text:
Watch Schwartz Vault in the Olympics
By VAULTER Mag
Lake Forest's Jillian Schwartz will be competing for the Israeli team in the 2012 London Olympics in track and field. Schwartz, who competed for the United States in the pole vault in 2004, will have her competition begin August 4, with the finals August 6.
On August 4, Schwartz will compete in the preliminary round with competition beginning at 10:20 a.m. London time or 4:20 a.m. here. Schwartz will have a preliminary jump and then will attempt to successfully complete the next qualifying height. She will continue at each height, unless she misses three times at a height and then is eliminated.
Should Schwartz be one of the top 12 competitors during the qualifying round, she will move into the finals on August 6 at 7 p.m. in London time or 1 p.m. Chicago time.
Schwartz can be seen streamed live on Comcast for all of her competition. The women's pole vault event will also be broadcast live on NBC (WMAQ TV, Ch. 5 in Chicago).
by: Dick Quagliano
from: http://winnetka.patch.com/articles/watch-jilian-schwartz-in-the-london-olympics
Jillian Schwartz
National High School Rules changes
Nels throws himself into the air


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Q: How to forward url parameters from Nginx to my server's API so I can allow/disallow users to view certain files? I'm trying to create an "allowed users only" section and I managed to get this far, but I'm stuck.
I use auth_request module of Nginx and Express.js.
How can I send the requested url to my api route?
"/" is the generic URL, but /api/:filename should be fired only when a visitor tries to access a file, no matter what the file's location / URL is. In short, what I want to do is, "okay, I'm Nginx and I see that some visitor tries to access this file (or files, it checks individually). let's pass this file's name to Express.js server and let it check whether this user is allowed to see this image or not. If it says 200, I'll allow it. If it's 403, then no."
app.get('/api/:filename', function(req,res,next) {
  // This part decides what you're allowed to see.
  // Redis database query. Returns 0 or 1.
  // 1 means 200, 0 means 403.
  res.sendStatus(200);
  // It works if I omit :filename part, so this part is done in theory,
  // but we didn't get the file name, so right now all we have is "yes
  // to all" or "no to all", it's not dynamic.
});

The question is, I don't know how to pass the requested url parameter from Nginx to my Express.js app (e.g. image.jpg, video.mp4 in http://localhost/api/:filename format) so I can check user's permission against database and return a dynamic response for every file.
Here's my Nginx config.
upstream localhost {
  ip_hash;
  server 127.0.0.1:8000;
  server 127.0.0.1:8001;
  server 127.0.0.1:8002;
  server 127.0.0.1:8003;
}

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name localhost;

  location ~* ^.+\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|css|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|pdf|txt|tar|wav|bmp|rtf|js|flv|swf)$ {
    root images;
    auth_request /api; // How to append requested filename to this URL?
  }

  location / {
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_pass http://localhost;
  }
}

EDIT 1
location = /api {
  proxy_pass http://localhost;
  proxy_pass_request_body off;
  proxy_set_header Content-Length "";
  proxy_set_header X-Original-URI $request_uri;
}

A: Define a custom location for "/api" and append /api$request_uri (original uri) to proxy_pass;
location = /api {
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_pass http://localhost/api$request_uri;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
welcome to the alliance joint navy
Welcome to the Turner Space Combat Academy, THE best space combat school in the known galaxy. The Turner Academy is the primary training centre for the Alliance Joint Naval Forces. Based in both the Alioth and Gateway systems, our mission is to train the best combat pilots in the galaxy, with priority given to training the AJN and the police forces of systems affiliated with the AIS. Additionally, on a time-available basis, we have training classes for traders and bounty hunters who wish to maximize their chances when encountering pirates in the less stable systems of the Frontier. We hope you enjoy your visit to the Academy. If you do not have the time or the credits to join one of our advanced combat training courses, you may like to browse our free online combat guides which are taken from our ground training classes.
-- Commander James K Winston (Elite): Turner Space Combat Academy Commander, March 3296.
about the alliance joint navy
The following sections have some information about our establishment, and the commander of the station, Cdr. James K Winston. The existence of the Academy is strongly rooted in the recent and turbulent history of the past 50 years. Cdr. James K. Winston was instrumental in making the Academy what it is today - to find out more about him, please visit the Out on the Edge exhibit.
Due to popular demand, we've just added a Spotter's Guide to AJN Ships In Space. This has everything you need to know to recognise an AJN ship either in deep space or parked in the dock. And of course, the rumours that the AJN's SuperJoust laser system is derived from Thargoid technology can neither be confirmed nor denied!
The turning point The Alliance Joint Navy and the Turner Space Combat Academy came of age after the Veliaze Crisis, a turning point in the Alliance's short history.
The fleet The Alliance Joint Navy employs many different ship types in its fleet, from the diminutive Hawk to the behemoth Victor and Valiant class cruisers.
Cdr. winston The Turner Space Combat Academy chief has always lived in interesting times. Discover some of his background.
combat techniques & equipment
This section contains a guide, taken directly from our groundschool syllabus, of the combat techniques that have been recognised as the most successful in the Galaxy. We cannot publish the classified procedures used for AJN and police training, so the techniques publish here are designed for single ship combat situations, such as are commonly experienced by lone-wolf bounty hunters and traders. The information contained is mainly directed at bounty hunters due to the unsuitability as fighters that most large trade ships suffer.
It's all relative! A tutorial on relative movement. This is required reading for all combateers. It includes exercises to improve your handling of a spacecraft relative to other spacecraft and objects.
Full Manual Control If you use JJFFE 2.2 or newer, here's some additional "Flying Relative" instruction which will show you how to use all the thrusters that your ship has. (Includes a savegame).
Combat techniques Information on how the lone-wolf combateer can improve their odds of survival.
Intercepts How to go about intercepting other ships, and how the pirates do it to you. It's easy once you know how.
Planetary Combat Military bombing and recon photo missions involve combat close to the ground. This is our guide with how to not let the ground come up and smite you!
Ships & Equipment Cdr. Winston's five favorite combat ships from small to large, and equipment recommendations for surviving on the Frontier with these craft.
Combat Trade Route Details of Cdr. Winston's favorite combat and trade route from his bounty hunting days. Not only is the trade good, but you can improve your Elite rating by following this route.
[Back to AliothNet] [Contact/Guestbook]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This week James and Courtney interview @tobiaji about his entrepreneurship journey.
Tobi Aji joins us at TCU headquarters to discuss his journey as an artist.
Listen to this episode to learn about Tobi's approach to creating and spreading his music.
Tobi shares with us his upbringing and the first song that inspired him to take writing seriously. We talk about his decision to chase his dreams and not continue down the path his parents picked for him. Tobi talked about his switch from battle rap to crafting songs. We also learned more about where he gets his inspiration from and why he's decided to create music that impacts peoples lives.
Listen to this episode to learn about TOBi's superpower.


