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A Home for Five More Years:
Creating a Solution to homelessness for young men and women
At 22, Christopher Guzman would like to consider himself an adult. But life in the new, brick Bronx building known as Louis Nine, where he lives, reminds Guzman of his teen years spent in too many group homes. "It's just the atmosphere, it's just the rules and regulations of certain things that brings it back up like you was in a group home," says Guzman, an amiable young man with an abundance of nervous energy.
There's the fact that visitors must sign in with a security guard and be gone by 11 p.m. on weeknights, 1 a.m. on weekends. There are the caseworkers with whom Guzman must meet regularly and the monthly room inspections to assess his housekeeping. There's the pot smoking, the drinking, and the bickering among the other residents. And then there's the stealing. "Some people will leave their door open, and that's it—they're f--ked after that," he says. "It's still a group-home atmosphere," he shrugs.
In fact, Louis Nine is trying desperately to distinguish itself from the group homes and other institutions its residents have recently left behind. That's been one of the program's biggest challenges, says James McFarlane, program director for the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter, which runs the residence. Louis Nine is a housing program for 46 rent-paying young men and women aged 18 to 25 who have spent time in institutions, including foster care group homes, mental health residential treatment facilities, juvenile correctional centers and homeless shelters.
"These 200 beds serve one of the toughest populations ever to be served in supportive housing: institutionalized young adults who have never lived on their own before."
Historically, there have been two social service systems: one for children and another for adults. Louis Nine is part of an emerging trend to tailor supports and services for a third group—18- to 25-year-olds. The idea is that young people of this age group are neither adolescents nor adults, but in a distinct time of transition. If they receive the right supports and services during this critical juncture, the hope is that they can avoid homelessness and reliance on public assistance for the long haul. "There's still the presumption that if you give them the support they need, they will become independent," explains Michael Zisser, CEO of The Door, a nonprofit social service and legal support organization.
Louis Nine's specific goal is to help young adults who have spent part or all of their adolescence in institutions become ready to live independently. Young people leaving foster care and other institutions often have a difficult time making it on their own. Many spend time homeless or incarcerated. One national study in the 1990s by Westat, a social services research group, found that four years after leaving foster care, a quarter had spent at least one night homeless, and fewer than half were employed.
Over the last decade, government officials and philanthropists across the country have searched for ways to change this, providing housing vouchers, extending the age young people can remain in foster care from 18 to 21, setting up new transitional support programs for older youth in care, and offering education grants. Yet rates of homelessness among youth who have been institutionalized have been stubbornly high. In the Midwest, a 2010 study by the University of Chicago's Chapin Hall Center found that by age 23 or 24, almost 40 percent of the 723 former foster youth followed by researchers had spent at least one night homeless or had couch surfed between the homes of friends, family and strangers. In New York today, officials say they continue to see hundreds of young people becoming homeless after leaving foster care.
The Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter is one of eight nonprofit organizations that have established a pioneering New York City housing initiative to reduce rates of homelessness among young men and women by working with young people before they have nowhere to go. Four hundred young people aging out of institutions or living in homeless shelters are getting a place to live for a few years while they receive intensive, hands-on experience mastering the skills of day-today adult living. These are skills many of us take for granted: grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, paying bills and holding down a job.
But there's no guarantee that simply providing more services and supports to young adults actually helps them succeed. And the catch at housing programs like Louis Nine: It's up to the young adults—many of whom are eager to break free of programs and authority—to decide whether or not to take part in trainings and social services. By contract, government deems these services to be voluntary, and organizations are loathe to evict young people who don't join in. Many of the programs are struggling to find new ways to engage residents and make these extra years of support worthwhile.
"It's been extremely challenging, says McFarlane. "They can't live here forever, and if we don't prepare them for the real world now, we're going to be doing them a disservice."
This is a fledgling experiment, to be sure. All but one of the city's supportive housing programs for young people are less than 10 years old and the vast majority are less than three. Their premise of providing housing and help to troubled young adults before they spend months and years in city homeless shelters or hustling on the streets might sound commonsensical. But it has never before been tried with more than a few dozen young people at a time. The creators have an unprecedented opportunity to point out valuable new strategies for helping young people with special needs transition to adulthood and independence. Whether or not they succeed depends largely on whether or not they are able to connect with young adults who have no place else to go, young people who would otherwise have become homeless, in and out of institutions and trouble.
Only in the last decade did programs like Louis Nine begin to crop up in New York City and around the country. The first ones took only a handful of young adults, and they often selected residents who were highly motivated and likely to succeed, such as young men and women in college or already working.
For many young people who weren't ready or able to live on their own, one alternative was the adult supportive housing programs that sprouted across the city during the 1990s, thanks to the state's long-overdue reinvestment of funds saved through the widespread deinstitutionalization of mentally ill men and women starting in the 1970s. But to move into these programs, a man or woman had to have spent substantial time in a homeless shelter or suffered for years with chronic mental illness. Young adults aging out of children's systems rarely fit these criteria, and when they did, it was almost impossible to find a program that would accommodate the proclivities of young adults who, almost by definition, resist rules, authority and programs.
"The data say that individuals with [mental] health problems at the age of 17 or 16 on, until about 25 years of age, are trying to get out of programs and get people out of their life," explains Hewitt B. "Rusty" Clark, director of the National Network on Youth Transition for Behavioral Health and a professor at the University of South Florida. "But most of our adult systems are designed around how many individuals they are going to be serving. When someone isn't stepping up to the plate and doing exactly what's asked of them, they aren't going to be serving them."
Miguel Ayala knows all too well. Articulate, bright, and haunted by his past, Ayala was a writer at Represent, the magazine written by and for teens in foster care that I once edited. Often within mere minutes of meeting a well-intentioned adult, Ayala lay bare the Dickensian details of his childhood—his mother's abandoning him; the abuse he endured in a relative's home; the bullying at his group home for foster teens with mental illness.
People responded to him, and Ayala had formed an extensive network of concerned adults. A growing body of research shows that foster teens with this kind of support system are far more likely to succeed during those tenuous years after care than those without adults to depend on. Ayala had caring adults in spades.
Because he had a serious mental illness—bipolar disorder—he also qualified for supportive housing when he left foster care. Many of us who knew him assumed that unlike other young adults who flounder trying to figure out where to live and how to scrape by after care, Ayala was set.
And yet, shortly after Ayala turned 21—the year young people age out of foster care—he became homeless. He remained homeless, on and off, for more than a year, bouncing between the infamous Bellevue shelter for mentally ill men, psychiatric hospitals, and the homes of friends or girlfriends whom he usually met at programs for the mentally ill. During that time, numerous caseworkers tried to find Ayala a housing program, but they could not find one willing to take him in. Part of the problem was his young age. In 2000, not one of the nearly 10,000 beds for adults with mental illness in the city's adult residential system was dedicated to serving young adults. The average age of the residents was 45.
Some of the programs Ayala interviewed with were clearly designed for residents who would need supportive housing their entire lives. Many of the residents were coming out of long-term hospitalization and appeared sedated, sitting in the common room staring blankly ahead. Visiting these programs upset Ayala, who loved to socialize. He said it made him fear for his future.
At the time, the city's earliest supportive housing programs for young adults leaving foster care were just opening, including Schafer Hall in East Harlem and the Chelsea Foyer on Manhattan's west side. But together they housed fewer than 70 young adults. Ayala applied to the Foyer. Housed in an old YMCA building, it was modeled to feel like a college dorm, with small apartments and common areas where the residents could hang out together. The place had felt good to him, like somewhere he'd want to call home. But the majority of young adults it took were higher functioning than he was, and had often already held jobs. Ayala was rejected.
With each new rejection, Ayala became increasingly depressed and despondent. He began taking his psychiatric medications erratically and sometimes not at all, often opting, instead, for marijuana. He developed a favorite hospital—St. Vincent's—where he went whenever he felt suicidal, or actually attempted to overdose, usually from Tylenol PM. The food there was good, he said, the staff was nice, and it was often a welcome break from the shelters.
Eventually Ayala landed a room in one of the coveted residences run by Fountain House, a clubhouse for mentally ill adults in a brownstone on the Upper West Side. But as with most housing programs, the rest of the residents were older than Ayala, and the house rules reflected this.
Successful housing programs for people of Ayala's age allow young adults to learn through trial and error, says Clark. The idea for the practitioners running these programs is to find a balance "between two axioms"—maximizing the likelihood that transitioning young adults will develop confidence in their own skills, while allowing them to still make mistakes and experience real-life consequences when they mess up. To do this, says Clark, a mistake comes with consequences—but not outright rejection and a return to homelessness.
But at Fountain House, Ayala found that the rules were strict, and that violent behavior, drug use or nonpayment of rent could send him back to the streets. Ayala panicked—a reaction Clark says is standard behavior for young adults in housing programs, who almost instinctively test limits.
In only two weeks, Ayala was hospitalized three times for overdosing on over-the-counter medication, and he returned to the shelter system. Only this time, the city required that he go to a shelter for men with substance-abuse issues. And in a curious twist, addiction became Ayala's ticket to a somewhat more stable life. He now qualified for adult housing for people with mental illness and addiction—and his diagnosis finally matched available housing. He moved into a home for men coming straight from shelters that had virtually no therapeutic or rehabilitative element to it. Ayala has lived in housing programs for most of the last five years and continues to struggle with addiction to this day.
Only very recently did the housing landscape begin to look more promising for young adults like Ayala. In 2005, the city and state create the unprecedented, if awkwardly named, New York/New York III Initiative, which Louis Nine is part of. This was the third phase of supported housing investment from the state and local government, and the first to include a large component targeted for young adults. New York/New York III provides streamlined funding to house and support 400 young adults. About half of the programs that will be funded this way began operating in the last two years, and they are mostly intended for young adults who have recently been in foster care, some already with histories of homelessness. The remainder, slated primarily for young men and women leaving mental health facilities, have not yet been assigned to the nonprofits who will develop them.
To get an apartment through the program, a young person is supposed to be working or in school and have some sort of income—if not through work then through SSI disability payments or public assistance. Once accepted, residents are supposed to pay 30 percent of their income in rent, and the program covers the rest, including services like career counseling, case management, and help learning how to live independently.
Some of the programs are in apartments scattered throughout Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Landlords rent these apartments to social services agencies, whose caseworkers assign them to young adults leaving care. They check on their clients regularly and offer them services at their agencies. Others are like Louis Nine, based in their own buildings with common areas and caseworkers on-site.
Together, these 200 beds serve one of the toughest populations ever to be served in supportive housing: institutionalized young adults who have never lived on their own before.
"These are young people who have been traumatized,abandoned, rejected, told they wouldn't amount to anything," says McFarlane. "You're dealing not with the individual. You're dealing with their whole history."
Coming from group homes and other institutions, many of the young men and women in New York/New York III apartments are used to having the minutiae of their lives managed for them. Some have never cooked a meal or done their own laundry, and never learned to take medication or make a doctor's appointment on their own. A large number struggle with health issues as well as mental health issues. All of them have experienced the trauma of being removed from their families, living in extreme poverty or suffering from abuse and neglect. They desperately need not only a place to live but help getting on their feet.
"They just need so much more support," says Denise Hinds, assistant executive director for residential programs at the Chelsea Foyer, run by Good Shepherd Services. Although the Foyer was established in 2003, the program began working with young people from the New York/New York III program two years ago. She says the current group of young people has challenges she didn't see as frequently during the Foyer's earlier years. "There are more with mental health issues, more with substance-abuse issues, anger management, you name it. Talking to a young person who is struggling in those ways about having a job, you almost have to talk prejob about some of those things because they're not going to stay in the job. We have to do a lot more hand-holding."
At the same time, having had their fill of caseworkers and programs, many young people in New York/New York III housing are eager to be free. This leaves providers in a difficult position. They struggle to find the balance between too much structure and too little, between serving as landlords who want rent paid on time and counselors eager to give residents the benefit of the doubt and chances to learn from mistakes. Too little guidance, and residents fritter away their days, missing opportunities. Too much hand-holding, and residents view the program as an extension of group-home life—just another program with rules and regulations to resist.
Christopher Guzman is a fairly typical resident. He spent much of his youth in group homes and other foster care institutions, takes psychiatric medication and, before he heard about New York/New York III, was certain he was on the fast track to homelessness.
A little over a year ago, at 20 years old and about to age out of care, he had no job and no prospects for one. Because much of his schooling had taken place on campuses for foster kids instead of a regular high school, Guzman had a diploma designed for special education students—one rarely recognized by employers. His mother died when he was 6, and he had no idea where or with whom he could live after leaving foster care.
When his second-to-last group home closed, his foster care agency tried to find new homes with relatives or foster families for everyone living there. They could not find a family for Guzman, only underscoring for him how truly on his own he would be.
"They want us to move in with families," he'd said angrily. "With what families? We're in this predicament because of f--ing families!"
Guzman was about to become a father. He was excited about the baby but had no idea how he would support himself, much less a child. "I was headed for a shelter," he remembers.
At the peak of Guzman's desperation, a friend of his from another group home was placed in New York/New York III housing. "He said, 'Yo, I'm going in there, you should go in there with me,'" Guzman remembers. Guzman's caseworker sent in an application, and soon he was interviewing at Louis Nine. He liked it, especially since he knew a few of the people who lived there from other group homes he'd been in. Also, Guzman's girlfriend lived in the Bronx, and he felt it was especially important to be close to her and their baby. He also really liked that the laundry machines in Louis Nine's basement were free.
So in the spring of 2009, Guzman went on public assistance,signed the lease for his Louis Nine studio that would be renewable for up to five years, and moved his belongings into a small, freshly painted apartment on the building's second floor.
For a while, Guzman felt relief that he had a place to live, and he liked having his own apartment. He worked cleaning schools in a summer job program for youth and paid rent more or less on time. But then, as happens to so many young people a few months after first leaving care, things started going very wrong.
Guzman's girlfriend had wanted him to find an apartment where they could live with their daughter as a family. Frustrated, she broke up with him and moved with their daughter to Virginia. As Guzman waited for a judge to tell him whether he could have a role in his newborn daughter's life, he spiraled into a depression. After his summer job ended, he sold water at Giants stadium for a while, but eventually quit and began paying rent erratically.
In a matter of months, a dispute about a woman turned Guzman's best friend in the building into his worst enemy, along with his friend's friends. Guzman stopped feeling safe at home. "There's going to be a time when something is said or happens when we have an altercation and throw blows, because we see each other every day," he said, about his former friends.
Eventually, Guzman's ex-girlfriend moved back to New York with their daughter. Now Guzman can see his daughter only three days a month by court order, he says, and he gives her mother whatever he can afford in child support, often just $5 here or there. He recently enrolled in a job training program at Bellevue hospital to become a janitor, though he admits that his attendance is spotty.
Up to now, Louis Nine staff has mostly overlooked Guzman's missed rent payments, largely because he is one of the building's handful of residents who enthusiastically attends the building meetings and workshops on topics like job interviewing and anger management. Guzman is agreeable and they can tell he's trying. He says he's grateful this seems to be enough to buy him a little more time, which, just now, is what he feels he needs most.
Rusty Clark first started imagining a new way of working with young adults like Guzman in the early 1990s, when he was conducting a study of children in the foster care system with emotional and behavioral issues at the University of Southn Florida and found that these young people moved homes an average of four times a year. He wanted to know how to help young people like them transition to adulthood. At the time,there was little research that defined exactly how to nudge young people with behavioral and emotional issues toward self-sufficient adulthood, and he figured the best he could do was learn from others pursuing innovative strategies.
Clark traveled to Minnesota, which at the time led the nation in helping people with disabilities transition to adulthood. While the state had many programs that worked well with people who had mental retardation or physical disabilities, Clark found that they often screened out those young adults with diagnoses of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.
"These are the throwaway kids," says Clark. "Huge portions of these individuals end up in juvenile justice facilities,and it became very clear that something needed to be done."
"Providers struggle to find the balance between too much structure and too little, between serving as landlords who want rent paid on time and counselors eager to give residents the benefit of the doubt and chances to learn from mistakes."
Clark and his colleagues scoured the research but found no effective programs to help people who had emotional difficulties become self-sufficient adults. "People just didn't know what to do with youth and young adults with mental health challenges in this transition population," Clark remembers.
He and his team at the University of South Florida and at the National Network on Youth Transition for Behavioral Health established the Transition to Independence Process (TIP), which starts from the premise that it is not up to the young adults themselves to be motivated. Rather, it is a program's responsibility to find ways to engage them. This requires patient, flexible staff members, as well as a wide array of services and supports for employment, education, housing, and mental health. That way, if one service isn't working for a young person, there are others to try, and staff willing to try them.
In the years since, programs in more than 20 states have adopted the TIP model, and several studies have found it to have significantly improved outcomes for young people with emotional and behavioral difficulties.
Clark tells the story of one 19-year-old woman with severe bipolar disorder to explain how the TIP-program works. Stabilized on medication, she moved into her own apartment near the community college she was attending, with plans for a caseworker to check in on her regularly. Two weeks later, says Clark, her world was crumbling. "We found her off her meds, in a state of depression and not maintaining her activities and engagement with the community college," Clark remembers.
Instead of panicking and deciding the young woman was not ready or able to live on her own, the multidisciplinary TIP team set her up in an apartment shared with another young woman from the program, each with their own bedrooms. A mentor from the college lives nearby and checks in frequently. So far the new arrangement has worked well.
"You need to think smart about what an individual would like to do, and what you need to do to tailor your supports to make sure it's successful," explains Clark, who authored the handbook Transition of Youth & Young Adults With Emotional Behavior Difficulties. "These aren't easy things to pull off."
Such programs not only need ample resources but also staff who know when to go back to the drawing board when a plan isn't working and when to allow young people to progress at their own, often idiosyncratic pace. Some young people will hop from job to job. Others will experiment with drugs. These are normal behaviors among young adults.
It's also normal for a young person to resist therapy and other services, Clark says. "As a psychologist, I may feel confident that this young lady needs services for trauma. But she is so system savvy, and so wary of all the imposed services that have been pushed on her, that I understand she's not ready for this type of intervention, so there's no reason to go there."
A more effective method, says Clark, is to first build trust by helping her work toward her own goals, and through that work she may begin to see that her counselors have her best interests in mind. Then, she might consider therapy.
"We want to help her come over time to understand for herself how it could be possibly beneficial to her to address these previous traumas," says Clark. "That might not be until after her third boyfriend, where he's been abusive or not really there for her, where she finally wants to learn something about how to choose a friend or develop a relationship that has features that would really be there for her."
The key is collaborative planning and not expecting young people to immediately get with the program and work toward goals set by caseworkers. Service plans should focus on what's important to the young person—whether it's playing basketball or reuniting with an estranged parent. A small but growing body of research is finding this approach effective in helping young people develop confidence in their ability to set and reach goals and, ultimately, transition more smoothly to adulthood.
Many of the New York/New York III programs use some elements of this approach. As the first wave of new programs reaches the end of their first and second years, staff have been discovering their own set of "best practices," which they share with each other at monthly meetings in the downtown offices of the Corporation for Supportive Housing. Some of these practices sound simple, but providers say they have made a big difference in their programs—like taking a walk while meeting with a resident, or bringing them breakfast. Such strategies can make a meeting feel more like a conversation and less like a mandated check-in.
Supervisors at SCO Family of Services, which runs 36 scattered-site apartments in Queens, found that they avoid confusion among residents by clearly splitting up the responsibilities of landlord and counselor among different staff. Other organizations have dropped poorly attended group meetings and focused instead on one-to-one sessions.
Many of the providers say they were initially overwhelmed and unprepared for the mental health issues their clients faced. In response, the Corporation for Supportive Housing hired a clinical consultant who specializes in trauma to be available to all of the housing groups. She meets with caseworkers to help them with particularly challenging cases and to better understand the effects of trauma. Now she also meets regularly with some residents.
But even with this support, New York/New York III providers will not have what the TIP model considers essential: flexible backup plans for young adults who are failing in their programs. So far, this is proving to be one of the program's biggest problems.
The young residents have tested the program in every way possible—from quitting their jobs as soon as they move in, to letting friends move in with them, to not paying rent. Without any backup plan, many providers say they feel they have no choice but to "terminate," or discharge some residents, despite the fact that many have nowhere else to go.
Programs interviewed for this story say they evict between 20 and 50 percent of the residents they accept—a tactic they know is contrary to New York/New York III's mission of serving the neediest young people but which seems to be necessary for the programs' own survival. Reasons for eviction range from the commonplace—a resident refuses to both pay rent and make a plan to do so—to the harrowing—one young woman threw bleach on her roommate, refused counseling, then assaulted her next roommate as well.
Some who get evicted from New York/New York III housing head for the shelter system, providers say. Others simply disappear. Caseworkers at Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services are required to do a "due diligence" check every three months on everyone they lose contact with from their New York/New York III apartments. They check the shelter system, the Department of Corrections, psychiatric hospitals and the morgue.
Alison Harte of the Corporation for Supportive Housing fears that the recent freeze on federal Section 8 rental vouchers in New York means young people leaving foster care who would normally have moved into their own apartments will now find their way into New York/New York III apartments, edging out needier but potentially more difficult- to-manage young people. As it is, many providers say they routinely screen out about a third of the residents who apply.
"If you have a program set up to take really hard-toserve young people, but you don't have the systems in place to ensure that they get served, then it's going to fail," says Harte. "That's the juncture where we are at with New York/ New York III. How do we morph that so it does work for young people?"
James McFarlane hopes to be able to answer that question before the year is out. McFarlane is trained as a social worker and has worked as a substance abuse counselor and in foster care prevention programs for more than a decade. When he interviewed to become Louis Nine's program director, staff warned him how hard his job would be. "They did a good job in the interview of trying to scare me," he remembers.
Still, when he became Louis Nine's third program director in under a year, he was surprised at the extent of disarray he inherited. Almost all of the residents had missed multiple rent payments. Many with serious mental illnesses were refusing to take psychiatric medication and were acting out by cursing out staff. And though the building had been open less than a year, a number of the apartments had holes in the walls or doors, the results of fits of anger.
McFarlane has quickly set about making changes. He's gotten rid of therapeutic-sounding "groups"—a word he thinks has too many connotations with group-home life—and has replaced it with "peer-to-peer discussions," the idea being that residents, not staff, lead building reform.
"I'm trying to put ownership back on the tenants," explains McFarlane. "If they want things to change, they have to police themselves."
A recent peer-to-peer discussion suggests he's onto something. Some of the residents at Louis Nine had poor hygiene, and other tenants complained to no avail. But when residents confronted one another about it in a discussion facilitated by two tenants and monitored by staff,suddenly those who hadn't been bathing began to look after themselves. "Instead of staff counseling these individuals,it was the community turning on itself," says McFarlane. "That kind of peer pressure has created turnaround in some of the behaviors we were seeing."
But McFarlane believes one of the biggest problems facing Louis Nine is what the residents perceive as a lack of consequences for their actions. For example, no one has ever been evicted.
"When they get into the real world, there are consequences. If you don't pay your rent, you get evicted," he says. "You don't perform well on your job, you get fired. You don't meet a person's needs in a relationship, chances are the relationship suffers or it ends. There are always consequences, and I think we need those structures in place to have a better chance at success."
So McFarlane has begun taking residents to court, and since he has been doing that, one resident who was close to being evicted moved into an apartment in Brooklyn with his partner. McFarlane hopes that for most residents facing a potential eviction, once they realize he's serious, they'll do what they need to do to stay in the program.
For all young adult housing programs, finding the right balance of consequences and compassion is an ongoing experiment. For the New York/New York III programs, how to achieve that balance is an increasingly urgent question. As the programs for young adults leaving foster care enter their second and third years and those for young people leaving mental health facilities prepare to open, the answer may well determine the program's fate.
In this difficult economy, young adults are more likely to be unemployed. The city is slashing government services for young adults transitioning to adulthood. Young people who in the past may have quickly found gainful employment and moved into apartments with Section 8 vouchers no longer have the option. Now more than even two years ago, New York/New York III is meeting an urgent, critical need, providing young adults a true rarity in the city—affordable housing.
Whether the program can stay true to its original mission to serve the city's neediest young people (rather than higherachieving youth) depends, in large part, on whether it can find solutions to two very common problems—on the one hand, young people languishing in the programs and treating them as an extension of their previous group-home lives; on the other, young men and women who get kicked out.
Harte believes there's a better way. If the programs began housing young adults one or two years before they leave foster care and other institutions, participants would have the chance to learn and make mistakes in their New York/New York III apartments while remaining eligible for the richer clinical supports of the children's systems. They'd also have the option of moving back to foster care if they found they couldn't handle the more independent way of life. If they stayed in the programs, they could remain in the same apartment when they age out of foster care.
New Jersey is already experimenting with this approach, and for years Lighthouse Youth Services in Ohio has placed young people in foster care in their own apartments, then let them take over the leases when they age out.
Here in New York City, it's hard to imagine changing a new, bold program like New York/New York III in such a radical way, but it might make the difference between whether or not the program stays true to its original intention. In the meantime, it continues to buy its tenants a few years of housing, and the chance to build a self-sufficient life if they're ready.
Back at Louis Nine, on a warm afternoon, Guzman seems not to know that he's up next on the list of tenants that McFarlane plans to take to court for not paying rent. Though it's a weekday, Guzman is home, and is vague on whether or not he is really supposed to be at his training session at Bellevue. His studio apartment, decorated with baseball jerseys, photographs of marijuana plants pulled from magazines, and a photo of his daughter, smells thick of marijuana. Friends drift in and out to visit and smoke cigarettes.
"This place is a comfort zone," says one friend, who receives money for a psychiatric disability. He's lounging on Guzman's bed, which doubles as a couch. "It doesn't help you at all."
"They help you if you want to be helped," Guzman corrects as he washes dishes. "But 25 to 75 percent of them don't want help."
"You know, my brother wants me to move with him to Ohio," Guzman adds, as he drifts onto a new thought and a new plan. "That would be a new experience for me. I've never tried that before. Don't get me wrong. I would love to be here five years. Well, I'm not saying love. But as long as I'm here, I have a roof over my head."
In the end, Guzman had that roof only a few more months. Before the year was over, he became the third resident to be evicted from Louis Nine.


