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The church calls me to my best self, the Eden self, the person God created me to be. In church I shed my old skin, shuffle off the hurtful and ugly like cicada husks hiding with the dust bunnies under the pews. I wriggle off that judgment that doesn’t fit anymore, or that idea of God that ended up being way too small, and I’m given something else. A second chance. Some grace which I may or may not find amazing at the time. It’s like I take off the burlap sack and get to put on a cashmere robe. And then someone hands me a cookie and a cup of fair trade coffee. Church, and worship in particular, shapes me. It forms the pattern of my days: quiet reflection, expressions of gratitude, responding to challenges and teachings, spontaneous song. People in need and people in joy. I haven’t been at church for a month but I have been with church and in church. More cards than I can count. More prayers than I know of. Books and magazines. Food, food, and more food. People who take me out for a walk. People who tell me not to worry about it. People who say they miss me. I miss them, and I miss worship, which for me is the core of church. On a usual Sunday when it’s time I zip up my robe and adjust my stole and get the microphone clipped on. We pastors say a prayer together, and I pick up my papers and we head down the stairs and make our way through the sanctuary to the back. And then the acolytes’ wicks are lit, and we start down the aisle. We sit down and while the prelude finishes, I look out at the congregation, at the church. There they are, the saints and sinners, my sisters and brothers and friends. There they are, the sick, the grieving, the joyous, the angry, the wondering, the frazzled, the bored. There they are, the sinews and ligaments and bones and muscles and cells of the body of Christ. There they are, the church, surrounded by stained glass and pews and unbelievable music all of which adorn the church but aren’t church. The people are church. In the next hour we sing and pray and listen and speak. Hopefully we laugh. Often at least one person cries. And when we leave after the benediction and postlude, and make our way home after a cup of tea or a meeting or lunch with the usual crowd, we take church to the streets, to our homes and work places and schools and the neighborhood. We present the pattern to the world: reflection, gratitude, response, song; hope. Church doesn’t need a building, though that makes it convenient. Church needs people who are willing to say something about God and something about living as human beings and then figuring out the rest together. We the church don’t always get it right but when we do, it’s pretty incredible. Life-giving and life-saving. Amen and amen.

Mike and I switch off on what we call, around here, “the early shift.” That is to say that we take turns getting up — usually at the blindingly early hour of six AM — with our daughter Myra-Jean. One day it’s me; the next day it’s Mike. Then me, then Mike, and so on. It’s a pretty good system. No one dies of fatigue, at least. Of course we’d both choose sleeping in every day, if we could, but someone’s got to get up with our bright-eyed, bushy-tailed offspring. And the early shift has its own rewards, once you get past the fatigue. (Which you do, with time, activity, and enough caffeine to rouse a small mid-western city.) It has a sameness which is comforting: we read books, we make breakfast, we play games. But there’s variety, too. You never know exactly what you’re going to get. MJ herself isn’t the only element that changes. Books fall in and out of favor. So do breakfasts. And so, of course, do the games. Lately there’s been a lot of “seashore” played around here. This involves bringing several animals, some cloth napkins, and an umbrella into the utility room. Everything gets spread out on the floor, whereupon we sit down and stare contentedly at “the waves,” (located somewhere in the vicinity of the ironing board). MJ does some “swimming;” I stick my toe in, but I’m not big on the ocean. I don’t know what precipitated the popularity of this game — possibly a “Ladybug Girl” book involving the beach — but I do know that it will come and go like so many others. I will miss it when it’s gone. So I enjoy it now. Even when the floor is hard, the “beach” depressingly cluttered, and the “water” unseasonably cold. The other activity of choice recently has been playing with legos. Oh, these’ve been a popular play element in our household for ages, but they haven’t, until the last few weeks, been an integral part of our morning ritual. I think the addition of a birdfeeder to the tree outside has given MJ extra incentive to gravitate to the living room. Since that’s where the legos are, that’s what gets pulled out. So we’ve been doing a lot of legos. Which means we’ve been building a lot of cities. This morning we built “Eagle Rock City.” Which is to say Myra-Jean built (and named) it. I mostly drank tea, uttered encouraging phrases, (“good wall!”), and glared at a squirrel on our feeder. Once Myra-Jean had gotten a good part of her city constructed she moved some animals in. Also her “red belly,” (a blanket), which has never had its own domicile before. Doesn’t it look happy to be off the streets? Rumor has it it’s moved in with Easter Bunny, but one can’t be sure. Whatever the situation, cow looks as if she’d know the truth. When the legos were used up MJ still wanted to build, so we decided to pull out the plain wooden blocks. With these she grew more careless, strewing them about with little thought or care. The result was what can only be described as urban sprawl. For shame! I tried to talk to her about overdevelopment, slumlords, the perils of squatters. She wasn’t moved. To the contrary, she insisted on continuing to build. More! Uglier! Faster! Great. She’s my own little Westfield, in elelphant pajamas. Then again, she did, at least, offer to build a library — I think as a conciliatory gesture. Unfortunately the structure was never finished. Why am I not surprised? Moments after, MJ decided she wanted a “new city.” She destroyed the old one completely — a toddler Christian sacking a toy Constantinople. Animals were unhoused, blankets thrown asunder, books destroyed. Keening and wailing — imaginary, of course — resounded throughout the land. Or at least our living room. As for MJ? She went into the kitchen to eat a crusher, got distracted, and never returned. This, I guess, is what happens when you raise a child in Los Angeles. Or when you read too many histories of the Crusades. Or both. Perhaps I need to buy Myra-Jean some Lincoln Logs and try to get her back to her roots. And maybe I should read something more contemporary. A biography of Frank Gehry, perhaps?

Real Estate Drones The definition of drone is: make a continuous low humming sound. Also known as UAV: unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAS, unmanned aerial systems, or RPAS: remotely piloted aerial systems. Drones are also called flying robots. Real estate drones are used for a specific purpose. The popularity of real estate drones has grown exponentially over the last 5-6 years. Drones are often used recreationally, and they also have commercial uses. Drones are also utilized in military applications. Drones are used in situations where it is too risky, difficult, or cost prohibitive to use flights utilizing pilots. Drones either have a preprogrammed flight path, or are controlled from the ground by pilots. They return critical information to people quickly, which can make an enormous difference in situations that require fast responses. Drones can be as large as a commercial passenger jet, or as small as a football. Drones cannot be operated by a civilian beyond the line of sight, and above 400 feet for any commercial reason unless permission has been granted by the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration. In order to become a commercial drone operator, you need to file a petition to section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. It takes approximately 120 days for this process to complete. Once you get an exemption number from section 333, you have to register the drone with the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, and obtain a Civil Certificate of Waiver or Authorization for each blanket airspace you intend to operate in. Once you receive this certification, you can apply for full airspace. The last step is to obtain your FAA Airman certificate for recreational, private, or sport pilot. In order to operate a sUAS, an individual must obtain a remote pilot certificate with a sUAS rating from the FAA. On June 21, 2016, the ‘Small Unmanned Aircraft Rule’ was issued by the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, and went into effect on August 29, 2016. This ruling permits the operation of sUAS for commercial purposes, as long as the operator has complied with the other requirements. The complete text of this rule can be found on the FAA website. In order to receive a remote pilot certificate with a sUAS rating you will need to meet eligibility requirements as follows: - Be 16 years old or older - Be able to read, write, and understand the English language - Be in mental and physical condition that allows for safe operation of the sUAS - Pass an initial aeronautical knowledge test An initial remote pilot certificate with sUAS rating will cost approximately $150 US Dollars. A remote pilot certificate holder is required to pass a test every 24 months. The three goals that the FAA has as paramount for drone regulation is privacy, safety, and national security. Liability is also an issue that must be addressed. The noise that some drones can make is also a cause for concern, and could also potentially be regulated. Drones can fly in difficult, unsafe environments, and for long periods of time. Drones have many uses, such as military, insurance, weather related monitoring, telecommunications, security, police work, fire fighting, and many other applications. The FAA started accepting applications for commercial drone operations in May, 2014. Of the first 1000 applicants, over one third were for purposes of real estate. The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, is a trade group that monitors the drone industry. One specific commercial area that drones are very popular is in the field of real estate. The photographic capabilities of drones are a perfect fit for the picture dependent real estate industry. Drone photography has seen a steady growth in real estate, and this trend is likely to continue. The use of drones in real estate marketing saw a significant increase in 2016. According to industry stats, homes/properties with aerial images in their listings sold 68% faster than homes with just standard images. Many real estate professionals jumped on this trend, using photos and videos taken with drones to catch buyers’ attention, and gain a competitive edge. Conventional photography of buildings, and structures is often very difficult, unsafe and/or inadequate due to their location, height, size, or condition. Drone technology will enable the real estate photographer to take photos quickly, safely, and at low cost, that would otherwise be dangerous, expensive, or too difficult to capture. Drone photography/videos can illuminate many aspects of a property for sale, such as: property surveys and maps, what the walk to school for the kids will be, the homes location as it relates to shopping, hotels, highways, parks, public transportation, and other amenities. Not to mention, the surrounding neighborhood, construction in the area, and aerial pictures and views of the property itself. But drones aren’t just great for enhancing real estate listings. Drones are also highly valuable to real estate appraisers. Appraisals of property, especially those properties where topography, forestation, and power lines are a consideration, allow for more professional, and thorough reports to lenders, which provide assurances that the property they are lending on, is as described. Home inspectors will also benefit from the use of drones in the process of their home inspections. Drones provide a level of safety for inspecting areas that would otherwise pose physical risk such as roofs, chimneys, gutters, siding, antennas, satellites, electrical, plumbing, and anything else that may be high up, or in an unstable area. They can then provide their customers with high-quality photos of any damage that might have been missed during a traditional inspection. Inspectors can even stream video on a tablet or smartphone to show customers the condition of their roof and other hard-to-reach areas of their home. Drones can also reach more remote areas that may be difficult to get to even with a 4 wheel drive vehicle, or an all terrain vehicle. They are also much more cost effective than leasing a plane or helicopter, as well as much more versatile. Some tough terrain makes it near impossible to find utility lines, pipelines, and make one aware of possible dangers like wildlife, rock or mud slides, or potential avalanche in the high country. Drones can also be programmed to monitor small to large properties against trespassers, hunters, squatters, etc. without having to leave the comfort of home or an office. Real estate drones can be equipped with cameras, computers, audio, and video. For real estate agents, drones can provide a view or tour of their listings that a conventional camera or video can’t. Drones are particularly effective for properties by a lake or a beach, and also for properties that sit on a large lot or acreage. Drones can also provide a special client experience on the inside of homes. Some of the negatives or drawbacks with real estate drones are: - Cost: although costs are decreasing as drones popularity increases, the price of a good quality drone can be prohibitive for some people. There may also be costs incurred to store your drone, and for occasional repairs, and maintenance. - Training, and licensing: to obtain necessary training, and licensing, can be time consuming, inconvenient, and has added costs. - Liability: to operate a commercial drone, there are potential risks, and insurance coverage will be needed to protect against accidents, and potential lawsuits. Real estate drones provide an opportunity for agents and investors to provide a higher value of service to their clients, and offer a more enjoyable shopping experience. Commercial drones can range in price from around $100 USD for a small training type drone, to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on many factors, like size, what it’s made of, and on board technology. Real estate drones are really multi purpose drones. So, whatever reason you want or need a drone for, or even if you want a toy drone for your kids, there are now many different drones on the market for you to choose.

I have been busy painting away at the Death Guard, and revisiting the Old World in Total War Warhammer 1 and 2. But I am glad to have finished one unit. Here it is. I am very pleased with how they turned out. Not so much with the yellow plasma OSL, but they are painted and I will not touch them again till it is all done. I have bought everything for my Death Guard, except Mortarion. So when I get him, I will have 2000pts straight up. Though for once, I am only planning on getting 2000pts, and no more for the Death Guard. Next up is a Plague Surgeon, which should be an easy elite to paint, and I do want to tackle my Blight Lord Terminators, as I am happy with the slight conversions I have done on them. Still haven't had my second game with the DG, but hoping that once work dies down, it will happen. I also have on the way, the new Necromunda. I am super pumped for it, so I will add my progress on that when it arrives. As always, thanks for looking.

Found this on the Friendly Atheist blog, it’s up on the new student blog branch of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I think our forefathers knew what they were doing when they came up with that one. Its getting about time to de-religion our government, and bring a clear separation back. The other day I was driving past a McDonald’s on the way to get dinner with Michele, my niece Sarah and her husband Dan, and I wondered how many chicken McNuggets you could haul out of there if you had them fill a 5 Gallon bucket. Well, after dropping them off at home later that night, Sarah texts me this: “1134 chicken McNuggets in 5 Gallons.” I hope she didn’t take a bucket in there to figure that out. So that’s 113 10 piece orders and 1 4 pc. Having not been to a McDonald’s as far back as my memory works, I have no idea what that would cost. A quick check online tells me its $3.39 for the 10 pc order, and $1 for 4 pc. So we’re talking around $384.07. For FIVE GALLONS OF FRIED CHICKEN BITS. I have to stop, thinking of this further will make me ill. You think they would be able to fill that order with the nuggets they have on hand? Scary thing is, I am sure it would be no problem. Quite a while ago, two architectural office back in my past, I worked on drawings for a house up in Brentwood. While working on the project, I found out that they could only build the new house once they had settled on what to do with the old house. Seems there was an old Neutra house sitting there on the site, and the owners wanted to build a new, much larger one in its place. While they were working on getting their new house designed, the Neutra house got listed on the Historical Register, making it impossible to demolish. This sort of threw a monkey wrench into their plans. There was a solution however, it could be moved! Only, doing so is not so simple. And so it sat. Well, I only worked on the project briefly, and as it got held up in all kinds of local, county, and historic preservation shenanigans, I moved on to work on other things. Eventually, I left that office and went on to work in a couple of other offices. Totally forgot about that little Neutra. Now today, upon browsing the LA Times website, I see that the Maxwell House (as the old Neutra house was originally called) is on the move! Seems the owners found a buyer for the house, and eventually (its been about six years) got everything worked out in order to relocate it. LA Times has a great article with a photo essay showing part of the move, and the house in its original condition. Not a classic example of Neutra, but a sweet little place anyway. I wish I had been on top of it, as I would have loved to go document the move.. but alas, I am not really in touch with those folks anymore. Moral of the story. Don’t try to tear down a Neutra. It’ll cost you six years off your life. Now if only the folks in Gettysburg would get the message. While changing my user name I found three Jeremy Quinns on flickr.. these are a selection of photos from them. Click on them to be taken to their photostream. One didn’t have any public photos so I used two from one of the other guys. Hello to all y’all Jeremy Quinns out there! You can now find me on flickr as JeremyJQuinn So there’s interventionist art, and there’s interventionist sociology. Both require some guts. (Just for the record, the chimney joke quoted in the article cracked me up.) I just got these samples back today from the fabricator, they are a portion of a privacy screen panel that I designed at PMA. The dot pattern is based on the overlapping, rotated halftone grids of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black dots used in offset printing. The pattern is likely going to be integrated into a reception desk, but in aluminum rather than the white plastic we did the test in. Looking at it now, it reminds me of a synthesis of lace and bullet holes. I just posted the Circles Necklace I made last year for Michele to wear at our wedding. There are two versions of it, this is the solid one and she ended up wearing the other one which I still need to photograph. It’s laser cut from sheet silver. I really like these improvised ink well/pen holders by Kelly Marklove shown at Dezeen. They look like they are just begging to be used and made all inky. Seen at Overheard in the Office today (yes, I read it daily.) “Office lady on phone to son: I don’t know, I think we have it on tape… on tape. Video tape. No, not DVD, video tape. It’s black and rectangular, and you put it in the VCR to watch movies. The VCR?… It’s… look, just wait till I get home, okay?” Word to obsolete media!

Courtney Howard is a LAFCA, OFCS and AWFJ member, as well as a Rotten Tomatometer-approved film critic. Her work has been published on Variety, She Knows and Awards Circuit. Courtney Howard // Film Critic The compelling new documentary DYING LAUGHING takes a look at the brave souls who put themselves in the harsh stage spotlight night after night in the attempt to make us chuckle. The life of a stand-up comic is one that’s filled with hecklers, heartbreak, but also hope for society’s betterment as the key to success can be found in laughter. Directors Lloyd Stanton and Paul Toogood have examined the craft of rocking a rhyme in THE ART OF RAP, and they utilize a similar technique to get to the heart of what makes stand-up comedians tick. I spoke with the affable directors by phone recently about everything from showing different aspects of the fine art of stand-up comedy, to the insights they learned about the craft, to continuing on the conversation as a television series. There are a lot of movies about the art of standup and the people who do it. What made you think you could explore this in a different way? Paul Toogood: One of the things that became clear from all the interviews we had done was to not look at other’s documentaries before making a film because it’s easy to copy things or be influenced by things. We made a lot of programming about the creative process – primarily through music about the world’s famous songwriters and our epic film about the art of rap. We were looking for a subject whereby there were parallels in terms of a strong sense of there are certain art forms that are not afforded the praise they deserve. We felt that rap music was one of them and stand-up comedy is another. Typically the great practitioners make it look so easy that the actual act of standing up in front of an audience and speaking is terrifying to most of us mere mortals. To have a compelling narrative and credible material which you’re constantly having to refresh seems to be the most noble and incredible thing. We felt they deserved a closer look. So that was our motivation. Certainly right from the get-go, through our interviews, from people like Jerry Seinfeld, that this is something that looks easy, but even people like Jerry Seinfeld find it impossibly difficult the first time they try to do it. In many respects it’s an incredibly inspirational story which speaks to lots of things people try in their lives – things that are initially difficult that you never thing you’ll be able to do it and you keep learning and finally you get there. Lloyd Stanton: Even though we were massive fans of comedians, [we realized] how important what they do is. How they can talk about things that really get under the skin of all our lives. That’s something because it’s masked in laughter, there’s some great truth in there. They are some of the last philosophers. There’s that line about how this is poetry – I had never thought of this as that before, but it’s completely true. Paul Toogood: One of the great things that happens when you’re doing something as insane as what we tried to bite off – which is essentially conduct a census from a moment in time. It’s a huge amount of people – 150 practitioners. What emerges is a series of patterns and themes and people hit similar marks. Very often these people have never met each other. That’s how we were able to hit this narrative style where it was in conversation somebody says something and their point is backed up and progressed by the next person. After awhile, we got the sense that people talk about their truths. Generally speaking, it’s only when you really start talking the truth on stage, it’s when you start getting somewhere. It takes about ten years to get to this point. That’s an extraordinary amount of time to devote to something before you really get anywhere. That’s why we see a level of devotion in stand-up comedy fans. They really feel this guy understands something really big and important, which even scratched at the meaning of life – dare I say it. As you mentioned, you reached out to many comics. I assume one person started the ball rolling. Or was this a group effort to get your interviewees? Paul Toogood:We started off talking to our dear old friend John Thomson in the UK, who has a background in stand-up, but is really more famous as an actor. He kept talking to us how some of the funniest stories he’s ever heard were from doing stand-up nights and people discussing the worst things that have ever happened to them. We looked at the idea of doing a piece about bombing, but we felt that was a bit linear and singular. It wouldn’t really do the story justice, although those parts are very funny and compelling. The way we work having made lots of films about brilliant creatives, we put together a show reel and say, “These are the kind of things we do.” The artist sees these things – that they always come out looking good – that this is in praise of the art and in praise of the individual. We would then get together a number of our friends who were stand-up comedians who would come on board and help us bring four or five key cast. After awhile, there’s a tipping point and also some people who ignored you the first time round get back to you because so-and-so is doing in. Once you get an Amy Schumer or a Jerry Seinfeld, everyone who ignored you figures it’s a good idea to be in the film. So you just keep going. The lovely thing about it is somebody who is completely unknown could pounce in the same way a big A-list star. There are a number of people who really stand out, who perhaps aren’t known to a big audience. Tiffany Haddish, who’s about to be a big star as an actress, is honest and truthful and compelling in what she tells us that you can’t help leaving the theater and thinking about her. Royale Watkins is stunningly open and honest in our interview, which brings me a level of interest to him. One guy ran up to us and said, ‘I can’t believe I’m next to Jerry Lewis in your movie!’ That’s a wonderful surprise. When did you know you had enough people to carry this? It seems like this could go on and on. Lloyd Stanton: We were shooting the very last interview on the last day we locked the edit. There was people and information coming in all throughout the process. We filmed for 18 months and edited for several months. During that, we were still picking up people we wanted to get. We could’ve gone on indefinitely until there was a lock on. Now we have this opportunity to make a ten-part television series so the process will go on again. Paul Toogood: We haven’t stopped, basically. Lloyd Stanton: We were left with this incredible archives – 120 plus interviews that are a minimum of an hour. You haven’t used everything you’ve shot. It’s a strange thing. So we’re now in production on the spin-off television series which will allow us to open up some of these themes – particularly the life lessons that comedians can teach us. We will be including new stand-up comedy pieces in the series. Is the TV series airing in the UK only? Or will I be able to see it in the States? Lloyd Stanton: No. It’s quite US-centric really. But it will be for international distribution. It’ll probably turn up on a premium POD platform. It’s an independent production like all of ours. Paul Toogood: We consciously chose, while we were working on the film, to not have stand-up performances in it so you’d really concentrate on who the people were and what they were about and the work that went into it. With the series, we now get to pervert that so you get to see those comedians now through the writing process, writing something, going on to stage – whether it’s still a work in development or new material. It’s a slightly different, next stage to the film. Lloyd Stanton: It’ll be like a day in the life of that person – examining how they choose their material, how they develop, how they write it, and how they try it out. We might see them successfully using that material in front of a large audience. DYING LAUGHING is in theaters and available via VOD/ iTunes on February 24. For a list of theaters, go here.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of 2002 By: Glenn BurnSilver Out with one year and in with the next. The music, of course carries across time. 2002 can be broken down into three simple categories: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly releases of the past year. (And yes, there was even an excellent Ennio Morricone remix album, Morricone RMX, that included numerous mixes of Clint Eastwood movie soundtracks.) So, let's get the bad and ugly out of the way first this time so we can close 2002 with pleasant musical memories. The Bad: Surprisingly, Eric Clapton's One More Car, One More Rider (Reprise) is little more than an uninspired live album from his last tour. There are a few great solos from this former guitar God, but otherwise nothing to write home about. Chris Isaak suffers the fate of repetition on Always Got Tonight (Reprise). The title track incorporates a heavy modern funk layer and rock power cords over that ever-present twang -- the albums highlight. Otherwise, Isaak's formula is too tried and true, but unlike his first albums when his "sound" felt fresh and new and he was willing to experiment more, this one comes across a little stale around the edges. The debut self-titled album by the Sahara Hotnights (Jetset) represents little more than an attempt to cash in on the current "rough and raw-sound" re-popularized by The Strokes. This four-piece girl band attempts to be The Runaways for the new millennium, but even with black leather jackets and tough attitudes, can't pack the punch. Want the real thing? Try The Donnas. The Ugly: The seriously awful releases last year, owed more to overblown image and wasteful media attention (in such trashy fashion magazines as Rolling Stone) as more of a successful guiding force than actually musical quality. Of course, the is no need to belabor the sad contributions from J. Lo, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera. 'Nuff said! The Good: There was certainly plenty in 2002, but the best of the lot included: Solomon Burke's Don't Give Up On Me (Fat Possum). Burke, a top rock 'n' soul performer in the 60s, makes a glorious comeback with an album that exudes a fiery brand of gospel-tinged soul shot straight from the, well, soul. The songs, originally done by others (including Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Brian Wilson) receive glorious makeovers as Burke's baritone breathes new zest into each number. Gospel singers the Blind Boys of Alabama guest on the uplifting spiritual "None Of Us Are Free," adding even more gospel zeal along with stunning vocal harmonies that are nothing short of inspirational and revelatory. Don't Give Up On Me is a showcase of what soul music really is, raw, powerful and feverish in sweat, heart and desire. With every album The Flaming Lips have progressively reached for new heights and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Warner Brothers) is this year's masterpiece. If it wasn't the Lips, an album like Yoshimi -- the central character who must battle evil robots set on world domination - coming from some other band would have been a tossed aside like a stray lounge/easy listening album trying to hard to masquerade as a trippy rock album, which in some ways it is. And that is where the difference is most relevant. Only for the Lips can this succeed, backed by years of following an internal and slightly skewed musical vision that has once again created a masterpiece of sound and heartfelt emotion amongst a backdrop of unlimited musical imagination. A positive note for musical crossover experimentation, the Tin Hat Trio reach the furthest with a blend of avant country swing jazz with old world, Eastern European leanings and new world Americana romps on The Rodeo Eroded (Ropadope). At times the music conjures up images back porch southern hill country tales of woe and lament - slow and melancholy - but packing an emotional wallop that only a mournful viola can bring out. Imagine, if you will, songs that seem to float in outer space like some twisted twangy-jazz version of the Twilight Zone and it won't be surprising this album is unparallel and mysterious in a way that is too compelling to ignore. An uncompromising mixture of styles and overall creative experimentation propels Cornershop's Handcream For A Generation (Beggars Group) with all the moves and grooves, shakes and pops, toasts and hymns of a modern disco, rock, techno, soul, jazz, reggae, dub, power-pop, hip-hop and Indian raga-inspired masterpiece. Whoa! It is all there in a manner of controlled mayhem that works to perfection under Singh's guidance. "Lesson's Learned from Rock I to Rocky III" may just be one of the best songs of 2002. Handcream bounces around in the head until you just have to play it again--and again. Unlike Wilco's previous efforts, the country twang and pedal-steel wail is much more subdued and in many cases barley discernable altogether. Instead, Yankee Foxtrot Hotel (Nonesuch) finds front man Jeff Tweedy pushing the musical envelope once again, albeit in a new direction beyond the somehow defined alt-country limitations. Where does it say the songs have to be whiney and mellow to the point of sleepiness? Guitars feedback and distort, Rolling Stone "ooo ooh's" reverberate in the mix, sampled sounds come and go, horns and piano appear in the most unexpected places with an occasional psychedelic excursion thrown in. YFH feels more like a vintage rock album that has been updated and reworked into something fresh and accessible for a modern generation of listeners searching for something extraordinarily different. One of the best jazz releases in 2002, Vietnam: the aftermath (Justin Time) finds violinist and composer Billy Bang reaching into his heart to musically extract the nightmares and demons he has carried inside since his days as a soldier in Vietnam. Bang takes lush Southeast Asian harmonies and carefully sets them against jazz formats that run the gamut from traditional to abstract to classical, dabbling as well with rock and blues textures. The music conjures up sad images, tension filled moments, disturbing experiences and the horrors of combat on a tortured walk through a mysterious jungle landscape; one that is full of dangerous surprises.

Back in February (yes it has been a while since my last entry) I attended the Durango Songwriter's Expo in Ventura California. I can honestly say that it was the best music conference experience that I have had to date. Strangely enough, it had nothing to do with the location, the speakers or the classes. Don't get me wrong, Jim Attebery did a great job as usual putting together an engaging event in a fabulous location (it was Ventura California after all, and the ballroom view overlooking the Pacific Ocean is pretty spectacular) but the reason the event stood out for me was simply put...the people. That might seem obvious to some, but my bet is more than a fair share of folks attend these events because they hope that some publisher or record producer is going to hear their amazing potential and swoop them up into the wild world of the dream fulfilling music business. Some are probably pretty oblivious to the other writers around them except for maybe a reality check for better or for worse. Heaven knows that I have had that mindset in the past and I see it now in many of the younger, less experienced, writers. Let's face it, that is a pretty inward focused mindset... "what's in it for me?." A lot of folks live their whole lives with this mindset. When we live like this the best we can hope to wind up with in the end is a bunch of what we have spent our time focused on, ourselves. That's not a very rewarding or fulfilling prize for all our efforts. I have been writing songs for a long time (let's not think too much about that :-)) It has only been for the past two years, however, that I have really focused on networking with other writers and maybe it was as recent as February when I finally realized the real benefit of networking does not lie in my success as a writer, but in what I get from networking. What I get is PEOPLE. I have made it to the place where I can walk into a room at these events and usually know several of the faces and often the stories behind the faces as well. The immediate and maybe ultimate reward for throwing yourself wholeheartedly into the crazy mix of creatives that inhabit this songwriting universe is getting to know some amazing people. Rubbing shoulders and sharing your life and a common passion with a bunch of wonderful folks who don't all look, dress or think like you makes you a better writer and a better human being. Remembering this can change the question from, "What's in it for me?" to, "What can I bring to them?" That's a life altering question that changes our focus from inward to outward. For me, it was this change in mindset that made the event in February so much fun. As I spend the next few days here in Nashville, I am looking for opportunities to have some time with friends old and new and I am remembering just how fortunate I am to have each of them in my life.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (born June 28, 1712, Geneva, Switzerland—died July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France), Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and political theorist whose treatises and novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution and the Romantic generation. Rousseau was the least academic of modern philosophers and in many ways was the most influential. His thought marked the end of the Age of Reason. He propelled political and ethical thinking into new channels. His reforms revolutionized taste, first in music, then in the other arts. He had a profound impact on people’s way of life; he taught parents to take a new interest in their children and to educate them differently; he furthered the expression of emotion rather than polite restraint in friendship and love. He introduced the cult of religious sentiment among people who had discarded religious dogma. He opened people’s eyes to the beauties of nature, and he made liberty an object of almost universal aspiration. Rousseau’s mother died in childbirth, and he was brought up by his father, who taught him to believe that the city of his birth was a republic as splendid as Sparta or ancient Rome. Rousseau senior had an equally glorious image of his own importance; after marrying above his modest station as a watchmaker, he got into trouble with the civil authorities by brandishing the sword that his upper-class pretentions prompted him to wear, and he had to leave Geneva to avoid imprisonment. Rousseau, the son, then lived for six years as a poor relation in his mother’s family, patronized and humiliated, until he, too, at the age of 16, fled from Geneva to live the life of an adventurer and a Roman Catholic convert in the kingdoms of Sardinia and France. Rousseau was fortunate in finding in the province of Savoy a benefactor, the baroness de Warens, who provided him with a refuge in her home and employed him as her steward. She also furthered his education to such a degree that the boy who had arrived on her doorstep as a stammering apprentice who had never been to school developed into a philosopher, a man of letters, and a musician. Mme de Warens, who thus transformed the adventurer into a philosopher, was herself an adventuress—a Swiss convert to Catholicism who had stripped her husband of his money before fleeing to Savoy with the gardener’s son to set herself up as a Catholic missionary specializing in the conversion of young male Protestants. Her morals distressed Rousseau, even when he became her lover. But she was a woman of taste, intelligence, and energy, who brought out in Rousseau just the talents that were needed to conquer Paris at a time when Voltaire had made radical ideas fashionable. Rousseau reached Paris when he was 30 and was lucky enough to meet another young man from the provinces seeking literary fame in the capital, Denis Diderot. The two soon became immensely successful as the centre of a group of intellectuals—or philosophes—who gathered round the great French Encyclopédie, of which Diderot was appointed editor. The Encyclopédie was an important organ of radical and anticlerical opinion, and its contributors were as much reforming and even iconoclastic pamphleteers as they were philosophers. Rousseau, the most original of them all in his thinking and the most forceful and eloquent in his style of writing, was soon also the most conspicuous. He wrote music as well as prose, and one of his operas, Le Devin du village (1752; “The Village Soothsayer”), attracted so much admiration from the king (Louis XV) and the court that he might have enjoyed an easy life as a fashionable composer, but something in his Calvinist blood rejected that type of worldly glory. Indeed, at the age of 37 Rousseau had what he called an “illumination” while walking to Vincennes to visit Diderot, who had been imprisoned there because of his irreligious writings. In the Confessions (1782–89), which he wrote late in life, Rousseau says that it came to him then in a “terrible flash” that modern progress had corrupted people instead of improving them. He went on to write his first important work, a prize essay for the Academy of Dijon entitled Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750; A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts), in which he argues that the history of human life on earth has been a history of decay. That work is by no means Rousseau’s best piece of writing, but its central theme was to inform almost everything else he wrote. Throughout his life he kept returning to the thought that people are good by nature but have been corrupted by society and civilization. He did not mean to suggest that society and civilization are inherently bad but rather that both had taken a wrong direction and become more harmful as they became more sophisticated. That idea in itself was not unfamiliar in Rousseau’s time. Many Roman Catholic writers, for example, deplored the direction that European culture had taken since the Middle Ages. They shared the hostility toward progress that Rousseau had expressed. What they did not share was his belief that people are naturally good. It was, however, just that belief that Rousseau made the cornerstone of his argument. Rousseau may well have received the inspiration for that belief from Mme de Warens; for although she had become a communicant of the Roman Catholic Church, she retained—and transmitted to Rousseau—much of the sentimental optimism about human purity that she had herself absorbed as a child from the mystical Protestant Pietists who were her teachers in the canton of Bern. At all events, the idea of human goodness, as Rousseau developed it, set him apart from both conservatives and radicals. Even so, for several years after the publication of his first Discourse, he remained a close collaborator in Diderot’s essentially progressive enterprise, the Encyclopédie, and an active contributor to its pages. His speciality there was music, and it was in this sphere that he first established his influence as a reformer. Controversy With Rameau The arrival of an Italian opera company in Paris in 1752 to perform works of opera buffa (comic opera) by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Leonardo Vinci, and other such composers suddenly divided the French music-loving public into two excited camps, supporters of the new Italian opera and supporters of the traditional French opera. The philosophes of the Encyclopédie—Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Diderot, and Paul-Henri Dietrich, baron d’Holbach among them—entered the fray as champions of Italian music, but Rousseau, who had arranged for the publication of Pergolesi’s music in Paris and who knew more about the subject than most Frenchmen after the months he had spent visiting the opera houses of Venice during his time as secretary to the French ambassador to the doge in 1743–44, emerged as the most-forceful and effective combatant. He was the only one to direct his fire squarely at the leading living exponent of French operatic music, Jean-Philippe Rameau. Rousseau and Rameau must at that time have seemed unevenly matched in a controversy about music. Rameau, already in his 70th year, was not only a prolific and successful composer but was also, as the author of the celebrated Traité de l’harmonie (1722; Treatise on Harmony) and other technical works, Europe’s leading musicologist. Rousseau, by contrast, was 30 years younger, a newcomer to music, with no professional training and only one successful opera to his credit. His scheme for a new notation for music had been rejected by the Academy of Sciences, and most of his musical entries for Diderot’s Encyclopédie were as yet unpublished. Yet the dispute was not only musical but also philosophical, and Rameau was confronted with a more-formidable adversary than he had realized. Rousseau built his case for the superiority of Italian music over French on the principle that melody must have priority over harmony, whereas Rameau based his on the assertion that harmony must have priority over melody. By pleading for melody, Rousseau introduced what later came to be recognized as a characteristic idea of Romanticism, namely, that in art the free expression of the creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures. By pleading for harmony, Rameau reaffirmed the first principle of French Classicism, namely, that conformity to rationally intelligible rules is a necessary condition of art, the aim of which is to impose order on the chaos of human experience. In music, Rousseau was a liberator. He argued for freedom in music, and he pointed to the Italian composers as models to be followed. In doing so he had more success than Rameau; he changed people’s attitudes. Christoph Willibald Gluck, who succeeded Rameau as the most-important operatic composer in France, acknowledged his debt to Rousseau’s teaching, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart based the text for his one-act operetta Bastien und Bastienne (Bastien and Bastienne) on Rousseau’s Le Devin du village. European music had taken a new direction. But Rousseau himself composed no more operas. Despite the success of Le Devin du village, or rather because of its success, Rousseau felt that, as a moralist who had decided to make a break with worldly values, he could not allow himself to go on working for the theatre. He decided to devote his energies henceforth to literature and philosophy. Major Works Of Political Philosophy As part of what Rousseau called his “reform,” or improvement of his own character, he began to look back at some of the austere principles that he had learned as a child in the Calvinist republic of Geneva. Indeed, he decided to return to that city, repudiate his Catholicism, and seek readmission to the Protestant church. He had in the meantime acquired a mistress, an illiterate laundry maid named Thérèse Levasseur. To the surprise of his friends, he took her with him to Geneva, presenting her as a nurse. Although her presence caused some murmurings, Rousseau was readmitted easily to the Calvinist communion, his literary fame having made him very welcome to a city that prided itself as much on its culture as on its morals. Rousseau had by that time completed a second Discourse in response to a question set by the Academy of Dijon: “What is the origin of the inequality among men and is it justified by natural law?” In response to that challenge he produced a masterpiece of speculative anthropology. The argument follows on that of his first Discourse by developing the proposition that people are naturally good and then tracing the successive stages by which they have descended from primitive innocence to corrupt sophistication. Rousseau begins his Discours sur l’origine de l’inegalité (1755; Discourse on the Origin of Inequality) by distinguishing two kinds of inequality, natural and artificial, the first arising from differences in strength, intelligence, and so forth, the second from the conventions that govern societies. It is the inequalities of the latter sort that he set out to explain. Adopting what he thought the properly “scientific” method of investigating origins, he attempts to reconstruct the earliest phases of human life on earth. He suggests that original humans were not social beings but entirely solitary, and to that extent he agrees with Thomas Hobbes’s account of the state of nature. But in contrast to the English pessimist’s view that human life in such a condition must have been “poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” Rousseau claims that original humans, although admittedly solitary, were healthy, happy, good, and free. Human vices, he argued, date from the time when societies were formed. Rousseau thus exonerates nature and blames society. He says that passions that generate vices hardly existed in the state of nature but began to develop as soon as people formed societies. He goes on to suggest that societies started when people built their first huts, a development that facilitated cohabitation of males and females; that in turn produced the habit of living as a family and associating with neighbours. That “nascent society,” as Rousseau calls it, was good while it lasted; it was indeed the “golden age” of human history. Only it did not endure. With the tender passion of love there was also born the destructive passion of jealousy. Neighbours started to compare their abilities and achievements with one another, and that “marked the first step towards inequality and at the same time towards vice.” People started to demand consideration and respect. Their innocent self-love turned into culpable pride, as each person wanted to be better than everyone else. The introduction of property marked a further step toward inequality, since it made law and government necessary as a means of protecting it. Rousseau laments the “fatal” concept of property in one of his more-eloquent passages, describing the “horrors” that have resulted from the departure from a condition in which the earth belonged to no one. Those passages in his second Discourse excited later revolutionaries such as Karl Marx and Vladimir Ilich Lenin, but Rousseau himself did not think that the past could be undone in any way. There was no point in dreaming of a return to the golden age. Civil society, as Rousseau describes it, comes into being to serve two purposes: to provide peace for everyone and to ensure the right to property for anyone lucky enough to have possessions. It is thus of some advantage to everyone, but mostly to the advantage of the rich, since it transforms their de facto ownership into rightful ownership and keeps the poor dispossessed. It is a somewhat fraudulent social contract that introduces government, since the poor get so much less out of it than do the rich. Even so, the rich are no happier in civil society than are the poor because people in society are never satisfied. Society leads people to hate one another to the extent that their interests conflict, and the best they are able to do is to hide their hostility behind a mask of courtesy. Thus, Rousseau regards inequality not as a separate problem but as one of the features of the long process by which men become alienated from nature and from innocence. In the dedication Rousseau wrote for the second Discourse, in order to present it to the republic of Geneva, he nevertheless praised that city-state for having achieved the ideal balance between “the equality which nature established among men and the inequality which they have instituted among themselves.” The arrangement he discerned in Geneva was one in which the best persons were chosen by the citizens and put in the highest positions of authority. Like Plato, Rousseau always believed that a just society was one in which everyone was in his proper place. And having written the second Discourse to explain how people had lost their liberty in the past, he went on to write another book, Du Contrat social (1762; The Social Contract), to suggest how they might recover their liberty in the future. Again Geneva was the model: not Geneva as it had become in 1754 when Rousseau returned there to recover his rights as a citizen, but Geneva as it had once been—i.e., Geneva as Calvin had designed it. The Social Contract begins with the sensational opening sentence: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,” and proceeds to argue that men need not be in chains. If a civil society, or state, could be based on a genuine social contract, as opposed to the fraudulent social contract depicted in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, people would receive in exchange for their independence a better kind of freedom, namely true political, or republican, liberty. Such liberty is to be found in obedience to a self-imposed law. Rousseau’s definition of political liberty raises an obvious problem. For while it can be readily agreed that an individual is free if he obeys only rules he prescribes for himself, this is so because an individual is a person with a single will. A society, by contrast, is a set of persons with a set of individual wills, and conflict between separate wills is a fact of universal experience. Rousseau’s response to the problem is to define civil society as an artificial person united by a general will, or volonté générale. The social contract that brings society into being is a pledge, and the society remains in being as a pledged group. Rousseau’s republic is a creation of the general will—of a will that never falters in each and every member to further the public, common, or national interest—even though it may conflict at times with personal interest. Rousseau sounds very much like Hobbes when he says that under the pact by which people enter civil society everyone totally alienates himself and all his rights to the whole community. Rousseau, however, represents this act as a form of exchange of rights whereby people give up natural rights in return for civil rights. The bargain is a good one, because what is surrendered are rights of dubious value, whose realization depends solely on an individual’s own might, and what is obtained in return are rights that are both legitimate and enforced by the collective force of the community. There is no more haunting paragraph in The Social Contract than that in which Rousseau speaks of “forcing a man to be free.” But it would be wrong to interpret these words in the manner of those critics who see Rousseau as a prophet of modern totalitarianism. He does not claim that a whole society can be forced to be free but only that an occasional individual, who is enslaved by his passions to the extent of disobeying the law, can be restored by force to obedience to the voice of the general will that exists inside of him. The person who is coerced by society for a breach of the law is, in Rousseau’s view, being brought back to an awareness of his own true interests. For Rousseau there is a radical dichotomy between true law and actual law. Actual law, which he described in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, simply protects the status quo. True law, as described in The Social Contract, is just law, and what ensures its being just is that it is made by the people in their collective capacity as sovereign and obeyed by the same people in their individual capacities as subjects. Rousseau is confident that such laws could not be unjust because it is inconceivable that any people would make unjust laws for itself. Rousseau is, however, troubled by the fact that the majority of a people does not necessarily represent its most-intelligent citizens. Indeed, he agrees with Plato that most people are stupid. Thus, the general will, while always morally sound, is sometimes mistaken. Hence Rousseau suggests the people need a lawgiver—a great mind like Solon or Lycurgus or Calvin—to draw up a constitution and system of laws. He even suggests that such lawgivers need to claim divine inspiration in order to persuade the dim-witted multitude to accept and endorse the laws it is offered. That suggestion echoes a similar proposal by Niccolò Machiavelli, a political theorist whom Rousseau greatly admired and whose love of republican government he shared. An even more conspicuously Machiavellian influence can be discerned in Rousseau’s chapter on civil religion, where he argues that Christianity, despite its truth, is useless as a republican religion on the grounds that it is directed to the unseen world and does nothing to teach citizens the virtues that are needed in the service of the state, namely, courage, virility, and patriotism. Rousseau does not go so far as Machiavelli in proposing a revival of pagan cults, but he does propose a civil religion with minimal theological content designed to fortify and not impede (as Christianity impedes) the cultivation of martial virtues. It is understandable that the authorities of Geneva, profoundly convinced that the national church of their little republic was at the same time a truly Christian church and a nursery of patriotism, reacted angrily against that chapter in Rousseau’s Social Contract. By the year 1762, however, when The Social Contract was published, Rousseau had given up any thought of settling in Geneva. After recovering his citizen’s rights in 1754, he had returned to Paris and the company of his friends around the Encyclopédie. But he became increasingly ill at ease in such worldly society and began to quarrel with his fellow philosophes. An article for the Encyclopédie on the subject of Geneva, written by d’Alembert at Voltaire’s instigation, upset Rousseau partly by suggesting that the pastors of the city had lapsed from Calvinist severity into unitarian laxity and partly by proposing that a theatre should be erected there. Rousseau hastened into print with a defense of the Calvinist orthodoxy of the pastors and with an elaborate attack on the theatre as an institution that could only do harm to an innocent community such as Geneva. Years Of Seclusion And Exile By the time his Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles (1758; Letter to Monsieur d’Alembert on the Theatre) appeared in print, Rousseau had already left Paris to pursue a life closer to nature on the country estate of his friend Mme d’Épinay near Montmorency. When the hospitality of Mme d’Épinay proved to entail much the same social round as that of Paris, Rousseau retreated to a nearby cottage, called Montlouis, under the protection of the Maréchal de Luxembourg. But even that highly placed friend could not save him in 1762 when his treatise Émile; ou, de l’education (Emile; or, On Education), was published and scandalized the pious Jansenists of the French Parlements even as The Social Contract scandalized the Calvinists of Geneva. In Paris, as in Geneva, they ordered the book to be burned and the author arrested; all the Maréchal de Luxembourg could do was to provide a carriage for Rousseau to escape from France. After formally renouncing his Genevan citizenship in 1763, Rousseau became a fugitive, spending the rest of his life moving from one refuge to another. The years at Montmorency had been the most productive of his literary career; The Social Contract, Émile, and Julie; ou, la nouvelle Héloïse (1761; Julie; or, The New Eloise) came out within 12 months, all three works of seminal importance. The New Eloise, being a novel, escaped the censorship to which the other two works were subject; indeed, of all his books it proved to be the most widely read and the most universally praised in his lifetime. It develops the Romanticism that had already informed his writings on music and perhaps did more than any other single work of literature to influence the spirit of its age. It made the author at least as many friends among the reading public—and especially among educated women—as The Social Contract and Émile made enemies among magistrates and priests. If it did not exempt him from persecution, at least it ensured that his persecution was observed, and admiring femmes du monde intervened from time to time to help him so that Rousseau was never, unlike Voltaire and Diderot, actually imprisoned. The theme of The New Eloise provides a striking contrast to that of The Social Contract. It is about people finding happiness in domestic as distinct from public life, in the family as opposed to the state. The central character, Saint-Preux, is a middle-class preceptor who falls in love with his upper-class pupil, Julie. She returns his love and yields to his advances, but the difference between their classes makes marriage between them impossible. Baron d’Étange, Julie’s father, has indeed promised her to a fellow nobleman named Wolmar. As a dutiful daughter, Julie marries Wolmar and Saint-Preux goes off on a voyage around the world with an English aristocrat, Bomston, from whom he acquires a certain stoicism. Julie succeeds in forgetting her feelings for Saint-Preux and finds happiness as wife, mother, and chatelaine. Some six years later Saint-Preux returns from his travels and is engaged as tutor to the Wolmar children. All live together in harmony, and there are only faint echoes of the old affair between Saint-Preux and Julie. The little community, dominated by Julie, illustrates one of Rousseau’s political principles: that while men should rule the world in public life, women should rule men in private life. At the end of The New Eloise, when Julie has made herself ill in an attempt to rescue one of her children from drowning, she comes face-to-face with a truth about herself: that her love for Saint-Preux has never died. The novel was clearly inspired by Rousseau’s own curious relationship—at once passionate and platonic—with Sophie d’Houdetot, a noblewoman who lived near him at Montmorency. He himself asserted in the Confessions that he was led to write the book by “a desire for loving, which I had never been able to satisfy and by which I felt myself devoured.” Saint-Preux’s experience of love forbidden by the laws of class reflects Rousseau’s own experience; and yet it cannot be said that The New Eloise is an attack on those laws, which seem, on the contrary, to be given the status almost of laws of nature. The members of the Wolmar household are depicted as finding happiness in living according to an aristocratic ideal. They appreciate the routines of country life and enjoy the beauties of the Swiss and Savoyard Alps. But despite such an endorsement of the social order, the novel was revolutionary; its very free expression of emotions and its extreme sensibility deeply moved its large readership and profoundly influenced literary developments. Émile is a book that seems to appeal alternately to the republican ethic of The Social Contract and the aristocratic ethic of The New Eloise. It is also halfway between a novel and a didactic essay. Described by the author as a treatise on education, it is not about schooling but about the upbringing of a rich man’s son by a tutor who is given unlimited authority over him. At the same time the book sets out to explore the possibilities of an education for republican citizenship. The basic argument of the book, as Rousseau himself expressed it, is that vice and error, which are alien to a child’s original nature, are introduced by external agencies, so that the work of a tutor must always be directed to counteracting those forces by manipulating pressures that will work with nature and not against it. Rousseau devotes many pages to explaining the methods the tutor must use. Those methods involve a noticeable measure of deceit, and although corporal punishment is forbidden, mental cruelty is not. Whereas The Social Contract is concerned with the problems of achieving freedom, Émile is concerned with achieving happiness and wisdom. In this different context religion plays a different role. Instead of a civil religion, Rousseau here outlines a personal religion, which proves to be a kind of simplified Christianity, involving neither revelation nor the familiar dogmas of the church. In the guise of La Profession de foi du vicaire savoyard (1765; The Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar) Rousseau sets out what may fairly be regarded as his own religious views, since that book confirms what he says on the subject in his private correspondence. Rousseau could never entertain doubts about God’s existence or about the immortality of the soul. He felt, moreover, a strong emotional drive toward the worship of God, whose presence he felt most forcefully in nature, especially in mountains and forests untouched by the hand of man. He also attached great importance to conscience, the “divine voice of the soul in man,” opposing this both to the bloodless categories of rationalistic ethics and to the cold tablets of biblical authority. That minimal creed put Rousseau at odds with the orthodox adherents of the churches and with the openly atheistic philosophes of Paris, so that despite the enthusiasm that some of his writings, and especially The New Eloise, excited in the reading public, he felt himself increasingly isolated, tormented, and pursued. After he had been expelled from France, he was chased from canton to canton in Switzerland. He reacted to the suppression of The Social Contract in Geneva by indicting the regime of that city-state in a pamphlet entitled Lettres écrites de la montagne (1764; Letters Written from the Mountain). No longer, as in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, was Geneva depicted as a model republic but as one that had been taken over by “twenty-five despots”; the subjects of the king of England were said to be free by comparison with the victims of Genevan tyranny. It was in England that Rousseau found refuge after he had been banished from the canton of Bern. The Scottish philosopher David Hume took him there and secured the offer of a pension from King George III; but once in England, Rousseau became aware that certain British intellectuals were making fun of him, and he suspected Hume of participating in the mockery. Various symptoms of paranoia began to manifest themselves in Rousseau, and he returned to France incognito. Believing that Thérèse was the only person he could rely on, he finally married her in 1768, when he was 56 years old. The Last Decade In the remaining 10 years of his life Rousseau produced primarily autobiographical writings, mostly intended to justify himself against the accusations of his adversaries. The most important was his Confessions, modeled on the work of the same title by St. Augustine and achieving something of the same classic status. He also wrote Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques (1780; Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques) to reply to specific charges by his enemies and Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire (1782; Reveries of the Solitary Walker), one of the most moving of his books, in which the intense passion of his earlier writings gives way to a gentle lyricism and serenity. And indeed, Rousseau does seem to have recovered his peace of mind in his last years, when he was once again afforded refuge on the estates of great French noblemen, first the Prince de Conti and then the Marquis de Girardin, in whose park at Ermenonville he died. Duignan, B., & Cranston, M. (2018, October 15). Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Retrieved January 10, 2019, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Jacques-Rousseau

In a statement written by the American Lands Council it appears there is support from eastern states like Tennessee for the Federal Transfer of Lands to states. What do you think of this? Read this and comment! Why would an eastern state like The Tennessee pass a resolution supporting the Transfer of Public Lands to the Western States? On January 26th, Tennessee Governor Hallam signed a resolution passed by their Legislature calling “on other states to pass a similar resolution in support of the transfer of the federal public lands to the western states.” Some who are unfamiliar with the devastating affects caused by the failed federal policies waged on western public lands may wonder why the Eastern States would be interested in their transfer to all willing western states. But states such as Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, and Arkansas realize that while states east of the continental divide fund education, public safety and other essential government services largely through property taxes, western states struggle to provide these most basic needs because Congress lords the PILT (Payment In Lieu of Taxes) over western communities “like some two-bit protection racket,” in the words of U.S. Senator Mike Lee. Just as importantly, they also know that those payments come at the expense of Eastern states who are forced to fund these payments to western states in order to keep them from using their own resources. These Eastern States also understand that we all want healthy air, water and wildlife; Abundant outdoor recreation opportunities; and safe, vibrant communities. But one-size-fails-all federal management of our public lands is giving us unhealthy air, water, and decimated wildlife; blocked off and destroyed recreation access, and unsafe, economically depressed communities. We need to free the lands from federal bureaucracy so we can tend them more like a healthy, productive garden and less like a stuffy old “hands off, don’t touch” museum. With more effective local care, we can restore the balance we need to produce healthy air, water and wildlife; abundant recreation opportunities; & safe, vibrant communities. Who knows western lands the best? Who better to tend the environment in our state than the people who live here and care about our air and water and wildlife the most? These Eastern States also understand that a threat upon any state’s sovereignty is a threat to every state’s sovereignty. As the U.S. Supreme Court recently admonished, “the constitutional equality of the States is essential to the harmonious operation of the scheme upon which the Republic was organized.” In other words, our constitutional system itself doesn’t work where the States are treated unequally. The basic rights of liberty, property and self-governance are essential to the proper balance in our unique system of government. As Thomas Jefferson warned, “it must be the states themselves erecting barriers at the constitutional line that cannot be surmounted…” Since the founding of the American Lands Council in 2012, States around the West and across the nation have passed a variety of legislation towards bringing about the Transfer of Public Lands to all willing western states, and, with your support, the legislative efforts continue. Please be aware of the bills moving forward in your state and contact your elected officials to urge their relentless support for the only solution big enough to secure more effective local care and management of our unique western lands. The American Lands Council urges all states, both those in the East and the West, to stand together and pursue the legal and constitutional means afforded to us under the U.S. Constitution to compel Congress to honor the very same statehood terms and the very same constitutional obligations to relinquish control over the public lands following statehood. American Lands Council WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE FEDERAL TRANSFER OF LANDS TO STATE CONTROL?

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Old School RS Mobile is Live! As of October 30, 2018, you can now play Old School RS on Mobile, with both IOS and Android. It’s the full version of Old School Runescape, so any existing account you have can log into the game and continue playing. You will be playing the same worlds and areas as people playing on their computer. This means you can continue training skills on your main character using your phone or tablet. Goodbye life! Active Player Numbers are Soaring Since the OSRS Mobile launch, the population in game has absolutely soared. Average players online is regularly 100K+ for Old School RS. It has more than doubled since the release of mobile. As more and more new players start downloading the Runescape application on their phones, it is possible this growth could continue into the future. Old School RS adapts very well to mobile, since many of the actions players take in game are fairly simple and non-complex. Games like Fortnite have shown that even complex gameplay on PC can be adapted well onto mobile. We might not suggest high risk PKing or soloing GWD on your phone, but training skills like Cooking, Woodcutting, Mining, etc. are all perfect for when you’re just hanging out on your phone. Even if you’re playing on your PC, sometimes nature calls. Now you can sit on your toilet without your time going to waste. For the most part, the game plays exactly the same on mobile as it does on PC. For that reason, there are no “mobile” and “PC” separated worlds. Everybody plays together no matter what device they are using. That means your levels, your bank, your friend list, everything is exactly the same on your account, no matter what device you use to log in. Aside from re-learning a few of the mobile gameplay and user interface tweaks, the commands are virtually exactly the same. If you have already played Old School RS, then you will pick up OSRS Mobile in a matter of 15 minutes. Even new players will have no trouble figuring out gameplay on their phones or tablets. RS Mobile Gold A lot of people are asking us if we sell gold for RS Mobile. The simple answer to that question is: yes! OSRS Mobile, as mentioned above, is the same as regular Old School Runescape. You can buy gold from us just as you would on your PC. Simply navigate our website, add the amount of gold you’re looking to buy to your cart, and checkout on our site. Then you’ll want to use our Live Support after you purchase to arrange delivery. Check out our Buy OSRS Gold on Mobile Page for more information. Our chat system is more optimized for your PC, but it still works fine on mobile. It can be slightly difficult to navigate between our chat and the OSRS Application on your phone. You’ll need to swap back and forth between your browser and your OSRS Application at delivery. If you have any problems just let us know and one of our agents will assist you. We’ve delivered many orders already to Mobile users, and we’re excited to be able to support gold purchases on all your devices. Old School Gold Prices R2Pleasent Gold prides itself in providing OSRS Gold at the cheapest rate. If you find any other website selling gold at a cheaper price, let us know so we can beat it! Even with the huge demand from Old School Mobile, we have kept our prices incredibly competitive and we make sure that our stock is always 1 Billion+. Right now the price of gold is just over $1.00 USD per Million. Runescape 3 Mobile Runescape 3, otherwise known as RS3 will also be released on Mobile in the coming months. Keep an eye on Runescape.com and follow their announcements closely. We expect a release date of approximately Q1 2019. We believe this release will also reinvigorate the RS3 community. Mobile is just a win-win for everybody. Written by R2Pleasent Posted 9 months ago

Life Of A Vagabond Theresa Kaindl on her seasonal Happy Place Twelve flights, two continents, four languages: Berlin, Milan, Paris, New York, Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck and a roadtrip through Scotland – all in just a month. Freelance photographer Theresa Kaindl (see her Instagram here) used to live in New York, serving clients ranging from Montblanc to Puma and Corona, and moved to Berlin in September. The Austrian-born photographer is a true vagabond and has collected many stories along the way in her young 23 years. She sits down with us to tell us about her personal happy place and traditions for the holidays. Theresa, where is your personal happy place? To be honest, nothing makes me happier than standing atop a mountain and soaking up the nature I’m surrounded by. I think it’s the Austrian in me. My road trip through Scotland was one of the greatest trips I’ve ever taken. Do you have a special Christmas tradition? I’m pretty old fashioned. I have to spend Christmas with my family – preferably in the mountains! A white Christmas is a must for me. We attend church together, like we did when I was a child. And we always eat this special noodle soup with sausage – a real Austrian specialty. It wouldn’t be Christmas without it! For some, it’s a special hot beverage, for some a certain song. What puts you in the mood for Christmas? This year, I think it will be the time I take for myself during the holidays. Especially now, considering I’m constantly on the go. I haven’t planned anything for Christmas and am looking forward to doing nothing! I’m going to my family in Austria and will just spend some quality time with them. That’s the greatest thing in the world for me. Do you celebrate Christmas in the same place every year? Yes. I spent Christmas without my family once while I was living in New York. It was definitely an unforgettable holiday, but my mum wasn’t very happy about it! Is there someplace that you would like to celebrate Christmas if you could? Snow is a must. I don’t think I would enjoy Christmas in a place like Miami, chilling on the beach. Maybe an isolated cabin on a snowcapped mountain in the middle of nature – that would be my happy place! It doesn’t really matter if the cabin is in Austria or Canada – as long as there's snow and I can spend time with the people who are most important to me.

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Try the “super-logoff.” Performing the trick doesn’t take superhuman powers. Instead of just closing a browser window or clicking the “log off” button at the top right of the Facebook homepage, some young, privacy-concerned users are simply deactivating their Facebook accounts each time they leave the site. Then they reactivate their accounts to log back on. Why go to all this trouble? Well, for one, it’s not hard. Facebook makes it notoriously difficult to fully “delete” an account. But “deactivating” an account is easy — it only takes a single click, and deactivated Facebook users maintain all of their friend connections, wall posts, photos and the like. The upside, for the privacy paranoid, is that when a “deactivated” user isn’t on Facebook, no one else can see their profile, post on their wall or tag them in photos. For privacy-minded people, it’s a soothing alternative. It gives them ultimate control. Microsoft researcher and social media expert danah boyd (she doesn’t capitalize her name), who identified the trend this week on her blog, believes young people may have good reasons for deactivating and reactivating their accounts frequently. “In many ways, deactivation is a way of not letting the digital body stick around when the person is not present,” boyd writes in a November 8 post. “This is a great risk reduction strategy if you’re worried about people who might look and misinterpret. Or people who might post something that would get you into trouble.” She credits Michael Ducker, a program manager at Microsoft, with inventing the “super-logoff” term. As part of her field work, boyd has spoken with kids who use the technique to maintain control of their pages. One person she mentions on her blog, Mikalah, “wants to be a part of Facebook when it makes sense and not risk the possibility that people will be snooping when she’s not around.” The blog All Facebook adds that this practice is fundamentally different, and in some ways simpler, than changing your privacy settings on the site: “Notice that, while you or I might think that spending five minutes setting your privacy settings correctly might solve the hassle of having to deactivate your account when you log out, in reality these are two actions that accomplish different things,” Jorge Cino writes on that Facebook-focused blog. “Mikalah and others like her want their friends to post stuff on their wall or tag them in a photo, but they don’t want them doing it when they’re not there to make sure it’s okay. Most importantly, someone like Mikalah doesn’t want any friends of friends digging up her profile when she’s not ‘around.’ Deactivating her age literally erases her from Facebook. She becomes untraceable.” Others don’t go quite as far, says boyd. Instead of deactivating her account, Shamika engages in practice known as “whitewalling,” boyd says. She deletes every “like,” comment and photo almost immediately after it’s posted. “When I asked her why she was deleting this content, she looked at me incredulously and told me ‘too much drama,’ ” boyd writes. “Pushing further, she talked about how people were nosy and it was too easy to get into trouble for the things you wrote a while back that you couldn’t even remember posting let alone remember what it was all about. It was better to keep everything clean and in the moment. If it’s relevant now, it belongs on Facebook, but the old stuff is no longer relevant so it doesn’t belong on Facebook. “Her narrative has nothing to do with adults or with Facebook as a data retention agent. She’s concerned about how her postings will get her into unexpected trouble with her peers in an environment where saying the wrong thing always results in a fight.” These stories add interesting nuance to the debate over young people and privacy on the Internet. The general line of thinking — which is backed up by some surveys — is that young people care less about online privacy than older people. But there appears to be more going on. A Pew Internet report, released on May 26, found young people are more likely than their older counterparts to alter their Facebook settings and to actively manage their online identities. From that report: “Young adults are the most active online reputation managers in several dimensions. When compared with older users, they more often customize what they share and whom they share it with.” This suggests younger people do care about their privacy and reputation online and will take steps — sometimes big ones, as boyd’s blog post shows — to manage these increasingly important digital identities. What do you think of these practices? If you use the “super-logoff,” or plan to try it, let us know in the comments section below…

Super Bob, man of the century Albion’s greats keep on posting new milestones and here comes another one. On February 3rd, Bob Taylor will make many of us feel very old indeed by reaching his 50th birthday. Or if that one is too much to cope with, what about it being 25 years today since he made his Albion debut? No, doesn’t feel any better… Most of you won’t need too much reminding of Bob’s Albion career, 131 goals across 377 games, many of them scored when the club was at its lowest ebb, the last of them, fittingly enough, struck to return us to our proper place in the top flight, a place that many of us feared we might never see again. In the early 1990s, Bob, brought to the Albion by Bobby Gould, was the beacon around whom we gathered for hope as we played in the third tier for the first time, enduring two seasons in the wastelands before, under Ossie Ardiles, it was Bob’s ridiculous 37 goal campaign that at least put us back on the road to redemption as we clambered back into the second level of the English game. For all that Bob was in his prime through the early ‘90s, I’d argue that his claim to Albion greatness rests with his Second Coming, when he returned here in March 2000 after a brief hiatus at Bolton Wanderers. Indeed, I think that you can make a very strong case that even now, Bob is the most significant Albion player of the 21st century. Think about it. When he returned on March 23rd 2000, the Throstles were hurtling towards the oblivion that is the third tier of English football, back to where we’d spent those two life draining campaigns in the early 1990s. Had Albion made that drop, who knows what kind of club we’d have now, or even if we’d have one at all. But Gary Megson’s “Famous Five” deadline day signings were his antidote to the relegation blues and while Des little, Tony Butler, Georges Santos and Neil Clement all did their bit that year, it was the return of Super Bob that ignited the revival. Goals against Barnsley and Bolton helped get us draws, a brace against Grimsby won three points and put our fate in our hands as we went to the last day. A win over Charlton and we were home. And who clinched it? Bob with a second goal five minutes after Richard Sneekes had given us the lead. Five goals in eight games from Taylor were the key to survival. No Bob, no survival. The arrival of Jason Roberts that summer saw Bob playing second fiddle in a campaign that ended in the play-offs up at Bolton, but the departure of Lee Hughes to Coventry and injuries to Roberts saw Bob back in the forefront as we slowly hunted Wolves down in 2002. A late, poached goal gave us a win at Forest and the belief that we could do it. An early opportunistic strike saw off Coventry, just hours after Wolves had lost at home to Manchester City and you could hear Molineux splintering from here. A goal against Rotherham kept us on target, then it was Bob, tumbling in the area, who won that penalty at Bradford. And finally, with the Premier League so close we could smell it, it was Taylor, chasing in a Clement free-kick, who put the ball and the Baggies over the line. A year later, he was gone, but the legacy of his achievements remain in the Albion you see in the top half of the Premier League today. Super Bob Taylor, top Throstle. Happy birthday Robert.