text:
NASCAR Cup Series News
Xfinity Series News
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Speedway News
eRacing News
NASCAR Cup Series Schedule
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Scanner Frequencies
NASCAR Cup Series Frequencies
Xfinity Frequencies
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ARCA Series Frequencies
Bayne To Use Brand-New Back-Up Ford Fusion For The Daytona 500
Friday, Feb 22 3086
The scene in the Motorcraft/Quick Lane garage area at Daytona International Speedway on Thursday was a tale of two race cars. On one side of the aisle, there was a battered No. 21 Ford Fusion, one that led more than half of the first of two Budweiser Duel qualifying races, but was later wiped out in a crash.
On the other side sat a brand-new Fusion, one that had never even been rolled on asphalt before it was unloaded from the Wood Brothers' hauler.
The first car, despite the damage, did its job. It was third fastest in qualifying, assuring Trevor Bayne and the team a starting spot for Sunday's Daytona 500. Bayne will start 33rd, one spot worse than he started in 2011 when he won the 500.
The other car now is poised to pick up where the first one left off. First, there's plenty of preparation to be done by crew chief Donnie Wingo and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew.
"We may not even practice on Friday, but that's OK," said team co-owner Eddie Wood. "We didn't practice on Friday in 2011, and we won that race."
There also is a final practice session set for Saturday, and Wood said he was confident the new car would be race ready by then.
Despite the battered car in the background on Thursday, Wood and the rest of the Motorcraft crew seemed upbeat.
"You can't be disappointed when you lead more that half the race," he said.
Indeed, for a time, Bayne and his red-and-white Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion looked like winners in the first of Thursday's Budweiser Duels. Bayne started on the outside pole and passed pole-sitter Danica Patrick on the opening lap. He led the first 36 circuits, but slid entering pit road, flat-spotting his right-front tire, and setting up a four-tire change.
Still, he was in position to race his way back to the front when he was swept up in a multi-car crash on the backstretch with six laps to go.
"It is unfortunate because we had a fast race car, and you don't want to tear that stuff up," Bayne said. "I know they have a good back-up car for me, and we will try to get it on Sunday."
Wood Brothers Racing PR
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Please link the article.


I do for all and sundry, from the smallest personal piece to huge scale works.
I spent 20 years as a professional graphic designer freelancing across London and have worked on major branding, interior and retail design projects with some of the leading design agencies in the world.
I have taken what I know as a graphic designer and incorporated that into my love of illustration. Its a happy combination. My clients come through recommendations and through connections in the industry. I am a sort of rumour. I don't crave awards or accolades, just to do a fantastic job for the clients I work with. That may be why I have such a great client list!
I absolutely love what I do, it's not a job, it's a way of life. So when I get a client come to me and to work on a project - it's all worthwhile. Which is why I give 100%.
Pure unadulterated delicious illustration - no additives.


