking or the very nearby substation. The result was not overly obvious at the beginning, and we used all our design skills to resolve it. It was reported soon after completion that all tenants were most appreciative of the defined access point as it got them even closer to the excellent cafe across the road.
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May 3, 2012 - Registration Now Open for 2012 Historic Preservation Conference
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN FOR 2012 HISTORIC PRESERVATION CONFERENCENew Jersey Historic Trust to Present Conference June 7 at Rider University
TRENTON, N.J. – The New Jersey Historic Trust, an affiliate of the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), will co-host the 2012 Historic Preservation Conference on June 7 at Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ. The conference, “Sustaining the Past – Inventing the Future,” will acquaint attendees with successful preservation methods and partnerships and demonstrate how they can be applied in their communities. Registration is now open for people interested in attending the conference.
“Understanding and appreciating the past is key to successful community building for the future, which is what makes this conference relevant year after year,” said DCA Acting Commissioner Richard E. Constable, III, who will be a featured speaker at the conference. “The Historic Preservation Conference enjoys a stellar reputation and this year’s conference promises to be no different.”
Keynote Speaker Steve Mouzon, an architect, urbanist and president of the Miami-based New Urban Guild, will address how to build better and more sustainable buildings that harmonize with the community in which they are built. Mouzon’s recent book, The Original Green, frames sustainability in common-sense, plain-spoken terms that he will incorporate in his keynote remarks. He will join nearly 60 other expert speakers during the fourth annual conference to address such topics as preventative conservation of historic buildings, battlefield preservation, historic site surveys, African American sites in New Jersey, and areas in need of redevelopment.
The conference will also include several outdoor workshops such as a walking tour of Princeton that will highlight the role of planning in historic preservation and a house tour of five distinctive, residential Princeton properties that have undergone major restoration and/or adaptive reuse, including Westland, a Georgian Revival house purchased after former U.S. President Grover Cleveland and his wife settled in Princeton, and the Tudor-Revival home of former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.
“We’re delighted to present this informative, inspiring day-long program for historic preservation commissions, nonprofit stewards, architecture and preservation professionals, and anyone interested in preserving our past for future generations,” said Historic Trust Executive Director Dorothy Guzzo. “For people with an abiding interest in history, preservation, architecture, archeology or heritage tourism, it is an event not to be missed.”
In addition to the New Jersey Historic Trust, the conference is being hosted by Common Wealth of New Jersey, Historic Preservation Office of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and the New Jersey Historical Commission.
Established in 1967, the Historic Trust is the only nonprofit historic preservation organization in New Jersey created by state law. It provides financial support and technical assistance to historic preservation projects throughout the state of New Jersey.
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Point and Shoot: Daniel Walker aims to please--as long as the result is fairly ridiculous.
D-I-Y F-I-L-M
Excuse2Realize coming to a living room near you
By Gabe Meline
Glen Stewart and Daniel Walker of the Santa Rosa comedy group Excuse2Realize prefer to describe themselves as "people who make movies," eschewing the title "filmmaker" and all the pomp it implies. They have never had formal training or attended film school, nor do they work from scripts or, for that matter, shoot on actual production sets.
"You can't teach creativity at film school," asserts Walker, who was raised in Los Angeles. As demonstrated by the group's new DVD, a collection of shorts titled Soft Porn for American Children, filmmaking can be so much more effective--and funny--when you're not taking yourself so damn seriously all the time.
Stewart and Walker's no-budget, high-concept comedy has all the homemade charm of late-night community access, but with more wit and no drone. "Really, we're only making films to make friends," Stewart deadpans, "and then once we have enough friends individually, we'll split up and we won't talk to each other ever again."
Whatever their motive, Excuse2Realize, a troupe often augmented by Stewart's wife, Alycia, and the perpetually silent Jef Overn, are on a roll. Their renegade word-of-mouth premieres attract dozens of people, who pack like sardines into private living rooms to drink 40s and watch their work. The self-released DVD, a collection of short movies and spoof commercials, is set for a second run after literally being sold out of backpacks on the street.
Necessity being the mother of direction, Stewart and Walker started making movies simply because they were broke. "Daniel and I were both jobless and living in this apartment, drinking a lot, just totally depressed and not being creative," explains Stewart. "Christmas was coming up and we had no money to get our families anything. So we decided what we could do is to make a movie, put it on VHS tape and send it to them as presents."
Thus the group's first short, Realmas, was born--hatched in one night, completed in a week. Walker spent Christmas night editing the film on his computer. "I thought, 'It could be depressing right now that I'm not around family and friends,'" he recalls, "'but this is kind of better.'"
In Soft Porn's best short, "Resurrect the Rabbit," a self-absorbed redneck and a disconnected scientist who share a kooky conspiracy theory team up to find and destroy the Easter Bunny. Sacred Indian grounds are trespassed, busy streets picketed and centuries of Christian history blasphemed.
The plot, irreverent as it is, isn't the main attraction. Soft Porn is packed with the group's no-holds-barred satire and comic brilliance played out through quick, Simpsons-style edits that beg to be rewound. For the group's style and approach, credit the Salvation Army.
Avid thrift-store shoppers, Stewart and Walker started collecting marketing videocassettes from the 1990s of companies advertising, among other things, pyramid schemes, and inspiration struck. "They had horrible soundtracks, bad actors, and you knew right away that they'd be pitching some really bad financial decision," explains Stewart, whose apartment is a clutter of unique thrift-store finds. "They all looked really cheesy and low-budget, so we were going for that sort of look.
"Angela Lansbury has one where she does yoga," he continues. "It's called, like, Positive . . ."
"Positive Moves!" Walker interjects. "It's horrible!"
Anyone can find weird crap at the thrift store, but Excuse2Realize's reappropriation of the marketing-video look for their own needs is a smart, artistic form of cultural renewal. It's using the past as validation to poke fun at the present. Plus, it's affordable.
Despite their continued lack of funds, the troupe still find inspiration knocking. They assure fans that more holiday-themed spoofs are on the drawing board ("We're gonna do Independence Day for sure," says Stewart), but currently they're working on a hush-hush project.
"I can't give away the premise," sighs Stewart, "but I can tell you that it's going to be retarded."
'Soft Porn for American Children' is available for preview at www.excuse2realize.com and for rent at Video Droid in Santa Rosa. Stewart and Walker can usually be found impersonating homeless people on other filmmakers' sets when they're not writing love letters to Ben Stiller or listening to their favorite Christian band at www.myspace.com/christalmethod.
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Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Sometimes God Answers Prayers With Miracles
This morning Jade and I discussed this post. We decided it would be a good idea to share some details with you all.
Yesterday, a doctor from Riley Hospital called with some test results: Ezra has epilepsy. After a long journey of testing and doctor visits, it wasn't until yesterday that we had a concrete diagnosis. In most cases, he would throw up and then lose awareness for a minute or two. The strain on Ezra, Jade, myself and the rest of our family has been significant. We wondered if our missionary life was causing too much stress on him. We wondered if we were doing something to cause them. We now know the cause, the diagnosis and a plan of treatment over the next years.
Shortly after the phone call yesterday Jade was thinking about the diagnosis and wondering about our work in Uganda. "Should we really be doing this?" she wondered. Moments later, an email showed up in the inbox. It was a new financial commitment for our support. She did the math. We had this crazy goal to get to 90% before Christmas. I (Nathan) felt a little ridiculous telling people about this goal. I called it "our prayer" instead of a goal just so we all knew I was aware how huge it was. Anyway, Jade did the math: 97%. Ninety Seven Percent.
We want our lives to answer a question. If you are a person who wonders about God. Is He real? If He is, who is He? What is He like? We test these things by looking at the way His hands touch this planet and the lives of human beings. In the hard times, when our children are sick, He is our comforter. Let that be the scream of our family. We ache at the pain of our son but we are not hopeless. Despair is a word we never use. In the high times, we set goals that we have to call "prayers" because they seem ridiculous. Sometimes, as only He can do, God answers prayers with miracles and piles it on so thick we don't know what to say.
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St. Petersburg is the Crossroad of tourist routes
Being the capital of Russian Empire for 200 years, St. Petersburg has connected Russia and Europe dur-ing its history. Today the interests of world politics, business and culture meet on the banks of the Neva river.
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Tuesday, January 08, 2013
my new favorite: stamping
I have a new obsession....stamping!
I've always owned a large collection of stamps - both wood mounted and acrylic.
But even though I loved stamps and enjoyed purchasing them....I barely used them.
I tried a few times to get the hang of stamping but didn't really understand the different inks or how to get a crisp image.
The best thing that came from my teaching at Michaels was a confidence in my ability to stamp.
Most of my classes centered around stamping so classroom supplies could be shared.
I also learned all about the types of inks out there and which ones work best for which stamps.
While teaching there, I began to see that I really could get the hang of stamping!
Recently, while prepping my Christmas cards class, I stamped so many images so many times that it became second nature.
Now I feel pretty confident in my stamping abilities and I'm quite proud of myself for it!
Today, I stamped a sentiment repeatedly for a class I'm prepping and I got a crisp image each time. It still kind of shocks me!
For me, getting a great stamped image involves:
a) choosing the right ink
b) stamping a test image to determine the pressure needed
c) stamping on a piece of paper that is easily replaceable - i.e.: not directly on the card
d) inking the stamp very well
e) applying even but firm pressure
So is stamping something you'd like to hear more about?
Do you stamp on a regular basis? If you don't, what holds you back from really getting into stamping?
Let me know! I'm thinking of doing a video or two to share my newfound love of stamping!
Great tips Tracie! Yes, I LOVE stamping and find that the things you shared are the key elements to having confidence in getting a good image. I also would add using a cheap mouse pad under my paper is the best "stamp accessory" I have ever purchased...I keep a stack of them to take to classes with me because I would be nervous without them.
I was so very inspired by your Christmas Card class - and all the cool ways you incorporated stamping - I think it would be a GREAT series of blog posts if you covered some of those ideas and your design guidelines when using stamps on cards...you are BRILLIANT I tell you....BRILLIANT!
about me
Hand Lettering Artist, Certified Scrapbook Instructor and Host of Live Inspired and The Scrap Gals podcasts. I am passionate about the art of memory keeping and storytelling. I love beautiful photographs, the smell of paper in the morning, pink roses, farmhouses, hymns, making new friends and everything artsy.
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Bonus Package 4 – TRAFFIC & GENERAL
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About Danny
Hi Everyone! My name is Danny. I'm a young marketer who loves making money online and learning from the best information products and software available. I only review and recommend powerful tools, software, plugins and information products that are proven to deliver solid money making results. Personally, I love this product and see the potential of what it can do for my business. If you feel the same way, I encourage you to please take action. This is an opportunity to gain all the benefits that the product can offer for your business by increasing your productivity, efficiency, and most importantly, . . . profitability! Thank you for visiting my website and reading my review. Best Regards!
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BLOG
Aug 22
Additional Parking Arrives in the Domain
We have begun construction on the second phase for HPI's latest commercial project. The second phase of this project will be a two bay, 811 piece expansion, adding onto the original two bay garage. The design team for this project was Zapalac/Reed Construction, Boka Powell, and Cardno Haynes Whaley. The final will be eight levels and almost 2000 pieces of precast.
The Domain Tower is a 308,000 square foot office building being constructed in the Domain District in Austin, Texas. The building will include office spaces for companies and business expecting to house up to 12,000 employees. Along with the office spaces the building will have outdoor amenities for its employees to match the style of the Domain.
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New segment of Paul Bunyan Trail Complete
On July 27, a new 6-mile segment of the Paul Bunyan State Trail was opened to the public. This new segment extends the current trail south from the cities of Baxter and Brainerd into Crow Wing State Park. It is a scenic, meandering trail that follows the bluffs of the Mississippi River. It was a project that was many years in the making.
Terry McGaughey, a volunteer who initiated the idea of converting abandoned rail line into the current Paul Bunyan State Trail, also envisioned the trail extending into Crow Wing State Park. Such a segment presented significant challenges because the land was owned by multiple, private landowners. Each parcel of land within the corridor would need to be acquired (or easement secured) separately from willing sellers, with no parcel missed or the trail project would be stalled. This was different than how the majority of the land for the Paul Bunyan State Trail was acquired–from the sole ownership of the railroad.
Spurred on from McGaughey’s vision and the DNR’s commitment to develop this trail segment, Parks & Trails Council became involved with acquiring the land adjacent to the park. Between 2003 and 2006, P&TC acquired 144 acres within this corridor. The remaining land was acquired by the DNR from Potlach Corporation, a forestry company, in partnership with P&TC, Conservation Fund and The Nature Conservancy. In the end this multi-year effort added a unique opportunity for a forested trail corridor within Crow Wing State Park that follows the shoreline of the Mississippi River.
Crow Wing State Park now serves as the southern terminus of the Paul Bunyan State Trail. As the trail winds out of the park it connects to city trails that bring it into the cities of Baxter and Brainerd. Within Baxter, it connects with the completed Paul Bunyan State Trail–the longest, continously paved trail in the nation, according to the DNR.
While the city of Baxter will continue to maintain the trail section through the city, the DNR is working to provide State Trail signage to guide trail users along the route. An updated trail map is not yet available for this new connection. In the meantime, trail users can inquire with staff at Crow Wing State Park for directions to the trailhead within the park. Once the trail transitions onto city trails, users can use the Baxter City Trails map.
Numerous supporters have been instrumental in advocating and partnering to build the trail. Many of these supporters participated in the ribbon cutting on July 27, including:
Chip Borkenhagen of the Paul Bunyan Trail Association
Mayor James Wallin of Brainerd
Mayor Darrel Olson of Baxter
Roger Hellquist, Bemidji City Council Member
Rep. John Ward
Erika Rivers, Director of the DNR Division of Parks and Trails
Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota
Congressman Rick Nolan
Lia McGaughey, daughter of Terry McGaughey
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Joe Satriani-Sleep Walk tab
Sleep Walk by Joe SatrianiReally nice and peaceful melody
Play with slide!!E-------------------------------------------------15--17--22(24)--19---------------------------|B-------------10--10\-------------1-------3-------------------------------------1--------------|G---9---9------9---9\---------1---1---1---4---------------------------------2---2---2--2/4-----|D--10--10-----10--10\---------3-------3---5---------------------------------3-------3--3/5-----|A----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|E----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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Our last report on Agrigan volcano covered a May 1992 field visit (BGVN 17:06) by a six-member team of USGS volcanologists that visited the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) at the request of the CNMI Office of Civil Defense. The team detected thermal activity, but no seismicity, deformation or other signs of an eruption.
The following came from a report by both the USGS and CNMI issued mid-July 2007and labeled Current Update. "An earthquake was reported felt on Agrigan island at 3:49 pm July 16 local time. About 3 seconds of shaking was reported by a local resident. Seismometers on Sarigan and Anatahan recorded the earthquake and allowed estimation the magnitude at approximately 3.3. No sulfur smell or any other signs of volcanic activity were reported on July 16 or in a follow up call on July 17."
Some 2012 and 2013 observations were equivocal. On 29 February 2012, NOAA's Washington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) inferred ash and gas emissions here for the first time on record, but this was later discounted due to lack of forthcoming evidence. The inferred plume was seen in satellite infrared imagery. It extended 74 km NW from the summit.
A possible volcanic plume from Agrigan was spotted again by the VAAC in a satellite image from 22 January 2013.
In a 25 January 2013 USGS update, it was noted that neither the USGS nor NOAA received confirmation of a volcanic source for the satellite anomalies. The authors of the 2013 update interpreted the cloud as weather-related and not volcanic in origin.
Figure 2 shows a photo of Agrigan taken in June 2013. No hotspots were detected during mid-2012 to mid-2013 by the MODVOLC Thermal Alerts System.
Figure 2. Agrigan as seen on 15 June 2013. Photo credit to Yoshi Tamura; featured here thanks to cooperation of Robert Stern.
Agrigan, the highest-standing stratovolcano and largest (by subaerial volume) in the Northern Mariana Islands, stands 882 m a.s.l (figure 3). The island is ~10 by 6.5 km (N-S by E-W) in size, with a surface area of 52.7 km2. The volcano's subaerial volume is ~15.9 km3. The summit contains a large depression, roughly 1.5 by 1.2 km in diameter, and 380 m deep. A spatter cone and flows from the 1917 eruption cover ~50 percent of the crater floor. This large crater implies a local edifice with shallow magma storage within the volcano. The flanks of the volcano are steep (>30 degrees), with deep furrows extending radially away from the crater. To the north is a large canyon into which a recent, large 'a'ā flow advanced to form a delta on the coast. Pyroclastic flow deposits mantle most of the interior of the island. Rocks erupted on the island range from basalt to andesite. The southwest coast has several beaches composed of mineral sands; otherwise, the coast is rocky. (Trusdell, F.A. and others, 2009).
Fieldwork was conducted . . . 28 September-3 October, following reports of increased activity 1 August and the subsequent evacuation of the island's residents. Visits to the summit revealed weak fumarolic activity with sulfur deposition and boiling hot springs. A preliminary seismic study indicated very low levels of local activity, with no sign of a recent increase. A regional network of single vertical-component, short-period seismometers was installed, with instruments located on the islands of Pagan, Alamagan, and Anatahan, and a receiving station on Saipan. The residents evacuated in August had not returned to their homes as of early October.
A seven-member team of USGS volcanologists visited the CNMI 24 September-6 October at the request of the Office of Civil Defense. The following is from a report by Richard Moore.
"On Agrigan, the team established a new EDM network within the summit caldera, and hope to remeasure it in 1991. At that time, geologic investigations terminated by tropical storm Hattie on 2 October 1990 would be continued.
"A revolving drum seismograph operated continuously 28 September-1 October at a village near the coast, and a portable seismograph operated intermittently 28-29 September at several sites on the caldera floor, recorded no sustained microearthquake activity or volcanic tremor on Agrigan.
"The team discovered a boiling hot spring, associated terrace deposits, and solfataras at the 1917 eruption vent (Agrigan's most recent) on the floor of the 1.5-km-diameter caldera. Steam was being emitted from several areas at the base of the caldera wall. Temperatures of the boiling hot spring and 25 solfataras measured by thermocouple were all 98°C. Water from the hot spring had a pH of 2.0. Chemical analysis of the water is in progress. Several measurements (using Kitagawa and Draeger tubes) of the abundances of various gases emitted by the solfataras are summarized in table 1.
"The team found no evidence of new fuming on Agrigan (suggested by reports in August and cause of the island's evacuation; 15:7). Hot spring terraces composed of siliceous sinter covered an area of ~20 x 7 m2 below the boiling hot spring. The terraces are now mostly dry, with current deposition of silica limited to a few square meters adjacent to the hot spring, suggesting that activity was more vigorous sometime in the past. However, fluctuations in the volume of flow from the spring may occur as a result of seasonal variations in rainfall."
A six-member team of USGS volcanologists visited the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands 11-27 May 1992 at the request of the CNMI Office of Civil Defense. The team observed all of the islands in the chain N of Saipan, installed a new seismic station at the base of frequently active Pagan, remeasured existing EDM networks, mapped the geology of Alamagan, sampled fumaroles and hot springs, and collected rocks and charcoal for radiocarbon dating. No volcanoes in the chain erupted during the observation period.
Remeasurement of five EDM lines on 15-16 May yielded no significant changes (>1 cm) since the network was established in September 1990. Two seismometers temporarily operated on the caldera floor recorded no local shallow seismicity. The temperature of the boiling spring in the caldera was 98°C, the same as in 1990. The volume of water issuing from the hot spring was less than in 1990, maybe because of seasonal rainfall variations. The highest measured fumarole temperature was 102°C, 4° higher than in 1990, perhaps related to a drop in the water table.
Our last report on Agrigan volcano covered a May 1992 field visit (BGVN 17:06) by a six-member team of USGS volcanologists that visited the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) at the request of the CNMI Office of Civil Defense. The team detected thermal activity, but no seismicity, deformation or other signs of an eruption.
The following came from a report by both the USGS and CNMI issued mid-July 2007and labeled Current Update. "An earthquake was reported felt on Agrigan island at 3:49 pm July 16 local time. About 3 seconds of shaking was reported by a local resident. Seismometers on Sarigan and Anatahan recorded the earthquake and allowed estimation the magnitude at approximately 3.3. No sulfur smell or any other signs of volcanic activity were reported on July 16 or in a follow up call on July 17."
Some 2012 and 2013 observations were equivocal. On 29 February 2012, NOAA's Washington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) inferred ash and gas emissions here for the first time on record, but this was later discounted due to lack of forthcoming evidence. The inferred plume was seen in satellite infrared imagery. It extended 74 km NW from the summit.
A possible volcanic plume from Agrigan was spotted again by the VAAC in a satellite image from 22 January 2013.
In a 25 January 2013 USGS update, it was noted that neither the USGS nor NOAA received confirmation of a volcanic source for the satellite anomalies. The authors of the 2013 update interpreted the cloud as weather-related and not volcanic in origin.
Figure 2 shows a photo of Agrigan taken in June 2013. No hotspots were detected during mid-2012 to mid-2013 by the MODVOLC Thermal Alerts System.
Figure 2. Agrigan as seen on 15 June 2013. Photo credit to Yoshi Tamura; featured here thanks to cooperation of Robert Stern.
Agrigan, the highest-standing stratovolcano and largest (by subaerial volume) in the Northern Mariana Islands, stands 882 m a.s.l (figure 3). The island is ~10 by 6.5 km (N-S by E-W) in size, with a surface area of 52.7 km2. The volcano's subaerial volume is ~15.9 km3. The summit contains a large depression, roughly 1.5 by 1.2 km in diameter, and 380 m deep. A spatter cone and flows from the 1917 eruption cover ~50 percent of the crater floor. This large crater implies a local edifice with shallow magma storage within the volcano. The flanks of the volcano are steep (>30 degrees), with deep furrows extending radially away from the crater. To the north is a large canyon into which a recent, large 'a'ā flow advanced to form a delta on the coast. Pyroclastic flow deposits mantle most of the interior of the island. Rocks erupted on the island range from basalt to andesite. The southwest coast has several beaches composed of mineral sands; otherwise, the coast is rocky. (Trusdell, F.A. and others, 2009).
This compilation of synonyms and subsidiary features may not be comprehensive. Features are organized into four major categories: Cones, Craters, Domes, and Thermal Features. Synonyms of features appear indented below the primary name. In some cases additional feature type, elevation, or location details are provided.
Synonyms
Agrihan
Craters
Feature Name
Feature Type
Elevation
Latitude
Longitude
Agrigan
Caldera
Basic Data
Volcano Number
Last Known Eruption
Elevation
LatitudeLongitude
284160
1917 CE
965 m / 3166 ft
18.77°N
145.67°E
Volcano Types
Stratovolcano Caldera Pyroclastic cone(s)
Rock Types
MajorBasalt / Picro-BasaltAndesite / Basaltic Andesite
Tectonic Setting
Subduction zoneCrustal thickness unknown
Population
Within 5 kmWithin 10 kmWithin 30 kmWithin 100 km
0
0
0
0
Geological Summary
The highest of the Marianas arc volcanoes, Agrigan contains a 500-m-deep, flat-floored caldera. The elliptical island is 8 km long; its summit is the top of a massive 4000-m-high submarine volcano. Deep radial valleys dissect the flanks of the thickly vegetated stratovolcano. The elongated caldera is 1 x 2 km wide and is breached to the NW, from where a prominent lava flow extends to the coast and forms a lava delta. The caldera floor is surfaced by fresh-looking lava flows and also contains two cones that may have formed during the only historical eruption in 1917. This eruption deposited large blocks and 3 m of ash and lapilli on a village on the SE coast, prompting its evacuation.
References
The following references have all been used during the compilation of data for this volcano, it is not a comprehensive bibliography.
Eruptive History
Deformation History
There is no Deformation History data available for Agrigan.
Emission History
There is no Emissions History data available for Agrigan.
Photo Gallery
Clouds drape the flat-topped summit of Agrigan, the highest of the Marianas arc volcanoes, in this view from the south. The elliptical island is 8 km long; its 965-m-high summit is the top of a massive 4000-m-high submarine volcano, the second largest in the Mariana Islands. An elongated summit caldera is 1 x 2 km wide, 500 m deep, and is breached to the NW. The vegetated flanks of the volcano consist almost entirely of pyroclastic deposits that are more than 100 m thick on the SW flank.
External Sites
Middle InfraRed Observation of Volcanic Activity (MIROVA) is a near real time volcanic hot-spot detection system based on the analysis of MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data. In particular, MIROVA uses the Middle InfraRed Radiation (MIR), measured over target volcanoes, in order to detect, locate and measure the heat radiation sourced from volcanic activity.
Using infrared satellite Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data, scientists at the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawai'i, developed an automated system called MODVOLC to map thermal hot-spots in near real time. For each MODIS image, the algorithm automatically scans each 1 km pixel within it to check for high-temperature hot-spots. When one is found the date, time, location, and intensity are recorded. MODIS looks at every square km of the Earth every 48 hours, once during the day and once during the night, and the presence of two MODIS sensors in space allows at least four hot-spot observations every two days. Each day updated global maps are compiled to display the locations of all hot spots detected in the previous 24 hours. There is a drop-down list with volcano names which allow users to 'zoom-in' and examine the distribution of hot-spots at a variety of spatial scales.
Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) Data Services map showing the location of seismic stations from all available networks (permanent or temporary) within a radius of 0.18° (about 20 km at mid-latitudes) from the given location of Agrigan. Users can customize a variety of filters and options in the left panel. Note that if there are no stations are known the map will default to show the entire world with a "No data matched request" error notice.
Geodetic Data Services map from UNAVCO showing the location of GPS/GNSS stations from all available networks (permanent or temporary) within a radius of 20 km from the given location of Agrigan. Users can customize the data search based on station or network names, location, and time window.
The DECADE portal, still in the developmental stage, serves as an example of the proposed interoperability between The Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program, the Mapping Gas Emissions (MaGa) Database, and the EarthChem Geochemical Portal. The Deep Earth Carbon Degassing (DECADE) initiative seeks to use new and established technologies to determine accurate global fluxes of volcanic CO2 to the atmosphere, but installing CO2 monitoring networks on 20 of the world's 150 most actively degassing volcanoes. The group uses related laboratory-based studies (direct gas sampling and analysis, melt inclusions) to provide new data for direct degassing of deep earth carbon to the atmosphere.
WOVOdat is a database of volcanic unrest; instrumentally and visually recorded changes in seismicity, ground deformation, gas emission, and other parameters from their normal baselines. It is sponsored by the World Organization of Volcano Observatories (WOVO) and presently hosted at the Earth Observatory of Singapore.
EarthChem develops and maintains databases, software, and services that support the preservation, discovery, access and analysis of geochemical data, and facilitate their integration with the broad array of other available earth science parameters. EarthChem is operated by a joint team of disciplinary scientists, data scientists, data managers and information technology developers who are part of the NSF-funded data facility Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA). IEDA is a collaborative effort of EarthChem and the Marine Geoscience Data System (MGDS).
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The Green Plate: The Dark Side of Bioplastic
When was the last time you attended an event where food and drink was sold in disposable vessels?
If you’re an EcoSalon reader, it’s likely that after consuming your food or beverage you examined the container carefully to see if it was made from corn (or another plant product). And if it was, you probably then looked around for a compost bin to throw it in. Did you find one?
I’m guessing you didn’t and, left without much choice, you threw it in the garbage, maybe feeling a little uneasy, but consoling yourself with the thought that at least the container wasn’t made from petroleum, and it would break down. Right?
Wrong.
There are two problematic factors in potato, corn, and other plant-based plastics, which are often called “bioplastics.”
The first is disposal. Because many municipalities (even large cities like New York) don’t offer curbside composting, there’s an intention gap. Even the ones that do offer such a feature may offer residential, and not commercial composting, which means you’d have to bring your cup home with you to compost it. Realistically, how many people are going to do that?
Then there’s the labeling. Some compostable packaging and containers are not clearly labeled and can be indistinguishable from petroleum-based containers. Only highly motivated consumers will go that extra mile to find out, especially if there’s only one bin in which to toss your waste.
