text:
Interview: Timothy Hutton Talks Leverage on TNT
by Jason the TVaholic on December 9, 2008
in Interviews, TV Talk
A few weeks back I had the opportunity to talk with Timothy Hutton about his new show Leverage on TNT call with other online media outlets on a conference call. There was a little mess-up with call-in number, so by the time I got on, I had no idea what had already been asked and didn't want to ask a repeat question. So, I ended up asking him about his TV viewing habits, figuring that no one else probably had. You may also be interested in listening to my interview with Gina Bellman and executive producer Dean Devlin about the show. Anyway, here's what he had to say.
Timothy Hutton Interview About His New Show Leverage on TNT
Question: I was wondering what made you want to be a part of the show Leverage?
Timothy Hutton: Well, I read the script last year in the fall and pretty much by page three I thought, this is pretty great.
I like the character I was reading, Nate Ford. And I like the set up. I like the idea, this guy having once been an insurance investigator, now working with these hackers and these thieves and these con artists. And I – it was a pretty well-rounded story for me, a lot of drama, a lot of levity, as well. It felt like a good caper story. So it was something that I was interested in right away.
Q: What about your role have you found challenging?
Hutton: Well, what's been challenging, I guess, is we just finished the season. We did 12 one-hours. And each one is different.
And there's a lot about the character's past that comes back to haunt him every once in a while and threatens to break up the team that we've put together. And two very significant characters from his past show up at some point during the season and really start to unravel him.
And everything comes rushing back that he's been trying to move away from and move on from in his life. Tragedy involving his son and the breakup of his marriage and he was broke and living in his car.
So I guess the challenging part was to understand that that is definitely part of the guy's existence, but the other part is that he's able to, kind of, rejoin the world and have a sense of purpose by getting out of his own head and tragedies that have surrounded him by helping other people. And that that's the satisfying part of what he does.
Q: What's been your most memorable moment you've had from filming Leverage?
Hutton: Gee, probably, I don't know that I have one. There were a lot of different situations where I got to play other parts while playing the part I was playing.
And how that happened was, we're in the middle of a con, for example, and Nate decides that organizing a poker game would be a good idea to lure some of the bad guys to the game and that he himself is going to be the host of the game.
So he decides to put on a persona of a card shark from Texas. So I got the accent going and the ten gallon hat. That was pretty fun; that was memorable to play another part in the show. I mean, its Nate doing it, but doing it for the purpose of, like, a sting operation.
Question: I really enjoyed the pilot. I wanted to know, were you surprised at the amount of work that goes into shooting a show like this as opposed to your film work?
Hutton: Well, no you know I have to say that it didn't feel – it was very well organized: a lot of special effects, a lot of dramatic scenes, some comedic moments, as well. And that was the pilot.
And then when we started filming the one-hours, we just finished a couple of days ago, each one felt like its own separate movie. But again, it was so well organized on the part of Dean Devlin and John Rogers and TNT that it was like we were working on a different – every time we got a new script it was like we were handed a new movie script. And it was really a blast to work on.
Question: Would like to know, what is it about a show like Leverage that will make it appealing to viewers? What will lead viewers wanting more?
Hutton: I think the real appeal of the show is getting real satisfaction in the revenge aspect of the show.
Seeing some hideous person take advantage of someone, either by denying them medical claim or taking their home away from them by putting a lien on it or an unfair foreclosure or, you know, there's a lot of different subjects that we tackle. And I think that the fun of the show, why people will enjoy seeing it week to week, is seeing somebody helped out who's been deeply wronged.
They come to our team and we figure out a way to get their life back together and take out the person who took advantage of them in the first place.
Question: I wanted to find out – I thought the show felt like a modern-day Mission Impossible, almost, with the technical aspects and the teamwork related to it. What drew you to the character of Nathan Ford?
Hutton: Well, the thing that I liked instantly when I began reading it was, I thought, this is a guy with a lot of demons, a lot of bad things have happened and how he's handling it is not particularly healthy.
So I thought that was an interesting starting point for a character. Somebody who desperately wants to pick himself up and rejoin the world, but just can't until he's challenged in the pilot to go about – take on this case by working with these different hackers and thieves.
All of which he's either arrested in the past; one of them even shot at him, the Sophie character. So it was intriguing to me that this idea – that's a great starting point for a character, who almost has nothing, as far as he's concerned, doesn't have much to live for broke, living in his car, doesn't have a job anymore.
And the way he gets out of that is by getting out of himself and helping other people. That's where he finds redemption.
Question: I noticed that the whole group of you seemed to have gotten really close and I wonder if you could give me a sentence or two on your cast mates and/or their characters.
Hutton: Well, they're all great group of people. Gina Bellman is fantastic in her character. She must have played not just Sophie Devereaux, but I don't know, about 12 characters in addition to that character in the course of the first season. She's a master with accents.
Christian Kane is the enforcer and he did all his own stunts, as did Beth Riesgraf. And Aldis Hodge has just incredible presence and great comic timing. They're just, really great group of people, very fortunate to be working with them.
Question: I just had a quick follow-up. Do you see any difference in working on a cable drama as opposed to what you did with Kidnapped on NBC?
Hutton: Not – I don't know actually how to exactly answer that. You just – only because they're such different shows and Kidnapped feels like so long ago.
It wasn't really, but it feels that way. I've worked in a lot of different things since then. And the other thing to remember is that with Kidnapped, I was only signed on to that show for one year. And it's unfortunate that that show didn't work out.
Leverage has just been so much fun to make. Everything about – every possible element from the cast to the crew that we worked with, the fact that it's on TNT, that it's Dean Devlin's company that John Rogers put together this amazing writing cast, and the premise of the show, everything just feels really right about it.
I'm very excited and I think audiences are going have a lot of fun going along the ride and waiting out, you know – seeing the revenge happen along with the team.
Question: How are you able to personally relate to the character of Nate? Do any of your own personality traits come through into the character?
Hutton: Well, you try not to bring any of your own personal stuff – when the role is good and the material is strong, there's no need to try to input any of your own experiences or personality or anything like that into the character.
This is a character that has very specific things in his past that are haunting him that make him need to, kind of, find a purpose again. And that's kind of how we meet him in the first show. And then as the season goes on, you really start to see him warm up, more and more, to the group he's working with and really take an active role in the cons, himself.
And so no, it's very good character development was there in the script to begin with. And I just, kind of, went with that.
Question: Just a follow-up, why do you think people want to take their time to tune in and watch Leverage?
Hutton: Well, I think if they watch Leverage, they'll see – there's great satisfaction in seeing somebody who's had something taken from or denied – something's been denied – there's great satisfaction in seeing this team that we have come in and right or wrong – someone who's been taken advantage of, we get to the heart of it and figure out how it's happened and figure out how we can seek revenge and also provide justice.
So I think that's where audiences will connect. Some of it is very timely. There's one show we did having to do with wrongful foreclosures, where people were duped into thinking they had one sort of set of mortgage payments, when actually they were duped into paying more than they – it made them go break.
And a lien was put on their home and their home was taken away. So we do a show where we go after a contractor who's taken over people's homes, post-Katrina. I think people really get into this idea of getting even. I like the tag, "Get ready to get even."
Question: I was going to ask you, why this show is especially timely now with companies doing bad things to people, but, I guess …
Hutton: If I can – I kind of look at – it's not so much the companies, I think its individuals who happen to be in companies. But it always traces back to an individual.
And that's how we can kind of approach the show; that we're going after the people that – yes, there are companies that have certain questionable policies. But there's always – you can always bring that back to an individual or individuals, and those are the people we go after.
Question: I have a question for you, a little about Hollywood. Your dad was an actor and you'd been in the industry quite a while after having won your Oscar, et cetera. How has the industry changed – Hollywood changed in terms of working in movies and TV – if you've seen it change or evolve?
Hutton: Well, I think it's normal for there to be change. I guess, sometimes when you're in it, you might not see the change as clearly as if you took a step away from it. But I mean, since I've been doing it – certainly in the area of television it used to just be networks and now you have so many different cable channels that are doing amazing programming along with great programming on the networks as well.
But the independent film has evolved in quite a ways since I started. You have to wonder if certain films that you did when you were younger – they were, let's say, more dramatic, perhaps, quiet, intense films. You have to wonder if they would be made by studios today or made as independent films and go the festival route.
So there are certainly changes in that area. But having said all that, to me, there's not a big difference between how films are made when I started out and how they're made now.
It's the same equipment – I mean yes people are shooting digital and all that. But it still feels kind of the same, and I enjoy what I do.
Quesiton: I was wondering, do you get a chance to watch much TV? And if so, what types of show do you like to watch?
Hutton: Well, I just – there was a show that I always wanted to watch but I always missed and that was The Wire. And I just ended up watching all – every season of that; did kind of a marathon. I thought that was just an amazing show.
Right now, I enjoyed watching the second season of Mad Men. I think that's a great show, and yes.
Question: First and final, what would you like to say to everyone who's a fan and supporter of your work?
Hutton: I would say, check out Leverage, I think you'll really enjoy it. From week to week it's a very fun show with a lot going on.
Leverage premiered on Sunday, December 7th on TNT and begins playing new episodes in its regular timeslot tonight, Tuesday, December 9th. The premiere episode, "The Nigerian Job," will replay right before tonight's new episode.
Tagged as: leverage, timothy hutton, tnt
Previous post: Tonight on the Tube: Chuck, Terminator, Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother & Prison Break
Next post: Tonight on the Tube: House, Privileged Repeat, Eli Stone & Leverage


Setup your own personalized binder or calendar with a company logo and colours. Can be customized to specific sizes and number of holes.
A door hanger is an economical promotional item designed to be hung from a door knob, and can be used to convey any message to anyone passing by.
A Custom tee indicator to help with tee rotation. Made from .030" thick plastic and can be customized with your company logo and colours on one or two sides.
Selection of attractive, durable luggage tags in a style and colour that fits your luggage best. Can be customized to your logo and favourite colours.
Ketchum magnets are manufactured from .020" white magnetic material and your design can be printed in a wide selection of shapes and colours.
Expand your customer base and boost awareness of your company with promotional rulers. They can be screen printed with your name or logo to the size of your choice.


