text:
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Special Needs Kids: Think Before Your Speak!
I'll just say this-- it's not always obvious when a child has special needs, so think before you speak!
In our case, my oldest son suffers from chronic and uncontrolled allergies and asthma. I'm not talking about hay fever or activity induced asthma. I'm talking about a child who is stuck inside 95% of the time because his body can't tolerate being exposed to different environments or even people. A child who is allergic to anything and everything, which cause asthma attacks once exposed to the allergen. A child whose quality of life is greatly diminished due to the severity of his allergies and asthma. As a result of his allergies, he often appears to be incredibly sick with relentless coughing, constant sneezing and congestion, constant running nose, and overall unhealthy appearance.
I understand this is probably why the outside acts they way they do around us. They don't want to "get sick." But, he isn't the slightest bit contagious. Although he may appear to be very ill, children often accept him and treat him no differently. Adults on the other hand, have been down right cruel and heartless to him and our entire family.
As an example, we were grocery shopping and my son had a terrible asthma attack in the store. As I'm fumbling through my purse trying to find his rescue inhaler, a woman pushing a baby in a shopping cart walks by and says, "God, what is wrong with you?! That child needs to be home in bed. It's disgusting you brought him to the store like that! Don't you think about other people?" Of course, my son and my other children heard this woman's comment.
Another time, my son was having a good day, so we went to the park as a family. My son was playing with another child and all was well. Then, when he started sneezing and coughing. The mother runs over and grabs her child and says, "Come on honey. We're going to go play over here. I don't want you to get sick." My disappointed son came over to me and just sat down. He was so excited to go to the park-- the first time he had been able to go outdoors in over 2 months. After that, all he wanted to do was go home.
Some days my son can't leave the house without his allergy mask on. As we walk through stores all we see are adults turning their heads staring at him, while the children we pass seem to be oblivious that he's even wearing it.
All too often, adults shrink back, take steps away, and some even pull out hand sanitizer when they are near my son.
So here's the point, as I mentioned earlier-- It's not always visible whether or not a child has special needs, so please think before you speak. You teach your children not to judge or treat children with special needs differently, yet many parents are guilty of doing it, often without even realizing it.
So, next time you see that sick child in a store and the mother you think appears to not notice, cut her a break and the child. Maybe, she's trying to find medication for the child in her purse. Instead of judging or saying unkind words, maybe offer to help.
Here's what I ask, not only parents, but all adults-- please think before you speak. You never know what's truly going on.
Parents to special needs kids, have you notice this as well? How do you cope with the looks and unkind words?
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Lovely fish for your wall.
Select prints in different sizes and decorate your wall with a group of prints for maximum impact.
SIZE (image) 10X10 CM
With frame it measures 12X12 CM.
The original image dates back to the 18th century and has been digitally restored.
Printed with Japanese archival ink on a matte Hahnemühle paper in own workshop outside Copenhagen, Denmark.
Frame included.
Print #MS020

subset: commoncrawl


text:
900 West Kennedy Avenue Kimberly, WI 54136 United States
View Phone No.
Visit Website
Request More Info
Copyright © 2019 Rodman Media. All rights reserved. Use of this constitutes acceptance of our privacy policy
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Rodman Media.


text:
Welcome to High House Pediatric Dentistry – Cary, NC
West Cary's Premier Pediatric Dental Practice. Dr. Ray Tseng and the team are proud to serve the Cary community and look forward to meeting you and your family.
Why A Pediatric Dentist
A pediatric dentist has an extra two to three years of specialized training after dental school that focuses on children
Who We See
High House Pediatric Dentistry welcomes all ages of children from less than a year old to 18 years
A Letter To Parents
When I built this practice, I had a vision of the type of care that I wanted to offer to the community I live and work in
What Sets Us Apart
As a specialist in pediatric dentistry, Dr. Ray places your child's health and happiness as our top priorities. Everything we do goes toward ensuring that your little one receives only the most beneficial and effective treatment in a fun and non-threatening environment. We are committed to playing an important role in your child's oral health from a very early age through adolescence and beyond. Our goal is to meet the dental needs, as well as the mental needs of each child. By seeing children starting at the age of 1, we are able to diagnose any dental issues early on, partner with parents to let them know what to expect as their children grow, all the while providing gentle and patient-focused comprehensive care on each step of their "journey".
High House Pediatric Dentistry
Visit our Cary, NC Pediatric Dental office!


text:
Hi there! This page is dedicated to my lurve of Wayfair!
I hope that my design experience and Wayfair choices will help you to decide on some beautiful things for your home too!!
I would never never never ever (Taylor Swift never) share a product or service that I don't LOVE love love. Some items were provided by Wayfair, and some were purchased. All major expenses for renovation, cabinetry, flooring…. pretty much everything… were paid by yours truly. I hope you click through my fave Wayfair finds on this page.. in support of my blog….(affiliate links help pay for my liquorice eating habit)…AND, more importantly…to help save the shopping legwork for you. I picked out some really cool stuff! You're gonna love them!!
Sending you a bonk ton of love for your support. Let's get this parrrrtayyyyy started!
Q. Why Wayfair? With all the choices in the marketplace? Why?
A. First of all, I love to shop in my pajamas. I love doing my shopping without ever having to step into a shopping mall. Gah. Malls make me want to throat punch people. I also LOVE LOVE LOVE that Wayfair now ships to Canada. Woooooooohooooo!!!
Q. Do you buy small items only to be safe, or do you go for the gusto and go big or go home?
A. I go big and get it delivered to home. I first started ordering small things like pretty white jugs, and tea kettles, and then starting working my way up to the bigger items like gorgeous bar stools and brass floor lamps (ADORE!) I made it all the way to a sofa! <– PS. that's my fave piece.
Q. Can we just talk about those stools. They were chrome! How'd you make them all brassy brass brassssss?
A. It wasn't a big challenge to change the Wayfair stool (similar one//mine is discontinued) to a brass look. It was truly easy!! We had the chrome powder coated ! We hired pro's to do the work, and I ADORE them. They are one of my faves and mix so beautifully with the other brass elements in the kitchen. The white covers are easy to wipe clean. I'm a happy camper, and they are really comfy!
Q. It looks like you like to mix natural elements in your design. Tell us more.
A. I love white and the staggering simplicity it brings to a space. My signature elements are clean lines, bright whites with restrained accent colours. I like to throw in some vintage finds and even cool finds from the backyard… like twig curtain rods!…
PS. There's a DIY for the curtain rods here.
You can see a lot of natural elements in our cabin too. We incorporated old windows, a vintage ladder and armoire … into a more modern feel with a wee Wayfair stove, chrome faucets and pretty little tea towels.
Q. You renovated a kitchen AND built a cabin all at the same time? Eeek. Was that overwhelming?
A. Our kitchen was getting a little rough around the edges. It had been 15 years since our last kitchen reno and it was time for a facelift.
I wanted to design a kitchen with NO upper cabinets (gasp, right?!) and a walk in pantry (to hide the fridge. Gasp again. Hide.The.Fridge. ) Helllooooo, I love that part now!
Designing spaces, it's my JAM. I share all my insider scoops on how I do it here.
Q. What are you faves?
A. I adore our reclaimed barn board flooring and I super duper love the lighting. This one is stunning in real life, even though it looks so simple online. It's simplicity and quality is beyond words. Sure, it's a light. But I love it. I wanted the lighting to be like 'jewelry' in the room.
Another fave is the countertops. I priced marble and quartz and it was beyond our price range.
Our DIY concrete countertop from Buddy Rhodes Concrete was the best thing we ever did. The countertops are divine. No really. D.I.V.I.N.E. It is almost the first thing that people mention when they come in the kitchen. Thank ya very much 🙂
Q. What was it like living through the renovation? Was it as bad as you thought it may be? After all, kitchens can be challenging.
A. I have to say this was the most difficult renovation of my life. Our kitchen cabinet contractor went AWOL for most of the time. We had to live for almost four months without a kitchen. At the same time, my husband had a health prognosis of terminal cancer. There are no words for those life changing moments.. You can see the video and blog post here about how we managed through it all. xo
Cue stress. But we made it.
The cabin is a sista to the treehouse mista. Last summer, we did rent the treehouse and cabin via the blog and this 2017 season we are considering renting for weddings and retreats.
You can see more pics here on Instagram … and as much as I truly adore the treehouse… the cabin is a breath of fresh air. The white. A total stunner.
Q. What is your favourite piece in the room?
A. Helloooooo. SOFA. 🙂 We find ourselves as a family sitting there together, almost every single day. The fact that the kitchen is in the same room allows us to all be together, whether we're cooking, or
sipping wine dancing haha.
Q. How did you decide the style direction you went in?
A. I am inspired by white white white and okay… functionality. We put in new windows to brighten the room ( I love white and open spaces) and I really wanted to use a lot of gold and brass.
My champagne gold inspiration came from Delta Faucet Canada. Their champagne bronze faucet is like gold jewelry! I used that element as my inspiration for the entire kitchen.
Q. What was your biggest failure or challenge?
The biggest challenge was DEFINITELY our contractor. I am so accustomed to working closely with contractors, planning every little detail. In this case, we walked around him on pins and needles. It was extremely difficult to plan things when you don't know what's coming and going with your contractor. Many of my big decisions like the sofa, the kitchen stools and the lighting were sourced online with Wayfair. Online shopping made it soooooooo much easier. Free shipping (and now they ship to Canada! WOOT WOOT!) No hassles, no traffic, and I can sip wine while ordering. LOL.
I would never do that. I totally did that.
Q. Tell us anything you'd do differently. Mistakes teach us a lot.
A. Be extremely clear with your contractor on how the process will go. Establish timelines, payment milestones and how change orders will be dealt with. Over budget and plan on it taking much longer than you think. Plan for twice as much time and money. Have it in writing. I like to think that life can work on a handshake, but sadly it doesn't always work out that way.
Q. What advice do you have for those that want to achieve your style?
A. My advice is that you don't have to break the bank on renovations. Paint is inexpensive and goes a long way to making a huge difference. I use twigs for curtain rods. A lot. It's a classic in my home. LOL.
Best advice.... When in doubt, paint it white.