Some compostable ware may actually be worse for the environment than petroleum-based ware. Or at best, it might just be feel-good gesture or a marketing opportunity for companies or restaurants using it.
Still, plant-based plastic is a net win, right?
Probably not.
Consider net energy use. Lifecycle studies show that, as far as energy or water use goes, the production of petroleum-based plastics may actually be less taxing on the environment than the production of some plant-based plastics. This is partially because agriculture is fossil fuel and water intensive, and most plant-based plastics are produced using agricultural processes, including resource-intensive, soil-depleting mono-culturing.
There’s the issue of breakdown and associated greenhouse gases, too. Theoretically, bio plastics will break down faster than petroleum based plastics, but in a landfill, almost nothing breaks down due to lack of oxygen. And if the bio plastics do break down, that’s not necessarily a good thing since they can emit methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times stronger than C02.
Among other initiatives, the company instituted the Low Carbon Diet. In addition to reducing meat and cheese consumption, reducing the use of airfreight, and other company wide actions, the Low Carbon Diet addresses the problem of waste – both food and non-food waste.
I asked York if plant-based plastics or petroleum were the better choice.
“What’s the environmental problem we’re trying to solve?” she asked.
Then she went on to outline the complicating considerations that make this question of “plant based?” or “petroleum based?” such a dilemma.
According to York, “If the problem is climate change, ocean acidification (which is related to climate change), total energy use, soil erosion, water use, or the decline of water tables in the Midwest, then most plant-based resins aren’t a better choice than most plastics.” Because they rely on agriculture.
“If the problem is keeping plastics out of the landfill, this isn’t an environmental problem. It’s a municipal finance problem. Plastics in a modern landfill are inert and they don’t leach. They don’t do anything in fact, while plant-based products have the potential to breakdown and generate methane.”
And then York gets to the heart of the question for The Green Plate:
“Do we really want to use land for growing commodity crops intended for industrial uses, whether they are for animal feed or to satisfy our convenience needs? Just because something is made with a natural or renewable ingredient,” she says, “doesn’t mean it’s a better product than something made from a durable ‘recyclable’ product like PET.”
In the end, the smartest thing is to reduce the number of disposables used entirely, which is what Bon Appétit is striving for in its daily operations.
You can do it, too. When you’re heading out of the house, why not grab a drinking vessel, or a mason jar (if you’re a hipster), and even a lightweight container? You could even invest in some bamboo flatware.
After all, you never know when you’re going to want to sample some delicious street food or drink. You may even consider only buying from vendors who use low impact packaging like recycled paper that is fully compostable anywhere.
This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.
Copyright ® 2016 all rights reserved by EcoSalon, and can not be reproduced without permission in writing. We are a digital magazine for entertainment, we are not here to diagnose or treat any health or medical conditions.
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As a developer you probably often write code for accessing data with OLEDB, DAO, ODBC, ADO or ADO.NET. Or maybe you are using an object relational mapper like NHibernate or even ActiveRecord. You probably noticed that each time you needed more coding than you wanted. In this demo application you will see that accessing your data will never be as easy as with db4o.
Db4objects has now joined the power of querying data with LINQ with the ease of accessing data with db4o. Since February 2008 db4o version 7.2 beta has become available (the production release is now available). This version contains a LINQ provider for db4o.
LINQ will probably be the new Visual Studio 2008 feature that will speak most to your imagination. With LINQ you can use SQL like syntax inside your code for retrieving various kinds of information. By now there are already a couple of dozen LINQ providers. A LINQ provider is the code that lets you query a specific type of data. Visual Studio has a LINQ provider for objects (LINQ), SQL (DLINQ) and XML (XLINQ). Searching the internet you will find many more providers, for instance for Excel, Flickr, Google, Sharepoint, WMI, etc. The cool thing is that the query syntax is the same for every provider. You can even query multiple providers in one query.
The LINQ query syntax looks very much like SQL. The biggest difference is the command order. You will start with the 'from' statement. The reason for this is that intellisence is able to give you hints the moment you have specified the object in the from statement.
Db4o is an open-source native Object-oriented Database Management System (ODBMS) available for both .NET and Java platforms. As a native ODBMS, the database model and application object model are the same, hence, no mapping or transformation is required to persist and query objects with db4o. Regarding usage mode, db4o can be deployed either as a standalone database or a network database. Finally, db4o has support for the schema evolution, indexing, transaction and concurrency, database encryption, and replication service (among db4o databases and certain relational databases). At this moment the latest version of db4o is 7.2 and available under two licenses: GPL and a commercial runtime license.
In February 2008 db4objects released beta version 7.2 of db4o. This was the first release that included the LINQ provider for db4o. Now 2 months later the 7.2 version has been release as a "production" release and an optimized version 7.3 beta is now available. Db4o was already quite easy but now with LINQ for db4o you can do it using standard query syntax instead of finding out how to use db4o's native query syntax. Querying data in a db4o database with LINQ will feel like you are querying data that is already available in your application. You do not have to make object relational mappings and you do not have to use a heavy data access layer. With LINQ for db4o you can do everything with only a couple of lines of code. Linq expressions are analyzed and optimized down to db4o's fast querying interface: SODA. Whenever a suitable translation cannot be found the query executes as a plain Linq for Objects query (a predicate that is tested against every object of the specified type).
For showing you the most basic operations this demo solution includes a very simple console application. This demo creates 2 new objects and stores them in a db4o database. Before and after each save operation a list of all available objects is written to the console. Here is the entire code:
When you run this demo for the 2nd time, then at the end of the demo there will be 4 objects in the database instead of 2. If you declare a new object in code and you save that object to db4o then it will also be a new object in the database. If you want to rerun this demo more often, then just uncomment the line tat deletes de database file.
One other thing that comes to mind very quickly is the question what will happen if you change your object. Just try it out by uncommenting the Age property and the console write that will display that property (make sure that the file delete statement is commented out). As you can see the application keeps on working. The old objects will show the default value.
This demo is not meant to be an exhaustive presentation of all the capabilities of LINQ or db4o. Instead I want to show you how easy it is to use in an ASP.NET website. (using it in a winforms application is just as easy.). This demo will show you how to use LINQ for db4o with some popular .NET databound objects. Every demo will be shown in its own .aspx page and can be executed without the need of the other pages.
The data model for this demo is very simple. There are only 2 objects with a couple of properties. We have an Employee object and an Office object. The 2 objects are related to each other through the property HomeBase in the Employee object which is of type Office. Because the property is of the type Office it is declaring a relation between the two objects. The Employee object also has the property Manager which is of type Employee. This property declarers a hierarchical relation to itself.
Both objects are also overwriting the method ToString to make it easy to show what an object instance is about. I only gave the Office object the methods Select, Insert, Update and Delete. These methods are there so that the object could be used in the DetailsView demo
If you want to use Linq for db4o then you need to add at least 2 references. Db4objects.Db4o is the core library for db4o. This one is always necessery. For using Linq for db4o you will also need the Db4objects.Db4o.Linq library. There are Linq query constructions that need 2 additional libraries. This was the case with the TreeView demo. The libraries that are also needed are Cecil.FlowAnalysis and Mono.Cecil. To bad that LINQ for db4o only gives you a warning about the need of these libraries at runtime. All of these libraries are part of the db4o v7.2 download. Besides those libraries I also added the log4net library. The DataManager is using log4net for creating the log file.
Of course like any other data storage you still have to tell what database to use. The time will also come quick that you want to be able to say how the data storage should be used. And then we also want to do that on one central location. For this I created the static class db4oManager. If you do not need special configuration or logging, then this class only needs to be a couple of lines of code. Here is the most basic version of that class. The WithContainer method is set up in such a way that it is easy to use with a Lambda Expression. The demos will show you how to use this method.
The bad news is that this won't work when you get more than a couple of visitors to your website. If you reference a container by executing the OpenFile method then the file will be locked the moment you write to it. This is OK for most client applications but not for most web applications. Fortunately db4o has a Client-Server mode for overcoming this problem. This could also easily be extended to a Networked Client-Server application where the server could be on a different machine. Here is the code for the db4oManager where the db4o database is accessed using the Embedded Client-Server mode.
This Embedded Client-Server mode is still not optimal. It could easily be optimized by managing the server at the application level or even a read only client at the application level. In the latest version (May 9) of this demo I added static properties for this which are set in the static constructor. We can now even use the db4oManager.Client directly in our LINQ queries without using the WithContainer construction. See the demos below how to use this. Here is the code for the constructor that creates the client object container that we will use.
You do have to be aware that all actions in an container will be handeled as one transaction. So you only can use this db4oManager.Client for read only access. If you want to manipulate data, then use the WithContainer construction. If you want te see an other implementation of a Client-server configuration, then look at the httpHandler that is part of the Db4oSiteCS.vsi template project that can be found at the page: Starter Kit - Web Applications With db4o.
Like most databases you will probably also want to specify indexes and constrains. For most constraints you should just add validation code to your property setters. For declaring the Indexes and unique value constraints the static constructor of the DataManager class is a very nice location. In the code below you will see a strange field notation. This is because the properties are declared using the new C# 3.0 syntax and we do not have private variables. Besides that the declaration is straight forward.
The DataManager class in the demo will also show you how to react on events that de db4o manager raises. Discussing these events is out of scope for this publication. If you want to see more, then have a look at the WithLoggingContainer method. You can also look for more information about db4o events in the db4o reference pages about the Event Registry API. For managing your logfiles there is no better tool than log4net. A nice intro by David Salter about log4net can be found here.
All the demos can be accessed from the Default.aspx page. Besides links to the demos and links to various sources the Default.aspx page also has 2 buttons. One for deleting the database and an other one to create the database and fill it with dummy data. The Default.aspx page will also show the number of offices and employees in the database. Below you will see the demos explained.
One of the new controls in ASP.NET 3.5 that I think will be very popular is the <asp:ListView> control. The ListView control supports the data editing, insertion, deleting, paging and sorting semantics of higher-level controls like the GridView. But - unlike the GridView - it provides you with complete control over the html markup generated. This demo will not do any data editing. You can see how to do data editing in the DetailsView demo.
The ListView in this demo is using a (slightly modified) pager that is written by Luis Ramirez. The usage of this pager is of no concern for the LINQ for db4o demo. Its just a nice looking pager and if you like you could use any other pager. This is what it will look like:
Using a Repeater control inside the ItemTemplate of an other Repeater control is as easy as using any other control. In the inner repeater you will declare the datasource to be the child object using the Eval syntax. For this demo the LINQ query will return a list of objects with only 2 properties. It will return a property of type Office plus a IEnumerable<Employee> property.
For selecting the data your query will become a little more complex. This LINQ query is using a subquery for selecting the list of employees for every office. Instead of using the Office collection as the base for this query it is doing a group query on the Employee table. The benefit of this is that you only get the Offices where there are employees with that office as its homebase. (and we can see how to use the group into syntax)
Usually you do not want to show every object in your database. Adding a where statement is as easy as it would be in SQL. If you want more information about how to do that, then have a look at this page with 101 LINQ samples. This demo will show you how to use a second collection in the LINQ query for filtering data. Although accessing the data in this collection will be done using an other provider than the LINQ for db4o provider, the query syntax will look like the collection is part of the db4o container. The aspx page is quite straightforward. There are no strange things here:
It is very easy to write one LINQ query that uses multiple LINQ providers. This will look very transparent in the LINQ code. This demo uses a CheckBoxList of all the offices for filtering the Employee data and it will show the result in a Repeater. Just select one or more offices and you will see all the employees that have that office as their HomeBase. This is all the code you need:
DataManager.WithLoggingContainer(container =>
{
if (!IsPostBack)
{
// Initially we will fill the checkbox list with all the existing Offices
CheckBoxListOffices.DataSource = (from Office off in db4oManager.Client
select (Office)off).ToList();
CheckBoxListOffices.DataBind();
}
else
{
// After a postback we will show a list of employees which have an office
// in one of the selected offices.
RepeaterEmployees.DataSource = (
from Employee emp in db4oManager.Client
from ListItem off in CheckBoxListOffices.Items
where emp.HomeBase.OfficeName == off.Value
&& (off.Selected == true)
select emp).ToList();
RepeaterEmployees.DataBind();
}
});
If you want to use a <asp:DetailsView> with LINQ for db4o then you need to link the DetailsView to an ObjectDataSource control. In the ObjectDataSource you will set all the methods that are needed for data manipulation. The control expects the methods to be in the Office class itself. This is why the Office class has static methods for Select, Insert, Update and Delete. These methods must have a specific signature.
This details view does not have any code in the code behind file. All data manipulation code is part of the Office class. You do have to be aware that if the office object is passed to one of those procedures, that it is not connected tot the actual db4o container. This is why the Delete and Update methods fist have to retrieve the object from the database. The data manipulation must be performed on the object that is retrieved from the db4o database.
In the code above we are doing an insert without testing if the object already exists. In the DataManager we specified the OfficeName to be unique. Adding an already existing OfficeName will now throw an UniqueFieldValueConstraintViolationException which you could handle. An other option would be to check if the object already exists (for this you could use the select that is in the update method).
A treeview can give you a nice presentation of your hierarchical data. In our case we have Employees each having a manager which is also an Employee. We will build a nice treeview for this. In the aspx page the treeview is declared just like any other treeview.
Populating a treeview with data is usually quite some work. Usually you will use a recursive method that executes a loop for adding child nodes. There is an alternative. You could add IHierarchy support to your data. Fortunately Scott Piegdon made a very nice tutorial that explains how to do that. For more information have a look at his article Implementing IHierarchy Support Into Your Custom Collections. I created the EmployeeCollection class for the IHierarchicalEnumerable collection and the class EmployeeHierarchy which has the Employee class as its base class plus the IHierarchyData interface for the objects. I choose to make s separate class for the IHierachyData implementation instead of embedding it within the Employee class itself. The details for this are out of scope for this article. For more information about those classes, please have a look at Scott's article
When you bind a <ASP:TreeView> control to an IHierarchicalEnumerable collection then the entire tree will be generated. In our case this means that for every Employee a query is executed to look what the child objects are. When I looked at log file, I noticed that that building the tree will execute about 300 queries. On my machine that took about 20 seconds. Of course this performance is unacceptable. Fortunately this could easily be fixed by doing 1 query that retrieves all the objects and then executing the queries on the objects in memory instead of querying the database. For this I created an EmployeeCache class. Now the page shows within 2 seconds.
For the IHierarchy code I needed to convert the result of a LINQ query a couple of times so I created an extension method that can be found in the EmployeeHierarchyExtensions class.
The code created for the IHierarchy support is now considerable. The good thing is that you can now use is wherever you need an object with IHierarchy support. The code is also quite generic and is very easy to port to other objects. The only thing we now have to do in the aspx page is:
LINQ for db4o is extremely easy to use and very powerful. The learning curve is very low. This publication only scratched the surface of the possibilities of db4o. If you are trying to compare it with the RDBMS that you now use then you definitely have to take into consideration that:
The performance is very good. According to this benchmark its one of the best.
All work within db4o ObjectContainer is transactional. (Manual rollback and commit are available.)
History
This demo was created April 2008 for a presentation that I gave for the company that I work for (Mirabeau)
May 9 : Changed the db4o manager so that the Server instance will stay active during the application. I also added a global Client reference so that we could just reference the db4o container in a LINQ query without explicitly instantiating a container. We now even need less code for accessing a db4o database.
So even if db4o assembly is in the GAC and therefore has FullTrust, and has the AllowPartiallyTrustedCaller attribute, when it tries to do something dangerous the system will walk up the stack to make sure the *callers* have the right to do this too -- and of course the medium-trust web app is not going to have permission. The way to get past this would be to have the db4o assembly assert its elevated CAS rights immediately before it does anything needing permission; doing this makes the system forego walking up the stack testing CAS permissions.
Okay, so with some sprinkling of CAS assertions throughout the db4o code, this problem could presumably be solved. But it sounds like there's one more problem: ultimately the process identity of the web app would still not have the rights to do the dangerous functionality. As the article puts it:
"We can have our GAC assemblies assert permissions until the cows come home, but without the blessing of the process identity under which code is running there won’t be access to restricted resources and functionality. To overcome the limitations of application code running as the machine account, a higher privilege account can be impersonated for the duration necessary to access restricted resources and functionality."
Well. Getting the credentials of an elevated account to impersonate on a hosted machine is just about as likely as the host granting your web app FullTrust in the first place!
You probably want to keep the server open for all instances and you only want to open and close clients for processing actions. Actually even better, you may want to have a client associated to a thread, so you don't go through opening and closing clients for processing multiple actions for a thread.
Of course you are right. I thought about adding the http module that is part of the db4o starter kit but desided not to do that. This article was intended to be a beginner tutorial. Adding a more complex client-server model will make this article more difficult to understand. I will have a look at it later this week. I will then probably add a second web project for this.
I just uploaded a modified version where the Server and Client container instance are maintained at the application level. All selects now directly use this Client container instead of using the WithContainer construction.
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A blog dedicated to free thinking, liberty and peace
Category
Films
‘Eye in the Sky’ is the latest Hollywood film dealing with the wars of the American Empire. This one however, is a bit different. Other than the usual military glorification that we have seen in films like “American Sniper” or… Continue Reading →
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Images from this collection may be protected by copyright law (title 17 of the US Code), and their use beyond the exceptions outlined in the Fair Use (section 107) and Reproduction by Libraries and Archives (section 108) provisions therein may violate federal law.
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News & Events
Bel Air, MD -- The 4th Annual Heather L. Hurd 5K Run and 1 Mile Fun Walk takes place at Harford Community College Saturday, November 10, at 9 a.m. On-site race registration takes place in the newly renovated Susquehanna Center auxiliary gymnasium from 8 to 8:45 a.m., with the race starting at 9 a.m.
The race, on a USA Track and Field Certified Course, honors the memory of Heather L. Hurd, a history major at Harford Community College from 1999 to 2003, who was killed in 2008 by a distracted driver who was texting.
Tim Hartley of WXCY-FM will serve as master of ceremonies. The Ravens’ mascot, Poe, will also be on hand for the festivities.
Among the exhibitors at the race will be Upper Chesapeake Health, conducting blood-pressure screenings before and after the race.
The walk/run was established by the Hurd Family and Harford Community College in 2009 to raise funds for book scholarships for HCC students and to raise awareness of traffic accidents, their consequences and what can be done to prevent them.
The event also remembers the hundreds of victims who are killed on Maryland roads each year and acknowledges the critical work of first responders—fire, police and ambulance personnel.
The registration fee for the race is $20 per person in advance and $25 on race day. The cost is $10 for those under 18 years of age accompanied by a registered adult.
Each participant will receive a T-shirt and refreshments after the race. Runner’s gloves will be given to the first 200 registrants. Awards will be presented based on age groups and final times. Participants may pre-register for the race online --- click Website below.
“We invite the entire community to come out for this event,” said Eyvo Johnson, the run/walk coordinator. “We will have a course for every level of participant, from a one mile fun walk to a USA Track and Field Certified 5K for the experienced runners.”
For those unable to walk or run but would like to participate, donations may be made to sponsor a participant running or walking in the race, or an outright donation may be made by online --- click Website below.
“It is my hope that by bringing awareness to the tragedies of distracted driving to every run/walk participant, they will remember this message every time they get behind the wheel,” said Russell Hurd, Heather’s father. “I want to save other families from the grief that our family experiences every day with the loss of our Heather.”
Over the past three years, $32,000 has been raised by the race for Remembrance Book Scholarships. Book scholarships have been presented to 54 deserving HCC students.
Also taking place at the run/walk will be a raffle. First prize is two tickets to the Ravens vs. Steelers game on December 2. Second prize is a signed, framed poster of Joe Flacco. Tickets cost $5 each and may be purchased at the race on November 10 or by contacting Russell Hurd via email at [email protected].
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This Is How LDID’s Mutsumi Celebrated Her Birthday
Disclaimer: I was giving up on Living Dead I Dolls. It’s not that they don’t do anything — they do a lot! — but that they weren’t doing very much that made me want to talk about them in this context. But then they added this little sucker to Soundcloud, and I got excited for a minute, and then got un-excited for like three minutes, but:
Make your own decisions!
I actually thought it was kind of lame at first and was just going to Weekender it with a little throwaway joke, but then it totally redeemed itself in 20-second segment that gave me an ounce of hope in LDID as an entity after I was originally ready to go all-in on them (and they didn’t deliver like so many when will I learn).
But there you go. Happy birthday to Mutsumi from Homicidols.com, which I am obligated to say because I talked about you on your birthday and it’d be rude to not at least pretend.
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Posts Tagged ‘treatment’
A stye is an infection the sebaceous glands of Zeis at the base of the eyelashes, or an infection of the apocrine sweat glands of Moll. Styes are usually caused by the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium. Styes contain water and pus and the bacteria will spread if the stye is forcefully ruptured. For more details on this […]
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Astronomers Monitor Asteroid to Pass Near Mars
Updated: Jan 9, 2008
As expected, scientists at JPL's Near-Earth Object Office have further refined the trajectory estimate for asteroid 2007 WD5 and ruled out any possibility of a Mars impact on Jan.
>>
Alignment on December 24, 2007
This is a special day that happens only every 26 months when Earth is exactly between the Sun and Mars. Find out more about opposition and experiment with Mars and Earth in their orbits.
>>
Radar Examines 'Stealth' Regions of Mars
The radar system on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has uncovered new details about some of the most mysterious deposits on Mars: the Medusae Fossae Formation.
>>
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Blessed with untouched, lush forests, mountain ranges, Krabi’s only National Park, the 31,325-rai of far-reached Khao Phanom Pencha National Park, covers parts of the municipality, AoLuek and KhaoPhanom districts. It is also Krabi’s highest altitude at 1,397 meters above the sea level, home to natural wonders like waterfalls, streams and caves, making it’s a perfect habitat for wild animals from Asian tapirs, Sumatran serows, Asiatic black bear and fishing cat to over 218 bird species such as eagles, hornbills and woodpeckers.
Waterfalls are among the must-see attractions here, with highlights are Huay To and Huay Sad waterfalls. HuayTo Waterfall, which is originated from PhanomBencha Mountain, featuring 5 cascades, each of which has its own name: Wang Sam Hap, Wang Chong Loi, Wang Doi Prong, Wang Thewada and Wang Ton Phrio, respectively. Huay To flows into KrabiYai Canal in Krabi’s provincial town. Next stop is Huay Sade Waterfall which is only 300 meters away from the park’s office. Slightly smaller, Huay Sade owns 3 cascades of crystal clear pool of refreshing water that eventually flows into Ton Canal and KrabiYai Canal. Both waterfalls offer adventurous trekking trails, which can span from two to three nights (camping involved) passing through different stops in the lush, tropical forest where you’ll enjoy panoramic sceneries. The weather is comfortable and cool all year round, however, it’s best to get the needed information ahead of your travel. Rental tent for 2-8 people is offered at 150-600 THB per night and it is 30 THB per tent per night if bring your own tents. Kindly contact the National Park’s office for more information.
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Du Quoin Police blotter
The following information was obtained from the Du Quoin Police Department. Note that arrests and charges are allegations only, not findings of guilt.
Monday, April 2
3:43 a.m. Amy Halstead, 33, of Du Quoin, was charged with driving a 2006 Chev HHR northbound in the 100 block of South Washington when she fell asleep and lost control striking a utility pole and then the front of a building owned by David Searby and finally a road sign before coming to a stop. Halstead was transported to Marshall Browning Hospital for treatment. She then posted $100 cash bond and her driver's license on charges of improper lane usage and driving under the influence of drugs.
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Recently I, and several of my coworkers, were let go from Endless as they continue look for ways to accomplish their mission of empowering the world with technology. I was with Endless for right at one year, though it seems much longer than that. During my brief time there I learned so much, met so many wonderful people, and got a taste of life beyond the confines of North America and Europe. I am grateful for the opportunity that Endless gave me, and wish them only success in the future.
After a little over 6 years, I am embarking on a new adventure. Today is my last day at Canonical, it’s bitter sweet saying goodbye precisely because it has been such a joy and an honor to be working here with so many amazing, talented and friendly people. But I am leaving by choice, and for an opportunity that makes me as excited as leaving makes me sad.
Late last year Amazon introduce anew EC2 imagecustomized for Machine Learning (ML) workloads. To make things easier for data scientists and researchers, Amazon worked on including a selection of ML libraries into these images so they wouldn’t have to go through the process of downloading and installing them (and often times building them) themselves.
Java is a well established language for developing web applications, in no small part because of it’sindustry standard frameworkfor building them: Servlets and JSP. Another important part of this standard is the Web Archive, or WAR, file format, which defines how to provide a web application’s executables and how they should be run in a way that is independent of the application server that will be running them.
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Steinberg to meet with President Ma during trip to Taiwan
Speaking at the newly launched Association of Foreign
Relations in Tapei, Taiwan, Dean Steinberg praised President Ma Ying-jeou’s
efforts to promote dialogue aimed at managing territorial disputes.
During his 3-day trip to Taiwan, Steinberg will meet with President Ma, other
government officials and politicians, and academics; he will also deliver a
keynote speech at the 42nd Taiwan-American Conference on Contemporary
China. Read the Focus Taiwan article and the Taipei Times piece. 12/04/13
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Growing up in The Bahamas, I remember my grandmother’s asue. There weren’t any banks where she lived on the island of Inagua, and even if there had been, it wasn’t customary for women to frequent them. To adapt, women (and sometimes men) formed their own informal savings groups, known as asues. As her group’s custodian, my grandmother collected a weekly contribution from participants who would then withdraw money on special occasions to cover school fees or larger purchases.
Asues,susus or panderos, as they are known in Spanish-speaking countries, promote financial education, savings, social inclusion and investment, and in Latin America and the Caribbean they are still alive and well. In fact, 18 percent of people in the region still seek loans from family, friends or informal lenders.
However, for companies on a growth trajectory, these informal options may not be enough. To improve their access to finance, I look to the banking sector for solutions.
If an emerging firm wants to buy cutting-edge technology, invest in research and development or expand its skilled labor, its first port of call is usually a bank. Yet, while 45 percent of firms in Latin America and the Caribbean use banks to finance working capital, in The Bahamas, it’s only 15 percent.
Banks can be powerful engines of development, but there is still untapped potential for downscaling and product diversification. By creating new financial products that promote social inclusion and environmental sustainability, banks can help firms grow while increasing their own profits. The Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC) currently supports more than 1 million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) through its portfolio of 198 transactions with financial institutions.
After securing financing, the next step for a firm is finding equity investments. That, however, is far from the norm. Regionally, investments financed by equity hover around 4%, and in The Bahamas, that number is halved. The IIC is increasing its product offerings in this segment – both through funds and direct capital investments.
The third step in a company’s growth is to diversify funding via fixed-income markets. Fixed income provides firms with a diversity of maturities, interest rates, ticket sizes and risk profiles depending on their circumstances. Longer tenors are especially critical to firms in agriculture, manufacturing and service sectors.
While private debt issuance in local markets has recovered since its low in 2008, it is still a third of what you find in developed markets like the US. One challenge is that any issuance with a rating lower than a local AAA generally struggles to access markets. And most of our region’s private debt is creditworthy but not AAA. The more bonds are issued, the more references we have to price future securities.
One last step in a company’s growth trajectory is a listing on the local stock exchange, where investors can purchase shares and take equity positions. The Mercado Integrado Latinoamericano (MILA) is the association of stock exchanges of Chile, Colombia and Peru. Together the three exchanges (and soon Mexico) aim to give investors a greater supply of securities, issuers and sources of funding. In the Caribbean, IPOs have benefited GraceKennedy, Commonwealth Bank, and Goddard’s Enterprises. Yet, the reality is that only very few companies get there.
So how do we smooth the path for companies?
In order to strengthen access to financing, we first need to deepen local capital markets. This is especially important for Caribbean family-owned businesses, many of which have comparative advantages and growth potential but remain wary of public audits, ownership, and scrutiny.
Second is testing new structures. The IIC is increasing participation of institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and impact investors in its projects. Social impact bonds could bring trillions from investors seeking sound investments that boost social and environmental sustainability.
