text:
CAMPUS & CITY
'RITE IDEA
RAIDER ZONE
The Shake
The Shakerite
Shaker is behind the curve when it comes to student scheduling
Lauren Sheperd, Education Columnist|October 3, 2018
Alona Miller
During a normal school day, information is thrown at me left and right from seven different classes. However, as soon as I get home, I forget most of it.
Currently, classes are 50 minutes at Shaker. To me, these 50 minutes can be jam packed and overwhelming, and I often have difficulty retaining the information.
Teachers are forced to put too much information into a short period of time, and students are somehow expected to retain this information.
Recently, one-third of American high schools have made the switch to some sort of alternative scheduling, according to The School Superintendents Association. The two most common types of alternative schedules are the 4/4 schedule, a schedule with four classes one semester and four different ones the next, and the A/B schedule, which has fewer classes per day, but longer periods.
The A/B schedule is more commonly known as a block schedule. It consists of longer periods for each class, but a student's schedule changes daily. Shaker should partially or totally switch to this type of schedule.
According to the SSA, block scheduling has boosted students' GPAs and limited failures. Discipline referrals decreased by 25-50 percent in districts where block schedules have been implemented and tardiness has been reduced.
One of the highest ranked public high schools in the country, Lexington High School in Massachusetts, uses a block schedule. Students are able to take more classes during the school year and have three study halls a week, which are required by the school.
A bit closer to home, Hudson High School implements block schedules two days a week. Students at Hudson approve of the schedule, and Shaker students would too. On Wednesdays, students take three of their seven classes and school begins at 9:30 a.m., allowing students to get more sleep.
At a large district such as Shaker, block schedules could allow for teachers to give more one-on-one attention to all students."
The other block schedule day consists of four classes and begins at a normal time. All classes on block schedule days are an hour and thirty minutes long. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, Hudson follows a schedule similar to Shaker's.
One Hudson senior says that she feels more productive in class, and less stressed because she only gets homework from three or four classes rather than all seven two nights a week. She also feels less tired during the week because of the late start Wednesday.
While the transition to this type of schedule could be stressful for students and teachers, it will be beneficial in the long run. At a large district such as Shaker, block schedules could allow for teachers to give more one-on-one attention to all students. Amount of homework and stress levels would drop because students would only be assigned homework in half of their classes at a time.
According to the National Education Association, block schedules could pose problems for students who have to miss school. On a block schedule day, students would essentially miss two days instead of one.
In recent years, Shaker has moved toward the use of more technology in classrooms. Students who miss a block schedule day could use these resources to stay caught up in their classes.
Shaker's switch to the Hudson schedule or even Lexington's schedule would be beneficial to all students. Not only would it reduce stress and improve mental health, but it would increase academic performance and retention of material.
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\section{Introduction}

\section{Introduction}

The high precision measurements of Cosmic Microwave Background (hereafter, CMB)
anisotropies made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite have provided
not only a wonderful confirmation of the standard model of
cosmological structure formation but also relevant information on key parameters
in particle physics. One example is the sum of the neutrino masses and the neutrino mass hierarchy.

The most recent data release  from WMAP after seven years of observations presented a bound on the total
neutrino mass of $\Sigma m_{\nu} <1.3$eV at the 95\% c.l. \cite{wmap7}. This bound is
approximately a factor five better than the current laboratory experimental  upper limit inferred from
a combination of beta-decay experiments and neutrino oscillation data (see e.g. \cite{fogli}).
The CMB bound on neutrino masses is also considered the most conservative limit
from cosmology. Indeed, including information from galaxy clustering and luminosity
distance data the constraint can be further improved to $\Sigma m_{\nu} <0.55$eV at 95\% c.l. \cite{wmap7},
while a limit of $\Sigma m_{\nu} < 0.28$eV at $95 \%$ c.l. can be obtained
by including redshift-dependent halo bias-mass relations \cite{fdebe}.

It is however important to be aware of the theoretical modelling behind the  constraint based on cosmological
measurements. A model of structure formation based on dark matter, adiabatic primordial fluctuations
and dark energy is assumed and the removal of one of these assumptions
can in principle affect the CMB limit. For example, the inclusion of
isocurvature perturbations \cite{zunckel}, dark energy \cite{wmap7} or modified gravity \cite{tom}
can all relax the CMB upper limit on the neutrino masses.

In this {\it Brief Report} we investigate another possible theoretical caveat that could
affect the CMB bound on the sum of the neutrino masses, i.e. the modelling of the reionization
epoch. It is often assumed in the current cosmological data analysis that reionization
is a sudden event at redshift $z=z_{re}$, i.e. this process is usually described by a single
parameter with the free electron fraction $x_e$ increasing from $\sim 10^{-4}$ up to $1$ for
redshifts $z < z_{re}$ ($\sim 1.08$ for $z<3$ when taking into account Helium reionization).
While this scenario can properly describe several reionization scenarios, it can't obviously describe
more complex reionization scenarios as for example double or not-monotone reionization.
Given our current ignorance about the thermal history of the universe at redshifts
$z \ge 6$ it is important to consider all the possible reionization scenarios allowed by data when
 deriving the most conservative constraint on a cosmological parameter such as the sum of the neutrino masses.

Here, we indeed assume a more general reionization model following the
principal components method suggested by Mortonson and Hu \cite{mortonson} and
we derive constraints on the neutrino mass in this different theoretical framework.
It has been shown recently \cite{stefania} that a general reionization scenario
can drastically alter the conclusions on inflationary parameters as the
scalar spectral index $n$, putting its value in better agreement
with the expectations of a Harrison-Zel'dovich \cite{hz}, $n=1$, spectrum. So it
is definetely timely to investigate what kind of impact a general reionization
scenario can have on the current CMB neutrino bound.
The paper is organized as follows: in the next Section we briefly describe the
reionization parametrization assumed and the decomposition in principal components.
We also describe the data analysis method. In Section III we present the results
of our analysis and in Section IV we discuss our conclusions.