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I didn't think I'd be emotional - he and I are both so ready for school - but I've been fighting off tears since I picked him up at 3pm! The end of an era has come upon us. I can't believe that this kid, who was my only baby such a short time ago, is now almost a school boy. That his pre-school time will, in only one more week, be over. Gone. Never to be repeated. I've always known that these baby-toddler-pre-school days are fleeting, but this seems WAY too fast!
It feels a little like Elliot's leaving the nest already! Anticipating the weeks ahead where we will continue our normal weekly routines, but without Elliot, seems strange. I can't deny that the thought of one less little person at home during the day when this next baby arrives is one that provides me with a little peace, but it is still a strange thought. I feel a bit gutted for him, knowing that he'll be missing out on all those playtimes with his friends and fun playground picnics and all that other stuff we do, even though I know he'll be having a marvellous time with his new school friends and his new teacher, learning and growing and changing.
Life goes on, I suppose. You can't ever get comfortable in one place because our places in life are always changing. In another five short years I'll be getting ready to send our last baby off to school. I can't even tell you how strange it is to contemplate that. I am really feeling the truth of that saying, "The days are long, but the years are short." It's not an easy path, this full-time mothering gig (though it is a great one), but my goodness does it FLY!
Mamas, tell me how you felt when your firstborn finished up kindy and prepared for school. Did you shed a few tears like me?