text:
DUP MLA Gary Middleton has offered support to Invista workers after the lycra-maker announced it was seeking voluntary redundancies at its Londonderry plant.
"I have spoken today to management of the company and offer my full support to the staff who are now considering their options for the future," he said.
"I am reassured that the company have no plans to move towards any compulsory redundancies at this time. I will remain in contact with the firm over the coming weeks and months and have told them of my willingness to assist them in any way so they can continue operating here in Londonderry and providing very valuable employment in the area," he said.


text:
The twist
Posted on March 1st, 2001
Desktop-as-a-Service Designed for Any Cloud ? Nutanix Frame
|Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java
|Contents | Prev | Next
The difficulty with Music.java can be seen by running the program. The output is Wind.play( ). This is clearly the desired output, but it doesn't seem to make sense that it would work that way. Look at the tune( ) method:
public static void tune(Instrument i) { // ... i.play(Note.middleC); }
It receives an Instrument handle. So how can the compiler possibly know that this Instrument handle points to a Wind in this case and not a Brass or Stringed? The compiler can't. To get a deeper understanding of the issue, it's useful to examine the subject of binding.
Method call binding
Connecting a method call to a method body is called binding. When binding is performed before the program is run (by the compiler and linker, if there is one), it's called early binding. You might not have heard the term before because it has never been an option with procedural languages. C compilers have only one kind of method call, and that's early binding.
The confusing part of the above program revolves around early binding because the compiler cannot know the correct method to call when it has only an Instrument handle.
The solution is called late binding, which means that the binding occurs at run-time based on the type of object. Late binding is also called dynamic binding or run-time binding. When a language implements late binding, there must be some mechanism to determine the type of the object at run-time and to call the appropriate method. That is, the compiler still doesn't know the object type, but the method-call mechanism finds out and calls the correct method body. The late-binding mechanism varies from language to language, but you can imagine that some sort of type information must be installed in the objects.
All method binding in Java uses late binding unless a method has been declared final. This means that you ordinarily don't need to make any decisions about whether late binding will occur – it happens automatically.
Why would you declare a method final? As noted in the last chapter, it prevents anyone from overriding that method. Perhaps more importantly, it effectively "turns off" dynamic binding, or rather it tells the compiler that dynamic binding isn't necessary. This allows the compiler to generate more efficient code for final method calls.
Producing the right behavior
Once you know that all method binding in Java happens polymorphically via late binding, you can write your code to talk to the base-class and know that all the derived-class cases will work correctly using the same code. Or to put it another way, you "send a message to an object and let the object figure out the right thing to do."
The classic example in OOP is the "shape" example. This is commonly used because it is easy to visualize, but unfortunately it can confuse novice programmers into thinking that OOP is just for graphics programming, which is of course not the case.
The shape example has a base class called Shape and various derived types: Circle, Square, Triangle, etc. The reason the example works so well is that it's easy to say "a circle is a type of shape" and be understood. The inheritance diagram shows the relationships:
The upcast could occur in a statement as simple as:
Shape s = new Circle();
Here, a Circle object is created and the resulting handle is immediately assigned to a Shape, which would seem to be an error (assigning one type to another) and yet it's fine because a Circle is a Shape by inheritance. So the compiler agrees with the statement and doesn't issue an error message.
When you call one of the base class methods (that have been overridden in the derived classes):
Again, you might expect that Shape's draw( ) is called because this is, after all, a Shape handle, so how could the compiler know to do anything else? And yet the proper Circle.draw( ) is called because of late binding (polymorphism).
The following example puts it a slightly different way:
//: Shapes.java // Polymorphism in Java class Shape { void draw() {} void erase() {} } class Circle extends Shape { void draw() { System.out.println("Circle.draw()"); } void erase() { System.out.println("Circle.erase()"); } } class Square extends Shape { void draw() { System.out.println("Square.draw()"); } void erase() { System.out.println("Square.erase()"); } } class Triangle extends Shape { void draw() { System.out.println("Triangle.draw()"); } void erase() { System.out.println("Triangle.erase()"); } } public class Shapes { public static Shape randShape() { switch((int)(Math.random() * 3)) { default: // To quiet the compiler case 0: return new Circle(); case 1: return new Square(); case 2: return new Triangle(); } } public static void main(String[] args) { Shape[] s = new Shape[9]; // Fill up the array with shapes: for(int i = 0; i < s.length; i++) s[i] = randShape(); // Make polymorphic method calls: for(int i = 0; i < s.length; i++) s[i].draw(); } } ///:~
The base class Shape establishes the common interface to anything inherited from Shape – that is, all shapes can be drawn and erased. The derived classes override these definitions to provide unique behavior for each specific type of shape.
The main class Shapes contains a static method randShape( ) that produces a handle to a randomly-selected Shape object each time you call it. Note that the upcasting happens in each of the return statements, which take a handle to a Circle, Square, or Triangle and send it out of the method as the return type, Shape. So whenever you call this method you never get a chance to see what specific type it is, since you always get back a plain Shape handle.
main( ) contains an array of Shape handles filled through calls to randShape( ). At this point you know you have Shapes, but you don't know anything more specific than that (and neither does the compiler). However, when you step through this array and call draw( ) for each one, the correct type-specific behavior magically occurs, as you can see from one output example:
Circle.draw() Triangle.draw() Circle.draw() Circle.draw() Circle.draw() Square.draw() Triangle.draw() Square.draw() Square.draw()
Of course, since the shapes are all chosen randomly each time, your runs will have different results. The point of choosing the shapes randomly is to drive home the understanding that the compiler can have no special knowledge that allows it to make the correct calls at compile time. All the calls to draw( ) are made through dynamic binding.
Now let's return to the musical instrument example. Because of polymorphism, you can add as many new types as you want to the system without changing the tune( ) method. In a well-designed OOP program, most or all of your methods will follow the model of tune( ) and communicate only with the base-class interface. Such a program is extensible because you can add new functionality by inheriting new data types from the common base class. The methods that manipulate the base-class interface will not need to be changed at all to accommodate the new classes.
Consider what happens if you take the instrument example and add more methods in the base class and a number of new classes. Here's the diagram:
All these new classes work correctly with the old, unchanged tune( ) method. Even if tune( ) is in a separate file and new methods are added to the interface of Instrument, tune( ) works correctly without recompilation. Here is the implementation of the above diagram:
//: Music3.java // An extensible program import java.util.*; class Instrument3 { public void play() { System.out.println("Instrument3.play()"); } public String what() { return "Instrument3"; } public void adjust() {} } class Wind3 extends Instrument3 { public void play() { System.out.println("Wind3.play()"); } public String what() { return "Wind3"; } public void adjust() {} } class Percussion3 extends Instrument3 { public void play() { System.out.println("Percussion3.play()"); } public String what() { return "Percussion3"; } public void adjust() {} } class Stringed3 extends Instrument3 { public void play() { System.out.println("Stringed3.play()"); } public String what() { return "Stringed3"; } public void adjust() {} } class Brass3 extends Wind3 { public void play() { System.out.println("Brass3.play()"); } public void adjust() { System.out.println("Brass3.adjust()"); } } class Woodwind3 extends Wind3 { public void play() { System.out.println("Woodwind3.play()"); } public String what() { return "Woodwind3"; } } public class Music3 { // Doesn't care about type, so new types // added to the system still work right: static void tune(Instrument3 i) { // ... i.play(); } static void tuneAll(Instrument3[] e) { for(int i = 0; i < e.length; i++) tune(e[i]); } public static void main(String[] args) { Instrument3[] orchestra = new Instrument3[5]; int i = 0; // Upcasting during addition to the array: orchestra[i++] = new Wind3(); orchestra[i++] = new Percussion3(); orchestra[i++] = new Stringed3(); orchestra[i++] = new Brass3(); orchestra[i++] = new Woodwind3(); tuneAll(orchestra); } } ///:~
The new methods are what( ), which returns a String handle with a description of the class, and adjust( ), which provides some way to adjust each instrument.
In main( ), when you place something inside the Instrument3 array you automatically upcast to Instrument3.
You can see that the tune( ) method is blissfully ignorant of all the code changes that have happened around it, and yet it works correctly. This is exactly what polymorphism is supposed to provide. Your code changes don't cause damage to parts of the program that should not be affected. Put another way, polymorphism is one of the most important techniques that allow the programmer to "separate the things that change from the things that stay the same."


