text:
You can dance in "Sims 3" alone or with a partner. Your sim will learn more difficult dances as his dance skill bar increases as he practices. A slow dance can only be done with a partner who is slightly romantically interested in your sim. Your sim must have some dancing skill already to have the option of slow dancing.
Load "Sims 3" and start playing your character. Purchase a radio or other audio device to play music.
Practice dancing by yourself with just music playing. You will slowly become better at dancing, which you will notice when your sim does more technical dance manoeuvres.
Invite another sim over to your house, preferably one who your sim is romantically involved with or has feelings for. Prepare a quiet, romantic evening alone if your sim is already married.
Interact with your partner sim to set the mood. You may have to be patient in getting the other sim open enough to dance with you. Sims with shy personality traits will take longer to warm up to the idea of dancing. One of the Sims will eventually suggest a slow dance.
Right click on the other sim to bring up interaction options. Look for the "Dance Together" option. Click it and select "Slow Dance" from the dance choices.


text:
Phone Maria any time on: 07866485361 for a free quote and to talk about your requirments.
Deal of the month
This section will show you a range of different styles of venues you could have your event in. At Maria & son catering we know how special your event could be to you so we have added an extra service to help you pick the right venue or give you some inspiration.
The La Royel Hotel in Tottenhan North london. This venue holds up to 450 guests. The size of the hall is great and there is room for everything including a top table, large DJ booth and a larg buffet table. Look Through the photo gallery under this box to see photos of the venue and what it looked like when we where there.
Edmonton Greek church. This hall can hold up to 150 guests. They have room for everything and they also have a stage that can be moved to suit your tast. Like most of the venues Maira & son catering have been to, this hall offers a full kitchen. The hall has been done up nicely as you will be able to see in the photo gallery just below this text
This is a nice fancy old victorian barn house. It has been done up for events. This hall can hole up to 120 guests. Have a look through the photos to see the nice decorations they have like the original wooden floors, a nice fire place and a full kitchen to cater for your event. They have parking and you will be sure to have a nice worm party here.
With our home delivery service we can cook the food in our kitchens or in yours at home. If you are having a smaller event at home we have our full services open to you. We can provide all things from table cloths to plates and cutlery. When you book your catering just give us a time and a place of your event and we are happy to cater.
La Royel
Edmonton church hall
Stanmore, Slough
A house party
Maria & Son
Catering service

subset: commoncrawl


text:
|By Melih Oztalay
Article Rating:
|September 1, 2010 09:04 AM EDT
The Michigan Chapter of Mobile Monday announced the speakers and topics for its upcoming monthly meeting. The event will be held on Monday, August 16th from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. at Ann Arbor SPARK located at 330 E. Liberty Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Attendance to this event is Free, and those interested in attending may register at www.MobileMondayMichigan.org.
Featured speaker for the event will be Melih Oztalay, CEO of Birmingham-based SmartFinds Internet Marketing, who will be speaking on the topic of "Why Geo-Marketing is Becoming Increasingly Important for Marketing Your Business and How Mobile Helps You Achieve It". Other speakers for the event will be Megan Crosbie, Marketing & Membership Coordinator at the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce who will be speaking about the Chamber's mobile app, A2YChamber, and Linda Daichendt, CEO of Strategic Growth Concepts, who will discuss recent studies regarding consumer cell phone usage and cell phone operating system market penetration rates.
In today's marketplace, mobile marketing is being implemented by business owners and marketers from the smallest 'mom & pop shop' to the largest multi-national corporations. As the traditional marketing channels suffer various levels of decline, mobile marketing is experiencing triple-digit growth annually. Mr. Oztalay's presentation on Geo-Marketing via Mobile will help businesses capitalize on this growth by providing more effective ways of using the technology to improve local marketing results; while Daichendt's presentation will review mobile from the consumer's perspective.
Featured speaker, Melih Oztalay states about Geo-Marketing, "The benefits to small business are incredible; to be available to their local customers when the customer is looking for them while driving around town with their mobile device is an opportunity they need to take advantage of. The fact that the business can also update their offers anytime gives a local business the ability to adapt to market changes. I'm excited to be able to make this information available to members of Michigan's mobile and marketing communities."
Melih Oztalay has over fifteen years experience with Internet and digital services in developing strategies that utilize all facets of the World Wide Web. As a Internet marketing agency, SmartFinds Internet Marketing's major focus is to develop multi-directional marketing campaigns to drive traffic to client web sites from more than just search engines.
A co-founder of Mobile Monday Michigan , Daichendt explains the importance of mobile technology as part of local marketing efforts, "As methods of reaching customers become more and more fragmented due to the abundance of channels in use today, it becomes increasingly imperative for marketers to be able to focus their efforts on those methods they can be certain will produce the highest rate of return on the marketing dollars invested."
Anyone interested in learning more about the ways in which businesses can use Geo-Marketing to be more easily located by local consumers may visit www.smartfindslocallisting.com.
About MobileMonday (MoMo)
MobileMonday (MoMo) is an open community of mobile industry visionaries, developers, influential individuals, and users fostering cooperation and cross-company business development through virtual and live networking events. The groups programs are designed to facilitate idea sharing, best practices development, trends identification, and Mobile Industry growth locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. The Michigan Chapter executes on these objectives by delivering a balanced approach of business and technical content from within the Michigan business community, as well as beyond our State, in order to insure the Michigan community is made aware of developments taking place outside our area that can aid local businesses. Those interested in learning more about Mobile Monday – Michigan can find the group's website at www.MobileMondayMichigan.com; and information about the International organization can be found at www.MobileMonday.net.
About SmartFinds Internet Marketing
The most critical element of SmartFinds Internet Marketing services is the creativity and imagination to apply the technological aspects of the digital marketplace to the marketing objectives of a particular business. Initial research provides SmartFinds the ability to develop a digital strategy that can be measured every step of the way to insure business growth and revenue generation. Some of SmartFinds' clients have included Delphi, Flagstar Bank, Guardian Industries, Soave Enterprises, Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau, McCann Erickson, Wendy's and others. You can learn more about SmartFinds at www.smartfindsmarketing.com.
Contact: Esther Lastacy, 330 E. Maple Road, Suite 503, Birmingham MI 48009, 866.501.5758, firstname.lastname@example.com.
- BMW Santa Barbara Presents the Upcoming 2014 BMW 5 Series
- The Impact of Google Local Business Listing and Mobile Coupons
- New Online Marketing Option For Small Businesses
- Local Business Listing Hijackings
- Local Business Listings, Consumer Reviews, and PR
- JCPenney's Search Engine Optimization Debacle
- Get Your Business Ranked At Google Without A Website
- Local Business Marketing and the Known Future
- Local Business Listing Security and the Claiming Process
- Free Webinars Promote Advantages of Local Business Listings


text:
In collaboration with EYE and Stichting Beeld en Geluid we have the restored, and recently premiered official documentary about the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928. To accompany the film Sports Historian Jurryt van de Vooren tells wonderful stories about what we see (in Dutch). Amongst other things about boxer Bep van Klaveren and Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan). Certainly not only interesting for history buffs. Black and white dynamite!
When: Friday 23 September, 19.15
Year: 1928
Length: 88 minutes, with break
Language: none, but with live commentary in Dutch
Country: Italy


text:
|Youth group of St Anthoy's Mudfort secunderabad
I am enjoying my work in a very pleasant and a calm environment.
I read a couple of lovely blogs and I am inspired
I am grateful for the month of May that has just gone by
I am filled with gratitude for the last 5 months that has gone by
I am glad to take a phone call from one of old college friend; and through her connected with another friend, enjoyed long chats with them and it's been a great feeling to re connect with them.
|Feast Day ! Archbishop Arulappa seen in the centre
I found two messages on whatsapp of two more persons; who had left India and now found my contact through another friend and have got in touch with me. I am excited replying to them and staying in touch.
I can't wait to meet a friend who has come down with his family holidaying and its many years since I met them. It's a happy feeling to take my daughter with me to visit this family.
I found a couple of old photographs of my younger days; wherein I was so very active as youth in my parish and am grateful for those wonderful memories.. I am reliving them.
As I look at the photograph I am happy to see some the friends who are alive; and it pains to see some of them are no more in this world; a few have migrated out of the country and some still are not traceable.
I am healthy, happy and able to do all that is needed both at home and at work place
I have come back home safe, driving from my workplace, crossing the busy street
I am grateful & Happy at the end of this day !
Would love to hear your thoughts!
What are you grateful for ?


text:
Bouquet Jewelry
Easy Step-by-Step Directions for Making Bridal Bouquets
Adding bouquet jewelry to this tutorial adds sparkle and shine to catch the eye among the blooms.
Lomey Gems
are dainty, three-dimensional flowers that come in 6 colors (including multi-colored packs). They are mounted on long wire stems and are perfect for including in bouquets, corsages, centerpieces and other wedding flowers.
Other popular links:
To leave Bouquet Jewelry and see more photos and ideas, begin here.


