For all the advancements I have made in my life towards happiness and away from misery, I have not discovered how to cure my own pain…until now. Deep inside I believed that my pain was permanent, lifelong and incurable, and yet I equally believed that any ailment can be cured but mine. It was a curious, bipolar reality.
As many spiritual teachers as I have read and listened to, I've never found one who I felt fully explained physical pain enough to sufficiently help me understand it. They say that physical pain is resistance; letting go and going with the flow can end pain, and fighting it and hiding from it only cause it to continue. But during a severe migraine or pinched nerve those become words and nothing more; fleeting concepts crushed beneath the weight of my experience.
My pain is severe and chronic. A major part of my life has been spent working a man's job that my female body was not able to do. To make matters worse I refused to do my job with any sort of ergonomic common sense. All my life I have fought to prove that I am every bit as capable as a man, so I did things that I should not do in order to show the world that I could. Sure, I kept up with the men I worked with and for, but after 10 years I found my body was falling apart. Now I find the smallest effort causes the greatest pain as my spine attempts to fuse itself together causing pinched nerves, migraines and other severe issues.
Earlier in my career as a cripple the pain would cause me to pass out, but over the years I have become used to it enough that I stay awake for the entire process. I am basically trapped in the prison of my body. The pain is sheer torture, often feeling as if there is an axe stuck in my neck or a knife piercing my back or eyes. No medicine will cure it, yet I over~compensate with caffeine and ibuprofen. Episodes can last all day or several days. I cannot find a comfortable position to lay in nor can I sit up. I can't sleep but can't stand being awake. I am off work and unable to do anything but lay in bed and wish I was dead. Often, that is exactly what I think to myself during the pain.
I am not the only one my ailments affect. My Other stops whatever he is doing to tend to my every need. He massages me, cooks for me, brings me medicine and holds my hair back when I throw up. He even cleans up afterwards, much to my chagrin. Often I escape by watching movies on Netflix. He will waste an entire day by my side watching movies if it takes my mind off of the pain. This causes me to feel guilt as he endures watching me suffer but is helpless to do anything about it.
Now that I have returned to school in attempts to get out of the business I am in, I find that sitting in chairs all day during classes further exacerbates my problem. I miss many days of class because of my pain and feel that I am involved in a conundrum; trapped between not being able to sit in the chairs at school but not able return to the working world full~time. Sitting at a desk at home to do homework can often lead to falling days behind. It all feels so hopeless.
The universe is not a concrete, permanent sort of place. No law is set in stone. I have cured mental ailments and physical addictions, issues that many people struggle with their entire lives, but when it comes to physical pain I am helpless.
I listen to many spiritual teachers on Youtube, any and all I can find. Often their knowledge can raise me to a state of bliss enough that I can make it through the day. My sister recently introduced me to Eckhardt Tolle, whose name I have heard for years but have never really come to know. Mr. Tolle's main message is that of what he calls Presence, to be here, now, at all moments, thoughtless and empty but for the joy of being alive. I've begun listening to him more and more. His advice really helps me extract myself from the thoughts that threaten to take my mind away from the moment.
Recently I came across a couple of his videos that stopped me in my tracks. Eckhardt actually explains how to get rid of pain, though I've not been sure that I could do what he was asking. Basically, he describes pain like an entity that feeds off the negative emotions which arise from the experience of its pain. He says that pain doesn't want you to pay attention to it, it wants you to hide from it so that it can pretend to be you and convince you that you are it. His suggestion is to put all your attention on the pain just as you would put all your attention on your breath during meditation, "watching" it to separate yourself from it.
In all honesty, the thought terrified me. My whole life has been spent escaping pain. To think of turning and facing it was cause for hesitation. Thinking back I remembered a couple of recent instances when I had actually done this technique without even realizing it and recalled that it had actually worked on minor pain. I decided to give it a try. At this point in my life I would do anything if it means curing the one thing that is holding me back from my dreams.
I started Eckhardt's pain practice at work. One day I was up and down ladders all day and my "bad hip" began to ache. I focused directly at the pain, "watching it", as Mr. Tolle had prescribed. Instantly it lessened by half. Any time I would take my mind off of it, it would flare and intensify. I would return my focus back to it and it would lessen. Over and over, all day long I kept the pain from getting worse, and it didn't even hurt that next morning when I woke up as it had so often.
My daughter works with me but has taken on a second job, which means that I'm doing everything myself three days a week. I didn't even realize that I had convinced myself that I could not physically do the things she had done, which she had taken on co~dependently to attempt to save me from pain. With this new technique I find that anytime I begin to hurt, no matter what the reason or the history or the seemingly~inevitable circumstances, I have successfully turned the pain away. Yet, until yesterday I had only ever practiced this on small doses of pain. I'd been wondering when the next big incident would occur when I could practice this technique on something serious.
I was sitting at my desk doing math and noticed the pain coming on. I watched it, as I have become accustomed to doing. The practice took a lot less time to master than I had imagined. I knew my neighbor might call and ask me to come visit and I was dreading it. Pain makes me want to be alone, but I hadn't seen him in awhile and it was time. He called and I went to visit.
When I got there he was looking at pictures of his last vacation on the computer. More sitting, just what I didn't need. I stood for awhile, sat and stood again, watching the pain as I looked at the pictures, but his conversation diverted my mind from my task and it advanced. Eventually it got to the point where I realized it was going to be a "big one", a migraine that involved nausea and several days of suffering. I excused myself and went home.
My first thought was to turn on Netflix but I chose not to. I went up to bed and lay down. The pain was hitting hard: in my eyes, my neck, my left shoulder in particular. I was watching it but was intimidated by doing so. It was big, really big, looming and threatening to advance. In my mind I was looking for somewhere small to hide.
I realized that there was, in fact, a place inside me that didn't hurt. It was in my core, the smallest part of me. I began to visualize myself in layers, like an onion, and the outside layers all hurt, but there was one layer in the furthest depths that didn't. Keeping my eye on the pain I went there, lived there. The one single small little space that the pain couldn't touch. The tiny glowing dot in the center of this image describes it well.
I think I expected that the pain would just go away, but it didn't. After a while of holding it back I realized that it was only going to go away so much. I gave up for a moment, deciding that I didn't want to be face to face with the amount of pain that was left. But giving up caused it to take control of me so I quickly returned to watching it. The more I lived in the painless space the more relaxed my body became. It took a concentrated effort not to brace myself against it. After staying in this state for awhile I got up to use the bathroom and my neck popped several times loudly. My muscles had relaxed enough to let go of the tension.
It began to imagine myself laying in front of a huge panel of glass. The pain was behind the glass. I could see it and experience it but it wasn't me and didn't control me. It did feel like an entity. I could see its tentacles through the glass, its many~layered little anemone fingers and teeth, very similar to the background behind the figure on the first image on this page. It was many~coloured and hideous but I made sure not to make what I was doing into despising it. It had no power, it merely wanted to live. Pain, as the ego, began as a servant but got out of control, was allowed too much power. To honour its purpose is to set it free. Helpless and unable to reach me it flopped its tentacles and gnashed its teeth.
Thoughts would come and go, my mind telling me about the pain and how bad it hurt and this and that, causing the pain to advance. I would drop the thought and return to watching it. Eventually I realized that thoughts were pain as well. I placed them behind the glass with it, where they belonged. I got really sleepy and began to drift off.
My Other came in with a Starbucks' Energy Mocha, which sometimes helps depending on the type of pain, but I told him to put it in the refrigerator. I slipped off to sleep and didn't wake up til morning.
The next day I had little residual aches and pains from it, some that I had to watch all day. Still, they were nothing compared to what I should have been experiencing, what I would have experienced every single other time I got that kind of migraine. I was not able to sit at my desk and do math, but the key here is that I was not suffering.
It works! It really works. It's the only thing that has ever worked. In the video, Eckie (as I like to call him, precious little man that he is) says that with regular practice we can become completely pain~free. Knowing how much better the pain is while watching it and holding it back, I never want to go back to allowing it to take me. I can choose to refuse to feed it.
We cannot reject the pain, we cannot fight it. This, too, is resistance. The secret is simply to watch it. Observe it. Stop identifying with it. It is not you. As the video says, observe how you want to talk about it, how you take a strange pleasure in it. When I first heard that I laughed out loud because I've never taken a pleasure in it….or have I? Pain serves a purpose, and no matter how much you think you hate it and how much you think you are ready to get rid of it, it is serving you somehow. I believe that my pain stems from not being valued as a child. My mother hated me the most because I was most like her and she hated herself. But when I was sick she took excellent care of me. Being sick was the only time I ever received affection from her.
I used to think that it was necessary to get to the root of the trauma in order to heal. Though it would be beneficial to discover what pain means to us and how we are using it for our own purpose, we don't have to know the "why's and how's" to overcome obstacles. I cannot remember the first 13 years of my life and I may never. I had to move on. I couldn't wait to remember to heal. It used to really bother me, but now it's okay.
Without further pause let me share with you the video that is changing my life! I would never have believed it had I not witnessed it in action. It's scary, and it's not comfortable by any means…not yet. It's better than what I had before, and I can see light at the end of the tunnel for the first time in my life. No ailment is forever, no symptom set in stone.
Yesterday I woke up at 5 am very ill. It was the second time I tried the new gluten~free Cheerios, with the same result as before. I am allergic to gluten. It gives me terrible migraines with nonstop nausea and vomiting and severe muscle pain. I called in sick and prepared for the task at hand.
Instantly I once again found that place I had discovered before, the "core essence" of myself that was not in pain. I went and "lived there", holding myself inside the painless space. I was not as successful at holding the pain in front of me behind a glass wall, as I did previously. The pain was a crescent~shape, from my temples around the back of my head to my neck. I was able to hold it outside, as opposed to being completely inundated with it both mentally and physically as usual.
I was not able to hold the nausea back as I had before, and had to run to the bathroom several times, but the experience itself was not as unpleasant. With gluten sickness, the severe pain in my head and neck cause me to almost black out with the pressure that throwing up creates in my head. Because I was able to hold the pain back there was no pressure; the act of release was just that, a release of what my body perceived to be poison in my stomach.
Because of my nausea I could not hold down medicine, but neither was I searching for a chemical cure. I felt fully confident that I could handle the pain on my own. As previously mentioned, I watched Netflix movies that day, but it was not to hide from the pain, rather to entertain myself. In fact, I found that watching movies, which diverted my mind from the pain, actually made it hurt worse, so eventually I stopped watching and lay back to focus solely on the pain.
As previously experienced, I focused on the pain long enough that my muscles relaxed and I was able to go to sleep. My Other came home between his shifts and we slept for a time. When I awoke I found the pain to have increased and the nausea had returned. I focused on the pain, making my eyes a kind of watchdog keeping the pain between a fence and I.
Not one time that day did I suffer. It did hurt, and it was annoying, and I wished that I wasn't missing work, but I accepted what was and focused solely on minimizing the pain as much as possible.
Whatever this sounds like to you, however successful or not, I cannot describe the joy of no longer being terrified to be in pain. To know that I have control over it is literally like being released from a prison cell. I find myself tearing up thinking about it. Pain is done controlling me. It is my turn to control it.
In my past negativity I noticed that every time I had back pain, the next day at work would offer up some task that proves to be the very thing I should not be doing with my back in such a delicate state. Today was no different, but how I perceived it was. I was not afraid to do the task at hand; if it caused me to hurt further I would face the pain head~on. I observed myself several times attempting to feel sorry for myself as I would have in the past, but that just doesn't fly with me anymore. I no longer require sympathy from myself or others. I am strong.
Over these past days many curious and unforeseen results have been noted, the most curious being a strange lack of the usual heartburn I almost always suffer from. In this new ultra~awareness of my body and its functions, I continually return to realizations of how my thoughts revert back to the victim mentality at work and at home. I tell myself there are things that I cannot accomplish because of "what it does to me", when, in fact, I am no longer seeing evidence of previous effects anywhere.
For instance, today I sat in the chair doing math and writing a new post for seven full hours without any of the crippling pain that generally occurs. When I stood after a few hours to walk to the bathroom, an action that would generally involve hobbling, I found myself walking normally. Still, I continue to tell myself that I'd better stand up and move around, as if my mind is working on autopilot based on previous programming. I reaffirm my new abilities to myself with a joy and ease I have not felt since childhood.
Everything is changing. I cannot stress enough how profound a change this is in me. Previously, as I may have mentioned, I was questioning whether or not I could make it through school. Going for a PhD will require at least five more years from me, if not eight, and this means long hours and huge chunks of every year sitting in the tiny, wooden chairs at school and behind my desk at home. Every time I feel even the slightest pain anywhere on my body I immediately begin "watching" it, which has become a fluid, almost involuntary process that I can now do while doing other things. Generally I don't even need to focus on the pain for long before it disappears.
My lack of pain causes me to be better to myself as well. I've noticed an inexplicable lack of desire for things that are bad for me. Caffeine in particular is removed from my diet, as well as halving the dose of ibuprofen I take in the mornings to prepare for work. I have asked my Other to stop buying the Starbucks mocha energy drinks that I kept around in case of migraine emergencies. Certain foods that I previously would play with fire by eating, such as breaded chicken and Chinese foods, are curiously absent from the insatiable cravings that I have always felt, which are dropping off quite rapidly as well. It seems easier to deny myself things that are not best for my health, such as the occasional clove cigar I have smoked in the past.
I believe these effects are largely due to feeling in control of my life. I am holding the reins now, not the pain. I choose if I want to hurt or not, and I can't imagine falling out of practice and returning to the debilitating pain I was experiencing before. The whole world is open to me now, there's nothing I can't accomplish!
I'm not sure what I did that caused this particular pinched nerve, but my back has been locked up and a piercing pain shoots up from behind my shoulder blade, through my neck and into my eye. This is the worst pain I've experienced since discovering this technique, and it's been very difficult to focus on.
The first night it occurred, I felt it coming on while watching a movie. I had been sitting for seven hours behind my desk doing math. The previous several days, I've been able to sit at the desk for long hours with no effects to my body whatsoever, which I've been very excited about. I think this time was different because I'd been thoughtlessly drinking tea all day, and without water my muscles are prone to lock up and get sore. By the time I went to bed I could feel the tell~tale symptoms of a serious pinched nerve/migraine combo coming on, so I prepared myself for a night of focus and concentration.
At this point in my practice of this technique, any little pain has me instantly focusing on it, because I now recognise that it is the only way to make it better. Every time the pain woke me up I would focus on it until it would lessen enough that I could go back to sleep. I woke up many times that night, and didn't sleep well because of that, but when I did sleep it was deeply, so I got just enough to be able to function. When I woke up I took a hot shower and was ready for work. I did take two ibuprofen, which I had not been taking for days previously. The pain was minimal. I affirmed to myself that I would stay on top of it during the day.
My job is very physical, requiring me to go up and down ladders and all sorts of bodily movements that require quite a lot from my arms. That day, focusing on my work as was required meant not focusing fully on the pain. During lunch I had to go to the store and get some caffeine, in hopes that it would help just enough that I could keep the pain at bay. I lay down for about 20 minutes (my boss allows us to sleep during lunch) and focused on the pain. By the time I got up it was all gone.
My daughter was working with me that day, and she was more than happy to do the hardest tasks to make it as easy on me as she could, but the pain began to return after lunch. I was able to hold it at bay long enough to finish the day out, a huge accomplishment considering that this type of pinched nerve generally has me off work, at home and suffering with no relief.
By the time I got off work I could no longer see out of my right eye. I had to drive home. I got behind the wheel and sat there focusing on the pain in my eye until it receded enough for me to drive. This, too, is a great accomplishment, because previously if I wasn't able to drive either someone would have to come and get me, follow me home or I would just drive dangerously and erratically and hope for the best. I got home and lay in bed, focusing on the pain until it got much better.
During the night, however, the pain came back worse than before. A piercing pain was shooting into my eye with the beating of my heart. Sometimes it was so intense that I had to sit up, and soon realized that when I sat up it lessened. I slept sitting up that night, which isn't much sleep at all, and focused on the pain as best I could between sleeping and waking.
The difference between this and other nights like it is that I never once succumbed to the pain. Previously I would have been in tears, sobbing in the bed, overwhelmed with worry that I couldn't work the next day, pitying myself because I couldn't sleep and upset because my tears often woke my Other, who would also get no sleep that night. None of this occurred. I didn't associate myself with the pain. It never took control of my emotions. I am done with that phase of my life; all the lies I tell myself about my pain, the associations I make with it, the sympathy I require from others.
Though exhausted the next morning I got up and took a hot shower. Again I took two ibuprofen, and had a cup of coffee for lunch, but again I was able to work all day when, before, I would have been home a second day.
It's so liberating to be in control of the pain, to know that I don't have to suffer. We WILL experience pain, it's part of being human. But I don't fear it anymore. It doesn't control me anymore. When it happens I don't immediately become upset or feel sorry for myself or feel hopeless, I hunker down for the long~haul, as they say, and prepare to do some hard work. This morning my neck is a bit achy but I got more sleep than last night. I know I can handle it from here without ibuprofen or caffeine. I've taken my life back and it feels amazing!
The sixteenth of this month will be the two~month mark of writing this post. So much about me has changed since January. I have re~evaluated my emotions and my needs. I have rooted out the belief that my pain is permanent, as well as the reasons for wanting it around.
At work I do everything I shied away from before with zero negative results. My boss has noticed, though I do not feel I can share my cure with him. In all honesty, I have told him that I am going to the chiropractor more often. Honesty is always the desired path to take, but I find this process difficult to describe in a way that doesn't sound like hocus pocus to those who see reality as a set~in~stone kind of existence. He, himself, uses pain to gain sympathy due to an abusive wife that does not allow him to express emotion. Perhaps, sometime in the future, I will feel like sharing this with him, but for now it doesn't feel like the time.
I am working at twice the speed I have worked in years. Every task I take on is no longer approached with the "What if this hurts me?" state of mind I held before. I know that if something does make me hurt I can get rid of the pain myself. This change in state has expanded into every aspect of my life. I'm less judgmental of myself because I accept whatever outcome my actions create. I am more accepting of others because I have discovered many unconscious reasons for my actions and now can see the unconscious actions of others.
This past week marked an end to almost constant pain that lasted from the "Three~Day Pain" reply. I began wondering why I had found myself in such a state and how to justify this process when I was in more constant pain than ever. This week I look back and see that, again, Eckie had it right. He said that the "pain body", the entity~like energy of the pain, doesn't want you to cure yourself of it, and so it may intensify for a time after you have stopped associating with it in attempts to redefine itself in you. I kept watching it, always, and was able to go about my daily business as usual despite it.
The acknowledgement that my life is not, in fact over, that I don't have to be a cripple, that I don't have to suffer all the way through college, is profoundly satisfying. I am a changed woman. It's interesting how people react to me now. You'd think that people would be amazed and moved by the change in me but life seems to go on as normal. That's the indicator that it wasn't meant to be, the pain. The only person that really understood my suffering was me. No one else misses it. To them I just seem normal now.
The other day me and my daughter moved a queen~sized bed together. She didn't even beg me not to as usual. It's like the memory of the cripple I was is just fading away in people's minds. My daughter, herself, is where I was six months ago; almost daily pain that she's convinced is who she is and what she must endure. Even seeing me doing my job with the fervor of someone years younger than I am has not convinced her that this process works. It is still important for her to be the victim, to gain sympathy for herself. She was not abused like I was, but it seems that watching me gain sympathy for my own pain all these years has taught her that pain is how to gain sympathy.
That's okay. That's her walk. I can only hope to show her and others through my increasing vitality that there is a way out should anyone ever desire to let go of what pain gets them. Freedom waits for us to want it.
One more step towards Forever. I am so honoured to be making this journey.
I watched an Eckhardt Tolle video shot at the Omega Institute, from the era of America's fallen Twin Towers, 2011. Eckie explains that the pain we suffer is old, from generations before us, found in the DNA. This is why it takes so long to rid ourselves of it completely. Each time we accept pain as the present moment and allow it to be just as it is we are dissolving years and years worth of residual pain passed down from all those that came before us. As a human being, this ingrained suffering is recombinant from our entire species.
Eckie discusses the oneness of all souls on Earth. He says that one person dissolving their pain in this way is, in fact, dissolving the totale of residual human pain; that we are not just curing ourselves but lessening the pain for everyone. In the same way that a terrorist killing thousands of people sends a shockwave of suffering across the globe, dissolving pain has such an effect for all of us as well.