text:
Last-Minute Travel Deals Still Exist — If You're PatientApril 12, 2010 at 9:54 am | Posted in air travel, car rental/hire, consumer travel, cruising, travel and technology, value in travel | Leave a comment
Tags: airfares, airlines, car hire, car rentals, cruising, last-minute travel, rental cars, Twitter
by José Balido
Vacationers and business travelers alike are booking travel later in the game than ever these days — often a week or less from departure — with the dicey economy accelerating a trend that's been building for years. This higher demand for last-minute travel, together with the yield management systems used by many of the big players, means rates that are more than ever in flux up until the 11th hour. It also means that "deals" are no longer a sure thing.
Oh, and did I mention that the currently downsized number of flights and rental cars is also tightening unsold inventory? Sadly, all the above ads up to not a lot of breaks for the last-minute travel shopper.
Best Travel Websites for Last-Minute Deals
The good news: All is not lost. Such breaks do still pop up, because the fact remains that vendors with unsold inventory — whether it's bundled air-hotel packages or individual components — will always need to unload it. What you'll need is a spot of patience and perseverance — and willingness to spend a fair bit of time online doing comparisons, because that's where most of the action is these days. And there are certainly myriad choices, including the likes of LastMinuteTravel.com and last-minute sections of familiar sites like TravelZoo, Travelocity, and Kayak. I've found particularly good ones are Lastminute.com, Hotwire.com, and of course Priceline.com where after checking the going rates on other sites you can try submitting (reasonably!) lower bids.
Apart from trolling these various sites, in the case of airfares especially I'd sign up for alerts, both from individual airlines (United tends to have the largest selection, coming out each Monday, but doesn't email them anymore, so you have to check United.com) and airfare info sites like AirfareWatchdog.com, which blasts out individual and grouped alerts according to airport or route. For car rentals, some companies list last-minute specials, but check out Breezenet.com as well, a comparison site which also features a "Deal of the Week." And this summer, excess cruise line capacity will pretty likely mean awesome late deals on certain itineraries — especially in the Caribbean.
Twitter Travel Alerts
Finally, as this blog pointed out last year, Twitter has not only been coming on like gangbusters in general but has increasingly caught with airlines, hotels, tour operators, and other vendors as a dandy way to unload late inventory and for consumers to monitor deals by following them. Just a handful of other airlines that tweet news and fare specials include Air France (@Air_France), American (@AAirwaves), British Airways (@BritishAirways), Cathay Pacific (@cathaypacific), Continental (@Continental), JetBlue (@JetBlueCheeps), Singapore (@SingaporeAir), Southwest (@Southwest), Spirit (@SpiritAirlines), and United (@UnitedAirlines). You can also keep track of fares on sites like AirefareWatchdog.com (@airfarewatchdog), DealsOnAirfareToday.com (@dealsonairfare), and LowestAirfares.com (@LowestAirfares_).
Example: Type "#travel" into the Twitter search box and you'll come up with hundreds of same-day results. But say you want to go to Orlando. A recent search for "#Orlando #travel" yielded, among many other items:
- For $289, a three-night stay for four at Silver Lake Resort, plus two adult day tickets to Disney World, Universal Studios, or Sea World (@SLResortOrlando).
- News of an upcoming crafts and collectibles show in the quaint nearby town of Mount Dora (@roritravel).
- A list of top free attractions in the Orlando area (@GotSaga).
Crack your knuckles and get surfing!
photo: iStockPhoto
Hungary For A Little East-EuroPop?April 9, 2010 at 8:20 am | Posted in Europe, Hungary | 3 Comments
Tags: Ádám Kovacsics, Budapest, Gabriella Völgyesi, Hiszed vagy sem, Hungarian pop music, Hungary, music, Unique, Zsolt Ferbár
Meet Gabriella, Ádám, and Zsolt, Budapest thirtysomethings who formed the electro-pop group Unique in 1997 — and who've been music-obsessed ever since they were mini-Madyars. Blonde Gabi, for example, made a splash way back in '92 when she walked away with "best solo singer" on the Hungarian TV show Teenage Star Search. With her on vocals and her pair of wingmen on keyboards, the trio persevered finally hitting the big time in 2001, when a Unique tune was picked as the theme for the country's first reality show and they released their first recorded single. Now five albums and various singles and remixes later, they're a fixture in the top tier of Hungary's pop music scene, and here's their latest hit single, Hiszed vagy sem. Its music eminently danceable (as usual), in this video Gabriella dons racoon makeup and a shimmery dress and swans around a dark, glistening pool of water while crooning about a girl dreaming of her departed significant other. We're told there's an English-language version of this, with the ungrammatical, slightly garbled title "Unhappy Ending Dream," but the actual translation of the Hungarian original is "believe it or not." Confusing? Well, whatever — it's the most kick-butt boo-hoo we've seen in a while, that's for damn sure…
Fab Day Trip from Shanghai: Zhujiajiao, China's VeniceApril 7, 2010 at 8:39 am | Posted in Asia, China | Leave a comment
Tags: China water town, Chinese Venice, Expo 2010, Fangsheng bridge, Shanghai, Shanghai area attractions, Shanghai day trip, Shanghai World Expo, Zhujiajiao
by Indra Chopra
Heading to Expo 2010 in Shanghai this summer or fall? Let me tell you about a great day trip. We didn't intend to visit the "water town" of Zhujiajiao when in the area in this past summer; instead, we'd planned on a side trip to Suzhou, famous for its silk and embroidery. But that would have meant cutting short our visits to other attractions, so we boarded tourist bus no. 4 at Shanghai Stadium for the one-hour ride to a 1,700-year old Chinese mini-Venice, a magnificent maze of canals and historic buildings.
The drive through rice paddies, waterways and canals to Lake Daishon is a balm to sore eyes blanched by the hustle-bustle of Beijing and Shanghai. The bus dropped us at Zhujiajiao's new bus station just north of the historic district, with five hours to explore the town before the heading back. Map in hand, we followed our instincts, crossing bridges to what appeared to be a city under construction. This was the new section of Zhujiajiao, which has been developed in the old style in time for the World Expo, which runs May 1 through October.
The fact that Zhujiajiao grew up beside several converging rivers helped it become a hub of rice and textile traders. The merchants then extended the rivers to their warehouses, which is why the city is criss-crossed by canals. Of course, there are also streets and alleys, most of which are lined with whitewashed, tile-roofed two-story buildings, some dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). But one building north of the old town center towers above all the others: the five-story edifice topped by a pavilion in Ke Zhi Yuan garden on Xijie Street; designed in 1912 with both European and Chinese influences, this garden is a national landmark.
Bridges, Ancient Bridges
Crossing a few bridges, we finally entered the old town. Zhujiajiao has 36 of these ancient stone bridges, some with marble or wood elements. All 36 are still in use, but the most famous is the Fangsheng over the Cao Gang River, at the northeast edge of town. Erected in 1571, it stretches 230 feet (70 meters) and, unlike any other bridge in the Shanghai area, rests on five arches. Its Dragon Gate Stone depicts eight dragons encircling a shining pearl, a reminder — as if you needed one — that you're not exactly in Venice.
Our tour bus ticket served as an entrance ticket, so we walked into the maze of stone paths, bridges, wooden boats tied to the shores, and fishing poles hanging from drooping arms, with children and pets playing in dirt and the occasional cyclist trying to weave through narrow passageways and children and pets. This was the Zhujiajiao we were looking for, the traditional town of the Song and Yuan dynasties (960-1368 A.D.). The ups and downs of dynastic rule had long turned this town into a backwater; only in 2000 did Zhujiajiao start inching its way into the tourist map and into Shanghai's "One City Nine Towns" promotional campaign.
Since Zhujiajiao has more canals than roads, boats are a major means of transport. We took a tourist boat ride, and our "gondolier," a cheery, middle-aged woman, skillfully glided us through waterways and under bridges through the old and new sections. We didn't find the empty courtyards of the new section of town particularly fetching or interesting, so we asked her to return to the ancient core. At one point, seeing our bored looks, the gondolier broke into a song. Must be part of the package, we figured, as her lilting melody intermingled with the willows and the deserted canals.
A boy was fishing below one of the bridges, and seeing us approach, made a great show of catching a fish. Wonder if he really did. At another point we saw a man contemplatively washing turtles. Pets or dinner?
Chinese Postcards and Punk Rock
Back on land after our 80-minute ride, we walked along National Street and its arterial stone slab alleys with tea shops, eateries, and curio shops selling handicrafts, embroideries, calligraphy, and other items. A shoemaker almost turned violent when he caught us trying to photograph him, but otherwise, we were swept up in a cornucopia of art and antiques. At one point we followed a tour group into a nobleman's house, a maze of courtyards and rooms with wooden furniture and artifacts.
Other attractions include the Memorial Hall of Wang Chang, one of the Seven Scholars of the Qing Dynasty, the No. 1 Tea House, and the Qing Dynasty post office, which displays evocative old postcards. There are also places where ancient culture intermingles with modernity. For example, the Books Tearoom, at 35 Caohe Street, offers traditional teas, 21st-century organic dishes, and thousands of books and DVDs. Zher, at 118 Xijing Street, may be a Chinese beer parlor, but it's run by a punk rocker, and that's reflected in the décor and the sound system. FYI, Zher's owner is not the only bohemian type to have settled hereabouts; quite a few refugees from Shanghai's rat race have moved here, creating an appealing mix of old-fashioned and avant garde residents.
In addition to old-new hybrids like the Books Tearoom, Zhujiajiao has plenty of traditional eateries where you can enjoy rose-flavored fermented bean curd, dark-rice zongzi dumpling, or roasted soybeans. There are several guesthouses in town, too, such as 1, 2, 3 (yes, that's its name) and Cao Tang, but we didn't have time to overnight on this trip. Next time, for sure — but for now, our five hours were up, so we boarded bus No. 4 and headed back to Shanghai.
Photos: Indra Chopra
Kansas City Jazz Still A Hot TicketApril 5, 2010 at 8:30 am | Posted in culture and museums, Kansas, Missouri, music, United States | 1 Comment
Tags: American jazz museum, Arabia Steamboat Museum, blue room, Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Crossroads Art District, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Gem Theatre, Jay McShann, jazz, Kansas, kansas city jazz, kansas city travel article, Louis Armstrong, Midwest, Missouri, music, Mutual Musician's Foundation, National World War I Museum, NCAA, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, New Orleans, Prohibition, The College Basketball Experience, Tom Pendergast, Vine Historic District
Jazz in Kansas City is not like jazz in New Orleans or in any other great American music city. It's a little more bluesy, a little heavier on the keyboards and bass, not so bold with the brass. They call it "cool jazz" here, jazz that's a little gentler on the spirit.
In case you didn't know, Kansas City is where jazz grew up. After its birth in the Big Easy, the music migrated to KC and became a smart-aleck teenager, with attitude and a vision for the future. That's what they say in the clubs, anyway. They also tell a good story about how it got here. Anybody who's lived in this town for very long — and I've been here more than 25 years — has heard about Tom Pendergast. He was our Al Capone, our Bugsy Malone — our crime boss back when crime still paid (or maybe it's just that America's big-time crooks today are on Wall Street instead of the Mob).
Not a lot got in Tom Pendergast's way. Certainly not a little thing like Prohibition, that "Noble Experiment" from 1920 to 1933, when alcohol consumption in the United States was illegal. Prohibition just wasn't a big deal in Kansas City, so when the juke joints elsewhere shut down, when there was no more booze — an integral ingredient of a good night of jazz — the great musicians ended up here. Louis Armstrong. Charlie "Bird" Parker. Ella Fitzgerald. Jay McShann. Duke Ellington. Count Basie. That's when the local music scene erupted. At one point, more than 200 juke joints operated 24 hours a day.
A Kansas City Jazz Tour
The city, in the heart of America's Midwest, is bisected north and south by the Missouri River, and east and west by the Missouri/Kansas state line. Many popular attractions, such as the 18th and Vine Historic District, the high-end and high-rise Country Club Plaza, several museums, the former warehouse district that's now the Crossroads Arts District, are on the Missouri side of town. Funky little neighborhoods in between these major districts provide an alternative to the ever-expanding suburbs on the Kansas side.
Some 40 jazz clubs once thrived in the 18th and Vine neighborhood. Today, this district struggles to regain its vibrancy, but come the evening hours, especially on weekends, the vibe changes as music pours out onto the street from joints like the Blue Room, part of the American Jazz Museum. Opened in 1997 in conjunction with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (see below), the jazz museum tells the tale I just told, only in greater detail. It also allows you to become a part of the music — to sit in on keyboards in a jam session or choose the rhythm or chords of a particular piece via various listening stations and composition rooms. It's a place where you come to understand jazz terminology and, in particular, the feel of Kansas City jazz.
During museum hours, the Blue Room (at top and left) is another exhibit, its walls, bar, and cocktail tables trimmed with old playbills and album covers. But at night, the entrance through the museum is closed, and access to the Blue Room opens from 18th Street. Considered one of Kansas City's earthier jazz joints, it charges no admission Monday and Thursday nights, and on Friday and Saturday nights the cover is just US$10.*
Across the street is the historic Gem Theatre, where a number of music events are held, including the "Jammin' at the Gem" jazz masters' concert series. And just around the corner, the Mutual Musician's Foundation, part union hall, rehearsal hall, and jazz joint, really gets hopping in the wee hours of the weekends. On Saturdays at midnight, it's also the site of a live jazz radio show.
One of the edgier clubs in town is Jardine's on Main Street near the Country Club Plaza; it's a little louder, a little hipper than other jazz venues. Two of the classics (and my favorites) include the on West 8th Street and the nearby Phoenix Jazz ClubMajestic Restaurant over on Broadway. For an overview of who's playing at these and other clubs, visit the Web site of the nonprofit group Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors.
Hotels From Hilton to Bargain
Many legends — Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra — have played the Drum Room at the recently renovated Hilton President Kansas City. This hotel is right in the center of everything, and rooms begin at $175.
A nice independent property is the Southmoreland Bed and Breakfast on Country Club Plaza, with 12 rooms named and decorated in honor of local historic figures (from about $130). Or if you're really on a budget, try the Best Western Inn on Southwest Boulevard, where you'll pay less than $75. That leaves you plenty of money for barbecue, steak, some Boulevard beer, and other soulful flavors of Kansas City.
More Kansas City Sights
There's plenty else worth coming to town for these days. A downtown redevelopment effort has created a sports arena and performing arts center to rival any in the U.S. The once-abandoned warehouses of the Crossroads Art District are now home to one of the largest First Friday art walks in the country, and the recently expanded Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art dazzles with its Chinese art, American Indian gallery, and Hallmark photo collection.
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum tells of the time when baseball was a segregated sport, and how some of the game's best players came up through the Negro Leagues. The College Basketball Experience, which isn't really a museum, celebrates history, too. The men's NCAA basketball tournament was founded in Kansas City, and 11 Final Fours have been held here.
Containing the most comprehensive collection of World War I artifacts in the world, the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial honors veterans and General John Pershing, a Missouri native who was head of U.S. forces. Exhibits include uniforms, weapons, other gear, a bombed-out French farmhouse, and a hand-dug 90-foot trench. Finally, don't miss the Arabia Steamboat Museum. In 1856 the grand Arabia riverboat hit a snag in the Missouri River and sank. The boat and its treasures are now displayed in the River Market area — on dry land.
*To convert this and other U.S. dollar amounts to other currencies, see Tripatini's Currency Desk.
photos: 1-2 Bruce N. Meyer. 3 iStockphoto
Iceland to Relocate to Costa del SolApril 1, 2010 at 5:27 pm | Posted in Europe, humor, Iceland, Spain, Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Tags: Andalusia, April Fool's Day, Costa del Sol, humor, Iceland, Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir, José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero, Las Chapas, Loftleidir, Malaga, Nunavut, Reykjavik, Spain
Las Chapas, Spain (Tripatini NewsWire) – Spanish Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero and Prime Minister of Iceland and former Loftleidir flight attendant Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir today announced the official launch of Operation Sól og Fjara (Sun and Beach) at a beachfront signing ceremony that concluded a six-month negotiation for the purchase of a strip of aging condominium buildings in the town of Las Chapas on Spain's Costa del Sol. Under this unprecedented plan, the entire population of the North Atlantic island nation, currently estimated at 317,000, will be transferred in stages to their new home, which will enjoy full sovereignty under the terms of the agreement. Sources close to the negotiators have hinted at a figure in the billions of krona, not counting a 20-year installment plan of barter payments in sardines and backstock whale blubber.
"It just makes sense," said Ms. Sigurdardóttir, who admits that her name is sure to confound her new Spanish neighbors. "We have bad weather. They have good weather. Honestly, we're sick of the cold and the puffins."
Mr. Zapatero, whose name will likely confound the average Icelander as well, added, "The Brits have bailed on so many condominiums, and that whole coast is way overbuilt. Sól og Fjara is good for Spain too."
Every Icelander pitched in to make the purchase possible, according to the Icelandic prime minister. "Even the little children dug into their piggy banks. We're proud to say that we are all founders of the new Iceland."
In a cordoned-off area nearby, an angry mob of Spaniards burned codfish, an ancient symbol of Iceland, in protest. The resulting smell caused several onlookers to pass out. At last count, a young couple and a teacup chihuahua had been hospitalized.
"What's the difference?" Zapatero asked. "This coast is overrun with foreigners anyway. We managed to upsell the Icelanders on our 'Full Sovereignty' package, and that's a good thing for our bottom line. Discussions are currently under way with the Canadian territory of Nunavut for a similar deal."
Gudmund Gudmundsson, a bystander who flew down from Reykjavík for the occasion, commented with tears in his eyes: "I know I speak for my countrymen when I say, I cannot wait for swim in January! So long as Mediterranean freeze not, we will make a party."
Some Icelanders, understandably, will miss their homeland, which has reportedly been sold to Donald Trump for development of a Santa Claus-themed casino and spa complex.
The April Fool's Day celebration concluded with the consumption of a rotting shark's head, a traditional Icelandic delicacy. By that point, Prime Minister Zapatero had conveniently departed for an urgent meeting in Nunavut's capital of Iqaluit.
Wiring Funds to Foreign Travel Vendors: Save, but Safe?March 31, 2010 at 10:43 am | Posted in consumer travel, travel industry | 1 Comment
Tags: bank transfers, consumer travel, credit cards, currency conversion, CzechTours.cz, Marnella Tours, Safir Tours, tour operators, travel industry, travel insurance, wire transfers, Zed Safaris
by Max Pesling
Back in the day, you'd stroll into a travel agency, get face-to-face advice, and leave with an armful of color brochures and a paper ticket. Then the Internet came along, but for a long time consumers were slow to warm up to paying online with a credit card. That's mostly history now: Most will happily divulge those 16 digits in return for the savings that online competition and the elimination of the travel agent middleman have brought about.
All well and good, for the most part, when it comes to travel vendors in your own country. Increasingly, though, travelers are tempted by overseas companies — now easily found online — which offer more intriguing options or deeper travel discounts. The catch: Many if not most of these vendors charge cardholders around 3 percent for the transaction. As if that weren't bad enough, cardholders' banks clobber their customers with another fee of 2 to 3 percent for the foreign currency conversion, pretty much wiping out any savings from booking travel online.
My friend John Lamb, a New York City lawyer, recently faced this very dilemma while planning his upcoming honeymoon, a two-week luxury safari in Tanzania. The itinerary John liked best was sold by a tour operator in South Africa, but the combined 5.7 percent credit card and conversion fees amounted to several hundred dollars, money he'd rather spend elsewhere. The tour operator suggested he wire the funds directly instead (total cost: $35 at John's bank).
John was tempted, but understandably concerned: Would it be safe to wire what's essentially cash to an unknown vendor halfway around the world? If something went wrong (e.g., the company went under), would he have any recourse? Racked by doubt, John dashed off an email seeking advice from a trusted travel writer and friend, a.k.a. yours truly.
YT, however, had no surefire answer, never having been in a comparable situation. I could've offered general tips to help my pal protect himself, but in the age of the Internet I was able to consult my online brain trust. I posted the question in the Tour Operators group here on Tripatini.com, and within 72 hours had amassed a considerable body of travel advice from experts as far afield as India, Tanzania, and Nebraska. Three top tips to wire funds safely to overseas travel vendors emerged:
- Check their reputation. John Tavera of North Carolina-based Marnella Tours says, "Do your homework. Check that the company you are sending funds to is legitimate and in good standing with the local or national tourism association." Nayaz Noor of Safir Tours in India also suggests that you can vet the company with the destination's tourism office in your country of residence.
- Ask fellow travelers. Fatema Zavery of Zed Safaris in Tanzania suggests you "check reviews from other travelers who have used [the company's] services." Indeed, in the age of user-generated content, it should not be difficult to find enough reviews of just about any travel provider to help answer your doubts.
- Buy insurance. If doubts are still nagging, buy travel insurance, says Peter Walter of CzechTours.cz. It costs a fraction of the money you'll save by wiring the funds, and will give you peace of mind, whether the vendor takes flight with your money or goes out of business before your trip — or, more likely perhaps, you get sick and have to cancel.
With the proper precautions, wiring funds directly to an overseas travel vendor can be a safe and effective way to save money – which is exactly why my friend John decided to do it after reading the experts' advice here on Tripatini. As a final note, I was pleased to see that not a single one of the tour operators who offered advice tried to sell John anything. Several, in fact, outright confirmed that his vendor is a reputable company in great standing. It's reassuring to see that, at least in some cases, you can find unbiased advice on transparent online travel forums.
And John, by the way, is now happily looking forward to his honeymoon.
photo: iStockphoto
6 Top Toronto Dining DealsMarch 29, 2010 at 9:49 am | Posted in Canada, culinary/food & drink, Ontario | 1 Comment
Tags: affordable dining Toronto, affordable restaurants Toronto, budget dining Toronto, Caplansky's, Dhaba restaurant Toronto, Drake Hotel dining, healthy dining Toronto, Indian restaurant Toronto, Pure Spirits Oyster House, Queen West dining, St. Lawrence Market
by Ed Wetschler
After telling a friend about a good dining deal in Toronto — her own home town — she said, "I'll have to go there; I don't know that place!" Understandable. Canada's largest city is as rich in restaurants as it is in museums, galleries, theaters, boutiques, clubs, and more clubs.
You can always find affordable restaurants in Kensington, the St. Lawrence Market, and Chinatown, but you already knew that. So here are a half-dozen spots, some of which even locals may not know. (BTW, note to Yanks in particular about the exchange rate: Right now, US98¢ buys one Canadian dollar — close enough so that you can just think in terms of generic dollars and keep the change.)
Four, with its dark, sleek furnishings, looks like a conventional business district restaurant, but it isn't. No item on chef Gordon Mackie's menu exceeds 650 calories—yet the cuisine is exquisite. The shrimp fusilli (CA$18*, left), for example, combines tender shrimp, bran fusilli (!), Grana Padano cheese, and walnut pesto into a flavorful, deceptively rich entrée that tastes like 2,000 calories.
Dhaba, at the west end of downtown, is well-regarded for its updated Indian cuisine, which features bright, vibrant—not necessarily hot—spicing. The slow-cooked mountain goat (CA$17.95), for example, makes me wonder why I seldom eat goat meat (answer: because I can't cook it as well as Chef P.K.). But here's a secret: Dhaba's lunchtime buffet (CA$11.95) may be the best dining value in downtown Toronto, because this is that rare, all-you-can-eat deal that features fresh, thoughtfully prepared cuisine.
Mill Street Brew Pub is the obvious mid-price pick in the historic Distillery District, but I like Pure Spirits Oyster House. The main dishes in this cavernous brick-walled bar and restaurant are not cheap, but you can get around that: Pure Spirits calls its hearty poutine (CA$10, or $14 with bacon, $16 with crispy fried oysters) and fresh Prince Edward Island mussels with a garlic-and-cheddar-smeared baguette ($15) appetizers, but they're really stealth entrées. And this is the most flavorful, perfectly timed poutine or mussels you'll ever eat.
Caplansky's Deli, on College Street north of Kensington, is known for its sandwich of "smoked meat" (CA$8). Whazzat? The owner calls it "the bastard child of pastrami and corned beef" — a hand-rubbed brisket that's cured two weeks, then smoked ten hours. Caplansky's also uses this tender, peppery invention in a hash-and-eggs breakfast ($10) that's served all day, including dinnertime. "Do you like it?" Caplansky asked. Like it? I'll never eat conventional corned beef again.
The Gardiner Ceramics Museum Café has somehow convinced star chef Jamie Kennedy to produce elegant soups for CA$6, sandwiches for $9-11, and cookies for $2. FYI, you could visit the nearby Royal Ontario and Bata Shoe museums, eat here, and skip the Gardiner itself, but don't: This museum and its programs will open your eyes to art forms many of us don't think about very often.
West Queen West Art & Design District
This hot neighborhood has umpteen resto-bars, and its anchor, the Drake Hotel (above left), boasts almost as many lounges and restaurants as guestrooms. Chef Anthony Rose's Blue Plate Specials (about CA$18), such as fish 'n' chips, are born-again classics, but here's an even better idea: Order the sushi pizza with avocado, roe, and salmon (CA$14, right),
a delicious patchwork of flavors, from subtle to wasabi sharp, and textures, from silky to crispy crisp. By the way, the Drake serves a Canadian cab-merlot blend and a Bordeaux-style chardonnay with a private label that's perfect for this crowd — or part of it, anyway: It's called Starving Artist.
*at press time, about £11.75 / €13 / AU$12.60 / ZAR85; for updated rates, see Tripatini's Currency Desk
photos: Ed Wetschler
Turkish Pop Heartthrob Tarkan Still PoppingMarch 26, 2010 at 9:40 am | Posted in Middle East, music, Turkey | Leave a comment
Tags: Tarkan, Turkey, Turkish music, Turkish pop, world music
German-born Tarkan Tevetoğlu, 37, has been compared to a cross between a Turkish Elvis and Michael Jackson in terms of his impact on his country's pop music scene, and he's achieved a measure of fame abroad, as well, particularly in Europe. The dude garners A-list coverage from Turkey's media, of course, for almost everything he does, whether it's verbal gaffes; groundbreakingly racy video scenes; temporary military draft-dodging; shilling for Pepsi-Cola; scary run-ins with the paparazzi; a tiff with PETA over fur-wearing; or is-he-or-isn't-he-gay. Vay Anam Vay is from Tarkan's sixth and most recent album, Metamorfoz ("Metamorphosis"), released at the end of 2007 and less than critically acclaimed but still a commercial hit. The choreography's slightly goofy and the lyrics fairly trite love-song yadda-yadda ("If she said die, I'd die for her / the arrow went straight into my heart"), but whatever — it's a very club-ready, infectious bit of electropop with just a touch of Eurasian musical exoticism.
Like it? Buy it here!
Cuzco's Top Luxury HotelMarch 24, 2010 at 7:53 am | Posted in history, lodging, Peru, South America, travel and health | 1 Comment
Tags: altitude sickness, Andes, conquistadors, Cusco, Cusco hotels, Cuzco hotels, Francisco Pizarro, historic hotels, history, Hotel Monasterio, luxury hotel Cuzco, Orient Express, Peru, Pizarro, soroche
Picture it: the atmospheric onetime capital of the Inca Empire, high in the Andes of Peru. I'd stepped off the plane from Lima fully aware of soroche, aka altitude sickness, and its unpleasantries. After accepting the standard paper cupful of coca tea — meant to help acclimate me to suddenly transferring from sea level to 11,000 feet (3,350 m) — my friend and I spent what little was left of that afternoon strolling around Cuzco's colonial core, admiring Baroque churches, grand gold and silver altars, and Cyclopean Incan walls. Then we went to dinner on the central square, the Plaza de Armas.
We were so tempted by the menu we proceeded to do precisely what we knew we should not do: overeat. Already feeling a mite unsteady as we paid and left, by the time we embarked upon the two-block walk uphill to our hotel, we were both gasping for breath, our heads were pounding, and believe it or not, it was a struggle to even walk upright.
So thank Inti, the Inca sun god, we had the best digs in town to coddle us as we lay stunned in bed that night and, as I recall, a good part of the next day. In Cuzco there's probably no hotel quite as grandioso and histórico as the 126-room Hotel Monasterio. Built as Franciscan monastery San Antonio Abad in 1592, just 60 years after Francisco Pizarro's marauders had barged in and sacked the Inca capital, it was converted into luxe lodgings in 1995, now owned by über-upscale Orient Express.
As you might expect, it ain't cheap; nightly rates are mostly north of US$400.* And though for that you don't even get the usual high-end perks like pool, spa, and workout room, there's no question the rooms are hardly monastic anymore, and for that my friend and I were especially grateful. Fortunately we managed to get through our misery without having to resort to a snort from the oxygen tank kept on hand for guests in soroche distress.
Now, you may wonder: Is this place worth the price tag? Well, to bunk in such a palatial setting in such a special city, a splurge might well be in order, at least for one night. Just to be in one of these guest rooms, a lesson in mixing Spanish Colonial-style antiques (like our huge wooden armoire) with modern amenities is an eye-opener. But even if you don't stay there, it's well worth a visit to ogle the magnificent courtyard and painting-adorned Baroque chapel, or to spring for a meal, including local specialties like alpaca and cuy (a relative of the guinea pig) in the Monasterio's fine-dining restaurant. Just be smarter than we were and do keep the stuffing of the face to a minimum on your first night — and you can't say I didn't warn you.
*at press time, about £267 / €296 / CA$408 / AU$437 / ZAR2,939
photos: Hotel Monasterio, iStockphoto
Check Uptake.com
On Safari in Tanzania's Ngorongoro CraterMarch 22, 2010 at 7:34 am | Posted in Africa, ecotourism, safaris, Tanzania | Leave a comment
Tags: Africa, East Africa, Ngorongoro, Ngorongoro Crater, safari, safaris, Tanzania, wildlife
For people contemplating an Africa wildlife safari, the first place that comes to mind may well be Kenya. But many aficionados favor Tanzania, thanks to its vast Serengeti plains and a nearby volcanic caldera called Ngorongoro.
On my trip to this East African country not long ago, Ngorongoro was far and away the star. Occupying just 102 square miles (264 sq. km), this 2½-million-year-old collapsed volcano is a virtual microcosm of this region of the continent, home to some 30,000 examples of every conceivable species — a distinction that makes it unique in the world. And this means that unlike in some other game parks, here you can spot and snap the "Big Five" (lions, elephants, rhinos, leopards, Cape buffalos) and dozens of other species without high-powered binoculars or a huge telephoto lens.
Moreover, Ngorongoro's creatures seem surprisingly tolerant of sharing space with each other as well as with humans. Hyenas, zebras, wildebeests, ostriches, elephants, lions, warthogs, hippos, baboons, cheetahs, and leopards all exist within view of each other. These days in Africa it's not always easy to spot cheetahs and leopards, except for here.
Of course, such a concentration of fauna does have its consequences: With the number of visitors increasing each year, conservation and sustainability issues are becoming more and more a concern. Efforts are in the offing to either restrict access or increase entrance fees.
Wildlife Up Close
From hatch-roof jeeps 11 of us gawked, ooh-ed, ah-ed, and snapped picture after picture while the critters studiously ignored us. It's hard to describe the wonder of being ten or so paces from an elephant that's 12 feet (almost 4 meters) high at the shoulder, its tusks practically reaching the ground. Or a black-maned lion baring its teeth, or half-a-dozen adolescent zebras cavorting around a water hole.
Then, of course, there was the highlight: spotting the black rhino, of which there are only 4,000 left in all of Africa. For such a large (second only to the elephants) and dangerous animal, I found the rhino doesn't seem to do much. This one just stood there, neither grazing nor charging, simply looking unimpressed with its surroundings—especially us.
The loping antelope, by contrast, are much more graceful and spirited. "Antelope" is actually a generic term covering a wide range of animals, from 11-pound (four-kilogram) dik diks to 2,000-pound (907-kilo) elands. In between are the springboks, riverbucks, hardebeests, wildebeests, impalas, topis, gazelles and others, with horns from curved to straight, twisted to rippled, rounded to wavy.
Leopards & Cheetahs
We got lucky. Not only did we see two leopards virtually indistinguishable from the tree branches they were wound around, but also a family of cheetahs frolicking nearby. Four cubs romped and rolled over each other, periodically returning to mom for grooming and reassurance.
Mama, though, was eyeing several gazelles about a quarter-mile away. They played a little cat-and-gazelle game, with the leopard debating whether or not to fetch some lunch. Prey and predator eyed each other, each evaluating its position. You could feel the tension, irrevocably caught up in the life-and-death dance that forms the essence of their existence. I was both relieved and disappointed when the cheetah decided against take-out.
And sometimes success — depending upon one's perspective — is obvious. Case in point: the lion that was so close, I could see its whiskers tremble. The creature's stomach was distended, clearly indicating how well it had feasted the night before. Observed our guide, Joseph Ndunguru, "Thirty to forty pounds of raw meat will satiate him for four or five days."
One of the most intriguing photo ops was of a flock of flamingoes numbering in the thousands and occupying most of Lake Magadi, at the bottom of the crater. They resembled a feathery pink blanket stretched out along the shoreline.
Ndunguru could turn anyone into a solid amateur zoologist. Before long, members of the group were identifying a previously generic starling as a Ruppells long-tailed glossy and the ubiquitous antelope as a hardebeest or Grant's gazelle. By the sixth day, it was, "Don't bother getting up, it's just another elephant."
Luxury Safari
A travel story is often enhanced by the obstacles overcome, but this trip didn't really present any, in good part thanks to the fact that I was traveling with luxury outfitter Abercrombie & Kent. The sun was brighter, the game lodges a mix of luxury and rustic décor, the flies relatively subdued, and the dust lighter than it might have been. I actually returned to my hotel with clothes still resembling the colors they'd started out with.
The roads were another story, a hardship that can't be avoided unless you walk, which was definitely discouraged. Anyone with back problems — or allergies, for that matter — should think twice about this sort of trip.
Seated on the balcony at the Serengeti Sopa Lodge in Arusha the last morning, I listened to a concerto of birdcalls while two Thompson's gazelles romped with a topi. A flock of guinea hens grazed within 50 yards, assiduously avoiding a passing warthog.
But what especially struck me was the presence of all the other animals, hidden in grass and shrubs, that I knew I was not seeing. Occupying those endless plains were millions of hoofed creatures continually on the move in search of pasture, constantly watched and pursued by predators whose own survival depends upon feeding off them. For awhile, I watched for the slightest movement, as a hungry predator might do as it seeks its next meal. Then I reluctantly left for the airport, knowing (or certainly hoping) that this strange combination of imposing terrain, tenuous commingling of wildlife — and, yes, inevitable brutal killings — will continue long after I'm gone.
For more on Africa wildlife excursions, see this blog's Safaris 101.
Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.


