"So what are you going to do?" Lauren asked. Ray didn't answer right away. Instead he looked out the window where their twins, Sean and Liam, we're playing in the falling snow. It had been snowing lightly for three straight days but, so far, the plows had been able to stay ahead of it.
"It's still snowing," Ray said, trying to avoid the conversation Lauren was determined to have.
Ray sighed, then shrugged. "I don't know," he said, turning to face her.
Lauren slumped. They had had this discussion what seemed to her to be a million times over the past year. Ray was a successful author with an enviable string of bestsellers to his credit. Writing had always come easy to him but, mysteriously, a year ago, he had suddenly been unable to do it. He had spent a solid three months keeping to his usual work schedule, but hadn't produced much more than a grocery list.
For the next few months after that, he had lamented his writer's block, but since then he seemed to have given up entirely and accepted the situation, although not happily or with any particular grace. Lord knows they didn't need the money; his previous books had raked in millions. And the movie versions of the books had put him on several 'wealthiest people' lists. But, there were two Rays; the happy, fun-loving Ray who wrote prolifically, but still managed to find ample time to play with their boys, take the family on grand vacations, and be a thoughtful and very attentive husband, and the miserable, depressed one who was the polar opposite, none of those other things.
For her money, Lauren had had enough of the latter. In all honesty, she didn't care about the writing itself, she just couldn't stand what her husband of eighteen years became when he wasn't doing it. Not for her sake, but for his. And the boys'. Once he stopped writing, Ray had turned inward and become distant to the point where he seldom spoke unless asked a direct question and, even then, the odds were fifty-fifty he wouldn't answer. Those times he would merely shrug and go back to what seemed to be his new favorite pastime; staring out the window of their big house on Providence's East Side, looking at the city's skyline as if, this time, something was going to be different about it. She had tried to do everything she could think of to pull him out of his funk, but without writing he couldn't see any reason to exist. It was what defined him, what anchored him and, without it, he felt adrift, disconnected. Lately, he had begun to drink; not enough to be a concern yet, but more than he ever had before.
Without letting him know she was doing it, Lauren had done some online research, looking for a cabin in northern New England where they could go spend a couple of weeks. Maybe the change of scenery would recharge his batteries, she hoped. The more she thought about it, though, she came to the conclusion that she and the kids would just be a distraction to him and it would be better if he went without them. She found a couple of places that seemed like possibilities, made some phone calls, and finally picked a place outside of Dexter's Corner in western New Hampshire. The owner of the cabin, Mr. Deacon, sounded like he had been born when Lincoln was running the show and he didn't accept credit cards, so Lauren had sent him a check for eighteen-hundred dollars to cover a month's rent without telling Ray. She reasoned that, with the place already paid for, he would have one less excuse not to go. Still, she knew it was going to be a tough sell.
As she expected, Ray rejected her plan out of hand but, over the past several weeks, she had been wearing him down. As much as he claimed to believe his career as an author was over, she was certain he yearned to get back in the saddle. Lauren appealed to this side of him.
"Write some short stories instead of a novel, or some poetry. A newsletter for this year's Christmas card; anything, just to get your writer muscles working again," she had urged. He had responded with a shake of the head, but she saw something on his face that made her think she might have finally hit a nerve, so she had pushed on.
"It doesn't matter if it's a bestseller," she insisted. "It doesn't even matter if you publish it. Just write anything. It's not like we need the money, but you do need to write." Little by little, she had been able to overcome his objections and his refusals became less adamant. Now, today, she knew it was time to finally force the issue. And she wasn't taking 'no' for an answer.
Ray looked at her, clearly taken aback. "What? What are you talking about?" he asked.
"Oh, shut up," Lauren said, then laughed. Outside, Sean had just plunked Liam in the eye with a snowball and Liam had responded by wrestling his brother to the ground. Now they were throwing punches. Ray stood up quickly.
"I have to go out and break that up," he said.
"Sit down!" Lauren ordered. She stood up and walked to the window. She rapped on it sharply and the boys both looked up. All she did was glare at them and they separated, looking sheepish, their faces pink from the cold. She turned away from them and walked over to where her husband was sitting, stood in front of him, and took his hands.
"What do you…" he began.
"I booked it for a month, starting tomorrow," Lauren said.
They stared at each other for perhaps thirty seconds, then Ray dropped his eyes. He turned and trudged up the stairs. "I guess I'll go pack," he said, sounding like a petulant child.
The kids exchanged a glance, then turned their attention back to the meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans on their plates. Ray remained silent.
"We'll be fine, and he's not going too far," she went on. "Maybe we'll go up for a weekend and visit him. Would you like that?" The boys continued to push the food around on their plates.
Lauren tried to catch Ray's eye to urge him wordlessly to step up to the plate and say something, but he wouldn't look at her.
"Are you guys okay with that?" she asked finally.
"Will you be happy again when you come back?" Liam –the older boy- asked suddenly. Ray looked up, shocked, and blinked back the tears that had suddenly and unexpectedly sprung up.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, sounding angry even though he wasn't.
"Nothing," Liam mumbled, looking back down at his plate.
"But you're not," Liam said, on the verge of tears.
The boys had finished their baths and been tucked into bed. Lauren was lying with her head on Ray's shoulder and his arm was around her. They had just finished making love; one for the road, he had called it. He was just about asleep when something occurred to him.
"Mmmm?" came Lauren's response. She, too, was close to sleep.
"You think too much," Lauren murmured. Then she snuggled tighter and sighed and the conversation was over.
And finally, no February 14 post would be complete without mentioning Valentine's Day. Done.


The burial of the dead is not only a memorial of the departed, but also an act of Christian worship and witness that proclaims the assurance of God's love, and the hope of resurrection, through faith in the crucified and risen Lord.
It is a time therefore in which we look backward in memory, sorrow, and thankfulness for our fellowship with the departed; it is also a time when we look forward, with confidence and joy in Christ to the greater fellowship we shall have in heaven. And therefore the focus of a Christian funeral is not merely the departed persons, and our memories of them; but even more so the hope that is given those who believe in Christ, the crucified and risen Lord.
The service in the Church is called the Office of the Burial of the Dead. It is a service of the word, usually celebrated with hymns and sermon. It is followed either immediately or at another date by interment or committal (of the body or its ashes). The Holy Eucharist (called a Requiem Eucharist, from the Latin word for "rest") is most appropriate at the burial of a Christian and churchman, as the sure testimony that those who die in the Lord, and as members of his Body, will also rise with him.
Because burial is a service of the Church, it is under the direction of the parish clergy according to the orders found in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.
Flowers on the altar are arranged by the Chancel Society. Other flowers will be displayed at the entrance to the church or other appropriate places.
When cremation is planned, the ashes may be interred in the border around the foundations of the Church, if desired. No plaque or other marker is placed.
Parishioners are encouraged to make funeral plans in advance, in consultation with the clergy, and to deposit a copy of those plans to be kept on file at the Church Office.


