Cellulose is the most abundant substance found in the plant kingdom and has numerous uses in textiles and the plastics industries. In woody plants it forms complexes with other chemicals and contributres to the pulping and papermaking properties of wood.
All woody plants contain lignin in their cell walls, and forest trees, more than any other plants, contain large quantities of this chemical compound that is extremely useful to man. Produced as a byproduct of papermaking, lignin compounds are used as binders, dispersers, and emulsifiers in a wide range of applications.
In addition, many chemical extractives of wood are used for a wide variety of applications in medicine, the food industry, and as feedstock for other chemical industries.


Call it the perfect storm for cybercoverage. The insurance industry has been rocked by gargantuan losses from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the destructive Code Red and Nimda worms, low returns on investments and several large IT-related losses. Together, these factors will likely mean dramatically higher premiums for I-managers trying to insure their operations against hackers, worms and other risks.
Insuretrust.com, a cyberinsurance underwriter, is raising premiums on its network security policies by 20 percent or more. Insurance carrier Chubb Group is raising rates on its IT-related errors and omissions policies by as much as 40 percent. Zurich Surety and Financial Enterprises, another major carrier, also expects to raise rates, but would not quantify the increases.
"Virtually everything is going up. There isnt any line of commercial insurance that isnt looking at an increase," said Emily Freeman, practice leader for e-business risk solutions and senior vice president of Marsh, an MMC Company and Americas largest insurance broker.
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which may cost insurers up to $40 billion, will further weaken an already ailing industry. Fewer reinsurers will share the risk borne by insurance carriers, shrinking the supply of available coverage. That will almost certainly result in upward pricing pressure on cyberinsurance - a market the Insurance Information Institute estimates could generate $2.5 billion in annual premiums by 2005.
"This is the toddler stage of a hard market," said Brian Brown, Zurich Suretys regional manager for e -business solutions. Large reinsurers were skittish about cyber-risk coverage long before global networks were rocked by the Code Red and Nimda worms. And the reinsurers continue to fear that all of their cyber-risk clients could get hit by worms - and file claims - at the same time. The worms are "potentially an earthquake across the entire Internet. And we underwrite against that," Brown said.
Insurers are also paying more attention to software. This summer, J.S. Wurzler Underwriting Managers raised premiums by up to 15 percent on clients that use Microsofts Windows NT or Internet Information Server. Wurzler found that system administrators who use open source systems tend to be better trained than those who use Microsoft. Wurzlers stance was bolstered last week when John Pescatore, Gartners research director for Internet security, advised companies that were hit by both the Code Red and Nimda worms to quit using IIS immediately and switch to more secure platforms like Apache.
Another factor driving rates higher are lawsuits against IT companies. In 1994, the state of Mississippi hired systems integrator American Management Systems for a three-year, $11.9 million, tax software contract. The state sued, claiming the company botched the job. Last year, a jury awarded Mississippi $474.5 million, and AMS agreed to settle for $185 million. AMS has also been hit with a $350 million lawsuit by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which claims AMS didnt perform on its contract.
Later this year, a $500 million lawsuit against technology consultancy Accenture is expected to go to trial. The suit, brought by trustees for bankrupt drug wholesaler FoxMeyer, alleges Accenture did such shoddy work on a 1995 integration project that FoxMeyer was forced into bankruptcy because it could not fill orders.
Chubb, one of the biggest providers of IT-related errors and omissions coverage, reported that its losses in the sector have increased fivefold in recent years. "A few years ago, big IT contracts were $3 [million] or $4 million. Today, $20 million contracts are routine," said Timothy Ehrhart, an assistant vice president of Chubb. "The extent of work companies are doing, like enterprisewide integration and custom systems, take longer to develop and install and integrate. And that means theres a greater potential for error."
While insurance executives acknowledge that premiums are rising, they say I-managers who have well-run IT operations with good security procedures should still be able to get coverage. Operations with marginal security practices may find coverage prohibitively expensive or unavailable.
Insurers are also keenly aware of the renewed potential for cyberterrorism. "As it becomes more difficult for terrorists to knock over buildings, the more likely it is theyll use the Internet for some of their attacks," said Steve Haase, CEO of Insuretrust. "And thats going to make insurers very cautious."
The losses on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the hijacked jetliners are the industrys largest ever, by several orders of magnitude.
"A huge hole has just been gouged out of companies balance sheets," a Sept. 17 report on the insurance industry by investment bank Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. said. Some insurance "companies that would not have otherwise been toppled by a large catastrophe probably just cant afford this one." The report predicts that numerous insurance and reinsurance companies will fail due to the calamities, and the global reinsurance market may shrink by one-third or more.


text:
ALMETA CRAYTON'S POLITICAL LEGACY: In her hard-hitting, humorous, insightful words
CraytonTwo decades of political wit and policy wisdom
COLUMBIA, Mo 12/27/13 (Beat Byte) -- Since her death in October, Almeta Crayton has been remembered mostly for good deeds like the annual Thanksgiving feast she started, Everybody Eats.
But Crayton -- a three-term Columbia City Councilwoman who represented the First Ward -- also left a powerful political legacy, built on a unique communication style that delivered insights about everything from inner city poverty to City Hall policy. She spoke with humor, brevity, and punch, through sickness and health, for nearly 20 years.
"Almeta Crayton is unique in Columbia political history," Trib publisher Hank Waters wrote in 2002. "Before Almeta, no person in Columbia government had done what she does."
We've collected "Almetaisms" going back to 1994, from the Columbia Daily Tribune, Columbia Missourian, Mizzou Maneater, Google news archives, City Council minutes, and personal recollections. As 2013 winds down, it seems a fitting reminder of Crayton's most important gifts.
Crayton on crime and curfews
Almeta Crayton told the two candidates that they need to do more to stop repeat offenders who receive little punishment for their crimes. "It's frustrating seeing the same people over and over doing the same crimes,'' she said.
"You can build all the jails you want. But if you're just going to put police state down here, it's not going to work."
"Our kids are in places that they have no business. We need to hold parents responsible."
"The Columbia Police Department is not a baby sitter, and it shouldn't have to be. We need to help find alternatives for these kids."
On City Hall
"In Columbia, there's not many black officials. You have to have somebody to talk with that understands you."
"The City Council can make decisions that affect people. But you can't lead where you don't go. You've got to get in the neighborhoods."
"It's like my neighborhood is on fire, and all you're doing is
putting it out with little Dixie cups full of water."
On government assistance
"For 30 years we've been at war with poverty. But we haven't begun to scuffle yet."
At the annual League of Women Voters town meeting with state lawmakers, Crayton, in a shaky voice, demanded to know why bureaucratic red tape alw ays seems to defeat her attempts to become self-sufficient.
"They will not pay for a baby sitter for me to go look for a job. But they will pay for me to go to a bar and call it 'respite care'."
"If you try to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, it seems there is someone at the top of the hole to kick you back in."
"I would love to work. I want a job."
"I want people to say, 'Here's a lady, given a chance, who can help herself progress.'''
On City Hall's well-known neglect of the First Ward
Crayton said her world is one neglected by Columbia government and hurt by poor policy decisions. She wants to change that. "It ought to be against the law the way we're represented."
"It's like my neighborhood is on fire, and all you're doing is putting it out with little Dixie cups full of water."
"The Katy trail may be important to somebody, but safe streets and buses are important to the people down here. They pay taxes, too."
"I'm going to work on them. But if they don't come, I'm not going to let the city of Columbia burn down."
"You can't lead where you don't go."
On how to change City Hall neglect of the First Ward
"We want the cavalry to come in and save us. But baby, sometimes you're going to be waiting a long time, so you have to do something for yourself."
"We want to mobilize people. We want to make some changes. If it means at the ballot box, that's where it's going to be."
"The only way they're going to have a voice is to get involved in the process. The first way is to register. The second way is to vote."
"Enough is enough. We're going to take the bull by the horns."
"It ought to be against the law the way we're represented."
On non-profits seeking "anti-poverty" grants
"Don't use my neighborhood to pay your salaries."
On Heibel-March and Blind Boone City Manager Bill Watkins, Crayton. Maneater photo
"They're deliberately letting it fall apart, to blight out the neighborhood. Same with the Blind Boone Home."
On public service
"All I want to do is try. I can do no worse than anybody else."
"With me on the Council, you will be able to see there is another Columbia."
"My grandmother taught me to never forget the bridge that took you over because you might have to cross it again."
"These are the people that they claim nobody can get near. These are the people that have fallen so far down in the cracks that they can't get their heads out. I wouldn't dare give up on them."
Almeta's lament: Are her criticisms fair?
Crayton blasts council inaction: First Ward demands attention, she says.
Crayton complains of prostitution, drug crime
Crayton's call for crackdown stirs council
Crayton honored by caucus
Crayton's role goes beyond council
Crayton revives idea of curfew for youths
Crayton home after suffering heart failure
-- Mike Martin for the Columbia Heart Beat
You are here: Home Life Black History ALMETA CRAYTON'S POLITICAL LEGACY: In her hard-hitting, humorous, insightful words
COLUMBIA'S TOP TEN BLACK LEADERS: Powerful voices for troubling times
ALMETA CRAYTON: A leader for everyone, making sure Everybody Eats
ALMETA CRAYTON: A leader for everyone, making sure Everybody Eats, Part 2
ALMETA CRAYTON: Starts political career with big Trib endorsement -- Part 3 of a series
CRAYTON MAY BE IN COMA: Former Councilwoman reportedly in "serious condition"
ALMETA CRAYTON DIES: Quintessential Columbia public servant passes after struggle with kidney, heart ailments
EVERYBODY EATS: Almeta Crayton's event seeking, offering help
AN ALMETA THANKSGIVING: Sixteen years of Everybody Eats, in Crayton's own words

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
function Clear-DSCEventLog
{
    param ($session)
    icm $session {
        function Clear-WinEvent
        {
            [CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess=$true,ConfirmImpact='High',DefaultParameterSetName="LogName")]

            param(
                [Parameter(
                    Position=0,
                    Mandatory=$true,
                    ParameterSetName="LogName",
                    ValueFromPipeline=$true,
                    ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true
                )]
                [String[]]$LogName,

                [Parameter(
                    Position=0,
                    Mandatory=$true,
                    ParameterSetName="EventLogConfiguration",
                    ValueFromPipeline=$true
                )]
                [System.Diagnostics.Eventing.Reader.EventLogConfiguration[]]$EventLog,