Competitions | B&M Lifestyle | B&M's BIG CLEAN COMPETITION - Chance to WIN a Bosch Washing Machine AND a Vax Carpet Cleaner!
B&M's BIG CLEAN COMPETITION - Chance to WIN a Bosch Washing Machine AND a Vax Carpet Cleaner!
We've just launched our BIG CLEAN event, so it's a perfect time for a competition! We've decided to give away an amazing prize in our brand new one!
We're giving away a chance for ONE lucky winner to WIN a Bosch washing machine AND a Vax carpet cleaner!
The winner will be selected at random and you have until 09:00 Friday 8th February 2019 to enter.


No portion of this site may be reproduced without permission.Free Shipping The foam padded top is perfect for preventing cards from sliding off of the table.
Shop a wide selection of Poker Tables at Amazon.com. Great prices and discounts on the best products with free shipping and free returns on eligible items. If you continue on our site, you consent to the use of such cookies.Playing Cards from Amazon.com. Playing cards are undoubtedly one of the most versatile toys and games in the house.
Amazon has offered a sitewide coupon (good for all transactions) for 30 of the last 30 days.Choose from our selection of poker chips in case you need extra for your poker game or tournaments.About Discount Poker Shop Discount Poker Shop is an online retailer specializing in the sale of poker related items such as cards and chips.Poker Tables Canada offers a great selection of poker products in Canada, US and Europe.
Name brands include Padron, Rocky Patel, ACID, Cohiba, Davidoff, Arturo Fuente, Ashton, Macanudo and more. all at UNBEATABLE DISCOUNT PRICES.More savings and coupon codes from Discount Poker Shop can be found at Coupons.com.
This table can be used for gatherings, display, arts and crafts and for eating.
Compare And SaveThe Texas Poker Store is a one-stop shop for all poker supplies, accessories, and poker sets for sale.CouponFollow tracks coupons codes from online merchants to help consumers save money.Fast Free Shipping, Friendly Customer Service with the best prices on Storm, Dexter, Brunswick, Hammer, and more.
Because we love our clients, we are very happy to offer furniture delivery and free furniture setup.When you are on the market for new discount house furniture at United State, Canada, shop at Best Buy Furniture for cheap wholesale furniture at costs that meet your budget.Straight Poker Supplies is offering Canadian customers who live in regions where a shipping surcharge is mandatory, a discount to offset that additional charge.
Shop huge inventory of Poker Table Top, Folding Poker Table, Used Poker Tables and more in Collectible Casino Table Layouts on eBay.We do not guarantee the authenticity of any coupon or promo code.CouponCabin continually verifies our coupons on a daily basis.Details: Sign up for Shopko emails to stay updated on the latest promotions, special offers, sweepstakes and more.Try finding the one that is right for you by choosing the price range, brand, or specifications that meet your needs.
We have Swimming Pool chemicals, parts and maintenance equipment. Discount Poker Chips, Poker Tables, Poker Sets, Clay Poker Chips, Poker Table Tops, and Poker Supplies At DiscountPokerShop.com we choose only the highest quality poker sets at different price levels depending on your needs.
Poker Sets Sold In Stores poker sets sold in stores Up To 70% Off Poker Sets Poker Sets.
Shipping costs are detailed in your shopping cart and at checkout.Custom Poker Chips are the perfect addition for poker enthusiasts whether it be a home game, tournament and even at Casinos.