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Legacy Multimedia
Tributes & Video Biographies
Sharing Life Stories, Connecting Generations, Preserving Legacies
About Legacy Multimedia
An American Mirror
My Geneology Work
Video Biographies
An Ethical Will
Memorial Tribute for Dan Duncan
A few weeks ago one of my clients, Dan Duncan, a well known businessman and philanthropist, passed away. His passing was unexpected and we were just days away from shooting new footage for a another tribute video on the Duncans. Both Dan and his wife Jan were chosen as the 2010 Tapestry Award recipients by Interfaith Ministries, a local non-profit whose mission is for all faiths to work together to create a more compassionate society.
Right after Dan passed away, Jan asked me if we could create a tribute to be shown at his memorial service, a week away. We had worked very closely with the Duncans previously, and while I'm usually not eager to work on memorial videos because of the short turn around time, I agreed because of my fondness for the Duncans and how much I enjoy working with them.
We ended up using a pretty good size piece of a previous video that focused on Dan's personal history and expanded on that, adding in details about his work accomplishments, family, travel and hobbies. Fortunately we had quite a bit of previously unused footage we shot at the end of 2008 that we were able to utilize in the memorial. At one point, Jan and I were sitting together going over all the footage we'd shot of Dan talking about his life and she turned to me and said, "we are so lucky we have all this!" I couldn't have agreed more.
I spend all the time that I'm not creating videos about my clients, writing and speaking about how important it is to capture the stories of those close to you while they are with you. Not a day goes by where I'm not talking with someone that says, "I wish I had met you last year, before my (close relative) died." It saddens me to hear these stories because I understand that once they are gone, there's no way of going back to capture video. We've done several posthumous pieces with photos and text but it's not the same as hearing the stories directly in a video that communicates that person's experiences and wisdom along with the ability to hear their voice and see their smile. Video is so powerful because of this.
After a week of coordinating the collection of new materials from several sources, the writing of a new script, recording new voiceover, and editing a brand new video, the piece was completely finished about 12 hours before the service. Jan and I did a final proof at 3AM and we hand-delivered it to Second Baptist Church at 9AM.
If you've never been to Second Baptist, it has a beautiful sanctuary with three huge video screens that come down out of the ceiling. I normally like to scan the audience while they are watching my videos to see their reaction but I was mesmerized watching the three video screens. I had never seen one of our videos played on such a large screen, let alone three!
As I left the church, watching people in the atrium meet and talk about the service and the video, I was struck at the impact of what I was experiencing. The people in attendance, if they didn't already know Dan, went away knowing who he was. As Jan told me later, we had captured the true spirit of Dan's generous and kind heart, and I believe that too. We had created something that will continue to speak for Dan long into the future, well after all his current living relatives are gone. The future will know him as he wanted to be known, for the compassionate and generous man he was.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
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Stefani Twyford is a video biographer in Houston Texas whose mission is to help families, individuals, companies and organizations chronicle history, share life stories, connect generations and preserve their legacies in timeless, high-quality multimedia presentations.
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"The stories that we tell ourselves function to order our world, serving both a foundation upon which each of us constructs our sense of reality and filter through which we process each event that confronts us every day. The values that we cherish and wish to preserve, the behavior that we wish to censure, the tears and dread that we can barely confess in ordinary language, the aspirations and goals that we most dearly prize--all of these things are encoded in the stories that each culture invents and preserves for the next generation, stories that, in effect, we live by and through."
Literary Critic, Scholar, Writer and Teacher
Chair: African American Studies at Harvard University
"In truth a family is what you make it. It is made strong, not by number of heads counted at the dinner table, but by the rituals you help family members create, by the memories you share, by the commitment of time, caring, and love you show to one another, and by the hopes for the future you have as individuals and as a unit."
The Single-Parent Family: Living Happily in a Changing World by Marge Kennedy and Janet Spencer King. New York: Crown, 1994
"By looking into another person's life, you need to look into your own. Whether you are the biographer or whether you are the reader. It's like truth is stranger than fiction. When I am reading a biography, there is something more rewarding about reading about a real person's life, rather than fiction."
On Writing Biographies: Kevin Fitzpatrick interviews Marion Meade about Buster, Woody, Zelda, and Mrs. Parker for Small Spiral Notebook
"The art of interviewing is as personal as the art of writing. Every reporter brings a different demeanor and skill to the job of interviewing ... But all interviews are designed to accomplish one mission: Get information to advance a story. This is best achieved with organization and preparation, whether it's a five-minute phone interview or a two-hour confrontational affair."
Les Zaitz, Senior Investigative Reporter for The Oregonian from his tip sheet on interviewing
"The secret of biography resides in finding the link between talent and achievement. A biography seems irrelevant if it doesn't discover the overlap between what the individual did and the life that made this possible. Without discovering that, you have shapeless happenings and gossip."
Leon Edel, U.S. biographer, critic. Interview in Writers at Work, Eighth Series
"Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter so the world will at least be a little bit different for our having passed through it."
Rabbi Harold Kushner
"The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it."
"All the natural history required to understand consciousness is now readily available in evolutionary biology and psychology. Gene networks organize themselves to produce complex organisms whose brains permit behavior; further evolution enriches the complexity of those brains so that they can create sensory and motor maps that represent the environments they interact with; additional evolutionary complexity allows parts of the brain to talk to each other (figuratively speaking) and generate maps of the organism interacting with its environment. Within the frame of those interactions, the conversation among the maps spontaneously and continuously tells the "story" of our organism responding to and being modified by the environment. (The story is first told without words and is later translated into language when language becomes available, both in biological evolution and in every one of us.)"
A Story We Tell Ourselves
Time Magazine 1/18/2007
"In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage - to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness."
Alex Haley, Roots
"We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium."
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously."
Dickens, David Copperfeild,
p. 2 1850 edition
the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver - The Summer Day
"Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment."
"When a parent dies, it's the end. I always wanted to chronicle the family history with my mother. She was always interested in that. I wanted some researchers I'd worked with to talk to my mother, but my mother was a little antsy about it. I know she would've gotten into it. It would have been okay with my father, too. But I wasn't forceful, and I didn't make it happen. That's one regret I have. I didn't get as much of the family history as I could have for the kids. "
Robert de Niro, quoted in Esquire
Asleep At The Family History Blog Wheel
The Salt Of The Earth – about Sebastião Salgado
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Oak Hammock Marsh… a place where everyone (and their mother) went on school field trips and had the time of their life! We made a trip back in time to our childhood days and gained a whole new perspective of the Marsh (literally)!
Our day started by meeting our guide, Jacques! Little did we know that we were going to have the best time in the entire world with Jacques. He started by taking us to the Bird in the Hand experience. He gave us each a bird to release back into the wilderness after they had been banded. Although the birds weighed about the same as a loonie, we were incredibly intimidated by them. Jacques showed us how its done and we were immediately put at ease.
Next up on the rooster was the much-awaited Marsh walk. We strapped on our waders and got knee deep into the marsh! Jacques showed us all the life that calls the marsh home, from small bugs to larger organisms. He even showed us how we can eat cat tails roots!
We finished the day with a relaxing canoe ride around the marsh. It was the perfect way to end an amazing day!


