END OF MONTH 1, DONATION RECEIPTS, QUARTERLY REPORT, W2s, & SOMETHING CALLED A NEWSLETTER! January is a grueling month for non-profits. It's when donation receipts have to be mailed out in addition to finishing the bookkeeping for the previous year. It's also when W3, W2s, and quarterly reports are due. And, in our case, it's also when the entire year of public events and a majority of our private events are (or should be) planned out. With each public event that is planned out a website link has to be built with all the relevant information so potential participants can make decisions and plan accordingly. In order to have the relevant information for the website that means the entire trip (or at least a majority of it) has to be planned out. Have you ever planned a 2 day, 5 day, 7 day, or 9 day vacation? That's a whole lot of planning to get done in just a few weeks. And since our private trips take on a slightly higher level of urgency than our public trips that means that public trip planning, link building, and advertising sometimes has to get bumped back a few days or a few weeks. As for 2015, we have had a surge in our private trip bookings so it posses good problems for me. Since most of our ministry revolves around private events I pretty much drop everything I'm doing when a pastor or youth pastor or group leader signs their group up for a private event. I answer questions, make recommendations, help narrow down dates, create contracts, type overly long detailed emails (I like to give more information than is sometimes needed), and then I put in a lot of hours attempting to plan out the perfect trip. Now that's a lot of things going on in the first month of the year. Now add to that an enormous undertaking of something we are calling 52 Days in which we are striving for highly productive work days to go towards other areas of improvements & developments and you start to understand why I'm putting in 18-20 hour work days in each day. And I haven't even mentioned that I also taught a discipleship group once a week, attended educational seminars, attended 3 funerals, spent quality time with family & friends, met with numerous people for breakfast & lunches, hosted 2 back-to-back retreats, flew to Alabama for a short family trip, and took time everyday (at least 15 minutes) praying and reading God's Word. I have had so much sleep deprivation this month that I started to hallucinate while sitting in front of my computer. For the first time in my life I have fallen asleep (for about 10 seconds) with my eyes wide open while working at my desk. The amazing thing is how great my attitude has been. It's not unusual to experience a little irritability with so much sleep deprivation and heavy workloads, but I only remember 2 quick instances when I got slightly frustrated.. This may sound weird, but I feel like I'm passing so many tests. Not testing from God per se, but sort of like the unexpected testing that happens when you go skydiving and land in the middle of the ocean and get tested to see what's in your character when you're in over your head. Of course, this is nothing compared to real testing like facing a terminal illness or the losing a loved one. But, in context of my little world, I feel like I should be very cranky and moody, but I'm so delighted to see how strong my character, attitude, and fortitude have been during one of the most grueling months of my entire life. In the not so great words of the not so great Charlie Sheen, "Winning!". I say all of that so that I can brag on God for a moment. I know that I'm winning because Jesus is my strength. I know I'm enjoying the difficult moments because I haven't missed my daily time with God in nearly 3 months. As Zechariah 4:6 says, "'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty" or as Jesus said in John 15:4-5 says, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing." There are no truer words than those. Soooooooo, it's the end of one of the most demanding months of my life and we have made so much progress. We still have a loooooooong way to go, but I'm savoring the progress. One little bit of progress that is HUGE to me is that for the past 5 years I've wanted to mail out a newsletter with our annual donation receipts, but I've been too swamped with the January workload. BUT this year I was able to complete a brief 2 page newsletter sharing GTD's updates and plans. I almost didn't make it to the post office in time, but thanks to our hard working employee - Jessica Marie - and my awesome Mom (Margaret Ann) volunteering I was able to get it mailed out along with our quarterly report with 30 minutes to spare. That was a nice victory! I followed that victory with some nice family time with my cousins at their softball game in Clearwater, and then tonight I was able to complete our W2s & W3... followed by this blog entry (I haven't missed one yet during our 52 Days!!) before the clock strikes midnight. This is a great way to end the month! And this is a great way to start the next month. We are really plugging along well. I look forward to all that God is going to do in February. And finally I want to thank all of the donors that we just mailed donation receipts to for 2014. We had 85 donors who donated a total of $55,072.18 to GTD last year. It was the 6th largest amount in 19 years of ministry!! Thank you, thank you, thank you! We are blown away by your love, support, and generosity! God bless you!!
Erin shared her testimony at our Annual Banquet and has been going on GTD trips for the past 2 years. She is currently a nursing student in college. She is gifted beyond measure in multiple areas. Erin is one of the most remarkable people I've ever been around. In fact, she's the coolest nerd I've ever met. Erin loves God, loves adventure, loves people, loves to serve, loves to work hard, and the list goes on. She is an impact person and we are honored & thrilled to have her along side of us for the next month in GTD. We look forward to what God is going to do through her in February.
GTD WORK DAYS SCHEDULED!! How would you like to be a part of making a huge impact for the next 20 years? We need your help rebuilding the Walls of GTD. In order to be ready for the next 20 years of ministry we need to take what we have and make it better. We have a list of projects that need your help. We're asking people to set aside 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 hours of time to help with several projects during 2 weekends in February. Projects include painting, organizing, construction, cleaning, sorting, hauling, filing, cleaning, repairing, deconstructing, and more. Most of these projects don't require special skills, just a willing body and desire to do a good job. A few sample projects include: Rebuilding the wooden interior of our trailer doors; Painting the interior of our office; Repairing the brakes on Mt Boards; Reorganizing one of our storage areas; Re-carpeting our pontoon boat; Solving world hunger; Building new storage shelves; Building an office wall divider; Constructing shelves; Hauling off unnecessary items; Data entry into a computer; Filing... and the list goes on. We are actually adding and modifying the list everyday. The weekends we have set aside for these projects are: Feb 6-9 (Fri-Mon) and Feb 20-23 (Fri-Mon). We would love to have your help! We would be honored to have your help. To sign up to be a part of this God-awesome transformation click on this link and complete the "52 Days Volunteer Form" and tell us when and how you can help. I can tell you this, whether it's work or play, we always have a lot of fun in GTD. Thank you!
ALL NEW FAST TRACKS! (GTD DOES PRIVATE EVENTS!) Some people don't know that the majority of events we host are for private groups. It's common for church groups, youth groups, men's & women's Christian-based life groups, sports teams, and even businesses to hire GTD to plan, prepare, and provide a God-awesome adventure for their members. When this happens we ask the pastor or group leader to complete a "Fast Track Event Planner" so they can custom build their event around their member's needs and desires. For many years our Fast Track was a pdf form that we posted online. It worked, but we seemed to have issues with it all too frequently. We've been wanting to create an online Fast Track forms for a long time, but as you may have heard us say before, "We just didn't have the extra time to work on it." Well, that is no longer the case. We just completed revamping our Fast Track forms for all 6 of our Programs (Missions, Adventures, Retreats, Day Trips, Team Synergy, Exertion)!! It may not sound like a big deal to some people, but it's a HUGE accomplishment for us. Now pastors and group leaders can custom build their event in about 10 minutes within a sharp looking Fast Track online form. After a pastor or group leader completes the Fast Track, we get an email notification that it is done and ready for review. That gets the whole ball rolling. We just made it easier for groups to get more involved with GTD! Below are all of the links to our new Fast Track Event Planners. Feel free to check them out and/or share these links with your pastor, youth pastor, or group leader so they can jump on-board the GTD adventure wagon. It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
GTD PRODUCT LINE! One of the most frequently asked questions on our trips is, "Do you guys sell GTD T-shirts or hats?" Embarrassingly, the answer is usually, "We hope to have some new shirts soon." We've had nearly 10,000 participants embark on GTD adventures. Many of them want some kind of memento to remember their trip and display their love & support for this ministry. Can you imagine how many more people would have heard about this ministry by now if we had been offering GTD shirts for the past 19 years?!?! In the early years we didn't have the extra money to pay for these kind of items. Then, when we were able to purchase them, we didn't have the time to follow through with the process. The reality is we rarely have GTD shirts, hats, coffee mugs, water bottles, or an assortment of other products that participants would love to buy. That's unfortunate. And it's about to change. We are addressing our need for a quality GTD Product Line during our 52 Days campaign. As we prepare for the next 20 years of ministry our goal is to have a small team of people who are gifted in graphic design create new GTD shirts, hats, mugs, water bottles, and other frequently requested items so that our participants can purchase a souvenir from their trip and display their GTD keepsakes. We are looking forward to offering some cool new GTD gear soon. It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
MINISTRY IS A TEAM SPORT! VOLUNTEER FOR GTD!! Ever since I was a teenager in youth group I have volunteered to help out in other ministries. In fact, I've been volunteering for 26 years in the young adult ministry of my home church. For 26 years I have planned out activities, taught, and helped out in any way I could. It has always been rewarding. It has always been well worth it. In fact, one of the best ways to make a difference in someone else's life is to volunteer for a ministry. Whenever you use your talents and gifts to serve others God is going to bless it. GTD used to have a thriving volunteer team of about 25 hard working people. During The Great Recession many of our volunteers had to back off of their commitments for various reasons such as new marriages, new babies, new jobs, needing a 2nd job, etc. Unfortunately during that time we also lost our Volunteer Coordinator because of financial cutbacks and we didn't have a back-up plan in place. With just 2 full-time workers we had so much on our to-do lists that we could never carve out the time to recruit & train new volunteers or prepare tasks so that they could be delegated out. So we missed out on some great people during that time. One of our main focuses during our 52 Days campaign is to increase our volunteers who can help on the trips or before the trips or after the trips or in the office. We have plenty of areas that volunteers can make a difference in! So we are rebuilding our Volunteer Department from recruitment to training to opportunities it's all being built to enable people to be a significant part of God's work in GTD. As Tim Hansel put it in his book Holy Sweat, "God's method is man." He chose to use mankind as his primary tool to reach out to mankind. Volunteering in a ministry is fulfilling, healthy, honoring to God, and it allows you to begin stockpiling your eternal rewards in heaven. Let's face it, God's not judging us on how much money we make, how popular we are, or what kind of position we achieve. He's only interested in the things that last for eternity such as the souls of people, the way we love others, how we treat what has been entrusted to us, our own obedience to His calling, and so on. Being involved in ministry gives you the opportunities to make an eternal difference and to have something to present to God when we stand before Him to give an account for the life that we lived. Whether it's with GTD or your local church or another ministry, make volunteering a regular part of your life. You will never regret it! But as for this ministry, we are looking forward to increasing our number of volunteers. It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