text:
Essays on a WV Childhood
Moving the Soul | by Brent Aikman
April 19, 2014 April 19, 2014 / Elizabeth Gaucher	/ 2 Comments
Essays on Childhood now publish on their own website! Read the latest here: Moving the Soul | by Brent Aikman. Motorcycles, dreams, freedom, and more . . . thank you, Brent, for sharing this fantastic essay.
Essays on Childhood: "Staying" | by Anne Clinard Barnhill
November 8, 2013 November 8, 2013 / Elizabeth Gaucher	/ Leave a comment
Anne Clinard Barnhill
Anne Clinard Barnhill grew up in West Virginia and graduated from Alderson-Broaddus College in Philippi. Her debut novel, At the Mercy of the Queen, was published by St. Martin's Press in 2012. Her second novel, Queen Elizabeth's Daughter, is forthcoming in 2014. She is working on a third and as-yet-untitled novel, set in West Virginia.
She is also author of At Home in the Land of Oz: Autism, My Sister and Me, a memoir about growing up in West Virginia in a time before anyone had heard the word 'autism.' What You Long For is a short story collection published in 2009 that also contains stories set in the mountains. Books are available from Amazon, www.jkp.com, www.mainstreetrag.com or, if you'd like a signed copy, from the author directly at acbarnhill@yahoo.com. Her first chapbook of poetry, Coal, Baby, is available from Finishing Line Press.
Read Anne's 2011 essay, "Winter Solstice," and her 2012 essay, "Melungeons and Mystery."
Anne's essay is inspired by her early experiences camping in West Virginia. Editor's note: Anne allowed me to title this essay. My choice reflects my favorite element of this piece, the patient but firm and final voice of a loving father.
Staying | by Anne Clinard Barnhill
When I was seven years old, my father took the family camping for the first time. We had no equipment that I can recall. There's a snapshot of my mother, my sister and me all looking groggy as we stretch from sleep in the back of a 1960 station wagon. The wagon had been Dad's idea. Since the back seat folded down, he figured my mother and he could sleep back there, I could sleep at their feet and my two-year-old sister, Becky, could sprawl out on the front seat.
His plan didn't work quite the way he'd hoped. It took about two minutes for my little sister to crawl back with the rest of us; then, I wormed my way between my parents soon after. No wonder my mother looks exhausted in the photo — her black hair is all messy and my sister looks like a wild child. I'm not exactly the picture of perfection either.
In spite of that inauspicious start, however, our whole family fell in love with camping. Over time we acquired a camp stove, a lantern, sleeping bags and one of those tents that attached to the back of the open station wagon. That covered area became the 'bathroom' for my sister who was in the process of potty training. It was also my 'dressing room', providing more space than the crowded tent.
We bought camping dishes and silverware, pots and pans, a coffee pot (the kind you had to brew over an open fire) and many other outdoor accessories. My dad built an enormous black box with drawers and shelves in which to store said items. This behemoth, which could have housed my sister and me, rode on top of the station wagon. My father, standing at 5 feet 6 inches, somehow heaved the black monstrosity onto the car and secured it in its place. He must have been incredibly strong to be able to lift that box. We never had any problems with it moving or falling off. The black box stayed with us, useful as ever, for at least a decade. It retired to 'Pop's Place', a camp my dad bought at the Middle Fork River where he later put a trailer. The black box took its place on the deck, holding all the supplies needed for a picnic.
I often felt sorry for my dad, the lone male among us three girls. He had to do the hard work mostly by himself. Such things as setting up the tent, hoisting the black box, starting and tending the campfire — these were his chores. He also had to put up with our feminine desires about where to set up camp. Since we usually camped in West Virginia state parks or national forests, there were campgrounds set up with bath houses, playgrounds, picnic tables and sometimes, even a pool. My mother invariably wanted to locate nearest the bathroom. I, on the other hand, wanted a woodsy view with atmosphere; my sister always desired a place close to the pool. Around and around the campground we'd drive, looking at each available spot, sometimes lamenting that someone else had beaten us to the absolute best area. Poor Dad would circle and circle until finally, we came up with a place to please everyone.
When we'd graduated from tent to trailer, this search for the perfect spot finally drove my dad to lose his patience. Dad had planned the trip of a lifetime — two weeks at the Outer Banks in North Carolina, then up to DC where we would see all our nation's capital had to offer. After that, we'd head to New York City for a couple of days. The pinnacle of the trip would be onward to Montreal, Canada, to the World's Fair where we would spend a whole week. He'd planned this six-week trip with great precision and care.
Somewhere in Canada, we found a rustic campground. As was our custom, we drove all around to find our little niche. We finally located a good site but there was one small problem. Dad had to back the trailer between two large trees to arrive at the designated trailer position. He did so with extreme caution. Once things were settled, Mother and I got out of the car and roamed around. We decided we didn't like this spot. We told Dad we'd have to move. He mentioned that it had been hard to get in, but we were convinced this would not be a good space. So, he very reluctantly and carefully pulled back out and around the camp we went again. We tried another area but didn't like it as well as the first. Dad took the wheel yet again and we returned to our original lot. Those two trees were still there and Dad gingerly maneuvered the trailer back into place. Mother and I were still not satisfied. We complained and begged and were convinced there was a better location. After much pleading from the three of us, Dad once again agreed to drive between those trees in search of the perfect lodging. He twisted in his seat to look back, put the car in reverse and gently stepped on the gas.
A terrible crunching sound. Dad hopped out of the driver's seat and ran to the trailer. The doorknob was on the ground. He didn't say a word, but backed the trailer into its original space. He began to repair the door as the other three of us got out of the car.
"We are staying right here," he said in a low voice.
And we did.
In a Man's Voice: Daddy Used to Whistle by Steve Alberts
May 17, 2012 / Elizabeth Gaucher	/ 4 Comments
Steve writes faith-based stories about "God's grace throughout (his) life." He dabbles with song lyric writing, is attempting to write a novel, and enjoys acting, photography, hunting, fishing, and woodworking.
Born in Charleston, West Virginia, raised and educated in Spencer, and having Bachelor and Master Degrees from WVU Steve says, "I now live in Tennessee and love it here, but West Virginia is my forever home…until I get to the other side." Visit his blog, On Steve's Mountain.
Daddy Used to Whistle | by Steve Alberts
I love wakin' up in the mornings!
It's just starting to break dawn, but I've already been up here for an hour or so… I was way up on top of tHis mountain before I ever woke up this morning…could hardly wait to visit the past…up on my mountain.
Lookin' down on the little community of Speed…near Spencer…Roane County…West Virginia.
Moved there in '47. I was just barely two years old at the time.
We lived there until we moved to town in '56.
It hasn't changed much since we lived there in the late forties and early fifties. O.O. "Double O" Casto's horse show arena and barns are gone from the field beside Charleston Road, but our old house still stands on up the hollow… it's the next to last house.
My bedroom was on the left just at the top of the stairs.
When I was real little I didn't sleep there often 'cause most nights I had dreams that would awaken me. Most nights I would slip out of bed, sneak down the hall and into the bedroom that Auntie and, my sister, Roylene shared…slip to the sanctuary of Auntie.
Never did figure out why Roylene got to share a bedroom with Auntie and I had to have my own bedroom. After all, I was the one who woke up every night imagining the bears and wolves from Grandpa's stories coming to hunt me down. Even the Roy Rogers bedspread with its six shooters and lariats woven into the fabric wasn't the sanctuary that Auntie provided. But, that's another story.
When I was perhaps 5 or 6 years old … and sleeping in my own bed more frequently, early summer mornings I would often awaken … bedroom windows open…the humid summer air barely stirring…and just listen to the sounds.
…the grey fox barking up near the barn in the hill meadow
…the rooster crowing
…the feed buckets clanging
…the barn cats meowing for their breakfast
…and, daddy whistlin'.
It was comforting to hear the sounds of those routines being repeated. It meant my world was safe and solid.
I could tell when daddy had just fed and milked the old Jersey 'cause I knew the sound of the stall door opening and the gentle lowing from her little bull calf as he was "turned back in" to nurse the last of her milk.
I knew the barn cats would get a portion from the milk bucket as daddy made his way back to the cellar to set the milk to cool before he finally made his way back to the house.
If daddy stayed with his normal routine next would be the sound of the chickens contentedly clucking as the grain was scattered and then the sounds of the trace chains clinking along the floor of the barn as he began to harness which ever work horse he was going to use to skid logs to his sawmill across the run.
The little grey horse was more tractable, easy to drive, stood well when being hooked, but was lighter framed and best when skidding the logs down the mountain. If there was to be a long haul or if the logs had fallen in the bottom of the cove and had to be skidded up hill the bay was used as he was a little stouter 'though a little more difficult to handle.
Lying there in my bed in the early morning I could even tell which horse he had harnessed just by listening to the rhythm of the trace chains as the horse pranced across the barnyard…then I would know whether daddy and Bud were cuttin' on top of the mountain or somewhere around in the cove … in case I decided to test my resolve by hiking up the mountain later to share his cheese sandwich and drink from his water jug at lunch.
I guess it was part of my growing up to leave the sanctuary of the house, wander up the mountain through those scary woods, find daddy, sit with his arm around me as I ate part of his sandwich, then have to return down the mountain by myself. I knew each end was safe, but the journey in the middle was sort of scary… at that age.
Once I got near the top of the mountain I always knew what final path to take through the woods by listening for the gentle rhythmic sawing of the cross cut, the sound of the horse skidding the logs toward the landing, or …daddy whistlin' his way through the day.
The little sawmill is long since gone, but I can clearly see it in my mind's eye sittin' on the bank at the south side of the run…the motor and drive train from some old truck providing the power…the large circular blade slicing through the white oak and red oak…the sawdust piling up beneath…the slab pile…the ricks of lumber being air dried…Daddy and Bud Nichols using the peaveys and cant hooks to sort and align the logs to get the greatest yield, the straightest grain… and daddy whistlin'.
Cuttin' red oak and white oak logs with a two man cross cut saw, skiddin' it to the mill, sawing and stacking was all hard work.
Most days the routine was the same except for Saturdays when we went to town or Sundays when we went to church, visited with neighbors and rested in preparation for another week probably just like the last.
And, … most days … daddy would whistle all day long.
Daddy used to whistle
…as he wandered through the day.
'Till now I hadn't even realized I had heard him
…I'd been young … busy with childhood play.
Whistlin'seemed to make daddy happier
as he made up a brand new tune.
The tunes were seldom ever alike
Whether 'twas in the early morning, or
…in the afternoon.
Except that "Rock Of Ages"
would sometimes just appear.
I guess those hymns were thrown in to keep him grounded
…humble,
…to help keep Jesus near.
'Till lately I hadn't realize just how much that whistlin' stuff
had stuck there in my mind.
But, now I think of daddy's whistlin'
I whistle
…from time to time.
I see daddy when I whistle.
I see him driving his old truck.
I see him working at his little sawmill,
…skidding timber
…doing other stuff.
But most times when I see daddy
He's standin' in the creek
…waiting,
…white shirt,
…dark tie,
…lightly snowing.
Standin' up with his friend Carl
… the Reverend Raymond Straight's just startin' to speak.
Daddy "standing up" with his friend Carl Cutright – Roane County, Spring Creek along US 219 south of Spencer – "out Charleston Road" – an Easter baptizin' – probably around 1950 or so.
Friends and neighbors from the church
were watchin' from the bank.
Most had already been baptized
but, some were waitin' their turn.
And, still a few others were dunkin'
…for a second time
…just to reaffirm
…the cleansing of an Easter baptism
at the shoal along Spring Creek
between Watson's barn
and the Hickman place
with the neighbors lookin' on.
It puts a smile upon my face.
Don't know if it's seein' daddy,
the baptizin'
if it's the whistlin' that's takin' place.
But, more important,
Whistlin' taught me
at an early age
…by now, I guess you knew.
That whistlin' reminds me of daddy,
…of Jesus,
…of life's lessons,
the ones we should daily do.
…every time I whistle
whistlin' make me a little happier, too
There's a whole lot more to this whistlin' than a man would have ever thought
First there's
…the whistlin',
then there's
…the listenin'.
that leads me to
…the thinkin'
about the sanctuary of my earthly and heavenly homes
…the sometimes scary journey in between
about grace and faith along my path
in things I have not yet seen
I think about my daddy
standin' in the creek
I think about the cross
…our eternal sanctuary
that through God's gracious act of love
our savior, Jesus, bought.
Thank you Lord for another dawn, thank you for giving me another beautiful sunrise, thank you for those memories of growing up, thank you for a family that taught me Your ways, thank you for not giving up on me when it perhaps would have been easy to do, and Lord, thank you for a daddy that whistles…today up on tHis mountain.
Steve Alberts
Bethpage, TN
© 2007 Steve Alberts
You can read more about the 2012 Essays on Childhood writers here.
In a Man's Voice: Three Silver Dollars by Terry Gillispie
May 3, 2012 May 3, 2012 / Elizabeth Gaucher	/ 11 Comments
Terry Gillispie was born in South Charleston, West Virginia. The only son to a single mother, he spent most of his formative years residing in various locales within the Kanawha Valley before a period of stability landed him at South Charleston High School, from which he graduated in 1986.
Blogger's note: Terry was in my class in junior high school. I never knew where he went, or what his life at home was like. What I did know was that he was one of the most well-liked boys in our class, and yet he seemed to have a secret. I was too young to notice what were probably tell-tale signs of a stressed economic situation at home. Until this year, I never knew what happened to him. I had no idea he graduated just a few miles from me, probably the same week, from another local school. For sure, I never knew he had the heart of hero. Now I do. Thanks for finding me on Facebook, Terry, and for sharing this amazing story. You are someone special, and I'm privileged to be part of making sure everyone knows it. — EDG
Three Silver Dollars | by Terry Gillispie
Of all the stories I have regarding my childhood in West Virginia, the following tale stands out the most, and reflects an incident that had profound impact on my life.
I had an uncle I was close to during my childhood. Uncle Shorty. I never fully understood how he came to have this nickname. From my earliest memories as a young child, to the day I towered over him by at least five inches, Shorty always seemed larger than life. He was the kind of man represented by the popular cliché, "When God made him, he threw away the mold."
Christmas 1978 wasn't particularly memorable for me. I do not remember the toys or gifts that that year, save the one present I received from Uncle Shorty. In a tradition between him and me, every year shortly before Christmas morning I would visit his house and give him a "present," of a tin of cashews. Invariably, on Christmas morning, I would find an empty cashew tin containing some sort of treat.
In 1978, that treat was three silver dollars.
Silver dollars to an eleven year old were pretty special, and in typical eleven year old fashion, I hid them in the same tin under my bed.
The following year, 1979, was a particularly tough one for us. It was just me and Mom, and like most single parent families, she had to cut a lot of expenses just to get from one month to the next. Mom typically spent her days working several jobs and was gone throughout the day and late into the night, so I learned responsibility at a young age. I learned these lessons partly because one of the expenses that fell to the wayside early on was babysitting fees, and mostly because, well, I had no other choice.