In this episode, I chat with Mike Hurley, the co-founder and CEO of WarmUp. WarmUp is an app that helps sales teams drive and track sales referral revenue and help generate warm leads for sales teams. He has been in sales for over 10 years and software for over six years. During his time in sales, he found that sales reps often don't ask for referrals, or do so haphazardly, which lead him to create this app.
Research has shown that customer referrals and employee referrals have the highest conversion rate of any lead source, however, he found that many companies weren't using this source, or weren't doing it well. We discuss the importance of referrals as a lead source and how referrals can be forecasted and relied upon by a company to create another predictable stream of revenue. Mike shares examples of ways in which referrals may not be used to the fullest extent, and also, what makes WarmUp different from other email marketing platforms.
Finally, Mike details how the app is used, and he gives insight to the current status of the business, strategies to obtain customers, and what the company looks like 12-24 months in the future.
Welcome to the Startup Competitors podcast. Today, we have Mike Hurley, co founder and CEO of WarmUp. Mike, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Mike. It's good to be here.
All right, man. Let's start with WarmUp pitch.
All right. WarmUp is an app that helps sales team drive and track referral revenue. We help generate warm leads for sales teams. So would you like me to kind of talk about where the idea came from?
Yes, let's start there, and then also try to hit on the other side of where the idea came from. Talk a little bit about the actual user experience if I'm a salesperson. What am I doing when I'm interacting with your software?
Okay, cool. So I'll go ahead and kind of start where the idea came from really quick. That'll give you some context. So I'd been in sales for a little over 10 years, been in software for a little over six. What I found in my career is that sales reps often don't ask for referrals. So if they do that thing at all, they're kind of doing it ad hawk and haphazard at best. Oftentimes, they're not really sure how and when to ask for referrals. And so I went out there and I started talking to a lot of sales reps. We kind of affirmed that belief was true. And then we started talking to their sales managers, and what we found is that sales managers wanted their teams to be asking for referrals. But it was more or less just a soap box speech. They weren't really sure how many referrals were being asked for, and then how many referrals were actually being received.
So that was kind of the genesis for the idea of the product is can we develop a piece of software that gives sales managers visibility into how often their team is asking for referrals and how many referrals are getting received, and then that visibility and that platform can help drive and track that referral revenue. And really what it was about at an organization level is we wanted to help term referral ask into a type of outbound activity that was similar to emails and calls. Something that could be forecasted and relied upon by the company to create another predictable stream of revenue.
So that's kind of the genesis of the idea. If we want to go ahead and transition into kind of how sales reps use it. That was the next thing you wanted to talk about, right?
Cool. So when I thought about how I asked for referrals, what I thought about was typically I would email somebody like yourself, right? And I would say, "Hey, Mike. How's it going? I was wondering if you might be open to making a referral for me." And then I would provide some additional context. If you were an existing customer, I might say, "Hey, really appreciate you having been a customer the last year. It seems like you've gotten a lot of value out of the product. Is this something you might be open to doing for me? Making a referral for me." And so that was my normal process, and I started think about how could we maybe build that into a piece of software to essentially give a sales rep an out of the box process that would be easy for them to understand how and when to ask for referrals, specifically this is the how part.
So a sales rep will login to our software today. They typically will load in their customer list or will pull it in from Salesforce, and then what we make it easy for them to do is simply ask for referrals. So either they will send out one off emails one at a time or they will execute a email campaign through the software, and all of those emails that are going out are essentially asking, "Hey. Would you be open to making a referral for me?"
So today, the way that people respond to that is either they just respond like you normally do in an email, or there's a yes button that they'll click in that email. If they click the yes button, WarmUp will actually automatically send them a referral template that they can then use to make a referral for you. This is a bit hard to explain over a podcast, but essentially at that point your existing customer or this person that you're asking for a referral, they have this template they can click on. There's a button in that email that they can click on, and it loads a fully pre written email that they can then send to somebody in their network.
What we're doing on the backend at that point is were tracking that your sales rep has asked for referrals and how many times. We're tracking any referrals that they get. If you were to followup and make a referral for me, it's going to create an opportunity or a new contact or a lead in Salesforce. That's the CRM we integrate with today. The idea here is that we're trying to track the entire lifecycle of a referral for the sales rep. So I'll go ahead and stop there for a second. I just threw a lot at you. Do you have any questions about that?
It's great. Yeah. Super specific. I love that. Give me a feeling for current status to business. How big are you guys? How many employees? How many customers? Revenue, fundraising, anything you want to share or can share to help somebody who's listening understand where you guys are.
Yeah, sure. So team wise, we're a pretty small team. We have a few people working in the business, an engineer, myself. I'm really handling customer onboarding and support and sales. We have a part time product manager and then we have one full time software engineer that's working in the business currently. So that's the team. It's a good team. Kind of cover the different areas that you need to cover to get a software product company off the ground.
And customer wise, we have 19 customers today, and we have right around $24,000 in ARR. So right around $2000 a month reoccurring coming in. We're very proud of that revenue and that customer base. There's a wide range of customers. Some of them are very large. So we recently signed a contract with a company that every new week that have 900 new customers, and they're using ... They're going to be using WarmUp to be asking those 900 new customers for referrals. And so we're really excited about that.
And then we have a number of customers that it's just a one to two person team. They're using the platform to ask for referrals every time they close a new deal and to ask for referrals on a quarterly basis when they check in with them. Those are two very different use cases. They're both totally valid opportunities to ask for referrals.
Pretty low baring in entry.
Versus, "You should buy some life insurance."
Right. Life insurance is a little bit more tricky, definitely. There's a stigma associated with it. So that's a good contrast.
Talk to me a little bit about that dichotomy between the larger company that's getting 900 new customers a week versus the smaller company that is one or two people and presumably only getting a couple new referrals each week. So because in my mind, that's a pretty big dichotomy when it comes to thinking through that enterprise sale versus the smaller boutique sale and the features you would create and what customer support looks like and what innovation looks like and all that kind of stuff. At what point do you think ... Just wondering your thoughts, at what point do you think you have to make a choice and which of those you going to go after. Do you think you even have to make that choice? Do you think you can support them both? How are you guys thinking through that right now?
Yeah. So I tend to think about it a lot from an adoption standpoint. I'm actually going to introduce kind of a third alternative into this line of thinking. So you have ... So, frankly, the companies that have one to two users and they're asking for referrals on like a kind of one to two users and they're asking for referrals on an ad hawk basis. Those adoptions a lot tougher because they're just fewer opportunities to ask for referrals when you only have one to two users. There's less value being generated overall over the course of the year. That's a much tougher use case. I kind of see that use case maybe going away over time to be totally honest.
I'm going to share with you a use case that we just recently kind of started to pilot and explore, and that's the use case where you have an entire sales team of let's say five to 10 account executives, and they are each account exec or each sales rep is winning and losing between 10 to 20 deals a month. So they might win five deals and they might lose 15. That's pretty normal if you're in a high sales environment, right? You've got a lot of deals in the pipeline.
So one version of our service is we integrate with Salesforce, we integrate with their CRM, and Salesforce usually tells us when they won a deal or lost a deal. And then what we're doing is we're prompted them via email, "Hey. We saw you just closed out a deal. It's time to ask for a referral." And so there's a button in that email that goes to the sales rep, and it says, "Hey. Do you want to ask them for a referral?" And if they click the button, it will automatically send out a referral ask on their behalf based on a template that they've set up inside WarmUp. That use case, they don't have to ... The sales rep doesn't have to login to actually execute that referral ask, and then everything kind of happens behind the scenes without them having to login to any software.
Because at the end of the day, what we're really trying to do is help organization and sales teams and sales rep form a habit of doing something new that they were not doing previously. So if you want somebody to form a habit, you have to understand what the queue is, right? The queue is you just closed a deal, whether you won a deal or lost it. And then the routine is I get this email from WarmUp prompting me, reminding me that I need to do this thing, and I click the button if I want to send out the referral ask, and then everything kind of happens from there. And then the reward is around 20% of the time, I get an email instructional referral that pops into my inbox, and that reward creates a craving that then drives the habit loop over and over again.
And the reason why I really like that use case is that if you've got a team of at least 10 sales reps and they're each asking for 10 referrals every month, because there's at least 10 opportunities to do that thing, now you've got 100 referral asks that happen every month. And over the course of the year, that's 1200 referral ask. And what we've seen on the platform is a referral rate of 20% on average. It's actually closer to 22%. But 20% gives us a nice round number to think about here. So if you have 1200 referral asks that go out, 20% is 240. 240 referrals that have now just been generated. And if you're a sales manager or a VP of sales, you know your conversion rates, and so if you get 240 referrals that have been added to your pipeline, you know that a certain percentage of those become meetings, certain percentage of those will become demos, and then new customers.
Do you have a feel for how much more valuable a referral client is versus a non-referral client? So in that smaller funnel, are they were more likely to close, less likely to close? Do you have any data on that yet?
The research that we've been able to find out there is that it has the highest conversion rate of any lead source. There is ... I've got it right here actually. I was looking at it this morning, but there's ... Maybe we can share it in the comments or something like that for the podcast. But there's a really great article where a form looked at the data, the lead data, the conversion data for ... I forget the number of companies they looked at, but they looked at what was the conversion rates across all the different lead sources for these 50 companies. And what they found is that customer referrals and employee referrals have the highest conversion rate of any lead source. I think it was around 68%.
So what that ends up meaning is that cost of ... If you spent more time focusing on referrals, if you had a process to drive referral revenue and drive more referrals in your pipeline, you could in theory decrease your cost of customer acquisition. We've had a number of customers actually where that's been the case.
So now I'm going to ask you a psychology question.
Get into my head a little bit.
So I'm a sales guy some days.
And I actually have a weird allergic reaction when I think of WarmUp because for me when I close a deal, it's weird for me to then think I just closed, Mike, now I'm going to ask him to refer me. I'm sure you hear this all the time, right?
Versus like, "Okay. I closed this account three months ago. We've been killing it and doing great work. Now I want to go ask this guy for a referral." Right?
So like talk to a me a little bit about that. So for me as the sales guy, puts me back a little bit to think like, "Oh, I just closed a deal. I've never done anything for this person. Now I'm going to ask them to refer me." What's either wrong with my psychology or is that just the type of thing that I'm selling versus if I was selling something else? Like share that with me.
Yeah. So it's interesting, the sales process should be an educational process for your prospect, right? It should be a with most times and with certain products and services, it is a very educational process where you're essentially teaching them the differences between your services and your team, why they should work with you or spend money with you as opposed to another venue or another product or another service. You're doing something for them that is valuable in itself and hopefully they like and respect you at the end of the sales process.