GTD RE-SORT MINISTRY! Sometimes I like to tell people that GTD is a resort ministry... as in we re-sort stacks of to-do's all of the time. I've posted many times about the daunting task we have tackling piles of to-do's. It often feels similar to the kid at the beach digging a hole in soft sand all the while watching the surrounding sand just keep falling back into his hole. It's feels almost impossible to make significant progress because the sand never stops sliding back down into the hole. Likewise I dig & dig all week long into several stacks of urgent to-do's and then I have to go run an event for 3 or 4 days. When I get back, my stacks are now higher than they were when I originally started tackling them. It gets exhausting even writing about it. One of my quests during our 52 Days campaign is to sort years of to-do', then do them, and then keep them at a manageable amount. It may be a "pipe dream", but I believe now is the time of transformation. Now is the time for permanent change. Here is a picture of some stacks of to-do's set aside for this week. It is just part of this week's tasks. I'm hopeful that this week will be full of major progress. Keep checking back to see all the progress. It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
VISION: INDIVIDUAL IMPACT! Our ministry's vision has never been to be the largest adventure outfitter in the southeastern United States or the number 1 rated camp ministry in Florida or anything like that. The vision God put on my heart for GTD wasn't in terms of thousands or millions of people, but rather in terms of each individual. Our ministry vision has always been about each person. Our goal is to see individuals impacted. We want to see each person touched by the hand of God. We want to see each person living out their God-given potential in Christ. For me, it has always been about one-on-one relationships. The irony however has been that as the ministry grew year after year I had less and less time to spend with family, friends, and individuals. My quality time in relationships became greatly diminished. At the peak of our growth I had absolutely no time to spend with anyone. One thing I have learned about our enemy (the devil) is that he is a tactical genius. If he can't stop you from getting into ministry then he will do everything he can to bury you in ministry... he will use your momentum against you... he will push you so deep into organizational demands that you don't have time for people. If you have no time for people then you won't see an individual impact. Ministry is all about spending quality time with people. As GTD returns back to growth and expansion we are taking deliberate steps to guard against making the same mistakes. It's like God is giving us a "do-over" and this time we are going to do things differently... better. We are forging out non-negotiable quality time with individuals - family, friends, ministry partners, volunteers, interns, supporters, and those in need of personal impact. It is in those times that true ministry happens. The road ahead includes a lot more quality time with people. GTD's vision is an individual impact by the hand of God. It's taking shape during our 52 Days. It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
ANNUAL TRADITIONAL TRIPS! One of the GTD casualties of The Great Recession nearly 6 years ago was that we had to eliminate several of our annual events. In 2009 we had to let go of our 5 person full-time staff while at the same time watch most of our regular volunteers move on to other life commitments. That basically meant two people (Laurie and myself) now had to do the work of 10+ people. One of the immediate difficult decisions I had to make was to scale back the number of annual public events to a manageable amount so that 2 people could oversee them. That meant that I had to discontinue some of our favorite public events. It was tough. They were more than just a trip; they were traditions. Many people looked forward to them each year. But I had to trim down our workload. I based my elimination criteria on 2 things: (1) Did the event usually cost us more money than it generated? (2) Was the event too labor intensive for just 2 people to plan it, prepare it, and provide it with excellence? If the answer was yes to either one of those questions I removed it from the calendar. With just 2 people it wasn't possible to keep all of our yearly traditional trips on the calendar. I had to cut out The Islanders, Swamp Thing, Ignite, XFL, The Drifters, Nomad, Go Vertical, Mogul, DiRT, and our public Costa Rica Mission Trip. It still hurts a little bit to list all of the awesome annual trips that died during The Great Recession. But we had to cut them loose in order to survive. And praise God we did just that... we survived. Now, nearly six years later, we are becoming more and more alive. Part of our 52 Days campaign is to go back to the drawing board. Can (and should) any of these events be revived from the dead? We are revisiting some of our old staples while pursuing new annual tradition ideas (like we did with The Grand Canyon Trip!). We hope to revive and reintroduce a few of our fan favorites as well as build brand new events that become NEW annual trip traditions (I actually like to call them, "TRIPditions"). So keep your eyes on the 2015/16 GTD Public Event Calendar. You're going to like what you see! It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
non-proFIT... As many of you know, GTD is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Most people think that being a non-profit means you either have to lose money each year or, at best, break-even. This is a common misunderstanding. Actually non-profit organizations are allowed by law to make a profit, but those profits have to go back into the mission of the organization instead of going out as dividends to shareholders. In fact, the most financially healthy non-profits are the ones that finish with a surplus each year that can be used to expand their outreach, improve their organization, or tuck it away for emergencies. I refer to these financially fit organizations as non-proFITs. GTD strives to be fiscally fit. With a miraculous finish during the final 6 days of 2014, GTD just completed our 5th straight year of finishing with a small surplus since our catastrophic struggle during The Great Recession. We are trending in the right direction, but much of those surpluses have come as a result of harsh salary cuts in order to make budget. We have to breakthrough to the next level - beyond the struggle. And we believe we are on the cusp of doing exactly that. One of the areas we are addressing during our 52 Days campaign is developing our strategy to become financially stable. We are setting out to improve our fundraising, develop our grant writing, and increase our event revenues so that we can finally put the FIT in non-proFIT. We are happy to say that we are partnering with a great organization called Mission Increase Foundation (MIF). They specialize in financially strengthening non-profits. It's an excellent and effective ministry that helps ministries. It's a non-profit for non-profits. Today we attended our first seminar with MIF, and it couldn't have gone better. We are looking forward to the impact God is going to make in GTD through MIF. The future looks bright. It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
GTD WATER SPORTS! Believe it or not, although we are based in Pinellas County which is almost completely surrounded by water, GTD does very few water sports. Consider these facts: Tampa Bay is Florida's largest open-water estuary, extending over 400 square miles. There are more than 100 freshwater tributaries and more than 40 coastal streams that flow into the bay. We have some of the world's top-rated beaches, creating a year-round haven for outdoor enthusiasts. People come from all over the world to visit the Tampa Bay area. Amazingly, or better yet - crazily, GTD doesn't offer much to do in our own backyard. Other than canoeing and island retreats, we don't offer many water sports. That's probably because the founder (me) isn't much of a beach person. I'm a mountain man, and I naturally long to take people to the mountains or into the wilderness. And so, for 18 years we have overlooked an enormous nature opportunity staring us right in the face, water sports in the Tampa Bay area. Part of our 52 Days campaign is to fix holes in the walls. And this is a big one. GTD has to be committed to water sports for our next 20 years of ministry. We have to master our own domain. We will continue to offer all of our mountain based adventures 600+ miles away, but we will no longer neglect the water based adventures that sit just inches away. We are now compiling a list of potential water sports to dip our toes into. Things such as snorkeling, jet skiing, wakeboarding, kayaking, kiteboarding, fishing, stand up paddle boarding, as well as bringing back a few of our former adventures - inner tubing, island retreats, and canoe camping. Keep following our blog and social media updates to see where this thing flows (pun). And let us hear some feedback about water sports that you would love to see GTD offer. We are listening. Who knows, you may just influence our direction for the next 20 years! It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
A life well lived is a lasting inspiration and our dear friend Nicte Foster lived hers well.
We send our thoughts, prayers and sympathy to Nicte's family and friends as we all grieve the sudden loss of someone so special.
Nicte was such a passionate, exciting, enthusiastic and encouraging person. She oozed life & positivity out of her every pore. She use to come on our trips driven to not let anything keep her from living life to the fullest. If she had a fear she seemed determined to conquer it each day as we set out for a new adventure. She was so articulate and would share with everyone during our group camp time about her fears and how she was not going to let them prevail in her life (things like the fear of heights, etc). She was larger than life in her zeal and passion. She was a woman who loved her family dearly and was so proud of her three grown sons. She was dearly loved and easily became one of our favorite people at camp. We will miss you dearly Nicte, thank you for sharing a piece of your beautiful self with us all.
"Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
Last week our dear friend and Ministry Partner Jan Solava went home to be with the Lord after a along battle with MSA (Multiple System Atrophy). Our heartfelt sympathies go out to Frank her husband, her son Mike and the entire Solava family. Jan's life leaves behind a beautiful legacy through the lives she touched and through her beautiful family. May your special memories of her carry you through the difficult times, and may God's peace and comfort cover over you as you grieve your loss. It's was a privilege for us to know Jan.