Despite Mom's expense management, spring 1979 was very tough. I can remember short periods where money was tight and Mom was frantic with worry over how she would pay a bill. There came stretches where we were without food for several days between paychecks from Mom's various employers. Now a parent myself, I can only imagine the worry Mom felt then over how she was going to feed me, keep me decently clothed for school, keep utilities on, and several other worries and fears a parent endures.
During this time, for whatever reason, I came to be playing under my bed as eleven year old boys are prone to do. I happened upon the tin I had placed there on Christmas morning and quickly remembered the three silver dollars.
As I crawled out from under the bed with the tin in my hands, I knew instinctively that I needed to give the silver dollars to Mom so that she could use the money in whatever way she needed to get us through until her next payday. I was torn over giving the money to my mother. Yes, I wanted desperately to help, yet at the same time the thought of giving up my "treasure" from Uncle Shorty sickened me.
In the end, my eleven year old sense of duty prevailed.
Terry with cousin Kurt
Of course, Mom was ecstatic to discover that I had not spent the silver dollars and immediately went to the store to get us some items to get us by for a few days. I recall a few days diet of milk, potted meat sandwiches and Cheerios. My treasure, as it were, had gotten us through a very rough patch, and lifted Mom's spirits enough that after this "between paycheck" crisis, she took some steps to ensure I was never that close to going without food again.
Most prevalent on my mind, though, was the heartbreak I felt over surrendering my treasure, even if for the welfare of Mom and myself.
Luckily, the local food mart in the South Hills area where I grew up in was owned and operated by a very friendly man, one who was always telling stories to the local children while negotiating menial chores for candy or small dime store variety toys. His name escapes me after all these years, no doubt removed from the recesses of my brain responsible storing names and replaced with something more import to my early adulthood, such as the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody.
The following day I entered this store and approached the store keeper nervously, trying to keep a grown-up face as I related my story and my desire to buy back the silver dollars at a later time. I was delighted to discover that he was well aware of my mother's purchase and actually had set aside the silver dollars. I'm not sure if it was my sad expression, his generous heart, or perhaps a combination, but he told me I had an opportunity to earn back the silver dollars. All I had to do was sweep the store and the store's parking lot early every morning before the store opened for a month. At the end of that, he would return the silver dollars to me.
Perhaps he thought this was a fair exchange. A month's worth of free labor in return for three dollars. Ha! I would have swept his store and parking lot for a year. It was not until years later that I discovered one of the silver dollars in question had a slightly higher value than the other two. I am sure this fact escaped my mother's attention, but I'm fairly certain the shop keeper would have been aware of this fact.
Flash forward to 2003. Shorty's 70th birthday party. Sadly, I was unable to attend and was at a loss as to what kind of present to send in my absence. Cashews had lost their luster years prior. I sat down and decided to write the story you are now reading, events that had never been relayed to anyone else in my family as Mom was a very proud and private woman. In the letter, I detailed how three silver dollars had taught me a lesson about life, family, and duty. I also included the three silver dollars.
Reports I received from my cousin suggest that the story and the present were very well received. My cousin read the letter aloud to my uncle at the height of the party, and Shorty was so moved that he described me to other party-goers not privy to the family dynamic as his "second son."
Needless to say I was moved by this, and felt very much at peace with the silver dollars' legacy in my life.
A few years after that, we lost Shorty to a long and difficult fight with lung cancer. I was blessed in that my schedule afforded me the opportunity to drive home and visit Shorty in the hospital prior to his passing. Even throughout his sickness, and his incapacitation to a hospital bed, he managed to look so much larger than life. I was amazed, and I told him so. He couldn't reply, but his eyes passed on to me that he had heard and understood.
As I left his hospital room and went into the ICU's waiting room to seek solace and comfort with other family members, my aunt approached me and gave me a long embrace. As she pulled away, she pressed a plain unmarked envelope into my hands. She looked into my eyes, "From Shorty." As I left the hospital and sat in my car, I opened the envelope.
In my hand were my three silver dollars.
Truman and Me (epilogue) by Julian Martin
December 29, 2011 December 29, 2011 / Elizabeth Gaucher	/ 3 Comments
The big old wonderful house burned to the ground. Uncle Kin died while I was a student at West Virginia University, and Charlie died a few years later when I was in San Francisco being mistaken for what Time magazine designated as a "hippie." I hitchhiked home from San Francisco via Canada and made it to Grandma's one day after she spent her first night ever alone.
This was me shortly after hitchhiking home from San Francisco in 1971.
Grandma and I lived together for a year. She helped me tame my mule, taught me family history, gardening, and the names and uses of wild plants. By example she taught kindness. I gleaned all the family history I could. I put new tar paper on the leaking cupola roof and replaced the rotting boards in the hay loft and cleared out the decades of manure that was causing rot in the big foundation logs. During that one summer with Grandma, my girlfriend raised hogs and two so-called hippies from Iowa raised an organic garden with 1500 tomato plants. A blight made sure we didn't get rich on tomatoes.
Grandma died and I sobbed as I testified graveside that she was special, that without reservation she loved us all. She was our saint, our rock. Grandma Ethyl Atkins Barker and Uncle Kin Barker were saints who smiled into our lives. They both unconditionally loved us all, and for Grandma that even included one of our cousins who stole her pain pills.
Some of Grandma and Charlie's progeny. Uncle Truman is in the back row beside Grandma who is beside Charlie. My mother is next to Charlie and Dad is holding the baseball bat. That is the Kanawha River in the background.
Uncle Truman in front of the barn, spoofing us, pretending to be a farmer.
Our home place is now under siege. Bull Creek is devoid of people, hardwood trees, ginseng, yellow root, and most other native plant and animal species. It is empty. The mountains above it have been strip mined along with my memories of Uncle Kin's cabin and huckleberry picking. Ashford Ridge running from Ashford to Bull Creek has been scalped by mountain top removal strip mining. Behind our homeplace and just over the mountain on Fork Creek, mountain top removal strip mining is closing in on us.
Ashford Ridge, decaptitated
A distant cousin sold the mountain across the river from our homeplace to a coal company. It is probably too much hope to expect that it won't be destroyed like Ashford Ridge and Bull Creek.
When Truman and I are gone, I hope the heirs love the homeplace like we do and resist the coal companies when they come with offers of money in exchange for Grandma's farm. I hope they follow the example of our progenitor Isaac Barker, who told the man buying up mineral rights on Coal River: "You are Skinner by name, and skinner by trade, but you will not skin old Isaac Barker."
Isaac spoke truth to power and refused to sell his mineral rights. My hope is that my stories and my family history will keep that truth-telling alive in future generations.
Strip mining on Bull Creek
All photo credits: Julian Martin
See A Better West Virginia for more on Blair Mountain and the history of coal mining and labor relations.
Truman and Me (part 5) by Julian Martin
We moved to Detroit after Dad's eye was put out in a coal mine accident.
In his new job, Dad cut deep into his thigh with a sander, and that sent us back to West Virginia. I did half a year of Kindergarten in Detroit, but when we got back to Emmons I started in mid-year of the first grade. My teacher, Mrs. Morris, lived on the next farm about a mile up Big Coal River. She came by on my first day and walked the mile with me to the Emmons Grade School.
After the first day I walked with Aunt Julia and Uncle Truman. Julia was in the sixth grade and Truman was in the fourth.
Lacking electricity like the rest of the area, our one-room Emmons Grade School was heated with coal in a pot-bellied stove, water came from a well, and there was an outside toilet. I was new and shy, which was not lost on at least one of the older boys. Out on the playground during recess, he said something to me, a word for female genitalia, in front of the other kids. I was embarrassed because I knew I was being made fun of, but I didn't know what he was talking about.
Uncle Truman pulled me away from the embarrassment.
I was sent to the blackboard on the other side of the room where Aunt Julia was sitting—she whispered the answers that I was supposed to put on the board. I didn't feel connected to the city children characters in our reading books. "Run Jim, run" and "See Jim run" didn't inspire or connect with me. Jim and his sister Judy wore nice clothes and their parents were always dressed up. They were a bland family. Jim and Judy's dad in a suit coming home from a day at the office looked nothing like my dad when he came home from a coal mine or a construction job.
I didn't learn to read in the first grade and neither did the other two first graders. Not being able to read caused me lots of trouble when, a month into my second grade year, we moved to St. Albans. I was called on to read from the same book we had at Emmons. I remembered parts that Mrs. Morris had read to us and brazenly recited them as I pretended to read, but I was looking at the wrong page. My first and only F was in second grade reading.
It was a traumatic time.
My mother tried to teach me to read using a switch. It is hard to learn to read through tears, sobbing. I have enjoyed a lifetime of reading which is testimony that I survived the stresses of second grade.
Somewhere between ages eight and ten, I started going to the farm by myself. I was never afraid on those solo bus and train trips from our home in St. Albans to the farm. It never occurred to me that there was any danger, and there wasn't. I walked four blocks through Ordnance Park over to Route 60 and for a nickel and caught the Interurban bus to downtown St. Albans. I walked the few blocks from the bus station to the train station, bought a ticket and climbed on the train that went up Big Coal River.
Something akin to the theory of relativity fascinated me as I sat on the train before leaving the station. A train headed for Huntington sat beside my train that was headed in the opposite direction. One of the trains moved but for a moment I couldn't tell which train it was. Did my train move or the other one? It was more magic. One of the trains stopped and a few seconds later the illusion was repeated.
"Do not flush while the train is in the station," warned the sign above the commode. I found out why when I did flush—all of what I had just done went straight down onto the area between the tracks. It was fun to hold the flush handle down and watch the wooden ties and rock ballast fly by. After that discovery I paid closer attention to the space between the tracks whenever I walked there.
I was in a safe community cocoon. There were always other people waiting for the bus, and the kind train conductor knew Charlie and Grandma and made sure I got off at Gripp which is across the river from the farm. The conductor enjoyed calling Gripp "suitcase" to see if I would laugh. From the train at "suitcase" I walked on a winding path through a corn field to the river's edge and yelled for someone to set me across the river.
Charlie often put me to work just as soon as I got out of the boat and to the top of the river bank. Once it was bugging potatoes. Truman and I made a game of it. We knocked the potato bugs into a can and turned leaves over to find their yellow egg clusters and squashed the eggs between two pieces of wood. At the end of bugging for the day, we took our catch to the house and put it in a metal pie plate on top of the hot cook stove. We watched the bugs dance and fry — we had no feelings for potato bugs.
Grandma and Charlie told me about the heroes of the coal mine wars. It was word-of- mouth history. I remember sitting at the dinner table and Charlie saying, "When they killed Sid Hatfield that was the last straw." Grandma said that a woman they called "Mother" came to talk to the miners—she was speaking of Mother Jones, the famous labor organizer. United Mine Worker heroes Sid Hatfield, Bill Blizzard, Frank Keeney, Fred Mooney, Cesco Estep, Mother Jones and the Battle of Blair Mountain were never mentioned in my twelve years of West Virginia public school education.
Despite the fact that we are on opposite ends of politics and religion, Truman and I are still friends. He spends half of his time in Florida and the other half at the farm. It is great fun when we get together and reminisce.
At this writing he is 78 and I am 75.
(Editor's note: Visit the Daily Kosand many other "Google-able" websites for more on Blair Mountain and its significance in the history of West Virginia and labor relations in the United States.)
"The Battle of Blair Mt. in Logan County was referred to as a civil war and depicted as fully 10,000 men – and some estimates to twice that number – were involved as the two armies began exchanging shots along a ten-mile front. George Washington had fewer soldiers at the Battle of Trenton, the engagement which changed the course of the American Revolution.
On Sept. 4, 1921, with more than 6,000 federal soldiers assisted by 20 airplanes ……the miners eventually surrendered when faced with the alternative of fighting against U.S. troops. Hundreds of men were indicted by a Logan County Grand Jury on charges of treason and murder." (pp71-72, Don't Buy Another Vote, I Won't Pay for a Landslide, by Allen H. Loughry II)
More historic railroad images from St. Albans and other communities available at WVRails.net.
December 28, 2011 / Elizabeth Gaucher	/ 2 Comments
(Editor's note: Biology. Physics. Chemistry. — farm style. Very boyhood, intense, funny, and gross. The image of Grandma with the fightin' groundhog is absolutely classic. You can't make this stuff up.)
Fall butchering was a Druid carnival. The bladder from the hog was cut loose and thrown to Truman and me. We put a hollow stick in the urethra, blew the bladder up like a balloon, and tied it off. We kicked it all over the hillside pasture, fell down, got up laughing and ran after our "pigskin."
We rode the snow down the hill behind the house on sleds that were old pieces of metal roofing. One summer we camped out in a shelter we built of boxes holding up that metal roofing. A pregnant cat crawled in with us and aborted her kittens in slimy looking bags—we were stunned and ignorant of what was happening.
The bottom land was, in addition to being our camping and recreation area, a cow and horse pasture where we invented the game of Frisbee. Cows' semi-liquid poops dried hard in thin disc shapes and were perfect for tossing.
We learned to swim in the Big Coal River, which winds along the edge of our farm. Grandma, who couldn't swim, was our life guard. Truman yelled, "Did you hear that?" He was knocking two pieces of coal together under the water. No, I didn't hear it. "Go under and listen." It was magical! The loud knocking noise seemed to be inside my ears.
Our physics lesson continued on the railroad track — we put our ears against the rail and listened to an approaching train before we could hear it through the air. As the train approached we put pennies on the track and got them back thin and flattened. We noticed that in cold weather the spaces between the rails were much farther apart than in the hot sun of summer when they almost touched. A few years later science teachers taught me what I had already learned by experiment, that sound waves travel faster in liquids than in gases, and still faster in solids, and that metals expand on heating and contract when cold.
Aw, Grandma. I see her herding and milking the cows, churning the milk into butter and stirring hot, thick, satin brown apple butter in a large copper pot over a wood fire. She stirred the apple butter with a long-handled wood paddle with holes to allow the liquid to pass through. To pick berries, she dressed up in a garb that covered every part of her body. Her face barely peeked out of an Arab looking head wrap through a swarm of gnats trying to get at her blood. Picking berries was slow, hot and miserable for me, but Grandma could go all morning, picking two water buckets full of berries without giving in to the heat and bugs.
On one of our berry picking forays up Thomas Branch, the dogs treed a groundhog.
Grandma picked up a piece of wood and knocked the groundhog from the limb it was clinging to. Thinking it was dead, she picked it up by the tail and we started toward home. The animal wasn't dead! It was "playing possum." The dogs barked at it but stayed a safe distance from the snarling, vicious growl. I was looking eyeball-to-eyeball at an animal that had every survival alarm turned on, ready to fight for its very life.
Grandma didn't pay any attention to the life and death noises as she carried the groundhog to the house where she finished clubbing it to death, skinned and gutted it, and cooked it for dinner.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