text:
Last week we told Joe Brancatelli that we were posting a holiday sale for the Airport Transit Guide. Joe runs the exclusive travel website Joe Sent Me, which caters to business and professional travelers and is widely read in the travel industry. He had this to say:
The Airport Transit Guide was the bible for travelers who prefer to use mass transit to commute to and from airports around the world. Well, it was the bible until creator Ron Salk discontinued the printed guide and morphed his data on hundreds of airport transit options into an iPhone app. Now the app is the virtual bible for travelers who use mass transit for airport travel. And between November 11 and January 1, the $9.99 regular price of the app is slashed by 50 percent. If you're an iPhone user and a business traveler, the $4.99 you'll spend for the Airport Transit Guide is probably the best investment you can make.
We agree, and hope that the Airport Transit Guide helps you in your travels. As many reviewers and customers have noted, the app pays for itself in the first use. If you have an iPhone, iPod or iPad, give it a try.


text:
Happy Halloween Birdies!
My students have been so excited to go trick or treating this year. Every day they come in talking about who is dressing up as what and what candy they hope to get! It is so cute. Bringing some of the excitement of Halloween into learning is a great way to engage your students and this fun Halloween game is no exception!
B is for Boo! is a fun and FREE Halloween letter/sounds game available in my TPT store. Students move along the game board by drawing a card and successfully reading the letter and making the sound.
I think the best way to play is to partner the kids up and have them play in pairs.
You can also easily differentiate this game. Have kiddos who still need practice identifying letters, just name the letter on the card. Or if kiddos need a challenge have them say the sound and a word that begins with that sound.
You can download this Halloween Freebie Game by clicking here or up above on the picture!
No "TRICKS" for you, just a "TREAT"!
Happy Halloween!


text:
If you are in online business or work on e-commerce websites then knowing about website image optimization should be your priority. We help you to decide how to get great, speedy visuals with proper descriptive tags for all items.
If you have already heard of information overload then you must be also familiar with image overload. When it comes to websites then both (information & images) have to be used with caution. And this article will appraise you of what website image optimization is important and how it will impact the way the Google searches for your website online.
Ask your self three questions:
- Why Google search engine refuses to show my products gallery?
- Why did I say no to tags? How will the items be sold online now?
- How does it matter if the image is a Jpeg or EPS or any other?
Receive free ecommerce & product photography tips
In any e-commerce website there are two important things-an image that is very clear and the other is its name/tag/description. They do the talking and selling for the customer. With clear pictures and information a viewer can easily decide to buy the product without a problem in the mind. For example there is a model of a car that is being sold online. The image should be able to show clearing the car in a good resolution. It should be named properly –for example Toyota-model number-blue jpeg. Why do we need to have the image with the tag? When shoppers will search Google they will use specific keywords. Both the image and the tag will come. Hence the editor who works on the image will have to keep in mind the web image optimization for the client.
When a buyer looks at the model, he would like to see the product from a number of angles. Hence the editor should be able to make the images in angles in such a way that the product will be seen. In some cases like the car model a 360-degree virtual tour is an ideal thing to do. With the tags and description the entire features of the car and its specifications will be seen clearly. There should be proper shots of the interior of the car. There are other products too that are being sold online. For example wallet or shoes sets-proper shots and images need to be displayed.
The image should not be very heavy. On an average it takes less than 3 seconds for a website to upload. And within this time frame the images should be up and clear. If they longer than the buyer will shift and surf on the other sites. Hence the resolution and image size matters. All people who are in to e-commerce have to ensure that the images of the products are not very heavy. Speeding up the images on the website is important. A company that provides imaging services will know about this important factor. It is now possible to reduce the file sizes and yet have good quality pictures on the websites. And now there is all the more reason for pictures to be in smaller and handy size. They get loaded on mobile devices also. If a customer cannot see the image on the smartphone, then you can kiss his business good bye.


text:
Skip to content
Sixhours Photography
by Caroline Moore
January 31, 2019
January 31, 2019
The cats approve of the new quilt, too.
Leave a Reply
Cancel reply
Post navigation
A rare moment of calm.
The donate pile is growing at a nice clip, but I made the mistake of going through the toddler clothes and now I'm all misty. These kids are growing too fast.


text:
Press Release
Watermains in Northfield will be flushed between the hours of 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. starting on Sunday night the 6th of October, and concluding at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday morning, the 10th of October.
Watermains are routinely flushed to remove minerals as they accumulate in the distribution system and check the operational integrity of the fire hydrants.
Residents are advised to limit water use during the flushing period and check for discoloration prior to using water for laundry purposes.
In case your laundry should get rust stained, keep them wet and you can pick up a special soap for stain removal at City Hall during the week.


text:
"This imaginative and easy-to-follow approach to improving one's balance and preventing falls can be of much value to you, your family, and to any older person."
R. Franklin Williams, M.D., Former Director of The National Institute on Aging
"Betty Perkins-Carpenter has come up with a great little book, filled with balancing exercises specifically geared to seniors. This book is different; it won't overwhelm you."
Nan Kathryn Fuchs, Ph.D., Editor, Women's Health Letter
"Each morning I stretch in bed and do each exercise 14 times. I find that my equilibrium is so improved, it's remarkable. When I used to get up in the night, I had to touch doors and furniture to be sure I did not fall. After stretching, I'm OK."
Betty Davis, former U.S. Army Nurse, WW II
"I think your book How to Prevent Falls is marvelous. I do not think that there is any other book on the market today that even comes close. I am shouting the praise of your book to everyone. The techniques in your book cannot fail but to improve anyone's fitness if given an honest try. I am truly happy I ran across your book. It is a treasure."
Mr. Pat Flowers, volunteer at Detroit, MI senior center.
"The book is an informative and immensely practical guide for seniors to achieve better balance through fitness. Realistic goals of exercise are repeatedly stressed throughout the text. There is no claim here of developing senior Olympians, but rather an exercise program designed to avoid falls as well as an emphasis on the strong, positive social consequences of self-confidence induced by balance exercise."
William J. Hall, M.D., Director of the Center for Healthy Aging, University of Rochester
"I practiced daily relaxing into my chair and bed. One day, I slipped in the shower and landed on the tile floor. I was bruised, but nothing more. I was able to get right up after I fell and go confidently about my day."
Charlotte Johnson, student in Betty's exercise class
"I have read and practiced Dr. Betty Perkins-Carpenter's How to Prevent Falls to prevent catastrophic falls. Her Stretching in Bed Guide I have been doing for the past five years, and her book should be a manual for all of us as we walk the tight rope of aging. Let's face it, as we enter the Golden Years, sometimes everything that moves hurts, and what doesn't hurt won't move! Practicing her guidelines lessens our chances of being in the army of over 300,000 who fall to Mother Earth annually."
Sammy Lee, M.D., Olympic gold medalist, diving (1948 & 1952), Olympic diving coach, member of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
"This is so easy and fun! There's so much I can do again without fear of falling."
Ethel Hall, 96 years young.
"You hold in your hands the culmination of a lifetime's work, study and experience. I have had the privilege to watch the development of the Six-Step Balance System over decades, and can enthusiastically endorse its use. The clarity of language, excellent illustrations and design recommend this excellent presentation to both the professional and non-professional reader. Baby boomers take note! Falls and their consequences are a major public health problem. A significant part of the solution lies in these pages!"
Martin W. Korn, M.D., FAAOS Emeritus
"I had a condition that made it difficult for me to lift my arms...and I had difficulty walking because of pain in my back. My doctor and other specialists could not come up with a diagnosis. Fortunately, my sister and brother-in-law came to visit and later sent me a copy of 'Stretching in Bed'. The movements seemed easy enough, yet when I wiggled my toes, I felt a sensation in my upper back! I realized that these simple, easy movements were having an effect…I loved that I could do them in bed before trying to get up! The results have been amazing! I'm walking again. I can raise my arms high, and I have muscle strength in my legs and arms that I had lost. So, thank you so much for the work you've done."
E. Addair, Phoeniz, AZ
(The late Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling who founded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto, California said this about the first edition of How to Prevent Falls):
"There is no doubt that elderly people can decrease the chance of serious injury and death from falls by taking steps to prevent them. For several years, I have followed a regimen to help prevent falling. Now that I have read Betty Perkins-Carpenter's book, I have also begun the exercises that she describes. I recommend this book to all. It should help significantly in reducing the probability of injury or death from falling."


text:
We've had another amazing IDC at Rainbow Divers. We now have another tired, but happy bunch of successful diving instructors.
The dive industry continues to go from strength to strength and there will always be a place for good diving instructors. There are opportunities all over the world and we have lots of different ways to help you become a diving instructor.


text:
GE Capital to Open Technology Center in New Orleans | Business Facilities - Area Economic Development, Site Selection & Workforce Solutions
Greater New Orleans, Inc., the economic development alliance for the 10-parish Greater New Orleans region, joined Governor Bobby Jindal, Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, and representatives from GE to announce the creation of a major new corporate office in New Orleans with 300 new direct jobs in information technology (IT) and software development. The GE Capital Technology Center, an IT Center of Excellence, will provide software development and IT support for the company's financial services business.
The project will produce 300 new IT jobs with salaries ranging from $60,000 to $100,000, plus benefits, that will support GE Capital's growth. Louisiana Economic Development (LED) estimates that the 300 new GE Capital positions in New Orleans will result in approximately 301 new indirect jobs, for a total of more than 600 direct and indirect jobs. By the end of 2015 when the Technology Center is fully staffed, its total payroll will be in excess of $28 million, excluding benefits.
GE Capital initially considered hundreds of municipalities for this project and ultimately reduced the cities under consideration to five and then two prior to the company's final selection. New Orleans ultimately was selected because of the city's rapidly growing technology sector and attractive quality of life, the state's strong business climate, customized recruitment services offered by LED FastStart™, and a competitive incentive package from LED.
In late 2010, GNO, Inc. and LED guided company representatives through the selection process, which involved the participation of New Orleans Business Alliance, Ochsner Health System, area universities, local partners, and business representatives in the region.
"GE's decision to place the GE Capital Technology Center in Greater New Orleans is enormously significant," said Michael Hecht, GNO Inc. president and CEO. "It will create hundreds of high-paying jobs, bolster a growing new industry, and lend global credibility to our region as a premier destination for software development. But most of all, it is a validation of the broad partnerships at the city, region, state, and even federal levels that have made this win possible."
"Our unparalleled quality of life, New Orleans' rapidly growing technology sector and our commitment to build the best economy of the future, right here in Louisiana, attracted GE Capital and brought this project to our state," said Gov. Jindal. "With today's announcement, Louisiana is continuing to prove our mettle in the software development world, the information sector, and the corporate world. The bottom line is that we will not rest until Louisiana is known as a major hub of corporate headquarters and software and technology centers of excellence.
"GE Capital joins a growing list of major project wins including Blade Dynamics, Folgers, The Receivables Exchange, Nucor, NuStar Energy, and more, that are helping to create a tremendous resurgence in the New Orleans economy. We are seeing a city – steeped in centuries of peerless culture, shipping leadership, energy production, and extraordinary quality of life – rise to a new era, one in which New Orleans will shine as a beacon of career opportunities in technology and jobs of the future. The new New Orleans will combine the best of the past with the most promising jobs of the future."
"When selecting a location for a center of this importance, we considered many attractive options across the country," said GE Senior Vice President and General Counsel Brackett Denniston.
"Louisiana rose to the top of our list because of the advantages it offers in terms of talent, infrastructure, location, and environment. Gov. Jindal and the Louisiana delegation presented a compelling case for locating in Louisiana. We are proud to be bringing this state-of-the-art facility to one of America's signature cities in a state committed to growth. We look forward to building on GE's already strong presence in Louisiana with these high-wage, highly skilled jobs. This center will be an important resource for GE Capital and the New Orleans community."
Since Gov. Jindal and the Louisiana State Legislature enhanced Louisiana's Digital Media Incentive Program in Summer 2009, Louisiana has had the second-fastest growing information sector in the country in both absolute and percentage job growth terms. The project extends a streak of significant digital media wins for Louisiana, including interactive entertainment sites for EA in Baton Rouge and Gameloft in New Orleans, along with corporate headquarters expansions by CenturyLink in Monroe and Schumacher Group in Lafayette.
To secure the GE Capital project, LED developed a customized incentive package that includes a $10.7 million performance-based grant to reimburse certain costs associated with relocation, recruitment, office refurbishment, lease expenses, and office equipment. Additionally, LED committed to provide $500,000 per year for 10 years to fund enhanced software development-focused academic programs in New Orleans to be provided by one or more Louisiana higher education institutions. These programs will be developed in a collaborative process including LED, GE Capital, and higher-education leaders, with a focus on growing the future software development talent pipeline in the area. GE Capital also is expected to apply for the state's Quality Jobs incentive program.


text:
In this adaptation of a recipe from Martha Stewart, a cooked chicken (either home-roasted or scored from the deli case of your local market) forms the basis of a deep-tasting gumbo you can have on the table in 40 minutes. The only real cooking involved is to make a golden roux from vegetable oil and flour. Once you've done that, it's a matter of softening some onion and bell peppers, simmering andouille sausage and frozen okra, and warming up the shredded chicken.
For more quick chicken dishes, try our easy chicken stir fry recipe. For an easy New Orleans-inspired cocktail, try our vieux carre.


text:
Open your eyes. Take a look around you.
Are you living the life you pictured for yourself or are you still dreaming of something bigger and can't step out of your everyday habits of like to make it happen?
Everything is connected. That which we choose to think and believe can largely determine who we are and what we become.


text:
By James Howard, published 1672.
Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
By James Howard, published 1672.
All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple
A Comedy
Howard, James (fl. 1672-1674)
Printed by H. Brugis, for James Magnes [etc.]
Log in to post an annotation.
If you don't have an account, then register here.
Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary's entries.


text:
There are few venues as spectacular as the lake side setting at Hart House Restaurant. A few weeks ago Andy and Stephanie were married on the lawn followed by a fabulous party! Their day was captured by one of our favorite photography teams Shari and Mike Photography.
We love hearing how much fun our clients have with the photobooth at their weddings!
Here is a note we just received from them:
"The photobooth was a total hit!!! So many people came up to us to tell us how wonderful the staff were!!! We have a new family rule that every wedding MUST have a photobooth :) I'll be sure to refer you guys." -Stephanie and Andy


text:
Mom of the Moment award goes to . ME..........So I have to say I get the M.O.M. award today. I really am still deciding if I should laugh or cry. I took Megan 13 Alexis 5 Brian 2 and Melanie 6 months to the grocery store today. When we got out to the van , I realized that I had not paid for some chicken that had slipped under Melanies car seat. I told Megs to load the kids and I would run back in to pay for it. The checker told me I was awesome for coming back to pay for it. I ran back to the van and we were on our way home. About 8-9 minutes (and almost home) later. Lexi asks me were Brian was. I turned around and realized he was not in his car seat. AHHHHHH!!! I called for him hoping we had just forgot to buckle him and he had gotten out. No such luck. I immediatley turned around and headed back to lins. I had Megan start looking up the # for Lins and realized it was on there receipt. I called and asked if they had an extra little boy. Sure enough they did. That was the longest ride to Lins I have ever had. I ran in to get him and he was sitting on one of the employees laps.Now picture our cute little 2 year old with a handsome lime green brand new shirt and cute shorts and a bike helmet on his head. Yep the one he wears everywhere. He looks up at me with his beautiful blue eyes and says with a cheerful unbothered voice "HI Mom" He jumped down and we were on our way. I asked him were they found him. " The candy isle " they say. Yep the candy Isle.He had unknowingly to me, followed me back in to the store. So now you know why I get the wonderful yet terrible award. And might I suggest next time you get in the car check all the car seats. You never know........................................
Friday, April 15, 2011
M.O.M. award
Posted by Janae at 5:12 PM 5 comments Links to this post
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)


text: Elizabeth Banks's No-Gym Workouts\\n\\"I love the feeling of hanging upside down, flying through the air and having the guy catch you. When you first see it, you think, I'll never be able to do this! Then it's amazing! It's so good for your upper body and core strength. Your heart rate is up the whole time.\\"\\n\\"To catch up with a girlfriend, rather than sit and have coffee for an hour, we'll hike in Topanga Canyon. I rarely go by myself because it's such a perfect way to exercise and be social at the same time. Doing that so easily is one of the things that's great about Los Angeles.\\"\\n\\"I ski a little too fast and a little out of control! I would do black diamonds, but if I break my leg, I don't work, so I do blues. Nothing beats a crisp, cold, bright day when you're on top of a 10,000-foot mountain. It feels as if you can reach up and shake God's hand.\\"\\n\\"It feeds my competitive nature. I also think tennis keeps you mentally acute. I have nothing to back up that statement, but something tells me it's right. Hand-eye coordination is good to keep up, and you can play tennis your whole life.\\"


