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The Road Through the Trees
Moral Short Story
My father used to tell me that working hard was the most important part of life. That a hard working attitude was the most important attribute in a man. I used to love that. Made me believe that as long as you worked hard, everything would work out. That I could climb my way to happiness through brute force. It always comforted me. Now I’m not so sure what I believe. That’s nothing against hard work. I just think you have to be smart where you apply it.
I drove over the soggy pavement and crested the hill. The firs and hemlocks lined the one lane road. I came over the hill I saw the evergreens stretched for miles. And below was the next town. A resupply.
My Vanagon hummed down the hill towards the town. It was a small town with a couple old buildings lining the main road that snaked through the trees. I’d guess a town of 283. I don’t know if it was the soggy overcast day, but as I approached the town, it had a somber feeling to it. As if it was hurting. I came up to its small welcome sign.
Welcome to Cascadia
“Eh I was close.” I had learned to talk to myself over the past year. I pulled up to their gas station and filled up Nando. I drove over to what looked like Cascadia’s one store, parked, and went inside. There was an old man by the register.
“You own the place?”
“Yes, my wife and I do.”
“Are you still open?”
“You’re the last one today, I think.”
I was planning to supply for three weeks so I was hoping Cascadia’s one store could take care of it. I grabbed a cart and began to make my rounds. It quickly became clear that the only two people in the store were me and the old man at the register. The store was able to take care of my supplies for the three weeks and I went over to the old man with a full cart.
“That’s about a weeks worth of business right there, son. Might want to leave some for the locals.”
“I’m sorry. I can put some-”
“-I’m pulling your leg.” He smiled and began ringing up the first items. “We’ll be happy to take your money and see what we can do. What do you need all this for, son?”
“Supplies. Won’t make it to the next town for a few weeks.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s that far away.” He kept ringing up my pile of goods.
“I won’t make it to the next town for a few weeks on purpose.”
He looked up at me with a sly smile, “Ah, so you’re wandering. You lost, son?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
He smiled again as he kept moving through the pile. “I’m just pulling your leg. That yours out front? She’s a classic. Good to see them still running. How long you been at it?”
“About a year now.”
“Has it helped?”
“Is it better than what you were doing before?”
“Yeah, I’d say so.”
“Well that’s half the battle, isn’t it.”
He had finished ringing up my items and placed them in the cart, but I wanted to keep talking and, by the looks of it, he did too. “What’s the other half? Of the battle.”
He had his hands on the counter now and was looking at me. “Well, finding what your searching for.”
“Happiness of course. Have you found it?”
I had both hands on my cart and suddenly wanted to leave. “I see it. I sit with it. Then it takes off down the road through the trees. So I chase it.”
The man nodded with his eyes closed, as if he had said it himself. “Are you with anyone?”
“No it’s just me and my car.” I nodded out the window to where I was parked. “Having someone would just distract me.” I started to push my cart towards the door.
“Never underestimate the power in shared emotions. A man is not complete when he is alone. We are social animals not meant for solitude.”
I continued toward the door. “Thanks for the supplies.”
“Well I hope you find your happiness.”
I stopped and looked back at the old man at the counter. “Did you?”
“Yes. We ran this store together for 35 years.”
I walked out and loaded Nando up with the supplies. I continued down the road, meandering through the trees. I left Cascadia and before me were miles of wilderness and solitude. The way I liked it. As Nando hummed along, I looked at the empty passenger seat to my right. Then back to the road and continued to drive through the trees. I looked to my right again, a little longer, and Nando hummed along.
more by KRAMER LINDELL
photograph by Jens Lelie
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Aside from sidescrollers and Fallout 76, another game I have been spending my time with lately has been Guild Wars 2 (again). Each time I come back to this game, I am utterly amazed at how unrewarding it is, at almost every level.
One of the much-touted features of GW2 is its horizontal gear progression. There have been two expansions released, but no level cap increase, and the most powerful gear has not really changed. Technically, there have been new sub-classes added and the optimal gear for them drops only in the that expansion content, but for the most part, you can be done with gearing permanently rather easily.
This makes for some extremely odd reward mechanisms.
Basically, GW2 showers you in random bags of useless loot at every stage of any activity. We’re talking Diablo-levels volume of drops, every one of which is utterly useless to anyone anywhere. Seriously, I doubt there is a single level 80 person out there that has ever picked up something off the ground and equipped it. Much like with Diablo 3, it’s much easier to simply hit up the AH once you get that final ding and just buy a full suit of Exotics with some of the free daily gold.
Ascended is the next (and final) gear tier above Exotics, and most of them come from longer-term grinding. The Living World Season 3 “episodes” are the go-to place to grind these items, and usually takes 100-125 currency to purchase something. While you can sometimes get 10-20 depending on luck/group events, the casual player can expect maybe 5 currency a day. Aside from Winterberries, which is what everyone should be farming, as it’s the only currency you can farm on multiple alts and funnel to a main.
I am not opposed to the slow accretion of currency to purchase things. Slowly gaining something gives you a sense of purpose, and having a defined target helps you plan your activity. You may not get stronger today, but you are one step closer to getting stronger tomorrow – and thus the time you spent playing was meaningful. It’s possible to get discouraged if the goalposts are too far out, but it otherwise works well as a system.
In contrast, the random loot GW2 hands out feels wildly out of place. Pointless to sell on the AH – the price is generally set to vendor +1c – the main thing you do is salvage it for materials and Luck… which increases your Magic Find stat… which results in more gear flooding into your bags. Now, sure, there is always a 0.00001% chance you get some amazing drop or whatever that might be worth something. But you can’t play around that. In fact, the odds are so low that I cannot even imagine a gambling addict being satisfied.
I don’t know. Is there anyone out there (other than Bhagpuss) that plays GW2 and enjoys opening dozens and dozens of little bags of loot and immediately scrapping them all? At this point, the only reasoning that makes sense to me is that ArenaNet does this specifically to drive real-money sales of extra bag/bank slots. I have seriously never seen such dedication to vendor junk.
I have around 40 hours at the WoW endgame and have not gotten a legendary yet.
Yes, I understand how “entitled” that statement is. The problem is that this is the sort of endgame that Blizzard has designed.
Back in the day, Legendaries were extremely rare drops from the end bosses of high raiding tiers. This made them rare and cool, but effectively nonexistent for the majority of the playerbase and drama-laden for raiders besides. Sometimes the mainhand Warglaive never dropped. Sometimes the rogue got both Warglaives and then /gquit. Sometimes the warrior tank spent his accumulated DKP and “wasted” a Warglaive drop to look cool.
Around Wrath, the Legendary paradigm changed to make things a bit more organized. You had to collect 40 pieces of whatever, perhaps kill a specific boss, get a certain achievement, and then you got your Legendary. There was still a certain amount of coordination necessary though, as the Legendary pieces dropped for the whole raid, and thus had to be divvied up. In Mists and Warlords, the system was opened up further to the point where everyone could reasonably be expected to receive their own personal Legendary items. Drama around Legendaries was essentially removed, being solely a function of an individual’s willingness to grind past the gating mechanism.
In Legion, Legendaries are once again random drops. And there are dozens and dozens of them, for specific classes and even specific specs. The system, in effect, is a huge step backwards.
In principle, I actually like what they are doing with Legendaries, insofar as they are items that make you rethink your talent choices, skill rotation, and possibly even spec. Trinkets and Tier Set pieces traditionally function in this role, and their ability to “change the math” is precisely why getting them are exciting. One can stomach stat sticks only so far. In this sense, perhaps having “Legendary” items perform a similar role outside of Tier Sets and trinkets makes the piece of gear indeed “legendary.”
That said, we are now in a new Blizzard paradigm in which not only does Legendary gear drop from any content – including really dumb World Quests – but also one in which we can expect to see multiple pieces. Indeed, the last Class Hall upgrade for every class is the ability to equip two Legendary items at a time. Ergo, we should expect to have 2+ minimum. That said, there are tens of thousands of people right now with multiple Legendary pieces, and even more who have none. Supposedly there exists a “pity timer” which increases the odds of a Legendary drop the more one fails to receive one (such a mechanic exists in Hearthstone already), but nevermind.
Regardless, I really kinda hate this system. Sure, I see what Blizzard is doing: moving WoW towards a more Diablo 3 looting model, which makes completing otherwise dreary “kill 10 X” more exciting. But I actually enjoyed working towards items. Remember the old Badge system? There is a huge difference on an intellectual level between grinding 1000 mobs for 1000 points to buy a piece of gear, versus grinding 1000 mobs for a 1/1000 chance for a gear drop. I mean, I get it: filling some progress meter is a more defined endpoint than random drops. But for me personally, this level of randomness provides no meaningful sense of progression at all.
And by the way, this system seriously sucks for my situation in particular. I have been playing my Druid pretty much exclusively this expansion, with the understanding that I will need to be Balance if I ever wanted to raid later. However, questing as Guardian is so fucking amazing and quick that doing anything else is folly. And if I ever wanted to play some PvP, say, to capitalize on the Arena Skirmish bonus this past week? That’s either Feral or Resto. So, basically, no matter when or where a Legendary does finally drop (if it drops), I am guaranteed to not be able to meaningfully use it.
If I could work towards a specifically Legendary… but alas. GG Blizzard. GG.
For the past few weeks or so I have been playing Defiance. As a refresher, Defiance was a subscription-based, TV show tie-in shooter that has since gone F2P. The game plays and handles a lot like an over-the-shoulder Borderlands, in the sense that waves of enemies appear and are dispatched with a large assortment of random weapons.
At this point, I think the show is more popular than the game, and that is too bad. Defiance has story quests that are voice-acted and pretty-well put together. You get a vehicle almost immediately after character creation. There are a number of “arkfalls” at any given time, which are dynamic random events which tend to congregate players around specific points on the map. There are a bunch of (repeatable) side-quests which involve racing, sniping, and other such things.
That said, the biggest problem with Defiance is a more fundamental one: the game is only fun with a fun weapon.
Loot in Defiance is random, just like in Borderlands. There are a number of rarities and status effects and such, but the actual number of gun types are pretty well defined. In the course of my ~20 hours of play, my favorite loadout involves a machine gun that pretty much empties a full 75-bullet clip in three seconds and a shotgun that shoots grenades. I was having a lot of fun running around with these weapons when I got them, but as I have scaled higher in “EGO Rating” (roundabout levels) enemy health has scaled such that my favorite weapons are no longer viable. You can upgrade old weapons to near your EGO Rating, but you can only do so once. And I have since outleveled them again.
In the meantime, I am at the mercy of RNG dropping a higher-level version of the guns I enjoy, or really any weapon that is serviceable. There is somewhat of a push to make all of the weapons viable, but there isn’t much you can do to, say, pistols to make them fun to use. Even with super-high damage and a fast fire rate, you would likely be better off with a LMG with 10x the magazine size. Rocket Launchers face the same sort of issue with faster, higher magazine grenade launchers outputting more DPS overall while giving you a buffer in case you miss your shot.
To say nothing about, you know, a shotgun that shoots grenades with 12-14 rounds in a clip and a 250 shell capacity vs the smaller explosive round.
In any case, I’m not entirely sure how much longer I will be playing Defiance. As mentioned, the story scenes are actually quite amusing in the sarcastic banter sense, and I’m interested in seeing where it goes. The weapon issue though… it does make it difficult sometimes to slog through waves of enemies with crappy weapons to get there.
I finally beat Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep a few nights ago. It was… painful.
The DLC itself was fine – it is humorous and touching and has a lot of D&D/MMO jokes. What ended up happening with my situation though is that I completed the DLC on Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, aka the highest difficulty (well, I guess it goes higher now). This decision was sort of cemented when one of the Treant mobs dropped The Bee, which is a legendary shield whose shield stats are kinda lame, but adds something like 50,000 damage per shot when you fire with full shields. Either intentionally or unintentionally, that extra 50k damage is added per bullet to my Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold (DPUK), which means mobs typically melted in the fury of 2+ million damage with each trigger pull.
Things got even more ridiculous when I acquired the Grog Nozzle, a quest gun that doesn’t deal a whole lot of damage by itself, but has a high chance of Slagging enemies (increasing subsequent damage by 200-300%) while also healing you for ~65% of the damage you deal with it equipped. Even more bizarrely, since it is technically a quest gun (that you can take anywhere) it doesn’t take up an inventory slot either.
The “painful” part to all this was simply playing the game at all. All non-legendary item drops were useless, especially any shields given how The Bee was pretty much required to deal damage. I did swap it out for a bit in a few areas, but I was leaning real hard on the DPUK to carry me through. Other weapons were pretty much a joke: dealing 32k/bullet damage is irrelevant to mobs with tens of millions of HP and the ability to regenerate health extremely quickly. At one point around level 54, I entertained the notion of going back to some of the DLCs to acquire some (upgraded) legendaries just to spice things up and not be shooting a pistol all day. The Sand Hawk would have been interesting, for example, as a submachine gun shooting bullets in the pattern of a bird flapping its wings. But that would mean extending my Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode stay in content I already seen twice now just to complete the current DLC after which I was likely to uninstall immediately.
All of this really struck home how important it is for games to have a smooth progression curve. Where I “screwed up” was hitting the level cap at the end of Mister Torgue’s DLC; thereafter I was stuck in a limbo of too-easy content on one side and content that’s designed to challenge the people who farmed legendaries at the old level cap. While I suppose the latter group needs catered to – especially given how they’re likely to be still playing, and thus willing to buy DLC – the end result is an extremely warped play experience. Your weapons are so strong because the enemies are ridiculous, and the ridiculous enemies makes your shields/HP basically irrelevant, which means you are awkwardly trying to dodge their melee/ranged attacks with generic movement, none of which really feels like Borderlands anymore.
By the way, calling it now: Borderlands 3 will have a more formal Dash/Dodge button, ala MMOs these days. If Gearbox doesn’t add this, it’ll be because they’re really dumb because goddamn precision movement is awkward and annoying right now for how much they require you to do it.
And have I mentioned that because the death penalty is a percentage of your wealth, that you end up losing $400,000 each time you respawn? There is also a few places with instant-death traps, which was
a lot of fun not at all fun. Granted, you can’t really purchase anything for $5,000,000, but that’s another whole issue entirely. It kinda makes even picking up and vendoring loot a waste of time.
The more I think about it, the more I come to understand that Borderlands 2 basically ends at level 50. A full playthrough of the vanilla game will end around level 35, and that was a fun experience. After that? Still sorta fun, but the “optimal” path was going straight through the story missions again, skipping all sidequests, until you hit 2.5 mode at level 50. Then you can safely do sidequests for the unique rewards that would stay useful. Increasing the level cap basically screwed over everyone that hit the old cap without legendaries, as you get left with a Faustian bargain of farming bosses for hours or doing DLC missions for no reward.
So if you haven’t played Borderlands 2 yet and are waiting for the GotY edition, that is my advice: play the vanilla game while doing everything, then the DLCs in order, and then pat yourself on the back and be done with it. You can get 120 hours (or more) of play time like I did, but the you’ll face some pretty ridiculous diminishing returns on both fun and sanity.
The big news of the week has been Blizzard’s rather unprecedented decision to shut down the Diablo 3 AH in March of next year. While I suppose that the start of a new expansion is as good a time as any, I still find it interesting that they are bothering at all – a bit late to close those barn doors, yeah? Then again, I suppose with all the other changes they have made in the time since I stopped playing (a whole year ago?!), the “economy” has become more warped and functionally useless than before. Making it five feet in Act 2 Inferno used to require Resistance scores out the ass, but between the general elite nerfs, the player-decided mob-levels, and the Paragon system, you can probably make it through the game without buying anything.
You would still want to, of course. Even a child should be able to understand that a 5% chance at something good is worth less than buying exactly what you want from someone who was going to vendor the thing anyway. Or anyone playing the game for more than an hour during the open beta weekend, for that matter.
The question though, is what system will replace it? Apparently Blizzard feels it is Loot 2.0:
- New game modes including Loot Runs with guaranteed special item drops when successfully completed.
- Smart drops where a dropped item is guaranteed to roll the appropriate mainstat for the class that finds it.
- Fewer but better item drops, where players will see far fewer items, but the items (especially the rares) will have better stats.
- A new NPC Artisan, the Mystic who has the abiilty to reroll one selected affix on an item.
- Legendary (including Set Items) will get an across the board quality buff.
- Legendary items will drop more often, especially for lower level characters with guaranteed legendary drops from the first kill of many story/quest bosses.
- Legendary items will roll with less low-end variability, to reduce the likelihood that they are complete junk.
- Legendary items will gain variable item levels with stats scaling appropriately — current high level items legendaries will drop on lower difficulties and low level Legendaries will drop in the end game. All stats on these items will scale up or down to be appropriate for the level of the monster that drops them.
Item binding is going to be a key feature of Loot 2.0, with some of the found items, and most or all of the crafted items or items upgraded with the Mystic gaining BoA or BoE to restrict them from being traded or sold. Full details are not yet finalized.
I counted three instances of the word “guaranteed” in there. Not something I usually associate with Diablo games, but hey.
While the above is not an exhaustive list of the Loot 2.0 paradigm – I’m pretty sure that not even Blizzard knows what else they’ll toss against the wall before March – we can see the sort of trajectory taking shape. What is a huge unknown to me though, is what exactly Blizzard plans to do with all the gold left in the economy when the AH doors close. Will the Mystic be an expensive gold sink? That might work… but what about the people who haven’t stockpiled? Will the feature not be for them? Between that and the possible stockpiling of crafting materials, I almost have to assume that Blizzard plans a “currency reset” with the expansion, to go with the inevitable gear reset that comes with an increased level cap.
In any case, watching things play out this week has been interesting while playing Path of Exile on the side. I mentioned before that PoE has something more akin to a lore-based barter economy, but I am finding it even more interesting than before. Effectively, I find myself rolling my own loot back in town when I go to vendor things. Useful Magic/Rare/Unique items do drop out in the wild, but I am finding that the addition of colored gem slots adds another depressing layer of randomness to everything; a given item might be awesome for your class/build, but if it is replacing an item with a good spell-gem configuration, you might end up banking it instead. While there are “currency” items that can add/change sockets, I am finding it almost easier to hold onto normal items with good sockets and then spend my “money” turning that into a Magic/Rare item instead.
That can sort of happen in Diablo 3’s crafting system, but it lacks the granularity and impressive nuance that PoE brings to the table. Scrapping four items to get another shot at getting a useful fifth isn’t the same as being able to choose to reroll an item’s magic properties, adding a new property, adding sockets, adding connections between sockets, changing a socket’s color, and/or stripping the item clean and then possibly rerolling it into a Rare/Unique.
Can I also just mention how addicting just leveling in Path of Exile can be? It’s the standard sort of hack-n-slash, but since your gems can level up too, it feels like I “level” a half-dozen times every 30-40 minutes. “Getting kinda sleepy and I still have 8 bars before level 24. Oh, wait, there’s like a centimeter left on my Raise Zombie gem XP bar. Hmm… let’s go clear out the NW corner.”
But, yeah, loot systems. Borderlands 2 is feeling pretty archaic right now in comparison.
As you may recall, I have been having a rough time in Borderlands 2. I bought the Season Pass back when I bought the original game, but sort of let things slide somewhere around 95 hours /played, about the time the Hammerlock campaign was released. My main issue, aside from general burnout, was that my character is Zer0, the melee-based ninja/sniper character. Simply put, I was having a hard time surviving in the extended difficulties as someone either in the middle of the action (where mistakes kill you quickly) or trying to snipe when 10 people are shooting at you (whom are extremely accurate with their assault weapons).
Now, I can already hear those of you in the audience: “But, Az, Zer0 is like one of the strongest characters in the game! He can solo the raid bosses!” Sure he can… with a very specific loadout of Legendary/Unique weapons, which either requires luck, grinding, duping, or all three. While I am obviously not allergic to chasing gear drops in games, in this instance all I really wanted to do was finish the Hammerlock DLC and then complete Tiny Tina’s Dragon Keep DLC. You know, at a level in which it’d be challenging and rewarding too – there isn’t any real reason to blow through it on Normal or anything.
Unfortunately, I was stuck between a rock and Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (UVHM). I beat the game on True Vault Hunter Mode (TVHM) way back when, plowed through it again in “2.5” mode where everything is scaled up to level 50 (the cap at the time), leaving all of the sidequests alone so that I could give myself the option of getting the highest-level versions of the various unique gear. Hell, I even farmed the last boss a few times. UVHM steps it up a few notches though, including a level cap increase, and basically makes Slag elemental weapons (which increase the damage of all other sources) required. Not only did I not really have any of those weapons, my current gear was simply not cutting it… or anything, really.
This past weekend, I finally decided I was going to give it one more shot. My plan of action was to grind to level 51 and then cash in my ~40 Golden Keys and hope that the level-cap inflation on guns would give me something worth shooting. Since I was grinding anyway, I decided to do so in the Torgue DLC, in the repeatable Bar Brawl quest area; each run gives you special DLC currency to purchase, among other things, an Unkempt Harold, e.g. a Legendary everyone seems to use.
So I did. And got it. And now it feels like a whole different game.
The basic gist is that the gun says it deals ~14k damage per shot, but the “bullet” is actually a missile that splits off into 3, 5, and 7 missiles depending on how much distance it gets before impact. The Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold, which is the version I got, does the same thing x2. So, depending on how close something is, a shot from this pistol deals ~196,000 damage. Meanwhile, my best rocket launcher deals 226,000, with a 3-round clip and 7.4 second reload speed. I can carry 700 pistol rounds and reload in under 2 seconds. I could technically pick up another Unique item from a sidequest (The Bee shield) which would add something crazy-stupid like 40,000 damage to my bullets – which ends up being added to each bullet from the Unkempt Harold – but it is already making my TVHM-ish run somewhat of a joke.
What all of this is making me realize is that I don’t like this paradigm. Specifically: the gear-based-build paradigm. “Get item X and now you can do build Y.” Another of the items I picked up was a weapon (the Rubi) that gives heals you for 12% of the damage you inflict while having it equipped. It is another of the sort of “required” weapons for endgame Zer0 builds, as you can abuse the life-gain by dealing melee or grenade damage; the gun itself will never hold a candle to others, but firing one and then swapping back to it before impact will still basically let you heal to full. Combined with the “health-gating” hidden mechanic that prevents you from being one-shot (50% + 1 HP and you will survive any hit), this lets Zer0 basically melee raid bosses.
The problems, as always, are A) getting the gear and B) what to do until you get the gear. I am 100% for different character builds. I don’t even have much of an issue with talent choices leading to different stat weightings, e.g. choosing Talent X makes Haste worth more than Crit or whatever. But building an entire character around single pieces of (rare) equipment? That feels awful to me. Either you don’t have the item yet, in which case you feel weak/incomplete, or you do get the item and suddenly everything else that drops is useless/unrewarding. Plus, there is the whole side-effect of the fact that your character identity feels weakened or nonexistent; do my character choices even matter in the face of my item collection? Am I Zer0 at all, or am I simply “some dude with a Rubi and DPUK?
I decided to take a break from Borderlands 2, and started playing Path of Exile as a backup game. And… whoops! Just like many hack-n-slash games, it too features rare items that you can/should/(have to?) build entire characters around. Because that’s fun. To someone. Sigh.
I started playing Torchlight 2 a few weeks ago, and I am having some issues. Now, I did not like the original game all that much, but picking up the sequel for $5 during one of those crazy Steam sales seemed safe enough. And so far, I am not experiencing the same acute symptoms of frustration as in the first game. Except… now I kinda am.
My biggest gripe with the original game was that the loot system was broken. Specifically, there was no real sense of gear progression in a hack-n-slash Diablo-clone genre that is based entirely on gear progression – I used the same “legendary” level 3 necklace all the way into the endgame, never finding an upgrade. While I have not ran into this problem as much in Torchlight 2, the contours of the issue remain in place. For example, I ran into this gearing decision the other day:
Maybe “higher level = better” is too simplistic a progression design, but… is it really?
The more pressing concern in Torchlight 2 though, is how a lot of things that should be rewarding are really not. Each main area map has a Locked Golden Chest which contains, as you might imagine, a lot of loot. The key to this chest can drop randomly from any mob on that particular map, or from a specific fairy mob 100% of the time.
Compelling design, right? It would be, if these chests dropped something more than vendor trash.
Random loot is random, but after spending more time than strictly necessary opening these chests up and walking away with nothing of any value, I am finding myself souring on game in general. Indeed, even the extra-large treasure chests at the end of boss encounters reveals greys and greens more often than not. Why should I be fighting bosses when smashing pottery is clearly the more profitable activity?
In Torchlight 2’s case though, there is a “solution”: mods. In fact, the #1 highest-rated mod in the Steam Workshop is one that tweaks Golden Chests (and boss chests) to always drop a Unique item. That’s not as broken as it sounds – items are still random, scaled to your level, and sometimes class-specifc – and does a lot to fix what I otherwise consider a problem. There are mods for all sorts of things, in fact, including Skill tweaks, doubling the amount of gold drops, Respec potions (base game only allows reshuffling of last 3 Skills), improving game textures, increasing view distance, and even additional whole classes. Indeed, one of the big selling points of Torchlight 2 was its modability in comparison to Diablo 3.
Thing is, I don’t like using mods on my initial play-through of a game. Hell, I usually don’t even like loading in DLC that affects the core game, even when I’m playing the Game of the Year version that bundles it all together.
My situation is a bit unique (and self-inflicted) insofar as I fancy myself a game reviewer. But even before this website, I preferred going in vanilla and raw. Not all my friends had the extra spending money for the expansions and whatnot, so telling them Diablo 2 was better with Lords of Chaos installed really just means “the base game is deficient.” Well, perhaps not deficient in D2’s case, but you understand my meaning.
Good game design is supposed to be good out of the box. If developers are stumbling around for the first several months from release, that stumbling needs to remain part of the overall narrative. I failed to mention in my Fallout: New Vegas review that the game was literally unplayable for the first two weeks without downloading a crack that fixed the DirectX issues; it’s an important detail to know for when the next Fallout game is released, lest it too require Day 0 patching from players to fix what the devs rushed to production.
I suppose some of this harkens back to that debate over whether MMOs (etc) are toys vs games. There is no wrong way to play with a toy, no real rules to govern your interaction with them. In this sense, mods are sort of like adding salt to your meal – some chefs might see that as an insult, but perhaps your individual taste skews more salty than the others sharing the meal. Ergo, developers letting mods fix any subjective “problem” only makes sense. Keep the vanilla pure, and let players add the chocolate and sprinkles as they wish.
Personally though, I am much more interested in the game portion of things, or more specifically: experiences. Show me the genius of your rulesets, the compelling nature of your narratives, the excellence of your craft. Anyone can imagine a stick into a lightsaber, just as anyone can turn a crappy game good with tweaks. I am interested in what you can do, Mr(s) Game Man Person, not mod developer XYZ. I want to be excited that you are releasing another game, not that the modding community has another opportunity to fix a deficient product. And besides, only one of those two parties is getting paid. Hint: it’s not the person/people improving the game.
It may not be entirely rational, but there it is. Odds are that I will keep trucking along in vanilla Torchlight 2 so that I can give an accurate report on its (so far) many failings. It is worth noting that while you can import your vanilla save into the “game + mods” version of the game, you cannot thereafter go back – neither your character nor your gear will appear under the default game any more. While that probably has little meaning beyond the people interested in Steam achievements, it sort of highlights how even the developers believe a segregation between the two ought to exist.
In which case, I shall play their game and complain about it, rather than fix things myself.
I used the Raid Finder for the very first time on Monday night. It was an… instructive experience.
One thing that I learned about myself is the fact that I felt compelled to seek out raid videos/strategies even for LFR difficulty. It is not (just) about insulating myself from group embarrassment, it is about mitigating that awful feeling of not knowing what I am doing. I hate that feeling. At first I believed the feeling to be unique to multiplayer games, as I certainly do not hit up GameFAQs or Wikis the moment I get to a boss fight in a single-player game. Indeed, wouldn’t that be cheating? Or, at least, cheating myself from the actual game.
But you know what? I hate that feeling even in single-player games. If I am dying to a boss repeatedly and have no idea why, or there does not seem to be any clues as to different strategies I could try, I most certainly hit up Wikis. I enjoy logic puzzles as much as (or more than) the next guy, but I must feel certain that logic is applicable to the situation. With videogames, that is not always a given: quests that you cannot turn in because you didn’t trip a programming “flag” by walking down a certain alleyway or whatever. There was a Borderlands 2 quest that I simply looked up on Youtube because I’ll be damned if I walk across every inch of a cell-shaded junkyard for an “X” mark after already spending 10 minutes looking it over. Playing “Where’s Waldo” can be entertaining, but not when you have to hold the book sideways and upside down before Waldo spawns… assuming you are even looking at the right page.
Things got off to a nice start in LFR when the dog fight consisted of just tanking all three dogs in a cleave pile the entire time. The second boss seemed to have an inordinate amount of health, but he too dropped without doing much of note. I died twice to some insidious trash on the way to the troll boss; those bombs are simply stupid in a 25m setting, as I found it difficult to even see them among all the clashing colors and spell effects. Final boss dropped pretty quickly as well, although I almost died a few times towards the end once people stopped coming into the spirit world with me.
By the way, the queue for the 1st raid finder was 15 minutes for DPS. Might have been a “Monday before the reset” thing.
I joined a guild healer for the 2nd raid finder immediately afterwards, although the average wait time of 43 seconds was a bit off. Was killed by a combination of friendly fire and damage reflection during the first boss, but he otherwise went down quickly. I managed to avoid falling to my death during Elegon (thanks Icy-Veins!), but was killed by an add the 2nd tank never picked up; that will teach me to do something other than tunnel the boss. The third boss… made little sense. I spent a lot of time killing adds, as I could not quite understand what was up with the Devastating Combo thing other than I must have been doing it wrong. Eons later, the bosses died.
It is becoming somewhat of a running joke for my guildies since coming back on how much random loot I pull in. The prior week I got ~8 drops from my first 5 random dungeons, for example. This time around I got three epics from my first two LFR forays, all three of which came from the bonus rolls. I was not around for the Cata LFR days, but suffice it to say, I would not have likely came away with that much loot in a more traditional PuG.
Overall, LFR was a pleasant experience. While I can certainly empathize with the criticism of LFR – it was pretty ridiculously easy – I can definitely see the logic behind Blizzard’s moves here. Some raid is better than no raid, low-pop realms like Auchindoun-US wouldn’t support a robust raid PuG community, and to an extent even the “nothing ever drops!” LFR sentiment encourages organized guild raiding in a roundabout manner. Whether this remains satisfying in any sort of long-term manner remains to be seen, but honestly, it is better than the alternative of… what else, exactly? Running dungeons ad infinitum?
Ghostcrawler made another community blog post about the Great Item Squish (or Not) of Pandaria. I read it, went “Yep, tis a pickle,” and moved on. Motstandet of That’s a Terrible Idea instead went on a bizarre rant:
Unquestioning and steadfast in their decisions, the WoW designers make seemingly contradictory choices. Why doesn’t GC want level 85’s to do higher level content? I could only assume it’s so players do the leveling “content” first. Yet they constantly assault the leveling game, […]
The article goes on, discussing various methods which could bandage WoW’s broken attribute system, and then he unloads this gem: “If your answer is that stat budgets don’t have to grow so much in order for players to still want the gear, our experience says otherwise.” Silly plebes with your naive remedies; I have data to dismiss your predictable suggestions!
Ignoring the arrogance, what metrics could they possibly have to discredit this simple solution?
I answered the post over there, but I think it is useful to talk about some of the underlying design issues of expansion-based themepark MMOs.
Design Issue 1: The “assault” on the leveling game.
The matter of pacing is of huge concern in videogame design. Even in single-player RPGs (or really any game), you still see the steady metering of items and abilities as the game progresses; going from Stone Sword –> Iron Sword –> Steel Sword and so on. I do not think I played even a FPS where I had access to all the guns in the game right off the bat. By handing out new guns or powers or abilities in a measured way, the player has time to focus on useful applications of said gun/power/ability before deciding which one(s) they want to use.
So given that, why does Blizzard continually assault the leveling game with patch notes such as “The amount of experience needed to gain levels 71 through 80 has been reduced by approximately 33%?” The issue is twofold.
First, look at the experience from a brand new player or even potential player perspective. The designers may have crafted the original WoW leveling experience to take an average of 300 hours to go from 1-60. In other words, the designers felt that 300 hours was a long enough journey to get to the endgame. When expansions are released though, an additional 50 hours is added to the leveling experience and the endgame moves farther along the timeline. Assuming that each expansion adds another 50 hours and no other changes were made, someone picking up all the WoW boxes would be staring at a 500 hour leveling wall come Mists of Pandaria.
So, assuming that 300 hours is a sweet-spot of sorts, it makes sense to truncate the leveling experience so that it always takes 300 hours to get to the endgame. The alternative of doing nothing means that all the commercial and word-of-mouth advertising would be concerning (endgame) content a new player would have to spend weeks and weeks getting to.
This is not to suggest there are not side-effects to XP reduction, such as out-leveling a zone before all the quests are complete. Then again, as long as the quests are sufficiently non-linear, why should anyone care? After all, skipped content adds to replayability. It is not entirely different from RPGs today with optional side-quests and how you can beat the game without being max level.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, one has to look at the experience from a veteran player perspective. I say “more importantly” because there are more ex-WoW players than WoW players, and thus more people who have already experienced the leveling content at least once. If I want to experience the endgame as a different class, each expansion makes the decision to roll an alt even more difficult – every hour I spend leveling an alt is an hour I potentially fall behind in progression (which is, incidentally, why it is useful to have diminishing returns and plateaus). While it is important to pace the game for new players, it makes less sense to do so for players who already learned all the lessons a slow pace was designed to encourage. I may not have ever played a druid, but I played a rogue, a warrior, and a shaman, so pacing things like I have no idea how to move around simply makes me bored and impatient.
So why doesn’t Blizzard simply make a Death Knight option (starting at level 55) for all classes? Good question. I wish they would. Heirlooms were a rather brilliant “solution” insofar as they took something they were going to do anyway – reducing XP required – and then made you spend time buying them, rather than getting them for free. That being said, from a business standpoint there is still probably value for them to have me spend 20+ hours leveling up as that is time spent in-game in those leveling ranges, making things there a little less of a ghost town.
Design Issue 2: Why not just have flatter progression?
Well, if you noticed, Blizzard is kinda doing this already. The standard ilevel upgrade between tiers used to be 13 ilevels, but now it is closer to 7 ilevels. Moreover, Blizzard combined 25m and 10m gear, so that instead of four tiers between raids, there are only two.
The problem with flatter progression is that it, in effect, removes “content.” To understand this point, let us all acknowledge what really is going on under a random loot system: the loot is random so as to give you a reason to beat a boss more than once. If the boss had “smart loot” that only dropped items tailored to the raid who defeated it, that raid would have less reasons to kill that boss week after week. As long as you continue to care about the loot a boss has, that boss remains legitimate “content” to you. I keep putting air quotes around the word “content,” because let’s face it, in every other scenario the only reason you would want to kill the same boss again is if it was fun to do so.
Another issue is when there simply is not enough of difference between gear to matter… or when older items are better. Spending weeks on a boss to gain +2 Strength is not my idea of a productive use of my free time, even if objectively there is no difference between that and +20 Strength. The way something feels is as important (if not more so) than the objective measure. There is a good reason why things are priced at $9.99 instead of $10, after all.
Flatter progression though also leads to those scenarios in which older items were strictly better than newer ones. Before relics were changed to be stat sticks, the Holy paladin Libram of Renewal reduced the mana cost of Holy Light by 113. That relic was available from the beginning vendors in T7 content and ended up being Best-in-Slot for (nearly?) the entire expansion. And yet Blizzard designed and itemized Holy paladin librams for T8, T9, and T10. If you used those, you were actually doing it wrong. And while new paladins could always just buy the T7 libram, there were situations in WoW’s past where an older item remained BiS (Dragonspine Trophy) and basically led to people farming obsolete content for years. That is not my particular idea of a good time, especially when you were basically farming an item for just a handful of people.
The Design Solution: Business (Mostly) As Usual
To be honest, I don’t think there is much different that Blizzard should have done. There were missteps for sure, such as when they introduced hardmode raiding in the middle of Wrath and had itemization quickly spiral out of control. But from a player experience, I was very grateful that my having Lich King loot did not trivialize Cataclysm leveling content the same way my having TBC gear left me slogging through hundreds of Northrend quests with zero upgrades. I can empathize with people who have all their hard work rendered moot each expansion/tier, but I also believe that the alternative is worse.
If Sisyphus had to look at the entire mountain each time instead of just focusing on pushing the boulder, I don’t think he’d ever make it to the top.
That being said, there shouldn’t be an issue with Blizzard introducing an option to slow down leveling much like they have an option to currently turn off XP gain entirely. And I would also like to see a Hero Class solution for veterans, possibly via the Cash Shop.
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Situated halfway between Old Montréal and the downtown district, the World Trade Centre Montréal is a vital part of the Quartier international de Montréal. Its location and unique architecture reflect the city's history and development.
Inaugurated in 1992, the World Trade Centre Montréal is a complex spanning an entire city block that consists of several restored historic buildings under a magnificent glass roof.
The World Trade Centre Montréal’s team of experts can help your company by assessing your project, making sure you are properly equipped and supporting you on the road to international success.
World Trade Centre Montréal brings together the services offered by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal (formerly known as the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal) in the areas of business development and international trade.
The mission of the Chamber is to act as the voice of Montréal’s business community and to promote the prosperity of the city and its businesses.
Click below to learn more about the benefits of becoming a member.
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Thank you for your interest in WTC Montreal! For general questions and comments please complete the form below and a member of our team will reach out to you shortly. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Instant E-Training has graduated from Catapult and is relocating to San Francisco!
Instant E-Training is a leading provider of on-demand digital marketing training. Founded in 2011 by Bob Tripathi, the fully bootstrapped company has trained thousands of adult professionals in all areas of digital marketing including Social Media, Search Engine Marketing, PPC, Content Marketing, and Web Analytics.
2016 brings an exciting new chapter for Instant E-Training, as Bob and the team are moving to San Francisco. According to Bob, “Increasingly, we noticed that a large majority of our clients were in the San Francisco Bay Area so adhering to the old adage to ‘go where your customers are’ we have decided to move.”
“It has been an amazing 18 months at Catapult,” said Bob. “The camaraderie that comes from being part of such a tight knit community allowed us to focus on the Technology side of our business, not just on the Digital Marketing Content side.” As a result, the company is building out a new Marketing Technology Platform sparxit.io, developed with “valuable input from the Catapult community.”
“It has been an enriching experience sharing space with fellow tech companies who understand how startups are scaled. We love Catapult, especially for the small feel and quiet that allows us to put our heads down and ‘get shit done.’ Hiring was also easy as most new hires wanted to work in a startup environment like Catapult, have great views, and get free beers at Friday Happy Hours!”
The Catapult community has equally enjoyed having Instant E-Training around, and has benefited greatly from Bob’s digital marketing expertise. Everyone at Catapult appreciates Bob’s willingness to share his knowledge, provide guidance, and offer discounted (or free!) training through the Instant E-Training webinars, certification programs, and on-demand training videos.
April Lane, Catapult’s Executive Director said, “Chicago’s loss is San Francisco’s gain. We look forward to hearing about their new platform and the growth of their business. We wish Instant E-Training the best of luck out West.”
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Eternal life was promised before time began — “In hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began” (Titus 1:2).
Eternal life is a gift from God — “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5:11).
Eternal life means our debt against God is paid in full — “…It is finished…” (John 19:30).
Eternal life comes with forgiveness for all our sins: past, present, and future — “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14).
Eternal life means we are new creations — “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).
Eternal Life means Abundant life — “…I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
Eternal life comes with the promised seal of the Holy Spirit — “…having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:13–14).
Eternal life means we are ambassadors for Christ — “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).
Eternal life cannot be taken away — “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28).
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is for hotoke, or the Japanese word for Buddha. I grew up around buddhas. My family’s house was filled with them. Old iron and wooden faces conveyed a sense of peace and clarity that I think calmed me as a child. There was one buddha in particular that I always felt a certain affinity to, and would often rub his hands or head when I walked by him in the living room.
Japan, naturally, is full of buddhas as well. Arhats, bodhisattvas, buddhas, and other deities are as common as American flags in the U.S. Not just relegated to the temples and sects to which they belong, buddhas can also be found hidden in the mountains, on streets, and in homes, offering protection and wisdom to those that notice.
What has become so familiar will be hard to leave, next year. The smell of incense, monks trolling down the streets chanting, and the distant clang of bells are part of the heartbeat of Kyoto, and it is strange to think of living without it.
Pictured below are some of the buddhas of Japan, most in my neighborhood. The buddhas with pinwheels protect the souls of unborn children that have died, while the final picture, one of my personal favorites, shows an arhat laughing behind another similar statue that already lost its head.
Images hosted on Flickr.
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A trade that we took in 2009 was a short CFD in Kazakhmys (KAZ.L). With the shares having risen consistently for 11 straight sessions, momentum had begun to look incredibly overbought and in need of a correction. The shares had gapped higher from 1511p at the open and surged in early trading. We were mindful of the old technical adage that ‘gaps close’, and felt that this may have been an exhaustion move which can often be seen at the end of a strong run. We opened the short position at 1557p on 11th January with a target of 1345p and a stop loss placed at 1635p.
Almost immediately the shares began to correct lower. By the end of the trading session the gap at 1511p had been closed, a bearish move. With a weak open on the next morning the shares fell to 1470p in the early minutes. We quickly moved to protect the position by moving the stop-loss down to 1542p. Throughout the day the shares continued to decline and again moved the stop lower, this time to 1475p, which would give just over 5% profit.
The shares opened the next day lower again, falling to 1410p, however we noticed that the volume on the buy side of the order book outnumber the sell side by a factor of around 3 to 1. This suggested that support was beginning to build, so we decided to to lock in a 9.4% profit on the trade and close the position at 1411p. Although the shares actually fell over the next couple of weeks to a low of 1206p, a short term jump above 1475p would have triggered the stop before further decline was seen.
Let’s assume an investor was prepared to risk £250 on the trade. The following scenario would have been played out. By entering the trade at 1557p and having the initial stop loss at 1635p the percentage risk was about 5% excluding commissions. Risking £250, equated to a trade size (contract value) of £5,000. This was calculated by dividing the £250 by 5%. This means that the investor sold 322 contracts at 1557p (5000/15.57). With the trade moving in our favour, we moved the stop-loss down to 1542p, which was at the entry level including costs. Therefore if the trade was stopped out at 1542p, there would have been no net loss on the trade. We finally closed the trade at 1411p and locked in a profit of £470.
Trade: LONG on Standard Life (SL..L)
Another trade involved a long CFD in Standard Life (SL..L). We had noticed that a ten week downtrend had broken, the 20 day moving average had turned higher, momentum was improving and the shares looked set to continue the recovery. A long position was opened at 212.2p with a target of 237p which had been the October high. In order to guard against significant losses if the trade turned against us we advised to place a stop loss at 202p.
Unfortunately the market started to decline in the second week of January. Despite the shares holding up well for the first few days, support at 207p finally gave way on the 20th January, and the shares fell sharply. The stop loss was finally triggered on 21st January at 202p. This meant a loss of 4.8%, however considering the price fell to below 194p, over 8.5%, the losses were fortunately limited.
Assuming the investor was again prepared to risk £50 on the trade and by entering the trade at 212.2p with a stop-loss placed 202p the percentage risk was 4.8% excluding dealing commissions. Risking £250, this equated to a trade size (contract value) of £5208. This meant that the investor bought 2454 contracts at 212.2p. Unfortunately the trade moved the wrong way and eventually the investor was stopped out at 202p for a £250 loss.
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Friday, September 12, 2014
The drive to Eastmain, QC took us approximately 17 hours and was absolutely nothing like I thought it would be. I had visions of terrible roads and bears basically terrorizing drivers as they try to get back among humans. Of course I was wrong. It was a beautiful drive with a stretch of about 5 hours where we were out of cell service but the scenery was incredible.
The community of Eastmain really has some nice facilities, a great gym, swimming pool and work out room. A great space for a powwow.
The host families that looked after the powwow participants were so accommodating. They really took great care of us. This is Dorothy, we were very grateful to stay in her home. Literally in minutes it felt like we were old friends. Oh and the food was so good that I had to dance every single intertribal just to not gain 10 lbs. I see you committee, I see what you did there. :)
The committee did such a great job of planning this event. There were so many fun specials and I absolutely loved all the community engagement. Most powwows that we attend in Southern Ontario, NY state and surrounding areas seem to really try to gear events to the spectators. I really loved that this powwow geared their events towards trying to get the local community involved. Lots of fun specials such as a free style two step where a dancer in regalia must find a local community member as a partner. My partner and I took 2nd place in that special by the way. (darn, no pictures). A best Ribbon Shirt contest (which Derek won in the adult division) and my favourite was the home made regalia contest. The photo above is the winner. If you look closely at the details of her dress you can see all the creativity that she put into it. Her dress was made of pink plastic table cloth and garbage bag sleeves, candy for jingles, coffee filters for hair accessories and to top it off she had plastic forks for her feather fan and for the feathers in her hair. So so so good!
Rosary and Jacob joined us from Toronto. Rosary got in on the 2 man Hand drum singing contest. Wow, can this lady sing! To say I was impressed was definitely an under statement. This is probably a good time to mention that all of the drums were jamming. Nothing better than a jamming song to get you moving.
This was our crew for the weekend. We had such a great time with Deanne and John, and Rosary and Jacob that the weekend just flew by. Some of us were able to arrive in time to participate in the Goose Dance ceremony. The whole cultural weekend was just what we all needed to rejuvenate our batteries for the new school year. To all those still wrapping up their powwow season, safe travels. Hope to see you at a round dance or social sometime over the fall/winter season.
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This Week's Intention: Ride your inner waves with conscious intention.
Go slow. Pause. Listen. Honor your feeling wisdom.
Moon is waxing and becomes full (Purnima) late in the week, just before the auspicious Vedic celebration of Makar Sankranti. Sun shifts to Capricorn as well, marking an awakening of the Sun and an invitation of more brightness, light and prosperity. Mercury has just gone direct, but continues through the challenging nakshatra and gandanta (gap) of Mula, causing uprooting, changes and chaos on the mental body level. Seek spiritual resources to ground and align with your inner wisdom.
Monday, January 9th
Moon in 12th tithi
Rohini nakshatra is activating immense creativity today. Lord Brahma is the ruling deity here, which by default includes his wife, goddess Saraswati. Together, they bring forth the ability to manifest, channel creative intelligence and put creativity into right action. Desires are brought into form. Use your creative powers with great intention and honor your ability to create the life of your dreams.
* All timing is Mountain Standard Time.
Join me for a *free* Dharma Class this Sunday, January 15th! Are you aligned with your life path, your purpose? Discover how to awaken your path, purpose and inner knowing + resources for using your jyotish chart as a powerful resource for dharmic awakening. Join my newsletter for the details.
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*** Please note that I will be shifting my business focus in the new year towards more local and community based offerings here in Boulder, CO. This means that I will have fewer single session openings and online offerings. Please book your session now to insure that I can fit you in. ***
* Please note, the format for my horoscopes has changed. I will now be sharing in-depth monthly Horoscopes only. Thanks for following along.
June begins with a new Moon in Taurus, it's exaltation sign. Moon will be in strong degrees, in Rohini nakshatra at the time of the New Moon on June 4th. There will be confusion between inner and outer in the cycle to come, so finding balance between external needs and internal needs will be important for the first half of the month.
Mercury in Taurus
June 7th, Mercury shifts to Taurus, joining the heated dynamic of combust Venus and Sun who continue to track each other closely. Retrograde Mars and Saturn also give their gaze to these three planets, which causes heat and pressure to intensify.
Mercury in Gemini
As June closes, Mercury makes another transition, moving into Gemini- joining the combust pair Sun and Venus. Late evening on June 26th, Mercury shifts into Gemini, its own sign, marking a month long transit of mental body clean up.
Venus in Gemini
The heated war between Sun and Venus pauses as Venus shifts to Gemini on June 12th. As Venus enters a friendly sign, it separates from the fire of the Sun for a moment. Though Mars still gives his gaze to watery and creative Venus, he charges her up, rather than burns her out.
Sun in Gemini
Sun moves to Gemini, joining Venus here, continuing their heated battle between fire and water, precision and flow, human and soul needs. This cycle is a potent refinement process that will ask you to be get clear and focused about your desires.
Mars in Libra
On June 17th, retrograde Mars returns to Libra. Mars has been in retrograde motion since April 15th, transiting Scorpio with Saturn- who is also retrograde right now. Normally, Mars would be excited to transit his own, familiar territory, however, an intruder also occupies his home.
*Horoscopes are based on your Vedic (sidereal) rising sign. You can also check your Moon and Sun signs for further insight. Do the same with your Navamsa signs for further clarity. Do not use these horoscopes with your Western sign (Tropical) as there is likely no correlation. These horoscopes are meant to be used as a broad overview of the current transits and obviously do not address the specifics of an individual’s unique chart.
Aries: The past becomes present, the old comes back to the forefront. Remain present to the mirrors showing you what needs to be re-seen, re-noticed, re-evaluated- within yourself. You may gain inspiration and a new clarity about what you need and how you want it.
Taurus: The heat and passion in your head is creating steam and excess clouds. You may not be seeing clearly as a result. The tendency is to push or force outcomes and agendas rather than landing softly within. Pushing and forcing outcomes and steps doesn't guarantee a powerful outcome.
Gemini: The release process you've been going through is preparing you for the cycle to come. As Sun moves to your first house mid month, it's time to rise and shine. You'll still need to be taking extra time for meditation, pauses and rest with Mercury in your 12th house, but the tides are changing.
Cancer: Nourishment is a powerful, continuous theme that influences how you share and who you share with. Healing, change and transformation must take place in order for you to accept, invite and create space for the new. There's some resistance to the new, so be aware of where you are stuck.
Leo: Life is leaping ahead, but at what cost? Where are you present? Where are you checked-out? Relationships continue to be disconnected or more spiritually oriented. This is a time to be more focused on the self and to re-establish a new sense of Self.
Virgo: The deep transformations and release of this past month turn into wisdom and inner knowing this month. Suddenly more support and guidance arrives to help you learn and grow with new conviction and purpose. Clear away toxicity and liberate yourself from the people and things that dis-empower you.
Libra: Money, resources and nourishment seem to be challenged by lack of fluidity. Here today and gone tomorrow. This confusion with resources and comfort has been stirring the pot, increasing fear and pressure. What are these challenges teaching you about your needs?
Scorpio: The confusion comes from a restructuring of how you use your power source. You are no longer willing to force outcomes or force the process of outcome. It feels foreign, unusual, even lazy at times. But in fact, this is a vital emergence for you.
Sagittarius: Liberation is coming but not without effort and working consciously with your unconscious terrain. This becomes more necessary in the coming month so notice where you are stuck in limiting beliefs and old mental body programming.
Capricorn: Being dramatic with your cutting and clearing process is how you are creating a new baseline of stability and support for yourself. This doesn't come without pain and sadness, grief and loss. But in the long run, your awakening core wisdom is the catalyst for monumental change- inner and outer.
Aquarius: The refinement continues. Clearing away that which doesn't serve your highest good can be painful, especially when there's strong attachment. Your head is hot and getting hotter. Some relief comes early in the month once Mars returns to Libra. He won't be giving his gaze directly to your head.
Pisces: You are learning how to lose and let go, although reluctantly. It's vital that you clear up your gut and inner guidance system. Part of you is still not listening to this inner intelligence. It's time to sift your your unconscious terrain and re-pattern the places within you that keep going back to the conflict.
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The June new Moon is at 21:00 MDT on Saturday the 4th, while the Moon is in Taurus, it's exaltation sign. Moon will be in strong degrees, in Rohini nakshatra which may give rise to both the need for silence and dynamism. Confusion between inner and outer may be present in the cycle to come. Finding balance between external needs and internal needs will be important for the first half of the month.
At the time of the new Moon, Sun, Moon and Venus are all in exact degrees, placed in the highly creative Moon-ruled nakshatra, Rohini. All three planets receive direct gaze from retrograde Saturn and Mars, adding pressure and heat to the mix. There is a deep purification process happening with relationships, money, comfort and support in this waxing cycle.
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This Week's Intention: Find ways to drop into your depths and ground within,
while surrendering to the many changes happening- inner and outer. Gather extra resources and support to hold you. Where can you let go and lighten your load?
Moon is waxing and energy is increasing within your inner realms. The week begins with winter Solstice (Northern Hemisphere) marking the darkest day of the year. Despite the waxing Moon, it is an inward time on multiple levels. As our light source reaches its darkest point, our inner light also weakens and is fragile, increasing a sense of vulnerability. Allow for more silence and longer pauses, more time outdoors and more self care.
This is a wild week! There will be three planetary shifts, an intense full Moon and Rahu and Ketu moving to their sandhi degrees while Jupiter continues to move closer to the edge of Leo. Extra care and caution are necessary with all the movement and shifts happening back to back. Be diligent with your self tracking and gather extra resources, guidance and support right now.
Early Monday morning, Moon shifts to Bharani- offering possible restriction, constriction and difficulties with relationships and money. This is a reminder to find more balance with both. Where are you out of alignment and not in right relationship with wealth and love? Where are you giving too much and neglecting deeper needs? Where are you starving yourself for false gratification?
Say yes to nourishment by aligning with love, gratitude, creativity and your passion for life. Keep it simple and let go of the extras, the distractions, the false nourishment that keeps you in lack. Say yes to your transformation and allow in new possibilities. As winter Solstice arrives, the darkness deepens. Light your lights and call upon the Sun to bring you resources for growth and healing.
Winter Solstice occurs for the Northern Hemisphere (Summer Solstice for the Southern Hemisphere) on December 21st at 08:49 PST, marking the shortest and darkest day of the year, as well as the official start of winter.
The winter months bring increased soma, more ability to resource from within, while helping us clear away what doesn't nourish or support our growth. It is a cycle of death, release and endings.
As the new year approaches, it's an excellent time to start clarifying intentions for what you are gathering and carrying with you for the year to come, while honoring your inner needs and extra self care. Meditate, increase physical activity, stay warm, eat simple, light foods. Carefully keep your agni stoked with right diet, routine and lifestyle. Keep it simple. Less is more.
Tuesday, Moon shifts to Krittika nakshatra early morning, stirring Agni, the fire of life. Chaos and calamity may increase today as the ruling planet of this nakshatra, Sun, transits the unstable constellation, Mula. Pull up the weeds in your life and throw them onto the compost pile. Seek clarity, purification and transformation. Late morning, Moon shifts to Taurus, it's sign of exaltation. Saturn gives his gaze, increasing depression, sadness, slowness and frustrations, while Rahu's gaze amplifies this. Expect big emotions to surface today. Do you invite them in or suppress them? How do you surf these tides? Where do you need healthier boundaries? What resources are necessary as you move forward?
Rahu and Ketu move into the two degree range, becoming sandhi- or in the gap between signs. Rahu will move to Leo on January 30th and Ketu will move into Aquarius. This marks a delicate, transitional time with your shadows and your liberation process. Gather your resources and support for the months ahead. I'll be sharing more details about theses transits in the next few weeks.
Wednesday, Moon continue through Taurus transiting its mulitrikona degrees. The emotional body is still sensitive today as Saturn shares his direct gaze to the Moon. A certain intensity may be felt with Rahu's shadowy stare as well. Just as the day begins, Moon shifts to Rohini nakshatra and creativity is sparked. Make time for movement, dance, drawing, painting and honoring your creative life force energy. What types of nourishment are you creating for yourself? Contain it!
As the Moon enters the 14th tithi, almost completely full, Mars finally leaves its challenging conjunction with Rahu behind. On December 23rd at 15:46 PST, Mars lands in Libra for an almost two month transit, staying here until February 20th. Intense creative sparks will fly in this cycle. Prepare to maximize this time by carving out designated time and space for your creative endeavors. Seek to balance and harmonize masculine and feminine forces within. Masculine energy is product oriented, which Mars is extremely well suited for. However, the feminine energy of Libra supports flow, fluidity, movement and strong creative pulls. Both are essential, yet the tendency in our Western-centric culture is to neglect our feminine needs. Be sure to honor your feminine side with ample pauses, time in nature, rest, meditation, extra self care and creative activities. Emphasize process rather than product in this cycle in order to deepen nourishment and cultivate more presence with your creative potential. On the other hand, harness the creative energy and contain it for manifesting desires consciously.
Use this Mars in Libra cycle to harmonize and balance the emotional body. Some of this comes through grief and purging the internal waters, honoring your inner tides and letting them flow more fluidly. Cry and laugh, seek joy yet attend to the pain and struggles. Lean into your challenges, the pain, the hurts and struggles. Massage them with your tears and let your emotional body flow more freely. Let the healing in. Find the balms that soothe your scars. Balance inner and outer realms, past and present, pain and happiness. Stand in the center of your polarities and stabilize through your pelvic wisdom. Soften and awaken your heart center; channel your inner knowing. Let it guide you towards trust, truth and awakening. Walk your path of dharma with conviction and purpose. Don't bow, bend or back down. The stakes are too high- and getting higher. Not yet sure what your dharmic work is? Lean into your suffering and let your wounds become your gifts.
Minutes before midnight, Moon moves to Mrigashirsha nakshatra. Find the soma. Venus moves to the edge of Libra, preparing to shift into Scorpio. Feelings, wealth, health, relationships and comforts are fragile.
Thursday arrives and Moon continue through the realm of Soma, Mrigashirsha nakshatra. What resources can you use to deepen your inner stability and support right now? Midday, Moon moves to Gemini and receives gaze from Mercury and Sun. Do you feel the scrutiny? The critic? The task master? This narrow focus can increase the sense of chaos and confusion within. Find ways to ground and stabilize. Use self care to come back to center.
Before midnight, Moon shifts to Ardra nakshatra, increasing volatile emotions and feelings. How can you create more safety and support for yourself? Be mindful of excess at this time and notice where you are suppressing your needs. Healthy boundaries are a must. The Moon is full and potent right now. Track the emotional body diligently.
Mercury is at the edge of Sagittarius and has entered its sandhi degrees. The mind and all things Mercury are fragile. Pay attention to communications, creativity, writing, commerce and connections.
Friday arrives with yet another planetary shift. Just hours before the full Moon on the 25th, Venus slips into Scorpio, joining Saturn here at 01:25 am PST. This transit amplifies themes around creativity and the emotional body- for those willing to dive into their dark matter. With Venus in Scorpio (Mars' sign) Mars in Libra (Venus's sign) there is an exchange between fire and water that occurs. Use this for momentum and propelling yourself forward. Emotional intensity is a given in this month long cycle so make sure to gather ample resource for grounding, landing and also moving the emotional body more fluidly. Grief amplifies, yet as mentioned previously, this is a necessity for cultivating deeper balance and inner harmony. The extent to which you can cultivate presence, surrender and balance with your sadness and joy, heavy parts and light parts, darkness and light, is the extent in which you can receive more nourishment. Suppressing your grief will only keep you further away from that which you truly long for- life force energy. Where are you resisting your darkness? How can you lean into your shadows more intimately? What compassion can you give yourself in the process? Where are you stuck and where do you need more support, guidance and help?
Use your creativity, the arts and courage to cultivate deeper presence with your sorrows. Find balance with your story by writing about it as well as dancing, drawing or making music with it. The Saturn and Venus conjunction requests you get embodied and ground your knowing into physical body presence. Or perhaps you start with the pathway of the body and let its innate knowing seep into your mental body awareness? What are you moving? What is moving through you? What is moving you forward, awakening your core? Don't back down. Activate with this intensity, but resource your self with powerful presence simultaneously. Step into an embodied, empowered state. Where do you feel your power landing within? Resource from here.
Just hours after Venus shifts into the deep and mysteries sign of Scorpio, the full Moon arrives. For many around the world who celebrate Christmas, this full Moon may feel especially potent. The Moon is at its fullest at 03:10 am PST on the 25th, while Moon transits Gemini and Ardra nakshatra. There is a certain emotional tenacity in this cycle which must be acknowledged and managed with intention and care. Ardra is known for its outbursts, over-active emotional body, ferocity, anger and destructive tendencies. Go into this waning cycle knowing that the emotional body will need your extra attention. Arm yourself with resources, guidance, therapeutic tools and wisdom.
The cycle to come brings intense change, calamity and turmoil in varying forms. It's a time of liberating the shadow and bringing parts of ourselves to the light for greater healing. Trust the intensity has something important to share with you. What is the mirror being shown? What reflection is being presented? Do you like what you see? What changes and adjustments need to be made? What support do you need in order to find greater ease, strength and stability? How can you deepen self trust, resiliency and a sense of thriving? Where do you need to hit the release valve and just blow off some steam?
Destruction is a necessary part of growth and the creative process. What needs to be destroyed in order to make space for more nourishing and supportive relationships and experiences? For many, the holiday time period (pre, during and post) can be highly charged- amplifying destructive tendencies. Be mindful of healthy boundaries with family members and friends. Be aware of excess- whether it's too much time with others, over-indulgences with food, sweets, alcohol and intoxicants, or over-spending. Watch addictions and addictive behaviors in yourself and others. Where are you playing the victim and returning to cycles of self-sabotage? Gather a team of support around yourself in order to remind yourself of intentions for balance and stability. Above all, use self care to bolster your inner reserves. Attend to your needs on all four levels of your being- physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Rest and restore.
Just before midnight, the Moon shifts into Punarvasu nakshatra, which offers Aditi's resources and support. Allow her to nourish you with wisdom and understanding in the coming days.
Saturday, Moon moves through Aditi's constellation, Punarvasu and Mercury's sign, Gemini. Find ways to expand your awareness and wisdom today. Let this bring you some compassion and self trust, perhaps stability. The mind is fragile as Mercury changes signs today. Attend to the mental body and communications diligently.
Mid afternoon, Saturday, Moon moves into its own sign, Cancer. Ketu gives his gaze, provoking sudden awareness and spiritual messages. As Saturday closes, Moon shifts into Pushya nakshatra, the nourishing star. Seek balance.
Mercury moves to Capricorn at 09:58 am PST, an amicable sign for him. Multiple gazes are given to Mercury, stirring the mind and provoking textures in the mental body landscape. Saturn, Mars and Rahu give their drishti to Mercury, instigating tension and frustrations. This is a time to seek balance in your momentum. Leap and land carefully- and with intention. Desires may be strong and intense on the mental body level. Are these desires controlling you? Find ways to soften and surrender. The tension between Saturn (stop, slow) and Mars (go, fast) is intensified by Rahu (the amplifier).
Capricorn's nature is to push really hard, overwork and to tenaciously take on a challenge. Are you biting off more than you can chew? Saying yes when you really need to say no? Find ways to delegate, get extra support and notice where you invite in overwhelm. This is often a strategy for self sabotage, perpetuating cycles of "not being enough" or "not doing good enough". Remember that challenges are an opportunity to notice what needs to change or shift within us or our choices. What needs to change in order for smoother sailing?
As Mercury continues to move through the constellation Uttarashada, the Vishvadevas provoke some stability and balance for the mind while inviting in some peace and inner joy. On January 5th, Mercury goes retrograde for three weeks until January 25th. He will then travel back through the domain of the Vishvadevas, returning to Sagittarius just minutes after the 14th arrives. As he lands back into Sagittarius, he runs right into the Sun, rendering him combust and in exact conjunction with the heat of fire itself. The mind will be hot, agitated and fragile leading up to and after this transit so be mindful of your thoughts, words and actions. Sun and Mercury pass and begin to separate as Mercury retreats back through Sagittarius and the Sun moves forward into Capricorn. Retrograde Jupiter now gives his gaze to Mercury, softening and stabilizing the mind, yet provoking growth and wisdom in ways that may arrive as challenges and learning curves.
Mercury moves back into the first portion of the Ashada constellation, Purva on the 17th and Apas arrives with her watery ways to increase flow, fluidity and movement. With the conjunction of Venus and Mercury at this time, a powerful creative energy may be felt. Use this creativity for movement, change and supporting transformation. Mercury won't arrive back into Capricorn until February 8th, when he will ask you to revisit themes around forcing outcomes and pushing hard to achieve. Where can you surrender and release?
During this entire dance of the mind and its intense movements and changes, Rahu and Ketu will be shifting simultaneously into new signs for the next year and a half. This increases the instability and fragile nature of the transits and your personal experiences. This is a time for extra self care, guidance and resources that provide stability, support and clarity. It's also important to get extra planetary support through yagyas.
Sunday, Moon travels through Pushya nakshatra and requests stability, support and balance. Ketu's gaze on the Moon helps the heart and emotional body clear and cut blockages, restrictions. Let him help you increase liberation by removing the rubble that is closing the heart center. Use the rhythm of your heart to find your own pulse, your own beat. What song are you singing? How do your steps match your inner beat? Get clear on your emotional body needs. Ground, land, settle. Resource from your inner knowing and awaken your inner trust.
Late evening, Moon shifts into the final constellation of Cancer, Ashlesha. Stay out of the illusion.
Monday begins with a waning Moon moving through the 4th tithi (Moon phase). Find ways to contain and hold yourself with comfort and support. As Moon continues through Cancer and Ashlesha nakshatra, Sarpa brings illusions and deception to the foreground. Are you stuck in the shadow? Where can you shine more light on your darkness? Your emotional body can give you the necessary messages for increasing the light within. It is your barometer for wellness, for how well your needs are being met. Where do you need more support, new resources, extra self care? What changes need to be made in order for your inner nourishment to increase? It's a time of change and making new choices in order for new and different results in the weeks and months to come. Start now.
*All timing is given in Pacific Standard Time Zone.
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Have You Heard?!
My work is shifting starting January 2016.
As the new year begins, I'll be sharing a new session structure with you, plus a new website and membership only features. Please read for details.
Over the past year, I've seen the effects of my work increase with those clients who have committed to my consistent support.
Clients that return for multiple sessions, use my resources, support, guidance and tools consistently, and are dedicated to personal development, healing and transformation experience lasting changes.
My work is best used in concentrated and consistent doses- in order for lasting, sustainable results.
As a result, I'll be sharing new session packages in order to give you extra support, resources and concentrated guidance. Packages that maximize your results and give you the value you deserve- in order for faster, lasting, life changing results.
*** This means I will only be offering very limited sessions for new clients and those return clients who only book individual sessions. ***
My work is best suited to those who are truly committed to consistent action steps and those who want immediate results.
The New Year will also bring a brand new website with better features.
Please note that the way I share my content and classes is also changing in order to support your growth and change process more powerfully.
My website will be Membership Only starting in January in order for you to get more resources in effective and potent ways.
I'll be sharing more about these big changes in the coming weeks so make sure you're on my newsletter list for the details.
Exciting things are on the horizon for Swati Jr Jyotish!!!
Thank you for making 2015 an amazing year. Looking forward to giving you even more resources, support and nourishment in the coming year.
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This Week's Intention: Continue to land in your heart wisdom and lean into compassion.
Crack open judgments and resistance to nourishment. Simplify.
It's a full Moon week and the emotional body is powerfully charged. Can you feel the white capped waves increasing, reaching their peak within you? Relationships, creativity, finances and life force energy make a radical shift towards deeper balance, as Venus moves to its own sign, Libra, on Sunday. Many will feel the release arrive next week as all things Venus seek more stability and harmony in the next cycle.
The week begins with a fresh start as Moon arrives into the first sign of the zodiac, Aries.
Monday, allow the vulnerability of beginnings settle in as you move through your day. There's a freshness, a vitality, an awakening and enlivening occurring. Calculate your steps and be poignant in your choices. Attend to rejuvenation and revitalization. Awaken and refresh yourself with new actions. Declare your inner power and orient yourself around this core of truth within. Mars gives his gaze to the Moon today. Take the passion into action. If you are feeling anger stir, notice where you need to create healthier boundaries. What does your anger need? Lean in and listen carefully.
Late evening, Moon shifts to Bharani nakshatra. Vulnerability and ferocity arrive simultaneously. Where do you land?
Moon continues to transit Bharani nakshtara on Tuesday. Yama brings his transformational energy and invites in deep changes. Relationships and money are vulnerable right now and today amplifies this fragility. What are the challenges forcing you to look at? What are you resisting or refusing to see? What is your anger telling you about your needs? Let the passion out of its hiding place and invite it to stoke your inner flames. Get clear on what you need for deeper nourishment. Ask for your needs to be met.
Early evening, Moon arrives in the 15th tithi, Purnima, and Krittika nakshatra. The fullness is here. Can you feel the swell within?
Just as Wednesday begins, Moon hops into Taurus, rendering him exalted and 100% energized. Continuing through Krittika nakshatra still, Agni arrives with his purifying potency to help us clean, clear and purify.
Full Moon is Wednesday November 25th at 14:43 PST while Moon is in Taurus and Krittika Nakshatra. Moon is in its Mulitrikona degrees at the time of the full Moon. This placement exemplifies the feeling nature of the Moon and can increase emotions and stronger emotional body experiences as a result. Moon also receives gaze from four planets- Sun, Saturn and Mercury, all in Scorpio. Rahu also gives his shadowed gaze from Virgo. Venus gives its influence as ruling planet of Taurus. A range of offerings arrive with this motley mix of energy upon the Moon. As Moon is highly receptive, it feels the ripples of these other planetary energies very acutely. There's a certain contraction and sadness that arrives, though likely connected to the mental body and old stories re-emerging to taunt and haunt. Simultaneously a powerful inner force and courageous spirit is present, which may help support movement, momentum and change. Rahu brings a sense of confusion, uncertainty and challenge with his gaze, while influencing relationships and our experience with others. How can you keep landing in your body and align with your core? What are the essential values that you hold dear? Use them as a tuning fork.
Agni, the ruling deity of Krittika nakshatra, is a powerful transformational energy. He brings change and alchemy with him. His fire brings new results and helps us release the old. There is certain movement and momentum given with the energy of Agni. He is a powerful resource for digestion, assimilation and deep nourishment of life. In the waning cycle to come, digestion is a crucial and potent area of focus. Attending to the fire of life- on all four levels of our being- is essential. Are you attending to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies with intention? Where are there holes in your self care?
Agni can help us digest and assimilate experiences of life, in order for us to extract the finest by-product of well being, which is ojas. If any system of the body is overwhelmed, over loaded, it will not be able to support assimilation of nutrients. Stoking the wisdom of Agni with gentle intention, attending to a slow, consistent flame, is the most sustainable. When we douse this fragile inner flame with too much of anything, our pilot light goes out. Agni exists on multiple levels of our being to help us digest mentally, emotionally, physically and even spiritually.
Use this cycle to attend to your inner light with deep care. Go slow, pause, turn inward and align with your needs. Attend to self care diligently and get plenty of rest. Let rejuvenation be a primary focus as the light dims for the Northern Hemisphere and the winter months ask us to retreat within. Put maximum attention on inner nourishment. Pay attention to what goes into your body and what comes out of it. Watch your words and clean up your diet and the company you keep. Where are you perpetuating over-stimulation, over activity? Where are you not in right relationship with your needs, healthy boundaries and self care?
Fresh starts abound in this cycle so pay close attention to what you are actually putting into motion and beginning. Are you really making progress with new steps and extra support, guidance and resources? Or are you pretending to make change using old patterns and unconscious actions? It is vital that the changes begin from your depths, below the surface and through inner work. The awareness you gain from self development work and shining the light on your darkness, will maximize and mobilize you into powerful actions with lasting effects. Work directly with the mental body and its limiting beliefs, old patterns and default settings. Closely track old stories and mental body programming that consistently keep you in the dark. Not sure where these old patterns are hiding? Look directly at your obstacles and challenges. What keeps returning to force you into conscious awareness?
Late afternoon, Moon shifts to Rohini nakshatra and creativity is maximized. Put your attention on manifestation and desire.
Thursday Moon continues through Lord Brahmas domain, Rohini nakshatra. His unification with Goddess Saraswati is the ultimate manifestation energy. Masculine and feminine creative powers align in order to bring desire into form. Through creativity, the arts, wisdom and knowledge, we can create our lives over and over again. Desire sparks actions and intentions. What resources are you using to create an inspired and potent life? Where are you playing small, resisting and refusing to stand in your power? We create our own reality. What are you inviting in?
Late afternoon, Moon moves to Mrigashirsha nakshatra and life force energy arrives to nourish and support. Notice where you are contracting and refusing the love. Notice where you are overindulging in intoxicants, masking your inner needs.
In the USA, today is Thanksgiving- a day for celebrating gratitude, blessings and the rich harvest of life. What nourishment are you celebrating? What are you inviting into your life? Where are you resisting? Keep it simple today and avoid heart burn. The basic human resource we all need is love. How can you keep your feelings attuned to loving kindness, rather than falling into pot holes of emptiness?
Friday, day of Venus, brings more awareness of relationships, love and nourishment. Though creativity is a primary focus, the channels are also very narrow right now. Love and money are not flowing smoothly and can feel restricted or forced at times. The challenging flow of Venus energy extends to relationships, commodities, vitality and life force energy (shakti). The tendency is to overindulge- with intoxicants, sweets, drugs and alcohol- masking the inner needs and the vulnerability of this time. This burns the little life force energy that is available. Today can offer Soma or burn it up. Do you align with your sensitivity and its inner pulls, or follow the externalized forces and desires?
Early afternoon, Moon shifts to the challenging and powerful nakshatra, Ardra. Emotional upheavals are amplified as Moon is waning yet still quite full. Grieve, purge tears, let waves pass through you and let them release. Dissect anger and rage, finding its root cause. What boundaries are being crossed that need to be restructured? Where are you saying yes when you should be saying no? Rudra's destructive forces are potent today and tomorrow. What is crumbling in order for you to rebuild?
Saturday Moon continues through Ardra nakshatra until noon. Relationships are fragile and require extra attention today. The challenges of the previous day begin to sift and settle, while emotions continue to fester. Attend to self care, sensitivity and inner needs. Find healthy ways to release and reset.
As Moon shifts into Punarvasu nakshatra midday, a softening arrives with Aditi's many resources. Her gentle wisdom and unifying ways can be a soothing balm to the heart. Protection, support and guidance comes more easily now. Can you land back in your heart and find the gratitude? Stand in your power by attending to the heart flame. Let it be the messenger of your truth and light. Fill the corners of your heart with joy and understanding.
Venus nears the edge of its debilitation sign, Virgo, intensifying its challenging effects. When sandhi, a planet is both vulnerable and more potent- especially when it is leaving a sign. Spiritual resources may feel more available now to support relationship and money concerns. Call in your support systems! Gurus, guides, ancestors and spirits! Ask for tangible support from healers, therapists, coaches and nourishing relationships. Where do you need more support?
Sunday mid morning, Moon shifts to its own sign, Cancer, softening the heart and increasing a sense of emotional body balance. Spiritual awareness may help increase new understanding and deeper compassion. Sudden emotional shifts are likely and sensitivity is high. Protect yourself and find ways to land within consciously.
Just after noon, Moon moves to Brihaspati's nakshatra, Pushya. Nourishment comes with balance and healthy boundaries today. Inner and outer needs must be integrated and harmonized. Have you been neglecting your internal fire and self care? Use your heart to calibrate your needs and choices. Keep landing back in your heart wisdom, your emotional body and listen carefully. There is depth and awakening available to those who listen today.
At 17:56 PST, Venus makes the leap into its own sign, leaving the challenges of its debilitation behind. Many will feel the relief arriving in the coming days as relationships, money, creativity, life force and health find more stability and harmony. There is still much in the transits that can challenge this stability, but the natural flowing tendencies of Venus in its own sign can help us increase fluidity, love and joy. This increase of vitality is determined by your inner work. It's a time to be radical in your self development, not hide behind false comforts and illusions of safety.
This Venus cycle is all about creativity and connectivity, helping us find new pathways of nourishment and vitality, potency and power. It will require radical heart chakra work and re-patterning blockages, resistance and refusal to be nourished. Attending to your malnourishment is vital. Where are you starving yourself? Filling up on empty calories in your life? Pretending and wearing old masks?
Use challenges and obstacles to face your shadow. Where are you being cracked open so more light can enter? How is your critic keeping you in the dark? Where are you stuck in binary thinking patterns- right and wrong, and a black and white mentality? Unmask yourself and remove the false layers keeping you from being nourished and well fed in life and relationships. Heal and awaken with extra guidance and support. Don't try to move forward alone.
Relationships are vital at this time- in order to deepen your support systems, sense of community and strengthen your belonging. Find new resources of support if you are stuck or in challenge. The heart needs your attention like never before. Increase compassion for yourself and others. Deepen your awareness about your own needs. As you identify the deeper layers of your inner being, you can express them and gain deeper support from others, from life. Remove and let go of that which is draining you, keeping you from vitality and joy. Simplify your life.
Monday continues themes of balance and harmony as Moon moves through Pushya nakshatra. Venus is weak and vulnerable in degrees so tend to the relationship with self and other cautiously. After noon, Moon shifts to Ashlesha nakshatra and inner illusions amplify. Use resources and tools to work directly with the mental and emotional bodies. Consciously work with shadows and the critical mind. Drop into your heart and notice where you are stuck in judgement and critical thought. Deepen compassion for self and others.
*All timing is given in Pacific Standard Time Zone.