subset: commoncrawl


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Yes, I'm at loss for words as well.
For some strange inexplicable reason, my wandering mind has compelled me to write about my irrational fondness for mages, or more commonly, wizards. I know, I know. It's past my bedtime, I've just consumed a satisfying number of pages from two of current reads, John Scalzi's Old Man's War, and Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and I'm delirious.
By mages I mean magic-using characters in fantasy literature. Yes, along the lines of Gandalf. I like paintings or drawings or works of art I can admire, and I like mages. So it stands to reason that I'm particularly fond of paintings of mages.
However, I want to be clear: I don't love just any kind of mages. In fact, I despise the stereotypical portrayal of mages as propagated by the countless illegitimate spawns of LOTR – pointy hats, long white beard, wizened old man, cloaks with bell sleeves and a long walking staff that also happens to be a mass weapon of destruction. All the Gandalfs and Dumbledores and Raistlins (the ones I see on the Dungeon & Dragons novel covers) are all so…. tired.
My ideal mage was influenced by Ursula Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea – young, confident, arrogant, no need to go out of his way to grow a beard longer than is fashionably acceptable.
In recent memory, Karen Miller's Kingmaker, Kingbreaker duology has combined two of my favourite things on its covers: watercolour paintings and mages. It was the first time I remembered buying a book on a whim due solely because I love the covers.
These puny thumbnail images do not do the artist any justice. It's not mind-blowingly beautiful, but it's not shabby either. My favourite mage cover art so far. I've finished the books earlier this year, and have been meaning to write a mini-review. It's either I've gone completely screwy, or became a hopeless fantasy curmudgeon, or I've really honed my expectations: the books were not that great.
I've give another example of cover art of a mage, but one that didn't turn me on:
This is from Gail Martin's The Summoner, and the art is suitably dark, but the colour's skewed, the fellow is split in half, and he's decked out in patterned cowls and cape! I mean come on! Break out of the wizard mold, sure, but don't overdo it with these Louis Vuitton designer outfits.
Just so you know, I don't normally critique the fashion sense of imaginary characters. I'm not, you know, weird.
Yes, I'm at loss for words as well.