                [switch]$Force

            )

            process
            {
                switch($PSCmdlet.ParameterSetName)
                {
                    'LogName'
                    {
                        Write-Verbose "ParameterSetName=LogName"
                        foreach($l in $LogName)
                        {
                            if($Force -or $PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess($env:COMPUTERNAME,"Clear Event log '$l'"))
                            {
                                [System.Diagnostics.Eventing.Reader.EventLogSession]::GlobalSession.ClearLog($l)
                            }
                        }
                    }

                    'EventLogConfiguration'
                    {
                        Write-Verbose "ParameterSetName=EventLogConfiguration"
                        foreach($l in $EventLog)
                        {
                            if($Force -or $PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess($env:COMPUTERNAME,"Clear Event log '$($l.LogName)'"))
                            {
                                [System.Diagnostics.Eventing.Reader.EventLogSession]::GlobalSession.ClearLog($l.LogName)
                            }
                        }

                    }
                }
            }
        }
        Get-WinEvent -ListLog Microsoft-Windows-DSC/Operational  -Force |
            clear-winevent -force

    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


I study a phenomenon that, according to the prevailing paradigm in scholarship on violence, really shouldn't exist. The huge volume of work that seeks to identify logics underpinning seemingly random or inexplicably brutal acts of violence very often explain these excesses in terms of their communicative value. Perpetrating violence is a costly signal; perpetrating grotesquely brutal violence is a costlier signal; perpetrating self-destructive violence is the costliest signal of all. Underlying all of this is the idea that the more extreme the violence, the clearer the message that it sends.
There is a common formula within this passage: violence speaks louder than words. You don't need to speak Spanish, because the meaning of brutal violence is common sense. Violence is unambiguous, it speaks for itself.
The family doesn't kill for money, doesn't kill women, doesn't kill innocents. Only those that deserve to die will. All the people should know: this is divine justice.
Contrary to De Leon's interpretation, the people that rolled five severed heads onto a dance floor wanted to send a message that their violence actually does know some clearly-specified bounds.
This phenomenon – displaying written messages in addition to violence, sometimes displaying written messages instead of violence – suggests that there is a limit to the prevailing scholarly paradigm. If violence usually speaks for itself, under some conditions it ceases to do so. These conditions began to obtain in Mexico in 2004, as narco-messages first appeared in the northeast of the country.
It could also be that violence just doesn't speak for itself. Arendt thought violence was a sort of antithesis to language and meaning. Thinking along this line, perhaps scholars of violence have mistaken the fact that violence almost always has an effect, for the assumption that violence sends a clear message. The former possibility emphasises that people almost inevitably react to and try to understand violence. The latter possibility assumes that violence accurately transmits some intention on the part of the perpetrator.
Whether violence has some basic meaning and sometimes loses it, or whether violence always degrades meaning, as scholars we need to be careful not to speak on behalf of perpetrators or victims, when we claim that violence speaks for itself. We should probably always be suspicious of claims that anything is self-evident, even if that makes it harder for us to find the logic or instrumentality in brutal violence. In the case of narco-messages in Mexico, the authors of these messages seem to be reminding us that violence is no easy thing to comprehend.


For years we've known that Full HD isn't quite as "full" as TV makers would have you believe, and one manufacturer wants more people to get on board with the Ultra HD movement, delivering four times the information without paying four times the price.
Heading to Australia in the next few months, TCL is looking to push beyond the budget end of TVs the brand normally sits in with several models of 4K TV, all of which look to sit below what its big competitors will be pricing at.
"We have a firm belief by building solid brand equity, we're really setting the path for the next few years," said Nick Redmond, National Sales Manager for TCL in Australia.
To start down that path, the company is looking past the budget TVs you might find for your bedroom, offering more than just those style of barebones tellies. Models like that will still exist, but for people who want the Ultra High Definition technology also known as 4K, TCL will be providing plenty of options in its new line-up.
Sizes for the 4K TCL TVs, will range from 40 to 65 inches, with pricing set to start at $799 for the baby of the bunch (40 inches), and then coming in at $1299 for 50 inches, $1999 for 55 inches, and hitting just under three grand ($2999) for the 65 inch model.
Aside for design and size, the TV models will all offer the UHD resolution of 3840×2160, 200Hz Clear Motion technology, Active 3D panels with either two or four pairs of glasses shipped with the TV (depending on the size you purchase), 3 USB ports, 3 HDMI, wireless connectivity, and Smart TV features including apps for SBS, YouTube, Skype, and Facebook, among others.
There are some catches to the 4K TVs, because while the features are comparable to the competition, older standards like HDMI 1.4 will be offered, while newer standards are missing in action on TCL's 2014 Ultra HD TVs.
For those with deeper pockets — and bigger lounge rooms — a larger model sized to 85 inches will also be made available, delivering the Ultra-def technology to a screen size similar to the models both LG and Sony released last year at CES.
In person, the screens are certainly clear, though the models we saw offered a colder colour temperature from the factory settings than we initially expected. As always, these are configurable by the customer, with a few colour modes offered.
Design is also something that TCL appears to be playing big with, and the company is getting serious about making good looking TVs with Bang & Olufsen's Flemming Petersen jumping ship from the Danish HiFi company to join TCL as head of design there.
While we've yet to really see the fruits of that addition, TCL thus far is moving away from the large bezels that budget TV makers so often have associated with their products, embracing big displays with thin edges, though the stands can be the thicker part of the equation.


One pen is never enough, is it? This wonderful hand turned Personalized Bamboo Pen Set writes in beautiful black gel pen ink with a smooth nice flow. It's the perfect special gift for a graduate, writer, boss or anybody who deserves something more elegant than a plain old biro. You can customize our personalized bamboo pen set with your preferred images and wordings (names, quotes, wishes, etc.).
All NSJ products are etched with NSJ logo and packed in NSJ packaging.
Image should be clear and even light. BLUR/ DARK/ OVEREXPOSURED/BACKLIGHT/UNDER SHADOW photo are not acceptable. NOTE: The actual engravings on wood may look a little bit different from the original image.
For the design included a portrait photo, we will send an art preview through email within 24 hours during working days once payment received, two revisions are provided. If buyers do not reply within 48 hours, we will proceed with the art preview.
We do not provide font choices and we will choose a nice font by our own to match your design, but if you would like us to use selected font, please mention it in 'Order Note' during checkout.
If you have wording arrangement(such as the placement of the word), you can write in 'Order Note' during checkout, or else we will choose for you from our experiences.
Very satisfied to have received my order and my husband love them too, so much. Excellent work by NSJ. Fast delivery. Professional customer service and the gift itself, divine! Will definitely come back for unique gift. Well done NSJ!
Receive in excellent condition, really very nice art work from NSJ ! Keep it up !!
Really love what I had purchased from NSJ. It was a very memorable gift n meaningful. I will support again for the next gift I want to give out. Promt action taken by the staff , efficient and friendly service. Really statisfy with what I have purchased!!!!
So very satisfied! Order was processed fast n got my parcel within 2-3days. Unique n emaculate work and great quality. Impeccable customer service too.
Brilliant work done by NSJ store on the packaging as well as the product itself. I was so happy and left mesmerized looking at the pen case and pen, it was exceptionally amazing. No doubt on their customer service too, they very patiently and professionally attended to my requests in a timely manner. Good job guys, I will surely come back for more orders and will surely recommend to people. Very satisfied customer.
I can give u 100 start for that service!
It can be a special gift for my love!
Fast delivery! It is so nice and I really love it.
Received in good condition, special gift and I love it very much!


Let's put these florets to good use.
Our warm spring has produced a glut of cauliflowers across the country, and now we've got them coming out of our ears. Here are a few different ways to turn them into dinner, from our latest cookbook Fast & Free.
1. Blitz the cauliflower florets in a food processor until they resemble couscous. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large shallow pan. Tip in the cauliflower and stir-fry for a few minutes, until lightly toasted. Season well and allow to cool.
2. Skin and deseed the tomato. Dice the tomato flesh finely. Chop the herbs and spring onions.
3. Mix the tomato, herbs and spring onions with the cauliflower. Stir in the rest of the olive oil and add lemon juice to taste. Serve sprinkled with a pinch of sumac.
This cauliflower base will steal a pizza your heart. We topped it with tomato sauce, griddled courgettes and chilli. You could also top with tomato sauce, grilled aubergines, olives and oregano, or slow-cooked leeks, prosciutto and sage.
1. Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6.
2. Remove the florets from the cauliflower and blitz in a food processor until they resemble couscous. Heat the oil in a large shallow pan and fry the cauliflower for about 5 minutes, stirring well.
3. Allow the cauliflower to cool, then place in a food processor with the other ingredients and season well. Blitz to combine, then turn out on to a baking tray lined with baking parchment. With a spatula or your fingers, spread the mix out to make a circle (about 30cm wide) or a rectangle – try to make it about 0.5cm deep.
4. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until it starts to turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and set to one side while you make the topping.
This is an Indonesian staple, and it's perfect for using up leftovers. Pork, chicken, vegetables – they're all welcome in this mish-mash.
1. Cut off the florets from the cauliflower and blitz in a food processor until you have very small pieces, like rice.
2. Beat the eggs and season well. Heat the rice bran oil in a large non-stick pan. Pour in a little of the egg mix and tip the pan so you have a thin omelette. Cook for a minute, then tip out of the pan on to a tray. Repeat until all the egg mix is used up. Roll up the omelettes and slice into 1cm pieces.
3. Cover the dried prawns with boiling water and set aside. Mix together the garlic, chillies, peanuts and ginger in a pestle and mortar (or a blender) and pound to a thick paste. Drain the prawns, reserving the soaking water, and chop finely. Add to the paste.
4. Heat the coconut oil in a large pan and fry the paste for a minute without browning. Add the shallots and sliced chicken breast and stir-fry for about 5 minutes, stirring continuously. Tip in the raw prawns and cook for a further 2 minutes. The prawns and chicken should be firm to touch.
5. Add the cauliflower and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring well to combine, adding a little of the reserved prawn soaking water if it starts to stick to the pan.
6. Stir in the kejap manis, sliced omelette and spring onions. Check the seasoning and serve with coriander leaves and with cucumber and tomatoes sliced on the side.
7. The nasi goreng can be topped with a fried egg to serve, if you fancy it.


