text:
The Stray # 35
23rd-Mar-2009 04:43 pm
rngrdead
Title: The Stray
Pairing: S/X
Rating: NC/17
Warnings: Will appear on chapters if needed – some M/M relations
Summary: Spike survived the Black Thorn but only because one of the Senior Partners had heard Illyria refer to him as suitable for her pet and decided to amuse themselves with devastating results
Previous Parts here
Spike's joy in greeting his latest offspring was obvious even to Gracie. There was something about the dog that she just could not put a finger on, but watching him as he groomed the mother of his latest litter then made each small body welcome was quite moving.
She then watched with incredulous surprise as his two children nuzzled and then lay beside the four little bodies, lending their warmth to the newborns with no apparent objection from Chloe whilst their parents 'caught up'.
Gracie adjourned to the study of the house and went online, determined to research wolf behaviour and families, as that was all she could put the affectionate behaviour down to.
By the time Xander came home the Battle Brand had slept, but then spent several hours devising the attack plan for the following day. Without knowing Xander's teams' exact plans, but trusting the former Scoobie's instincts, Connor had developed a method of pushing the self-proclaimed the 'Master of Calgary (and surrounds)' close to the surface the following evening – with the help of the dogs of course.
Xander arrived as expected just after six in the evening with his set of parameters and timing, and there was little to discuss. The Brand was the unique product of two of the deadliest vampires in history, a childhood in Quortoth, and the guardian of the Deeper Well. The timing was locked in and nothing was left to chance, but Xander appreciated the consultation and final discussion before the late morning assault. He had told Jerry of Spike's new offspring, thereby giving him three hours of absence from the building site the following day.
As the sun set, the three dogs took their change.
Xander sat with the three and Connor and repeated the planned timing of the shift of heavy equipment the following morning.
Connor was at his best, the strategy was made clear and even Spike was impressed by the deadly precision. They would strike just after sunup as the cranes were moving overhead. The Brand would set the charge via timer already in place and drive the 'court' from the underground lair. The dogs would be ready, Spike quietly going over the plans again with his children before they had a nervous sleep prior to the attack.
Xander insisted on being involved, and after some consultation with the Brand, it was agreed. He would take point on the only exit and dust any minions who happened to escape.
On the day it was almost too easy.
Andrew, in his self centred 'magnificence', was mid speech regards their taking over control, relinquishing their Wolfram and Hart ties and extending the court to the whole of Canada 'and surrounds'. As soon as the blast and confusion of the dust in the lair, however, he was more than willing to screech "Head for the tunnels", relinquishing his minions in favour of self preservation as the blast threw a hole in their underground haven.
At the last minute the 'Master of Calgary and Surrounds' took off at a sprint and met his ignominious end as he faced Spike, in dog form, at the end of the tunnel. The dog tore out his throat and literally removed his head resulting in a rain of dust.
In retrospect, Spike was unimpressed by the demise of Andrew but extremely proud that his daughter and son had despatched three minions each. Connor was deadly and efficient, seven falling to him with an ease that spelt of a great deal of experience. Xander took three attempting to escape the final shake down while Spike dusted four more after Andrew. It was a dusty end by all accounts, but one that had the dogs panting and very pleased with themselves.
Connor was still brushing himself down as they all rejoined Xander outside. "I believe there may be five or so that have hidden in the tunnels. Allow Spike and myself a half hour or so. It is best we clear the entire court."
Xander nodded and led Poppie and Luka back to the car while Connor and Spike moved silently back into the tunnels.
For an adrenalin pumped Spike, the thrill of the hunt was familiar, even if he was in dog form. His sensitive nose quickly located three of the minions, a rather pathetic gathering at the back of the rubble from the blast. It was ridiculously easy to dust them. The final two had found their way into the main sewer but were found with relative ease by Connor, and despite a show of aggression, went the way of their 'leader'- dust.
The homecoming was as triumphant as it was worrying. Connor would return to his duties as Brand within two days but still had a serious conversation to have with not only Poppie to whom he was drawn, but also to her father Spike, his brother of sorts, and her owner, Xander. Yet the one thing he had learned in his time in the Well was patience and timing.
Xander returned to work at midday, effectively covering his clandestine movements with brief news (and true) of Chloe's latest litter. One of the crane drivers asked for Gracie's contact regards purchasing a pup of Spike's line and all continued as normal. But at Xander's home it could not have been farther from the truth.
Gracie came to give the dogs a run and welcomed Connor along as passenger, but there was a certain tension that even the gentle musher felt but could not quite put a finger on.
The run was a welcome distraction after the excitement of the morning, Gracie impressed by Connor's quiet adoration of Chloe's pups upon their return, and Chloe unusually calm as he picked up the youngest female and sitting beside the normally nervous mother, cradled her in his arms flanked by Poppie and further back, Luka.
Gracie busied herself obtaining iced tea then sat in the enclosure while Chloe communed with her daughter and son and fed all but one of the new ones.
Gracie could not hold her tongue as she handed him the cool drink, "I've never seen her react like that to a stranger, do you have dogs at home?"
Connor kept his voice low as he nodded to the kind musher, "No, but I know what it means to have family lost and found."
Gracie didn't want to press the point, but wondered what such a handsome young man had gone through to make such a comment. "So you are William's…"
"William and I have the same Sire but he died some years ago. My mother died having me. I was adopted out after a fashion, but we found each other eventually, pity it was a little too late. I'm glad to have reconnected with William regardless of circumstance, and of course Xander and family."
The use of the word 'sire' was an odd one, but Gracie assumed it was much to do with the presence of the dogs and the siring of Chloe's new litter.
"I can't imagine what that would be like… Well I'm glad you're here now – even for a short time… Oh and look she's licking your hand!" Indeed the tiny pup had picked up on Connor's mild distress at divulging some of his past and chose that moment to instinctively begin laving his hand and chewing on his forefinger with sharp little teeth.
Connor smiled, caressed the baby soft fur once more and returned her to her mother to suckle.
Gracie grinned, "Xander would love that little one, she's smart and feisty – just the type of dog he seems to prefer. Do you know if he's planning on taking one of this current litter?"
The Brand was compelled to speak the truth, "Indeed it is my understanding – and she seems a fine choice."
Gracie was reassured and again at ease with her enigmatic friend, encouraged by the obvious adoration of Poppie from Chloe's first litter as the dog lay at his feet and looked up with expectation and hope. Gracie shook herself from her reverie as a familiar beep from Xander's RV announced his arrival to pick up the dogs.
They discussed his acquiring of yet another of Chloe's pups before a brief farewell and promise to 'run' again on the morrow.
Spike, Poppie and Luka settled on the back seat while Xander conveyed the 'fallout' from their early morning adventures.
"I spoke to Willow. Seems we've done what's needed and Spike's identity is still covered as far as Wolfram and Hart are concerned – though we do still need to talk to Willow again this evening."
"The only risk would have been my involvement, though I believe that W&H would have been more concerned regards Andrew's self promotion and pomposity. His last few blatant statements of 'supremacy', rising beyond the need for alliances and the like would not have gone unnoticed. With Mr Giles in my place there is still a protective magical presence in the Deeper Well. I suspect the Wolf, Ram and Hart may even have missed the switch."
Xander took his eyes from the road for a moment, "They would know otherwise?"
"One of their own will no doubt have reported the event but I doubt there was any accurate details conveyed. The whole scheme to eliminate you may have been known but it was Andrew's idea not theirs. The Wolf, the Ram and the Hart are as much about balance as the Powers. There will always be enough earthly mahem and corruption to satisfy their tastes on our insignificant planet. "
Xander slowed the car and parked at the side of the next street from their house, "Do we need to… I don't know, cover up anything?"
"All W&H will know is that an unfortunate earth movement caused the demise of their rather troublesome 'plant' of a Master vampire and his court. It will be but a trifle in the larger picture of their plans and may indeed serve their purposes. An upstart like that can draw undue attention to their activities and is best despatched. You will have no further trouble – at least for a while. There is no Hell Mouth here – it is those they would most rather utilise if possible. I believe the new one in Kabul is the latest to arise,"
Xander thought on the information for a moment, then reengaged the engine and drove home at speed.
It was late afternoon. Xander unloaded the dogs, unlocked the front then back doors and led Connor into the kitchen for a well earned cup of home brewed beer (courtesy of Tim at work).
Xander made his way around the house feeding the dogs and opening windows to let the late afternoon breeze through while Connor turned his glass and sipped occasionally.
Eventually the two men faced each other just as sundown approached.
Xander felt like the older brother (and potential father in law), regardless that he had no idea how old Connor really was. It was Xander's turn to stare into the glass of amber fluid, "I… I'm not really sure how to start this conversation…"
Connor looked equally uncomfortable but managed, "Neither do I… but it must be had. I've never felt this for another being before… And as you probably know, my first encounter with love of sorts was an unmittigated disaster driven by a being with the Earth in her sights and causing the death of your first girlfriend - Cordelia Chase."
Xander processed the information slowly. He knew Cordelia had died after a long coma courtesy of a conversation with Spike and some sketchy details from Willow, but had no idea of the full circumstances of her coming to that end. Connor noted the confusion and sadness.
"She was a hero to the end Xander. I too loved her."
Xander saw the raw hurt in the eyes of a man younger than he and remembered all the others he had lost Jesse, Anya, countless High School friends, young Slayers, his parents, even Spike. The hurt never really went away, though it mellowed with time.
And for the first time since they met Xander saw the young wounded, vulnerable boy of Angel and Darla's making. A boy thrust into horrendous experiences and multiple worlds he had no control over, much less understood. Yet here was an individual who had stepped up to the plate again and again regardless – much as Xander had – and now was condemned, or blessed with the task he seemed so well suited… The Guardian of the Deeper Well. Yet there was still more. Xander knew loneliness, he knew abandonment and being 'screwed over' by whatever deity or life could fling at him; he knew loves and losses; the presence of the 'other' in one's life and warmed even more to the individual in front of him.
"What is it you really want to ask?"
"I... I would ask that you allow me to court Poppie, to take her as my consort. She would be timeless as such but also able to bear children which I know she would like. Sadly it cannot be in her current state. If we partner for all time then she will take on her human form, no longer able to change of a day time."
Xander pondered the point as he refilled the kettle, aware that Spike had padded into the house in anticipation of the change at sundown.
Connor turned the near empty cup in his hand slowly, eyes down. "I believe she has feelings for me too."
A baritone voice from the door of the kitchen interjected. Spike was standing shirtless, hands in pockets, "Is she the one d'ya reckon?"
Connor turned to the voice and simply answered, "Truth is all I can speak, but for you it's in the blood." And bared his neck.
Spike's face changed and with vampiric speed and accuracy he took of his relative's willingly offered blood.
Connor groaned a little as but two long drafts were followed by gentle laving and a kiss to the forehead. "Rest is up to her mate, and Xan o' course. But you have my blessing, and I am sure were your father here he too would rejoice." A wrist was opened and taken by the Brand.
A quiet "Thank you" from Connor was all that was heard for many minutes as Xander processed what had just taken place. Apparently the courting rituals of humans did not necessarily apply when it came to vampires, though the words may have been similar.
Xander finally cleared his throat, "Don't you think the decision should ultimately be Poppie's."
The changed Poppie arrived at the door just as the conversation finished, hair pulled back, feet bare, tight sweater and low slung jeans in place. She gave a rather embarrassed smile to the three men obviously discussing her future before requesting a private audience with Connor.
Connor obliged with a fleeting look to the father, Spike, and the 'Master', Xander, that drove his sincerity home.
Spike was the one to smile at her, look from Xander to Connor then answer, "The moon is out sweetheart, you might like to sit outside for a bit. Need to check on your little brother then Master and I have some unfinished business with Mistress Willow to attend to."
Xander shot a quizzical look to Spike but took the hint, "Yes, yes of course. Connor, I presume you don't mind."
Connor was already on his feet by the time the sentence was out and offered his hand to Poppie as he moved and politely, if a little shyly led her outside to sit on the back porch.
Spike meanwhile stood and silently indicated to Xander that he did indeed intend to contact Willow. As soon as they were logged on and the Skype call began to ping Mistress Willow, Xander could no longer contain his silence. "You are serious about the Willow thing?"
"Need to give the kids some time. But also need to ask the witch if it's all seeing's as there's never really been a 'wife and mother' in the Well. Implications and the like. She's ours and not to be hurt, sure to agree?"
Xander's "Oh... um... right" said it all.
Connor pulled Poppie down to sitting on the edge of the decking. The moon was indeed at her full glory, casting long eerie shadows over the back yard. After a long, almost awkward silence, Connor cleared his throat. Still holding her hand he turned his pale blue eyes to capture her gaze. "I guess you know what I want to ask?"
Poppie had been fiddling with the hem of her shirt with her free hand but stilled and answered an almost inaudible, "I was... I was... um... Just that... I thought we had a kind of connection and I know you are going home in less than two days and I wanted to know... because I..." In an embarrassed move, that of a star struck teenager rather than the glorious twenty something, she pulled her hand from his and pulled her knees to her chest, barely managing to perch on the edge of the deck via her human heels.
"I... I *really* more than like you... and I've never really felt like this before and... I wish... Could you, I mean...?"
