without a single cyber 'gremlin' in the works, it seems a new horizon might just be upon us after all!
for by far the vast majority of their shots, as the many images below will easily testify.
James Cameron feature film as well as Ken's brave aquatic voyages where few have ventured.
I sincerely hope you enjoy today's blog... it really is something else!
From December 1984 to March 1985 we did several matte shots for the 1985 film MOVING VIOLATIONS. Among those, two views of "Dana's Nursery" were needed one day and one night. Here's my small proposal concept for the day scene, simply done in black and white. Usually my matte concepts were approved from very simple renderings like this or even quick sketches.
The original photography, or plate, before the matte was applied. The location is El Segundo, California, looking west (Sepulveda Boulevard crossing the frame in the foreground). The plate masked off, the matte painting and finally the finished composite.
Close view with my hand giving a sense of scale against the artwork.
Another of the several mattes for MOVING VIOLATIONS.
seen overhead.  I honestly don't recall if it was shot on a stage or at a real technical facility.
screens and details, filmed in two separate double-exposed passes.
behind with various colored gels.
Here's one of the finished cards used for the backlight passes.  This one could be called the "background" pass.
This is the second backlight art with details that laid over the earlier backlight art, in contrasting colors.
A rear view of one of the backlight cards showing various colored gels taped in place.
Finished composite, dated Feb. 18, 1985.
The matte in place (black camera tape applied to the glass on the matte box in front of the camera lens).
Here I'm touching the painting to show the scale of it.
Finished composite, dated Feb. 28, 1985. Parade floats come tearing around a corner in the far distance and rush toward us, then around the foreground corner, heading off to the right.
This overlay shows where the "animated" people are, double exposed over the painting in a separate pass through the matte camera.
Close-up of the "animated" people -- a bunch of "holes" in an opaque black card with colored gels taped behind them and made to undulate in brightness through the use of a moire behind the card. The "holes" were made by painting black Cel-Vinyl onto Mylar, then scraping away the spots with a pointed instrument. The resulting effect gives the look of an animated crowd.
The backside of the "animation card" showing all the little pieces of colored gels taped in place.
Dana's Nursery at night from the film MOVING VIOLATIONS, here as original unmatted view.
Rotoscope on the back of the painting, giving me perspectives, from which I laid out my new buildings.  Bruce has added notes.
The finished composite, dated March 22, 1985, including backlit neon and other light elements burned in on a separate pass.
Close-up showing some of the artwork for the backlight pass (details scraped into black Cel-Vinyl and gelled from behind).
Back side of the nighttime lights burn-in artwork showing the various colored gels taped in place.
original location photography, the matte in place, the painting as well as the final composite.
I don't recall any action in the scene, which if true would be a waste, of course.
Here's the same scene timed much darker and with a separate backlight pass to burn in the house lights and stars.
in front of Fantasy II, masked off.  The lower left image shows a test where the painting is nearly complete.
I believe the optical guys at Fantasy II added some smoke to the chimneys.  Lower right, the painting.
dark line drawn above the color guard in the background.
tried to "fudge them out." The painting and the final comp are also shown.
encroaching film equipment can be seen at right..
removed before the final production footage was shot.
This set shown at top left, was built inside a sound stage at Paramount, if I remember, for a short demonstration film on how sound is created, to be part of the Disney-MGM Studios tour in Florida. I took the photo in October of 1988. At that time the working title of the film was MR. LUCKY. My task was to paint the upper part of the Victorian "haunted house" for an up-angle shot and add lightning effects. Shown here too are my first and second conceptual renderings.
The drawing was finalized on tracing paper, and then graphite was rubbed on the backside for tracing onto the white side of a sheet of our matte-painting card stock through the dry-transfer process.
A film test showing the painting in progress, perhaps for a lightning test. The final painting is seen at top right.
The artwork for the house illuminated by the lightning and then double-exposed on a separate pass through the matte camera. The clouds, illuminated by lightning somewhere behind the house, also filmed as a double exposure on yet a third pass. Finally, pouring rain was added optically..
The artwork for the house illuminated by the lightning was done on Mylar while simply laid over the background painting of the house and then double-exposed on a separate pass through the matte camera.
photographic print of the location.  Only the foreground rocks are real.  The proposal with notes by the art director written on a Mylar overlay..
Original photography before matte was added.
composite, completed May 25, 1989.  I don't remember what "live action"
moving, or again, it's an awful waste of a matte shot. *Pete here; I don't recall there being any movement or 'live' action.
very rough sketch of what he wanted, to be delivered to the "mat"
few windows had been added in with "White Out."  As the painting and testing progressed I noted several corrections given to me over the phone..
Final composite, completed Feb. 1989.
could see how it turned out.
the director had in mind.
it anywhere.  I have no clip showing the final composite.
painting, as was our usual practice. Here too is the finished painting.
Close-up of part of the ShoWest painting, as rendered in 1990.
Showing the scale of the ShoWest artwork.
matte shots showing a "Heavenly judgement," a courtroom in the sky.
was added, the matte, painting and final comp, dated Spring 1993.
The other matte shot from MY BOYFRIEND'S BACK, reverse angle, without matte.
top of the tower.  At top left is the scene I was supposed to match to.
I have no film clip showing the original location without the matte, but here's the matte in place.
artist and effects man) in the mid 90's.
day, and L.A. was on fire.
Illustrated History for which I had recently done a lot of paintings.
with the author, Don Lynch, and me as soon as possible.
corresponding scenes from the film.
Don and I were each given a copy of his "scriptment" to read, and other meetings followed. I was hired on to assist the art department with research and set design, opening my archives and providing reference material to enable the sets to be as accurate as possible, something that was a high priority from the outset. Many other films had been made on the subject through the decades, but all had cut corners in the accuracy department, some to an inexcusable extent. Jim, as Cameron preferred to be called, wanted none of that. "If there's any way we can do it, that's what I want to do. This has to be right." At times I kind of thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. We were well into set design when the project was finally greenlighted by Fox. I guess it took a while to work out some kinks, but with Jim's successful history with Fox I don't think it was ever in serious doubt that we would get the go-ahead. It was many weeks into my employment there when, one day, Jim suddenly appeared in a doorway looking at me quizzically. Pointing to me, as I recall, he said slowly and in a slightly unsure tone, "You painted the matte for the final scene in TERMINATOR." The jig was up. He remembered me. "Guilty," I responded, sheepishly. Doing all those tests and making changes to that matte had been a headache for both of us, and I had feared that he held it against me all this time. But he assured me that he harbored no hard feelings whatsoever, and I had worried for naught. Following several months at Lightstorm, after the sets had largely been drafted, I transferred over to a huge old airplane hangar at the former Hughes Aircraft facility in Playa Vista where Digital Domain was busy getting ready to start on the miniatures. There, as I had done on RAISE THE TITANIC almost two decades earlier, I circulated among the crew, trying to make sure that they had all the reference material they needed at their fingertips and that any questions were quickly answered. With several Titanic miniatures being built in varying scales, two Southampton tugs, a Cherbourg ferry named Nomadic, and a bunch of interiors, it was a daunting task for one man who simply couldn't be standing at everyone's side at once. But despite a few flubs, inevitable with such a gargantuan project, amazing results were achieved. The largest of the miniatures was the 1/20th-scale (44-foot / 13.5-meter) model of the whole Titanic, while parts of the ship were modeled in various larger scales. They were immense and breathtaking to behold, every rivet meticulously applied.
Posing next to various miniatures built by Digital Domain for TITANIC.
Then it was down to the just-completed Fox Studios Baja, a few miles south of Rosarito, Mexico, about a 3 1/2-hour drive from my home in Southern California, where the numerous virtually full-sized sets were already under construction. At that point the crew was like a small army, the sets had long since been designed up north, so there was little I could do but watch history slowly rise and reappear before my eyes. I don't even know how many times I went down there between October '96 and March '97 when the final sinking scenes were filmed. I visited maybe every two weeks or so, on average. I could bring a few others with me, but often when people, even longtime Titanic buffs, heard that the studio was about 40 minutes south of the border, they balked. I tried to persuade several that if they didn't experience these sets they'd regret it the rest of their lives. I would tell them, "Think TEN COMMANDMENTS meets TITANIC," but sometimes it was to no avail. Mexico is a third-world country or, according to some, a "developing country;" parts of it can be dangerous, particularly Tijuana at that time, and the route took us briefly through that city.
filming. The group photo was taken by staff photographer Merie W.
traditionally painted, though digitally completed matte shot for the final act of the epic film.
To this day I'm not really all that clear on what matte paintings were done for the film. I don't think too many, mostly patch jobs, I think –– fixing/blending seams between live action, sets and miniatures. There were several painted backgrounds portraying Southampton during the ship's departure and one showing the rescue ship Carpathia, but I can't really think of too many others. I was never a serious candidate for doing any matte work, having my hands full with the other tasks. Jim did kindly set me up with an in-depth tour of Digital Domain which was slated to do mattes for the film, and I spent a few hours watching a guy work at his station as he explained his process, but it never developed into anything. I dropped the ball. It was all too technical and scary to me. My artwork does appear in the movie, though. The large painting that hangs over the first-class smoking room fireplace is a copy of the original, titled Plymouth Harbor, painted in oil by the legendary British artist Norman Wilkinson. No photograph of the original painting was known to historians when the film was first being planned, and we knew we'd have to concoct some imaginary composition. Just as the art department was about to face that challenge, a small, halftoned (screened) black-and-white reproduction turned up, a yellowed page from an old publication if I remember, apparently recently found among the late artist's effects. Using only a photocopy of that, a staff artist at Lightstorm did an acrylic version of the full-sized painting for Jim's approval. Jim thought it looked unfinished, and he and I could see several missed details and discrepancies between the painting and the old photograph. He offered me the challenge of adding more detail, augmenting the sky and water and going over the entire thing to give it a more finished look. I believe it was about then that a color photocopy was received. In a bit of fortuitous luck, Mr. Wilkinson's son Rodney, who was also an artist, had recently recreated the painting in the style of his father, to be displayed at the Southampton Maritime Museum, using notes his dad kept while working on the original. Although I only had the two relatively small photocopies, with this added color reference I went into the prop painting, making numerous changes and improvements to bring it into line with the long-lost original, adding many details, and then gave the surface a thick, glossy, brush-strokey finish that would appear on film to be oils.
on the set of the first-class smoking room.
But with no close-up photos of either the original or the son's reproduction, I knew that our prop painting was just a decent approximation, good enough for the camera at a distance but in no way definitive. At one point Jim asked me if I wanted the painting after the filming. But it just didn't meet my exacting standards. I politely declined. At that early stage of production, still working in Lightstorm's art department, I simply had no idea what this total TITANIC movie experience would become, what a life-changing, memorable time it would be for me. It gave birth to a longstanding working relationship and friendship with Jim and others that continues to this day, leading to his asking me to come along and dive with him to the wreck on two additional expeditions undertaken to further document the site, and participation with him in television documentaries and books. It's been an amazing ride, and I owe a lot to him. For all those reasons, and that TITANIC quickly became history's most popular and profitable movie, not to mention tying BEN-HUR for the most Oscar® wins of any film up till that time, I deeply regret not accepting Jim's offer of that painting when I had the chance. Oh, how I kick myself. Q: Of course you played a key behind the scenes role not only in the Cameron motion picture but also in some major real life exploration and documentation of the actual wreck itself. Now as someone not entirely happy in a confined space myself, I'm mortified by the prospect of being in a submersible, as you did on several occasions I believe, let alone diving to the actual Titanic wreck miles down on the Atlantic ocean floor. I simply must hear your first timer impressions and recollections of that event. KM: My first dive to Titanic wasn't my first submarine experience. I know this is all off topic, but if your readers want to indulge me, I can give you some background: Aside from the diving bell that they used to have in the late '50s at Avalon, on Catalina Island; the submarine rides at Disneyland and Disney World; and a brief climb down into the submersible Alvin in 1987 (high and dry on the deck of a ship), my first real sub dive came in the summer of 1993. After doing many paintings for Bob Ballard's various books on his discoveries and explorations of Titanic and Bismarck, his publisher had enlisted me to illustrate the book about his next project –– a National Geographic sponsored expedition to document Lusitania which sank in 1915 just off the coast of southern Ireland after being torpedoed by a German submarine.
300 feet below. Nearly 1200 passengers and crew lost their lives.
I was to be given a dive to the wreck in the two-man mini-submersible Delta, operated by Delta Oceanographics. The wreck lies at a shallow depth of only 300 feet, so the commute from the support vessel Northern Horizon only took a couple of minutes. The sub was really tiny, like an oversized torpedo, but quite efficient and maneuverable. It had a pressure depth of 1500 feet or so, so we were well within the safe zone with nothing to worry about. But still, I'm with you, Peter, on the claustrophobia thing. I was none too thrilled about crawling into this tube and lying down prone in the front of it, looking out its viewports while the pilot sat on a stool behind me and drove it. But I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. The sub had been on over two thousand successful dives in its career. What could happen? In the unlikely event that the single propeller got tangled in debris or something, the pilot could actually detach the tail from inside and we would pop back up to the surface. But there had never been an incident that called for that. As it happened, Lusitania historian Eric Sauder and I had traveled to Ireland together to participate in this expedition, and as we didn't know if we'd get more than the one dive (anything could happen preventing Eric from going later), rather than try to pick who should go –– the artist or the historian –– on what might be our only opportunity, we decided that it would be ideal if we could dive together and be able to communicate with each other, in effect covering twice the ground. The Delta guys said that two adult observers had never tried to squeeze into it at once, only kids had. So it would be a first. It was determined that by taking out a little ballast the added weight was no problem to lowering, hoisting or navigation, so off we went. I think the scariest part was lowering myself through that narrow hatch at the top and committing myself to this highly claustrophobic experience. That's when the feeling of being trapped, the fear of drowning, hit me. But it's like roller coasters: Watching them flying around precariously, if it were the first coaster ever made and the first time you'd ever seen one, you'd never get on the thing. It's obviously far too dangerous; it'll fly off the tracks at any moment. But when you know that a coaster has been operating safely for years and that not a single soul has ever been injured, it makes a huge psychological difference. You recognize the potential for danger, but you also know it hasn't happened. What are the odds that I, the five millionth rider on this particular coaster, will die on this thing, right now?
all around. Observers lie down in the space forward of that.
