Good day to you, my colleagues. I have for you today the third installment of our latest adventure: In Part 1 Miss Alyssa Rynne found some artistic inspiration in Paris, along with some gorgeous lace yarn to send to Miss Julia Sett. In Part 2 Julia replied with her plans for a most ingenious shawl, if she could get her knitting machine to cooporate. Now let us continue the tale with a journal entry of Julia's, where she is puzzling over that very thing.
I have been most fortunate with the operational guidance of the automated knitting machine. It was a bit tricky to begin with – the hooks were not moving smoothly and some would not engage at all. It turns out a moth had gotten into the mechanism and caused the issue. Once I had tracked down the bug and removed it, everything worked much better. I must say I'm not sorry to see that moth meet its demise; they are vile wool-eating creatures.
While the instructions did not work correctly at the first go I was quite pleased to be able to adjust and have it work from then out. I am using a method similar to what I use myself, whereby the machine "reads" the previous row to determine what operations to perform next.
I have finished several iterations of the triangular repeat. It feels about half done and yet I know I will need three times the yarn already used if I do another full iteration. Though I believe I might instead be able to repeat a smaller iteration alternated with two solid triangles for a total of five in that row. Much as the last row contained three triangles, one of which was solid. We shall adjust our figures tomorrow to be sure.
Ah, the mind of a knitting mathematician is interesting place, that's for certain. However, this isn't the first time I've tried to follow along as my knitter friends explained their on-the-fly pattern rewrites and clever solutions when faced with too little yarn. We know that won't stop Julia for long, and I'll have the final exciting installment for you shortly. You won't want to miss it!
A most lovely day to you, my colleagues! We've all been so hard at work on the book, but I realized I must tear myself away for a moment and give you all a little treat. I'm thrilled to share with you another lovely exchange between unlikely friends – and most entertaining pen-pals – Miss Alyssa Rynne and Miss Julia Sett. But when a knitting mathematician and a glamorous international… diplomat put their heads together… well, you'll have to stay tuned to see what brilliance ensues.
It was such a treat to catch up with you and the rest of our Ladies at the symposium. As always your intellect and innovative ideas sparked my own imagination. The samples you brought were stunning! My goodness! To think such fine, delicate pieces were created by an automated machine. You truly must be congratulated on your new invention.
After leaving the symposium I took advantage of being abroad and went home to Shanghai via Paris. It has been too long since I was there. The city has always been a magical place, but this new age of technology has brought new life and vibrancy to it. The recent World's fair must have been quite something. This new tower of Monsieur Eiffel is a stunning testament to our ability to create inspiring works. I cannot imagine a better way to enter the city than via the dirigible dock they have at the top. I took care of some business while I was there and did manage to dine with that American entrepreneur. His conversation may be trying, but as always we ate well and I did indeed glean the requested information. After that I did need a bit of fun. My contacts in Paris told me that a place called the Moulin Rouge is quite the place to encounter artists and other freethinkers. They were not wrong. It is indeed in a red mill and the people who frequent it are quite stimulating. I think I danced all night. I was also fortunate enough to be invited to the studios of some of the artists. The art I saw in progress at the Bateau Lavoir was shocking. The subjects are so different that what I'm accustomed to seeing and their way of portraying those subjects… I'm without words. I have no idea if the world is ready for this. Heavens, I'm not sure I'm ready for it, and yet those images haunt my thoughts in ways traditional paintings do not.
Before I forget, I am enclosing some silk yarn I found in Paris. It made me think of your automated knitting machine immediately. Perhaps it would be suitable for a shawl or other large piece. I just know that the fineness of the yarn and the color reminded me of you. Please do enjoy dear sister and may the time between our meetings be shorter this time.
I will have the next installment along for you shortly! In the meantime, enjoy these last fleeting days of summer and, if you're at all like me, dream of Paris.
Hello again colleagues! I've recently found another diary in the trunk, this one from Miss Julia Sett, our crafty mathmatician. Though the entries are sporadic, I've found one that appears to chronologically follow her last letter. It seems she may have found that second set of hands to knit for her after all.
The idea of an automated knitting fabrication device has quite consumed me. Erma brought dinner to me in my library again tonight. I keep forgetting to stop for simple things like eating, and yesterday I even worked through the night and watched the sun rise!
I do believe I am close to something though. I am using the hooked needles found on the designs by Lee and Lamb but I've been experimenting with a gearing mechanism by which the needles may be manipulated to create lace patterns. It's quite exciting to think this delicate craft may be executed in an automated fashion. What a wonder to live in these times. The advances I come across daily inspire me to reach for greater and greater ideas to enrich our lives.
I do hope to have this device fully fashioned and working by the time of The Ladies symposium this year. I believe they would truly appreciate its innovation. I am nearly finished with the gearing. My next steps shall be to fully automate the device and set up the steam powering system. Perhaps the boiler can generate the hot water for my tea as well!
Oh dear, clearly I must get some rest in order to think clearly. Generating the hot water for my tea indeed!
It seems that her passing jest to Alyssa really got her wheels turning, as it were. I've certainly been there myself – when one is of a scholarly persuasion, inspiration can strike from the most unlikely places. And the good Dr. Erma Melanogaster appears to have been with her; I had a suspicion those two were close, perhaps even frequent collaborators. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I will get back to the diary right away to see if there's any truth to my speculations, as well as to see what I can learn about The Ladies symposium Miss Sett mentioned.


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A threat to his life will propel him and a young doctor, Sienna Brooks, into a breakneck chase across the city of Florence. Only Langdon's knowledge of hidden passageways and ancient secrets that lie behind its historic facade can save them from the clutches of their unknown pursuers.
With only a few lines from Dante's dark and epic masterpiece, The Inferno, to guide them, they must decipher a sequence of codes buried deep within some of the most celebrated artefacts of the Renaissance - sculptures, paintings, buildings - to find the answers to a puzzle which may, or may not, help them save the world from a terrifying threat.
Set against an extraordinary landscape inspired by one of history's most ominous literary classics, Inferno is Dan Brown's most compelling and thought-provoking novel yet, a breathless race-against-time thriller that will grab you from page one and not let you go until you close the book.


text:
using UnityEngine;
using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Reflection;

namespace DataBinderForNGUI
{

[RequireComponent(typeof(UIButton))]
class OnClickBinder : UIMethodBinder
{
  public void OnClick()
  {
    CachedMethodInfo.Invoke(referenceModel.Model, null);
  }
}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Twilio outbound call hold disconnecting callee I am implementing hold function in Twilio. Whenever I call the hold function, the callee is getting disconnected. The code below only applies to the caller, not the callee.
if call_sid:
    client = Client(self.account_sid, self.auth_token)
    twiml_string = """
         <Response>
             <Enqueue>xx</Enqueue>
         </Response>
    """
    client.calls(call_sid).update(method="POST", twiml=twiml_string)

A: You will want to use a Conference and anchor the legs, so you don't have one leg disconnect as is happening above, when you modify it.
Call Control Concepts
Conference Participant Resource
*Reference: Place a participant on hold with music (Code Example)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Physical pain and emotional stressors can vanish for a time, and there can be a profound and abiding feeling of peace. Mindfulness is an integral part of any meditation practice. You will be encouraged to explore what a post-retreat practice looks like for you. I'm going to have to look into making meditation a regular part of my life. Buddhist meditation practices are techniques that encourage and develop concentration, clarity, emotional positivity, and a calm seeing of the true nature of things.
Meditation for spiritual reasons is a healthy and necessary practice with many benefits when practiced as taught in the. People usually find that it is easier to focus with a mantra than with the breathing. It is the same with meditation. Whatever drives you to meditate, that is good. Read an excellent by Bodhipaksa, from.
A meditative practice that helps me is sitting quietly and thinking over a passage piece by piece, breaking it apart and dwelling on each word and line of Scripture. Personally, I could not sit like this for more than a few minutes, and I have discovered other ways of achieving the outcome. He had been falsely accused of treason. Some even associate it with witchcraft. Earlier this week my mother encouraged me to consider meditation when I spoke with her about the restless feeling that I have within. Sometimes this is quantified as 25% of your attention on your breath. This is typically done through breathing awareness.
My meditation teacher explained the process like colour fasting. In the deepest states of insight and samadhi the answer is yes. By integrating these 7 elements in your routine, your meditation can be deeper, more enjoyable and more transformative. Without further adieu, here are the top 10 myths about going on yoga and meditation retreats, and what I have to say in response to them. Edit: After about three months of meditating 1 - 2 hours a day, the breath has become so subtle that it seemingly vanishes after only 20 or 30 minutes. Meditation is a mental exercise of regulating attention. There are some deep states of meditation where you can lose your self awareness, but they are quite advanced jhanas, and you will know that you are in them or have been in them if you have been.