From his remixes of dance music through his record releases with LA Mix, Les Adams has specialised in making a lot out of a little equipment. His latest project is a solo LP, as Simon Trask finds out. Les Adams is already well known as a DJ and remixer. Now his home-recorded debut album should bring him into the limelight as an artist. IT HAS BECOME COMMONPLACE TO SAY THAT TECHNOLOGY has narrowed the gap between professional and home studios. But for proof you need look no further than the debut album from DJ, remixer, engineer, producer and recording artist Les Adams of LA Mix. On The Side has been recorded and mixed entirely at Adams' house deep in the wilds of Newport Pagnell, where he has built a 16-track studio into an upstairs room measuring less than ten feet by ten feet. Carpeted walls and triple-glazed windows have been put in place to pacify the neighbours, and some heavyduty air-conditioning has been installed to pacify the studio's previously over-heated users. Meanwhile, dominating the tiny landing is a stand containing two Technics SL1200 MKII decks, a GLI 1010 Audio Processor and a GLI 3990 Preamp/Mixer, the setup which Adams uses to put together Capital Radio's New Years' Eve mixes, which some of you Londoners may be familiar with. This can be wheeled into the studio whenever needed. On The Side will surprise more than a few people with its musical depth, variety of musical styles and, above all, its classy production work. While the recent hip house single 'Get Loose', the second single 'Check This Out' and an '89 version of the first single '(Don't Stop) Jammin' form what is perhaps the more expected element of the album, the remainder of the tracks show that Adams is able to work in a variety of musical styles without descending into pastiche. There's the garage soul of 'You Are The One' featuring Audrey Francois on vocals, the lilting jazzy instrumental 'Breathe Deep', the beautiful soul ballad 'Don't Turn Away' which gives long-time session vocalist Chyna (probably best known for her infamous wail on SAW's 'Roadblock') the chance to shine on lead vocals, the 10 City-ish 'Love Together' (the new single) with Kevin Henry on vocals, the Alyson Williams-ish swingbeat soul of 'Just Waiting' with Juliet Roberts on vocals, and a surprisingly effective rap ballad version of the 1979 Lowrell classic 'Mellow Mellow (Right On)', which introduces 19-year-old male rapper Sweet Pea to the world. Backing vocals are supplied by Juliet Roberts and another experienced British soul singer, David Grant. As well as showcasing a healthy number of old and new British soul vocalists, the album is distinguished by some tasteful sax, flute and piano solos by Mike Stevens, intelligent use of synthetic and sampled sounds, thoughtful and well-balanced arrangements, an impressively clean overall sound and pleasingly uncluttered mixes. AS WE SIT IN ADAMS' STUDIO, HE IS quick to scotch any preconceptions people might have that the album is all his own work. LA Mix is very much a three-way effort between himself and his partners Emma Freilich (with whom he shares his life as well as his recording studio) and Mike Stevens. Each of them brings something distinctive to the group, and it's this very diversity which is their strong point. "I don't play any keyboards", Adams admits, "but I'm there engineering the sessions and I'll put forward ideas of what I want people to play. Mike, on the other hand, is a brilliant multi-instrumentalist. He'll sit there and play a guitar part, then a sax solo, then some keyboards, and then a flute solo. All the live instrumental parts on the album, including the solos, are played by him. Sometimes he gets a bit overenthusiastic with his playing, and we have to hold him back. With dance music you've got to keep it kind of simple, because when people are out for a night at a club they want to hear something that's exciting and hooky; they're not going to sit there marvelling at how clever the solo is. "Emma is very good at coming up with hooky riffs. Once Mike's done all the pads and the solos we'll sit back and think 'what this needs is some little hooks', so Emma sits down at the keyboard and comes up with them. Also, of the three of us Emma is probably the strongest songwriter. But in practice we swap roles all the time. For instance, I normally do the mixes, but then Emma mixed 'Breathe Deep' on her own." The studio is based around a Fostex E16 tape machine and a Studiomaster Series 5 16:4:2 desk which has two extra modules to take it up to 24 inputs, with a Seck 12:2 desk functioning as an effects submixer. Adams can't speak highly enough of the Series 5: "It's had a very hard two years but it's been 100% reliable. The only thing that's ever crackled has been the monitor pot, and one squirt of switch cleaner cured that. Also it's the smallest 24-channel mixing desk with the kind of facilities it has; anything bigger and I'd have to move house!" Adams is planning to add mix automation courtesy of two Studiomaster IMP1 16-channel MIDI muting units which plug across the desks insert points. The muting works on MIDI note ons and note offs, and so can be run from Adams' Pro24. Adams is enthusiastic about the prospect. "The good thing about using note ons and offs is that you can quantise them and shift them around in the sequencer; the possibilities seem quite endless." The Seck mixer, however, comes in for some harsh criticism for its crackling faders, and is only tolerated because Adams doesn't need to adjust the effect levels in real-time. Monitoring is taken care of by Yamaha NS10Ms and JBL Centuries running off a Rotel RB850 50-watts-per-channel domestic hi-fi amplifier. For synth sounds Adams uses a Roland D50, Yamaha DX100, Roland Juno 106, Yamaha TX802, Yamaha TX81Z and Oberheim Matrix 1000, while the drums department is taken care of by a combination of Roland TR909, Roland TR626, Alesis HR16 and samples on an Akai S900. The S900 is shortly to be augmented by an S1000 complete with time-stretching software; Adams expects to use the S1000 for more sampled drum sounds and for spinning in vocals. Rather than work one drum machine to death, Adams tends to pick and choose sounds from the different machines with great attention to how they sit in a mix. His library of sampled drum sounds includes some R8 sounds, but he intends to buy an R8 too, and is also on the lookout for a TR808. And while the 909 isn't used all that heavily on the album, it does see regular use in Adams' remix work. Roland drum machines win the day once again. "In a big studio you think that whatever you put onto tape is going to sound good because the equipment's great - here I'm working in limited conditions and I'm careful." Effects processing is provided by two Lexicon LXP1s, an AMS RMX16, Ibanez SDR1000+, Yamaha SPX90, Korg SDD100 delay and two Boss DE200 sampling delays. This array of hi-tech gear is sequenced from Pro24 running on a 1040ST, synced to tape via a Yamaha MSS1 SMPTE/MIDI synchroniser, with everything routed through the Studiomaster and Seck desks via patchbays. "With everything I do, Pro24 is running live in the mix, and that's usually with about eight to ten sequencer tracks. Some have composite parts on them, firing one sound but different parts in the tune. Then there are sequencer tracks such as keyboard parts which I put to tape and mute afterwards on the sequencer, so altogether I probably use around 15-20 sequencer tracks. I never record drum parts to tape, though; they're run off the sequencer during recording and mixdown." A Sony DTC 1000ES DAT machine fitted with an HHB 44.1kHz record mod is used for mastering, though if he needs to do some tape edits first, Adams records onto a Revox PR99 via a DBX15O noise reduction unit (about which he can't speak highly enough) before going to the Sony. For cutting he uses Tape One studios just off Tottenham Court Road, who take a DAT tape recorded at 44.1 and bounce it digitally to a Sony 1830 for the actual production master tape. It seems that DAT is not only a perfectly acceptable mastering medium nowadays, it's almost become the norm for professional work. Adams explains that this impressive array of gear has been built up bit by bit over the past few years. "It was always a case of 'I could do with another reverb; yeah, I can afford one', then a couple of months later I would have done a couple of remixes and I'd be able to buy another noise gate. Now the studio's really at the stage where we don't need to expand it much more, which is a good thing because we'd need a bigger room. If we went 24-track it would be purely for compatibility reasons, so we could send a two-inch master across to America to have some vocals added, for instance. But the album really demonstrates what we can do in here." And indeed it does. So how exactly did he go about achieving the album's impressively clean production? "I take great pride when I'm recording onto the E16 that everything is as clean and as quiet as it can be, because I know that when I'm playing the tape back the Studiomaster isn't as quiet as an SSL. I just make sure that at every stage of the recording process I'm using the mixer and the tape machine at their best working conditions. "There's a lot of space in the tracks on our album, and it's virtually noise-free. I'm quite proud of that, because we've done it on equipment which you would not expect to be noise-free. I've heard stuff that other people have done on E16s using mixers similar to this, and there's been noise all over the place. How do these people get such bad results? They just don't take any care, they don't take any pride in what they do." In fact, far from wanting to work in a 48-track or even a 24-track professional studio, Adams sees definite virtues in the comparative limitations of his home setup. "When you're working in a big studio with all that expensive equipment, you almost think that whatever you put onto tape is going to sound good because the equipment's great. Whereas here I'm working in limited conditions and I'm careful. For instance, when I choose a bass drum I choose what I think is the right one, and I also choose my keyboard sounds carefully. When I record onto the multitrack I make absolutely sure that if the source is not quiet then I gate it. If I'm recording a bass part to tape then I'll make sure that all the channels on the desk that I'm not using arc muted, and the sequencer is only playing the bassline, so there's no chance of any spill on the multitrack. "I always try to get a sound which sounds flat when I record it, because I'm aware that if I'm going to add any EQ in the studio that it introduces noise, and I hate noise. If you've got to EQ a sound to get it right then it's the wrong sound in the first place. I usually use EQ when I'm setting up the mix; if, for instance, a keyboard part isn't cutting through quite as it should then I'll use a bit of whatever frequency it needs to bring it forward in the mix." Of course, to know what needs to be done in the mix you need monitors that you can trust. The JBL Centuries are the studio's workhorse monitors. Adams has used them for 14 years, valuing them for the detail of their reproduction. "I try to use bass sounds that aren't demanding on amplifiers - I want to make sure that the average domestic hifi power amp is going to reproduce what I record." "They've got a very clinical sound", he explains. "They only reproduce bass when there's bass there. Nobody could say they have a flat response, but they're very tight, very punchy, which makes them great for dance music. The monitoring in this studio doesn't have to be as flat as monitoring in a commercial studio, because it's only used by me and the immediate team, and we know these speakers. If the studio was for hire to other producers then I'd have to get different monitors, because I don't think another producer could walk in here and happily work with the Centuries if he didn't already know them." The NS10s, on the other hand, are an industry standard. However, Adams cautions against using only NS10s in a studio. "They're very misleading at the bass end. You can't hear depth on them at all. There's no reason why you should be able to, because they're a small speaker. But when people I know with home studios who've only got NS10s come here and I put their stuff on the JBLs, suddenly all this bass appears and they realise they've got to get some other speakers as well." Despite having plenty of experience of club sound systems through his years spent DJ'ing, Adams still had to learn the hard way what not to do when producing a dance record for the clubs. "I always used to go for deep, thundering bass sounds, which sound collossal in the studio or on a really good sound system like Paradise Garage in New York. But in your average Mecca-type club, or any club which has a Bose sound system, the speakers just can't handle the energy of a deep bass sound when they're already being pushed to their limits, as they invariably are. Bose have this stronghold throughout the UK, but although their speakers are great for mid-range and top, when it comes to bottom end, forget it. "Nowadays I use warm, rounded bass sounds, with not as much bottom end on them as you might think. And I use a good, tight, kicking bass drum, like the 909 bass drum, which thumps. Bose speakers, or any speakers running at high level, will handle a 909 bass drum. I try to use bass sounds that aren't demanding on amplifiers. I want to make sure that the average domestic power amp is going to reproduce what I record, which is why I use the Rotel. Also, if this amplifier cracks up on something I'm mixing then I know the average club system will crack up too, because it's gonna be driven a lot harder than this thing is." NOW 33 YEARS OLD, ADAMS RECALLS that his DJ'ing tendencies manifested themselves at an early age. "I've been collecting records since the age of three or four. At primary school I used to put out the record player for morning assembly; it was my job to put the records on. I also used to listen to the pirates, Radio Caroline and Radio London; I can remember crying uncontrollably when Radio London went off the air. In fact, I always fancied myself as a radio DJ. When I was a kid we built this little studio which was basically a mic and two old auto-change decks wired through a switcher to an old Ferguson tape recorder. We used to have speakers wired up all around the house; I hate to think what the load was on the poor old valve amp! "My first serious studio was when I was about 18. I had an Allen & Heath mini-mixer and a couple of Pioneer belt-drive decks with Shure cartridges. It was still very much for radio. I used to record my own radio shows on cassettes and send them to my girlfriend in the West Country" Well, it beats love letters, I suppose. But alongside his radio ambitions Adams had always been interested in the technical side of how a record was made, and even a couple of years before leaving school his ambition had been to work in a recording studio. However, it wasn't to be. Leaving school at the age of 15 with no qualifications, he soon discovered that even recording studios wanted people with '0' and 'A' levels. Deciding to opt for what he felt was the next best thing, he went to work in a hi-fi shop in Tooting called REW. In the event he ended up working for REW for 11 years, rising to become manager of the professional audio division at a branch in Charing Cross Road. It was here that he began to familiarise himself with mixing desks and multitrack tape machines. But he had also been running a mobile disco with his brother since the age of 16, and had developed a love of dance music. Eventually he left REW to work as a professional DJ, because "for me the love of music was more important than the technology behind it". It's a philosophy which he still holds today. He spent the next couple of years working as a DJ, then one fateful evening as he was driving back from a gig he tuned into Radio Caroline and a show called Disco Mix Express which consisted of running mixes of records. The DJ, Tony Prince, asked for people to send in their own tapes of mixes; Adams duly obliged with three mixes, and two days later received a phone call from an excited Prince. Not only did he have all three mixes played on air, but he found himself in at the ground level of Prince's fledgling Disco Mix Club, providing taped mixes for the Club in the early '80s. "In other fields of music it can be important that brass sounds real - with dance music it's not so important to get everything sounding real as it is to get everything sounding powerful." As DMC began to grow, so did Adams' mixing and tape-editing skills, and he became well known for putting together megamixes ("compilation" mixes of an artist's greatest hits). But it was when he graduated to multitrack remixes that he really began to learn the ins and outs of a professional recording studio. The turning point for him came when he teamed up in '86 with Pascal Gabriel, who was working as a freelance recording engineer at Hollywood Studios in East London at the time. "Pascal was learning from me the construction ideas behind making dance records, because he'd never really worked on dance product before", Adams recalls. "In return he was showing me how to use all the technology of the studio. We worked well as a team." Adams' first big break as a solo artist came with the single '(Don't Stop) Jamming', which he refers to modestly as "an experiment in the studio which someone happened to like and put out". The record reached No. 47 in the charts in October '87, but it was the follow-up single, 'Check This Out', which really made his name, climbing to the number six spot in May '88. Back in those heady days when the idea of DJs making records was still a novelty, the DIY ethic was rekindled by tales of chart-topping dance records being recorded on a shoestring budget. By the time Adams came to record his first single, he had assembled a relatively modest eight-track home studio based around a Fostex A80 tape machine and the Studiomaster Series 5 desk when it was still 16-channel. A Yamaha QX5 handled the sequencing, while the sounds were provided by the DX100 and S900, and a solitary SPX90 handled the effects. ALTHOUGH ANALOGUE SYNTHS HAVE BEEN undergoing something of a renaissance recently, thanks to dance music, the even balance of analogue and digital synths in the Adams studio reflects a general working philosophy. "I don't really have a leaning towards FM or analogue sounds. I have leanings towards certain sounds for certain applications", Adams explains. "To be honest, I actually know very little about the internal workings of synthesisers, and I don't care if it's FM or if it's analogue or whatever. I judge things purely by what my cars tell me. You can get too involved in the technical side of things. At the end of it all we're trying to make exciting dance records, and we just use the sounds which we feel allow us to do that. "I can say that I like to use 'Arco Strings' on the D50 for my string sounds. For bass sounds I like to use the Oberheim Matrix 1000 or the Roland Juno 106, which of course are both analogue, but I also use 'Solid Bass' on the DX100. The bass sounds on the D50 are a joke, though." It seems that the D50 is about to be ditched in favour of an M1 or M1R for the sounds, and possibly a DX7 II for the feel of its keyboard. One instrument which isn't about to go is the S900, which Adams characterises as the workhorse of the studio. In particular it's used for sampling drum sounds off CDs, an activity which Adams feels is quite legitimate because many of the sounds he samples have come from drum machines in the first place and therefore aren't copyrighted. Sampled rhythm loops crop up much less frequently in LA Mix's music, though 'Get Loose' has a loop of Atmosfear's 'Dancing In Outer Space', which was cleared by the record company, and 'Love Together' has a short percussion loop which hasn't been cleared and therefore remains anonymous! "We used our own percussion on top of it", Adams adds. "Sometimes we'll start with a loop, add our own percussion and then take out the loop because the track sounds better that way." The S900 is also the source of a sampled Kawai grand piano which is used for all the piano parts on the album because "it's a great house piano sound." Instrumental authenticity isn't something that's high on Adams' list of priorities: "In other fields of music it can be very important that brass sounds like real brass, and if it doesn't then you get a real brass section in. But with dance music it's not so important to get everything sounding real as it is to get everything sounding powerful. For instance, to get the brass sound on 'Mellow Mellow' I used 'Hard Brass' on the DX100, another sound from the D50, vet another sound from a TX802 and one from a TX81Z, and then there was a low tone from the Juno 106 which gave a bit of body in the background." Call it the democratisation of technology, call it the relentless drive of market forces. But when Adams left school in the early '70s, lack of exam qualifications, coupled with the closed nature of the recording industry prevented him from realising his ambition to work in a recording studio, and he had little choice but to pursue a different career path. Such are the forces which shape lives. Less than 20 years on, today's youngsters (yes, you out there) can take matters into their own hands in a way which wasn't open to Adams, and Adams himself is able to record in his own home using an array of technology which makes the professional recording studio of yesteryear look primitive - not to mention with a skill which makes exam qualifications redundant. On The Side not only illustrates how the production quality gap between home and professional studios has closed, it marks Adams' step from DJ and remixer to fully-fledged artist. Interview by Simon Trask mu:zines is the result of thousands of hours of effort, and will require many thousands more going forward to reach our goals of getting all this content online. If you value this resource, you can support this project - it really helps!

Thanks for your interest in Adobe Connect Audio Setup Wizard! I’m currently working on a detailed video to get you the latest information on this… But in the meantime… Checkout the best ClickFunnels offers, benefits, and features below. In this day as well as age, the means your company runs online could make or break you. Just how do most businesses currently have a visibility online? The truth of the issue is, nonetheless, that web sites have actually dramatically advanced over the previous years – and the techniques of old are not functional for contemporary organisation. In the past, it would certainly suffice to have an easy internet site with a home page, solutions, pricing, regarding us, and get in touch with pages. A prospective consumer would go to your site, scroll about, visit the different pages and eat content as they please. Nonetheless, if you are a business spending any cash on advertising and marketing, you wish to regulate what consumers are learning more about on your site, existing offers at the right time, and maximize the revenue you make from each person. How does one accomplish this? Making use of sales funnels. Get in ClickFunnels ClickFunnels is the simplest method making high converting sales as well as advertising funnels. It is an one-of-a-kind device created especially to turn prospective consumers right into buyers. It really is an all-in-one solution to develop sales funnels and consists of touchdown pages, email assimilation, invoicing, webinars, subscription sites, therefore much more. No wonder it has promptly end up being a preferred device for marketing experts. Below is my in-depth ClickFunnels Evaluation, consisting of favored features, prices, pros/cons, and also contrasts versus rivals. Adobe Connect Audio Setup Wizard: But First, What Exactly Is a Sales Channel? Sales funnels (additionally called marketing funnels) are multi-step campaigns that are designed to relocate prospective leads via your sales process, and turn them into purchasers. Image a real-life channel. On top, you pour fluid in, which narrows down towards one fixed destination. In sales, a similar occasion happens. At the top, visitors come to your internet site, yet not all that go into make it out of the other end as customers. Many things need to take place from the moment a visitor enters your channel, to the moment they act and efficiently finish an acquisition. By breaking down the client’s trip right into smaller steps, you can be a lot more specific regarding exactly how when you offer a deal to your target market. The thorough steps in a funnel may look something similar to this: - Unqualified lead gets to touchdown web page - Web page interacts the initial offer (something totally free to accumulate an e-mail). - As soon as email is collected, major deal is pitched. - Lead ends up being a paying consumer. - Even more e-mail interaction providing customer worth. - Further connection structure - Reoccuring sales. ClickFunnels additionally has a graphic that describes this in a straightforward method:. What is ClickFunnels? As stated earlier, ClickFunnels is the most effective sales funnel software around today. The firm makes the strong claim of providing you whatever you need to market, sell, as well as supply your products online – and also they certainly provide. A typical funnel will make use of an opt-in web page (to collect email addresses), an e-mail vehicle responder (to send emails to your clients), plus an extra sales page with some web content and also an order form, potentially adhered to by extra content, a membership website, and so on . Previously, you would certainly have to utilize various platforms as well as devices to complete every one of these tasks such as: - Produce a website - Find Hosting - Locate an autoresponder service - Discover membership website software program - Discover split-testing software … etc But ClickFunnels looks after everything with their system. You not only conserve a ton of money by not having to acquire various products/services, but you additionally avoid the technological mess of needing to establish everything up, and also can focus on what’s really vital – expanding your company. ClickFunnels offers a Free 14-Day Test, so you get to check out the device and really see if it’s right for your service. * Rapidly Develop Pages Utilizing Themes as well as Components *. Before getting too much, it is necessary to recognize that a funnel is a collection of pages assembled in a critical order, with the goal of transforming as several prospects into customers. As well as a page is simply a collection of different aspects made to obtain someone to take a particular activity. ClickFunnels provides more than 50 various components to help you build the excellent web page. The editor is incredibly simple to make use of as well as all you need to do is drag as well as drop different elements on the web page, and also upgrade the text as well as appearance to fit your demands – no coding abilities required! ClickFunnels additionally makes your life much easier by supplying you with a lots of free templates. As a matter of fact, ClickFunnels supplies over 37 kinds of web pages for you to mix and match with. These are broken down into the following 10 groups: - Presell Pages: Study Page, Article Page, Presell Page, Clickpop Web Page - Optin Pages: Squeeze Web Page, Reverse Squeeze Page, Lead Magnet, Coupon - Thanks Pages: Thank You Page, Offer Wall, Bridge Web Page, Share Web Page - Sales Pages: Video Clip Sales Page, Business Letter Page, Item Launch Web Page - OTO Pages: Upsell Web Page, Downsell Web Page - Order Forms: 2 Step Order Page, Conventional Order Web Page, Video Clip Sales Letter Order Web Page, Sales Letter Order Page, Item Introduce Order Web Page - Webinar Pages: Webinar Enrollment Web Page, Webinar Verification Web Page, Webinar Broadcast Space, Webinar Replay Room - Subscription Pages: Accessibility Page, Member’s Location - Affiliate Pages: Gain Access To Page, Associate Location - Various Other Pages: Application Web Page, Ask Web Page, Store Front, Home Page, Hero Page, Hangout Page, Live Trial Web Page The pre-built templates are fully customizable, and also are exactly what most individuals utilize. You are able to pick a theme, edit or change the aspects with your very own, and also your new web page prepares to go. You can additionally link any kind of funnel you create with your personal e-mail advertising solution (if you do not utilize the one consisted of in ClickFunnels), and utilize the ClickFunnels integrated in billing system. This is additionally a good time to discuss that ClickFunnels offers extremely beneficial and easy to understand training videos when you initially register. I very advise experiencing those because they quickly enable you to use the tool at its full ability, and also you’ll have more enjoyable messing around. Adobe Connect Audio Setup Wizard * Develop One-Click Subscription Sites *. One of the most effective features with ClickFunnels is the capability to easily develop membership sites as well as deliver content to your target market in one place. Your subscription site will certainly come total with enrollment pages, membership gain access to pages, and content pages which you can conveniently secure or trickle feed to your customers according to acquisitions they made in your channel. ClickFunnels membership sites enable you to send out emails, conveniently manage your emails, and also build an area all while removing the stress that’s related to various other remedies such as Kajabi, or WordPress platforms. It’s truly helpful to not need to buy a separate software or plugin to create subscription websites. * Email Assimilation & Actionetics *. With every channel comes email listing building chances. ClickFunnels supports email integration with all the major e-mail automation systems such as: - Active Campaign - Constant Contact - Get Response - Mad Mimi - Market Hero - And others Nonetheless, ClickFunnels additionally has their very own effective automation tool called Actionetics. Although you could create, timetable, as well as provide e-mails similar to any other e-mail advertising and marketing platform, Actionetics is a lot a lot more. I enjoy Actionetics due to the fact that it not only changes your e-mail marketing however messenger advertising and also SMS marketing software programs also. This takes automation to an entire brand-new degree as well as assists you interact the ideal message to your clients, precisely when they need it. A video clip introduction of Actionetics will certainly be supplied further listed below. * Invoicing and Settlement Assimilation *. An outstanding feature within ClickFunnels is the capability to gather all the payment details from your customers right on your sales page. Offering is made a lot easier when customers do not need to leave your website. ClickFunnels incorporates with major settlement entrances such as PayPal, Stripe, and also InfusionSoft, among others. While you could begin with the Free 14-Day Trial, there are 3 various prices options with ClickFunnels: - $ 97/month. - $ 297/month. - $ 997 bulk discount plan (suggested). I’ll go into detail for each of these plans below. 1. ClickFunnels Requirement Strategy – $97/month. The conventional plan includes all of the attributes you would require within ClickFunnels, however with restrictions on the variety of funnels (20) and also pages (100) you can have in your account, along with the number of site visitors (20K) could see your pages monthly. You also do not get sophisticated capability such as ClickFunnels very own email advertising and also affiliate monitoring devices. 2. ClickFunnels Etison Collection – $297/month. This strategy includes all the bells and also whistles of the basic strategy, without any constraints. It also includes two added items produced by ClickFunnels called Actionetics (email advertising) and Backpack (affiliate administration system). In Actionetics – you can manage all your calls that subscribe to your list, send out email programs, and also produce a host of other automations. Adobe Connect Audio Setup Wizard The difference in between the two plans truly is the limitations, as well as Actionetics/Backpack. If you are a fundamental customer as well as do not expect to make use of more than 20 funnels in your account – the Requirement Plan need to suffice. Nevertheless, if you plan to have an affiliate program or wish to keep your e-mail marketing within ClickFunnels as well as not use a third party software application, the Etison Suite is for you. You can constantly begin on the lower plan and upgrade if required. 3. Funnel Hacks System – $997 For any individual that’s severe about their business, the ClickFunnels Funnel Hacks System is the deal of the century. The $997 Funnel Hacks System includes robust training programs packed with 6-month accessibility to the ClickFunnels Etison Suite. This is an amazing deal given that beyond this program, 6-months of Etison Suite alone would certainly cost you $1782. Not just are you saving $785 but you’re getting a ton of trainings and also guides to help you get one of the most from ClickFunnels! ClickFunnels Benefits And Drawbacks - Producing funnels is extremely basic, simple, as well as fast - All-in-one system with every little thing your business has to win - Split testing and also conversion tracking included - Email combination with all the significant email autoresponder systems - Settlement handling capabilities within ClickFunnels - ClickFunnels is constantly adapting and updating to the times - There is always sustain offered (whether online or not). - Incredibly energetic Facebook Team Area. - Free 14-Day Trial – enables you to attempt it take the chance of cost-free. - As outstanding as ClickFunnels is, it certainly is not an economical service and also requires a continual registration to make use of - Assistance isn’t really always the fastest and also may take from 1 minute to 24 hours depending on the problem. ClickFunnels versus Everybody Else. Lots of people ask exactly how ClickFunnels compares to other touchdown page home builders such as Leadpages, Unbounce, and also Infusionsoft. Essentially it’s not actually a fair contrast since each of these devices succeeds is one area or the other. The chart over gives a detailed evaluation – but I’ll highlight several of the significant comparisons below. ClickFunnels vs Leadpages Before ClickFunnels, Leadpages was the large pet dog. Leadpages is just a lead capture software – nothing even more. You could develop landing web pages, lead boxes, gather leads … that’s practically it. In addition, the Leadpages templates are additionally restricted on personalization. ClickFunnels is even more flexible – it’s much easier to utilize as well as does so a lot more compared to produce lead capture web pages. Basically, Leadpages is actually simply a landing page building contractor, while ClickFunnels is focused around building highly incorporated funnels. ClickFunnels vs Infusionsoft Infusionsoft is not a touchdown page or sales page home builder. It has a few of that functionality built it, yet that’s not exactly what it’s known for. At it’s core, Infusionsoft is a CRM platform – one that enables you to manage your whole client data source. ClickFunnels has this capacity with Actionetics, yet it’s not almost as advanced as Infusionsoft. Infusionsoft is likewise very pricey and forces every new consumer to pay $2000 for a necessary kickstart mentoring bundle just to find out the best ways to make use of the intricate system (which is notoriously tough to utilize). ClickFunnels Associate Program There are two primary paths people decrease as ClickFunnels users. Those that prefer to make use of the tool for their company – in hopes of eventually attain the Two Comma Club (over $1M in revenue). And those that want earning passive earnings as a ClickFunnels Associate and also winning the Desire Cars and truck Competition (where they pay $500/$1000 towards your desire vehicle if you reach 100/200 active month-to-month signups, specifically). With a massive 40% monthly repeating compensation, ClickFunnels quickly has among the greatest affiliate programs of any kind of platform around. That’s right – you get paid an ongoing 40% commission on every affiliate signup you make through the ClickFunnels Associate Program. However, what does that truly equate to? The basic plan is a $97/month financial investment and the Etison Collection plan is a $297/month investment. therefore you make $38.80 each basic strategy and also $118.80 each Etison Suite plan … every single month! On average, every 100 signups will bring in $4000/month in affiliate payments (more or less depending upon how many Etison Strategy users remain in there). The Bottom Line ClickFunnels is by far the greatest platform if you are aiming to quickly build high transforming sales funnels. Due to the fact that it was constructed from the ground up to be the best sales channel building contractor, it vanquishes all the competitors in that regard. On the surface, it might not be the least expensive item around – but if you utilize it to its full capacity, your organisation will certainly become much more rewarding as well as you will save money from not having to utilize other tools. Adobe Connect Audio Setup Wizard If you have actually read this far right into my ClickFunnels Testimonial, I recommend you see for yourself with a Free 14-Day Test right here.

18650 Removable Battery Is Sold Separately, please choose a 18650 battery option in the drop down list above.(detailed specs of each battery is available on this website under the replacement parts drop down menu). Safety first folks, we recommend adding a protective case to your order. The purpose of this specially designed case is to protect your loose batteries from becoming a fire hazard while outside of your unit. (cases are sold separately and are available in the drop down menu above). This eCig model has a built in micro USB charging port, optional 18650 chargers are available in the drop down menu above. The advantage to having an 18650 rapid charger is that it allows for rapid charging of your removal batteries (detailed specs of each charger is available on this website under the replacement parts drop down menu). The Joyetech eVic AIO is a compact all in one system that couples Joyetech's V4.02 Firmware pre installed with up to three different types of display modes. The Joyetech eVic AIO features a range of up to 75W, Real Time Clock display modes, and full temperature control, integrated into a slim, removable 18650 battery powered chassis that sits alongside an integrated Sub-Ohm Tank which has the tank capacity of 3.5 milliliters and is based off of the CUBIS Pro platform The 18650 battery bay and the AIO Sub-Ohm tank compartment features a magnetized battery door for easy access. The top filling and top airflow tank design features a convenient top fill and a top adjustable airflow valve. Atomizer heads and e-liquid can be easily refilled and replaced. 1x eVic AIO 1x Notch Coil 0.25ohm coil (Direct Lung) 1x BF SS316 0.5ohm coil (Direct Lung) 1x LVC Clapton 1.5ohm coil (Mouth to Lung) 1x QCS coil 1x USB cable 1x Adapter 1x Manual Donation made to Molly Meals on your behalf by ZeeCigs with purchase of this item. Limited warranty against any manufacturing defects from the date of delivery from ZeeCigs.com. Warranty does not cover scratches or possible discoloration from regular use which is considered normal wear and tear, it is up to the user to protect against such damage. Zee Cigs Vaping Guide” Featuring The “Five Keys” of how to use a Electronic Cigarette including recommended eJuice nicotine levels and an explanation of vapor hardware options. These “Keys” are very important so please take the time to read the entire article before ordering, as user error is not covered under warranty. The five keys to produce the best vapor experience are as follows: First Key (Battery Output) 1. An eCigarette vapor model may have a built in battery (non-removable) or offer a removable battery option, the industry standard for removable batteries is the 18650 battery. Certain e-Cigarette models can offer variable wattage/voltage, not all models will offer this option therefore we encourage you to review the options of the model of eCig you are interested in before making a purchase. A good example of the power output of a vapor eCigarette is the, iStick eLeaf 100watt model (mod) which can produce up to 100 watts of power. The user of the iStick 100 watt model has the control to choose almost any wattage level, in doing so the eJuice flavor profile and vapor output of the unit can be changed to preference. Keep in mind that the higher the wattage capability of a unit is the the larger the batteries are to power that unit. Commonly 100 watt units (mods) are powered by two removable 18650 batteries, the convenient option of being able to remove the batteries, and swap them for newly charged replacements allows you to keep up with the power consumption of your unit. If you are interested in a 200 watt output unit, these models typically require two or even three 18650 batteries for power. A typical electronic cigarette offers anywhere from 2watts to 50 watts of power with 75 watt units being the current industry standard. eCigarettes such as these are usually manufactured with the battery built in, making charging the unit fast, easy and convenient. One of the preferred features of these models is the USB capability, allowing the user to vape and charge the eCig simultaneously. All of the convenient features and the value that it offers the user, makes these units a popular choice. The 100 watt models (vape rigs) will typically have removable 18650 batteries. One of the features of these units is the ability to charge the batteries via an onboard micro USB port, the con to this feature is that charging this way is slow due to the high mah levels of the batteries . The pro for users of 100 watt units (vape mods) is the ability to charge extra batteries in a separate charging station. If you are on a budget keep in mind that extra batteries and chargers may add to your overall cost of the unit. Second Key (Coil Head Resistance) 2. Coil heads in an electronic cigarette are the updated version of the eCig atomizer. Atomizers were common in the first generation units such as: 510, eGo-T, eGo-W and eGo-C models. Although the coil head resistance levels may seem confusing we will attempt at making the options easier to understand allowing you to customize your eCigarette model according to your vaping habit, which will result in the perfect vape, every time. To explain coil head resistance in simple terms Think of the coils resistance number (1.5, 1.0, 0.5, 0.25 ohm, etc) in the form of money, 1.5 would be a dollar and a half. 0.25 would be twenty-five cents. The lower the number the lower the resistance and the more power (wattage / voltage) will be needed to run that coil head. It may appear odd that the lower the number the more powerful the coil but this is due to ohm's law and this option is out of human control as it’s the law of electricity. A low resistance coil head needs to be powered by a high output battery and/or electronic cigarette model that has the option of variable wattage/voltage as more power is needed. This is why many advertised eCigarette units showcase the max wattage output When you use a low resistance coil you can increase the wattage/voltage settings to a level where the vapor and flavor output is to your preference. Please keep in mind each resistance level has a minimum and maximum wattage setting. For example a Joyetech 0.5ohm SS316 coil will have a wattage range from 15 watts up to 30 watts. Therefore if you increase the wattage setting over the maximum 30W while using the Joyetech 0.5ohm SS316 coil head, that will result in a coil head failure. We used the Joyetech SS316 coil as an example, each manufacture differs in design and we recommend you check the manufacturer's settings before using the coil. If you are wondering how each coil manufacturer can offer different ranges even if the coil head resistance level is a universal setting, then you are asking the right questions! Some coil heads might have one heating coil built inside of the head, some have two coils built in four coils, six coils and even eight coils built into the head (we are sure the future will bring even more coils packed into a coil head). The minimum and maximum wattage settings will change the more coils that are built within the coil head. Keep in mind that if you have a coil head with quad coils built in (four coils) then you will be converting liquid into vapor at a higher rate which will produce much more vapor and you will consume a lot more eLiquid (nicotine liquid). Coil head Resistance is very important as it dictates the flavor and/or vapor output. Think of this replaceable part as the engine. You have the control to place a powerful engine (low resistance) or a more economical engine (high resistance) or anything in-between. The lower the resistance the more powerful the output including flavor and vapor, keep in mind a more powerful engine will use much more eLiquid as its providing a much higher output and can double your eJuice consumption compared to high resistance coils which use less vaping juice (nicotine juice). Not all units can power a low resistance coil head (powerful engine). Every electronic cigarette model offers a minimum resistance, which dictates how low the coil resistance can be per eCig model. For example, the Joyetech eGo AIO model does not offer variable voltage / wattage and has a voltage level preset at 3.7 volts. The Joye eGo AIO minimum resistance level is 0.5ohm (preset at the factory) as that is the lowest level the eCig unit can operate at. A 0.25 coil will not operate in this eCigarette model. As a second example the Joyetech eGrip 2 is a variable wattage / voltage eCig model that can produce up to 80 watts. This vapor eCig model can power a full range of coils with the lowest coil setting of 0.1. That’s right, 0.1 ohm, which is the lowest option currently available, however you normally will not find a premade coil at such a low resistance level. These low resistance levels are the result of custom built (home-made) DIY tanks, in these cases the user builds their own coil from scratch. Please note, unless you have full knowledge of ohm’s law, coil building education and the proper safety equipment you should not attempt to build your own coils as this is very dangerous and is the reason you now see so many disclaimers posted on vapor eCig retailers websites regarding “electronic cigarettes explodes” and fire hazards. This is also the reason for popular “junk media” stories of exploding electronic cigarettes. If you are not using custom built coils (home-made) in your eCig model than your risk of lithium-ion failure is extremely low, so low that the odds of failure are the same as any device that uses lithium ion batteries including cellphones, smartphones, iPhone, iPad or laptop failure which we all know is extremely rare. If you stay away from custom made (home-made) coils your eCigarette vapor model is extremely safe to use. Lower Resistance Coil Head (Heating Element for eCig models) Lower resistance levels commonly called Sub Ohm such as 0.25, 0.05 and 0.6 ohm will result in nicotine liquid becoming harsher at higher levels. Lower coil resistances allow for DL vaping (Direct Lung). When using low resistance coils we recommend 6mg of nicotine in your eJuice or lower with 3mg of nicotine being the most popular for 0.25, 0.05 and 0.06 ohm coil heads. High Resistance Coil Head (Heating Element for eCig models) High resistance levels such as 1.5 ohm allows you to use a full range of electronic cigarette nicotine liquid from 0mg up to 24mg of nicotine. Higher resistance coils allow for the more traditional vape habit of MTL vaping (Mouth To Lung). Although high resistance coils heads (1.5) allows for a full range of eJuice nicotine levels, vapor user should note that flavor and vapor output is reduced when using high resistance coil heads. MTL vs DL MTL Stands for “Mouth to Lung” and DL stands for “Direct Lung”. Classic vapor electronic cigarette models such as the EVOD and T3S featured MTL allowing the user to first inhale a large amount of vapor into their mouth and then the eCigarette user would inhale the vapor into their lungs. Newer vape models (rigs) can be much more powerful and use low resistance coil heads resulting in a new technique to inhale which is referred to as “Direct Lung” inhalation. These more powerful vape models (mods) coupled with a low resistance coil head produce large amounts of vapor the user of these models doesn't need to wait for the vapor to build up in their mouth before delivering it to the lungs, instead they simply inhale directly from their mouth into their lungs. Special note should be taken that newer is not necessarily better. Many new users to vapor electronic cigarettes products choose to purchase eCigarette units that provide the classic MTL vaping experience. If you are new to electronic cigarettes than you might want to choose a model that can accept coil heads that offer both MTL and DL coil head options as you will be able to experience both methods and decide which vaping method is best suited to your vaping habit. Third Key (Temperature Control) 3. Since we explained MTL and DL now is a great time to mention Temperature control. The temperature control setting is only available if the unit has temperature control settings built in and the eCig user has installed specially designed temperature control coil heads. If you have both options you can change the eCigarette models (mod) settings to the temperature control vaping option. Temperature control settings allow for yet another (confusing) option of vaping as the focus is on the temperature of the vapor being produced. In this mode you do not change the wattage / voltage setting but rather increase or decrease the temperature setting. Very few electronic cigarette users enjoy this vaping sensation. Simply put, this vaping option has been attributed to marketing hype to sell more vapor products. If you are new to vaping we recommend starting with the Variable Wattage/Voltage settings, in the future you may want to consider trying this setting as a limited number of vapor users do enjoy it. Fourth Key (Vapor eJuice / eLiquid nicotine levels) 4. When it comes to electronic cigarette nicotine juice you have many options. As a rule of thumb the higher the nicotine level the more throat hit (a term used to associate the feeling a traditional cigarette gives to a smoker's throat when inhaling) but hinders the flavor or the eLiquid. If you use an eJuice with a low nicotine level then the eLiquid blend will offer more flavor but it will reduce your throat hit. In the early days of vaping, choosing your nicotine level was pretty simple as almost all units operated at 3.7 to 4.2 volts (pretty low settings) and almost all electronic cigarette coil heads (used to be called atomizers) were preset to 1.2 to 2.5 ohms. You simply selected a nicotine level of your preference and would reduce the level over time (if you wanted to decrease your nicotine level). Today it's very important to compare your nicotine level to your coil head setting. High levels of electronic cigarette nicotine liquid can be too harsh to inhale if used with a low resistance coil heads (0.25). You need to adjust your nicotine mg level based on the coil head setting you are currently using. Some signs that you are using too much nicotine for the resistance of your coil are a feeling of being light headed and even dizziness. The reason for this is that a low resistance coil head runs much hotter and converts the nicotine liquid much quicker resulting in more vapor and a higher concentration of nicotine within the vapor, in turn, you absorb more nicotine as your lungs are exposed to more vapor. High resistance coil heads (1.5) might not deliver the desired throat sensation compared to your old habit of tobacco cigarettes as they do not run nearly as hot as a low resistance coil head. A high resistance setting will result in less vapor and less nicotine absorption. In this case you would increase your nicotine level to deliver the desired throat sensation. The higher the coil head setting (1.5) the higher the nicotine level that can be consumed (if needed) and the lower the coil head setting (0.25) than the lower the nicotine level. Every electronic cigarette user has different preferences and it's common to vary your nicotine levels. For an example, you may use 12mg or even 24mg with a high resistance coil head (1.5), but if you switch your coil head to a low resistance setting (0.25) then that same eCig user should reduce the nicotine mg level to 3mg or 6mg. There are some eCigarette users who enjoy high levels of nicotine even with powerful low resistance (0.25) coil heads. We recommend starting at a low level of nicotine and if desired raising the nicotine levels slowly at no more than 3mg intervals. The description above might leave you scratching your head as to the correct nicotine level to choose in your electronic cigarette refill liquid. You don’t want to waste money on eLiquid that you cannot use, on Eliquid that may be to light or too strong of a nicotine level. The solution is pretty simple, you can mix your eLiquid as needed. For Example if you have a bottle of 12mg nicotine level Ejuice and a bottle of 0mg nicotine Ejuice you can mix them together (equal parts) giving you 6 mg of nicotine. Please be cautious not to get eLiquid on your skin, prolonged exposure will result in nicotine absorption through the skin. If you spill electronic cigarette refill liquid (juice) on your skin please wash the area with soap and water as soon as possible to ensure your safety. Fifth Key (Airflow Control) 5. “Airflow control” makes a big difference when selecting your electronic cigarette vapor model which is why we included it in the five keys to vaping. Airflow control is pretty straight forward ,the top end of an electronic cigarette which can be called any of the following vaping terms, clearomizer, clearo, tank, RDA, RTA, etc. has an airflow option. These options are manually changed by the user and allows for you to modify the ease of inhale while vaping. This is an important option especially for those new electronic cigarette users who are smokers. Traditional tobacco cigarettes have a hard pull when inhaling and many new eCigarette users want to mimic that sensation with an eCig. As time goes on you may want to adjust the pull to more or less, based on your preference. You can conveniently adjust the pull by simply altering the airflow control. Changing your airflow is quick and easy, we recommend inhaling vapor from your eCigarette while altering the airflow as many models allow for this. By changing the airflow while inhaling vapor you get an exact airflow setting for your personal vaping habit. Airflow control is also very important with regard to SubOhm eCig models. If you choose to use a low resistance coil head (0.25, 0.5, 0.6 etc.) you will find that the vapor may be very warm and possibly uncomfortable to vape. With the airflow control option you can open the airflow control allowing for more airflow which will cool the vapor resulting in an optimum setting conducive to each individual. It's small options like these that might be overlooked but these options hold the best keys to true customization and vapor control. Always Prime Your Coil Head Friendly reminder! Always prime a new vape tank, clearomizer or coil head, If you don’t you can and will damage the new coil head. Priming is easy and important as it allows for the wicking (often made of organic cotton) to properly absorb the eLiquid before being fired. To prime the coil head simply fill the clearomizer and/or tank with eJuice, take the new coil head and place a few drops into the opening of the coil head, then screw the eCigarette coil head onto the tank and/or clearomizer and screw the tank and/or clearomizer together. Inhale three or more times before attaching the vape tank and/or clearomizer to the eCig battery. This allows for the absorption process of the wicking material inside the coil head to start. The final step is to leave the clearomizer and/or tank in an upright position with the mouthpiece facing up for a minimum of five minutes before firing the new coil head. Never let your clearomizer and/or vapor tank go low or empty. A coil head can be damaged with just one good inhale if the clearomizer and/or tank is low or empty. A damaged coil head is caused by the coils wicking being burnt and will result in a burnt harsh taste and/or leaking and no vapor output at all. Think of your coil head as the engine, with no oil the engine will stop working quickly, this is also true with a coil head. Always use the intended electronic cigarette charger for the specific eCigarette battery or battery type. Always connect eCigarette chargers in protected outlets (GFCI Outlets) to assure a safe charging environment. Most residential homes have these outlets (they have a "Test" and "Reset" button on the face of the outlet) as they protect the outlet from potentially hazardous situations. Do not leave e-cigarette batteries unattended while charging. If a user decides to charge lithium ion batteries without a protection circuit it is potentially hazardous and is not recommended. It is important to charge lithium Ion batteries on a fireproof surface in case of accidental fire. ZeeCigs is not responsible for any damage caused by users misuse or mishandling of Li-Ion batteries and chargers. Use caution when using or working with Lithium Ion / Li-ion cells as they are sensitive to charging characteristics and if misused or mishandled may explode or burn the user. Make sure the user has the proper knowledge of Lithium Ion / Li-Ion rechargeable batteries and how to properly charge and/or discharge before initial use. ZeeCigs.com is not responsible for damage caused by user modification of the batteries/chargers or hardware intended for electronic cigarettes. ZeeCigs.com will not be held responsible or liable for any injury, damage, or defect, permanent or temporary that may be caused by the improper use of a Lithium Ion / Li-Ion battery. Please take the time to have a basic understanding of the battery type you are using and how to care for them properly. Please read all instructions before charging your vapor system. We welcome you to contact us via email regarding any questions you may have about a specific eCigs battery, vape unit, mod or eCigarettes device. Dimensions: 4-1/8" x 1-7/8" x 1" e-Liquid Capacity: 3.5ml Wattage Output: 1.0 - 75.00w Variable Temperature Control : Nickel / Titanium / Stainless Steel 316/ Temperature Control Range: 100 - 315C / 200 - 600F Bypass (Direct Output Voltage) Mode Resistance Range: 0.05-1.5ohm Variable Temperature Control Mode Resistance Range: 0.1-3.5ohm Variable Wattage and Bypass Mode Utilizes the Joye Cubis Atomizer Heads such as the Joye NotchCoil SS316 0.25ohm Detachable Magnetic Battery Cover Removable Glass 510 Threaded Tanks may be used with the included Atomizer Adapter Top Fill Design Top Airflow Large 0.96" OLED Screen Real Time Clock Display Micro USB Charging Port New 4.02v Firmware Upgradeable Firmware Over-charging, over-current and over discharging protection Reverse Polarity protection

Surfaces to be coated must be clean and dry. Remove all loose, peeling paint, dirt, grease, and any other surface contaminants. Putty all nail holes and caulk all cracks and open seams. Sand all glossy, rough and patched surfaces. Plaster, concrete and masonry surfaces must be completely dry, free of efflorescence and allowed to cure for 30 days prior to painting. When applied to an uncoated substrate or to bare wood, two coats are required with the first coat acting as the primer. Uncoated substrates, repaired surfaces or lightly stained areas may require additional coats. For severe stains, water marks, and other challenging conditions such as bare metal or chalky surfaces use as an appropriate specialty primer. WARNING! If you scrape, sand, or remove old paint, you may release lead dust or fumes. LEAD IS TOXIC. EXPOSURE TO LEAD DUST OR FUMES CAN CAUSE SERIOUS ILLNESS, SUCH AS BRAIN DAMAGE, ESPECIALLY IN CHILDREN. PREGNANT WOMEN SHOULD ALSO AVOID EXPOSURE. Wear a properly fitted NOISH-approved respirator and prevent skin contact to control lead exposure. Clean up carefully with a HEPA vacuum and a wet mop. Before you start, find out how to protect yourself and your family by contacting the USEPA National Lead Information Hotline at 1-800-424-LEAD or log on to www.epa.gov/lead. Follow these instructions to control exposure to other hazardous substances that may be released during surface preparation. Stir thoroughly. Apply with a high quality brush, roller, paint pad, or by spray equipment. When using more than one container of the same color, intermix to ensure color uniformity. Do not thin. Apply only when air, product, and surface temperatures are between 50°F (10°C) and 90°F (32°C). Dry time at 77°F and 50% relative humidity. To Touch: 1 hour To Recoat: 4 hours To Full Cure: 30 days Drying times listed may vary depending on temperature, humidity, color, film build, and air movement. Wait at least 30 days after painting before cleaning the surface with a non-abrasive, mild cleanser. Very deep colors may require longer to fully cure. Up to 400 sq. ft. (37.2 sq. meters) per U.S. gallon (3.78 Liters) on primed, smooth, nonporous surfaces. Coverage figures do not include material loss due to application. Some colors, drastic color changes, or porous surfaces may require more than one coat to achieve a uniform finish. Cleanup tools with warm, soapy water. Painted drywall, plaster, masonry, wood and metal Please refer to the Product Label, Technical Data Sheet (TDS) or Safety Data Sheet (SDS) for safety and detailed application instructions.

I have a friend who is foreign born and her English is good but she needs to improve her reading and writing skills. It is jeopardizing her job situation because she can't read/write emails very well. I want to suggest some books for her to read that will help her improve her skills. However, she is very religious, and would only be interested in reading Bible-related books. She reads from the King James Bible every day for ~30 mins, but it is in old english, and I am not sure that she understands what she is reading. But she reads it religiously. Is there a more modern Bible-related book that I can suggest for her? Something that would help her understand modern grammar and sentence structure would be best, especially for improving her written communication in daily life. Any help would be great!

The trucker that was born in a truck, huh? Give me the details. Well, my parents pulled up in front of the diesel pumps at the Shenandoah, Ohio truck stop in a 1973 Freightliner. My dad was getting ready to pump fuel when he heard my mom in stress, going into labor. Well, a service truck pulled up along one side of the Freightliner, and an ambulance pulled up on the other. My mom, lying in the bed of the big rig gave birth to me right there and then; the paramedic pulled me right out through the emergency access panel. My dad went there for fuel and got a son. Being born in a truck and all, it seems like fate had it out for you to be a truck driver. When did you start driving? I first started driving when I was 16 years old, on the farm. Back then I drove a Volvo White and an International. I started driving Over the Road when I turned 21. I haven’t been driving Over the Road consistently since then, though. I did it for a few years, then took a break to help out on the folk’s farm for a while. What kind of trucks have you driven? I’ve driven Kenworths, Western Stars, Volvos… The first truck I ever drove, outside of the farm, was back when I was 18 and told my father I wanted to be a truck driver like him. We had an old Trifold Mack and he had me take the wheel and learn to drive, by driving, by myself. Back then in Colorado, farmers didn’t need an CDL-A to drive a truck; they were exempt, all you needed was a regular driver’s license. What’s your favorite part of being a driver? The fact that I love to travel, and at someone else’s expense, and get paid for it haha. Well, I guess it’s not at someone else’s expense anymore; I’m a Lease Purchase driver now. But I still get paid for it and it’s still worth it. Any tips for other drivers? I’d recommend driving with a company that works with your specific needs and wants. For me, that’s LTI, but you need to find your company for yourself. Also, like my father said to me, you’re the one who has to stop 80,000 pounds of rolling steal, so you’re the one who has to learn how to drive it and control it.

Surefire Health Tips to Transition to Autumn ęDeborah Barr, 2011-16; all rights reserved. The Autumn Equinox provides a tremendous outpouring of energy for your use or misuse. Your thoughts, feelings, words, choices and actions can create greater health and an abundance of all good things if you are consciously directing them toward what you DO want--right NOW. Equinoxes represent balance and autumn is harvest time. What seeds have you planted in the spring? What were your dominant mental seeds? How healthy have your food choices been? You will most likely reap the results of your efforts of the past two seasons to fulfill your goals, vision and dreams. Does that scare you or excite you? Either way, it's never too late for a fresh, new approach to taking control of your health and personal life. Autumn represents letting go. Are you ready to release all that's been intensifying your challenges and keeping you stuck? Eating and living in harmony with the seasons is one aspect of my Holistic WholeHealth approach to creating radiant health and energy; a healthy fit body and mind; emotional harmony and an abundant, joyful life you love. Many of the reductionist and one-size-fits-all methods of western medicine and many alternative models are inadequate in assisting you with complete recovery from physical and emotional health distress and personal crises. There is a more accurate Holistic method for you to determine what is needed for healing your emotional, physical and lifestyle problems. My WholeHealth approach is based on centuries old traditional health wisdom founded on solid principles rather than popular trends that contradict each other and fade in time. I have several offerings that can benefit you and details are at the end of this article. Health Challenges – Lungs, Immunity, Digestion and Skin Each season brings the potential for specific physical and emotional health issues. If your health is weak you are more likely to experience health challenges during the transition from summer to autumn. The well being of your body, mind and emotions in any season is dependent, to a large extent, on your food and lifestyle choices of the previous seasons. According to the centuries old wisdom of traditional health philosophies, autumn impacts the lungs and large intestine. Colds, sinus problems, lung and immune ailments (including allergies and asthma), digestive problems, skin conditions, weakness and/or pain in the arms, thumbs and index fingers; weak abdominal muscles; and pain and/or weakness in the thumb and index fingers are some common imbalances related to lung and digestive health and prevalent during this season. there is disharmony in these organs, specific emotions and characteristics will be more pronounced. Perhaps during this time of year you’ve noticed that you become indecisive, lethargic, depressed, or unable to see positive solutions and move beyond adversity. Or you may engage in self-blame and not-good-enough syndrome; become unresponsive, indifferent, negative, ineffective, isolated, self-destructive, and overly self-protective. These symptoms are caused by lung and large intestine imbalances, and originate from poor diet, excessive or insufficient activity, climate, and/or organ malfunction. Anxiety, depression, and other emotional disharmonies will be covered in great detail in my upcoming Emotional Harmony Webinar. Subscribe to free e-newsletter, Whole Health Matters, for details. Most dry conditions are exacerbated during this season and are related to the lungs—dry skin and throat, itchiness and most skin conditions, chapped lips, and excessive thirst. Even more common are conditions caused by an excess of mucus forming fluids. This creates problems in the lungs by inhibiting the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. When too much moisture or mucus collects in the lungs, these gases cannot pass freely. Fruit and cow’s milk products, including cheese, yogurt, and ice cream, cause a lot of mucus in the respiratory system even if they are labeled low-fat. Too much mucus in the lung tissues makes them susceptible to inflammation and hypersensitive to the effects of irritants in the air. Mucus traps harmful pollutants allowing them to accumulate rather than be excreted. Phlegm in the lungs is often caused by weak digestion. Each person’s health plan should be individualized; however, some general guidelines are listed below. Therapeutic Foods for Autumn Health help clear mucus in the lungs and intestines. They include onions, garlic, turnip, broccoli, celery, ginger, cabbage, horseradish, radish, daikon, small amounts of hot peppers and chilies, seaweeds, and ground flaxseed. Use several of these every day. Pungent cooking herbs include garlic, ginger, black pepper, basil, fennel, cinnamon, cloves, marjoram, rosemary, caraway, dill and bay leaf. The rich beta-carotene content of golden-orange and dark green vegetables helps protect these organs. They include carrot, winter squash, broccoli, parsley, kale, mustard greens, and watercress. foods help to cleanse the colon and lungs and whole, unprocessed grains are the best source, including brown rice, barley, quinoa, oats, and millet. Eat 2 cups or more daily. dry conditions such as dry cough, dry skin, itchiness, excessive thirst, and sluggish bowels or constipation, emphasize these foods: seaweed, peaches, pears, apples (best to cook fruit in the autumn and winter), string beans, tofu, tempeh, brown rice syrup, black sesame seeds, ground flaxseed, organic butter or ghee, organic eggs, oysters, and clams. bitter, spicy, and sour foods and eliminate dehydrating substances such as coffee, alcohol and cigarettes. 3-5 day cleansing diet of simple, easy to digest foods can help bring you back to balance. Eat only whole, unprocessed grains, steamed vegetables and Soup. Start the day with warm lemon water and drink plenty of liquids including water and herbal teas. Chew well to alkalize the food, sit down and eat in a relaxed way, and avoid eating after 6 p.m. Foods in the lotus family are beneficial for lung health and other conditions. about this little known food group and its uses. You can give your lungs and immune system a boost by incorporating medicinal mushrooms both as a food and in supplement form. Learn which ones are best for you. There are many safe and effective herbs that can clear lung, digestive, skin, and all conditions without the negative side effects of pharmaceuticals. Some herbal remedies are described. There are others not listed since it’s best to consult with a professional herbalist to determine the best remedies for your constitution and condition. If you have chronic problems, you'll save money, time and trail and error with a professional consultation so that recommendations can be customized for your entire health. Exercise and activities that promote higher oxygen levels in the blood will make you feel more energetic, alert and positive. Raising oxygen levels also allows the brain to function better and promotes a positive mental outlook. Try yoga, tai chi or qigong. Brisk walking, hiking, or riding a bike outdoors are helpful especially in autumn. These all improve lung health and help to eliminate some of the above symptoms. have far more control over your health and happiness than you realize. Adopting some of the suggestions in this article can help you take control by adapting to the changing seasons with harmony and well being. Your mental and emotional state will improve and I'll give more tips on this in a future article Barr. All rights reserved. With all the uncertainty of our health care system, it's more important than ever to be proactive and invest in your well being. It's difficult to do This does not mean you stop seeing your physician or eliminating your medications. It means educating yourself and learning about your body and personal imbalances from a holistic perspective. If it makes sense to you, then begin to implement gradual changes. You can get to anywhere that you want to be. Small, consistent changes will get you there. you resonate with a Holistic approach, professional guidance for the right nutrition and holistic health plan for you. You can greatly improve every aspect of your physical, mental and emotional health with a customized holistic approach. Schedule an Introductory Holistic Health and Nutrition session with Deborah Barr, 30-year Holistic Health and Nutrition Counselor. You'll be on your way to better health. Sessions can be done by phone, skype, or at Pittsburgh office. client success stories Feel free to use this article in your print or no charge. We do that you send an and tell us in you will use it and when it will be published. We require that you use bio (see end of each if you wish) and mail us a copy link to online If you are in or are looking I'd be delighted to discuss some topics with you. All articles and this website are and are owned by

Twixt my finger and my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. (Witch on the approach of Shakespeare’s Macbeth). In a spectacle of corruption, and chicanery, the Democrats, in breach of their oath to preserve and protect the Constitution, passed a healthcare bill, declared it splendid—and now are crowing victory. Americans, however, are shouting their wrath even as they pledge the political obliteration of Democrats. Well Done Democrats! Again Well Done! You have worked from your own rope the hangman’s noose will swing thee in the November winds. The Democrats who voted yea sought to camouflage their faithlessness in contrivance, in fig leafs, however small, might cover their moral nakedness. Some pitched a beauteous vision: The Bill will irradiate the deficit, though they know as well as we the Bill will impose trillions in debt upon Americans and their children yet unborn. Others embrace the tactics of Machiavelli. They believe that so long as they dump truckloads of cash into the pockets of their constituents, they will survive. The Chicago Presidential Administration love these Democrats. For they are of one mind, know the subtleties of crookedness and blowing smoke. Indeed, they are of one alloyed ambition: self-aggrandizement and the ascendance of a welfare state. So for the President there is no promise too great or small, too brazen or profane for which he will not squander American wealth or plunge American children into unquenchable deficits and penury. There were others of course who drape themselves in religion. One politician announced piously he would vote for the bill only after a soulful talk with his Catholic priest. He is not worth more words than this: Suffice to say he holds himself in religious awe. Rep. Bart Stupak and the Democrats who pledged their conscience to the protection of an unborn child’s right to life promised to vote No to the Bill—until at last, just as the cock crowed, they betrayed the peoples’ sacred trust. Suddenly, Rep. Stupak saw the light; he would vote for the Bill because President O’bama, the most pro abortion President ever to take office, would publish an executive order urging the prohibition of federally funded abortions. Clear conscience indeed. Rep. Stupak, and the pro life Democrats who joined him knew then and now that the President’s Executive Order when signed will be a nullity that it cannot constitutionally trump the legislative language of the Bill or the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade. In Roe, the Supreme Court legitimized de facto, despite its restrictive words, any and all abortions, any time. If Rep. Stupak, and the few pro-life democrats were ignorant of the impotency of executive orders, why then didn’t they research the law? Why didn’t they ask the Council of Bishops for a copy of the briefs written by their legal staff? They would have discovered that an executive order is powerless to alter legislation or contest the ruling of courts? The question for unborn children is one of life and death. Therefore, our would be champions must demand certainty. Why then didn’t Rep. Stupak and the pro life Democrats find out whether they could rely upon the President’s executive order to stop the taking of innocent life? As both the President and Stupak know the President’s executive order is a profane farce then, upon what law does Stupak rely to keep safe unborn children from the abortionist? The silence is deafening. How quickly has principle surrendered to expedience. Perhaps Rep. Stupak simply erred. But why then did he so fiercely excoriate Republicans who proposed an amendment to the Bill, framed precisely in the language of the first Stupak amendment— an amendment that would have protected unborn children from federal extinction? And if Democrats are of one mind with the President and believe therefore, that his executive order will prevent federal funding of abortions why did Rep. Stupak and the rest of the Democrats vote the Republican amendment down? Why have Democrats adamantly rejected an amendment to protect unborn children from abortion that presumably is in harmony with President O’Bama’s executive order? After the bill passed, Republicans introduced a motion that sought to send the bill back to committee and amend its abortion language using the kind of wording that Stupak originally wanted. Stupak spoke against the motion, leading to the shouts from some Republicans. Stupak told the chamber that the president's executive order would assure that "the sanctity of life is protected," and that the motion was "nothing more than an opportunity to continue to deny 32 million Americans health care.” For the Republicans to now claim that we send the bill back to committee under this guise of protecting life is disingenuous," Stupak said. "This motion is really to politicize life, not prioritize life.” The motion did not pass. CNN politics. Monday, March 22, 2010 From the beginning, President O’Bama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi conceived out of the secular caverns of their radical vision a health care bill unmoved by facts or consequence. There they discovered the Bill would lower the deficit, bend the cost curve down, insure well over forty-five million Americans presently uninsured, eliminate billions in fraud, lower the cost of annual family health care premiums by $2500.00 and probably make us all immortal. But when well-researched and incontestable facts shattered their shtick, Democrats raised a stonewall against debate or challenges to their vision, flung racial or Nazi epithets at those who tried to debate and resorted in the end to shabby gimmickry. They wrung out of the Congressional Budget Office (CB0) an opinion would confirm their vision. But they know, as do all Americans, that the CBO’s findings, as they are constrained by the presumptions provided by the Democrats are nothing less than fiction. Tacitus wrote of the Romans They made a desert and called it peace. Just so would the Democrats make of America a welfare state and call her still a democracy. Their constituency, however, the American people detest hypocrisy. Americans also detest the arrogance of politicians who would defy the Constitution, the States and its people. Finally, the great majority of Americans want to protect unborn children from the abortionist. That’s why so many Americans placed their trust in Rep. Stupak—and in a President, remember, who promised that the Bill would not fund the aborting of unborn children. This too will pass, they think. So the President’s office has announced a unique media blitz will calm the circus rubes. The President will make lots of speeches. He will tell us that if we want to we can keep our old policy, our old doctor, that we will pay much less for health care, that the Bill will reduce the deficit, improve health care, particularly for the elderly presumably by striping five hundred billion dollars from Medicare. But wait, all this sounds too familiar. Must we hear this rot again? Perhaps not. Here is an American, Mitt Romney in A Campaign Begins Today. Today America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power. President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation — rather than bringing us together, ushering in a new kind of politics, and rising above raw partisanship, he has succumbed to the lowest denominator of incumbent power: justifying the means by extolling the ends. He promised better; we deserved better. he calls his accomplishment “historic” — in this he is correct, although not for the reason he intends. Rather, it is an historic usurpation of the legislative process — he unleashed the nuclear option, enlisted not a single Republican vote in either chamber, bribed reluctant members of his own party, paid-off his union backers, scapegoated insurers, and justified his act with patently fraudulent accounting. What Barrack Obama has ushered into the American political landscape is not good for our country; in the words of an ancient maxim, “what starts twisted, ends twisted.” His health-care bill is unhealthy for America. It raises taxes, slashes the more private side of Medicare, installs price controls, and puts a new federal bureaucracy in charge of health care. It will create a new entitlement even as the ones we already have are bankrupt. For these reasons and more, the act should be repealed. That campaign begins today. — Mitt Romney is the former governor of Massachusetts and author of No Apology03/22 09:24 AM It is time again to gird our loins, to fight, to screw our courage to the sticking place, to vow we will not fail, to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war. After all, we are not undone nor will we be undone by the likes of Stupak and the President. Let us condemn this obscenity: The Democrats, the President and his Congress have breathed into life a law will serve up unborn children to the fatal attractions of abortion. What have they done! What have they done! What do you Think?