For some, the journey's quicker, for some the journey's slow.
and find an everlasting peace, together with the Lord. "
Location, location, location! There are nearly 3 million people living in the Tampa Bay area. There are hundreds of churches throughout the region. GTD is a specialized ministry that provides Christ-centered outdoor adventures. Of course we host events for churches throughout the United States, but our primary church participation comes from the Tampa Bay area. One of the many things we are concentrating on during our 52 Days is developing our marketing focus. Unfortunately, GTD is one of the best kept secrets in our own area. We constantly hear pastors say, "I've never heard of GTD. If I had known about you guys we would have been doing events with you years ago." Our goal is to get the word out about GTD. We are a tried and true ministry that God uses to impact lives... and churches need to know about us. Currently we are collecting data about the bay area churches so we can formulate an effective marketing strategy to get the word out about GTD. As we develop this strategy we are also asking our GTDers to let their churches, pastors, youth pastors, and group leaders know about our ministry and all that we offer. We would love to meet with them and share with them what God is doing through Going The Distance Adventure Ministry. It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
Retreats Were a HUGE Success!!
Last night we returned from our back-to-back camping retreats that took place during the MLK holiday weekend at Word of Life in Hudson, FL. We hosted a men's retreat for MorningStar Church of Tampa followed by a young adult's retreat for Smiley's Coffeehouse (First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks). They were HUGE successes! (Praise the Lord!!). In fact, one of the men from MorningStar called the retreat, "One of the top 4 best days of my life!" Wow, that's what we like to call a "God-awesome" event! Over the weekend we put God first in everything we did. We had morning Bible devotions & nightly campfire messages. We made pizzadillas, smores, and stuffed pancakes. We did a high ropes course, climbing wall, and zipline. We played all day long. We watched a movie outside under the stars. We talked, laughed, told stories, played pranks, made new friends, and forged deeper friendships. Oh, and we also nearly froze to death as nightly temps dropped into the 30's and 40's. We played hard and we prayed hard! And God showed up. We want to thank both churches for choosing GTD as their source of Christian based adventures. We are honored to host your event. What a great way to kick off our 19th year of Christ-centered adventures! We believe it's going to be a phenomenal year of ministry. It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
GTD IS REVAMPING THE MENU! All the time we have kids and even adults telling us how much they enjoy our "camp" food and we are working to add and improve our menu even more in the coming year! The first on the list, do it yourself pancakes with options like bananas, blueberries, walnuts, pecans and chocolate chips! Can you say YUM?!?!
TAKING COUNT! Here we are day 14 of the 52 Day Campaign and although Doug is gone and on his second retreat of the weekend with the college ministry from Smiley's at First Baptist of Indian Rocks, he's still getting things done and today it has been about taking inventory of the things in our trailer being that we are a mobile ministry. In order to find out what our needs are, we first have to know what exactly we have since over the years things get broken, worn out or added to along the way.
Since I've stayed behind this trip, I've been doing some cleaning at the office. After all, we have been gone on and off for months and it's another area that gets neglected along the way. It's simple things like cleaning out the cabinets, disinfecting the sinks, washing the floors, dusting and vacuuming that get missed on a regular basis. It's our hope that one day we will have someone to help us to stay on top of these things so we don't have to spend so much time doing them every time we have a little time back home. A clean office makes a productive office!
THE DIFFERENCE ONE PERSON MAKES! I can't even express what a difference having one extra person here in the office has made for us. Things that have been piled up for years are getting done! Today Jessica sorted through files and files and files of things that have just been sort of organized and shoved together and placed in a cabinet. Now she is taking the time to sort, organize (really organize) and throw away anything unnecessary or outdated! Such a simple task, but a time consuming task that neither Doug or myself have had time for! It feels so good to see this getting done and we couldn't do it without the help of another person here to help us! Thanks Jessica!
RETURNS AND WARRANTIES! When you work in an outdoor ministry with lots of fun little gadgets like shower water heaters, trekking poles, headlamps, shock proof cameras and tents used by 100's of students and adults, things are bound to break and they do! So as they do we mark each item with an orange tag and set it aside to contact the manufacture in regards to the warranties so we can have them repaired, returned or replaced, but with our limited amount of time while running events and traveling these kinds of things have been placed on the back burner over the months and years. However today that all began to change as our new employee Jessica Butler began to tackle these items with phone calls and research on how to handle each item! So today we celebrate the fact that we're getting these things done! Bye bye orange tags, we have a new employee in town!
On another note Doug has been working tirelessly on getting ready for back to back retreats this weekend as he also continues to forge ahead with the 52 Day Campaign. It's not easy for him to walk away with such a big project going on, but while he's off with our weekend volunteers running these great events, Jessica and myself will continue to chip away and make progress with the walls of GTD and trust in God's help and favor to do the work that needs to get done.
ONE SMALL STEP FOR OUR FILING CABINET, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR GTD! It's hard to put a value you on progress, so let's just say that having our new part-time employee is PRICELESS! Although it may not seem like a lot to the untrained eye this one organized drawer in a huge filing cabinet means A LOT to us. Running the ministry for the past 5 years with just 2 employees has meant that we race from event-to-event with no extra time to tend to the "small things" like sorting and organizing our map drawer. It has meant that only the most urgent items get attention while piles of tasks stack higher and higher week after week. In time, small things become large mountains that seem impossible to scale. But things are changing over here at GTD Headquarters. Mountains are moving. We have a brilliant new employee named Jessica and she is way overqualified to be just a map drawer organizer. But she has come in and humbled herself to undertake menial tasks that may not seem that big to the outside world, but mean the world to us. In fact, we weren't even prepared to bring on a new employee. With no training, no step-by-step game plan, no "map" of how to get from point A to point B, Jessica has come in and had to become a problem solver. We basically hand her a problem (a stack of maps 3 feet high) and ask her to solve it... with nothing more than a vague picture of what we want the solution to be ("We want to get rid of the outdated maps and keep the relevant maps in an organized system for easy future use. Ok, go!"). Well, she is just 20 hours into her new part-time job and she is already lightening the load for Laurie and I in a big way. To some it's just a drawer full of maps. To us, it's the beginning of a return to organizational excellence. And it feels real good! Great job Jessica! I know that you can learn Spanish and Chinese in about 30 minutes and name every country on a world map and spell them all correctly, but thanks for coming in and doing menial things in meaningful ways! It's making a bigger difference than you may ever know. We look forward to the next 6 weeks with you =).
THE PURGE. Part of pressing on towards what lies ahead is letting go what holds you back. As you can imagine, it's easy to accumulate a lot of material over 18 years of ministry. Some of it needs to be held on to for a lifetime, but a lot of it becomes outdated and a waste of vital space. As we sort through our piles we have come across a lot of outdated papers... so we are purging them (shredding them if they contain secure information, and recycling them if not). It's amazing how fast the shredder waste box and recycling bins are filling up. Out with the old; in with the new. It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
On Nov 18, 2014 GTD officially kicked off our 14 Month $250,000 Funding Campaign to prepare GTD for the next 20 years of ministry. This is not a 14 month fund raising drive. This is a 14 month funding drive. That means that in addition to fund raising events, our regular fee based programs and events will also go towards the $250,000 goal (the expenses for these events have already been factored in).
UPDATE: In just under 2 months we are projected to be at 45% of our goal!!! That means that in addition to the donations that have already been received since November we have also added in the projected monthly donations pledged for 2015 as well as our current projected event revenues for the upcoming year. Two things about the current total: First, this thermometer can go downward if pledges or events fall through. Second, this thermometer still has 1 year and 5 days to go upward. That means that every new Monthly Partner and every new GTD event added to the calendar will drive this thermometer up towards our goal. To be honest, we are blown away that we are already at 45% of the goal. We are humbled and thrilled by God's mighty hand of support, and we are elated by the generosity of our donors. This has already been an amazing 2 months of rebuilding the walls of GTD. We are excited, but we are not relaxing. We are pressing on towards the goal that will put GTD in position to effectively minister to the next generation for the next 20 years.
One of our main objectives during our 52 Days campaign is to take an inventory of every resource we have and transform it into its maximum potential. We have started with our 1000 square foot office in Pinellas Park, FL. We are calling this project: Operation: Office Transformation. Each transformation project will go through a 3 phase process until it's completed > Rough Draft Phase > Functional Phase > Excellence Phase. We have moved (and sometimes removed) thousands of pounds of furniture, office equipment, and exercise gear. During the rough draft stage our goal was to get all remaining items into certain rooms for specific reasons. Offices 1 & 2 now have only the items that will (probably) remain in them and will go on to the Functional Phase of positioning those items into temporary locations so that the office is fully functional. These rooms will then be assessed, planned out, and revamped for maximal optimization. Currently Office #3 has moved on to the Functional Phase for its temporary use as our 52 Days volunteers workroom. This is where much of the administrative tasks will be completed by volunteers over the next 7 weeks before Office #3 transforms into its actual purpose (to be announced later). So far, so good. It's all coming together and we are enthused with the process, the progress, and the potential. All I can say is that this is an exciting time to be a part of GTD! Keep following the progress... and consider volunteering for the process so that you can help GTD live out its full potential!
