Sweetie and I packed a lot into our 10 full days and one partial day in Italia. But most of the time I felt that we were keeping a relaxed pace.
When I visit somewhere new, the first thing I want to do it just to walk around and get a feel for the place—first for the neighbourhood we're staying in, and then branching out from there. We did that right away in Firenze and quickly fell in love with the city. It's such an easy place to love! Our hotel was just north of Piazza Savonarola, named for the "mad monk," and we walked a few different ways to and from the centre of the city many times as well as east and west of the centre. I loved walking across the river to the Oltrarno, the area south of the River Arno, where the tourist crowds thinned out.
We visited several places in the course of these walkabouts. The big tourist attraction we went to was the Uffizi Gallery, a huge U-shaped building filled with paintings and sculpture. We spent several hours there. When we came upon the iconic Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, I felt emotionally overwhelmed. I had seen images of this painting so many times, but the real thing was quite stunning. We also saw numerous piazze and the churches near them, my favourite probably being the Piazza Santa Croce. We walked across the Ponte Vecchio ("old bridge"), which is covered in shops and residences.
We hit a few offbeat places as well, such as the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, a strange little multimedia exhibit full of shoes and things about shoes. We went through the Museo Galileo, which we found by accident. It's filled with scientific instruments from the early Renaissance belonging to Galileo and others, and was fascinating. My favourite out-of-the-way place, however, was the Sinagoga e Museo Ebraico di Firenze. We couldn't take photos because their security required that we leave cameras and phones in a locker near the entrance. The synagogue is not old but is beautifully decorated. The Germans used it as a garage during World War Two and then mined it when they left, but partisans managed to defuse the mines and save the building. The museum contains two floors of sacred objects and displays having to do with the history of Jews in Firenze. I never fail to be moved by lists of names of those who were murdered in the camps.
We made one day trip out of Firenze to San Gimignano, a walled medieval town a bit south of Firenze. There we visited the Duomo di San Gimignano and its associated museum, the Vernaccia Wine Museum (with tasting of the excellent local wine), and the Museo Archeologico, which houses some excellent Etruscan artifacts. And of course we also walked up and down and all around.
Even though we had been in the Tuscan countryside just a day earlier, there was a bit of culture shock moving to Levanto after Firenze, but we soon settled into the tranquility. We visited four out of five towns in the nearby Cinque Terre, a protected area of medieval towns southeast of Levanto along the coast. We also took time to stroll through Levanto itself, which has been inhabited since the days of the Roman Republic. It's a town of contrasts. One minute we're looking at ancient walls and medieval foundations, and the next we're walking along the waterfront watching surfers catch the decent sized waves. There is even a surf shop in town!
Staying in the country was lovely, but we are urbanites, and it was good to be in Roma after the calm of Liguria. As with Firenze and Levanto, we first walked around our neighbourhood, which is called the Prati, west of the River Tiber and not far from the Vatican. From there it was an easy walk across the river into the old city through the Piazza del Populo, the Piazza di Spagna and the "Spanish Steps," the Pantheon, the Trini Fountain, and the Piazza Barberini. Later we took a long ride on one of the metro lines to the Arcibasilica Papale di San Giovanni in Laterano (St. John Lateran), the Pope's see as bishop of Rome and the "number one" church in all of Catholicism.
We're not much for tours, but we didn't have much time, and tours provide access to things we couldn't see on our own as well as allowing us to jump long queues. Both tours were run by a group called City Wonders, formerly Dark Rome.
The first tour was called Crypts and Catacombs and took us to the Catacombs of Domatilla (where some of us fell behind the others as we were making our way out and were well and truly lost in a catacomb for several minutes); the Church of San Clemente, a 14th century church built on top of a fourth century church built on top of a second century Mithraic temple built on top of a first century work facility, possibly a mint; and finally the Capuchin Crypts, several rooms decorated with the bones of deceased friars and the sick people they had cared for. It was a fascinating and well-run tour, especially the "lasagna" strata of San Clemente.
The second tour was a Vatican tour. Without a tour, you can wait for hours to make your way into the Vatican Museums. Once again, we had a very knowledgeable and engaging tour guide who took us through the galleries, into the Sistine Chapel, and then finally to the Basilica San Pietro. She had used a great electronic screen in the museum to go through the entire ceiling and explain what Michaelangelo had done, which was excellent, but nothing could have prepared me for the impact of the ceiling and altar artwork itself. I saw that I wasn't the only one in tears as we gathered again after our allotted 15 minutes of viewing. And then St. Peter's, including the Pieta, was simply magnificent. The only thing I didn't like about the Vatican was the huge crush of people.
We saw the Colosseum as we drove by on our tour bus, but we never did get to visit it. While we were in Roma, so was President Obama. In fact, while we were touring the Vatican, he was visiting with the Pope. Fortunately, that visit didn't shut down the Vatican as his visit to the Colosseum in the afternoon did.
Maybe we'll see it next time we are in Roma, as well as the Forum and the Jewish Quarter, among other sights we're interested in. And in Firenze, we have a date with the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens at the very least. And maybe we'll make it to Vernazza, the one village in the Cinque Terre that we missed!
Pantheon has to be one of the greatest buildings in the world.
Only hill climbing, no tower climbing, I'm afraid. I would have been able to do that myself, but Sweetie's right knee was not up to it. Would love to go to the top of St. Peter's!


Being true is a verb not a logical statement. Truth is living, porous, manifest. The search for truth is the search for refreshing water in a desert. A necessity which is nonetheless hard to find. Truth is distinct from inclination, instinct, habit, language. It is hard enough to encounter that few persist. Those that do must unravel themselves, stitch by stitch until they become Truth…..


text:
Previous What If We Dug a Hole Through the Moon?
Next What If We Detected a Signal from Outer Space?
What If You Jumped Into Saturn's Rings?
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Since its discovery in 1610 by Galileo, the rings of Saturn have enchanted us for centuries. Remarkably, we've visited Saturn before. Stunning photographs taken from the Cassini space probe have revealed that Saturn's rings are much more complex than you might think. So what would it be like to actually go in person?
How long would it take you to travel to Saturn? What would you see along the way? Could you survive in Saturn's rings?
On October 15th, 1997, NASA, the European Space Agency, and Italy's ASI banded together to change the history of astronomy. Their mission was to study the Saturn system, a diverse mix of stellar objects made up of rocks, ice and several moons. Together they developed the space probe Cassini-Huygens, which was propelled on a seven year journey to Saturn. Let's imagine we had the technology to bring you, traveller, along for the ride. What kind of adventure are you in for?
Well, luckily, we're taking the scenic route. After a year of drifting through space and saying goodbye to Earth, our first stop is Venus. Don't worry, this isn't a layover, we're merely visiting the outer edge of Venus' orbit, giving you a gravitational speed boost as you pass by.
This will allow you to save on fuel and take in the view of Venus' swirling scenery. After the first orbit, you'll get a nice speed boost of 7 km/s (4 miles/s). But we'll need one more journey around it for the optimal speed boost. This time, we'll be about 600 km (370 miles) from Venus. I hope you have a strong stomach, traveller, as the gravitational pull might be like that time you ate funnel cake before going on that spinny ride at the fair! Oof, never again.
After a quick spin around Venus, you'll be slingshotted towards Mars and Jupiter, but this part of the ride might get a little bumpy, so buckle up. You're about to pass through an asteroid belt. Fortunately, the chances of hitting by an asteroid are pretty slim as they're very spread apart, unlike what you might see in the movies. Still, you never know. Just be prepared to take manual control in case your proximity sensors malfunction.
Once you've made it through the scary part, it's fairly smooth sailing from here on out. Sit back and admire the view. On your right, in the distance, you'll see the red planet, Mars. And on your left, is Jupiter. Look! That shiny speck orbiting the gas giant is the Galileo spacecraft.
A small yet welcome reminder of home. At this point, it's been almost five years. Wow, time flies when you're being hurled through space! Saturn is our next stop. But is it safe? We're about to find out.
After waiting a couple years, doing lots of Sudoku and rewatching all your favorite What If videos, we've finally arrived in orbit of Saturn. Surprisingly, the flat and solid ring structure you've seen in pictures back home were way off. These rings are complex systems of orbits, subdivided by several different sections.
On the outer rim, we have the D ring, followed by C, B, the Cassini Division, A, F, G, and lastly, the E ring. Each of these rings are separated by gaps made from over 60 of Saturn's moons. The rings are made up of chunks of ice and rock, some as small as little boulders and some as big as houses. These are remnants of comets, asteroids, meteoroids and shattered moons torn apart by Saturn's gravity.
Alright, traveller, it's time for a spacewalk. You probably won't have much success walking on Saturn's rings, unless you happen to land on one of its moons, like Methone, Pallene, or even Titan, which has been considered a potential site for a future space colony.
But you'll want to keep your space suit on, as Titan is a chilly -179.6 degrees Celsius (-292 F). At this point, you're almost twice the distance between the Earth and the Sun. As you travel further in the rings, you'll want to be extra careful. Even though there is quite a bit of space between the flying debris, collisions can still happen and you could be crushed like a bug if you're not careful. If you happen to find a comfortable rock to land on and surf the rings, you might be lucky enough to see the moon Daphnis pass you by.
Now for the moment of truth. The Grand Finale. As we approach the final rings of Saturn, we'll have to fly through them on a careful trajectory, orbiting Saturn 22 times to get our best travel shots. Here, you'd be only 2,000 km (1240 miles) away from Saturn's atmosphere.
You might actually witness Saturn's equinox, where the sun strikes the rings in such a way that from Earth, it looks as if they've disappeared. After about 20 years in space, you'd finally reach Saturn's interior. Let's be honest, you'd likely disintegrate.
But, thankfully, you were careful and managed to hang around on Titan instead, leaving the Cassini probe to do the rest of the work. Here is where you'd be spending your lonesome days sending data back to Earth. Hope you packed a lot of provisions, as the rescue mission might take a while.
The amount of data Cassini managed to send back to Earth is truly spellbinding, making it one of humankind's greatest success stories in astronomy. Maybe on our next voyage, we could take a closer look at Saturn's big brother, Jupiter. But not too close.
Subscribe to What-If on YouTube or follow the show on Facebook Watch.
"The Vanishing Rings of Saturn". 2020. science.nasa.gov.
"In Depth | Saturn – NASA Solar System Exploration". 2020. NASA Solar System Exploration.
"How Many Rings Does Saturn Have? – Universe Today". FRASER CAIN, 2009. Universe Today.
"Cassini Overview". 2020. NASA.
"Overview | The Grand Finale – NASA Solar System Exploration". 2020. NASA Solar System Exploration.
"Timeline | The Journey – NASA Solar System Exploration". 2020. NASA Solar System Exploration.
"The Astrophysics Spectator: Saturn's Rings". Wilkinson, Freddie. 2020. astrophysicsspectator.com.
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Let me now turn to our balance sheet. Last month the FOMC augmented its Policy Normalization Principles and Plans by providing additional details on the process that we will follow in normalizing the size of our balance sheet. The Committee intends to gradually reduce the Federal Reserve's securities holdings by decreasing its reinvestment of the principal payments it receives from the securities held in the System Open Market Account. Specifically, such payments will be reinvested only to the extent that they exceed gradually rising caps. Initially, these caps will be set at relatively low levels to limit the volume of securities that private investors will have to absorb. The Committee currently expects that, provided the economy evolves broadly as anticipated, it will likely begin to implement the program this year.