Rebecca Roberts questions the use of language in criminal justice and introduces comments from Frances Crook, Jonathan Simon, Mike Nellis, Lizzie Seal, Simon Pemberton and Nils Christie The proliferation of ‘criminal justice talk’ – the number of words that are spoken and written about ‘crime’ and ‘criminal justice’ – in politics, media outlets, academia, and public policy is ever increasing and ever more widely accessible. This ‘debating’ section attempts to kick off a discussion about the use of criminal justice language which we can hopefully continue within the pages of cjm as well as through our Works for Freedom website. The idea for this came from discussions at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies about the language we use in our day-to-day work. Whether it is drafting a strategic plan or funding application, writing up research or, indeed, editing cjm , we have to think carefully about language in the communication of ideas and engaging in public debate. At one level, it should be easy – just say what you see and do it in simple and easily understood terms. However, this is more challenging when attempting to foster critical thinking about issues relating to crime and justice. In an arena so dominated by stereotypes, prejudices, and mystification about how the system operates and who or what it targets, it seemed relevant to open up a discussion on this. So, we approached a number of writers to ask for their views. Frances Crook, Jonathan Simon, and Mike Nellis look at the uses and abuses of the term ‘offender’. Crook argues that the label is demeaning and counterproductive and calls on the voluntary sector to lead the way in challenging the use of language about people caught up in the criminal justice system. Jonathan Simon is also critical of the term ‘offender’ and takes issue with describing people by one aspect of their behaviour and discusses some alternatives. Mike Nellis defends the use of ‘offender’ in probation practice and highlights its popularisation in the 1960s as an alternative to terms such as ‘criminal’ and ‘delinquent’. Nellis argues that ‘treating people with respect and dignity regardless of what they have done, and finding words to match, is always important, but not necessarily straightforward’. Lizzie Seal looks at representations of women accused of murder and how they are often framed in terms of ‘perverse’ sexuality in a bid to emphasise their apparent deviation from the ‘norm’. Nils Christie and Simon Pemberton look at crime and harm. Christie highlights the increasing number of acts that are defined as criminal and the negative impact of social isolation and distance in terms of framing behaviour and actions, and how they are subsequently interpreted and dealt with. Simon Pemberton argues that we should look beyond individual acts and ‘offences’ and use a social harm approach to interpret and interrogate social structures and how they create and reproduce harm. It would be difficult to institute timeless and unchanging rules about what language can and cannot be used. New terms that may seem value free can soon become coopted and value laden. The popularity of words and phrases will shift over time – for good and bad. In reflecting on the discussion in the debating section, the message that comes through is the importance of being searching and reflective in our use of language. In conclusion, I offer three possible things to consider when engaging in discussion and debate about criminal justice. The first is the human aspect – remembering at all times that when we talk about offenders, victims, deviants, criminals, or research subjects – all are human beings first. Secondly, it is important to encourage accuracy in defining our terms of reference. For example, there is a strong tendency towards talking about crime and criminal justice in very loose terms. Are we talking about all illegal acts? If not, which ones are we particularly interested in, and why? Those that come to the attention of the police? Are we talking about shoplifting or sexual assault or widespread harmful and illegal practices of the banking sector? When we talk about ‘offenders’, who and what are we talking about? The final point is about how best to foster and encourage critical understanding – thinking critically about the implications of using certain terms and the assumptions underlying them. Viewing certain social ‘problems’ through a ‘crime’ lens tends to imply the criminal justice system as the primary mechanism through which certain social ‘problems’ are viewed and dealt with. Exploring and debating definitions is more than a merely ‘academic’ exercise. From an early age we are given words and labels to describe the world around us. They are important tools to help interpret and explain our surroundings and feelings – the concrete and abstract. At one level, a common sense approach of using language that those around us understand needs no explanation. But, the words and phrases we use contain signals about gender, class, power, and the nature of social relations. If we want to understand criminal justice it is also important to understand the way in which the public discourse about it is constructed – and to encourage reflective and critical discussion. This is not a call for stripping away meaning from words. As emphasised by Stan Cohen (1985) in studying the professional discourse around social control, he calls for an exploration of what he describes as ‘Controltalk’ – and warns against overly sanitising the language we use. Making coercive interventions sound non-coercive and ‘nice’, it can help to obscure the harsh realities of confinement and control. But ultimately, the point is to be careful in our use of language, because as Cohen argues, ‘such a project of self awareness might help to clarify the moral, tactical and political choices in working out a policy… I would always prefer a form of justice in which values, conflicts and injustices become open and visible’ (Cohen, 1985). It's not so much the words themselves that are good or bad. It is their meaning and associations that matter. Social problems exist as do the people that experience them – how we name and frame these problems and the people involved is important and should be at the forefront of our thinking when engaging in research, policy, and public debate. Labelling people as offenders is demeaning and counter-productive by Frances Crook A summer article in The Guardian reported on recent research from the UK Drugs Policy Commission that the use of stigmatising terms such as ‘junkie’ was a major obstacle to recovery for problem drug users. This can hardly be a surprise to anyone who has worked with people with any sort of health, mental health, or social problem, however, it may be a revelation to politicians. For too long it is has been easy for politicians to treat certain sections of the population as ‘other’, implying that they are less than human. Insulting labels that define the action or illness as if it defines the whole person inhibit that individual from confronting the problem and moving on; just as importantly, the label prevents us from understanding as it becomes all we see. The Howard League conducted in-depth interviews with young adults in prison a few years ago, and they told us clearly that the first step towards a crime-free life was no longer to be labelled an offender. They had to see themselves as something different, and other people had to help them make that transition. Someone who commits an offence is not an offender; they are someone who has done something. The action does not define the whole person. They may also do good things and they will certainly fit into other categories that can offer a different definition like parent or friend. By insisting that the offence overcomes all other parts of the person we are condemning them to a sub-human category for whom there is no hope. The last government created a whole industry of services for offenders. There are skills for offenders, education for offenders, and work for offenders. Huge numbers of people are employed to deliver services at these unfortunate people. Of course, it was part of the scheme of things that offenders are not deserving of having any say in the quality or style of services, as they have had their citizenship diluted to the point of abstraction. It is time to move away from this so that the criminal justice system itself and its terminology are circumscribed. People who have committed offences have just the same right to education and employment as anyone else, and whilst they do face additional and sometimes extraordinary challenges, redressing that should simply be built into all mainstream provision. Just as the language about disability has been transformed and services have been adapted to include people with disabilities, so our language about people who have committed offences must change. It is up to the voluntary sector to lead the way. A strategy for writing in criminology and law and society work by Jonathan Simon Anyone writing in criminology or law and society scholarship in the post labelling/Foucault generations is generally haunted by the problem of what to call the subjects of criminal justice processing and punishment (as you can see I'm fighting myself to delay the moment when it becomes incumbent). We know that when we move from an adjective for conduct to using that adjective for the name of the subjects we are associating with that conduct (whether by legal or scientific procedure) we are producing a potentially consequential ‘truth effect’ that we are, however modestly involved in what Ian Hacking memorably called ‘making people up’. The two most famous/infamous are criminal and homosexual. To take the latter first, the move from describing sexual conduct as ‘homosexual’, meaning between two people of the same sex, to talking about ‘homosexuals’ involves the assumption that the conduct defines a constitutive characteristic of the subject involved such that whether that person is an out Gay man engaged in full and open life within a big city Gay community, or a married Tory minister involved in an occasional and discrete liaison with a handsome young protégé, there is a continuity of character strong enough to be the defining identity of that person. When we move from describing conduct as ‘criminal’ to speaking of a person as a ‘criminal’, we are likewise assuming a sovereign character trait that can be traced into the subject's developmental past, and used to predict their future behaviour. The fact that many and probably most contemporary social scientists would feel uncomfortable making this kind of transfer of meaning is a dramatic shift from the early and even mid-twentieth century forms of social science. It divides us from our ancestors who felt their job was making people up correctly (think about Lombroso as well as his competitors) and it is a tremendous legacy for the generation of scholars that included Michel Foucault, David Matza, Howard Becker, and Jeffrey Weeks just to name a few. Yet, many of us do it in language. The solution, promoted for years now by activists and lawyers is to talk about ‘people engaged in homosexual conduct’ or ‘people engaged in criminal conduct’. This works fine enough conceptually, but it leaves us with a writing problem. Using the formulation, ‘people engaged in criminal conduct’ over and over again, in an article about people who commit crimes, is wearying. Since I do not see a good conceptual way out of this problem, I prefer to adopt some writing strategies. Since ‘people’ or ‘men’ or ‘women’ etc. ‘engaged in criminal conduct’ deconstructs the very idea of a ‘criminal type’, it buys us some freedom to use other words for literary benefit, so long as we are careful not to choose words that affirmatively mystify but reinvesting in the made up subject of crime. Thus it seems fine to me to refer to ‘defendants’, ‘convicts’, or ‘prisoners’, when those more or less legal terms appropriately apply (throw in arrestee, detainee). Unlike the dreaded ‘al’ terms, terms ending in ‘ts’ or ‘rs’ are a well know and comfortable way of referring to people by their ‘occupations’. We talk about lawyers, doctors, dentists, and bankers at will, without fear we are making subjects up. Our culture retains the sense that one's occupation is an important but not defining source of identity. The productive sociological notion of a ‘career’ once again recommends this. We can think of someone's time in prison, or time engaged in criminal behaviour, as a part of a career in the sense of a body of experience that helps to structure their future but does not determine it. Using language in practice by Mike Nellis When the term ‘offender’ was popularised by Nacro (the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders) in the 1960s it was talked up on the understanding that it was less moralistic and less stigmatising than ‘criminal’ or ‘delinquent’, less portentous than ‘lawbreaker’ and less condescending than ‘probationer’. It wasn't new, but of the limited range of words around, it was relatively neutral in its connotations. It has remained surprisingly serviceable in this respect, relatively immune to the infusions of loathing and contempt that can indeed poison our penal vocabularies. The tabloids rarely use it; except when prefaced by ‘sex’, it's not a term that's easily freighted with outrage or hate. Like ‘prisoner’ (which has never been fully displaced by the euphemism ‘inmate’) ‘offender’ has retained a simple literal meaning – someone who has committed an offence. As such, it provides minimal linguistic justification for the formal, court-ordered involvement of a probation officer in a person's life, in a way that both the old term ‘client’ and the newer term ‘service user’ shy away from. From a probation standpoint, no one is ever an ‘offender’ and nothing more. It denotes what people are, not just what they do, but it's not a totalising identity. Other facets of their lives and personalities can remain in play around and alongside it – father, daughter, partner, comedian, mate, cook, dancer, builder, whatever – all as much if not more important than the often temporary status of ‘offender’. To consider, or even call, someone an ‘offender’ does not intrinsically preclude thinking of them as a complex and vulnerable person or feeling warmly or respectful towards them. It does not necessarily impede empathy or limit one's capacity to imagine what it might be like to be them, or even to imagine doing what they have done – though that does depend somewhat on what the offence was. It need not mean that someone who has offended may not also be, or have been, a victim or survivor. Treating people with respect and dignity regardless of what they have done, and finding words to match, is always important, but not necessarily straightforward. Sentimentality and the anodyne, sanitising language that goes with it is as much to be avoided as the moralism which insidiously humiliates and imprisons people in roles and identities from which they need to distance themselves if they are to live good lives. There are probably no words that are entirely immune from debasement in some form or context – and some words that probation has toyed with, like ‘perpetrator’, were doomed from the start – but for now ‘offender’ retains its utility in the complex ‘identity work’ that probation officers do with people who have committed crimes. Different people need different responses. Some who come the way of probation shamelessly disavow criminal identities – rapist, for example – and need pressing to accept that aspect of who they are, as a precursor to taking responsibility for harm done. Others spend lifetimes sombrely regretting that they once committed murder, indelibly stained in their own eyes. Yet others may never have had – or had and rejected – conventional familial or occupational identities, and actually draw strength and purpose from an overriding criminal, sometimes violent, identity, preferring to be more feared than loved. They may resent and disdain the efforts of well-meaning probation officers to get them to think differently about themselves, and even if they do desist, may never fully repudiate what they have been in the past – anymore than the rest of us can. One can be an ‘ex-offender’ (or even an ‘ex-con’) without losing self-respect. Women, murder and narratives of femininity by Lizzie Seal The language used to portray women accused of murder is frequently lurid and stereotypical. It can be especially shocking when women stand accused of such crimes as it violates idealised notions of femininity as conformist and nurturing. A recent example is the fascination sparked by the trial and conviction of Amanda Knox, a young American woman, for the sexual assault and murder of British exchange student, Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, Italy. Meredith was killed in 2007, although the convictions of Amanda and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were not secured until 2009. A story about Amanda Knox posted on the Daily Mail's website describes her as having a ‘wild, raunchy past’, which included drinking and soft drug use, and quotes university acquaintances who label her a ‘man-eater’. Amanda's supposed sexual insatiability was also central to the Italian prosecution's argument that she stabbed Meredith to death after Meredith refused to participate in a sex game with Raffaele and another man, Rudy Guede. The perceived link between abnormal or excessive sexuality in women and a capacity for violence is an enduring one. Martha Beck and her boyfriend, Raymond Fernandez, were executed in New York in 1951 for murdering two women and a child. They were known as the ‘Lonely Hearts Killers’ because they found their victims through the personal ads. Important to the trial was Martha's argued sexual perversity, evidenced by her enjoyment of oral sex. The 1958 English case of Yvonne Jennion, who was found guilty of murdering her aunt, revolved around discussion of her sexuality and whether as a ‘female homosexual’ she could be regarded as a psychopathic personality (Seal, 2010). The recurrence of sexual deviance as an explanation for violence by women means that it can be understood as a ‘stock story’ that perpetuates restrictive views of acceptable female sexuality. Although doubts surround the safety of Amanda Knox's conviction, the use of stereotypical narratives of femininity in the media and criminal justice system is not troubling solely because it may contribute to a wrongful conviction. In the case of Yvonne Jennion it was the defence that sought to prove she was a psychopathic personality in order to win a verdict of manslaughter instead of murder (it did not succeed). The stories told during and about cases of murder communicate the values and assumptions of the era in which they take place – in the 1950s, ‘homosexuality’ was considered abnormal. The language used in the cases of Amanda Knox, Martha Beck, and Yvonne Jennion provides us with information about norms of femininity – what is perceived as the correct and appropriate behaviour for women. What counts as acceptable or deviant does, of course, change according to place and time. It would be unlikely that a woman's enjoyment of oral sex would be offered as an example of her ‘perversity’ in a murder trial in the present-day United States. Disagreement over the language employed to describe the gender of women accused of murder also highlights the shifting boundaries of appropriateness. The portrayal of Amanda Knox as sexually ‘promiscuous’ has been contested, with many arguing that her supposedly ‘wild’ lifestyle was neither shocking nor unusual, but normal behaviour for a 20 year old university student. Stories of women accused of murder are a cultural barometer of assumptions and arguments about the meanings of gender. Social harm and the politics of capitalist crisis by Simon Pemberton Language is fundamental to how we reach an understanding of the harms we face in our daily lives. Indeed powerful ideologies, such as crime, exist to tell us exactly what and whom we should fear, with these discourses focused disproportionately on the least powerful groups in our society. Such discourses serve to draw our attention from the very serious harms produced by the state and corporate organisations and the damaging behaviours of the powerful. Yet, as the current recession highlights, the very organisation of our society in accordance with specific vested interests, can also produce serious and widespread harms, such as poverty, unemployment, and homelessness. The language of responsibility constructed in relation to structural harms is crucial to our understanding of their causes and how we should best respond to them. Such discussions, in the wake of the credit crunch have been inevitably highly politicised, as they necessarily entail subjecting the very organisation of our societies to scrutiny. The terms of this debate have shifted dramatically. Thus, whilst critiques surfaced following the credit crunch in relation to ‘casino capitalism’ these soon passed and were replaced by calls to reform a ‘bloated and costly’ public sector. Ironically, what began as a critique of neo-liberal forms of capitalist organisation, have been turned full circle to re-affirm the central tenets of this ideology providing the basis on which the social state may be dismantled – the very structures that could serve to ameliorate the impact of the harms detailed above. Underpinning the prevailing neo-liberal language of responsibility is a set of assumptions about intentionality drawn from the liberal philosopher, Friedrich Hayek. For Hayek, market outcomes could not be considered unjust as the harms that result from them are unintended; for example, poor business decisions that result in unemployment. Furthermore, Hayek argued, as no consensus could ever be reached over the reallocation of social resources to ameliorate the consequences of harmful market consequences, there remains no just basis for a state to interfere in such outcomes. Whilst, Hayek's logic has not been followed to its ultimate conclusion in this instance, it clearly influences the current ‘common sense’ position toward the role of the state. An important critique of these ideas can be found in the work of Raymond Plant, which asserts that structural harms should be considered to be unjust, exactly because they are foreseeable and, therefore, preventable. To illustrate this point, in anticipation of the public sector cuts to be announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review, a number of analyses have demonstrated the harms that will result, alongside those communities that will bear the brunt of these cuts (see, for example, the Institute for Fiscal Studies Briefing Note BN108 and the TUC report Where the Money Goes). Given the awareness of these analyses, these potential structural harms are entirely foreseeable and, indeed, avoidable. They are avoidable exactly because alternative policy options are available to the coalition. Rather, it would appear that these harms are considered the ‘price worth paying’ to satisfy the demands of the international credit rating agencies. However, we should remind ourselves that other nations are running larger public debts than our own and have not felt the need to acquiesce to such demands. Alternative policy options exist, however, the construction of the current crisis serves to promote the interests of the financial markets at the expense of the vulnerable. …powerful ideologies, such as crime, exist to tell us exactly what and whom we should fear, with these discourses focused disproportionately on the least powerful groups in our society. Crime does not exist by Nils Christie Words can create bridges between people: beautiful and useful bridges that bring ideas, emotions, and understanding back and forth. But words can also function as barriers. Some words are so big that they contain everything, and therefore nothing. We do not understand more when such concepts are used; we understand less and give thereby free room for manoeuvre to all sorts of political or professional authorities. ‘Crime’ is one of these words. We do not understand more by using this concept, we understand less. If we want to create a type of society where citizens participate, we need to describe deplorable acts in minute detail and with small words from the daily vocabulary. Acts do not simply exist, they become. For all acts, including those seen by most people as unwanted, there are dozens of possible alternative ways of understanding them – bad, mad, evil, misplaced honour, youth bravado, political heroism – or crime. The ‘same’ acts can thus be met within several parallel systems as judicial, psychiatric, pedagogical, theological – or simply by understandings valid among family and friends. Social and/or physical distance is of particular importance in how we attach meaning to particular acts. Persons close to me are mostly not seen as criminals. I see them too well; understand the reasons for their acts. But family life is only one of several examples of social conditions of a sort that creates resistance against perceiving acts as crimes and persons as criminals. To refrain from the use of big abstract terms is more important in our time than ever before. We have created types of social life where we know each other less and less as whole human beings. Where we earlier could evaluate and react towards unwanted acts, we must now in our ignorance call in state power in the form of police. Back in the 1950s, some 30,000 cases were officially handled as ‘crimes’ in Norway. Now it is close to 300,000. This does not necessarily mean that the amount of unwanted acts have increased in this period. But it means that we now live under social conditions where most of us have lost close contact with the acts and actors, and thereby also lose the possibility to create our own interpretations of what happens. In such a situation it is particularly important to be presented with simple concrete terms in the description of the occurrences. We need detailed storytelling, not references to empty categories as ‘crime’. ‘Crime’ and ‘criminals’ are strong terms with large abilities to stick to persons. They etch other understandings of the acts and the humans behind the labels. They hide other understandings for interpretation of the acts and the humans behind the label. I have never met people – when I come close to them – who are only criminals. They are, as most of us, a mixture of good and bad. Some, maybe all, are walking mysteries. But some might have committed and are serving sentences for something terrible, and then all other aspects are overshadowed by the concept of that act or for the personality type he or she is found to be. Destructive words will often blossom among the many professionals so central in defining how humans are to be understood and governed: The psychopath, the paedophile, the manicdepressive … Destructive words will often blossom among the many professionals so central in defining how humans are to be understood and governed: The psychopath, the paedophile, the manic-depressive, the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-child; the diagnostic manuals are filled to the brim. My alternative would be to tell the whole story. And how would I like to have the supposed behavioural expert to describe those they work with? As whole persons, described in old-fashioned, pre-professional terms. Described so thoroughly that they became unsuitable for categorisation. I want to know something, concretely, on what occurred, and about the persons. Small words put together in small stories are particularly well suited to give us such knowledge. The big words from the toolbox of various professionals will often close both for insight in what happened and for informed social participation. But without their language, experts would lose both authority and efficiency! 1. Cohen , S. 1985 , Visions of Social Control , Cambridge : Polity Press 2. Seal , L. 2010 , Women, Murder and Femininity: Gender Representations of Women Who Kill , Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan . [CrossRef]

I’ve been at the Jungle for two weeks now — imagine that! I’m still at the very bottom of my new-hire learning curve; every day I come away feeling like the number of things I don’t know is greater than it was the day before. But I’m not worried. Instead I focus on little things, like arranging my office furniture . . . |I like the simple “door” desk (an homage to the early days of the company, when the founder couldn’t afford any desk other than a door laid over two trestles). But oh, I miss my view of Pennsylvania Avenue! . . . and trying to figure out how many days before I can take down the welcome poster without hurting feelings. |Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the gesture! But fluorescent yellow has never been my favorite accent color. The comforting thing is that I’ve discovered that it’s not the legal stuff I need to worry about. Once I learn enough about the business to understand what’s going on, the legal work is familiar (which is not the same thing as easy) and I know how to handle it. For example, on my third day of work I went with my manager to a meeting with some of the key business leaders we support. They were wrestling with a particular problem and, once I figured out what all the words and acronyms meant, I realized I could see a solution that no one else had mentioned yet. So I raised my hand and offered my views; the business team loved it and ran with it. Later, when I saw the woman who ran the meeting, I began to reintroduce myself and she said, “I know who you are. You’re the guy who had the smart fix in our meeting the other day.” That made me happy for a lot of reasons. Partly because this woman strikes me as one of the smartest and most competent people I’ve met so far at the company. She’s definitely someone whose good opinion I want. Also because the transition from being a high-performer in a major law firm to being an unknown newbie in a giant corporation is a little unsettling, and it was nice to get some positive feedback (however insignificant) so early on. Getting known as the “smart” guy also felt like a step in the right direction from a repetitional perspective. Obviously it’s good to be well regarded under any circumstances, but I’ve learned that I’m being measured against some pretty high expectations. I’m told by the higher ups that I came very highly recommended by some of the partners at my old law firm (who I had no idea were talking about me to the Jungle). And my peers seem to be impressed and/or intimidated by the fact that I’ve got a lot of really cool and very directly relevant legal experience (by contrast, many of them didn’t get into this type of work until they got to the Jungle, having spent their time in their prior law firms doing more general corporate work). I won’t say that I’m not flattered and pleased by this nascent reputation, but I also recognize that I need to be careful not to disappoint. I want to hit the ground running and basically be a super-star from the beginning, and it’s hard to feel like I’m doing that when I spend most of each day trying to figure out where the elevators are and how to log onto my computer. So any hint of having contributed something of value is very welcome. This next week should provide some additional opportunities to make a contribution. My manager and one of my other colleagues are away on vacation, which means that I’ll be fielding pretty much everything that they handle on my own. I’m crossing my fingers that there aren’t any fire drills and that we get through the week more or less in one piece…

I’m participating in Excerpt Monday, organized by the lovely Bria Quinlan and Mel Berthier from Romance Divas. Today’s excerpt comes from Chapter One of my fantasy/paranormal romance Deeper Than Bone. Boyd Harbor, New Jersey, Earth: Catherine Lecuyer jolted awake, her hand reaching for the baseball bat leaning against the night stand. Wait— She was home. She was safe. That was the past. Heart pounding, she sagged back against the down pillows and focused on the television blaring with a careening car chase and the sharp crack and bang of gunfire. Some cop drama had replaced the cheerful romantic comedy she’d found to keep her insomnia company. She had finally drifted off and missed the last fifteen minutes and the happily ever after. It figured. She clicked the remote. The picture tube’s grey light faded, leaving her bedroom cloaked in shadow. Dark. Quiet. She took a sharp breath. Exhaled slowly. She could do this. She tossed to her side. The clock’s red glow glared. 2:13. 2:14. 2:15. 2:16. All quiet. Too quiet. The baseboard heat ticked and gurgled with the deeper hum of the furnace in the basement. Her ears strained for each tiny noise in the old house. Stop it. You’ve absolutely nothing to be anxious over. She lived next door to a cop. How much safer could she get? She was tired of being afraid. Tired of being tired. “So get over it.” She turned on the lamp, punched her pillows into shape and crawled back under the covers. A revving car engine followed by a screech of tires jarred her off the pillow. A firecracker banged. Darn it, hadn’t those teens down the street learned their lesson? She untangled herself from the bedding. Tires squealed again and the car sped past her house. By the time she peeked through the front window blinds, the noisy-makers were long gone. Her frost-hazed neighborhood slept peacefully in the moonless November night. Stray snow flakes idled through the pools of street lights. John Morris, her police officer neighbor, was finally home from work. Everyone was sleeping. So should she. Letting the blinds fall closed, she eyed her rumpled bed. Maybe some tea first. She pulled on her fleece bathrobe and slid into her slippers. Tires shrieked, ending with a odd bang. She pushed aside the blinds. A red sedan perched askew over the curb, front bumper creased against her old maple tree. Officer Morris must have heard the crash. She glanced next door. Porch light spilled over his tidy front lawn. He was still up. He’d be outside any second. The driver shoved open the car door and stumbled out. He held onto the car door. Oh, come on, Morris. Where are you? You had to have heard it. She grabbed her phone and dialed Morris’s number as she hurried downstairs. His answering machine picked up. Good. He must already be out the door. She fumbled the two locks and the safety chain. She peered out the door. Ignoring the damage to his car, the man walked away in long, jerky strides, his attention fixed on the stretch of dark roadway near Morris’s Jeep. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. Let Officer Morris handle this. You can’t. It’s not your job. Cat hesitated on the threshold, unable to let go of the doorknob. Her breath fogged in the icy air. Don’t go. You know what’s out there in the dark. I’m supposed to help. “Hey, are you okay?” She pried her fingers from the doorknob. “Oh, God!” The driver’s voice broke. His knees hit the wet pavement beside a dark crumpled form lying just outside the pool of amber street light. “Call 911!” Cat punched the numbers and took unsteady steps along the slippery front walk. A man, face down. Her stomach tied in a hot knot. Her Sight fought to open, drew her on. She fought the Seeing back. The driver, his young face chalky, pressed his fingers to the man’s throat. “Shit! No pulse. I can’t find a pulse. Shit. He’s not breathing. Oh, God, please.” The white of t-shirt showed through a rip in his dark blue long-sleeved shirt. One black shoe was missing. Disbelief stole her breath. It couldn’t be– The driver eased the man over onto his back revealing the bloody, slack face. “Oh, God, a cop.” Choking back a sob, he launched into CPR. Not just any cop. John Morris. Blood blackened his military-short sandy brown hair and glossed his uniform shirt. Light gleamed on the grim puddle beneath him. Too much blood. This couldn’t be. A calm voice in the phone reached Cat and tugged her back. “An accident. There’s been an accident.” The voice in the phone asked so many questions. A black gun gleamed in the leaf-clotted, ice-scummed puddle by the Jeep’s rear tire. “Please, tell them I didn’t hit him! One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six . . .” He chanted the count with each forceful chest thrust. He breathed into Officer Morris. “Hit the tree. One. Two. Three. . . Saw something. Thought a deer, a dog. Hit the brakes. Hit the tree. Not him. Oh, breathe, please. One. Two. Three. . .” John Morris had waved to her in his brusk no-nonsense manner on his way to work, just hours ago. He’d flashed her one of his far too rare smiles that ignited his ice blue eyes and brightened the bad-boy sensuality of his lean rugged face, transforming him from uptight defender of the law and major anal-retentive neighbor to out-and-out temptation. The first thin siren rose wailing in the distance. Too late. Officer Morris was dead. Her unwelcome Sight knew. He was dead. The driver’s diligent CPR efforts were hopeless. Officer Morris was gone. Not a wisp of his aura remained. This couldn’t be. Just hours ago, he’d smiled, and she’d thanked God she was immune to fickle alpha-male charm. She shuddered, forced the Seeing away. Gone. A cry choked in her throat. No more lectures on her leaves in his yard. No more rare flashing smiles. No more newspapers neatly lined up on her porch. “. . . Six. Shit, oh man, oh shit. Oh, come on, breathe, man. One. Two . . .” Everyone wants to play along with Excerpt Monday! If you’d like to join in, visit the Guidelines page for more details. Excerpt Monday links: Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site. For all Excerpt Monday links, go HERE A random sampling of the many wonderful writers from varied genres to explore are: Bryn Donovan, Paranormal (PG) Kaige, Historical Romance (PG 13) Adelle Laundan, Contemporary Romance (PG 13) Jeannie Lin, Historical Romance (PG 13) Crista McHugh, Paranormal (PG 13) Aithne Jarretta, Paranormal (R) Inez Kelley, Contemporary Romantic Comedy (R) Photo: Karoly Mezei

Prof. AAA. Atayero B.Sc|M.Sc|Ph.D Moscow, Russia Head, IoT-enabled Smart and Connected Communities (IESCC) Research Cluster Awards & Honours - Fellow, Chartered Institute of Administration (FCIA), “having met the educational and practical experience requirements prescribed by Chartered Institute of Administration Act No. 103 of 1992.” Nov.27, 2018.. - Recipient, CEO of The Year #IAMBRANDNIGERIA Award, In Collaboration with Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON). “In recognition and celebration of the scholastic work of as an individual, whose work has significantly advanced Nigeria and its educational system, placing the Nigeria brand on the global news for such accomplishment(s)”. - Recipient, IEOM Society Distinguished Leadership Award ‘In recognition of Outstanding Leadership and Dedication to Education and Exceptional Contributions to Engineering and Technology”, St. George Hotel, Pretoria, SA, Oct. 31, 2018. - Recipient, IEOM Society Outstanding Educator Award ‘In recognition and appreciation of lifelong service and dedication to education and exceptional contributions to academia”. University of the District Columbia (UDC), Sep.27-29, 2018. - Fellow, The Institute of Management Consultants (FIMC), “In recognition of outstanding, and demonstrated commitment to creating, maintaining, extending and promoting the highest world standards of management consulting practice, ethics, competence and client service.” Lagos, Nigeria, Oct. 2017. - Recipient, African Entrepreneurs Merit Award 2017: Award for Excellence and Leadership, by African Entrepreneurs Foundation, Abuja, Nigeria, Sep 2017. - Senior Research Fellow, (Certified Advisory Member in Communication Engineering), International Association of Research Scholars and Administrators (IARSA), July, 2017 - Fellow, The Science Association of Nigeria (FSAN), Jul 2017 - Recipient, Nigerian Society of Engineers’ (NSE, Ikeja) Award for Excellence, 2016 - Host Professor, Carnegie - IIE African Diaspora Fellowship (ADF) programme, Jan - Mar 2015. - Recipient, Ford Foundation Teaching Innovation Award, 2009/2010: “For demonstrated innovative approach to teaching, research, and mentoring of junior academics.” - Recipient, International Center for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, Italy) Grant for Workshop on Low-Cost Wireless Networking, AUST, Abuja, October 2010. - Recipient, International Center for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, Italy) Grant for FPGA and VHDL Workshop, Kumasi Ghana, 2005 - Recipient, Federal Government of Nigeria Scholarship: Bureau for External Aide, 1988–1994. - Recipient, Russian Government Stipend: 1988–1994. Undergraduate: Information Theory & Coding Techniques. Digital Systems Design with VHDL. Satellite Communications. Digital Speech Processing. History and Philosophy of Science. Cryptography Principles & Application. Internet Technology & Programming. Digital Electronics. Electric Circuit Theory. Use of Engineering Software Packages. Physical Electronics. Analogue Electronics. Postgraduate: Modelling of Information and Communication Systems and Networks | Satellite Communications | Transmission of Information | Digital Communication & Network Management. Current Postgraduate Supervision • mmWave Massive MIMO 5G Network Optimal Path Loss Determination In a Smart City using ELM • mmWave Massive MIMO Channel Characterization and Performance Analysis for 5G Networks • Development of a Graphene Field Effect Transistor for Saliva-Based Micronutrient Quantification • Cervical dilation assessment using image processing and machine learning techniques • M.Eng. Thesis: , Department of Electrical and Information Engineering (EIE), College of Engineering (CoE), Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria (Defended: Jun.2018). • Development of FIGA: A Novel Trust-Based Algorithm for Securing Autonomous Interactions in WSN, Department of Electrical and Information Engineering (EIE), School of Applied Engineering (SoE), College of Engineering (CoE), Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria (Defended: Feb.2015). • PhD. Thesis: Development of Robust Pre-processing Algorithm for Low-Contrast Human Iris, Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, SAE, CoE, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, (Defended: 15.07.2015). • PhD Thesis: Wind Power Integration Into Nigeria Distribution Grid, Department of EIE, SET, CST, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, (2011 – 2014). • PhD Thesis: Development of a Framework for Intelligent Self-Service Voice-Enabled Systems, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, School of Natural and Applied Sciences (SNAS), College of Science and Technology, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, (Defended 2012.02.17). • PhD Thesis: End-to-End Delay Determination of Switched Ethernet Tree Local Area Networks, Department of EIE, SET, CST, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, (Defended 2011.06.07 | Published 2012.04.18 Available at: http://qr.net/end2end1 ). • M.Eng. Thesis: Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System Models for Dynamic Load Balancing in 3GPP LTE Network, Department of EIE, SET, CST, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria (‘A’ Defended 2012.06.13 | Published 2012.07.26, Available at http://qr.net/anfis2 ). • M.Eng. Thesis: Modelling and Simulation of the Physical Layer of PRIME PLC, Department of EIE, SET, CST, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, (Defended 2012.06.13). • M.Eng. Thesis: Development of a Framework for the Implementation of Voice over IP on an IP PBX for Corporate Enterprises, Department of EIE, SET, CST, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, (Defended 2012.06.13). • M.Eng. Thesis: Development of a FOS Web-Based Dark-Skinned/Brown-Eyed Iris Corpora, Department of EIE, SET, CST, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, (Defended 2012.07 | Published 2012.08.26 | Available http://qr.net/cuiris2 ). • M.Eng. Thesis: Design and Implementation of a Multi-channel Application for Customer Care Service Delivery, Department of EIE, SET, CST, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, October, (2006). Selected Publications (3) 51. Times Higher Education (THE) Emerging Economies Summit, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar, Jan 14–16, 2019. 50. The 1st African International Conference on Industrial Engineering & Operations Mgt. (IEOM) Society, Pretoria/Johannesburg, South Africa, Oct 30-Nov 1, 2018. 49. The 3rd Industrial Engineering & Operations Mgt. (IEOM) Society Conference, The University of The District of Columbia, Sep. 27-29, 2018 48. Times Higher Education World Academic Summit, National University of Singapore, Sep. 25-27, 2018 47. AWARD Leadership Course, Sep.3-5 2018, Covenant University, Ota 46. AWARD Grant Proposal Writing Course, Sep. 5-8 2018, Covenant University, Ota 45. IEEE Comsoc Continuing Education for Communication Professionals Course, Title: Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications for Fifth Generation(5G), by T. Rappaport, (CEUs = 0.3), Download, 2018.07.01-05. 44. Panelist, The African Society of Cambridge University 5th Africa Together Conference: Pathways to a New Africa, Cambridege Union, University of Cambridge, 15th–16th June 2018, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 43. Times Higher Education (THE) Emerging economies Summit, Mohammed The 5th University, 8th–10th May, 2018, Rabat, Morocco 42. King Baudouin Foundation US, Art and Science of Fundraising, Rockefeller Center, 29th Apr–2nd May, 2018, Greater New York, NY, USA 41. Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) Gender Workshop 2018, Theme: Mainstreaming Gender in Higher Education: Implications for National Growth and Development, 27-30 Mar. 2018, Covenant University, Nigeria. 40. MIT J-WEL, Group of global leaders in education for World Education Lab, themed “Learning Communities of the future”, 19-22 Mar. 2018, MIT, Boston, Massachussetts, USA 39. International Association of Engineers (IAENG), World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science WCECS 2017, October 25-27, 2017, San Francisco, USA. 38. Times Higher Education (THE) World Academic Summit, King’s College – IET Savoy Place, 2nd–5th Sep. 2017, London, U.K. 37. International Association of Engineers (IAENG) World Congress on Engineering (WCE2017), University of Cambridge, 5th – 7th July, 2017, London, U.K. 36. 1st Times Higher Education (THE) Innovation Summit, Hong Kong Poly. University, 31 May–2 Jun, 2017. Hong Kong. 35. Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), Round Table on: “The role of faith-based universities in promoting respect”, Liverpool Hope University, 30 Jan-1Feb 2017, Liverpool, United Kingdom. 34. Times Higher Education (THE) Emerging Economies Summit, Dec 2016, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. 33. 3rd Covenant University International Conference on African Development Issues CU-ICADI 2016, 9th -11th May 2016, Ota, Nigeria. 32. NIST-USIgnite Global City Teams Challenge/IoT-Enabled Smart City Framework, NIST Campus, 22d-25th Mar. 2016, Gaithersburg, MD, USA. 31. Future Technologies Conference (FTC 2016),6-7 December 2016, San Francisco, CA, United States 30. Times Higher Education BRICS & EE Summit, 30Nov.-2Dec. 2016, University of Johannesburg, RSA. 29. Huawei Cloud Connect: Shape The Cloud, Aug.31-Sep.2 2016, Expo Center, Shanghai, China. 28. IEEE Technically Sponsored SAI Computing Conference 2016, 13-15 Jul. 2016 London, United Kingdom 27. 3rd Covenant University International Conference on African Development Issues CU-ICADI 2016, 9th-11th May 2016, Ota, Nigeria. 26. IoT-Enabled Smart City Framework, NIST Campus, 24th-25th Mar. 2016, Gaithersburg, MD, USA. 25. NIST-USIgnite Global City Teams Challenge, NIST Campus, 22nd-23rd Mar. 2016, Gaithersburg, MD, USA. 24. International Conference on Circuits and Systems (ICCS), IAENG WCECS 2015, 21st~23rd Oct. 2015, San Fransisco (USA). 23. International Conference on Communication Systems and Technologies (ICCST), IAENG WCECS 2015, 21st~23rd Oct. 2015, San Fransisco (USA). 22. International Conference on Computer Science and Applications (ICCSA), IAENG WCECS 2015, 21st~23rd Oct. 2015, San Fransisco (USA). 21. 3rd Int’l. Conference on Advances in Computing, Electronics & Communication ACEC 2015, 10-11 Oct 2015, Zurich, Switzerland 20. Inaugural Times Higher Education™ Africa Universities Summit, 30th–31st July 2015, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. 19. 7th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies EDULEARN 2015, 6th–8th July 2015, Barcelona (Spain). 18. The International Conference on Web & Open Access to Learning (ICWOAL'2014), Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai, UAE, Nov. 25-‐27, 2014 17. 7th International Conference on Education, Research and Innovation ICERI 2014, 17th-19th Nov 2014, Seville, Spain 16. 6th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies Edulearn 2014, 7th-9th July 2014, Barcelona, Spain 15. British Council Going Global Conference 'Global Education: Knowledge-based economies for 21st Century Nations', 29th April - 1 May 2014, Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami Florida USA. 14. 1st. Times Higher Education Young Universities' Summit, 28th April 2014, Fontainebleau, Miami Florida USA. 13. 20th Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NES#20): Transforming Education Through Partnership for Global Competitiveness, Resource Person, Design Workshop IV: Tertiary Education – Competitiveness and Employability, 18–20 Mar, 2014, Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, Nigeria. 12. 8th International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED2014), 10–12 Mar. 2014, Valencia, Spain. 11. ICMCS National Conference on Teaching & Research Innovation in Nigerian Universities, 17-19 April, 2012. Redeemers' University, Mowe, Nigeria. 10. International Conference on Computer Science and Applications 2011, World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2011, October 19-21, 2011, San Francisco, USA. 9. International Conference on Signal Processing and Imaging Engineering 2011, World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2011, October 19-21, 2011, San Francisco, USA. 8. International Conference on Communications Systems and Technologies 2011, World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2011, October 19-21, 2011, San Francisco, USA. 7. IEEE 2nd International Workshop on Recent Advances in Broadband Access Networks RABAN 2011, co-located with IEEE 11th International Conference on ITS Telecommunication, August 23-25, 2011, St. Petersburg, Russia. 6. IEEE Region 8 EUROCON 2009 Conference, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. 5. The 2nd IEEE International Conference on Adaptive Science & Technology (ICAST), December 14~16, 2009, Accra, Ghana. 4. IEEE Communication Society 16th Telecommunication Forum, Belgrade, Serbia, Nov. 25–27 2008. 3. Southern African Telecommunications and Applications Conference (SATNAC2007), Sugar Beach Resort, Mauritius, 9-13 Sep. 2007. 2. International Conference and Workshop on 3G GSM and Mobile Computing: An Emerging Growth Engine for National Development, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, 2007. 1. International Conference on New Trends in Mathematics and Computer Sciences, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, 2006. SEMINARS & WORKSHOPS: 11. COREN-NSE Workshop on Engineering Regulations Monitoring (ERM) to Sensitise the Chief Executives of Engineering-based Companies, Corporations, Agencies, and Institutions, NSE Abeokuta Branch Head Quarters, Ogun State, 3 May 2012. 10. International Center for Theoretical Physics (Italy)–African University of Science and Technology–NUC Workshop on Low-Cost Wireless Networking, AUST, Abuja, October 2010. 8. Nigerian Institute of Elelctrical and Electronic Engineering Workshop, Abuja, 2009. 7. NUC Workshop for Deans and HODs of Electrical Engineering, Abuja, 2008. 6. International Federation of Inventors Association (IFIA), 4th International Exhibition of Young Inventors, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Nov. 2007. 5. International Federation of Inventors Association (IFIA), 2007 World Cup of Computer Implemented Inventions (CII) 27-30, Sept. 2007, Taipei, Taiwan. 4. Nigeria Association of Inventors’ 2nd National Young Inventors & Innovators Summit, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria, (2006). 3. International Center for Theoretical Physics (Italy)–Kwame Nkruma University of Science and Technology ICTP-KNUST Regional Microelectronic Workshop on FPGA and VHDL for research and Training in Africa, Kumasi, Ghana, 2005. 2. Harris Communications Microwave Engineering Workshop, Eko Hotel, Lagos, 2001. 1. Crosna Scientific Industrial Center, Workshop on Satellite Communications, Moscow, Russia, 1994. Summary of Profile The University also ranked as #151 Globally in THE Emerging Economies Rankings and ranked 301+ in the inaugural THE Impact Rankings for 2019. She is likewise ranked in the 151-200 range among universities under 50 years old globally in THE Young University Rankings 2019. In the recently released WUR 2020, Covenant was ranked in the 401-500 bracket globally, as the best of four institutions in Nigeria. The University emerged as #7 globally by improvement over last year's performance. Covenant won African Development Bank Center of Excellence in ICT slot and became one of the World Bank Africa Centers of Excellence (ACE-Impact) host Institutions with the Covenant Applied Informatics and Communication (ACE-ApIC). His dynamic and innovative leadership has created the necessary impetus for winning several international grants and awards from reputable organisations like the World Bank, UNESCO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, National Institute of Health, DAAD, to mention but a few. Engineer (Prof.) Atayero has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Radio Engineering and a Master of Science Degree in Satellite Communication Systems in 1992 and 1994 respectively. He earned his PhD from the Moscow State Technical University of Civil Aviation (MSTUCA) in 2000. A professor of communication engineering, Atayero is a Fellow of the Science Association of Nigeria (FSAN), Chartered Institute of Administration (FCIA); Chartered Institute of Management Consultants (FIMC); as well as a Senior Research Fellow of the International Association of Research Scholars and Administrators. Atayero is a COREN Registered Engineer and member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and other professional bodies. He has published over a hundred scientific papers in international peer-reviewed journals and proceedings. He is on the editorial board of several international scientific and engineering Journals. Atayero is a recipient of various awards and scholarships including NIEEE Distinguished Communications Engineer’s Award of Excellence; APCON-#IAMBRANDNIGERIA CEO of The Year Award, IEOM Distinguished Leadership and Outstanding Educator Awards; Award for Excellence and Leadership, by African Entrepreneurs Foundation; the 'Ford Foundation Teaching Innovation Award' to name a few. His current research interests are in various aspects of Communication Engineering, including (but not limited to): Wireless Sensor Networks, Wireless (Mobile) Communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Smart Cities, and Cyber-Physical Systems.

Take your Employee Central Payroll system to the next level (Part 2)Take your Employee Central Payroll system to the next level (Part 2) https://spinifexit.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/SpinifexIT-April-blog_Take-your-Employee-Central-Payroll-system-to-the-next-level-part-2-featured-image-final-version-1024x576.png 1024 576 SpinifexIT https://spinifexit.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/SpinifexIT-April-blog_Take-your-Employee-Central-Payroll-system-to-the-next-level-part-2-featured-image-final-version-1024x576.png In this blog, we’ll step back to consider some of the challenges during implementation, both for existing on-premise customers deciding to migrate to Employee Central Payroll (ECP) and for new Customers planning to implement ECP. This blog will focus on the Payroll Migration, but of course, you still need to implement Employee Central. If you already have Employee Central implemented and connected to your on-premise solution, then the migration process could be much simpler as you may be able to just focus on the ECP side and know that the Employee Central configuration and setup is already there. This blog comes with a FREE planning checklist. Download it here and use it as your guide. Moving from On-Premise? Implement, Reimplement or Migrate your Payroll Many companies who are looking to move to Employee Central Payroll will be existing SAP On-Premise customers. If you fall into this category, you need to consider how much of your existing Payroll configuration and setup you would want to move to the Employee Central Payroll Solution. Migrate your System The intent of the migration is to move your configuration, and historical employee data (including payroll history) to the new Employee Central Payroll solution with the aim that it will run with minimal changes. This means less re-configuration, less testing and that you can continue to use your new system to report historical data. Reimplement your Payroll In some cases, customers may have areas that they have felt have always been a challenge. For example: There may be an old configuration you wish to remove, or you want to reconfigure some payroll rules to operate differently. This is often a perfect time to do this as you have a project team and can incorporate this work into the existing project. It is also lower risk as you are only changing some areas of the configuration. Save yourself and your company hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars! The best course of action is to begin planning now, so you can review all the options available to you. Part of this is learning the prerequisites you’ll need to support your project more efficiently. Aside from the migration of the payroll configuration, there are many other areas to also consider. Some of these include: - Will I migrate my prior history for the employees? For example: Do you move your payroll results, employee history, finance postings, year to date results into the new system? - How do I best perform Parallel runs? - Do I migrate my existing ABAP reports and other functionality into the new system? - For any reports being migrated, how will I modify and maintain these into the future? - Can all of my reports (Either custom reports or standard SAP reports) be executed from Employee Central, or by the Managers themselves - How will I cater for my Adhoc Requests that come up. Often we see customers go from 20-30 go live reports to hundreds in a period of 12 months. If you have adhoc requests, you want to know how you will cater for these - Will all your custom reports and manual reports be able to fit into the Payroll Control Center process - If I need additional Payroll Control Center checks – How can I add these? Darren SouterSpinifexIT Founder & Global Architect Get this FREE ECP Implementation checklist to guide you in your planning and thought process! Download your checklist here. If you need help assessing these questions further, feel free to talk to us, or even comment down below. We can schedule a quick discussion or even refer you to some of our customers who have used our solutions for their own implementations. Ready to move to Employee Central Payroll? The Easy Migration solution will help you de-risk and accelerate your migration to ECP with an integrated toolset that allows full configuration and data migration copies from On-Premise to ECP, reports to validate full payroll results, runs repeated payroll tests, and identifies data and configuration inconsistencies between source and target systems for corrections. Our Easy Migration solution helps you complete your ECP migration process 90% faster than traditional implementation times. It can help you: - dentify and migrate your current payroll configuration to Employee Central Payroll. - Copy current employee data and results into the new system, and - Run reconciliation reports fast using built-in reports, powered by our SAP-Certified reporting solution Our Easy Migration solution is also 100% integrated with other SpinifexIT solutions so it is an easy step to transition to our other products if you have the need. What if I have already implemented ECP or plan to remain on-premise for the moment? If you have already moved to Employee Central Payroll, or are happy to just stay with your on-premise solution for the moment, this doesn’t mean that you cannot look to areas to improve. About 90% or more of the customers who we speak to, already have Employee Central Payroll or SAP Payroll installed and running, and are looking to improve some of their day to day manual processes. In this case, the SpinifexIT solutions can just be installed into your existing system. The way that most customers then start to use the solutions is as follows: - Train on how to use the solutions – This is about 3-5 days training upfront - Identify the time-consuming processes that your team is doing, and then replace these with any of our 120 pre-delivered reports. You can also build custom reports to support your HR and Payroll information requirements. This immediately removes a lot of manual steps and starts to free up your team. Here is the YouTube case study. - New, ad hoc requests can be delivered through Easy Reporter. Reports can be scheduled and emailed out directly to the required person so it completely removes the need for manual processing. - If your payroll has Year End processes for Australia, USA or Canada, start to use our predefined Year End solutions. - From here, you can continue to replace your existing manual processes with the automated Easy Reporter steps. Over a quick period, you will be able to automate the extraction, generation and sending of your reports. Instead of spending a lot of time and effort manually building the perfect set of reports, your team can then focus on delivering a high quality service to your customers. Employee Central Payroll is a powerful solution, but like most software solutions, will have areas that can be further streamlined. Whether this is during the implementation, streamlining payroll processes, report building or reconciliation steps, there are always many ways to further take advantage of your ECP solution. If you decide to walk the SpinifexIT path, you will find that we are not just a software solution that is dropped into your system and rarely used. Our team of expert consultants will work directly with your team right through the implementation and into go live to ensure you use the best practice methods from the start and build long lasting processes, based on the best practices we have seen at hundreds of other customers. The reporting and Payroll Control Center solution (discussed in Part 1) is just part of the SpinifexIT solution set, but if you are moving to Employee Central Payroll, this is a key building block for your journey. Along the way, you may have a need for our other solutions, and the good thing is that most of our solutions leverage off of Easy Reporter, so you are starting with the best of breed solution. SpinifexIT solutions can be installed in a matter of hours into your system, but if you are using any of our partner’s hosted Employee Central Payroll or SAP Payroll Solutions, then our solutions are already available in their environments. Make sure to ask them about us! Once again, here’s your simplified implementation checklist, so you can talk about your plans with your implementation partner. As always, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] for any questions. On a side note, we hope you’re doing well, and that you and your loved ones are healthy, safe and well despite what the world is going through. We’re all in this together, and SpinifexIT will always be here to support you if you need help with our solutions.

Uniquely hand crafted with selective upcycled materials from our Refinity Community program. Each piece will be a surprise. About the collection As sustainability is our core value, Leinné creates a sustainable and fashionable Refinity by Leinné line includes recyling creations what we call Everyday cool objects, which are made from old clothing items from our customers donation: a headband, lunch bag, coffee cup carrier and endless possibility. Join Refinity Community where you can contribute by donating your old clothes and enjoy the shopping leisure with a voucher reward for your contribution. In Vietnam, we have express shipping for common products which takes 1-2 days and is free. In other countries, you will receive the common products within 3-7 working days. In all countries, it normally takes 15-20 days for pre-order items or more if the items you order have specific custom details. In case your order has both common products and pre-order products, the goods will be delivered after we complete the preparation of all products. If you want to receive common products earlier, please place a separate order for the common products. Delivery time may change depending on the shipping term of each product, and may be longer at the area where promotion programs are taking place. The following products cannot be returned and exchanged: Custom-made products, Initials products, Couture series, sale off products.

Located in what was the Old Market House in Callan, County Kilkenny, Café L’Arche serves home cooked food prepared from locally sourced ingredients, in a friendly, warm and inviting environment. Specialties include healthy lunches, delicious homemade desserts and great coffee. Cafe L'Arche is part of the L'Arche Kilkenny Community which provides a home and meaningful work for all its members many of whom have an intellectual disability. The cafe is a special project where core members interact with the local community in a friendly welcoming space with healthy tasty food and quality coffee. Specialties in serving breakfast, lunch and coffee. A member for the TASTE of Kilkenny Food Trail.

Tired of making the same old boring cookies & cupcakes over and over again? Bake delicious & pretty cookies! Personalize them with these creative ALPHABET COOKIE STAMP! Impress everyone by adding this extra flare! STAMP EVERYTHING YOU BAKE! Use this cookie stamper on everything! From cookies to fondant cakes, and marzipans to cupcakes! INCLUDES 72 STAMP PIECES! This cookie stamping set includes 72 pieces of alphabet, numbers & symbols!Spell out everything that your heart desires! From names to messages & even wishes! MADE OF DURABLE & FOOD-GRADE MATERIAL! Doesn't break easily, perfect for kids! Made of non-toxic food-grade materials!100% safe for use with food! GREAT KIDS' ACTIVITY! Invite kids to join in! Have fun and combine spelling & baking! Bake delicious & pretty cookies NOW with the ALPHABET COOKIE STAMP! Material/s: Food-Grade ABS Materials Size: Approx. 12.5cm x 8cm x 1cm Package Inclusion/s: Choose Your Bundle... - Buy 1 Set Only - Get 1 set Alphabet Cookie Stamp includes 72 stamps pieces and 1 tile holder - Buy 2 Sets - 2 sets

Interview with Celia Matthews 3M recently hosted the SPARKS electrical apprentice of the year final in the Customer Innovation Centre in Bracknell. Grace Hinton, industrial placement student for electrical markets division, caught up with Celia Matthews, the Managing Director of SNG Publishing, to discuss how this year’s competition has been. 3M recently hosted the SPARKS electrical apprentice of the year final in the Customer Innovation Centre in Bracknell. I caught up with Celia Matthews, the Managing Director of SNG Publishing, to discuss how this year’s competition has been. GH: Tell me a little about the company, your role and how it has evolved over time. CM: I founded SNG Publishing in 2006, with the aim to support electrical apprentices through college and help prepare them for the real world. I felt there was a real lack of support from the colleges at that time and I wanted to do something to help. I’ve been involved throughout the journey and it’s been very rewarding seeing so many thousands of students benefit from our learning resources and take pride in their career choice. The competitions give them confidence and that’s what it’s all about. They should be proud to be an electrician! GH: Congratulations on the 10th anniversary of the SPARKS Apprentice of the year competition! How has the competition developed over the past 10 years? CM: The first competition was very small, we only had a handful of students compete but now we have almost 80 colleges competing. The competition had been running in England and Wales for 8 years and we then launched the competition in Northern Ireland two years ago and next year we will be in Scotland. It’s very exciting! GH: Because it was the 10th anniversary, there were some added surprises at the final! How do you feel the 2019 competition went? CM: This year’s final has been the most challenging competition for the finalists, with much more involved in the test. They should all be extremely proud to have got this far at such an early part of their careers. It was a real celebration and the lecturers also got involved in some of the fun and games and made animals with the Wago connectors they were given! Sometimes I wonder who the learners are! GH: As an industrial placement student, I have found hosting the final very interesting. It will help me develop my career, whilst being involved in an event that develops the apprentice’s future careers. Why is it important to connect with the next generation of electrical engineers? CM: It’s essential that we, as an industry, support and engagement with the next generation as they start their careers. They are the future of the industry and it’s important that we give them all they need to make sure they start off well. There’s a Proverb that says, ‘Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old they will not depart from it.’ I believe that to be true in life. If we start kids off with the right tools and with confidence in their abilities, then they will succeed and be a credit to our industry. GH: I have also found it interesting to see the different route young people take through after school and how that can impact their careers. What advice would you give to school leavers when considering apprenticeships? CM: Personally, I’ve experienced both routes. When I left school, we all went into Higher Education and went to university to get our degrees. That’s just what you did. Then years later, I went into Further Education to gain my plumbing qualifications. I think greater awareness should be given at schools for apprenticeships just as much as the university route, an apprenticeship should be seen as an extremely valued qualification and career choice. GH: There was a special guest at the 2019 final – Chris Randall, SPARKS Apprentice of the year winner in 2011. How do you feel knowing winning the competition still helps him with his career? CM: It’s absolutely fantastic. I have heard similar stories from other winners of the SPARKS competitions so it’s very exciting to see that the rewards for all their hard work are still paying dividends to them. GH: Why is it beneficial for manufacturers in this industry to participate in events like these? CM: It’s in their interest to support the youth of the industry and train them on new technologies. In turn, the students are far more likely to be brand loyal to products that they train on at the beginning of their careers and go on using them. GH: How has 3M’s support helped you to run this competition? CM: 3M’s support has been invaluable to the SPARKS finals. All the work that goes on behind the scenes is incredible and both the electrical lecturers and the contestants hugely benefit from all the hospitality, and from such a renowned name in the industry! It’s a real treat for all of us to come to 3M, not only is the 3M headquarters state-of-the-art but perhaps most importantly, for students to see the Innovation Centre first hand is a massive inspiration for them. The quality of all the different designs and development is second to none and maybe a career path that some of these young engineers might embark on in some way in the future. Massive thanks go to our hosts, Gemma Brown and to Grace Hinton for making the event such a success for all involved.

We visited Watch City Brewing Company during our Christmas vacation to Massachusetts. Beth and I left the kids with the grandparents and made the 30 minute drive from Carlisle to Waltham on December 27. The brewpub has been open since 1996 – a nice long 13 year run, which says something about the quality of their beer. We’ve been four times since our first visit in 2001 and loved it every time. It had been almost three years since our last visit and the beer was just as excellent as I remember. They had eight beers on tap and I ordered the ample four beer sampler (no puny glasses here), which included: - Hops Explosion IPA, an excellent and tasty IPA. I ordered a separate pint of this one. - MonkeyMonk Saison, a strong and spicy Belgian farmhouse ale (7.4% ABV) - Old Man Winter Ale, brewed with toasted coconut, cocoa nibs and vanilla - SplinterCat Schwarzbier, a smooth German black Pilsner, an excellent session beer at 4.7% The whole experience at Watch City Brewing Company was again fun and relaxing, with great beer at hand. I can’t wait to get back. Despite the urgings of our earnest and beer-educated server, I passed on a take home growler, though now I wonder why!