text:
"American food," the restaurant owner, Luz Gonzalez, calls it. And she signaled her move by giving her Mexican restaurant a distinctly American name: "The Down-Town Restaurant."
Such fare was all but extinct in a place where longtime residents joke — often with a barely disguised tone of frustration — that the dining options are Mexican, Mexican or Mexican. After the last white-owned restaurant serving American favorites closed this year, it fell to one of the recent Hispanic arrivals to keep the burgers-and-fries legacy alive. Ms. Gonzalez even enlisted the help of neighbors to teach her to cook more exotic dishes — like potato
For generations, the story of the small rural town of the Great Plains, including the dusty tabletop landscape of western
Hispanics are arriving in numbers large enough to offset or even exceed the decline in the white population in many places. In the process, these new residents are reopening shuttered storefronts with Mexican groceries, filling the schools with children whose first language is Spanish and, for now at least, extending the lives of communities that seemed to be staggering toward the grave.
That demographic shift, seen in the findings of the 2010 census, has not been uniformly welcomed in places where steadiness and tradition are seen as central charms of rural life. Some longtime residents of Ulysses, where the population of 6,161 is now about half Hispanic, grumble over the cultural differences and say they feel like strangers in their hometown. But the alternative, community leaders warn, is unacceptable.Continue reading the main story
"We're either going to change or we're going to die," said Thadd Kistler, a lifelong resident who recently stepped down as mayor. "This is Ulysses now, this is the
After years in which mostly white communities throughout the region used gimmicks to lure new residents with limited success, like offering free land or lengthy
"The face of small towns is changing dramatically as a result," said Robert Wuthnow, a Kansas-born
There has long been a strong Hispanic presence throughout the region, which is rich with difficult work in meatpacking plants and on farms, feedlots and oil fields. But over the last decade, as their population in the rural Great Plains spiked by 54 percent — a figure comparable to gains in metro areas in the region — Hispanic residents have pushed from hubs like nearby Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal into ever smaller communities, buying property on the cheap, enticed, many say, by the opportunity to live quiet lives in communities more similar to those in which they were raised.
In the sparsely populated western half of Kansas, every county but one experienced a decline in the non-Hispanic white population, two-thirds of them by more than 10 percent.
At the same time, a vast majority experienced double-digit growth in Hispanic population, more than offsetting the declines in seven counties and many smaller cities and towns. Those places with the highest percentage of Hispanic residents tend to have the lowest average ages, the highest birth rates and the most stable school populations.
"These towns, I don't know what they would do without Mexicans," said Oscar Rivera, a Honduran immigrant who lives in a community of a few hundred people and travels through rural parts of western Kansas selling prepaid phone cards used to call overseas. "It would be like ghost towns."
One such town is Bazine, about two hours from here and little even by the standards of its neighbors. The decaying strip of downtown stores was abandoned long ago, and empty houses dotted the surrounding streets. A few years back, the high school closed and the building was sold on
"The decline was happening," said Patricia Showalter, the mayor, standing inside the little post office she runs. "And then the Hispanic people came."
For the first time in more than a half century, the population grew in the latest census, inching up to 334 as the Hispanic population jumped to 86 from 4. Now every house in town is occupied. A new church, La Luz del Mundo, just opened. Though there are no new businesses on Main Street, some entrepreneurial newcomers sell homemade tamales door to door.
And, most importantly to those who had watched the town become ever older, the school enrollment is growing.
In neighboring Ransom, which is almost entirely white, the student population has declined to 34 from 62 in the last eight years. Meanwhile, in Bazine, the numbers have increased to 46, up from 35. The average age in Ransom is 15 years older than in Bazine.
In Ulysses, which grew a modest 3 percent over the last decade, much appears unchanged by the years. Livelihoods are still tied to the earth, where people grow wheat and corn in the dusty soil, drill for the generous deposits of oil and gas beneath the surface and feed cows inside muddy pens that line the roads. Churches — there are more than a dozen — still play an important role, and the pace is still slower than what one usually experiences in a bigger city.
But the influx of Hispanics, a majority of whom were born in
Rachel Gallegos remembers that as a young girl she was the only Hispanic student in her class and her parents' Mexican restaurant was the first Hispanic business in town. Now, Hispanics make up two-thirds of the school population and own bakeries, clothing stores, car dealerships and computer repair shops, some catering to Hispanics and others simply filling vacant niches.
And when children become adults, a time when residents have historically headed to bigger communities seeking opportunity, her family was becoming rooted in the community — Ms. Gallegos said that of her nine siblings and their two dozen children, all but a couple remained.
Ginger Anthony, director of the Historic Adobe Museum, which chronicles the history of the onetime frontier town, discussed the changes with dismay, pausing repeatedly to reiterate that she did not want her criticism to seem "politically incorrect." She is so unnerved, particularly by illegal immigrants, that she recently started locking her door — saying that the police-beat column in the local paper disproportionately features Spanish surnames.
"This wave of new people coming into the Midwest, it's not always a good thing," she said, as a co-worker nodded in agreement. "If you talk to the average working person, a lot of them are sort of fed up. Our town isn't what it was."
But Hispanic residents here say they have been mostly well received, even if the non-Hispanics sometimes keep their distance. There are exceptions, like when students at a neighboring high school showed up to a basketball game in sombreros and tossed tortillas onto the court.
Jose Olivas, a longtime community developer with Mexican American Ministries, said that it took years of pressure to hire Hispanic employees at schools and at some businesses. Now employers are taking Spanish lessons, and expressing preference for bilingual job applicants.
"For a while you had to be careful," Mr. Olivas said. "But they've really changed their attitudes."
Mr. Kistler, the former mayor, agreed that there were culture clashes, but said they were slowly dissipating.
"At first every community, including Ulysses, was very unwelcoming, but a lot of that was because we wanted to hold on so tight to what we were," he said. "In the last five years, we've really seen that they're here, they're staying, they're part of the community. We've kind of gotten used to each other."
Part of that has been dictated by demographics.
At the hospital in town, exactly half of the 102 babies born last year were Hispanic. And in a telling sign of the future of the community, 13 babies were listed as having one white and one Hispanic parent.
Because of an editing error, an article on Monday about the growing Hispanic population in small rural towns throughout the Great Plains misstated, in some editions, the population for one of the towns, Ulysses, Kan. In the 2010 Census, the population was 6,161, not 6,933. And also because of an editing error, the article referred incorrectly in some editions to the decline in the non-Hispanic white population in western Kansas. It declined in all counties but one (Ellis County) — not in all counties.