september 11 2010, the day is almost over here where I am. the ninth anniversary of *that* day. that day at the time we thought we'd never get over, never forget. yet we got over it, we let some of it recede.
one moment hasn't lost its power, its punch to the gut – crowded around a TV on the breakroom, watching live video of one smoking tower and seeing the second plane hit.
"Y'know, it seems to be me this is all backwards….
somethin' to say on the eleventh day of November."


text:
Bank of England announces no interest rate cut, for now
In a surprising move, the Bank of England decided to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.5 percent.
The Bank of England left its benchmark interest rate untouched at 0.5 percent in the first meeting after Brexit | Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images
By Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli
LONDON — At its first monetary policy meeting after the Brexit vote, the Bank of England surprisingly decided to leave its benchmark interest rate untouched at 0.5 percent.
In contrast with many analysts' expectations, the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee voted 8-1 to leave interest rates where they have been since 2009. Only Gertjan Vlieghe preferred to reduce the rate by 25 basis points.
Meanwhile, the committee voted unanimously to maintain the level of monthly asset purchases — or quantitative easing — at £375 billion (€448 billion).
"Committee members made initial assessments of the impact of the vote to leave the European Union on demand, supply, and the exchange rate," said the MPC in a note released today explaining the reasoning behind the decision taken at a meeting on July 13. "In the absence of a further worsening in the trade-off between supporting growth and returning inflation to target on a sustainable basis, most members of the Committee expect monetary policy to be loosened in August."
Policymakers acknowledged the "sharp financial market reaction" to the decision to leave the EU and confirmed that economic activity is "likely to weaken in the near term."
However, in the absence of official economic data on the period following the referendum — according to most MPC members — a decision on an interest rate cut is premature.
"Most members of the Committee expect monetary policy to be loosened in August," the statement said. "The Committee discussed various easing options and combinations thereof. The exact extent of any additional stimulus measures will be based on the Committee's updated forecast."
More from ... Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli
Eurogroup President Donohoe admits breaking donation limits in Irish elections
Opinion Pro-secrecy ruling opens floodgates to dark money
Northern Ireland's next trade headache: Britain's bonfire of old EU laws
Sinn Féin shelves attacks on Donohoe after holes in its own Irish election spending found
By Shawn Pogatchnik
Scholz's tanks for your assistance — EU finance chief Mairead McGuinness: Crypto is like 'a religion'
By Cristina Gonzalez
By Annabelle Dickson and Esther Webber
Banks Brexit Economic performance Finance and banking Monetary Policy


text:
Arshavir Blackwell, PhD
Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing
CitizenNet
Developed prototype system to assist in generating and editing magazine articles and posts. This prototype was a GUI application backed by a deep learning system. The system was designed to ingest raw information and first draft text as input, and then analyze the input to identify key points and areas that required further development. Based on its analysis, the system would provide feedback to the user on how to improve the article, including how to increase click-through rate. This system was designed to assist the user generate a full-fledged article by providing suggestions on what to include and how to organize the information.
Targeting, Clustering, and Classification
One of the main value-adds of CitizenNet is that it takes the complex API of Facebook advertising and targeting and hides it from our users under a layer of sophisticated artificial intelligence. All the user sees is a simple and easy-to-use interface. Based upon our Big Data harvesting of previous responses to Facebook campaigns, at the multi- terabyte level, we are able to develop a profile of which keywords, interests, and other demographic figures tend to be correlated and are the most desirable for a given campaign.
The first step in this is "clustering," which allows us to take a heterogeneous group of users and reduce them to a few relevant characteristics: for example, a) women age 16-25 on the East Coast, b) midwest fans of One Direction who also like Electric Daisy Carnival, and so forth. Clustering finds regularities in large data sets and permits us to make characterizations and generalizations about our target populations without having to resort to identifying and characterizing every single one of thousands or millions of users individually.
Thus, when a group of, say, 5,000 users maps to a particular cluster, moving forward we can characterize all further targeting with respect to that cluster, rather than with respect to each individual user.
The second component to our back- end process is classification: given a particular cluster, what is the chance that this group will be likely to be interested in our advertising message?
Every time a message (ad) is presented to a user who doesn't click on it (or who doesn't show some other overt sign of interest), the advertiser is wasting money. Hence, a primary goal of targeting (presenting ad messages only to those users interested in them) is greater efficiency and better use of ad dollars.
The classifier uses a variety of machine learning techniques including neural networks, support vector machines, and ensemble networks. It starts with features of relevant keywords from prior campaigns, paired with how well those features did. It uses these data to learn how to predict the click-through rate for a set of features with respect to a given campaign.
This is the key to "higher click-through rates," which is of course the holy grail in most on-line advertising: being able to predict which groups are more likely to be interested in your message and then presenting your message to those groups.
Demographic Prediction Engine
Fox Audience Network
Demographic statistics such as age and gender are key to refining ad targeting. Often, these values are missing for individual users. I analyzed profiles of users with known demographic values and modeled them, in order to predict values for other users. The goal was to extrapolate from users with known features and predict (e.g.) age and gender in users where those features are missing. This project required a full understanding of the relevant algorithms (e.g., Support Vector Machines) as well as the ability to implement them in Java and to perform large-scale (5 terabyte+) data analyses in Hadoop. Code to pass production-level quality testing.
Buzz Tracking
Knowing which trends are important over time is key to a variety of marketing initiatives, including ad targeting. Advertisers want to see evidence of lift in terms related to products or services that they are advertising. They may also be interested in what terms related to a product are currently trending high, in order to link those terms to their ads. This system was a response to that need. It used trend and rate analysis algorithms to track changes in frequency and intensity of targeted buzz words. This project required a full understanding of the relevant algorithms (e.g., the bursty stream algorithm) as well as the ability to implement it in Java and to perform large-scale (1 terabyte+) data analyses in Hadoop. Code to pass production-level quality testing.
Advise Music Recommender Student Internship
Users seek new sources of entertainment on-line, including music and movies. This project addressed this need by creating a prototype music recommender system that leverages the advantages of social media. I directed Harvey Mudd College interns in a nine- month-long project to design and deploy a music recommender system using Java, C++, and JavaScript, the details of which they designed and wrote. This was designed to work as a MySpace Widget plug-in, using social data to mine a user's social network and develop a cohort of experts for a particular musical genre within the user's social sphere. This was an innovative approach, and contrasts with other recommender systems that only compare items a user likes to similar items, or groups users based upon shared preferences, without regard to actual social links.
Intent Miner
Part of team to develop and test system to extract intents from unstructured text (e.g., "intent to purchase car," "intent to purchase cellphone," "just married," "just had a child") in order to classify users into hyper-targeting groups (e.g., more likely to be interested in home decor or baby products). This project required an understanding of natural language algorithms, Java, and JUnit testing.
Innovation Team
MetaLINCS
Supported innovations and improvements to MetaLINCS flagship e-discovery application. This required a) a complete understanding of both the then-current product and its embedded algorithms as well as other algorithms that might be of potential benefit; b) expert skill in Java; and c) expertise in a wide variety of natural language processing algorithms.
Lead Research and Development
H5 Technologies
Researched and developed improvements to business processes in order to increase accuracy and speed and lower cost. This required a complete understanding of research and analytical methodologies needed to evaluate the performance of the business processes, especially as they relate to large scale document analysis.
Software Tool Building.
Using Java and Java Server Faces (JSF), acted as part of the team to architect, develop, and test new tools, particularly search. These tools supported the company's core mission, which was to analyze very large (on the order of millions) document sets, in order to identify documents relevant to a particular legal case.
Unstructured Document Management Application.
Entrieva
Using C++ and Java, acted as lead to maintain and upgrade the then-current categorization software central to solutions provided by Entrieva. Architected new solutions to augment product portfolio in order to expand the company's services and increase its competitiveness. This required a complete understanding of the company's proprietary language processing algorithms.
Classifier Project
Comprecorp
Lead on project to design and implement engine of the Comprecorp Classifier, intended to classify e-mail and other such free-text documents of arbitrary length, according to user- specified categories. The user did not have to tell the system what rules are used to put a document in a particular category. It learned by example from looking at documents already in categories. Potential uses of such a system go beyond e-mail classification, to a wide variety large-scale document management and data mining applications.
Peer-to-peer Artificial Intelligence
AdaptiveLava
Chief architect of application in ongoing project to merge peer-to-peer functionality with artificial intelligence/natural language systems in an enterprise environment, based on open source code. By utilizing search and retrieval algorithms, the application made previously inaccessible files on individual PCs accessible and available to many users within an enterprise or knowledge community, rather than only files specifically pushed to servers. This enabled the enterprise or community to leverage existing intellectual property assets to a level not before possible.
Jeeves Automation Project
Ask Jeeves
Lead on project to improve accuracy and lower cost for Jeeves question- answering system. This required expert programming skills and a thorough understanding of research and analytical methodologies to evaluate system performance. In the original system, creating and maintaining a knowledge base of questions and answers was too labor intensive, and too costly, to encourage the use of the product by smaller businesses, particularly in the face of increasing competition from other question-answering products.
As project lead, I identified bottlenecks in the creation of knowledge bases that were amenable to adaptive automation, created design specifications, and lead a team in writing code to implement those changes. I presented both method and results to company members through meetings and on-line publications, and worked with in-house customers to refine the prototype's usability. The result was comparable prototype knowledge bases whose creation and maintenance required significantly less human effort and cost less.
Copyright ©2023 Arshavir Blackwell, PhD | Theme by: Theme Horse | Powered by: WordPress