A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 5. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1912. This free content was digitised by double rekeying. All rights reserved. Ermud (xi cent.); Eremuthe (xii cent.); Heremud, Ermue, Eremuham, Horemue, Ernemue (xiii cent.); Yaremuth, Yaremuth-under-Wyght, Heremuth, Iremuth (xiv cent.); Yernemouth (xvi cent.). Yarmouth, the smallest parish in the Isle of Wight, containing only 58 acres of land, is chiefly noted as possessing one of the oldest boroughs in the Island. It is the first port inside the Needles, and lies at the mouth of the Western Yar, being connected by a bridge (fn. 1) with Freshwater parish, and has a harbour and quay. It is one of the ports for the mainland, a line of steamers running from it to Lymington, and has a station on the Isle of Wight Central railway. The pier, built by the corporation in 1876 (fn. 2) at a cost of £4,000, has three landing-stages and is 700 ft. in length. The town is well lighted and supplied with water from Afton. There is a town hall with an undercroft on the west side of the square bearing the inscription 'A.D. 1764 the fourth year of the reign of his present Majesty King George III, this hall was rebuilt by Thomas, Lord Holmes, Governor of the Isle of Wight. Benjamin Lee Esq. Mayor.' (fn. 3) The market-house or town hall is described in 1849 as 'a neat building with a hall over it in which the several courts are held, and the public business of the corporation transacted.' (fn. 4) It was formerly known as the Guildhall. (fn. 5) At the time of the building of the castle the town possessed four gates—the Quay Gate (fn. 6) towards the sea, the outer and inner (fn. 7) Town Gates (fn. 8) towards the east, and the Hither Gate, (fn. 9) probably to the south. Stone Cross and Draffehaven are place-names (xvii cent.). The borough of Yarmouth, which is co-extensive with the parish, received its first charter from Baldwin de Redvers third Earl of Devon, (fn. 10) who granted his men of Yarmouth all liberties and customs belonging to free burgesses, and quittance from tolls and other customs throughout all his lands in fairs and markets. (fn. 11) In 1334 the burgesses of Yarmouth obtained from Edward III a confirmation of their charter, (fn. 12) but the borough still remained a mesne borough (fn. 13) until 1440, when Henry VI confirmed their charter (fn. 14) and granted the burgesses their town at a fee-farm rent of 20s., payable yearly at Michaelmas. (fn. 15) A confirmation of the charter was granted in 1466 by Edward IV, and by Queen Elizabeth in 1560. (fn. 16) The last and most important charter to Yarmouth was granted in 1609 by James I at the petition of the mayor and burgesses. (fn. 17) The town was to remain for ever a free borough, and was to be incorporate under the style of the 'Mayor and Burgesses of the borough of Yarmouth,' with the right to acquire land to the value of £20 a year, and to have a common seal. (fn. 18) The common council was to consist of the mayor and eleven chief burgesses, and was to hold the view of frankpledge and the assize of bread and ale in the gild hall. In 1693 Lord Cutts reported that the Corporation of Yarmouth consisted of a mayor and twelve aldermen, (fn. 19) who had power to add to the corporation as many free men as they pleased, all of whom had a voice in the election of members to Parliament. (fn. 20) These free men or free burgesses, who were elected by a majority of the common council, were very numerous in the 18th century, but the Commissioners upon the Municipal Corporations of England reported in 1835 that only those were chosen who would support the interest of the patron within the borough. Under the Municipal Corporations Act of 1883 (fn. 21) the corporation ceased to exist in March 1886, and the town is now governed by a town trust of eleven members, five of whom are elected by the parish council of Yarmouth, two by the parish council of Freshwater, three are co-optative, and one is appointed by the London and South-Western Railway Company. The governing officer of the early borough was a bailiff who was probably an officer of the lord of the town for the time being, and was elected by him, as his stipend was paid from the issues of the town. (fn. 22) Between 1378 and 1385 the vill of Yarmouth was farmed by the bailiff at a rent of 40s., paid at Easter and Michaelmas in equal portions, (fn. 23) but from Easter 1380 to Christmas of that year no rent was paid for the town, because it had been burnt by the French, and neither the bailiff nor the townsfolk had any goods on which the rent could be distrained. The right to elect a mayor was apparently granted to the burgesses in 1440 with the right to have the borough at fee farm, for in 1449 the fee farm was paid by the mayor, bailiff and burgesses of the borough. (fn. 24) The charter of 1609 ordered that the election of the mayor by the common council from among the chief burgesses (fn. 25) should take place yearly at the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle in the gild hall of the borough. (fn. 26) If a mayor died in office another was elected for the remainder of the year. One of the mayoral duties was to preside as returning officer at the election of members of Parliament. (fn. 27) Originally the possession of a burgage tenement was probably a necessary qualification for a burgess, but all burgage tenures had ceased before 1835. (fn. 28) The capital burgesses (fn. 29) were chosen from among the free burgesses, but the latter never seem to have taken any part in the administration of the borough and were only present at the meetings for the election of members of Parliament. In 1835 there had been no recent elections of free burgesses except of such as were intended for chief burgesses immediately. The corporation had by this means been reduced to the smallest possible limits, possibly owing to a desire to prevent any risk of opposition at parliamentary elections. (fn. 30) The function of the common clerk who under the charter of 1609 was elected by the common council and held office during pleasure was to attend at meetings of the common council and enter the proceedings in a book and to keep the accounts and serve as steward of the court leet. His salary was £6 6s. a year with a fee of a guinea on the election of a free or chief burgess. The serjeant-at-mace held office under the charter of 1609 during pleasure and by the election of the common council. (fn. 31) His salary was a guinea and his duty was to attend all meetings of the corporation and serve all notices and summonses of the mayor. The market of Yarmouth was held on Mondays and a fair lasting three days took place at the feast of St. James. The right to both market and fair was successfully claimed by Isabel de Fortibus in 1279–80, (fn. 32) and belonged to the borough after 1440. By the charter of 1609 the market day was changed to Wednesday, (fn. 33) and in 1778 the market was held on Fridays, but was unfrequented. (fn. 34) In 1849 it was held on Wednesdays (fn. 35) and in 1863 and subsequently on Fridays, (fn. 36) but the market had died out before 1875. The date of the fair remained unchanged until 1863, (fn. 37) but it was merely a pleasure fair in 1792, (fn. 38) and ceased before 1875. The revenues of the corporation in 1835 arose from tolls of the markets and fairs, wharfage dues, a rent of £4 12s. 6d. derived from 2½ acres of land, fee-farm rents from old burgage tenements called town rents, amounting to £3 17s. 6d., and rent arising from the lease of an oyster fishery. The wharfage dues were imposed upon all goods imported or exported by water, but no toll was levied upon fish. In addition to this a toll was imposed on each vessel of 12 or 15 tons and upwards. Burgesses were exempt from all these dues. (fn. 39) In 1835 the tolls of the market had diminished to 10s. a year, paid by a butcher, the only person who sold in the market-house, for his standing there. (fn. 40) Fair tolls were taken from persons setting up stalls at the fairs, but the receipts at each fair seldom exceeded 2s. 6d. (fn. 41) In the 13th and 14th centuries the market and fair tolls had varied between 16s. and 22s. (fn. 42) By the charter of 1609 the mayor and burgesses were entitled to hold a court of pie powder, but this court, if it was ever held, was quite obsolete in 1835 (fn. 43); in fact, the borough of Yarmouth never seems to have had a borough court as distinct from the court leet, any by-laws or orders for the payment of money being made at the meetings of the common council. (fn. 44) The only case which has been found in which the court leet is called the court of the mayor and burgesses is in 1625. (fn. 45) During the 17th century the court leet was apparently held twice a year, in April and September or October, (fn. 46) but in 1835 the commissioners found that it was held only once a year on 18 October. The jury was composed of the small tradespeople of the town, and the same persons generally attended year by year as a matter of course without a summons, providing substitutes when they were unable themselves to be present. An allowance was made to the jury for a dinner on the court day. (fn. 47) They presented two high constables, (fn. 48) two petty constables (fn. 49) and a hayward annually, and also presented encroachments, nuisances and improper weights and measures. (fn. 50) Yarmouth and Newport together returned two members to Parliament in 1295, (fn. 51) but Yarmouth was not again represented until 1584, (fn. 52) from which date it regularly returned two members until disfranchised in 1832. Yarmouth was visited by King John in May 1206, (fn. 53) and it was probably at this time that he entertained the Earl of Salisbury there. (fn. 54) He again visited the town in February 1213–14, making a stay of a week, (fn. 55) so that there must have been at that time a mansion of some importance at Yarmouth. A survey of the town taken in 1559 showed that its size and importance had greatly diminished, since there were not many more than a dozen houses. (fn. 56) The commissioners of 1835 stated that there was scarcely any trade in the town and very little export or import. (fn. 57) In the survey of Yarmouth taken in 1559 a list is given of all the boats belonging to the port. (fn. 60) At a court leet held in 1602 the inhabitants were bidden to repair the quay with all speed, (fn. 61) and in 1603 the common council ordered that every ship belonging to the port of the burden of forty tons and upwards should pay yearly at Michaelmas towards the maintenance of the quay 5s.; boats between forty and twenty tons, 2s. 6d.; and those between ten and twenty tons, 1s. 6d.; all barques of four tons and upwards using the passage should pay 1s. and 'every pynnys keeping passage' 6d. (fn. 62) In 1618 the quay was again in decay, and the duty of repairing it fell upon the mayor and constables, (fn. 63) while in 1625 a levy for that purpose was made upon all the inhabitants of the town. (fn. 64) In 1628 Charles I granted the port of Yarmouth to Mary Wandisford, widow, and to William Wandisford, her sister's husband, (fn. 65) who proposed to include it in a scheme for cutting off the parishes of Freshwater and Totland from the main island. The mayor and burgesses petitioned against this scheme, on the ground that it would ruin their harbour by diminishing the current of the river, which was already only just sufficient to keep the harbour clear. (fn. 66) About 1662, however, the Governor of the Island cut a passage round the eastern side of the town, thus making it an island, with a view to rendering it more capable of being fortified, as a French invasion was feared. (fn. 67) Two years later the marshes were embanked and the town was connected with the main island by a drawbridge. (fn. 68) In 1825 £44 12s. 9d. was spent in repairs to the quay and sea wall, which had been injured by a storm, (fn. 69) and in 1829, the wharfs having been found insufficient, an application was made to the Board of Ordnance for a lease of some ground belonging to the castle and adjoining the old wharf, which was granted to the corporation at a rent of £1, and a quit-rent paid to the Board of Ordnance. The corporation also had to pay the government £30 for the old material standing upon the ground. In the following year the corporation built a new wharf on this land and the site of the old wharf. (fn. 70) The trade of the port is at the present day very limited, the imports consisting chiefly of coal and iron, but not more than is required for use in the immediate neighbourhood. A small quantity of corn is exported. The manor of YARMOUTH, consisting of a hide and 2½ virgates of land, was held in the time of King Edward the Confessor by Alvric and Wislac in parage of the king, and they retained it after the Conquest. It formed one of the three holdings in Hemreswel Hundred. (fn. 71) The manor was evidently granted by Henry I to Richard de Redvers, and subsequently followed the same descent as the lordship of the Isle (fn. 72) and Carisbrooke Castle (q.v.) until about 1440, when the men of Yarmouth began to farm their own borough. The interest of the lord of the manor was from then until about 1886 represented by a fee-farm rent of 20s. annually, which was apparently granted by the Crown to Sir Robert Holmes. He died in 1692, leaving an illegitimate daughter Mary, and left the chief part of his estate to his nephew Henry Holmes on condition that he should marry Mary Holmes. (fn. 73) This Henry did and the fee-farm rent of Yarmouth passed on his death in 1738 to his son Thomas, who was created Lord Holmes of Killmallock in 1760. (fn. 74) He died in 1764 without surviving issue, and was succeeded in the property by his nephew the Rev. Leonard Holmes, formerly Troughear, who was created Baron Holmes in 1798. (fn. 75) He died in 1804 and the rent passed to his daughter Elizabeth wife of Sir Henry Worsley Holmes, bart. On her death in 1832 it passed to her granddaughter Elizabeth, wife of William Henry Ashe A'Court, who assumed the name Holmes in 1833 and succeeded his father as Lord Heytesbury in 1860. (fn. 76) He died in 1891 and was succeeded by his grandson William Frederick third Lord Heytesbury, whose widow, Margaret Lady Heytesbury, is now lady of the manor. Sir Robert Holmes, Governor of the Isle of Wight from 1669 until 1692, (fn. 77) built at Yarmouth a large mansion, said to be the present Pier Hotel (fn. 78) (formerly, until 1897, the George Inn), where in 1671, 1675 and 1677 he entertained the king with great magnificence. (fn. 79) The room where Charles II slept is still shown at the inn. This house was apparently built on the site of an old mansion, probably to be identified with 'the king's house' at Yarmouth mentioned in 1638. (fn. 80) In 1301–2 a payment of 3s. was made for a new pillory at Yarmouth. (fn. 81) The castle of Yarmouth was built towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII (fn. 82) in consequence of a raid by the French upon the Island about 1543, (fn. 83) and formed part of the south coast defence scheme which included Calshot, Hurst, and Sandown. It was built under the superintendence of Richard Worsley, then Captain of the Island, (fn. 84) and consisted of a tower and platform towards the sea, mounted with cannon of various calibre, (fn. 85) backed with the usual residence and storehouse. It had a fine gateway towards the east with the royal arms above it, (fn. 86) and seems to have been a more ambitious building than either Cowes or Sandown. The building was probably finished about 1547, for in that year £1,000 was paid to George Mill for the works at Yarmouth and for the discharge of the soldiers there. (fn. 87) The castle has always belonged to the Crown, and was exempted by a special clause in the charter of 1609 from the jurisdiction of the borough. (fn. 88) Repairs were required there in 1565, and were carried out under the direction of Richard Worsley. (fn. 89) Owing to troubles with Spain the fortifications of the coast towns were inquired into in 1586, and the defences of Yarmouth Castle were found to be very insufficient. (fn. 90) Between March and November in the following year works costing in all £50 7s. 7d. were carried out at Yarmouth under the supervision of Thomas Worsley and John Dingley. The chief item seems to have been the erection of a fortification of earth and turf. (fn. 91) After the Armada scare it was again repaired, and a new building was erected on the platform. (fn. 92) In 1599 Sir Edmund Uvedale estimated at £300 the cost of putting Yarmouth Castle into a proper state of defence, and stated that the sum would be well spent, as Yarmouth was strongly situated, and was a necessary fort for holding up any ships which might get past Hurst Castle and Carey's Sconce. (fn. 93) Repairs were undertaken at about this time, and were reported in 1603 as being almost completed. (fn. 94) In 1609, however, the Earl of Southampton, then Governor of the Isle of Wight, spent £300 on the repairs of Sandown and Yarmouth Castles. (fn. 95) In 1623, when John Burley was Captain and the garrison consisted of four men, a survey of the castle was taken. The surveyors reported that the parapet of the middle tower was quite decayed, and that lodging was wanted for four gunners. The three rooms in the square tower were in a ruinous state and required roofing. The moat and the sluice regulating the supply of water in it were both useless. The moat was 17 rods in circumference and 2 rods wide, and was to be made 5 ft. deeper, and a counter-scarp of brick or earth was to be constructed. Repairs were again urgently required in 1625. (fn. 96) On the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 the Parliamentarians took steps to secure all the castles of the Isle of Wight. Captain Barnaby Burley, who was then in command at Yarmouth, made active preparations to defend the castle for the king, but finally surrendered on condition that he might remain in the castle, the Parliamentarians leaving with him a sufficient guard. (fn. 97) In 1650 the garrison at Yarmouth was found to be very insufficient, and it was proposed that the existing force of a captain and thirty men should be increased by thirty men and a lieutenant. (fn. 98) Thus in 1654 the garrison comprised seventy soldiers, (fn. 99) and in 1655 the cost of the upkeep of the garrison was £78 3s. 4d., and steps were taken to reduce it. (fn. 100) On the accession of Charles II the dismantling of castles and fortresses, begun under the Long Parliament as a precaution against rebellion, was carried further, and in 1661 the entire garrison of Yarmouth Castle was disbanded at four days' notice, and the removal of the guns to Cowes was ordered unless the men of Yarmouth would undertake to defend their own castle. (fn. 101) Apparently the burgesses did not do this, for in 1666 the king wrote to Lord Colepeper, then Governor of the Island, suggesting that the inhabitants of Yarmouth and other places in the Isle of Wight might contribute to the safety of the Island by fortifying their castles. (fn. 102) Some steps may have been taken in this direction, for Sir Robert Holmes, when he surveyed the fortifications in 1669, found that, though Yarmouth Castle was totally out of repair and had no officer, there were four men acting as a garrison. (fn. 103) In the following year orders were issued by the king for the proper fortification of the town of Yarmouth, fresh ground to be bought if necessary for the extension of existing fortifications, and such guns and ordnance as could be spared from Cowes to be placed at Yarmouth. (fn. 104) In 1688, when William of Orange was preparing to land in England, Sir Robert Holmes wrote in despair to Lord Preston that he could never secure the Island without speedy help. He could only attempt to retain the two forts of Yarmouth and Hurst, the militia being already mutinous and the townspeople ready to declare in favour of the prince. (fn. 105) In the following year things were in the same bad state. (fn. 106) The military establishment in 1781 included a captain, one master gunner and five other gunners. (fn. 107) Extensive repairs were carried out at the fort in 1855, and it was then garrisoned by a detachment of the regular army of the county, (fn. 108) but it was dismantled about thirty years later, and the fort has been used since about 1898 for coastguard purposes. It consisted in 1863 of a platform with four guns. (fn. 109) The castle is leased to the proprietors of the Pier Hotel, with which it is now incorporated. (fn. 110) The parish church of ST. JAMES is an uninteresting structure consisting of nave with north and south aisles, a chancel and a western tower. The original church was said by local tradition to have been at the east end of the town, and its foundations were visible in the old churchyard in 1845. (fn. 111) Destroyed by the French in their raid of 1377, it is said to have been rebuilt on the present site only to be again reduced to a ruin in 1543. At the beginning of the 17th century it was practically rebuilt, (fn. 112) and reconsecrated by the Bishop of Salisbury on 11 March 1626. (fn. 113) The chancel, which had a polygonal roof with enriched bosses at the intersection of the ribs, was lengthened 12 ft. in 1889. To the south of it is the little mortuary chapel containing a fine statue of Sir Robert Holmes, died 1692, and many memorials to the Holmes family. There is a wall tablet by Nollekens to Captain John Urry, 1802, and in the floor are 17th-century grave slabs of the Hide family (fn. 114) and to Peter Pryavlx, 1644. On the front of the gallery at the west end are brass tablets commemorating the different charitable bequests, and in the north aisle is the royal achievement of George I, 1715. There is one bell, by James Bartlet of London, inscribed 'The . Gvift . of . Sir . Richard . Mason . Knight . 1679' and a clock made by Nicholas Paris in the same year. The plate consists of two pewter 18th-century patens, plated flagon, plated paten on three feet, of 8½ in. diameter, and plated chalice, both inscribed 'PARISH OF YARMOUTH,' and silver chalice and paten. In the vestry are two lidded pewter flagons said to have formerly been used in the church. The registers date from 1614. Baldwin de Redvers, the first of the name, granted to the priory of Christchurch Twyneham the tithes that belonged to Sir Alfred de Brockley in Yarmouth, (fn. 115) and this grant was confirmed by his sons Richard and Baldwin and by the king in 1313. (fn. 116) The lords of the manor evidently retained the advowson, (fn. 117) and it passed to the king in the same way as the manor, (fn. 118) and was granted with it to the Earl of Chester. (fn. 119) In 1333, however, Philip de Heyterdebury came before the king and sought to recover the advowson of a moiety of the church of Yarmouth to the Prior of Christchurch Twyneham, the advowson having been taken into the king's hands on account of the prior's default before Geoffrey le Scrop the king's justice. (fn. 120) In the following year Geoffrey and his fellow-justices received orders not to put the prior in default for his absence at a suit between the king and the prior concerning the rendering by the prior to the king of a moiety of the advowson, as the prior was in the king's service at that time. (fn. 121) Presumably the whole advowson then passed to the king, (fn. 122) and the king or the Lord Chancellor presented (fn. 123) until 1866–7, when the advowson was purchased by Samuel Fisher. (fn. 124) In 1894–5 it was sold by the trustees of the Rev. C. T. Fisher to the Rev. B. Maturin, from whom it passed in 1900 to Mr. Elmer Speed, the present patron. (fn. 125) In 1380 the church of Yarmouth was exonerated from the subsidy on account of the poverty (fn. 126) of the town, which had been burnt by the French. In 1559 in the survey above quoted it is stated that the benefice of Yarmouth was insufficient to find a priest, (fn. 127) and in 1654 the mayor and inhabitants of the town in a petition to the Protector stated that the benefice, being not above 20 marks a year, served only for an old man who could merely read. They, therefore, begged that they might have an augmentation of £50 a year, so that they could have a proper pastor, and this request was granted. (fn. 128) A brief assigned to the year 1626 was issued for building a new church at Yarmouth, (fn. 129) and by a faculty granted by the Bishop of Winchester in 1635 the townsfolk of Yarmouth were allowed to pull down their old church, which was in a ruinous state, and to build a new one. (fn. 130) William de Vernon, lord of the Isle of Wight from 1184 to 1216, granted and confirmed to William Mackerel the land and house at Yarmouth which Guy the clerk held, for making a hospital in honour of God and St. Mary the Virgin and All Saints, for the soul of King Henry son of Earl Geoffrey and for the soul of Earl Baldwin and Richard his brother, (fn. 131) and for the soul of William Mackerel and his ancestors. (fn. 132) William's grant was confirmed by Baldwin Archbishop of Canterbury (1185–90), (fn. 133) and by Godfrey Bishop of Winchester (1189–1204). (fn. 134) The hospital was endowed with land at Milford and Kerne, and at Chalk in Wiltshire, and with the chapel of Brook. (fn. 135) William Mackerel apparently gave the hospital with its endowments to the knights of Solomon's Temple, for his gift to that effect was confirmed by Ralph his brother and successor, and by William de Vernon. (fn. 136) It would seem that the hospital was allowed to fall into decay, for no further mention of it has been found, and its endowment with the exception of the chapel of Brook was appropriated to the Knights Templars. There are Baptist, Wesleyan and Bible Christian chapels at Yarmouth, the latter having been registered for marriages in 1869, (fn. 137) and the Plymouth Brethren have a small room. The Town Trust, comprising the property of the dissolved corporation of 'The Mayor and Chief Burgesses of Yarmouth,' is regulated by a scheme of the Charity Commissioners 30 December 1890. The property consists of:— Part i, fee-farm rents and parcels of land and buildings in Yarmouth, and £134 19s. 5d. Plymouth Corporation 3 per cent. stock, £35 6s. 8d. consols, and £49 18s. 6d. India 3 per cent. stock held by the official trustees; Part ii, the quay, harbour, wharfage, tolls and harbour dues, and also reversion of Yar Bridge; Part iii, the pier and tolls and rates comprised in and levied under the Yarmouth (I. of W.) Pier Order 1874; Part iv, the mace, common seal, ancient charters, &c.; Part v, mud land containing 36 a. 2 r. 27 p. The scheme directs that the income from Part i, about £30 a year, shall be applied in defraying cost of repairs and management of Parts i and iv, and in maintenance of the town hall and to any purpose for public benefit; the income from Part ii, about £250 a year, in payment of harbour master and other officers, in maintaining harbour lights, &c., and in contributing to the expenses of the pier; the income from Part iii, about £610 a year, in upkeep of the pier, including salaries of officers, and in paying interest accruing in respect of debts incurred. In 1752 Thomas Lord Holmes by deed charged his farm called Alverstone in Brading with an annuity of £30, to be applied in keeping in repair the monument in the parish church in memory of his son, one-third of the residue in apprenticing poor boys and girls, a moiety of the remainder for the minister and the other moiety for the poor. By an order of the Charity Commissioners 12 June 1896 the yearly sum of 20s. was directed to be applied in repair of the monument and £9 13s. 4d. for the minister, constituting the Ecclesiastical charity, £9 13s. 4d. for apprenticing and £9 13s. 4d. for the poor. In 1846 Joseph Squire by will bequeathed £200 consols, now £196 14s. 1d. Nottingham Corporation 3 per cent. stock, the dividends to be distributed among poor not receiving parochial relief, on the anniversary of testator's death (September 14). In 1856 John Squire, by his will proved at Winchester 15 September, bequeathed £100 consols, now £98 7s. like Corporation stock, the income to be applied in distribution of coals to poor widows at Christmas. In 1872 Miss Harriet Blagrave Dean Love by deed gave £200 consols, now £196 19s. 2d. like Corporation stock, the income to be distributed to the poor on 1 January yearly. The same donor, by her will proved at London 17 March 1881, left £50 consols, now £49 4s. 3d. like Corporation stock, the interest to be applied in keeping in repair a tablet in the church and tombstones in the churchyard, and the surplus to any useful or charitable purpose. The income of this charity is accumulating until required. In 1871 Vice-Admiral Henry Ommanney Love by deed gave £200 consols, now £196 19s. 2d. like Corporation stock, the income to be applied as to one moiety for the rector and the other moiety for the poor on 1 March in each year. In 1868 Caroline Leigh, by her will proved at Winchester 27 October, bequeathed £1,000 consols, now £984 16s. 1d. like Corporation stock, producing £29 11s. yearly, to be applied in augmentation of the rector's stipend. The sums of stock above mentioned are held by the official trustees, producing in the aggregate £51 13s. 6d., of which £32 10s. is received by the rector, in addition to the share of Lord Holmes's charity. The proportion (fn. 138) applicable for eleemosynary purposes is distributed in coal and money doles. In 1825 Jane Seymour Hearne by will bequeathed a sum of money, now represented by £88 8s. Nottingham Corporation 3 per cent. stock. In 1871 Vice-Admiral Henry Ommanney Love by deed gave £100 consols, now £98 9s. 7d. like Corporation stock. In 1872 Miss Harriet Blagrave Dean Love by deed gave £100 consols, now £98 9s. 7d. like Corporation stock. In 1874 Barnabas, otherwise Barnaby, Beere bequeathed a sum of money, now represented by £143 17s. 10d. like Corporation stock. In 1897 Miss Elizabeth Leigh, by a codicil to her will proved 10 December, bequeathed £1,000 consols, now represented by £1,000 like Corporation stock, and £21 12s. 1d. consols, the income to be applied in equal proportion towards the salaries of the master and mistress of the National schools, both to be members of the Church of England. The several sums of stock are held by the official trustees, producing in the aggregate £43 8s. yearly, which is applied in connexion with the National schools.

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Create an Account - Increase your productivity, customize your experience, and engage in information you care about. Republic is trying to eliminate glass at their facility. Glass is very hard on the equipment. Also there is a limited demand for the recycled glass. Republic has stated that a majority of glass that is taken to the facility ends up at the landfill. Show All Answers The recycling program began on July 1st, 2020 with a few changes. Please be aware of the following: The trash containers are black, and the recycling carts are blue. If you are missing a trash bin (the black bin) or recycling bin (the blue bin), please contact the Department of Public Service at 734-728-1770 or Email Dept. of Public Service. You can also Submit a Service Request. No, it is the same day as it has always been. Wayne County Recycling Information State of Michigan Recycling Information Not at this time; the residents who have two bins from the previous program will be able to keep their two bins. Please contact Priority Waste at 1-586-228-1200, email them at [email protected], or visit our Special Pickup Page to request a special pick up. For curbside recycling pickup , trash pickup, compost pickup, and special pickup questions, please call Priority Waste at 1-586-228-1200. For other sanitation questions, please call the Department of Public Service at 1-734-728-1770. No, the recycling bin is only for recycling materials. The City is charged additional costs if the recycling is contaminated with garbage. Report the damage to the Department of Public Service by submitting a Service Request, emailing Dept. of Public Service or calling 734-728-1770. Please place the carts on your easement, behind the curb for pickup. Do not put them in the street. Make sure they are not blocked by parked cars, fire hydrants, trees, or utility poles. A spot will need to be cleared for placement. Do not place the cart in the street, as it will interfere with snow plowing. The City has stickers available for your bin that are being delivered to every home in the City starting December 5, 2020. Stickers are also available for pickup from Westland City Hall. No, please do not put recyclables in any kind of plastic bag. Plastic bags will jam up the recycling machines. The carts have wheels for easy movement. However, 64 gallon containers are being offered to those who might have more difficulty maneuvering them. Rubbish will need to be placed in plastic garbage bags and then into the cart for pickup. Do not overload the cart. If the lid cannot close, it is too full. All materials to be recycled must be placed inside the cart, even materials that previously had to be placed outside the bins, such as cardboard. All materials to be recycled must fit inside the cart, or they will not be picked up for recycling. You can also get additional details on the City’s website, the Recycling Simplified website, or call the Department of Public Service at 734-728-1770. Mailings and inserts in water bills will periodically have recycling information. Yes, residents will be required to call Priority Waste at 1-586-228-1200, email at [email protected], or connect online for a special pickup of larger items. As of July 2018, this is a free service for up to 8 extra bags of trash and/or 3 bulk items per week. Yes, please remove the label prior to recycling the can. You can recycle the label with other recyclable paper items. Yes, please leave the lid on any plastic bottle and recycle them together. Lids are too small to recycle separately. Unfortunately, you will not be able to use any other container for placement of household trash other than City provided containers, should you need more space than the 96 gallon container provided by the City, it is suggested that you contact the City of Westland Department of Public Service at 734-728-1770 and request another additional trash container at an additional cost of $60 per year (additional cost attributed to landfill costs). You can also purchase one at the City of Westland Webstore The City will be providing a 96 gallon container for collection of your trash as well. Collection of items that are too large to fit in the containers will continue as it has been in the past, the resident is required to contact Priority Waste: The request must be placed at least 48 hours ahead of the next collection day to insure pickup. Food and beverage container glass is accepted at the Westland Recycle Center. No, do not put plastic toys in the recycle bin. Over the years, our All American City has grown. It has become necessary for the City to change some resident’s collection day to guarantee that collection stays on schedule. Use our interactive collection map to find your address and collection day. No, do not put plastic hangers in the recycle bin. If your collection day has not been changed, your recycling pickup will also not be changed. Should your collection day be changed, you will receive a two weeks advanced notice, with your new collection day enclosed. No, do not put old metal tools in the recycle bin. Old metal tools can be taken to the Westland Recycle Center instead. No, do not put any old appliances in the recycle bin. They can be taken to the Westland Recycle Center on Marquette. You can request a special pick up through our website, calling the Department of Public Service at 734-728-1770 or by coming to the Westland City Hall. If you have any other questions regarding special pick up, you can contact the Department of Public Service at 734-728-1770. Yes, you can contact the City of Westland, Department of Public Service through our online store, or by coming into the Westland City Hall to request another trash container at an additional cost of: City Hall is located at:36300 Warren RoadWestland, MI 48185 If you have any question regarding the purchase of an extra trash bin you can contact the Department of Public service at 734-728-1770. No, batteries can be recycled at the following locations: There is a drop box for batteries at these locations. No, Clothes cannot be put in the recycle bin. Clothes can be recycled in the Blue Clothing bins located throughout the City, including City Hall and the Westland Recycle Center. If you are not sure on a specific item you can go to the City’s website. The Public Service Department has a Recycling page or visit the Recycling Simplified website. The collection of compostable material will remain the same as it has always been in the City of Westland. Glass beverage and food jars can be dropped of at the Westland Recycle Center located at 37137 Marquette, Westland. The containers need to be be rinsed out of any food residue, clean, and dry before being recycled. Move out quotes are now available directly from Priority Waste! Please contact Priority Waste by: At this time, they are not recyclable.

What do you think of when you hear the term, Adventure Travel? For us, it is our post retirement dream! For us and the purpose of this blog, it is where we are now, more or less! We can finally say we are “really” retired. Isn’t that a common goal for Americans, to become retired? I (Debbie) officially retired from a 20 year career in law enforcement in February 2006, but I ended up working part time for a few years and have been a regular volunteer. Bill said he never wanted to “retire” so his path is a bit different. His goal or end game was to be self-employed. His first full time experience as being self-employed was as a Snap on Tool Dealer, from 1986-1988, too short of a time, but those were very profitable years for him. Sadly, that ended when we divorced in December 1988 (but that story has a happy ending:Chapter 2 So why share about our marriage?) He formally quit the working world in October 2004. When he quit, he actually had a dream job with Nationwide Insurance as an automotive claims adjuster. But in 2000, we began working his way back into self-employment as we began our path into retirement. That was when we invested in our first piece of rental real estate. When we moved to Florida in November 2004, he went full board into real estate rentals, peaking at owning six rentals homes, but also caring for our home, his mother’s home and helping my parents out from time to time with their home – all of us in the same town. Needless to say, caring for real estate in Florida is a year around task, especially in the heat of the summer. We sold his last piece of rental real estate in August, 2013 – a dream come true as we prepared for the end game. My “retirement dream” was to be a volunteer and work in the community to help make it a better place for all to live. But as a workaholic, it was hard to stop working, so I started back to work part time for our Sheriff. That lasted four years and my time there actually introduced me to our community in a unique way. I made connections that helped me become a volunteer and allowed me to work with some of the most phenomenal people I’ve ever met – let alone have the privilege of volunteering with! I was able to do this for several years – and this will be hard to leave as we approach our end game – adventure travel! I’m hoping with technology, I can still be useful! Bill’s “retirement” dream was to travel all over the United States and Canada in a Class A motor home (one of those big bus-type rigs that pulls your car and tows your motorcycle, also called a Recreational Vehicle or RV). Bill dreamed about this for at least three years, searching websites for the “perfect” RV and we went to many RV shows. So here we are, months since Bill was officially retired, although he said he’d never use that word. But the other day, he asked me, “We are really retired, aren’t we?” I had to chuckle! What has happened – why an end game? Probably the greatest thing a parent could ever hope for – we became grand parents! And that has rocked our world in a way we never could have imagined! See, our problem is that we live nearly 900 miles from that precious grandson! So how can we marry our dream goals? Well, we are working on that and so far so good! We are now saying we are adventure travelers – but swinging by our daughter’s to spend as much time as possible with our grandson. This is a short blog as I prepare to tell more about our transition into full time retirement! But first, I always love to see what the Bible says about whatever we are doing. So here are a few of my favorite scriptures (all from ESV) to read as one thinks about retiring, from http://www.openbible.info/topics/retirement: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘This applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they shall come to do duty in the service of the tent of meeting. And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more. They minister to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard, but they shall do no service. Thus shall you do to the Levites in assigning their duties.'” “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.” “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” 2 Timothy 4:7 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to theLord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.” “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;… Until next time…

In 2019 Clare kindly wrote a piece for us to share to mark Severe ME Awareness Day, 8th August. She dedicated this to Jen Chittick, Screw ME, who also sadly lost her life to Severe ME. It’s so hard to know where to start writing about Merryn and M.E. How to condense 6 years into a readable account. However I try I feel I never fully explain the horror of Profoundly Severe M.E and what Merryn endured. Merryn was a happy go lucky, very loving, huggy child, a bundle of energy, a people person, endearing and occasionally exasperating in her stubbornness. A stubbornness I have no doubt helped her endure throughout her illness. A stubbornness that made her ask me practically everyday from the age of 13 if she could get her nose pierced. The answer was always the same – “when you’re 16”. Still she asked and cajoled and I relented and she got it done a little bit earlier in the end!Severe M.E has a myriad of horrific symptoms but it is also an illness of losses. M.E is a thief, it robbed Merryn of the life she dreamed of, of studying Performing Arts at LIPPA, seeing her friends, a family of her own. M.E robbed her of these in increments as she struggled to be able to talk, lost the ability to walk, to even sit up at the slightest incline, becoming housebound, then bedbound, unable to care for herself in even the smallest ways, unable to swallow, unable to eat or drink at all due to gastrointestinal failure resulting in the need to be fed intravenously. For the last 4 years of her life Merryn lay in a dark, quiet room. Light, noise, touch and movement (of herself and others) hurt her and caused Post Exertional Neuroimmune Exhaustion – a worsening of symptoms following any type of exertion. Movement hypersensitivity meant just someone being in the same room caused all her symptoms to worsen, leaving her unable to tolerate much of any social interaction without having myoclonic seizures, becoming confused, disoriented and her pain worsening. And this worsening of symptoms didn’t ease, each time it happened compounded and got worse causing further deterioration. With Severe and Profoundly Severe M.E every action has to be thought through carefully and the impact they could have. Even when in worsening pain and needing extra pain relief Merryn would have to weigh up the benefits of feeling some ease to her pain against the damage that would be caused by having a nurse in her room administering the injection. So Merryn lay in the dark, tube fed, often catheterised and in such pain, pain beyond measure or imagining and unable to even have the comfort of a proper cuddle. We devised a way of me lying carefully on the bed next to her with my arms around her but not touching her except for her hands or face which were places that she could sometimes tolerate touch. Merryn was cared for by myself and our local hospice at home for the last 2 years of her life. Her hospice Dr had worked in palliative care for 10 years and she said she had never witnessed such suffering as she saw Merryn endure. Many people use the battery analogy or the spoon theory to describe M.E, but how do you describe Profoundly Severe M.E where not only is there no battery left at all but it’s a negative battery? For us, the best analogy is a bank account. A heathy person is in the black with credit, sometimes the account gets low but this is manageable. Merryn was in the red, drastically overdrawn and each interaction, however necessary, such as the District Nurse changing Merryn’s syringe drivers or giving desperately needed top up pain relief injections etc led to an increased overdrawal. Almost like a loan shark – the interest just keeps adding up, getting more and more overdrawn. There is no respite, the debt gets bigger and bigger, crueller and crueller. So many losses and so much pain. M.E took so much from Merryn but it never took her giant heart, her gentle, loving, caring soul. She was, is and remains my inspiration and the reason I will always fight for health equality in M.E, increased funding for research and awareness. And the sadness is this is just our story. This is still happening to thousands of Severely and Profoundly Severe people with M.E. Lifes lived unseen and in pain day after day, month after month, year after year. It’s got to stop. I’ll end with some words by Merryn. She wrote these aged 18 years old (3 years before her death). “Having Severe M.E is like being trapped in your own body every single day. There is no rest, you are bedbound all day every day. It snatches the most simple things away from you like being able to wash yourself, even in bed. Being cared for in every way possible. In terrible pain, from everything. Not being able to talk on the phone or have visitors and feeling worse about saying no every time someone asks again. Months and months in hospital. Severe infections. Breathing problems. Low immunity. Problems anywhere and everywhere in the body. Paralysis. Severe hypersensitivity. The list is endless, and if I was physically able to type I would carry on. Spread awareness and remember all of us and all of those who have lost their lives.”

The World of SVG 2022 Jan 31 - by Robert Giordano | Blog Index Remember back in December 2020 when I first created Linkatopia's own "Official Account" icon? Well, there's the original PNG file I made, vs the new SVG version I just made. Along with everything else, I've spent the past month replacing all of the old PNG icons and graphics with SVG files. What's SVG you ask? It's another graphic file format like JPG, GIF, or PNG and it stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. If you really want to dive in, here's the Wikipedia page. Like you can probably guess from the acronym, SVG files can scale to any size and are made of vector shapes instead of pixels. They are much smaller than PNG or even JPG so they load fast! SVG 1.1 has been around since 2011 but, as usual, there were significant differences in how various browsers handled SVG files. Welcome to 2022. You would think all of that browser stuff would be ironed out by now right? Well, kind of but as usual, its complicated. As long as you don't need to support Internet Explorer 11 (which no one should be) then SVG files will work in just about every browser. However, if you want to be able to use cool SVG features, like being able to change the colors of an icon on the fly or use CSS for rollover effects without needing separate images, then it gets tricky. Many of the tutorials I found online for using SVG features in all modern browsers, were from 7 to 10 years old, and some of those techniques no longer work. I did manage to learn how to do some cool things, just using trial and error. For Linkatopia, one of the most important SVG features I wanted to use, is the ability to make a single icon and change its color on the fly with CSS. This would allow me to create ONE SET of icons that could change colors to match 100 different layout themes. I could even give users the ability to change the icons to match their own color schemes. I made an HTML page that I called my "SVG Workshop" and this is a screenshot from the latest version of that page. I used this page to do experiments with my SVGs and load them in all different browsers, on PCs, Macs, and phones. I learned what worked consistently and what didn't. As you can see here, I can color a single icon multiple ways, and I can even change the color on different parts of the icon if I "code" it that way. These are the new icons I'm using right now for stars, friends, tags, official accounts, and locks. On the regular site, the lock has 2 different colors, green or yellow. But the page only needs to load ONE lock icon from the server. SVG is Code In the previous paragraph, I said... if I "code" it that way. And that's because SVGs are XML code. You can make SVGs in Notepad! In fact, I made all of my own SVGs and I mostly used Mousepad (a Linux version of Notepad). For the previous site, I used Photoshop to create all of my PNG icons but I'm still using CS6 and it doesn't have SVG export. I'll save my Adobe rant for my personal blog, but the point is, I didn't need any Abobe products. I made all of my SVG icons in a text editor and a FREE online path tool. The image above is a screenshot of my star icon in that free tool by Yann Armelin. It's called the svg-path-editor and it deserves a shout out because it's awesome. In the past, every time I made a new theme with a different color palette, I had to create and export a whole new set of icons to match. Now, all of the themes use my new SVG icons. Each theme can set its own icon colors. A few icons, like the blue "official account" badge and the locks, have hard coded colors that can't be changed. The screenshot above is Freddy the Cat's page, set to the "dark" theme. The main menu icon is dark grey, QR icon is white, the stars and 3-dot menu icons are blue. Now, take a look at the next two themes, keeping in mind that I'm using THE SAME SET of icons for all 3 themes!! This is the "default" theme. The main menu icon is white, QR icon is black, the stars and 3-dot menu icons are dark blue with light blue fill. This is the "hacker" theme. I designed the main menu button (top right corner) so I could modify the main fill color as well as the outline color. The outline is part of the SVG and is not a CSS outline. I can also set the opacity of the outline and fill independently. SVGs are so cool. I still have a few more SVG icons to create, but once I have them all done, I will be making many more themes. Previously it was so tedious creating and exporting 15 or more icons every time I wanted to make a new theme. Then, I had to create folders on the server for all these files. Then, there were duplicates because some icons could be used in multiple themes. What a mess. Now I just have one set of icons. It's a beautiful thing and it opens up all kinds of possibilities for custom themes!

One of the most frustrating things in the world is taking a few steps forward and losing your WiFi signal. In one spot, you’re completely fine and in the next, no bars. There’s a room in my house that when the door is open, perfectly fine signal. Close that regular old hollow wood door and you get nothing! To fix this, you have a couple of options. First and most expensive, you can set up a true Mesh network. Our JD Snyder recently took a look at Ubiquiti’s Mesh system and came away impressed. If you don’t want to completely scrap the hardware you currently have, you can pick up a WiFi Repeater or Extender for pretty cheap. Our friends over at LightInTheBox are running a special right now on a couple of repeaters that we think you should take a look at. The first repeater is on sale for only $10 right now. It has the option to work either as a wireless repeater or in Wireless AP mode with an Ethernet cable attached to it. It supports 802.11 a/g/b/n and has a two-year warranty. It also comes with both US and EU plugs so it’s ideal to take with you on trips across the pond. The second repeater is also on sale for about $10 right now and supports speeds up to 300Mbps. It supports Wireless-N and runs on the 2.4 GHz network to get through walls and obstructions easily. It also supports WPA2, WPA and WEP security protocols and has a software wizard for easy setup.

Diageo, maker of Guinness, has announced plans to invest £73m in Guinness at Old Brewer’s Yard, a new microbrewery set to open in London’s Covent Garden in autumn 2023. The new venue at the historic brewing site will include a microbrewery producing limited-edition beers and offering guests tours, event spaces and a restaurant and open-fire kitchen. The 50,000 sq ft venue will create up to 150 jobs and will also become the southern UK hub of Diageo’s Learning for Life Bartending and Hospitality Programme, which has so far trained more than 5,500 people across the UK. The ambition is for more than 100 London-based students to graduate from the Guinness at Old Brewer’s Yard programme each year, with a proportion of employment opportunities to be ring-fenced for graduates. Guinness sales in Great Britain have grown by over 30% in the last six months and one in every 10 pints sold in London is now a Guinness. Dayalan Nayager, managing director, Diageo Great Britain, said: “We’re excited to create a new home for Guinness in the heart of London. ‘Guinness at Old Brewer’s Yard’ will strengthen London’s hospitality community and be a must-visit destination for thousands of visitors to enjoy. “Government support over the last two years has been vital for pubs and bars. Coming out of the pandemic, the long-term vitality of the trade will be significantly helped by the alcohol duty review and continued freezes in duty.” The site will be carbon neutral by 2030 and accessible, with a community programme, details of which will be designed following a consultation period with locals. The project remains subject to planning permission and consultation period. Old Brewer’s Yard is owned by the Mercers’ Company. Rob Abernethy, chief executive of the Mercers’ Company, added: “We are delighted to welcome Guinness to our Covent Garden estate. We have worked closely with Diageo to develop proposals which will restore Old Brewer’s Yard’s historic origins in a contemporary context. The significant level of investment is a major boost to London’s recovering economy and will provide a one-of-a-kind immersive experience, shining the spotlight on Covent Garden as a global visitor destination.”

I'm back bitches. I'm taking delivery next week, but I figured it wasn't too early to come in here and fuck wit yall. I'm getting old and figured it was time to get a proper old mans car. Plus starting a family and all that. Rear camaro shocks aren't cutting it. They are bottoming out on the regular. Anyone have any experience with stiffer shorter shocks that will mount up in the behind of my cressida wagon?

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The custom of honoring ancestors by cleaning cemeteries and decorating graves is an ancient and worldwide tradition, but the specific origin of Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was first known, are unclear. In early rural America, this duty was usually performed in late summer and was an occasion for family reunions and picnics. After the Civil War, America’s need for a secular, patriotic ceremony to honor its military dead became prominent, as monuments to fallen soldiers were erected and dedicated, and ceremonies centering on the decoration of soldiers’ graves were held in towns and cities throughout the nation. No less than 25 places have been named in connection with the origin of Memorial Day, and for many years, states observed the holiday on different dates. By federal law, however, Memorial Day is now celebrated on the last Monday in May. Since it all started with the Civil War, you might want to brush up on your knowledge of this event by visiting the Library of Congress Civil War collection, which includes more than a thousand photographs. My understanding is that there are a couple of words that were derived from sailing, one being “posh” and the other being “news.” What are the true origins of these words, and is it true that they are derived from sail of old? The origin of posh” is obscure.The most seen explanation for the origin ascribes it to the days of the British Empire in the 19th (and early 20th) century when there was constant steamship travel between England and India. In those pre-air conditioning days, it was unbearably hot crossing the Indian Ocean, and the coolest cabins were the most sought after. That meant, when traveling east, those on the port side; sailing west, those on the starboard. Consequently, those passengers who could afford the luxury booked “Port Outward/Starboard Homeward” or “P.O.S.H.” The acronym thus became a synonym for whatever is first-class or luxurious. A more likely definition is that it is a word from Romany, the language of Gypsies, meaning half. The word originally entered England’s underworld in the 17th century in such compounds as posh-houri, meaning half-pence, and soon became a slang term for money in general. And then the meaning changed to expensive or fancy.”News” has no nautical origin that we know of. It’s the plural of “new” and is from the old French word for new — noveles. Its original meaning was “new things, novelties,” and eventually came to encompass “tidings, or an account of recent events and occurrences brought as new information.” Now we use it in the singular form, but until this century the plural form was used.” Advice of the Day To clean pine pitch from your hands, rub them well with a glob of mayonnaise, then wash. Home Hint of the Day The deeper the soil, the deeper the roots will go, allowing plants to take in more water and nutrients on their own. So, when using a tiller or plow, turn over a good 10 to 12 inches of soil. Word of the Day The state of Iowa may have received its name from a Native American word meaning “beautiful land.” Puzzle of the Day My first is a verb; add to me one letter, and I become an insect; add another, and I become a kind of vegetable; add two more letters, and I become the name of another insect. Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau(first premier of Quebec after Confederation)– Norman Cota(U.S. brigadier general)– Howard Hawks(director of film)– Mel Blanc(voice of Bugs Bunny and other characters)– Benny Goodman(musician & bandleader)– Wynonna Judd(country music singer)– Manny Ramirez(baseball player)– Perry Ellis(fashion designer)– Gus Wickstrom(retired farmer who used pig spleens to forecast the weather [claimed 90% accuracy])– U.S. and Mexico ratifications of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo exchanged at Queretaro. (Treaty was originally signed on Feb. 2, 1848.)– First U.S. national celebration of Memorial (Decoration) Day took place in the Arlington National Cemetery of Virginia– First 500 mile automobile race at Indianapolis Speedway was held– Lincoln Memorial dedicated in Washington, D.C.– From Cape Kennedy, Florida, the U.S. launched Mariner 9, first spacecraft to orbit another planet– Thirteen-year-old Arvind Mahankali, of Bayside Hills, New York, correctly spelled knaidel to become the champion of the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee, in Oxon Hill, Maryland– Boston Red Sox outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury stole five bases during his team’s 9-2 win against the Philadelphia Phillies. It was a club record.– May 30-31: 8 co-champions were declared for the Scripps Spelling Bee– Massive flooding of Columbia River caused dike break that destroyed Vanport, Oregon– Hanford, Washington, had a temperature of 104 degrees F–

So, it seems that I blinked or blacked out or something and all the sudden it’s been almost a whole year since I’ve written anything on here. Oops! There’s a lot of reasons for that. I’d itemize a list for you, but I’d prefer to blather on endlessly because after all, that’s what blogs are for. For a long time, this blog was all about my “homes on the road,” which was a fun way to share cool places we camped all over the continent while full-time RVing. When that shindig ended, my blog (and I) felt a bit lost. I optimistically mused about blogging on topics like DIY house renovations, gardening, mom-hood, etc. But even now, 2+ years after being out of the full-time RV life, still none of that stuff makes that sense to me. At least not enough to pretend to be enough of an expert on to write about. Full-time travel? Of course, that was never as easy or glamorous as it probably appeared in small snippets every few weeks on your screen. But it made sense in my head, at least most of the time. House life? Mom life? None of that comes as naturally, and I sometimes feel like I’m going through the motions of someone else’s life while barely treading water. Over the years, I’ve taken this blog to some semi-personal places but it’s all been pretty travel-related, and that’s my safe place. Owning a legit housing structure on a remote piece of property where the desert meets the forest and the mountains is its own adventure. So is keeping a small human alive, day in and day out. Yet writing about those things for all the world to see (correction: probably three friends and two stalkers) makes me want to squeeze myself under the bed and hide even though I don’t fit down there. Meanwhile, more and more people I know aren’t cool publicly sharing things online anymore, that whole concept is iffy with a baby, and talking about travel during COVID sometimes feels sketchy too. Other excuses I make for neglecting this blog are being too burnt out from writing for work to ever feel like writing for “fun,” being too generally exhausted from baby life to do anything creative, and being distracted by shiny things. But alas, I feel crappy about letting my miniature corner of the world go to waste. It’s a place I carved out to chitter-chatter about cool places without selling out or turning a passion project into yet another chore to weigh me down. In the meanwhile, I’ve actually been traveling quite a bit since full-time camper life ended and exploring lots of awesome places around my home base in New Mexico. I’ve also finally started to bust out of my comfort zone and meet some cool local people who are into some of the same stuff I am. Some of this deserves writing about, which is why I’m here again to fill the void. Enough blather for you? Okay then. Moving on! Besides the blather, my actual goal with this post was to give a quick recap of cool places I’ve been hanging out so far in 2021. Yet again, I considered venturing out to other topics for this blog but that didn’t go so well. So, why not stick with the tried and true? Sure, travel hasn’t always been without its controversy his year, but I’m not a dumb traveler….I’m vaccinated, a responsible masker, a relentless planner, and an informed reader of reliable things. I’ll always have a restless spirit and a wandering soul. But the Southwest still feels like home to me on most days, and I want to share that with you, dear world. So, without further ado (and I think you’d agree that there’s been plenty of ado), here are some cool spots I’ve been lately with one representative photo per place to keep it simple and moving along. Oh, and a few anecdotes because that’s just what I do. Tucson/Wilcox, Arizona – January 2021 What better place to escape for the winter in the Southwest than Tucson? This camper trip was filled with wonderfully wearing tank tops in January, cool rock formations, iconic cacti, and buying some random pottery. So far, my baby hasn’t fallen into a cactus, and I’m trying to keep it that way. Taos/Angel Fire, New Mexico – February 2021 Despite the adorable look on little Chikoo’s face, snow isn’t exactly his cup of tea. Regardless, we headed up to the Northern New Mexico ski resorts to get in some runs and playtime out in that white stuff. Las Cruces, New Mexico / El Paso, Texas – March 2021 One of Monkey’s favorite places on the planet is White Sands National Park. The gypsum sand stays cool on even the hottest of days and is oh-so-soft on doggie paws. Yet the winds here are absolutely nuts, and this visit was no exception. We met our good Chicago friends, Bryina, here and following a winery/lunch stop nearby on a particularly awesome day. Other highlights from this camping trip were walking through the pueblo ruins, bike trails, and roadside antique shops selling super weird stuff. Grandparents Visit NM – April 2021 April was one of the rare months when we didn’t leave the area for a camping excursion. My little man turned one year old in April, so Grandma and Grandpa drove out to New Mexico to celebrate. The local staycation involved the small man’s first trip to the zoo, a sugary birthday cake, and a crazy number of new things to play with. Southeast Utah – May 2021 May is always a big travel month for us…it’s the husband’s birthday, our marriage anniversary, and a perfect time to be outdoors in the Southwest. Those red rock landscapes in Utah are my favorite places to be, and it’d been too long since we’ve been back among them. This trip included a first-time visit to Capitol Reef National Park, a revisit to Canyonlands National Park and Moab, and some random finds like Leprechaun Canyon and the Factory Buttle OHV area. Bonus points for an overnight in one of our favorite Colorado spots, Cortez, on the way back home. It was pretty much all hiking all the time, so definitely thanking the universe that the Chikoo rides awesomely in a baby hiking backpack. Ladies’ Weekend in ABQ & Jemez Springs – June 2021 This girl is my ride-or die. We text and video chat every day, but that’s not always enough. She was awesome enough to fly out to see me in June so we could party it up downtown, go hiking, wine tasting, and get into random shenanigans along the way. Arizona Pitstop – July 2021 It was 112 degrees outside, but that doesn’t stop us from seeing awesome people. Arizona transplants, Chancy, met up with us for a delicious lunch and boat cruise on Saguaro Lake. There were good drinks, great views, and even better times hanging out. I give this day a solid two fist bumps, even when we spent a stupid amount of time loitering in a CVS just because it had air conditioning. SoCal/NorCal – July 2021 Now this was a fun camper excursion. We set up camp just outside of San Diego and took the Chikoo to his very first beach, Imperial Beach. There were also splash pads, breweries, in-laws, more breweries, fun Cali friend meetups, and lovely weather. Bonus points for a fun rendezvous in Downtown Flagstaff on the way back. Northwest New Mexico Birthday – August 2021 The time came to turn 38, so I may as well get on a boat about it, eh? Birthday celebrations took me to Northwest New Mexico with stops in Farmington, the Bisti Badlands, and Navajo Lake. Getting old isn’t so bad when you’re surrounded by scenery like this. Local Adventures Close to Home – 2021 Yet within a 30-minute or less from my house, I’ve found plenty of other good stuff to do too. There have been a scattering public pools, cat cafes, brew spots, music festivals, playgrounds, trails, group hikes, and mom meetups…not to mention monsoon season with its epic sunsets filled with lightning and double rainbows. Dunno when I’ll be back here…maybe sooner, maybe later. But for now, my blog neglect guilt is absolved! And there’s still plenty of 2021 left to go exploring. Toot-a-loo!

March 1, 2021 This is the beginning of my adventure! I have emotions big and small all inside me. Right now I am actually listening to music while I write this. This is the week, Friday the 5th is my surgery date. I am so happy and excited for myself! I have so many people supporting me. This will change my life. I can't imagine my amazing future! This is going to be the book I look back on, and smile that my 13 year old me made this life changing decision. March 3, 2021 Well, look at how quickly things are moving! Today I had to take the covid test, but it really wasn't as bad as I thought! Also the lady who did the test on me was the wife of the surgeon that is doing my surgery on Friday. I thought that was pretty cool. March 4, 2021 It's already Thursday! Wow. Tomorrow it is Friday March 5th, the day my life changed. Like a fairy tale! A good story. A happy ending. Some family called today to wish me love and luck! I am go to be fine. Love yourself. Stay Brave. You're gonna be okay! *this photo below is the front of the journal that she picked out for herself for this phase of her life.

Cut 'n' Boss Design Team: Suzanna Lee Cycle 12 Yes, you read that correctly, planner pages using Craftwell's Cut'nBoss, embossing folders and dies! I know, right?! Crazy. But very possible and so incredibly easy to do. Planners are all the rage these days and seeing the things that people do/for their planners is so fun. It's not simple anymore. People dress their planners better than themselves sometimes. Today I'm sharing with you some tips and tricks to dressing your planner using Craftwell goodies, yes, indeed! The planner pocket on the right hand side of that picture was created using cardstock that I ran through my Cut'N Boss with a large TC/Craftwell embossing folder. I thought the words were appropriate for February. The pocket is perfect for storing little love notes, receipts for the month, you name it. Even bits and pieces and memorabilia collected through out the month to add to scrapbook pages. The label die from the Thankful Holiday Pocket die collection made quick work of a place to identify what month this is. No variation to the sandwich that you will run through your Cut'N Boss, the same old sandwich usual with TC/Craftwell's large embossing folders. This is what it looks like before you create the pocket from it. Trim a piece of patterned paper to size and create your pocket. I still don't have one of those fancy planner hole punches so just the good ol single hole punch and a template work for my A5 planner. A closer peek at the embellishments and the label die I mentioned earlier. You can also use the dies to create fun embellishments to your monthly calendar as I have done above. Dies make so easy to cut what works for you and add to the planner just as you would your scrapbook pages. A while ago I showed you hto use your label die to create a file folder label that folds over. That would be perfect for your planner pages. My monthly pages are pre-tabbed and I didn't need to do that here. Instead I used hearts, "love this" and circle heart to dress up my month of February. The circle heart I double backed so that it works like a paperclip of sorts. You get a better view of that above with the detail shot. Thanks for stopping in today! I hope you are inspired to dress up planner! If you have done so using your Craftwell supplies, do share!! Craftwell/Teresa Collins Cut'N Boss Craftwell/TC Beautiful Words embossing folder Cardstock - Core'dinations Patterned paper - American Crafts Chipboard Shape and Washi - Freckled Fawn Letter Stickers - Basic Grey

- The wonderful cathedral - Monasterio de San Martin Pinario - The amazing Hostal of Catholic Reyes - The old city - The Obridorio square TRIP AT A GLANCE This famous pilgrimage site in north-west Spain became a symbol in the Spanish Christians’ struggle against Islam. Destroyed by the Muslims at the end of the 10th century, it was completely rebuilt in the following century. Santiago is certainly one of Spain’s most monumental towns, with a particular architectonical style all of its own. But it is as well a town plenty of life, with one of the most famous Universities and a large number of students who guarantee youthful ambience inbetween the historical walls. Together with your private guide, you will enjoy the beauties of Santiago, which is not only a harmonious and very well preserved historical city, but also a place deeply imbued with faith. The squares and narrow streets of the old Town contain Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassicist buildings. The result of this mixture is a city where the original Galician architecture, with its typical wooden galleries and traditional materials, like stone, wood, or iron, combines with great monuments that constitute a splendid tour across the history of European and universal art. Its cathedral is like nowhere else. At one end of its enormous block there rises a pyramidal tower of apparently Hindu genesis. In front of its great door two staircases rise so jauntily from the level of the square that they seem to be leading you to some blithe belvedere. And in the centre of the composition the twin west towers of the cathedral soar into the blue in a sensational flourish of Baroque, covered everywhere with balls, bells, stars, crosses, and weathercocks, speckled with green lichens and snapdragons in the crevices, and exuding a delightful air of cheerful satisfaction. Don’t miss the special fresh fish, coke here in an exceptional way. Your pleasant stay in Santiago can be extended or modified according to your preferences. - price on a base of 1-4 persons: euros 400 (total price) - price on a base of 5-8 persons: euros 500 (total price) - for more people or groups, please contact us for a precise quotation. The price includes: the private tour of Santiago (4 hours). The price doesn’t include: transports and what is not expressly mentioned in the section “price includes” Most tours are customized for private travel according to your preferences and dates. Click below to tell us what you’re looking for: You can contact us at [email protected] or fill the form below to book this tour. We will contact you after few minutes to finalize it. To confirm a booking you will have to pay a 30% non refundable deposit using the link below:

Complete Care Chiropractic Clinic believes in the value of chiropractic care for you and your family. Therefore, we have created a pricing structure that is flexible enough to allow you to get the chiropractic care you need, no matter what your budget. Our clinic accepts many insurance programs, but please call us at 586-576-0701 Ext 102 if you have any questions about whether you can use your insurance to pay for your chiropractic care. For patients who have little or no chiropractic insurance coverage, flexible payments can be arranged. And we now offer ChiroHealthUSA. To learn more about our payment options, you can call our office at 586-576-0701 and our staff will be happy to help you. Many insurance plans are accepted at our office, including Blue Cross, Medicare, MESSA, Aetna, and many others. There are so many plans out there, so please call us to find out what your policy covers. Remember that each policy is different so we have to call on each one to be sure of your coverage. Our staff would be happy to verify your benefits and explain them to you before you come in. No Insurance / ChiroHealth USA If you have no insurance or if your insurance does not have any chiropractic benefits, we are now excited to offer you ChiroHealthUSA, also known as CHUSA. CHUSA is a Discounted Medical Program that you can join through us that will allow us to legally discount our rates. There is a $49 /per year membership that covers your entire household. We are than able to discount our fees to make it more affordable to you. You can fill out the forms in our office on your first visit, its really just that easy. If you would like more specifics on how this program works, please call the office and we would be happy to explain it in more detail. Health on a Budget with Chiropractic Care At Complete Care Chiropractic Clinic, we are convinced that chiropractic care will help you stay healthy and pain-free, using only a small amount of your time and money. We truly believe the prevention is the best cure, and regular chiropractic care will be far less time consuming and expensive than trying to recover from pain or an injury after it's happened. So please, we would like to encourage you to take your health very seriously. As the old saying goes, if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. Unfortunately, too many people don't discover how true that statement is until it is too late.

Danie’s Beauty Salon has long been a favorite of many looking for trendy or classic styles in the Glendale / Los Angeles area. Our friendly hair care and beauty specialists are ready to bring your hair and beauty back to life. When you look great, you feel great and we are committed to providing the best in hair and beauty services. Danie’s Beauty Salon is a professional Hair Salon offering Hairdressing, Hair Cuts, Hair Design, Color, High Lights, Perms, Waxing, Manicures, Pedicures, Eye Brows, Eyebrow Tattooing and other related services. Danie is an expert hairdresser with over 30 years experience. Danie’s Beauty Salon also sells beauty supplies and high end hair care products, such as shampoos, conditioners, gels, hair sprays, hair mouse, hair brushes, hair dryers and more. Some of the brands we carry include: Matrix, Sebastian, Paul Mitchel, Redken and KMS. Gallery of Latest Styles Danies Beauty salon is great. They do a great job and you feel like you are in family! Alenush does the best blow drys. If you are looking for good hair salon in Glendale area, then this is it.Carmen I drive all the way from Covina to get a color, cut and blow dry by Danie he is absolutely amazing with color and cutting. Will always make the time to drive back.Susan P. No one gets my red hair right like Danie! Great products that don’t fry your hair . His hair cuts are awesome and the prices are beyond reasonable , really a true steal!! Every friend of mine drives from far to go here! I see the staff here as family!! Oh and I’m bad at spelling names, I think Alunush, best blow dry ever!!!! You will leave and definitely get compliments on your hair!!Vanessa M. Randomly stopped in here when I was in the area. I go wayyyy too long between cuts and was fed up with my dry, split ends. Danie and Alanosh took great care of me and my hair looks and feels great. You can tell Danie knows what he is doing and he was very sweet and hospitable. The services were affordable and quick, I will definitely be coming back!Shea O. Summary: There are numerous ways to repurpose your old frames. Read below to find out more. If you’re thinking about purchasing new glasses or switching to contact lenses, you’re Justify with an old pair of dusty frames that might immediately go straight into storage....read more Summary: There are certain symptoms that new contact wearers will experience. Although they might seem like a cause for concern, many of them go away naturally. When people opt for contact lenses as their vision correction tool of choice, there are some symptoms that...read more The body wax is a temporary but durable technique for hair removal. It pulls the hair at the root, the regrowth is far slower than any other non-permanent solution and over time and additional treatments the hair follicles become thinner. You can do the body wax in...read more It is one thing to go through the pain and hassle of waxing, and it’s entirely another to have a bad reaction afterward. Here are some tips that you should follow post body wax in Glendale, CA to minimize any issues. First of all, do not expose your waxed skin...read more A lot of women end up with some form of unwanted facial hair, often under the chin. While it isn’t exactly embarrassing, it is entirely avoidable. There are several methods of facial hair removal in Glendale, CA for women that can give temporary or permanent results....read more Laser Facial Hair Removal is a very effective method to get rid of unwanted hair permanently. However, there are a few important points to note before deciding to go for the treatment. Since this is a permanent method, it will be conducted in sessions, and each...read more

There are few things as sad as a crested gecko whose tank contents consist of nothing more than a hide and water and food bowls! Did you know that you can even use real plants in your crested gecko’s tank? There are so many you can use – and they look a lot better than nothing or even plastic plants. There is a very wide variety of real plants that you can choose from for your crested gecko’s tank. All of the ones described on our list are safe to use for your crestie – from the popular pothos and bird’s eye fern to the creeping fig and goosefoot. Here’s our list of awesome plants that are perfect for your crested gecko’s tank; from angel vine to zebra plant. Keep reading to find out how to choose the best plants and also which plants you should never put in a crested gecko’s tank. But first, let’s look at the pros and cons of using live plants instead of fake plants for your crested gecko. Table of Contents The Pros And Cons Of Using Real Or Fake Plants In Your Crested Gecko’s Tank |Using Real Plants For Your Crested Gecko| |Your crestie will get a more natural habitat to live in||Some plants need a lot of TLC| |They will have a lot of space to exercise and explore – especially if you change the setup when you deep clean the tank||You have to water them relatively often, which means that you need to keep a closer eye on the tank’s humidity| |You will spend more time with your crestie while keeping their forever home neat and tidy||You need to prune them often to ensure that they don’t take over the tank.| |If they do chew on a leaf or two, they won’t be ingesting fabric or plastic||You need to know which plants are safe and which are toxic to cresties| |Using Fake Plants For Your Crested Gecko| |You don’t have to water them, which makes it easier to keep the tank’s humidity stable||They may ingest some of the fabric or plastic by accident| |You don’t have to prune them||They can become tatty after a while| |You don’t have to worry about them taking over the tank because they grow fast||If you need a bigger plant, you need to buy a bigger one instead of simply waiting for it to grow| |You can easily rearrange the plants without them dying||Your crestie can get bored with the plants because they always look the same| 24 Plants That Are Safe To Use In Crested Gecko Tanks Here is an alphabetical list of the plants that are safe to use in crested gecko tanks, including details about each plant’s size, upkeep, and more. Creeping Wire Vine (Muehlenbeckia complexa) A native of New Zealand, the creeping wire vine/angel vine has long, wiry tendrils and small, delicate leaves that makes it ideal as a filler for a crested gecko tank. Angel vines like humidity, which means that they’ll thrive in a crested gecko tank. Water it once to twice a week, but make sure that the water drains well. Angel vines prefer indirect light, so don’t plant them in the warmest part of the tank where the basking spot or other heat source is. (If you are using heat mats, that is a different story, but we’ll come to that later in this article.) You’ll also need to trim the angel vine relatively often, as the tendrils can grow to be more than 12 feet long if left to themselves. Bird’s Nest Fern (Asplenium nidus) The bird’s nest fern is a beautiful bright green fern that has large leaves that make for ideal hiding spots for when your crested gecko wants to cool down a bit. As it likes the level of humidity in the cresties’ tanks and prefers moist soil, it’s best planted away from the basking spot and next to the cool hide. The leaves of this fern can grow to be quite large, so you’ll need to prune it to keep it from getting too big for the tank. It’s not as fast-growing as many of the other plants on this list, however. Bromeliads (Neoregelia sp.) Bromeliads come in a wide variety of colors and can be used to great effect in your crested gecko’s tank. They’re especially handy when you want to add pops of color and they’re also easy to grow in a tank as they naturally grow on the sides of trees. You can give them a cork or bark base to grow on and to stabilize them for when your crestie climbs around on them. Great bromeliad additions to your crested gecko tank includes: Chinese Evergreens (Aglaonema) The Chinese evergreen is a fast-growing, beautiful plant that has green and white leaves. It is sturdy enough for your crested gecko to climb on and makes a great focal point when planted at the back of the tank. Just remember that the Chinese evergreen likes humidity but doesn’t like too much water, so make sure that the soil dries out a bit between watering. As far as low-maintenance crestie plants go, this is one of the plants that you can mostly just leave alone and prune when necessary. Concinna Prayer Plant (Calathea concinna) The concinna prayer plant – so called because the leaves open and close in the morning and evening like hands in prayer – has dark, waxy leaves and thrives in a humid environment. The prayer plant does need more TLC than some of the other plants on this list and, when watering, make sure that you keep the well-draining soil moist, but the leaves dry. Creeping Fig (Ficus pumila) This creeper is ideal for use at the back of the tank and it forms a mat-like tangle of vines that your crested gecko can climb around on. It also “sticks” to just about any surface, making it an ideal backdrop or filler plant for any crestie tank. When we say it thrives in humid conditions, we actually mean that you’ll need to trim this creeper very often to keep it in check and not let it take over the whole tank. It’s an unbelievably fast grower. Dwarf Umbrella Tree (Schefflera arboricola) This smallish tree with its fanned clusters of leaves (hence “umbrella”) and sturdy trunk is ideal for crested gecko clambering and climbing. It enjoys the humidity of the crested gecko tank and is easy to keep trimmed down to size. Plant it on the cooler side of the tank and let the soil dry out a bit before each watering as they don’t like too much water. Elephant Ears (Alocasia polly) Elephant ears have large leaves on sturdy stalks that are excellent for cresties to climb and bask on. While the plant is usually dark green with silver-white veins, some of the types of elephant ears do come in other colors. It should be noted that the elephant ear needs quite a lot of TLC and isn’t a great plant for beginners to have in a crestie’s tank. Keep it moist and make sure that it doesn’t get direct light and it should grow quite well in your crested gecko’s tank. Goosefoot/ Arrowhead (Syngonium) Another awesome – and quite easy to take care of – plant for your crested gecko’s tank, is the goosefoot or arrowhead plant. Its leaves are usually green and white, but new varieties also have pink in the leaves, making it even more attractive. Tip: If you’re looking for the goosefoot variety that contains pink, ask for the “Pink Syngonium” and “Neon Robusta” varieties. Although this plant is really easy to grow, it does require quite a bit of maintenance as it’s a fast grower that loves to spread out. With some help from dried bamboo to grow against and around, you can make a great vertical climbing surface for your crested gecko. Goosefoot prefers indirect light and should be allowed to dry a bit between watering. Water about once or twice a week, depending on the size of the plant – the larger the plant, the more thirsty it’ll be. Jade Jewel (Dracaena fragrans) The jade jewel plant is another favorite for crested gecko tanks. Its large leaves may seem floppy, but they’re actually large enough and sturdy enough for a crested gecko to climb around on. It also tolerates different levels of light well, so you can plant it anywhere in the tank without a problem. Unlike some vivarium plants, the jade jewel is slow-growing, meaning that you won’t need to give it that much TLC even if your crestie is climbing about on it the whole day. Also, make sure that the soil that your jade jewel is planted in drains well. Lemon Button Fern (Nephrolepis cordifolia) The lemon button fern gets its name from its lemon scent and leaf shape. However, this plant is more for hiding and for show as the stems aren’t strong enough for your crestie to climb on. The fern should also grow well if you keep it moist (but not wet) and keep it trimmed so it doesn’t take over the tank. Plant it more on the cool side of the tank as well, and not on the warm side or close to the basking spot. Lucky Bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana) It is safe to use lucky bamboo in a crested gecko’s tank. You can also use bamboo canes (dried) in the tank to give your crestie extra items to climb on and explore. Some of the available bamboo are fitted with suckers so that they can be fastened to the sides of the tank. These are easy to clean as well! Lucky bamboo (which is actually a type of grass!), which is native to Africa, makes an ideal structural plant and focal point for your crested gecko’s tank. They can often be bought in twisted shapes, which makes the plant look even more amazing. These succulent-like plants are ideal for your crested gecko to climb on and can serve as a “ladder” between plants of different heights in your crestie’s tank. Avoid giving the lucky bamboo too much direct light. Water the plant about once a week, keeping it moist. Snake Plant (Sansevieria laurentii) The Snake Plant /Mother-in-law’s tongue has straight, sword-shaped leaves that are green and creamy-white. It’s low-maintenance, but grows to a large and tall size; therefore they should only be planted in large crested gecko tanks. Although your crestie won’t be able to climb around on the snake plant, it does serve as a great hiding place and can always be used as a focal point at the back of your crested gecko’s tank. Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum) The peace lily is able to thrive in many different temperatures and light and isn’t toxic to crested geckos, which make them ideal for crestie tanks and then also for beginner live plant keepers. When using the peace lily in your crested gecko’s tank, keep it trimmed and make sure you don’t overwater it. Due to the humidity in the tank, it should need less water than if it was used as a normal houseplant. Petra (Codiaeum variegatum) The striking petra has variegated foliage that will add immediate color to your crested gecko’s tank. The broad leaves and sturdy trunk will give your crestie endless fun and when kept pruned, it won’t take up too much space. Because of the petra’s size, it should be planted at the back of the tank to serve as structure for the rest of the plants. You can even trail some sturdy vines over and around the branches. Be sure to let the soil dry out a bit between watering. Pillow Moss/Cushion Moss (Leucobryum glaucum) Pillow moss really looks like their name implies and these squishy cushions are ideal for your crested gecko’s tank as they not only look great, but also keep moisture locked in and in that way help to keep the tank humid. Your crestie can also nibble on the moss – and some cresties really like doing that. Pink Quill (Tillandsia cyanea) If you’re looking to add some bright color to your crested gecko’s tank, the pink quill with its bright pink stems and purple blooms is ideal. You won’t have to worry about the purple flowers; as they aren’t harmful to your crestie. They also won’t wilt in the humid environment of your crestie’s tank. Pothos/Devil’s Ivy (Epipremnum aureum) The pothos or devil’s ivy is a rapid-growing vine that has bright green leaves. Low growing, it makes for excellent hiding places for your crested gecko when they want to escape the heat for a while. This is one of the most popular plants for crested geckos and looks really good when planted more to the side of the tank as this also gives its vines space to grow. Although pothos mostly provide shelter, its low vines are ideal for your crestie to clamber on. Rabbit’s Foot Fern (Davallia/Humana tyermanii) The rabbit’s foot fern is a beautiful, light green fern that grows about 5” tall. It can be planted as a terrestrial or grown as an epiphyte (grown on another plant like a weeping fig or dwarf umbrella tree). Its rhizomes are furry and silver-white in color, and, when planted on a darker plant or pot, will look striking. The rabbit’s foot fern should remain moist, but not wet. Plant it away from direct light as well. Radiator Plant (Peperomia) Radiator plants only grow to about a foot tall, making them the ideal size for a crested gecko’s tank. They also only need minimal TLC – unlike some of the fast-growing plants on our list. The dark green-black leaves of the radiator plant can look very striking when planted between the light and lime green leaves of ferns, goosefoot, etc. Give it indirect light and keep it moist, but not wet. Spider Plant (Chlorophytum comosum) Spider plants are very adaptable and will make a great addition to your crested gecko’s tank. They aren’t that fast growing, so you won’t have to trim them too often, but spider plants do need well-draining soil otherwise they are prone to root rot. Most spider plants are white and green, although there are now also variegated varieties that are just as easy to care for. Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina) The weeping fig is more there for making your crested gecko’s tank look good than it is for giving your crestie a tree to climb around in. You should also choose an older weeping fig that already has a thick trunk. Your crestie will be able to climb up the trunk, so ensure that you arrange the tank so that they can also clamber around the tank from there using ledges, hammocks, bamboo, etc. Zebra Plant (Calathea zebrina) Not to be confused with the prayer plant, this native of Brazil can grow quite large (6ft. x 3ft.) and is only suitable for the largest of crested gecko tanks. Some of the varieties have leaves striped in yellow or pink, making them even more striking as a display piece in your crestie’s tank. Keep your zebra plant in check through trimming and give it indirect or diffused light to thrive. Don’t overwater it, and check that the soil drains well. It also helps to maintain the humidity in the tank. Your crested gecko will love exploring this tree with its giant leaves! 11 Plants You Should Never Put In A Crested Gecko’s Tank - Begonias (Begonia) - Braken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum) - Calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica) - Dumbcane (Dieffenbachia) - Hyacinth (Hyacinthus orientalis) - Ivy (Hedera spp.) - Mistletoe (Phoradendron villosum) - Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) - Voodoo lily (Dracunculus vulgaris) All these plants are either not a good fit for a crested gecko tank or they can be poisonous or dangerous in other ways to your crested gecko. Still, that is no problem at all since we showed you that there are more than enough plants that are a good fit for your crestie tank. How To Choose Which Plants To Use In Your Crested Gecko Tank Having this long list of plants that you can use in your crested gecko’s tank can be quite overwhelming – especially since (unless you have a gigantic tank) you won’t be able to use them all at once. However, there is a relatively simple way to choose which plants are the best for your crested gecko. First of all, you need to take into account the age of your crested gecko and then you need to take into account the size of your crested gecko’s tank. The Age Of Your Crested Gecko Although your crested gecko will always want to climb, you can rather opt for smaller plants while your crestie is a baby or juvenile. Once they’ve reached adulthood, you can then change up the tank a bit and add larger plants like the dwarf umbrella tree, zebra plant, etc. A baby crested gecko can hide beneath smaller plants and thinner vines and stems are able to support their weight. If you use smaller plants like angel vine, you will also be able to find them easier! An adult crested gecko will then need larger plants to support their weight when they climb around and go exploring. They will love petras, elephant ears, mother-in-law’s tongue, and bird’s nest fern. The Size Of Your Crested Gecko’s Tank When choosing a tank for your crested gecko, always choose a vertical one rather than a horizontal one. This is because cresties love to clamber and climb. To only give them a horizontal tank means that they won’t get the exercise that they need to stay healthy. It can also lead to stress because they don’t have enough space. A crested gecko’s tank must preferably measure 18″ x 18″ x 24″. This will not only give them enough floor space to move around in, but will also have enough space to add a number of plants and pieces of wood for them to climb on as well as their hides and basking spot. A completed setup of a crested gecko’s tank should leave half of the tank’s space open for your crested gecko. Therefore, make sure that you trim and prune the plants back as they grow so that they don’t take over and fill the whole tank. Note! Make sure that you only use sterilized wood in your crested gecko’s tank. This will ensure that you don’t bring any pests or diseases into your crestie’s tank by accident. Can You Use Potted Plants In Crested Gecko Tanks? Yes, you can use potted plants in your crested gecko’s tank – as long as you’re using plants that are safe for crested geckos, like those on our list above. If you do decide to use potted plants, you should ensure that you use good-quality pots instead of just any old container. One of our favorite types of pots to use in crested gecko tanks are terracotta pots. These pots are not only hard-wearing, but they also retain moisture much better than plastic pots. As most of the plants that are used in crested gecko tanks need to remain moist, using clay pots like these are ideal. Using pots also makes it a lot easier to remove the plants when you’re cleaning your crested gecko’s tank (without killing them in the process) as well as giving you ample chances to rearrange your crestie’s tank. Start with small pots and then get larger pots as needed, hiding them in the substrate, behind hides, etc. Tip: When a plant in your crested gecko’s tank becomes too big, you can always just remove it and keep it either as a house plant or plant it in your garden. Using A Heat Mat When You Have Real Plants In Your Crested Gecko’s Tank An important thing to note when using real plants in your crested gecko’s tank, is that you cannot then place a heat mat underneath the tank. Although heat mats are often put underneath a tank in order to get the right temperature, the plants may die because their root systems get too hot (it’s normally cooler beneath the soil). If you want to or need to use a heat mat in your setup as well, you will need to place it on the side of the tank. This will ensure that the heat is still added and distributed where it needs to be in the tank, but without harming the plants. You should also make sure that you really need to use a heat mat for your crested gecko before buying one. Why You Should Know Your Plants’ Maximum Temperature And Humidity Tolerance When you’re choosing plants for your crested gecko’s tank, you need to know whether or not your plant likes cooler or warmer temperatures and what its humidity requirements are as this is how you’ll know where in the tank to plant them. For example, you will need to plant ferns on the cool side of the tank where they can stay moist for longer. You can also plant the larger plants at the back of the tank with smaller or low-growing plants in the middle and front of the tank. Plants that are more succulent-like can then be planted on the warmer side of the tank or close to the basking spot. You can also use the basking spot for plants that require direct light. You also have to keep in mind that the plants you use in your crested gecko’s tank are used to high humidity (just like your crestie). However, with the use of real plants in a crested gecko’s tank, the humidity can fluctuate more than with fake plants. You, therefore, need to keep a close eye on your hygrometer – especially just after watering the plants. Tip! If you use real plants in your crested gecko’s tank, make sure that you get a good quality hygrometer that will give you ongoing accurate measurements. Plants’ Maximum Temperatures, Recommended Placement, and Watering Schedule |Plant Name||Maximum Temperature||Humidity Tolerance||Recommended Placement||Watering Schedule| |Angel Vine||80 °F | 27 °C||30% to 40%||Away from direct light, to the front of the tank where it’s not as moist.||Weekly, except in winter (then once every two weeks)| |Bird’s Nest Fern||80°F | 27°C||40 – 60%||Indirect, low light. Plant on the cooler side of the tank, away from the basking spot.||Wait for the soil to dry out before watering again (every 1 to 2 weeks). Can mist between watering.| |Bromeliads||90°F | 32°C||40 – 60%||Bright but indirect light – don’t plant too close to the basking spot.||Mist when the soil starts to get dry.| |Chinese Evergreens||75°F | 24°C||60 – 70%||To the back on the coolest end of the tank.||Mist regularly to keep moist.| |Concinna Prayer Plant||85°F | 30°C||70% or higher||Plant in the middle of the tank to keep humidity and temperature up.||Mist regularly to keep moist.| |Creeping Fig||85°F | 30°C||50% or higher||Plant away from the basking spot to keep the amount of direct light lower.||Keep soil moist by misting regularly, not less than once per week.| |Dwarf Umbrella Tree||75°F | 24°C||50% or higher||Plant in the back corner of the cool side.||Let the soil dry slightly between watering.| |Elephant Ears||85°F | 26°C||60% or higher||Plant close to the centre of the tank.||Keep moist with deep watering once a month.| |Goosefoot||85°F | 30°C||60% or higher||No direct light, so don’t plant it next to the basking spot.||Mist several times per week to keep moist.| |Jade Jewel||80°F | 27°C||40 – 60%||Avoid the direct light around the basking spot; plant towards the cooler end of the tank.||Mist regularly, but don’t get the soil more than moist.| |Lemon Button Fern||80°F | 27°C||60% or higher||Plant in the middle of the tank, towards the front.||Water thoroughly before planting and then keep soil moist through misting.| |Lucky Bamboo||95°F | 35°C||50% or higher||Can be planted anywhere in the tank, but looks really nice forming a “background”.||Mist often with distilled water/tap water standing more than 24 hours.| |Mother In-Law’s Tongue||75°F | 24°C||40 – 60%||Plant more towards the cool side, sheltered by larger plants.||Mist once or twice per week.| |Peace Lily||85°F | 30°C||60% or higher||Plant on the warm side of the tank, but not too close to the basking spot.||Keep moist by misting regularly.| |Petra||85°F | 30°C||40 – 60%||Plant on the warm side of the tank, but not too close to the basking spot.||Let the soil dry slightly between mistings.| |Pillow Moss||80°F | 27°F||70% or higher||Plant on the cool side of the tank, sheltered by taller plants, where the humidity is higher.||Mist daily to keep it moist.| |Pink Quill||75°F | 24°C||50% or higher||Plant on the cool side of the tank.||Mist to keep moist.| |Pothos||80°F | 27°C||50 – 70%||Plant on the cool side of the tank.||Let the soil dry slightly between mistings.| |Rabbit’s Foot Fern||80°F | 27°C||60 – 70%||Plant in the shelter of other plants, not in direct light.||Mist to keep moist.| |Radiator Plant||75°F | 24°C||40 – 50%||Plant to the front of the cool side as it shouldn’t be in the shade.||Mist every couple of days to keep slightly moist.| |Spider Plant||80°F | 27°C||60 – 70%||Plant to the front of the tank on the warmer side.||Keep moist through misting daily or every other day.| |Weeping Fig||80°F | 27°C||60 – 70%||Plant to the back of the tank on the warmer side.||Mist to keep soil moist.| |Zebra Plant||75°F | 24°C||60 – 70%||Plant to the front of the cool side as it shouldn’t be in the shade.||Mist to keep soil moist.| What To Do If The Humidity In Your Crested Gecko Tank Gets Too High If you find that the humidity in your crested gecko’s tank gets too high, the first thing to do is not to panic. If you’ve just misted the tank and closed it again, the humidity will be very high (in the region of 80% or so) for a while. This is normal and you just need to keep an eye on the hygrometer to ensure that the humidity range goes back to normal within a few hours. However, if it’s not a matter of having just misted the tank, or the humidity doesn’t go down, the easiest and fastest way to lower the humidity is to open the tank for a bit. You don’t have to keep it open long or even open it completely. Just letting some of the drier air in the room into the tank will ensure that you drop the humidity inside the tank. Just be careful not to let the humidity get too low! Tip! If you find that the humidity of the tank stays high, you may be misting the tank too often. Cut back on the amount of water you’re using and keep checking the hygrometer to see if the humidity stabilises at the correct level. How To Choose A Healthy Plant For Your Crested Gecko’s Tank Choosing the best plants for your crested gecko’s tank is also about choosing the healthiest plants as these will not only look good, but will also be more likely to survive if you don’t have a very green thumb. When you look for plants to buy, keep the following in mind: - The leaves should be a healthy color – whether that is green or another color - The stems should be healthy and not soft or black as this is a sign of disease or over-watering - The root system should be well-developed when you remove it from its original pot to replant it for the tank. Is A Crested Gecko Plant Kit Any Good? Whether a crested gecko plant kit is good or not usually depends on the supplier as some suppliers may not have very healthy plants. If you can’t look at the plants yourself before choosing which ones to buy, you need to make sure that you only buy from a reputable supplier. Also, make sure that you get a good variety of plants that will not only look good but – even more important – fit in your crested gecko’s tank once they start growing. You would also want plants that are both fast and slow-growing in order to make it easier for you to keep everything trimmed and not have them take over the whole tank. Many of the gecko plant kits suppliers choose the plants for you, so while you have an idea of what you’ll get, the plants may be more of a “luck of the draw” regarding type and even health. You also won’t be able to choose the size of the plants, making it difficult to know exactly where to plant them. If you are a beginner, however, choosing to take a crested gecko plant kit from a trusted supplier may be a very good idea as it will simply make it easier to set up the tank. How To Water The Plants In Your Crested Gecko’s Tank To water the plants in your crested gecko’s tank, simply fill a clean spray bottle or mister with either distilled water or tap water that has stood for at least 24 hours. This will give the chemicals in the water time to evaporate. Then, taking care not to use too much water, spritz some or all of the plants in the tank. Some plants may need to be watered more thoroughly once per month. To do this, water the plants when you clean the whole tank once per month. While you’re cleaning the tank the water can then drain from the soil in the plants’ pots. You can then start misting the plants again when the soil starts to dry out. Giving your crested gecko a more realistic natural tank setup can be very good for their overall health, as it will give them ample stimulation and exercise when they climb around on the branches and plants. Keeping the plants that you’ve added to the tank in check will also give you more time to spend with your crested gecko – so enjoy it!