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John Meiszner of the Illinois chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture, competes in the International Tree Climbing Championships on Sunday at Morton Arboretum in Lisle.
Tanit Jarusan | Staff Photographer
While climbing trees might bring you back to your childhood, officials and competitors at the International Tree Climbing Championships do not exactly consider it child's play. For third-generation arborist Mark Chisholm, it is a dangerous job that takes a lot of care and safety precautions to do well.
The Freehold, N.J., native was one of 55 competitors to spend Sunday in the trees of Morton Arboretum in Lisle.
Chisholm has been at it for nearly 20 years and last month won the New Jersey chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture's tree climbing competition for the 18th consecutive year.
Although the competitors from across the world test their skills in several events, Chisholm said the largest role the competition plays is as a forum to share ideas and techniques that can make their jobs easier and safer.
"It's a cool and unique event because it's competitive and there's the physical element," he said during one of his breaks in the competition. "But there's also a deeper meaning to it. There is a different feel to the competition. We are all cheering each other on."
The five events ranged from an aerial rescue of a dummy to a speed climb event. A scoring system ranked the Top 4 men and the Top 3 women, who all moved on to the Masters' Challenge, a sort of combination of all of the previous events in one tree.
Chisholm holds the world record in the secured footlock event, a speed event that requires the climber to use a specific climbing technique. He has won the Masters' Challenge twice previously.
"(The footlock) requires me to be as athletic as I can and it requires training and physical fitness to be good at it" he said.
Rules committee member Rip Tompkins said the world championships move around from year to year and that 15 countries were represented this year. The championships follow the arboriculture group's national convention each year. To be invited to compete, a competitor must win a regional event.
Because of heavy storms on Saturday, most of the events of the normally two-day event were moved to Sunday.
Tompkins said the crowds are not as large as he would have hoped for and that the arborists who compete still deserve as much recognition as they can get.
"It would be great to get 5,000 people because it's a way to give notoriety to the guys who do the backbone work of the industry," he said.


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German AC 43 P.38 Semi-Automatic Pistol with Leather Holster....Click the image to load the highest resolution version.
DescriptionGerman AC 43 P.38 Semi-Automatic Pistol with Leather Holster.
Serial no. 9666 [barrel, slide and frame], 9mm caliber, 5-inch barrel with front and rear fixed sights. Blued finish. German proofs to right side of slide and left side of frame. Grooved hard rubber grip panels. Lanyard ring. Contained in leather P.38 holster with extra magazine. From The Estate of Ronald Martin.
Condition: Good. Retaining approximately 75-80% finish, with thinning to relief edges, handling wear and patches of pitting. Scuffs and dings present to grips. Action crisp. Lightly pitted bore. Normal storage wear to leather.
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Flick On Your Lighters and Groove on the Light Show -- Not the ScoreboardWhen a great rock band jams, there is precise collaboration mingled with improvisation, based on the rock-solid structure of a memorable tune. The individual musicians are never more part of their group than when their instrument leads the music.
When a mediocre rock band jams, it's a series of lengthy and increasingly pointless solos, each one disconnected from the other. In the final analysis, it's a lonely sound. Music without ideas.
Based on what I saw last night, the Miami Heat have a lot of Foghat in 'em. I wonder if they'll last as long as Blind Faith.


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Every so often I get a deluge of requests to post information about upcoming events in my column. I try to point out the ones that I either am attending, or wish I was attending, as I know the world rotates around my tastes and opinions (just kidding).
First, the wineries of the Horse Heaven Hills Wine Growers are celebrating the fourth anniversary of the Horse Heaven Hills appellation with their "Horse Heaven Hills Trail Drive" on Saturday, July 18. The event includes a winery tour from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a BBQ dinner, music, and prizes from 6 to 8 p.m. at Crow Butte State Park. Wineries and tasting rooms taking part in this annual event are: Columbia Crest, Canoe Ridge Estate, Alexandria Nicole, Heaven's Cave, Canyon's Edge, Chateau Champoux, & McKinley Springs Wineries pouring at Crow Butte park also include Coyote Canyon, Martinez & Martinez and Robert Karl.
Some of these facilities are rarely opened to the public, making this a great opportunity to go where few have gone before. Cost for this event is $40 through July 11 and $50 after July 11. Tickets include an event glass, tour & tasting and BBQ dinner. To secure tickets and make reservations for the BBQ call 1-509-894-4528.
Second, The Seattle Wine Awards second annual Grand Awards Tasting will be held at The Rainier Club, located at 820 4th Avenue in Seattle, tomorrow, Sunday, June 14. The event offers an exclusive opportunity to taste award winning wines, meet the winemakers, and enjoy an array of gourmet cuisine. VIP Tickets are $125, and General Admission is $85. I've included a provided list of the Double Gold winning wines that will be tasted at the event. If you can't attend on such short notice I suggest purchasing these locally and trying at home as they really are very good wines.
Dessert Style Wines - 2006 CR Sandidge "KISS."
Rieslings - 2008 Kiona Vineyard, 2008 Silver Lake Roza, and 2006 Steppe Cellars Dry Riesling.
White Varietals - 2008 Kyra Wines Chenin Blanc, 2008 Whitman Cellars Viognier, 2006 Ste Michelle Cold Creek Chardonnay, 2007 Red Sky "Sémillon Rosebud," and 2008 Coyote Canyon Winery Roussanne.
Cabernet Sauvignons - 2006 Alder Ridge Winery, 2006 Barnard Griffin CV Reserve, 2005 Boudreaux Cellars Reserve, 2006 Cougar Crest Estate Winery, 2007 Obelisco Estate, 2006 Alexandria Nicole Cellars, 2006 Milbrandt Vineyards Estates, 2006 Reininger Winery Helix, and 2006 Watermill Winery.
Malbecs - 2006 Alder Ridge Winery, 2006 Watermill Winery, and 2007 William Church Winery.
Merlots - 2005 Fort Walla Walla Cellars Pepperbridge, 2005 Kestrel Vintners Old Vine, 2006 PepperBridge Winery, 2006 Five Star Cellars, and 2006 Maryhill Proprietor's Reserve.
Red Bordeaux Styles - 2004 CR Sandidge "Tri*Umph," 2005 fort walla Walla Cellars "Treaty," and 2007 Waters Winery "Interlude."
Red Proprietary Blends - 2005 Buty "Columbia Rediviva," 2003 Gordon Brothers Cellars "Tradition," 2006 Walla Walla Vintners Cuvée, 2006 Gamache Vintners "Boulder Red," 2006 Goose Ridge Winery "G3 Red Blend," and 2007 RiverAerie Cellars "Spring Creek Red."
Other Red Varietals - 2006 O.S. Winery Petit Verdot, 2007 Walla Walla Vintners Cabernet Franc, 2007 Walla Walla Vintners Sangiovese, and 2007 Syncline Mourvèdre.
Syrahs - 2005 Anelare, 2006 Bergevin Lane Barrel Select, 2006 DeLille Doyenne Grand Ciel Vineyard, 2006 Grand Rêve Vintners "Collaboration Series," 2006 Long Shadows Vintners "Sequel," 2007 Olsen Estates, 2006 Ch Ste Michelle "Ethos," 2007 Dusted Valley Vintners Stained Tooth Syrah, 2006 Maryhill, and 2006 Northwest Totem Cellars Longhouse.
Check my blog at www.onerichwineguy.blogspot.com for more events each week. Have a great week, and see you there!