And finally, we maintain an active dialogue with governments through the public sector of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which helps us address regulatory issues and create an environment conducive to private-sector development.
Companies in the Caribbean have come a long way from local asues to where they are today. Our goal is to keep enabling their growth while scaling up our efforts to create positive impact.
Xaymaca is the Taino name for Jamaica which translates into “land of wood and water” but how much wood and how much water does Jamaica have today?
The Forestry Department figured out a way to teach enthusiastic hikers about the state of forests and watershed management in Jamaica. Every year, a challenging hike is organized in March to explore trails around our world renowned Blue Mountains, named as such because of the azure haze that settles around its peaks. The timing of the hike is also aligned to the observance of International Day of Forests on March 21.
Last week, three of us daredevils at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Country Office in Jamaica signed up to participate in the hike as part of the calendar activities of the Corporate Sustainability Program (CSP). The 2016 Forest Trek, as the Forestry Department calls it, was a 20km roundtrip hike starting in the parish of Portland, walking uphill past several coffee farms, to the Cinchona Botanical Gardens located at 5,000 feet above sea level in the Blue Mountains Forest Reserve.
Enthusiastic and packed with all kinds of power bars, we showed up at the check point ready to walk through the forest and enjoy the panoramic views of the mountain ridges and surrounding forest areas.
Over 55% of Jamaica’s terrain can be described as hilly or mountainous. This feature of its landscape and its extensive network of rivers give Jamaica a distinct beauty for which it is world famous. The entire island may be considered a watershed based on its topography and hydrology.
While we made our way through the limestone forests of the John Crow and Blue Mountains we learned that much of the forest land is on steep or rugged terrain with little access. Because of inaccessibility, only about 26% of the natural forests can contribute to sustained timber production. The prospects for industrial uses of domestic timber for major forest products are minimal. However, according to the National Environment & Planning Agency (NEPA), the use of mangroves and other species from the high forest for fuelwood and charcoal manufacture has been of considerable negative environmental effect, particularly as it relates to watershed degradation.
An approximate of 480 hikers participated in the 7th staging of the Forest Trek 2016
In Jamaica 19 watershed management units have been declared in critical state, highly degraded and in need of remedial work to return to an acceptable state. The main threats are deforestation due to the clearing of steep and unstable slopes for the cultivation of coffee or yam sticks, road construction, charcoal burning, timber extraction, grazing and cropping. Not to mention, climate change related threats such as changes in rainfall patterns, changes in humidity and evaporation rates, increasing damage from storms and hurricanes, increased frequency and intensity of bush fires and changes to microclimates are also negatively impacting the forests.
Hikers learned about different species of trees like the Eucalyptus
It is no wonder that the Forestry Department has recommended that all remaining dry forests island-wide should be set aside for uses compatible with conservation and forest restoration.
It was clear to us that water and forestry need to be brought into the full sustainable development framework. After all, forests and trees are essential for managing the planet’s water. That is the reason for which IDB programs, such as the Adaptation Program and Financial Mechanisms under the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR,) are focusing efforts on the implementation of critical adaptation measures around the Rio Minho Watershed, which is one of the most severely degraded watersheds on the island. Special emphasis is on land conservation, agroforestry, reforestation and climate smart agriculture, among others.
Terry-Ann Coley-Graham, Country Office Jamaica and Anaitée Mills from the Climate Change Division, IDB, are seen here about to cross a water drain from the mountain.
As we completed this long and interesting trek, we understood the importance of creating the right activities to educate and raise awareness among the population, and also the need for close collaboration between development partners and state agencies in the timely implementation of these and other programs for thecountry´s long term benefit before it is too late.
*Therese Turner-Jones is the General Manager of the Caribbean Country Department at the Inter-American Development Bank. View her TED-style talk at the IDB-IIC Annual Governors’ Meeting that was held in The Bahamas (April 2016) here.
Development is not about economic growth but rather about creating freedom, helping people flourish, and simply making them happy. This is not a new concept.
The West Indies Under-19 cricket team triumphed in the World Cup earlier in the year and the senior West Indies cricket teams had outstanding victories obtaining both male and female world championships. These wins were even more compelling because of the joy its residents felt, including a sense of unity as Caribbean people.
Lately, for a mix of tourism and commodity-dependent small countries, the region’s fortunes have been limited given overwhelming circumstances: brain drain, falling terms of trade, vulnerability to commodity prices, drugs and crime, and rapid globalization. Competitiveness and better prospects for Caribbean people will be key.
As the largest multilateral lender in the Caribbean, the IDB is seriously committed to supporting the region’s quest for development. The Bank’s lending programme, in six Caribbean countries, as a share of GDP is 10 times more than in larger economies. The Bank has provided more than US$3.8 billion in lending over the past five years and seeks to deepen this engagement over the next few years.
This April, the IDB celebrated its first annual meeting in the Caribbean in more than three decades. We used this moment to renew our commitment and to hone our strategy for tackling development in the region. After all, we strive to improve lives in the Caribbean by creating vibrant economies where people are safe, productive, and happy. Some considerations in this regard include:
-An economy that is vibrant is one where the rules of the game are clear, capable people find work, and the vulnerable are protected.
-Safety is important for economic growth and prosperity. Recent analyses in our latest quarterly bulletin suggest that a reduction in violent crime would boost growth. What happens in the home plays an important role in these outcomes. Evidence shows that by being more engaged with their children, parents can significantly reduce the likelihood of their children getting involved in destructive behaviour. The Bank’s victimization surveys enables us to understand factors that may protect or put individuals at risk of crime, identify vulnerable groups, estimate the magnitude of unreported crimes and gauge the effects of crime on people. In addition, the Bank is partnering with several Caribbean countries to finance crime-reduction programs and social intervention including parenting support, antiviolence initiatives, and after-school programs. However, we can do more.
-Productivity-driven growth is more sustainable. Linked to enhancing our productivity is the overall levels of unemployment and underemployment. One-quarter of Caribbean youth are unemployed, more than three times the unemployment rate for Caribbean adults. Unemployment at an early age reduces employment options and earnings later in life, leads to lower productivity levels, and may contribute to higher social unrest. Delivering better trained people, enhancing efficiency in the public service, using appropriate technologies and reducing skills mismatch can boost productivity. None of these areas is foreign to the work that the IDB is doing with it counterparts in the field. Again, the Bank wishes to do more.
-Development means happy people. There is room to make residents happier. One way of tackling this is by thinking together about how to promote equality of opportunity.
Our cricket champions kept the whole region engaged and united. The 15 individuals and the supporting cast of managers, coaches, and trainers thought, planned, prepared and, as a team, executed plans on the field with focus and passion. Their success resulted in making us all very happy. The parallel to development is here. It is hard work and it is created together. The IDB wants to find ways to stay engaged with the Caribbean as we think, plan and execute together. Just as in cricket, we are in the business of making people happy.
]]>http://gleanerblogs.com/caribdevtrendsplus/?feed=rss2&p=4680US Supreme Court: One Less Known Example of How a Supreme Court Decision, Shapes Up Judiciary Reality in the Caribbeanhttp://gleanerblogs.com/caribdevtrendsplus/?p=465
http://gleanerblogs.com/caribdevtrendsplus/?p=465#commentsFri, 15 Apr 2016 15:08:17 +0000http://gleanerblogs.com/caribdevtrendsplus/?p=465by Robert Pantzer
“These are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made. What distinguishes many convicts is a lack of support and second chances.” Barack Obama
Not too long a time ago, the 2011 “Brown v. Plata” sharply split 5:4 the US Supreme Court, when it affirmed a lower court case ruling that the California corrections system was violating civil rights laws and therefore was violating the Eighth Amendment which provides a constitutional guarantee against “cruel and unusual punishments.” The Supreme Court Decision had to be carried out at the State and Governor’s level.[1]
While in his first term as governor of California, in 1976 “Jerry” Brown Jr. signed into law the “determinate” sentencing bill that set fixed lengths of time that had to be served before an inmate could be considered for parole. Now, almost 40 years later, Governor Brown has announced he’ll work to get a ballot initiative before state voters in November 2016 to undo parts of the law he signed, allowing earlier parole eligibility and consideration of a prisoner’s behavior behind bars. In making his announcement, Brown estimated the change could give new hope of early release to thousands of prisoners now incarcerated.
But what was decided at the Supreme Court level and translated into a new incarceration policy at the US state level is receiving more and more attention in the Caribbean and Latin American countries. The penitentiaries in those countries are actually plagued by the same issues as their equivalents in the US.
The tranquil country of The Commonwealth of Bahamas: a tourist destination, which is renowned for year round sunshine and beautiful beaches, is becoming more known for high levels of crime. The Bahamas is also home to a large prison population relative to global levels. Currently, the country’s incarceration rate is 379 per 100,000 inhabitants, which is significantly higher than the average global incarceration rate of 144 per 100,000. At 162.4% of their capacity, Bahamian prisons hold approximately 1,506 inmates at an annual cost of US$14,000 per inmate. Forty-two percent of prisoners have not been convicted of a crime but are being held while awaiting trial.
Part of the problem is that The Bahamas sends a high number of nonviolent, low-level drug and property offenders to prison and keeps them there. When they are released, many are not assisted with rebuilding their lives, so they quickly return to crime, ending up behind bars again and costing the state more money. The government has acknowledged that by just locking away young individuals, for crimes associated with drug use and firearm possession will not solve the problem. This is the reason why the Bahamian government, seconded by the Inter-American Development Bank, hosted on February 4 and 5, in Nassau a round table comprised of international experts to discuss new ways to address the penitentiary situation by rolling out a new parole system.
As stated by the Ministry of National Security, The Hon. B.J. Nottage, in his opening remarks for this event, “Guns, drugs and gangs are the triad in our country today. Approximately 24 percent of convicted inmates upon their release will be convicted for a second crime”. The roundtable of experts in Nassau was just the beginning of a greater debate aiming at a draft law for a parole system in The Bahamas. Hopefully this draft legislation will be produced before the end of the year as an important step on the path of ultimately making hundreds of incarcerated people eligible for parole.
Finally, cutting the non-violent prison population, the same argument as used in the US around this subject, will save the Bahamian people in prison operating costs. The savings could be spent on the re-entry programs and on keeping violent and other high-risk offenders behind bars. Such re-entry system may have the potential to reduce crime while also offering a better return on public safety dollars — a unique combination. As this debate kicks off, it is important to educate and engage the public who might be resistant to these changes for the wrong reasons. If the Bahamian people desire a tough but strategic stance on crime, then this is a wise way to go.
[1] The alleged deficiencies included inadequate medical screening of incoming prisoners; delays in or failure to provide access to medical care, including specialist care; untimely responses to medical emergencies; the failure to recruit and retain sufficient numbers of competent medical staff; disorganized and incomplete medical records; a “lack of quality control procedures, including lack of physician peer review, quality assurance and death reviews”; a lack of protocols to deal with chronic illnesses, including diabetes, heart disease, hepatitis, and HIV; and the failure of the administrative grievance system to provide timely or adequate responses to complaints concerning medical care.
As in other parts of the LAC region, crime and violence have deeply negative effects on businesses and individuals in the Caribbean. The IDB has supported data generation in the region using victimization surveys for individuals and businesses, the highlights of which are presented in this month’s quarterly bulletin with a special focus on crime.
This bulletin provides a preview of some key highlights from a forthcoming IDB study using new data on victimization of individuals and businesses to provide a complete picture of crime and violence in the region. The bulletin provides a regional overview and country specific crime profiles.
Key takeaways for the region include:
Crime strongly affects persons in the Caribbean. 40% of the Caribbean population identified crime and security-related issues as the main problems facing their country in 2014/2015, even above poverty, the economy or inequality.
Crime is significantly associated with reduced economic growth. One of the channels through which crime can affect growth is through its impact on the private sector. We find that crime does have a significant impact on firms in the Caribbean region.
The defining characteristic of crime in the region is the uniquely high level of violent crime. Victimization surveys show particularly high levels of assault/threat in the Caribbean, often with the use of guns. The region experiences medium levels of property crime in comparison to international capital city averages.
Victimization rates were generally higher in capital metropolitan areas than at the national level. However, the concentration in capital cities seems somewhat less pronounced in the Caribbean than in other world regions.
The Bahamas (New Providence) and Jamaica (Kingston Metropolitan Area) stand out with the highest levels of violent crime. In Trinidad and Tobago (Port of Spain Metropolitan Area) the levels of robbery and vehicle theft were also comparatively high for the region. Suriname (Paramaribo) and Barbados (Greater Bridgetown Area) show significantly lower rates in nearly all crimes.
]]>http://gleanerblogs.com/caribdevtrendsplus/?feed=rss2&p=4601Caribbean Diaspora: How Can They Finance Development in the Region?http://gleanerblogs.com/caribdevtrendsplus/?p=456
http://gleanerblogs.com/caribdevtrendsplus/?p=456#commentsFri, 26 Feb 2016 12:00:40 +0000http://gleanerblogs.com/caribdevtrendsplus/?p=456by Mark D. Wenner
The Caribbean diaspora is huge and members tend to send significant amounts of remittances back to the region to help relatives and to invest in property and family businesses. It is estimated that Caribbean migrants number 4,116,000 in the United States (1.2% of the total population and remitted approximately US$5 billion in 2013. Other countries with large populations of Caribbean migrants are Canada (2.2% of total population), United Kingdom (1% of total population), and the Netherlands (3% of the total population). Migrants in these countries also remit substantial amounts, but the largest source market is still the US.
The remittances sent home serve many purposes; (1) to smooth and support consumption patterns of dependent relatives (e.g. food expenses, medical and elderly care, school fees and supplies, clothes, rent) or mortgage payments); (2) to make investments in businesses and real estate; (3) for savings; and (4) the repayment of debts. The flows are so substantial that they exceed more than 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Guyana, Jamaica, and Haiti. The benefits of the remittances are clear. At the micro level, they help alleviate poverty and at the macro level, they help build foreign exchange reserves that help with balance of payments.
The homeland governments, however, tend to be fiscally constrained, suffering from mounting fiscal deficits, slow growth, and facing yawning infrastructure deficits. Many government authorities in the region would like to tap into the some of the savings of migrants. In the case of Caribbean migrants, they tend to have better income earning potentials than other migrant groups. They tend to have higher levels of education and tend to work in more white-collar positions, at least for data available in the US. Thus, Caribbean migrants are the ideal target diaspora to target for diverting some of their remittances and savings into “development finance”. One way to do it is by issuing diaspora bonds. See Box 1.
Box 1: What is a Diaspora Bond?
A Diaspora Bond is a fixed income debt instrument that targets a community of emigrants outside the home country. Even though any person or institution can purchase the bond, preferential rates or a premium are given to members of the target diaspora. Even so, the preferential terms may be less than the open market for an instrument that is not normally perceived to be of high investment grade. It has emerged as a means to obtain hard currency financing. They are typically long-dated, fixed interest rate securities that can only be redeemed upon maturity. Marketing pricing is based on the prime rate.
But issuing a diaspora bond is not easy. Only a handful of countries have done it successfully, namely Israel and India. The most important first step is to understand the earning capacity of members of the target diaspora, what are their motivations, their investment preferences and their appetite for risk so as to design and market the bonds effectively. A second step is to properly structure and price the bond. A third step is to decide how to market and retail the bond.
A recent article highlights the issues and challenges of issuing diaspora bonds and posits that the migrant’s perceptions of their homelands are paramount. If a majority of the target diaspora does not trust their homeland governments to spend the monies raised well and to make timely debt repayments, they may be reluctant to engage. Thus, while patriotic and sentimental feelings can be exploited to raise money at a lower cost, but these feelings cannot substitute fully for good governance and sound macroeconomic management of the economy. Efforts to enhance the effectiveness of the public sector, to manage fiscal affairs prudently, to control corruption, to ably implement projects, to act in credible and transparent manners count heavily.
Negative economic impacts expected if link to brain damage is proven. Best hope is that scientists find no link.
The Zika virus has arrived in the Western Hemisphere and spawned a degree of alarm not previously witnessed with previous outbreaks involving mosquito borne viral infections like dengue and chikungunya. The reason for the increased fear is the apparent link between the Zika virus and microcephaly; a birth defect in newborns characterized by abnormally small head sizes and impaired brain functions.
If an incontrovertible causal link between the viral infection and birth defects were found, this new viral outbreak could have serious economic and reproductive health care repercussions across the Americas, especially so for the Caribbean, because the region is ill equipped and fiscally constrained.
To date, most of the focus has been on travel warnings instructing foreign, non-resident pregnant women against traveling to affected jurisdictions. But little attention has been paid to the virtually incalculable economic, psychological, and health implications for resident women of childbearing age in the region. Actions to date in the Caribbean region include increased mosquito control and public calls in the case of Jamaica for women to delay pregnancies (Chai, 2016).
Likely Economic Consequences in the Caribbean
For the seventeen tourist dependent economies of the Caribbean, the likely impact will be reduced visits by pregnant women and their accompanying friends and family members. Already cruise ship lines such as Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and Carnival and leading airline carriers such as United, Delta and American Airlines are offering rescheduling of cruises and flights changes or cancellations free of charge. While the statistics on the number of pregnant women who travel to the Caribbean or conceive while on holiday in the region is not easily obtained, the number is assumed to be relatively low by logical deduction. In a given year in the US, the major tourism source market for the main Caribbean dependent economies (47 percent)has an average 7.1 million pregnancies. Total tourist arrivals to the Caribbean numbered 26.3 million in 2014. Accordingly, the probable share of pregnant women who traveled to the Caribbean from the main source market is likely to be of a low magnitude, given that approximately 41 percent of arrivals are either less than 18 or older than 50 years, meaning that a sizeable number of female visitors are outside of childbearing years. Therefore, the value of lost tourism receipts, while nontrivial, is likely to be much less than the morbidity costs incurred by permanent residents of affected countries and territories.
Likely Responses to the Outbreak
The policy options are limited and imperfect. Moreover, the associated costs are quite large, if a direct link is proven between Zika viral infection and birth defects is proven.
First, mosquito population control operations would have to be mounted. This may include sustained fogging campaigns, dispersal of anti-larval insecticides in standing bodies of water, draining of stagnant waters, setting traps for mosquitos, and even releasing of genetically modified sterile male Aedes aegypti mosquitos into the wild.
Second, public education campaigns would have to be launched to avoid mosquito bites. Residents would have to use more insecticide repellant, wear long sleeve clothes, and install and use mosquito nets at night to lower the incidence of mosquito bites.
Third, pregnancies should be postponed until a vaccine is developed whose development may take years, implying the use of more contraception and better access to reproductive health services. But avoiding pregnancies may be easier said than done; especially it is the region in the world that has the highest relative rate of unintended and unwanted pregnancies as a share of total pregnancies, 64 percent (Segh et. al. 2014).
The best hope is that the scientists do not find a causal link between Zika infections and microcephaly. Hopefully, the 4,180 suspected cases of microcephaly reported in Brazil since October 2015 will have some other explanatory cause. Microcephaly is known to have several causes— including infection of the fetus with rubella (German measles), cytomegalovirus or toxoplasmosis (cat-litter disease); poisoning of the fetus by alcohol, mercury or radiation; severe maternal malnutrition, diabetes, and even several gene mutations, including Down’s syndrome. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), preliminary review of data shows no correlations between Zika outbreaks and microcephaly, normally a rare disorder, in other jurisdictions. Brazil seems to be an anomaly. Scientists may need several months to determine Zika causality and better understand the virus. Until more is known, mosquito control and contact avoidance seem to be the best strategies.
The Bahamas markets itself as a Tourist destination: An archipelago of 700 islands and Cays with white sand beaches, aqua transparent water and a green and pristine environment. For the most part, this is the case. However, garbage can easily be found on road sides, and derelict vehicles in some yards, and in the nearby bushes of some areas in New Providence and the Bahamian Family Islands. Plastic containers, styrofoam plates, and cups left on beaches, are a common discovery. What is worst is that all of these items and more, can be found in the sea.
Photo by Rosemary Clarice Hanna
Moreover, the spontaneous fires at the Harold Road landfill over the last five years made management of solid waste on the island of New Providence impossible. This was unacceptable, for me personally, because the pre-school that my daughter attended would from time to time become engulfed by the thick black smoke and fumes from these fires. At best, these fires would surround the school for a few hours and at worst for two weeks. Despite the school’s efforts to keep the children in-doors or request that they be collected and stay home until the fires were contained, by the time my daughter was 3 years old she had developed asthma.
In May 2014, the Government run Harold Road Landfill came under new management and fortunately, for all of us residing in New Providence, the frequency and intensity of the landfill fires have been reduced tremendously. Renew Bahamas, the company managing the Landfill, aims to reduce the amount of solid waste that ends up in the landfill by recycling plastics, cans, cardboards, metals, paper, and glass that comes in as garbage.
Harold road landfill fire
Additionally, Renew Bahamas aims to remediate and reconstruct the landfill, transforming it into a sanitary state, which will reduce and eventually eradicate the spontaneous fires.
This enormous initiative to recycle waste and reform the landfill will require the involvement of all persons residing in The Bahamas in order for it to be sustainable. The process of recycling starts in homes, schools, business places, and similar entities. We have to sort our garbage according to the types of waste items – plastics, cans, bottles, paper & cardboard, metals. There should be specific containers outside of homes and buildings in which to put each type of waste. Specifically labeled garbage containers for each type of commonly used items should be put in public areas. Further, the waste should be collected in this separated manner in order for recycling to be sustainable.
Photo by Syreta Roberts
Organic waste such as food should be disposed of separately and collected from schools, hotels, and restaurants to be prepared for composting in order for it to be used by local farms, nurseries, stables, and national agricultural and environmental projects at the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Sciences Institute (BAMSI).
Photo by Syreta Roberts
The development of a culture for proper solid waste management must involve all people residing in The Bahamas. A national communication plan on ways to involve and at the same time educate residents on improving the management of municipal solid waste by sorting garbage in the homes, cleaning up of beaches, paying fees to properly dispose of waste that can pollute the environment and the air would go a long way in gaining Bahamian buy-in on moving away from dumping locations to sanitary landfills. We will understand that garbage left uncollected for weeks will spread diseases, contaminate water, including mangroves, which play an important role in increasing our fisheries. We will understand that our involvement in proper municipal solid waste management is linked to reducing greenhouse emissions that contribute to global warming.
The rewards of such involvement would mean a healthier land and sea environment overall, less breeding grounds for vector-borne diseases, which will all strengthen our Tourism industry. Finally, finding ways to re-use, recycle, and properly reduce solid waste, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would make The Bahamas eligible for Carbon finance benefits.
Developing evidence-based policies, particularly in the developing world, can be difficult when reliable data are not available. Many crimes go unreported by the public, or unrecorded by the police. Victimization surveys are increasingly recognized as useful tools, but these surveys can be complex and costly, which can lead to cutting corners and producing low quality data. Because victimization surveys have unique requirements, it is easy for non-experts to wind up with a survey that may look like a crime survey, but cannot answer many of the important questions it was developed for.
A victimization survey is not the same as a “citizen security” survey. The latter is often a survey of perceptions and attitudes about crime, instead of actual individual experiences of crime. It is common to ask about both opinions and experiences in victimization surveys, but there are important differences between a victimization survey with some opinion questions and the opposite. Everyone has an opinion, so opinion surveys are much cheaper than victimization surveys. You don’t need as big a sample size to generate reliable estimates of public opinion on crime (explained further under number 3). If you’re spending the money to do a victimization survey, you should do a victimization survey. Otherwise, you shouldn’t call your survey a victimization survey and should not attempt to estimate prevalence of different crimes.
Deviating from recommended techniques and wording
Many specific survey techniques have been developed by experts in victimization surveys and it makes sense to follow them (learn more). Some techniques – such as those to increase disclosure, the placement of screener questions, question sequencing and particular question wording – have been perfected overtime. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Adopt many of these techniques and take questions directly from vetted instruments like the International Crime Victims Survey. Have a good reason if deviating from other surveys in terms of question wording or sequencing, and understand the implications (losing comparability).
Producing low quality surveys with inadequate sample sizes
Even where crime is high, it is still a fairly rare. This means that the victimization survey sample size (the amount of respondents surveyed) needs to be much larger than an average survey. The rarer the crime, the harder it is to measure. Violent crimes are less common than property crimes. So it takes a bigger sample to estimate assault than burglary. It takes an even bigger sample to ask for more information about a given crime (i.e. weapons used, relation between the victim and offender, etc.). Many so called victimization surveys include unusable questions on violent crimes based on their sample size. You can include many detailed questions, but you probably won’t have a big enough sample to use them all. Getting the right sample size means victimization surveys are far more expensive than other surveys (typically several million $US). A low budget negatively affects the outcome; low quality of data collected which is less compelling as ‘evidence’. Unfortunately, many people and government officials don’t know how to tell the difference between a good study and a poor one. Funders can really make a unique contribution by opting for good surveys of a smaller area (such as a capital city) over weak surveys of an entire country.
To the uninformed eye, the Marriott hotel erected in New Kingston, Jamaica is just a newly minted addition to the city’s towering infrastructure. But as with most things, there is more than meets the eye. Marriott was constructed in part by funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). As part of this partnership, five at-risk inner-city youth from the country’s Citizen Security and Justice Programme (CSJP) were granted six-month internships to work on that project. The CSJP programme is but one of the many “social innovation” projects that the IDB supports in Jamaica to integrate at-risk youth into the formal economy.
In Honduras, all participants were divided into groups to design a socially innovative smart-phone app to be used in the city to tackle a social problem. I was fortunately placed in Group “Naranja”. The main tenets of social innovation that we agreed were:
Identifying a problem (citizen security)
Saying why it was a problem (high crime rates);
Determining how to solve the problem (effective community participation).
Our app was called, “Juntos”. It certainly was not as easy as “abracadabra” but we won the most socially innovative prize! The above are just some of the tenets of social innovation. It does seem like a new mantle that all civil society organisations must assume to stay relevant in these increasingly challenging and dynamic times. Whether you create an app or train inner-city youth to become employable, we can no longer just advocate – we have to innovate!
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Govt flies cash to pay Black Stars appearance fee
Amid an uneasy calm and fragile truce, the Black Stars have finally landed in Brasilia ahead of their must win World Cup Group G match against Portugal on Thursday.
Reports from the Ghanaian capital Accra indicates that a chartered flight carrying the cash is due to land in Brazil on Wednesday.
In all my years covering the Black Stars, I have never felt such an air of tension and potential explosion around players and officials. Yet I remain unconvinced that the stand-off is purely over money. There are demons that the FA officials must confront and deal with once and for all or live to regret it.
I do not think these fine players are so short sighted and so desperate that they would destroy what they are starting to build here in Brazil over money. I only pray that my gut feelings for once are wrong and this is just a phase of the drama we must all go through.
The team's arrival brought to a pause, a dramatic day in which Ghana's President Mahama is said to have called captain Asamoah Gyan by phone to promise that the players' appearance fees would be paid by Wednesday.
Players remained in their hotel rooms for close to two hours as they threatened to boycott a trip to Brasilia in protest of the non-payment of appearance fees.
Initially, the amount was thought to be $100,000 each but there are suggestions that the players have now agreed to $75,000.
Ghana will earn more than $9 million for qualification and participation in the first round of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Finals and will get more should they reach the knockout stages of the competition on Thursday.
Government, players and team officials are well aware of this fact and that is what makes the ''No pay, No play'' stance of the players unfortunate but according to some sympathisers of the players, totally understandable.
''If it is true that they have not been paid then that is very sad'' was a remark by a guest at the plush Radisson Hotel in Maceio seeking a photo shot with Dede Ayew.
The ensuing media frenzy especially, but not isolated to the Ghanaian media was a curious revelation as some journalists naturally took full advantage to ''break'' the sensational news to their respective networks live on phone or television back home.
Accusations that some officials were actually goading a revolt by prompting journalists to interview players in their room cannot be substantiated.
In any case, the simmering crisis had been warded off for several days even by frustrated FA executives and coaches Appiah and Konadu who had to plead with the players to remain focused and disciplined.