Anytime that value is perceived or delivered I think is a great opportunity to ask for a referral. That's my own personal opinion. I think if you get to the end of the sales process, if they respect you and they like you and they feel like they've learned something from you, I think as a sales professional, you're well within your rights at that point to say, "Hey. Are you happy about this thing? Did you enjoy the sales process with me? Is there anybody else you know that might find what we do valuable or helpful to them?"
I guess when it comes down to it, there's a certain percentage of people that no matter how the sales process went, they're never going to feel comfortable making that referral. And that's okay. I will say this, the caveat is you shouldn't treat everybody the same, right? So certainly throughout the sales process, if you start to identify that this is the type of personality that wouldn't react well to that referral ask, don't make that referral ask. But I do think that there's a large percentage of the population that they want to help you at the end of the sales process. They've be willing to rather, but they have to be prompted, they have to be asked.
Michael Hurley: I hope that makes some sense.
Fantastically well answered. So let's pivot to competition. When you think of competitors for WarmUp, what comes to mind?
So there is a lot of competitors that focus on the lead side of things when it comes to relationships. There's a lot of products out there, companies like LinkedIn, right? Obviously a social network. There's Nudge, there's Alignable, there's a lot of products out there that are heavily focused on who are the relationships that your customers have and helping you identify those relationships so that you can ask our customers and your contacts for referrals to those people.
So the way that we kind of thought about the marketplace is. There's a lot of that stuff already out there. There's also a lot of email marketing platforms out there, right? And we don't want to get caught up in being confused with those organizations or those services. There are not a lot of sales enablement tools out there that helps sales reps understand how and when to ask for a referral. We really want to come in at the end of the sales cycle to help them ask for referrals at the end of the sales cycle, after they've either closed lost or closed won a deal, and help them for a habit around asking for a referral at that time with a process that we know works. And I think that that differentiates us, right? We don't want to be an email campaign platform. People start to ask us, "What makes you different than HubSpot or anyone of the other large platforms out there where you can easily do that thing?"
So speaking more broadly, there are a lot of different ways you can ask for referrals, right? You can do it via phone, you can do it via text, you can do it via email. One of the questions I get asked most often is, "Why wouldn't I just put together an email campaign and do this thing manually?" Right? I think if you have an existing customer base, you should do that thing. You should make sure you're asking all your customers for a referral at least once a year, right? But not everybody has a large existing customer base, and even if that's what you're going to do, people often aren't sure how to make that ask to their customer base. They're not sure when to do it, how to do it, and how to make it easy on their customers.
So one of the things I run into a lot is people say, "Well, why can't I just do this thing manually?" And then I will tackle in respect and turn that around and say, "Well, why aren't you doing it today?" Right? And then we kind of have a conversation around maybe what are the knowledge gaps they have or technology gaps or anything of that nature.
You bootstrap your way to this point, correct?
So play out for me six months maybe. So let's go six-12 months into the future when you think of where this product is evolving to. So maybe 12-24 months is a better way, because by then you're rich because this things gone off a couple $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue. I just want to give you outside of present constraints. So let's go 12-24 months. 12-24 months in the future, when it's raining cash and you can make strategic product investments, where do you think you're making those investments on this platform? Is it AB testing on messaging, is it finding new places within a customer lifecycle to ask for a referral, is it different ways to engage a sales team? Like I'd love your thoughts on like when you have the capital to make more strategic investments, where do you think this process better?
I'm very interested in finding ways to make the whole process more effective for some of those people where the referrals more complicated or a little bit tougher. So if you have a smaller number of like large enterprise clients, if you have a client base where it's a very long sales cycle, and it's just a much more complicated sale, sometimes asking for referrals from them is more difficult. You may want to ask them to send a permission based sort of message to somebody in their network and that permission based message might say something to the effect of, "Hey, we've been working with WarmUp, and they've done great work for us over the last 12 months. Here's a case study. Here's a link to a video about them." Essentially how do we help arm people to make permission based referrals for some of these people who want referrals but it's a much more complicated ask versus what the ticket sales rep is doing for the baseball team.
I love that. It's the number one way if I tell somebody I will give them a referral, is I then go ask permission first rather than just flood somebody's inbox with info.
Yeah. It's interesting. Like there's a time and a place for everything, right? So like what we're finding is there is a lot of companies where asking for an introduction at the end of the sales cycle in an automated sort of way, it works really well, and it just adds a whole other predictable stream of new deals to the pipeline. And there are other companies where it doesn't work quite as well because the ask needs to be more nuanced, like what you're talking about. So maybe the permission based email that you send out, sends this person that you're trying to refer to a landing page. Right? And then they can interact with something at that landing page. And then at that point, then it becomes a lead, right? And you can still count that as a referral. But it's different than the way it works for the ticket sales rep.
There's a lot of integrations and things like that from a technology standpoint that I think would be really interesting that if you understand some of the data around the people that you're asking for referrals, if you understand their personality and if you personalize things a little bit more, that could be helpful. There's just a lot of things out there that we could integrate into the platform. We haven't done a lot of those yet because I didn't feel like our customer base was big enough yet to really understand what is a common thread across all of them. And I didn't want to just build anything in.
We're kind of getting to the point now where I should probably stop implementing things that I think is a good idea, right? Now we've got people riding the bike. So I'm trying to pull them. For me, personally, it's kind of been a learning process to figure out how do I ask those questions in a way that gets the right kind of information out of them, right?
If I can ask you a challenging question, what makes WarmUp its own standalone product and not just a feature of larger CRM system like Salesforce or HubSpot or something like that?
It's a great question. I don't think that the right answer is to talk about the kind of technology that we've made or built or will build. I think it's much more around understanding that asking for referrals is in and of itself its own outbound activity. So I'm encouraging folks to think about it as something similar to email outbound activity or making calls. Referrals needs to be treated as the third leg on the stool. There's a lot of nuances around how and when you should ask for referrals, understanding the process that should be used based on the company you work for and the industry that you operate in, and we're going to be able to build off of those nuances. We developed a lot of soft IP already around the industries that we're helping and the customers we're helping because everybody's process looks a little bit different, and we're starting to see some common threads in sports and entertainment and also in the software sector as well around how and when they ask for referrals. And so it's complicated enough and it's nuanced enough that as the third leg on that outbound activity stool, we believe we can build a standalone product that adds a lot of value and creates another predictable stream of revenue in a way that deserves to be its own thing.
Do all of your customers use Salesforce? Do you have other customers with different CRM systems and/or customers without a CRM system?
We do. Early on, we took on a number of customers that did not use Salesforce, and for the most part, the majority of those customers are asking their existing customer base with WarmUp. So one of the things that I think I maybe mentioned earlier in the podcast but what we noticed early on is that people sometimes had hundreds of customers and they weren't asking them for referrals at all throughout the year, which we thought was unfortunate for them. So even though they weren't using Salesforce, even though we couldn't help them automatically ask at the end of every sales cycle, we could help them export their existing list of customers and load those in, and make sure that they were asking them once year. So there's a lot of people using the platform today that don't use Salesforce. We feel like we're adding a good amount of value for them because if you have ... Like we have one higher education customer that they had 100 customers. They used WarmUp to ask them for referrals. They generated 30 referrals, which is great for them.
I mean, they had a really long sales cycle that lasted 12 to 16 months. So for them, they had a really hard time filling the top of the funnel. So that's a common thread across most of our customers is that they have pain filling the top of the funnel. Sometimes they are operating in a niche industry or just there's some constraints there either geographically or because of their product and service. And so we feel like we can add value for people even if they're not using sales force.
And when you think of WarmUp as a product that you're taking to market, do you think of yourself as building a sales lead organization or a marketing lead organization? Meaning do you think you're going to get most of your customers by you picking up the phone or a sales team, which right now is you, picking up the phone and talking to people, or do you think it's I'm finding your product. I'm going to your website. I'm clicking sign up, entering credit card, and going.
Because I've been in sales my whole career, I'm going to go with what I know to get started, right? So we're certainly going to have a heavy focus on outbound here over the next year, and I think we always will, right? Because we always want to eat our own cooking. And so well over half of our own deals have come from referrals. Well over half of our opportunities in the pipeline have come from referrals. We'll continue to heavily focus on outbound because it's me doing sales for the foreseeable future. But I've been very pleasantly surprised by the ability for us to generate inbound leads. So every month I try to do at least two marketing activities, whether that's a guest blog post or it's a podcast or a video interview or something fun like that. Every month for the last six months, we've generated a couple of inbound leads, which I made the marketing website and I'm a sales guy so if that tells you anything. I'm really proud of the fact that we've been able to generate a couple of inbound leads. I would love to see the cost of customer acquisition decrease, right? By focusing more on marketing. So we're very interested in trying to figure out what that looks like. I would love to have a version of the product that people can onboard themselves onto, right?
Today, there's a sales touch. There's an onboarding touch.
That's super common for an early stage company. Don't feel bad about that.
We actually talk about that as a strategy, and part of it goes back to what you said. You just got customers on the bicycle. You want to see how they ride. If somebody is self servicing, you can't see that. Right?
So I think that's a great strategy for anybody getting started, even if you could have somebody self service in many B2B contacts, I think that can sometimes be a mistake because you're making a bunch of assumptions about who your customer is and that process that may or may not be true.
Yeah. It's so easy to make assumptions and that's a very dangerous thing to do.
All right. So when you're selling in the market, how often are you selling against another solution, and I know you said you have people who are like, "Hey, I can do this myself," and then you steer the conversation to why aren't you. But like are you ever coming up against a Nudge or some other product our there or is it just an education on, "Hey, man. You should be doing referrals. We can help you do that," and they're not looking at other tools?
I'm often not running into competitors. So I go back and forth between feeling like that's a bad thing and thinking it's a good thing. So I often don't run into competitors. When I talk to sales teams, whether it's a baseball team, a professional sports organization, or it's a software product company on the West Coast that's growing like gang busters, the most ... I rarely run into anybody who says, "Oh, we already ask for referrals at the end of every sales cycle," or, "We already ask our customer base for referrals." The bottom line is I think that they ... It's not ... This is going to sound bad on the surface, but they don't think of it as a priority right off the bat.
This is a good activity. It does work. We should do more of it. And then it just becomes about, "Okay. Well, if we want to do more of it, how do we do more of it? And how do I hold my team accountable to do more of it?"
All right, man. If people want to learn more about WarmUp or if they want to get in touch with you directly, how do they do that?
Feel free to email me. It's just mike@sendwarmup.com or you can go to our website sendwarmup.com. There's an opportunity on the site to request a demo. Happy to set up a time to do that with folks and talk with you more about how we can help you.