Loyalty [loi-uh l-tee] The state or quality of being loyal; faithfulness to commitments or obligations. Faithful adherence to a sovereign, government, leader, o…r cause.
I know many who could be the face of this definition; the epitome of what it means to be loyal. I have revered these men and women, called them brother and sister, and in some cases, fought with them to pull lifeless souls back from the grasp of death itself. So, when I see their spark of enthusiasm and loyalty smothered by a leadership structure that seems to place more value in numbers and equipment than the irreplaceable intangibles that these people bring to the job every day, it's heartbreaking beyond words… or art.
So much is lost when loyal people finally reach the cliff of "I don't give a damn!"- and take the leap. I read Peter Drucker's quote a few years ago, and it struck me as a dark omen of things to come – a black cloud on the horizon that may or may not develop into a storm. After all, how dangerous does distant thunder sound? But when that storm finally arrives, it's relentless, unforgiving, and devastating. In the aftermath, you're left searching through the debris of what once was and wonder why you didn't prepare for its coming, or at the very least, act to minimize the damage. In the framework of this metaphor, that's where good leadership must step up and either change course or fortify the infrastructure before the storm arrives. To predict the storm – to care that the storm will be disastrous. To not be apathetic!
How many of you see the clouds on your horizon; hear the distant thunder and see flashes of lighting? Are you ignoring the hurricane flags that are beginning to snap in the increasingly strong winds, or are you preparing to weather the storm? I guess it all comes down to the type of leadership you have, or the type of leader you are. Are you catabolic or anabolic?
Catabolic leaders take advantage of the people around them. A catabolic leader only considers what others can do for them, where firefighters are like pawns on a chess board that the leader controls, and neither their loyalty, experience, values nor intangibles are considered. The catabolic leader rarely, if ever, gives credit to anyone else, since they believe that when firefighters work for them, they own them and all their accomplishments. Typically domineering and condescending, the catabolic leader puts themselves first, always having to be right and feel superior. And so, it shouldn't be surprising that most catabolic leaders are met with exactly what they have created: once loyal people that now don't give a damn!
Anabolic leaders, however, utilize instead of use the people around them. An anabolic leader, having the belief that all firefighters have something to offer, seek ways to incorporate individual talents and department needs. Anabolic leaders help team members find their gifts, and utilize those gifts to best serve the organization, as well as the team members themselves. They recognize the knowledge and skills of those around them, and they act in ways that make others want ownership. Loyalty is respected, encouraged, nurtured, and thus received.
Anabolic leaders use life-skills such as listening, acknowledging, validating, and championing to create relationships and make each of their team members a leader in his or her own right. And so, accordingly, anabolic leaders find solutions in those people around them.
If leaders saw the people in their departments or crews truly as irreplaceable resources, what a different place and focus that department would have. Think about how you and your organization treat the most valuable resource, your people. Are they problems needing help and solutions, or true resources to be nurtured, motivated, and empowered?
Loyalty cannot be replaced on a whim or by simply replacing a pawn on the chess board. Loyal people are to be rewarded with loyalty in return!
STAY FIRED UP, and treat your people right! Never push loyal people to the point that they don't give a damn!
HROC 2017 will be the Biggest ever.
HROC 2017 will be SOLD OUT the FASTEST EVER!
We got more IT's Worth The Risk stickers.