text:
Rules & Awards
Sections & Fees (1)
LA Shorts International Film Festival (27)
Early deadline
Standard deadline
Late deadline
mths
250 E. Olive Ave, Suite 200, 91502, Burbank, California, United States
Festival description
Short film festival 40'<
qualifying festival qualifying festival
Festival requirements
Any Theme
Production countries: Any
Shooting countries: Any
Director nationalities: Any
Debut Films
Short Films 40'<
Festival description (Edition: 27)
Festival start: 04 July 2023 Festival end: 31 July 2023
LA Shorts International Film Festival ranks among the most prestigious and largest international short film festivals in the world.
The festival is accredited by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences OSCAR®, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television (ACCT) presenters of the Canadian Screen Awards and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Spain (Goya Awards).
65 LA Shorts filmmakers have earned Academy Award® nominations.
We are extremely proud to have screened four films from this years 2022 OSCAR® nominees.
Live Action Short Nominee
"The Dress" by Tadeusz Łysiak and Maciej Ślesicki
"On My Mind" by Martin Strange-Hansen and Kim Magnusson
Animated Short Film Nominee
"Affairs of the Art" by Joanna Quinn and Les Mills
Documentary Short Nominee
"The Queen of Basketball" by Ben Proudfoot
Now in it's 27th year, LA Shorts is the longest-running short film festival in Los Angeles. The festival screens over 300 films and attracts over 10,000 attendees each year including Hollywood industry professionals and emerging independent filmmakers.
LA Shorts is an official qualifying event for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA short film awards. Award-winners at the festival are eligible to win BAFTA Awards.
LA Shorts is recognized by The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television (ACCT) presenters of the Canadian Screen Awards.
Those who have been honored at the festival include directors, Jon Favreau, Paul Haggis, Bryan Singer, Jan de Bont, Shane Black, and actors Gary Oldman, James Woods, Martin Landau and Richard Dreyfuss. Many recognized actors and directors have screened films and attended the festival such as Scarlett Johansson, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Courteney Cox, Tim Burton, Jason Reitman, Terry Gilliam, Spike Jonze, Eva Mendes, Jessica Biel, Rachel Weisz, Hilary Swank, Josh Brolin, Kirsten Dunst, Rita Wilson, Ralph Macchio, Ricky Gervais, Vin Diesel, John Stamos, Matthew Modine, Dean Cain, Robin Wright and many many more.
The film programming screens all genres from a wide spectrum of categories with high to low budget films 40 minutes and under. From recognizable directors and celebrity actors to students from the finest film schools and high school teenagers- they're all here to celebrate the art (and business) of short-form cinema!
Prizes and qualifications
*ACADEMY AWARD OSCAR® QUALIFYING
*BAFTA Qualifying
*Canadian Screen Awards Qualifying
*Goya Awards Qualifying
Best of Fest
Best International
Best Drama
Best Comedy
Best Animation
Best Experimental
Best Documentary
Best Sci-Fi
Best Horror
Best Music Video
Best Web Series
Best High School Film
- Films must NOT screen in Los Angeles county prior to our festival. We will factor in previous screenings in the Los Angeles area when determining a film's selection.
- We prefer films NOT be available online prior to the festival.
- Films must have been completed after Jan. 1, 2022.
- Non-English films must have English subtitles.
- Works-in-progress will be considered, provided they will be completed prior to the festival.
You may submit more than one film, but you must complete a separate entry form and pay entry fee for each film.
Fee -8%
Early 49$ 45.08$ 03 Mar 23
Standard 55$ 50.6$ 07 Apr 23
Late 65$ 59.8$ 05 May 23
Extended 70$ 64.4$ 02 Jun 23
Submissions deadline
Save up
Shorts 40 minutes or UNDER. Includes: Live-Action, Animation, Documentary, Web-Series, Music Video, High School.
Discover great films & festivals, one click away


Have a problem opening a .MXS file? We collect information about file formats and can explain what MXS files are. Additionally we recommend software suitable for opening or converting such files.
What is the .MXS file type?
The .mxs filename extension primarily belongs to the Maxwell Studio Scene (.mxs) file type introduced by Maxwell Studio, a premium commercial 3D scene authoring environment from Next Limit Technologies incorporating the acclaimed Maxwell Render realistic visualization engine. In Maxwell Studio, 3D scenes are saved in its native format (MXS), directly compatible with Maxwell Render. An .mxs file is a Maxwell Studio scene. MXS files are created by exporting a 3D scene either directly from Maxwell Studio or from other environments by using the Maxwell Render plugin which is available for most major 3D software titles. To ensure their component integrity, such scenes (.mxs) are normally exported with the Pack-and-Go option turned on. Maxwell Studio (.mxs) scenes can be directly submitted for visual rendering by either standalone or cloud-based instances of Maxwell Render.
Alternatively, the .mxs extension is associated with the Corel Painter Mixer Pad (.mxs) file type used by Corel Painter to denote custom color mixes created and saved by the user. Corel Painter is an advanced commercial digital drawing tool and bitmap editor, available from Corel Corp. on Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X. Corel Painter uses the Mixer tool to manage colors, and a set of custom colors can be made and saved as Mixer pads (.mxs) using the Save Mixer Pad command from the Mixer options. Any given Mixer pad (.mxs) can be re-opened to restore the previously saved colors in Corel Painter.
Apart from that, the .mxs extention also occurs in association with the MAGIX Sound (.mxs) file type used by several commercial sound-editing software products such as MAGIX MP3 Maker from MAGIX Software GmbH. In this context, an .mxs file represents a digital audio project created in MAGIX MP3 Maker or related MAGIX software.


Business Promotional umbrella is also termed as Advertising Umbrellas, Customized Umbrellas, Personalized Umbrellas, Outdoor Advertising Umbrellas and Personalized Handheld Umbrellas. The term promotion can be of any time like Business Promotion, Sales Promotion, Product Launch Promotion, Scheme Related Promotion and many more. Business Promotional umbrellas are considered the most cost effective mode of any Business Promotional activity.
We are one of the finest Business Promotional Umbrella Manufacturers in Mumbai as well as India. The process of manufacturing a Business Promotional Umbrella is more complex compared to the manufacturing of any other umbrella. Business Promotional umbrellas are customized as per client requirement and fabric color combination as well.
Our clients themselves tell their stories which help us stand out from the rest of the manufacturers across India. The success in their business is what makes us proud in making these Business Promotional Umbrellas.
A single umbrella requires many materials to be made with a complex manufacturing curve. But, because of our skilled man power and continuous efforts towards R&D and providing the best umbrella at the most reasonable price makes us feel proud to be knows as one of the top most Business Promotional Umbrella Manufacturer in Mumbai as well as India.
We cater mostly to the corporate sectors that require umbrellas for business promotion activity or sales promotional activity or any other marketing activity. We manufacture umbrellas like Two fold Umbrella, Folding Umbrella, Gents Umbrella, Ladies Umbrella, Wooden Umbrella, Anti Drip Umbrella and many more. We also involve into maximum level of customization on the grounds of printing on the umbrella.
Shubhamm Inc isn't just one of the finest Business Promotional Umbrella Manufacturers in Mumbai but India as well. The process of manufacturing a Business Promotional Umbrella is more compared to the manufacturing of any other umbrella. Business Promotional umbrellas are customized as per client requirement and fabric color combination as well.


text:
Le Caneton migrateur (Southbound Duckling) est le  métrage d'animation de la série américaine Tom et Jerry réalisé par William Hanna et Joseph Barbera et sorti le .

Synopsis

Fiche technique

Liens externes

Film américain sorti en 1955
Court métrage de Tom et Jerry

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Slow learners, school dropouts, poor students—we commonly associate these terms with students of the Alternative Learning System (ALS). For the full Nonformal (NFE) experience, our class was tasked to conduct an ALS session at our assigned school. We were Team Bago Bantay. It was exciting, I wanted to see firsthand the difference between ALS and a formal school. Prior to that, we have learned that ALS is structured similar to a formal school, with the usual classroom-teacher-student-setup, but the nature of the learners are different and the time they spend inside the classroom.
We were able to meet the ALS teacher during our first visit in Bago Bantay Elementary School. Segue: If you wanna go there, you have to tell the tricycle driver to drop you off at "Puti" Elementary School. It is more popular by that name because of stories that the school is haunted. Awooo!
The teacher has been informative in telling us about their program. He even told us that students who will pass the A&E can now be eligible to take the Civil Service subprofessional exam. So we were given a little introduction on how the program works in that school. We were told there are around 70 learners, but usually, only 10 to 15 students attend classes. They are required to attend just four hours in four days. But why is the number of attendees not even a fourth?
We realized the answer during the whole process of our session plan.
We had a hard time getting an assured schedule from the teacher. I'm not sure if he is not interested, or that's just how he is as a teacher. In the other groups from our class, the teachers were cooperative with regards to the schedule and suggestion of lessons.
Students come in an hour or two late. When they come in, according to them and the teacher, they are given a topic and are asked to write a three-paragraph essay (in Filipino) about it. I appreciate that the essay required to be completed in the exam is in our mother tongue, but sad to say, a lot of people, including these students are not that good in composing grammatically-correct essays in Filipino.
We have no idea how the teacher assesses the essays. On the second session, we some learned that the teacher tells them how to start or finish an essay. As I've read through their own compositions, the composition must be taken into consideration. I am very particular about Filipino grammar, since I've been working as a copy editor for a publishing company and my projects mostly include Filipino textbooks.
From the expected 10 learners, five attended for the first session plan, and two remained for the last session. Matira matibay! Haha! I guess it was because of the rescheduling (from the teacher, sorry, it's true), and the students are also busy with either work or taking care of their younger siblings or pamangkins. Just imagine, they're 16 to 18 years old and they're busy with work. When I was that age, I had to be busy in school. Sometimes, privilege makes the difference. Education in the Philippines is expensive. To get a good one, pay well.
We had learners who wishes to pursue college after passing the exam—they are only financially-challenged. The others, mostly males, intend to get a good work if they pass. Different learners, different plans for the future.
If teachers will not help these kids, they will be left behind by those who "have." If students will not get a fair treatment in education, they will always fall under our bad notion of those taking NFE. Every one is entitled to a beautiful future—even the ALS learners.
I've heard about Paulo Freire and the Pedagogy of the Oppressed back in my undergraduate program, during the orientation for our Literacy Training Service (NSTP-LTS). I knew it was about teaching but I have not understood it better until it was discussed again in my graduate course, Nonformal Education (NFE).
NFE has always been competing with formal education. It becomes more special because of the challenges NFE learners have to face in terms of identifying with the professional world, and the benefits it gives the learners. NFE has always been associated with out-of-school-youths and those who cannot afford to go beyond the basic reading and writing skills. It was surprising to learn that although many NFE learners came from poor economic backgrounds, the top reason for students' high dropout rate was not poverty, but lack of interest.
What would make a student uninterested to learn? From my experiences as a student, school becomes boring when I do not understand what my teacher's lecture. This is when my teacher would just keep on talking, occasionally ask for questions or opinions, then ends the discussion with a homework. Class hours become monotonous. For Freire, a dialogical setup of a classroom works. In communication arts, we call this transactional communication — "I speak, you listen; you speak, I listen." Learning becomes two-way, thus, unlocking knowledge that each party may have not yet encountered. Also, in a dialogical or transactional method of teaching, the teacher would only act as a facilitator. The discussions on a particular topic becomes a common field of experience, especially when the learning is authentic. The teacher speaks not a dominant language, which draws a line of hierarchy between the teacher and the learners, but the common language of the learners. For example, requiring the students to speak English even if the subject is too hard to understand in English. It doesn't mean that we should not learn oral fluency in a second (or third) language, but as a student, if I cannot express myself well in English, does it mean the teacher has to fail me?
The most common example where our teachers today implement the use of common language is through the use of mother tongue in class lectures. In a few public lectures and seminars I've attended, it was reported that classes who speak in mother tongue or native language are more active and cooperative. In fact, according to studies presented, teacher-facilitators in these kind of classes were able to generate ideas that they did not expect to hear from their students.
After reading Freire, I want to teach myself, or rather, learn not to become an oppressor in the eyes of my future students by only giving them what I want. There should be interaction and free expression of ideas, as long as it is about the lesson. Of course, as a teacher we should still implement discipline, but when we talk about teaching knowledge, it must be shared — from both the teacher and the learners.