text:
As We Go Up, We Go Down
Irwin generously responded to my email to him:
Just doing my part to clean up the airwaves. Now to get to work on banishing those 1-877-KARS4KIDS spots. The T&C hour will not be my premium CD, as I feel it has too limited appeal, but I will definitely give away a few as prizes during the fundraising mayhem.
But wait, there's more, a second email appeared two hours later!
I've put away the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner. Ten minutes ago I heard the original spot on a local AM station. I have heard another, completely different SQ spot, but it's been circulating for at least six months and rarely airs in these parts.
I wrote him back and told him it'd be OK w/me if he keeps wearing the jet pilot flight suit. Speaking of old men defiantly not aging gracefully:
Hey! Did you know Washington DC has a professional soccer team?
It's true! and here's the just released 2012 schedule:
March 10: vs. Sporting Kansas City
March 18: at Los Angeles Galaxy (Galavision)
March 24: at Vancouver Whitecaps
March 30: vs. FC Dallas (NBC Sports Network)
April 7: vs. Seattle Sounders
April 14: at New England Revolution
April 18: vs. Montreal Impact
April 22: vs. New York Red Bulls (ESPN2)
April 28: vs. Houston Dynamo
May 2: at San Jose Earthquakes
May 5: vs. Toronto FC
May 12: at Houston Dynamo (NBC Sports Network)
May 16: vs. Colorado Rapids
May 19: vs. Toronto FC
May 26: vs. New England Revolution
June 16: at Philadelphia Union (Galavision)
June 24: at New York Red Bulls (NBC Sports Network)
June 30: vs. Montreal Impact
July 15: at Houston Dynamo (Galavision)
July 21: at Columbus Crew
Aug. 4: vs. Columbus Crew
Aug. 11: at Sporting Kansas City
Aug. 19: vs. Philadelphia Union (NBC Sports Network)
Aug. 22: vs. Chicago Fire
Aug. 25: at Montreal Impact
Aug. 29: vs. New York Red Bulls (Galavision)
Sept. 1: at Real Salt Lake
Sept. 15: vs. New England Revolution
Sept. 20: at Philadelphia Union (ESPN2)
Sept. 23: vs. Chivas USA (Galavision)
Sept. 29: at Portland Timbers
Oct. 6: at Toronto FC
Oct. 20: vs. Columbus Crew
Oct. 27: at Chicago Fire (NBC Sports Network)
Sure hope they have enough players. Quietest, oddest, off-season I can remember, getting rid of salary, no new players, not negotiating a new contract with reigning league MVP after announcing that United would, it's almost as if the owner doesn't want to spend any money because 2012 will be the last season in......
Posted by BDR at 4:43 PM
Labels: Aargocalyptic, Autoblogography, DCU, Fuck-Me Jig, Music, My Complicity
Landru January 5, 2012 at 6:52 PM
They're focused on the draft, and on whatever shitty broken-down elderly center back that tool Goffinho was writing about the other day. Rash of shitty free agents the week after that.
I choose not to engage your paranoia because, if I managed to limit your angst over Timonium United, I'd just leave more room for some other angst. Better the angst I know, y'know.
For my part, I hope to be only mildly engaged until the June game against the Chester Funyuns. But we both know the likelihood of that ain't great.
BDR January 5, 2012 at 7:01 PM
I know. And Goff and Galarcep have been yapping the player *really* United wants (Enzo Something, out of UNC) just signed a Generation Whatever contract.
Still, I wouldn't blame Chang for cutting his loses especially if they can't work out a better deal at RFK with the District. And the Baal-taunting has worked so far.
Jim H. January 5, 2012 at 8:57 PM
I didn't see Manchester City on the schedule. WTF?
Hamster Hamlet January 6, 2012 at 9:27 AM
Landru, I believe it is called Latent Angst and you have kindly been monitoring bdr's for decades now.


text:
TV Azteca, S.A.B. de C.V. is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate owned by Grupo Salinas. It is the second-largest mass media company in Mexico after Televisa. It primarily competes with Televisa as well as some local operators. It owns two national television networks, Azteca Uno and Azteca 7, and operates two other nationally distributed services, adn40 and a+. All three of these networks have transmitters in most major and minor cities.

TV Azteca also operates Azteca Trece Internacional, reaching 13 countries in Central and South America, and formerly part of the Azteca América network in the United States until 2022. Its flagship program is the newscast Hechos.

History

Formation

In the early 1990s, the presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortari privatized many government assets. Among them was the Instituto Mexicano de la Televisión, known as Imevisión, which owned two national television networks (Red Nacional 7 and Red Nacional 13) and three local TV stations. In preparation for the privatization, the Imevisión stations were parceled into a variety of newly created companies, the largest of which was named Televisión Azteca, S.A. de C.V.

With the exception of Canal 22, which was spun off to Conaculta, one bidder won all of the stations. On July 18, 1993, Mexico's Finance Ministry, the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (SHCP), announced that Radio Televisora del Centro, a group controlled by Ricardo Salinas Pliego, was the winner of the auction to acquire the "state-owned media package", which also included Imevisión's studios in the Ajusco area of Mexico City. The winning bid amounted to US$645 million. The new group soon took on the Televisión Azteca name for the entire operation and soon challenged Televisa, turning what had been a television monopoly into a television duopoly. The two conglomerates held 97 percent of the commercial television concessions in the country.

Expansion

In 1998, TV Azteca announced an investment of US$25 million in XHTVM-TV, which was owned by Javier Moreno Valle through concessionaire Televisora del Valle de México, S.A. de C.V. Under the deal, Azteca restructured TVM and took control of ad sales and most programming duties, while Moreno Valle's CNI news service retained some primetime space. However, in 2000, Moreno Valle broke the contract with Azteca, alleging Azteca of filling up time allotted to CNI and not fulfilling the obligations in the contract. In December 2002, Azteca used private security guards to retake control of the XHTVM facilities on Cerro del Chiquihuite in Mexico City. However, the Mexican government stepped into the dispute and forced Azteca to relinquish control of XHTVM. In 2005, an employee strike that crippled CNI, Moreno Valle's mounting legal troubles, and a deal with the 5% owner of the concessionaire allowed Azteca to buy the remainder of the station and retake control of XHTVM, under the name Proyecto 40, in 2006.

On March 7, 2011, TV Azteca changed its name to Azteca, reflecting its growth into a multimedia company. However, in May 2016, the TV Azteca name was restored.

TV Azteca is the second largest mass media company in México after Televisa. These two big organizations control the 97% of mass media in Mexico. TV Azteca was funded in 1993 by Ricardo Salinas Pliego. TV Azteca has 31% of the 465 television concessions in México. The auction of the state channels and the granting of further concessions to TV Azteca further strengthen their connection. It also owns Azteca banks, Azteca insurance, Iusacell, programing pay television, cinemas, live theater, news channels, newspapers, Azteca music, an acting school, Azteca consumer products, Azteca internet, Azteca series, Azteca sports, stadiums, etc. TV Azteca is another company which also serves the government however to a much lesser extent than Televisa. TV Azteca also receives lucrative contracts from the Mexican government, and therefore the information that emits is also controlled by the actual government.  The news that is normally emitted by TV Azteca is 25% news bulletins that come from advertising, and infotainment relying on celebrities and biased editorials.

Sub-brands

Azteca Noticias

Azteca Espectáculos

Azteca Deportes

Azteca Novelas y Series

Services

Terrestrial networks
In Mexico

Outside Mexico

Formerly owned
Azteca América: American broadcast network with programming from TV Azteca's three television national networks in Mexico and local news. The owner, HC2 Holdings, continued to use the Azteca branding under license. Ceased operations on December 31, 2022.
KAZA-TV used to be the flagship of Azteca América from 2001 to 2018 but was sold to Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting, which stripped KAZA of its flagship status, and was replaced by MeTV as an O&O.

Cable
 Az Noticias
 Az Clic! (also broadcast as Azteca Clic)
 Az Mundo
 Az Corazón (also broadcast)
 Az Cinema
 Azteca Trece -1 hora
 Azteca Trece -2 horas
 Romanza+ África - African channel

Disputes and controversies

On 5 January 2005, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused TV Azteca executives (including chairman Ricardo Salinas Pliego) of having personally profited from a multimillion-dollar debt fraud committed by TV Azteca and another company in which they held stock. The charges were among the first brought under the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, introduced in the wake of the corporate financial scandals of that year.

The Federal Radio and Television Law (known as the Ley Televisa) was a bill concerning the licensing and regulation of the electromagnetic spectrum. The LFRT was favorable to both TV Azteca and Televisa (who together control 95 percent of all television frequencies) because it allowed them to renew their licenses without paying for them. According to The Economist, the Ley Federal de Radio y Televisión "raced through Congress confirming the country's longstanding television duopoly" and constituted a "giveaway of radio spectrum and a provision that allows broadcasting licenses to be renewed more or less automatically".

In February 2012, TV Azteca networks (Azteca 7, Azteca 13, and Proyecto 40) were dropped by Mexican cable-TV carriers representing more than 4 million subscribers in a carriage dispute over terms. Cable operators claimed that Azteca wanted to charge a fee by packaging its over-the-air stations with cable networks, such as news and soap opera channels, which potentially represented a higher cost to subscribers. After a nine-month absence, TV Azteca returned gradually to cable operators.

In August 2018, American Tower's Mexican Unit, MATC Infraestructura sued TV Azteca for $97 Million in a New York court for defaulting on a loan from the company.

Holdings
TV Azteca is part of the conglomerate Grupo Salinas, which includes the Grupo Elektra franchise of department stores, the Banco Azteca bank, and Seguros Azteca life insurance. TV Azteca also owns Liga MX soccer club, Monarcas Morelia.

Acting school
The network has set up an acting school, Centro de Estudios y Formación Actoral (CEFAT). Alumni include Iliana Fox, Luis Ernesto Franco, Adriana Louvier, Fran Meric, Bárbara Mori, Laura Palma and Adrián Rubio.

Record label
The network also owns a record label, Azteca Music, which was founded in 1996.

See also
 Televisa
 List of Broadcasting Companies in Latin America

References

External links

 Azteca official website

Television broadcasting companies of Mexico
Companies based in Mexico City
Grupo Salinas
1997 initial public offerings
Conglomerate companies established in 1993
Mass media companies established in 1993
1993 establishments in Mexico
Companies listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange
Companies listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Television networks in Mexico
Multimedia
Television channels and stations established in 1993
Mass media companies

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


An amazing opportunity to own one of the most desired buildings on the Chester Green. Many possibilities exist including a first floor business while living in a lovely 3 bedroom apartment upstairs with back decks, fenced in private yard that accesses the 2 car garage or renting the apartment and it's amenities for additional income. It's also possible to split apartment into 2 or 3 units with access and egresses already in place. The commercial space is an open 1,600 Sq Ft with recently added wood floors. The space also has central A/C. Former uses included a Drug Store and most recently a Country Store. It would be ideal for any type of business including retail, studio space, gym or restaurant. What ever your vision is. The building and property has been well maintained and cared for by it current owner and is in excellent condition top to bottom. Located in the center of the Chester Green business district next to the Fullerton Inn. It's the perfect location to live, work and invest.


The above suggestions are offered by Dr. Shillingford, M.D., P.A., a board certified surgeon specializing in advanced laparoscopic and obesity surgery. Dr. Shillingford's Boca Raton office is conveniently located close to Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Wellington, Parkland, and Coral Springs, but also sees clients from all over Florida including Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, and Naples. Dr. Shillingford's gastric sleeve, gastric bypass, and lap band patients are committed to weight loss success after their bariatric procedures, and are often looking for food ideas to inspire their continued weight loss efforts.


Our Cream Irish linen solid shirt is made from finest 60s Lea, sourced from one of the Iconic mills in the world. It is subtle, comfortable & light weight. The soft and airy fabric leaves you a personal touch. It is just right for Smart office look as well as weekends.
We suggest matching it with your favourite Brown Chino or Classic blue denim. It goes well with shorts as well.


With so many things to do in Chiscau, it's important to choose a good Hotel.
Cabana Maduta is located in Chiscau. The accommodation will provide you with a TV and a terrace. There is a full kitchen with a refrigerator and kitchenware. Private bathrooms also come with a shower.


Not even Dempo's staunchest fans would have pictured this after the humiliating loss to Nasaf. It will not be without a touch of irony that if Dempo win today in their final match against Al Ansar at Balewadi and Al Tilal don't beat Nasaf- they will qualify for the knockout round of the AFC Cup for yet another season.
Churchill Brothers has often been the unlucky bridesmaid of Indian football. Thrice they have lost the title on the last day of the national league. Yet, despite their failures, they have been one of the most exciting teams in Indian football in last two decades. TheHardTackle takes a look at the "family club" which became part of the "elite clubs" in Indian football.


Theatre Ontario invites you to celebrate World Theatre Day with us between March 20th and 27th by participating on our 5th Annual Online Auction. Continue your support, and in the process help us reach this year's goal in benefit of our Youth Advisory Committee (YAC).
Our initiative is being generously supported by several of our members and partners from across Ontario. This years' auction items will entice you to get out and experience Ontario's unique Theatre landscape, enjoy a night out, and celebrate local theatre.
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who supported our auction! We will be in touch with the successful bidders to arrange delivery of your items and payment.


text:
You can wear the Nissan GT-R (X) 2050 Concept like a jacket
10ft long concept is a Nissan intern's vision of a "super autonomous" future
Fine, not quite like a jacket. But still, you don't so much drive Jaebum Choi's pie-in-the-sky Nissan GT-R-inspired concept as wear it. It's only 10ft long and 2ft tall – the driver lays on their front, head-first in a starfish-type position, a hand or foot at each corner of the concept's tiny X-shaped body.
Choi developed the idea for the (X) 2050 while he was an intern at Nissan Design America in California. "Exo-skeletons today make people stronger by wearing mechanical structures. I tried to fit the size of a person's body as much as I could, as if I were wearing a car," the South Korean explains. "I wanted to create a new form of machine that is not a vehicle to ride, it is the space where machine and the human become one."
Porsche is using 3D printing to make EV parts
The 21 most exciting, controversial new cars of 2021
Is this the greatest car configurator ever built?
Williams is working on an EV system for a 40ft yacht
The driver (and sole occupant) has to wear a special suit, with a helmet that plugs into the car to "help the human brain activate digitalised signals". That seems to be how you drive it – by thinking it forwards, backwards, left or right. Choi says hooking up your brain to the car's computer would, in Nissan's words, "provide better performance than 'ordinary' self-driving cars".
The one-piece wheels/tyres allow it to turn through 360 degrees, and the spokes are designed to keep the brakes cool. There's active aero that folds away to help the driver climb in or out.
Thoughts, internet?
For all things electric, visit Top Gear's shiny new hub
Electric Home Page
Yes folks, Hyundai is developing a WALKING CAR
Tesla wants to build a more affordable, $25k electric car


Louis, I'm so very sorry to hear of your sweet mother's passing. She was such a darling lady, so friendly, and always smiling. I enjoyed visiting with her several times at Lagniappe. Please give my love to your dad, and prayers for you all.
Mr. Givens and family I just learned of Ms. Margie's passing and am so sorry for your loss. I know that Heaven has gained an angel. She was such a precious woman and will be missed by all who knew her. Maybe she is making coffee for your old coffee group and sharing stories with my Mother and Daddy.
She will be greatly missed! Our prayers are with the family in this time of loss. We miss seeing her every day at Lagniappe. This year at Christmas she gave some of us a coffee cup and a saucer filled heaping over with pecans. She said it was out of her china collection. I will treasure it always and think of her each time I see it.


A brand new supreme award trophy design will debut at this year's Pride In Print Awards night on Friday 23 May at Sky City.
The new trophy will be unveiled by Sue Archibald, who has been the manager of Pride In Print for over 15 years.
"Following a pyramid and then plinth-based design, we have developed a trophy that reflects the new branding of the Awards programme," says Archibald.
"The four horizontal panels inserted into the stainless steel base reflect the coloured circles printed inside each pane. Wellington-based creative firm Anderson Design was the architect for both the new design and final construction."
Updating the trophy design is in keeping with tradition, she says. The Pride In Print Awards trophy design is changed once every decade.
"We are proud to be entering the third decade of Pride In Print on a very strong footing," says Archibald.
"2014 entries are higher than the previous year and work entered into the 2014 Awards is of extremely high caliber -- making the judges job very difficult indeed. The winner of this year's Supreme Award has achieved the highest honour in the New Zealand print industry -- they will be the best of the best."


text:
Edinburgh Utd Reach Scottish Cup FInal
Edinburgh United beat St Mirren YBC 2-1 in extra time to clinch their place in the club's very first Scottish Youth FA Challenge Cup final in Airdrie in May. So far, so good! I have been trying to recover my sanity after watching this talented Capital youth side put themselves, club officials and all their fans in the drenching, freezing rain at Patie's Road through another nerve-shredding fight back to beat a very good team from Renfrewshire.
As in the quarter-final the previous week, when Edinburgh United stirred themselves late in game against Celtic BC at Meggetland, with the score 1-0 against them, Josh Morris scored twice in the last seven minutes to set up the semi-final clash with St Mirren YBC.
After a bright start, Edinburgh United were made to play second fiddle to a very good visiting team. St Mirren went 1-0 up in the 20th minute from a 30yd wonder goal from the very talented Jay Elder, who smashed an unsaveable shot in under the bar with Edinburgh keeper, Neil McArthur, left pawing the air after losing his footing in the muddy goalmouth. The visiting side then went on to mount attack after attack on the home goal and it was all hands to the pumps in the Edinburgh United defence to stop St Mirren adding another goal that would have, possibly, clinched the game for them. St Mirren had several top-class players in their ranks along with Elder, including No 11, Jonathan Sim and the best of them all in Mark Tedeschi, playing on the right side of the defence.
While Edinburgh were forced back in defence, the St Mirren side wasted several other half-chances to score, with Jamie Robertson blasting the ball over the home crossbar after great work by Tedeschi. All the heroes for Edinburgh United in the first half were in defence, starting from Neil McArthur and an outstanding display from Robbie Duncan. Stuart Simpson was tremendous, so too was Neil Smeaton and Johnny Coleman was just amazing. The work the Edinburgh United No 4 got through in this game was staggering. Jordan Smith was a power of strength in the middle of defence and Jason Watson went on to display superhuman qualities in the rain lashed second half and also in extra time. Mark Weatherburn made a great contribution once again, while Sam Campbell was, I think, just bursting to get on to contribute to this history making triumph. The other heroes in the home ranks included Josh Morris (of course), Joseph McVey, Kris Mitchell, Michael Collin, Robbie Duncan, Denholm Lyall, the hard-working Jason Hunter who was in the forefront of all the early attacks on the St Mirren goal, and the daddy of them all in my view in the Edinburgh United squad, the massive figure of Steven McHoul. The big No 21 came on as a substitute and St Mirren never got past him. To say big Steven hit's the ball well is a massive understatement, it leaves his boot as if shot from a gun.
St Mirren had the advantage of the strong wind blowing at Patie's Road but they had only a 1-0 lead to show for all their domination in the first half. That was, in my humble opinion, not enough to win this semi-final. As the wind dropped in the second half, the rain increased in intensity and it was damn, damn cold in to the bargain. The pitch became a mud path and Edinburgh United just got stronger and stronger.
The wonderful attacking moves by this very good side from the West of Scotland failed to produce another goal and the ball started to break in favour of the home side. Just as they did the week before against Celtic BC, Edinburgh United came out of their slumber and started to make things happen. The game changed, indeed, and it was the turn of St Mirren to show how good they were in defence. Goalkeeper, Steven Potter was immense in goal for the visitors and he produced the save of the game in the second half when he threw himself away down to his right hand post to deflect a net bound shot from Josh Morris for a corner. Believe me, the pressure was then on St Mirren and this amazing, fabulously fit Edinburgh United side had the bit between their teeth. Still, the home side trailed 1-0 and every time St Mirren mounted attacks, the home fans were in a state of sheer panic. But the increasing powerful home defence were not in the mood to let St Mirren get a tie clinching goal. It was 'hell on earth' for the home fans as the rain lashed down, particularly when Jonathan Sim was brought down on a great surging run in to the 18yd box but Bonnybridge referee, John Weir (known to his friends as the 'red rocket') waved play on.
The home fans breathed a collective sigh of relief. A huge roar went up from the fans trying to find cover in the small stand from the drenching downpour when Josh Morris fired the ball in to the St Mirren net. Offside, damn it! Edinburgh United were awarded a free-kick and the phenomenal Jason Watson hammered a low shot through the wall, only for Steven Potter to distinguish himself with a fantastic save. Even the soaked home fans applauded the St Mirren goalie (not too much, but still muted applause for a great save). Josh Morris brought out groans of disappointment when he broke on the left, but he spoiled all his good work with a poor finish. Denholm Lyall added to the disappointment with a wayward shot but the tide had turned once again in favour of Edinburgh United. The pressure on the St Mirren defence increased and Jordan Smith tested Potter with a fierce shot that zipped up off the sodden area in front of the St Mirren goal. But Potter showed how good he was by clutching the ball and clearing. With time running out and St Mirren looking comfortable with their 1-0 lead, a massive roar when up when Jonathan Sim produced the shot that squared the game, firing the ball past the helpless Potter from 16yds out and the ball went in to the net off the left-hand post.
The equaliser came in the 81st minute. Johnny Coleman was up in attack to send in a great header at the St Mirren goal, but the massed ranks of defenders cleared the danger. Who the hell cared about the mud and rain anymore with such incredible excitement. It was fantastic just to watch, despite having shoes filled with water, trousers soaked below the knees, freezing cold hands and a note book that squelched every time I tried to use it. Euan Wheeler almost scored a second goal for St Mirren in the first half of extra time, but Neil McArthur was right on the ball to clear, despite the panic in the home defence. But the siege on the St Mirren goal continued right up the final whistle and it was still 1-1. Extra time was almost unreal. Players went down in all areas of the muddy pitch with cramp and a huge pool of water appeared in the east goalmouth at Patie's Road. Another great free kick form Jay Elder was cleared off the home goal-line by Coleman and bodies were flying about everywhere before the ball was cleared. Jonathan Sim was through on the home goal and, to the undisguised relief of the home fans, he was given offside. At the other end, Josh Morris whipped in a shot on the turn, but it did not find the back of the St Mirren net. Time to pass around the valium tablets!!! Garry Gillies had a go at the home goal, but his shot was belted away then it was squeaky bum time for St Mirren fans when a shot from Josh Morris squirmed out of the hands of Steven Potter. But the brave goalie recovered to grab the loose ball at the second attempt. Jason Watson it appeared to me had found new levels of energy and commitment leading up the half-time but the teams were still locked at one-goal each. It also appeared to me the St Mirren players were struggling to cope with the home side and it was tiredness on the part of the visiting side that brought about their downfall in the second half of extra time. Potter's goal was under threat again from a back header from the strong running Joseph McVey but the danger was cleared. But Edinburgh United just got even stronger and the distress signals were flying in the St Mirren defence with players lying on the ground suffering from cramp. The home side continued their assault on the visiting goal as St Mirren were forced further and further back. All sorts of things were happening but, still, the brave, exhausted players from Renfrewshire refused to buckle. Until the very last minute of the second half, when Josh Morris broke through in front of the St Mirren goal and he seized the opportunity to tuck the ball behind the unprotected Steven Potter to put Edinburgh United 2-1 ahead. That should have been the final curtain, but the very fair match official allowed play to run on for four more agonising minutes to allow for all the time spent on treating players with cramp. When the final whistle went, it was the cue for the Edinburgh United squad to dance in the mud at the end of another fantastic episode in the short history of this youth club team that started out just six years ago as Pentland Panthers. The reason this team were formed at that time was to give former pupils of Comiston Primary School the chance to play in the South East Region Youth League. Who would have thought this group of young players had it in them to go on and clinch a place in a Scottish Cup final six years on. Whay a great story and also a true indication of what can be achieved from with a real community-based football club. I don't think I have ever seen a squad of players with so much togetherness and a wonderful spirit of 'all for one'! A truly fantastic win for Edinburgh United but there was so much sympathy for the St Mirren squad of players. Now, it is onwards and upwards for Edinburgh United and as I appear to be a bit of good luck charm, some of the fathers asked if I could attend their games each week and they also offered me a seat in the team bus to the final, including an offer to pay my admission fee.
I would like to warn everyone who intends going to support Edinburgh United in the Festival of Finals at Airdrie in May to get a health check before doing so. Last week, it took two goals from Josh Morris in the last seven minutes of the quarter final at Meggetland to beat a very good Celtic BC side 2-1. This time, it was Morris again who provided the winner in the very last minute of extra time. Watching Edinburgh United in Scottish Cup games should carry a health warning. Anyone of a nervous disposition or suffering from heart problems should consider staying away from the final.
On Sunday, April 25, Hillwood BC and the brilliant Edinburgh City under-17s are the first of two finals to take place at Airdrie's Excelsior Stadium at 1pm; with the under-19 final kicking off at 3.30pm when Blue Brazil BC clash with the incredible Edinburgh United. If you ever want to see a team living 'close to the edge' then it is Edinburgh United. Go prepared for another incredible late, late surge by this ultra fit side that does not know when to give in. I don't think they actually know the meaning of 'giving in'!
Written by Ian Mackay


Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) mission on public-private partnership (PPP) arrived to Uzbekistan on Monday, Apr. 22, Trend reports citing a source in Uzbekistan's financial circles.
The influential Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom has published an article entitled "Azerbaijan � the Holy Land of Fire". AZERTAC presents the article.
French striker Karim Benzema put on a great performance, scoring a hat-trick and leading Real Madrid to a 3-0 home win over Athletic Bilbao in a La Liga contest held at Santiago Bernabeu stadium, EFE news agency reports.


Just back from a wonderful holiday in New York City and wanted to share a brass plaque that is part of the Library of New York's Library Walk.
The walk is a celebration of the world's great literature and features inspirational quotes about reading, writing and literature on brass plaques set into the footpath on 41st Street, Manhattan, between Fifth and Park Avenue. We walked its length after visiting the library, which you have a perfect view of as you walk up the street from Grand Central Station.
The 96 plaques were sculptured by Gregg LeFevre, a Greenwich Village sculptor, and the writers of the quotes include Mark Twain and Dylan Thomas, to name just two. Eyecatching artwork illustrates their words.
We really enjoyed our wander along the path, stopping to read the plaques that are set at regular intervals on either side of the street.
Wouldn't it be fabulous if some of our New Zealand libraries did something similar to celebrate New Zealand books, writers, poets, and literature?