text:
Watch Live: President Biden discusses administration's COVID-19 response 18 MIN Breaking News: LIVE: Gov. Sununu holds briefing about NH's COVID-19 response 4 MIN Breaking News: Live on News 9 at 5:30: Dr. Chan answers your COVID-19 questions Breaking News: LIVE: Executive Council holds hearing about MacDonald's nomination to be chief justice Breaking News: COVID-19 in New Hampshire: Key data, maps and graphs Breaking News: Sign up for our Coronavirus & Rossen Reports Newsletters Closings There are currently 2 active closings or delays <% if ( weatherAlerts > 0 ) { %> Severe Weather <% var weatherAlertsMessage = "There " + ( weatherAlerts > 1 ? "are" : "is" ) + " currently " + weatherAlerts + " active weather " + ( weatherAlerts > 1 ? "alerts" : "alert" ); %>
Crews work to remove snow after major storm
Landscapers say they've been working long hours for clients
Kristen Carosa
KRISTEN: WE ARE AT A LOCAL BUSINESS IN MANCHESTER, WHERE A CREW HAS BEEN WORKING REALLY HARD TO PUSH BACK THE SNOW PILES THAT HAVE SPILLED INTO THE PARKING LOT, WHICH CROWDS THE SPACE AND CAN MAKE IT UNSAFE FOR PEDESTRIANS. THIS IS ONE OF THE JOBS FOR ROY BELL, WHO HAS BEEN WORKING AROUND-THE-CLOCK SINCE THE STORM STARTED. HE SAID IN MOST CASES, HE WORKS IT INTO A SAFE LOCATION BUT SOMETIMES IT IS REMOVED ENTIRELY. HE HOPES TAKE -- HE HELPS TAKE CARE OF NEARLY 100 PROPERTIES IN ALL OF THEM NEEDED HELP THIS WEEK. >> THEY WANT IT DONE BEFORE THE LAST PERSON, SO THEIR FAIR, -- SO THEREFORE, YOU HAVE TO TRY TO SEE WHAT YOU CAN GET DONE. WE HAVE THEM GOING NONSTOP. SINCE SUNDAY AT 3:00 P.M., A LOT OF OUR GUYS ARE ABOUT 65 HOURS RIGHT NOW, 70 HOURS, SO IT HAS BEEN A TOUGH ONE. KRISTE BELL TELLS US HE GOT THROUGH WITH THE MAPS AND A LOT OF COFFEE. HE HOPES TO WRAP UP BY THE END OF THE DAY TODAY.
Communities across New Hampshire are continuing to clean up after as much as 3 feet of snow fell across much of the state this week.>> Download the FREE WMUR app Crews were working Thursday to push back snow piles or truck the snow away. At a Manchester nursing home, Roy Bell, of Accurate Landscape, was clearing snow from the parking lot and away from sidewalks.Bell said that in most cases, he relocates the snow to a safe location on the property, but it's sometimes removed entirely. He said he takes care of about 100 properties and all needed help this week."They want it done before the last person, so therefore, you have to try to see what you can get done," he said. "We have five loaders that are going nonstop for days after the storm."Bell said he and his crews have been working constantly since the storm."Since Sunday at 3 p.m.," he said. "A lot of our guys have worked 65 to 70 hours, so yes, it has been a tough one."Bell said he's making it through with some naps and lots of coffee. He said he hopes to be done with snow removal for his clients by the end of the day.
MANCHESTER, N.H. —
Communities across New Hampshire are continuing to clean up after as much as 3 feet of snow fell across much of the state this week.
>> Download the FREE WMUR app
Crews were working Thursday to push back snow piles or truck the snow away. At a Manchester nursing home, Roy Bell, of Accurate Landscape, was clearing snow from the parking lot and away from sidewalks.
Bell said that in most cases, he relocates the snow to a safe location on the property, but it's sometimes removed entirely.
He said he takes care of about 100 properties and all needed help this week.
"They want it done before the last person, so therefore, you have to try to see what you can get done," he said. "We have five loaders that are going nonstop for days after the storm."
Bell said he and his crews have been working constantly since the storm.
"Since Sunday at 3 p.m.," he said. "A lot of our guys have worked 65 to 70 hours, so yes, it has been a tough one."
Bell said he's making it through with some naps and lots of coffee. He said he hopes to be done with snow removal for his clients by the end of the day.