text:
Meet the Speakers
Justin Fulcher
Justin Fulcher is the Founder and CEO of RingMD – a global healthcare communications platform based in Singapore. He is working to bring access to affordable healthcare to everyone. RingMD is a healthcare network designed to connect patients with the very best doctors around the world through digital products – an app, remote-diagnostics wearable technology and a chatbot. A serial entrepreneur, Justin took up coding at age 7, launched his first business by 13, and has been acting as a mentor to startups at both Founder Institute and Startup Chile.
Shuichi Ohno
Mr. Shuichi Ohno was appointed as the President of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in 2017. Prior to this, he was the Executive Director at the Nippon Foundation and led various initiatives including social impact investment, corporate engagement, and international cooperation as the Executive Director in charge of the Social Innovation. He was Japan's sector representative of Social Impact Investment Taskforce. He worked for the trading house Marubeni Corporation for almost thirty years. An Economist by training, he worked for various economic and development organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and World Bank during his time at Marubeni. Mr. Ohno is a graduate of Kyoto University.
Kongkiat Kespetchara
Kongkiat Kespechara developed a management information system that is focused on the information needs of small hospitals in rural areas. His software, Hospital OS, is an open source technology that is enabling hospitals to use their limited resources more effectively and to design new and improved services, addressing the health needs of disadvantaged populations. He is currently on the Board of Directors team at Bangkok Hospital in Phuket. Mr. Kespechara explains his career choice as result of his experience as a teenager, when he visited a doctor who handed over a prescription without examining him or even listening to his complaint.
Anders Liers
Anders H. Liers is Executive Chairman of Nordic Impact, and co-founder of Katapult Future Fest. He strongly believes that we all must be responsible members of the society we live and operate in. Anders has a long track record for commercializing technology in international environments, recently as President & CEO in Enoro. Anders is actively engaged in gender diversity. He works to give the opportunity for girls and women to create their own future. He works with education for underprivileged girls in India, through Naandi Foundation. Anders also works on solving migration challenges for women in Norway through Seema.
Manuel Bueno Vera
Manuel is Rare's Director for Sustainable Markets and Finance, where he helps manage and develop Rare's global and regional market interventions, and innovative financial mechanisms to infuse capital into Rare's sustainable markets work. He is currently Acting Fund Manager for Rare's Meloy Fund, a $20M impact-investing fund focused on sustainable fisheries in Indonesia and the Philippines. Manuel has a strong background in SME equity, debt and grant impact investing transactions focusing mostly in agribusiness, manufacturing and financial institutions in Latin America, Asia, US and Africa. He holds a Master of Research in Business from Tilburg University (Netherlands) and a B.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics.
Abhilash Mudaliar
Abhilash Mudaliar serves as Research Director. He is responsible for shaping and implementing the GIIN's research strategy and program. Before GIIN, Abhilash had over seven years of experience in social enterprise, impact investing and international development research, including time as a microfinance consultant at Unitus, an impact investor at Elevar Equity, and a social entrepreneur within Hippocampus Group. He began his career as a management consultant at Bain & Company. Abhilash has earned Honors degrees in Arts and Commerce (specializing in Political Science and Finance, respectively) from the University of Melbourne and, more recently, an MPA/ID from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he received the Raymond Vernon Award.
Karen Wilson
Karen is a Senior Policy Expert at the OECD. She has also served as a Senior Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation since 2008. She is currently a Board Member and Advisor of the European Foundation for Entrepreneurship Research (EFER) and serves as a member of the European Leadership Council for Harvard Business School. She is the author of "Financing High-Growth Firms: The Role of Angel Investors".
Rajeev Kumar Gupta
Rajeev Kumar Gupta is the Deputy Programme Manager for the Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations (SHIFT) programme in ASEAN, at United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). Rajeev has over 18 years of experience in technical advisory and programme development roles, with a particular focus on financial services for the poor and livelihoods. Prior to UNCDF, Rajeev worked for more than a decade with BASIX, a livelihood and financial inclusion promotion organisation in India, where he was involved in range of financial inclusion interventions, in setting up the first State level livelihood mission based on PPP model, and heading the international consulting work in countries in South Asia, South-East Asia and Africa.
James Soukamneuth
James Soukamneuth is currently the Impact Investing Partnership Director for Investing in Women Initiative. With over 15 years of experience in both the public and private sectors, he possesses a broad and diverse background across the development field (in such areas as urban planning, food security, agriculture, economics, finance, microfinance, mobile money, trade, and investment). As a former Foreign Service Officer (Private Enterprise) with USAID, James excelled during tours in the Philippines and West Africa, where he received a number of awards and distinctions for his extensive economic programming. A Lao-American, James holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering; a Master's degree in Development Planning; and a Ph.D. in Political Economy – all from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Laura Sundblad
Laura serves as the Program Adviser for GOGLA's 'Facilitating Access to Finance' program. The objective of the program is to help increase investments in the sector that will allow it to scale up and accelerate the development of the off-grid market, leading to more people benefiting from clean, sustainable and economically viable off-grid lighting and electrification. Before GOGLA, Laura worked at Arc Finance, where she oversaw staff training and consumer education efforts and led Arc Finance's conferences and workshops on innovations in financing off-grid clean energy. Laura holds a Master's degree in International Relations from the University of St Andrews, as well as a Master of Public Administration degree from Columbia University.
Virgilio (Perry) C. Rivera, Jr.
Mr. Rivera has been with the Ayala Group for more than 20 years and has held appointments with Ayala Corporation. He is responsible for shaping public policy, formulating regulatory strategies, mitigation of regulatory risk, regulatory compliance and stakeholder relations. He is also the President of several newly formed subsidiaries of Manila Water since 2009. Mr. Rivera is a Managing Director of Ayala Corporation, one of the Philippines' oldest and largest conglomerates. Mr. Rivera holds two university degrees in Economics and Behavioral Science from University of Sto. Tomas. He also completed a graduate level course work on M.S. Economics from De La Salle University. In 2011, Mr. Rivera completed the Advanced Management Program of the Harvard Business School.
Ashran Ghazi
Mr Ashran Dato' Ghazi is currently the CEO of MaGIC, Malaysia. A graduate of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA in Bachelor of Business Administration (Finance & CIS), Ashran started his career in the Oil & Gas sector with Petronas MITCO. He is a well-known figure in the local and regional entrepreneurship ecosystem and has been leading many organizations namely; Chairman, New Entrepreneurs Foundation (myNEF); Chairman, myHarapan; President, Malaysian Association of Bumiputera ICT Industry & Entrepreneurs (NEF); and Deputy Chairman, Global Innovation & Entrepreneurship Foundation. In addition, he also served as an Advisory Board Member to Malaysian SME Development Academy (MASMED) as well as a Board Member for SME Corp.
Jack Knellinger
Jack Knellinger is an entrepreneur with a lifelong commitment to impact. He co-founded Capria, a global investment firm accelerating the flow of impact capital. He has over a decade of experience as a social innovator launching and leading new ventures across multiple sectors and geographies. In 2014, Jack was selected to join Social Enterprise Alliance's inaugural nationwide "50 under 40″ cohort sponsored by American Express supporting emerging leaders.
Kofi Owusu-Boakye
Kofi Owusu-Boakye is the Private Capital Advisor for East Asia, and the Asia Bureau's ASEAN Economic Affairs officer, providing interagency coordination and Washington support for RDMA's ASEAN economic connectivity programs. Kofi joined the Asia Bureau in October 2014, after over a decade of experience in development finance, originating and overseeing development finance transactions for USAID through the Agency's Development Credit Authority (DCA) in East and West Africa and as the team leader and senior investment officer for DCA's Asia and Middle East team. Originally from Ghana, Kofi has an MBA with a finance concentration from the University of Maryland, College Park's Robert H. Smith School of Business, and undergraduate degrees in Economics and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.
Belinda Tanoto
Belinda Tanoto is Director of Tanoto Foundation, where she focuses on improving access to quality education and empowerment opportunities that contribute to poverty reduction. She is also a member of Apical Group's Management Board. Apical Group is one of the largest exporters of palm oil in Indonesia. She received her bachelor's degree Magna Cum Laude in Finance and Political Science from University of Pennsylvania in 2007 and Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School in 2014.


text:
Our Parish has many organization and opportunities for all to learn about and grow in their Orthodox Faith. Above all individual organizations we are first and foremost a family, and therefore work together for the growth of the Orthodox Church in our community. Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, and we, the members of His Church are the body. So as members of the Body of Christ we create a family; as such our Church doesn't just function as a family, but in reality forms a family in Jesus Christ.
Some of our various groups within our family unit include...
- The Parish Council, which meets regularly for the Administrative needs of our Family.
- The Parish Choir which sings each Sunday.
- The Altar Society, which serves as an arm of the Parish and provides for many philanthropic and bonding opportunities.
- Adult Classes about the Orthodox Faith, which meet as posted in The St. Elizabeth News.
- Sunday School, for the youth of the Parish which meets every Sunday after Liturgy.
- The St. Elizabeth Youth, for the Children and young Adults of the Parish to bond together as Orthodox Christians and learn about their faith, while making sure to have fun at the same time!


text:
This story appears in the July 2014 issue of National Geographic magazine.
There are thousands of wells in the old Hejaz. We walk to them.
Sometimes their water is sweet. More often it is salt. It matters little. These wells, which pock the long-disused caravan trails of Arabia, are monuments to human survival. Each concentrates a fine distillation of the landscape. And the same applies to the people who drink from them. In the Hejaz—the fabled realm of a vanished kingdom of the Hashemites, who once ruled the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia—there are bustling wells and lonesome wells. There are wells whose waters convey the chemistry of sadness or joy. Each represents a cosmos in a bucket. We take our bearings off them.
Wadi Wasit is a well of forgetting.
We reach it on a fiery day in August. We are halfway through a more than 700-mile foot journey, perhaps the first made in generations, from Jeddah to Jordan. We rest in the dendrites of gray shade thrown by the well's two thorn trees. Here we meet the running man.
He arrives in a pickup truck. Portly, mustachioed, a Bedouin camel herder, he is friendly, curious, talkative, jittery. He mistakes us for treasure seekers. (Why else walk through the scorching desert?) He has come to sell artifacts.
"Look at this!" he says. He displays a tin ring. The iron scabbard of a sword. A well-rubbed coin.
How old are these things?
The running man doesn't know. "Kadim jidn," he says: Very old. He shrugs.
The Hejaz—a crossroads where Arabia, Africa, and Asia meet, and long tied by trade to Europe—is one of the most storied corners of the ancient world. It has seen millennia of wanderers. Stone Age people hunted and fished their way north out of Africa through vanished savannas. People from some of humankind's first civilizations—Assyrians, Egyptians, and Nabataeans—roamed through here, trading slaves for incense and gold. Romans invaded the Hejaz. (Thousands of the legionaries died of disease and thirst.) Islam was born here, in the dark volcanic hills of Mecca and Medina. Pilgrims from Morocco or Constantinople probably drank from the well in Wadi Wasit. Lawrence of Arabia may have gulped its water too. Nobody knows. Kadim jidn.
"Take it!" the running man says. He shoves his orphan finds at us. "Take it for free!" But we decline to buy his curiosities.
Packing our two camels to leave, we spot him once again. He is running now—sprinting around the well. He has removed his white robe. And he is running through the desert in his underwear, circling the well under the ruthless sun. He runs with abandon. Ali al Harbi, my translator, takes a photograph. Awad Omran, our camel handler, guffaws. But I cannot laugh. He is not mad, the running man. Or drugged. Or playing some joke. He is lost, I think. As we all are when we abandon history. We don't know where to go. There is an abundance of pasts in the Hejaz. But I have never been to a place more memory-less.
A small, bottomless well in the Hejaz: a white porcelain cup.
It holds dark, rich coffee. It sits atop a polished wooden table inside an elegant mansion in the port of Jeddah. Three articulate Hejazi women refill the cup endlessly. They take turns talking, wishing to correct misperceptions about Saudi Arabia: that the kingdom is a homogenized society, a culture flattened by its famously austere brand of Islam, a nation rendered dull by escapist consumerism and by petrodollars. No.
Saudi Arabia, they say, is a rich human mosaic. It enfolds many distinctive regions and cultures: a Shiite east, a Yemeni south, a Levantine north, and a tribal Bedouin stronghold in the center—the puritanical redoubt of the Najdis, home of the ruling dynasty, the House of Saud. The women insist, moreover, that no region in Saudi Arabia remains more independent, more proud, than the realm that has guarded the holy cities of Mecca and Medina since the tenth century—the vanished kingdom of the Hejaz. Fully independent by the end of World War I, the Hejaz was annexed by the Al Saud dynasty only in 1925. It remains a place of contradictions, of complexity, of tensions between religion and geography. On the one hand: a sacred landscape, its holy cities long forbidden to nonbelievers. On the other: the most cosmopolitan and liberal corner of Saudi Arabia, a melting pot, an entrepôt and nexus of migration, brightly checkered with influences from Asia, Africa, the Levant, and a hundred other places—the California of Saudi Arabia.
Laila Abduljawad, a cultural preservationist: "The Hejaz has attracted pilgrims from every corner of the Islamic world. How could this not rub off? Our main dish is Bukhari rice from Central Asia! Our folk textiles are Indian! Our accents are Egyptian! We are more open to the world than the people from the center."
Salma Alireza, a traditional embroiderer: "The traditional dress for women in the Hejaz was not the abaya"—the severe black robe imposed by the ruling Najdis. "Women here used to wear bright red and blue dresses in public. That was traditional. But life changed in the 1960s. The oil money poured in. We modernized too fast. We lost so much in 50 years!"
Rabya Alfadl, a young marketing consultant: "Is the Hejaz still different? Take a look around."
And it's true. The women sit at the table unveiled. They wear casual Western clothing: blouses and trousers. (Such a meeting would be difficult to arrange in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where gender segregation and tribal ways remain so strict that a man will not utter his mother's name in public.) The house where we chat is sleekly designed, chic, minimalist, global in decor. And outside, in Jeddah's streets, there are art galleries, cafés, promenades, museums—the cultural hub of Saudi Arabia.
"A sense of cultural identity has persisted in the Hejaz for a thousand years. It developed its own music, its cuisine, its own folktales," Abduljawad tells me. She turns her cup in her hands. "We are taking our first baby steps to rescue a small part of this."
These women are daughters of a feminine city. Arab folk tradition holds that the biblical Eve was buried in Jeddah, now a modern, sprawling, industrial port. Eve's tomb—200 yards long, shaped like a reclining figure—was crowned by an "ancient and lofty dome," according to the Moorish traveler Ibn Jubayr. It is gone, marked today by a barren concrete cemetery. Wahhabi clerics, who abhor shrines as idolatrous, likely razed it nearly a century ago. But again, no one can remember.
More than 300 miles north of Jeddah, near a dry well called Al Amarah, we stop walking. We look up from our tired feet. A car approaches across a plain of glistening salt. It is a Toyota HiLux, the iron camel of the modern Bedouin.
This is an event. Traversing western Saudi Arabia on foot today is lonelier than it was one or two generations ago when the black tents of Bedouin were still pegged to the brittle hide of the desert. The famous nomads of the Hejaz—the Balawi, the Harb, the Juhayna—have resettled in towns, in suburbs, in offices, in army barracks. Modern Saudi Arabia is heavily urbanized (matching the United States in this respect).
Yet a few diehards remain.
One steps from the truck. He is a graybeard in a stained gray thobe, the classic robe of Saudi men. He brings us a gift. "It is our way," says the old man, who calls himself Abu Saleh. He sweeps a callused hand at the surrounding desert. "We welcome all travelers."
No other soul is visible on the horizon. Abu Saleh leaves us with a simple goodbye. His gift: a small well of kindness—a dented steel bowl full of camel's milk.
Built of necessity, the wells in the old Hejaz have faded, softened, eroded into objects of beauty and contemplation.
The earliest of these watering stations were established, precisely one day's walk apart, by the Caliph Umar in A.D. 638. "A traveler is the person worthiest of receiving protection," he declared, before pioneering the most sophisticated rest-stop system in the ancient world: waypoints on the pilgrims' trails to Mecca serviced by forts, cisterns, guesthouses, date groves, hospitals, canals, even distance markers.
We trudge the same trails—ribbons of desert burnished by countless shuffling camels, by numberless sandaled feet. Scholars from Timbuktu drank from these wells. So did merchants from Spain seeking frankincense. So did sun-boiled 19th-century European explorers who rambled the Hejaz disguised as pilgrims. One who didn't pose was a blustery Englishman named Charles M. Doughty. He announced himself to everyone as a Christian, an infidel, and walked with a knife up his sleeve. (Of one caravan swollen with 10,000 animals and 6,000 people, he wrote: "The length of the slow-footed multitude of men and cattle is near two miles, and the width some hundred yards in the open plains.")
North of the city of Al Wajh we unpack our two camels at a well, utterly ignored by the speeding traffic of a superhighway. This well, called Al Antar, was rendered obsolete a century ago by steamships. It is made absurd today by the pilgrims hurtling overhead in Boeing 777s. I bend over the well's lip. A damp air breathes up from its darkness, cooling my cheeks. I hear from somewhere far below the calls of startled songbirds. I think: Arabia is like the American West. It is a landscape of terrible absences.
If the Hejaz still inspires romance in the non-Muslim world, it is due to its long caravan of foreign chroniclers.
There is the 19th-century Swiss polymath Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, who traveled to the religious core of Islam as a pauper—a "reduced Egyptian gentleman"—and never made it home. (He died of dysentery and was buried with Muslim rites in Cairo.) There is the brilliant and pompous Englishman Richard Francis Burton, who, if he can be believed, actually touched the Kaaba, the holiest of holies—a massive cube of volcanic stone in Mecca toward which all Muslims must pray. These Europeans witnessed a world locked in time. They found Red Sea towns built of shining white coral blocks, their arched doors and window shutters painted sea green and dazzling nomad blue. They passed through walled cities whose tall gates creaked shut at dusk. They galloped camels between fortified oases with wild-haired men, the Bedouin, whom they found harshly admirable. (Burton: "We had another fight before we got to Mecca, and a splendid camel in front of me was shot through the heart.") This literary Hejaz, if it ever truly existed, has long since disappeared under American-style suburbs and strip malls. Yet outside the old pilgrim's port of Al Wajh, we stumble upon the ghost of one of the most famous of these Orientalists.
Workmen are cleaning out a well.
The well lies within the high rock walls of Al Zurayb fortress, built 400 years ago by the Ottomans. The laborers haul up old explosives: cannon shells that look like rusted pineapples. The ordnance was chucked down the well in panic, probably in January 1917. At that time a camelback Arab army was approaching fast. The tribes of the Hejaz had risen against their German-allied Ottoman overlords. And the foreigner who had stoked the revolt—he was barely five feet five inches tall but possessed a masochistic hardness—whooped along with the attackers. Of the Arab cavalry he wrote: "They wore rusty-red tunics henna-dyed, under black cloaks, and carried swords. Each had a slave crouched behind him on the crupper [of the camel] to help him with rifle and dagger in the fight, and to watch his camel and cook for him on the road."
Thomas Edward Lawrence, more famous as Lawrence of Arabia, is one of our first postmodern heroes: a compromised superman. The young British intelligence officer and Oxford medievalist yearned, subversively, to bring liberty to an Arab world that was then staggering under the corrupt yoke of the Ottoman Turks. Yet he was tormented by the knowledge that the Hejazis who fought alongside him would be betrayed by the European colonial powers that carved up the Middle East after World War I.
"Lorens al Arab," I tell the workmen at the fort. I point to the live shells.
The name means nothing to them. Lawrence is virtually forgotten in Saudi Arabia. He backed the wrong dynasty after the war. His champion, Faisal, the moderate Hashemite prince of the Hejaz, lost a power struggle to the fierce tribes of the interior led by the peninsula's future king, Ibn Saud.
"They were a people of spasms, of upheavals, of ideas, the race of the individual genius," Lawrence wrote of his comrades in the Hejaz. "The desert Arab found no joy like the joy of voluntarily holding back. He found luxury in abnegation, renunciation, self restraint. He made nakedness of the mind as sensuous as nakedness of the body. He saved his own soul, perhaps, and without danger, but in a hard selfishness."
This is what happens when you peer down wells in the Hejaz. You glimpse your own reflection. Lawrence, an ascetic of empire, was describing himself.
Wells of piety: plastic cups of water arranged by the thousands across a stone courtyard in Medina.
It is Ramadan, the fasting month. The holiest month of the Muslim lunar calendar. Just outside Al Masjid al Nabawi, the burial mosque of the Prophet Muhammad, the second holiest site in Islam, at least 60,000 faithful are gathered at sunset to break the day's hunger.
They come from all quadrants of the Earth. I see Indians and Africans. I hear French. I am not Muslim. But I have been fasting all month out of respect. Across from me a big pilgrim from Afghanistan—a red-haired Nuristani—kneels in front of one of the prepackaged meals distributed daily at the site. He hands me his orange. I give him mine. We exchange our food like this several times, laughing. On the loudspeakers an imam sings the crowd into prayer. They pray. And beneath a fading yellow sky, we eat in tender silence.
Strange new wells on the roads of the Hejaz: machines humming in the desert.
Their fitted aluminum surfaces shine under the sun. Hallucinations of metal. Of rubber and plastic. They are outdoor electric coolers. They dispense water so icy it numbs the mouth. We encounter hundreds of these mechanical shrines, called asbila: public water fountains commissioned by the pious to earn virtue in the eyes of Allah. One day their rusted parts, jutting from the shifting dunes, will puzzle archaeologists. How can any society afford to chill a cup of water in a barrens as gigantic and remote as the Hejaz? It seems impossible. Mystifying. Yet the asbila from which we gratefully fill our canteens exist because of other wells—ones drilled in the distant oil fields of eastern Saudi Arabia.
"We've traded away our past for wealth," laments Ibrahim, a water engineer in the port of Al Wajh. "My grandfather's 200-year-old coral-block home? Bulldozed. The docks where dhows from Eritrea brought in camels? Gone. Our city's stone lighthouse that used to be seen from 20 kilometers at sea? Rubble. Nobody cares. It's all old stuff. It has no economic value."
Some Hejazis blame Saudi Arabia's ultraconservative version of Islam for much of the erasure of their past. In recent years, for example, urban historians have decried the demolition of the old quarters of Mecca and Medina, including the flattening of ancient structures associated with Muhammad himself. Officially this was done to provide services for the two million or more pilgrims who swell the cities on hajj. But religious authorities have frequently blessed the destruction of cultural sites. Wahhabis emphasize that all the past before Islam is jahiliyya: a time of ignorance. And they fear that even the preservation of Islamic sites may lead to the worship of objects, and not God—thus promoting idolatry, or shirk.
It is worth noting that the loudest laments for the disappearing heritage of the old Hejaz come from Muslims outside Saudi Arabia. "It is difficult to get young Saudis involved in their own history," says Malak Mohammed Mehmoud Baissa, the mayor of Jeddah's remnant old town. "It isn't taught seriously in schools."
Breakneck economic change. Modernization. From tents to Twitter and glass skyscrapers in barely three generations. Europe must have been this way during the industrial revolution. It is miraculous that Paris survived.
Meanwhile, in the fishing towns along the shore of the Hejaz, the last local fishermen strain to sing sea shanties into my digital recorder. Songs from the age of wooden dhows. Songs of warm Red Sea winds. Of beauties waiting in ports. These Hejazi fishermen, most of whom have hired out their boats to migrant Bangladeshis, have earned their own anthropologists. "It is important," say researchers from the University of Exeter in England, "to capture the last true remnants of the songs of the sea before they become mere pastiches."
We inch northward toward Jordan. We guzzle a gallon of water a day. We seek out wells of memory.
In Jeddah a female artist honors a lost world, displaying on the old city's walls images of her grandfather sitting with his vanished majlis, a traditional council once common in the homes of Hejaz aristocrats. (The art—titled "Where Is My Majlis?"—is mysteriously removed after a week.)
In Medina a museum director spends seven years of his life constructing a meticulous, 50-foot-square diorama of the holy city's heart, with its mazy alleys and lemon trees. These timeless features were scraped away in the 1980s to make way for high-rise hotels. ("Old residents come here to cry.")
The past is fraught territory in every country. Until barely a generation ago U.S. textbooks rarely acknowledged the complex universe inhabited by Native Americans. Israel points to biblical archaeology to cement its right of existence. Yet in Saudi Arabia this blinkered view is changing.
Riyadh has spent nearly a million dollars on a museum devoted to the Hejaz Railway—the storied Arabian version of the Orient Express—terminating in Medina. Jeddah's antique quarter is also up for review as a UNESCO World Heritage site. (One such global treasure already exists in the Hejaz: Madain Salih, a colossal necropolis of the Nabataean empire.) Most extraordinary of all, an entire Hejazi caravan town of some 800 homes, abandoned and crumbling for 40 years, has been bought by the government for renovation.
"This is our greatest experiment," says Mutlaq Suleiman Almutlaq, an archaeologist with the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, and the curator of the ancient caravansary town of Al Ula. "We are looking back more. This is good."
Almutlaq is an earnest, friendly man. He scrambles ahead of me in his white thobe through the walled ghost town located south of Madain Salih. He vaults broken archways and pokes through covered medieval streets. He shows me courtyards where traders hawked incense, lapis, and silk for eight centuries. Kerosene lanterns manufactured in Germany rust on the floors of the empty homes. The legendary Muslim explorer Ibn Battuta passed through in the 14th century, praising the honesty of Al Ula's populace: Pilgrims stored their luggage here en route to Mecca. Almutlaq takes pride in this fact. He lived and worked in Al Ula as a youth. The site's residents were trucked, en masse, to modern apartments in the 1970s.
"I remember," he says, smiling. And he talks of traveling merchants loading bales of Egyptian textiles. Of farmers stalking in at dusk from the fields. Of women talking to each other from windows latticed for modesty.
Twin wells of memory: Almutlaq's glasses, flashing excitedly amid the dim archaeology of his childhood.
We are all pilgrims in the Hejaz. Wanderers through time. We stop at its wells, or we pass them by. It matters little. Used or not, the wells remain. In their basements shine disks of pale sky—the unblinking eyes of memory.
After six months of walking, I say goodbye to my guides Ali and Awad. I cross the Haql border from Saudi Arabia to Jordan. I carry little. A shoulder bag of notebooks bound with rubber bands. Seven hundred miles of words. Pages crazed with jottings about devastating heat. Inked maps of pilgrim roads. Divinations of Bedouin fire doctors. Bearings for remote wells.
I reach a modern tourist resort. No one pays me any mind. There is the novelty of women driving cars. I watch couples strolling beaches in sarongs. I stop at a mini-mart and buy a bottle of filtered water: a small plastic well, an artifact from the main channel of history. I peer south, beyond the Gulf of Aqaba—toward the Hejaz. A cloaked place. The lips of its ancient wells are grooved by ropes turned to dust. Dust long since blown away. I sip my water. It tastes utterly ordinary.


text:
Immaculata's largest education school is Immaculata University. In 2010, Immaculata University graduated approximately 8 students from its education program.
A reported 20 students graduated with credentials in education in Immaculata in 2010. If you decide to attend a education school in Immaculata, you can expect to pay an average yearly tuition of $26,540.
You should also anticipate spending about $1,650 for education related books and supplies every year. And if you live on campus, you will face an additional expense of $10,920 per year, on average, for room and board. If you live at home, you can cut this cost down to approximately $32,315.
After graduating with your credentials in education, if you decide to work as an education professional in Immaculata, your job prospects are average. The government projects that the number of education professionals in Immaculata will increase by 8% by the year 2018. This projected change is slower than the projected nationwide trend for education professionals.
1145 King Rd, Immaculata, Pennsylvania 19345-0702
Awards Offered:
Associate's degree
Bachelor's degree
Master's degree


text:
Filed under: randomness | Tags: business, chef, economics, fractal, money, rewards, scalable, sustainability, systems
is my plan for success based in a hit? or based in the increment?
everybody is searching for scalable rewards. you know, the kind of reward that keeps on giving. the big one.
let me tell you something friend, if you invest in this thing here, you will be set for life. this is the deal of a lifetime. if you can find your way into this one situation, then you will be fine. how about that movie where the old timers get together for one last heist? the one that will allow them to never work again? did it go smoothly?
do you look at people who play the lottery or scratch-off tickets as being deficient in mathematical understanding? how about musicians who play gig after gig for next to nothing, hoping to one day get the record contract that will pay them big bucks? or the author who is starving until they get a book deal? or the post-doc trying to get the nature paper? or the artist who wants to get a piece into the collection at the MOMA? how about the guy who takes a lot of timelapse movies and posts them to youtube, what lotto is he hoping to win? or grant applications? what are the lotteries i'm planning to win? how can i replace those plans with something more incremental?
so… back to the question. are scalable rewards inherently unsustainable? they are fractal or chaotic or unpredictable. should we working to design any new system or community to be without scalable rewards? or at least we should minimize them? the less scalable the rewards, the more long term sustainable the system will be? more leverage is more scalable is less sustainable?
this is also related to the everyone-is-a-chef idea.
that said, it's clear that in the near term, scalable rewards do exist and people will continue to hit is rich with them for a while, but maybe we should be working to highlight the slow paths… so if you think you're placing too much emphasis on a lottery style payback, what is something small you can do to correct your path?
Filed under: information, opensource | Tags: business, constraints, economics, evolution, experiments, future, information, ip, market, mutation, present, replication, value
we believe in evolution. evolution is survival. there is no "good", "bad", "true" or "false" only replication and mutation. success is simply a matter of what replicates and for one reason or another, mutations happen along the way. some mutations are beneficial, some not. in changing environments, mutations are essential to survival. Although some things can make it a really long time… (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYOf2wIoxgo)
So what does this mean to us, living now, trying to figure it out?
No more smart/stupid value judgments. No more judging of pop culture, the american dream, gm, big banks, neocons, religious leaders or anything else? We are here to observe the replicators. We are here to work on mutations that might displace the current crop at the top. There is no good or bad. There is no ownership of ideas to impede either replication or mutation. We don't know the answers. We are experimenting. We are mutating. We must work to reward the systems with the proper incentives. We just need to keep repeating ourselves in the business of making repeaters. We need to keep repeating each other.*
No limits on either replication or mutation? No intellectual property? No haggling over information of any sort? No scalable rewards? Everyone is a service employee?
is this our generation's religion? the religion of letting go? the zen of informational openness? the power of true unconstrained parallel processing? worship of the process and the cloud of culture and information that hangs above and all around us? the democratization of publishing so individuals can broadcast as loud as corporations? easy, fast, and massive collaboration? loose networks of local and small? the disappearance of the term "theft" in regards to information? no more making money off of copies of things that are copied for free? informational commons? everything seen by many eyes and viewpoints to keep ourselves in check? all of us as teachers. all of us as students. learning models replace knowing models. sustainable business. true value added services. less debt. less leverage. less dependance on jackpots and lottery winnings. acceptance of randomness.
this is a kool-aid(tm) that we are drinking. are we fools?
information, formation, fabrications, for vacations, evacuation, e-vocation, evolution
(*) with slight modification of course.


text:
|General Discussion
|« Previous MessageNext Message »
|Hassan Schroeder
|December 21 2005 5:58pm
|Re: Cleaning illegal characters from varchar field
|View as plain text
Nathan Gross wrote: >>/* hint: java.sql.PreparedStatement */ > > I thought we are talking about a mysql specific function, which would > not be in the vanilla j2se/j2ee pkg's. Actually, you know, I don't > even know exactly what function I need to be looking for! We're talking about escaping certain characters automatically, the capability provided by PreparedStatements, implemented in this case by Connector/J, which *is* MySQL-specific :-) <http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/cj-implementation-notes.html> HTH, -- Hassan Schroeder ----------------------------- hassan@stripped Webtuitive Design === (+1) 408-938-0567 === http://webtuitive.com dream. code.


text: Hi! I am pretty new to the Cosmere, but I think that I have read all of the published works, and I have been listening to the Shardcast (which is great). I have heard the hosts mention several times that we know Vessels can abdicate. I am guessing the this is from a WoB, but I haven't been able to find the source. Can anyone direct me to where this information originated?


text:
Vimeo user Michael Raisch, a filmmaker, shot this from his home in downtown Jersey City's Italian Village neighborhood.
The video lasting just over a minute, captures the rain, winds and blackout from Hurricane Sandy from Monday, October 29 at 11 a.m. to Tuesday, October 30 at 12:45 a.m.
Raisch said in an email to The Jersey Journal, "I had a sense of the storm's enormity and given Irene I knew we would see the weather roll in a powerful way. As for the why. I think it was by Sunday night that historic nature of the oncoming storm was clear. I had no idea of the scope of what was captured, especially the black out. Thought I would get a lot of spinning clouds."
Raisch has been working on time-lapse videos capturing the day-to-day construction of One World Trade, saying, "It's been amazing to watch history in the making."
"Once we had gotten power back, the entirety of the event was coming to light as did the footage I was able to capture," Raisch also said in the email.
Hurricane Sandy Time Lapse form Jersey City from Michael Raisch on Vimeo.


text:
Over the month of January, I had the privilege of hearing community members' perspective on the state of our neighbourhood.
It was such a humbling experience to talk to neighbours and leaders about the things that matter to them most. In my conversations, I heard about various issues: safety, building maintenance and built up frustration due to a lack of strong local representation at city hall. I spoke to a man in his mid 30's who had lived in this community since he was 4 years old, and was recently stabbed a few days earlier in an attempted robbery for his Canada Goose winter jacket. He showed me his fresh bandage and spoke passionately about the safety concerns he's had. It was remarkable to see his resilience because he also spoke to me about the potential of our community, the hard work he sees and the commitment to excellence he's observed. He simply lamented that there wasn't a vision put forward for the community that we could all get excited about and push for collectively.
This conversation was also echoed by a group of mothers I spoke to who were really frustrated with their building standards and unresponsive building leadership. They spoke about a need for heat in the winter, showers not working well, lobbies and staircases being unattended to. But what moved me about this conversation was their drive and passion in rejecting the status quo - they would not be denied "better". They are organized, mobilized and commitment to getting a better deal for themselves.
Our community is full of these stories, of people standing up when everything around them is pushing them to lay down. I want to be beside those who push for better, to fight for better and to leave a legacy that the next generation can enjoy. This is our community; this is Ward 12. The conversations I had in January really moved me, and I am committed to continuing to do more.
Wishing you the best in the new year,
Lekan Olawoye


text:
Frank Adler (Chris Evans) is a single man raising a child prodigy – his spirited young niece Mary (Mckenna Grace) in a coastal town in Florida. Frank's plans for a normal school life for Mary are foiled when the seven-year-old's mathematical abilities come to the attention of Frank's formidable mother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) whose plans for her granddaughter threaten to separate Frank and Mary. Octavia Spencer plays Roberta, Frank and Mary's landlady and best friend. Jenny Slate is Mary's teacher, Bonnie, a young woman whose concern for her student develops into a connection with her uncle as well.Release Date: 7 April 2017
Runtime: 101 min
- Candace B. Harris
- Crystal Freyermuth
- Elizabeth Marvel
- Glenn Plummer
- John Finn
- John M. Jackson
- Jon Sklaroff
- Jona Xiao
- Julie Ann Emery
- Keir O'Donnell
- Lindsay Duncan
- Maia Moss-Fife
- Mckenna Grace
- Michael Kendall Kaplan
- Octavia Spencer
Director: Marc Webb