A Texas man who spent his career painting buildings was awarded $11 million after he claimed to have developed mesothelioma from asbestos-containing painting products. Vernon Walker, 67, of Dallas spent years working daily with contaminated products such as texturing paints, block fillers and drywall compounds, some of which were banned by the Consumer Products Safety Commission in the 1970’s because of their asbestos. Forty percent of the $11 settlement is to come from asbestos mining company Union Carbide and the rest from various paint product manufacturers. Union Carbide took another recent hit in court from a former employee, who won his $3 million suit against the company and two others he blamed for his mesothelioma. Oscar Torres’ suit alleged that workers at the plant were not properly protected against asbestos exposure and were not warned of its potentially lethal consequences. Asbestos is the only known cause of mesothelioma. A paper mill worker in South Carolina has won a $10.2 million lawsuit against Scapa Dryer Fabric, Inc. and AstenJohnson. Henry Barabin claims the companies used high amounts of asbestos in their products, and used poorly designed equipment that put laborers like him at risk for inhaling the toxic dust when they handled or cleaned up around the dryer fabrics. Barabin worked at the mill from 1968 to 1984. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2006. Meanwhile, a Houston couple is hoping to prove that 49 companies were negligent in protecting refinery worker Corbett Duhon against the dangers of asbestos. The suit names such industrial giants as Viacom, Ford Motor Company and AMF Incorporated, and claims that Duhon was exposed to a wide range of asbestos products while working in various shipyards, mills and refineries for more than 20 years. Duhon developed mesothelioma in December of 2009. The Virginia Senate has defeated a proposal that would have protected a company there against mesothelioma and asbestos lawsuits. According to the Washington Post, Crown Cork & Seal has been named in more than 300,000 asbestos claims and has paid out more than $600 million. The company employs more than 300 people in Virginia and has said that it will have to close its door if the bill didn’t past. Despite intense and expensive lobbying efforts, the bill failed by a vote of 13 to 2. And in Kansas, it is not what is happening in the courtrooms, but the courtrooms themselves that are the source of asbestos controversy. The Kansas City Star reports that a series of lawsuits filed recently claim that workers and visitors to a downtown courthouse have been exposed to asbestos for years, due to faulty ventilation. The suits claim that asbestos dust in the old courthouse collects around the heating and air-conditioning systems, putting anyone nearby as risk for inhalation. Renovation, demolition and maintenance projects have been going on in the building for more than 30 years. More information about mesothelioma lawsuits and lawyers. Texas Asbestos Injury Lawsuit Results in $3 Million Award, March 22, 2010. AboutLawsuits(dot)com. Ex Paper Mill Worker Wins $10.2M in Mesothelioma Lawsuit Judgment, March 17, 2010. WiredPRNews.com Virginia Senate Votes Down Asbestos Lawsuit Shield, March 9, 2010. U.S. Politics Today. Rizzo, Tony. Lawsuits claim asbestos exposure at Jackson County Courthouse downtown. March 18, 2010. The Kansas City Star.

I have printed one other piece by Moore on this blog. I tend to ignore critique except to contextualise the social and historical life of the poet, those movements that brought the writer to settle into her voice. There is a resonance in Moore’s poetry that is hooking, despite the best efforts of Ted Hughes to underrate her contribution, or whatever it was that provoked the nasty little Moore Poem in Birthday Letters I am adding in this little excerpt along with the title of the book in the hope that more readers will come to look at women writers: There never was a war that was not inward; I must fight till I have conquered in myself what causes war, but I would not believe it. I inwardly did nothing. When I read Birthday Letters, long before I had read anything by Moore, I must confess that the imagery that Hughes used to talk of the woman put me right off wanting to read her. The issue emanated from a particular episode in which he accused her of putting shards of glass into an acerbic note she sent Plath, or the image of her in her hat looking for the grave on which to lay her little wreath. It irritates me beyond belief that Hughes exploited his power in such a wholly provocative manner, and that be celebrated by other poets including Seamus Heaney. For what Hughes did in Birthday Letters was to make himself unanswerable, neither Moore nor Plath can respond to his work. It must have been great that the mostly male critical and academic establishment refused to note this in their reviews. It did not occur to Heaney, for instance to note that Hughes took an opportunity to settle old scores/scars. For me, a writer of prose and a poet, the issue has always been about engagement with themes and symbols that evolve over time, but that somehow retain their shape and essence no matter what. I am still trying to understand how a voice as strong as Hughes is capable of honing those particular traumas so artfully decades indeed after the episode. Thats Poetic Engagement and can give reviewers the equivalent of the bends; and yet effect another writer’s historical place in our consciousness by sleight of hand (or with deliberate intention).

Whether you’re set on nailing David Gilmour’s huge lead tones or just want something that will make your listeners jump in their seats, you got to love the Big Muff. In this feature you’ll learn how to choose the right Big Muff model for your setup and how to achieve those killer tones. The Big Muff is a moody beast. Nothing sounds quite like it and it’s certainly not for everyone or every musical style. It’s actually quite limited in its use and having a Big Muff paired with the “wrong” guitar and amp can sound pretty horrible. Still, the pedal has put its familiar stamp on countless recordings, including perhaps the greatest solo of all time, – Comfortably Numb. The Big Muff was designed by Mike Matthews, who in the late 60s formed Electro Harmonix and went on to produce some of the most iconic pedals in the business. The initial goal was to create a sustain pedal, which would sound different from contemporary fuzz circuits. The Big Muff has gone through many changes since then, with the so-called “triangle” and “ram’s head” models as the most recognisable. After closing doors in the mid 80s, Matthews moved to Russia and founded Sovtek, which produced tubes and a new version of the Big Muff housed in huge tank-like boxes. Today, Electro Harmonix, with Matthews in charge, is as successful as ever and the Big Muff is surely one of the most popular pedals of all time. See the Big Muff Pi Page for a complete history on the Big Muff. Back in the digital era of the 1980s, the old Big Muff pedals were considered very uncool and was either thrown away or stashed away in an attic somewhere. When the grunge bands appeared in the early 90s, the Big Muff was back in favour and since then they’ve pretty much been some of the hottest items on the vintage market. Especially those pre 1980 models but the prices on the Sovtek models are also rising fast. Common for the pedals Electro Harmonix produced in the 1970s was they were often inconsistent with their designs. New models would sometimes feature old parts and there were a lot of so-called transition models. They also used parts of varying quality, which often meant that the pedals often sounded different and couldn’t handle much abuse. Add 40 years of ageing in different climates and you have a very fragile circuit. In most cases you never know what you get when buying a vintage Big Muff and you may end up being very disappointed and broke. Unless you’re very sure of what you’re doing, my best tip is to stay away from EBay and the whole vintage hype. Few pedals has been as much cloned as the Big Muff. Literally every brand has at least one clone in their portfolio. Some try to nail the classic design, while others are offering something new, with varying success. While owning an original early 70s Big Muff might be a dream come true I would say that it’s a much better investment tonewise to go for a clone. The size is smaller. The construction and parts much better. The noise is much lower. And the pedal is considerably more reliable. If you can’t find the exact specs you’re looking for you can even ask nicely and most builders will accommodate your needs. The current reissues from Electro Harmonix has little in common with the original models. It’s understandable, as Electro Harmonix has always been about evolving and coming up with new designs. They have a wast line of different models that may not be ideal for replicating David Gilmour’s tones but then again, the Big Muff appeals to many different guitarists. It may be hard to tell the difference between a fuzz and Muff especially in terms of David’s tones because his fuzz tones on Live at Pompeii and Dark Side of the Moon are almost as smooth and sustained as a Muff. The difference, apart from the circuit, is that Big Muffs generally has a more saturated tone, more sustain and a tad more compression. Although most Muff models will cover David’s Pompeii and Dark Side tones, the triangle and ram’s head are closer to the silicon transistor fuzz, with much of the same edgy and raw fuzz tones. However a Muff is far too aggressive and saturated for the 1968-70 tones so for authenticity you might want to consider a germanium fuzz or simply an overdrive. There are no rules on how you should operate or use a Big Muff. Obviously, it depends on what tones you want. It terms of David Gilmour’s tones, to achieve those silky smooth sustained notes, you need volume and lots of it. The secret to David’s huge tones are his loud Hiwatt amps. They can play incredibly loud, while maintaining a rich headroom. The hot tubes creates compression and the speakers gets pushed hard, which makes a Big Muff sound smooth and dynamic. It can be hard to achieve the same smoothness on smaller amps and typical bedroom volume levels and in many cases a Big Muff might not be the pedal you need or should choose. Still, as described in this feature, there are ways to compensate for the lower volume and the physics created by a loud tube amp. The volume control on the pedal it self also determine what sound you’ll get. Unity gain, meaning no raise or lowering of the volume when the pedal is on, is usually a good starting point and it will often be the truest tone in terms of the circuit design. The more you turn the volume up, the more you’re pushing the amp and the more compressed the tone will get. This can compensate for the lower amp volume on bedroom setups but it will also change the character of the pedal and roll off the harmonics and other characteristics you want to maintain. Rolling back the pedal’s volume will often reveal more harmonics in the tone and making the Muff sound more like a fuzz. Again, rolling back too much will make the Muff sound thin and you’ll also lose much of the sustain. Personally I prefer the volume just a hair below unity, to get a bit more of those harmonics but still maintain the characteristics of the pedal. Like most of the vintage pedal circuits, the Big Muff has a so-called “scooped” tone, meaning that there’s very little mid range present but lots of bass and treble. This is the nature of the pedal but it can also result in your guitar drowning behind the bass and cymbals on stage or on a recording. Our ears are focusing on the mid range and the lack of it makes it harder to detect the sound. Hiwatt amps has a good portion of mid range, which is essential to David’s tones and the smooth character he gets from his Big Muff. Vox, Fenders and similar amps has very little mid range and are therefore not ideal for a Muff. At least not in terms of David’s tones. You can compensate for any lack of mid range with different pickups, like the EMG DG20s, an EQ pedal boosting the mids or using Big Muff models that either has more mid range in the tone, like the Sovtek models, or a clone with a mids boost. See the Buyer’s Gear Guide for recommended Big Muff models based on different setups. Most Big Muffs has a considerable amount of low end so adding too much bass into the setup, can often make the pedal sound both saggy and a bit spiky depending on the amp. Don’t be tempted to crank the bass on your bedroom amp but keep it at a moderate level or even roll it off a bit. This will make your cleans sound smoother and your Big Muff more open and tighter. Boosting is nothing new. When the first pedals arrived, the treble boosters and fuzz pedals, guitarists used these to get more gain from their amps. EQ pedals can also be used to boost (and cut) certain frequencies like one does in a studio. Contrary to Hendrix, who cranked his Marshalls and kicked in a fuzz on top of that, David’s amps are always clean and he’s often using a combination of pedals to get his tones. Sometimes three gain pedals at once – compressor, distortion and overdrive. Here’s a clip showing an early 70’s ram’s head Big Muff being boosted by a Colorsound Powerbooster (9V reissue with master volume). The Powerbooster is place AFTER the Big Muff. As you can hear, the effect is very subtle but that’s the point. The Powerbooster acts as an EQ adding a bit more presence and enhances the sustain and attack or click when picking the string. Big Muff: Volume set slightly below unity level, tone 40%, gain 60%. Powerbooster: treble 35%, bass 25%, gain/volume 25%, master volume at unity level. During the 1973-75 Dark Side of the Moon tour David used a Colorsound Powerbooster for overdrive but for the solo on Time he would add a (silicon) Fuzz Face on top of the already overdriven Powerbooster that were used for the rhythms. Later, on the 1977 Animals tour, David’s new pedalboard featured both a Powerbooster and Big Muff. It is not documented whether he actually paired the two pedals. The ram’s head Big Muff that he used at the time could very well operate on its own and most of the time it probably did so. However, live recordings from the tour reveal that the combination was often used on Dogs, Pigs and also during the jam section on Shine On You Crazy Diamond 6-9. For the 1994 Division Bell tour, he would often combine a Sovtek Big Muff and a Tube Driver for the solos. David rarely boost the gain and volume but rather uses the overdrive/booster pedal much like an EQ, enhancing certain frequencies and adding character to the tone. It also rolls off any harsh overtones from the Muff, enhances the sustain and also adds a bit of compression and mid range. There are very few details from any of the Pink Floyd and solo recording sessions but it’s almost certain that the Muff would be used alone, without a booster. Too much gain would only cause noise and feedback and in a controlled environment, like a studio, you can crank the amps and set the gain on the Muff higher for the desired tones. Studio compression and heavy use of delays would also make the tone sound bigger. As a rule (or guideline) I would say that the early Muffs, the ram’s head and triangle, could do with a bit of boosting to open up the tone and even compress it, making it sound tighter. The Sovtek Muffs and similar clones does not need boosting unless you’re aiming at a specific effect or tone. I also strongly recommend using a transparent booster with as much headroom as possible, like a clean booster, the Boss BD2, TC Electronic Spark Booster, Powerbooster etc. Pedals with lots of gain and mid range, like the TS808, OCD and similar, will make the Muff sound dark and muddy. I also recommend placing the booster after the Muff. This way the Muff will dominate the signal and the booster act like an EQ. I know there is a bit of debate on this – what booster to use and where to place it but the fact is that David has his boosters after the fuzz and Muff. It makes sense, since the booster acts like an EQ and not a dominating effect. Whether or not this works for your setup is a different matter and also down to taste. Experiment and decide what sounds best for you. Above anything it’s important that you find yourself a Big Muff that suits your guitar and amp and your playing environment. It doesn’t matter what I recommend or what David Gilmour is using if it doesn’t sound good on your setup. Amps with little mid range, would require a Big Muff with boosted mid range, like a Sovtek or similar clones. An amp with a pronounced mid range, is better suited for the majority of the Big Muff models. If you’re using humbuckers or an amp with little headroom, then you might want to consider a more versatile distortion like the RAT, Boss DS1 or similar clones. Distortion or fuzz isn’t just noise but the tone has a distinct character and rich harmonics. Perhaps much more so than a modern distortion. Allow your Big Muff to shine through and don’t overdo any settings or pedal combinations. Spend some time using only the Big Muff and familiarise with its character and nuances before you add any booster, EQ or compressor. It’s easy to think that the sustain, the crisp attack and the throaty voice of David’s Big Muffs comes from a huge setup but it’s really just the guitar, pedal and the amp in most of the cases. Always start by plugging the guitar straight into your amp when you’re setting up a new tone. Adjust your ears to the tone and experiment with the settings until you have the right basis for your pedals. David Gilmour’s 2006 Hiwatt setup Linked inputs (guitar plugged into the upper bright, with a short patch cable linking the lower bright and upper normal). Normal 2:00, brilliance 1:00, bass 11:00, treble 10:00, middle 1:30, presence 3:00, master 9:00. Most amps have a neutral setting with the controls around noon but you might want to tweak the controls to taste. Keep in mind that the settings on David’s Hiwatts are for his rig and taste. These settings may not apply to amps with a very different character, like a Fender, so always trust your ears rather that trying to duplicate someone else’s setup. See this feature for tips on setting up your amp in a bedroom. Animals – The Wall David’s typical setup for the period covering Animals, his 1978 solo album, The Wall and Final Cut was based on the Black Strat (DiMarzio FS1 bridge pickup 1976-79 and a custom wound Duncan SSL1 bridge pickup 1980-present) and the Pete Cornish 1976 pedal board split into a Hiwatt/WEM rig and Yamaha RA200 rotating speaker cabinets (he used a smaller Cornish board for the recording of The Wall). The Yamahas were mixed lower than the Hiwatts for a mild chorusy tone. Pink Floyd performing Mother at London’s Earl’s Court in 1980. David’s tone is bright, with an unmistakable Big Muff character cutting through the layers of rotating Yamaha cabinets and the Electric Mistress flanger. The Mistress might be hard to detect on this clip but the liquidy character of the ’76 model is there, blending with the rotary cabs. Electro Harmonix ram’s head Big Muff sustain 50-60%, tone 40%, volume 50-60% The pedal was mostly used as a dedicated overdrive. For boosting set the volume to unity level or slightly higher, keep the bass moderate and adjust the treble and gain as desired. Depending on how hot your pickups are and how much gain your Big Muff has, you probably want the Powerbooster just at the edge of break up. Electro Harmonix Electric Mistress V2 18V 1976 rate 60%, range 40%, color 60-70%. Note that these settings are based on the 1976 model. David’s actual settings would depend on whether the pedal was modified and how the trim pots were set. On a more recent Deluxe model you probably want to set the rate and colour at 10:00 and roll the range all the way off. The Mooer ElecLady should be set with the colour at 9:30, rate 2:30 and the range off. MXR Digital Delay These were typical time settings for the era, with varying feedback and level settings depending on the song. David’s setup was based on the red Stratocaster, with the EMG SA pickups and the SPC and EXG tone boosters, an extensive pedal and effect rack setup and the amp rig, consisting of a split between the Hiwatts and the Doppola custom rotating speakers. These were mixed lower than the Hiwatts for a mild chorusy tone. Pink Floyd performing Sorrow in London’s Earl’s Court 1994. David’s huge tone is drenched in modulation and spread out in lush stereo. It’s much smoother and darker sounding, compared to the 2006 tones but apart from all the rotating speaker cabinets and chorusy stereo, the essence of the tone is the red Strat with EMG SA pickups, Sovtek Big Muff, Chanlder Tube Driver and delay. level 2:00, attack 11:00, sustain 11:30. You don’t need to use a compressor to achieve these tones. In most cases you’re better off without one, avoiding noise and feedback. Sovtek Big Muff Pi Civil War gain 50-60%, tone 40%, level 50-60% Chandler Tube Driver level 2:00, hi 2:00, low 2:00, drive 8:00 David had two of these in the rig. One for overdrive and one for boosting. The one dedicated for boosting was often used in combination with the Sovtek Big Muff. Depending on how hot your pickups are and the voicing of your amp, you probably won’t need to boost your Sovtek model or similar clone, as these has enough gain and mid range to operate alone. speed 11:00, depth 1:00 TC2290 Digital Delay A typical time setting used on most of the Big Muff solos, with feedback and level settings based on each song. 2006 Live in Gdansk David’s setup was based on the Black Strat with a custom Seymour Duncan SSL1 bridge pickup, the Pete Cornish (2006) all tubes pedalboard and the Hiwatt amplifiers. David Gilmour performing Comfortably Numb in Gdansk, Poland in 2006. His tone is stripped to the bone, with only a Pete Cornish P1, BK Butler Tube Driver for boosting and delay. Pete Cornish P1 sustain 1:00, tone 10:00, volume 11:00 The P1 is a clone of David’s first Big Muff, a ram’s head model, that he acquired around 1975 and has used on just about every Floyd and solo album since. Read more about David Gilmour’s different Big Muff models here. BK Butler Tube Driver level 2:00, hi 2:00, low 2:00, drive 8:00 Delay time 650ms A typical time setting used on most of the Big Muff solos, with feedback and level settings based on each song. Being on a tight budget doesn’t mean that you have to compromise on the tone. Given that you have a decent sounding guitar and amp, there are tons of great sounding pedals out there that doesn’t cost a fortune. Having a bunch of pricy pedals is great but it doesn’t get you far if you don’t know how to set up your rig for the tones you want. The budget range, whether it’s guitars, amps or effects, has come a long way in recent years and most companies are putting a lot of effort into this segment because they’ve finally realised that most people don’t really have that much to spend these days. Get the best guitar, amp and pedals you can afford and no matter what that is or how much it costs, learn how everything works and how you can get the most from it. That’ll save you a lot of hard earned bucks in the long run. If you need to prioritise, then I suggest that you try not to focus too much on a specific tone. That will only limit your options. Go for something versatile that will cover as much ground as possible. With David Gilmour’s Big Muff tones in mind – you don’t need a compressor, no EQ and not even a booster. A distortion, overdrive and delay will allow you to cover most of the rhythm and lead tones. If your budget allows it, then you might want to throw in a modulation pedal like a flanger for the late 70s tones or a chorus for the 80s and 90s. If you do want to boost the Muff, then go for a transparent overdrive that can double as a booster as shown in the booster section above. This setup is based on my Stratocatser with a Seymour Duncan SSL5 bridge pickup into a Reeves Custom 50, with a 4×12″ cabinet loaded with Weber Thames 80w speakers. The tone is inspired by David’s Animals live setup in particular but applies to the whole 1976-83 period. Airbag performing White Walls (All Rights Removed 2011) in our former rehearsal studio back in late 2010. My tone on the solo is heavily influenced by David Gilmour’s Animals and The Wall live tones, with the Electronic Orange Pig Hoof (red), ThroBak Overdriveboost and EHX Deluxe Electric Mistress. The combination of the Reeves amp and the Weber Thames speakers, is a close resemblance to David’s Hiwatt amps and Fane Crescendo speakers. Both the Reeves/Hiwatt and Weber/Fane has a bright tone, with slight boost in upper mid range, which makes the Big Muff sound open and focused. The SSL5 bridge pickup has a high output, rolled off highs and pronounced mid range, which fits a Big Muff perfectly. I usually roll down the guitar volume to about 9, to smooth out any harshness in the tone and bring out the harmonics of the Big Muff. I also use a heavy gauge 1.14 pick, which adds to the attack of the tone. In this clip I’m only using an Effectrode PC-2A compressor, Vick Audio ’73 Ram’s Head, Mooer ElecLady flanger and delay. No boosting. The Big Muff has almost a fuzz character to it, with the attack and sustain of a Big Muff. Electronic Orange Pig Hoof (red) level 10:30, tone 11:00 and gain 1:00 The pedal is a clone of the mid 70s “violet” ram’s head, which has a bit more gain and brightness compared to the earlier ram’s heads. The Pig Hoof is also very loud, so unity level is around 11:00. I’ve set mine just a tad lower to bring out as much of the harmonics in the tone as possible. I’m using a booster to compensate for the slight volume drop. Buffalo FX Powerbooster bass 9:00, drive 2:00, level 1:00, treble 10:30 This is a clone of the 18V Colorsound Powerbooster, with an additional master volume control. The pedal has a lot of headroom, so I’ve bumped up the gain quite a lot but it’s still just at the edge of breakup. The bass is rolled down considerably to avoid the Muff sounding boomy. Electro Harmonix Deluxe Electric Mistress V4 1999 rate 9:00, range off, colour 10:00 The Deluxe model has a bit more of that “jet” character compared to the late 70s model. I’ve rolled the range all the way down for a more subtle effect but you might want to turn it up to around 10:00 for a more authentic The Wall tone. Boss DD-2 digital delay level 11:00, feedback 12:00 (aprox 7 repeats), time 1:30 (440ms), mode L The DD-2 sounds similar to the MXR DDL, with a typically digital accuracy but a warm analog touch to it. These units are old and I’ve had pedals that differ in the time settings so use a reference delay or metronome to get the right time. So, to sum it up my best tip is to find a Big Muff that sounds great with your setup, regardless of what David Gilmour or any other guitarist might be using. A Big Muff is a Big Muff, true, but it’s the fine nuances between each model, your guitar and amp, your playing and how you set up everything that makes the magic. I think that once you realise that the Big Muff is so much more than just the pedal David Gilmour used on Comfortably Numb, a whole new world of tone and inspiration will emerge. Please feel free to use the comments field below and share your setup tips and favourite Big Muff models! A big thanks to Big Muff guru Kit Rae for the inspiration! Visit the Big Muff Pi Page for a wealth of information on the various Big Muff models.

But Universal Studios and Nickelodeon Studios were officially opened to the public on June 7, 1990. The celebration was huge as it was being broadcast live in front of millions of kids anxiously awaiting to see this brand new studio headquarters exclusively for kids. This 3 hour long special was hosted by Marc Summers and there were many guest stars of popular Nickelodeon stars at the time such as Harvey from Double Dare, Les Lye from You Can't Do That on Television, Greg Lee from Total Panic, Christine Taylor and Kelly Brown from Hey Dude, and many more. At the end of the 3 hour special, the new slime geyser burst with slime and gak to officially close the opening to Nickelodeon, but it wasn't until October in which the opening of the geyser was more official. More celebrities like Russel Johnson from Gilligan's Island were there. People who had gotten slimed would get buttons and T-shirts saying that they were the first people in Universal Studios to do so. Stage 17 would be used for The Game Lab in which kids would come and play games or goof around or trying new game shows. Combining with Stage 18, they would be filming GUTS/Global Guts. Soundstages 18 and 19 would be used for production offices, dressing rooms, make up rooms, and the Gak Kitchen. The Gak Kitchen was one of the most popular things to do when they would give tours for kids. On April 12, 1992, a Nickelodeon time capsule was buried on Universal Studios and wouldn't be opened for another 50 years. Kids had buried things that meant the world to them in 1992 such as a stick of bubblegum, roller skates, a Game Boy, VHS copies of Home Alone and Back to the Future, a Michael Jackson and MC Hammer CD, a jar of Gak, Barbie dolls, an issue of Nickelodeon magazine, a Nickelodeon T-shirt, a piece of the Berlin Wall, and more. There was a live broadcast of the burial of the capsule hosted by Mike O'Malley and Joey Lawrence. For more information on the topic, check out the website mentalfloss.com. Thanks Moviefan12 from Manic Expression for showing me this! During those years, many shows such as Eureeka's Castle, Allegra's Window, Gullah Gullah Island, All That, Kenan and Kel, GUTS, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Figure it Out, What Would You Do?, Slime Time Live, Nick in the Afternoon, Double Dare 2000, Taina, and Noah Knows Best was filmed. Unfortunately, around the 2000s, things started to go a bit downhill for Nickelodeon. Even though, they gotten a new paint job and new additions like the Jimmy Neutron ride, it wasn't enough. A new stage facility called Nickelodeon on Sunset was built in California and that was where most of the shows were being filmed there. Originally, the Earl Carroll Theater, the 3rd and 4th seasons of Kenan and Kel, the 4th through 10th season of All That, The Amanda Show, and The Nick Cannon Show moved there to be filmed. Due to that, a few people lost their jobs and the popularity of Nickelodeon Studios began to wane a bit. Also kids' game shows at the time were no longer popular and the last one that was released there was called Splat. It was a huge failure being cancelled less than a few months after it aired. With all those things combine, on April 30, 2005, Nickelodeon Studios was officially closed forever. All the Nickelodeon decorations, the slime geyser, and the time capsule was removed and for many people, Nickelodeon was officially dead to them. After being there for 14 years and over 2,000 episodes for many shows were filmed, Nickelodeon Studios created a legacy that millions of children will remember. An opportunity to see their favorite shows live and maybe even be on TV was huge for them. Happy memories that they would cherish for the rest of their lives would be created there while creating their own Gak. Their childhood of visiting Nickelodeon Studios whenever they would go to Universal Studios was gone. It was truly a sad day. I was fortunate to see Nickelodeon Studios while it was up seeing a live taping of Double Dare 2000 and even playing a game at the Game Lab. I will cherish it forever. The time capsule has been moved to the Nickelodeon Suites Resort in Orlando still awaiting to be opened on 2042. Just 30 more years and we'll see the day that all those things from back then being shown to a new generation of kids. I'm going to be 56 when that happens! Yikes! Two years later, it would be replaced by The Blue Man Group where they would make their performances. However, may we never forget what Nickelodeon Studios meant to us as a whole. Let the legacy of what it created for us as kids be always in our hearts. To learn more about the history of Nickelodeon Studios, check out this article at retrojunk.com. That's all for now. Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Thanks for reading.

The Two Gay Geeks have received the Press Release below from our good friends at Fanbase Press. This new graphic novel they have picked up looks fascinating and we hope to have an interview with some of the talent working on this project soon. There is also some really cool stuff available if you pre-order the graphic novel. Thank you to Barbra Dillon at Fanbase Press for always keeping us int he loop. Here is the Press Release: FANBASE PRESS PLUMBS THE DEPTHS OF CREATIVITY IN ‘THE MARGINS’ LOS ANGELES, CA – February 26, 2018 – Fanbase Press is excited to announce the newest addition to its publishing slate with The Margins, an original, creator-owned graphic novel co-written by David Accampo (Lost Angels, DC’s New Talent Showcase 2017) and Paul Montgomery (Wormwood: A Serialized Mystery, Panels.net) and illus-trated by Amanda Donahue. Examining creativity’s dual nature in providing a healthy outlet for self-expression as well as a mechanism for avoidance, the graphic novel ex-plores the excitement of an artist unlocking their imagination and the dire consequences of getting lost . . . in the margins. In The Margins, artist Charley Keo’s new gig begins as a fun challenge to breathe new life into the forgotten pulp world of Elad – this time as a comic book. But as tendrils of this lost realm creep into her sleepy Portland neighborhood, Charley realizes that Elad is much more than the lines on a day-dreamt map, more than the sum of an old hack’s prose. Elad has its hooks in Charley, and what was once fantasy has become deadly reality for both the artist and the woman she loves. “The Margins is an amazingly original and insightful look into the creative process,” says Fanbase Press President Bryant Dillon. “David, Paul, and Amanda do an incredible job of exploring the motivations that can cause a creator get lost within their own imagina-tion, all while taking us on a thrilling and fascinating fantasy journey.” The Margins is currently available for pre-order through the Fanbase Press website (www.fanbasepress.com), and the graphic novel will be released for sale on July 23, 2018. The creative team will also provide attendees of San Diego Comic-Con 2018 with a special opportunity to purchase an advance signed copy of the book! Pre-orders made by June 1, 2018, will receive an exclusive sketch by Amanda Donahue, as well as a digi-tal “Tales from the Margins” companion story by David Accampo and a bookplate signed by the entire creative team. About Fanbase Press Founded in 2010, Fanbase Press celebrates fandoms and creates new ones! As a comic book publisher and online community, Fanbase Press produces new and distinctive works, as well as daily reviews, interviews, and podcasts, that span the pop culture spec-trum and give voice to the themes, ideals, and people that make geekdom so exceptional. Fanbase Press’ previous comics and graphic novels – Quince, Hero Hotel, The Gamma Gals, Something Animal, Identity Thief, The Arcs, Fearworms: Selected Poems, and Pen-guins vs. Possums – are available online at www.fanbasepress.com and digitally through ComiXology. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment in the comments section below, and if this is your first time visiting please be sure to read the Privacy / Terms and Conditions Of Use.

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Good-bye, pyramid. Hello, plate. The U.S. government’s advice to Americans on what they should eat is undergoing a shake-up as top officials search for a better way to get across the healthy eating message, reports The Globe and Mail. This means the old nutrition pyramid has been scrapped in favour of a simple plate image. The new MyPlate image is divided into the major food groups people should consume most: fruits, vegetables, grains and protein. Dairy is featured as a beverage off to the side of this plate. While not perfect, the plate highlights serious problems with the Canadian government’s guide to healthy eating, warns Bill Jeffery, national co-ordinator of the Canadian branch of the consumer advocacy group, Centre for Science in the Public Interest. Continue reading

I-Cubs Get Thumped by River Cats Nate Spears and Brad Snyder smacked home runs, but it wasn't enough, as the Sacramento River Cats (the Oakland A's AAA affiliate) scratched out a 10-5 victory over the Iowa Cubs this afternnon at the Papago Park Sports Complex in Phoenix. Spears missed several games after being hit on the hand with a pitch last Saturday, but he returned to the scene of the crime (and the lineup) with a bang today, hitting the first pitch of the game over the RF fence. The first three I-Cubs pitchers struggled, as Randy Wells and Dumas Garcia had difficulty throwing strikes, while Ken Kadokura was just plain awful (five runs on eight hits--including three doubles and a triple, in just two innings of work), but Justin Berg and Jeff Stevens retired the last six batters they faced, Berg with an easy 1-2-3 nine-pitch 7th (eight strikes and only one ball, resulting in a 6-3, Ks, and P-3), and then Jeff Stevens struck out the side in the 8th. In Iowa Cubs roster news, hard-throwing 26-year old RHP Rocky Roquet (who has been terrible since reporting to the Iowa Cubs) has been traded to the Oakland A's for a PTBNL (Roquet was an NRI to big league camp), LHP Edward Campusano (another NRI to big league camp who got sentt back to Iowa) has been released (couldn't throw strikes, never really recovered from April 2007 TJS), and OF Richie Robnett (acquired from OAK in the Michael Wuertz trade, and then outrighted off the 40-man roster last week) and IF-OF Matt Camp have been demoted to AA Tennessee. So the Iowa Cubs roster presently stands at 33 (16 pitchers, four catchers, eight infielders, and five outfielders), with nine cuts left to make by the end of the week (the AA and AAA regular season roster limits are 24, not 25). Here is today's abridged box score (Iowa Cubs players only). Randy Wells batted twice (including once after he had already been replaced on the mound) because he is being prepped as a rotation starter for Iowa, and the Cubs wanted him to get a couple of ABs in addition to extending his pitch count up past 50 (he was used as a one-inning reliever in Cactus League games before he was optioned to Iowa from big league camp). 1. Nate Spears, DH #1: 1-3 (HR, 6-3, 4-3, BB - 1 R, 1 RBI) 2. So Taguchi, RF: 0-4 (F-8, F-9, 5-3, 4-6-3 DP) 3. Esteban German, 3B: 1-3 (1B, 5-3, BB, 6-3 - 1 R) 4a. Randy Wells, P-DH #2: 0-1 (3-U SH, F-8) 5. Jake Fox, 1B: 0-2 (Kc, HBP, BB, F-8 - 1 R) 6. Brad Snyder, CF: 1-3 (4-3, 3-U, BB, HR, 1 R, 1 RBI) 7. Jason Dubois, LF: 2-4 (1-3, 2B, Ks, 2B - 1 R) 8. Mark Johnson, C: 2-3 (1B, F-8, BB, 2B - 2 RBI) 9. Andres Blanco, SS: 0-4 (P-4, 6-3, 4-3, Kc -1 RBI) 10. Luis Rivas, 2B: 0-3 (6-3, 5-3, L-8) 1. Randy Wells - 2.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R (3 ER), 2 BB, 1 K, 1 GIDP, 1 WP, 51 pitches (26 strikes), 6/1 GO/FO 2. Ken Kadokura - 2.0 IP, 8 H, 6 R (6 ER), 0 BB, 2 K, 1 WP, 43 pitches (27 strikes), 3/1 GO/FO 3. Dumas Garcia - 2.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R (1 ER), 3 BB, 1 K, 1 HR, 46 pitches (22 strikes) , 1/4 GO/FO 4. Justin Berg - 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, nine pitches (eight strikes), 1/1 GO/FO 5. Jeff Stevens - 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, 17 pitches (10 strikes)

Fri January 25, 2013 Exxon More Golden Than Apple Again Apple stock has dropped sharply since it announced earnings that disappointed analysts. Now the tech tastemaker is paying another price, losing its crown as the world's most valuable company to Exxon Mobil. Exxon's market capitalization, the total value of its outstanding stock, was about $417 billion Friday. Apple's was about $413 billion. "The move comes exactly one year after Apple previously surpassed Exxon on its road to most valuable U.S. company of all-time," The Wall Street Journal notes. "Apple's slide has been fast and furious. The gap between Apple and Exxon widened to as much as $240 billion in September. ... Since then, Apple shares have slid more than 35%." On Thursday alone, Apple's stock sank more than 12 percent, to $450.50 per share. Early Friday afternoon, it was down an additional 2.6 percent. "Apple's stock price peaked in September at $705.07 on the day the iPhone 5 was released," the Associated Press said. "Exxon, in the meantime, has been trading steady. Its business — oil — seems less prone to stock market ups and downs than the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech darling." For a long while, Apple seemed it could do no wrong, selling millions of iPhones and iPads and growing its profits along with those sales. But while its sales remain strong, Apple's market share in the smartphone and tablet markets has slipped amid strong competition from Samsung and other rivals. Bloomberg News says at least 20 analysts lowered their projections for Apple's stock after the company reported slower growth on Wednesday. Abhey Lamba, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA, told Bloomberg: "This is a big shift in the company's position from a year ago. The growth has slowed down much faster than we anticipated." Apple's stock took a hit after unconfirmed reports that it was cutting orders to iPhone suppliers, indicating that demand was weakening. "Others were concerned by CEO Tim Cook's remarks during the Wednesday conference call, when he indicated Apple would not reconsider the iPhone's smaller 3.5- and 4-inch screen size at a time when many fast-selling smartphones offer larger screens," the San Jose Mercury News reported. But the biggest question analysts have for Apple is, what have you done lately? "It has been nearly three years since a new product has come from a company still seen as the embodiment of innovation," the AP writes. "That last product, the iPad, came in 2010, when its CEO Steve Jobs was still alive. Some analysts question whether Apple can keep growing by just releasing new versions of its old products. The long-rumored Apple TV, is still just that, a rumor." (Avie Schneider is NPR.org's business editor.)