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"Her debut novel AFTERLIFE is a thrilling urban fantasy noir adventure in a world where everyone gets nine lives—think Bladerunner meets Jim Butcher."Merrie will be telling us about those nine lives! Visit her website for more information.
Chaz Domingue works as a professional Babysitter in New Orleans. His job is to integrate and protect the recently deceased into their new and improved lives—a position he reluctantly accepted after his father was murdered. Though Fresh Start has always been the only game in town, resurrection isn't what it's cracked up to be. Nine lives are all a person can get—and a powerful group of desperate, high-level Nine-Timers will stop at nothing to possess the keys to true immortality. Unfortunately, this places Chaz at the lethal center of a maelstrom.
Now the only hope for Chaz and his family—and the ultimate fate of the human race—is secretly locked away in the mind of Angelique, the beautiful, mysterious Newbie who's been entrusted to Chaz's care…
Read an excerpt:


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Company Looks to Tap Into the 300,000 Plus Unique Visitors These Sites Produce Monthly for Its Popular Hemp CBD Brand CannazALL
DENVER, CO--(Marketwired - Aug 23, 2016) - Ubiquitech Software Corp. (
ColoradoPotGuide.com and PotGuide.com are two hugely popular travel sites that instruct and guide visitors from all over the world to a better travel experience in the State of Colorado., and provide detailed information on dispensaries, lodging, restaurants, and other marijuana friendly businesses.
"We are very happy to have ColoradoPotGuide.com and PotGuide.com on board with us," said Tim Zorn, CEO of HempLife Today™ (UBQU). "This relationship is already exceeding our expectations in new customers and revenues and with the amount of traffic they generate each month this relationship will only continue to grow."
ColoradoPotGuide.com and PotGuide.com feature CannazALL™ hemp based CBD products on its sites through ads, articles, testimonials, and also the regular e-newsletter that goes out to all of their subscribers.
"With our robust and precise tracking systems we can attract the best sites in this business who want to partner with us," said Luke Dreyer, Technical Director. "Because of our in-house advertising capabilities and the existing affiliate platforms we already have in place we will continue to stay ahead of our competition in this industry."
HempLife Today™ and its CannazALL™ brand of hemp based CBD products are currently in discussions with other related sites that can successfully offer its products. The company is extremely selective of its affiliate partnerships and companies must meet a high standard in order to be considered. The company wants long lasting and profitable relationships and will only consider "like minded" partners who want to spread the word about the impressive reporting of CannazALL™ CBD products and want to rigorously promote them.
About Ubiquitech
Ubiquitech Software Corp., through its subsidiaries is a dynamic multi-media, multi-faceted corporation utilizing state-of-the-art global internet marketing, Direct Response (DRTV) Television, Radio, and traditional marketing, to drive traffic to the new and emerging multi-billion dollar industries like its subsidiary HempLifeToday.com™
HempLifeToday™ focuses on the exciting and dynamic new thinking in the world today that recognizes the important health and life enriching enhancement that CBD Oil from the Hemp plant can bring. Through its network of quality USA growers HempLifeToday.com™ has developed four CannazALL™ CBD oil products that include; It's popular CBD Tinctures, Oils, GelCaps, CBD Powder, Skin Salve and e-liquid all offered @ www.HempLifeToday.com
This press release contains forward-looking statements. Words such as "expects", "intends," "believes," and similar expressions reflecting something other than historical fact are intended to identify forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including the timely development and market acceptance of products and technologies, the ability to secure additional sources of finance, the ability to reduce operating expenses, and other factors described in the Company's filings with the OTC Markets Group. The actual results that the Company achieves may differ materially from any forward-looking statement due to such risks and uncertainties. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.
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text: Pokemon are here! real life hunting of pokemon thanks to Pokemon GO. we cover how this game has potentially changed mobile gaming. From helping us exercise to finding dead bodies the first 5 days of Pokemon GO have been intense. learn tips and tricks on how to be the very best like no one ever was. All this and more on this weeks episode of the GameZilla podcast.Read More


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Ammo Storage – How to Acquire
Ammo comes in many types, weights and qualities. Sometimes when I am searching online or standing in the ammo aisle at Cabela's, I will stand in utter confusion as to which ammo is best for which purpose. It's astounding how the tiniest change in design can impact terminal ballistics…Read more


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Peterson's began as a publishing company in 1966 with our flagship graduate school directory series. Since then, we have created the most robust library of educational directories and guidance, test preparation, and career licensure titles of any other company in the education space. We employ in-house research and product development teams to ensure the high quality, consistency, and integrity of our work.
Peterson's study aids and directories deliver profitable sales for community booksellers, college booksellers, corporate chain booksellers, online retailers, catalogers, book fair companies, and educational retailers.
Peterson's provides the right tools and resources to help students and library patrons find what they need to plan for college or their career success. We publish the most up-to-date reference line of college search directories as well as a selection of test preparation titles with a proven track record. Peterson's complete line of educational directories are available on standing order and in guidance reference sets.
Peterson's welcomes queries from potential new partners and we invite you to submit information and proposals correlated to our manufacturing, production, and publishing programs. Additionally, any requests for permission to use Peterson's content can be addressed here.
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- 2007-2008 Schedule & Standings
- Final Year-By-Year Standings
- Santa Clara Sports Schedules
- San Jose State Athletic Website
- The Rivalry Series was created in the fall of 2002 to build rivalry between Santa Clara University and San Jose State University in all sports
- To bring attention to college sports in the South Bay
- To provide a sense of pride between alumni in the Bay Area
- To increase attendance at sporting events between the two schools
- To build school spirit among each institution's student body
Point System
Santa Clara and San Jose State will compete in the following sports with the point total for each listed below. The winner of head-to-head matchups in each sport will receive three points for each win. Sports that are not equally funded with scholarships are worth two points each. In the sports of baseball and softball, the winner of the most games in head-to-head matchups will receive the points allocated for that sport. In the case of a tie in a season baseball or softball series, the points shall be distributed equally. In the sport of cross country, the winner of the annual NCAA West Regional Championships shall receive the points for that sport. If both schools do not compete in the NCAA West Regionals, the season head-to-head series winner will receive the points for cross country. Should the two schools meet in postseason play (e.g. NCAA Tournament), the winner shall receive one (1) additional point for that sport.
Points per Contest Based on Competition
|Between Schools as Listed
|Women's Volleyball
|(3 pts) All Regular-Season Head-to-Head Matches
|Men's Soccer
|(3 pts) All Regular-Season Head-to-Head Matches
|Women's Soccer
|(3 pts) All Regular-Season Head-to-Head Matches
|Men's Cross Country
|(2 pt) Finish at NCAA West Regionals#
|Women's Cross Country
|(2 pt) Finish at NCAA West Regionals#
|Men's Basketball
|(3 pts) All Regular-Season Head-to-Head Games
|Women's Basketball
|(3 pts) All Regular-Season Head-to-Head Games
|(2 pt) Regular-Season Head-to-Head Season Series Winner
|(3 pt) Regular-Season Head-to-Head Season Series Winner
|Men's Golf
|(2 pt) Regular-Season Head-to-Head Season Series Winner
|Women's Golf
|(2 pt) Regular-Season Head-to-Head Season Series Winner
|Women's Tennis
|(2 pt) All Regular-Season Head-to-Head Matches
|Women's Water Polo
|(2 pt) All Regular-Season Head-to-Head Matches
*Baseball & Softball points are based on winner of
multi-game season series
#In the event one team does not participate in the NCAA Regionals, points are based on the series winner of head-to-head meetings
Each year at the conclusion of the final scheduled athletic event between the two institutions, the winner of that year's "Rivalry Series" will receive a rotating trophy bearing the inscription of the annual winners. The winning institution will retain possession of the trophy for a period of one (1) year, until the award presentation of the following year. The two institutions will work together to obtain funding for the trophy and mutually agree upon its appearance.
Up-to-date point totals and news related to the "Rivalry Series" will be maintained on both schools' official athletic websites: www.SantaClaraBroncos.com and www.sjsuspartans.com . In addition, the standings will be announced during each school's game broadcasts during SCU vs. SJSU competition as well as on coaches' shows, regular press releases and through promotional partners. All pre-event promotional efforts will be coordinated through each school's director of marketing.
Promotional Partners
The institutions' athletic marketing offices will coordinate the solicitation of promotional partners, focusing primarily on media outlets such as radio and television partners. In addition to advance promotion, promotional partners will have the ability to establish a presence at competitions between the two institutions. Promotional presence shall include tabling, giveaways, mailings and other events as agreed upon and allowed by both institutions. All partnerships related to the rivalry series should remain separate and distinct from any and all programs conducted by each institution.
Student Involvement
Each school will provide its discounted student ticket price to all ticketed events between the two schools to the other's student body. Promotional ideas include specific rivalry series t-shirts and other student-oriented giveaways, halftime scrimmages between intramural teams from the two institutions, club sport contests, cheerleader involvement and others as determined by the marketing departments at each institution. Each institution will be responsible for generating student interest. In addition, each school's student-athlete leadership council will endorse the rivalry series as a spirit project.
Community Involvement
The rivalry series will provide the opportunity for extensive community involvement by such groups as the San Jose Sports Authority, each city's convention & visitor's bureau, each city's government officials, each institutions' president and university administration. There will also be opportunity to tie community service into the rivalry, such as teams from each institution working together to improve the community. Service organizations such as the Rotary, Lions Club, Kiwanis, etc. would also be contacted.


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(808)-221-7353 - Free Phone Consultation
Over 13 Years Serving Oahu
Hypnosis is a powerful teaching tool that can propel athletes to the next level of sports performance. At Hawaii Hypnosis Center we use advanced hypnotic techniques to develop athletes in multiple areas. We teach athletes how to be confident, increase their focus, break bad habits, conquer slumps, develop muscle relaxation, and improve their visualization techniques. We've used these techniques to help athletes from age 12 to 67 and in more than two dozen different sports.
Golfer Jack Nichlaus won 18 majors in his career and is considered one of the best to ever play the game. He said that he never hit a shot – not even in practice – that he didn't first visualize in his mind. Hypnosis teaches athletes the powerful ways in which to view their actions and outcomes and get the results they intend instead of the results they fear.
As an athlete, you know that your mind can stay acutely active during your sport. You know that your mind is going to have thoughts each and every time you step to the plate, address the ball, take a penalty kick, catch a wave or run a race. Hypnosis teaches you to control those thoughts. You can allow your mind to focus on the other athletes, your past performances, all the coaching you've received and the dozens of potential outcomes OR you can learn how your mind can focus on success – each and every time. That's right, you can CHOOSE what your mind focuses on… so why not learn the techniques to make it something positive, something useful and helpful?
Beyond visualization and focus, hypnosis teaches athletes the power of muscle relaxation. We're not talking the kind of relaxation when you're chillin' in a hammock on a lazy summer day. We're talking the kind of relaxation that allows your muscles to work for you, steadily, rhythmically, and with less fatigue. When you become stressed or worried, you carry that stress in your muscles – they involuntarily tighten up. Muscle tension is a protection mechanism triggered by your subconscious. Your subconscious believes it is helping you be ready for action by doing things that aren't actually helping in your sports performance. The top athletes in the world have learned to overcome the effects of adrenaline and muscle tension and redirect that power to performance. Hypnosis can teach you how to relax away muscle tension so that you're no longer fighting with your muscles. Instead of inconsistency and fatigue, you'll begin to achieve consistent and prolonged peak performance.
Hypnosis also helps athletes identify limiting and defeating self-talk. We've all had a bad experience, an overbearing coach or a critical parent moment. Unfortunately, those things can stick with us, quietly lurking in our mind and only popping up when our performance is on the line. You've tried to ignore the negative stuff but it seems to be chirping away in your subconscious. Hypnosis helps neutralize past events and turns your subconscious into the most powerful cheering section you've ever had in your life. Imagine stepping up to the ball, the line, the starting block, knowing that you cannot fail.
Hypnosis isn't voodoo and it isn't magic. It's the laser focus of your mind and it WILL make you better at everything you do.
Hawaii Hypnosis Center offers a FREE phone consultation so you can learn more about how hypnosis can improve your sports performance and all the other areas of your life. Give us a call today at 808-221-7353.
Yogi Berra, the famous New York Yankees player and manager, once said, "Baseball is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical." While his math was intentionally, and humorously, wrong, he made a key point—the mental side of sports is often more important than the physical side.
As a sports performance specialist, I've worked with professional athletes that struggle with confidence, become angry after a loss, or have trouble bouncing back from an injury. Sports challenges like these can be even more significant for the majority of us that are only involved in sports for health, recreation and enjoyment. According to a recent Golf Magazine survey, the average golfer spends 71 minutes a week practicing, plays 46 rounds a year, and spends $2,776 a year on equipment and training. What's interesting is that very few of these golfers spend any time or money on improving their mental performance.
Ask any golfer what he/she does when standing over the ball, and you'll quickly hear the number one problem most casual sports participants face. My clients all tell me similar stories: "I go through my mental routine … remembering what my swing coach said, making that adjustment to my wrist position that my cousin recommended. I scan the hole to make sure I'm not lined up with the water, and then I say a quick prayer that I don't slice the tee shot out of bounds like last time." This mental rundown of things to do and possible failures is the same for most people standing at the free throw line, batting in the company softball game, or bowling with friends in a Thursday night league. Frankly, we're overthinking our sports.
If you think about the times that you did really well in an event, you're more likely to find the times when you got into a "flow," a rhythm or "The Zone." Understanding these hallowed zones, rhythms and flows can be really useful for everyone from the casual golfer to the professional field goal kicker. The first thing to understand about that state of flow is it doesn't come from a good performance, rather it results in a good performance. Too often, we look back on a game and think that we hit a clutch shot and then found the zone. Sports performance research shows the opposite is likely true—we settled into a zone and our shots became more accurate because of it. If this is true, then the most important thing to improve your game is to find your mental flow. In this regard, mental training becomes more important than physical training.
It's also important to understand what that mental flow actually is. Being "in the zone" is an alpha brainwave state similar to daydreaming, meditation and hypnosis. Most athletes will tell you that their zone is a place where they don't have to think about their sport, rather they just play. No thought, just flow. That alpha brainwave state is the minimization of conscious thought and the maximization of subconscious flow.
The conscious mind can only handle about nine things at a time, so it can quickly be overwhelmed. The subconscious mind, on the other hand, handles millions of things at once. It's the part of your mind that takes care of heartbeat, blinking, breathing and digestion. It makes sense that an athlete would be better served by the part of the mind that adjusts dozens of muscles at a time, accounts for thousands of possible opponent moves, or gauges the necessary swing speed. But when we are ready to serve, shoot or putt, and we think about what we have to do or what we don't want to happen, we are engaging our limited conscious mind.
As a hypnotist, my job is to help my sports performance clients stop using their conscious mind and start using their subconscious mind. "You'll never think your way into better athletics," I've told more than one client. When it comes to sports, from my perspective, thinking is the problem.
One of my favorite athletes of all time, martial artist Bruce Lee, said: "A good martial artist does not become tense but ready. Not thinking yet not dreaming, ready for whatever may come … . When there is an opportunity, I do not hit, it hits all by itself."
What Lee was referencing was that alpha state—the famous zone that all athletes seek. What we do as hypnotists is help people train their mind to find it—not through thought but through focus. Because when you can find that spot between thought and dreaming that Lee references, you can sink long putts consistently, hit a curveball, serve an ace, surf the swell, or do anything else you want to do in life.


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You all may remember that I
m a huge fan of Asian food. Ive Tweeted reviews on a Thai restaurant, made a strawberry balsamic twist on Summer rolls, and in general been a huge fan of Asian food. I mean, I even take Japanese as my language, though it takes a lot of studying and I`m still not very good at it!
To finish off a week spent fitting bits of fandom in between my finals studying, (and finding these fascinating Lolita style resources), all for the sake of studying for that Japanese class of course, I had a party today. We all got together with tents and cookies and a little firepit to do some relationship building with a group of impoverished children from the elementary school down the road. We corded off the end of our court and gave some apology cookies to the poor delivery men from Fedex, UPS, and Amazon! I felt so bad about being a bother, but everyone ended the night in high spirits.
When the fire was extinguished and the last of the tents was collapsed, the last stragglers waved and bade us goodbye. They did not know there was more to come. Some of the helpers, huddled and chilled by the rain but full of cheery good spirit, felt that the night need not be over. They felt the strong longing for Korean food. And if you have ever been to Northern Virginia, you know the only place to go to for anything Korean is in Annandale. I think about half of the store signs neglect to put an English subtitle, and the few residents who aren`t Korean are South American of some variety and are simply spillouts from the area of Springfield surrounding Backlick Plaza.
And here, in America
s capital of Korean culture, to have a Korean friend recommend a restaurant as a standout is rare. These are not just good restaurants that ignorant Americans who know nothing else readily give raving reviews for sickly sweet sauces and randomly fried sides. No, these are people who know the food. Their grandmas have cooked this way, and their grandmas, and on back onto the beginning of time. Or at least for quite a while. So Im willing to take on a recommendation like that in a heartbeat!
Choong Hwa Won is the name, and yummy is its game. Or at least I thought so. As far as menus and being gluten free goes, it was a pretty decent place to find food that I can actually eat as well. On the starter menu I grabbed a bowl of Jjam-bbong seafood soup for two bucks. It was a tiny bit spicy by itself, so I added a handful of some marvelous kimchi to add a little something extra. Like I said, the day was cold, and those kind of days call for some spice to heat you up! I followed that with even more soup for my main dish, Woo-dong, a yummy rice noodle concoction. I enjoyed pulling up one or two noodles and then slurping them up. It`s actually good manners in many Asian cultures, so no one could scold me for it! And on the side there were some vibrant yellow radish pickles. I think they were radishes. They were amazing either way.
And there you have. Something warm and yummy to fill all the nooks and crannies within myself. And it was gluten free to boot. And did I mention there was a lot of it? There really was. I know that people always say that American restaurants usually serve two servings or more on an individual plate (I
m absolutely positive this is accurate as well, especially at family restaurants.) But this was a little crazy. I think my soup bowl was the size of my homes medium or even big mixing bowl, and I think there were four normal serving bowls in that monster.
Of course, there were other meals to be had, and plenty of nonsoup items, despite what my meal may have made you think. My Dad
s order was two tonkatsu cutlets (very gluten-ful breaded pork, like German schnitzel or country fried <del>chicken</del> pork.) Ive never seen that much meat in my life, and I think that plate could have held three of my own. But, to be fair, what I call a dinner plate is similar to what my friends call a lunch plate. Maybe they don
t know restaurant plates are oversized? But, regardless (never irregardless), I thought it was amazing.And the bibambap, that staple of Korean yumminess? My friend got that. It was beautiful. Came in a proper hotpot, with crispy rice on the bottom and fresh veggies and a delectable egg fried on top of all of the yumminess. Dont believe it tastes that good. The bulgogi, Korean barbecued beef strips, looked amazing as well. If you want to skip out on all of the awesome available veggies, that is. Speaking of, Ma-pa Tofu looked like a really great dish for all of my vegetarian friends, though I do not know if the sauce is vegetarian or not. It says its a spicy sauce, and it looked like it was just a bunch of ground red pepper sauce or sri racha, but I make no guarantees. I was too busy eating to ask too many questions!
And if you can
t handle something as exotic (Is this still considered exotic in the rest of the country? It seems so commonplace to me...) as Korean food, they had a Chinese section of the menu with all of the safe Americanized foods youve come to love. Apparently the beef lomein was amazing. Huzzah. Seriously, though, I encourage you to try new foods. Explore new possibilities. And eat a bibimbap. If just trying to say that word doesn
t make you smile, I dont know what will.
Is Korean food exotic? Am I really just a full out nerd with my interest in Asian culture? Will I pass my finals if I am busy typing here on WordPress? All this and more will be revealed in our next episode!
But please feel free to chime into the conversation below irregardless. (All the Grammer Nazis are crying at the latter 😀 )