Unfortunately the ''breaking news'' had filtered out even to fans outside the hotel who had lined up to say goodbye or grab autographs, guests leaving or arriving at the media.
An official of the Ghana FA explained that the delay in paying the players was out of their hands in Brazil as a result of a “misunderstanding about the mode of payment”.
The players had agreed to be paid through their banks but later changed their position insisting on physical cash even though that may carry some risks.
The Black Stars, like their opponents Portugal, have just a point so far in Group G and must win by at least two clear goals on Thursday and hope Germany beat the United States in the group's other match.
As one ''man of God'' blurted today, ''It is time for prayers to be intensified for the Black Stars''.
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Chasing Silence: Can You Hear Me Now?
Do you love music as much as I do? I bet you do! If I added up all the money I spent on cassettes, 8-track tapes, 45s, albums, CDs and live concerts over the last few decades, I probably could have owned a home and beach house had I decided to go a different route with my spending.
But music is a huge passion of mine, and I have no regrets about those investments. They brought me great joy over the years and still do.
Do you know what’s not so joyful anymore? Walking into a restaurant or store and hearing the music being played at deafening volumes! When did this phenomenon begin? The other day in a popular retail store and in a moment of despair, I turned to a complete stranger and asked her, “Is it me, or is this music really loud?”
For a moment, I thought I had walked into a club by mistake and forgotten to pay the cover charge. And then I realized, I was in a store and was now the old person complaining about loud music! Wow, talk about a depressing revelation! Especially for someone like me who has spent (and still spends) so much of her free time going to hear live music.
It’s no secret that hearing loss has reached epidemic proportions. According to the World Health Organization (“WHO” – ironically the same name as a rock band), it is estimated that more than 1 billion young people (ages 12 to 35) are at risk of hearing loss due to recreational exposure to loud sounds.
While I’m no longer in that demographic, I find I am one of the few baby boomers wearing earplugs when I go to hear live music. It always amazes me at these shows that no one else seems to be as concerned about protecting their hearing as I am, even at our age.
For those of us who live and work in NYC, it’s no surprise that ‘the city that never sleeps’ is truly overstimulating us with noise 24/7. From the jackhammers on every other block to the sirens tearing down the city streets, we sometimes wonder where we can retreat for some peace and quiet. I find that the older I get, the more I am seeking out those quiet moments.
That peaceful oasis used to be my apartment, till that gradually changed over the years. I’ve dealt with tenants thinking pulsating ‘surround sound’ was appropriate in a building where you share a common wall with your neighbors. And I’m sure my fellow apartment dwellers have also experienced the sounds of clicking high heels on the wooden floors above them late at night.
Does anyone else sleep with a white noise machine and foam earplugs?
But what really tested my patience was a Sunday night a few months ago. My neighbor decided to rearrange the clothing in her closet (all on wire hangers) for THREE HOURS STRAIGHT! The rattling noise came right through my wall and really made me crazy. I thought it would never stop.
That evening, I was reminded of a similar incident from a few years ago. I was dining out with a former colleague of mine, when I heard the sound of salt shakers continuously being banged on the counter behind me. That annoying repetition made my head spin around faster than Linda Blair’s did in The Exorcist (minus the pea soup of course). My colleague, not missing a beat, said to me “My sister has the same thing you do”. She told me her sister can’t stand the sound of certain noises either.
On the subject of certain noises, did you ever experience this at a movie theater? You find the perfect seat, excited to see a movie everyone is raving about, when that familiar noise starts. Someone a few rows behind you is unwrapping a piece of candy and the process seems to be taking an eternity. Or you hear that squeaking sound of someone’s straw going up and down in the lid of their “big gulp” sized cup of soda (And does anyone really need to drink that much soda in one sitting anyway?).
It was only after I stumbled upon an article in the New York Times – “Please Stop Making That Noise” by Barron Lerner, MD (an internist from NYU), that all of this made sense to me. After reading his article and also listening to people relate their experiences to me, the more I realized that others share this same ‘condition’ as I do.
Misophonia, literally translated to mean “hatred of sound”, is a common disorder whereby there is a disconnect between the auditory and limbic systems. In layman’s terms, the nerves and networks in the brain interpret certain sounds differently for those suffering from misophonia, also known as “selective sound sensitivity syndrome”.
The research is still relatively new regarding this disorder. At the very least, It brings me great comfort knowing that I am not alone and that others like me, also experience this noise sensitivity from time-to-time.
I think as we get older and the list of our ‘pet peeves’ grows longer, many of us realize that noise seems to be at the top of the list. How do you personally handle those scenarios when noise seems to creep into your peaceful environment? Are you noticing that there are certain sounds that drive you bonkers? You are not alone and we welcome ‘hearing’ (but please, not too loudly) your stories, so please share them with us.
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Rihanna and Nicki Minaj lead the pack of nominees with four nods each for the 40th annual American Music Awards, which will be handed out Nov. 18 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.
At the AMA announcement, it was also revealed that Xtina would perform at the awards ceremony, which coincides with the release of her new CD, "Lotus."
The new album will be released Nov. 13.
"It's very exciting," she told MTV News about her AMA performance. "It's definitely going to be a reflection of what 'Lotus' means to me. If you take that album cover and give it a little performance twist, I'll bring that album cover to life, so it's going to be really fun.
"I can't give too much away about the songs, but it's definitely going to represent the album because the album is very multi-layered," she added.
The American Music Awards show will feature a major showdown for the Artist of the Year prize, pitting Rihanna against Justin Bieber, Drake, Maroon 5 and Katy Perry.
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DVLA urged to consider number plate recognition
An NAO report has said the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) should consider using automatic number plate recognition to estimate the level of vehicle tax evasion.
The report (pdf) says that despite receiving many plaudits for its electronic vehicle licensing (EVL) system, which enables customers to pay vehicle excise duty (VED) and obtain a licence online, the DVLA has experienced a significant rise in tax evasion.
As a result, the DVLA has little prospect of achieving its evasion target of 2.5 per cent by December this year, or meeting its related Gershon efficiency target to generate, through the reduction in evasion, an additional £70m in revenue each year by the end of March 2008.
According to the Department for Transport's (DfT) roadside survey in June 2006, VED evasion has risen to five per cent, up from 3.6 per cent the previous year. The survey also estimates that the proportion of unlicensed motorcyclists has increased to 37 per cent from 30 per cent in 2005.
Outlining the findings in its report published on 19 July 2007, the National Audit Office recommends that the DfT and DVLA "should consider alternative sources of evasion estimates, such as automatic number plate recognition systems, even if they are only partial and closely targeted".
The report qualifies this, however, by stating that the increase in VED evasion may partly be a result of people wanting to avoid congestion charging and being caught for crimes through ANPR enforcement.
The report concedes that as ANPR is usually targeted at particular risks, the results would need expert statistical interpretation if such data were to be used to estimate the overall level of evasion across the country. But it also highlighted the advantages of ANPR data, describing it as "geographically pervasive, covers the whole period under review and scans far greater numbers of vehicles during the year than the roadside survey".
The NAO also says the EVL scheme has failed to close the licensing gaps that existed in the old Post Office paper based system. The DVLA issues late licensing penalties to those who have not renewed their licence two months after the end of the previous expiry date. But customers who obtain a licence starting a month after their previous one has expired are not issued with a penalty notice.
According to the NAO, the situation reflects the length of time it used to take for the Post Office to notify licensing activity to the DVLA. As the EVL was designed as an electronic parallel to the Post Office system, the same licensing gaps may occur.
Some £450m (10 per cent) of VED revenue was collected through the EVL system in 2006-07, its first full financial year, but the agency has neither estimated the VED revenue lost due to licensing gaps, nor analysed its impact on evasion rates.
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E-mail 5: A Very Special Message From the UAEDFL
To: Alabama English Department Listserv
From: Commissioner Oliu
Subject: A Very Special Message From the UAEDFL
My fellow English,
Growing up in the 1980s in a small Cape Cod-style house in rural New Jersey, I know what it’s like not to have things. Things like rocket cars, and ice-cream faucets, and pterodactyls. Things that we have come accustomed to here in the crowning moments during the normal vaginal birth of our great century; these ‘two-thousands’, where anything is possible (aside from Americans winning the Nobel Peace Prize and myself successfully learning Capoeira). If you DREAM you can ACHIEVE!
However, as a society, we have gotten spoiled. Yes, we have become the flubdub flapdoodle mollycoddles that we have dreaded. It’s like that moment in your favorite movie where someone is all like ‘I have become what I hate,’ and then Ennio Morricone comes swelling in and someone jumps off a building. Yes! It is exactly like that. And you know, what, I don’t like it.
Some of you (none of you) may be asking yourselves, “Brian Oliu. Why are you saying such things? We have become accustomed to the UAEDFL e-mails being a source of joy and babies’ laughter and positive high energy and love and allusions to the key members of le Mouvement souverainiste du Québec!” and to that I say, “No more!” Je t’aime! Moi non plus! Again! You have become wonted with accordance with regular practice or procedure (TheFreeDictionary.com, 1)!!!
For those of you (none of you) who then think to yourselves, "Brian Oliu. You didn’t answer the question. In fact, you just quoted Serge Gainsbourg in a complete non-sequitur and didn’t even harp upon his relationship with both Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, nor that it was an inspiration to Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby,” and in that, you are a failure, Brian Oliu. An awful awful failure. “L’amour physique est sans issue!”
To that I reply:
WE ONLYHADFIVEPEOPLESHOW UP TO FOOTBALLLASTSUNDAYYOUAWFULPEOPLE I HATEYOU SO MUCHRIGHTNOWUGHYOUMADEMICHAELMARBERRYSADANDNOBODYMAKESMICHAELMARBERRYSAD ON MY WATCH
To Ryan Browne, Luke Southworth, Kevin Waltman, and the aforementioned sad Michael Marberry, you are golden and lovely. You realize that showing up to football is a PRIVILEDGE and not a RIGHT (like driving! or living under this roof!) and that you should be honored to be a part of the greatest wordsmith academic sporting collective outside of the 2002 Portland Trailblazers.
The rest of you, I am saddened and ashamed. As punishment (turn away, other members of the Fab 5), here is a list of words that everyone hates. I hope they put awful visions in your head and make you cringe:
moist
beefy
panties
chunky
lard
maverick
NOWSHOW UP AT FOOTBALL ON SATURDAY AT 10:30AM. If you do not, the league will fold in on itself like a Swen crab angle. Which brings me to another gross word, ‘cream cheese.’
In fact, I’m still angry.
“[YOURNAMEHERE] was too busy being a maverick to play football…instead [YOURNAMEHERE] decided to eat a moist, beefy, chunky cream cheese and lard burrito while in their panties.”
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I think it would be a good idea that if people who live far away that if they divisions were on two different days. It would keep it a 2 day tourney but more manageable for other people. Just an idea.
Thats a two-way street.
If you make each division play on seperate days, then the players traveling from a distance to play on the second day (ie Sunday) will have little travel time after the event ends to get back home as games will be played later into Sunday.
Having played a ton of local MN events and being from ND, I've been able to find cheap hotels all over the place. Whats $25 extra per player for lodging when you are already spending hundreds to play the even in the first place?
If you make each division play on seperate days, then the players traveling from a distance to play on the second day (ie Sunday) will have little travel time after the event ends to get back home as games will be played later into Sunday.
Having played a ton of local MN events and being from ND, I've been able to find cheap hotels all over the place. Whats $25 extra per player for lodging when you are already spending hundreds to play the even in the first place?
I understand but when your scraping money to play $25 is one less thing to worry about. Plus alot of these teams don't have players who are 18 to get a hotel room.
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EaseUS Partition Master 10.2 WinPE Edition (BootCD)
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- Copy partition with fast file-by-file copy to protect your data.- Copy entire hard disk to another or migrate OS from HDD to SSD without Windows reinstallation.- Upgrade system disk to a bigger one with one-click.- Support GPT disk/partition copy. - Provide option to shut down the computer after applying any operation. This function is especially useful when you copy the disk which contains the operating system.
Partition Recovery WizardDesigned to recover deleted or lost partitions on unallocated space.
- Partition Recovery Wizard allows you to recover deleted or lost partitions from unallocated space due to hardware or software failure, virus attack or hard drive repartitioned.- Two recovery modes in Partition Recovery Wizard: Automatic recovery mode is easy to use and requires minimal effort; Manual recovery mode gives you full control of the recovery process.- Support FAT, NTFS, EXT2 & EXT3 partition recovery.
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Laus Group investing Php 70M to expand car dealership business in Clark Freeport
CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga – The Laus Group of Companies (LGC), one of the largest and fastest growing multi-brand car dealership network in the country, will invest Php70 million for the establishment of dealership and showcase for various automotive brands inside this Freeport.
The LGC, headed by its chairman Levy P. Laus, signed Monday an agreement with Clark Development Corp. (CDC) president Arthur P. Tugade for the lease of 1.9-hectare property in Clark.
“LGC now officially among the long list of foreign and local investors in Clark after signing a lease agreement with CDC for the opportunity to expand LGC’s business in the Freeport,” Laus said.
LGC will establish an automotive dealership sales and service center for the various brands being catered by the company, sales of automotive products, and other similar facilities inside this Freeport.
Laus, who is also a former CDC president, said he was positive of the continuing progress of the Freeport, adding that “the future of Clark is so bright, we have to wear shades.”
“More than ever, Clark will continue to be a very important place for future development,” he said.
Laus, who is also chairman emeritus of the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry, supports the advocacy of developing the areas outside Metro Manila, among which is Clark.
During the signing, Laus cited Tugade and the CDC management in their efforts to make Clark as one of the country’s top investment destinations because of the continuing sound business atmosphere here.
“I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate (Art) Tugade for the many things he has done here in Clark,” Laus said.
For his part, Tugade welcomed LGC in Clark, saying “the beautiful people that the Laus family represents will be complemented by the beautiful project that will help beautify the landscape of Clark, and not only beautify the physical landscape of Clark, but more importantly beautify the ways of doing things,” Tugade said.
Established in 1978, LGC is a diverse network of companies dealing predominantly in the automotive business industry in Central and North Luzon, including some in Metro Manila.
The LGC represents 11 car brands and its pre-own used car business, aside from being a major ancillary businesses in nano-ceramic films, motor oil, and mag-wheels distribution, auto enhancement, tires, non-life insurance, real estate, financing, tri-media, food services, petrol service station and employs 1,500 workers in its 65 business ventures in the country.
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Thursday, 30 August 2012
"The Big Lie (German: Große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so 'colossal' that no one would believe that someone 'could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.'"
— WikipediaRead more...
"And the Romney campaign put out a memo Wednesday repeating the claim that Obama gutted the Clinton-era welfare reforms after taking office.
So why continue beating this drum?
Partly because people believe it.
'We think that the fact that the work requirement has been taken out of welfare is the wrong thing to do,' said Peggy Testa, attending a Tuesday rally near Pittsburgh for Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan.
When told that's not actually what had happened, Testa replied: 'At this point, [I] don't know exactly what is true and what isn't, OK? But what I do know is I trust the Romney-Ryan ticket, and I do not trust Obama.'"
— Ari Shapiro, NPRRead more...
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Pages
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Pin It Now!I hide from others. I hide from myself. I hide from the truth. I hide from reality.
I hide insecurity.
I hide deceit and hate.
I hide trouble and instability.
I hide doubt.
I hide imperfection.
Everyone has something to hide- as much as we may try to deny it, we all have something in life that we are 'ashamed' of. We all carry something within us that we believe is better kept inside than shared with others. We all carry doubts and insecurities- and what is funny, is that despite the fact that we all do it (we all put our hands in front of our faces sometimes) we think we are all alone.
Here's the truth- we all hide. But what are we really so afraid of? Ae we afraid to let people in? Are we afraid to let people know that we are insecure and unsure? Are we afraid to open ourselves up to hurt and failure?
For me, life has always been a never-ending battle with myself. Sometimes, I hide what I am truly feeling/thinking for fear that it will lead to something far more dangerous. I have the habit of hiding my emotions- and doing it rather easily/without notice. I encourage you to evaluate what you are hiding in life. Who are you hiding it from- and wouldn't it just be so great to let it all go?
So here it is... here's what I am hiding.
I am not perfect. I will never be perfect. I am scared. I wish I could be 100% sure about my future. I dread making mistakes. I long for true love.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Sorry I have been a little lax the past few days.. guess the summer vacation mindset hit me a little harder than I anticipated. Anyway- back to your inspiration!
It's only fitting that today's post has something to do with the Royal Wedding (seeing how that is all I have seen on television for the PAST WEEK).
Yes- Kate's dress was absolutely beautiful. It was classic but modern, modest but a little sexy, and very fitting. Inspired by Kate and William, today's post is about treasuring beautiful moments. For me, there are very few events more beautiful than a wedding. Something about the elegance and beauty of weddings gets me every time. I think the promises that weddings stand for are extremely sacred and beautiful.
I promise to live by your side for a lifetime.Is there anything more genuine or beautiful?
It is important for us to remember to treasure those beautiful moments in life. The moments that we make lifelong promises. The moments we agree to give our hearts to others. The moments we promise to love another person as much as we love ourselves.
Although I haven't been married yet... I truly hope that my wedding day is beautiful, inspiring, and very emotional. I know I will be crying my eyes out and an absolute emotional mess. It will, hopefully, be the greatest day of my life.
Remember your wedding? Did you plan for months/years? Was it everything you hope for- and more? What was the absolute best moment of the day?
Treasure those memories... They are once in a lifetime.
"Most importantly, love each other deeply, because love will cause many sins to be forgiven."
I realize that I won't have to study for tests for four months after tomorrow.
Everything around me seems to be going well, my loved ones are healthy, and I have nothing to complain about.
It is times like these that I take for granted. It is so easy for me to miss to beauty of goodness is life when things are going well. Today, I realize that I am so blessed with how my life is turning out. I could not be more thankful for the people, relationships, and opportunities that have opened up for me.
Why is it so hard for us to be thankful when things are going well? I think it is because we expect things to work out a certain way. When we pray, we expect that God will gradually 'check off' our life to-do list. We are discouraged when something veers off course, or when someone hurts you in an unexpected way. I encourage you to let go of those expectations, and instead... just be grateful for how your life has played out.
We truly do have a lot to be thankful for.
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but one of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control."
Monday, April 25, 2011
So it seems like it may work better for me to update right before the clock strikes midnight this summer. It's actually the time where my head starts spinning and I drive myself crazy thinking about random, troubling, inspiring happenings in life-- and it helps to get all these crazy thoughts out before bed... so here's to a new writing time for summer 2011!
Today got my thinking about expectations.
We all have expectations for our lives. Whether they be career oriented, education, family life, or spiritual... we all expect our lives to turn out a certain way. And let's be honest, we are a little upset when things don't go as planned.
Okay- if I am being completely honest- I get freaked out when things go awry. Something about deviating from a safe, predictable plan really scares me. I find comfort in having my future planned out- knowing what is going to happen next. There's only one problem. 99.99% of the time, life doesn't happen exactly as planned. We are forced to 'go with the flow' (some of the hardest words in my vocabulary) and take a step outside normality. So today, I encourage you to do whatever you can to be comfortable with 'going with the flow,' in fact, I encourage you to purposefully step our of the flow.
You may find it exciting, challenging, thrilling, emotional...
you may hate it, you may love it.
I promise you it will be worth it. Although we build these expectations for life (eating well, exercising, reading more, begin happy, volunteering, relaxing, worrying less, thinking positively), to say they will happen 100% of the time is pretty unrealistic.
Instead- I encourage you to strive to live a good life, free from expectations. Live to seek beauty, to treasure relationships, and to grow as an individual. Let go of the thoughts and emotions tying you down-- FLY FREE.
"We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler's snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped."
Sunday: Easter- a perfect day with the family (church, home-cooked meal, ice cream, drive around the neighborhood with the sister, walk with my mom, and pizza time tonight, couldn't have been better). It's days like these where I realize how I truly couldn't live without my family by my side. I am so luck to be surrounded by such incredible people and role models.
Anyway- on to the real point of my blog, my daily inspiration...
There is something so beautiful about the promise of easter. Not only does it remind us of God's eternal love and Jesus' ultimate sacrifice... but the day itself just reminds us that there is something more. There has got to be something more than this beautifully broken life. There has got to be something great waiting beyond Earth.
God is that greatness.
I think it is easiest for me to see God's beauty and love in the faces and joy of the people I love. I look down at my sisters in church and smile at our inside jokes. I am overjoyed when my brother agrees to wear a cute, dressy polo to church that I picked out for him. I love to hear my family laugh and talk and chat and just love each other. Isn't that what life is all about? Love and laughter and joy and happiness?
Why can't everyday be as beautiful as easter? Sure, I know Easter is a holiday, but why can't we have a part of it every day? Today, I pledge to make everyday a small part of easter. I pledge to see the beauty in small moments, in the eyes of my family, and in the arms of people I love.
I hope you had a great, relaxing Easter sunday and I encourage you to carry that feeling with you every day. God isn't only by our side today-- he is there every single days of our lives.
"Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Why is it so hard to be positive in the face of hardship? Why do we turn to negativity as a coping mechanism? Instead of instinctively telling myself- "you're going to ACE that exam," I ultimately fall victim to the thoughts that keep telling me- "it's going to be so much harder than you thought" or "you didn't study enough."
Today is the big day. Exams start. The funny thing is, at this time tomorrow... I will be done. 24 hours from now the majority of my worries and doubts and anxiety will be gone. Why is it that so short of a time can foster such extreme fear and anxiety?
Today- I choose positivity. I studied hard this semester. I paid attention in class. I understand the material. I am intelligent. I can do well on my exams. I WILL do well on my exams.
I choose positivity over weakness. I refuse to believe the negative thoughts that tempt me to doubt myself. I believe in myself and I believe that despite whatever happens, everything will be okay.
My life does not depend on a few exam scores.
Today, I encourage you to choose positivity. Whenever you encounter those negative thoughts- throw them out. Refuse to let them control you. We are often capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for. Choose to be optimistic.
Back with updates later. :)
"Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Do not gaze about, for I am your God. I will fortify you. I will really help you. I will really keep fast hold of you with my right hand of righteousness.”
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
What is one of the most rewarding, healthy, feel-good things you can do?
Give yourself a compliment.
Often times, we are too busy putting ourselves down that we forget to pat ourselves on the back. You deserve a round of applause, just for being you. It is important that we take time each day to acknowledge just how special and talented we truly are... yes, it may seem like bragging about yourself- but a little ego boost and compliment can do wonders for your self-esteem.
I encourage you to pause today in the midst of chaos, in the midst of your crazy everyday life... to realize how great of a person you are. Yes, we all have flaws. We all make mistakes. We all screw up. But you are so much more than those mistakes. You are beautiful and you are worthy of true, deep love.
How can we tell ourselves how great we are without seeming ego-centric? I encourage you to journal, write a few things down that you are proud of in your life. Not only will it help you de-stress.. but you may also just find yourself saying, 'hey, I am pretty great.'
Today- I realize that I...
I work really hard.
I am a pretty good role model for my younger siblings.
I have most of my priorities straight.
I value success, but I also value failure.
I am special, unique, and beautiful... just the way I am.
No number on a scale can ever tell me how beautiful I am, it comes from within.
What makes you awesome? Pat yourself on the back, it really does help when we feel worthless. It helps us to realize that we do make a difference. We are worth the world.
"The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them.
People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”1 Samuel 16:7
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
In light of yesterday's post about snow in April, I thought it would be good to follow up with a post about how excited I am for SUMMER! I am officially on summer vacation next wednesday after my last exam, but I will be moving out of college dorms forever on FRIDAY! It is so strange/weird/exciting/scary that my first year went so fast. Am I really almost a sophomore already??
Doesn't that picture just scream peace, quiet, happiness, and love for summer? There is something so beautiful about sand and footprints and jumping into the horizon. (Have you ever noticed that most inspirational pictures you come across are of people jumping in the air- funny, huh?)
Today my inspiration for you is to find a way to live like it's heaven on earth. Yes, I know it is quite the concept... and hard to imagine. But, if we strive for a life that is as beautiful as what is waiting for us beyond this life... I truly believe that we can come across beauty on earth. Today, in order to create my own heaven on earth, I pledge to:
1. Take study breaks. Finals week can really take a mental toll.
2. Tell the people in my life how much I miss them and how much I am looking forward to seeing them soon.
3. Appreciate the beauty of the sun, the clouds, the wind, the warmth, the chill, everything outside.
4. Read a little of my inspiration- the bible and my new book, "Cold Tangerines"
5. Take some quiet/alone time to just think and thank God for life.
6. Laugh, smile, and appreciate friends.
What is going to make your heaven on Earth? I encourage you to find out... Life on earth can be extremely beautiful and fulfilling, if you are willing to put in a little effort. :)
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."
Monday, April 18, 2011
Snow in late April... you have really outdone yourself this time Michigan. Snow... and my summer vacation starts on Friday (sort of). Is this a joke- or is this reality?
I have a hard time expecting the unexpected. I am one of those people who craves routine, who craves simplicity, who craves predictability. It is hard for me to embrace change... to be okay with deviating from the norm. Sometimes, it scares me to do something different than I usually do. The question is- why am I so scared?
I think the unexpected things in life are often the most fun. The trouble is, most of us are so concerned with what is safe- with what we are comfortable with, that we are scared to experience the unexpected. We are too scared to step outside what seems normal.
Today, I encourage you to embrace the unexpected. Try something new. Talk to someone you wouldn't have approached normally. Make someone's day by showing them that you care for them. When an opportunity comes to embrace something different than the norm... JUMP RIGHT IN.
I encourage you today to let go of fear.
Be strong and courageous.
Be independent and beautiful.
Be open to possibility.
Be ready for something you aren't ready for. (Don't you just love paradox.)
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Sometimes I think we need a reminder to just stop and breathe. We often get so caught up in life that we forget to appreciate the beauty of a single moment. We forget to realize that we can't re-live moments or memories in life.
It sounds so simple, right? Just breathe... in and out. In goes oxygen and out goes carbon dioxide. It is no natural... yet life can make us feel like we are holding our breath. We hold our breath in the face of stress, danger, anticipation, and excitement.
Why is it so hard for us to do something so completely natural and healthy?
I expect a lot of myself. It is one of my biggest strengths and one of my biggest weaknesses. When I start to break down, mentally or physically, I forget to breathe. I forget the natural beauty of life. Everything is wiped away and replaced with something artificial and temporary.
Breathing, relaxation and peace are eternal. They will never fail. Although my body may fail me at times, my spirit will not. I encourage you to breathe, because every little thing is going to be all right. Breathe, and appreciate the beauty of moments passing you by. And finally, don't be afraid to take a break, everyone needs them.
More BREATHE artwork tonight... I need the inspiration :)
"You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath."
Saturday, April 16, 2011
It's days like these that it is hard for me to be thankful. It's days like these that it is hard to see the sunshine. It's days like these that make life seem dark. It's days like these that make me miss home.
I absolutely hate being sick. It is not the kind of stomach sickness that comes and goes... but the kind that stays in your head for a few days. It is the kind that makes your head hurt and your body ache and your eyes droop. It is the kind where even a twelve hour sleep feels like six.
When I am sick it is so hard for me to be optimistic. I think that is true for any hard thing we go through in life. We think about why it has to happen to us, why it has to happen the week before finals... why me, why now? It is so hard, in times of sickness, for us to be thankful for the things we do have, the things that will never leave us in hard times, the things that are always right there next to us.
So today, I am learning a lesson in what it means to be completely optimistic in the face of sickness.
I thank the Lord for a time to rest.
I am thankful for friends and family who care about me and are concerned about me even though they are far away.
I am thankful for the chance to spend the day under blankets and watching feel-good TV.
I thank the Lord for a chance to have some alone time, some time to clear my head and ease my mind.
It is days like these that are hard. It is days like these test us... it is what we do with that test that defines who we are and what we can withstand.
"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace, and be thankful."
Friday, April 15, 2011
There is something so serene about walking across a college campus at 8:30 am on a friday morning. While everyone is sleeping off the events of thursday night, only the lucky few freshman to have early morning spanish on mon/wed/fri trek across the diag. Despite finding out that 8:30 is a lot earlier in college than it is at home, I actually like having early morning classes (a blessing and a curse that my classes don't start until 10 next semester). I like being alone on my walk to class, I actually find it peaceful and relaxing.