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Microblogging and the world
Intweetable
If a tweet falls behind the great firewall, does it make a noise?
Dec 2nd 2012
by T.P. | BEIJING
OF THE 264 Twitter accounts belonging to governments and world leaders, and the 350,289 tweets that have been sent from those accounts to their 51,990,656 followers, not a single one was sent by a Chinese leader.
This information comes courtesy of a new report called Twiplomacy, which describes the ways in which governments use Twitter to brand their countries and to interact with important constituencies both at home and abroad. Issued by Burson-Marsteller, a big public-relations firm, the study reveals fascinating trends about the patterns of usage and inter-connections between heads of state around the world.
We can't make too much of China's absence from the list of leaders who tweet. Indeed, while the governments of nearly two-thirds of the United Nations' 193 member countries have a Twitter presence of some sort, there are only 30 world leaders who themselves tweet, and very few of those do so on a regular basis.
Asia in general is under-represented. In North America, South America and Europe, anywhere from 75% to 83% of governments or heads of state have verified Twitter accounts. Africa clocks in at 60%, and Asia at 56%. Only Oceania, at 14%, has a lower proportion.
But even if China is not alone in having leaders who eschew Twitter, there is something emblematic about it. In a new book, "The Rise of China vs. The Logic of Strategy", Edward Luttwak, an American military strategist, warns that Chinese leaders are at risk of mismanaging the nation's drive toward superpower status to the point of catastrophic effect. One of its key failings, according to Mr Luttwak, is a peculiar insularity among its top officials: what he calls "great-state autism".
Mr Luttwak outlines some historical "obstacles to the situational awareness of Chinese rulers" that saw China conquered time and again over the past millennium by "enemies neither numerous nor advanced." These obstacles include the misapplication of intra-cultural Chinese tricks and stratagems to intercultural situations; and a fixed worldview that presumes China's superiority over other civilisations. China's current leaders, Mr Luttwak thinks, are in danger of allowing these same obstacles to distort their understanding of today's world.
China is of course no stranger to social media. China's own Twitter-like service, Sina Weibo, is just one of many platforms on which tens of millions of Chinese engage in ongoing conversations of the Twittery variety. As in the rest of the world, these are sometimes vibrant, sometimes mundane, and very often downright idiotic.
But the country's insularity remains an issue. Twitter—together with Facebook and YouTube—is among the social-media outlets blocked in China by the massive internet-filtering scheme known commonly (if unfortunately) as the Great Firewall of China.
Plenty of Chinese users find ways around the blockages, and it would be surprising if China's top leaders were not among them. But notwithstanding the ease and frequency with which it is crossed, the fact remains that a line has been drawn between China and the rest of the world.
There are, however, signs of convergence. More than once, Chinese leaders have, like leaders elsewhere, engaged in "webchats" with ordinary citizens. The first to do it, in 2008, was the president, Hu Jintao, who has just stepped down from his post at the head of the Communist Party. Mr Hu greeted Chinese chatters with a hearty "Hello, my friends!", but then answered only a few questions, about what he reads on the internet. He said he was too busy to browse the web every day, but had seen enough to know that it "is an important channel for us to understand the concerns of the public and assemble the wisdom of the public."
The premier, Wen Jiabao, conducted his first online video chat in 2009, and actually gave some frank and interesting answers to questions about the financial crisis, China's creaky health-care system and wealth inequality.
The Twiplomacy study labelled America's Barack Obama a Twitter "superstar" for being followed by 76 other governments or world leaders (although, in what may be seen by some as a breach of Twitter etiquette, he follows only two of them in return).
However, when in August he agreed to participate in an "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit, Mr Obama was hardly more interesting than Mr Wen had been. He avoided some of the most popular questions about his views on touchy issues like the legalisation of marijuana and America's use of drone strikes.
Chinese leaders may be far from achieving their own superstar status on Twitter. But China obviously sees some value in the service, even as it blocks its estimated 538 million internet users from accessing it. In March, the state-run news agency, Xinhua, launched a Twitter account of its own, under the handle of @XHNews. This month, it took pride in announcingthat it would use its Twitter account to update the world on developments at the 18th Party Congress, where the country's once-a-decade leadership transition was finalised.
There is at least a bit of irony in China's use of a service that it actively blocks. Perhaps even a lot of it—considering how frequently Xinhua's tweets have been hyperlinked to YouTube videos, which are likewise blocked.
And perhaps it is also a sign of things to come, whether these oddities are intended or not. During the party congress, @XHNews tweeted a quote from Mr Hu, saying "China would reform its political structure while refraining from copying the political systems of Western countries." This, according to Xinhua, "aroused many retweets and comments".
(Picture credit: AFP)
More from Analects
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The other Occupy Central
Christianity in China
Crosses to bear
Xi makes the rules
Camping out with Hong Kong protesters
Hong Kong's protesting students may have a long wait for equal treatment if the treatment of housemaids is any guide
THE atheist Communist Party is faced with the growing popularity of religion
Before the latest flare-up of tensions between police and demonstrators, a correspondent describes a night in one of the protesters' encampments

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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LOCAL : PROVINCIAL ELECTION
New mom from Niagara-on-the-Lake faces frustration dealing with region's ongoing child care shortage
Shortage of early childhood educators, made worse by the pandemic, means less daycare spots available
Set Niagara-on-the-Lake as My Local news
By Zahraa Hmood
Wed., May 18, 2022timer3 min. read
Ashlea Carter is a new mom, who just had her son Milo in October. She's hoping that once her maternity leave ends in October, she'll be able to enroll Milo at a local daycare: however, with the shortage of spots in Niagara's child care system, Carter said
For the past eight months, Ashlea Carter has been on one of the most challenging — and rewarding — journeys of a person's life: she's been raising her first child, Milo, who was born in October.
"It's exhaustingly wonderful," she said. "I never thought the minutiae of being able to roll over or put his own soother in his mouth would be exciting, but it is."
The next step of parenthood, however, is proving to be a challenge: finding a daycare for Milo to enroll in once he turns 12 months old and Carter's maternity leave ends.
Carter, who is from Niagara-on-the-Lake, is dealing with what many other parents in Niagara are experiencing today: the shortage of child care services in Niagara.
When Carter was pregnant, a friend told her to start applying for daycares immediately, which she did. She applied to 10 daycares through the Niagara Region, which oversees the region's 175 licensed child care centres.
"Right now, I haven't heard back from any daycares I've applied to," Carter said.
Darlene Edgar, director of children's services for the Niagara Region, says child care centres in Niagara, on the whole, are running at 60 per cent of what their actual capacity is, but more than 7,000 children are currently on a waiting list.
The problem, she said, is staffing shortages: the region has seen a shortage of registered early childhood educators, or ECEs, for the past five years. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the situation, as ECEs were laid off and some left the profession altogether.
One big reason people aren't entering, or staying in, the profession is low pay. The average wage for a registered ECE at a licensed daycare in Niagara is $22.50 an hour, which, depending on the daycare, doesn't always include benefits or sick days.
"This sector has been undervalued for years and years," Edgar said.
Carol Phillips, associate dean of Niagara College's community services program, said the school is beginning an accelerated and online ECE diploma program to help current child care employees, like supply staff and before-and-after school employees, receive their certification in 11 months, which is faster than their regular two-year program.
Currently, they have 90 students registered to complete the program by 2023.
"They're hugely important," Phillips said of ECEs. "They're working with some of the most vulnerable people: children."
While opening up spots is the greatest concern, affordability is, too: the average cost per day for child care in Niagara ranges from $24.24 for before-and-after school care to $54.48 for infant care.
"I haven't even thought about how much it's going to cost," Carter said. "You have to pay it: there's no choice."
In late March, the Ontario government made a $13.2-billion deal with the federal government to secure $10-a-day child care by September 2025.
Niagara Falls riding candidates share how they would fix child-care shortage problems
Edgar said while this is good news, they should also focus on raising wages for daycare workers and attracting ECEs who've left the system back with incentives, as they did for nurses and personal support workers during the pandemic.
"I'd like to see a provincial plan that comes out from the province about recruitment and retention," she said.
If Carter isn't able to enroll Milo at an infant daycare by the time fall rolls around, she's asked her parents-in-law to help out. As months continue to go by with no answer, she says she doesn't have much hope he'll get a spot.
"I'm a planner: my personality is to plan and schedule and time things out," she said. "Becoming a mother has taught me that I can't do all those things, and this is another one of those elements."
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: A spotlight was shined on the importance of Ontario's child care services during the COVID-19 pandemic. As we enter into the country's first post-pandemic election—the 2022 Ontario election—our reporter Zahraa Hmood wanted to highlight the struggle of Niagara parents seeking child care.
LOCAL : CONTRIBUTED
OUR NIAGARA Gilded Station
'An unbelievable experience': St. Catharines man wins $100,000 with Encore
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The week after Louise Mensch announced her departure from parliament, my first poll in Corby found a 15-point lead for Labour. My second poll, conducted last week, brings rather worse news for the Conservatives. Labour have consolidated their position and Andy Sawford is now 22 points ahead. All parties' supporters are now surer of how they will vote than they were at the beginning of the campaign, suggesting Labour's lead is now entrenched.
The 13-point swing to Labour is not on the same scale as those of Crewe & Nantwich in 2008 or Wirral South in 1997 – but it means a comfortable victory for the opposition and would mean a significant overall majority for Ed Miliband if repeated at a general election. Half of those who voted Conservative in 2010 but intend to vote for a different party at the by-election say the main reason is that they are unhappy about what the Conservatives are doing in government.
Only a quarter of voters in the by-election say they are satisfied with David Cameron's performance overall. Even so, half of the rest say they prefer him as Prime Minister to the alternative. It will be troubling for Labour that even though more than half of Corby voters plan to vote for Andy Sawford, only a third would rather see Ed Miliband in Number 10. Indeed a quarter of people planning to vote Labour at the by-election prefer Cameron to Miliband.
Most Corby voters (56%) are pessimistic about the economy, thinking that in three or four years time things will be no better or even worse than they are now – although the proportion of those who think the right decisions are being made and things will improve in three or four years (44%) has edged up slightly during the campaign. Cameron, Clegg and Osborne are preferred over Miliband and Balls to manage the economy by 48% to 33%, and indeed by three quarters of those who voted Conservative in 2010 but will vote for someone else at the by-election. Though the Tories retain a strong lead on cutting the deficit and the debt, Labour have a small advantage on "getting the economy growing and creating jobs".
Of those who voted Tory in 2010 but intend to vote for a different party at the by-election, only just over one in seven say they will "probably vote Conservative again when it comes to the general election". More than half say they will consider voting Tory again next time, giving the party some hope of regaining the seat, but more than a quarter of Corby defectors say they will "almost certainly, or most definitely" not vote Conservative in 2015.
In this campaign, Labour are winning the ground war. Just over half of our respondents had received leaflets or newspapers from Labour, compared to 43% from the Tories, and Labour were also ahead on canvassing and direct mail. The Conservative campaign may have found it hard to recruit volunteers to defend a seat they did so much to win only two years ago. Another possible explanation is that CCHQ may have decided to conserve resources for future campaigns it sees more hope of winning. Either way, 70% of voters now expect Labour to take the seat, including well over half of those who intend to vote Tory.
Unfortunately it looks as though Christine Emmett, the excellent Conservative candidate I wrote about meeting at conference in Birmingham, is going to do less well than she deserves.
> If you want to help the Tory campaign in Corby click here.