text:
CUNA Credit Union will do whatever is necessary to enhance the growth and development of our member-owners financial well-being.
A Brief History of CUNA Credit Union
Member Service: An Important Focus
A Dedication to the Community
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Meet Our Board of Directors
Meet Our Senior Management Team
Meet Our Management Team
1997 Annual Report
CUNA Credit Union was organized on September 14, 1935, by the employees of CUNA, Inc., CUNA Mutual Insurance Society, and CUNA Supply Co-op. CUNA Credit Union was founded and grew on the philosophy of meeting members' financial needs with personalized service. The founders, including famous credit union pioneers such as Thomas Doig and Roy F. Bergengren, sought the opportunity to offer credit union services for anyone who did not have services available to them. As a result, CUNA Credit Union received a unique, open charter from the State of Wisconsin meaning anyone, anywhere could join the credit union.
Through the decades, our members have become busier with the trials and tribulations of their own daily lives. No one has nine-to-five schedules anymore. CUNA Credit Union recognizes the need to offer services that will accommodate a hectic lifestyle.
In 1988, the credit union introduced Quick Teller-a voice response system that enables members to check balances, to see if a check has cleared, and more...24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week. In addition, we now offer access to loans on a 24 hour basis. Members can talk with someone about their needs when it's convenient for them. Loan approvals take just a few minutes now, not days. It won't be too long before home banking via computers will be available. Keeping up with the latest in technology is part of our service commitment to you. Our goal is to offer our members the best the world has to offer.PC Branch
CUNA Credit Union has a strong commitment to our members and the community. We believe it's important to give back to the community where our members live.
Since 1992 CUNA Credit Union, along with other area credit unions, has participated in March of Dimes' fight for healthier babies. Each year the Credit Union Spirit team has hundreds of members and employees walking and raising money for this worthwhile cause. During the past four years, the team has raised over $65,000 in support of research for healthier babies.
Beginning in 1998, CUNA Credit Union and several Madison Area Credit Unions will be supporting and raising money for the Children's Miracle Network - CMN is about helping kids with health problems - from rare childhood diseases to AIDS to cancer to accident victims. All money raised in Dane County, will be used at the Milwaukee Children's Hospital, last year 270 kids were helped! The money is used to purchase highly specialized equipment, research, and covering the cost of expensive procedures. All children are helped regardless of ability to pay. The nationwide credit union effort "Credit Unions for Kids" program raised $2.3 million for CMN in its second year (1996-1997). Local fundraising efforts include T-shirt sales with the CMN "Credit Union for kids" logo, a "Credit Union's Have A Heart for Kids" paperchain, and several other events.
Also in 1998, CUNA provided funding for several small businesses providing goods and services to their local communities. Sunlight Fine Rug Care (New York City) which has provided services to our main offices for many years was approved for short term financing to enable them to begin offering services via the internet. They now offer heirloom Persian carpet cleaning NYC and other services from their new website. Vigor Yoga was also approved for short term financing which enabled them to expand their premises to include more clients. Both these businesses are now thriving examples of the good works being done by CUNA Credit Union.
In 1996, CUNA Credit Union began developing a long-term commitment to the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County (formally the South Madison Neighborhood Center) by offering a credit recovery mentoring program and an after-school educational and snack program. The credit union also supports the families who use the Dane County Domestic Abuse & Intervention Service. We donate children's welcome kits filled with a coloring book, writing materials, and a stuffed animal of the credit union's kids club mascot to help the children feel more comfortable during a sometimes frightening time.
A myriad of things have changed in the world and even for CUNA Credit Union in the past sixty years. CUNA Credit Union has grown to over $140 million in assets and has over 38,000 members.
Although change surrounds all of us, the most important things at CUNA Credit Union have remained constant. That is, CUNA Credit Union's commitment to our purpose...not for profit, not for charity, but for service. And CUNA Credit Union still offers a safe place to borrow and save money, while providing our members with financial services to enhance their lives.
When you join CUNA Credit Union, you are a member-owner of one of the area's largest and most progressive credit unions. Progressive in the products and services we offer and how we deliver them. And being a member-owner of CUNA Credit Union is a unique opportunity to have a voice in the new products and services you want most. That's what CUNA Credit Union is all about: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. People helping people.
Convenience . . . it means different things to different members. Convenience means having services that are top-notch and easy to use. To others, it means getting answers quickly to questions or being able to apply for a loan with a touchtone phone. And still to others, convenience means having a friendly representative to help out when needed. CUNA Credit Union offers all of these conveniences and much more!
PC Branch New!
Person To Person Loans
Quick Teller
Quick Check Card
ATM Card
Direct Deposit
PC Branch New!
CUNA Credit Union now offers PC Banking. With our PC Branch system, you can conduct transactions through our Internet home page by clicking on the above PC Branch icon.Use it to...
- Transfer money between accounts
- Check your account balance
- Inquire about cleared checks, deposits, and withdrawals
- Print a copy of your statement
- Take an advance of a line of credit
- Request fund withdrawal by check
- Reorder your checks
- View annual tax information
PC Branch is safe and easy to use. Click now on the PC Branch icon and see for yourself!
Person To Person Loans
Call anytime 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week! It's a fast and easy way to learn about our different loans, calculate monthly payments and do "what-if" scenarios. A signature is all we'll need once you're approved.* We may even be able to handle everything by mail. In Madison, call 244-2400; outside of Madison, call (800) 454-9284.*Approval subject to CUNA Credit Union's normal underwriting guidelines and standards.
Quick Teller
It's easy, it's free, and you're automatically enrolled. This convenient service enables you to check your account balances, inquire on cleared checks, withdraw money, transfer money from one account to another and more . . . any time, any day, and from any touchtone phone. Just follow these simple steps . . .
Here's how to use Quick Teller:
- Madison area: 244-2400
- Toll-free: (800) 454-9284
3) Follow the instructions given by the automated teller . . .
- Your member account number
- Your password
- Find out your account balances
- Inquire on cleared checks
- Transfer money from one account to another
- Request a check to be sent to you
- Request Redi-Credit and Home Equity line-of-credit advances
- And more!!
Quick Check Card
We designed our Quick Check card for the person who's always on the go, whether it's around town, across the country, or across the sea. It's the one travel companion you won't want to leave behind.
Quick Check gives you access to your checking account anytime, anywhere . . . all for $6.00 a year. Use it like a credit card at any place that accepts VISA, but the money will come out of your checking account. It's quicker and easier than writing a check! Plus, there's no need to show your ID.
Or use Quick Check as a TYME card at thousands of automated teller machines worldwide. Many financial institutions will charge extra for using your Quick Check (TYME) card outside of the TYME network. Not us! Use your card at any PLUS network machine, and the "extra charge" is on us!
ATM Card
You can use your ATM Card at thousands of automated teller machines (ATMs) worldwide to receive cash when you need it.
Overdraft Protection:
- Savings transfers
Automatic transfers in increments
of $100 will be made to your checking account
to cover overdrafts. This is a free service.
- Redi-Credit line of credit transfers
You can protect yourself from mathematical errors by applying for
Redi-Credit. If approved, money will be transferred from
this loan to your checking account in $100 increments
to cover overdrafts. You make small payments every
month that won't cramp your lifestyle.
Direct Deposit
The fastest way between you and your paycheck. You can have your payroll directly deposited into your CUNA Credit Union checking or savings account. You can set up automatic transfers to your loan, Christmas Club, IRA, or any other account!


text:
I basically need
- add new domain to my solution
- create new email addresses ( there will be more than 50 of them in the future per domain)
- forward everything from the new email address somewhere else. I guess I can redirect the email to make the whole solution easier and not to have real account on my linode at all.
- be able to send emails from my VPS box.
- it would be nice to be able read the emails via web interface if I don't redirect them and keep a local copy.
VPS would probably run Debian


text:
Thirty years ago at The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, Dennis Taylor faced Steve Davis in the World Snooker Championship Final. My custom at the time was to enjoy dipping into the action occasionally during the tournament, whilst eagerly awaiting the final which I would watch and savour. The 1985 finale proved to be an amazing spectacle and provided one of THE sporting moments of the century. But there were two other reasons why this final was so special to me.
I remember the weekend so vividly because the snooker final straddled the start of my O'levels at high school. My first ever national exam had been on the Friday, when I sat Arithmetic and my next one was English, which was scheduled for all day Monday. So although the weekend TV family viewing was sorted (and the telly took precedence in our house) I tried to keep an eye on the sport AND review my study notes and literature texts to be examined. I recall Steve Davis taking an 8-0 lead before Dennis Taylor clawed his way back to 7-9 going into the next day. On the Sunday, Taylor repeatedly came from behind to level the scores at 11-11, 15-15 and then 17-17. This was the backdrop as I made my final study preparations surrounded by tomes of good English literature. I recall that the style of the exam paper meant that you couldn't discard any of the literature genres studied. My novel was Animal Farm by George Orwell, the play was Shakespeare's Macbeth and the two poems I had decided to analyse were Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen and Robert Burn's To A Mouse. There were short stories in the mix as well, but I don't recall which ones they were. Added to that was ensuring my grasp of the grammatical rules and regulations of English was in order, and wondering what essay topics might turn up on the paper. Obviously in my own little world, the sporting greatness that unfolded that weekend was shrouded in the realms of great literature quotes. Certainly Dennis Taylor on potting the final black at his third attempt to become world champion was no "cow'rin tim'rous beastie"!
The game went into the small hours of the Monday morning and lasted 14 hours 50 minutes, the longest ever recorded for a 35 frame match. An estimated 18.5 million TV audience (including me bleary eyed but enthralled) watched the incredible final frame go down to the wire. Steve Davis had an 18 point advantage with 22 points still remaining on the table and Dennis Taylor then potted the brown, blue and pink balls. That final black became the decider and each man missed the pot twice before Dennis Taylor sealed victory to win his first World Championship. Who can forget the wee stocky Northern Irishman with the upside-down looking specs holding aloft his cue, dancing a wee jig and wagging his finger?
Taylor won against the odds in the most extraordinary fashion and yet I was the only one who wasn't surprised. You see once in a while I get a gut-feeling about something and it won't go away. In the February I had spotted a list of snooker players and the name Dennis Taylor leapt out at me. I said to my Dad he would win the World Championship and he laughed at me on seeing the odds of 150-1. By March my feeling had not diminished, in fact it had crystallised into something more and I predicted the "last ball in the last frame" scenario. My Dad laughed even more at this and said "that just proves that YOU (a mere lassie) know nothing about betting, sport or snooker". When Taylor won I punched the air in delight and squealed "I TOLD YOU THAT WOULD HAPPEN". I looked over at my Mammy who sat open mouthed in shock and my Dad had gone a funny puce colour and looked absolutely sickened. As I scooped my books up and said I was off to bed, my Dad put his head in his hands and mumbled something as he shook in disbelief. I think he might have been crying!


text:
Credi Partner is a comprehensive loan management system, adding to the Credi suite. Easily create and manage formal loan agreements on the Credi Partner platform on your clients behalf.
Credi Loans are templated loan agreements that allow predefined data to be collected and documented, e-signed and managed.
Example loans are Standard Fixed and Variable Interest Rate, Flat Fee, Division 7a and PPSR.
A Client in Credi Partner is a Credi user, these are your customers, they have individual and corporate entities, and these can have loans attached to them.
Credi Partner is billed per agreement, which means you only pay for your usage.
At the end of the month in which agreements are created or per annum agreement fees are billed at the end of the following and subsequent financial years for the life of the loan. To find out more about billing and pricing please see Credi Partner pricing page.
Credi Partner is a web-based application accessible from any device. There is no download required at all.