In other exercises, the mantra is actually whispered very lightly and softly, as an aid to concentration. Once you come out of your meditation and reflect back on your experiences, you can diagnose whether or not you were deep by seeing if you had any of these common signs: 1. I have communed with people who meditate, and I have extensively discussed the practice with others. One observes the objects of awareness without attachment, letting thoughts and sensations arise and pass away of their own accord. It's when one comes out of the deep states some that the 'knowing' arises, as the external perspective becomes available again. At Chopra Center retreats, you will likely find that you are more open, and it may be easier to meet people.
This forms a perennial division between pretenders who in their own mind of course see themselves as sincere , and true spiritual practitioners willing to do what it takes to move ahead on the path. Loving-kindness meditation will help you. As an initial aid to give you a feeling for it, I would advise following some guided meditations from Mooji, in YouTube. But the ones above are the most well-known; the others are more specific or complex. Notice the movement of your body as you breathe.
Google 'meditation' and the place where you live, or use your own search terms. Just a long list of more stuff for monkey mind to think about. Now of course it's not good to get in the practice of labelling meditation sessions as good or bad but I know there are times when my head is buzzing and I am a ball of anxiety and other times where I get right into that sweet zone, everything goes quiet and my hands get insanely hot I've been told this is an energy thing. All these practices are also good and helpful, but they are different than meditation althou some meditation techniques may make use of some of these elements. Feel it as it comes into your body and as it goes out. As you embrace the thoughts, your mind will continue to de-excite and ultimately , which is symptomatic of the deepest states of meditation.
It's fine and dandy to meditate on the beach, at sunrise while on holidays, but what about the days where you have to return 39 phone calls, respond to 72 emails, take care of three children, 1 spouse, 2 pets, a couple parents and take out the garbage? If you have any of these ideas, have a look at our post. When that drops amazing things can happen. There are no formalities or rituals attached to the practice. When you are finished, gently lift your eyes and take a minute to notice any sounds in your environment. Mindfulness meditation Mindfulness meditation encourages the practitioner to observe wandering thoughts as they drift through the mind. Afterwards, he dedicated himself to transforming people from all walks of life into self-sufficient meditators. So once again: if you find you are thinking and you will , include it in what you notice.
The fabric is the exact colour fresh out of the dye as it is after hours in the sun. ~~~~ Check hubs like yoga studios, health food stores, university chaplaincy or spiritual services, and the classified sections of magazines like TriCycle, Lion's Roar, Yoga Journal, Parabola, Meditation Magazine, Mountain Record, Conscious Dancer, Hinduism Today, Faith And Fitness, and others, as well as your local alternative magazines usually found in health food stores. Then you close your eyes, relax, and tune in to how you are feeling. Ok, so you know that meditation has , and everybody is doing it. They may have some experience in a particular practice and be able to convey the basics, but even if they speak with confidence there may be much that they don't yet grasp. The trick is to adopt this attitude of indifference. If you are approaching a deep state of meditation, you will know it--you won't have to ask.
A mental note identifies an object in general but not in detail. Gordon joined the Chopra Center team as the Event Development Manager in 2010 and has been sharing his awesome light at every since. Has it been a positive practice for you? I know monks who have developed their meditation skills to this type of level and can get there within 5 minutes of starting meditation. Repetition of the mantra helps you disconnect from the thoughts filling your mind so that perhaps you may slip into the gap between thoughts. The difference in novice meditators and seasoned meditators is that novices judge their deep experiences as good meditations and the surface experiences as bad ones. Or in other words, you will have better clarity over the situation you are in and have a way to get out of it.


Yesterday, Apple announced the latest reiteration of its mobile operating system and while regular consumers will have to wait until autumn to try out the new iOS 11 on their iPhone and iPad devices, developers are already taking advantage of their early access to the beta version.
Redditors who have already installed the developer beta are reporting that Apple has purportedly included full playback support for FLAC audio files in iOS 11. This means users now have the option to blast high-quality music files straight from their iPads and iPhones.
The functionality was first spotted on an iPhone 6S Plus running iOS 11 Beta 1 and is reportedly available as part of the newly announced file-management app, Files.
Up until now, Apple had deliberately opted to ignore offering playback support for FLAC files in both iTunes and iOS – though there are numerous third-party apps to do the trick. But it appears things are finally about to change.
In addition to support for FLAC, Apple is introducing a ton of new features that could kickstart the transformation of iOS from simply a mobile operating system to a legitimate hybrid platform with desktop functionalities.
After all, one of the main reasons Apple is launching Files is to give iPad owners more flexibility to use their tablets as improvised laptop stand-ins.


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text:
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Upstate entrepreneurs cautiously upbeat
Frank Ruby, owner of Blue Ridge Hobbies says business is going so well that he is looking for a larger space. / KEN OSBURN/Staff By Jenny Munro, David Dykes, and Angelia Davis | Staff writers
Small-business owners, the backbone of the state and national economies, say they're seeing mixed signals in the local economy, with optimism for modest gains and improving business conditions tempered by fears of another recession.
By nature, these entrepreneurs are a hardy group.
"If I can sell cakes at the economy's absolute worst, I know I can sell them during better times," said Andrea Goodjoin, owner of Divine Desserts by Andrea in Greenville
Goodjoin began her cake-baking business in the midst of the last recession, leaving her job to become a baker in 2008. She not only survived but expects growth will continue as the economy improves.
She shares a bakery now. With proceeds from a Michelin Development Upstate loan, she intends to move to her own storefront early next year. Over the Labor Day weekend, she began operating a cart in Haywood Mall and has hired one employee, who works with her on weekends.
When Bruce Yandle, an economist who is the dean emeritus of Clemson University's College of Business and Behavioral Science, looks at economic data, he sees nothing that "suggests there is any perceptible positive current in the economy."
"The data I see suggest we are moving along a bumpy road," Yandle said.
Still, he points out that he looks at past data and business owners tend to look at the present and the future.
"They look at the numbers of people who come in. They are looking at the future. I would put a good bit of credence in what small-business men and women think," Yandle said. "They are risk-takers. But they're also the survivors of a tough period, so that suggests they are cautious risk-takers."
A recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Business showed a modest gain in small-business confidence in September. The NFIB said small-business optimism gained 0.8 points, ending a six-month decline.
"But about the only good thing to say about it is that the index didn't go down," the NFIB said. "The net percent of owners expecting real sales to improve became less negative by 6 points, 'rising' to a negative 6 percent. The net percent of owners expecting better business conditions in
six months 'rose' 4 points to a negative 22 percent, not exactly a euphoric development."
The NFIB said the future for small-business sales remains weak and fewer owners are investing in their businesses.
Twenty-eight percent of small-business owners reported that poor sales are still their top business problem, the NFIB said. In fact, poor sales have been the top business problem for small-business owners for the past three years, the association said.
Access to credit isn't a widespread problem, with only 4 percent reporting that financing was their No. 1 business problem, the NFIB said. Ninety-two percent reported all their credit needs were met or that they were not interested in borrowing.
"An increase in consumer spending would be the best imaginable stimulus right now, not gimmicky Washington policies," said NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg. "The key to economic recovery is restoring the confidence of consumers; only then will small businesses begin to see the sales they need to expand."
Justin Kopelman, a 2009 Clemson University graduate who opened a Pita Pit restaurant on College Avenue in Clemson two years ago, said the current economy is forcing small-business operators to refocus their marketing.
During the summer, he offered punch cards, allowing customers to receive a free pita after they bought nine, Kopelman said. Customers who filled their cards were entered into a drawing to win an iPad, he said.
Frank Ruby, owner of Blue Ridge Hobbies on North Pleasanburg Drive near the Cherrydale Point shopping center, said sales last month were up 7 percent over last year and that's in "a discretionary business ." "Nobody needs model trains to survive, but our business continues to increase so we have to move to bigger digs," Ruby said. "So, we're saying, 'So what's with the economy.' We're going to keep plugging along."
He is preparing to move to a new, expanded location, partly because his Internet business has increased, Ruby said.
"Small-business owners are typically an optimistic lot," said Frank Knapp, president and chief executive CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce. But they also tend to be conservative by nature, he said.
"Obviously, there's still consternation and concern about what the economy is going to do," Knapp said.
Barbara League, chairman and CEO of G.F. League Manufacturing Co., said her Greenville company "has drastically changed the way we do business" in recent months. The changes, however, have been the result of growth rather than a contraction during the recession and a slow recovery, she said.
The company has experienced few problems during the last three or four years because of the diversity of its client base, she said. When one company slows, another in a different industry is growing, League said.
