text:
package springfox.documentation.swagger.web;

import com.google.common.base.Function;
import com.google.common.base.Optional;
import io.swagger.annotations.Api;
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.core.annotation.AnnotationUtils;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import org.springframework.web.method.HandlerMethod;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.RequestMappingInfo;
import springfox.documentation.service.ResourceGroup;
import springfox.documentation.spi.DocumentationType;
import springfox.documentation.spi.service.ResourceGroupingStrategy;
import springfox.documentation.spring.web.Paths;
import springfox.documentation.swagger.common.SwaggerPluginSupport;

import java.util.Set;

import static com.google.common.base.Strings.*;
import static com.google.common.collect.Sets.*;
import static org.springframework.util.StringUtils.*;

@Component
public class ClassOrApiAnnotationResourceGrouping implements ResourceGroupingStrategy {
  private static final Logger LOG = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ClassOrApiAnnotationResourceGrouping.class);

  @Override
  public String getResourceDescription(RequestMappingInfo requestMappingInfo, HandlerMethod handlerMethod) {
    Class<?> controllerClass = handlerMethod.getBeanType();
    String group = Paths.splitCamelCase(controllerClass.getSimpleName(), " ");
    return extractAnnotation(controllerClass, descriptionOrValueExtractor()).or(group);
  }

  @Override
  public Integer getResourcePosition(RequestMappingInfo requestMappingInfo, HandlerMethod handlerMethod) {
    Class<?> controllerClass = handlerMethod.getBeanType();
    Api apiAnnotation = AnnotationUtils.findAnnotation(controllerClass, Api.class);
    if (null != apiAnnotation && hasText(apiAnnotation.value())) {
      return apiAnnotation.position();
    }
    return 0;
  }

  @Override
  public Set<ResourceGroup> getResourceGroups(RequestMappingInfo requestMappingInfo, HandlerMethod handlerMethod) {
    String group = getClassOrApiAnnotationValue(handlerMethod).toLowerCase()
            .replaceAll(" ", "-")
            .replaceAll("/", "");
    LOG.info("Group for method {} was {}", handlerMethod.getMethod().getName(), group);
    Integer position = getResourcePosition(requestMappingInfo, handlerMethod);
    return newHashSet(new ResourceGroup(group.toLowerCase(), handlerMethod.getBeanType(), position));
  }

  @Override
  public boolean supports(DocumentationType delimiter) {
    return SwaggerPluginSupport.pluginDoesApply(delimiter);
  }

  private String getClassOrApiAnnotationValue(HandlerMethod handlerMethod) {
    Class<?> controllerClass = handlerMethod.getBeanType();
    String group = Paths.splitCamelCase(controllerClass.getSimpleName(), " ");

    return extractAnnotation(controllerClass, valueExtractor()).or(group);
  }

  private Optional<String> extractAnnotation(Class<?> controllerClass,
      Function<Api, Optional<String>> annotationExtractor) {

    Api apiAnnotation = AnnotationUtils.findAnnotation(controllerClass, Api.class);
    return annotationExtractor.apply(apiAnnotation);
  }

  private Function<Api, Optional<String>> descriptionOrValueExtractor() {
    return new Function<Api, Optional<String>>() {
      @Override
      public Optional<String> apply(Api input) {
        return descriptionExtractor().apply(input).or(valueExtractor().apply(input));
      }
    };
  }

  private Function<Api, Optional<String>> valueExtractor() {
    return new Function<Api, Optional<String>>() {
      @Override
      public Optional<String> apply(Api input) {
        if (null != input) {
          String stripSlashes = input.value().replace("/", "");
          return Optional.fromNullable(emptyToNull(stripSlashes));
        }
        return Optional.absent();
      }
    };
  }

  private Function<Api, Optional<String>> descriptionExtractor() {
    return new Function<Api, Optional<String>>() {
      @Override
      public Optional<String> apply(Api input) {
        if (null != input) {
          return Optional.fromNullable(emptyToNull(input.description()));
        }
        return Optional.absent();
      }
    };
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Day 3 of the Perdigao IOP. Weather fine and very warm, with scattered thin cirrus and light winds.
3 Soundings launched today, 0UT, 6UT, and 18UT - the 12UT sounding was skipped due to the change over from the van to the office trailer - which finally arrived around noon. We had to dismantle the van setup to make room for the trailer,. The truck turned out to be too large to get to our prefered location at the sounding site. Instead the trailer was loaded to a point close to the main valley road where the crane truck could reach, up the hill from the Helium and sounding antenna. (The second trailer, destined for the Notre Dame site, was returned to the supplier since their site is too remote for delivery by such a large truck). Power was run to the trailer and sounding equipment was set up in time for the 18 UTC sounding. The DM computer, surface met and network are not yet installed and we are aiming to start on those tomorrow.
Holger arrived in time for the 18 UTC sounding.


Located in La Farge, WI, Organic Valley is a cooperative that allows small organic farmers to combine their growing power and sell products on a grand scale.
Posted by Willy Franzen on January 28, 2008. Jobs updated daily.
Displaying 1-10 of 335 results.
Organic food is back. First it was for hippies. Then it was for wealthy foodies. Now it's hitting the mainstream with many every day supermarkets having an organic aisle. In just a few short centuries, we've come full circle from all organic farming (there were no other options), to chemically dependent factory farming, back to organic. Organics may be a little more expensive, but there is a growing population that is willing to pay a premium for food that they consider healthier, more humane, and better tasting. Organic Valley is a cooperative between 1201 farmer-owners that allows small organic farmers to combine their growing power and sell products on a scale that is usually reserved for industrialized farming operations. Yes, it's true. One Day, One Job finally has a post for the aggies out there (although Organic Valley also has plenty of opportunities for people with a non-agricultural background).
"At Organic Valley, our philosophy and decisions are based on the health and welfare of people, animals and the earth. In today's world, in order to make a difference, companies need to think differently. Since our first seven farmers started working together in 1988, we've been doing just that." That pretty much sums up why we think Organic Valley is a great place to start your career. If you want more detailed information on their products, organic farming, or how they started, you can visit their web site. A google search will also turn up myriad articles and websites that go into more detail about Organic Valley and their accomplishments. Wikipedia also has an entry on Organic Valley.
As good as Organic Valley's general website is, their employment site is hindered by the applicant tracking system that it is built on. Not only is the site slow, but it's a bit confusing (and sometimes stops working). It also doesn't let us link to individual jobs. We don't want you to go through the pain that we did going through Organic Valley's job listings, so we've picked out the jobs that appear to be the most appropriate for entry-level applicants. The exciting news is that there are a lot of them. New college grads should be well qualified for any of the following positions: Inventory Associate II, ERP Setup Associate, Sustainability Program Manager, Logistics Support Specialist, Sales Services Coordinator, Graphics Designer, California Hauling and Quality Coordinator, Regional Farmer Relations Representative, Farmer Communications Coordinator, and Product Development Technologist.
Almost all of these positions are based out of La Farge, Wisconsin, and there's a wide range of fields represented – from accounting to marketing to agriculture. We did our best to make sense of the job descriptions, but they were a little unclear, so give them a good look before you apply.
We don't want to end this post on a sour (like non-organic milk) note, because Organic Valley truly does look like an awesome place to work, so we'll highlight a few of the perks that come with working for them. Organic Valley employees get to participate in the Kickapoo (yes, that's the real name) County Fair. Blue jeans and t-shirts are appropriate attire. And shoes are optional, yes, optional, in the Summer.
Note: On April 24th we revisited entry-level jobs at Organic Valley.


text:
Publishers of The New Philosophy Journal
New/Renew Membership
About Swedenborg
A Summary of Swedenborg's Philosophy
Swedenborg's Life: a Timeline
Swedenborg: The Man and His Work
Principles of the New Philosophy
Abbreviated Titles of Swedenborg's Works
Theistic Science Symposium
All Event Videos
Swedenborg Publishers International (SPI)
Daedalus Hyperboreus
Intelligent Default
On Common Salt
Osteopathy and Swedenborg
Swedenborg's Hidden Influence on Kant
The New Philosophy
Watch our videos on the Swedenborg Scientific & Theistic Science Group YouTube channel:
Dr. Reuben Bell, President of the SSA, Author: Intelligent Default Natural forms are not "designed," nor do they appear by accident. Every organic form is a "default setting", as it were, established according to parameters inherent in matter, in response to environmental conditions, but dependent on reciprocal, functional interaction with a spiritual cause as well. These parameters are analogically reflective of the human form, manifesting itself in continual creation, by means of processes described by Swedenborg's doctrines of Degrees, Forms and Correspondence. Evolution of new forms and adaptation of existing forms to changing conditions, occur in the crucible of the "randomness" of nature, into which, at its inmost level, flows the template of divine human form.
The New Philosophy: 100 years of the Swedenborg Scientific Association and its Contributions to a New World of Ideas
Rev. Stephen Cole Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy
Starting Science from God
Ian Thompson, Ph.D., Theoretical Nuclear Physicist. Author: Starting Science from God, Philosophy of Nature and Quantum Reality, Nuclear Reactions for Astrophysics, Compound Nuclear Reactions and Related Topics (EaglePearlPress.com)
Swedenborg's Influence on the Development of Osteopathy
Dr. David Fuller explains the history of Osteopathy and the role that the works of Emanuel Swedenborg played on the development and on the founders of Osteopathy. Author: Osteopathy and Swedenborg
Swedenborg's scientific works and the Swedenborg Scientific Association (SSA)
Dr. Reuben Bell, Book Expo 2015. Author, Intelligent Default
Unmasking Naturalism: the "science wars" and freeing the spirit
Dan Synnestvedt, Ph.D. History of Naturalism v. God. Editor: Faith and Learning and Editor and contributing author: The World Transformed
The World Transformed: 1700s and Beyond
Michael Hogan, Contributing author: The World Transformed, The changes to the world after the Last Judgment – Second coming of the Lord in the 1770s.
The journal of the
Swedenborg Scientific Association
Free with membership
The journal publishes articles addressing philosophical questions and topics that bear on the scientific, philosophical, and theological works of Swedenborg.
Includes book reviews, and a Notes & Comments department. Triennial index.
Editor: Reuben Bell
MAIL SOMETHING TO US
Publications Technician
Bryn Athyn, PA 19009
Send your email to SwedenborgScientific@gmail.com
Goethean Science and Overcoming the Cartesian Split: A Response to the Theistic Science Symposium and "Intelligent Default, Part 1"
The New Philosophy is available now