text:
The Texas research community has a long, proven track record of successful collaboration with the U.S. military. Biotech and research hubs in San Antonio, El Paso, and even Dallas continue to work productively with the military to develop new treatments and technologies for soldiers that ultimately impact public health as well. Now, in a news release, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research has announced that 4 of the 42 scientists and engineers selected in this year's Young Investigator Research Program hail from Texas academic research institutions.
The Texas-based recipients and their anticipated research areas are:
- Dr. Zhiqiang Lin, University of Texas at Dallas, Towards Fundamental and Binary-Centric Techniques for Kernal Malware Defense
- Dr. Majid Minary-Jolandan, University of Texas at Dallas, Lessons from Bone to Bioinspired Tough and Self-Remodeling Aerospace Materials
- Dr. David Robertson, University of Texas at El Paso, Synthesis of 3D-printable Polymer Matrix Composites
- Dr. William Anderson, Baylor University, Turbulent Boundary Layer Flows Over Sharp Aerodynamic Drag Transitions
These four researchers find themselves in elite company: of the 234 proposals submitted to the AFOSR this year seeking a portion of the $15.5 million in research funding, only 42 scientists from 32 research institutions from around the U.S. were selected.
The YIP award is open only to scientists and engineers at U.S. research institutions who received their Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in the last five years, and who have already demonstrated exceptional ability and promise in their fields of research. The idea behind the program is to fund and support the best and brightest researchers and foster innovative science and engineering research, essentially building early, productive links between young investigators and the Air Force mission.
The 234 proposals covered a wide range of research topics related to the Air Force's needs, including Dynamical Systems and Control, Quantum and Non-Equilibrium Processes, Information, Decision and Complex Networks, Complex Materials and Devices, and Energy, Power and Propulsion. AFOSR officials select proposals based on the evaluation criteria listed in the broad agency announcement. Those selected will receive the grants over a 3 year period.