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My SO and I just picked up new Alpinestars jackets for our Scoots. I have had a Corazzo Ventata since they first came out and thought it to be a great design. After considering their Bomber and shop jackets we found an incredible deal online where we could get her the Alpinestars Downtown armored coat for $35, usually $169 so we went for it thinking we could always ebay it if it was wrong or lame. Blown away! Great Italian design, sewing quailty, armor placement was tight and spot on....... I find with Corazzo that the armor pockets are loose and sloppy. I then recieved the Alipnestars Bovver Aggro bomber style and it exceeds the Corazzo in all areas except one. The zippers are higher quality, the seams are smoother and stronger, the arms are longer which is critical while riding. Gorgeous iridescent sheen on the ladies jacket and loads of adjustability with neck, cuffs and ability to tie jacket down to pant lopos to avoid billowing.
Alipinestars also gives you a few spare parts such as grommets, tabs etc just like finer apparel mfg's do with buttons for shirts, you know the type.
Both our new coats came with zip out quilted liners to expand the riding seasons. I'll wear the Bovver in most conditions except the hottest days since it doesn't have the venting the Ventata has.
Very happy. If you want to know the online shop pm me since I do not wish to come off as a spammer on post #1.
Oh, do tell the store! I'm looking for a good jacket. I'm wary of buying online, since sizes run all over the map. My "local" shop (30 minutes away) doesn't have anything that fits.
brhythm wrote: Oh, do tell the store! I'm looking for a good jacket. I'm wary of buying online, since sizes run all over the map. My "local" shop (30 minutes away) doesn't have anything that fits.
Hey Billy, did you ever visit Tri Sports Inc. in Topsham? We bought jackets there which we really like (not for nothing, though--quite a bit more than this guy is talking). They had a good selection of brands, colors, styles and sizes, and were very helpful and friendly. Plus, they had plenty of Hondas, Suzukis and Polaris stuff to look at. Great place to get parts and service (and advice) for your Honda.


Great post about Want to Know a Secret? on the Chick Lit Blog here. And I agree with them – it is a wicked cover!
I was able to illustrate my talk about short stories with the aid of a visualiser. A magic instrument! It projects anything under it onto the big screen at the front of the room so, instead of writing on a whiteboard, I wrote on a pad under the visualiser. And the audience got to check out my American manicure in glorious colour and in enormous proportion.
My workshop wasn't about 'how to write a short story' in the usual sense, where we talk about a short story being a single episode and the best way to serve that is to give a central character a conflict and make them solve it. In the middle of the page I wrote 'Get idea' and 'write story' but this workshop began waaay earlier than that: why are you writing this story? What is its purpose?
To add to your CV with a good competition result?
So we're now back at 'get idea' and 'write story'. Except that your idea might well have changed, by now, to one with a specific purpose and for a particular target. You're already well on the way to success.
So, you write your story, one that will fit the requirements of the target.
Then you polish/edit and rewrite. You might put it away for a week and read it aloud, then polish/edit and rewrite again.
When you send it out, with maybe a covering letter, or the fee if it's for a competition, you send out the most polished clean manuscript it is in your power to create. And you record when and where you sent it, so that you don't have a durr-brain moment and send it to the same target again.
Then you wait. And, for some markets, wait and wait and wait.
You might never get a result, particularly if you've entered the story for a comp, where only the winners are informed.
But what if you get a rejection? (The whole class knew this one.) You send it out again, to another target, rewriting if necessary. And you repeat that process as required.
If you get a letter suggesting changes – make them! Send it back! Ask for it to be read again! You are approaching the end of the tunnel.
The conference is a lot of fun and you can see some of my fellow romantic novelists here. One of the absolute pleasures of an RNA conference is the opportunity to do exactly what we were doing – kicking back, swapping information, soaking up the sun, networking … Sometimes the writer has to get out of the garret.
This not-very-good photo is of 'our' part of the Greenwich University. Cool, or what?
I will be appearing at the Writers' Cafe, Liverpool Street, London, on the evening of 16th August. See here for full details. It would be great if you could come.
As I was in Connecticut and Cape Cod for half of June I saw many jaunty Stars and Stripes flags and red-white-blue bunting. New England is pretty but the flags added jolliness to the summer scene.
Here's me on top of the Empire State Building, looking windblown and squinty, my usual look for photos. OK, before anyone points it out, I know that the Empire State is neither in Connecticut or Cape Cod – I spent a couple of days in Manhattan, too. You can see some of it behind me in the pic.
And now I'm avoiding chocolate and wine in an effort to detox ahead of the Romantic Novelists' Conference, which begins on Thursday!
And I'm back to work.
Tomorrow I'm on BBC Radio Northampton's Bernie Keith show at 11.45 am and on Tuesday BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's Sue Dougan's Chat Room at 2pm.


Hey. Yes I do, I am just overseas for work this week. I can send it when I get home, or if I can successfully log into my home PC.
quid on waterproof of the watch ?
Depends really. If you put the magnetic microUSB into the watch and run a little bead of silicon around the outside, then it should still retain the waterproof rating of the watch. Silicon will pick off easily if you want to remove it. The little rubber flap which goes on the watch can easily disconnect and reconnect if you need it again later.
Sony Smartwatch 3 - Magnetic Dock by WanaGo is licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution license.


Your search has returned 3954 results.
Save your search - find out immediately when "Indicator" is available at auction!
Dodge, Mary Elizabeth Mapes (1831-1905) Hans Brinker; or, the Silver Skates. A Story of Life in Holland.


text:
require 'logger'
require 'sv/custom_logger'
module Sv
  module Logger

    def self.logger
      @logger ||= ::Sv::CustomLogger.new(STDOUT)
    end

    def self.stderr
      @stderr ||= ::Logger.new(STDERR)
    end

    def logger
      ::Sv::Logger.logger
    end

    def stderr
      ::Sv::Logger.stderr
    end
  end
end


text:
Home » CHARLIE
The moment our first son, Charlie, was born we were almost instantly puzzled. He was almost 2 weeks early, just 5 lbs and he failed his newborn hearing screening. He also had funny looking ears! But, we were told he was fine and we quickly settled into life with a baby. I had difficulty feeding him (knowing now he didn't have a good suckle) but otherwise everything seemed normal to us as first time parents. As Charlie got older, he always hit milestones just outside the normal range and his hearing loss and little size remained constant. He also constantly got colds and illnesses. When his speech failed to improve at 3 1/2, I broke down and decided try and get some help – even though everyone including his doctor told us he was fine. Well, right after he turned 4 we were lucky enough to see a speech pathologist here in Phoenix who knew instantly Charlie had 22q11.2. We confirmed via FISH test and the official positive results were both devastating and relieving. Nothing made me (his mom) feel worse than thinking something was 'wrong' when no one else did. By this time, we had already pushed to get Charlie early intervention services through his school district and the state. We continue these services today! Now 9 1/2 years old, Charlie is doing great! While we don't have a lot of the medical issues so many kiddos deal with – we are dealing with the educational and behavioral issues that can arise. Charlie participated in UC DAVIS MIND institute's studies last summer which was AWESOME! Charlie is mainstreamed into our neighborhood school in a regular classroom with interventions and an aide. He will be in the fourth grade this fall. We are lucky to have such great services! As you can see Charlie plays little league baseball in our neighborhood, loves video games and is absolutely the sweetest boy ever!


We have a busy week ahead as we ready ourselves for SLC meetings and testing. Please read ahead for testing details.
Grade 9 – Physical Fitness Test: Please click here for all the info!
Grade 10 – Life Science California Standards Test: Click here for example questions.
The computer-based SBAC exam is new this year and is simply a test of the test. Our 11th grade students will take the SBAC on 2 separate days this week, but will not receive scores. They will be tested on ELA and Math content.
The EAP ELA and Math exams will run on the other 2 days. For more information about the EAP, please visit their website.
Please review the schedules below for more details about the week. Contact Megan Anderson with any questions at manderson@davincischools.org.