It was indeed cramped inside, as expected, and I could basically only look out the front and one side port while Eric could only do the opposite, but we managed. Within two minutes we had reached the gravelly bottom and were heading toward the wreck. The deep, deep intense green of the water outside will always remain vivid in my memory. It wasn't very clear; with the sub's exterior lights on we could see maybe 25 feet or so, at most. We asked our pilot, Chris Ijames, if he could turn off the lights so I could get a sense of the ambient lighting for my upcoming artwork. Interestingly, we could see a lot farther with the lights off, a supremely eerie scene, but it was so dim and "hazy" that the lights were definitely an advantage for close exploring and examination. I could go on for pages describing the experience, but this isn't the forum. I'll cut to the chase: After maybe 45 minutes probing Lusitania's stern area, we were moving forward over the collapsed port side of the hull when the propeller sucked up a fine Nylon strand of an old fishing line, one of many caught on the wreck, which quickly wound up into a heavier entanglement. The propeller seized. Chris tried reversing the prop, everything he could think of, to no avail. We were trapped. After all the dives this sub had done without incident, it had finally happened. Sure enough, on our dive. Long story short, after much discussion with the surface via underwater acoustic "radio," Chris did what he was trained to do, crawled back in the small hull and somehow released the whole rudder/prop section without flooding the sub itself, freeing us to float back up to the surface at a significantly bow-down angle.
collapsed port hull, an open doorway just below, on August 4, 1993.
Q: Were you ever frightened during any of this. KM: Amazingly enough, not really. Our pilot's reassuring calmness and good humor made it seem oddly routine, something we just had to wait out while, we imagined, discussions no doubt ensued on the surface about how National Geographic could get this on video for the show, and so on. If you let yourself go there, sure, you could work yourself up into a terror. There were times when I just had to keep my mind on the mission, not think about where I was. It was more disappointing than anything. "Just our luck," we said to ourselves. "What are the odds? Our one dive to Lusitania, and we had barely begun." Fortunately we were given a second chance a few days later and were able to explore and study more of the wreck, this time without incident, thankfully.
mini-sub Delta examines the port side of Lusitania's bow in 1993.
Roy Disney and his wife came out and visited our ship during that expedition. I don't remember if they were vacationing in Ireland at the time or what, but somebody knew somebody, and they were invited aboard for an afternoon while Ballard gave them the tour and they watched the goings-on. I was stunned by Disney's resemblance to his famous uncle. I never met Walt, but at age 15 I did take a decent picture of him as he, the Grand Marshal of the 1966 Rose Parade, was slowly driven by. He turned and looked right in my direction as I snapped the pic with my Brownie Starmite camera.
Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, California, taken New Year's Day 1966.
What a thrill it was to see him in person!
Two years later Ballard again had me along, this time on an expedition to explore and document the wreck of Britannic, the second of Titanic's two sisters, which had struck a German mine in the Aegean Sea in 1916 while serving as a hospital ship. Fortunately no patients were aboard as the vessel was on its way to pick up injured in Moúdros, on the island of Limnos. I would be doing paintings of the ship for an upcoming book called Lost Liners. The wreck, the largest passenger ship on the sea floor in the world, lies on its starboard side in 400 feet of beautifully clear water and is in remarkably intact condition. On this trip the U.S. Navy's nuclear research sub NR-1 was used, and I went down one day for a good study session. Unlike at Lusitania where the water had a deep, saturated green color, here it was turquoise blue and much brighter. The visibility was so good that when the sub had only begun to descend I could already begin to make out the fuzzy shape of the dark hulk far below against the snow white sand.
The U.S. Navy nuclear research sub NR-1.
largest passenger shipwreck in the world.
NR-1 is the largest sub I've experienced, with a 12-man crew, as I recall. So in this case I suffered little or no anxiety, with a team of very experienced Navy crew and several officers at the ready in case of any emergency. The small viewing area is up forward under the control center, or bridge, accessible through a hatch in the floor. I spent many hours down in that little observation area, sketching and photographing. While touring around we found all four of the ship's funnels scattered about, all but one some distance from the hull, each having been witnessed to topple over and break away as the ship rolled during the last stage of the sinking. The funnels were in amazing condition, each in one piece, with their ladders and whistles still attached, although a bit flattened. The dive was to be maybe six hours or so, but the weather deteriorated up top, got rough, and it was decided to remain underwater throughout the night. I was fed along with the crew, in shifts, at a small table, and given a "rack" to sleep in. The next morning the wind and waves were just as bad, and in the end we stayed down throughout that second day, as well. By the time we surfaced we had been hovering over and around Britannic for just under 48 hours straight. A lot of study and documentation, including detailed side-scan sonar mapping, were accomplished during that time. And then, Titanic. In 2000 I was invited along on a segment of what would be the last major Titanic artifact recovery effort, using the twin Russian submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2 and the support/research ship Akademik Mstislav Keldysh. I was there with notebooks full of archival photographs to assist with identification of objects and so forth, not really knowing or expecting that I might actually dive. But one day I was told I could go the next day if I wanted.
I knew I couldn't pass up the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I immediately accepted. After all, I was a seasoned submariner now, right? But a low-level panic gripped me. This wouldn't be a relatively shallow 300 or 400 feet. This was 2 1/2 miles, straight down. You can imagine the thoughts racing in my head: I'd be irreversibly trapped in a six-foot sphere with two other adults for as long as 10 hours or more (sometimes a lot more)… descending to the bottom of the Atlantic… and once there, the risk exists that at any time we could snag on some debris and be stuck… or worse, that while next to the towering hull some large debris might fall away from the rusting hulk and pin us to the bottom… that because of the immense outside pressure a sudden leak no more than a pinhole in size would shoot water into the sphere with such force that it could, they said, cut a man in two…not to mention worry about how stress or excitement might affect my bladder and bowels, with no toilet available. And there's just the one pilot. What if he has a stroke or a heart attack? Neither of us passengers had a clue of how to get us safely back to the surface or even how to use the UQC communication equipment (underwater acoustic radio). It was a dizzying array of fears and hesitation. But I had to do it. I'd never live it down if I didn't. I wasn't as nervous about it as some, though. I was told that a few had gotten as far as the hatch on top of the sub and changed their minds, and I know people who say they wouldn't do it for a million dollars.
On August 5, 2000, after donning the Nomex fireproof diving suit issued to all Mir divers, I climbed down into Mir-1. It wasn't nearly as scary as I'd feared. The other passenger and I were given a very brief tutorial on how to operate the UQC if the pilot became disabled, and that's all we really needed to know. Turns out it was always on and connected, and all we had to do was press the mic switch and we'd be heard by the other sub, where someone would always be able to speak English and could relay to us what to do via the other pilot. The two Mirs always dived together for safety reasons, and that was reassuring. The nickel-steel sphere is something like 6.5 feet (about 2 meters) in interior diameter, but there are all kinds of instruments, video recorders, communication equipment, an air scrubber, etc., fixed to the sides and impinging on our elbow, leg and head room, and our various camera bags were hung from above. Despite this, I became quickly used to the confined space and felt more or less comfortable. It is what it is, and you just can't worry about it. The Russian pilots are extremely experienced with their subs, and watching them operate with such confidence is comforting.
expeditions their orange tops were repainted red.
It takes about two hours forty minutes to free-fall, at about 1 mph, to the bottom where Titanic rests at about 12,500 feet. The air pressure inside the sphere remains at "one atmosphere" throughout the dive, the same as it on the surface when the hatch is closed, so there are no potential ear aches to worry about. I'd been told it gets very cold inside (the outside water temperature is just above freezing at depth, with only the heat of our bodies and the various electrical equipment to heat the space), and I don't like to be cold, but I never, in all my Titanic dives, really felt too uncomfortable. I don't recall ever needing more than a light sweatshirt. There are dark blue padded vinyl mats for the two observers to lie on on either side of the pilot who sits in the center, and each observer has a viewport about four or five inches in diameter, while the pilot's port is about eight inches. Q: It sounds like the existence of a gunner in the dome on the underbelly of one of those B52's – prone, uncomfortable and vulnerable. KM: There were many distractions outside that took my mind away from any discomfort. A real highlight of descending through the pitch-black water column and ascending again later is passing through the region of bioluminescent creatures. With the outside lights turned off to conserve battery power, it was astonishing, simply awesome, to peer out of the port while we slowly moved vertically through the water, our turbulence disturbing thousands of myriad living things and causing them to light up in their varying hues of greenish yellow, lavender and white. There were individual bursts and rippling, undulating chains of light. Sometimes I could see the bluish glow from a larger creature far off in the black, mysterious distance. It was creepy and utterly wondrous at the same time, the ultimate "immersive" experience, absolutely magical and almost as interesting as exploring the wreck and debris field itself. It proved to be a fascinating study in how different we humans are, as well. While I was glued to my viewport oohhing and ahhing over the glowing wonders drifting past outside, one fellow observer across from me on a later dive (his first) couldn't have been less interested in the spectacle on display outside our sub. Go figure.
My reaction to first seeing Titanic with my own eyes was rather anticlimactic, I'm afraid. I had already studied thousands of photos and dozens of hours of video of the wreck while illustrating books about Bob Ballard's 1985 discovery and exploration in '86, so I knew almost every nook and cranny of the thing by then. If anything, it was like meeting an old friend. Not too many surprises. I will say that I was struck by the sheer size of the ship, seeing it with my own eyes. It seemed absolutely huge. Another thing that stuck with me was the ghostly stillness down there, in the utter blackness, enlivened only rarely by a slow-moving rattail fish or occasionally by other creatures, from shrimps to small jellyfish, and on the sediment were starfish (called "brittle stars") and large, purplish slug-like things. There is weather down there. Big time. On one dive there might be virtually no current, and you could see 80 feet or more with the sub's lights. The very next day there could be a significant current running, with light fluffy debris "blowing" along the sediment like tumbleweeds in the desert, and you could hardly see 20 feet. The rivet counter that I am, my most excited moments moving around the wreck were when I spotted small structural details I hadn't known about before. I remember almost having my breath taken away when I noticed, hidden behind a cargo crane in the forward well deck, a bulkhead lamp fixture with an intact wire guard over it. It was the first time, to my knowledge, that any living Titanic historian or model builder had known of this fixture, tucked away behind the large crane base and virtually never visible in archival photographs. I felt I was the first to see this lamp since the night of April 15, 1912, and know what it was, and I was awestruck. After decades of studying the ship and her every detail, this was a private, personal and meaningful moment. It felt like Titanic was speaking to me. "Hello, Ken. You didn't know this about me, did you?" Q: I can imagine the thrill of the moment and that sudden sharp intake of breath you must have experienced. KM: The air in the sphere is kept clean and fresh by the scrubber, the filters for which have to be changed once or twice during a dive. The UQC volume has to be kept on in case the other sub might communicate with us, and its constant static noise can become mind numbing if you don't use earplugs. Late in the dive, usually shortly before ascent, we take a break in our work, rest on the wreck or the mud bottom for a while, and the pilot opens a compartment under his perch and brings out edibles, a thermos with a hot beverage and a large chocolate bar for each of us. Thankfully my bowel concerns have always been unwarranted, but I had no shame when it came to peeing. While one fellow diver, Ralph White, light-heartedly boasted about his "mind over bladder," I didn't want to be uncomfortable and soon learned that, hey, it ain't so bad to just turn your back and use the large plastic pee bottle. That's what it's there for.
On that first dive in 2000 selecting and recovering artifacts from the vast debris field, I was busy, on a mission, observing intently and trying to recognize interesting or important objects among the tangled wreckage for potential recovery. For my five subsequent Titanic dives on Jim Cameron's explorations in 2001 and 2005, also using Keldysh and the faithful Mirs, my job was equally busy but a different task –– to direct the pilot in my sub to light shots for Jim who was in the other sub or to otherwise scout out areas for investigation or photography. So, in GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS or LAST MYSTERIES OF THE TITANIC, when you see what appears to be sunlight streaming in through windows or portholes as Jim explores the ghostly interior with one of his ROVs (remotely operated vehicles), or "bots," that's usually me out there, guiding the pilot so our sub could act as a lighting source for Jim.
and Genya and I inside on the way to the bottom, both taken in '01.
for the children's book Titanic: Ghosts of the Abyss.
was shot in standard definition with one of Jim's several compact bots.
for use in the book Ghosts of the Abyss, published in 2003.
The most worrisome time of a dive for me eventually became my concern over the sea condition when we surfaced in the evening or at night. It always seemed to be rougher during recoveries than during morning launches. I don't like to be seasick (I'd rather break an arm, seriously), so the thought of being in this small tub and tossing and rolling around incessantly for up to half an hour or more before being lifted back onto the deck of Keldysh was very unsettling. Fortunately I never was sick. I just lay down on my mat, on my back, and closed my eyes, breathed deeply and imagined I was on some fun ride at Disneyland, and tried to relax. So there you are, a few of my "impressions and recollections" of diving in submarines to famous wrecks.
Q: So Ken, your life has clearly been a series of exciting, satisfying and memorable events and opportunities where it seems to me that all of your professional wishes had been granted… and then some. What more could one ask for.
KM: For two decades, when asked what I did for a living, I would proudly say, "I'm a matte artist in the film industry." It's taken many years to really come to grips with the fact that I can't say that anymore. My matte-painting days are over. It's history. I'm not a person who likes change. I adapt slowly. Too slowly, probably, to master the vastly complex machinations of 21st century digital effects. The learning curve would be a bit too steep, I suspect, for an older guy like me, and the pace of work and demands to which digital artists are subjected are suited to others with far higher energy levels than I possess. So I have returned to my roots, as it were, painting maritime commissions for clients, advising on various Titanic-related projects and doing occasional Photoshop work. I've thought of teaching art, as well, passing my experience and knowledge along to younger generations. Bruce has been encouraging in that regard. Who knows... maybe that will be the next chapter in my life.
Magenta faded 35mm of some 30 years in storage clip now restored.
Assembling these old, faded film test clips and scanning, color-correcting (I'm stunned by how magenta some of them have become, despite being kept in complete darkness), cleaning and otherwise restoring the imagery for posting in this blog has been a cathartic journey. Our traditional original-negative matte-painting work just slowly died, killed off by digital, leaving me with a sense of loss. I've missed it. And this blog project, something that's taken over six months to pull together, has allowed me to finally tie it all up with a bow. It's closure. And I needed that.
Although Bruce and I kept our heads low and never sought the limelight, when Mark Cotta Vaz and Craig Barron published their seminal work The Invisible Art, it caught us completely by surprise. We had no idea someone was putting together such a massive and detailed volume, flattering matte artists known and unknown, and it stung that we were never approached and our decades of work never mentioned. We had kept such a low profile, I guess, that the authors didn't even know of us. So, to finally have some of our efforts recognized here in this endlessly fascinating blog, interviewed along with so many other legendary and stellar names in the world of matte art, is an honor and, frankly, a healing experience for us. On behalf of Bruce and myself, thank you, Peter, for contacting us and offering us this opportunity. And thank you for all your work in continuing to bring the traditional art of matte painting to light and keeping the flame burning.
Both of Bruce Block's books are available at Amazon.com.