Connor finished her sentence, "Love you? I am compelled to say the truth. And yes in truth I too feel the same, though you must realize the implications. But what is it you most want to ask?"
Poppie looked down at her hands for a moment, and belatedly Connor realized that there were tears dropping. "I... I want to have a litter... um... sorry... children... I know that sounds silly but... as it is I can't, and I don't want you to think that I am just..." She paused for a moment and regained composure, "I don't want you to think that my want for pups in any way is my only attraction to you... because I am... that is..."
Connor silenced her with a gentle kiss and caress through her long locks before resting his forehead against hers and quietly admitting his own attraction, "I too feel it and you can have children with me, though they will be of the human variety. For you it will mean a permanent change and far longer pregnancy, I'm sorry but that will be your fate. If you are with me you will no longer have your canine time. You need to decide if human and me are what you want." It was Connor's turn to look vulnerable as he quietly stroked the long hair of his (hopefully) life partner before whispering, "Do you need time to think about it?"
When no answer was forthcoming, Connor shifted a little and made to stand but was staid by a quiet hand and a single word, "No."
Connor lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it with sincerity and the aim of reassuring the girl, but kept his silence to give her the chance to speak further.
"Papa has explained to us who you are and what you must do... and Mistress Willow says that she will educate me... and any children at the coven, but is this... me... family... what you want?"
Connor kissed the hand again and replied with a simple, "Yes."
They sat in silence again for some time before a rather timid question from Poppie, "Is it cold in the Well? Because my feet get cold without fur and..."
Connor moved to lift her chin so their eyes met before replying, "It is always the same temperature in the Well, but if you are cold I will put thick skins around you and help you through." As though to illustrate a point Connor shook off his leather jerkin, removed his shirt and wrapped it around Poppie's chilled feet.
As he sat up again she gently and with some wonder, touched his unmarked, muscular chest. "Thank you... I..." Before she finished the thought her mouth was claimed by the softest of kisses that soon became more. Poppie had imagined what it was like to feel aroused before but nothing prepared her for the flush of heat that seemed to take her with that kiss. Her nether regions pulsed and felt full and wet, her heart began to race and she suddenly understood the human female feeling of arousal.
Connor pulled her closer, wrapped one arm around her waist and caressed her hair with the other deepening the kiss. Poppie reciprocated then pulled back a little embarrassed.
"I... Do you want this? I mean is it OK?"
"You are the an exquisite beauty Poppie, and yes this is OK, and yes I want... you... for all time. And you know I must speak the truth."
"Yes... Papa explained that part." Poppie looked directly into Connor's eyes with her next statement, "I want a litter... um... children. I think I need that... and I well... are you OK if we could have... you know...?"
"It is also what I would wish... with you. And yes we can have children but are you ready to become only human form, no longer able to change?"
Poppie fell silent thinking long and hard. Relinquishing her dog form was almost like denying her birthright, her family, her identity... but at the same time she was already not all dog and it would allow her family and she would always have Master and Papa and Mama and... though so far away. She finally settled on "May I visit... you know from time to time?"
Connor's compulsion answer the truth to a question dictated, "Of course, though it may only be occasionally as you will be the Mistress of the Well and so not completely human but nevertheless bound by its rules."
Though still in a gentle embrace Poppie considered her options while staring at the full moon and odd shadows it made in the garden. Dog by day, human by night... or something else that allowed a human form, children and a partner who was (well it seemed) kind, compassionate and very loving toward her. And a relative of Papa and Master's! It was all too confusing.
"You need time, I realize that but... I have only ever felt such attraction to another once before. You are the one Poppie but if it is all too much I won't press the matter and we can remain friends for all time." Connor eased them down until they were lying on the porch and let his hand drift to her inner thigh a little and simply rub the jeans gently as they kissed again. He knew her arousal, could smell it but knew better than to take it too far without her approval and more particularly their full commitment to each other. Accutely aware also that she was a virgin and a changeling and coupling would change her status forever and she needed to understand that.
The caressing and kissing lasted many long minutes until Poppie broke the silence, "What of Luka?"
"It is his destiny to follow your father. He will be turned in due course and at his own request. He will remain a changeling, but also be able to sire children should he wish, just as your father has."
Poppie simply answered, "Oh..." but felt no real jealousy. Luka would have pups and a vampire's life by night. It would be enough. She only hoped he found a loving partner as she had.
Connor was a little surprised as Poppie appeared to shift gears, sat up, pulling him up in the process and announced, "Then I say yes, let this be done and I will remain you mistress/consort/whatever until the end of our days. Call Mistress Willow and make the arrangements - I can hardly spend six months in UK quarantine as part dog part human!"
The two eventually returned to the loungeroom hand in hand. Luka was asleep on the couch. Poppie could have sworn she could see his lanky teenager boy's body emerging by the day, but he had such a blissful look on his face in slumber and she noted that father was stroking his pretty dark blonde locks rhythmically just as he did a semi awake Xander.
Father smiled to her and whispered, "All well pet?"
"Yes father... but can we wait until morning for the [yawn] debrief?"
"Of course luv. You need a sleepy time top up?" Spike waved his wrist and noted the rather shy shake of the head as Connor left her at her bedroom door. "No I'll be fine."
Then all went quiet in the house, evening only punctuated by Spike carrying an exhausted Xander to their regular bedroom after covering Luka with a soft throw rug.
The new day brought the change and much to be done, not least of which was a visit to Chloe and the new pups. They were all nuzzled in turn and Xander, having taken a few hours off work explained the dilemma. Gracie was amazed that he would 'give away' Poppie, but had seen the kind relative and knew he was one to deal with older dogs. She gave Connor the full low down on Poppie's history, temperament and anything else she could think of. Also stressing that Poppie was the perfect age to breed should he be so inclined, though her register of European breeders seemed a little 'thin'.
Connor put her at ease with a blindingly handsome smile and admission that 'what would be will be."
For his part Xander again chose a little girl to not so much fill Poppie's place but to honour her, it was the same little feisty pup that had snuggled with Connor the previous day. Maisie had light markings and piercing blue eyes along with expressions that could already be seen to mean mischief and/or undying love. The smallest of Chloe's latest litter, she was an obvious choice. Still three weeks out to her final vaccinations, the little one would remain with mother for some time yet, but Xander, Spike and Connor felt her strength even now. Spike resolved to speak to Black Feather as soon as the little girl was 'home'. With the threat of the Calgary 'and surrounds' Master now abated it was just possible she would not have to undergo the changes of her father or brother and sister... It was a worry for another day.
Connor's needs - and Poppie's for that matter - were swiftly dealt with. There was trepidation on the part of the father and master, but the bond was already obvious to any with the ability to detect a magical signature. A formal ceremony was communed for the following evening, the tickets passports etc to Europe hurriedly finalized (courtesy of some of Willow's 'contacts') and Mistress Blackfeather contacted - thrilled to preside over the proceedings.
For the unusual and sudden marriage ceremony of the two, Xander had dug deep... As Poppie spent her last day in dog form running with Gracie's team, two matching rings were purchased by Xander with Spike's approval from the most exclusive jewelers in Calgary. They were perfectly shaped (brilliant cut) sapphires with tiny diamonds trailing along the band in either direction, a small one for Poppie and larger fit for Connor.
Spike spent the day with his daughter, aware that her decision was final and that this would be the last time she would experience her birth form. He worried for her, nuzzled and licked her throughout the day in a way that had Gracie a little puzzled. She had been invited to the partnering ceremony of William's niece and Connor and had also been told that Poppie (the neice's namesake - and how ironic was that!) would be departing for England with Connor.
Just after sundown Mistress Blackfeather presided as Spike led his daughter clad only in an long white shirt (one of Xander's) into the humble lounge room of Xander's Calgary home. Connor was similarly clad and waiting already kneeling with Xander in the pentagram of magical dust. As soon as the two joined their respective partners holding hands tight, the Mistress began to chant in the 'old' language. Poppie would now, like her partner, be in human form and 'timeless' until the demise of the Brand. Mistress Blackfeather walked widdershins around the four kneeling as she chanted and was pleased to see the pentagram glow then apparently disappear in a shower of bright sparkles, much to Luka's apparent delight.
The more casual yet hurried 'human' arrangements had meant that only immediate family and friends were present for a more standard civil ceremony. Guests included Jerry, Connie and the boys, David and Chris, and of course the lovely Gracie, Richard and Mike and Greta Woolnough (Gracie's parents), flanked by Chloe and small puppies (at Poppie's request) and added to as Willow and the coven on the other side of the world watched them via video conference.
Fairly standard nuptuals and exchanging of rings were delivered with such adoration that even Jerry had a tear in his eye. The two were so obviously in love that all present sent wishes to which ever deity it was that they worshiped that the two might be blessed with long life and happiness. If only they knew the origins of the two, it would have been wished tenfold.
Connor lifted the veil of his beautiful wife, the same veil that had married Jerry's wife and her mother before her. It had been a loaned gift unbidden and one that had Xander hug the lovely Carrie shortly before proceedings. This was a 'pay it on' moment. Xander's neice had found her match as had he all those years ago... as had her mother before her and his father for that matter... it was only fair.
The kiss following the declaration of 'man and wife' was long and true, the promise eternal... noone in the room other than immediate family knew how final this decision was.
Xander invited all present outside into the moonlit garden - all taking a drink of choice from the table as they alighted the patio but Connor could not help himself. He picked up his beautiful new wife and carried her from the lounge, down the steps of the deck and into the garden and proceded to kiss her with all present as witness then turned slowly and with tears tracking down simply stated, "This is the love of my life. I can ask for no more but that we might one day be blessed with children... Poppie... completes me. And to my darling... I am yours always and in all ways. If I disappoint or distress you then all here present shall protect and guide you. Our children will be beautiful just as those around you bless the world with their presence... I... Oh... I'm sorry... Xander?"
It was intepreted as a call for the father of the bride, or the uncle. Xander stepped up and pulled Spike with him. "We, William and I, could not be prouder on this day. Yours and our beautiful Poppie are now all time partners in William's family and by association, mine. And thank you *all* for celebrating this momentous event with us and let us all toast the happy couple."
A hearty "To the happy couple" was followed by much celebration, though 'William' was careful to sort some sleeping arrangements for Chloe and the pups before the night wore too thin. Gracie again touched by his concern, her frown not leaving before she had to ask... "So you..."
"Love huskies... yeah... Truth be known one in another life." His wicked blue eyed wink left her utterly enamoured but also wondering. William was something out of the ordinary... but then again so was Alexander... and what was she really thinking. Any pup that found their way to this household was indeed a lucky one. And who was she to question... she had only just found love and... and... and... She rejoined the revellers happy in the knowledge that her dear Chloe and pups were resting happily in the laundry on a plushy mat.
Carrie had cornered Poppie as Connor was drawn into a conversation with Mike, Xander and Gracie's beau Richard.
"So you are heading home again so soon... What a shame - we've hardly gotten to know you!"
Poppie still had three years plus of memories of 'knowing' Jerry and his family, but could hardly admit that so took strength from the smile across the way from her father and simply stated, "Yes, the decision does seem quite sudden, but I'm sure we will be back sometime. We have family here. It only seems natural that we would want to return. And aren't your boys a delight! Connor and I both want to start a family, but my uncle is a bit of a stickler for the old rules... you know..." It was a statement she was glad father had insist she rehearse as it seemed to placate any doubt and prevent further questions. As an after thought she took the veil from her hair and folded it ever so gently adding, "I do so appreciate the loan of your veil. I am sure it has good tidings attached to it. Thank you."
Carrie was about to refuse as Poppie handed it to her but the "I think your boys will have someone in their future who needs it too" had the kind woman shedding a tear and touched by the girl's genuine thanks.
At the end of a very long night, pups, dogs, wives, children and partners were all ushered out and finally on their way home, and Poppie and Connor were sitting rather exhausted on the lounge hand in hand. And for the first time since all the festivities, Poppie was able to talk to her partner and her father in private as Spike squatted in front of his beautiful daughter.
8 bites
23rd-Mar-2009 09:30 am (UTC)
I am so pleased to see another chapter of this beautiful story, so wonderfully written and with such depth of feeling. Dear Josie has had a tough time and it's wonderful to see her posting her amazing stories again. *Hugs*
24th-Mar-2009 10:33 pm (UTC)
Thanks so much for commenting - and for continuing to read.
23rd-Mar-2009 06:30 pm (UTC)
Nice to see this story again. I'm so happy for Poppie and Connor, but a little worried now that Spike will be sad that his baby has gone away....
knitty_woman
Will be interesting to see the father of the bride's response.
Is this the end of the story? So happy for Connor and Poppie!
melanie2525
Story is close to the end but not quite yet - few loose ends.
24th-Mar-2009 02:14 am (UTC)
Good riddance to Andrew and his court!
Loved both ceremonies for Poppie and Connor. Sounds like they'll make a great couple!
missus_grace
Yeah Andrew was a little too cocky this time ;-)
Glad Connor and Poppie work for you.