While out gardening one day Lion comes across an injured bird and so takes it home and nurses it back to health. Lion and Bird are completely different but their friendship blossoms and they do everything together. They spend time sharing stories and enjoying time outdoors but soon bird has to return to his flock. Throughout the story we move through the seasons exploring the heights of friendship and the pangs of loneliness.
It is a sparsely written book allowing the illustrations to do the talking. It allows us to see the characters and feel the depths of their friendship. By the same token it also lets us see Lion at his most vulnerable and loneliest of times. This is an honest and very special beautifully packaged hardback picture book.
This is not just for young children but a reminder to us all of how special friendships are and how much loyalty matters. This gentle story pulls at the heart strings but friendship and loyalty are strong bonds that wont be broken.
Teacher notes to help make the most of this very special book can be found here.
One of my all time favourite books is The one and only Ivan by Katherine Applegate and I am so excited she has a new book coming soon. Katherine's writing is always absolute quality and so deserving of her awards, particularly the Newberry Medal. I am so looking forward to Crenshaw.
Based on the blurb and reviews I just know that this book will move me just as Ivan did. Cannot wait for it to hit New Zealand shores.
"Jackson and his family have fallen on hard times. There's no more money for rent. And not much for food, either. His parents, his little sister, and their dog may have to live in their minivan. Again.
In the previous post you can see my review of the new YA novel Hucking Cody which I thoroughly enjoyed so I am delighted to have the author Aaron Topp as a guest on my blog today.
I asked just a few questions so we can get to know the author a little better. Enjoy!
The novel carries a sense of authority on the subject of biking. How much research did you do or does it come from your own experiences?
I subscribe to the rule of 'write what you know' so I guess I've been 'researching' the book for the last 35 years! I received my first BMX when I was 6 and have never stopped riding a bike on dirt since. Even now at 40 years old I reckon I'm still getting faster (although my 12 year old son disagrees!) I love the whole experience of riding a bike down challenging terrain, so much like Robert Frost once said 'no tears in the author, no tears in the reader', when you're passionate about something as a writer, that passion translates pretty easy to the page.
Betrayal is a strong theme throughout your novel. Was this something you planned at the start or was it something that just evolved with your characters?
I wanted to explore the themes of unconditional love (most often) found between brothers, and even amongst best mates. I liked the universal idea of the older brother, Zane, pioneering new ground at the expense of the younger brother, Cody, because it produced this interesting juxtaposition of 'awe versus contempt' within him. Does Cody accept the huckster tag his brother gave him, or has Cody got it within himself to overcome it without losing a brother along the way? What about when a mate's involved? And the new girl Cody seems to have a special connection with – is that the same or just a reality of life? This is the journey I wanted to take the reader on.
Were you keen on writing as a teenager?
What is the strangest job you have ever had?
I think this novel will appeal to both male and female readers and not just those into mountain biking. Did you have a reader in mind when you wrote this?
While I'm stoked when any teen reads my books, just like my first book, Single Fin, I wanted to write a book that teenage males would want to read, about something they were doing in their own spare time anyway. That's always been an objective of mine. Reading is still so important for a young man's development, but the competition for a teenager's attention is far greater than it ever has been. And from their feedback, I knew they didn't always want another book about vampires, boy wizards or any of the multitude of dystopian books taking up shelf space. Real life fiction is relevant, always will be to them, although finding the right vessel of interest to carry the story is still important. What better way to do it than on a bike!
How long did it take you to write – from idea to publication?
I take small bites of writing due to having a day job and a young family. Having a routine is great for this and mine is a strong coffee at 7:30pm and then write at least 500 words before 10:30pm. Not exactly rock and roll, but it works for me. Over a few years Hucking Cody saw the light of day in various different forms before it finally settled on what Barbara Else calls 'a very handsome production'.
And for all those keen writers out there, what advice would you give.
Read, find a routine, write when inspired, and above all else, follow your bliss.
Cody's life is good – well it is if he is on his bike, otherwise life just keeps throwing him curve balls. Tormented regularly by a group of rugby bullies Cody finds solace on his mountain bike. It gives him the freedom to soar, to defy gravity and be at one with the world.
Right from the start we are on Cody's side and as the action builds so too does our connection to Cody. He is a likable teen with good ethics which are tested as the novel moves along. He admires his older brother Zane for his bike skills and ability to outshine everyone else on the trails but at the same time he struggles with his brother's off-the-rails antics which pull the family apart. The writing flows effortlessly making it very easy to be drawn in to Cody's world of mountain biking.
"It's about having the ability to fly. The sensation of it, you know, defying gravity by hitting something with speed.
It's then about mixing it up, having a good time while you're up there. Going faster and higher than before, or than other riders".
This is a quality novel for teens based in the real world where brothers sometimes mess up. While many will enjoy this novel for its insight into mountain biking, others will enjoy it for it's realistic characters and story of betrayal. I am not the sporty type at all, in fact my idea of sports is turning the pages of a good novel and these pages I turned easily, thoroughly enjoying the story and getting to know Cody and keeping my fingers crossed as he met each new challenge.
I especially like the glossary at the back of the book which explains some of the terminology of the sport.
This is so exciting. I am a huge fan of the works of author and illustrator Chris Riddell. His illustrations are simply superb. Whether as black line drawings or full colour he has a way of making his characters come to life. The faces are so expressive and you can read all sorts of emotions in his pictures. His illustrations quite frankly are to be admired and appreciated for what they are and that is works of art!
I love the humour in his first two Goth Girl books and can't wait to add this new book to my collection. I have already pre-ordered it so hopefully it will be here any day now. It is a bit like waiting for Christmas and even a week seems so far off when waiting for this newest addition to arrive. The Goth Girl books are not only beautifully illustrated and written but beautifully packaged. Gilt edges, hardback and contain a pocket at the back of the book holding a tiny lift out book. So much thought has gone it to these books it is no wonder they are in demand. There are in the previous books, lots of tongue-in-cheek references to British literature of old and I am sure this will offer the same wonderful quirky sense of humour. Sometimes just holding a new book is enough but diving in to this one will be nothing but joy!
People are flocking to Ghastly-Gorm Hall from far and wide to compete in Lord Goth's Literary Dog Show. The esteemed judges are in place and the contestants are all ready to win. Sir Walter Splott is preparing his Lanarkshire Lurcher, Plain Austen is preening her Hampshire Hound and Homily Dickinson and her Yankee Poodle are raring to go. But there's something strange going on at Ghastly-Gorm – mysterious footprints, howls in the night and some suspiciously chewed shoes. Can Ada, the Attic Club and their new friends the Vicarage sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne) work out what's going on before the next full moon?
I loved his Ottoline series too which is well worth looking out for.
Chris Riddell is the very deserving current Children's Laureate UK and you can read so much more about him here.
Can't wait! Magnus Chase and the gods of Asgard : The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan @camphalfblood : Norse mythology coming soon.
I am seriously excited about this one. I love Percy Jackson and just know that I am going to love Magnus Chase too. There is room in my heart after all, for another hero.
"Magnus Chase has always been a loner, a troubled kid. Since the death of his mother, he's lived on the streets of Boston, watching out for himself and surviving by his wits.
One day, he's tracked down by an uncle he barely knows, who tells him an impossible secret: Magnus' father was a Norse god.
After centuries apart, the Nine Worlds of Viking myth are growing closer together. The Lords of Asgard stir. Forces of evil muster for Ragnarok, and Magnus may be the only person who can prevent doomsday: by finding a weapon that has been lost since the dawn of time.
Before Magnus can even process this information, a fiery attack forces him to make a fatal choice.
Yes I have borrowed the blurb because I am too excited to create my own and cannot wait for the October release.
I just love this trailer. Really love it! I have watched it and laughed out loud many times. I am writing this post at my desk in the school library and I have a bunch of children all giggling as they watch the trailer (again and again). The sound of children laughing is wonderful. This trailer tops the list for its humour, simplicity and charming penguins.
Archie has a secret. He may be the daredevil penguin but he is afraid of the water and creatures who lurk beneath. How long can he keep his secret or will he find a way to fly high over the seas and keep out of the water.
I can't wait to see this book. Very cool!