Today's topic of inspiration is finding peace in everyday life. Although it is easy for me to find peace and relaxation in the early morning hours (thank goodness I am a morning person), it is often hard for me to find peace and quiet in the midst of a busy college town afternoon/night. How can I be quiet when there is so much going on around me and so many different people and things to watch?
I think it is extremely difficult to find peace in the midst of commotion. It is probably one of the biggest challenges we face in life. It is hard to take time out of our busy day to be quiet. It is hard for me to realize that quiet and alone time keeps me sane. Clearing my head in times of high stress really keeps me from feeling extremely overwhelmed. So how do we do that if it is so hard and there are so many distractions in life?
Here are some 'finding peace' tips that I find useful in my life:
1. Take a few minutes right when you get up in the morning to appreciate the dawn of a new day.
2. Take care of yourself and nourish your body. Making yourself look 'presentable' and dressing in a cute outfit actually boosts self-esteem!
3. READ! My favorite stress-reliever (Try Cold Tangerines- my book of choice at the moment for appreciating the beauty of every day.)
4. TALK to friends and family DAILY.
5. Enjoy some part of nature- it really does help.
6. Take a minute to feel the sunshine (assuming it is a nice day), to watch the sunset, to get lost in the wind, and to find yourself in the midst of commotion.
I encourage you to find peace today. Countdown: 6 days until 3 exams and 7 DAYS UNTIL HOME. I will definitely be craving peace and quiet for the next week. Wish me luck. :)
"Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you."
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Do you have a hard time prioritizing? If you are anything like me, I tend to stress over things that may not matter much in the end. I worry about my daily troubles... things that will have absolutely no significance tomorrow. I convince myself that my world will end if my day doesn't go according to plan.
Sometimes when I find myself in times of high stress (hello finals?) I like to take time out of my day to remind myself what matters most to me in life. What can't I live without? What makes me wake up each day with a smile and what motivates me to get out of bed.
What do I live for?
I live for God's glory.
I live for family.
I live for friends.
I live for laughter, love, and learning.
I live for joy.
I live for knowing that everything in my life has made me who I am.
I live for living God's grace and showing others the power and wonder of his love.
I live knowing that life is supposed to be hard, life is supposed to challenge and test us, life is not perfect.
I know, easier said than done right? Sometimes, it is so much easier convincing myself that my life depends on what happens on Gossip Girl that night or what grade I get on a paper.
Here's a secret for you: 50 years from now, I won't care at all what grade I got on my freshman year women's studies exam. Hopefully, I will be living with family and friends that I love and can share life with. Shout-out to all of you back home and in different cities... Please know that I love you and appreciate all you do for me. (AND I WILL BE HOME SOON). :)
"The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him."
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
EXAM time, the time of year I love the most... NOT. I always get so worked up about final papers, exams, tests, and grades. I somehow convince myself that it is the end of the world if I get bad grades. I constantly have to remind myself that I am no less of a person with an a- or b+. I am great, I am doing great things, and I am capable of great things despite a final percentage.
Although exams haven't officially started yet (next week...), I am already starting to feel the pressure. I don't even want to think about this weekend when everything will start to gather and will overwhelm me like a flood. So this morning I am taking a moment t remind myself (and you) to keep calm.
Keep Calm and Carry On. It seems so simple doesn't it? Think again.
Exam week is only a week. A week out of my long life. Although they are important, exams will NOT be the death of me. In fact, it helps if I just go about life as normal with my daily routine (I am obsessed with daily routines). If I remind myself that it will be SUMMER VACATION in a little over a week, everything suddenly looks so much brighter. On a side note... I can't even believe that I am almost done with my first year of college. So crazy.
Today, I encourage you to keep calm. Find a place of comfort and peace in the routine of every day. Carry on with life despite hardship, it will be over soon.
"The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe."
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
I'll let you in on a secret--- I am always scared that people won't agree with what I have to say. I fear judgment, I fear denial, and I fear questioning. When I started this blog... I wasn't sure how much I wanted to share, how much I wanted to put myself out there. I am naturally a quiet person, and I do keep a lot of my emotions to myself.
It's hard for me to let others in.
But, I will tell you another secret--- writing these posts forces me to connect with a side of myself that I rarely listen to. It forces me to think about what I want other people to know about me (without having to tell them face to face). It is weird to think that every sentence I write can be seen by anyone in the world, but it is also kind of cool. People can get to know me through my writing without ever actually getting to know me in person. Although I do consider myself an awkward person sometimes, writing feels so completely open and natural. People can read my posts if they want... and maybe it will even help someone out, give them a bright moment in a dark day.
My initial purpose in starting this blog was to find some inspiring aspect of life every day and report it online for others to see. I wanted it t be an outlet of peace, comfort, and solitude in a world full of everything else. Through writing almost every day, my attitude has changed a little bit. Instead of just searching for inspiration, I try to think about little pieces of advice/messages that might help me think a little more positively about life. I have started to focus on what my writing may actually be doing in people's lives (or at least what I hope it is doing in people's lives).
I hope I am inspiring someone. It doesn't matter who it is or how big of an impact it makes... all that matters is that my writing is reaching someone and that it helps them smile or laugh.
I aim to inspire. I aim to be a source of comfort in the midst of the depressing and dangerous news we are constantly bombarded with. If I have ever inspired you, I am truly grateful.
Monday, April 11, 2011
I admit that I am one of those people who loves alone time. I love to spend time being quiet, thinking about who I am and what I want in life, away from the pressure of other people and relationships. I love just sitting in solitude. Isn't it relaxing? If you haven't tried it... try spending 5 minutes today just sitting quietly, it will do wonders for your stress level I promise.
Because I like to spend time a significant amount of time being alone... I occasionally get to the point where being alone seems to consume me. I start to think that being alone all the time is natural: CAUTION- it is a great thing to have positive relationships and to be around people. The important part that I am still learning is how to balance the two.
Yes, it is important to have alone time... but we need to accept that being around others and having friendships is a great part of life! Relationships help us grow, give us people to count on, and help us cope with hard situations. Knowing that there are people that care about us... people that are interested in our lives makes life so much more comforting.
When I start to go into a period of 'extended solitude' I get a little lonely (sometimes without even noticing). I miss talking with people, laughing, and experiencing life with others by my side. I sometimes start to think that I am alone. But then I am reminded that I am NEVER alone. I have incredible people in life that will never leave my side. I owe everything to my family and friends for being there for me all these years.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
We all do it. We are constantly analyzing how our actions and ways of life are being perceived by those around us. We try to 'live up to' unrealistic expectations, false images of beauty and perfection, and ideals of being a good person.
What happened to just being good enough... exactly the way we are.
Instead, I focus on proving myself and my worth to everyone around me. But what am I trying to prove, and who exactly do I have to prove myself to?
I am plagued by self-doubt. I try to remedy that doubt by proving myself to those around me... and ultimately proving myself to God. But who is anyone else to judge? We are in complete control over our life and over the person we want to be... and when we put our faith in something higher than ourselves we have to learn to trust that being ourselves is good enough.
Grace ensures that we are accepted as ourselves despite what we do. What does that mean? Every good deed done with intentions to make a good impression, every impressive act that you think will build your credibility, every attempt at establishing a good reputation... it is all un-neccesary. We are already loved by grace, we don't need to prove our worth. We were created with the idea that by being ourselves, we will do great things- not that we have to do great things in order to be ourselves.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO PROVE YOURSELF TO ANYONE.
YOU ARE PERFECT IN YOUR IMPERFECTIONS.
DON'T WASTE TIME WISHING YOU WERE SOMETHING YOU ARE NOT- IT IS NOT WORTH THE HEARTBREAK, THE TIME, OR THE ENERGY.
"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him."
Saturday, April 9, 2011
BIG NEWS: The sun in shining for the first time all week. Happy, happy day. I have been living in a time warp of rain and clouds recently, and this afternoon my soul loves to see a little sun. Doesn't sunshine just make you happier?
I also got to see more family today... I think my grandparents played a role in bringing some Florida sun to Michigan, even if it is still in the mid 40s.
We don't get sunshine every day. In fact, sun peeking through the clouds in the midst of rainy season is a pretty rare thing. So if you are lucky enough to have some sun today... take advantage of it. Take advantage of the beautiful light that can instantly boost your soul.
When I think of the sun in my life, I not only think about the actual rays, but I think about the people in my life that act like the sun to me. They make me happy, they make me grow, and they make me such a better person.
Who acts as the sun in your life? Who are the special people that can make you reach for the sky- that can make you strive for beauty? My family and friends are my sunshine... my only sunshine. They definitely make me happy when skies are gray. Okay, a little cliché, but couldn't be more true.
Thank you all for being such an important part of my life. I don't know what I would do without you.
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say to you, that even Solomon in all his glory is not arrayed like one of these."
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Why do we sell ourselves short? We do we accept anything less than we are worth? Why do we settle when we know that we deserve the world? Why do we doubt ourselves?
I love this picture. There is something so real about it... something so genuine. It also makes me think about how I treat my heart... do I really give it the respect it deserves?"Your heart is a superstar. Treat it like the celebrity it is."
I trust that God puts our deepest desires (and his) in the depths of our heart. I truly believe that what we want most out of life... and ultimately what God wants for us, is somewhere in our heart. We just have to know where to find it. Believe me, I know it can be tricky to look into your own hearts. It is a vulnerable place, an honest place, a place that doesn't hide anything for us but also risks the world. It is a place to build our faith.
I encourage you today to really look at your own heart and your desires. Are you really listening to your heart- pausing to reflect on what is really important to you in life, or are you listening to everyone around you, social pressures, and the stress of everyday. If we can learn to put all of this 'outside' stuff aside, and learn to live on what our hearts tells us alone... wouldn't that be so beautiful? What if God speaks to us through those little 'heart urges' we feel? You know, that gut-wrenching feeling that something is pulling at your heart strings... What if that is God's way of saying- hey, I am here- listen, trust, relax.
Listen to your heart today. Trust in what it is telling you. Relax- everything is going to be okay. :)
""Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men."
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Do you ever have those days where you feel like you are on such a spiritual high? Like nothing else matters because you just feel so great? It feels like God is just walking right alongside you... and you can feel him holding your hand, fingers laced in his, him guiding you exactly where you need to be.
Yes, well... they are rare. But yesterday was definitely one of those days.
Just take a second to imagine it...
A day where you get into great conversation with people you love.
A day where you feel God's presence in everything you do.
A day when prayer just seems to flow out of you.
A day when you realize how truly blessed you are.
A day when being grateful feels so natural.
The perfect day.
Yes, they are few and far between... but when we do have them, isn't it great to acknowledge just how great they really are?
It is in the incredible days where it is easiest to see God's presence and goodness. Now, my challenge for you is to make each and every day a good day... okay a little unrealistic, but try to incorporate some incredible part of your life into each and every day. We may love the incredible days, but it is when we see beauty in the rough days that we truly see why we need faith. :)
See beauty in the rain... it is out there, you just have to look for it.
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Why do we always think that being strong is denying our true emotion? Why do we equate tears with sadness, weakness, and depression? Sometimes, there is no denying that you just have to cry. It is such a great way to release emotion, to remind yourself that you are allowed to feel.. that you are allowed to be weak.
I am one of the first to admit that I LOVE to cry. A great romantic movie, an inspiring athlete, a recovery story in the news... I am an emotional train wreck waiting to happen. But isn't that 'sign of weakness' just a sign that we know that there is something deeper pulling at our heart strings?
Don't tears take the attention away from ourselves and turn in towards what God is doing in our lives?
I encourage you to not be afraid to cry. Don't consider it weakness, don't run away from your emotions, don't deny your soul from letting go. It is in times of weakness and stress that we truly realize what makes us strong. Take advantage of the times you feel weak and worthless, and them remember that you are NEVER weak and worthless in God's eyes.
You are always loved.
One of my favorite quotes of all time: :)
Just thought I would throw that in there... seeing as how I have so many incredible people in my life that I know are in my life for a specific reason. I thank the Lord for leading me to relationships and incredible people. And, I know that I would always feel comfortable sharing a good cry with them. The people in my life help turn my weakness into everlasting strength and growth.
"Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail,but God is the strength of my heartand my portion forever."
Monday, April 4, 2011
Have you found your 'place' in life? Do you still feel lost- like there is nowhere you truly fit in or people you really connect with? Are you blessed with an incredible community, great friends, strong faith, and countless blessings and opportunities?
"Follow your PASSION, find your PLACE"
It's hard to believe that we all have a specific 'place' where we fit in life. Is it possible to have several different places, several groups of friends, a few places where you feel totally comfortable and at peace?
I sure hope so.
Yesterday, I started thinking about how truly blessed I am to have found a community at U of M. I was not the most outgoing person in high-school, and have been known to value alone time and family a lot... (but that's NOT always a bad thing). However, coming to school, I was a little nervous about having to start from ground zero and make new friends. I was lost without the people I had grown up around, the people that knew me, the people I trusted and depended on. Despite this anxiety, I truly did find INCREDIBLE people, organizations, and community at U of M (surprising how fast I did it too, considering how HUGE the campus is). I thank the LORD for making me outgoing, encouraging me in the first few months of school to pursue new friendships, new activities, and new passions. It is through him that I found friendships in my sorority, Younglife, and all over campus.
Only he could give me such an incredible first year of school. How am I truly this blessed? :)
Are you blessed with an incredible community- if so, let them know! If you are still searching, don't give up hope... they are out there!
"But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, do not be frightened. Take Courage."
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Have I ever expressed just how much I love Sunday afternoons? They are such an easy excuse to relax, go to church, nap, snack, and read :) oh, and catch up on some TV drama on Hulu.
Although today was rather rainy, I did get up early to go to church, and then spent the rest of the day in my sweatpants hiding away in my room. It was such a great way to spend a rainy day- underneath my blankets, watching some feel good television... I can't complain.
Anyway, today I experienced the wonder of good worship music. Music is so important in my life- and good worship can literally make my day so much better. There is so much power in the lyrics, so much emotion behind the chords, and so much beauty behind the way it is all put together. I get so caught up in music- and often times I let it take me places that nothing else can.
I encourage you to listen to some of your favorite music today. Blast it- let the whole world hear... okay, so maybe not that loud, but really let it be an emotional outlet for you. I use several songs to express just how broken I am without the love of Christ- I cannot even tell you how good it makes me feel to love and praise the Lord through song and worship.
Embrace the wonder of music. Let the chords and the harmony vibrate in your soul. Get taken away by the glory of sound. And through all this- know that the most beautiful song to sing is your own.
ps. the post is a little shorter today because I have things to do tonight- back with a vengeance tomorrow! :) I hope you have a great, relaxing sunday.
"Sing to the LORD, all the earth; proclaim his salvation day after day."
Meet Me :)
A University of Michigan grad with a passion for magazines and a desire to turn the industry on its head. Meaghan writes for various online women's magazines, helped launch a campus chapter of She's the First, and enjoys her free time at Starbucks flipping through magazines or scrolling through Pinterest.
Followers
What do you do when you don't know what to do next? Who do you look to when there is no one left?
Life is full of ups and downs, challenges, surprises, joy, sadness, triumph, and defeat. To all those who long for a sense of direction, let this site be a source of peace, a flicker of light, and a promise of hope. Because sometimes all we really need in life, is a spoonful of inspiration.
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You are here
Living Green
Queen's is committed to making our planet a healthier place, starting with our own campus. Living green every day is about reducing our impact on the environment through choices about what and how much we consume, such as energy and food products, and what we leave behind, such as garbage and pollution. As a member of the Queen's community, there are a number of easy ways for you to "Live Green."
Video: ASUS Committee for the Environment (ACE) highlights some environmental initiatives on campus, introduced by students, faculty, and staff of Queen's University.
Cutting down on carbon emissions:
Our small size is ideal for pedestrians. Leave your car at home and walk to class!
Managing waste:
Go bottled-water free! More than 35 bottle-fill stations have recently been installed across the campus in support of the campus-wide ban on bottled water sales and distribution that took effect September 1, 2012. Before this installation, an average of 98,000 bottles of water were sold on campus annually. Also, check out the QWater fountain in the Mac-Corry Cafeteria
Visit the Earth Centre and learn how to transform environmental concerns into positive action through green consumerism and innovative discussion
Indulge in your favourite coffees, teas, soups and sandwiches at the Tea Room, a student-run cafe that operates with an environmentally and fiscally sustainable business model and that also educates customers about the impact of their decisions on the environment
Students Taking Responsible Initiatives for a Viable Environment (STRIVE)
Youth Mentoring Youth
Sustainability Assessment Team
Join a student-run design team, such as the Environmental Sustainability Team (QUEST), the Solar Design Team (QSDT) or the Fuel Cell Team (QFCT). Visit the Enginerring Society site for more information on how to get involved.
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Seller notes
1995 Sea Ray Sundancer 330 34' Twin V8 600 Hours in Great shape,,84 Hours on Genset No Trailer,,The trailer under the Boat is not Big enough,It was only used to move it around the Yard.. Call Nick 1-541-579-7502 cell or 1-541-688-7502 home office. Ncauto ordealer#7515...
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HTC One M9 vs Sony Xperia Z3
Review
The new HTC One M9 is the most powerful HTC smartphone yet. It also comes with a new hi-res camera, Dolby virtual surround sound and advanced software. But how does it compare to Sony’s top mobile, the Xperia Z3.
Both phones have really good designs and build quality. The One M9 is slightly fatter than the Xperia Z3, but it’s also narrower and shorter so it still fits in your pocket. The mirrored sides of the HTC are squarer than the rounded matte ones of the Sony, giving you a better grip. But the Sony is thin, lightweight and waterproof. And its metal and glass body looks really modern.
Both phones have 20 megapixel cameras on the back, meaning there’s not much to choose between them on paper. But when you start snapping, the Z3’s photos seem sharper and brighter. The Z3 is also fantastic at taking photos in low light, like when you’re on a night out. The only part of the main camera that’s better on the HTC is the glass that covers it. HTC has used sapphire crystal, which is second only to diamond for hardness, so scratches won’t mess up your photos.
Round the front, the HTC’s four megapixel selfie camera is much better than the Sony’s 2.1 megapixel one. It uses HTC’s UltraPixel technology, where each pixel in the camera is around three times bigger than normal, to make colours look more lifelike. And because there’s almost twice as many pixels make up every selfie, there’s a lot more detail.
If you plan on looking back at your photos on your phone, you’ll want a top screen. And both of these phones have very good Full HD ones. But the Xperia Z3’s screen looks sharper, brighter and more colourful than the One M9’s one. That’s probably because Sony uses a lot of its TV technology in its phones.
HTC has given its new phone a couple of great new apps to make the software more personal. A new Themes app lets you create personalised themes based on your photos, completely transforming the look and feel of the phone. And HTC Sense Home learns what apps you use at what time of day and in what places, putting them on your homescreen so they’re easy to find. Sony does have themes, but they’re all pre-made, so not quite as personal, and there’s nothing on the Z3 like Sense Home.
The One M9 also has HTC’s signature BoomSound stereo speakers on the front, and this year they’re powered by Dolby Audio for virtual surround sound. So if you like blasting out music or want to get the most from a movie soundtrack, the M9 easily beats the Z3.
So both phones have areas that they do well in and areas that could be improved. If you’re a selfie and music lover, the M9 might be the phone for you. But if you prefer taking photos with the rear camera and playing great looking games, go for the Z3.
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Interstellar Exports Game 5
Quote of the evening:
"You are the kindest life-form I have ever encountered, and I consider you a friend." -Caesar, speaking to Krunt.
Introduction
A new character and a new body: Krunt M'Quasood (Elijah) and Caesar (Jeff)
With Captain Dry and the Hornby sailing towards System 0505, we jump a week back in time to shortly after we left Caesar drifting in Sector 0506 on board the S.S. Exodus. Without any power on his ship, he had no way of leaving the desolate system he ended up in, and also no way of knowing that he was not alone.
The truth is out there.
For, in the dense asteroid field that drifted in the distance outside the Exodus' cockpit, a strange alien species had set up a base and a fuel refinery. It was just what Caesar needed to get his ship powered back up. If only he had some way of knowing it was there.
Scene 1 Sentience Returns.
On one of the asteroids, a slug was waking from its hibernation period one standard year ago. It had been a peaceful sleep, full of increasingly carnal dreams as the effects of the intelligence granting algae ran its course through the slug's system.
When it awoke from its slumber, and for a few blissful moments thereafter, the slug was nothing but an unintelligent animal. That was until an automated food tube was stuffed into its mouth. Hungrily, and with understanding of what it was doing, the slug consumed the algae and sentience slowly returned.
It remembered it's name: Krunt M'Quasood (Elijah) and that it was the sole attendant of the Slugulon refuelling station in sector 0506. The station spanned four asteroids, connected by transporter pads.
Krunt had been asleep for year. There would be much to do.
Introducing Elijah's new character: Krunt M'Quasood.
Krunt's first step was to go to the command section and determine station's status. It expected some minor mechanical issues but they should all be fairly routine. After eating some more algae from the food tubes that hung from the ceiling in the habitat section. Satiated, Krunt left the through the sealed door into the rocky tunnels separating the different sections.
The hall way was full of the strange subterranean life that inhabited the asteroid. Several species of lizard scattered before Krunt's form as it rolled past different strange species of flora and fauna. As the slug rounded the corner he encountered another one of the asteroid field's inhabitants: a primate-esque species that the Slugulons had dubbed fuzzbears.
It's a fuzzbear!
Upon seeing the approaching the slug the fuzzbear fled back into the smaller tunnels that were riddled throughout the asteroid long before the Slugulons arrived. The fuzzbears were a fairly common sight in the tunnels, and being only animals, Krunt paid them no mind as he continued to the the command section.
Inside Krunt quickly ran through the internal sensors, only half paying attention as the fog of sleep and its animalistic self were replaced with thought and self-reflection. It took a moment for Krunt to even realise that the internal sensors were reading a long list of mechanical failures. Too many to have been caused by the usual wear of time. The main drill in Asteroid 4 had gone offline, there was damage to the Hydroponics bay on this asteroid, the Main reactor on Asteroid 2 was offline, and the secondary reactor on Asteroid 3 was offline. Station power was being maintained by the tertiary reactor also located on Asteroid 3, but its power signature was fluctuating. It would last 2 weeks, maybe a month before it gave out.
Krunt considered what to repair first, eventually deciding to investigate the hydroponics bay, while it finished running through the daily protocols. After an internal scan, the next step was to preform an external scan of the sector for any ships, anomalies, etc. Krunt didn't expect to find anything since only the Slugulons knew about the station and they weren't expected for another 15 weeks. So it was a surprise when the scans detected an object floating in open space.
Just a ping on the scope.
It appeared to be a ship, but it had no power signature, and no life-signs of any kind. It was however repeating a distress call.
While most of Krunt's species would have hailed the object, and upon receiving no response left it alone. Krunt, however, was a little different. The algae gave it a curiosity uncommon to its kind, and the unidentified ship became all it could think about.
Krunt had to find out what it was, and why it was there.
Scene 2 Docking with the Exodus.
Krunt left the command section and headed towards the shuttle bay. The lizards and another fuzzbear living in the tunnels scattered before the slug and out of sight, as it moved through the tunnels towards its goal.
Once inside, Krunt checked over the shuttle to ensure it had not sustained any damage over the last year. The craft was in fine condition, and the gauge was reading a full tank of fuel. All Krunt had to do was pilot the craft out of the shuttle bay and towards the unidentified vessel.
Resting its hands on the controls, Krunt had a moments hesitation. He had helped construct this shuttle, but he had never had to fly it before. It was going to be a bumpy ride.
Concept of a Slugulon Shuttle by Kid Grit.
As Krunt got used to the shuttles controls, it piloted the shuttle in an erratic pattern towards the drifting vessel. Controlling the shuttle was more difficult than Krunt thought it would be, and it took almost an hour before the unidentified vessel loomed into view.
The ship was an Interstellar Union (IU) Scout ship. Krunt had never seen one in person, but had read about them in the Slugulon's catalogue of alien species. These vessels were apparently common sight through out the galaxy, and Krunt felt the anticipation of meeting a new species grow inside. But first the Slug would have to synchronise the shuttle with the spinning Exodus' airlock.
Krunt's lack of piloting experience made synchronising with the awkwardly rotating Exodus a nightmare. Around and around Krunt's shuttle went, as the slug desperately tried to match the Exodus' spin.
A difficult task, as any astronaut will tell you.
Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Exodus, Caesar had turned switched to hibernation mode, maintaining only minimal sensors, in order to save power. The repeating shadow of the Slugulon shuttle passing by the bridge view-ports was enough to alert him that something was hovering around the ship. He activated himself and head over to the emergency comm to hail the object.
Transmitting audio only, Caesar asked the shuttle to identify itself. Krunt, however was in no condition to give a cohesive reply. The constant spinning around the Exodus was making the slug nauseous, and its emotions over took it.
As the Krunt's craft passed the view port again, Caesar recognised the shuttle, and realised this might be his ticket out of there. Calmly, Caesar helped calm the voice over the calm down, and walked it through docking with the Exodus.
I picked a bad week to quit sniffin' glue.
Once Safely on board, Caesar and Krunt introduced themselves to one another. Krunt thought it was odd that Caesar, a mere robot, was the captain of the vessel, but being a kind creature, the Slug accepted it, and offered to help him in what ever way it could.
Caesar was equally surprised to see that the his saviour was a giant slug, and quickly searched his database for any information on their species. It turned out the IU database he had downloaded from the Orion XII Station, had very little on the Slugulons. What was there was largely based on assumptions, and often paranoid ramblings. But being the only information available, Caesar made use of.
"I understand your species is quite violent." Caesar blurted out with his usual charm.
Krunt corrected him. explaining that they were quite docile, and again asked how it could help. Realising he had little choice in the matter, Caesar explained that his ship was completely out of fuel, he had only two days worth of battery left, and he had some severe damage to his android frame.
Krunt explained that it was an engineer and would be happy to help repair Caesar, and find a new power source. It also went on to continue that it was in control of a refuelling station in the nearby asteroid, and that its shuttle was more than powerful enough to tow them into position.
Still not entirely trusting the Slug, but having little other choice, Caesar agreed and boarded the shuttle.
That about sums it up.
The shuttle ride back to the station was a harrowing experience as Caesar and Krunt, argued over who was the better pilot. In the end Krunt finally got the hang of operating the shuttle, and was able to tow the exodus within range of Asteroid 4's fuel pumps, and dock safely in the station's shuttle bay.
Scene 3 Repairs.
On board the station, Krunt took Caesar to the Storage room, and there, using some of the exterior plating and several parts from a Slugulon Engineering Droid, the slug it was able to repair Caesar's exterior damage. His left arm however was still non-operational, and would require a part that Krunt did not have but he was in better shape than before. Krunt then gave him extra power cell and replaced Caesar's current battery. It would give him another five days of operation.
Thanking Krunt for repairs, Caesar enquired as to the state of the of his ship. Krunt replied that it would be happy to give him the fuel he needed, but first they would need to bring the station's main reactor back online.
Captain, I don't know how much more emergency power we can take before we start to break up!
Caesar agreed to help, and they entered the tunnel leading towards the transporter pad. Again, another Fuzzbear ran before them, and Caesar enquired about what the creature was.
"Just some animal." Krunt Said. "Pay them no mind."
Caesar shrugged it off, and the two entered the transporter section.
The place was a mess. Panels had been ripped from the walls, wiring had been torn out, and several components were missing from. Caesar asked what had happened, and Krunt was at a loss for words. It had no idea.
Thinking for a moment, the slug and robot went back to the storage locker, grabbed a set of tools, and Krunt's laser pistol... Just in case what ever caused the damage was still there.
The games first laser pistol.
Out of the six transporter pads, Krunt was able to repair two of them, using components from the other four pads and the various tools in the its kit. The job took about two hours, and all the while Krunt and Caesar chatted about how the transporter pads worked, and swapped stories.