Just like Nehemiah, we don't take days off during the 52 days of rebuilding the walls. Sundays will be partial work days so we can still attend church and spend time with family. After church I returned to the grind of updating, purging, and consolidating hundreds of to-do's. It's a long and arduous task, but necessary in order to equip our volunteers. I look forward to seeing these to-do's become to-done's!
TAKE A HIKE! (Literally!) It's "Rollout Friday" at GTD which means this is the day that we give you a little glimpse of the things to come. For 18 years GTD has offered a lot of variety when it comes to adventures - rock climbing, caving, rappelling, canoeing, camping, and the list goes on. We've helped thousands of people experience these adrenaline filled activities for their first time. And we've watched many of them get hooked. They want more than just a taste, they want to throw themselves into their new favorite adventure and master it. They want to travel to incredible destinations and experience more of God's amazing creation while venturing deeper into their favorite activity. Well, we are going to continue to offer a lot of variety in GTD, but we are also excited to share with you that some of those adventures are going to take on an even higher level of emphasis. Some of these outdoor activities will become GTD's Premiere Adventures. They will become our specialty... our major... our "A" list activity... our crème de la crème. And we are happy to share with you that the first adventure to become a premiere GTD adventure is.... BACKPACKING!! How would you like to backpack for several days with a Christ-centered outfitter out west or up north or on the Appalachian Trail or down into the Grand Canyon or in Utah or Montana. The list of awe inspiring destinations is virtually endless and GTD wants to take you there! We are thrilled to be in the planning stages of GTD's first Premiere Adventure: Backpacking! Stay tuned for all the developing news during our 52 Days campaign. This is an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
Go (con)figure, we had another productive day at the GTD office as we configured one of our rooms with several work stations so our volunteers can come in and work on countless tasks that have piled up over the years. Jessica (our new employee) is doing a fantastic job of organizing each task and preparing them to delegate to our volunteers. We have a few more days of task preparations before we start taking volunteers. We are looking forward to all the progress that lies ahead. It's an exciting time to be a part of GTD!
A little hint of things to come... Let's just say we are adding a little more "class" to GTD!! We can't wait to share more about one of our upcoming new additions to the ministry, but we will have to bite our tongues for now.
Our special thanks to Bobby, Alex, and Matt for volunteering their time today to help with our 52 Days campaign. As you can see by the pictures below, sometimes you have to make a mess in order to clean things up. We are moving hundreds of things from one spot to another as we tackle each room in the office.
Our goal is to make the most of every resource God has blessed us with. In regards to our office, we are going room-to-room with one mission in mind: Transformation. Each room will go through a 3 phase process > Rough Draft Phase > Functional Phase > Excellence Phase. We are setting up each room for it's new purpose while removing items that do not pertain to that purpose (rough draft phase) then we will add all the necessary components to make it usable in its current state (functional phase) and finally, we will add to it all of the finishing touches to make it inviting, motivating, and fulfilling it's full potential (excellence stage). As we prepare for the next 20 years we must start by making the most of the present opportunities.
Today GTD kicked off the most important objective we've ever been involved with. It's called "52 Days" and it's based on the first 6 chapters of the Biblical book of Nehemiah. In this book Nehemiah finds out that the Jews who survived the exile were in great trouble and the wall of Jerusalem that was built to protect them had been broken down and its gates were destroyed by fire. Nehemiah wholeheartedly seeks God and prays for success and mercy before the king. He then shares his distress for his people with the king (Nehemiah was the cupbearer to the king). God granted Nehemiah favor as the king not only gave Nehemiah authority to rebuild the wall, but also funded its reconstruction. Nehemiah journeyed to Jerusalem and took time to survey the damage to the wall and the gates. He then met with the remaining remnant of Jews and shared with them his vision to rebuild the wall of and how God had already been working. The people replied, "Let us rise up and build." And so they set out to rebuild the wall. They worked day and night while being threatened by many adversaries who wanted to destroy them. They worked with a trowel in one hand and a sword in another. And they worked together and completed the wall in only 52 days.
I've always loved this story because it displays the delicate balance between God doing His part and man doing our part. God supplied the passion, mission, vision, opportunity, authority, and funding while the people supplied the obedience, effort, hard work, and diligence to physically restore the wall. God did His part and the people did their part.
Today, we have taken on a similar mission to rebuild the Walls of GTD. The foundation (our values, mission, vision, and commitment to Christ) & the God-awesome events of our ministry are solid as a ROCK. But the Walls of GTD (the structure that helps us accomplish our mission) needs some attention. In fact, it needs to be rebuilt. Part of the wall is broken down because it's the natural result of aging (18 years of ministry causes trailers, equipment, and gear to need some restoration). Part of the wall is broken down because of spiritual warfare (We have an adversary in the spiritual realm that wants GTD destroyed and he utilizes a variety of artillery to attempt to chip away at our resources. We just survived a 5 year recession that required intense amounts of personal sacrifice). And part of the wall is broken down from "live-and-learn" decisions (We've never built a ministry like this before. In fact, it's a very rare ministry. There aren't many mobile outdoor adventure ministries out there so sometimes we get educated by the school of hard knocks and that can wear away at our walls). The exciting thing is that we have completed 18 years of ministry and now have a wealth of education and experience to draw from as we begin to prepare for the next 20 years of ministry. In order to be ready for the next 20 years we are using our 19th year to "Rebuild The Walls of GTD" and address every broken piece of equipment, every broken piece of organization, every broken piece of planning, every broken piece of marketing, every broken piece of our overall structure and either rebuild it, reform it, or remove it. If it's not adding to our calling then it is getting in the way. If it's in our way and we can't reform it then we are getting rid of it. This goes for everything - events, website pages, brochures, departments, programs, trailers, storage facilities, post-it notes, 20 years of paperwork, 25 year old ideas, outdated wall colors, and the list goes on-and-on. I think you get the gist of it.
So what does all this mean? It means that just like Nehemiah couldn't rebuild the Wall of Jerusalem by himself, neither can we rebuild the Walls of GTD by ourselves. We need your help. We are asking people to volunteer as well as help fund some of the rebuilding. We need everyone to be involved. This is a call for, "All Hands On Deck!" We have all kinds of work that needs to be completed - office work, data entry work, picture scanning, minor repairs, major repairs, renovations, construction, procurement... you name it, we need it - especially Y-O-U!
We spent today doing the most important type of work, we prayed. We sought God for His favor, His plans, and His success over the next 52 Days. And we also went to work! We didn't have all of the volunteer projects ready to go on Day 1 because we didn't want to call this a 52 Day campaign if we were really working 4 weeks on it before it even started. That wouldn't be a real 52 Day campaign. I have already spent time surveying the wall like Nehemiah did before he announced the general objective to the people. Now I'm making the announcement, "The Walls of GTD need to be rebuilt so that we are impacting the next generation of young people with the Gospel of Christ. The walls can't be rebuilt by themselves and we can't do it by ourselves. We need your help. Let's team-up for the next 52 days to transform this ministry into a God-awesome ministry prepared for the next 20 years. Let's team-up for the next 52 days and be a part of something bigger than ourselves; something that impacts eternity! Will you help us transform GTD into a ministry ready to go the distance for the next 20 years?" We want you on our team! Click here to sign-up.


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In this exhibit the independent curator Therese Lichtenstein explores the complex connection between popular culture, in the form of prints, books, magazines, and postcards, with the emerging movement of surrealism.
Man Ray, "Barbette Applying Makeup," 1926.
January 29 – May 9, 2010
Surrealism attracted photographers to Paris from all over the world, where they turned their recently invented handheld cameras on the apparitions of its twilit streets. André Kertész said in the introduction to his book, I Love Paris (J'Aime Paris, 1974): "I write with light, and the light of Paris is my good friend." His prints in this exhibition reveal a preference for tangible experience and unaffectedly mysterious composition. Henri Cartier-Bresson concluded, "Each time Kertész's shutter clicks, I feel his heart beating."
Eugène Atget, the pioneer of Parisian street photography and a proto-surrealist, is shown with "Fête de Vaugirard" (1913), "Shop Windows at Les Halles" (1925), and "Boulevard de Strasbourg" (1926), among others. His prints are edgy-romantic, quasi-absurd, and deliberately devoid of human presence, contemplating a hidden cornucopia of the senses. His plates, almost lost, were discovered by Man Ray and preserved by Berenice Abbott, who was Man Ray's assistant at the end of Atget's life.
Dora Maar, "Portrait of Leonre Fini," 1936.
Through fragmentation, unusual viewpoints, and technical innovations, photographers exposed the disjunctions of modern Paris. Brassaï recounts how he bribed the night concierge at the Notre Dame Cathedral so that he could climb to its roof and shoot Paris from disorienting angles, with lifelessly staring gargoyles like chimeras encased in stone, against unexpected perspectives of the jagged rooftops of the nocturnal oasis below.
The surrealism lay in the streets' extreme banality; by photographing street lamps, staircases, and shop windows, the artists lent "floating attention" to everyday details, the incongruous at the heart of ordinary. In "Broken Plate" (1929), Kertész poked a hole through a pane of glass to shoot the daylight cityscape of the street and rooftops through the broken window. The electrification of the city's buildings and sculptures during the 1920s and 30s illuminated the Paris night, and—coupled with the quasi-impressionistic sights of bridges in fog, splashing fountains, fireworks, and the fairytale Eiffel Tower, where Germaine Krull photographed a dimly lit rhinoceros—created a panoramic movie-set milieu. Brassaï focused on the mystery of artificially lit streets and on the Saint-Jacques Tower—a symbol of Breton's surreal faux-mysticism. One night Josef Breitenbach stumbled across a statue covered in fabric and foreshadowed the Paris wrappings of Christo and Jeanne-Claude decades later in his print entitled "Veiled Statue" (1933).