\section{Analysis Method}

We adopt the method, developed in Ref.\ \cite{mortonson}, based on principal components
that provide a complete basis  for describing the effects of reionization on
large-scale $E$-mode polarization.  Following Ref.\ \cite{mortonson}, one can
parametrize the reionization history  as a free function of redshift by
decomposing $x_e(z)$ into its principal components:
\begin{equation}
x_e(z)=x_e^f(z)+\sum_{\mu}m_{\mu}S_{\mu}(z),
\end{equation}
where the principal components, $S_{\mu}(z)$,  are the eigenfunctions of the
Fisher matrix that describes  the dependence of the polarization spectra on
$x_e(z)$ (again, see Ref.\ \cite{mortonson}), $m_{\mu}$ are the amplitudes of
the  principal components for a particular reionization history, and  $x_e^f(z)$
is the WMAP fiducial model at which the Fisher matrix is computed and from which
the principal components are obtained. In what follows we use the publicly
available $S_{\mu}(z)$ functions and varied the amplitudes $m_{\mu}$ for
$\mu=1,...,5$ for the first five eigenfunctions. The eigenfunctions are
computed in $95$ bins from redshift $z_{min}=6$ to redshift $z_{max}=30$
with $x_e(z)=1.08$ for $z<3$, $x_e(z)=1.0$ for
 $3 \le z<6$ and $x_e(z)=10^{-4}$ for $z\ge30$..
Hereafter we refer to this
method as the MH (Mortonson-Hu) case.

We have then modified the Boltzmann CAMB code \cite{camb} incorporating the
generalized MH reionization scenario as in \cite{mortonson}
and extracted cosmological parameters from
current data using a Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) analysis based on the
publicly available MCMC package \texttt{cosmomc} \cite{Lewis:2002ah}.

We consider here a flat $\Lambda$CDM universe described by a set of cosmological
parameters
\begin{equation}
 \label{parameter}
      \{\omega_b,\omega_c,\omega_{\nu},
      \Theta_s, n, \log[10^{10}A_{s}] \},
\end{equation}
where $\omega_b\equiv\Omega_bh^{2}$ and $\omega_c\equiv\Omega_ch^{2}$ are the
physical baryon and cold dark matter densities  relative to the critical
density, $\omega_{\nu}$ is the physical energy density in massive neutrinos,
$\Theta_{s}$ is the ratio of the sound horizon to the angular diameter
distance at decoupling, $A_{s}$ is the amplitude of the primordial spectrum, and
$n$ is the scalar spectral index. We assume $3$ degenerate, massive neutrinos
with the same mass:
\begin{equation}
m_{\nu}={30.8 eV}\times\omega_{\nu}
\end{equation}
In what follows we will use as standard parameter the value $\Sigma m_{\nu}=3m_{\nu}$.

The extra parameters needed to describe the reionization are the five amplitudes
of the eigenfunctions for the MH case
 and one single common parameter, the optical depth $\tau$,
for the sudden reionization case.

Our basic data set is the seven--year WMAP data \cite{wmap7}  (temperature and
polarization) with the routine for computing the likelihood supplied by the WMAP
team.

\section{Results}

\begin{table}[!htb]\footnotesize
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\hline
Parameter & WMAP7 & WMAP7 \\
& (Sudden Reionization) & (MH Reionization) \\
\hline
$\Omega_bh^2$ & ${0.0221}_{-0.0012}^{+0.0012}$ &${0.0226}_{-0.0014}^{+0.0015}$ \\
$\Omega_ch^2$ & ${0.117}_{-0.013}^{+0.013}$ &${0.115}_{-0.017}^{+0.017}$ \\
$\theta_s$ & ${1.038}_{-0.005}^{+0.005}$ &${1.039}_{-0.005}^{+0.006}$\\
$n$ & ${0.955}_{-0.033}^{+0.032}$&${0.975}_{-0.0434}^{+0.0448}$\\
$H_0$ & ${65.7}_{-8.2}^{+7.6}$ &${66.0}_{-9.0}^{+10.2}$\\
$\Omega_\Lambda$ & ${0.674}_{-0.134}^{+0.091}$ &${0.675}_{-0.148}^{+0.112}$\\
$\Sigma m_\nu$ & $<{1.15}$eV &$<{1.66}$eV\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{$95 \%$ c.l. errors on cosmological parameters in the case of sudden reionization and
MH reionization. The upper limit on the neutrino mass is relaxed by $\sim 43 \%$.}
\label{tab:results}
\end{center}
\end{table}

In Table~I we compare the constraints on several cosmological parameters
in the case of standard or MH reionization scenario.
As we can see from the table, the CMB constraint  on the neutrino mass is weakened
by $\sim 40 \%$ when a more general reionization scenario is considered.
This is not simply due to an increase in the parameter space but also due to
degeneracies present between the cosmological parameters. Considering the MH reionization
scenario renders values of the spectral index $n$ in better agreement with the
Harrison-Zel'dovich $n=1$ value (see \cite{stefania}). This changes the relative amplitude
of the peaks in the CMB angular spectrum
and makes models with higher neutrino mass more consistent with the WMAP data.
Introducing a neutrino mass has indeed the effect of decreasing the gravitational
potential at recombination, increasing the small scale CMB anisotropy\footnote{The effect
of neutrino mass on CMB lensing for the WMAP data is negligible.}. This can
be counterbalanced by decreasing the value of the spectral index $n$ as clearly shown
by the anti-correlation in the $n$-$\Sigma m_{\nu}$ plane. A general reionization
scenario brings higher values of $n$ in agreement with observations, immediately
resulting in a better compatibility of larger neutrino masses.
It is worth noticing that while in the standard reionization scenario HZ spectra
are excluded at about three standard deviations when massive neutrinos are included
in the analysis, in the MH case the $n=1$ spectra are well consistent with the data
and inside the $1 \sigma$ c.l. also with $\Sigma m_{\nu} \sim 0.5$eV.

In Figure \ref{mnuns} we show the constraints on the $\Sigma m_{\nu}$ vs $n$ plane,
while in Figure \ref{mnus8} we show the constraints on the $\Sigma m_{\nu}$ vs $\sigma_8$ plane.
The filled contours assume MH reionization while the empty contours assume standard,
sudden, reionization.
As we can see, MH reionization allows for values of the spectral index $n$ closer
to $1$ (as already pointed out in \cite{stefania}), for a larger neutrino mass and
for a lower $\sigma_8$ amplitude.
It is interesting to note that a neutrino mass can in principle accomodate lower
values of $\sigma_8$ with CMB data. When MH reionization is assumed even lower
values of $\sigma_8$ are consistent with CMB data. A low value of $\sigma_8 \sim 0.77$
is preferred by the recent detection of diffuse Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect by
the South Pole Telescope \cite{spt} experiment.