text:
Q: Series Solution of Nonlinear ODE I am trying to solve for the series solution of the following nonlinear ODE: $$y'+y^2=0$$ I am stuck in the following step: $$\sum_{n=1}^\infty a_nnx^{n-1}+\sum_{n=0}^\infty \left ( \sum_{k=0}^n a_ka_{n-k} \right )x^n=0$$ Is it possible to solve the DE this way?

A: Shift the index for the term on the left, so it's $\sum_{n=0}^\infty (n+1) a_{n+1} x^n$.
The recursion $(n+1) a_{n+1} + \sum_{k=0}^n a_k a_{n-k} = 0$ doesn't look promising, but if you look at the first few terms you'll see a pattern.

A: Why insisting on a series solution. Just rewrite the equation
$$\frac{y'}{y^2}+1=-\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)'+1=0$$
an integral of which is of the form $y(x)=\frac{1}{x+C}$ where $C$ is a constant and then if you need a series just develop as
$$\frac{1}{C}\frac{1}{1+\frac{x}{C}}=\frac{1}{C}\sum_{k=0}^\infty(-1)^k(\frac{x}{C})^k$$

A: It might be more efficient to attack the problem with force if the general pattern is not readily seen.
Let
\begin{align}
y(x) = \sum_{n=0}^{\infty} a_{n} \, x^{n}
\end{align}
for which the equation $y' + y^{2} = 0$ leads to
\begin{align}
a_{1} + 2 a_{2} x + 3 a_{3} x^{2} + \cdots &= - (a_{0} + a_{1} x + a_{2} x^{2} + \cdots )^{2} \\
&= - [ a_{0}^{2} + (a_{0}a_{1} + a_{1} a_{0}) x + \cdots ].
\end{align}
Equating the coefficients leads to
\begin{align}
a_{1} &= - a_{0}^{2} \\
2 a_{2} &= - (a_{0}a_{1} + a_{1} a_{0})
\end{align}
and so on. What is then determined is the general form of the coefficients being
\begin{align}
(n+1) \, a_{n} = - \sum_{k=0}^{n} a_{k} \, a_{n-k}
\end{align}

A: From
$$ \frac{y'}{y^2} = -1 $$
it follows that:
$$ \frac{1}{y(x)} = x+C $$
so:
$$y(x) = \frac{1}{C+x} = \frac{1}{C}-\frac{x}{C^2}+\frac{x^2}{C^3}-\ldots $$
for any $x$ such that $|x|<\frac{1}{|y(0)|}$.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


June 21, 2018. In this op-ed, the author discusses the win-win for businesses and refugees when they are incorporated and supported in the workforce. The article discusses the return on investment that companies get from hiring refugees such as higher retention rates, expansion of their customer base, improvements to product development and the creation of new opportunities for business partnerships. The author acknowledges that refugees experience challenges to workforce integration such as obtaining a bank account and work permits and translating their work experience but employers can help with these challenges.
Refugees have already contributed $63 billion worth of positive financial gain to the U.S. economy. Research from the Fiscal Policy Institute suggests that turnover rates for refugee hires in the US are lower than for other hires, and there is emerging research that managers who hire refugees improve their talent acquisition and management practices. Across the Atlantic, a survey by Boston Consulting Group of three hundred German firms showed that initial investments in language acquisition, training and recruitment were typically paid off within the first year of employment.
As long as the U.S. lags behind its commitment to admit refugees, we not only risk missing opportunities to alleviate the refugee crisis, but also the opportunity to strengthen businesses.
Here is the link to Business Insider.