Several surrealist film masterpieces are on view, such as the eye-slashing "Un Chien Andalou" (Dalí/Buñuel, 1929), "The Little Match Girl" by Jean Renoir and Jean Tédesco (1928), Man Ray's "Emak-Bakia" ("Leave Me Alone" in Basque, 1926) and "L'Étoile de mer" (1928, with the poet Robert Desnos sleeping/dreaming), and French director Jean Vigo's "L'Atalante" (1934), representing a complex visual revolution—anti-academia, anti-commerce, anti-public taste.
The next great advance was the avant-garde photo-portrait, which documented the surrealist artists and poets and odd café society hangers-on in images like Man Ray's prints of Lise Deharme (as the Queen of Spades, 1935), "The Marquise Casati with Horses" (1922), and "Barbette Applying Makeup" (1926). The latter, a popular vaudeville performer, bizarre and beautiful, is revealed in a double-mirror image evoking sexual ambiguity and parallels of serenity and anxiety. Other portraits include Bellon's "Salvador Dalí Holding a Mannequin" (1938), a readymade plaything of artificial desire, Dora Maar's portrait of Leonor Fini (1936), with a black cat, ripped black stockings, and a provocative stare, Lee Miller's nude self-portrait mirroring her mentor Man Ray's nude torso, and Claude Cahun's self-portrait as Elle in "Barbe bleue" (1929).
Surreal nudes are captured in "Distortions" (1933-34), the magic mirror prints of Kertész. For "Le Sourire" ("The Smile"), he photographed a female nude reflected in an amusement arcade's distorted mirrors, and in "Distortion # 40," two hands protrude from the side of a vagina, creating an unexpected optical effect. There is also the reflection of a naked prostitute in "Mirrored Armoire" by Brassaï, Dora Maar's nude in a Greta Garbo mask, and two female nudes floating underwater with fish, a photomontage by Nusch Éluard called "Wood of the Islands" (1935-36).
The Czech painter Jindrich Styrsky thought of photography as a "mirror with memory," a substitute for meta-reality, as in "Untitled" (1934), a street scene with a side of a building covered by peeling posters in the glaring afternoon light, and bordered by a vertical line of wine bottles—a mix of convulsive beauty and specific irrationality.
All the works are black and white, except for the colored erotic photomontage-poems "La Septième Face du dé" by Georges Hugnet in his first book of disjunctive word-decoupages. Even for a French speaker they are not easy to comprehend, because he rarely integrated the images or words into a pictorial or poetic unity. Hugnet's palette is the creativity of chaos mixed with deviant eroticism.
Displayed under glass, among various catalogues, posters, postcards, and magazines, are copies of Minotaure #1, #3, #4, and #5, the surrealist publication that introduced readers to Brassaï's strange, dark, sometimes ecstatic nudes, Hans Bellmer's tortured dolls, and the poetry of Paul Éluard.
The exhibition's scholarly catalogue, with a lead essay by the curator, Therese Lichtenstein, as well as contributions by Julia Kelly, Colin Jones and Whitney Chadwick, provides the critical analysis and historical background needed to back up such a poetic theme, an idea that tries to reconcile the irreconcilable, the accidentally mundane with subconscious fantasy, blurring the boundaries between dream and reality.
Valery Oisteanu

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Columbus, OH 43201. The doors will open at 6:00 with the show starting at 7:00.
The second Stop will be in Cleveland Heights on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at the Cedar Lee Theatre located at 2163 Lee Road Cleveland Heights, OH 44118. Doors will open at 6:30 with the show starting at 7:00.


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Climate change impacts worse than expected, global report warns
The impacts and costs of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) of global warming will be far greater than expected, according to a comprehensive assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released Sunday in Incheon, South Korea.
The IPCC's Special Report lays out various pathways to stabilize global warming at 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius).
The Special Report is like getting a troubling diagnosis from your doctor, said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. "Every possible test has been done and the news is not good," Hayhoe said in an interview. "The doctor, the IPCC in this case, then explains possible treatment options to ensure our future health. We (the public) decide which option to follow."
tags: Texas Tech in the News
© 2023 Texas Tech UniversityDec 7, 2018 10:21 AM


Provision of a mobility scooter store and 2 No. replacement parking spaces.
Change of use of the 1st - 5th floors (inclusive), seven storey extension to rear of existing building and two storey extension to the roof to accommodate 42 apartments (13 x 1 bed, 28 x 2 bed and one x 3 bed) over floors 1- 7. Ground floor retail unit retained.
Construction of single storey extension to medical room.
Removal of existing garage and storage buildings to provide extension and alterations to existing bungalow.
Existing retaining wall in the southwest corner within the garden boundary raised 800mm to a total of 3m maximum height.
Retrospective application for the resurfacing of front garden to create additional parking area - to include; removal of grass, tarmac driveway and existing footpath and replacement with gravel, grey slabs, new front door step and addition of sleepers to retain remaining grass garden area.
Re-modelling of main dwelling involving construction of single and two storey extensions, hip to gable roof enlargements, and alterations to external wall and roof finishes. Conversion of ancillary outbuilding to annexe accommodation including external alterations.
Demolition of garage, and construction of attached garage and single storey rear extension.
Extension to existing detached double garage.
T1, Robinia: Crown reduction to reduce height and width by 1.5m, with pruning cuts up to 60mm in diameter, crown raise to 4 metres. T2, Ash: Crown reduction to reduce height and width by 1.5m making pruning cuts up to 50mm in diameter.
Approval of Reserved matters in respect of the siting, design and external appearance of a Research and Development (Class B1b) building, as described in the Outline Planning Application, with associated landscaping, access and parking, together with additional details as required by conditions attached to the Outline Planning Permission.
Re-slating northern roof slope and repair and replacement of cob render.
Re-slating roof, repairs to 5 chimneys and removal of 2 chimneys. Form new eaves detail and ventilation.
Erection of replacement porch, replacement of conservatory with garden room, and construction of canopy over kitchen door.
Variation of conditions 1 and 4 of planning permission DCC/3003/2010 to allow for the importation of as-dug sand and gravel from Houndaller (Hillhead) Quarry for processing at Blackhill Quarry, Woodbury, Exeter, EX5 1HD.
Installation of waste water treatment plant.
Use of land for storage of commercial vehicles, including temporary office/ welfare accommodation, palisade fencing and associated works.
Proposed replacement garage with ancillary accommodation.
T2, Oak: Reduce four limbs overhanging gardens to the west retaining a crown radius of approximately 9 metres making pruning cuts up to 150mm in diameter.
Construction of building for storage, packaging and distribution of Willow products.
T1 Oak: Reduce the spread by 3 - 4m and height by 1 - 2m making approximately 10 x 150-300mm target pruning cuts.
T1, Yew: Option A - Shorten back east aspect by up to 1.2 metres making pruning cuts up to 50mm diameter. Option B - Crown reduction. T2, & T4, Holm Oak: Option A - Shorten back east aspect by up to 0.9 metres making pruning cuts up to 50mm diameter. Option B - Crown reduction. T3, Beech: Crown reduction by up to a 1/3. T1, T5 & T6, Yew: Option A - Shorten back east aspect by up to 1.2 metres making pruning cuts up to 50mm diameter. Option B - Crown reduction.
Construction of replacement swimming pool building, change of use and alterations to agricultural shed to stables/equestrian use, provision of manège, reconfiguration of driveway and provision of parking areas including associated landscaping.
Removal of existing garage and erection of single storey side extension including garage.
Certificate of lawfulness for the proposed siting of mobile home for ancillary accommodation.
Construction of hip to gable roof extension, raising of roof and front dormer windows to facilitate loft conversion.
Change of use of agricultural land to site an all weather equestrian exercise area to include fencing. Erection of 5 timber stables within curtilage of outbuildings area.
Proposed replacement workshop, alterations to vehicular access and proposed parking area Enhanced entrance and visibility splays and parking for 8 vehicles.
Connection to proposed solar park comprising erection of 33kV overhead line.
Demolition of existing garages and erection of a terrace of three, 2 bedroom dwellings and associated parking.
Replacement of portacabin offices, erection of extension to hanger, enlargement of concrete apron and provision of parking spaces.
T1, Robinia: Crown reduction to retain a tree with a height of 13m and a spread of 7m.
Erection of livestock and storage shed, concrete apron and silo.
Certificate of Lawfulness for a proposed use or Development to locate a mobile home in place of existing garage and summerhouse.
Replace lower rear slate roof insulation and insertion of 2no velux roof windows.
T1, Magnolia: Remove 6 overhanging branches.
Conversion of integral garage into utility room, home office and playroom.
Installation of roof-lights (amendments to 14/2022/FUL).
Erection of rear extension protruding 3.6 metres and with a maximum height of 3.45 metres and eaves height of 2.66 metres.
Construction of a single storey and two-storey extensions, alterations to the existing bungalow to create first floor incorporating front and rear dormer windows and the creation of a new vehicular access, detached garage and driveway.