\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=8cm]{Smnu_ns.eps}
\caption{Constraints on the $\Sigma m_{\nu}$ vs $n$ plane.
The filled contours assume MH reionization while the empty contours assume standard,
sudden, reionization.}
\label{mnuns}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=8cm]{Smnu_sigma8.eps}
\caption{Constraints on the $\Sigma m_{\nu}$ vs $\sigma_8$ plane.
The filled contours assume MH reionization while the empty contours assume standard,
sudden, reionization.}
\label{mnus8}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=8cm]{Smnu_Omegam.eps}
\caption{Constraints on the $\Sigma m_{\nu}$ vs $\Omega_m$ plane.
The filled contours assume MH reionization while the empty contours assume standard,
sudden, reionization.}
\label{mnuom}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[h!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=8cm]{Smnu_Omegabh2.eps}
\caption{Constraints on the $\Sigma m_{\nu}$ vs $\Omega_bh^2$ plane.
The filled contours assume MH reionization while the empty contours assume standard,
sudden, reionization.}
\label{mnuob}
\end{center}
\end{figure}

Moreover, correlations exist with the matter density $\Omega_m$, as we show in Figure \ref{mnuom}
and (even if less pronounced) with the baryon physical density $\Omega_bh^2$ as we show in Figure \ref{mnuob}.

\section{Conclusions}

In conclusion, the details of the reionization processes in the late universe
are not very well known. In the absence of a precise, full redshift evolution
of the ionization fraction during the reionization period, a simple
parametrization, with a single parameter $z_r$, has become the standard
reionization scheme in numerical analyses. However, more general reionization
scenarios are certainly plausible and their impact on the cosmological
constraints should be carefully explored.

In this {\it Brief Report} we have investigated the stability of the CMB constraints on
neutrino masses in generalized reionization scenarios. We have found that a more general
treatment of reionization could potentially weaken  the current CMB upper limit on $\Sigma m_{\nu}$
by $\sim 40 \%$.
Cosmological information from BAO for example can be added in order to reduce the uncertainty
on the neutrino mass. However the lack of knowledge on dark energy and the assumption made with regards to
the  equation of state could again affect the neutrino mass limit with large-scale structure data.
Future data expected from the Planck \cite{planck} satellite on large angular scale CMB polarization
will help in clarifying the thermal history of the Universe and in ruling out exotic
reionization scenarios that are still in agreement with present-day observations with WMAP.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
SLIA's Architect 2018 kicks off tomorrow
21 February 2018 10:00 am - 0 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (SLIA) holds 'A18 (Architect 2018)', the pre-eminent and most popular trade exhibition in the country for the 36th consecutive time, at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH), from February 22 to 25, 2018.
The Members' Work and Trade Exhibition will be opened to the public from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. providing the ultimate experience with more than 290 trade stalls and 126 display including digital panels displaying architects' work.
The Inauguration Ceremony of the Annual Sessions of 2018 will be held today, at 3:30 p.m. and will be graced by President Maithripala Sirisena as the chief guest. Megapolis and Western Development Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka will also be joining this occasion as the
guest of honour.
The members of the SLIA and other architectural institutions in the region, foreign guests, special invitees and students from the architecture field will also be present at the inauguration ceremony.
This year's National Conference, to be held on February 22, 2018 under the theme 'Architecture to Represent People and Place', will be inaugurated by the Housing and Construction Minister Sajith Premadasa and Finance State Minister Eran Wickramaratne.
The SLIA has invited Ar. Prof. Li Xiaodong (China) as the keynote speaker. Speakers such as Ar. Serina Hijjas from Malaysia and Ar. Jin Koyama from Singapore will also share their expertise knowledge and their experiences in the practice of architecture along with locally renowned architects such as Archt. Channa Daswatta and Archt.
Phillip Weeraratne.
The National Conference promises to be an exciting conference, with relevance not only for architects but for anybody who has a fascination for architecture, design and the way our physical surroundings are made which impacts our lifestyles. The ceremonial opening of the Member's Work and Trade Exhibition will be held soon after the National Conference.
A'18 - a shift from the norm - is a virtual e-exhibition, enabling the perception and awareness of the Public on the high-quality, skills and capacity of the Sri Lankan Architects and the building industry. For the first time in Sri Lanka, the trade and the architects are in one mutual electronic forum with their products and services easily accessible at this legendary architects' exhibition that has evolved to its peak as the SLIA celebrates the 60th anniversary year.
The visitors could explore, surf and locate services, materials and information of all products displayed via the Internet and mobile app. from the point of its conclusion.
A'18 creates opportunities to introduce innovative new products, materials and services by suppliers. The effective use of these in projects by our own Members Work has further elevated the dynamic Digitally Projected Walkthroughs and solid miniature building models to experience a unique architects' exhibition. A special live forum in the Centre- Hall B has been arranged for the public to meet chartered architects and view their project presentations.
In order to make this giant exhibition a roaring success, Alumex PLC has come on board as the strategic sponsor, holding on to the 'top spot' for the last several years, while Nippon Paint Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd has joined hands with the SLIA as the principal sponsor. Naveen Ceramic (Pvt.) Ltd will be the sponsor for the SLIA Members' Event while Ranjanas Ceramic (Pvt.) Ltd joined as the associate sponsor.
Creation Master Builders(Pvt.) Ltd, NMI Infra (Pvt.) Ltd (Green Electricals) and Royal Ceramic Lanka PLC, Gismo (Pvt.) Ltd, Idea Group (Pvt.) Ltd are the event sponsors for the Annual Session of SLIA 2018-2019. St. Anthony's Industries (Pvt.) Ltd and Melwire Rolling (Pvt.) Ltd, Arpico (Pvt.) Ltd, LPA Lighting and Energy Solutions have joined with the SLIA as event co-sponsors. The exclusive media partner for A18 is Rupavahini.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We are very happy to accommodate groups on a sperate site on the farm.This offers the same wash facilities and a covered communal area, but is removed from Hop pickers Wood We returned yesterday (2 days early) from our third and probably last visit to this site.You also won't know the exact location until you make a reservation, but let's just say it's not far from Bodiam Castle in East Sussex, hidden about half a mile down a private track.You'll probably be greeted and guided in by friendly owner Anna Eastwood, who also runs the adjacent Original Hut Company.The friendly owners manage the farm to encourage flora and fauna and enjoy giving visitors an insight into farm life, as well as tips on the best picnic spots.
tiny, within this tiny non commercial site each pitch has space around.We ended up hemmed in ( literally feet away ) from a large group with four pitches .Part of the group had set up in the afternoon but the rest arrived at 9.15pm and proceeded to spend the next couple of hours setting up their camp with absolutely no thought for anyone else trying to have a peaceful evening or our two young children trying to sleep.The tents are pre erected for you and fully equipped with everything but bedding and a gas stove. It's comfortable hassle free camping, Simples!!! We love camping and have developed Hop Pickers to tick every box that we would like to see in a campsite.The site is quiet, off grid and of minimal environmantal impact.
Seit 2009 lebe ich allein und möchte jetzt das Leben wieder mit einer Partnerin geniessen. Meine Partnerin sollte zwischen 1,60 und 1,75 groß sein, ein attraktives äusseres besitzen und ebenso sensibel und romantisch sein wie ich es bin.


