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DLC (Downloadable Content) is, at its core, actually a really great idea: after completion of the full game, the developers can add content to extend the playability, while gamers pay to get the content. It's win-win. Except it never works out that way, and usually the content is worthless, overpriced, or something that should have been a feature to begin with. These are 8 of the most awful paid DLC in videogame history.
DLC has somehow found a way to get more degrading and insulting over the years, and here's the latest evidence: The Ultimate Shortcut Bundle for Battlefield 3. What it does, essentially, is give you pretty much everything you would earn in the game, had you, ya know, actually played it for a while. But who has time to play a game? "When I buy a game, I want to pay extra money so I don't have to play it much!" thought everyone who paid for this.
The problem is two-fold: the people who actually legitimately spent a great deal of time to get all of the upgrades and weapons felt their achievements had been cheapened by the feature, and the people who paid for it a) are actual human beings who spent actual money they probably worked for at actual jobs to get this, and b) supported the idea that this is something that should be the norm. I can't wait for the day I'm able to buy a game, pay an extra $10, and skip right to the credits immediately.
Oblivion was an enormous game filled to the brim with great content - but something was missing that would make the experience truly complete: horse armor. Before, your poor horses were naked. Naked! Can you believe that? Who ever heard of a naked horse?
The answer, of course, was "everyone, are you insane?" No one cared - or probably even considered - that their horses were nude and defenseless. Because they're horses. The inclusion of horse armor is fine in and of itself, but the idea of actually having to pay extra money for such a simple, useless item is horrible, although at least there'll be less fodder for the Tamriel glue merchant.
Capcom is a notorious repeat offender of bad, terrible, no-good DLC, but the Color Packs for Street Fighter III: Third Strike are something special. For a few dollars, you can get additional costumes for your characters! Wait, no, I mean additional colors for their existing costumes. Yep, the aptly named Color Packs did nothing but give you the option to change the color of your fighter (and for Chun-Li, most of those colors were "adding black somewhere").
But wait! There's less! Your online opponents wouldn't even be able to see the colors you paid so much for if they too didn't have the DLC. So if you were trying to impress someone with a show of your variety of colors, they wouldn't even know about it. May god have mercy on your soul if that was a problem you ran into.
There is a certain type of gamer who will buy only one game per year - that year's Madden. Someone thought that these innocent, delicate flowers weren't aware of the creeping intrusion of unnecessary DLC into the world of videogames, so used it as a testing ground for a wild array of rip-off DLC purchases, but the one truly terrible piece of DLC was something called "Elite Status."
"Elite Status" was a new difficulty level. That's it. That was all it was. It was "Hard Mode" for online play - except you had to pay extra money for it. In a few years, if you want to pause a game, you'll need to buy "Game Pause Pro" DLC (only 500 Microsoft points!), mark my words.


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Running parallel to discussions about toll access vs. open access in academic publishing is a debate about whether it's time to replace the venerable practice of (mostly anonymous) peer review with something more open, democratic, and dialogical. Web-based publishing software makes this technologically feasible–easy, in fact–and a number of journals are experimenting with it. A fine example of a new journal whose selection process is based on open reviewing is the World Economics Journal. The WEJ's description of its reviewing process is a model of clarity. (A hat tip to Rachael Tackett, a student at USF-Tampa, for pointing me toward this example.) As in many such endeavors, though, the proof is in the pudding, and it is by no means clear that such systems are sustainable in practice, especially for journals that receive hundreds of submissions annually.
As we saw in the first discussion of this series, plenty of anthropologists question the wisdom of fiddling with a system of peer review that underlies recognized quality standards, which are of course linked to retention and promotion reviews at academic institutions. But there are other reasons why we might pause before jettisoning peer review in favor of some version of open- or crowd-sourced review. The crucial role of blind reviews in teaching young professionals how to write and argue more effectively has recently been considered by the historian Zachary Schrag in a blog piece worthy of consideration. If you're in the anthro business long enough, you're likely to be burned by wrong-headed peer review. But for every instance of negilence, I'm reminded of five in which reviewers and editors provided frank, critical and, above all, useful thoughts about how to strengthen a submission or find it a more appropriate home. How confident are we that such advice would be forthcoming in an open-review system?
Given the nature of the theme, I thought that it would be fun to crowd-source this post. What follows are three observations from members of CFPEP or, in Richard Handler's case, someone who was recently involved in a CFPEP-sponsored webinar.
From Deborah Nichols, CFPEP chair: "Nature, among others, conducted an experiment in open review of articles but found that most submissions received no comments or only one. Such an open approach would need to overcome the Lake Woebegon effect with its illusory superiority and the chilling effect of possible recriminations, retaliations, and lawsuits, not unknown in the academy."
From Oona Schmid, AAA Director of Publishing: "Under the current system (blinded closed pre-publication review) almost all authors who submit relevant work to a journal can anticipate an editorial letter summarizing the comments of several reviewers. However, herding scholars to submit comments can take a long time; and of course these reviewers are uncompensated and don't get credit for their anonymous contributions. An open system might greatly accelerate the time of publication (possibly reducing as much as 12 months from the process) and of course credits reviewers. I think the tradeoff might be that a large number of worthy ideas might not receive any feedback. Nature experimented with open review and found that some 11% of the papers received 53% of the comments; 42% received one comment; and 47% received no comment.
From Richard Handler: "Anthropologists should know that in human life, based as it is in language and culture, there can be no such thing as transparent communication. Every message, every communication, is culturally and linguistically particular, and 'thick,' also. So the idea that jiggering with the rules of peer-review will lead automatically to greater transparency is misguided. In a peer-review process, allowing more people to comment, with gate-keeping envisioned in terms of mass society instead of specialized guilds, might lead to some interesting intellectual exchanges. But it will not yield 'results' that are more transparent, more rational, or fairer than the conventional processes by which we currently operate."
None of these quibbles and objections necessarily preclude experimentation with post-publication crowd-sourcing, although it may take a fair amount of editorial oversight to referee such discussions–yet more work for overworked editors and their staffs (if they have them!).
What do you think?

subset: commoncrawl


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Mark Daly
Mark Daly
The Angelique Rounding Rockland Light
24 x 36 inches
Signed Lower Right Inventory ID: mdaly234
Mark's paintings portray memorable impressions of life that he enjoys--patriotic flags flowing along the avenues of a vibrant city, families playing at the beach, sailboats reflecting in a calm Maine harbor...
Mark paints with passion, purpose and a lot of elbow grease. He views painting as an inspired journey of continual learning. His goal is to create timeless works of enduring excellence.
To start a painting, Mark uses both direct observation of nature and imagination. He visualizes the composition--defining the center of interest, orchestrating how shapes work together and edges interplay. He then lets his heart and mind capture a strong sense of light, honest color, and confident brushwork. Mark's hope is that the finished painting connects personally and emotionally with the viewer.
Mark was taught to draw at an early age by his mother, and by Woodhull Young, a marine painter and curator of the Vanderbilt Museum. More recently, CW Mundy, a master artist, has mentored Mark.
Daly's work has been featured in solo and group shows and is in many private and corporate collections. He has received prominent awards in national juried art exhibitions. He is a Signature Member of the American Impressionist Society and Cincinnati Art Club. He is also a member of Oil Painters of America and the Greenacres Artist Guild. Daly has studios in Ohio and Maine. He travels worldwide to paint from life.
Mark has been blessed with several God-given talents. Besides painting, he is a composer of original mandolin music and a voting member of the Grammy's. He has been a visionary leader of several successful businesses. He is author of Five Steps to Board Success and has served on many business and not-for-profit Boards. Mark has leveraged the wisdom gleaned from his business, musical and life experiences to be a better painter.
Mark graduated from Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences. He has a master's degree in strategic planning from The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.


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Time Warner and NBC Universal have told Apple that it won't be reformatting their on-line video from Flash in order to reach users of the iPad, according to sources cited by the New York Post.
NBCU owns a stake in the joint-venture in online video site Hulu, and Time Warner has been promoting "TV Everywhere" for subscribers to access video content on multiple platforms, including portable devices like the iPhone and iPad.
The companies are reportedly arguing that Flash's dominance means it's Apple's problem, not theirs.
Of course, not every studio is on board. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder in Disney and sits on the board, hence Disney subsidiary ABC is offering all of its programs for free on the iPad.
Also, Fox, which partnered with NBCU for Hulu, is also making some programming available for the iPad using Apple's preferred HTML5 instead of Flash.
All of which is relatively good news for Adobe, though you can be sure that if the two studios are challenging Apple's stance against Flash, it's not on any sense of charity or allegiance to Adobe.
Jackson West assumes you understand that NBCBayArea.com is owned and operated by NBC Universal.