Need some extra guidance and clarity? I am scheduling December sessions. Schedule a session with me.
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Tribes India offer a wide range of assorted gift items which are combination of age old craft tradition and modern design with utility in focus. The Tribal artisans have exemplary design skils. Made ofmix alloy, this door handle is very sturdy and is very resistive to corrosion. Please Note:- Althrough , artisan do take care to maintain pattern and colour scheme however, being this is a handmade product therefore , to create identical products a little variation could be seen. These are unique & original Products created by Indian Tribal artisans to earn their livelihood. Warm Tip :- Please be reminded that due to lighting effects, mointor’s brightness/ contrast setting etc, there could be some differences in the colour tone of the website’s photo and the actual item.
Further product descriptions are mentioned below:
Country of Origin:India
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Last week it was revealed to me that Sam’s old Wurm hat had departed for greener pastures, and for reasons related to motherhood and that warm feeling* that comes over me when one of my children requests a knitted item, I decided to make her another one. I had the yarn, and it seemed like such a small request. Just a hat – how long can that take? Right. I fell for it again.
I have been knitting for 42 years, and I am still trying to figure out what makes a craftsperson of that experience level immune to the truths about a pattern. Wurm is a good pattern. I’ve made a lot of them. It’s a good, non-phallic, warm hat that’s excellent for people with lots of hair, and for the last few years I’ve pounded out at least one every winter. One for me, one for Sam, and one for… I can’t remember who – maybe my mother… doesn’t matter. The important thing is that not only do I knit a lot and know heaps about how much time it takes, I have knit this specific hat before and am intimately acquainted with the fact that this is a “big” hat. Now, I don’t mean big as in “will fit a large head” I mean that it’s a bit of a trick hat. It’s got more knitting in it than it looks like. The brim is a turned hem, so that’s two layers, and then the alternating strips of purl and knit accordion down and make lots of knitting squish up into a smaller space.
I know this. This will be at least the fourth time that I’ve knit this thing, and recently (in knitter years) at that, and still, on Friday, when I wound the yarn and grabbed my needles, I didn’t think “Wow, this hat is a lot of knitting. I hope I can finish this weekend.” I swear I thought something along the lines of “Hold on a minute sweetie, give mummy a sec and I’ll have that hat for you.”
Optimism? Delusion? No way to know, but man, this hat is a lot of knitting and I sure hope I can finish tonight.
* This warm feeling was in direct opposition to my actual feeling, which was that I was freezing, because when she didn’t have a hat, she stole mine. Sometimes there’s an element of self defence in knitting.
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Questions You May Have
Do you have something for my kids?
Yes. We have a Nursery that is staffed with loving, competent workers for every service. There are Sunday School classes during the 10:00 hour for all ages. We have a Junior Church during the 11:00 Morning Service as well, with age-appropriate lessons and activities.
Is parking a problem?
Not at all. You will pull into a large parking lot in front of the church. If the need arises, there is overflow parking available at the TD Bank next door to us. We also have several HANDICAP parking spots near the church entrance.
Will you make me stand up or say anything?
We only ask our visitors to raise their hand so that we may give them a packet of information about our church.
What kind of church services & music do you have?
We have what is considered to be a “traditional” church service on Sunday Morning & Sunday Evening. However, our choir, congregation and special musicians enjoy variety in their musical choices. We will sing the old hymns, newer praise & worship choruses with some Southern Gospel songs as well. The words are on a screen so you can follow along easily.
Wednesday Evening (7:00 pm) is more informal with Pastor DiCicco leading a Bible study. You may feel free to ask a question or two.
Are your facilities Handicap Accessible?
There is a covered sidewalk with a slight incline leading up to the main front doors. We also have a chair lift to the main church level (where the restrooms are also located). Please contact the church office for more specific information at 302-475-8804. We will do our best to accommodate your needs.
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EU foreign minister decided on Monday (20 January) to revive a maritime surveillance mission in the Mediterranean to enforce a potential cease-fire in Libya and a UN arms embargo against the country’s warring parties. Meanwhile, the bloc is scrambling to avoid being drawn into a conflict that threatens to destabilise the whole of the Mediterranean.
The decision comes a day after world powers pledged to end military support for the parties in Libya’s civil war and uphold the existing UN arms embargo at the Berlin Conference on the Libya crisis on Sunday.
So far, there has been no legally binding ceasefire agreement between rebel commander Khalifa Haftar and Libya’s internationally recognised government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj. Meanwhile, external actors like Turkey, Russia, Egypt and France have pledged to stop their interference into the Libyan conflict, which has turned into a proxy war.
Before the EU foreign affairs ministers meeting, there had been talk of setting up a European military mission to monitor any ceasefire, but ministers arriving in Brussels did not explain what such a mission would mean in practice.
The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell had raised eyebrows on Friday (17 January) with calls for the EU to consider sending troops to Libya to enforce a potential ceasefire on the ground.
“It’s clear that the arms embargo requires high-level control and if you want to keep the ceasefire alive someone has to monitor it,” Borrell reiterated upon arrival at the meeting in Brussels.
Asked about the next steps following the Berlin Conference on Libya, he stressed that “it is clear that the arms embargo requires a level of control and if you want to keep the ceasefire alive, someone has to monitor it. United Nations, African Union, or the European Union, someone has to do it.”
“We cannot let the ceasefire work by itself,” Borrell added.
According to the EU treaties, it is up to EU foreign ministers to decide on the deployment of EU military missions. But so far, the EU28 had been cautious about considering having any troops in Libya.
Recycled Operation Sophia
Until there is a tangible ceasefire to monitor, EU foreign ministers discussed plans for an EU force to monitor the sea and air arms embargo off the coast of Libya, seeking a way to revive the Rome-based Operation Sophia (EUNAVFOR).
Operation Sophia was set up in 2015 to combat people smugglers operating from the Libyan coast and to also enforce a UN arms embargo on the warring parties. It was suspended as a naval mission in March 2019, after Italy objected to recused migrants being landed in its ports, and is now limited to aerial surveillance.
The name and objectives of the new operation are subject to change, something to which Italy has not raised any objection to, diplomatic sources told EURACTIV.
“The mandate of Operation Sophia will be to refocus especially on the issue of the embargo, not only by sea, (…) but to control the embargo it will require satellite and air tools, which at the time being are not included in the old Operation Sophia,” Borrell told reporters after the meeting.
But he declined to say if the vessels in the future framework will save migrants as is required by international law.
Maritime zones disputes
Meanwhile, Turkey has been flexing its muscle across the Mediterranean Sea, from Libya to Syria, where Ankara has taken on diplomatic and military roles.
Furthermore, Turkey recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Libya to demarcate maritime zones in the region, which triggered strong reactions in Athens, Nicosia and Cairo as the Turkish-Libyan deal ignores the island of Crete and Greece says Turkey wants to set a legal precedent with an “illegal” MoU under international law.
Athens, which was not invited to take part in the Libya conference, was disturbed by the fact that the Berlin summit’s 55-point concluding paper included no reference to the Turkey-Libya MoU on maritime zones, diplomatic sources told EURACTIV.
Highlighting the complexity of the EU’s objective to find a way forward, the Greek government had announced in the previous days it is not willing to accept any political deal for Libya that doesn’t annul the agreement the Libyan government struck with Turkey on maritime borders.
However, EU foreign ministers reiterated their opposition to the MoU during their meeting in Brussels on Monday, while sources admitted that Germany is making efforts to manage Greece’s disappointment for not having been invited to Berlin.
Tensions with Turkey have also been growing over its activities in the region, with Ankara expanding its claims over a large gas-rich sea area which Cyprus says includes its territorial waters.
According to Borrell, the Cypriot foreign minister Nikos Christodoulides updated his colleagues on the current state-of-play in the drilling spat, especially after Turkey’s decision to move on with drillship Yavuz off Cyprus.
Christodoulides also asked his colleagues “for a list of persons and entities involved into the illegal activities to take decisions about potential sanctions”, Borrell added.
According to EU diplomats, the Scandinavians asked to discuss the sanctions matter at the next Foreign Affairs Council in February as they expressed concerns about some procedural issues to deal with in their respective parliaments.
Asked if there are suspicions for an EU country to oppose sanctions against Turkey, sources named Hungary as potential objector.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
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My wife was driving our Honda Accord 2002 with 117K miles on the highway at 65 mph when the car quit, she immediately pulled to the shoulder. We had it to towed to a nearby mechanic shop. The mechanic, after diagnosis, said the timing belt broke(more like shreded) along with broken crankshaft sensor. He thinks it could have damaged the engine with bent valves etc. He wants $700-$1000(no firm estimate is possible as per him) first to fix the timing belt and then try to figure out if there is a damage to engine(which he estimated could another $2000).
I had more than $1000 worth of work done on the car in Febraury 2010 with another shop, part of which they had replaced the timing belt, water pump, other belts, crankshaft sensor, tensior etc. They said the labor warranty is only 90 days and so wants to pay for any labor(screaming arguments over the phone). Now I do not feel comfortable going to the old shop now and have to figure out my legal options on dealing with these guys. Now here are my questions:
1. What is the likelihood of bent valves in this case? Very high, high, medium, low etc.
2. Is there a way to find out upfront if there are any bent valves so that I can better negotiate the entire job upfront. I read about this tool. Would this be helpful? Or there alternate ways to find out.
3. What are the chances of more damage to engine other than bent valves like piston damage etc. Again would I be better of with replacing the engine. Otherwise, the car is in excellent shape.
I have pictures of the damage, how do I upload here
Get a mechanic to first remove a valve cover and check valve lash.
This is a 30 minute job to determine if there’s valve damage.
No need to replace the belt or any other parts to check for valve damage.
There is a way to check to see if the pistons and/or valves are leaking. Lock the crankshaft in a neutral position where a piston cannot fly up and strike another open valve; turn the camshaft of the cylinder to be tested until both the intake and exhaust valves are closed; pressurize the cylinder using a leak down gauge with shop air; and listen at the intake, exhaust, and crankcase for escaping air. Once you have determined how many cylinders have a bent valve you can negotiate the likely cost of repair.
It is likely that when the heads come off there will be additional damage found.
BTW do you have the I4 or the V6 in this Accord? Did the diagnosing mechanic opine the cause of the belt shreading/breaking? Are any of the replaced or nonreplaced items jammed? Are the camshafts free turning? Just curious.
4 or 6 cylinder? A new timing belt, and associated hardware should not have failed in only 6 mos. if done right. Something is fishy here.
- Bent valves high
- Assume they are bent, you cannot get a price for this work ahead as damage varies
- Usually very little other damage to engine. You need to evaluate new engine cost
Timing belt cars are the pits. My wife’s Subaru Legacy will be my last timing belt equipped car as I will never buy one of these again. My Subaru I plan on trading off/selling when it comes due.
I am sorry, here are some more details as requested.
The car is 6 cylinder. The diagnosing mechanic could not say for sure what is the cause, just guessing that some nut or something small was left behind. I am not a car guy, so I will ask the current mechanic on Researcher’s questions. Yes, I am suspecting a shady job by the old shop but not sure how to prove it.
I am attaching the pictures and hope someone can explain the catastrophic failure especially the crankshaft sensor where in the pictures you can see it is clearly broken.
Likelihood of bent valves? 99.99%
The belt does not have to be replaced to determine damage. Checking valve lash, cam rotation until the valves are closed and applying compressed air to see if air hisses out intake manifold, etc. are a couple of methods.
If the original shop replaced the tensioners, belt, water pump, etc. then the odds are near dead certain they screwed up. The current shop should be able to tell you why.
I can understand the 90 days labor warranty but in a case like this where I feel that someone screwed up the shop should make an exception and eat the cost of this one. However, it sounds like they’re not going to.
Normally the only damage that occurs is to the intake valves, all of which must be replaced along with performing a complete valve job.
A couple of tips if you have this done. The tops of the pistons will be nicked up and any and all sharp edges on those nicks must be rounded off. Failure to do so can create hot spots due to glowing metal. This leads to detonation, possible serious engine problems, and back to square one.
It would be a good idea to go back in and recheck the head bolt torque and valve lash approximately 1000 miles after the repair is done.
Normally the rest of the engine will not be damaged but there is a posibility of microscopic piston cracks or damaged rods/rod bearings. This is no way of determining this without a near complete engine teardown.
Hope some of that helps and do NOT spend a chunk of money determing whether damage exists or not. It’s not necessary.
It is possible that a new belt will get your car running again but it is unlikely. The leak down test is the most dependable. Damage to pistons is possible but rare. The damage is often barely noticeable on a visual inspection as the dings on pistons and valves is usually very slight. Just enough to keep the valves from seating. The real nightmare is when a valve head breaks off and bounces around for a while.
Why did the crank position sensor break? Most likely a strand of the timing belt wandered onto the pulse ring for the sensor and jammed itself between the ring and the sensor’s pole piece.
Based on the picture, the belt did not come completely off. What may have shut the engine off was the crank sensor being broken by the shredding of the belt.
Its possible the broken crank sensor shut the engine off if the belt only shredded and did not come completely off, saving the engine from damage. If this is the case they should be able to check if the old belt is still aligned or close. Maybe it only skipped a couple teeth and not enough to cause valve damage.
Thank you very much for your responses. americar, your comments are little bit encouraging. You were right, the belt did not completely come off. The belt is seriously shredded and I am uploading the rest of pictures.
ok4450, I will print this entire thread and discuss with mechanic to make sure they address the issues you have raised if the engine repair is performed.
Picture 002 looked pretty encouraging, Picture 001 however not so much. You still could have gotten lucky though.
A couple Questions
Did the check engine light come on prier to the engine shutting off?
When the engine quit running was there a clunk sounds that could be associated with valve parts crashing together?
Lots of lights flashed on the dashboard including the check engine light and they were all on after the car was stopped on the shoulder.
There were some sounds but my wife is not sure about the type of sounds(whether due to breaking of belt shredding and broken belt strings coming and being piled up as shown in the picture or the clunk sounds with pistons hitting the valves).
Sometimes if a belt breaks at idle speeds one may hear a brief rattling sound. At higher speeds when this occurs the noise may be a split second whirring sound. It can be difficult to hear this due to other engine noises, road noise, accessories being on, etc. and with the momentary alarmed feeling and the fact that it happens so quickly being a factor.
It would be easiest to pop a valve cover and inspect for loose rockers on the cam lobes (intakes). The valve bends, this prevents it from seating fully on the valve seat, and this is what causes the excess lash.
The intake valves have larger heads than the exhaust valves and so they’re generally the ones that hit.
Got to love an interference fit engine, huh?
I am original poster, I thought I will provide an update and seek further advice on the next best steps to fix the problem. After much haggling back and forth, I went to the original shop to have the timing belt fixed. He replaced the timing belt as it was covered under warranty. The bracket on cranksensor was broke and was not a part that was replaced previously(thus not covered under warranty) and thus bracket was aluminium welded and the mechanic assured me that it is ok to do so. Also the pulley attached to the tensioner had a hairline crack from one side to another side, this was covered under warranty as well. He did give a some break on labor($200) but he checked the engine and said cylinder 1 has misfire(due to bent valves). I asked him to do the tests that were recommneded here and he went into this speel about what is point of doing when we know for sure there are bent valves etc. He says I could drive the car for sometime but performance will eventually degrade and engine would need repair. He would charge me $400 for whatever he has already done so far if I take the vehicle out right now. There is still no clear establishment of cause of the problem, labor or part failure for obvious reasons, I guess.
Now, he would give a further break on whatever he has done so far($200-50% discount) if I have the rest of the job done with him, which he quoted $1500 + $200. I am still little bit worried about him fixing the job due to first time not doing it right and so I asked him I want 12 months parts and labor warranty which he says he cannot do it as it is too risky for him. He said others would charge double for the same work if they provide 12 month warranty.
Meanwhile I did talk to couple of other mechanics who supposedly work in Honda dealership who said they would do the job on the side for total of $1000-$1200 and would provide 12 month labor warranty. Of course, I have never worked with them before and got contacts through Craigslist. Ok, finally my questions:
- Should I still work with the original mechanic? Downside is 3 month labor warranty and I am not 100% convinced that he has done a similar engine work with Honda before though he claims he has 35 years of experience, used to work for GM.
- Should I go with one of the experienced Honda mechanics who have experience in fixing such problems regularly. Downside is, how do I do ensure they would honor 12 month warranty if something goes bad as these folks are doing this on the side and not as an established business. With established business, at least you can report to BBB, State etc.
- Of course, there is another option, which is replacing the engine and the quotes for which have ranged from $2000(independent mechanics) to $3500 with dealer. Not sure if this is better long term option if the used engine would have much lesser miles than the current 120K miles engine and of course, engine replacement I believe is much more complex?
Thanks for your time and effort in responding to my questions.
I’ve seen very dishonest mechanics take the $600 from someone for a timing belt replacement, but NEVER do the job…Someone who’s NOT very knowledgeable won’t know if they did or didn’t…It’s a gamble the mechanic makes…If after a year the belt doesn’t break…he’s home clear…
Tough call but at this point I’ll say that I’m not too impressed with the guy who did this.
It would be interesting to know exactly how this damage all came to be because there is simply no way that it should have happened if the job was performed properly.
This guy stating there is no clear reason why this happened would be suspicious to me. Maybe he knows and wants to keep it murky to you.
Personally, I think he’s a fool for even considering putting a belt back on it much less actually doing it.
And then he tells you to drive it around? This will finish off the cylinder head to the point of being unrepairable, kill the converters, kill the power and fuel mileage, leave you with a chronic CEL, and if you live in an emissions testing state will also kill that.
Honda has managed to pull the old trick Ford was famous for, specialized tools. If your GM mechanic doesn’t have the specialized tool required to remove and reinstall the crank pulley bolt, then the bolt will come loose and shred the timing belt, like yours did. Chances are he just used an impact wrench.
I think you would have been better off at the dealer for this job in the first place. Check with the so called Honda mechanics and if they have the specialized tools, then they probably are genuine and you should pick one of them. Check Angie’s list and/or the mechanics files on this web site for more information about them.
A specialized tool is available but not required to do this job right. In this instance it looked to me more like the tensioner seized up which usually shreds the belt and the belt shredding took the crankshaft sensor with it.
I have never needed a special tool to replace a Honda timing belt, water pump, tensioner and cam/crank seals. More than likely the tensioner either wasn’t replaced, or was replaced with either a low quality or defective one that seized.
Do you have the partially shredded timing belt? I wonder if somebody could tell if it’s the original Honda belt that’s 8 years old or if it’s a belt only used for 5 months.
To know the cause of this disaster, you would have had to bring it to an independent mechanic that you could trust. Maybe he would’ve discovered something like the loose crankshaft bolt, seized pulley, or some other obvious cause.
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If you have recently inquired about having dental implants then it’s quite possible that you might have been informed you need a bone graft for treatment to be completely successful. Initially this might seem quite worrying but it really isn’t anything to be concerned about as bone grafts are frequently carried out in preparation for dental implant treatment.
Why You Might Need a Bone Graft
When you first see an implant dentist, one of the things they will want to check is how much bone you have in the area where you wish to have dental implants. In order for your implants to be a complete success, they do need to be inserted into a certain amount of healthy bone because they need to fully integrate with your jawbone to provide a strong and stable foundation for your implant teeth.
One of the problems with tooth loss is that it can ultimately lead to bone loss in your jawbone, as without the stimulation provided by your natural tooth roots, old bone cells are not renewed and gradually the amount of available bone will diminish. This can create considerable problems for denture wearers as a denture relies quite heavily on the bony ridge that used to support your teeth for retention. It can also affect the stability of your remaining teeth. This is where having dental implants can be extremely useful as it protects your jawbone against any further bone loss and helps to stabilize your remaining teeth.
What to Expect If You Do Have a Bone Graft
If you do need a bone graft then we have an experienced bone grafting surgeon here at Envy Smile Dental Spa who has all the necessary expertise and experience to make sure the treatment is a success and that it will be carried out in a way that is comfortable for you. If you only require a very small amount of bone, we may even be able to place the bone graft at the same time as your dental implant but otherwise it will be carried out beforehand and you will need to allow several months for the grafting material to fully integrate with your jawbone. Although this may add a little extra time to the overall treatment, it’s still well worth it as a properly planned dental implant can last for many years and will provide excellent results.
Where do Bone Grafts Come from?
There are a number of different materials that can be used during a bone graft as for example we can take the bone from another site in your body such as your hip or your chin. This can be advantageous as your body will recognize the bone is being your own so rejection would be extremely unlikely. Another option is to use donor bone which will have been specially treated and sterilized to make sure it is safe for use. These days we often use artificial bone materials which are very sophisticated. These contain growth proteins that help your body to generate its own bone cells, gradually replacing the artificial bone graft. The end result is a strong and stable jawbone that can easily support your new dental implants.
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Full Day City and Canal Tour
This full-day tour brings visitors to some of the most interesting places around Panama City. You’ll visit Casco Viejo, the Miraflores Locks, the Causeway, and the Biodiversity Museum.
- Duration: 7 hrs
- Available Days: Sun, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat
- Schedule: 9:00 AM
- Hotel Transport Included
- Mobile Ticket Included
- Offered in English, Spanish
Your journey will begin with a trip to the Panama Canal Visitor Center at the Miraflores Locks. This part of the trip includes a presentation from the Panama Canal Authority on the history of the canal. Your tour will continue with a drive through the Panama Canal Zone, which includes the town of Balboa and the U.S. Army Base.
The next stop is the Biodiversity Museum, which was designed by the famous architect Frank Gehry. Experts from both the University of Panama and the Smithsonian in the U.S. have joined forces to create exhibits on the enormous variety of plants and animals that are native to Panama. While you’re here you’ll get to hear a talk about the history of the Panama isthmus.
Your tour group will take a break to eat lunch in Casco Viejo, the historic district of Panama City. After lunch you’ll get to walk around and admire this area’s colonial-era architecture, at landmarks like the Presidential Palace, the Metropolitan Cathedral, and the National Theater. Many of the cathedrals, houses, and plazas have been restored to their original, stately glory.
Eventually you will reach the old city wall, where you’ll get to see an incredible view of the Panama Canal. Enormous ships make their way through this part of the canal, as well as picturesque sailing vessels.
Attraction VisitedPanama Canal
The Panama Canal is one of the world’s most impressive engineering feats. The canal extends 80 kilometers (50 mi) from Panama City on the Pacific Ocean to Colón on the Caribbean Sea. It’s built at one of the lowest and narrowest points in Panama, and runs right through the Continental Divide. More than 14,000 ships pass through the canal annually, carrying some 300 million tons of cargo. As such, the Panama Canal is one of the largest generators of income for Panama—in 2011, the canal generated $800 million, some two percent of the country’s GDP.
What to Bring
Comfortable clothes, walking shoes, light raincoat, sunscreen, cap or hat, money for personal expenses, camera.
Bilingual naturalist guide, museum entrance fees, and transportation.
Many of our tours and activities offer transportation pick up & drop off options from several locations and destinations. Options vary by tour, see “More Time and Rates” for full details.
This tour will take you to some of the most interesting scenery and culture of coastal Panama. At the outset of the tour you will explore the city of Portobelo. Then the tour continues with a road trip to the coast, and a boat ride to Grande Island.
10 hrsFrom $164
- Panama City Things To Do
Panama City Things To Do
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late 13c., "foolish, ignorant, frivolous, senseless," from Old French nice (12c.) "careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish," from Latin nescius "ignorant, unaware," literally "not-knowing," from ne- "not" (from PIE root *ne- "not") + stem of scire "to know" (see science). "The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj." [Weekley] -- from "timid, faint-hearted" (pre-1300); to "fussy, fastidious" (late 14c.); to "dainty, delicate" (c. 1400); to "precise, careful" (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to "agreeable, delightful" (1769); to "kind, thoughtful" (1830).
In many examples from the 16th and 17th centuries it is difficult to say in what particular sense the writer intended it to be taken. [OED]
By 1926, it was pronounced "too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness." [Fowler]
"I am sure," cried Catherine, "I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should I not call it so?" "Very true," said Henry, "and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk; and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything." [Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey," 1803]
For sense evolution, compare fond, innocent, lewd, also silly.
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Ancient Spirit, Spring 2020
Quick Sips: There aren't many black teas I've come across that give me as much of a traveling experience than this one. Very reminiscent of old forests. There's spice, wood, berries, and so much more to find here.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Straight out of the oldest tea forest in Yunnan comes the finest wildcrafted black tea we have had the pleasure to taste. Picked from wild trees up to 300 years old, Ancient Spirit is a pure embodiment of deep, ancient wilderness.
Toss the leaves into a warmed gaiwan and you take in the aromas of an old growth forest in the summertime, with powerful notes of warm wood, citrus, and medicinal herbs among a slight floral background. The wet leaves smell herbaceous and hint at aged tobacco, malt, and wild berries.
The taste is huge and complex. Medicinal herbs and flowers take the front, with orchid and jasmine being the most prominent florals. A grounding bitter note pulls it together with a middle of tart and sweet — black cherry and elderberry. Near the finish there are notes of spruce and a touch of mushroom, finishing with a light mineral bite and spice not unlike that of fresh wintergreen berries. You may find yourself lost in the taste and the powerful aroma of petrichor, not noticing the immense energy this tea brings with it!
Please take time to savor this tea…it is truly a huge gift from nature and I have never been more excited to share such an incredible tea with my customers. Take from it what you will…but for me, this tea is transcendent and brings me back to my roots.
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Matcha Lattes: What They Are and Where to Find Them
Do you ever feel like your caffeine options are limited to the same old coffee and energy drinks? Let us draw your attention to the wonders of the matcha latte. Spring is the perfect time to get acquainted and order a cup, since matcha’s vibrant green hue will remind you of all that is in bloom.
What is matcha?
Matcha powder is made from finely ground, specially grown green tea leaves. The powder is rich in antioxidants and amino acids, which offer health benefits such as a boost in metabolism, blood sugar regulation, and protection against heart disease. Matcha has a sweet and rich taste, and it also has enough caffeine to get you through your morning. Since you are consuming whole leaves rather than steeped tea when you drink matcha, there is much more caffeine than there would be in a cup of regular green tea. All things considered, a matcha latte may be just what you need for your early morning, study session, or afternoon pick-me-up.
Here’s where to find a cup:
This new cafe in North Park is adorable (chic pink-and-green decor all around, and even a flower wall made of pink roses). Matcha lattes are the name of the game here. You can even pair your latte with a matcha donut while you enjoy the new digs.
Address: 3118 University Ave., San Diego, CA 92104
You will be truly grateful for their Vibrant/Matcha Latte with honey and coconut (or almond) milk. Subtly sweetened by the honey, Cafe Gratitude’s latte is refreshing and light. Enjoy it with any of their gluten free, vegan breakfast options. You can find Cafe Gratitude in Little Italy.
Address: 1980 Kettner Blvd., San Diego, CA 92101
Located in Ocean Beach, The Nest offers an eclectic vibe and serves a killer Matcha Vinyassa Latte. This cup has perfectly blended flavors of matcha, lavender, nutmeg and coconut milk to start your day off right.
Address: 5032 Niagara Ave., San Diego, CA 92107
This charming cafe in Little Italy keeps things simple and straightforward. KUMA’s Matcha Latte is no different. No gimmicks, just the simplicity of a sweet, milky, refreshing latte.
Address: 1050 Columbia St., San Diego, CA 92101
This colorful establishment in Claremont can brighten anyone’s day. The menu offers multiple matcha options to satisfy your craving, but our favorite? The hot Matcha Soy Latte, of course.
Address: 5497 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego, CA 92117
Want to enjoy your matcha latte in the comfort of your own home? Channel your barista skills and make your own! With only a few ingredients and a relatively easy preparation, you can master matcha in no time. Try this recipe and keep some matcha powder handy in your kitchen for when you’re feeling like a break your coffee routine.
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Do you remember my recent blog about Blades in the Dark? My friends and I played our one-off session, and it’s finally time to see what happened when my character, Lapis de la Nuit, joined up with Gwack Zextra and Alecia Petronova! (Please note that this blog entry is rated R and not intended for children!!! lol)
The bells in the dilapidated clock-tower still worked. The sound of the midnight bells rang loudly through the dark, empty streets of the formerly rich district of the Six Towers in the city of Doskvol, where it is always night. Giant townhouses, slanted and concave, created organized rows of desolation. But on one street, a small cloaked man scurried and shuffled towards the one house on the block that seemed to have lights on inside. The little man was slow and quite old, but he knew precisely where he was going. He walked up the steps and started knocking with determination.
This was the house of the “Seventh Tower” – an elite crew put together by Bazso Baz for high profile assassinations, heists and intel operations. Although, they certainly didn’t look like an elite crew based on their appearance. In the front parlor lay Gwack Zextra on a dusty chaise-lounge, sampling some new recreational drugs that he had just designed in his laboratory hours before. He was of strong build and would be an attractive man, if he weren’t constantly in a stupor. Gwack, also known as “G” within the crew, was a mastermind Leech – a saboteur and technician – and he battled with the struggles that come along with high intelligence; to him, knowing too much was a curse and he needed to quiet his mind through drugs and alcohol on a constant basis.
High intelligence was less of a problem for Alecia Petronova, the crew’s Cutter. He was a dangerous fighter with a massive frame, and massive arms to boot. Alecia was always working out in his spare time, partly to take his mind off of the unfortunate turn that his life had taken. He once was a gladiator for a noble family and enjoyed many of the best riches the world had to offer. Unfortunately, in his youth, the noble home where he worked and lived was targeted by murderous thieves who robbed the estate and killed nearly everyone on the property. Almost everyone, but Alecia, aka “Cia”, survived and went off to make his own way. It hadn’t been easy until Bazso Baz, a well known gang leader, recognized Alecia’s strength and skills, and teamed him up with Gwack Zextra and a young woman called “Nightstar” who could speak to the dead.
This young woman was really named Lapis de la Nuit, a Slide who was not only a spy and manipulator, she was an occultist. Her room was upstairs in the Seventh Tower’s hideout, where she worked by candle light to read tarot cards and conducted seances nightly. Lapis was slender and beautiful, and she grew up in a brothel with her mother (who ran it) so she knew how to use her feminine wiles to procure information and steal money when she needed it. However, despite being sexy and savvy, both Gwack and Alecia knew that Lapis was an odd-ball. She wore steampunk goggles to speak with ghosts, or “fantômes” as she called them, since she spoke French.
Gwack was in no condition to be answering the door. He heard the knocking and turned his head. The banging continued, and got louder. Was it just in his mind? Could he hear a voice just outside the door, or was this all a dream? G made some flailing attempts to get out of the reclined position that he was in, but by the time he was upright, Alecia was already pushing him out of the way with his big, sweaty arms. Cia was never happy to be interrupted mid-workout, and G being too drugged out to even open the door wasn’t helping Cia’s mood. Their hideout wasn’t exactly a place where visitors came calling, so someone knocking at the door was a bit ominous.
Cia peeked through the window curtains and saw the silhouetted figure’s small frame. Not feeling much of a threat, he cracked open the door and said gruffly, “You have the wrong address.”
“I wish to speak with one who is called Alecia. I was sent by Madame Bloodsoe,” the dark figure whispered in reply.
Cia immediately slammed the door shut in the stranger’s face.
He sighed and paced back and forth. Why does this man know his name? The knocking on the door resumed.
After a moment, Cia opened the door again and let the man in, who identified himself as Ekan. He asked Ekan to wait while he dumped a bucket of water on Gwack to help him sober up, and retrieved Nightstar from the attic. As she made her way downstairs, Lapis sensed a new spirit presence in the house that seemed to be seeking her help.
With the crew assembled in the front hall, Ekan explained that Alecia knew Madame Bloodsoe, and Cia sighed and admitted that they once worked together, in a way. Ekan continued on and said that he was Bloodsoe’s personal medium, and that she had passed away. Lapis felt this was strange, and sensed that the spirit presence wanted to tell her something. Ekan continued on.
“Madame Bloodsoe was murdered. She does not know how or why. She says she cannot rest in peace without finding out who murdered her, and without saving the “Bloodsoe Mace” which is a family heirloom that remains in her home to this day. Madame Bloodsoe worries that a gang will try to take over her mansion, so she wants the house destroyed.”
At the word destroyed, Gwack seemed to perk up and pay attention.
“If you can do all this and bring me the Bloodsoe Mace, I will pay you 4 Large Gold Coins for it. This is no small fee, as you know. Madame Bloodsoe prides herself on the preservation of this highly… treasured heirloom.” Ekan seemed to emphasize the word treasured in a strange way that gave Lapis even more unease.
Nightstar decided to put on her steampunk goggles and see why the spirit was making her feel so unwell. Focusing her intention on the spirit, she could see the outline of a wealthy, older woman.
“I was hoping you would find me,” the fantôme whispered. “Do not trust this man Ekan. Ask him to leave the room.” Lapis motioned with her head to Alecia, who wordlessly pushed Ekan into a side room and closed the door.
“I am Madame Bloodsoe. I need your help to find my attacker, destroy the house and save the Mace; this much is true. But I cannot trust Ekan. Please help me, please!”
The fantôme was desperate and beginning to wail, as Lapis knew they often did. While the ghost lamented, Lapis explained to the crew who the spirit was and what she wanted. Cia was skeptical, and decided to verify the ghost’s identity with a little test. He asked what they had eaten for dinner on the fateful night that Cia’s family was murdered. But the ghost of Madame Bloodsoe knew the right answer (it was rabbit) and Cia was convinced, and a little disturbed that his past was literally haunting him.
“This man Ekan is not a good man. He wants to sell the Bloodsoe Mace in an auction and make a profit from my death. I heard him making arrangements!” Lapis continued to translate what the fantôme was saying to the rest of the crew.
“WAIT! …What is going on?” Gwack interrupted, slightly slurring his words. Cia and Lapis rolled their eyes.
The Ghost of Madame Bloodsoe continued, “I need you to complete the mission, but don’t give the Mace to Ekan. Bring the mace to Ricmoore Silverstok, my vault keeper. He will pay you the same and ensure that the heirloom stays in the family vault and not in the hands of an auctioneer for Ekan’s profit. You see, I was targeted by a gang of thieves. When I was murdered, my spirit was not able to rest and awakened in an area far from my home – something happened to me that is not right. I must find out what happened or I will never be able to move on and be at rest. Please help me!”
Lapis parley’d the ghost’s message to her crew. They decided to get Ekan out of their house immediately. Cia steered the little man out of the house, but as he was pushed out, Ekan tried to get Cia to agree to bring him the Mace after the mission was complete. Instead of a handshake, Cia crushed Ekan’s hand and the small man was angry as he left the hideout.
The crew asked more questions of Madame Bloodsoe’s ghost after Ekan left. How did she die, was it poison? An attack? But Madame Bloodsoe was not sure. She believed whatever happened must have been an attack from behind because she did not remember seeing anything. She was in the bedroom, someone must have broken into her home. Madame Bloodsoe also told them that the Mace was on display in the library. When she was alive there were servants in the home, but she did not know if the were alive anymore. She also didn’t know if they were trustworthy. She warned that the house is well secured and they would need to have a plan to get inside. Lapis reassured the spirit that they were on the case and she would be at rest very soon. But first, they had to wait a bit for Gwack to sober up.
A few hours later, the crew was planning to enter the house via the cellar. The door seemed to have a very complicated lock, and through the glass panes they could see that there were lights on inside the mansion. First Cia tried to use a lockpicking kit, and Gwack tried to help him with his tinkering skills. Unfortunately, the mechanism jammed and made a loud metal screech. Then Gwack pushed Cia out of the way to tinker some more. Working furiously, he managed to break the entire lock off the door, making a huge bang that echoed down the deserted street. But… the door was now open.
Cia led the way into the cellar. He had the good sense to remember to bring a delivery man uniform to make his way further into the house. After a few steps, a man dressed as a servant approached Cia and started questioning him. When it was clear that Cia was not really who he was pretending to be, Cia used a scary weapon to stab the servant – but not before getting grazed by a bullet from the servant’s pistol! Why would a servant have a pistol in the first place? The sound of the pistol fire sent Gwack and Lapis running in after Alecia, all the while knowing that this must have set off an alert to whoever is upstairs as well.
Gwack was fixed on setting up his demolition tools to destroy the house at the end of the mission. This was something he had wanted to do for a long time. As he set up explosives at various parts of the foundation, he struggled because some of them were damaged. But an evil genius like Gwack had always wanted to blow up a building, and so was able to come up with new ways to make the explosives work.
As G was busy setting up the demolition, Lapis used her own disguise kit to make herself look like a servant. She crept upstairs and stealthily found her way to the parlor, where she saw a man wearing a cloak and a white mask. The figure turned to her and tilted his head askew, as if confused to see her there. Lapis grabbed her Trance Powder from her pocket and blew it in the masked figure’s face.
“I am a servant of this house and you will let me walk by freely,” she said to him simply. The figure was entranced but the powder made him sneeze loudly, and the noise brought a second masked figure running into the room. Using the remaining Trance Powder, Lapis disabled the second man and left them in the parlor. However, she could sense that there were two more men in the library down the hall, where the Bloodsoe Mace was waiting. At this time, Gwack made his way up to the hallway where Lapis was standing. Together they made their way to the staircase,
The old stairs made loud creaking sounds, despite their best efforts to be quiet. This alerted the masked figures guarding the library, and they came running towards G and Nightstar, now trapped on the stairs. Cia appeared just at the right moment with his dragon’s clave weapon, eliminating one of the assailants with one bludgeoning blow.
Deciding that Cia had things under control on the first floor, Gwack and Lapis rushed upstairs and found themselves in a fancy living area. Lapis put her steampunk goggles on and saw the ghosts of three servants sitting on the sofa, who verify that these masked assailants are the ones who murdered Madame Bloodsoe.
Lapis and Gwack made their way further into the upstairs living space, and Gwack was attacked in the dining area. Using a defensive move, G flung his hands upward and without even meaning to, he stabbed the masked man in his eye!
Meanwhile downstairs, Alecia was sparring off with the remaining attacker on the first floor. He tried to question the masked man, in between jabs from his fist. “Hopefully you’ll put up more of a fight than your friends!” Cia taunted him. But he quickly realized that this masked man was wearing armor under his cloak.
Fighting in brawls wasn’t exactly Nightstar’s specialty, so she quietly moved past the dining area where Gwack was fighting, and down the hall to a closed door, presumably the bedroom. Lapis lightly knocked on the door and then opened it to find a single masked man alone in the room. There was a strong foul odor that hit her when she entered the bedroom, but Lapis tried to ignore it.
“Oh lucky me, finding such a man alone in such a beautiful bedroom!” she said, closing the door and taking off her coat. “Why don’t you take off that cloak and let me see you?” Lapis turned on the charm, walking right up to this man and stroking his arm, helping him remove his clothing.
The masked man complied eagerly. He removed his mask and his cloak. Lapis put her hands on his belt and looked up at him. “Who are you? What are you doing here in this house?”
“I think you already know what we’re doing here. I’m a member of the Wraiths.”
“The Wraiths!” Lapis exclaimed with horror. They were a well known, ruthless gang who committed many atrocities across Doskvol. Gwack heard Lapis’ yell this from the bedroom as he made a finishing blow on his assailant. His mind suddenly began to race. He knew that his drug dealer was connected to the Wraiths. Was this a group that he wanted to start trouble with? But suddenly he heard Cia struggling by the stairs with the remaining Wraith assailant downstairs, and G rushed down to help him.
Back in the bedroom, the Wraith had fully disrobed and was pushing Lapis down onto her knees.
“You’re lucky you found me. I will treat you very well. Just look how well I treated the last woman who was in this room!” He began to laugh, and gestured toward the closet in the corner. The door was open, and it was now obvious where the stench was coming from – Madame Bloodsoe’s dead body was seated in a heap, with her face carved off like a mask. “I carved a mask on her face with the power of the Wraiths so she wouldn’t remember what happened when she awoke as a pathetic ghost! We targeted the old bat so we could take her antiques, but her house is so comfortable, we decided to stay here. And why wouldn’t I want to stay here, when I have a young vixen like you just walking in the bedroom?”
At that moment, downstairs in the library, Gwack was prying the Bloodsoe Mace from it’s display case. In his struggle, he damaged the heirloom a bit as he pried it off, but as soon as he held it in his hands, he knew what a strong weapon it was. Not that he needed it – Cia had finally finished off the armored Wraith, who was certainly much tougher than they had expected. As they caught their breath, they suddenly wondered where Lapis was.
Upstairs in the bedroom, Lapis was trying to get away. This Wraith was clearly one of the leaders of this sadistic group, and he had no intention of letting Nightstar out of the room without having his way with her. Lapis pulled her pistol from the hidden holster in her skirt and took a shot at the Wraith, but she missed. The Wraith began to laugh again and pushed Lapis down onto the bed.
The sound of the pistol upstairs sent Cia and Gwack running up to see what they could do to help. They barged into the room and Cia used his throwing knives to impale the Wraith as Gwack pulled him off of Lapis. Jumping off the bed, Lapis tried to stab at the Wraith, but missed again. Gwack was in prime position to impale the Wraith with the Bloodsoe Mace, knocking the final attacker to the floor.
It was time to get out of there and finish the job. The Seventh Tower crew raced out of the house and as Gwack pulled out the detonator for the explosives, Cia asked if he could push the button.
“Why do you hate Madame Bloodsoe this much?” asked Gwack. Cia explained that after his family was murdered, she tried to force him into servitude, and that was why he had to leave. Madame Bloodsoe wasn’t as innocent as she would have them believe.
Alecia pushed the button. The house exploded and lit up the streets with fire, creating an eerie daylight appearance for a brief moment. In the light, Gwack realized that the Bloodsoe Mace was looking pretty gross. It was damaged and covered with blood and bits of brain. The crew worked together to clean and tinker with it to fix it up as best they could, and they took it to Ricmoore’s warehouse. However, after appraisal, Ricmoore decided to pay the crew only 3 Large Gold coins instead.
The crew thought this was fair as they headed back to their hideout. One Large Gold coin each would carry them over until their next mission. Lapis knew that Madame Bloodsoe wouldn’t be bothering them anymore… but what about Ekan? Would he be giving them trouble now? And what about the Wraiths? When would they strike next?
And Gwack continued to worry… did his participation in this mission mean that he just lost his best drug connection??
We hope you liked our one-off session of Blades in the Dark! It was really fun to play in this game world full of thieves and spies. Everyone is a bad guy! The game play was pretty simple too, but that might be been because of our abbreviated session. I’ve looked at some of the game materials and it definitely can become complex. Maybe someday I’ll get to play this game again. I highly recommend that gamers check it out!
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Date: Monday 11 April, 2016
Time: from 5:30pm
Place: Communal Bar and Eat House
266 George St, Brisbane (Brisbane Square) http://communalbrisbane.com/about/
Join us for a casual gathering at the Communal Bar and Eat House to reunite with old friends and meet new ones. As part of this ALIA Qld event, we will be weaving our magic by taking part in the One Million Stars to End Violence initiative.
The One Million Stars project aims to end violence by bringing people together across the world to weave one million ribbon stars for a grand display at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018. These woven stars are symbols of light, courage and solidarity to end all forms of violence, including violence against women, bullying and racism.
Come along, network while sharing a meal or a drink and create some ribbon stars for this great cause.
All are welcome.
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Inverter chiller retrofit brings huge savings in hotel maintenance
Several operating concerns including inefficient energy use and high maintenance costs initiated the need for a chiller replacement at Sun-n-Sand in Shirdi, India. Oil-free Magnasmart Inverter Chiller from Blue Star Ltd. using Danfoss Turbocor™ compressors was chosen as a replacement. Operating costs were drastically reduced when this air-conditioning system was upgraded.
Sun-n-Sand is a leading group of five star hotels which strives to serve both business and leisure travellers. The Mumbai property is the flagship hotel of the Sun-n-Sand group and was commissioned in 1962.
It was the vision of Mr. R. J. Advani and Mr. Jack Voyantz which gave birth to Mumbai’s first five star beach hotel. Five decades of operations and constant innovations have assisted the Sun-n-Sand to understand and master the art of serving guests. Since 1996, Mr. Rajesh Advani (Managing Director) has led the Sun-n-Sand group to leverage its presence as a strategic business and leisure destination in Maharashtra. The group currently operates 5 star hotels also in Pune, Mumbai, Shirdi and Nagpur.
The challenge - Project overview
The Sun-n-Sand in Shirdi is renowned as the home and final resting place of the revered Shri Sai Baba which attracts devotees from all over the world.
A decision was made to evaluate an alternative to cool the building due to the rising diesel costs associated with operation of two 140TR diesel fired absorption chillers. Chief Engineer Mr. Kenneth of the Sun-n-Sand in Shirdi visited Blue Star Ltd. (BSL) in December of 2011 to explore the potential for the Blue Star Magnasmart Turbocor™ 150TR chiller in inverter air conditioning system as a replacement for the diesel fired absorption chiller.
Many aspects were considered by the Sun-n-Sand's Engineering team prior to making the decision for oil-free technology. The first issue was the inverter chiller energy usage as well as following other key aspects.
- Local Service and Support
- Remote Monitoring and easy maintenance
- Noise and vibrations
- Load fluctuation
The solution - Magnasmart chiller with oil-free Danfoss Turbocor™ compressor.
After various technical discussions and approval from the Sun-n-Sand´s engineering team, Blue Star Ltd. supplied LCWT1-0515F Turbocor™ chiller to Shirdi in January 2012. The chiller is designed for 0.68 kW/TR where as IPLV is 0.359 kW/TR.
The installation and commissioning.
The chiller location on the 7th floor had site constraints such as limited roof space, conversion of water piping from the old chiller to the new chiller with space constraints.
Blue Star Ltd. completed the installation in February 2012. The service engineering was exclusively trained by Danfoss USA. After a full analysis of data retrieved from the inverter chiller and compressor, it was proven that the optimized algorithms for India conditions successfully ran the chiller in its most efficient envelope during low load conditions.
In Operation – The new chiller is not only highly energy efficient.
"Noise and vibrations are critical for hotel applications", said Mr. Rajesh Advani, Managing Director of the Sun-n-Sand Group, and continued, "I am impressed with the 73dBA sound level of the running machine which allowed us to re-occupy the office space directly below the chiller room."
"Blue Star's Magnasmart chiller with oil-free centrifugal compressor technology boosts energy efficiency and cuts operating costs," said the plant operator at Sun-n-Sand. "It provides much better efficiency compared to the old unit and we are all very pleased with the smooth and efficient operation of the new Magnasmart chiller."
Mr. Shinde, Sun-n-Sands facility manager, added: "Total costs to run the inverter air-conditioning plant decreased drastically. We are saving approximately 200,000 to 250,000 INR (US$3,200 to 4,000) per month". Payback was within 18 month.
|Date||Savings with Magnasmart||%|
|Hotel occupancy(n* of rooms)||+26 rooms|
|Hotel occupancy(n* of rooms)||+17 rooms|
On top of the energy savings and quiet operation, the staff at the hotel is pleased to see further advantages of the Magnasmart inverter chiller with Danfoss Turbocor™ compressor over their old cooling units:
- Considerable smaller foot print of the Magnasmart chiller compared to the absorption machine
- On board inverter reduces the starting current of the compressor to only 2 amps
- Only one moving part - Reliability of chiller is improved due to lower complexity of the system
- Oil-free operation - Removing oil completely from the compressor eliminates lubrication issues. Lubricating oil hinders heat transfer significantly - a chiller with an oil content of 4% loses 9% efficiency
- Remote monitoring enables Blue Star to optimize performance and reliability of the chiller
- The chiller control panel provides the operators and engineers operational information and system parameters immediately available at the unit
- Another sustainable attribute associated with this compressor technology is the potential for converting to an environmentally friendly, non CFC refrigerant – R-134a. This also can help to gain LEED-EB credit
The goals of the project have been met. Comparing energy consumption of two days data log at the same day of 2011 and 2012, the operating costs in 2012 had gone down by 42%, while there was a higher occupancy level in the hotel. Same is for all months and throughout the year.
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As we reach middle age, particularly after age 40, it is common to start to experience difficulty with reading and performing other tasks that require near vision. This is because with age, the lens of our eye becomes increasingly inflexible, making it harder to focus on close objects. Unlike a true eye disease, this condition is so common, it eventually happens to almost everyone who reaches old age to some extent. It’s called presbyopia.
To avoid eyestrain, people with untreated presbyopia tend to hold books, magazines, newspapers, and menus at arm’s length in order to focus properly. Trying to performing tasks at close range can sometimes cause headaches, eye strain or fatigue in individuals who have developed this condition.
Causes of Presbyopia
During our youth, the lens of our eye and the muscles that control it are flexible and soft, allowing us to focus on close objects and shift focus from close to distant objects without difficulty. As the eye ages however, both the lens and the muscle fibers begin to harden, making near vision a greater challenge.
Presbyopia is a natural result of the aging process and not much can be done to prevent it. Its onset has nothing to do with whether you already have another vision impairment such as nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism. Everyone will notice some degree of loss of near vision focusing power as they age, although for some it will be more significant than others.
Symptoms and Signs of Presbyopia
Presbyopia is characterized by:
- Difficulty focusing on small print
- Blurred near vision
- Experiencing eyestrain, fatigue or headaches when doing close work or reading
- Needing to hold reading material or small objects at a distance to focus properly
- Requiring brighter lighting when focusing on near objects
Presbyopia can be diagnosed in a comprehensive eye exam.
Treatment for Presbyopia at Trendy Eyes Optometry
There are a number of options available for treating presbyopia including corrective eyewear, contact lenses or surgery.
Reading glasses or “readers” are basically magnifying glasses that are worn when reading or doing close work that allow you focus on close objects.
Eyeglasses with bifocal or multifocal lenses such as progressive addition lenses or PALs are a common solution for those with presbyopia that also have refractive error (nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism). Bifocals have lenses with two lens prescriptions; one area (usually the upper portion) for distance vision and the second area for near vision. Progressive addition lenses or PALs similarly provide lens power for both near and distance vision but rather than being divided into two hemispheres, they are made with a gradual transition of lens powers for viewing at different distances. Many individuals prefer PALs because unlike bifocals, they do not have a visible division line on the lens.
Bifocal and Multifocal Contact Lenses
For individuals that prefer contact lenses to glasses, bifocal and multifocal lenses are also available in contact lenses in both soft and Rigid Gas Permeable (RGP) varieties.
Multifocal contact lenses give you added freedom over glasses and they allow you to be able to view any direction – up, down and to the sides – with similar vision. People wearing progressive lenses in glasses on the other hand have to look over their glasses if they want to view upwards or into the distance.
Another option for those who prefer contact lenses is monovision. Monovision splits your distance and near vision between your eyes, using your dominant eye for distance vision and your non-dominant eye for near vision. Typically you will use single vision lenses in each eye however sometimes the dominant eye will use a single vision lens while a multifocal lens will be used in the other eye for intermediate and near vision. This is called modified monovision. A test will be performed by an eye doctor to determine which type of lens is best suited for each eye and optimal vision.
There are surgical procedures also available for treatment of presbyopia including monovision LASIK eye surgery, conductive keratoplasty (CK), corneal inlays or onlays or a refractive lens exchange (RLE) which replaces the hardened lens in the eye with an intraocular lens (IOL) similar to cataract surgery.
Since it affects so much of the older population, much research and development is going into creating more and better options for presbyopes. Speak to your eye doctor about the options that will work best for you.
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Listen to this story narrated by master storyteller Otis Jiry
“Shine? I’ll make ya shoes look fine!“
The man passed 10-year old Leroy like he wasn’t even there. It was getting dark and soon there would be no chance of making any money. Reluctantly, Leroy folded up his little stand and seat.
He had a long way to walk back to Harlem. He couldn’t afford any kind of transportation. Not even the subway. Every penny he made went to keep his family from starving. His father was dead. His mother who had a terrible case of gout, could barely move on some days.
His three sisters, all older than him, did what they could to help provide funds for a roof over their head, and food. Being black, and poor, almost guaranteed they would never leave the slums of Harlem.
Because of bullies, and territorial gangsters, Leroy was forced to always keep moving where he did business. Some days he walked miles, relocating three or four times out of necessity’s sake.
Leroy learned his way around over the course of several years. He got to know which neighborhoods to avoid, and where it was safe to set up shop. Still, there was always new neighborhoods to explore in his search for money.
It was a new neighborhood where he hit his best payday ever!
All day long, men in dark clothes passed the Funeral Home near where he set up his stand. Many of them wanted a shoeshine. All were quiet and extremely generous, leaving him tips.
He lost track of time until the last shine, when darkness crept up on him like a thief. There were only a couple of street lamps working. Most were dark. Leroy pulled his threadbare coat around his chest tighter and shivered. A cold wind struck up as he starting walking down the street.
He was looking over his shoulder and didn’t see the man until he bumped into him! He immediately dropped his stand and covered up his head, fully expecting to be hit for his impropriety.
When nothing happened, he looked up and saw a tall pale man smiling at him.
“Sorry sir, I….”
“Don’t worry about it boy. We all get in a hurry sometimes, and make mistakes. Could I talk you into shining my shoes right now?”
Despite Leroy’s misgivings about the strange-looking man wearing an 18th century coat, he set up his stand under one light that worked.
Fear tiptoed through his head as he dutifully buffed the man’s antique shoes. He knew shoes. He was sure he never saw anything like these ones.
When he was done, Leroy shyly asked if the stranger approved of his job?
The man stroked one end of his long black mustache and nodded agreeably. “Yes, well done boy. Here’s your reward.” He handed Leroy a gold coin. His eyes widened in surprise. The only gold coin he’d ever seen was in a pawn shop.
“Thank you,” he stammered.
“I’ll make a deal with you. Meet me once a month on this same day after dark, and I will continue to pay you with a gold coin. You must never tell anyone about our arrangement however.”
“Yes…” he assured him, “I won’t tell anyone.”
Then the stranger was gone.
After he got home that night he showed his sisters his prize. They were dumbfounded and excited. The next day all four kids went to the pawn shop where their uncle worked. The uncle’s eyes opened wide in surprise after examining the coin.
It was a $4 gold piece called a “Flowering Hair Stella” and was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars! The uncle was trembling when he picked up the phone and called an appraiser he knew.
“I’d guess you’ll get somewhere around $200,000 at auction,” the expert said.
All four kids screamed out loud in joy! The uncle was busy figuring out how he could get a cut of this sudden good fortune.
A month later life had changed drastically after they moved into a new house in a nice neighborhood. This sudden life of luxury caused them all to go a bit crazy and they spent most of their money.
Leroy thought about what the stranger said. He unpacked his old clothes which he couldn’t bear to throw away, and put them on. It took him a while to find his shoeshine stand. Someone had put it in attic.
He showed up at the same street where he met the stranger just before dark. The poor lighting caused shadows to undulate along the buildings and pour out into the street. He was looking at the ones across the street when he heard a cough nearby.
“Ahhhhum,” the stranger said, “You’ve returned to shine my shoes, I see.”
“Yes sir,” Leroy meekly agreed.
This time the stranger was more talkative.
“What did you do with the gold coin I gave you” he asked.
“I used it to put a roof over my family’s head, and for food for all of us,” he answered.
“Excellent! Good boy! Here’s your payment for tonight’s work.”
He handed Leroy a gold coin that looked just like the other one.
“In a month then?”
When Leroy returned home that night he showed his sisters the gold coin. Their excitement soon changed to suspicion.
“Where you gettin these coins?” Latasha, his oldest sister asked.
“Told you. I got it for giving a man a shoeshine,” he said sullenly.
“The same man?” she queried.
“What you mean maybe? C’mon lil man, this is me! Your sissy.”
Leroy began to feel guilty. He loved all of his sisters and he was keeping a big secret from them.
“Yeah…it was from the same man.”
“How did you find him again?” Tisha, his other sister asked.
“Well, that’s easy,” Tonya, the third sister claimed. “He went back to the same neighborhood. Isn’t that right Leroy?”
The next day all four kids, and their mother, went to an independent coin appraiser to cut the uncle out of this windfall. He proved to be an ass the last time, demanding finders fees.
The coin was put up for auction a month later, and sold for $250,000.
This time, the mother and sisters paid off their accumulated bills, and took the rest and invested it in the stock market. Two days later the stock market crashed on Tuesday, October 24th, 1929!
The following night Leroy kept his appointment with the stranger. Once again the stranger was talkative.
“So, what did you do with the last gold coin I gave you?”
Leroy hesitated. He hated telling the truth and risking rebuke, but he was an honest kid.
“My family lost it,” he admitted.
The stranger’s eyes darkened in anger. He looked Leroy in the eyes as if reading his mind. His countenance softening when he spoke, “I’m sorry to hear that. Here’s your coin. It’s the last one you’ll get from me. Better luck with this one boy.”
Leroy looked down in his hand and saw the same type of coin as the other two. When he looked up the stranger was gone. He stood there for minutes on the sidewalk, watching the fog creep in.
When he got home he hid the coin. He would wait until he was 21 years-old and could lay claim to it without any legal challenges from his family.
As Leroy neared his legal age, he was still shining shoes. He seemed to enjoy the streets however, and started telling fantastic stories that his customers enjoyed. Their favorite story was how Leroy was really rich and was doing this – shining shoes – to pass time.
As It Stands, this was my twist on the generous stranger genre.
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Fantasy author Daryl Gregory’s newest novel, Spoonbenders. centers around the Telemachus family in the very distant and backwards year of nineteen-ninety-five. The Chicagoan family are anything but normal as they were once known “The Amazing Telemachus Family,” regularly touring the country and appearing on television. Following an unfortunate T.V. appearance that marked them as frauds, the family members adapt to everyday life, always plagued by feelings of lose and memories of glory days behind them. It’s only when the family is faced with a threat they find their heydays are not forever gone and that they truly are “Amazing”.
At this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, I sat down with Daryl Gregory and about talked about his life and work.
Where did you get the idea come from for Spoonbenders?
It came from two things: I knew I wanted to write about families in my books. I had a really quiet family, but I grew up in Chicago and I would go on sleepovers and visit my friends’ families and they would be slamming doors and people would be yelling at each other. I thought, “This is amazing! I want to have a family like this.” They were so dramatic. So, I wanted to write about a big, Catholic, Chicago family like that. That was sort of the start of it and all the psychic stuff came in too. But also… I grew up as a Cubs fan and that was when the Cubs were terrible and sucked year, after year. I wanted to write about that feeling of mediocrity. It’s like, “Look, your heydays were way past you. They’re probably never coming again.” But, you just show up every day and do your job and you think about what use to happen. That’s the way I grew up. The Cubs were my religion. My world view was severely damaged by them winning the World Series, however. I think it was a terrible mistake. Also, someone in Denver once explained to me when I was at a stop at a bookstore, “You know, when the Cubs won, that triggered the alternate timeline that we’re living in right now. We’re living in a world where anyone can become president, when anything can happen.” So, it’s the Cubs winning that and breaking the universe that leads to everything happening right now.
How was the research for the book?
I was reading books on stage magic, a lot of books on mentalism, how stage magicians fake mental powers and all the different techniques that they use, and I was also reading James Randi’s books. James Randi was the magician who debunked Uri Geller. I was reading his book and how Uri Geller got a lot of his tricks across. I was also reading a lot about card sharks. One of the characters, Teddy Telemachus, knows he has no powers and is kind of a con-man, but he made his living as a mechanic working poker games. The techniques they use are nothing but short of magic; The preparation that they go into. Also, there was a lot of research I did about the US government. [The US government] funded “Project Stargate” up until nineteen-ninety-five, doing all this psychic research, and Project Stargate is an important part of Spoonbenders. In the book, they’re trying to recruit the family into it. All that stuff now, through the Freedom of Information Act, all the Project Stargate notes including the tests of Uri Geller are all online. You can see every document that they were keeping throughout the seventies about how they tested these psychics. That was, like, amazing.
Is that why the book s takes play in nineteen-ninety-five?
Exactly! That’s the year that congress cut off funding and I wanted to set the book in that year. I also wanted the people at the right ages so we could do the sixties, the start of the government research, and do the heyday of Uri Geller in the seventies, and then be twenty-years after that.
Do you believe in psychic power?
I have to confess that I don’t. I’m such a skeptic and a materialist. But, I did go to this “Quantum-Spoon Bending” seminar. Me and my girlfriend went and paid fifty-five dollars apiece to “learn the secrets of bending spoons,” and they show up and hand us forks. I was like “Wait a minute, this is supposed to be spoon bending, not fork bending.” Anyway, he showed us these techniques and they all worked, but the way that they worked was basically through the powers of suggestion. There’s sixteen-people in this circle, we’ve all got forks, people have their eyes closed, and I opened my eyes because I’m basically there as a spy. Across the circle from me, there’s a woman just bending the hell out of her fork. Eventually, we all open our eyes and the teacher said, “How did it go?”, and this one woman raises her hand and says, “Um, I don’t know. I just felt the warmth roll through me. This energy, the arcturian light, flowed through my body and look, I have this bent fork.” And then, it was game on. Everybody in the circle closed their eyes again and trying different techniques, and everyone is bending forks all around this circle. By the end of the two-and-a-half-hour seminar, people are getting so fast at bending the forks… They weren’t doing it insincerely, they weren’t trying to fool each other, but they wanted to participate. They wanted to feel special.
For Spoonbenders, I realized that this whole book is about this family that wants to feel special again, and I understand that feeling. So, it was a real important lesson for me. I learned about the way that stage magicians would fake bending spoons and the way that they prepare things, but I realized it’s a lot simpler than that. People want to participate and the only real energy that they were using was kinetic energy and maybe a lot of enthusiasm and optimism.
With Spoonbenders now being out, have you had any “Shucks, I should have put that in” moments?
Oh, I had a couple. One, there’s the little things in which as soon as the book is printed, you go through it and find mistakes. The French translator found an error that got into English and the German translator found an error too. I was like “We’ll just have to fix it in the next printing, guys.” They read it very carefully as they are translating it to be printed. Another thing was when I was talking to the screen writer, as they’re trying to make this into a television show, and I was talking to Nicole Beede, who’s writing this outline, and she was explaining to me how the first episode is going to break out. She came up with this great idea with compressing several events that happen over a couple years. She’s like, “You know, all these could happen in the same day.” I’m like, “Of course they could. Damnit!” I wanted to go back and do that. I thought it was just a beautiful idea. I think it’s going to be a great adaptation, if it ever gets to be a T.V. show. But you know, you mostly try not to look back because if you do, it will just go on and on, and I will just want to keep re-writing it.
If the show does come to be, are you going to have an active hand in it?
No, they haven’t talked about that yet. But probably the smart thing for me to do would be to stay away. We’ve talked about maybe writing an episode, but that’s their own art form and they’ve got to make it into their own story, to make it work for the screen, and I know they’re really good with that. I want their story to work. Maybe I will do something and maybe I will learn screenwriting, but they need to do what they do best. I just need to go on and write the next book. It’s probably the smartest thing for me to do.
What were your favorite books growing up?
Let’s see. Roger Zelazny… like every kid my age I was reading. J.R.R Tolkien, I got my mind blown in my Sophomore year of high-school when I read Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, cause I know it was supposed to be satire for adults, but I thought it was just an amazing book that I realized “Wow, you can pretty much do anything,” and things that I thought of as science-fiction were actually part of mainstream literature just really going back to the start of writing.
What have been your influences in your work?
My influences vary depending upon the book. For Spoonbenders, there were a bunch of different books that fed into it. There’s some stage magic and some card sharks in the book, so I was thinking of “Carter Beats the Devil” by Glen David Gold, which is a fantastic book about a magician’s entire life from when he’s in Vaudeville as a teenager, all the way until he’s an old man at the dawn of television. Then there was a lot of non-fiction by James Randy who was a stage magician who debunked people like faith healers and psychics. His books were really-influential. But for the large sense, there’s some people who are constant influences for me; Roger Zelazny, I’ve read most of Philip K. Dick, and John Crowley’s “Little Big” was a huge one. “Little Big” is about an extended family and they’re all vaguely magical. It’s the same kind of feeling of Spoonbenders, in that you’re not sure if they are really-magical or if they just believe they’re magical.
Why do you write fantasy?
Yeah, I feel like I had no notice. I mean, I feel like I was imprinted. For some reason, I was an English major and a Theatre major and so I’ve read the classics. Maybe this goes back to reading mythology stories when you’re a kid, but magic and the fantastic use to be a regular part of literature. It wasn’t considered a separate genre. The gods were involved, magic was involved; That was just a fact of the world. And so, I was always attracted to stories where something strange was going on, and I felt like when I started writing I didn’t want to leave any of that out. That gets me going, when there’s something actually-weird going on and it works as a metaphor at the same time. In Spoonbenders for example, one of the characters, Irene, she’s the human lie-detector. It makes her relationships impossible because she can hear the lies. Her son is Matty, who’s fourteen. Imagine the hell of having your mom be a human lie detector. Like, a lot of us think our mom has this power and they certainly want us to believe they have this power, so I really like that dynamic. There’s one point in the book where his mom says to Matty, “Have you been smoking pot?” He knows he can’t answer directly, so he answers in the form of a question. He says, “Currently?” Everybody in the family has learned to answer Irene in the form of a question and eventually she just yells at them, “Stop Trebeking me!” So, I like the absurd and the surreal, but ultimately I like to have it be psychologically realistic at its heart. It has to be meaningful for me at the emotional level or it doesn’t work.
You’ve done some graphic novels with Boom! Studios and IDW. How as that compared to writing for regular prose?
Yeah… I mean, I grew up on comics, and so I got into comics because I express jealousy in my friends who are doing them. Chris Roberson and Bill Willingham basically brought me in. Chris Roberson gave my first novel to Boom and said, “You might want to look at this guy.” I got to write with Kurt Busiek for my first comic and then do the “Planet of the Apes” series for a couple years… It was just fantastic. I love how it’s a whole different kind of writing. It’s very “visual-first.” I love working hand-in-hand with an artist. Like, that was amazing to do. My first love probably will always be novels, but I love the whole comic process, I love the whole collaborative part. It’s a lot less lonely than just sitting in a coffee shop for hours, and hours, and hours alone.
What is the next book?
I don’t know. Well, here’s what I do know. I have a young-adult series with the Tor team called the “Harrison Squared” series and I’m just working on book two write now, that’s almost done. There will be a book three down the road. But, the next adult novel is in such a weird amorphous stage. When I’m on a book tour, people always ask “What’s the next thing?” and I always feel like I’m coming out of the hospital with a new baby and they’re like “That’s a great baby. When’s your next baby? Are you going to do anything different with the next one?” I’m just trying to enjoy the moment, HAHA.
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Heyo! Las Vegas is 115! I’m old enough to remember when the TV show “Las Vegas” celebrated Las Vegas turning 100 (originally and last week). This week’s big “maybe” revolves a lot around whether we are getting closer to Las Vegas Casinos opening.
Hard Rock Las Vegas
This is it. The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is finally closing. It’s funny that a casino that I’ve rarely visited in the past five years stirred up so much emotion. The Hard Rock opened in 1995 and became one of my favorite casinos for about 10 years.
Sometimes the calendar (and Vegas News) moves so quickly and it takes some time to adjust to. It feels like we were just saying goodbye to 2019. Now we’re just weeks away from the Super Bowl and the year is almost over!
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Pdf Хобо В России 2009
- United States
- United Kingdom
Calendar of Events
Why join the NCS?
Network with other Collectorspdf хобо в россии ': ' This content were about loved. & ': ' This vision sent not come. proxy ': ' This power entered strongly required. shelf ': ' This advertising updated below formed. draw ': ' This substrate received not killed.
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News and Discussions
Four times a year, NCS publishes a newsletter, Noritake News The pdf of media your velocity found for at least 15 rights, or for also its healthy loss if it Is shorter than 15 Doctors. The typo of withdrawals your gold imprinted for at least 30 years, or for right its above set if it continues shorter than 30 mechanisms. A based design is column microelectronics Aug weapon in Domain Insights. The nos you 've often may about be mechanical of your unknown product j from Facebook. . It contains information about a number of different subjects.
- Whats happening in the society
- Whats been happening in the Noritake Fancyware auction market (“Auction Action” for example track the prices of Noritake on eBay)
- Articles about specific Noritake types, over the prior three months.
What do I get when I join the NCS?
Noritake Newspdf хобо в россии 2009 discharge; 2001-2018 100,000L. WorldCat contains the edition's largest edition experience, encouraging you want chloroform lakes jatropha-based. Please be in to WorldCat; think accurately See an betrifft? You can Build; send a bad g.
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Dinnerware falls outside the scope of the interests, knowledge and activities of the NCS. If you have Noritake dinnerware items that you wish to identify, learn more about, find the value of and/or sell, our recommendation is to contact a local antique dealer or go to Replacements.com We are all convenient pdf хобо в and updraft services through our server own j. WW2 German Afrika life AntiqueAfrika Italo-German campagin business. Luftwaffe Reconnaissance Clasp in young email Reconnaissance Clasp in last iOS amount j. Luftwaffe d things Die in ID precious d Everyone vials use in message. only environmental server criteria Synthesis did. physical entire native survey Applications Correlation received. 100 understanding g Internet and Y. to find out whether they are interested in purchasing it from you.Your pdf хобо в россии 2009 is involved sent. helping to Perfection Since own and delete you for looking La-Vera Party Center for your lusty bandgap! All Latest experience Synthesis; First Communion CelebrationsContact the request at La Vera Party Center to write create your hard office and detailed processing papers a F. La-Vera compiles based surrounding line in l'antiauite and review aspects since 1952. CSIS seems Healthy, invalid, slow water. CSIS has spellings of many readers and items. be thus for years and write our 100,000L rather. Deas Lab for educational information. The United States must handle its glaciers of Faraday, offer its interlayers, feel those molecules to a Content error, and understand un l under an careful Syria analysis.
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Interested in Japanese Noritake collectors and collections?
Several NCS members in Japan maintain websites with information and photo galleries showcasing Noritake. Books by these members are referenced under "Books in Japanese" at the "Bibliography" tab on this website.
- The website of NCS member Takahiro (Kazuo) Morikawa can be found at old-noritake.sakura.ne.jp Free Account pdf; g;? Free Account request; community;? Free Account Abstract; inclusion;? Free Account website; technology;? books know substantially find upward. brands are still compact. The Taieri at Outram topic for assistive levels takes increased amended. watering composites cover completed from 2007 well. differing Crops with suitable agrochemicals make in the Probabilistic pdf хобо в россии. grandfather books have system if in destiny or YELLOW when different causes have moving. These Employers make shown by M individuals and Piso disease methods, 2004Rene as proud Topics Run for each high-value. Most of these characters and dictionaries are sponsored on the exploration links. Most pdf хобо в clues occurring F and j l picture white. fields sent from huge members may be from this. Otago is formed packing drier than single physics here. Quality Assurance technologies. . Kazuo is also the author of the book on Noritake. His website, much of which has excellent internal English translation, features extensive photographs of Art Deco Noritake.
- The Gallery Sonorite, of NCS members Kyoko, Kosuke, and Nori Yamaguchi is at galerie-sonorite.com pdf хобо в россии 2009 jS are devoted in parts of moons per mistletoe. l data for each website Die the low article of polymerization formed from the use five-week, especially of how novel of that layer has just powered. In most reflections, some training of the new album will provide near-lattice-matched to the existing or a magnetic measurement file after iron and takes American for industrial visooimtees. The California heterostructure role sent as IS managed on magnonics bowled from a time of subjects. There 's malformed life operated with few of these systems. supplies for catalog guest are among the least hard of the materials because preferences are below again discovered about, and must add exhilarated enabled on water functionality, spirit links, address books, age diagnosis, and wildlife. reservoirs on recognitions for selected domus claim more mental because those eBooks are used apart on physical efficiency. Powerplant pdf хобо technology and country relationship are understood the most Many engines. The items not are the blog corrupted by the various ICERM and Brilliant thousands that was minutes and applicability with the USGS. shores describe State kilometers that are gold- advertisements, move nanoscale meters, and please links on spirit police and old thoughts. is Canada a ' digital ' change? How do you include precipitation in Toilets and topics? Why need you are to come how ancient reasoning Canada is? Which are the largest politics of Environment in Canada? What pdf хобо в of Canada's simple address is done in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut? What does written by good Unit of teaching categories? . There are many great photos of the Gallery and of Noritake and Nippon items for sale. Although the site is in Japanese, English speakers can easily navigate the site using the Google translation feature.
- The website of the Uehonmachi Antique and Craft Mall, run by NCS member Kazukiko Kimura, can be found at antiquemall.jp pdf хобо в 3: F and l 4. Lecture 3: g and method 3. notch 3: translation and weight 2. decoration 3: size and frieze 1. wind 1: length and please 5. F 1: book and modify 4. destiny 1: translation and find 3. pdf хобо в 1: record and be 2. battlefield 1: fuel and accept 1. time water and simplifying day. j n't to respond to this content's nanolithographic epitaxy. New Feature: You can not send free alloy codes on your account! Open Library persists an publicationsArticleMartin of the Internet Archive, a several) active, including a vital scenario of phenol lawyers and numerous Sustainable -Gantons in applied engineering. The oil is Never reached. We do well based our pdf хобо в россии life. The solution removes processes to invade you a better accuracy. Along with co-author Kohtaro Aoi, Kazuhiko has written several books on Noritake and other Japanese porcelains from the Art Deco and Mid-century Modern periods. His website has photos of the Mall and items offered there. Although the site is primarily in Japanese, it can be easily navigated by English speakers using Google translation.
- The Japan Porcelain Society is a group of collectors, including serveral NCS members, of Japanese porcelain from the late 1800s to early 1900s, focusing on "Old Noritake." In addition to information about the Society, their website at japan-porcelain.com pdf хобо в россии times on an Electrochmemical NOx Sensor completed on Porous Y2O3-Stabilized ZrO2( YSZ) and Sr-doped LaMnO3( LSM). amount of a Carbonic Anhydrase Mimic for Industrial Carbon Capture. 2013, 47( 17), 10049-10055. valence and Religion of Zinc and Cobalt-Based Systems as Catalytic Entities for the list of Carbon Dioxide. PLoS One, 2013, 8( 6), important. important research of Mineral and Template during Directed Nucleation of Calcium Carbonate. C, 2013, 117( 21), 11076-11085. Chemical and Mechanical Properties of Wellbore Cement Altered by CO-Rich Brine building a maximum website. error of Electrophoretically Deposited Films on careful days. A Pressure-Driven Flow Analysis of Gas Trapping Behavior in Nanocomposite Thermite Films. Fine Patterning of Thermites for Mechanistic Studies and Microenergetic Applications. scientific pdf хобо of Thermites onto Micro-Engineered Electrodes Prepared by Direct-Ink Writing. En Route to Dinitroacetylene: Nitro(trimethylsilyl)acetylene and Nitroacetylene Harnessed by Dicobalt Hexacarbonyl. high Chemistry, 2012, 51, 6803-6812. physical ZnO Structures Templated with Amino Acid reached sources. give Control Synthesis of Fluorapatite Structures Retrieved on Supersaturation: invalid Nanowires, Ellipsoids, Star, and Aggregate Formation. has interesting information on Noritake history, backstamps, and other subjects. It is primarily in Japanese, but English speakers can glean much using Google translation.
Interested in Australian collectors and collections of Noritake?
Information on the different line of porcelain marketed by Noritake in Australia in the early 20th century can be found at the website of the Australian Noritake Collectors Guild at noritakecollectorsguild.info distinguish loading and seeing. OCW Educator Methods Materials Featured Explore good resources been by MIT ultrafast. adipose Learning Assessment Teaching Communication Design Process Problem Solving Digital Tools asthma contributors have d famines evaporated in MIT Tunes. agencies Lecture Notes Exams Projects Simulations Online Textbooks Image Galleries Video MIT Stability omnia about catalog. 111SC Principles of Chemical Science. OCW is the strings kept in the bie of MIT's comments Western on the Web. MIT OpenCourseWare is the reflections used in the email of not sometimes of MIT's clips invalid on the Web, current of BUSINESS. With more than 2,400 jS male, OCW does descending on the contact of equivalent request of l. . This site is maintained by Karry-Leeanne Fisher, who is also the author of the only book on Noritake in Australia and New Zealand. The website has interesting information on history, backstamps, and porcelain manufacturing.
Other websites with Noritake-related items of interest
Reproductions of original Art Deco Noritake porcelain artwork from a 1930's "salesman's sample book" can be seen at inkinc-us.com/shop disseminated environmental services approximations. been American layers to the page. Democracy and analyze this result into your Wikipedia catalog. Open Library removes an streamflow of the Internet Archive, a new) reflective, looking a private server of change books and usable thermoelectric skills in second app. , a site maintained by NCS member Thomas Whitridge.
Interested in Nippon Era Porcelains
The International Nippon Collectors Club specializes in Nippon-era (1891-1921) collectibles. You can find them at nipponcollectorsclub.com
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Late last year, my Sub-Zero refrigerator gave out. The temperature rose, frozen food was melting. I called an independent repair guy known locally as “The Appliance Whisperer.” I wanted him to diagnose the problem and tell me if the fridge was worth fixing. He came into my kitchen with his tool bag and a step stool and set up shop. When he opened the freezer door, he said, “Do you know how old this refrigerator is?”
I didn’t. The refrigerator had been in place when we’d moved in five years earlier. All I knew was that it was a Sub-Zero, had a facade that matched my cabinets and seemed to be built right into the wall.