You'd be astonished by how the Mighty Emery Sponge will drastically change the way you clean pots and pans! You can officially say goodbye to rusty and foul-smelling dishes and kitchen utensils.
Anti-bacterial and acid/alkaline-resistant, this sponge has no room for the harmful bacteria that can harm your home. It's also durable so it can serve you a long time.
Enjoy a healthier and cleaner home kitchen today by using the Mighty Emery Sponge!
Multi-purpose. Cleans pots, pans, stoves, floors, walls and just about anything! Also used as a sharpener!
Anti-bacterial. For safer, cleaner household!
I am cleaning pots and pans like crazy! This thing works great!!!
This item is awesome! It does what it says it will! I used it on the bottoms of a few blackened pans/pots and it cleaned it up great-almost like brand new!
This sponge is very useful. They are stiff even when wet, great for difficult clean up.
They work great for tough clean ups. Saves my time for cleaning rusty pans.
These are the best. I have not seen my pots so clean.
I feel like it cut my cleaning time down. Good cleaning tool.
My pans and pots were very black from the many years of heavy use. This Sponge Brush is a life saver!
Really great sponge for tough jobs!
Work famously like nothing else I've tried. Can clean any durable surface that my normal cleaners and sponges can't.
Burnt stains come off the pan with minimal effort- does not need a lot if elbow grease. My dishes are looking spanking new!
Excellent sponges to clean caked/burnt on food. Great for removing rust too.
These are the best for shower doors, stainless sinks and fixtures. It also does a great job on stubborn pans.
These sponges cleaned burned on gunk (from a stove fire) off my favorite skillet so now I can use it again.
Great for cleaning my smooth top stove also my pits and pans.
These are really good for baked on food removal. No smell when rinsed after use.


text:
2016 Hart-Scott-Rodino Thresholds
Joseph J. Romagnoli Christopher M. Caparelli Max Shakin
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced its annual revisions to the notification and filing fee thresholds of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (HSR Act).1 The HSR Act is an antitrust statute that authorizes the FTC and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to evaluate the potential anticompetitive effects of certain merger and acquisition transactions. The HSR Act requires the parties contemplating mergers or acquisitions that meet or exceed jurisdictional thresholds to (i) provide information to the FTC and DOJ regarding the acquisition and the parties' business operations, and (ii) await the expiration of a statutory waiting period before completing the proposed transaction. The FTC revises the thresholds annually on the basis of U.S. gross national product.
New HSR Thresholds
The following table lists the original, current and revised HSR thresholds.2 The new thresholds are effective February 25, 2016.
Original Threshold
Current Threshold
Revised Threshold
Under the revised thresholds, an acquisition is subject to the notification and waiting period requirements of the HSR Act if, as a result of the transaction, the buyer will hold assets, voting securities, or non-corporate interests of the target with a value in excess of $78.2 million (size-of-transaction test), and the parties to the transaction have total assets or net annual sales in excess of $15.6 million and $156.3 million (size-of-person test).
The size-of-person test does not apply to transactions involving the acquisition of assets, voting securities or non-corporate interests valued in excess of $312.6 million.
Below is an up-to-date schedule of HSR filing fees. Only the transaction-size thresholds have changed, not the amount of the filing fees.
Transaction Size
Filing Fee
Greater than $78.2 million but less than $156.3 million
$156.3 million or greater but less than $781.5 million
$781.5 million or greater
The failure to file a Notification and Report Form with the FTC and DOJ under the HSR Act remains subject to a penalty of up to $16,000 per day of non-compliance.
1 As required by the 2000 amendments to Section 7A of the Clayton Act.
2 All monetary values are in U.S. dollars. The FTC's guidelines for converting foreign currency can be found here: (https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/premerger-notification-program/hsr-resources/converting-foreign-currency-hsr-purposes)
To discuss these issues, please contact the author(s).
This publication is a general discussion of certain legal and related developments and should not be relied upon as legal advice. If you require legal advice, we would be pleased to discuss the issues in this publication with you, in the context of your particular circumstances.
For permission to republish this or any other publication, contact Janelle Weed.
© 2019 by Torys LLP.
Joseph J. Romagnoli
Christopher M. Caparelli
Max Shakin
The future of Big Data regulation
New thresholds in effect for Canadian merger reviews
Chinese investment into Canada: balancing openness and security
What to expect in class action law in 2019