All of Caesars stories were about these two.
When the work was done, the two stepped onto the pads and beamed to Asteroid 2.
Scene 4 A Toothed-Blob. The Main Reactor. Following a Fuzzbear.
The transport pad on Asteroid 2 was untouched, but in the tunnel they travelled through to get to the main reactor held one of the asteroid fields more uncommon creatures. What the Slugulons called a toothed-blob.
Yup... looked like a gibbering mouther.
Toothed-blobs are the alpha-predators across the asteroid field. They are roughly 3ft. in diameter and will attack anything on sight. They are normally not much of a bother, but this one upon seeing Caesar and Krunt, this one rolled towards them snapping it's various teeth.
Before Krunt could even raise its laser pistol, Caesar flipped his right into a gauss rifle and fired a burst at the toothed blob. The projectiles ripped through the blobs mass', killing it instantly, as it collapsed into a pile of slime and teeth on the floor. stepping around the two pushed on to the main reactor section.
It looked even more depressing than this fella.
Inside of the Main reactor room was a disaster, as again the place had been torn apart by some mysterious force. After studying the room for an hour, and tiding the debris, Krunt was able to determine that there were three major problems with the main reactor. First the Computer Console had been almost completely gutted, and would need to be replaced and recompiled. Second, the reactor casing was damaged as if something had been pounding on it; it would need to be replaced. The final issue was a pressure build up in the coolant system caused by a blockage. Looking inside the open and empty coolant tank revealed nothing, it would require either a plumbing droid or the replacement of the pipe section.
Not having the necessary components or tools in the reactor room, Krunt and Caesar left for Asteroid 2's cargo bay.
Can we fix it!?
While travelling through the tunnels towards the cargo bay, Krunt and Caesar encountered another fuzzbear, but this one was holding a bundle of the station's wire in one hand, and a computer chip in the other. To Krunt's knowledge the fuzzbears had never been interested in the stations components, and it had no idea what the creature was doing with them. Seeing the slug and robot coming towards it, the fuzzbear darted into the tunnels, with Krunt and Caesar following closely behind it.
Eventually the fuzzbear lost the pair in the tunnels, but it did not sway Krunt or Caesar's resolve. They pushed on into the winding tunnels, until the signs of a primitive civilization appeared: a basket, a trap, and patterns scrawled on the walls. After 10 minutes of searching, the tunnels opened up into a large chamber,. In the centre of which sat something beyond belief: the fuzzbears had a village!
And the Referee had a crude pencil sketch!
The fuzzbears fled into their small stone huts as soon as they saw Krunt and Caesar. It looked like the fuzzbears had created the village out of the natural surroundings. Rocks had been stacked and secured with mud into small huts, about 10 ft. wide, and no more than 5ft. high. Around the fire in the centre and several of the huts, there were various plants and lizards that were being cooked, or dried.
Aside from the natural elements of the fuzzbear village, the place was also covered in various components from the Slugulon station. Metal bars supported tanning racks and cooking spits. Wires were used as decorations, rope, and were woven into bowls. And all round the village computer chips were used as decorations.
Despite having lived in the asteroid field for near 200 years, Krunt had no idea the creatures were this intelligent, and they had certainly never raided the station for parts before. Something strange had happened over the last year.
Caesar tried to communicate with them, but their language was too foreign for his translator software to handle. He figured if he had special computer and about two weeks he could fully decipher their language. But not having a sufficient computer, the two continued to the cargo bay.
Scene 5 Repairing the Main Reactor.
Asteroid 2's Cargo bay had an extra length of pipe and some sheet metal, however neither Krunt nor Caesar could find the components they needed to fix the main computer. Deciding to deal with one issue at a time, Krunt lugged the pipe and sheet metal back to the main reactor room, and then it and Caesar went to engineering in search of the necessary tools.
The main reactor room. Classic Sci-fi scene.
Engineering was in worse shape than the reactor room. Work benches had been dismantled, entire panels were ripped from the walls exposing cut wires, and most of the storage lockers had been ripped open; scattering what they housed across the room.
Krunt was able to find the tools it required to make the repairs (there sadly was no plumbing droid) while Caesar searched through the wreckage. In the corner Caesar found, a Hover Mule that needed new anti-grav plates. It was an interesting if useless find for the time being.
At least it was pretty cool! And familiar...
Tools in hand, Krunt and Caesar returned to the main reactor room and began repairs. First Krunt cut through the section of coolant pipe, and found the remains of fuzzbear crammed inside. Setting the poor thing aside, Krunt slowly replaced the section of pipe and and reactivated the coolant system. It then set to wielding the sheet metal over the reactor crack. It was a temporary measure until more serious repairs could be made, but Krunt figured it would last for about one standard year.
They still required a functional computer system to control the reactor, and hopefully the components they need would be in Asteroid 3.
Scene 6 Asteroid 3
Upon entering Asteroid 3, the transporter pad shorted out, and it took Krunt the rest of the day to fix it.
We all remember the outcome of a malfunctioning transporter pad.
Once the repairs were complete, Krunt and Caesar left for one of Asteroid 3's three cargo bays. Asteroid 3 was sort of a "plan-b"" asteroid; featuring the secondary and tertiary reactors, 3 cargo bays, a secondary hydroponics bay and a backup Habitat.
Krunt was sure they would be able to find what they needed for the main reactor in Cargo Bay 1, and so it and Caesar headed there. As they travelled through the tunnels, they encountered another fuzzbear, but this one holding a glinting piece of metal.
The little bastard!
Annoyed with what the creatures had done to its station Krunt pulled out its laser pistol and fired at the creature. Its shot missed, startling the fuzzbear, who, in an uncharacteristic act of bravery, threw its sharpened piece of metal at Krunt. The blade landed short, clattering along the stone floor, and Caesar then finished the creature off with a burst from his gauss rifle.
Fuzz Bear Down!
Worried that the other fuzzbears may find their fallen companion, Krunt and Caesar considered hiding the body, but resolved to simply stuff it into one of the smaller tunnels, and continue on.
Cargo bay 1 had the necessary components to fix the main reactor, but before they left, Krunt wanted to check on the secondary reactor, and why it was reading as offline.
As it turned out, the Secondary reactor was operational, but the main output cable had been chewed through, and there was a dark burn on the floor where it happened. Whatever did it had been fried by the live current.
Replacing the wire was a simple enough task, but in the process Krunt was electrocuted, and burnt quite badly. He needed to go to the habitat to recuperate.
Scene 7 Habitat 2. Repairing the Main Reactor
At the secondary habitat, Krunt sealed him self in a bio-chamber, which sedated the slug, and began repairing its tissue. While Krunt was healing, Caesar took the time to familiarise himself with Slugulon computer systems. He learned a lot about them in the two hours he had while Krunt was restored to full health.
What is this strange technology?
When Krunt emerged from the bio-chamber, it consumed more algae from one of the tubes, and then they two returned to Asteroid 2 with the computer panel.
Reinstalling the panel was a simple matter, but recompiling the operating system was another. Thankfully, Caesar's skills with computers meant that it took him only a day to rebuild the system and bring the main reactor online.
While Caesar worked, Krunt tried to solve the android's power issue by constructing a rechargeable power cell. The work was fruitless, but Caesar was touched by the gesture. So much so, that as the two returned to Asteroid 1 and headed towards the command section, Caesar turned to Krunt and uttered our quote of the evening.
"You are the kindest life-form I have ever encountered, and I consider you a friend." Caesar Said.
Moving.
Krunt also told Caesar that it also considered him a friend, and the two happily returned to the command section to check on the station status.
The repairs had been effective, and the Main reactor was back online. Station power had been stabilized, and the secondary reactor was reading as normal. The Tertiary reactor had gone back into stand-by, and was still in need of repair. But that was less pressing now.
Krunt had expected the main drill to come back online with the stabilization in power, but a closer sensor check revealed that the drill had been damaged. It had probably been scavenged by the fuzzbears, and Krunt didn't have the parts to repair it. To make things worse, there were only 10 tons of fuel in the storage tanks, a fraction of what should have been there!
Scene 8 Refuelling the Exodus. A Monster!
Caesar recommended that they refuel the Exodus, and travel to the next system.
There they could refuel his ship completely, and get the parts needed to repair the drill. It would only take them little more than 2 weeks.
Krunt was a little unsure about leaving the station, but only having 10 tons of fuel wouldn't prove of any use to the Slugulon ships that came by, and the drill did need repairs...
Thinking it over, Krunt agreed, and the two transported over to Asteroid 4, which housed the active mine, the refinery, storage tanks, and refuelling control.
fill 'er up!
Asteroid 4 was in worse shape than the others, and though surprisingly still functional, the transporter section had been almost stripped of extra wire, and plating.
The tunnels between the sections were almost completely devoid of life. Even the usual scurrying lizards were absent. The only sign of activity was that the smaller tunnels that lead to the inner parts of the asteroid had been barricaded with piles of stone and stations components.
Sums it up.
Cautiously, Krunt and Caesar headed towards fuel control. It was a long journey, that having the Hover Mule would have shortened, but soon the refuelling control section was in sight. But something was wrong.
Throughout the rest of the station, all of the doors to each section had maintained their seals. Even the ones that had been damaged by the fuzzbears, had still been operational. This door was open.
Krunt and Caesar stood in front of the portal. There were dents and scratches around the edges, as if the door had been bashed in. Inside was still dark, Despite having restored power, and neither the slug nor the robot were going to walk blindly inside.
Fumbling in its tool kit, Krunt found a flash light and shone it into the room. The place was a mess, but amassed in the middle of the room was an undulating form that it couldn't quite make out.
As the light hit the mass, it let out a chittering growl, the same sound that the toothed-blobs made when they reared up for an attack. Krunt and Caesar readied their weapons as the blob rolled towards. The creature was massive, and at 20ft. in diameter it was almost seven times the size of an average toothed-blob.
You're one ugly mother fucker!
Wasting no time, Krunt and Caesar opened fire at the creature, but their first volley wasn't enough. The toothed-blob's mass surged towards the robot, reducing his android body to a pile of debris.
Krunt cried out, and finished the blob with a blast from its laser pistol. The toothed-blob cried in pain, and oozed into a pile dead mush on the ground.
Despite the thrill of victory, Krunt was more concerned about his friend. Hurriedly, it dug through Caesar's remains searching for his hard drive. It hoped
the robot's personality had survived the blow, and that he could recover it; maybe build his friend a new body?
Scene 9 Caesars New Body. Preparing the Exodus.
Krunt took Caesar's hard drive and its tool kit back to the storage room on Asteroid 1. its idea was to put Caesar into the engineering droid's body, but not being a robotics engineer, it was going to take some time.
Only pausing to eat, Krunt worked tirelessly on on the robot for seven days. The process involved meant scrounging parts from all over the station, but the work paid off. At the end of the standard week, Krunt turned Caeasr back on, who asked confusedly what happened. Krunt explained that his old body had been destroyed and that it had put him into a the engineering droid it had used to repair him earlier.
Nice?
Trying out his new body, Caesar found that he was now full of useful tools. He had a access port that could easily connect to any computer system, a welding arm, a manipulator arm, and he could even plug into any power source and recharge his battery. Thoroughly impressed with his new form, Caesar thanked Krunt, and the two headed towards the command section.
From there Caesar, interfaced with the Slugulon computer system. It was a strange and alien experience, as the subjective reality of the computer system replaced all other senses. After a moment familiarising himself, Caesar was able to interface with the remains of the refuelling computer and activated the the reufulling sequence.
Outside Asteroid 4, a refuelling hose guided by a rocket launched itself towards the Exodus, connecting with the fuel port.
Best picture ever.
While the ship was being refuelled Krunt went about preparing the Exodus to accommodate its needs. Since Slugulons sleep for one year every ten years, Krunt did not need a stateroom to sleep, but it did need a bio-bed to grow the algae, or else it would revert to its animal state once more.
Caesar told Krunt that it could set up what it needed in Stateroom 3, which Mr. Peaches, the lizard Dry had purchased weeks ago had already destroyed the upholstery in. After clearing the room, it took a day to set the bio-bed up and start the cultures of algae. During that time Caesar began running scans of Asteroid 4. The internal sensors read another 6 large Toothed-Blobs. 2 were roaming the halls, 4 were nestled agsint the fuel storage tanks.
The size of creatures was certainly strange, and Krunt and Caesar would have to deal with them when the returned.
Scene 10 To the Stars.
After finishing modifying Stateroom 3 to support Slugulon life, and securing the station. Krunt and Caesar boarded the Exodus, and began plotting a course to the nearest system: 0505.
With Krunt at the helm, Caesar finished the equations, and the Exodus smoothly jumped to hyperspace.
And that is where we left off for the evening.
Conclusion.
Another fantastic game of Interstellar Exports! With Elijah's new character Krunt introduced, and Jeff's character Caesar again in a new body, we tied up so loose ends, and started some new ones!
Next game Dave's character Dry will arrive in System 0505 two days before Krunt and Caesar do, so Dry will have some time to explore before Krunt and Caesar arrive.
Dry is currently acting as a transport for four space pilgrim's on their way top a religious festival in the system. The group seemed harmless enough, but things aren't always what they seem.
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Murals and Faux Painting Store
Want to learn how to faux paint? We have a variety of faux finishing kits to choose from as well as faux painting glazes and supplies. ALL OF OUR COMBO KITS INCLUDE our patented (7472450) Triple S Faux System BASIC KIT - DVD, Palette, 2 Poofy Pads, 2 Tuck and Gather tools.Learn how to add an Old World finish, Color Wash, Brick, Faux Stone and Clouds to your walls or ceilings. You will also receive a FREE Color Suggestions E-Book and other guides, too.
Orders received before 5 p.m. EST will be shipped within 2 BUSINESS DAYS.EXPRESS - will be delivered 1-2 days from the day it is shipped. PRIORITY - 2 or 3 days from the day it is shipped. FIRST CLASS - 2 to 4 days from the day it is shipped.
This is an ADDITION to DVD Faux Painting Kit. Order a set of feathers which you will need to add veins to your faux marble.*NOTE- DOES NOT INCLUDE TOOLS. You will need the same tools in the kit to achieve the faux finishes on this DVD.
Full faux painting workshop - FREE Color Suggestion E-book.NOTE* - Does not include any tools. You will need the Multi Color Faux Palette, Poofy Pads, Sponge pads and Tuck and Gather tool to achieve the faux painting techniques that you will learn.
FOUR piece Texture Tool Set. Includes FREE First Class Shipping (3 days)Includes a set of Tuck and Gather tool. *NOTE-This is an addition to our Basic Kit and tools are only for adding texture and not Color Wash on top. Click on thumbnail to view link for instructions on how to use.
Floetrol paint additive in a quart size that can be used as a faux painting glaze. *NOTE - IF THIS PRODUCT IS IN STOCK, THEN IT WILL SHIP FROM US. IF NOT, THIS PRODUCT MAY DROP SHIP FROM ANOTHER COMPANY
*E-Book (8 pages) that explains the different types of paint such as latex, acyrlic, enamel, etc. A .pdf file will be emailed to you upon receipt of your order that you can print out. *Note - this is not a hard cover book, it is a digital E-book
*E-Book with 15 lessons of tips to decorate your home. A .pdf file will be emailed to you upon receipt of your order that you can print out. *NOTE - This is not a hard bound book - It's a digital E-Book
NOTE* This is a replacement tool that is part of the DVD Faux Painting Kit and does not include instructions. In order to get the full benefit of the faux system, we recommend that you only buy this as an addition to the kit and not alone.
NOTE* This is a replacement tool that is part of the DVD Faux Painting Kit and does not include instructions. In order to get the full benefit of the faux system, we recommend that you only buy this as an addition to the kit and not alone.
NOTE* THIS IS A REPLACEMENT TOOL AND ONLY AVAILABLE IF YOU HAVE ORDERED IN THE PAST.If our records show you have never ordered, we will void your order or refund you for $8.99, whichever comes first. Since our inventory is gone, we have to break up a $40 kit to fulfill this order. We are sorry for this inconvenience.
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Mark Neal
Mark Neal (Basketball, 1994-95):
Neal was a two-year starter for the Vikings, earning all-conference
and all-state honors in 1994 and 1995. As a sophomore, he was named
first-team All-American. He closed his LBCC career with 1,626
points, which currently ranks him No. 6 all-time. Neal went on to
play two seasons at the University of South Alabama (1996-97) and
twice earned All-Sun Belt Conference honors. Neal played one season
(1998) of pro ball with the Florida Sharks of the United States
Basketball League (USBL) before going overseas to play basketball
in Finland (1999-2003).
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What The Blog Hatter Is
Blog Hatter is the unique software created and developed by two Internet marketing experts, Alar Magliocca and Donato Spagnolo. This is a must-have tool for all serious bloggers who do not want to spend their free time at the computer working on your blogs. This software … [Read more...]
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About The Author
Tony Nguyen is the founder of Business Review Center. Since 2011, he has managed a team that has collected customer feedback and complaints on digital products, then tested products, and written product reviews. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, at Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. More
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On Sunday 29th November, Merisha was invited onto the Sunday Night Show with Nikki Tapper & Joe Aldred from BBC WM 95.6fm to talk about her favourite subject money, as they examined how changes to the Benefits system could impact the African-Caribbean community.
Find out what Merisha has to say about how you can make more money, the importance of challenging mindsets and take a listen to her Final Thought of the Night – ‘Your Mindset is Your Economy!’
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Sunday, October 11, 2009
Congratulations, Mr. PresidentCongratulations to Barack Obama on being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. That's what you say when your president wins something like that. Unfortunately, the right-wing has decided to insult the Nobel committee, even as it celebrated the loss of Chicago's Olympic bid. The Grand Old Party, with no spokespersons other than these, has now become the party of bitterness and spite. And of course some have insisted on bringing race into it negatively.
I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news . . . The Peace Prize reaffirms it s a joke. But now a sad joke.That's from Erick Erikson of frequently searched conservative blog redstate.com.
6 Comments:
There are so many problems in this world, the Peace Prize Award reminds us all that there is hope. President Obama joins some pretty respectable recipients....Teddy Roosevelt, Desmond Tutu, Arafat, DeKlerk, and Mandela - a rather liberal leaning bunch. As for the quota, sadly the comment is both racist and inappropriate.
When I saw the paper that morning, I shed a tear or two of joy. Your President...I agree. Obama has already done great things, and I believe his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is quite warranted.But, I also have no problem with his receiving the award because of his ability to offer all of us hope either--hope of what is to come. As was believed by Tolkien, we have no right to despair when there is hope.
I believe the critics are basing ther comments on the fact that nothing yet has warranted an award of this magnitude. PROMISE of hope and change for the better is great, but just because I predict a World Series victory does not entitle me to the MVP award before I actually accomplish anything.
I have to argue against the anonymous writer because Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize based on the spirit that he has invoked in not just the American people, but around the world. The committee would not have submitted Obama's name EVEN before the election took place. Obama has been able to lift the spirits of so many people to look to the brighter future, just as Mandela, Arafat, and other recipients have done. This is an amazing award that the President received, and the American people should be rallying behind him, not looking at this prize in shock. Lets be American's and support our President who is actually doing good in the world and has restored our image in the world, that was greatly destroyed during the last presidency...
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PS4 Will Receive Mods for Fallout and Skyrim After All
In an update on Bethesda’s blog, it seems that whatever issues there were between Sony and Bethesda have been ironed out. Mods will now be coming to both Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition on PS4 with the latter receiving mod support first. However, there is one caveat:
“You will not be able to upload external assets with your PlayStation 4 mods, but you will be able to use any assets that come with the game, as most mods do.”
Despite the limitation, this comes as a sigh of relief for many PlayStation owners as it seemed Sony was completely unwilling to budge before. Perhaps fan outcry had something to do with it.
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Higher Marketing ROI – Your lawyers get more bang for their marketing buck because we emphasize leveraging and repurposing your material.
You get a team with extensive experience creating effective marketing and public relations programs for lawyers, law firms, and law firm practice groups. Click here for a representative list of law firm clients.
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11/7/11
Happy Monday
The day flew. I don't even remember much of it. Crazy fast November.
I taught my PE classes about high blood pressure today. It was fun to take their BP and make jokes about their pulses and them actually having hearts. I also said to a kid: "first time you were accused of being normal today, huh?" I am so funny!
For Home Evening tonight my group went to the BYU Dinosaur museum. It was way cool and we even got to go to the lab where they get the bones out of the rock. Cool stuff. I really liked tie plastic dinosaur they had in there. Priceless.
Dinner at the other family's was great too. I love chilli and birthday cake is quite yummy too!
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Quirk Works Subaru Customer Reviews
12/2014
I recently visited Quirk Subaru with my father to buy a car. He thought I should test drive the Forester as my brother has one. We met with Chris Collins, the manager. I was interested in one with Eyesight which has all of the new safety features. Anyway I drove it but it was a lot bigger than my brother’s and I was currently driving a Honda Civi
[email protected]
05/2015
I leased a Forester a few years ago and had a very good experience with the Quirk Subaru team. When my husband and I started a family we decided to look at the 2015 Forester because it had been redesigned and was just a little bigger. Without pressure from the sales person, we felt that the new Forester was just what we need for our growing family
CAQD
01/2015
Thanks for the great customer service from Anthony Maggio. Friendly, helpful and genuine. My only criticism is that I wish your team provided complimentary car washes.
heidihurl
10/2016
I recently purchased a new 2017 Outback. The sales rep was great, answered all my questions, gave me a great deal and worked within my budget.
Yvonne Okeefe
03/2017
My experience with Mach from Quirk was professional, pleasant and devoid of the "games" that I've endured at other dealerships. Quirk gave me a better deal than all other Subaru dealerships I worked with for the same vehicle without a bunch of back and forth haggle. I would highly recommend Quirk and Mach if you're interested in purchasing/leasin
Enrique Falcon
03/2011
Terrific sales experience. No pressure. Peter was very helpful and rook the time to understand what I needed, not what the dealership needed. The paperwork was handled completely and professionally by Geri, she even redid the contract when the rate came in lower than expected. Got a terrific car at a great price and made several new friends. Comes
ajresq
09/2010
I had the pleasure of purchasing a 2011 STI from Quirk. Mr. Moreno was very helpful and made my dealership experience pain free. I was able to purchase the vehicle and drive away the same day. I was also given a generous trade in on my old car. I would recommend Quirk Works Subaru to my friends and family without reservation.
amirthad
02/2017
Great could not ask for a better service. Jonathan Theodat is very helpful and the rest of the team were awesome too. Thank you for your excellent service. A plus plus ...
Arthur Cole
08/2010
We have been shopping for a new Subaru for a few weeks. We also looked at Honda and Toyota. Decided on Subaru because it felt like the Outback gave us the best deal overall. My wife went in to test drive, even though she was a little scared of going by herself into a car dealership. But when she came home, she told me that she was pleasantly surpri
MichaelDurante
06/2015
I reviewed all of the postings prior to visiting Quirk Works Subaru. I determined that much of it may have to do with the fact that most of us hate dealing with car salesman and always wonder if we are being taken advantage of. That being said, I have friends who have raved about the great deals that they received from Quirk Subaru as well as other
Katie H.
03/2011
I recently had a major repair completed on my Subaru (I love ths car). It was the kind of repair that you wonder if your car will ever be the same. Needless to say Dan, the Service Manager was great. He kept me informed on the progress, he worked with me on a making sure it was a fair deal and he had a great way about him. Honestly, I have had m
mholli
04/2015
Our salesman, Ryan Gee was knowledgeable and showed us the right vehicle for our needs and budget. There was no pressure to buy more than we needed nor less than we were looking for. Negotiations were surprisingly simple. I think it was no more than 15 minutes to reach an agreement instead of the 2 hours ive had at other places in the past. At time
wagner, c
07/2016
We purchased a car through Andre. It was a very nice, easy experience with no pressure.
Kelly Kane
12/2014
My husband and I just purchased a new car from Quirk Subaru and are very pleased with our experience. We worked with Tom Sforza, who made it an easy and pleasant exchange. With speed and accuracy this process was prompt and painless. They worked with us on our trade in and were able to give us a great deal on an AWESOME vehicle. Btw, they also wor
Alison C.
02/2015
I had a excellent experience. I met with Hoeun Nuon he was really helpful with my search for a new car. They are the only company that worked with me through my credit. Which i am so thankful because i was in desperate need for another car. I had a beat up 98 infiniti 130 which was causing me problems and definitely was not good in the snow. I got
Adrianna Washingtn
01/2016
Red carpet treatment from start to finish! Quickest car purchase of my life with top-notch service! No haggling and we left with a superstar deal!
Car buyer
09/2015
I had a great experience at Quirks. Everyone was friendly and courteous. Salesman Hoeun Nuon was knowledgeable and helpful. I would recommend Hoeun if you are looking for a positive car buying experience.
Mike P.
05/2015
very good.The salesman was a great help Ben made sure everything went well.
Harry Musconovich
05/2015
I had a wonderful experience working with Reece White on purchasing a new 2015 Legacy. He was very helpful on helping me select the right vehicle and very knowledgeable about the Suburu product. I will definitely recommend friends and family and will do business in the future with Quirk Suburu.
tivale
08/2015
I was not planning on buying a car but the repairs to my 9 year old car were too much to be worth it and it could not be driven on the highway so I needed a car fast. I started at Quirk Chevrolet since that was where my car was. They were bvery nice but I decided agaisnt what they had shown me. Subaru was on the same lot so the next day I went ther
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A&K Energy Conservation, Inc. was founded in 1967 by husband and wife team Lyn and Bette Knowles. Today, we carry on with the mission with which they began: to provide reliable service at a reasonable rate from a company you can trust.
Company
After Lyn Knowles completed his service in the U.S. Navy as an electrician’s mate, he began working as a light bulb salesman for a local distributor. A driven, entrepreneurial person, Knowles recognized the need for lighting services in local retail stores, and quickly realized that he could use the skills he gained in the Navy to offer lighting installation services himself. He began to go door-to-door to try and drum up some business. Before long, Knowles was busy servicing retail lighting full time.
Lyn and Bette Knowles started their business, first called A&K Lighting Maintenance, out of an old barn in Hernando County, FL with nothing but the drive to provide quality service and the electrical knowledge to back it up. As business picked up, Lyn and Bette expanded by hiring trustworthy family, friends, and other individuals who they knew would uphold their commitment to honest service.
Decades passed and the business, along with the team, continued to expand. Realizing the need his customers had for maintaining the clean look of their stores, Lyn Knowles steadily expanded the company’s services in order to offer customers more comprehensive offerings, even including painting yellowing ceiling tiles. Thus, in the 1980s, the name of the company was changed to A&K Service Corporation.
A&K has always helped our customers save money through more efficient lighting systems, but as the 1990s brought a heavier focus on environmental consciousness, we began concentrating on making our energy-saving services more apparent. A name change was needed to bring that to light (pun intended). Now A&K Energy Conservation, Inc., we continue to provide customers with the newest ways to reduce energy usage.
For over five decades of business, there have been plenty of changes. The reason A&K has remained a trusted service provider for over 50 years is our uncompromising dedication to a central value; we are always willing to go above and beyond to satisfy our customers and continually earn their trust. Today, President Pattie Cagle, daughter of Lyn and Bette Knowles, maintains this guiding value. We work every day to make sure our customers feel like they are part of the A&K family.
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Main»News»May 17, four postage stamps featuring heroes of famous Russian fables to be issued as part of the Literature Heritage of Russia series
May 17, four postage stamps featuring heroes of famous Russian fables to be issued as part of the Literature Heritage of Russia series
A fable is a story in prose or verse of sententious or satiric character, with a short lesson (a moral) in the beginning or in the end. The characters are often animals, plants or inanimate objects given human qualities, ridiculing human faults.
The postage stamps feature illustrations to such fables as The Rooster and the Pearl by Vasily Trediakovsky, The Wolf and the Crane by Aleksandr Sumarokov, The Fox and Grape by Ivan Krylov and The Hare and the Tortoise by Sergey Mikhalkov.