Don't "set it and forget it." Lack of conversation makes you look worse than not showing up at all. Once started, sustain your participation and interaction.
Don't go negative. Never, never, never criticize your critics. Thank them for their input and do your best to address their issues. Even if you can't make your critics happy, you'll demonstrate to everyone else that your company is tuned in and responsive.
Don't mix personal and business accounts. In fact, please make sure that your company owns your social media accounts. After an employee departs, the company may not be able to access their personal account.
Don't expect to control the conversation. Social media is not an advertisement, product brochure, newsletter, email blast, or one-way monologue; it's a conversation. Conversations are bidirectional and can have rough edges. It's likely that your customers and prospects are already talking. Join in.
Don't worry about a little negativity. Studies show that a little negativity increases credibility and empathy. Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln, "You can't please all of the people all of the time." Be responsive to the negative, but know that such information can actually accelerate purchasing decisions.
Don't feel the need to talk about everything. I like sausage, but I don't want to see it made. Be honest and use discretion. Authenticity is one thing; opening the kimono is something else.
Don't be a generalist. With literally hundreds of millions of blogs, videos, podcasts, tweets, etc., to choose from, every individual can tailor their content consumption to his or her exact interests. Focus on one topic and do it well.
Don't overwhelm your followers with too much information. Everybody is busy. Providing too much information is as bad as providing too little. Find the "Goldilocks Zone." As a side benefit, this helps you to focus on the content with the highest value.
Social media is now required for interacting with your customers, partners, suppliers, and even employees. By getting started today, your company can (to borrow an idea from Charles Darwin) adapt to a changing environment more quickly than your competitors – to survive and even prosper. Now is the time; what are you waiting for?


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Home / Your treatment and care / Patient Information Leaflets / Motor Neurone Disease - Nurse Specialist Service
Motor Neurone Disease - Nurse Specialist Service
Who is the Service for?
The nurse service is available for anyone who has a diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and is under the care of The Walton Centre. With your permission the service is also available to your friends and family who have any questions/concerns.
Present during consultant clinics (1 x weekly)
Ward visits in Walton Centre & University Hospital Aintree if MND is confirmed
Telephone advice line
Referral to other disciplines/agencies
Home visits can be made available but are not possible in all areas, for further information and discussion please contact the nurse specialist.
How to make contact:
I work Mondays to Thursdays excluding bank holidays. I work on the wards and in clinics so you will have to leave a message with the nurse advice line and you will be told when I will return your call. This is not a 24 hour service so please call between the hours of 9am-4pm (mon-fri): 0151 556 4008
When should I contact the MND nurse?
If you have a question about MND
If you are experiencing symptoms and wish to discuss them (non-urgently)
If you require advice about independent living
If you require help/advice or referral to other services/agencies
Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA)
The MNDA is a national, charitable organisation that offers advice, information and support to all those who are affected by MND. There is a network of branches and groups which offer support group meetings for people with MND and their families. There are two MNDA Regional Care Development Advisers who work with The Walton Centre. The Association is a valuable resource, which can help with a wide range of questions and issues.
Please Remember: I am available for information and support but if you have an urgent problem or an emergency, please contact your GP or local emergency service.
Useful contact telephone numbers:
The Walton Centre 0151 525 3611
Regional Care Development Advisors Merseyside, Cheshire and West Lancs 0845 298 3286
North Wales and Isle of Man 0845 375 1824
MND Connect 0808 802 6262 www.mndassociation.org
Karen Twist MND Team
The nurse service is available for anyone who has a diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and is under the care of The Walton Centre.
Related Service:
Motor neurone disease


If you're a parent of young kids you have stuff! Whether you have a designated room in your house or just different play areas, my guess is you have toys taking up a lot of your space. This is a real struggle. No matter how hard you try, it feels like the toys take over again and again. Having a clutter free toy area will be a stress relief for you, but also greatly benefit your child. If you want to learn more about why it's so important to simplify your child's toys, read, "16 Reasons You Need to Purge the Toys and Why You Can't Afford Not To".
You likely have some emotional connections to the toys your children have. You remember them playing with it when they were younger. They got the toy from someone special. You enjoyed playing with it together. It cost a lot of money and that's hard to swallow. Or maybe you just wanted them to play with it more and are still hoping they will. In order to get to a more organized toy room, you have to learn to let go of items that are no longer needed or wanted (by your children).
Take a photo of your child playing with the toys they love or the toys that they got from someone special.
Give your toys to someone you know and love that could use them. Sometimes it's easier to pass them on than to give them away with unwanted items.
Before you start getting rid of toys and tidying your toy area, make sure you have clearly defined your goals for the space. There is no right or wrong, it's just what is best for your family. Your goals might be to have Montessori inspired toys and nothing else, or maybe you want a room with very little. You may have a larger space and want a bit more, but you want it to be organized in a way that is encourages play and is easy to clean up. Once you know your end goal it will be easier to declutter your toys and create the space you want.
As you go through your toys and start to reorganize your space, be intentional. Think back to what your goals are. If the toys don't align with your vision, then it may be time to part with them. If you create an organizational system that only you can master, then you can't expect your kids to keep it that way. Be intentional about what you keep and where you keep it so the system stays long after this process.
For me, this is the really fun part. I love getting rid of unnecessary items, but I really love putting everything in its place and creating a space that will really work for me and my kids. Think through your space before you put anything in it.
If you have a designated toy room, think about the overall feel of the space. Make sure items are easy to find and put away. Make sure there is space to move around and create.
If your toys are part of another living space, make sure they are organized in a way that they can easily be put away after play. Make sure everything has a home and that these containers are pleasing to the space they are in. You don't have to have bright colored toy bins. You could instead use a storage ottoman or another piece of furniture that has dual purpose and complements the room.
If you have a system you will have greater chances of keeping your space tidy.
Designate a place for everything.
Make it easy for your kids to understand.
Keep everything at kid level so they can help clean up.
Be consistent with putting things back.
Create a donate box to easily remove toys that can be given away as new things come in.
If something's not working, change it, but ultimately try to find the right system for you and your family so it can be done without much effort.
There are so many benefits to your family when you have a tidy space.
First off, it reduces stress for both you and your kids. The health benefits of having less stress are numerous and research shows the educational benefits are great as well.
Adults and children think more clearly when they have less to think about. Providing your children with a well organized toy area with only toys that are being actively played with is essential for their creative development.
Not having to spend countless hours picking up toys will greatly benefit you as well. For more about how clutter affects your kids, read, 16 Reasons You Need to Purge the Toys and Why You Can't Afford Not To.
As a parent of 3 small kids, I find the toys to be one of the hardest items to keep under control in our house. I try desperately to keep a handle on it, but it can feel like a constant battle. Walking myself through each of the steps above has made all the difference.
I hope this post is helpful to you and you can create a peaceful play space for your children. I am a huge proponent for play, but the benefits of play can be destroyed with too many toys and an unorganized space. Creating a clutter free toy room is essential for your sanity and your child's development.


Sadly, the Alzheimer's Association has reported that at least 5 million adults over age 65 in the U.S. suffer from Alzheimer's Disease. Alzheimer's Disease (AD) destroys a person's memory and creates cognitive issues and behavioral changes that eventually affect the patient's ability to work or have social relationships. By the end of this terminal illness, even the most basic activities of daily living can be daunting.
Chronic disease affects Alzheimer's patients just the same as the rest of the population in the U.S. In fact, AD patients will usually succumb to at least one other chronic disease in addition to the Alzheimer's. These additional issues might include diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and arthritis.
Once a person has lost reasoning skills and memory, healthcare management becomes impossible, too. Alzheimer's sufferers eventually won't be able to take medication per instructions and certainly won't recognize or be able to communicate the worsening symptoms of their condition.
Safety in mind. Secure grab bars strategically, especially in the bathroom, for preventative care. The adult can be bathed safely if a shower bench is available to sit upon.
Provide healthy whole foods. Providing healthy whole foods, especially when the patient has diabetes, high blood pressure, or cholesterol can be beneficial to the patient in many ways.
Activities for chronic disease. Arthritis and other conditions typically are increasingly painful and challenging when the disease progresses. Exercising at home with a stationary bike, stretch bands, or balloons can be fun ways to stay active. Walking is always a good activity!
Do what you can for sleep challenges. Sleeping is a top challenge for older adults with Alzheimer's, but providing a cool sleep environment with regular sleep and wake up times may help.
Knowing that Alzheimer's patients can't describe something that hurts, caregivers need to be vigilant for any signs of pain or discomfort.
Remember AD patients won't be able to explain their additional symptoms, or any medical problems either.
As the caregiver, request more help or speak to the patient's family for additional information, as needed.
Our Alzheimer's care is the best in the home care industry and we're proud to help countless seniors cope with their Alzheimer's disease and other chronic illnesses. If you would like to inquire about our services, contact us today to talk to one of our experts!


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https://apnews.com/e8d1263df1ec5aa518bb012fb123a481
Review: Survival takes many forms in `The Poison Garden'
By OLINE H. COGDILLJanuary 13, 2020 GMT
This book cover image released by Penguin Books shows "The Poison Garden," a novel by Alex Marwood. (Penguin Books via AP)
"The Poison Garden," Penguin, by Alex Marwood
Survival takes many forms in "The Poison Garden," Alex Marwood's gripping, creepy fourth psychological thriller, this time revolving around the demise of a doomsday cult in North Wales.
Those who lived at the remote Ark commune were willing to put up with its stringent rules, loss of their identity and sexual intimidation because they were kept "safe" from the evils of the outside world. But then the cult's patriarch, Lucien Blake, ordered a mass suicide with converts taking a cocktail of natural poisons they cultivated on their land.
The only adult survivor of the Ark is 21-year-old Romy, who is viewed by the local authorities first as a suspect and finally as a victim of the Ark. Her transition to the outside world isn't easy, intensifying her feelings of being a stranger that began when her mother, Somer, brought her to the Ark when she was a child. Not being born at the Ark, Romy was never fully accepted by the other converts. She is even more at odds with the outside world, which she was taught would soon end.
Although she appears to assimilate, Romy has other plans — to hide her pregnancy for fear her baby will be taken away from her, and to find her two half-siblings who are now living with her mother's sister, the newly divorced Sarah Bryne. Romy has no qualms about what she has to do in order to survive.
"The Poison Garden" smoothly explores Romy's life among "the Dead," as the Ark called those who live in the outside world, and her memories of the commune, why Somer settled there and Sarah's inability to move past the influence of her deceased controlling parents.
Marwood's extreme sense of place makes both contemporary Britain and the Ark seem both appealing and appalling sites to live. Both places can easily be considered a poison garden, depending on a person's perception as Marwood parallels life at the Ark and the stifling, unforgiving home rules by religious fervor in which Sarah and Somer had been raised.
An Edgar winner for her "The Wicked Girls," Marwood again shows a mastery at creating new worlds.


I get battery drain when the device is supposed to be sleeping (that means when I simple swipe the power button once and the random cover is shown and also the frontlight is automatically turned off). I go to bed and the day after battery drained around 10%. Is it normal?
6. Give me the vlasovsoft/launcher.log.txt in the morning (get only for today and yesterday). You can post it here.
Hi sergeyvl! Thanks for your answer!
I installed the latest build and it seems I don't have battery drain issue anymore. After 20 hours sleeping, the device still shows battery at 100%.
I noticed I didn't need to restore my previous settings (cr3.ini), they have been preserved after updating.
So, I have no idea what was causing battery drain... I can only imagine something related with the pictures I put in "sleep" folder for the screensaver. They are a mix of png and jpeg. Despite jpegs are shown right in my kobo aura, I can see your original pictures are all png... Would you recommend using only png pictures for the screensaver?
My Kobo Mini is in suspended mode when I am not reading. I charged it on 20th and now the battery shows 30%. The detailed log shows this weird thing. Is this ok this way??
I can't believe it. If I leave the protective cover/case open, the suspend seems to be ok. As if the touch screen would remain active and the inside flip of the cover touches the screen, disturbing the suspend process.
Sergey, would it be possible to deactivate the touch screen by programming, when the reader goes to suspended mode?
LittleBiG wrote: I can't believe it. If I leave the protective cover/case open, the suspend seems to be ok. As if the touch screen would remain active and the inside flip of the cover touches the screen, disturbing the suspend process.
In your case you (if sleep cover touches the screen) you can turn off sleep cover and suspend by timer.
All in all: if the case doesn't touch the touch screen, you are good. If does, you should suspend your reader manually, waiting a few seconds (actually it is 12 sec as I can see in the log) before closing the case.
No sleepcover here but had the battery drain problem.


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text:
Secretary of Commerce visit highlights Portland's bicycle industry
Posted by Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor) on September 6th, 2013 at 3:46 pm
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker gets
a tour of United Bicycle Institute with owner Ron
Sutphin (left) and Congressman Earl Blumenauer.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)
Flanked by Congressman Earl Blumenauer, the United States Department of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker beamed about the cycling "revolution" she's seeing across the country during a stop on her national listening tour in north Portland this morning. But to keep it going, she said business owners must have a skilled labor force.
And that's where United Bicycle Institute comes in.
On that note, Pritzker toured UBI's Portland campus on North Williams Ave. UBI offers vocational training in frame building and offers certificates in professional bicycle mechanics. In addition to learning about the key role UBI plays as a national vocational leader with over 20,000 graduates to their credit, Pritzker also hosted a private (no media allowed) roundtable discussion with about 20 local bicycle industry leaders. Pritzker and her staff have toured over a dozen cities in recent months doing similar events and the goal is to hear about the issues facing business owners and develop a strategy for the Commerce Department on how to help them.
Prior to a brief Q & A session with reporters, UBI owner Ron Sutphin gave Secretary Pritzker and Representative Blumenauer a walking tour of his campus. I listened to the Secretary rattle off one question after another. Where do you get your materials? What barriers do U.S. companies face in getting more of it to market? How many people have graduated? And how many of them are still in the industry? Do your students get financial aid?
"Whether it's repairing bicycles, building semi-conductors, working in the music industry, or in a factory, we really need to re-align our training in this country to match the needs of the businesses that are growing."
— Sec. Pritzker
Sutphin said he was hoping the Secretary would ask that last question. "I'd like to accredited in order to allow our students to qualify for financial aid," he shared with Pritzker and Blumenauer. Given the relatively low-cost of UBI's classes, combined with the high demand for the skills they teach, Blumenauer seemed to think Sutphin had a good argument. "We'll talk," Blumenauer said assuredly, and patted Sutphin on the back as they continued the tour.
Blumenauer is a perfect liaison between Sec. Pritzker and Portland's bicycle industry, as was evident in his remarks at the short press conference. "Here in Portland, cycling is a real, honest-to-goodness business," he said to the Secretary. "It makes a huge difference to the local economy. We have over 1,000 people working in the bike industry here and it equates to over $100 million. And it's growing!"
For her part, Sec. Pritzker's remarks focused on the importance of training. But she also spoke to the prominence of cycling in Portland and beyond. Here's how she answered my question about how the societal benefits accrued by cycling could help build its business case:
"We're all aware how cycling is really expanding dramatically across the country," she said, "And people aren't just cycling for exercise, they're cycling for their commutes, they're cycling to transport cargo, we're seeing use of bicycles in emergency situations, our police forces are using cycling to do crowd control and community management."
"It's exciting to see in my hometown of Chicago," Pritzker continued, "cycling has really exploded."
Then, getting back to business, she added, "But it's not possible unless we train folks who can create the bicycles, prepare them, and service the entire infrastructure that's using bicycles."
Pritzker spoke about the importance of a skilled workforce and how UBI is at the forefront of that field. "The challenges businesses are facing in needing to find skilled labor comes up with a lot of the CEOs I've met with. Whether it's repairing bicycles, building semi-conductors, working in the music industry, or in a factory, we really need to re-align our training in this country to match the needs of the businesses that are growing."
For Pritzker, cycling represents not just an industry with a lot of commerce and export upside, it brings other intangible benefits to businesses. Here's how she responded to my question about how the societal benefits of bicycling could help build its business case:
"The business case is multiple-fold. As well as being outside and having exposure a couple times a day to your surroundings helps with your mental well-being as well as your physical well-being. Those of us who have been employers, and in my career as a business leader, I care very much about the health of people who work for me. Their health and well-being benefits the business."
And Pritzker isn't just rattling off bicycle benefits from a list of talking points, she rides regularly herself and competes in triathlons. "I love to get out and ride," she said, "It's a great form of exercise."
(NOTE: Unfortunately, Pritzker's aides didn't let us into the roundtable discussion. It's too bad because it was an impressive assemblage of local bike industry leaders — from Chris King of Chris King Precision Components to Michael Morrow of Nutcase Helmets, and many others. Perhaps those who were in attendance will share some thoughts about it in the comments below.)
Business, Front Page
bike industry, earl blumenauer, united bicycle institute
United Bicycle Institute is leaving Portland October 3, 2019
Congressman Earl Blumenauer bullish on transportation under Biden November 11, 2020
City seeks cycling input on Freight Master Plan update May 13, 2020
Cycling wins big in statewide tourism recovery grants May 4, 2021
Todd Boulanger
Oh man…my invite musta got lost in the mail. ;-(
Matt Piersma
I did a month of classes there a couple years ago. That was fun, and the technical part of my job at a bike shop was fun. I was too frustrated by always stopping the good stuff and jumping to the phone or counter to deal with public so I am into an aviation maint school now. Like somebody said in Clerks, "This job would be great if it wasn't for the f****** customers."
I'm back in school too, focusing on other things. I love the bike industry and hate to leave, but after more than a decade of wrenching on bikes and providing top notch customer service, $12 an hour just isn't working for me any more.
nikorasu
I heard Secretary Pritzker speak this morning at an event in DC hosted by "The Atlantic" magazine. She was asked for her best memories from her recent 13 city U.S.-wide "Listening Tour". She ranked her experience with the Portland bike industry as one of the top 2 most memorable moments. (The first was a company that makes oil drilling equipment sensors.)
She expressed her belief that the Portland bike industry possesses an impressive level of knowledge and understanding of supply chain logistics and import/export law with a unique perspective. I thought I would share this here. Good work lads and ladies of P-Town!
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text:
Tag Archives: research
Comment-fishing, Placeholders, Tenure
Rethinking Tenure, Part II: What Does "Research" Mean?
July 22, 2010 alex Leave a comment
In the previous post, I was putting all the emphasis on teaching and almost didn't say anything about research. One reason is that, these days, teaching is the main thing I do in a university context. Research is what I do outside of the university, mostly <a href="informally but sometimes under more formal guises. I do love research and I do find it very important in the context of higher education. But my perception of how the balance between research and teaching should shift probably diverges from most people's thoughts on the matter.
So, my second claim about the tenure system is that we should rethink what "research" means in this context.
The emphasis on research at some research-focused institutions ("Research I Universities") have often seemed both displaced and too narrow. Much of the "research work" has to do with grant proposals, advising, and publishing. These are all tremendously important, of course. Increasingly, these tasks are an integral part of any university or college professor's career (along with committee work, which is usually associated with "service" but may also have to do with research).
In my mind, these research-related tasks aren't more accurately described as "research" as is some of the work a teacher might do to develop a new course or adapt an old course to new contexts. Sure, these talks may be involved in more "important" research projects than anything a teaching-focused person would do. But these tasks don't constitute research in and of themselves.
In a way, they're the research equivalent of "extracurricular activities" in the learning domain.
"But," I heard many people say, "you can't do research without these while you can take a full curriculum without any external activity!" In other contexts, I'd probably dispute the second claim (that a learning programme could be free of extracurricular activities). But I'll focus on the first: it's impossible to do research without doing "all this other stuff" university professors are doing, as part of their research projects.
Let's take grants… True, many research projects need large sums of money to be invested. Without funding, researchers can't, for instance, purchase pieces of equipment which are essential for their work or remunerate assistants who are such an integral part of their projects. (I'm leaving out travel for fieldwork or conferences as well as many other things which appear on budgets for research projects. I can address them later but they seem somewhat less central than the other two.)
So, sure, it makes sense that a university professor would need funding to purchase research-related equipment or to hire assistants. But three things come to mind…
The first one is that funding comes in different forms and external grants to individual projects are only one. Some other ways to fund research are exceedingly rare, nowadays (such as self-funded research by academics who happen to be independently wealthy). But there are models which could still make sense and in which the burden of finding funding wouldn't be put on individual researchers.
Unless I'm mistaken, much "R&D" in the private sector is managed in a way which separates much of the quest for funding from the actual research work. Sure, some employees in those R&D programmes may still seek and obtain external funding. But I'm quite sure that a large number of projects are conducted by people who aren't directly responsible for finding funding.
Also, what I've heard (recently) about the Media Lab at MIT is that external funding by commercial entities isn't tied to specific projects. Maybe researchers still have to fight for it (it didn't sound like they did, though), but the point is that the time-consuming work of grant proposals wasn't assigned to researchers in quite the same way that it is with most professors at "Research I Universities." Keep in mind that we're talking about a context of extremely high research productivity and very large funds.
Another example, very controversial, is that some people argue that funding should be directly assigned to institutions which already attain a high degree of performance in research. I don't personally subscribe to the potentially elitist dimension of this view, but it shows that people are at least thinking about other ways to fund research. I don't claim to know which one is the best solution, that's beside the point. The point is that there are other ways to get funding than getting primary investigators to spend much of their energy on grant proposals.
The second thing about grants is on equipment. Sure, many pieces of equipment which are "absolutely essential" in some contexts are incredibly expensive. But many research projects rely on less-expensive tools, on shared/borrowed equipment, or even on no dedicated equipment. For instance, I clearly understand the need for "supercomputers." But some computing-intensive research programmes have been undertaken without supercomputers and many research projects require fairly limited computing resources, even in some fields of computing. Similarly, research procedures which used to require dedicated equipment may now be done through general-purpose equipment, including personal computers. Not to mention so-called "crowd-sourced" projects and "distributed computing." It's also interesting to see that some research projects which typically required no dedicated equipment and which now make use of equipment "because they can."
Which isn't to say that budgets for equipment are necessarily bloated. But that, as a justification for external funding, equipment costs only cover some research projects. If funding were mainly about equipment, the "I can't do research without a large budget" line only covers a part of academic research and I'd say that it's often applied a bit too broadly.
The third thing about grants is the work of assistants (including graduate students). Research assistants are often essential to research projects. So much so that some "primary investigators" are acting more like managers than like active researchers. In those contexts, the research assistants are the ones doing much of the work which ends up being credited as research.
Now, this model is probably not generalised. I'm willing to think that most people who mainly use funding to hire people also do a lot of hands-on work and use research as an opportunity to train students. It's also very important a way to help graduate students, financially. So I'm not saying that this model should disappear. Just that it puts a lot of pressure on the primary investigator to not only work as a researcher and mentor but to also manage a team of employees.
On its own, that model makes for a tight system, especially if you see research as a straightforward process which churns out "knowledge" and/or innovative products by virtue of spending the time and money necessary to "do the work." I don't happen to share this view, but even if I did, I'd still say that there's something skewed, in there. For one thing, it doesn't sound like the model people think about when they think about academic research. And while it doesn't exclude the other things a university professor is expected to do (including teaching and advising), it does tend to create strain in a professor's life between diverse types of pressure.
Which brings me back to the connections between research and teaching. One reason they're both done by the same person, I would guess, is that there's an expectation that work in one domain will help with work in the other. So, a professor who teaches about her or his area of expertise is likely to bring in the output of "the most current research" in the classroom. In my experience, this is only the case in some rather rare situations where a researcher's very specific domain of expertise matches a very specific need in the curriculum. More importantly, it can as easily happen through collaboration, guest lecturing, or even…. part-time teachers who are also doing research.
Just a few words about publishing (as I tend to be carried even further away than with the other points). For many people, the connection between research and publishing is unequivocal. Since reporting the results of a research project is part of research, publishing is obviously part of research. Yet publishing is very different from reporting, at least in the current model of academic research. There's a multitude of ways to share your results, from classroom discussions to academic conferences, from blogposts to internal reports, and from textbooks and even "non-fiction books" to articles in peer-reviewed academic journals.
I won't get into the details of the peer-review process (which I also think should be overhauled), but the equation of academic research with articles in peer-reviewed academic journals seems to me way too narrow. A lot of research doesn't lead to articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals… and some significant portions of peer-reviewed academic articles aren't really based on brand new research.
In fact, according to a number of people I've heard discuss this, there are some clear examples of people who end up "milking" a research project to publish a series of articles which are more or less equivalent, in terms of the advancement of knowledge. It sounds like a harsh criticism but, unlike several people I've heard on the subject, I'm far from blaming them. I won't even "blame the system." But, if this "milking" happens, I do think there's something skewed in the process.
I could even go into "citation impact" which was not only the basis for Google's PageRank algorithm but is also amenable to the same kind of "gaming" as the type of "Search Engine Optimisation" which targets the very-same PageRank algorithm.
But I won't. This post is probably long enough.
Point is, here, that professors who are hired as part of the tenure-system to "do research and teach classes" end up spending much of their time on other tasks.
In other words, there's a "disconnect" between the way academic institutions function and the way they are expected to work. As long as academic institutions fit in their respective social contexts, the problem is merely one of expectations. But if, as I tend to think, academia as a whole is fitting less tightly in "today's world," the way academic research is conceived could afford some open-minded discussion.
Much of what I wrote here may sound like it's strongly-stated. Harsh, even. But, in all honesty, I'm neither that cynical (anymore) nor that dogmatic about any of this. And, really, I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, in a thoughtful and convincing way. (I half-expect strong disagreement containing strongly-voiced statements of my "wrongitude." These aren't the ones I enjoy so much. I much prefer being shown that someone has understood what I meant and can find a more appropriate way to describe or explain things than what I proposed.)
academiaacademic researchresearchtenuretenure system
Rethinking Tenure, Part I: Part-Time and Contract Teaching
July 21, 2010 alex 8 Comments
This two-part piece was originally meant as a reply to the following post, by the pseudonymous "Dean Dad" (a blogger who acts as a dean at a community college):
The Tenure/Adjunct Dialectic
Partly because of Blogger's limitations in comment-length, I decided to transform it into posts on this still-unpublicized teaching-focused site.
My basic claim is that the tenure system needs to be overhauled. In this first post, most directly related to that "Dean Dad" post, I'd like to rethink the relationship between the tenure system (tenure-track and tenured full-time professors) and "contract-based" teaching. In the latter category, I include diverse positions which are variously called "adjunct," "part-time faculty," "visiting lecturer," or even "limited time appointment." Yet my focus is on those positions which are assigned on a course-by-course basis (i.e., one contract per course).
A semi-disclainer… I've been teaching part-time, in different capacities and at different institutions, for several years. I originally envisioned a career through the tenure system but, for the time being, I'm more interested in other opportunities, including part-time teaching and freelance work.
So, my experience is quite different from that of a college administrator (like Dean Dad) or that of a full-time tenure-track professor. I did spend a year as a full-time visiting lecturer (through a teaching fellowship) and got to see the other side of "tenure/adjunct dichotomy." I've also experienced the tenure track vicariously through my then-spouse or through other people close to me.
So the tenure system isn't completely foreign to me, you might still say that I'm an outsider to the tenure system. Which makes sense. As we ethnographers are fond of saying, "you don't ask a fish about water."
Seems to me that a key issue is how people conceive of the tenure system itself. The fake dichotomy with adjuncts is part of this. But so is the notion that academic freedom is an exclusive prerogative of tenured professors or the notion that this type of job security should be preserved at all costs. Not to mention the points about sabbaticals, salaries afforded tenured faculty members, etc. In other words, the tenure system is "boxed in" as its own system.
Tenure is the way it is because all those things we get from tenure are related to the way tenure is. Or some such.
Talking about tenure, I would argue that people rarely think about higher education in the broadest possible way. Again, the "fish in water" problem. Or, more specifically, people usually think about their jobs. Whether or not they're part of said "tenure system." (One could argue that this system is so pervasive and so fundamental in higher education that even those who aren't on the tenure-track are directly affected by it. Still, they're not technically "part of the tenure system.")
In my experience, adjuncts and other "contingent" instructors are as "guilty" as anyone else of this kind of circular thinking. I hear many part-timers, bittered by their experience, talk about the tenure system as if it were their focal point. Several of them have assumed that there was (or should be) a way for adjuncts to go on the tenure track in the same department as where they teach on a part-time basis. As you might expect, some of these have been especially disappointed by the results. Bitterness is a common component of life for many of those who teach on a course-by-course basis.
One thing to note is that higher education systems differ greatly. I mostly have experience in the United States and Canada, which are already very different from one another in terms of contractual teaching. In some ways, part-timers at Canadian institutions have a much sweeter deal than adjuncts south of the border. In financial terms, at least (even allowing for exchange rates and cost-of-living differences). In the U.S. when I was teaching there, it wasn't rare for a three-credit course to be paid about 2,000$. In Canada, it's common for the same three-credit course to be paid more than 5,000$. Since then (i.e., in just a few years), teaching contracts in Montreal, at least, have gone up to close to 8,000$ and I know there are still teaching contracts in the U.S. which are still close to 2,000$. I've heard colleagues in Ontario talk about even higher figures for a 3-credit course, but those figures are so high that I find them hard to believe.
Also, many tenure-track positions are much better here in Canada than in the U.S., under the same terms. For one thing, salary discrepancies are quite limited, in terms of both institutions (within the same province) and field (at the same institution). Since Canadian universities are public, salary figures are frequently posted, so I'm not supposed to be divulging too much when I say that I know several people who were making around 50,000$ a year as new faculty on the tenure-track (assistant professor or equivalent) and that, in Ontario, the same position was close to 80,000$ (for instance, I've heard that the posted figure at Queen's, in Kingston, is 77,000$). In the U.S., I've heard 50,000$ as a "very good annual salary" for that same position at a wealthy university. Though I don't have direct evidence, I think many tenure-track positions in U.S. universities are much less than that. Canadian professors also get to a ceiling rather quickly, in that it's not really possible to get extremely large salaries through promotion. In the end, the two systems appear to be quite different, in terms of finance.
While in Switzerland, in the mid-1990s, I heard about salaries for professors, there. Since money tends to be a taboo, among Swiss people, it was almost impossible to have open discussions about salaries. But, given my own salary as a mere "postgraduate assistant," I'd imagine that the figures which were "whispered in my ear" weren't too far off. And they were much higher than even the amount quoted at Queen's.
All of this may be inaccurate in terms of the figures themselves. The basic point being that different academic systems have different structures for paying the academic staff. And these differences may matter in terms of the meaning of tenure.
Going back to part-time teaching…
In the U.S., "adjuncts" are not only paid very little, but they're often limited in terms of the number of courses they can teach in a year. The result is that it's almost impossible for them to survive on this type of teaching gig. They're also not typically protected by their own union, which tends to explain a number of things. In that context, "drive-by teaching" isn't exceedingly rare. Typically, this expression refers to people who don't spend much time of campus, maybe out of lack of interest. But I mostly think about the fact that these people basically aren't able to spend much time on campus, either because they absolutely have to work elsewhere during the semester, or even because they have very limited access to office space. Even though I don't drive, I've had to do something of this "drive-by teaching," one semester, and it wasn't fun. Conversely, the year that I spent as a full-time visiting lecturer was remarkably different from the kind of course-by-course contract teaching that I usually do because I was on campus full time. In fact, I probably spent more time in my own office than many full-time colleagues. And, yes, I had my own office. This was in a department which also hosts the kind of adjunct who can't really spend much time on campus. So the distinction wasn't even subtle.
Both experiences were in the United States, the source of much discussion about academic systems (including, as far as I know, what Dean Dad describes).
In Canada, it's not uncommon to find "career part-timers" with full teaching loads. Actually, I've known someone with an overfull teaching load: a total of ten courses during the same academic year. I'm talking here about people who became fixtures in their departments, having taught in the same place for fifteen to twenty years or more. Not that they enjoy real job security of the tenure type. Who gets that, nowadays? But these "career part-timers" still get much more stability than many people in other walks of life. Not only are they not "drive-by teaching," but they sometimes act as key figures in students' careers (through formal and informal advising, by teaching several courses in a given subfield, and occasionally by undertaking long-term research projects). In the U.S., similar things migth happen to some part-timers but, in my experience, it's much less common and tends to surprise colleagues when I tell them about it.
Something which tends to give people pause is that, in many if not most large universities in Canada, a majority of courses are taught by these people who are defined in ranking systems as "not tenured professors" (in other words, ranking systems look at the proportion of courses taught by tenured professors and the inverse proportion is defined negatively). The assumption is that such courses result in inferior academic experiences, for some reason. Yet student evaluations of part-time teachers frequently surpass that of full-timers and I personally haven't seen any evidence of inferior learning experiences at these universities with a large proportion of courses taught by part-timers (after studying and teaching in both contexts).
In fact, one might say that some courses actually benefit from being taught by someone who has a foot outside of the Ivory Tower. Not that it's representative of most part-timers or that it's technically impossible for a full-timer to also work outside of academia. But there's a model for part-time teaching which makes a lot of sense, here. It happens to be the one which applied to my father and which currently applies to some other people I know.
My father, a Piaget-trained «psycho-pédagogue», was a full-time teacher at a high school where, every year, he was responsible for a class of students with learning disabilities. For many years, he also taught pedagogy as a part-timer at two universities in town. Thanks to his dual position, he was able to bring to his university students "real-world cases" from his high school classes, and he could draw on his experience "in the trenches." I've heard unsolicited comments about this from teachers who had taken courses with my father, many years before I met them. Clearly, my father's experience benefitted them greatly.
I'm also thinking about a friend of mine who works full-time as a researcher in a hospital's pharmacy department. He also acts as an advisor, lecturer, and internship supervisor for a local university's faculty of pharmacy. Technically, his affiliation to that university is that of a part-time faculty member and his work benefits both the university and the hospital.
During a conference on teaching (Spirit of Inquiry), I also met a businesswoman who was teaching on a part-time basis. She didn't have anything to teach, that semester, but wasn't bitter about it. Her teaching experience is an opportunity to stay in touch with academic contexts, network with potential colleagues or employees, and share her expertise. Her livelihood clearly didn't depend on her teaching contracts.
Those cases, to me, represent "the real model of what part-time teaching was supposed to be about." In my experience, it's not an extremely common model, on either side of the U.S./Canada border (or in other places where I've lived, like Switzerland and Mali). But it's a model which seems to me to make a lot of sense. If all part-time teaching were like this, I don't think there'd be much bitterness involved. In fact, I'm moving toward a similar model (though the teaching part is a larger proportion of my time and income, at this point) and I'm enjoying every moment of it. I feel as free as one can feel. My academic freedom is protected (in part by my union) and I don't feel stuck in the Ivory Tower. "Best of both worlds," as some would say.
Conversely, the "career part-timer" and the "drive-by teaching" models seem to me to be the results of an inefficient system. It also seems likely that both models could be replaced by a special form of long-term and renewable teaching-focused contract. And other people, Dean Dad included, are thinking about this.
I wish more people were thinking about such a model, and this is the reason for this post. I want to raise awareness of this other model which has a bit of the "job security" of the tenure system and much of the advantages of part-time teaching.
Someone I know teaches at a smaller "comprehensive" university in Atlantic Canada. At the point when we were talking about these issues, my acquaintance's university only had a small proportion of courses taught by part-timers (language courses, mainly). At that time, people in the university's administration were thinking about getting more part-timers, for several reasons. My interlocutor was quite worried about the prospects, and part of his fear was that the shift to having more part-timers might somehow adversely affect full-timers. I must admit that I found this strange, since the alternative to increased part-time teaching has often been heavier teaching loads for full-timers, but I could still understand his position. Where it gets interesting, in my humble opinion, is that others in the university had talked about adding (if I remember correctly) five-year full-time teaching contracts renewable every year. From my position as a part-timer, this model sounds like a giant step up from the type of course-by-course contract teaching to which I've grown accustomed. To that full-time professor, it still represented a step down from getting more tenured faculty and there was a fear of a disconnect between research professors and these teaching positions.
In my mind, such a system leaves the tenure system intact. But it puts tenure in context as only one possible career path in academia. And it might be something of a transitory system between one based almost entirely on the research-focused "publish or perish" system and one which allows for something closer to "teaching professors." I could even see that system be used to hire qualified teachers who, gasp!, don't have a research Ph.D. in the field in which they teach! But I know this sounds like heresy and I won't push it.
The key point is about the possibility for longer-term teaching contracts. Ones which allow contract teachers to build something, like a learning programme or even some connection with a research project. In his blogpost, Dean Dad talked about several other advantages. I'd add that I'm aware of many caveats but that we could still think about it carefully.
In the end, it sounds to me that the result is something of a compromise. Some people dislike compromise and prefer something which is beneficial to everyone (the so-called "win-win"). But I still haven't heard of anything which would satisfy everyone. In the context of an academic institution with thousands of students, it's quite rare to find a way to please everyone.
But I'd be very happy to hear about such an alternative.
academiaacademic publishingacademic researchpublish or perishresearchtenure
Just another Alexandre Enkerli site
Learning Frowns and Teaching Moments
Coursenotes, Week 2, ANTH326 – Peoples & Cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa
Playful Gamification?
SOCI221 – Sociology of Cyberspace, Meeting 12
Coursenotes, SOCI221 – Sociology of Cyberspace, Meeting 11
enkerli on Rethinking Tenure, Part I: Part-Time and Contract Teaching
actualham on Rethinking Tenure, Part I: Part-Time and Contract Teaching
Caitlyn Bowser on Coursenotes, Week 2, ANTH326 – Peoples & Cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa
SOCI/ANTH 441 – Material Culture – Week 1 (September 3, 2014) | Learning and Teaching on Digging into the Stuff: Coursepack for Material Culture
Learning Objection | Learning and Teaching on ATT8: Alternatives to Textbooks
Africanist Anthropology
Alex's Teaching Tidbits
Comment-fishing
Coursenotes
Cyberspace Sociology
Enhanced (AAC)
LMS / ENA