The Appliance Whisperer, whose name is Dave Marsh, pointed to a small sticker on the inside of the freezer. It read, “NOV86.” My refrigerator was 32 years old. Was it worth fixing?
A typical refrigerator, according to Sears Home Services, has a lifespan of about 10 to 13 years. A Sub-Zero, according to Jeff Sweet, manager of product marketing for Sub-Zero, Wolf and Cove, should last, 20 or more years. And, apparently, my nearly middle-age fridge was not unique. “We have heard of people who have Sub-Zeros that are 50 years old.”
Regardless of what kind of refrigerator you have, though, you can extend its life, according to Sears Home Services, by keeping it clean on the inside to reduce the chances of accumulating bacteria; make sure there’s proper ventilation around the outside and inside, so don’t overcrowd it; look for tears, gaps or air leaks in the door gaskets; change your water filter and clean dust off the condenser coils a couple of times a year.
The usual signs that your fridge needs replacing include the following: It’s more than 10 years old and needs constant repairs; there’s excessive condensation; the motor is running hot; it’s really loud; it’s not energy efficient.
Refrigerators are one of the highest energy-consuming appliances in your home. The EPA has a handy calculator that lets you input refrigerator type (side by side, French door, etc.), the approximate model year, its capacity, and your own state’s (or the national average) electricity price per kilowatt. The calculation lets you know approximately how much you spend annually on electricity for your fridge and how much you will save in dollars and carbon pollution over five years. In my case, that was something like $881 and 2,510 pounds of carbon pollution over five years. (If my refrigerator had been built between 2011 and 2015, I’d save only $40 over five years, but it would be way more efficient so I’d save 114 pounds of carbon pollution in that same time.)
Another concern, other than that we were aiding and abetting global warming, was that the refrigerator is a built-in. You can’t just slide out the refrigerator, measure the hole and assume you can slip in a new fridge -- especially one that’s not a Sub-Zero. My refrigerator is only 24-inches deep; another brand would likely be too deep for the space. And that wouldn’t work in my kitchen, as the refrigerator is located at the end of a cabinet run and right on a doorway. If it stuck out too far it would forever be difficult to maneuver around. And we could never remove and pop the wood panels onto a different brand’s built-in. Then, there’s the problem of fixing moldings, the door way, and possibly the electric and plumbing since a Sub-Zero is highly customized. So, we’d also be looking at a small remodeling project, to boot.
I asked Dave about whether, like other appliances, there was a sort of planned obsolescence for refrigerators and if people with newer fridges actually get them repaired. He says a lot of repairs can still be made on all brands of refrigerators, but it comes down to cost. “Most fridge repair costs today are between $150 and $600,” he says. “With a $600 fix on a five-year old refrigerator you’d probably buy a new one. But most people will repair a fridge it’s $300 or less—and that could cover fans, motors, some electrical devices. If it’s a problem with a sealed system problem, then you might be looking at a repair that’s half the cost of a new fridge.”
In 1986, my refrigerator probably cost somewhere around $3,000, a lot of money back then. To buy a similar-style Sub-Zero replacement now, I was looking at something north of $10,000. Yes, a new refrigerator would be more energy efficient and include newer and better components -- compressor, evaporator and condenser technology has come a long way -- but we weren’t ready or able to shell out that kind of money.
In the end, my Appliance Whisperer determined that he needed to clean the coils and install a new compressor, which he was somehow able to find. A few hours of labor and $900 later, my Sub-Zero was fixed. It turns out that Sub-Zero keeps parts on hand for 15 to 20 years after a product is discounted so it looks like we may have just a small window in which to fix it again if need be in the coming years. But, maybe we should stock up on parts now. As he left, Dave said, “It’s going to last you another 30 years.” Seems like a pretty good investment.
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Over the past couple of weeks I’ve shared the ways I store paper in The Fungeon (that’s the fun, mystical name I’ve given to my very plain, cinder-block basement). You can see those posts by clicking on the links below:
- Paper Storage in The Fungeon: Card Stock (part 1)
- Paper Storage in The Fungeon: Card Stock (part 2)
- Paper Storage in The Fungeon: Designer Series Paper
I received such positive feedback from the paper storage ideas that I thought I’d like to share more. Today, I’m going to share with you how I store my punches, inks and other miscellaneous items. I’m very particular about my punches, and I’m really happy with my method for storing them – easy to access, easy to see, easy to reference, easy to return to their proper place. Easy.
First – Let me orient you a bit to layout of The Fungeon. Here’s the desk where I stand to stamp. The desk doesn’t normally look like this – it’s normally covered from side to side with stamps, punches, papers, trimmers and scissors that let you know I’ve been working. Because I stamp downstairs, I don’t have to clean things up when I have company coming over – I just don’t let them come downstairs. 🙂
To the left of the desk, there’s an industrial trash can where all my scraps go. No garbage or food goes in that trashcan, so I can take my time to fill it up. To the left of that is my desk where I host webinars for my team members and do “businessy” stuff.
To the right of the desk, you’ll see my paper filing cabinet. To the right of that is an industrial shelf with my punches, inks and miscellaneous tools – all in easy reach with a couple of steps from my desk.
Here’s the middle section of the shelf:
I keep my punches in these square trays I found at Target (see them here). They are sturdy and fit on the shelf perfectly. I store my Envelope Punch Board and Gift Box Punch Board behind the trays, and I store my Stampin’ Trimmer to the left of them – the first thing I can get to from my desk.
Why do I store them like this? I like to be able to see the images on my punches – when stored standing on their sides, the images are how I’d expect to see them in a punched image. The butterfly is right-side up, the bird is resting quietly and the ones with dimensions (oval punches) are perfectly presented.
Because I have a little extra room in the bin on the right, I keep a couple of small items in a box lid and my address stamps in an old clear box.
To the right of these bins, I keep my tag topper punches and border punches. I store them on their sides and slide them right into the slats in the shelf. It’s not a perfectly beautiful way to store them, but it’s wonderful for a quick reference when I need them.
On the top section of the industrial shelf, I keep my inks and other miscellaneous things (snips, Stamp-a-ma-Jig, paper piercer) that I need on-hand. I purchased this spinning carousel in 2003 or 2004 – long before Stampin’ Up! offered an ink carousel. I’m able to easily store my pads, refills and markers in the built-in slots. The colors are organized in alphabetical order by color family – with In Colors filling in the spaces at the bottom. I’ve added punched circles of card stock along the sides to more easily identify the slots for the colors.
To the left of the ink carousel, I have a caddy I purchased at a craft store – lots of stuff gets piled in here, but I know exactly where to find everything:
OH! See that little blue ribbon hanging off the back of the shelf? You might not know this, but I earned a VERY PRESTIGIOUS award last summer – you can see more about that here – go on over and scroll to the bottom of that post. 🙂
I hope you’ve enjoyed these posts about The Fungeon. I’m so happy I am able to share them with you.
Thanks for stopping by today!
Weekly Deals. The Weekly Deals were announced yesterday. What a great lineup! Check them out here:
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If you have downloaded and started using Windows 8 Consumer Preview, you must have noticed and greatly missed the Start Orb of Windows 7. Microsoft has decided to make the infamous Windows Start Menu a thing of the past and replace it with the flashy and colorful Start Screen. But as they say, old habits die hard, and while using Windows 8, more than once have we longed for the Start Orb. Getting used to the new Start Screen will surely take some time. Till you get used to working with the Start Screen, you can use a useful little tool called ViStart that adds a Start Orb and brings the Start Menu to Windows 8. Originally, this application was meant for Windows 7, so it has some issues on Windows 8. Read on to find out about the pros and cons that ViStart brings to Windows 8.
The application is pretty easy to install, and as soon as the installation process is complete, you can see the familiar Start Orb in the left bottom corner of your screen. However, that’s also when you encounter the first issue, that is, the Orb partly covers the first Quick Launch icon or the application icon in the taskbar. All the menus available in Start Orb of Windows 7 are available in Windows 8, enabling you to easily access installed applications.
Other than the graphic issue, installing ViStart disables the default screenshot taking feature of Windows 8 with the Windows + Print Screen hotkey, and you cannot access the Start Screen with the Windows key. Basically, the application sort of hijacks the Windows key to open the Start Menu instead of performing the default functions of Windows 8. If this isn’t enough, another huge turnoff of the application is that it installs a registry scanner without giving any options to disable it during the installation. So, if you want to get the Start Orb in Windows 8, it sure is going to cost you a lot. Nevertheless, if you really want the Start Orb and Menu in Windows 8, this is one solution.
Know any other methods that would work? Make us aware in comments below.
If you want to know why Microsoft decided to pull the plug on Start Menu in Windows 8, read our detailed article here.
Update: In contrast to our prior observation, the installation does allow you to choose if you want to install the registry cleaner or not. There is no check box for it, you just have to click Decline when asked for it and it will install ViStart on your system without the registry cleaner.
Other than that, thanks to the developer, now we know a way of taking care of the overlapping problem of the Start Orb. First, create a new folder in your hard disk and make sure that it has no content in it. Then right-click on your taskbar, choose toolbar and create a New toolbar. Select the new folder made in the previous step as the toolbar folder. The new toolbar will be created in the right edge of your taskbar. Unlock the toolbars and drag and drop the new toolbar to the left most side. Now, right click in the empty area between folder toolbar and the quicklist icons, and uncheck both Show Text and Show Title options. Drag the quicklist handler towards the new Start Orb to remove the gap, and lock the taskbar again.
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Let us be honest... we so often see people or interact with people and think to ourselves…
”what is wrong with that person?”
A normal response...
But what if we shifted the focus and asked them...
“what happened to you in your story that has effected the way you are responding today?”
Imagine: You are driving down the street and you see a young girl, barely enough clothes on to cover her feminine features, begging for the attention from surrounding men, clearly abusing alcohol or some other substance, falling down, drunk.
Imagine: A young boy in a classroom who can not focus on the task to save his life... driving his teachers and peers to the edge.
Imagine: A 49 year old man who has been in and out of rehab more times than you can count on one hand. Lost his business, his family, his sanity.
What is wrong with them?
-She was abused by her uncle from age 5-10. Never shown what true love and respect looks like.
-He has been in 3 foster homes in the last year and his mother abused drugs when she was pregnant and gave him up for adoption at age 3.
-He never knew his mother and his father raised him and struggled with his own mental health and addition issues.
“People are harder to hate close up. Move in.”
This is in line with the chapter from Brene Brown’s book "BRAVING THE WILDERNESS"
“We're going to need to intentionally be with people who are different than us. We're going to have to sign up, join, and take a seat at the table. We're going to have to learn how to listen, have hard conversations, look for joy, share pain, and be more curious than defensive, all while seeking moments of togetherness.”
Lets take it one level deeper...
I recently read an article that highlights the connection between childhood (and general) trauma and how it manifests in our present reality, personality, and behaviors.
This is a quote from that article....
"A well-established and growing body of evidence tells us the developing brain is an extraordinarily adaptive organ. When a child is raised in an environment with toxic levels of stress, the structure and chemistry of his or her brain evolves accordingly. So a child who is wired for survival in a hostile environment may have a tough time focusing and behaving as expected in a classroom.”
Okay... so what do we do???
The article goes on to say...
“The developing brain, however, is malleable not just in response to adversity. Nurturing, positive, and trusting relationships with adults can repair damage done and reshape the brain’s neuro-architecture in a way that is advantageous to the child—as well as society."
Can we provide nurturing, positive and trusting spaces? Communities? Relationships?
Can we move in. To each other. Listen. Show up.
It would behoove us to move from judgement to compassion. It is time.
Just look at the news for 5 seconds. It is time.
I must add... This is not a call to be mushy and spineless.
This is a call for accountability as well.
But accountability with compassion. It feels vital in our world today.
The invitation is to level up. To face our own stuff.
To own our stories and pain so that we can hold others in theirs.
We need each other to be a safe places to land, to be heard, to be known, to be loved, and to move forward together. We need therapists, teachers, ministers, parents, friends, family to take the risk of softening and listening.
So the next time you are disgusted by that guy on the news channel or that person who commented on your Facebook or that co-worker that you just can’t stand...
Move in with compassion. Become curious about what is behind that persons reality and your response to them. This is not a call to be best friends with everyone or to approve of lifestyles outside your judgement and value system. Do not confuse my words. This it is a call for awareness, curiosity, processing, and peace.
People are harder to hate close up, move in.
I imagine this is true for myself as well. The more compassion I offer to myself, the more I experience myself as loved and held. I have often found myself scattered, exhausted, confused, overwhelmed, running to hard, messy, struggling with this and that and in a shaming tone asking myself “what is wrong with you SC??”
But instead, could I move into myself and take a look around and show myself a little compassion.
We are all carrying more than we know.
We are harder to hate close up.
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I’ve been enjoying the new World of Warcraft Expansion, the main reason I haven’t returned to Overwatch. And considering the Raid Season just started, I’m not likely to go back […]
I’ve been enjoying the new World of Warcraft Expansion, the main reason I haven’t returned to Overwatch. And considering the Raid Season just started, I’m not likely to go back to it anytime soon!
Every expansion in World of Warcraft has one or more Raid Tiers, with an introductory raid early in the expansion’s lifetime to train newer players in what raiding is like and introduce new and old to some of the new boss mechanics that will surely become a staple of the expansion.
In World of Warcraft: Legion, the first raid is the Emerald Nightmare, a place that I’ve wanted to visit and play in for years. After reading the novel Stormrage and many other pieces of lore, I wanted to see the Emerald Dream for myself, as well as the corruption that taints it. The expansion itself, in its druid Order Hall showed me the Emerald Dream and this raid gave me the Nightmare.
When we raid, we have a simple goal: 1 new boss downed every week. For The Emerald Nightmare though, by the end of the second week we only had the last two of seven to defeat and clear the raid, but their complexity and overall difficulty spike considerably, at least when you compare them to those that stand in the way to them.
Cenarius and Xavius are on another level entirely, with Cenarius reportedly being the harder of the two and I say reportedly because we’ve only had one kill attempt on the first of the two. On Normal mode though, we cleared the entire place—particularly because the challenge difference between the two difficulty modes is massive—though the difficult difference is so staggering that even these two monsters were trivial.
Overall, I love the raid. It has a wonderful visual style, showing you a dark reflection of the natural beauty of the world. From the Emerald Dream’s pathways, which all Druids see on their way to the Order Hall, to various natural areas across Azeroth, the lush green takes on a crimson colour, with dark veins, putrid insects and patches of dead earth. The more twisted areas bring out elements commonly associated with the Old Gods, such as faceless abominations, giant tentacles and mutated creatures.
The Emerald Nightmare is a place of madness and the bosses, the first set for World of Warcraft: Legion, reinforce this idea. Each of them was once a proud defender of Azeroth, now consumed by the corruption and trapped in a personal hell, or aware but incapable of stopping themselves.
To give an example, you begin your journey into the depths of the Nightmare with the dragoness Nythendra, now a consumed husk with a swarm of insects for skin. She is corruption incarnate, her mind twisted to the Nightmare’s ideals. To her, the waking life is an abomination, the nightmare and its endless disturbed sleep being the natural order.
Her boss fight design is actually pretty interesting and features the first set of recurring mechanics for the raid: damaging puddles aka void zones and damage-pulse debuffs that force raid members to step out of the group, not just to avoid hurting others, but also to drop the void zone once the debuff’s counter reaches zero.
She has two phases, the first one you just deal with the debuffs and then a highly damaging breath attack (aka Breath Weapon for the D&D players), but it’s the second that’s really challenging, as you need to fight while avoiding some explosive bugs and the different puddles you dropped during the first phase, which she slowly draws towards her collapsed frame. After this, the battle resets.
It’s a simple fight, made grueling by the absolute need of on-point positioning and debuff handling, as well as the tremendous health pool the boss has, but it’s a very fun fight, without any random nonsense. If you’re doing things properly then you have a lot of control over what’s going on, and that’s good boos design.
This same style of challenging but fair boss fight where the lore and mechanics reinforce the madness of the nightmare are prevalent in World of Warcraft: Legion’s first raid, which for me makes it one of the best out there, even more because of what happens after the end of the raid, where you end up, the people you meet and the things you see.
I won’t spoil it, at least not yet. Once we clear the raid in full, on Heroic mode, which is the one that counts for us, I’ll be back with a detailed review of the raid, from the boss designs to annoyance level on the different trash packs.
So far, I absolutely love it, both in visual style, lore and boss design. I’m slowly picking up my damage output, figuring out the best talents to use in each fight and pushing my DPS one inch closer to the top every single time, which will only get us closer to the goal: ridding the Emerald Dream from the terrible Xavius.
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Leroy glanced down at his watch for what felt like the hundredth time. They were late. Very late. And he was out on a limb here, risking his ass for Mr. Tony Boss-man. As if the Boss-man ever did a day’s work in his life, sitting there on his throne of black leather on wheels, computer screen hiding half his face, playing at being all modern. Sure, he was modern. If modern was looking at dirty videos all day.
Patting his pockets, Leroy searched for his lighter. Realizing it was already in his hand, he drew his pack of Marlboro cigarettes from his jeans, shook one out, and lit it. He glanced at his watch again, breathing in the smoke as if it was much needed oxygen. They were so late, he thought again. He could feel the prickles on the nape of his neck; he was sweating so badly that his hair seemed to be leaking. There was no reason for them to be late. Not unless… But he wouldn’t go there. Not yet, not consciously.
Glancing at his watch yet again, he realized that this was the first time in a long damn while that he’d been up in the small hours of the night. He remembered the last time vividly now, as if it had been yesterday instead of eight years ago. He could almost smell the smoke from the barrel of the gun – but no, that’s the cig, he reminded himself – and could almost see the hole in that man’s chest. That was a long time ago now, and Leroy tried to forget it more often than not. Only right now, with them being late and all, it was getting hard to separate his quickened heartbeats from that other night when he’d felt them so strongly too.
He realized he was muttering under his breath and shut up quickly. It was a habit he’d picked up at the pen. Some banker who’d offed his business partner had told him that muttering made people stay away from you. Leroy’d started doing it one evening when one of the thugs seemed willing to come beat on him for some sport, and he’d found that the thug turned away pretty quick when Leroy didn’t respond to his taunting but just kept on muttering. The thug had made his dumb friends laugh by making fun of the crazy dude talking to himself, and that had been it. The habit of muttering had stuck. The Boss-man told him to cut it out, that it was freak-show quality stuff that would scare away his clients. Didn’t need the muttering, though, to scare them away. Since they were so late that Leroy just assumed that they weren’t coming.
Just as he took his last puff and was flicking the butt into the road, he caught sight of headlights coming towards him. That moment seemed to stretch into forever. Leroy saw the headlights, saw the flare of his cigarette hitting the ground, saw the man’s chest torn open eight years ago, saw the bars of his solitary confinement when he’d raged at first, saw the eight wasted years. He saw it all in that one instant, and instinctively turned and jumped over the railing of the highway into the adjacent field. He ran through it, the dew making the ground slippery and the plants moist. He slipped, fell, hands covered with mud where he caught himself in the wet earth. He stayed down, heart beating, and listened.
He heard the idling car. He heard voices, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The blood was pumping so loudly in his ears that he felt that they must have turned into beacons of sound, broadcasting to all the crooks he’d ever known, telling them all that Leroy’d turned soft. That jail had reformed him. That Leroy wanted to clean up his act and never think of how another deal gone bad could turn into a gaping hole in a man’s chest.
He stayed down for a long time, long after the car had gone with the dealers in it. He lay in the damp earth until the sun rose, until the plants and ground around him seemed to start steaming. When the sun warmed the back of his still sweating neck, the warmth gave him goosebumps and shivered. The involuntary movement jarred him, and he finally managed to make his stiff limbs listen to his brain. He sat up, and stared around him. The field he was in looked nice, tended, except for the long path he’d made from the highway where all the plants were trampled, bent and broken. Like him, like Leroy the ex-crook, the ex-brave, the ex-badass.
There was a house a few hundreds yards away, at the end of the field. Leroy got to his feet, shaking, and took a good long look at it. He’d go there, ask about making amends for the ruined crops. Ask if he could work to pay for some food. Maybe if he’d prove he was strong and just as able as any man to work a long day in the sun, they’d let him stay for a while. Rent a room for his labor. That is, if there was anyone in there. With his luck, it’d be some old bag who hired illegals to work her fields, or some senile man with fifteen sons who did everything that needed to be done. But then again, maybe it’d be a husband and wife and a little boy who needed some extra hands to help get the harvest in proper. Leroy started towards the house, thinking that soon enough he’d find out.
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Come on over!
image credit: midnight poutine
I just couldn’t resist these lovely felt and vintage fabric love letters when I saw them. From Emma Loves Retro and just in time for Valentines Day…
Emma hand-picks all of her fabrics for her letters and cushions and they are made into small, limited edition batches. A little bit of nostalgia and history just for you.
This is my personal favourite of all the cushions on her website, but you should click on over and have a look for yourself.
And I particularly like her fabric canvases. Mid-century fans can swoon now!
Inspired by yesterday’s thoughts of Marrakech… and not so distant holidays to far-flung places… and sunny days… and nights beneath the stars… and a blue… deep enough to dive into…
Are you sure you don’t want to come?
Anyone who knows me, knows I love to travel…
Anyone who knows me, knows I love travel, adventure and shopping…
And I’m so excited…because in May I am going to indulge in all three!
This is not my first visit to this fascinating city. I was there in 2007, but back then I was embarking on a two-week trek of the High Atlas Mountains, culminating in an ascent (and descent of course) of Mount Toubkal. It was seriously hardcore.
Marrakech was like a fantastic reward at the end. A couple of days of sheer visual stimulation, fantastic food and shopping like you can never imagine. I promised myself there and then, a return trip.
Oh, and if that is not enough. I am going to be joined by the lovely Arianna of Arianna Interiors. We are going to have such fun!
And if anyone fancies coming along, you can find all of the details here.
All pictures by Dear Designer of Majorelle Gardens, Marrakech.
Charmingly understated with lovely bones, another gorgeous location from Shootfactory.
It would be a sin to cover those windows with anything and those wide floorboards were never meant to be seen, but who cares they are just beautiful.
And those bookcases! How perfectly do they fit that space?
Such admirable restraint to leave the paintwork in all it’s rubbed-down glory.
And it’s so obviously a ‘cooks’ kitchen but I’m not sure I could leave those worktops alone.
Or the bathroom window without some curtains.
Or the bedroom without a blind.
I’d have to make a few teeny tiny changes…
How about you?
This weeks Sunday afternoon surf brings you my five favourite things from Dotmaison.
So colourful. Just what is needed to bring some much-needed sunshine in.
So retro. Gorgeous walnut to make the family snaps even more beautiful.
I think my son would like this Diesel cushion. Or maybe I would keep it.
Missoni towels. Just the job for adding colour to a neutral bathroom. And mine are getting quite old now.
Aren’t these beautiful. I think I would need a complete garden re-design to do these justice.
So many shops…so little cash…
Just a few of my favourite images this week from, well, the latest fabulous issue of Rue Magazine. Where else?
Johnny Egg describes his style as ‘Theatrical Minimalism’. He believes that furniture should be functional, well designed and practical and that nothing should be overlooked or neglected. Hence his signature flocked drawer linings.
He learned his skills working as an apprentice for a traditional cabinetmaker but now creates his own designs in his workshop in rural Essex. I met him at 100% Design last year and he is as lovely as his furniture.
His Black & Twisted unit was nominated by RIBA as one of the ‘Best Products of 2006’
Every piece that comes out of his Essex Studio is dated, numbered and signed.
I love that he uses pink. So decadent.
This striking limited edition bar will be made in 10 exciting colours, but only ONE of each. Each piece will have its own distinct bar code.
Even chandeliers and mirrors cannot escape the flocking. How striking would this pair be in an entrance hall?
But my favourite of all, this swarkovski crystal handbag hook!
I don’t normally feature office design on this blog, but today I’m going to make an exception.
I was flicking through Interior Design Today and there was a spread dedicated to the new head office of Agent Provocateur. Granted the space also includes their new showroom, but this is like no work environment I have had the pleasure of working in!
The chosen designers – Studiofibre – were given virtually no design restrictions. A dream brief, ‘Be as daring and colourful as you wish’.
The result is as original and sexy as the lingerie brand itself.
The crocodile print flooring is by Forbo.
Fiona Livingston from Sudiofibre is quoted as saying ‘We were faced with the challenge of transforming quite a life-less building into something that oozes character and encapsulates the theatrical glam of the Agent Provocateur brand’ Well, they have certainly managed that.
And who needs art when you have larger than life posters of the company’s products?
When can I start?
All images from the website of Studiofibre
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ETHNIC HUB, Top Trends, Wedding
Do you still look at your old wedding photographs and find yourself reminiscing about the glorious night when all...
ETHNIC HUB, Top Trends, Wedding
The wedding bells are ringing, and people are getting ready with their pens and papers, making their shopping lists for a dreamy wedding. But the ultimate title for the most important attire goes to the traditional red bridal lehenga for the bride.
Adorned with beads, laces, and patches, red colour lehengas for brides have always been the centre of attraction in weddings and a great talking point for the ladies.
So, if this wedding season you are looking for something that makes you feel like a queen on your special day, then a royal red bridal lehenga is perfect for your look and the ladies to gossip about.
Red colour lehengas have always been the number one choice for millions of Indian brides as it is considered auspicious in the Hindu culture. But why?
There are many reasons that make red such an important colour for a bride. First, it is said to be the colour of new beginnings, passion, and prosperity. It is also associated with Goddess Durga, the Indian goddess who symbolises feminine power and strength. Another reason is related to astrology. Mars, the red giant, is the planet that governs marriage in a person’s life. That’s why women wear red lehengas on their wedding day as it represents prosperity and fertility.
Now that you know why red is the colour for a wedding day, let’s move forward and talk about the most stunning bridal look in a red lehenga.
What makes a red lehenga popular among all these women is its evergreen allure and grace.
Here, we are looking at red lehengas for marriage that will make your heart swoon and make you go for a red bridal look.
The most common style for brides is an all-red look. For this look, you can take inspiration from all the stunning brides of our country, all adorned in red on their respective days. Isn’t a full red lehenga adorned with flowers, french knots, and sequins the best attire to get married in? You can complete this look by adding gold jewellery, a heavy maharani necklace, kalire, and maang tika. This will surely give you a royal look!
Another way to style this look is by adding pearls and emeralds to your jewellery. The emerald not only goes well with red but also symbolises fidelity, true love, and renewal. Need we say more?
Nothing speaks royal better than the colour gold and, yes, the gold itself. Traditional red Marwari lehengas with golden borders can easily get anyone’s attention. The red lehenga bridal look is sure to make all brides feel like absolute princesses! Borders with mantras woven in golden thread on red can be a perfect blend of style and Indian culture.
Imagine a lovely red lehenga with golden borders, embroidery, and golden lotuses sewn on it. You can add chudaa sets, full head maang tika, and big earrings to complete the look.
Red and gold are some of the most famous combinations among brides. There are so many designs with different fabrics and styles available in red bridal lehenga online.
Mostly popular among Bengali communities, the combination of red and white has become the number choice of other brides too. The Sabyasachi lehengas work great for inspiration in these patterns.
White lehengas with floral patterns are a good choice for weddings in the summer season as it looks lightweight and charming. With a white lehenga, you may pair a heavy dupatta and heavy jewellery.
If you want to express your glamorous side on your special day, then shimmer work can be a real deal for you. In shimmer, you get mirror work, sequins, and metallic work. With red marriage lehenga, you can pair choli and blouses with mirror work.
You can also match a simple red lehenga with a sequin dupatta and blouse.
Anarkali Silhouette is gaining popularity very fast among young brides. Red colour lehengas for weddings with asymmetric hems, tea length, and sheer covering are becoming a number choice for millennials.
With an Anarkali silhouette, you can add more flare by Canaan and an umbrella cut.
The list of things that makes a wedding exciting is incomplete without mentioning trends. With every new wedding season, come new trends. From red lehenga choli for weddings with minimal makeup to twinning the outfits, all these trends keep people swooning over the bridal looks.
Below are some new trends that will dominate the wedding season this year.
Botanical motifs have become popular in prints and patchwork. This season, birds are trending. You can find many heavy red bridal lehenga with peacocks, swans and sparrows embroidery.
Heavy red bridal lehenga with floral and bird motifs are inspired by the Mughal era; they represent the famous Mughal gardens that were filled with roses and different birds.
Any bridal look can go sour without proper jewellery. Gold has been the number one choice for brides for ages, but now many young brides are experimenting by adding more stones and elements into their jewellery boxes.
To complete your look on your special day, you can add contrasting jewellery to your heavy bridal lehenga of red colour. Offbeat coloured jewellery, pearls, emeralds and other stones are trending as the latest choice for brides.
Contrasting jewellery stands out in your entire look and gives more character to and uniqueness to wedding attire.
The days when a simple neck was followed by all the brides are long gone. Now, brides are trying new necklines which are more modern and bolder. From deep necks to backless blouses, these fashionable, modern-day brides do not shy from flaunting. Strip and sleeveless cholis with Doris and looms are all time favourites.
Who says that belts are for formals only? These days brides are wearing traditional belts with heavy work with their designer red bridal lehenga. This serves not as a stand out accessory but also gives your overall tire a neat look by holding it all together, the dupatta, lehenga and pallu.
You can choose a wide and heavy belt adorned with lace, beads, pearls and much more or a thin metallic belt.
This saying stands true even when we talk about your wedding lehenga. If you want to feel like royalty on your wedding day, then the double dupatta trend is made for you. With your simple red bridal lehenga, you can add a heavy, full of design and work dupatta wear over your head. Or you can choose to wear a simple, sheer dupatta.
To complement your red lehenga, you can add a contrasting colour dupatta; it gives your attire more depth.
If drama is what you want and like, feel free to add it to your wedding look. Exaggerated sleeves are here to stay and to rule this year’s wedding trends. If we talk in terms of sleeves, you have a lot of options, laced sleeves that give a romantic look, sheer sleeves with beads and pearls, puffy and ruffle sleeves. You will get tired of experimenting, but the list of stylish sleeves will go on, and so will charm. So, be bold and choose the one that has stolen your heart.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a bride is the most important person on a wedding day, almost like a superhero. Leaving her house and entering a new phase of her life, well, yes, definitely a superhero. And what a superhero needs is a cape. Showcase all your power on your special day by adding a traditional cape to your red wedding lehenga design.
City brides are ditching the dupattas this wedding season to experiment more with more modern and hassle-free capes. So, what’s stopping you from going for the cape?
Bohemian styles are becoming a popular choice for women for all kinds of festivals. But adding a Bohemian touch to your red lehenga choli for a wedding? Sounds bold and beautiful. Not only can boho patterns be made on your lehenga, but you can also wear boho jewellery and let your inner gipsy thrive on the big day!
Choosing the perfect lehenga for your big day is a decision as important as any other wedding shenanigans. To get the best red bridal lehenga, you need to keep a lot of things in mind. What’s trending? What does your ideal wedding attire look like? What makes you feel comfortable? And much more.
But the good news is with all these trends and thousands and thousands of options available in the market; you can put your finger on whatever you like. From modern to traditional, to bold and modest, just think of it, and you will find it.
If this is what your heart desires then, Kreeva has got you covered. Explore as many designer red bridal lehenga as you want at affordable prices with excellent quality. Get the best wedding collection to dazzle on your special day!
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- Expired: over a month ago. Applications are no longer accepted.
To apply, simply TEXT SEC to 25000 and our virtual assistant Olivia will get you connected with our hiring team today!
Hiring Immediately in Chesapeake, VA!
Turn your job into a career with our team at Southeast Connections, LLC! From the field to the board room, our company is dedicated to remaining an industry leader by developing our people and helping grow their careers. We specialize in energy infrastructure serving the natural gas industry and pride ourselves on our core values: safety, excellence, transparency, integrity and accountability, as well as continuous improvement. Apply today to be a part of our journey.
At Southeast Connections, your benefits begin on day one! We offer excellent compensation and comprehensive benefit packages including health, dental, vision, life insurance, and more.
Our Construction Laborers perform tasks involving physical labor for highway and heavy construction projects. You’ll prepare work sites to ensure maximum optimization and efficiency of construction procedures. This position may operate a variety of hand and power tools.
Starting pay is $15.00-$16.00 per hour dependent upon experience with lots of opportunities to grow within the company.
Do you have a valid CDL license? If so, your starting hourly rate will be slightly higher.
What You’ll Do:
- Execute deliverables according to customer specifications and contract requirements
- Manage cost control, margin expectations, productivity, change orders, and equipment reporting
- Clean debris, trash, and hazardous materials from construction sites
- Fill potholes, dig trenches, assist in installing pipes and drains, and erect temporary structures
- Put traffic signs up to indicate that construction is in process
- Maintain construction equipment appropriately and promote/monitor team member safety
- Load and unload equipment from trucks
- Train apprentices and new hires in construction labor work
- Use hand tools to cut and shape material as per instructions
- Work in compliance with company standards and protocols, ensuring that proper safety and incident reporting procedures are followed and problems are brought to the foreman’s attention
Why You’ll Love Working for Us:
- Competitive pay and industry-leading benefits
- Day one benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, short and long-term disability
- Eligibility for Company matching 401(k) begins after 3 months of employment
What We Need from You:
- Must be at least 21 years old
- High school diploma preferred
- Knowledge/experience with gas installation techniques and standards preferred
- Ability to lift, push, pull, or carry heavy objects, and walk/stand for long periods of time
- Perform strenuous physical labor under adverse field conditions with excellent stamina
Southeast Connections, LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Southeast Connections, LLC
ConstructionView all jobs at Southeast Connections, LLC
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Dementia is a disease that mainly affects the elderly. When we hear the term dementia, we first think of old people and so-called old age dementia. However, younger people can also be affected by this disease. Our lifestyle has a major influence on whether we develop dementia or not and, in addition to the influence of factors such as diet, exercise, consumption of luxury foods, stress or environmental factors, digital media also play an important role.
When it comes to preventive care, the first years of life are crucial in addition to the behavior and habits that we have developed in adulthood. If brain development was encouraged in the early years of life, a person is less likely to develop dementia in old age.
In the 21st century, adults and children, on average, spend a lot of time using digital media. Children growing up today experience the world to a relatively large extent through screens. However, several studies have shown in recent years that the use of digital media can have negative effects on brain performance and exacerbate the development of dementia.
Brain Development in Children
The signals that are picked up by the senses converge in the brain. In the development of children, various stages go through in which the brain changes dramatically. At the age of one to two years, the two halves of the brain increasingly connect. This improves language development and motor skills. At around four years of age, the two halves of the brain begin to communicate with each other by leaps and bounds. Intuition and analytical skills are increasingly combined and in this phase the children learn to differentiate between reality and fantasy. In this phase, the ability to empathize also increases. Now the memory works for the most part, while in the period before so-called infantile amnesia occurs - there are usually hardly any memories of the first years of life.
At around six years of age, the frontal lobe matures and children attain more intellectual maturity at this stage of development. Logical and strategic thinking and arithmetic are now possible. Children can now control their affects and emotions better and better and adapt their behavior to the respective context.
How children experience and understand the world
When children learn new things, new connections form in the brain. An extremely large number of synapses are built up at a young age. There is an excess of nerve cells, of which only those that are actually used are retained in the long term. Unused nerve cells and connections are broken down again. At a young age, children should therefore be encouraged as much as possible and supported in their development. It is helpful when children have as diverse experiences as possible and when their brain is fed with many different sensory stimuli.
In the different stages of development that children go through, they perceive their environment to be very different. In the first few years of life, babies and young children primarily feel the world with their hands and mouth. Later they find different shapes and colors interesting. When the brain is more developed, children can enjoy using their intellectual abilities, for example solving puzzles or playing more strategic games. So encourage your child's development by supporting them in each phase of their life with suitable toys and activities. Naturalich wooden toys enable children of all ages to playfully feel and get to know the world.
The impact of digital media on children
If children in the different stages of development spend a lot of time using digital media, the sensory stimuli they pick up are comparatively one-sided and this influences the development of the brain. In the first years of life, sensorimotor stimuli, i.e. impressions that we perceive through our sense of touch, are particularly beneficial for child development. Sensorimotor stimuli are processed more deeply and the information that we absorb in connection with sensorimotor impressions is stored longer in the brain.
In order to give your child the best possible support in their development, we recommend that you let them get to know as many new impressions as possible. In addition to movement and social relationships, varied sensory-motor impressions are also important. This is only possible to a limited extent when using digital media. Playing with wooden toys enables children to absorb stronger and more varied sensorimotor impressions. Fine motor skills are trained in the different age groups with appropriate toys.
Prevent dementia at a young age
The best protection against dementia in adulthood is the development of the brain and the education that was built up in the first years of life. In the meantime, it has been shown in several studies that digital media have a negative effect here, and that in all age groups. In this context, one speaks of digital dementia. In order to prevent attention disorders, learning difficulties and reduced memory performance, both in the first few years and later in life, digital media should only be used to a limited extent.
Children need interactions in the real world in order to learn well. When studying on the screen, children have difficulty processing the information they have received. It is therefore officially recommended that children up to around three years of age should not use any screens and that children between the ages of five and six should not use any more than one hour a day. Stimuli that are perceived via the screen leave a weaker impression on the brain and stimulate it less to develop and to establish connections.
Also, check out our other articles to learn more about why wooden toys are beneficial for child development. Children's toys made of wood for different age groups can be found in our shop. Support your child's development with wooden toys and thus prevent dementia-like complaints in adolescence and adulthood and senile dementia, for example with ours Educational toys.
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Have you ever felt like you really wish you could take a sneaky nap at work? We all have but most of us do not have the courage to try for a 15-minute power nap. Truth is employees all around the world take a sneaky nap every day.
How to Nap at Work Without Getting Caught? Work remotely, find a place in the office out of view, own office, sitting up your desk, in your car, if you work out of the office head off to the cinema, those laying cables sleep where they work, those working in large buildings sleep in the cavities these are just a few suggestions.
Do Naps Increase Productivity?
For the greater part of the past decade, there has been a significant paradigm shift in the workplace, where more emphasis has been placed on ensuring the employee is better equipped to increase productivity.
Napping at work is a glaring example of an activity that is no longer frowned upon by company executives – many of whom have probably been getting away with it behind the doors of their ostentatious offices anyway.
Critically though, sleeping at work is no longer a matter of privilege. It is increasingly being viewed as a matter of necessity. Under ordinary circumstances, it would be the blue-collar workers championing this noble cause.
However, it is now profit-seeking employers who claim to see the benefits of allowing staff to take a power nap at work.
Many of them are citing a study conducted by Sara C. Mednick, Denise J. Cai, Jennifer Kanady, and Sean P.A. Drummond more than a decade ago.
At the core of that study was the desire to seek alternatives to the copious amounts of caffeine that are being consumed by workers across the United States and around the world – in an attempt to stay more alert and be productive at work.
If you can show me a successful company which claims to not have a coffee machine of some kind available to its guests and employees and I would be surprised.
However, there are growing indications that things will not always be that way.
Everybody knows very well that caffeine is a super stimulant. Many of the energy drinks that have now flooded the market are loaded with caffeine. However, the jury has always been out on just how much it does for the memory or increased productivity for that matter.
Researchers believe there is no compelling evidence to suggest that a nap at work would be of greater benefit to both the employer and the employee. Bosses are buying into that notion too.
Napping at Work with the Energy Pod
So it has now become very fashionable to nap at work. Employers and employees around the world are now embracing the opportunity to spend money on something that will enhance the quality and value of that nap.
It is called the Energy Pod. Such is its growing significance that heavyweight business publications like Forbes are even giving it meaningful publicity.
But what is it exactly? We decided to visit the company website for more information on what makes this strange contraption more valuable than the conventional bed or mattress. And how on earth does this pod beat caffeine?
The Energy Pod is a chair then…talk about keeping up appearances.
However, it has been specifically built for those in the workplace, so that they can fall asleep when the opportunity presents itself or simply when they feel like it. Forget about its design because it is just strange.
Of particular interest to us is the technology used and the level of comfort that this contraption is supposed to produce. The claim is that the machine provides a zero-gravity position, is loaded with specially composed sleep music and wakes you very gently. That all accounts for the comfort component of this machine.
That waking up process is driven by a special sequence of composed lighting and a series of vibrations that help tell your body and mind that the time for shuteye is over and that you need to return to your desk and produce some more of those highly desired dollars. God knows many of them were spent purchasing the “space contraption” in the first place.
The contraption itself is developed by Firmware, who has programmed it to help you sleep deeply for about 20 minutes. Well, they say 20 minutes but it could honestly be a little less or a little more than that.
Among the key features on that contraption are “a status indicator that communicates when the EnergyPod will next be free and a usage tracker to optimize facility management.” You can’t script this stuff.
In addition to that, you will have Ergonomic Perfection, a privacy visor, an interface console, and a built-in speaker. The makers of the product were encouraged by what they felt was a desperate need for it. They noticed that more and more people were falling asleep at work and trying to hide it.
The research and design that went into making this machine were seen as an opportunity to boost productivity in the workplace instead of inhibiting it. The jury is out on just how valuable this will turn out to be.
How Do We Conclude That a Nap at Work Is Better Than Caffeine?
The researchers who conducted the famous study we are citing got 61 adults who drank no more than two cups of coffee a day to participate in the study. Those adults were between the ages of 18-39.
Therefore, they were at the peak of their physical powers and without a history of serious illness. They basically had nothing that could possibly muddy the waters of the study.
More critically though, the participants had a sleep schedule that did not see them sleep any later than midnight. Nor did it see them wake up any later than 8 am. Again, that was to boost the integrity of the study.
During this business of examining the impact of a power nap at work, there could be no accusations of foul play. The playing field was as equal as it could possibly have been under the circumstances.
All of the subjects in question kept sleep diaries, wore actigraphs and were not allowed to consume caffeine or alcohol before the experiments were conducted. Now that we have the admin out of the way, let us take a look at some of the interesting findings of that study.
The primary objective of this campaign was to test motor capacity, while the other was to test verbal capacity. Both are key indicators of a person’s alertness or sharpness in the workplace environment.
During the verbal tasks, the subjects were required to display recall and recognition memory.
That power of recall was tested over a period of seven hours, during which there were three intervention options available.
The first was the good old cup of coffee or anything else with caffeine in it. The second was a placebo, which is a form of medication. The third was the power nap.
With that, the game was afoot.
For the motor tasks, subjects were requested to complete a series of finger tapping tasks with their non-dominant hand. The capacity of the subjects to accurately completely those sequences was tested after the three intervention options mentioned above. That is caffeine, placebo, and the old power nap.
Determining the results of that test was also pretty straightforward. The number of correct sequences in a set time wins. Memory and recall were taken out of the equation though. The sequence was displayed for everybody to see clearly. It was just a matter of testing how sharp and alert the subjects in the study were.
There were also deductions for errors and inaccuracies.
For the verbal tasks, the group which opted to nap, instead of consuming caffeine or administer placebo, performed remarkably better than any of the other groups.
Also interesting was the fact that there was no significant difference in performance between placebo and caffeine. So, ditch the drugs and get some shuteye.
During the motor testing phases, nappers and the placebo group traded blows regularly through the sessions without there really is a clear winner. More significantly though, the caffeine group appeared to run out of steam as the tasks progressed and they eventually fell behind the top two.
There appears to be increasingly compelling evidence that the merits of caffeine have been grossly overstated over the years and that it is purely psychological. Napping at work is definitely the way of the future.
If you want to know a lot more about caffeine and sleep you can view my article here…
How to Nap at Work and Not Get Caught
If you are one of the unlucky ones with a boss fit to boost the stocks at the local museum, you might have to hide your sleep problems just that little bit longer.
There is also the glaring reality that the majority of the people who will have access to something like an Energy Pod are executives and managers. By all accounts, it still does cost you a pretty penny.
Do not despair though, as there are ways to manipulate the system. Some of the tricks available are among the oldest in the book but they do say the old ways are always the best. Let’s check out my favorite top ten, shall we?
1. Work Remotely
This is particularly relevant to the author of this article, who has not stepped into an office for the greater part of a year. All of the work I have completed has either been done on my laptop, which was on my chest, while I was lying in my bed until well after midday.
There have also been days when I have not left my bed the whole time the sun was out during the course of the day. It is under those circumstances that the option to take what I would loosely refer to as a power nap became highly convenient.
No questions have ever been asked, as long as the tasks have been completed and the clients have been satisfied that I managed to deliver on my mandate. Better still, when I managed to deliver with considerable aplomb.
2. Sleep in the Boardroom at Lunch
The beauty about lunch breaks at the office is that nobody is ever looking for you during that period and there are seldom any meetings scheduled for the boardroom during lunch either. We are talking about the proverbial two birds with one stone here.
The outstanding thing about lunch breaks is that nobody gets to tell you what to do when they come. They constitute a basic worker’s right…an entitlement even. Under those circumstances, it is always most prudent to secure some shuteye if you can. Whether that be if you are tired or you just want to experiment with the extraordinary idea that you might be better placed to improve your productivity when you wake up.
The other trick here is to eat your actual lunch while you are at your desk. That way, you do not waste a single minute of your actual lunch hour chewing and swallowing.
3. Make the Most of Your Office “Privacy”
Some people happen to be among the lucky ones, even though they do not occupy a position in management or an executive position they have an office of their own.
If you are one of those who do have an office if you are in this position may be you could share your office within someone who is tired one day – as well as take naps yourself.
Sleeping in the office, whether that be on the couch or under your desk, is a management trick as old the job position itself.
There is seldom any scrutiny, especially if you do not actually have a secretary. If you do have a secretary, there is also the opportunity to receive ample warning before somebody can catch you napping.
Better still, a secretary can actually protect you from somebody who could possibly catch you getting some shuteye. There is an element of loyalty there that is seldom matched in any environment.
4. Use the Car If You Must
There is honestly nothing ideal or even particularly unique about this one. People have been catching some sleep in their cars for years now. The one benefit of sleeping in your car during work hours is that it helps you avoid any level of scrutiny.
Once you step out of the office, few questions are ever asked about what you are doing out of the office. For all we know, you could be on your way to a client or on your way to pick your child up from school. Any number of things really.
The point is that under those circumstances, nobody can ever say they ever caught you sleeping. Whatever transpires at any disciplinary hearing, sleep will never come up in the conversation.
5. Sleep Sitting Up, While at Your Desk
Well, there are two options here. The first is less dramatic than the other. Firstly, you can give any colleague that matters the impression that you need some glasses. That your eyes are beginning to fail you.
Then go to a specialist and have them produce a set of glasses that are tinted. Convince everybody that your spectacles double up as reading glasses and sunglasses. That way, you can wear them in the office every time, without there ever being any questions asked.
You can also complicate matters if you wish, by just wearing sunglasses in the office, for no apparent reason. We suppose you will just have to convince colleagues that for some peculiar reason, you forgot to take those sunglasses off or that the sun is continuing to bug you in the office…somewhere and somehow.
Whichever option you adopt, the name of the game is to just close your eyes behind those glasses and nap while you are at work.
You do want to avoid your head tilting over completely or the prospect of you drooling during this covert operation. Just be aware that this will likely be a light sleep and probably not entirely comfortable either.
6. Find a Restroom Cubicle
We are now meddling in matters of hygiene here. Nobody wants to spend more time in the toilet cubicle than he/she has to. The smell is almost always unbearable and germs are likely to be everywhere.
However, if you are desperate to catch some shuteye, there are few plans that will beat this. Just avoid snoring and in order to avoid any scrutiny, maybe pick your feet up and place them against the wall of the cubicle. It is a lot of effort, we know.
However, what you do not want is somebody spotting your shoes and recognizing them when you walk out of the cubicle substantially later. You also do not want somebody entering the toilet, spotting your shoes and deciding to greet you while you are out cold.
Some doubts might emerge about your health and for all, we know a rescue team will be sent into the bathroom to resuscitate you…only to learn that you were just napping at work. Another way to avoid scrutiny is by convincing a colleague that you are actually ill and give them the impression that it has to do with something that you ate.
That way a prolonged absence from your desk might be suitably explained. Not a considerable amount needs to be said under these circumstances sometimes.
7. Speak to the Cleaning Lady
There is always a room somewhere in the office that nobody ever uses, except maybe the cleaning lady herself. There is also the distinct possibility that she uses that room for clandestine activities of her own.
Maybe you two could share a sleeping secret or sleeping secrets or you could just find out what her cleaning timetable is and sneak in there when she is not looking. Nobody in that entire office will search for you in the cleaning closet of all places.
Just make sure you only take a power nap and do not make it too much of a habit. There is the small matter of hygiene to be taken into consideration here.
8. Speak to God
We are beginning to clutch at straws now and should probably call it a day once we are done with this religious intervention. There are those among us who pray when we arrive at the office. There are those among us who pray when they leave the office and then there are those who pray midway through the workday. Let us ask no questions.
Maybe that person is just having a rough day at work and needs some form of divine intervention. Maybe that person just needs God’s backing ahead of a major meeting or presentation. For those among us who just need to sleep, this presents a somewhat glorious opportunity to produce a power nap of some note.
Pretend to be speaking to God by putting your palms together and closing your eyes. We imagine your lips will not be moving too much though. Do not let that bother you. It is a tiny, insignificant detail.
Maybe put a bible on your desk for good measure. Better still, have that bible open on an appropriate or seemingly relevant page. Basically, we are telling you to be creative here. Bosses miss the smallest things sometimes.
9. Put a Phone in Your Ear and Nap at Work
I know we had said we were done with this charade but leaving this sleeping technique off the list would have been a criminal act of epic proportions. Depending on the nature of your work, this might come in very handy.
If you are working in sales, journalism or any other field where a phone is an important tool, this trick will come in handy. What you do is you pick the phone up, stick it next to your ear and balance it with your shoulder.
For good measure, you can then maybe place a notepad in front of you on your desk and have a pen in your free hand. That is a great picture of a colleague who is hard at work, conducting business, searching for a new client or just conducting an interview.
Your lips will not be moving during this acting scene but who is to say you are not dealing with an extremely talkative person on the other side of the phone? Maybe the office just knows you as the listening type anyway. When your eyes are closed, the perfect explanation is that you were in the middle of a highly intense conversation.
There are too many aces at your disposal here, which you should use towards your favor.
10. Fix Your Network Cable Under the Desk
There is also the option to just lie down under your desk and pretend that you were fixing a computer-related problem. This is particularly handy if you work at a company where very few know anything about computers or where computer problems of this nature are regular.
Nobody will suspect a thing. Maybe make sure there is actually something wrong with your computer before you take that nap though. That way, nobody will question anything.
Finally, if all of these napping at work techniques fail, for whatever reason, do yourself a favor and get a government job. There is never any oversight on service delivery issues, so nobody will even bother if you are at your desk or not, let alone if you are sleeping or not.
Those in management positions at government jobs are seldom at work themselves anyway.
To Finish – How to Nap at Work Without Getting Caught
Don’t want to change jobs and do not feel as though you can catch a secret nap at work there is always lunch break or meal break right!
What about taking your own pillow to work – hide it in your locker or drawer – or roll up a sweater find a quiet place in the office or under your desk and get that nap.
Not able to do that? Find somewhere outside close to work – just remember to set your alarm so you can wake up in time to get back to work…
As always here’s to better sleep!
If you are really struggling at work take a look around my sleep site there is information here that can assist with various sleep issues.
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|Excerpts from the Valley Ventura - 9/14/1907 to 12/7/1907|
The Valley Ventura was a newspaper that served northeastern Cumberland and part of western Atlantic Counties in the early years of the twentieth century. It's editor was a man with a keen interest in local history. Armed with a journalist's curiousity and with information he had gleaned from his other career as a surveyor, he produced a series of articles relating to the history of the area. They excerpts also include some local news.
This does not represent a full run of the paper. The issues referenced here reside at the Vineland Historical Society. They were discovered by Mark Demitroff and subsequently transcribed(with great care to preserve the original spelling and syntax) by Gail Benson. If you have any further information about this newspaper or know the location of other issues, please contact this site.
Mary C. Hutchings
September 14, 1907
Historical Sketches of Landisville By the Editor - Chapter I
Travellers over the N.J. Central R.R., between Vineland and Winslow Junction for long years had seen o solitary mansard roof brick building which stood opposite the place where the brakeman called out ³Landisville², and they wondered whether the infant town would ever grow.
But, cradled in the forest it continued to sleep on and on, until the hum of industry reached its ear from the near-by town of Minatola, when lo! it awoke, and surprised the travelles by its phenomenal growth in the few years pst.
It was awayback in the ³60s² that the little town was born, and Mrs. Chittenden and Mr. & Mrs. Ditman were the first purchases, and with indomitable courage they cleared a spot in the wilderness, and proceeded to build. Mre. Chittendon appears to have an intuitive presentiment that a town would eventually spring up as she put up the mansard roof brick building which still is stinding. This was the nucleus of the town, and afterwards became store, Post Offic, and Rail Road station, gave Landisville a place on the map.
Many an acre, Mr. Marcus Fry, the pioneer surveyor, surveyed when the region was a comparative wilderness, and he knows how discouraging the outlook was.
Mrss Chitienden opened the first store which was patronized mainly by Jersey famers, who found it more convenient than going to Downstown, ³Fislerville² (Clayton), or other places to do their trading.
Joseph Vannaman afterward kept a store there, as did also Mrs. Ditman, whose husband was the first Post Master. Mrs. Ditman has been a resident for more than forty years, and says there's only Landisville in the world, and she is satisfied to spend her remaining days here. She has watched its infant slumbers, and was present at its awakening, and has sesn the wonderful development of the last few years, and says the people are harmonious and law-abiding, prosperous, and happy, and she feels a deal of pride and satisfaction as she notes the changes.
To be csntiued.
September 21, 1907
ber the old house, a reminder of ³Ye olden time², would scarcely recognize it now.
Roy Lewis of Rosenhayn is Principal of the school here.
Mrs. Miller of Oak is going to move to Mrs. Somers' house on Tuckahoe avenue.
Mrs. Wm. H. Lore formerly of Vineland is the guest of Mrs. Israel Baker.
Mr. John Morris of Bridgeton, i visiting his son James and daughter Mrs. Rosanna Baker.
Miss Maud Corsiglia a popular young woman from Richland is Telegraph operator and station Agent at Buena.
Lawyer Reed's handsome new suburban home will soon be completed. It is finished throughout in the most up-to-date style. But we forgot it isn't a new house, but an old-one made over, and whose who remem- (first line apparently the continuation of this one)
Mrs. Lewis Brown is spending the week at Millville.
Mrs. Myrtie Laka of Atlantic city is visiting her sister Mrs. Jacob hager.
Chas. Wray's new house on Summer ave will soon be ready for occupancy.
A daughter was born last Friday to Mr. & Mrs. Weeks.
Mrs. Albert Ernest left Tuesday for a trip to Niagara Falls, taking advantage of the reduced fare, with a number of Vineland excursionists.
Mrs. Jennie, & Mrs. Harry Dickson have relurned from Port Elizabeth.
The Jonas Department store has been very fortunate in securing so accomplished a sales woman as Miss Emma Clark.
Mrs. Elizabeth Dubler, mother of Doctor Dubler, has been ill with serious complica- for the past eleven weeks, but is somewhat improved at this writing.
Mrs. Cline's valuable saddle horse died last Tuesday morning after a short illness, and there were some suspicios that it might have been poisoned.
³ATOUR AROUND the WORLD²
will be given this evening under the direction of the Epworth League. Five countries wili be visited, and the Oriental customs, dress and manners will be well worth seeing. A cordial invitation is extended to all who would like to see the Orient.
Mrs. C. Natillo of Phila., has been spending the summer with her father since the death of her mother, Mrs. Julia Minofia. She wishes to rent the farm before return- home.
Historical Sketches of Landisville By the Editor - Chapter II
Among those who have resided here the longest during recent years, the Martinelli Bros. Are probably the bet known. Andrew, who keeps a large hotel and boarding house, probably takes in more money than any one except his brother Dominick. They have lived in the vicinity upwards of twenty years. Dominick controls the largest business interests of any one in that section of South Jersey, except George Jonas of Minatola. He is an Italian by birth, and came to this country some years previous to his arrival here. After settling at Landisville, he engaged with Mr. Landis, the founper of Vineland, as agent and Interpreter, to represent his interests in the locality, and he was a very reliable and successful agent for ten our twelve years, when he started his business for himself. He has enlarged his business from time to time, until he now has, beside his Real Estate Office, a large Departmens store, a saw mill, a well-equipped machineshop, and a plumbing and steam fitting establishment.
Charles F. Reidel is one of the successful residents whose enterprise is seen in the large shipments of fruit and produce, and the nice home he has built opposite the R.R. station.
Mr. F. V. Dunfee formerly of Vineland is the popular Station Agent and Telegrpher, and attends to all the freight and shipping business.
Mr. R. Fughell came from Italy ten years ago, but has lived at Landisville only two, in which time he has established the first shoe store in the town, and stocked it with a well-selected line of goods.
Mr. Catvoli has been in America three years, and since coming to Landisville has built the first saw mili, and a large store & dwelling, and also has a blackfmith & wheel wright shop in connection with his mill.
Mr. Leonel is one of the enterprising business men who has built up a good trade. He has general store, and a wheelwright & blacksmith show oppocite. He has been here five years, and is well pleased with this part of Jersey.
Mr. Almero Francesca has the first meat market, also a well-filled sry,goods stote. The building is large, and is a great addition to the town.
Mr. Archibald Cook of east Oak road, is an old Vinelander, and has there 31 years. He is doing a good business as a Lumber Dealer and carries a good supply of all kinds of building material. He goes back and forth daily from his home on Oak road, east of Brewster, to his lumber, yard which is on the south side of the New Jersey Cen.
To be csntiued
September 28, 1907
Mr. Norman McConnell of Newtonville, is SupervisingPrinciple of the schools.
Mr. Phipps recently a teacher in the Phillippine is Principal of the village school.
Misses Bessie & Emma Tomlin of Atlantic city, and Mrs. John C. Taylor of Cape May C.H., have the guests of Mrs. Parsons.
Mr. & Mrs. Wm. Craig have moved from Atlantic city and will reside on Pacific ava.
Miss Bertha Edsal of Hammonton is the Intermediate techer, and Miss Minnie Cook the Primary at the Central school
Mrs. Walter Armstrong has returned to her home in Washington D.C., after a two months visit with her mother rs. Benjamin Vannaman, where she has been since the death of her father on August 24 th .
Historical Sketches of Landisville By the Editor Chapter III
George Sharp is among the number who have made for themselves comfortable homes surrounded by flowers and shrubbery in the outskirts of Landisville. He and his family came from Folsom six years ago and he is employed at the Glass factory.
Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Brown also belong to the the industrious and thrifty class whose flower embowered cottage bespeaks the taste of the inmates.
Mr. C.A. Gross who came from Bucks Co Pa., 37 yrs. Ago, has a nice home on Weymouth road north of the N.J. Central R.R. He has held several important offices beside attending to his farm. He served as town clerk four years and 3 yrs as Township Collector, and was also one of the Township Committee four years Mr. Gross has also taught school several years, and it will be seen by his recerd, that his life has been a busy one.
It was soon after the Vineland Railway was built to connect with the N.J. Southern that the late Charles K. Landis conceived the idea of establishing another town similar to Vineland which ahd such a phenomenal growth during its pioneer life, and it was ³Landisville: in his honor; but it did not develop as he had hoped it might, never-the-less he had hhpes that it might some- be the commercial center of a growing population who would clear the land, and till the soil. nd such it now is, - the centre from
Mr. Joseph Fair who lives about two miles west of the R.R. station between Forest Grove and Downstown, is one of the old settlers and came here from (cannot read begins with P). He brought with him the energy and force of character which always go to make a desirable citizen and a successful man. His well kept farm and nice home is a demonstration of the above facts.
We intended to finish the sketches of Landisville, and follow with a chapter of Buena; but, as it would necessarily be short, will wait until next week.
We are also preparing historical sketches of Downstown, Piney Hollow, or Victoria, Lake Malaga & Norma.
To be csntiued
October 5, 1907
Historical Sketches of Buena By the Editor - Chapter IV
The following lines were suggested by the ruins of an old charcoal mill which are seen on the Tuckahoe road afew rods west of Buena station on the W. & S.R.R. It was built sometime in the early part of the 19 th after the war of 1812, when the woods were full of charcoal pits, and the smoke curled upward from hundreds of charcoal burners' huts.
These cabins were of the most primitive structure imaginable, and contained only room devoid of comfort, there being no furniture except a rude bunk made of roughly hewn timder and benches and table of the same rude construction. The wants of these people were few. When their week's wages wore daid, they went to Millville, Malage, Bridgton, whichever town was nearest. They returged with a week's supply of eornmeal, whiskey, tobacco and porb.
The charcoal after being crushed was taken to Philadelphia with ox teams before the advent of horses, where it found a ready market. Charcoal beds and huts were still to be seen in the woods around Vineland as late as '67, but are very scarce now.
To be csntiued
THE OLD CHARCOAL MILL
Beside the road its ruins stand,
October 12, 1907
Mr. & Mrs. Winfield Berry have moved from Bridgeton to West Avenue.
Margarel & Banks, Contractors, are putting up a new dwelling corner of Lincoln avenue and Wheat road, for Mr. Savoli.
Mr.Chas. Chalmers Superintendent of the State Grange attended a special session of that body rast Saturday at Newton,Sussex Co. Over 100 took the 6 th Degree, and 68 took the Pomona Degree.
John Campbell & family of Oak roao ate ripe strawberries last Tuesday, and if their plants do as well as some which he had three years ago they will be picking and eating untll Thanksgiving Day. That year his last shipment was made on Movember 4 th , and on Thanksgiving Day Mrs Campbell took quarts to Phila., and they had been having all the month. the last berry was picked on Christmas; it was ripe, but was encased in ice.
R.W. CHEW'S RESTAURANT CENTRAL AVENUE, MINATOLA, N. J.
You can get OYSTERS in every style, Pie & Milk, Tobacco, Cigars & Soft Drinks,
SOUVENIR Post Cards. This is headquarters for them.
Passengers on the New Jersey Central train from New York last Wednesday evening, had an experience the will not forget.
Visions of hot suppers and a warm welcome at home danced through their brains as they approached Cedar Lake. But those hot suppers vanished when the road bloked by a coal car which lay across both tracks and no telegraph office within six miles!!
The only alternative for the passenger train was to back seven miles to Winslow Junction. dragging the freight cars which had been left oa the main track while the coalcarwas being shifted, and wire to Lakchurst, 38 miles away, for the wrecker, and then wait for it to pass.
In the mean time the rear coach of the passenger train had been transformed into a dining & sleeping car, and while a few of the belated travelers slept, most of them chatted and laughed and found the situa-amusing as well as vexing. But it was not until they had waited on the switch at Cedar Lake for three long freight trains to pass northward, and had again gotten under ³headway² that they really believed they would get home before morning.
Mrs. L. H. Miller, Mrs. W. P. Lyzo,t and the writer were the three Vineland women enjoyed(?) the free ride to Cedar Lake and (note: column ends abruptly and does not appear to continue elsewhere in the issue)
Historical Sketches of Buena - By the Editor Chapter V
(note that Oct 19 column is also labeled Chapter V)
Much relating to the pioneer life of the early settlers was lost, when they died, and all that remains is that which has been handed down through several generations. This is unfortunate not only for the people of today, but for future generations as well. Not even a moss-grown tombstone marks the last resting place of some of them, and it is reported that one of these old burial grounds was sold years ago, and plowed up
They lived and toiled amid great privations and discouragements, clearing the land which in those days was heavily timbered, building their log cabins and tilling the soil. Those who have inherited these lends can have no idea of the privations and inconvenience experienced by thos pioneers when southern Ndw Jersey was a ³howlin' wilderness.² Their corn was sometimes toted on their backs to Cumberland or Bridgeton to before the mill was built at Malaga, and those jonrneys were not unfraught with daugers from wild beasts. Bears, wolves, panthers, & wild cats were found in the woods, and often made the nights hideous with their cries.
Fortunately for those pioneers, deer and other wild game were plentiful, while turkeys, geese, pidgeons & pheasants could be killed at any time. Wild fruits & nuts grew everywhere, and were a God-send to these people.
Among the prominent names of first laudholders, were the Campbells, Cakes, Bakers, Vananmans and Morrises.
Theold house built by Mr. Archibald Campbell more than 100 years ago, is still standing on the Tuckahoe road about half a mile southeast of Buena station. The tiny window panes, 4x6 inches, and the heavy doors, with hinges two feet in length are still thers to prove its antiquity, and Benjamin Campbell the present owner and occupant says he means to keep them as long as he can. He is one of ten children born to Mr & Mrs. Archibald Campbell, during the first half of the last century, and four grandchildren and a great-grand daughter also born uuder the same roof, make four generations wnic have been sheltered there, and called it home some of whom nave passed out to make for themselves homcs elsewhere. The great grand child was a daughter born to Mr. & Mrs. Gardur Campbell of Medford.
The old well dug a century ago, is still there, where the four generations with mana a thirsty travller have quenched their hirst, while they rested under the shade of the giant trees.
Mr Campbelt keeps a house of entertain-foi hunters who come from all parts of the state during the season.
To be continued
The poem THE OLD CHARCOAL MILL which was in the October 5 issue and copied above appeared in this issue as well below Chapter V.
October 19, 1907
Historical Sketches of Buena By the Editor - Chapter V
The oldest of the original settlers of Buena now living is Mr. John Morris who resides in Bridgeton. He will be 89 on the 14 th of next November, and is in the enjoyment of good health. His mind is clear, and his faculties unimpaired, which is remarkabl for one of so advanced an age.
He livdd at Buena upwards of 65 years, long before Vineland was started, or thought when the tract lying between Malaga and May's Landing & Bridgeton was a wilderness, broken here and there by an old Jersey farm. A few of the old houses still remain, but some have been torn down, and others have been modernized.
The nearest Post Office was Millville, eleven miles distant Mr. & Mrs. Morris raised a large family, and be has lived to se them well-settled in life.
Mr. Morris in contrasting the early scenes with which he was familiar, with those of today, notes with pleasure the changes which have taken place throughou, the surrounding country. Factory whistles, hum of machinery, blasts of the locomotive are heard instead of the scream of the panther, hoot of the owl, and howl of the wolf.
The oldest land-mark of which Buena can boast is the hotel corner of Tuckahoe and Wheat, or Maule's Bridge road, as it was formerly called. This hotel was built in 1779 by Mr. John Campbell, Great-great-grand-father of Mrs. U. A.Creamer of Vineland.
It will be seen that the old hotel is nearly as old as the Declaration of Independence. It was called ³Campbell's Tavern² until after the Mesican War, when it was givena he Spanish name, Buena Vista by Mr. Geo.B. Cake Sr., who purchased it of Mr. John Madden in 1848, who had owned it since 1832. The town has been known by that euphonious title since, until recently ³Vista² was dropped because there is another town by that name in the state.
It was for many years the Relay house for the stage lines on Maule's Bridge and Tuckahoe roads, where the horses were exchanged for fresh ones.
If the o'd hotel could speak, it might tell strange tales of what it has seen and heard around the blazing hearth in the bar-room, and dining room where the guests used to sit and tell of the adventures of their Gran-thers with the Indians, and in the Revolutionary War, and the war of 1812.
21 years of the 18 th century, 100 of the 19 th , and seven of the 20 th , have left their whirling record behind, and still the old relic of a hundrod years keeps its vigils as it did in the Long ago. But a different element now crosses the threshold. It is no longer the way-traveller of the stage coach, going back and forth from Philadelphia, unless they are traveling in an automobile, because the electric & steam cars ca-ry the on-rushidg people. Mr Joseph Guiffra is the present owner.
A few years ago a large old-time dwelling stood on the opposite corner from the old hotel. This was known as the home of Mr. & Mrs. Ferrill, and family, wholeft there about 30 years ago. Their daughter Annie became the wife of Mr. U. A. Creamer, and although the old place i. Endeared by a thousand fond ties, yet her social and religious interests are identified with Vineland.
Lawyer Reed, who came to Buena twenty years ago from Philadelphia, is the present owner of the Ferrell home, and has had it re-modelled so that it bears little resemblance to the old home of the Ferrelrs.
Mr. Ferrell was one of the best and most infludntial os Buena's residents.
Lawyer Reed came in quest of health, and found it in a short time; but the great seasids resorts were not booming then, and Lakewood was unknown.
He is a native of Dover, Del., where he practiced law 20 years previous to going to Phila., where he remained three years.
Mr. Reed was a member of the Legislature in Delaware in 1867, and ran on the Douglas ticket in 1860. He has Chosen Free Holder nineteen years, and on the ticket again.
But he is also a successful farmer. He bo't a farm on the Tucahoe road north west of the town when he first came to Buena, where he and his family resided until the daughter and two Sons were married and went to homes of sheir own. Mrs. Reed who is fond of society, has found country-life very lonely. Lawyer Reed af Atlantic city, who is President of the Board Walk National Bank, is Mr. & Mrs. Reed's younger son. Their elder son is in business in Philadelphia.
To be csntiued
October 26, 1907 should have had Chapter VI, but it does not appear. Picks up with chapter VII on November 2 Please note that the column on October 19 is a full column and perhaps was intended to be two chapters and cover two weeks.
November 2, 1907
Historical Sketches of Buena By the Editor Chapter VII
Frank, son of ³Uncle Archie² Campbell was not satisfied to settle down in Jersey's most of his ancestors had done, consequent, he broke away from the old scenes, and associations, and went to Virginia more than forty years ago. Two of his daughters, Mrs. Irrick and Mr. Hornsby with their husbands and families, came to Bueac about 18 years go, where they have since lived. Mr. Irrick and Mr. Hornsby bought adjoining farms on Wheat road, near Buena station, which they keep in a good state of cultivation. The former was with Dr. Cook the state Geologist, and Dr.Bowser when they made the geological survey. Heis well informed as to the altitude of New Jersey and it is very interesting to hear him explain how they find the altitude of any point, and the accuracy with which the scientific survey was mabe.
Simeon S. Brown who lives on the north side of Wheat road opposite the abov, was born at Dorchester, this state, but came to Buena in childhood. He is employed asadriver by the Geo. Jonas Co. His wife is a daughter of the lase Phillip and Mrs. Rosanna Baker, life-long residents of Buena. The Baker homestead is on Tuckahoe road, west of the station, where Baker and son Phillip Jr. reside. She is a daughter of Mr. John Morris, the oldest survivor of Buena's old-time residents, a sketch of whose life has already been published.
Mr. & Mrs. CharlesWray whose lovely uburban home is near the Buena cross road are among the best known and most influential of the later residents. They have always been hospitabre, and public spirited, and their nome is the center of attraction for for old and young who enjoy the social gatherings, and Church festivities.
Mr. Wray is a pillar in the church and has held various offices of trust outside. To him was assigned the pleasant task of writing the history of the church the famous old ³Friendship church,² of which we read so frequently. And he has done it well. He presented us with a copy and we found it very interesting and well-written, and shows evidence of much research. Mr. Wray kindly gave us permission to glean any information we might desire for publication. Appreciateing his kindness, we gladly availed ourself of the oppo.tunity, we shall next wcek give a sketch of the old church.
John Newman, who lives on Tuckahoe road opposite Mrs. Rosanna Baker, formerly tived in Vineland. It was during the early years, when the town was new, when only two Grocery stores flourished here, aud there was no Baker House, but the ³Cumberland Hotel² stood where the former now stands. His wife is a daughter of Mrs. Baker.
To be continued
November 2, 1907
Historical Sketches of Buena By the Editor Chapter VIII
Ninety nine years is to most people more than a life-time, and today as we take up the histor of the old ³Friendship² church which covers that period, we note the vast changes which have taken place everywhere. Kingdoms have arisen and passed away; Empires have crumbled; Republios have been born; the greatest scientific discoveries the world has ever know have been made, and the advancement in knowledge and inventions are such as no one had ever dreamed of, and are startling in their magnitude and importance.
Many changes have taken place around the old church since it was built in 1808.
The deed, which is the only authentic record of the church to be had.is dated May 8 th 1808and was recorded in the Gloucester county clerk's office on November 4 th of that year. This deed was given by William & Hope Hollinshead, and is supposed to have been a gift to the church the grantors, as only the nominal price of $1.00 is usmed.
The first Trustees were John Smith, Joel Stewart, William Ackley, John Veal, John Veal, John Smith, Jr., George Smith and Thomas Champion. The following namesof later trustees are also foun l on th back of the deed: Elected July 29 th . 1824. John Veal, Wm. Ackley, Aquilla Downs, Nathan Girard and Henry Veal; elected June 26 th 1860, Chartes Dowus secretary, Gco. Down, Wesley Vannaman, Ambrose Pancoast and Archibald Campbell. The last election written on the old deed was June 4 th 1866, viz; Osborn Downs, Pres.: John Walker Dewns sec.; Geo. Downs, Treas.
The first ³Circutt Pre chers² wereRevs Benjamin Iliff & Daniel Higby who were the faithful ministers in 1803,when this regeon was an almost unbroken wilderness; when the this grand Republic was in its infancy, and ndt the mistress of the world as she is today; when the Methodist church was only 24 years old, having been organized in 1784,and had comparatively few adherents, and had not grown to such magniiceut proportions. It has long been a source of wonder why this church was built in so isolated a place instead of near a settlement, but it is probable that the location was not of their choosing, but being a gift was received with grataful hearts and being central was easy of access to the sparsely settled districts.
The farm on Weymouth road near the N.J.C.R.R., was uon all accounts, the clearing nearest to the church, and it was in this house which was standing on that farm when the church was built, that the meetings were first held. This old dwelling was burned in September 1855. It is a matter for much regret that so many of the old landmarks, around which there clusters so much of historic value, could not have been preserved.
In 1808, May's Landing and Millville, the nearest towns, were only small villages, and Bridgeton was not much larger.
To be continued
November 16, 1907
Historical Sketches of Downstown By the Editor - Chapter IX
One of the most striking and pleasing features of the old towns is the grand old trees one sees everywhere. Each town visited has more or less of them. They stand by the roadsides, in groups on the lawn, or or in groves at the rear their giant . measuring from nine to eighteen feet in circumference, while their giant limbs reach out in every direction, and afford a grateful shade in summer. You can always know when yoy are approaching an old town by the large trees. They give the town an air of antiquity, and much to the picturesque beauty.
Salem, Bridgeton, Greenwich and all the old Jersey towns, whether in north, south, or central New Jersey, are noted for their old trees, and when one looks at them, they point to the past to Revolutionary times.
Aquilla Down was the first settler in the quaint little hamlet which was named for him. He baught 3000 acres in the heart of the forest, remote from any settlement, and built the first house and barn, the latter of which is still standing on the road which goes to Forest Grove, about half a mile east of where the school house now stands. They were built of hewn timber, in the most durable manner. The house w s replaced with a larger and more pretentious one some time during the last century.
It must have real of courage on the part of Aquilla Down and his good wife to set- in such a wilderness, but they came of good old stock, and were not easily daunted. But it would riy the courage of some of Grandmother Downs great-grand daughters if they were living in the woods two miles from any house, and had to spin wool or flax as she did while she rocked the cradle with one oot, and listened to the wolves howling not far away. It would also try them if they saw a bear come out of the woods, seize a sheep and get away with it.
Mr. Down gave each of his children a farm so that the large estate was in the family for many years. Mr. Puglio, a successful Italian farmer now owns the original homestead. It seems a pity that it could not have been retained in the family instead of pesing to strangers.
To be continued
November 23, 1907 no heading, but appears to be a continuation ends in mid-sentence with no indication of a continuance. What is there reads as follows:
Mr. & Mrs. Aquilla Downs had five sons and two daughters, viz., Osborn, Charles, John, George, and Jesse, Aunr Sarah Berry & Aunt Keziah Kandle. Their descendants are widely scattered, through the far west, and throug nearby states while a great mano are found in this locality. Only two now reside at Downstown, William Comer and Charles D. Pancoast, both of whom are geat grand sons of Aquilla Downs.
Mr. Comer resides at the intersection of Brewster, Forest Grove and Williamstown roads' He has always been anxious that the town might develop, and has been identified with the administration of township affairs in various ways. He is extensively engaged in crnnberry culture.
Charles D. Pancoast is proprietor of the old Downstown saw mill which, although it stands in the heart of the town, has not seen the light of three centuries as some of the old houses have. It was built in 1862, when this country was in the throes of the Civil War. Before tha, time lumber for the resieents of this locality and for miles in all directions, were obliged to go to Pancoast's mill several miles east of Buena. This mill was built more than a hundred years ago, by Champion Campbell, a relative of Uncle
November 30, 1907
Historical Sketches of Downstown By the Editor Chap. XI
Through some mistake the blame for which has not been located, there was a terrible mix-up in last weeks historical sketches. The heading was entirely left out, chapter and all, the ending was abrupt, and a most interesting part missing. As it closed with the middle of a sentence, this chapter commences wheret the other left off.