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Beethoven & Shostakovich
Virtual concert - Sunday, October 25, 2020 3:30 pm
This concert will be livestreamed from the Koerner Hall and will be available for 29 more days
SINFONIA TORONTO
NURHAN ARMAN Conductor
Maestro Nurhan Arman leads Sinfonia Toronto in a program that juxtaposes two masterpieces by these great composers. The virtual concert is a tribute to our front-line workers and health care providers.
BEETHOVEN 'The Harp' Op. 74a
SHOSTAKOVICH Chamber Symphony Op. 110a
To watch Nurhan Arman's commentary on this concert click here
Chamber Symphony Op. 110a Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Orchestral version by Lucas Drew
In the summer of 1960 Shostakovich went to Dresden to work on the score for a Soviet-East German film. He was overwhelmed by the still-evident results of the 1945 Allied firebombing that destroyed the city and killed more civilians than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Within three days he composed a quartet dedicated "In memory of the victims of fascism and war."
The quartet is full of extra-musical symbolism, but there is continuing controversy about how to interpret it. The work may be a doctrinaire Soviet artist's revulsion against fascism, a subtly-integrated protest against the Soviet state, or a cry of anguish about totalitarianism of any kind. Shostakovich never explained his intentions; he gave no indication, even, about whether he had incorporated specific messages or was only expressing a general emotional state. In view of his precarious position as the Soviet Union's most famous and honored composer and also at times the target of fierce criticism for "formalism" and "decadence," his reticence is unsurprising, especially about a work of such tremendous strength.
The Quartet is in five movements played without pause. Its basic building block is a four-note theme built on the German notation for an abbreviation of the composer's own name, turning DSCH into D-E-flat-B. The Quartet opens with a fugal introduction of this motif, followed by a theme from the opening of his First Symphony, the work that first brought him national success. These two themes recur in a rondo-like structure along with a descending theme that references his Fifth Symphony, the work that restored him to favor in 1937 after the official denunciations that almost ended his career.
The first movement's reminiscent mood is blown apart by the second, an Allegro molto from which several iterations of the DSCH motif emerge. At a mid-movement climax, the violins weep a theme from Shostakovich's Second Piano Trio, which was written in 1944. Shostakovich called this a "Jewish" theme, saying: "Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me... it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It's almost always laughter through tears. This quality...is close to my ideas of what music should be. There should always be two layers in music. Jews were tormented so long that they learned to hide their despair. They express despair in dance music."
The third movement is a ghostly waltz-rondo in G minor and G Major at the same time. The violins play the DSCH motif, but with a B-natural, the identity note of the G Major scale, while the viola accompaniment stays with B-flat, the identity note of the G minor scale. The musical insecurity created by this schizophrenic hesitation between two versions of the same key is even more unsettling than the avoidance of a clear key structure; it is a frequent element of Shostakovich's style. The third section of the rondo breaks the waltz rhythm by changing to duple time, bringing in a march-like theme from Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1, composed a year earlier.
The third movement recapitulates its themes and winds down with the Cello Concerto's five-note motif and its three-note martial accompaniment heard last. The first violins stretch this theme out, all alone, leading into the fourth movement, when they are suddenly overtaken by the rest of the orchestra, who have re-cast the three-note accompaniment into a menacing unison attack.
These violent attacks are repeated at intervals throughout the fourth movement. They may be fate knocking at the door, gunfire, or the explosions of bombs dropped by the aircraft one can hear in the pianissimo droning of the first violins. The droning morphs into the first four notes of the dies irae, which are, not coincidentally, the same notes of the DSCH motif in a different order. The dies irae is followed immediately by a Russian funeral anthem, "Tormented by the weight of bondage, you glorify death with honor," in the lower strings. The violent attacks transformed from the Cello Concerto theme recur; then, over a low drone in the cello and viola, the violins play a Russian revolutionary song, "Languishing in prison," just before the cello sings an aria from Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the work that triggered the first official criticism of Shostakovich.
After a last attack by the transformed Cello Concerto theme, the first violin chants the dies irae again and turns it back into the DSCH theme. The fifth movement builds a fugal elegy on the original motif, mourning for all the complex history that has gone before.
String Quartet No. 10, Opus 74a "The Harp" Ludwig van Beethoven
Orchestra version by Nurhan Arman (1770-1827)
Even compared with other years in Beethoven's often turbulent life and times,
1809 was especially eventful. Beethoven had to choose between a position
offered by Napoleon's younger brother Jerome, newly created King of
Westphalia, and a counter-offer from three of Vienna's highest-ranking nobles.
Beethoven accepted the Viennese offer, but two months later Napoleon's army
arrived at the gates and the nobles who had promised to support him fled the city.
The city resisted surrender this time, unlike the quick capitulation of 1804, which
precipitated a day of fierce bombardment. Beethoven hid in the basement of his
brother's house with pillows over his ears, trying to avoid the din that could push
his already-failing hearing into complete deafness. Vienna surrendered the next
In spite of political turmoil and the absence of his patrons, Beethoven completed
three major works during this period – interestingly, all in the noble key of E-flat
major: the Fifth Piano Concerto, the "Emperor;" the piano sonata called "Les
Adieux," or "Lebewohl" after one of his three patrons; and this String Quartet
Op. 74, dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, another of the patrons.
The first movement's slow introduction remains calm in the face of two loud
interruptions. The main body of the movement and the coda feature pizzicato
(plucked) accompaniment passages that have given the work its "Harp"
nickname.
The Adagio unfurls elegant variations on its main rondo theme, suggesting the
direction Beethoven would take in the subline slow movements of his late
quartets. The robust Scherzo recalls his dramatic Fifth Symphony; it is powered
by a similarly insistent four-note rhythmic motif of short-short-short-long.
The finale is a gracious theme and six variations, contrasting muscular energy
with tranquil interludes, and closing with an extended, brilliant coda. The quartet
was premiered at Prince Lobkowitz's palace in the fall of 1809, after the French
left and Austrian nobles returned to Vienna.
Download our free Sinfonia Toronto app for your


Thorkild & I were delighted to receive this short note from perhaps our youngest client so far!
Hello, my name is Lachlan Power and I am 9 years old.
Thank you for my 'One Ring' it is beautiful.
I got it from my Ma (grandmother) as a present when she went on a holiday to New Zealand.
My dad is really jealous and wishes that he had the ring instead of me.
Thank you for making the ring for me as I am a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
It is one of my favourite presents that I have ever received.
My Ma said that I needed to write to you once I have received the ring so I have asked my mum to send this email.
Thank you again for my ring.


text:
Q: ASP.NET - Assembly Not Found I have a ASP.NET project running on IIS7. I just adding Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common.dll, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Data.dll, & Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ObjectBuilder2.dll.
I am receiving this error:
Error   2   Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft_Practices_EnterpriseLibrary_Common' or one of its dependencies. The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131040)

I researched the issue and found this means that the dll is not in the right location but it is in my projectdirectory/bin folder. So I do not understand where else it should be referenced. It isn't referenced in my Web.config but assemblies tag was not generated in the project template.
Do I need to reference these assemblies? If so, where do I find the necessary attributes i.e. PublicToken, etc.?

A: Sometimes this problem occurs with other tools/frameworks as well. Without pulling your hair out, just add a reference to the missing assembly and make sure to set those references to "Copy Local" = true. I notice with framework APIs that are placed in the GAC tend to have this issue.

A: If its a "web site" project you can just throw the dlls in the bin folder. However if its a "web application" project, you'll need to add a reference and set copy local=true.