text:
Elk Hunting Gear & Tips: Preparing for the Hunt
Elk hunting can be a true challenge that tests you physically and mentally, but the reward of harvesting one of the country's most majestic game animals — along with its delicious meat — makes it all worthwhile.
The Pro Tips Deer Hunting Checklist
Make sure you're set for the season with our deer hunting checklist.
Five Rabbit Hunting Tips You Need To Know
Rabbit has a long and devoted following among hunters. Head out into the field with these rabbit hunting tips from our experts.
Learn More About Gun Safes & Cabinets
For Your Firearm: Gun Safes, Gun Storage & Much More
Find the essentials you need for gun ownership—gun safes, gun cabinets, traveling gun cases and much more.
Discover industry-leading storage with the advanced features you'll need, including heavy-duty locks, built-in organization and fire-resistant walls. Outfit your home with the superior craftsmanship of a curio gun cabinet. Store a single firearm for personal use in a compact handgun case.
If you're looking to transport your guns, explore the entire collection of quality-crafted hard gun cases, designed for safe and simple travel. Cases come in a variety of sizes and storage features.
Shop the brands gun owners trust like BLACKHAWK®, Allen®, Berretta® and Field & Stream®.
Gun safes and storage units are a necessary investment for any firearm owner. And the latest units come with a variety of innovative features to accommodate your collection. Consider purchasing a safe larger than what you currently need-many gun owners increase their collection over time.
From a large, multi-firearm case to a personalized handgun cases, security is essential. Choose a cabinet with a professional-grade locking system to keep your weapons safely stowed away. Some units are available with innovative, multi-point locking systems for peace of mind.
Many safes are constructed with firewall or drywall and other materials that make them fire-resistant. And any gun safe that you consider should have a thick metal door. Remember, without steel protection a gun safe can be compromised within minutes.
Entry convenience is also a central factor. Some cases are electronic, biometrically controlled or have breakthrough live-locking systems.
Use your gun cabinet to showcase your collection. Think quality craftsmanship, wood veneer casing, glossy finish and decorative details. These cabinets are more than safe gun storage-they're a timeless addition to your home.
Conceal your weapon in a grandfather clock or mantle click, complete with a discreet gun compartment for one or more weapons. Gun curio cabinets feature tempered glass windows to display shot guns and more. Use adjustable shelves to show off other collectibles.
Keep your guns safe on the road. Soft gun cases are versatile and can be used in a variety of environments. These cases are lightweight and easy to manage. Soft cases should always be constructed of heavy-duty canvas fabric, nylon or leather. Some come with a rubber muzzle guard or reinforced end cap for added protection.
Hard gun travel cases are ultra-durable and can withstand much abuse during travel. These are feature sturdy exteriors crafted from hard-molded plastic or aluminum and a high-quality interior lined with thick foam or form of plush liner to protect against scratches.


