We are pleased to announce our 144 issue of the openSUSE Weekly News.
Our "openSUSE Conference 2010" with the Topic "Collaboration across Borders" is just around the corner. Don't miss it, and register yourself on http://conference.opensuse.org.
In addition, we got a good news from forums.opensuse.org. Last week, the Dutch language subforum has been launched. So our Dutchmen can exchange their Knowledge in their native Language. We're wishing our dutch Friends many joy.
So it was all from Editors Side.
"Extend the web of trust! Take part at the Keysigning Party during openSUSE Conference.
If you want to participate, follow the instructions in the openSUSE wiki now! The deadline for key submissions is Monday, October 18th at 12:00 UTC."
"Today, Thursday October 7, the openSUSE project announces Milestone 2 of openSUSE 11.4. Milestone 2 (M2) is the second of six periodic development snapshots of openSUSE 11.4 and includes updates to major components across the breadth of the distribution."
"The openSUSE Goblin Team are pleased to announce the first public release of Smeegol.
Smeegol is based on the netbook user interface that came from the MeeGo(TM)* project. Smeegol offers the latest Banshee's powerful music player, a newer Evolution Express as mail and agenda client and several additional social networks.
The MeeGo project, a collaborative effort by Nokia, Intel and a quickly growing community of volunteers under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, aims to create an operating system designed for small-formfactor devices with limited computing power and screen estate. Think about platforms such as netbooks/entry-level desktops, handheld computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, connected TVs, and media phones. Novell is a part of the MeeGo effort, working with the Linux Foundation on their build infrastructure and official MeeGo products. MeeGo is using increasingly more openSUSE technology, including zypper and other system management tools."
openSUSE News: openSUSE Strategy: the third and fourth part of the trilogy!
"The last week we again received over 100 comments on the first and second part of our strategy. A few refinements came in on our description of our target users, but most of the input was on the second part about what we offer. We have again incorporated all the comments into the document and a new iteration can be found on co-ment.
And now, the third piece of text has been added: What does openSUSE not do? Besides this, we added some 'background information' to the strategy, including ideas on our competition, what openSUSE might gain and loose from this strategy and how openSUSE should look like in 2 years from now.
Like with "Target Users" and "What does openSUSE offer it's users" we would really appreciate it if you could give your input on co-ment but we will accept any kind of input on any channel we can follow. So if co-ment isn't your thing, feel free to comment below this post, on the forums or anywhere else. For those new to co-ment – it is a pretty awesome commenting tool under the GNU Affero GPL."
openSUSE News: OSC2010 Sneak Peaks – Conference keynotes you shouldn't miss!
"12 days from now it will be the 20th of October – the day the openSUSE Conference will start in Nuremberg, Germany. The conference will be kicked of by keynotes on Wednesday and Friday. With the keynotes we aim to inspire and energize our visitors, sharing some insights or a look at things they haven't seen before. Henne talks in his opening keynote about how openSUSE has become more open – and how you should take advantage of that if you want to change things. On Friday, Gerald talks about the place of Novell in the openSUSE community and how and why it supports us."
"After the second iteration on the rules, a number of clarifications have been made and also the complete rule set got reordered and edited.
I'd like to thank David that did the major editing on this one. What do you think? Are we good now to run the next elections with these rules?"
Clone it, build it and run it in Testdrive"
"We are proud to announce this week's featured appliance - Smeegol 1.0 by Andrew Wafaa, a.k.a. FunkyPenguin as he is known in the openSUSE community.
Smeegol is the openSUSE spin of MeeGo and is targeted for netbooks. This release includes the latest versions of Banshee music player, Evolution Express email/calendar client, plus tight integration with all your favorite social networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, etc. The full details can be found in the Smeegol 1.0 announcement."
"We have just added the OVF build format to SUSE Studio! You can now easily create standards compliant and vendor independent appliances right from your web browser.
For those unfamiliar with OVF (Open Virtualization Format), it is an open specification for packaging and distributing software appliances, as defined by the DMTF VMAN standard. It is not tied to any particular hypervisor and is supported by many popular virtualization platforms. These include several VMware flavours (eg. ESX, Workstation) and VirtualBox. OVF is backed by Dell, HP, IBM, Microsftware, VMware, and XenSource. To learn more about OVF and how it compares with VMDK, refer to VMware's OVF guide."
"Fellow openSUSE users! Of course you have anxiously been waiting for the GNOME 2.32 release. We all have. It took us a few moments to prepare a repository that we can offer you in order to update your openSUSE 11.3 installation, which was based on GNOME 2.30, to the latest and greatest GNOME 2.32!
After having GNOME 2.32 prepared for openSUSE:Factory we decided to branch this off to also have our openSUSE 11.3 users profit from it. It showed that all in all the release was a rther simple one to offer. So no reason to not to!"
"We have just released Mono 2.8 a major upgrade to the Mono developer platform. This release contains ten months worth of new features, stability fixes, performance work and bug fixes.
Removed the 1.1 profile and various deprecated libraries.
For the full details, check our detailed Mono 2.8 Release Notes"
"I would be very userfriendly if the "Vodafone Mobile Connect" software was just one of packages the we could select from YaST.
"openSUSE is a great open source community linux distribution.
One thing I miss which other distros have, is that the shorewall firewall packages are not available in any repositories. (...)"
Summary: Keeping the current kernel installed should be the default and automatic behaviour for a kernel update through Yast! (Provided there is enough space on the partition that holds /boot). Or it could be a setting somewhere to keep the last X number of previous installed kernels (where X should default to 1)."
"Let's face it: the default soundscape provided by upstream KDE4 release is far from ideal. Majority of sounds in it are too long (default login/logout sounds, anyone?) and they do sound very old-fashioned (plain piano) while desktop itself is the most advanced available. (...)"
hilariously loud POP is almost killing my ears. This is annoying and painful. What's also annoying is that with 'flat-volumes = yes' the master volume is changed to the loudest individual stream. If a rogue application should choose to up the volume, my ears get fried (headphones !) (...)"
In Factory, sometimes root= doesn't work and some experimenting is necessary to get a boot and find out why. e.g. for a long while, root=LABEL= syntax was not working, and still might not be in certain cases. Also, modern root=/dev/disk* syntax makes most kernel lines are longer than the text editor screen is wide (wrapping makes more confusion), which means also /dev/disk entries are too long for human brains to remember for manual typing. And, sometimes troubleshooting requires /dev/sdX# syntax. When dropping back to text mode to edit cmdline and mistake is made, grub doesn't recover nicely, and reboot to restart Grub is often required to retry. So, showopts before root= in gfxmenu would be a nice facility provided via /etc/sysconfig/bootloader and perl-bootloader instead of having to manually change it after each kernel update."
"I recently tried installing new icon themes into openSUSE 11.3 via the Configure Desktop app. It showed a lot of themes with an "install" button, but when I pressed it, nothing happened. It turns out, that's because it only installs .tar.gz files and a number of the themes listed are in other formats. So the "Get New Themes..." popup should only show files it can actually install."
"As in title: add "susestudio" category to openFATE."
"Easy Scan - Is a very pretty straight away tool for scanning stuff. I understand we ship xsane by default, though offering both would be probably a good choice. For me and my hardware, (I need to scan a couple of documents once in a while) it does do the trick with a few simple clicks. This is very helpful if you are in a rush (usually if I scan something is because I am in a rush). It just works. (...)"
About LibreOffice LibreOffice is a productivity suite that is compatible with other major office suites, and available on a variety of platforms. It is free software and therefore free to download, use and distribute."
"I installed openSUSE 11.3 via netinstall. Because I'm on a Netbook I used my wireless lan connection. And because I also didn't want switching between my netbook and my desktop system I activated VNC for the installation procedure. That just ran all fine but after the restart during the installation (when booting into the installed system) the configuration settings for my network connection are gone and therefore I had to configure it manually in a terminal. It would be nice if we could extend the installer so it does remember these settings."
"It is Monday morning and almost time to get ready for work at the GNOME-A11y hackfest in Sevilla, Spain. As much as I'm looking forward to the week, I'm still very depressed about what happened this weekend.
On Saturday morning, just as I was leaving Barcelona to head down to Sevilla, I got robbed. I was at the bus depot waiting for the airport shuttle bus to take me to BCN when I put down my laptop bag and camera bag so I could pull out my white cane. Barely a moment passed by when all of a sudden I got jostled and in that split second… whoever it was was gone and so were my two shoulder bags. Why couldn't they have stolen my suitcases instead of this???"
"Many of you that follow my blog probably know Bryen, also known by suseROCKS. He is someone that has dedicated a significant amount of his time and effort throughout his life to spread awareness about accessibility. This month he is traveling in Europe to help further this effort. Unfortunately, while he was in Spain he was robbed. There are several of us that have thought about trying to raise some money to replace these items."
"As a follow-up to yesterday's post on what happened to me over the weekend, I want to give thanks for the tremendous amount of support everyone has given to me from across the world. There's very little I can say to truly express the awe I feel about the support you all have given. (...)"
"Ladies and gentlemen, Recently Amaru Zelaya Orellana and myself cooperated on an article about the great work our ambassadors are doing around the world. They deserve great respect for what they do. A great marketing effort.
Meanwhile, the openSUSE marketing team is doing more work - getting articles out on the technologies we have, developing materials for our ambassadors and of course promoting the conference. However, no matter how much they do - they need help."
"I just published/send/submitted the last part of the openSUSE strategy stuff. Coming from KDE, this was a very interesting endeavor. It's not done yet, of course - I expect a huge amount of comments on this one (find it here) as it includes some notes on our 'competition' (coopetition?), what the results will be and how we'd like to be in a few years.
I know the KDE community is also looking at future directions - KDE 4 series is stabilizing, so where to go next? GNOME meanwhile is getting GNOME 3 out - but at the same time also had strategical discussions at the last GUADEMY. And of course Fedora has followed openSUSE in discussing directions. Guess it's contagious..."
"This post is about why one should visit a conference at all and hopefully is a good read for people who haven't been on a FOSS conference yet. For oldtimers this might be unbelieveable, but I remember perfectly how I thought "This conference sounds interesting, but its probably only for checkers, long term contributors, not for me". Thanks god I had somebody convincing me that that's wrong and pulled me to my first Akademy which was a great experience as well as all the other conferences I have been later.
The main thing that happens on conferences is learning. While sitting in workshops and presentations you can learn so much about technologies, and since you take the time to really listen to it, it sticks very good in your mind. If questions remain open, you can be sure to immediately find people who can help to clearify."
"First of all a big thanks to Andreas, I received the promo DVDs on time. We had our openSUSE Linux event on UoM's campus yesterday, 30 September 2010. It was rocking and we received plenty feedback. Got students interested from faculties of management, humanities, agriculture etc...contrary to our belief that this event will attract computer science & engineering students only.