Installation of 9 internally illuminated signs.
+T1, Cedar: Crown Clean (Removing climbing plants, suppressed and dead branches). Remove two low hanging branches (one facing house one at entrance to higher section of garden). T2 & T3, Cypress: Fell.
T1, Acer - Reduce crown to previous pruning points, removing approximately 4m from the height and 3m from the width. T2, Eucalyptus - Coppice.
T1, Beech: 1.5metre Crown reduction, retaining a tree with a finished height of approx 16.5metres (currently 18) and a radial spread of 5.5metres (currently 5.8 to 6.3metres).
Retention of use of annex as separate dwelling in association with kennel business.
Demolition of existing store and erection of annexe with linking walls to Glebe House.
Demolition of existing store and erection of annexe with linking walls to Glebe House Cottage.
Change of use of land for siting of a solar thermal array to supply low carbon heat to the energy centre and connected district heating system,together with a pipeline and associated equipment. Temporary until end of May 2017.
Construction of the Tithebarn Cluster car park (89 spaces) and access road including associated infrastructure.
Raising roof height to allow loft conversion with rear dormer.
Demolition of existing garage and construction of single storey extension to side and construction of car port.
Variation of Condition 4 of planning permission 14/2536/VAR to allow revisions to the Landscape Design Statement, Specification and Management Plan.
Change of use of first floor to furniture sales.
T1, Sycamore: Remove three suckers nearest to house. T2, Ash: Reduce long limb from approx 6 metres back to 4m (pruning cut diameter 100mm). T3, Sycamore, T4, Willow, T5, Cherry, T6 Sycamore, T7, Cherry: Fell.
Replacement of 9 no. single-glazed windows with 8 no. double glazed windows and 1 no. french door; replacement of front door, 3 no. porch additions.
Variation of Condition numbers 2 and 6 of planning permission 13/2282/VAR to allow amendments to approved solar farm including additional CCTV camera, change to footprint of buildings, addition of aerials, antenna, satellite dish to communications building and reduction in height of solar panels and amendments to security plan layout.
Construction of two storey extension.
T2, Western Red Cedar: Remove two lowest second order branches over lawn. Reduce height by 2.5 metres.
Retention of eastern chimney above roof level, new roof over extension, removal of windows and installation of new sash window, replacement ceiling to utility, repairs to bedroom and bathroom ceilings, replacement window cill/seat to kitchen, strengthening of A frame to bedroom, repair timber partion, rethatching of ridge, repoint west end chimney, replacement windows to front elevation and re-rendering of front wall.
3 externally illuminated fascia signs, 1 internally illuminated projecting sign, 1 non-illuminated projecting sign and 9 printed window graphics.
Residential development of land to include 39 dwellings (Use Class C3), site access and other associated infrastructure.
T1 & T2, Pittosporum - Pollard T3, Elder - Fell T4 & T5, Lawson Cypress - Fell T6, Hazel - Fell.
Approval of access, appearance, landscape, layout and scale for the extension of the Main Local Route (the primary infrastructure of the development of Cranbrook New Town 03/P1900) from the education campus.
Construction of car park (136 car parking spaces) to serve the Redhayes and Ridgetop Clusters and associated surface water drainage, new services, street lighting, landscaping/planting and fencing.
Change of use of former games room/office/laundry to 3 bedroom dwellinghouse including associated external alterations and installation of sewage treatment plant.
Outline application (discharging means of access only) for the construction of up to 93 dwellings and new access and associated open space (Resubmission of application 14/2237/MOUT) incorporating a right hand turn lane to the A3052.
First floor side extension and alterations to form annex.
Re-rendering of property and replacement of concrete and timber cills with slate cills and works to gable end wall and 2no replacement windows on front elevation.
Insertion of two windows to south elevation of studio flat.
T1, Turkey Oak - Crown reduction via thinning to reduce the height to12m and the spread to 5m by removing 2nd & 3rd order branches. T2, Maple - 10% crown thin removing new upright growth.
Construction of devon banks at the entrance to the site and around the fire control building.
Installation of fascia sign adjacent main entrance.
Minor material amendment to vary list of approved plans of planning permission APP/12/00046/F (list added by Non-material amendment APP/14/00677/F) to make alterations to materials and elevations.
Variation of Condition 2 of 14/0321/FUL (construction of semi detached dwellings and associated garaging accessed via Churchside) to allow repositioning of garage plot 1.
T1, Walnut - Target prune extended limbs on Southern, Western and Northern aspect of the canopy, removing 1.5m - 2m lengths from 10 branches making pruning cuts of no more than 80mm diameter. T2, Cherry - Target prune to reduce one branch making a 50mm pruning cut.
Erection of a steel portal framed building over silage pit and concrete yard.
Outline application with all matters reserved for the construction of a dwelling.
Installation of ground mounted solar array and associated infrastructure.
G1, 3 x Poplar - Fell G2, 6 x Poplar - Fell.
Prior approval for proposed change of use of agricultural building to form 1no dwelling house (class C3).
Proposed deed of variation to BREEAM rating for the Hampton by Hilton Hotel linked to planning permission 10/1523/MRES.
T1, Hornbeam - Remove 2 lowest branches growing over neighbours garden and greenhouse.
Outline application (all matters except access reserved) for demolition of existing agricultural buildings and development of up to 250 dwellings, a local centre providing commercial floorspace of up to 600 sqm (use classes A1,A3,A4 & B1), community building/cafe (use class D1 & A3), public open space/green infrastructure and associated works.
Construction of conservatory and conversion of outbuilding to car port.
T1, Magnolia - Crown lift to 2.5m and prune away from property to give 2.0m clearance. T2, Eucalyptus - Pollard at 4m. T3-T4, Cypress - Fell.
Up to 1,750 residential dwellings, one 2-form entry primary school, local centre comprising up to 1,000sq m of A1 uses plus A2, A3, A4, A5 uses and up to 1,250sq m B1 Business use. Sports and recreation facilities including children's play, green infrastructure (including open space), community uses (including non-residential institutions), assembly and leisure, landscaping and allotments. Access from former A30, engineering (including ground modelling and drainage) works, demolition, associated infrastructure and car parking for all uses. All matters reserved except access.
The expansion of Cranbrook comprising up to additional 820 residential dwellings, one 1-form entry primary school, a cemetery and associated building, sports and recreation facilities including children's play, an extension to the country park, green infrastructure (including open space), community uses (including non-residential institutions) and cemetery. Access from former A30, landscaping, engineering (including modelling and drainage) works, demolition, associated infrastructure and car parking for all uses. All matters reserved except for access.
The expansion of Cranbrook comprising up to an additional 1,550 residential dwellings, 40,000 sq m of employment (B1, B2, B8), one 2-form entry primary school, a local centre comprising of up to 1,000sq m of A1 uses plus A2, A3, A4, A5 uses and up to 1,250sq m B1 business use. Sports and recreation facilities including children's play, green infrastructure (including open space), community uses (including non-residential institutions), assembly and leisure. Access from former A30, landscaping, allotments , engineering (including ground modelling and drainage) works, demolition, associated infrastructure and car parking for all uses. All matters reserved except access.


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MK Ben Ari Denied Entry Visa to U.S. Over Link to Terrorist Group
National Union MK Michael Ben Ari believes he was barred from U.S. for being a member of far-right Kach organization, says in response that this type of 'U.S. blindness' is what brought about the 9/11 attacks.
Jonathan Lis
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The U.S. government has refused to issue an entry visa to MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union ) on the grounds that he belongs to a "terrorist organization."
Far-right Campaign Ad Banned
Ben Ari applied to the American consulate for a visa so he could attend two conferences in the United States this week. Though the consulate did not specify what group he is suspected of belonging to, he said he presumes it is Kach, the former far-right political party that both Israel and America now deem a banned terrorist organization.
MK Michael Ben Ari. Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
In response, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud ) sent an angry letter to U.S. ambassador Dan Shapiro, saying it was unacceptable for a Knesset member to be banned from the United States and urging him to reconsider.
"National Union," Rivlin wrote, "is a completely legitimate faction of the Israeli parliament, and Ben Ari an elected representative of the State of Israel, a close American ally. To impugn him as belonging to a terrorist organization and bar him from visiting the country is unacceptable," he charged.
Ben Ari said he found it strange that a country which has granted visas to both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (who was involved for decades in PLO terror ) should bar him "on the grounds that I'm a terrorist."


List of 119 words made from unscrambling LATE letters. Use our word unscrambler tools to unscramble LATE letters in more detail. All four letters were used when we unscrambled L A T E. Additionally this list contains words with more and less letters than 4.
Found a list of 5 two letter words made from unscrambling LATE.
Found a list of 97 three letter words made from unscrambling LATE.
Read the dictionary definition of LATE. All definitions for this word.
Is LATE An Official Scrabble Word?
Can the word LATE be used in Scrabble? Yes. This word is an official Scrabble word in the dictionary.
Unscrambling L A T E single tiles values. What are the highest value vowels and consonants in the combination you just used the unscrambler for? Look at our answers below and try to remember them. The more terms you know with these high value characters the better chance of winning you have.
Unscrambling late resulted in a list of 119 words found. The word unscrambler shows exact matches of L A T E and also terms that can be made by adding one or more letters. All answers shown can be used freely in anagram solver puzzle games like Scrabble. If you want to know how many points a word is worth, then use the Score calculator.