text:
Golden Palace Casino
Our Rating:
User Rating: N/A
- Cashout Time
- Game Choice
- Graphics
- Security
- Support
- User Rating
Quick Facts
- Accept US:
- Platform:
- Payout:
- 97 %
- Licence:
- Alderney
- Tournaments:
- Download
Golden Palace casino was formed in 1997 and is one of the first gaming sites to bring Playtech software to the masses. The site features a host of classic casino games which include blackjack, craps, slots, roulette, baccarat, sic-bo, keno and much more. The site has also been translated into several languages and is able to support players from over 50 countries.
As well as state-of-the-art games, Golden Palace always has plenty of promotions and bonuses to give away. Players new and old can regularly benefit from a range of offers, from Free Spins to trips to Las Vegas. There is also a great loyalty program in place to reward those who play regularly at the site.
The lobby at Golden Palace casino is virbrant, simple and easy to use, with full listings of all the casino games available. A good aspect of the site is the instant play option, which allows you to play your favourite games within your browser. Within one click you have access to all the online casino games on offer. There are some cool features in the site, such as multi-player options, allowing you to arrange a tournament amongst your friends.
Golden Palace places a huge emphasis on customer service, as it is available in different forms such as phone, email and live chat, 24 hours a day from their dedicated call center staff. There is also a wide range of payment options available, so you should be able to find something for you.
Licenced in Alderney, Golden Palace Casino is regulated under very strict guidelines. This ensures player safety and encourages responsible gaming.
Visit Golden Palace Casino here


text:
- Touching the Void at Duke of York's Theatre on Wednesday 15th Jan 2020
- Wednesday 15th Jan 2020
- Duke of York's Theatre (Westminster)
- Touching the Void
- Play
Following its critically acclaimed World Premiere in 2018 and a run at Bristol Old Vic in March 2019, Touching The Void transfers to the West End in 2020. Directed by the award-winning Tom Morris (War Horse) and based on Joe Simpson's best-selling memoir, turned BAFTA-winning film, this extraordinary story charts Joe Simpson's and Simon Yates' struggle for survival on the perilous Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes
Life-affirming and often darkly funny, David Greig's thrilling adaptation of Touching The Void takes the audience on an epic adventure that asks how far you'd be willing to go to survive. "
- std
- Standard Tickets Standard Tickets are provided by a primary ticket agent at face value.
- Please check artist and event details on the ticket agent purchase page before you buy.


text:
The IFS Difference
We serve organizations of all sizes and a wide range of building types. From manufacturing and industrial to traditional office and retail space, we offer a broad range of experience and expertise to serve your needs.
These are a few of the featured properties we serve:
- Intech Park – Over a million square feet of Class A office and retail space in 7 buildings
- Clay Terrace – 570,000 square foot office and retail space – Indiana's first outdoor lifestyle center
- Lafayette Pavilions – 400,000 square feet of Class A retail
- North Meridian Medical Plaza – Two buildings that each consist of 173,000 square feet of Class A medical office
- The Congressional – 180,000 square feet Class A office


text:
The following Saint John roads are closed due to flooding: • Beach Road • Ragged Point Road • Dominion Park Road • Lawrence Long Road City crews will continue to monitor conditions. Motorists are reminded to observe all road signage and barricades. In the case of an emergency or to request assistance, citizens should call 911. The City will advise of any changes to road closures or other flooding notifications.
Corporate Communications City of Saint John 11th floor, City Hall (506) 649-6008 saintjohn.ca
© 2019 City of Saint John Sitemap|Privacy|Disclaimer|Language
Stay connected with us by following the social media channel of your choice.


text:
Tue, 7 August 2012
Just three weeks until kickoff...
In this episode, we go in-depth to break down the 2012 Sun Devil offense. No show will bring you as comprehensive a look than Speak of the Devils.
We begin with a complete rundown of the major news. trends and concerns from the first week of fall camp. Who's stepping up? Who's falling behind? We have the answers.
We buy and sell some Sun Devil Stocks before we have a lengthy and detailed talk with ASU quarterback Mike Bercovici. The sophomroe signal calller gives us an inside look at everything to expect from the offense this fall.
Finally, we break down the offensive position groups, look at every player and find out who is truly "high octane".
Click Direct Download below to stream or listen via iTunes
Also, don't miss our special mini-episode featuring our interview with ASU running back D.J. Foster.
Direct download: Episode_42_-_ASU_Offensive_Season_Preview_with_Mike_Bercovici.mp3
Category:Speak of the Devils -- posted at: 11:45pm PST


text:
1 Pre reading
What do you know about Steve Jobs? What would you like to know? Discuss your ideas with a partner.
2 Reading I
Now read the interview. Did you learn anything new about Steve Jobs?
3 Reading II
Read the interview again. True or false? Steve Jobs...
1. ...was the CEO of Apple.
2. ...created Pixar Animation Studios.


text: CarsonCityJay 11 Report post Posted June 7, 2012 I think it is safe to say in any wilderness bug out situation FIRE IS CRUCIAL... But so is concealment Obviousely a small fire is best and avoiding it is probably a good option. Does anyone have any tips on concealing smoke? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


text:
08/30/2019 Move Boxes Riddim (Megamix)
Jahdan Blakkamoore ADD
Kush Arora, Deejay Theory & Jahdan Blakkamoore - Definitely EP [10/31/2015]
Click on the play button to start. Please note that after the activation data is transmitted to the respective provider.
08/12/2019 Jahdan Blakkamoore - Attitude
05/25/2018 Arkaingelle - ...And Behold (Full Album)
01/26/2018 Perfect Storm Riddim (Megamix)
01/05/2018 Von D ft. Jahdan Blakkamoore - Wicked Scam


text:
1955 Volkswagen Beetle Original Semaphore Rear Oval Window RARE Frame OFF Resto
- Condition: Used
- Make: Volkswagen
- Model: Beetle - Classic
- Type: Coupe
- Year: 1955
- Mileage: 41,030
- Color: Red
- Number of cylinders: 4
- Fuel: Gasoline
- Transmission: Unspecified
- Interior color: Tan
- Vehicle Title: Clear Want to buy? Contact seller!
1955 Volkswagen Beetle - Classic
Up for auction is a very desirable 1955 Volkswagen Beetle with the rare OVAL rear window. This beetle was recently totally restored from the belly up. It has been painted gloss black underneath and it looks great. There is no rust on top or underneath this bug. It also has the rare semaphore turn signals which are very hard to find (driver side is functional) The entire wiring has been replaced and is brand new and has been upgraded to 12V.
It has been upgraded to a 1600cc dual port engine (53 hp) with empi exhaust. It has So Cal front disc brake conversions kit and they work great. This bug runs and drives excellent and sounds great. It has brand new correct coker white wall tires.
This is an investment grade bug that would look great in a collection, dealership or in someone else's garage :)