Employment at the plant, which does fabrication for various industries, has grown in the last several years although it still has fewer than 30 workers, she said.
And that growth is a cause for optimism and some fear, she said. The family-owned company has bought the old Wunda We've facility at 2200 Poinsett Highway and is renovating it with plans to move production there in several months.
The 140,000-square-foot facility has been empty for several years.
G.F. League has run out of space at its 25,000-square-foot facility on Furman Road, where it has been since 1936, League said.
League Manufacturing has diversified since its beginning in 1917 as a wholesale lumber brokerage. In the 1930s, it began manufacturing textile machinery replacement parts.
"For the first 40 to 50 years, we were exclusively married to the textile industry," League said. But when the textile industry began faltering in the 1960s, "we knew we needed to diversify and fast."
Model trains may bring tourists to Greenville
By Angelia Davis • Staff writer • Published: November 28. 2010 2:00AM
The next big thing in Greenville could be a new small world.
Models like this one of the old Southern Railway Station at the end of West Washington Street
will be among those featured in the Miniature World of Trains exhbit. (Ron Gillen Fine Arts)
This new miniature world would be part of a museum and a more than 30,000-square- foot operating and interactive model railway, with detailed scenery, spanning portions of North America.
Frank Ruby, president of the Miniature World of Trains (MWOT), the non-profit group developing the railroad for display and operation, said the aim is to promote the hobby of model train building, educate people on the technologies that go into the hobby, and create an attraction that draws people from all over the world into Greenville.
Ruby, owner of Blue Ridge Hobbies on North Pleasantburg Drive, said the exhibit would be similar in magnitude to the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg Germany.
Miniatur Wunderland is a railway model that, so far, features scenes spanning from Scandinavia to the United States. Along the way are various dioramas featuring people and landscaping.
The exhibit has had more than four million visitors. Ruby believes the Miniature World of Trains can do likewise, partly because the closest to it is the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.
"It's not a small thing," Ruby said. "What they're doing (in Germany), we're going to do here and a lot better," Ruby said.
"A lot of people know about the Baltimore and Ohio railroad museum, the Pennsylvania railroad museum, and if you go to Chattanooga, and you know about the Chattanooga Choo Choo and all that stuff," Ruby said.
"We want to create the same thing here. Based on what we're hearing just from the little bit of information we've been putting out there in the last the month or so, there's a lot of interest in this," he said.
Jerry Howard, president and chief executive officer of the Greenville Area Development Corp., sees the Miniature World of Trains as a great opportunity to promote local tourism.
'"If you look at what's been done in Munich, it's a curiosity that attracts the attention of a lot of people," he said. '"It's pretty intriguing."
Another notable aspect of the project is what it could do for education, Howard said
According to Mike Jensen, an electrical engineer, retired U.S. Navy nuclear submarine officer and a retired independent software developer involved in the MWOT project, a portable mock-up locomotive, capable of being delivered to the classroom, would allow the train to be controlled over the Internet from the classroom to the project facility.
Aside from the fun of doing this, students would be shown what railroads do as well as the underlying technology that allows remote control of the model and remote viewing results, according to Jensen.
"Students of all ages today need to be challenged and stimulated by the world we live," Jensen said.
"We should find ways to channel their video game experiences and inclinations into real world technologies in order to prepare them for the highly technical world that we now live and compete in."
There can also be educational gains for those who view the MWOT at its future location, which has not yet been determined.
"They can model different rail lines, cities, and all the various evolutions of the railroad around here from the old Atlantic coast line, the CSX, and Norfolk Southern, Howard said.
"Since there's been so much talk about high speed rail between Atlanta and Charlotte with Greenville in the middle, that's something that can be modeled," he said. "There're a lot of things that are certainly of historical interest as well as educational, so I'm real excited about it."
The project, which will require more than $1.5 million for the initial phase, would feature many recognizable locations as it is developed in stages. The South Carolina, North Carolina
Georgia stage could include the Greenville Yard, West End Greenville, Old Southern Railway station Greenville and the Port of Charleston.
MWOT is looking at possible locations off Woodruff Road, Wade Hampton Boulevard, and Roper Mountain Road to house the model railroad exhibit.
The building has to be anywhere between 45,000 and 100,000 square feet and have at least 150 parking spaces, Ruby said.
The group is also raising money for the project's first phase. Their corporate sponsors include World's Greatest Hobby, Walthers, ExactRail, and others.
"The group has some of the major manufacturers of railroad modeling already on board as sponsors donating of equipment and that sort of thing," Howard said. "And there's a big base of people in this area into model railroading that are going to help build the scenery, rail lines and all that."
Construction of some of the model buildings is already underway, Ruby said.
The first phase will include the Greenville-Spartanburg area up to New York.
Among the possible locations that could be modeled is the BMW plant, with a site showing cars coming off the production line, being loaded onto the auto train going from Greenville down to Charleston, and then being unloaded from the auto train onto a cargo ship, being shipped over to Europe and vice versa with different cars.
MWOT can also use the technology now available with model railroading to put Proterra buses in operation in Greenville to show how those vehicles would interact in the area.
The same will be done with the likes of coal facilities.
"We're going to show how the coal gets out of West Virginia onto the train, going out to the Duke Energy power plant here in South Carolina, unloaded, and low and behold there's electricity," Ruby said.
"It all can be done," he said. '"It's just that we're going to combine it all with the current state of the hobby which is digitized. We're going to put it on steroids."
To donate or for more information about the Miniature World of Trains: Visit the Miniature World of Trains corporate office at 2400 N. Pleasantburg Drive, Suite F, Greenville, SC, 29609, or call 255-4671 or visit www.miniatureworldoftrains.com.
View online at:
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20101128/BUSINESS/311280021/Model-trains-may-bring-tourists-to-Greenville
© Greenville News 2010
Frank Ruby is president and chairman of the board
for Miniature World of Trains. Greg Beckner/Staff
By S. Kim Henson NOVEMBER 19, 2010 1:36 p.m.
The concept for building North America's largest HO-scale model railroad exhibit in Greenville began with conversations over the counter at Blue Ridge Hobbies after model railroaders heard about the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany.
Frank Ruby, owner of the hobby shop on Pleasantburg Drive and Miniature World of Trains' president and chairman of the board of directors, said, "It's not just about model trains around the Christmas tree any longer."
German twin brothers, Frederik and Gerrit Braun, created a nearly 69,000-square-foot private museum and continue to add to it and to the world's largest model railway inside. Greenville's site is expected to total 50,000-square-feet. It will include a 30,000-square-foot layout of the country's well-known railroad scenes, a railroad history museum, restaurant and Ruby's hobby shop.
Negotiations are under way for prospective locations. The most promising to date are in high traffic areas and near the interstate. One is in the Interstate 85 and Woodruff Road vicinity and the other on Wade Hampton Boulevard.
Ruby said Greenville is an ideal location because it's in the center of four major metropolises (Atlanta, Columbia, Asheville and Charlotte) and within a daytrip's distance of nine million people and the climate and nearby attractions offer destination appeal.
"This attraction has a tourism component as well as an educational component, to allow visitors to learn about railroads, the historical features, high speed rail and much more. And there's a lot of technology involved that may offer some good jobs for the Greenville area," said president and CEO of Greenville Area Development Corporation Jerry Howard.
The initial phase is projected to open in early 2012. Starting with the East Coast, phase one will feature Greenville's downtown, businesses like Allied Steel and GE, North Carolina's Saluda Grade and farther reaching highlights like the Florida Juice Train that in two days carries Tropicana orange juice from Florida to just outside New York.
With a focus on education as well as entertainment, the facility will promote green building, advanced technology and not just trains but all forms of transportation.
The project will be built in sections on the most popular scale in model railway, the HO-scale, because merchandise is accessible. The ratio is 1:87 and replicas of train cars are shorter than a pencil in length and smaller than ones by Lionel.
For its startup, the museum will need $500,000 and more than $1.5 million for the initial phase. As the non-profit winds down its first month of fund raising since acquiring non-profit status, Ruby said they have accepted personal contributions as well as $200,000 in product donations from model railroad manufacturers across the country.
The cash is being spent for advertisement, to order T-shirts and construct box cars and other merchandise with the museum's logo to present in exchange for donations.
Ruby is looking forward to grant funding and tax deductible contributions from the general public, corporations, private hobbyists, model railroad clubs and railroad charities as the word spreads.
For now he said there will be no loans to prop up the project. Paperwork has been filed with local companies like Duke Power, Michelin and BMW to ask for sponsorships and matching funds when employees donate.
Howard said when asked about funding in a down economy, "Recessions are temporary but museums last."
