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I've been lucky enough over the past several weeks to find myself with enough time to devote daily sessions to practising not only my drums, but also rediscovering the xylophone (which I hauled with me to PEI, finally, and set up in my new music cabin here), and attending to the trombone, which I started playing last year, in order to be able to complement Alex (French Horn) and Simon (Trumpet).
As my practising has become more consistent, I have noticed a distinct pattern: Spending sufficient time on warm up exercises each and every time I practise, and playing for at least 20 minutes total, have both led to a noticeable improvement in my playing. I know I'm improving with the trombone, because I am now able to hit notes I could not reach a few weeks ago (this afternoon I finally played high F for the first time!!), and also because my teacher recently told me that my tone was "really coming along". :-)
When working through Stick Control exercises at the kit, my double sticking feels much smoother than it did a month ago. A benefit derived from drumming regularly (at least three times a week now) and for a minimum duration of 20 minutes each time.
My xylophone skills are slowly but surely returning to the levels I was attaining in Grade 13 (yes I am that old!!) when I played Flight of the Bumble Bee for an exam. I know this because I have been working on Bach's Violin Concerto in A Minor (First Movement), and am inching my way closer to my desired speed on the metronome, with considerable accuracy. Both my speed and accuracy are also improving with the Gallop Solo, which I still have memorized from some 30 years ago, and which I have also been practising, for fun!
Working in a focused fashion on "boring" warm up exercises for all three of my instruments, and repeating sections to perfect accuracy, speed or tone, is (re)teaching me valuable skills which I hope to transfer to my professional life once I return to work later this month and leave my music cabin behind for another year.
For more discussion on the benefits of different approaches to practising, check out this article (with link to other articles) I found online.
An 80's Playlist for a Sunday Afternoon
I had a day to myself today. Kids at their dads, and Tats on a 3-day pairing out of town.
This doesn't happen often, and when it does, it's dangerous. Invariably, I abandon my long list of projects and "to-do" items that have been piling up over the previous weeks (and in this case MONTHS), and waste a whole bunch of time on some sort of frivolous drivel. Almost without fail, my big plan to build a website or manage a project and practise my music and read a book and have a nap and go for a jog with the dog and do some yoga turns into 5 hours of scrolling through instagram in my jammies, or, more dangerously, getting dressed and going shopping.
I am proud to report that today's adventures were fairly tame, through I did end up dropping about $14 on iTunes.
It was critical, I felt, to build up the "reliving my youth" playlist on my iPhone. The luxury of being able to instantly download and own forever a whole song that I would in former times have had to listen to hours of radio before successfully capturing with my uncle's external mic onto a cassette tape was just too much of a temptation to pass up.
Listening to the whole intro right from the beginning without the tail end of some radio announcer's voice is a delight that sends thrills down my spine.
My own LP collection as an elementary school student consisted of about five albums: The Mini Pops (No judging — it was a birthday gift people!!), Cory Hart, the Muppets rendition of the Frog Prince, Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, and 101 Dalmatians.
The rest of my early musical tastes were acquired via the ghetto blaster my mother had installed on the sideboard in our modest dining room. Mostly it was CBC classical music and a little jazz. She also played CDs that she bought in Cuba ("Dancing with the Enemy") and at the CNE ("Borgey's Banjo Favourites"). If I wanted "pop", I had to go to a friend's, or lock myself in my room and turn my uncle's radio on very low and try to record from there to an external tape deck using a detachable mic., I kid you not!
That set up garnered me some pretty hacked up but eternally cherished versions of classics like Madonna's "La Isla Bonita", Mr. Mister's "Broken Wings" and the Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls". "Lady" by Styx and "Two Outta' Three Ain't Bad" by Meatloaf were treats to be heard for a quarter on the juke box at the local billiard hall. "Take on Me" (A-Ha) and "Greatest Love of All" (Whitney Houston) were other favorites, as were "Say You, Say Me" (Lionel Richie) and the Bangles' "Manic Monday".
Van Halen, Rush, AC/DC, Guns n' Roses and Sting did not enter my vernacular until later, in High School, when I started playing the drums. The bands I played with enjoyed basically anything with a loud and trashy beat. (I have my high school stage band teacher to thank for my continued later development of a continued interest in the somewhat more refined genres of Jazz and Latin.)
This past summer I took a road trip to NFLD with my kids. The "mom's classics" playlist was short, since it consisted of mainly music I already had on my device. Between that and some Stan Rogers I wanted to expose my kids to, we soon exhausted the tunes (it's a long drive, folks!! I underestimated!) and I was forced to listen repeatedly to Africa by Toto, which had made a comeback, and which my kids had decided they needed to listen to about 17 times a day!!!
So, inspired by my recent viewing of BoRap with said kids, I decided to spend a few of my precious hours today downloading more music for the "classics" list. $14 is not bad, I'd say. And I only lost an hour to that. Well, and the subsequent 2 hours I spent reading up on Boy George after I downloaded some Culture Club (did you know he DJ'd for a while? And how did my 12-year-old self not get that he was queer? Man we 80s kids were in some heavy denial around LGBTQ+issues!!!)
Nevertheless, I also managed to knock off a bunch of the tasks on my "to do" list for a youth aviation event I am planning. All while Walkin' on Sunshine and listening to "Like a Virgin" (OOoooh!) and "Careless Whisper". I Never Surrendered to any other distractions. Every little thing I did was magic. I even practised my trombone!
It was a New Sensation, having all this time to myself. What a wonderful Sunday afternoon.
appropriation? Or education?
I find myself of late in the unusual circumstance of not being altogether clear on whether someone I am following has got it right or not.
After a two-year hiatus, I recently rejoined the Hart House Singers, a non-audition but nevertheless quite sound-worthy SATB choir in Toroto. The planned programme for our November concert is "This Land; Folk Songs and Soundscapes of Canada".
Canadian folk songs being among my favourite vocal music (after Renaissance and Baroque, that is), I was eager to begin working on the repertoire.
Our conductor, however, decided to evolve the program.
As my school-board colleagues were sending me "happy summer" texts this past week, I got thinking back to my first few years of teaching, and the sincere but often misguided efforts I made to promote equity in my classroom...
Stream of (musical) consciousness
It's funny how things go sometimes... the hunt for a speaker which I had taken to a workshop I was presenting last night and forgotten to return to school today soon turned into an exploration of music that would interest Sneakers (Nexus's Xylophonia and Amazing Space both peaked her curiosity).
What attracts the dog also attracts 11-year-old boys, it seems, and Simon was soon on the scene, which resulted in a collaborative musical meander through my various playlists and favourites of his on Youtube (Rayman soundtracks).
His video game soundtracks reminded me of Joe Satriani's "The Extremist", and from there it was on to Neal Morse and Porcupine Tree. Soon, we were dancing to Return to Forever and Romantic Warrior -- what could be more exciting than Stanley Clark and Chick Corea??!!
I was reminded of some oldies but goodies, though we didn't go as far back as Bach or even Beethoven and not even close to Hildegard von Bingen... and we didn't move into the now with Malosetti (though I just found out Satriani has a new album!!!)
Nevertheless, I am inspired to gift the boys some music along with a set of decent headphones ("the puffy kind, Mommy!") for Christmas...
Textual Lineage again
Some time ago, I blogged about textual lineage. One of the things I most enjoy about our family summers on PEI is the time my boys and I spend developing their textual lineage together.
Two examples stand out this summer: A book (or rather, a trilogy) and a movie.
The Breadwinner
The first is the Breadwinner trilogy by Canada's own Deborah Ellis. The three-in-one came highly recommended by a fellow 11-year-old reader during a trip to Chapters this past spring.
Eager to move beyond the intellectual junk food my kids tend to consume when they are not prodded to do otherwise, I picked up what looked like an interesting read while perusing the children's and young adults' section at the bookstore; on the cover, a young girl about my kids' age, wearing a hijab.
As I was reading the synopsis on the back ("The Breadwinner is set in Afghanistan, where 11-year-old Parvana lives with her family in a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul. When her father is arrested for the crime of having a foreign education, the family...") another mother noticed the book in my hand and exclaimed, "oh, that's a really, really good one! My daughter liked it so much, in fact, we're here picking up the third book in the series today!"
This was accompanied by a vigorous head nod and confirmational smile from said daughter, who looked to be about Simon's age.