text:
No Room to Rest — Series Part 7: In the search for solutions to homelessness, how is success defined?
A homeless person reads while sitting among her belongings in La Jolla's Village.
(Elisabeth Frausto)
By Ashley Mackin-Solomon,
Elisabeth Frausto
Dec. 26, 2022 7 AM PT
This La Jolla Light series looks at local homelessness, explores the complicated factors that contribute to it and highlights the various viewpoints about potential solutions. This is the seventh and final installment.
If one thing is clear about homelessness, it's that it is a complex issue without one cause — or one solution.
Nevertheless, organizations ranging from local nonprofits to the federal government are still working toward solving the problem that affects hundreds of thousands of people nationwide.
Among the ideas raised by local experts, advocates and homeless people themselves in the course of this series are:
• Changing the way we talk about homelessness
• Meeting homeless people where they are and identifying their individual needs rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach
• Collaboration among various organizations
• Allocating the funding needed to make potential solutions happen
At a community workshop Dec. 3 at the La Jolla/Riford Library, La Jolla-based Housing 4 the Homeless presented a panel and small group discussions seeking innovative ideas.
La Jolla resident and Housing 4 the Homeless co-founder Joanne Standlee called the workshop an experiment inspired by a La Jolla Town Council meeting the previous month.
"That meeting … had a lot of information and set the context for what is happening," Standlee said. "It was a lot of panelists but not a lot of interaction."
By moving into the "interaction phase," the community can take ownership of the issue and come up with solutions, she said.
A few topics were introduced at the Housing 4 the Homeless event, and people who attended were encouraged to break into small groups to discuss them. That was followed by insights from a panel consisting of Housing 4 the Homeless co-founder and La Jolla resident Amie Zamudio, San Diego City Councilman Joe LaCava and UC San Diego psychiatrist Aaron Meyer.
Story gallery: No Room to Rest — a series on homelessness
What is 'homelessness'?
"We have systemic failure across many systems," Standlee said. "That leads to people losing their housing, but there is not one single cause. … Systems will only stretch so far and then they break. We've been snowballing in this direction for decades. There is no one political party, mayor or city entity who can solve this themselves. We have to face this together."
During the group discussions, many said a step toward a solution is changing the language and attitudes regarding homelessness.
"There isn't actually something called 'homelessness,'" Standlee said.
Several groups said "homeless" is an umbrella term with many factions within it. One said that much like anxiety and schizophrenia are under the umbrella of "mental health," they are very different conditions. Similarly, a person who just needs a job or transitional housing to get out of homelessness is different from someone who needs more comprehensive and long-term services. Yet they are both labeled "homeless."
Housing 4 the Homeless co-founder and La Jolla resident Amie Zamudio, San Diego City Councilman Joe LaCava and UC San Diego psychiatrist Aaron Meyer sit on a panel as part of a Dec. 3 workshop focusing on homelessness.
(Ashley Mackin-Solomon)
Comprehensive, individualized services
Available homeless services and outreach are missing "love and compassion and meeting people where they are and asking what they need … not making assumptions," Standlee said.
Meyer agreed with the concept of comprehensive care and innovation beyond what is already available. Different people need different services to escape homelessness, he said. "When you look at a house, you need to look at what rooms are in that house. And when people agree to come to the table, the table needs to be in the right room."
Jim Vargas, president and chief executive of San Diego homeless services organization Father Joe's Villages, told the La Jolla Light that "the approach we need to take needs to be multifaceted. There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. We need to assess an individual's circumstances and apply the best solution to get them off the street permanently."
That approach needs to include options such as building "low barrier" shelters with more beds and fewer entry requirements, offering sober-living facilities and developing more affordable housing, said Vargas, a deacon of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego who serves Mary, Star of the Sea Catholic Church in La Jolla.
"People who are suffering from homelessness are suffering from a host of other ailments, so there needs to be heavier resources applied," Vargas said. "Because it's complex, the solutions can't be simple. They have to be comprehensive and applied correctly to be effective."
To provide that comprehensive level of care, Standlee said, "everyone has to collaborate. Everyone. All service providers across all sectors: medical, local government, deferral government, nonprofits, police force, everyone has to be on the same page. In San Diego, we are not on the same page. We are a fractured system. But we are lucky to have the Regional Task Force on Homelessness that has a plan."
Regional efforts
The San Diego Regional Task Force on Homelessness, which evolved from a mayor's task force formed in 1983, aims to better understand the needs of people living on area streets and to work to prevent and alleviate the problem. It collects, tracks and reports data pertaining to homelessness in the region.
The group issued a report in September that outlines its plan to solve homelessness.
The so-called Regional Plan was influenced by existing plans and frameworks at local, state and federal levels.
The task force has what it calls "people goals" over the next five years:
• Reduce the number of people who are "unsheltered" (living on the street or in a park or vehicle) by 50 percent
• End homelessness among veterans, youths, families and older adults
The plan looks at the individual challenges for each group and poses solutions for each.
There also are "system goals" to address those who are at risk of or imminently facing homelessness, including strategies and actions to help reach those goals.
The system-oriented goals are:
• Create a strong and equitable regional system to end homelessness
• Aggressively expand permanent housing options
• Meet the needs of people who are unsheltered
• Create safe, low-barrier shelter
• Reduce the flow of people entering homelessness
"Because it's complex, the solutions can't be simple. They have to be comprehensive and applied correctly to be effective."
— Jim Vargas, Father Joe's Villages
Similarly, the city of San Diego's potential solutions are laid out in its 63-page Community Action Plan on Homelessness, a comprehensive document intended "to build a client-centered homeless assistance system that aims to prevent homelessness and that quickly creates a path to safe and affordable housing and services for people who experience homelessness in our community."
The plan, adopted by the City Council in October 2019, laid out the following goals to be completed within three years:
• Decrease the number of unsheltered people by 50 percent
• End veteran and youth homelessness
Data shows that none of the goals has been met in the three-year time frame.
In 2019, the city had 2,600 unsheltered residents, according to the Point-in-Time Count, an annual survey of homeless people conducted by local agencies around the country, usually in January. The 2022 count showed 2,494 unsheltered people, only a 4 percent drop from 2019 and a 9 percent increase over 2020.
The 2022 number for homeless veterans in San Diego stood at 510, including 265 unsheltered and 245 "sheltered" (with some kind of temporary roof over their heads, such as in a shelter or transitional housing). The unsheltered number was down from 338 in 2019 but up from 190 in 2020.
For homeless youths, the 2022 count was 693 (519 sheltered and 174 unsheltered). The unsheltered number was down from 353 in 2019 and down from 223 in 2020.
City spokeswoman Ashley Bailey said the city "is still making progress" on those short-term goals and that the City Council receives regular updates.
Bailey emphasized that implementation of the Community Action Plan, along with many government services, was "upended" in 2020 by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and that shelters and other services continue to feel the impact of pandemic-related mitigation measures.
Fran Dryden (left) prays with Karen Adamson, a chaperone with students visiting from Illinois who were taking part in a homeless outreach church program in San Diego.
(The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The short-term goals are part of a 10-year plan intended ultimately to implement a "systems-level approach to homeless planning." That includes:
• Adapting infrastructure to support the goals
• Creating a homeless assistance system in which client feedback is valued
• Increasing homelessness prevention and diversion
• Improving the performance of the existing system through metric review
• Increasing the production of and access to permanent housing
The plan's progress is gauged via ongoing statistics and other measurements updated online (bit.ly/3Ge2fv2).
The Community Action Plan estimates a cost of $2.2 million per 100 new beds annually for its short-term "crisis response actions" and $1.9 billion over 10 years to address "permanent housing needs."
The plan says the city needs about 5,400 units for permanent housing opportunities for individuals and families experiencing homelessness, including:
• New or rehabilitated supportive housing
• Supportive housing leased in the private rental market
• Rapid rehousing rental assistance with services for one year
• Low-income housing rental assistance with services for three years
• Homelessness diversion assistance
"To accomplish the goals set forth in this plan, investment from private and public sources is essential," the document states. "Funding only the creation of new units, without adequate services or rental assistance, will not further the goals of this plan in reducing persons who are homeless in San Diego."
The plan says funding could come from:
• State and federal housing assistance programs
• City funds such as Affordable Housing Fund, General Fund or special fees
• City bond measures for homelessness services and new supportive housing
• Private philanthropy
A homeless person's things lie on a sidewalk in La Jolla.
Despite the best intentions, red tape often can get in the way, said LaCava, whose City Council District 1 includes La Jolla.
"The bureaucracy that gets involved in this tries to take very complex issues and boil them down to simple ideas in simple boxes — with good intentions, but somehow it confuses the issue," he said.
There is confusion about the "housing first" model the city uses that earns federal dollars. It is the idea that a homeless person first must be housed, followed by an assessment of the individual's needs.
"It's not put them in a house, give them a key and walk away," LaCava said. "It's [asking] what does this person need. ... But it's more complex, more challenging and more expensive to do it that way."
Another idea, he said, is to take what some of the region's smaller organizations — specifically Housing 4 the Homeless — are doing and "scale it up" to reach more people. Housing 4 the Homeless works with people deemed "service-resistant" or "not ready" to get off the streets and provides them with services the clients say they need.
"Everyone has to be on the same page. In San Diego, we are not on the same page. We are a fractured system."
— Joanne Standlee, Housing 4 the Homeless
Along with the challenge of obtaining ever-elusive funding is the question of defining success.
"The money goes out, but there is no metric that says, 'Did you do a good job?'" LaCava said. "We have to get some kind of transparency and not fund programs that are [getting funds but not] doing the benefit. But we don't have a system of accountability because we don't have a way of measuring success.
"The San Diego Housing Commission and Regional Task Force on Homelessness are starting to look at hard data to look at what is working and not working. You also have to pound on the table and demand results."
According to the regional task force, ending homelessness "does not mean there will never be another person who will face a housing crisis in San Diego again. Rather, it means San Diego will have a robust coordinated system in place to prevent housing loss when possible, and when not prevented, to respond with urgency, eagerness and compassion to engage people in a meaningful way, connect them to permanent housing as quickly as possible and provide stabilizing community support. San Diego embraces the vision of making homelessness rare, brief and one-time."
"Ideally," Vargas said, "I would love a world where no one is on the street ever again. But realistically, we must look at our area, which has rising rents and inflation. We as a community need to come up with a robust system that keeps people from falling into homelessness … and then if they fall into the streets, we have a wide enough network to get people off the streets readily and move them into housing.
"We're not there on the housing side, so that needs to be a focus. When we do that, we'll get our arms around the homelessness. We'll have a system in place to really help people. It takes political will and community will. It's not easy and it [involves] making hard decisions and attaching the dollars that are necessary."
"We have to get some kind of transparency and not fund programs that are [getting funds but not] doing the benefit. But we don't have a system of accountability because we don't have a way of measuring success."
— San Diego City Councilman Joe LaCava
Nonprofit leader and La Jolla resident Scott Silverman, who among other efforts founded San Diego Second Chance in 1992 to help transition people out of homelessness, said success ultimately means a decrease in those who exit homelessness and then re-enter it.
Silverman said no solution he's seen addresses the cycle of homelessness and that there is no "continuum of care" for people exiting the system.
"If you have a system where people know they can make the phone call and somebody cares about them," those receiving support will be successful, he said.
Drew Moser, executive director of the nonprofit Lucky Duck Foundation, which seeks to fund shelters and homeless support programs locally, said "success is reducing the numbers of individuals suffering on the streets and working collaboratively in an urgent and deliberate manner across government, the private sector and philanthropy."
Specifically, he said, success is measured by "the number of individuals who move into shelter, the number of individuals who secure housing [and] the number of individuals who are prevented from entering homelessness."
The Lucky Duck Foundation also measures success "in a multitude of ways," Moser said, "including but not limited to the number of individuals who secured part-time or full-time employment and the number ... who improved their housing situation."
He added that his organization works "to quantify every program [the foundation] invests in so we can explain clearly and simply to our donors the impact of their support." ◆
Elisabeth Frausto is a reporter for the La Jolla Light.