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By Al Jones
I thought that I had seen all of the GBD shapes, particularly those in the Bent Billiard, Bulldog and Rhodesian family. But this is the first 510 shape that I have encountered. I was surprised to find the shape number listed on Jerry Hannah's old shape list, but Google yielded no other examples. The shape is very similar to the Dunhill 120 and a bit more elegant than the shape 508, a more common GBD bent billiard. This one has the brass rondell and straight line "London, England" stamping of a pre-Cadogan pipe. However the rondell is smaller than typical and similar to the rondells on my hallmarked 1930's era GBD's. The button is also shaped differently than later model GBD's. Like many New Era grade pipes, this one has the bullet style tenon. Mike Hagley tells me that this tenon was introduced in the late 1940's, but I was never able to determine when it was discontinued.
The pipe was in fairly decent shape as received. The bowl had some dings, particularly on the bowl top. The stem was mildly oxidzied and the bowl had a mild cake.
I reamed the bowl and soaked it with alcohol and sea salt. While the bowl was soaking, I used 400, 800, 1500 and 2000 grit paper to remove the oxidation on the stem, then followed with 8,000 and 12,000 grade micromesh. The stem was then buffed with white diamond and Meguiars Plastic polish.
I used an iron and a wet cloth to stem out the dents, most of which came up nicely. I was able to minimize the others with some 2,000 grit wet paper, followed by a white diamond buff. Some handling marks were near the nomenclature, but those couldn't be fixed. The nomenclature is worn and I didn't want to risk damaging it further.
Below is the finished pipe. I'm curious if anyone else has encountered this GBD shape.


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AKRON, Ohio. – Ohio swimming and diving (5-3, 1-3 MAC) finished its regular Mid-American Conference season falling short to the Zips of Akron (6-1, 4-0 MAC), 201-96, this evening at Ocasek Natatorium.
"We faced a really deep Akron team," said first-year head coach Mason Norman. "I thought we put ourselves in the best position that we could heading into championship season. We are focused on more of the finer details in our preparation and our races which is a good sign for the weeks to come."
The first event was the 200-yard medley relay where the Bobcats finished third. The team comprised of freshman Athena Aravantinou (North Bethesda, Md.) redshirt junior Emilia Lahtinen (Ylojarvi, Finland), senior Corrin Van Lanen (Green Bay, Wis.), and junior Courtney Perrett (Durban, South Africa) as the anchor finished with a time of 1:47.00.
The 1000-yard freestyle event followed where Ohio registered a first-place finish by sophomore Hannah Schlegel (Birdsboro, Pa.) with a time of 10:05.29, a finish that was 10 seconds faster than the runner-up. Sophomore Katherine Garrity (Eagan, Minn.) finished in fourth-place finish with a time of 10:18.50 while sophomore Ana Henderson (Danville, Calif.) finished fifth with a time of 10:27.94.
Next, Schlegel registered a fourth-place finish for Ohio in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:55.23 while freshman Madison Haschemeyer (Springfield, Ill.), following closely behind, registered a fifth-place finish with a time of 1:55.91. The 100-yard backstroke event followed where Ohio registered a third-place finish by Aravantinou with a time of 57.10 and a fifth-place finish by freshman Kendra Sheehan (Columbus, Ohio) with a time of 59.62.
"I thought Hannah Schlegel did a great job picking up two event wins, with a really tough double swimming the 1000 and 200 freestyle back to back," said Norman.
Next, Lahtinen finished third in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:06.06 followed closely behind by senior Mackenzie Hornstra (Naperville, Ill.) who finished fifth with a time of 1:06.41. Freshman Kelsey Morgan (Pickerington, Ohio) registered a sixth-place finish for the Bobcats with a time of 1:06.44.
Sophomore Samantha Glass (Villa Hills, Ky.) and Van Lanen went on to capture a pair of second-place finishes. Glass captured second-place in the 200 yard-butterfly with a race time of 2:03.31 and Van Lanen captured second-place in the 50-yard freestyle event with a time of 23.75.
The first diving dual between Ohio and Akron, the one-meter dive event, resulted in a fourth-place finish by redshirt-junior Olivia Dillon (Newcastle, Aus.) with a score of 266.93. Freshman Taylor Miller (Latrobe, Pa) captured a sixth-place finish with a score of 258.60 and senior Nicole Hughes (Euclid, Ohio) captured seventh-place with a score of 248.62 for the Bobcats.
Back into the pool, Van Lanen registered a third-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 52.67 while Perrett followed closely behind registering a fourth-place finish with a time of 53.57.
Next, Aravantinou finished third while Glass finsihed fourth in the 200-yard backstroke with times of 2:04.76 and 2:06.50 respectively. The 200-yard breaststroke followed as Lahtinen finished third with a time of 2:20.58 and Morgan finished fifth with a time of 2:21.37.
The 500-yard freestyle event resulted in another event win for Schlegel who finished first with a time of 4:58.22. Garrity registered a fifth-place finish with a time of 5:05.08 while junior Mackenzie Caruthers (Hilliard, Ohio) finished seventh for the Bobcats with a time of 5:07.99.
Van Lanen went on to capture a second-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 56.21 while Sheehan captured a third-place finish with a time of 58.36. Senior Maddie Wyke (Columbus, Ind.) finished fourth with a time of 1:00.49 as the meet headed to the second diving event, the three-meter dive event.
Dillon secured a second-place finish in the three-meter diving event with a score of 277.27, Miller secured a third-place finish with a score of 264.90 and Hughes secured fourth with a score of 246.53.
In the 200-yard IM event, Glass went on to register a second-place finish with a time of 2:08.49 and Lahtinen registered a third-place finish with a time of 2:10.56.
The meet concluded with a 400-yard freestyle relay where the Ohio team consisting of Caruthers, senior Lexie White (Waxhaw, N.C.), Perrett, and Schlegel as the anchor, came out with a second-place finish clocking in at 3:38.33.
The final box score was Ohio - 96, Akron – 201.
The Bobcats will return to Akron, Ohio for the Women's Mid-American Conference Championships beginning on Wednesday, Feb. 27. The meet start time for the finals of day one is set for 6:30 pm EST. The Championships will be live in ESPN3.


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The Bible will take you through the history of the universe from beginning to end but it can also speak clearly to you about your life: Why are you here? How should you live? These Study Guides will help you read and understand the Bible. They are written with enough depth to satisfy the mature Christian but accessible for someone who is new to the Bible.
This set includes: The Tabernacle Special Edition Herod's Temple: The Temple Jesus Knew Solomon's Temple Sanctuary: Teaching Aids
In the Somebody's Daughter DVD, you meet four men who could be your neighbors. They were looked up to by wives, children, church folk. But porn was secretly eating each of them alive, just like it's eating millions in the world today. Includes the guide to prompt and encourage redemptive conversations in a variety of group settings.
Set includes Peter and Paul DVD and 112 page study guide.
Saints and Strangers addresses religious influences from the time of the Mayflower to the Great Awakening, from Plymouth Rock to the War of Independence. It examines the groups of the faithful who were crucial influences during the colonial period — the Church of England, the Puritans, Baptist, Quakers, and others. Includes FREE printed 48-page guide.


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Share the post "Pics: Amorphis, Dark Tranquillity, Moonspell & Omnium Gatherum live at Gramercy Theatre (9/7)"
Photos by Lina Glasir
Amazing European melodic death metal acts Amorphis, Dark Tranquillity, Moonspell and Omnium Gatherum are currently touring North America on a lengthy 33-date trek that kicked off at a super sold out Gramercy Theatre in New York City this past Friday on September 7th.
Amorphis closed out the show late in the evening, performing a ton of new songs from their recently released LP, Queen of Time, for the first time on U.S. soil. Manhattan enjoyed new tracks "The Bee," "The Golden Elk," "Wrong Direction," "Heart of the Giant," and "Daughter of Hate," during the band's 14-song set. Hits from Skyforger such as "Sky Is Mine" and "Silver Bride," deep cuts like "The Castaway" and "Black Winter Day" off Tales from the Thousand Lakes, and more rounded out the band's setlist.
Dark Tranquillity, Moonspell and Omnium Gatherum thrilled with fresh cuts of their own, playing songs from their latest records Atoma, The Burning Cold and 1755, respectively, along with select fan-favorite tracks.
Make sure to scroll down below for our extensive photo coverage from the night. All remaining tour dates are listed HERE.
Next up at Gramercy Theatre:
9/11 – Nonpoint, He Is Legend, Letters From The Fire, The Cringe
9/12 – Angra, Scarlet Aura
9/15 – Front Line Assembly, The Black Queen, Hide, Actors, Kontravoid, Anatomy
Omnium Gatherum:
We like you, will you like us?


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We are pleased to offer postpartum and antepartum doula services in Miami, Miami Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, Hollywood, Aventura, Boca Raton and beyond!
Our postpartum doulas will provide you with support as you make the transition towards confident mothering. Assistance with baby care, meal preparation, sibling care, and breastfeeding are just a few of your many options. While promoting rest and nurturing the new mother, we will cheerfully work ourselves out of a job. We take pride in helping new families get off to a happy, healthy start.
Our antepartum doulas will lend a hand to those experiencing special challenges during their pregnancies that may require limited activity or bed rest. Assistance with daily activities and a reassuring presence can make all the difference in the world. We can also provide private childbirth education, newborn care and breastfeeding classes.
Please call us at 954-610-9754
for more information.