I looked quizzically at Simon, who had accompanied me on my quest to pick up suitable summer reading material, and he said, "sure, sounds good, let's get it". So, we purchased the book, and packed it away for our annual tradition of reading together while on PEI.
Interestingly, when I first pulled the book out upon arriving on the island last month, I was met with groans and complaints of "Awww, do we have to? It looks so boring!" It didn't take long, however, before they were hooked: As I often do, I asked my boys to give it a fair chance, which we agreed means stick to it for three chapters before deciding whether to abandon the book.
We needn't have negotiated beyond two: From the get-go, the kids were hooked, and whenever we read (we're currently four chapters from the end of the third book), Alex and Simon beg for "just one more chapter, PLEASE, Mom!"
I must confess, it's hard for me to say no to that request, regardless of how late it is. The Breadwinner really holds ones interest as it graphically and yet age-appropriately introduces the young reader to a world well beyond what most Western children will have ever experienced or imagined. Ellis' work has exposed my Simon and Alex to new ideas, and is helping them to make connections to prior experiences.
Needless to say, we'll be making a trip to Chapters again soon, this time to hunt down the fourth book in the series, My Name is Parvana. And now it will be my kids doing the sales pitch if we see someone else considering the series!
The second piece of textual lineage this summer involves Mozart.
The boys had seen my Director's Cut of Amadeus in our DVD bin in previous summers, and had inquired about it, but due to the mature themes and sometimes frightening scenes and music, I had told them that they needed to be a little older before we watched that one together.
(I remember having watched the film myself when it first came out, and being quite impressed with Constanze's rather ample bosom in one of the early scenes in the movie. And when it really gets into the requiem later on in the film, I had my share of nightmares. Also, as the parental advisory on IMDb notes, "Mozart is very crass and given to scatological humor". But then again, so am I, so it would be nothing new for the boys!!)
Inspired by Tom Chapin's Mozart Duet, which we listened to in the car on the way to and from Ch'town numerous times this summer, the boys once again asked if we could watch Amadeus. This time, I relented, and -- over the course of two evenings -- we took in this masterpiece, pausing often to clarify what was happening, and to talk about historical inaccuracies in this award-winning but often fictionally liberal film.
As was I so many years ago, the boys were very impressed with Mozart's music, and with the lavish sumptuousness of the European court scene. They had many questions, and I answered them all, even reading aloud two online commentaries about the movie after it was over, one of which was quite scathing. ("Come on, Mom, keep reading!" from Simon, when I attempted to skip over some parts in the interest of getting everyone to bed sooner.)
Textual lineage: The texts (music, words, etc.) that form our schema and influence who we become. I'm delighted to have had the opportunity to share two such rich "texts" with my children this summer, and I look forward to next summer's intellectual adventures, as well as all the ones in between! (Intellectual adventures, not summers.)
I'm not much for paying big bucks to hear an instrumentalist in a large concert hall setting, but when I heard Chris Botti was coming to town, I figured I'd spring for tickets so that I could take my son who's been learning to play the trumpet this year to hear what excellence can sound like.
Although I like trumpet okay, I typically spend my brass listening time on things like Holst's Military Suites or Louis Armstrong's jazz wanking... but I think I may have a new favorite instrumentalist!! As soon as as Botti played the opening notes of his first piece (9:30 here), I could see why thousands of people had paid good money to hear this amazing performer.
His flawlessly lyrical treatment of ballads provides a poignancy I have never before heard live or on a soundtrack. Within seconds of Botti putting his lips to his instrument, I was choking back tears, so deeply and instantly was the effect on my soul. And his band is no bunch of slouches either: Although he was backed on some tracks by the TSO, Botti also brought with him a slew of stunning performers, including the mesmerizing violinist Lucia Micarelli, who joined him on Emmanuel and a few other pieces as well. I was also blown away by the vocalist who scatted Botti's trumpet parts while he played (check out 4:10 and later, here; very cool)!!!
It is easy to see why Chris Botti is currently the top selling instrumentalist in America. Thank goodness some people still have musical taste!
Not since I discovered Arturo Sandoval at the Toronto Jazz Festival in my early 20s have I been so excited about a trumpet player! Determined to hear more, I searched Chris Botti on the internet and found several delightful concerts, including this show from the Newport Jazz Festival 2013.
Of course, it's not the same as hearing the man in person, but it's still something. Something pretty special!
Although Simon was somewhat less enthralled than I was (at least outwardly), I know the experience left an impression on him as well. I'm so grateful for the evening we spent immersed in sound together last night at the RTH.
Music: Leadership vs teamwork
My girlfriend was perplexed to find -- when she returned from PEI this winter, and discovered that my choir concert which she had missed included several solos -- that I had not auditioned for a solo in that concert, nor that I would be doing so for my upcoming concert.
Since I met Tats at a time when I was focusing on things other than music, she's only ever seen me in a leadership capacity when it comes to public endeavors. From facilitating book talks on staff at school, to spearheading successfully funded research projects, to leading workshops for teachers around the province, I do tend to often find myself in singular roles.
My musical endeavors stand in stark contrast.
With few exceptions, the choirs I have sung with and the bands I have played in over the years have found me firmly rooted in the team. Although I worked hard to learn and perform the vibes solo from Spryo Gyra's Morning Dance for a Jazz Band in high school, and was often featured solo xylophonist, those experiences were overshadowed by the carefully counted 8-bar cymbal roll I crescendoed and decrescendoed from the back of the Orchestra during Pie Jesu, or the proud timpani parts I contributed during my high school concert band's rendition of Beethoven's Egmont Overture.
The small thrill I felt during the rare occasions I was persuaded to sing solo pales in comparison to the joy that swelled my heart while lending my alto voice to the chorus of my a-cappella quintet on One Fine Day in university, or blending into a large and magnificent choir during a performance of Orff's Carmina Burana at Hart House one summer.
Performing as part of a team has allowed me to reflect on leadership, too: As I consider the various conductors I've worked under, I am reminded of what's important in a leader -- vision, preparation & organization, a good ear, empathy, high standards... Being a team player makes me a better leader, and helps me to appreciate the teams I do lead.
So, when our choir began rehearsing Haydn's Paukenmesse in January, which we'll finally perform tomorrow afternoon, I was quite content to leave the many solos featured in that piece to others, and instead add my voice to the chorus of the alto section.
A good leader, in my opinion, appreciates the value of teamwork, and is not afraid to put her money where her mouth is.
Come see my teamwork and my choir sing for FREE on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. at Hart House! :)
Behind the scenes in the East Common Room at Hart House on Sunday afternoon, November 30th...
Returning/sorting scores after our fall concert at Hart House on Sunday, November 30, 2014.
I don't know about you, but when it comes to music theory, I've always had more trouble with the bass clef than the treble. For some reason, it takes me at least twice as long to figure out the notes on the bass clef when sight reading. Enter Bass Cat by LMuse, a fun app designed to teach and consolidate the learning of notes on the bass clef!
The notes are introduced one at a time, and practice in the form of a game is offered. The challenges in each stage are locked until the previous challenge has been successfully completed. A perfect score gets you three stars; with two stars you can move on or repeat the challenge, as desired.
One thing I really like about this app is that it provides scaffolded learning; the challenges within each stage offer just the right amount of challenge, without becoming overwhelming. There is a gradual release of the responsibility to the player as notes are first labeled, and then eventually, just have to be recognized by their position on the staff. Also, in the early levels, only one or two notes at a time are used in the game, and they move fairly slowly along the staff, whereas in the more advanced levels, three notes need to be recognized, and the also move more quickly along the staff, helping the player to develop automaticity in note reading.
Another thing I like about this app is that it exposes students to a diversity of musical genres and styles: From Jazz to waltz and everything in between, a variety of music plays in the background while students work on each challenge. (And for those who prefer a silent experience, the sound can be turned off.)
If you're looking for a fun but proven way to improve your bass note reading, I highly recommend bass cat!