text:
Follow Me on Social:
"The Office" Season 10
Nick Janicki
Hoppy Endings: Son of Juice
Inspired by Maplewood Brewery's India Pale Ale
Standing beside the fridge while Nancy finished setting the table for their family of three, Howard bit off the cap to the dry-erase marker, letting it dangle out of his mouth like a stubby cigar as he drew a fat, unwavering candy-red line through the black-lettered words reading Juice Pants. Above it, countless other lines, each with the same slash slicing through them. Not a mark of completion, but of failure.
He capped the marker, placed it atop the whiteboard stuck on the fridge, and released the pregnant sighed he'd held in the entire ride home from the office. As a courtesy, he'd waited until his wife had departed the kitchen, not knowing his six-year-old son stood in the doorway behind him, wondering exactly what had gone wrong with Daddy's latest Time-Saver (Daddy had told him this was an 'umbrella' word to describe all his ideas, although Tommy didn't quite understand what any of them had to do with the weather).
They settled down for dinner—Taco Tuesday night, as routine, the mess of ingredients on a sea of bowls and plates in the middle of the table, the combined smell so thick they nearly clogged the nose—where Tommy and Nancy awaited Howard's inevitable retelling of Juice Pants. Of course, he never jumped straight into it. Rather, he did as all good fathers did, leaning down over the table to match his son's short stature. He raised an inquisitive brow.
"And how was Sir Tommy's day?" he said, cracking a smile, tawny mustache curving with his mouth. "Anything you can teach your old man?"
Although he didn't want to, and it made him feel bad, the second question made Tommy consider responding with something like, 'I wish I could teach you to stop your Time-Savers!' He'd never really say that; Daddy cared way too much about his projects. They made him smile a lot. They made Mommy happy, too, but usually in a giggly way—like a silly smile, Tommy considered.
"Nothing really," he told his daddy, shrugging. "Miss Hudson's still showing us about addiction and subtraction."
Nancy chuckled, and her and Howard shared in unspoken amusement. She placed a hand over Tommy's small one, clarifying: "Addition and subtraction. I think it'll be at least a few more years before they teach you about addiction."
Silence swept over the dining room as they focused on their food, finishing their respective taco assembly and wasting no time diving into their creations. Tommy was glad for the stillness. It ended the discussion about his own day, where he'd had to keep telling himself not to mention Billy Burgess. How Bully Billy had found him on the playground again, gathering some friends and encircling him while they once more listened to Billy talk about Daddy's idea before Juice Pants: Magnet Mate. (Magnet Mate was a Time-Saver that let adults put keys and other metal stuff in their jacket pockets without worrying about them falling out or getting lost. The metal stuff stuck to Magnet Mate. Tommy knew plenty about magnets, at least.) It didn't seem to matter the idea was from over a month ago. Billy always sang the story like it'd happened yesterday. 'Maggot Mate,' he sometimes called it, which usually made his friends burst into laughter, all the while pointing sharp, humiliating fingers at Tommy.
Tommy thought about the thick red line his daddy had drawn on his ideas board tonight, curious if Billy's daddy, Mr. Burgess, heard about (or worse, saw) Juice Pants earlier today. Mr. Burgess worked alongside Tommy's dad at the 'a-counting' firm, a place referred to in the comfort of their home as The Cage, since his daddy often compared it to jail (to Mommy, at least, although the walls between bedrooms were paper-thin, so Tommy heard more than intended). If Billy's daddy knew about Juice Pants, he'd definitely tell Billy about it, probably over their own dinner tonight, poking fun at Tommy's daddy. And then it'd come back to Tommy himself—maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day.
Whenever Bully Billy would decide it's time for a new joke.
"So . . ." Nancy shattered the silence, mainly wanting to get out and over the undeniable defeat that was Juice Pants. Any longer and the looming weight of it would spoil dinner, she believed. "Let's have it, Howie. What's the deal with Juice Pants?"
She bit her bottom lip after hearing the question aloud. It could've been the setup to some horrible standup routine. More than a year of hearing her husband's zany ideas ('inventions' seemed a generous label) had steered her away from poking fun at them. In theory, most weren't half-bad—it was more Howard's scrappy execution that made them flop like a fish on land until he put them out of their misery. Yet despite this, she had to give him credit: he didn't let failure linger.
The Time-Savers had begun at the beginning of the prior year, shortly following a night Nancy and Howard had sunk into the living room loveseat, flipping through so much nothing on T.V. until they landed on a show called Whale Tank. Another crappy reality show, by Nancy's estimation, one in which obscure celebrities with deep pockets were presented with business pitches to invest in by everyday folks. Searching for that 'white whale,' as they so appropriately labeled the show's most-golden ideas.
At the kitchen table, Howard frowned, dramatic and cartoonish. "Another dud, determined by my trusted focus group at the office." Nancy and Tommy only stared at him, waiting for more. He waved about the soft-shell taco pinched between his fingers, preparing to divulge more. "I overestimated the volume the packets could hold. I pushed for twenty-four ounces. I hadn't gone higher than twenty in the at-home prototypes. My own fault, really."
Juice Pants, from what Howard had told them, were designed to limit the amount of times a person needs to go out of their way to stay hydrated throughout a given day. From his perspective, there's way too much unused real-estate in the average pair of pants. Juice Pants took advantage of that extra space, padding it with bags of liquid of the wearer's choosing. Nancy had pictured the bag at the end of a catheter the first time Howard shared the idea, which had put her off to it from the get-go.
"And what happened?" Nancy pressed, just needing him to verbalize it. Then it'd be nothing more than another memory, and they'd carry on with the mundane until her husband's next idea. She shrugged in wonder. "Did they weigh your pants down . . . get them to fall?"
"Worse," Howard said. At once, his frown did a one-eighty. He let his taco drop to the plate so that he could put both hands in front of his son, tapping his fingers in the air as if to playfully spook the kid. His voice complemented the action, low and vibrating: "I wet my pants!"
Nancy's eyes widened. "You what?!"
"The biggest bag broke, and the juice ran straight down my leg during a meeting with the 'ole boss, right to the floor!"
Howard stared at his wife across the table, who'd begun shaking her head in disbelief. Maybe in secondhand embarrassment. He didn't pay much mind to it, focusing on Tommy off his peripheral, who'd started to chuckle, his small fist held in front of his mouth as if to contain his delight over picturing his daddy with wet pants. A silver lining to Howard's failed invention—one that'd comfort him until he drummed up the next Time-Saver.
The leap from kindergarten to first grade was the real deal. Before that, Tommy had preschool. Before that still, daycare (he didn't remember much from that one). First grade began the use of numbers in the titles of grades, and that felt like a big-kid thing. Numbers were serious business, after all, considering his daddy worked with them all day at his adult job.
Tommy had thought that way the first day, anyway. That would've been about four months ago now. Walking into class this morning—the day after hearing about Daddy's wet pants—he compared himself an ant to the world—to the classroom, even. The bright-orange plastic chairs with their shiny metal tubes for legs seemed like gigantic spiders; the cream, individual desks positioned like soldiers in orderly formation, preparing to trample over him, could squish him like a bug. Any joy he'd gotten from his daddy's story had vanished by now.
Or maybe the people operating these things made him feel this way. His classmates, seated silently at their respective desks, some whispering to one another, a select few seemingly staring at him. Maybe about Juice Pants, if Billy had had the chance to tell them about it already. Maybe about other stuff. Tommy hurried his short legs past them all, dropping his backpack in his wooden cubby at the back of the room. He found his seat (near the back, as he'd one day not long ago asked Ms. Hudson to relocate him; less people could see him back there) and kept his head pointed down at his desk to block out all the bad thoughts. That helped, a little.
The classroom door swung open with a rush of air that reached even Tommy way at the back. Ms. Hudson, whom Tommy thought younger than other teachers at school, maybe around his mommy's age (pretty and pencil-thin like Mommy, too, but not nearly as pretty, he'd decided), clicked her heels across the floor until she reached her desk. She wrote something on the chalkboard, revealing it only when she stepped aside, turning toward the class to put it on display.
"We know a little about adding numbers up after last week," she began, pointing at the chalkboard. "Now we're going to learn about the opposite . . . subtraction! Making numbers smaller—at least in most cases."
The lesson began, and while Tommy really wanted to understand subtraction, to tell his daddy he did the numbers like him today, he found himself looking away from Ms. Hudson's steady writing on the chalkboard. He kept catching glimpses of Billy Burgess staring back at him from two rows up. Those awful green eyes, almost yellow like a slithering snake's, narrowed in on him. That prickly red hair, sticking up on top like a roaring flame. That nasty smile with his two big-kid front teeth sticking out from the rest, something else that made him feel small.
Once Billy recognized the attention (two of his Bully Buddies had caught wind of what was developing, too), he began tearing pages from his spiral notebook, careful enough so it didn't pull Ms. Hudson away from the front of the room to investigate the matter. With each piece of paper, he'd lock eyes with Tommy, crinkle it into a ball with both hands (it reminded Tommy of a snowball, even though it was summer outside), and tuck it into his tan khaki pants. It only took minutes for his pant-legs to resemble bulging balloons, and the simple sight sent his buddies cackling under their breath, under palms pressed against their mouths as if to silence themselves.
Tommy ripped his focus away for the rest of the lesson. Every now and again, Billy would peer over his shoulder, hoping to draw one more laugh at Tommy's expense—to pat his tubelike legs, stomp them around a little for show. Tommy kept his attention on the blackboard. The joke was making fun of Daddy—of Juice Pants, doubtless—but it made his eyes water as if it'd been him wearing the liquid-packed pants yesterday. Paying mind to the lesson helped a bit, distracted him, but every time he blinked he pictured Billy poking fun, his buddies laughing. And the day had only just begun.
Recess followed up with lunch—every kid's dream. A taste of freedom, of the no-school life. For every kid besides Tommy, he guessed. He'd learned to dread these periods almost most of all, thinking them more detention (for him and him alone) rather than playtime and food time. Once the bell rang, the big hand and the little hand both pointed all the way up, he would start his internal timer. An hour of back-to-back punishment.
The first day after one of Daddy's Time-Savers was always the worst. It meant kids laughed the hardest, Tommy often hearing it in their bellies instead of just their mouths. Sometimes, when Billy would tell them the story of a Time-Saver for the first time, a kid or two would end up lying on the playground's wood-chips, rolling around in them from laughing so hard. The harder they laughed, the more Tommy had to fight back tears.
"Too scared of the slide today, Tiny Tommy?"
Tommy spun around from the red-brick wall he'd been leaning against. He'd been staring off at the huge, metal-bar-covered clock above the school's entrance off the blacktop, a dozen kids playing in between him and it. Now, his neck was cranked up a tad, trapped in those snake eyes again. Bully Billy stood at least a few feet (centimeters? inches? he didn't have a good grasp on that yet) taller than him, and right now the kid terrified him more than ever. Arms crossed, nose crinkled. Right in front of him, rather than a few seats away.
Behind him, four friends instead of just the two from class. They were copycatting Billy, arms folded over their chests, too. Like little helpers to a bad guy—a superhero's villain. They were Billy's minions. Only, Tommy was no superhero. He was only Tiny Tommy, and with the villain right in front of him, he could only stand there and listen to everything that'd come out of his beaver-toothed mouth. No superpowers to save him.
"We were looking for you on the playground," Billy went on. "Did you like my pants during class?" He snorted at that, a grin growing. Tommy glanced down at his khakis, no longer stuffed with balled-up paper. Probably he'd emptied them before any teachers saw. "I'm sure they weren't as bad as your daddy's Juice Pants. My daddy said they gave him a big butt. A big one! He told me it was like he'd eaten too many cheeseburgers. He said your daddy waddled around all day!"
With each new line, Billy's audience laughed a little louder. One of them had even thrown their head back toward the sky with Billy's 'waddled.' It went on that way for another five minutes, Billy making more comments and pulling his pant-legs outward and dancing around with a funny face on. Tongue out and crossed-eyed by the end of his terrible show. Tommy tried to focus on keeping his eyes dry. He tried to think about the recess bell, counting as far as he could (he got to 120 before he had to start back from zero, the numbers to follow slipping his memory) to blur out Billy's mean words and movements.
The bell sounded, a vibrating ringing that reached the brick wall they were standing near, all the way to the playground beyond that. Every kid went silent at that—even Bully Billy. Mr. Powers, the gym teacher, was already making his way down the steps below that giant clock, motioning for all the students to head inside.
Lunchtime. One half of detention remained for (Tiny) Tommy.
The first-graders were on their own for each and every class, recess included. A neighborhood of tiny people, moving about from room to room, stuck together from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The cafeteria being the only exception. During lunchtime, they were joined by the second-graders. If Tommy considered many of his classmates (Bully Billy included) giants, then the kids a grade above him were skyscrapers, heads buried within the clouds as they strolled past him to take their seats with mile-long strides.
As usual, Tommy found an open spot at the outstretched bench-table near the center of the cafeteria. Mainly, the second-graders and first-graders sat apart, both groups pretending the other didn't exist. That wasn't the case for Tommy's table; his had kids from both grade present, mixed in together as if there weren't any grades at all. As if second weren't much bigger than first. Like two firsts put together, he thought, putting Ms. Hudson's lesson on addition (not 'addiction,' he reminded himself) to the test.
"You want my grapes?" a second-grader beside him muttered, giving Tommy a gentle nudge to the arm. He held out a plastic bag, full of sad purple grapes that'd collapsed in on themselves. Begging to be tossed in the trash at this point. "They still have the grape taste, they're just squishy and mushy and get sticky stuff on your fingers. I can't eat them all the time, 'cause of that."
Tommy shook his head, offering the kid a gratuitous smile. No one talked much at this table, and Tommy decided most kids around him probably were like him. Quiet. Focused on learning. Maybe even picked on a little like him, too. While he didn't want that for anyone else, the possibility comforted him. It made him feel like he wasn't so small—not with others around him. At least sort of.
He dug his hand into the brown paper bag in front of him, finding himself with an appetite despite the confrontation on the blacktop, the one in the classroom, and the others surely to come from Billy and his buddies throughout the rest of the day. One by one, Tommy pulled out the items his daddy had packed for him.
A PB&J sandwich, that nasty brown crust sliced off. How he liked it.
A bag of Cheetos, which never had enough inside (he didn't understand why Chester Cheetah made the bags so big, if he wasn't going to fill them up all the way).
A baggie of apple slices. He'd eat those first (to get them over with).
And finally, a juice box.
He kept this last one in his hand for awhile, studying the green box with narrowed eyes. Reading 'Juicy Juice' on the front, part of him wishing it just outright said 'Juice Pants.' It made him feel full, like the food he'd pulled out of the brown bag had disappeared straight through him, into his stomach. But there it all rested, atop the eggshell-white table. It made him grab the brown bag, preparing to crumple it into a tight ball—not dissimilar to how Billy had crushed-up those pieces of notebook paper before shoving them down his pants.
The bag slipped out of his hand, landing back on the table, its weight taking him by surprise. It wasn't empty yet. He widened the top and shoved his hand back inside, reaching deep down, staring up at the cafeteria's tall ceiling as he fished around. He grabbed ahold of something—no, he thought: two things—and fished them out.
His stomach filled up some more. Like the second-grader's mushy grapes had entered him now, too, making him feel yucky. He stared at the second box of Juicy Juice he'd pulled out, then darted his attention over to the other one already on the table. His grip loosened, allowing the box to fall while the something-else he'd found in the bottom of the bag—a folded piece of paper—remained tucked in between two of his fingers. He unraveled it, gave a quick glance around the table (no, everyone at the quiet table was face-down in their lunch), and took his time reading the handwritten note:
Buddy,
Your Pops had a juice left over from yesterday.
Enjoy the extra sugar . . . but don't tell Mommy!
Tommy crumpled the note. He tightened it within his enclosed fist, trying to make it smaller still. Hoping he'd open his palm and find it gone, destroyed. But there it was, once more reminding him of Bully Billy, somewhere a table or two behind him. Maybe the kid would rush over and see the note, yanking it out of Tommy's tiny hand. He'd stand on one of the tables and read it aloud to the entire lunchroom—loud enough for the rest of the number-grades to hear outside of the cafeteria.
No way, he told himself. He pushed himself out from the connected bench, keeping the crumpled note hidden within his fist. He gathered his lunch together, shoving it all back in the brown bag. With a quick glance over to the rest of the first-graders, he didn't think he could spot Billy. That was good; probably it meant Billy couldn't see him, either. The black, open garbage bin across the cafeteria called to him, begged him to come over and give him the note (along with those juice boxes). And Tommy very much wanted to feed it, to prevent his daddy's note from getting seen by anyone else.
He took off, trying not to draw any attention to himself. He reached the garbage soon enough, its mouth wide, hungry for a lunch of its own. Only, peering down into it, Tommy thought it full. Too full—much the way his own (empty) stomach felt right now. A kid could come up to throw away their own lunch to find the crumpled note in there, even dig inside the brown bag and find those juice boxes. They'd first unravel the note, read it to themselves, then turn and shout it to the rest of the lunchroom. An awful vision.
Tommy tightened his fist some more, the one holding the note. He scanned the expansive cafeteria, hopeful there'd be another garbage in sight. There wasn't. Just this one, way too full to hide his note for good. He tried to suck in a heavy breath, but all the sour, stale scents coming off the messy garbage can entered his mouth instead. Enough to make him feel even more sick, thinking now that probably he should go and find the bathroom.
The bathroom! Tommy realized. The one right outside the cafeteria didn't only have a trashcan of its own; it had a toilet. And a toilet meant his daddy's note could go bye-bye forever. He could flush it down far and away, to a place where no one could ever find it. And maybe he could eat his lunch in there, juice boxes and all. No one around to see them.
He approached Mr. Powers, standing like a police officer by the cafeteria's exit, his meaty arms crossed over one another as he watched the room, making sure no one was getting into any trouble. Tommy raised his closed fist, the one clutching the note, as he kept the lunch bag hidden behind his back.
"Mister Powers," he called.
Mr. Powers's eyes widened, searching around at first until he realized the call had come from below. He looked down at Tommy, curious: "Tommy? What's the matter?"
"Can I go to the bathroom?"
He glanced behind him, then back at the first-grader. "Son, you're going to have to wait. Someone's already went to the bathroom, and you know only one—"
"I really need to go now," Tommy begged. He dropped it to a whisper. "It's an emergency."
The gym teacher debated it. Eventually, he stepped aside, leaving Tommy with a reminder as the pocket-sized student rushed past him: "Don't forget to wash your hands, kid!"
The bathroom door flew open, feeling light as air as Tommy hurried inside. Feeling as though kids were somehow scurrying after him, realizing he held behind his back a paper bag with juice boxes inside, something else enclosed in his other hand. But the door floated closed behind him, and he couldn't hear any sneakers squeaking along the tile floor outside. Complete silence, covering him like a warm blanket.
He should've felt fully relieved at that, but his heart quickly resumed its racing a moment later, banging like drums against his chest. The note had to be tossed down the toilet. Only then would this one potential problem be done with. At the reminder, Tommy leapt across the tight bathroom, from the sink to the closed stall door in one go, shoving his shoulder against it upon contact like one of the football players Daddy sometimes watched on T.V.
The metal door went all the way to the wall, crashing against it with a thunderous crack, only to drift back toward him again. He put a hand out to stop it from hitting him. As he did, he noticed someone else inside the stall, standing over the toilet with pants ruffled around his ankles. Only underwear covered him below his red t-shirt, whitey tighties (as they were very formally called around the school) with a pattern of countless orange basketballs over them.
"Billy?" Tommy said, hearing his voice crack in confusion.
Billy had already snapped his head backward from the crash of the stall door. He scowled at Tommy, his green eyes now colored with a bit of red. His face had gone a lighter red, too. Pink like a pig's, Tommy compared it. That wasn't all: his cheeks had went wet with lines of dripping water. Tommy wondered if Bully Billy had splashed his face before coming into the stall to go to the bathroom, maybe too excited about all the jokes he'd have to tell about Juice Pants after lunch. Maybe practicing them in here.
And then, almost too sudden to notice, in the blink of young Tiny Tommy's eyes, Bully Billy's face relaxed. It sunk, and both his lips and nose began to twitch uncontrollably. It was only then that Tommy put it together: the big, tough first-grader had been crying in here. The sight of Tommy had made him even more upset. A steady stream now, quicker droplets drifting down his deflated face.
The sight almost made Tommy grin. He wanted to—really, really wanted to. Probably, he'd even earned it, dealing with all of Billy's jokes. Jokes meant to hurt both Tommy and his daddy. Despite this—despite everything—he forced his mouth to remain flat. He kept his eyes from thinning in bemusement. The longer Tommy stood in the doorway of the stall, the more Bully Billy seemed to shrink. The top of his head close to Tommy's now, no longer a few feet (inches?) closer to the ceiling; those grownup front teeth hiding behind quivering lips; the spiky red hair atop his head a little more brown now, as if its fire had begun to fizzle out.
"What happened, Billy?" he pressed.
The rest of Billy's body followed suit with his shivering lips. Gauging the warm temperature of the bathroom, the image in front of him explained itself at once. Billy quivered out of embarrassment, fear. It reminded Tommy of the way he himself had vibrated every time Billy Burgess crossed his mind. His attention traveled down Billy's bare legs to the floor, noticing how the kid's khakis were darker—much darker—in the very center of the piled fabric.
Every first-grader's worst nightmare had happened to Bully Billy: he'd peed his pants.
"You better not say anything!" Tommy's tormenter cried, a bit of spit crawling out the sides of his mouth.
Tommy raised his hands in innocence. "I'm not telling anyone," he assured. He did what he'd seen Daddy do on occasion: putting an invisible key to his mouth, twisting it, and throwing it over his shoulder. "I'm sorry I walked in on you." He spun his sneakers around, ready to leave (and yes, he meant what he'd said).
"Tiny—" Billy called out. He stopped himself there, waiting for Tommy to turn around. "Tommy . . . I can't go out there like this. I tried wiping my pants with paper-towels. I even shook them in the air for a few minutes, hoping that'd make them look less wet." He dropped his chin to his chest, checking out his ankles. "But they're still soaking! You have to help me."
Facing his enemy again, Tommy now started to feel taller than Billy. He lingered, relished in that final plea: 'You have to help me.' Playing pretend that he hadn't seen the kid's wet pants was one thing. A nice thing. But helping Billy? That seemed a bit much, their relationship considered. Besides, how could he lend a hand, anyway? Take off his own pants and give them to his bully? No, that was silly. And there wasn't enough time to let the pants hang out to dry; Mr. Powers would come in here in a few minutes if the two weren't back in the lunchroom. Wet pants didn't mess around that way.
Wet pants! The words lit up in front of him, bold and bright. They'd been carried with his daddy's tone, too—for obvious reason. He'd made Tommy laugh at the dinner table last night with those words, leaning into the tale of his failed Time-Saver in a light way. It'd looked like Daddy wet his pants at work after something went wrong with Juice Pants. Exactly what had went wrong, Tommy wasn't quite sure. But the recollection didn't leave him—those words still illuminated between him and Billy. They made Tommy clutch tighter the brown paper bag at his side. He took the hand with the note and shoved it in his pocket, letting the crumpled piece of paper stay there.
He began toward Billy, letting the memory of Juice Pants guide him.
"What are you doing?" Billy raised his voice. He retreated toward the toilet a little.
Tommy held the bag in front of him as he went onward, loosening his grip on it so he could send his other hand digging inside.
"If you think giving me your lunch is gonna—"
"Just quiet," Tommy said, surprising himself with the way it came out. He felt the box inside, the sloshing liquid within it. He pulled it out and put it near Billy's face. "Here's what we're going to do."
Billy's face twisted. "Drink juice together?"
"No." Tommy's voice was firm. Confident. Unwavering in the face of his longtime bully. "We're going to give you Juice Pants."
At first, Billy scoffed at the idea, looking so very close to whipping together some new insult before throwing it carelessly at Tommy. Nothing came out of his mouth, though. He merely stood there, listening to the small kid in front of him. Watching him dig in that brown bag, pulling out a second juice-box. A baggie holding a PB&J sandwich came next out of the little magician's hat. Billy kept still (as instructed) even when Tommy rushed out of the stall, returning a few moments later with a rubber band he'd managed to source. Proceeding to assemble everything in such a seamless way that made Billy wonder if the kid had done this countless times before. It was—and he kept this word at a distance—impressive.
Two minutes later and they were out the bathroom door, hurrying across the vacant hall back toward the cafeteria. The collective, indiscernible chitter-chatter grew as they reached the open entryway. Standing in the middle of it, spinning around at the sound of two pairs of squeaking, squealing sneakers behind him, was Mr. Powers. He crossed his arms again, blocking Tommy and Billy's path.
"Everything go all right in there, gentlemen?" he said with a lifted brow. He glanced down at Billy's pants, the darker, damp spot going from his groin to partway down one of his thighs even more evident than before.
"Mister Garrison needs to look at the bathroom faucet, Mister Powers," Tommy remarked about the school janitor, nocking his head toward Billy. That newfound confidence hadn't yet left him. "It splashed out of the sink and got all over Billy. I saw it myself."
Mr. Powers seemed to question this, still assessing the spot on Billy's pants. He shook his head, coming out of it—maybe realizing he didn't care to know if that wet area was because of something else or not. He stepped aside, gesturing for the kids to pass on by. "Just hurry up and finish your lunch, boys. Time's a-tickin' until that bell rings, and you know I can't let any food out of this room."
They nodded at this in unison and carried on, into the depths of the cafeteria. As they neared the tables, they began to part ways, Tommy headed toward the table at the center, Billy back to the one on the side of the room. Before they were too far from one another, Billy paused where he stood, flipping halfway around to catch Tommy still on the move.
"Tommy . . ." he called, at a soft level that only barely reached the kid. "Thanks for the help. You didn't have to do that."
Tommy didn't say anything, only giving him the slightest single nod. Acknowledging the gratitude as well as agreeing that, yes, he definitely hadn't had to do that. He'd helped his bully, and in reality it'd only hurt himself some more. Essentially, he'd intentionally set Billy up for another, perfect, elaborate joke. He'd even told him what to tell his buddies.
Tommy tried to ready himself for what was to come, returning to the bench-seat at his table with an attentive ear. Any minute now, he'd hear Billy cry out from the side of the room, cackling at how he'd made his own version of Juice Pants, wetting himself with the copycat invention on purpose to reenact Tommy's daddy's wet pants at work. His buddies' laughter would follow, echoing all across the open cafeteria. Everyone but Tommy laughing, soon after.
But time ticked on without interruption to the constant, steady chatter of children. The clock above the lunchroom entrance moved, eventually prompting the dismissal bell to whistle across the room. The first- and second-graders rose from their tables, and the discussions dwindled as Mr. Powers began herding the students out of the lunchroom, toward their respective classes to follow.
The remainder of the day seemed to mirror in normality. As if it were just another day of school, with Billy Burgess and his buddies blending in with the rest of the classmates, not a chuckle overheard between any two of them. Not that Tommy had ceased to worry about the situation, fully expecting the dynamic in the room to change at any given moment. Readying himself for Juice Pants jokes that never arrived.
Only at the very end of the day, shortly after that final bell sounded—the call of freedom to all the students in all the grades in the building—did reality seem to finally poke its nasty head out from behind Tommy. Or rather, in front of him, as two of Billy's buddies approached him, blocking his path in the middle of the hustling-and-bustling hallway. He felt his face wince naturally at this, as if preparing itself for a verbal punch to the cheek.
"Billy told us about the Juice Pants you made him," one of them said. And boy, how Tommy's fearful face had already begun to feel pained. Awaiting the punchline. "We were wondering . . ."
"Can you make us some?" the other kid finished the thought.
Tommy's eyes widened, only barely. Still cautious, but now filled with a trifle of curiosity. "What?" he said, a whispered word almost meant for himself.
The first kid clarified: "Well, we know the sample you made him broke, leaking onto his pants. But he said they worked out well before that. He said it'd be a good way to sneak drinks and snacks out from the lunchroom."
"Into class, even!" the other kid roared. "That'd be awesome!"
The worry within Tommy had settled more and more with each new comment from Billy's buddies. The kids that had (so many times) rolled with amusement at Tommy's expense, at Billy's tough tunes about the countless Time-Savers from over the last year. Now, they seemed to shrink as well—like Billy had, in the bathroom. And they stayed that way for the rest of their short interaction, doubling (and then tripling) down on their request for Juice Pants of their own.
"I don't think I can have any more until next week," Tommy finally told them. "I need to make sure they don't break again. Better ones than Billy's from today."
They thanked him, then went on their merry way, leaving Tommy to head toward the front of the school to walk home after what he thought a long, long, long day of school.
Right before he stepped outside, a double-tap reached his shoulder. He spun around, finding Billy standing there. The lowered sun from beyond the doorway splashed onto the kid's head, making his red hair appear more on-fire than ever. His backpack hung down from just one of his shoulders, the other strap dangling free. A quick glance down revealed his tan khakis had gone completely dry. He wore a rather stoic expression, of which Tommy didn't know what to make.
"You told them I made the Juice Pants for you?" Tommy said.
"Maybe I did," Billy suggested, a bit of bite having returned. "Maybe I didn't. Either way, don't go bragging about it."
"I won't," Tommy said, and motioned to leave again.
"But I could use an extra Juice Pants setup or two," the red-haired kid continued, drawing Tommy back. "Please, I mean. Just in case. And if it's fine, cranberry juice is my favorite."
A grin broke on Billy's face. On the kid once called Bully Billy. The grin didn't fit him, Tommy thought. A sort of warmth existed in it that he'd never seen on the kid. And maybe he'd never see it on Billy again. That didn't really matter either way. Because right then, Tommy felt tall.
Later that evening, just after Howard had tucked in his dear son for a night's rest, his bare feet fumbled from the carpet onto a surface that seemed to slide, coming with it a swiping swoosh sound. He reached down in the dark room, landing his hand on a few scattered sheets of paper that he figured Tommy had left fanned out on the floor.
He kept the papers at his side as he left the room, careful to seal the welcome darkness within Tommy's bedroom with a gentle closing of the door. Standing in the hallway, Howard lifted the several papers in front of him, blinking a few times as his vision tried to adjust to the new light.
Drawn in blues and reds and blacks and other colors of crayons were various shapes filling the pages. There were arrows pointing to many of these shapes, with labels at the tail-ends of them.
Rubber Band
A rather random sight, seemingly doodles from the blossoming mind of a young kid. Until he flipped to another page. Similar sketches resided on this one, although at the very top, written large in black crayon (without a big, red slash going through the words), two words told him exactly what he was looking at.
Juice Pants
He smiled wide, finding himself unable to shake it (although, he wasn't trying to) as he gathered the sheets and slid them under his sleeping son's doorway. Thinking about how he'd created something—someone—one-of-a-kind after all. A living, breathing invention. Did any other creation really make a difference when positioned next to that?
Hoppy Endings: Daisy Cutter
Tuesday Tales: The Fortune Cookie Killer
Hoppy Endings: Gummypocalypse
©2022 Nick Janicki