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Use to specify fine expiration time. Usage is SETEX key milliseconds value.
milliseconds: if the key has an expiration time.
-1: If the key does not have an expiration time.
-2: If the key does not exist in the database.
The PTTL command returns the remaining time in milliseconds.


text:
Q: Serial reading returns undefined characters I am trying to communicate using LoRa modules with an ESP32. I can easly communicate with two LoRa modules, but if I want to learn the sender address, the Arduino returns an undefined character. I am using an E70 433nw30s and it has a document for reading and sending a struct like this:

I am using 2 for OUTPUT format which is data + short addres
I am sending this data for testing:
Node 2  deger 222.

as HEX:
4E 6F 64 65 20 32 20 20 64 65 67 65 72 20 32 32 32 2E

Receiving this data, it has a tail which is the adress of sender, like this:
4E 6F 64 65 20 32 20 20 64 65 67 65 72 20 32 32 32 2E 0D 0A 00 04

The adress of sender is 00 04 and 0A is new line, 0D actually I don't know. The Arduino serial monitor returns undefined characters to the address of the sender.

Output:
12:33:50.084 -> Node 2  deger 222.
12:33:50.084 -> Node 2  deger 222.
12:33:52.916 -> Node 2  deger 222.
12:33:56.073 -> Node 2  deger 222.

How can I properly read the sender address with data?
I am receving this data with this simple code:
HardwareSerial fixajSerial(1);

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  fixajSerial.begin(115200, SERIAL_8N1, TX, RX);
}

void loop() {
  if (Serial.available()) {
    fixajSerial.write(Serial.read());
  }

  while (fixajSerial.available()) {
    Serial.write(fixajSerial.read());
  }
}

This is the output with external program:

A: So if you indeed receive your data + address (00 04) what is the problem?
The reason arduino serial monitor shows it as undefined character is because serial monitor is supposed to be used with text only, and 00 04 is not text, it is your two-byte address. But that doesn't mean the data itself is invalid, you just have to treat it as address, not as text.
I would suggest that after you receive a packet of data over UART you look for your end marker (0D 0A) and separate the two bytes after that as address into uint16_t variable. Then do whatever you need to do with that address, you can print it as hex value using Serial.println(addr, HEX); or in decimal with simply Serial.println(addr); if you want. (This is assuming that your data itself won't contain the 0D 0A sequence in the middle, only at the end)

A: 0D is Carriage Return
0A is Line Feed
0D 0A is a standard CR+LF end of line sequence.
It's not the serial reading that returns undefined characters. It's the sender that is sending them, it is just data.
Bytes 00 and 04 are not printable ASCII characters. They are read properly, but you just print them directly as characters, which is invalid. So don't do that.
If you want to print them in human readable format, Arduino likey has a function to print a byte as hex or decimal or binary or whatever number format you like, just read Arduino manual.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Broadway Joe held court at MetLife Stadium on Sunday as part of the team's 50th anniversary celebration of the franchise's only squad to win the Super Bowl. And, the former Jets quarterback thinks the fans won't have to wait another 50 years to see another title.
The Jets have been searching for a franchise-type quarterback since the glory days of Namath. Several players have had their moments over the years, but the team hopes it has its guy — finally — in rookie Sam Darnold.
Namath has met Darnold and spoken to him a few times, and thinks the youngster has lots of promise. But, he warns, it's not just about the quarterback.
When a reporter suggested that it takes time to build that for most teams, Namath laughed.
The Jets are 2-3 and looking to win consecutive games for the first time in more than a year. They're still building for the future, and Namath declined to give his full thoughts on this year's squad.
Namath was also asked about the other quarterback in town, Eli Manning, who is struggling through a tough season as the Giants are off to a 1-5 start. There have been suggestions that the 37-year-old Manning could be nearing the end of his career. Namath, who spent his final NFL season with the Los Angeles Rams in 1977, knows what it's like having to deal with the difficult decision of having to call it quits.
Namath, who famously delivered on his Super Bowl guarantee and beat the then-Baltimore Colts in 1969, was thrilled to be spending time with so many of his former teammates such as Don Maynard, Emerson Boozer, Earl Christy and John Schmitt who helped lead one of the biggest moments in pro football history.
The team will be honored during a halftime ceremony at midfield.


Hands on assistance. Specifying Dynamics marketers offer the professionals assistance by supplying pricing, samples or technical information when required for their projects. This service is supplied at no cost.
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Invitations. Be part of the Specifying Dynamics network and attend product launches, conferences and relevant industry events.
Product recommendations. Specifying Dynamics marketers have the knowledge to assist professionals with product suggestions and alternative systems, saving them time.
Information on green products and buildings. Specifying Dynamics aim to stay on par with the industry and has tailored our client product base to enable us to supply sufficient energy conscious solutions to the professionals.
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Product Awareness and training. We assist professionals by arranging meetings, presentations, CPD presentations, factory tours and showroom visits for specific product or project requirements.


Sokeai: I heard from my friends whom are already working for SIA that the groomers will decided your hairstyle according to your facial shape and ear feature.
pinklittlefigure: thanks for that. fingers crossed! judging from the amount of malaysians in there, should be no problems at all huh?
sokeai: yea.. the groomers will give advice. like lynnie, she cut her hair real short oredi.. fuss free, she said.. haha.. i think when ur really in there, you cant cut your hair as and when u want..
pinkognito wrote: mine was abt 1 week plus plus nearly 2 weeks after they called me to tell me i cleared medical.
my notice period was 2 months.
but everything had been ok for me. not very fast paced but every 1 week or so i get new updates. hahaaha.
this week go sign contract.
ooh. mine was really fast. i do medical check up on saturday then sunday they called me up already telling me i cleared my medical and start training on 3rd of march. haha.
but only verbal confirmation, they said will mail me my training contract but till now still no news.
so i was wondering how long they take to mail us the contract.
anyone starts on the 3rd?
yingying2888 wrote: sokeai: yea.. the groomers will give advice. like lynnie, she cut her hair real short oredi.. fuss free, she said.. haha.. i think when ur really in there, you cant cut your hair as and when u want..
The word is bumpkin dear girl.
Yah decide in the sense short hair or long hair. Yingying we don't learn the french twist, only the normal bun. But if you want to do it the french twist style, you can learn it on your own and bun it to STC. Groomer don't teach that.
sokeai: haha.. most likely you will keep yours i think.. only for neither here nor there cases like mine, then they might ask to cut..
xanngac & raine: infact french twist is pretty easy. for the normal bun i can only use hair net. haha.. i guess FSS dun use nets to bun it up rite? so ah ma..
yingying2888 wrote: sokeai: haha.. most likely you will keep yours i think.. only for neither here nor there cases like mine, then they might ask to cut..
Depends, if you hair is neither here nor there also might get to bun if the groomer thinks it suits you better.