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Mortgage lending flattening out
%VIRTUAL-SkimlinksPromo%Mortgage lending took a pause in May amid signs that the pace of the housing market recovery is softening, banks and building societies have reported.
Some £16.5 billion-worth of home loans are estimated to have been handed out last month, identical to the total value of mortgage lending in April, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said.
Despite holding steady month-on-month, the CML said lending is still running at "substantially" higher levels than a year ago, with May's figure standing at around 12% higher than the value of mortgages handed out in May 2013.
CML chief economist Bob Pannell said reports of a recent slowdown in housing market activity have been linked to toughened mortgage lending rules which came into force at the end of April, adding:
"It is unclear how lasting this will be."
He said the recent "softening in the pace of recovery" would appear to back up reports that demand in London, where the market has been at its most heated, is starting to cool.
The new Mortgage Market Review (MMR) rules mean lenders have to grill mortgage applicants more thoroughly about their spending habits, to make sure that their repayments will be affordable, both now and when interest rates eventually rise.
Writing on the CML's website, Mr Pannell said: "Implementation of the new regulatory regime is likely to have disrupted the normal patterns of activity, creating statistical 'fog' around the published figures.
"As this lifts over the coming months, a clearer picture as to any lasting impact of the MMR rules on lending activity should emerge."
Average UK house prices have hit a new peak of £260,000 after leaping by 9.9% over the last year, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week.
But in a sign of what is to come, property website Rightmove also reported this week that it is seeing evidence that house-sellers' asking prices are starting to come "off the boil", with property values in some parts of London appearing to have hit the ceiling of what buyers will pay.
Rightmove said the MMR rules have already dampened housing market demand, with estate agents reporting that some lenders are initially applying the new rules in a "knee jerk" way, leading to house sales falling through.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has also said that the recent sharp rises in some house prices and the stricter mortgage lending rules are starting to take some of the strongest heat
out of the property market.
Speculation that further steps could be taken to cool the market has also been growing. Chancellor George Osborne announced plans last week to hand the Bank of England powerful new tools which would enable it to cap the size of mortgage loans as a share of the borrower's income or the value of the house.
Mr Osborne emphasised that the market does not pose an immediate threat to financial stability now, but he also said it is important to take action to prevent any repeat of a period of boom and bust.
Meanwhile, the Bank has dropped hints that interest rates could rise sooner than expected, which would add to the costs of mortgage-holders, although any increase is expected to be gradual.
Mark Harris, chief executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Clients, said: "It is still not clear how much of an impact the mortgage market review rules are having on the market and how much of the slowdown is to do with buyers questioning the prices some vendors are demanding.
"The threat of an interest rate rise is bound to be having an impact on people's inclination to take on new debt."
Mr Harris suggested that mortgage borrowers who are worried about interest rates rising might want to consider locking into a fixed-rate mortgage deal.
While there have been signs of rates on fixed deals creeping up, he said borrowers "shouldn't panic as five-year fixes are still available for a little over 3% - historically, an excellent rate".
The people who affect house prices
Mortgage lending flattening out
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- UMBC Game Notes
- America East Championship Game Notes
- Championship Central
- Live Video & Stats
- Coach's Corner Video Preview
BALTIMORE – The top-seeded UMBC women's soccer team looks to add another first to its historic season as it competes in its first America East Championship game on Saturday, Nov. 9 when they host No. 2 Stony Brook. The black and gold will look to hold off the Seawolves from garnering back-to-back tournament titles, while the Retrievers look for their first tournament title in program history. Game time is set for 7 p.m. at Retriever Soccer Park, with the first 200 UMBC students receiving free admission to the contest. All the live action can be seen on UMBCretrievers.tv, with Gary Stein and Dan Levin on the call.
UMBC (12-5-2) has experienced one of the biggest turnarounds across the nation over the past season, going from 1-11-5 in 2012, to posting the program's highest win total ever in 2013 with a 12-5-2 mark. Their winning percentage differential of .478 ranks second across Division I behind only UAB (.495). The Retrievers went from worst in the conference a season ago (0-5-3) to the No. 1 seed in the America East tournament (6-2-0) and a share of its first-ever regular season title. Most recently, UMBC defeated No. 4 Hartford in the America East Semifinals, 2-0. The Retrievers, who had scored four first half goals all season, notched a pair of opening period scores to defeat the Hawks and earn the Retrievers' first-ever America East postseason victory.
The black and gold has had 11 different players register a point in the 2013 campaign, including seven returners registering their first collegiate goals on the year. The Retrievers are led offensively by a pair of All-Conference First Team honorees in sophomore Alexa Quaranta (Baltimore, Md./Perry Hall) and red-shirt junior Jessy Brown (Plantation, Fla./American Heritage). After moving from the back position earlier in the season, Quaranta has sparked the Retrievers' offense with a team-best 17 points on eight goals and one assist. Quaranta, who picked up the game-winner in the semifinal victory against Hartford, was named the America East Women's Soccer Fans' Choice Player of the Year. Brown picked up UMBC's first America East major award by being named Co-Midfielder of the Year. The Plantation, Fla., native has totaled six goals on the season, with five accounting for game-winners and the sixth representing a game-tying goal. Brown chipped in three assists for 15 points on the season.
Defensively, UMBC boasts a pair of America East All-Conference Second Team recipients in sophomore back Amira Walcott (Beltsville, Md./Eleanor Roosevelt) and senior goalkeeperLauren Kadet (Oakville, Ontario/St. Thomas Aquinas). Kadet became the program's all-time saves leader earlier this season, posting 383 stops in her career, and has dropped down her goals against average to 0.95 scores per game in 2013. Kadet tabbed her fifth shutout of the season to rank fifth all-time at UMBC in career shutouts (10).
Stony Brook (11-5-2) defeated Maine, 2-1, in double overtime in the regular season finale to earn a share of the regular-season conference title, its first since joining the league in 2001. After a bye in the quarterfinals, Stony Brook faced No. 3 Maine for the second time in a week. SBU posted a one-goal lead in the first half, as Leah Yurko rebounded home a Larissa Bysch shot. Maine was able to punch in the equalizer with 10:58 to go in regulation. After a pair of scoreless overtimes, the game was sent to penalty kicks, where the Seawolves were denied on their first attempt, but connected on their next three to advance to the finals. Goalkeeper Ashley Castanio, who was named the league's Goalkeeper of the Year after leading the conference in saves, tallied a tournament record 16 saves in the contest and added stops on three of the four Black Bear penalty kicks.
The Seawolves make their second consecutive America East title game appearance after winning the tournament last season as the sixth seed. SBU defeated six of eight America East opponents during the regular season, with its two losses coming in overtime against Hartford (3-2 OT) and UMBC (2-1 2OT). AEC First Team honoree Nysch leads the charge with 10 scores and 25 points on the season. Fellow First Team recipient Stella Norman added a team-best six assists to go with five goals.
Regular Season 2013
UMBC extended its win streak to four with a 2-1 double overtime victory against Stony Brook on Oct. 17. The Seawolves took advantage of a UMBC defensive miscue on a free kick from sophomore back Stella Norman, taking the 1-0 advantage in the 31st minute on a Retriever own goal. Sophomore forward Alexa Quaranta evened the contest at one in the 54thminute, as freshman midfielder Meg Kowalski dished out one of her two helpers in the contest to allow Quaranta for the quick dribble and shot. Red-shirt junior Jessy Brown tallied her fifth game-winner of the season in the 103rd minute, striking off a one-touch passes from Kowalski and Quaranta.
All-Time Series
-UMBC trails the all-time series 4-9-1 after a 2-1 double overtime victory against the Seawolves on Oct. 17.
-Each of the last two contests between UMBC and SBU has gone into double overtime, with last season's game resulting in a 1-1 draw on Oct. 14, 2012.
-Stony Brook leads the series, 3-2-0, when playing on UMBC's home field, however, the Retrievers are 9-2 at home this season, including a 5-0 mark against America East opponents.
-UMBC and SBU have never met in postseason play.
-Seven of 14 games between the Retrievers and Seawolves have been decided by one goal or less. UMBC is 3-3-1 against SBU in one-goal games all-time. The Retrievers are 9-4 this season in one goal games.


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2 July 2012 at 12.49pm | 1 Comment
We recently caught up with Bryan Hymel ahead of the opening of The Royal Opera's new production of Les Troyens.
The American tenor is singing the role of Énée - a challenging part on account of the opera's length and the slightly unusual register for a tenor. As well as giving us his thoughts on the epic staging, Bryan also told us how he has prepared for the part.
The production will be streamed online to the UK, and available to watch on TV via Mezzo in mainland Europe.
Les Troyens runs until 11 July and - although the run is sold out - a limited number of day tickets are available from 10am at the Box Office on the day of each performance. The one exception to this is Sunday, when Day Tickets are on sale from 11am.


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Whistler is packed with tremendously beautiful hiking trails. Whistler, as a resort community, is only decades old but the enormous number of hiking trails is staggering. The huge number of trails ensures that most remain sparsely hiked and incredibly diverse. You can find hikes with majestic waterfalls, enormous glaciers, heart pounding summits and impossibly blue lakes.
Lots of fantastic views. Two hikes listed below even have user maintained huts that are free to use by anyone. It is of course difficult to narrow a top 5 list down to only five hikes out of so many wonderful hikes. Black Tusk tops the list mainly for the its extraordinary view and its incredible geology. It is constantly amazing. From its crumbling sides to its alarmingly dangerous looking approach, you can't help but marvel at everything about this mountain. And standing on its summit, you stare down at everything. Recalling how impossibly steep the sides look from every angle, you can barely believe it when you reach the top. Another wonderful aspect of the Black Tusk is simply the hike itself. It is really three hikes in one as you can hike to Garibaldi Lake on the way and Taylor Meadows on the return journey. Both of these hikes are worthy destinations on their own, but combined with Black Tusk are incredible. The roundtrip hike, trailhead to trailhead for Black Tusk is 30k. Wedgemount Lake comes in the top 5 here as it is such a wonderful alpine hiking paradise. There is a perfect turquoise lake, a nice, free hut to use, tent platforms everywhere you look and all with jaw dropping views from all of them. There are several great hikes that emanate from the lake and the Wedgemount Glacier is easily accessible. The hike to Wedgemount Lake is only 7k, trailhead to lake and only takes about two hours to hike but the elevation gain is huge, so you'd better be in good shape. Wedgemount Lake is 14k roundtrip, trailhead to trailhead. Russet Lake is another amazing hike listed here that has a hut free to use by anyone. Russet Lake is usually accessed via the Whistler Gondola then hiking via the Musical Bumps Trail or the High Note Trail, then Musical Bumps Trail. Either way the views are incredible. Russet Lake is located in a wonderful, usually snow filled valley and just like Wedgemount Lake, there are amazing hikes in all directions. Cirque Lake enters the list here for many reasons. Its remote feel, its difficult though, short trail is quite an adventure. It requires canoeing to its trailhead at the far end of Callaghan Lake, which is a wonderful way to start a hike. Cirque Lake is a beautiful and compact world. The cirque that the lake exists in shuts the world out and the invariably mirrored surface of the lake reflects the mountains and clouds hypnotically. Cirque Lake is also so far off the radar that it remains infrequently hiked and almost always a serene paradise far from humanity. Panorama Ridge has to be included on a top 5 list for hiking for Whistler. The hike is beautiful and challenging and the views from the ridge are unbelievable. You can see in all directions and Garibaldi Lake far below is impossibly blue. Panorama Ridge stretches for over a kilometre then descends down the valley, finally reaching Garibaldi Lake. Once in a while you see a tent at the far end of Panorama Ridge and it immediately brings to mind the thought... Where on earth could you find a better tent view? In Whistler, evidently, there are plenty of contenders. Certainly a testament to the wonderful hiking around Whistler is the runners up for this list. Joffre Lakes and Rainbow Lake are not on this list. Joffre is a bit far at over an hour to the trailhead from Whistler, but it is marvellously beautiful. You would be hard pressed to find a more incredibly coloured lake. The turquoise colour is extraordinary at Joffre Lakes. Rainbow Lake is a great hike as well. The trail on the way to the lake is quite beautiful. You see several waterfalls, two impressive bridges, and an unexpectedly wonderful meadow on the way to the picture-perfect lake. As Rainbow Lake is Whistlers water supply, camping, swimming and dogs are prohibited, so that weighs on its attractiveness as a hiking destination. It does, however have trails that extend in two directions beyond Rainbow Lake. If you take the trail that ascends to the right you will quickly arrive at a marvellously desolate landscape of huge boulders. This brutal looking scree field descends from Rainbow Mountain. A challenging and marked route gives way to a very challenging and unmarked final ascent to Rainbow Mountain's summit. This route is not to be taken lightly. It may have taken the life of a hiker a decade ago. Brian Faughnan was last seen in Whistler Village in 2002, and was possibly aiming for the summit of Rainbow Mountain when he was last seen. For a list of easier and shorter hikes take a look here..
The Top 5 Best Challenging Hiking Trails in Whistler
Black Tusk is the extraordinarily iconic and appropriately named mountain that can be seen from almost everywhere in Whistler. The massive black spire of crumbling rock juts out of the earth in an incredibly distinct way that appears like an enormous black tusk plunging out of the ground. Whether you spot it in the distance from the top of Whistler Mountain or from dozens of vantage points along the Sea to Sky Highway, its unmistakable appearance is breathtaking. Whether you see it from the highway or from closer vantage points such as Taylor Meadows, Helm Creek, Panorama Ridge or Garibaldi Lake, all views make climbing to the top look impossible. In fact, Black Tusk seems to look more impossible to climb the closer you get to it. Even when you are close enough to touch its vertical, black and crumbling sides, you wonder in amazement how anyone can ever reach the top. The barely distinguishable trail skirts its edge, along a perilous scree slope, winding its way around its trunk. As you clamour carefully along the trail you come to a chute heading almost straight up. Again, even this close you will wonder out loud, as almost everyone else at this spot, "I don't think this is a safe way to go." Then you pause and look around. Spectacular. Just spectacular.
Why is Black Tusk one of the best hikes in Whistler?
Surreal looking from every angle, Black Tusk is an amazing hiking destination. From the beautiful approach views to the exhilarating.. and to some terrifying, final ascent. This challenging and ever-changing hiking trail leaves you breathless at the summit and lost for words at the tremendous view. You will find yourself looking at the ground beneath your feet, wondering how safe this crumbling, yet beautiful freak of nature is as black chunks of it shift and tumble off its vertical sides.
Best Challenging Trails in Whistler - More Info for Black Tusk >>
Wedgemount Lake is one of the most spectacular hikes in Garibaldi Park. Though it is a relentlessly exhausting, steep hike, it is mercifully short at only 7 kilometres (one way). The elevation gain in that short distance is over 1200 metres which makes it a much steeper hike than most other Whistler hiking trails. Compared with other Whistler hikes, Wedgemount Lake is half the roundtrip distance of either Black Tusk or Panorama Ridge, for example, at 13.5k and 15k respectively (one way). Wedgemount Lake itself is a magnificent destination for a day hike or spectacular overnight beneath the dazzling mountain peaks and stars. Many sleep under the stars on one of the many beautiful tent platforms that dot the landscape. Solidly built, wooden tent platforms are everywhere you look at Wedgemount Lake. Strategically positioned, these platforms manage to maintain an amazingly secluded feel despite their numbers. In all Wedgemount Lake has 20 of these tent areas. Most are wooden, but several down by the lake shore are gravel, yet every bit as nice. At a fast hiking pace you can reach Wedgemount Lake from the trailhead in just an hour and a half but at a leisurely or backpack laden pace you will likely take well over two hours. The trail is decently marked and well used. The steepness of the trail doesn't require any technical skill, however that last kilometre before the lake you will be scrambling on all fours quite a bit.
The elevation gain makes a tremendous difference when carrying a heavy backpack and unprepared for the exertion. There is hardly a section of the trail that is not steeply uphill. The first 15 minutes takes you into the deep forest and then across Wedgemount Creek. This crashing creek can be heard from quite a distance and gives you a hint of the steepness of the trail to come.
Why is Wedgemount Lake one of the best hikes in Whistler?
One of the most spectacular hikes in Garibaldi Park. Close to Whistler, the trailhead is only about 10-20 minutes away. Though the hike is hard and steep, it is short. A fit person can hike the trail in under 1.5 hours (one way). There are endless mountains, glaciers and hidden trails to explore. Wonderful and free hut to use with a million dollar view of the lake.
Best Challenging Trails in Whistler - More Info for Wedgemount Lake >>
Russet Lake is a wonderfully spectacular and varied destination. For a start it can be accessed by trail or by gondola. By the Whistler gondola, it's an unbelievable, yet arduous trek along the High Note Trail. The 22 minute gondola ride with its wonderful views of Whistler Village in the summertime, then from the top of the gondola, a wonderful walk to the Peak chair where the best is yet to come. Any time of year the Peak Chair is like a carnival ride, exhilarating, and wonderful, but in the summer, it's surreal as well. Great walls of snow pass under you far below, as you glide upward at times at a shocking degree. The incline of the ride is extreme, so steep as the breathtaking scenery cannot even distract fully from the nervousness you will surely feel as you glance down, 20 metres to the boulder field below. Then you arrive, the peak of Whistler, what a magnificent way to start a hike. You are still four hours from Russet Lake, but the adventure is well underway. From the top of the Peak chair, follow the signs for the High Note Trail and Singing Pass.
The trail is 14km with several ascents and descents on the way. The entire hike from the Peak Chair to Russet Lake and back to Whistler Village via the Singing Pass Trail is 30k.
Why is Russet Lake one of the best hikes in Whistler?
Challenging, varied and packed with views, the trail to Russet Lake is amazing. If you start from the Whistler Gondola and Peak Chair you save yourself quite a lot of elevation gain by riding instead of hiking. The hut at Russet Lake makes a great base for exploring the nearby peaks, glaciers and lakes.
Best Challenging Trails in Whistler - More Info for Russet Lake >>
As you canoe across the length of Callaghan Lake to the Cirque Lake trailhead, keep aiming toward the waterfall in the distance. The closer you get, the less likely it will seem to be the correct way. To the right the valley slopes away in a much more inviting angle. Keep toward the waterfall though and get ready for the next hour of clinging to the scarcely visible, though well flagged trail that snakes upward, often at a 50 degree incline, astonishingly close to that majestic waterfall. Your destination is one of those fantastic forces of nature, a cirque lake. A perfectly arranged glacier is required to form a Cirque Lake. A magical combination of size, a certain slope and more unexpectedly, a certain angle away from the sun. In the northern hemisphere, this means the glacier must be on the northeast slope of the mountain, away from the suns rays and the prevailing winds. Thick snow protected in this way grows thicker into glacial ice, then a process of freeze-thaw called nivation, chews at the lower rocks, hollowing out a deep basin. Over a thousand winters you are left with a magnificently circular lake with steep slopes all around.
If you arrive at Cirque Lake, near Whistler, BC on a favourably sunny, summer day, you will almost certainly fall silent, gaze in wonder at this spectacular place, and feel in that moment that this place is as perfect as it is possible for a place to be.
Why is Cirque Lake one of the best hikes in Whistler?
Spectacularly beautiful and incredibly remote feeling, this hidden lake is a challenge to get to and a paradise to arrive to. Wonderfully beautiful, untouched wilderness hiking. Endless hiking opportunities beyond Cirque Lake. Trailhead must be reached by canoe, amazing! Challenging trail to Cirque Lake due to its steepness, however the trail is short and should pose no difficultly for a moderately experienced weekend hiker.
Best Challenging Trails in Whistler - More Info for Cirque Lake >>
Panorama Ridge is certainly one of the most amazing hikes in Garibaldi Park. Usually accessed by the Rubble Creek (Garibaldi Lake) trailhead, just off the Sea to Sky Highway 30 minutes south of Whistler. The hike to Panorama Ridge is comparatively long at 15k trailhead to ridge, but there is plenty to marvel at along the way. Though the first 5k is fairly uneventful as you gain altitude via several deeply forested switchbacks. After the switchbacks you come to a fork in the trail. You can take either fork to reach Panorama Ridge. The left fork takes you through the beautiful Taylor Meadows Campground. In the summer this area is flower-filled and beautiful in every direction. The campsite stares up at the iconic Black Tusk. The right fork takes you first along the Barrier. An extraordinary buttress of rock that holds back a potentially devastating debris slide.
You may have noticed the trailhead sign indicating that camping at the parking lot is prohibited as it is directly in the path of a potential debris flow. Past the Barrier viewpoint you can take a short side-trail to Garibaldi Lake or continue on and eventually the forked trail that led to Taylor Meadows meets with the Garibaldi Lake trail and the single trail continues to Black Tusk and then Panorama Ridge beyond..
Why is Panorama Ridge one of the best hikes in Whistler?
Challenging, long distance hike. Jaw dropping views from Panorama Ridge. Often cited as the best hike in Garibaldi Park. Panorama Ridge is often combined with other hikes in the area such as Black Tusk and Garibaldi Lake, over several days of amazing hiking.
Best Challenging Trails in Whistler - More Info for Panorama Ridge >>


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You have your 20-leg itinerary planned, your next RTW is right around the corner or it's just your first longhaul return flight to a remote destination. Whatever the reasons, it's a lot of work to find out which loyalty programme to join to collect the most miles for your trip.
Accredited mileage will vary greatly from airline to airline, each booking class has their own percentage, fixed values or both. On top of that, one mile at one programme is by no means the same as one mile at another programme. Some don't even have "miles"..
To make the choice a little bit easier, bonusmiles.net tries to calculate how many qualifying status- as well as bonusmiles (or whatever the terminology may be) you will receive for a given itinerary.
All mileage projections are unofficial calculations only. They are no more than an educated guess and you should not rely on these results! After having compared them on bonusmiles.net, make sure to look up the actual tables at each respective programme before making a decision. (And feel free to let me know if the results are different!)
How to distinguish between operating and marketing carrier?
Currently there's no option to enter both carriers for a more correct calculation. If in doubt, enter operating carrier for Star Alliance flights and marketing carrier for OneWorld flights. I'll probably add a feature to enter both carriers in the future.
How is the departure date relevant?
While the departure date is optional, some programmes have blackout dates during which fares do not accrue any bonusmiles as well as special time periods in which they double the bonus etc. Therefore the departure date is required for a more correct projection of achievable bonusmiles.
The mileage should be different if I already have a status
Mile accruage often times doubles on condition of a preexisting status. Say you already have Gold at a programme, it's likely that the accrued status mileage for any given flight will be different to the amount you'd receive without any previous status. So far bonusmiles.net ignores this and calculates the mileage for users without a prior status. Most of the times, the bonus you'll receive will be as simple as doubling the amount, so the simplicity of the itineray-form is probably more important. This might change in the future though.
your trip from London to Bird Island (4992 miles)
0 Avios
0 bonusmiles
0 Bonus Miles
Your mileage will very probably vary! Alle Angaben ohne Gewähr!
Results computed at 22 Feb 19:39. Spotted an erroneous calculation? Help everyone out and notify me by sending an email to ! Please include URL & error description.


text: What do you do if your flagship operating system isn't designed to run well on a popular new class of hardware? It's a problem currently faced by Microsoft. Budget laptops like the Asus Eee PC with minimal amounts of RAM, relatively slow CPUs, and solid state storage have proven popular, and Vista wasn't designed to operate well within such hardware confines. In response, Microsoft is reportedly planning to extend the availability of Windows XP for the budget laptop category.


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Oct. 21, 2007
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - The No. 9 Santa Clara women's soccer team rallied back in the second half of Sunday's contest against West Coast Conference rival Loyola Marymount to post a 2-1 victory. Senior captain Brittany Klein scored the game-winning goal in the 75th minute to give the Broncos their 10th overall win of the season and their second league triumph. Santa Clara improved its overall record to 10-3-3 and its WCC record to 2-1-0 with the win, while LMU dropped to 9-5-1 on the season and 1-2-0 in WCC action.
"I'm very happy with the outcome of this week," said head coach Jerry Smith. "We had five tough games in eight days and did a great job in the tail end of this week. Today's game was eerily similar to Friday's game against Pepperdine. We allowed an early goal in the first half and then tied the game on a great individual effort. Friday it was Kiki Bosio, today it was by Tina Estrada. Then we scored the game-winning goal in an amazing way by an amazing player, Brittany Klein."
Klein's goal was a long-range chip over goalkeeper Joslyn Slovek's head. Since 2001, the Broncos have compiled a 6-0-1 record against the Lions and now own an all-time series record of 13-2-1.
Despite an early first half goal by LMU's Jamie Bell, the Broncos' offense did a tremendous job keeping the ball in the Lions' half for the majority of the game. In the first half, SCU attempted seven shots to LMU's two. Although Santa Clara applied intense pressure on Loyola Marymount, it wasn't until the 56th minute that SCU was able to get on the scoreboard.
Redshirt senior Estrada scored the equalizing goal for the Broncos. It was her 31st career goal and fifth of the season. The Fremont, Calif., native is now only one goal shy of tying former Broncos Kathleen Celio (1997-00) and Brandi Chastain (1989-90) for the No. 10 spot on the all-time goals list.
The Broncos return to action on Thursday, Oct. 25 against the Bulldogs of Gonzaga. Kick off is scheduled for 1 p.m., at Martin Field in Spokane, Wash. In the all-time series, Santa Clara has gone undefeated against Gonzaga with an impressive 13-0-1 record.


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ZK Research - Mobile WAN Optimization Helps Cut Costs and Avoid Upgrades
Mobile work is an increasingly crucial part of their day-to-day business. This, coupled with the larger number of connectivity types that exist today and an increasing reliance on applications such as e-mail and SharePoint, have created a very challenging environment for corporate IT departments to support effectively. Mobile WAN optimization technology can help improve the performance of these key applications, no matter where the user is located or how the worker is connected. Additionally, mobile WAN optimization can be used to defer many expensive network and hardware upgrades while reducing the cost of supporting the mobile workers.


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The New Hampshire Union Leader Goes Live with an Enterprise Advertising System from SCS
By: Press Release | SCS
The New Hampshire Union Leader, the largest daily newspaper in the state of New Hampshire, has gone live with the final module in a complete enterprise advertising system from SCS.
Based in Manchester, The New Hampshire Union Leader has been an SCS customer for nearly 27 years. The relationship began in 1984 with Layout-8000™ and continued in 2009 with SCS/Track™ to manage ad production. In 2012, AdMAX™, SCS/ClassPag ™and the CAS™ (Community Advertising Services) modules for self-service classified and retail ad workflow were added to the list of systems used every day by the advertising staff, production staff and advertising customers.
As the primary news source for the state of New Hampshire and a newspaper with a national audience, the Union Leader is a complex operation. With statewide penetration, a multi-faceted web presence and four regional papers, the Manchester-based paper needs an advertising accounting and designware package as solid as the bedrock from which the Granite State takes its nickname.
That's when SCS entered the picture.
SCS has been working with the Union Leader for well more than a decade and the biggest paper in New Hampshire makes good use of almost our entire package of software for its display and classified advertising departments. From AdMAX™ to Community Advertising Services, the Union Leader has what it takes to meet the integrated, cost-efficient demands of today's newspaper industry.
"What's terrific is that it's all integrated. It's extremely flexible and we do everything we can with the system," said Joyce Levesque, chief financial officer at the Union Leader.
SCS Business Systems Manager, Keith Keffer, who has been working with Levesque and her team for the past year, says the Union Leader is a great example of what can be done with SCS's wide array of offerings.
"They use everything in the system the way I'd hope people would use it," Keffer said. "This site is one that really wanted to take advantage of the best practices available through our applications."
Among the packages `in use are:
– AdMAX™- Accounting for Retail and Classified
– eTearAdBoss™- Handling of tear sheets
– SCS/ClassPag™- Classified pagination
– SCS/Track™ – Ad tracking and workflow management
– CAS/CDS™ – Community Advertising Services for self-service display ad workflow
– Layout 8000™- Page dummying
– CAS/CCS™- Community Advertising Services for self-service classified order entry
They have just gone live with the self-service classified module, Keffer says, noting that it allows sales representatives to input ad orders as well as allowing members of the public to order and create their own ads.
Levesque, who has been involved in almost all of the implementation and oversees the operations from the accounting side, said the programs have been integral to the paper's efforts to create efficiencies and expand the services to its own customers.
Adding the SCS/Track and AdMAX applications allowed the Union Leader to eliminate the multiple platforms previously required to coordinate the ad orders, placement and billing.
One of the biggest advantages of the AdMAX application, said Levesque, is that it keeps track of current customer billing and lets newspaper representatives know when a delinquent customer tries to post a new ad.
"The advertising system travels all the way through to print and web, customer credit and ad sizing," she said. "This has helped us manage revenue, too. We are very, very pleased,"
To learn more about SCS applications, visit www.newspapersystems.com or call us at 610-746-7700.


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This unique space features rotating exhibits on key players, events and themes in Yankees history. Private events can be held on non-game days where guests can marvel at permanent museum fixtures, including seven Commissioner's Trophies commemorating the Yankees' World Series championships since 1977 and the "Ball Wall," which contains more than 870 baseballs autographed by Yankees players, coaches, managers, broadcasters and executives. This "museum within a museum" is suitable for cocktail receptions of up to 160 guests and seated dinners of up to 110 guests.
Yankee Stadium
1 E 161 St | Bronx, NY 10451


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écologies \\ ecologies \\ surrealism \\ assemblage \\ installation \\ musée-maison \\ communities \\ surréalisme \\ communautés (( artist based in\artiste basé en Ontario, Canada))
BeneCorpo @ Salle Augustin-Chénier, Ville-Marie, Québec 2008 Le départ des Terres-du-Sud -- Having Left the Southlands
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Wintergarden (2007)
Having returned to the home country in 2005, tried to return to the land, lasted six years. A second attempt is needed \ desired. \...
"The nomad distributes themselves in a smooth space; they occupy, inhabit, hold that space ... Whereas the migrant leaves behind ...


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Eve of Destruction is a free modification of the popular Battlefield Vietnam game by DICE/EA, based on the Vietnam war. No other military conflict is comparable to those dramatic years of the 20th century. Most rumors spread about the Indochaina and Vietnam War are not honest, even though it was the best documented war in history. No other conflict was that controversal and pointed to an unloved fact: not our enemy is the only source of evil, the evil can be found within ourselves. The "Eve Of Destruction" mod is a tribute to the U.S. , ARVN and Vietcong/NVA soldiers who fought and died in Vietnam, and also to the Vietnamese people.
Eve of Destruction (BF:V) has released a small HOTFIX for client PC and servers to enable internet online games. It's required to install this patch if...
eve of destruction bf:vietnam v0.20 hotfix released !
Eve of Destruction BF:Vietnam v0.17 HOTFIX released !
eve of destruction bf:vietnam v0.17 hotfix released !
Eve of Destruction v0.16 full client and server released !
eve of destruction v0.16 released !
Today the Eve of Destruction Mod Team has released the 0.1 Client build for public Download. You can grab a copy at the Mirrorspage. MIRRORS Just a short...
eod 0.1 client released!
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Chickasaw Trace Mountain Bike Park
In 1992, Bob Martin, Director of the Maury County Parks and Recreation, approached Columbia Cycling Club (CCC) members about his desire for them to build a Mountain Bike (MTB) and hiking trail at Chickasaw Trace County Park. The offer was gladly accepted and with dedicated work, we now have 8.5 miles of single track. The park covers 300 acres and is located on the banks of the Duck River and a tributary, Knob Creek. The CCC is responsible for the maintenance of the trail and does so with the help of Adopt-A-Trail volunteers. Trail blazing equipment has been purchased through proceeds from various racing events hosted by the club at the park.
Description of the Trails
Chickasaw is suitable for all levels of Mountain Bike riders – from expert racers to 5-year-olds. Several sections of trail have been identified with the signs being constructed and installed through an Eagle Scout project. The trail is a 8.5-mile loop. If ridden in a clockwise direction from the trailhead at the MTB parking lot, the initial 3.5 miles are relatively flat and follow Knob Creek and the Duck River. Upon entering the "Trail of Tears", the final five miles become more difficult, also known as "technical" among Mountain Bike enthusiasts. The course is designed with several entry/exit points so that a rider can pick the parts of the trail that suits him or her. A weekend at Chickasaw will find racers training by doing multiple laps of the entire course or families with small children on their bikes riding the scenic River and Woodland Trails. Maps of the course are available at Columbia Cycling Club's sign located at the Mountain Bike parking field. Thank you Maury County Parks and Recreation!
Trail Maps
An information sign at the MTB parking lot contains a map.
Other Park Features
The Chickasaw Trace County Park has a log cabin and two open-air shelters available for gatherings. There is a radio control flight field for model airplanes, a radio control track for model cars, and a boat ramp for the Duck River. A pavilion was recently added at MTB parking thanks to the efforts of Abe Perryman and his Eagle Project.
Columbia residents: Chickasaw Park is located on at 1415 New Hwy. 7 in Columbia, TN, almost two miles past the intersection of New Hwy. 7 (Santa Fe Pike) and Industrial Park Road.
From I-65: take Exit 46 and go west on 412. Continue on 412 for 11 miles and exit right on New Hwy. 7 and right again at the end of the exit toward Dickson. Entrance to the park is approximately 4 miles on the left.
From I-40: take Exit 172. Go south on Hwy 46 that eventually becomes Hwy. 7. Stay on Hwy. 7 south for approximately 20 miles. The park is on the right just after the village of Athendale.
Trail Parking
Take the first left entering the park, then hard left again downhill (dirt road) to get to the main Mountain Bike parking field. Suggestion: If you are going to ride the River and Woodland Trails only, it is more convenient to park in the Boat Ramp parking lot. Instead of a hard left, continue on the paved road. The lot is on the right about 50 yards from the river.


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Welcome to another writer/blogger interview. I'm so pleased to share with you an interview with Lynn Love the talented and published writer, author, and blogger. Her Blog is called: World Shamble: Exploring Fictional Worlds in a Blast.
1. Please Tell Us About Yourself Lynn:
Lynn Love, I live in Bristol in the South West of the U.K. If you want to conjure the accent, imagine a pirate speaking and you won't be far off. I've lived in all four corners of England, though, so my accent is truly mongrel. I blog at Word Shamble: Exploring Fictional Worlds in a Blast.
I've also worked as a florist for most of my adult life, so if you need a bridal bouquet — I'm your woman. I've been married for twenty-five years this year – which gives you an idea of how old I am! And, also I have one cheeky, funny teenage son. Last summer we moved into a 1930's terraced house. There is a primary school in the street behind us and a family of six live next door, so I can always hear children laughing – or crying!
2. Can You Tell Us More About Your Writing Experiences and How You Began Blogging?
I've won writing competitions and had my short stories published in magazines, but my ultimate goal is to leave floristry and write. I'd love to be a full-time novelist but realistically, there is only a tiny percentage of authors who accomplish that hallowed goal. I'm also taking a copywriting course at the moment, as a way to achieve a more reliable income stream.
For years I kept reading how writers needed an online presence but it was something I never got around to doing. I didn't know what to write about, and how to pitch the tone of the site. I began one site that was soon abandoned for precisely those reasons.
Then in 2015, after I'd had some short stories published in a writing group anthology, I thought it was time to try blogging again. This time, my approach was to be less self-consciously 'writerly,' and more light-hearted. Perhaps, I'd developed my writing style by then.
I love blogging and have met wonderful people from all over the world online – people who love reading and writing as much as I do. But also I think blogging has helped me as a writer.
I've produced over 750 blog posts – that's at least 225,000 words and a lot of writing practice. I've written in a range of styles, from book reviews and opinion pieces to flash fiction and a serialized novella. Word Shamble is my online home, my space.
"I love blogging and have met wonderful people from all over the world online – people who love reading and writing as much as I do. But also I think blogging has helped me as a writer." – Lynn Love
3. What Motivates You to Write?
Motivation is easy – I love the process of writing. I love sitting at a keyboard, plucking an idea from the air and spinning a plot and characters from it. When I was a child, I disappeared into books and into my fantasy world for hours. Now, I create the worlds for myself.
Inspiration comes from everywhere – from dreams, from misheard song lyrics, from picture prompts online, from watching people on the bus, wondering what their story is, and how they've become who they are. Sometimes I begin with a setting, sometimes with a character, quirk or a plotline.
4. Where Do You Prefer to Write on Your Blog and as an Author?
I can write almost anywhere – cafes, public transport, at work on my lunch break – but my most productive times come at home in front of my laptop on my days off. I can write from very early morning until mid-evening if I get the chance. Sometimes in the evening as my brain shuts down as the sun sets!
Moreover, I love disappearing into a world, creating places and people so that they live in my head. A YA novel I wrote was largely set at my local museum and for a while each time I passed it, I wondered about my character — what she was doing (etc.). I just love how characters in books can become so real.
Also, I take part in a couple of writing prompts a week particularly Friday Fictioneers and What Pegman Saw. Both writing communities are talented and have taught me so much. We are all terrifically supportive of each other. Away from the blog, I'm rewriting my Urban Fantasy novel after feedback from my Alpha Readers. Right now my brain is filled with ghosts and demons and Hell mouths.
"Moreover, I love disappearing into a world, creating places and people so that they live in my head. A YA novel I wrote was largely set at my local museum and for a while each time I passed it, I wondered about my character — what she was doing (etc.). I just love how characters in books can become so real." – Lynn Love
5. What kinds of Connections Have Helped You As a Writer and Blogger? What Inspires You to Write?
I was lucky enough to be involved in a very proactive writing group early on and we had an anthology of short stories and poetry published a few years ago. I've been published online many times, won and been shortlisted in magazine competitions and this year had my first serial publication in a British magazine called The People's Friend, which was terrific. I hope to have more published through them and to have my novels published eventually. Writing is my passion and earning money through it just means I get the chance to do more.
Sometimes I'm inspired by a photograph, sometimes people-watching, and other times by filling in someone's fictional backstory. Sometimes inspiration comes from a 'what if' – 'What if that alleyway isn't only filled with rubbish and bad smells, but opens to something wondrous?' 'What if I could use this Tudor sixpence to take me back in time?' Then my imagination sparks off and I'm away, trying to hammer a plot, characters, and arcs (etc.).
6. Please Share with Us Your Experiences Publishing Your Serial in a Magazine?
For my recent serial publication, I entered a competition the magazine was running to discover new writers. I developed a plot, wrote the first part, and sent it off. I didn't win and chalked the whole lost-effort up to experience.
Almost two years later, I was about to delete the story from my hard drive when I got an email from one of the fiction staff at the magazine asking if I would still be interested in writing the story for them. Usually, rejection means just that, but sometimes magazines and publishers can throw you an unexpected lifeline.
"Usually, rejection means just that, but sometimes magazines and publishers can throw you an unexpected lifeline." – Lynn Love
7. Do You Have Preferred Reading/Writing Genre? What is the Best Advice You Can Give New Writers and Bloggers?
I read the same genres as the ones I read as a child including historical fiction and fantasy, though I'm more drawn to Urban than High Fantasy. These genres are also what I write. In fact, if I can read or write an amalgamation of the two, then I'm most happy, which probably explains my YA time-travel novel and the Urban Fantasy peopled with ghosts from all eras of history.
As for good advice, an old piece of advice but a good one I follow is to write, write, and keep writing. Only practice will get you where you want to be as a writer. Well, that and robust feedback from fellow writers who love your work and want you to succeed.
Oh, also don't let rejection letters/emails send you scurrying back to your study, swearing never to venture out. Every single number one author has been rejected more times than you can count. It's people who bounce back from multiple rejections who become writers.
Also, you just have to love writing or it will become a chore. Let it become part of who you are in a quiet way. You don't need to tell people what you're writing and how great it is. Just be quietly satisfied with what you do when you're alone with a keyboard or your notebook and pen.
8. Who or on What Sites Are Your Favorite Bloggers and/or Prompt Sites Found?
There are far too many wonderful blogs to mention – can I do five? I've taken part in the Friday Fictioneers prompt most weeks for two-years and it feels like a home away from home. Also, the flash fiction prompt What Pegman Saw comes a close second for providing me with inspiration.
As well, I love Joy Pixley's Tales from Eneana, a fantasy blog with a rich mythology and depth-of-story. Also, I recommend Jane Basil's Making it Write for her wonderful poetry and blistering honesty. Lastly, Bill Pearse at Pinklightsabre is a sight I love because of Bill's skillful life-like writing. As a whole, bloggers are the most inspirational and supportive group of people I know.
"Also, you just have to love writing or it will become a chore. Let it become part of who you are in a quiet way. You don't need to tell people what you're writing and how great it is. Just be quietly satisfied with what you do when you're alone with a keyboard or your notebook and pen." – Lynn Love
9. Lynn, Can You Share with Us A Most Loved Blog Post?
Friday Fictioneers: One Amber Night.
By Lynn Love
February 27, 2018.
There'd been a fresh dusting of snow in the night, coating the grimy icebergs of the last fall, the one before that.
Sid edged along the sidewalk, past the boarded-up liquor store and Cal's Gym, 'Waterloo's Oldest Boxing Establishment' until the receivers came in last October. He and Cal had sunk a bottle of Macallan that night, glass after amber glass till they were snoring on the folding bed, overcoats as blankets. Cal left for Kansas the next day to live in his sister's garage apartment.
All his old friends were gone now. Just him and the cold left.
Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Field's Friday Fictioneers. As the great Russell Gayer said: 'The key to building an audience is reading and commenting on others' work'.
I write a lot of flash fiction. Some short pieces open themselves to a longer write, such as Gideon keeps a secret, The fate of the flower seller, The scarlet net, and A single man who can sew. One recent flash fiction I wrote is from the Three Lines Tales prompt, called The Midas Touch.
Although it felt onerous at times, last year I completed a Gothic Horror Serial: The Devil of Moravia. It includes devils, demons, and blood-soaked London streets, and drew quite a following. I hope to develop this serial into a novella in the near future.
Thank you to Lynn for filling out the writer/blogger interview questions and my apologies the interview took so long to post. Here's the link to Lynn Love's blog one more time: Word Shamble.
It's been a busy year, but there are more interviews to come shortly. If you wish to be interviewed as a writer/blogger or because you blog for a cause, you can reach me on my Contact Page.
©Mandibelle16. (2018) All Rights Reserved.


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E-Prints Complutense is a full-text repository of articles, dissertations and theses written by faculty and students of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain. The database allows browsing by subject and author, in addition to keyword searches. The repository covers many subjects in addition to law, so it should be particularly useful for interdisciplinary research. Muchas gracias a nuestros colegas madrileños.
E-Prints Complutense http://eprints.ucm.es/


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It wasn't exactly "My Dinner with Andre," but I drank wine with Ethan and Joel Coen after the premier of "Blood Simple" at the Sundance Film Festival.
About a half-dozen of us sipped boxed wine from plastic glasses at a folding table set up in the Main Street Mall for the "reception."
At that point, nobody knew the Coen brothers. They seemed like regular guys and wore easy smiles and flannel shirts. Sundance was unheralded then and you could simply stroll into the Egyptian Theatre – no ticket reservations necessary.
The year was 1985 and the film festival, along with its host, Park City, were still little wannabes.
For me, that was the best era to live in Park City. Leslie Miller and I inhabited a little miner's house on Woodside Avenue with two golden retrievers – Kona and Rose. Our place was walking distance to the ski lifts at the Park City Ski Area, but we often took the dogs skiing in Empire Canyon in what would eventually become part of the Deer Valley ski resort. Back then, there were no ski lifts there, no five-star Montage hotel – just trees and mine dumps and lots of untracked powder.
Hollywood types and movie-goers soon will be streaming into Park City for this year's Sundance Film Festival. They'll hike up Main Street in fur boots and sunglasses but they won't see Ryan's Bar or O.D. McGee, its most notorious customer known for his 20-gallon cowboy hat. And they won't see Art Durante, the philosophical proprietor of Art's Hardware. But for some of us, many friendly ghosts and bygone establishments like them still haunt the town.
The Alamo is still there. But it's changed with the times and is now called the No Name Saloon. Back then it was a no-frills place. Coors was on tap and the floor was littered with peanut shells. Bikers would shoot stick with bankers and on weekends a local band would rock out. At a certain hour, folks were looking to get lucky. But the proprietor got busted for trafficking cocaine and the rest, as they say, is history.
Those were wild times in Park City. A charismatic, young doctor, Bruce Dooley, blew into town and married newspaper editor Tina Moench. Everybody from The Park Record attended the reception on Rossi Hill and passed Champagne bottles around the hot tub. There were so many of us squirming around in there that when we slithered out naked under a bright mountain moon, there was no water left in the Jacuzzi.
It was a close-knit place. Sharon at the bank would call you up and say, "Hey, you better get down here and do something or this check will bounce." And Officer Al Allen would pull you over and say, "Don't do that anymore," instead of writing a ticket.
Once, Sgt. Lloyd Evans, who retired as police chief a few years back, helped me prepare a legal defense for my appearance before the Wasatch County justice of the peace. Leslie and I had been cited for skinny dipping at the hot pots in Midway. The state park rangers used to keep a close eye on the place in hopes of busting young Park City lassies in the buff – hands up!
It's true, we did take advantage of the local amenities, like skiing groomed runs at Deer Valley before the place opened each year. Deer Valley's lifts cranked up for the first time in December 1981, about the time Blair Feulner launched KPCW radio. The Snow Park Lodge opened then, too, just as the film fest – then called the U.S. Film Festival – moved to Park City.
That the mining town had survived the lean years after World War II is a credit to the old-timers. But by the time the festival was lured to Park City, it was already a fledgling ski town and boasted a handful of good restaurants.
Texas Red's was a barbecue joint operated by a red-bearded Texan who took the handle "Waterbed." License plates bearing "W BED" graced his 1960s-era Cadillac hearse. And Waterbed's pulled pork was to die for. Everything was served on paper plates and it was so popular that ski bums working the dinner shift could almost make ends meet.
Otto and Carmen, by contrast were a sophisticated couple and their place, Mileti's, was a little more upscale. It offered Italian fare and boasted a bar upstairs. Just as important to us, it sat right across Main Street from The Park Record.
After our Wednesday noon deadline, the writers would join the production staff to get the weekly newspaper out. Our man Friday, Dusty Rhoades, would make a beer run and we'd crank up KPCW, where Dr. Bop would be spinning the Byrds and MoTown. We'd dance around the page dummies till about midnight, when Dusty would load big negatives into a flat box and roar off in his van to the printer in Salt Lake.
The Record crew would repair to Mileti's bar where we'd toast our great accomplishment and rearrange the stars to suit our future endeavors. Then we'd drift away for some shut-eye before the ski lifts opened at 9 o'clock.
Summer, too, had its regular rhythms, although measurably more mellow. Rusty Prudence, who had a taste for Ten High, was a Park City old-timer and had the leathery face and hands to prove it. He'd amble through Old Town with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and greet his fellow Parkites with a familiar salutation: "Why, hello there, friend." And then he'd settle in for a chat.
One day, he strode up to our gate as Leslie was hanging out the wash, tears streaming down her face. She cried as she relayed the news to Rusty: Kona had somehow gotten old and we had to put him down. Rusty pulled a Pall Mall from his shirt pocket and lit it thoughtfully. "There's only one place to bury a dog," he said, "and that's in your heart."
That was right after Steven Soderbergh hit it big with his 1989 film, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape." The director, who had been volunteering as a driver during the festival, had suddenly become the prince of Hollywood. And Sundance and independent film were the new "It."
At the same time, Utah and Park City were gaining notoriety and support for a Winter Olympic bid.
And if that weren't enough, developers unveiled plans that would transform the lonely Kimball Junction into a sprawling commercial center.
The world was spinning faster and faster and something scary was peeking over the horizon.
At first light it began to rain and the phone rang. It was Hunter S. Thompson-devotee Todd Gabler calling for Leslie on one of the very first cell phones. He had chained himself to a backhoe at the Kimball Junction Kmart construction site and needed a sleeping bag and a Thermos of coffee – quick.
His gutsy protest against the future, unfortunately, didn't hold things back for long.
Still, we were lucky to have lived in Park City during that time. We loved that crazy, little place. And maybe that's why we buried it in our hearts.


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I did some search on google and I found someone asking a similar question on another forum. This was the answer he has got:
Just checking if anybody has any other thought on this and if there is any way to enable VRM temps in the NVidia drivers, without having to reinstall drivers all the time (if the above is true). Anybody?On some nVidia GPUs it seems only the driver installing process enables the GPU VRM sensors, so if you install a new driver, you might see them in HWiNFO.
Unfortunately there's no solution how to make them visible always, since nVidia won't tell how to enable them, nor doesn't leave them visible all the time.


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Burlesque411.com offers many ways of advertising to reach the Burlesque community.
We are tied closely to the Burlesque community and will help your product and message expand through the burlesque community. If we can't help you directly with the services we offer, we will help you find the people, places and performers who can.
Companies with products targeted specially to the Burlesque community can contact us at:
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The Acting Studio
COJODA Productions
Tuesdays, 5:30-7:30PM
Single Point Acting for actors of all ages and levels. It's a simplified process created by Consulina Wong derived from the classic techniques of Stanislavski, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner and Lee Strasberg. Learn acting skills from a veteran actress. For more info and to join, call: Consulina Wong at (808) 223 6338.
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The Acting Studio
The Acting Studio
Earlier Event: April 30ImprovHI - Workshop
Later Event: May 1Kizomba Classes with Jamila!


text: As a witness to war, alumnus Mike Quering offers a deeply personal link to the past Mike Quering has seen war up close. Now nearly 90 years old, the World War II veteran was just 18 – fresh out of high school – when he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. But his memories of the days he spent serving his country as a waist gunner, flying deep into Germany, mission after mission have not faded. They remain crystal clear. Unforgettable. And each time he shares his story, he knows it serves a distinct purpose. Since 2004, Regis University's Center for the Study of War Experience has worked diligently to preserve history, one story at a time. It has gathered wartime memories as well as artifacts of not just veterans like Quering, an alumnus of the Regis College class of 1949, but also civilians – ordinary men and women whose lives were shaped by the war experience. Click below to hear Quering's story and learn why he feels compelled to share it. See and hear the personal side of war through Regis' Center for the Study of War Experience.


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Mutants Unite, Freaqual Rights! 'Futurama' Marks Its Milestone 100th Episode and Season 6 Finale in Revolutionary Fashion Thursday, September 2 at 10:00 p.m. on COMEDY CENTRAL(R)
Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh Makes Special Voice Guest Appearance
NEW YORK, Aug. 24 -- Leela leads an army of underground mutants in a revolt against the surface people in the milestone 100th episode of "Futurama," premiering Thursday, September 2 at 10:00 p.m. on COMEDY CENTRAL. This sixth season finale episode brings to a close a record-breaking premiere run of the resurrected series on COMEDY CENTRAL.
In this landmark episode, titled "The Mutants are Revolting," the Planet Express Crew has been hired to make their 100th delivery and Bender begins planning the party of the millennium. Meanwhile, however, the rest of the crew attends a fundraiser where Fry accidentally outs Leela as a mutant who is illegally living above ground. For that, she is banished to the sewers where her fellow mutants reside in futuristic squalor. Feeling guilty about his slip-up, Fry and the rest of the gang - along with the mutated members of Devo - join Leela in an epic mutant revolution against the surface dwellers.
After almost seven years since the last original episode aired, the sixth season premiere of "Futurama" in June led COMEDY CENTRAL to its best Thursday prime ever among young men. Since then, the animated sci-fi comedy has continued its out-of-this-world winning streak, with a season-to-date average of 2.5 million viewers each week, a 1.56 P18-49 rating, a 3.02 M18-34 rating and 3.26 M18-24 rating. In the social media realm, the "Futurama" Facebook fan base recently reached a milestone by crossing the 4 million mark.
"Futurama" follows the life of Philip J. Fry (Billy West), a pizza delivery boy who accidentally stumbles into a freezer on December 31, 1999 and wakes up a thousand years later. In his future home of New New York City, Fry goes to work for the Planet Express Intergalactic delivery company, where he befriends Bender (John DiMaggio), a booze-fueled robot and sets his romantic sights on Leela (Katey Sagal), a sexy cyclops who enjoys beating him up.
"Futurama," created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen, is produced by Twentieth Century Fox Television, with multi-Emmy(R) Award-winning Rough Draft Studios, Inc. contributing the animation.
20th Century Fox Television, a division of News Corp., is a leading supplier of entertainment content domestically and around the world.
COMEDY CENTRAL, the only all-comedy network, currently is seen in more than 98 million homes nationwide. COMEDY CENTRAL is owned by, and is a registered trademark of, Comedy Partners, a wholly-owned division of Viacom Inc.'s (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B) MTV Networks. COMEDY CENTRAL's Internet address is www.comedycentral.com.
MTV Networks, a division of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), is one of the world's leading creators of entertainment content, with brands that engage and connect diverse audiences across television, online, mobile, games, virtual worlds and consumer products. The company's portfolio spans more than 150 television channels and 400 digital media properties worldwide, and includes MTV, VH1, CMT, Logo, Harmonix, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Nick Jr., TeenNick, AddictingGames, Neopets, COMEDY CENTRAL, SPIKE, TV Land, Atom, GameTrailers and Xfire.


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You can keep up to date on team news and learn of updates to the Safe in the Hills website on Facebook.
The website draws on the knowledge and experience of the members of this Lake District team. Mountain Rescue volunteers are passionate about the hills, fells and mountains of Britain and want everyone to be able to share in that passion.
Being safe in the hills is not about having very advanced technical skills or possessing special abilities or fitness. The thrill of reaching a peak or the pleasure of being in the wild should be available to everyone. To do it safely is just a matter of decent preparation, having appropriate clothing and equipment and generally applying common sense.
On the website you will be able to find lots of information and advice on how to enjoy a day out in the hills. Please browse through the links on the left to learn about the key elements in hill safety. You'll find ideas about how to prepare for your outing, what to take and wear and what to look out for on the day.
There is also some information about what to do if you do find yourself, or others you meet, in a situation requiring help or rescue. It is worth being familiar with the methods for calling for assistance and being aware of what the emergency services would like you to do.
Finally nothing beats practising your skills in a real environment. One of the best ways to learn is with an experienced trainer. You can do a short course on the Cumbrian fells with members of Kirkby Stephen Mountain Rescue team. What's more the small fee you pay goes to the team's funds. Find out more
This site is constantly 'under review'. We'll continue adding new information and ideas as we become aware of them. We would certainly like to hear from you if you have ideas for information we can include, links to useful resources and good books and DVDs.
Built by d2x


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Utility Company Keeps Innovating—Most Recently Leveraging Drones
Corporate focus on security and a device-to-cloud approach help Xcel Energy tap into the latest technology and resources to improve its business operations and services
Gas and electric utility company Xcel Energy has long been an innovator in its industry. The company, which serves more than 3.3 million electric customers and 1.8 million natural gas customers in eight states, is a recognized industry leader in delivering renewable energy. It has been a forerunner in reducing carbon and other emissions for a more sustainable energy future. Several years ago, it set a world record for wind power-generated electricity. In addition to its wind farms, Xcel Energy derives power for homes and businesses from hydroelectricity, biomass, nuclear, and other sources.
Enabling Secure Use of Drone Technology
"Because new threats keep appearing, we must continually adapt to stay ahead of the bad guys, but we must also keep adapting in other ways for the sake of our business and our customers."
—Bill Frauly, lead information security operations specialist
Xcel Energy's most recent innovation is deployment of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), or drones. The company is engaging drones to inspect components of its 320,000 miles of electricity and natural gas infrastructure, including thousands of substations, power plant boilers, wind farms, pipelines, and dozens of power plants across eight states. Compared to surveillance by truck, helicopter, or fixed-wing aircraft, drones are safer for workers, provide tremendous efficiencies, and are less intrusive to communities.
As with most cutting-edge technologies, security is critical; drones are no exception. Xcel Energy transmits via secure feed all the images that the drones capture and then stores the data on servers protected by McAfee endpoint security technology, including encryption and data loss prevention.Increase in Threat Levels and Malware Attacks Not Deterring Innovation
Over the past three years, Xcel Energy lead information security operations specialist Bill Frauly has seen threat levels facing the company increase dramatically. "Because we are part of the power grid, we are always a target," he says.
Xcel Energy obviously hasn't let the increase in threats and attacks stop it from continuing to push boundaries and pursue new opportunities. The company owes its ability to keep innovating in part to a corporate focus on security—in the past two years a tiny team within IT has grown into an entirely separate 24/7 enterprise security team—and to trusted security partners such as McAfee. Xcel Energy relies on McAfee technology to protect its workstations and servers across all its sites and laptops on the go from malware attacks and data loss.
"We are always looking backward and forward, searching for trends, trying to learn from the past and apply what we've learned to the future," says Frauly. "The threats keep morphing so we can't ever get too comfortable, but today we feel better about our security tools than we ever have."
"Because new threats keep appearing, we must continually adapt to stay ahead of the bad guys, but we must also keep adapting in other ways for the sake of our business and our customers," says Frauly. "For instance, while we continue to develop our drone program, we are also preparing to move more applications to the cloud and work toward creating a sustainable defense that extends from device to cloud."
Securing Device-to-Cloud Innovations
See how Xcel Energy takes a proactive approach to fighting threats and relies on McAfee security solutions to centralize its security management.Watch Video
Using a single agent and a centralized management console, McAfee Endpoint Security integrates multiple threat defense technologies.Watch Video
With an open architecture, McAfee security solutions can work with third-party products.Learn More
Learn how McAfee discovers, classifies, and encrypts data from endpoint to cloud.Learn More
McAfee Blog
Access more customer use cases to see how companies of all sizes are using McAfee security solutions to solve their biggest security challenges.


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Search For Properties In Mizner Grand
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A crown jewel Boca Raton condominium, Mizner Grand presides over a scenic stretch of Lake Boca Raton shoreline in double-gated privacy on the grounds of the prestigious Boca Raton Resort & Club, adjacent to its yacht marina. The lifestyle experience of Mizner Grand luxury real estate is complemented by two lakefront pools and fitness centers in addition to elegant social rooms. Mizner Grand also provides full staff services including concierge and valet parking.
Mizner Grand luxury homes for sale are located in two 12-story buildings with a total of approximately 138 residences featuring estate-sized floor-plans with private view balconies opening to the east and west. Some of the most sought-after Mizner Grand homes for sale are those on the higher floors and those in the center position, which maximizes the panoramic long-range vistas overlooking Lake Boca Raton to the Atlantic Ocean beyond.
In this exclusive address, Mizner Grand real estate has Premier Club Membership additionally available. This option gives access to the amenities of the internationally acclaimed Boca Raton Resort & Club, a Waldorf Astoria Resort, originally designed by celebrated Palm Beach society architect Addison Mizner in the 1920's. In addition to two 18-hole championship golf courses, luxuries of the Club include a world-class tennis center, award-winning dining venues, plus the Spa Palazzo, Beach Club, and Marina giving direct yachting access to the Atlantic Ocean just minutes away. Mizner Grand is only about a mile from downtown Boca Raton's beautiful Mizner Park which offers world-class shopping and dining and is also home to the Boca Raton Museum of Art. Boca Raton's convenient private executive airport is only about a 12-minute drive from Mizner Grand.


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23 October 2013 at 5.06pm | Comment on this article
The Story Begins…
Wozzeck, a poor soldier, is bullied by his superiors and tormented by visions. His girlfriend Marie and their child are the only things keeping him sane. When Marie proves unfaithful, Wozzeck loses his tenuous hold on reality…
Trapped in the Laboratory
In Keith Warner's production Wozzeck is literally a human experiment, trapped for large sections of the opera in a white-tiled laboratory, while Marie and the child are equally trapped in a small room to the side of the stage. Warner thus highlights the misery of Wozzeck and Marie's lives and Wozzeck's slow descent into insanity.
From True Story to Operatic Drama
The libretto of Alban Berg's opera is adapted from the incomplete play Woyzeck (a printing error on Berg's edition rendered the title Wozzeck) by the 19th-century German writer Georg Büchner. Büchner in turn loosely based his play on the true story of Johann Christian Woyzeck, a barber and soldier who stabbed his mistress to death in a fit of jealousy. Arnold Schoenberg disapproved of Berg's decision to write an opera about a seemingly sordid domestic tragedy, and told him that 'one writes about angels, not batmen'. The tale has spawned a number of other adaptations, from ballet and film to promenade theatre.
A Lengthy Genesis
Berg began to composer Wozzeck in 1914, soon after he saw Büchner's play; he wrote his own libretto but stopped work when he was conscripted in World War I, and took the opera up again in 1917. Wozzeck was completed in 1922. Berg spent some time searching for an opera house willing to stage it. Wozzeck was first performed at the Berlin State Opera on 14 December 1925, conducted by Erich Kleiber. It was an immediate success, and is acknowledged as a core piece in the 20th-century operatic repertory.
Emotionally Powerful, Structurally Complex
Wozzeck is a work of great structural complexity, but also of dramatic immediacy. Each scene is constructed according to rigorous abstract musical forms, but at the same time Berg brings the characters' emotions and mental states – Wozzeck's near-madness, the Doctor and Captain's sadism, Marie's tenderness and frustration – vividly to life. The regular use of folksong and popular music provides a vivid sense of place.
Listen to the score
Wozzeck runs from 31 October – 15 November 2013. Tickets are still available.