Event: Software Freedom Day - Chile.
Location: University of Talca, VII, Chile.
"Next month on 13th and 14th November is in Oberhausen an Linux event called OpenRheinRuhr.
Its the second edition of this event, last year it was in Bottrop and this year it will be in Oberhausen at Rheinisches Industriemuseum. Marcel Richter, Thomas Groß and me go there but Thomas have a talk and me have an workshop and a talk there so help is always welcome.
When u have time and fun to help at the openSUSE booth, send me an message."
"At October the 3rd we participated at the xariseto Free Festival.We were placed between Greeklug and the Fedora community Project.
The event had everything an Free open fest could have,music,theatrical teams ,places for kids to learn through games, free coffee, free clothes,free games and any other kind of items people stopped use and wanted to give away to others instead of throwing them away as garbage,also after the event what people didn't take the xarise to team gathered it and gave it to institutions. (...)"
"Please find my report here.
Event: Software Freedom Day - Szeged, Hungary.
Location: University of Szeged. (...)"
"EPUBs are getting more and more important thesedays. If you believe the essays from well-informed magazines, they will develop into a standard for book and text consumption as MP3 did for audio.
Today, lots of e-book readers are available and more will be ready in the future. Apart from the problem, if an e-book reader supports EPUB, the EPUB file itself has to adhere to certain specifications. This is the task for epubcheck, a commandline utility which validates an EPUB file.
The RPM package can be found in my OBS repository home:thomas-schraitle as usual. To use it, just run epubcheck with your EPUB file and see what it finds. Have fun!"
"KMediafactory is easy to use template based dvd authoring tool. You can quickly create DVD menus for home videos and TV recordings in three simple steps."
Imagination at present features 26 transitions effects developed as plugins loaded at startup. Exporting of the slideshow as FLV format is supported. No sound and Ken Burns effects yet but they are planned in the next release."
"Drivers in 2.6.36 include considerably improved support for infra-red receivers and remotes, optimised USB drivers, and a solution for a much discussed problem that Android developers, in one way or another, had solved long ago."
"Well, hello, folks, and be welcome! After a short break, caused by various real-life-related stuff, we're back in business! So, let's see what's happened …"
"The GIMP has a ton of tools for the user to take advantage of. From editing tools to drawing tools to filters to script fu to a whole host of other possibilities. One tool that many don't take advantage of is bushes.
Brushes in The GIMP allow the user to extend The GIMP's flexibility by creating different ways to draw with effect or style. Brushes can be any number of styles from either standard drawing tool brushes to more artistic brushes. Regardless of the type of brush you want to add (you can even create your own), you have to know how to add them, before you can use them. In this Ghacks article I will show you how to add new brushes to The GIMP in Linux."
"Dropbox is a nifty little application that lets you sync and share files on the Internet and between several computers. Want to send a movie to a friend? Use Dropbox. Want to have a common folder for pictures that you and your girlfriend can update on different computers? Use Dropbox.
The problem with Dropbox is that you can't share entire folders. Only individual links. That's where dropbox-index comes in. Download the Python script and use it like this to share an entire folder of files: (...)"
"This is the first in a series about using the "command line" in Linux. It is also about knowing when to use a gui instead. But before going into any of that we need to understand what is meant by a "command line" application. You'll find that as we explore that idea, a lot of things that are not really true 'cli' (command line interface) apps arguably count as cli, including menu driven console based apps and even gui apps. This will be controversial. (...)"
"Today's collection of one-liners are sure to win some converts. There's nothing like a quick command that saves you a lot of trouble and just might impress your boss and coworkers that you're the cleverest person around.
The first is the cd -" command that takes you to back to whatever directory you were previously located in. Need to bounce between two directories as you make some mighty edits to some configuration files? No problem. With the "cd -" command, you can do just that. (...)"
"Computer-based calendars are very useful, and the Google Calendar is probably one of the more widely used personal calendars other than scheduling programs such as MS Outlook and Groupwise (both of which are broken). But, webby gooey applications can be rather bothersome because they tend to take up a lot of screen real estate and other resources, and on smaller screens such as a laptop can be rendered virtually useless by all that added functionality built into the web browser itself as well as the calendar page. It is quite possible that on your laptop, your Google Calendar may look something like this: (...)"
Cornelius Schumacher: The role of KDE e.V.
"I wrote this article for KDE e.V.'s quarterly report Q2 2010. I'll reproduce it here in case you haven't seen it yet.
From time to time we hear the question, what actually is KDE e.V., what's its role in the KDE community? Let me try to answer this question here.
In short, KDE e.V. is the organization, which represents, supports, and provides governance to the KDE community. It gives the community a legal body so it can participate in activities which require a legal representation, somebody handling money, or a way to legitimize individuals to speak and act for the community."
Nelson Marques: Fortune favors the bold!
"2010 will for sure be the 'year of strategy', as I'm seeing many people in several distributions (ex: Fedora, openSUSE) placing an awesome effort into it.
During what I've seen from many strategical teams working on the field, there is one thing that came into my attention, and which has actually been giving me lots of thinking around it… 'user base' definitions… There is a huge concern about technical skilled individuals and integrating them into the community, and often the most less demanding users are often ignored or at some point marginalized… Why does this happen? Lets think about this 'less technical oriented' users and their needs and how they fullfil them!"
"It's been more than a week now since the Great OpenOffice Fork of 2010, and the dust is beginning to settle.
If you haven't heard, last Monday a large chunk of the OpenOffice.org (OOo) development community announced the formation of The Document Foundation (TDF), and would create a new office suite based on OOo, called LibreOffice. The announcement carried endorsements from many heavy hitters in the open source and corporate worlds, including Google, Novell, Red Hat, and Canonical. Even the GNOME Foundation (while noting the existence of its own small suite) had nice things to say at the launch."
"A couple weeks ago when I was strolled around Oracle's incredibly synergized (but unfortunately yacht-less) conference I noticed that SUSE and VMWare were quite chummy on the show floor. It seems that Novell's push of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), openSUSE's more refined older brother, into the virtualization space is a lot bigger than just SUSE Studio.
VMWare is one thing, but what about the biggest cloud out there, you know, Amazon's EC2 service? Turns out Amazon EC2 now supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server."
"Lots of good news today!.First of all, the openSUSE community's Smeegol team has managed to get SmeeGol 1.0 out!.
So check it out, it's worth it :D"
"Systemd is a replacement for SystemV init and in heavy development since the first announcement on April 30th by Lennart Poettering. Thanks to Kay Sievers' work, we have packages for openSUSE curent Factory stream as well. I gave them a try a couple of weeks ago but somehow did not succeed with getting a working system. At LinuxKongress I met Lennart and decided to give systemd another try. I still could not log into the system due to it using NIS and automount for NFS home directories and started debugging this together with Kay over IRC in a virtual machine first. Once we had a workaround for me, I used systemd on my workstation and Kay and Lennart fixed the problem in systemd properly. I run into a couple of more problems and thus were fixed quickly so that the last release – systemd 11 – works fine on my workstation running openSUSE Factory (Factory is the development version for the next openSUSE release, in this case for 11.4)."
"This thread has become almost a case study and almost certainly it will be something the OP is starting to dream about. It's intriguing that the OP gets a near perfect running system form the Live session but that it falls back post install to a black screen."
"In principle I guess this might seem like something that should just work, but it doesn't. Least not without some work and luck. Yes, luck does seem to come in to it."
"Now that's what we like to hear! But it might be best if the OP accepts the installers proposal to shrink Windows. As much as we might want to see users make a complete migration, it's not necessarily the best advice in this case."
"We couldn't go without a Milestone news point and this is quite epic in detail and interesting to read. Some good work thru info in here too."
"The Desktop Summit is a co-located event which features the yearly contributor conferences of the GNOME and KDE communities, GUADEC and Akademy. Next year the conference will take place from 6 to 12 August, 2011 in Berlin at the Humboldt University, Unter den Linden 6. The event will feature keynotes, talks, workshops and team building events. The Desktop Summit website is now online. (...)"
"Watch Sintel in a cinema, for free in Nuremberg, Germany.
"At KommKino Nuremberg, which is Gold Sponsor for Sintel, there will be a free screening of the grand short film at 21st and 22nd of October. (...)""
"Google has open sourced a new "lossy" image format known as WebP — pronounced "weppy" — claiming it can cut the size of current web images by almost 40 per cent.
CNet revealed the format with a story late this morning, and Google soon followed with a blog post describing the technology, which has been released as a developer preview. WebP is derived from VP8, the video codec Google acquired with its purchase of On2 Technologies earlier this year and promptly open sourced as part of the new WebM format."
"For the third time in a row, Worldforge participated in Google Summer of Code, with three students completing the program this year. Worldforge is the original open-source Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) project, so it's great at getting students who are interested in games into open source.
This post showcases some of the work done by one of our students, Tiberiu Paunescu, to implement a series of improvements to the Ember UI. These improvements were all end-user focused and meant to provide a better and more streamlined user experience.
The first feature implemented was an improvement to the inventory which makes it possible to drag items from the inventory widget into the world, and place them there. When an item is dragged off the inventory and into the world a preview model is created, showing where the item will end up."
Linux Magazine/Jeffrey B. Layton: One Billion Dollars! Wait… I Mean One Billion Files!!!
"The world is awash in data. This fact is putting more and more pressure on file systems to efficiently scale to handle increasingly large amounts of data. Recently, Ric Wheeler from Redhat experimented with putting 1 Billion files in a single file system to understand what problems/issues the Linux community might face in the future. Let's see what happened…"
Linuxaria: Linux Distro as Food ?
"There are many articles that explain the different characteristics of the distributions of Linux, today I also want to try it my way.
If every Linux distribution was a food, which would you choose to eat? I'll try to resume for every distro the keywords that come to my mind thinking at it and see what's the first Food result that google image give with these words and the word food."
"It was recently announced that Internet Explorer has slipped to less than 50% of the market, at least according to StatCounter. Firefox claims nearly 40% of the market, but Google Chrome has already entered double digits in just two years.
For features and speed, Chrome is rapidly becoming 'the browser to beat', and the Mozilla Project seems to know it. The Firefox 4 feature list and development cycle have been fairly aggressive in terms of trying to catch up to – or surpass – Chrome.
How's it going so far? The betas of Firefox 4 have been impressive, and have revealed a few new features that you won't find in Chrome and improvements under the hood. (...)"
This page was last modified on 13 October 2010, at 13:39.
This page has been accessed 46,948 times.