text:
Q: I cannot move CircularImageView in toolbar I've been struggling for days trying to move the CircularImageView to the right of the toolbar without success.
I would like to have it to the right and more centered (i.e. without touching toolbar edges), but I cannot do it.
Just for info, I tried to use both mikhaellopez and hdodenhof libraries without success.
Here what I tried (with a placeholder image in the CircularImageView):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"

    android:id="@+id/page_toolbar"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
    android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
    android:background="@color/primary"
    android:elevation="4dp"
    android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.ActionBar"
    app:popupTheme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">

    <RelativeLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <com.mikhaellopez.circularimageview.CircularImageView
        xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
        android:id="@+id/profile_pic"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="48dp"
        android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
        android:src="@drawable/ic_seed_48dp"
        app:civ_border_color="#FFFFFF"
        app:civ_border_width="3dp" />

    </RelativeLayout>
</android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>

public class HomepageActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.homepage_activity);
        pageToolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.page_toolbar);
        setSupportActionBar(pageToolbar);
        ...
}

Another question: is it possible to have CircularImageView with a plain background (e.g. white)? In fact it is not shown unless I put something within it and I had to put a placeholder image.
Thanks in advance!

A: Yes it is possible to use only a plain background, don't about the library you're using but with hdodenof's you can try this:
app:civ_fill_color="@android:color/white"

Also try adding this to your CircularImageView
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"

The android:layout_alignParentEnd="true" is as a backup support for RTL layouts, used while creating apps which render layout from RTL instead of LTR.

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Heine Brothers' is a 100% fair trade and organic coffee roaster. The company opened their first shop in October 1994 in the Highlands neighborhood of Louisville, KY, and has 15 Louisville-area locations.
In 2016, Heine Brothers' relocated its offices, warehouse and roasting operations to Louisville's Portland Warehouse District. In April of 2017, the iconic Louisville brand opened its 14th store at 3965 Taylorsville Road in Hikes Point and in March opened its 15th café in the Omni Hotel.


Back in the early 80s, Robert Kampf was just another music-mad German teenager. Having grown up with Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin ringing in his ears, he was initially wary of the nascent punk rock scene of the late 70s, but steadily grew to appreciate its energy, aggression and political edge. Soon immersed in Dortmund's own local scene, he became the singer in a band called Eklatant, alongside friend and bassist Oliver Withöft, and embarked on a career path that he had never seen coming.
In 2018, Robert is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Century Media Records, which he founded and steered through three decades. Today, he cites those early days in the punk scene with Oliver (who sadly passed away in 2014) as the catalyst for everything that followed.
After quitting Eklatant ("I didn't really like the music much!"), he formed thrash metal band Despair in 1986. In keeping with the DIY ethos he'd learned from the punk scene, he decided to create his own label to release their first album. In 1988 he founded Century Media Records, but not before some fairly idiosyncratic money-making ideas had reached fruition.
With the finances sorted and Despair's History Of Hate album in the can, all Robert needed now was the perfect right-hand man to crunch numbers. After some lengthy persuasion, the business-literate Oliver Withöft finally agreed to pitch in with his friend and make Century Media a genuine force.
As the metal underground bloomed and the 90s dawned, Century Media steadily became one of Europe's most prominent metal labels. After a handful of low-key but well-received releases, they broke into the international market with the signing of German death metallers Morgoth, whose popularity overseas kicked open doors for both band and label, particularly in the United States. From then on, Robert shrewdly plundered the death metal scene, via bands like Asphyx and Grave (both still signed to Century Media, incidentally), while also snapping up some of the best new bands from other fledgling subgenres and parts of the world, ranging from US rap-metal pioneers Stuck Mojo to the dark extremity of Portugal's Moonspell and Sweden's Tiamat. Significantly, Robert was eager to establish good relationships with his bands, even to the extent of taking them out for a potentially life-threatening knees-up.
One of the most significant signings in Century Media history came in 1995, when Robert spotted the originality and potential in Holland's alt-metal ingénues, The Gathering. With new vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen setting them apart from pretty much everything, they became the first metal band with a female singer to sign to the label, a rarity at the time.
Third album Mandylion (their first with Anneke) was an instant critical hit and sold well, but it was the record's lasting impact on female involvement in metal of which Anneke is proudest. Without making any grand statements, Century Media were doing their bit for the notions of diversity and equality that had been so fundamental to Robert and Oliver's punk upbringing.
Despite all the usual clichés about the 90s being a terrible time for metal, Century Media survived the decade and emerged into the 21st century in an excellent state of health. It certainly helps that one of their most unexpected signings, an Italian band called Lacuna Coil, were rapidly turning into major stars. But as vocalist Cristina Scabbia recalls, signing to such a well-known label was far beyond anything the band had originally dared to hope for.
As with everyone we talk to, Cristina speaks glowingly about her band's relationship with Century Media over the years. The huge success Lacuna Coil have enjoyed since their break-through album, 2002's Comalies, has certainly been facilitated by the steadiness of their friendship with Robert and his staff, something that goes right back to the recording of their debut album, In A Reverie, in 1998.
Century Media remained firmly at the forefront as metal underwent its huge early 21st-century renaissance. Always diverse but never forgetting to stay true to the underground scene that spawned it, the roll-call of bands from the last 30 years is frankly ridiculous: Dark Tranquillity, Napalm Death, Nevermore, Aborted, Behemoth, Insomnium, Architects, Body Count… and recent Golden Gods Best International Band winners Arch Enemy. Signed to Century Media in 1998, Michael Amott's post-Carcass crew have stayed with the label ever since.
Arch Enemy have been through a number of line-up changes over their 23 years, but it was the recruitment of vocalist Angela Gossow in 2000 that caused major consternation among diehard fans. Once again proving Robert's ability to spot a great idea, Century Media threw their wholehearted support behind the new line-up and the subsequent Wages Of Sin album propelled Arch Enemy to ever-greater success worldwide.
Partly prompted by the death of his long-time business partner and partly due to bewilderment at the endlessly mutating state of the music industry, Robert sold Century Media to Sony for £12million in 2015. But the label's story is far from over, thanks to a partnership between major label and revered independent that seems to be keeping everyone happy. Today, Robert spends his days involved in the development of "utility-scale solar farms" ("I stumbled into it and liked it!" he laughs) but he has clearly been keeping a benevolent eye on his old creation's progress.


Kids' Bedroom - eclectic - bedroom - minneapolis - John Kraemer & Sons Red window seat and green carpet.
grey & white Interesting that the crown molding is painted gray to blend with the upper portion of the wall.
Elegant master bedroom with floor to ceiling shiplap, exposed wood beams, white walls and grey carpet.
DIY Built-in Bookshelves + Window Bench Tutorial with beadboard and rope trim moldings. Can you cut a straight line with a circular saw?
Window Seat Banquette: Eye-catching trim and molding draw attention to the breakfast nook to set it off as the room's focal point.


← An Astronaut Spotted a Soyuz Crew Launch from Space and the Video Is AMAZING!
Tonight at The Game Awards, Ark: Survival Evolved developer Studio Wildcard announced a new game. Atlas, as it's called, is an open-world survival MMO. It's launching next week on PC, with a console version coming in 2019 through the Xbox One Game Preview program.
Atlas reportedly supports 40,000 concurrent players; and in terms of map size, it's 1,200 times the size of an Ark server, the developers said. There are numerous different biomes in Atlas, including desert, tundra, and polar regions. You'll encounter a series of animals ranging from regular livestock as well as mythological creatures.
Atlas will offer naval battles. The overall aim in Atlas is to build an armada, claim territory, and dominate the world. You can check out the announcement trailer above.
For more on The Game Awards, check out this roundup of all the big reveals and award winners.


text:
US Joint Forces Command Formally Disestablished
Via USJFCOM:
The need for a joint force hasn't gone away, but the need for a specific command dedicated to "jointness" has, and the U.S. Joint Forces Command furled its colors today.
The command, established in 1999 to champion getting all branches of the military to work together more closely, cased its colors at a ceremony in Suffolk, Va.
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, awarded Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the organization's last commander, with the Defense Distinguished Service Medal for his service in shutting down the command. Odierno will succeed Gen. Martin E. Dempsey -- who will become Joint Chiefs chairman upon Mullen's retirement -- as Army chief of staff.
Via The Washington Post:
While the Pentagon said it would assign some of the command's functions to other combatant commands and individual services, the decision drew howls from Virginia officials, who warned about the loss of jobs in and around Norfolk and the economic impact in the region. A year later, it appears the closure of JFCOM has proven painful but not devastating.
Of the command's roughly 6,000 personnel, about half were contractors. Those contractors have taken the biggest hit in the cuts, but some - along with hundreds of the troops at JFCOM - will retain their jobs under different leadership.
Via the Associated Press:
The command had employed about 5,700 military and civilian personnel in Virginia, Nevada and Florida, with the bulk of those working in southeast Virginia.
About half of those Virginia jobs were eliminated over the past several months. Those who lost their jobs were primarily government contractors.
Via Stars and Stripes and American Forces Press Service:
"We're not walking away from jointness," Odierno said. "But rather we're adapting to a new reality."
We no longer require a separate four-star command to oversee joint warfighting," Odierno said during the ceremony. "We have progressed far enough and inculcated jointness deeply enough to realize an efficiency while simultaneously refining our efforts.


