text:
"Throw away the radio, suitcase keeps you awake
Hide the telephone, the telephone
Telephone, in case you realize
That some days, you're just not okay
You'll level off, you'll level off, you'll level off
And it's not alright now
You need to understand
There's nothing strange about this
You need to know your friends
You need to know that
I'll be wavin' my hand
Watching you drown
Watching you scream
Quiet or loud
And maybe you should sleep
And maybe you just need, a friend
As clumsy as you've been
There's no one laughing
You will be safe in here
You will be safe in here
Throw away this very old shoelace
It tripped you again
Try and shrug it off, shrug it off, shrug it off
It's only skin, now
Now you need to understand
There's nothing fake about this
You need to let me in
Watching you and
I'll be waving my hand
Watching you drown
Watching you scream
No one's around
And maybe you should sleep
And maybe you just need, a friend
As clumsy as you've been
There's no one laughing
You will be safe in here
You will be safe in
I will be waving my hand
Watching you drown
Watching you scream
Quiet or loud
And maybe you should sleep
And maybe you just need, a friend
As clumsy as you've been
There's no one laughing
You will be safe in here
You will be safe in here
Well, you will be safe in here
In here, in here
In here, in here
In here, in here"
– "Clumsy" by Our Lady Peace
On July 29th, I tried to kill myself and no, I am not okay. But there is a plan in place and there's a faint glimmer of hope in the distance that I will be.
It was not a cry for help. When I tried to kill myself twice before as a teenager, those were cries for help, from a kid. What happened last week was an adult making a conscious decision to cease existing and let the consequences of that decision be whatever they may be because if all went as planned, I would be worm food and unable to feel, see, hear etc. any of the aftermath and ultimately I knew my people well enough that they would be perfectly okay without me, perhaps even better off. If not? I would be nothing, there would be no such thing as Me, I would never know the difference.
Obviously, I failed. And trust me, it was not for lack of trying (but definitely due to lack of planning). If I wasn't actively avoiding the internet right now, I'd be googling "how the fuck am I alive right now?" because I took what seemed to me to be a hell of a lotta cyclobenzaprine, clonazapam and trazodone. I didn't overdose on any of my serious psych meds because I was afraid they'd leave me retarded if I failed. I thought I'd fall asleep and just never wake up. Instead, cops broke down my back door (which I had locked, and I had locked and put a chair up against my office/front door) and told me I could get out of my bed and come to the ambulance quietly or they could cuff me. I went mediumishly…voluntarily, swaying and stumbling, yet still saying "fuck the police" (which apparently they hear so often, they just refer to it as "ftp") at an audible level about 25 times between my bed and the ambulance. I owe one of the cops an apology and a "thank you" and it's something really bugging the crap outta me, actually.
At the hospital they did not pump my stomach or give me charcoal, they just put me in the ICU hooked up to an ECG machine, the little finger thingy that measures your oxygen levels and an IV that they never hooked anything up to and just took out after letting me sleep for about 48 hours. Then they transferred me to Royal Victoria Hospital's (RVH) psychiatric ward which was where I was also sent in 2006 when I had my psychotic episode which lead to my diagnosis of bipolar disorder I, generalized anxiety disorder and agoraphobia, and also the same hospital I spent 6 weeks in after coming seriously close to dying in 2011 from pancreatitis.
So now you wanna know why, right? Cuuuuuuz that's the next logical question and the most difficult one for me to answer. It's actually kinda funny, if you know me well enough or have been reading my blog for a really long time, you know that I have a billion different, ever-evolving reasons for why I didn't get into advertising, choosing to drop out of school at the last minute instead, and I always say like, "Reason #3875736254 I dropped out of advertising…". This is kind of the same thing. As a person who is depressed with suicidal ideations a lot, it's a complex thing with a million tentacles. It occurred to me when I was 5 years old that killing myself was a legitimate option. Most people never see suicide as a legitimate option because most people don't try to or successfully kill themselves, according to my retired extra special needs teacher friend, Carole R. who told me that about 14 years ago when I went to work with her for a day and met young children who had already taken measures to end their own lives or seriously hurt themselves for whatever reason it is we all have in common on these things.
I don't know where it came from or how it started or why I peg it at 5, which was right when my mom married my stepdad, but that's when it started as a tiny seed of an idea and then grew, like I said, into this thing with a million tentacles, as if there's some chunk of my grey matter dedicated to just this one specific area, like building my own killswitch I guess, and for whatever reason "I", "Me", "Myself", liked being in there and focusing on there. Not always, but…a lot.
This could be chemical or this could be "something else". What that "something else" is, I have no idea because I've never really spoken to anyone about any of this with any real detail or seriousness. Everyone I know (plus a lotta strangers) knows I want to kill myself regularly. That's, "just Sunny" at this point. Even this time, my own daughter thought my last words to her were just me being "melodramatic" when she read them after not being here or talking to me for several weeks. (Which I don't fault her for, especially because she's 17. Again, I'm avoiding the internet right now – all I have open on my computer is Word and Spotify because I just spent a week in a world without electronics of any kind and everything is so noisy in this one – so I don't remember what I said to her or if she replied. I've seen her since I've been out, though, and we're okay so it doesn't even matter for the time being or even at all maybe.)
For the first 2 days at Georgian Bay General hospital where I was in the ICU from July 29th-31st the only communication I had with anyone not involved in my care, including AND (at the time), especially my husband Blake, was sending a short e-mail to my boss (cc'd to my coworker/friend it would impact the most/immediately as far as work was concerned) saying long story short: I tried to kill myself, they're sending me somewhere 45 mins away to see a shrink* and I was sorry. That was the last time I saw my phone until yesterday when I was released from Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH). I think they said Blake called the hospital to talk to me but I refused his calls and I guess Amy also called when I was in there too but at that point I just told them to refuse all calls so I didn't hear about anyone else.
On the 31st, around sunset, I was told that I would be taking a taxi cab from Georgian Bay General in Midland, to RVH in Barrie where they were more equipped to deal with me, which would be about a 45 minute drive and I would be accompanied by this nice lady security guard, who would get me signed in and then take the same cab back to Midland. I don't know how much that cost because the taxi driver lady put a cover over the meter. I do know from listening to the conversations around me that the lady had $158 on her Visa and that wasn't enough so they had to get one with a bigger limit, but despite that it made sense to me for them to do this than waste an ambulance on me. I was happy at the healthcare system's ability/willingness to adapt so successfully to non-government community services.
I can't remember if I had any conversations with the security lady. Mostly the security lady and the cab lady talked while I enjoyed the ride (car rides actually calm me). I don't think this was their first time making this trip, though. When we got to the hospital, the taxi lady told the security lady that she was going to Tim Hortons to get them both coffees, what does she prefer etc. and then the security lady and I started navigating the outside of the hospital because it's all new and ever-changing, up the elevator to the 3rd floor, and through the psychiatric unit's front doors. I was processed by the security lady and hospital staff (at this point I had everything but those people tuned out completely) and taken to a dorm-like room with 2 empty beds with nice blankets, 2 floor-length cubbies and a nice, clean bathroom. The security lady wished me good luck and left. I have no memory of anything else that night, I just got in the bed facing the wall and window and went to sleep. I don't think I cried, I was just kinda unable to process anything happening to me so everything shut down.
The next morning I woke up and a nurse told me where I was and asked me questions about how I got there but I couldn't really communicate with anyone yet. All the drugs I overdosed on (plus the ones I was supposed to be taking for my mental illnesses that they never gave me the 2 days I was in Midland) were coming out of me and I was just confused and scared. I'm agoraphobic so I don't leave my house and when I do, it's with Blake, so I was TERRIFIED to leave my room. I'd been in the psych ward twice before this and I knew the kind of people/experiences can happen in them and I just couldn't deal. I only got up to go to the bathroom and get cups of tap water that were never cold enough to quench my thirst.
On August 1st, a Saturday of a long weekend, I made contact with Blake because, like I said, I was fucking terrified, and that day was the first time he visited. He brought me clothes and some toiletries, my pencil case, the brand new pad of Bristol paper I'd bought 2 weeks prior for doing colouring pages, some food I could keep in my room and a 6-pack of bottled Diet Coke because we weren't allowed to have cans and bottles just made more sense since they had lids and stuff. (I'm addicted to Diet Coke, this is just part of me being me. You will probably never see me without a drink in my hand of some sort.) All I had with me when I came in was my bag full of like, basic "purse stuff" because the cops wouldn't let me pack anything to bring with me except my phone and wallet pretty much and the clothes on my back. I had a greyish-black, t-shirt weight cotton hoodie, my grey "RAP MUSIC MAKES ME FEEL INVINCIBLE" t-shirt, medium-weight cotton yoga pants and my crazy-assed Period Panties. (This is actually my standard uniform.) They let me keep my shoes, which didn't have laces. My bag was taken from me and everything important from it was put in a bin at one of the nurses' stations.
No electronics were allowed whatsoever. Not even an iPod to listen to music and there was no music in any of the rooms on the floor except for this shower radio that barely got one pop country station none of us wanted to listen to. The TV in the TV room was stuck on the sports channel because no one could find the remote and then when they *did* find the remote, they changed it to a "48 Hours" marathon on A&E, a "reality" show where there's been a murder and the first 48 hours are the most crucial to solve the case, which in the 3 episodes I sat through, they did. (And all the victims were women.)
When I'm at home on "normal" Saturdays, I get off work at 11pm and usually draw or otherwise make art until 3-5am or however long I can stay up and then I sleep in the next day to compensate because it's my first day off so I can and then on the Sunday night I do the same because Mondays are my other day off.
After Blake had left me because visiting hours were over, I left my sobbing roommate (who came in the morning after trying to kill herself the night before) and went down the hall to this patient activity room that had a bunch of big tables in the middle with about 15 or 20 chairs that I'd noticed never had more than a couple of people in it. The second I stepped inside I felt better because there were pencil crayons and markers (not very many and really shitty ones, but pencil crayons and markers nonetheless) on one wall in bins and there were colouring pages and Sudoku puzzles in clear plastic bins on the other and I identified it as an "art room", a place where I could be comfortable, and decided to just draw. When I was little and upset, my mom would tell me to either suck my thumb or to draw (or both), so I just started drawing a webcam model I watch sometimes.
As I sat in there with my pencil, eraser and Diet Coke, drawing, I could see people walking up and down the hallway and glancing in at me from time to time but no one came in until about 9pm and that person was Rich. Rich is 25 and basically a pussy magnet and he knows it. He said his mother had him put in the hospital on his birthday. He'd been there for almost a month and was going to be there for another month, minimum. He's schizophrenic with ADHD and at the time he was either coming OFF of some drug or reacting to a new one and he was pacing and antsy and like, just spun out and squirrelly. I think I was the one who spoke first, asking him if he was okay and that's when he told me his situation. I asked him if he was hearing voices right that minute and he said he wasn't and we just started talking to each other. He sat in a backwards chair tapping his feet, or pacing the room or doing semi-push-ups from the edge of the table, but able to carry on a conversation. I just drew while he mostly talked about his thoughts on weed, evolution and god and what is good and what his purpose is on this Earth and I have no idea what I told him about myself. I think I told him about my job. He told me I was a good artist and I told him he was a good kid and we decided we were friends. We just hung out in the art room talking while I drew until he calmed down enough to go to sleep around 11pm. The head nurse on duty told me that because it was a long weekend, she'd let the art room stay open until midnight, so I stayed in there and drew until then and then went to sleep myself.
Sunday morning I woke up, changed out of my "RAP MUSIC MAKES ME FEEL INVINCIBLE" t-shirt and put on my grey "SORRY I'M AWESOME" t-shirt and didn't eat anything. I didn't eat anything the whole time I was there except a handful of pistachios, a few crackers and about 6 Babybel cheeses. Because of the aforementioned pancreatitis, which is now chronic, I am a medical marijuana patient so I need cannabis before I eat so I *will* eat and then I need it again afterward to keep it down. If I don't do this, it starts this godawful vomit cycle that often ends with me in the hospital in the worst pain imaginable. Also every time that happens, my pancreas is being damaged which makes me unable to actually absorb the food I eat. Medical marijuana is a weird thing in Canada where it's accepted but the deal in the hospital was that I could only have it if it was prescribed by a doctor from that hospital and there was no chance in hell any of the psych staff would sign off on that so I didn't even push it and just dealt the best I could with the few foods I know are okay for me. I also begged and begged for Zofran (anti-emetic) and pancreatic enzymes, even had Blake bring in my own, but they wouldn't let me have them.