text:
Q: How to add second extra network interface on Ubuntu 18.04 VM on OpenStack I have a public interface on a Ubuntu 18.04 VM hosted by a provider that uses OpenStack. Now I want to add a second extra interface for the internal network. I'm not sure how to do that.
Using the web interface of the hosting provider I can add the internal network. After I add this I can see the network interface but no IP address is assigned. Reboot also doesn't help here.
So for example ip a shows
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: ens3: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether fa:16:3e:e7:0b:19 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet (MY PUBLIC IP)/24 brd 185.110.173.255 scope global dynamic ens3
       valid_lft 84480sec preferred_lft 84480sec
    inet6 fe80::f816:3eff:fee7:b19/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
3: ens7: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether fa:16:3e:e3:4f:3f brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

My public ip shows up but the interface I added gets no IP address.
I added the ens7 interface to /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml as follows
# This file is generated from information provided by
# the datasource.  Changes to it will not persist across an instance.
# To disable cloud-init's network configuration capabilities, write a file
# /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/99-disable-network-config.cfg with the following:
# network: {config: disabled}
network:
    version: 2
    ethernets:
        ens3:
            dhcp4: true
            match:
                macaddress: fa:16:3e:e7:0b:19
            set-name: ens3
        ens7:
            dhcp4: true
            match:
                macaddress: fa:16:3e:e3:4f:3f
            set-name: ens7

When I run netplan apply my SSH connection is immediately disconnected and I can no longer access the machime from the internet.
When I use the console and run ip a I see exactly the results I expected however. ens3 has the correct public IP and ens7 has the correct private ip.
I also have a Ubuntu 16.04 VM. Using that cloud image I was able to do this by editing /etc/network/interfaces.d/50-cloud-init.cfg and adding
auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

But now I want to do something similar on Ubuntu 18.04 VM.
Why am I unable to access the machine using SSH from the internet? IP configuration looks okay.
What is the correct way to add a VM to a second internal private network when using an Ubuntu 18.04 cloud image on OpenStack?
BTW, I am using Ubuntu cloud image bionic-server-cloudimg-amd64.img

A: I have this problem also , I manage to condigure them statistically
    ens4:
        dhcp4: false
        addresses: [10.20.7.23/24]

I think the problem is from second default GW , this need to be reported as a bug

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text:
KARSKI
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Laemmle Monica Film Center
Smith Rafael Film Center
Atlanta Jewish Film Festival
Landmark's E Street Cinema
Post screening Q&A at 7:00pm with Co-Director/Co-Writer Derek Goldman and Author Deborah Tannen, moderated by Rabbi Rachel Gartner
Jewish Film Festival
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
Post screening Q&A at 7:00pm with Clark Young, Film Co-Writer
Cedar Lee Theatre
Alexandria Film Festival
The Clairidge
2/24/23 - 3/2
14 Pews
2/26/23, 2/3/23 - 2/4/23
RiverRun International Film Festival at Marketplace Cinemas
Post-screening Q&As on 3/3 at 7:30pm with Co-Director/Co-Writer Derek Goldman, 3/4 at 7:30pm with Co-Director/Co-Writer Derek Goldman and Former Governor Patrick Quinn, 3/5 at 2:00pm with Co-Director/Co-Writer Derek Goldman and Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Chicago Dr. Pavel Zyzak, moderated by Richard Salomon (Vice President and Co-founder of Illinois Holocaust Museum).
Boca Raton Jewish Film Festival
Landmark Scottsdale Quarter Theatre
Landmark Kendall Square Cinema
Landmark's Ritz East
David Strathairn as Jan Karski
Now Playing in Select Theaters! Sign Up For Updates


text:
The 2012 My TV Awards: Honorary Award
No actor in the history of television has been a part of so many great shows as this year's My TV Honorary Award winner. We honestly believe that to be true. He's a three-time My TV Award nominee and has been churning out memorable television performances for 20 years on no fewer than 5 of our favourite shows.
In 2012, Peter Krause did his best work yet as Adam Braverman, facing Kristina's cancer diagnosis with immense compassion and human frailty. We could have given him Best Actor in a Dramedy for his trouble but we wanted to do something to acknowledge the obscenely unacknowledged body of work that proceeded this extraordinary season of Parenthood. We wanted to say a bit more and cheer a little bit more loudly for Peter Krause, and that's what The Honorary Award is for.
The actor's first standout role was in 1998 on the brilliant but short-lived Aaron Sorkin sitcom Sports Night. That show- one of our all time favourites– cast Krause as Casey McCall, the charming and intelligent anchor or a nightly cable sportscast but, as funny as the role was, it also demanded deep-seated anger, paternal guilt, severe disillusionment and the shepherding of both one of TV's most fascinating friendships and one of its most complicated romances. Casey, on the surface, introduced us to Peter Krause's self-effacing charm and deep-voiced oldschool leading man ways, but he's also one of the greatest sitcom characters ever who transcended his drama and hinted unmissably that Krause was more than just a pretty face.
His next notable part was a complete 180 from Casey in HBO's groundbreaking arty drama Six Feet Under. Here Krause had one of the hardest tasks you can give an actor coming off a character as winning as a Sorkin hero- imperfection. In Krause's hands, the infuriating, immature, self-righteous, rash, restless Nate Fisher had a rich inner life and underlying compassion strong enough to win the audience's loyalty and care, if not their unconditional affection. It was likely the most demanding role of his career and certainly the darkest as Nate explored life and love and death and disappointment in sometimes truly ugly ways.
In 2006 Krause headlined an excellent and fascinating mini-series for the Sci-Fi Channel called The Lost Room then moved on to star in the potential-filled Dirty Sexy Money in 2007. The latter was plagued with uneven writing (the worst of which hit Krause's key but underserved character Nick) but the cast shined as one of the greatest ensembles in recent years, headed by Donald Sutherland as the morally ambiguous patriarch of an outrageously wealthy and powerful Manhattan dynasty and Krause as the outsider-turned-insider who serves as the family's legal council.
The early cancellation of Dirty Sexy Money (after only two strike-shortened seasons) cut Nick George down before he evolved into the sort of character that could take full advantage of Krause's unique blend of leading man gravitas and character actor nuance. But thank god it was cancelled (even if we were fond of it, which we absolutely were) because the cancellation of Dirty Sexy Money cleared the way for Krause to join the fantastic ensemble where he currently serves as the heroic everyman Adam Braverman. As written by the incomparable Jason Katims, Parenthood is a modern masterpiece of family drama with beautifully real interlocking dialogue, hilarious moments of important levity, and a dedication to honest emotion. As Adam- the straight edged father of a teenage daughter and a young son with Aspergers- Krause gives us the most indelibly real portrait of contemporary American fatherhood since… there is no since, he's at the edge of the evolution of television paternity. He's well-meaning and warm, immovable, embarrassing, judgemental and the sort of relatable that makes an actual difference to the viewer even after the television is turned off. As a husband, as a son, as a brother, as a business partner- Adam is not just a perfectly played portrait of fatherhood, he's a perfectly played portrait of a person and no one deserves more thanks for that than Peter Krause.
Here's to the most consistent actor in the television landscape, whose dedication to the medium has given us a host of fully developed characters whom we've had the privilege to watch whether it was over 3 episodes or 70.
Published: Monday, 2013/09/02 - 12:46
Actor Spotlights
Katims
My TV Awards
Sports Night


Let's put things in perspective first: according to Genworth's Cost of Care Survey for 2018, the annual national median cost of care in 2018 ranged anywhere from $18,720 to $100,000, depending on your needs. Breaking that down to monthly costs, that's between from $1,560 - $8,364 a month to provide care for you or your loved one.
Where is this money coming from? How does this affect your portfolio? More importantly, if you need care for an extended period, how much will be left for your spouse to live on (or even fund their own care)?
Now, let's look at the cost of having a plan in place. If a 55-year-old couple were to purchase a $4500 monthly benefit, three-year policy adding inflation, the cost per month is just under $300. That would total $108k if paid for 30 years. Yes, $108 thousand sounds like a lot, but is it?
Since we wisely added inflation to the policy, our pool of money has grown to $393,216 per person!We spent $108k over 30 years to get $786,432 to spend on care.