text:
Despite tough times, bespoke suits make the cut
Rodolfo Marone has been tailoring for more than 40 years at G. Tonino.
Deirdre Kelly
Published November 13, 2009 Updated November 13, 2009
This article was published more than 10 years ago. Some information in it may no longer be current.
Christopher Hickman flew into Toronto from St. John's one recent morning expressly to buy a suit. But not just any suit: His goal was a custom-measured, hand-sewn suit with his initials discreetly embroidered on the back of the jacket collar.
"I normally get all of my suits tailor-made," says the CEO of the Marco Group, a Newfoundland-based construction firm. "I like being catered to on a very personal level."
He isn't alone. Even though times remain tough for many and self-indulgence is still a dirty word in the business world, the recession has been an unlikely catalyst for jump-starting bespoke suit-making, according to analysts and those who practise the trade.
"When the economy gets tight, competition gets tougher for new jobs and for keeping current jobs, so levels of office dress rise across the board," says Mark O'Connell, a former men's-wear designer who is now a professor of fashion at Toronto's Seneca College.
"Having suits custom-made sends a message about confidence and success that is invaluable during uncertain economic periods."
At the same time, the old-school practice is getting a boost among younger men through a range of pop-cultural influences, from the elegant suits worn on Mad Men to the growing style cred of iconic basketball players such as LeBron James, who, because of his size, wears custom-made suits out of necessity.
"I'm getting more young men in for made-to-measure suits," says Rodolfo Marone, a custom tailor who makes bespoke suits costing $1,000 and up at G. Tonino Tailleurs, a Montreal atelier.
Steve Pelman, a second-generation designer/tailor who makes $1,500 bespoke suits at Samson Custom Tailors in Vancouver, reports similar traffic: "Last month was the busiest of my career in terms of bespoke sales, and 50 per cent of them were new customers."
According to Pelman, many of the young males who frequent his business are remarkably well versed in the specifics of tailoring. Armed with knowledge they've gleaned from the Internet, they can debate the merits of a surgeon's cuff or a side vent, double breasted versus single.
And they appreciate the connection to a traditional art that provides them with a unique end product. "They are coming to me after going to the stores to buy off the rack and finding out the suits don't fit and cost too much," says Lou Myles, a veteran Toronto-area tailor who has made bespoke suits, averaging around $1,800, for clients including Pierre Trudeau, Tony Bennett and members of Guns N' Roses.
A dissatisfaction with store-issue suits is what motivates bespoke fan Hickman to regularly travel the 2,000 kilometres from Newfoundland to visit Nello Sansone, head of the made-to-measure division at Harry Rosen on Toronto's Bloor Street West.
"I think it's my third visit here now. For me, the whole experience of being fitted is as pleasurable as the fit itself."
In Sansone's studio at Harry Rosen, framed portraits of star customers such as Dustin Hoffman and the late jazz legend Oscar Peterson line the walls, giving it a touch of discreet celebrity glamour.
The courtly Italian-born tailor also serves up cups of espresso and cappuccino to his clients, adding a dose of Old World charm to the process of being fitted.
"I was seven years old when I first picked up a needle after school, to keep me out of trouble," Sansone says.
A decade and a half ago, his employer revived the bespoke segment of the business at a time when its viability was less than certain largely to keep him around. "He's a rare talent," Harry Rosen says. "And I didn't want to lose him."
Although he's over 70 now, he is a long way from retiring, Sansone says, adding that his division has never been busier. In a building next door to the Bloor Street store, nine men and three women - one hired specifically to make only hand-stitched button holes - work full-time to produce one-of-a-kind garments for customers from across Canada and as far away as England. The price for a made-to-measure suit averages $3,750.
When the older generation of craftspeople do retire, the survival of the bespoke trade will depend on young men such as Matt Myles Masciangelo, an apprentice designer/tailor whose enthusiasm for creating made-to-measure suits is as keen as that of the young men buying them.
"With bespoke, you're saying you're unique," says the 27-year-old, who trains with Lou Myles, his uncle.
"Instead of having to buy stock that is already made up, you have the option of choosing something a little bit different. It's cool to be the only one at the office with that specific type of cloth instead of the 50th person dressed all the same."
Follow Deirdre Kelly on Twitter @Deirdre_Kelly
Switch gears. Give your brain a workout and do today's Daily Cryptic Crossword.
Scoop a new vibe in the numbers and do today's Daily Sudoku.
Kick back with the Daily Universal Crossword.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Home » Uncategorized » World of Final Fantasy Demo Arriving on October 17th (FF News 10/7/16 to 10/14/16)
World of Final Fantasy Demo Arriving on October 17th (FF News 10/7/16 to 10/14/16)
Seems like the upcoming Square Enix RPG, World of Final fantasy for PlayStation 4 and PS Vita will be releasing a demo next week.
It was previously reported that Japan would be receiving a demo but Square Enix has now confirmed that the demo will be arriving in North America and Europe now.
The demo will allow you to play as the main characters, experience some battles and meet iconic Final Fantasy characters like Cloud, Squall and Lightning.
By finishing the demo you will be able to battle and capture "Magitek Armor P" enemy at the coliseum in the full version of the game when it releases on October 25th (NA) and October 28th (EU).
Source: http://www.siliconera.com/2016/10/12/world-final-fantasy-gets-opening-movie-demo-arriving-october-17/
October 14, 2016 Shinryu Uncategorized No Comment	News
Genji Armor in Final Fantasy


I'm interested in marking hypoxic areas in murine tissue and tumor samples for use in either IHC or fluorescence microscopy. I've read about methods using pimonidazole adducts. However, my PI is more interested in antibodies that track hsp's. Since there are a myriad of hsp's, I'm not really sure where to begin. Does anyone have any advice?
HIF-1 alpha (Hypoxia Induced Factor) is a good marker for Hypoxic tumors. Additional along the hypoxia pathway, there are some other markers such as CA-IX and Heme-Oxygenase-1 (HO-1).
There are many more hypoxia markers you can choose from depending on your specific research interest.


text:
This Is Not A Safe Place
Go to artist profile
Get album
Do you know any background info about this album? Start the wiki
jangle pop
You Made Me Realise
The Death of Cool
Altered Perception
The Telescopes
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
Everything's Alright Forever
National Coma
Drop Nineteens
In the Presence of Nothing
Sunday 19 July 2020 156
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Artist images
Ride is a shoegaze / alternative rock band that formed in 1988 in Oxford, England, consisting of Andy Bell, Mark Gardener, Laurence Colbert, and Steve Queralt. The band were initially part of the shoegaze scene that emerged in England during the early 1990s. Their debut album Nowhere (1990) has been named one of the greatest albums of the genre. Ride has released five albums: "Nowhere" (1990), "Going Blank Again" (1992), "Carnival of Light" (1994), "Tarantula" (1996), and "Weather Diaries" (2017). Following the break-up of the band i… read more
Ride is a shoegaze / alternative rock band that formed in 1988 in Oxford, England, consisting of Andy Bell, Mark Gardener, Laurence Colbert, and Steve Queralt. The band were initially part … read more
Ride is a shoegaze / alternative rock band that formed in 1988 in Oxford, England, consisting of Andy Bell, Mark Gardener, Laurence Colbert, and Steve Queralt. The band were initially part of the shoegaze scene that emerged in England … read more
Pale Saints


text:
Generally sunny despite a few afternoon clouds. High 107F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph..
A few clouds. Low 82F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.
AP/J. Scott Applewhite
Un miembro del Congreso sostiene la Constitución en el Capitolio en Washington. La Decimocuarta Enmienda otorga la ciudadanía a cualquier niño nacido en Estados Unidos sin importar el estatus inmigratorio de sus padres.
National Opinion: 'Declaration' key to understanding 'Constitution'
By George Will The Washington Post
On this 243rd anniversary of the beginning of the best thing that ever happened — "The Great Republic" was Winston Churchill's tribute — many of today's most interesting arguments about America's nature and meaning are among conservatives. One concerns the relevance of the Declaration of Independence to the contested question of how to construe the Constitution.
The crucial question is: What did the Founders intend — what was their foundational purpose? Mark Pulliam, who might disagree that this is the crucial question, certainly thinks the Declaration is not pertinent to construing the Constitution.
Pulliam, a lawyer and contributing editor of the excellent Law & Liberty blog, notes portentously that the Declaration is not mentioned in the Constitution. This, however, is as obvious as it is obviously irrelevant. Neither is democracy "mentioned," and the Declaration is hardly mentioned in the Federalist Papers. However, the Declaration expressed, as Jefferson insisted, the broadly shared "common sense of the subject."
Rather than belabor the Declaration's (to them, unremarkable) assertions, the Constitution's Framers set about creating institutional architecture that would achieve their intention: to establish governance that accords with the common sense of their time, which was that government is properly instituted to "secure" the preexisting natural rights referenced in the Declaration.
What is obvious is this: The Declaration's role is the locus classicus concerning the Framers' intention, which is surely the master key to properly construing what they wrought.
The late Judith Shklar (1928-1992), a Harvard political philosopher, correctly noted the "momentous novelty" of the Constitution's first three words, "We the people." They announced a "declaration of independence from the entire European past," a root-and-branch rejection of all prior attempts to ground the legitimacy of government in anything other than the consent of the governed. The Constitution was, however, written by men of the Enlightenment who were not confident that the rationality they practiced and espoused could be counted on to constantly characterize the republic for which they wrote.
The Declaration did not mention majority rule, which the Founders embraced because they considered it, when public opinion is properly refined and filtered, the best — although hardly a certain — mechanism for protecting the natural rights affirmed in the Declaration. Those rights, not a procedure (majority rule), was their foundational concern. The architecture was designed to "secure" — the crucial verb in the Declaration's second paragraph — the natural rights the Declaration affirms.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s genius — he was, in a sense, the final Founder — was in understanding what the University of Pennsylvania's Rogers M. Smith terms the "Declaration of Independence-centered view of American governance and peoplehood." Over the years, this stance of "Declarationists" explicitly opposed Jacksonian democracy's majoritarian celebration of a plebiscitary presidency, and the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act's premise that majorities ("popular sovereignty") could and should — wrong on both counts — settle the question of whether slavery should expand into the territories.
Timothy Sandefur, author of "The Conscience of the Constitution," rightly sees the Declaration as the conscience because it affirms "the classical liberal project of the Enlightenment and the pervasiveness of such concepts as natural rights."
Furthermore, Sandefur says, this explains the Constitution's use of the word "liberty," which "does not refer to some definitive list of rights, but refers to an indefinite range of freely chosen action." Which means that the Constitution should be construed in the bright light cast by the Declaration's statement of the Founding generation's general intention to privilege liberty.
Pulliam dismisses as "inapt Biblical imagery" Lincoln's elegant formulation that the Constitution is the frame of silver for the apple of gold, which is the Declaration. Lincoln's mission was to reconnect the nation with its Founding. The frame, Lincoln said, is to "adorn" and "preserve" the apple. Frames are important and silver is precious, but what is framed is more important and gold is more precious.
So, tonight, by the light of some sparklers, read the Declaration, which illuminates what came next, the Constitution, and a nation worth celebrating.