text:
Uzdrowienie paralityka w Kafarnaum − cud Jezusa dokonany podczas jego publicznej działalności w Galilei w osadzie Kafarnaum nad Jeziorem Tyberiadzkim, opisany w Ewangeliach synoptycznych.

Treść przekazu ewangelicznego
Wszyscy trzej synoptycy umieszczają opis cudu w toku galilejskiej działalności Jezusa. Jezus, dla Łukasza pełen mocy Pańskiej/Bożej, siedział, nauczając, jak to określa w sposób jednoznaczny tylko Marek − w domu (gr. ἐν οἴκῳ). Niespodziewanie jakieś osoby przyniosły sparaliżowanego człowieka. Marek podaje liczbę niosących, było ich czterech. W narracji Marka i Łukasza, dobroczyńcy napotkali na przeszkodę: tłum uniemożliwiający doniesienie chorego do samego Jezusa. Rozebrali więc dach i przez otwór spuścili paralityka, według Łukasza "w sam środek przed Jezusa". Mateusz całkowicie zaniedbuje sprawę trudności i rozbiórki dachu. Dachy w typowej zabudowie starożytnego Kafarnaum były bardzo nietrwałe. Zrobione ze słomy i utwardzonej ziemi, reperowane były dosyć często, szczególnie po ustąpieniu opadów zimowych.