The facility will support 100 to 150 employees and donate back to the community, said Ruby, based on what is happening in Germany and at one of the world's largest science museums, Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
Ruby said, "The project will have worldwide appeal. Germany's railroad museum attracted a million visitors last year and Chicago's museum also seems to be thriving."
"I don't have a crystal ball but this has potential to be a major, major tourist attraction. A tourist destination that may draw a whole lot of people to the area," Howard said.
Ruby started Blue Ridge Hobbies in 2005 as an online business, opened a retail store in 2007 and relocated last year to a building twice its size.
He said, "It all started when my wife made the mistake of giving me a train set on our first Christmas together. They kept getting bigger and bigger as our houses got bigger. Then Blue Ridge Hobbies and now this."
View this story from the Greenville Journal Online at: http://www.journalwatchdog.com/business/929-greenvilles-making-tracks
© Community Journals. All rights reserved.
2009 Article
Blue Ridge Hobbies Grand Opening
When Frank Ruby couldn't find the model railroading products he wanted, he decided to make the search easier on himself and others by opening a business.
This week, he's celebrating another expansion of that business, Blue Ridge Hobbies.
The store has moved from a 1,200 square foot space at 2327 North Pleasantburg Drive to a 2,400 square-foot space across the street at 2400-F North Pleasantburg Drive, beside The Home Depot.
The new location allows Ruby to display, add new merchandise, and double the amount of products.
Frank Ruby works on a model train display at Blue Ridge Hobbies' new location. (GEORGE GARDNER / Staff)
The store's new additions include the "Wall of Track," the introduction of more than 60 new brands of supplies, and the offering of how to classes on most aspects of model railroading, Ruby said.
The store will also add radio controlled planes, cars, and boats.
Blue Ridge Hobbies will continue to offer model railroading items for beginners up to craftsman. The items available include everything from track and scenery to trains and detail craftsman modeling kits.
The store also responds to the new demand of model railroading with the introduction of DCC (Digital Command Control) operation for Model Trains several years ago.
"It's kind of like the convenience store of model trains" or hobbies, he said. "If you need it, you can come down to the store and it will usually be on the shelf. It's rare that it's not."
Ruby started the business online at his home in 2005. He opened his first retail site across
the street from the store's new location in 2007.
The business has grown in products and sales in spite of the recession.
Ruby said sales are up 38 percent in year-to-year comparisons, from January to
September 2008 and 2009. The sales total last year compared to this year's projections
will be up 29 percent, he said.
"When we first opened we were nickels and dimes – literally," he said. "We were lucky
some months in the first year to make $9,000 in sales. We do that in a day, day in a half, now."
Geoff Duncan, a long-time customer of Blue Ridge Hobbies, believes model railroading is
somewhat recession proof because it's a relatively modest hobby as hobby expenses
go - you get a lot of bang and pleasure for the buck" and "it is a great at home
hobby that doesn't require a lot of traveling overhead to get there."
Duncan attributes Blue Ridge Hobbies' success, in part, to "substantially
discounted products" and Ruby's knowledge as a model railroader and businessman.
Blue Ridge Hobbies' grand-opening celebration is Oct. 1- 3.
Customers can register for drawings for free items contributed by major wholesalers during the celebration.
Business writer Angelia Davis can be reached at 864-298-4276.
This page was last updated 01/12/2019
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The Redeemed Mind
Bible Commentary for Christian Living™
Trending Topics: Matthew•Acts•Revelation•Romans•1 Samuel
Jonathan and Saul – 1 Samuel 14–15
David W. Jones	 August 24, 2018
Read the Passage: 1 Samuel 14-15
Jonathan's Valor (14:1–52)
Despite the fact that God had declared an eventual end to his monarchy, Saul remained king. Yet, as was alluded to in 1 Sam. 13:3, not all was lost, for Saul's son Jonathan was a man of faith and valor. As he had done earlier, so 1 Sam. 14:1–23 reports that Jonathan again attacked a Philistine garrison and won a second victory, this one at Michmash. As with Jonathan's previous victory, this one sparked conflict between Israel and the Philistines. This narrative, which shows that Saul's downfall was not the result of his family, is ironic, for the Lord's pronouncement of His rejection of Saul at 1 Sam. 13:13–14 included the fact Saul's reign would not be passed down to his very capable son. Our sin never affects just ourselves (cf. Exod. 20:5–6). Despite God's rejection of Saul, the Lord was still pleased to facilitate a great victory for His people through Jonathan's obedience.
As the battle took place, 1 Sam. 14:24 reports, "And the men of Israel were distressed that day, for Saul had placed the people under oath, saying, 'Cursed is the man who eats any food until evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies'." 1 Sam. 14:27 then notes that Jonathan, apparently unaware of his Father's rash oath, ate some honey. Further, it is recorded that the famished army sinned by eating rare meat from the spoils of war. When God later would not answer Saul's prayer on account of his sin, there was an investigation and ultimately a supernatural identification of Jonathan as having transgressed the king's oath. This led Saul to sin further in declaring his intent to kill his own son (cf. 1 Sam. 14:44). Yet, the people resisted the idea (cf. 1 Sam. 14:45), perhaps being aware—as was Jonathan (cf. 1 Sam. 14:29–30)—that Saul's oath itself was immoral, self-serving, and prideful.
Saul's Sin (15:1–9)
1 Sam. 15:1–35 records one of the last major events in the monarchy of Saul before the transition to David began. In 1 Sam. 15:1–3 Saul was commanded to go to war against the Amalekites in retribution for their persecution of the Jews when they entered the Promised Land. Very explicitly Samuel commanded Saul, "Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey" (1 Sam. 15:3). While the death of all of the Canaanites may seem to be overly harsh, the rationale God gives earlier in Scripture is that the Canaanites were to be put to death so that Israel would not be led into sin (cf. Exod. 34:10–16; Deut. 20:16–18). Note, as well, from a divine perspective, no Canaanite got less than they deserved. Indeed, God was long-suffering in regard to their sin (cf. Gen. 15:16). Further, the Promised Land is a picture of the new heavens and earth in which there will be no one who does not worship God.
God's Rejection (15:10–35)
Despite God's clear direction to Saul regarding the death of the Amalekites, Saul "spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good" (1 Sam. 15:9). When confronted by Samuel regarding his disobedience, note Saul's reaction. First, Saul claimed that he had been obedient to God's command (cf. 1 Sam. 15:13). Second, when his disobedience was evident, Saul attempted to justify himself as he claimed that the people had sinned, not himself (cf. 1 Sam. 15:15). Third, Saul claimed that the reason for his and the people's disobedience was so that they could offer sacrifices to the Lord (cf. 1 Sam. 15:15, 21). In response, Samuel pointed out that Saul had acted out of pride and selfishness, not obedience (cf. 1 Sam. 15:17–19, 22–23). Only when his sin was unavoidably exposed did Saul offer an insincere confession and ask for forgiveness.
Earlier, at 1 Sam. 13:14, Saul had been told, "Your kingdom shall not continue." In light of Saul's disobedience in regard to the killing of the Amalekites, however, at 1 Sam. 15:26 Samuel proclaimed, "The Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel." When Samuel refused to accompany Saul, Saul grabbed and tore the prophet's robe. Then, somewhat incredibly, Saul begged, "Honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me" (1 Sam. 15:30). Despite twice admitting his sin and externally repenting, this proclamation demonstrates the shallowness of Saul's confession. Saul was still clearly thinking only of himself and trying to salvage the situation for his own benefit. Surprisingly, Samuel agreed to accompany Saul; yet, this seems to have been in order to mete out the capital punishment upon King Agag.
Application Questions:
Since God had announced his rejection of Saul at 1 Sam. 13:13–14, why did God allow Saul to continue to serve as king?
Why does God allow the innocent to be affected by the sins of the guilty? Have you ever been impacted by the sins of another (cf. Deut. 24:16; Ezek. 18:20)?
Is it moral for Christians to take oaths (cf. Matt. 5:33–37; James 5:12)? Are believers bound to keep all oaths that they take?
What does the text mean when it says that God regretted making Saul king (cf. 1 Sam. 15:11)? If God is omniscient, how can He regret anything?
Do you think Saul's admission of his own sin and request for forgiveness was genuine (cf. 1 Sam. 15:24–25, 30)? How can we evaluate repentance?
Amalekites, Saul's Rejection
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Walking in Wisdom – Ephesians 5:15–21
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God's Rejection of Saul – 1 Samuel 13
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Honey Stop The Car! Estate Liquidation | Helping others with life's transitions.
We have been through a week long ordeal that clearly did not have to last that long or be this frustrating. I really can't stand dishonesty. Taking advantage of people in an emergency situation is unforgivable.