text:
Q: Accesing controls generated in ItemsControl through DataTemplate Below is the markup that generates a list of buttons.
 <ItemsControl x:Name="Items" Grid.Row="5"  Grid.ColumnSpan="2">
            <ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
                <ItemsPanelTemplate>
                    <WrapPanel Orientation="Vertical"/>
                </ItemsPanelTemplate>
            </ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
            <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
                <DataTemplate>
                    <ToggleButton Content="{Binding Name}"/>
                </DataTemplate>
            </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
        </ItemsControl>

There is filtering applied to the buttons using a filtring criteria
 collectionView = (CollectionView)CollectionViewSource.GetDefaultView(Items.ItemsSource);
 collectionView .Filter = FilterList;

The problem is that i want to retain states of button checked when i toggle the filter state. I have tried subscribing to the event StatusChanged
Items.ItemContainerGenerator.StatusChanged += new System.EventHandler(ItemContainerGenerator_StatusChanged);

but the controls dont seem to be generated at the point when status is ContainersGenerated
void ItemContainerGenerator_StatusChanged(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
  if (Items.ItemContainerGenerator.Status == GeneratorStatus.ContainersGenerated)
            {
                RefreshButtons();
            }
}

A: The only way to access them is to use the VisualTree.
Just use something like this:
public static T[] FindVisualChilds<T>(DependencyObject parent, Func<DependencyObject, bool> CompareDelegate)
    where T : DependencyObject
{
    if (VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(parent) == 0) return null;
    List<T> childs = new List<T>();

    if (CompareDelegate(parent))
        childs.Add(parent as T);

    for (int i = 0; i < VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(parent); i++)
    {
        var tmp = FindVisualChilds<T>(VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(parent, i), CompareDelegate);
        if (tmp != null)
            childs.AddRange(tmp);
    }
    return childs.ToArray();
}

Now pass as firstparameter your datagrid and as second a delegate that checks if the control is the control you want. As result you will get all control those are found