Sunday morning was also when my roommate and I acknowledged each other. We had been in similar states when we arrived and hadn't started acclimating until then. Her name was Kimmie and she was small, blonde, frail and almost curled into herself. Mother of 2 older teenage boys. I had heard her wearily having a conversation with her husband of 20 years the previous day in our room when I was still too scared leave it, where I heard her ask him for a divorce several times, to sign the divorce papers when he got them and him telling her she was crazy and didn't mean it. He'd brought her flowers.
Sunday morning I went to the bathroom to pee and of course my uterus had to start spotting; my period was going to be coming any second now. I'm thinking, "of-fucking-course" but it wasn't enough to worry about yet so I just came out of the bathroom, saw Kimmie was sitting on the edge of the bed, and slightly joked to her that of all the times to have to have my lady rain, it had to be now. She didn't laugh because she was so down, but she did offer me a few maxi pads to use from her own supply, which I was grateful for. We briefly shared situations, and basically she had been this man's possession for the last 20 years and finally he had stepped so far out of line that there was no coming back from it so she, like me, did a swan dive with pills and alcohol and that's how she got where we were. Her telling me about her husband made me really appreciate mine, so that's actually what prompted me to call Blake and ask him to come visit. Before that though, I told Kimmie we were in this together and from that point forward I tried to take care of her the best I could. They were giving her pretty heavy anti-psychotics that were making her sleep all day and pace the halls all night and she was just SO sad and confused, like a frail little bird. She didn't want to come out of her room that day except to bathe twice because she didn't know what else to do. And the clothes her husband brought her were ridiculous, like a fluorescent pink bikini top and an obviously too small sports bra instead of something useable, period panties not in the fun sense, and stuff that he just would have to have picked out of the very back of her closet or drawers to come up with. I asked her if she thought he did that to be a dick or if he was just a clueless guy and she said it was definitely him being a dick. I reminded her she was safe where we were and I even told her if she needed anything, like a bra, I would get Blake to pick her one up from WalMart in a heartbeat, just tell me her size, but the only thing she ever took us up on was a double double from Tim Hortons.
All Kimmie wanted to do on Sunday was sleep in the room, which I understood, so I took my pencil and eraser and Bristol pad and of course, a Diet Coke and went down the hall to see if the art room was open. It was and was empty, so I took a seat in the corner of the room and kept working on the colouring page I'd started the previous day.
The art room was used during the week for group therapy sessions and since this was a long weekend, one of the social workers, Clayton, a huge guy with ginger hair, used his own day off and his own money to run a game of bingo with giftcard prizes for Tim Hortons or the deli in the food court and a mani/pedi "group session" for those who wanted their toes done. Blake happened to be visiting during this part of the afternoon and I painted his toenails lovely shades of metallic turquoise and magenta, which all the girls got a big kick out of. Every single person who came into the art room that day looked at what I was drawing and told me how much they loved what I was doing and what a talented artist I was. I just said "thank you" and was friendly and open toward everyone because these were my people. These were people who knew what I was going through because they were there too. Plus for the afternoon, Blake was there to help break the ice with all these strangers. He's kind of a social butterfly.
It was during the bingo and mani/pedi sessions that I made friends with Amy, whose name was easy to remember because she had the same name as my close friend who had the same name. She has schizophrenia and was hearing voices when I talked to her but she couldn't articulate what they were saying. Her case was special because the medications that kept her schizophrenia under control affected her heart condition, so it was a delicate balance she had to maintain to pretty much stay alone. She was a super sweet girl who asked me Monday morning if she could bring me back anything from the food court downstairs because she had privileges to go down there. I wanted to barf my guts up so I gave her money and asked her to get me a ginger ale, which she did and I was so grateful for because it made me feel slightly better. She was just a super nice, sweet person who liked to be useful. In fact, she was helping Clayton the social worker orchestrate these extra special group activities on the long weekend. There were other people at the bingo game but I'm not all that into bingo, so I mostly tuned it out and kept drawing.
Also during the mani/pedi group, I met Hurricane Sonya who was manic pretty much the entire time I was there and somehow talked me into braiding her thick blonde hair into a fishtail, which I hadn't done on anyone since I was like, 11 years old, and Jason who came in later, a paranoid schizophrenic who was interesting to talk to but who stayed away from me after he asked me and Blake if we thought there were any correlation between vaccinations and mental illness and we both pointed out examples of mental illnesses existing way before vaccines.
All day Sunday, I sat in the art room drawing and socializing and was told 100 more times by 20 people what a great artist I was, which felt good and validating admittedly, but inside I was still so shell-shocked by the fact that this time I actually swallowed the pills instead of just thinking about it, which is something I really, honestly didn't think I was even capable of doing again because when I did it the 2nd time when I was 15 and landed in Whitby Psychiatric Hospital for a few weeks, I hated being there so much (but loved being away from all the chaos that was my home life) that I vowed never to end up in a place like that ever again by my own hand and for 21 years, I had stuck to it. (2006 didn't count because that was out of my control, but this time I did it to myself.)
Sunday evening after Blake left, some new patients came in and that's when I met Malachi and Sharon.
I heard Malachi before I saw him. After drawing all day, I went back to my room to lay down for a little while around dinner time and when I was half awake, I could hear this voice in the hallway outside my room that reminded me of the trans character "Nomi" from the Netflix show "Sense 8", so I thought, oh, maybe we have a transwoman now, but when I went into the art room for the evening and tall, slight, red-haired, bespectacled Malachi introduced himself and started telling me about the troubles he'd been having with his new wife's family and the police, which was how he got where we were. From what I could gather, he'd had some kind of mental meltdown of some sort in the apartment he shared with his wife and he broke some of their dishes in the process. During that, not knowing what else to do, his mother-in-law called the police on him and the police charged him – for breaking his own dishes, in his own apartment – with something like "domestic mischief" I think he said, and because the police put it down as a domestic dispute when it was a mental health call, Malachi is not allowed to have any contact with his own wife or live in his own home until after his court date. Due to this, he and his wife wouldn't be celebrating their 1st wedding anniversary together and he was pretty upset. I didn't ask how old this kid was but there was no way he was older than 23 and he worked at WalMart.
It was also Sunday night that I met Sharon. I don't know what her diagnosis was but both she and Malachi came from another psychiatric facility somewhere. Blake told me he noticed tons of scars on her wrists so that's all I know. She reminded me in looks like Peppermint Patty. She had medium-length reddish brown hair and spoke so quiet and low, it was almost a mumble, but with effort you could understand her. She watched me draw for 2 days and told me multiple times that I had to figure out a way to make some money from my drawings. Most of the people there, except for Rich and Malachi, weren't "internet people" so to speak. I tried to explain Patreon to them after Sharon suggested that and a bunch of folks agreed with her but I don't think they really understood what I was talking about. No one had ever heard of "crowdfunding", let alone its pitfalls.
Sharon and Sonya had been in the same psychiatric facility 4 times but this was the first time they were ever spending any time together and the two of them were like the dynamic duo, with Sonya being loud and manic and flagrant and Sharon following her around trying to keep her calm and quiet.
Sonya was loud and probably the ward's biggest personality. She was honest and had even less filters than I do. She'd been to jail. She used to be addicted to crack. She was depressed before she came there. She had kids, lost kids, had her tubes clipped and unclipped and had another baby who was now 13 years old and Sonya really wanted me to draw something for her daughter's birthday, which I said I'd do but really meant I'd get Blake to bring in copies of the more kid-friendly colouring pages I'd done, which we did on Monday.
Monday was much like Sunday except that the art room wasn't open until 9am and I woke up at 7. Breakfast was at 7:30. I felt confident enough in having new buddies that I'd have somewhere to sit in the dining room so I went down during breakfast and sat with Amy and her roommate whose name I *think* was Deborah, and who was literally the most beautiful older lady I've ever seen in my whole entire life. When I sat down, they were discussing the fact that the night before, Amy, in a dead sleep, got 3 tea biscuits from one of her drawers and ate them all sitting on the side of her bed and then just fell back into bed and slept for the rest of the night. She was really freaked out, as I think I would be too. Deborah noticed that I have "Sunny" engraved in the arms of my glasses like a giant nerd and asked me about it, so I explained to her that in my day to day life, the only people who called me by my real name was my mother and doctors. She told me she liked my glasses and I told her I got them for like, $6 on the internet which sort of left her speechless.
After breakfast I went back to my room because the art room still wasn't open and I talked with Kimmie about coming into the art room and colouring mandalas while I drew, which she ended up doing for maybe an hour but just after lunch she had a meltdown and needed some time to herself so I just stayed in the art room and, you guessed it, kept drawing, and talking to people and hearing what a great artist I was. I met a new girl there who had OCD and couldn't stop coming into the art room, getting agitated by its messiness, cleaning it for 10 minutes, going away and coming back to do the same thing. She didn't want to talk about how long she'd been there but what I gathered from Rich was that they were both in the acute part of the ward when they first arrived, meaning that at one point they were both pretty messed up, and she helped him navigate his way out of there and onto the main floor. The only other thing she volunteered about herself was that she was planning to move to Sweden or Switzerland, whichever one is closer to Italy, when she got out of there.
Monday afternoon when Blake came to visit me, he brought with him ginger ale, sushi, a beef teriyaki bento and spring rolls from my favourite restaurant in case I felt like eating anything that wouldn't hurt me too much and my big black portfolio, which I asked him to bring because I knew I had one copy of each colouring page I'd done so far for patrons inside it, but I wasn't sure if he'd be able to tell the copies from the originals and I wanted to give the copies to Sonya for her daughter myself. Also inside my portfolio were two large drawings of my girls that were originally going to be paintings, but I never finished them and I gave those to Sonya too because she seemed to be the most enthusiastic about them and I knew I'd never finish them. I encouraged her to do so, though. This was after I decided I didn't want the Japanese food and started offering it to anyone who came in the art room. The OCD girl had a few pieces of vegetable tempura but wouldn't take the rest, so I put notes on it all that said what it was and "plz eat me!" and I carried it all to the hallway where I encountered Sonya who asked what I was doing and when I offered her the food, she was like, "fuck yeah". She ate most of it and shared a lot of it with other patients and told us when she sat in the art room to finish the bento that she had never had Japanese food before and that that was probably the healthiest meal she'd ever had in her entire life and I'd completely believed it.
After Blake left on Monday evening, I went to my room to check on Kimmie and she had just come from having a shower and was in her pajamas. I had told her previously that her ticket to getting out of there was to be out of her room as much as she was comfortable with and to participate in scheduled activities as much as she was able, which was unfortunately difficult because it was the long weekend and nothing was scheduled. She asked me if I would go to dinner with her and then go to the TV room to watch a movie with her because apparently they had found the remotes and we could do that now. The hospital had a bunch of VHS movies and she wanted to find a comedy and just forget about her life for a little while. So I told her we could do this. The TV room had a table and chairs that I could use to draw at while we watched a movie.
Well, when we got to the TV room, there were two guys watching that "48 Hours" show so we sat there and watched too, figuring when it was over, we'd ask them if they minded if we switched to a movie and then do that. Well, when the show was over, another episode started and it was apparent neither man was interested in changing the channel, so Kimmie and I sat through another episode of the show. After that one, both men left and it was about 5 minutes to 9pm, so I told Kimmie that she should pick a movie quick before they came back because if we started a movie right then, we'd have enough time to watch the whole thing before they closed down the room for the night. She chose "Patch Adams" and then she asked me if I knew how to put a movie on. I confessed I did not, but suggested we just try putting the tape in the VHS machine and seeing if it played automatically and if it didn't, one of us would get a nurse to help us.
Before we even had a chance to try that, the 2 men from before came back in while Kimmie was in the middle of the room holding a VHS tape and looking at me and they sat down to watch the next episode of the "48 Hours" marathon. Kimmie looked at me like, "you ask them" and I looked at her the same way and we were both too chicken shit to assert ourselves with these men to get what we wanted so she laid on the couch and we both just watched another episode instead. And then another. And then it was time to go to bed.
I dreamt of war, which is typical. I always dream about war.