Right now, this page is as blank as my cupboards are bare of gifts this year. I just read, "Breaking News" from the New York Times, which says that "Spending is down for November which indicates a gloomy forecast for 2012." Part of me feels guilty for this downturn, for I have not spent a single penny on this Christmas. No, not one.
Well, I did spend $6 on some holly cuttings for a wreath which I fashioned and hung on the front door. Around the edges, I tied five, old, pine cones from a long ago walk with the dog. When a friend assumed that I had purchased it, I was pleased. But the usual fuss I make shopping, buying, wrapping, hanging lights and decorating the house has not happened. In fact, I even forgot to pre-order our usual 12-lb turkey.
Months ago, I reminded my teenage daughters that this would be our, "handmade Christmas." It is a tradition we started some years back which has yielded some of our most treasured possessions: a hand stitched quilt our oldest made for her sister; a hand-sewn bag our youngest made for us; a photo collage which hangs on the mantle from a happy, family time.
But this year feels different and not because it has been a difficult one but because I want it to hold meaning. Granny taught me long ago that you can't buy that. It is always wrapping itself effortlessly into your heart and head. So, I have decided that my gift to my family this year will be my happiest memories of time with them. I began writing them some weeks back. The task was harder than I thought it would be, because as you remember the happy times, the sad ones have a way of creeping in, too.
So, as you fill-in-the-blanks of your own Christmas this year, I wish you moments of meaning. They will fill the pages of your heart with more laughter and tears than you can imagine. One day, you may just be lucky enough to have the time to write them down . . . or even read them.
P. S. Just before posting this, I heard the sweetest sound coming from my husband's office. He was whistling, "The Christmas Song," in its' entirety. Those lovely notes are filling my heart line by line this very second! Merry Christmas!
Helen Hudson is the author of, "Kissing Tomatoes," a memoir of her grandmother's years of Alzheimer's.
My husband ruptured a disc in his back several weeks ago. Despite the many pain medications his doctor has proffered, he is still in agony and barely able to navigate from bedroom to kitchen. So, on the eve of our 31st anniversary, I drove to purchase him a cane.
As I parked at Walgreens, a very, tall man was getting into the car next to me. Suntanned and well-groomed, I noticed that he still had some dark hair in his sideburns that refused to go white. Figured he was an ex-athlete, likely basketball. When I noticed he had a crutch under each arm, I assumed he injured himself playing sports.
"You look about 6' 7"," I said as we came face to face.
It was only then I realized he was missing an entire leg. At 17, while driving a tractor on his dad's farm, he was thrown off into the oncoming scythe of the thresher. Said he has a prosthesis but it's "a lot more comfortable without it." No wonder. Even without his leg, he moves like a WHOLE man.
As we part, I imagine what my own 17 would have been like with only one leg. I was crazy for dancing and twirled and twisted across too many floors to remember. While I can no longer do the limbo, I can still dance. Made me walk taller just thinking about it.
Driving home with a new, blue cane for my husband, I am grateful he has both legs though he can't use them well now. I think of the woman I met with Alzheimer's who cannot walk, not because she lacks legs, but has forgotten how. I remember the boy I met in college who was born with no legs.
At the corner, a young man with pants so low that I can see the heart tattoo on his right buttock, waits for the light to change. When it does, he shuffles slowly across in the slouched-style of an old man. I want to roll down the window and yell, "Walk Like A Man!" So I do. He straightens to attention as if shot by a rifle. As his eyes meet mine, I smile and add, "While you still can." (Hudson is the author of, "Kissing Tomatoes,"a memoir of the years she and her husband cared for her grandmother with Alzheimer's).


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Apologies to Tim Kinsella
by Maud | August 15th, 2003
The musician known as Tim Kinsella played at Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT) in Montreal on Tuesday night, earlier this week. Tim Kinsella is, I think, absolutely brilliant. My friend Mike, who is also responsible for that Snailhouse link I posted earlier, among other things, interviews him here.
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Tim for the inattentive crowd at SAT on Tuesday. While the opening "band" (I'm not sure when it was decided that two guys checking their email constitutes a band) apparently captured everyone's attention, unfortunately, Tim, your remarkable guitar playing and amazing, inspiring lyricism did not.
This was a frustrating evening. Certainly more so for you than me (although I did find it quite clever when you sang "I would only want to make a film if it was in French / But I don't speak French" and turned the "ch" sounds into very pronounced "shhhs" ), but keep in mind that the $10 I spent to get in was not so I could listen to other people's conversations, no matter how fascinating, or how complicated their shoes.
I hope this does not sour you to our fine city. Perhaps a different venue would have seen a more rapt audience. My living room, for example — maybe next time? Please come and play Montreal again. You are wonderful.
Pasha Malla of Montreal.


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Since leaving the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama have been living their best lives. They've been spotted on beach vacations, in Soul Cycle classes in Washington, D.C., and at fancy dinners at some of New York's best restaurants. And the Internet has been loving every moment of it — including the latest, a snapshot of former first lady Michelle Obama's natural hair.


Hondo, with a little help from Tim The Hockey Guru, found some puck luck last night in Columbus as he shot and scored with the Rangers to grow the bankroll to 410 schoendiensts.
Tonight, Mr. Aitch will invest his hard-earned dis posable dead presidents on youth over experience – 10 units on Garza over Old Man Moyer.
NBC's Brian Williams is upset that Sarah Palin made him wait 55 days for an interview. Awww! Sadly, he doesn't have much recourse, besides com plaining to the other card-carrying members of Anchors For Obama . . . More on the tragic news that drinking coffee can reduce the size of women's breasts: Now that Bloomy has banned cigarettes, trans fats and term limits, Hondo's second-but-equal heir is calling on the Mayor In Perpetuity to ban fe male consumption of coffee.


text:
Fugro's Surveys To Improve Coastal Resilience In Pacific Island Nation, Tuvalu
By [email protected] - 5th December 2018 - 18:43
Fugro has been awarded a contract by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to survey the Polynesian island country of Tuvalu. Located in the Pacific Ocean, Tuvalu is the world's fourth smallest nation with a population of around 11,000 and a total land area of 26 square kilometres. The country is remote and, with low lying islands, is one of the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
The survey, to be conducted in 2019, will utilise Fugro's airborne lidar bathymetry (ALB) technology, providing accurate national coverage of shallow (0 - 50 metres), nearshore and lagoon bathymetry and island topography. The survey data will primarily support the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project's island vulnerability assessment work and will also feed into a very broad spectrum of vulnerability, adaptation, infrastructure development, natural resource management and environmental monitoring needs.
"Tuvalu's remoteness and susceptibility to the effects of sea level rise and tropical storms will benefit from Fugro's advanced technology for mapping shallow water environments safely and cost-effectively. Our surveys will provide the baseline data necessary to plan adaptation and resilience responses," commented Paul Seaton, Fugro's Director for Business Development and Government Relations for Asia Pacific.
The provision of this data is widely seen as an extraordinary step towards improved planning, understanding resources and assessing national vulnerability. Important services, such as navigation in shallow waters, will also be greatly enhanced and the baseline data will be of key interest to development partners and local authorities. For the first time since rising sea levels have been a concern in Tuvalu, detailed and accurate information regarding the relationship between land height and sea level across all nine coral islands will be available.
Read More: Meteorology/Climate Change Satellite Positioning, Navigation & Timing (PNT) Cartography Terrestrial Surveying Laser Scanning Marine Surveying Education & Research Environmental


We've had our adsl broadband connection provided by iiNet for more than two years now. They were great to start but our needs had changed since then. When we started, the plan we chose was quite adequate for what we needed the broadband for.
For about $70 a month, we had a 512kbps download bandwidth and a 128kpbs upload bandwidth. We were allotted a 10Gb/month download limit during peak hours and another 10Gb/month limit during off-peak hours (from 12 midnight to 8 AM). If we go beyond our limit, our bandwidth gets shaped down to 64kbps for the duration of the month.
At first, the 512k/128k bandwidth was good enough. However, I found it very difficult to play online games while Raquel is surfing at that speed. We needed more bandwidth. We also just started watching a lot YouTube, downloading a lot of podcasts and vidcasts and generally just downloading more. A faster bandwidth would mean less waiting around for the downloads to finish.
With our increased downloading, we found ourselves often going beyond our allotted monthly download limit which really sucked. Supposedly, our traffic should be shaped down to 64kbps but it felt more like we were only connected via a 28kbps connection. A dialup connection to iiNet felt faster!
Needless to say, we got tired of it all. I wanted to switch to a better plan. I originally wanted to stay with iiNet because we found their service to be sufficient. However, when I looked at their ADSL1 offerings, I found that our current plan has been grandfathered. Meaning, it is no longer available but those who are in it would continue to have it.
The new ADSL1 plans offered by iiNet were all lousy. For the same money we are paying now, the limit is something like 5Gb per month only. So, if we want to increase our bandwidth to 1.5Mbps download / 256kbps upload, we'd pay more and get reduced allowable monthly download limit. So, sticking with iiNet was a definite now since then.
After looking around for the next best ADSL1 Internet deal, I decided that Westnet was it. For roughly the same price of our current broadband service, we'd get double the bandwidth and an even better monthly download limit at 20Gb during peak hours and 40Gb during off-peak hours. That's double the peak limit and quadruple the off-peak limit at double the speed for the same price. As an added bonus, they have lots more gaming servers for Counterstrike and Team Fortress 2 that I usually connect to anyway and connecting to these means the traffic won't be counted against my monthly limit.
It is more correctly called the DSL transfer process (commonly refered to as "churn"), and provides an efficient one step mechanism for moving DSL end-users/customers between DSL service providers, rather than the more time consuming disconnection/reconnection process.
We wanted to do this months ago but we then remembered that we were under contract with iiNet to stay with them for two years or we pay them $180 or something (I forgot the exact amount, sorry). So, we had to wait till December 7 before we even attempt churning to Westnet.
The good news is, December 7 has come and gone. The day after the 7th, we called up Westnet and applied for an ADSL1 account with them. And yesterday, our broadband got churned to Westnet at long last!
We now have the benefit of faster Internet speeds and bigger download limits. I was so excited yesterday that I quickly tried watching a video on YouTube just to test the new connection. Before, video would play for a few seconds and then stop while it waits for our PC to download more of the video. Then the video would continue playing again and then stop again. This would continue to happen until all of the video was completely downloaded. But now, I can load a video and watch it without waiting for it to finish downloading first.
So, the short of it is, we transferred to a different ISP and I'm quite pleased with it. Can't wait to play with it some more later.
Yep. I've only known about the term "churn" from researching about broadband.
Churn is a term used by telco executives to refer to movement of customers from one telco (usually theirs!) to another. It is the scariest word in their industry.
Apparently the word has been evolving in meaning (or maybe just because this is Australia) — I've never heard it used by subscribers to refer to their own transfer.