Note: This message is displayed if (1) your browser is not standards-compliant or (2) you have you disabled CSS. Read our Policies for more information. The division issued nearly 2000 phytosanitary certificates carrying mostly Indiana produced commodities to approximately 80 different nations around the world in addition to separate shipments to United States states, protectorates, and territories. The division successfully treated nearly 20, 000 acres of Indiana to control gypsy moth. The control efforts were effective and successful. The public was kept informed regarding all aspects of the operation on the DNR Web site, by direct mailings to approximately 30, 000 residents, press releases, and radio and television coverage. Surveys for exotic pests, conducted throughout the state, resulted in the discovery of several new pest species from Asia and Europe. These pests will be monitored and treated next year. Infested materials were destroyed. Preliminary surveys have been conducted in northern Indiana for the Emerald Ash Borer, a new pest from Asia which kills ash trees. A large area around Detroit, Michigan, has been infested with this tree killing pest. The division has conducted training for its staff in the Detroit area. Dr. Waltz, division director, served as one of six specialists on the U.S.D.A. Science Panel regarding this pest outbreak. The division provided information on West Nile Virus and mosquito management to DNR property holding divisions. Dr. Waltz, division director, is privileged to serve on the Governor's West Nile Virus Task Force. All 550 production nurseries in Indiana were inspected and certified. Improved services have been provided to the Nursery industry through a nursery pest report that is provided free to any nursery wanting it. The report tells what pests are being found by DNR inspectors in which parts of the state. The data is used to better control the amount of pesticides used and efficacy of treatments for nurseries by knowing more about the biology of the pests. One of our most successful endeavors during the current biennium was to open the new Indiana State Museum on May 22, 2002. Thanks to many years of hard work and great vision, Indiana has created a permanent showplace for our past and our future. The public and media response and comparative analysis of similar institutions indicates that, in terms of physical plant and quality of exhibits, the new museum is in the top tier of public cultural institutions in the nation. The state historic sites experienced major changes in 2002. To adjust to their shrinking budget, a comprehensive plan was developed to determine which historic sites might benefit from collaboration or replacement management. To this end, the Col. William Jones site in Gentryville became part of the adjacent Lincoln State Park, where the cultural interpretation is enhanced by the addition of the historic home and log barn. The Mansfield Roller Mill was transferred to the nearby Raccoon State Recreation Area where the management staff had already assumed responsibility for the Mill's operations. In addition, an informal agreement was created with the Scott County Preservation Alliance to oversee the maintenance of the Pigeon Roost State Historic Site. Negotiations will continue through the 2003-05 biennium to make Historic New Harmony a truly unified program by making all on-site management and staff supervision the responsibility of the director of Historic New Harmony. Changes in the management of the Gene Stratton Porter and Limberlost State Historic Sites are also being examined. The wetlands restoration project at the Limberlost State Historic Site (a little more than 1000 acres) will be transferred to the DNR Division of Nature Preserves early in 2003. A friends advisory council, consisting of representatives from all historic sites friends groups, was established and quarterly meetings were held. Topics at the meetings ranged from updates on legislative initiatives to advice on operating gift shops. ?Much work was done on a strategic plan with specific objectives for the historic sites, and preliminary marketing research was accomplished for each Site. A new initiative requiring all historic site managers to attend the eleven classes in the Management Training Institute has resulted in more consistent management throughout the sites. Several historic site managers participate on the Board of the Association of Indiana Museums and organized their annual meeting in the new Indiana State Museum Aug. 1 and 2, 2002. The Limberlost State Historic Site emphasized the Indiana Heritage Trust's tenth year anniversary during the site's annual Nature Days Special Event. The Levi Coffin State Historic Site was in the news several times during the year, culminating in the dedication of the new Historic marker, the first in the Nation to carry the Underground Railroad logo, in October 2002. Angel Mounds experienced the first year in their expanded visitor center, complete with new interactive exhibits. The Culbertson Mansion in New Albany has undergone a complete exterior restoration, ending this year with new slate roofing and gutters. The demolition and reconstruction of the interior of the Boys and Girls Club in Madison for the Lanier/Madison Visitor Center will be complete in the winter of 2002-03. Water lines from State Road 46 to the T.C. Steele State Historic Site have been installed in anticipation of the new fire suppression system, to be installed this winter. A greatly enhanced Farmer's Market next to the Old State Bank at the Vincennes State Historic Site promises to offer more collaboration between the community and the site. In addition, the Old Northwest Corporation in Vincennes has agreed to become the friends support group for this site. Creative problem solving at the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site utilized equipment from the Division of State Parks and Reservoirs as well as the Indiana Department of Transportation to help with the recurring silting problem in the canal. ?Lt. Governor Hospitality Awards honored the President of the Friends of Limberlost, a full time employee at the Corydon State Historic Site and a volunteer at the Grissom Air Museum State Historic Site. Gene Stratton Porter site manager received the state's highest honor of the "Sagamore of the Wabash." The state historic sites employees are uncommonly dedicated, and turn-over is very rare. With Gene Stratton Porter State Historic site manager Margie Sweeney's retirement and the death of the Vincennes State Historic Site manager and southwest regional supervisor Bill Menke, the loss is deeply felt. The historic sites Administrative staff (director, deputy director and chief of interpretation and education) culled files, archived documents, and moved their offices into the new Indiana State Museum in February of 2002. Archaeology (Staff: 4) - Sixty-seven accidental discoveries, including accidental discovery of human remains or artifacts, reports of site and burial ground violations, reviews of professional archaeology investigation permits Mining Review Projects - Ninety-eight project submittals received through November 30, 2002 Non-Mining Review Projects - 2,350 submittals received through November 30, 2002 (additional 60 expected by December 31, 2002) Sites Documented and Recorded - 740 new site numbers issued to record documented archaeological sites Records Checks (assisting archaeologists with site information deposited at the DHPA) - 159 through November 30, 2002 (additional 10 expected through December 31, 2002) - Expanded from Archaeology Week due to popularity and public demand: includes staff lectures, presentations, demonstrations, artifact identifications, and other public events to educate and promote Archaeology in Indiana. Posters, T-shirts, coloring books, "Archaeology in Your Community" information, and a variety of curriculum materials made available to the public. Completed Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Project: National Park Service program to research and document sites in Indiana related to this period and these conflicts. - Five Battle Sites in Indiana - Fort Harrison (Vigo Co.), also associated historic site - Fort Wayne (Allen Co.), also associated historic site - Mississinewa Battlefield (Grant Co.) - Battle of Tippecanoe (Tippecanoe Co.) - George Rogers Clark National Historical Park (Knox Co.) - Three Associated Historic Sites - Prophetstown (Tippecanoe Co.) DHPA Grant Participation - Reviewed and administered 7 archaeological Historic Preservation Fund archaeological grant projects and one Wabash Heritage Corridor archaeological grant project. Technical and Other Assistance and Services - Archaeological investigations and advice for Prophetstown State Park for the divisions of Engineering and State Parks and Reservoirs - Hiring, training, and supervision of a new Division of Forestry archaeologist - Supervision of and close consultation with the Division of Reclamation archaeologist - Continuing work with Hamilton County Parks concerning preservation, protection, and investigations of numerous archaeological sites on their parks property, especially in the Strawtown area - Archaeological and archival investigations at Tell City Chair Company site; - Technical assistance to Conservation Officers - Technical assistance to persons with concerns about cemeteries and burial grounds; technical assistance with and review of National Register nominations; - Promulgation of rules for development plans for construction within 100 feet of cemeteries or burial grounds - consultations and meetings for site stabilization at Angel Mounds State Historic Site - Assistance to Division of Public Information and Education regarding archaeological issues Native American Council - Staffing and attendance to the Native American Council, six times per year plus other assistance. State archaeologist is the secretary to the council Historic Structures Review (Staff: 3) Federal and State Reviews - January 1, 2002 through November 30, 2002: 3,030 submissions received (3,300 expected by December 31, 2002) - 85 percent subject to Section 106 Review - 15 percent subject to State Review Grants and Administration (Staff: 2) Completed Historic Preservation Fund matching grant projects for federal fiscal year 2001 - Lafayette/Tippecanoe Co. National Register Nominations: 3 historic districts listed (New Chauncey, Hills & Dales, Dayton), 1 comprehensive district survey (Vinton Woods) - Christian Ridge (Frankfort, Clinton Co.) Historic District National Register Nomination - Dekalb County Survey - Howard county Survey - Publication of Jasper, Sullivan, Whitley County Interim Reports - Kessler Park and Boulevard Plan National Register Nomination - Update and Reprint of LaPorte County Interim Report - North Manchester Historic District National Register Nomination (Wabash Co.) - Sandcreek Township (Bartholomew Co.) Survey - State-Owned Historic Property Survey and Database, Phase I - Swinney Park and Memorial Park (Fort Wayne, Allen Co.) Cultural Landscape Reports - Delaware Settlement on the White River Archaeology Survey (Ball State University) - Greene and Daviess County Archaeological Survey (Indiana State University) - Huddleston Farmhouse Archaeological Investigation (Historic Landmarks Foundation) - North Central and Northeast Indiana Settlement Archaeological Survey and Investigation (Indiana-Purdue University at Fort Wayne) - Next Step Education Through Archaeology College Preparatory Program (Martin University, Indianapolis, Marion Co.) - AME Church Acquisition (Madison, Jefferson Co.) - Banneker Center Gym Roof Replacement (Bloomington, Monroe Co.) - Cambridge City Waterworks Building Window and Door Rehabilitation (Wayne Co.) - Double Log Cabin Roof Rehabilitation (New Harmony, Posey Co.) - Johnson County Museum Exterior Rehabilitation (Franklin, Johnson Co.) - LaGrange County Courthouse Tower Rehabilitation (LaGrange) - Legg House Stabilization and Rehabilitation (Bloomington, Monroe Co.) - McGrady House Roof and Gutter Rehabilitation (Vincennes, Knox Co.) - Propylaeum Masonry and Porch Rehabilitation (Indianapolis, Marion Co.) - Danville Courthouse Square National Register Nomination (Danville, Hendricks Co.) - Deer Creek Valley Rural Historic District National Register Nomination (Carroll Co.) - Elwood Commercial Historic District National Register Nomination (Madison Co.) - Lakeside Park Cultural Landscape Report and Oakdale Historic District Brochure (Fort Wayne, Allen Co.) - Logansport Architectural Walking Tour Brochure (Cass Co.) - Preservation Technology Training Workshops and Lab Equipment (Ball State University, Muncie, Delaware Co.) - Floyd Co. Site 12Fl73 Archaeological Investigation (University of Kentucky) - Potawatomi Villages Archaeology Survey and Investigation (University of Notre Dame) - Rockshelter Resources Archaeological Survey and Investigation (Indiana-Purdue University at Fort Wayne) - Patterson House/Fairmount Historical Museum Utilities Upgrade (Fairmount, Grant Co.) - Rockhill-Tyler House Interior Rehabilitation (Fort Wayne, Allen Co.) - Wilson School Masonry and roof Rehabilitation (Muncie, Delaware Co.) Completed Historic Preservation Fund Cooperative Agreements - 2002 Cornelius O'Brien Conference on Historic Preservation - 2001 Indiana Main Street Conference - Wabash River Heritage Corridor Brochure Reprinting - Scholarships for the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions Forum - 2002 Landscape Symposium - Cemetery Workshop - 2002 Underground Railroad Summit - Midwest Historic Preservation Symposium - Historic Schools Symposium - Student Conservation Association Summer Internship - National Road Workshop Completed In-House Projects - 2002 Grassroots Preservation Roundup - 2003-2004 Historic Indiana - Preserving Indiana Newsletter Template - Publication of Underground Railroad Research Papers - 2002 Historic Bridge Calendar Completed Wabash River Heritage Corridor Fund matching grants - Paul Dresser Birthplace Rehabilitation (Terre Haute, Vigo Co.) - Harmony on the Wabash Exhibit, New Harmony Workingmen's Institute (Posey Co.) Continued Covenant Monitoring of more than 45 properties statewide Initiation of 18 Historic Preservation Fund matching grant projects for federal fiscal year 2002 Receipt and review of 43 grant applications for Historic Preservation Fund matching grant program for federal fiscal year 2003. Registration and Survey (Staff: 2) State and National Register Application Activity - Responded to approximately 175 requests for National Register application packets - Begun the process of making National Register packet materials available online linked to the division's Web site - Processed 59 applications to place Indiana properties on the National Register of Historic Places (46 properties approved by the Review Board were listed) - Processed 2 applications to place Indiana properties on the Indiana Register of Historic Sites and Structures (State Register); (3 properties were listed in the State Register only by staff action or Review Board action) National Historic Landmark Activity - Completed the NIL boundary increase for the New Harmony NHL district (NPS action pending) - Provided SHPO comment on 2 NHL nominations (Allen County Courthouse, Oldfields) - Acquired the state's 33rd NHL - tugboat "Donald B" - Provided the National Park Service with condition/threat assessments for all Indiana NHLs State Survey Activity - Three county surveys of above-ground resources were conducted - Initiated the resurvey of one county (Posey) - Two survey reports (Historic Sites and Structures Interim Reports) were published - Phase 1 of the statewide survey of state-owned properties was completed - Coordinated the planning for the 34th annual Cornelius O'Brien Conference on Historic Preservation which was held in Terre Haute on September 19-21. Tax Credits, Architectural and Technical Services (Staff: 1) Commercial Tax Credits - The Architectural section has processed approval for 18 completed Commercial projects during the past year, 22 new project applications initiated - total construction value of $38,000,000 - leveraged $7,368,129 Federal Rehabilitation Investment tax credits - assisted by $936,586 Indiana State Rehabilitation Investment tax credits - Net of 436 new or rehabilitated housing units. - Net of 413 new or rehabilitated low-moderate income housing units - Highlight adaptive use of Cannelton Mill, National Historic Landmark property, previously listed as threatened. Homeowner Tax Credits - Highlight new program initiated this year: 14 projects filed to date - The Architectural section has processed approval for 6 completed Owner Occupied residence projects during the past year - total construction value 434,844 - assisted by $86,967 Indiana State Rehabilitation Investment tax credits The Architectural section has received and responded to 16 requests regarding activities at Fort Benjamin Harrison - Construction work on the new Prophetstown State Park was started. Water lines have been extended to the park. Construction is nearing completion on a grade separation between S.R. 225 and the main park road. Construction has begun on roads inside the park. Rehabilitation work has been completed on an existing building which was converted into a park office and service area. - Federal grants totaling $2,650,000 were awarded to DNR under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) program. These grants were awarded for projects at Prophetstown State Park (bicycle trail), Atterbury Fish & Wildlife Area (renovation of historic iron bridge), Wyandotte Woods State Recreation Area (renovation of historic hay press), and Cataract Falls Recreation Area/Brown County State Park (renovation of covered bridges). - Federal grant for $382,000 was awarded to DNR for renovation work on four covered bridges located at Cataract Falls State Recreation Area, Brown County State Park, Shades State Park, and Turkey Run State Park. - Six mechanical wastewater treatment plants were replaced with constructed wetlands. These wetlands utilize natural processes to treat the wastewater with minimal maintenance and low power usage. - Major repairs and upgrades to the Whitewater Lake Dam, at Whitewater State Park, were completed. The upgrades increased the ability of the spillway to safely handle large storms, bringing it up to current dam safety standards. - Major renovation work to Canyon Inn, at McCormick’s Creek State Park, was completed. The work involved major improvements to the building mechanical/electrical systems, as well as improvements to public areas of the inn. - New or expanded nature centers were completed at Mounds State Park and Salamonie Reservoir. The nature center at Salamonie Reservoir is open to the public, while the nature center at Mounds will open in spring of 2003. - The campground electrical system at Tippecanoe River State Park was upgraded to provide better electrical service at each camp site, and bring the facility up to current electrical safety standards. - The Division of Fish and Wildlife launched on-line hunting and fishing licensing earlier in the year. Hunters and anglers purchased 14,230 licenses via the service in 2002. - Indiana’s public access crew developed innovative new designs for providing physically challenged sportsmen and women a way to board boats more easily at access sites. Boat wells and shoreline platforms designs are working well and may become models for use throughout the state and country. - Seven state records were broken this year for catches of the largest muskellunge, walleye, hybrid striped bass, warmouth, buffalo, longnose gar, and grass carp. Management of the first three species in public waters by state fisheries professionals has developed excellent fisheries that are gaining notoriety regionally and in national fishing periodicals. - Fish and Wildlife Properties hosted more than 91,000 hunters: Small Game 28,129 - DNR wildlife biologists worked with private landowners to create Wildlife habitat on 2,500 acres enrolled in the Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program (WHIP) during 2002, utilizing $262,000 in Farm Bill funds. - Wildlife habitat on 78,000 acres enrolled in Indiana's classified wildlife habitat program. - Wildlife habitat on 1,508 acres through DNR's wildlife habitat cost-share program. Total cost of habitat development was $137,568 with $68,237 being provided through the program. - The Division of Fish and Wildlife and the Board of Animal Health geared up to test the non-domestic cervid population for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). More than 3,000 white-tailed deer heads were collected statewide for CWD testing. - The Grand Kankakee Marsh Restoration project reported 143 acres acquired and 183.5 acres restored. The South West Indiana Four Rivers Project reported 2,068 acres acquired, 874 acres restored and 142 acres enhanced. Funding included $650,000 from state funds, and approximately $195,000 in private organization funds. - Harvest data from the 2002 spring wild turkey season indicates a record harvest for the 33rd year with 10,575 birds harvested from 80 of the 90 counties open to hunting. - More than 103,000 deer were legally harvested in Indiana during 2001. This harvest was a 4 percent increase from the 98,725 deer harvested during 2000. Compared to 2000, the antlered buck harvest of 48,357 represented an 8 percent increase from last year, and the anterless harvest of 54,806 was up 1 percent. The increase in harvest can be attributed to the division's effort from 1994 - 1997 to reduce the statewide deer population and the effort in 1998 - 2000 to begin stabilizing the population by slightly reducing anterless harvest. - DNR officials initiated the Wildlife Conservation and Restoration (WCRP Grant program) which will provide the Department with access to $800,000 of WCRP funding and $1.3 million of State Wildlife Grant funding for species most in need of conservation. - Fish and Wildlife biologists partnered with Nature Preserves to develop competitive grant applications totaling more than $3 million. These grants, which are based on the Landowner Incentive Program and Endangered Species Habitat Conservation Program, will be used to benefit a wide range of species, especially those rare species most in need of conservation. - Indiana stocked 224,797 coho salmon and 253,000 chinook salmon into Lake Michigan waters in response to the state anglers requests to alter state stocking priorities. Eggs for these species are received from Michigan in an annual trade for other fish that Indiana produces. - The department completed the first phase of the fish community restoration and monitoring effort in the zone affected by the 1999 White River fish kill. More than 295,000 fish were stocked in 2002. Nearly 960,000 fish have been stocked since the kill. - A major fisheries renovation was completed at 358-acre Waveland Lake in Parke and Montgomery counties, removing the dominant shad and restoring the future for quality bluegill fishing in those waters. - Indiana state biologists and Purdue University veterinarians joined other states in tracking the incidence and impact of a new fish disease, largemouth bass virus, in several lakes in northern Indiana. - Construction is well underway on the Leavenworth-Lang-Cole Hay Press Barn project at Wyandotte Woods SRA, and the project completion date is early 2003. This project is funded in large part by a TEA-21 Enhancement Grant from the Federal Highway Administration. - The Community and Urban Forestry (CUF) Program coordinated the Festival of Growth at the Governor's residence. Approximately 500 people attended. CUF staff developed and introduced the new Urban Forestry Inventory Program to Indiana cities and towns. The computerized program allows users to inventory and assess urban forest trees and other urban forest management features. - Between February and May of 2002 the Division of Forestry conducted eleven (11) open houses, one on each of the state forest complexes. Each property prepared displays (stations) covering the following areas of interest: Recreation Management, Resource Management, Land Management, Community Affairs, Property Direction and Staffing/Budget/Revenues. Attendance at the open houses varied from a low of 22 to a high of 121. A total of 581 people registered at the open houses and a total of 174 comment sheets containing 231 total comments were received. - Forestry mobilized 210 people to assist in the suppression of the catastrophic western fires. The US Forest Service reimburses 100 percent of the cost. - The Division of Forestry's sale of tree seedlings continues to be a popular conservation program. More than five million tree seedlings of 50 species (mostly hardwood) are planted annually for timber, windbreaks, wildlife food and habitat, watershed and soil protection, reclamation and education. - The continued containment of the forest Gypsy moth pest to a geographic band in northern Indiana continues to be a success story. Gypsy moth is a non-native pest that is advancing into Indiana from the northeast. The caterpillars feed on the foliage of many host plants-oaks are the preferred species but most other tree and shrub species will be defoliated in the absence of oaks. Gypsy moth has defoliated millions of acres of forest in the northeastern US and caused extensive mortality. - The Classified Forest program (I 6-1.1-6) provides incentives for owners to retain and manage forestlands and now surpasses an enrollment of 420,000 acres (>11 percent of Indiana's private forestlands) and 8,000 landowners. These lands provide all the benefits of forested land directly to landowners and indirectly to all citizens of the state. - A DNR Team, consisting of personnel from the Divisions of Forestry, Water, Soil Conservation, Engineering and State Parks and Reservoirs successfully breached Shaw Lake in Yellowwood State Forest. This was a small isolated lake that was found to have safety deficiencies and to be a hazard to downstream residents. Estimated cost of repair was in excess of $400,000, and the breach was completed at a small fraction of this cost. - The Forest Legacy program provides long-term forest protection through the use of conservation easements. Indiana has protected an additional 1,600 acres through the Forest Legacy program in 2002 and received a $1.1 million federal grant to extend this protection to an additional 1,600 acres. - The Division of Forestry received a $587,250 grant from the Fish & Wildlife Service to begin development of a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) for the Indiana bat on Indiana state forests. The Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) is one of only two federally endangered mammals found in Indiana. This plan is to encompass Indiana's state forest system, which includes approximately 150,000 acres statewide. State forests provide large wooded areas that serve as summer habitat and also have caves in which a large proportion of endangered Indiana bats hibernate. These caves are considered essential to the continued survival of the species. The proposed HCP will be the first to address Indiana bat management concerns on an actively managed forest, providing a positive model for other states and forest managers. It is expected that the development of the HCP will take up to 3 years to complete. Once completed, the HCP has the potential to benefit more than 30 other state-listed or special concern species, which also use similar portions of Indiana's state forest system. - While there are early indications that the amount of forestland in Indiana is on the decline, for the first time since the 1920s there is encouraging news that an increasing number of Indiana's forest owners are helping conserve the forests which remain. Indiana's private forestland assistance programs focus on establishing new forests, retaining existing forests and increasing stewardship and restoration practices on those lands. Nature Preserve Dedications - Eight nature preserves were dedicated in 2002. They include Alum Creek Hollow in Clark State Forest; Shroeder’s Fern Cove, Clark County; McCormick’s Cove, in McCormick’s Creek State Park; The Narrows, Harrison County; Buddha Karst, Lawrence County; Stout Woods, Henry County; Chelsea Flatwoods, Jefferson County; and Bluffs of Beaver Bend, Martin County. Indiana's nature preserve system now consists of 189 nature preserves, encompassing 25,881 acres. Public Access - A new parking lot and trail were installed at Big Walnut Nature Preserve, Putnam County, providing an excellent opportunity for hikers and nature lovers to visit this high quality natural area. In cooperation with the Fulton County Parks Department, a parking lot and trail were installed at the Judy Burton Nature Preserve on Lake Manitou. The trail traverses through upland fields, shoreline lake overlooks, and islands in the wetland system. Public Dedications - Public ceremonies celebrating the protection of several areas by partnerships matching use of Heritage Trust funding were held at Coulter Sand Prairie, Porter County, Granville Sand Barrens, Tippecanoe County, and Little Calumet Headwaters (Camp Red Mill), LaPorte County. Invasives - Biological control of purple loosestrife is proving to be effective, and its use continues to spread. In addition to the existing biocontrol insects, a new insect that feeds on loosestrife flowers was released in 2002. Biological controls are being researched for possible future use against garlic mustard and perhaps other invasives. The regional ecologists continue to employ techniques to reclaim areas contaminated by invasives. The division is an active participant in the Invasive Plant Species Assessment Working Group. Endangered Species Coordinators’ Conference - The DNR (Nature Preserves, and Fish and Wildlife's Nongame Program) hosted eight midwestern states and the US Fish and Wildlife Service in sessions concerned with funding and conservation of endangered species. Office Automation/Streamlining - In order to compensate for the loss of the division's clerical staff, and to economize, phones were automated, and procurement and payroll functions were shared with the Division of Outdoor Recreation. Ginseng - In 2001, 52 ginseng dealers certified 7,048.7 pounds of ginseng, valued at $1.5 million, for export from Indiana. Public Relations - Staff gave 28 talks, presentations, and hikes to a variety of organizations, agencies, and school groups. Articles and papers were written for Outdoor Indiana and the Academy of Science, we provided a display at the State Fair, and updated/improved our web site. Reviews/Permits - Staff reviewed 312 public lake dockets, 528 DNR early coordinations, 21 coal permits, and 136 water dockets. Sixty-one collecting and research permits were issued. Monitoring - Vegetation was assessed for deer browse damage at numerous State Parks and Nature Preserves, several deer exclosures were installed, Kramer Woods was completely censused as a 10 year follow-up to the original work done by Dr. Damien Schmelz, rare plants were monitored at a number of preserves, and loosestrife plots were assessed to measure the effectiveness of the biocontrol. Management - A controlled deer hunt was held at Twin Swamps Nature Preserve, Posey County. Division staff, with help from others, conducted prescribed burns were conducted at 16 nature preserves (625 acres). Contractors burned an additional four burns. Inventory - A number of rare plant locations were found. Some of the discoveries include Oklahoma sedge, believed to be extirpated, Hall's bullrush, under consideration for federal listing, and frogbit, new to Indiana. Insect surveys were conducted at a number of preserves. Staff completed rare plant surveys and invasive plant surveys on the Hoosier National Forest. Ongoing Projects and Partnerships Division staff continue to be actively involved in a number of projects and partnerships, including: Little Calumet River floodplain mitigation, Grand calumet River NRDA, Integrated Bird Conservation Planning Group, three North American Waterfowl Conservation Act projects, White River restoration, IUPUI student service learning. The division has received several grants, totaling $700,000, to conduct restoration, through the Coastal Program, State Wildlife Grants, and GLNPO. Grant proposals totaling $1.7 million were prepared and submitted for funding from the USFWS Landowner Incentive Program. Elkhart County completed acquisition of lands adjacent to Elkhart Bog, in conjunction with a FONSI agreement. Boundary disputes at Beaver Lake (Newton County) and Moraine (Porter County) Nature Preserves continue to be in need of legal resolution. Tornados damaged Chamberlain Lake NP and Beanblossom Bottoms NP. - During 2002 the division began implementation of a new Annual Well Fee and Bonding program. The program is expected to raise approximately $200,000 annually in dedicated funds for the closure of orphaned wellsites in Indiana. - During the USEPA's last evaluation of the division's Underground Injection Control (UIC) program in December 2000 the division was cited as having "one of the best well-managed and most effective Class II UIC programs in the region, and perhaps the nation." - During 2002 the division implemented an electronic field data collection system that utilizes PDA technology in place of paper forms for inspections, well tests and enforcement actions. - The division successfully developed a partnership program with the Indiana Oil and Gas Association to plug orphaned wells. This program was responsible for the closure of more than 40 wells during 2002 resulting in a savings to the state of about $202,000 - In late 2000 the division finalized rules and procedures governing the management of oil and saltwater spills from facilities regulated by the division. This rule was developed in consultation with the Department of Environmental Management and represented a major step forward in the management of spills. - The total number of enforcement actions has declined over the past 2 years by nearly 50 percent as a result of more pro-active compliance measures such as prior notifications of upcoming well tests due and updated well temporary abandonment rules. At the same time, penalty collections have increased from 19 percent of assessed amounts in 2000 to more than 33 percent in 2002. Significant items/ events/ statistics - Natural gas activity continues to expand in the New Albany shale region of south central Indiana. Since 2001 the division has issued 77 permits for gas drilling in the New Albany. This is an increase of more than 300 percent during the previous 2-year period. During the past 3 years overall gas production has increased by more than 17 percent and now stands at more than 1 billion cubic feet per year. - The use of horizontal drilling technology is increasing substantially in Indiana and represents a major step forward in the development of natural gas reserves. This technology also benefits the environment by limiting the surface impacts of drilling. - During 2002 the division conducted/ witnessed the following activities related to Class II injection wells: 1373 site inspections 252 mechanical integrity tests 153 reviews of existing wells 31 reviews of applications for permits The division completed a Strategic Plan. Administered the Land and Water Conservation (LWCF) Grant Program 10 Awarded + 2 state projects (Prophetstown and SCORP) $2,801,190 total dollars awarded for state and local projects 490.19 acres added for recreational use 17 post-completion inspections completed Administered the recreational trails program 22 applied for grants 4 awarded + 1 state project (Redbird) $ 751,531.82 total dollars awarded for state and local projects 5.48 Miles of trail to be constructed + state funded OHV area - Assisted the Department of Transportation with allocating approximately $10 million in federal Transportation Enhancement funds for trail projects. - Added 606 miles of trail information to the Trails Inventory GIS Dataset - Reviewed and approved 38 park and recreation master plans - Executed 50 snowmobile trail leases - Managed more than 200 miles of state snowmobile trails, predominately on leased private land. - Oversaw more than 100 miles of designated streams included in the Indiana Natural, Scenic and Recreational River System. - Maintained the Knobstone Trail, Indiana's longest hiking trail at 58 miles long. - Eliminated the underused and outdated Hoosier Bikeway System, which cost approximately $25,000/year to maintain. - Assisted Montgomery County with adoption of a local ordinance to limit development along Sugar Creek - Assisted the Wabash River Heritage Corridor Commission in securing an executive director and establishing an office - Opening the first state OHV area, Redbird State Recreation Area near Dugger, is planned for 2003 - Assisting with the Mid America Trails & Greenways Conference, a conference being planned for September 21-24, 2003, in Indianapolis, by the states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky. - Developing a management plan for Interlake State Recreation Area. - Legislative changes to the OHV/snowmobile law updating registration fees. - Conducting surveys to be used in the 2005-2009 Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP) document, which is a requirement for LWCF federal grant funds. - Hosting approximately 18 million visitors on 32 properties. This visitation generated $16 million in revenue for FY 02, an increase of 11 percent over FY01. - Researching, designing, bidding and bringing into operation, a Centralized Reservation System for camping, shelters and cabins at state parks, reservoirs and forests. This included establishing business rules, measuring and classifying nearly 8,000 campsites and researching the experience of other states and then adapting the best elements of their systems for our needs. - Instituting the first significant fee increases since 1989. The State Parks operating budget had become increasingly dependent on general fund dollars to meet operating expenses. Increasing the revenue pool, along with budget reductions, has significantly reduced the general fund share for both parks and reservoirs operating budgets. - Initiating strategic planning process for the division. The division mission, vision, values and goals were finalized. All properties completed an on-site strategic planning process resulting in property mission statements, visions, values, goals and objectives. - Internet connectivity was greatly improved with the installation of 38 Satellite dishes at all state park and reservoir offices and some nature centers and service areas. Many phone lines and internet service providers were able to be canceled giving us the money needed to install the satellites. - We procured and installed 56 new Gateway computers for the central office and field locations. - We received 50 computers from INDOT that were used in the field to replace our aging Macintosh and older PCs in the field. - Phone systems were installed at Lieber State Recreation Area, Summit Lake State Park, and Huntington Lake. Voicemail was installed at Lake Monroe. These were systems that were given to us by the Department of Health. Savings of about $9,000 were realized because we reused this equipment from other state agencies. - Indiana hosted the 2001 Midwest State Parks Executive Association Conference. Nine - We decentralized the response to unemployment claims from our central office to the properties. This enables DNR management to challenge claims in a timely manner and cut cost to the state. - We identified the properties to be included in the state park deer herd reduction in time to include it in the annual Hunting Guide published by the Fish and Wildlife Division. - The last review and completion of the plans for phase one construction at Prophetstown State Park will be complete by the end of the year and ready to bid. State Park Inns - Seven high speed satellite dishes were installed at the inns to give them connectivity in preparation for the new reservation system. - All seven inns have been converted from the old RDP software to the new Room Master software. This gives us more features and is easier to use than the old software. - Online reservation can now be made by the public at all seven state park inns. The call center for the Inns is ready for operation as soon as the T-1 line is installed at Clifty Inn. - Successfully concessioned Wyandotte Cave on behalf of the Division of Forestry - Successfully received the alcohol permit for the Garrison and the Fort Golf Course. This will allow us to offer beer and wine on the course as well as for group functions at the Garrison Restaurant - Completed the renovation project at Canyon Inn. This included adding fire sprinklers and other major infrastructure work. The main lounge and lobby were rehabbed and additional guest rooms were made accessible. - Completed the second cabin suite at Potawatomi Inn. This involved taking an existing four-room cabin and reconfiguring it into a duplex with suites that have a living and dining area and a bedroom - New custom buffet units were designed, fabricated and installed at three inns. All inns purchased blast chillers and most replaced their guest area ice machines. - Turkey Run Inn assumed campstore operation. This is more profitable than operating as a concession site and allows for more efficient and timely purchase of goods for resale. - Spring Mill Inn operated the cave boat tour program with a grant from Lawrence County Tourism. This was one of the programs which was scheduled to be suspended as part of the budget cuts. - Potawatomi Inn operated the entire boat rental concession at Pokagon which allowed for increased operating hours and a wider variety of services. - Potawatomi will now operate the cross country ski operation at Pokagon - Assisted in the stocking and opening of the Mansfield country store and the purchase of Shakamak cabin furnishings Interpretive and Volunteer Programs - Upgrading and expanding the division volunteer program to approximately 3700 volunteers donating 45,000 hours, the greatest level of participation ever. - Achieving 785,000 interpretive (nature) center visitors, one of the highest visitations ever. Interpreters presented 18,000 programs to 394,000 campers, school children, inn visitors and local residents. - Implementation of a plan for documenting and caring for significant artifacts donated to and/or purchased by the division for use in interpretation of history at our sites, - Implementation of a flora/fauna inventory system that will allow each property and the division to build a standard formatted database of plant and wildlife species observed on each site. - Building new interpretive centers for Mounds State Park and the Upper Wabash reservoirs and designing state of the art exhibits. - Installation of children's activity area at the Falls of the Ohio, funded by a donor. - Development of an exhibit plan and beginning exhibit replacement at Clifty Falls. [Bass Lake State Beach] - Transferred to Starke County government to manage and operate. The transfer, rather than closure, permits local residents to continue to enjoy this property. - New sewage lines and lift stations were installed � - Sewage and water plant improvements (still in progress).� - Began installation of a new sprinkling system at Abe Martin Lodge. In-house: projects included:� - Sewage and water line replacement at Abe Martin Lodge.� - Installed new amphitheater seating at the nature center.� - Routine hiking and horse trail maintenance when needed.� - Routine building facility maintenance when needed.� - Certain hiking trail improvements by Hoosier Hikers Council.� - Friends of Brown County continued to maintain the "Friends Trail".� - Replaced joists and floor in several cabin bath rooms - Replaced flooring in the living areas of several cabins - Replaced dinning room tables and chairs and refrigerators in several cabins - Constructed new 40’ x 60’ service building to include two vehicle repair bays and a separate wash bay. - Removal of underground oil storage tanks - Constructed accessible fishing platform - Completely refurbished all boat rental docks - Refurbished existing equipment storage building and a storage shed. - Conducted successful white-tailed deer reductions - Glacier Ridge Shelter was constructed including water and electric. - At the historic nature center, a donated bell was installed in bell tower, new gutters and down spouts installed and a new accessible ramp was constructed. - A fishing pier was constructed for Lincoln State Park. - Canoe camp bridge retaining walls were repaired and steps from road to camp installed. - The foot bridge on trail 1 & 2 rebuilt. Work includes footers, retaining walls, new decks and rails. - Phase 2 of the modern campground opened to visitors. This area added two modern comfort stations, 60 full hookup (or AA) sites and 73 electric (or A) sites. - A new park office building went into full use in 2002. Our management staff has used a rental office outside the park grounds for seven years. This inside the property facility provides a much better service to our visitors and allows staff to be more efficient. In 2002 the park maintenance and service staff operated from a temporary building after relocating from a rental building on the INAAP military base. The INAAP area was tightly secured after September 11, 2001. The staff worked very hard to continue services from this temporary location. - Charlestown received the DNR 100 percent Safety Program Rating in 2002, for the fourth consecutive year. - Park revenue increased more than 38 percent for calendar 2002. This is due to increased visitation and fee increases. - Grass mowing was reduced in several areas. Better wildlife habitat and a 20 percent reduction in mowing is the result. - Charlestown staff assisted The Falls of the Ohio State Park in setting up and taking down the major 2002 dinosaur display project. Several hours of labor went into this museum exhibit. - The Indiana Volkssport Association held a Volksmarsch walking event at Charlestown June 1, 2002. - The park hosted the Second Annual Charlestown Founders Day Celebration 5K Running Race. The race is a cooperative event with the local community celebration held the last Friday and Saturday in June. Falls of the Ohio Securing recognition of the Falls of the Ohio as the "jumping off" point for the Lewis and Clark expedition. Falls is now listed as a signature site on the National Park Services’ Lewis and Clark Trail. As a result the Falls will be an integral participant in the 2003 national bicentennial of the expedition. A replica of the Clark cabin was constructed on the property on the original cabin site. The signature site designation and completion of the Clark cabin were the result of the work of our staff and local residents and donors, illustrating the increased emphasis State Parks and Reservoirs has placed on partnerships in the last year. - A four month major dinosaur exhibit increased our attendance 14,000 visitors. This exhibit usually costs $30,000/month. Dr. Jack Hankla loaned it to us at no charge. - Upgraded our major audio-visual exhibit. The $32,000 costs all funded by the DNR. - Addition of a Lewis & Clark audio-visual program "Spirit of the Land" which premiered July 2002. This $20,000 program was funded by private donors and is shown daily at our facility. - Purchase of 76-acre Hale/Schneider wetland area. This historic area originally was owned by George Rogers Clark and William Clark. This land was purchased with Heritage Trust funds. - An extensive flora inventory of new land purchase was completed by a volunteer. - Renovated wildlife viewing area. The $1000 costs paid by the Herb Society. - Partnered with Locust Grove and Filson Club hosting the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation Meeting in Louisville in July. - Added two new outdoor interpretive panels. The $3600 costs paid for by the DNR. - Archeological survey for chimney at Clark cabin. This survey costs $2300 and was paid for by private donors. - Installed alarm system for cabin. This system costs $600 paid by DNR. Installation was by two volunteers. - Interior of Clark cabin--furniture, books, portraits, maps, clothes, rifles, coverlets, etc. by private donors. Costs approximately $3000 - Pest control of Clark cabin $200/year by private donor. - Emergency roof repair at interpretive center. This $1200 costs paid by the DNR. - Special events-Earth Day– $1000 donated by Trash Force, display of alternative fuel vehicles. DNR supplied tents. ?Ohio River Sweep–60 volunteers participated in nation's largest single day cleanup along the Ohio River. Free Fishing Day casting contests, fly fishing demonstrations, fish art contest. DNR paid for prizes and equipment. Sun Circle Celebration - state atlas contests, Delaware Nation Buffalo Dance, flint knapping, Native American vendors Fossil Festival-Liter's Quarry children's activity area, fossil pile, tents, tables, chairs, plastic hard hats. Fossil vendors, guest speakers, and outer fossil bed hikes. Archeology Day-speakers on Caesar's Dig, artifact identification, Lewis & Clark River Festival–55-foot keelboat, L&C re-enactors, artisans, military demonstrations, native American storytelling and dancing. - Paleontological Institute–5 day comprehensive study by Alan Goldstein with fieldwork. - Volunteer groups adopted areas Daylily Society of Louisville, Master Gardeners, Terrace Garden Club, Herb Society, and Rauch Foundation. - Bronze plaque at Clark cabin by private donor costs $450. - Temporary exhibits - Antartica's Incredible Fossils, Microworld, Boats of Lewis & Clark, Indiana Junior Duckstamp Finalists, National Wildlife Refuge Centennial. - Conversion of two historic buildings into classrooms for interpretive studies. - Remediation of Shoen Creek area into wetland and outdoor classroom. - Construction of wooden trail structure on Fall Creek Trail. - Construction of parking lot near sledding hill for hill users and walkers. - Reconnecting Shafter Road to Walnut Plantation trail head and picnic area. - Removal of lead-base paint in Wood Road residences and Camp Glenn buildings. - Recapping of landfill from days when used by Army. - Remediation of drainage ditch along Glenn Road preventing washout of road. - Upgrade of sprinkler system at Garrison. - Continued use of Eagle Scouts to assist with honeysuckle eradication. - Completion of new assistant property manager residence. - Extension of saddle barn riding trail and hay ride trail. - Extensive repair and renovation in Harrison House. - Renovation of park office to include, enlarged training room and office for district biologist. - Installation of security cameras at Garrison. - New chiller installed at Garrison, upgrading cooling system. - Telephone lines near sledding hill buried. - Installation of grinder/lift station servicing assistant property manager's residence and golf - Refurbished the exteriors of the Wood Road rental houses and the Harrison House to include exterior painting, gutters, doors and landscaping. - Refurbished the interiors of the Wood Road rental houses to include interior plaster and ceiling repair, painting, plumbing fixtures, and other required maintenance and repair. - Constructed sledding hill with fill provided by the contractor working at 56th Street and I-465. - Deconstructed a 100 site trailer court to include the removal of concrete pads, sidewalks, aggregate and exotic species. Filled and contoured area with offsite fill. - Completed landscaping at the office and nature center. - Remodeled horse concession building to include the lobby and restroom - Constructed new employee parking lot - A new picnic area is under construction - We were able to have a contractor install a much needed new water slide at the swimming pool complex in the spring.� - Cabin # 11 was rebuilt after a chimney fire destroyed� part of the roof and interior ceiling. - About 100 trees were transplanted in the campground, cabins and picnic areas in January and February by park staff. - Three picnic areas and two and one half miles of road were closed to park visitors in order to reduce mowing and security patrol to help meet our reduced intermittent budget. The family cabins will also be closed from January 2003 to the middle of March 2003 to help meet our savings plan. - Several campsites were rehabbed with new stone from INDOT.� - A new roof was installed on the main service building last summer.� - The park hosted several successful events this past year. Harmonie �Hundred Bicycle Tour in May, Posey County Red Cross Triathlon in August, and� Haunted Harmonie in October.� - Some resource management was accomplished; in spring a major controlled burn in the front of the park was successful and, 185 deer were removed during the four days of our deer reduction. - New sewer lines throughout the property (except campground) - Installation of new water lines throughout the property (except campground) - Connection to Indiana American Water — abandoned existing domestic water plant. - Successful E. coli monitoring program and data collection on the Dunes Creek watershed. - Commissioned and received final report on E. coli monitoring program - New lift and pump station at pavilion - Pavilion — replaced roof, guttering and exterior underground drainage system. - Built a carpenter's shop and restroom in the Service Building - Combined Lincoln and Colonel Jones Home into one operation for efficiency. - A new radio tower to improve communications. - Installed a new boat dock at the family cabins. - Rehab of the siding and posts of historic lakeside shelter. - Repair existing play equipment. - Worked with the Division of Reclamation to fill and preserve mining structures near trail 2. - Make small improvements and maintain many existing facilities. - Reclaiming a ‘dead’ strip mine pit called Weber Lake at Lincoln in cooperation with the Division of Reclamation. - Major rehabilitation of the Canyon Inn infrastructure including a new HVAC system, electrical service upgrade, kitchen remodeling and upgrades, dining room remodeling, lounge remodeling, central wing window replacement, installation of sprinkler system, replacement and upgrade of elevator, Sycamore Meeting Room remodeling, complete replacement of the Canyon Inn roof.� - Rehabilitation of Beechgrove Shelterhouse (CCC Built, Historic Structure)� - Rehabilitation of the CCC Stone Arch Bridge.� - Upgrade of park sign system.� - Constructed new office/nature center - Constructed new block vault toilet in campground - Constructed new accessible campsites - Nearly completed a window and exterior siding project on the pavilion. - Replaced old wooden floor, roof, upgraded HVAC and remodeled kitchen at pavilion. - Upgraded pool chemical controller and painted swimming pool. Replaced diving board platforms and valve on the kiddy pool. - Paved entrance road and parking lot and installed sidewalks to pavilion. - Developing plan with Indiana, Notre Dame, Ball State and Indiana State Universities for the long range management and interpretation of the mounds. - Paved 12 campsite pads - Landscaping and plantings around new office/nature center. - Completion of multiple items on interior of office/nature center. - Completed a 50’ x 16’ deck w/ railings to new office/nature center. - Asphalt of 14 campsites, and addition of stone to many others. - Tree trimming and fence line clearing. - Razing of horse day use area. - Constructed deer exclosure for resource management study. - Replaced steel legs, pump system and flume of park pool water slide; added exhaust system to pool pump house. - Replace several sections of concrete pool deck and added a top coating to concrete side walks, pool concession area and eating area. - Constructed a pergola at pool concession area, and painted the interior of the pool bath house. - Remodeled modern restrooms — Trails End Shelter - Installed office cubicles and upgraded electrical in office/service building. - Conducted successful white-tailed deer reduction hunts (first time at this location) - Hosted annual Ft. Wayne Philharmonic Patriotic Pops concert attended by more than 2000 park visitors. - Hosted first "Rendezvous on the Ouabache" - encampment of early settlers and Native Americans demonstrating crafts, food and ceremonies in authentic dress. - Successfully operated park facilities and concessions with a 25 percent reduction in seasonal staffing. - Secured much needed upgrades to wastewater treatment plant infrastructure. - Re-roofed large shelter house and campground comfort station. - Significantly reduced mowing. - Install new trail around Youth Tent Campground. - New security fencing around Office/Service Area. - Continued to pursue sewage connection with the town of Vera Cruz. - New paved bicycle trail. This is an early phase of a planned county-wide bicycle system. - Renovation of park well system to include addition to water plant. - Construction of new comfort station and upgrade of Campground #4 to electric (Class-A). - Construction of new duplex cabin — Potawatomi Inn. - Renovation of existing paved bicycle trail. - Construction of new parking lot on west end of dam. - Refinishing of all cabin wood floors. - Refurbished old and constructed new nature center displays. - Construction of aggregate storage area. - Several resource management improvements to include wetlands and prairies. - Planned and celebrated 25 year anniversary of the property as a state park. - Conducted successful white-tailed deer reduction hunts. - Purchased and moved office/property operation - Modified and moved service area operation to existing service buildings. - Razed one large and three small green houses and converted two larger green houses for property use. Used green houses to raise more than 40,000 prairie species plugs. - Planted more than 40,000 prairie plant plugs. - Planted 250+ acres of prairies. - Removal of exotic species. - Supervised the removal and/or demolition of 30+ structures from newly acquired property. - Refurbished several pieces of hand me down equipment and vehicles procured in various ways/methods. - Developed floor plan for office remodel to include personnel from Nature Preserves, Fish and Wildlife, Forestry and Enforcement. - Constructed/installed above ground fuel storage system. - Constructed overpass to lift State Road 225 over the main park entrance road. - Interior park roads and parking lots east of S.R. 225 were constructed. - Completion of the duplex family cabin. - Construction of new boat rental building. - Relocation of seven family cabins to develop a rent-a-camp program. - Renovation of two lift stations. - Development of water drainage for the rent-a-camp area. - Completed the ADA fishing pier. - Reviewed final plans for renovation to the waste water treatment plant. - Installation of water valves for pool filter building. - Provided information and review of the centralized reservation system. - A very busy season for the swimming pool. - Rewired village concession stand; re-roofed village concession, distillery in village.� - Moved stone from Paoli to village and rebuilt retaining wall along creek.� - INDOT resurfaced three sections of road; Oak Ridge, from main park road to inn, and road to saddle barn.� - Sprayed 30 acres of land with herbicide to control vinca. Funded through grant from IPALCO.� - Three new lift stations installed.� - Sewer lines replaced; Waterline extension beginning.� - New roof on nature center.� - Moved 30x50 pole barn from Fort Harrison to Spring Mill for reconstruction.� - Re-fenced portion of saddle barn pasture and installed overhead door on barn. - Replaced split rail fence in the village.� - Rewired underground secondary on east side of pioneer village.� - Installed refurbished lights on poles in village.� - Surveyed remaining park boundaries in question.� - Installed new water softeners.� - Completed 25 special events in park for calender year.� - Installed drainage tile in pioneer village.� - Received $6,000 in seed money from Lawrence County Tourism to run Twin Caves.� - Initiated process to convert 300 acres of park to new nature preserve. - Reshaped and graded gravel service yard and installed new electrical to security lights. - Improved accessibility on loop trail near Beach House. - Constructed new fish cleaning station and parking lot. - Preparations/utilities in place for new Campground Control Station - Constructed new Youth Tent Area to include road, parking, utilities and sites. - Conducted prescribed burns on restoration areas and planted additional prairie areas. - Constructed access to lake on east side. - Paved boat launch parking lot - Installed sand at beach and poured new seawall - Summit Lake has increased the quality of the native prairie grass plots and reduced the exotics by intense resource management. - Provided a setting for youth groups to camp, away from the family campground. - Increase the quantity and quality of parking for the lake use guests. - Participated in numerous training opportunities (Street Smart 9-5,Security training, etc.,) - Increased the usability of the park by showing awareness of ADA issues. - Assisted R.E.M.C. with burial of 5 miles of electric lines servicing property. Two miles were previously overhead while two miles of underground 3-phase was replaced. - New campground electrical service and boxes (120 sites) - 18 cabins in Camp Potawatomi group camp received major exterior repairs. In keeping with historic preservation guidelines, original boards were replaced on a board by board basis. About 100 shutters were repaired or replaced. 24 buildings were repainted throughout the property. - Installation of new water line to Horsemen’s Campground. - Expansion of Youth Tent Area (2 sites) - Construction of several new vault toilets - expansion of Fire Tower Picnic Area. - Completed riverbank stabilization project at Tippecanoe River's river shelter/nature center area. - Major reorganization of the Service Area/Yard - Conducted successful white-tailed deer reduction hunts - Several miles of horse/hiking trails had wet areas filled and graded. - New 50 amp electrical service was installed at the Family Campground. - Large areas of invasive plant species were eradicated. - The restrooms at the park office were rehabilitated, including new flooring, walls, etc. - The main pillars at the entrance gatehouse were replaced. Combining Turkey Run and Shades management and administrative duties� - Began work purchasing drinking water.� - Work proceeding on rehab of waste water treatment facility� - Lusk Land Fill rehab work completed.� - Work on friends group for Shades + Turkey began� - Interpretive signs for coal mine and other areas ready for installation� - Inn pool roof rehabbed� - Rehab work to historical structures; roof on Lusk Home + Log Church, major rehab work on Log Church Shades State Park:� - Rehabbed trail structure on trail #7� - Replaced water main from large parking lot to modern restroom� - Resurfaced campground road and office parking lot� - Replaced both pumps and motors at swimming pool.� - Replaced 10 inch drain valve at swimming pool� - Rehab swimming pool lockers.� - Replaced swimming pool waterslide by contractor.� - Installed steam table at group camp kitchen.� - Landscape bare soil bank at group camp kitchen with green cover plants.� - Conducted safe deer reduction hunts in November and December� - Installed new shingle roof at nature center.� - Kept all restrooms clean with 25 percent reduction in staff.� - Mowed all high traffic areas with 25 percent reduction in staff.� - Hosted annual fireworks in July, and annual Bluegrass Festival weekend in October.� - Coordinated work with Ripley County Saddle Club to repair more than 40 wet areas on bridle trails.� - South maintenance crew assisted with bridle trail repairs. - Trenched electric line to property manager's garage. - Connected sewer to municipality - Upgraded water connection to municipality - Completed maintenance and construction work at Marina - Added new courtesy docks at most ramps, new concrete seawall and sidewalks at the Sailboat Marina and at Mounds - Completed significant work on horse and hiking trails throughout the property. - Completion of the Whitewater Spillway Project, including replacement of the spillway, addition of a stairway next to the spillway, replacement of the boat ramp on Whitewater Lake, addition of a courtesy dock, addition of an accessible ramp/sidewalk, rehabilitation of the boat house, addition of accessible parking spaces. - Re-configured Horsemen’s Campground and constructed several new campsites - Constructed new countertops and storage cabinets in the naturalist cabin - Completed significant work on horse and hiking trails throughout the property. - Made connections to municipal sewer and water systems. - Conducted successful white-tailed deer reduction hunts. - Addition of 5 miles of hiking trail, installed with volunteer help - Replacement of couches in 6 cabins and curtains in 3 cabins - Replacement of drinking water tanks at Hanna Creek and Quakertown Campground - Relocation of a pit toilet at Hanna Creek - Completed the replacement of 8 courtesy docks at 4 boat ramps - Addition of a courtesy dock extension and sea wall at Hanna Creek - Rehabilitation work completed to the interior of Whitewater Office - Connection completed to city water supply at Whitewater State Park - Connection in progress to connect to city sewer at Whitewater State Park - Replaced 400 feet of horse fence at Whitewater Horse Barn - Reroofed a shower house at Whitewater Campground - Painted the exterior of 2 shower houses at Whitewater Campground - Constructed 2 courtesy docks at Templeton Creek Ramp - Installed new ceiling tile and florescent lights at Whitewater Beach House - Installed 6 waterless urinals at Mounds Beach House; ten additional ones are planned. - Moved the Cataract Falls bridge off of its foundation to an area of land where major structural rehab work can be performed at a later date and then moved back over the river after work is complete. Cecil M. Harden/Raccoon and Mansfield Mill - Major rehab of 2 comfort stations at Raccoon Lake. - Paving of campground roads and 3 parking lots.� - Implemented the Adopt-A-Ramp program at 2 ramps� - Installed (successfully) self-registration stations at all 4 outlying ramps.� - Developed a reforestation and wildflower planting strategy for areas previously mowed. - Opened/Operated a General Store at the Mill - Refurbished the main lift station� - Bought 85 acres of additional land� - Installed a satellite dish at the office to help us to connect to the Internet� - Stocked grass carp to help to control the weeds in the lake� - Started a friends group at Hardy Lake� - Constructed accessible fishing access at North Boat Ramp - Constructed concrete seawall and accessible walk at North Boat Ramp - Gabled flat roof at well house — North Boat Ramp - Reduced mowing throughout and planted large patches of wildflowers - Constructed/installed three new Romtec vault toilet units. - Added accesses to shelter houses in Little Turtle. - Constructed new wetland sewage treatment plants - Replaced three sewage lift stations - Upgraded electrical service at the check station - Constructed several new wildlife ponds in the management units. - Added a screening fence near corps pond in Little Turtle. - Constructed wildlife ponds in management units - Renovated diving platform into an ADA accessible fishing pier at one of our many ponds.� - Placed new piers at boatramp for boaters to access their boats - Replaced roofs on modern restrooms at Kil-So-Quah SRA. - Constructed new wetland type treatment plant at Kil-So-Quah SRA replacing outdated treatment plant.� - Repaired sidewalks at beach.� - Made inventory with GPS mapping system of buildings, structures, trails etc.� - Increased number of individuals volunteering.� - Surveyed new boundaries of new property below dam and started wildlife management practices.� - Expanded food plot program in wildlife areas to increase wildlife populations.� - Harvested sunflowers and distributed free seed to other properties and local nursing homes.� - Renovated three ponds on the property in wildlife areas.� - Planted 90 acres of sunflowers for our mourning dove program.� - Hosted annual youth dove hunt with more than 30 participants.� - Hosted special hunts for dove hunting and pheasants hunting with more than 2000 participants.� - Increased the number of users in our wildlife areas.� - Survived no money no intermittent employees for a fall season.� - Maintained our recreation areas with a minimum number of employees.� - New comfort station new service building extention� re-paving all but one Boat Ramp and all of Fairfax - S.R.A Construction has began on the raising of the Boat Ramp at Paynetown S.R.A. - New force main sewer at Paynetown , to solve high water problems�. - $800,000 in road and parking lot maintenance (paving) was completed. - Constructed new campground gate house - Remodeled entrance gate - Remodeled specialist's and manager's residences - Constructed fish cleaning station - Installed all new fire rings on more than 400 campsites - Constructed wetlands sewage treatment plants at outlying ramps - Rehabbed several pit toilets - 1812 Battle reenactment (record turn out and Mississinewa receives $3,000). - Hosted another successful Autumn Camping Weekend. - Construction of three package plant wetland sewage treatment facilities to service outlying areas. - Implementation of a self-registration program at all boat ramps. - Completed two ADA projects with a new fishing platform and accessible office entrance. - Made improvements to campground resurfacing all campsites, adding 188 new fire pits, corrected drainage problems, trimming trees and pushing back brush lines in B site areas to make sites more usable. - Drained and reconditioned toured fishing lake to enhance habitat and fishing opportunities. - Sided and painted four property buildings. - Rehabilitated two courtesy docks. - Reworked drainage at beach. - Replaced roofs on two shelter houses - Repaired 2 fireplaces with concrete leveling to straighten chimneys on shelter houses - Concrete repair on office sidewalk - Replaced bad siding spots on office and beach house - Widened bike trail edges to original surface (6.2 miles) and patched 4 tons of asphalt cold patch on potholes - Removed six acres of mowing around three ramps and fitness trail by planting wildflowers, prairie grasses and trees. - Renovated two pond dams that were leaking - Assisted Fish & Wildlife with construction of osprey hacking tower for re-introduction - Constructed new wetland sewage treatment plants - Converted Lost Bridge East S.R.A. to day use accessible hunting area. - Completed construction of new nature center - Completed a great deal of repair work on horse trails at Salamonie River State Forest - Converted 800 acres to special small game management unit. - Expanded service yard to include a general reorganization of the entire area. - Met goals of reducing expenses (and public services) due to budget crisis, including closing the Lost Bridge East Primitive Campground, the Lost Bridge East and Mt. Hope S.R.A's, reducing mowing of recreation areas, reducing night security personnel and implementing self-service fee collection at the open boat ramps. - Got volunteers to handle maintenance projects to reopen the Lost Bridge East SRA. - Salamonie's new interpretive center was opened and dedicated - Horse trails (15 miles) at the Salamonie River State Forest were all remarked and improved. Poor trails were rerouted and illegal trails closed. Sensitive plant communities were protected. - The appearance and function of the service area was improved by expanding the storage area and erecting a new fence. - A small game management Area was established in Wildlife Units S-3 and 30 as a pilot project to intensively manage habitat and hunting efforts to help reestablish ground-nesting bird populations and benefit small game populations. - Four new constructed wetlands were constructed to replace 4 sewage treatment plants that no longer functioned properly. A new sewage absorption field was also constructed for the Salamonie State Forest service area as a part of the same contract. - Preliminary designs were begun for completely rehabilitating the Lost Bridge West sewage treatment system. - Concept plans were drawn for public comment for a new campground in the Lost Bridge West SRA. Farm Progress Show Indiana Conservation Partnership personnel participated in this 3-state on-farm show. Visually reaching approximately 25,000 people, the Partnership's watershed education component of the show resulted in more than 100 well water tests. Jim Moseley, U.S.D.A. deputy secretary, stated, "This is the best example of showing conservation tillage and erosion control I've ever seen." Pathway to Water Quality at the Indiana State Fair The Pathway to Water Quality, designed to demonstrate water quality conservation practices in seven different areas including urban, animal agriculture, woodland, highly erodible cropland, wetlands, soils, and youth education, reaches more than 22,000 visitors to the Indiana State Fair. Conservation Tillage Transect Data The Indiana Conservation Partnership statistically tracks conservation tillage and cropland use in Indiana. The 2002 survey revealed that 21 percent of corn and 56 percent of soybeans were planted in no-till fields in the 88 counties surveyed. This is a prime indicator of soil erosion control. Basic Training for Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisors Many new SWCD supervisors are unfamiliar with their duties, the responsibilities of districts according to State law, and the role of the members of the Indiana Conservation Partnership. In 2002, the DNR/Purdue Conservation Program Specialists and the NRCS Assistant State Conservationists conducted six statewide basic training workshops for new supervisors. Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor (SWCD) Summer Splash More than 200 SWCD and Indiana Conservation Partnership personnel attended the 2002 Supervisor Summer Splash. The 2-day workshop creates awareness in SWCD Supervisors upcoming soil and water conservation challenges and opportunities. Annual Conference of Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs) Based on the theme "Enhancing Quality of Life in the New Economy," the 2002 Annual Conference of SWCDs helped supervisors and staff better understand their roles in preserving Indiana's rural character. More than 600 people attended the 3-day event held at the Westin Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. Hoosier Riverwatch Training Workshops Hoosier Riverwatch coordinators teach adult educators and citizen volunteers about watersheds, point and nonpoint source water pollution, and pollution reduction methods by means of six to seven-hour training workshops held throughout Indiana. In addition, participants learn to assess habitat, chemical, and biological conditions in streams and rivers using standardized protocols. In 2001, Hoosier Riverwatch conducted 52 full-day workshops and trained 550 volunteer stream monitors. Project WET Workshops More than 500 people participated in 25 Project WET (Water Education for Teachers) workshops held throughout Indiana. Of these participants, 30 percent acknowledged that they impacted more than 46,000 students annually with water education activities. Participants were from more than 60 counties and several other states. Trained, skilled, volunteer facilitators conducted these workshops. In addition, an estimated 10,000 children and adults participated in "Make a Splash" with Project WET water education days at more than 40 sites. Stormwater and Sediment Control Program Addressing soil erosion/sedimentation concerns associated with non-agricultural lands, including residential, commercial, institutional, industrial, and public construction activities and special land uses, the Stormwater and Sediment Control Program provided technical assistance in the review and revision of 796 erosion and sediment control plans, conducted more than 2500 site evaluations, conducted 72 educational programs for private and governmental sectors, and coordinated with IDEM on implementation of 327 IAC 15-5 (Rule 5), a state regulation aimed at minimizing off-site damages from construction site erosion and sedimentation resulting in 137 permits referred to compliance and/or enforcement and follow-up. Lake and River Enhancement Program (LARE) $5 boat fees generate approximately $1.2 million annually that is distributed statewide as grants for evaluatory ecological studies of lakes and streams, engineering and construction of ecological remediation measures, and watershed-based soil and water conservation projects. As part of ongoing implementation of the Indiana Wetlands Conservation Plan, its outreach component was pursued through dissemination of wetlands newsletters, development and presentation of relevant materials at citizen workshops, and facilitation of a statewide wetlands conference. Agricultural Conservation Program Working to reduce erosion on agricultural land, along with associated nutrient transport, the division's six agricultural conservation specialists approved 239 of 250 conservation plans and provided technical assistance to 104 watershed projects and surveyed or assisted in the design of 383 projects. District Technical Support Providing assistance to more than 14,300 Indiana residents, the division's resource specialists provided statewide technical support and landowner assistance in the development and implementation of land conservation practices saving more than 317,000 tons of soil in 2002. Lake Michigan Coastal Program On Sept. 20, 2002, Indiana celebrated the approval of the Lake Michigan Coastal Program by the national Coastal Zone Management Program. Indiana is now the 34th state and territory participating in this highly successful program to improve management of our nation's coasts. The Lake Michigan Coastal Program will receive approximately $1 million annually for implementation. The program will primarily be implemented through the Coastal Grants Program, which will provide funding for local projects to protect, restore, and responsibly develop coastal resources in the Lake Michigan watershed. A new Dam Safety Act (IC 14-27-7.5) became law. The new law requires owners of high hazard dams to "have a professional engineer licensed under IC 25-31 make a technical inspection of the high hazard structure and prepare or revise the emergency action plan for the structure at least one (1) time every two (2) years". A multi-agency team responded to an emergency involving a high hazard dam at Fontanet, Vigo County. Staff from the divisions of Water, Law Enforcement, and Reclamation cooperated with the Attorney General's Office and Vigo County authorities to conduct a controlled breach and lower the lake level. Staff responded to an emergency at Brush Creek Dam. A contract was let to install a riser pipe to the existing lake drain. The new riser pipe would allow the reservoir water level to fall 10 feet below normal pool level. A second riser pipe will also be installed to allow water releases when the reservoir is below the opening for the upper riser. Staff helped local communities affected by two Federal Disaster Declarations, one for flooding and one for tornado damage, comply with their floodplain regulations. Staff cooperated with representatives from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACED) to draft the General Guidelines for the Hydrologic-Hydraulic Assessment of Floodplains in Indiana (online). These guidelines will help floodplain management professionals evaluate projects in accordance with the Flood Control Act and the National Flood Insurance Program. Staff initiated a program to generate Flood way / Flood Boundary Studies for areas of Indiana that lack floodplain analysis. These studies will help local floodplain officials, and Division staff, make easier and more accurate decisions regarding potential development in and around a floodplain. New studies were completed for the following areas: - West Fork White River in Spencer, Owen County - Plum Run in Clarksburg, Clark County - Sweet Creek / West Little Sugar Creek, Shelby County - Staff completed a comprehensive ground water report for the White and West Fork White River Basin. The report contains 118 pages and 35 plates / maps. There are 5,600 square miles in the WFWR Basin — 15 percent of Indiana's land area. - Staff created the Indiana Water Resource Update Web page, which provides monthly water resource status updates for the State (online). - A reorganization plan for the Ground Water, Basin Studies, and Water Rights Sections was developed internally, and approved by the Executive Office. Existing staff was reassigned to two new Sections (Resource Assessment and Water Rights / Use). The new structure should eliminate overlapping tasks identified in the prior organization. - An SEA 368 Inspection Form was created in cooperation with County Surveyors. The form will help local drainage boards / surveyors comply with the SEA 368 requirements, and reduce DNR's review time. Database Improvements, Additions - Staff designed the Geographical Research for Internal Data (GRID) GIS research tool, which has dramatically reduced the research time required for new permit applications. Staff can now conduct a digital search for local information using a map of Indiana, rather than searching through paper files. - The Division of Water was named as a semi-finalist for the Council of State Governments America's Best Innovations award. The honor recognizes the division's efforts in reorganization / restructuring, and development of the Unity Database.

Get FREE SHIPPING on every shipment of $79 or more. Click for details Cut from the heart of the tenderloin, using the finest grain-fed beef, Omaha Steaks Filet Mignon is aged to peak flavor and tenderness, vacuum wrapped and flash frozen to lock in freshness. 8 (5 oz.) Filet Mignons 464XEReg. $129.00 | Now Only $89.99 Read what our customers say GooddddJoseph C. - Roanoke, TX very tastyJudith B. - South Hamilton, MA delicious, tenderTom W. - Bayfield, CO Excellent taste and very tender. Shipped on time.James S. - Huntington, WV Without a doubt, the best steak that I have ever tasted.James V. - New Ipswich, NH tender, good sizeBeatrice L. - Cutler Bay, FL Had these on the barbie last evening. Heavenly!Marcia C. - Carlsbad, CA nice sizeDianne D. - The Villages, FL they were very nice and tenderSusan K. - Granada Hills, CA i have never been disappointed in your steaks. they are wonderfulEdith G. - Camino, CA The filet mignon is always great and one of my favorites.Janet M. - Mechanicsburg, PA Absolutely the best steaks we've had. Quality is excellent every time we've ordered them!Karen C. - Keithville, LA Absolutely mouth-watering! Wouldn't hesitate to order more.Elaine T. - Dublin, PA I LOVE THESE FILETS 5 + 5 STARSArt B. - Greenwood, IN wonderfulConnie N. - Masury, OH These were the most tender meat on the planet that just melted into deliciousness in your mouth. I would order them again and again and again. I love the proper portion sized packaging.Sharon M. - Woodbridge, VA The best filet we have had. Just the right size for us old folks.Juliana D. - Sheridan, OR The filet Mingnons were tender and very tasty we totally enjoyed them and will have them again.John S. - Philadelphia, PA I always enjoy the Filet Mignons!Gay G. - Harvey, LA Perfect size and thickness. Juicy and delicious.Andrea M. - Houston, TX Excellent quality meat! We bought these for Christmas dinner, as it is a family tradition to have steak. We have had various quality meat from different places. Your steaks are always good. And they always arrive quickly and in good condition.Gloria D. - Maplewood, MN Extremely tenderKenneth M. - Potomac, MD They were tremendous.Ina S. - Vicksburg, MI Filets are very tender and great on the grill. These are some of the best steaks we've had.John S. - South Attleboro, MA |BONUS SAVINGS! Customers that bought this item also bought...| |Customers who enjoy Filet Mignons also enjoy...| Big & Bold Big & Bold Big & Bold Questions about wine? Call 1-866-989-4637 to speak to our wine specialist. - All wine prices include shipping and handling. - Your wine and gourmet food packages will ship separately. Your wine will arrive in approximately 7 days or less from the day you place your order, unless you have requested a delayed arrival date. - Wine products cannot be shipped to the following states: AK, HI, GA, IN, IA, KY, ME, OK, UT. Also, Local laws prevent us from shipping to certain zip code in the following states: FL, ID and NH. Information regarding states and zip codes that are not currently serviced will appear at the time that orders are placed. Offer void where prohibited by law. - You must be 21 years of age or older to order, purchase or receive the delivery of wine. - Wine is sold and delivered by our supplier, Wine.com, Omaha Steaks is the marketing agent.

Hi Timco that one is mine and shows Liverpool Docks about 1800 based on plans. Also you can go about 7 miles upriver to the Ellesmere Port Dock Complex. Again all about 200 years old but much of it remains today. Downloads top of page. Usermade on left Lancashire to North Wales Location: Great Britain Part of the sateliite series of the West Coast of UK. 14 sceneries in all set set in about 1800 as regards the static sailing ships etc in it. Download from the Stentec page detailed above. Install with scenery manager. The sceneries follow on from each other and cover 100s of miles. See my site page.

Almost in every Russian village there is a story about a drowned tractor. Many tractors were being drowned during the Soviet period. During Soviet period of Russia all the vehicles belonged to a governmental structures and all the people worked in those structures, there were no any private farmer. So the governmental property was not treated with care. Often drunk tractor drivers were fond of visiting lakes and rivers accompanied with Russian girls for some swimming and just for tractor riding fun (during Soviet period there were almost no passenger cars in private ownership in Russian countryside). Often such trips were finished with a drowned tractor. Just like on the pictures below: What else can be done – just some silent observation of the fact. It’s interesting, the buckle of this machine is moving, is it a result of some short circuit convulsion? I bet those guys are passers by from some major Russian city. People in Russian cities are also amused on facts happening in the countryside. The sign that the guy in a light coat is showing means “bottle of vodka”. At the end of Soviet era (80s) there was an alcohol prohibition across the Soviet Union, and different taxi drivers, truck drivers or just people driving across Russian roads carried some extra bottle of vodka as a source of income, if he saw somebody on the roadside showing such a sign that meant that he is not a hitchhiker but he is expressing an interest in buying a bottle or two. The old guy seems to be unhappy. Unhappy with the tractor in the water and unhappy with an extra attention being paid from the side of the photographer. Here is how the vehicle would be rescued. Another tractor is going to pull it out from the water. But why there is one more tractor? Mission is completed, and that’s nice. Nowadays it seems to be also a common fun on riding a tractor in some changed state of mind. How else such things can be explained? By the way in North-West regions of Russia each fall there are a lot of psychedelic mushrooms can be found across the fields and forests. They contain an active drug psilocybin, it has the same nature as mescaline of Mexican magic mushrooms or LSD, the strongest hallucinogenic drug. I am not sure that tractor drivers are fond of using this kind of fun, though some people in Russia are sure that ability to get a rich crop of such mushrooms freely without any expense except a fast trip into nearby forest is the gift from some Higher beings. Who knows.

OCCA turns on lights for Christmas season, announces schedule of activities for Santa The Old Colorado City Associates (OCCA) commercial group has announced its plans for Christmas. These include the traditional Santa Claus in the Bancroft Park cabin starting Friday, Nov. 27, as well as Breakfast with Santa Saturday, Dec. 5 from 8 to 11 a.m. at Thunder & Buttons. The OCCA also has started turning on its strands of multicolored lights in the large spruce tree beside Old Town Plaza and on garlands wrapped around poles between 24th and 27th streets along Colorado Avenue. An “official Old Colorado City Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony” is scheduled Tuesday, Nov. 24 at 4 p.m., in the parking lot of the Old Town Plaza at 25th Street and West Colorado Avenue. However, approval for this activity is still needed from the Old Town Plaza board (see adjoining story). OCCA gives the title, “It's Christmas in Old Colorado City” to its promotions for the holiday season. An added Santa perk this year will be the offer of a free 5-by-7 photo for each child who visits him, according to OCCA President Charles Irwin. An Old Colorado City photography business will process each photo over a one-hour span, thus giving visitors a chance to visit the shops while they wait, he said. Santa's dates in the cabin will be Nov. 27-29 and Dec. 5-6, 12-13, and 19-24. The times will be noon to 5 each day except Christmas Eve, when he will get off at 4 p.m. Irwin thanked Colorado Springs Utilities volunteers for recently putting up the OCCA's garland lights. The lights on the spruce tree had been left up since last year. To be on the safe side, Irwin said that board members recently checked for problems in the tree and found no electrical issues (despite the year-long exposure) except for a plug that had to be replaced because of “squirrel damage.” Irwin had previously announced that the OCCA would have less money to spend on Christmas this year because of tight finances. However, he said the group experienced significant saving in bringing in a new Santa. In related Old Town activities... The Unforget-table Images photography business, 2501 W Colorado Ave #109, will provide free services through Dec. 10 for “all military families with deployed family members,” a press release states. Also, the Colorado City Creamery, 2602 W. Colorado Ave., will be a Westside turkey drop for Care and Share. “Bring a turkey to the Colorado City Creamery during the week of Nov. 16 and receive a single ice cream cone for free,” a press release states. Westside Pioneer article

Copyright ©2010. The Associated Press. Produced by NewsOK.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Author opens door to his family's Oklahoma past At the heart of Michael S. Malone's new nonfiction book is a tiny chamber clawed out of the earth more than 100 years ago, a cave that still exists in the riverbed near his great-grandfather's Oklahoma homestead. That cave captivated Malone on his only visit to the farm as a child. The property already had passed out of his family's hands, and while the old house and towering barn held little interest for him, the cave was so outside his range of experiences that it shocked him, seared into him, held him fast. “It impressed me not because of the extraordinary emotional resonance it carried for everyone else in the Hasbrook family — I knew little about that, other than the extraordinary fact that my grandmother had been a baby there — but for the sheer oddness of the place,” Malone wrote. “It was just a door, flanked by stacked river rocks, in the creek bank. I not only had never seen anything like it, I didn't even know such places existed. It was like something out of a musty old fairy tale — and when my father managed to yank the creaky door open, exposing the arched vault and boxes of root vegetables inside, it was as if I was looking into the center of the earth.” In truth, he was looking into his family's past. “Charlie's Place: The Saga of an American Frontier Homestead” gallops across America and through four or five generations, ranging from Oregon to Virginia to California. But its heart is that cave, dug by Malone's great-grandfather, Charlie Hasbrook, in the ground near Enid. Malone's book is part adventure story, part true crime and part memoir — all told with Malone's usual skill. A lauded journalist, Malone has authored about 15 books. He was the first tech reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, putting him in an ideal position to cover Silicon Valley and the rise and inevitable bursting of the dot.com bubble. His work has appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He helped found “Fast Company” and “Wired” magazines and headed up the now defunct digital economy magazine, “Forbes ASAP.” “Charlie's Place” tells about Hasbrook's journey to the territories and his participation in the Land Run. Hasbrook held onto his claim with tenacity, digging the cave out of the creek bed, lining it with muslin and eking out an existence with his family in conditions few of us could imagine today.

It’s spring, and downtown is buzzing with work crews. You have to admit - things ARE getting better. Throughout downtown, crews are busy continuing to overhaul the landscaping. There are new trees, grasses, and shrubbery – and they’re in well-designed, attractive arrangements. Sim’s Bowl has sprouted a “For Sale” sign, now that the city appears to be backing off its purchase. The familiar “Acorn” streetlights that have been downtown for about 15 years now have almost all vanished, in anticipation of the new streetlights. I am hopeful that this means the new streetlights are better-designed.; it would be disappointing if the older ones were refurbished. Metra Dry Cleaners has moved from the building next to Sim’s into the C.W.M. Brown building at the northwest corner of Miner and Pearson. An air conditioning unit has been installed in the train station, for commuter comfort. The Brasserie restaurant in the station unfortunately still has handmade paper signs. The Masonic Temple building has received fresh white paint on its piers, instead of the differing, peeling colors that were there before, with a gray coat over the concrete base. The dry cleaners storefront has also been repainted gray from blue. It’s too bad they didn’t match the brick and concrete’s natural colors, but it’s a big improvement nonetheless. There is also a fresh coat of paint on the city-owned 1486 Miner building. Most of the downtown traffic signals have been replaced with LED lights (I hope they have accounted for a way to keep them from getting snowed over – the old lights produced heat.) As part of this process, many of the crosswalk signals now have countdown timers, and the poles have been stripped down to bare metal instead of faded, peeling, and rusting yellow paint. Alderman Matt Bogusz is pursuing an initiative to help small businesses get a start in the city. It is a great sign that we have several Aldermen and a mayor taking an active interest in our beautiful downtown. Not only Alderman Patti Haugeberg, 1st ward alderman, but also Bogusz and Mark Walsten. We are fortunate to have a leadership that cares about making things better. These little improvements add up; taking a walk through downtown is starting to feel significantly better. With the right plan, this direction can yield great results. The Des Plaines Journal today features a photo of the old Prince Castle ice cream stand that was once at the northeast corner of Lee and Prairie, where the 701 Lee (First National) office building now stands.