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If, for whatever reason, you've dismissed the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup and didn't bother to watch this afternoon's war between the United States and Brazil, you missed one helluva match. Some might call it the greatest finish in US soccer history, regardless of the gender involved.
If that paragraph has made you curious enough to want to see the match, and your provider has an agreement with ESPN, go to ESPN3 and watch it. You can also tape it on ESPN2 starting at midnight tonight. I'm serious. Set aside the two hours or so and treat yourself to a drama fit for hardcover. For those who have watched, continue below and we'll discuss this battle.
Why does this upstage Landon Donovan's goal in South Africa? It cones down to the opponent, Brazil. While we are #1 in the FIFA Rankings, Brazil is a close 3rd. For the day Brazil may have been our enemy, but as the match turned, the stadium (and what seemed like the entire nation of Germany) turned against Marta and crew. On any other day, the brilliance of Brazil's skill would have won over the crowd, wowing them with stepovers, pullbacks, volleys, and other glimpses of technical magic. That didn't happen in this match.
The story started well for the Americans. The gameplan laid out prematch by the entire ESPN crew (exploit the flanks) resulted in the opening goal, less than a minute and a half in. Shannon Boxx was freed down the left side, and her cross was misplayed by sweeper Daiane straight into the net for the own goal.
The rest of the first half and beginning of the second half were well-controlled by the US. Brazil's chances came on the counter, but they couldn't find an equalizer until the 65th minute. Marta, double-covered in the area by two American defenders, flicked the ball over their heads, and was free towards goal. Rachel Buehler grabbed Marta's shirt, preventing her a quality shot on goal, and referee Jacqui Melksham pointed to the spot. She also gave Buehler a red card for her professional foul. Cristiane took the penalty, and though Hope Solo saved, the referee controversially ruled an infraction. Marta deposited the retake to tie.
After the penalty goal, the US were reduced to 10 on the pitch, but they completed regulation with a chip on their shoulder. They felt the referee was harsh in the entire penalty sequence, and Brazil seemed to relent a bit during the final twenty minutes acknowledging the Americans' intent. More importantly for the United States, the crowd began to turn their way. The Americans fed off this energy. This allowed the US a number of chances, but neither team found the winning goal after a full 90 minutes.
Extra time began, and Brazil turned it on. They immediately earned the go-ahead goal, on a sharp-angle Marta volley from 8 yards that miraculously grabbed the far post and dashed into the goal. A funny thing occurred though: at that point, Marta had taken on the villain role with the crowd. It wasn't just the penalty, that alone wasn't her fault. Throughout the match, the Brazilians had seemingly manipulated Melksham through complaints and simulation, especially Marta. The perception that they were embellishing injuries only heightened the stadium's ire as they tried to hold the lead in extra time.
The second fifteen minutes of extra time whirred by like a freight train, the Americans pressing hard for the equalizer but short on players and even shorter on time. Brazil continued to feign injury and waste inordinate amounts of time. The fourth official signaled 3 minutes of injury time, for an overtime period a lot, but a seeming short shrift for the trailing Americans.
Brazil's endgame might have worked on a different day. Was it using a sweeper, allowing a deep forward to remain onside? Was it the inability to maintain possession and while away time in the offensive corners? Or perhaps it was the sheer determination of the Stars and Stripes, something the entirety of America has been waiting to see from its international sports stars for many years?
To me, it was just a great play. To me, it was slightly reminiscent of Cal's Kevin Moen dashing through Stanford's kick coverage and marching band to grasp victory from the clutches of defeat. Carli Lloyd could have been cynically taken down by a Brazilian midfielder, but wasn't. She passed to Megan Rapinoe on the left flank. Rapinoe calmly dashed forward, and launched a cross into the area. Andreia, Brazil's goalkeeper, lunged for the ball, but it was beyond her fingertips. Abby Wambach, the experienced forward from Rochester, NY, was in perfect position to head the ball and produce a moment for all to remember.
At that point, it seemed inevitable that the US would prevail. Marta made the American fans gasp in the final seconds of extra time, but the match remained level and penalties ensued.
The spotlight then moved directly from Wambach to Hope Solo. The goalkeeper who spoke out against her previous coach four years ago now had a chance to back up her talk. On the third Brazilian penalty, own goal scorer Daiane placed the ball well to Solo's right, but the Washington native deflected the shot wide of goal. When Ali Krieger calmly completed the team's 5-for-5 from the spot, a spot in America's heart was won.
Yes, the US Women's National Team is ranked #1 in the world, so this wasn't the shocking result of, say, the 1980 Winter Olympics Hockey semifinal. On paper we should be better than Brazil, but sometimes it can seem like rankings are meaningless when it comes to neutral site matches. But let's set that all aside. While I love tactics, I also think there are times you just have to absorb a match for what it's worth. While this match wasn't a historic result, it was a historic clash which has given us one of the most clutch performances you will see on the World's Stage. Let's savor it while we wait for Wednesday and France.


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Break away from the crowd in this sassy legging, created to bring out your inner fabulousness.
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- Designed to make you feel beautiful from the inside out
- Your purchase puts love in action by providing two days of school for a Child in Thailand


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With our own fully-equipped editing facilities, we pride ourselves on producing creative and innovative pieces that ensure you engage with your target audience.
From a thirty second award nominee video, to a corporate marketing piece, our video creation skills ensure your message is both clear and memorable.
As well as creating TV advertisements and promotional videos, we also give you the opportunity to broadcast your event across the web, ensuring it is seen globally. These broadcasts can be done either live or pre-recorded.
We provide both traditional and digital broadcast communication systems and aim to exceed your expectations through detailed planning and execution.
View all of our latest blog posts >
Visit our YouTube channel
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Agnes Napkins
Agnes Napkins
Set of 4 printed linen napkins. Each napkin measures approx. 45cm x 45cm.
Please note when ordering that due to the handmade quality of this product slight variations are to be expected.
To care for your linen machine wash in cool water with like colours. Hang to dry, medium hot iron while still a little damp.


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Linsey Dawn McKenzie » Z Best
Recent Letters to Linsey "Hello, I would like to know when all of your fans can expect your next DVD. I have almost worn out Maximum Insertion. This is the greatest DVD ever and I anxiously await your next one. Please advise.-A loyal fan, Bob." "I've been a big fan of yours for years and it always amazes me on how you always seem to out do yourself in every pictorial. Naughty Teacher set [Head of the Class] is my favorite. But I never knew you could play pool with your boobs.
May 19th, 2019
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Three simple steps to become an
Agapi Club member
Agapi Club is growing fast and we are steadily adding new Centers.
In hand we our members we also continuously add new boats to our fleet.
Here's how you can become a member and have your boat at your fingertips!
Fill in your information and Agapi representative will contact you within 24 hours.
Choose your home harbor and the membership level that best suits your needs.
Take the 'Welcome aboard training', get your Agapi Club card and off you go boating!
Contact us
Words from our members
Om Agapi Club
Agapi Club is a unique membership club that makes it possible to always have access to an Agapi boat as if it was your own but without having to own it.
Members of Agapi Club have longer boat seasons, spend no time on boat maintenance, can have boats in several locations and all this at a lower cost than owning.


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Bausch Shifts Contact-Lens Focus
Stung by Damaging Recall, Company Turns Toward Devices, New Drugs for Eye-Health Market
After taking the helm of struggling Bausch & Lomb in 2010, Brent Saunders introduced himself around headquarters. Then, he hit the road.
He drove around New Jersey with a sales representative who promotes drugs for eye infections; he worked Bausch's booth at an eye-surgery conference in Boston; he quizzed the chairman of the leading Chinese contact-lens retailer over dinner in Tokyo.


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The Belize Trade and Investment Development Service (BELTRAIDE) is a quasi-governmental agency that is charged with the responsibility for export promotion, capacity building, and a one-stop shop for export/import procedures. Please visit BelizeInvest.org.bz. It is also the main focal point that manages the investment incentive regime in Belize.
Legislation Governing Fiscal Incentives
The Fiscal Incentive Act; the Companies Act; the Mines and Minerals Act; the Export Processing Zone Act; the Commercial Free Zone Act are specific Acts that govern investment incentive schemes in Belize. In essence, these Acts provide for tax holidays and duty exemptions, exemption on tax on income, dividends paid, interests, rents, corporate tax, and losses carried forward. (For a copy of the legislations please visit BelizeLaw.org)
Investment Incentives
BELTRAIDE is the organization that provides support when making applications for investment incentives by persons or entities wishing to establish or conduct an enterprise in Belize. A business proposal that meets the approval of Cabinet is required. Upon application, Cabinet assesses the economic and social benefits to be obtained from the investment as well as the overall viability of the proposal and longevity of the investment.
Longer-term incentives such as establishment in an Export Processing Zone or the Corozal Free Zone are offered to industries in the less-developed rural areas of the country and for export-oriented projects or projects introducing new technology into Belize. Some of the areas being explored for diversified investment include tourism, aquaculture, non-traditional agriculture, and financial services.
Click here for programmes involving export duty and tax concessions.


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fjrigjwwe9r1ContentsResources:HeaderExample: Comparing Perimeters of Plane Figures
Square (geometry)
A square is a regular quadrilateral.
In geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral. This
means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90 degree angles, or right angles). A square with vertices ABCD would be denoted ABCD.
The Perimeter of a square whose
sides have length t is
solved example in mathguru.com uses this concept)
In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is any quadrilateral with four right angles. A rectangle with vertices ABCD would be denoted as ABCD.
If a
rectangle has length l and width w
It has perimeter P = 2l + 2w = 2(l + w), (Our solved example in
mathguru.com uses this concept)
The formula
for the perimeter of a rectangle.
The above explanation is copied from
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and is remixed as allowed under the Creative
Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.