Jezus czując wiarę życzliwych paralitykowi osób, odpuścił mu grzechy. Uczeni w Piśmie, a u Łukasza również faryzeusze, posądzili Jezusa o bluźnierstwo. Chrystus, będąc Synem Bożym, czytał w ich myślach. Stawia pytanie zawierające alternatywę: łatwiej jest odpuścić człowiekowi grzechy czy go uzdrowić z choroby? Pokazując pełnię mocy Bożej, o której Łukasz wspomniał już wcześniej, nakazał uwolnionemu od grzechów paralitykowi zamanifestować, iż jest również wolny od swojej cielesnej niemocy. Jezus nakazuje zabranie łoża (gr. κράβαττος u Mk, κλίνη u Mt, κλινίδιον u Łk) i powrót do domu, co paralityk czyni natychmiast, u Łukasza oddając chwałę Bogu. Reakcją zebranych jest zdumienie, głosy pełne zachwytu, uwielbienie Boga.

Synopsa tekstów zawierających opis cudu
Teksty w tabeli zostały zaczerpnięte z Biblii Tysiąclecia.

Interpretacja
Paralityk nie wydaje się być najważniejszych bohaterem opowiadania. Są nimi raczej jego przyjaciele, którzy mimo zakazów rytualnych dotykają się go z miłości, oraz niedowierzający, a raczej nawet wrogo nastawieni faryzeusze. Dziwne postawienie sprawy przez Jezusa, jego pytanie, obnaża prawdę o tych drugich. Uzdrowienie chorego, stające się niejako potwierdzeniem władzy Jezusa do odpuszczania grzechów, godzi w instytucję świątyni. Tylko tam dostępowano łaski odpuszczania grzechów. Wyeliminowana zostaje konieczność składania ofiar ze zwierząt, jednej z rzeczy podstawowych w kulcie Narodu wybranego. Powodem oceny cudu, jako do tej pory nigdy niespotykanego, jest właśnie odpuszczenie grzechów. To przymiot Boga, Jezus objawia prawdę o sobie. Dla chrześcijan perykopa ta jest swego rodzaju wyzwaniem. Trzeba dbać o wiarę, pielęgnować ją, bo wiara przyzywa Boga do wkraczania w porządek natury i działania dla dobra człowieka.

Lokalizacja
Mateusz i Marek wprost lokalizują całe wydarzenie w Kafarnaum, u Mateusza jest to swoje miasto, w odniesieniu to tego, co zostało powiedziane wcześniej w rozdz. 4,13: "Opuścił jednak Nazaret, przyszedł i osiadł w Kafarnaum nad jeziorem, na pograniczu ziem Zabulona i Neftalego". Ta sama lokalizacja u Łukasza wynika z kontekstu: po wyjściu stamtąd zaraz napotyka celnika imieniem Lewi, a komora celna znajdowała się w miejscowości granicznej, w której też stacjonowały wojska pilnujące granicy, stąd również i obecność dowódcy-setnika.

Zobacz też

 uzdrowienie niewidomego w Betsaidzie

Przypisy

Cuda Jezusa

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: How to find a GameObjects Prefab during runtime with Unity version 2018.3 After updating to Unity 2018.3.0f2 I`m unable to find a GameObjects prefab while the game is running. In the previous versions i was simply using this line:
GameObject prefabObject =
    PrefabUtility.GetCorrespondingObjectFromSource(gameObject);

But after the update this function only returns null, so I tried the new functions:

*

*PrefabUtility.GetPrefabInstanceHandle

*PrefabUtility.GetNearestPrefabInstanceRoot

*PrefabUtility.GetOutermostPrefabInstanceRoot

but all of them return null but I`m sure that I am handing a prefab over as parameter. Any ideas what I am doing wrong here?

A: As soon as editor start playing (Application.isPlaying=true) prefab linkage with scene game objects will be broken (blue game objects turned into gray) and thus you cannot obtain prefab related information from it.
If you really need a scenario were you want to access such information on runtime, you should save it as Serialized variable in script component so that it will later available on runtime.
For example: this is a simplified contraption of what Mirror (Unity network plugin) is doing by issuing asset ID related stuff to help distinguish each prefab to spawn things in network on runtime.

    [SerializeField] string m_AssetId;

    void OnValidate() // Which will be called on build or editor play
    {
    #if UNITY_EDITOR
         // Deposit UnityEditor API dependent into some field
         m_AssetId = UnityEditor.AssetDatabase.GetAssetPath( gameObject );
    #endif
    }

Anyway, for running editor script, if you want to test or look for original prefab. UnityEditor.PrefabUtility is somewhat hard to find a full example of how to use them.
You can refer to my git repository on how to use them with examples.
https://github.com/wappenull/UnityPrefabTester