A: I have corrected the issue. I'm not sure why but I had to create a new folder in my project and moved  the dll's there and I  was able to build the solution. This is a web site project.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
(Auto racing)
(Automobiles)
Tetsuya Harada
Timo Bernhard
Troy Bayliss
Carlos Pace
Earl Bamber
Sébastien Bourdais
Knowledge Identifier: +Sebastien_Bourdais
Sebastien Bourdais
French professional racing driver
Category: Auto racing
Born in 1979.
Countries: United States (20%), France (15%), Germany (12%)
Education: undef.
Main connections: Scuderia Toro Rosso, Peugeot, Formula One
Linked to: Ford Motor Company, Chevrolet, Haymarket Group, Ferrari
340.9 points
61 active datas
This timeline needs to be reviewed and corrected, as it has been automatically generated from multiple web sources.
Please help improve it by adding dated informations, images and videos about Sebastien Bourdais.
Sebastien Bourdais was born in 1979
During the early 1990s, he competed in a variety of karting championships, winning the Maine Bretagne League in 1991 and the Cadet France championship in 1993
Dallara - From on Dallara would dominate the Formula 3 market, although Martini had some success in France and Germany in the late 1990s, including Sébastien Bourdais winning the French title in 1999
Bourdais was part of the winning Sologne Karting team which won the 1996 24-hour Le Mans kart race at the Circuit Alain Prost on a Merlin chassis with Atomic motors
In 1998, he won five races to become Rookie of the Year in French F3
Bourdais has frequently contested the famous 24-hour race of his home town, entering for the first time in 1999 in a Porsche 911 GT2 run by Larbre Compétition
He won the series outright in 1999, with eight wins and three poles
He returned in 2000, finishing fourth with Emmanuel Clérico and Olivier Grouillard for the Pescarolo team behind the three dominant Audis
He shared a Courage C60 with Jean-Christophe Boullion and Laurent Rédon in 2001 but it retired after 271 laps
He changed teams again for 2002, taking his Super Nova Racing car to three victories and seven pole positions
He won the Spa 24 Hours in 2002 with Christophe Bouchut, David Terrien and Vincent Vosse in a Larbre Compétition Chrysler Viper GTS-R
He missed the 2003 race and returned in 2004, only for the car he shared with Nicolas Minassian and Emmanuel Collard to retire after 282 laps
He is one of the most successful drivers in the history of the Champ Car World Series, having won four successive championships from 2004 to 2007
Staying with Newman-Haas for 2004, Bourdais dominated the Champ Car series with seven wins and eight poles in his McDonald's-sponsored Lola, beating his team mate Junqueira by 28 points
Bourdais made his IRL debut at the 2005 Indianapolis 500
Bourdais successfully defended his Champ Car title in 2005 with five wins in six races towards the end of the season, again with the Newman-Haas/Lanigan team
In 2005 he competed in the International Race of Champions, winning his first stock car race at Texas Motor Speedway
Bourdais won a third consecutive Champ Car title in 2006
Bourdais returned to F1 in 2007 after being given several tests with Scuderia Toro Rosso
Bourdais won a fourth consecutive Champ Car title in 2007 with victory at Lexmark Indy 300 on 21 October
Bourdais' next assault on Le Mans would come at the wheel of a factory-backed Peugeot 908 HDi FAP in 2007
On 10 August 2007 it was announced Bourdais would replace Vitantonio Liuzzi at Red Bull's b-team, Toro Rosso, as team-mate to Sebastian Vettel
Yvan Muller - He represented France in the 2007 Race of Champions, alongside Sébastien Bourdais
Jimmie Johnson - In the 2007 event Johnson was eliminated before the quarter-finals by F1 driver Sébastien Bourdais of France
Red Bull Racing - Sebastian Vettel replaced Speed in the middle of the 2007 season, and Sébastien Bourdais replaced Liuzzi at STR for the 2008 Formula One season
Peugeot 908 HDi FAP - On January 10, 2007 at the 908's first public test at the Paul Ricard HTTT, Peugeot confirmed that the drivers of the 908 would be Stéphane Sarrazin, Nicolas Minassian, Marc Gené, and Pedro Lamy for the Le Mans Series, while Jacques Villeneuve and Sébastien Bourdais would be added for the 24 Hours of Le Mans
He drove in Formula One for the Toro Rosso team during the 2008, and start of 2009 season, but was unable to translate his past successes to that competition
On 16 March 2008 Bourdais competed in his first Formula One Championship race, the 2008 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne
Dario Franchitti - He is the second driver in IndyCar Series history to take four titles in four consecutive series of racing, after Sébastien Bourdais, after accounting for his 2008 absence from the series
Scuderia Toro Rosso - Scuderia Toro Rosso's drivers for 2008 were Sebastian Vettel and Sébastien Bourdais
Formula One - Since its inaugural season in 2008, Superleague Formula has attracted such ex-Formula One drivers as Sébastien Bourdais, Antônio Pizzonia and Giorgio Pantano
Scuderia Toro Rosso - The team's set 2008 driver lineup was Sebastian Vettel, third driver for BMW Sauber in 2006 before switching to a race seat at Toro Rosso midway through the 2007 season, and Sébastien Bourdais, the four-time winner of the Champ Car World Series
Bourdais won again at the next round, winning race 1 of the 2009 Monza round
He won on his debut weekend at the 2009 Estoril round in the Super Final
In 2009, he set the official lap record at Sebring International Raceway, during the 12 Hours of Sebring
In his second Le Mans as part of the & Peugeot factory team, in 2009, he finished in second place, one lap behind the winning Peugeot
On 6 February 2009 however he was confirmed as a Toro Rosso driver for a second year, partnering Swiss rookie Sébastien Buemi
On 16 July 2009, Toro Rosso announced that Bourdais would no longer be driving for the team
Scuderia Toro Rosso - On 16 July 2009, the team announced that Sébastien Bourdais' contract was to be terminated with immediate effect due to disappointing results
Bourdais was to drive the pole-winning No. 3 Peugeot in 2010, but a suspension failure halted co-driver Pedro Lamy before Bourdais could turn one lap in the race
He returned for the 2010 season racing for Olympique Lyonnais
In 2010, Bourdais raced with Scott Tucker, Christophe Bouchut, Emmanuel Collard and Sascha Maassen for Crown Royal in a Level 5 Motorsports prepared Daytona Prototype in the prestigious Rolex 24 at Daytona, held at Daytona International Speedway in Florida
In October 2010, Bourdais drove with Jonathon Webb in the Mother Racing Ford Falcon $V8 (V8_engine) Supercar in the Gold Coast 600
Simon Pagenaud - Pagenaud earned a seat driving for the 2010 factory French & Peugeot team in the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans on the renown Circuit de la Sarthe in the Peugeot FAP 908 No. 3 with Pedro Lamy and Sébastien Bourdais
Wheldon had been set to contest the event but lost his life in the 2011 IndyCar season finale just a week earlier
In October 2011, Bourdais drove with Jamie Whincup in the Team Vodafone Holden Commodore $V8 (V8_engine) Supercar in the Gold Coast 600
In July 2012, Bourdais won the inaugural Brickyard Grand Prix Rolex Sports Car Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, teaming with Alex Popow in the No. 2 Starworks Motorsport Riley-Ford Daytona Prototype
Katherine Legge - In January 2012, Legge signed with Dragon Racing in the IndyCar Series, alongside Frenchman Sébastien Bourdais
By 2014, Bourdais broke through for two pole positions, and one victory
He won the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 2014 in the Action Express Corvette DP with João Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi
Christian Fittipaldi - He won the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 2014 in the Action Express Corvette DP with João Barbosa and Sebastien_Bourdais (Sébastien_Bourdais)
Circle K - In 2014 it switched to KVSH Racing driver Sébastien Bourdais
By midpoint in the 2015 season, his second year driving for Jimmy Vasser's KV Racing team alongside teammate Stefano Coletti, Bourdais's stock steadily rose, to top 20 status in the world drivers' ranking
In 2015 he finished second at the 24 Hours of Daytona and claimed the win at the 12 Hours of Sebring, both with an Action Express Corvette DP.
On 31 May 2015, in the second heat race at Belle Isle, Detroit, in a drive from far back on the grid harkening back to Stefan Bellof at Monaco in 1984, effortlessly carving his way by lesser drivers on a tight, composite street circuit, in heavy rain, breaking through with an impressive, high profile victory and fastest race lap, Bourdais recorded his 33rd victory in American Championship car racing, just behind Al Unser, Jr. with 34
In October 2016, it was announced that Bourdais would make the change to Dale Coyne racing to drive the number 19 for the 2017 season
In his first race back to DCR, Bourdais won the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg to start the 2017 season coming from last after a qualifying crash, on 12 March 2017
On 20 May 2017, Bourdais was involved in a single-car accident while qualifying for the Indianapolis 500
Esteban Gutierrez - On 1 June 2017, it was announced that Gutiérrez would be joining the IndyCar Series for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix Presented by Lear Corporation, standing in for the injured Sébastien Bourdais at Dale Coyne Racing
In 2018, Bourdais returned to the Dale Coyne Racing Team now partnered with investors Mike Sullivan and former driver Jimmy Vasser, who was his former owner with KV Racing
Robert Wickens - He would go on to claim pole position in his debut qualifying session on March 10, 2018, for the 2018 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, but whilst leading the race with 2 laps left, Alexander Rossi made a move for the lead and a racing incident ensued, taking Robert Wickens out of the lead, which led to Sébastien Bourdais winning the race


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The anthology series premieres on Discovery this August.
Discovery Channel has released the first trailer for "Manhunt: Unabomber," a forthcoming anthology series about (you guessed it) the manhunt for the Unabomber. Sam Worthington plays the cat to Paul Bettany's mouse in the eight-part series, which premieres later this summer. Avail yourself of the trailer below.
Chris Noth, Jane Lynch, Mark Duplass and Keisha Castle-Hughes co-star in "Manhunt; Unabomber." The series premieres on Discovery on August 1.