The adult version of the Schatje skirt is here! The Zak skirt features the same flat waistband as the mini version but with a flat back and zipper for the grownups. Side pockets hold your keys or cellphone. The adult version also comes in knee, tea and maxi length. Make a cute short skirt in a casual quilting cotton for a sunny afternoon or in a lined chiffon for date night!
The pattern ranges from 0-18 in Misses and includes an invisible zipper.


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Q: A flag to move using the Stack Exchange Android app only gives four sites to choose from In the Stack Exchange Android app I tried to flag a question as a better fit for another site. However, I only got the meta site of the current site, Stack Overflow, Super User and Server Fault to choose from. It would've been a great fit on Unix/Linux, but Server Fault kind of worked too.
Is this four-sites limit intentional? Does it have anything to do with my reputation points?
(Tagged as bug because that was the only thing I was quick enough to read before the error message disappeared. And then I got stuck on the rate limit when I clicked again. Please retag.)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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changzhou xiangyuan mill; plast 2 mill offered certain; ... Mill, John Stuart | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Overview of the life and writings of Mill.


Our Campus is Repsol's corporate symbol. It is regarded as an architectural benchmark worldwide that reflects our culture and the company's ongoing evolution. Our corporate headquarters affirms our commitment to people, society, and the planet. These facilities are home to more than 4,000 professionals from across all of our company's areas and business units that work hard everyday to improve the energy of the future.
Located in the heart of the Spanish capital, this open space is specially designed to facilitate communication, teamwork, and the flow of knowledge between our professionals. This way, the Campus fosters a new way of working, a new way of doing things based on collaboration, flexibility, innovation, and transparency which stand as our culture's core pillars.
We boast five refineries across Spain that are interconnected and function like a single industrial complex.
We operate all over the world to guarantee society's supply of energy with efficiency and sustainability in mind.