Tuesday morning Kimmie and I woke up around the same time, about 7am and we both got up and got dressed; her in a pink tank top and grey track pants and me in my lightweight, blackish hoodie and t-shirt of the same colour that said, "LESS CRAP MORE RAP" and my requisite yoga pants. See, me and Rich were having an unspoken "t-shirts that say stuff" war so that's why I wore the 3 specific shirts I mention in this post. One of his shirts said "IT'S ALL ABOUT ME" and another had a list of negative things he was, like, "irresponsible", and it ended with "…but a lot of fun.". Not sure who won the war but I kinda think it was me because he ended up asking me where I got mine from in the end since all 3 shirts were made by the same Etsy shop.
Breakfast was late so everyone was milling about in the hallways or hovering around their doorways. Kimmie and I just sat on our beds and chatted about stuff and then all of a sudden from the hallway came this perfect female voice singing one of the songs from "Phantom of the Opera" at full volume and then a few seconds later a 2nd one joins her in perfect harmony. Kimmie and I rushed to the door to peek into the hallway to see who it was and it was this young girl who attempted suicide and who only left her room a few times that I was there and who also wore the same white lace dress every single time she did, and another lady who had grey hair. In the hour that breakfast was delayed, these two women entertained the entire ward with more songs from "Phantom" and I just kinda sat there thinking how surreal this all was. I was sitting in a hospital being serenaded before breakfast by mental patients! Who would believe this?
When breakfast finally arrived, Kimmie and I sat with Deborah, the beautiful lady with the pink cast, and the older lady who had been singing. Deborah asked me if I would write down the name of the company I got my glasses from, so I pulled out one of these little cards I just keep on me for writing little things down that has like, sunflowers and designs on it, just a little 3 x 4 inch card, and Deborah remarked about how cute they were and showed the other lady and explained what the company was, that they could get prescription glasses for less than $10 that looked no different from the ones you spend $200 on from the optometrist, so I wrote out a card for that lady too.
After breakfast I went to my room where I saw my doctor who had just gotten out of a staff meeting with the weekend staff and he asked me if I was suicidal. I said "no". He then asked me if I wanted to go home, to which I said "yes" and he said, "okay I'll go write the order, what prescriptions do you need?" So I told him and off he went. When I was admitted to Georgian Bay General, I was admitted on a 48 hour "form", which was extended by 3 more days when I got to RVH and on Sunday they told me that if I stayed as a voluntary patient for a few more days, I could go home as soon as Wednesday or Thursday, so getting out on Tuesday was amazing to me and I was excited. (In hindsight, I'm not entirely sure I was ready to leave…)
Since the weekend was over, there were group sessions planned for the day on the big whiteboard in the hallway. The first one of the day was about "The Importance of Leisure", which sounded pretty irrelevant to me but I went anyway because that's how you get yourself out of somewhere like that and it seemed like what I should be doing so that's what Kimmie and I did. Partway through the session, my nurse called me out of it and said that I should call my husband to come pick me up because at about 1:15pm, he would be done processing my release and I would be free to go. So that's what I did. (Did you know it's now 50 friggin' cents to make a local call from a payphone and that if you give it a loonie ($1 coin), it won't give you change? What kinda fuckery is that!?) Then I went back to the group room, finished that, then started telling people I was leaving and getting my stuff packed up.
I was sitting in my room with Kimmie looking at Mark Ryden's giant "Pinxit" book that I got myself for my birthday this year but never had a chance to look at until I was faced with a whole lotta spare time to fill up, and we were just chatting when this blonde lady in a floral dress came in, introduced herself as Sandra and that she was a social worker. She asked Kimmie if she'd leave the room so she did and then Sandra started talking about what was going to happen after I was released. The Simcoe Children's Aid was going to be involved because it was a domestic dispute about the cat and a shitty cop that led to this whole thing and that was just what happened automatically in situations where there's been trauma in a family. When she asked me who my shrink was on the outside, I told her that I didn't technically have one at the time because the mental health centre I go to in Midland was giving us the run around as far as getting me a new shrink after having serious issues with the one I had previously (who was new and came in after the shrink I'd been seeing for 8 years retired), passing us off from person to person. She said that was unacceptable and to come to her office, so I did, and there she got on the phone with the mental health centre and got me an appointment with a new shrink in September within about 15 minutes. One that even has a therapy dog in her office, which is already an excellent start. Then she got the social worker assigned to our family from the Children's Aid on speaker phone and a home visit to talk to us all was arranged for the next day. Then she gave me the brochure and contact info for Catholic Family Services where I can apparently get free therapy, which we're going to set up tomorrow because obviously I need it since I have no idea why or how things got to this point.
After that, Sandra walked me back to the hallway where my room was, wished me good luck and I thanked her for accomplishing in ½ an hour what's been taking us months to get nowhere. When I started down the hall to go back to my room, I was like, "wtf?" because all my crazy hospital friends were sitting on the floor outside my room along the walls talking with Blake. They looked just as confused to see me because they thought I was in the room with the social worker with the door closed the whole time! I'd asked Blake to bring me about 30 of my plastic business cards that have photos of about a dozen of my different paintings on them like little artist trading cards with all my info on the back and I pointed out the e-mail address to every single one of them and said "please use that". I got my hugs and said my goodbyes and be goods and then Blake and I walked out of the building, stopping to get a cold Diet Coke before leaving the building.
When we got to the car I loaded my vaporizer with cannabis and began to medicate while Blake and I talked and drove around until eating seemed like a good idea. I got a turkey sandwich from QuizYES but my stomach was shrunken so I only ate about ¼ of it.
When I got home the first thing I did was go to Wes, my 12 year old son, who was sitting at the computer playing Minecraft and I hugged him from behind for a long time and we just cried and I told him that I was sorry for doing that to him and I promised that I would never do that again as long as he lived.
Then I went into my office and got on the ground to say hi to each of my dogs who you could tell had really missed me and they weren't sure how to be with me. Hoover just hung his head down and let me cry on his shoulder and Lucky licked the tears from my face before having enough of that nonsense and rolled over for a belly rub.
Wes came into my office and we talked a little bit about where I'd been. I asked him if he wanted to know everything that happened and he said he was good with knowing just what he knew but he confessed he had a pretty good idea of what I did.
I was so forlorn and fragile and scared and overwhelmed and didn't know what to do so I asked Wes if he wanted to go play with the Polaroid camera with me so we went outside and wasted a pack of film. Then he decided to go back to playing Minecraft with his friends just as Blake was getting off of work (he works from home a lot). When he was done, I asked if we could go for a drive because I was just so fucked up trying to process everything that had happened and even though I'd only been out of the hospital for maybe 4 hours, I already wanted to go back and was missing my hospital friends and wondering what they were doing. I needed to calm down and like I said earlier, going for a drive usually calms me.
It's now the end of day one of being out of the hospital. We navigated the Children's Aid visit today successfully and the social worker dude is a really nice, understanding guy who is more than welcome to be all up in my business. I gave him my consent to talk to my family doctor and my psychiatrist after I talk to her in September and he told me that he'd actually heard really good things about her so that was reassuring. He also advocated for Catholic Family Services counseling.
So that's the story up until now. Thursday (tomorrow) I get one day to breathe and then on Friday I have to deal with the police and the court and the charge(s?) being brought against me.
Y'know when you get so mad at your husband you want to kill him and you tell him so but you'd obviously never really do it? Yeah, don't casually admit to that in front of a certain type of cop because guess what! Admitting out loud that you'd like to murder anyone is a crime in Canada and not just a phrase and Friday I have to go to the police station to turn myself in to be formally charged with whatever they end up charging me with and then they'll escort me to the courthouse where there's a special court for mentally ill people and I'll meet my lawyer who we chose because she had her dogs on her "About Me" page on her website and she's theoretically going to do all the talking for me. Blake's going post bail if there is any. The judge could throw the charges out completely or they could stick and I'll have a criminal record. I've never been in trouble with the police before and was clearly not in my right mind so the odds of anything serious happening to me like jail time or even anything other than the counseling and stuff that's already in place is pretty slim, but being separated from Blake and going through the booking and mugshot process and being detained and in court all by myself is going to be traumatic for me considering I can't even walk to the end of my driveway to get the newspaper or go to the grocery store or even talk to my own shrink by myself, and the bad cop from the day I tried to kill myself, the person who was the very tipping point for me to say "fuck it, let's do this" and swallow 100 pills by his escalating the situation and being a power trippy bear instead of a compassionate human being responding to a mentally Ill person under duress, is probably going to be there to purposely work against me.
So that's what happened and where I am. It is now 12:14am Thursday morning and I'm about to open an internet browser to engage in my own form of ASMR while still ignoring the 396 e-mails in my inbox and the 227 Facebook notifications I have according to my phone because I just can't deal with that right now but hopefully I can start the cleanup process when I wake up. I'm not sure when I'm going to be ready to communicate 1-on-1 with people because I'm scared people are judging me and looking down on me and secretly (or hell, openly) wishing the pills had been successful. I'm scared that by telling the world that the Children's Aid is involved with my family that people will assume I'm white trash and this is just yet another dramatic saga of my pathetic, trainwreck life. I'm scared because I know that no matter how much my friends are going to want to be there for me, I really don't think any of them have ever been in a situation this fucked up. I mean, everyone has their stuff, but in all my years of talking openly about my depression and persistent suicidal thoughts on the internet and social media, not one person I know has been able to really say, "yeah, I know how you feel" so expecting anyone to be like that now is just dumb. And even the ones who try…they've all known me for over 15 years and in that time, they've seen me have two major mental health issues requiring hospitalization as an adult. I can't say the same for almost any of them and trying to commit suicide for real, as an adult making a completely rational decision, is a whole other animal entirely.
The Children's Aid social worker, named Anthony, when I told him some of my fears about being a bad mom on so many levels and being judged by everyone, just said, "you would be shocked if you knew how many and what kind of families we are involved with" so I'm taking him at his word, that sometimes shit just gets fucked up and you need outside help to clean up the mess and do better. And that's where I am right now: at the mercy of kind people and in the process of starting from scratch and building my mental strength back up – again – just like I had to do in 2006. Even though I said I wasn't suicidal yesterday and promised Wes I would never go that far again, there's still a large part of me that wishes the pills would have just worked because what's ahead seems so impossible for me to overcome or even get through. Blake says the goal now is to feel grateful that the pills didn't work and most of me is already there but the framework's pretty shaky.
So far I've only been able to message my two best friends to tell them that I'm home and that I love them and that I'm sorry. (And that I can't deal with the internet or deal with time periods longer than 24 hours.) Blake's been keeping my boss mostly in the loop but mental illness is pretty outside of her scope just culturally, I think. My well-being seems to be her first priority though and she said she had my shifts covered for 2 weeks last week so there is no real pressure to come back right away. (I work from home doing customer service for a large website.) I was aiming for Saturday because that's usually the most fun work day of my week, but also the longest so I think I've pretty much decided against it, especially considering I may be traumatized from the day prior. Sunday and Monday are my normal days off so I think I'm going to aim to get back to work on Tuesday when my work week would typically start at 5am my time. I decided in the hospital that I was going to talk to my boss about maybe starting an hour or two later than I usually do and just work 2 less hours per day than I did before all of this happened. Work was 100% not even remotely a factor in any of this. I love my job. I get validation at my job because I'm good at my job and my life typically revolves around my job, medication and proper sleep just to maintain sanity. I'm scared my boss is going to see me as unreliable or as the weakest link and somehow inferior to who I was before all this happened. That I wasn't really deserving of the extra praise and responsibilities she gave me a few months ago or that she'd think that very thing caused me too much stress and that's why I did what I did. I dunno. I have to e-mail her but I don't want to until I can give her a firm, committed date for when I'm coming back.
And now I think I have to be done writing this, send it into the world, and let it be whatever it may be.
(*originally they were going to send me to Penetanguishene Psychiatric Hospital which is just NO NO NO. I was lucky as fuck not to go there.)