text:
The contents of this site are © Copyright 1987 – 2021 The Federation Press Pty Limited. ABN 67 003 409 318. No material may be reproduced in any format without our written permission.
The Federation Press and its associated logo are trademarks of The Federation Press Pty Limited.
All other third party names and brands referred to on this web site are the property of their respective owners.
Information published by The Federation Press on the World Wide Web may contain references to products and services not available in your country. Such references do not imply that The Federation Press intends to sell such products and services in your country.
Information on this web site may be changed or updated without notice. The Federation Press and/or the manufacturers may make improvements and/or changes to the products and/or services described in this information at any time without notice.
The Federation Press makes no representations whatsoever about any other web site which you may access through this one. When you access a non-The Federation Press web site you are advised that it is independent from The Federation Press, and that The Federation Press has no control over the content on that site. In addition, a link to a non-The Federation Press site does not mean that The Federation Press endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content, or use, of such web site.
The Federation Press uses your registration information for internal purposes only. Your privacy is respected and protected.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Advances in severe-storm research have helped operational meteorologists create better short-term forecasts, with a reduced number of false alarms, increased warning lead times, and more-geographically-specific warnings. But according to Central Michigan University researcher Leigh Orf, who has spent many years using supercomputer modeling and simulation to study twisters, the "holy grail" of tornado forecasting remains a persistent challenge: identifying an atmospheric feature or features that when spotted on National Weather Service radar would serve as a sign that a strong tornado will develop in any given storm or, even better, will form in a storm that has yet to become fully established.
As part of the overarching quest to determine the telltale indicators of an impending monster-size tornado, one of the objectives of Orf's research team is to capture the entire life cycle of a supercell thunderstorm that produces a strong, long-lived tornado. Supercells are the most powerful, long-lived thunderstorms. They exhibit a rotating updraft, and they are responsible for nature's mightiest twisters. Adding to the challenge, Orf says, is the fact that only about one in four supercells creates tornadoes, and the vast majority of those tornadoes that do form are not among the vigorous, long-track variety. Orf explains that researchers are so interested in long-lasting tornadoes not only because they do the most damage but also because their existence suggests a balance of sustaining forces not present in storms that produce weaker, short-lived tornadoes. "Identifying this balance of forces would go a long way toward enhancing our understanding of what takes place in tornadic supercells in general, as well as improving our ability to predict tornado formation in any given storm," he says.
He explains that while this simulation work did not produce a long-track tornado, the storm it created does have features that bear a striking resemblance to those observed in the field. In fact, the end result of the effort was what he deems to be the team's "most promising" simulation to date.
These initial simulations, still being analyzed, are guiding Orf's research team in designing new simulations to be run on Kraken, Nautilus, and Stampede (at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at Austin), all of which are resources of the National Science Foundation's Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), the most advanced, powerful and robust collection of integrated advanced digital resources and services in the world.
Orf's team is analyzing model results from a simulation that produces two tornadoes over the course of a 15-minute period. "These tornadoes are not as strong or long-lived as the type we are most interested in, but the simulation is one of the very few that have been done of tornadic-supercells, and among the highest-resolution ever created," Orf says.
"With enough simulations, we hope to have a spectrum of storms to investigate, from storms that produce the weakest tornadoes, to those that produce the most devastating, in addition to storms that do not produce tornadoes at all," he explains. "This data could enable us to tease out the factors in the simulated storms that indicate whether a storm is likely to produce a tornado and, if so, its strength, size, and duration. If such features can be identified on weather radar, this will help operational meteorologists issue better short-term forecasts and more accurate, timely, targeted warnings."
Orf, L., and E. Kantor, and E. Savory, 2012: Simulation of a downburst-producing thunderstorm using a very high-resolution three-dimensional cloud model. J. of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 104, 547-557.