text:
Otto Heinrich Wilhelm Keller (* 9. September 1879 in Eberstadt; † 2. Juni 1947 in Büdingen) war ein deutscher Politiker (DVP) und Abgeordneter des Landtags des Volksstaates Hessen in der Weimarer Republik.

Familie
Otto Keller war der Sohn des Fabrikanten August Heinrich Friedrich Keller (1844–1929) und dessen Frau Johanna geborene Möllinger (1852–1933). Otto Keller, der evangelischer Konfession war, heiratete Ida Stich (auch: Stieh) (1885–1947).

Ausbildung und Beruf
Otto Keller studierte in Freiburg und Gießen und wurde 1904 zum Dr. phil promoviert. Ab 1908 arbeitete er als Oberlehrer an der Realschule Oppenheim und war dort ab 1917 Professor. 1918 wurde er Direktor später Studiendirektor an der (Ober-)Realschule Michelstadt. 1924 war er Oberstudiendirektor am Wolfgang-Ernst-Gymnasium in Büdingen. Nach der Machtergreifung der Nationalsozialisten wurde er 1935 entlassen.

Politik
Otto Keller war von 1924 bis 1931 Landtagsabgeordneter für die DVP.

Literatur
 Jochen Lengemann: MdL Hessen. 1808–1996. Biographischer Index (= Politische und parlamentarische Geschichte des Landes Hessen. Bd. 14 = Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Hessen. Bd. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6, S. 209.
 Klaus-Dieter Rack, Bernd Vielsmeier: Hessische Abgeordnete 1820–1933. Biografische Nachweise für die Erste und Zweite Kammer der Landstände des Großherzogtums Hessen 1820–1918 und den Landtag des Volksstaats Hessen 1919–1933 (= Politische und parlamentarische Geschichte des Landes Hessen. Bd. 19 = Arbeiten der Hessischen Historischen Kommission. NF Bd. 29). Hessische Historische Kommission, Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-88443-052-1, Nr. 427.
 Hans Georg Ruppel, Birgit Groß: Hessische Abgeordnete 1820–1933. Biographische Nachweise für die Landstände des Großherzogtums Hessen (2. Kammer) und den Landtag des Volksstaates Hessen (= Darmstädter Archivschriften. Bd. 5). Verlag des Historischen Vereins für Hessen, Darmstadt 1980, ISBN 3-922316-14-X, S. 149–150.

Weblinks

Landtagsabgeordneter (Volksstaat Hessen)
DVP-Mitglied
NS-Opfer
Deutscher
Geboren 1879
Gestorben 1947
Mann

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Amanita yema is a species of fungus in the genus Amanita, family Amanitaceae. The fungi can be identified by its pileus color of a red center that gradually fades into a yellow-hued edge. Growing only in forest outskirts in Mexico, the fungus is a critical member of the plant biome as it is a mycorrhizal fungi.

Taxonomy
Amanita yema was identified as a species of fungi in 2001 by Guzmán & Ram.-Guill.. It was soon categorized under the taxa: Amanita caesarea complex

Description
Standing tall with a pileus that fades from a red center to a yellow margin, this fungus stands out. With a base that ranges from a white/yellow color to an orange colored stem. Its gills, or lamelle, is also described to have a white or yellow tint. Stemming out of the soil, the fungus is often found around forest edges in Mexico. The fungus is said to have a mild odor and taste, but is pleasantly enjoyed.

Habitat & distribution
This mushroom is found in most temperate forests in Mexico and is locally used by its natives. It strives with being locally in demand, be that in the rural areas' markets or in major cities. There is a demand for this fungus in Italy, but no trade has been made with Mexico.  As part of the Amanita caesarea complex, it is deemed to have a high cultural significance in Ixtlan.

Edibility
This mushroom is deemed to be wild edible fungus, and are said to have a pleasant taste. It is almost always consumed with other mushrooms and meat. Although with its simplicity and rather small size, many eat the mushroom by its self. With a simple light washing with water it is ready to be cooked. It is however, a species of fungi that is avoided, as it is similar in appearance to the toxic fungal specie Amanita muscaria.  Its local abundance is low, which increases its worth both locally and globally.

Medicinal uses
Among the Amanita caesarea complex, A. yema is in high demand for its medicinal uses. It is frequently prepared as an anti-inflammatory agent. There are other treatments the mushroom can be used for. Acting as a gastrointestinal treatment, the mushroom is boiled and its cooking water is consumed at room temperature, for renal problems.

References

yema


Hurient hire Pty. Ltd. is the only market place to bring hire business large and small onto the one site to reach out and make a unquie site, with an aim to be the first place poeple look for hire items.
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Suitable for consumer and sporting goods, Hybrid Thermoplastic Composites combine long glass fiber and long carbon fiber reinforcement together in single, ready-to-mold composite pellet. Nylon 6/6 hybrid 40% long glass+carbon fiber reinforced composite with 20% carbon fiber and 20% glass fiber has tensile strength of 41,200 psi and flexural modulus of 2,600 ksi. Inclusion of long glass fiber allows material to retain 78% of un-notched impact capability of glass at 18.8 ft-lb/in.
WINONA, MINN., USA — PlastiComp, Inc., a global leader in long fiber thermoplastic (LFT) materials and technologies, has developed an innovative set of hybrid thermoplastic composites that combine long glass fiber and long carbon fiber reinforcement together in a single, ready-to-mold composite pellet. The new products expand the performance range of long fiber material options available to product designers while offering a cost effective avenue to adopt the high performance capabilities of carbon fiber.
A nylon 6/6 hybrid 40% long glass+carbon fiber reinforced composite with 20% carbon fiber and 20% glass fiber has a tensile strength of 41,200 psi (284 MPa), which is 96% that of an equivalently loaded long carbon fiber material and 24% higher than a similar long glass fiber material. It possesses a flexural modulus of 2,600 ksi (17,931 MPa), which is 87% that of carbon and 86% higher than glass. The inclusion of long glass fiber allows the material to retain 78% of the un-notched impact capability of glass at 18.8 ft•lb/in (1,004 J/m), which is a 25% improvement over carbon alone.
PlastiComp manufactures its LFT Complçt® composite pellets using an optimized pultrusion process that maximizes resin and fiber bonding to obtain the highest possible mechanical properties. Hybrid long glass+carbon and other LFT composites from PlastiComp are made-to-order in polymers from polypropylene to PEEK.
Complçt® is a registered trademark of PlastiComp, Inc.
PlastiComp, Inc. focuses on developing and providing long fiber reinforced thermoplastic composite technologies to partners worldwide. These include ready-to-process reinforced LFT (long fiber thermoplastic) pelletized compounds, along with process development and manufacturing equipment licensing for LFT pultrusion, in-line D-LFT (direct long fiber thermoplastic) Pushtrusion™, and in-line D-GMT™ (direct glass mat thermoplastic) technologies. PlastiComp's injection moldable Complçt® LFT composite compounds are available as standard and custom formulations in resins from polypropylene to PEEK.


The University of Edinburgh embarked on a major refurbishment of the Grade A Listed David Hume Tower to create a contemporary new teaching hub in the central area.
The award winning Page/Park Architects project was designed to create a new sunken garden with glazed links to the David Hume Tower lecture theatres and directly onto George Square. The project required toilet facilities to be decanted to a podium roof area of the building for 78 weeks during ongoing work.
John Hart, Project Manager, University of Edinburgh, says: "This was a complex project as an additional steel structure was required to support the additional weight of the toilets and space was extremely limited.
"Portaloo worked closely with us to define what was required and provided a full service, managing the installation of four toilet buildings as well as a fully compliant accessible walkway.
Four Portaloo toilet blocks provided accessible male and female use facilities, with full high-quality fittings in a layout designed to meet the required specifications. The toilet blocks provided domestic-standard amenities for students and staff.