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Who is OnlineNone
Welcome to the official website of the
Old English Game Bantam Club of America.
Picture of the Month
About the Club
Today the Club's average membership is around 450. There are currently more Old English Game Bantams shown in the United States than any other breed in the country. The popularity of our thirty seven ABA recognized varieties along with about a dozen new varieties that members are developing means that Old English Game Bantams have the most varieties of any breed!
Joining the Club
Joining the club is easy. Memberships and renewals can be processed via PayPal in the club store or mailed in with the printable membership form.
Each membership includes a free copy of the latest available yearbook and quarterly newsletters. Members may also register on the website, participate in member only discussions, and compete for annual show points and awards.
History of the Old English Game Bantam Club of America
The club was forming during the 1950's and in 1958 the Southeastern Old English Game Bantam Club had the first OEGB National Meet. This Club consisted of three states, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. These three states took turns hosting the Old English Game Bantam meet each year in Atlanta Georgia, Greenville South Carolina and Hickory North Carolina. The show eventually ended up being hosted in Hickory, North Carolina which is now called the Jamboree.
The Clubs first officers were; President J.W. Thurman- NC, Vice-president G.L. Kuykendall-GA, and Secretary G.E. Stahlkuppe-GA. The official beginning of the Club was in 1963 and the club officers were listed for the first time in the 1964 American Bantam Association Yearbook. The Club had 163-191 members from 1963-1965. The past officers of our club are listed in the OEGBCA Yearbook.
There are many names that should be mentioned that have contributed their time, energy and money to our great club but one certainly worthy of note is Mr. Fred Jeffrey.
Mr. Jeffrey was the club's secretary for ten years. He started the points system and wrote the book along with Bill Richardson called "Old English Game Bantams as Bred and Shown in the United States".
Club's Purpose
Encourage the breeding, improving, and exhibiting of Old English Game Bantams.
Hall of Fame
Below are the hall of fame members inducted by the club for their outstanding service to the breed and the exhibition poultry community as a whole.
Category I- deceased
2007 - Frederick P. Jeffrey - MA
2008 - Johnnie I. Flowers - NC
2009 - Warren E. Beal - NC
2010 - Dave B. Sherrill Jr. - TX
2011 - Ralph Sheriff Jr. - SC
2012 - Jack Yoder Sr. - NC
2013 - W. L. Dickson - SC
2014 - James Stanley - GA
2015 - Art Rice - CAN
2016 - Gerry Stahlkuppe - GA
2017 - Larry Duckett - SC
Category II - Living
2007 - William F. "Bill" Wulff - IN
2008 - Herman Woody - TN - Deceased
2009 - Fred Skelton Jr. - AL
2010 - Ralph Sheriff Sr. - SC - Deceased
2011 - J.L. "Jake Lail - NC
2012 - Noah Webster Jr. - AL
2013 - Robert "Bob" Dollar - MO
2014 - Jerry McCarty - LA
2015 - Tracy Hill - TX
2016- Andy Barnes - OK
2017 - Otis Fields - TN