Click on Image to enlarge, pan with mouse.
Yanktons chose to live around Lake Andes in family clusters, as shown in this 1906 map. Following the 1858 Treaty of Washington, which established the Yankton Sioux Reservation, the lake grew in importance as the Yankton land base shrunk from 11 million acres to just over 400,000 acres and bison ceased to be found east of the Missouri River. Yanktons knew the lake as Bde Ihanke and it occupied a position at the geographical center of the reservation while providing a social and economic hub. When the provisions of the Dawes Severalty Act (also known as the General Allotment Act of 1887) were applied to the Yankton Sioux Reservation, Yanktons rapidly claimed the land along the lake for their individual allotments. Along the southern shore, the Vandall, Irving and Dion families selected adjacent plots, on the eastern edge of the lake, the Picotte, Stricker and Shield families clustered together. The Cournoyer and Reynolds families claimed multiple entries on the north end of the lake and more Picottes and quite a few of the Dezera clan settled on the western shore. It is striking that Picottes and Strickers lived so close together, given that the former descended from Charles Picotte, who favored the 1858 treaty, while the Stricker family name traced back to Smutty Bear, who resisted the terms of the treaty.1 Despite the assignment of individual plots, Yanktons continued to regard the lake as a tribal possession.
1 Reneé Sansom-Flood, Shirely A. Bernie, and Leonard R. Bruguier, Remember Your Relatives: Yankton Sioux Images, 1858-1904 (Marty, SD: Yankton Sioux Elderly Advisory Board, 1989) Vol. I, 8, 11.
By 1931, the lake had shifted to a recreation destination "famous for fishing," and nearly all of the adjacent land had passed out of Yankton hands. Of all the federal impositions on the lake – from creating the reservation as legal space, mapping and allotting the terrain, drilling the artesian wells and augmenting the lake's water – the 1899 addition of black bass seems innocuous. Yet one important result of bass profusion was it created a new incentive for whites to dispossess Yankton lands. This transformation was well underway by 1915, when the town of Lake Andes began to define itself through Fish Days, an annual celebration of the lake's prized occupants and a semi-official confirmation of a process that began seven years earlier with the opening of Amundsen Acres on the lake's southern end. The golden years of the bass fishery were in the late teens and early 1920s, when many small scale establishments dotted the lake. With increasing pressure from growing numbers of fishermen, the bass population dimiished by 1926, and a Fish Hatchery was added by the state of South Dakota to support the fishery. By 1931, only Rest Haven, Dream Land, and Bass Beach remained of the resorts, reflecting the decline of the bass population and the recreation economy, though the city of Lake Andes continued to celebrate the annual Fish Days. When drought combined with a carp eruption to eliminate the fishery altogether, the establishment of a National Wildlife Refuge in 1935 by the Bureau of Biological Survey raised hopes that the federal government might be better able to maintain the lake and the prized black bass.
In 1906, Yanktons maintained strong family bonds, even as the influence of fishing began to appear on the landscape. Boat houses are seen on the lands of Jenette and Jesse Berne, though the family maintains over 350 acres. Yanktons of the Ree, Shield, Sticker, Cordier, Lyman, Leaves, and McBride families likewise own land in the immediate vicinity. The Johnson Bros. Company has made some inroads, suggesting the opening process of dispossession. In the far northeastern corner of this map is one of the artesian wells drilled by the Office of Indian Affairs to stabilize the lake's level in 1896. Two years later the U.S. Fish Commission added black bass to the lake, setting the stage for a bass bonanza that would contribute to the loss of Yankton ownership of the land along the shore.
By 1931, the recreation economy had displaced the Berne family. The Berne family plots, so prevalent in 1906 on the northeastern corner of the lake were reduced to one forty-acre section owned by Helen Pearl Berne. The subdivided plots bordering the lake in sections 16 and 21 were more formally known as Bass Beach, a bass fishing resort and subdivision. The presence of the Floete Land and Loan Co. reflects the tough economic conditions of the Great Depression, as individual land owners increasingly lost property to foreclosure. The government well no longer appears on the map and the artesian flow had stopped, allowing the lake to revert to traditional cycle of going dry during droughts.
In 1906, Yankton Paul Picotte lived along the western shore of Lake Andes and spent much time fishing, especially for bass. Paul was born in 1879 and the southeast corner of his forty-acre allotment in section thirty of Howard Township bordered the lake. His brother, Herbert, claimed another forty-acre parcel directly north of Paul's and their father, John, possessed approximately 120 acres that abutted his son's land on one side and was bounded by the lake's shores on the south and west. Other Picottes lived across the lake on its eastern shore. Paul recalled all Yanktons fishing in the lake, from the banks and from boats, not just those fortunate enough to have allotments adjoining it.
By 1931, only George Picotte claimed land in section 31, a forty acre plot removed from the lake shore. Replacing his family were the Linkhart brothers to the west and the Andersons to the south. The snapshot reveals the overall trend of Yankton dispossession around the lake, and highlights the prevalence on non-Indian land owners along the lake's shoe. A few years later the federal government would assume management of the lake, based on easements signed by property owners adjoining the lake. The federal government assumed management based on the collective assent of the property owners and an agreement with the state of South Dakota, but without any significant Yankton voice.
In 1906, Yanktons almost completely blanketed the southern end of the lake, with the sliver of land in plot 6 known as Dripps' Point. The land of Hermine Irving held one of the artesian wells that supplied the lake with much of its water. Just off of this map on the western end is the home of Albert Amundson who in 1908 capitalized on his land being between the town of Lake Andes and adjacent to the lake by building a boathouse and renting boats. Christened "Amundson Acres," Amundson later expanded what began as a single home to include cabins and a dance hall that doubled as a roller skating rink. The combination of boats, cabins, and a large pavilion became a template for other operators in the area that eventually achieved greater prominence, including Rest Haven and Bass Beach.
By 1931, the southern end of the lake was thoroughly involved in the recreation economy, as Dreamland replaced Dripps' Point and Rest Haven occupied the former Irving land. Rest Haven enjoyed a position along US Highway 18 and was one of the most successful of the resorts that grew up around the lake. The state of South Dakota operated the Fish Hatchery on the same land, in part due to its proximity to the artesian well. Despite the active involvement of the state, by this period the fishery was struggling and would only get worse with the droughts in the coming years, causing locals to call for federal intervention to save the lake.
Published by the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities.
Funded by the Center for Great Plains Studies and the Plains Humanities Alliance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.


text:
Interview with Joe Satriani, Toronto, Canada – June 3rd, 2015
By Mike Bax
There isn't really too much preamble one can put down for Joe Satriani that hasn't already been said. He is a world renowned living guitar legend, arguably the best technical guitarist on the planet. As a teacher, some of the guitarists Satriani has taught include Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Rick Hunolt, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan, and Alex Skolnick. Satriani was recruited by Mick Jagger as lead guitarist for his first solo tour in 1988. In 1994, Satriani toured with Deep Purple as their lead guitarist.
The guy kicks ass. He makes only instumental albums, and has a new one coming out on July 24th called Shockwave Supernova. It will be his 15th commercial release. And it is his best in years. You can take that to the bank.
Satriani was good enough to call me at 1:30pm on June 3rd and talk with me about his new album, his creative process, his ability to retrofit ideas, and his upcoming animated project Crystal Planet.
Joe: Hi Mike. This is Joe.
Mike: Music to my ears, right there.
Joe: Alright then. (laughter)
Mike: What's today looking like for you, Joe? Is today a big press day for you?
Joe: Lots of press today. Then off to Soundwave Studios to do some video thing. And I've noticed they are tearing the street up in front of my house. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get out of here.
Mike: That's a concern.
Joe: San Francisco decided to work on my street today.
Mike: Can you talk about how long you have known John Cuniberti?
Joe: John Cuniberti and I met back in 1980. I was in a band called The Squares, a power-pop trio with Jeff Campatelli on drums and Andy Milton on bass. We were looking for a live sound engineer. We'd heard him working with a number of local bands in the Berkley California club scene and we approached him. He did become out live sound engineer, then brought us into the studio because he was just starting his career as a studio engineer at this point. He recorded all of our demos that eventually were unsuccessful… because we really weren't that good. (laughs) However, John's recording chops were amazing and, after I recorded my first EP I approached John with co-producing a real full-length album of instrumental music, and that became Not Of This Earth. So we started working together in 1985 and making records together, it would have been around 1986 when Not Of This Earth came out. As far as being co-producers and that relationship between engineering and musician, that started back in 1985.
Mike: Wow. Would it be easy for you to articulate now what it is that makes working with John such a joy for you?
Joe: There's lots of reasons. He's just damn good, you know? You can't underestimate or downplay the quality of somebody's talent and work ethic. And John's got both. He's got a great set of ears. He knows the studio. He's always been very proactive learning the latest thing. He is not fazed by the silly fad approaches to making music in the studio. He is a classic engineer, or I should say he is a recording engineer in the classic sense. Me on the other hand, I'm a guitar player who gets lost in the moment. It's good to have somebody with a clear head to look at the VU meters and everything and make sure everything is getting recorded properly. He's also a very creative person. He never gets in the way of a creative moment, but at the same time he's one of the few guys that I trust to tap me on the shoulder and tell me that I suck and that I should do it again. (laughs) When you are in the middle of a creative moment you really can't listen to yourself and be the player at the same time. You have to just let yourself go off, and you need someone you trust to tell you if you are just going off the deep end or if you are really onto something. So that relationship is very important because he's been able to enhance the moment rather than spoil it. But he has also been there to bring me down to earth when things are just getting out of hand. That's been really great. He's taught me how to engineer myself at home. He's helped me design my home studio and he's been my guide in that world.
Mike: Would you describe yourself as somebody who is always writing, Joe?
Joe: Yeah. The brief period where as soon as a record is done I have a moment of shut-down, I exhale and say, 'Wow. I'm so happy THAT'S over." It's very emotionally cathartic to go through working on songs that mean a lot to you in a concentrated form like that. Especially when you are making a record, it's just so expensive, you know? You are trying every day to squeeze everything out of every minute you are in a studio. So once that gets finished I shut down, but the reality is that's only for about a day or two. Then suddenly I feel the need to walk away for a bit and start writing something different. That is where the other projects really help – to be involved in other projects simultaneously and be able to put something aside like an album project and work with another collaborator or a TV show or something else, that pulls your creative mind away from what you just did and lets you apply it to something different.
Mike: Cool. I would describe you as a musician that doesn't really need to prove himself anymore. I think your back catalog and your skillset speak for themselves. You somehow manage to find new and creative ways to express yourself album after album which never ceases to amaze me.
Joe: Oh great. Thank you.
Mike: Considering the type of music that I tend to gravitate towards from you… the more guitar-wanky sound, I'm surprised that 'San Francisco Blue' is the song that I keep playing off of your new album. (Joe laughs) Because it's such a bluesy jazz sound, you know?
Joe: Yeah I know. The guys came up with a phrase for that in the studio. I think they called it the ear worm. I remember the first time I played it for John he said, 'I'm really worried about recording that one. We've got to avoid having you sound like Stevie Ray Vaughn or something'. I knew what he meant, but I still wanted him to listen to the song for what it was, and not worry about what it sounds like just yet, as far as the recording style. And a couple of days later he said the same thing to me you just said. "I can't get that song out of my head, damn it". It was almost like he was complaining that the melody just kept sticking in his head. That's what got me to include it in the project. I wrote it one day just dreaming about San Francisco, which is quite foggy most of the time. But when the sky is clear and blue, it's quite beautiful. So it's a bit of a play on words in that's it's about being blue in San Francisco but it's also really hard to get a blue sky here. I remember thinking that I wouldn't be able to record it without sounding like some of my best friends who are blues artists, but thinking I should find a way to do it. I definitely brought up some of my foundation influences on that track. Oddly enough though, I think some people would be surprised if they heard me say it was Steve Miller I was thinking about. Steve is, in a way, very much like Billy Gibbons. Miller and Billy, they are super respectful blues enthusiasts. They have a love of traditional American blues. They're wrote the book on how to compose modern day blues songs, and continually reinvent. I grew up listening to ZZ Top and Steve Miller. Driving around as a kid, that was what was on the radio. I noticed that their blues compositions were like a modern approach to what they grew up listening to, whether it was Howling Wolf or Jimmy Reed or Muddy Waters, they brought something different to it. They were my foundation. I've played with both of those guys several times now and they are truly amazing musicians. In this particular case (San Francisco Blue) I was thinking Steve Miller's really smooth and tight approach being a modernization of what was traditionally something very rough. But he created a new space for that kind of blues composition.
Mike: 'Scarborough Stomp' jumped out at me as well. I liked the Syd Barrett little piano ditty that intertwined throughout the song. I found that both interesting and somewhat different for you.
Joe: Yeah. (chuckles) That's funny, I had composed something like that earlier. I can't play keyboards that fast, but I can play something really slow and then re-arrange the MIDI information for Mike Keneally in the studio. It always sounds like Lurch – very Addams Family. But I told him to try something like that and he recorded that bit that you've mentioned in about two minutes. It was pretty amazing. He worked off an idea that I put out there on a little synth part. Mike's amazing. He can be very explosive when it comes to playing. You say to him that this little window in the song is like an alternative 'you'. It's almost like the ultimate bridge moment. Sometimes that is very stream of consciousness, it keeps going, there really isn't a heavy bridge until that moment comes. It takes a big personality like Keneally to do something and pull it off like that, to give it an authentic shine.
Mike: Is that one of the tracks that Vinnie (Coliauta) did the drumming on? And Chris Chaney too, if I've got my information right there…
Joe: Yeah, we actually had five tracks from the last record that weren't really complete. I had everybody play on them but I wasn't finished with editing the arrangements, or adding melodies, or solos, or developing the bridges. We mixed them just to see where they would go, but that convinced us that they simply weren't finished. So I threw them back into my work pile and I brought them to John Cuniberti to ask how to remix them? So he mixed them and then came back to me and said, 'I agree, these songs are great and the performances are great, but you might want to look at what's missing.' So I looked all over them and had to add a melody here and a solo there, and I had to cut a verse in half. The most radical change was the song 'Lost In Memory' where I realized that I really liked all of the guitars and keyboards that Mike Keneally had added, but what I didn't like was what I had written out for Vinnie and Chris. So I removed the drums and the bass and then re-imagined the song with a very different beat. I changed it from this mid-eighties beat into something different and in a way it was a newer beat and it was also like an older beat; a seventies kind of a thing. I brought it into the studio and I showed Marco (Minnemann) and Bryan (Beller) the original demo and said, 'I really hate this, and it was all my fault, and what I'm asking now is THIS!' And I played them the new demo with some of my machine drums on there and they looked it and said, 'Ok, I kind of know where you are going with that.' So they gave me their interpretation of that demo and suddenly the heart of the song finally came out. That's why it's important to be tenacious when you are working on a composition that you believe in. It could be something as simple as just chucking something. And I should point out that song ('Lost In Memory'), I started writing that in 1988 and it used to have guitar arpeggios that went all the way through the song. And when I was preparing it for the studio as far back as two and half years ago, I had a contrarian moment where I just erased all of the guitar parts. And then I put on this really weird keyboard, and you hear it at the beginning of the song. It's a very distorted keyboard sound. That was me sort of saying I hate guitar. I laid down that performance and that actually got me to the next creative plateau allowing me to create a melody that was strong enough to live on its own and wasn't dependent on some silly eighties guitar part.
Mike: That was cool. Now, you had mentioned keeping yourself invested in other projects earlier. Are you at liberty to talk about Crystal Planet? Is that still at inception, or is there something there we can discuss?
Joe: Oh yeah. Me and my partner for this TV series, Ned Evett, we are finished with our pilot pretty much. I think we are up to episode six with the scripts, and I'm busy providing music every day. Crystal Planet is an animated sci-fi series in the American Anime style. So it's multi-media HD shot and the characters come from stuff that I draw, things that were published in my Joe's Art 2013 Book plus a lot of other work I've been doing. Ned is our animator. He also does about 90% of our character voices. He's just insanely talented in that department. He's the main script writer and it's a story about this guy, Satchel Walker, who is a present day tech worker/guitar player/troubled individual who gets involved in a world that somehow turns out to be Earth in the future. This is the crystal planet. And of course love, sex and evildoers exist on either side of the time spectrum. He uses really strange electric guitar that he inherited from his father as the time shredding device that takes him almost against his will into two time zones. And he tries to rectify and solve the problem of the end of the world and all this other stuff. (chuckles) It's so difficult to explain. We were looking at a lot of animated stuff and we were determined to not make it a bunch of one-liner joke things. We wanted to make it really serious. I really like the show Clone Wars. I don't know if you are familiar with that or not. The Star Wars animated show?
Mike: Yes. Out of context. I have watched a couple of them. They seem pretty slick.
Joe: That show has such an epic storyline. I really love that. So we are very excited about the fact that the story is very heavy and it's got legs; a potentially long future. It's got crazy music on it! So we are hoping to have it picked up by a network, but if that doesn't happen by the fall we will start to host it ourselves, which would be fun as we wouldn't really have to worry about censors or anything like that. But I'm not worried about anything like that right now. We are just looking finish the animation and the voices of the whole season so we can offer it all as one package.
Mike: Do you think of Crystal Planet as something that is a story and imagery that you are scoring to?
Joe: It's definitely the story. Before it was called Crystal Planet it was called Tri-Divers and it was really entered around these characters called Tri-Divers on the future Earth. They are modified future humans who have to find an energy source and battle these evil forces to get it. We started to think that that might be too complicated for someone who happened to turn a magazine page or stumbled onto it online and then would they stick with it? It is a complicated story. But it reminded me that as writers for film or TV, you really do have to remember the story and then allow the music to be used. It has to be malleable to fit the essence of the story. In this case, people are looking at crazy images, artistic images that are being manipulated by animation software, so I think of it as my music serving the story. As a result Mike, here let me play you this… (Joe plays a bass/synthesizer prompt that sounds like something that could've been lifted from a Metal Gear Solid video game. Its dark sounding and ultimately cool) It comes on sounding like some really twisted techno thing. In the story, there are episodes that take place five hundred million years in the future, and so what's THAT music going to sound like? So I try and write these soundscapes that allow us to move the music around and use just bits of it – those few seconds where that one character is talking to another. And that music could be coming out of a device that could be simply laying in the background. It might be the feature. It might be a part of a montage where the audio is the feature thing and there is just a lot of images behind it. The story also take place in modern day, and the past as well, the 1970s and 1980s. So I have to create music that is period correct as well. So I write like 300 pieces of music and I leave the spaces pretty wide open, not tight like an album or an instrumental record. This has to be more wide open. Lots of spaces where if you were just listening to the music you might think this was more like trance music or something. When you realize there might be somebody talking over it, or that your attention is going to be focused on something visual, then it becomes a very important component, this openness. I'm always thinking I'll do three or four mixes of one song, I'll send them to Ned with the explanation that he can mix and match them any way that he wants, however their importance in the scene dictates.
Mike: Cool. When was the last time that a piece of modern music touched you emotionally? What was it, and why do you think you reacted to it?
Joe: I have to say that's a really good question. I don't think anyone has ever asked me that question exactly like that. (laughs) Good for you.
Mike: I try.
Joe: That doesn't often happen. Um, I think… that's really interesting. I had a moment, and this is a really different bunch of records… Yeah, there's a band called Goodnight Texas. I don't know how to describe them. They are like what you'd imagine a band to sound like around the time of the Civil War. Its acoustic guitars and banjos. All acoustic instruments and songs that are period stories. I believe the lead singer is James Hetfield's tech. I don't know the guy's name, but the album was delivered to me while I was making the last record by Gary Brawer, who's my main tech here. I was listening to that album every night driving home from the studio, and I thought it was really beautiful. The texture of it, and the musicianship was great. Just the fact that it was so out of my world to hear these songs that made me think more historically of that period in the USA. It was such a crazy moment of upheaval in North America. This moment of inception from colonial outpost to country, you know? And all the horrible things that went into getting the thing off the ground. They do it through every single age. There's people who get up every morning and go to work. They've got to feed their kids and they fall in love and they fall out of love. People dying and babies being born. Meanwhile, the big things are happening; the stuff that makes the history books. But in actuality, minute to minute and day to day, it's real life. That's what a lot of great songs are written about, and that's what drew me into that record. I was definitely touched by it. They've got two albums out.
At this point, I pointed out that Joe and I had been on the phone for 25 minutes, and I didn't want to monopolize his morning. He had another call to make. We got through maybe 1/3 of my questions. I could easily have chatted with him for another 45 minutes.
Joe Satriani, as most people know, is one of the finest guitarists in the world. He is also one of the BEST interviewees out there. Satriani thinks about his answers, delivers a story with almost every answer if you give him the space to do so, and manages to convey a genuine connection with you the entire time you are dialoging with him. His upcoming album, Shockwave Supernova, could be the closest thing to Surfing With the Alien he's put out since that album dropped 22 years ago. I certainly believe it's the most unified and extroverted thing he's put out in a while. His albums are always good, to be sure. Shockwave Supernova just seems to exude some real moxy. The album comes out on July 24th. There are some wonderful Shockwave Supernova pre-order packages available on Satriani's website. If you are into that sort of thing, do take a look.
www.satriani.com
twitter.com/chickenfootjoe
www.facebook.com/joesatriani
#Alex Skolnick#Andy Milton#Andy Timmons#Billy Gibbons#Bryan Beller#Charlie Hunter#Chris Chaney#Clone Wars#Crystal Planet#Deep Purple#Gary Brawer#Goodnight Texas#Howling Wolf#James Hetfield#Jeff Campatelli#Jimmy Reed#Joe Satriani#Joe's Art 2013#John Cuniberti#Kevin Cadogan#Kirk Hammett#Larry LaLonde#Lost In Memory#Marco Minnemann#Metal Gear Solid#Mick Jagger#Mike Keneally#Muddy Waters#Ned Evett#Not Of This Earth#Rick Hunolt#San Francisco#San Francisco Blue#Scarborough Stomp#Shockwave Supernova#Soundwave Studios#Steve Miller#Steve Vai#Stevie Ray Vaughn#The Squares#Vinnie Coliauta
← A resurrected Interview with Henry Rollins – 2011
Ministry – Phoenix Concert Theatre, Toronto – June 17th, 2015 →


Birding by ear, or learning to identify birds by sound, is a valuable skill for any birder to develop. By understanding and recognizing bird sounds rather than relying on visual identification only, you can have a much richer and more enjoyable birding experience, and will be able to identify birds when you can't always see them well.
Many birders focus primarily on learning to identify birds by sight based on plumage, colors, and field markings. Learning to identify birds by sound, however, can help birders identify many birds whose songs and calls are more distinctive than their appearance. Tuning your ear to a bird's song can also help you locate birds more easily instead of relying only on brief flickers of moment through dense trees and brush. Birders who recognize birds' songs can also enjoy birding when low light levels and poor visibility may restrict visual birding. Most important, however, is the fact that a bird's song is yet one more clear characteristic for the bird's positive identification. The more traits you have to compare, the more confident you can feel about identifying birds.
It takes practice to effectively identify bird sounds, but just as with identifying birds by sight, it only takes a few steps to really feel comfortable with this identification technique.
Get Familiar: Listen to common bird calls and songs for your regional species so you know what tones and sounds to listen for in the field. Recordings are available from bird compilation CDs, websites, specialized books, and electronic downloads. Use multiple resources to help you practice listening to bird songs and tune your ears to the right notes. If you can easily recognize the most familiar, common birds, you will be quicker to recognize when a bird sounds different.
Visit Early: Birds are more vocal with distinctive songs in the early morning since still, cool air will carry their songs further and louder. This also makes the songs easier to identify if you are birding early in the day. This is especially important during spring and early summer when birds are part of the dawn chorus, and more birds will be vocalizing.
Be Still: Birds have sensitive hearing and may fall silent if they feel threatened or disturbed by approaching birders. Walk slowly and carefully along a trail, stopping to listen frequently along the way and giving the birds a chance to use their voices. When you hear a bird, tune out other noises and focus only on the bird, turning your head from side to side to help pinpoint the direction of the sound. Minimize any other noises, such as rustling clothes, turning the pages of a field guide, or scuffing through leaves or grasses.
Identify Call Types: The first step in identifying the birds you hear is to understand what calls they are making. Birds make many different types of sounds, and threat calls, alarm or distress calls, and regular songs can sound very different even from the same species. If you know which calls you're hearing, you'll be able to identify the birds making them more easily.
Pitch: How high or low is the song? How does it change in a single call? Where in the song does the pitch change?
Quality: Would you describe the song as a warble, buzz, rattle, screech, whistle, bugle, or some other tone? Are there different tones in the same song?
Length: How long is the song? Can you count the seconds it lasts? How long does the bird sing, even if the song is repeated?
Tempo: How many beats does the song have? How quick are those beats? What pauses are part of the song?
Volume: Does the song change volume? If so, where and how? Do different birds sing similar songs but at different volumes?
Repetition: Are the same syllables repeated several times? How many times? How many similar sequences are part of the song?
Mimicry: Are there any unusual tones or sequences in the song that sound like other things, such as car alarms, door squeaks, or loud tools? This could be the work of a bird mimic.
Once you've clearly distinguished the song, compare it to your field guide or audio resources to try to identify the bird. At first this may be difficult unless you are able to see the bird as well, but with practice you will learn to identify many birds by sound alone.
Start with the birds you are most familiar with, including your backyard birds. Because you see and hear these birds most often, you will be able to practice and perfect your birding by ear techniques while being certain of the birds' identities.
Learn the regional accents of your local birds. Many birds develop geographic variations in their songs that can make identification more challenging, particularly if you travel while birding.
Take notes on the bird sounds you hear in a field journal or notebook. By writing detailed descriptions of the sounds, you'll force yourself to listen more closely and you will have a reference to use when comparing to audio clips or field guides.
Most of all, have fun listening to birds and learning their language, even if you can't always identify them by sound alone. Just as it is impossible to visually identify every bird in the field, it will also be impossible to identify every bird you hear. Perfecting your bird sound identification techniques, however, can make this hobby even more rewarding and you will better appreciate the diversity of bird life you see and hear.