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Biggie's Mom Preps Book on Son's Life
Published on 09-05-2005 05:12 PM
Voletta Wallace, mother of slain emcee The Notorious B.I.G. is preparing Biggie: Voletta Wallace Remembers Her Son, Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious B.I.G. According to a Vibe.com article, the book will also feature a forward by Biggie's ...
Biggie to be featured in new Motorola ITunes AD!
"The cast includes industry veterans Madonna, Little Richard, and Bootsy Collins, as well as pop punk rockers Sum 41, R&B diva Mya, king of crunk Lil' Jon, pop sensation The Pussycat Dolls, The White Stripes duo, and Billie Joe from Green Day. Through impersonators, the ad also features the ...
King of the South rapper T.I. Sports B.I.G. RTD Custom Tee
Self proclaimed king of the south, rapper T.I. was at the world famous Apollo theater performing his latest tracks "Bring Em Out" and "U Don't know Me". This performance was aired back in May around Notorious B.I.G's birthday.
They recently ...
Notorious B.I.G. tribute by Diddy & Snoop @ the 2005 Mtv VMA's
Another flashback moment came in a tribute to Diddy's protege, the late Notorious B.I.G., that featured Diddy "conducting" a string orchestra as the legendary rapper's songs played. Snoop Dogg came out at the end and delivered a verse on the B.I.G. hit "Warning."
B.I.G. tops AOL Greatest Hip Hop Artist List
Read the entire article at:
http://music.aol.com/feature/top_11_hiphop_artists ...
Lil Kim back in Bedstuy Brooklyn to film video!
It looks like the streets will always have love for Lil' Kim just like they continue to have for her mentor, the late great Notorious B.I.G. Kim was in the "Sugar Hill" club in Bedstuy Brooklyn Friday filming shots for an ...
B.I.G. new album getting pushed back again?
According to the Miami Herald: Diddy, and that's just Diddy to those up on the latest cycle of pop culture, is recording a duet with his great friend, the late Biggie (Notorious B.I.G.). The album, of old ...
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Sex offender charged for assault in park
Vern Hess
Suspect in park assault now charged with attempted rape
By Kitsap Sun Staff
PORT ORCHARD — A registered sex offender suspected of groping and assaulting two women who were walking dogs Friday night at Stephenson Canyon Park in East Bremerton was charged Monday in Kitsap District Court with two counts of second-degree robbery.
Vern Duane Hess II, 30, is being held in the county jail on $200,000 bail.
The women, ages 21 and 22 and both from Bremerton, were walking two small dogs on the trails in the park at 5:20 p.m. when they passed a man who made a comment about the dogs. The women told the man the dogs didn't like strangers, and as the man passed he grabbed one of the woman's breasts, according to the documents.
The woman shoved his hands away, but he was able to take her cellphone from her pocket and continued to try to touch her. The woman demanded her phone back, and the man said, "This is my phone," according to documents.
The man grabbed the other woman's breasts as she was trying to call 911 on her phone. His phone was apparently visible, so that woman grabbed it and tried to throw it into the woods, but the man blocked her hand, according to court documents. However, she was able to grab the first woman's phone back and tossed it to her. That woman ran off to call 911.
As she was leaving to call 911 she saw the man throw her friend to the ground and choke her, but the woman was able to fight him off and get away, according to documents.
Within minutes officers arrested Hess. The women identified Hess as the man who attacked them. When questioned, Hess denied he had assaulted anyone and said he got dirt on his clothes from falling down.
"While our officers did a great job flooding the area and getting this suspect into custody immediately, I am truly disturbed by the facts that led up to this incident," Police Chief Steve Strachan said in a news release. "This man committed two similar crimes in Pierce County, served only a few years and was then placed in our city to apparently commit the same type of crime again."
Hess, a Level 3 sex offender, lives in an Acorn Street residence that's known to house sex offenders. A Level 3 sex offender is considered the most likely to reoffend.
According to the state Department of Corrections, Hess had been incarcerated twice, from March 29, 2012, to Jan. 17, 2013, at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, and from Nov. 7, 2013, to Nov. 23, 2015, at Washington Corrections Center and Airway Heights Corrections Center. He was convicted of two counts of third-degree assault and one count of unlawful imprisonment.
Information on Hess' background is available on the Kitsap County sheriff's sex offender database at www.icrimewatch.net/offenderdetails.php?OfndrID=1650670&AgencyID=54474.
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Garrison Keillor sets an Admiral Theatre date | Kitsap A&E