Search for exact four character anagrams on how to unscramble "L A T E". Anagrams solver unscrambles your jumbled up letters into words you can use in Scrabble. What is your term an anagram of?
Starting with letters search helps you find any word made from L A T E. Find results from our dictionary database.


Contributing for the third time to the seasonal landscape of Frieze Art Fair, House of the Nobleman took contemporary art to new, dizzying heights. Exhibited across the top three floors of one of the newest London landmarks, New Re-visions: Art in Residence at NEO Bankside was a stunning interplay of art, architecture and the city.
Composed of six curatorial projects, each in a separate apartment, New Re-Visions was first and foremost a space for young international artists, gallerists and curators to exhibit in all their difference. New Re-Visions was an exhibition of bold plurality, reflecting and revising London's multicultural vibrancy.


Hint spanish flavor design inviting mediterranean kitchen is one images from 14 amazing mediterranean style kitchen of DMA Homes photos gallery. This image has dimension 900x588 Pixel and File Size 472 KB, you can click the image above to see the large or full size photo. Previous photo in the gallery is dreamy cozy setting design inviting mediterranean kitchen. For next photo in the gallery is mediterranean kitchen two tiered island. You are viewing image #7 of 14, you can see the complete gallery at the bottom below.


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PinoyStop
Kapamilya Young Actor Arrested For Marijuana Possession During 7107 Festival
October 30, 2016 by PinoyStop Leave a Comment
A young Kapamilya actor and three of his friends were nabbed by the operatives of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) during the 7107 International Music Festival at the Global City, Clarkfield, Pampanga over the weekend.
According to the PDEA, the young actor was a former star of "Galema," which starred Ejay Falcon and Sunshine Cruz. The actor was also a product of a reality show. Sources, however, said it is not Ejay.
The teen actor and three others were caught in the act of smoking marijuana while at the international film festival. Marijuana paraphernalia were also confiscated from the group, as well as a blue pill believed to be Valium.
Cases in violation of Section 11 or the Possession of Dangerous Drug) and Section 15 (Use of Dangerous Drugs) or Article II of RA 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 will be filed against the suspects.
The teen actor and his other companion will be turned over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) because they are considered minors at 17 years old. But though they are minors, they will be held liable under RA 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006.
According to sources, the actor was a product of a reality show, and that he was already tested negative for drugs. He was also released from PDEA region 3.
The operatives of the PDEA said they cannot confirm or deny the identity of the actor because he is only a minor. "So, it's against the law kasi na sabihin kasi considering yung status nila na minors."
As of now, the case is still under investigation. The authorities would have to determine if the suspects acted with discernment or not.
Right now, the suspects are at the fiscal's office waiting for the resolution of the prosecutor.
Filed Under: Celebrity News Tagged With: abs cbn, actor, kapamilya, marijuana
Tj Trinidad Biography
Raul Fenstad Trinidad, Jr. is more popularly called TJ Trinidad in the Philippine entertainment industry. He was born on January 22, 1976. He studied a Bachelor Science in Commerce major in Marketing and graduated at De La Salle University in 1999 after which he furthered his studies in Marketing at the University of California. TJ started his acting career way back 2002 in ABS CBN's "Basta't Kasama Kita," but later transferred to GMA in 2009 where he was cast in "Zorro." He has also various TV commercials and modeling stints that made him more popular as a star. It was typically Edu Manzano who brought him to June Torrejon who helped manage his acting career.
His appearance in a toothpaste commercial Close-up, Tivoli chocolates, Swatch and San Miguel was an advantage. Before he joined showbiz world, he was already visible. Furthermore, TJ was already attending different acting workshops at an early age of 10. Privately, he loves playing tennis and football, and cherishes spending his free time with friends and family.
One of his memorable performances was in "Keka," with actress Katya Santos in which he portrayed a role as one of the frat boys who murdered Katya's boyfriend. In Regal's movie "I Will Survive" he was proud to be directed by the multi-awarded Joel Lamangan, wherein he played the role of Judy Ann Santos husband and an Overseas Filipino Worker. He also starred in the movie "Aishite Imasu 1947," "Uno," "The Promise," "Shake, Rattle and Roll Part 8," "Tiyanaks," "A Love Story," "Resiklo," "Desperadas," and "Kulam."
His transition from a commercial model to an actor was easier than his manager thought. TJ appeared and co-starred with various television shows and series like "Krystala," "Gulong Ng Palad," and "Walang Kapalit," "Your Song," "Maalala Mo Kaya," "Pedro Penduko," and "Rounin." The highly acclaimed film "The Road" is TJ's first international movie break.
In some other instances, TJ sings with his band called Mofo, where he is the lead vocalist. He had a girlfriend named Marga Valdes for four years whom he later married last December 28, 2011, in a private wedding ceremony at her residence in Tagaytay. Marga is the younger sister of Bea Valdes who is an international bag designer magnate. On July 26, 2012, a son was born to them whom they named Alfonso Guillermo via caesarian section.
TJ Trinidad is gradually making his own name in this industry. He has the talent and the potentials and one can easily notice the depth in his acting skills. The love of acting is what really drives him to be the best in whatever roles he portrays. But his character of humility remains an asset to him, because he has never changed a bit even though he is fast becoming famous in his chosen career.
Aware of the many temptations, intrigues and controversies in this industry, he practically lives on the basis of faith. He believes that life is too short to contain angers in our hearts. It is better to be yourself and just do the right thing at all times, he says.
Filed Under: Celebrity News Tagged With: actor, biography, tj trinidad
Gian Magdangal Biography
Giancarlo Alzate Magdangal is his real name and he was born on November 18, 1981 in Manila, Philippines. He is a Filipino actor, singer and performer and an exclusive talent of GMA Network. Gian was a former member of a boy band named 17:28, and he began to be famous when he was proclaimed as one of the runners-up of the 2006 Philippine idol competition. He was tagged as the 'Livewire Idol" of the said talent show. Gian is a cousin of the actress and singer Jolina Magdangal.
He started showing his interest in singing when he was only a little boy of two years old. He used to sing lullabies to his favorite grandmother, he recalls. He learned to listen to Broadway musicals and famous Hollywood artists such as Stevie Wonder and Brian McKnight. His parents saw this potential and eventually they decided to send him to study voice lessons at St. Scholastica's College Conservatory of Music. He also trained and attended workshops in singing with the Trumpets Playshop, Sweet Plantado, Mon Faustino, Audie Gemora, Carlo Orosa and Freddie Santos.
In high school, his first experience was when he joined kundirana, at his school in La Salle Greenhills. He was enjoying the music and doing some stage acting in the school's drama club. He pursued his college degree at De La Salle – College of St. Benilde and took up Business Administration major in Computer Application. This is where he became a member of the boy band 17:28 which was created by Audie Gemora. They had successfully recorded two albums, and one of their songs was used as a jingle for ABS-CBN. The album was released under Star Records and Viva Records. The song's title was "Sukob Na." Later on, the band disbanded paving the way for Gian to form his own band named "Gian with Industriya."
After his graduation in 2003, he continued to hone his singing skills and talents, attending more workshops and theater plays. He admitted that the training gave him more confidence, discipline and humility, and he learned the values of teamwork. Sadly, in the latter part of his career he was left with no choice but to take a break from his career and focus on his family first. He disbanded his band and joined the corporate world. He worked with Smart Communications as the Marketing Events Officer before he auditioned for Philippine Idol.
The pressures of the competition were difficult and all the hardships paid off when he was announced as one of the runners up of the contest where he received a cash award of P250,000.00. The amount helped the family in the financial situation. His being a winner opened doors and various opportunities for him in the entertainment business. In the midst of his career, he met Sherre Bautista-Agustin, a fellow actress and singer, and had a child which they named Gian Hailey.
He admitted that he is enjoying as a father to his child, and is very hands-on. Although they do not plans to get married in the near future yet, he makes sure their child is very well-taken care of and had all the support from him and Sheree.
Filed Under: Bio, Celebrity Profile Tagged With: actor, biography, performer, singer
Frank Magalona Biography
Francis Michael Arroyo Magalona, Jr., with screen name Frank Magalona was born on December 19, 1987 in Manila, Philippines. He is a Filipino actor and a singer in the Philippine entertainment. His parents were former Rapper singer Francis Magalona and Pia Arroyo. His grandparents were legendary actor and actress Pancho Magalona and Tita Duran respectively. His siblings were Maxene, Saab, Clara, Nicolo, Elmo and Arkin. Some of them were already in show business.
Frank is the second eldest son and the fifth among his siblings to join the industry. Prior to this, he had already numerous offers to work as an actor but he prioritized and focused on his studies first. He had graduated with the degree of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. He stated that his course and acting has so many things in common and they are both expressions of art. He's been doing some sculpting and painting when he was still a student. Being a family of actors and actresses, he was not hard to encourage, and now that he had finished a degree, he is willing to explore himself into acting. His siblings who worked ahead of him in the business also taught him on some tips about acting. They are all very supportive of him.
Frank was so blessed because even though he has just joined the circle, he was immediately given a lead role as one of the leading men of Kylie Padilla in the hit drama series entitled "Blusang Itim," over GMA Network. He believed that whatever God's plan is higher than any other. He was actually on vacation when his mom told him to audition for the role if he is interested, which he did and luckily got the part. He studied the script and visited Kylie and told her to do the screen test. That was when he was sure that he will get the job and gave his best.