This situation started last Sunday evening when I walked into our master bath and heard water running although nothing was turned on. We start running around trying to figure out what the noise was and discovered our backyard flooded as though 5 inches of rain had fallen in an hour. We shut the water off and monitored the water pouring out from under the back of our house for another half hour.
Sunday evening nothing we can do till Monday morning. Our first inclination was to call the folks that did a bunch of repairs for us when we bought the house, but after laying awake ruminating I thought it was best to call our home warranty company, we paid for it might as well try to use it.
The first set back was we were not likely going to get a plumber out till Thursday. OK it is just the two of us we can deal, filled up gallon jugs in order to flush toilets, rinse off dishes and drink. Got a cheap hotel room nearby for one night to take showers.
Wednesday came and we get a call that the detection team is ahead of schedule and they will be stopping by within the hour. Woo Hoo!!! Mind you we were expecting the worst, the amount of water gushing from under the back of the house was in my opinion catastrophic.
The team shows up and gets to work after we summarize what we experienced.
Red Flag #1, we are all standing in master bath but can't hear the water gushing, plumber says "oh I hear it". There was absolutely no noise like I heard before.
Red Flag #2, While they are running the air into the pipes, Clay and I clearly observe water gushing from a pipe in the area of the secondary cutoff at the front of the house that faces towards the back.
Red Flag #3 The head dude on the team (whom we discover later is the company owner) claims he hears water under the master bedroom closet and they will have to tunnel under the house to repair. We ask about the water we observed and his reply "the water is following the path of least resistance" Um OK? Basically he is saying ignore what your eyes observed, this is what is really happening.
Red Flag #4 After initially telling us the warranty company will only pay $500 towards the total bill suddenly he back tracks and says "oh sometimes they will pay up to $1000. but I tell customers $500 so they don't expect $1000.
Finally we have a detailed estimate and our hearts sank, the total was over $6000, to tunnel under the house, jack hammer the sidewalk, replace pipe under the house and rebuild sidewalk. No way we can afford this and my gut is telling me this is ridiculously high. Now, if we hadn't had a bunch of plumbing work done when we bought the house back in the spring I likely wouldn't have questioned his estimate. We decide to pay the detection fee and seek a second opinion.
Boy are we glad we got a second opinion. We went from over $6000 to a simple repair costing around $750. Turns out the leak was as we witnessed, the pipe on the secondary cutoff valve had come apart as seen in the pics below, no tunneling, no jackhammer, just a new valve and section of pipe replaced. The water we heard gushing under the master bath was simply the water from that pipe gushing under the house along the foundation beam, following that and running out under the back of the house.
We are very disappointed we were clearly being taken advantage of in an emergency situation. At this time we are not identifying the bad company, we will report them to the warranty company, after all they are basically getting screwed also and discuss a possible refund for the detection fee (good luck getting that back). The company we got the second opinion from would like to stay anonymous.
Moral of the story, go with your gut, get a second opinion if possible and don't always trust reviews. The bad company has glowing yelp reviews.
How do you know what you won? An invoice is automatically generated after the auction closes. Check your emails from "postmaster" or log into your Texas Clix account and check your "Dashboard" notifications.
What if you only win one item or get busy on pickup day? You are still responsible for payment. No Shows are subject to banning from future auctions.
Clay and I would like to thank you all for your support this last year. We hope all of you have a blessed holiday and a bright new year.
We are taking some time off from auctions during the holiday season but we are still in full swing at the shop.


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Shrinking to survive: A former trans man reports on life inside queer youth culture
Posted on April 27, 2016 by 4thwavenow
Max Robinson is a 20-year-old lesbian who recently detransitioned after 4 years of hormone replacement therapy. She underwent a double mastectomy at age 17, performed by plastic surgeon Curtis Crane in San Francisco. Max reports that her gender therapist wrote letters verifying the immediate medical necessity of these treatments.
Max currently works to provide direct support to developmentally disabled adults living in group homes; she detransitioned on the job in December 2015. Her novel Laika, which tells the story of the little stray dog who was sent outside Earth's atmosphere in a Soviet satellite, is available digitally or in print here. In addition, Max and her partner collaborate on many graphic art and creative writing projects.
Max, like many young lesbians of her generation, was led down the path to FTM "transition" as a teen, effectively short circuiting her chance to fully integrate her orientation as a same-sex attracted female. As detailed in her account, the difficulties many young trans men face in queer communities are not widely known; and the less-than- rosy experiences of FTM teens are certainly not discussed in the many mainstream media stories which unquestioningly celebrate testosterone and surgery as welcome treatments for dysphoric girls—many of whom are same-sex attracted.
Max's story will also appear in an upcoming anthology to be published within the year.
In the meantime, Max is available to respond to your questions and discussion in the comments section below this post.
All of us at 4thWaveNow are very grateful to Max for her courage in writing this post.
by Max Robinson
When I was 5, I led a girl rebellion. We put on capes and chased some boys in capes around. Whatever they said we couldn't do, we did. It was mostly push-ups or holding bugs. I could hold any bug. My dad still has a picture in his office of me at a science fair, hands full of hissing cockroaches.
I hated to be told there was something I couldn't do. In first grade, I'd go home from school all in a huff because the girls' bathroom pass had pictures of bows on it, while the boys' had soccer balls. My teacher wouldn't let me choose which pass I wanted. I played soccer!
When I was in third grade, I drafted letters to the author of a children's book series. I was bothered by the constant underlying sexism in her books about a family rescuing animals. The mom and the daughter were always secondary, sweeping or cooking in the background, while the father and son saw all the action. What troubled me most of all was that these books were written by a woman. I didn't understand why she couldn't create a single interesting female character.
Around the same time, my mom finally let me buy a pair of boys' shoes. They were red and black, and I didn't have to tie them. I wore them all the time, so often that the plastic frame of them tore through the fabric. It cut into my feet, but I didn't tell my parents. I thought I wouldn't get another pair. They didn't find out until they saw the back of my ankles, torn and bleeding. When I told them why I hadn't said anything, they got me another pair. This is my first memory of hurting myself on purpose so that I would feel better about my appearance. Later, there was tweezing, high heels, waxing, shaving, running, and trying to starve myself. In all of those, at one time or another, I was encouraged, but they really weren't for me. I wanted to choose to hurt myself in my own way.
When I was 16, I talked my older sister into ordering me a binder, and I wore it as often I could. It hurt like hell. I insisted it didn't. The pain made it easier to think less, which was nice, especially at school. Class was boring and I couldn't focus, so I would always spend the whole day winding myself up with some thought obsession or another to keep busy. I would ask the teacher for bathroom breaks, and then used them to cut myself, just because I was under-stimulated and unhappy.
After school, I read Autostraddle articles and dozens of pages into the archive of FTM blogs. I was glad to see some women who looked kind of like me, saying that they had futures now. I wanted what they had, and I hated what I had. I think I was 15 or just barely 16 when I started checking this stuff out.
The longer I thought about it, the more sure I was that it was true. At first, I thought I might be genderqueer. Then, I wanted to go on testosterone for a while, but keep my breasts. Next I was sure that I wanted them gone. I would confess these changing thoughts anxiously to other trans-identifying friends online. They would reassure me that this happened to a lot of people, and that the dominant transgender narrative was oppressive. Then I began reassuring others of this, too. We all agreed that being trans was very special and difficult. Before, I had never felt special or that my pain mattered.
Some part of me knew I was talking myself into it. I ignored that part.
For the first time, I had a community that paid attention to me, at least online. We talked about our feelings and we listened to each other. This was my first real experience with Internet culture. I loved having friends. It wasn't like school, where I was irritable and weird, floating between tables at lunch. People actually liked me on Tumblr. Almost all my friends were female and trans-identifying.
I didn't know anything. It was just so comforting to think that I was born wrong. If my body was the problem, it could be solved. Transition had clearly defined steps. Everybody chose from a set list, and when it was over, they were properly assembled.
When I renounced my connection to womanhood and what I shared with my sisters, I sealed away important parts of myself. I thought I was turning away from the hurt that came from being seen as a woman by men, but it was too late for that. That hurt has been inside my bones for years. After transition, I kept quieter than ever before. Always afraid, always afraid. Brought back into line.
Transition was supposed to fix things. That's what I believed and that's what doctors told my parents. I was 16 when I started hormone blockers, then testosterone. I was 17 when I had a double mastectomy.
If I didn't look like a dyke and act like a crazy teenage girl, there would have been nothing to fix.
To fund my surgery, I started a blog where I posted print-to-order clothing and gifts, pandering to the interests of the people I saw on there. It worked pretty well. I got a bunch of money, but not quite enough. My parents used some of theirs, and my grandma helped, too. After all, this was a medically validated condition. I had been to appointments with professional after professional, all of whom agreed this was the way to go.