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Mt. Rushmore
With a Native American superintendent, the South Dakota monument is becoming much more than a shrine to four presidents.
When completed, the Crazy Horse Memorial will dwarf neighboring Mount Rushmore. (Tony Perrottet)
By Tony Perrottet
Blame it on Cary Grant. The climactic chase in Hitchcock's 1959 thriller North by Northwest, in which he and Eva Marie Saint are pursued by foreign spies around the faces of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt, is what fixed the idea in tourists' imaginations. Today the first question out of many visitors' mouths is not why, or even how, Mount Rushmore was carved, but can they climb it. Actually, it's not such a far-fetched question. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum's 1935 conception for the monument called for a grand public stairway leading from the base of the mountain to a hall of records, behind the presidential heads. But when the artist ran out of quality granite, and the project ran out of money, the plan was shelved. Climbing on the memorial has been officially prohibited since work ended there in 1941. In fact, even Hitchcock had to shoot his famous chase scene on a replica built in a Hollywood studio.
The Making of Mount Rushmore
Which is why a special invitation from the park superintendent to "summit" Mount Rushmore is not something one can easily turn down. Early one morning, I and several other lucky hikers silently followed park ranger Darrin Oestmann on a trail through a sweetly scented ponderosa forest in the Black Hills of South Dakota, listening to birdsong and the cracking of twigs from passing goats. Scattered along the path were rusting nails, wires and lengths of air compression pipes, all left by the 400 or so local laborers who from 1927 to 1941 followed this very route, by wooden stairs, on their Promethean task.
Oestmann paused to point out a rarely glimpsed view of George Washington's profile, gleaming in the morning light. Mount Rushmore has not looked so good in more than six decades. This past summer, the four presidents were given a high-tech face-lift; they were blasted with 150-degree water under high pressure. Sixty-four years' worth of dirt and lichens fell from the memorial. "Now the faces are whiter and a lot shinier," said Oestmann, who helped clean "about three quarters of the first president. You see that dot in Washington's left eyelid?" He pointed to a broken drill bit stuck in the stone. "You could hardly see that before."
About ten minutes later, we scrambled up a few steep boulders and squeezed through pine branches, then passed beyond a high-security fence. Near-vertical metal steps took us into a granite crevice that runs behind the presidential heads—an oblong sliver, looking like the secret entrance to a pharaoh's tomb. This, we are told, is the Hall of Records, the vault Borglum envisioned. The hall was to be a repository for the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Worried that generations from now people might find Mount Rushmore as enigmatic as Stonehenge, the sculptor also wanted to store information about the four presidents, as well as a record of American history and an explanation of, as he put it, "how the memorial was built and frankly, why."
The vault was never finished. Today, it's an ever-narrowing passage, honeycombed with drill marks, that stretches about 80 feet into the rock. Still, in 1998, Borglum's wish was partly fulfilled when the park service placed a teak box in a titanium cast in a hole they drilled at the hall's entrance. The box contained 16 porcelain panels covered with historical data, including a biography of the artist and his struggles to carve the memorial.
But the highpoint of the climb was yet to come. As Oestmann led us up the last steep stairway, we burst from the shadows into brilliant sunshine—on top of George Washington's head, 500 feet above the visitor center and 5,725 feet above sea level. As I wandered jelly-kneed over to Jefferson's and Lincoln's white pates—thankfully, their tops are relatively flat—the exhilarating view across the craggy, pine-covered Black Hills seemed never-ending.
Gutzon Borglum first stood on this spot in August 1925, when the memorial was still a half-formed dream. The idea for a titanic public sculpture came from South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson, who hoped it would lure more tourists—and their dollars—to the remote and impoverished state. The Black Hills, which boasted some of South Dakota's most spectacular scenery, were the obvious location, and in mid-1924 Robinson invited Borglum, one of America's leading sculptors, to create it. It was a fortuitous choice: he was an obsessive artist and consummate showman, by turns inspired, energetic, egotistical and abrasive, who despite his success (he was one of the first American sculptors to have work—two pieces—purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) still yearned for a project that would earn him immortality.
Dismissing Robinson's idea that the sculpture should feature Western heroes such as Lewis and Clark, Chief Red Cloud and Buffalo Bill, Borglum decided to carve the presidents, and he arrived in Rapid City with great fanfare that summer to search the rugged landscape for the optimal site. The cliff-face of Mount Rushmore seemed to offer the best granite and the best setting: a sunny, eastern exposure. In mid-August 1925, the sculptor, his 13-year-old son, Lincoln, and Robinson traveled with a local guide on horseback to the mountain to climb it to get a closer look. Standing on the summit, Borglum gazed out on the Black Hills and seemed—if only for a moment—humbled by the undertaking.
"I was conscious we were in another world...," Borglum later wrote. "And there a new thought seized me...the scale of that mountain peak.... It came over me in an almost terrifying manner that I had never sensed what I was planning." At age 58 the artist was contemplating a work nearly as ambitious as the ancient Colossus of Rhodes without any secure source of funding in a location unreachable by road. Its creation would be an epic battle, not only against nature, but against government agencies controlling the purse strings.
Oestmann calls our attention to red plotting points around Lincoln's eyes and green numbers along his hairline—revealed during preparation for the memorial's cleaning. He offers to take my photograph perched on Jefferson. "Don't go any farther back," he warns, as I maneuver cautiously into position.
Mount Rushmore might seem the most immutable of America's historical monuments. After all, what can possibly change on those stone faces, which seem to gaze down indifferently on the follies of their countrymen? Quite a lot, as it happens—including a seismic cultural shift traceable to the appointment, in 2004, of Gerard Baker, Mount Rushmore's first American Indian superintendent. Baker, 52, a Mandan-Hidatsa raised on the Fort Berthold Reservation in western North Dakota, has begun to expand programs and lectures at the monument to include the Indian perspective. Until recently, visitors learned about Rushmore as a patriotic symbol, as a work of art or as a geological formation, but nothing about its pre-white history—or why it raises such bitterness among many Native Americans.
"A lot of Indian people look at Mount Rushmore as a symbol of what white people did to this country when they arrived—took the land from the Indians and desecrated it," Baker says. "I'm not going to concentrate on that. But there is a huge need for Anglo-Americans to understand the Black Hills before the arrival of the white men. We need to talk about the first 150 years of America and what that means."
Indeed, Borglum erected his "shrine of democracy" on sanctified ground. Paha Sapa, meaning Black Hills in Lakota, were—and remain—a sacred landscape to many Indian nations, some of whom regard them as the center of the world. Natural formations such as Bear Butte and the Devil's Tower (over the border in Wyoming) are the setting for prayers, vision quests and healing ceremonies, while Wind Cave, a vast underground complex of limestone tunnels, is revered as the place where the Lakota emerged from the underworld to earth. Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, Congress confirmed that the area would remain inviolate as the core of the Greater Sioux Reservation. But only six years later, in 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant ordered a military "reconnaissance" of the Black Hills, possibly because of rumors of gold in the mountains. He put the operation under the command of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. In July 1874, Custer led a small army of more than 1,000 men, including cavalry and infantry, Indian scouts, interpreters, guides and civilian scientists, into the region with over 100 canvas wagons, 3 Gatling guns and a cannon.
Climbing on Rushmore (the view from Washington's head) is by special permit only. Some Indian groups consider the monument an affront and would like to cover it up. (Tony Perrottet)
This formidable group behaved, in the words of author Evan S. Connell, "less like a military reconnaissance than a summer excursion through the Catskills." According to surviving letters and diaries, the men were bewitched by the Black Hills' beauty. These mountains, some of the oldest in North America, and their pine-filled valleys form a verdant oasis in the Great Plains. In the summer of 1874, crusty cavalrymen would lean from their horses to pluck bouquets of wildflowers, and officers enjoyed champagne and wild gooseberries while the enlisted men played baseball. Custer expanded his natural history collection, loading a cart full of rare toads, petrified wood and rattlesnakes. "The air is serene and the sun is shining in all its glory," wrote Lt. James Calhoun, one of Custer's officers, in his diary. "The birds are singing sweetly, warbling their sweet notes as they soar aloft. Nature seems to smile on our movement."
But for the Lakota families who watched the group from the surrounding hilltops, the expedition foretold disaster. Custer's prospectors discovered gold in the mountains, and soon a rush to the Black Hills was on, with Deadwood, in the northern part of the region, one of the first illegal settlements. President Grant sent envoys to buy the Black Hills, but the Lakota refused to bargain: Lakota chief Sitting Bull said he would not sell so much as a pinch of dust. In the Great Sioux War that broke out in 1876 between the United States and a combined force of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, many of the cavalrymen who had plucked the Black Hills' flowers would lose their lives on the Little Bighorn in Montana—including Custer and Calhoun. The Lakota, however, were soon defeated, and, in 1877, Congress passed an act requiring them to relinquish their land and stay on reservations.
When Borglum arrived half a century later, the events leading up to the Indian Wars in the Black Hills were still fresh in many people's minds—Indians and whites. Yet few of Rushmore's planners seemed to have considered how the Native Americans might feel about the monument.
Several days following my tour of Rushmore, I visited the Defenders of the Black Hills, a Native American group that meets regularly in a Rapid City community center to inveigh against what they consider environmental affronts still scarring their lands, such as runoff from abandoned uranium mines, logging, drilling by mining companies, and the dumping of toxic waste. When I explained to the dozen men and women there—mostly Lakota, but also Ponca and Northern Cheyenne—that I was writing about the Mount Rushmore memorial, they laughed, then turned angry.
"Tell your readers that we'd like to blow it up!" said one.
"Cover those white faces up!"
"They call them the founding fathers? To us, they're the founding terrorists!"
The coordinator, a diminutive woman in her 50s named Charmaine White Face, a Lakota, spoke matter-of-factly. "We all hate Mount Rushmore," she said. "It's a sacred mountain that has been desecrated. It's like a slap in the face to us—salt in the wounds—as if a statue of Adolf Hitler was put up in the middle of Jerusalem."
She handed me a badge: "The Black Hills Are Not For Sale," it read, referring to a 1980 court ruling that awarded the Sioux more than $100 million for the loss of the Hills. Though their communities remain desperately poor, the Lakota have refused the money, which has grown with interest to well over $500 million.
When I relay my encounter with the Defenders to Baker later, he smiles. "Hell, Indians are always telling me to blow up Mount Rushmore, but they know that's not going to happen." Sure, he says, the Black Hills were stolen from the Indians. "That's a historical fact. But we're not here at Mount Rushmore just to talk about broken treaties or make people feel guilty. The Defenders have a cause, and it's a good cause. But we're here at Mount Rushmore to educate."
Judy Olson, chief of interpretation at Mount Rushmore, says that there has been a strong positive response among Anglo visitors to new programs and exhibits that Baker has initiated, including a tepee manned by Lakota families. "We have four white guys up there. They represent the first century and a half of U.S. history. But there's a larger story to talk about. Who were the people here in the Black Hills before that? To broaden the old themes, to bring in other cultures, to include the good and the bad of American history, is what people want and need."
Crazy Horse Rides Again
"Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!"
As the voice rings out, all eyes are fixed on a scarred mountainside where the enormous head and torso of the Lakota chief Crazy Horse can be clearly made out. He sits on horseback, his arm pointing toward the horizon. Then a dynamite blast tears the silence, sending a shower of granite boulders thundering to earth; the huge charge, one of two or three every week in summer, makes barely a dent in the neck of the warrior's horse.
Only 15 miles from Mount Rushmore, a monolithic new image is emerging from the Black Hills granite: a 563-foot-tall sculpture of the famous Native American who defeated Custer at Little Bighorn in 1876. Today a visit to the site testifies to the growing interest in Native American themes: even as a work in progress, Crazy Horse has already become a must-see counterpart to Mount Rushmore, luring more than one million visitors last year. (Rushmore had three million.)
Its scale is mind-boggling. When finished, the sculpture will be the world's largest mountain carving—dwarfing such monuments as the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Statue of Liberty. In fact, all four of Rushmore's presidents will fit inside Crazy Horse's 87.5-foot-tall head. The memorial depicts Crazy Horse responding to a taunt from a white trader before his death in 1877. Asked what had become of his lands, he replied: "My lands are where my dead lie buried."
The new monument was conceived in the late 1930s by Chief Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota. As Mount Rushmore neared completion, he wrote that he wanted to show the world that "the red man has great heroes, too." In 1939, the chief invited a muscular Boston sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, to undertake a sculpture of Crazy Horse. After serving in the Army in World War II, Ziolkowski leased a vast chunk of the Black Hills and started work on the monolith in 1948. "Every man has his mountain," he said at the time. "I'm carving mine!" In the late 1970s, looking like a latter-day Walt Whitman, with a huge white beard and a broad-rimmed hat, his wife and ten children laboring away at his side, he was still carving. Perhaps mindful of Borglum's years of wrangling with bureaucrats, Ziolkowski refused to let the U.S. government become involved in the project, twice turning down grants of $10 million. Instead, he funded the project with private donations and contributions from visitors. This meant that progress was slow. When Ziolkowski died in 1982, the sculpture was only a vague outline; many locals assumed it would be abandoned.
But Ziolkowski's family rallied to continue the work. In 1998, Crazy Horse's completed face was unveiled, creating the sort of publicity that Borglum had enjoyed in 1930 when he revealed his first finished image, of Washington. Seemingly overnight, a chimerical project had become real, bringing streams of tourists intent upon learning more about Indian history. In 2000, a cathedral-like visitor center opened at the memorial, with a museum, Native American cultural center, and cinema. Plans also include a university and medical training center for Native Americans.
When might the monolith be finished? "There's no way to estimate," says Ruth Ziolkowski, the sculptor's widow, who is nearly 80 and CEO and president of the nonprofit Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation. "It would be nothing but a wild guess anyway. We're not trying to be difficult. We just don't know. Korczak always said it wasn't important when it was finished as long as it was done right."
The carving is now overseen by Korczak's eldest son, Casimir, 52, who learned his skills on the rock-face with his father. "He was one of a kind, that's for sure," he says with a laugh. "We had our fights, like every father and son."
"Only in America could a man carve a mountain," Ziolkowski once declared—a sentiment that has not won over the Defenders of the Black Hills. They're not fans of this monument and say that it is as much of an environmental and spiritual violation of the Native lands as Borglum's work on Rushmore. Charmaine White Face, the Defenders' chairperson, says all work on Crazy Horse should cease at once: "Let nature reclaim the mountain!"
About Tony Perrottet
Tony Perrottet is a contributing writer for Smithsonian magazine, a regular contributor to the New York Times and WSJ Magazine, and the author of six books including ¡Cuba Libre!: Che, Fidel and the Improbable Revolution that Changed World History,The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games and Napoleon's Privates: 2500 Years of History Unzipped.
Read more from this author | Follow @TonyPerrottet