text:
If you follow former Michigan tackle Taylor Lewan on Twitter, you've probably seen the hashtag #nobaddays. He signs almost every tweet with the phrase, whether he's getting picked by the Tennessee Titans in the NFL draft or being cut in line by an old lady at the airport.
But it does appear that Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 were bad days for Lewan.
Michigan lost a heartbreaker Nov. 30 to Ohio State 42-41 in Lewan's final home game at the Big House, dropping him to 1-3 against the rival Buckeyes. Hours later, in the early morning of Dec. 1, Lewan was involved in an incident involving an Ohio State fan. Lewan claimed he was trying to break up a fight and relayed his version of what happened to NFL teams in the predraft process. But Buckeyes fan James Hughes claimed Lewan punched him in the face, and Lewan was charged with one count of aggravated assault and two counts of assault and battery.
The Associated Press on Thursday obtained the police report from the incident, which includes statements from Lewan's ex-girlfriend, who claims Lewan assaulted Hughes.
Alexandra Dileo, whose brother was a teammate of Lewan's, said "Taylor is lying" about his actions on Dec. 1.
"He knocked the guy to the ground and he punched him," she told police in a telephone interview Jan. 29, according to the report. She recalled hearing Lewan tell his mother "I knocked a guy out" the next morning while they were having breakfast.
Alexandra Dileo is the sister of former Michigan wide receiver Drew Dileo, one of Lewan's good friends on the team.
As soon as the AP story broke Thursday, some Michigan fans questioned Alexandra Dileo's credibility, since she and Lewan had broken up and Lewan soon will become a millionaire with the Titans. Lewan's attorneys undoubtedly will make the same argument, which Dileo acknowledged in her conversation with police.
Dileo expressed concerns to police that people would feel she was lying because she and Lewan had broken up, according to the report. But she "stated she knows what happened and Taylor is lying."
What really happened Dec. 1 in Ann Arbor depends on whom you believe. At the very least, it creates an awkward situation for Lewan and Drew Dileo.
It also raises more questions about Lewan, one of the more polarizing star players in the Big Ten in recent years.
"I was actually breaking something up and some guy said that I slugged him, but that's not who I am off the field," Lewan told reporters at the NFL combine in February. "That's not the kind of person I am."
Who is Taylor Lewan? Good citizen or bully? Textbook tackle or dirty player? All of the above?
Few would deny he's an exceptional football player -- a tall, strong, athletic, smart offensive tackle who should have a long NFL career. He's a two-time All-American and three-time All-Big Ten selection who won Big Ten offensive lineman of the year honors in both 2012 and 2013. Any credible list of Michigan's top offensive linemen in the past 20 years should include Lewan's name.
But he'll also be remembered for twisting the facemask of Michigan State safety Isaiah Lewis in last year's loss to the Spartans. Lewan later apologized.
Two years earlier, he was on the receiving end of a punch from Michigan State defensive end William Gholston that resulted in a one-game suspension for Gholston. But many believe Lewan wasn't free of blame in that incident.
Lewan also had to defend himself against allegations he tried to intimidate a woman who said she had been sexually assaulted by Michigan kicker Brendan Gibbons, another of Lewan's friends.
It doesn't add up to a squeaky-clean image, which Lewan acknowledged at the combine.
"It kills me inside," Lewan said. "It probably kills my mother, too. She helped raise me. But yeah, it hurts definitely because the player I am on the field, it's probably really easy to assume all those things about me. But that's not who I am at all."
Lewan always had an edge to his game. He was a through-the-whistle lineman. Last spring, he told me: "Maybe I'm a little messed up in the head, I don't know, but I enjoy hitting my face on another man's face and trying to put him in the dirt and make him feel every single inch of it. Something about that, it puts me on cloud nine."
In the next breath, he talked about spending his final year at Michigan exploring campus life beyond Schembechler Hall, interacting with regular students and parts of the university that have nothing to do with football. Athletes often live in a bubble and Lewan wanted to venture beyond. It was an impressive and refreshing viewpoint from a guy who turned down millions because, in his mind, he hadn't become a Michigan Man.
Michigan coach Brady Hoke repeatedly defended Lewan's character this spring, noting that assumptions would be made about the Dec. 1 incident until the truth comes out. Hoke pointed out Lewan's work at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and other good things he did in the community during his time as a Wolverine.
"I believe that his character will shine through," Hoke told the NFL Network.
Time will tell if that's the case. Lewan's next court appearance is scheduled for June 16.
It could shape a Michigan legacy that, for now, must be labeled as mixed.


text:
free printable 2018 calendar with holidays january 2018 calendar with holidays monthly printable calendar in free printable 2018 monthly calendar with holidays
{Free Printable} Free Printables For Banners | Free Printable Templates | Free Printable Cards, Crafts, Cutouts and many more.
Download free printable worksheets, printable coloring pages, printable papers, printable lines, printable graphs, printable envelopes, printable labels etc for all your art projects for the special occasions. Right click your mouse – then save the image and use your printer to print it out!
free printable 2018 calendar with holidays


text:
CineMark Los Angeles
Arts and Entertainment / Movie Theaters
Call (310) 568-3394Directions
Get directions to thisWebsite
location on Google Maps.
location on Google Maps.
Open websiteShare
in new tab.
in new tab.
Share this business
on social media.
on social media.
Headquartered in Plano, TX, Cinemark Holdings, Inc. is a leader in the motion picture exhibition industry with 495 theatres and 5,676 screens in the U.S. and Latin America as of December 31, 2014.


text:
GSC Year-Round Opportunities
School Visits - Would you like to supplement your classroom instruction with a guest speaker? The Global Studies Center can work with teachers to schedule a visit from a scholar, Pitt student, or local expert to speak about a global topic relevant to your classroom instruction. For more information email Maja Konitzer, Program Manager, at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Foreign Language Teaching Internships - Would your students benefit from foreign language teaching from a Pitt student? Many Pitt students hope to make a career in education and would gain a lot of insight and experience by teaching their foreign languages to small groups of students. They would also be able to design lessons drawing on their study abroad experiences, and use this to foster excitement amongst students for learning foreign languages. If you think your school would be interested in partnering with the Global Studies Center to offer foreign language teaching internships to Pitt students, please contact Maja Konitzer, Program Manager, at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Annual Events
Cultural Communications Alliance: International Marketing Competition
Date & Time: April 30, 2019
Location: University of Pittsburgh
Contact: David E. K. Smith, Teacher Liaison firstname.lastname@example.com
The Global Studies Center and the CCA work with high school language and social sciences teachers to introduce international business concepts to students through an international marketing competition. It culminates in an interscholastic competition hosted by the Global Studies Center and the International Business Center at Pitt, where students present their marketing plans in front of fellow competitors and a panel of judges from the academic and business communities, as well as answer audience questions. The teams that win first, second and third place in the final each receive awards recognizing their hard work.
Pitt Model UN
Date & Time: November 13, 2018
This full-day simulation of the sessions of the United Nations, held on the University of Pittsburgh campus, is an opportunity for high school students to apply prior research and studies in a real-world context and practice diplomacy, negotiating, and resolution writing. Approximately 400 students participate each year. Awards are made to the most effective school teams and individual delegates.
High School Japanese Speech Contest
Date & Time: TBA
Contact: Katsuko Shelhammer at email@example.com or visit http://www.us-japan.org/jasp/jbowl.htm
Poster Contest: for students in their first year of Japanese language study, or freshmen and sophomores in Japan-related clubs.
Speech Contest: for students in their second year and above Japanese language study.
The Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania (JASP), in partnership with the Asian Studies Center the University of Pittsburgh, will be holding their annual High School Speech Contest.
Euro Challenge
Date & Time: Friday, March 22nd
Contact: Outreach Coordinator
The Euro Challenge is a national competition for 9th and 10th grade high school students to test their knowledge and understanding of the European economy and the euro, the currency shared by many of the 28 European Union member nations. Teams of up to five students take on the role of international policymakers to explore real world economic issues and possible solutions and recommendations to those issues. Students who win the regional competition at the University of Pittsburgh have the opportunity to advance to the national competition in New York City where the tops teams are awarded cash prizes.
Model African Union
Date & Time: Tuesday, April 2nd
Location: O'Hara Student Center, 4024 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
This is an annual spring event where high school students represent an African country in an African Union simulation. Students debate current issues affecting African countries with different topics every year. Students also experience an African lunch and are led in an authentic West African dance. In addition to the value of building research and debate skills critical to college success, this event is a unique experience for students to gain exposure to African cultures and broaden their international knowledge.
Moot ICC
Date & Time: (Moot ICC will be held every other year starting in 2020)
Location: University of Pittsburgh, Barco Law School
Contact: Maja Konitzer, Program Manager, at email@example.com.
The High School Moot International Criminal Court (ICC) Competition is designed to introduce high school students to the work of the ICC and how important international human rights issues are dealt with in an international criminal justice context. The Moot ICC is a simulation of a case presented to the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court. This is different than a mock trial, in which the penalty phase of a trial is simulated. For Moot ICC, participants will be focused exclusively on the legal issues raised by the case. This program is sponsored by the Global Studies Center and the Center for International Legal Education at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law (CILE). For a taster of past Moot ICC's, click here.
PA Governor's School for Global and International Studies
Date & Time: June 23 - July 19, 2019
Location: University of Pittsburgh
The PA Governor's School for Global & International Studies will help tomorrow's business, political, and intellectual leaders think critically about our world and the dynamic issues, connections, and perspectives within it. The Global Studies Center proudly brings the program's prestigious 25-year legacy to a new generation. Through problem-solving activities and discussions with experts, they will tackle overarching global themes while building intellectual confidence, cross-cultural understanding and critical language proficiency – key skills to successfully navigate college and prepare them for the broader global knowledge economy. We invite teachers to nominate talented and motivated sophomores and juniors from across Pennsylvania to spend four weeks in residence at the University of Pittsburgh this summer at no cost to students. Website and Application link here.
If you would like to be a Resident Life Counselor for the Summer 2019 PA Governor's School, please check out the information to apply.
Europe Day Contest
Date & Time: TBA
Contact: Outreach Coordinator
The European Studies Center's Europe Day Contest is a multimedia contest for students in grades K-12. Students participating in the Europe Day Contest can submit projects using different forms of media related to each year's theme as an individual participant or as a member of a group of two to four students based on the type of project. Selected student winners will be awarded prizes and the opportunity to display their work at the first annual Europe Day Festival on campus. Through participation in the Europe Day Contest, students will engage in an in-depth study of European cultures, people, history, as well as contemporary issues that are relevant to both the United States and European Union. This experience will help students develop research skills and gain expertise on a topic of their interest related to an annual theme. Any of the following submission formats are possible: paper, poster, art portfolio, documentary, podcast, or website.