To claim this profile, please confirm you are Mathew Beaudin.
To follow this profile, please let us know your relationship to Mathew Beaudin.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team is at their away non-conference game @ Jordan (Columbus, GA).
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Tuesday's home conference game against Baconton Charter (Baconton, GA) by a score of 15-3.
RESULTLoss Varsity baseball vs. Terrell County.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Monday's home conference game against Terrell County (Dawson, GA) by a score of 8-4.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team won Thursday's home non-conference game against Greenville (GA) by a score of 18-1.
RESULTLoss Varsity baseball @ Webster County.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Wednesday's away conference game against Webster County (Preston, GA) by a score of 9-6.
RESULTLoss Varsity baseball vs. Miller County.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Friday's home conference game against Miller County (Colquitt, GA) by a score of 7-6.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Thursday's away non-conference game against rival school Marion County (Buena Vista, GA) by a score of 14-4.
RESULTLoss Varsity baseball @ Miller County.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Tuesday's away conference game against Miller County (Colquitt, GA) by a score of 14-7.
RESULTLoss Varsity baseball vs. PCA.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Monday's home conference game against Pataula Charter Academy (Edison, GA) in extra innings by a score of 13-7.
RESULTLoss Varsity baseball @ Pelham.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Tuesday's away conference game against Pelham (GA) by a score of 9-5.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Saturday's home conference game against Seminole County (Donalsonville, GA) by a score of 12-1.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Saturday's home conference game against Seminole County (Donalsonville, GA) by a score of 15-3.
RESULTWin Varsity baseball vs. Mitchell County.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team won Tuesday's home conference game against Mitchell County (Camilla, GA) by a score of 14-4.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team won Monday's away conference game against Quitman County (Georgetown, GA) by a score of 13-5.
RESULTLoss Varsity baseball @ Terrell County.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Friday's away conference game against Terrell County (Dawson, GA) by a score of 11-1.
RESULTLoss Varsity baseball @ Baconton Charter.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Tuesday's away conference game against Baconton Charter (Baconton, GA) by a score of 14-2.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team won Friday's home conference game against Webster County (Preston, GA) by a score of 6-2.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Wednesday's away conference game against Pataula Charter Academy (Edison, GA) by a score of 9-2.
The Chattahoochee County varsity baseball team lost Monday's away non-conference game against Glenwood (Phenix City, AL) by a score of 16-0.


Court drops raps vs 7 cops charged with illegal arrest of Bohol mayor's slay suspects.
A local court has dismissed the charges filed against seven policemen accused of illegally arresting and detaining two of the nine suspects in the killing of Mayor Gisela Boniel of Bien Unido town in Bohol.
In her decision, Judge Joy Angelica Santos-Doctor of the Municipal Circuit Trial Court of Trinidad-San Miguel-Bien Unido, Bohol said there was no proof that the police officers had a deliberate intent to violate the law in arresting Lobo Boniel and Brian Sayson.
'The acts by which they were arrested, as per their complaints, failed to show a clear intent to violate the law or a flagrant disregard of established rules. Hence, they are presumed to have regularly performed their duties as arresting officers,' she said in a ruling dated Feb. 23 but was released to the parties on Wednesday.
Cleared were Senior Supt. Jonathan Cabal, former chief of the Regional Intelligence Division, SPO1 Alexander Garcia, PO3 Angelo Avenido, PO3 Virgilio Otara, PO3 Lloyd Garcia, PO1 Frederick Enriquez, PO1 Emmanuel Pagalan, and PO3 Ally Bornillo.
Each posted P6,000 to secure temporary liberty shortly after they were indicted by the prosecutor's office.
Doctor directed the Clerk of Court to release the bail bonds posted by the accused.
The policemen investigated the slay of Boniel whose body was reportedly thrown into the sea between Cebu and Bohol on June 7.
Boniel's husband, Bohol Provincial Board Member Nino Rey Boniel, was tagged as the principal suspect.
Charged with Nino were his cousin Riolito Boniel, driver Randel Lupas, Restituto Magoncia Jr., and Wilfredo Hoylar, who were all detained.
Four others were also implicated in the mayor's killing but had not been arrested. They were Hoylar's son, Wilson; Sayson, Lobo and Allan delos Reyes Jr.
PDEA aims for 24,000 villages cleared of drugs by 2022.
Zubiri: Senate on track to passing Bangsamoro Basic Law.


The value of the Mexican machinery for food, beverage and tobacco processing market grows by 23% in 2015, in line with rising investments from bakery, meat and dairy food processors, as well as soaring prices of imported machinery. Bakery and meat producers are the main market, due to growing domestic consumption and expansion of modern retailing in the country. Capital purchases of milk processing equipment advance in 2015, as major dairy players continue to expand their production capacity and product portfolios. Imports continue to occupy the largest share of the market, with value rising further, as the Mexican peso depreciates against the US dollar in 2015. Industry turnover is set to continue growing over 2015-2020, registering a CAGR of 3%, driven by new investment within the Mexican food processing sector, and growing export volumes.
This Euromonitor industrial report provides unique data and analysis of Machinery for Food, Beverage and Tobacco Processing in Mexico: ISIC 2925. With this industrial report, you'll be able to explore in detail the entire industry from its sources of supply to its buyers.


Professor Shelley Farrington and Mr Abdul-Gasiep Jappie recently attended the 2016 South African Institute of Management Sciences (SAIMS) conference hosted by the University of Pretoria.
Their paper entitled, "The field of Family Business Research in South Africa. The Who, What and How?" won "The Best Overview of Extant Literature" award.
Prof. Farrington and Mr Jappie also took part in an experiential trip to the Woolworths Group National Distribution Centre, where they gained rich insights into the standards, quality and excellence on which the Group prides itself.
The few days spent in Pretoria allowed them to showcase the best of NMMU as well as to bring back valuable lessons learned to their respective departments.


text:
Q: Changing image src onClick with jQuery I am using this HTML on my site:

When I click this link, I would like to change the image src to img2.jpg. And revert back to img1.jpg when clicked again & so on. Can someone explain how I do this using jQuery?
Here is my existing jQuery if this helps:
$(document).ready(function() {
  $('#slick-toggle').click(function() {
    $('#slickbox').toggle(400);
    return false;
  });
});

Many thanks for any pointers with this :-)

A: $(document).ready(function() {
  $('#slick-toggle').click(function() {
    $('img', this).attr('src', function(i, oldSrc) {
        return oldSrc == 'img1.jpg' ? 'img2.jpg' : 'img1.jpg';
    });
    $('#slickbox').toggle(400);
    return false;
  });
});

A: You need to find the image inside since your click handler is on the  that wraps it, like this:
$('a#slick-toggle').click(function() {
  var img = $('#share')[0], isSwap = "True";
  img.src = isSwap ? img.src.replace("_img1","_img2") : img.src.replace("_img2","_img1");
  $('.img-swap').toggleClass("on");
  $('#atBox').toggle(100);
  return false;
});

A: Use this function for this:
$('#mylink').toggle(
     function(){
          $(this).attr('src','img2.jpg');
     },
     function(){
          $(this).attr('src','img3.jpg');
     }
// and so on..
);

you can add more function in it...


After a 24 hour journey we finally made it to Japan, well, Tokyo, the capital city of the gadget land. And we fell in love with this stunning city and the country the minute we got off our lovely Emirates plane and came face to face with numerous quirky gadgets.
Japan, the Land of Gadgets is a fairly descriptive blog title, but how could I chose anything else, when there's smart toilets, key cards that don't need slots, portable WiFi, machines taking your food order and payment and… But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Ben getting or better said renting us portable WiFi was one of the best investments as it basically turned my bag into a powerful router  And the best thing, this WiFi is unlimited, so both off our phones are constantly connected to the world. You can order one online and then pick them up at the airport. Ours was around £50 for unlimited WiFi for two weeks.
And toilets are amazing. The seat is warmed up, it flushes automatically and there's options for bide that I don't even understand. Each toilet comes with its own control panel, how amazing is that!
We also went to a local restaurant where waiters don't get your order, a machine does! You put money into this machine and then select your dishes. The order is then printed out and you get to sit down. It's not only really convenient, it's really cheap too. We paid about £15 for two beers and two meals! Oh, and tipping in Japan isn't a thing, so that's one thing less to worry about.
If you want you know what I wore on our first night out, check out my travel look below.
If you don't follow me on Bloglovin' yet, why don't you join me, so you never miss a post.


text:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<phpunit colors="true" bootstrap="bootstrap.php">
    <testsuite name="Bank">
        <directory>./</directory>
    </testsuite>
</phpunit>

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