text:
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Art+Music
Home Stories A bite to eat
A bite to eat
Short fiction by Tommy Hays
by Tommy Hays
Weldon Flowers peered into the big aquarium where exotic fish swam listlessly through faux coral. One garishly bright blue fish turned and looked at him as if he recognized him. Maybe he did. Weldon had been coming to the psychiatrist's office once a week for the past two and a half months as part of the agreement with the college.
He wondered what it was it like to be a waiting room fish, watching depressed people parade in and out all day. The fish looked like they could've used a little Prozac themselves.
He sat across from the only other people there, a mother and her teenage son. The boy must've been about sixteen. At one point the mother said, "Don't mash on your face. You'll make it worse." The boy glared at his mother then in a low tone of suppressed fury said, "I feel like throwing you out the window!" and stormed off to the men's bathroom, probably to slit his wrist.
The mother picked up a copy of House Beautiful and began to flip through it. Several minutes passed, and the boy didn't return from the bathroom.
"Would you like me to check on him?" Weldon asked.
The mother looked up from her magazine.
"Would you like me to check on your son?"
She gazed off toward the men's bathroom like she was trying to recall having a son. The men's bathroom door opened, and the boy sat down one chair away from his mother. He had red splotches all over his face.
"Thanks anyway," the mother said to Weldon. The boy scowled like he knew his mother had been saying all kinds of random stuff about him to this tall, balding geek with wire-rim glasses.
"I teach at the college," Weldon said to the boy.
The boy yawned fiercely.
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Weldon leaned forward in his chair and in a stage whisper said, "I held a gun to one of my students."
The boy sat up, watching him warily now and cutting his eyes to his mother who, deep into her House Beautiful, didn't so much as glance up.
A pretty therapist in a short skirt appeared in the doorway. "Hi Sam," she said to the boy. "Come on back."
The boy's face softened, and he got up as if in a trance and followed the young woman down the long hallway. A moment later Weldon's therapist, Dr. Sluder, a jowly, red-faced man and a dead ringer for W.C. Fields, appeared.
Without a word, Weldon followed the sweatered psychiatrist down the long hall, which purred with white noise machines outside the office doors. They passed the closed door of the pretty therapist's office. Weldon didn't know why he'd said that to the boy. He'd just looked so miserable, and it had been Weldon's experience that nothing was so distracting as the truth.
Dr. Sluder shut the door and, after motioning him to sit, settled himself in the chair opposite Weldon's. The psychiatrist's diplomas were arranged in such a way on the wall behind Sluder's chair that from the patient's chair the doctor appeared to radiate degrees.
"How's your mood today?" Dr. Sluder asked.
"Sufficient."
"Sufficient?"
"Yes. My mood is … adequate."
"Just adequate?"
In the first month after "the incident" as Sluder referred to it, Weldon's mood had swung from anger (at himself for doing something so stupid) to despair (that by doing what he'd done, he'd put the final nails in the coffin that had been his marriage). But after two and a half months of Prozac, his mood, like a pendulum losing momentum, had been less emphatic. He felt once removed from himself, as if the Prozac had shifted his point of view to the third person. A welcomed respite, except that lately he'd found himself longing to feel much of anything. Lately, he'd gotten a little nostalgic for the old Weldon, who, one week after Jey had walked out on him, decided, even if he couldn't control his life, he could damn well control his classroom.
Mitch Crandall, a senior lit major, had been sabotaging discussions in Weldon's American Lit survey class all semester. Mitch believed he was a better writer than the entire American Literary Canon put together. Weldon hadn't been able to hold a single class discussion without the boy weighing in with a snotty comment, and because the boy Mitch was also editor of eRazor, the school literary magazine, none of the other students dared contradict him. By mid-semester, Mitch had effectively sucked the life out of the class.
One week before the end of the semester, Weldon had bought a cap gun in the CVS toy aisle. He carefully applied black electrical tape over the orange barrel tip and tucked the gun securely in his pants pocket before leaving for campus.
Just as Mitch was launching into one of his diatribes, this one about Whitman's poems being "nothing but masturbatory scribblings" and 'Song of Myself' should be entitled 'Song of My Member,' Weldon slid the cap gun out of his pocket and pressed it against the boy's temple. Blessedly, Mitch stopped talking. His lip began quivering. There were gasps around the room.
"Repeat after me," Weldon said. "Benjamin Franklin is not an egomaniacal, kite-flying fraud."
"Sir?" Mitch asked. It was the first time the boy had addressed Weldon as "sir" all semester.
Weldon pressed the barrel against the boy's temple and pulled the hammer back. "Benjamin Franklin is NOT an egomaniacal kite-flying fraud!"
"Benjamin Franklin is not an egomaniacal kite-flying fraud," the boy repeated, his voice quaking.
"Thoreau is NOT a transcendentalist pantywaist," Weldon said.
"Thoreau is not a transcendentalist pantywaist."
"Emerson is NOT a navel-gazing zealot." Weldon sat there with the gun, while he flipped through the Norton Anthology and had Mitch recant his literary insults one by one, from William Bradford, "a self-righteous, xenophobic Puritan," to Ernest Hemingway, "a homophobic hack."
After they'd gone through the Norton, which took a good half hour, Weldon said, "Repeat after me, 'I am an immature, self-absorbed snob who couldn't write my way out of a paper bag."
"I am an immature, self-absorbed snob who couldn't write my way out of a paper bag."
"Nor do I deserve to lick the boot heels of the great writers we've studied this semester."
"I don't deserve to lick the boot heels of the great writers we've studied."
Weldon lowered the gun and said, "Class dismissed."
No one moved. Then everyone tore out of there, including Mitch, as Weldon collapsed into his chair. That's where the campus security found him, at his desk, spinning his cap gun.
Weldon loped through downtown Asheville. He was meeting Jey for the first time since she'd moved out 83 days ago today. Not that he was counting. It was a humid, late August morning, and he patted the sweat from his bald pate with the signature red bandana that he often pulled out in the middle of a class lecture.
This morning's session with the psychiatrist had ended as their sessions always ended—with a handshake and Sluder saying, "Have a nice day." What kind of psychiatrist told his patients to "have a nice day?" Weldon tolerated these sessions because of the arrangement with the college. He was on a year's suspension without pay, and after that time, if Sluder deemed him fit, he could return to teaching. Weldon had a suspicion that Sluder would ultimately deem him unfit. He was 99 percent sure he'd never be allowed to teach at the college or anywhere again.
As he neared the City Bakery Café, the butterflies he'd felt when he'd gotten up this morning returned. Jey had called and asked if they could meet. Not just meet, but meet with him. It didn't take a rocket scientist, or in Weldon's case a very minor Whitman scholar, to figure out what she wanted to meet about. Immediately after her call, he hadn't felt much of anything. He'd expected Jey to ask for a divorce. He and the Prozac had become calmly resigned to it. So waking up to butterflies this morning had caught him off guard. He'd been on the verge of mentioning this to Sluder today, but the psychiatrist's eyes had shifted to the clock on the wall.
When Weldon arrived at the café, a cheery hostess seated him next to the window where he watched for Jey. As he waited, he remembered one of his early sessions with Sluder when the good doctor had said he'd wondered if holding a gun on his student wasn't on some level Weldon's rather dramatic way of forcing himself to pay attention to his emotional needs.
"What are you saying?" Weldon had asked. Sluder spoke a cloudy language of psychological abstractions.
Sluder sat back, tapping his fingers together. "Oftentimes we overreact when there's something deeper going on."
"Lucky for you," Weldon said, "or else you'd be out of work."
Sluder's jaw flexed and his tone was impatient when he said, "Do you honestly believe it was a coincidence that you did what you did just one week after your wife of eleven years walked out?"
Weldon couldn't point to any one thing that had gone wrong with their marriage. They hadn't had kids, but they'd been happy anyway. They'd been self-contained. But somewhere along the way, that container had sprung an imperceptible leak.
He almost didn't recognize Jey when she hurried in. She'd cut her hair, which accentuated the curve of her cheekbones and made her look ten years younger. She wore a tight skirt and a scoop-necked purple blouse that showed her tanned chest. Not the way one would dress to discuss divorce. But what had he expected? Mourning clothes? A black veil?
"There you are!" She hugged him as if she'd just gotten back from a long trip. She was wearing a scent he recognized but couldn't place. As he sat down across from her, he felt ambushed by desire. They'd stopped having sex a good two months before she'd left.
"How are you?" she asked.
"Just had another close encounter of the shrink kind," Weldon said.
"They have you seeing Sluder. I've heard he's good."
"He's a pompous ass."
"I've heard that too." She looked down at her hands which she'd laid flat on the table. She was still wearing her wedding ring, a silver ring with a purple amethyst they'd bought at a little shop called Over the Moon on Ocracoke Island.
"I like your hair," he said.
"You don't think it's too short?" Jey said, tugging on the ends.
"It's the best haircut you've ever had."
"Really? You look good too."
"Oh right."
"Much more relaxed, much more like your old self. Maybe Sluder's better than you give him credit for."
"That credit would go to the pharmacist," he said.
"Oh, really?" She leaned toward him.
He recognized the scent as Egyptian Musk. He'd bought it for her.
"I came off my meds last month," she said brightly. Jey's giddy mood, and their ability to fall right back into conversation as if these 83 days had never happened, gave Weldon a case of emotional vertigo.
Their waitress, a thin dark girl with startling green eyes and a disarming smile, looked familiar. A former student, he was sure. He tried to place her as she wrote down Jey's order of the arugula salad with beets and goat cheese.
"And for you, Professor Flowers?" the waitress said.
"Betsy," he said, her name coming to him as names usually did, at the very last possible moment. She'd been in the Mitch class. A quiet, intense girl who didn't talk in class unless called on but who wrote killer papers.
"How's it going?" he asked, never knowing what to say to former students, with which Asheville overflowed. "This is my wife, Jey." The words "my wife" hovered over the table like a shimmering bubble. "This is Betsy Whitaker," he said to Jey. "She was in my class … the class."
"Your husband is one of my favorite professors," Betsy said.
This caught Weldon off guard. He hadn't talked to any students since the incident and assumed that after that stunt they all hated his guts.
Betsy took his order, a BLT on whole wheat toast. As she headed back to the kitchen, Jey frowned.
"Betsy!" Weldon motioned the waitress back to the table.
Jey was always changing her mind at the last minute.
"Yes, Professor Flowers?" The girl smiled at him.
"I'd like the BLT too," Jey said.
As the waitress disappeared into the kitchen, Jey leaned over and whispered, "I think you have an admirer, Professor Flowers."
"She's just nice."
"She's cute," Jey said, raising her eyebrows.
"Don't be ridiculous."
The awkwardness that had been standing politely off to the side finally pulled up a chair.
"So…" Jey pressed her hands flat on the table.
"I know why you asked me here."
She looked up at him.
"I don't blame you," he said.
"Is it what you want, too?"
"Sluder's convinced it's the reason I pulled that stunt at school," he said. "You leaving me, I mean. As much as I hate to admit Cardigan Man might be right about anything other than the precise Eastern Standard Time, maybe he has a point."
She smiled a little sadly. "Why didn't you ever call?"
"I assumed that after my performance you'd want to be as far away from me as possible."
"I did," she said and sighed again.
She did. Past tense, he thought. What about present tense? Was there still hope?
She looked up at him, reached for his hand and then after a moment let go. She was quiet, staring out the window. But when she turned back she was blushing. "I asked you here for two reasons," she said.
"To discuss the Big D," he said. "What else?"
"I was wondering if after lunch you might want to… help me rearrange my office furniture."
"I'm lost," he said.
"You don't remember? When we were first dating, we'd go up to my office…?"
"Oh," he said. When they were first dating, they'd go up to her office several flights up in an old building. She'd lock the door, and they'd make wild love on the couch, in the big stuffed chair, even on her desk.
"Ever since I went off the Lexapro…" She leaned closer toward him, showing her chest. "I've been incredibly, incredibly …"
"Excuse me." The waitress set their plates down in front of them, then turned quickly to leave.
They tore into their BLT's. Weldon couldn't remember the last time he'd been so hungry. They didn't talk. Just ate, occasionally glancing up at each other between bites, a couple of lions devouring their kill.
Then Jey's cell phone rang. As she dug it out of her purse, her face shifted into work mode. She gave Weldon an apologetic smile. "I have to take this call."
She walked outside, and paced in front of the window. She kept her head bowed in conversation. As he watched his wife through the window, Weldon knew, for the first time since she'd left him, maybe for the first time in their marriage, just who he was losing.
"Can I clear your plates, Professor Flowers?" Betsy asked. She looked out the window at Jey. "Your wife is very beautiful."
"Thanks." Weird, he thought, like he was responsible for her beauty.
"Would you care for anything else, Professor Flowers?" She put her hand on his arm. "We have some tiramisu to die for." He flashed back to a conference he'd once had with Betsy in his office. She'd caught him glancing at her legs. He'd been embarrassed but, to his surprise, she'd smiled.
"Just the check," he said.
Betsy carried the plates to the kitchen, and Jey walked back inside. "I have to go," she said, grabbing her purse. Weldon stood.
"But what about the furniture?"
"Going back to my office would've been a bad idea," she said, touching his cheek. "Let me give you some money for the check." She started digging through her purse.
"It's on me," he said.
He watched her walk out, and sank back into his chair.
"Everything okay?" Betsy appeared beside him, placing the check on the table. She stood watching Jey climb into her car and drive off.
Betsy sat down in the chair next to him.
"I don't blame you for what you did," she said. "I've been in classes with Mitch for years. He ruins every class he's in. He had it coming. Don't be so hard on yourself, Weldon."
At the sound of his name, he turned to the generous girl, whose hand he couldn't believe now rested on his thigh. He looked past her, hoping to see Jey's car come back around the corner.
The day after divorce papers were served, Weldon went to his usual appointment. The boy was in the waiting room alone. He seemed more relaxed without his mother. Weldon got up and walked over to the aquarium, bending down to look at the fish. He slipped his hand into his pants pocket, took out a medicine bottle of Prozac and tapped a few, little blue pills into the tank.
"Hey, what are you doing?" the boy asked, coming over to the aquarium.
"Lifting their spirits," Weldon said.
The boy narrowed his eyes. "You really did pull a gun on a student, didn't you?"
"A cap gun." Weldon poured in the rest of the pills. After a few trial nibbles, the fish wanted nothing more to do with it. They swam away in jerky circles.
"Mr. Flowers?" a receptionist called out from behind him. "The doctor will see you now."
A word from Tommy Hays
A Bite to Eat was inspired by the disappointment I think all English teachers inevitably feel when their students aren't moved by works that move them. I have often assigned books or stories I loved and then been almost hurt that my students didn't feel the same way about them. Which I know is ridiculous. Literature, like so many things, is in the end a matter of personal taste. Anyway, it wasn't hard to imagine an English professor, who, after 15 years of this particular frustration, found his life spiraling out of his control.
Editor's Note: Tommy Hays' latest novel, The Pleasure Was Mine, was chosen for the One City, One Book program in Greensboro and for the Amazing Read — Greenville, S.C.'s first community read. Read on NPR's Radio Reader, it was also a Finalist for the SIBA 2006 Fiction Award. His other novels are Sam's Crossing and In the Family Way. He is executive director of the Great Smokies Writing Program and a lecturer in the Master of Liberal Arts Program at UNC-Asheville.
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Here at Sons Honda, our number one goal is to provide exceptional service to our customers in the greater metro Atlanta region. We accomplish this with our expansive inventory of new and pre-owned Honda models, as well as with our high-quality services and knowledgeable staff. With this in mind, we were pleased to learn that we received the prestigious Honda President's Award for 2016.
For the fourth year, Sons Honda has been awarded the President's Award. The award is Honda's highest dealership honor and recognizes the top-performing dealerships nationwide for excellence in sales performance, service performance and customer satisfaction. While Honda considers more than 1,000 dealerships nationwide, only the dealerships that demonstrate the highest level of excellence across their operations actually receive the award.
With such a strong dedication to our customers, we're both honored and humbled to receive such high recognition for our commitment and hard-work.
Whether you're searching for a new Honda, pre-owned vehicle, or you simply need assistance with maintaining your current vehicle, we hope you will consider Sons Honda for all of your automotive needs. Once you arrive, you will see how the President's Award is a direct reflection of the first-class service we deliver every day.
Our next workshop is in September 2016, please join us.
American Honda District Service and Parts Manager (center) Stephanie Barker presenting to General Manager (right) Freddie Felton and Service Manager (left) Mike Fryer 2014 DEALERSHIP EXPRESS CERTIFICATION AWARD for our commitment to delivering Honda customers the complete express Service experience. - at Sons Honda.


It was an article by John Treadaway back in Military Modelling that inspired me to have an Elephant in my Warhammer army, now I want to do the same in Warmaster.
I am going to have alook around the Early Learning Centre or Toys R Us and hopefully get some cheap toys to use.
The picture is in fact a 25mm (well 54mm Britains) Elephant with Flintloque figures.
Various races in the Warmaster world use animals on the battlefield, the undead use bats, the Skaven use rats.


The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says a total volume of 509,668,433 transactions valued at N32.90trn was recorded in the banking sector during the second quarter. The NBS made this known in its "Selected Banking Sector Data: Sectorial Breakdown of Credit, ePayment Channels and Staff Strength (Q2 2018)'' report released in Abuja.
According to the report, Automated Teller Machine (ATM) transactions dominated the volume of transactions recorded. It said 217,417,961 volume of ATM transactions valued at N1.6 trillion was recorded in the period under review.