That pickup is most likely a 1969 or 1970. The 1971 and 1972 models had a higher nose on the hood above the grille. My first brand new car was a 1972 Chevy Suburban C20 with the 402 cubic inch big block. This was a 396 type big block with a few more cubic inches. The GVW was about 7200 # or so and the light weight was about 4250 #. It came with a 16 gallon fuel tank. I had an aftermarket shop build a 50 gallon fuel tank for me in the 1973 oil embargo. There were only 2136 C20 Suburbans made with the swing doors like mine in 1972. Versus 95,000 C20 long bed pickups. People today don't remotely have the ingenuity of the past truck camper manufacturers. A 3/4 ton or one ton SRW pickup would carry the very heavy TC's of the past for thousands of mile trips every year on the old style tires of the era and very seldom did you hear of any blowouts or truck frame failures. TC's were very popular in the 1970s and 1980s and most were carried on 1/2 tons or 3/4 tons. Dually pickups were few and far between then and they were basically spartan work styled trucks. We bought our first TC in 1965 (a Georgie Boy decked out and with a bathroom made in Red Bay Alabama for $1270 out the door new) and carried it on a 1966 Chevy 3/4 ton with a 292 six cylinder pickup with a 5 speed floor shift and it had a creeper gear that worked great for pulling our 28' Owens wood plank very heavy cabin cruiser out of the water at the ramp in the fall and putting it back in in the spring each year. Stored the boat on our other side driveway and decorated it for Christmas and had a big translucent Santa on top of the flying bridge with a 100 watt light bulb inside. Made the front page of the newspaper! Drove the '66 truck for camping etc use till it had over 140,000 miles on it all over the USA and Canada and never had any tire failures, frame issues, or drivetrain problems. Most miles were pulling a 17' or 19' fiberglass outboard boat or our motorized 250 CC dirt bikes etc on a trailer behind the TC/truck combo for many years. Finally bought a new fancy 3/4 ton V-8 truck with an auto tranny and 4 wheel drive and have never looked back. Kept our two larger boats in a marina and stored them there as they were too big/heavy to pull out in a ramp and over 12' wide so a hoist was required. Then on to our first diesel. These were our personal trucks not the ones we had for our business. A superb CC LB 4X4, GM HD Diesel, airbags, Rancho's, lots more Lance Legend TC 11' 4", loaded including 3400 PP generator and my deluxe 2' X 7' rear porch 29 ft Carriage Carri-lite 5'er - a specially built gem A like new '07 Sunline Solaris 26' TT

|Size||# of Diapers||Baby Weight||Unit Price||Price| |1||276||8 - 14 lbs (4 - 6 kg)||$0.17||$45.99| |2||246||12 - 18 lbs (5 - 8 kg)||$0.19||$45.99| |3||222||16 - 28 lbs (7 - 13 kg)||$0.21||$45.99| |4||192||22-37 lbs (10-17 kg)||$0.24||$45.99| |5||172||27+ lbs (12+ kg)||$0.27||$45.99| |6||140||35+ lbs (16+ kg)||$0.33||$45.99| Baby-Dry diapers with Caterpillar-Flex expand and contract as your child breathes, digests, and moves throughout the night to help sleep go undisturbed. We're sorry! This item does not qualify for free samples during Sample Month. My sons have always done well with pampers. Very few leaks and overnight is dry. Love the fast and free delivery. My kids are comfortable with pampers and they are pampers baby..Its so nice to order online which saves me lots of time. We're a Pampers family, love the product, pampers are comfy and the top of the line for absorbency. 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The service from Well.ca is exceptional: goods delivered on time and great customer service. great quality but when you mentioned it is free shipping usually it is not free shipping to our area in northern quebec. I tried other brands recently because they were a little cheaper, however, my baby ended up getting a diaper rash that I could not get rid of and they leaked through.....So I ordered Pampers again because I was tired of the cheap brands, after one day of using Pampers, the diaper rash cleared up and I haven't had the problem since. It will only be Pampers from now on for me and my baby:) My go to brand at my favorite online diaper seller! Thanks Well.ca you rock! Great buy at 0.19 per unit. Pampers diapers are nice and soft on my baby girl. Love pampers diapers. They are the only one's I use. Great service from well.ca. They deliver to my front door so quickly. Thanks! Pampers Baby dry is the only use on my little one. keeps my daughter dry even during the night. My son/daughter in law sure enjoyed being stocked up with the diapers from Well.ca, Pampers Diapers and other items. It is great when they are all on sale and delivery made at no cost...Looking forward to doing more business with your company and thanks for your help along the way..... Great diaper. BUT size 2 baby dry is the same size as size 1 swaddlers. I bought a huge case only to find out they are too small. I tried Huggies but it's much more harder this Product is soft and I like it This product works so well with my 6 months old son. He doesn't get diaper rash even if I don't put any cream every time I change him. It arrived at expected date. Thanks! Oh I just love this pampers baby dry..it really works... :) I never tempt to try any other brands...Pampers is the best for my baby :) I refuse to buy another brand for my son because I have tried many and they have all leaked! Excellent diaper, plus the Gifts to Grow program from Pampers for added incentive gifts. This is the biggest package of diapers I know of and is not usually available in retail stores in my area. My kids love the Sesame Street characters and it actually streamlines diaper change time! Pampers Baby Dry diapers are awesome!! I love this product for my baby, no leakage and keeps the wetness away from her bottom. Great product, Great Price and awesome delivery time. I couldnt believe how fast it came! right to my door! that was just what a busy mom needs! Love this product! These diapers absorb for 12+ hours, and with this size of pack, I don't feel like I'm always running out of diapers. We find the sizing a little off though . . . our baby has been able to stay in a smaller sizes for a few pounds beyond the size range, and I feel like this is when the diapers fit him the best. Love these dipes. They rarely leak and they fit my chubby boy really well. I love Pampers Baby Dry! Best diaper for my son, He doesn't leak through these as he did in the Huggies Snug & Dry. Great price and well.ca has quick and efficient delivery. I love that they can be left at the door!! Definitely be buying from well.ca for my boxes of diapers. THANKS SO MUCH well.ca the only problem I find is that even though they are supposed to be "baby dry" they don't keep baby dry for very long. they don;t live up to the name. love the baby dry diapers, i find they work great during the day. my daughter wears them with no problem of accidents. :) I love this product i will always use pampers and i have all my friends with babies using them to .. my son sleeps 12 hours straight every night and he is 6 months and the baby dry diapers last all night with no leaks... and we love that we can get coupons for them from P&G brandsavers.com Awesome! Love pampers baby dry. And well.ca has the fastest shipping around. This product is great because it hold in the leaks, LAST for 12 hours and comes at a great price with the large box and the Baby Club option from Well.ca! Great diapers! I love the blue strip-especially helpful for nana and papa! Wonderful to have them arrive so quickly after ordering too! The most economical package of diapers. Baby dry last my baby the whole night. Love the baby dry. My son can go all night without being changed -which is great for both of us!! Having diapers delivered to your doorstep is amazing, especially when you're on maternity leave! I purchased a few huge boxes of Pampers from your company for my daughter in law, her baby born Oct. 5, and she just loves them. She used Pampers for her first child, 8 yrs ago. I will be watching for specials coming on diapers to send to them. Thank you for the free delivery and excellent products. She also likes the Born Free bottles I got on sale from you... Diapers delivered to my doorstep?! these are the things mothers dream of! This is my third baby to diaper and I have always found pampers to be superior over the competition! My sweet baby girl has no leaks through her 12HR nights sleep and we all wake up happy! THANKS PAMPERS AND WELL.CA!! I love that these can keep babies skin dry for up to 12 hours. My 8 week old is already sleeping 10 hours, so it's nice to know that I don't need to worry about her delicate skin through the night. Pampers are my fav. diaper!! They not only smell nice but they work best for my babies :) love these diapers and won't use any other..they are leak proof and my baby boy is a huge eater and they have never let me down. it is really good price when they offer you with the special discount. Also, well.ca offer free shipping all the time even this big item, I really love this, and I think you will for sure if you ever tried to carry these big item in your small car. I love how easy it is to order diapers from Well.ca! When you have a little one and you're carting big boxes of diapers through a store, it gets difficult. Then you have to take them out of the car, etc. Having them come straight to my door with free shipping is a bonus! love getting great deals on bulk products. Pampers are great diapers. with my twins we have to buy large or were always running out! These are the only diapers that I find are leak-proof and comfortable. Most brands feel like paper, but Pampers are amazingly soft and flexible! Great price , big box, and delivered right to your door. What more is there for a busy mom who doesn't drive. Thanks Well.ca!! I love these Pampers BabyDry diapers. No leaks, no diaper rash and the economy size is just right. Well.ca is very fast, efficient and has great prices. The gift card during the diaper extraganza was a nice bonus as well! With twin babies, the larger box of diapers comes in handy - best way to buy in bulk! I found that Huggies brand diapers leaks and Pampers diapers rarely leak. Well.ca shipped very quickly. Great service! Prefer Pampers over other brands that I have tried for my 2-month old girl, they fit well and doesn't leak as easily. Great product selection, fast delivery to your door, no hassel. A great service for busy Mom's to have a great assortment of baby product to choose from. The FREEGIFT is just an added bonus. I will shop here again! Great deals on well.ca, we are a pampers only family too, so to find them at such a price, boo-yah! Can not do better than WELL. Great price, fast deelivery and free ..... no need to drive to get your Pampers. My son grew on Pampers and now my little princess The prices compare to the generic brands (which leak way too often) at our local stores, and delivery was hassle free. I really like that there's no shipping charge so I don't feel pressured into purchasing more at once just to save on shipping. Pampers have always been the best choice for us! And you can't beat this price! This deal might not have been as cheap as say, Walmart. But it certainly was a good deal when I bought it under a wag jag promo with a $20 off. Preferred diaper brand. I have found with both my kids that the diaper rashes have been minimally because of the absorbancy. No difference with girl or boy babies, pampers does well with either sex. I have learned my lesson from trying other brands and don't buy any other than Pampers! The best diaper for babies 6mos+. Would love it more if the price is cheaper. Love this product! Great price, easy shipping method and with the Baby Club, you get an even better deal! Better than all the other brand... I try them all and Pampers are the only ones that keeps my baby dry all night long! Love this product, definitely a "Pampers" only family....fits best on baby with minimal leaks. Price on Well.ca is competitive with local stores and most often better. Free shipping to my doorstep is incredibly convenient and very quick. This Momma is happy not having to lug around large boxes of diapers from a store to home anymore. Incredible deal! I've been telling all go my friends to join this website if only for this deal (of course I boast about the hundreds of other deals here too!). Great fit, perfect price and I love the fact that the diapers are broken down into the pr diaper price...you know exactly what you're spending! The shipping is free and it comes straight to my house...with twins here, I really couldn't ask for more! Best diapers fit my baby. no leaks. I am also happy with the price and delivery option offered by well.ca Love Pampers....Loved purchasing from this site too...got the diapers delivered 2 days later right to the door, no need to get out and go shopping! Great fit for my son, we have had some leaky diapers but that's expected... Great diapers - only ones that work for my daughter and last through the night. I really like these diapers and rarely have leaks. When well.ca has a sale on these diapers, it is the best price I've found. I really love getting them delivered directly to my door from well.ca!! Always loved Pampers. However sometimes they do leak... not as bad as previous Huggies I used though. They would never hold enough! Love this super box for storing things once no longer filled with diapers and the quick home delivery free of charge from Well.ca is a HUGE bonus! I never run into a store to fight over the last box of diapers anymore! These were the only diapers that baby didn't leak out of. Tried huggies, Kirkland and pampers swaddlers and none of them worked. Also love getting diapers delivered to the door. awesome diapers and awesome service! diapers always show up in a few short days! Love Well.ca and have been recommending it to all my friends for the best value for diapers in town! Definitely our favourite brand of diaper - easy to use, snug fit helps prevent leaks, and very absorbent for nighttime. Well.ca has great prices and the free shipping is so convenient! Consistently the best value for money. I can't find pampers anywhere else at this price point (and they deliver for free). I'll never buy diapers from anywhere else. Love buying diapers through well.ca, price is great, shipping is free and it saves so much hassle! I absolutely LOVE Pampers diapers. They are by far my favorite brand. Shopping on Well.ca was so convenient and easy. The diapers were delivered right to my door in a few days. It saves me from having to bundle the baby and go out and buy them. Great product and value! Lowest price I have ever found! Delivered right to your door within days, would never buy diapers anywhere else! Great product and value! Lowest price I have ever found! Delivered right to your door within days, would never buy diapers anywhere else! Great deal and I use them for diaper cakes for all my friends and family having babies. Awesome deal! as grandparents, its nice to give a good product to our grand-babies that is useful, very effective and at a great price! Great product and the BEST price anywhere. I have a toddler and twins newborn boys and I am always on the hunt for a good deal - this is it! Pampers are the only brand we use and we use a lot of diapers. Fast shipping (3 business days to GTA). Perfect gift for a baby shower - so useful for a new member of the family! These diapers hold VERY well, no problems! :-). Great price for the huge box and awesome delivery! Only small item, is that the colour of the mid-point hash marks on the diaper to position your baby, are the same colour as my breastfed babies poo! lol. So when I check, it looks like some has spilled out, but it really hasn't. We use washable diapers at home, but Pampers overnight and on the road. This large box has lasted us all summer. We've never had any leak issues with this size. I love these diapers and that the sizes overlap. Makes it easy to move to the next size. Also, ordering them in the super-large box is fantastic. I love pampers diapers, and I love this bigger box even more because with 2 kids using the same diaper size, a smaller box gets empty too fast! bought when it was special. Good and you can save money and time when it is special. Recommend it it is very good price for me, I love it very much, hope more this promotion these diapers are really good, they fit good, dont leak and keep baby dry all night. also really happy with the web site delivery is fast and very convienient. These are our favorite diapers. We've found they fit our skinny kids better than anything else out there. i love pampers..I used them with my son and with another one on the way.I knew I would use pampers again:)...this was my first purchase on well.ca and will for sure be shopping here often...great prices and super fast delivery...thanks again!!!! Doesn't absorb all the way with boys, but I have yet to find a diaper that does Pampers have always been the preferred brand for our little family. They have consistently proven a reliable barricade to most calls of nature from "light wind with some precipitation' to 'severe storm damage and flooding with debris'. Love pampers over any other brand on the market. Great customer service and a willingness to fix a problem with no questions or hassle. Love this product! Great size, and keeps baby dry, esp so at night! Also love that I can get it shipped without having to go to the store. Pampers Baby Dry diapers aren't lying when they say 12 hour protection...really great product! Baby Dry Diapers are good value. They are not easily available in the biggest size at other places. They are soft for kids and above all, don't leak :) I find these diapers great for those over night sleeps. They hold up real well. no leaks. This is my 5th or 6th box of pampers i have bought ... great diapers and great prices .. Great diapers, size of box, value and free delivery! What more can you ask for? My son (2 mts) just started size 3, but it has a yellow sun on the back that is the same colour as my sons poop, so every time I see this out of the corner of my eye I think "oh no he leaked!" but it's just the yellow sun. =P How can you go wrong with this? Pampers is all I use, and to get a big box at such a great price is fantastic!!! Great quality, great price! Great diapers. We've tried the others, but have found that for our kids the Pampers just seem to work best. They surpress the odour of urine better than some of the others and they also are less likely to leak. Will always use Pampers! They're great! Well.ca has them for a great price and the free delivery is even better. I order all my diapers from Well.ca because having a family of 5 means no room in the shopping cart for big boxes of diapers. The home delivery is super convenient. These don't give my dd diaper rash like some others. They rarely leak (a few times at night but not often). We don't buy anything else. Pampers work well for my little guy. No leaks. I love well.ca service, easy to deal with. I love the Baby Dry diapers. I tried Cruisers, but these fit just as well, no leaks, and much better price than Cruisers. These are the best diapers, I just love these as they are soft, don't leak, and are a great value. The service is great, quick shipping and saves me time, no need to go and pick these up at the store. great diapers! never have any leaking problems with them and fast delivery is great for busy moms! I alway's use these and i think they're very good, i've never really had a problem with them and they are always on offer in boots so you definitley getting value for money Are you kidding me? I dare anyone to beat the price. And free delivery is a Godsend for Mom's on-the-go. Love, love, love. I absolutely loved the size I could purchase on well.ca, can't get that size any where else. Also I find the customer service and shipping to be excellent. Will definitely keep using well.ca in future. Pampers are our preferred diaper. Love the little line that tells us the level of wetness! As usual, well.ca provided prompt shipping. I'll recommend this service/ company to all my friends! This is the only diaper that can get my boy through the night without waking up to a wet bed :) Awesome!! I love the big box with how many you get. But when I switched from a size 1 to a 2, I notice that they tend to leak more out the backside. Still love 'em though! swaddlers much softer. my baby is a 2 in swaddlers, 3 in baby dry. bought them for overnite - don't find they are any better - i prefer swaddlers Swaddlers are softer on the inside, but baby dry seems less bulky. Size 3 fit my son longer than other size 3 brands. I was a 1st time buyer on well.ca, I loved that is was such a large package and came with a bonus g/c. The product was great and the shipping was super quick, I will be a repeat buyer. A++ :) We've tried different brands and lines of diapers in the last 28 months and have to agree that Pampers Baby Dry is the best. it's soft and baby feels comfy. It would be a 5* if it's not that pricey! Love them! We tried other brands but my baby boy leaked out of every other kind! They unfold very nicely when you put them on as well which becomes very important when your baby starts to move! Love Pampers, love getting themdelivered right to the door; boxes thisbig don't fit in te cart along with 3 kiddos! These diapers work just fine but beware of the sizing! I was a Pampers Swaddlers user, and bought the same size in Baby Dry, for night time etc because the price is better. The Baby Dry size is much smaller. You might want to size up if you are doing the same. I got this pack on sale and with free shipping, best price for the diapers that I got in a long while pampers are good, but i like huggies better. pampers get full much faster and feel wet on the outside. After trying numerous other diapers we have found these to be the very best for overnights. We have a very active 3 month old and nothing has ever leaked out despite being very full! On our second box now and she still loves them! LOVE Papmer's Baby Dry, a much better diaper compaired to Swaddlers. I use them all day long. Love love love pampers brand ! Well.ca allows me to get what I need for my baby in the fastest and most efficient way. Great product. Highly recommended :) Have used this brand since day one and baby stays dry. Soft, absorbs great and are good through the night. Love ordering and they arrive at my house in days and a great value frome well.ca This is the second time i have purchased diapers through well.ca and more than the fact that the price is awesome, i love the quick and efficient service provided by them! I will definitely purchase more items through them just for the convenience of it all :-) I quite liked this large box of Pamper's Diapers for my first child. Purchased size one initially, now opted for size two as per my baby's growing needs. In both of the scenarios the free delivery and the prompt service from 'well.ca' has won my heart. Also I like to make a mention of the eco - friendly packing is a fantastic idea to care about our surrounding. Good job ! Shall continue to shop more from Well.ca. I LOVE papmers baby dry, it seems to be the only diaper that can keep my son's bum dry without leaking all over the place. Buying the big box helps me make sure I don't run out of diapers too quickly for a great price! Everything about this went smooth. Love the free delivery, love the gigantic box (bought sz 4 pampers) and this is definitely the best diaper deal I've ever seen. I don't get too lucky to get a great deal shopping in stores, but, this is hands down a great price and a nice mega pack! Will definitely be buying my next box from well.ca, great experience! I love Pampers. I love them even more when they are delivered to my door. Thanks well.ca!! I love Pampers Baby Dry. Good absorption. Soft. Great price when it's on sale and speedy delivery from Well! Thank you. Good diaper... It keeps everything in! When baby is having explosive no 2 just go up a size until the no 2 settles. Same great diapers I always buy but in a MUCH more convenient size and at a MUCH lower price! These can hold a lot! Worked the best for both my daughter and son without costing a fortune. Store brand ones leaked and some are not very soft. The more expensive ones are not worth the extra cost. Pampers Baby Dry is just right. Also, best price per diaper with this large box, especially when on sale. This is a great product at the affordable prices! Good job well.ca. ........ I looooove pampers, i wore them as a baby and my daughter now wears them. I also live the gifts to grow points! I will continue to purchase pampers for my lil one till shes potty trained : ) Great product and such a reasonable price. I love the conveniece of having it shipped to your home for free. Love the amount for such a great price! And bonus it is shipped right to my door so fast!! I love this product--it's the only brand I use. And Well.ca is so convenient. I ordered my diapers on a Monday and they arrived on my doorstep the NEXT day! Awesome! I'm somewhat disappointed with this brand of pampers. My son is 5 weeks old and we have used only pampers swaddlers until I recently ordered pampers baby dry (largest box, which is fantastic that they offer now) I thought I would try the baby dry after reading such great reviews. The first thing I noticed is that the sizes are different when comparing the size 1 swaddlers and baby dry diapers. The baby dry diapers are noticabley smaller and can barely fit my son. I'm not sure if this would be the reason why the baby dry diapers always leak when my son has a bowel movement. It's very frustrating and I've had to spend a lot of time washing my son’s clothes. I now have over 200 baby dry diapers and had to purchase swaddlers again. I use the baby dry diapers at home and when going out I use the swaddlers. On a side note... I'm very impressed with Well.ca and the speedy free delivery! These diapers are the best- loved the attentiveness of Well.ca and speedy (and free) shipping- thanks! Great value! fast and convienient shipping! Pampers is the way to go for babies who are on the go or known for blowouts! Pampers is the only brand I will buy These are the only diapers that keep my twins dry all day and night! Before I started using them, I was changing sheets constantly. Not any more! Love that they show up on my doorstep too :) Excellent deal - thank you. I also love the straight to my door shipping - so convenient. I love these, I've never had a single blowout. They always fit right and my babe has such a tiny little bum sometimes it's hard to find diaper that are proportioned properly. And you really can't beat the price! We've always used Pampers diapers after trying other brands and having them always leak. We've never had a problem with Pampers! Great product! I only wish they had any other prints than just sesame street characters. My family is absolutely indifferent to them. And it's not like they have to invent something - we bought Pampers in Europe and they had an adorable farm animals prints. Why can't we have them here in Canada?! I've occasionally tried other cheaper brands but always end up with "leakers". I find going one size up in pampers does the trick. I'm brand loyal... once I find something good PLUS great value shopping at well.ca. We love these diapers! We have been using the 'Baby Dry' diapers since our son was born, and are thrilled by how they work. We have yet to have issues with any serious leakage, even overnight!

I lift weights. I also run and hit things. At 43 I'm just as active now as I ever was. "Active", what an old person term. In your teens, 20's and 30's you worked out, in your 40's you're fucking active. Be careful, when people start calling you "vibrant" or telling you how good you look you're going to take a dirt nap soon. Anyway, there's no reason to slow down. The way I figure, the Spartans were in the active military from 20 to age 60 (sometimes 65) so I'm not slowing down until then. Plus given medical technology today as compared to 1500 years ago, there's no reason why in your 70's you still can't be going strong. I'm going to ask you to be honest with yourself. Given your overall return on investment, is your time better spent learning katas (forms) or lifting weights? Would you get more benefit practicing esoteric methods of harmonizing your chi or dead-lifting? Years ago in Tae Kwon Do, the instructor was drilling us while we were practicing blocks in the air. He said "if you don't get the technique right, you might as well go lift weights and try to bench press 500 pounds." The notion was that if you could do this technique, it's like being able to bench press 500 pounds. No it wasn't. As martial artists we're told lifting weights is counter productive. It restricts movement and slows you down. In truth there does come a point where you're too big and your muscles and girth require too much oxygen and fuel to sustain long periods of stress. Power lifters and body builders tend to have this problem. But I don't consider a 6'5, 285 pound defensive end who runs a 4.4 forty yard dash slow. For the most part lifting weights builds muscle. Muscle and resistance training has been proved to strengthen bones, ligaments and dramatically increase metabolism. Muscle = metabolism. Oh, it also helps you hit stuff REALLY HARD. No matter what activity you do, as long as you continue to do the activity your muscles will transfer the power correctly. Whether it's baseball or wrestling, resistance training will only do one thing, get you stronger. Body weight exercises are good, but in order to come close to the benefits of weight training you need to spend exponential time doing your body weight exercises. Herschel Walker, Heisman trophy winner, pro football player and recent MMA fighter claims does a lot of body weight exercises. But he does 2000 push ups and 3000 sit ups, 1000 dips and 1500 pull ups per day. Regardless of this insanity, he STILL has resistance training in his program. Personally I don't have all day to dedicate to endless sets of calisthenics. I've got other shit to do. If all of the kettle bells, yoga, pilates, kung fu and chi was all it was cracked up to be, wouldn't every professional football and soccer team be doing these things EXCLUSIVELY. It's true they do use some of these methods to supplement training, but their core programs consist of basic weigh training movements and appropriate running and cardio programs. Did you ever notice that the majority of people who prescribe to methods like Aikido, Kung Fu and other forms of martial arts that attribute success to higher powers are largely out of shape or anemic looking? The thought of being able to effortlessly dispatch much larger and stronger opponents appeals to one person only...the lazy one. People are inherently lazy. The reason Judo, BJJ, Kyokushin Karate, MMA, Wrestling, Boxing, Muy Thai and other combat sports continue to produce tough people is because they have a sport aspect that requires them to prove themselves against other skilled opponents. On the other hand, there are arts like Aikido that profess being able to toss attackers aside with little or no effort. Aikido is an exercise in theory, not a tactical response to violence. Now you may not have known that I do have a fond appreciation for some of the founders of Aikido. Like Kenji Tomiki. Tomiki was one of Kano's (founder of Judo)top students. After Ueshiba (the founder of Aikido) met with Kano and showed him what he was doing, Tomiki went to go study with Ueshiba. Rumor has it that in his younger days Ueshiba was an animal in training. Only as he got older, he slowed down a bit. Even Tomiki during an interview and demonstration about Aikido was taken to task by a reporter. It was then Tomiki took the guy to the mat and tossed him around using Judo and Wrestling NOT Aikido. Aikido was to demonstrate a theory of being able to harmonize with your opponent, the idea being that you could simply move with your target and use his force against him. This is a theory, just like communism. But even the founders knew when it came down to it, you still needed a little muscle to back it up. You should also note that Tomiki considered founders of Japan Wrestling association and other Judo greats as close friends and mentors. Tomiki was a bad ass. Hey, if there was a quick and easy way around hard work, we would have found it. At the end of the day, you still have to be strong, have endurance and hit hard. Oh, and owning a firearm is not enough. You still need to access your firearm and even if you unload your magazine in him, he may still keep coming. Like this lovely video. Here the cop shoots bad guy and the bad guy takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Whether you believe in CHI or COLT there's no way you're getting out of an assault. attempted rape or homicide without experiencing some pain and discomfort. It's highly unlikely that you're going to face a determined and capable attacker without getting hit, bumped, bruised or worse. Even if you knock him out with one shot, your hand may be a little sore afterward. In the street you need to hit hard, hit fast and recover quickly. Give me someone who lifts weights and does cardio on a regular basis, and I will turn him or her into an animal in a handful of weeks. NO BULLSHIT. You can't get out of putting some time in. A typical week for me is: Day 1, lift Chest and Back, Abs/Core Day 2 Cardio and SDTS Day 3 Legs and shoulders, Abs/Core Day 4 Cardio and SDTS (Sometimes Judo at night) Day 5 Arms Day 6 ACTIVE REST or HEAVY LIFT Day 7 Cardio long and slow Each week I slightly vary the exercises and there is a four week rotation on the reps for weights. Week one will be a heavy set of 10 reps followed by supersets of 20,15,12 and 10. Week two will be sets of 20, 15, 12 and 10. Week three is four sets of 20 and week four is four sets of 10. Then it rotates. Cardio looks like Day 2 and Day 4 are interval running for 32 minutes. Day 7 is a long run for about an hour. I may substitute bike or elliptical depending on how banged up I am. All in I spend about an hour to an hour and a half training. I don't have all day like Herschel Walker. I'm no longer a serious competitor or am putting myself in harms way for people who will pay me, but I still work out hard, if not harder than when I was younger. Spartans didn't retire until they were 60 years old, so I have some time left before I think about slowing down. Anything is better than nothing. Can do 60 to 90 minutes? Do half that. Can't get 45 minutes a day for yourself, 3 to 5 days a week...something is wrong with your life my friend. Everyone has excuses, the person who finds a way to make it work is the successful one. There are two types of people in the world, the one with excuses and successful ones. If you have the desire, make it work if you don't have the desire, why are you even reading this? The better in shape you are, the better your chances of survival. The more punishment you can take, the more you can dish out. In addition, people are less likely to mess with you if you look fit than if you don't. A cop who gets out of the car belly first is a lot more likely to run into a problem than if he looks like he can handle his business. In New Jersey, the local cops don't have an annual fitness test, but the State Cops do. When you see a NJ State Trooper get out of his car, he or she at least look impressive. People always seek the path of least resistance. We're inherently lazy and are inclined to believe things that we want to hear. "Take this pill", "eat whatever you want and lose weight", "Work out for 10 minutes and get ripped". All you need to do is stay up past midnight, turn on the TV and get submerged in infomercial hell. The martial arts have been no different. They're just as bad as infomercials with the defeat all attackers without hurting yourself or your attacker pitch line, use his power against him and make him helpless, no strength needed, lifting weights will only constrict your movement. All you have to do is get your Black Belt and you too will be able to defeat any attacker. Call now while supplies last! The problem is you want to believe these things. You don't want to hurt anybody, and the idea of being able to do something to someone who is trying to do you harm plays into your good nature. You also don't want to work too hard either and will do anything to avoid it. It's not your fault it's human nature. The confusion comes from the fact that some of these statements are only partially true. Technique and knowledge will always make up for lack of strength, stamina and youth but you still need to possess some level of fitness in order to survive. The more fit you are the better off you'll be. Make no mistake, there are better and more efficient ways of doing things but there is some sweat equity in your future. There's no such thing as "get rich quick" (Unless you inherit it), there,s no loose weight fast and there's definitely no way around getting hit, bumped and bruised or worse when you have to fight. Damian Ross is CEO of the Self Defense Company and developer of The Self Defense Training System, the most lethal and effective self defense system in the world, The Guardian Defensive Tactics Police Combatives Program, 60 minute Self Defense and the Family Safe Program. Mr. Ross also founded the Self Defense Instructor Program that helps people develop their self defense careers from the ground up. Mr. Ross is originally from Ridgewood, NJ where he was a High School Hall of Fame Athlete in football and wrestling as well as a varsity wrestling coach. He then went on to Lehigh University where he was a varsity wrestler and football player. Mr. Ross has 3 black belts, 4th Degree in Tekkenryu Jujutsu, 2nd Degree in Judo, 2nd Degree in Tae Kwon Do. In addition to his martial arts experience, Mr; Ross spent 8 years in the professional security and personal protection business. He is internationally recognized as one of the foremost authorities in reality based self defense.

User Post (6 total) rockstar Salami Since: 2.1.02 From: East TN Since last post: 3049 days Last activity: 2927 days # 1 Posted on 7.2.02 2207.41 Just because I haven't stirred any shit lately, I thought I'd break out the spoon. Did anyone else (who will admit to visiting theSmarks.com) notice that SKeith's Smackdown! Rant was up three minutes BEFORE the show was finished airing? I know it's not live and he did say he was watching it on his computer while he typed the recap up, but three minutes is a pretty big discrepancy, especially with the essay he wrote at the end. Is he phoning it in via spoilers and opinions written before actually viewing the product? Or is it something more sinister? //edit: crappy mistakes. //edit part two: strange formattery. (edited by rockstar on 7.2.02 2009) (edited by rockstar on 7.2.02 2010) Promote this thread! Tragic1 Chourico Since: 2.1.02 From: Rolling Meadows, Illinois Since last post: 3851 days Last activity: 3843 days # 2 Posted on 7.2.02 2314.33 I think Smackdown plays on Wednesday in Canada. That's probably how he can do it. "HOROWITZ WINS! HOROWITZ WINS! HOROWITZ WINS!" Jim Ross "INDEED" Sho Funaki "Tool" "The Shooter" Dean Malenko eviljonhunt81 Pepperoni Since: 6.1.02 From: not Japan Since last post: 2469 days Last activity: 2465 days # 3 Posted on 7.2.02 2320.06 No, I don't think it plays on Wednesdays, but maybe he watches the early playing of it. I think they might get the East Coast feed, or something. Are you sure it's not a time difference thing? cfgb Lap cheong Since: 2.1.02 From: Ottawa, Ontario Since last post: 4 hours Last activity: 42 min. # 4 Posted on 7.2.02 2341.32 | Instant Rating: 7.87 Smackdown! airs on The Score at 7:00pm in Canada. There you go. Contact cfgb Visit my homepage Bullitt Shot in the dark Since: 11.1.02 From: Houston Since last post: 5 days Last activity: 5 days # 5 Posted on 8.2.02 0255.58 Keith is in Alberta (like me) and gets SmackDown between 5-7pm local time. Q: If you could have interviewed Marvin Gaye, where would you have proposed to meet and what would you have asked him? A: I would have met anywhere as long as it was before his father shot him. I would have asked him, "Hey, don't you think there's some chance that your father might shoot you? To death, I mean?" www.Gordie.ca Loosie Boudin rouge Since: 2.1.02 From: Kitchener, Ontario Since last post: 594 days Last activity: 476 days # 6 Posted on 8.2.02 0829.01 cfgb is right we get the pleasure of watching SmackDown an hour earlier. Loosie. Your friendly nieghbourhood Canadian. Our EZBoard Our WebSite We Think We Know What It Stands For. Holy crap, do you guys BURN money over there? What a country! Oh, and to Mark: I'm not ignoring you, but....well, okay, I'm ignoring you. ;) The W message board ZimBoard ©2001-2013 Brothers Zim This old hunk of junk rendered your page in 0.133 seconds.

In an article in The New York Times on Wednesday, I wrote about how high-tech Silicon Valley solar companies are retooling their strategies to compete with low-cost Chinese manufacturers. Over the last two years, Chinese solar panel makers like Suntech and Yingli Green Energy have moved aggressively into the United States and now supply about 40 percent of the California market, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research firm. China’s growing dominance of the global solar market has been on display in Los Angeles this week at the Solar Power International conference, one of the industry’s biggest annual get-togethers. In a vast exhibition hall, the booth of one Silicon Valley start-up, Solyndra, is surrounded by a sea of Chinese solar companies offering their wares. As prices for conventional silicon-based solar panels plummet, pressure has increased on Silicon Valley start-ups like Solyndra that make a type of photovoltaic cell called copper indium gallium selenide, or CIGS. Though less efficient at converting sunlight into electricity, the promise of the technology was that it could be made cheaply – at least until the cost of conventional solar module prices fell 40 percent over the past year. That led Solyndra to start production two months ahead of schedule at its new $733 million factory in Fremont, Calif., and to speed up development of its next-generation solar panel. “It definitely puts more pressure on us to bring our costs down as quickly as possible by ramping up volume,” said Ben Bierman, Solyndra’s executive vice president for operations and engineering, as driverless carts shuttled stacks of photovoltaic parts to large orange robots at Fab 1, the company’s original factory. Nathaniel Bullard, a solar analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance in San Francisco, said that success for high-tech Silicon Valley solar companies may depend on finding a big market niche they can dominate. Solyndra, for instance, makes lightweight solar panels that snap together like Legos and can be installed on large commercial rooftops unable to support heavier conventional panels. On the roof of the company’s headquarters, Mr. Bierman recently gave me an advance look at its new solar panel, which is more powerful but requires far less labor to install. “We really took a lot of the cost out and accelerated development in response to the Chinese,” Mr. Bierman said. China presents different challenges for SunPower, which was founded in 1985 and is the granddaddy of Silicon Valley solar companies. SunPower makes conventional solar panels but has also pursued a high-technology strategy and says it produces the world’s most efficient photovoltaic modules. (Architects and fashion-forward homeowners also favor the company’s sleek jet-black panels.) In recent years, SunPower has increasingly focused on building big photovoltaic power plants to supply electricity to utilities that put a premium on technological performance, reliability and a company’s ability to manage complex projects. “In the old days, the saying was that nobody gets fired for buying I.B.M.,” Thomas Werner, SunPower’s chief executive, said in an interview. “That’s what we want to be in solar, and we are in fact.” He said that while SunPower competes on costs, it does not aim to be the lowest-cost manufacturer. “We want to have the best technologies so that people buy us for the reasons they buy a company’s product like Apple,” Mr. Werner said. “I don’t want to be the iPhone without the apps.”

|The First Storm Author: HaloFin17 PM Ereinion experiences his first storm after being sent to the Havens. A fluffy CirdanEreinion fic, partially inspired by a few lines from my story 'Weakness'. Please enjoy, and feel free to review!Rated: Fiction K - English - Family/Hurt/Comfort - Gil-Galad & Círdan - Words: 2,442 - Reviews: 5 - Favs: 8 - Published: 07-24-07 - Status: Complete - id: 3678467 |A+ A- Full 3/4 1/2 Expand Tighten| Summary: Ereinion experiences his first storm after being sent to the Havens. A fluffy Cirdan/Ereinion fic. Please enjoy, and feel free to review! Disclaimer: I will never own Cirdan or Ereinion no matter how much I love them. Yet no small amount of credit for this fic must also go to Dragon Confused and Levade. Even if they never read this, their own superb writings have helped inspire this story, and I would be honored if they would consider it as a sort of tribute story to some of theirs. Incidentally, f you like this, check out their profiles for some more amazing young Ereinion stories! You won't be disappointed! Author's Note: This oneshot was kind of inspired by a very small part of my story "Weakness," in which Cirdan gently teases Gil-galad about how he used to wake him up during the storms of the Havens as a child because he was scared. So hopefully those of you who have also been reading along in that story will have a special appreciation for this one as well. Enjoy! The First Storm The rumbling thunderclap was rapidly followed by yet another strobe of lightning and the subsequent cacophony. Ereinion shivered beneath his covers and anxiously pulled them tighter over his head to muffle the echoing noise. He tried to still his involuntary trembling, reminding himself that such fear was most unfit for a High Prince of the Noldor who was nearing his eleventh begetting day. But he had never experienced such monstrous weather back home. There had been occasional thunderstorms, yes – but nothing like this. And besides, back home he had always had his parents and his grandfather to comfort him during the storms and keep him safe, to tell him that it would all pass and that everything would be calm again in the morning. They were still there now, without him – his Ada and his Naneth. But not his grandfather. Not anymore. Fingolfin had fallen in battle shortly before Ereinion had been sent here, to the Havens. And though the young prince knew no details concerning the late High King's death, he did not ask about it. It was enough to see his parents' grief and know that his beloved grandfather would not becoming back. Ever. Stubbornly shoving away those bittersweet memories and melancholy thoughts, the Elfling experimentally poked his head out from under the blankets, but another round of lightning and thunder sent him retreating back under them in seconds. And suddenly, Ereinion yearned for his parents so badly it was almost painful – for someone to hold him and be strong for him until the raging storm had passed. Such longings were nothing new to him now, but that did not make them any easier. And somehow he did not think Cirdan would be overly inclined to cuddle an intrusive little Elfling late at night. Indeed, the grumpy old shipwright with whom Ereinion now dwelt seemed to be extraordinarily inept when it came to comforting a scared and lonely child, very rarely taking the initiative in a hug or any other such physical contact. He always seemed so awkward and…stiff. The ancient Elf had even required his new charge's guidance in something as simple as holding hands when the two of them walked about the Havens together! Ereinion simply did not comprehend how anyone could live for so many years and not know how to hold hands. Although, he did have to admit that, after almost a month now of practice in that particular art, the shipwright's intuition had improved considerably. But Cirdan would most certainly be irritated if his tiny ward were to disturb his rest, seeking refuge from a blustery storm. Being such a seasoned sailor, the older Elf was probably sleeping right through all of this in perfect peace. Although, perhaps Ereinion would feel better if he simply knew Cirdan was close by. Encouraged by that thought, the Elvish princeling clambered hurriedly out of bed, taking care to bring his favorite stuffed toy with him, and tiptoed down the hall as quickly as he could until he had reached the shipwright's bedchambers. Still cowering from the erratic flashes of lightning and the terrifying explosion that always followed, he slumped down onto the floor with his back against Cirdan's door and brought his knobby little knees up to his chin. Ereinion still clutched the soft toy fawn against his chest, but it was reassuring to know that his guardian was just on the other side of this sturdy wooden door. At least this way he wouldn't be waking Cirdan. Cirdan the Shipwright lay in bed with his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as the storm raged on outside his window. He usually was not disturbed by such squalls, but this one was exceptionally violent. It would have to be in order to wake even him. But he was not too concerned. There were no ships out on the open water that night, and they'd had sufficient warning to secure everything down at the harbor before the storm hit, both facts for which he was exceedingly grateful. Hopefully there would be equally minimal damage to his own well-constructed home. And surely all those within his household were also well, for they were likewise familiar with the potentially destructive tempests of the Havens. But then the shipwright grimaced beneath his silver beard. On the contrary, not all within his walls were accustomed to such storms. No doubt the young Noldorin prince a few doors down had never experienced such intense weather back in Hithlum. He really should check on the boy, to see that he was content in his bed and not lost in a fit of panic. It would only be fair, as such turbulence could be most terrifying to a child who had never before endured it. Now, if only he could get himself out of bed… It proved to be a most difficult task, for he actually found it quite relaxing to just lie here, listening to the wind and the rain. But at last he made it, his body responding grudgingly despite its well-earned strength. Stifling a yawn, Cirdan ambled over to the door and swung it open, only to have a very startled and very sleepy little Elfling come tumbling down in front of him. Ereinion yelped in understandable surprise when the support behind him suddenly gave way, and he fell over backwards onto a large pair of stocking-covered feet. He looked up, in a sense relieved to see his guardian now here with him, but his tiny heart still pounded uncontrollably within his chest. "Ereinion!" Cirdan exclaimed, almost as startled as the small form crumpled at his feet. "Whatever are you doing out here, child?" He did not mean for the question to sound so harsh, but he was rightfully concerned to find his priceless charge sneaking out of his room in the middle of a dark and stormy night. But judging by how the child still cowered on the floor beneath him, grey eyes wide and fearful, the genuine concern in his motives had clearly not come across. Ereinion did not say anything, just continued to look at him with those bright eyes that shone like stars even in the darkness until another abrupt clap of thunder suddenly made him jump and grab hold of the hem on Cirdan's nightclothes until his small knuckles were white with the effort. The shipwright sighed wearily, comprehending, and crouched down next to his young ward. "Are you frightened by the storm, child?" The boy nodded quickly, his mop of tousled black hair bobbing up and down with the movement. He looked so helplessly pathetic, Cirdan could not help but pity the poor child. Although, of course, he could not be too obvious in the fact. So he stood and held out his hand down toward the shivering bundle of Elfling. "Come then, Ereinion." The prince scrambled to his feet and gratefully accepted the proffered hand, feeling rough calluses beneath his own smooth little fingers. Cirdan led them back inside his own chambers which were still pitch black except when illuminated by the sporadic flashes of lightning. Ereinion looked around nervously. He had only been in Cirdan's room once before, and that was when he had first arrived and been told that this particular chamber was off limits. But the typically gruff shipwright made no complaint about his company, only sat down in an overstuffed chair near the fireplace that had long gone cold and pulled the frightened child onto his lap. Ereinion curled up there and rested back against Cirdan, glad for the comfort even if his guardian's beard was prickly beneath his cheek. But the shipwright's arms were warm and strong around him, and he felt sheltered and secure. Almost as though he truly were back home. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pretend that it was his grandfather who held him now, not Cirdan, but the omnipresent beard made that impossible. So Ereinion reopened his eyes with a sad little sigh and accepted the truth of where he was. There was little point in pretending, really. But at least he was learning little by little that he was safe here. Cirdan was not going to let anything happen to him any more than Fingolfin himself would have. And so he buried his face in Cirdan's chest, fisting his tiny hands in the shipwright's simple tunic while the storm raged on. Cirdan gazed down at the precious burden in his lap some time later after the thunder and lightning had begun to diminish. The boy was still awake, staring off aimlessly into the darkest corner of the room. "Are you ready to go back to bed now, child?" But Ereinion vehemently shook his head. "Why not?" the Lord of the Havens asked with a tired yawn. "The worst seems to have passed." "But you told me once that sometimes more storms come, and then they last all night," the little one protested nervously, miraculously managing to tighten his grip around the cloth in his hands. "Could that not happen now?" Cirdan let out a longsuffering sigh, ruing his decision to disclose that fact to the child several days back. "Aye, I suppose it could." "And if it does, I do not want to be alone, Cirdan." Ereinion turned around to try to see his guardian's face better but ended up sticking his bony elbow directly into the shipwright's stomach, earning a painful wince from Cirdan as he deliberately rearranged the mass of thin limbs into a more comfortable position. "You will not be alone, Ereinion. You know I am always nearby should you need me." The child nodded reluctantly, but he still showed no sign of releasing his viselike grip on the older Elf. Cirdan closed his eyes and wearily ran a hand over his face. He was in need of his own rest, as was the stubborn Elfling on his lap, but there appeared to be little hope of separating the two of them anytime soon. Deciding to concede to the inevitable sooner rather than later, the Telerin lord gathered his diminutive charge up in his arms and walked over to the bed. He carefully set Ereinion down near the pillows and began to arrange the blankets over him. "Sleep here then, child, for I know you are tired." Ereinion let Cirdan tuck him in, but he was still clearly uneasy about the storm and the prospect of being left alone. "Are you going to leave me?" he asked timidly. "No, Ereinion," his guardian answered him. "I will stay here with you. This is my bed, after all." The prince smiled wide and looked about ready to thank the shipwright, when his face suddenly fell. "Wait, Cirdan!" he exclaimed with sincere urgency and pointed back to the doorway they had previously deserted. "We cannot leave him there alone all night!" Cirdan followed the extended finger and complied in total understanding. It was an oddity he could never empathize with, but the child loved that stuffed toy as though it were a living, communicative creature. He retrieved the fawn from the floor and handed it to Ereinion who immediately snuggled it lovingly up against his nose. "There now, go to sleep. And I promise I shall not leave you. If the storm returns, child, I will be here." "Thank you, Cirdan." The small voice was muffled as Ereinion spoke into his toy, but that did not make his gratitude any less heartfelt. The shipwright favored his charge with one of those rare, genuine smiles that emerged from beneath his beard, though he wasn't sure the child could even see it in the dark. "You are welcome, Ereinion." With that, Cirdan settled down beside the now peaceful Elfling. He sat with his back against the headboard of the bed and wrapped a reassuring arm around Ereinion, even though he knew that the young prince was already sleeping soundly. Ereinion did not know how long it had been since he'd fallen asleep in Cirdan's bed when he next woke up, but it was still dark out even though the storm had passed completely. Sleepy and content, he stretched and yawned, his little mouth opening far wider than would have been thought possible, and glanced up at his guardian. Cirdan may have been in an upright position once, but now he was slumped down against the bed frame, half sitting and half lying down, with his head drooping over one shoulder. Ereinion thought it looked most uncomfortable. Suddenly, another noise startled him, and he jumped against the shipwright's body. But it was not thunder. This time, the sound had come from directly above him, and Ereinion tilted his head upward, just to be certain that his ears had not deceived him. Cirdan was snoring. The Elfling repressed a giggle, not wanting to wake his guardian, but he was unspeakably amused nonetheless. He had heard his Ada snore on rare occasion, but somehow it did not seem to fit the shipwright. Indeed, the grouchy old Elf did not look so scary at all when he was like this. Suddenly reassured, he snuggled back up against Cirdan's warm side. Perhaps living here would not be as unbearable as he'd first thought. After all, if the two of them could survive the trials of a storm like this, they could withstand just about anything.

Inspired klutzy_girl's fall tv schedule, i made mine as well, includes new shows that I will watch the pilots before deciding, midseason shows and old favorites. Since have given up on House and Chuck last season and cable shows not included, my shows totalled to 23! Good thing I have unlimited bandwith! The Playboy Club (new) Gossip Girl (Dair scenes only) Hart of Dixie (new) Alcatraz (new, midseason) New Girl (new, midseason) The Vampire Diaries The Secret Circle (new) A Gifted Man (new) Once Upon a Time (new) The Good Wife The Firm (new) Posted via LiveJournal.app. Knowing my history over holiday planning, the most events i get too excited about don't push through, I hope this is not the case this time. I noted to self, come rain or freezing temperature, I'm gonna visit the Stonehenge damnit! I feel like Gloating because Jack & Kate are ENDGAME! I guess I get 2 couples so far this season, JATE and HUDDY. I used to watch my shows like Dawson's Creek spoiler free, like it didn't even occur to me that spoilers exist, I had to watch to find out that Joey picks Pacey...I had to even follow the show to know there was gonna be a Joey-Pacey hook up. Were those better days? I mean now I can't even imagine myself being spoiler-free. I moved to another country, living away from my family and friends, fortunately I'm adjusting quite well and have made new friends. Ships have come and gone...well I never really jumped any ships but some may have been put to the back burner than others. New infatuations, Alex Skarsgard and slow burn love, Chris Evans (watched him in other movies before but I've never been so attracted to him until I'd seen The Loss of the Teardrop diamond) and fangirlish squeals over Spock/Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine (yeah, was never into the fandom until the reboot movie) Having a fine summer so far, it has been warm and sunny this week but who knows, it might rain the next. Northern Ireland is unpredictable like that. I had to leave all my dvd, books and beloved shoes behind, but I'm trying to start a new collection here. Thank god for free shipping which I never had full advantage before. I now get to experience to work for my own wages and splurging on what else? dvd, books and shoes! Plus I had to buy new sunglasses (Dior) because I never expected to experience sunlight, the cost hurt me quite a bit, but a girl can never overindulge herself right? Having to go to the university is quite a drag..well not really because I get to enjoy spending time with my new found friends, I just hate the homework part of it. Anyway, nice catching up, almost midnight here and I have to wake up early tomorrow for work...3 straight 12-hour work days again! arrrggg... Derek and Addison's interactions were full of chemistry and it was nice to see the old 'gang' consisting of Derek, Addie, Nay, Sam, Mark and Archer... It was great listening to their old stories and how Derek even wrote a song for Addison. I used to ship MerDer back in Season 1 but now I don't watch GA anymore, I only tune in to Private Practice now but I must say I would want to watch a show with the old power couple and the gang. They should make crossovers more often.

What is Sleep Hygiene? What is Sleep Hygiene Sleep Hygiene = Healthy Sleep Habits Healthy sleep habits: How you sleep is very dependent on your routine. You train yourself to go to bed or to wake up at a certain time. All the elements of your sleep routine effect how well you sleep. Our sleep patterns are easily changed. Our emotional state and our physical environment impacts on our ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. Sleep is very sensitive to conditioning and so it is essential to break bad habits and establish new ones. Learn Good Sleep Habits by following this simple advice: During the Day Exercise during the day; limit your caffeine and alcohol consumption; especially in the evening. Don’t Nap! Your goal is to change your state of alertness. You need to calm your mind and body. Imagine an airplane that is descending. As it comes in it changes altitude. You need to do the same thing; become less alert and more relaxed. Stop doing things which are agitating, frustrating or exciting. Low lights, lying down, and relaxing activities, such as reading, watching unstimulating television, or listening to soothing music are suggested for the hour before bed. Only lie in your bed when you are going to go to sleep. In this way you are conditioning your mind and body to associate. Which means that your bedroom should not be your office or your workroom. Bedrooms should be dark (as in, low light), relatively cool (because lower body temperature helps sleep) and quiet. Your bedroom should be your retreat; a place to go when you want to let go of the day. Bedroom = Relaxation To create good sleep habits, it is best to be as consistent as possible. Try to go to sleep around the same time each night, and wake up around the same time each day. How many hours should I sleep? The easiest way to know is to get as much sleep as possible during the week. Then on the weekend, allow your self to sleep as late as you like. How many hours did you sleep? That is the optimal amount for your body. You can try this a few times in order to see how many hours you need to feel alert and refreshed. When do I “take something” to fall asleep? There are many sleep aids to consider. In the article entitled Understanding Sleep Problems I explained the use of medicines prescribed by doctors. However, some people prefer to use remedies, natural supplements and/or foods to improve sleep. Exactly when you decide to use a sleep aid to go to sleep depends on you. However, it is a good idea to use something for two weeks, just to break your old bad habits. If you are sleeping well, follow the suggestions given earlier. Once you have good sleep hygiene you can slowly stop taking the sleep aid and continue to get a good night’s sleep. What is a “Sleep Aid?” The most old-fashioned tried and true sleep aid is milk. Milk, like whole grains, lentils, chickpeas, peanuts, eggs, sunflower and sesame seeds, have tryptophan, which is an amino acid that occurs naturally in our body. It makes us sleepy. Melatonin is a hormone that occurs naturally in all of us, and it controls our circadian rhythm. Basically, it helps us sleep. You can buy Melatonin in health food stores or in your pharmacy without a prescription. Usually you take melatonin about two hours before going to sleep; and then you need to allow yourself to relax. Melatonin is also used to counteract the effects of jet-lag. Over-the-counter sleep aids are also available at your pharmacy.

75 Chevy Truck Exhaust With Turbo Tubes Chambered Exhaust http://www.myspace.com/mrtsautomotive 1975 chevy truck with a 350 motor,iron manifold and 24" turbo tubes to 2 1/4" pipe. Seniors other truck he drove from cali, to oklahoma pulling my 1962 chevy truck Chevy truck destroys compact car 1975 Chevy Truck drives over a 1985 ford escort at the end of the video. Chevy Truck VS Ford Escort run 2. Cammed 74 Chevy truck and monte carlo My new video I made Enjoy!!!Update!!!!This truck is now sporting a 355sbc in the upper 375hp range as of July 13/2007 more videos to come as soon as I slap her in ;) Chevy Silverado w/ STS Turbo and Diablo Tune (in truck) A few hours after we did the install, we my took my buddies newly turbo'd Silverado for a test drive. This was the results. Don't mind the comment about the BOV, there was a little confusion on the vid before this because we ran too much Boost and a coupling came loose. Silverado runs down the street straight piped I always like the way my old truck sounded straight piped ('99 1500 w/5.3) so I decided to give it a try with this truck. (2001 2500HD w/8.1) Exhaust is cut off behind the converters then has a 3" X pipe before going into 2.5" tailpipes with 3.5x18" stainless echo tips. No muffler. Love that big block rumble!

- Year Published: 1851 - Language: English - Country of Origin: United States of America - Source: Melville H. (1851). Moby Dick.London, England: Richard Bently. - Flesch–Kincaid Level: 9.8 - Word Count: 1,381 Melville, H. (1851). Chapter 19: The Prophet. Moby Dick (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved June 20, 2013, from Melville, Herman. "Chapter 19: The Prophet." Moby Dick. Lit2Go Edition. 1851. Web. <>. June 20, 2013. Herman Melville, "Chapter 19: The Prophet," Moby Dick, Lit2Go Edition, (1851), accessed June 20, 2013,. “Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?” Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering from the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent smallpox had in all directions flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated ribbed bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been dried up. “Have ye shipped in her?” he repeated. “You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose,” said I, trying to gain a little more time for an uninterrupted look at him. “Aye, the Pequod- that ship there,” he said, drawing back his whole arm and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him-, with the fixed bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object. “Yes,” said I, “we have just signed the articles.” “Anything down there about your souls?” “Oh, perhaps you hav’n’t got any,” he said quickly. “No matter though, I know many chaps that hav’n’t got any,- good luck to ‘em; and they are all the better off for it. A soul’s a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon.” “What are you jabbering about, shipmate?” said I. “He’s got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that sort in other chaps,” abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous emphasis upon the word he. “Queequeg,” said I, “let’s go; this fellow has broken loose from somewhere; he’s talking about something and somebody we don’t know.” “Stop!” cried the stranger. “Ye said true- ye hav’n’t seen Old Thunder yet, have ye?” “Who’s Old Thunder?” said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness of his manner. “What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?” “Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye hav’n’t seen him yet, have ye?” “No, we hav’n’t. He’s sick they say, but is getting better, and will be all right again before long.” “All right again before long!” laughed the stranger, with a solemnly derisive sort of laugh. “Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, then this left arm of mine will be all right; not before.” “What do you know about him?” “What did they tell you about him? Say that!” “They didn’t tell much of anything about him; only I’ve heard that he’s a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew.” “That’s true, that’s true- yes, both true enough. But you must jump when he gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go- that’s the word with Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off Cape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights; nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar in Santa?- heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about the silver calabash he spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg last voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn’t ye hear a word about them matters and something more, eh? No, I don’t think ye did; how could ye? Who knows it? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows’ever, mayhap, ye’ve heard tell about the leg, and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of that, I dare say. Oh, yes, that every one knows a’most- I mean they know he’s only one leg; and that a parmacetti took the other off.” “My friend,” said I, “what all this gibberish of yours is about, I don’t know, and I don’t much care; for it seems to me that you must be a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about the loss of his leg.” “All about it, eh- sure you do? all? With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie; then starting a little, turned and said:- “Ye’ve shipped, have ye? Names down on the papers? Well, well, what’s signed, is signed; and what’s to be, will be; and then again, perhaps it won’t be, after all. Any how, it’s all fixed and arranged already; and some sailors or other must go with him, I suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity ‘em! Morning to ye, shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I’m sorry I stopped ye.” “Look here, friend,” said I, “if you have anything important to tell us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are mistaken in your game; that’s all I have to say.” “And it’s said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way; you are just the man for him- the likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates, morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell ‘em I’ve concluded not to make one of ‘em.” “Ah, my dear fellow, you can’t fool us that way- you can’t fool us. It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.” “Morning to ye, shipmates, morning.” “Morning it is,” said I. “Come along, Queequeg, let’s leave this crazy man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?” Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after each other’s fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and looking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us, though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner that we did. He did; and then it seemed to me that he was dogging us, but with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing, shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments and half-apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain Ahab; and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver calabash; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship the day previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the voyage we had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy things. I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg, and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed on, without seeming to notice us. This relieved me; and once more, and finally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug.

Natural Resources, Finance, and Development: Confronting Old and New ChallengesDominique Strauss-Kahn Managing Director, International Monetary Fund Opening Remarks at the IMF Institute and Central Bank of Algeria High Level Seminar Algiers, Algeria - November 4, 2010 As prepared for delivery It is my great pleasure to welcome you to this seminar, which the IMF is proud to co-host with the Central Bank of Algeria. I wish to thank Governor Laksaci for his kind introduction, and for his support—and that of his staff—in making this event possible. I am also honored to be sharing the stage with Prime Minister Ouyahia, and I look forward to hearing his thoughts on the challenges facing resource-rich countries. We meet against the backdrop of a recovering, yet still fragile, global economy. The recovery remains subdued in the United States and sluggish in Europe. It is much stronger in other parts of the world—including in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. And even in Africa, many countries have returned to growth much faster than in previous recessions. This is a testament to sound policies implemented in many African countries in the years before the crisis hit. What polices are needed to secure the global recovery? The answer varies by country. In those where the recovery remains weak, macroeconomic policies need to remain as supportive as possible. In others, a stronger recovery means that policy support may no longer be needed. But all countries must work together to find policies that secure the global recovery, and foster strong, stable and balanced global growth for the medium term. Creating jobs is a major policy challenge across the world. It is true in the economies at the heart of the crisis—where unemployment has hit historic highs—and in economies where unemployment has been a problem for many years already. Joblessness is not only a major economic problem, it’s a major social problem—with tremendous human costs for those out of work, and for their families. This high-level seminar presents a good opportunity to focus on the specific challenges facing resource-rich countries today. We have a wide mix of countries represented at this seminar, which should provide a good basis for sharing experiences and drawing lessons on how your economies can deal with future challenges. I just want to touch on a few of the issues that you may be discussing during the seminar. The global economy is going through dramatic changes, with major implications for the demand for natural resources. Over the coming years, emerging economies will increasingly drive global growth. Many countries will take steps to adapt to climate change. And there will be further technological advances in extractive industries. Such changes will clearly impact the demand for natural resources. A perennial challenge for commodity exporters has been how to manage the impact of volatile commodity prices on macroeconomic and financial stability. Even though commodity prices have stabilized somewhat since the Great Recession, volatility is sure to return—and is already back in agricultural commodity markets. This underscores the importance of having the right macroeconomic policies to manage this volatility. Financial tools, including hedging strategies, clearly matter too. Another challenge is how to increase competitiveness. You are all familiar with “Dutch disease”—the phenomenon of large commodity exports leading to an appreciation of the real exchange rate, which in turn slows productivity growth in other sectors of the economy. This weakens competitiveness, and holds back economic diversification—leaving the economy overly dependent on the natural resource sector. But perhaps the most fundamental challenge is how to ensure that natural resource wealth is used wisely and shared fairly across society. Your countries have been blessed with tremendous natural riches. And yet in many of them, unemployment is high—especially among the young—and millions remain in poverty. It seems only right that your countries’ natural riches should be used to tackle constraints on growth and development, to create the decent jobs needed to raise living standards. Much greater investment in physical, human, and institutional capital is clearly needed to boost productivity and raise competitiveness. This should be supported by structural reforms that tackle constraints on entrepreneurship and that improve the business climate. But spending should be at a measured pace. This will safeguard macroeconomic stability, which includes maintaining the real exchange rate at a fair level. It will also allow future generations to benefit from the revenues earned from exhaustible natural resources today. Strong institutions will play a critical role in ensuring that well-designed policies are indeed effective. Strong fiscal institutions help prevent excess spending in times of plenty—thus leaving enough resources for times of want. And strong financial institutions help manage the impact of spikes in capital inflows on the broader economy. Sound management of foreign exchange reserves is a critical complement in this regard. Unfortunately, strong institutions have been missing in many resource-rich economies. As a result, economic performance in many countries with abundant natural resources has been quite poor. And even worse—the blessing of resource riches has too often turned into the curse of conflict. A strong commitment to good governance lies at the heart of responsible management of natural resource wealth. Good governance helps ensure that commodity revenues can benefit all in society. This is why institutions with a high level of accountability are so important. The experiences of countries like Botswana, Chile, and Indonesia show the important role that strong, independent, and accountable institutions can play in resource-rich countries. I also firmly believe that a vigorous civil society is critical for achieving—and maintaining—a high standard of accountability. Transparency is an important first step in ensuring accountability—and an issue which the IMF is helping to promote. To support our members’ efforts in this area, we developed the Guide on Resource Revenue Transparency and the Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency. We also provide technical assistance and training to our members, drawing on our deep experience of working on these issues all over the world. For example, later this month we are hosting a course in South Africa on macro-financial issues faced by resource rich countries. In closing, let me affirm the IMF’s commitment to working with you, our members, to tackle the policy challenges of this new global economy. It is my hope that through events like these—and through our close bilateral relations with our members—we can help support a strong and stable global recovery, to the benefit of all nations of the world. Thank you for your attention.

Happy Birthday Barry Bonds!!! Barry Bonds turns 49 years old today. Where, oh where has Barry Bonds been? I can honestly say that I am not very pleased with how Bonds left the game. I kind of feel unfulfilled with his exit from the sport. We are all entitled to our opinions, and I know that we all have them when it comes to Bonds. But, of all of the guys that have exited the game during the course of the last few years and are headed to Cooperstown, we saw sharp declines in their output – except for Barry’s. We saw it from Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey Jr. and John Smoltz and Randy Johnson and even my beloved Greg Maddux. But Bonds is the guy that I feel like he could have given us more to watch. 3,000 hits was very close. As was 800 home runs. I would have liked to have seen him reach both milestones prior to his retirement from the game. Happy Birthday Mr. Bonds – you are missed by this fan!!!

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Dru "Stylez" November 15 at 9:02pm I lost my orange 175 Echo star wraith on hole 16... 2nd shot left fringe before the Mando... name and number are on it... Reward for return :) Jeremy Gross November 13 at 6:21pm ATTENTION FRIENDS OF HORNING'S HIDEOUT... Round 2 of the Gross "N" Nasty Fall/Winter Tournament Series will be taking place this Saturday, November 15th, 2014. This tournament is open to all amateur disc golfers (no pdga pros). Registration Begins at 8am and runs till 9:30am. Bonus throw for a chance to win a special prize @ 9:30, followed by a brief players meeting, and a 10:00 Shotgun start. There will be two divisions, as always. Amateur Intermediate, and Amateur Advanced ... more ATTENTION FRIENDS OF HORNING'S HIDEOUT... Round 2 of the Gross "N" Nasty Fall/Winter Tournament Series will be taking place this Saturday, November 15th, 2014. This tournament is open to all amateur disc golfers (no pdga pros). Registration Begins at 8am and runs till 9:30am. Bonus throw for a chance to win a special prize @ 9:30, followed by a brief players meeting, and a 10:00 Shotgun start. There will be two divisions, as always. Amateur Intermediate, and Amateur Advanced. 36 spots available for each division. Tournament cap at 72 spots. Round 1 @ Buxton Woods was a blast! 10 prize packs for CTP's were disbursed, as well as $336 payed out to the top 1/3 of each division. Top 5 placed in their division will receive free entry to the finals @ Horning's on Saturday April 12th, 2015. (You must still pay your $4 day fee directly to the Horning's staff. Word on the street is that there may be a BASKET GIVEAWAY at the finals. In order to play in the finals, you must play in at least one of the 6 rounds of the series. $1 out of each players entry fee throughout the 6 rounds will be added cash to the FINALS payout. You did not have to play in the 1st tournament, in order to play in this one. Everyone is welcome to play. (amateurs that is) Tournament fashion will be the same layout: 1 round of random doubles on Canyon Course, followed by a round of singles on the Highland Course. Your score from the doubles round carries over to your singles round. In between the rounds, there will be a lunch break, and a quick target throw opportunity, that will give you a chance to pad your score. Cash payout and Prize disbursement at the end of the day. Register online by going to discgolfscene.com. Click the tournaments tab, and select Gross "N" Nasty Round 2, from the list of tournaments, or register day of at Canyon 1st tee box. Look for the black canopy. The url address below will take you directly to the tournament page on discgolfscene. Simply, copy and paste it. Check us out on discgolfscene: $12 to play. $4 to Horning's Hideout. $16 total. You pay the $4 directly to Horning's as you pull in. ACE pot and 10 CTP opportunities included. ACE pot is currently sitting at $42, and $1 from every golfers tournament fees will be added to it for saturdays' ACE pot. Check out our website by copy and pasting the address below. All Courses will be open to the public during this event. I look forward to seeing you all at Round 2. GO DISC GOLF!!! Lucky . August 5 at 8:49pm REWARD IF FOUND!!!!!! I lost a early run Twelve time firebird on hole 3 of canyon. It is 164 grams and its day glow green. Or it was at one point. Lol. I will shell out a 20$ bill plus give you a pick of one disc out of my collecters stash or two discs out of my ganeric plastic stash. Thats alot of love for the return of one beat up firebird that really isnt worth much to anybody but me. In addition. I will drive where ever i have to to retrive my disc and hook you up with your awsome reward. ... more REWARD IF FOUND!!!!!! I lost a early run Twelve time firebird on hole 3 of canyon. It is 164 grams and its day glow green. Or it was at one point. Lol. I will shell out a 20$ bill plus give you a pick of one disc out of my collecters stash or two discs out of my ganeric plastic stash. Thats alot of love for the return of one beat up firebird that really isnt worth much to anybody but me. In addition. I will drive where ever i have to to retrive my disc and hook you up with your awsome reward. Name and number is on the disc. Disc is in the rough short of the basket somewhere. Hope it finds its way home. Mr CLEAN July 29 at 3:39am HUK FOR INDY... WHO HAS MY GLOW 1st RUN KATANA FROM THE CTP THROW OFF or MY HOMIES WARLOCK ~GO TO PUTTER~ FROM THE RING OF FIRE? Thomas "T" D. June 9 at 1:23pm Sunday I lost my favorite putter over the edge of hole 7 about 2/3 of the way down the fairway. Its a red XD-DX with my name and an old number on it. If you find it, please leave it with Washboard Mike. If you leave your name and number, I will see that you are rewarded as promised on the disc. It is my very first putter and the oldest disc I own. I really would like to get it back. Thanks!! Adam Silva June 6 at 5:01pm 6th Annual Brenen Jones Open 6/21/2014 Reminder: Bring your own partner Doubles Tournament to benefit the American Cancer Society. 6/21 @ Horning's. Registration and information @ www.discgolftournament.weebly.com All Horning's courses will be open to the public during this event. Dru "Stylez" May 26 at 10:21pm I LOST my Tie Dye Pink 2x Champion Beast On Hole #18 Meadow Ridge... Deep Left into Wedding Area... Name and Number should be on it... Please Call... Reward if Found :) Daneger Jones May 9 at 3:31pm Lost a inked up, worked over white star tee rex at canyon somewhere. No obvious name or number but it is an ace disc so my name is on it somewhere. Maybe someday it will work its way back to me. Russ Brown April 21, 2014 at 3:18pm I lost a transparent smoke colored w/blue foil ROC3 on the 420 hole (#9) at the tournament on 4/19. It hit a tree and kick left into the clear cut ¾ of the way down. Name and number on it... Alvin Natarte April 17, 2014 at 4:51pm Can anyone tell me if its too late to sign up for and play the saturday 4-19 dubs? Nick Nisbet April 11, 2014 at 10:49pm Found a disc on hole 4 of canyons today. No name or number, let me know if you lost one there. Lost my white star TL on hole 10 of canyons as well. Does have my name and number, but it flexed over the creek, pretty sure that one's gone. Jonathan Long March 30, 2014 at 5:55pm Yo!!! I Lost a green pearly sidewinder with no name on hole 10 yesterday on Meadow. It made it all the way thru the tunnel and possibly cut rolled around and down to 14's basket / 15's teepad. If anyone finds it, I would be super happy if I got it back. I would definitely spot someone some $$$ if it was returned. My # is 503.383.1057 --- Thanks Miles Murray February 12, 2014 at 6:30pm How are All 3 courses looking after this last storm? We are thinking about coming up to play this Sunday. Any updated info would be greatly appreciated. Thanx! Logan Van Diepen November 21, 2013 at 10:36am Lost a Prodigy Proto F7 on hole 1 of Meadow Ridge Course. Sat the 18th. White, name/number on it. Hit a tree midway down and bounced right. Could not find it in the leaves. Thanks. Thomas "T" D. September 13, 2013 at 10:50am When did the Canyon become a Par 59?? 16 par 3's and 2 par 4's makes it 56. Stop changing the course stats when you shoot a crappy round Peeps!! Thomas "T" D. September 5, 2013 at 11:20pm Hornings Hideout will be closed for fishing, camping and disc golf until September 10th for the Warrior Dash!!! Please plan accordingly Peeps!!! Taylor Campos July 27, 2013 at 9:56pm Lost my number one go to putter on my drive on hole 9 I believe while I was playing during the chick flick today, it's a white latitude spike let me know if ya find it or just turn it in please I already miss it! On top of the bad luck and losing that disc I did ace two of the highlands holes with my other spike during the same round:) Thomas "T" D. July 26, 2013 at 11:26am The 2013 Chick Flick is this weekend at Hornings!!! I dont know why it doesnt have a post on DGS because it is a Premiere Ladies Only Event. Get out and support the ladies at Hornings Hideout. There may be a need for caddies if you are so inclined. Thomas "T" D. July 16, 2013 at 10:39am Just a reminder to any disc golfers planning on playing Hornings. The park will be closed to disc golf and is being prepared for a music festival. The park will be open NEXT WEDNESDAY. Dont make the long drive for nothing. There's Stub Stewart right down Hiway 26.