When Justin said "let's put a freestyle rap in the trailer," I really didn't know what to think.
Black people don't get to be the heroes in too many games, even less so black women — and victims of sexual objectification. But that's where ReElise starts: in the shoes of a black woman who recently freed herself — and got her hands on a sweet blade.
I'm gonna try to not shout "GO BACK THIS GAME ON KICKSTARTER!" (Crap, I just did, didn't I?) Anywho, this was a fun project to work on. Kindly consider it if you're looking for more games about black folk who are working out issues of justice and revenge — or if you just like really weird RPGs.
Consider backing ReElise on Kickstarter.


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Newsroom / News Releases December 17, 2018
Hawaiian Airlines Expanding Check-in Operations in Honolulu
New lobby space will simplify the check-in experience for guests
HONOLULU – Hawaiian Airlines is enhancing the check-in experience for guests departing from its hub at Honolulu's Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) by assigning dedicated lobbies for international, North America and Neighbor Island flights.
All guests traveling to Japan on Hawaiian's non-stop flights to Narita and Haneda (Tokyo), Kansai (Osaka) and New Chitose (Sapporo) international airports will be directed to check-in at Lobby 4. Other international departures, including American Samoa, will remain at Lobby 3.
On Jan. 9, the check-in for Neighbor Island flights moves to Lobby 3 from Lobby 2, while guests on North America departures will continue to check-in at Lobby 2, both located in Terminal 1.
"As Hawai'i's airline, we look forward to offering our visitors and kama'āina a streamlined check-in process in Honolulu, and we appreciate the state's assistance in facilitating our expansion into our new Lobby 4 space," said Jeff Helfrick, vice president of airport operations at Hawaiian Airlines. "This change will improve international passenger flow throughout our lobbies in time for the busy holiday travel season and we expect greater benefits in the new year as we continue to invest in our guests' airport experience."
Hawaiian, which welcomes roughly 32,000 guests each day on over 250 flights systemwide, accounts for more than half of all passenger traffic at HNL. Most of its guests – some 19,000 – begin or end their trip at the carrier's HNL hub, including some 11,000 Neighbor Island travelers.
To help make the Lobby 4 transition as smooth as possible, Hawaiian's Team Kōkua employee volunteers will be positioned at Lobbies 2, 3 and 4 from Dec. 19-21 and from Jan. 9-11 to assist guests. Please click here for a map of Hawaiian's new HNL lobby operations.
Hawaiian® has led all U.S. carriers in on-time performance for each of the past 14 years (2004-2017) as reported by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Consumer surveys by Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure and TripAdvisor have placed Hawaiian among the top of all domestic airlines serving Hawai'i.
Now in its 90th year of continuous service, Hawaiian is Hawaii's biggest and longest-serving airline. Hawaiian offers non-stop service to Hawai'i from more U.S. gateway cities (12) than any other airline, along with service from Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa and Tahiti. Hawaiian also provides approximately 170 jet flights daily between the Hawaiian Islands, with a total of more than 250 daily flights system-wide.
Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. is a subsidiary of Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: HA). Additional information is available at HawaiianAirlines.com. Follow Hawaiian's Twitter updates (@HawaiianAir), become a fan on Facebook (Hawaiian Airlines), and follow us on Instagram (hawaiianairlines). For career postings and updates, follow Hawaiian's LinkedIn page.
For media inquiries, please visit Hawaiian Airlines' online newsroom.
Related Multimedia
Lobby 4 Maile
Hawaiian Airlines' new lobby 4 check-in space at Honolulu's Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.
Lobby 4 Ceremony
Hawaiian Airlines representatives during a dedication ceremony for the carrier's new Lobby 4 check-in operations at Honolulu's Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.
Lobby 4 Blessing
Hawaiian Airlines dedicated its new lobby 4 check-in space at Honolulu's Daniel K. International Airport with a blessing on Monday, Dec. 17, 2018.