David Nonis, Senior Vice-President and General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, announced Friday that the club has traded defenceman Mark Fraser to the Oilers. In exchange, the Leafs receive forwards Cameron Abney and the rights to restricted free agent Teemu Hartikainen.
Abney, 22, was Edmonton's third-round selection, 82nd overall, in the 2009 NHL Draft. The 6-5, 219 lb native of Aldergrove, BC is currently with the Bakersfield Condors of the ECHL.
Hartikainen, 23, was the Oilers' sixth-round selection, 163th overall, in the 2008 NHL Draft. He has played in 52 career NHL games over three different seasons with Edmonton and has six career goals and seven assists with 16 minutes in penalties. Currently with Ufa Salavat Yulayev of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), the left-winger has collected 13 goals and 14 assists in 43 KHL games in 2013-14.
Fraser, 27, appeared in 19 games with the Leafs this season. He has not dressed for the past 11 games. In 2012-13, the defenceman played in 45 games for Toronto and recorded eight assists and 85 penalty minutes.


I first discovered Louisa May Alcott in elementary school, and I fell in love with her books. I owned two battered copies of Little Women and Eight Cousins, which I read over and over. I added copies of Little Men and Jo's Boys when I found them, and discovered A Rose in Bloom in high school and An Old-Fashioned Girl as an adult… which is also when I became interested in Alcott herself.
Alcott was a tomboy, much like Jo March, the protagonist Alcott based on herself in Little Women. Also like Jo, Alcott began writing at an early age, penning melodramas that she and her sisters acted out for their friends.
Despite their literary connections, the family was often quite poor, and once she was old enough, Louisa worked as a housemaid, governess, seamstress, and teacher to help support them. She also continued writing, publishing her first book, Flower Fables, when she was 22.
The Alcotts were abolitionists who once served as a station on the Underground Railroad. As an adult, Louisa was both an abolitionist and a feminist. During the Civil War, she worked as a nurse in Washington for six weeks; she contracted typhoid and nearly died. Her letters home were published in a Boston paper and later collected as Hospital Sketches (1863), the book which first brought her recognition.
Before Hospital Sketches, Louisa had been writing "sensational" novels and melodramas under the name A. M. Barnard. Little Women, based on herself and her sisters and written in 1868 in response to a request from her publisher, brought her fame and modest fortune — enough to make her financially independent. Alcott followed it up with Good Wives (now usually published with the first book under the title Little Women), Little Men, and Jo's Boys, taking the March sisters into adulthood — and exploring her father's and her own ideas about education, equality, and women's role. She continued those themes in other books for young people, including Eight Cousins, A Rose in Bloom, and An Old-Fashioned Girl.
Unlike Jo March, the author never married. She found romance with a young Polish man while traveling in Europe, and based Laurie (Little Women) on him, but the relationship apparently ended and she returned to America. Little is known about their romance, because she later destroyed the diary pages in which she had written about him. Alcott did, however, raise a child: her namesake Louisa, the daughter of her youngest sister May, after May's death from childbed fever.
Louisa May Alcott was chronically ill during her later years. She died on March 6, 1888, at the age of 55, just two days after the death of her father. For many years, it was thought that her health was affected by the mercury compound given to her during her bout with typhoid, but recently, researchers have suggested she had an autoimmune disease, possibly lupus. Alcott is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.
I loved Little Women as a child, and I love it still. (And by Little Women I really mean Little Women and Good Wives, now usually sold as a single volume.) Little Women had everything I wanted in a book: the siblings I lacked, the single mother and far-away father I had, adventure, comedy, drama, tragedy, pathos, courage.
Jo's independent streak, her unruly tongue, and her tomboyish ways endeared her to me. Amy's pretentious airs annoyed me, but I secretly liked her too. I always thought that Meg got short shrift, especially after she married Mr. Brooke. And Beth I simply loved, because how could you not? To this day, I can't not cry when Beth dies. I can't even think about it without tearing up. And when Jo finds the boxes in the attic and writes a poem about them, that usually reduces me to tears all over again.
Laurie was dashing and fun — and I still sort of ship him and Jo, although even as a child I could see that they are too alike and too volatile to have made a good marriage. I never quite reconciled myself to her marriage to Prof. Bhaer, though in the sequels it's clear that they love each other and the life they've created together.
In fact, almost everything about the book appealed to me, except the occasional lapses into preachiness (not uncommon in Victorian-era children's books, and not as irritating or intrusive as in most.) I also enjoyed the two sequels, Little Men and Jo's Boys, although they are not quite as real and compelling nor, perhaps, as well-written as Little Women. And I'm quite fond of Eight Cousins, A Rose in Bloom, and An Old-Fashioned Girl as well… but I still think Little Women is the best and most moving of all of them.
I haven't read Little Women since I was about 9, I don't even remember 99% of it but reading about her makes me want to re-read it now as an adult. I remember liking it back then but I wonder what I'll think of it now that I'm in my 20s. Maybe I'll like it enough to try her other books as well.
I hope you enjoy it again!
I adore Louisa May Alcott! Little Women was the first book I read that was significantly above my level – my 3rd grade teacher didn't think I could do it. I also wrote my first serious research paper about her. This was an excellent tribute, thanks for sharing!
Thank you, Berls! I think I first read it in 4th grade, but I can't remember for sure anymore.


In every successful story, there is something that makes the audience say, "Hey, that's me!" While it's helpful to identify ourselves in stories with a moral, it's even more helpful if they provide a solution to our problem. In Jesus' story of the Pharisee and the Publican (tax collector), He first shines a light on our current sinful state, then reveals God's solution for our lives.
On Sunday, October 23, the service music will include a special setting of the story of the Pharisee and the Publican. Written by the composer Heinrich Schütz, it is called a dramatic dialog that contrasts the words of the two men in the parable. Schütz lived in the 17th century, a time in which composers sought new ways to highlight the dramatic nature of biblical texts.
Join us as musical guests Michael Jones and Joseph Orr sing the dramatic dialog of these two men.


We have the smallest and cutest teacup and toy size puppies here at Puppy Heaven All of our puppies are current with their vaccinations and deworming and each one comes with a one year health guarantee. We offer financing and shipping so make one of these angels a memberof your family today!!
We have the smallest and cutest teacup and toy size puppies! All are current with their vaccinations and deworming and each one comes with a one year health guarantee. We offer shipping and financing so make one of these angels a member of your family today!


Worked as a journalist for "Dziennik Zachodni", graduated from Political Science at the Silesian University. In Etisoft works in the Marketing department and is responsible for communication. She believes Napoleon was right claiming: "I am more afraid of three newspapers than of three thousand bayonets." Word lover and a passionate tracker of verbal absurdities. While shopping she spends her time by reading…labels. Skiing during winter, she chooses nordic walking poles in the summertime.
On 1 January 2019 a new German packaging law, Verpackungsgesetz (VerpackG), came into force. The act provides for a range of new obligations for business entities placing goods / products in packaging on the German market.
Years ago you hitchhiked across the Poland, reaching, among others, the Baltic Sea, but also the festival in Jarocin.
Experts once again appreciated etiCALLS - our original system of marking in laboratories. The solution supporting laboratory personnel in their daily work won a distinction in the competition for the best offer of the EuroLab 2019 Fair in the category "Medical Equipment of Diagnostic Laboratory".
Dreams, courage, despite the young age, quite a good experience and ... kayak – that's everything our friend Dawid Janecki needs to start in qualifications for the World Championship in spinning fishing from a kayak! The qualifying round will last from 29 to 31 March and is organized in the Netherlands.
Krzysiek Czoba, our man with passion has a bicycle trip in Cyprus behind him. Read his report on the journey.
In the Etisoft, we involve and encourage employees to propose rationalisation ideas - kaizens. Since July 2017, when we implemented the Lean Management policy, our employees have proposed over 470 applications, which means 26 each month!


Bianchi Aviation Film Services (BAFS) has an established reputation of over fifty years within the aviation motion picture industry providing flying aircraft from 1910 to the present day to include balloons, helicopters, piston aircraft, jet fighters and airliners.
Aligning with the latest techniques and creative requirements, Bianchi Aviation Film Services is at the forefront of aviation supply and effects in the film industry.
Providing more than just aircraft, Bianchi Aviation Film Services brings the knowledge to safely fulfil production requirements with expert co-ordination providing aerial director of photography and aerial unit management.
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Let Bianchi Aviation Film Services help your production to reach new heights.
Bianchi Aviation Film Services (BAFS) was established during the early 1960's by Douglas Bianchi.
With an increasing number of films involving aircraft, Doug realised the need for a dedicated organisation that could support the film industry with its aviation requirements.
In 1962 Twentieth Century Fox Productions approached Bianchi Aviation Film Services to build and operate aircraft for their latest film "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" and so began a six year involvement working with Twentieth Century Fox which also included the film "The Blue Max" and the post production and promotional work advertising both films.
Many other important and universally known productions were to follow and by the early 1970's Bianchi Aviation Film Services was firmly established within the film industry.
Following the death of Douglas Bianchi in 1977 Bianchi Aviation Film Services passed to Doug's son Tony, who continues to provide the film industry with an unparalleled knowledge of aviation and aerial filming, adding over one hundred and fifty productions to the company's impressive credit list.
Technical Advising and Historical Research.
Contact us to see how we can help with your production.
Copyright ©2017 Bianchi Aviation Film Services. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Tweak says, "ASLOOP"
poeticmisery ( poeticmisery) wrote in manchester_rpg,
Entry tags: desmond, raina
"...I'm the only one that's vulnerable..."
Who: Desmond and Raina
What: How all my characters escape into alcohol (part 1)
When: Mid afternoon
Where: University Park
Rating: R... jeebus!
Desmond had been rather surprised when he'd walked into a "Liquor" store, and found the sorts of assortments of alcohol inside of it, but did not find a single bottle of truly aged wine. It amazed him as well when he was told exactly how much a bottle of such things would cost. It was true that everything was more expensive in this day and age, but the relative expenses were quite a bit more as well. Ages ago, finding a good bottle of finely aged wine was not a task that only they wealthy could undergo, but rather, anyone who had a fine occassion. In fact, back then, it was easier to find it by the barrel rather than finding something that had been stored in smallish looking bottles.
After enough searching, however he found a bottle of sufficiently old vintage for $500 a piece, and promptly bought a couple of bottles of it. Once, in a rather interesting state, Balthazar had keenly told him that only the classless got drunk on anything short of a fine wine. Desmond had not necessarily bought that at the time, but then, given the fact that he had not tasted anything in hundreds of years, he supposed that he should probably do it in the manner suggested by an old friend. Upon buying the wine, he bought also a couple of large mouthed wine glasses to go with it, and quietly headed out to a park bench on campus to drink. It was something of a matter of necessity given the fact that without daylight his body would rather quickly oxidize anything except a thick blood...
Sitting down, Desmond quietly pulled out one of the bottles of wine, undid the cork, and slowly poured himself a glass before pouring another glass on the opposite side of him. It was an odd custom that Balthazar had taught him, perhaps for fear of one actually drinking alone. He wasn't certain what it meant, but in the times before he had ever tasted alcohol he saw Balthazar doing it several times, so he simply went with it without asking the origin of the tradition. Now he really wished that he knew all of what there was to know behind it. Raising one glass to Balthazar, a tradition that he did know, he inhaled deeply to appreciate the bouquet of the wine before taking a sip. Finding his thoughts wander, sadly, to a less than happy place.
The pens stunk worse than animal cages, and when ones sense of smell was enhanced, it only made it that much worse. Several of the slaves had emptied their stomachs recently having only been fed on minimal gruel and moldy bread that they had eaten without thinking for being starved for days. The dark haired slave amongst them, a boy not more than a summer or two past his tenth felt his stomach growl as well. Though while the others had feasted upon the bread that was there he had managed to catch himself a rat. Though he had never considered such a thing he'd actually been forced to hide it, for he was not the only one who was hungry enough to eat a rat amongst the slaves, not by half. Though he was the only one who would drain it of it's blood rather than eating the flesh of it.
Looking around, he could see that he was not the only boy here, in fact, there were actually several. He did not envy the other ones, however, as several of them were being fondled by the parade of people that was in front of them, before their mouths were opened. There was a darkness in the men's eyes who touched them, and they sensed it, their young bodies shivering as their mouths were pried open and their teeth checked, before the men would move onto the next one of them. None of the men went near him, however, and their eyes instead of having that dark glare when they looked at him looked more like the boy's eyes, frightened and scared of what might happen if they were left alone with him.
Slowly they were brought up to the platform, lined up 5 at a time before they were bid upon. 'D' as he had come to refer to himself did not know what was going on in the slightest. Quietly he watched as 5 a time packs of slaves were sold off at a time. Slowly then he was lead up upon the platform. The person was shouting out numbers, that much D did recognize. They were amounts of coin. He had watched it happen in the marketplaces as he'd passed through. People would shout numbers back and forth at each other over things, and then one would give shiny metal disks to the other in exchange for what they wanted. Usually the numbers referred to the numbers in the trade... D did not know what it was that the numbers meant here.
Finally he was lead up onto the platform along with 4 others. Numbers began to get shouted as he stared blankly into the crowd. Out of the crowd a pair of dusky blue eyes stared at him from beneath a hood. They did not blink the way that most peoples did. They were beautiful, though he could not see what they belonged to. They made him feel... vulnerable. No other eyes in the entire room were looking at him, only those blue eyes dared to stare at him. He could see the crowd pointing at the other slaves beside him, and some were lead off of the platform, but he stayed up. When the auctioneer stared to point towards him, the yelling in the room grew so silent that D could hear their hearts beating.
From the back of the room then, a soft feminine voice said a number and mentioned something about a "cursed one". D did not know what number was offered, but he recognized the look of distaste on the auctioneer's face. The actioneer attempted to haggle, but the same number was presented again. As it was presented again D could hear as the older man next to the owner of the blue eyes told her in a heated whisper to pick another slave, that there was no point in getting something that had been cursed by the gods themselves. The owner of the blue eyes' tone seemed to grow more agitated with the older man:
"You told me I could have whichever I picked. And I choose him. Are you retracting your word, Father?" came the accusing tone. There was silence then, and before anything else was said the actioneer begrudgingly accepted the offer, roughly throwing D towards the crowd, causing him to stumble a little. The people around him backed up violently as he stumbled close to them, and the cloaked figure came up to take the chain that held his shackles, tugging him roughly through the crowd, which parted as he passed, staring at him, and more importantly the person who had paid something for him.
D was lead out towards a large cart which had a covering over the back. As he got closer to it, he could see that it was a cell. Without much ceremony he was tossed into the back of it, and was exposed to a sea of legs that at first roughly pushed him back until realizing what it was that he was. At which point the other slaves inside of the cart did their best to press to the opposite side of the cell than him. D quietly sat down and tilted his head at them, trying to offer a smile, showing his gleaming fangs as he did so. The reaction made him stop smiling and quietly lower his head.
"I do not see why you had to buy the cursed one, Maris." Came a gruff voice from the front of the wagon as it started to move. D had learned to recognize tension in a voice, and the older man's voice had plenty of it. His pale blue eyes moved towards the front of the cell, where there was a small slot with bars on it. What was on the other side of those bars made him gasp. It was those dusky blue eyes that had been staring at him intently, now looking at him with something else, an intense look of pleasure as they stared at him.
"You said I could pick whichever slave I wanted for my own. Besides, I have black hair and blue eyes too, do you really think that I am marked by Hades?" her voice was commanding and yet soft, alluring. D found himself wanting to reach towards the bars when the eyes vanished but they soon returned, looking at him as if he were some gift waiting to be unwrapped. "He's looking at me. I think he's more intelligent than the other ones are." the soft voice said with a hint of excitement.
D tried to smile at her, displaying his teeth as well. The blue eyes blinked rapidly for a moment, but they did not look away the way that other people's eyes did. D felt a little warmer as he pulled his knees to his chest and let the long ride drone on.
When they got to the villa, D blinked as he stepped out. He'd never seen such an amazing landscape, it was literally breathtaking. As he looked out over the land he could see slaves being whipped as they tended the fields. Wide eyed, he wondered at the people who worked out there, wondering if they were going to whip him as well, or if he would be still allowed out at night in order to find the small creatures to drain of their blood.
He walked silently down the path until one of the masters picked him out of the line and forced him out of it. Not explaining, they dragged him to a cobble stone path where he had water tossed upon him and was stripped. his hands forced above him by chains he wiggled slightly as other slaves washed him, the sensation of their hands cleaning him strange in a way that would not have been unpleasant were it for the fact that he was unable to control it, and even when he cried out they scrubbed his skin until it felt raw.
When they were done he was dressed, again without his consent, in strange wrappings around his waist. The shirt that he had once had was left behind, leaving him bare from anything save the midsection, and a pair of sandals that they put upon his feet. The only other raiment they gave to him was a polished collar that looked as if it were silver, but it was not, as he testing tugged at it, it suggested that it was made of some form of steel and yet mad another metal on top of it to make it look prettier than it's true intention.
"Do you speak?" The slave master said gruffly, and then slapped D when he did not respond immediately. "DO YOU SPEAK?" He growled again.
"Yes." D replied, having taught himself learning based off of others. "Very little."
"Good, then you are not so stupid as to not understand my words. The mistress has taken a liking to you, and you are her pet. If you try to hurt her, you will die. If you disobey her, you will die. Your life before now has no meaning, you are hers, without question. Do you understand, rat?"
"Yes." D said quietly, though he was not certain that he really did.
With a grunt the master motioned to two surly looking slaves who unshackled him and then dragged him towards the large house. D gaped at it so much that he almost tripped on the steps as he was forced up them, and through the halls until he was tossed into a room. It smelled of sweet spices that tickled his nose. At the center of it stood a girl, neatly wrapped in a dress that was fitting for the time, but fit her lean frame amazingly. Black hair like midnight itself uncoiled around her shoulders as she stared at him with those deep blue eyes. D gasped a little as he remained on his knees in front of her.
She was the most beautiful thing that he'd ever seen.
"You look somewhat damaged, slave. I shall have to instruct them to be more gentle the next time they give you a bath." the girl said softly as she lowered herself in front of him to look him in the eye. She didn't look more than a few years older than he, but there was a confidence in her eyes that was ageless. D blinked up at her, as her lips pressed to his own.
The most beautiful woman in the world was kissing him. He could feel his eyes close as he leaned into it, feeling his heart racing like that of a wild beast being chased, the rest of him remaining dead still for fear that she would move back from it. It made his head spin, feeling as if the earth was moving itself, like electricity was flowing from her to him. When the dryads had kissed him, it was, pleasant... but this was... this was something else.
But then she was pulling from him, and he was pressing his hands to the ground to keep from falling forward, looking at her wide eyed.
"Hmm, that was more fun than I expected it to be." The girl commented idly as she touched her lips, smiling down at him as she stood. "You may have heard my father calling me Maris, but it is a stupid name, I think. Mari is much nicer, don't you think? I think that you and I are going to be good friends, little slave boy."
Desmond blinked a little as he snapped out of his reverie, looking at the bottle that he had opened. It was already most of the way empty, and as he stared at the glass in his hand he realized that he had forgotten how many times he had refilled it a little. Much like back then, his head was starting to swim, though this time it was for an entirely different reason. He realized, with a little bit of a chuckle, that he was indeed far past a little bit tipsy, and the realization of it made him smile softly.
For once though, it felt as if the past was not quite as painful as he remembered it being, and a girl named Beth who had burned at his heart for the time that he had come here now felt like a hazy dream that he couldn't quite recall. Laying his head down on his arm as he poured the remainder of the first bottle into his glass, he smiled a little. Drunk as he was, anyone could sneak up on him at this point, but it didn't feel like mattered. Maybe this was why people became drunkards in the first place...
raina_maris
Despite the flush that colored her face, when he spoke of reading minds, she simply shook her head. A wave of light pink hair fell over her shoulder as she looked back at Desmond, knowingly. "Trust me, if you could read my mind, I wouldn't be the one blushing." It was painfully true as well. Raina had been having such thoughts that it would make anyone who knew about them turn red with embarrassment. She, however, wasn't embarrassed of her thoughts. They were simply hers, which made them private and meant the world did not get to know them. Desmond could, of course, and it made her feel violently alive, and somewhat sinful. As if she'd walked into a church with a smirk on her lips that seemed friendly to a stranger's eyes but inside was the cause of the most decadent of sins.
She felt like the chaste virgin who was looking for that dark, beautiful man to sweep her into his arms, lay her down and possess every inch of her body until she prayed for release. Raina could tell this was something Desmond would be able to do and it was getting difficult to keep herself from asking him to take her back to his room. She wanted to know what it felt like to be beneath his body, her sweat slick skin rubbing against his. His hard body pressing needily against hers, taking her most prized offering. The white dress seemed to fit all to well into that imagery, as would the process of him peeling the fabric from her body.
Her breath quickened and she had to avert her emerald eyes to the ground so she wasn't staring at hungrily at his form. She wasn't an animal, she was a woman. She had to conduct herself better than this.
"I would," she finally whispered. "I don't understand it but if we were alone.. if you put your hands on me, I would give myself to you." She could feel his body reacting, and hers was as well, only there weren't such obvious signs when it came to a woman. She didn't move from him but the feel of him pressed so tightly against her did make it difficult to manage full sentences. "It would happen just like I dreamed." Her fingers moved down from his face, slowly lingering lines along his neck and to the dark shirt that stretched along his lean body. "Like a scene out of a romance novel. It would be night time, the moon hanging low in the darkened sky. I'd be standing in a window, looking out at the way the wind gracefully danced through the tree tops. You would walk up behind me," To illustrate, Raina only moved a little so she were facing forward and her back pressed against his chest. Then she took the hand he had curled on the bench and put it against her side, just above her ribs. "and wrap your arms around me. Like this."


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Hamilton wins British GP, Ricciardo third
Sport Motorsport Hamilton wins British GP, Ricciardo third
1:05am, Jul 7, 2014
Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton has boosted his title hopes with victory in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
The 29-year-old Briton finished ahead of Finland's Valtteri Bottas (Williams) and Australian Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) on Sunday.
Hamilton now stands just four points short of team-mate Nico Rosberg, who heads the drivers' championship after nine legs but had to pull up after 30 laps because of a gearbox problem.
HRT to complete one-two