Why do people come to Seattle for homeless services?
Posted on July 20, 2018 at 11:14 am.
PUT US TO WORK. What other questions do you have about homelessness in Seattle? Let us know here and we (or our project partners at Crosscut, GeekWire, KUOW, Patch, ParentMap, Real Change, or Seattlepi.com) might report out your answer.
The key thing we learned: that, according to the best data we have (which is not perfect), the large majority of folks experiencing homelessness were living in King County when they lost their housing. More on that in Part 1, which is one of a bunch of awesome stories from #SeaHomeless, a citywide media effort to better understand homelessness.
Today, we want to dig into the reasons why folks from outside the region — yep, even the apparently small percentage who travel from out of state — head towards the Emerald City.
Some folks do come to the Seattle area to access homeless services. How many? Let's look again at All Home King County's report. They asked 137 folks without housing who are not originally from King County why they moved here. One-fifth of them — so, 28 people — said they came to access homeless services. More of them — nearly a third — said they came here looking for work. Another near-fifth said they came because their family and friends were here. Yes, this is a very small sample group — too small to draw any definitive conclusions. But it gives us a glimpse, albeit a narrow one, at what might motivate folks to move here.
ARE PEOPLE DRAWN TO OUR HOMELESS SERVICES?
Daniel Malone, executive director of Seattle's Downtown Emergency Service Center, acknowledged that Seattle's perceived to be friendly toward people experiencing homelessness.
ARE OUR SERVICES BETTER THAN OTHER PLACES'?
As a big progressive city, Seattle has resources other places don't to build up an ecosystem of homeless services. (How well we've done that so far depends on who you ask.) For context: 77 organizations in King County help provide shelter and housing, and "that's 25 more than the city of San Francisco, and more than the entire state of Montana," The Seattle Times reports. To see a list of many of them, check out Real Change's Emerald City Resource Guide.
Annalee Schafranek, public relations manager at YWCA Seattle, said it makes sense why anyone looking for services would move here. Some services simply don't exist where some people were living, she said.
We still don't have enough resources to keep up with the number of people struggling in our region, homeless advocates say. And folks who do come to Seattle for our homeless services might be disappointed.
"You might find yourself with seemingly little opportunity because there's a backlog of people waiting for the same thing [you are]," Daniel said.
Even for those who can get shelter access, some people won't go because they won't be let in with their partners or pets, said Eric Bronson, YWCA Seattle's digital advocacy manager.
"They're going to stay on the street because that's the only thing getting them through life or that partner is the person they rely on for their safety and they love [them]," Eric said.
Thanks to reader Craig Danz for asking this question, and to the hundreds of you who have submitted your own. Have another question you'd like us or our project partners at GeekWire, Crosscut, Seattlepi.com, Real Change, Patch, ParentMap, and KUOW to tackle? Send them in here.