subset: commoncrawl


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BRADY residential - formerly BP City Real Estate, is a Melbourne based Sales and Property Management Office. Established in 1999, BRADY residential specialises in Sales, Leasing and Property Management within the Melbourne area.As a subsidiary of one of Melbourne's most prominent developers we are focused on building long and lasting relationships with our clients and helping them build their wealth and property portfolio.
As one of Melbourne's premier estate agents we appreciate that we operate within a global community and Brady TV ensures that our broad and varied client base are fully apprised of our latest projects and activities.


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Hello artists! This is my first tutorial and I will teach you how to draw a chibi dragon girl. Yay!!! …… And all that fun stuff!
DragoArt members upload artwork and drawing tutorials! They are also allowed to leave comments on tutorials, profiles, etc. Many more features, as well; it's way better than just being a boring guest! Register Now!


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Arjen Klaverstijn
Freelance Animator, Illustrator & Visual Effects Artist
About me
Visual Effects
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Louis Theroux: Transgender Kids
I had the pleasure of working with the BBC for Louis Theroux. Designing & Animating the 7 seconds title cards for Louis' new documentaries. I made a short compilation of three of them. Besides creating the titles, I also delivered stills for promotion, off line for editing, versions for different parts and versions ready for […]
Louis Theroux – LA Strories title design
In 2014 I designed the new titles for Louis Theroux's new series, LA Stories. Video and more info soon! Credits: Design & Animation: Arjen Klaverstijn Client: BBC – Louis Theroux Director: Rob Farquhar Client Contact: Annabel Yonge
Tanya Kach Documentary
Commissioned by Lois van Baarle, I was responsible for animating and doing most of the compositing for severall sequences for a documentary by Bearkatt Productions.
2012 3FM Awards
During this project I worked on location at Minivegas. They directed this awesome animation for the 2012 3FM awards, one of the biggest radio channels in Holland. I was responsible for 3D modeling, rigging, and animating, lighting and rendering the 3D versions of serveral famous dutch artists. I also animated the 2D artwork, and did […]
Mrs. Cornelissen
Beweging 3.0 commissioned me to make an informative animation. The movie is intended for employees of Beweging 3.0 to watch as an introduction to their training sessions.
Ziggo Characters
I had the pleasure of working with the great people from Crooked Line who created this wonderful animation for Yune, commissioned by Ziggo. I was responsible for the character design and animation and all the technical aspects in between. Our style seamlessly matched. Hope to work with them again in the near future! Credits Agency: Yune Client: Ziggo Animation […]
Apenzooi – New Years Eve Party Teaser
Credits: client: Apenkooi Music track: Mason feat. Roisin Murphy – Boadicea (Mason's Battle Scarred Mix) Artwork: Alex van zijl alexvanzijl.nl Sound effects, Effects, animation, editing & compositing: Arjen Klaverstijn
TomTom HD Traffic™
Created at MediaMonks. I worked on the modeling, animating, compositing and rendering of the 3d animated sequences in this promotion video for TomTom HD Traffic™.
Manfred is an animated short that I made for my graduation project for my Bachelor in Design, as part of my 3D computer animation and visual effects studies at the Utrecht school of the Arts. Manfred is the eponymous character in a concept for an animation series of the same name. Each episode features Manfred experiencing an everyday frustration and how he deals with it.
Trichrome Blue
Trichrome Blue from Lois van Baarle on Vimeo. For the very talented Lois van Baarle I was privileged enough to make the special effects and 3d elements for her 2d animated graduation movie 'Trichrome Blue'. The movie was widely appreciated and won her the "2010 HKU award" for most prestigious master graduation project. Here you […]
Roosbeef music video
A music video for the dutch band Roosbeef. The song is called 'Te Heet Gewassen'. I helped with the concept, animation and post production. Credits: Director: Sander Kloppenburg Animation: Gijs Kusters & Arjen Klaverstijn Artwork: Sander Kloppenburg, Myra Lanters & Arjen Klaverstijn
An animation made for the Blitsgroup.
>Latest projects
Fish Animated for sketchfab
Louis Theroux: Transgender Kids
Louis Theroux – By Reason Of Insanity
Groupon Works
Character Designs
Quick color concepts
Sketch collection #2
Sketch collection #1
2012 3FM Awards
Apenzooi – New Years Eve Party Teaser
Head tracking
Trichrome Blue
© Arjen Klaverstijn 2019


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America's Most Puzzling Governor
Yes, Jan Brewer vetoed that anti-gay bill. Does that really make her a traitor to conservatives?
Thanks to her state's special gift for making headlines of the Can you believe what they did this time? variety, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has been in and out of the national spotlight since she assumed office in 2009—most recently just last week when she vetoed a bill that would have allowed business owners to refuse to serve gays on religious grounds. "I have not heard one example in Arizona where a business owner's religious liberty has been violated," she said in a blunt statement dismissing the bill. On gay rights, guns and illegal immigration, Brewer's decisions have made national news.
Yet in a way, the most emblematic moment of her career remains one in which she said nothing at all. On Sept. 1, 2010, shortly into her opening statement at a gubernatorial debate, Brewer went blank. She lost her train of thought and froze. For 10 seconds, which is a very long time on live television, Brewer stared silently at her desk before laughing awkwardly. She then let another painful second or two pass before finally managing this sentence: "We have did what was right for Arizona."
Story Continued Below
For the rest of the country, it was yet another chance to poke fun at a state that, politically, seems to offer a Grand Canyon-sized opportunity for ridicule. (Another recent opportunity came with the news that aging action star Steven Seagal might run for governor, though everyone here knew better than to take it seriously.) Within Arizona, her debate performance was greeted with a mixture of mortification and sympathy–most of us can imagine stage fright. It didn't hurt her at all in the election, which she won easily. Yet the moment lingers, not just because it was excruciating, but because it captures the odd nature of Brewer's political identity.
Despite being in the news as much as any governor short of Chris Christie, she remains a strangely blank slate, a tabula rasa on which Arizonans and other Americans have drawn a set of contradictory caricatures. Who is Jan Brewer? Is she the Tea Party heroine, the sun-bleached Sarah Palin of the Desert who signed SB 1070, the "show your papers" anti-illegal immigrant bill, and waved her finger in President Obama's face on an airport tarmac? Is she the traitor to conservative causes who accepted Obamacare's Medicaid expansion and battled her Republican legislature to get it implemented? Is she the seemingly overwhelmed, unelected governor of her first term who struggled to articulate basic positions? Or is she the woman who strode to the podium last week and not only slapped down a veto of a bill dear to the religious right, but did it with a brief, blunt statement the New Yorker's Hendrick Hertzberg called "a damn good speech"? On that, no one can seem to agree.
In our polarized political times, no one seems to bedevil the electorate quite like someone who refuses to hew to a clear ideological line. The confusion Brewer produces is best captured by a headline on the liberal political site Wonkette that sardonically referred to last week's veto as "Brewer being uncrazy again."
Until that veto, her identity nationally was closely tied to her support of SB 1070 and her confrontation with Obama on the tarmac. But in Arizona, the glow from those moments had long since faded for many Republicans. "With Governor Brewer, the finger in the face of Obama scored a huge perception that here was a legitimate conservative," says Chris Rossiter, president of the Greater Phoenix Tea Party Patriots. "That image is very powerful. The further you get out of Arizona, the more, if you ask people in the Tea party if she's a conservative, they will still say yes. But as you get local, they will say, no … Honestly, no."
That might seem hard to square with much of Brewer's record, particularly her passionate defense of SB 1070, which included inflammatory and inaccurate claims about Arizonans finding "beheaded" bodies in the desert. She even signed a bill granting the Tea Party's favorite "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsden Purchase flag the same protections as the Stars and Stripes in Arizona.
But Brewer disappointed some conservatives in 2011 when she vetoed a bill to allow guns on college campuses. Another veto that same year, of legislation that would have required presidential candidates to submit their birth certificates to get on the ballot, let down the "birther" crowd. And her decision to accept the Medicare expansion, which she announced without warning in her 2013 State of the State Address, truly infuriated much of her party. For some conservatives, that was the last straw.
Not only did she support expansion; she informed the legislature she would veto every bill that came her way until they passed her Medicaid plan and a state budget. When they ignored her orders, Brewer vetoed five bills in a single day. Enough Republican lawmakers eventually joined with Democrats to give Brewer a hard-fought victory. She defended her decision as both a moral and practical choice; her office pointed out that the expansion extended Medicaid to 300,000 low-income Arizonans at no cost to the state.
Nonetheless, many Republicans saw it as a betrayal. Right-wing bloggers began referring to "Obrewercare." Frank Antenori, a former state Senate Republican whip, described Brewer contemptuously as "George Bush in a dress." But it was A.J. LaFargo, the Republican head of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, who seemed most enraged. "I hate to say this. Jesus had Judas, Republicans have Governor Brewer," LaFaro said.