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const results = runTest(env);

print(JSON.stringify(results));

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Examining the social determinants of global eye health: Sharing my story of vision care (pt. 3)
Soham Govande / July 7, 2021
This post is part three. Read part one and two of this series.
As Together We See (TWS) grew, our team conducted international vision screenings. In these programs, we'd begin by remotely training volunteers in that region to conduct visual acuity examinations using OcularCheck. In an ordinary year, our team would have conducted these ourselves, but we couldn't travel due to pandemic restrictions. A few virtual meetings later, our volunteers would be ready to conduct vision screening for their community. After the screening process identified people with an impairment, TWS provided financial support and transportation for hospital visits. The process of organizing a vision screening program—from writing easy-to-understand instructions for volunteers to encouraging community members to get screened—taught me the value of cross-cultural communication in international health initiatives to maximize the number of people who receive help.
In this post, I'll discuss my thoughts on the social determinants of health in regards to TWS's international program development. I pieced together connections about public health factors through interviews and whenever possible, validated them through a survey tool administered through the SurveyAnyplace platform.
Palanpur, India
Our team had little trouble asking the parents of elementary schoolchildren to enroll their kids in TWS's vision screening program. Every parent, except one, agreed.
I believe TWS's success may be partially attributed to the program's location in a school. Indian culture places a high value on education; 84% of participants selected that their child's education was either "important" or "very important." This makes sense; due to the high rates of poverty and increasing income inequality in Palanpur, parents may feel that their children's education can empower them to break the cycle of destitution. As a result of the cultural emphasis on education, a visual impairment can be particularly debilitating, as kids will learn slower than their peers. Hence, due to the connection between visual health and education, parents were happy to have their kids screened.
Yet, there was a different story when it came to adults and more particularly, elderly women, who—although they were happy to send their kids—were reluctant to come themselves. While the causes behind this are multifaceted, I believe gender roles may in part be responsible for this disparity. Some of the women I interviewed were reluctant about coming because they felt leaving their family at home in the evening would be unfair.
Saarya [1]: My husband and kids need me to make dinner for them in the evening, we're making pav bhaji. It would be selfish of me to leave them hungry and come here [to the vision screening center] for myself…
Indian culture is deeply family-oriented, and women are enculturated in households that encourage them to place the familial needs above their own. As a result, some mothers felt guilty about addressing their own health needs first.
Saarya: Sometimes, things look blurry to me, like the schedule at the bus stop, like 10–15 meters away… I can't see that far, but I think that's just normal at my age. Besides, I don't go out very often, so I think I will be okay.
To add to this, some women felt that due to their position as a homemaker, they didn't need treatment. Hence, in rural regions where traditional gender roles are magnified, such roles may serve as barriers to health.
Losimingori, Tanzania
Together We See trained volunteers in the Losimingori village in the state of Arusha to screen tribal community members for visual impairments.
Due to the lack of access to post-secondary education and the lack of nearby hospitals, there was limited medical knowledge of visual impairment in Losimingori (on average, people lived three hours away from the nearest hospital, and only one person from the village had access to a college education). When limited information is available to people about visual impairment, impairments aren't recognized at their onset but rather after they've too become severe to cope with. This was reflected in the greater rates of uncorrected moderate and severe visual impairment our team observed.
Losimingori is a sedentary village of the Maasai peoples of Africa, but other groups in the Engaresero region have continued their longstanding tradition of nomadic pastoralism. As pastoralists rely on cattle herds for nearly every aspect of sustenance, pastoral groups' diet is heavily dependent on milk, cattle blood, and raw meat—in fact, warrior men exclusively consume these three foods for several decades of their life. While this diet reduces the risk of cardiovascular and dental conditions, it lacks nutrients that are key to visual health—for example, vitamins C and E are known to prevent age-related eyesight problems (e.g., macular degeneration) but they are lacking in red meat and milk. Hence, if TWS conducts vision screening programs for pastoral groups, we find greater occurrence of age-related visual impairment.
At the time of writing, TWS just finished conducting a vision screening program in Sai Yok, Thailand and is beginning one in Roatán, Honduras. I look forward to analyzing the interconnectedness of culture and health in these parts of the world.
Campbell, T. (2015, July 17). Masai and Inuit High-Protein Diets: A Closer Look. Center for Nutrition Studies. nutritionstudies.org/masai-and-inuit-high-protein-diets-a-closer-look/
Lipton, M. (2020). How Lives Change: Palanpur, India, and Development Economics. The Journal of Development Studies, 56(1), 221–222. doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2019.1666460
Meixner, M. (2018, July 25). The 9 Most Important Vitamins for Eye Health. Healthline. healthline.com/nutrition/eye-vitamins
[1] Name changed for personal privacy
Tagged public health, social determinants of health, together we see, vision
Racial disparities in COVID-19 vaccinations demonstrate a biosocial impact
Analyzing the effects of mask-wearing and social distancing on brain development in children
How COVID-19 is affecting the BLM movement: An intersection of public health and racial justice
About Soham Govande
View all posts by Soham Govande →
Ripple effects of global warming and climate change on American public health disparities
Social Determinants of Health (12)
Understanding the complex relationship between Indigenous peoples and biotechnology
Mass Incarceration and COVID-19: The intersection of American policy failures
A Mini-Ethnography: Social determinants of public health on the Texas-Mexico border
Copyright © Soham Govande - All rights reserved.


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The Break Presents: Ezri
Sean Dougherty @seandshoots
Ezri, formerly known as Ezzy, just might be the future of Cleveland rap. He proved as much back in 2015, when he delivered an incredible freestyle on Sway in the Morning that dazzled Sway and brought co-host (and hip-hop OG) Heather B to tears. Soon after, Ezri starred in the independent film The Land—which was executive produced by Nas—and contributed two songs to the film's soundtrack.
Nas took a liking to the young rapper, whose vivid storytelling recalls rap's golden years. After inking a deal with the hip-hop legend's Mass Appeal Records, Ezri dropped his impressive EP be right back on Oct. 27. On the EP, Ezri shares his come-up story: graduating high school and leaving his homies who were in the streets for college, leaving college to pursue his rap ambitions and relocating to the Big Apple after he signed his deal.
"Be right back is speaking to anyone being in the situation I was in," he told XXL while in New York City. "Basically, the story starts with me graduating high school and trying to figure out what I was going to do after school. My mom wanted me to go to college but I didn't. I wanted to fully spend my time doing music."
The be right back EP is a wonderful introduction to Ezri, and serves as a fine soundtrack for a coming-of-age tale. Pay attention to Ezri and learn more about him on The Break.
Name: Ezri
Hometown: Cleveland
I grew up listening to: "Sitting in the backseat of my dad's car, he would play JAY-Z albums. But my first experience with really liking music was Lil Wayne's No Ceilings. I was probably like in sixth grade. Everybody in my middle school was listening to it. I downloaded the tape and was like, 'Dang, this is hard.' By that time, I was already working on music but I kept it real low. When I listened to No Ceilings, I was like, 'I got to start writing raps, bars.' Wayne's lyrical ability impressed me. Me being a reader, that was something that I liked. I was into books before I had a liking for rap or music. I was a good writer, I knew I could write well so I wanted to start writing raps. So I started getting more into lyricism and getting away from songwriting. I started out straight doing songs, like Auto-Tune, singing stuff.
"When I was 11, I wrote my first song, it was my cousin's Quinceañera. My family saw a natural talent that I didn't see at the time and was pushing me to pursue rapping. So from that point, my mom started booking me studio sessions. So when I was 11, 12 years old, I was in the studio recording songs. It wasn't like a story of a kid making music on his laptop. It was my mom deciding "my son likes this and I'm going to find the resources for it because I rather him that than hang out with his friends in the streets or wasting time." It's definitely something I'm thankful for, her coming up with that idea.
"I started taking things seriously when I was 13. That's when I was like, 'Yo, I can actually be nice and become a rapper.' Age 14, I met DJ Steph Floss—he started playing me on the radio."
My style's been compared to: "People compare me to J. Cole, people compare my musical sound to Travis Scott, which is a weird contrast. Some people have compared me to Chance. I would describe my sound as a bridge. It's the elements of lyricism and the elements of the new relevant sounding instrumentation and production."
Most people don't know: "I used to write comic books and stuff. I lived in North Carolina and Tampa, Fla. before."
My standout moment to date: "The first big thing was the Sway freestyle that I did in 2015. That really put a lot of attention on me. Since then, working with Mass Appeal and Nas, that was a big thing. But the biggest stuff is still to come.
"[Nas] is a super cool dude, super chill. I met him before I was actually signing. He really reminds me of my pops. My dad acts the same way, they wear the same stuff, drink the same cognac. [Nas] energy is something I'm used to. I recently recorded a joint to something he had. Listening back to it, the music sounds good."
My goal in hip-hop is: "My goal is to go down in history as a great. Not only just in music—I want music to propel me into everything that I want to do in life. My goal in music is to be referred to one of the greatest, for sure. That takes perfecting the craft and just working."
I'm going to be the next: "Michael Jackson is a great one. We're on two different sides of the spectrum, but the ability to make people feel good. Bob Marley is another one. Jesus, I guess [laughs]. Somebody that inspires people that go out and pursue what they're passionate about so that the world is not filled with a whole bunch of followers and people just trying to do stuff for money. So yeah, the next savior."
Follow Ezri on Twitter and SoundCloud.
Standouts: be right back
"be right back"
"Goodbye"
Sway in the Morning freestyle
See New Music Releases for December 2017
Filed Under: Ezri, Feature, The Break
Categories: Music, News, The Break


What a glorious day we've had!
Considering I was dreading today, as it's damn cold still, and have been awaiting the weekend and its divine temperatures All Week, it has been a fabulous day.
We headed out early to take Daddy to work - that north wind squashed his dreams of biking to work today, so we dropped him, off (sorry, Eric!, we missed you today!) and went to lunch.
After that we headed to Costco for a quick trip (no real goodies there today), then over to a kitchen specialty shop (Orson Gygi) in search of a few very particular things - a jumbo bag of gumballs for our machines, and some flavourings to make lollipops. We picked up some geometric-shaped molds, some sticks, and apple and watermelon flavorings. Mmmmm!
Can't wait for that one!
Next we stopped at Home Depot to check on their plant selection - Mama was in search of some sort of lacy fern, and Trev's longed-for Venus Fly Trap.
They had a few, but they were in poor condition, and Trev said he didn't want those.
I thought a local neighborhood nursery (Cactus and Tropicals) might carry them, so we made our way over there.
The babes and I were so delighted to be there. We soaked in that glorious, clean, damp air for an hour, touching plants, playing in the rocks, running our fingers through the fountains, marveling at the beauties we saw, and in general feeling quite splendid.
And they indeed had Venus Fly Traps!
Trev was thrilled at one of them that had six pods on it, and that's the one we chose. (Turns out it has two more little ones coming in - which means that it's started another plant, they only have seven leaves.) It is a beautiful plant, and we're very excited about it.
After the shop we headed to another neighborhood nursery, which is practically across the street from us. It is where I buy most of my perennials every year. Jacob's Ladders, Foxgloves, Columbine, grasses, Cup and Saucer plants, and another Shasta Daisy or two.
I can't wait to get my beauties in the ground this weekend!
We initially thought we'd put Kermit (the plant) in the terrarium, but Trev has decided that he wants him separate.
I've been reading up on them. We thought that maybe after the plant ate the bug that that particular pod might die, but we have learned differently. They'll just open up again with the little exoskeleton resting on the leaf til the wind blows it away.
Oooh. How exciting. Not that we kill things around here, you understand, or don't respect all of life, but it's very cool to see Nature happening, none-the-less.
Maddie has been up on the table pretty much since we got home inspecting it with the magnifying glass - checking out it's "teeth" as we call it, and the little spikes on the surface of the leaves, the ones that when bent cause the trap to snap shut.
She has also already put her finger in there to see what would happen.
It was fast! I was amazed.
Tomorrow or tonight we may put a little centipede in there to feed it. We'll see.
The big ol' monitor died a couple of days ago, so I thought I'd try out the tiny one that's been sitting in the driveway for a month, and since it was semi-sheltered it didn't get drowned, and it still works.
Trev's happy about that, and happy about the fact that a new (used) computer is coming on Monday, and our computer aggravation shall be over.
He's back there playing the Dinosaur Hunter game - it's the museum one that you can excavate for bones that fit into your particular animal's time period, and after you put the bones together properly, the skeleton comes to life to wander your museum. It's just one of the games on the cd, but a favorite, and is a really great game.
Damek has been wanting to get a venus flytrap also, looks like we know where to go!
Thanks for the heads up on the garden center too, I've only been there once about 8 years ago, and they didn't have much, I'll have to go back, as I also need more daisies. I finally got the plants you gave me last year in the ground. I put them in the garden, and they are perking up.
M - we love it. It's tons of info. It's great for adults, too, the age is 7 and up.
Julie - They'd probably do great in the front, too.
I always see them on the south-facing rocky surfaces on the mountainsides.
you are more than welcome to the box elder bugs, they are coming out of our ears over here.
seriously, i have some flying over my head right now.
we had a venus fly trap a few years ago and the mouths turned all black and died after they had caught bugs. sadly, we didn't have it around too long. maybe our was just funky?? hoping yours last a long, long time.


text:
Q: Action Script 3 Linkage mystery I have a button symbol in the library that has a linkage. when I run my movie, everything works fine. If I go into the properties of that button turn off linkage, then immediatly turn it back on with the same settings, then run the movie. I get;
1046: Type was not found or was not a compile-time constant: Phase02_btn.
1180: Call to a possibly undefined method Phase02_btn.
Anyone know what's going on, and how to fix it?
JD-