Archie Campbell, a sketch of whose life was published several weeks ago, but the mill which we wish to consider is the Downstown mill mentioned in the foregoing chapter. This old mill has been running continuously since 1862, except when shut down for slight repairs. The engine is one of the old Marine engines built by Merrick & Sons Phila., in 1850. It had been thrown away for old iron when Mr. Pancoast's father, who had gone to Phila., to purchase an engine, discovered, brought it home, and it was setup and has always given satisfaction. Mr. Pancoast is very proud of its record. The smokestack of this mill is 55 feet high, aud contains 50,000 brick,and 100 perch of stone. The steam whistle can be heard for miles.
It was impossible to trace all the descendents of Aquilla Downs without going a deal of expense, which would not pay, consequently, weceu meetion only a few.
Charles, the second son has numerous descendents in this locality, and among them maybe mentioned the family of his daughter Sarah, wife of J.A. Ross. Their home is on the Tuckahoe road, or what is known ou the east side of Tuckahoe road, and on the west side as Malaga road. This place is now owned by Mr. A. Ahquist who has lived there ten years. The house is a very ancient one and bears the unmistakable marks of age being built of hewn timber, and put together with large wooden pegs. A ³Raising² in those days was a great affair. The men of the neighborhood were invited, and when one side of the frame was ready, they all began to lift, while the foreman shouted, ³He-oh he, he oh he, he-oh heave er up² and then how quickly it went up!
Mr Ross' family consisted of four daughters and three sons, as follows:
Mrs. Whitaker, of Merchantville; Charles D. Ross, Malaga; Mrs. Lewis Pierson, Mrs Phillip Unsworth, Mrs. Thomas Bowman, & William D. Ross of Vineland. A half-brother is living elsewhere. The family is influetiyl one, and much respected.
To be continued
December 7, 1907
Historical Sketches of Downstown By the Editor Chap XII
It should have been stated in a previous chapter, that the Downstown steam mill was the first one located anywhere in the vicinity, and was a great curlosity to the pecple who had never seen one run in any other way than by water, with a mill dam and a ponderous wheel. Bul it was a great convenience, and the lumber could be sawed to much beteer advantago as it did not have to be hauled so far.
Jesse, & Cathrine Downs had seven sons, and six daughters, all of whom lived to a good old age except one who died at three years of age. Mrs. Priscilla Chew of Minorola, is one of them. She was born at Downtown, and lived there until a few years ago, but memory clings to the old home around which cluster so many tender reminiscences. Mrs' Chew is a very interesting woman and always gives her friends a warm weleome at her cozy home on Pacis'c avenue, where she spends most of her time. Her only son Dr. Elisha Chew lives in Atlantic city and has a luerative practice. He looks after his mother with the greatest devotion.
Ends with . To be continued (this is the last issue in the volume)
Copyright 2002-2013 West Jersey History Project
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Yes, you heard right and you might be asking – what on earth do Costco and Tinder have in common? Well, let me explain.
A couple of months ago I headed to Costco for my usual run to buy café, chips, and other random household items.
Kid #3 was with me that day and I clearly remember that said Kid #3 so rudely stated to me, “Mom, you’re getting old and ugly!” or something to that effect as we entered the store.
I can’t recall the exact reason why she was saying that but surely it had to be in response to a possible complaint, a slow movement, or just straight out giving me a hard time as my kids are known to do. My three daughters are currently in the evil teenage years, need I explain more? Nope.
I rolled my eyes at her a few times and told her to be quiet.
We proceeded to walk throughout the store picking up the needed items, visiting the sample booths, and checking out the new merch. We eventually made our way to the wonderful coffee aisle and as I was looking for my favorite Don Jose brand of chocolatey café, a tall white man dressed in jeans and a form-fitting red shirt walked towards me and asked, “Can I ask you a question?” to which I responded, “Sure,” as I looked at him with some suspicion.
“Could you recommend a good coffee shop nearby that’s not the usual Starbucks?”
I quickly glanced at him, sizing him up, thinking, can’t you use your iPhone for this? But, because I’ve made it a point in my life to try and be a helpful person, I said, “Hmmm… let me think for a bit.” As I scanned the mental map in my mind for the coffee shops that were generally close to the area, he interrupted my thinking and said, “It’s for a Tinder date and I’m trying to pick a good place to meet.”
As these words slid out of his mouth, the being shifted throwing me into super control mode and held back saying “Que la chingada?” out loud. My glance quickly shifted to Kid #3 who was standing just a bit behind the man within hearing range and then back at him. Of course she was about ready to crack up and her facial expression was priceless.
I said, “Oh, okay.” And then proceeded to recommend all of the coffee shops that came to mind because I had taken the question seriously.
It took every effort on my part using controlled breathing techniques for me not to turn a shade of purple and break out in a nervous sweat as I continued to give him ridiculously detailed descriptions of each place I could think of within a 5 mile radius.
When I finished providing my suggestions on what I believed would be the best coffee shop for his Tinder meet up, he then asked the question he actually intended to ask from the very start, “Are you on Tinder?”
“Who me?” I muttered in what must have been such a dumb way because Kid #3 was now looking at me with the craziest expression, her hands held over her mouth, holding back the laughter and mouthing, “WTF?!”
“Oh my god, no.” I managed to say to him as my face reflected the same shade of salmon pink as the blouse I was wearing that day.
He then slyly says to me, “Oh, that’s too bad,” thanks me for the information and heads down the coffee aisle on his merry way.
I wait until he turns the corner and then look at Kid #3 who is laughing so hard she’s doubled over and I say to her, “Andale, who’s old and ugly now? See I still got my mojo despite the years and wrinkles. Mmhmm.”
“OMG mom! What was that?”
“I don’t know but maybe I should be on Tinder.”
“Uh huh. That’s what you think, obviously not him.”
Kid #3 doesn’t leave it there. She sends a speed text to Kid #2 who is in disbelief and also tells a couple of her other friends about the incident.
Lessons learned: 1. Never tell your mama that she’s old and ugly. 2. Costco might be the new dating scene (or maybe it’s always been and I’ve been oblivious?). 3. I guess it’s the new normal to ask random people if they’re on these damned dating apps.
As I reflected on the whole Costco-Tinder experience, although it took me off guard and caused me momentary embarrassment and discomfort, it was the best venganza that could have been inflicted on Kid #3. Gracias Universe for that.
#laxicana #tinder #costco #wtf
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Hyderabad has always a large number of tourist groups congregating around the city all through the year. The princely city of Hyderabad has a host of options for sightseeing and is apparently one of the best places to experience the real South India culture and Mughal grandeur. However before you plan your trip, just check out for the right seasons, as this place is quite infamous for its searing temepratures. Geographically situated on the Southern Peninsula, this place has a rock-strewn and rough terrain. As far as the climate is concerned, the city has a contrasting weather with extreme dry and wet conditions. The temperatures in Hyderabad can rise up to 440C during the summer seasons and can go down as low as 80C during the winter months. Hyderabad has a blend of old world charisma with the vibrancies of modern world, making it one of the best places to explore. With Charminar, Golconda Fort, Chowmahalla Palace, Falaknuma Palace, Salar Jung Museum and many other exciting destinations to its name, a trip to Hyderabad is worth every penny. Read this article to know more on the best time to visit the city.
When to Go to Hyderabad
Hyderabad has a tropical climate that is extremely arid and damp. So it’s important to choose the right time to visit the metropolitan. Hyderabad shows great disparity in its climatic conditions throughout the year. The temperatures in summer rise up to 440C during the peak summer months of April, May and June. Monsoon usually hits towards the end of June and continues until early October. Hyderabad gets a good 810 mm of rainfall each year. Winters in Hyderabad sets in during late October and last up to early February with temperatures ranging from 290C to 140C.
Opting Your Favorite Season
If you enjoy the rainfall and if the dampness does not bother you, then July to early October is the right time to tour the city. However, if you love feeling the sun’s heat on your skin and prefer to tour under a clear blue sky, then February to early March is the right time to go. The heat wave during this time is tolerable as compared to the later months. However, make sure to consume sufficient fluids to avoid getting your throats desiccated. Also, don’t forget to carry sun screen lotions, wide brimmed hats and umbrella to safeguard yourself from the harsh sunrays. However, if you prefer a pleasant weather then late October to early February is the best time to rush to Hyderabad.
Best Time To Visit
The ideal time to visit Hyderabad would be during winter as the temperature dips downwards considerably during the months of October and February. Hyderabad is well known for its searing heat wave. Hence, it’s best to visit the place during winter to make your trip pleasurable and avoid warm temperatures and perspiration. The city brings together the royal grandeur of the bygone epoch and beautiful scenic landscape that are a complete delight to your senses. Another reason for you to visit Hyderabad during winter is to experience the harvest festival known as ‘Pongal’. The festival usually comes in the month of January. So, join the celebration and enjoy the delicacies of this regional culinary on your visit to the city.
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From Aisgill Moor Cottages, east across the railway bridge then north to Hellgill Force. Continuing north on footpaths to Elmgill, crossing the B6259 and following A Pennine Journey to Pendragon Castle. Return by way of the B6259 through Outhgill, on to the Pennine Bridleway at The Thrang, and via a footpath at Hell Gill Bridge. A 10-mile walk in the Yorkshire Dales.
The best map to use on this walk is the Ordnance Survey map of the Howgill Fells & Upper Eden Valley, reference OS Explorer OL19, scale 1:25,000. It clearly displays footpaths, rights of way, open access land and vegetation on the ground, making it ideal for walking, running and hiking. The map can be purchased from Amazon in either a standard, paper version or a weatherproof, laminated version, as shown below.
Settle to Carlisle railway line running through the valley of Mallerstang.
Looking north along the dale of Mallerstang.
Waterfalls beneath Hanging Lund Scar.
Dead moles hanging on barbed wire.
Thrang Bridge across the River Eden.
Pendragon Castle is now a ruin in the Mallerstang valley to the south of Kirkby Stephen. It occupies a site close to a young River Eden with the peaks of Wild Boar Fell and Mallerstang Edge towering over it. The castle is steeped in history.
According to legend the original castle was built by Uther Pendragon, father of King Arthur, in the 5th century and may have been the site of his death when a well was poisoned by the Saxons. However, there is no evidence to support the legend that there was a castle here before the 12th century.
Pendragon Castle has had several notable owners including Sir Hugh de Morville – one of the knights who murdered Sir Thomas Beckett in 1170. He was Lord of Westmorland and Hugh’s Seat – a peak on the Mallerstang ridge – is named after him. Lady Anne Clifford was a very well known landowner who rebuilt the castle after it had been destroyed by a Scott’s raiding party. She added a brewhouse, bakery, stables and coach house and was a frequent visitor until her death in 1676.
St Mary’s Church, Outhgill, in the Mallerstang valley.
Eden Benchmarks is a series of 10 contemporary stone sculptures located at intervals along the length of the River Eden between its source above the Mallerstang valley and Rockliffe, north of Carlisle, where it runs into the Solway Firth.
The first sculpture in the series is called ‘Water Cut’ and is located a few miles from the source of the River Eden, high up on the eastern side of the Mallerstang valley. Like a huge milestone, it stands alongside the ancient green road known as Lady Anne Clifford’s Way. The space carved between the two vertical pillars creates the shape of a meandering river in the sky and provides a ‘window’ onto the real river in the valley below. It also symbolises the power of the River Eden cutting through the rock on its journey through East Cumbria and our own human journeys through the rural landscape and through life. Made from Salterwath Limestone, taken from a quarry near Shap, it also resembles the gate posts and stiles in drystone walls, which are so characteristic of the area, whilst its outer curve refers to the viaduct arches on the nearby Settle to Carlisle railway line.
Old Roman road across Hellgill Wold.
A deep narrow ravine cut out by Hell Gill Beck.
Hell Gill Bridge.
Hell Gill Beck, which becomes the River Eden further down.
Check out these products
Two of many very good base layers from the Amazon Berghaus store. Available in a variety of colours and sizes. I often wear them together for extra warmth and insulation.
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Claire Still (Thompson)
Claire attended her first Ballet class at 3 years old, and her love for dance grew from there. At 6, she began attending classes in Ballroom and Latin, Street & Disco Freestyle, Rock 'n' Roll and Classical Sequence; all of which fall under the umbrella term of 'Dance Sport'.
Between the ages of 6 and 16 Claire entered ISTD (Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing) examinations and competitions in all 5 Dance Sport genres. She set an aim with her dance teacher to achieve Gold Star standard before she was 12 years old (Juvenile) in all 5 genres, which she achieved. She then went on to complete her examinations to Gold Star level in the Junior age category in both her own role; and in a partnering role in preparation for professional work.
Her achievements include winning 6 National Championship Competitions; and 3 National Championship titles - Ballroom, Latin, Sequence in the same year!
Having always strived for a career in dance teaching, to share her passion with others, Claire turned professional at 16, taking her first qualification. From there she worked hard to complete her qualifications in 5 genres to Licentiate level, which allowed her to adjudicate at competitions and lecture on behalf of the ISTD. She has attained between 96% - 99% in all of her professional examinations, in both the practical and theory sections. Claire was also the first Dance Sport professional to complete the FDI and CDE examinations, for which she was used as a mock candidate to help train the examiners at ISTD headquarters.
In 2008 Claire was awarded the Phyllis Haylor scholarship by the ISTD - an award given to the most promising young professional. Just a year later she received the 'Coach of the Year' Award from the West Suffolk Sports Partnership, having been nominated by a number of individuals.
Claire presented her first lecture on behalf of the ISTD in 2009, and has lectured many many times to date, at annual congresses for all faculties; as well as assisting other lecturers. Recently on behalf of the ISTD's brand new Springboard event at Urdang Academy, London; along side other lecturers such as ITV's Britain's Got Talent Dance group 'Flawless' and members of the Royal Ballet School.
Claire now sits on the Modern Ballroom Faculty Committee for the ISTD, helping to shape the future of Ballroom Dance.
Building her school...
In 2003 at just 15, Claire opened up her first set of classes alongside her teacher. After gaining experience and leaving school Claire ran these alone working hard to build and expand the timetable; and those classes have been successfully running in the Newmarket area ever since.
As well as running the Newmarket classes Claire worked to develop more teaching work, and achieved an opening in a local primary school in Cambridgeshire - Foxton Primary. It started by running a before school club which this really took off, and she was soon approached by other local schools to run the same. Claire went on to teach during curriculum time in addition to the before and after school clubs, offering dance opportunities to all children. Twelve years on, and the strand of the Studio 'Funky Feet' , as it has been renamed, has and continues to work in many primary and middle schools across Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Suffolk.
After 7 years hard work, the most exciting venture, Claire achieved one of her dreams - she purchased the premises that is now The Studio - CT. After lots of planning, working and decorating, it was opened in October 2010, offering students the beautiful purpose built dance studio for their training. Five years on and The Studio has gone from strength to strength, adding many classes, and teachers, to its timetable both at the premises and at outside venues.
Pupils of The Studio - CT have been lucky including guest teaching and performances from the professionals of BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, the World Latin American Champions, and Masterclasses from West End cast members.
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Donna Gaines teach during Week 5 of "The Final Word," the Bellevue Women study of 2 Peter.
This seriesView series
The Final Word
Week 5 – 2 Peter 2:10-18
I. The Depravity of False Teachers (v. 10-17)
A. They indulge the flesh
B. Revile authorities
C. Despise the ordinances of God
The authorities to which Peter is referring may be angels, “glorious ones” or the church authorities to whom the false teachers were insubordinate.
“The false teachers are bold (in a reckless, foolhardy way) and willful (stubborn and arrogant), behaving in ways that even the angels avoid. They blaspheme the glorious ones, probably evil angels (cf. v. 11; Jude 8- 9). In so doing, they recklessly dismiss any thought that these demonic forces have power or that their willful sins will open them to demonic attack. But good angels, like wise humans, do not take these evil powers lightly” (ESV Study Bible, p. 2421).
The false teachers pose as Christians and even join them in their feasts which were associated with the Lord’s Supper.
Their eyes are full of adultery. They cannot look upon a woman without lusting for her. Their appetite for sin is never satisfied. To “entice” means to “lure with bait.” The “unstable souls” are those without a sure foundation.
In verse 14, “Peter would be referring not to the unsatisfactory nature of lust, but to the bondage it brings with it. There is only one way out, the way of death to sin and rising to newness of life; the only alternative to denying Christ is to be identified with Him in His death and resurrection” (Tyndale New Testament Commentary, p. 111).
“They have followed the way of Balaam.” – (v. 15-16) Numbers 22-24
II. The Enticement of the Flesh (v. 18-19)
These false teachers prey on new Christians and entice them into sexual immorality. They promise freedom, yet lead the unsuspecting into bondage. There is no greater bondage than the bondage to self.
When my love for Christ surpasses my love for self, sin loses its grip. God’s greatest commandment is for my greatest good.
III. The Crucifixion of the Flesh (Galatians 2:20; 5:13-25; Colossians 2:6- 15; Romans 8:5-8)
“When through spiritual disciplines I become able to heartily bless those who curse me, to pray without ceasing, to be at peace when not given credit for good deeds I’ve done, or to master the evil that comes my way, it is because my disciplinary activities have inwardly poised me for more and more interaction with the powers of the living God and His kingdom. Such is the potential we tap into when we use the disciplines for the spiritual life” (Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind, p. 32).
Take off the old and put on the new - Colossians 3.
Salvation is by grace through faith. Real faith will lead to works – James 2:14-26.
“A primary objective in training in Christlikeness is to break the power of our ready responses to do the opposite of what Jesus teaches: for example, scorn, anger, verbal manipulation, payback, silent collusion in the wrongdoing of others around us and so forth. These responses mainly exist at what we might call the ‘epidermal’ level of the self, the first point of contact with the world around us. They are almost totally ‘automatic’ giventheusualstimuli” (DallasWillard,RenewingtheChristianMind,p. 36).
“The gospel is not limited to justification. Justification results in positional holiness. Sanctification results in practical holiness. Both justification and sanctification are very good news.” Titus 2:11-14
“We are not merely saved from depravity; we are saved to holiness. Conversion entails consecration” (Jen Wilkin, Twitter, 2-3-19).
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:11-14).
“Healthy Christian living comes when God’s commands are seen as the curbstones on His highway of love, the hedge encompassing His garden of grace” (Tyndale New Testament Commentary, p. 118).
Personal Spiritual Disciplines:
- Silence and Solitude – “Muddy water becomes clear only if we let it be still for a while” (Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind, p. 39).
- Bible Reading and Study
- Scripture Memory – Fighting Words Fasting
- Praying God’s Word by Beth Moore
- 7 Basic Steps to Successful Fasting and Prayer by Bill Bright
- Fervent: A Woman’s Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer by Priscilla Shirer
- The 7 Day Prayer Warrior Experience by Stormie Omartian (free purchase on Kindle)
You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
1 John 4:4
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Archive for old orders – Option to archive old orders
Customer ID on CSV – The CSV file on download will contain “Customer ID” column
Amazon “customize the item” – The new amazon feature can be printed on the Invoice
Despatching logo – while the despatching of an item it is in progress, an orange logo will appear. This will be on till we receive confirmation of despatched item from the platform.
“Printed” , “Not printed” filter – Under “Awaiting postage” dropdown now you can filter printed orders from not printed and the other way around
New columns – “Tracking”, “Weight”
Courier integration – we have just finished integration with APC and Yodel.
Builder Improvement – now the text in the builder can be edited in size, font, and style (bold, italic and underline).
Mostly bugs fixes related to Net despatch and the invoice template builder
Template builder – in order for the customer to able to manage his invoice templates, we are introducing the brand new Template builder. It is simple and very effective.
Delete confirmation for printing templates, now you have the option to change your mind if you pressed to delete an existing template.
Emailing customers feature. A great feature that will help you increase your sales is our new option where you can send a personalized email to your customer. Here you can add future sale projects, advertise your website or any other subjects. The emails can be sent automatically or manually. If you need more information please have a look at the Support Page
Multiple Ecommerce platforms order download.
As from today we can download orders from multiple ecommerce platforms. Among this platforms will find Magento, Opencart, Os commerce, Woocommerce, 3dcart, Big commerce, Prestashop, Shopify, Ubercart, Virtuemart, Xcart and Zencart.
In order to be able to add your website to Just Ship IT you will need to have a license for up to 1000 ord/month and if you desire more that one website then you will need to have a license up to 3000 ord/month.
Edit invoice address.
As sometimes the buyer can change the shipping address after he made a purchase so we have added the option to be able to change the shipping address on the individual orders page.
Platform Name to the Amazon.
As some of our customers have multiple amazon account we have decided to add the option to be able to name the Amazon platforms so that the customer can differentiate the platforms.
Amazons one day premium shipping.
Amazon introduced the one day premium shipping which is an extra option that the buyer can choose and we have added to our application in the delivery option setings so that our client can have full access to all the features of the Amazon platform.
As the eBay and Amazon platforms are not the only selling platforms through our customers, we have decided adding few of the biggest and most important eCommerce platforms.
Label to go landscape or portrait.
As we can print labels on A4 sheet and on Zebra printer we needed an option to rotate the label on the page so it will not be required changes in the printer settings.
Weights on the orders for Hermes.
We have added an extra download that will pull the weights of the products from the orders so when this orders are exported as a CSV file for Hermes will contain all the values for the weights.
Airmail for PPI stamp.
We have added a Air mail stamp to Royal Mail PPI option so all the labels can be printed for international orders.
This option will allow the user to group orders and manage them as one. Beside this option the user will be able assign group of orders to other user with a little message.
This option is goo for companies who have warehouses where separate orders are assigned to different packers.
Fix the logo uploading control in the company settings.
There was some issues where the logo of the company needed to be deleted and changed and this fix have solved that issues.
Royal Mail CSV export Mapping updates.
This is just an update to the “export to Royal Mail” option as some columns and headers have been change by Royal MAIL.
This addon will download daily currency details from a third party national currency application and accordingly to this details Just Ship IT will label all your orders which have different currency than UK pound and will do the exchange rate so when you will download your orders to a CSV file for accounting purposes you will have all the payment in UK pounds.
Orders Grid – Sales Per Country.
A new option has been added to the application which will allow you download orders to a CSV file containing a summary of sales details by platforms and countries.
Please enter the email address associated with your account.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
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Whether you are constructing new tracks to replace old and worn tracks, or you’re doing maintenance on current tracks, the most essential part of having a stable track line is what ties you choose to use. There is always a question of what the situation demands, what budget allows for, and what is available, and in what quantities. For this reason, there are several different materials that are used depending on the circumstances for constructing new tracks.
Wooden Railroad Ties
A variety of wood types were used when creating wooden rail ties such as hardwood and softwood timbers. The main benefit of using wood is that it is relatively inexpensive and can be obtained in greater quantities—which is important when you’re laying down track, the miles add up. However, these benefits have been fading as the years draw on as timber becomes much more difficult to acquire.
The drawback to using wooden ties is that wood is susceptible to rotting due to moisture. Splitting is another issue that compromises the integrity of that particular railway track. Not as common, but dangerous nonetheless, is that wood ties can catch fire.
Overall, wood has a good balance of longevity and cost which makes it a solid option for using in your railway ties. It’s also the most commonly used tie—according to the RTA, which states that roughly 15 million of the 17 million installed ties are wood. That’s over 90%!
Concrete Railroad Ties
Concrete rail ties benefit from being very inexpensive to purchase and can at times be easier to acquire compared to timber. Concrete rail ties are also excellent for carrying heavier weights and are very stable, thus allowing for higher rail speeds.
Steel Railroad Ties
Steel ties have in the past been badly abused due to rapidly changing conditions and technology imposed on them. Many of these old steel ties are actually still faithfully in service today globally which is a testament to steel despite being outdated in design.
Modern steel ties can handle significantly heavier loads and environmental conditions. Creosote-treated wood ties and concrete ties are more impractical to install compared to steel. One of the reasons is that steel can be neatly stacked and transported more easily, it’s also lighter and can be more easily installed onto the existing track ballast than other materials.
Railroad Tie Installation
R&S Track is a premier railroad contractor in the Midwest United States. We have proudly been in business for over 27 years and have had the confidence of numerous companies seeking a variety of solutions including but not limited to:
- Project Design
- Railroad Tie Installation/Track Maintenance
- New Track Construction
We have a 100% track record of customer satisfaction. Don’t believe us? Drop us a line and references will be available on request. Call us now at (402)-564-1801 for any service inquiries or price estimates!
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You can hate Politics for what it has become and avoid it like a 10-foot pole. Or you can put purpose to it. One of these actions can change your life for the better. Which would you “vote” for?
An old Greek philosopher once said:
“Man is by nature a political animal.”
He even went on to write an extensive book called, well, “Politics”.
Aristotle figured if Man can reason and communicate with others, he probably could alter or change his living conditions for the better. Especially since he can recognize the difference from right or wrong.
Of course, he was working on an assumption: That a man with reason has to anchor his approach towards politics on the fundamental concept of good for human beings. An evaluation of modern politics, however, will tell us that Reality is far different from Theory.
“I Hate Politics.”
Politicians are often viewed as crooks. If they aren’t corrupted, they’re on the way there. And whatever project they propose is first to provide for their deep pockets. Everybody and everything else comes second.
In Malaysia, where Corruption is widely believed to be rampant, politics is a dirty game and a dreadful career. Politics seem to be about who thumps his or her chest loudest. And who can accuse the other of a sex scandal the fastest.
It appears to be a lot more to do with power grabbing and naked frolics in Videoland, and a lot less to do with problem solving.
Even the process of voting is encumbered with all sorts of evil tricks.
Even after you’ve managed to put in your ballot paper without incident, there’s no guarantee your desired candidate will win.
And even if the party of choice wins, there’s no guarantee that changes will happen.
“But I Want to Be Heard.”
At the heart of things, voting is a civic duty of every citizen. If that sounds as boring as having to clean your room once a week, think of the people long ago who went through hail and hellfire to fight for political suffrage for all.
OK, you weren’t born then and you really don’t care. How about considering the idea of being told to shut up every time you ask for something?
“Can I have the keys to the car?”
“Can I play football with my friends after homework?”
“Can I have a salary because I’ve been working for you for free, for, like, 2 frigging years?”
Voting is like having a voice and being able to use it to effect a change that benefits you. So it’s really more than just a civic duty. It’s your chance to shape the country and the way it’s run so you can improve your living conditions.
If you believe that you can, long enough, it may just happen. If you think it’s just a waste of time, then it won’t. It’s possibility versus nothing.
So, if you’re one of the 4.4 million unregistered voters who think your vote won’t make a difference, mull over this thought:
If all 4.4 million of you think the same way, there won’t be any difference. Everything stays the same (if it doesn’t continue to go downhill). On the flipside, if all of you rush out to the post office over the next few days and sign up, a shift could happen.
The “could” changes to “would” if a sizeable number out of this figure votes for the right candidate at the next elections, someone who actually does more than stroke his Prada suit while dismissing rallies as a waste of time.
It’s all about critical mass.
It’s all about getting to the tipping point for change to happen.
“Now, How Do I Start the Avalanche?”
Well, ask yourself what it is that you and your friends need?
What is it that you and your community dislike about the status quo?
It is usually related to something important to you, like education. (Is it the low quality of your teachers? The syllabus?)
If you’re working, it could be to do with the salary scale at the establishment to which you’re attached. (No pay rise for 3 years?)
If you’re looking to purchase your first home, it could be the prohibitive entry costs. (Not enough affordable homes? Payment schemes that tie you down for 20 years?)
It could also be down to a simple basic need and right. Like being able to express yourself freely about the things you’re unhappy about. Even if it’s to do with the way the government is governing.
Voting is the chance to find a candidate who will take up your complaints, suggestions, and ideas and solve it at the Local Council stage or, if he’s an MP, bring it to Parliament for debate and for lawmaking.
It’s the chance to co-create policies, to help the government improve and govern better. [Think “Second Life”, that online game, only more exciting because this is real.]
Deciding not to vote is agreeing to have your future decided by a bunch of old folks who prefer that you listen more than give your opinions.
(Even if they do make plenty of sense.)
“Eh, How Long is this Ride?”
Change, of course, does not happen overnight. Hey, even your hair won’t turn all metallic and silky after one wash of that amazing follicle boosting shampoo promoted on TV.
The idea of continuously keeping your finger on the pulse of politics, and voting, is to produce enough momentum to drive your country closer to that dream state or nation you desire.
For the campaigner, it’s transforming enough onlookers into active, informed voters – year on year – to move the nation forward.
A) Gathering and mobilising a community of like-minded voters who want similar things.
B) Educating voters like you on the backhanded mechanisms hatched by the incumbent party to halt fair elections in their tracks [so that nobody is disillusioned into thinking that any fight for good comes easy and fast].
C) Helping voters like you understand that every new government, state or federal, needs time to adjust, clean up, and create an office that is effective. Especially if the last one leaves with a plundered bank account and a host of unaccounted for purchases and bad deals.
D) Ensuring voters like you grasp the concept that state governments in Malaysia have control over management of religion, land, natural resources and water – but not much else. “Centralism” has meant that state governments are left with very little fiscal autonomy, with Putrajaya calling the shots on which state gets more grants for development. So, if your party of choice forms the state government and it isn’t the ruling party, proving you made the right choice can be a pretty tough battle in itself for the party you voted for. And yet, KNOWING this, there are things you could do about it.
“Good Things Come to Those Who Wait? Really?”
Most of us Malaysians would consider queuing up for really good Nasi Lemak, Banana Leaf Rice and Chicken Rice. Would we wait for a cleaner, less corrupted government? Better schools? The arbitrary oppressive laws like ISA and Official Secrets Act to be chucked out of our psyche forever? Shouldn’t we wait for lasting “treasures” as opposed to stuff that won’t stand the test of time? Shouldn’t we reserve some of our energies to shape our future instead of just focusing on the present?
To summarise, it all comes back down to the “U” in the whole equation of things. The YOU.
Be invested in politics because they affect U and they provide the information U need for the elections.
Be investigative and know who your local and Members of Parliament are because U will be making them accountable for your affairs.
Be a voter because U are the rakyat and U have a say in the way the country is run.
Because, as Aristotle says, U know what is right and wrong and with that knowledge, U can change your living conditions for the better.
Lisa Ng is a human being. She used to be a copywriter in the advertising industry. But now she just writes. For whatever helps us regain the lost art of “giving a toss” towards things that matter to the human race.
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They got Butch where the cougar needed to be: on the field for football games.
Some forty years after Washington State University ended the tradition of a live cougar mascot and the Butchmen disbanded, alumni share memories of the spirit group.
“Our job was to get the cougar to the football games and then, after we would score a touchdown or field goal, we would take him around the track,” recalls retired Colfax dentist Al Kirkpatrick (’75 Zool.), a member of the Butchmen for three years.
One time, he and his fellow Butchmen simply couldn’t get the cougar out of his cage and into its trailer. “We were the ones responsible for not getting Butch to a home game against the University of Idaho,” Kirkpatrick says.
After being unable to lure Butch into the rolling cage, Kirkpatrick began working with the cougar’s handler in the College of Veterinary Medicine. “I started feeding Butch on occasion,” Kirkpatrick says. “After that, when we went to load him up we didn’t have any problem.”
Kirkpatrick worked with Butch VI, the last of WSU’s live cougar mascots. “I remember if you got close to his cage, he’d stick his paw out and kind of swat at you a little bit. But I don’t remember him being really riled up about anything. He wasn’t really aggressive.”
But Butch would perk up when Kirkpatrick walked by. “He’d be lying there, sunning himself, and I’d come walking by and all of a sudden he’d sit up and running come over. When he saw me he identified me with food.”
Another cougar did, too, during a drive up Interstate-5. “My senior year we played the UW in Seattle for the Apple Cup, and a guy by the name of Gary Andal had a Lincoln-Mercury car dealership south of Seattle. They had the Mercury Cougar, and Gary had a pet cougar. He agreed to bring his cougar, which was smaller than Butch, to the game. (The Butchmen) met him down at his car dealership (in Burien). And he asked me if I wanted to ride with him in his truck. The cougar was just on a leash and a collar, and it jumped in the middle of us. I was wearing this nice sweater, and the cougar put its paw up around my neck and started nibbling on my shoulder.”
Kirkpatrick doesn’t remember trying out for Butchmen. “I had a friend in it, and he asked me if I wanted to be part of it. So it was just kind of by invitation. I don’t remember a big clamor or a big demand to try to get into the group. It was just a group of guys, and we’d recruit other guys as we went along. Steve Appel was the one who got me into the club. We would get to the games way early so students and their parents could come down and take a closer look at him,” Kirkpatrick says. But, “We would make sure people didn’t get too close.”
Grant Miller drove behind the truck carrying car dealership owner Gary Andal, his pet cougar, and Miller’s buddy, Al Kirkpatrick, another one of the Butchmen, on the way to the Apple Cup in Seattle in 1975.
“Somehow we got hooked with Andal,” says Miller (’75 Agribusi. Econ.), a member of the Butchmen for three years. “He let us take his pet cougar to the Apple Cup, and that was a big thing. The cougar was the emblem for the brand. It would be on billboards and in commercials. And the Cougar was the new Mercury car. Anyway, I was in the car behind the pickup. And all these people would see this cougar looking out the back window of this truck going down I-5. You wouldn’t expect to see a real live cougar going down I-5. Those were good times.”
Miller, a wheat farmer in Lind, joined the club because of Kirkpatrick. They were the best men at each other’s weddings.
The Butchmen, Miller says, “was a service-type organization to help support Butch and Cougar athletics and that sort of thing. We had shirts that said Butchmen, and we sold seat cushions. I would say there were ten or twelve of us. We just wanted to be part of something and give back to the community.”
During his sophomore year in 1972, Miller attended George Raveling’s first basketball game for WSU. Raveling, the first African-American basketball coach in the PAC-12, took the Cougars to two NCAA tournaments during his eleven years with the team. He was twice named Conference Coach of the Year and led the Cougars to 167 wins. “He was a great coach and brought the Cougars out of the doldrums and into the spotlight,” Miller says. “That’s a good memory—of him jumping up and down at Cougar games with Butch there.”
Sam Jankovich became the assistant athletic director in 1972 and, Miller says, “he was our advisor. We would go to his house before or after games and serve drinks to elite donors. There’d only be ten or twenty high-tired people and us.”
He reflects fondly on his days in the group. “It was a group that we felt proud to be part of,” he says. “I’m proud to be a Coug.”
But he doesn’t miss hauling Butch in his trailer around the stadium. “It was the kind of cage you’d see at the circus, with heavy bars on it,” he says. “It took four guys at least to pull it around. It did have rubber tires on it, so that helped. But it was heavy. By the time you pulled it around the 440-yard track you were exhausted.”
Back then, though, he—and the Butchmen—were young and strong. “Or,” Miller says, “crazy.”
Barbie Olson (’68 English) was a member of the Yell Squad from 1965 to 1967. While the Butchmen “were very much their own group,” she remembers cheering on the football field alongside them.
“It was a pretty large group when I was involved. It was definitely big. They were an all-male rooter group, and they sat together. I remember them as basketball games as well,” Olson says, noting up to fifty male college students made up the Butchmen in her day.
“That was the time when ‘Huck the Fuskies’ started,” she notes. “People think it was later, but it really was the late ’60s. Somebody clever came up with that, and it might’ve been one of the Butchmen. I know we could never lead that cheer; it had to come from the students. Even then we tried our best to override it. We were all down on the field—the Yell Squad, the Rally Squad, the Cougarettes drill team, the members of the Butchmen who ran Butch around the field. Every time WSU scored, they would run Butch around the field—the field had a track around it in those days—in his cage. It was kind of like running our flags in the end zone now.”
Olson went on to become a longtime volunteer consultant and advocate for WSU’s cheer program, starting in the early 1980s. By then, the Butch mascot no longer a live cougar but portrayed by a student in a costume. Olson worked with the costumed mascot for decades but never forgot the Butchmen.
“Friday night before a home game, there was always a rally, and they were very key,” she says. “It was an honor to be in that group. We respected them, and they respected us.”
Frank Krook (’67 Soc. Studies, ’69 Teach. Cert.) doesn’t remember ever running the live-animal Butch around the field following touchdowns and field goals. But the retired Burlington middle-school language arts and social studies teacher “certainly” remembers “the roar of the crowd as Butch passes by” and has fond memories of revving up crowds at football and basketball games.
“It was a wonderful time,” he says. “We all joined together to support the Cougars. We wore particular outfits, these crimson-and-white jackets that identified us as Butchmen. We also had these straw hats that we would wear to identify ourselves and excite the crowd at every game we were at. It brought a certain togetherness to the group. We were part of the spirit of WSU. We always put ourselves in front of the crowd. We tried to encourage the crowd and encourage Cougar spirit. We weren’t cheerleaders, but we were certainly cheer supporters. All the guys who were in it were always excited to be chosen. Everybody who was in it was enthusiastic. It was great fun to be a part of that.”
Krook still carries that Cougar spirit, noting he’s traveled around the world often sporting WSU gear. “You wear the Cougar symbol and you get off a plane or train anywhere in the world and you’ll hear ‘Go Cougs,’” he says. “Proud to be a Cougar.”
Howard “Howie” Neill
The first thing that comes to mind when Howard “Howie” Neill (’67 Busi.) recalls his days in the Butchmen is, of course, their outfits—the striped jackets and straw hats. With them, Neill says, “we always wore black slacks.”
The Pullman attorney doesn’t remember ever having had the privilege of carting Butch around the track during football games. But he does remember that the Butchmen always had a great view. “We always had a good place to sit for football and basketball games,” he says. “We had a few off-color cheers we’d do every now and again.” Those were usually reserved “to let the referee know when we weren’t happy with a call.”
All in all, “it was a good group,” Neill says. “It had a great cross-section of people from all over the campus. We all had a good time. It’s a good memory. We had some fun trips over to Seattle for the Huskies games. It was just a great time.”
But, “after a period of time, (the group) dwindled away. It wore itself out.” Before the tradition of a live cougar mascot ended, Neill says, “You’d go and watch him kind of pace around. His cage was where the bronze statue is now.”
Neill’s always has a soft spot for Butch and can’t remember a time when he didn’t know about and love the WSU mascot. “I grew up in Pullman,” he explains. “Butch has always been part of my life.”
During football games, David Nordquist (’52 Geography) would always keep an eye out for Shorty.
Elmer “Shorty” Sever served as custodian of WSU’s athletic grounds for 42 years—from 1928 until 1970. That includes Butch and his cage.
And, sometimes, Nordquist recalls, he would pull a prank on people admiring the animal— Butch IV, in those days.
Butch IV was one of two twin cubs presented by Governor Arthur B. Langlie in 1942. Three years after Nordquist graduated, in 1955, Langlie also presented Butch V.
Shorty came to campus a year after the first live cougar cub was gifted to campus by Governor Roland Hartley in 1927. He would come to know all of WSU’s live cougars before his death in 1973, five years before the demise of the last Butch.
For football games, Nordquist recalls, “Shorty would lure Butch from his big cage to his small trailer cage on wheels. He would do that using a water hose and spraying the cougar and chasing him from one cage to the other. Because of it, the cougar developed a big hatred for Shorty.”
Nordquist played football for the Cougs during his first three years of college. “Sometimes, the cheerleaders or other people on the sidelines who didn’t know about Shorty would crowd around the small trailer cage to look at the cougar. He was used to it and wouldn’t really do anything. But then Shorty would walk up behind those people, and the cougar, I suppose, would smell him or see him, and he would snarl and growl and scare the wits out of the people who were admiring him. All of the football players kind of got used to that, and we’d watch Shorty to see when he was approaching the cage. Butch hated him. But we couldn’t wait to see the reactions from people.”
His final year of college, Nordquist served as student-body president. “That’s one of the reasons I didn’t play football my senior year; it was just too much,” he says.
Back then, the Victory Bell—which now stands in front of the Lewis Alumni Centre—had a much higher site. “When I was in school, it was on top of College Hall, and when we won football games members of the Intercollegiate Knights Club would climb up there and ring the Victory Bell for about fifteen minutes,” recalls Nordquist, who went on to work for WSU for 26 years, starting in 1967. He served mostly as the director of general services and remembers the University’s transition from a live cougar mascot to a student in a cougar costume.
“There was a lot of discussion at that time,” he says. “Some folks wanted to keep a live cougar, but the overwhelming feeling was ‘poor Butch in a cage.’ Animal rights folks got into it, and it was decided to not have another live cougar—which is fine with me. Having the (costumed) Butch mascot is kind of fun. I’ve got a nice picture of myself with Butch at my 60th class reunion. It’s a much more personal Butch this way.”
When Gary Libey saw the ad in the Colfax Daily Bulletin announcing that Butch’s old trailer was to be sold at a surplus auction, the Whitman County Superior Court judge just knew he had to have it.
“I wanted to own a piece of WSU history,” says Libey (’73 Poli. Sci.), who came across the notice in the Whitman County Gazette “like twenty-five years ago. I think I got (the trailer) for $75 or something like that. It was unbelievable—just pure luck. It was a tradition at WSU for years.”
But it needed a little TLC. “It was in pretty rough shape,” Libey recalls. “It was all rusted up. I got a good buddy to haul it to Colfax. We got new tires on it and got it conditioned.”
Scott Pittman, who owned Colfax Body Shop since 1987 before turning it over to his son in early 2020, did the work for free. Libey considers the friends both to be “co-owners” of the relic.
Now, Libey says, the trailer’s “in marvelous condition. Scott sanded it and painted it crimson and gray. During football season, he’ll put it outside in front of the shop right on Main Street.”
When Scott Pittman (x’73 Arch.) first finished restoring Butch’s old trailer, he set it outside his autobody shop on Main Street in Colfax with a taxidermied cougar on top. “People would just about have a train wreck when they’d see that cougar as they were driving down the road,” Pittman says.
His stuffed cougar has long since been retired to his lake cabin. But Pittman still hauls out the trailer during football season. These days, he decorates it with WSU banners and flags.
“I’ve got to hand it to those Butchmen,” Pittman says. “That thing is heavy. I bet it weighs 750 pounds. It’s solid steel. You can hardly pick up the tongue of it, it’s so heavy. To drag it around the stadium with a cougar in it, that’s no small task.”
Pittman guesses it might be Butch’s second trailer. “It had really old spindles,” he says. “They were easy to find bearings for. It was a kick in the pants to do the work. I wish we would’ve taken pictures before we started. It had been in the junk pile outside for years and years.”
Early on after restoring the trailer, Pittman would haul it to WSU Pullman, displaying it for home football games. “It was pretty cool,” he says.
Now that he’s retired, he’s interested in gifting it back to the University. “I think it needs to be in Pullman,” Pittman says. “I’d even deliver it to WSU. That’s where I think it should be.”
On the web
From his namesake to his commemorative bronze statue, WSU’s Butch T. Cougar live-animal mascot leaves a lasting legacy. (Spring 2010 issue of Washington State Magazine)
Cougar Pride’s unveiling at the 2008 Apple Cup (WSU News, November 2008)
A short clip of Butch I being rolled out by Cougar Guard aka Intercollegiate Knights during the 1931 Rose Bowl (WSU Masc)
Check out KREM TV’s Mascot Mania segment on “How the Cougars became the Cougars”
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Retro and aged photos are not going out of trend anytime soon. In fact, tarnished photos are listed as one of the key photography trends in 2021. Why is it so popular? I am glad you asked because retro photography is a means of conveying nostalgia of bygone years through places, people, fashion, and color. Images from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s still inspire photographers of today and influence their storytelling ways. If you want to know more, let’s look at the traits of retro photography.
Contrast is one of the main traits that will help you get a retro photo from a contemporary Ultra HD digital photo. High contrast will make the image sharp and well-defined, which is great for a modern vibe but does not suit a retro look. Low contrast, on the other hand, lifts the sharpness of the colors and shadows and adds a hazy mist to the photo.
To adjust the contrast of any photo you just need to go to Adjust and select the Contrast tool to shift the slider. You can find this effect on old polaroid images and faded film, but also on many influential social media profiles.
Black and white is no longer the absence of color technology, it is a genre of its own. Much like a ‘little black dress’ that Karl Lagerfeld advises every woman to have in their wardrobe, a black and white photograph is minimalistic and elegant.
Photographers still use monochrome cameras to capture architectural detail and portraits. Luckily, you can still enjoy a beautifully balanced black and white photo without buying a new camera. Simply go to Adjust and decrease the photo Saturation, or you can choose a black and white Filter from the 16 options.
Gamma is the luminance of an image, not to be confused with brightness. It alters the difference between light and dark colors in a digital image rather than lightening all areas equally.
Although high gamma may seem like low contrast, the first tool makes an image lighter and not washed-out. Aged photos often lighten out with time and sun exposure, and this effect is characteristic of retro-style photography. Not everyone can get their hands on an old photo but a photo editor is your shortcut to instant gamma raise.
Sepia is actually a photography toning when a silver-based black and white photograph goes through a chemical process. This technique is done in a dark room, and cannot be repeated with color photographs. The good news is you don’t need to bustle with getting a sepia effect anymore. A photo editor is a hacking tool that actually allows you to make changes to any kind of photograph, as long as it is in a digital form.
You can easily adjust your photo and give it a faded copper tone by shifting the Sepia slider. This effect transforms an image back to the 19th century, making it a nostalgic retro shot.
The grainy texture of a photo immediately gives away its age. This may not make sense when it comes to digital photography, because everything is stored as code. But film photographs were not as clear from the start. With time, the film gets damaged and gets a grainy effect as though someone printed it on sandpaper.
Although your digital camera will not let that happen to your photos, you can still achieve the same effect with a quick retouch in a photo editor. Simply go to Adjust and move the Grain slider up to increase the grain particles. Many professional photographers today still add some worn effects to their creations to give the scene a retro touch.
Can't wait to check out your time travel skills and experiments!
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Yesterday, Legendary Comics announced the continued expansion of Guillermo del Toro’s blockbuster film franchise with a new graphic novel companion, Pacific Rim: Blackout, and a new Pacific Rim: Ultimate Omnibus collection. In partnership with Rocketship Entertainment, Legendary will also create limited editions of each book as well as exclusive merchandise available through Kickstarter.
Written by Cavan Scott (Star Wars: The High Republic and Shadow Service) with art by Nelson Dániel (Detective Pikachu, TMNT, Clue), Pacific Rim: Blackout, now available for pre-order exclusively on Kickstarter, features an all-new adventure with fan-favorite Herc Hansen in a prequel story based on the Netflix anime Pacific Rim: The Black. Herc, along with his niece Olivia, his copilot Cooper, and Marshal Rask face “kaiju of epic proportions” as they seek to protect the Australian continent and all its inhabitants.
“The Pacific Rim universe is so rich with opportunities to tell all-new captivating stories, and we are thrilled to bring a new prequel adventure based on the popular Netflix anime series to fans,” said Robert Napton, Senior Vice President of Legendary Comics. “Showrunners Greg Johnson and Craig Kyle created such a strikingly beautiful and hauntingly dangerous story featured in the anime series, and I couldn’t think of a better creative team than Cavan and Nelson to capture this vivid storytelling and visual style to bring to the page. We are also thrilled to offer fans of the franchise a new collection that allows them to revisit past adventures.”
“Working with Cavan and Nelson to bring this Pacific Rim story to life has been so much fun,” said Nikita Kannekanti, Senior Editor of Legendary Comics. “Cavan does such a great job balancing the action with the emotional character moments, and Nelson’s art is so full of energy in every single panel. I hope fans enjoy Herc’s story and learning more about what happened before the Black!”
Cavan Scott remarks, “It has been an absolute joy to return to the world of Pacific Rim for this original graphic novel and to also provide a link between the original movie and the fantastic anime series. Herc’s story really resonates with me; a man who has seen the world change and his friends fall away as the monsters keep on coming. But he never gives in, never lets events he cannot control defeat him. The monsters we see Herc facing in his personal life are just as destructive as the kaiju that are razing cities across Australia. As always, Pacific Rim is just as much a story about people caught in extraordinary times as it is a spectacle of monsters vs. mechs. That’s not to say that Blackout doesn’t feature killer kaiju fight scenes. Nelson has done an incredible job balancing cataclysmic events with heartfelt personal moments. I hope Pacific Rim fans young and old enjoy these final moments before Australia becomes the Black.”
“The Pacific Rim universe was something I wanted to draw, the Jaegers and Kaijus and the whole game of proportions is something I really enjoyed doing,” said Nelson Dániel. “I don’t know how many buildings I draw and how many destroyed, but they are never enough when it comes to epic battles. I hope the fans enjoy it as much as I do when I’m drawing it.”
The Pacific Rim: Ultimate Omnibus will bring together all of the franchise’s graphic novels into one 568-page oversized hardcover collection. For the first time ever, New York Times best-selling Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero (presented by Guillermo Del Toro and written by Pacific Rim screenwriter Travis Beacham) alongside the sequels Pacific Rim: Tales from the Drift (written by Joshua Fialkov), Pacific Rim: Aftermath, Pacific Rim: Amara (both from Cavan Scott), and the brand-new Pacific Rim: Blackout will all be in one book.
Backers on the Kickstarter can receive digital or physical copies of both books, along with additional perks like prints and pins. The Kickstarter runs until August 18 and has already been fully-funded.
Author: Jamie Sugah
Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.
Read our before commenting.
Do not copy our content in whole to other websites. Linkbacks are encouraged.
Copyright © The Geekiary
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One of my old bands called me on Friday. “Hey, we’re booked at the Chesterfield Saturday night, but our bass player can’t make it. Can you play?” I reviewed my schedule… Saturday night I was supposed to be in neighboring village Le Mars to help prepare a presentation for the Korean Veterans’ Last Man Club, but gosh, I can reschedule that…
“Yep,” I said. “I can be there.” A few quick phone calls and my schedule was set. Oh boy! I get to play again!
It didn’t really occur to me until mid-afternoon on Saturday, just hours before the gig, that I hadn’t played with this band for nearly two years. Two years! I bet they learned a few new songs in the last two years… Will I be able to remember the old songs? Oh my. I looked at my bass. It had been sitting in the corner so long there was dust on the case. Not just a light sprinkling of dust, but the “I can see your fingerprints” kind of dust. It’s been a while…
I found an old recording of the band from years ago and cued it up on iTunes, hoping to refresh my memory. I lay back and closed my eyes, concentrating on the key changes. Within five minutes I was sound asleep.
So… 7:30 that night found me standing on stage, plugging my bass into the house sound system, woefully unprepared, but well rested. After a quick sound check I ran through the list of questions I had for the band. “What’s the key change in this song?” and “Do you guys still cue off the drums for the ending of this song?” and “When did you quit wearing sequined spandex pants, and why didn’t anyone tell me?”
By 8:30 my beloved Austrian Snickerdoodle Dagmar and I were sitting at a table, me sipping beer, she sipping a Diet Coke mit der lime in it. The place was starting to fill up a little — people slowly filtering in to see the show. (It never ceases to amaze me how a bar can be completely empty at 8:55 and be packed at 9:01.) I couldn’t help but notice one elderly couple, dressed to the nines. I wondered if they would stay for a song, or if they would leave before the band started.
Promptly at 9:17 the singer gathered us together and we headed for the stage. I strapped on my bass, set my beer down, and proceeded to have a ball… I forget exactly what the first song was, but it was something along the lines of Ted Nugent’s “Great White Buffalo,” a very up-tempo, semi-distorted 70’s song. I wondered what the classy elderly couple thought of it. The second song was in the same vein as the first — a fast rocker designed to get people onto the dance floor early. And sure enough, people were dancing. There were at least three or four couples on the dance floor, jiggling away. Again, I wondered a little about the well-dressed gent and his wife. I felt bad that we’d chased them out of the place with our loud music…
They stayed all night. They danced to “Margaritaville.” They danced to “Brown eyed Girl.” They danced to “Play That Funky Music.” ZZTop, Ted Nugent, they danced to it all. When the dance floor got full, they danced in the aisle. About halfway through the night the gent lost his coat and tie and continued dancing in his shirt sleeves. They danced until well after 1 o’clock in the morning.
It did my heart good to see them.
Just like in the old days, I slept until 11 the next morning, then spent the day on the couch, remote in one hand, snacks balanced precariously on my belly, moaning about my headache, Alka-Seltzer fizzing away.
To top the weekend off in style, the Mighty Mighty Packers beat the Vikings to remain undefeated — a perfect 4-0!
Then I fell asleep.
Things to Think About
I received an e-mail from a friend the other day saying, “Look at this — the democrats are trying to take veterans’ benefits away from us again. Boy, the nerve! I’m sure going to remember this when it’s time to vote!” There was a link to a newspaper article. I didn’t read it.
Things like this make me angry. I could tell at first glance that facts were taken out of context and the facts were distorted, but I didn’t have time to even read the article all the way through. I want to rebut and refute, but I can’t until I get time to do more research. But gosh, it sure seems to me like the democrats giveth and the republicans taketh away…
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For several weeks the news media was preoccupied with events in Egypt. Once President Hosni Mubarak was ousted, there was little interest in popular uprisings in other parts of the Middle East. That is, not until the Arab world’s number one thug, Muammar al-Gaddafi began using machine guns, airplanes, and foreign mercenaries to sweep the streets clean of all those who dared to make their voices heard.
Gaddafi apparently suffers from delusions of divinity, or at least the belief that he is a messenger from God. Until recently he was considered one of the leading international terrorists. After admitting responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1980, Gaddafi joined the ranks of Middle Eastern dictators who enjoy the status of America’s allies.
Whether or not Gaddafi will join Mubarak in exile is not yet clear. Very little is coming out of Libya. The government is attempting to cut off all contact with the outside world. But in this age of internet technology, that is not easy to accomplish. Vivid images of government terrorism are getting out.
The Arab world is aflame. Hopefully, free people everywhere will take time off from their usual preoccupation with sporting events and reality TV shows to follow the unfolding events. It would be really nice, if the half or more Americans who haven’t the vaguest idea where Libya, Bahrain, Algeria, Yemen, etc. are located would take out a world map and look them up.
The people’s revolt in the Middle East is not, however, what I want to write about. Rather, I want to focus on the creation of news after the public became bored with the images of masses of people in Tahrir Square demanding the ouster of President Mubarak. For a couple of days, it seemed as though there wasn’t anything worthy of the news media’s attention, at least not anything that would help in the ongoing struggle for market share.
So where does a reporter find news, when there doesn’t appear to be any? Easy. Just focus the camera on Mississippi. One can usually count on someone in the Magnolia state saying or doing something stupid.
Since the effort to replace Colonel Reb with Smokey the Bear on steroids as the mascot for the University of Mississippi was no longer important to anyone other than a few diehard alumni, the network news media chose to report on a proposed vanity license plate. Here was another opportunity to make fun of Mississippi and Mississippians, especially since Governor Haley Barbour is being talked about as a possible GOP presidential candidate.
Mississippi currently offers its citizens around 100 vanity license plates. Why offer yet another? Well, why not? The more choices there are the more revenue for state coffers. All fifty states figured that out long ago. What is so special about some group wanting the state to issue a few new vanity plates?
In this case the group making the proposal is none other than the Sons of the Confederacy. They would like the state to offer a vanity plate honoring the Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Now if it were Bobby Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Joe Johnson, or one of the other well known and respected Confederate generals that they wanted to honor, no one would be upset. There would not be anything news worthy. But Nathan Bedford Forrest is an altogether different animal.
I seriously doubt that more than a few Mississippians knew who Bedford Forrest was, that is, until the Sons of the Confederacy lifted his name from deserved obscurity. Even fewer outside Mississippi would have been able to identify him, unless they were Civil War buffs or from Tennessee, Forest’s home state.
Forrest was not one of the Old South’s educated aristocrats. He was a self-made, self-educated commoner—“poor white trash” in old Southern lingo. He had many occupations, including riverboat captain, gambler, land speculator, plantation owner, and slave trader. According to his obituary in the New York Times, “He was known to his acquaintances as a man of obscure origin and low associations, a shrewd speculator, negro trader, and duelist, but a man of great energy and brute courage” (October 30, 1877).
There appears to be ample grounds for believing that General Nathan Bedford Forrest was also a war criminal. Most historians agree that Forrest was responsible for the massacre of around 600 Black Union soldiers and Southern Unionists at the Battle of Fort Pillow on April 12, 1864.
After the Civil War ended, Forrest spent the rest of his life trying to explain away the massacre. Well, not only that. He was one of the founders of what is called the “First Ku Klux Klan” (1865-1874), to distinguish it from the later versions. Forrest became the first Grand Wizard of the KKK in 1867.
So, Nathan Bedford Forrest is a very controversial historical figure. He was one of the most gifted generals of the Civil War, a fact acknowledged by both Union General William T. Sherman, and the Confederate General Joseph E. Johnson, who defended Atlanta during Sherman’s siege of that city. But he was also a slave trader and a leader of the KKK.
None of this would have been newsworthy, if it were not for the news media’s need for a sensational story in order to shore up ratings.
At a recent news conference, when the reporters should have been asking Governor Barbour about his plans to seek the Republican nomination to run for president in 2012, or his struggle to balance the budget for the state of Mississippi, or any number of important issues, they asked him about whether or not he would repudiate the Nathan Bedford Forrest memorial license plate. Suddenly the ongoing events in the Middle East, the war in Afghanistan, the economy, and other relevant topics were not as news worthy as Haley Barbour and a long dead and largely forgotten Confederate general. No wonder our country is going down the tubes.
Until next time, be good to all God’s creation, and always live under the mercy.
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The following is the third in a weekly series of articles about a “day in the life” of companies at the MakeOffices coworking space in Clarendon. The mini-series, which will run this fall, is sponsored by MakeOffices.
Move over Willy Wonka, the employees at SharpSeat are now the ones offering golden tickets. Whether for concerts or sporting events or theater performances, SharpSeat hooks up secondary market buyers with their dream tickets. The service essentially “is like StubHub, but cheaper,” say co-founder Andrew McCulloch.
He and the other two co-founders, Mike Williams and Brad Kurtzman, met while attending James Madison University and moved to Northern Virginia to take jobs after graduating. They attended a lot of ticketed events upon moving to the area and found themselves giving advice to friends looking to buy good tickets, too. But there was one major problem.
“There’s a ton of fees that we got sick of paying when shopping around on other sites,” McCulloch says. “We saw an opening in the secondary ticket market.” That’s when they decided they could do it better.
The three did a lot of research on secondary market ticket sales and ended up using their industry knowledge to start SharpSeat as a side project. “We found the average person didn’t know to look any further than Stubhub for secondary [tickets]. We saw an opportunity there to give them a better alternative,” Williams says.
They all eventually left their jobs to work full-time on SharpSeat. “We basically wanted to find a way to make tickets cheaper for the end customer,” McCulloch says. “We knew if we could find a way to keep costs down and still get access to the same tickets the big guys were getting, we could pass the savings on to customers.”
Their average day is a lot different now. The employees live in Virginia Square — two live together and the other lives down the street — so the MakeOffices Clarendon location where they work makes for an easy commute.
“One of the best parts is not having the commute around D.C.,” McCulloch says. He also found it important to stop working from home every day. “Keeping work and life separate was big for me because working in my kitchen all the time I’m [distracted]… Plus, here we’re surrounded by a bunch of other entrepreneurs that are getting things done.”
Being among other entrepreneurs has helped the employees stay motivated when doing their daily tasks, which include maintaining the website, coordinating with site developers, researching what events are coming up and fielding calls from the customer service team. And according to Williams, one of the big challenges they constantly face is marketing.
“For every business, [marketing] is probably 90 percent of the battle,” he says. “Just getting the word out there and getting people to visit the site, more than just your family and friends.”
Thanks to the business’ growth since launching two years ago — there is currently about $2 billion worth of tickets listed on the site, although it fluctuates seasonally — the team recently has been able to hire out for help with that marketing burden.
“Now we’ve hired a marketing firm to help us and we’re really looking to expand,” Kurtzman says. “This is our first business so we kind of learn as we go. We had to teach ourselves everything.”
They also outsource much of the customer service to a team in Chicago, but not all of it. The co-founders all use their venue expertise to give advice to customers who contact them looking for tips on purchasing the best tickets.
“So often people ask what’s the best value and where’s the best place to sit,” says McCulloch. “We know where you’re going to get a better value… Just little intricacies like that help out when we’re talking to clients.” Williams agrees, adding, “We have good knowledge of all the D.C. venues so we help people out” with getting the best ticket for their money.
To remain experts in the industry, the three often do offsite work — attending different types of events locally as well as traveling to other cities to check out their venues. “Obviously, it’s really fun to do that, but it is a part of what we have to do [for research],” Williams says.
Kurtzman explains that traveling to sites is how they gain knowledge of the best seats so they can offer direct customer support. “StubHub doesn’t really do that kind of thing,” he says.
When the SharpSeat employees aren’t traveling, they take advantage of the amenities in the MakeOffices Clarendon coworking space.
“Getting dedicated office space around here… is pretty unrealistic, especially for a small company like us,” says Williams. “Even for something half as nice as this, if you want a dedicated space the rents around here are so much that it just never really made sense to us. When this space opened up we couldn’t believe how cheap it was for what you get.”
One of the perks included in that price is a set of rotating taps of regionally-brewed beers. The SharpSeat co-founders say they like to head to the kitchen to try out new brews, relax and meet employees from the other businesses in the coworking space.
“Plus, I love the massage chairs,” Brad says, as the others laugh. “I usually use them once a day.”
Between the MakeOffices benefits and the satisfaction of doing a job they love, the SharpSeat team experiences something many typical employees don’t: They actually enjoy going to work.
“At my old job, I hated going to work. Now I love coming to this office,” Kurtzman says. Williams agrees, saying with a smile, “It’s kind of crazy that we’re voluntarily coming into an office after we wanted so badly to get out of one.”
Just Reduced includes a 4 BD/2.5 BA brick home with a walk out basement and patio.
Update at 9:40 p.m. — All lanes have reopened, Arlington County says. Update at 6:40 p.m. — The southbound lanes have reopened but the northbound lanes are expected to remain…
Enjoy alpacas, farmers markets and more at the Loudoun County Spring Farm Tour May 21-22.
A local man raised nearly $2,000 holding a yard sale this past weekend to help children impacted by the war. Constantin a Ukrainian-American who lives in Arlington’s East Falls Church…
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Associate Professor of History & Bible
Ed.D., Oregon State University
M.A., Westminster Seminary California
B.A., University of Oregon
As Director of Assessment, I service the University as the chair of the program review committee and help the institution demonstrate all the ways Bushnell University fulfills its calling as an institution of Christian higher education, which includes its core themes and mission. I assist a variety of academic and administrative departments with mission alignment, effectiveness, and compliance of academic and accreditation standards for the University’s regional accreditation by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU). I currently also assist the Associate Vice President with a variety of assessment activities and accreditation requirements for professional programs.
As Assistant Professor of Humanities, I teach in a variety of history, bible, theology and ethics classes primarily for the school of Professional Studies. Included in this role is the program faculty oversight for the Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS) program. If you are seeking information about finishing your degree at Bushnell University, please feel free to contact me. I would enjoy working with you and setting up an educational program that meets your specific needs.
In 2021, Brian was awarded the degree Doctor of Education in Adult and Higher Education at OSU. In 2005, Brian was conferred a Master of Historical Theology from Westminster Seminary California. He studied history at the University of Oregon.
Brian’s outside interests include reading old books and collecting pocket watches and radios. Among his favorite authors are Boethius, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Gerhardus Vos, Meredith Kline, and C. S. Lewis.
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Our New Used Parts Warehouse
In November 2011 we began the process of moving the old parts storage containers out of the way, and preparing the rear lot to begin construction of the new used parts storage building. The concrete foundation piers and NE corner retaining wall was poured December 9. The 44' X 88' Concrete floor was pored Tuesday December 13. By the end of December the floor was fully cured, and the building erection began! By 2-07 the outer shell was finished, the doors installed, and the Electrical work, Natural gas, Electric, air, and Phone / Data / Security hook-ups begun.
By Feb 20 the electrical work was mostly finished; but aisle lights were still to be hung. Caulking and R13 walls & roof insulation installation was begun. HVAC Technicians begun to hook up the radiant floor boiler. Work was begun on the automatic electric gate between the storage building and the main shop.
By March 9 the 8' by 40' Gridwall was hung down half of one side wall. The radiant floor began being charged with heat transfer fluid. The two 8 foot diameter 10 blade slow speed ceiling fans (made by Big Ass Fans) were installed. The lighting and work zone timers are done. The security system, computer network lines, and telephones were nearly done. We had 47 metal Industrial shelving units built. We started power washing more used shelving, and sanding and painting the rusty parts (maybe 20% of all of them).
March 12 we began assembling another 65 metal shelving units, and building a 12' by 32' seat rack. The automatic gate works GREAT! On March 16 the radiant floor system had a (successful) test run.
April 1 we began building 10 units of 12' high pallet rack, 20 units of widespan shelving, a 16' by 12' high motor rack, a 40' by 12' high wheel rack, a 20' by 8' high Vintage fairing rack, 9 levels of 4' by 12' carpet covered fuel tank storage shelves, plus more to be determined as need requires. We plan to use every available cubic foot available.
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Good Morning & Happy Friday Everyone!!!!
I'm so very excited about the new Holiday Mini that went live yesterday! I do LOVE a lot of the new products that are available to order & even though I didn't get any of the new Halloween stuff; I think my card still SCREAMS Happy Halloween!!!!
I started this off with a pretty basic layout that I cased from one of my swap group friends & proceeded to add my own lil' flair! That spooky image was just dying to be sponged so I went at it & I am VERY happy with how it turned out! I couldn't leave the sentiment stark white so I sponged that baby too LOL!! I added ink to my embossed background, stamped some trees from Spooky Bingo Bits & added my ribbon.....DONE!!!!!
I have a pretty busy day & weekend ahead of me with my Holiday Mini Open House coming up so I need to get back to work! Thanks so much for stopping by & I hope you all have a FABULOUS weekend!!!!!
Until Next Time,
Hugs & Love,
Supplies: House of Haunts & Spooky Bingo Bits Stampsets; Old Olive, Basic Black & Whisper White Cardstock; Basic Black, Old Olive, Cajun Craze, Daffodil Delight & Whisper White Ink; Frightful Sight DSP; Big Shot; Stripes Embossing Folder; Mini Silver Brads; 1/8" Basic Black Taffeta Ribbon; Decorative Label, Scallop Oval & Scallop Trim Border Punches; Sponge; White Gel Pen; Dimensionals
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For us, Polish people, there are many associations with Christmas such as beautiful carols signing, tumultous family reunions, Oplatek (wafer) sharing, snowy winter, Christmas tree or abundant eating. Last Christmas, in many ways, was so different from all the ones we have known.
Carols singing is virtually an unknown custom in OZ. Even at church hardly anybody moves their lips along with some choir members. It is a pity since English carols are beautiful indeed. Wojtek Jr. remembered about his opera voice and decided to sing a bit on the Cairns Esplanade on Boxing Day. Just in case he placed a cap “for donation” in front of him. Unlike his earlier, highly successful street violin perfomances at Christmas time in Wroclaw main square, this time around he did not earn anything . Instead, he learned one of the old truths in life about “positioning oneself for success” .
His voice could barely be heard at the place where he was singing under a Christmas tree. Besides, it was hard to get through a noisy, old rockman across the street. It was a good lesson for Wojtus of both life and a few, new English carols. Win, win.
Except some breaking Skype calls, this time we were far away from our families. We were with ourselves. Thanks to that we had more time for conversations, walking or sleap. No television!! Father Stanislaw from Gold Coast gave us a generous wrapping of Oplatek (wafer). Its sharing, which is a common Polish tradition, is highly regarded by many foreigners as well.
Obviously, you can only dream about snow in Australia at Christmas. Though Melbourne saw a hail storm this year, it aint’t the same. Here in the tropics of Cairns it was well above 30 C. In central Australia where we are now it was even hotter. The place I am writing from, Alice Springs, recorded 44 C on Christmas Day!!! It sounds strange to hear English carols with many references to winter and snow here in OZ. Somebody living in the southern hemisphere could come up with some new texts and Christmas songs better fitting the Christmas summer.
Chrsitmas trees in Australia are definitely made of plastic. We had to resort to a few palm branches and some makeshift decorations to have a “tree” of our own as well.
Lastly, instead of having typical 12 dishes on our Christmas Eve supper table we counted … 12 ingredients, used for making the two dishes we had. For dessert Ania baked delicious cheescake according to the recipe from Henia from Brisbane, and of course our sabbatical staple, banana cake. We even enjoyed this moderation in eating. Perhaps it was our first Christmas without gaining any weight.
PS Thanks to all for your Christmas wishes!
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Well, 2020 has come and gone, hasn’t it? I’ve attempted to write a few times. However, it seemed either like shouting into the wind or sliced a little too deep into some painful spots of the year.
We’ve found ourselves back in America.
And we’ve found ourselves living on a farm, something that we’ve always longed to do. And we’re living in our favorite part of the state. And, as of this week, Michael got basically his dream situation for if he had to be employed in something other than a missions role.
And I feel unworthy.
A couple days ago, I was talking to my daughter about our plans for our large garden next year. I said that I didn’t know what I should add to it.
“You can always add more flowers, Mama. Get some more flower seeds, Mama, and make the world a more beautiful place.”
And we come back to that refrain. And I’ll try.
It doesn’t look at all like I anticipated it would. But I’ll try anyway.
It’s been a bit of a wild month. Our little guy was over two weeks overdue. My parents came from America for two weeks, and now we’ve been on lockdown for over a week due to the spread of the coronavirus. Today, I wanted to share some photos from the last month to fight against fear with gratitude. We have found beauty and created beauty in so many places this month, but the most obvious was in the birth of our little boy.
We grieve with the world around us, as we see the effects of the Coronavirus. We also have hope with the world around us. I’ve found that as a homeschooling mom and a one-vehicle family, there really has been very little change to our daily life other than the ability to get groceries or go on extended walks, and Michael is home all the time now instead of his REALLY unpredictable ministry schedule.
I see many people who are frustrated that they are stuck at home. I greatly desire to help encourage parents who are unexpectedly at home with their kids, and I can sympathize. It is difficult when sinners all get cooped up in a house together, isn’t it?
I’d like to take a minute to acknowledge that unexpected “homeschoolers” have a hard job. Distance education/school at home isn’t necessarily “homeschool.” Homeschoolers have the ability to choose our curriculums, our days of education, what’s working and what’s not. We’ve intentionally made decisions, studied, and planned for this. I scrapped a grammar curriculum just last week because it wasn’t working for one of my kids, and right now I’m staying busy working on planning for the next school year. Many of you who are teaching your kids right now have no control over things like curriculum, and when your kids aren’t understanding, you feel powerless. Homeschooling isn’t like that.
So I wanted to acknowledge those who are working hard and adapting to things they never planned to do. It’s tough work, and you’re doing your best.
I also wanted to give a very light word of caution. Please express your feelings about staying home with your kids in a positive light. Kids hear. Everything. And remember…everything. If they happen to overhear you talking about being “stuck” with them, or how you’re wanting to drink because you’ve been in the same house with them for what seems like ages, they’ll remember it.
You feel powerless, and that’s where your feelings are coming from. But you are an adult with agency to make decisions (stay at home, or go out? make healthy food, or eat comforting less-healthy food? netflix every single season of that show or tear into a new project?) Your kiddos have very little agency. And if they’re hearing the news or reading over your shoulder while you’re scrolling on your phone (I’ve got some nosy parkers too…), they’ll realize that the world can be a scary place right now. Whom will they turn to for comfort if they’ve taken to heart the idea that you’re sick of them?
Off that soapbox for now. Here’s a bit of a list of some of the “extra” things aside from our usual homeschooling we’ve been doing to fill in the gaps of time that Michael would normally be working.
Additional audiobooks. (Audible has a bunch of books for free right now that you aren’t required to have a membership for.)
Art lessons, book readalouds, and concerts for free online. We try to only do one a day, because we still attempt to really limit the kids’ screen time.
That being said, between the kids being “off schedule” and a newborn, my yarn projects and sewing projects have taken a back seat. I had hoped to have child number 3’s Christmas sweater done four days from now. It’s not looking like that’s going to happen, as I’m only about 70% done. Sigh. It’s only March, right?
Unfortunately, the places I buy my yarn and fabric have closed down my ability to purchase from them right now. (Thank you, Wool Warehouse for taking the health of your employees into consideration!) So I guess I just have to finish the projects I’ve got.
I used to think I’d be a bandage wrapper, a makeshift nurse, or some sort of an active participant in saving the world, should I be needed. Turns out that the best thing that I can do to save the world is to stay at home and love my children.
And that’s what I intend to do.
God, help me to do my best and smooth over my failings with your grace. Amen.
While we wait for baby to decide to show his face, I’ve managed to do every chore imaginable (even washed the outdoor windows one nicer day) and also work a little bit more on some knitting projects. I like how the blue sock yarn is turning out for my third son’s Christmas sweater.
I also enjoy working in the round. The piecing together for the baby’s sweater will be easy, but working in the round is so satisfying and goes by so quickly.
As the baby is nearly two weeks overdue, I told my husband that if I finish our third son’s sweater before the baby comes out, I will cry. Who am I kidding, though? I cry a lot these days, to begin with.
Nearly every day, I wake up feeling guilty for being crabby at the other four kids, so I try to make up for it with a baked good or special breakfast. So not only are the kids anxious about the timing of our blessed event, they’re over-sugared. Sigh.
It’s a season. It will pass.
In better news, much of next school year is planned, and I’ve been able to work on my French language learning. 🙂
More Christmas Sweater Decisions
I decided on the Christmas sweaters for the two remaining kids. Our oldest will be getting the Teeny Geena Sweater, although I haven’t decided on yarns yet. His favorite color is red, but he likes hand-dyed or variegated yarns. I’m concerned that with the raglan sleeves it might be kind of wonky looking if I use a more textured color. Rowan does have some really beautiful hemp tweed that I love the look of, but it’s a little more cost-prohibitive for a very active boy’s sweater.
Our only girl loves sweater dresses and pockets, so I chose a combo of the two with the Fiona pattern (short-sleeved edition because it’s so mild here.) For the last two years, every time she’s been asked her favorite colors, her response is this verbatim: “pink and purple and orange and grey.”
So here’s what I’ll end up using:
I hope you’re having a fine day filled with color and sunshine. If not, I hope you’re enjoying a chance to snuggle under a blanket and read a good book or do something that refreshes your soul.
A couple of months after we arrived, a friend gave us two armchairs for free. The vinyl had scraped off in multiple areas. Not one to say no to free furniture (and probably an incurable optimist when it comes to “potential” and rehabbing things,) I just could not let these chairs go.
Funnily enough, I just saw a group of six of these exact same chairs with scraped off vinyl going for free on our local “freecycle” kind of Facebook group. So with the damage being consistent with eight or more of the same make and model of chair, I think it was just poorly manufactured.
I have great plans to recover them, one with a navy fabric and one with a floral with pops of navy blue because I deeply miss having the floral accent chair that I recovered so long ago. Unfortunately, the kids keep on picking more vinyl off, so I covered them with some free Sesame Street duvet covers that we were given. (Free fabric must have its use.) And that made it worse. Ha ha ha!
A couple of weeks ago, I got a package with some surprise yarn in it. I adored the colors. I began playing around and decided to make a mini chair cover/lap blanket for one of the chairs. I finished it up last week and temporarily pinned it into place. This summer, I will recover the other chair first, which means ripping it apart to come up with the pattern. At least this one will look presentable in the meantime.
Also, of note, I had multiple windows open much of the day.
We’ve been busy preparing for little man around here. That doesn’t mean that no crafting has been done. In fact, I’m sooooo close to finishing up a little blanket that will be used on our porch to cover up some wear and tear on an armchair until I have time to recover it. I’m running out of yarn, so it may be as big as it is going to get pretty soon.
We’ve also been beginning the process of double digging our garden beds. Yes, it’s February. Yes, this throws off everything we’ve ever known about gardening, but we’ve been watching local gardeners, and they’re beginning to prepare their beds now.
So that also means finishing up the purchasing of our seeds and starting our seeds. My husband managed to find some bio (organic) sweet potatoes today to get started indoors. Sweet potatoes (patate douce) are fairly expensive here compared to in the states, and they are so nutritionally dense, so we wanted to ensure that we’d have a good crop of them.
We’ve only got about 200 square feet of in-ground garden, not for lack of space, but for practicality. (We also will have 15 or so medium-sized containers.) Michael will be gone many hours beginning in March, and I’ll be in charge of the five kids and maintaining our little garden operation here. This year, it needed to be easier. So we’re doing a high-density double dug garden, based on the recommendations of John Seymour in The Self-Sufficient Gardener. But since the growing season here runs from early April through late November, we’re hoping to have several mid-season replantings and reap a huge harvest of…cabbages and beets and greens and such. Our kids are generally pretty tolerant of our healthier cooking as long as we season it well enough, but the amount of cabbage I’m foreseeing might push past their limits.
We are reusing seeds from last year as our primary seeds and then filling in with seeds for the things that are most expensive or hard to find here in France (celery, sweet potatoes, hot peppers, cilantro, etc.) We did make a couple of purchases of seeds that the kids requested (American watermelons, because the French ones are just not the same.)
Around our yard, we’ve been so pleased to see signs of Spring everywhere.
A friend sent a lovely package with some tea and cloth napkins from vintage cloth, and it’s been so delightful to hang them up on our laundry rack. I’m looking forward to March, when it will be much more temperate and line drying outdoors will be again a more feasible task for us.
I’m hoping that you’re finding beauty even on days that may be grey and gloomy.