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Women physicians, who have often been discouraged from pursuing the most prestigious specialties, nevertheless have seized opportunities in medical research and practice. In some instances, they have brought new expertise to neglected areas of research. In others, they have carved out new approaches within existing specialties.
The breakthrough discoveries of women physicians benefit all of us, patients and practitioners.
Virginia Apgar, M.D., the first woman to become a full professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, designed the first standardized method for evaluating the newborn's transition to life outside the womb—the Apgar Score. READ MORE
Helen Brooke Taussig is known as the founder of pediatric cardiology for her innovative work on "blue baby" syndrome. In 1944, Taussig, surgeon Alfred Blalock, and surgical technician Vivien Thomas developed an operation to correct the congenital heart defect that causes the syndrome. Since then, their operation has prolonged thousands of lives, and is considered a key step in the development of adult open heart surgery the following decade. Dr. Taussig also helped to avert a thalidomide birth defect crisis in the United States, testifying to the Food and Drug Administration on the terrible effects the drug had caused in Europe. READ MORE
As a young physician, Dr. Irené Ferrer was the first woman to serve as chief resident at Bellevue Hospital, where she was given a prestigious opportunity: to work with a leading team of cardiologists who were developing the cardiac catheter. Dr. Ferrer played a vital role in the Nobel prize-winning project, which was also an important step in the development of open-heart surgery. READ MORE
Marilyn Hughes Gaston, M.D., faced poverty and prejudice as a young student, but was determined to become a physician. She has dedicated her career to medical care for poor and minority families, and campaigns for health care equality for all Americans. Her 1986 study of sickle-cell disease led to a nationwide screening program to test newborns for immediate treatment, and she was the first African American woman to direct a public health service bureau (the Bureau of Primary Health Care in the United States Department of Health and Human Services). READ MORE
In the early 1970s Dr. Janet Rowley identified a process of "translocation," or the exchange of genetic material between chromosomes in patients with leukemia. This discovery, along with Dr. Rowley's subsequent work on chromosomal abnormalities, has revolutionized the medical understanding of the role of genetic exchange and damage in causing disease. READ MORE
Dr. Katherine M. Detre has been named a distinguished professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, in recognition of her many acheivements. A leading expert in epidemiological analysis, she has designed and led large-scale health studies undertaken across the country. READ MORE
Ruth E. Dayhoff is at the forefront of medical informatics. As the medical technologies used to diagnose disease have become more complex, corresponding new information systems have been developed to analyze, store, and present the new types of data. Dr. Dayhoff followed her mother, Dr. Margaret Oakley Dayhoff, into the field she pioneered in the 1960s, heading the VistA Imaging Project at the Department of Veterans Affairs—a unique, innovative system that will eventually be implemented in all VA medical centers across the United States. READ MORE


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Back to All Events
Earlier Event: June 9Noche De Jovenes
Later Event: June 26Escuela Biblica Vacacional (VBS)
Use the form on the right to contact us.
You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.
145 Martinvale Lane
San Jose, CA, 95119
United States
(408) 972-2020
Primera Baptist is a Southern Baptist Church located in the heart of South San Jose. We are a community that welcomes all. We recognize the authority of God's Word, and strive to serve consistently with what it teaches–loving God and fellow man and woman as Jesus teaches.


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Boca Raton Psychiatrists
Dr. Aida Murko & Dr. Zoran Murko
21301 Powerline Road suite #302 Boca Raton, FL 33433
Phone: 561-852-2525 Fax: 561-852-9602
Just Another Broderick Creation


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Five MLP-fund managers spoke recently with Research magazine for the 2011 Guide to Master Limited Partnerships regarding the sector's recent performance and its outlook, as well its potential risks and rewards.
This year's panel includes:
• Jeff Fulmer, senior advisor, Tortoise Capital Advisors, L.L.C., Leawood, Kan.
• Quinn Kiley, senior portfolio manager, Fiduciary Asset Management (FAMCO), St. Louis;
• Kevin McCarthy, president and CEO, Kayne Anderson Energy Closed-End Funds, and co-managing partner, Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, Houston;
• Jerry Swank, managing partner and founder, Swank Capital, Dallas;
• Brian Watson, director of research, SteelPath Fund Advisors, Dallas.
What factors are likely to boost MLPs over the next few years?
McCarthy: Generally, we believe that new energy infrastructure development will be a catalyst for distribution growth in the MLP sector. Production in unconventional basins—especially the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, the Eagle Ford Shale and Barnett Shale in Texas, and the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana—will drive the construction of new energy infrastructure to transport energy products to major population centers.
We believe that MLPs are the most direct way to capitalize on this trend. Another factor that will drive MLP returns is the continuation of a robust NGL market. Due to high prices and the current supply/demand imbalance, NGL volumes are expected to grow as E&P companies reallocate rigs to drill in liquids-rich areas, as opposed to drilling for natural gas.
Many gathering and processing MLPs have announced plans to increase capacity for fractionation, or separation of NGLs into individual products such as ethane, propane, butane, and natural gasoline.
Other MLPs have announced projects for processing plants and pipelines to handle these NGLs.
Finally, with the current environment providing ample access to capital, public MLPs are once again focusing on acquisitions and growth projects that we expect will lead to distribution increases. MLPs' 2010 capital spending for acquisitions and expansions was over $40 billion, the highest total we've seen since 2007 and more than double the level in 2009, and we expect that trend to continue in the near term.
Swank: I think the industry assets' size has become so big, $300 billion, that I think you're going to have more institutionalization, and I see it happening in two ways. One is more products: more closed-end funds, mutual funds, ETFs, ETNs, etc., to allow a larger base, and that's pretty much the retirement-plan pension business.
On the other side, you'll continue to get institutional investors now, such as big state funds—kind of like what happened in the REIT market in the late '90s. On the fundamental side, this whole oil and natural gas liquids play is in the second inning here, and I believe it's going to drive infrastructure, build-out connectivity and earnings and dividend growth of these MLPs for the next few years.
Fulmer: Robust growth through project build-outs and acquisitions should bode well for MLPs in the near term and lead to increased investor distributions. Capital investments targeting liquids-rich shale plays, notably the Eagle Ford shale in Texas, the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and the Bakken shale in North Dakota are expected to be pronounced and should result in accretive growth.
Pipeline takeaway capacity remains short of peak production in all three of these regions and both MLPs and C corp pipeline companies are coming to the rescue. We think MLPs will invest over $20 billion in the next three years for needed infrastructure to connect regions of supply-push to areas of demand-pull.
Substantial momentum is also evident in the acquisition arena and likely to continue, with over $9 billion invested during the first five months of 2011. Over the next three years, we are projecting over $35 billion of M&A in the sector.
Kiley: We continue to think investors will be drawn to MLPs' attractive yields and the fact that the majority of MLPs are increasing their quarterly distributions.
Recent events would support the idea that the near term will continue to be volatile, although we do believe prices are going higher from current levels.
Increased merger and acquisition activity and accelerated capital expenditures on new infrastructure are the most likely drivers of positive performance over the short term.
Although we currently view the MLP group as fairly valued and with an attractive return outlook, headline risk around energy tax policy could create some choppy waters in the weeks and months ahead.
Watson: To be clear, our primary focus is on long-term performance and, in fact, we base our investment decisions on the assumption of a five-year holding period. Nonetheless, over the next three years the continued development of domestic shale and unconventional resource basins will allow these businesses to grow substantially.
We expect MLPs will be the dominant builders and operators of the logistical assets needed for this development and to connect these supply regions to the points of demand.
Triple digit year-over-year increases in rig counts in the Eagle Ford, Niobrara, and Bakken shales have strained takeaway capacity from these as well as other basins as current infrastructure is insufficient. Further, we expect the pace of acquisitions of midstream assets by MLPs from existing C corps will continue at a healthy clip.
Lastly, we believe investors will continue to diversify away from the REIT and utility sectors into the MLP sector. Each of these trends should be supportive of the space.
Which MLP sectors do you believe will be the strongest performers in the near term and why?
Swank: You have those that are in the natural gas gathering business that are the closest to areas mostly on the wet gas side; a name like MarkWest (MWE) is exposed to the Granite Wash and the Marcellus. You have a WES (Western Gas Partners), which has good exposure to the whole Niobrara, D-J Basin kind of play. Atlas is right in the middle of all the West Texas, Granite Wash liquids production. So, those firms are probably the more risky plays but they're exposed at the very front end.
The businesses are doing very well (with) the frac spread because the oil and gas ratio is so high. Longer term, obviously, the firms like Enterprise, Targa and ONEOK that are exposed to the liquids fractionation along the entire value chain are going to have it very good for a long time, too.
Fulmer: We believe that long-haul pipeline MLPs have the most concrete growth plans and are also positioned to be the beneficiaries of an improving economy, which leads to increased consumption.
Refined product demand grew 1.5% in 2010, and according to the EIA is expected to grow in 2011 as well—by about 1%.
In addition, beginning in July of this year, oil pipeline tariffs tied to FERC indexing will receive a favorable tariff bump of 6.8%, calculated as PPI plus 2.65%.
Beyond that, if the Producer Price Index simply remains flat for the remainder of 2011, we project a tariff escalator of 8.6% in July of 2012.
Long-haul oil pipelines require strategically placed storage facilities to operate, and oil storage assets continue to be attractive due to spreads between crude grades and demand for additional refined product blending terminals.
The natural gas transmission sector remains strong with advantageous long-term, fee-based contracts. Opportunities abound within the sector for infrastructure investment related to emerging shale supply basins.
Upside also exists in the gathering and processing sector, as we continue to see a migration to fee-based contracts and less direct commodity price exposure.
Kiley: Those MLPs exposed to growing production of oil and gas from nonconventional reserves will continue to benefit as the ramp up in production continues. This means the geography of an MLP's operations is as important as the sector one assigns to it.
We favor growth from the "oily" reserves like Eagle Ford or Bakken, more so than "gassy" reserves like Haynesville, for example.
I would caution that the development of these reserves to full capacity is still years away, but early movers into these plays should benefit over the short and long term.
Watson: Obviously if crude oil and NGL prices continue to rally, those sectors with the most commodity-price sensitivity will benefit. Alternatively, if that trend reverses, then those MLPs will likely similarly suffer.
Otherwise, we believe those with the most advantaged footprints around the emerging oil shales and the most skilled management teams will be able to capture new growth opportunities and will be rewarded by the market.
McCarthy: In the near term, we believe that pipeline MLPs and gathering and processing MLPs with exposure to developing shale plays will perform well.
While valuations for these partnerships have been higher in recent months, we still see MLPs with valuations that do not reflect their strong growth prospects.
Which MLP sectors do you believe will be the strongest performers in the long term and why?
Kiley: We believe that over the long term, there will be more growth generated by natural gas infrastructure MLPs. Identifying stable cash flows to investors is a central tenet of MLP investing, but delivering growing cash flows is the biggest differentiator over the long run. When properly executed, new infrastructure delivers growing cash flows.
Watson: Long-haul, fee-based or fee-like pipelines, storage and terminals are our top picks for long-term performance, as they are less influenced by specific drilling programs or commodity prices and have natural monopolies on the majority of transportation routes. The midstream sector's ability to steadily generate cash during a variety of commodity price scenarios will allow the group to outperform other MLPs in the long run, particularly on a risk-adjusted basis.
McCarthy: We believe the single most important factor will be asset location and exposure to increasing volumes as a result of the continued development of the unconventional reserves. This includes large MLPs that are well positioned to transport new volumes over interstate pipelines, as well as smaller gathering and processing MLPs that have more direct exposure in the specific basins such as the Marcellus, Eagle Ford or Haynesville Shales.
Swank: One trend we're seeing is that non-MLPs that own these kinds of [shale fracking] assets are turning them into MLPs. For example, Williams has basically turned into an MLP. El Paso continues to do it. We think all these other firms will eventually do that, and then there are other kinds of MLPs. Now, we have natural gas storage MLPs. The shipping business is getting much bigger in the MLP space.
The E&P MLPs are getting much bigger. Thus, I think that longer-term trend will continue to create more and different asset-type MLPs.
Fulmer: We expect MLPs that provide "at length" solutions to connecting newfound and evolving oil and natural gas supply with demographic demand will lead the pack.
We expect that quality MLPs who derive the majority of their revenue from long-haul natural gas, crude oil and refined product pipelines tied to long-term contracts will continue to provide their investors with stable income and attractive total returns. These are the companies that successfully weathered the financial storms and catastrophes of the past decade while delivering sustained growth.