text:
Mom with a Mission: Meet Erika Jones, Defining Tikkun Olam at Judson Center
Never doubt the power of a Jewish mom determined to repair the world for a child in need of a loving home. This is Erika Jones: An adoptive mom, a foster mom - a passionate and outspoken mom. In her professional role, Erika is an advocate for families and children in need at Judson Center. This is her remarkable story.
Think about it, how many Jewish foster parents do you know? Any?
As Director of Marketing and Communications at Judson Center, a family service agency based in Royal Oak, Erika Jones is working to change what the community knows and understands about foster care and adoption in Michigan. "If there's one thing I know first-hand, DNA does not make a family," says Erika. "When it comes to foster care, I truly believe that foster parenting is tikkun olam. I have yet to find a better meaning of repairing our world than offering a loving home to a child in need."
In Michigan, approximately 3,ooo foster children available for adoption at any given time.
The need is dire. Currently, there are nearly 14,000 children in custody of the State through the Michigan foster care system. Approximately 3,000 foster children are available for adoption at any given time and, of those, nearly 300 youth are waiting for their adoptive family match right now.
Adoption vs. Foster Parenting?
According to Erika, foster care is widely misunderstood and rarely discussed in the Jewish community. "I think it's important to make the distinction between adoption versus foster care, because there's a blur between the two. People don't really understand what foster care is and why we should care. These days, you hear very little about the process of domestic adoption (which is arduous), and even less about adoption within the Jewish community. With all the individual means and community resources here to help, the fact remains that there is no "go-to" Jewish agency in our community to provide answers to questions and to help navigate through the many options to start the complex process of adoption."
"I could talk about this forever," said Erika in a recent interview with myJewishDetroit. What follows are highlights of the journey Erika and her husband Rick have taken in navigating their way to adopting their first child and choosing to foster a second child.
On mid-day break from a busy work week, Erika and Rick Jones meet for a photo op at Judson Center. "Taking care of our kids is the greatest job we have," says Rick – a Detroit Metro Airport firefighter and (when off-duty ) happy to be a stay-at-home dad.
Erika: You get married, you want to start a family, but things don't always go as planned. You hear that all the time with couples going through IVF. Our timeline only begins to tell the story of all the life-changing decisions we've made along the way.
In brief: Rick (who converted to Judaism) and I were married in 2006. We love kids, always wanted a family and, as the years passed, we started to look into the options of adoption and foster care. We had no idea where to turn or what to do. We started by talking to friends, cold calling agencies, talking to everyone who would listen. We contacted local Jewish agencies first – but to no avail – and started doing our own homework in what turned out to be a nationwide search. We even gained notice on Facebook and on Mashable.
In 2010, we were on a waiting list for private adoption and, in 2011, we also filed paperwork for foster care. In 2012, through a private, open adoption, we were blessed with our beautiful daughter, Sammie. In 2016, we decided to reopen our foster license with the goal to help a child in need, and in September of that year, our foster son joined us – a fretful 8-month-old. Today, he is a thriving toddler, and I'm gratified to say that he will be reunified with his mom soon. (Side note: foster care is about providing a nurturing home – most often on a temporary basis. If a child is not able to return home to parents or relatives, due to circumstances deemed by the courts, then he or she becomes available for adoption.)
myJewishDetroit: Tell us a little more about the process of open adoption and your family experience.
Erika: Strange as it sounds, it's like dating. You have to find the right fit and that starts with the agency. Early in the process, we approached one of the biggest faith-based adoption agencies in the State – assuming they would be nondenominational in the same way the Jewish community agencies here serve everyone. Rick made the call, and they talked about the process and going to an orientation, then made the request that we needed a referral from "our pastor." And to Rick's credit, he was taken by surprise, and responded, "We're Jewish, will a rabbi count?" That's when they put him on hold to "check." And the administrator came back and told him, "No, we're sorry, but that won't work."
Finding the right match can be a soul-searching roller coaster ride.
Adoption is a wonderful option and for us, it was the right one. It's also a soul-searching roller coaster ride to find your match. And it's far from a private matter. I remember spending six stressful months just putting together our family photo book, second guessing what pictures best represented us and our story.
But when you find the right match, you know it. As it turned out, we were fortunate to find Morning Star Adoption Center – a wonderful small agency right here in Southfield. We were matched in July of 2012 with our daughter's birth mom, who was 27 years old, married with children and three months pregnant.
Nothing is easy about preparing for the birth of a child you are about to adopt from a couple you meet and come to know as friends. We knew enough to keep ourselves in check, that at any minute the birth parents could say "no" and it could be the end of our hopes and dreams.
Our first meeting was at this restaurant in the middle of nowhere. We walked in with our case worker from the agency and the place was empty. And there in the corner was this young couple waiting for our arrival. Our first attempts at conversation were awkward; she didn't want to look at me and I didn't know what to do. But a couple of hours later, we were talking, hugging and even crying . . . we realized that the decision this young couple had made was the most unselfish thing for the benefit of the child. They were a family with an unplanned pregnancy with a child they couldn't afford. They embraced us and we did them. They even signed a waiver where we could call their doctor if ever we had questions, and for six months we were at every OB/GYN appointment. We were in the hospital room when Samantha was born, and my husband was invited to cut her umbilical cord – it was all so surreal and very special.
myJDet: What is your relationship now with your daughter's birth family?
We have an open adoption. We bonded with them early on and made a promise that we would keep in touch, and we kept that promise. Our daughter's birth family chose us and we do not take that for granted for one minute. Keeping our promise is the least we can do. We also honored them by giving Samantha her biological half-sister's name as her middle name.
myJDet: What do you find that adoptive and foster parents have in common?
Empathy, compassion and love. For me, there is no distinction between "biological," adopted or foster. Being a parent is the ability to nurture, love and provide guidance to help a child grow, be the best person they can be, whether it is for forever or for a moment in time.
myJDet: How and when do you talk to a child about open adoption?
We made the personal choice of an open adoption, because we want Samantha to always know where she came from and never wonder "what if" or whether the grass was greener on the other side.
And as questions come up, it's a delicate balance between the need to know and what your child is capable of understanding. Sammie is five now and naturally curious. A couple of months ago, she asked, "Mom, was I in your belly?" I was at the kitchen sink, and I turned around, "No sweetie, you were in someone else's belly for mommy and daddy." And she said, "Oh, right! You're just being funny." And I realized right there, that we reached the point where Rick and I both need to be together for the conversation.
As adoptive parents, you don't want the news to come as a shock to your child. It's important to have a conversation early on. The conversation has to go as naturally as possible in simple statements of the facts. And it's important to normalize that conversation and to repeat the story over and over. This is our family story, this is who we are.
myJDet: What's the first thing you would tell parents wanting or waiting to adopt a child?
Have faith. It's so cliché, but it's true: The matches do happen, and they happen with the right fit. Before Rick and I became parents, we talked about closed adoption, semi-open and open adoption. The truth is you don't know what you don't know. We made the personal choice of an open adoption, because we want Samantha to always know where she came from. For her to know her story.
I also tell parents to be patient and have respect for the other side. The process of adopting a child takes time and it's hard on you, but it's also very hard on the family letting go. No one plans to become pregnant with the goal of placing the child up for adoption. It's a hard choice to make and many times the person who must make that choice will have to go up against members of the family who disagree.
(Rick enters the conversation here): I would add that it's important that you and your spouse are both on the same page before you commit to adoption. Make sure that you understand what the other wants and the outcome. Be forthright. The process is such a huge sacrifice and emotional effort, you have to be stable, and you have to be a team.
myJDet: Let's talk about foster care and the distinction between adoption.
People need to understand foster care is meant to place kids in a nurturing environment – as interim care until such time that the biological family can welcome their child back into their home.
Michigan is a "reunification state" — meaning that parents are given an opportunity to improve their circumstances. We know to call Child Protective Services (CPS) to report anything if there's fear for a child's well-being. When CPS finds neglect or abuse, children are often removed to ensure their safety. We also find that most parents who lose custody of their kids are good people who have made poor choices; it could be that there's no heat in the home and the mom needs resources to pay the bill – or there's a single mom with six kids who needs support and doesn't know where to turn.
To become a foster parent, you go through many hours of training—and trauma training. You can't be shy or private, because they want to look at your bills, they need to look at your home. For every rule, there's a reason, because somewhere, somehow, the system failed a child.
Adoption is intrusive when you do your home study; foster care is much more so. They really need to know that you are in it for the right reasons, and that you are able to provide.
Our foster son just turned two and has been with us for more than a year and a half. I'll never forget the knock on the door, the day our foster child came into our care. There were two CPS workers bringing us this skinny, malnourished, 8-month-old. It was heartbreaking. As a foster parent, you know nothing about the immediate situation. You are signed up to step in at a moment's notice to provide care and comfort to a child who has just been taken from his or her home.
And how do you explain to your three-year-old that you suddenly have a new, traumatized baby in the house? You never think a baby at that age would really be traumatized – but every child who is removed from the only normal home they know is terrified. For weeks on end– no exaggeration – he cried 24/7 unless I held him. He was afraid of men. If I tried to pry him off of my shoulder, he'd dig into me. Rick would wrap him into the body baby carrier to calm him and finally bond with him. And we found a really nice day care with a Jewish grandma in Oak Park to fatten him up.
The difference we made with this child in 19 months is night and day – and that's what unconditional love does. It's life-saving. I know his parents love him; we see them three times a week for visitations, and they have meetings with child welfare professionals and attend programs to help them succeed in getting their child back. Our foster child's mom has my number with the invitation to call anytime, because Rick and I want her to succeed as a parent. Her success will help her son's success and future.
And my daughter? We have been very open with her from the get-go that we were helping her foster brother until his mommy and daddy "are ready." We'd take her to his visitation drop-off and pick-up, so she could meet his parents and understand that we were not his "forever" mom and dad. We'd go to foster parent events with Child Safe Michigan – a Judson Center affiliate – so she can meet others in the community who help kids the way we do.
Call it besheret – it was meant to be.
myJDet: What brought you to Judson Center?
Some would say it was meant to be. I graduated from Western Michigan with a degree in Political Science, moved to DC, then to New York, and came back to Michigan – ready to "change the world" in non-profit fundraising. I've been a development officer for 20 years. Until four years ago, I was very content with a job in fundraising at the Detroit Zoo when I received a call from a colleague who learned of a job that would be 'perfect for me' at Judson Center. I said no right away. We just wanted to live our lives as a happy family with no more changes, distractions now that we had our daughter. Well, the conversations went on for weeks until I finally agreed to meet. At the meeting, I realized that Judson Center's mission is really my mission — to help families and children in need. Their story is my story. I've been with Judson Center now for four years and, yes, this job is meant for me.
I would also encourage anyone who is interested in learning more about becoming a foster parent or even adoption, just to reach out. I am always open to talk to with others when it comes to changing a child's life and repairing the world. My email is erika_jones@judsoncenter.org
In It Together
Starfish Family Services
jbaby Detroit!
AgenciesFamilyVolunteersChildren September 1, 2013
Matchmakers!
Mentor Connection at JFS.
BusinessDetroitPhilanthropy October 30, 2015
Backpack Man of the Year
A Conversation with Detroit Attorney Mike Morse
FoodHolidayYom Ha-Atzmaut May 1, 2016
So You Think You Know Hummus?
Israel's All-Purpose, All-Time Favorite Spread
AgenciesPhilanthropyTeens November 30, 2015
To Life! Reflections on a Legacy of Caring
The Jewish Fund Celebrates 18 Years of Grantmaking


Image Title: Amazon Com TMS 6 Foot Stainless Steel Country Sliding Barn Wooden In Style Doors Prepare 10. Post Title: Barn Style Sliding Doors. Filename: amazon-com-tms-6-foot-stainless-steel-country-sliding-barn-wooden-in-style-doors-prepare-10.jpg. Image Dimension: 1000 x 750 pixels. Images Format: jpg/jpeg. Publisher/Author: Rudolph Bradtke. Uploaded Date: Sunday - October 07th. 2018 13:38:23 PM. Category: Architecture. Image Source: housetohome.co.uk. ARIZONA BARN DOORS A Sampling Of Our Barn Doors Intended For Style Sliding Designs 6. Sliding Barn Style Doors Davy House By Creative Arch Inspiration Inside Decor 18. Rustic Interior Sliding Doors Designdiary Design With Barn Style Plan 7. Barn Doors Intended For Style Sliding Remodel 14. How To Install Barn Doors DIY Network Blog Made Remade Within Style Sliding Prepare 1. HOME DZINE Home DIY Barn Style Sliding Door Regarding Doors Ideas 8. Barn Style Doors Decorative Sliding Woodwork At Home A Return Inside Prepare 15. R80 Rustic 80 Barn Style Sliding Door Gear Single Kit Black With Regard To Doors Prepare 5. Barn Style Sliding Doors Interior John Robinson Decor The Reason In Plan 12. How To Install Barn Doors DIY Network Blog Made Remade Throughout Style Sliding Decor 19.


Tomorrow we celebrate Father's Day and as a reflection on this special day to all the dads out there I decided to write about my opinion of what a good dad is. A good dad is not only the one who gives you life, is the one who is always there for you even though he might not even be physically close to you. Is the one who let's you be yourself and love you for it. One who with his life example teaches you what being loyal, faithful, loving and caring is all about. It is one that shows you how a woman must be treated, specially his wife or mother of his children; with love and respect under every circumstance.
It is a measure that many men fall short of and few attain. A man who dare forgets he came to existence by a woman must be reminded that to be a good dad, a good man, he must not forget how he became one through his wife or partner. It is not an isolated event but one that must be cherished together, just like women should on Mother's Day as well.
I was blessed with and extraordinary man whom I call dad, one who has been a lifelong faithful man, hard worker, responsible, loving, caring and very respectful of my mother and all the women he meets. One that put his life on hold while my mother battled cancer for quite a while. By the time I went to relieve him he needed open heart surgery. I cared for both of them at the same time in two different hospitals, in two different towns. It was not easy. I can't even imagine what he had to endure during seven long years. Thankfully my mother is in remission and they are enjoying life again.
So to all the Good Dads out there, Happy Father's Day and to the ones that fall short I pray that you may appreciate my words and reap the rewards a good dad receives not only tomorrow but all the days of his life and beyond by the love and respect of not only his children but his wife or mother of his children and God himself. Your job after all is to reflect God the Father here on earth.
should have said quite a while.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving me a comment. The past three years has been a difficult period of time for me but in time my muse will return. Glad you like my blog entry.
When we lose a loved one such as a parent we hopefully retain a connection via the hopefully good memories and life lessons we gained from them while they were with us. We pass on to our living loved ones what they taught us and thereby keep them alive in our hearts always.


The most important reason for applying for a patent is to obtain protection against imitation and in this way to secure a lead on the market. A patent gives the proprietor the right for a maximum of 20 years to monopolise the manufacture, use and marketing of the "protected subject matter" – which is his well-deserved reward for his creativity and investment.
The patent – and this is a decisive advantage – is an examined intellectual property right: the invention must be "new", involve an "inventive step" and be "susceptible of industrial application". These requirements are examined thoroughly by the German Patent and Trade Mark Office in Munich – which is why the patent is highly respected.


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Bay Area firefighters rally to aid cancer-stricken Vacaville girl
VACAVILLE, Calif. (KTVU) – Firefighters from across the Bay Area are rallying to aid a young Vacaville girl who has a bright smile and a tough fight ahead.
Miley McCrary, a 6-year-old who sometimes just goes by Smiley Miley, has been diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, a bone cancer that is threatening to take her arm.
"If she got three presents she'd give one to her brother and one to her sister -- she's just that kind of person," says Scott her dad. "She's always thinking about others -- thinking about what she can do to make people smile."
Smiling got harder for those who know and love her since her diagnosis, but the youngster's determined spirit continues to inspire all who come into contact with her.
Scott McCrary says "every day she tells me she's going to kick cancers butt."
"Sarcoma," explains Miley," is like something that is fighting your body so we had to get medicine to fight it back. It was little bugs in me."
But she won't be fighting alone.
Miley's dad is a firefighter in Oakland and when he asked for a few days off after her diagnosis, the response from his fellow firefighters was overwhelming.
"That was Friday," Scott McCrary said. "I called on Sunday morning and said – 'Hey, did you get those three shifts covered?' They said we'll see you in May. They got three and half months covered in 20 minutes."
The family lives in Vacaville and Vacaville firefighters also stepped up.
"Words can't describe it", Scott McCrary said. "They are literally stepping up making sure everything is taken care of. Vacaville Fire called and said can we do your lawn."
But the Vacaville firefighters said they were honored to help out a colleague in a time of need.
"The fact that we are able to help them out is a big deal for us," said William Linne the Vice President of the Vacaville Firefighters Association.
But things didn't stop there.
Oakland firefighters hold an annual charity hockey game. They like to raise money for the community but this time there was no question that they'd raise money for one of their own.
"It's very personal," said Oakland firefighter Jim Halpin. "I worked with Scotty for a long time now and it makes it personal. Within 36 hours we had a game and that was 8 weeks ago."
The game will be held on May 9th at 4 p.m. Vacaville Ice Rink. The rink donated the ice time.
"We want it to be packed," said General Manager Larry Kahn. "We want it to be where you are talking to person next to you and you can barely hear what they are saying."
And on the ice will be firefighters from Marin and beyond.
"I think what you are going to see is probably firefighters from 20 different fire departments gathered together there," Said Thomas Moran, a South Marin firefighter and paramedic. "This is a family. It's big and strong and you should never feel alone."
Miley grins as she talks about the game telling us that "on the way here we get to ride a pink firetruck."
Miley's mom Kelly says the diagnosis sent their world spinning, but no words can describe what this outpouring has meant.
"It's huge -- there's no words." says Kelly as tears fill her eyes. "It's like having a big hug, having that huge family. It's amazing."
There are two ways to help.
Sign up on her Facebook page.
Or buy $15 tickets at Vacaville Ice Sports
May 9th , 2015 at 4:00 pm
For Tickets Contact:
Jim Halpin: jameshalpin@hotmail.com
Tom Moran: northbaygunsnhoses@gmail.com


This is a guest post from Dr Annie McAuley, the founder & CEO of TalkiPlay. Annie's a mother, biomedical researcher & tech entrepreneur. Through sheer necessity, she created the innovative TalkiPlay to engage her youngest child in early speech development through interactive play. Read what Annie has to say about "having it all".
This morning I dropped my daughter off at kinder where it's writing week and today is 'express yourself day' – be the leading character inside you! Now like most kids her age she straight-lined for her Elsa costume (from the Disney movie Frozen).
And as she belted out "Let It Go" at the top of her voice, I was left thinking….
I want my daughter to "have it all". To rule her castle. To have the career of her dreams – to be a Doctor. To have those six babies (I'm hoping she will rethink that number with time).
Believing you can be and do anything you want in life is the ideal mindset I want for all kids growing up.
Annie's daughter Grace in her Elsa costume – being the boss of the land!
This is the current dilemma many women (and especially mothers) are facing right now in this world, no matter what their stage in life.
Whether they're pursuing further education, are pregnant, or are at home with their child (or children), working, starting a business, going for that promotion.
At moments this year, building TalkiPlay, I did wonder if the world would crash around me. Particularly leading up to Demo Day, and how I was going to balance family and travelling to the USA.
I was so stressed I couldn't sleep. I worked around the clock to build the product to live demo and have ready for preschools to trial.
But most of all, I was worried that in doing this I would let my family down, that I would break my promise to my kids – of seeing The Wiggles in concert.
But I didn't crash, I thrived! And it felt great to know it was worth investing the time in myself to grow in business. (P.S The Wiggles rock, I reached out to them and they get parents big time, they found us another show to attend – plus we got to meet the Wiggles in person!).
And what I learned was reaching out and asking for help, and building that strong network around me was vital for me and my family.
While try to multitask standing on the train on the way to work, checking my emails and the calendar of who is on school pick-up today, I realise: Am I possibly phrasing the question all wrong! Am I linking the process – that to "have it all" means that I have to do it all?
In a business that approach is nonsensical.
To thrive, I didn't do it all. I couldn't. There's already so much self-pressure to be a great mother, partner, friend, and to do well at work. So when I was working so hard to launch my startup, I simply had to get support.
I sought advice in business decision, in literacy, in tech, in STEMs. And in family, I had the support of my husband (who did more than his 50% share), the support of my extended family, of grandparents and aunties and uncles, a community of parents around me, my friends, colleagues at work – and the amazing women at SheStarts to share the highs and lows of the journey (and wine).
I am part of a huge support system filled with people that make the day-to-day life of family and building a successful global business possible.
I now know I was thinking.
I was thinking that if I believe in myself, and if those around me believe and support me, then I can do this.
And I need to do this, as it's the right thing to do to bring TalkiPlay to the world. Because every child needs the best possible access to education. And every child should have the opportunity to find their voice – so they can be the protagonist of their own life.
I leave you with this: "Let it go!" Don't 'hold it back anymore'. Be the woman you always wanted to be, as we as a community will support you to thrive.
Do you feel like you "have it all"? Do you think it's a myth that's really impossible to achieve? How do you maintain balance in your life?


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STOP THE SLAUGHTER IN EASTERN GHOUTA
Submitted by Jim_Roche1252 on Wed, 21/02/2018 - 17:14.
IRISH ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT (IAWM) PRESS RELEASE: 21 FEBRUARY 2018
Irish Anti War Movement statement on the slaughter in Eastern Ghouta
The Irish Anti-War Movement said today that the slaughter that is now taking place in Eastern Ghouta, as a result of the bombing of the civilian population by the Russian-backed Assad regime is utterly horrific and should stop immediately. While accurate casualty figures are difficult to ascertain it is clear that hundreds of lives, among them large numbers of children, have being lost.
The 'explanation' offered by the Assad regime that they are responding to the killing of six people in government-controlled areas of eastern Damascus earlier this week by shells fired from Eastern Ghouta is not acceptable. Even if it were true the response would be completely disproportionate. The Syrian military said it carried out "precision strikes" on areas from which the shells were launched. This claim is laughable and no more credible than such claims made by the US when bombing Iraq or Afghanistan.
"In reality the massacre in Eastern Ghouta, an area containing 400,000 people, is a continuation of the policy pursued by the tyrannical Assad regime for over six years - of killing any Syrians who do not accept its rule. This policy along with interventions by foreign militaries, has resulted in the death of approximately 500,000 citizens and the displacement of millions more" said John Molyneux, Secretary of the IAWM Steering Committee.
"But, however, strongly we condemn this particular atrocity in Eastern Ghouta and the actions of Assad and his Russian backers, we must also look at the wider picture. Syria and its people have been subject to attacks and invasions by both the world's superpowers – Russia AND the USA – and by various regional powers – Turkey, Iran and Israel. None of these interventions have been motivated by solidarity with the Syrian people: all are attempts to carve out spheres of imperial and sub-imperial influence in the Middle East. In fact since the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003, opposed by over 100,000 people on the streets of Dublin and millions worldwide, the Middle East has become a continuous catastrophic war zone. We in the Irish Anti-War Movement and the international peace movement warned that this would happen and, tragically, we were right."
Jim Roche, PRO of the IAWM Steering Committee, added:
"The IAWM has long held the view that the so-called Syrian civil war is in fact a proxy war between the world powers of Russia and America with various regional powers taking one or the other side. The horrific anti-human destruction now being played out in Eastern Ghouta is yet another element in this wider conflagration where ordinary Syrian citizens are caught in the middle of these militaristic power games. We have long called for an immediate ceasefire and meaningful negotiations for permanent peace. What appears to be happening now is that Russia and the Syrian Regime are using a minor offensive by the rebels to effectively indiscriminately bomb an entire urban area with no consideration for the casualties. Sadly this has been a characteristic perpetrated by all sides in this 7-year war."
The Irish Anti-War Movement calls for an immediate end to the bombing of Eastern Ghouta, for an end to the senseless war on the Syrian people and to ALL foreign interventions.
We also call on the EU and the Irish government to end their shameful response to the refugee crisis which is resulting in mass deaths in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. If the expressions of concern about Syria are not empty and hypocritical then European Governments, including the Irish Government, must start actually welcoming refugees to Europe and treating them with dignity when they get here by for example ending the cruel Direct Provision system.
John Molyneux, Secretary, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 085 735 6424
Jim Roche, PRO, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 087 647 2737
Michael Youlton, Chair, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 815 9487
Fatin Tamini, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 0267721
Edward Horgan, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 085 851 9623
Glenda Cimino, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 124 9456
Memet Uludag, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 087 7919307
For more information on the IAWM see:
Website - www.irishantiwar.org
@IrishAntiWarMvt https://twitter.com/#!/IrishAntiWarMvt
Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/25608030879/


Pick Analysis: In 2014, named honorable mention All-Big Ten. Set school record by a tight end with 11 career touchdown receptions. Started every game in 2013. In 2012, played in 11 and started six, while hauling in five touchdown passes. Named team captain for three years in high school and was named second-team All-State his senior season. Is Director of Marketing for Uplifting Athletes and helped to raise more than $150,000 for kidney cancer in 2013-2014.
Published: May 2, 2015 at 02:59 p.m.
The Pittsburgh Steelers pick Penn State tight end Jesse James No. 160 in the 2015 NFL Draft.
Published: Feb. 7, 2017 at 09:22 p.m.
Watch Penn State TE Jesse James work out at the 2015 NFL Scouting Combine.
Published: Feb. 20, 2015 at 01:18 p.m.
Penn State tight end Jesse James runs the 40-yard dash at the 2015 NFL Scouting Combine, recording an official time of 4.83 on his second attempt.


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16 National Monuments Across the U.S. You Really Need to Add to Your Bucket List
Explore America's historical sites and natural beauty like a pro.
By Brian Murray, Jr.
Did you know there are currently 117 national monuments across the U.S.?! With 50 states in America, you most likely live close to at least one of them. Here are 15 national monuments (which you may or may not be familiar with) that you'll want to plan a trip to ASAP.
The Stonewall Inn
Date Established: 2016
Often known as just Stonewall, the famous gay bar in New York City's West Village is the historic site of the Stonewall riots in 1969. The riots were the most important event leading up to the LGBT rights movements in the United States.
More: National Parks That Are Truly American Beauties
Mount St. Helens — Washington
This monument is managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, and it's been the only volcanic eruption in the United States since 1915. Today, visitors are allowed to climb the mountain on mapped-out trails.
Devil's Tower — Wyoming
Devil's Tower consists of igneous rock that has risen over 1,200 feet above the Belle Fourche River. It was named the first national monument by Theodore Roosevelt.
Fort Frederica — Georgia
Built sometime between the 1730s and 1740s, Fort Frederica is what remains from the forts that protected the British colony of Georgia against the Spanish raids.
Fort McHenry — Maryland
Fort McHenry, a historic shrine, played an important role in the War of 1812: the fort defended the Baltimore Harbor when it was under attack by the British navy. This fort was the inspiration behind Francis Scott Key's "The Star-Spangled Banner."
World War II Valor in the Pacific — Hawaii, Alaska, California
This national monument is made up of nine different sites in three states: the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the Aleutian Islands Campaign in Alaska, and the Japanese American internment in California. The main national monument is in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Statue of Liberty — New York
The famous statue that's known around the world. If you've never been to Ellis Island — where 12 million immigrants passed through to enter America — you need to plan a trip. One of the most popular national monuments, the Statue of Liberty commemorated the signing of the Declaration of Independence and was gifted to the U.S. by France.
George Washington's Birthplace — Virginia
This is the home where George Washington grew up. At the entrance there's a small memorial shaft that's a direct replica of the Washington monument. When you visit, be sure to see the burial ground where 32 members of the Washington family have been laid to rest.
White Sands — New Mexico
The White Sands monument is made up of 275 square miles of white sands composed of gypsum crystals. Gypsum crystals are used as a fertilizer and as an ingredient in plaster and chalkboards. The monument is located in the White Sands Missile Range, a U.S. Army testing area. Visitors are open to explore the area unless there's testing taking place.
Muir Woods — California
Within Muir Woods stands the last coastal redwood (sequoia sempervirens) in an old-growth forest. The woods are close to the San Francisco Bay Area, so it's a perfect place to go explore next time you're in the area.
Castle Clinton — New York
Built in 1811, Castle Clinton was constructed in order to protect Manhattan from the British. With 28 guns aimed at the harbor, the castle was designed to withstand any attack. However, it was never put to use during the War of 1812 because none of the attacks came to New York Harbor.
Chiricahua — Arizona
What remains from a volcanic eruption 27 million years ago are hundreds of pillars of rock called the "Wonderland of Rocks." The site is almost 12,000 acres, and it offers many amazing hiking trails that give visitors the chance to see the pillars up close.
El Malpais — New Mexico
El Malpais is a vast volcanic landscape (land that has been eroded by water into many different types of land: lava tube caves, raised sandstone, forest, and grasslands). There are lava tube caves that are as long as 17 miles.
Giant Sequoia — California
Thirty-eight giant sequoia trees sit in the Sequoia National Forest, including one of the largest giant sequoias, the Boole Tree. Its base has a circumference of 112 feet, and it reaches 269 feet in the air. The trees are spread out into two sections: the General Grant Grove and the Kings Canyon National Park.
Hovenweep — Utah, Colorado
The Hovenweep monument, in both Utah and Colorado, is made up of six Native American ruins. The four that stand in Colorado are Goodman Point, Cutthroat Castle, Hackberry Canyon, and Holly Canyon. The Square Tower and Cajon are in Utah. They were occupied by 2,500 people from the 1100s to the 1300s.
Rainbow Bridge — Utah
The Rainbow Bridge is almost 300 feet high — the height of the Statue of Liberty — and stretches 275 feet across a river. The Native Americans knew about the bridge (which they considered sacred) for centuries. It wasn't until the the early 1900s that its existence became known to the rest of the world. Today, the Rainbow Bridge is one of the world's largest known natural bridges.
Theme Parks Around the World
Brian Murray, Jr. Lifestyle Editor Brian is the longstanding lifestyle editor at BestProducts.com, and his work has been featured on Popular Mechanics and Good Housekeeping; He covers everything from the latest viral product trends to the coolest things in pop culture.
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Insight | Strategy
What Mad Men can teach us about the future of customer experience
Written by Billy Williams
on 2 October 2019
The future of customer experiences is changing. We need to start looking at how user storytelling can help us create better, longer lasting, cohesive customer experiences. And where better to look than Madison Avenue.
It's not a particularly hot take in 2019 to suggest that we're almost entirely dominated by digital interfaces. Because of this, customers have never expected more from companies in digital spaces.
Regardless of your business size, it is overwhelmingly likely that digital experiences make up a large part of your customer experience. Whether this is at the lead generation stage or the point of consumption, businesses with zero digital presence are almost extinct.
This means that customers not only expect more from digital: customer experiences are fundamentally digital experiences, and the competition to succeed has never been higher. There is no longer an easy way to distinguish between digital experiences and customer experiences. They are, for the most part, the same thing.
This provides a timely and important juncture at which to explore how we currently think about and create these experiences. And it's surprising to look at how similar the process is, regardless of which industry or sector you're operating in.
Silicon Valley Influence
It's strange to think that we can already turn the clock back over a decade to analyse how key the emergence of Silicon Valley start-up culture was in shaping customer experiences today.
Think of 2007, the year the iPhone was announced and launched. Silicon Valley was thrusting a spotlight on itself, primed to grow exponentially throughout the next decade. Companies such as Facebook, Twitter, even Google and Amazon, were at the beginning of a transition from notable start-up companies to technical behemoths dominating our economic landscape.
With this came an explosion in technologies and ideas which entirely altered the landscape in which we operate. Whether it was the adoption of entirely new UI patterns or borrowed concepts such as Agile project management, the global influence this culture had was unfathomable.
If you have ever delivered a digital platform or service, the fingerprints of Silicon Valley will be all over it. And because of the reach and depth of this influence, it's hard to focus on what the dominant trend was from these companies. But I feel it's most accurately summarised in one of the best-known Silicon Valley phrases:
Move fast and break things
This phrase's ethos has stretched directly through the provision of products and services. The act of moving fast and breaking things - shipping code as quickly as possible, then fixing and improving it rapidly - has been so widely adopted over the last decade that it's almost impossible to imagine this being a paradigm-shifting mentality within software development. And it goes deeper than that, affecting business strategy and customer experiences as much as it does product delivery.
This motto means different things to different people. To me, if we're drawing a wide net over this phrase, I think the entire last decade was governed by learning from data.
The huge increase in the number of tools available to us to aid our learning has completely altered how we analyse and improve our digital services. It's now the de-facto method for choosing how to provide and improve our digital offerings.
This has opened up opportunities the industry could have only dreamed of before this data explosion. Product teams will use some kind of data measurement service to provide insight into the implementation of their ideas and to encapsulate information about their customers. And it's without a doubt the cheapest and easiest way to effectively analyse and quantify your successes and failures.
But this massive toolbox of cheap, accessible measurement suites and metrics has allowed us to fall into certain habits. It's these tendencies as data analysers which mean we become over-reliant on data to produce and improve our offerings.
It's easy to point at obvious abuses of power when handling data - most notably the Cambridge Analytica scandal - and think that these issues only affect companies that have access to large amounts of data. But we're all guilty of looking through it and making wide-ranging assumptions which treat users as collectives rather than individuals.
This comes at a real cost to us being able to end up providing effective and cohesive customer experiences. The use of these mass data collection tools, such as Google Analytics, allow us to turn users into faceless, quantitative data points. It instantly strips them of their needs and emotions when using our platforms and services.
The paradox within our current data-driven approach is that while we insist on stripping users of their needs and emotions, we are similarly insistent on narrowing in on specific issues in a vacuum.
It is common practice for marketers and product owners alike to sift through analytics and make judgement calls on a particular, isolated set of features or pages. It is extremely rare for this analysis to look at these in the context of the platform they exist on, and rarer still for them to be considered in the context of the entire customer experience.
Data analysis in its current practice allows us to isolate issues too quickly. Decisions are made without an understanding of the customer journey throughout your entire offering.
If the future of digital services is truly personal, then our current approach for using these tools needs to change. A catch-all data approach, which doesn't allow for in-depth analysis of users on a more human level, will ultimately fall short of user expectations.
But why does this matter now? These tools have allowed products and platforms to significantly improve over the last 10 years. It may seem odd to send up the rally cry against data in a world where it is impossible to survive without it.
But I feel we have reached an impasse. The weight of data can be overbearing and is constantly susceptible to the weaknesses of the tools and people who analyse them.
And this situation isn't getting any simpler.
A rapidly complex expansion
The web as we know it is changing at a pace we have never seen before. We are moving beyond a world dominated by screens into an ocean of new and different user interfaces. From AI to VR (and any other acronym you can think of), our options for reaching customers are expanding and diversifying.
This is a threat to a product team's ability to create cohesive customer experiences - device to device, platform to platform. Despite the obvious financial costs of constantly investing in and adapting to new technology, it is diversity which is the biggest threat to providing experiences which feel familiar and brand-specific.
We can look at Ikea to see this diversity in action. While in 2007 it would have relied on physical interaction in their stores, it now has an ever-expanding suite of apps and digital offerings. From Ikea Place (their augmented reality app) to Internet of Things (IoT) smart devices, this expansion directly threatens Ikea's ability to create cohesive experiences which fulfil their aim of delivering "the wonderful everyday".
This kind of product expansion and diversification is necessary for Ikea to grow and compete in its market, but also means they can no longer rely on data alone to measure and improve upon their offerings.
There is no such thing as an analytics or measurement platform which will accurately compare interactions between web interfaces, voice interfaces, and augmented reality experiences. The experience, abilities and types of customers using these platforms have the potential to be so massively diverse that drawing comparisons between each becomes a dangerous art of data manipulation to suit business narratives. It prevents real improvement which positively impacts your customers' experiences.
This means we need an alternative approach. I believe that storytelling is the ultimate alternative to help unite these exciting and diverse challenges.
Learning from Madison Avenue
"If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation." - Don Draper
I don't think there's a better example of companies adopting a methodological approach to cope with wide-scale changes than the advertising industry in the 1950s and 1960s.
While certain sectors had to adapt their approach due to increased regulation (like the tobacco industry), it was the dawn of mass consumerism and subsequent pivot of advertisers to adapt which we can learn from today.
The acceleration in the number of similar products in all markets completely transformed the advertising industry. Pitching products based on their features became obsolete as multiple versions landed in stores. Simply existing in the marketplace was no longer a strategy for sustaining business.
Yet advertisers found a way to deal with this challenge, creating desire in a crowded market through storytelling.
The use of storyline driven marketing campaigns revolutionised what it meant to distribute and sell products. From billboard advertisements to the dawn of the first TV commercials, many of the world's most famous brands were born during this era - and many have stood the test of time.
In many cases, creating a customer experience through the use of branding and storytelling became more important than the product itself. As Don Draper mentions in the opening episode of Mad Men: "Advertising is about one thing, happiness". Or at least, advertising is about the generation of this feeling. Taking control of the message emitted from your product and using this to impact the customer's feelings and emotions.
This is what we can learn from this era. As the idea of digital experiences has melted into the wider customer experience, it becomes more important than ever to make sure that we look at treating users as individual people rather than homogeneous groups.
That means leaning on storytelling. Providing engaging narratives that run through each of our online offerings to make sure we are constantly connected to the user on a more emotive level. We want to tell the tales that make people feel something, so they're more closely aligned with the brands we promote.
Interestingly, we've already started seeing an upward trend in the design community talking about and designing for this new future. It is becoming much more common for designers to look at and consider the emotional side of UI development.
It's as if we're relearning the lessons of the Madison Avenue era of advertising. We're catching up to the idea that we need to rely more heavily on emotive design, rather than data-driven design.
This shift is not a simple overnight fix, but it's a necessity. We will no longer be able to use generic catch-all data tools as our primary customer experience strategy. Instead, we need to use these tools to fill in gaps and help us back up our strategies.
There are great examples of data being used as a key pillar of a company's strategy, but it must be built upon a firm commitment to user storytelling and customer experience rather than being the leading light.
Written by:Billy Williams


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Home / About / News / Caltech Astrophysicist Charles Steidel Receives $500,000 Packard Foundation Fellowship
Caltech Astrophysicist Charles Steidel Receives $500,000 Packard Foundation Fellowship
PASADENA—A Caltech astrophysicist who searches for the oldest and most distant structures in the universe has been named a recipient of a $500,000 grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Charles Steidel, an associate professor of astronomy, is the newest Caltech recipient of the Packard award. He plans to use the money largely for instruments to be fitted onto the 200-inch Hale Telescope at Palomar. These instruments will allow more efficient searches for extremely distant objects in deep space.
"My principal research interests are in the areas of the formation and evolution of galaxies, from the experimental perspective," Steidel says. "The central theme is the history of 'normal' galaxies like our Milky Way."
Nearby galaxies, as well as the stars in the Milky Way, are seen as they appeared when light left them. Thus, a galaxy one million light-years away is observed from Earth as it appeared one million years ago. But since the universe is probably 15 billion years old, astrophysicists must look at galaxies much farther away to learn about the early stages of galactic development. This is Steidel's specialty.
"Our goal for the next five years is to study galaxies, and their distribution in space, as they appeared when the universe was less than about 15 percent of its current age," Steidel says. "The hope is that this will tell us a lot about how and when the galaxies and large clusters of galaxies we see in the nearby universe came to be."
The success of the searches for these extremely distant galaxies depends on a vital combination of the Hale Telescope and the 10-meter W.M. Keck Telescopes on the island of Hawaii. The Hale can identify candidates based upon very deep images of relatively large areas of sky, and the W.M. Keck 10–meter telescopes can obtain the spectra of the very faint candidates, to allow more precise distances to be measured.
"It should be quite feasible, within the next few years, to trace the galaxies back to the point where they have not yet coalesced, and where the large-scale structures of galaxies we see today were just beginning to come together," he says.
The Fellowships in Science and Engineering were first awarded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation of Los Altos, California, in 1988. The goals of the fellowship program are to support outstanding faculty as they build productive research programs and to help attract and retain faculty of the highest quality for our universities. With the announcement of the 20 awards for 1997, the foundation has awarded a total of 200 fellowships.
Founded in 1891, Caltech has an enrollment of some 2,000 students, and a faculty of about 280 professorial members and 284 research members. The Institute has more than 19,000 alumni. Caltech employs a staff of more than 1,700 on campus and 5,300 at JPL.
Over the years, 26 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to faculty members and alumni; and two faculty members and one alumnus have been awarded the Crafoord Prize. Forty-three Caltech faculty members and alumni have received the National Medal of Science; and eight alumni (two of whom are also trustees), two additional trustees, and one faculty member have won the National Medal of Technology.
Institute affairs


As mentioned within last month's diary update, Coniston, within the Lake District, UK, saw its annual power boat 'Records Week' take place from the end of October through to the beginning of November. As part of that international event we are very grateful to Nikki Drummond for assisting with writing the following account of the Jelf Racing Team's time competing there this year.
For those of our readers who do not know, Ben (now aged 18), is the third generation of the Jelf family to take up powerboat racing, his father Colin and grandfather Ted having both been previously awarded the prestigious K7 Gold Star from the K7 Club that was founded by the late Donald Campbell CBE back in 1957. The term 'K7' relating to the full title of Donald's Outright World Water Speed Record craft, his jet hydroplane, Bluebird K7.
Back in 2011 Ben became the UK's youngest powerboat World Record holder in the GT15 class.
For this year's Records Week Ben and the family brought a boat that was able to compete in both the F2 and SuperCat classes. With near perfect weather conditions of little wind and calm water, Ben kicked the week off by setting a new British RYA Record in the SuperCat class at 101.26mph making him the youngest person in the UK to break the 100mph barrier on water at an officially timed event. Not content with that and feeling the boat was capable of going faster, he went out again and raised the bar even higher to 115.28mph.
Ben then set a new British F2 Record at 110.60mph. Later that week and with the weather remaining calm, Ben went out again and bettered both of those SuperCat and F2 class records, with speeds of 124.38mph and 124.27mph respectively, which was an amazing achievement. This was duly recognised by the K7 Club who awarded Ben his very own Gold Star.
I've been coming to Coniston to break records over the past seven years now. I met Donald Campbell's daughter Gina when I broke my first World Record at the age of 11. Since that day my aim has been to break that 100mph barrier and to do it at the spiritual home of Speed Records on water, where Donald lost his life in pursuit of his dream, means so much to me!
It's not easy to break that 100mph I've had to wait until I was 18 and allowed into a boat capable of the speeds required. It's been a great achievement for the team and to follow in Dad and Grandad Ted's footsteps and all those who have also broke the 100mph Record is what dreams are made of. There are a lot of people on the K7 list that I've watched race and grown up hearing stories about and look up to. I'm really lucky to have the opportunity to follow my dreams with a fantastic team and support and I'd like to think Grandad Ted would be proud of me, he owned the 22nd K7 Gold Star awarded and it was in my overalls pocket with me all week.
When most young adults would be leading busy lives socializing with their friends, Ben can be found in the workshop working on the team's boats and preparing for races. This dedication that he shows to his and his team-mates racing is something that as a parent I am most proud of.
The Longbow Project wish Ben and his Jelf Racing Team every success for 2019.
As young Ben continues to forge his career in the world of speed on water, we pay tribute to the fastest woman on water, American Kitty Linn O'Neil who sadly passed away this month. In 1977 Kitty drove the jet hydroplane built by Rich Hallett that had ten years previously become the Outright World Water Speed Record holder at 285mph in when driven by Lee Taylor.
Kitty at only 5'2″ tall was part native Cherokee and after contracting a childhood illness she became profoundly deaf for the rest of her life in addition to having two treatments for cancer in her twenties. None of this stopped Kitty who excelled at sports and then went on to become a leading stuntwoman for film and television appearing in amongst others, Smokey and the Bandit II, Wonder Woman and The Blues Brothers setting a high fall record of 180 feet.
The jet hydroplane she was about to drive was originally called Hustler but later bought by Jim Deist and Bill Dunlap and renamed Captain Crazy. By this time the boat was tired at 13½ years old but nevertheless the boat was taken to Walker Lake in Nevada for Kitty's attempt to be the fastest on water.
The seating position in the boat was virtually laying on your back on the timber frames of the hull with your head tilted up to see over the bow. There was no safety capsule like we have today and not having driven the boat before Kitty did a run of 150mph straight off the bat for what she classed as a 'warm up familiarization run'. For anyone who has done 150mph on water they will tell you that is seriously fast let alone doing it having to lay down on your back but Kitty was about to show everyone why she was simply outstanding at speed record attempts.
On only her second run of the jet hydroplane she ran through the timing traps at an incredible 275mph with her peak speed well above that.
The protocol for outright records both on land and water is a return run must be made within the hour and the average speed between the two runs is then calculated to set the speed achieved. Even though Kitty was fearless she was inherently talented enough to report back to Deist and Dunlap that the boat was simply too old and consequentially she doubted it would hold together at those speeds for a return run.
To be able to run 275mph on only her second drive of the boat then to have the knowledge and maturity to say no the boat has reached its limit for its age, under what must have been tremendous pressure to make that return run, for us marks her out as simply one of the best and a lesson well to be learnt from those who would follow, if it doesn't feel right, if you think you are right on the limit, then stop and resolve the issues.
Kitty wasn't afraid to go fast, only the year before in 1976 she drove the rocket car called SMI Motivator to an average speed of 512mph peaking at 621mph to become the fastest woman on land. In all she set 22 land and water speed records including a water ski record of 104mph and a film of her incredible life was made in 1979, called Silent Victory, The Kitty O'Neil Story, starring Stockard Channing.
Returning to the build of Longbow we had a visit to the workshop this month from her future pilot DJ taking time out from his military flying career to look over the building of the hull to date, do some ongoing inhibiting of the twin jet engines that will power her and to have a chat with the rest of the team, Steve, Neil, Keith, Fred and myself about how things are progressing.
After setting the horizontal timber frames onto the main bearers with West System epoxy, the next task as we built this stage of the hull upside down, was to form the vertical timber frames that will separate those outer bearers from the sides of the hull. As the outer main bearers are curved along their entire length and each frame station is of a differing height and width, this means that each of those vertical timber frames, which themselves consist of multiple pieces of timber became like a massive jigsaw for Steve to cut and shape, then trial fit for assembly.
Numbering of each part was essential otherwise we were just going to get lost with so many different sections of wood that all looked similar to each other, that had to be primed with epoxy then wait, have a brew and a natter whilst the epoxy becomes tacky.
This period of hanging around for the first coat of epoxy to go tacky is welcomed before the fun really starts with a second coat of epoxy with filler, then all hands on deck to assemble each of the parts together with wedges, a multitude of clamps and temporary holding battens wrapped in clingfilm.
The latter being essential if you also don't want to have said battens being a permanent fixture to the hull if they come into contact with epoxy, not mentioning any names…..Fred!
Building the frames up doesn't end there though but we hope with the photos we will release within next month's update that you will start to see Longbow taking shape.
Also Dave Warby and his team Warby Motorsport are back at Blowering Dam in Australia for further testing with his jet hydroplane Spirit of Australia 2 at the start of December. As we get used to winter it is summer time for them so the dam is much lower than in the winter months as they release water from it for the farmers but still good enough for some high speed runs if all goes well. So good luck Dave and team.
Thanks for tuning in and following our venture, as always please spread the word and see you next month folks!


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Home Flower News Just for You Wanda James Reveals What it is Really Like to be a Cannabis Entrepreneur
Wanda James Reveals What it is Really Like to be a Cannabis Entrepreneur
The Cannabis market is filled with excitement and intrigue. Not to mention, this growing market can be quite lucrative. However, it is still a business, that has overhead, employees, and regulations, just like any other. Even though the dispensary does make a good amount of money, people think that those
who own dispensaries are just watching their bank account expand. However, while it is a lucrative business, it produces far from an endless stream of cash.
Here is an interview with Wanda James, the first African American woman to Colorado. James is the first one to admit she did not intend to go into the Cannabis business. However, happenstance would quickly immerse James into the interworking of the Cannabis world when her brother was sentenced to ten years in prison for possessing just four ounces of marijuana. The sentence
left the James family shocked and heartbroken. It was then, that Wanda James decided that she was going to change the reality of the relationship people of color had with marijuana. James used her political background of working for Barack Obama's National Finance Committee in 2008, managing
election campaigns, and running for Congress, as a foundation for exacting change.
Now, James and her husband, Scott Dura are co-owners of Simply Pure; a successful dispensary in downtown Denver. Their business has 32 employees and grosses between $2.5 to $3 million a year.
Daisy Prince spoke to Wanda James after being referred to the Document Journal by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Here is their conversation:
Daisy Prince—It's not every day that a senator gives you a great lead so I thought should follow up.
Wanda James—Kirstin [Gillibrand] is pretty terrific.
Daisy—She is. So how did you meet her?
Wanda—I am politically active here in Colorado and have been for years.
Because of the work that have done with cannabis and because she has been really outspoken on the whole cannabis industry, we were put together. We just really hit it off.
Daisy—Tell me about your journey as it obviously dictates to what you are doing now.
Wanda—Except for the five years that I was in the military, cannabis has always been a part of my life. I have always preferred to recreate with cannabis more so than alcohol. Coming off Barack Obama's National Finance Committee in 2008, part of what we started to see was why mass incarceration was happening. Mass incarceration is primarily due to the arrest for the privatized prison systems for people of color that have been caught with cannabis. In 2008 and before, 800,000 people a year were arrested for simple possession. And one of those people was my brother who I met in 1999 at my father's
Daisy—You met him at your father's funeral? He was a brother you didn't know growing up?
Wanda—I grew up with my father, an amazing guy, military guy, and we lived all over the world, but finally in Colorado. My world is predominantly white. I had never known anybody that was arrested for pot. When I met my brother, he told me he received a felony for four and a half ounces of cannabis. For $160 worth of cannabis my brother spent the next ten years in the prison system. And four of those years he spent in a maximum security privatized prison system where he was forced to pick cotton every day. When he told me that story I still didn't believe it. It must have been something else. Did you beat up the guy, you know?
Did you buy cocaine on the side? I gave a lawyer friend of mine a look at his case. They opened up the file, didn't read it, just looked at the first couple of lines, and went through the whole privatized prison system with me. Turns out, my
brother never saw a lawyer. They went in front of the judge with his mother who was told because he was a minor, 'Sign this and you can take your son home.' She didn't realize when she signed the paperwork that she made her son a felon and that he was then on probation. He did go home that day. Thirty days later he came back was given a piss test and he failed. And they immediately put my brother in jail.
Daisy—So, you met your brother in this horrible moment for both of you and came together and talked about his experiences, which obviously are horrible and very indicative of the prison system as it is in America right now. But how did you come to go into the pot business yourself?
Wanda— After Barack's election we decided that our next business here in Colorado was going to be to open a dispensary. My husband and I wanted to change the narrative for people of color, and we knew they couldn't make criminals out of us because we just spent ten months in the room with the President of the United States. Being military officers we have had our background checked forever—I was a lieutenant in military and O2.
When the opportunity came up to actually be one of the first to own a legal dispensary, we jumped at the opportunity to make it a political push. And then, very much to our surprise, MSNBC did the whole 'Marijuana USA at the end of 2010' and featured us. From there it has just blown up. So we became the
first African Americans legally licensed in America to own a dispensary.
Daisy—That is fantastic. How big is the dispensary? It's like a store?
Wanda—It's about 2,000 square feet. And then we've got a 7,000 square feet grow facility attached to the license.
Daisy—When you were in the military obviously you couldn't smoke or ingest or whatever. Yet, in the military I believe that on days off one is allowed to drink? Can you tell me if — I don't remember. Is that true or not?
Wanda—What is really upsetting about the military is any officer caught with any type of illicit drug goes directly to Leavenworth. However, young officers go to the officer's club and get top shelf alcohol for 75 cents. The culture of drinking in the military is the more you can drink, the more you can hold your own, the longer you can stay up all night and drink and show up in uniform the next morning, the bigger hero you are.
Daisy—How do pot laws work in Colorado as it's the first and maybe the most progressive, I believe, in
terms of laws in the United States?
Wanda—It is probably the most restrictive at this point. We are actually fighting in Colorado to loosen
up some of our restrictions given the fact that we are not the only state anymore that allows for cannabis sales. People think that we make a lot of money in Colorado. I mean, we do a billion dollars worth of sales each year. We don't get to keep very much of that at all. We are taxed at about 80% because of the
280E laws, a tax code that was created in the 1980's, I believe it was George Bush Sr., to prevent the South Florida cocaine dealers from putting money into banks. They call it the Capone Law. Every drug dealer has always been brought down by what? Tax evasion. If they catch you selling illegal drugs, then
they tax you at 80% which is a catalyst for taking your home and money out of the bank. When you start wondering why the federal government is being so slow to legalize when America is saying "Legalize!" It is because they are making money hand over fist.
Daisy—It seems like it would be a real labor of love. And pot plants are agricultural commodities. Plants are subject to disease. You could have a crop bad year or a good year.
Wanda—We sell cannabis to the masses, and our cannabis has to test clean. So everything gets sent to a testing lab. We can't have any mold, mildew, pesticides—if you are buying cannabis in Colorado, rest assured it is absolutely clean cannabis. It's safe.
Daisy—Is the level of stringency the same for edibles as well?
Wanda—Probably even more so for edibles. And we are tested at what we call parts per billion.
Strawberries in America are tested at parts per thousand, cannabis is tested at parts per billion. So any type of pesticide or heavy metal and the product gets flagged and cannot be sold in the system and is immediately destroyed.
Daisy—Is it just you and your husband? Do you have any employees?
Wanda—We've got about 32 employees.
Daisy—What are their roles?
Wanda—Just like any other company, I have a controller, my director of marketing, my GM, I've got my store manager, the assistant managers. I've got a grow manager. I've got packaging supervisors that package our cannabis.
Inventory control. And then our budologists. They call them bud tenders, but ours
are budologists, because they go through an amazing two-month training program before you can get on my floor.
Daisy—It sounds like you are sort of like a wine grower.
Wanda—Outside of medicinal, where big Pharma gets involved with the lab type growing of cannabis, the cannabis industry will be very similar to the wine industry. You will have the Ernest and Julio Gallo's that do a billion bottles a year. You will have craft wineries that do much smaller. It is exactly going to mimic the wine industry.
Daisy—What did you say was the Mouton Rothschild of cannabis edibles?
Wanda—I would say Simply Pure has one of the most amazing chocolates which is done by a woman that spent five years being trained as a French Parisian chocolatier. And the truffles that she makes are tempered perfectly.
Daisy—Pot today is commonly known to be stronger than it was 20 years ago. Are you going to create it so that you can have the one glass of wine feeling? Not having a whole bottle?
Wanda—If you go to an alcohol store, you can buy a bottle of Everclear or you can get a great bottle of something that is not 80% proof. Cannabis is grown better now. My guess is that strawberries and cucumbers are grown better now than they were in the '70s, you know? They are more flavorful. The
more we learn more about agriculture and how to work with plants the better.
Daisy—Have things improved in terms of arresting people of color with cannabis possession?
Wanda—Yes. In Denver, we have decreased the rate of African Americans being arrested by 97%. Once we were arresting almost 16,000 people a year, now we are down to arresting a minuscule amount, and it is really is people who are trying to illegally deal. In Colorado, opioid use has dropped; drunk driving has dropped. Teen use has not moved; it has stayed the same. Given the explosion of cannabis, the fact that it stayed the same, we think, is a victory. So the positives far outweigh any of the perceived
Daisy—What happens if you are caught with it under 21? Just for possession.
Wanda—One of the unintended consequences, and we have been working on fixing it, but the arrest of white kids went down by 9%, but it went up by 22% for latinos and it went up 52% for black kids. For whatever reason, you can't just go to the principal's office anymore, you have to get arrested. I don't understand arresting children.
Daisy—In my day if you got caught smoking pot you got kicked out. You just got kicked out, that was it.
Wanda—You went home for three days and your parents got called. Mom and dad came down. Got grounded. It seems like common sense is slowly seeping out of America.
Daisy—Now, you would have to be brought up in front of juvenile court and have this on your record. If you're seventeen then it's a really big offense.
Wanda—We wanted to legalize so we stopped arresting people, but now we are indoctrinating kids younger into the police system. We're working on fixing that.
Daisy—Would you be able to tell me what your revenues are per year?
Wanda—We do $2.5-3 million a year.
Daisy— What do you think is driving that? Marketing, wonderful product, location?
Wanda—A lot of folks have said that so many dispensaries are done in poor neighborhoods because they got zoned to poor neighborhoods. Ironically, we are on a corner of one of the hippest, hottest neighborhoods in Denver. We always joke that [we are] a wealthy black dispensary in a white neighborhood instead of a wealthy white dispensary in a poor black neighborhood.
Daisy—And would you say most of your clients are black or white?
Wanda—Most of our clients on a daily basis are white. Because of our status in the industry, 65% of our sales come from tourism. We're a destination dispensary. The people that tend to come to us from out of state tend to be people of color.
Daisy—Any other thoughts or anything that you think we should chat about? I am fascinated by the tax code stuff.
Wanda—People think that dispensary owners are just rolling in dough, and that is just not the case. We are all hanging on until the federal government decides to get out of it. Hopefully, somewhere around 2020. Because even the banking issues, we're still not allowed to have legal banks. You have to give the
bank proof of your sales and every deposit on a monthly basis. You are literally audited every month by
the bank.
Daisy—That is really onerous as a small business, but it's better than having bags of cash, which is what it was before, right?
Wanda—We used to do payroll, and I would sit there with $50,000 in my office, and my employees would come in one at a time and I would count out, 'here's your salary'. It made payday dangerous for everybody. For the store, for the employee. Then even having to pay your taxes. We pay $144,000 a month in taxes and we are walking around with literally trash bags of cash, dropping them off at the Department of Revenue.
Daisy—When did they allow the banking with all of these stringencies to happen?
Wanda—So technically they haven't. We have a bank account because, once again, reputation, and you have to be invited by the bank to open up a bank account. So there are a handful of legal bank accounts,
but most of the dispensaries don't have 'legal bank accounts' yet. And the game behind it is, unfortunately, you make up a company and open a bank account and try to put as little money in there as possible, so they can't tell it is a dispensary right away. But most dispensaries will have five or six bank accounts a year because you get shut down every month.
Daisy—The system is broken, basically.
Wanda—The system is broken. California is going to be a $10 billion industry literally overnight once they get all of their licenses in place. We have to figure out banking. We can't just have that kind of cash just floating around in the ozone with no place to put it.
Daisy—Are they drinking less as a result of legalization?
Wanda—Drunk driving has decreased in Colorado; opioid dependence has decreased in Colorado. On the medicinal side it [cannabis] takes care of the top issues that we have in America: chronic pain; mood, be it depression or anxiety; nausea, which I didn't understand how prevalent nausea was, but anybody going through chemotherapy and a host of other things; and sleep disorders. And so there is your top five big Pharma: OxyContin, Ambien, all of those have been reduced dramatically in Colorado because people are turning to things that won't destroy your liver, that won't get you addicted. Quite frankly, if you are depressed or if you are tired, I mean what is wrong with feeling hungry and giggling a
little bit? Those aren't bad side effects. Daisy—Do you think you will stay in this industry for the foreseeable future?
Wanda—I'm not going anywhere. This is what I do. Who would have thought that I would have had the opportunity to advise potential Presidents of the United States on this? I mean, that is really tremendous.
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