Keep your microwave free of grease and caked food residue with the HG microwave cleaner. Just spray the walls, let it soak for a few seconds, and then clean the walls with a piece of dry kitchen paper. Wipe a damp tea towel over the walls, and your microwave will once again be free of grease and dirt.


Why is the Conservative government so hostile to nannies? Is it because they're almost all Filipino? Does it think Canadian women should stay home and care for their own damn children?
Well, yes, that's why Stephen Harper favours that troubling income-splitting tax measure that even the late Finance Minister Jim Flaherty disliked — it keeps gals indoors with pin money — but it's more complicated than that.
The Star's Nicholas Keung has offered a fascinating peek through the keyhole of Stephen Harper's brain on the question of immigrants.
Yes, Harper does want women to stay home, that is, if their home is the Philippines. But Canadians disagree. No immigrants are more warmly welcomed than the women who come here to take care of Canadian children while both parents go out to work. Suggest ending the live-in caregiver program — the LCP as the government calls it and I won't — and parents get that wild-eyed look. Sell the pets, sell the jewels, but let's keep Divina, the children happily do her bidding.
Employment Minister Jason Kenney, stuck with the Temporary Foreign Worker program he loves and Canadians hate, has said some disturbing things about the nanny program, calling it "out of control" and having "mutated" into a family reunification program in which Filipinos already here hire family members, Keung reported.
But overwhelmingly nannies are hired by agencies, not relatives, as a new study shows. And I am not aware that the Canadian birth rate is shooting up, which might be the only thing that would make nannies multiply exponentially. It is low in all developed countries because life is so hard for working families with children. And the nanny program has not mutated. It is what immigration has always been: a way to bring your family here.
Why else would immigrants come to Canada? They wanted to see what snow looked like?
This peculiar affection for one's family is shared by everyone but me. I once silenced a CBC Radio debate that included Justin Trudeau before he became Liberal leader. Maybe people emigrate from the old country to escape their families, I said brightly. It's possible.
The lights flickered and the air was suddenly icy. Fine, I took it back, everyone wants to be with their family full-time non-stop.
And in this case they do. Filipino women make the heart-ripping decision to come to Canada to care for other people's little children so that they can eventually bring their own here for a better life. These kids will have spent significant years without their mothers. They may not thank them.
Nannies apply for permanent residency after two years of full-time live-in employment. They can then apply to have their children join them, a fraught process that is taking much longer than it used to. It can go wrong and it's a risk.
In private, Immigration Minister Chris Alexander is said to have been asking about "modernizing" the program. He seems to be suggesting that nannies shouldn't get "automatic permanent residency" at all, Keung reported.
But if they didn't, they wouldn't come here. They'd be just another worker slotted into the scandalous Temporary Foreign Workers program — still basically unchanged by Harper — that so enrages Canadians. Underpaid and therefore abused people with no loyalty to Canada, Alexander's brand of temp would steal local jobs by working cheap, and then they'd be sent back.
Instead Canada wants skilled immigrants with an emotional investment in the country in which they want their children to prosper. Nannies are well-educated hard-working people with ambition. You couldn't find more worthy immigrants.
The faster you let nannies in, the younger their children will be on arrival and the more they will thrive in a new landscape safe in their parents' care. Everybody wins.
It's as if the Tories have been squaring and cubing. Multiply one nanny by three children and square those three, you get nine, and if each of those nine had seven children ... that's 63 Filipinos, plus spouses. Chris Alexander faints and Jason Kenney is screaming.
I am calm. I wish my children to hire excellent nannies and also for splendid elder care when I am in my dotage. Calling the good people of the Philippines, please come to Canada and care for a hapless and helpless nation.


In the state of Pennsylvania, employee discrimination is the most common illegal ground for termination in an at-will employment. Employers are barred from terminating their employees on the basis of race, gender, religion, or nationality. An employer in Bethel Park also cannot fire at-will employees in retaliation for the employee filing a claim for discrimination or seeking an investigation of discrimination against the employer.
Also, employers are prohibited by the Family and Medical Leave act from firing those employees who take leave in order to address family or medical concerns. Finally, an employer may not terminate an employee for refusing to do something illegal, for exercising a legal right, or performing a legal obligation.
Local Bethel Park, Pennsylvania lawyers can thoroughly inform you regarding whether a wrongful termination has in fact occurred. They can also help you gather the necessary documents for your case, and can guide you through any procedures that may be unique or unfamiliar.