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Panaca, NV – Factory FMF/KTM rider Kurt Caselli took the overall victory at the eighth round of the AMA National Hare & Hound Series in his first race back since returning from a shoulder and knee injury earlier this year.
The Panaca course was very dry and dusty and Caselli knew he needed to get out front early in order to get an advantage and the early lead. "I spent a good amount of time walking the start straight and trying to pick a good line for the race," remarked Caselli. "I found a line I thought would do the trick, and luckily, it paid off."
Caselli launched off the line at the start of the race and grabbed the holeshot. He was fortunate enough to get out front early and avoid the dust from the pack of riders behind him. He led the entire 100 mile course and was able to take the win in his first race back since injury by over one minute on the 2nd place ride of Jacob Argubright.
"It feels really good to come back to the series and take the win," stated Caselli. "My bike ran perfectly the whole race and I had no issues. My shoulder and my knee felt good and I feel like I am back to top form. I am still a few points back in the series but I know with a couple rounds left that the championship is still within reach, and that is definitely the end goal.
Caselli will now begin preparation for the International Six Days Event where he will lead Team USA as the Captain of the USA Trophy Team. Upon returning from the ISDE, he will jump right back into the Hare & Hound Series where he will try to make up his 13 point gap to capture a repeat title in the series.
Overall Results –
Overall Point Standings –
Caselli leading after the start
Caselli on the podium
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Wednesday Night Bicycles Etc. Ride
Length: 27 miles. Two climbs, 1.5 and 1.2 miles. Hilly profile. Average speed: 15 to 18 mph, including hills. Speed groups: A (Aggressive... 17-18+ mph) and B (Conversationally Quick...15-17 mph). B Group regroups after hills and at major intersections, and tends to stay together. Spare yourself the humiliation of getting dropped from the A group and riding a solo TT and stick with the B Group. The conversation is better.
Ride length varies between 19 and 27 miles, depending on daylight availability and weather. Lights are recommended for the latter part of the ride in the event you have a mechanical, or are just very slow. Total ride time is usually about 1:50 or less.
Details: The Wednesday Night Bicycles Etc. Ride starts at 5:30 p.m. 15-18 average pace, including hills. A group and B group. Steep Climbing. Lights required in the early season. Distance:19 to 28 miles. Start: Bicycles Etc., 611 Meridian Street, Huntsville, AL.


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Polar vortex? Nope, just cooler Midwestern temps
CHICAGO (AP) — Unseasonably cool temperatures will arrive next week in the Midwest and as far south as Arkansas and Oklahoma.
It is not, however, the second coming of a polar vortex, a phrase the National Weather Service's Chicago office tweeted earlier this week to describe the upcoming sweater weather. They quickly learned that wasn't such a good idea, said Amy Seeley, a weather service meteorologist who spent a good chunk of Friday morning fielding a flood of telephone calls from the media.
"I think people are pretty sensitive to those words," she said.
Though Typhoon Neoguri has weakened since hitting Japan, it altered the path of the North Pacific jet stream, allowing polar air behind a trough of low pressure to spill out of Canada and into the Midwest, says Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters.
It's similar to the polar vortex pattern from the winter that turned much of the country into a freezer for weeks at a time, breaking cold weather temperature records in numerous states. But there are key differences, Masters says. This air mass is coming from western Canada and not directly from the arctic, plus the polar vortex is not nearly as strong in the summer — and sometimes breaks down completely.
Between Monday and Wednesday, temperatures in the Midwest will be as much as 15 degrees cooler than normal, with the biggest drops seen close to the Great Lakes, though people in Oklahoma and Arkansas will need to break out pants, too.
Meanwhile, the usually temperate Pacific Northwest should get ready to sweat. Places like Seattle could reach 90 or higher next week, Masters said.
Chicago would normally see highs in the 80s and lows in the mid-60s, but the weather service says highs early next week will climb no higher than the mid-60s — maybe 70 degrees— and lows could dip into the upper 40s.
The cool spell is coming at the wrong time for some athletes who are preparing for a triathlon in Wisconsin next weekend. If Lake Michigan is too cold, the swimming portion won't happen.
"It's disappointing because you've done all the preparations for it," said Elizabeth Waterstraat, who has been coaching several people from suburban Chicago.
That sound you hear coming up from Oklahoma might be thousands or people turning off their money-gobbling air conditioners. It could also be the cheers of those who make their living working outside, like the employees at a Tulsa nursery, whose job entails hauling trees and shrubs around town.
"We love it," Paul James, marketing manager for Southwood Landscape & Garden Center, said of the forecast for temperatures running about 15 degrees lower than the typical 93- or 94-degree July days. "Any day you don't get above 100 degrees."
Further north, the forecast is more bad news at the Maple Lane Resort in the western Michigan community of Empire, along Glen Lake, near Lake Michigan. This summer's cooler temperatures already have affected business.
"We are fully booked for weekends here this summer but we are seeing less families spend a week up here," office manager Amanda Rennie said. "Last year, the stays were longer (and) I think this may have something to do with the weather."
Associated Press writers Mike Householder in Detroit and Justin Juozapavicius in Tulsa, Oklahoma, contributed to this report.
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I fell in love with Canmore last spring. The incredible beauty of the town, the people and the surrounding mountains is enough to steal anyone's heart. Located just an hour from Calgary, and without the crowds of Banff, Canmore has become my favourite place for a weekend escape. When my boyfriend decided to embark on a boy's trip to Europe for three weeks, I knew I wanted to steal him away for a romantic weekend before he left; naturally, we booked a room and set out for Canmore.
We arrived early afternoon on a bright sunny Friday to a welcoming committee of elk. It was too early to check-in to our hotel but early enough for a delicious lunch at the Georgetown Inn.
I ordered the Georgetown's legendary Fish n' Chips; unfortunately, I was a little too impressed with my meal to remember to take a picture beforehand but the remnants of my meal managed to make their way on to my camera.
Just as we were about to leave, the chef came out of the kitchen with a plate of fresh-from-the-oven shortbread cookies that he let us devour. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.
Looking for relaxation and romance, I booked a gorgeous one-bedroom suite at Silver Creek Lodge. We checked-in just in time to watch the sun set.
Initially, we had planned to go snowboarding, check out the shopping in down-town Canmore and explore the town; however, the temperature sat at an uncomfortable 30 below, colder if you included the wind chill. We decided to forgo our outdoor plans and relax in the room while debating which of Canmore's many fantastic restaurants to have a romantic dinner at.
To kill some time before dinner, I took advantage of the room's large soaker tub and kicked back with a glass of wine while my boyfriend took a nap. This was the perfect way to unwind and relax.
We decided on Sage Bistro for dinner and sat in the wine lounge. The service was fantastic and my boyfriend and I shared the Antipasto, which was incredible. We sat and laughed, had some fantastic wine and really enjoyed the ambience of the restaurant before walking back to Silver Creek, which was just across the road. Once we were back in our room, we lounged on the couch in front of the fire chatting late into the evening.
We awoke the next morning to a beautiful blue bird day and after a bit of sightseeing, we headed back to Calgary.
The only downside from our trip was the speeding ticket I received in the mail a few weeks later! Otherwise, it was the perfect little romantic escape and the beautiful suite, comfortable bed and delicious food really made the trip special. I would definitely recommend taking a weekend to experience some romancin' in Canmore.


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If the World Were Run Like Airlines
Sandwich Prices Would Spike at Peak Hours and 'Priority' Elevators at the Hotel Would Cost Extra
Imagine if airlines ran restaurants. We'd live in a world where a half sandwich, the equivalent of a one-way ticket, might cost two times as much as a whole sandwich.
The airline way of doing business is unique—few other businesses have as many rules and restrictions, taxes and fees, frustrations and disruptions. Not many other businesses have such varied and ever-changing pricing for their products. And rare is the business that hits its customers with penalties of hundreds of dollars....