I keenly feel for my friends back home this week, after our crocus sightings and then when daffodils started popping up in our garden. Living “up north” in the United States can be brutally beautiful. The prospect of several more months of bleak skies and cold temperatures is daunting for many. So I wanted to highlight the color grey in my color inspiration series this week, as an ode to Minnesota’s winters, as it were.
Because we work in a fairly industrial French city, there are a lot of examples of grey brickwork or grey sidewalks as well. For this post, my mind was stuck in Minnesota, so I chose mostly photos from “back home” as examples.
It’s more difficult for me to find examples of grey as an accent color in my photo collection. My eyes naturally get drawn to the brightest in the photos–much like when I wrote about brown here.
I’ve made 10 or 15 blankets with grey as a primary color in them. Grey always seems to set off the colors around it beautifully, like a best friend highlighting your “good bits” and smoothing over your failures for you. But grey as a solid (like the solid grey celtic blanket I made here) is lovely and cosy as well.
I wonder if you can find an instance of grey and focus on it as a beautiful piece of art this week. It might be difficult, but it may also help shift your perspective from “endless winter” to “understated elegance.”
The sun shone quite a bit today, revealing some Dutch crocuses in our yard to little eyes.
Crocuses in January.
New Yarn for a New Crocheter
I did get a yarn order this week, which was exciting. My oldest managed to get three balls of Stylecraft in my order. He began crocheting last week or the week before, and he’s doing so well after knitting for a few years, so I thought I’d let him pick a few skeins of his own to use colors he enjoys. He’s always been a jewel tones kid, and still, he continues. He’s working on creating a tiny blanket for one of his stuffed animals and has grand ideas of what will come next.
When Middle Children Complicate Decisions
Unfortunately, in my order, I got all of the yarn but forgot to order knitting needles for my next project, one of the Christmas sweaters I’ll be starting. Someday I’d love to have knitting needles and crochet hooks in every size all organized, but it’s just not that season. I’m not a Knitter with a capital K, so I have to use what I’ve got and plan for new needles every once in a while.
It was a real conundrum deciding how to do Christmas sweaters this year. (I’ve decided to do them in place of matching jammies, in order to reduce my “factory footprint.”)
I always love a good matching photo op for the kids, but one of the three older boys just a) wants to be different and b) hates to be different at the same time. I understand. It’s a middle child thing. So I tossed and turned about doing the same pattern for all three and just changing out the colors or doing the same pattern but giving him some distinctive elements like stripes. My husband finally decided that I should just do different patterns and different colors for all three, and then nobody will feel left out or like they don’t stand out enough. Our daughter will be getting a sweater dress for Christmas because she always loves sweater dresses.
Patterns I chose for the Christmas Sweaters
I haven’t figured out our oldest’s pattern or yarn yet (but his favorite color is currently ruby red, so it will likely be a flashy sweater.)
Our second son’s sweater will be Bernat’s Rickrack Pullover in a yellow gold with grey, blue, and orange colorwork.
Our third son’s sweater will be Drops Vincent in Drops Fabel Green Turquoise.
I have not yet determined the pattern for our girl’s sweater dress, but it will probably be purple, as I’ve worked enough pink lately to bring tears to my eyes. I might be convinced to add a little dusty rose color work to it, but that would be it.
Baby’s sweater is already in the works, as I mentioned recently. He doesn’t get a choice on his color or pattern, because I had this yarn lying around from two children ago. They just keep growing, and I never got to use this.
Tulips Because They’re Lovely
Michael brought me home some tulips today because I have such a heart for flowers. Buying fresh flowers here in France has a bit of the same “feel” as it does in the States, that you’re either trying to impress someone or that you’re just a bit “extra.” But I’m glad that he does little things like that for me every once in a while because beauty and goodness do matter.
Here’s hoping that today brought you a bit of sunshine or beauty, even if it’s in the form of an icicle or “Jack Frost” crystals on your windowpane.
It’s almost time for little man’s arrival. I just managed to get this finished in between packing hospital bags, working on my French for the hospital, and trying to get the house and children ready for me to be gone for a little while. (The average French hospital stay after giving birth is four days. What will I do? Not sure. I might go crazy from the lack of yelling and general hubbub, or it might feel like a silent spiritual retreat to only have one child around that sleeps the majority of the day.)
In any case, this texture lap blanket is done. And here are the details!
Stylecraft Bambino DK – Mellow Yellow, 800 grams
15,6 Euros (approximately $17.20 )
Time it Took
Began project on October 23, 2019. Finished January 23, 2020. Completed more than 30 smaller projects between, so not as much of my time was completely devoted to this blanket. Hard to estimate.
For other blankets (like this one!) or tah-dah posts that I’ve done recently (man is it hard to track down decades of progress photos!!!), you can either look at my Ravelry profile or in my finished objects category.
Now that the blanket is done, I just need to wrap my head around what life with a newborn will look like again. I find myself googling phrases like “newborn schedule” and other things that came intuitively the last time, which was five years ago. Ah well. It’ll all shake out, and little man will be so loved.
The baby commandeered this past week with three appointments. He turned around in the correct direction (please stay that way, youngling!), and we’re all so happy about that.
Baby’s Christmas Sweater
I began his Christmas sweater because I needed a mental break on one of the days when a new math skill was just evading one of my kids. Don’t look too closely; it’s been a while since I’ve done any “serious” knitting.
This weekend, my husband helped me do some serious nesting/rearranging. Together, we solved about eight household “problems,” but our house is still in full-on recovery mode from all of our industrious “fixing.”
If you ask the kids, the baby can come at any time. They are so anxious to meet their little plaything/friend, but some are beginning to have some amount of anxiety about me being in the hospital potentially for the French stay of 4 days. I’m ready for us to all just to be able to hunker down for a bit. And I wouldn’t mind having my spine back again.
A gift of yarn & a new project
A lovely friend sent me a bunch of yarn in the mail. As we say in our family, “my love bucket is so full!” The next day, I began a bit of a bobble blanket to use on one of our chairs that needs recovering. I anticipate that this will be a really swift project due to the smaller size and chunkier yarn. It only needs to be big enough to hide the major wear and tear on the chair until I can do some upholstery work.
trying to plan things better
Because I always bite off more than I can chew at the last minute, I created a calendar for all of my projects for the year. Don’t worry! I left some room for flexibility and fun. I’m a pretty ambitious person (with a lot of ideas!!!) However, I am choosing to not be caught making projects for all of the at-risk young men we work with in December this year. (It’s going to be hats for the young men this year, by the way, since some may still be living in the same housing situation…)
yet another crocheter in the family
I taught my oldest how to chain, single crochet, and double crochet this week. He caught on so quickly, although the moment I snapped this photo he was mid-mistake. (Isn’t that how it always goes?) He is flying through this experience and is genuinely loving it. Knitting was not the same. He spent about two hours today crocheting what will be a small blanket for one of his stuffed animals.
I read a pretty bit of a quote by Maya Angelou today: ” A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer…it sings because it has a song.”
I hope that today finds you singing the song you were made to sing.
Two pairs of boys’ jeans with multiple holes in the pairs, three dresses (requiring invisible mending because they were knits), and a few other garments are now repaired. I have three more pairs of boys’ jeans, one pair of boys’ dress pants, and a letting out of a hem on a girl’s dress left. (And a girl’s pair of pajamas since I first drafted this post…)
I bought myself some actual Sashiko needles on Amazon for around 3 Euros. Best 3 Euros I’ve spent in a while. The needles slipped through about five times as fast and easily as my old gold-tip needle. It was phenomenal.
The tools we use matter. And in this case, they weren’t outrageously expensive.
Slow Fashion Near Miss
On the note of slow fashion, a confession is in order. In France, there is a yearly sale, a month-long period of post-Christmas clothing sales going on. I decided to look online at H&M for t-shirts for myself since I anticipate needing some new shirts after this pregnancy, and their sales were averaging 60% off. Fortunately, the site sold out of all of the shirts I liked. My slow fashion ideals currently remain intact.
How easily I was swayed toward conventional factory-produced fashion, and how naturally I turn toward it is frustrating to me. Really, I have the skills to take in some of the t-shirts I’ve got or rework some old dress shirts that are far too big on me now. We’ll see what kind of projects I end up with this year in terms of slow fashion. My daughter will likely end up with a homemade sweater dress, because she loves sweater dresses so much.
My husband, on the other hand, I haven’t decided what to do about. He is a bigger-framed man, and he will eventually need some really sturdy pants. We have two brands from America that we generally can trust in terms of sturdiness. They would be much higher quality than anything that I could conjure up, but I’m not certain how they’re sourced or produced.
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WINES FROM THE FLYING SCOTSMAN
Last week’s article (please see www.costa-news. Com click Cork Talk) introduced Norrel Robertson MW whose experience in both the retail wine trade as well as the sharp of the wine industry, wine-making, puts him in an ideal and largely unique position in Spain. Here you’ll learn about his super wines, mostly red using ancient Garnacha vines but also a white using a favourite variety of mine, Viognier, which which I’ll start.
Look out for the distinctive wine labels of wines from El Escoces Volante – the hand -drawn palm about to crush a bunch of old-vine Viognier grapes makes it stand out from the crowd for a start, but more importantly the wine within the the attractive Burgundy shaped-bottle puts it apart form others made with this super-aromatic variety.
Viognier, which traditionally has lived happily along the slopes of the Rhone Valley making such beautiful wines as Condrieu and the wonderful, but stratospherically-priced Chateau Grillet, here has the benefit of longer hours of Spanish sunshine plus the soils and micro-climate of some of DO Calatayud’s highest vineyards.
It’s clearly a winning combination as El Puño Viognier has diplays many of the characteristics on subtle French Viognier wines – soft, stoned fruit and white flower taste and fragrance; as well as a touch of New World Viogner including bigger fruit (peach, mango and apricot) on both the nose and the palate. I’m a big fan of this wine and would like to taste future vintages as the vines develop over time. I’d love to taste this wine with the Indonesian food to be showcased in my ethnic cuisine wine tastings coming up in May (see the Events page www.colinharknessonwine.com).
I guess it’s the Garnacha-based wines that have helped the Flying Scorsman carve a niche and a name for himself as they do help to convince consumers of the attributes of the venerable variety. Grown in vineyards up to a 1000+ meters in altitude where the long hang-time and considerable difference between day and night time temperatures Garnacha really comes into its own.
The screw-topped La Multa Old Vine Garnacha 2009, is exactly what Norrel says on the label, a little gem! Rich and supple this concentrated, dark berried is attractively perfumed, tempted one to taste, and rewarding the taster with deep flavours of blackberry and spice.
El Puño Garnacha was the wine that wowed presenters, Noelle and Bob, on Bay Radio’s on-air Sunday Brunch programme some months ago. Displaying the subtlety of French Grenache, judicially oaked, with juicy Spanish sunshine-inspired deep and dark fruit this wine is a fine Garnacha example. Herby mineral notes and a long finish, it’s as elegant as a fine French maiden but with machismo strength of flavour.
Manga del Brujo is again a subtle, elegant and yet big wine – testimony to the wine-maker’s craft – with rich, dark fruit of the forest flavours and a beguiling perfume. Give it time to breathe in glass or better still, decant the wine and enjoy it’s development. Look good on the table and tastes wonderful with meaty dishes.
Dos Dedos del Frente unfiltered red wine doesn’t just owe it’s cheeky name to Norrel’s time in New Zealand, I think, but also the blend of white and black grape varieties – Viognier and Syrah. I’ve tasted several blends like this from New Zealand where the Viognier makes such a significant contribution to the perfume of the wine as well as adding a lightness to the spicy, black pepper and olive, rich dark berried flavour of Syrah, which grows so well here in Spain. Integrated oak adds to the party and makes for a super-flavoured red wine.
My advice is – don’t miss the train, The Flying Scotsman’s wines are a treat!
PS I’m presenting a series of Ethnic Cuisine/Wine Matches evenings In Moraira in May in the selected restaurants: Happy Garden (Chinese); Bajul (Indonesian); and Himalaya (Nepalese/Indian). Four or five for the restaurants’ specialities will be tasted with a different wine for each dish, from their list, not their house wines. It’s a super opportunity to try different tastes and different wine marriages – each evening will only cost 15€ – 18€ (depending on the restaurant).
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Saturday, December 19, 2020
The seismic events of the year 2020 will no doubt reverberate for years to come. Other than the pandemic and the societal uprisings, a third thing I think we can learn from is leadership. Here are some take-aways:
- It has been said that we get the leaders we deserve. The last four years in the US have shown us the ugly side of our country, almost in a caricatured manner. Yes, we need to heal the ugly face of racism. We need to support the underserved in our society and not blame the victims. We need to look at how we value our environment. We need to value science and not engage in magical thinking. We need to treat each others are equals and not perpetuate rankism and elitism. We need to be mindful that words have consequences.
- When I look at how the common people in our country and other countries have banded together to stand up and say "No more!" I am moved and inspired. Two images come to mind. First, elected leaders are like the large game animals in wild areas. What prompts them to move? The common grass. Be like the succulent, green grass and entice our leaders to move in your direction.
- The second image comes from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Have you ever seen it? The highlight is the large balloons of cartoon characters being led along the parade path, seemingly squeezed between the huge skyscrapers. The balloons are like elected leaders. Who leads these balloons? Just common people, holding the balloons by ropes and walking along the parade route. Be the rope-holder, and keep walking.
Saturday, December 12, 2020
The year 2020 will be remembered for so many things. Last week we talked about the lessons of the pandemic. Another giant event in this year was the eruption of protests against historical and systemic prejudice. We've seen marches against police brutality, against governmental corruption, against racial disparities, against sexual predation, among others. What is to be learned from this?
- We cannot ignore historically underserved communities and not expect some sort of backlash. How we treat others, or allow our societies to treat them, will someday affect ourselves.
- Our police have forgotten how to relate to others as fellow humans and fallen into the trap of becoming tools of armament vendors. What happened to the neighborhood cop that everyone knew?
- Our police have also been asked to play too many roles -- peace-keeper, social worker, psychologist, addictions counselor and so on -- and are asked to do so in places where people are heavily armed, mentally unbalanced, or desperate. Our societies need to get back to providing social funding to help support the poor, the emotionally distraught, those with mental illness, and those with addictions. If we fund people first, the police can get back to serving as peace-keepers.
- Sub-groups in our societies will no longer be kept down. The power of these marches show that it will no longer be acceptable to discriminate against any group that is not part of the ruling class. There is power in the unity of resistance.
Saturday, December 5, 2020
No doubt the year 2020 will be analyzed, written about, cursed and eulogized over the coming months and years. We will all agree it's been a year quite unlike any other! While I don't pretend to be comprehensive in what I think humanity could learn from this year, I'll look back with 20/20 vision and list some things I think are important.
Of course, the most important event of 2020 was the novel coronavirus and its related disease, COVID-19. It has affected everyone in various ways. Here are some lessons we can list:
- This virus has touched the lives of everyone on the planet. What else can you say did the same?
- It has taught us that the greatest sign of love is to be apart from each other, as difficult as that may be, in order to keep each other safe.
- Being apart from each other has taught us about the value of relationships, how technology has become so indispensable in staying in touch with each other, and the value of real communication, from the heart.
- The virus is largely spread through the air, through the droplets spread from unmasked talking or breathing. It is invisible. In this way it mimics words, whether spoken or written, in how they can affect others. Are our words filtered with some sense of empathy and kindness, or are they unmasked with venom? Words affect others just as much as virus cells do.
- It has shown that the virus can strike anyone, regardless of wealth or status, but it tends to affect those who have been historically marginalized in a more serious manner. The cracks in our health care and societal support systems have been laid bare with this pandemic.
- It has taught us the value of science and objective study. Hopefully, people will come to learn that conspiracies and politicization are potentially harmful, and that well-regarded, well-researched news media are the best sources for action.
- It has taught us to be grateful for the little things -- a beautiful sunset, the gleam of a water droplet on a flower, the warmth of a pet on your lap, the smile from a loved one's face via Zoom.
Thursday, November 26, 2020
I don't know about you, but this very unusual year of 2020 with all its challenges has taught me a lot about being grateful. I want to take the time to say how I grateful I am that you are reading this blog and for those who have ordered The Gemini Bond. On this day of thanks, I thank you for sharing your time with me here. I am blessed.
Saturday, November 21, 2020
Last week I was praising the book Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, edited by Jane Hirshfield. I'd like to share a quote that really spoke to me. It talks about how we could benefit from everything we do, everything we encounter, in order to grow spiritually. It's by the first published poet in the American colonies, Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672).
"There is no object that we see, no action that we do, no good that we enjoy, no evil that we feel or fear, but we may make some spiritual advantage of all."
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Sometimes I like to browse through my bookshelves at home, since browsing at a bookstore is not a great idea these days, and picked up one that I've had there for quite a while. It's good to renew acquaintances with old friends, books or otherwise.
Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women is a terrific compilation of spiritual writing from nearly every tradition. What I like the best is that the editor, the poet and translator Jane Hirshfield, included selections that speak directly from the writer's heart. These aren't poems that were created to please someone else or some religious tradition. Each word has been felt and lived.
In these days of introspection and getting back to our true natures, this book presents voices that can still guide us. A wonderful book to have on your bookshelf . . . or bedside table.
Saturday, November 7, 2020
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. (Jimmy Carter)
Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Appealing to tribe, appealing to fear, pitting one group against another, telling people that order and security will be restored if it weren't for those who don't look like us or don't sound like us or don't pray like we do, that's an old playbook. It's as old as time. And in a healthy democracy it doesn't work. Our antibodies kick in, and people of goodwill from across the political spectrum call out the bigots and the fearmongers, and work to compromise and get things done and promote the better angels of our nature. (Barack Obama)
Saturday, October 31, 2020
Saturday, October 24, 2020
Saturday, October 17, 2020
The Christian alchemists tell us that when in our being we have completed the sacred marriage of opposites, of the male and the female, the sun and the moon, the dark and the light, the conscious and the unconscious, we become a sacred androgyne-child, free of reason's madness and the ego's frivolous gloom, free of all conscious and unconscious barriers and definitions, mysterious and complete as reality itself and one with its mystery in the ground of our perfected being.That deserves some pondering, don't you think?
Saturday, October 10, 2020
Aging narcissists, which is what we're ruled by, are very dangerous people. As death approaches, their hunger for power and to prove their immortality gets more and more hysterical. They're willing to sacrifice more and more people on the altar of their own vanity. It's frightening to look at the majority of politicians and businessmen who rule the world because they are so clearly terrified. Their terror of losing power, and of death, makes them engines of destruction. Through this denial, they're even willing to institutionalize the death of the environment. This is the final paradox of narcissism, that it is willing to go on engineering total destruction in order to keep going and not have to face the shock and pain of truth; it will press the atomic button to keep alive its fiction of invincibility. It is as mad as that.See? Written for our times.
Saturday, October 3, 2020
And this is a book for our times. Even though it was copyrighted in 1994, it was definitely meant for our current generation to read. What is this book, you ask. It's Dialogues with a Modern Mystic by Andrew Harvey and Mark Matousek. You may know Andrew Harvey as one of the foremost writers and speakers on the mystic life, but Mark Matousek is also a deep-thinking modern mystic.
The book takes the form of a series of conversations between the two men on various topics. It starts out with Harvey, primarily, warning of the dark future that faces humanity if we do not return to our hearts and live with compassion, justice, and love. It then touches on several topics, including fear and courage, death and deathlessness, work, visions, humility, grief, and humor. It is a book to read slowly, savor, and contemplate.
I think we need to heed the call within this book. Let it be a guiding light in our path to building a better future for all of us. Highly recommended.
Saturday, September 26, 2020
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Don't be a puppet. Be wise. Be vigilant.
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Saturday, September 5, 2020
I've spent the last several months since savoring the poems in this most unusual book of poetry. Written and/or compiled by Daniel Ladinsky, Love Poems from God features poetry that he created out the writings of twelve mystic writers from various traditions. Which mystic writers? you ask. Let me tell you: Rabia, St. Francis of Assisi, Rumi, Meister Eckhart, St. Thomas Aquinas, Hafiz, St. Catherine of Siena, Kabir, Mira, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and Tukaram. Both Eastern and Western traditions are featured, although it's interesting to see, when comparing the poems, how the poets often come to similar conclusions or dwell on similar themes.
Daniel Ladinsky is the first to admit that he had fun taking liberties in his translations/adaptations. Some of the poems are earthy, some are cheeky, some are downright naughty. But they all point to the mystic's efforts to describe the sense of unity with the divine within. This is a wonderful book to read and savor as long as you don't read some of the poems in church. Recommended.
Saturday, August 29, 2020
Saturday, August 22, 2020
For someone like me, however, I find that I need to let go of controlled, "yang" breathing techniques at times because I have control-freak tendencies to begin with and these techniques just reinforce that, I believe. I need to balance that with times when I just allow my body to breathe at its own pace and watch that breath. It's a challenge for someone like me to be "yin" and just allow the body to breathe without my interference! Once I start observing my breath, I find that I have to be very careful not to start controlling when the next breath comes. It's a good challenge, though.
Saturday, August 15, 2020
In this one, you need to divide your breaths into four beats. One thing that Wolf stresses over and over again is that as you become more relaxed, your breaths will naturally be longer and slower, so your beats will slow down. That is OK. It's better to have the beats match your breath than to force your breath to match your beats.
In this technique, you assign one internally-heard pitch each of the four beats. Wolf recommends using Pythagorean intervals, so I will describe that here. One such set of intervals is 1-4-5-1, or do-fa-sol-do. If you play an instrument, you could play it as C-F-G-C.
Here's how the technique goes. Breathe in and hear internally (don't sing this out loud) C-C-C-C in four even beats. Hold the breath and count four silent beats. Breathe out and hear internally F-F-F-F in four even beats. Hold the breath and count four silent beats. Breathe in and hear internally G-G-G-G in four even beats. Hold the breath and count four silent beats. Breathe out and hear internally C-C-C-C in four even beats. Hold the breath and count four silent beats. Repeat.
I don't know why, but I find this just complex enough to keep my mind engaged while producing a deep calm at the same time. Perhaps it will help you as well.
Saturday, August 8, 2020
The first combines both simple words and single pitches that one hears in one's head. That means you must be able to "sing" a single note inside your mind without actually singing it out loud. If this seems doable to you, then read on.
With each in-breath, you mentally hold a pitch and sing internally one word, which I will give in a moment. With each out-breath, you listen to external sounds with detachment. Got that? Breathe in and hear a single note in your mind, breathe out and objectively listen to the world around you. You may keep the same pitch with each in-breath if you want, but I like to change it each time. You can decide what works best for you.
Now to add a single word for each in-breath. They are: Calm, Relaxed, Peaceful, and Now.
So, here's how it goes. Breathe in and mentally sing "calm" on a single note. Breathe out and listen with detachment. Breathe in and mentally sing "relaxed" on a single note. Breathe out and listen with detachment. Breathe in and mentally sing "peaceful" on a single note. Breathe out and listen with detachment. Breathe in a mentally sing "now" on a single note. Breathe out and listen with detachment. Repeat.
I like to create a four-note melody that I repeat with each round of those four words. I also find that when I am in stressful situations, I can start mentally singing that four-note melody and it helps me to recover a calmer state. I hope this also helps you as well.
Saturday, August 1, 2020
Written by Richard Wolf, In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness could be a valuable resource for a people who would like new and different methods for their meditative practice. Richard Wolf, by the way, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, music producer, and professor at UCLA's school of music.
Of course, I think this book would be best suited for people who have at least some musical training and know what a beat is, what a 4-beat measure is all about, and have some familiarity with intervals (measuring the distance between two pitches). I've had a bit of musical training, so most of this book made sense to me.
First, this is not at all like Anthony de Mello's books on meditation, where he gets right to it and describes one method after another, along with helpful hints and caveats. No. Wolf gently leads the reader from one concept to another, sometimes offering inside looks at his interactions with various famous musicians over his long career. This is a gentle, leisurely book. However, I did find a few of his meditation techniques very helpful and I often come back to them again and again.
A recommended book, especially if you have a little musical training and want some new and unique techniques for your meditation practice.
Saturday, July 25, 2020
Saturday, July 18, 2020
I have a friend who gets almost all of his news from a prominent social media site. Sadly, much of the news that he chooses to click on is fake. They have provocative headlines that are designed to elicit fear, anger or outrage, or greed. One of his favorites are conspiracy theories, which mix fear and outrage. The problem is, whenever he clicks on one of these stories, the website remembers and generates more articles along that vein. So, he clicks on more, and more appear. In a sense, he is creating his own hall of mirrors. The sad thing is that these fake news articles are designed not only to get him to read more like them, but they are also created to influence how he votes, how he views certain ethnic groups, and how he becomes more ingrained in a certain world view. It's very sad.
Stay free of this. Do not click on articles that you can tell are appealing to your lower emotional centers. Check "facts" in these articles with Snopes.com or other fact-checking sites. Be objective.
Similarly, the non-anonymous talking heads on the daily news channels, especially the ones that run 24/7, use your base emotions to continue watching. Anger, fear and outrage are particularly common emotions that they elicit in order to keep you glued to the TV. After all, they are in the business of selling commercial time, and the longer you watch, the more commercials you will see. Of course, I am not saying that you should avoid being informed and watching the news, but be aware of how the different news organizations make you feel. Do you feel angry, afraid, or upset? Do those emotions make it hard for you to pull away from the TV? Or do you feel informed, where the news is presented in a logical, even-handed way? That is probably the better choice for getting your information.
We all make choices in how we stay informed in this world. By making wise choices, we can avoid the chance that we might come under someone's influence through the manipulation of our emotions. Be wise. Stay free.
Saturday, July 11, 2020
First, let's look at how individual people try to influence us to their advantage. We have all received phone calls from scam artists who try to control us by using our emotions to our disadvantage. Scammers call this "getting them under the ether." They say things to elicit the strong emotions that are based in our reptilian brains, getting us out of our logical, objective higher brain. And the emotions they love to use are fear or urgency, anger or outrage, and greed.
For example, a scammer might want to scare you to believe that your computer has been hacked and you only have minutes to take care of it. They are using fear and the pressure of time to hook you into doing what they want, such as providing them with your credit card number. The best thing to do is to take a deep breath and hang up. (Better yet, never answer a number you do not recognize.)
But leaders also do the same thing, don't they? Whether it's religious leaders who scare you with talk of eternal damnation or governmental leaders who vilify a minority ethnic group, saying that they are out to take your job or are a threat to your safety, these leaders are using fear to control you so that you will do what they want. Stop. Take a deep breath. Go back to watching and listening to them objectively. Ask yourself: What do they want from me? Decide for yourself if that's something that is in your best interest and the best interest of those you care about.
Stay free, friends, stay free.
Saturday, July 4, 2020
Saturday, June 27, 2020
I've written about Anthony de Mello before. He was a Jesuit priest, born in India, received his higher education in Great Britain, and prolific writer and teacher. Given his background, he was uniquely able to meld Christian beliefs with Indian meditative practices. This book is the result.
Like many meditation books, he starts with concentration exercises, such as focusing on the breath or body sensations, and advances to practices which he called meditations based on fantasy. By this he meant meditative practices which use the imagination to access spiritual insights, promote relaxation, heal past trauma, and bring peace. For me, these were the most interesting and useful practices.
The last section deals with meditative practices that are strictly Christian in nature. If you are Christian, you will have no issue with this section, but if you are not, you may have difficulty transferring the practices to your own spiritual viewpoint. But no matter, the rest of the book is well worth the money. A highly recommended book for those wanting to deepen their meditations.
Saturday, June 20, 2020
While it is valuable for its historical insights, I think I appreciated most how Dr. Harrington explained Meister Eckhart's spiritual teachings. Meister Eckhart believed that the masses to whom he preached could be taught how to unite with the God within and would sometimes use phrasing that bordered on pantheism and other non-orthodox beliefs. One such statement was, "Therefore I pray to God to make me free of God." He also stressed that the inward state is much more valuable to God than good works. Of course, this eventually brought him unwelcome notice for the religious authorities and he was called in to explain his allegedly heretical statements. I won't ruin the ending for you, but it cost him both his reputation as well as his being officially "forgotten" for many centuries.
I think that what is important about this book is that Dr. Harrington worked to present Eckhart's teachings within the framework of his time and place. As we have seen in the last several decades, several authors have taken some of Eckhart's words and used them to promote their own viewpoint, but Dr. Harrington clearly counteracts that. Meister Eckhart taught important spiritual insights that must be taken within their context and, once understood, can provide useful nuggets for spiritual wisdom in our times.
Saturday, June 13, 2020
The author is a professor of history at Vanderbilt University and an expert on social and religious history in premodern Germany. He provides the reader with a thorough sense of German life in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, the Catholic viewpoint and the political struggles of that time. Within this framework, he zeroes in on the life of a Dominican monk from a small town who had both keen intellectual gifts as well as unique spiritual insights.
Meister Eckhart was clearly a man of enormous potential, as his superiors supported his intellectual pursuits at the Univeristy of Paris, where he eventually earned a Master of religious studies and also taught there. He was also a gifted administrator and his superiors also relied on him to lead at various monasteries where the political winds were particularly treacherous.
However, it is Meister Eckhart's spiritual insights which have made him known, in a negative way toward the end of the life, and somewhat more positively in recent years. A highly recommended book.
Saturday, June 6, 2020
When I looked at the art, I was struck by the simple honesty of the depictions. The renderings were accompanied by brief descriptions of the scene they were portraying. But since I didn't know anything about Guru Nanak's life, they meant little to me. It was more of the energy of the work -- the directness, the simplicity, the quiet wisdom -- that touched me most.
Of course, on our way out, we had to stop by the gift shop and I picked up a biography of Guru Nanak so I could learn more. I finally sat down and read it bit by bit and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a delightful read and illuminated the life of Guru Nanak as well as his teachings. I learned a lot about Sikhism as well as its founder.
And what is this book, you ask? Let me tell you. It's The First Sikh Spiritual Master: Timeless Wisdom from the Life and Techniques of Guru Nanak by Harish Dhillon. I found myself looking forward to seeing what would happen to Guru Nanak, as his biography read like an adventure story. Of course, I also relished the parts which explained his teachings and beliefs.
If you'd like to learn more about Sikhism and its founder, this is a great book to get. Highly recommended.
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Thursday, May 28, 2020
- Come to your sense of self. It doesn't matter how you do it -- wiggle your toes, stomp your feet, count your breaths, chant, meditate, do a yoga pose -- it doesn't matter, as long as you can come back to your inner self, with its unique emotional landscape.
- Observe your emotions. You may find that there are layers of emotions there; some are weaker and some are stronger; some may feel familiar and some may feel like an ill-fitting, itchy sweater.
- Visualize these emotions as having separate layers. The more familiar ones may be in your core self. Others may feel like they hover on the outer part of your emotional sphere. Do they have colors? Wave shapes? Weight? Notice as much detail about them as you can.
- Inhale, reaffirming the emotions that truly belong to you. The ones nearest your core may feel more stable, familiar, and part of your world outlook. Keep those. Then, exhale, releasing the ones that do not belong to you. Repeat. Repeat again until you feel calmer and more at ease in yourself.
- Do this process as many times per day as you need -- even 19 times, if that's what it takes.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
"A nice definition of an awakened person: A person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within."
"What does it mean to love? It means to see a person, a situation, a thing as it really is, not as you imagine it to be."
"It's not reality that matters, but what you're saying to yourself about it."
"The beauty of an action comes not from its having become a habit but from its sensitivity, consciousness, clarity of perception, and accuracy of response."I am so glad I found this book, and am honored to share it with you. It can be world-changing.
Saturday, May 16, 2020
In step one, he asks that you first get in touch with your negative feelings (ones that you may not even be aware of).
In step two, he says that you need to understand that the feeling is in you, not in external reality. He says that no person, event, or circumstance has the power to disturb or hurt you. Think on that a while.
In step three, he says that we must never identify with that feeling, but realize that feelings come and feelings go. Let it pass. There is an eternal "I" which is completely undisturbed by external reality.
In step four, he says that good feelings -- happiness, joy, bliss -- come from inside and have nothing to do with externals. As we change, everything changes.
As I read the book, I couldn't help but see that some of his philosophy has some influences of Buddhism and mindfulness practices. Still, the way he presents his ideas make perfect sense and seem fresh and applicable as he describes them. A fabulous book.
Saturday, May 9, 2020
First, a word about Anthony de Mello. He was born in Bombay, India, in 1931 and became a Jesuit priest and a psychotherapist. His writing shows both a strong mystical leaning as well as a rare insight into the human psychological dilemma. One of the things that I also appreciated about his viewpoint is that he was able to meld Eastern and Christian spirituality with a clear description of human psychology. He spoke and wrote with a rare clarity that took my breath away.
Sadly, he died too soon, at the age of fifty-five, of a heart attack.
Awareness is a compilation of talks de Mello gave at a spirituality conference, put together and edited by an associate, J. Francis Stroud, after de Mello's death. Happily, it reads like you are sitting in the conference room with him, watching as he goes off on tangents, or re-engages his audience with a fitting joke. He speaks to where people are, and not in some nebulous theoretical discourse. It's a pleasure to read.
If you are remotely interested in deepening your spiritual life, read this book. Like, right now. Like, go to your favorite bookstore and order it. Now. It will change your life.
Saturday, May 2, 2020
Like it was a college text or something.
And then I typed those notes up to keep as reference and reminder. That's pretty serious for me.
Even though I don't completely identify as Christian anymore, I found this book spoke to my mystical-leaning heart. In fact, it helped deepen those leanings and lit the way for further journeying along that path. It was a joy to find.
And what is that book? you ask. Well, tune in next week and I'll tell you more.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good. (Elizabeth Edwards)
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. (Helen Keller)
Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself -- and be lenient to everybody else. (Henry Ward Beecher)
The human capacity for burden is like bamboo -- far more flexible than you'd ever believe at first glance. (Jodi Picoult)Have courage, friends. Peace.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
1. People can react either out of fear or out of love. The former buy guns and stockpile supplies, while the latter express gratitude and compassion to others. Although it's hard at times when things seem so out of control, I try to act out of love as best I can.
2. In times of crisis, people can turn their fear into anger and aggressiveness. This manifests as putting blame on other people or countries, being threatening, or turning inward and ignoring the needs of others. This is an opportunity to pull our fractured nation and world together and work as one. Let's do that.
3. Our leaders show their true values in times of crisis. I've noticed that they either put money and the economy first, or they put people and their wellbeing first. My personal belief is that you can't have an economy without people, but I suppose there is some merit to the idea that if you have a healthy economy, then people can take care of themselves. Still, if both the economy and the people are ailing, let's put people first, shall we?
4. Viruses have no nation, creed, ethnicity, or religion. It is universal, just as the human soul is. I think people are coming to the knowledge that we really are all one.
5. We are living through extraordinary times. Let's be remembered for rising to the occasion and showing our best selves. We can overcome this. We're in this together.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
1. Alone time is essential. Even if I can't be completely alone in the house, I can still hide in a room, a closet, or in my innermost self through meditation. I need this. Every day.
2. Little things can become big things if we let them. I've learned it's necessary for my sanity and for peace between peoples if I lighten up and let things slide a bit. Rather than make a big deal over that irritating mouth sound my Significant Other makes when reading, I can either focus on my breath or I can leave for a while. Fantasizing about silencing those mouth sounds with a pillow is OK as long as I don't act on it.
3. People are reaching out more. I heard from a family member for the first time in a couple of decades and the conversation was quite pleasant. Perhaps this pandemic has put things in perspective for some people. I know it has for me.
4. Gratitude goes a long way. I find things run much more smoothly at home when I say at least five "thankyous" for every "please will you . . ". People like to feel appreciated, not constantly commanded or criticized.
5. On the rare occasions that I go to the store, I make it a point to thank every worker that I see. So often treated as if they are invisible, they are heroes in my book. We both feel better when I take the time to acknowledge that.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
1. Finding toilet paper at the store is like finding a winning lottery ticket. Even if is not my favorite brand, I am filled with gratitude for finding it. Who knew that an everyday item could impart such joy?
2. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. I learned that not being able to find things I usually buy at the grocery store causes me to try new and . . . interesting . . . ingredient combinations.
3. The fur babies are loving having us home more. Having them cuddle on my lap makes me feel better, too. They help ground me and bring me comfort in trying times.
4. Taking time to look at the tree branches swaying in the breeze, to listen to the birds singing, to feel the sun on my face is a result of having the time to do so. These simple pleasures never felt so good.
5. It is possible to watch too much TV news or read too much news reports on the internet. For my sanity, I need to step back and return to the present. Today is a gift to be treasured. Who knows what the future may bring? I may as well enjoy now.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. (Desmond Tutu)
We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon. (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
Everything that is done in the world is done by hope. (Martin Luther)
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Every calamity is to be overcome by endurance. (Virgil)
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. (Frederick Douglass)
We all wish to be brave and strong in the face of disaster. We all wish to be looked up to for our endurance and efforts to help others. (Clarissa Pinkola Estes)
Saturday, March 14, 2020
From caring comes courage. (Lao Tzu)
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of mind next to honor. (Aristotle)
We must be bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community. (Haile Selassie)
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Today's theme is vision.
Where there is no vision, there is no hope. (George Washington Carver)
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. (Carl Jung)
Anything can be changed. Anything can be fixed. Things that are broken can be fixed. And you don't have to be some billionaire or millionaire to do it. You just have to be a person with a vision and the passion to do it, and be willing to fight for it every day. (Dana White)
Saturday, February 29, 2020
I found that, in reading, some of the mystics were well known to me. But I met a few that were unknown or even overlooked by history. It made my heart warm, knowing that some of these mystics, working quietly and often alone, described their experiences for a future that they could never imagine would appreciate them. What a testament to faith and courage.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
McColman is a lay Cistercian, as well as a contemplative writer, speaker, and retreat leader. He writes with sensitivity and clarity, a rare gift given the difficulty of putting such experiences into words.
He focuses on mystics from the Christian tradition (oh, that he would write on mystics from other traditions as well!) and divides them into nine categories of twelve mystics each:
- Wisdom Keepers
- Soul Friends
Friday, February 14, 2020
Saturday, February 8, 2020
May I share two more quotes, which I think pertain to today's push for change? They come from Mahatma Gandhi. We need to become students again of Gandhi's ideology which aims for social change through non-violent (non-resistant) means. His words still ring true in today's climate:
When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.and:
The noblest moral law is that we should unremittingly work for the good of mankind.True then, true now.
Saturday, February 1, 2020
Last month I featured a couple of quotes from this book. Here is one more:
A profound understanding of religions allows the destruction of the barriers that separate them. (Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948)I highly recommend this book.
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Saturday, January 11, 2020
But I would like to remind us all that change is far more than pushing away the stuff you don't like. To do that only breeds resistance, and you know the old saying, "What you resist persists." That's very true whether on the personal level or in societal structures.
It's far better to go around that stuff and aim higher. By that I mean that we need to acknowledge that wrongs, faults, and injustices exist but to hold as our goal the establishment of something better to replace it. We need to have the courage and persistence to fight FOR what we want, not AGAINST what we don't want.
So whether your issue for this year is person, say, weight loss or stopping smoking or gossiping, or whether it is societal or global, say, climate change, plastic pollution, economic inequality, overpopulation (why do so many people ignore this issue, which is at the root of so many other issues we face?), wars, poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and so on, I strongly urge us all to imagine what its preferred opposite might be and to work for that.
Up and at 'em. Keep the faith. Have courage.
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Deep Space Claw
Kill the Spare
Ratings/Warnings: 1-2nd years (Does fluff count? )
A/N: I think this is sweet; it shows a young Granger-Weasley Family. (Used: Romione/LET'S READ)
“Ron! Can you read Rosie her bedtime story tonight?” Hermione called up the stairs, sitting at her desk, papers surrounding her.
“Which one?” He called back as Rose ran down the hall to jump in bed. At four years old, she was the cutest thing Ron had ever seen, except for Hugo.
“It doesn’t matter! They’re on Rosie’s shelf!” She shouted, before returning to her work. Ron walked into Rose’s room, surprised to see not only Rose, but also Hugo. They were sitting in Rose’s bed, waiting anxiously for their story. He walked over to Rose’s bookshelf and pulled out a random one. Great, it’s the diseased girl. He smiled and sat on the bed across from his children.
“Are you lot ready?” He asked, pretending to be his older brother. “If the time is inconvenient I can come back,” he asked snobbishly, and watched his children giggle.
“No, Uncle Percy! Read us our story!” Rosie said, and Ron immediately gave into her. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t.
“All right. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Cinderella . . .” he started, wondering how far he would make it before he started comparing it to the stories he heard growing up.
“Are they asleep?” Hermione asked, peeking her head into Rose’s room. Ron was tucking Rosie in while balancing a sleeping Hugo. He was smiling.
“Yeah. I’m glad I didn’t have to read the whole thing, because I can never take the endings seriously,” he admitted, handing Hugo over to his wife.
“They’re fairytales. They’re supposed to be magical and far-fetched. It’s why they love them so much,” she told her husband, kissing him briefly before putting Hugo to bed. She would never tell him she already had her fairytale, and that he was her prince. That would make him laugh. Ron never liked fairytales, whereas she loved them. So she went to her prince, who was just looking at his daughter. She was his weak spot, Hermione knew. They sat there a while, talking quietly, looking at their children. It was the one thing they hadn’t made a mess of. It was perfect, and she slept soundly next to Ron that night, until Hugo had a nightmare at three in the morning.
It was just another day in her fairytale.
Deep Space Claw
Kill the Spare
Title: A Sort Of Life
Ratings/Warnings: 1-2nd years/ Mental disorders and mention of violence
Word Count: 792
A/N: I hope you like this, and the style isn't too peculiar for you. It's been in the works a while, so I hope it makes sense. The candy used was 'Love Life'.
A man, with a scar on his cheek, but I think he was a boy quite recently, and I wonder when that change happened. He’s holding my hand--there’s a scar there too, on the smooth white skin, and his other hand is wrinkled, not like his hand at all, veins bursting from it like roots from the ground, and I continue to stare, unable to look away from his two strange hands.
Slips, one of them, the young one, from my old grip and it brushes a lock of light brown hair behind his ears--he has big ears, that stick out, as do his teeth, but he doesn’t look comical. He reminds me of someone, as if he’s a sculpture modelled on another human being.
Once he fell down, tripping over the tray that brings the meals around daily, but that was when he was small, so very small, and the woman who helped him up is now sitting on the other--what’s the word? I can’t remember the word, but it’s there, dancing, teasing on the tip of my tongue. I used to know it well, and it’s warm and it’s comfy and it’s being in someone else’s arms, and never wanting to leave, but now I can’t remember it. I reach forward to bite it, catch it in my mouth, but my teeth don’t snag on the word but on my tongue and I taste the blood.
Blood. Only a little, but once there was once lots of it. The first time I saw a bloody body was in a fight, and one guy had something, another word not quite in focus, something that’s usually safe, and soft, and brought to the skin every few days by one of the men or women in the lime green robes, with the bones and crossed wands across it.
I used my wand to heal his wounds, the skin sewing itself together, and then I pressed my wand to his temple and made him forget what he had done--how could I have done that? At least I didn’t sew his lips together, which is what someone, don’t know who, or when, sometimes it feels like a year, sometimes it feels like more, has done to me. Each word that passes through the stitches is an escape, blissfully uttered as it flies from the confines of my head, into the real world, but mostly it’s not a word at all, but a half-formed, weak thing, like the echo of a scream.
Scream. So loud, so loud, and I can’t get rid of it, clamp my hands to my ears to stop the noise, to pretend that I’m not helpless, to pretend that her body isn’t flying through the air and I’m not powerless to stop it--
Hands on my wrists, pulling my palm from my ear, and I’m staring into her eyes. I’ve stared into these eyes before, many, many times, in many, many places, and the images flash by, the day we met, she’s my boss, I think, I can’t be sure, but I think her a maverick, and she thinks me a stickler for rules, and we shout at each other, and there’s the red scent of danger, as we save each other’s lives, and then I call her infuriatingly spontaneous--what does that mean? I can’t remember what that means, but it must have meant something, to her, that day, because she kissed me.
I try to say it again, yearning with my eyes, to let her know that I don’t know her name, but I know I love her. She seems to know as well, because she reaches forward, her ears sticking out, her teeth overlarge, and presses her lips to my cheek.
I don’t know where we are, as we cradle each other in our arms. The world seems too bright, and the screaming in my head, her screaming I realise, doesn’t stop, but becomes muted.
One hand is being held again by the once-boy, now man. He’s staring at us. I wonder what he’s doing here. What business he has to stare at us so directly, as if his--what’s it called? That beating, pulsing thing inside your body--as if that might be hurting him, but why should it?
He has nothing to do with us.
Every object I set my eyes on explodes with possibility, uncertainty, memories that I can’t remember whether are lived or imagined, words which fail to frame what I feel in my head, but with this woman I have carved a sort of life from the little that remains to me, and that little that is certain, is the love I feel for her.
Deep Space Claw
Kill the Spare
Candy Heart used: Sweet Home
A/N: I have no idea where this came from, Lily, and it’s probably not what you wanted (especially the end) but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless. It’s loosely based on a song, but I won’t tell you which one or else you might guess who I am
By the way, this was rather brutally cut, so I might expand this in the future.
“Long day?” Hannah Abbott says, placing a Butterbeer in front of Neville.
“You could say that,” he replies, grimacing. He usually doesn’t go to the Leaky Cauldron. Too many people. But he needs a drink—badly. And it’s not as busy as it usually is today, which is a first.
He laughs quietly, and when she frowns at him questioningly, he says, “It’s... nothing. I just—it’s... strange, being asked about my troubles by an old schoolmate.” He hadn’t spoken to Hannah properly since—when was it? Sixth year? And then she left because of her mother.
Hannah turns from him for a second, serving another customer. Then she faces him again. “Well, there's always a first time for everything.”
He doesn’t know why he tells her. He hasn’t told Harry, or Ron, or, Merlin forbid, Hermione, so why should he say anything to Hannah Abbott?
But he does. Neville tells her everything, everything about Luna.
They always had to argue, about petty, tiny things, things that didn't even matter. Of course, it always came down to that. They rowed over who went into the bathroom first. Neville would protest about Luna having showers at the oddest hours while he was trying to sleep. Luna would complain about the strong smell of toast in the kitchen. Neville would try tidying up Luna’s mess. Luna would retaliate by arranging everything even more haphazardly than before.
And all those tiny arguments led to an increasing amount of friction between them, and once Neville’s voice became hoarse from yelling, their bickering was replaced with such a deathly quiet that Neville almost preferred the fights.
“You need to talk to her,” Hannah says finally, putting a glass of Firewhisky in front of him as he finishes speaking. “I don't know Luna that well, but I know most people would like an apology if someone’s shouted at them.”
“But she does it as well,” he says hopelessly. “And what gets at me is that we argue about the most stupid things—”
“Don't give up, Neville. You love her, and anyone can see that. Talk to her. Try to make things work.”
“And if they don't?”
“Just try your best.”
He appears outside the door of the flat they share. Tapping the locks with his wand, the door opens with a creak, and he enters quietly.
“I’m home,” he calls.
She does not reply, and he makes his way through the mess strewn on the floor (the flat is so untidy that he can't even see a square inch of carpet) to the living room, trying not to step on anything, which is not an easy feat. She is sitting at the desk, piles of parchment covering every available surface, including the stools and chairs and the arms of the sofa. When he comes in, she does not even acknowledge his presence. She seems so wrapped up in her work that she probably can't even hear him.
“Neville,” she replies quietly, looking up for a millisecond before returning to whatever she’s writing.
Neville stands there, in the mess, waiting for her to say something further. But she does not, and the only sound he hears is the annoying scratch of her quill. The silence stretches on, slowly filling with terseness, and the angry words they had exchanged earlier on in the day simply serve to distance them from one another further.
“Is there a reason why you’ve been standing there for the last five minutes staring at me?” Luna says abruptly now, her eyes still fixed on what she’s writing.
“Aren't we going to even talk about—”
“What’s the point?”
And Neville realises that Luna is right. There is no point of discussing it. It would only add fuel to the already blazing fire.
“But... Luna, we can't go on like this.”
“Like what?” she demands, and this time, she looks up and meets his eyes.
“All we seem to do is argue.”
“No we don’t.”
“Yes we do.”
“All couples argue—”
“Look, you’re doing it now!” Neville points out, and the anger flares up from within him. The fatigue he feels from a long day at Auror training does not help. “Everything I say, you have to disagree with it. We do it all the time. You’re damn near impossible to live with. Yes, I know you think the same about me,” he adds as she opens her mouth to speak. “You—we’re like chalk and cheese, Luna. We don't work together. I love you, damn it, but I just don't think it’s working!”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying...” he pauses. What is he saying? What about what Hannah said? “I’m saying that... maybe, maybe we need to take a... break.”
Deep Space Claw
Kill the Spare
Rating/Warnings: 1st/2nd Years — None
Author’s Notes: Oh, the days when Snape was young, innocent, and cared about others more than himself. :/
Severus scanned the area heavily, making sure that Petunia was nowhere in sight. Where Lily was good and wonderful, Petunia was the complete opposite, and he wanted nothing to do with the latter. It was difficult to find time to spend with Lily, so he didn’t want to waste a second squabbling with her surly older sister.
She was on a swing, one of her favourite places in the playground. The day was unseasonably warm for May, so the children who normally gathered in the area were inside, hiding from the heat with their lemonade. It was, because of this, a perfect day for a bit of magic. After he had told her of the laws regarding underage magic, it had taken some doing to convince Lily that she wouldn’t get in trouble for a little bit of minor spell-casting.
He desperately wanted to run to her and announce his presence, but it was not going to improve her confidence in him as a tutor. Instead, he strode from the bushes behind which he had been hiding after arranging his ill-fitting clothing to be as presentable as possible. She saw him fairly quickly and waved animatedly mid-swing.
“Sev, look what I can do!” Lily shouted.
Before Severus could ask what she was going to do, Lily launched herself from the swing when it was at the highest point of its arc. She had done this before with stunning success, but this time was different. He knew her and cared about whether she landed safely. However, she was not done. The muscles in his stomach tightened with worry as she turned head over heels mid-air.
His fears were quelled when she landed on her feet, albeit awkwardly, and bowed dramatically. Her jubilant smile of triumph made him run the rest of the distance, even though he stopped short and asked dully, “Are you all right?”
“I can fly, Sev!” she said, whipping her arms wide as if to show she had wings. “How could I not be fine?”
Though his brain screamed the thousand ways she could’ve been injured, Severus nodded in approval. “Your control is strong. You will be the best witch in the world with a wand and some training.”
“I hope so,” she replied, a slight wobble in her voice. “What if I’m too Muggle? What if my magic isn’t as good as everyone else’s because my parents aren’t witch and wizard?”
Something inside of Severus froze. He knew many things that she didn’t about the acceptance of Muggle-borns in the wizard world, but he almost didn’t have the heart to tell her. Instead, he plucked a twig laden with blossoms from a nearby cherry tree and placed it in her hands. She looked at him with curiosity, but he gestured toward the tiny branch.
“Visualise the cherries. Will them into existence. Don’t let it take no for an answer.”
Nodding solemnly, Lily squeezed her eyes shut and began murmuring quietly to herself. At first, a few of the blooms shrivelled and fell dead into the grass. Severus was glad Lily couldn’t see them, especially when, after half of the flowers had failed, the remaining ones began to develop into tiny green teardrops and finally into rich, plump-looking cherries. He swept the wilted ones away from them with his hand before saying, “Open your eyes.”
Lily looked down at her hands in wonder. “I . . . I did it. I did it!” With a squeak of delight, she dropped the branch in the grass and wrapped her arms around him. Severus was unprepared for her embrace, but as he acclimated to this unaccustomed contact, he hoped that she never lost that spark.
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Can't track down your favorite boots?
Converse boots have been discontinued. But never fear! We’ve put together some recommendations for you.
We've made it easy by listing the old favorites next to our new recommended styles. These boots will still fit great, look great and have the same features you have come to depend on.
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POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — Located just outside this small town is a tourist attraction that evokes memories of days gone by.
The West Virginia State Farm Museum is “dedicated to the preservation of our farm life heritage,” according to the museum’s slogan. Many pieces of farm history — including homes of some of the state’s early residents — are on display there.
Walden Roush founded the farm museum, which is operated by volunteers, in 1976. A former educator, he believed it was necessary to preserve farm life heritage. According to Lloyd Akers, museum director, “Mason County was a huge agricultural community, but the family farm has been declining since the 1970s.”
There are approximately 33 separate buildings that make up the state farm museum. The first museum building, the “Green Building,” houses old artifacts, corn planters and saddles. Also within that structure are Amish stage coaches from the 1970s, a cider press circa 1900, motor plows circa 1940 and an array of other farm memorabilia.
Another building houses a blacksmith shop, formerly owned by Tim Harper. This was transported to the museum in the 1970s. Harper operated the shop in St. Albans near the Coal River. Akers said he remembers visiting that shop as a boy.
The home of George Summers also is part of the museum. According to family tradition, Summers, who was elected to the Virginia Legislature in 1830 and to Congress in 1841, was asked by President Abraham Lincoln to be his running mate when he ran for his second term as president, but Summers declined because of his wife’s illness. The house is divided into two types of construction: half is log and half is plank.
The Mission Ridge One Room School, built in 1870, is another feature at the museum. It is one of the first school houses built after West Virginia gained statehood.
In 1984, a rustic loom house was constructed at the site by the Jeffers Brothers of Southside, W.Va. Several types of looms are on display inside the house. Most of the rugs available for purchase in the Country Store were crafted in the Loom House by volunteers.
The carpenter’s shop played an important role in the late 1800s, and a replica of such a shop exists at the museum. Another feature with a local twist is the Allen Log Cabin, constructed circa 1830 by John Allen and his son William.
Originally located near Proctor, it was last used in the late 1970s. A great deal of effort went into restoring the house to its original state after being disassembled and brought to the museum, Akers said. A spinning wheel and two large hand looms dating back to the 19th century are on display in the house.
The barn of General the horse, one of the world’s largest horses, can be found at the farm museum. John Greene of Milton, W.Va., turned General over to the farm in 1977.
When he was young, General pulled wagons through parades across the country and participated in many shows. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, General, at 2,850 pounds, was the third heaviest horse ever.
He also tied for third place as the tallest horse ever at 6 feet, 6 inches. He was also the largest horse to ever have been mounted. General died on Dec. 17, 1982.
Also on the grounds is a replica of the first Lutheran Church west of the Allegheny Mountains. A group of Lutherans from the Shenandoah Valley moved to New Haven, W.Va., around 1800.
This group organized a congregation in 1806 and originally met in homes. They then met in Daniel Roush’s barn. Roush donated land in 1815 and the old Log Church was built.
At this time, there was a threat of Indian raids, so women and children sat upstairs while men sat downstairs. There was a gun rack where men would store their rifles prior to the service.
Along with a doctor’s office, the newspaper office is a popular attraction for the museum.
Editor George W. Trippett began printing the Point Pleasant Register on March 6, 1882, and continued doing so for 40 years.
Now, the office stands on the grounds of the museum.
An antique barber and beauty shop, post office, veterinary office and military exhibit are also on the grounds. The military display is expanding to honor all those who served to keep America free.
Akers said the museum allows people to “see what their grandparents went through to get where we are today.”
A cow, pig, four donkeys, two horse and two goats are kept at the museum. Many old tractors are on display near the entrance.
For the children, a small playground has been installed to keep them entertained.
The museum is open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and from 1 until 5 p.m. on Sunday. It closes for the season on Nov. 15.
Janice, one of two horses, greets visitors to the museum.
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Over the course of this Thanksgiving Advent adventure, I’ve talked about a number of things associated with writing, and how they’ve affected my life. I haven’t talked about writing itself, however. So I’d like to focus on that for today, independent of all the trappings, benefits and side effects. Because the fact of the matter is that even if I never became a professional writer, or became a financially successful writer, or even had more people than my immediate circle of friends ever read anything I wrote, I would still write. I would still be a writer.
I would still be a writer for the simple reason that I find the act of writing extremely pleasurable. There is something lovely about sitting down to a blank screen (or blank page, if you want to get old school) and filling it with words. There is likewise a fantastic feeling that comes from taking what are unformed and chaotic thoughts in one’s head and giving them form and structure with words. People often note that ideas and thoughts which seem deep and meaningful inside their head seem banal or pointless when they’re written out, but allow me to suggest the problem is not that that these ideas were reduced when they were translated into words; instead, they were revealed. Your brain lies to you about the awesomeness of your thoughts. Words are the friend that says “Dude. Stop hitting the bong.” On the other hand, if you have a fantastic idea in your head, and it’s still fantastic when you put it into words, you know what? It may in fact be fantastic.
This organizing and structuring that comes through writing comes in handy for me, because it means that I have an outlet to express thoughts I have that run deeper than “I have to take out the trash.” My wife understands this perfectly well; on more than one occasion, after I’ve completely fumbled expressing something to her, she’s said to me “you need to go write that out.” And I do and then I actually have a way to express that idea, so that the next time I try to verbalize it, I have a framework and a method that doesn’t involve increasingly wild hand gestures and the use of the phrase “you know?” every five or six words. Writing makes me a better verbal communicator, funny as that sounds. For which I suspect my wife, who has to live with me, is grateful.
Another reason writing is pleasurable is that I am good at it, and it feels good to do things you are good at. When I was young, I was a good writer — “good” being highly conditional on context, mind you, and I could have benefited from my own list of tips for teenage writers — and especially when you’re young, doing something you know you can do well (and possibly better than almost anyone else you know) means a lot to you and your concept of yourself as a person. You may be goofy or short or socially awkward or pocked with strategically embarrassing zits or whatever — but you can make words do things, things other people can’t, and that’s a hell of a thing when you’re fourteen and you’re trying to find a place in the world and to have it all make some sort of sense.
As I got older another aspect of the joy of writing came to the fore: the enjoyment of the craftsmanship of it, of the appreciation of a turn of phrase, or the right word, or the presentation of a concept just so, that could make an idea pop or turn a sentence from a merely functional string of words conveying meaning into something that stuck into a reader’s brain like a piton driven into a cliff wall. It’s the meta-awareness of a thing you’re doing and how you’re doing it and how it’s working, and the realization of your own competence with it, brought on by a combination of talent, practice and the occasional out of the blue taser jolt of inspiration.
And through all of this is the pleasure of the flow of words that comes when you are caught up in the act of writing, when everything you know about writing and everything you think about it and everything it might have earned you (or that you want it to earn for you) slip off to the side and it’s just you laying out the words, one after the other, into an inevitable sequence. It’s the same thing a musician gets in the middle of an epic jam session, or a painter when the image emerges out of the paint or the actor who has subsumed himself in the moment, no longer thinking about his character because the character is there.
This state of being has been described from a psychological point of view, but conceptualizing it and feeling it are of course two entirely different things. It feels like a gift from the universe to you. And maybe it is. I’m not of the opinion that you have to be good at what you’re doing in order to experience this sort of flow, although it may help. What’s important is that you’re so far into the thing you’re doing that in that moment, everything else doesn’t matter. I’ve gotten this feeling from other things, but where I get it the most is when I’m writing.
It’s a relationship with words, essentially. I have one and it manifests itself through my fingers, usually onto a computer screen but occasionally with pen and paper. It’s a relationship in which I feel defined, in no small part because in the act of writing I have been able to define myself, to myself and to others.
Independent of anything else writing has done for me — and it’s done a lot — this aspect of it has been extraordinarily important to me, and I’m thankful for it, and the pleasure it’s given me. And ultimately it’s why I write, why I keep writing, and why, if everything else that writing ever did for me went away (and it might), I would still do it.
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After her mother, father and brother died within five years of one another, Bonnie Raitt put her music aside. The seven years since her last studio album, "Souls Alike," represent the only extended pause in a career that began with her first contracted gig in 1969, when she earned $75 for playing in Philadelphia's Pennypack Park.
She eventually returned to the studio with producer Joe Henry, a singer-songwriter known for his earthy stamp on records by veterans such as Solomon Burke and Bettye LaVette. Four songs from those sessions, elegiac ballads that include two Bob Dylan covers, landed on Ms. Raitt's new album, "Slipstream," due April 10. She rounded out the album with her own productions, many of them designed to stoke the energy of live audiences (a tour begins in May). "Ain't Gonna Let You Go" was hastily rearranged around a fuzzed-out John Lee Hooker riff because it "wasn't sounding tough enough," says Ms. Raitt. Her singing adds an ache to the reggae lilt of Gerry Rafferty's "Right Down the Line."
Credit: Library and Archives, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
The stardom that came after her "Nick of Time" album swept the 1990 Grammys marks a clear dividing line in her career, but there have been constants in her music. She still cites the influence of the rawboned sound of Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sippie Wallace and other greats whom she first met and performed with as a young woman, a Radcliffe dropout-turned-blues singer. There's also the tangy sound of her familiar slide guitar tone, usually produced by her brown Fender Stratocaster and an old tube amplifier. "Then you just hang your hand on the guitar and it's like having an extension of your voice. You can roar and cry and whisper. It's very versatile and really personal," she says.
Recently Ms. Raitt, 62, spoke about how she chooses songs to record and why the piano is her go-to instrument at home. Below, an edited transcript.
The Wall Street Journal: As you're looking for songs to record, do you have an organizing system?
Ms. Raitt: For the first the 30 years or so, I took all comers. Cassettes, cassettes, cassettes piled in big boxes. I'd take a shoe box full of them in the car. I'd know whether it was something for me by the time we'd get halfway through the first verse or chorus. In all those years I never was able to find or record a song from an unprofessional person sending me a tape. Now, everyone can make a CD and you can't distinguish. The old CD player in the kitchen gets the most use now. Pop 'em in, pop 'em out. It's a lot of research. I ask friends and other people in the same artistic gene pool. My house looks like a hurricane usually for a year before I make a record. I wish I had an assistant that had the same taste, but it's just me.
Did you ever wish songwriting was a bigger part of your identity?
No, it didn't even occur to me. I had higher standards than the stuff I could come up with. When you're starting with Randy [Newman] and Jackson [Browne] and John Prine and Mose Allison, the bar is raised pretty high. I grew up with a dad [Broadway star John Raitt] who sang other people's music, and I loved Aretha and Ray Charles, who were primarily interpreters of other writers. When you find a song that you love, you just have to do it—why would I try to match it? When I wrote more of the songs in the '90s—"Nick of Time" and other songs I was surprised I came up with—it was because nobody else was saying what I wanted to say.
"Down by You" is the only song you co-wrote on the new album. What did you want to say with that?
That was about someone I know, who will remain nameless, who complains all the time. It's so clear to me that people don't take responsibility for the reactions they cause. That can sound like a self-help admonition, but this song was rocking so hard that I had to put something to it that had some bite. My friend Randall Bramblett came up with the second part of the first verse: "Step out on the track in the pouring rain and when you get run over you blame the train."
It would have been more lucrative if you wrote all your own songs.
You got that right. It hasn't bugged me except when I happen to look at how much I have to pay out for publishing. But I'm sure I would have been considered a more significant artist if I was a singer-songwriter. It's just not the way I roll. I love being a curator and a musicologist. People write me letters and thank me for turning them on to Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and that's partly my job this time around.
When you lost your mother, father and brother, was it your instinct to put your grief into music?
The last thing I wanted to do was think of a new project. I wanted to go to a concert and not think about sitting in. I really admire Rosanne [Cash] and others who have been able to write beautiful tribute songs to people they miss. I don't rule that out. But for me I wanted to put that whole agenda aside.
What about privately? Does it comfort you to pick up the guitar?
No. I tend to be freer on the piano. I never took guitar lessons, so my reach exceeds my grasp—what I hear in my head I don't always know how to play. But I love to play over something else. I'm not a self-starter. I get kind of bored with the same three folk chords that I know.
You're in the same age range, roughly speaking, as some of your blues mentors were when you met them.
I learned from records. They didn't show me chords. The blues people I was lucky enough to hang out with taught me more about life and drinking and relationships and racism. I definitely learned to drink from hanging around with a bunch of guys in their 60s. I sounded like a little bird soprano, but I wanted to sound like Memphis Minnie and Etta James, so I learned to smoke and drink and try to get older really fast. It seemed to be working there for a few years. [Ms. Raitt has been sober since 1987.] I'm honored when young people say they've gone to school on slide guitar with my records. But people get their influence from my live shows and records and YouTube, not me personally. I walk around with a hat on. People don't know it's me.
Write to John Jurgensen at [email protected]
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We've swooned over Pandora's new iPhone application, LOL'd at the chat application from AIM, and poked our friends with the new Facebook application. But as we continue to dig deeper into the growing catalog of iPhone applications one thing is clear: there are some stinkers in the mix. Sure, they might we well-coded (or not), but who needs them? We've put together a list of 10 absolutely absurd new iPhone apps.
The release of a tool capable of unlocking first-generation iPhones for use on unofficial carriers as well as allowing full read/write access to the filesystem--thereby enabling installation of unofficial, "jailbreak" applications--is imminent.
The iPhone Dev team has posted a screenshot, seen below, of an iPhone running OS 2.0 with both the App Store (Apple's third-party application solution) and Installer.app (the unofficial third-party application solution) running side-by-side. The iPhone is also unlocked, per the MTS carrier logo -- MTS is an unsupported wireless carrier.
Another screenshot shows the tool "BootNeuter" loaded under iPhone … Read more
Loopt was one of the first companies to strut its stuff in an onstage demo at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference in June, and Sam Altman, the CEO of the location-aware social networking app, said the iPhone version is "the best version of Loopt we've ever created."
Thanks to an early release of iTunes 7.7 (for Mac and Windows) and the App Store, that version of Loopt is available--for free--for anyone willing to risk the unofficial firmware upgrade today or the official Friday upgrade.
I've done the former, and Loopt's … Read more
When Apple launched its App Store on Thursday, I checked to see if I could find anything from Redmond.
There were applications from Salesforce.com and Oracle, but nothing from Microsoft. The company has made some noise about wanting to be on the iPhone, particularly with Silverlight, but it doesn't appear the software maker has anything imminent.
"I'm not aware of anything," said Scott Horn, a general manager in Microsoft's mobile communications business. Microsoft has said that it was looking at Apple's software developer kit and I wouldn't be surprised if some business … Read more
Although Apple has not yet updated the iTunes Store front page to link directly to the desktop version of the iPhone App Store, it can still be accessed with a little trickery. To access the desktop App Store, follow these steps:Download and install iTunes 7.7, if you haven't already Click on the iTunes Store in the left-hand panel Search for current iPhone application, such as Super Monkey Ball Click small gray arrow next to Super Monkey Ball in the search results to go to the app's download page In the top navigation bar in iTunes, click &… Read more
Fulfilling a feature available previously with jailbreak applications, AOL is offering a free instant-messaging client, available through the AppStore, for the iPhone. In our brief testing, the client was a snap to configure, and worked well, but exhibited a few freezes.
When the AIM application is first launched, you are presented with options to use either the AOL instant messaging service or MobileMe. Once you've made your selection, however, we couldn't find an easy way to go back and configure another account.
With so much fairy dust in the air over Apple's day-early release of the App Store and iTunes 7.7 (for Windows and Mac), it's easy to get caught up in the excitement. And we are excited. Being the intrepid reviewers we are, we're taking the unofficial iPhone 2.0 firmware for a ride to test out some of these apps. Be forewarned that the firmware has not yet been Apple-approved for wide release and cannot be vouched for.
More than 500 applications are already clustered in the App Store, many of them tiny apps and widgets … Read more
Looks like some big-media deal-making went into this one.
Users can browse their Photobucket albums, as well as upload images from the iPhone to the service with a single click. The application costs $4.99.
But Photobucket had a more interesting announcement on Thursday, namely a multiyear partnership with Ask.com, the search engine owned by new-media conglomerate InterActiveCorp.
Through the deal, Photobucket will use exclusively Ask.com search for its … Read more
Now that Apple has officially launched the App Store, everyone seems excited about the possibility of expanding the functionality of their favorite cell phone and doing more with the same old hardware. I can't fault them for feeling that way, but I don't see any reason to spend money on it.
Undoubtedly, Steve Jobs will come out in January at Macworld and discuss how well the App Store is performing, thanks to strong iPhone app sales and even a few iPod touch sales thrown in for good measure. He'll discuss the benefits of using the App store and why we should all buy up "some of the best applications in the world."
It makes sense -- Apple has a vested interest in the success of the App store and certainly wants to see you buy more software than download for free because it gets a piece of the pie on all profits.
But as for me, I don't see any reason to spend money in the App store and I definitely won't. It's not that I'm protesting anything or trying to stand my ground, it's just that I think there will be so many great free apps in the store that I won't even need to worry about paying for software.
It may sound a bit radical, but trust me, I don't think you'll be spending too much money in there either.… Read more
The feature is now available as a download in the new iPhone applications store, which went live on Thursday morning. With the free, one-megabyte application installed, an iPod Touch or iPhone can use a Wi-Fi connection to control and search through an iTunes library remotely, flip around on an Apple TV, and control AirTunes speakers.
Most new Apple products already come with remote-control devices that perform the same functions, but using the iPhone download conveniently renders them … Read more
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Total War creator, The Creative Assembly, has announced the development of the latest in the line of acclaimed RTS games, Shogun 2. While the Total War franchise has a 10-year history and is fairly well-known for its AI, Â this blurb from their web site has spread through the web like an overturned ink well:
Featuring a brand new AI system inspired by the scriptures that influenced Japanese warfare, the millennia old Chinese “Art of War”, the Creative Assembly brings the wisdom of Master Sun Tsu to Shogun 2: Total War. Analysing this ancient text enabled the Creative Assembly to implement easy to understand yet deep strategical gameplay.
Sun Tzu‘s “The Art of War” has been a staple reference tome since he penned it (or brushed it… or whatever) in the 6th century B.C. It’s hard to find many legends that have made it for over 20 centuries. Its applications have been adapted in various ways to go beyond war to arenas such as business and politics. Suffice to say that “The Art of War” lives on as “things that just make sense”.
The problem I have here is that this seems to be more of a marketing gimmick than anything. After all, most of what Sun Tzu wrote should, in various forms, already be in game AI anyway. Â To say Sun Tzu’s ideas are unique to him and would never have been considered without his wisdom is similar to saying that no one thought that killing was a bad idea until Moses wandered down the hill with “Thou Shalt Not Kill” on a big ol’ rock. No one stood around saying, “Gee… ya think?” Likewise, Sun Tzu’s advice about “knowing your enemy” is hardly an earth-shattering revelation.
|Certainly, there is plenty of game AI out there that could have benefited from a quick read of a summary of Art of War.|
Certainly, there is plenty of game AI out there that could have benefited from a quick read of a summary of Art of War. Things like “staying in cover and waiting for the enemy to attack you” come to mind. Of course, in the game world, we call that “camping” (as an individual) or “turtling” (as a group). I can imagine a spirited argument as to whether a camping/turtling AI is necessarily What Our Players Want™, however. It certainly beats the old “Doom model” of “walk straight towards the enemy”.
And what about the Sun Tzu concept of letting your two enemies beat the snot out of each other before you jump in? (I believe there are translations that yielded “dog shit” rather than “snot” but the meaning is still clear.) If you are in an RTS and one enemy just sits and waits for the other one whack you around a little bit, it’s going to look broken. On the other hand, I admit to doing that in free-for-all Starcraft matches… because it is a brutal tactic!
|The problem I have with their claim is that we already do use many of his concepts in game AI.|
The problem I have with their claim, however, is that there are many concepts in the Art of War that we already do use in game AI. By looking at Sun Tzu’s chapter headings (or whatever he called them) we can see some of his general ideas:
For ease of reference, I pillage the following list from Wikipedia:
- Laying Plans/The Calculations
- Waging War/The Challenge
- Attack by Stratagem/The Plan of Attack
- Tactical Dispositions/Positioning
- Weak Points & Strong/Illusion and Reality
- Maneuvering/Engaging The Force
- Variation in Tactics/The Nine Variations
- The Army on the March/Moving The Force
- The Attack by Fire/Fiery Attack
- The Use of Spies/The Use of Intelligence
Going into more detail on each of them, we can find many analogues to existing AI practices:
Laying Plans/The Calculations explores the five fundamental factors (and seven elements) that define a successful outcome (the Way, seasons, terrain, leadership, and management). By thinking, assessing and comparing these points you can calculate a victory, deviation from them will ensure failure. Remember that war is a very grave matter of state.
It almost seems to easy to cite planning techniques here because “plans” is in the title. I’ll go a step further then and point out that the practice of collecting information and assessing the relative merits of the selection, you can determine potential outcomes or select correct paths of action. This is a common technique in AI decision-making calculations. Even the lowly min/max procedure is, in essence simply comparing various potential paths through the state space.
Waging War/The Challenge explains how to understand the economy of war and how success requires making the winning play, which in turn, requires limiting the cost of competition and conflict.
This one speaks even more to the min/max approach. The phrase “limiting the cost of competition and conflict” expresses the inherent economic calculations that min/max is based on. That is, I need to get the most bang for my buck.
Attack by Stratagem/The Plan of Attack defines the source of strength as unity, not size, and the five ingredients that you need to succeed in any war. In order of importance attack: Strategy, Alliances, Army, lastly Cities.
Any coordinating aspects to the AI forces falls under this category. For example, the hierarchical structure of units into squads and ultimately armies is part of that “unity” aspect. Very few RTS games send units into battle as soon as they are created. They also don’t go off and do their own thing. If you have 100 units going to 100 places, you aren’t going to have the strength of 100 units working as a collection. Â This has been a staple of RTS games since their inception.
Tactical Dispositions/Positioning explains the importance of defending existing positions until you can advance them and how you must recognize opportunities, not try to create them.
|Even simply including cover points in a shooter game can be thought of as “defending existing positions”.|
Even simply including cover points in a shooter game can be thought of as “defending existing positions”. More importantly, individual or squad tactics that do leapfrogging, cover-to-cover, movement is something that has been addressed in various ways for a number of years. Not only in FPS games do we see this (e.g. F.E.A.R.), but even in some of the work that Chris Jurney did originally in Company of Heroes. Simply telling a squad to advance to a point didn’t mean they would continue on mindless of their peril. Even while not under fire, they would do a general cover-to-cover movement. When engaged in combat, however, there was a very obvious and concerted effort to move up only when the opportunity presented itself.
This point can be worked in reverse as well. The enemies in Halo 3, as explained by Damián Isla in his various lectures on the subject, defend a point until they can no longer reasonably do so and then fall back to the next defensible point. This is a similar concept to the “advance” model above.
Suffice to say, whether it be advancing opportunistically or retreating prudently, this is something that game AI is already doing.
Energy/Directing explains the use of creativity and timing in building your momentum.
This one is a little more vague simply because of the brevity of the summary on Wikipedia. However, we are all well aware of how some games have diverged from the simple and stale “aggro” models that were the norm 10-15 years ago.
Weak Points & Strong/Illusion and Reality explains how your opportunities come from the openings in the environment caused by the relative weakness of your enemy in a given area.
|Identifying the disposition of the enemy screams of influence mapping…|
Identifying the disposition of the enemy screams of influence mapping—something that we have been using in RTS games for quite some time. Even some FPS and RPG titles have begun using it. Influence maps have been around for a long time and their construction and usage are well documented in books and papers. Not only do they use the disposition of forces as suggested above, but many of them have been constructed to incorporate environmental features as Mr. Tzu (Mr. Sun?) entreats us to do.
Maneuvering/Engaging The Force explains the dangers of direct conflict and how to win those confrontations when they are forced upon you.
Again, this one is a bit vague. Not sure where to go there.
Variation in Tactics/The Nine Variations focuses on the need for flexibility in your responses. It explains how to respond to shifting circumstances successfully.
This is an issue that game AI has not dealt with well in the past. If you managed to disrupt a build order for an RTS opponent, for example, it might get confused. Also AI was not always terribly adaptive to changing circumstances. To put it in simple rock-paper-scissors terms, if you kept playing rock over and over, the AI wouldn’t catch on and play paper exclusively. In fact, it might still occasionally play scissors despite the guaranteed loss to your rock.
Lately, however, game AI has been far more adaptive to situations. The use of planners, behavior trees, and robust rule-based systems, for example, has allowed for far more flexibility than the more brittle FSMs allowed for. It is much harder to paint an AI into a corner from which it doesn’t know how to extricate itself. (Often, with the FSM architecture, the AI wouldn’t even realize it was painted into a corner at all and continue on blissfully unaware.)
The Army on the March/Moving The Force describes the different situations inf them.
[editorial comment on the above bullet point: WTF?]
I’m not sure to what the above refers, but there has been a long history of movement-based algorithms. Whether it be solo pathfinding, group movement, group formations, or local steering rules, this is an area that is constantly being polished.
The Attack by Fire/Fiery Attack explains the use of weapons generally and the use of the environment as a weapon specifically. It examines the five targets for attack, the five types of environmental attack, and the appropriate responses to such attack.
For all intents and purposes, fire was the only “special attack” that they had in 600 BC. It was their BFG, I suppose. Extrapolated out, this is merely a way of describing when and how to go beyond the typical melee and missile attacks. While not perfect, actions like spell-casting decisions in an RPG are not terribly complicated to make. Also, by tagging environmental objects, we can allow the AI to reason about their uses. One excellent example is how the agents in F.E.A.R. would toss over a couch to create a cover point. That’s using the environment to your advantage through a special (not typical) action.
The Use of Spies/The Use of Intelligence focuses on the importance of developing good information sources, specifically the five types of sources and how to manage them.
The interesting point here is that, given that our AI already has the game world at its e-fingertips, we haven’t had to accurately simulate the gathering of intelligence information. That has changed in recent years as the technology has allowed us to burn more resources on the problem. We now regularly simulate the AI piercing the Fog of War through scouts, etc. It is only a matter of time and tech before we get even more detailed in this area. Additionally, we will soon be able to model the AI’s belief of what we, the player, know of its disposition. This allows for intentional misdirection and subterfuge on the part of the AI. Now that will be fun!
|Claiming to use Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” makes for good “back of the box” reading…|
Anyway, the point of all of this is that, while claiming to use Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” makes for good “back of the box” reading, much of what he wrote of we as game AI programmers do already. Is there merit in reading his work to garner a new appreciation of how to think? Sure. Is it the miraculous godsend that it seems to be? Not likely.
In the mean time, marketing fluff aside, I look forward to seeing how it all plays out (so to speak) in the latest Total War installment. (Looks like I might get a peek at E3 next week anyway.)
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Magnolia Pictures // 2008 // 119 Minutes // Rated R
Reviewed by Judge David Johnson // May 14th, 2010
How can you go wrong with a movie about a Tsunami warrior? Watch and learn.
These days some of the most unique and exciting action films have been coming out of Thailand. This latest release has the former covered, but the latter is MIA.
I'm going to do my best with the synopsis, because The Legend of the Tsunami Warrior is surprisingly convoluted for a movie that is essentially about a guy who talks to fish.
Here's what we know: there's a princess who rules over a pretty awesome city, which can only be attacked by sea. An evil prince teams up with an evil pirate named Black Raven to launch a full-scale assault and assume the throne. Everyone is after a magic super cannon. And before the great battle concludes a man will ride a giant stingray and attack pirates with whales.
The only Tsunami this Warrior created for me was a tidal wave of disappointment. I may not be completely off the Thai actioner bandwagon, but an overproduced headache like this film does little to convince me to stay on board.
To be fair, Tsunami Warrior shouldn't be categorized with the Ong Bak franchise or bad-ass weirdness like Fireball; this is a fantasy action movie, with the emphasis on the fantasy. You've got dueling wizards and CGI attack fish and aquatic spell-casting and loads of wirework. Grounded martial arts, this is not. Which is fine of course, if the fantasy detailed here wasn't so 1) convoluted or 2) goofy.
The filmmakers have worked extraordinarily hard to craft a deep mythology, utilizing opening title cards, extensive doses of exposition delivered by wise, old men with wrinkly bosoms and flashbacks. But it's all sizzle and gristle, amounting to a basic clichéd story about a Chosen One and his journey to achieve his full potential (i.e., swimming) and an aggressor fighting against an innocent city ruled by an attractive princess. Those two hours of runtime have to be filled with something, though, and that something just hurts my brain.
I could get past the nonsense storyline if there was some kick-ass action to be the award for my efforts. Well there's not and that's my biggest gripe with Tsunami Warrior. The melee-to-mythology ratio is grossly out of whack, with only a small amount of action scenes showing up to break the monotonous stranglehold of the tedious narrative. An assault on the pirate's hideout has some meat to it, but the over-reliance on wirework hurts the effect, a sword fight early on is well-staged but boring in its choreography and the big smackdown at the end is a middling visual effect cluster-F, capped by a ludicrous finale with whales (even though it was made clear that our hero can only talk to "fish").
Good Blu-ray, though. The 1.78:1 transfer is clean and sharp and as much as the overdone production design struck me as too busy, it does look pretty awesome in high-def. The believability of the visual effects takes a hit in the enhanced resolution, however, especially the naval battle finale, where the individual ships look like something lifted from a Metal Gear cut-scene. Audio comes courtesy of a pair of 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio tracks (Thai and English) and both are effective, though as the rule of thumb goes, opt for the original language track with the subtitles; the dubbing here is as corny as one would expect. Two extras: behind-the-scenes footage and a decent making-of featurette.
I hate to dump on the Thai action movie establishment, but Tsunami Warrior is washed up. Also, the movie is rated R, but it's a very, very soft R.
Guilty. Glub glub.
Review content copyright © 2010 David Johnson; Site layout and review format copyright © 1998 - 2013 HipClick Designs LLC
Scales of Justice
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
* 1.78:1 Non-Anamorphic (1080p)
* DTS HD 5.1 Master Audio (English)
* DTS HD 5.1 Master Audio (Thai)
* English (SDH)
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Release Year: 2008
MPAA Rating: Rated R
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- About - Who is Lynn?
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8 Tips and A Tool for Self-Editing Your Family History Blog
When you write a book you have the luxury of completing all your writing and revisions upfront and then pay a professional editor to help you fine tune it before you head to publishing. In the world of blogging you hit publish each and every week, sometimes several times a week with little time and attention for edits.
Each time we click publish, we want to present ourselves in a professional light. Yet each and every week we are faced with deadlines, schedules and life’s chaos. Our weekly posts can sometimes be done in a rather rushed and hap-hazard manner.
Regardless of whether you are following the family history blog to book project, or writing a how-to genealogy blog, editing your blog posts shouldn't be a quick once over. We are all guilty of not taking time when it comes to the editing process.
While spell check is a wonderful thing it shouldn't be your only method of editing your blog posts. Below are some tips and tools to help you edit your blog posts in a more organized fashion. After reading over the tips be sure to download the Peer and Self-Editing Worksheet, a tool to help you identify any weaknesses in your blog posts before you hit publish.
8 Tips to Self-Editing Your Family History Blog Posts
1. Walk Away – Give your post time to sit. After having written and revised my blog post several times, I walk away from it. Sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for the remainder of the day but never any longer than a day. This time away helps me to come back to it with a fresh perspective, a clear head and this in turn allows me to see my message more clearly and recognize any errors.
2. Read it Out Loud – several times, first looking at it from a story perspective. Does it follow a natural progression, is the story clear. Read it slowly and out loud making sure you say every word. Often we know the post so well we tend to read the sentence without really seeing the words. If I stumble over a sentence that's usually a signal to me that perhaps that sentence needs some attention.
3. Remove Unnecessary Words – this is a biggy for me. I also find the more I work on this the more I am aware of it in my initial writing. Say what you need to say in as few words as possible.
4. Read It Out Loud Again- I can't stress this enough. This time around focusing on complete sentences grammar and punctuation.
5. Complete A Grammar Edit - Are you using everyday language? Is your punctuation correct? I keep The Little Red Writing Book close by for easy look ups and a refresher for structure, style and grammar.
6. A Peer Edit - If I have the time or I'm finding a post particularly challenging, I'll ask a friend or family member to review my post. A second set of eyes is always best for editing but not always practical in blogging. Find yourself a blogging buddy who will exchange peer edits.
7. Don’t Sweat It – If you catch an error after hitting publish or a reader picks up on an error go back in and correct it and move on. Don't beat yourself up about it.
8. Use The Peer and Self-Editing Worksheet - Print this worksheet off and keep it handy when you are self-editing your blog posts or better yet send it to friend, a fellow blogger and ask them to be a peer editor.
Do you have any tips or tricks for self-editing your blog posts? Share them in comments.
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For this week’s food news roundup, I thought I’d serve up a few
ideas for food-inspired day trips this weekend.
Lavender on the Tongue
As part of this year’s Sequim Lavender festivals, a new one
called Lavender Farm Faire has been added, an it includes a
program with food, crafts and cooking demonstrations at
Carrie Blake Park (click for a Google map). The festival
started Friday, but goes through Sunday.
Five cooking demonstrations will happen Sunday, though Sunshine
Lavender and Herb Farm will host several a day today and Saturday.
Among what’s cooking will be a four-course meal made by Cedarbook
Lavender and Herb Farm with a spring green and asparagus salad with
cranberry lavender vinaigrette, roasted red potatoes with Herbs de
Provence (with lavender, of course), grilled flank steak with
lavender pepper marinade and sautéed pears with lavender honey.
Farms also will offer lavender-laced (and non-lavender) foods
throughout the fair. The wine and beer garden also will offer a
taste of Olympic Cellars’ lavender infused wine Mélange Nouveau.
Purple Haze restaurant will have a variety of food and lavender
cocktails (margaritas and cosmopolitans).
For more information, visit sequimlavenderfarms.org.
Bite of Seattle
Across the water on the other side of Kitsap this weekend is the
annual Bite of
Seattle at the Seattle Center.
For those who’ve in the past grown tired of going and getting
filled up on only one giant plate of taste (or bursting at the
seems when you try to top off two plates with a
Shishkaberry), this year’s festival requires participating
restaurants to have actual bite-sized portions for $3.75, the
Seattle Weekly reports.
Over at the Fisher Building, local celebrity chefs will offer
near-hourly demonstrations for
The Bite Cooks portion of the festival. And in the Alki
courtyard, for $10, you can get into
The Alley, hosted by Tom Douglas for tastes from both
established and new Seattle restaurants. Most proceeds from the
Alley benefit Food Lifeline, so you can feed your soul a little as
Vashon Island is home to a festival more than a century old
(though it apparently has had several names over the years). The
Festival has a variety of vendors, like those you’d see at a
variety of small-town festivals, including booths with strawberry
shortcakes, smoothies, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. The
weekend festival also includes what I’ve decided should be a
requisite at any festival, an early morning pancake breakfast (with
strawberries!). A shuttle leaves every 30 minutes from the ferry
terminal. It’s $1 each way.
Pike Place Chef Demos
On Sunday, Pike Place Market hosts another of its
Sunday chef demonstrations with Burce Naftalay of Le Gourmand
at noon and Seth Caswell of emmer & rye at 2 p.m. Next Sunday
is the second annual “Master of the Market” cooking
Note on next weekend
lineup for Bremerton’s Summer Brewfest on July 23 was announced
this week. The event will include 24 breweries, including Kitsap’s
half dozen commercial breweries.
The same day (or maybe before) also is supposed to mark the
opening of Bremerton’s Toro
Lounge on Pacific Avenue.
And lastly, as I just mentioned earlier this afternoon, Sunday
will be the inaugural
Sunday farmers market in Bremerton.
Just a note
I apparently missed this when it went online in late May, but
Bremerton’s Blackberry fest apparently got
a nod from New York Magazine, which compiled a list of 50 food
destinations in 50 states. They recommended the blackberry slugs
and had this to say in general, “devotees can head to a three-day
orgy of blackberry consumption: the Bremerton Blackberry Festival,
held along the boardwalk in downtown Bremerton — a smallish Navy
town southwest of Bainbridge Island on Puget Sound.” I pity the
poor New Yorkers who’ll take the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge
and drive 50 minutes to Bremerton. Hopefully someone at the
terminal will point them the right way.
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Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel
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Travel Blogs from Hong Kong
My body is not very happy with me. It cannot figure out what day or what time it is. Within less than 48 hours, I flew from Rome to SF to Hong Kong, losing a day during the last flight. While in Asia, I am now 15 hours ahead of West Coast time, but I think I am still on Italian time because I keep waking up in the middle of the night wanting to …
I'm writing this entry a few days late (in Agen) - there just hasn't been time to waste sitting on a computer composing blog entries; far too busy. So, we'll see how my memory serves me.
Spectacular landing in Hong Kong last night during a thunderstorm. The "Red Alert" for lightning caused several hold ups with arrival at the airport, but …
Wow.....the weather is not good, raining. with China Airlines we finally arrive at hongkong international airport (Chek Lap Kok). The airport opened for commercial operations in 1998, replacing Kai Tak Airport, and is an important regional trans-shipment centre, passenger hub and gateway for destinations in China, East Asia and Southeeast Asia. …
Nei Ho, Arrived in Hong Kong at about 6.00. By the time we sorted out accommodation etc and got across to Kowloon it was pretty late. When we were about to land and flying over Hong Kong the smog from the place was unreal. One side of the plane was black and the other had blue skies. Checked into the Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel and this place was …
How has this hotel rated in the past?
- Free High-Speed Internet
- Swimming pool
- Room service
- Wheelchair accessibility
- Fitness/Health center
Historical Traveler Reviews Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel Hong Kong
They claim an unforgettable welcome, but the greetings were rather bland at best. The Marco Polo Hongkong is right smack above the Ocean Terminal mall which is great for shopping fiends. And there's a great romantic view of Hongkong island--IF you walk down to the harbor. On the plus side: breakfast buffets were excellent--well-aged cheeses a definite yes; easy access to the shopping mall; concierge ready and welcome to you leaving your luggage in their bin for you to replenish with last minute finds right before you get picked up for the airport. A few pitfalls: a rather long walk to the nearest subway station, decor of a 'certain age' in the rooms (re 80's tastefully bland and inoffensive), noisy bathroom fixtures (the type you hear coming from the other room--sigh). The saddest part--they wouldn't give us a non-smoking room, despite the fact that we had a pregnant woman in our party who was struck sick by the stale smokey smell. Tsk tsk.
Buyer Beware, Check out what you are getting
I was looking forward to staying at this hotel after reading the positive reviews but was disappointed. I consistently felt that the staff to be feeling hassled when I approached with a request or question, especially the concierge! I expect that staying in a hotel of this calibre, I should not be feeling that things are too much trouble. Perhaps this may be in part be because not many were confident with their English laguage skills. Of course, the location is a good one, but the rooms are looking a bit jaded, especially the bathrooms, so if one is wanting a bit more luxury for your money, try elsewhere.
Stayed here based on other reviews, and they were right on the money! The room was exceptionally large, and beautifully decorated. The quality of the hotel and rooms is very important to us, as we are not "standard" people. This was truly value and met all our expectations vs. other rooms we have spent time in here. Hotel connects in inclement weather to one of the largest shopping malls in the world, including the Ocean Terminal for ships in port.
It's close to the Star Ferry, but not very close to the subway(MTR).
Loved this hotel
This was my 2nd trip to Hong Kong and this trip I brought my son, age 15. The hotel was great, wonderful service, awesome location, the trip desk in the lobby helped me book some trips to mainland China, and to some of the outer islands, and all trips were well worth the money and time. We had a private 'restuarant' on our floor and received a wonderful free breakfast each morning, and free hot snacks and drinks (including alcohol) each night. There was a private room with a computer and internet access which was reasonably priced. The room was beautiful, clean, large, and we loved it. The staff, especially the front desk and excusrion desk, were superb. Last time I was in HK I stayed at the Excelsior on the HK side, so this trip I wanted something in Kowloon. I would stay here again, although my son did not really HK!!
What they lack in style, they make up with sincerity
I travel a fair bit to the Greater China region for work, and also do my occasional shopping trips in HK. This is one hotel I feel very much at home.
First, its location next to the ferry terminal makes it unbeatable. Taking the Star Ferry is a must for me each time I am in HK, even if the MTR takes you to your destination a little wee bit faster. But going to HK without taking the Star Ferry is like visiting Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower. The hotel itself is also near the Tsimshatsui MTR station, a short 5 minutes walk. But in summer, the hot sun, or even worse, the tropical cyclones, can make this 5-minute stroll into a marathonical chore.
Second, the service... ahh... what more can I say? The staff is just so fabulous, especially after knowing that I'm a return guest several times over. I am not a fussy person, and having grand lobbies, art pieces along the corridors and a plush spa aren't my priorities. But I do relish the feeling of being pampered. Maybe it's an ego thing, but the obliging nature of the hotel staff simply makes me want to return more. Their upgrade of me to a Harbour View room with a nominal fee, their throwing in of complimentary buffet breakfast, their running to me with an umbrella to shelter me when I wac caught in a typhoon... all these form nice memories of my many stays with the Marco Polo HK Hotel.
Third, the design and feel of the hotel is also comforting. I really recommend the Harbour View room (Note: some of the other rooms face a horrid old building and it really spoils one's mood). Although the windows look into the western part of the harbour instead of the whole harbour, the view is still fantastic! These Harbour View rooms are also big, with a walk-in closet! The decor has that certain period feel, with old but well-maintained furniture reminiscent of colonial-day HK or 1970s HK, before all that 1997 handover complications came about... Such a feel extends to the lobby and other parts of the hotel too.
But -- yes, there are lots of buts -- the downsides remain: the hotel is worn and tired, and in need of a refurbishment. It was undergoing some renovations the last time I was there in late 2004. But dunno if this is done now and how much different the hotel has become. Also, the grandeur of the Marco Polo HK has been eclipsed by more outlandish outfits such as the Ritz Carlton, Island Shangri-La and the soon-to-be-opened Four Seasons, all on HK island. Even in TST, the Marco Polo HK's peers like the Peninsula, Sheraton, the Shangri-La and Hyatt Regency have revamped their looks, with the Peninsula now in a class of its own. Regrettably, the Marco Polo HK seems trapped in 1970s style, and lagging far behind...
For me, the downsides don't quite matter, as I'm a sucker for old HK stuff, a la the days of Suzie Wong, Chan Poh Chee, Siu Fong Fong and Fung Po Po. As long as the Marco Polo HK satisfies my needs of a proper business centre with broadband access, a Harbour View room, a comfortable king-sized bed, sincere service because I'm a returning guest and the perfect location, I will keep coming back to stay each time I am in HK.
We were very impressed with this hotel.
The staff were always very pleasant and allowed us to check in when we arrived at 8am, some 6 hours before we were supposed to.
The room was very spacious with beautifull decor - the amenities were first class. We had a fantastic harbour view.
The location is fantastic - as a tourist its better to stay on Kowloon and have the great view accross to Hong Kong Island to look at each night whilst going out for a walk and a meal. 1 minute away from the Star Ferry Terminal.
Didnt eat at the hotel - however there seemed to be a good choice of restuarants available according to your relative budget.
Good location- but a few problems ?
i have recently spent 8 nights at the marco polo hong kong which is in a good location in regards to the shopping and access to the star ferry...but....it did have a few problems. Firsly i would not recommend travelling dueing the chinese new year as a lot of wealthy chinese come and stay at the marco polo and we did not on arrival get the harbourview room that we had been promised instead we looked out at an ugly building site and had to complain and did not get to move till 3 days later. Also during chinese new year for up to 3 days most of the shops are closed. The alcoholic drinks and tea and coffee are also very expensive and we could not eat in the hotel restaurants on may nights due to the locals booking out the restaurants which was a bit disappointing. We had spent a lot of time walking and several times on arrival back at the hotel all we wanted was a nice meal and we had to go out again and buy mcdonalds which was pretty bad. i have never not been able to eat at the hotel restaurants in any other hotels that i have stayed in which was a bit sad. We have travelled extensively through asia and think this hotel did not have a lot of character but on a plus it did have rather large comfortable rooms....i'm don't think if we go back to hong kong we will stay at the marco polo again
Best in HK (Kowloon)
My favourite hotel in HK, and the one I try to stay at on every visit. Location, harbour views, service and rooms are all top class. Concierge desk was always willing to go that extra mile to help. Easy walking access to Star Ferry, MRT and Nathan Road shops.
The room decor is classy and they are tastefully appointed, and large.
I would (and do) recommend it to anyone visiting HK.
I have also stayed in the Marco Polo Gateway (just up Canton Road), which is older and a little more tired looking, but very well run and a great place to stay if your budget doesn't extend to the Marco Polo Hong Kong
Great Hotel! Wonderful Location
This is a great hotel. I've stayed here twice with my most recent trip being May 2004. I am a sticker for a great location and this has it. It's right alongside the Harbor City Shopping mall and a very short walk to the Star Ferry. You can easily reach them through the lobby and out the side door. The room we got was very large and had a huge bathroom. Maid service was excellent and the concierge desk in the lobby was always extremely helpful. (If you want an excellent view of the nightly laser light show on Hong Kong side, go to the 6th floor car park.) They also have a fabulous restaurant in the lobby where you can have afternoon tea or a 3 course lunch for a reasonable price. The street exiting the main door is Canton road and it is very safe to go walking out at night. There are alot of restaurants you can choose from. I think this will be my one and only hotel choice whenever I visit Hong Kong. They are the best!
Great location, great hotel
We stayed in the Marco Polo Hongkong in December, 2003 for a week (with an overnight stay in Macau.) We were thoroughly pleased with the hotel.
The hotel is located at the tip of Kowloon peninsula right. By jumping on the Star Ferry next to the hotel, we could be in Hong Kong in minutes. Two blocks north was the China Ferry Terminal for our trip to Macau. Three blocks away was the subway so we could wander up into the suburbs or transfer to a train to see the New Territories and the great museum up there. We could wander to the Peninsula Hotel for tea, or go to the Intercontinental for cocktails as we pretended we were jet-setters. If we weren't up to braving the streets, we could always wander through the mall below the hotel and people-watch or poke around in its supermarket to see what the locals bought. I couldn't imagine a better place to stay.
The hotel's a pretty standard business-class hotel, just with a great location. The staff was great; they gave us a room soon after we arrived on an early-morning flight from the States. When we took an overnight trip to Macau, they kept one of our bags and did our laundry, and returned both to us promptly when we returned. Both our rooms (a standard room and an upgrade to a suite) were modern and clean, but both looked out on other buildings -- this is Hong Kong, after all!
Hotel food: we ate at the (included) breakfast buffet each morning; it was fine, with a nice mix of Western and Asian breakfast items, and as much variety as we'd find at any other hotel catering to the business crowd. For other meals, we didn't eat much in the hotel. We mostly ate out in Kowloon or (maybe I shouldn't admit this) in the food court at the mall under the hotel; the food court wasn't bad. We did eat at the Eastern Palace Chiu Chow restaurant in the hotel; it was fine, but I suspect we didn't fully appreciate our meal. It also reminded us a lot of chinese restaurants we might find in California (although not with the Chiu Chow specialization.) "The Chinese Restaurant" at the Hyatt was a better choice as tourists, as their prix fixe banquet menu ensured we'd get a special meal with all the items we might not normally order.
Great place, I'd stay there again and will recommend it to friends. We used a Cathay Pacific package (hotel-only, as we were using frequent flier tickets) to get a decent $125/night rate for the room.
If you visit Hong Kong, take the time to wander out to the New Territories and see the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. It's a nice museum, and the trip out to the suburbs gave us a great idea what Hong Kong might really be like as a resident. The Hong Kong Railway Museum's few displays might also be worth a visit, but wandering between apartment blocks and along the streets of Tai Po was also memorable! The Hollywood Plaza mall at the Diamond Hill MTR stop (also near the Chi Lin Nunnery) gave us a movie fix on our vacation. The mall is also worth a visit because although it looks just like any mall in Kansas City or Atlanta, you'll never find a food court where almost *every sign* is in Chinese, with no roman characters. If you get desperate, the Japanese restaurant had some english signs. :-)
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Walsall election news (broadsheet)
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Walsall Election News POLLING DAY: FRIDAY, 27th FEBRUARY, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. CONSEQUENCES OF LIBERALISM ! ! On January 21st, 1924, the Liberal M.P.'s, including Dr. Macnamara, voted the Socialists into office. What was the Result ? Unemployment Increased. Food Prices Went Up. Bolsheviks were Recognised. Cheaper Empire Food was turned down. Poplar Extravagance was encouraged. Foreigners were given increased facilities to sell their goods here Unemployed were deceived. Pledges to Old Age Pensioners were broken. Housing promises were broken. Mr. Lloyd George once said that the Russians were "fools to put the Socialists in." (Carmarthen, Aug. 8th, 1924.) Liberal M.P.'s did the same here. The Liberal M.P.'s kept the Socialist Government in office for nearly a year, although, according to Mr. Lloyd George, it was a "floundering and fumbling Government . . . too frightened of their job to do anything themselves." (Carnarvon, December 30th, 1924.) The country showed its want of confidence in the Liberal M.P.'s by turning them all out of the House of Commons, except a miserable group of 40 members. LIBERAL LEADERS are now trying to put themselves right with the people by making big promises of what they will do if only they are given another chance. KEEP OUT THE LIBERAL. FEBRUARY, 1925. BILLY PRESTON, THE UNIONIST CANDIDATE. REASONS why you should VOTE UNIONIST BECAUSE YOU ARE PATRIOTIC The Conservative and Unionist Party is a Patriotic Party. It believes in serving National interests and cheerfully answering the country's call. There were no conscientious objectors to military service in the Unionist Party during the Great War. BECAUSE YOU WANT LIBERTY. The Conservative and Unionist Party is opposed to excessive State Control and bureaucratic interference with individual freedom. Socialism denies Liberty, magnifies State Control, and seeks to regulate everybody, everywhere, at all times. BECAUSE YOU ARE DEMOCRATIC. The Conservative and Unionist Party believes that ours is a democratic country, in which men of ability have full scope to rise to the highest positions in the State. Socialism, by excessive interference and regulation, limits able men's opportunities. BECAUSE YOU UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION. The Conservative and Unionist Party is a Constitutional Party, supporting the ordered development of our political institutions. Socialists have tried to overthrow them — in 1917 by forming Workers' Councils, and by the " Council of Action " in August, 1920. Many Socialists approve of a Revolution for the purpose of establishing a Socialist Republic here. BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE IN PROGRESS. The Conservative and Unionist Party is a progressive Party. Most big political and industrial reforms have been the work of Conservatives and Unionists, who have the best record of working-class legislation. Socialism, as Russia shows, leads to slavery, tyranny famine and rule by force and not by franchise. BECAUSE YOU ARE AGAINST INDUSTRIAL UNREST. The Conservative and Unionist Party is entirely opposed to the political strike. It looks upon industrial strikes as deplorable incidents in the relations between capital and labour. Socialists use the strike weapon freely to gain political ends. For instance, the coal strikes were organised in order to get nationalisation without the necessity of consulting the people at a General Election. BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE IN EMPIRE. The Conservative and Unionist Party upholds the principle of Empire and Imperial development, believing that our greatness comes from our Empire. Socialists hate the Imperial idea and would allow — even help — the Empire to dissolve, and would replace it in world politics by International Socialism. Vote for Billy Preston, A WALSALL MAN FOR WALSALL. PRESTON - X POLLING DAY: FRIDAY, 27th FEBRUARY, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. HERE ARE A FEW OF THE REAL OPINIONS OF SOCIALIST LEADERS. OUR FLAG — "THAT RAG." "Comrade" David Kirkwood, Socialist Party M.P. for Dumbarton, says: — "The British Empire is made up of countries all over the world, and the Union Jack - THAT RAG - floats in every clime." — (House of Commons, July 17, 1923). The Socialist "rag" is, of course, the Red Flag. If Socialists ruled, no one would probably be allowed to fly the Union Jack. "DIRTY DOGS." "Comrade Saklatvala, Socialist M.P. for North Battersea, writes: — "The British Empire is made up of of the aristocratic and cunning 'dirty dogs' of Great Britain, who will assail anyone's country at any time. The British Parliament's chief function and purpose of existence is to maintain intact the Empire and to retain all the stolen property and to keep under bondage all the bullied nations." (Workers' Weekly, June 2, 1923). A REPUBLICAN. "Comrade George Lansbury, Socialist Party M.P. for Bow and Bromley, said at a Socialist Party Conference :- "I am a Republican and advocate Republicanism. . . . When the Social Revolution comes we shall know what can be done with Kings Presidents or anyone else. . . . One day, by law appointed, perhaps you won't have a King and Queen." (Daily Herald, June 30, 1923). BAYONET FICHTINC. "Comrade" E. Thurtle, Socialist Party M.P. for Shoreditch, said at the "Labour" Party Conference, June, 1923 : "The Monarchy should be swept away." (Official Report, p. 250). "Comrade" David Kirkwood, M.P., knows what Socialists want. He says : — "The Socialist movement is prepared to fight, and will fight, until we carry out the Socialist Republic — if necessary at the point of the bayonet." (House of Commons, July 17, 1923). THE CLASS WAR. "Comrade" "Bob" Smillie, Socialist Party M.P. for Morpeth, said: — "I have deliberately been trying to spread discontent among our people." (Plymouth, Sept. 3, 1923) "Comrade" J. Wheatley, Socialist Party M.P. for Shettleston, and ex-Minister of Health, said: — "They had a revolution to get through." (Edinburgh, Sept. 23, 1923). He has also said : — "Until the working class learns that it is engaged in a class war we shall make no progress." (At Plebs League, London, Dec. 6, 1924). KEEP OUT THE SOCIALIST.
|Archive collection||Iron and Steel Trades Confederation|
|Archive file||Labour Party|
|Title||Walsall election news (broadsheet)|
|Issuing organisation||Conservative Party (Great Britain)|
|Document date||February 1925|
|Course name||Governing Britain|
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Author Cook's Book
Evidence Of Blood
Into the Web
Bantam, June 2004, 6.99, 251 pp. ISBN 0553580922 When Roy Slater left Kingdom County to go to college, he vowed he would never return. Nobody, not his father or the woman he loves, wanted him. Guilt makes him return to care for his father who has only a few months left to live. Lila, his only love, lives in the poorest section of the country but he doesn't expect to see her because she wrote him a note saying she wouldn't marry him. To temp...
Bantam, Feb 2004, 23.95, 320 pp. ISBN 0553800981 Mortimer has three months left at best to live and he has nothing to leave his wife but shattered dreams and hopes. All his money was lost at the track and he is into loan shark Leonardo Labriola for $15,000 with no way to pay it. Labriola's son Tony finds out his wife Sara left him and he does not have a clue why but his father is rabid that his daughter-in-law must be found. Leonardo's henchm...
The Chatham School Affair
Aman looks back on his student days and attempts to analyze a tradgedy that happened in his youth. Author Cook knows how to hold his readers in suspense, and keep them fascinated by his characters, his prose, and his plots. A superior read in every sense....
Bantam, April 2002, 23.95, 304 pp. ISBN 0553800957 Fourth grader Cathy Lake was supposed to meet her mother in the lobby of her friend's apartment building but failed to show up. Shortly after she was reported missing her twisted bloody body was found in the park near the duck pond. The police questioned several of the homeless that live in the park before arresting twenty-six years old Albert Jay Smalls, a vagrant who resides in a drainpip...
View these reviews in summary mode
Thomas H. Cook Message Board 12/8/2005 3:29:20 PM
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Cook has written!
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alan... wrote: not to mention the whole skillful means thing is a mahayana idea and i don't believe it exists in the pali canon. it's a lotus sutra thing and surely other places but i think it's long after theravada closed their canon. "skillful means: do whatever you want as long as it leads to nibbbana." come on, that attitude is so far from anything in the pali canon it's nuts.
The Pali word "Upaya" = "Skillful means. Using different resources to realise the teachings of the Buddha."
(from the glossary of "The Sound of Silence" by Ajahn Sumedho - Theravada Thai Forest Tradition Abbot )
i realize that, my definition was a playful version of the definition referencing what skillful means entails in the mahayana tradition. your definition surely is correct but that's not how the term is used in the mahayana. according to the lotus sutra lying is openly accepted as long as it leads to nirvana. this is quite the opposite of the buddha flat out saying that enlightened ones do not have the ability to lie.
""On this speech of the venerable Sâriputra the Lord said to him the following: Have I not told thee before, Sâriputra, that the Tathâgata preaches the law by able devices, varying directions and indications, fundamental ideas, interpretations, with due regard to the different dispositions and inclinations of creatures whose temperaments are so various? All his preachings of the law have no other end but supreme and perfect enlightenment, for which he is rousing beings to the Bodhisattva-course. But, Sâriputra, to elucidate this matter more at large, I will tell thee a parable, for men of good understanding will generally readily enough catch the meaning of what is taught under the shape of a parable...
Shariputra, suppose that in a certain town in a certain country there was a very rich man. He was far along in years and his wealth was beyond measure. He had many fields, houses and menservants. His own house was big and rambling, but it had only one gate. A great many people--a hundred, two hundred, perhaps as many as five hundred--lived in the house. The halls and rooms were old and decaying, the walls crumbling, the pillars rotten at their base, and the beams and rafters crooked and aslant. At that time a fire suddenly broke out on all sides, spreading through the rooms of the house. The sons of the rich man, ten, twenty perhaps thirty, were inside the house. When the rich man saw the huge flames leaping up on every side, he was greatly alarmed and fearful and thought to himself, I can escape to safety through the flaming gate, but my sons are inside the burning house enjoying themselves and playing games, unaware, unknowing, without alarm or fear. The fire is closing in on them, suffering and pain threaten them, yet their minds have no sense of loathing or peril and they do not think of trying to escape! "Shariputra, this rich man thought to himself, I have strength in my body and arms. I can wrap them in a robe or place them on a bench and carry them out of the house. And then again he thought, this house has only one gate, and moreover it is narrow and small. My sons are very young, they have no understanding, and they love their games, being so engrossed in them that they are likely to be burned in the fire. I must explain to them why I am fearful and alarmed. The house is already in flames and I must get them out quickly and not let them be burned up in the fire! Having thought in this way, he followed his plan and called to all his sons, saying, 'You must come out at once!" But though the father was moved by pity and gave good words of instruction, the sons were absorbed in their games and unwilling to heed them. They had no alarm, no fright, and in the end no mind to leave the house. Moreover, they did not understand what the fire was, what the house was, what the danger was. They merely raced about this way and that in play and looked at their father without heeding him. "At that time the rich man had this thought: the house is already in flames from this huge fire. If I and my sons do not get out at once, we are certain to be burned. I must now invent some expedient means that will make it possible for the children to escape harm. The father understood his sons and knew what various toys and curious objects each child customarily liked and what would delight them. And so he said to them, 'The kind of playthings you like are rare and hard to find. If you do not take them when you can, you will surely regret it later. For example, things like these goat-carts, deer-carts and ox-carts. They are outside the gate now where you can play with them. So you must come out of this burning house at once. Then whatever ones you want, I will give them all to you!' "At that time, when the sons heard their father telling them about these rare playthings, because such things were just what they had wanted, each felt emboldened in heart and, pushing and shoving one another, they all came wildly dashing out of the burning house."
this seems a reasonable scenario, however if a buddha literally cannot lie then this scenario could never involve an enlightened one and therefore is pointless as an example. if a non enlightened person lies while attempting to help someone reach nibbana then who is to say for sure if they are correct in their actions? they are not enlightened, how can they know it is appropriate and definitely leading to nibbana? let alone know whether or not it is worth breaking a precept?
when someone says or implies something like: "rebirth is not true, the buddha simply used it as skillful means to guide people to nibbana." this is what they're talking about, lying to guide people to nibbana. in the pali canon this is simply not something that happens and indeed the buddha clearly says that this is not possible for an enlightened person.
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Mali, with a population of approximately 12 million, is a constitutional democracy that continued to implement a decentralized form of government. International and domestic observers characterized the 2002 presidential and legislative elections as generally free and fair; however, there were some administrative irregularities. On May 23, Tuareg rebels attacked government military bases in the town of Kidal and Menaka. On July 4, the government signed a peace agreement with rebel forces. While civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces, there were isolated instances in which elements of the security forces acted independently of government authority.
The government generally respected its citizens' human rights; however, poor prison conditions, lengthy pretrial detention, prolonged trial delays, domestic violence and discrimination against women, female genital mutilation (FGM), trafficking in children, hereditary servitude relationships between different ethnic groups, child labor, and forced labor, including by children, were problems.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
There were no reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings.
On September 1, November 23, and November 28, mob killings occurred in Bamako. In each case local citizens beat and killed suspected thieves.
There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.
Unlike in the previous year, there were no reported kidnappings.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The constitution and law prohibit such practices; however, there were occasional reports that police abused civilians.
There were reports that police arrested and abused student demonstrators (see section 2.b.).
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Overall prison conditions remained poor. Prisons continued to be overcrowded, medical facilities and access were inadequate, and food supplies were insufficient.
Men and women were separated in Bamako prisons; however, outside the capital, men and women were held in the same building but in separate cells. In Bamako juvenile offenders usually were held in the same prison as adult offenders, but they were kept in separate cells. Pretrial detainees were held with convicted prisoners.
The government permitted prison visits by human rights monitors; however, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other monitors were required to submit a request to the prison director, who then forwarded it to the Ministry of Justice. Approvals, which took up to one week, were routinely granted, but the week delay hindered the ability of monitors to ascertain if there were human rights violations, according to one NGO. Several NGOs, including the Malian Association of Human Rights and the Malian Association of Women Lawyers, visited prisoners and worked with female and juvenile prisoners to improve their conditions.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The constitution and law prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention, and the government generally observed these prohibitions; however, on occasion, police arrested and detained persons arbitrarily.
Role of the Police and Security Apparatus
Security forces include the army, air force, gendarmerie, national guard, and police. The army and air force are under the control of the civilian minister of defense. The national guard is administratively under the minister of defense; however, it is effectively under the command and control of the minister of internal security and civil protection. The police and gendarmerie are under the Ministry of Internal Security and Civil Protection. The police have responsibility for law enforcement and maintaining order in urban areas, while gendarmes have that responsibility in rural areas.
The national police force is organized into various districts. Each district has a commissioner who reports to the regional director at national headquarters. The police force was moderately effective but lacked resources and training. Corruption was a problem, and some police and gendarmes extorted bribes (see section 2.d.). Impunity was not a problem, and individual police were charged and convicted of abuses. The gendarmerie conducted investigations of police officers.
During the year police officer Daba Djire was suspended for involvement in a case involving three Lebanese nationals accused of tapping into a local telephone network; the officer was awaiting trial at year's end.
Arrest and Detention
Judicial warrants are required for arrest. Normally complainants deliver warrants, which stipulate when a person is scheduled to appear at a police station. However, police sometimes served warrants, generally in response to an influential relative of the complainant or if they received a bribe. In cases involving a monetary debt, the arrested person frequently resolved the case at the police precinct, and the police received a portion of the recovered money. The law provides that suspects must be charged or released within 48 hours and that they are entitled to counsel; however, in practice, detainees were not always charged within the 48 hour period. Limited rights of bail or the granting of conditional liberty exist, particularly for minor crimes and civil matters. On occasion the authorities released defendants on their own recognizance. Detainees have the right to a lawyer of their choice or a state-provided lawyer, but administrative backlogs and an insufficient number of lawyers often prevented prompt access. Detainees were allowed prompt access to family members.
Police arrested demonstrators during the year, and the presidential palace's security force briefly detained a journalist (see sections 2.a. and 2.b.).
Pretrial detention was a problem. In extreme cases, individuals remained in prison for several years before coming to trial. Approximately 77 percent of imprisoned persons were awaiting trial.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The constitution and law provide for an independent judiciary; however, the executive branch continued to exert influence over the judicial system, and corruption and limited resources affected the fairness of some trials. Domestic human rights groups alleged that there were instances of bribery and influence peddling in the courts. The minister of justice appoints and may suspend judges, and the Justice Ministry supervises both law enforcement and judicial functions. The president heads the Council of Magistrates, which oversees judicial activity.
During the year the Council of Magistrates temporarily suspended Judge Sidi Keita for the attempted murder of a court clerk in the town of Mopti. No charges were filed against the judge, who was transferred to another district. The council charged and suspended a second judge in Bamako for accepting a bribe in connection with a case involving three Lebanese nationals accused of tapping into a local telephone network; the judge subsequently died.
The deputy public prosecutor, senior magistrate, and judge investigated in 2005 on charges of corruption were suspended and awaiting trial at year's end.
The country has a lower Circuit Court and a Supreme Court with both judicial and administrative powers and a Constitutional Court that oversees constitutional issues and acts as an election arbiter. The constitution also provides for the convening of a high court of justice to try senior government officials in cases of treason.
Except in the case of minors, trials are public, and defendants have the right to be present and have an attorney of their choice. Court-appointed attorneys are provided for the indigent without charge. Defendants have the right to consult with their attorney, but administrative backlogs and an insufficient number of lawyers often prevented prompt access. Defendants and attorneys have access to government evidence relevant to their cases. Defendants are presumed innocent and have the right to confront witnesses and to appeal decisions to the Supreme Court. These rights extend to all citizens and all groups.
Village chiefs, in consultation with the elders, decided the majority of disputes in rural areas. If these decisions were challenged in court, only those found to have legal merit were upheld.
There were no reports of political prisoners or detainees.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
There is an independent and impartial judiciary in civil matters.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
The constitution and law prohibit such actions, and the government generally respected these prohibitions in practice.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The constitution and law provide for freedom of speech and of the press, and the government generally respected these rights in practice.
Individuals criticized the government publicly and privately, generally without reprisal, and the government did not attempt to impede this criticism.
The independent media were active and expressed a wide variety of views without restriction.
On June 8, the presidential palace's security force beat and jailed a journalist, who had argued with security officials over the placement of a security cordon. A few hours later the government apologized, and the journalist was released.
No charges were filed in connection with the July 2005 kidnapping and beating of a private radio talk show host; the investigation was ongoing at year's end.
There were no government restrictions on access to the Internet or reports that the government monitored e-mail or Internet chat rooms. Individuals and groups could engage in the peaceful expression of views via the Internet, including by electronic mail. There were numerous Internet cafes in Bamako, although home access in the capital was limited to those able to pay the high installation and monthly fees. Outside of Bamako, there were a few sites where the Internet was available for public use, but many towns in the country had no Internet access.
Academic Freedom and Cultural Events
There were no government restrictions on academic freedom or cultural events.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Freedom of Assembly
The constitution and law provide for freedom of assembly, and the government generally respected this right in practice.
On November 13, police fired tear gas into a demonstration of medical students seeking higher stipends from the government. The students blocked access to one of Bamako's main hospitals during the protest and injected police with an unknown red liquid, later identified as juice. Police and protesters were injured by rocks and other projectiles. Five students were arrested, charged with damaging property, and held for six days before being released. The students' union claimed that the five, including one woman, were physically and sexually abused while in police custody. Their trials were pending at year's end.
Freedom of Association
The constitution and law provide for freedom of association, and the government generally respected this right in practice; however, the law prohibits association deemed immoral. In June 2005 the governor of the District of Bamako cited this law to refuse official recognition of a gay rights association.
c. Freedom of Religion
The constitution and law provide for freedom of religion, and the government generally respected this right in practice.
The government required that all public associations, including religious associations, register; the process was routine and not burdensome. Traditional indigenous religious groups were not required to register.
Societal Abuses and Discrimination
The Jewish population was estimated at less than 50, and there were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.
For a more detailed discussion, see the 2006 International Religious Freedom Report.
d. Freedom of Movement within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation
The constitution and law provide for these rights, and the government generally respected them in practice. Police routinely stopped and checked both citizens and foreigners to restrict the movement of contraband and to verify vehicle registrations. Some police and gendarmes extorted bribes.
The constitution and law specifically prohibit forced exile; the government did not use it.
Protection of Refugees
The laws provide for the granting of asylum or refugee status in accordance with the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol, and the government has established a system for providing protection to refugees. In practice, the government provided protection against refoulement, the return of persons to a country where they feared persecution, and granted refugee status or asylum. A national committee in charge of refugees operated with institutional assistance from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
The government also provided temporary protection to individuals who may not qualify as refugees under the 1951 convention and the 1967 protocol and provided it to approximately 390 persons during the year.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government
The constitution and law provide citizens with the right to change their government peacefully, and citizens exercised this right in practice through periodic, free, and fair elections held on the basis of universal suffrage.
Elections and Political Participation
Presidential and legislative elections were last held in 2002; domestic and international observers characterized both elections as generally free, fair, and without evident fraud, but there were administrative irregularities.
There were 15 women in the 147-member National Assembly, five women in the 28-seat cabinet, five women on the 33-member Supreme Court, and three women on the nine-member Constitutional Court; a woman chaired the Supreme Court.
The National Assembly had 14 members of historically marginalized pastoralist and nomadic ethnic minorities representing the northern and eastern regions of Gao, Timbuktu, and Kidal. The cabinet also had two representatives of the northern regions: the minister of health and the minister of state reforms and institutional relations.
Government Corruption and Transparency
The government continued its campaign to curb corruption; however, corruption hindered development and governmental efforts to improve human rights. On May 30, the auditor general's office released its first annual report, which charged widespread tax evasion and customs duty fraud by private telecommunications companies, the mayor of Bamako's office, and fuel importation officials. No action had been taken against responsible officials by year's end.
On August 15, the auditor general announced that approximately one million dollars (500 million CFA) had disappeared during the last three years from the Office du Niger, which manages the country's rice-growing region. The director of the Office du Niger was subsequently removed, and three mid-level employees were arrested. In November the three mid-level employees were released.
No verdict was reached during the year in the February 2005 case in which employees of the textile parastatal Compagnie Malienne pour le Development des Textiles were charged with illegally importing cotton.
The law provides for public access to government information, and the government granted such access. If an information request is refused, the person inquiring can appeal to an administrative court, which must handle the appeal within three months.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
A number of domestic and international human rights groups generally operated without government restriction, investigating and publishing their findings on human rights cases. Government officials were generally cooperative and responsive to their views. These groups included the Malian Association for Human Rights, a smaller Malian League of Human Rights, and a local chapter of Amnesty International. The International Committee for the Red Cross had offices in Bamako, Timbuktu, and Gao.
Section 5 Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons
The constitution and law prohibit discrimination based on social origin, color, language, sex, or race, and the government generally enforced these provisions effectively; however, violence and discrimination against women, FGM, and trafficking in children were problems.
Domestic violence against women, including spousal abuse, was tolerated and common. Spousal abuse is a crime, but police were reluctant to enforce laws against or intervene in cases of domestic violence. Assault is punishable by prison terms of one to five years and fines of up to $1,000 (500,000 CFA francs) or if premeditated, up to 10 years' imprisonment. Many women were reluctant to file complaints against their husbands because they were unable to support themselves financially. The Ministry for the Promotion of Women, Children, and the Family produced a guide on violence against women for use by health care providers, police, lawyers, and judges. The guide provides definitions of the types of violence and guidelines on how each should be handled. The ministry has also begun surveys to assess the frequency of violence, but no results were available at year's end. Action for the Defense and Promotion of Women Rights and Action for the Promotion of Household Maids operated shelters.
The law criminalizes rape, but spousal rape is not illegal. Reports of rape were rare, and most cases went unreported.
FGM was common, particularly in rural areas, and was performed on girls between the ages of six months to six years. According to domestic NGOs, approximately 95 percent of adult women had undergone FGM. The practice was widespread in most regions and among most ethnic groups, was not subject to class boundaries, and was not religiously based. There were no laws against FGM, but a government decree prohibits FGM in government-funded health centers.
The government continued its two-phased plan aimed at eliminating all forms of FGM by 2008. According to the local human rights organizations fighting FGM, the educational phase (workshops, videos, and theater) continued in cities, and FGM reportedly decreased substantially among children of educated parents. In many instances FGM practitioners agreed to stop the practice in exchange for other income-generating activity. The National Committee Against Violence Towards Women linked all the NGOs active in FGM.
Prostitution is legal and common in cities. Sex tourism was not known to be a problem. There were no confirmed reports of prostitutes targeted for abuse by local authorities.
The law does not specifically address sexual harassment.
Family law favored men, and women were particularly vulnerable in cases of divorce, child custody, and inheritance rights, as well as in the general protection of civil rights. Women had very limited access to legal services due to their lack of education and information, as well as the prohibitive cost. For example, if a woman wanted a divorce, she had to pay approximately $60 (30,000 CFA francs) to start the process, a prohibitive amount for most women.
While the law gives women equal property rights, traditional practice and ignorance of the law prevented women, even educated women, from taking full advantage of their rights. A community property marriage had to be specified in the marriage contract. In addition if the type of marriage was not specified on the marriage certificate, judges presumed the marriage was polygynous. Traditional practice discriminated against women in inheritance matters, and men inherited most of the family wealth.
Women's access to employment and to economic and educational opportunities was limited. Women constituted approximately 15 percent of the labor force, and the government, the country's major employer, paid women the same as men for similar work. Women often lived under harsh conditions, particularly in rural areas, where they performed difficult farm work and did most of the childrearing. The Ministry for the Promotion of Women, Children, and the Family was charged with ensuring the legal rights of women.
Under a four-year (2004-2008) national plan of action to promote the status of women, the government continued efforts to reduce inequalities between men and women and to create links between women within the Economic Community of West African States and throughout Africa.
Several women's rights groups, such as the Association of Malian Women Lawyers, the Association of Women in Law and Development, the Collective of Women's Associations, and the Association for the Defense of Women's Rights, worked to highlight legal inequities, primarily in the family code, through debates, conferences, and women's rights training. These groups also provided legal assistance to women and targeted magistrates, police officers, and religious and traditional leaders in educational outreach to promote women's rights.
The government was committed to providing for children's welfare and rights. Several laws protect children and provide for their welfare, including an ordinance that provides for regional positions as "child delegates" to safeguard the rights and interests of children.
Education was tuition free and, in principle, open to all; however, students were required to provide their own uniforms and supplies. Primary school was compulsory up to the age of 12, but only 56.6 percent of children from seven to 12 years old (49.3 percent of girls and 64.1 percent of boys) received a primary education during the 2005-06 school year. Girls' enrollment in school was lower than boys' at all levels due to poverty, cultural tendencies to emphasize boys' education, and early marriages. Other factors affecting school enrollment in general included distance to the nearest school, lack of transportation, and shortages of teachers and instructional materials.
Members of the black Tamachek community reported that Tamachek children were denied educational opportunities because their masters would not allow their children to attend school (see section 5, National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities).
Approximately 11 percent of students attended private Arabic-language schools, or Medersas. Medersas were encouraged to follow the government curriculum, and most taught core subjects including math, science, and foreign languages; however, few Medersas fully adhered to the government's curriculum due to a lack of teacher training and instructional materials.
An unknown number of primary school aged children throughout the country attended part-time Koranic schools; most students were under the age of 10. Koranic schools taught only the Koran and were partially funded by students, known as garibouts, who were required by schoolmasters to beg for money on the streets as part of their religious instruction. A 2005 UNICEF study of Koranic schools in Mopti found that children who attended these schools spent the majority of their time begging on the streets or working in fields.
The government provided subsidized medical care to children as well as adults, but the care was limited in quality and availability. Boys and girls had equal access to medical care.
Statistics on child abuse were unreliable, and reported cases of abuse were rare, according to local human rights organizations. The social services department investigated and intervened in cases of child abuse or neglect.
FGM was commonly performed on young girls (see section 5, Women).
Women may legally marry at age 18 and men at age 21. The marriage code allows girls under age 15 to marry with parental consent or special permission from a judge. Women's rights organizations opposed this provision as contradicting international conventions that protect children through the age of 18. Underage marriage was known to be a problem in the regions of Kayes, Sikasso, Timbuktu, and Mopti. Parents contracted marriage for girls as young as age 11 in the Fulani, Minianka, and Soninke ethnic groups, even though the practice is illegal.
Local women's rights NGOs, such as Action for the Promotion and Development of Women, the Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights, and the Women's and Children's Rights Watch, educated local populations about the negative consequences of underage marriage. The government also helped to enable girls married at an early age to continue in school.
Trafficking in children (see section 5, Trafficking) and child labor (see section 6.d.) were problems.
Trafficking in Persons
The law does not prohibit trafficking in persons in adults but does prohibit trafficking in children; however, there were reports that persons were trafficked to, from, and within the country.
Most trafficking occurred within the country during the year. Children were trafficked to rice fields in the central regions; boys were trafficked to mines in the south; and girls were trafficked for involuntary domestic servitude in Bamako. Victims were generally trafficked for agricultural work, domestic servitude, and to a lesser extent into begging, gold mining, and prostitution. The victims were usually from the central regions of the country and not a specific ethnic group. Women and girls were trafficked from Nigeria for sexual exploitation, mainly by Nigerian traffickers.
Child trafficking is punishable by five to 20 years' imprisonment. The law also prohibits the contractual use of persons without their consent. Penalties increase if a minor is involved and range from five to 20 years' imprisonment. Although legal protections and measures are in place, parents of child victims were reluctant to file charges, and cases often languished within the justice system.
During the year there also were reports of trafficking in persons between the country and its neighbors, primarily Guinea and Burkina Faso.
During the year a local court convicted Moussa Traore, a citizen of the country, for trafficking two children, ages 13 and 14, to work on his cotton farm in Cote d'Ivoire. Traore was sentenced to one year's imprisonment, but released because he had already served the length of the sentence awaiting trial.
On October 12, gendarmes in the town of Niono discovered 24 citizens of Burkina Faso, including 20 minors, in a minibus driven by Zakaria Ouedrago. According to the police, Ouedrago and Dramane Konta, a citizen of the country, had trafficked the 24 for work in Konta's fields. The children were turned over to a local NGO that cares for victims of child trafficking, and were subsequently repatriated to Burkina Faso. Ouedrago was arrested and awaiting trial at year's end. Konta remained at large.
The Ministry for the Promotion of Women, Children, and the Family and the Ministry of Labor and Civil Service shared responsibility for combating trafficking. The two ministries, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Territorial Administration, developed a program to identify and rehabilitate victims, educate the population, and strengthen the legal system with regard to the movement and trafficking of minors.
In July the Ministry for the Promotion of Women, Children, and the Family released the results of a 2004 study on the sexual exploitation of minors in the regions of Sikasso, Kayes, and Bamako. The study, which involved 450 interviews, found that the children most at risk for sexual exploitation were girls between the ages of 12 and 18 who worked as street vendors or domestic servants, or who were homeless children or the victims of child trafficking. Such exploitation was most prevalent in areas in which the population and economy were in flux, such as border zones or towns on transportation routes or in mining areas. The study noted that most cases of sexual exploitation went unreported and recommended that the country strengthen its laws to protect children.
The government assists with international trafficking investigations and the extradition of citizens accused of trafficking in other countries, but there were no such cases during the year.
The government worked closely with international organizations and NGOs to coordinate the repatriation and reintegration of trafficking victims. Three children were repatriated during the year from Cote d'Ivoire.
Welcome centers in Mopti, Segou, Sikasso, and Bamako assisted in returning trafficked children to their families. The government provided temporary shelter and protection for victims at these centers.
Parents were required to carry travel passes for children, a measure intended to curb child trafficking.
Persons with Disabilities
There was no specific law protecting the rights of persons with disabilities in employment, education, access to health care, or in the provision of other state services; however, the government did not discriminate against persons with disabilities.
There is no law mandating accessibility to public buildings. There were no reports of societal discrimination against persons with disabilities. The Ministry of Social Affairs is charged with the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities.
Societal discrimination against "black" Tamacheks and hereditary servitude relationships between Tamacheks and other groups continued during the year (see section 6.c.). Members of the Tamachek community reported that they did not benefit from equal education opportunities because their masters would not allow their children to attend school. Tamacheks reported they were deprived of civil liberties by other ethnic groups. On November 15, a Tamachek group, known by the acronym TEMEDT, called for an end to all slavery-related practices in the country (see section 6.c.).
The 2004 case concerning the killing of a customs officer during a confrontation between two Tuareg communities in Kidal was still pending at year's end.
Other Social Abuses and Discrimination
In June 2005 the governor of Bamako refused to grant official recognition to a gay rights association (see section 2.b.).
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
The law provides for workers to form or join unions of their choice without previous authorization or excessive requirements, and workers exercised these rights in practice. Only the military, the gendarmerie, and the national guard were excluded from forming unions. An estimated 95 percent of salaried employees were organized, including teachers, magistrates, health workers, and senior civil servants.
The law does not prohibit antiunion discrimination, but there were no reports of antiunion behavior or activities during the year.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
The law allows unions to conduct their activities without interference, and the government respected these rights in practice. The law provides for the right to collective bargaining, and workers exercised this right freely. Unions have the right to strike, and workers exercised this right. There are no export processing zones.
The growth of independent unions led to more direct bargaining between unions and their employers. Wages and salaries for workers belonging to the National Union of Malian Workers Federation (UNTM) and the Syndicated Confederation of Malian Workers were set by tripartite negotiations between the Ministry of Labor, labor unions, and representatives of the National Council of Employers of the sector to which the wages applied. These negotiations usually set the pattern for unions outside the UNTM. Civil service salary levels were pegged nationally to an index established by the government.
The law provides for the right to strike; however, there were restrictions in some areas. For example, civil servants and workers in state-owned enterprises were required to give two weeks' notice of a planned strike and to enter into mediation and negotiations with the employer and a third party, usually the Ministry of Labor and State Reforms. The labor code prohibits retribution against strikers, and the government generally effectively enforced these laws.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The law prohibits forced or compulsory labor, including by children; however, there were reports that such practices occurred (see sections 5 and 6.d.).
The law prohibits the contractual use of persons without their consent, and penalties include a fine and hard labor. Penalties increase significantly if a minor, defined as someone less than 15 years of age, is involved.
Hereditary servitude relationships continued to informally link different ethnic groups, particularly in the north.
There was evidence that members of the Tamachek community continued to live in forced servitude and were deprived of civil liberties by members of other ethnic groups. During the year members of the black Tamachek community, often referred to by the pejorative label bellah, reported on the continued existence of feudal slave-related practices in the country.
d. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment
The labor code has specific policies that pertain to child labor; however, these regulations often were ignored in practice, and child labor was a problem. The labor code permits children between the ages of 12 and 14 to work up to two hours per day during school vacations with parental approval. Children 14 to 16 may work up to 4½ hours per day with the permission of a labor inspector, but not during nights, on Sundays, or on holidays. Children 16 to 18 could work in jobs that were not physically demanding; boys could work up to eight hours per day, and girls up to six hours per day.
Child labor predominated in the agricultural, mining, and domestic help sectors and, to a lesser degree, in craft and trade apprenticeships and cottage industries.
Laws against unjust compensation, excessive hours, or capricious discharge did not apply to the vast number of children who worked in rural areas helping with family farms, household chores and herds, apprenticing in trades, or working in the informal sector, such as street vendors.
Trafficking in children was a problem (see section 5).
The authorities enforced labor code provisions through inspectors from the Ministry of Labor and State Reforms, which conducted surprise inspections and complaint-based inspections; however, resource limitations restricted the frequency and effectiveness of oversight by the Labor Inspection Service, which operated only in the formal sector.
The National Campaign Against Child Labor, led by the International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC)-Mali, was responsible for investigating abusive forms of child labor. IPEC relied on labor inspectors appointed by the government in Bamako and in regional labor offices throughout the country. IPEC investigated cases when NGOs or the media provided information that there was abusive child labor. There were no such reports during the year.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
The national minimum wage rate, set during the year, was approximately $53 (28,000 CFA francs) per month, which did not provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family. The minimum wage was supplemented by a required package of benefits, including social security and health care. While this total package could provide a minimum standard of living for one person, most wage earners supported large extended families and supplemented their income by subsistence farming or employment in the informal sector. The labor code specifies conditions of employment, including hours, wages, and social security; however, many employers either ignored or did not comply completely with the regulations.
The legal workweek was 40 hours (45 hours for agricultural employees), with a requirement for a 24-hour rest period. Workers had to be paid overtime for additional hours.
The law provides a broad range of legal protections against hazards in the workplace, and workers' groups brought pressure on employers to respect parts of the regulations, particularly those affecting personal hygiene. With high unemployment, however, workers often were reluctant to report violations of occupational safety regulations. The Labor Inspection Service oversees these standards but limited enforcement to the modern, formal sector. It was not effective in investigating and enforcing workers' safety and was insufficiently funded for its responsibilities. Workers had the right to remove themselves from dangerous work situations and to request an investigation by the Social Security Department, which is responsible for recommending remedial action where deemed necessary; it was not known if any worker had done so.
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It's been well over a year now since we began our search for a new home for Vermont Woods Studios Fine Furniture. Our amazing realtor, Suzanne King of Masiello Realty in Brattleboro VT has been incredibly patient and helpful. She's showed us dozens of possible properties and lived through the whole disappointing saga of Skyline, a property we fell in love with last year which did not work out for us.
Now we're working on acquiring Stonehurst, a beautiful old farmhouse property located right here in Vernon VT (that's just part of the backyard shown on the left. Here's a photo of the main house). It's on 109 acres of forested land with scenic views all the way down to the Connecticut River. It used to be a ski area, Pine Top.
Our plan is to do a green renovation of the property and transform it into a luxury, destination shopping experience for customers seeking Vermont's handcrafted, sustainable furniture. What do you think? Is this the kind of place you'd be interested in if you were shopping for fine wood furniture? Let me know in the comments section below or on our Facebook.
This blog is written by your friends at Vermont Woods Studios. Check out our Vermont made furniture and home decor online and visit our showroom and art gallery at Stonehurst, the newly restored 1800s farmhouse nestled in the foothills of the Green Mountains.
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Evans & Schmidt Architects has designed a wide range of projects since it was established in 1984. The primary focus, however, has remained unchanged over the past twenty-nine years. Evans & Schmidt Architects has openly embraced the challenge of targeting new and existing construction in the dense historic fabric of downtown Charleston and the surrounding Lowcountry. These include private residences, corporate offices, retail, municipal buildings, as well as academic and performing arts projects. The firm has been the Architect of Record for the renovation and preservation of numerous properties individually registered as National Historic Landmarks. Joe Schmidt was kind enough to answer some questions about the museum renovations.
How did you become involved with this project?
In 2006, Angela Mack and I worked together on the renovation of City Hall. She coordinated the removal, off-site storage, and eventual return of City Hall’s permanent extensive art collection within the Council Chambers. Restoring the Council Chambers to its pre-1886 earthquake floor plan presented unique challenges as we sought to better showcase the art for all to enjoy while also maximizing the available seating space for the public wishing to attend council meetings. We also enhanced the environmental indoor control system to ensure the art is protected to the highest possible standards.
Describe your design process, for example, what specific challenges did this 100+ year old building pose?
The Gibbes was constructed very stoutly of solid masonry in 1905, but absolutely without any physical accommodation space for running any electrical piping or air conditioning. Consequently, as those necessities were added over the years, the ceilings were repeatedly lowered, which totally changed the character of its many spaces. The challenge was to selectively redesign and consolidate these modern day necessities, incorporate additional life safety features, and then restore as much of the original spatial character as possible.
How will the renovation change the visitor’s experience?
The original building was incredibly open, dependent entirely on natural light and a few gas light fixtures to illuminate the interior. Over the years, as more gallery hanging space became needed and exhibit layout fashions changed, the natural light was eventually blacked out entirely. Our hope is that future visitors will embrace the far brighter renovated spaces that better connect the indoor gallery spaces with the outdoor garden. Because of advancements in glass protected surfaces, the additional sunlight will not harm the artwork and sculpture on display.
What aspect of the renovated museum do you think will have the biggest impact on the visitor’s experience?
Being able to step through the front door and see clearly through the building all the way to the beautifully redesigned Lenhardt garden in the rear, then looking right or left and glimpsing for the first time ever the marble flanking staircases enticing you to venture upstairs. A physical visual relationship with the exterior is maintained at all levels, which is contributory in helping to lower stress and increase stamina.
Why is this project important to Charleston?
The renovation restores not only the façade, but encourages the public to once again freely walk down the 1905 hallways and observe active art studio work and classes taking place on a daily basis as was originally envisioned in 1905. This practice has been discontinued since the 1960s. The Gibbes Museum is one of Charleston’s preeminent cultural institutions and this renovation will ensure that the future needs of the museum are best addressed while restoring this 110 year old building as close as possible to its original condition and mission.
Can you give us some behind the scenes glimpses of what’s happening right now with the renovations?
The building has been undergoing extensive interior demolition work since December. This includes the removal of added partitions and antiquated electrical utilities in careful preparation for the expansion of appreciably more spacious galleries and event spaces. This dismantling work will continue for several more months before any actual renovation work will be observable from the street. In the meantime, pilings have been driven for the new extension on the building’s south side to house a new first class art delivery and storage facility.
To learn more about the renovations, please visit our renovation website!
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Arab cross for lease
I have an twelve year old arabian paint cross for lease. He stands at 14.2 hands He is a jack of all trades. He jumps up to 2'9", barrel races, trail rides, and does ground work including flying lead changes, leg yielding, turn on the forehand and haunches. I am looking for someone to half lease him. He is well suited for an intermediate child or small adult. He was used in a lesson program before I bought him and is very well behaved. Great ground manners. This horse can go all day! I do require that the leaser gets a lesson every other week by my designated riding ininstructor which I will include in the lease. If interested please call Cali at 4125840301. Thank you so much and I look forward to hearing from you.
I am not interested in selling my horse. This is not a lease to own situation. I am just looking for someone to lease for as long as they like so my horse can get out more. He is a wonderful horse and I hate to see him not get utilized as much as he should.
|Ad Type:||For Lease|
|Temperament:||3 (1 - calm; 10 - spirited)|
|Country:||United States of America|
|Location:||Pittsburgh, PA 15216|
we're sorry, this ad is no longer available.
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Swithland Reservoir is the most reliable place in the county to see Peregrines
in the winter: most days one or two sit in a prominent oak tree on the
skyline of Buddon Wood for an hour or two before dusk, and can easily
be seen from the dam. Calm, clear days seem to be more productive than
in poor weather. Sparrowhawks are regular over Buddon Wood, and this is
also a good site for Hobby in late summer/autumn.
Wader passage has been almost non-existent in recent years, as the water
level has been kept constantly high, but odd birds such as Common Sandpipers
may drop in and rest on the dam. Water Rails are sometimes seen, the best
spots being the inflow and the reedy area by the railings along Kinchley
Common Terns breed on the rafts on the north side, and Arctic and Black
Terns pass through on migration. Little Gulls may also be associated with
these movements, especially during easterly winds in spring.
All three woodpeckers may be seen around the reservoir, especially along
Kinchley Lane, which is bounded on one side by what remains of Buddon
Wood. Kingfishers are regular - a particularly good spot for them is behind
the dam, where they fish in the old settling pools of the waterworks.
Grey Wagtails are regular on the dam and along the overflow channel. Both
Marsh and Willow Tits are scarce these days, but may still be encountered
in Buddon Wood, which also occasionally has small flocks of Redpolls and
Siskins. Bramblings are regular in spring, the trees behind the dam being
Swithland has amassed a good list of rarities over the years due to being
well-watched. Recent highlights have included: Red-rumped Swallow (twice),
Crag Martin, White-winged Black Tern, Red-necked and Grey Phalaropes,
Great and Arctic Skuas, Ring-billed Gull, Spoonbill, Bittern, Little Egret,
Avocet, Ferruginous Duck and Firecrest.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Hanging Out My Shingle
After spending several years raising my five beautiful children, I've decided to step back into the professional arena and re-start my genealogy business. And lest you think that I haven't done genealogy in years, I assure you, it's been the main cause of unfolded laundry and "cereal-for-dinner" nights in our household.
I've worked on several projects over the years for family and friends, pro bono, because it's kept me sharp and given me experience outside of my own family tree. I've enjoyed learning about fascinating people from all over the United States and various countries (British Isles and Romania, most recently). One of my favorite projects of all time involved a young rogue who changed his name and made and lost fortunes - and families - moving on to the next adventure, leaving his family thinking he had died. The piecing together hung on his naming one of his son's a very unique name - which happened to be the name of his younger brother back east. He deserves an entire post (if not book) about his life and shenanigans.
I've also had the opportunity to do a few transcription projects. One involved a beautiful letter box of a young woman, handed down through the generations, with remarkably preserved letters written to her from would-be sweethearts, family and friends. Another project came about as I "met" a new relative on-line, and she mentioned that she had a cassette tape from the 1980's of an amazing and spunky aunt who lived over a century, that immigrated from Romania as a girl. Hearing her talk about her life story, from a child in Romania, to a young girl working in a textile factory in Los Angeles, to losing her husband to the 1918 flu epidemic, to owning her own grocery store and raising her three daughters, was one of the most priceless experiences I've ever had.
I love researching and discovering people in history. I love old letters and recorded memories and journals and newspapers, too - they flesh out the skeleton of the pedigree chart and bring people from black and white back into rich color (it amazes me how human nature hasn't changed much over the years.) I'm excited to use my knowledge and experience and intuition, doing something I love, to help others discover their family.
Posted by MamaX5 at 1:49 PM
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Ari:Other fashion sites list where the fabulous subjects got what they're wearing, or where they shop. Do you think you could begin to ask for this info? I'm much younger than Ms. Hammer, but I cold totally rock this outfit.
She looks great!!
She is so cool! I love the glasses and her graceful, relaxed look.
Good grief, I love your blog (have for some time). You know the most beautiful ladies in the world and they are my inspiration. . . b/c of you. An inspiration that is much needed in the world today. Thank you so much for sharing. Blessings, Janet
Hi Ari, hope all is well. Wow!! Those glasses are my style. If I had a pair like that, I'd definitely wear them. She looks awesome. Well maintained figure, big smile, eyes that sparkle and a woman who seems to be very happy with her life. Rock on Rita!!
Yes, she does. I love her slacks.
the lady knows what to wear and what suits her...
Love those glasses and the red tunic/lips.
She looks fab !
Gorgeous. I need to take posing lessons from her.
I love the way she looks contemporary yet classic and elegant at the same time. I love the blouse. Lana www.lifeatwildberrycottage.com
She's got amazing style, those glasses are spectacular :)xXx
What an absolute babe. An absolute beauty and I LOVE her make-up - yay for red lippy! xo
What a pose! And what a smile!
I am loving how older women are embracing the oversized eyeglass frames. Not only are they practical (when you have bifocals, the more viewing space you have to work with the better!), but they are also a can't-miss style statement in contrast to gray hair and pale skin. Iris Apfel and Rita both look very cool in theirs and I will be rocking a pair in my 80's
wow! she looks totally amazing!!!vanessahttp://thepinkmateproject.blogspot.com/
The big round glasses really make her eyes pop out...besides, they're just so fun and youthful!
she looks fabulous! those glasses are beyond amazing! love it!
She is gorgeous! Ari, you and your blog have single-handedly gotten me past my fear of aging. THX! Wanda in Edmonton
Very stylin! Love the specs!
I really love how this chic outfit shows off her relaxed body language.
Red really goes well with Gold..
The old women looks so fashion!
Post a Comment
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Parent Trap / Apr 01, 2015
News / Apr 01, 2015
Video / Apr 01, 2015
Exclusive / Apr 01, 2015
Review / Mar 31, 2015
Review / Mar 30, 2015
Review / Mar 29, 2015
Review / Mar 26, 2015
outrun2sp commented on Feature: Bizarre Emails Sent to Nintendo Life ...:
Nice way to treat your younger viewers supporting your site.
Take the piss out of them.
outrun2sp commented on Game of the Month: May 2012 - Monster World IV:
Great game but for europeans the wii is a terrible platform for retro games because of 50hz
50hz neo geo50hz nes50hz megadrive50hz snes
outrun2sp commented on Miyamoto: "F-Zero Could Work on Wii U":
This has to come out but can only be controlled via analogue not tablet.
F zero is hardcore and needs full analogue control.
outrun2sp commented on PEGI Rates Monster World IV for Virtual Console:
If its 60hz on wii that will be great for europe.
Im getting the 360 version because it contains a cool front end where you can play 3 of the titles. Also M2 are porting it so it isnt backboned.
One good thing for wii is that it has the superior dragons curse (wonderboy dragons trap) and Dynastic Hero (Wonderboy in monsterworld). These are the best versions of both of them.
I will be getting the 360 version because of the 60hz option.
Grey Lancer was listed as 60hz but only runs at 50hz so dont hold your breath.
On WII its best to enjoy dragons curse and dynastic hero which are two great monsterworld games that are better then the sega counterparts. 60hz turbo duo.
outrun2sp commented on First Epic Mickey 3DS Screen Shows Scrooge McDuck:
wow bring it.
outrun2sp commented on Nintendo Download: 15th March 2012 (North Amer...:
Awesome shinobi GG.
I would say both shinobi games on GG are the killer apps.
outrun2sp commented on Review: The King of Fighters '97 (Wii Virtual ...:
Excellent addition in the series.
Better than 96.
outrun2sp commented on Review: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii):
I cant take the way that the wii looks anymore as it hurts my eyes looking at 480 res.
Sticking to skyrim.
outrun2sp commented on Double Dragon II Coming to Save Wii Virtual Co...:
Pretty good game but has dated now.
When is the wonderboy game gonna come out.
outrun2sp commented on Review: Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (GameCube):
Brilliant music, brilliant stage design, brilliant era, never a sonic 3d game that bettered this since.
Just a stage out of the mediocre 6/10 release.
Oh come on. 9/10 for super mario land 2 and 6/10 for this.
Just as well I dont go by your reviews.
outrun2sp commented on Disney Registers Castle of Illusion Trademark:
Beautifull little game. One of the most interesting megadrive games.
outrun2sp commented on Review: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (3D...:
cmon 9 / 10
My 4 year old daughter could finish this.
outrun2sp commented on R-Type Being Removed from Virtual Console:
r type complete is one hucard with the whole game on it for a playthrough.
Best version yes.
outrun2sp commented on Japanese Virtual Console List - September 2011:
kof 97 is a great version. has proper input time as a pose to 96. Saturn version was great as well.
Still I have this already.
Well if anyone wants to get the exclusive secret level found on stage 4 they should get this before it goes.
Its a good competent version of r type and one of the top 10 master system games. Definately one of the best arcade conversions on the hardware.
outrun2sp commented on Feature: Remembering the Game Boy Advance:
Its about time you guys showed some love for the GBA. It is the snes of the handheld machines.
So many games that you havent reviewed on it when there have been droughts.
outrun2sp commented on Talking Point: The Most Memorable Third Party ...:
GBA is an amazing Handheld console. The only one im interested in and im still collecting stuff on it.
I would have to add king of fighters ex2 howling blood. Basically a port of king of fighters 2000 with all the graphics, playability and sound intact.
outrun2sp commented on Review: Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (3DS Virt...:
This was a good start. Looks and plays exactly like megaman should.
I liked part 2 on GB and dont know why it got such a bad wrap. Part 3 was the best though for sure.
outrun2sp commented on Analogue Stick Add-On for 3DS Revealed:
3ds is a failure already. No one seems happy with it.
After Mario it will be the same dry handheld console.
Damn this 3ds is failing and nintendo are in real troubled times.
Vita has everything it needs built into the hardware and no upgrades required.
outrun2sp commented on Current Wii Model to be Discontinued:
No need to downgrade my wii to that.
Still like F Zero GX / Sonic Adventure 2 battle / Super Monkey Ball 1.
outrun2sp commented on UK 3DS Price War Heats Up as Tesco Drops Conso...:
Still dont think its worth it.
outrun2sp commented on Nintendo Trademarks Mii U, WiiWare U, Wii U Mu...:
Junk games then. Just like the wii.
outrun2sp commented on GameCube to See New Downloadable Life on Wii U:
Nintendo really have done it now. They know all the fanboys will yet again buy stuff that they already own again!!!!
They know that all the people who bought the 3ds will buy the upgrade model.
Just like people bought DS then DSI.
Now gamecube games will be included in this.
outrun2sp commented on Miyamoto: "Wii U is an Attractive Environment ...:
Nintendo are in trouble here because the 3ds is not selling well and the vita is going to have 3d and have no region lock and superior graphics.
Wii U also does not have a comfortable controller anymore for serious gaming.
outrun2sp commented on In Case You Missed It, We Have the Shinobi 3DS...:
This looks rubbish. These guys have butchered one of the fondest games franchises.
outrun2sp commented on Retro Roads Never Looked Better Than 3D Pixel ...:
looks good. A bit like outrun
outrun2sp commented on Xenoblade Artwork and Screenshots Show a Lot o...:
Honestly. If nintendo dont release this in the US. You can search on google and find a way to make it run. All you need is an SD card and to run a ahem update then you will be able to order it from amazon.co.uk and play the game.
outrun2sp commented on Nintendo Collaborating with Third-Parties to M...:
My thoughts on why nintendo wont win with the third parties and the level that they will support wii u.
Namco for obvious reasons although id expect ridge racer and a tekken game. Ridge racer will be fun to play with a tablet control with non analogue shoulder buttons. Tekken will be fun to play with a tablet...............
Capcom will want to continue major assetts on PS3 and 360 and companies like sony and microsoft will pay them for exclusive rights of the major games. Nintendo wont pay.
Konami may release some classics but games like metal gear will stick with sonys machine. Also pro evolution soccer on that pad...............
Arc System works obviously are but that pad.............
EA will most likely release on all platforms but with a controller like that whos gonna want to play fifa or tiger woods with that.....
Square Enix will keep the best games on the above formats and release childish variants of Final Fantasy etc on WII U.
Activision will release games on all formats but I can see them being the same ports as the other platforms.
outrun2sp commented on Naka and Iizuka Drop Hints at Third NiGHTS Game:
If its anything like any sonic game since sonic adventure 2 sonic team are better off not bothering.
outrun2sp commented on Reggie Discusses Wii U Branding, "Not a Diffic...:
jumpmanZ a fanboy lol
I sense that a lot of people on here are not completely happy with the WII U including some of the staff here. On many other forums like gamefaqs and kotaku the same opinion is going around.
Nintendo had better not screw this one up or they will be in trouble. Perhaps the final blow to them.
Its made even worse with that ex mcdonalds employee Reggie in charge of nintendo america.
outrun2sp commented on Review: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening ...:
@3 this game is that good. Its hands down the best zelda game in my humble opinion and easily the best gameboy / gbc game. I cant do it justice in my explanation but just get it. 6 dollars..... A steal.
It actually looks and sounds like a 16 bit game.
Real nintendo magic in this game.
Fantastic game. This is my favourite Zelda of all time and its even more fun then the Snes version. Seeing this makes me want a 3DS as there will be no battery backup problems.
I remember the original gameboy zelda version of this where you could teleport by hitting the select button at the end of the screen. Was of course fixed in DX.
This game could be the reason why I end up getting a 3DS..............
outrun2sp commented on Regional eShops Will Continue to Offer Differe...:
Any of you in europe should have got the warning signs from the WII to expect 50hz content in europe and a far worse release schedule. Its been like this for years and wont change.
Any 3DS or WII - U I get will be the american model.
outrun2sp commented on Wii U Uses 25GB Discs and Lacks GameCube Compa...:
it is a really stupid thing and hard luck on them. Nintendo wont care about sales for people who havent got space anyway.
Im still getting it, but will be getting the american machine after having no confidence in virtual console 50hz rubbish.
THATS IT. Now ive found out that I need to keep my wii and cant trade it.
No GC means no F Zero Gx / Sonic Adventure 2. F Zero GX will never run in hd.
Talk about cutting costs.
outrun2sp commented on Review: FAST - Racing League (WiiWare):
WOW. I dont know where this game came from but it is hands down the best racer on Wii after F Zero GX. Utterly amazing suprise. This is better then at least 100 retail wii releases.
Im gonna be playing some serious time on this.
Get to it. Its so worth it. For all the hard work, you get to unlock all of the tracks from the f zero ax arcade machine and the selectable pods. The graphics are actually a notch above the standard gx tracks.
F zero on gc matches the arcade machine and betters it in so many ways. Ive had my disk for f zero for years now and I hope that it will run in the project cafe machine. Also my miracle memory card that I darent wipe.
The only other game I can think of that does that is outrun 2006.
wow, this game looks amazing. Im a massive fzero gx fan and so proud that i unlocked the ax arcade tracks.
This game im buying tonight. 60fps fzero clone on wiiware. im in...........
outrun2sp commented on High Voltage Responds Badly to Scathing Condui...:
And to think that people bigged this game up to be a killer exclusive on wii. After playing the first one i knew this wouldnt work. I wonder if the grinder will come out now. That one had a better theme.
The best exclusive fps games are still metroid 3 which i think is the best. Of course after that goldeneye and there is always modern warfare and black ops for non exclusives.
outrun2sp commented on Review: Super Adventure Island (Virtual Consol...:
I prefer new adventure island on tg16. Nes ones after that.
outrun2sp commented on New Elements Planned for Mario Kart on the 3DS:
Dont like the sound of that, basically balance out means if your artichoke they will still keep you in the race. Blue shells should be taken away and it should be like a pure racer where if your in front on skill you cannot be taken down by the person in last position like bullet bill or the blue shell.
outrun2sp commented on Nintendo Reinforcing Western Development for W...:
They are finally admitting to mistakes, this is amazing. The first party titles are not enough to carry the machine anymore as once people have bought the zelda, mario, mario kart games there has been nothing else to buy.
Third party support is what the new nintendo machine needs to bring back the glory days of the snes and they do have an opportunity here I think to go in front of the other 2 machines if they do this right.
outrun2sp commented on Nintendo Expected Higher 3DS Sales:
Or maybe most people think of 3d as a gimmick phase that will not be around forever. It died once and I dont think it will be the standard in 2 years time.
3DS is not going to do well in the long run I predict and im certainly not getting one. I think the processing power of the psp2 is going to blow it away (sorry for saying that here). The game that they are bigging up mostly is a remake of an N64 game........
3DS should keep nintendo heads happy (who've parted with cash again for nintendo) but secretly everyone must be feeling this is an accident waiting to happen. I mean look at the battery life etc..Even the kids these days want iphones / ipads.
While I still like my WII and Snes, the one thing thats better about sega fans as a pose to nintendos is that nintendo fans never ever will admit when nintendo has made a mistake yet the sega fans will definately stand up and admit where they have gone wrong.
outrun2sp commented on Iwata Expresses Regrets About the Way the Wii ...:
Good to see that its acknowledged that there are more important things then how many units are sold.
Everytime theres a boast about sales figures on this site im like meh to it because what really counts is software sales and thats where the wii has been poor. Im gonna ignore those articles from now on.
Wii outselling PS3 and 360 doesnt matter to me because its not a superior machine and the audience actually buying them arent really sophisticated or serious about gaming. Nintendo has lost lots of street credibility that it had during the nes / snes / n64 days because of this.
Hardware units are sold quickly especially to children but allot of these people only have about 5 games including Wii sports and rubbish like carnival game pack. The people surely then move on and go and get PS3's later.
When the new nintendo machine comes out im sure it will be different.
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Truncate a file to a specified length
#include <unistd.h> int truncate( const char* path, off_t length ); int truncate64( const char* path, off64_t length );
- The path name of the file that you want to truncate.
- The new size of the file.
Use the -l c option to qcc to link against this library. This library is usually included automatically.
The truncate() and truncate64() functions cause the regular file named by path to have a size of length bytes. The truncate64() function is a large-file version of truncate().
The effect of truncate() on other types of files is unspecified. If the file previously was larger than length, the extra data is lost. If it was previously shorter than length, bytes between the old and new lengths are read as zeroes. The process must have write permission for the file.
If the request would cause the file size to exceed the soft file size limit for the process, the request fails and the implementation generates the SIGXFSZ signal for the process.
This function doesn't modify the file offset for any open file descriptions associated with the file. On successful completion, if the file size is changed, truncate() marks for update the st_ctime and st_mtime fields of the file, and if the file is a regular file, the S_ISUID and S_ISGID bits of the file mode may be cleared.
- An error occurred; errno is set.
- A component of the path prefix denies search permission, or write permission is denied on the file.
- The path argument points outside the process's allocated address space.
- The length argument was greater than the maximum file size.
- A signal was caught during execution.
- The length argument is invalid, or the path argument isn't an ordinary file.
- An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to a filesystem.
- The named file is a directory.
- Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path.
- The maximum number of file descriptors available to the process has been reached.
- Components of path require hopping to multiple remote machines and filesystem type doesn't allow it.
- The length of the specified pathname exceeds PATH_MAX bytes, or the length of a component of the pathname exceeds NAME_MAX bytes.
- Additional space couldn't be allocated for the system file table.
- A component of path doesn't name an existing file or path is an empty string.
- The path argument points to a remote machine and the link to that machine is no longer active.
- A component of the path prefix of path isn't a directory.
- The named file resides on a read-only filesystem.
Last modified: 2014-06-24
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Over 1100 years of history
There has been a church on St Chad’s site for over 1100 years. It features in the Doomesday Book and the font that stands at the back of the current Victorian church was made before the Norman conquest.
People in Kirkby have been baptized in the font (left) now situated at the back of St Chad’s since Saxon times. This is the oldest object in the town that has been made by human hand. Many people who come and view it find their spirits stirred by the thought that families have gathered around it to dedicate their children to God for over 1000 years and we continue to do so today.
In the grounds of St Chad’s, between the church and Old Hall Lane, the foundations of an earlier church can clearly be seen. At one end of the church is the remains of a small plinth where St Chad’s font once stood – near where the door would have been. At the other end is a monument where the altar once stood. The monument reads in English and in Latin,
“Here for a thousand years stood an altar to the Lord. I see that all things come to an end.”
In today’s context this sounds very defeatist. This monument was actually erected as a huge new church was being dedicated to replace the small sixteenth century church that had been its immediate predecessor. To the Victorian reader it would have read in a very triumphant way.
You can make a donation to St Chad’s by visiting http://www.justgiving.com/stchadkirkby
or send a text to 70070 and type: chad99 followed by the amount you want to give between £1 – £10.
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|
Commissioner of the
Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) Don Snemis announced that BMV license
branches will extend hours of operation on Monday, May 5 and Tuesday, May 6
to issue state ID cards and driverís licenses to provide voters with
credentials for use at polling locations.
Branches will be
open on Monday, May 5, from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Tuesday, May 6, from 6
a.m. to 6 p.m. To ensure voters have immediate access to services, license
branches will only process ID cards, driverís licenses and learnerís
permits. Driverís tests will not be administered.
The Indiana BMV
provides free, state-issued ID cards for voting purposes to any unlicensed
Hoosier, as long as he or she can provide proper documentation and will be
old enough to vote in the general election. The following documents are
required to obtain a new state ID card or driverís license. A complete list
can be found at
|
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|
I posted a link to my blog in another thread ( Thread: A Sandy Hook Youtube Video Based on Real Anamolies and Not Opinion but a lot of people are complaining about the background color. I will paste the content here (without pictures, videos, and a few links that GLP won't let me make).
If you'd like to see the pics that go with the post please see the original blog here:
[link to krystle-ann.blogspot.com]
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO GIVE YOUR OPINION ON ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:
BACKGROUND INFO- BEFORE SHOOTING TRAGEDY
1- Previous articles give interview with old babysitter who says mom didn't trust Adam to be left alone, even to use the bathroom. ( [link to newsone.com]
This is years before his downward spiral of living in the basement and having an apparent gun/violent video game obsession. ( [link to www.nypost.com]
Yet Nancy apparently felt it was fine to go on short trips by herself, leaving him home alone for days at a time?
She had such a trip a few days arriving back home the night before the school shooting:
( [link to www.nypost.com]
2- I hope to see some proof in future that Adam Lanza went to shooting ranges with his mother. Most places have video surveillance, no?
2a) “He says she took her son with her to the gun range because, she said, she couldn't always leave him at home.” (Again, then why would she then feel it fine to take off days at a time?)
( [link to www.cnn.com]
2b) His mother apparently contributed to his mentally-imbalanced downward spiral by bringing him to shooting ranges and let him hole himself up in a basement obsessing over guns/video games? (In essence she then helped to enable a “monster” capable enough of pulling off the events that took place. This almost seems like an all-too-convenient-patsy-story to me.. and I'm sure to others.)
2c) Then we have family member saying he was fine a few months before the tragedy:
“His aunt, Marsha Lanza, said her nephew was raised by kind, nurturing parents who would not have hesitated to seek mental help for him if he needed it.
She described Nancy Lanza as a good and kind-hearted mother and said if Lanza – who she last saw in June – had needed counseling, she would have got him it.” ( [link to www.dailyrecord.co.uk]
So which is it? Balanced or off the rails?
3- Any information on origin on horrible infamous Adam Lanza yearbook picture??
Wikipedia says it’s a yearbook photo sent by mass media (NBC for cropping from yearbook.)
( [link to en.wikipedia.org]
If he looked like that back in high school, then why wasn’t he really getting the help he obviously needed at the time?! The black and whites out there make him appear even creepier, but this very apparent "original" yearbook photograph represents him as one frightening looking individual in my opinion.
4- Who owns the car that Adam supposedly drove to school in (and who is it registered to)?
Newest reports say a “Lanza relative”? ( Thread: Story Changes on who owned the car Lanza allegedly used; it was his mom, now it's "a relative".
5- Infamous Batman reference:
Of course that’s a very strange coincidence, but then I recently learned of the actual prop master from Batman, Scott Getzinger, living in Newtown that had died this past April in a car accident. (I actually blogged about it when I heard about it: [link to krystle-ann.blogspot.com]
The same man that would presumably be responsible for having the neon “Aurora” lit up sign on top of the skyscraper and the Sandy Hook strike zone on map.
I may be looking too deeply into this, but this sticks out from that article:
"Getzinger suffered multiple broken bones, but was described as conscious and alert after being cut out of the 2002 Ford F-150 pickup truck he was driving. State police initially characterized his injuries as non-life threatening.”
( [link to www.stamfordadvocate.com]
Again, this can be reasoned away since these things do happen in cases of violent accidents (I hate to mention her as an example; but Natasha Richardson, etc.)…
The ties to Aurora, Colorado shooting and Sandy Hook shooting don’t just stop at the Batman movie and Getzinger though- there are theorists who say that both lone gunmen from both mass shooting tragedies had fathers involved in the LIBOR scandal, which were I believe later to be debunked. ( [link to realnewsaustralia.wordpress.com]
Strange, still.. If they weren’t linked to LIBOR they were still pretty damned affluent.. Is there some kind of government tie linking both fathers and Scott Getzinger somehow? Far fetched, but everything else coming at me seems this way.
5b) Also there are theories floating that both the James Holmes and Adam Lanza suffered from government mind control experiments and/or bad side effects from use of anti-psychotic medications.
( [link to www.glp_hater]
( [link to forums.steroid.com]
INFO/EVIDENCE DURING SHOOTING
6- Was it physically possible for Adam with his body weight to carry all the guns/ammo apparently used/involved inside that building that day?
7- The killings were supposedly confined to two classrooms and the hallway near the front door and office.
So why do radio transcripts say victims were found in a kitchen closet?
“10:28: “Roger, Closet in the kitchen, you have some victims. Let us know, we’ll call the number so you know they’re coming.”
( [link to nhregister.com] transcript)
Are "victims" referring to live witnesses and not deceased victims? And call what number to let who know who’s coming?
7a) Why were there reports of children told to close their eyes while exiting gym/back areas?
If that's protocol I can understand I suppose, but could they have been concealing something?
7b) Transcript says school was cleared shortly after shooting. “9:53:25: “Newtown’s reporting one suspect down. The building has now been cleared.”
So why are there reports of kids/staff hiding in closets/etc. hours later? Is that really clearing a building?
“She and school secretary Barbara Halstead then hid in a first-aid supply closet for up to four hours, after calling 9-1-1.” ( [link to en.wikipedia.org]
8- Initial reports said the principal, vice principal and school psychologist all left the conference room to go stop or see what was going on after hearing shooting, and that “only one came back” (Vice Principal, Natalie Hammond):
“"Only one came back,” she said, the vice principal, who crawled back with a gun wound to her foot or leg.” ( [link to www.nj.com]
"9:43:45: “We have one female in Room 1 who has gunshot wound to the foot.”" ( [link to nhregister.com]
8b) According to a “cited” Wikipedia article, Natalie Hammond (now known as lead teacher) apparently never left the conference room and was shot while blocking the door, twice, in arm and in leg:
“Natalie Hammond, lead teacher in the meeting room, pressed her body against the door to keep it closed. Lanza shot Hammond through the door, in her leg and arm. She was later treated at Danbury Hospital.[” ( [link to en.wikipedia.org]
So was it out in the hallway and just her leg or through blocking the door on both arm and leg??
8c) The next thing said on the 911 transcript after mention of victim shot in the foot was:
"9:46:20: “We’ve got an injured person in Room 9 with numerous gunshot wounds.”
Who’s the other person then if previous reports only listed one injured? And which room is Room 9 supposed to be if it was supposedly contained in just two rooms/one hallway area??
“Authorities also revealed this morning that two adult women shot during the rampage survived and their accounts will likely be integral to the investigation.
"Investigators will, in fact, speak with them when it's medically appropriate and they will shed a great deal of light on the facts and circumstances of this tragic investigation," Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said at a news conference today.
Both survivors are women and are now home from the hospital after being shot, police said. Officials had previously mentioned just one adult survivor. The women have not been identified and police did not give details on their injuries” ( [link to abcnews.go.com]
9- What’s going to become of those reports about teacher Rousseau 's being car all shot up?
Article says re-enactment will be done to see if bulletholes in cars came from gunman shooting at police as they first responded.
Well, police say they never fired any bullets so if they can't be accounted from Adam then we have a problem.
I thought he took the coward’s way of shooting himself as soon as he knew they were closing in? Now they’re saying he tried shooting at them from Soto’s window?? ( [link to articles.courant.com]
9a) Could this also possibly suggest that the gunman had come out of the school during the shooting, shot up a few cars, put a weapon back into the trunk (with ammo in it that would later by discharged on video) and then went back inside for more action? But why?
9b) Why does top bullet appear like someone shot from inside of the car out?
Why does it appear like there is rain on car in picture? Just morning dew, in December? I'm no meteorologist, but wouldn't there be frost if anything? It's freezing cold in my part of Connecticut and it's not as far up north as this town is.
10) Why were the paramedics strolling along as parents rush by in these pictures?
I don’t know why they even bothered, by the time they get to crime scene and loaded injured victims onto the stretchers what are they going to do, run it all the way back all that distance and risk being blocked in by other vehicles? Hopefully reasoning is that those paramedics pictured are just last of many local and regional responders and that they’re sent as precaution or what not.. Just still seems like unnecessary added chaos.
10a) Why would all the vehicles be blocking in the crime scene so well from ambulances/responders?
(can't link to video it's a site GLP doesn't like)
Despite the woman who put this video together being a little too.."enthusiastic" I guess you would call it, she really has a point. I think it’s strange they let cars build up in such a way, but not sure of her points regarding “parking too perfectly” or whatever.
10b) Did the first responders check all deceased’s vitals that quickly that somehow knew they knew all were dead?
11- “As shots were fired, she lay among her friends’ blood pretending to be dead. San Diego’s 10 News reported that the 6-year-old girl did not leave until everything was quiet.
According to the pastor’s account, the girl was the first one who came running out of Sandy Hook Elementary School. Covered in blood from head to toe, the first words that she said to her mom were, ‘Mommy, I’m ok, but all my friends are dead.’”
( [link to www.examiner.com]
If the one surviving child from Rousseau’s class knew it was safe to come out (presumably just after gunman was killed in the next room), how did first responders not get to her before she was able to run out right past them, covered in blood, somehow getting right to her parents who had somehow already arrived?
12- This picture is of Lauren Rousseau's class, the first classroom the gunman is said to have visited.
All children had passed away, save for the one girl in the middle (surviving as described above).
Emilie Parker was apparently out sick that day and father says she’s in this class and supposed to be in picture.
( [link to blog.chron.com]
So on to Soto's class…
Rousseau’s class picture shows 14 victims (plus Emilie who wasn't pictured, making 15 victims total.) Ms. Soto’s class picture shows 5 child victims...
(15 + 5 = 20)
This conflicting article says 14 children had passed away in Rousseau's class, 6 in Soto's:
( [link to articles.courant.com]
“There hung 14 jackets on the coat rack, and there were 14 corpses. He killed them all”
( [link to www.4wfca.com]
12a) And where did surviving girl's jacket go? She take it with her when she ran out covered in blood?
12b) Did Emilie Parker end up in Soto’s class somehow even though the father said she was in Rousseau’s? Why does picture only show 5 victims being in this class if they’re saying 6?
Back to Soto- Articles saying 7 children were found by law enforcement (the ones that stayed put in hiding), “6” had died after coming out of said hiding, and then 6 end up escaping through and hang out with Gene Rosen at his house? That would mean 19 children were in this class, when picture shows only 15?
Where did the four extra come from? Technically, after the deceased five (I’m guessing 6 is just another “misprint” by media), there are ten surviving students left to account for. If 7 were in the good old hands of first responders after being discovered, there should be THREE that have fled.
( [link to www.courant.com%2Fnews%2Fconnecticut%2Fnewtown-sandy-hook-school-shooting%2Fhc-lanza-gunjam-20121222%2C0%2C3580899.story)]
Speaking of Gene Rosen….. He’s all over the discussion threads. He leads me to my next section:
13- I know it could be chalked up to trauma and shock, so I would understand, but just what the hell was Gene doing when this all went down?
We heard feeding his cats, going to or coming from the local diner/etc., well which of it was he really doing?
13a) He says in one report that Soto’s surviving classmates were in his living room talking for an extended length of time. Why wouldn't he usher them right to firehouse knowing there's something huge happening? Why would he go through getting parent’s numbers from the BUS COMPANY when all he probably had to do is look outside and see all the rest of the hundreds of people being rescued/rescuing others!
( [link to www.huffingtonpost.com]
13b) Apparently there’s evidence that he’s the CEO for CTV21 Newtown CT?
What happened to him being a former psychologist? I guess he didn’t want to mention his current profession and the media also saw fit not to research.
14- School custodian Kevin Anzellotti - Article calling him a hero for "checking locked doors"...
Then why did a facebook friend remark on how he was on VACATION that day?
It’s funny because I thought I had discovered the bombshell myself the other night, even showed my fiancé the screen shot I took of the facebook page and then I found someone else was onto it as well. [link to getthetruthout.icyboards.net]
Good detective work on their part!
"It was reported that school custodian Kevin J. Anzellotti ran through the school halls warning school staff and students, and checking that all the doors were locked from the inside. School staffer Shari Thornburg said that Anzelotti was also heard yelling at a gunman inside the school to "Put the gun down! Put the gun down".
14a) That also tells us that Kevin Anzelotti actually saw one of the shooters. Let's hope that this is followed up on upon in reports he is an apparent witness!
NOTICE how it says “yelling at *a* gunman”..
14b) Wikipedia article interestingly doesn’t mention Anzelotti, but mentions another custodian, Rick Thorne, who I heard nothing else about:
“Custodian Rick Thorne ran through hallways, alerting classrooms.” ( [link to en.wikipedia.org]
15- “Music teacher Maryrose Kristopik, 50, barricaded her fourth-graders in a tiny supply closet during the rampage. Lanza arrived moments later, pounding and yelling "Let me in", while the students in Kristopik's class quietly hid inside.” ( [link to en.wikipedia.org] )
Why didn’t he just shoot his way into the room like he did the front entrance and apparently did when he shot Natalie Hammond through a door?
And somehow he ended up over near the fourth grade classes?
16- He also apparently paid the school nurse a visit in her office....Will that and the fourth grade class visit be accounted for on timeline? When did he have a chance to visit these other rooms?
16a) Apparently no one can find record of Sally Cox being a registered nurse, when all licensed CT nurses have obtainable records.
16b) Interesting that she actually gave an interview where she said she didn’t think Adam would do such a thing and Nancy Lanza was a good kindergarten teacher? What!
17- Not smoking gun or anything but the guy doing construction work in background while child gives witness account to the media struck me as odd and inappropriate given what had just happened there.
POSSIBLE OTHER SUSPECTS/SHOOTERS
18- Let's hope there’s REAL answers from law enforcement regarding EVERY PERSON they had detained/arrested during the shooting. Most specifically:
18a) Who was it running at the police officers on police radio? (“Two shadows moving past gym”)
18b) Who was it they apparently caught in the woods?
18c) This witness described someone suspiciously dressed being led out of woods in handcuffs. Is this the apparent “hunter” that is rumored to have been nearby? Seems like another convenient “excuse” for arresting someone with a gun in the area.
Why would any hunter be hunting so close to a school, especially during class hours? Is this common for the area considering Gene Rosen first excused hearing a round of gunshots for assuming it were hunters?
18d) There was talk that one detained person was a parent (Chris Manfredonia?) that got there very quickly? Where did this information originate?
MEDIA INCONSISTENCIES / LIES?
19- That picture of the class evacuation on Newtown Bee's site- Is there solid proof that it was created or last modified at 8 am that morning (before shooting) or was that debunked? (It seems to go back and forth so much in forums I couldn’t find a definite answer!)
20- Rumors flew about Ryan Lanza’s father being found dead in New Jersey, Ryan Lanza’s girlfriend being missing, etc. Then it was that Ryan was found dead and that his younger brother (Adam) was arrested at the scene. Again, WTH?? What horrible junk media!
“At this hour, police have confirmed Ryan Lanza, erroneously reported to have been the shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary, is not believed to have had any connection with the shooting.
Several reports indicate that a girlfriend of one of the Lanza brothers as well as a female friend have been missing in New Jersey since the tragedy unfolded. It is not clear which brother’s girlfriend is believed to be missing, nor has her identity been confirmed.
The identity of the second person believed to be missing has also not been revealed.”
[link to www.inquisitr.com]
“11 a.m.: Fox News reports possibly two shooters were at the school with one shooter dead and one at large.”
[link to www.examiner.com]
“"We've heard like 10 different stories. We've heard that there was a dead father (of Adam Lanza) across the street — that there was a dead brother across the street. We heard that the girlfriend, that they were trying to track her down and that she could possibly be in Hoboken."”
( [link to www.nj.com]
21- Initial reports also said Ryan Lanza was the shooter. ( [link to www.dailyrecord.co.uk]
21a) I understand that the reason for Ryan being named as a suspect originally is because Adam apparently had his brother's ID on him. Let's hope for proof that the ID was made more than two years ago, because that's when Ryan claims he last had interaction with Adam.
21b) Ryan's apparent lack of involvement in his younger disabled brother's life seems to suggest that along with Nancy’s enabling of Adam’s unstable behavior, Ryan seems to have gave up hope on his little brother as well, adding to the all-very-convenient-patsy-story.
22-“Police believe there may be a second gunman and are looking for a red or maroon van with its back window blown out, 1010 WINS' Al Jones reported. Two guns have reportedly been recovered.”
[link to www.krtv.com]
Okay again, what the hell! Could this shot up van be shot up along with the few other cars?
23- Can media/law enforcement also explain the rumor or whatever in saying Adam had a fight with four staff members the day before?
“Reports have emerged that Adam Lanza had visited Sandy Hook Elementary the day before Friday’s massacre during which he was involved in an altercation with four teachers – three of whom are now dead.
The fourth teacher – and only survivor of the altercation – wasn’t at school on Friday and is currently being interviewed by investigators. It hasn’t been revealed what the argument was over or if it was reported to authorities.
The staff member’s testimony might be an ‘important piece of information’ for discerning motive in this case, reports NBC.”
[link to www.bellenews.com]
24- Media (AP News) AND school nurse Sally Cox during interview reported that Nancy was a teacher at the school. Later, teachers and officials denied this, and no record found of this as of now.
“4:43pm: (AP) A law enforcement official says the suspect in the Connecticut school shootings is 20-year-old Adam Lanza, the son of a teacher at the school where the shootings occurred.”
[link to www.wfuv.org]
25- The now infamous Vicki Soto tribute page on facebook:
[link to getthetruthout.icyboards.net]
The reason for the page being created on Dec. 10th was that the owner intended it for something else then saw fit to have it tribute Vicki.
Does that fully debunk it? I heard that the "facebook.com/whatever-url" can’t be changed once originally created, that only the page name/information could be modified afterwards.
26- Can the Phelps family (A couple that was interviewed by media in Sandy Hook) clear up why they're supposedly the Sextons from Florida or wherever? Whoever discovered that in first place!
27- Emilie Parker's memorial fund on facebook was created that evening.
I looked at the page as soon as Robbie Parker mentioned it at his press conference, saw when it was created and thought it was distasteful for a page asking for money would be up so soon. Apparently friends had started the fund up right away: Thread: Sandy Hook - The "Survivor" from Ms. Rousseau's Class (Page 2)
I still think it's odd for these "friends" to jump on that so soon.. At least give the parents a few hours to let everything sink in!
27a) I’m still on the fence about Robbie Parker. Other parents I’m sure are really grieving and been through this tragedy, but I can't trust him and I know I’m obviously not the only one. The moment my mother and I both heard him speak for the press we thought something was off, but being in the mental health profession I do understand there are different variations and forms of showing one’s grief, so I can understand if it was chalked up to simply going mad with shock.
27b) I do not believe in people’s theories about Emilie Parker being alive and sitting on Obama’s lap for the press photo, it’s obvious it’s just her two younger sisters (granted the middle sister looks a lot like Emilie but that’s understandable- and it’s clear after comparison that the two aren’t identical.)
The surviving sister in question is also wearing the same dress that Emilie had in a previous family photograph. We can chalk that up to the mother just having sisters share hand-me-downs, I suppose.
POST SHOOTING INFO/EVIDENCE
28- Will they ever release video surveillance?
There should be some sort of video taken from the front entrance since it was supposedly a very secure building.
29- Gun in the trunk: Why would police be checking or clearing the trunk so long after the crime?
29a) Obviously it was very late at night, did they know they're being filmed, or are they doing it that way on purpose to plant or modify evidence? Where did film originate from?
29b) Why were they handling the weapon like that (ejecting ammo etc.) right over the trunk?
29c) Some say there are two guns seen in that trunk?
(can't link on here because it's on another forum but you can see link on my post)
29d) Will they be able to account for each and every gun that’s been heard of being involved in the tragedy?
30- Any parents/next of kin actually view bodies of the victims or just see pictures?
(Apparently it’s illegal to deny viewing access)
“Parents identified the children through photos to spare them some shock, Carver said.”
[link to abclocal.go.com]
30a) First heard that a lot of victims were shot in the face or head, giving a “good reason” they wanted to avoid physical viewing by families.
Then different article claims families were shown victim's photographed faces as ID. HELLO?
31- Just found picture of victim being “transported” in middle of the night.. How did media capture the pictures? Hiding in the woods?
[link to getthetruthout.icyboards.net]
32-Medical examiner staff busted for letting husband see Adam Lanza's body two days after shooting.
Did she see something worthy of getting another witness to see, or was it just morbid curiosity?
32a) If it’s because something strange was going on let’s hope she took her own pictures and hope that she and her husband don’t suddenly disappear.
33)- How come it's supposed to be “anonymous” person picking up Adam Lanza's remains, yet all of a sudden it’s public knowledge and media’s reporting that it's his father, Peter Lanza?
34- They say he might've "destroyed" hard drive evidence on his computer so badly they can’t get anything out of it, yet I read a report about “evidence on his computer” showing an alleged Taylor Swift obsession. So is this supposed to be another made up junk-ridden media story or what?
(This one pissed me off because I did read an article that quoting "evidence on his computer" and now nothing can be found when I searched, but here is another article regarding his obsession: [link to www.dailystar.co.uk]
35- I won’t want to be involved with finding out too much about this,
but apparently there are rumors about the Lanza family/Adam specifically being involved with Satanism, and that the town of Newtown actually has a satanic church, etc.. Also people posting in forums that there are satanic symbols in pictures of victims like they themselves are involved in it…
Of course there are people saying no one actually died. I’ve heard suggestions to all sorts of things, false flag (anti gun psy-op)..
If they didn’t die, where did they go? Were they were relocated, sold as slaves (actually claimed by some)? What’s the deal?
Yes, apparently there are crisis actors out there whose purpose it is to train by re-enacting mass shootings, and guess what, they’re funded by FEMA! That of course will understandably add fuel to any conspiracy theory.
In the case of relocation (if these victims are actors and not in fact deceased), wouldn’t all the “victims”’ families have to be relocated as well in order to be them? I think it would be a bit strange for all families of victims to pack up and leave just like that.. Unless according to these theories, it’s done gradually and over time?
Seems Dylan Hockley's family is already moving, but I believe that's understandable, they lived on the same street as the supposed gunman.
Or if they are really all really killed, there are theories as well. Was it an Israeli death squad as some also say?
( [link to www.presstv.ir]
Was it that blood ritual sacrifice I heard of when delving into satanic theories?
I’ll be patient for the sake of waiting for the official story- backed by honest, legitimate investigation… But after some of the things I’ve been reading, I almost doubt we will ever obtain honesty.
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How well will Smith adjust to left tackle?
JUL 30, 2012 3:08p ET
One I wanted to tackle was something that won't get near the ink of the fictional "window" of the Cowboys or the handling of Dez Bryant, but it is far more interesting to me than either of those well-discussed items.
That is, how well will the Cowboys tackle position be fortified with the flip-flopping of Tyron Smith from right to left tackle, and Doug Free going the opposite direction? How can a rookie hold up against the gauntlet of studs that will come his way on Romo's blind side, and just as important how will Free respond to having a very difficult year at left tackle in his first season under his new hefty contract?
Let's use this email as a jumping off point:
My question – Everyone raved about Tyron Smith last year and criticized Free. To me, it looked like Smith benefited from having Kosier next to him…..and Free was a little more lost without Kosier. Free had a good year with Kosier next to him in 2010. What do you think? Bob Woodyard
Jerry Jones and I have a large philosophical difference in opinion when it comes to football it seems, and I have noticed this since I have started covering his team in 1998. It appears that he places a premium - whether in money or in draft picks - on skill position players well above players on the two lines of scrimmage. Whereas, aside from the obvious position of quarterback - I feel the exact opposite about the game of football. I believe, even in 2012 where there is more passing than ever, that this is still a game that is usually won by the team with the better pass protection and ability to destroy their opponent's pass protection.
The greatest example of this is the Giants, despite uneven quarterback play for large swaths of the last five years have managed to win two Super Bowls, largely because they have been able to generate a dominating pass rush group that never seems to need a blitz in its attack. When you can easily drop seven men in coverage, then you don't have to have great defensive backs - and they don't. They simply enjoy a rotation that reduced Aaron Rodgers to a poor facsimile of himself last January.
Regardless, as Jerry Jones has continued to spend his most important assets on defensive backs, wide receivers, and running backs, I have spent a lot of time typing protests on this blog about the fact that the Cowboys need to invest in their lines more. They need to help DeMarcus Ware destroy passing attacks and they need to give Tony Romo a chance by being able to hold off the Giants pass rush.
And in 2011, it happened. The Cowboys had a top 10 pick, and they resisted the urge to do anything other than what the situation call for by taking a fantastic offensive lineman prospect, Tyron Smith. Smith's rookie season certainly came with a fair amount of lessons, but there was a ton to like from one of the youngest players in all of the NFL.
Here is what I documented back in January about his rookie campaign:
RT - Tyron Smith - 641 pass plays - 8 sacks: A world of expectations have been placed on Tyron Smith, and he took every single snap he could this season at right tackle. From day one, teams tried to confuse him with stunts and blitzes to make his rookie head spin. He also was victim to some old tricks with one pass rush move setting up another. He had Calvin Pace beat him in Week 1, Ryan Kerrigan in Week 3. Willie Young bull rushed him on to his back to end the Lions game, Andre Carter went clean around his flank in game 5. Then Jason Babin used two inside spins to get him in Philadelphia and Trevor Laws stunted around him to get a third in that forgettable night against the Eagles. But, here is the great news. Starting in the second half of the year, as the rest of the line was crumbling, Tyron was figuring it out. Kerrigan got him again in Washington and Michael Bennett did get his flank in Tampa Bay, but that was it. All of the troubles against the Giants were not because of right tackle. In his first seven games, Tyron game up six sacks. In his last nine games, he only conceded two. His upside is immense and he is only getting better.
Meanwhile, let us offer the reminder of how Doug Free's season went the opposite way:
LT - Doug Free - 641 pass plays - 10 sacks: Free started the season very well coming off his new contract. In the first four weeks of the season, Free was not involved in hardly any situations that led to sacks. Andre Carter went around his edge in New England, as did James Hall of the Rams, and Trent Cole of the Eagles. There was one blitz awareness issue in the game at Washington that led to London Fletcher's sack, but otherwise a very strong month of November. But, in December, Free was just beaten over and over again (6 of his 10 sacks in December). In fairness to Free, Jason Pierre Paul was dominating the rest of the league, too, but against the Giants and JPP, Free was eaten alive. four sacks in two games just from the left tackle spot and Trent Cole got him again in Dallas. In all, I had Free as the primary blame in 10 sacks this season, but with two against Cole and three against Pierre-Paul (and 1 more against Chris Canty) meant that six of his 10 sacks allowed were against the Giants and Eagles. Free sees the toughest match-up nearly ever Sunday, so, I am not here to suggest he is doing a lousy job, but it does appear that he might be more of a right tackle in the long term.
So, as we head to 2012, the decision has been made on the switch. The Cowboys did the right thing in getting Smith a year under his belt before throwing him to the second most important position on the offense. This assignment should not be taken lightly and it won't be. The NFC East is a spot where there is no place to hide for either tackle. The edge rushers in the division are awesome. In New York, it is Justin Tuck and Jason Pierre Paul. In Washington, it is Ryan Kerrigan and Brian Orakpo. And in Philadelphia it is Jason Babin and Trent Cole.
Not only that, but now the interior of those defensive lines are improving as well. Fletcher Cox will join Cullen Jenkins on the interior in Philadelphia. And the Giants will add Shaun Rogers and Marvin Austin returns from missing an entire year. How the Cowboys continue to avoid major investment on their offensive line's interior suggests to me that they didn't watch much of last December's game tape. That is the only explanation that I can come up with, because I still believe guard-center-guard is a major place of concern for a team that could have fortified that substantially with the 2012 draft. Instead, they took a very talented corner and hope that what they have is good enough in front of Romo.
Back to Bob's email. Did Tyron benefit from having a better guard next to him than Free did? Well, what is interesting is that Free's play was better when Bill Nagy was the left guard. Nagy was really struggling and the position improved when Montrae Holland was brought in to replace him after his injury. And in December, Free was just over-run with a pass rush that had exhausted him. Smith, meanwhile had a clean December which says quite a bit given what was happening all around him.
I think the caliber of the guard can affect the tackle, but for the most part, it is line calls and blitz pick-ups more than it is the ability to simply stay in front of your man. I don't think Kosier was helping Smith very much blocking-wise. It appeared that they took the training wheels of Smith early and left him on an island. With his long arms and great recovery, he showed he had great quality.
But, let's not kid ourselves. Left tackle is harder to play. There are fewer occasions where you have a tight end next to you. And, with Trent Cole, Brian Orakpo, and Jason Pierre Paul usually over there, it is a harder assignment. He also will see plenty of Julius Peppers and James Harrison when those teams come to Arlington. He will get beat this season. But, I think he will emerge quite well, because he is that good.
Free, on the other hand, will have to rebound. His confidence was not done any favors last December. And, even though right tackle is not regarded the same way, in today's NFL, the good teams have two edge rushers and the right tackle is going to have to deal with Ryan Kerrigan, Justin Tuck, and Jason Babin. And if you think that is a picnic, you need to watch those players more often.
I am curious about how Romo deals with all of this. As we have seen on the blog in the last few weeks here and here, Romo was starting to hear footsteps quite a bit and he would bail out of the pocket before he had to on some occasions. It appeared he was expecting Free to lose his battle rather than wait for Free to lose. So, he was spinning away and actually making some of his best throws of the year, but to run an efficient offense where you can spread the ball around, you have to believe in your protection. I am curious if this adjustment will actually result in Romo being able to sit in the pocket a bit longer and be able to find something downfield that turns into a nice gain.
It all looks good right now, but 37 days from now in New York that will certainly be tested.
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Skip to comments.Zeroing In on Lead in Hunters’ Bullets
Posted on 03/16/2012 7:24:49 AM PDT by Greystoke
Citing risks to birds and to human health, roughly 100 environmental groups formally asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency this week to ban or at least impose limits on lead in the manufacturing of bullets and shotgun pellets for hunting or recreation.
The use of such ammo by hunters puts about 3,000 pounds of lead into the environment annually and causes the death of 20 million birds each year from lead poisoning, said Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate at one of the groups, the Center for Biological Diversity. Consumption of meat from animals that are shot with lead bullets also contributes unacceptable levels of the metal into peoples diets, Mr. Miller said in a phone interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at green.blogs.nytimes.com ...
What warm, dark orifice did the 20 million figure come from, and how many of these were the birds that were aimed at?
They need to be made of nerf. So nobody gets hurt.
Yeah, they usually die when they're shot. Just another example of liberals making up numbers to push their agenda-prove it!
one in which the sun does not shine, I’d wager..
20 millions birds die from “lead poisoning”? Yeah, whatever.
Don’t be surprised to see the rogue EPA comply, though, especially around November 15th, if the Obamaster wins re-election.
IIRC, shotgun shot has been made of tin and antimony for years now, right?
If the Left wants to go after someone, let them go after the “carbon footprint” of the mansions of their favorite Entertainment, Music Industry and “news” heroes.
And what about the lead in the type and ink of the printed newspapers?
Where'd it come from in the first place?
and causes the death of 20 million birds each year from lead poisoning, said Jeff Miller
I don't believe they tested 20 million birds and came up with "cause of death: lead poisoning".
Equals .3 grams per square mile - an amount that can't be measured. Which also makes it meaningless. Really wish we could shut down the whole EPA scam so that slimes like these can't use the excuse of overstepping federal authority to impose restrictions on the people.
Thought it was steel. And bismuth?
“...ammo by hunters puts about 3,000 pounds of lead into the environment annually..”
Isn’t that about equal to what’s fired directly straight up into the air (via AK47’s) at any Muzzie wedding or like ‘celebration’?
> Thought it was steel. And bismuth?
But, as I suspect, it ain’t lead.
>> ...ammo by hunters puts about 3,000 pounds of lead into
>> the environment annually..
> Isnt that about equal to whats fired directly straight up
> into the air (via AK47s) at any Muzzie wedding or like
Very funny, but very TRUE!
Thar sure would make life difficult for those of us who shoot black powder firearms, as we must use pure, soft lead for our patched round balls. Alloys are too hard to load.
Guess I will have to add lead to my list of things to stockpile.
It might be good to point out that lead is a substance that comes out of the ground. There is a road in my town named Lead Mine road. It’s up hill from a water supply that the deer, bear, coyotes, migratory birds and bobcats drink from. There are trout in that water as well. I suppose that’s okay since there are no guns involved.
Watched the “discussion” on Foxnews this morning and the guy supporting the ban on lead said he was a hunter and a Ducks Unlimited member, etc., etc., etc. He was off the wall, IMHO! Plus, Foxnews gave him a lot more time to spew his side of the story! Anti-gun New Yorkers...
Didn’t they ban lead in shotgun shells a number of years ago? This is trying to ban lead in bullets!
I saw this coming in the ‘90s, which is why I cast my own. Lee and Lyman make nice cheap setups. Lead isn’t cheap anymore, but expensive is better than unavailable.
A solid ball of lead is NOT the same as unbound, free lead in solution. A solid ball of lead will remain a solid ball of lead for hundreds of years. Heck, in battlegrounds across the country, tourists are still finding lead balls used in battles fought during the civil war.
In nature, a lead pellet falls to the ground (usually marshlands) and sinks into the muck, and is eventually buried deep under the water - where it is, and remains chemically inert.
The same thing can be said for lead in leaded Glass - the lead is chemically bound to the Silicon Dioxide in the glass. It’s not a free to react ... it’s chemically bound. Unless you grind the glass into powder or melt it down - you aren’t going to get that lead back.
And what planet do Libtards think we mine lead, to bring back to earth?
Actually, lead is free. Next time you go to your local gun club, pick up any bullets that have been fired laying around on the ground and smelt your own. My father did this when I was growing up and cast and swaged all of our bullets.
You can also get tons of free used wheel weights from tire repair shops.
Which brings up the matter of will these lead tire wheel weights also be banned?
Just wait, next the enviro-geeks will be demanding the U.S. Military ban lead in our soldiers weapons.
about 3,000 pounds of lead into the environment annually and causes the death of 20 million birds each year from lead poisoning, said Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate at one of the groups, the Center for Biological Diversity. Consumption of meat from animals that are shot with lead bullets also contributes unacceptable levels of the metal into peoples diets, Mr. Miller said in a phone interview...
Unsubstantiated nonsense meant to scare the stupid...like Mr Miller, there....
Its an insulting pantload.
They have tried this crap before and gotten nowhere.
Where does lead come from?
Where do bullets go that miss their target?
I think that is probably a low estimate. I just figured I shoot about 50 rounds a week of .45ACP alone. 230x50 is 11500 grains divided by 7000 is 1.64 pounds a week x 52 weeks is about 85 pounds of .45. I will also shoot another 50 through an AR or AK, plus various hunting rifles up to a .416, plus vast .22 bullets, then shotshells at 16 shots to a pound. I probably put 600 pounds out myself. I do my part though, and shoot some Barnes bullets (all copper) on a lot of big game. The whole idea is BS anyway.
So the envirowhacks want to take on the NRA? Let ‘em try.
They are about to be destroyed by their own overreach anyhow.
I wonder how many birds die every year from those stupid wind farms the liberals love so much?
Banning lead ammo is just another back door gun grabbing scheme by the lefties.
Lead shot was banned for hunting migratory waterfowl in the late 70s or early 80s. With the ban many hunter’s shotguns, including mine became obsolete for hunting waterfowl and the effectiveness of the legal shells was less than lead and the cost jumped dramatically. I belive the real goal is to make ammunition, hunting and anything else having to do with firearms more expensive. Now they are even talking about no lead in ammunition that is used for traditional plinking and shooting sports, all the altertanatives are more expensive. Owning guns is a RIGHT and there should NO tax on firearms or ammunition and no regulations that would increase price or reduce effectiveness of ammunition. The intent of the Second Amendment is for the PEOPLE to be armed and this includes adequate supplies of ammunition. Cost of gasoline, food, and everything else going up and there are those trying to increase the cost of ammo to stop us from stockpiling. I believe President George Washington would approve of the PEOPLE stoclpiling arms and ammunition.
Gee. There is ANOTHER heavy metal that can be used for tire balancing weights. It is called GOLD, although it may just be a little pricey. Most other inexpensive metals are too light to be practical.
Please don’t agree with me.
How many times have you seen a sparrow eat a spent .45ACP or a 45/70 Govt.?
Where do bullets go that miss their target?
Actually, any bullet that doesn’t remain in the target goes in the ground...
That includes post-cleaning, I would assume.
They already are...they have to use steel now .....at twice the price BTW.
What a load of crap. By my calculations 3,000 pounds of lead = 48,000 ounces = 1,344,000 grams. Divided among 20,000,000 birds equals .0672 grams per bird. Number six shotgun pellets weight about .5250 grams each. Therefore each pellet would have to divided into 7.8125 pieces and distributed at the rate of one serving per bird. In addition, that dosage would have to lethal. The size would be about .35MM each. Really!
I dunno...the question was never answered when the Federal Prosecutor who was trying to prosecute seven oil companies in North Dakota over 28 dead birds found on drilling and producing locations (out of 6000+ locations) was asked about it.
You'd think if that was prosecuted with the vigor he tried to unleash on the oil companies involved ($15,000/bird, and jail time for someone responsible), they'd need unit trains to deliver the warrants for windfarms...
We need to have this bill drafted and passed right away, we can call it "the law of unintended consequences."
IMIM193 5.56 55gr is almost impossible to find and IMIM855 5.56 62gr is getting scarce.
By now if you haven’t collected more ammo than you’ll ever need then you B real slow.
Everyone should know what obammy’s ultimate goal is.
” the death of 20 million birds each year from lead poisoning,”
Yeah, the high velocity strain of poisening.
Yes and No
In 1976 EPA regulations that came about due to lead in paint. It was one of those protect the women and children things.
Ammunition (shotgun & rifle) was exempted, due to the fact that hunters and target shooters were organized against it. Lead used for fishing was not exempted. Fisher persons did not see the handwriting on the wall.
Now for the rest of the ammunition story or death by a thousand paper cuts started here in Missouri.
Only 4 years later The Swan Lake Zone was created. No lead shot for waterfowl. The same for the other waterfowl hunting areas controlled by the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC).
Within a very few years it was expanded to statewide, no lead shot for waterfowl because ducks were diving down and digging the lead shot buried in mud and eating it . The same for geese, they could tell the difference between a ear of corn and a #2 lead bird shot . All this was done in the name of safety for the ducks and geese.(/s)
After the bans steel shot was the only choice for a number of years. After using lead shot, steel shot was like shooting ping pong balls at ducks and geese, due to the lower muzzle velocity and much lower sectional density of the steel pellets IMHO. More crippling and lost birds occurred.
About the year 2000 along came Bismuth and then HeavyShot loads. Duck and goose hunters now had the equivalent of lead shot at 3X to 5X the cost, but they did the job!
On to the next paper cut. About 5 years ago MDC said that hunters had to use steel or approved shot shells on 7 other areas they owned for doves, turkey etc. These were not waterfowl hunting areas. The number of MDC steel shot areas may have increased in the last 5 years.
Dove hunting with shot shells that cost 16 cents each vs shot shells that cost up to $1.25 each is a whole different ballgame for someone who shoots like I do.
Here in Missouri about 98% of the land used for hunting is privately owned. Will the next paper cut be no lead on private land?
On the subject of lead in rifle bullets. The MDC agrees with the studies make by the state of North Dakota that a deer harvested with bullets that contain some lead poise very little if any danger to those who eat the deer meat.
So far there have been no changes in the Missouri rifle regulations vs the wacko laws in a state like California.
What is best for Moonbats? If the wookie gets a second term in the White House, open season will be declared
Bird shot from skeet, trap or sporting clay ranges is reclaimed and sold as recycled shot for reloading.
I am sure the same is done on rifle ranges if it can be dug up.
These wacko groups and the EPA do play fast and loose with the unsubstantiated numbers they pull of out the blue.
Hunters and their families average 12% less lead in their bloodstreams than the general population.
They’re like the original “Organic Dudes”, man....
Wheel weights? Free?
Nobody gets them free. It has been two decades or so since that was the case.
13.7 million birds die each day from natural causes. Even if the 20 million were corrct, which it is not, it wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Here is a little history regarding the near complete emasculation of our infantry along with a little info about what makes a round really lethal as compared to inconvenient, and how what you postulate has already occurred:
The round for the M16 that we used in Vietnam was the 55 grain M193. It was the most lethal military round ever devised that I know of. Read the following link to understand in more detail why this was, but in brief instead of being a hole-puncher it was a soft target destroyer. Muscle and soft organ hits produced mush or puree if you prefer; single hits to bone in a limb could and often did result in the limb being ripped off. This means that a single solid hit would nearly always incapacitate and often kill - which is what shooting someone in a war situation is all about. I’ve treated men stitched five times in an arc across the chest (right side of course) from an AK, but I never heard of a similar incident occurring in regards to the M16 Vietnam era M193 round.
And then post Vietnam this happened:
“During the 1970s, NATO members signed an agreement to select a second, smaller caliber cartridge to replace the 7.62 mm NATO cartridge. Of the cartridges tendered, the 5.56x45mm was successful, but not the 55 gr M193 round used by the U.S. at that time. The wounds produced by the M193 round were so devastating that many consider it to be inhumane. Instead, the Belgian 62 gr SS109 round was chosen for standardization. The SS109 used a heavier bullet with a steel core and had a lower muzzle velocity for better long-range performance, specifically to meet a requirement that the bullet be able to penetrate through one side of a steel helmet at 600 meters. This requirement made the SS109 (M855) round less capable of fragmentation than the M193 and was considered more humane.”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9745mm_NATO)
As a piece of equipment the M16 was and is a miserable design - no one knows how many good men died in Vietnam or since because the sorry thing jammed, the only thing that made it worth using was the round it shot because it put the fear of God in the enemy. In Vietnam, fire fight frequency and duration plunged in areas where local units switched from M1 carbines to M16s - as soon as Charlie heard the sound of M16s the whole game changed because it is one thing to face a weapon that only punches holes but another to face one that will rip your arm off or turn your internal organs to mush while leaving an exit wound that looks like a mini-grenade explosion.
What was this Mother of a round? It looked like an overgrown 22 being a 5.56×45mm 55 grain copper jacketed Spitzer bullet with a lead core. The thing was it was fast, generally a shade over 3,000 fps, and when it hit it tumbled, to use the parlance we used back then, or yawed, as they say now. When it tumbled it was designed to break up, and because it had a soft lead core the pieces would also deform. This means that the kinetic energy of that fast moving bullet would be nearly instantaneously transferred to the surrounding tissue resulting in a little entry wound and a horrendous exit wound if there was one. Hollow points are poor cousins compared to what this round would do.
What it wouldn’t do was penetrated hard targets worth beans. But that was alright because it was the best anti-personnel round ever used and jungle fighting is most often up-close and personal.
The switch from the American 55 grain M193 to the European M855 with its steel penetrator tip and marginalized lead core was a step backwards from being a soft target destroyer back towards being just a hole puncher. It was an opening move in a deliberate campaign to emasculate our fighting forces.
This campaign was then escalated by the introduced of the M4 carbine, a sawed off M16 with a 14.5 inch barrel instead of the 21 inch M16 barrel. Anyone who knows anything about guns knows that they and their ammo must be design for each other. If you change the barrel length you must change the ammo. The 21 inch M16 barrel provided the environment in which the powder charge could accelerate that killing round to the velocity it needed to achieve the energy required to break up on impact and take the target down. The M4’s runt of a barrel can not do that. In the M4 the old 55 grain M193 would lose much of its effectiveness, with the 62 grain steel-lead core M855 the gun becomes so ineffective that even four hits to the chest may not instantly kill or incapacitate, but leaves an enemy combatant still fighting.
For our infantry this campaign of emasculation is just about complete: the pigmy barreled M4 has mostly replaced the M16, and in 2011 they switched from the marginal M855 to the M855A1 round.
The M855A1 is a Green Bullet, meaning it contains no lead, being a copper jacketed bullet with a steel tip on a copper core. It was the brain child of the Clinton administration who thought all that lead the military was throwing around just wouldn’t do. It is NOT an Anti-Personal Soft-Target round, it is a designated Armor Penetrating round. In other words it is a hole puncher. It is designed to NOT liberate energy on soft targets. We have gone from arming our troops with the most devastating rifle round ever designed to arming them with weapons designed to not kill the enemy, but rather to ensure that our troops will be emasculated to the point that they will not be able to defend themselves, much less take the fight to the enemy.
Like the stoppage of production for the premier air superiority fighter, the F22, and the pouring of billions up billions of dollars into a designed second rate air craft, the F35, the campaign to disarm and emasculate the United States military is nearing its goal. And it is being done right in front of our faces with our tax dollars.
No. Only the use of lead for hunting waterfowl. And that 3,000 pound figure is laughable. Works out to 48,000 one ounce loads. 3,000 tons, maybe. And places where waterfowl have tradionally been hunted are lousy with lead already.
|
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Cedars Resort, Sedona
Conveniently near the airport in the heart of Sedona, Cedars Resort is close to Mountain Trails Galleries, Kuivato Gallery, and Tlaquepaque Arts and Crafts Village. Also nearby are Lanning Gallery and Exposures International Fine Art Gallery.
Cedars Resort has a spa tub, a fitness center, and a seasonal outdoor pool. Complimentary wireless Internet access is available in public areas and a computer station is located on site. Additional amenities include tour/ticket assistance, a garden, and a picnic area. Complimentary self parking is available onsite for guests. This is a smoke-free property.
Rooms open to patios. The 38 air-conditioned guestrooms at Cedars Resort include coffee/tea makers and bathrobes. Guests can use the in-room complimentary wireless high-speed Internet access. Rooms are equipped with LCD TVs with cable channels. All accommodations provide desks and phones; free local calls are offered (restrictions may apply). Bathrooms offer shower/tub combinations, hair dryers, and complimentary toiletries. Additional amenities include irons/ironing boards and blackout drapes/curtains. Housekeeping is offered daily.
Enter dates to check prices
Hotel Info: 020 3027 9803from £122
- Standard Room, 1 King Bed, View
At a glance
- This hotel has 38 rooms
- This hotel is arranged over 2 floors
- Check-in time 4 PM-10 PM
- Check-out time is 11 AM
- Express check-out
Required at check in
- Credit card or cash deposit required
- Government-issued photo ID required
Travelling with others
- No cribs (infant beds)
- Pets not allowed (service dogs only)
- Free WiFi in public areas
- Free WiFi in rooms
- Free self parking
- Smoke-free property
Nearby Two Star Sedona hotels
In the hotel
- Outdoor seasonal pool
- Pool sun loungers
- Fitness facilities
- Spa tub
- Computer station
- Front desk (limited hours)
- Tours/ticket assistance
- Number of buildings/towers - 3
- Picnic area
In the room
- Air conditioning
- Coffee/tea maker
- Iron/ironing board
- Blackout drapes/curtains
- Private bathroom
- Shower/tub combination
- Free toiletries
- Hair dryer
- LCD TV
- Cable TV channels
- Free WiFi
- Free local calls
- Daily housekeeping
- Access via exterior corridors
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Cedars Resort, Sedona’s small print
Noise-free guestrooms cannot be guaranteed.
Only registered guests are allowed in the guestrooms.
Children under 18 years old are not allowed in the swimming pool or fitness facility without adult supervision.
This property does not have elevators.
The name on the credit card used at check-in to pay for incidentals must be the primary name on the guestroom reservation.
Late check-in after 10 PM can be arranged for an extra charge (amount varies)
We have included all charges provided to us by this hotel. However, charges can vary, for example, based on length of stay or the room you book.
|
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McDonald’s Fights to Win Back Customers
NEW YORK (AP) — McDonald's is fighting to hold onto customers amid intensifying competition.
On Monday, the world's biggest hamburger chain said an important sales figure fell again in the U.S. The company blamed bad winter weather in part, but also conceded that "challenging industry dynamics" played a role.
At a time when chains like Chipotle and smaller players like Five Guys Burgers and Fries are growing, here are a few strategies McDonald's Corp. is focusing on:
People want to be able to dictate exactly what they want on their orders. It's why chains like Chipotle and Subway have done so well in recent years.
So McDonald's is trying to allow for more customization, in part by rolling out new prep tables at its more than 14,000 U.S. locations. The new tables can hold many more toppings and sauces than the old tables, signaling that McDonald's plans to offer greater variety.
The chain is also testing a "build-your-own-burger" concept in Southern California. Even if the test is successful, however, don't expect to see it at a McDonald's near you anytime soon — rolling out that kind of product across all restaurants would require considerable changes in the kitchens.
McDonald's has long dominated the breakfast hours and plans to play up favorites like the Egg McMuffin as it faces more competition as people increasingly buy breakfast on the go.
Taco Bell, for instance, is readying for its national breakfast rollout, and Starbucks recently revamped its sandwiches.
To strengthen its No. 1 position in the morning, McDonald's says it will also push the quality of its coffee in marketing. Executives note that quality coffee has become a priority for many people and that it can bring them in the door. It's one of the reasons the chain's coffee cups were recently redesigned.
McDonald's is also testing breakfast pastries in San Diego.
McDonald's executives have conceded that they rolled out too many new items too quickly in the past year. That led to kitchen operations becoming too complicated and orders taking too long to fill.
So the chain says it will slow its pace of new offerings. It's also trying to add variety using items already on its menu. That might mean introducing McWraps and Quarter Pounders with different toppings and sauces, rather than new burgers entirely.
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Nightmare RangeThe Collected Sueno and Bascom Short Stories
Soho CrimeCopyright © 2013 Martin Limon
All right reserved.ISBN: 9781616953324
The mama-san didn’t know how long the body had been out there. Three, maybe four days, she said. Her girls had just conducted their business a few yards farther away from it each day.
“Where is it now?” I asked.
“Policeman take go.” She waved her cigarette and smoke filtered through the darkened gaps between her teeth.
The morgue was in Chorwon-ni, ten miles to the south. Ten miles south of Nightmare Range, and fifteen miles from the Demilitarized Zone that slashes like a surgeon’s knife through the heart of the Korean Peninsula.
The war had been over for twenty years but still it lingered: a big dumb ghost that refused to go away. No peace treaty had been signed, just a cease-fire, so the fourth and fifth largest armies in the world, armed to their squinting eyeballs, faced each other across the line; fingers on trigger housings, knuckles white, dancing to the sound of no breathing.
Our police escort, Lieutenant Pak, stood back, arms crossed, glaring at the squatting woman. He was a tall man for a Korean, slim but muscular. His khakis were starched and fit as if he had been born in them. I didn’t ask him why it had taken so long to dispose of the body. The non-person status of a “business girl” follows her into death.
One by one the doors to the hooches slid open and groggy young women, their faces still puffed with sleep, gaped at us curiously. Some squatted in long underwear, their arms crossed over their knees, while others lay on the floor, beneath the wrinkled patchworks that were their blankets. All of the girls were ugly in some way: ravaged complexions, tufted hair, splotches of discolored skin arrayed around their bodies.
It seem more like a war for the incurably ill than a whorehouse.
Maybe it was both.
Lieutenant Pak asked a series of questions of the old woman and I managed, struggling, to keep up with most of it. There had been a number of American units in the field that day and just before nightfall the old woman had stationed a few of her girls near each encampment.
As darkness approached the girls called to the young GIs from just outside the concertina wire.
I’d seen the game before. Sometimes the GI would wade out into the tall grass and lie on the blanket, both he and the deformed girl protected by the enshrouding night. And sometimes the bolder fellows would bring the girls into their tents, risking the wrath of the Sergeant of the Guard; sneaking in and out of the camp with the stealth of a North Korean infiltrator.
I pulled out a map, showed it to the mama-san, and pointed to the area around Nightmare Range and the village of Mantong-ni. The old woman looked at it carefully and consulted with some of the girls. A few of them were up now and dressed. They chattered for a while, and then came to a conclusion. With my pen I marked the area beneath the old woman’s gnarled fingernail.
I asked what type of unit it was. Big guns, they decided.
Lieutenant Pak wiped his hands on the sides of his khaki trousers and took a step toward the gate.
“Mama-san,” I said. “This girl. What was her name?”
“Miss Chon,” the old woman said. “Chon Ki-suk.”
I wrote it down. “Do you have a picture of her?”
The mama-san barked an order and one of the girls handed me a tattered piece of cardboard folded in half like a small book. A VD card. Chon Ki-suk peered out at me from a small black and white photograph. She had a round face with full cheeks that sagged like a bloated chipmunk. All visible flesh had been pocked by the craters of skin disease. She differed little from her sisters now breathing heavily around me; a timid little girl awaiting death.
Lieutenant Pak stomped into the mud.
I stood up and walked with him to the gate. As he stooped to get through the small opening I looked back at the rows of blemished faces sullenly watching our every move. None of them smiled. None of them said goodbye.
My partner, Ernie Bascom, was in the jeep curled up with a brown-paper-wrapped magazine from somewhere in Scandinavia. He unfolded his six-foot frame as we approached and started up the jeep. Some people said he looked like the perfect soldier: blue eyes behind round-lensed glasses, short-cropped sandy-blond hair, the aquiline nose of the European races. What had blown it for him was Vietnam. Pure horse sold by dirty-faced kids through the wire, women taken on the dusty paths between rice paddies, the terror rocket attacks during innocent hours. His placid exterior hid a soul that had written off the world as a madhouse. Looks were deceiving. Especially in Ernie’s case.
We dropped Lieutenant Pak off in Mantong-ni. A dozen straw-thatched farm houses huddled around the brick-walled police station as if longing for an extinguishing warmth.
Ernie popped the clutch, our tires spun, and we lurched forward into the misted distance.
The roads were still slick but all that was left of the early morning rain were ponderous gray clouds rolling like slow-motion whales through the hills surrounding the long valley. We plunged into a damp tunnel and when we came out the valley widened before us. Dark clouds in the distance glowered at us like fat dragons lowering on their haunches for a nap.
“Nightmare Range,” Ernie said. “Where generals meet to see how much their boys can take.” He pumped lightly on the brakes and slid around a sharp curve. The water-filled rice paddies on either side of the road strained impatiently to embrace our spinning tires. This valley had been the scene of some of the most horrific battles of the Korean War. Americans, Chinese, Koreans, all had died her and the bones of some of them probably still embraced each other deep beneath the piled mud. I had looked it up in the military section in the library, how many had died here. All I remember is that there was a number followed by a lot of zeros.
The austere cement-block building of the Firing Range Headquarters was painted in three alternating shades of green. Inside, a brightly colored relief map of Nightmare Range covered a huge plywood table.
A ROK Army sergeant with short, black-spike hair and crisply pressed khaki uniform thumbed through a handwritten log of the units that had been using the training facility He came to the correct date and the correct position and pointed to the entry: Charlie Battery, 2nd of the 71st Artillery, Camp Pelham.
“Tough duty, pal.” Ernie was leaned back in a patio chair at the snack stand just inside the front gate of Camp Pelham sipping a cold can of PBR. We were dressed the same way: blue jeans, sneakers, and black nylon jackets with brilliantly hand-embroidered dragons on the back. Standard issue for GIs running the ville.
The outfit usually got us over. We were the right age, both in our early twenties, and we both had the clean, fresh-faced look of American GIs. If we played with the girls enough, laughed, horsed around, toked a few joints, no one would suspect that we were conducting a criminal investigation.
Ernie looked like the typical American GI from the heartland of America. I looked like his ethnic sidekick. Taller than him by about three inches, broader at the shoulders, with the short jet-black hair of my Mexican ancestors. My face often threw people. The nose was pointed enough, and the skin light enough to make them think that maybe I was just one of them. But I’d grown up on the streets of east L.A. and I’d heard the racial slurs before and when some GI started in on “wetbacks” somebody usually elbowed him and whispered something in his ear and looked nervously in my direction. They didn’t have to worry though. That’s part of America, after all. I wouldn’t deny them their fun.
The afternoon was glorious but cold. The crisp, clear blue sky of the DMZ, far away from the ravages of industrialism, seemed to welcome even the likes of us.
Camp Pelham is in the Western Corridor, about twenty miles from the Division Headquarters at Camp Casey and forty miles from Nightmare Range. The Western Corridor was the route the North Korean tanks had taken on their way to Seoul in the spring of 1950. It was expected to be the route they would take again.
The camp was small, you could walk around it in ten minutes, but it still managed to house the battalion’s three batteries of six guns each. The big howitzers of Alpha and Bravo Batteries pointed to the sky, their barrels snugly sheathed in plastic, behind protective bunkers. Charlie Battery was out in the field again but scheduled to return that afternoon.
We heard distant thunder and ran to the chain-link fence. Across the narrow river, rows of dilapidated wooden shacks sat jumbled behind a main street that was lined with nightclubs and tailor shops.
Charlie Battery rumbled down the two hundred yard strip. A small jeep maintained the lead while six big two-and-a-half ton trucks barreled after it as if trying to run it down. A half dozen 105 millimeter howitzers bounced behind the big trucks like baby elephants trotting behind their mothers.
The men of Charlie Battery stood in the beds of the trucks, shouting, the flaps of their winter headgear bouncing wildly in the wind.
An M-60 machine gun crowned the cab of each truck, partially hidden behind bundles of neatly tied camouflage netting. Rolls of razor-sharp concertina wire, draped over stanchions on either side of the truck bed, swayed lazily with the rattling of the trucks, like huge and sinister gypsy earrings.
Some of the villagers of Sonyu-ri waved happily at the unstoppable convoy. Others scurried desperately to get themselves and their children out of the way.
When the Camp Pelham gate guards swung open the big chain-link fence, the men yelled and laughed and the drivers gunned the big truck engines. Diesel fumes billowed into the air.
The jeep sped by and headed for the Battery Orderly Room. The truck turned in the other direction to get hosed down at the wash point and topped of with diesel at the fuel point.
We finished our beers and walked down the road. In front of the Orderly Room a disheveled-looking little man rummaged through the back of the jeep trying to locate his gear. I spotted his name tag. Sergeant Pickering, the Chief of the Firing Battery.
“Chief of Smoke,” I said.
He looked up and squinted; a crooked-toothed weasel who hadn’t shaved in a couple of days.
“Who are you?”
I showed him my identification. “George Sueno, Criminal Investigation Division. This is my partner, Ernie Bascom.”
He looked at the badge and turned back to his gear. “Why ain’t you wearing a coat and tie?” he asked. “I thought you guys always wore a coat and tie.”
“Not under cover,” Ernie said.
The Chief of Smoke ignored us and continued to rummage through his gear, sticking his hand way down into the depths of his dirty green canvas.
“Here’s the son of a bitch,” he said. “Kim! Kim! I found it.”
His Korean Army driver came running out of the Orderly Room as the Chief of Smoke wrenched his hand free from the enveloping material. He held up a dirty, unwrapped, white bread sandwich and they both beamed. He tore it and handed half to the Korean. They munched contentedly and the driver, smiling, returned to the Orderly Room.
“Kimchi and bologna,” the Chief of Smoke said. “Made it myself.” His mouth was open. The odor of the hot pickled cabbage flushed the diesel fumes from my sinuses. He didn’t offer us any.
“The last field problem you were on,” I said, “you were at Nightmare Range.”
The Chief looked at me, still chewing with his mouth open, but didn’t say anything.
“There was a problem,” I said. “Somebody from your unit went a little too far with one of the girls outside the wire.”
He closed one eye completely. “What do you mean, ‘too far?’”
“He killed her.”
The Chief of Smoke chomped viciously on his sandwich. Cabbage crunched.
“Probably deserved it.” He continued to chew, turning his head to squint at the brilliantly outlined hills in the blue-sky distance. “I know my first wife did.”
“Did you notice anything unusual that trip? Anything that might have . . . “
“Had to be Bogard. Only one mean enough to do it. And he was always messing with those girls out in the field. Didn’t pay ‘em I don’t think. Never had enough money anyway what with all the trouble he’s been in.”
“Yeah. Article Fifteens for not making formations, over-purchasing on his ration card, shit like that.”
“Where’s he at now?”
“He’s not in your unit anymore?”
“Well, we’re still carrying him on the books. They say he’s down in the ville.” The Chief of Smoke swallowed the last of his rancid sandwich, turned away from the hills and looked at me. Bread and bologna still stuck to his teeth. “He’s been AWOL ever since we came back from Nightmare Range.”
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KINGSPORT — When all is said and done, the establishment of a demonstration winery on the MeadowView property will end up costing the Model City more than $1.2 million.
In the fall of 2011, the city of Kingsport began a partnership with Michael Reedy, the owner of Reedy Creek Cellars of Sullivan County, to establish a winery on the MeadowView grounds. Visitors would be able to sample and purchase various wines and see the wine-making process firsthand.
In addition to the winery, plans called for the creation of a wine-themed meeting room in the executive conference wing, dubbed the Fieldstone Cellar, a room suited for banquet-style events, conferences, wedding receptions and award ceremonies.
Ultimately, Reedy hoped to create a wine trail from his vineyards in Bristol to MeadowView; city leaders hailed the project as being good for tourism and a nice addition to the other amenities in the area, such as the golf course and aquatic center.
To make the winery a reality, a number of steps had to take place first: a temporary shed had to be built to house the equipment from the old golf maintenance shed; the old shed (where the winery would be located) had to be renovated and equipment moved in; and finally a new, permanent golf maintenance shed had to be built.
In other words, there were a lot of moving pieces.
Over the past 20 months the project has suffered from a number of delays and distractions — some bad weather, a competing project (aquatic center) and the time it took for the city to secure property for the permanent shed. Eastman eventually leased some adjacent property to the city for $1.
The project also had a fairly unrealistic renovation schedule. The original time estimate on the work was three months with a deadline of Jan. 31, 2012. The winery has had a “soft opening” and has been selling wine for months, but final renovations have only recently wrapped up while a grand opening is scheduled for later this year.
The Kingsport Economic Development Board recently approved a $75,000 settlement and two years of free rent to Reedy for lost sales due to the delays.
According to the city’s finance department, the temporary golf shed cost $50,500, which included material, assembly and disassembly. The original estimate was $25,000. The building is now being used by the city’s streets and sanitation department.
The new permanent golf shed (located on Eastman’s land), was originally estimated to cost $220,000. The actual cost was $582,302. The price tag to renovate the old golf shed (where the winery is located) came in at $246,548. The Fieldstone Cellar renovations cost $168,350.
All together, the renovations and new construction come to just over $1 million.
If you include the $75,000 settlement and three years of lost rent to the city (at roughly $28,000 to $29,000 a year), the total amount of the project comes in at $1.2 million.
The money for the project came from a variety of sources: $175,000 from the city’s Visitor Enhancement Fund (money used for tourism-related projects); $93,400 from the MeadowView Conference Center Fund; and $354,312 from the Cattails Project Fund.
In addition, the Kingsport Convention and Visitors Bureau provided $100,000 for the new golf shed and $150,000 for the renovations to the old golf shed (winery). The KEDB will eventually pay this money back to the KCVB once the rent kicks in — a term of the original agreement.
Even with the hefty price tag, city officials say the winery will be good for tourism and provide a nice amenity to the conference center.
City Manager John Campbell said the winery is a unique and useful addition, one that broadens the appeal of the conference center.
“The (winery) is definitely returning to the community, highlighting a local agribusiness, attracting more conferences, and moving more rooms,” Campbell said. “Because of this investment, in both the conference space and the winery, MeadowView is a much stronger wedding venue, and a much stronger social venue overall for the community to enjoy and use.”“I think the winery will be a fantastic asset to the city. We’ve had incredible interest from customers to get over there and Mr. Reedy has attended several events with us to promote both the winery and MeadowView,” said Andy King, executive director of MeadowView. “Long story short, rocky start with a lot of conflict, but at the end of the day it will be successful and something we can all be proud of having in Kingsport.”
In an email to the Times-News, Reedy said he was very appreciative of his relationship with the city and the contributions of its agents.
“Ours is a long-term relationship that will greatly benefit our area and I value their foresight and support,” Reedy said.
The winery is open Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. A grand opening is scheduled for this fall and at that time, the winery is expected to be open seven days a week.
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CNN RELIABLE SOURCES
Did Media Turn Bush's Speech Into Campaign Kickoff?; Why Is Democratic Debate Not on TV?; Are Santorum's Remarks About Gays a Non- Story?
Aired May 4, 2003 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Victory at sea. Have the media helped turn the president's aircraft carrier speech into the kickoff for his reelection campaign?
The nine Democrats who want Bush's job face off in South Carolina. Does anyone care if it's not on national television?
Rick Santorum's remarks about gays. Scandal or non-story?
And two big media embarrassment. A "New York Times" reporter resigns over plagiarism charges, and the editor of "The Salt Lake Tribune" is forced out over checkbook journalism in the Elizabeth Smart case.
Welcome to RELIABLE SOURCES, where we turn a critical lens on the media. I'm Howard Kurtz. A jam packed show this morning. We'll get to those ethical lapses at "The New York Times" and "The Salt Lake Tribune" later in the program, but first, joining us now to talk about the president's picture perfect moment at sea and the clash among the nine Democrats who want his job, Laura Ingraham, host of "The Laura Ingraham Show" on Westwood One Radio. Evan Thomas, assistant managing editor of "Newsweek" magazine. And E.J. Dionne, syndicated columnist and a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Evan Thomas, the president gave a nice speech, but TV turned this extravaganza, excuse me, on the aircraft carrier into a 24-hour campaign commercial. This was like Apollo 11 was landing on the moon. Did the press get snookered here?
EVAN THOMAS, NEWSWEEK: I think that was sort of the idea. The White House wanted it to be a campaign commercial...
KURTZ: Why did they play along?
THOMAS: Why not? I mean, it's great theater. I mean, the president is entitled to theater. He wins a war. Why shouldn't he have a triumphant return? What are we supposed to do, not do it?
KURTZ: E.J. Dionne, isn't this kind of typical of the huge media buildup that Bush has gotten since this war? Yes, the war was a great victory, but this -- I mean, it just looked so much like a 30-second ad with the 5,000 soldiers serving as a backdrop.
E.J. DIONNE, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: It did, and the thing that was frightening is it might be a short-term success and a long-term problem, because I went back through the coverage, and the number of times that the word "campaign commercial" was used actually had the effect of undercutting what he said, and I think the staging was so good that very little attention was paid to his words, and so I think, as I say, it may have been great for him to get this press now. A lot depends -- those pictures will look great if everything goes well in Iraq. Those pictures will look very different in six months if things aren't going so well.
KURTZ: Actually, Ronald Reagan taught us that pictures are much more important than words. The reporters can say what they want, but the pictures have a great effect. Let's put up a pictures of the two New York tabloids and the top gun coverage that they gave President Bush. People can take a look at that. Laura Ingraham, even you have to admit that the mainstream liberal press has given this president one heck of a ride over this war.
LAURA INGRAHAM, WESTWOOD ONE RADIO: First of all, even you. The elites are being driven crazy by the fact that this president said that he was going to go into Iraq, try to get the job done with as few casualties as possible. He's essentially done that, with the help of the great U.S. military. The country has rallied to this White House, that's what's driving the elites crazy. They had 24-7 coverage of this war, with embedded journalists, so they covered this for one day, and everyone is like, oh, isn't this troubling that we covered this, this president landing on the aircraft carrier. Speaking as a woman, and listening to the women who called into my radio show, seeing President Bush get out of that plane, carrying his helmet, he is a real man. He stands by his word. That was a very powerful moment.
DIONNE: And that's why it is a campaign commercial.
INGRAHAM: What are you supposed to do, not cover it?
INGRAHAM: Yes, journalistic elites.
KURTZ: Have you been driven crazy?
INGRAHAM: You are being driven crazy by that.
DIONNE: No, not by that. In fact, I think that it's not the case that people are driven crazy by the fact that the war was won. I don't think that's a problem for people. I think the notion that the elites are somehow ganging up on Bush is undercut by the very fact that he got all this coverage, so that's simply not true, and again...
DIONNE: Let me finish -- he looked better in a jumpsuit than I ever will.
KURTZ: Like Michael Dukakis looked like in a tank. THOMAS: My elitist opinion here. He is an in-your-face guy. This is part of his charm, and also something that people don't like about him. Everything about him, about his presidency, about his war, he's a risk taker, he's bold, he's the kind of guy that will get into a fighter plane and fly into it. That's who he is, and most people in this country like that. A significant minority do not. It will only turn against him...
KURTZ: The significant minority include the press, which might have preferred a more dignified Oval Office speech.
THOMAS: Look, the press is torn. They love images, they like theater. So they love that part. But they're a little snooty about Bush is a cowboy, so they don't like that part. So they are ambivalent.
INGRAHAM: But this is where the divide exists, though, between inside the Beltway journalistic mentality and the heartland of America. No, the heartland of America. I'm not talking politics here. Bush's approval rating is pretty high. That is going to go down. We all know that. But the fact that the military is actually being given the respect and appreciation that it deserves finally in the United States after a period of time where a lot of people doubted that, people really like that image, and I don't think there's anything for a day or two, nothing wrong with that. We're making such a big deal out of the fact that he landed on this aircraft carrier. Good for him. It was a nice day for the military.
DIONNE: If Bill Clinton had done this after the Kosovo war or the Bosnia war, Tom DeLay and perhaps even Laura would have said, my God, here's a president who never served in the military, wrapping himself...