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PW Covington's writing is raw, powerful, and carries the voice of his hard-lived curriculum vitae. His poetry and prose is undeniably of Beat lineage, and his words have the power to carry the full weight of desperate yet inspirational experience.
Incarceration, Poverty, War, Heartbreak, Homelessness, Isolation, these are the roots of Covington's work, but his voice is neither bitter nor caustic. It is, in his own way, hopeful.
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ON THE ROAD...and heading YOUR way!
Recently, Arizona Public Radio host Tom Maxedon with Phoenix affiliate KJZZ caught up with PW Covington via cell phone from his hotel room in Houston, TX.
PW was in town for the Houston Poetry Fest, where he had been named a Juried Poet, and Tom spoke to him a little about life on the road as a traveling poet, for the "Word" podcast.
Look for PW Covington in 2020, near YOU...or reach out and let's see what can be arranged to come and commit poetry where you are. Collaborative readings, performances, appearances in support of worthy causes, and interactive workshops are being scheduled now, through the end of 2020!
International Book Awards: NORTH BEACH and OTHER STORIES 2019 LGBTQ Fiction Finalist
Congratulations to North Beach and Other Stories for earning FINALIST status in the
2019 International Book Awards!
CLICK HERE TO ORDER!
THE MOTOR HOTELS OF CENTRAL AVENUE
Contemporary Beat poet PW Covington explores the Continent with this collection of hard lived and masterfully delivered verse.
From the US/Mexico border to the Standing Rock reservation, Covington brings us impressions and stains left upon his soul as he traveled the continent, following the release of his 2015 collection "Sacred Wounds".
His pace will be familiar to readers accustomed to his style, but this collection is much more "now" oriented than his previous work. Accessible, direct, and unflinching (even psychedelic, at times)...this is poetry born on the highway, not in the classroom.
Pack a bag and kiss your loved ones goodbye; join PW Covington "out there", where the poetry is found!
Features a unique "Yage Letters" inspired introduction written by the Poet Laureate of McAllen, Texas, Edward Vidaurre and a taste of Covington's short fiction. CLICK HERE TO ORDER TODAY!
International Poetry Festival
Covington Invited to Read in Cuba
In July of 2017, PW joined a delegation of US poets and writers in Havana, Cuba for the 21st Festival de Poesia Internacional.
For 8 days, writers from all over The Americas worked together to present and discuss their poetry at venues across Cuba's capital city.
Special focus was invested on issues such as Cuba's rapidly changing social and economic landscape, climate change and its present and future effects on the Americas, and the free flow of ideas and creativity between artists of different mediums and cultures.
Other poets invited from the USA included former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass, Jane Hirshfield, and activist Odilia Galvan-Rodriguez. Invitees forged bonds of friendship and creativity with each other and with Cuban audiences.
Many events were sponsored and hosted by UNEAC (Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba) .
More information about UNEAC and all the opportunities they provide Cuban writers and Creatives can be found here.
PW Covington joins border poets & artists in Anti-Trump anthology from Raving Press
PW's contribution to this vital anthology is not published or available anywhere else. The project is titled "Bad Hombres & Nasty Women" and is published by The Raving Press.
The Barnes and Noble Booksellers in McAllen, Texas hosted the launch event, which featured diverse voices from across the border regions of South Texas and beyond. A portion of the evening's sales went to benefit the Rio Grande Valley Food Bank. This region is "ground zero" in the fight against hate, fascism, and walls.
The poets and creatives of the Rio Grande Valley are leading the resistance!
Order this important collection by clicking HERE.
Covington Awarded International Prize
On September 1, 2016, in Banjaluka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hourglass Literary Magazine awarded PW Covington the Literature & Latte Scrivener Award for poetry.
Judges were Sibelan Forrester, Poet and Professor of Russian, Swathmore College, John K. Cox, professor of history, North Dakota State University (Fargo), and Jelena Lengold of Belgrade, who was awarded the Biljana Jovanović award, Female Pen award, "Zlatni hit liber" and EU award for literature for her collection of stories "Fairground Magician".
Covington received a monetary honorarium along with other prizes and will have his winning poem, "Value Menu", published and translated into Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) for inclusion in a future issue of Hourglass.
The writer moved to Northern New Mexico in 2017, and remains involved in a variety of progressive and social causes, including homelessness outreach and prevention and veteran's advocacy. He has worked with disaster relief teams in major disaster zones across the continent. He traveled to Standing Rock as a Water Protector and to Havana Cuba as an invited guest at the Havana International Poetry Festival. Covington remains allied with those fighting for justice and dignity for native, indigenous, and less privileged groups, including those that identify as LGBTQ+, across the nation.
Covington also frequently donates his time and talents to benefits and other activities organized to support immigrants, human rights and social justice causes along the US/Mexico border.
PW Covington is featured in the VA's National "Crisis Line" outreach campaign


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5 Abandoned Amusement Parks That Will Leave You Screaming
On the plus side, no lines!
By Hezra Martinez | Published Nov 15, 2018
Photo Credit: Jan Boomes / Flickr
There's nothing better than heading to an amusement park during those long, hot summer days. The thrill and adrenaline of riding exhilaratingly fast rides and anticipating the momentous drop into what feels the abyss is like nothing else–well, except for entering the grounds of an abandoned park, certain that you'll encounter a terrifying spirit. Be careful: Many of these parks are no longer safe to explore, but their eerie stories live on.
1. Lake Shawnee Amusement Park (Princeton, West Virginia)
Photo Credit: Forsaken Fotos / Flickr (CC)
Do you hear that? The sound of laughing children in the middle of summer, enjoying the rides or squealing with excitement as they win a prize. The only problem? Those sounds are made by ghosts. According to local legend, the park is frequented by ghosts of six children that were killed by the park rides.
Even before the ride-related deaths, Lake Shawnee Amusement Park's grounds were haunted. In 1783, the land played host to a violent war between a European family and a Native American tribe. The tribe killed children from the family and in retaliation, the patriarch, a man named Mitchell Clay, enlisted the help of other white settlers to seek vengeance and murder several Native Americans.
Related: 10 Eerie Abandoned Amusement Parks from Around the World
During the 1920s, a businessman named Conley T. Snidow purchased the site and converted it into an amusement park. Soon, he'd realize it was a mistake. Death hung over the cursed land: A little girl in a ruffled pink dress was killed after a truck backed into the path of the swing, and a boy drowned in the amusement park's swimming pool. Today, locals say they see a little girl with her dress covered in blood and hear the wooden swings creak without the help of wind. Only enter if you dare!
2. Gulliver's Kingdom (Kawaguchi-machi, Japan)
Photo Credit: ThePodCastDojo / YouTube
There's a reason realtors are famous for their "location, location, location" exclamation. The owners of this amusement park would realize the value of that bromide a bit too late. The Gulliver's Kingdom theme park opened in 1997—it would be forced to close its doors only four years later. Some speculate the park's proximity to rather grim locations caused a lack of customers.
At the center of the park laid a 45 meter long statute of Jonathan Swift's epic character, Lemuel Gulliver. The park recreated the famous scene where Lemuel is captured by the tiny people of Lilliput; this may be considered as a depiction of the park's stagnant future. The park was situated next to Mount Fuji, near Aokigahara (Japan's famous 'suicide forest') and the former headquarters of a religious cult, Aum Shinrikyo. The cult headquarters had a nerve gas production facility that caused the air to smell noxiously of chemicals. The park was eventually demolitioned in 2007, leaving only small remnants of its amusements as evidence it ever existed.
3. Joyland Amusement Park (Wichita, Kansas)
It's all fun and games … until someone gets hurt. The Joyland Amusement Park was once the largest theme park in central Kansas, featuring a wooden roller coaster and 24 other rides. It continuously ran for 55 years until its abrupt closing in 2006. The park had its share of safety concerns that were never fully addressed. A young boy fell off a roller coaster and died in the 1970s; an employee was stabbed and killed in the parking lot in the 80s; a 13-year-old suffered serious injuries after falling 30 feet from the Ferris wheel. Due to all the economic troubles and safety concerns the park was unable to fully recover. It is continuously vandalized and in poor conditions. The initial stages of demolition began in the summer of 2015. Some rides of Joyland still exist, but the land is scheduled to go to auction in November 2018. After that, it's likely that the land will be fully cleared.
Want more abandoned parks? Sign up for The Lineup's newsletter, and get the creepiest plaes delivered straight to your inbox.
4. Spreepark (Berlin, Germany)
Enter and be amazed! Spreepark has been entirely consumed by nature: Trees and bushes have grown over the rusting rides and the ferris wheel turns idly in the wind. The desolate park remains waiting, but for what? Tangled in city regulations, bad luck, mismanagement, and misunderstandings, the property maintains an eerie state of profound slumber. It opened in 1969 and thrived throughout the Communist era in Germany.
Spreepark's downfall began in 1991 when the park came under the ownership of Norbert Witte. By the mid 90s, visitor numbers were decreasing and the Wittes were forced to relocate to Peru. Eventually the Wittes faced hardships: Norbert Witte suffered multiple heart attacks and was involved with drug smugglers. In 2003, Norbert and his son were arrested for attempting to smuggle cocaine into Germany. Today the grounds are littered with forgotten rides and toppled life-size dinosaurs—and some say that Witte himself can be found living in a trailer parked on the grounds of the abandoned park. Whether this fate was the result of bad luck or bad choices, the air of decrepitude haunts the grounds to this day.
5. Disney's River Country (Bay Lake, Florida)
The abandoned Slippery Slide Falls attraction.
River Country debuted at Walt Disney World in Florida in 1976 with the slogan: "An exciting new country now awaits you inside Walt Disney World's Fort Wilderness." The combination of water park and Disney seemed certain to appeal to youngsters around the country and the world.
Related: Is Disneyland's Haunted Mansion Actually Haunted?
However, the new country was left waiting … and waiting. After 25 years of amusement, River Country was closed, indefinitely. The park has now been abandoned for more than 16 years. The slides are still in place, the pools full of water, and the safety signs stand firm in place in what seems more of a ghost town than an amusement park. The water park was first forced to close on November 2001 following the September 11 attacks. Like much of the tourism-fueled economy across the United States, the water park was negatively affected by the loss and was unable to recover. Instead of being torn down, the water park was left to ruin, a haunting reminder of what was.
Featured photo of Spreepark: Jan Bommes / Flickr (CC)
Bizarre Travel


text:
<?php

/*
 * To change this license header, choose License Headers in Project Properties.
 * To change this template file, choose Tools | Templates
 * and open the template in the editor.
 */

namespace AppBundle\Controller;

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Method;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Template;
use AppBundle\Entity\ProductOrder;
use AppBundle\Entity\PurchaseOrder;
use AppBundle\Model\Map;
use AppBundle\Model\Path;
use AppBundle\Model\Position;
use AppBundle\Model\Route as MapRoute;
use AppBundle\Model\Cell;

/**
 * Description of PurchaseOrderController
 *
 * @author Luis
 */

/**
 * PurchaseOrder controller.
 *
 * @Route("/order")
 */
class PurchaseOrderController extends Controller {
    //put your code here