You don’t have to be an anti-natalist, much less some kind of nihilist, to defend the decision on the part of a majority of would-be mothers to abort fetuses showing signs of Down syndrome. But over at The Week, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry sheds tears over the “ghosts” of Down syndrome babies who never were: I do not know a single family with a child with trisomy 21 who has not regarded them as a joy, much less regretted their existence. The expression “ray of sunshine” has become such a cliché, but here it is perfectly applicable. It’s always striking how joyous many people with trisomy 21, especially children, appear. Regardless of how one feels about abortion policy, this is a treachery of unspeakable magnitude that shames our entire society. We go about in the world surrounded by the ghosts we have made, and we do not even have the good taste to be haunted. If there is a God, we had better all pray that He is merciful. Whew, powerful words. Gobry acknowledges the generally observed intellectual disability that comes with DS, though he omits any mention of the increased risk of early dementia and even leukemia, among other ills. In fact here’s what the Alzheimer’s Association has to say about it: Studies suggest that more than 75 percent of those with Down syndrome aged 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease, nearly 6 times the percentage of people in this age group who do not have Down syndrome. One is struck – or at least I am – by Gobry’s seeming embrace of individuals with DS due to their childlike qualities, to the detriment of a perspective taking into account the complete life cycle. And linking the discussion to abortion only strengthens the focus on DS’ early years. Gobry observes that on average, a person with DS “will have the intelligence of a normal 8 or 9 year old child.” Ah, but of course those are great years for parents, it’s no small thing to point out, sandwiched as they are between the chaotic toddler and rebellious teen phases. I suspect there’s more than a bit of warm, glowing self-interest smuggled into Gobry’s argument. DS last popped up in the news in mid-2014, when Richard Dawkins was being lambasted for suggesting would-be mothers of fetuses with DS “abort it and try again.” Blunt language to be sure, but as The American Interest’s Walter Mead (I think, there’s no byline) said at the time, most people would seem to agree. At least if we’re judging them by their actual behavior and not what they’d be brave enough to admit to in mixed company: One of the main reasons why people abort them is the same reason why people support physician assisted suicide and other “mercy killings”—because, the argument goes, one ought to spare someone from living a low quality of life. Writing in the Guardian, British philosopher John Gray (an atheist himself) takes a look at the ‘New Atheists’ and isn’t too impressed by what he sees. His attack on the idea that leftists ‘must’ be on the left is well worth noting, and is a helpful reminder that ‘secular humanism’ is not only mush, but presumptuous mush: [T]oday’s most influential atheists would no more endorse racist biology than they would be seen following the guidance of an astrologer. But they have not renounced the conviction that human values must be based in science; now it is liberal values which receive that accolade. There are disputes, sometimes bitter, over how to define and interpret those values, but their supremacy is hardly ever questioned. For 21st century atheist missionaries, being liberal and scientific in outlook are one and the same. It’s a reassuringly simple equation. In fact there are no reliable connections – whether in logic or history – between atheism, science and liberal values. Atheism or agnosticism are simply the absence of belief in a deity. It has no automatic ‘political’ consequences. That absence can sometimes incline the unbeliever to support profound illiberal ideologies (as Gray points out), but it can also lead him or her to do the opposite. A lack of belief will, by definition, mean that unbelievers reject the purported rationale of policies rooted in religious faith, but not always their utility. There have been many modern atheisms, some of them more cogent and more intellectually liberating than the type that makes so much noise today. Campaigning atheism is a missionary enterprise, aiming to convert humankind to a particular version of unbelief; but not all atheists have been interested in propagating a new gospel, and some have been friendly to traditional faiths. … Roughly speaking, an atheist is anyone who has no use for the concept of God – the idea of a divine mind, which has created humankind and embodies in a perfect form the values that human beings cherish and strive to realise. Many who are atheists in this sense (including myself) regard the evangelical atheism that has emerged over the past few decades with bemusement. Why make a fuss over an idea that has no sense for you? There are untold multitudes who have no interest in waging war on beliefs that mean nothing to them. Throughout history, many have been happy to live their lives without bothering about ultimate questions. This sort of atheism is one of the perennial responses to the experience of being human. And one that I share: “Ultimate questions”? There are better things to think about. On the other hand, it’s important to remember that, to borrow from that old Trotsky line, you may not have much interest in the beliefs of others, but those who follow those beliefs may have an interest in you. To that extent, arguing back against the very root of those beliefs can make a great deal of sense. Critical biblical scholarship served a very useful purpose in the 19th century, so would subjecting the Koran to the same treatment in the 21st. Gray attributes much of the rise of the New Atheists to 9/11, or rather its implications: For secular liberals of [Sam Harris’s] generation, the shock of the 11 September attacks went beyond the atrocious loss of life they entailed. The effect of the attacks was to place a question mark over the belief that their values were spreading – slowly, and at times fitfully, but in the long run irresistibly – throughout the world. As society became ever more reliant on science, they had assumed, religion would inexorably decline. No doubt the process would be bumpy, and pockets of irrationality would linger on the margins of modern life; but religion would dwindle away as a factor in human conflict. The road would be long and winding. But the grand march of secular reason would continue, with more and more societies joining the modern west in marginalising religion. Someday, religious belief would be no more important than personal hobbies or ethnic cuisines. Today, it’s clear that no grand march is under way. Though not all human beings may attach great importance to them, every society contains practices that are recognisably religious. Why should religion be universal in this way? For atheist missionaries this is a decidedly awkward question. Invariably they claim to be followers of Darwin. Yet they never ask what evolutionary function this species-wide phenomenon serves. There is an irresolvable contradiction between viewing religion naturalistically – as a human adaptation to living in the world – and condemning it as a tissue of error and illusion. What if the upshot of scientific inquiry is that a need for illusion is built into in the human mind? If religions are natural for humans and give value to their lives, why spend your life trying to persuade others to give them up? As a species, we appear to have a strong tendency towards religious belief for, doubtless, excellent reasons. When conventional religious belief fades, it is simply replaced by something else (there’s no better example of that than communism, essentially little more than a milleniallist cult, with a supernatural idea of history stepping in for more traditional gods). Raging against religious belief is as foolish (as I am not the first to observe) as raging against bipedalism. Secular sorts would do far better to focus their wrath on the more malign expressions of religious belief. All religions are not equal. An Anglican is not a Salafist. As you’d expect, Gray also turns his question to the notion of morality without God: The belief that the human species is a moral agent struggling to realise its inherent possibilities – the narrative of redemption that sustains secular humanists everywhere – is a hollowed-out version of a theistic myth. The idea that the human species is striving to achieve any purpose or goal – a universal state of freedom or justice, say – presupposes a pre-Darwinian, teleological way of thinking that has no place in science. Empirically speaking, there is no such collective human agent, only different human beings with conflicting goals and values. If you think of morality in scientific terms, as part of the behaviour of the human animal, you find that humans don’t live according to iterations of a single universal code. Instead, they have fashioned many ways of life. A plurality of moralities is as natural for the human animal as the variety of languages. At this point, the dread spectre of relativism tends to be raised. Doesn’t talk of plural moralities mean there can be no truth in ethics? Well, anyone who wants their values secured by something beyond the capricious human world had better join an old-fashioned religion. If you set aside any view of humankind that is borrowed from monotheism, you have to deal with human beings as you find them, with their perpetually warring values. This isn’t the relativism celebrated by postmodernists, which holds that human values are merely cultural constructions. Humans are like other animals in having a definite nature, which shapes their experiences whether they like it or not. No one benefits from being tortured or persecuted on account of their religion or sexuality. Being chronically poor is rarely, if ever, a positive experience. Being at risk of violent death is bad for human beings whatever their culture. Such truisms could be multiplied. Universal human values can be understood as something like moral facts, marking out goods and evils that are generically human. Using these universal values, it may be possible to define a minimum standard of civilised life that every society should meet; but this minimum won’t be the liberal values of the present time turned into universal principles. Universal values don’t add up to a universal morality. Such values are very often conflicting, and different societies resolve these conflicts in divergent ways…. The conviction that tyranny and persecution are aberrations in human affairs is at the heart of the liberal philosophy that prevails today. But this conviction is supported by faith more than evidence. Throughout history there have been large numbers who have been happy to relinquish their freedom as long as those they hate – gay people, Jews, immigrants and other minorities, for example – are deprived of freedom as well. Many have been ready to support tyranny and oppression. Billions of human beings have been hostile to liberal values, and there is no reason for thinking matters will be any different in future. No there is not. Food for thought. Read the whole thing. For a guy who laments moral relativism, Rod Dreher doesn’t shy away from equating ISIS, though with the expected qualifier, to the folks in Silicon Valley. Upon reading a dialogue between two future forecaster types at Edge.org – who talk about “useless” people (from an economic, military, and intentionally hyperbolic POV, let’s be clear) and the possibility of the very rich cheating death – he’s come away convinced that “slavery” will soon be at hand: This is the religion of the future. Slavery will come to us disguised as the light of liberty and progress. These are the barbarians coming to rule us — and the masses will welcome them. If you are not part of a church community that is consciously resisting this vision, then your children, or at best your children’s children, will be lost to the faith. There is no thought more corrupting to the human soul than the Serpent’s promise in Eden: “Ye Shall be as Gods.” Goodness, er, gracious. Dreher is disturbed by modernity, period, and for him Silicon Valley is symbolic of everything wrong with the (relatively) rationalist, reductionist tendency in the human affairs of the Global North. He blames the “barbarians” of Silicon Valley for being both elitist – e.g. with their talk of a technological “singularity” and interest in life extension – and down-to-earth in the worst way, by promoting “bread and circuses.” Think Netflix and Snapchat (or to get really granular, the animated gif keyboard). Some of what Dreher is criticizing is rightly considered problematic (to borrow a term from the left), such as long-term unemployment becoming the norm. And Dreher correctly points out that the trends being noticed in the conversation between Yuval Noah Harari and Daniel Kahneman aren’t necessarily being promoted. But the solution to these and other ills aren’t being obstructed by techno-optimists as much as they are anti-state libertarians (to call out “our” side), or the political dysfunction seemingly difficult to dislodge given increasing ideological rigidity. In any case, egghead utilitarians deliberating about how the masses will endure the end of work and ample food and entertainment is not at all on par with radical Islam. But that’s just my two cents. Or is that two bitcoins? Whatever. The Islamic State is now directing its wrath at Twitter. Namely its co-founder, Jack Dorsey, but also his underlings. And if you thought the Twitter Mob was bad, check out what happens when Twitter itself is in the crosshairs for wrangling with the ultra-reactionary: ISIS posted an online threat Sunday warning Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey that “your virtual war on the Internet will cause a real war on you.” The threat was posted in Arabic under a headline, “Foundation for the conquest of Jerusalem for the Islamic State,” and “Twitter a target for the caliphate.” “Jack, how will you protect your helpless employees when their necks are on the line and they become an official target for soldiers of the succession and their supporters among you?” the online post states. “What will be your response to their families and sons, and their plight in this failed war?” Oddly, ISIS has nothing to say about the awful, terrible and no-good lack of diversity at Twitter. It’s merely upset that the company is constantly taking down its videos. How selfish! Clearly the fledgeling Islamic State is not in tune with 21st century moral posturing. (Only 8th century beheadings.) Luckily for the civilized world, the hacktivist spirit that dwells within ISIS is also at work among its opponents. As CNN reports, someone going by the name of “The Jester” has been undermining online jihadis for nearly half a decade: “I realized something needed to be done about online radicalization and ‘grooming’ of wannabe jihadis, and we didn’t have mechanisms to deal with it,” Jester said in an interview with CNNMoney. “I decided to start disrupting them.” My black hat’s off to you, sir. Jamila Bey is a mom, a business owner, a Pittsburgh native—and a board member of the group American Atheists. She also, apparently, identifies as conservative. After introducing herself to the crowd, Bey used her three-minute spot to invite audience members to drop by the American Atheist table in the exhibition hall and learn more. Jamila Bey’s Twitter. Cross-posted on the Corner: Over in the Financial Times, there’s an interesting piece on Putin’s friends abroad, but this passage in particular caught my eye: The current Egyptian government believes that the Obama administration’s failure to support former President Hosni Mubarak, during the Egyptian revolution of 2011, revealed the US to be both duplicitous and naive. Hold that thought, now read this (from the Daily Telegraph) (my emphasis added): Islamic State militants are planning a takeover of Libya as a “gateway” to wage war across the whole of southern Europe, letters written by the group’s supporters have revealed. The jihadists hope to flood the north African state with militiamen from Syria and Iraq, who will then sail across the Mediterranean posing as migrants on people trafficking vessels, according to plans seen by Quilliam, the British anti-extremist group. The fighters would then run amok in southern European cities and also try to attack maritime shipping. The document is written by an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) propagandist who is believed to be an important online recruiter for the terror in Libya, where security has collapsed in the wake of the revolution that unseated Colonel Gaddafi in 2011 . . . [British] security officials also share Isil’s view about the possibility of using people trafficking boats to smuggle fighters into Europe. Thanks to its vast, porous desert borders with Sub-Saharan Africa, Libya has long been a key operating hub for trafficking boats heading into Europe, but numbers have escalated dramatically since the collapse of the Gaddafi regime. Italy’s interior ministry estimates that at least 200,000 refugees and immigrants are poised to make the crossing from Libya to Sicily or the tiny island of Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost territory. Last year more than 170,000 arrived in Italy by boat, including tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing the civil war in their home country. . . . Nasser Kamel, Egypt’s ambassador to London, warned Britain brace itself for ‘boats full of terrorists’ unless action was taken in Libya. He spoke after 2,164 migrants were rescued at sea in a 24-hour period over the weekend in what has been described as an ‘exodus without precedent’. “Those boat people who go for immigration purposes and try to cross the Mediterranean … in the next few weeks, if we do not act together, they will be boats full of terrorists also,” he said. . . . Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Isil’s leader, has since laid claim to Libya as part of his “Caliphate”. Whilst on the whole that remains more rhetoric than reality, support for the group in this war ravaged state is growing. In September, Abu Nabil, an Iraqi and key leader within Isil, travelled to the country to build support for the group. His men took control of much of Derna, a traditionally conservative city in the east of the country, that is now being run according to the extremist group’s strict Shariah law. Hundreds of Libyans who had travelled to fight alongside Isil in Syria have started to return to fight for the group on home turf, residents say. They have expanded the group’s influence into the east of the country, taking controlling of parts of Sirte, a former Gaddafi stronghold. Barack Obama (January 7, 2014) on ISIS: I think the analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant. I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian. And since then there has been the claim that ISIS is somehow “not Islamic.” The term “out of his depth” comes to mind. In this context, this lengthy, intriguing piece by Graeme Wood in The Atlantic on ISIS is very well worth your time. Its implications are terrifying. The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million. The millennialist temptation takes many forms, is perennial and, at its worst, very, very dangerous, but it is not something that a president wrapped up in the soft certainties of the end of history can be expected to understand. The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam. Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it…. Following takfiri doctrine, the Islamic State is committed to purifying the world by killing vast numbers of people. The lack of objective reporting from its territory makes the true extent of the slaughter unknowable, but social-media posts from the region suggest that individual executions happen more or less continually, and mass executions every few weeks. Muslim “apostates” are the most common victims. Exempted from automatic execution, it appears, are Christians who do not resist their new government. Baghdadi permits them to live, as long as they pay a special tax, known as the jizya, and acknowledge their subjugation. The Koranic authority for this practice is not in dispute . . . Centuries have passed since the wars of religion ceased in Europe, and since men stopped dying in large numbers because of arcane theological disputes. Hence, perhaps, the incredulity and denial with which Westerners have greeted news of the theology and practices of the Islamic State. The incredulity and denial are true enough, and, ironically, Wood’s history (at this point) in a sense reflects very similar thinking. Contrary to his assertion, wars of religion (even if largely unacknowledged as such) did very nicely for themselves in Europe during the last century. Both communism and Nazism were, in many respects, millennialist cults (think of that “thousand year” Reich), and, as such cults can do, they killed millions. ISIS may well try the same. As for ISIS attacks on southern Europe (and in the end it would not just be southern Europe), it’s important to remember that the writings of one propagandist do not necessarily translate into deeds, but . . . As the atrocities in France and Denmark remind us, Europe’s intertwined immigration and Islamist crises are already bad enough. They may well be about to get much worse. Cross-posted on the Corner. A writer for the Guardian, on cue (my emphasis added): We are in perilous territory. Slaughter as political protest cannot be defended. Free speech as legal and moral pre-requisites in a free society must be defended. But there are also other obligations to be laid upon those who wish to live in peaceful, reasonably harmonious societies. Even after Paris, even after Denmark we must guard against the understandable temptation to be provocative in the publication of these cartoons if the sole objective is to establish that we can do so. With rights to free speech come responsibilities. After the uproar that followed the appearance of the original Mohammed cartoons, an article was published in Jyllands-Posten (the newspaper that first published those cartoons) included this phrase: “Ytringsfrihed er ytringsfrihed er ytringsfrihed. Der er intet men.” The translation? “Free speech is free speech is free speech. There is no but.” But there is. As I noted the other day, Jyllands-Posten is singing a different tune these days, made all the bleaker by its bluntness. The newspaper declined to republish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons after the Paris murders saying this: “We have lived with the fear of a terrorist attack for nine years, and yes, that is the explanation why we do not reprint the cartoons, whether it be our own or Charlie Hebdo’s,” Jyllands-Posten said. “We are also aware that we therefore bow to violence and intimidation.” In writing about the (first) Copenhagen murder last night, I linked to a 2010 Philadelphia Inquirer story that revealed how a number of the meetings due to be addressed by Lars Vilks (the artist whose event was attacked) had been canceled. If I had to guess, I suspect that those who, however sadly, canceled those events, are today feeling, however sadly, that they did the right thing. Violence works. There will be many more cancellations, many more invitations that go unissued, many more articles that do not get written, and many more cartoons that do not get drawn. The noose tightens a bit more. In a piece published by The Spectator before Copenhagen, Douglas Murray writes about a rally held in London a week or so ago: Yesterday in London a crowd of more than a thousand British Muslims (carefully divided between males and females) gathered outside Downing Street. The rally – organised by something calling itself ‘The Muslim Action Forum’ – was a protest against freedom of speech, specifically to cartoons of Mohammed in the French publication Charlie Hebdo. Among the banners carried by protestors were ones that read, ‘I am a servant of holy prophet Muhammad (pbuh)’, the sinister ‘We love prophet Muhammad (pbuh) more than our lives’, ‘Jesus and Moses were prophets of Islam’ and the even more presumptuous ‘Learn some manners’. Among those holding a banner reading ‘Charlie and the abuse factory’ was a little boy. Others bore banners with the fantastically awful words spoken by the Pope last month: ‘Insult my mum and I will punch you (Pope Francis).’ A large banner hung beneath the stage from which speakers addressed the crowd carried the barely concealed threat: ‘Be careful with Muhammad.’ Meanwhile a group of tribal leaders presented a petition to Number 10 Downing Street which they said had been signed by 100,000 UK Muslims criticising publications which ‘sow the seeds of hatred’…. Among the speakers was one Shaykh Tauqir Ishaw, a spokesman for the organisers who said: ‘Perpetual mistakes by extremists, either by cold-blooded killers or uncivilised expressionists, cannot be the way forward for a civilised society. The peace-loving majority of people must become vociferous in promoting global civility and responsible debate. At this time of heightened tension and emotion, it is crucial that both sides show restraint to prevent further incidents of this nature occurring.’ “Restraint.” “Responsibilities.” “But.” Of course much though these fanatics may like to pretend otherwise there are no ‘two sides’ of the same coin going on here. The ‘expressionists’ and the ‘terrorists’ are not ‘as bad as each other’. The only two things which are in fact conjoined are the people who use guns and bombs to terrorise people for exercising their rights as free Europeans and the very large number of people from the ‘moderate majority’ who back up such violence (even while, like yesterday’s speakers, claiming to deplore it) with warnings that non-Muslims should be ‘careful’ when addressing their religion. Writing in the New York Times, David Brooks frets about what non-believers, um, believe: Over the past few years, there has been a sharp rise in the number of people who are atheist, agnostic or without religious affiliation. A fifth of all adults and a third of the youngest adults fit into this category. As secularism becomes more prominent and self-confident, its spokesmen have more insistently argued that secularism should not be seen as an absence — as a lack of faith — but rather as a positive moral creed. Phil Zuckerman, a Pitzer College sociologist, makes this case as fluidly and pleasurably as anybody in his book, “Living the Secular Life.” Oh good grief… Secularism has “spokesmen”? Now it’s true that most people do want to have faith in something. That’s why so many supposedly secular philosophies are anything but (step forward, Karl Marx). But if there is anything that non-belief should not be it is a creed. In essence non-belief ‘says’ one of two things: Either that there is no God, or (in essence, I know it’s more complicated than this) that the existence of God is highly unlikely. That’s it. Move along, there’s (literally) nothing to see here. What’s on television tonight? From what Brooks says, Zuckerman’s “creed” appears to be some variant of the usual soft-left secular humanist mush. That’s for those who like that sort of thing, but only for those who like that sort of thing. I’ll pass, thanks. Brooks then worries about how hard it must be “to live secularism well”, claiming that secularists have to build their own moral philosophies (not really, accumulated traditions, societal and familial, often work out just fine – and they come with the plus of not needing too much thought), and that secularists have to build their own “communities” and “covenantal rituals”. They do? Why? Secular individuals have to build their own Sabbaths. Religious people are commanded to drop worldly concerns. Secular people have to create their own set times for when to pull back and reflect on spiritual matters. No they don’t “have” to. Quite a few secular individuals doubtless do feel a ‘God-shaped hole’, or some need for the transcendent, but, judging by my own experience, I suspect that there are plenty of others who do not. The amount of time I need “to pull back and reflect on spiritual matters”: zero. It’s easy, Mr. Brooks. If anything, what Brooks’s article shows is how difficult it is for some religious folk (particularly, I suspect, the more intellectual among them) to ‘get’ the fact that for some secularists at least, “spiritual matters” are not something they are too bothered about. Towards the end of the piece Brooks argues: It seems to me that if secularism is going to be a positive creed, it can’t just speak to the rational aspects of our nature. Secularism has to do for nonbelievers what religion does for believers — arouse the higher emotions, exalt the passions in pursuit of moral action. In a way Brooks is right. If secularism (which he appears to use as a synonym for atheism/agnosticism rather than, anything more specifically political or philosophical) is to be a ‘creed’, it would have to appeal to the irrational as well as the rational. That’s how creeds work (take another bow, Karl Marx!) but, to repeat myself, there is no reason why secularism in the sense that Brooks uses it has to be a creed. It can be a simple matter of observation (or, some might say, failure to observe), complete in itself. The only secularism that can really arouse moral motivation and impel action is an enchanted secularism, one that puts emotional relations first and autonomy second. I suspect that over the next years secularism will change its face and become hotter and more consuming, less content with mere benevolence, and more responsive to the spiritual urge in each of us, the drive for purity, self-transcendence and sanctification. “Enchanted secularism,” “the spiritual urge in each of us”? I’ll leave that sort of thing to the likes of Professor Dawkins and, my spiritual urges thankfully non-existent, revert to spending my time on something more fruitful. What’s on television tonight? ROME — A new Vatican document expresses a negative view of elective plastic surgery for women, warning that procedures such as facelifts and tummy tucks can become a form of “aggression” that threatens female identity. Surgical alterations in appearance, the document says, can “amputate the expressive possibilities of the human face, which are so connected to empathic abilities,” and “can be aggressive toward the feminine identity, showing a refusal of the body.” The same document compares plastic surgery to “a burqa made of flesh”.

Housesitter is the latest by Frank Oz (What About Bob?). Steve Martin stars as Newton Davis, an architect who has come up the perfect wedding proposal/ present for his girlfriend: a new house designed just for her. But his girlfriend, played by Dana Delany (China Beach), rejects him. Newton then meets Gwen (played by Goldie Hawn), a cocky waitress/con artist. Newton and Gwen have a one-night stand. This gives Gwen the perfect opportunity -- she picks up her bags and moves into Newton`s new house. While he is out of pocket, she makes herself known around the town and fixes the house as if it were her own. That`s when the trouble starts. She tells everyone that she`s Newton`s wife. The really horrible thing is that everybody believes it, even Newton`s old girlfriend. Newton comes back to check on his house when he discovers Gwen has taken over his life. He then realizes that this might be the chance to win his girlfriend back. Martin is delightful, as always. His character isn`t Newton, but himself. But I like that because he is a true comedian. His slapstick routines are hilarious. Goldie Hawn`s performance comes across dull. Maybe it was because the character of Gwen was so uninteresting. I tried to get into it, but I didn`t like any of her qualities. Dana Delany`s character wasn`t around much, but she was the most lovable of the bunch. Housesitter doesn`t compare to Martin`s other films. But it is a typical light comedy, something to put you in a good mood after a rough day. PG --- Sexual situations, violence, coarse language, obscenity.

- Facebook is adding gift cards to its Gifts service for users in the United States - Initial offerings include Target, Jamba Juice, Sephora and the Olive Garden - When you buy a card on the social network for a friend, a message tells them of the gift Facebook is expanding its Gift feature to include plastic gift cards that carry balances for multiple stores and restaurants. The cards only work at four stores for now: Target, Jamba Juice, Sephora and The Olive Garden. So if you've been wondering how to give your little sister a birthday gift that combines fruit smoothies, lip gloss and unlimited breadsticks, this product is for you. When you buy a card on the social network for a friend, they get a message informing them of the gift right away (great for scrambling at the last minute). The cash amount is loaded on to a plastic card that is delivered in the mail, likely in some sort of paper envelope. The recipient can then take that physical card into a physical store and buy physical goods. For an Internet company, it's all delightfully old fashioned. The cards will be rolling out gradually for Facebook users in the United States. Facebook is entering a crowded field and offers a couple of features to differentiate itself from other gift cards. The gift giver can choose which of the available stores to give money to -- say $5 to cover a drink at Jamba Juice and $20 for home goods at Target. The recipient can monitor the balances on their card from the Facebook app (but they can't move the money between vendors, no matter how much they would rather have mascara than pasta). Any gift amounts they get in the future are automatically added to the same card. Facebook launched its Gifts feature in September for physical goods like chocolate, shirts, flowers and wine, as well as virtual items like donations to charity, Uber credit and Netflix subscriptions. It also offered gift cards for specific vendors such as Starbucks and iTunes. This new card is different because it will work at multiple retailers, is refillable and integrates with the Facebook app. Even though you can see your card's balance on a smartphone, there aren't mobile payment options at the moment. Facebook cards aren't compatible with existing mobile payment technology like NFC, QR codes or barcodes that allow people to pay for goods with their mobile phone. For now the company is sticking with the traditional plastic rectangle and magnetic-strip technology that is most widely accepted across the United States. The new product falls somewhere between store-specific cards and bank-issued open gift cards that can be used almost anywhere credit cards are accepted. It also may create some privacy issues. In order to receive the card, the recipient will have to share their mailing address with Facebook, which might make some people uncomfortable. Gift cards are an easy workaround for people who don't have enough time or personal knowledge to pick out a specific gift. Like cash, you know it will be useful and there's no danger of getting people something they will hate. Choosing cards from specific vendors like a favorite coffee spot or clothing store can be slightly more personal than a Visa card to be used anywhere. With this card you can mix and match stores. Facebook has been experimenting with all kinds of money-making schemes in the past year, like paying to send messages to strangers. Most of the company's revenue comes from advertising -- 84%, according to the latest earnings report -- but it also makes some money off games and programs like Facebook Gifts. The social network says it has more than a billion active users, and that's a largely untapped resource. A Facebook spokesperson said the company had nothing to share about how it will make money off the Card service. There are no fees for the gift giver or gift receiver, so Facebook is likely earning a percentage from the participating companies.

Running a safari camp can’t be easy. In fact, it may be just about the most difficult hospitality gig on the planet. In addition to all of the nuances of running any high-quality accommodation, you have to do it off-the-grid, in a very remote and hard-to-access location, within a wildlife reserve or park, with highly specialized on-site staff, while running a successful safari-drive business. Balancing a sustainable tourism plan in this already difficult operating environment can be a tall order for any camp owner. Some argue that there simply is not enough time (or money) to implement sustainability projects under such demanding circumstances. Fortunately, many others have taken the opposite approach, believing that operating responsibly is a necessity for survival in the safari business. After all, visits to the bush are all about viewing animals in their natural environment—shouldn’t a safari camp’s goal be to protect that very environment? Thanks to the many challenges of running a safari operation, camp owners have been forced to develop some of the leading eco-innovation and efficiency techniques found in the tourism industry today. Here are some projects that impressed me in the bush: - Energy – Remote bush camps have two options when it comes to electricity—diesel generators or renewables. Both systems are used to power battery units to provide power during off-peak times. While most camps have historically used diesel fuel, those that have switched to renewables are reaping the benefits—reduced energy costs over time, no expensive diesel delivery costs, no noise pollution in the bush, no fuel-burning pollution in the bush, etc. Solar is the new diesel, both through solar electricity and solar thermal devices. Cutting edge camps have cut their operational diesel burn to nearly zero, using the old generators only for back-up during maintenance. - Solid Waste – With no routine trash pick-up (some camps only have vehicle access for less than 3 months a year!), storing waste and recycling can prove to be a challenge. Add to that the hungry and aggressive animals in these regions, and you have a waste management problem on your hands. Composting has become a big trend, eliminating over 50 percent of solid waste volume. Compost pits, however, must be heavily secured and closely monitored—hyenas in particular love to dig their way in. Recycling is separated at some of the more eco-focused camps, but most parts of Africa lack a location for processing these materials. Material re-use is woven into every aspect of operations, from food-prep, to housekeeping, to camp decoration. Leading camps have developed systems for eliminating packaging and excess materials prior to camp delivery, reducing the load on the back end. Remaining waste is stored in secure cages until it can be transported back to town. - Water Waste – Water is a precious commodity in the often arid desert environments. Watersheds are very susceptible to disease and pollution, so it is imperative that camp water is properly treated before being released back into the ground. Old-school septic tanks are rapidly being replaced with cutting-edge bio-digester units that use natural bacteria instead of harsh chemicals to treat waste water. Any single initiative listed here wouldn’t constitute a news-worthy sustainability effort. However, when these projects are combined in a single property, and these properties are dotted across much of the African bush, we’ve got some pretty impressive and wide-spread eco-innovation. To me, there’s something darn cool about a lodge that sources, uses and disposes of all of its own energy, water and most of its waste in a responsible manner. Regardless of whether the motivation is out of operational necessity or environmental consciousness, I call these off-the-grid camps an eco-success. Travel to Africa with WWF. © Oh, the Places We’ll Go. Reprinted with permission.

Inside the United States, HR departments continue to grapple with a real estate downturn that has led employees to resist job transfers because they can’t sell their homes. Overseas, multinational companies are curbing the costs of expat programs by cutting assignments short, restructuring expat compensation packages and, in some parts of the world, filling positions with local hires instead of relatively more expensive Western employees. The fallout has reached some of the industry’s leading relocation outsourcers, which have reacted by laying off employees, filing for bankruptcy or selling operations. Although the domestic and international relocation issues are very different, they have the same root: a tanking economy that offers fewer options for organizations that need to get their employees from here to there. Julie Loubaton knows firsthand how the recession is changing U.S. companies’ domestic relocation policies. As director of recruiting and talent management for Consolidated Container Co., Loubaton helps move people for jobs at the Atlanta bottle maker. Only this year there hasn’t been a lot of moving going on. The 3,000-employee private company stopped offering full relocation packages to new hires a while back and trimmed the number of existing employees it moved for transfers or promotions to seven so far this year, down from 10 in 2008 and 18 in 2007. The main reason: People can’t sell their homes, and there’s only so much cost that Consolidated Container is willing to take on to help. “A lot of people are having a hard time accepting what their house is valued at,” Loubaton says. “They still think they can sell it for X, despite what an agent is telling them. We can’t afford to have them try for six months then come to us for more money.” Things have eased up slightly since hitting bottom in the spring. Even so, Loubaton is revising her department’s relocation policies to better reflect the times, changes she spent months researching before bringing them to Consolidated Container’s executive committee in June for approval. The situation Consolidated Container faces and the actions it is taking mirror what’s happening throughout the country as businesses large and small come to grips with the financial effects of the real estate bust and recession. Nationwide, fewer employees are willing to move for a job. Of 179 companies in a 2009 survey by relocation outsourcer Cartus, 79 percent said employees’ resistance to moving increased somewhat or a great deal over the past year. For 94 percent of those, worries over selling an existing home were the main reason. “People are afraid of losing money or being underwater”—owing more on a mortgage than what they could sell their house for—says Lina Paskevicius, a consulting manager at Cartus. “If they’re moving, they’re waiting for some official word that the market has bottomed out, so they’re renting instead of buying at the new location, where traditionally they’d buy as soon as they got there.” When companies do help employees relocate, they’re demanding tougher terms. Thirty-seven percent of 210 companies in a recent poll by Weichert Relocation Resources adopted tighter list-price guidelines or added list-price restrictions to relocation policies for the first time in 2008. The news isn’t all grim. Last year, 40 percent of companies in Weichert’s survey added or increased loss-on-sale assistance, making up some portion of the difference between the original purchase price of a transferee’s home and its sale price. In the same poll, 34 percent of respondents increased the temporary housing allowance they offered. If a candidate is desirable enough, some companies will even pay a portion of the difference between what a transferee owes on a mortgage and what they can get for their house. “There’s no other way to get people to move,” Cartus’ Paskevicius says. Consolidated Container, which cranks out 7 million plastic bottles, drums and canisters a day in 65 factories in the U.S. and Mexico, never used to set sales prices for homes of employees who had accepted a transfer. But given the current realities of the residential real estate market, the company revised the policy. Now the company requires that candidates list their home within 105 percent of the average estimated selling price, based on two independent real estate agents’ market analyses. Aware that homes are taking more time to sell, however, Loubaton is extending how long the company will pay temporary living expenses, to three months from two. She’s also considering giving employees who sell within 90 days a bonus of 2 percent of the net sales price. “This way if they sell at less than they want we’re making up some of the difference, so it’s not as big of a hit mentally,” Loubaton says. Halting relocation offers to outside candidates hasn’t deterred them from applying for jobs at the bottle maker, which despite the recession is still hiring in its factories and for openings among 450 salaried positions at its Atlanta headquarters. In fact, Loubaton says candidates for management positions—especially junior-level jobs—are willing to do without company help. “In the old days they’d want a full relocation package. Now they say, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make it happen if you give me the job,’ ” she says. Loubaton uses Primacy, a Memphis, Tennessee-based relocation outsourcer, to perform the actual relocation work. She manages the program, and with so many changes taking place, “I’m on the phone with them five times a week. I’m tracking things weekly for our senior leadership team. I’m more involved than I ever thought I’d be,” she says. Like Consolidated Container, more companies are relying on outsourcers to manage relocation programs. Brookfield Global Relocation Services, which merged with GMAC’s relocation business in late 2008, found that about one-third of U.S. companies in its 2009 relocation survey use outsourcers to manage their domestic relocation programs. It’s the latest function being handed off to outsiders as HR departments economize, says Scott Sullivan, the company’s senior vice president. With housing prices still in the doldrums in many regions and jobless rates continuing to climb, nobody’s predicting relocation policies will go back to what they were anytime soon. “Unless there’s a turnaround, it’s going to be more of the same reluctance to relocate,” says Paskevicius, the Cartus consulting manager. To see what’s happening to multinationals’ global mobility programs, look at China. The country has become a leading expat destination—No. 1 in the world, according to Brookfield Global Relocation Services’ 2009 global mobility trends survey—yet remains one of the most challenging destinations for international assignments. Even in a global recession, China continues to be a manufacturing powerhouse, creating ongoing demand for management jobs, especially middle-manager positions. But assignments there can be tricky. Expats who live in post-Olympics Beijing maintain the city has become every bit as cosmopolitan as Singapore or Hong Kong—with the same high prices. Other areas of the country are still considered second-, third- or even fourth-tier destinations based on their lack of infrastructure, options for housing and schools, and other Western-style amenities. This makes it difficult to attract expats. Even in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, overcoming the twin barriers of language and culture continue to make assignments tough, according to HR managers, consultants and relocation outsourcers. With revenue and profits beaten down by the recession, multinationals are curbing mobility expenses in a number of ways: ending expat assignments early, reducing compensation packages and perks, and choosing single employees for international stints over those with families, according to 2009 reports from Brookfield and other global relocation outsourcers. These days, when expats are called home, their replacements are likely to be local hires whose total compensation can run well below what U.S. or European expats command, according to the reports and accounts from expat HR managers. All these trends are evident in China, where multinationals are replacing departing expats with their pick of a growing population of foreigners already living in the country. “There was just an expat job fair here a month ago and a couple thousand people were there looking for jobs,” says John Lackey, a Beijing-based international HR manager for International SOS. In more than a decade helping manage expat programs for such multinationals as Goldman Sachs and Microsoft, Lackey has had a bird’s-eye view of the changes taking place. He currently oversees HR for 85 expats working in Beijing for International SOS, which provides medical assistance, security services and international health care, including a chain of private medical clinics. The company has a global workforce of 6,000. Today, about half of International SOS’ expat employees in Beijing are traditional expats from 15 countries, including the U.S., Germany and New Zealand; a quarter are local hires; and the balance are expats who rotate through positions on a short-stay basis. While the total number has remained steady, Lackey predicts more expat positions will be filled by ethnic Chinese transferring from nearby countries or “half pats”—Chinese nationals returning to the country after living elsewhere for a long time. “An [American] expat with a spouse and two kids making $100,000 a year can run $250,000 to $500,000 in costs, compared to a local hire you can pay $100,000 and that’s all you have to pay,” Lackey says. “The savings is easily at least half and could be up to 75 percent.” Another attraction of local hires or half pats in China: their ability to fill in-demand middle-manager positions that require business experience and knowledge of language and culture, says Timothy Dwyer, client services director at Expaticore, a New York expatriate payroll outsourcer, and a former global mobility manager at Goldman Sachs and KMPG. These workers may not be a multinational’s perfect candidate. But as cost plays a bigger role in hiring decisions, companies are willing to overlook some deficiencies, especially if candidates accept a hybrid compensation deal that’s less than what a traditional expat would expect, Dwyer says. In addition to using local hires, multinationals are curbing costs of global mobility programs by cutting the length of long-term assignments by a year or more, creating more short-stay assignments of a year or less and sending employees on extended business trips of several weeks or months instead of moving them, says Paskevicius, the consulting manager at Cartus, which in addition to its domestic business also works with multinational clients. All those changes mean HR managers must look across the globe for available candidates, and more are relying on relocation outsourcers for help. Overall, 38 percent of 180 companies in Brookfield’s 2009 survey outsource the management of their global mobility program. Cartus, for example, offers its clients a candidate assessment program that uses performance metrics and other data to pick the best pros- pects for international jobs. Nevertheless, some organizations’ expat program managers prefer to go it alone. Lackey, who has worked with and for relocation outsourcers, acts as his own program administrator because of the flexibility it gives him. Outsourcers “tend to limit services to a fixed menu, whereas I can get a local company to provide services with no limitations,” he says. The global recession has put pressure on HR managers to justify how well global mobility programs align with a company’s overall business objectives. That means producing more data on the program’s operations “and more dialogue between HR and management about the outcome of assignments,” says Scott Sullivan, senior vice president at Brookfield Global Relocation Services, which acquired GMAC’s mobility division last year. Those same financial realities have accelerated the demise of companies’ once standard practice of doling out cushy expat assignments to junior executives as part of their management training process, says Rebecca Powers, a Mercer global compensation and mobility practice principal. Companies no longer feel the responsibility. It’s now employees who are eager to accept international postings, even in less than top-tier locations. They are also willing to make such moves for pay and benefits packages that are less than what they used to be, “as a way to boost their marketability,” Powers says. Workforce Management, July 20, 2009, p. 23-27 -- Subscribe Now!

Eli Whiteside had himself a day. In the 6th he argued a call on a dropped third strike and gave up 90 feet. That runner--it was ruled a passed ball--scored the go-ahead run. In the 7th, he reached when he forced out Miguel Tejada at second base. He then stole second and scored on a two-out hit by Andres Torres to tie the game. In the 9th he worked a walk off Heath Bell, and was replaced by Emmanuel Burriss. In a preview of things to come, MannyB stole second base. Chris Stewart, pinch-hitting, laid down a slick bunt to move him to third, showing us a little more of the coming attractions. The Burriss-Stewart combo would later win the game with some flashy old school ball, back when no one hit homers and they all had high socks. Single, steal, error, squeeze, run. Roger Craig would be overjoyed. Brian Wilson tried his best to blow the save, but The Man They Call Stew made a nifty pick-and-throw on a bunt to start big double play. FanGraphs says the win probability for San Diego went from 48.5% to 12.7% because of that. Way to go, Stewie. The two-headed hybrid of Eli and The Stewster will never equal Buster Posey, but that's what we've got and what we are sticking with, so "stay hot" as Kruk would say. The Giants, like the Japanese team today, needed extra time to find a way to win. But win they did. Defending league champs Giants and Texas Rangers are both 55-41 on this date, and are both in first place (TX +4, SF +3.5) in their respective Western Divisions. Both clubs have the third-best records in their leagues. p.s. Matt Cain struck out nine and his Game Score was 65.

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Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is not getting a great reception so far on Monday as word of its buyout continues to point to a deal getting closer and closer. Late last week, we were braced for a deal to come as early as this morning. Monday morning came and passed but now reports are fighting over the timing and terms. CNBC’s David Faber reported on this today, as did Dow Jones. 24/7 Wall St. has a slightly different possibility to consider. What if this is all just another ploy? What we do know so far is that Silver Lake is still the lead buyer, with Michael Dell being involved in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is still expected to contribute up to $2 billion in some form of equity or preferred capital. We are also now expecting that Dell will repatriate its cash from overseas, which ultimately get taxed unless there is some creative collateralization set up outside of the United States. The buyout price is one which we originally put at about $15.00 per share, but that was back on January 15 and was meant to illustrate a top-dollar that a buyer would pay which would also go off without “breach of duty suits” being filed on behalf of too many shareholders. That $15 is still a top we would expect a buyer to pay to get shareholders to go away, but we also still expect that many stockholders will file lawsuits in as many jurisdictions that they can saying that this is not in their best interests. So, after looking through the rumored news today, $15 is still probably too high for what a private equity group. Now the talk is a top of $14 or so if you listened to CNBC, and Dow Jones said that the deal is being finalized around $13.50 or $13.75. Michael Dell owns close to a 16% stake. That being said, what if the ultimate goal here by Michael Dell is to try to not buy the company but to get a core investor like Silver Lake and a strategic partner like Microsoft in the door and to try to just establish a floor for investors? The Dell buyout remains one which might not be the best exit for Dell shareholders. Some holders have been in there for years and years, and some are what we would call “very long and very wrong.” To prove that there is at least some cause for the concern, Dell shares are down 3.1% at $13.21 on the day against a 52-week trading range of $8.69 to $18.36. Its market cap is listed as being almost $23 billion all-in. There is an old saying, “An offer is as good as a take.” That may be true in some cases. That just might not be the case in this ongoing buyout of Dell. This may be more like a “takeunder” for many long-term shareholders. Below is a long-term 3-year chart from stockcharts.com for your review.

the last panel is what gets to me. When I was a kid, we used to make flip books (and then super 8 animations), and our goal was always to make a "smoke fight." Maybe your next topic might celebrate one of the great (and now largely lost) animation mainstays... I love this stuff, I remeber seeing a lot of these orginal popeys on local TV as a kid, along with some vintage Bugs Bunny, Woody the Woodpecker and plenty of others from around the same era. I never knew how good I had it. I can hardly wait to get this set. John I have to thank you for re-opening my eyes to how much fun cartoons used to be and how sad it is to see how far things have fallen.I remeber seeing my first vintage popeys. The funny walks,and the almost subvocaled jokes. Watching this funny looking guy in a sailor suit go after the twiggy ugly chic, putting up with his slacker pal whimpy, his mean but funny pappy and beating the crap out of the villian. Not to mention the weird stuff like the goons,the mischievious sweet pea and the geep. "Its the natural thing to do." GOOD TIMES!!! If this DVD set is a success, would King Features and Warner Brothers take that as some kind of "marketing" signal and collaborate on yet another sucky modern P.C. Popeye cartoon, or hire some small but dedicated animation team that would actually do it right - and no interference from studio about politically correct anything? There's nothing like a good ol' Beatin'!!! Maybe one day cartoons will start to be funny again and we'll get to be witness to some more beatings.Hopefully. Ahhh Violence in cartoons perhaps the closest thing to perfection we mere humans can attain.... Now there's a funny beating right there. I like how Popeye is animated (the part where he's lighting his pipe. He looks like he's floating). The DVD set is AMAZING John. Do you own/like it? What stands out to me the most is how it's set to the music. That little detail I think doubles the "fun" of the whole thing. Good ol cartoon violence. Damn Parents Groups for protecting their wussy kids from this great stuff. Beatings are your best entertainment value! I LOVE Blutos fighting style in this cartoon!!!Uhh heaven. Once, in an interview clip that John filmed for the E! Channel (April March was still animating for him at the time), he referred to this violence in particular as "glorious beatings."Dang if that ain't so!The best fight sequence occurs either in 1933 or in 1934... as Popeye and Bluto really get into it and their action is obscured by smoke, Popeye emerges from the cloud just long enough to slowly and thoughfully relight his pipe before getting back into it. What was Bluto fighting at the time? Who knows? Who cares? It's an utterly magnificent throwaway gag.It is quite interesting to see how the Fleischers appeared to have solved the problem of expressing speed in animation YEARS before their west coast counterparts did - and I have never, even once, seen them get any credit for this. You know, I don't find this particularly good. Look at it slowly - Popeye and Bluto both fall to the ground at exactly the same time, and what's more, they both get up at exactly the same rate. All of TWO distinct punches are thrown by each party, then it's all indistinct.When I was a kid, I soooort of liked Popeye cartoons, but there was always something about the elongated actions (like in this clip) that lost my attention. It was never quite as "snappy" as the Warner Bros. shorts that were to follow.Nowadays I can appreciate where the Popeye cartoons were at for their time, but I don't admire them quite as much even as early Fleischer stuff. I really dig these old Popeye cartoons! I agree with Zoe--the animation in these toons ain't that great. You don't feel the impact of the punches, the fall at the beginning is totally weightless, as are the characters themselves when they stand up. It's fun to look at once but it's all drifty feeling--much like my interest after 20 seconds. Ah, good old fashion cartoon ass whompings ! Oh and how manly can you get in a cartoon ? Most Popeyes are about two guys beating the shit out each other in order to get a woman. John, what do you think is the best college to go to for animation? Hey, you naysayers! There are Disney movies out there for those of you who only care about seeing real physics drawn out...for the rest of us, there's Popeye! I like Bluto's spherical body in the early Popeyes. Popeye is just the ultimate cool savage character in that cartoon. When he catches his pipe like that, holy cow. They should have had Tarantino direct the Popeye live action movie. That Popeye DVD is nearly flawless, and it's hard to think of a better animation DVD. So good and so much fun. I wish they'd done the Looney Tunes dvds like this. It will take me a while to go through it all. I did notice some very slight effects of DVNR in Popeye Meets Ali Baba when I freeze framed but it's hard to complain since you can see so much more detail (and more footage) than any other print I've seen. Haven't noticed any in any of the other cartoons yet. My only other complaint is that it didn't have all of the year 1938. Two of my favorites, Goonland and The Jeep, will have to wait until the next set. Hey John. Got a question for you about the episode George liquor's wilderness adventure. If at all possible I'd like to communicate via email with you. Mine is [email protected] I don't want to see real physics Barbara--I wanna see the kind of exaggerated caricatured movement that can only be achieved through animation. I'm not a naysayer of the Popeye toons--I think some of them are excellent and highly entertaining--I don't think this a particularly good example though. i did just pick up the popeye box set, it was expensive compared to some of the other american cartoon boxsets but well worth it Can anybody tell me if the cartoons on this set are DVNR'd or if anything else has been done to them?Visit my blog at http://www.riveroffun.blogspot.com >> Can anybody tell me if the cartoons on this set are DVNR'd or if anything else has been done to them? << I have this set for several days and so far there seem to be no DVNR, only some JPEG-like artefacting on several cartoons, but nothing too serious. It's a fantastic set, and these are some of the greatest and most entertaining cartoons ever made. totally off topic. I just witnessed direct sponsorship online. I watch the video podcast of this fellow, Liam Lynch (most famous for that "United States of Whatever" song.) The show is mostly him being himself, writing funny songs and doing sketch comedy and just plain talking to the audience (reminds me a lot of Soupy Sales and old-fashioned TV). Anyway, the cost of teh bandwidth needed to broadcast his show became so exspensive that he had to get an advertiser to fit the hosting bill. Luckily he gota deal in which he basically makes his own commercial any way he wants for the company, Wizzard Media. This info is nothing spectacular, but it shows that your predictions are coming true, John.GOD! Why does everyone have to mow their lawn all the fucking time can't lawn-mowing be restricted to a certain 2-hour period of time so i can enjoy my yard for the other 22hours of the day. Yes, it is DVNRed, but not as bad as some other cartoons.You can see it during walks and pans. Popeye keeps going in and out of focus.The contrast has been turned way up too, which makes the film flash bright and dark, so it flickers.Lines have been sharpened and thinned. They have stair-step effect. In long shots the faces almost disappear.This set is not as bad as the Looney Tunes or Woody sets, but I still don't understand why they do this stuff to the films at all.Why can't they just leave DVNR off? I don't get it either. Do any of you remember the special feature on one of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection sets where they dicuss their "restortion". They show one of the technicians working on "Corny Concerto" and boosting the color of Porky's red hunting hat until it looked like it was on fire! And they left it that way. They manner in which they arbitrarily play around with these peices of history is sickening.Visit my blog at www.riveroffun.blospot.com Is this the same one where Popeye literally knocks Bluto across the globe? I'm loving this new Popeye DVD . These shorts are great , with wonderful animation .John, do you know why Robert McKimson was so down on the Fleischers ? In the only interview he gave before his death in 1977, McKimson commented "we tried to learn from Disney... but we would never look up to anything like Terrytoons or what Fleischer was doing. Popeye cartoons are terrible. They look like a child drew them." has anyone ever seen a skinny old man that actually had much bigger foerarms than bicepts in real life. i thought that popeye was drawn goofy just cause it looked cool but its a caraciture of a real old man i didnt know that was physically possible but a guy i work with has those exact features and even talks like popeye, has no teeth except he would probably scare children. its bizar to see a person with those proportions hey dude i will teach you how to remove the navbar in your blog (to give it the professional look , and also teach you how to get a free domain name ... look me up here http://igizmore.blogspot.com ... my free domain is www.igizmore.uni.cc There's nothing like good old fashioned cartoon violence!Cartoons used to be brutal and manly! (and hilarious) They went after each other with bats,frying pans,etc.Teeth got knocked out,characters go shot,and would commit suicide! Now look at the crap cartoons have become......RRRGgghHH..makes me want to commit some cartoon style violence! Post a Comment

There was a third Apple founder. Ronald Wayne sold his 10% stake for $800 in 1976. A 1000-year-old recipe translated from Old English proves effective at killing MRSA. Good news, X-philes! The first episode audiences see of a TV series isn't necessarily its pilot episode. "My father, you see, interested me in patterns at the very beginning, and then later in things, like we would turn over stones and watch the ants carry the little white babies down deeper into th

Collingwood, Ontario roundabout design – Photo courtesy of the Town of Collingwood We have all dealt with “stop and go” traffic. Drivers accelerate quickly, then slam on their brakes when they hit a red light. Then accelerate quickly again, and repeat. This harmful style of driving wastes gas, creates unnecessary pollution, and creates unsafe conditions for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists, and is bad for our stress levels and overall health. The intention of traffic signals was to calm traffic, but it instead sometimes has the opposite effect of creating drivers who are racing to “beat the red”. Un-timed traffic signals result in inefficient traffic flow, leaving scores of cars sitting idle and scores of other cars racing to make the green. In smaller towns, traffic signals become a burden, slowing down fast-moving highway traffic. To rectify this, the government spends hundreds of millions of tax dollars to build massive concrete bridges to keep cars moving unimpeded. While heading to Collingwood, Ontario to go skiing on my Christmas break last week I encountered several roundabout junctions that weren’t there the last time I had visited Collingwood several years ago. These roundabouts were recommended in a 2007 Environmental Assessment that was completed on behalf of the Town of Collingwood. They were recommended to ensure “future traffic volumes can be adequately accommodated”, while also increasing safety and reducing environmental impacts. Collingwood roundabout under construction – Photo courtesy of the Town of Collingwood When the space warrants roundabouts, they can be a great way to preclude the limitations discussed above that are inherent with traffic signals. Furthermore, the cost to build a roundabout pales in comparison to the exorbitant costs of building an overpass. The Collingwood roundabouts cost about $600,000 each, while an overpass can cost anywhere between $4 million to $12 million, depending on the configuration. When there is enough space to construct them, roundabouts are an extremely efficient way to keep traffic moving while also improving safety for pedestrians and bicyclists when designed properly. A Dutch study of 181 intersections that were converted to roundabouts found a reduction of 73% in pedestrian crashes. The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP Report 572) found a 67% overall reduction in collisions following the implementation of roundabouts at 26 multi-lane intersections. From the Town of Collingwood website: “Vehicles operating in a roundabout result in lower environmental impacts, by keeping traffic moving at a more consistent lower speed and reducing idling. The shorter delays and “rolling” approach to roundabouts generally reduce fuel and energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon footprint, as well as a reduction in noise to the surrounding community. The longer delays and the start and stop approach to signalized intersections will generally have a more demanding impact on the environment.” To take our Canadian roundabouts one step further, we need only to look at the Dutch for inspiration. Watch this video from our friend Mark over at Bicycle Dutch, showing a modern roundabout in the Netherlands. Notice how bicyclists have the right of way to drivers. But despite this, cars still seem to flow fairly well through the roundabout. Mark also has a wonderful write-up on the evolution of the Dutch roundabouts on his blog. It is great to see pragmatic traffic design solutions popping up in Canada rather than reverting to the old thinking of building stop signs, traffic signals or overpasses at every junction.

JOHN YOSHIO NAKA IN CELEBRATION OF A GRAND MASTER'S LIFE HE TAUGHT US. HE TAUGHT OUR TEACHERS. It has been estimated that in all the international world of bonsai, John Y. Naka was easily considered among the top five contemporary greatest masters, the grand masters of the art. The following is a partial and beginning but representative run-through of this great teacher's life. This Page Last Updated: December 15, 2014 Born on August 16, 1914 in the farming community of [Ft.] Lupton, Colorado (northeast of Denver), John Yoshio Naka was the third child of Kakichi and Yukino Naka. John's father had left his wife and first two children in Japan in 1903 to come to America to find his fortune. A few years later, John's mother came to Colorado to join her husband with his son. The daughter stayed in Japan with the grandparents. John's mother was one of the first women to come to here from Japan, so her small child -- John, eighteen years younger than his brother -- was a novelty to his father's friends, who all pampered him. In November, 1922, when he was eight, John's family moved to Japan. (John's oldest brother Sadao stayed behind in Colorado to continue farming.) His father, an only son, went back to the ancestral home in Kurume on Kyushu island to care for his elderly father, Sadehei, when John's paternal grandmother died. John and his grandfather formed a close relationship -- John's father serving as a translator for the first year or so -- and Sadahei encouraged the John's dynamic zest for life. Sadehei-san taught him bonsai as well as a repertoire of Japanese proverbs. These were part of the philosophies which John heard also on long walks in the woods with his grandfather. One day these proverbs would continue to roll off of John's quick tongue. Being just a boy, John initially could only watch the old man trim and shape the trees. Then he was only allowed to do such things as watering and pulling weeds until he was older. John grew very close to his grandfather, and through him learned to train and love bonsai. John's artistic abilities had not gone unnoticed. He was invited to study landscape design. It was then that he learned the basics of the relationship of trees, stones and space. When he had nearly completed his formal education in 1935, John received notice that he had been accepted into one of Japan's most prestigious art schools. However, his father had heard rumors of an impending war and feared for his son who was now of warrior's age. The family members met and decided that John should return to Colorado. All the other Nakas would spend the rest of their years on the family farm in Kurume (less than sixty miles northeast of Nagasaki). At age 21, John returned to Colorado to live with his brother, Sadao, and established a truck farm near Boulder. There in the spring time he met the young daughter of his brother's friend, Alice Toshiko Mizunaga. John and Alice married by the end of 1936 in Brighton, CO and went on to raise three sons: Eugene, Robert, and Richard. On snowy days John would sit in front of a large window sketching trees, especially those with large trunks. After several years of fighting late springs and early frosts plus hail storms during the summer, the Nakas decided that they had had enough of farming. The family moved to Los Angeles, California in late 1946, where John did landscaping with a special emphasis on Japanese gardens. His business grew, and he would continue this until 1968. In 1947 he met Sam (Tameichi) Doi, one of the early knowledgeable bonsai men in Southern California, after hearing about him at the local barber shop. Their friendship lasted until Doi returned to Japan in 1948. He encouraged John to read books on bonsai techniques and even gave him several volumes. John sought out additional works and subscribed to the Japanese-language magazine Bonsai which was edited and published by Norio Kobayashi. The reference work John preferred over all others was the 1934 Bonsai Geijyutsu (The Fine Art of Bonsai) written by Sawada Ushimaro. John began serious bonsai creation, memories of his days with his grandfather having not faded. John Naka's Montezuma CypressIn 1948 John created a three-foot tall informal upright Blue atlas cedar ( Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca') bonsai. 1 (International Bonsai, 1988/No. 4, pg. 26) In November of 1950, the Southern California Bonsai Club was officially formed by John Naka and four friends, Fusaji ("Frank") B. Nagata, Morihei Furuya, Mrs. Ai Okumura, and Joseph Yamashiro, to bring bonsai within the reach of everyone. The first three had been introduced to John by the aforementioned Mr. Doi, who worked for Mrs. Okumura and took care of her bonsai collection. (Doi had become teacher to Nagata and Furuya before WWII. The three of them happened to be assigned to the same relocation camp in 1942 -- near Granada in eastern Colorado, Amache was the smallest camp with only an 8,000 person capacity. While there, they managed to put on a makeshift bonsai exhibit for their fellow internees. After the war they returned to Los Angeles.) Mr. Yamashiro had met the Nakas in Colorado during the war and they were distant acquaintances. It just so happened that the Yamashiros later moved next door to the Nakas in California. On Sundays the two families would regularly get together. While the poet and philosopher Joseph Yamashiro and John worked on miniature trees in the yard, Alice Naka and Hanna Yamashiro pursued their own interests. The five students of bonsai became close, spending all their time talking about and working with bonsai. Now, Mssrs. Nagata, Furuya, and Naka decided to show their trees at the November 1950 San Gabriel Valley Fall Flower and Garden Show at the Fannie E. Morrison Horticulture Center in Pasadena. When they arrived they were informed that individuals could not display unless they were sponsored by a club. Without a moment's hesitation, the quick thinking Frank Nagata spoke up and said they were a club. And what was the name of the club? Again, without hesitation or benefit of conference: The Southern California Bonsai Club. They were now allowed to enter their trees, which did win a trophy and a blue ribbon at the Show the next day. Founders of The Southern California Bonsai Club (later the California Bonsai Society, Inc.) (Bonsai in California, #1, 1967) A demonstration was also given then by the group's youngest member, John. His inaugural exhibit of trees was the first time many Americans had the opportunity to see bonsai after the war. Within two years John would be teaching, first his immediate friends, and then others By the way, John and his friends decided to make an honest man of Frank, and they founded the organization that Frank had named, in Mrs. Okumura's backyard. In training by John from this year was a 30" tall silvery blue Atlas cedar ( Cedrus atlantica var. glauca). 3 -11, 1951 the club won another first prize, this time at the California International Flower Show at Hollywood Park in Inglewood. And the following month the club won a special award in the Southern California Spring Flower and Garden Show, again in Pasadena. His son Robert's science teachers, Ronald Mark and Francis "Jerry" Hill, were brought home to show them John's collection of bonsai. So impressed with the trees were they that they invited John to accompany them on a Saturday morning excursion into the desert mountains in southern California. This was in 1952. Off they went, and John saw for the first time these magnificent trees only a few feet tall but gnarled and twisted unlike anything he saw in the local nurseries. That was the beginning of the weekly trek to the "Valley of the Junipers" for the next twenty-five years. Interest in bonsai was climbing, the club was growing, and the exhibits were improving. At the Spring Show the club again won the blue ribbon. Prior to the April 1953 show, the organization which now was made up of more than forty members -- including a few caucasians -- changed its name to the Southern California Bonsai Society. Its listed purpose was the promotion and popularization of the art of bonsai. In addition to the first prize blue ribbon that year the club received a special award and a bronze medal. Again in 1954, the Society won a first award, but this was the final year of the Spring Flower and Garden Show at Brookside Park in Pasadena. During the next three years, the Society did not participate in any shows. The monthly meetings were devoted to the improvement of the bonsai of the now more than hundred members. 3 In 1957 John gave a demonstration on Channel 5 KTLA "Garden Chats" with Joe Littlefield. On April 20, 1958, the Southern California Bonsai Society, hoping to make itself a state-wide organization, was renamed The California Bonsai Society. John would be its president for thirty-two years, except for 1959 and 1960 when co-founder Morihei Furuya helmed the club. The group presented its first annual exhibition of miniature trees at the California Museum of Science and Industry in Exposition Park in Los Angeles. John acted as show chairman for the April 27 - May 4 event which was themed "What is Bonsai?" The exhibit was judged a huge success and scheduled as an annual affair. 4 See also this b&w photo of John from April 26 at the State Museum building, plus "View Resource" for this one and this one from color slides taken on an unspecified day in that year. One of the students he started with this year was Ben Oki. John quickly realized Oki's extraordinary talent and would eventually invite him to assist John at many conventions across the country. A 27" moyogi style wisteria ( Wisteria brachybotrys ) and an eleven-tree raft style elm ( Ulmus sp., eventually 17" tall and 37" wide) began their training with John in 1958. On July 4 he collected an olive tree from an olive ranch in Fontana, CA. 5 John Catlin was the show chairman for "Bonsai -- New and Old" in 1959. Frank Nagata supervised "Early Spring Bonsai" in 1960. By this time the annual show was recognized as the largest exhibit in the United States and that year a congratulatory message was received from the Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi of Japan. John Naka founded the Seinan (Southwest) Bonsai Club in 1961 (renamed Nanpu Kai in 1964). This club for select teachers only would see many of California's greatest talents over the next few decades. John also presented a lecture/demonstration to the Southern California Gardeners Association this year (and the Japan America Society the next). Earl Donovan chaired the California Bonsai Society show themed "Bonsai -- A Living Art." "Forests and Root-over-rock Plantings" were featured in the 1962 show for which Hunt Lewis was in charge. And that March the Society incorporated as the California Bonsai Society, Inc. (ABS Bonsai Journal, Summer 1985, front cover) In November, another California juniper was collected. At 32" in height, this would be named Ryu (Dragon) because there is a mythical rivalry between a "Tora" and a "Ryu" to see who can strive to obtain something that only one can possess. This year John began to travel to other states, including the East Coast to teach and demonstrate. For the next three years William Hatashita was chairman of the shows: "Preview to Summer" (1963), "The Art of Miniature Trees" (1964) and "Welcoming Spring with Bonsai" (1965). Since John was fluent in Japanese, he began writing to Norio Kobayashi in 1963 and the two exchanged letters and information. This led to an invitation from Kobayashi to John to see the Kokufu-ten Bonsai Exhibition in Ueno Park, Tokyo. This would be John's first visit to Japan since he returned to the U.S. in 1935. In 1965 John and Alice Naka first visited the Kokufu-ten, the ultimate exhibition in the world. At this 39th presentation of the world's finest trees -- which are chosen ahead of time by a panel of judges who see a photograph of each of the perspective entrants -- one of the bonsai was by a blind artist. His beautiful tree had been lovingly shaped by careful touch only, knowing the size and position of each branch, the feel of healthy leaves. John was moved by this pinnacle of interest in his chosen art. John appeared on Channel KNBC "Survey 65" to talk about bonsai with host Bob Wright. 9 The 1966 show, "Nature in Bonsai," was headed by George Yamaguchi. He also helmed the following year's "Bonsai -- Yesterday and Tomorrow." This tenth annual show was extended to two weeks in length and allowed nearly 60,000 spectators to view the display. At what was the first showing of a "new" work by John Naka, Leroy Fujii of the Phoenix Bonsai Society was in attendance. Afterwards Leroy and his brother Tad ran into John at a restaurant, and Leroy congratulated the teacher on Goshin's perfection. John expressed that he was not satisfied yet with it... (During several of the Phoenix club's nearly annual visits to the California Bonsai Society shows and L.A.-area bonsai nurseries, John's private collection was occasionally visited or else a few moments were gotten with the teacher between sessions at the show.) 11

Can problems with video game addiction lead to other gaming addictions? According to a recent study looking at Australian youth, it can. An article on BASIS Online looks at the study, which examined the correlation between video game play over the past year with a screening instrument that looks at pathological gambling markers. Participants in the study, a total of 2,669, were 12-17 years old and pulled from four major metropolitan schools in South Australia. Video game involvement "measures included frequency of play, number of hours played, and type of game played, including: TV games (e.g., Xbox, Nintendo, Playstation); phone-based games; hand-held games (e.g., Nintendo, Gameboy); PC games; and arcade games." Pathological Gambling (PG) was assessed using 12 yes/no questions that looked at past and present behavior. With the answers to these questions allowed researchers to put the student into three groups: Not At Risk, At-Risk and PG. The results of the PG were then correlated with frequency and type of video game play. The results indicated significant associations between various types of video-gaming and gambling-related problems. However, the effect sizes were very small; this suggests that frequent video-game playing accounts for only a small part of the relationship between video game playing and gambling-related problems among adolescents. The inconsistency within the results (e.g., PC games were protective of PG, but hand-held games did not show a difference between no risk and at risk) suggests that other factors might better explain the association between video games and gambling-related problems. Future research should consider exploring additional factors (e.g., social/family influences, personality, beliefs etc.) that extend beyond frequency of playing video games that may explain why some adolescents experience gambling-related problems. The article mentioned several limitations on the study and provides a chart that breaks down gambling groups in relation to frequency of video game play in the past year. Legitimate concern or grasping at straws? I'm honestly not sure.

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Editors' note: Portions of this review were taken from our review of the unlocked Xperia X10. We adjusted the score of this review on August 18, 2010, to reflect additional testing. When we reviewed the unlockedlast March, we had a lot of good things to say about Sony Ericsson's first foray into the Android operating system. With its large display, loaded feature set, and agreeable call quality, the X10 offered much of what we'd expect from a smartphone, even if the unlocked price tag of $700 was hard to swallow. Fortunately, price is no longer an issue now that the handset has landed in AT&T's lineup. Thanks to carrier subsidies, you can get it for a more reasonable $149 if you sign a new two-year contract. It's even cheaper for commitmentphobes, who will pay just $349. We're also pleased that with this version of the X10, data quality is a bit better and the virtual keyboard works across all applications. Yet, even with those improvements we're not prepared to crown the X10 as one of the best Android handsets. For starters, it's stuck on Android 1.6. Though that was fine five months ago, it's not good when the rest of the Android family is moving to 2.2. Also, we remain wary about the Timescape application and Sony Ericsson's User Experience (UXP) interface. Design and display Though it now enjoys plenty of company in this area, the X10 remains one of the bigger smartphones around at 4.7 inches long by 2.5 inches wide by 0.5 inch deep. Sure, it makes for a tight fit in pockets, but the 4-inch display is perfectly appropriate for a touch-screen device and the X10 is lighter than you might think (4.8 ounces). If the bulk does concern you, however, the X10 Mini and the X10 Mini Pro offer many of the same features but in more petite designs. The X10's rear face is purposely curved; Sony Ericsson does this so the device matches the natural curve of your hand. We understand any skepticism, but it's only the slightest bit gimmicky. Indeed, the X10 fits comfortably in the hand, but it wasn't a huge leap over other handsets. The curved back means, however, that when it's resting on a flat surface, the X10 wobbles if you try to tap at the screen. With support for 65,536 colors, the display doesn't quite measure up to some of its Android competitors. It's still quite lovely thanks to its rich resolution (854x480 pixels), but you'll notice the difference when you hold the X10 next to a HTC Evo 4G. The touch interface was accurate and responsive, both when tapping icons and swiping through long lists. It even was responsive at the very edges of the display.device or the You get three home screens that you can populate as you please with shortcuts, folders, and widgets. Like all Android phones, other display options are limited to the wallpaper, brightness, and backlighting time; the menu font size and style aren't customizable. Our only real complaint about the display is that it shows smudges way too easily; we were wiping it clean constantly just to see it clearly. The display has the standard Android notifications bar, and the menu is accessible through the arrow at the bottom of the display. The X10 has an accelerometer, but not a proximity sensor. Below the display are the X10's only physical controls. The Home key, back button, and menu control are large and tactile, so we had no trouble using them. On the left spine are the volume rocker and a camera shutter. The latter is a rather small, but it didn't pose a problem. On the top of the phone are the 3.5mm headset jack, the power control, and the Micro-USB port for the charger and syncing cable. Here, again, we give Sony Ericsson major points for ditching the proprietary connections and including a microSD card slot. The slot is located behind the battery cover, but we'll let that slide in this case since we aren't stuck with a Memory Stick Micro format. The X10's virtual keyboard is very close to the standard Android design, but it offers a few unique elements. In landscape mode it takes advantage of the display's full size so you have plenty of room for typing. On the primary keyboard there are three rows of alphabetic keys with the space bar conveniently located in the center of the bottom row. You'll also find basic punctuation and a smiley key, but you'll need to switch to the numeric keyboard for other characters. We also love the X0's autocomplete function and dictionary. Instead of just one possible choice when writing a word, the X10 offers up to 20 possible choices. For example, if you type "it" you get not only "its" as an option, but also "itself," "Italy," "item," and even "ignore." Even better, the X10 is adept at remembering previously used words and offering them as suggestions even if they aren't in the dictionary. After typing "kgerman" just once, we got it as a suggestion each time we started typing another word that begins with G. As previously mentioned, the landscape keyboard now works in the messaging app. That's a huge plus over the unlocked X10, which made its landscape keyboard available only in the e-mail app. We never understood the reason for that discrepancy, but it's irrelevant now. We also liked the phone dialer, which has a simple, easy-to-use design. As we said, it's a major bummer that the X10 runs Android OS 1.6. Though 1.6, or "Donut" as it's also known, looks particularly dated now, it was old even when Sony Ericsson introduced the X10 last December. At that time, the had been out with Android 2.0 for a couple of months, so you'd think that Sony Ericsson would have come through with another update by now. Last we heard, the X10 isn't supposed to get Android 2.1 until the fourth quarter of this year. And even if that arrives on schedule, the X10 will be behind the crop of devices that are currently receiving . Though Google always has said that manufacturers and carriers decide when a device receives an OS update, we've constantly implored those players to issue updates as soon as possible. Granted, some users may not care about Android firmware, but we can't imagine that there are a lot of them. In the end, the X10's popularity will no doubt suffer until it can catch up Of course, you have to consider Sony Ericsson's UXP, which sits on top of the standard Android OS. Though customized user interfaces can be attractive, and UXP certainly is, they lose their luster if they interfere with Android's evolution. UXP was designed with 1.6 in mind, and it needs to be enhanced and formatted with each Android update. That's a big job, indeed. What's more, though UXP is user-friendly, and we admire the design work that went into it (see ourfor an in-depth look of UXP), we prefer to let Android be Android. The X10 also features Sony Ericsson's Timescape, which combines your various messages, alerts, and contacts into a steady flow of communication. After registering your chosen accounts for e-mail, Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook, it displays your latest e-mails, text messages, and social media alerts in a flowing design that resembles a stacked deck of cards. To move through the deck, just swipe your finger along the display and the cards will fly by. Timescape also can display your latest social media alerts on the home screen, though we chose to remove that option. We just didn't need to see what was going on with our friends at every moment. On the upside, Timescape is slick and pretty, and it offers a wealth of features. For instance, tapping an individual card or tile will display that message or update in its entirety with the source (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and the contact's photo. You'll also see an infinity symbol in the upper-right corner. Tap that and you'll see a list of all communication between you and that contact. You also can use the touch controls on the bottom of the display to sort the feed by the source and set your status for Twitter and Facebook.