A: Well that error in flash is telling you it can't find the Phase02_btn class. So it sounds like you must have changed the linkage name.
Be careful when you unselect and reselect 'export for actionscript', as flash WILL change your linkage name to that of the movieclips name by default.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Jeff Cherry Given Martindale-Hubbell's Highest Possible Rating
By James Brown | August 1, 2016
Lowery, Lowery & Cherry, PLLC would like to congratulate our partner, Jeff Cherry, on being awarded the rating of AV Preeminent® in the 2016 Judicial Edition of Martindale-Hubbell's® Peer Review Ratings™ system. Mr. Cherry was granted AV status in 2015.
This latest award honors Mr. Cherry's tireless dedication to his practice of law and to his clients. With a peer review score of 4.9 out of 5.0 on Martindale.com, it is easy to see why he was honored again this year. For the last 15 years, Jeff Cherry has contributed to numerous legal associations and community organizations, and has earned accolades from clients and colleagues alike. A formidable opponent, Mr. Cherry does whatever is in his power to uphold justice for his clients. As a former police officer, he understands exactly what it takes to build a successful criminal or civil case, and his experiences have shaped his understanding of what it means to fight for clients' rights in a courtroom or a boardroom.
What does being rated AV Preeminent® mean?
Martindale-Hubbell® has been the industry leader when it comes to objective ratings services since 1887. Their Peer Review Ratings™ are based on Ethical Standards and Legal Ability. A rating of "AV Preeminent is a significant rating accomplishment a testament to the fact that a lawyer's peers rank him or her at the highest level of professional excellence."
In order to be rated for legal ability, and attorney must first be judged as "very high" in terms of their ethical standards, which "means the attorney adheres to professional standards of conduct and ethics, reliability, diligence and other criteria relevant to practicing law." Once such a rating is given, the attorney's legal ability is rated based on five criteria:
"Legal Knowledge – Lawyer's familiarity with the laws in his or her specific area of practice(s)
Analytical Capabilities – Lawyer's creativity in analyzing legal issues and applying technical knowledge
Judgment – Lawyer's demonstration of the salient factors that drive the outcome of a given case or issue
Communication Ability – Lawyer's capability to communicate persuasively and credibly
Legal Experience – Lawyer's degree of experience in his or her specific area of practice(s)"
Mr. Cherry has obtained his AV Preeminent rating in both Legal Ability and Ethical Standards, based on the opinions and experiences of his colleagues as well as the Tennessee judiciary.
All of us at Lowery, Lowery & Cherry, PLLC, would like to extend our congratulations once again to Jeff Cherry on his latest award.


Serum Separator Tube (SST), bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), bronchial wash, sputum, body fluid, or tissue.
Transfer 2 mL serum, body fluid, or respiratory specimen to a sterile container. (Min: 1.2 mL).
This test targets most common genera associated with Mucorales infections (Cokeromyces, Syncephalastrum, Rhizmucor, Lichtheimia, Apophysomyces, Cunninghamella, Mucor, Rhizopus, and Saksenaea).


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Bed Bug Siege Underway at ARHA High-Rise
Inspection has been completed — extermination initiated.
An old children's adage "Sleep tight — Don't let the bed bugs bite" is no laughing matter at Alexandria Redevelopment & Housing Authority's (ARHA) Ladrey High-Rise building, 300 Wythe St. That was obvious by the attendance at last Friday's meeting of Authority and City officials to address the infestation that has sent two residents to Inova Alexandria Hospital for treatment of severe bites.
Called by ARHA's Board of Commissioners to get a full briefing on how to solve the escalating problem, attendees received a powerpoint presentation on the proposed "Bed Bug Infestation Control Program" and a plan of action by AB&B Termite and Pest Control, Stevensville, Md., to correct the problem. The latter made the point it will not be painless or cheap.
A firm estimate of the total cost of the extermination cannot be made at this time due to an array of variables which may or may not be needed to correct the situation, according to Roy Priest, interim executive director, ARHA. "There will be the cost of the extermination and fumigation plus the cost of covering all the bed springs and mattresses with a vinyl covering," he said.
"But, this is only part of the cost. We were told that residents will need to get rid of all cardboard storage containers and have them replaced with plastic ones. There are also possible moving and furniture replacement costs. We actually won't know until the project is complete," he said.
This will also not be an overnight operation. In fact, the group attending last Friday's meeting agreed that there would be meetings every two weeks over the next 90 days to assess the progress.
"We hope to have the problem pretty well solved in the next 45 days. It seems to be isolated to one wing of the building rather than throughout. The contractor hopes he can build a bug toxic barrier so that they won't spread any further," Priest said.
That optimism was not necessarily shared by ARHA Commissioner Carter Flemming who attended last Friday's briefing and reported, during the regular ARHA Board meeting July 23, on resident's needing hospital treatment for bites. Such treatment is usually needed due to an allergic reaction rather than any disease being transmitted by the bugs, according to Daniel Potter, AB&B.
"The residents at Ladrey are quite concerned. This has to be a building wide treatment. Everybody needs to be absolutely assured this problem is being solved," Flemming said. "I'm not confident that doing a limited extermination will solve the problem. These bugs are traveling through the walls and along the electrical conduits according to the contractor."
"Even though they intend to put toxic material in the walls, bugs will migrate to other areas in order to escape. They will not be using toxic material in areas where residents will come in contact with it," Flemming said.
"But, primarily I'm glad that ARHA is finally treating this as a serious problem that needs professional attention. ARHA staff is also trying to be very sensitive to the impact this extermination process could have on Ladrey residents," she said.
"As the contractor explained in the meeting, people think that bed bugs are primarily a nocturnal problem. That is not true. People think that because most people only incur them at night — they are out most of the day at work or elsewhere," Flemming said.
"The bugs are always there and in Ladrey many of the 170 units are occupied by elderly and disabled who never leave their units. Therefore, they can suffer bites at all times," she said.
However, Flemming was encouraged by representatives of so many City agencies attending the meeting. "It was a good meeting with a lot of cooperation shown by a variety of City agencies," she said. Included in that group, in addition to ARHA, were departmental representatives from health, housing, and human services.
<b>OVERALL, AB&B</b> has identified 40 units with readily identifiable infestations. Eight of those are severe, with two tiers of the building being involved, according to their inspection.
That initial inspection confirmed that common areas, such as hallways, meeting room, laundry and others are free of infestation. However, the bugs have gotten into the walls and conduits, which makes them potentially more mobile throughout the building.
"Treatment of units shall consist of treating all furniture, mattresses, cracks and crevices. Wall void treatments shall be used for long-term control and elimination. Cable lines and outlets shall also be treated in hallways and in all units. Laundry rooms should also be pretreated," Potter advised in a letter to Chaba Josa, ARHA facilities manager.
"Travel of the bedbugs from unit to unit indicates to be through the walls and along cable line covers in the hallways. Once treatment has been performed then all surrounding units will be treated for the elimination and control," Potter stated.
"AB&B's approach to the treatment ... will be to offer knowledge ... and preventive measures to ensure no further infestations will occur," Potter explained.
Part of the long-term solution calls for residents in the severest infestation units to sign a "Memorandum of Understanding" with ARHA to not only allow ARHA move them to new units but also to clarify what will be required of them to prevent a repeat of the infestation. Those requirements, according to the MOU, include:
* Discarding all items that are bed bug infested;
* Bagging all clothing in black trash bags and washing them in hot water if those clothing items are to be kept;
* Always be prepared for exterminators whenever they arrive to perform a treatment; and
* Cooperate with the move to a new unit.
According to the Memorandum of Understanding, those residents who do not abide by its terms will be deemed "in violation" of their lease and subject to eviction.
As noted in the powerpoint presentation, the ultimate success or failure of the extermination rests with the residents and their visitors. "The sole treatment with chemicals may not be sufficient to achieve total control and eradication without the active participation of the building residents and relatives who may be visiting those units that have been identified with bed bug infestation," according to the presentation's introduction.
Bedbugs Send Ladrey Residents to Hospital
The Little Agenda That Didn't Happen
Chatham Square Moves Forward
Drugs, Guns and Loitering
A Volunteer's Community Commitment


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New Farm Park är en park i Australien. Den ligger i kommunen Brisbane och delstaten Queensland, nära delstatshuvudstaden Brisbane. New Farm Park ligger  meter över havet.

Runt New Farm Park är det ganska tätbefolkat, med  invånare per kvadratkilometer.. Närmaste större samhälle är Brisbane, nära New Farm Park.