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Dr. Fennell is the L. Stanley Bowlsbey professor of education and Graduate and Professional Studies at McDaniel College in Maryland, where he directs the Brookhill Foundation supported Elementary Mathematics Specialists and Teacher Leaders Project. A mathematics educator who has experience as a classroom teacher, principal, and supervisor of instruction, he is a past president of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE), the Research Council for Mathematics Learning (RCML), and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).
Widely published in professional journals and textbooks related to PreK–8 mathematics education, Dr. Fennell has also played key leadership roles for the Mathematical Sciences Education Board, National Science Foundation, and the U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction. He served as a writer for the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 2000), the Curriculum Focal Points (NCTM, 2006) and for the Common Core State Standards (CCSSO, 2010). He also served on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (2006-‐2008). Dr. Fennell served as a member of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) Commission (2012-2013) and was recently appointed to the inaugural CAEP Board of Directors. He is also currently serving as the mathematics advisor for the PBS television shows Peg + CAT and the soon to be released (October, 2014) Odd Squad.
Dr. Fennell has received numerous honors and awards, including Maryland's Outstanding Mathematics Educator, McDaniel College's Professor of the Year, the Glenn Gilbert National Leadership Award from the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, the CASE – Carnegie Foundation Professor of the Year – Maryland (1997), the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators' Distinguished Outstanding Teacher Educator, and, more recently, the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Cathy Fosnot is Professor Emerita of Childhood Education, CCNY and the City University of New York, where she was the founding director of Mathematics in the City, an internationally-recognized center for math professional development, K-8. She has authored, edited, and/or co-authored numerous books on mathematics education, among them, Making Moments Matter: Conferring with Young Mathematicians at Work (New Perspectives, available through Amazon.com), Models of Intervention in Mathematics Education: Reweaving the Tapestry (NCTM and Pearson), Young Mathematicians at Work (a series of 4 books on numeracy and algebra published by Heinemann in the U.S. and distributed in Canada by Pearson), Learning to Support Young Mathematicians at Work (Heinemann), A Parent's Guide to Math Education in Today's Schools (New Perspectives, available through Amazon.com), Reconstructing Math Education (Teachers College Press), Constructivism: Theory, Perspectives and Practice (Teachers College Press) and Enquiring Teachers, Enquiring Learners (Teachers College Press.) Cathy is also the author of the widely-recognized k-6 supplemental math series, Contexts for Learning Mathematics, including 10 illustrated children's books.
Cathy currently is the CEO and President of New Perspectives on Learning, a company devoted to the production of state of the art materials for the 21st Century. In 2015, Cathy expanded the work to incorporate the use of digital technologies for personalized professional support, and formative assessment, with the addition of two new companies: New Perspectives Assessment and New Perspectives Online.
Early in her career, Cathy was the recipient of the Young Scholar Award from the Association for Educational Communication and Technology for her writing on technology and education. The American Educational Research Association/ Special Interest Group on Constructivism, has twice awarded her their "significant contribution" award, and in 2005 she received the Teacher of the Year award from CCNY. She has been an advisor to DreamBox Learning since its inception.
Crystal Brown, a seasoned communications leader, currently serves as the vice president and chief communications officer for Howard University. She has spent the greater part of her career leading award-winning communications campaigns for some of the nation's leading education-focused corporations, non-profit organizations, and foundations. As vice president for communications at Howard, Brown oversees marketing, brand, media relations, crisis communications, and reputation management. Serving as a member of the President's Cabinet, she advises senior university leadership on a wide range of internal and external communication matters.
Prior to her current post, Brown served as chief communications officer for the University of Maryland. In this role she had responsibility for the central communications office, served as spokesperson for the university, and developed strategic communications initiatives to advance the reputation of the university locally, nationally, and internationally.
Brown has also previously held leadership positions at Widmeyer Communications and E-Luminate Group PR. During her years of service as a communications consultant she specialized in education technology and helped raise the national profile of many companies and advocacy organizations including Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Dell, LeapFrog, Blackboard, and the NEA.
Brown is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where she received a bachelor's degree in Rhetoric and Communications Skills. She currently serves as immediate past chair of the Board of Directors for the National Education Association Foundation and is a member of the Advisory Board for DreamBox Learning.
Burkhardt's expertise includes business development, organizational and leadership development, system design and change, education and workforce reform and improvement, evaluation, policy and the application of research to policy and practice.
Gina Burkhardt currently is an independent education and organization consultant. Previously she served as President and CEO of Jobs for the Future, a national not-for-profit organization with offices in Boston, MA and Oakland, CA. JFF creates solutions that catalyze change in education and workforce delivery systems to ensure that all underprepared young people and workers have the skills and credentials needed to succeed.
Prior to joining JFF, Burkhardt was the executive vice president of AIR, one of the largest behavioral and social science research organizations in the world. AIR, a not-for-profit organization, conducts and applies research in the areas of education, health, international development, and work and training to improve people's lives and well-being, with a special emphasis on the disadvantaged. As director of AIR's Education program from 2010 through 2014, Burkhardt was responsible for over 500 employees and a $100 million annual budget.
In 2004, as CEO, she led the transformation of the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory to Learning Point Associates, a highly successful nonprofit education research and consulting organization serving states, districts, foundations, corporations, and the federal government. Learning Point Associates merged with AIR in August 2010.
A lifelong educator, Burkhardt began her career as a middle school mathematics and science teacher in upstate New York. Since then, she has held positions in higher education, managed school reform projects at the regional educational laboratories, and consulted nationally and internationally on education policy and practice as well as education system design. Burkhardt completed her doctoral coursework in educational psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed coursework in the Executive Education Program at University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She has authored publications, including a book on organizational change, and has given multiple presentations on 21st century learning environments, data-driven decision making, organizational change theory, and the application of effective research and development in education. She currently holds and has held several professional appointments, including serving as a board member for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, Editorial Projects in Education, which publishes Education Week, Knowledge Alliance, and Manufacturing Renaissance.


text:
Q: Attaching directives to dynamically added elements When you add an element with a directive to the DOM using another element's ElementRef.nativeElement.innerHTML property, the directive does not fire. How do I add an element to the DOM in a way that causes the directive to fire?
Example
If in my component I do something like the following:
export class AppComponent implements OnInit {

    constructor(private _elem: ElementRef) { }

    ngOnInit() {
        this._elem.nativeElement.innerHTML = '<span myDirective>Foo</span>';
    }

}

(This is a major simplification over my actual implementation, so let's ignore that this is bad practice for a second)
Then the myDirective that appears to be attached to the <span> will never actually run.
The question is: how do I get angular to recognize the new element with the directive so that it runs?

A: On the fly compilation is removed from Angular 2+. Another Alternative loading components dynamically using Dynamic Component Loader. For this you have to change your existing implementation
https://angular.io/guide/dynamic-component-loader

A: If you are nesting components inside each other, you need to look at:

*

*Content Projection and <ng-content>

*@ContentChild

*@ContentChildren

*QueryList.
Joshua Morony also did an Ionic youtube video - covering these Angular features.