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Nothing's wreaked quite the havoc on the U.S. economy, and indeed the national psyche, as the six-year slide in home prices. It wiped out some $7 trillion in household wealth, savaged bank balance sheets, and induced the Great Recession and the tepid recovery.
Yet there are unimpeachable signs that this national nightmare is now over. Home prices are starting to rise, if somewhat haltingly, in most areas of the country. And a number of forecasters predict home-price increases around 10% or so nationally over the next three years, with some metropolitan statistical areas, such as Midland, Texas, and Bismarck, N.D., likely riding the energy-exploration boom to better than 20% jumps in residential-real-estate prices. The turnaround, in fact, appears to be arriving exactly on the schedule that Barron's laid out this year in a March 19 cover story entitled "Ready to Rebound."
Of greatest moment, perhaps, was the release two weeks ago of the S&P/Case Shiller Composite 20-City Index that showed a jump in home prices of 2.3% in June over May. Likewise the Case-Shiller National Index in the second quarter rose 6.9% over the first-quarter level, before any seasonal adjustment. And for the first time since the summer of 2010, the National Index actually nosed ahead of the year-earlier quarter's reading, if only by 1.2%.
"This increase in home prices, unlike the one that occurred in 2009-2010 as a result of the temporary tax credit for first-time home buyers, looks to be for real," says David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. "We probably won't see a V-shaped recovery in housing, with prices overall going up 20% in the next year. But this rally has legs, and prices will definitely be higher next year."
The recent strength seems to have continued in July and August, according to home-price indexes compiled by CoreLogic. Like Case-Shiller, the consumer, mortgage and property research firm tabulates prices based on repeat sales of the same properties, but it releases the data more quickly. CoreLogic said last week that, year over year, home prices nationally had jumped 3.8% in July and an even stronger 4.6% in August. The latter number was based on its pending, rather than completed, home-sale price index.
"It has been six years since the housing market last experienced the gains we saw in the July numbers, with indications that the summer will finish up on a strong note," says CoreLogic CEO Anand Nallathambi. "Although we expect some slowing in price gains over the balance of 2012, we are clearly seeing the light at the end of a very long tunnel."
TO BE SURE, any sustained recovery in prices faces some formidable obstacles. The "shadow inventory" of residences that are in some stage of foreclosure or whose owners are at least 90 days delinquent on their mortgages stands at 3.1 million–6% of the 50 million home loans in the U.S. In a normally functioning market, the total of distressed properties would be more like 2%.
Likewise, some 13 million homeowners are under water -- meaning that their mortgages are larger than the value of their houses or condos. Although the vast majority of these people are current on their mortgage payments, many may be tempted to resort to a "strategic default." This is particularly true in the event of a job loss or some other economic vicissitude.
And finally, the collapse in housing prices was so severe -- nationally, residential real estate fell by over one third in value, peak-to-trough -- that it would take at least a 50% jump just to restore prices to the nutty levels they achieved in 2006. Unfortunately, those were the prices at which many homes were purchased. So, for many, hope will be difficult to maintain in the years ahead.
Just look at Phoenix (see table below). Through June, it had enjoyed a 14.4% price recovery, but that rise only reduced the 55.9% decline from its peak to a 49.6% loss. Some areas like the Central Valley of California may take decades to return to the heady levels of peak valuation, when even folks who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time could get home loans.
Yet some keen observers of the real-estate market, such as Moody's Analytics' Mark Zandi, are optimistic that home prices will rise as much as 10% from current levels by the end of 2014, once the shadow inventory is worked down over the next year or so. He points to such factors as the continued rise in effective rent rates (the main competition to home ownership), low mortgage rates, steady though slow improvement in job growth and improving availability of bank credit.
"We've clearly reached a key psychological shift in home buyers' psychology, where folks are now starting to worry about missing the boat, rather than fearing whatever house they buy, no matter how attractive the price, can only go down in value," Zandi explains.
Even more upbeat is Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, who, unlike some of his predecessors, is more a sober analyst than a cheerleader for the real-estate brokerage industry. Yun is heartened by several factors that have been showing up in NAR monthly sales figures and median home-price trends.
For one thing, existing home sales in July ran at an annual pace of 4.47 million, up 10.4% from the 4.05 million pace in July 2011. Median sales prices, too, have been ticking up for five straight months. They hit $187,300 in July, 9.4% above the year-earlier level. Part of that rise reflects a changing mix of sales, with higher-priced homes accounting for a bigger share of volume. But, Yun points out, this factor alone should help boost overall economic growth.
AS A CONSEQUENCE, he thinks that home prices could rise as much as 5% in both 2012 and next year. One reason is that the inventory of unsold dwellings has remained surprisingly tight with just 2.4 million, or 6.4 months' worth of inventory, on the market in July, based on the current sales pace. Back in the darkest days of the home-price collapse in late 2008 and early 2009, inventories regularly clocked in at around a 10-month supply and even briefly surged to more than 12 months in the summer of 2010.
This current market tightness has confounded many residential real-estate bears in light of the fact that so many American homes remain in the foreclosure pipeline and so many homeowners are under water on their mortgages.
Even so, Yun expects the supply tightness to lingerfor some time to come. Many of the troubled properties in places like Phoenix and Miami are being absorbed by local investors attracted by the bargains available and the ability to earn a handsome yield on the properties by renting them out. Many of these opportunistic buyers are putting up all cash.
As a result, the shadow inventory has been dropping precipitously, declining from more than 4.5 million homes at the peak of the bust to just over 3 million homes currently.
Two years ago, distressed sales accounted for about a third of all sales of previously occupied homes. This year, the figure will be 25% and next year just 15%, predicts the economist.
This is important because foreclosure and "short" sales (sales by homeowners with the approval of lenders at less than the amount of the mortgage debt) are typically done at significant discounts to the price of comparable properties, destroying neighborhood home values in the process. But now, Yun notes, not only are distressed sales declining as a percentage of total existing-home sales, but so are the price discounts at which they occur.
Also potentially bolstering existing housing prices has been the precipitous drop in new-home construction, Yun contends. Given population growth and new household formations, the U.S. is producing only about half the 1.2 million new dwellings needed each year. In fact, he fears that a housing shortage could even develop. (For a look at what this means for home builders, see feature "A Window on Home Builders." )
FEW OBSERVERS HAVE FOLLOWED home-price trends with the assiduity of Ingo Winzer, president of Local Market Monitor. He started tracking them two decades ago, when he worked in the finance department of a now-defunct mortgage insurer.
But he does more than merely pontificate on market behavior. Indeed, he has the audacity to make three-year price forecasts for all 317 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, from the populous New York area (11.7 million residents) to tiny Cheyenne, Wyo. (population 88,852). His clientele consists of local and regional banks, mortgage companies, home builders, and private real-state investors all over the country.
Winzer readily concedes that his is a somewhat inexact science, but he claims to be able to get most trends right. "Home prices tend to move in distinct long-term waves, particularly in major metro markets," he says. And, he maintains, the magnitude of the price moves is generally within the range of his three-year forecasts, even if each yearly prediction doesn't precisely come to pass.
His methodology involves establishing an equilibrium home price for each market, or a price for housing that each metro area's per-capita income comfortably can support. Other factors entering into his calculations include unemployment rates, job growth, and single- and multi-family building-permit activity. He also takes into account the past relationship in each area between income and home prices. Homes in desirable areas like San Francisco, for example, historically trade at prices above those that per capita income levels would dictate in most other parts of the country.
Winzer admits that forecasting prices these days is tougher because there is less history to use to judge price behavior in the current market. Nonetheless, he sees prices nationally rising a cumulative 7% over the next three years (beginning July 1, 2012).
He expects some of the biggest jumps in oil-and-gas boom towns like Midland, Texas, where he sees prices jumping 49%; Houston, 26%; and Bismarck, N.D., 20%. At the same time, he expects prices in overbuilt Florida climes that rely on the second-home market to continue suffering, with Port St. Lucie falling 14%, Panama City dropping 7%, and Pensacola sliding 6%.
What's next for your home? The table above shows Winzer's forecasts for the top 50 U.S. markets.
E-mail: email@example.com


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Farmingdale State - 16, Mount Saint Mary College - 4
Newburgh, N.Y. - The Farmingale State men's lacrosse team improve to 6-3 overall, 2-0 in conference play with a 16-4 victory over Mount Saint Mary College (3-6, 1-2) today in Newburgh, N.Y.
The Rams led 7-0 after the first period and led 7-1 at the halftime break, before notching nine more goals the rest of the way as they held the Knights to just three scores in the final two periods.
Junior attack Tom Rotanz (Wading River, N.Y.) and freshman midfielder Ryan McArdle (East Northport, N.Y.) both finished the day with four goals and one assist. Junior attack Philip Schaefer (Holbrook, N.Y.) and freshman attack Tyler Rifice (Bohemia, N.Y.) each scored three goals. Sophomore goalkeeper Thomas Fallon (Kings Park, N.Y.) made 11 saves in his 55 minutes for the win.
Farmingdale State will now travel to face Skyline opponent Kean University on Wednesday, April 9th at 7:00 p.m.