text:
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By Noah Forrest Forrest@moviecitynews.com
Posted Monday, November 23rd, 2009 - Comments Off on Rebecca Miller and the Trials of Woman
Rebecca Miller and the Trials of Woman
Every time the latest romantic comedy opens, I am befuddled when it's successful. Films like The Proposal or He's Just Not That Into You make tons of money and when I ask why, I'm inevitably told it's because women flock to these films.
When I inquire as to why women would flock to such inane films, I'm told that it's because there aren't a lot of films that cater to females and so they take whatever they can get. The Twilight series will repeatedly get a pass from some critics and many viewers because "it's made for girls, who cares?" And the sad thing is that they're right; these films are made for girls and it's depressing that this is what Hollywood thinks about young women.
Whenever this happens, I always point to the films ofRebecca Miller; nobody is making better films about women than her. Miller doesn't talk down to her audience, she simply presents nuanced women in a realistic manner, warts and all. I was first turned on to her work after seeing her second film, Personal Velocity, which has three different women in three very different stories, all of which are about how women can be held down or held captive and how they can break free of that. But the film wasn't told in a didactic way, it didn't sermonize or say, "this is an issue!" The film merely presented three completely real women of different ages (played by Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, andFairuza Balk) and the major crises of their lives.
I enjoyed that film so much that I went back to watch her first film, Angela, which is about two young girls and how blind devotion to religion can result in tragedy. It was a very ambitious film and a deeply unsettling one. It's clear from watching that film that Miller, even when working with budget constraints and no major actors, was able to create a full and complete motion picture and able to coax wonderful performances form her cast.
Her third film was The Ballad of Jack and Rose, starring Daniel Day-Lewis (Miller's real-life husband) and Camilla Belle as a father and daughter living on a secluded isle off the coast of the US, the last remnants of a once-popular commune. With a star like Day-Lewis, one would expect it to be a film about him, but it's really the story of the burgeoning sexuality of his daughter and the way in which she misapplies her affections because of the way she was raised. It's a very naked and knowing look at the growing female sex drive in a teenager that feels more accurate than the metaphorical longing and yearning that is present in the Twilight series or most films about teen girls. Many filmmakers are just not brave enough to explore – or risk exploiting – teen sexuality in an honest way. But Miller has never shied away from it, as it's a theme that is present in most of her work.
That work includes her latest almost-masterpiece The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, which has my early pick for Best Actress, Robin Wright. The film is Miller's most ambitious yet, as it is about no less than the entirety of the female experience. We are presented with a story of a woman's life, something that we don't often see in movies. Miller grounds the film in a present-day story about mid-40s Pippa Lee (Wright) living with her much older husband (Alan Arkin) in a retirement community in Connecticut. But we flash back to a younger Pippa (Blake Lively) and see that she wasn't always so docile; she was once a wild and free young woman.
We see all of the people that had an impact on Pippa's life, from her speed-addicted mother (Maria Bello) to her aunt's lesbian lover (Julianne Moore) to her husband's ex-wife (Monica Belluci) to her best friend (Winona Ryder). The most fascinating thing about the list I've just created is that each of the people that has a big impact on Pippa's life is a woman, except of course for her husband and later, her next-door neighbor (Keanu Reeves). I think it says a lot about being in a good enough adult place of understanding about your own gender before searching for someone of the opposite one.
But the film is first and foremost a story about a particular character and that is the titular woman, fascinating in each of her various incarnations. It's integral for the character to have a certain allure about her that is almost indefinable and both Wright and Lively bring that to the character with their soft-spoken manner. We absolutely believe that Blake Lively grows up to be Robin Wright, which means that Miller worked hard with each actress to ensure the continuity of the character above all else.
The story of Pippa's life unfolds in chapters, mostly in flashback. There's the chapter about her childhood, the one about her rebellion, the one about meeting her husband, etc. The main story shows us how Pippa has never really stopped changing, that just because somebody reaches adulthood, that doesn't mean they are finished growing as a person. So many films get to the happy ending of the female lead meeting the man of her dreams, having kids and settling down in the suburbs. The main thrust of this film is about what happens after that; also, the man of Pippa's dreams is thirty years older than her.
The wonderful thing is how Robin Wright is able to balance the many facets of the adult Pippa. She is both mother/nurturer and independent spirit, wanting desperately to break free of her beautiful yet shackled life. She's got everything she wants, but she wants something different; she's got security, but her subconscious is telling her (through sleepwalking episodes) that she needs to be more freewheeling. The ultimate lesson of the film being: not only does nobody really know Pippa, but she doesn't really know herself. But in Miller's view, this is not a depressing realization; it's actually a beautiful thing that she has so much more to learn about herself. There are catalysts for her realizations, but it's really about the fire within not the forces without.
As I said earlier, I think Robin Wright gives such a magnetic and powerful performance in this film. She is acting opposite some pretty heavy hitters, but she owns the screen the entire time, our focus entirely on her. I remember William Goldman once writing about how Wright could have been the most famous actress in the world, but she didn't want it. Watching this film, I kept thinking about that Goldman line and how it never seemed more true. Wright decided that acting wouldn't be her primary focus while she raised a family and moved away from Hollywood and nobody can fault her for that; but, watching her in this film, I couldn't help but think of what we missed out on.
Wright is given ample support in the film by Lively, Arkin, Ryder, Bello and the always underrated Keanu Reeves, but we always want to return to Wright. The way she reacts to her children, when her daughter meets them for dinner and slights her mother, the look in Wright's eyes and the lilt in her voice, it's so emotionally true and accurate. It's that look of a disappointed mother who's been hurt by her kid; the audience sees that it hurts more than she is letting on. When she has a conversation with Ryder's character about how to better please her husband, the way in which Pippa believably and gleefully explodes a little bit with a burst of graphic profanity is made believable and true because of the groundwork that Wright has been laying to help make that moment – and every other moment – work. I know she won't get nominated for an Oscar because the Academy would never do something so smart, but she should be.
I've been a little vague on the details of the film, I know, but it's because this is a film you really don't want to be ruined for you. You might see what's going to happen at every turn in The Proposal, but this is a film that has some tricks up its sleeve. It's anything but conventional. I urge everyone, both men and women, to see this film. I would especially love it if young women would ignore the abstinence-promoting vampire film and instead see this film about the reality of the female experience, but I understand that that won't happen. But if you do see this film, you'll understand what a powerful filmmaker Rebecca Miller is and you'll be as anxious to see her next picture as I am.
Note: If you love The Frenzy on the Wall and can't get enough of me, then check out my new blog! I talk about movies, sports, politics and all that jazz, so take a look!
– Noah Forrest
Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.
The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, "Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas" — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," "Naked Lunch" and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn't find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn't even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled "hi" — and I'd forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey's urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, "Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you," and I said "No, fuck him," and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, "Wait, he's in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick." I said, "You know a guy named—" "Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?"
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn't get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can't get a writer, then you write."
~ Hampton Fancher
"That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I'm on the phone with you now, after all that's been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn't seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There's not a case of that. He wasn't using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I'm not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, "You know, it's not this, it's that"? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that's what it lacked. That's what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
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