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Home Health Sciences Here Are the Best Optometry Schools in California
Here Are the Best Optometry Schools in California
When people think of high-stress, life-or-death scenarios, medical professions like heart surgeon and brain surgeon leap to mind. But every branch of medicine deals with our bodies and our health, making them all incredibly important. A mistake can have dire consequences for a patient's quality of life.
For that reason, the best indication of a medical school's quality might not be its faculty or its research endowment, but its ultimate pass rates. By ultimate pass rate, we mean the percentage of students who pass the exams required by a discipline's major governing body. These exams make sure that students have the knowledge and skills necessary to enter the profession.
With that in mind, College Gazette presents this list of the best optometry schools in the state of California, ranked according to "ultimate pass rates" reported by the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry. Each of the three optometry schools in California boasts excellent rates, either meeting or exceeding national averages.
All of that said, most people choosing a school don't care about mere numbers. They want their college experience to be rich and rewarding. In addition to learning from excellent faculty, students want to work with committed students and gain exposure to cutting-edge equipment. If that's you, take a look at this list. We'll not only show you how students at these schools pass the ASCO exam, but also the other benefits of attendance.
3. Western University of Health Sciences College of Optometry (Pomona, CA)
Ryan Hoff, Campus of Western University of Health Sciences, CC BY-SA 4.0
At the Western University of Health Sciences College of Optometry, everyone from the students to the faculty to the staff adheres to one theme: building bridges. This focus drives everything the school does, including an academic program that follows the humanistic tradition and a biomedical research agenda based on enhancing and extending the quality of life in their communities.
The doctor of optometry program at WesternU College of Optometry exposes students to a range of treatment methods, including neuro-optometry, vision therapy, low vision rehabilitation, and care for those with developmental disabilities. The program combines classroom instruction, laboratories, pre-clinical experiences, and service learning with hands-on work, giving students access to patient care, an experience that culminates in full-time clinical rotations in the fourth year.
The program emphasizes neuro-optometry, providing students with a fuller understanding of neurological processes and pathology. In addition to requiring that students enroll in the medical school's Neuroscience System course, students must take additional classes dedicated to the specialized discipline of neuro-optometric rehabilitation.
The program culminates in a fourth-year externship, during which students practice medicine under the supervision of their mentors, gaining hands-on experience. To ensure that they receive the most possible exposure to the variety of clinical settings, students rotate through four different sites, including private optometry or ophthalmology practices, Veterans Administration clinics, Indian Health Service clinics, armed forces facilities, and specialty clinics within WesternU.
Students even have the opportunity to serve in international sites. In addition to presenting future physicians with a diverse patient base, these rotations teach patient management in primary care, vision rehabilitation, pediatrics, ocular disease, and surgical co-management.
For those who wish to advance the field of optometry, WesternU College of Optometry offers elective research courses in which students partner with a faculty member on an independent research project. Projects include experiments in measuring visual acuity in adult zebrafish and comparison of retinal disease models, investigating ocular imaging and its use in glaucoma management, and evaluating the effects of accommodation on the peripheral optics of the human eye. At the end of the semester, students present their work to their peers.
Ultimately, all of these resources serve to prepare students for entering the profession. To that end, WesternU College of Optometry succeeds brilliantly. Among the 71 members of the 2019-2020 cohort group, 81.69% passed the NBEO Part One on their first try. 87.32% passed the second part on their first try, and 84.51% passed Part Three. Ultimately, 90.14% passed the exam, proving their worthiness to become optometrists.
2. Marshall B Ketchum University Southern California College of Optometry (Fullerton, CA)
With a history that stretches back to 1904, the Southern California College of Optometry at Marshall B. Ketchum University is one of the oldest such schools in the United States. From those historic roots, SCCO seeks to reimagine the future of health care education. The program emphasizes interprofessional learning, which brings together the three primary care disciplines. This approach prepares graduates to be part of patients' primary health care team, who must work together to provide collaborative and effective patient care. To that end, SCCO's curriculum engineers patient-care experiences that expose students to perspectives and approaches beyond the profession. The school believes that patients receive better treatment when optometrists, physician assistants, and pharmacists work together.
The school holds to these values throughout each of the four years in the doctor of optometry program. In the first year, classroom instruction exposes students to the basic sciences and research techniques. In addition to courses such as geometrical and physical optics, biomedical sciences, visual sciences, students develop their basic ocular examination skills.
During their second year, students take not only advanced visual science courses but also begin learning clinical techniques. In the second quarter of this year, students even begin treating their own patients at Ketchum Health. That practice continues through the third year, during which students take patient care assignments at Ketchum Health under the supervision of clinical faculty. Courses during this year cover topics such as contact lenses, vision therapy, diseases of the eye, ocular pharmacology, clinical optometry, and public health.
In their fourth year, students participate in SCCO's Clinical Outreach Program, in which they work alongside other health care professionals in four 10–12-week rotations. One of these rotations occurs in the University Eye Center at Ketchum Health in Anaheim. The remaining three take place in clinically diverse student choice settings, including VA medical centers, HMOs, military bases, and sites overseas.
This focus on practical patient care works in tandem with the school's commitment to research. Working in conjunction with those in the Physician Assistants and Pharmacy schools, SCCO students begin research projects as early as year one.
Following the lead of Marshall B. Ketchum University faculty, students begin preparing to publish in journals and initiate ongoing research studies. With a choice of both research electives, which are pursued in collaboration with faculty advisors, and summer research internships with institutions such as UC Berkley and The Ohio State University, SCCO provides plenty of options for students.
These features provide ample preparation for students moving into the field, as demonstrated by their NBEO pass rates. SCCO students consistently meet or exceed national ultimate pass rates, with 94% of the class of 2019 passing the exam.
1. UC Berkeley School of Optometry (Berkeley, CA)
Zpwilliams, Bowles Residential Hall (UC Berkeley), CC BY-SA 4.0
With their most recent class passing the NBEO at a rate of 92.54%, well above the national average, the University of California-Berkeley School of Optometry takes the top spot on this list.
Of course, such high numbers don't happen by accident. Rather, it's the result of a first-rate program, complete with a dedicated faculty and state-of-the-art resources. Those attributes have been in development since 1923 when the school was just the third university optometry program in the United States. In the years that followed, the school garnered an impressive list of faculty and alumni, including former presidents of the American Optometric Association and the American Academy of Optometry.
Berkeley Optometry continues to develop its reputation on the foundation of a comprehensive curriculum. Although students take comprehensive classes in topics such as biology, optics, and pharmacology, coursework exists to supplement clinical training. From the very first day, students begin learning about clinical education, immediately performing preliminary examinations of the eye, and measuring refractive error. Students gain exposure to advanced clinical examination techniques by the end of their first year.
Berkeley Optometry offers students a wide range of clinical options, ensuring exposure to a diverse body of patients. On campus, students can work in either the Meredith W. Morgan University Eye Center or the Tang Eye Center. Both options allow students to treat vision problems caused by diseases such as glaucoma, cataracts, and diabetes. Around the Bay Area, the school operates ten satellite clinics, including locations in Rohnert Park, Novato, San Rafael, Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, Hayward, Fremont, and Santa Cruz. For those who wish to work with veterans, Berkeley Optometry operates VA-affiliated clinics in the area. Students can obtain year-long posts in these clinics to gain competency in clinical skills and scholarly development.
In their fourth year, students participate in three or more externships under the mentorship of adjunct clinical professors. These externships expose students to a greater diversity of patient populations and provide intensive training in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of visual disorders.
These programs result in a continuing history of excellence, as demonstrated by awards and accolades recently given to Berkeley Optometry students and faculty. The Alameda Contra Costa Counties Optometric Society recognized the school by selecting Dr. Katherine Lai as Young OD of the Year and Dean John Flanagan as OD of the Year.
Earlier in the year, the American Academy of Optometry Foundation appointed faculty member Dr. Mika Moy to the board, citing her anterior segment disease, pediatrics, and neuro-optometry work.
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Have you been the victim of phone hacking? If so, we can help you seek redress.
It is now known that phone hacking has taken place on an industrial scale at several national newspapers over the past 20 years. The targets of phone hacking have not just been celebrities; they have also been individuals going about their everyday lives who have happened to had some connection to a news story of the day.
Phone hacking is a method of journalists obtaining 'inside information' about a story by accessing a victim's voicemail messages without their consent or knowledge. The victim is at a loss as to how the story had broken, often mistrusting friends and family members.
Phone hacking is a gross violation of an individual's privacy which at the very least results in them losing autonomy over their private information. Phone hacking and the articles published on the back of it can cause a huge amount of distress, anxiety and embarrassment. In extreme cases phone hacking has led to paranoia, broken friendships and illness.
Contrary to the impression given by the name, there is normally nothing complicated about phone hacking. Since the early days of mobile phones, it has been possible to access a mobile phone's voicemails remotely from a landline, by the entering the relevant telephone number and a PIN (personal identification number). Many mobile phone users were unaware of the facility, did not change their PIN number from the factory default setting and/or chose a PIN that was easy to guess (e.g. 1234). Unscrupulous journalists, or private investigators in their employ, would dial in from a landline, try the default PIN, or guess it, and then have access to voicemails. The voicemails would often provide source material for news articles. In some instances, journalists are believed to have telephoned mobile phone companies impersonating users in order to re-set PINs and access voicemails.
Email hacking can be more sophisticated (e.g. the installation of keystroke software and/or the deployment of Trojan horses), although it often occurs where a third party has become aware of or guesses an individual's password, or where the victim forgets to log out of a computer. Most email systems have a web-based portal (e.g. Hotmail, Gmail) and thus email can be accessed remotely. Emails, including 'deleted'/'trash' and 'sent items' contain a vast amount of private and confidential information that can form the source of a newspaper article.
How is phone/email hacking unlawful?
Phone hacking will normally amount to a criminal offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 ('RIPA') and/or the Data Protection Act 2018.
Email hacking is usually an offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and/or the Data Protection Act 2018.
For the purposes of enforcing personal rights in the civil courts (e.g. seeking compensation), phone hacking will normally constitute a misuse of personal information, breach of confidence and/or a breach of an individual's rights under the General Data Protection Regulation ('GDPR')/Data Protection Act 2018. Older cases may also give rise to claims under the Data Protection Act 1998.
What redress am I entitled to if I have been a victim of hacking?
Principally compensation, but if there is evidence of an ongoing risk of further hacking then you may also be entitled to an injunction (a court order prohibiting certain conduct).
In practice, where the evidence of phone hacking is indisputable lawyers will normally negotiate the settlement of a claim. The owners of both The Mirror and The News of the World have set aside compensation funds to deal with such claims.
What am I entitled to compensation for?
The normal rule in litigation is that the unsuccessful party is ordered to pay most of the successful party's legal costs. Thus, if your claim is successful the bulk of your legal costs can be recovered from your opponent.
Often a victim will have been told by the police that they have been the victim of phone hacking. Where this is the case or there is other clear evidence of phone hacking by a major newspaper or news organisation, we may be willing to act for you on a Conditional Fee Agreement ('CFA' – sometimes referred to as a 'no win, no fee agreement'). Where there is insufficient evidence of phone hacking (e.g. you simply suspect it has occurred), then normally we would require you to instruct us on a normal upfront fee-paying basis in the first instance. If we subsequently obtained clear evidence of phone hacking then we may then be able to offer you a CFA.
Please note that we cannot act for you on a legal aid basis.
I believe I have been the victim of phone hacking, but do not have enough evidence. How can you help?
We can advise you on your options and, if appropriate, liaise with the police, phone companies and other third parties on your behalf. The High Court has the power to make Norwich Pharmacol Orders requiring such third parties to disclose relevant information. The costs of this work can normally be recovered from the defendant if a viable claim is established.
Please note that we may not be able to assist you where you have no evidence at all that you have been hacked and are simply suspicious. In these circumstances, it may be more appropriate to consult with a technical expert in the first instance.
Do I need to have been hacked by someone working for the News of the World or The Mirror to seek compensation?
No, the law equally applies to any organisation or individual.
Indeed, phone hacking or email hacking does not necessarily need to result in the publication of a news article for there to be viable claim. Private/confidential information can be disclosed in more subtle or direct ways (e.g. by email or in the internet).
Claims against individuals or small organisation may not be commercially viable if they do not have the assets to meet pay any award for compensation or legal costs. Please note that we do not act on a CFA-basis against an individuals.
To arrange a consultation with one of our defamation lawyers, or to find out how we can support you please send us an email, complete our online enquiry form or call us on 020 3813 5135.


Niyamgiri is the collective name for a cluster of hills in the southwest corner of Orissa. Extending over an area of about 250 square kilometres, it is a region of considerable cultural and ecological significance. With a forest density averaging 1,350 trees per acre, the area hosts over 300 species of plants, including fifty medicinal types. Officially recognised as an elephant corridor, it supports a diversity of wildlife, including leopards, sambars, bears and barking deer.
Niyamgiri is also home to the Kondhas, three of India's most isolated tribes, who live in approximately 200 villages located across the hill range. The largest of these tribes, the 8,000-strong Dongria Kondh, has dwelt there for centuries. Along with the other two, the Kutia Kondh and Jharania Kondh, its people enjoy an intimate relationship with the Niyamgiri Mountain.
Just as the Ganges is venerated by Hindus throughout India as a divine life-giver, Niyamgiri is revered for fulfilling the survival needs of generations of Kondhas. They relate every aspect of their existence to it – birth, marriage and death – worshipping the mountain for its life-giving properties. The Kondhas demonstrate a tremendous respect for the mountain; whatever they take, they give back. Managing the land and rivers with age-old skills and knowledge, they conserve the forest and pollute nothing. In return, Niyamgiri sustains them with all their needs: food, water, medicine and firewood. Their tribal identity is symbiotically connected to the mountain and the two cannot be separated.
In August 2008, India's Supreme Court gave approval to Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd, a subsidiary of the UK's Vedanta Resources plc, to develop Niyamgiri as an open-cast mine. Buried beneath the hills' surface are an estimated 150 million tons of bauxite, the principle ore used in the production of aluminium. Bauxite also plays a crucial role in enabling the earth to retain its moisture; removing the mineral would render the land dry and infertile.
In 2010, however, the Indian Government blocked the controversial plans and refused to grant Vedanta clearance to go ahead. The mining company appealed against the decision and the case was taken to the Supreme Court in April 2012.
Unsurprisingly, the strength of feeling towards Vedanta Resources has run high for several years, with tribal protests frequently reported in the media. Amnesty International, Survival International and ActionAid have been powerful campaigning voices and a number of companies have withdrawn their investments from Vedanta Resources including the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and The Church of England. The British and Norwegian Governments heavily criticised the project, the latter dropping the corporation from its pension fund portfolio over concerns about its environmental and human rights record.
I went out to Niyamgiri in 2008 in response to a commission from Resurgence magazine to examine the unique relationship between the Kondhas tribes and Niyamgiri. I wanted to discover the impact that the mining project would have on their tribal identity. Through my interviews with members of the tribe, I explored the points of connection between Western culture and the Kondhas in order to raise awareness about the issues they were facing. The feature I wrote, The Sanctity of Land is published here.
The situation in Niyamgiri is not entirely settled yet. But, by recognising and validating the cultural and spiritual rights of one of India's indigenous tribal communities, yesterday's decision by the Indian Supreme Court represents a significant step towards a positive resolution for the Kondhas people.
Mark Helyar is an author, musician and Co-Director of Theatre for Take Art, Somerset. The revised 2nd edition of Rising from the Dust ~ India's Hidden Voices is now available in bookstores and online.


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Basic astronomical data
Observational challenges
Orbital and rotational effects
Mercury in tests of relativity
Mariner 10, radar, and Messenger
The magnetic field and magnetosphere
Character of the surface
Caloris
Basin and surrounding region
The antipodal region
Scarps
Surface composition
Origin and evolution
Mercury's formation
Later development
Clark R. Chapman
Mercury, the innermost planet of the solar system and the eighth in size and mass. Its closeness to the Sun and its smallness make it the most elusive of the planets visible to the unaided eye. Because its rising or setting is always within about two hours of the Sun's, it is never observable when the sky is fully dark. Mercury is designated by the symbol ☿.
Mercury as seen by the Messenger probe, Jan. 14, 2008. This image shows half of the hemisphere missed by Mariner 10 in 1974–75 and was snapped by Messenger's Wide Angle Camera when it was about 27,000 km (17,000 miles) from the planet. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
The difficulty in seeing it notwithstanding, Mercury was known at least by Sumerian times, some 5,000 years ago. In Classical Greece it was called Apollo when it appeared as a morning star just before sunrise and Hermes, the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Mercury, when it appeared as an evening star just after sunset. Hermes was the swift messenger of the gods, and the planet's name is thus likely a reference to its rapid motions relative to other objects in the sky. Even in more recent eras, many sky observers passed their entire lifetimes without ever seeing Mercury. It is reputed that Nicolaus Copernicus, whose heliocentric model of the heavens in the 16th century explained why Mercury and Venus always appear in close proximity to the Sun, expressed a deathbed regret that he had never set eyes on the planet Mercury himself.
Mosaic view of Mercury, showing about half the hemisphere of the planet that was illuminated when Mariner 10 departed the planet during its first flyby in March 1974. The landscape is dominated by large impact basins and craters with extensive intercrater plains. Half of the enormous Caloris impact basin is discernible as a slightly darker region near the terminator (shadow line) just above centre. NASA/JPL
Until the last part of the 20th century, Mercury was one of the least-understood planets, and even now the shortage of information about it leaves many basic questions unsettled. Indeed, the length of its day was not determined until the 1960s, and Mercury's nearness to the Sun gave scientists bound to Earth many observational hurdles, which were overcome only by the Messenger (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging) probe. Messenger was launched in 2004, flew past the planet twice in 2008 and once in 2009, and settled into orbit in 2011. It mapped the entire surface of Mercury before crashing into the planet in 2015. Mercury's proximity to the Sun has also been exploited to confirm predictions made by relativity theory about the way gravity affects space and time.
Planetary data for Mercury
*Time required for the planet to return to the same position in the sky relative to the Sun as seen from Earth.
mean distance from Sun 57,909,227 km (0.39 AU)
eccentricity of orbit 0.2056
inclination of orbit to ecliptic 7.0°
Mercurian year (sidereal period of revolution) 87.97 Earth days
maximum visual magnitude −1.9
mean synodic period* 116 Earth days
mean orbital velocity 47.36 km/sec
radius (mean) 2,439.7 km
surface area 74,797,000 km2
mass 3.30 × 1023 kg
mean density 5.43 g/cm3
mean surface gravity 370 cm/sec2
escape velocity 4.25 km/sec
rotation period (Mercurian sidereal day) 58.646 Earth days
Mercurian mean solar day 175.9 Earth days
inclination of equator to orbit 0°
magnetic field strength 0.003 gauss
mean surface temperature 440 K (332 °F, 167 °C)
surface temperature extremes
700 K (800 °F, 430 °C);
90 K (−300 °F, −180 °C)
typical surface pressure about 10−15 bar
number of known moons none
Messenger: MercuryImage of Mercury captured by a camera aboard the Messenger spacecraft. NASA/JHU/APL/Carnegie Institution of Washington
At first glance the surface of the planet looks similar to the cratered terrain of the Moon, an impression reinforced by the roughly comparable size of the two bodies. Mercury is far denser, however, having a metallic core that takes up about 61 percent of its volume (compared with 4 percent for the Moon and 16 percent for Earth). Moreover, its surface shows significant differences from lunar terrain, including a lack of the massive dark-coloured lava flows known as maria and the presence of buckles and scarps that suggest Mercury is shrinking.
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National Geographic - Science - Mercury
Wolfram Research - Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy - Mercury
NASA - Mercury
Mercury - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
Mercury - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)


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This Guest house is a long established business in Wexford town, Ireland: for sale
This Guest house is a long established business in Wexford town, Ireland
Wexford Town, Wexford, Ireland
490 000 GBP
Wexford (Irish: Loch Garman) is the county town of County Wexford, Ireland. Wexford lies on the south side of Wexford Harbour, the estuary of the River Slaney near the southeastern corner of the island of Ireland. The town is linked to Dublin by the M11/N11 National Primary Route; and to Rosslare Europort, Cork and Waterford by the N25. The national rail network connects it to Dublin and Rosslare Europort. It had a population of 20,188 according to the 2016 census.
Ruins of Selskar Abbey, Wexford.
Map of 17th-century Wexford. Cromwell's men camped to the southwest.
Wexford Pikeman Statue by Oliver Sheppard in memory of the 1798 rebellion.
The town was founded by the Vikings in about 800 AD. They named it Veisafjǫrðr, meaning "inlet of the mud flats", and the name has changed only slightly into its present form. "Veisa" in modern Norwegian means "Way". So 'Veisafjǫrðr' could have meant "inlet of the way" or "Way Fjord". According to a story recorded in the Dindsenchas, the name "Loch Garman" comes from a man named Garman mac Bomma Licce who was chased to the river mouth and drowned as a consequence of stealing the queen's crown from Temair during the feast of Samhain.
For about three hundred years it was a Viking town, a city state, largely independent and owing only token dues to the Irish kings of Leinster. However, in May 1169 Wexford was besieged by Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster and his Norman ally, Robert Fitz-Stephen. The Norse inhabitants resisted fiercely, until the Bishop of Ferns persuaded them to accept a settlement with Dermot.
Wexford was an Old English settlement in the Middle Ages. An old dialect of English, known as Yola, was spoken uniquely in Wexford up until the 19th century. The Yola name for Wexford was Weiseforthe.
Following the Crusades, the Knights Templar had a presence in Wexford. Up to the present, their name is perpetuated in the old Knights' Templars' chapel yard of St. John's Cemetery, on Wexford's Upper St. John's Street.
County Wexford produced strong support for Confederate Ireland during the 1640s. A fleet of Confederate privateers was based in Wexford town, consisting of sailors from Flanders and Spain as well as local men. Their vessels raided English Parliamentarian shipping, giving some of the proceeds to the Confederate government in Kilkenny. As a result, the town was sacked by the English Parliamentarians during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649.
Wexford panorama.
Wexford's success as a seaport declined in the first half of the 20th century because of the constantly changing sands of Wexford Harbour. By 1968 it had become unprofitable to keep dredging a channel from the harbour mouth to the quays in order to accommodate the larger ships of the era, so the port closed. The port had been extremely important to the local economy, with coal being a major import and agricultural machinery and grain being exported. The woodworks which fronted the quays and which were synonymous with Wexford were removed in the 1990s as part of an ambitious plan to claim the quay as an amenity for the town as well as retaining it as a commercially viable waterfront.
In the early 20th century a new port was built about 20 kilometres (12 mi) to the south at Rosslare Harbour, now known as Rosslare Europort. This is a deepwater harbour, unaffected by tides and currents. All major shipping now uses this port and Wexford Port is used only by fishing boats and leisure vessels.
Johnstown Castle.
Agriculture forms a backbone of the rural economy of Wexford. Johnstown Castle is headquarters to Teagasc, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Environment. There is also the Irish Agricultural Museum.
Wexford County Council and Wexford General Hospital.
In May 2011 an official web portal for Wexford was launched which encompassed local government, Wexford Tourism, and the Wexford Means Business website, aimed at promoting the value proposition of Wexford as a business destination.
From an employment point of view, major employers in and around the town are: Wexford Creamery, Celtic Linen, Wexford Viking Glass, Parker Hannifin IPDE, Waters Technology, Kent Stainless, Equifax and BNY Mellon. Coca-Cola operates a research plant employing up to 160. Eishtec operates a callcenter for British mobile operato EE that employs 250. Pamela Scott, A-wear and other retailers operate in the town.
Curracloe Beach, Co. Wexford.
Curracloe Beach in Wexford was the location in 1997 for the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan.
The Irish National Heritage Park at Ferrycarrig includes various exhibits spanning 9000 years of Irish history, allowing the visitor to wander around re-creations of historic Irish dwelling including crannogs, Viking houses and Norman forts. The grounds also feature the archaeological site of Newtown, considered the first Norman fortification in Ireland.
The Wexford Wildfowl Reserve is a Ramsar site based on mudflats, (known locally as slobland), just outside Wexford. It is a migratory stop-off point for thousands of ducks, geese, swans and waders. Up to 12,000 (50% of the world's population) of Greenland white-fronted geese spend the winter on the Wexford slobs. There is a visitor centre with exhibitions and an audio-visual show.
Wexford O'Hanrahan railway station opened on 17 August 1874. On 10 April 1966 the station was named after Michael O'Hanrahan, one of the executed leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. The railway line from Dublin to Rosslare Harbour runs along the quayside on the north-eastern edge of the town. In 2010 the Rosslare Strand-Waterford rail services were suspended, due to budget cuts at Irish Rail.
Wexford is also served by local and national bus networks, primarily Bus Eireann, Wexford Bus and Ardcavan Bus There are also many local taxi and hackney providers. There is also a local bus service Wexford Bus which services many areas of Wexford Town. For further information www.wexfordbus.com also there are two bus companies that service rural Wexford both wexford bus and Local Link.
Rosslare Europort is 19 kilometers south of Wexford. Car ferries run between Fishguard and Pembroke in Wales and Cherbourg and Roscoff in France. The ferry companies operating on these routes are Stena Line and Irish Ferries. Foot passengers can use the SailRail tickets from Wexford O'Hanrahan station via Rosslare Europort and Fishguard Harbour to reach Swansea, Cardiff Central and onwards including London Paddington.
The closest airport to Wexford is Waterford Airport which is approximately one hour away (70 km). Dublin Airport and Cork Airport are both approximately two-and-a-half hours away.
The town also has a shuttle-bus service which has stops at the town's main facilities.
It is a big three storey structure at some 426 sq m that stands in a prominent position on a corner site that has an enclosed gated car park The success of this business derives not only from how it is run, but also its convenient location and secure car park. It is currently laid out with 10 guest bedrooms ( all ensuite) together with 3 family rooms, pleasant sitting and dining rooms and a well equipped kitchen. The entire is in excellent decorative order and has been well cared for over many years, This sale presents a rare opportunity to acquire a large business premises in a tried and trusted excellent location in Wexford town. If you have been looking for a home and income all in the one building, the St George Guest House is an excellent foundation for your future plans.
Entrance Hall: 6.20m x 2.34m. With carpet flooring.
Utility Room: 9.00m x 1.50m. With linoleum flooring.
Guest WC: 1.40m x 1.20m. With linoleum flooring, WC and wash hand basin.
Reception: 4.10m x 4.00m. With laminate wood flooring.
Conservatory: 6.76m x 1.95m. With carpet flooring and Velux window.
Dining Room: 6.20m x 4.83m.
Staff Room 4.12m x 3.60m. With laminate wood flooring.
Sitting Room: 5.22m x 6.24m. With lamnate wood flooring.
Kitchen: 2.00m x 5.13m. With tile flooring, 5 ring gas range wit gas over, professional glass washer, electric oven.
Office: 2.00m x 4.70m. With laminate wood flooring.
Bedroom: 1 3.21mx 4.86m. With carpet flooring and built in wardrobes.
En-Suite: 3.16m x 1.20m. With linoleum flooring, tile shower, Triton t90si, WC and wash hand basin.
Bedroom 2: 4.52m x 3.58m. With carpet flooring and built in wardrobes.
Bedroom: 3 2.62m x 3.60m. With carpet flooring and built in wardrobes.
Landing: 4.75m x 1.95m. With carpet flooring.
Bedroom 4: 3.74m x 2.40m. With carpet flooring, built in wardrobes, wash hand basin.
Shower Room: 1.53m x 2.40m. With tile flooring and shower, Triton T90z, WC and wash hand basin.
Bedroom 5: 4.55m x 3.58m. With carpet flooring, built in wardrobes and wash hand basin.
Bedroom 10: 3.62m x 4.10m. With carpet flooring. En-Suite: 2.45m x 0.90m. With tile flooring and shower, WC and wash hand basin.
Lounge 2.48m x 4.10m. With carpet flooring.
Bedroom 11: 4.05m x 2.80m. With carpet flooring and built-in wardrobes.
En-Suite: 2.55m x 0.85m.
Bedroom 14: 4.22m x 2.40m. With carpet flooring and built in wardrobes.
En-Suite: 1.40m x 1.85m. With tile flooring and walls, WC, wash hand basin & Mira power shower.
En-Suite: 1.90m x 1.59m. With tile flooring and walls, shower, WC and wash hand basin.
Landing: 3.50m x 2.05m. With carpet flooring. Guest WC: 1.75m x 0.85m. With linoleum flooring, WC and wash hand basin.
Bedroom 6: 4.15m x 2.40m. With carpet flooing and built in wardrobes.
En-Suite: 1.13m x 2.40m. With tile flooring and walls, Mira power shower, WC and wash hand basin.
En-Suite: 1.05m x 2.49m. With tile flooring, Mira power shower, WC and wash hand basin.
En-Suite: 2.10m x 1.80m. With tile flooring and shower, Mira power shower, WC and wash hand basin.
Ensuite: 2.30n x 1.95m. With tile flooring and walls, bath, Mira power shower, WC and wash hand basin.


Shaq Surprises Basketball Cop ... Game On!!!
Shaquille O'Neal just dropped a huge surprise on the Florida Basketball Cop and the kids he shot hoops with in a viral video ... showing up to the department and playing some street ball.
Shaq arrived at the Gainesville Police Department Saturday and headed out to the same spot Officer Bobby White responded to a call last week which ended in a game of pick-up ball with local kids. It's pretty awesome, you can tell how pumped both the kids and the officers are to play with the big man.
Lucky for everyone involved, Shaq was more of a facilitator during the game, dishing out passes instead of dunks.
The game ended with a great message from Shaq to the kids ... proving once again why he's the man.