Additionally, JSC “Marka” will manufacture an illustrated cover with the stamps and first day covers with cancellation (Moscow) inside
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AH - Deaver
Roy Deaver
"Can we know that God exists? The basic question underlying this question is: Can we know anything at all? For, if it is possible to know anything, then it is possible to know that God exists. Can one know anything?
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MacBeth
Presented by The Raw Shakespeare Project
About
“Like Two Spent Swimmers, that do Cling Together and Choke Their Art.”
Imagine stripping away all the myths and superstitions, then imagine hearing this story raw, as if you have never heard of it, seen it, or read it before. In this passionate production of MacBeth, The Raw Shakespeare Project bring to life the real story often hidden beneath the legend of The Scottish Play. In the Scotland of many Kings – a 9th Century land of Celts and Vikings - we find the Lord and Lady MacBeth as real people…good people, and a loving couple who make a mistake…a mistake that heralds their tormented downfall and brings an entire country down with them.
This raw, intimate and emotionally charged period production strips back the many layer’s time has added, to simply and powerfully perform Shakespeare’s amazing work.
“What’s done, cannot be undone.”
Cast and Creatives
Isabella Shaw, DirectorIsabella Shaw is a founding member of The Raw Shakespeare Project and has built a reputation as a passionate and talented stage actress with past roles including Juliet (Romeo & Juliet), Hero (Much Ado About Nothing), Hermia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Orlando (As You Like It). MacBeth will be her first Direction of a full production and we are looking forward to seeing her transfer her on-stage insights to this new role. As a strong character actress herself, her direction will drive the focus on realistic story-telling and, working with talented cast, to develop the depth of characters that sets Shakespeare’s works apart as timeless.
Her VisionOne of the most unique aspects of this production is a very carefully researched and measured depiction of Lady MacBeth that directly challenges the contemporary depiction of her as blood-thirsty and cruel, and is more in-line with pre-Victorian interpretations. That is, of the loving, but strong, wife who missteps in urging her husband to fight his nature to become King by force. Even though there is an argument for active succession-planning in this dangerous and unsettled period of the Dark Ages, this forced breach of nature triggers the decent into madness for MacBeth, leaving his loving wife an increasingly powerless watcher, unable to reverse the damage. By avoiding black and white interpretations of the lead characters we find the power of the story told in shades of these shades of grey.
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This Morning host Phillip Schofield has hit out after communications watchdog Ofcom launched an investigation into his report on "bondage for beginners" with Christine Bleakley.
The report was inspired by the Fifty Shades Of Grey movie and featured an interview with a "sex expert" about a range of sex toys including an eye mask, leash and collar.
Ofcom received 120 complaints and "opened an investigation into whether an item about 'bondage for beginners' was suitable for broadcast before the watershed".
Schofield said people complained to Ofcom over "any minor outrage" and that "behind those closed, outraged doors of middle England" the raunchy items that they featured were snapped up online.
"I think for me, and it's my own personal belief, but in the old days, people would pick up the phone and complain or they'd write a letter.
"But now they go to Ofcom and they must be sick to death of all of this. Any minor outrage that anyone's got, they go to Ofcom. They must be inundated with minor complaints."
He added: "Everyone went to see the movie and if you look at the stuff we had on there, it was very innocent stuff and spectacularly, when the item had finished the things we had were all sold out in moments.
"So behind those closed, outraged doors of middle England, what they were secretly doing was going to buy this stuff online."
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Blog
Eight Big Ten women's track & field student-athletes earned first-team Capital One Academic All-District honors, as announced on Thursday. The honor recognizes the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances athletically and in the classroom. The honorees are now eligible for Academic All-America consideration. The complete list of Academic All-District award recipients can be found below.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Anna Higgins, J.D., director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, expressed serious concerns regarding a federal judge's order today that the "morning-after" pill be available to girls of all ages without a prescription.
U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in Brooklyn, New York ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make the potent drug available.
Higgins made the following statement regarding the judge's order:
"This ruling places the health of young girls at risk. Making Plan B available for girls under the age of 17 without a prescription flies in the face of medical information and sound judgment. I am very troubled that the court has not fully taken into account the concerns expressed by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and many public health advocates that there is not enough data on the health effects of Plan B on young girls.
"According to the new numbers released by the Centers for Disease Control, there were 19,700,000 new STIs reported in 2008 - the last year for which numbers are available. Based on the CDC's estimates, that brings the total number of STIs in the U.S. to just over 110 million. Most of the new cases crop up in young men and women aged 15-25. Making Plan B available over-the-counter for any age will put many of these young girls at further risk because it circumvents necessary medical screening for sexually active girls.
"There is a real danger that Plan B may be given to young girls, under coercion or without their consent. The involvement of parents and medical professionals act as a safeguard for these young girls. However, today's ruling removes these commonsense protections," concluded Higgins.
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RIB058 – Eminority & Do You DJ?
Tracklist
The Captain is at the helm once again for his first solo double sided release for over a year. Having just palyed to 20,000 at the Qlimax event in Holland, the Dutch influence has infiltrated Tinrib once more.
A . Eminority – The Captain is taking you on a litlle trip to the Dutch/German border with Eminority. Filtered drums and saucy shaker action drop to a massive deep driving bass under soaring trance chords that are guaranteed to lift any dancefloor. 8:05m @ 145 bpm
AA. Do You DJ? – Do you DJ has a great techno groove that launches itself into a full on club track with a massive bouncy riff. The Captain’s sense of humour is back in full effect! With vocals from The Captain, his Missus & Maxxy Lightweight the moral of this tale is never do an interview at Tinrib Studios cos you might well end up the star of a track! Are you a lightweight too? 8:03m @ 145 bpm
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Out of Work? Put your PR Skills to Use!
None of us ever want to be unemployed. Unfortunately, the reality is that it happens. I’m one of those who had reality slap me in the face when I was let go from my job last month. Disappointing? Sure. But, it was also a perfect time to refine who I am and what I really want to do.
What did I do?
I spent the first few days developing a plan of action and started to strategize my next steps. Think you can’t do a SWOT analysis on yourself? WRONG! Take any public relations-centered term and you can put it to use in your job search. Here’s what I did in the first weeks of being unemployed.
Research-I did Google searches and talked to trusted colleagues who are now out on their own to see what was out there and how I could market myself.
Strategy- If I wasn’t going to be working in the office setting full-time, I needed to know what I wanted to do and how it would work for me. Much like you do strategy sessions with clients, I took a critical look at where I wanted to go.
Key Messages- If someone were to ask you to define who you are in three concise sentences, could you do it? Being unemployed is a perfect time to define yourself.
SWOT analysis- Yes, I wasn’t just throwing the term out there earlier. I actually looked at my strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats. It helped to clear up where I was going and what roadblocks I could encounter.
Pitching- Think about it. When you have to pitch a client to a producer or reporter, it needs to be compelling and newsworthy, right? The same can be said when pitching yourself for a new job or solo work.
Most importantly, don’t give up. You will hit some bumps, but with these five tips in your corner, you should feel more confident of your success.
Right on, Jason! When I moved back to our area and couldn’t get anything going, I resorted to taking a job (not in PR) that I quit in less than a month. (Matter of fact, it’s about five years to the day that I took that job.)
Prior to my taking that awful job, I recall doing nothing but scouring websites, forums and newspapers trying to find jobs. I never sat down and made an assessment of how I was going about things and how to market myself.
When I finally did things similar to what you have described? I got two job offers in PR within two weeks. Amazing what happens when one prepares before one attacks.
Thanks for writing this, Jason, and for reminding those in this unfortunate situation not to give up! I too was let go unexpectedly, in August due to company budgeting, and have been making an effort to apply the strategies we use in our work to myself.
Thanks for sharing this. I know the feeling bro. I got downsized in 09 after seven years at a Manhattan firm that’s why I ended up in Austin and started my own shop. It’s been a challenging road but I think it’s the best thing for me and my family for now.
You raised excellent points. I forget sometimes that I need to pitch
myself for new business just as hard as I pitch my clients to media. Keep that positive attitude!
Jason, this post proves you are a rock star! I applaud you for honestly sharing from your own experience and providing solid tips for others who may be struggling to find a new job. From experience, I know that the greatest weapon in a successful transition is attitude. You have that nailed and I can’t wait to see what is next for you.
Also great advice for us young PR pros with several internship experiences, who are still struggling to establish permanent roots in an organization. This was a great reminder that in order to move forward, we can’t give up!
I graduated in Dec ’09 and, because entry-level PR jobs are especially competitive due to the economic crisis, I’ve tried to take advantage of every possible opportunity. Since then I’ve interned or freelanced for several organizations in corporate, agency and non-profit industries. While it has been a struggle financially, I still feel very fortunate that I continue to grow my skill set in all three areas of PR. I’m not going to give up though – your post definitely reminded me not to! 🙂
Twin 1 08 Msu
I like the theory that is coming out of this message. I will graduate college in May with a degree in Public Relations and these tips will hopefully work wonders for me. I have one concern though, I feel like it would extremely difficult to do a SWOT analysis on yourself. In an analysis of yourself it would be hard to point out your own weaknesses. You might ask a friend or colleague to help you with this portion. In my case, as a student, asking professors may be a good start.
Anonymous
I really enjoyed this post Jason! While I have a job to pay for my college I still find myself feeling somewhat unemployed. I am studying PR and broadcast journalism in what may be my last year of school. Before I ever took any course in college my father always told me life was about networking. I only really believed him when all of my professors were saying the same exact thing. I feel like networking is really hard to do without going through the steps you talked about in this post. I think while I am still “unemployed” in my desired field of work I will go through and look at these things to better network myself. Great post!
Anonymous
I really enjoyed this post Jason! While I have a job to pay for my college I still find myself feeling somewhat unemployed. I am studying PR and broadcast journalism in what may be my last year of school. Before I ever took any course in college my father always told me life was about networking. I only really believed him when all of my professors were saying the same exact thing. I feel like networking is really hard to do without going through the steps you talked about in this post. I think while I am still “unemployed” in my desired field of work I will go through and look at these things to better network myself. Great post!
Bikijohn
You’ve handled your situation in a great, productive way. It reminds of what a friend said to me yesterday about the Nelson Mandela story and how what essentially set him apart from the rest of his prison mates was how he capitalized on a negative situation, by having a positive attitude which led to a positive outcome. I feel this is what you are doing- bravo!http://myfashionslashlife.wordpress.com
Jordan728
Thanks for sharing your story Jason. This article is especially helpful for new graduates about to enter the workforce. It’s important to reassess where you stand in these economic times, and it certainly never hurts to improve your skill set, while in between careers.
Brynne
I appreciate this post! I am about to graduate with a degree in PR in the spring, and I find that these tips apply to recent grads without a job as well. Having public relations as a degree is definitely helpful in landing a job, because we know how to market ourselves. I am finding myself capable of helping fellow students who are graduating as well with their job search, because of my background in PR.
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Commercial Dishwashers
When it comes to your back line, the only pieces of equipment you can trust to keep your dishes clean on a daily basis are commercial dishwashers. While residential units may cut it at home, in the chaotic, ever-busy world of the commercial kitchen, having something bigger and stronger is essential. Not only do commercial dishwashers save you time by letting you load up rack after rack, but these beasts are also designed to help cut down on water usage, as well as, energy consumption. Put commercial dishwashers to work on your back line, and never worry about dirty dishes again.
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Aleppo Braces for Mass Protests
Syria's economic hub of Aleppo is bracing itself for mass rallies as activists call for protesters to 'light the spark of revolution.'
By Gabe Kahn.
First Publish: 6/30/2011, 5:36 PM / Last Update: 6/30/2011, 6:17 PM
Aleppo, Syria's second most populous city, braced for a mass rallies Thursday after activists called on protesters to "light the spark of the revolution," Gulf News reports.
Protests against President Bashar Al Assad's regime.in Aleppo have been relatively muted affairs to date, but a Facebook group at the center of Syria's popular uprising has now called on Syrians across the country to mobilize and march on the city's commercial hub to demand the regime's downfall.
The Syrian Revolution 2011 group also urged people to continue to rally after Friday afternoon Muslim prayers, which have become weekly flashpoints of dissent against the Assad regime's brutal suppression of protest in Syria, branding this coming July 1 as "the Friday of departure."
"Revolutionaries, come to Aleppo and Idleb provinces... and go to central Aleppo... to protest and to light the spark of the Revolution," the activists urged.
Intransigent wildcard
Assad's troops meanwhile pressed on with a campaign to quash dissent in northwestern villages, killing more civilians, despite international condemnation and new US sanctions against regime pillars and Syria's top ally, Iran.
The pressure on Assad from within and without has led regional observers to question whether Assad will launch an attack on Israel, perhaps in conjunction with Hizbullah, to deflect attention from his domestic woes.
A Kuwait-based newspaper claimed Wednesday Israel had sent a back-channel message to Assad saying he would be personally targeted if he did decide to attack Israel.
Eleven Killed
Eleven people were shot dead Wednesday when soldiers backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled into villages in the northwestern province of Idleb, human rights observers say.
The troops reportedly stormed Mar-Ayan and Ihsem villages on Wednesday, a day after tanks rumbled into Al Rami, near the main road leading to Aleppo.
"They are currently at the outskirts of Al Bara," a hamlet known for its Roman remains, Abdul Rahman, a human rights observer, said on Wednesday. "The soldiers are deployed in the villages and are conducting searches."
According to Abdul Rahman, 1,353 civilians have been killed since mid-March in a crackdown by Assad's regime on the reformist movement and 343 security force personnel have also died.
The crackdown has also seen thousands of Syrians arrested since pro-democracy protests erupted against Assad's regime and almost 50 years of iron-gauntlet rule by the Baath party.
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Salamander Population and Adaptation Research Collaboration Network
Sampling salamanders in the field.
A research plot after snowfall.
Experimental snowfall removal.
The Salamander Population and Adaptation Research Collaboration Network (aka 'SPARCnet') is a group of almost 50 collaborators with the two-fold goal of (1) advancing our understanding of environmental change on salamander ecology and evolution, and (2) developing meaningful curricula that engages students and has them participate in real research. Each collaborator uses the same methods to investigate salamander responses to changes in temperature, precipitation, and other habitat features across the entire range of the focal species, the Red-backed Salamander, Plethodon cinereus. This species is among the most abundant vertebrate species in temperate forest ecosystems, despite being no larger than your finger. The scientific goals are specifically to:
1. Understand impacts of land use and climate change on salamander population dynamics.
2. Develop models to describe local and regional drivers of population dynamics.
The goal of my dissertation was to understand the historical and contemporary processes that create and maintain the disjunct distribution Hyla andersonii. This species is restricted to three isolated (disjunct) regions in the eastern United States: New Jersey, North and South Carolina, and the Florida panhandle and southern Alabama. It is considered threatened by all of the states in which it occurs. Results suggest a strikingly concordant pattern of differentiation in which the first axis of variation for acoustic signal, morphometric, and genetic data distinguishes populations along a latitudinal/longitudinal gradient and the second axis distinguishes the set of populations occurring in the Carolinas from those occurring in the New Jersey and Florida/Alabama regions. I also investigated genetic differences among populations within regions, quantified habitat characteristics among regions, and tested models of evolutionary history using high-throughput, next-generation sequence data.
Behavioral isolation and divergence of Hyla andersonii and H. cinerea in Florida
Behavioral isolation is a major barrier to hybridization among sympatric species. In anuran mating systems, the principal isolating mechanisms are acoustic signals (used in species recognition) and preferential breeding habitat. The treefrogs Hyla andersonii and H. cinerea are known to be behaviorally isolated, having different preferential breeding habitats (allotopic), although their acoustic signals are very similar. In regions of the Florida panhandle and southern Alabama, however, males of both species call for mates from the same locality (syntopic), resulting in hybrid individuals with intermediate calls and physical characteristics. We collected calls from syntopic and allotopic localities for both species in order to measure changes in acoustic signal.
The country of Colombia in South America is the most diverse in the world in number of amphibian species per unit area. One group, the Gladiator frogs, inhabit a large range of environmental conditions and exhibit fascinating behaviors that include nest-building, calling for females, and male-male combat using a bony spine on their thumb. In this study, we investigate the evolutionary and ecological factors that may have contributed to the distributions of three closely-related, species: Hypsiboas crepitans, H. pugnax, and H. rosenbergi.
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Lenovo have just unveiled their latest Android-powered tablet, the 9.7-inch IdeaPad S2109. The tablet rocks Google's latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS, a 9.7-inch 1024x768 IPS-based screen, which doesn't beat the new iPad, but keeps up with the iPad 2.
The S2109 does however, sport micro-HDMI, micro-SD expandable memory card slot, as well as a micro-USB port. What is weird here, is that Lenovo have given the S2109 a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, but no rear-facing camera. Yes, no rear-facing camera is present on the IdeaPad S2109.
Lenovo are claiming a respectable 10-hour battery life on the new tablet, and they've also thrown in four SRS TruMedia-branded speakers on the S2109. At the moment, we don't know what SoC or onboard memory for the S2109, these specs should float out in a few weeks time.
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Grand Ballroom
Invite up to 700 friends, family members and colleagues to a grand social event or corporate gala set in an elegant oasis. Our Grand Ballroom in Baltimore provides access to inspiring views of the marina and harbour.
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Unbelievably Expensive Auctions
In 1674, Sweden welcomed the world’s first auction house, known as Stockholms Auktionsverk. Since then, auction houses across the world have opened their doors to some of the most unusual items for auctions, as well as some of the most expensive. From cars to historical artefacts, one-off pop-culture pieces to art and sculptures, people have paid hundreds of millions of dollars for collectable items through auctions.
While Gregsons auctions here in Perth have seen some extraordinary items since we opened in 1929, our auctions haven’t quite seen the likes of the below, which happen to be some of the most unbelievably expensive auction items of all time.
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From the humble car auction to the world’s most expensive painting
• 1962-63 Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta
Gregson’s hold car auctions all the time, but unfortunately we’ve never got our hands on a Ferrari like this! This particular Ferrari had a volatile past, with the first four owners of the car thrashing it. One of its first owners, Henri Oreiller, died soon after crashing the car in a 1962 race. Ferrari rebuilt and repaired the car, only to have the next owner flip it in the forest. The 3851GT, now painted brilliant red, is the 19th of just 39 Ferrari 250 GTOs produced and in 2014, this little red machine became the most expensive car ever sold at auction.
Winning Bid: US $38.1 million
• Marilyn Monroe’s dress
In 1962, Marilyn Monroe famously serenaded then American President, John F Kennedy, in a jaw-dropping dress. Her rendition of “Happy Birthday, Mr President” became synonymous with ‘that’ dress, and for good reason; the dress had over 2,500 hand-stitched crystals and originally cost $12,000. Fast-forward to 2016 and the iconic dress went under the hammer for $4.8 million, making it the most expensive dress to be sold at auction.
Winning Bid: US $4.8 million
• Jackson Pollock’s No. 5, 1948
Influential American painter Jackson Pollock was known best for his quirky expressionist style. His piece, No. 5, 1948 was said to resemble a birds net, with his style sprawled across his approximately 2.5m x 1.2m sheet of fibreboard. The most recent auction for the piece was in 2006, where the painting was sold for an incredible US $140 million.
Winning Bid: US $140 million
Seriously Pricey Auctions: Diamonds, Yachts and…Lunch?
• CTF Diamond (formally the Pink Star)
The rough diamond now known as the CTF Diamond was originally found in 1999 in South Africa. This stunning pink diamond, described as “arguably the rarest cut ever”, was auctioned off in early 2017 for over $70 million, approximately US $13 million more than the last record-holding diamond auction for the Oppenheimer Blue, which sold for US $57.5 million.
Winning Bid: US $71 Million
• The Gigayacht
It’s one thing to own a yacht, but it’s an entirely different story to own a yacht worth US $168 million. The “Gigayacht” sold in 2006 for multi-million dollar price tag, and the 123 metre-long yacht comes well equipped with 10 multi-level VIP rooms, eight guest rooms, a movie theatre, and a helicopter pad. Craig Timm, president of 4Yacht Inc, advertised and sold the luxury yacht through eBay to give the advertisement greater exposure and create a “buzz”.
Winning Bid: US $168 million
• Lunch with Warren Buffet
Not even a lunch at the most upper-class restaurant you can think of can compare in price to the annual auctioned charity lunch with Warren Buffet, billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Each year, another Lunch with Warren is auctioned through eBay, with the 2017 lunch coming in at US $2,679,001. The cost of the 2017 lunch fell about $700,000 short of the record set for the 2012 and 2016 lunch, where a lucky bidder paid almost US $3.5 million for the privilege of lunch with Warren Buffet.
Record Winning Bid (2012, 2016): US $3,456,789
While we don’t imagine we’ll get our hands on another of Marilyn’s dresses, or on a Gigayacht, we do see some pretty amazing things come through our lot at Gregsons auctions in Perth. Make sure you keep an eye out on the Gregsons Facebook page, and join our newsletter so you’re up to date with the latest online auctions, news and offers!
Transport & Shipping
Don't feel like picking up? See our friends at Pack & Send to arrange a courier!
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Snacks
Raw fresh tamarillo
Tamarillos will give your taste buds a unique burst of flavour and freshness.
The flesh tastes fantastic raw but please don’t eat the skin. Lots of people just cut the fruit in half and scoop out the flesh. For first timers, try sprinkling a small amount of sugar on the fruit before eating.
Packed with vitamins and minerals raw tamarillos are extremely good for you. They can be used fresh in many exciting ways to add colour (antioxidants) and taste at meal times.
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Guides
Newcomers to Billings often express confusion about Billings’ neighborhoods. And, for good reason. We have a tendency to mash our communities with our neighborhoods and subdivisions, using all labels interchangeably.…
By far, the greatest number of requests for neighborhood information that Realty Billings receives pertains to two subdivisions: Riverfront Pointe and homes for sale in Josephine Crossing. Most of the homebuyers…
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April 6, 2017
State gives some response to lead poisoning questions
Yesterday, we wrote about attempts to get answers from the New Mexico Department of Health about elevated lead levels in children.
In December, Reuters published a map on childhood lead poisoning across the nation. The story, with an accompanying map, “Off the Charts: The thousands of U.S. locales where lead poisoning is worse than Flint,” looked at where children were tested for lead and how many had high levels of the toxic metal in their blood.
According to Reuters, about 2.5 percent of American infants and children six years-old and younger have elevated lead levels in their blood. In Flint, a city grappling with lead contamination from its water system, 5 percent of the children screened had elevated levels. Meanwhile, in New Mexico between 2006 and 2015, those numbers were even higher in 29 communities statewide.
For months, we tried to speak with someone at DOH who could answer specific questions about New Mexico’s lead exposure problems.
In March, the department’s spokesman emailed a two-page fact sheet, but it only addressed a few questions. Repeated requests to interview the agency’s health experts were ignored.
Publishing yesterday’s piece as an essay wasn’t something we took lightly. But we decided that rather than continue asking public officials questions they weren’t answering, we could better serve the public by explaining the seriousness of the topic. We also wanted to explain our access problems with state and hoped another media outlet might pick up the story and ask those questions as well.
Within hours of publishing our story, that’s exactly what happened.
In a show of journalistic solidarity—one that’s rare between traditional and online media outlets—KOB-TV picked up on our story yesterday and mentioned our troubles.
DOH responded to the television station the very same day, and the agency’s spokesman appeared on camera to answer questions.
Reporter Kasia Gregorczyk closed her broadcast with this message, “We do believe that there is more to be done here, and we will continue to look for more specific answers regarding what’s being done about the issue of lead poisoning in our state.”
Just before 4 p.m. Wednesday, an hour before the station’s broadcast was scheduled to begin, we received an email from the DOH spokesman, which we added to our original story. He apologized for the delay, writing that the state’s 60-day legislative session that ended last month put large demands on his time and attention. He also offered some background information on lead testing, as well as a statement from DOH Secretary Lynn Gallagher:
“Keeping children safe from lead poisoning is a priority for the Department of Health and for the state. At the community level, it requires everyone’s attention in order to prevent, what the CDC considers the most preventable environmental disease among young children. The Department of Health employs a team of health professionals who work with parents, pediatricians, other healthcare professionals, other state agencies, and the public to ensure appropriate testing, education and monitoring take place in a coordinated manner state-wide.”
As he noted in the broadcast, the spokesman pointed out that in 2015, 1.2 percent of children tested in New Mexico saw an elevated test, compared to 3.3 percent of children with elevated tests nationwide. That’s good news, but it doesn’t address why some communities and neighborhoods are seeing such high exposures.
Yesterday’s responses, to NMPR and to KOB, represent a start. But we still have some questions and they can’t be answered in an email or even a list of guidelines.
This is the full list of questions we’ve emailed DOH since January, with the hope of learning more from the department’s experts, rather than a spokesman or political appointee. The italicized ones still demand attention:
-As I understand it, all children enrolled in Medicaid must be tested for lead exposure at 12 and 24 months.
-What are the other reasons children would be tested?
-What happens with those results, in general?
-And what happens to a child whose tests come back with the presence of lead? What is the treatment?-Does the agency identify what caused the exposure, and what might be done about it? (For example, who would pay for or help with the removal of lead pipes or paint or whatever was causing the problem?)-Does the agency identify clusters or areas of concern? (For example, a particular neighborhood, or an area where people are drinking well water as opposed to being on a water system?)-Then I have specific questions about certain zip codes and areas.-Lastly, I have questions about the long-term impacts of lead exposure on children, and on communities where exposure levels are high.
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Peering at a map of red dots, Michael Robinson became worried when he couldn’t locate AF1251, the last adult Mexican gray wolf of the Prieto pack, who was also a mother with a yearling.
Robinson, senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, was keeping an eye on the remaining two members of the Prieto pack after the alpha male of the pack and a pup had been killed by the federal Wildlife Services agents earlier this year. Wildlife Services is a secretive federal agency that offers predator removal services for ranchers.
The two wolf killings followed the removal of a total of seven pack members over the last two years.
Public health orders restricting some businesses and public gatherings are slowly being lifted, but the New Mexico Supreme Court’s restrictions on eviction proceedings and limitations on civil cases in general are still in place. State Supreme Court Justice Shannon Bacon said she expects an increase of civil cases once courts are fully functioning.
“What we’re anticipating with the health pandemic and the downturn of the economy and a really high unemployment rate are issues that really raise their head in the same way they did in 2008 and 2009 with the recession,” Bacon said.
All week, we look for stories that help New Mexicans better understand what’s happening with water, climate, energy, landscapes and communities around the region. Thursday morning, that news goes out via email.
In 2017, Reuters published a map on lead poisoning among children across the nation. The story examined where children were tested for lead and how many had high levels of the toxic metal in their blood.
ALBUQUERQUE — At least 25 residents of one of New Mexico’s largest halfway houses have tested positive for COVID-19. The outbreak happened at Diersen Charities in Albuquerque, which houses inmates on their way out of the federal prison system and some who are on federal probation.
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A day after state health officials announced the highest single-day number of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, they announced 129 additional confirmed cases and five additional deaths related to the disease.
State Human Services Department Secretary Dr. David Scrase offered some data supporting the use of masks and social distancing to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
The use of face masks in public has become a polarizing topic among some communities as the state has loosened its restrictions on businesses, including closures, over the last week.
While cloth masks aren’t suitable for use in healthcare settings, Scrase said they are still useful at preventing the spread of the illness among the general public.
Public health orders restricting some businesses and public gatherings are slowly being lifted, but the New Mexico Supreme Court’s restrictions on eviction proceedings and limitations on civil cases in general are still in place.
Laura Paskus has been writing about New Mexico’s natural resources and communities since 2002, as an assistant editor of High Country News, a radio producer at KUNM-FM, managing editor of Tribal College Journal and a freelancer for a variety of publications including the Santa Fe Reporter, New Mexico In Depth and Indian Country Today. Her work has also appeared in Al Jazeera America, Ms. Magazine, National Geographic Online, The Nature Conservancy Magazine, The Progressive, Columbia Journalism Review, The Mountain Gazette, Audubon and Orion. She's a correspondent for New Mexico In Focus and a graduate student in the University of New Mexico’s Geography and Environmental Studies Department.