But it turned out to be cold comfort, removing hated body parts. Breasts marked me as a woman dressed funny. I wasn't afraid to be anesthetized or cut open. The day of my surgery, after the doctor drew the lines of the incisions on my skin in Sharpie, I asked him where the tissue would go. He told me it would be incinerated as medical waste. I cackled. When they led me back to the operating room, I was confused. I thought there would be a silver table that I had to lie down on. I told my doctor this. He told me it wasn't an autopsy, and laughed.
My first post-op memories don't start until a day or two later. The pain wasn't bad, and emptying my drains reminded me of using a menstrual cup, just with a lot more yellow stuff. It felt better than trying to live as a man with breasts. I couldn't lift my arms to wash my own hair for a couple weeks, but seeing a flat chest was a breath of fresh air. It felt like it made sense after I had been watching my old face disappear, cheeks narrowing, beard coming in, because of testosterone. I didn't want to be seen as a woman–as a lesbian–and I didn't want to ask why.
Or maybe I just didn't know who to ask. I did try. Before I started medical transition, I asked my gender therapist, a trans man, about internalized misogyny. The question was dismissed. I didn't even really know what internalized misogyny was, but I wanted to understand. Instead, I was assured that it probably wasn't that. I got a letter for hormone replacement therapy, and later, for the top surgery. I was grateful.
It took years of testosterone for me to finally realize it was okay to live in my own body without it, that making this peace with myself was possible, and that I deserved that chance. I didn't know it was okay to be a dysphoric lesbian, that I could survive this way. I was almost 20 when I stopped hormones. I had been 20 for a little while when I stopped understanding myself as a trans man.
Things changed. My mind changed.
There's a species of rotifer (microscopic zooplankton) called Bdelloidea. A male bdelloid has never been observed. They're all female, reproducing exclusively through parthenogenesis for millions of years. How did they survive quickly evolving parasites and rapidly changing environments without the adaptability afforded by sexual reproduction? Bdelloids shrivel up under stress. In anhydrobiosis, they're easily carried away by the wind. For up to nine years, they'll stay alive like this–barely living, but alive. Shrinking yourself to survive is a legitimate strategy, and sometimes it works.
After I detransitioned, I started a new job where I was known as a butch lesbian. At first, people treated me worse than when I was "passing" as male. Nobody trained me. They tried not to look at me at all. They didn't relax until I started talking, talking like I had in high school. I made jokes and people laughed. I told them about my childhood when they told me about theirs. I did more than listen, finally. People actually liked me here, the same people who looked at me funny when I first started the job.
It had been so long since I had said anything outside my home without worrying about whether I "sounded male." I hadn't realized how much I had been holding back since I decided to transition. I hadn't made new friends, except online, in years. In a couple weeks at this job, I got rides home and wedding invitations. I thought I was incapable of connecting to anyone in person, but I was just incapable of connecting to anyone as a man — because I'm not a man. I can't pretend to be one without hiding an essential part of my nature.
I thought "woman" was wrong for me, because of how I dressed, how I related to my body, how I resented the expectations society had for me as a woman. I didn't realize that my horror at my body could be caused by the horror of living in a world that wants to control all women.
If "being a woman" really was nothing but an identity, if I had been raised in a world where it really did just mean calling myself a woman, I never would have transitioned. I would never have attempted to surgically and hormonally erase my femaleness. My drive to be anything but a woman was rooted in the material reality of being a woman, a material reality that cannot be identified out of. Trying to live in a fantasy where everything women have suffered for being female is null and void, even as misogyny continues to shape our lives, was valuable only in that I finally learned how incredibly valuable it was to name myself as a woman.
There is power in naming. It's how we find each other, how we connect to our histories, how we connect to our futures. Driving us apart from each other is the easiest way to keep us from learning to recognize attempts to redefine our realities.
I didn't know this then. I subscribed to an incredibly misogynistic set of beliefs for years. "DFAB privilege" was a common phrase in our community – "designated female at birth privilege." It was accepted fact that being born female gave you a lifelong advantage over a male who transitioned. This included men who used transition only to mean using different pronouns on Tumblr and having an anime girl as their avatar. We believed that, as "dfabs," we needed to shut up about our petty problems. We could never have it as hard as any "dmab women or non-binary people." Everyone in the trans community agreed that it was our responsibility to uplift "dmab voices." None of this seemed outrageous or strange to me; it felt pretty intuitive. Growing up under male domination is a grooming process that leaves many girls and women extremely vulnerable to manipulation.
The first experience that did make me start to feel suspicious of male transition was when I was 18 and a genderqueer-identifying man who had never pursued any kind of transition raped my best friend, a woman unacquainted with insular trans community politics. I had indirectly introduced her to this guy via mutual friends. After the rape, she told me what he did; I had been in the next room the whole night, awake, talking to someone I didn't even like. I had no idea it was happening. When she let our mutual friends know, we both assumed they would have her back; after all, they referred to their apartment as a safe space for rape survivors. But instead, her rapist changed his pronouns on Tumblr, claimed to have schizophrenia, and then said that he couldn't possibly have raped her, because of the power dynamics between a "cis" woman and a transwoman. He moved back to LA a few months later, without ever taking any steps towards transition. When he got there, he told his old friends he wasn't schizophrenic or trans anymore.
Years before that, two different transwomen I knew had pressured me into sending nude photos of my breasts to them. I messaged them first, as a 16 year old, after seeing them repeatedly posting about being horny and suicidal, and how only nudes would make them feel any better. They didn't even know who I was. To one of them, I submitted the nudes anonymously. I didn't want to talk, I just wanted him to feel better. I thought it was my responsibility. It might still be posted somewhere, I have no idea. Both of the transwomen who sexted with me identified as lesbians at the time and knew I was a transman. They didn't care, as long as we were talking one-on-one.
I didn't fully see the value in differentiating male from female until a traumatized and disabled lesbian I knew well, K, finally admitted to me that her transwoman partner M was beating her regularly.
For three years, she lived with steadily escalating physical & sexual violence, the details of which were originally included in this article but have now been removed for privacy reasons. Suffice it to say – it was an intimate portrait of what radical feminists understand as male violence.
It's been two years since she moved in with me, away from him, and she's still recovering from what he did to her. She had two decades of trauma before that, but nothing ever broke her like this did. Calling that relationship "lesbianism" left her stranded from the framework she desperately needed in order to contextualize her experiences as a survivor of captivity. It destroyed her ability to call herself a lesbian or a woman for a long time: if lesbians like to sleep with transwomen and were repulsed by the supposed maleness of transmen, how could she be a lesbian herself? If women are what her ex-partner M was, then she, K, must be something else entirely. The language of transition lends itself readily to abusive gaslighting that disguises and distorts women's ability to name what is happening. What was done to her was extreme cruelty of a distinctly male variety, cruelty she was especially vulnerable to because of her lifelong history of trauma at men's hands.
The more I started to understand that M could not have been female, the more I understood why I was. One's actual sex matters. Running from its significance prevents you from doing anything but continuing its cycles of destruction. As soon as a transwoman said, "No, I'M not a man," we instantly lost our ability to protect ourselves from him. Women who never transitioned in these trans circles believed their "cis privilege" rendered them man-like in their power. For those of us females (mainly lesbians) who did seek transition, we were often told that, as transmen, we were exactly as bad as any other men.
Loading the language was an incredibly powerful tool. I was a lesbian trying to save my friend from domestic violence at the hands of a man she had partnered with out of intense desperation, facing immediate homelessness as a severely mentally ill woman with limited mobility. Understanding this could have connected us to our foremothers who struggled through similar battles to protect each other from abusive men. Instead, we felt completely adrift. Other women dealing with abuse perpetrated by transwomen have described a similar sense of being in entirely uncharted territory, terrified to speak first, unable to find anyone else sharing experiences; they're all too scared of being labeled an untouchable "trans-misogynist."
In the 21st century, intelligent and capable adult women are having to relearn what "man" means, with fear at their backs every step of the way. We were among them, exploring radical and lesbian feminist ideology online and marveling at how decades-old works precisely described circumstances we had thought of as occurring only recently. Janice Raymond's discussion of transexually-constructed lesbian feminists in The Transsexual Empire was startlingly relevant. She saw this coming. As lesbians, we have a rich history of theory that had been completely denied to women who came of age when K and I did. All either of us knew about Janice Raymond, until last year, was that she was evil to the core; a horrible transphobe. We believed this because we didn't know any better.
Deprogramming took almost a year. Both of us were terrified just to read dissenting opinions. K, me, and another lesbian exited from the radical queer scene began moderating an online support group for anyone dysphoric and born female, including many who still identified as trans. When that group started, I was still one of the transmen. All of us were so incredibly relieved not to be alone. We disagreed on a lot of stuff, but we were all tired of what we saw happening to females.
When our remaining friends from the transgender community found out that we considered transwomen capable of male violence, and that we were concerned about transition's effect on young adults, almost all of them deserted us immediately. Female trans-identifying friends who knew K's history of homelessness and our currently rocky financial situation started talking publicly to each other about how we literally deserved to starve to death.
Losing these friends hurt enough on its own. Being cut off from them just when we had begun to see the severity of the situation within these groups was so much worse. I have a list of 20 intercommunity predators, mainly transwomen who prey on females — women or transmen. Eleven of them are one or two degrees of separation from us. So many women in our community had themselves been pressured to share nude photos, coerced into unwanted sex, or outright violently assaulted by males describing themselves as transwomen, but they still didn't feel able to challenge the narrative they were being fed. These women, our friends, had been there with us. They saw transwoman predator after transwoman predator being named by their terrified female victims. The "call-outs" (a word used for anything from hurting someone's feelings slightly to brutal rape) usually only happened once several victims of the same predator found each other and made sure they had friends on their side. When victims couldn't be sure they would be supported, they didn't come forward. The political climate made it doubly difficult to "call out" a transwoman. We were constantly being reminded that transwomen are harmed by the horrible stereotype that they're all rapists or perverts, and we were taught that we needed to be constantly policing ourselves to avoid perpetuating this idea.
The silent victims of transwomen had good reason to keep quiet. We all saw transwomen using the language of "cissexism" and "transmisogyny" against anyone who named their behavior as harmful. Even transwomen dating other transwomen experienced abuse at their hands. In the resulting fallout, it was never clear who the true aggressor was; both of them would immediately begin using identity politics and "privilege dynamics" (i.e., someone poor can never hurt someone rich, under any circumstances, etc.) in a way that was very effective at obfuscating the truth. Our friends had been right beside us for all of this, and they still damned us for beginning to name what had enabled this wide-scale intercommunity violence.
Young lesbians in the "queer community" are known by many names: if you want to avoid scrutiny for not hooking up with transwomen, you've got to get creative. Some of us call ourselves queer, bisexual, or pansexual, because there's no word for only being attracted to females, and you can't be a lesbian if you date transmen or avoid dating transwomen. A lot of us, having been told that we can opt out of womanhood by choice, decided that we never want to be called "she" again. Young women who cling to the word "lesbian" find themselves increasingly pressured to sleep with transwomen, because—according to trans dogma–they are supposedly more vulnerable and oppressed than any "cis" lesbian.
Many transwomen seem to view dating a "cisbian" as a uniquely valuable source of gender validation. After all, lesbians only date women. There is no acknowledgement that, under some circumstances, some lesbians can be coerced into relationships that they are incapable of experiencing as anything except traumatic. I have never seen a transwoman from these circles ever express the possibility that this might be true. By all appearances, they have never considered it. Running from unpleasant truths is something that a lot of folks who transition (me included) tend to get very good at.
The insistence that lesbianism is not a strictly female experience runs so deep that transwomen, even those who only date other transwomen, often refer to themselves as "transdykes." This includes those who are not transitioning–men who can literally only be differentiated from any other man when you ask his preferred pronouns. Many women believe that these "transdykes," even those who have never been identifiable as anything but straight men to the outside world in any way, are more oppressed than any "cis" woman, specifically on the axis of gender. The level of gaslighting taking place here is difficult to overstate.
From the outside, now, I can finally see how ridiculous it is. Realizing this took months and months. It took us a year of exploring the feminist theory that had been forbidden to us before me or K could even call any transwoman a man without having a panic attack.
At first, when I started learning more about opposing viewpoints, I identified as a "gender-critical transman." I knew that the transgender cause had been used in a lot of disgusting ways, but I still believed transition was the only way I could survive, and I was trying to reconcile seeing myself as transgender with believing that the vast majority of trans activism was harmful to women. During this time, I really looked up to gender-critical transwomen–transitioning males who were usually at least marginally more sympathetic and thoughtful than most men. I tried to reconcile our respective identities and our needs, as we understood them, with the needs of women as a class.
I failed. At the end of the day, I just don't want anyone male in the bathroom with me. I don't want them on a women's volleyball team. I don't want them at Curves. I don't want them in a lesbian book club. The experience of being male is fundamentally different from the experience of being female — even if a man passes, even if a man has surgery to more closely resemble his idea of a woman. I don't say this out of a hatred for transwomen. I say this out of love and respect for women. What we are cannot be conceived nor replicated in a man's imagination, and it absolutely cannot be formed out of male tissue on an operating table.
The sympathy I feel for men harmed by gender, to the extent that it means I encourage male-to-female transsexualism, is in direct competition with the sympathy I feel for women harmed by gender. Everyone is entitled to make their own choices about their bodies. Everyone is also entitled to have opinions about the choices that others make about their bodies. I feel that transition is a treatment with far-reaching harmful side effects — not only for the individual receiving treatment, but for those around them.
Lesbians who see their sisters disappearing are more likely to try to erase themselves. Lesbians who are forced to welcome men into their spaces will never be able to see or understand the value of female-only space, having never actually experienced it. Transition does not cure the irreconcilability of our selves with our environments. Gendered identity crises are very real to the individuals experiencing them, myself included, but this energetic drive towards change is not best spent reforming ourselves into someone who can assimilate into the world men have built. We need to use this energy to work towards restoring balance to a sick world.
Many young lesbians (and some older lesbians caught up in a youth-oriented trans/queer culture) hold political views diametrically opposed to our collective interests. We genuinely believe some off-the-wall garbage, like that it's wrong and evil not to be attracted to penises because of "internalized cissexism." We have been successfully brainwashed to serve males at the expense of our own health and sanity.
I have so much empathy for other women who believed transition was their best choice. I lived that. The fact is, loving a woman does not automatically mean agreeing with her. I believe that all of us deserve better. We deserve to experience autonomous female space. We deserve the opportunity to experience our bodies as a part of nature worthy of celebration, not objects to be "reconstructed." The energy we spend trying to run from our own bodies is better spent working to support each other.
Those of us who make it out of communities like the ones I was in often only manage to do so because of strong female (in my experience, lesbian) support networks that help us relearn how to think for ourselves without getting angry when we make mistakes in the process. I hear political opponents of the transgender movement calling it extremely cult-like and in the same breath damning the women, usually lesbians, who fall into the trap. This reinforces the learned hatred of anyone who disagrees without creating any opportunity for victims of this ideology to ask questions and explore viewpoints that—while the victims have not yet extricated themselves–genuinely feel like some kind of blasphemy to them. The pace of progress needs to be determined by the individual. Frustration with the behavior of young people in the transgender community is very understandable, but even the most righteous anger is unlikely to change minds when it's directed at someone who has been manipulated into believing that dissenting women are literally equivalent to murderers.
The beliefs they have internalized are harmful to all women. No one is obligated to subject herself to being triggered or re-traumatized by the virulent misogyny that trans activists tend to espouse, even in the name of reaching out to a sister in crisis. Taking care of yourself has to come first. I try to stay available for conversations with questioning trans-identifying females, but I can't always be there. I need rest, too.
As I move away from viewing myself and my body as an object to improve, I'm realizing more and more how much of my energy has been devoted to appeasing men in some way. By and large, that was a waste of time. I'm working on using my emotional energy for the benefit of myself first, and then for the benefit of other women.
While I was transitioning, I was terrified of eventually regretting it. I sure as hell didn't let on much about my doubts, for fear of losing access to medical treatment, but I was consumed all the time with obsessive thoughts about it. I didn't understand how I could go on living as a woman with no breasts. What man would want to fuck me? Never mind that I didn't want to be fucked by any man; that didn't feel like a good enough answer.
I am so incredibly grateful that I learned that there was more to being a woman. Transition was absolutely not the easiest way to learn this, but it was how I learned it. It was how I learned that I could survive without men viewing me as a piece of meat. I never shaved my legs or armpits again. I stopped tittering at their stupid jokes. I dress practically. I'm grateful that I learned it was okay to exist as I am.
For me, transition was a processing of distancing my true self from my body and my environment. Detransition has been the opposite: learning to participate earnestly in the world again. For me, this isn't about undoing my transition. I'm not seeking any further changes like electrolysis or breast reconstruction. I am a woman, even if my body is recognizable as the body of a woman who once thought transition was the best choice available to me. My body has known tragedies, but my body is not a tragedy. When I catch myself slipping into deeply misogynistic internal tirades about the aspects of my appearance that changed during transition, I practice thought replacement. I am not a waste of a woman.