Runt New Farm Park är det i huvudsak tätbebyggt. Genomsnittlig årsnederbörd är  millimeter. Den regnigaste månaden är januari, med i genomsnitt  mm nederbörd, och den torraste är oktober, med  mm nederbörd.

Kommentarer

Källor

Parker i Brisbane

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Billionaires Are Jumping On This Niche Investment — Should You?
"Are you going to retire after you sell your company?" I once asked the chief financial officer of a company about to be sold for a huge sum.
This surprised me at the time — but over the next few years, I realized that many people who have the drive and acumen to build vast fortunes aren't even motivated by wealth. Yet it seems that monetary rewards are a result of their actions nonetheless.
This realization made it clear to me that the key to investing success was to learn from and try to follow the examples of the wealthiest businesspeople and investors. Most of the self-made millionaires I know made their fortunes through real estate investments, and many of my small-business friends use real estate to supplement their income.
This piqued my interest in real estate investment and led me to start a successful part-time marketing business. Through my hands-on experience, I've noticed a distinct shift in residential real estate trends.
From around 1980 to 2007, homes kept getting larger and larger, culminating in so-called McMansions — huge new homes on tiny lots squeezed up right next to their neighbors. After the real estate crash, financial crisis and ensuing economic plunge last decade, consumers began to seek smaller homes that were easier and cheaper to maintain.
And just like the growth trend that brought us McMansions, the downsizing trend is leading in the opposite direction, to the smallest and cheapest homes available — mobile homes. As of 2012, about 6% of Americans lived in mobile homes, according to the Census Bureau.
While not classified as real estate per se, mobile homes serve the same function as traditional residential real estate. As you might expect, Warren Buffett jumped on this trend early with his purchase of Clayton Homes, the largest manufacturer of mobile homes, in 2003.
Hedge and private equity funds are starting to ride this demographic trend by investing in trailer parks. A recent Bloomberg article named Sam Zell's investment trusts and the Carlyle Group as two of the high-profile investment groups stepping into this market.
Everything is getting smaller. My local Ikea is showing off a 100-square-foot house concept. This would have been laughed at before the financial crisis, but today, it's an accepted trend — and many consumers think it's a great change. Trailer homes are the ultimate in downsizing.?
Many families have yet to recover from the Great Recession. These consumers might not qualify for mortgages or be able to afford a single-family home. Trailer homes provide needed shelter for a fraction of the cost of other choices. The average mobile home rents for under $400 a month, and they give residents the feel of a single-unit home for less than what they'd spend on many apartments.
3. Rising Interest Rates ?
Interest rates have finally started climbing, which will likely put home ownership out of reach for even more consumers. While rates have been rising, mortgage applications have plunged. People have to live somewhere, so more people are turning to trailer homes — the most logical choice, in many areas of the country — out of necessity.
As I mentioned, some big players are investing in mobile home parks — and following the moves of top-tier investors is a time-honored strategy.
I think this trend is in its infancy, and just like with actual real estate, there are multiple ways to invest. For investors who aren't interested in buying and managing their own properties, there are REITs (real estate investment trusts) that specialize in this niche.
My favorite is the largest REIT in the space, Zell's Equity LifeStyle Properties (NYSE: ELS). With a market cap of $3.4 billion, ELS is the largest mobile home park owner in the country. The REIT owns or is a partner in close to 400 mobile home parks and more than 140,000 sites across the U.S.
ELS recently posted strong first-quarter results and has $714.6 million in revenue over the past 12 months. The company also continued its streak of occupancy growth, now up to 18 quarters, and its RV portfolio grew 6.6% in the quarter. With a payout ratio of 78%, the trust throws off a forward dividend yield of 3.2%.
A look at the technical picture shows ELS has been trending upward since late December. Shares are trading solidly above the 200- and 50-day simple moving averages, but the Relative Strength Index isn't pushing into the overbought zone.
Risks to Consider: A jury recently awarded a $100 million victory to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the trust's California Hawaiian Mobile Estates. The suit alleges the company failed to maintain the property, but ESL is appealing. Always use stop-loss orders and diversify when investing.
Action to Take — It would have been a stroke of good fortune for investors if the California Hawaiian suit had knocked ELS' price down — but the stock market doesn't think much of the verdict, as price barely budged when it was handed down. As it is, my strategy is to buy on a breakout above $41.50 with stops at $39.50 and a 12-month price target of $46.


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You are here: Home › Magazines › USA › Game Informer
Game Informer is a monthly magazine devoted to console video games. Although it began as a house magazine and did not seriously compete with other mags until 2000, today it has the largest circulation of any game magazine in the U.S. and arguably the world.
Game Informer began life as the house magazine of Funco Inc., a mail-order game store that advertised in most game magazines of the day. It was originally only sent to Funco customers, and in fact did not have any newsstand distribution until 1993. It slowly began to mature and build an audience through the 1990s with a design that resembled a more refined version of Game Fan, but even as Funcoland franchises popped up across America, the magazine was always thinner and less noticeable than its competition.
This all changed in 2000 when Funco was bought by Barnes & Noble Inc., who merged the stores with Software Etc. and Babbage's to form GameStop, a new game retailer chain. GameStop soon instituted a used-game club that gave customers a subscription to Game Informer and a 10-percent discount off used games for a set price.
This caused GI's circulation to skyrocket, and the magazine was quick to take advantage, redesigning with a new, larger page size in 2001. The magazine's ballooning readership gave it more clout with advertisers and game developers alike, and GI quickly made it a habit to unveil brand-new games with exclusive cover features, beginning with Sony's Ratchet & Clank in 2002 and extending almost uninterrupted ever since. This proved to be a shot in the arm for a largely dormant game-magazine marketplace that had just survived a harrowing shakeout, and soon every magazine was competing for similar exclusives.
Game Informer is unique among game magazines in that they are truly free to put whatever they want on the cover — since the vast majority of its circulation is subscription-based (only about 14,000 copies are sold off the newsstand each month, a very low figure among game mags), they are not as dependent on the cover subject to drive sales, meaning they are much freer in their selection of cover topics. This is why their cover subjects vary so widely, from (at the time) previously unheard-of titles like Jade Empire to highly-anticipated sequels like Tony Hawk's Underground and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.
The magazine's circulation is still rising five years later, and its most recent redesign (dating from 2004) reflects this air of authority, featuring more industry news, developer/executive interviews, and a wider range of game coverage.
Subscribe to Game Informer on Amazon.com
Game Informer's ABC-audited average circulation for the 2005 calendar year was 1,934,859, making it the 30th-highest circulation magazine in the U.S. and putting it ahead of such publications as Martha Stewart Living, U.S. News & World Report, and Entertainment Weekly.
This has made the magazine the subject of controversy, mostly among other members of the game media. Since Game Informer is sold nationwide by GameStop employees who receive a commission with each subscription they sell, some accuse GI of not having a loyal fanbase, pointing at their low newsstand sales as evidence.
While audience loyalty may difficult to quantify, the practice of pushing low-cost subscriptions was hardly invented by GI — it's done by nearly every large magazine to some extent in the U.S. While it may undoubtedly be true that GI's unique distribution method has greatly helped increase its circulation, it is also true that GI has striven to leverage the situation to improve its coverage of the industry.


So: Elizabeth Warren sits for an interview with Left Ahead!, a liberal Massachusetts podcast.* Interviewer Mike Ball cracks wise with her.
BALL: As a fellow person who was born in Oklahoma and raised in West Virginia, I've been called a hick myself a lot. I've got to say I'd love to see you in office.
WARREN: I'm going for the hick vote here, I just want you to know. Maybe we could start wearing stickers that say "Hicks for Elizabeth" – could we do that?
That's sort of misleading! Out of context, it would sound like snobby Warren is making fun of those from lesser means. In context, she's riffing on the attacks made against her. Catanese actually acknowledges that this is unfair.
In context, Warren appeared to be adopting the "hick" label for herself, as a way to combat the charge she's an out-of-touch Ivory tower elitist. But the short clip above showing her laughing could be easily chopped up and left open to interpretation.
It could, indeed, be chopped up. Why do it, though? When someone inevitably attacks Warren with this, why not point out the obvious truth – that she's not making fun of "hicks?" Campaigns may assume that voters are lemmings and nitwits, but reporters don't need to.
*Side note: Why is the intro for BlogTalkRadio spoken in a British accent?


In this talk I would like to explian how to deploy Auto Scaling Web Applications using OpenStack.
This talk demonstrates how to scale-in and scale-out based on our requirements, using Load Balancer.
OpenStack storage developer, working in Redhat, India.