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Running PCCI Cares with MBT Shoes
Running PCCI Cares with MBT Shoes
I’ve been running for more than 7 years now, but it’s the first time I heard about the brand MBT… So when the company approached me and asked me to review their running shoes, I was very eager to know what makes this running shoe brand different from others.
About the Brand
Invented by Swiss engineer Karl Müller, MBT stands for Masai Barefoot Technology and has been in the industry since the early 1990s.
Apparently, MBT as a brand has been in the country for a couple of years now, known for their unique MBT® sole that imitates walking on soft, uneven surfaces, the technology claims that it can help tone your body, improve posture and ease back pain. The shoe is designed with a curved outsole that mimics a rocking motion of foot walking on soft surfaces.
Road Testing the MBT
I was given the road test the MBT Speed17. When I wore them, it feels like i’m standing on a rocking chair, for a moment I thought I was going to fall backwards. The outsole feels really soft, and while walking around, you can immediately feel the cushioning and support of the MBT shoes.
I took the chance to test the MBT Speed17 at the PCCI Cares Run last Sunday in McKinley West, decided to go for a 10K distance to see how it performs, I was quite cautious about not going longer than 10K since it’s the first time i’m going to run with it.
Chiqui (my running buddy) and I took it slow for the first few kilometers as I was trying to feel the shoes… the curved outsole don’t feel as curved anymore and is actually helping in a smoother transition, I don’t feel the weight of the shoes as well (which is good, because I personally prefer very lightweight shoes).
As we took on the UPHELLS of McKinley, I slowly moved my attention out of the shoes and onto the race course.
As I always say, when you forget about the shoes, it’s good for you.
That is my ultimate test, when you don’t feel pain or any discomfort, and you simply forget about the shoes, then it’s good for you. And as runners, we know that wearing the right shoes makes all the difference!
Based on my 10K run, I think the shoes is good enough to push towards a half-marathon or even the full distance, but I’ll have to test it to really know myself, but perhaps some of you have tried it already, you can share your experience at the comments section below.
Photo with Jackie Go
Where to Find MBT
The SRP for the MBT Speed17 on me is Php 5,650 while the GT17 on Jackie is Php 8,250.
MBT is exclusively distributed by Stores Specialists, Inc., and is available in MBT stores located in Glorietta 2, Estancia Mall, Rustan’s Alabang, and Rustan’s Shangri-La.
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Make Your Own Animation Videos with YouTube Create, No Skill Required
Creating a video these days is not much of a challenge for most people. You can even get away with using a camera phone. Creating animation can be pretty hard and often requires expensive software, but GoAnimate and Xtranormal Movie Maker let you create animated videos with just a text storyline. In minutes, you can make two bears discuss fiction-writing, or create your own cooking show parody.
Stupeflix lets you pull together your own images, clips and even maps into a dynamic video slideshow. You can tell a personal story or even make a jazzy promo for your craft company.
To try these out for yourself, visit www.youtube.com/create and click on each title to learn more, watch a tutorial and see video examples. You can make an original creation in minutes–and it’s free (though some sites have premium services which you can access from their sites directly).
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Change — the only constant
There has always been a special relationship between Canadians and Americans — we tease each other and call each other out, but under all the griping, we know we are deeply connected.
Perhaps that is why millions of Canadian tuned into the U.S. presidential election debates and followed the results so closely.
That most were shocked and unnerved by the outcome, with Donald Trump voted in as the new U.S. president, goes without saying. That a misogynistic, xenophobic, and intolerant person could end up leading the U.S. seems unbelievable.
And to see Americans taking to the streets in the thousands to demonstrate against his win ushered in a new paradigm when it comes to considering election results. Would Canadians have taken to the streets if Stephen Harper and his Conservatives had won the last election? Maybe. It appears we are experiencing growing pains in our democracies and not all the outcomes are positive.
Of course, everyone is hoping that a Trump presidency does not de-rail the relationship between Canada and the U.S. One must take into consideration the amount of trade between these two partners and the general flow of traffic and goods across our borders. But Trump has been clear about believing NAFTA needs an overhaul and our softwood lumber looks like it is heading for hard negotiations. And if the latest news reports are to be believed, the Trans Pacific Partnership will never happen.
But surely even someone as reprehensible as KKK-endorsed Trump can't undo decades of policy in one four-year term? That damage will be done is inescapable — and that action on climate change may be one of the casualties is most worrisome.
In B.C., people have been taking the streets over concerns about environmental issues such as the LNG plant in Squamish. On Nov. 21, a dozen B.C. communities held protests urging the federal government to reject the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion between Edmonton and Burnaby.
We already know that Trump has publicly stated that he wants to issue a presidential permit for construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline to take oil from Alberta down to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
After years of studies, the project was finally nixed by President Barack Obama a year ago, but Trump has vowed to approve the nearly 1,900-kilometre pipeline, though he says he wants a piece of the pie.
"I would absolutely approve it, 100 per cent, but I would want a better deal," Trump said in May. "I want it built, but I want a piece of the profits. That's how we're going to make our country rich again."
Here is hoping that this statement was said, like so many things in the election, simply as part of Trump's bluster-and-rant persona. There is no doubt that the environment and climate change are not on his agenda as he takes office — after all, they were absent from his campaign as well.
We hope that our American friends know that Canada will remain a tolerant country where all travellers are welcome.
In some ways, it feels like a little bit of the U.S. has got a foothold in our hometown with the announcement Oct.17 that the $1.4 billion friendly takeover bid by Vail Resorts of Whistler Blackcomb Inc. was a go.
Whistler was rocked with the news last week that Vail Resorts was eliminating 60 jobs — we are told that the positions are redundant as Vail Resorts already has workers to do them.
Job losses are a common and harsh reality when companies change hands. For the most part, the Vail Resorts cuts take effect May 2017.
But many of these jobs in marketing and IT will have no similar offering from other companies in Whistler and it is likely that our community will lose many of these people altogether.
For those losing their jobs, this could mean losing their Whistler Housing Authority homes as well.
Change is the only constant in the universe — at some level we all know that. But watching what looks like a nation moving backwards on human rights, and experiencing significant job losses in our town are changes that cut to our very core.
Facing these changes means speaking up for what is right and reaching out to those who need support whether they are people fighting for their rights in the U.S. or those right here at home who need a hand.
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Text to Speech Sketch Maker Software | TTS WhiteboardVideo Maker By Jimmy Mancini – text to speech whiteboard video software that includes high quality voices (male and female voices included in the software). This software will allow anyone to create high quality whiteboard/sketch videos in minutes.
We all know that Whiteboard Sketch Videos are one of the best marketing tools to promote, explain or sell any product or service.
You need a complete tool that allow you to get what you want fast! It does not make any sense to create a fantastic video if there is not a human voice included on the video that can help you communicate your message better than a few animations and a simple music background…(Maybe mute movies worked 100 years ago …not anymore!)
You need a complete solution that delivers a high quality Whiteboard Video plus a Human Sounding Voice Over, you need a video that relates to humans, that reaches almost all their senses and that helps you get conversions!
Other software only allow you to create skecth videos with music, with TTS Sketch Maker you can get hight quality attention-grabber videos because they include: Video + Music + Voice Over (Male & Female Voices included in the software)!
Webinar Fusion PRO By Jonathan Teng, Lester Lim, Dwayne Golden – Webinar Fusion PRO is a one of a kind webinar platform service that uses Google Hangouts newest technology to bring a hassle free experience no matter where you are or what device you’re on. We make it simple to set up your webinars and even easier for your viewers to attend.
This version provides everything your customers need to host their live webinar with unlimited attendees at no further costs. Among our MANY unique features is the “V-Merge” technology which allows your customers to combine their webcam & screen on call to enhance attendees experience and boost sales conversions. Your customers will LOVE it as there’s nothing like this on the market.
Social Lead Chief 2.0 By Stefan van der Vlag – the world’s ONLY and most advanced NEXT-GEN app using cutting edge technology that allows you to harness the power of micro commitments, right inside Facebook’s newsfeed with all the stellar-conversion-technology fully intact
We’re About to Change the Way You Get Leads for your business and Promote Products FOREVER!
We Call Them LeadTools – Micro Commitment Style Quizzes, Surveys, and Polls That Run DIRECTLY In The Facebook Newsfeed.
Especially Designed for the marketer that wants to boost conversions and increase sales!
Nutrition & Fitness PLR Pack
Dupe Exam Plugin – checks what percentage of the PLR has been rewritten
How to Use Feedly to Become an Expert in the Health & Exercise Niche
Landing Page Plugin – no need to use html pages, works on any wordpress site
4,054 word bonus report – Understanding Nutrition – give away or sell
Access to my closed Facebook Group – Practical PLR
TrafficAid speeds up the tedious task of high quality link building and traffic generation.
TrafficAid will help you build high quality backlinks. But do not forget what those links are. They are gateways to your website from some of the most high traffic communities and networks on the Internet.
TrafficAid is also a traffic generation tool. It helps you to build highly valuable assets that mean you are not 100% reliant on Google for your traffic.
Front End: Building a buyers list for FREE whilst making money building that list and promoting related affiliates offer to make money ON DEMAND.
This is a COMPLETE step by step ‘over the shoulder’ video course with 9 videos and a CHEATSHEET for each video.
OTO #1: This is a Case Study series of the Affiliate Arbitrage Blueprint in action and includes 4 ‘over the shoulder videos’ (3 LIVE case studies and 1 ‘What I Do Daily’ video). Also comes with CHEATSHEETS for each video.
How I built a buyers list of over 300 in less then a week, made $125.62 from 1 email and started CRUSHING the JV Leaderboards. All shown LIVE.
OTO #2: This is a complete Done For You package. We literally took everything your students will need to use, their own product, product graphics, email follow-ups, squeeze pages, and copy & paste swipes for JV’s.
Just click and profit!
This is the exact system he used to make over $150/day whilst building a buyers list for free – and then monetizing that list to make at least 200 bucks per email he sends to it.
Kindle Romance Tycoon System By Cory Friedman – incredibly successful Kindle Publisher Muhammad Sikandar… who currently makes well over $25,000 per month passively on Amazon Kindle, with over 50% of his income coming from the insanely profitable Romance niche.
Inside the Kindle Romance Tycoon System you will discover the exact, super-leveraged and unstoppable Kindle Publishing System that makes up over 50% of Muhammad’s income.
This is the ONLY kindle publishing system that actually ‘HANDS-YOU’ 100% Unique, $100-$600/Month Earning 15,000+ Word Romance Books for PENNIES On The Dollar, as it…
GENERATES 50+ ‘SEARCH-DOMINATING’ Book-Reviews With The PUSH OF A BUTTON.
In fact, this system is so powerful and leveraged, that you will be able make use of Muhammad’s unstoppable ‘Ultimate Promotion System’ That Literally ROCKETS Every Single Book You Publish To The TOP Of Kindle Search For DOZENS Of ?Keywords IN 7 DAYS OR LESS… GUARANTEED!
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& Fav 4 Restaurants in the 412
Now a days I eat at more food trucks than restaurants because “duh convenience,” and it’s super cheap. But sometimes nothing beats taking a seat at a restaurant and taking in the ambience; and let’s face it until food trucks can serve wine, restaurants will be around a while. Pittsburgh’s food scene is booming and in the spirit of “research” I’ve been eating my way through the Burgh (Don’t believe me check my Yelp). It was insanely hard but I managed to pick out my top four favorite restaurants with the only rule being that it couldn’t be a chain and I based it all off the question “Could I eat here every day?”
Although outdated décor wise, The Shogun has always been a go to spot for my family. I personally love the pond as soon as you walk in. Depending on what you get, it can get a bit pricey but that aside the food is awesome, the staff is pleasant and you’ll always leave with some food leftover as the portions are pretty big. This place is like Yokoso’s grandparent. The sushi list is admirable and I always get the shrimp and chicken hibachi combo.
Once upon a time I signed up for a Glow in the Dark Bar Crawl and it started at Twelve on Carson Street. I got there and realized I hadn’t consumed any food and I didn’t have to wander far to find this gem. Not only do they advertise three-dollar tacos every day but they’re packed with flavor. I savored every moment while enjoying them. Between veggie tacos, walking tacos and steak tacos, you’ll leave satisfied. They have something for everyone and who needs Taco Tuesday when tacos are $3 every day here?
Located right in the heart of Market Square, Nola is like taking a trip to New Orleans. From the décor, to the authentic cuisine to the friendly staff rocking Mardi Gras beads, this place encompasses New Orleans. After a not so great first experience here, I gave it a second chance and a third and it totally made up for that. Their food is packed with flavor, their drinks make you wish it was Mardi Gras and their jambalaya is to die for. The waitress was nice enough to inform me and my friend to not order separately because the portions are so huge, that we could split it and that was very wise of us. They also get bonus points for not being one of those restaurants that refuse to substitute anything. I subbed more chicken instead of the sausage that comes in the jambalaya. Also, don’t leave without trying the beignets. You’ll thank me later!
I honestly can’t remember how I stumbled upon Las Velas. It’s tucked away above Diamond Market Grill in Market Square. From the music, to the never-ending list of tequila offered here, this is authentic Mexican food. I’ve taken a jab at trying mostly everything on the menu that I can eat (I don’t eat beef or pork) and my favorites are the tacos hands down. The chicken tacos with their rice and beans will make you want to live here. Their chicken nachos are also a huge win for anyone consuming them. Don’t get too stuffed because I would recommend that you do not leave this place without trying the sopadillas. This dessert can only be described as heaven on a plate with ice cream. It’s fried tortillas doused in honey and topped with ice cream. I had no clue about these until a friend ordered this on St. Patty’s Day and I’ve been thinking about them ever since. Also they have every margarita flavor under the sun, and if you can’t find one you like you’re just being picky.
I had the pleasure of trying a sample of the Strawberry Milkshake at an event & I can’t wait to try the full sized.
*Bonus: I wasn’t sure if it’s a chain or not because there’s a few Bills Bar and Burgers but this place has Monster Milkshakes and when I say Monster I mean ginormous! I got an invite to this place for a Yelp Elite event and I couldn’t eat the BBQ but the jalapeno poppers were addictive and I sampled their Strawberry Dreams milkshake is what dreams are made of. It comes with marshmallows, cotton candy, pop rocks and cherry candies. If Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory made milkshakes, this one would be it! They also have boozy shakes but I enjoyed the one without the booze. It wasn’t missing a thing.
This list could go on and on as I like to eat and Pittsburgh has a lot of restaurants but there could only be four and these are my favs. What’s your favorite restaurant in Pittsburgh?
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Connecting the Cables
When the appliance is securely mounted on the rack, you are ready to connect the cables. Ethernet cables and the optional console cable are connected first. Connect the power cable last.
Danger: Before installing or repairing the appliance, remove all jewelry and other metal objects that might come in contact with power sources or wires. When you touch both a live power source or wire and ground, any metal objects can heat up rapidly and cause burns, set clothing on fire, or fuse the metal object to an exposed terminal.
Connecting the appliance to the Network
Ethernet cables connect your appliance to the network. The type of cable you need depends on the type of port used to connect to the network. Use a category 5e or category 6 Ethernet cable with a standard RJ-45 connector on a 10/100/1000BASE-T port.
To connect an Ethernet cable to a 10/100/1000BASE-T port
Insert the RJ-45 connector on one end of your Ethernet cable into an appropriate port on the front panel of the appliance, as shown in the following figure.
Insert the RJ-45 connector on the other end into the target device, such as a router or switch.
Verify that the LED glows amber when the connection is established.
Figure 1.Inserting an Ethernet cable
Connecting the Console Cable
You can use the console cable to connect your appliance to a computer or terminal, from which you can configure the appliance. Before connecting the console cable, configure the computer or terminal to support VT100 terminal emulation, 9600 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, parity, and flow control set to NONE. Then connect one end of the console cable to the RS232 serial port on the appliance and the other end to the computer or terminal.
To connect the console cable to a computer or terminal
Insert the DB-9 connector at the end of the cable into the console port that is on the front panel of the appliance, as shown in the following figure.
Insert the RJ-45 connector at the other end of the cable into the serial port of the computer or terminal.
Figure 2. Inserting a console cable
Note
To use a cable with an RJ-45 converter, insert the optional converter provided into the console port and attach the cable to it.
Connecting the appliance to a Power source
The SD-WAN 4000/5000 appliance has two power supplies, with one serving as a backup. A separate ground cable is not required, because the three-prong plug provides grounding. Power up the appliance by installing one or both power cords.
To connect the appliance to the power source
Connect one end of the power cable to the power outlet on the back panel of the appliance, next to the power supply, as shown in the following figure.
Connect the other end of the power cable to a standard 110V/220V power outlet.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 to connect the second power supply.
Note
The appliance emits a high-pitched alert if one power supply fails or if you connect only one power cable to the appliance. To silence the alarm, you can press the small red button on the back panel of the appliance.
The official version of this content is in English. Some of the Citrix documentation content is machine translated for your convenience only. Citrix has no control over machine-translated content, which may contain errors, inaccuracies or unsuitable language. No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, is made as to the accuracy, reliability, suitability, or correctness of any translations made from the English original into any other language, or that your Citrix product or service conforms to any machine translated content, and any warranty provided under the applicable end user license agreement or terms of service, or any other agreement with Citrix, that the product or service conforms with any documentation shall not apply to the extent that such documentation has been machine translated. Citrix will not be held responsible for any damage or issues that may arise from using machine-translated content.
THIS SERVICE MAY CONTAIN TRANSLATIONS POWERED BY GOOGLE. GOOGLE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES RELATED TO THE TRANSLATIONS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTIES OF ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, AND ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
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Easy way to move phome # data from OG to Nexus?
Of course my Verizon store doesn't have the Nexus in stock (why should I have thought differently) and won't have it till sometime late tomorrow, so I could get the phone by 11AM tomorrow if I order online today. I'm curious if I can move the phone data from the OG Droid to the Nexus via the USB or something along those lines. It would save me a trip to the store and talking with the idiots at my local VZ office.
If you mean phone contacts, etc, that is automatically backed up with Google, and when you activate your new phone, they will get redownloaded from the cloud without any issue. For app data, you just need to backup your old SD card and pull in the relevant data to your new phone via USB. However, it would probably be a good idea to install all apps from scratch on the new phone.
The market already has my paid apps, but all of my unpaid apps are listed in the market.android.com site, so I'm remotely ordering them installed on the Nexus from there. I'll decide what I don't really want once they're on the phone.
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Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud is aiming to score more than 20 goals in the new season, amid the potential arrival of a new number nine to the Emirates Stadium before the transfer window ends. Despite the France international already netting a goal in the victory at Crystal Palace, he has been benched by Arsene Wenger for the game against Newcastle to make space for Theo Walcott.
The French manager has been urged to break the bank to secure the services of a marquee proven top scorer after his side failed to score in two of the first three Premier League games of the campaign. Club legend Thierry Henry insisted earlier this week that he expects his former boss to sign both a striker and a defensive midfielder before the end of the transfer window after the Gunners were held to a goalless draw against Liverpool on Monday night.
"I think it is going to be a massive week," he said. "They were missing a lot of players tonight, they still need a holding midfielder and they still need a striker. We have been saying it since the beginning of the season."
Wenger himself admitted this week that the club are still working hard to make new additions after having already identified specific targets – with Mirror recently reporting Paris Saint Germain star Edinson Cavani leads the list of candidates following Karim Benzema snub.
"We have a team that works day and night to find good solutions. At the moment we are not close. You have specific targets but, as well, you get an idea that you didn't know the player you like was available and if you get the opportunity you do it," Wenger admitted.
But Giroud believes he can be the man to do the job after targeting to improve his last season records when he scored 14 times in 21 Premier League appearances – despite missing the first part of the campaign due to an injury.
"I would like to score more than last year and to get a better ratio than last year," he told Arsenal Player. "It can be between 15 and 20 goals in the Premier League. In total, more than 20 goals would be nice," Giroud said to the club website.
"If I succeed to reach this number, I think the main thing for me is to reach our team aims, that's most important. If we reach our targets, it means that I would have been efficient.
"I'm used to playing when I feel good. My body is good and I'm pleased with that. As long as I'm in good form and my body is in good shape, I'll try to give my best for the team and I want to play more and more games to score more and more goals."
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CULTURAL TOURS IN BHUTAN
Cultural Tours In Bhutan
Bhutan is a remote & independent kingdom in the eastern Himalayas and the last bastion of Tibetan Buddhist culture and religion in its purest form. Despite opening up to tourism in the late 70’s, it has managed to minimize the effect of outside influences and the country is virtually untouched, in terms of the environment, religion, architecture and lifestyle. Bhutan has the youngest reigning monarch in the world, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who guards Bhutan’s culture and national identity fiercely.
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No memory effect in the new nickel-metal hydride battery allows you to charge and recharge them at any time.
1 ZI5 = 1500 disposable batteries
ZI5 NiMH battery — it is an environmentally friendly product. It allows you to use one battery instead of 1500 disposable, respectively, it can reduce environment waste pollution rate.
Quality and care
Minimalist body with the highest requirements for manufacturing process of each Mi ZI5 NiMH from a famous Japanese brand foundry.
Nominal capacity is 1800mAh, and you can use the battery as soon as it gets into your hands.
The design of a minimal self-discharge
Even after one year of use
Once you fully charge the battery. Put in a drawer and forget about it. And only a year later choose to use — you do not need to charge it again, as the battery will save more than 80% of energy even after 360 days without charge if the following conditions of storage at room temperature of 20 ℃.
No memory effect
Minimalist body with the highest requirements for manufacturing process of each Mi ZI5 NiMH from a famous Japanese brand foundry.
Nominal capacity is 1800mAh, and you can use the battery as soon as it gets into your hands.
Do not use, recharge
Conventional batteries tend to lose capacity if not been fully discharged, but the revolutionary Mi ZI5 have no memory effect, so keep the rated capacity.
Excellent low temperatures
The recommended temperature of the battery use is not lower than −10 ℃, with it, they will discharge much faster in the cold than at room temperature. But batteries can operate at — 20 ℃ and ensure adequate food.
XIAOMI Zi5 device can charge the battery all at once, or one by one. Each battery has its own indicator. If the battery is charged, it lights up when charging, flashes when a fault, does not burn. The charger provides 7 degrees of protection.
This website is set up and operated by NIS LLC. for the benefit of the Mi
Fan Community. NIS LLC. hereby states that this website is dedicated, but
not related to Xiaomi Inc. or any of its affiliated entity to sell products of Xiaomi Inc.
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Great tips you got there!.. Doing both On-Page and Off-Page Optimization is a great combination!.. The proper use of keywords, meta tags, title tags, and description together with building links will surely help your site to get to your desired rankings and get higher PR value..
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Sophia Bush's Home Pictures
Steal Sophia Bush's Decorating Style
One look at Sophia Bush's cozy, eclectic home in the Hollywood Hills, and you instantly know it's a diva-free zone. When this jet-setting actress isn't on location shooting Chicago PD or trekking the globe as an activist for organizations like Pencils of Promise, she's probably at home. Since racking up airfare miles and nesting don't exactly mix, the busy actress called on Domaine Home editors Estee Stanley and Mat Sanders to whip her place into shape, and boy, did they ever. While enlisting an A-list decorating team might not be within everyone's reach, this home is bursting with easy-to-try decorating ideas anyone can do. Here are eight we recommend giving a try ASAP!
Follow Sophia's lead and balance the busy patterns in your kilim pillows with something strikingly clean and modern, like bare-bulbed lighting. OneFortyThree has so many good options, it will make your head spin.
Stylish Stacking
What’s Your Reaction?Share this reaction with your friends!000000
Did you notice the stacks of books piled in the adjoining room? We're game for taking books off the shelves and styling them in unexpected places, like a staircase! Here are two more clever staircase styling tricks to try.
There's a reason fiddle-leaf fig trees are dominating the world of interiors. Their large leaves and dramatic scale add a lush, jungalow vibe to any space. Check out these 10 tips for keeping your fig tree fit as a fiddle.
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Ohhhhhh, Dear Readers, I CAN'T FEEL MY FINGERS. The polar vortex holds my fair state in its icy grip! Winds howl! Snow falls in droves! But do we quail? Do we falter? NO! We endure... we forge on... and we emerge with PHOTOS! Photos of Heroes! Gods! And an insane photographer at work!
Let's go!
Behind The Scenes: Thor and Loki - Ohayocon 2014
Location 1 - CourtyardWe hoped for snow pictures, but unfortunately, it was too stormy to stay outdoors. You can see how strongly the wind was whipping Thor and Loki's hair! (They look like a shampoo commerical! :D)
Location 2 - Drury Inn walkway
Important rule of snow shoots - ALWAYS have a backup location! We grabbed a nearby hallway and lucked into some gorgeous golden-hour light! Thor and Loki began striding, owning it like the epic badasses they are! (While having a rousing discussion about Truth! Honor! Patriotism!)
And that is how you deal with 2 gods and 5 inches of snow! :D Stay tuned for more awesome cosplay!
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Siemens ditches consultants
Long walk for men with clipboards
Common Topics
Engineering behemoth Siemens is canning contracts with external management consultants in order to cut costs.
Peter Löscher, chief exec of Siemens, told managers last month to cut contracts with external consultants as quickly as possible. Staff should use internal consultants or seek sign-off from the group's chief finance officer, according to the FT. Any such exceptional projects will need to prove a return on investment within the year.
The German engineering group hopes to save about a “middle three-digit million euro sum”. Contracts with the likes of McKinsey and Accenture are likely to be early targets.
Cutting consultants and contractor staff is often the first step for firms looking to cut costs. For companies which don't have many consultant staff but need to cut costs, the usual procedure is to hire some in at vast expense to tell you who to sack.
Siemens had 425,000 staff around the world on 31 December 2008 - three thousand less than at the end of the previous quarter. ®
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AquaME, formally a vertical of the AgraME exhibition, will become the regions first standalone platform dedicated to the burgeoning aquaculture and fishing industry.
The show, which will take place on 16-18 March 2015 at the Dubai Exhibition and Convention Centre, has been officially launched in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Water and Nor-Fishing Foundation, and will feature a dedicated conference, the regions first aquaculture awards ceremony and a dedicated business to business buyer programme.
At the official signing of the partnership, His Excellency Abdelrahim Al Hammadi – Assistant Undersecretary of Support Services for the Ministry of Environment and Water said “We are very pleased with this partnership which is a move to consolidate and encourage investment in the aquaculture sector. This falls in line with the UAE’s strategic objectives to promote food security and environmental sustainability contributing to the UAE’s Vision 2021.”
According to the Ministry of Environment and Water, the total current market valuation of investments in to the UAE aquaculture sector stands at USD 321 million, with 20 million of that amount being invested in to the Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Marine Research Centre. The project, which was launched in February 2013, aims to enhance the country’s natural resources, and contribute to food security through protecting overexploited species and supporting their habitat.
There are currently nine registered farms in the UAE, with five still under development, all of a different scale and integrated culture systems. The UAE aquaculture production in 2012 was 540 tons of wet fish, while total production capacity of these farms stands at 4903 tons per year.
“The decision to create the regions first exhibition dedicated to aquaculture was not a tough one. In a nutshell, it is the fastest growing food processing industry in the Middle East, and to put it in to perspective, a recent report by The World Bank projected aquaculture production in MENA is set to rise 75.9% by 2030, hitting a production size of approximately 1.9 million tons. This incredible growth could simply not be ignored.” said Richard Pavitt, Exhibition Director, AquaME.
Saudi Arabia and Oman round-up the total investment figure. The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Agriculture, who are leading the way in terms of investment, will inject an additional USD 10.6 billion into aquaculture projects to produce one million tons of fish in the next sixteen years. Oman, which has long been at the forefront of aquaculture in the Gulf region, announced that it plans to invest USD 1.3 billion in fisheries development leading up to 2020.
“Feedback from the industry was clear. We had a 64 percent increase in visitors to AgraME earlier this year, who attended to specifically source companies from the aquaculture and fishing industry. We have tried to create a holistic approach to this exhibition, integrating the regions first dedicated conference agenda on aquaculture, a buyer’s programme and an industry awards ceremony.” added Pavitt.
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