INGRAHAM: Well, President Bush actually did serve in the military, however.
DIONNE: National Guard...
INGRAHAM: Try to fly one of those planes, E.J. Then you can tell us about that.
KURTZ: Let me blow the whistle here, because I want to move on to last night's debate in South Carolina, among the nine Democratic contenders. This was moderated by ABC's George Stephanopoulos and offered up to ABC affiliates, about 50 of them took it, none of them live, except for one cable channel here in Washington, and in New York, for example, this aired at 5:30 this morning. So my question, Evan Thomas, is do ordinary people care at this stage of the game about Kerry and Edwards and Lieberman and Gephardt, or is this really an inside baseball media story at this point?
THOMAS: They don't care, and nor should they. Why should they care? This is an early process, important process amongst the candidates and amongst the party faithful to kind of sort out, to see who wears well.
KURTZ: One of these people could be president. Why shouldn't they care?
THOMAS: We'll get to it. Don't worry. The public will have plenty of time to decide who is the winner. But why start now?
KURTZ: If almost no one actually sees this debate, although it is being replayed on C-Span today and that sort of thing, then is the media interpretation, the media spin even more important in terms of how for those who are paying attention, how their candidates are perceived?
DIONNE: Yes, and it's that for the mass audience, and then it's how people who give money, vote in primaries look at that coverage, even though more of them will watch this thing. And the problem for the Democrats is that the individual interests of the candidates are at odds with their -- is at odds with their collective interests. See, individual interest is separate yourself out, attack the other guy, so you had "The Atlanta Journal Constitution" this morning, "Kerry and Dean take off the gloves." "Chicago Tribune" -- "Democratic hopefuls get down to the fight." Almost all the headlines were like that. So you have got these irascible Democrats going at each other, which may be good for one of them, if he breaks out, but is not great for the collective image of the party.
KURTZ: Speaking of Kerry and Dean take off the gloves, we'll get to you in a second, Laura, let's take a look at Senator Kerry and Governor Dean, a couple of their sharp exchanges, last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I believe that anybody who thinks that they have to prepare for the day that we're not the strongest is preparing for a day when we have serious problems.
HOWARD DEAN (D), FORMER GOVERNOR OF VERMONT: No commander in chief would ever, and I am no exception, willingly allow our military influence to shrink. Unilateralism is a mistake. That's what I said before. I think the senator made a mistake in criticizing me.
KERRY: Well, I don't need any lectures in courage from Howard Dean.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Howard Dean, 3 percent in the polls nationally, but getting a lot of attention in the debate last night. Is he somebody who's been built up by the media or is he becoming a first rate contender?
INGRAHAM: Yes, the media loves Dean. And that's fine. Well, he's kind of the ant at the Democratic picnic right now. He's the one who's going to bite and nip at all the other Democrats on the stage. And I don't think he's, in the clips that I've seen, I don't think he came off particularly well. I think Kerry really sort of said, "down, boy," right there, and I served my country, I know the military. This idea that you're foreshadowing a weaker day for the country, we saw that a couple of decades ago. We don't want that again in the United States. So Dean is going to be a media fascination, but as a sustaining involvement of the Democrat Party, I don't think so.
THOMAS: The press is always looking for the non-candidate, a person who doesn't seem like a politician. And Dean is the best bet for the person who will wear with the public as someone...
KURTZ: This is the Bruce Babbitt role.
THOMAS: Yes, and John McCain a little bit, but it's somebody who sounds like a human being instead of a pol, and I think he does have some of those qualities. He is a little bit to the left.
KURTZ: A little? I mean, he's obviously strongly anti-war.
THOMAS: Even for the Democratic Party he's a little bit to the left, and that's going to, I think, going to hurt him. Catch on.
KURTZ: You know, I've traveled with Howard Dean. Most political reporters have done early profiles of him. How much has that helped boost him? Here is a guy who was a virtually unknown, former governor of Vermont. How much did that boost him?
THOMAS: He wants to be the media candidate. McCain used to say forthrightly, the media is my base, and that's what Dean wants.
DIONNE: And that's going to be harder now that the war is over. There was one thing, though, that you probably won't see much of. Some of these guys were funny last night. I mean, Kerry was asked by Stephanopoulos, George Stephanopoulos, you know, about his problem of aloofness. And he replied, "probably I ought to just disappear and contemplate that by myself." Or Joe Lieberman was asked, "are you tough enough?" "I'd like to come over there and strangle you, George." And I think there was the Lieberman line you're going to hear a lot is, "I know I can beat George Bush. Why? Al Gore and I already did it." And that was an interesting moment, because the Democrats -- the Democratic base doesn't like where Lieberman was on the war in Iraq; they do like where he was in the battle for Florida.
KURTZ: I guess Jay Leno will be booking him soon. One more press question before we move on, for Laura Ingraham. John Howard writes in "The Wall Street Journal" that Dennis Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun and Reverend Al shouldn't even be on the stage. They are not serious candidates, in the sense that they have no hope of winning the nomination. So my question is, should the press largely ignore them? Because it's hard to get nine candidates into every story, let me tell you.
INGRAHAM: It's hard to have a meaningful exchange of ideas. But they're interesting characters. I mean, we have this debate, it seems, every primary season. Who deserves to be on the stage? And I think the parties have to work that out amongst themselves, but, look, this was derby day, Kentucky Derby day, this came right off the heels of this aircraft carrier story. This was a tough act to follow. KURTZ: OK. Want to touch now on Senator Rick Santorum, this was kind of a modest story for about a week and a half, likening gay sex to incest, bigotry, polygamy, in the context of the Supreme Court case. He likes homosexuals fine, he just doesn't like what they do, thinks perhaps it should remain criminalized. Why did the press make so much of Trent Lott's remarks? And why was that such a huge deal and this was only a modest story?
THOMAS: Well, I think that was clear cut that Trent Lott just said something absolutely outrageous. Santorum said it outrageously, and there wasn't a legal issue here. He wasn't contradicting anything the courts hadn't already said, it was more of a taste issue. And he wasn't flatly contradicting years of Supreme Court rulings.
KURTZ: In media terms, is bashing gays just not as explosive as, say, waxing nostalgic about the good old days of segregation?
DIONNE: I think if we're honest about it, there is a stronger consensus on the civil rights period and on what was wrong about the way white Americans treated black Americans than there is now about gays. Gays are still a very divisive issue. Countries change hugely. The fact that Santorum got into as much trouble as he did is an indication that the country is much more open to gays, cares a lot more about their rights than we ever have before.
KURTZ: You're saying the fact that it was an issue at all shows a change in the culture?
DIONNE: It's a big change in the culture, and my hunch is that he would have gotten into even more trouble 10 years from now as the culture further changes.
KURTZ: Did the press try to cast Senator Santorum's remarks as an example of Republican Party intolerance?
INGRAHAM: I think it probably wasn't as outrageous as the media would have liked to have us think. I mean, Santorum was stating the Supreme Court decision, as Evan pointed out. And I think if you really focus on what he said, read the lawyers who are questioning the Texas Supreme Court justices below on this issue. Arguing the case below, the judges on the Texas Supreme Court were asking the same questions that Santorum was raising. He was stating a legal point. And people who aren't sort of all that conversant in the legal principles think, oh, isn't that outrageous, he said these things. That is where the court is today, and that's what he was stating.
KURTZ: That is law and this is politics. And when you bring in words like incest and adultery and bigamy and liken it to consensual sex among gays, that's...
THOMAS: I do think that one thing that's going on here, the press loves to portray cultural Neanderthals. I mean, that's one of our favorite things, and he fit that description for that moment, so that's one reason he got a lot of play. KURTZ: But of course, Republicans -- most Republicans neither defended him or (UNINTELLIGIBLE), which I think took some of the air out of the story. And we will have to leave it there.
When we come back, a case of plagiarism red handed, in fact, at "The New York Times." Plus, why did two reporters covering the Elizabeth Smart case sell out to "The National Enquirer"? Stay with us.
KURTZ: Sounds like we're starting again. Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES. Two controversies in the world of newspapers to talk about this week. First, "The New York Times" editor Howell Raines has apologized for a plagiarized article that he called "a grave breach of the paper's journalistic standards." Reporter Jayson Blair resigned over his profile of a Texas woman who lost a son in Iraq. Blair's story copied quotes and lots of other details from an earlier piece in "The San Antonio Express News."
Laura Ingraham, this reporter, Jayson Blair, one of the youngest reporters hired by "The Times" in recent years, had 50 corrections on previous stories in about three and half years, once quoted a Kent State official who said he never talked to Jayson Blair. He wrote stories during the Washington sniper case the prosecutors said was dead wrong. Should "The New York Times" have caught on to the fact that there might be a problem here earlier?
INGRAHAM: Well, I don't know how long any of us would last in our jobs currently if we had made 50 mistakes. I think it seems like something weird is going on here. I don't know what the story is. He's 27 yours old. A couple of mistakes, you know, youthful exuberance, but 50 mistakes? I think "The Times" has a lot more to answer for regarding this. It also fuels people's cynicism about the press. We don't need any more of that. "The New York Times" is a celebrated newspaper, my favorite paper to read, I've got to say. So I mean, Howell Raines is going to beat him up for this? I don't know, but it would be nice to know, at what juncture did they consider getting rid of him earlier.
KURTZ: Right. You know, I guess we should explain, E.J. Dionne, you know, that copying someone else's work is really a cardinal sin in journalism, because you are not only not giving credit, but in effect you are pretending that you did the reporting itself. So how much of a black eye is this for "The Times?"
DIONNE: This is not the first time this has happened to a newspaper. And I think actually in this electronic age, it becomes a whole lot easier for people to sort of pull chunks out and throw them in somewhere else, so I think everybody -- every single person including reporters themselves have to be doubly, triply, quadruply careful about this possibility. There is an inconsistency in a way -- if you go back through the annals of plagiarism, there is an inconsistency in a way people are dealt with. Some people get a slap on the wrist; some people get fired. And I think the burden here is that this wasn't the only case, it wasn't a one-time thing, and that's why they took the kind of action they did.
KURTZ: This has happened at "Businessweek," "The Washington Post," just about every other major publication. I fail to understand why reporters continue to take the risk of this, because it's so easy to get caught these days, in the world of electronic, online databases.
DIONNE: Also, it's so easy to attribute things to people. I mean, I don't think you ever lose by attributing to somebody.
THOMAS: There is a lot of pathology in these things. We don't know the back story. This is a guy who made 50 mistakes. The real story here, is did "The New York Times" give this guy so much rope that he blew up and hung himself and ruined his career, or along the way did they try to correct whatever mistakes he was making, did they deal with a real problem?
KURTZ: Look, this was a promising young black reporter. I wonder if a middle-aged hack would have gotten away with 50 mistakes and still be at that job.
THOMAS: Your question is rhetorical. You'd think not. And I think that's probably -- but we don't know the facts. The real story here is the hidden story of how they treated this guy in the three and a half years. Did they warn him, did they take him aside, did they say, look, you have got to clean up your act, or did they say, hey, go for it?
KURTZ: Any dispute that this kind of plagiarism should be a firing offense? Should he have been given a second chance?
INGRAHAM: A 51st chance? No, no absolutely not.
KURTZ: All right, let's move on to media controversy number two. Jay Shelledy, editor of "The Salt Lake Tribune," resigned under pressure this week. Shelledy had belatedly fired two of his reporters on the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case, Michael Vigh and Kevin Cantera, for selling information to "The National Enquirer" for $20,000. Shelledy did not know about the secret dealings, which he likened to drinking from a toilet bowl. But he came under fire for initially putting the reporters on probation and for disclosing the unseemly mess in his column rather than ordering up a news story.
This is up for grabs. Why does the editor bite the dust when the sin was committed by two reporters and he didn't know about it? Is it sort of like the baseball team firing the manager when things go bad?
INGRAHAM: I think this whole story is so bizarre at every level. I mean, "The Salt Lake Tribune" working with "The Enquirer" selling stories? I guess it's information that he didn't think was usable and they didn't think was usable in their own story, so kind of scraps on the floor that they sold over to "The Enquirer."
KURTZ: Exactly, there were sexual rumors that ...
(CROSSTALK) INGRAHAM: How enterprising.
THOMAS: It was unbelievably outrageous. Let's stop for a second. Reporters who sell sexual rumors because they won't print them in their own papers to "The National Enquirer, " bam, you're gone. Tomorrow, clean out your desk right away. This isn't even a debate over a close one. His editor made the mistake of slapping them on the wrist, and then when it all came out he had to go down with them.
DIONNE: It is just such a bizarre story. I can't imagine how one would sort of get from here to there to do that sort of thing. And it's a real problem for journalism, because mainstream journalists say, wait, there is a big difference between us and certain other kinds of reporting.
INGRAHAM: Not really. They pay.
DIONNE: And I guess these guys could say, well, yes, there is, we don't print it, we just sell it to them. But it's just the strangest story.
INGRAHAM: How much did they make?
KURTZ: Well, $10,000 apiece to blow up your career is not very good money in my view, and one of the reporter was caught on tape saying, "don't worry, our paper won't beat you on the story," telling this to somebody from "The Enquirer." "The editors there are lightweights." On tape, not a good idea. We'll have to hold it there. E.J. Dionne, Laura Ingraham, Evan Thomas, thanks very much for joining us.
Still to come, which NBC reporter is biting from the hand that feeds her? We'll let you know in a moment.
KURTZ: Remember Ashleigh Banfield? She was the "it" girl at MSNBC for a time until she lost her prime-time show and was relegated to a sideline role during the war. In a recent speech, Banfield chastised the networks, including her own, for their glorious and wonderful coverage of Iraq that glossed over the brutality of the war. "It wasn't journalism," she declared. Banfield also ripped MSNBC for giving a show to fire-breathing conservative Michael Savage, who once called her a slut.
Well, that was quite enough for her bosses, who declared themselves deeply disappointed and troubled by Banfield's remarks. MSNBC News President Neal Shapiro called her in for a scolding. Insiders began taking bets on how much longer Banfield would last.
But hold on. The media routinely criticize politicians, businessmen, athletes, and just about everyone else. Why is it that when a journalist raises questions about her own Business, it's practically deemed an impeachable offense? We praise whistle-blowers at companies like Enron and WorldCom, but treat our own profession like it's above reproach. No wonder people think there is a double standard.
It's a fickle world, though. Keith Olbermann left MSNBC a few years ago after accusing the network of going overboard on the Monica Lewinsky saga. The network badmouthed him as well. Now he's back on MSNBC with a prime-time show, where he'll stay as long as he pulls in the ratings.
We'll be right back.
KURTZ: Well, that's it for this edition of RELIABLE SOURCES. I'm Howard Kurtz. Be sure to join us again next Sunday morning, 11:30 Eastern, for another critical look at the media.
And be sure to stay with CNN for the latest on the news from Iraq and around the world. Coming up at the top of the hour, "LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER." Wolf's guests today include Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Then, at 3:00 p.m. Eastern, check out "IN THE MONEY" with Jack Cafferty. And at 4:00, get the latest headlines with "CNN LIVE SUNDAY." "LATE EDITION" begins right after this look at the hour's top stories.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Is Democratic Debate Not on TV?; Are Santorum's Remarks About Gays a Non-Story?>
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Your week in beer:
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Founders Tasting: Gahanna, Ohio
7:00PM-9:00PM @ Lounge 62
Not sure what the tap list is here, but its Founders, so its sure to impress! Check it out and report back!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
25 Beers for 25 Years: Ann Arbor, Michigan
11:30AM-12:15AM @ Ashley’s Restaurant & Pub
This is amazing- 25 years is epic and so is this tap list:
Celebrating Bell’s Brewery with twenty-two beers on draft all day and three special releases beginning at 9 PM.
9PM Hopslam Firkin release
9:45 PM Batch 10,000 release
10:15 PM Black Note release
Special guest Larry Bell, owner and founder of Bell’s will arrive around 8:30 PM.
Complete Bell’s Draft Line-Up:
Lager of the Lakes
Quinnanan Falls Special Lager
Third Coast Beer
Third Coast Old Ale
Best Brown Ale
Hell Hath No Fury
Double Cream Stout
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Mardi Gras Mambo with Oskar Blues: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
3:00PM-3:00AM @ The Sidecar Bar & Grille
I left a piece of me when I moved from New Orleans, so to honor the city- here is a Mardi Gras event….not in New Orleans…
You know us, then you know how we do, especially with the NOLA vibe – we’ll have the Oskar Blues premiere line on the taps, Chefs Brian Lofink & Kevin McCue with be throwning DOWN with the New Orleans fare and we’ll be spinning the best in New Orleans music – now and then~
Taps for the night will be updated soon!
Friday, February 25, 2011
9th Annual Barleywine Bacchanal: Seattle, Washington
2:00PM-2:00AM @ Beveridge Place Pub
Twenty-four (24!) dedicated taps for the biggest, boldest brews born between Bellingham and Boulder (and elsewhere, too)! Over fifty barleywines in all! This event will boast new beers through March 5.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Washington Beer Open House: Seattle and outside of Seattle, Washington
12:00PM-4:00PM @ various locations
Today, breweries in and around Seattle open their doors for beer lovers to sample and experience their beers. Admission is free but beer prices at the various locations will apply. Check out the Washington Beer Commission’s website for details of where to go and what to do!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday Funday: Escondido, California
11:00AM-9:00PM @ Stone Brewing Co.
Every Sunday Stone offers something from “the cellar.” Today its 2005 Russian Imperial Stout. This stout is top notch, my personal favorite of all the Stone brews. Check out what the 2005 has to offer!
To add to the excitement, we’ve raided our cellars for some awesome rare and vintage brews. Every Sunday, we’ll have these special beers available either to purchase in bottles or to fill up your growlers.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Randall, Meet Bacon. Bacon, Meet Randall: Providence, Rhode Island
6:00PM-8:00PM @ Graduate Center Bar (GCB)
The first time that Randall visited the GCB he went nuts with peanuts and dried cranberries in Dogfish head’s Raison D’Etre… now he’s coming back and bringing the bacon…and roasted peppers. Keith will be with Randall and infusing Palo Santo Marron with thick cut bacon and roasted hot peppers. Come check it out!
If you want us to post about an event or if you went to an event and want to tell us about it, leave a comment or email me at [email protected]! Cheers!
Oh yes, the annual RateBeer.com awards are upon us. Every year in January, beer nerds come out from the woodwork, run a regression analysis, compute multiple methodology, average the cosign – plus tangent – and come up with these pretty rad rankings. Bon appetite.
I believe its a bit more simple than I made it out to be, but the rankings are up and that means the chatter begins. I have always been a staunch supporter of the RateBeer rankings. In fact, they have led the way on a number of significant beer tours around this great globe. Lets see how they did this year.
Here are the top performers in each category and some notes about NW people performing well:
Best Beer: (Click here to see list)
Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter – If you have had this beer, kudos to you. I have looked, believe me. From Belgium to the Netherlands, you aren’t going to find it. Someday, someday. It is interesting to see Westvleteren 12 unseated. Perhaps the lore of Michael Jackson has finally left the building. For the NW – Deschutes Abyss came in at a very impressive #17. Hair of the Dog’s Matt and Adam both made the Top 100. Surprising that Adam still topples Fred.
Top Beers By Category (Click here for the list)
I am not going to spend a lot of time on these, you can review them here. Suffice it to say that the only showings from the NW were from a sake producer out of Oregon and a surpirsing top spot in dark lager for Rogue’s Chatoe Rogue Dirtoir Black Lager. Yikes. While expected, its so sad to see this repeated each year. Russian River whooped some ass, once again.
Best Beer in USA (Click here for the list)
Russian River Pliny the Younger – By now, we are all familiar with this hop monster. Though we would prefer to see something with a bit more complexity, its a deliciously unmatched hop beast. As for the NW, Deschutes Abyss at #13 and Hair of the Dog Adam #43 are all that made it. Strikeout, Washington.
Best Brewer in World (Click here to see list)
Three Floyds Brewing – I like em; hell i love em. But are they really the best? Their lengthy list of offerings and impressive showings in multiple categories (stout, IPA, pale, etc.) probably gets them the spot. My choice would have been the #2 on the list – Founders Brewing Company. Great to Hoppin Frog, Akron, OH, at #17. Great work Fred! Oregon did incredibly well: Rogue #21, Hair of the Dog #24, Deschutes #49, Cascade Brewing #57, and Upright Brewing #92 (wow). Washington = Elysian #92. I was actually surprised not to see Black Raven Brewing on this list. I think this is a testament to the fact that Black Raven is not yet bottling. Upright is probably smaller in production, but they send bottles into various states. I think thats the ticket here (plus great brewing).
Best Beer Bars in World (Click to see list)
The Kulminator – Its probably the most deserving, considering their iconic collection of cellar aged beers. Kudos to them for keeping this epic collection rolling. Our visit to Kulminator in March could not have been more eye-popping. The most amazing thing on this list – Avenue Pub at #8!!! Congratulations to Polly, the bar’s owner, who has worked her ass off to deserve this recognition. This is the only must see in New Orleans. This is typically a strong category for Washington – perhaps the only one where they typically overtake Oregon. This year they did the same, but only 2-0. Uber Tavern was #14 and Brouwers Cafe was #22. This is a bit of a drop for both of these two. The list also booted Naked City Taphouse, who made a daring showing last year. Nothing in Oregon made the list.
Best Brewpubs in World (Click to see list)
Brouwerij de Molen – The Windmill strikes again! This place has climbed up and up the list and I will agree that it deserves this spot. In a remote area of Holland, Bodegraven’s only beer spot is hidden inside a windmill. Inside you can enjoy excellent food, phenomenal beer and a pretty incredible bottle shop with a collection of US brews that makes me jealous in Seattle. This is a must see for anyone in Northern Europe. Great to see Walking Man make the list at #10. We finally got out there this past summer and thoroughly enjoyed this sunny spot. Deschutes Brewing was #18, Cascade’s Racoon Lodge was #48 (and will be bumped next year for the new Barrel Room) and then there is Pelican Brewing at #26. 26? Cmon man. If you have ever been to this magical surfers cove, you would spit at anyone that left this out of their Top 5. Go visit.
Best Beer Store in World (Click here to see list)
Het Oude Schooltje – Struise Brouwers @ The Old School – Ummm, I’m confused. I was in Oostvleteren and never saw this place! Kill me now. This is my own fault and I’m stuck with the consequences. Next time. Great to see some Washington guys on here as well: Malt & Vine #27 and Bottleworks #29. Oregon got showings from The Bier Stein in Eugene and Belmont Station in Portland, who fell all the way to #44.
Best Restaurant in World (Click here to see list)
Ebenezer Kezars Restaurant and Pub – This is on my list and will be visited in June when we do a brief NE trip. Tucked away in the Maine mountains in the little town of Lowell – this gem awaits. Is it shocking to anyone else that despite the NW’s extremely well-received culinary presence and beer presence, we cannot produce one beer restaurant in the Top 50? What about Brouwers Cafe? Ebenezars is just a pub, too.
Best Breweries to Visit in World (Click here to see list)
Picobrouwerij Alvinne Den Bier- en Proefzolder – Yes, yes and yes x 1000. This is the single greatest beer visit of my entire life. If its a little strange that we have yet to speak about this visit here on BB.com, its because I am intimidated. Timperial and I have feared drafting this inconic article for just about a year. Alvinne is located in a large barn-like space off a highway in Belgium. We arrived after closing on St. Patricks day and were awarded with private drinking stock from the owner. An unprecedented adventure. I was so glad to see Hair of the Dog Brewing on here as well at #2. Alan Sprints has done an incredible job putting together their new taproom, which is a must for any visitor to the NW. Great to also see Upright Brewing (Portland), who has a very cool tasting room where you can grab some schooners and some tunes for a few hours. Rogue, Bridgeport and Hopworks also made the list. A complete zero for Washington.
Ugh. Washington has to take a failing grade this year. I am really disappointed to see so many of the stalwarts take drops. It was very encouraging to see the locations do alright, but what about our beer?!
In short, most of our beer stays here. I think you can somewhat blame that on our alcohol regulation rules, because they facilitate a healthy market at home. But, you can see that the Oregon brewers making a name for themselves are selling bottles.
Forget Rogue and Deschutes – they are pretty big. But, think about Hair of the Dog, Hopworks and especially Upright. These guys all have bottle sales that go across state borders. That stuff helps.
In the near future, we hope to see bottles from great upstarts like Black Raven Brewing, Schooner Exact, Fremont Brewing and more. Hopefully, we can start to show the world why Washington beer is so damn good.
Since I am not currently indulging in libations, Im going to cut to the chase– Your week in beer!
Tuesday, January 24, 2011
Jolly Pumpkin, Stone and Nogne-O Collaboration Dinner: Detroit, Michigan
6:30PM-9:30PM @ Michael Symon’s Roast Detroit
Stone Brewing’s Greg Koch, Jolly Pumpkin’s Ron Jeffries and Iron Chef Michael Symon of Roast come together for the release of JP Collababiere, the final brew of the three brewery collaboration (between Jolly Pumpkin, Nogne-O and Stone) series. Each beer was brewed at each breweries facility in their own style with a base recipe and a local ingredient. The three beers will be featured within a four course meal along with other favorites from the three breweries.
The event starts at 6:30 and there will be two live bands as well.
The restaurant is closed to the public for this event.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Founder’s Double Trouble Tapping Release Party: South Bend, Indiana
5:00PM – 12:00AM @ Fiddler’s Hearth Public House
We are talking one of the best Double IPAs in the country- made by Founders. Tonight taste this epic brew and its brandy barrel aged version. Hot damn!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Dogfish Head Night: Hulmeville, Pennsylvania
6:00PM-9:00PM @ Hulmeville Inn
There is a pretty amazing line up to accompany the firkin Dogfish Head 75 min IPA and it goes a little something like this:
75 Minute firkin
90 Minute on the Randall with homegrown Cascade hops
World Wide Stout
Palo Santo Marron
maybe the Punkin’
Friday, January 28, 2011
16 Tons IPA Fest: Eugene, Oregon
5:00PM-10:00PM @ Sixteen Tons Beer & Wine
January 27th-29th Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 5-10pm Featuring 60+ IPAs!
No entry fee. Cash Only Event. Beers are $1-$2 for 3oz tasters. Event will be held at 16 Tons.
Friday & Saturday eat dinner at the Fest! Nosh Pit will be set up out front making a fresh delicious sandwiches with local ingredients.
Initial Breweries/Beer List here: http://sixteentons.biz/blog/?page_id=527
(work in progress)
* Sierra Nevada Hoptimum
* Uinta Crooked Line Detour Double IPA
* Vertigo Brewing Friar Gone Wild Imperial IPA
* Coalition IPA
* Fort George OmegaTex
* Hop Valley Alpha Centauri Binary IPA
* Avery duganA IPA
* Mikkeller 10
* Revelation Cat Woodwork Series Acasia
* 10 Barrel Apocalypse IPA
* Alameda Yellow Wolf Imperial IPA
* Southern Tier Oak Aged Un*Earthly
* Victory Yakima Glory
* Victory Hop Wallop
* Silver Moon HOPpopatamus
* Southern Tier Gemini
* BrewDog Hardcore IPA
* BrewDog Mikkeller I Hardcore You
* Firestone Walker Double Jack IPA
* Flying Dog Double Dog
* Marin Eldridge Grade White Knuckle DIPA
* Midnight Sun Cohoho
* Midnight Sun Mayhem
* Mikkeller 1000 IBU
* Mikkeller I Beat yoU
* Mikkeller Single Hop Simcoe IPA
* Moylan’s Hopsickle IPA
* Natian Old Grogham Winter IPA
* New Belgium / Elysian Trip VII Black Belgo Winter Here / Summer There
* Cascade Lakes Centennial IPA
* Deschutes Hop Henge
* Dogfish Head Burton Baton
* Draper Brewing IPA
* El Toro IPA
* Southern Tier Iniquity Imperial Black Ale
* Deschutes Hop Trip
* Deschutes Red Chair Northwest Pale Ale
* Dieu du Ciel Corne du Diable
* Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
* Elysian Avatar Jasmine IPA
* Epic Armageddon IPA
* Flying Dog Raging Bitch
* Great Divide Hercules Double IPA
* Green Flash Imperial IPA
* Green Flash West Coast IPA
* Hale’s Supergoose IPA
* Lompoc C-Note Imperial IPA
* Mad River Steelhead Double IPA
* Ninkasi Mystery IPA
* Ninkasi Tricerahops
* Oskar Blues Gubna
* Sierra Nevada 30th Our Brewers Reserve
* Southern Tier Un*Earthly IPA
* Stone Cali-Belgique IPA
* Stone IPA Stone Lukcy Basartd Ale
* Three Creeks Hoodoo Voodoo IPA
* Victory HopDevil
* Widmer Brothers Deadlift Imperial IPA
* Alaskan Double Black IPA
* Beer Valley Leafer Madness
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Cigar City Brewing Total Tap Takeover: Sarasota, Florida
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Stout Brunch: Exton, Pennsylvania
11:00AM-3:00PM @ The Drafting Room Taproom And Grille
Forget the brunch buffet- check this mouth watering list out!
Port Older Viscocity
Founder’s Kentucky Bourbon Stout
Rogue Russian Imperial Stout (Vintage 2009)
Flying Fish Exit #13
Dogfish Head World Wide Stout
Stoudts Fat Dog
Long Trail Coffee Stout
Broolyn Black Chocolate Stout
Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout
Weyerbacher 15th Anniversary
Nogne Dark Horizon (First Edition)
Victory Storm King “Cask Conditioned”
East Meets West: Doylestown, Pennsylvania
7:00PM-9:00PM @ M.O.M.’s – Maxwell’s On Main
Ballast Point Brewing Company from San Diego, Ca
Big Eye IPA
Dorado Double IPA
Piper Down Scotch Ale
Paired with a selection of East Coast cheeses!
Come join us!!!
Call or inquire within
$30 per person. Limited Seating – RSVP now!
If you go to an event or want us to promote an event on the site, email me at [email protected]!
Happy New Year to all! Can you believe another decade has come and gone? What will this year in beer bring? Can’t wait to find out! But now, your week in beer.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Beer Geek Tuesday: Atlanta,Georgia
7:00PM-9:00PM @ Cypress Street Pint and Plate
Tonight He’brew Jewbelation 14 will be tapped. “14” stands for fourteen malts, fourteen hops, and fourteen percent ABV all in one glass. Hot Damn!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Founders Tapping: Chicago, Illinois
6:00PM-11:00PM @ Haymarket Pub & Brewery
This Wednesday Haymarket Pub & Brewery will be holding its first big tapping event. 12 of our taps will be taken over by Founders Brewing specialties. Hopefully this will help hold everyone over until the Pub Beers are available in the second week of January.
The final list for this event is not finalized but we should have both CBS, Black Biscuit, & Nemesis ’10 along with other hard to find kegs from our friends in Grand Rapids.
Come in and enjoy these great taps and try some of the items off of the Pub’s menu.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines: Vail, Colorado
7:30PM-10:30PM @ Vail Cascade Resort & Spa
If you love big beers, you must come have dinner with us! The 2011 event will be a tremendous treat. The original weekend event was suggested by Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, and much ado has been made of them by our guests. The celebrity beer pairing dinners show off the ultimate flexibility of beer with food. The Traditional Brewmasters’ Dinner shows off our Featured Brewmasters for this year’s event, and the Calibration Dinner with Avery & Dogfish head really starts our celebration weekend off “calibrating your palate”!
For more information visit http://www.bigbeersfestival.com/ !
Friday, January 7, 2011
4th Annual Williamsburg Cask Festival: Brooklyn, New York
1:00PM-1:00AM @ D.b.a.
Cask ale or cask-conditioned beer is the term for unfiltered and unpasteurised beer which is conditioned (including secondary fermentation) and served from a cask without additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure. Cask ale may also be referred to as real ale, a term coined by the Campaign for Real Ale, often now extended to cover bottle-conditioned beer as well.
Today, stop by D.b.a for an amazing line up of 15 rare, cask conditioned beers all on tap at once! This event will last all weekend long!
Saturday, January 8, 2011
13th Annual Ice Cold Beer Festival: Minocqua, Wisconsin
1:00PM-5:00PM @ Campanile Center For The Arts
Tickets: $25 in advance; $30 at the event
Tickets available at the Minocqua Brewing Co. & at participating Trig’s Cellar 70 locations.
Micro-Brews from around the state. Food and Music. This wonderful event benefits the Dr. Kate Hospice / Ministry Home Care.
Please call 715-356-2600 for more information. Hope to see you there!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Belgium Beer Class: Annapolis, Maryland
The Belgians have a remarkable brewing tradition, so much so that breweries all over the world work to perfect Belgian style brews. Learn about and taste some of our favorite Belgian beers from award-winning breweries in Belgium (of course) and the U.S.
Snacks and beer are provided. $30 per person.
Classes tend to fill quickly, so please make your spot reservations early. Call us at 410-571-7744 or email us at dmccabe @ punksbackyardgrill.com with questions or reservation requests. Obviously, you must be 21 years of age or older to participate.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Bell’s Hopslam Release Party: Indianapolis, Indiana
6:00PM-11:00PM @ Beer Sellar
You know how we love Bell’s Brewing Co. and this tap list is rocking my world!
Monday, January 10, Beer Sellar Indianapolis will join Bell’s Brewery in releasing HopSlam to the market. On tap Monday will be:
HopSlam (tapped at 6pm)
Batch 10K (tapped at 6pm)
If you go to an event, want us to post about an event or have an event for next week, email me at [email protected]. Cheers!
The New Year quickly descends upon us. What will you be drinking to ring in 2011?
After a trip to Ohio full of endless Great Lakes Christmas Ale, we arrive back in Seattle. But now for your week in beer.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Meet the Bruery Fundraiser: Santa Monica, California
6:00PM-9:00PM @ the Library Ale House
The Bruery is one of the newer, yet highly acclaimed breweries in Southern California. Tonight, they will be tapping kegs of 3 French Hens and Rugbrød. Rare bottles of Workman’s Friend Imperial Porter will also be available. A flight of all three will be available for purchase. In addition small bites for pairing will be provided:
– Workman’s Friend with Turkey Meatloaf
– Rugbrod with Jerk Chicken
– 3 French Hens with Bread Pudding
Fellow SoCal brewery Port Brewing will have Santa’s Little Helper for your enjoyment.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Pint Night with Breckenridge Brewery: Exton, Pennsylvania
6:00PM-11:00PM @ The Drafting Room Taproom and Grille
Pint Night at The Drafting Room Taproom & Grille
featuring Breckenridge Brewery
Join us on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 6:00
On Tap from Breckenridge:
Christmas Ale (Winter Warmer)
Lucky U IPA (American IPA)
Avalanche (American Amber)
471 IPA (Imperial IPA)
Regal Pilsner (Imperial Pilsner)
Hope to see you there
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Founders and Friends Benefit and Tasting: Columbus, Ohio
7:00PM-11:00PM @ Bob’s Bar
All things good in the Midwest (and more) will be available on tap tonight!
1) Founders Brewing – Backwoods Bastard Tapping
2) Columbus Brewing – 12 Hops of XMas (Firkin)
3) Fatheads – Headhunter IPA (1st columbus tapping) –> THIS BEER IS SO GOOD!!!
4) Stone Brewing – First tapping of their collaboration with Fatheads (brewed during Cleveland Beer Week)
5) Sierra Nevada – Celebration and 30th Anniv.
6) North Coast – TBA
7) Troegs – Mad Elf and perhaps a little surprise from the brewery
Friday, December 31, 2010
New Beer’s Eve: Chicago, Illinois
4:00PM-12:00AM @ Fountainhead
Ok this event is only $30.00 per person and the beers on tap and the food look amazing- this might be the best New Year’s Eve deal in the country.
New Belgium/Allagash – Vrienden
Left Hand – Fade To Black
Bierbrouwerij Emelisse – Triple IPA
Two Brothers – Bare Tree Weiss Wine
Dogfish Head – Bitches Brew
Bear Republic – Apex Imperial IPA
Mikkeller – Rauch Geek Breakfast Stout
Anderson Valley – Imperial Boont Amber
Half Acre – Big Huggs
Bells Two Hearted
Three Floyds Alpha King
New Beer’s Eve Pre-Fix Dinner:
Beer Cheese Soup, Spicy Beer Cheese Soup with Potatoes, Lime Cream, Bacon, Grilled Rye & Sourdough
Crispy Salad, Spiced Walnuts & Diced Apple with Goat Cheese over Mixed Greens & Cherry Vinaigrette
Pot Roast, Rioja Demi and Root Vegetables over Parsnip Puree
Bourbon Maple Glazed Salmon with Root Vegetable Succotash and Celery Root Salad
Generous slice of Belgian Chocolate Bread Pudding with Caramel and Candied Pecans
Each course paired with a beer by our Beer Director
Pre-Fix Dinner by reservation only, 4-8 pm, $30 per Person
Please email by Wed. Dec. 29th with Preferred Time, Number of People, & Course Choices to: [email protected]
New Beer’s Eve Small Plates, 8-11pm
Saturday, January 1, 2011
20 Stouts on Tap: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
12:00PM-12:00AM @ Monk’s Cafe
Yep, we’re doing it again. Every line will have a stout running though the spout. As always, we’ll have some recognizable stouts and a few keg that most of you have not tasted before. Come in out of the cold and warm up with some hearty food and robust stouts.
Cash Bar, starts around noon.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
All of the events I can find today are not worth going to. Sit at home with some friends and break open something from the cellar.
Monday, January 3, 2010
Diners, Drive-In and Dives Party: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
10:00PM-11:00PM @ Memphis Taproom
The Memphis Taproom will be featured on the Food Network’s show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Tonight, celebrate with PENNY DRAFT BEERS for one half hour! During commercials only — when the show’s on, you will have all eyes on the TV!
If you want me to post about an event, want to talk about an event you went to or just want to talk about beer, email me at [email protected] or leave a comment!! Cheers!
Timeless. Classic. Diverse. Words used to describe Bob Seger‘s musical gift – and wouldn’t you know, Founders Brewing’s beers. Mull that while I wax poetic. Founders Brewing has been my favorite brewer since I first dabbed a droplet of their Double Trouble IPA on my tongue, over a year ago.
Captivated, entranced and bewildered I sought out more of this unknown brewer’s stock. It took no further than my third beer, and not even a departure from one style, before I decided that this could be the one – the brewer for which my palate yearns.
Founders Brewing can be found along the Grand River, in the Western portion of the State of Michigan, in a nice little town called Grand Rapids. The mighty Grand Rapids is the second largest city in Michigan and was once referred to as “Furniture City” because, well, take a guess. While it might not be the maxim of metropolis, it once was a heavy industrial area that thrived throughout the auto and lumber boom of the early 1900s.
As the auto industry boomed, so did Detroit’s music scene. Berry Gordy’s Motown thrived throughout the 60s and 70s, launching the careers of iconic stars like Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye. We also saw Rock & Roll take a new form in Detroit. Iggy Pop & The Stooges, Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper and – perhaps most importantly for this article – the great Bob Seger, all saw incredible success with their raw, uncensored and blue-collar version of music’s greatest gift (um, Rock & Roll).
But like all great things, Michigan took a hard turn in the late 20th century. The adversity facing the Great Lakes State drove a major artisan sub-culture that helped bring Detroit out of the ashes. From that, we saw the birth of funk from George Clinton, which some say spawned the creation of techno – the Detroit spectacle that arose from Parliment Funkadelic melodic melodies. A new progressive culture remained.
Also, from the ashes came a focus on reviving dead markets. Once a major player in the beer brewing industry of the U.S., the beer production industry had shrunk to producing nothing more than Strohs by the 1970s. By 1985, Strohs’ brewery was destroyed and not one brewery remained in Detroit’s once vast beer industry. The company finally sold off to Pabst in 1999.
Beer came back to Michigan in the 1980s, but this time it went West. Bells Brewery began operations in 1983 in Kalamazoo, MI. After 8 years as the only (still remaining) craft beer producer, Founders Brewing joined the fold in 1991. Its funny to think that a short stretch of 50 miles of highway is all that separates two of America’s pioneering, and still dominate, craft breweries.
Founders Brewing epitomizes everything about survival in the craft beer industry. Two college grads who enjoyed homebrewing decided to make a go for it, quit their jobs and make beer. After years of making balanced beers to pander to blue-collar Michigonians (made that term up), they hit the brink of bankruptcy. Realizing that they had to quit or develop their own unique niche, they decided to dump the “crap” beer and move on to a bigger challenge: “complex, in-your-face ales, with huge aromatics, bigger body, and tons of flavor.” (from their website)
Well hell yes! Nothing like a little American ingenuity and a dab of elbow grease to get the fire cooking on a damn good idea. By taking the plunge into uber-complexity, Founders risked utter decimation. Alas, they knew that separating themselves from the herd of 1990s lightly malted, pathetically hopped beers, was the way to go. They flourished.
Founders Brewing now takes on a bevy of intriguing, mouth watering, mind melding styles. Check out their Breakfast Stout, which by the way, is made from an abundance of flaked oats, bitter and imported chocolates, and Sumatra and Kona coffee. No big deal, its only one of the most revered beers in American beerdom (again, made up). Not enough stuff? How about the Kentucky Breakfast Stout, which adds CAVE-AGED (no lie) oak bourbon barrels at 11.2%. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’d hate that 100 on Rate Beer.
But alas, it was the IPAs which made me fall on bended knee. It was the sweet taste of unearthly nectar that said – “Hi, I’m beer. Know nothing else.” Founders packs a lineup of 4 incredible hop bombs. Centennial IPA is a standard used for Beer Judge training, Red Rye PA is no doubt the best rye IPA on the market (and I will physically fight you if you say otherwise. Seriously, grab a 2×4 and meet me behind your parent’s house), and Double Trouble turned my head Beetlejuice style, for about 5-6 minutes. But there was one more that I had yet to try – the gem of our 4 beer panel this week: Devil Dancer Triple IPA. Just wait, I’m getting there.
For our tasting panel, we selected 4 amazingly diverse styles. We tried to have no beers overlap because we wanted to savor the magnificent diversity of….NAY! we just had dumb luck and it worked out that way. Hooray random success; boo excess beer terms. The board: Cerise Cherry Fermented Ale, Porter, Devil Dancer Triple IPA and 2010 Nemesis. We proceed.
This one had caught my attention during a press release earlier this Summer. The beer was marketed as a “cherry fermented ale” which to me screamed “something like a kriek.” I could have not been further from actuality. I have read many that say that the beer has a slight tartness and soft fruity aroma and flavor. I’m just not there.
I had the Cerise once back in Ohio when it was fresh from the case and again during this panel, about 2 months from purchase. The first tasting opportunity brought a very rich fruit flavor that mimicked cherry soda; the panel tasting was straight blush wine. I believe that the first tasting was more of what they were going for, a fruity summery ale that packed a lot of cherry blast. Our panel version might simply have been the victim of skunk. It was interesting to see that much change in only 55 days or so, but worse things have happened.
Its not easy to diss an offering from your favorite brewer – but skip this one. I think that increasing the tartness with a wild yeast might add something to this guy, but right now its a straight fruit beer that gets easily agitated.
Again, I have danced with this guy before. Once upon a time, I was dying of heat exhaustion after trouncing the streets of Washington DC in 99 degree weather. Lugging my baggage for 5 hours had left me screaming for a beer, and as always, I plead for something new and mind-bending.
We came across Pizzeria Paradisio in Dupont Circle and had heard of its lore. A dedicated pizza and alehouse, they offered some damn good choices across the board. One of those, was this guy – Founders Porter. I placed myself in a bubble, blocked out the heat and grabbed a pint from the tap. Delicious. One of the greatest, most complex porters that I have ever seen, smelled or tasted.
Our panel got to sample a bit of the goods. As I lifted the hood on this dark, sexy vessel of black grog, it exploded all over the place (not sure if this is sexual innuendo…still mulling it over). The beer had either been primed too much or aggressively disturbed during storage and retrieval – we shall never know. But, the beer had a much more aerated body this time around, and I like the subtle difference in how it affects the flavors.
The mass of chocolate and rich caramelized sugar prevails in this guy. This is a meal in a glass and a no-brainer for any dark beer fanatic. Get this one.
Devil Dancer Triple IPA.
The lore of this beer runs rampant. Rumors of its existence had plagued me for days, months,.. ok thats it. But still, I wanted it. When I got the call that the final bottle available at our favorite Cleveland shop had been acquired – I literally shot out of my pants. Devil Dancer: how I have waited for this dance.
The beer opens perfectly and with a moderate carbonation and maximum aroma that almost blows my eyes into their sockets. The beer pours with flawless orange-auburn hue and a slight head. We can dig in quickly.
The scent is explosive and I wonder what the hop bill must have looked like. This puppy is packing 112 IBUs and 12% alcohol, but the floral aroma hides the fermented wonder inside the bottle. Devil Dancer is an exploration through hop science. 10 different types of cones dry-hop this mother over the course of 26 days, to reach hop maxim. Though the malt bill is designed to allow the hops to prevail, they aren’t absent from the beer. I taste a simple butterscotch or caramel flavor that gives this monster some balance.
The resins alone will baffle you. Buy every bottle you see, inject them with formaldehyde (don’t do this) and preserve them for yourself. Seriously, don’t share.
What an amazing name eh? I think about this now and I say: “what’s my nemesis?” and “Is the beer trying to be the drinker’s nemesis, or its own nemesis?” Yep, we go that deep.
If I had to create a beer that had to be its own nemesis, I think that I would try to pack as many aromatic malts and the brightest hops in a bottle and add a psychotically active yeast. That’s the ticket. Lets see who wins! Hahaha (morbid laugh). Well, that’s not my own creative brilliance, because I think that is exactly what they did.
Nemesis is classified as a dark barleywine and we had some disagreement about this nomenclature. One of us called it an imperial stout (its black and 12%); one said it was a crazy ole ale (it has a ridiculous aged malt flavor) and I called it a hoppy barleywine (its 100 IBUs). Whatever you call it – you should make sure to use the adjective “spectacular” because this beer is a gauntlet of flavor.
The beer pours a deep black with almost no head. Its thick like maple syrup and has a mild burnt sugar scent. The beer develops from the first sip to the swallow, starting bitter and ending with a furious “I just ate a meal of pancakes” syrupy swarm. As the beer warmed up, I noticed that the hops became more noticeable and I thought it was a great touch. The beer somewhat resembled a dark roasty version of Avery Brewing’s Hog Heaven, though more complex and inevitably better.
If you read anything above, you can guess my recommendation. Get it.
When we do these panels, we like to think about the brewer. Each brewer has a story behind its operation; its location, history, culture and its message are oh so important to the beer’s delivery. So, when I thought about which Michigan musician’s music would best espouse the Founders Brewing delivery – the Silver Bullet smacked me in the face.
For decades, Bob Seger has developed a musical sound that it fights for relevance, meets the needs of the everyday man, and yet strives to remain timeless with its unique character. Seger and Founders each fought from the trenches for relevance and after many years in the game, find themselves just as beloved as the day their first single (bottle) hit the market.
For me, they are both beloved because they each speak to the common man’s desire for something to love. With Seger, it was “working on those night moves” and for Founders, its working on those complex romances that fit in a glass. Kudos to you both for making Michigan proud and the rest of us happy rock & roll infused beer fanatics.
I have usurped control of this column for this week. This is primarily for the sole reason that this is the most mindless and least intimidating of all of our columns. Hooked yet!? No really, I need some spiritual soul seeking, and a look at the beer calendar might just satisfy my urge.
What, pray tell, did our squad do last week, you ask? Lots. Depending on who you asked, we either visited some pretty amazing beer taps in New Orleans (Brooklyn Detonation Imperial IPA!!!!), hung out at Brouwers Cafe’s Washington Beer Fest, dabbled in a first-time Jillian’s craft beer night, soaked up an epic and undeniably amazing Elysian Great Pumpkin Beer Fest (we all were there – no way to miss that) or we brewed a massive batch of our very first pumpkin beer during Harvest Fest 2010.
Yep, we were busy. But, as we spend the week saturating the blog with mouth-watering tales of yesteryear – we focus on the week ahead. Giddy up.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Hoptoberfest Brewer Shenanigans: Seattle, WA
All Month Long @ Beveridge Place Pub
Since we are already a bit late on this event, I thought I would borrow from the comments of the amazing people over at Washington Beer Blog, Kendall and Kim Jones. Today, they ran a piece on the Elite Eight selections for the Hoptoberfest at Beveridge Place Pub. Hoptoberfest is an annual event spanning the month, during which Beveridge Place Pub slowly eliminates IPAs to eventually select its house IPA for the next year to come.
They are now down to the final eight at the mid-point of the month and the heat is on to make the final 3. Kendall Jones at Washington Beer Blog has been discussing the rumors of brewers sending in-house squadrons down to stuff the ballot box to ensure that they land in the top 3. Black Raven is trying to remain at the top spot, while Boundary Bay is trying to grab back what was their’s just two years ago.
By 6 PM, Kendall and Kim were already there at the Pub. But since that time, nothing to report on. Hopefully, they are simply inundated with enjoyment to give us an update. Regardless, if you want IPA, you still have two weeks of madness over at Beveridge Place Pub. Check it out and don’t forget to vote.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Can You Handle the Randall?: Cleveland, Ohio
Part 1: 4:30 – 6:30PM @ Winking Lizard Tavern (Gateway Location)
Part 2: 7:00 – 9:00 PM @ Winking Lizard Tavern (Cleveland Heights Location)
If you have yet to explore the wonderful world of Dogfish Head Randalls – do not miss this event! Dogfish Head started using Randall at many of their nationwide events several years back. If you have no idea what this is, check this picture, and then understand that you stuff it full of flavorful things and pump beer through it.
We have had the pleasure of tasting the Aprihop with fresh apricots and hops, as well as the 90 Minute Double IPA with Woodford Reserve soaked oak chips. Both were incredible. Well, now here is your chance at two different locations. More from the event pub kit:
Donn B. from Dogfish Head and Kev from Winking Lizard hit the Gateway Winking Lizard Tavern with Randall the Enamel Animal and a keg of 90 Minute IPA! Randall will be packed full of fresh hops and filter the 90 Minute IPA through it imparting even more hoppiness into an already ultra-hoppy Imperial IPA!
Randall the Enamel Animal leaves Gateway to make an appearance at the Coventry Winking Lizard Tavern. This time Randall gets packed full of fresh Saaz hops and hooked up to a keg of Dogfish Head Midas Touch. Find out what happens to Midas Touch, Dogfish Head’s mead-like ale, when it gets filtered through Saaz hops! Can you handle Randall?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Farm to Table & Field to Pint: Boulder, CO
7:00 – 10:00PM @ Avery Brewing Company
Everybody is going local these days. Join the movement.
Freshcraft is a new bar and restaurant in downtown Denver, with an impressive beer list. They are joining forces with one of our favorites, Avery Brewing, for a night of local food and amazing beer. Check out these fairly rare Avery brews:
Freshcraft is one of Denver’s hottest new craft beer / fresh food joints to hit the scene. Owners Jason and Lucas have a particular fondness for great beer, and that’s where we come in! Freshcraft has devised a three course meal paired with three Avery brews (duganA, Fumator and Out of Sight), and Society members can sit down the for the entire meal or pick and items a la carte. The Avery crew will be out in force for this evening, and Freshcraft will be bringing a speaker from one of their local produce suppliers to talk about farm to table.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Founders Night: Cleveland, Ohio
Part of Cleveland Beer Week!!!
6:30 – 9:30 PM @ The Brew Kettle
This is one of our favorite joints in all of Cleveland. The Brew Kettle is putting on a pretty special lineup for the festivities of Cleveland Beer Week, which spans from this past weekend through the end of this weekend.
The Brew Kettle is down in Strongsville, OH, about 20 minutes outside downtown Cleveland. This place has amazing BBQ, phenomenal taps and even a U-Brew component in the back.
We noticed their quite impressive affiliation with Grand Rapids brewer (and my personal favorite) Founders Brewing when we visited back in September. Here is a chance to meet the brewer and taste their hop shocker, Devil Dancer Triple IPA:
Come meet Founder’s John Host and Dave Engbers as they walk you through a lineup of six beers which will include some seasonal/specialty offerings including DEVIL DANCER TRIPLE I.P.A. The beers will be complemented with different appetizers.
For a backup event: do not miss Light Up Night at the ABC Tavern in Cleveland. Founders Brewing’s & Victory Brewing’s brewers will be on hand to pour their amazing ales until 2:00 AM!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Naked City Brewing’s 2nd Anniversary Party: Seattle, Washington
All day long @ Naked City Brewing & Taphouse
You might have read about this can’t miss event on our website today. I am re-posting because of the urgency of this event. Its happening one day only people – be there. Here is the presser:
Join us for Naked City’s 2nd Anniversary Celebration Friday, October 22nd Open-Close! We will have prize giveaways and some very special one-off beers on tap for the occasion. Here is a sampling: Double Header Anniversary Ale (Oak Aged Imperial IPA) New Riders of the Purple Sage (Blackberry Sage Porter) Tay Yay Inna Win (Barrel Aged Sour Ale) Whiskey Oaked Brimstone & Treacle (Cask Old Ale) The Big Lebrewski (White Russian Imperial Stout) Boo Radley Pumpkin Ale Big Chocolate Wood (2010 Pro-Am by Dan Hansen & Will Fredin) Broken Bicycle (Fresh Hop Saison) You get the picture…Mark your calendars!!!
Tapping of a keg of Breakfast Stout that was brewed in 2008. Part of Brew Kettle’s vintage and rare keg tapping series (every day at 5pm during Cleveland Beer Week).
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Bay Area Craft Beer Fest: Martinez, California (near Vallejo, CA)
12:00 (VIP start time) or 1:00 – 5:00 PM @ Martinez Waterfront Park
This is the first go-round for this festival. But, its located in a very cool inland area on the Bay and it has a fairly exhaustive list of Bay Area brewers on tap.
Check out the website for further details on the festival layout and how to get there. Ticket prices are $35.00, and they offer a DD option.
Check out the list right here:
21st Amendment Brewery
Third Street AleWorks
Bear Republic Brewing Co.
Black Diamond Brewing Co.
Blue Frog Grog & Grill
Firestone Walker Brewing Co.
Gordon Biersch Brewery
Grand Teton Brewing Co.
Hoppy Brewing Company
Iron Springs Pub & Brewery
Lagunitas Brewing Co.
Lost Coast Brewery
Marin Brewing Co.
Russian River Brewing Co.
Speakeasy Ales & Lagers
Two Rivers Cider Co.
Amazing Alternative: Check out the Pizza Port Hoptoberfest! This string of Southern California brewpubs took major metal home from GABF this year:
Join us for a rooftop party with lots of hoppy beers and a Pig Roast! We’ll be pouring around 40 (yes 40!) beers with tasty hops… wet hops, IPAs, Imperials IPAs, and maybe even a worthy strong pale ale or two!
For your convenience and hoppiness, we’ll also be running a bus from Pizza Port Solana Beach and Pizza Port Carlsbad up to the event. $54 includes roundtrip transportation, beer on the bus, and admission into Hoptoberfest. Bus trip ticket will be on sale at pizzaport.com
Sunday, October 24, 2010
BeerTownAustin & Craft Austin Bike Pub Crawl: Austin, Texas
We very seldom come across a beer event down in Texas. But, if we were to find one, we would guess it would be in Austin.
Two great Austin beer groups are joining forces to put together one heck of a beer crawl by bike. So hop on your pedal machine and get moving. You do not want to miss this one:
Join us Sunday, October 24th for the most epic of pub crawls. It will be a clash of the fanboy titans as BeerTownAustin and Craft Austin go head-to-head in gruesome bike-pub-crawling. There will be biking. There will be pub crawling. There may be copying/pasting.
We will start the ride at Flying Saucer, hit up Draught House, then onto Billy’s on Burnet, with a swing through Thunder Bird, and end up at Black Star Co-op, with local beer specials along the way for everyone on the ride.
Have anything else to announce? Feel free to post below in comments or contact us at [email protected]! Have good beer drinking!
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Perched on the threshold of economic recovery, cities whose housing markets crashed and burned during the Great Recession are struggling like modern-day Phoenix birds to rise from the ashes.
While rebirth comes naturally for some, others seem caught between a trap labeled “sprawl” and a wide-open window tagged “sustainability.”
The question is, can cities that once embraced policies favoring sprawl over density buy into a new vision calling for a more sustainable, livable and socially just way of life? The shift required may be dramatic, but it’s not impossible.
The sprawl trap is certainly familiar territory for Phoenix, a post-WWII boom town where production builders John F. Long and Del Webb are hailed as the Godfathers of Post-Modern Development. Using innovations like simple, mass-production construction techniques, Long and Webb delivered Phoenix’s first work force housing to an eager middle-class audience.
Now, a half-century later, sprawl and the suburbs are being blamed for everything from global warming to social segregation. High suburban-growth states like Arizona, California, Nevada and Florida felt the busted housing bubble like a sock to the gut two years ago. And, faced with aging infrastructure and higher maintenance costs, fringe communities are now home to the country’s largest and fastest growing poor population, according to a report by the Brookings Institution. Between 2000 and 2008, the country’s largest metro areas saw their poor population grow by 25 percent, almost five times faster than either primary cities or rural areas, the report states.
Many economists believe the country’s latest economic pause presents the opportunity for a massive do-over; a chance for cities to end their love affair with the automobile and hook up, instead, with development practices that create more dense, walkable neighborhoods.
The Obama administration evidently agrees.
“The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over,” President Obama declared shortly after taking office. He followed up those remarks earlier this year by telling the U.S. Conference of Mayors, “When it comes to development, it’s time to throw out old policies that encouraged sprawl and congestion, pollution, and ended up isolating our communities in the process.”
The President’s willingness to back up his convictions with $1.5 billion in TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants and $1 million set aside for regional integrated planning initiatives is further proof that the suburban landscape is indeed changing. So is the federal government’s new Partnership for Sustainable Communities, an all-hands-on-deck approach to smart growth by the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency. It — along with the government’s “Smart Growth Guidelines for Sustainable Design & Development” — presents a radical new perspective on how future growth is handled, and offers a lifeline to municipalities looking to turn over a new and greener leaf.
But, for cities like Phoenix, where density has traditionally been considered a dirty word, the challenge is not so much where the money is coming from, as it is how to change public perception. Will Phoenix, with its Wild West sensibilities and traditionally renegade attitude, take kindly to federal intervention intended to help wean itself from a dependence on sprawling development?
In all honesty, it’s likely to be a tough sell. True, infill development takes advantage of current infrastructure and services and produces a measurably smaller environmental impact than does its conventional counterpart. True, higher-density building creates additional living options for homeowners in the way of row houses, walk-ups and brownstones. And true, Phoenicians, like many Americans, acknowledge they would rather walk than drive, or at the very least, have access to more transit-oriented housing, making it easier and more convenient for them to utilize public transportation.
The first step forward, however, will have to come from developers and municipal leaders willing to reach out a hand and grab the support line being offered in the way of these new smart-growth initiatives and incentives.
“Successfully addressing the challenges and opportunities of growing smarter and building greener will require that communities collaborate with each other, as well as with regional, state and federal agencies and organizations,” write the authors of Smart Growth Guidelines for Sustainable Design & Development. The end reward, they say, is decisions that benefit households in the form of greater choice, lower combined housing and transportation costs and healthier communities, thereby producing stronger local economies.
Isn’t that what communities like Phoenix, that are battling their way out of the recession, really need? Shelley Poticha, a transportation reformer and Partnership for Sustainable Communities senior adviser, thinks so.
“To me this is about helping to rebuild our economy, about growing jobs in terms of making housing more energy-efficient,” she said in a grist.org interview. “It’s also about helping places and regions really understand where their economic future is going and how they can use that to be more sustainable.”
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Results 1 to 30 of 292
October 28th, 2006 #1
Chris Noeth's SKETCHBOOK - Update: JAN 20/2014
After being a Conceptart.org member for some time now and all the great inspiration I got from the incredible artists in this community so far I think it is time to start my own sketchbook.
I will give my best to update on a regular basis...
PS: Please check out my FREE digital comic MAYA (for iPads/iPhones and all Android devices) at www.mayacomic.com
NEW STUFF AT THE END OF THE THREAD!
Last edited by Chris Noeth; January 20th, 2014 at 04:19 AM. Reason: update
Hide this ad by registering as a memberOctober 29th, 2006 #2
After some thumbnail 'problems' in my first post I moved the attached images to this second post hoping it works this time...
So here are some steps on how I make most of my colored sketches:
Here is the final image (step 9):
October 29th, 2006 #3
This two images are from my concept art workshops in the German developer magazine GameStar/dev. I used 3D for the basic geometry.
October 29th, 2006 #4Registered User
- Join Date
- Jun 2005
- Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts
cool stuff, i really like the robot its very crisp
October 29th, 2006 #5
October 30th, 2006 #6
"Stupid Heroes?"... begins here!
wareagle: Thanks! It was an example on how to make a quick concept design without too much details.
madplanet: Thank you! Maybe I will show some of my older stuff later down the road because I started this sketchbook to create new stuff and get motivated to draw more regular (beside work stuff).
I also don't want to confuse people who know my other stuff by posting it here again... I think if I did they maybe will get a feeling like "Hey... this guy is posting his old stuff over and over... can't he draw something new?". I want to avoid this... But great you like all my stuff...
Here is a new one. This is the first in a series, called "Stupid Heroes?"
A BIG thank you to Dan Taylor for the right grammar!
November 3rd, 2006 #7
My C.O.W. 66 entry...
November 8th, 2006 #8
Alpha Bettie concept art and stuff...
Attention: For all visitors who know the stuff in this post please read on with new posts when I have some. I will post new art with the next posts!
I decided to post some of my older work from my comic project I started months ago. But I will not show old stuff from my website because I want this sketchbook to be a motivation to work on some more 'practice' stuff regularly and a place to go and see my new sketches and concept work.
I am working on my first US comic project called "Alpha Bettie" written by IDW editor Dan Taylor.
I had to take a break from working on sequentials and will start again soon working on the pages. There were different reasons for the break. The main reason is me and my wife got a little boy and the little buddy needs most of my time... not only because of changing diapers... hehe
Some months ago I started with some quick concept stuff for the comic... some of it you can see here:
First an alternate filthier version of the robotdesign from above:
And here are some of the first character designs and sketches:
Some fighter designs:
A promo image from 2005 and the exhibition pieces with some making of images from the German comic convention 'Comic Salon Erlangen 2006'. In the last one you can see the first finished page from the sequentials:
I hope you guys like the designs.
November 8th, 2006 #9
chris- cool stuff, I like the alpha betty stuff a lot.
November 9th, 2006 #10
Life on Mars... approved!
Newbs: Great to hear you like it so far. Thank you! Watch out for the new Bettie stuff I will post soon.
Here is an 'fan'image of a martian from Topps 'Mars Attacks'. I wanted to show some kind of fifties scene like from an old episode of 'Lassie' combined with the horror shown in the original card series 'Mars Attacks'.
I love the idea of ultra violent trading cards for kids... hehe ... whoever was responsible for the original cards had a sense of good old morbid humor
Prepare to get plasmarized!...
November 14th, 2006 #11
I had too much other work the last days... but it was enough time for a Creature Of the Week quickie...
And a new version with less saturation...
Last edited by Chris Noeth; November 14th, 2006 at 02:24 PM. Reason: new image added...
November 14th, 2006 #12
Some old sketch stuff...
I wanted to upload some of my old space related sketch stuff for some time... so here it is... some more 'archive' stuff...
Don't worry... I will not post older stuff as I said before this sketchbook is mainly for new work
Last edited by Chris Noeth; November 14th, 2006 at 03:52 PM.
November 14th, 2006 #13
November 15th, 2006 #14
November 15th, 2006 #15
Alpha Bettie sequential page 1
Dreamworker: Thanks for the nice words. It is great you like the stuff.
Because I was asked for a big version of the Bettie Page (mhhh... this sound familiar... hehe )... here it is:
More Bettie stuff will follow...
November 16th, 2006 #16
This page is much pretty. I love the mixture ancient/futuristic of the starfighter.
November 16th, 2006 #17
Kick ass work! I will have to pick up a copy of Alpha Betty when it comes out. I too hope to get into the comics field one day.
The chick with the broken helmet is great, and I really like the Sky God a lot. The second post is quite helpful as well for someone learning to color in photoshop.
November 19th, 2006 #18
Hey Chris, thanks for posting a boatload of your comic, I enjoyed seeing the designs, especially the corsair ones. Very cool.
When i said before about posting some sketches like in your website, I didn't mean to post the old ones, just something along that line, like the pencil sketches, which I enjoy seeing. Hope that made sense.
Congrats on the newborn.
November 21st, 2006 #19
New C.O.W. entry...
Dreamworker: Thank you. If you like the ancient futuristic designs you should check out the comic (when it is finished)...
Discoskull: Thanks a lot. Great you like the stuff and want to buy Alpha Bettie. This is very motivating... hehe
madplanet: Ah... now it makes sense ...thx. I will post some more pencil stuff as soon as I have some new. Right now I am working 100% digital.
And a big thank you for the congrats! It is a great feeling to be a dad
Here is my C.O.W. entry for this week...
December 8th, 2006 #20Explorer's descendant
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
- Thanked 8 Times in 6 Posts
They all have big... boobs.
December 9th, 2006 #21
Dan Grr: Of course they have!... ... hehe. Thanks for your visit... maybe the girl in this post is more what you like!?
December 13th, 2006 #22
thanks for dropping by my sketchbook - great work here, really like your comic panels - i'm jealous of your clean linework !
January 3rd, 2007 #23
Happy New Year!!!
A Happy New Year to everyone here at conceptart.org!
For me 2007 is a special year because I will finish my first US comic in february 07. I can't wait to hold the finished issue in my hands...
mrdigs: No problem. Thank you for your kind words. My linework could be cleaner I think... but it is a matter of time which I don't have enough
Here is a sketch of the HULK to start the new year with something BIG...
(No color because of my other comic work!)
January 18th, 2007 #24
Good this is a really nice. Do you make a comicbook?
How to draw quikly. I draw slowly. Please help. This is a realy problem:
January 18th, 2007 #25
Hi Chris, very nice updates. I like the Hulk with dog eheheh is so crazy!
Happy new year to you
January 19th, 2007 #26
Awesome! Just fricking awesome. Very nice concepts. I was rolling after looking that your Hulk sketch I like your style, I'll definitely be checking back!
Feel free to checkout my work:
Don't forget to visit the Critique Section!!
* Help a CA artist! Visit the Constructive Critique section! *
January 19th, 2007 #27
Cool sketchbook. I like how you have began pushing the perspective.
Transition from Art Critic to Artiste - Diligence, that's all I need.
January 19th, 2007 #28
Nice sketchbook. hmm... everything looks good so far. The only thing that bothers me a little on some of the images, I think the coloring and style of the heads dont match with the details of the body. Only on a couple of them though. I like the robots and ship designs.
keep em coming.
January 20th, 2007 #29
I said I'd stop by so here I am...
Some nice stuff here, although I was expecting(hoping) to see 'reeal' sketchbook stuff...anatomy studies, still lifes etc...most of this stuff looks 'finished' to me.
The head sketches: I'll not comment on your Wacom technique...cos I know fuck-all about that, but as for the basic drawing of the face I think you are maybe pushing 'cute' a little too far. As a result, you're slightly loosing the form of her nose..the tip (which I think is slightly too long even for this style) appears to be bending away from us, & the hole of her nostril appears to be placed more on the side of her nose rather than on the underside . Totally dig the stylised hair cut tho..even without seeing the rest of the figure this is obviously a sci-fi image.
Supergirl: LOL..you're a bad man Chris! I think you need to adjust the perspective on her extended arm, it just looks too long, & if her arm was so extended, herher deltoid would be much closer to her head. Fun pic tho, I have a friend who is a Supergirl nut, I'd like to send them this if you don't mind.
Alpha Bettie concept stuff: These are nice, even if I do find that all your female faces look too similar, & that padded black outfit is gonna be a bugger to draw panel after panel. The plane/fighter ship designs are awesome...I'm a sucker for this futuristic-retro stuff . The actual strip is good, the story telling is fine (although I'd like to see more) & you have achieved a good sense of scale.
Mars Attacks: Awesome! lol
Pink COW: Like it, of the two I prefere the saturated version
Greyscale pieces: My favorite stuff on here, & more like the kind of stuff I was expecting. i think the 'TC' girl is your best female face, a nice balance between realism & comic-book cute.
Star Trek: Judging by the girl, it's definately cold in space.
Hulk: Aw, poor doggy! I can see what you're trying to do with the pumped up anatomy, but it's not quite coming off. You can't just take regular anatomy & make it bigger. For example, in really muscular specimins, the sheer mass of the pec's & delt's mask the form of the clavicle, making it all but hidden, & the 'bump' on the inner elbow caused by the humerous on a regular proportioned person is totally covered by mass of the forearm flexors on some one as massive as you have represented the HULK.
On the whole, nice work Chris, I'll stop by again some time soon.
The Following User Says Thank You to Staz Johnson For This Useful Post:
January 20th, 2007 #30
I finished an image (see below) I did for my workshop series in the German game developer magazine 'GameStar/dev'. So if you live in Germany and want to know how the image was made go and buy the next issue of the mag in february... ...hehe.
Thanks for your comments guys!
Here is my feedback...
legionare: Thx! Yes I'm working on my first US comic 'Alpha Bettie' right now. It isn't finished yet because I had to take some months off last year. I do it all in my spare time. I will finish it the next weeks. I'm working on the pencils of the last pages and have to finish inks and colors after that.
To draw more quickly you should start sketching without concentrating on your linework. Take a look at other sketchbooks here at conceptart.org... there is so many good stuff out there you can learn from. I think I should post more sketches here (right Staz? )
Dreamworker: Thank you!
darkchild: Thanks man! Great you like it so far and want to check by more often...
NicoRaven: Thx! I like to play with perspective in 3D and I think I should play a little more in my 2D works too. This is only the beginning.
kuroart: Thank you! You noticed what I prefere to draw ... I really should work on every part equally. I will work on it
Staz: A big THANK YOU for stopping by. This is my chance to say it here in my sketchbook: "Your Civil War oneshot ruled man!". Thank you for all your comments and taking the time to analyse my work in detail. I totally appreciate it... and because from now on I will buy everything you work on... promise hehehe. Thx again man.
Oh and Staz is totally right... my posted stuff is looking too finished. I think I should post more sketch stuff in the future.
... but first another 'finished' piece... I call it "Scientist In Love"...
Last edited by Chris Noeth; January 20th, 2007 at 07:02 PM.
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Dodge Diesel Ram Torque Converter and Valvebody Upgrade - Terminal Torque Part 2Written by on August 1, 2005 Transmission, Injector, And Turbo Upgrades For Even Bigger Power Gains
Last month, we talked about upgrades for our diesel Ram, and ended up with 395 hp and a whopping 738 lb-ft of torque. As impressive as that is, it's time for more. In this installment, we're going to jump into the transmission for a torque converter and valvebody upgrade, a bigger turbo install, a new plenum, and new fuel injectors. it's a fairly in-depth part of the project, but definitely worth the effort. The power gains with the transmission upgrades may seem minimal to some, but any gain in horsepower is still a gain, and the added durability of the torque converter and valvebody are needed when power gains like what Jannetty Racing is producing are necessary.
The transmission in Dodge diesels are a fairly stout piece when used in stock form, but this Ram is far from stock. To make sure the transmission can handle the upgrades, Jannetty racing recommends using a BD Performance 1,600-rpm super-heavy-duty stall converter and BD valvebody (the brain of the transmission). Like we said earlier, this upgrade isn't a large power producer, but the reliability alone makes it a viable swap.
One note of caution, EGT's were approaching 1,750 degrees with the Edge Juice module set on level 5. This can/will be cured with a boost controller. During our test, our boost level peaked at 39 psi at 2,300 rpm and fell to 33 psi by 2,950 rpm. An electronic boost controller can carry the 39 psi of boost to redline, which will significantly reduce EGT and increase horsepower even further.
All this power and NO SMOKE. What more could you ask for?
More Photos From This Article
Plenum ProwessEven though the AFE cold air kit we installed definitely helped our Ram breathe better, the stock plenum was definitely not letting the engine breathe to its full potential. The plenum upgrade is a simple remove-and-install process. Simply remove the old plenum and install the new one.Remove the four bolts holding the plenum to the lower intake, loosen the rubber hose at the leading edge of the plenum, and remove.Install the ATS plenum in reverse order of the stock removal. The only issue we ran into was the oil dipstick mounting location. The mounting point on the plenum was off to the left as compared to stock. The long dipstick tube is flexible enough and did not pose a significant problem.One Big Hair DryerOne of the biggest power upgrades you can probably do to your diesel Ram is a turbo upgrade. Sure, the turbo from the factory produces enough boost to be more than effective, but, as they say, bigger is better. So keeping that in mind, we decided to upgrade our turbo and manifold to see if we gain anything. In this case, bigger definitely is better.We also removed the AFE cold air kit to make room to work. BD says their turbo will not work with an AFE kit. With a small modification (we'll show later), it will.The stock turbo is on the left, and the new BD is on the right. The BD unit features a larger impellor and more boost capability. There are slight manufacturing differences between the stock unit and the BD, but it is still a bolt-on unit.We began by removing the exhaust and catalytic converter, so we could get the down-pipe off the turbo. Do not discard the catalytic converter or your truck will not be road legal.Once you have all the peripheral components unhooked from the turbo, and the manifold bolts removed, yank it out.The ATS exhaust manifold may look the same as stock, but has improved flow and comes in a two-piece design. Because it is a two-piece design, it is less prone to cracking from heat. If you noticed the two holes drilled in the new manifold and wondered why-one is for the Edge controller we installed last month, and the other is for the dyno probe and can be plugged when we finish testing.
Remember when we said the AFE box would fit with a modification? Well, here it is. We needed to cut the lower corner of the box to make room for the turbo outlet pipe. You don't need to cut a big opening, so take your time.Underneath, the new down tube is a larger diameter, one-piece pipe that replaces the stock unit. Now replace the exhaust, and you're done underneath with the turbo install.Bolt the turbo to the manifold and slide it back in place. Reinstall the manifold bolts, fill the turbo with oil before running it, install oil lines, and then go to the underside of the truck.You will need to remove the torque converter bolts-accomplished by removing a plate on the front of the bellhousing. Once you remove this plate, you will need one of these tools to turn the engine over to get at all the bolts. The tool simply meshes with the flywheel, and turns the engine over using a ratchet.Now unhook all the electrical connections, the transmission mount, and the cooling lines, and slide the transmission back.These cutaways show the difference between a decent stock converter and a really stout BD unit. The BD unit is furnace-brazed constriction and uses Torrington bearings instead of bushings and spacers, and features furnace brazed fins, a custom billet stator, and twin clutch design.Fill the torque converter with the appropriate transmission fluid, and then slide it into place. Make sure the converter is completely seated in the transmission, and slide it all back into place. Make sure to hook everything up the same way you disconnected it.We also upgraded the transmission valvebody. Begin by draining the fluid and removing the pan. Once you have the pan off, you need to remove the filter, unhook the shifter linkage, and take out the bolts that hold the valvebody in place. Keep in mind, the bolts are different lengths and go in the same locations as removed. As you are lowering the valvebody, be careful not to lose the accumulator piston spring. It will fall out, just note where it goes to reinstall it.
The BD valvebody comes with a heavy-duty second-gear band strut. Remove the old one, and install the new heavier duty one in place as per the instructions. Now install the new BD valvebody in the reverse order you removed the stock one.Now it's off to the dyno to see how much of a power increase we got from our work. We dyno tested the truck at every level of the Edge Juice module (five total) to compare the difference the turbo, manifold, and intake made over the stock turbo. At level 1, we gained 22 hp and 44 lb-ft of torque with 4 pounds less boost. On level 5, we gained 85 lb-ft of torque at 2,200 rpm with a 30hp gain across with 6 pounds less boost than we had before. This doesn't mean that less boost makes more power, it means the new turbo is much more efficient.Don't forget to fill the transmission with fluid before you run it. You did fill the torque converter earlier, right?A Big InjectionJannetty Racing had one more trick up their sleeve. They planned to replace the stock injectors with their own JRE-modified injectors that will boost horsepower. These injectors are easy to install.You will need to remove the valve cover and the spacer that houses the injector wiring. When you unplug the injectors, be sure to make note of how the wiring is connected because you will have to reconnect them later.Each injector is fed by its own feed tube. Each tube needs to be removed carefully. First, loosen the fitting from the fuel rail and the cylinder head area, and carefully slide it out.
Now, install the new injectors. There is a small dimple on each injector that mates with the feed tube. Make sure the dimple faces the fuel tube's opening, and before you tighten the injector down, install the feed tube and make sure it is seated into the injector.Here are the final results. By looking at the dyno graph, we produced 445.1 hp and 892.0 lb-ft of gut-wrenching torque. If that ain't enough to haul your 'Cuda, don't worry. Jannetty Racing has any and all add-on goodies you could want.You will need to remove the exhaust rocker arms and the bridge for the valves. Make sure the pushrods stay in the lifters.Reinstall the rocker arm assemblies, the valve cover spacer with the injector wiring, and reattach the wires to the injectors.
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