I'm so grateful for all of the incredible women I've connected with who are on the other side of transgender identities now. Some of them are women I met years ago, when both of us were still pursuing transition. Transition doesn't have to be forever. If transition makes you sick inside, you don't have to live and die with that sickness. There is community. There is processing. There is genuine healing. More and more of us are waking up, each with her own story. We question and disagree, with our enemies and with each other. We learn. Together, we are moving forward.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Curtis Crane, detransition, FTM detransition, FTM testosterone, FTM under 18 surgery, gender critical, gender dysphoria, guest post, internalized homophobia, lesbian youth, lesbophobia, parenting a transgender child, queer youth culture, teen transition, transgender teen by 4thwavenow. Bookmark the permalink.
89 thoughts on "Shrinking to survive: A former trans man reports on life inside queer youth culture"
sandy2y on May 27, 2016 at 1:47 pm said:
Thanks for your brave essay. I've always thought that feminist consciousness raising, which was so valuable in the 1970s, was the best education for women in every area of our lives. I believe if butch women who want to transition could experience political, radical feminist analysis of the world and of themselves, there would be no more desire to transition to the enemy. The end of feminist conscious raising was the slipping back into a society that blatently shows its hatred of women, causing us to doubt ourselves. Bring back feminist consciousness raising, because being Lesbian without the feminist analysis lacks in real perspective.
J on June 5, 2016 at 3:48 pm said:
I can't imagine what you had to go through. I hope that, as you say, more women wake up. Thanks for the great essay, and keep being you :).
Reblogged this on scarletvoid.
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annagitana (@annagitana1) on August 24, 2016 at 5:36 pm said:
I've been researching what it means to be trans and the medical and mental health treatment of gender dysphoria, for a long time. I started noticing things that concerned me in videos of parents of trans kids or trans adults, which were two main things – one, children and adults discovering they were trans after being exposed, purposefully or otherwise, to videos about trans persons, and two, the attitude that me or my kid like male things (or female things) so they must be trans, instead of a feminine boy or masculine girl.
At the same time that Ind I started noticing the disappearance of the butch woman. Butch women are becoming harder to find. Transmen are becoming more common.
I know many will say that transmen are just now coming out because they're able to – that they always existed. Maybe that's true.
But in the gender/sexuality spectrum, no one is lower in society than a butch female. Butch females face more discrimination and earn less than everyone else. And no one is higher in the social hierarchy than a cis male. Is it possible that some young butch women might find being trans and "passing" an easier route? I mean, trans men experience male privilege too.
There are multiple posts or videos from transmen or people questioning stating they never knew they were trans until they became adults and started watching a bunch of videos of trans men and began suddenly wondering about themselves. Invariably, they begin to compare "notes" in the comments, about how they didn't conform to social gender constructs as children…so they must be trans.
I wonder about using medical intervention to conform the body to a gender construct. Why can't a woman have a vagina and breasts and estrogen yet still enjoy what are classified by society as masculine styles and interests?
What's wrong with being a "masculine" female?
Is it possible that misogyny and homophobia are playing a role in the determination by some that they are trans?
bishopioan on August 24, 2016 at 6:09 pm said:
I believe that misogyny and homophobia, internalized or otherwise, play a huge part in that determination. Trans tend to enforce rigid gender roles among them and many, many of them are homophobic–I know because I dealt with several when I was considering transitioning at one point (thank goodness I didn't).
bishopioan on September 13, 2016 at 9:08 am said:
You know, interesting that you should point out how a butch woman could think that becoming a transman might lessen the discrimination she experiences as a butch. My ex (this is back when I was considering transitioning and she is not all that lesbian-friendly, BTW) said something to that effect. Interestingly, when I was still with her, we heard of the first FTM detransitioners. I wonder if something similar is at work there, but in reverse and in reference to males rather than females, i.e, once they are passing as women, they see that they are less valued, paid less, respected less, etc. I wonder if that could be a factor in FTM detransitioning.
Beacon on April 3, 2017 at 11:43 am said:
It's interesting what you say about butch women being made invisible because the person regarded as the greatest film star of all time was a butch woman… Greta Garbo.
fmnst on September 13, 2016 at 8:57 am said:
Thank you very much for your courageous article, and for so generously sharing your story, that others may better understand and benefit from your experience and analysis of it and the pressures on young people, girls, and lesbian youth regarding patriarchal culture and transgenderism.
I think almost no one outside of the young lesbian, "queer" and trans community has any idea that young lesbians are being intensely pressured for and guilt-tripped into sex by men who claim to be women, and pressured to regard these men as women and "lesbians." I have only gotten a glimpse of this online before reading your article. Your article drives home how pervasive and all-encompassing that message is, and how confusing and difficult it must have been to question that these men aren't women or lesbians when surrounded by an entire community and youth culture bring pressured to believe otherwise.
You have much to be proud of, to be one of the earliest to recognize the distortions and abuse that exist in trans culture and to find your way out of them. Not only are you a survivor, you are helping others to sort their ways out these distortions of biological reality, and helping them heal, while healing yourself. The abused woman you referred to living with is very fortunate to have had you to help her out of her abusive relationship and to help her recover from it. Thank goodness you were there for her. I hope your article is widely read and shared, it is so well written and its content so important.
Have you considered reading your story on YouTube? Even if you were behind a screen and your name changed for privacy, it would be wonderful if more people had ready access to your story. Parents, youth, doctors, therapists, LGBT and trans organizations, their corporate sponsors, and local to federal and international policy makers. Thank you again for your great work. I'm sorry you have had to go through all of this, but grateful you are now using your experience to help others.
Dmh on October 2, 2016 at 12:21 pm said:
Lily M on May 18, 2017 at 9:18 pm said:
This is such a beautifully written piece. Thank you for going public and sharing your story. Other women will read it, some will see themselves in you, and your words will reach out to other dysphoric young lesbians and those who love them.
Angie on July 18, 2017 at 4:27 am said:
Wow, it was one of the better reads I had. I feel you, I had all those feelings about myself as well and hated my body on and off since I was a little girl. I'm now a gender abolitionist and I know how much gender hurts women, and I feel relieved to know all this stuff right now and seeing the truth. The struggle is real but I'm happy a lot of women can find each other and dare to talk about it.
I was a dysphoric lesbian as well and I'm a non-dysphoric lesbian now 😉
GILAW on July 19, 2017 at 9:09 am said:
It is so disheartening to hear of the rapes and other violence inside the trans community and their lack of support for members of that community who are victims of this violence.
giuliaalexis on October 26, 2017 at 3:40 pm said:
Reblogged this on ANTHRO FEMINISM and commented:
Listening to Lesbians: The Canaries in the Coal Mine
anandro on November 25, 2017 at 12:36 pm said:
God, I tried to be sympathetic, but when you started calling the trans women by male pronouns, I knew you went from one extreme to another. You say "victims of trans women", while at the same time wanting to exclude them from every and any female space and framing them as predators.
Why are de transitioned AFAB folk treated as feminist heroes, especially after lashing out at the trans movement and anyone AMAB? I'm sure the opposite happens, too, but kept in the seedier parts of the internet.
4thwavenow on November 25, 2017 at 1:22 pm said:
Likely you are unaware that your comment amplifies and substantiates the main points made by Max in her article.
Alyssa on January 20, 2018 at 11:26 am said:
I have to say this article does hit home with me. I went through the same experience, though I never actually went through with transition. But I have to say that in my case I never felt any pressure to sleep with anyone, as I believe that people should only sleep with people they want to sleep with. And I never really experienced anyone who tried to shame me for that (I am lucky) I also didn't really use the internet as much as some of the experiences of others, I stumbled across the term transgender on youtube, and then came out to a couple of friends. It was fun to me to create a new identity that seemed to allow me to like all the things I liked and not be shamed for things I didn't like. I also overall felt more noticed by my peer group and women in general, and I felt less fearful of predatory men in my everyday life. I don't think it's fair to say that all trans women are going to guilt you into having sex with them. I met a transwomen and I wanted to have sex with her and I did and she was incredibly respectful, consent-conscious and didn't make me do anything i didn't want to do. I also believe that it is wrong of anyone in the trans community or otherwise to say you should want to have sex with them for any reason whatsoever. Sex is personal and 100% up to the person and nobody has any right to tell anyone how they should decide who to have it with.
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MamaBear on November 13, 2018 at 6:39 pm said:
Thank you for your interesting and brave article. My confused, anxious, ASD 13-year old is being sucked in by trans ideology. She firmly believes that all trans people are saints and would never harm another person, and that the trans community would be a soft place to fall for anyone who decides to detransition. She is a little angel. I am trying to help her see that all communities have their good and bad sides and that "identifying as trans, and/or detransitioning" is not a "safe-haven" from any future pain.