text:
The Story of a Grizzlies Fan in Vancouver
By Kevin Yeung@KevinHFY Sep 24, 2013, 8:00am CDT
Share All sharing options for: The Story of a Grizzlies Fan in Vancouver
Editor's note: give a big Grizzly Bear Blues welcome to Kevin Yeung, who's coming on board as a contributor this season. He is currently on the team at Welcome to Loud City, but... as you'll see from this excellent piece, he belongs here.
I don't know that there are a lot of Grizzlies fans in Vancouver. I'm one of them, and it's a weird experience. Seeing them make franchise history this season then get swept in embarrassing fashion by the Spurs was not an emotional ride I shared with many people from around here. But, let's start from the beginning, shall we?
Obviously, the Grizzlies broke into the NBA here in Vancouver as one of the Canadian expansion teams in 1995, alongside the Toronto Raptors. This was actually an year before I was born (I'm younger than your typical basketball blogger, probably), and well before I was interested in the actual game of basketball, which was closer to around 2006-2007.
I can't actually tell you much of anything substantial about those Grizzlies. Just how bad a team they were was entirely lost on me, and I can't say much about the way any of their players played. The closest thing to formulated thoughts that I had about those Grizzlies were that they had a) Bryant "Big Country" Reeves, b) Shareef Abdur-Rahim and c) pretty jerseys.
(Note: Those jerseys are, to date, my favorite NBA jerseys of all-time. They even top the Celtics' timeless classics, the Milwaukee Bucks' green-and-purple retros with the actual deer on them, and the multiple recolored retro jerseys that the Cavaliers wore in the 2009-10 season.)
I spent a fair amount of time sitting in front of the TV watching the teal jerseys for a five-year old.
I liked Big Country because they called him Big Country and because he was really big. I liked Shareef Abdur-Rahim because he had a funny name on the back of his jersey and because he put the ball in the basket a lot (this is as deep as my basketball analysis went back then). After those two, I don't really remember anyone from that era of the Grizzlies, even though I spent a fair amount of time sitting in front of the TV watching the teal jerseys for a five-year old. I never had any Grizzlies memorabilia, and I didn't grow up in a household that paid much attention to sports. It's probably for the best that I didn't know too much about the rest of the team back then. One realizes pretty quickly from looking at the Basketball-Reference pages that those teams were BAD.
Eventually, the Grizzlies moved to Memphis. I remembered this as kind of a sad time, although at that age sports weren't really high on my list of things to feel sad about. I adopted the next-closest team, the Seattle SuperSonics, as "my team". I wasn't particularly attached to them or any other basketball team until around the 2006-07 season, though (which, naturally, ended with the Sonics moving to Oklahoma City.).
I didn't return to the Grizzlies right away, since they weren't ever on TV.
But this was around the time that I started to care about basketball. I didn't return to the Grizzlies right away, since they weren't ever on TV. I was lured by Kevin Garnett's Celtics, LeBron James' Cavaliers, and Steve Nash's Suns at first, since those were the teams I saw on TV. Somewhere along the way, I did re-discover the Grizzlies. They had an exciting young player in Rudy Gay. I watched Rudy Gay highlights on YouTube (that new thing, YouTube!).
Flash forward to around 2009, which was when I was beginning to establish opinions on basketball. My interest in the Celtics, Cavaliers, and Suns was waning fast. The former-Sonics were suddenly good with Kevin Durant. The last team in the Pacific Northwest, the Portland Trail Blazers, were exciting with their trio of Brandon Roy, Greg Oden and LaMarcus Aldridge. The Grizzlies were still struggling and not on TV often, so my identity as a NBA fan was still developing.
A few years later, I was all-in on the Thunder and the Blazers. Also, the Grizzlies made the playoffs! I had a trio of teams that I actually cared about and was invested in (as well as the Toronto Raptors, which were and still are force-fed to us by Canadian sports networks).
Between the old habit of rooting for the Grizzlies and the new "grit-and-grind" persona they were taking on, the Grizzlies slowly established themselves as the top dog in my NBA team hierarchy. The run-ins with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the playoffs are a little awkward for me, but I'm committed to the Grizzlies all the way.
Around me, though, not many people cared for the Grizzlies. Vancouver is a hockey town, and everyone supports the Canucks. Hell, I do too. With basketball, everyone picks their own team somehow and rolls with them. I know Blazers fans, Heat fans, Bulls fans, Knicks fans, Lakers fans and Celtics fans (our NBA viewing experience is limited to nationally televised games and the Raptors). Not many people really have any emotional ties left with the Grizzlies. Few bother to even dislike Memphis for "stealing" our team (I've never been one to think of it that way). Certainly, not anyone that I know from my age group cares much about the Grizz. I can't imagine it helps that the Grizzlies were here for just six seasons and were awful in each of them.
It took a peculiar path for me to become a Grizzlies fan today, I guess. Watch and remember the shitty local team as a kid for their teal jerseys and the name/nickname of two of their players. Re-discover them ten years later as a small market team, and somehow find your way back to the fandom. Whatever–this is a team that came to Vancouver, sucked for six seasons, and then packed its bags for Memphis to be bad for another few years. It was probably going to take an unconventional path one way or another to being a Grizzlies fan in Vancouver.
I'm that rare dude that will swear by the Memphis Grizzlies. Grit and grind means something special to me. Marc Gasol is one of my favorite players in the NBA. Somehow, Quincy Pondexter is too. Mike Conley and Tony Allen are my two favorite guards to watch play defense. I have an obsession with the high-low offense that might be kind of weird, actually. The optimist in me says the Grizzlies go to the Finals this season, though the realist in me predicts a fifth-seed and a second-round exit to the Thunder (side-note: I think I'd prefer the sixth seed to the fifth seed this season).
I remember this blog used to be named "Straight Outta Vancouver". It's different now, but I'm probably one of the few that'll really value the connection to Vancouver that this team has. Navy blue isn't quite as great as teal, but if this team wins a ring, I'll be proud to represent "Memphis" in Vancouver.


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In case you are hoping to find a good job on any field, you must have the qualifications required to do the particular job. In case of a job that will require you to dispense alcohol, you need to have a certificate on responsible service of alcohol. Whether or not you are already employed you have the option to follow an online course on the subject and acquire the required qualification in case you are an Australian resident.
There are quite a few reasons for you to choose to train yourself following an rsa online course.
The certificate is valid in four states of Australia.
In addition to this when you follow your rsa online course in the right online education institution, you never need to make any payment until you complete the course successfully. With all these benefits being available it is a good idea to follow this training program to enable you to stand a good chance on finding a well paid job. In addition to that you will be working in the field you are interested in working.
What you will achieve once you follow your rsa online qld course and complete it.
The first thing is that you will become a person who is able to sell or serve alcohol responsibly irrespective of the environment where you work. You also will know a lot on alcohol consumption including the laws related to that. You will be able to assess a customer who comes to you asking for alcohol. You also will know how to turn down his request politely so as to not to upset the consumer in case you feel that he will harm himself if he drinks more. Finally, when you have finished your online rsa course you will be able to advise your customers to prevent them from getting intoxicated.
Signing up with a website in order to follow rsa online wa training course. In order to do so you only need to find a good training institution. The course will start and you could finish it in just two hours. As soon as you finish the course, you will get the certificate that is recognized in the majority of states in Australia. This is the easiest way to acquire a qualification that allows you to do a job involving dispense of alcohol in some of the states of Australia.
This course that will enable you to receive the certificate of Responsible Service of Alcohol is just the beginning. Once you have received this certificate you could find employment and enroll yourself for further training. Your next certification should be Responsible services for gambling. Once you have the certification of rsa online qld along with RSG you are well prepared for a job in the hospitality trade. Once you are armed with these two certificates sky is the limit for you when it comes to job openings for which you could apply in order to secure better employment.