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Pinsent Masons advises on L Catterton's sale of Sweaty Betty to Wolverine World Wide Inc Pinsent Masons advises on L Catterton's sale of Sweaty Betty to Wolverine World Wide Inc
Pinsent Masons advises on L Catterton's sale of Sweaty Betty to Wolverine World Wide Inc
05 Aug 2021 | 01:40 pm | 1 min. read
Multinational law firm Pinsent Masons has acted as legal advisor to Sweaty Betty, the founders, Tamara and Simon Hill-Norton, and the senior management team, on the $410m sale of global activewear and lifestyle brand, Sweaty Betty, to Wolverine World Wide, Inc. (WWW).
In 1998, Tamara and Simon founded Sweaty Betty with a focus on pioneering the women's premium activewear category in the UK and since that time have successfully created a worldwide brand designed by women for women. In 2015, L Catterton, the largest global consumer-focused private equity firm (who also sold its stake as part of the transaction), partnered with Sweaty Betty to accelerate its growth across channels and geographies, successfully establishing them as a global brand with omni-channel presence across three continents. Sweaty Betty's partnership with WWW will see them continuing to focus on international growth whilst maintaining their core mission – to empower women through fitness.
The cross-practice team was led by head of retail and consumer Tom Leman and wellbeing lead Samantha Lewis, with significant support from intellectual property experts by George Campbell and Florian Traub, head of information law Claire Edwards and property associate Mark Passant.
Commenting on the deal, Tom Leman said:
"We have worked with Simon and Tamara and the team at Sweaty Betty for over fifteen years and have enjoyed watching them grow into the successful global brand they are now. Most recently their partnership with L Catterton and Wittington Investments Limited has supercharged their digital profile and the move into international markets. It's been great to have been alongside Sweaty Betty for the journey and we are looking forward to building the relationship under their new ownership"
Samantha Lewis added:
"Sweaty Betty's mission to empower women is clearly one that resonates with the market, not just in the UK but globally. It is really exciting to see a purpose driven organisation go from strength to strength and to know that as it does it is helping to support a global community of strong active women."
This transaction is another example of the team's vast experience across both lifestyle brands and sports and athleisure more broadly following their recent work on investments into nutritionally complete food brand, Huel, womenswear brand, The Fold and CrossFit gym and sports retailer, WIT Fitness, and the sale of cycling brand, Rapha Racing.
Tom Leman
Partner, Head of Retail & Consumer
+ 44 (0) 20 7418 7146 Email
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Pinsent Masons advises PIC on £132m buy-in of Tomkins 2008 pension scheme retirement benefits plan
Pinsent Masons advises PIC on £132m buy-in of Tomkins 2008 pension scheme retirement benefits plan.
Pinsent Masons advises on Umicore's € 591 million sustainability linked note fundraising
Multinational law firm Pinsent Masons has advised various institutional investors in relation to Umicore's € 591 million sustainability linked note fundraising.
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Pinsent Masons has advised the shareholders of Alveo, including funds managed by Sovereign Capital Partners (SCP), on its sale to Symphony Technology Group (STG).
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text:
Slings and Arrows
By Michael Santoli
Oct. 18, 1999 12:01 am ET
A clever advertising impresario might well be able to lace together some of Fortune Brands' product lines into a kind of pan-company tag line. Something like, "We'll take you from the first tee to the 19th Hole with Titleist golf balls and Jim Beam bourbon," or "Your source from Aristokraft kitchen cabinets to the DeKuyper cordials in your liquor cabinet." But to Norm Wesley, CEO-in-waiting of this diverse consumer-goods concern, contriving business cohesion where none exists is unnecessary. Better to let the enterprise be known by consumers through its topnotch brands. And better that investors know the company as the source of a dozen or so household-name products and more importantly as one that derives four out of every five dollars in sales from brands ranked first or second in their markets.
Fortune Brands CEO Norm Wesley and a few of his favorite things
A devotee of investment fashions might accuse Fortune Brands of sinning against the current Wall Street dogma of corporate streamlining, purity of industry focus and unlocking hidden value through sales and spin-offs. The company seems like a throwback to the conglomerates of yore with businesses in four disparate industries. The home division contains Moen, the leading name in faucets; Aristokraft and Schrock cabinets, and Master Lock. Office products include Day Timer date books, Kensington computer accessories and Swingline staplers. Golf products, in addition to Titleist's clubs and balls, include Cobra clubs and Foot-Joy shoes and gloves. Finally, distilled spirits and wines include Jim Beam and Knob Creek bourbon, DeKuyper cordials and Geyser Peak wines.
"Our breadth makes us a little tougher to understand, but it really gives us the advantage of consistency. If you go back to 1994, the mix of business we have today has delivered double-digit growth in earnings," says Wesley, who is currently president and chief operating officer but is slated to take over as chairman and chief executive from Thomas C. Hays on January 1. That pattern is holding strong: Second-quarter operating income per share jumped 18%, and full-year operating earnings for the year are projected to be up 20%, with another 20% gain forecast for 2000.
The company actually bears little resemblance to the 1994 version, then known as American Brands, a name chiefly associated with its big tobacco division. But American Tobacco was sold, as was an insurance unit. By 1997, the remainder of the tobacco operations were spun off and the corporate name was changed to Fortune Brands.
Even after that makeover, Fortune Brands' stock performance was hampered, in part because its multi-industry status had prevented sector-focused Wall Street analysts from following, and therefore recommending, it. But analysts have since come around, and indeed the stock performed well in the first five months of this year, rising 40% to above 44 amid word of some restructuring plans. And some analysts are keen on Fortune Brands right now: Credit Suisse First Boston's Martin Romm contends the sum of the company's parts indicate the stock should trade at 50, nearly half again the recent quote of 32 3/4 .
But notwithstanding such encouraging forecasts, perceived and actual weaknesses in its golf and office-products lines in recent months combined with overall investor disdain for mid-sized stocks to subject Fortune Brands' shares to a slow bleed toward the low 30s.
The current stock price implies that investors are neglecting the quality of the company's brands, Fortune's considerable earnings power and the swift corporate culture change that is focusing on shareholders. That, certainly, is the view of some value-oriented money managers, who remain fans of the company even as they express frustration at its failure to capture the market's affections.
"They have phenomenal brands, good franchises, great cash flow; and the stock sells at a discount to its intrinsic value," says Kevin Grant of Harris Associates in Chicago.
As for management's enhanced efforts to please shareholders, the company has been aggressively repurchasing stock and is in the process of moving its headquarters to lower-cost environs closer to its operations. To Michael Jamison of "deepvalue" investment firm Brandywine Asset Management in Wilmington, Delaware, the latter effort is important. "One of the problems was that the company was too Old Greenwich," he says, referring to Fortune Brands' present head-office location on Connecticut's genteel Gold Coast, far from where the company's real work was performed.
When Norm Wesley, embodiment of the new guard, recently spoke to Barron's, it was in his modest second-floor office in a Lincolnshire, Illinois, office park that shelters the home and office divisions. By December, a downsized corporate staff will move there, a shift projected to save $30 million annually.
To Wesley, the recent slide in Fortune's stock "makes me think we haven't gotten the message across as to the real underlying quality in our business."
A big step toward clarifying the core performance of the business was taken earlier this year, when the company elected to alter its accounting treatment of goodwill, a move that resulted in a huge non-cash writedown of $1.2 billion. That change will cut an estimated $35 million, or 21 cents a share, annually in goodwill amortization expense that will now flow down to reported earnings.
"We've been trying to communicate to people that not only was our stock at a discount to the market and was it cheap, but on a cash-earnings basis there was even a more significant discount," Wesley explains. So the goodwill writedown-in part representing past acquisitions for which Fortune far overpaid-wipes away some of the non-cash items that had obscured the cash-generating power of the company, "exposing the cash earnings," he says.
Further on the subject of balance sheet management, Fortune Brands has also been aggressively deploying its free cash flow-running at a $200 million annual rate currently-to buy in its own stock, having purchased nine million shares this year of an 11 million-share buyback authorization through August. That amounts to about 5% of the outstanding share base.
The troubles encountered by some of its competitors in individual industries also have apparently weighed on Fortune Brands' stock. In golf products, a shakeout in the club segment, exemplified by an inventory glut beginning a year ago, hit Callaway Golf , and Fortune Brands was feared hurt by association.
But the company's golf line is far broader and more durable than the club market alone. Titleist is the clear market share and technology leader in golf balls, a high-return, annuity-like business that has held its market position well in the face of new balls introduced this year by Taylor Made and Nike. Joe Teklits, who follows the golf industry at Ferris Baker Watts in Baltimore, says the new entrants have garnered perhaps 3% of the ball market, but none of it has come out of Titleist's share. And in equipment, Titleist's high-end club line, powered by a well-received new titanium driver, racked up a record year in 1998 and improved on it so far this year amid an industry downturn. Asian demand for clubs is finally reviving, while buyers shift back into the dominant brand names, such as Callaway and Titleist, Teklits reports.
To aid the poorer-performing Cobra club brand, Fortune is now combining its club-assembly operations with Titleist's and generally reducing duplication between the two lines.
The office-products business has been another source of concern. Dramatic inventory reduction among some of the large office-supply retailers has persisted far longer than either the company or analysts expected, and pricing pressure continues to weigh on the segment. Wesley concedes the indigestion in this area may persist awhile, though he contends that "long-term, we don't think there's been a real fundamental change in the business," which should continue to benefit from the "information explosion."
Harris Associates' Grant contends that it is in times like these in which Fortune Brands "benefits from being kind of a conglomerate. While office products are doing poorly, it's been offset by strength at Moen" in the home segment.
Indeed, the home division, with a two-thirds/one-third mix of sales from remodeling and new construction, respectively, has ridden the strong economy to stellar results, helped along by a highly successful acquisition last year of the Schrock cabinet business. And in the spirits division, Fortune this year gained global distribution for its bourbon and wine brands through a new joint venture with Remy-Cointreau and Highland Distillers, which stands to help a business already enjoying sales momentum and an improved product mix as super-premium bourbons gain acceptance.
Wesley understands the need to convey to investors the tensile strength of its overall business that comes with a broad array of products, allowing it to withstand individual sector cycles rather well. "We have 15 brands that each do $100 million in annual sales," he notes. "And our brands are in growing categories: In all the businesses we're in, the demographics are such that we expect those businesses to grow." And the product line is always being recharged with new items: Last year 28% of sales came from products on the market less than three years.
Wesley dismisses suggestions that the company split itself into more purely focused parts: "You always need to look at your portfolio [of assets] and look for ways to improve it. And I consider myself an agent of change. Every business I've been involved with, if you look at the business three years after I've been involved with it, it hasn't looked the same. So I wouldn't say we don't feel the need to take a look at it, but at the same time, we have a very healthy business, and I think being a pure play is a two-edged sword. And our breadth gives us consistency."
Of course, this was the theory behind the conglomerates of old, now largely discredited. And the CEO-elect is not claiming that his is a recession-proof company. But Wesley would argue that Fortune Brands is a far more lucid variation on that old diversification theme.
"We have people who are absolutely accountable for driving each business from a growth standpoint, looking at costs and returns. We try to have the advantages of size and yet be as nimble as the smallest competitor," he says.
And there are some corporate skills such as marketing acumen-applicable to most or all of the brands under the Fortune umbrella. Wesley offers an example in which a team from the home division-which enjoys great success in selling to the "big-box" retailers such as Home Depot-was dispatched to the office-goods unit to help it better serve the now-dominant office superstores.
The company's discipline in making acquisitions is also useful across its entire span. Wesley favors smaller, lower-risk acquisitions in which the potential downside is minor and the threshold for breaking even and enhancing value is low. He cites the Schrock cabinet deal and the Geyser Peak wine purchase as fine examples. Just last week, Fortune announced another "tuck-in" acquisition, this time Boone International, a fast-growing maker of office "presentation products" such as easels and bulletin boards, which should post 1999 sales of $56 million, up 14% from a year ago.
Wesley's rather tidy formula for delivering his targeted returns comes from the 4% expected sales growth of the industries in which Fortune competes, from which he figures the company can derive 6%-7% revenue growth, owing to its advantaged brand positions. At that rate of top-line growth, "the free cash flow generated can pay down debt, buy back shares and make acquisitions," Wesley explains. And when overlaid atop the goodwill benefits and the corporate-wide cost savings now being reaped, the company's promise of continued double-digit earnings growth begins to look pretty solid.
Fortune Brands may never fully eliminate the "conglomerate discount" that acts as a drag on its stock performance. But if investors ever take a closer look at the company's performance and its now-sharp focus on shareholder interests, that discount could well narrow enough to provide some pretty nice returns. Even without a catchy company slogan.
The market's treated Fortune Brands outrageously, given the company's strengths


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Avatar 2: Set For a December 2017 Release, Plot Details and More!
The release date for the much-awaited sequel to Avatar seems to have finally arrived. There are reports that Avatar 2 will hit theatres in December, 2017 while there has been no official announcement yet! Master Herald has reported that Jim Gianopulos, the CEO of the 20th Century Fox believes that a Christmas release would be perfect for Avatar 2.
There are additional reports that the likely date for the release of Avatar 2 will be 25th December and the two other sequels, Avatar 3 and Avatar 4 are going to release on the same date in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Since the release dates for the films are being speculated on, fans are hopeful that the scripts for the three films have been completed by James Cameron. Cameron had to rework on the entire script because he wasn't able to stay within the three-sequel deal, but it looked like that that problem had been sorted.
Cameron has informed the fans that the script has been completed and now the creative team is working on modeling the creatures, characters and the locales that will be seen in Avatar 2 and the next two sequels.
Cameron has always created films that have become benchmarks for later directors and scriptwriters to model their work on. He uses technology to help give a new dimension to his movies and it is reported that for Avatar 2 he has devised a whole set of new special effects.
The shooting for Avatar 2 was stalled because supposedly James Cameron was trying to develop a technology that enabled directors to shoot motion-capture scenes below water. This information has increased a lot of speculation among fans who believe that Avatar 2 will be set in the ocean ecosystem of Pandora.
The cast for the film has been confirmed. IB Times has confirmed that Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana will reprise their usual roles of Jake Sully and Neytiri. Although the characters portrayed by Signourney Weaver and Stephen Lang died in Avatar, they are still expected to be a part of Avatar 2.
James Cameron is shooting the three sequels at one go and it is becoming a little tough for the crew and cast to stick to their busy schedule.
Jim Gianopulos, while talking at the Gabelli & Company's Movie & Entertainment Conference in New York City, said he is confident that the movie will release on the scheduled date because he is aware of the commitment and pace of James Cameron.
Dota 2 ESL One Frankfurt Hit a Record One-Million Concurrent Viewers, Dota 2 Reborn is a Game for All Ages, And More
Batman V Superman: New Trailer in Comic-Con, Eisenberg Talks about Lex Luthor!


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Herbert Prohaska
(1955-08-08) 8 August 1955 (age 63)
1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Playing position
midfielder retiered
Youth career
Vorwärts XI
Ostbahn XI
Senior career*
Team Apps (Gls)
Teams managed
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only
Herbert Prohaska (born 8 August 1955 in Vienna, Austria) is a retired Austrian football player. He is among Austria's greatest football players of all time. His nickname "Schneckerl", Viennese dialect for curly hair, comes from his curly haircut in his younger years. He works as analyst for the Austrian television and writes for Austrias most popular newspaper.
2 International career
3 Honours
4 Reading
Career[change | change source]
Prohaska was born into a working class family. His father was a worker and his mother cleaned rooms. His father was coach of a youth team of Vorwärts XI. Here Prohaska started his career at the age of 9, then he played for the minor league club SC Ostbahn XI in Vienna. Then he went on to FK Austria Wien and became professional player. He played at the age of 16 for the first team of Austria Wien. Till 1980 he won with the team 4 Austrian league titles and 3 Austrian cup wins. 1980 he went to Italy where he played for Inter Mailand and later for AS Roma. In Italy he won the championship with Inter and the cup with Roma. From 1983 to 1989 he played again for FK Austria Wien and won another 3 championships and one cup. 1989 he retired from playing football.
Shortly afterwards he became coach of Austria Wien an won the championship twice. 1993 he became coach of the football national team. His biggest success was the qualification for the FIFA World Cup in 1998 as winner of the group stage. 1999 he resigned after a 0:9 defeat versus Spain. But in his era the team was number 17 in the FIFA team ranking, a place which could not reach another team coach ever since. From 1999 till 2000 he was again coach of Austria Wien.
After the end of his football career he became analyst for Austrian Television (ORF) and he wrote for the newspaper "Kronen-Zeitung". In 2011 he was elected "Austria Wien player of the century".
International career[change | change source]
From 1974–1989 he played 84 matches for Austria and shot 12 goals. With one of his goals he fixed 1977 versus Turkey the qualification of Austria for the FIFA World Cup 1978.
Honours[change | change source]
7x Austrian Champion with FK Austria Wien: 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1986
4x Austrian Cup with FK Austria Wien: 1974, 1977, 1980, 1986
1x Champion Italy Seria A with AS Roma: 1983
1x Italian Cup with Inter Mailand: 1982
FIFA World Cup:1978, 1982
3x Austrian Footballer of the Year: 1984, 1985, 1988
FK Austria Wien:Team of the century
2x Austrian Champion with FK Austria Wien: 1991, 1992
2x Austrian Cup with FK Austria Wien: 1990, 1992
FIFA World Cup: 1998
Reading[change | change source]
ballesterer fm Nr.68 January,February 2012-Prohaska, Austrianer, Held & Hawara (German language-main article about Herbert Prohaska)
Player profile – Austria Archive
UEFA.com article on Austria's Golden Player
Career stats – National Football Teams
Austria squad – 1978 FIFA World Cup
1 Koncilia • 2 Sara • 3 Obermayer • 4 Breitenberger • 5 Pezzey • 6 Hattenberger • 7 Hickersberger • 8 Prohaska • 9 Krankl • 10 Kreuz • 11 Jara • 12 Krieger • 13 Happich • 14 Strasser • 15 Weber • 16 Persidis • 17 Oberacher • 18 Schachner • 19 Pirkner • 20 Baumeister • 21 Fuchsbichler • 22 Baumgartner • Coach: Senekowitsch
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Herbert_Prohaska&oldid=6142497"
Austrian footballers
Players of the Austrian national football team
Austrian football managers
Austria national football team managers
This page was last changed on 5 June 2018, at 05:38.


4- Zendale Lemons 1953 Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Zendale is retired from DuPont and lives in Eden, NC.
7- Billy Gowan and Calvin Gillie in December 1954, US Navy. Billy passed away in August 2006 in Spartanburg, SC. Calvin currently resides in Charleston, SC.


"Quality Education, Through High Expectations."
We hope that you will get a real flavour of life in our school from reading about all the achievements of the children and seeing what happens in our school on a regular basis.
We are proud of the wonderful academic achievements of our pupils, but this is not what defines the children at our school. We measure our success by the smiles that we see around school as well as by the excellent academic results the children achieve. It is this balance that makes The Deans such a special place. This year we are delighted to have received recognition of the values that we live and breathe as we have become a Centre of Excellence for Inclusion.
We understand that a quality education is so much more than an end of key stage assessment, it is about equipping children to go on to their next stage of education as healthy, confident and respectful individuals, who can achieve their best in all areas both individually and as part of a team.
We believe that through close partnership with parents, the hard work of the staff and the enthusiasm of the children, that this is the education afforded to all at The Deans Primary School.
If there is ever anything that you want to talk to me about then please just say hello on the playground, or alternatively contact the school office to make an appointment - there's always time for a chat.


A Spanish reporter showed that he didn't know his Jedi from his jihad when he mixed up two quite unrelated symbols.
During TVE's morning news show La Mañana on Monday, one reporter got his fact and fiction a bit confused.
The show was focused on discussing the Paris terror attacks that killed 129 people on Friday and went on to give details about France launching strikes against Isis stronghold Raqqa in Syria.
While explaining the history of the city, reporter Jota Abril says that "it was one of the first cities taken in 2013 by terrorist groups, but terrorist groups from al-Qaeda," pointing to a black symbol with what looks like al-Qaeda written below it.
But that black symbol represents a different kind of fighter group - Luke Skywalker's fictional Rebel Alliance that combats Darth Vader's forces in the Star Wars films.
The mistake was spotted by Matthew Bennett of The Spain Report on Monday morning, who tweeted about the error.
Abril apologized on Twitter for the mistake, saying: "This morning I confused a logo in an explanation during the programme. My own fault. I am sorry if it offended anyone."
Esta mañana he confundido un logo durante una explicación en el programa. Culpa mía. Lo siento si ha podido ofender a alguien.
But the apology was too late. A Vine of his flub has been seen more than 50,000 times and mockery continued to pour in on Twitter.
"For TVE yesterday, the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars were terrorists and today it appears that George Bush is the Emperor. Everything adds up."
"Thank you to TVE for teaching us that Al Qaeda is in reality the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars. I always suspected it."
Some did offer support, with one Twitter user writing in response to Abril's apology that "I don't believe you were the ultimate one responsible, Jota. I don't believe it. A hug: I know that what is happening is terrible".
@JotaAbril No me creo que tú seas el último responsable, Jota. No me lo creo. Un abrazo; sé que lo estás pasando fatal.
It seems that the mix-up may have occurred because of a reggaeton record label called Alqaeda Inc, whose logo uses the Rebel Alliance symbol, and appears to be the same as the image Abril chose.


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The Perfect Candidate: Sundance 2020
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: HAIFAA AL MANSOUR [AUDIO] We had the pleasure chatting with director Haifaa Al Mansour on her latest phenomenal film and the audio interview is available in our 'Sundance Highlight' section on our main page.
The first Saudi woman to direct a feature film, Haifaa Al Mansour broke out with Wadjda and returns to her roots with The Perfect Candidate, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and is Saudi Arabia's Academy Award entry for Best International Feature Film.
The Perfect Candidate focuses on Maryam, who is an ambitious young doctor working in a small town clinic in Saudi Arabia. Despite her qualifications, she has to earn the respect of male colleagues and acceptance from her patients every day. After Maryam is prevented from traveling to Dubai in search of a better job, a bureaucratic mixup leads her to stumble on the application for her local city elections and she decides to run. With her musician father away on tour playing the first public concerts allowed in the Kingdom in decades, Maryam enlists her two younger sisters to begin fundraising and planning campaign events. While they face the restriction of women's traditional roles in the Kingdom at every turn, Maryam's audacious candidacy starts to build momentum and challenges her conservative community. A tight race emerges between Maryam and her male opponent, as Maryam and her family mobilize their determination and creativity to move their traditional society forward.
A challenge to Saudi patriarchy, The Perfect Candidate is an amusing but biting reflection on women in a society that systematically marginalizes them. Al Mansour finds an inadvertent heroine in Maryam, who learns to run a campaign from a web article and creatively navigates a restriction barring her from addressing male voters directly. With spirit and authenticity, the film offers a rare glimpse into a still-obscure society. For more visit: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6971114/reference
Director Note
"I want to show how much effort real change will entail. Women will now have opportunities to contribute and participate in a society that kept them on the sidelines.
for generations. The hardest part now is for women to look beyond the antiquated social standards and limited goals they had previously seen for themselves, to shatter the taboos that hold them back and decide to blaze new trails for themselves and their daughters."
Haifaa Al Mansour finished her bachelor's degree in Literature at the American University in Cairo and completed a Master's degree in Directing and Film Studies from the University of Sydney. She is considered the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia and her feature film WADJDA (2012) was the first feature film ever to be shot entirely inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Invited to over 40 festivals worldwide, WADJDA garnered numerous awards - among others in Venice, Rotterdam and Dubai.
Filmography 2019: The Perfect Candidate 2017: Nappily Ever After 2016: Mary Shelley 2012: Wadjda 2005: Women Without Shadows
Main Cast:
Mila Alzahrani: Maryam
Dhay: Selma Khalid Abdulrhim: Abdulaziz
Shafi Al Harthy: Mohammed
The Perfect Candidate
Haifaa Al Mansour
Mila Alzahrani
Dhay
Khalid Abdulrhim
Shafi Al Harthy


We first had sweet potatoes as a mashed side dish when visiting Kauai a couple years ago. I came across some slips from a seed catalogue and grew my first crop of sweet potatoes. Last winter I made slips of my own from saved 'taters and lo! A bumper crop from 18 plants!
As I was digging them we discovered several fingerlings and smaller bits, so we came up with this salad which is good hot or cold!
1. Wash and scrub the fingerlings. Their skin will be tender so they will not need to be peeled.
2. Trim the ends and any scars off the fingerlings and dice them into rounds, much like cutting carrots.
3. Place sweet potatoes in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to boil and simmer until tender when tested with a fork. It will not take too long!
4. While the sweet potatoes are cooking, whisk together the oil, salt, honey and vinegar.
5. Add the diced apple and walnuts, then toss to coat with dressing.
6. Drain the tender sweet potatoes, do not rinse, and add to apple-walnut-dressing bowl.
7. Toss lightly and add the optional Greek yogurt/sour cream/drained kefir.
8. Place in serving bowl and serve warm or chill in fridge for an hour or so. Flavors will develop and improve with time, but that has not kept us from diving right in!
Enjoy your new favorite salad packed with healthy ingredients!


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The Summer Feast of Saint Thorlák
By INLUS | July 9, 2021
By Aimee O'Connell |
Most of us are familiar with Thorláksmessa, the Feast of Saint Thorlák, which Icelanders mark on December 23 as both a salute to the Patron Saint of Iceland and a joyful day of preparation for the Christmas holidays. But few are aware that there is a corresponding Feast of Saint Thorlák celebrated every July 20. This summer Feast of Saint Thorlák is just as solemn a commemoration in the eyes of the Church but lacks the public fanfare and festivity that raises the December date to its status as an Icelandic national holiday.
Saint Thorlák Thorhallsson, born in Fljótshlið in 1133, lived a life of holy example culminating in his service as Bishop of Skálholt from 1178 until his death on December 23, 1193. It is often the case that the Catholic Church proclaims feast days on the date of a saint's death, which is how the date of Thorláksmessa came to be. Thorlák's sainthood itself, however, was not immediately instituted upon his death. As with all saints of the Church, a period of reflection, study and scrutiny of Thorlák's life was necessary before anyone could possibly consider him a saint. The hagiography and conclusions of this study are well-detailed in The Saga of Bishop Thorlák, and there is little question that his holiness is exemplary. Furthermore, the Saga contains testimony from numerous people as to the miraculous intercession of Bishop Thorlák on behalf of those who asked his help in prayer. It did not take long for devotion to spread.
In 1198, five years after Thorlák's death, his successor and nephew, Bishop Páll Jónsson, took formal steps to make Thorlák's sainthood official. To accomplish this, Thorlák's body needed to be exhumed and ceremoniously moved to a dedicated place of sacred repose at the Cathedral in Skálholt. A formal declaration would also be made by Bishop Páll at the Althing. These motions were among the many activities which could only be undertaken in the summer months in Iceland when the ground was not frozen and public assemblies were possible. The Althing, for starters, convened for two weeks every June and was attended by those who gathered from all parts of Iceland. And, the formal translation of Thorlák's relics on July 20, 1198 (i.e., the moving of his body from its initial burial spot to one of sacred veneration) found hundreds of pilgrims crossing the Icelandic terrain to witness this occasion in Skálholt. Thus, the summer Feast of Saint Thorlák is commemorated in the Church every year on this date.
Among the faithful, the practice of a nine-day devotion known as a novena is frequently performed in the days leading up to a particular feast day. The Novena in Honor of Saint Thorlac was approved in 2018 by Bishop David B. Tencer of the Catholic Church in Iceland and is a fine way to learn more about the life and example of Iceland's patron saint. English text and audio of this prayer is available free online at the Autism Consecrated website, or audio with slideshow on the website's YouTube channel. The novena may also be purchased in book form from Amazon.com.
Aimee O'Connell is the author of Thorlak of Iceland, published by Chaos to Order Publishing. The book may be ordered at www.amazon.com.
Iceland's history is told in the stories of its celebrated figures. From Viking explorers to Saga heroes, the voices that define Icelandic culture are well known. Yet one man in Iceland's past had difficulty finding the words to form his own voice and be known for who he really was: Thorlák Thórhallsson, declared by his people "The Patron Saint of Iceland" in 1198 and officially canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1984. Yet, despite these honors, few have ever heard Thorlák's complete and true story: A child prodigy treated as an adult by those around him, a sorrowful boy from a broken home, a scholar of the emerging theology of merciful love, an innovator in pastoral leadership, and a man who understood the fundamental need to love and be loved. Thorlák of Iceland is an opportunity at last to celebrate this quiet hero who embodies the spiritual heart of the Icelandic people, and to learn from his inspiring true story wisdom for our own age.
Posted in History


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Fans Think Chrishell's Ex Justin Just Shaded Her Dating News With This Rare Photo of His Wife
byJenzia Burgos Aug 02, 2021 at 2:59 pm EDT
Photo: Everett Collection.
Fans have been waiting to see Justin Hartley react to Chrishell Stause dating again ever since the Selling Sunset star revealed that she's in a relationship with her boss, Jason Oppenheim, over on Instagram. Chrishell's ex had a subtle way of responding to the news—and it involved focusing on his new wife, Sofia Pernas, instead.
The This Is Us star, 44, took to social media to share a rare photo of his wife Sofia on her 32nd birthday on Saturday, July 31, which came just days after reports of his ex-wife Chrishell's new relationship. Justin, who filed for divorce from Chrishell in 2019 while she was filming season 3 of Selling Sunset, married Sofia less than two years later in May 2021 after roughly a year of dating. Rather than respond directly to reports about his ex, the actor decided to focus on his new wife's special day over on Instagram—which, honestly, says just about everything you need to know.
Justin shared a series of photos of Sofia in his post and gushed about how "beautiful" he finds the Blood & Treasure star in his caption. "Happy Birthday to my beautiful Sofia! This amazing woman makes me laugh out loud every single day," he wrote, before adding, "Here's to taking down oysters all over the world. I love you very much." In Justin's photos, the Young And The Restless alum was pictured over various plates of seafood—a clear favorite! "Can't wait," Sofia replied in the comments. "I love you."
A post shared by Justin Hartley (@justinhartley)
Justin's rare post for his wife came less than a week after his ex-wife, Chrishell, went Instagram official with her Selling Sunset co-star Jason Oppenheim. The real estate agent and Oppenheim Group co-founder officially confirmed their relationship at the time with a pair of flirty photos taken during their recent vacation in Italy with their fellow Netflix castmates. "The JLo effect," Chrishell captioned the photos, seemingly referencing Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's latest romance.
Jason, for his part, left a red heart emoji in the comments before confirming their relationship in a statement via Us Weekly. "Chrishell and I became close friends and it has developed into an amazing relationship," he told the site on July 28. "I care about her deeply and we're very happy together."
Chrishell Stause
sofia pernas


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SGA passes funding regulations in response to bronze SuperFrog statue
SGA passed a bill Tuesday evening to regulate the way it spends students' money.
Largely in response to the way the new $50,000 SuperFrog statue was funded, the bill requires any individual or group who spends more than $15,000 on an event or structure to receive permission by a majority vote from the Student House of Representatives.
The bill was originally proposed by College of Communication representative Rachel Adcock, senior, and AddRan College of Liberal Arts House representatives Michael Dabbs and Parker Fleming, seniors.
"We wrote this because we believe students should have a voice in how large amounts of money are spent in House," Fleming said.
The final bill that passed had several noticeable differences from the original, however. The original language of the bill required that spending more than $20,000 would need a 2/3 vote of approval from the House of Representatives.
Adcock said the bill would create regulation for spending the Student Body Fee, which students directly pay for. The Student Body Fee is $45 per semester.
Dabbs said the funding of the Student Memorial through SGA was a good use of extra, or residual, money. However, he said the new bronze statue of SuperFrog, currently on the first floor of the Brown-Lupton University Union, was a use of funds that should be prevented in the future.
The statue was commissioned by the Student Body President and the Cabinet, Dabbs said. The Student House of Representatives did not have the opportunity to vote about the statue's commission.
"We saw a very good example of how of a project was funded through House and through residual funds," Dabbs said. "We also saw an example that was not well done in our opinion."
Student Body Treasurer David Belpedio said that the statue was funded from residual funds. He estimated the final costs to be around $50,000.
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The New York Yankees will be without rookie sensation Gleyber Torres for the foreseeable future. The Yankees placed Torres on the 10-DL with a hip strain following Wednesday's win over the Braves. The club is hopeful his stay on the DL will be brief. However, the Yankees are likely to keep Torres on the DL at least through the all-star break, which is less than two weeks away.
The Yankees aren't sure how Torres hurt his hip. He first felt tightness in his right hip flexor during Monday's game. He was not included in the starting lineup Tuesday, although he did enter late in the game. Torres was back in the starting lineup for Wednesday's matinee. However, his hip tightened up during his second at-bat Wednesday. An MRI then revealed a strained right hip.
The injury is the first setback in what has been a sensational rookie season for the 21-year old Torres. To this point in the season, he's hitting .294 with 15 home runs and 10 doubles, posting an OPS of .905. Blocked at shortstop by Didi Gregorius, Torres has become New York's everyday second baseman. He's quickly become an important part of the team's lineup.
Boone indicated that Torres could have played through this kind of injury if it popped up late in the season. However, with time on their side, the Yankees won't take any chances, even as they find themselves in a tight race with the Red Sox atop the AL East.
With Torres likely out for the next couple of weeks, Brandon Drury and Neil Walker are both candidates to fill-in at second base. Drury has had a rough season and only recently returned from a stint in the minors. But he's a capable second baseman and could start to hit with regular playing time. Walker is a more natural second baseman. However, he's also struggled to get going this season, hitting just .188 with an OPS of .527.
Considering how many quality hitters the Yankees have in the rest of their lineup, they should be able to survive a couple weeks without Torres. Right now, the club believes that the issue is a minor one that should clear up soon. In the long run, the Yankees will need Torres in their lineup to be at their best. However, they will undoubtedly miss Torres in the short term.


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Judge Pierre Adolphe Rost, b. 1797 in France, d. 1868, married Louise Odile Destrehan. He was a plantation owner, state senator and associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court (1853).
In March of 1865, Congress created the Federal Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, most often referred to as Freedmen's Bureau, a quasi-military organization charged with aiding the newly freed slaves with financial, educational, social and political matters, tasking them to help those freed to adjust to their new lives.
In Louisiana, four "home colonies" were created as self-sustaining agricultural collectives that also provided schools, commercial stores, and a hospital.
Want to read more about the Rost Home Colony? See "Rost: The Family and the Freedmen's Colony" gathered by Rachel J. Allemand"
These colonies were planned to provide safe havens, training, and preparation for post-Civil War transition. One of these was established on the government-expropriated property of Judge Rost (Destrehan Plantation), who was married to Jean-Nöel Destrehan's daughter and was in exile in Europe. It became the Rost Home Colony, which was established by Order #29.
It is a lasting tribute to the administration of the bureau and the freedman laborers that in 1866 they produced 31,500 pounds of ginned cotton, 10,500 additional pounds of unpicked cotton, and 350 acres of sugar cane that produced 420,000 pounds of sugar and 6,000 gallons of molasses.
Rost Home Colony.
Under the leadership of retired Assistant Commissioner Major General Absalom Baird, the Rost Home Colony on the German Coast was the most successful of the four Louisiana colonies. Although it existed for only two years, the meticulous colony records, the "Registers of Arrivals and Departures," have left genealogists with an invaluable resource and the potential for tracing family histories for the more than 1,000 residents.
As an example, the register reveals Fountain Johnson and his 21 family members who were former slaves from St. Charles Parish, arrived at Rost Home Colony on March 20, 1865. These valuable records are housed in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Judge Rost returned from Europe and requested the return of his properties. Rost's other properties were returned, but it was determined the Rost Home Colony would continue to exist until the end of 1866, at which time the colony would end. Judge Rost received rental payments from the Freedmen's Bureau until that time. The last colonists left the Rost Plantation in early December 1866. Judge Rost continued to practice law until his death in 1868.
Captain Othelle J. Flagg, b.1825; C.S. Vols., discharged October 16, 1865. Later founded Flaggville (present-day Hahnville), served as head of commissary of subsistence at the Rost Home Colony and district judge of St. Charles Parish.
This text is copyright © material by Marilyn Richoux, Joan Becnel and Suzanne Friloux, from St. Charles Parish, Louisiana: A Pictorial History, 2010.
Judge Pierre Adolphe Rost - Image
Destrehan Manor House Historical Marker - Image
Originally constructed for Robert de Logny. Located in Destrehan on La. 48 (River Road). Constructed in 1789–90 for Robert de Logny. Inherited by Jean Noel d'Estrehan in 1800. Bought from heirs of Pierre A. Rost in 1914 by Mexican Petroleum Company. Donated in 1972 to River Road Historical Society by American Oil Company. (Note: Purchased by Jean-Nöel Destrehan from deLogny estate. Site of Rost Home Colony following Civil War. Named by River Road Historical Society for Louisiana Statesman Jean-Nöel Destrehan.) (Erected by St. Charles Parish Police Jury and St. Charles Bicentennial Committee in cooperation with Louisiana Tourist Division of the Department of Commerce.)
Rost: The Family and the Freedmen's Colony at Destrehan Plantation
Information gathered by Rachel J. Allemand
By Mary Gehman
Sale of Rost Plantation
Fr. Paret's Watercolors & Journal (1859)
Free People of Color in Louisiana: Revealing and Unknown Past
The Rost Home Colony, St. Charles Parish, Louisiana: National Archives Prologue Magazine
United States Freedmen's Bank Records, 1865-1874
United States Freedmen's Bureau Marriages, 1815-1869
United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Records of the Assistant Commissioner, 1865-1872
United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Records of the Commissioner, 1865-1872
United States, Records of the Superintendent of Education and of the Division of Education, 1864-1879


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History Philanthropy
Washington-area financier David Rubenstein, who has a passion for U.S. history, has focused his philanthropy in the national capital region. The goal of many of his gifts, he has said, "is to remind people of American history…. People know so little about our history…. That's really why I try to do this."
Many of Rubenstein's efforts involve rehabilitation of patriotic sites. Take Arlington House. When Robert E. Lee sided with his state instead of his nation and took command of the Confederate army, the U.S. seized his family estate. It was located on a hill overlooking the nation's capital from the south bank of the Potomac. Lee's residence—which was modeled on the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens and built as a tribute to his relative George Washington—was turned into a military headquarters. The grounds became the home of several thousand liberated slaves. Then, in the third year of the war, the property was turned into a burying ground for men killed in the fight to preserve the Union. We now know it as Arlington Cemetery.
The residence, Arlington House, was designated a memorial to Robert E. Lee in 1925 and put under the protection of the National Park Service. But by 2014 it was tattered. To improve the experience of the 650,000 people who visit each year, David Rubenstein pledged $12.4 million to the National Park Foundation for restoration of the house and museum, the landscape, and the historic slave quarters.
A year later, Rubenstein made a $5.4 million donation to refurbish a more recent war memorial: the Iwo Jima sculpture which remembers the sacrifices of World War II marines. Then just days later came more spit and polish: a $10 million gift to the private foundation that maintains Thomas Jefferson's Monticello residence for public visits. That donation will help restore outbuildings, roads, and landscaping to return the property to its appearance as Jefferson knew it. In 2016, Rubenstein donated $10 million to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and $19 million to restore the Lincoln Memorial.
Previously, Rubenstein provided $7.5 million to repair the Washington Monument after it was damaged in an earthquake, $10 million toward a new library at George Washington's Mount Vernon estate, and a share of the $30 million pledged by a group of local philanthropists to expand the National Gallery of Art. Rubenstein is known for buying historic documents and lending them to educational institutions or museums. One of the 17 remaining copies of the 715-year-old Magna Carta, which he purchased, is now on display in the National Archives.
From 2006 to 2017, Rubenstein's giving to landmarks and historic sites in the national capital region totaled $135 million.
Washington Post report on Arlington gift, washingtonpost.com/local/robert-e-lees-arlington-mansion-gets-12-million-donation-from-david-rubenstein/2014/07/17/4981b686-0d0a-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html
Washington Post report on Monticello gift, washingtonpost.com/local/philanthropists-latest-gift-10-million-to-jeffersons-monticello-plantation/2015/05/01/97e36c9c-ee8d-11e4-8abc-d6aa3bad79dd_story.html


Lately, I've been in a bit of a slump. When I woke up yesterday morning, I felt despondent and lonely. I could have slept all day had I not had to go to work. But before I went to work, I picked a book off of my shelf, just in case I had some down time. It was the best decision I made all day. You see, I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat Pray Love."I know I'm a little late to jump on this boat. I've been meaning to read the book and see the film, two things that I hadn't done as of yesterday morning. I don't usually have time to read outside of what I read for classes. My heart leaped at the idea of reading for fun again. So I eagerly grabbed the book and shoved it in my purse before running out the front door. And as I thought, graduate education wasn't roaring with activity and provided me with the time to sit and read."Eat Pray Love" is Liz's story about her travels to Italy, India and Indonesia and how she tries to balance worldly pleasures with spirituality. She heals as she travels. I find that reading her witty prose helps me to heal along with her. She makes me want to travel, to get out of the country and to experience the world around her the way she does.Of course, I can exactly do that. Lacking the resources and the time, I had to think of something else that would bring my spirits up.
In her novel, Liz obviously writes quite a bit about food. So food was what I would turn to. For a while now, I've been seeing everyone's posts about pumpkin this and pumpkin that. Then Sam's mom made us pumpkin butter and I knew I had to make something with pumpkin (Ask any of my roommates…I've been saying this a long time.). I decided to make pumpkin cookies along with some cream cheese frosting.I decided to base my cookies on the Old-Fashioned Soft Pumpkin Cookies recipe that Libby Pumpkin posted on Very Best Baking. I'm not confident enough to make my own recipes yet, but did improvise a little bit on the recipe.
Mix your flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg in one bowl until uniform in color.In another bowl, mix your softened butter and sugar. Then add in the pumpkin. If you're having trouble mixing your butter and sugar (for those of us who are too lazy use the mixer), add the pumpkin in early. It helped me to have more wet ingredients when mixing everything. Then add your egg and beat until smooth. Do the same with the vanilla extract. Gradually add your dry ingredients and mix until you get a smooth dough. The dough is pretty loose but very sticky.The recipe suggests plopping 1 tablespoon worth of dough on the baking sheet as one cookie. I made bigger, thicker cookies.
So if you make them thicker like mine, you'll want to bake them at 350° for about 25 minutes instead of 15.Since I made mine thicker, the outside got firm while the inside, though cooked, was still nice and soft.
The cinnamon and pumpkin taste are so warm and reminiscent of Autumn. They're not too sweet, so for those of you who like a mild cookie, this is perfect.Libby's recipe also calls for a glaze, but I thought it might be interesting to try a cream cheese frosting with the pumpkin cookies. Cream cheese frosting is great because it's so thick and rich that you only need a little bit of it to sweeten whatever it is that you're eating it with.Cream cheese frosting is really easy to make, as I found out thanks to the Food Network recipe for it.
I didn't exactly follow Food Network's directions on this one. Again, I'm too lazy to use the mixer because that ultimately means more to clean once I'm done. So I just used a spatula to mix my butter and cream cheese together. Once they were smoothly mixed, I sifted the powdered sugar one cup at a time (as the recipes recommends). The vanilla extract came last. Mix it all and there you go! Eating the soft, warm cookies with the cooled cream cheese frosting really brightened my spirits.


I ate my weight in stuffing yesterday and I have the bloat to show for it. I would feel bad about that, but, it only happens once a year, so, not so much.
Besides, I spent the day running off the calories with my sisters; we did some Christmas shopping, grabbed some coffees, and, scouted locations for a photo shoot that my younger sister and her son sat for later in the day. In reality, I probably burned far more calories than I ingested, which is why I feel no guilt for diving into the leftovers again this evening.
Once a year, people! Once a year!
Anyhoodle, here are some pictures that I took of Barbie and my nephew; surely I burned a few calories pressing the shutter button, right?


1 Bedroom Flat For Sale in Liverpool for Asking Price £89,950.
Entwistle Green are delighted to offer for sale this well presented spacious studio apartment situated on the second floor. The property is situated in the sought after Ropewalks area of Liverpool city centre close to the Universities and Cathedrals and a vast array of shops, bars and restaurants with Liverpool One shopping development within easy reach. An ideal opportunity for first time buyers to purchase a period property with charm and character throughout. Briefly the property comprises of hallway, open plan lounge with French doors opening on to a Juliet balcony, spacious kitchen, and bathroom. The property benefits from a lift giving access to each floor, double glazing and being sold with no onward chain.