"Blusang Itim," is where he really decided that he is born an actor, this was in reality one of his dreams and thought this was the time to start. He was backed up by a cast of many, such as Wynwyn Marquez, Lucho Ayala, Andrea Torres, Bodie Cruz and Cariz Solomon.
Aside from being an actor, he wants to continue his Dad's legacy through T-shirt designing on a T-shirt business his dad started named 3 stars and a Sun. He makes sure to come up with new designs everytime, and even does designs on a limited edition. What Frank does he always dedicate to his father. Even his joining showbiz world will be supported by his dad, if he was still around. He recalls him saying that to always do whatever that will make them happy, because he will support them along the way.
Frank is definitely setting his goals now, of being a good actor, a brother and a son to his mother. He hopes that in the future he can also reach these goals and be successful in his endeavors.
Filed Under: Bio, Celebrity Profile Tagged With: actor, biography, frank magalona
Franzen Fajardo Biography
Franzen Macaraig Fajardo was born on April 18, 1982 in Sampaloc, Manila, Philippines. He is a Filipino actor, TV host and a former housemate in Pinoy Big Brother, a reality search show aired over ABS-CBN Network. Franzen had undergone a forced eviction on Day 91 in the reality contest. His being a housemate opened opportunities for him in the Philippine showbiz industry.
He was given the chance to appear in the movies "White Lady," and 'D' Lucky Ones." He also co-starred in "Maalaala Mo Kaya: Kurtina," "Precious Hearts Romance Presents: Ang Lalaking Nagmahal Sa Akin," "May Bukas Pa," "Only You," "Maria Flordeluna," "Love Spell Presents:Wanted: Mr. Perfect," 'komiks: Inday Bote," "Trip na Trip," "Magandang Umaga, Pilipinas," and of course in "Pinoy Big Brother" in 2005.
He also caught the media attention when he and his wife was involved in a publicized separation in 2007. It was he who filed a legal separation against her because he was already fed up of being a "Yes" man to his wife, Lovejoy. That was included in his petition for legal separation, aside from being allegedly being embarrassed by her slapping of Franzen in the presence of many people, and for verbally cursing him. There was even an instance that his wife had assaulted him with a knife which is a clear indication and murder attempt to his life.
Franzen also doubted his wife's pregnancy stating that he will be the first one to know if he has indeed fathered her. He has kept these all as a secret, hoping that his wife will change for the better, now that he can provide for the family. But the matters got worst up to the point that their child was not allowed to see him anymore, and even the financial support was not accepted.
After the controversies however, he and his wife finally made amends and although they are not together, they had become friends and civil towards each other. He was already allowed to see his child with her. Well, all is well that ends well.
Back when he was a housemate, the reason why he was evicted forcibly is because he had been continually breaking Big Brother's house rules. He had learned so much from the experience and swear he had learned to be more tactful and have self-control.
Franzen dreams to be a comedian someday and his inspirations were the late Dolphy and Long Mejia. Although he likes to try drama, he thinks can be effective in comedy. He used to work as a salesman for companies such as Bench and Human, and since he came from a poor family, he needs to work early in life and support his school as well, and contribute some of his earnings to his parents. Franzen had to do odd jobs too. He is just so thankful that the Lord has given him the opportunity and blessings for a better life and future.
Franzen is hopeful that he can get projects that will give him the opportunity to showcase his talent as a comedian. Meantime, he can be seen in various shows as a guest, and busy attending to his personal life.
Filed Under: Bio, Celebrity Profile Tagged With: actor, biography, comedian, tv host
William Devaugn Biography
William Devaughn Stumpf was born on February 27, 1982 and is a popular commercial model and Filipino actor in the field of Philippine entertainment. He joined the biggest reality search in the country entitled "Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition 2," and landed on the 4th place during the said season. In 2004, he came to the Philippines without any knowledge on speaking Tagalog. His ancestry is a combination of Filipino, African, American and German lineage.
He was popular as an endorser of a TV commercial Nesvita Oatmeal 3 in 1, where he appeared opposite Derek Ramsay and Chris Tiu. William had also endorsed Barcelona Brandy, and McDonald's. He also co-endorsed JAG jeans. William used to work as a talent over ABS-CBN but in 2010m he transferred to its rival network, GMA 7.
Before he came to the country and joined modeling and tried acting career, he was staying in Anaheim, California and was studying medical assistance while working as a waiter at a particular coffee shop down Disneyland. He was actually born in Germany to a German mother and a Filipino father. His parents separated and her mother married an American and when he was around five years old, the family transferred to the US. Then he a couple of years ago, he came to the country and decided to follow his girlfriend who is a cousin of a popular Filipina actress, Aubrey Miles.
It was actually this girl who encouraged him to try joining the modeling world, but they have also separated since then. Will is not ashamed to share that he had learned to live a life all by himself. He grew up without any questions, and just learned from his own experiences. Fortunately, the big break came when he joined PBB and soon, he was given opportunities he had never imagined.
Will appeared in a film entitled "Desperadas 2," under Regal Films in 2008. It was an entry to the 2008 Metro Filmfest and starred Ruffa Gutierrez, Iza Calzado, Rufa Mae Quinto and many others. Then he had also appeared in "Road Raiders," with Hollywood star Michael Madsen.
He said his being skinny is mostly genetic and he is even having a hard time gaining weight. Will decided to go to the gym and work out at least three or four times a week, and do weights. He also loves swimming on the beach and learned playing Arnis. He would like to improve his legs, and make it bigger perhaps but he said it's kind of difficult because he has a torn ligament in his leg.
If he is frustrated and disappointed, he easily gets a headache. Will's favorite part of his body is his abs and chest, but the first thing she looks into a woman's body is the eyes and the calves. He is not strictly following any diet because of his schedules, but he takes multivitamins as supplements.
Although he tries to avoid pork, he cannot resist eating crispy pata and sisig. He enjoys lasagna and takes tons of water. He doesn't smoke and drinks occasionally, and sleeps at least six hours.
Filed Under: Bio, Celebrity Profile Tagged With: actor, biography, model


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Sat 38/ 33
No. 7 Sooners moving past sense of `entitlement'
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — Winning sure looked easy at Oklahoma when there was a group of NFL-bound stars scoring points at a record pace and playing for the national championship. Once those stars were sidelined, there was a dose of reality for the players charged with taking over. Instead of cruising right back to the BCS, the Sooners last year suffered through a five-loss season filled with injuries but also with lessons. "We had a sense of entitlement going into games on Saturdays," said quarterback Landry Jones, who was called upon to replace 2008 Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford. "Just because we were OU and Oklahoma, we were going to win games, and kind of lost where we came from in hard work and preparation." Entering their season opener Saturday night against Utah State, the No. 7 Sooners are hoping to right what went wrong from the very start last season. Along with Bradford getting injured at the end of the first half, Oklahoma played an undisciplined first game of the season in losing 14-13 to BYU. A new offensive line committed penalty after penalty, receivers dropped passes and the defense finally broke down late when it simply couldn't afford to do so. Instead of blaming the struggles on injuries to Bradford and fellow first-round NFL draft pick Jermaine Gresham, Oklahoma wants to prevent the same mistakes from popping up again early this season. "If you go out there and see a bunch of guys jumping offsides and grabbing and holding and falling on the ground, which it was last year in the opener, then we haven't made strides," offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said Tuesday. "If you see a cleaner deal, maybe we're making progress. If we keep building and playing that way, maybe we can be a strong team." Wilson questioned whether tight ends Trent Ratterree and James Hanna had a "sense of urgency" to be ready to play right away since they entered training camp behind a proven superstar in Gresham. But suddenly, when Gresham was hurt just days before the opener, both were thrust into playing roles. Jones followed in replacing Bradford, and the trend kept going. Due to injuries, no offensive player started every game for the Sooners last season. Now, any backup on the team should realize what can happen in the blink of an eye. "It kind of just made us a little hungrier, made us want to work harder and it opened our eyes a little bit," Jones said. The Sooners don't figure to face the same sort of challenge in this year's opener, considering that this time they're much healthier, facing an unranked opponent and doing so on a home field where they've won 30 straight games. But regardless of who's on the other sideline, they want to be performing at a much higher level coming out of the gate. "Everyone wants to talk about the other team, and for us it's really about us," coach Bob Stoops said. "It's really focusing on how well can we play. How well can we execute? Will we take care of the football and be responsible with the ball? Will we remain penalty-free and do the things to execute cleanly and to play as well as we're able to play?" They haven't played any games to prove it yet, but the Sooners are encouraged by the body language, attitudes and work ethic shown so far in practice. "Being here at Oklahoma, we're known as being champions and stuff like that, and last year we had kind of a disappointing season as far as to what standards we wanted to meet," Jones said. "We couldn't just go through the motions in practice and stuff like that and show up on Saturday and win games. We actually have to work for stuff and we have prepare like champions if we're going to be called champions." Notes: DE Frank Alexander (ankle) did not practice Tuesday. … Defensive coordinator Brent Venables said surgery has been "definitely ruled out" on LB Austin Box's injured back. … Stoops expects to use freshmen RB Brennan Clay and WR Trey Franks, and possibly WR Cameron Kenney, as his kickoff return men. He doesn't plan to use starting RB DeMarco Murray in that role in the opening week but possibly later in the season.