text:
Antandrus (ital.: Antandro) ist ein Titularbistum der römisch-katholischen Kirche.

Es geht zurück auf den ehemaligen Bischofssitz in der antiken Stadt Antandros in der römischen Provinz Asia an der Küste der Troas beim heutigen Altinoluk. Es gehörte der Kirchenprovinz Ephesos an.

Siehe auch
 Liste der römisch-katholischen Titularbistümer

Weblinks
 Eintrag in catholic-hierarchy.org (englisch)

Antandrus

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Loeffler Again "Under Scrutiny" As New Report Reveals Firm's Extensive Lobbying History
Already facing a "'minefield' of potential ethical issues," new revelations show $17 million spent on Washington lobbying and controversial lobbyist hires at Loeffler's firm
ATLANTA — Following revelations of her "'minefield' of potential ethical issues" just weeks ago, "political mega-donor" Kelly Loeffler is already back "under scrutiny" as a new AJC report shows her firm's extensive history influence-peddling with lawmakers and making lobbyist hires as part of the revolving door between her business interests and Washington — spending an eye-popping $17 million as part of their lobbying efforts since 2002.
"While Kelly Loeffler and her special interest allies try to call her an 'outsider,' the facts continue to reveal how she's used her extensive resources to influence Washington for years," said Alex Floyd, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia. "Whether it's the millions she donated to politicians or the whopping $17 million her firm spent on lobbying efforts, Georgia voters are tired of this exact kind of Washington influence-peddling and will remember her lobbyist record in November 2020."
Loeffler pledged $20 million in an effort to buy her Senate seat — raising plenty of ethical flags, with watchdog groups calling it "a minefield of issues" that would potentially let her oversee her own business interests in the Senate. And when asked about how she would manage this, Loeffler was evasive to say the least, refusing to say "how she planned to manage her finances or whether she would sit out votes that could influence her business."
Now, these latest revelations show a long history of Loeffler and her firm engaging in influence peddling and making key lobbyist hires from DC — and spending millions to lobby lawmakers and federal agencies along the way, putting her firm among the "top-spending securities and investment firms since 2011" in terms of lobbying activity.
Read about these latest ethical red flags from Loeffler below:
AJC: Lobbying by incoming Georgia senator's firm under scrutiny
Before Republican Kelly Loeffler emerged as Gov. Brian Kemp's pick for a U.S. Senate seat, the powerful financial firm where she's long served as a senior executive spent millions of dollars to lobby the congressional lawmakers she'll soon join and the government agencies she'll soon influence.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of financial disclosures showed that Intercontinental Exchange, the Atlanta-based financial platform, has spent more than $17 million lobbying Congress and federal agencies since 2002.
[Loeffler's] corporate ties have brought scrutiny over whether she'll serve on powerful committees that oversee the financial industry or cast votes on issues that could influence her husband's company or its subsidiary, the Bakkt digital currency firm she now runs.
[Loeffler] would not say whether she would recuse herself from certain votes that could influence the business.
[Loeffler's] lobbying expenditures have drawn the attention of watchdog advocates who have encouraged her to disclose her potential conflicts of interest and be transparent about her financial holdings.
"Senator Loeffler will have a big challenge proving she represents the average Georgian because of the financial interests that she and her husband represent," [William Perry of Georgia Ethics Watchdog] said.
Financial records show Intercontinental Exchange has hired several well-connected lobbyists including Alex Albert, a former top aide to Zell Miller when he was in the U.S. Senate, and Hope Jarkowski, who once worked for the Senate Banking Committee.


Strong faculty/student relationships, regular seated meals, small class sizes, close knit residence hall communities, and plenty of one-on-one attention help students think of the community as their home. Students and faculty members come to trust and care about one another since they interact in the classroom, in the residence hall, in athletics, and in student organizations.
Students gain leadership skills through Student Council, Student Activities Board, Prefect and Proctor positions, and a variety of other fun and educational opportunities.
Wayland's mentoring program ensures that every student has close contact with a faculty member. Students are taught the value of giving back to their community through the Life Skills program, the Day of Caring, and other service opportunities.
Through these and other activities, students form lasting friendships and receive a well-rounded education in and out of the classroom.


text:
Readers Write: Mollie Tibbetts killing, Archbishop Bernard Hebda and the Catholic Church, the Trump presidency, the right to vote
Cristhian Bahena Rivera, charged with first-degree murder in the death of Mollie Tibbetts, was led into the courtroom Wednesday in Montezuma, Iowa. Tibbetts disappeared July 18 from Brooklyn, Iowa.
— Jim Slosiarek • The Gazette via Associated Press, Pool
Mollie Tibbetts would be alive today if Cristhian Rivera had not been in the U.S. illegally. An Aug. 23 letter writer suggested that "there is not one study that shows illegal immigrants are any more likely to commit crimes than the general population." That ignores the facts that simply being in the U.S. illegally is a crime and that stronger immigration enforcement would reduce the number of crimes committed. A common liberal refrain states that if tougher gun laws save one life, it would be worth it. If stronger immigration enforcement saves one life, would it not be worth it? Liberals want to make it easier for criminals to enter our country while simultaneously restricting the ability of American citizens to protect themselves. We need to encourage legal immigration, curtail illegal immigration and defend our Second Amendment rights. That's how I will be voting come November.
Chad Hagen, Sleepy Eye, Minn.
CATHOLIC CHURCH ABUSE CASES
Argument that Hebda could have done more is at odds with canon
In an Aug. 21 commentary, Thomas J. Lyons states that when Twin Cities Archbishop Bernard Hebda was in the Archdiocese of Newark for two years, he had the power to investigate all that was related to Archbishop Theodore McCarrick ("Bishops who looked the other way, make way for new leadership"). That wasn't the case.
Hebda was there as coadjutor archbishop, not as the ordinary. He didn't have the power to do or see anything other than what his boss, Archbishop John Myers, delegated to him (Code of Canon Law, numbers 403-411). Hebda denied knowing anything about McCarrick, other than a case that was dismissed by a federal court, but Lyons expects him to have done more based on … what?
Had Hebda remained in Newark, become the full archbishop, discovered McCarrick's true nature and done nothing about it, then Lyons would have cause to call for Hebda's resignation. But that's not what happened.
As to the claim that no bishops or seminary rectors locally were called to account, that's a farce — Archbishop John Nienstedt is gone, Bishop Lee Piché is (unjustly) gone. The rectors who let the abusers through have been gone for years.
No, there is no cause for Hebda to step down from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. But there is cause to suggest that Mr. Lyons do better research, then aim his anger at better targets.
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz, Peterson, Minn.
• • •
I am waiting to hear the most obvious answers to systemic change in the Catholic Church: Allow the other half of the world — women — to serve as ordained priests and abolish the requirement of mandatory celibacy for men. If all bishops in the U.S. resigned today, no matter the commissions or contritions, there would be no real change in the hierarchy or culture of this exclusive church.
Sue Anderson, Minnetrista
'Support our president' comes after 'speak truth to power'
The other day a bank teller finishing my transaction asked, "Can I help you with anything else?" "Yes," I joked, "world peace, or maybe get rid of President Trump."
She laughed but then said in earnest, "We should support our president. We should be behind him."
I had heard this argument before. I knew it well — part Minnesota Nice. Over decades I've automatically supported presidents I hadn't voted for. Surely after an election, isn't it time for the country to unite behind the winner?
No, not necessarily.
Donald Trump's presidency has changed my thinking, beginning with his seemingly insignificant lies — such as — his predecessor wasn't an American citizen or that his own inauguration crowds outnumbered those in 2012. When challenged by the fact-checking press (aka "the enemy of the people," according to Trump and garden-variety dictators), he and his press secretaries continually repeat their untruths.
Those paying regular attention to what has been happening over the last two years realize that small lies have grown into immense problems for this country. Repeatedly truths (such as Russian meddling) have been attacked and labeled "lies" by the liars.
I wanted so much to point out to the young teller that some leaders divide rather than unite. Yet it's their job to unite, and everyone's duty to "speak truth to power."
What did I say? "This president is leading us away from democracy into dictatorship. Think about it."
Now I worry about how many misinformed, well-intentioned tellers there may be.
Beth Molberg, Plymouth
"Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon" — Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Until Trump speaks under oath, there is no reason to believe he is telling the truth.
Margaret Shryer, Minneapolis
Whether you love Trump or despise him, you must admit he's a savvy investor. For a mere $280,000 ($130,000 to Stormy Daniels a few days before the election; $150,000 to the Playboy model shortly before) he ostensibly bought the presidency, with all the opportunities for profit and graft that has given him and his cronies. Those investments also ostensibly made him a felon, twice. Ironically, in buying the presidency he may also have purchased immunity from criminal prosecution, at least for now. But that hardly matters. A probable felon occupies the White House. Is anyone really surprised?
Mark Catron, White Bear Lake
The warning signs are there: We must protect our rights
The Netherlands, seeing what happened in the U.S. and other countries in the 2016 elections with Russian meddling, decided to use only paper ballots and do a hand count. It led to a resounding defeat of the candidates favored by Russia. This was March 2017. There are many articles about this online.
Contrast that with Austria, which in 2016 elected far-right extremists favored by Russia, putting them in power of the Interior Ministry. In February 2017, police raided the offices of the domestic intelligence agency and took all their records on Russian election meddling and other top-secret documents away in crates and plastic bags, directed by this ministry ("Far right in Austria raids, cripples its own spy service," Aug. 19).
In the U.S., there are staggering numbers of provisional ballots — 9,000 ignored in the Kansas GOP primary for governor. They declare the winner by a few hundred votes and move on. Russian hackers, it appears, are taking folks off the rolls if they are thought to favor the candidate they want to lose. In Minnesota, there is same-day registration, so this is not a problem. We also have all paper ballots, counted by scanners, which aren't foolproof to hacking, either. We do have an audit a few months after each election with volunteers counting by hand ballots of districts drawn from a hat. But there is no redress if the count is wrong, only a signal we might need to count ballots by hand in future elections. To date, the results of our audits have always been true to the original count. How do we get the other states to do same-day registration and to do paper ballots with audits? We are profoundly affected in our state by what the other states do.
Claire Benson, St. Paul
Next in Opinion
The four congresswomen are doing illegal immigrants no favors
What if we tax plastic straws instead of ban them?
Democrats gave Trump the fight he was looking for
Law enforcement agencies want to get a good look at you
Readers Write: Artificiality of race, immigrants' contributions, Noor's appeal, the Republican Party
Readers Write: Trump's racism, Ilhan Omar, Pledge of Allegiance, Epstein's donations
Readers Write: St. Louis Park and the pledge, Trump's racist tweets, 3M and the environment
Readers Write: Young voters and climate change, Medicare for All, online speech, doughnuts
Readers Write: Conservation, Pledge of Allegiance, Minnehaha Parkway traffic, U.S. women's soccer