    /**
     * Action that add a new product to and Purchase Order.
     *
     * @Route("/product/add", name="order_product_add")
     *
     * @Template("AppBundle:PurchaseOrder:add.html.twig")
     */
    public function addProductAction(Request $request)
    {
        $session = $request->getSession();
    	$jsonPurchaseList = $session->get('purchaseList', null);

        $objEM = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
        $arrProduct = $objEM->getRepository('AppBundle:Product')->findAll();

        $arrPurchaseList = isset($jsonPurchaseList)? json_decode($jsonPurchaseList, true): array();
        $arrPurchaseProduct = $objEM->getRepository('AppBundle:Product')->findAllById(array_keys($arrPurchaseList));
        $arrProductChoise = $this->getProductChoise($arrProduct);

    	$defaultData = array('message' => 'Product Choose');
    	$form = $this->createFormBuilder($defaultData)
            ->add('product', 'choice', array('choices' => $arrProductChoise,
                'placeholder' => 'Choose a Product',
                'empty_data' => null,
            ))
            ->add('quantity', 'integer', array('data'  => 1, 'empty_data' => 1,))
            ->add('add', 'submit')
            ->getForm();

    	$form->handleRequest($request);

        if ($form->isValid()) {
           $data = $form->getData();
           $intProductId = intval($data["product"]);
    	   $intQuantity = intval($data["quantity"]);
           $objProduct = $objEM->getRepository('AppBundle:Product')->find($intProductId);

           if ($intQuantity <= $objProduct->getStockLevel()) {
               $arrPurchaseList[$intProductId] = $intQuantity;
           } else {
               $this->addFlash('notice','There is no enough product '.$objProduct->getName().'!');
           }

           $arrPurchaseProduct = $objEM->getRepository('AppBundle:Product')->findAllById(array_keys($arrPurchaseList));
           $session->set('purchaseList', json_encode($arrPurchaseList));
    	}

        ksort($arrPurchaseList);
        $strView = ($request->isMethod("GET") && !$request->isXmlHttpRequest())? 'AppBundle:PurchaseOrder:add.html.twig': 'AppBundle:PurchaseOrder:add_form.html.twig';

        return $this->render($strView, array(
            'arrProduct' => $arrPurchaseProduct,
            'arrQuantity' => array_values($arrPurchaseList),
            'addDisabled' => count($arrPurchaseProduct) >= 5? true: false,
            'form'   => $form->createView(),
        ));
    }

    /**
     * Function that create a choise array to a select widget from a product array;
     *
     * @param type $arrProduct
     * @return type
     */

    private function getProductChoise($arrProduct)
    {
        $arrProductChoise = array();
        foreach ($arrProduct as $objProduct) {
           $arrProductChoise[$objProduct->getId()] = $objProduct->getName();
        }
        return $arrProductChoise;
    }

    /**
     * Action that delete a product from a Purchase Order.
     *
     * @Route("/product/{id}/delete", name="order_product_delete")
     *
     */
    public function deleteProductAction(Request $request, $id)
    {
        $session = $request->getSession();
    	$jsonPurchaseList = $session->get('purchaseList', null);

        $arrPurchaseList = isset($jsonPurchaseList)? json_decode($jsonPurchaseList, true): array();
        unset($arrPurchaseList[$id]);
        $session->set('purchaseList', json_encode($arrPurchaseList));

        $this->addFlash('redirect', true);

        return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('order_product_add'));
    }

    /**
     * Action that save a Purchase Order.
     *
     * @Route("/product/buy", name="order_product_buy")
     * @Template("AppBundle:ProductOrder:list.html.twig")
     */
    public function buyProductAction(Request $request)
    {
        $session = $request->getSession();
    	$jsonPurchaseList = $session->get('purchaseList', null);

        $arrPurchaseList = isset($jsonPurchaseList)? json_decode($jsonPurchaseList, true): array();

        if(count($arrPurchaseList) == 5) {
            $objEM = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

            ksort($arrPurchaseList);
            $arrPurchaseProduct = $objEM->getRepository('AppBundle:Product')->findAllById(array_keys($arrPurchaseList));
            $objUser = $objEM->getRepository('AppBundle:User')->findOneByUsername("admin");

            $objPurchaseOrder = new PurchaseOrder();
            $objPurchaseOrder->setUser($objUser);
            $objEM->persist($objPurchaseOrder);

            $arrPurchaseQuantity = array_values($arrPurchaseList);

            foreach ($arrPurchaseProduct as $objProduct) {
                $objProductOrder = new ProductOrder();
                $objProductOrder->setProduct($objProduct);
                $objProductOrder->setPurchaseOrder($objPurchaseOrder);
                $objProductOrder->setQuantity($arrPurchaseList[$objProduct->getId()]);
                $objEM->persist($objProductOrder);

                $objProduct->decreaseStockLevel(intval(array_shift($arrPurchaseQuantity)));
            }
            $objEM->flush();
            $session->set('purchaseList', null);
            return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('order_list'));
        } else {
            $this->addFlash('notice','The order must have 5 product!');
        }
        return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('order_product_add'));
    }

    /**
     * Action that list a Purchase Order.
     *
     * @Route("/list", name="order_list")
     *
     */
    public function listAction(Request $request)
    {
        $objEM = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
        $arrPurchaseOrder = $objEM->getRepository('AppBundle:PurchaseOrder')->findAll();

        $strView = !$request->isXmlHttpRequest()? 'AppBundle:PurchaseOrder:list.html.twig': 'AppBundle:PurchaseOrder:list_template.html.twig';
        return $this->render($strView, array(
            'arrPurchaseOrder' => $arrPurchaseOrder
        ));
    }

    /**
     * Action that delete a Purchase Order.
     *
     * @Route("/{id}/delete", name="order_delete")
     * @Method("GET")
     * @Template()
     */
    public function deleteAction($id) {

        $objEM = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
        $objPurchaseOrder = $objEM->getRepository('AppBundle:PurchaseOrder')->find($id);

        foreach ($objPurchaseOrder->getProductOrders() as $objProductOrder) {
            $intQuantity = $objProductOrder->getQuantity();
            $objProduct = $objProductOrder->getProduct();
            $objProduct->setStockLevel($objProduct->getStockLevel() + $intQuantity);

            $objEM->remove($objProductOrder);
        }
        $objEM->remove($objPurchaseOrder);
        $objEM->flush();

        return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('order_list'));
    }

    /**
     * Action that get the last five sold products.
     *
     * @Route("/product/last5", name="order_last_five")
     * @Method("GET")
     * @Template()
     */
    public function lastFiveAction() {

        $repository = $this->getDoctrine()->getRepository('AppBundle:PurchaseOrder');

        $query = $repository->createQueryBuilder('p')
            ->where('p.user != :user')
            ->setParameter('user', '-1')
            ->orderBy('p.date', 'DESC')
            ->setFirstResult(0)
            ->setMaxResults(1)
            ->getQuery();

        $arrProductOrder;
        try {
            $objPurchaseOrder = $query->getSingleResult();
            $arrProductOrder = $objPurchaseOrder->getProductOrders();
        } catch (\Doctrine\ORM\NoResultException $exc) {
            $arrProductOrder = array();
        }

        return array(
            'arrProductOrder' => $arrProductOrder,
        );
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Recover usual System Settings page Somehow my System Settings page turned into this:

Some icons are duplicated as you can see.
It happened after I installed and removed some applets for the panel but I can't trace back the root cause of the problem.
It would be great if I could have my old System Settings page back which looked like this:

I found this answer and a few similar to this:
 Some Items in System Settings are duplicated, how can I fix it?
But is that really the only way to "roll back"? And I am not certain if this is exactly the same problem, e.g. i used to have a search bar without the need to click a button and the background was grey. Also the applications seem to be kind of "different". Maybe it's some old version of the system settings page?
I tried to reinstall gnome-control-center but it didn't had any effect.
I am using Ubuntu 16.04

A: Right after posting this i found the solution:
the messed up system settings page was caused by the gnome-control-center. When I tried to remove the gnome-control-center, my system automatically installed unity-control-center again which is working fine.
The reason why I didn't think of this in the first place is because I'm not using Unity but Gnome.


text:
YOUR TECH
Daily Shortcut
HashTag Nerd
PlayStation Gaming
The Shack – Movie Review
by BendWebs | Mar 1, 2017 | Movies | 0 comments
The Shack is currently playing a pivotal role in redefining what a religious movie is. With a production quality of an actual (because it is) Hollywood movie and by staying close the to the source material in defining the screenplay. Thankfully, there no dragons or vampires in this creation.
The Shack: Synopsis
Mackenzie Allen Phillips's youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later, in this midst of his great sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change his life forever.
My only gripe
The only complaint with the characters is that some of them get less interaction time, so our connection (or potential) to that character is lessened.
This is most apparent with the helpful neighbor Willie played by Tim McGraw – his character is only in the first act of the movie and then in the final act for a short time to wrap everything up.
This issue also occurs with Mack's (played by Sam Worthington) family. In the first act of the movie (prior to getting to the shack) he seems to have a great family setup. However, we never really learn anything about his older daughter (Kate Phillips played by Megan Charpentier) and his son (Josh Phillips played by Gage Munroe). Coupling this with the fact that after Missy's (played by Amélie Eve) death the family begins to break apart reducing our potential to learn about them further. The family is then all but removed from the remainder of the film until the last couple minutes of the final act.
Instead of the onscreen cemistry we are required to use our own knowledge of family to create the emotional connection.
Mack's journey and his quest to find forgiveness, understanding, and redemption is ultimately a story that everyone can relate to.
Movie by The Numbers
The Shack has generated $16,100,000 in revenue from 2,888 in just 3 days. It is currently #3 sitting behind Get Out and the newly released Marvel Blockbuster Logan.
It was great to be able to watch this type of movie and not be completely bombarded with indoctrination. Instead we are presented with an option to learn and take away what we will. Thats not to say there are dives into theology it just doesn't shove it down your throat or present it as a "we are right and you are wrong".
My favorite part of the movie has God (played by Octavia Spencer) "relaxing" on a chair on the porch of the shack with large oversized sun glasses on. Mack walks up to the "her" on the porch says something to the effect that he cant believe shes taking a nap. She replies, "You cant imagine how much I'm doing right now".