Is it just us or does she look like she's ready for a workout? With her white trainers, hair pulled back into a bun and over-sized blue bag, it screams more of a gym avatar than airport lounge chic.
Ironical how her tee reads 'I love change' even though we've seen three similar appearances. Nonetheless that black leather jacket remains our favourite travel look from Pee Cee. Smart and comfortable, it's a winner.
Our least favourite look. Between the tunic, peep-toe boots and neon bag, it's all too busy and complicated.


Congratulations go out to Ms. Emily Currey from Mesa View Elementary School.
Ms. Currey is a third-grade teacher and was nominated many times by her students, parents and even other teachers.
To nominate a teacher that you think is deserving click here.


text:
#include <mitkImageCast.h>
#include <mitkDiffusionImage.h>
#include <mitkBaseDataIOFactory.h>
#include <mitkIOUtil.h>
#include "mitkCommandLineParser.h"

using namespace mitk;

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    mitkCommandLineParser parser;

    parser.setTitle("Copy Geometry");
    parser.setCategory("Preprocessing Tools");
    parser.setDescription("");
    parser.setContributor("MBI");

    parser.setArgumentPrefix("--", "-");
    parser.addArgument("in", "i", mitkCommandLineParser::InputFile, "Input:", "input image", us::Any(), false);
    parser.addArgument("ref", "r", mitkCommandLineParser::InputFile, "Reference:", "reference image", us::Any(), false);
    parser.addArgument("out", "o", mitkCommandLineParser::OutputFile, "Output:", "output image", us::Any(), false);

    map<string, us::Any> parsedArgs = parser.parseArguments(argc, argv);
    if (parsedArgs.size()==0)
        return EXIT_FAILURE;

    // mandatory arguments
    string imageName = us::any_cast<string>(parsedArgs["in"]);
    string refImage = us::any_cast<string>(parsedArgs["ref"]);
    string outImage = us::any_cast<string>(parsedArgs["out"]);

    try
    {
        const std::string s1="", s2="";
        std::vector<BaseData::Pointer> infile = BaseDataIO::LoadBaseDataFromFile( refImage, s1, s2, false );
        Image::Pointer source = dynamic_cast<Image*>(infile.at(0).GetPointer());
        infile = BaseDataIO::LoadBaseDataFromFile( imageName, s1, s2, false );
        Image::Pointer target = dynamic_cast<Image*>(infile.at(0).GetPointer());

        mitk::BaseGeometry* s_geom = source->GetGeometry();
        mitk::BaseGeometry* t_geom = target->GetGeometry();

        t_geom->SetIndexToWorldTransform(s_geom->GetIndexToWorldTransform());
        target->SetGeometry(t_geom);

        if ( dynamic_cast<DiffusionImage<short>*>(target.GetPointer()) )
        {
            mitk::IOUtil::Save(dynamic_cast<DiffusionImage<short>*>(target.GetPointer()), outImage.c_str());
        }
        else
            mitk::IOUtil::SaveImage(target, outImage);
    }
    catch (itk::ExceptionObject e)
    {
        std::cout << e;
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }
    catch (std::exception e)
    {
        std::cout << e.what();
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }
    catch (...)
    {
        std::cout << "ERROR!?!";
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}