'Top Grade Papers' team is ready to provide you the quality custom writing services in almost all academic domains. We provide you the professional and experienced experts, who are dedicated to provide you the tailored drafts crafted to fulfill your requirements with the highest quality and at the most affordable rates.We can provide you services in Essay Writing, Thesis, Dissertation, Research Proposal, Term Paper, Assignment, ACCA Research & Analysis writing and almost all other academic domains.View our standard price plans below. You can get the custom quote exactly for your work requirements. Plus you can get exclusive discounts with every order.
Our aim is to provide you the best quality service at the most affordable rates.


In our Costco frenzy yesterday, I grabbed as many produce items I thought would fit in the fridge. I had two choices when it came to carrots, five pounds of baby carrots or five pounds of full sized carrots. Both were organic and I'm thinking the full sized were cheaper. Who has time to wash and cut multiple pounds of carrots? Not me!
When squash gets really cheap (anytime now), I don't mind buying and roasting them. Until then, I am more than happy to buy the pre-peeled, pre-cut variety. As soon as we got home, the jumbo carton of butternut squash went into the oven with some olive oil, sugar and cinnamon on top (at 400 degrees) for about 40 minutes. It's good cold or hot and makes both my toddler and preschooler happy. Score!
I found a recipe from the original Moosewood Cookbook on Slash Food, before it moved to Huffington Post. Click the link to find the original recipe, the one below has been changed a bit to make life easier. I used pre-chopped onions and garlic, courtesy of Fresh & Easy. For the chopped nuts, a couple blasts in my Ninja blender did the trick.
Place carrots, liquid and salt into a medium sized soup pot and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer it for 12-15 minutes. Let it cool to room temp.
Saute the onion, garlic and nuts in the butter until the onions are clear. Towards the end of cooking, stir in the seasoning combo of your choice. Add roasted squash in batches. Puree everything together in a blender until smooth.
I have to stop at this point and mention that the recipe makes this soup sound like it takes more work than it actually does. You could omit the squash if you didn't roast any. I wouldn't omit the nuts, they add a little crunch. It was pretty easy to make this, I swear and my whole family loved it. This is including Jy, who doesn't consider anything a meal if it doesn't involve meat.
My local Costco sells Bolani, which is Afghan bread. We grabbed the spinach filled type and played around with the sauce trio also sold at Costco. It helped give our lunch a little something extra. Dallas (my four year old) really liked all the Bolani toppings, and they are spicy! I learn something new about my little crazy man every day.
We ate Costco pizza at a super fun birthday party around 11 am. It was at this wonderful party where the sweet Katherine, introduced my family to Buffalo Chicken Dip. I think I said, "Holy. Crap." about twenty times this morning. Each time was in between dip bites. I have never had this ridiculously addicting dip before, have you?
Apparently, the rest of the world knows about the delicious, spicy Franks Red Hot Buffalo Chicken Dip recipe. Just google it, you'll see. It looks really easy and hey, I even found a "light" version over at Skinny Taste!
So that was lunch, pizza and lots of dip. Lunch was followed by more yuminess, a cookie cake! We all crashed at home and before hitting Costco for some produce I ate two pieces of cinnamon raisin bread. Too far of a stretch to call the raisins a fruit.
Two cranky kids and Costco on a Saturday? Smart idea, huh? Luckily, Jy was there to bring us all hot dogs and fountain drinks while we shopped. Mmm…crap.
See, junk food is so bad for you that it wreaks havoc on your vocabulary, all I can say is crap tonight. Crap, crappity, crap, crap.
Speaking of, did you know that my dad used the word crap in a wedding speech? It was at MY wedding! He said that my husband let our dog crap in my parent's yard. Guess the crap word runs in the family.
Jy with my dad and brothers on our wedding day.
The majority of today's fiber all came from shredded wheat. The exercise was put off until night and well, you know how that goes.
Getting in the ten servings of fruits/veg (I know I am really heavy on the fruit) will easily help me reach the fiber goal at the same time.
And…the 30 minutes of exercise will happen after the kids are fed lunch. There, it has been written. It shall be done. Oh, we have (meaning Jy and I) added a 40 to the equations. At least 40 oz. of water. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it is a lot more than the 12 that I typically drink.
Have a great Sunday everyone! It's almost a new season. Enjoy your OFFICIAL last Sunday of the summer!
Also known as, Spaghetti Carbonara! Haven't tried it? You should! It is one of the easiest and most filling meals one can make in under 30 minutes. In some cases, under 20. I blogged about Ruth Reichl's recipe a couple days back. I followed her basic recipe tonight, but forgot to add some garlic flavor. Darn!
This meal is so perfect for those nights when you have nothing planned to eat and 4 pm rolls around (tonight). We are trying to make a habit of cooking large amounts of eggs, rice and meat on Sunday, so we have plenty of go-to items for the week. This Sunday, I baked a whole package of bacon.
All I had to do tonight was boil some whole wheat pasta (you can use white if you prefer) and slice up some bell peppers. Peppers are not part of the recipe, but they add a nice cool, sweetness to balance out the dish. As soon as the pasta is done, drain it and throw it back into the same pot you boiled it in. Immediately crack one to two eggs and give it a stir. By the time you drop in the chopped up bacon, sprinkle the parmesan and grate some pepper, the egg will be cooked!
Try it, I promise it will be a new dinner favorite!
I had planned to make a special meal for Jy and the boys tonight. All day Jy and I talked about making something fun like Gumbo, but I would call it Dumbo, because it would be kid friendly. Then we talked about making fried chicken, no…wait, creole chicken on top of beans and rice. See, we just watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain's – No Reservations last night. We always get sucked into his show. He's just so interesting and there is always something to learn when we watch. Food is just the tie that binds his show together.
After our relaxing afternoon, strolling a local downtown that we don't often visit, we decided to check out a local winery. An hour later, after getting lost and discovering that it would cost us a pretty penny to join the wine festival tasting that was occuring, we hopped back in the car. We are a pretty relaxed couple, so Jy and I decided to stop for a fun little lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. Screams anniversary doesn't it?
I'm not sure why I have a Barry Bond bicep, but whatevs.
After our mediocre lunches with sub-mediocre service, we decided to hit the grocery store for dinner ingredients. We made sure to shop for brownie needs, bbq needs (for Labor Day) and anything else we might be short on at home. Guess what we forgot to buy? Chicken, or any meat for that matter!
We picked up our boys from my parent's house and learned that rather than saying "Bampa," which means grandpa in Max's language, that he was saying "Obama." At least this was according to my mom. She showed Max a photo of my dad with Obama and I guess Obama sounds a lot like Bampa.
Once we got home, both kids were on the verge. Max was sleeping and didn't tranistion to his bed well. Dallas wanted candy and brownies. While Dallas took a bath and Max slept, I added up today's Weight Watcher points. My salad at BWW was 23 points. I had gone over my points for the day and used up all, yes….ALL my extra weekly allowance points.
I'm still stuffed from everything I ate today, so missing dinner wasn't too big of a deal. I am bummed that I wasn't able to create anything to blog about though!
Jy left to go take care of a dear friend's kids while my pal took a trip to the hospital with her newborn. Baby is fine, mom is just getting checked out. Her husband left Jy some pizza, so it all worked out well. I'm sure he is happy to watch Sports Center in peace and hang in a house where the kids stay asleep! I couldn't ask for a better man to have married!
I decided to attempt another coconut flour recipe today. The last attempt taught me that coconut flour is a great ingredient to add when baking paper weights. The key to baking with this grain-free flour is to add liquid, a lot of liquid.
I started off with my go-to muffin recipe from Mark Bittman in his encyclopdia, How to Cook Everything. Then, I swapped out a cup of white flour for coconut flour and doubled the milk. I also baked at 400 instead of 375, not for any other reason than reading the recipe wrong!
After gently mixing the wet into the dry, I sprinkled in strawberries (about a cup full). Any berries would work well in this recipe.
Coconut flour gives baked goods a springy texture. Your batter will be thick and biscuit like. Be sure not to mix until you have a smooth, cake type batter. That won't fly with these muffins.
I don't often time my baked goods, I just grab them when the house starts to smell like whatever I am making. It's not the best science, but it usually doesn't fail. If you are worried, I'd say to stick with 375 for 40 minutes or 400 for 25-30.
Coconut flour will also make your muffins look like they aren't quite done. Just do the old toothpick trick and check for yourself, they will be baked through! You can also check the muffin bottoms to look for a golden color. As soon as mine came out, I spread a thin layer of butter over the tops and sprinkled with some raw sugar. Raw sugar just has a great texture to it that you don't get with white.
I just got back from jewelry shopping at my wonderful friend, Meghan's house. She always throws the best parties and always, ALWAYS has the cutest baked good to go along with! Tonight, she her frosted cupcakes matched Stell & Dot's signature silver and uh…blue, teal, I don't know what that pretty color is officially called. On the way over I learned something interesting. You've probably heard about using Olive Oil for cooking instead of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Once you heat your pan, the EV in EVOO goes bye-bye.
Guess what? The same thing happens with expensive onions. Sweet onions, sometimes called Vidalia onions are $4 or $5 a pound, versus brown or storage onions which should be around $1 a pound.
The chemistry of the Vidalia breaks down in heat and all of that precious flavor evaporates! What you are left with is a bit of a flavorless onion. Go fig! So the rule is, if you plan to use EVOO cold (as a salad dressing or drizzled on other food) or onions uncooked (in a salad or diced up as a topping) then you will want to spend the extra dough. If your plan is to heat up a pan, go cheap!
Have you ever seen this book? It's a great read about a really famous food critic who disguises herself before tasting some of New York's top restaurants. I loved this book and now I am so excited to have discovered that it's on the way to becoming a movie. Ruth Reichl was interviewed in 2009 for NPR and the interview was replayed tonight. Reichl discussed one of her most popular dishes, which is also her "go to" dinner, Spaghetti Carbonara.
One last thing…Happy Birthday Dad!
Yum. That pretty much sums it up, folks. Oh, in detail? Ok, let me start from the top then.
A half-dozen of us East Bay gals headed to the big, bad city. I lived in San Francisco while in college. For years after that, I would drive through S.F. and tell my husband that the city just felt like home. How times have changed! Two kids and a few sunny, suburban years later I am back to being totally intimidated by the fog laden, concrete maze.
Wrapping my hair with my hands, (to prevent pre-dinner frizz) we hurried from our parking spot a couple blocks up the road to our location, Dosa! Our group organizer and her sister (who was with us too) have frequented Dosa and offered some great recommendations. Dosa is across the street from a new (to me at least) movie theater in what seems to be the Pac Heights-Japantown-Fillmore district. PacJaMore, anyone? No takers? Ok, on to the drinks.
My description? Mmm. Nice and fresh with an interesting depth. I know I mentioned wanting to drink the Bollywood Hills, but once the waitress described the drink as a savory martini, I decided to pass.
The majority of us opted for the tasting menu, which offers three courses for $35. First up, Chennai Chicken. We were warned ahead a time that this first dish would be spicy and while it was, there was also a side of cool raita (cucumber yogurt.) The chicken is organic and boneless and marinated in Straus yogurt with coriander and cumin and then fried. My friend Lisa described these as Indian buffalo wings. The sides of yogurt, lemon and red onion really balanced the spice out.
Dosa offers a South Indian "home-style" cuisine, which is different from the heavier, clay pot type Indian food I am used to eating, which comes from the north. Their specialty is dosa, which is a savory crepe like food, constructed from rice and lentils. The combo of rice and lentil almost never gets me excited. I truly considered skipping this course, thankfully I didn't! Rice and lentils always surprise me and I have to remember that half of the world's meals are made from these two basic ingredients. Don't quote me on that statistic, I just pulled that one out of my, uh…head.
The dosa I chose was Summer Vegetable, loaded with collard greens, bell peppers, ground lentils & chiles. Each dosa comes with three dipping sauces, if you will. Coconut & tomato chutneys along with sambar, a lentil dipping soup. Can't escape the lentil in this course, can you? I was so pleasantly surprised when I took my first bite.
It was after my dosa I realized that I need a cocktail! I couldn't blog about my dinner without a cocktail, right? See, Food it Forward is keeping me well nourished and hydrated. My pal had ordered her second Ginger Ante, so I thought I would follow suit.
What a mysterious drink! It tastes as deep and frosty as it looks. The rum is so smooth and barely noticable (aka: dangerous.) The smell of the giant rosemary garnish adds to the complex mix of flavors that the Ginger Ante offers up. We couldn't quite put our finger on the sweetness that filled the middle of this drink. Jody (my co-ginger ante pal) mentioned she tasted apricot. Looking further into ginger jaggery nectar, I found …nothing. What is ginger jaggery nectar, anyone know? Another reviewer mentioned that this drink would be a perfect cocktail to serve at Thanksgiving and one more deemed it, dark and stormy. Perfect descriptions.
Third course is on its way. Who's ready for a big pot pie?
Not really, this is Channa, which comes with… Bhatura.
Together they make…Channa Bhatura. Which is the most exotic way you can imagine to say, bread and lentils! This was the main entree for our hostess, Gheeta. My third course was Shrimp Masala. This loosely translates to hot, creamy masala flavored bowl of shrimp with coconut rice and cool yogurt. Please know that I'm lying again.
Coconut milk, red chiles, ginger, onions & spices.hile this part of the meal was as delicious as any other, it reminded me the most of the North Indian cuisine that I love. Once again folks, I sacrificed for you. I had dessert. While tempted to order something special to Dosa, like their Coconut Custard Cake or Rasmalai (a sweet vermecilli dish), I stuck with familiar chocolate. Bad move.
Gheeta ordered the cake as well and thought it was really dry. I didn't love the deep flavor in this cake. The menu says the cake is over a 3 spiced creme anglaise. Let me translate that for you. Creamy, cinnamonISH dipping sauce for your standard frozen, microwavable cake dish. Not the best way to end a great meal.
Otherwise, Dosa was a fantastic experience. I was with such a sweet, fun group of moms. I was out of my bubble of a suburb. I tried new foods and I laughed, a lot! I'm still trying to wake up with my cup of coffee and decide how to repad my bank account. Did I mention that last night's meal set me back $75? Um, yeah…I've got some ebaying to do.
We were invited up to Angels Camp (gold country) for the night. It is so beautiful at this creek side home of cottages. There is plenty to do, but the boys are interested in doing is swimming and playing on the swings. Dinner is yet to come, so not much on the food front. More than anything I just wanted to say hello!
I would wake up at 5 am to see Gary Gnu and The Great Space Coaster back in the day. Anyhow, like I said, no real news here today. I spent the day actually hanging out with my kids. Leftovers for lunch, Whole Foods pizza for dinner and an evening kid's concert. I am so ready for my night out tomorrow!
Tomorrow is Friday and I can feel it in me bones. I'm actually going to attempt to cook something with my kids. Wish me more than luck! I don't know what I'll try to whip up, but I'm sure it will be something messy and involving sugar. Oh, hey…it's a buy one get one free drink week at Peet's right now. Head over to www.Peets.com and sign up for their emails. You'll get your coupon to print or you can just show the cashier your phone. I love Peet's! They serve up caffeine with a side of coffee.
Do you remember how I mentioned Dosa a couple weeks back? It's a swanky San Francisco spot with local, organic (when possible), Indian fare. I'm headed there tomorrow night with some fellow moms. Hoochie Coochie! Well, that doesn't seem like the right saying, but I'm really trying to branch out from Boo-yeah. You know what else? Dosa is rumored to have some serious, yet delectable drinks!
In other food news, tomorrow night Dallas will try his first Slurpee! Crazy, eh? He's four and he's never tasted the sugar that paid for his mom to go to college. Luckily, he's spending the night with Grandma and Grandpa. Brain freeze will not be on my list of worries tomorrow night!


You can now pay the City of New Buffalo online. Please contact the City at 269-469-1500 if you have any questions.
Tax and Utility payments are made through BS&A.
Parking fines and PBTs may be paid through Point and Pay.


As with our design staff, our construction project managers have specialized expertise that relates to the industries we serve. They are well versed in the various systems of project delivery in which we may serve as design-builder, construction manager or general contractor. Their task is to orchestrate the process to meet the project goals. We use state-of-the-art computerized project management tools for efficiency and excellent communication.