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Non-invasive measurements of increased vascular tone in patients with essential hypertension
Nicht-invasive Bestimmung des erhöhten Gefäßtonus bei Patienten mit essentieller Hypertonie
Search Medline for
|August 8, 2006
We assessed arterial vascular tone during sleep in patients with essential hypertension and normotensive control subjects. Arterial vascular tone was obtained by non-invasive digital photoplethysmography and an algorithm for continuous, investigator-independent, automatic analysis of digital volume pulse. Arterial tone was quantified by the reflective index. The reflective index was derived from the digital pulse wave as the mean value of the data points from 93 ms to 218 ms adjacent to the inflection point.
In patients with essential hypertension we observed a significantly higher arterial vascular tone during the first half of the night compared to age-matched normotensive control subjects (30.7±0.3; n=21 vs. 29.5±0.3; n=20; mean±SEM; p<0.05 by ANOVA with Bonferroni's post-hoc test). During the second half of the night the elevated reflective index was not significantly different between patients with essential hypertension and normotensive control subjects (30.0±0.3; n=21 vs. 30.7±0.3 n = 20).The increased arterial vascular tone indicated systemic vasoconstriction as confirmed by cold pressure tests. It is concluded that non-invasive technique can determine an increased systemic arterial vascular tone in patients with essential hypertension throughout the night at sleep.


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Houston Dynamo 1, Portland Timbers 1 | MLS Match Recap
HOUSTON – Two teams looking to break frustrating winless droughts will have to wait for another day for relief.
Houston Dynamo forward Will Bruin and Portland Timbers striker Gaston Fernandez traded first-half goals before a sluggish final 45 minutes Sunday, as both teams continued to struggle to find early-season points in a 1-1 draw at steamy BBVA Compass Stadium.
The draw extends the current winless streak to six games for the Dynamo (2-3-2), while the Timbers (0-3-5) are one of just two winless teams left in Major League Soccer this season along with the Chicago Fire.
Bruin found his scoring stroke in the 16th minute, and it by no coincidence coincided with the return of Brad Davis. The US international came back from a three-game absence and played a perfect cross to Bruin in the box, and the wide-open Bruin headed the cross past Timbers goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts for his first goal in his past six games.
The goal also snapped a 334-minute scoreless streak for the Dynamo, who controlled the tempo in the first 30 minutes of the match also threatened with first-half chances from Davis, defender Corey Ashe, midfielder Boniek Garcia and defender Kofi Sarkodie, back from a one-game suspension.
But the Timbers countered in the 33rd minute off the opportunistic foot of Fernandez. Midfielder Kalif Alhassan hit a pass into the Dynamo box that deflected off Davis and into the path of Fernandez, who wasted little movement hitting a first time effort into the upper-right corner to pull the Timbers level. The goal was the Argentine import's third this season, but first since March 16.
Houston's first scoring chance of the second half came right after the break, when striker Giles Barnes glanced a header wide of the post off a cross from Garcia. The hosts followed with a good look for Bruin in the 69th minute that was snuffed out by a charging Ricketts, and late sub Mark Sherrod scuffed a chance from six yards out in the 90th minute after midfielder Andrew Driver sliced into the Timbers penalty box and fed a pass in front of net.
The game also featured a bit of an oddity in the 66th minute, when Ricketts struggled with a Futty Danso back pass and handled the ball just inside the area. Referee David Ganter awarded the Dynamo an indirect free kick inside the box, but they were unable to capitalize, a fitting moment on a day when neither team appeared quite ready to break free from their current slumps.
Both teams are back in action on May 3, when the Dynamo take on Chivas USA at the StubHub Center, while the Timbers host suddenly surging D.C. United.
MLSsoccer.com Men of the Match
|What We Saw
|Brad Davis
|Instant offense in his return for the Dynamo, and a picture-perfect assist. No surprise.
|Diego Chara
|On an ugly day for the Timbers, someone had to do the dirty work. Chara obliged.
|Boniek Garcia
|Pesky as ever as the Dynamo's string-puller, but the goal never materialized.


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GENEVA – A night out with Hollywood stars at a Jenny McCarthy charity event ended with tickets for public intoxication for some outside a nightspot in Geneva, records show.
McCarthy's event, which took place Aug. 24 at the Hotel Baker in St. Charles, raised money for Bridges Montessori Academy in St. Charles. Among those cited were actors and dancers.
Then, at about 12:30 a.m., Aug. 25, 30 to 40 guests came with McCarthy to EvenFlow Music and Spirits, 302 W. State St., Geneva, according to Michael Knuth, who, along with Nicholas Mercadante, owns the bar, dinner and live music venue.
"It was a very nice night," Knuth said. "Jenny invited her guests from Baker Hotel. She was very nice and enjoyed music and spirits."
Knuth said the last call for drinks was 1:50 a.m. The guests did not drink any alcoholic beverages in that time, he said, because it's against the city's liquor code to serve alcohol between 2 and 6 a.m.
"They were not here at 5 a.m.; they were outside waiting for a cab," Knuth said. "I don't know how long they were waiting. Who knows where they went or what they did, but as for me and my bar, they were not drinking."
According to Geneva police reports, those who received $50 tickets for public drunkenness at 5:45 a.m. Aug. 25 were Kelly M. Monaco, 37, of Pocono Pines, Pa.; Sergey A. Onik, 25, of West Hollywood, Calif.; Heath J. Freeman, 36, of Los Angeles; Joanne C. McCarthy, 38, of Sherman Oaks, Calif.; Alexis A. Gault, 32, of the 400 block of S. Third St., Geneva; and Michael L. Isaacson, 25, of the 500 block of Kingston Drive, Geneva.
Monaco is a reality television star, winner of "Dancing With the Stars" during its first season and an actress on "General Hospital," according to the IMDB website.
Onik is a United States national dance champion, choreographer and instructor at L.A. Dance Events, according to its website.
Freeman is a movie and television actor who was in "Skateland" and serial killer Howard Epps on the TV series "Bones," also according to IMDB.
McCarthy is Jenny McCarthy's sister and a makeup artist, according to IMDB.
Jenny McCarthy's publicist did not respond to an email seeking comment about the citations.
Geneva police reports are at odds with EvenFlow partner Knuth's explanation of what happened that morning.
According to reports, Joanne McCarthy told police they arrived at EvenFlow at 1:45 a.m. for an after-hours party and they drank alcoholic beverages, up until they went outside, right before police arrived at 5:45 a.m.
Also according to reports, Monaco was belligerent to officers at times, and "repeatedly stated she was a celebrity on the television shows 'General Hospital' and 'Dancing With the Stars.' "
The report states that Monaco's demeanor changed when police advised her of the consequences of of her behavior.
Gault, a server at EvenFlow, told police she drank alcohol herself as well as served it to the group after the business closed.
According to police reports, Mercadante told police he admitted serving alcohol to the group until their departure at 5:45 a.m. because he wanted to "accommodate some 'famous' people and made a poor choice for his business."
Mayor Kevin Burns, in his capacity as the city's liquor commissioner, said he is reviewing the police reports and talking to officers and witnesses involved.
If charges were to be filed against the business, it would be EvenFlow's third liquor code violation. In November, the business was cited for serving alcohol between the hours of 2 and 6 a.m., as per the city's liquor code.
The business also was cited during Swedish Days in June for serving underage patrons during a police compliance check.
Knuth insisted that no matter what the police report states, he and Mercadante both were working that night, and no alcohol was served after last call. He said if they were intoxicated, it was because they were drinking earlier.
"We did not break any of the local laws," Knuth said. "No one was drinking at EvenFlow."


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Sony's Been Hacked Again; Everquest and Other Games Are Offline
Gaming and electronics giant Sony disclosed yet another attack by hackers that has resulted in the shutdown of yet another of its online gaming services.
The company announced an attack against its Sony Online Entertainment service Tuesday Tokyo time and has temporarily shut the service down. It said the attacks occurred on April 16 and 17.
Sony said in this case, the personal data of some 26.4 million people who play Sony's multiplayer games, including Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies, was accessed. The information stolen included names, addresses, account names and passwords. Additionally, some 12,700 non-U.S. credit and debit card numbers with their expiration dates plus an additional 10,000 direct debit records belonging to customers in Austria and Germany were taken. Sony described these as having come from an "outdated" database.
Sony offered the customers an additional 30 days of playing time and help enrolling in identity theft protection services. Though you have to wonder how many will consider that sufficient incentive to maintain an account and keep playing.
Sony is already facing a steadily gathering legal and regulatory pile-on in the wake of a data breach in which the personal data of some 77 million customers of its PlayStation Gaming Network was compromised, including the credit card numbers of as many as 10 million people. Sony today declined to testify at a congressional hearing on the matter set for Wednesday.


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Julius Rudel to be Honored with Distinguished Achievement Award
by Opera Index at its Annual Winter Gala Sunday, January 11, 2009
On Sunday, January 11, 2009, Opera Index will present its 2009 Distinguished Achievement Award to Julius Rudel at its annual Winter Gala to be held in the Grand Salon at the Jumeirah Essex House, the luxury hotel on Central Park South. Opera Index is a non-profit organization that since 1984 has boosted the careers of more than 250 young singers through its annual vocal competitions. Each year it also recognizes the opera legends of our time with its Distinguished Achievement Award.
The Opera Index Winter Gala is the highlight of the organization's year of activities. Under the artistic direction of celebrated opera soprano Elaine Malbin and hosted by New York City Opera dramaturg Cori Ellison, the Winter Gala is a black tie affair where attendees, including many opera and theater stars, will celebrate the extraordinary career of Julius Rudel and have the opportunity to hear Opera Index's major competition winners – the opera stars of tomorrow – accompanied by James Besser. The Distinguished Achievement Award will be presented to Mr. Rudel by his son, Anthony Rudel, writer, broadcaster, and classical music expert, whose new book Hello Everybody! The Dawn of American Radio has just been published by Harcourt.
Tickets for the Opera Index Winter Gala range from $300 to $1000 and will be available beginning mid-November by contacting Opera Index Executive Director Robert F. Crosby at firstname.lastname@example.com or 212-721-9828. Read more about this at the Opera Index website: