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When Jack Grynberg breezes through the doors of the Grynberg Petroleum Company, attention must be paid. Wearing a dark-blue pinstripe suit, dark glasses and a well-traveled Stetson, an unlit cigar scissored between the fingers of one hand, he seems like a shorter, Greenwood Village-CEO version of the Lone Ranger, come to set things right.
The receptionist hands him a stack of phone messages. There are reports to be reviewed, correspondence needing his signature. Grynberg waves it all aside. A pupil awaits, and there's nothing the 74-year-old wildcatter likes better than giving lessons in how the oil and gas industry really operates.
Grynberg leads the way down a corridor cluttered with boxes of legal files, past his paper-strewn corner office and shelves crammed with maps and production reports from gas fields around the world, to a conference room bedecked with seismic readouts and more maps. He dims the lights, takes off his hat, leaves the shades and the stogie in place. Then he fires up a PowerPoint presentation dealing with one of his industry's most closely guarded secrets: not how to find natural gas -- that's the easy part -- but how to steal it.
"In the summer of 1994, I went out to a field where I had 22 gas wells in northwestern Colorado," he begins. "This is the Blue Gravel Field, just eighteen miles north of Craig. I'd been getting monthly reports from the pipeline company on the amount of gas production and the heating-content analysis. To get the heating content, you have to have a temperature probe."
He pauses. On the screen, a diagram of a gas pipeline flashes, showing the gas going through a separator and a dehydrator before reaching a meter and a probe.
"I went out there," he continues, "and I couldn't find a single probe. Not for 22 wells."
For the next hour or so, Grynberg holds forth on the dozens of ways that pipeline companies and other entities can chisel gas producers out of their due. The alleged techniques involve mis-measuring gas volume and heat content (BTUs) or not measuring at all; tampering with meters or bypassing them; funny math, bad chemistry and substandard equipment. It's an astonishing lecture, backed up by court exhibits that Grynberg has used in his prodigious litigation against some of the largest gas companies in the country. He speaks quietly, but with a tone of unmistakable outrage:
"There are eleven ways to steal using analog meters. I went to a place where they make the meters in Littleton, and they showed me six ways you could tamper with the spring.... Then I discovered that on nine of my wells, they had the audacity to be super-crooks, to have a line going around the meter.... Here's a picture of the orifice plate. If it's larger than reported or it's chipped, the computations can be off to the fourth power."
It would be easy to dismiss another man ranting about a far-flung conspiracy to cheat him as slightly paranoid -- but not Grynberg. After more than forty years in the business, his family-owned companies have interests in hundreds of wells, most of them overseas, with a success rate that would put most independents to shame. And over the past two decades, he's fared almost as well in the courtroom as he has drilling for gas. Although many of the settlements are confidential, Grynberg says he's collected more than $60 million from his lawsuits against the energy giants, including whopping checks from Kinder Morgan, Questar and even Enron, years before its notorious collapse.
Among his foes, Grynberg is regarded as intensely litigious, "a professional plaintiff," a nuisance, a pariah and worse. He hasn't always prevailed in his lawsuits; even the savviest oilman hits a few dry holes. But his accusations of widespread fraud in the oil and gas industry have implications well beyond his own pocketbook. They've attracted the attention of Congress, government investigators and watchdog groups looking into how energy companies have shortchanged taxpayers and Indian tribes on billions of dollars of royalties owed for production on reservations, public lands and offshore leases.
Much of the heat has fallen on the Minerals Management Service, an obscure branch of the Department of the Interior responsible for collecting federal royalties on oil, gas and mineral leases. Energy production on federal lands has soared in recent years, spurred on by higher prices. But under the Bush administration, the MMS has cut back sharply on the number of audits it conducts of energy companies, despite alarming reports of bungled leases and dubious accounting ("Duke of Oil," September 8, 2005). That's prompted several MMS auditors, frustrated by their bosses' refusal to pursue cases of possible fraud, to file their own claims against the companies under the False Claims Act, a federal law that allows whistleblowers to sue on behalf of the government and collect a portion of any proceeds for themselves.
The Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based nonprofit, has identified more than $11 billion in lawsuit settlements owed by oil and gas companies to states, tribes, the feds and private parties as a result of royalty underpayments from 1990 to 2001. But that may be just the beginning. "There's no doubt that there's an enormous amount of fraud," says Beth Daley, POGO's director of investigations. "They've been caught with their hands in the taxpayers' pockets over and over again."
Grynberg contends that the fraud is far greater than most people realize. And in addition to his private legal battles, he's pursued the mother of all False Claims Act cases, accusing the industry of cheating on royalties on public and tribal lands in several states, using many of the techniques for undervaluing production that he discovered at his own wells. Originally filed in 1995, the complaint has expanded over the years to encompass 73 cases and more than 300 defendants -- a virtual who's who of the oil and gas industry. Grynberg says he's spent more than $20 million out of his own pocket on the case, but the potential payoff is huge. He calculates the amount of underpayments at $35 billion. With triple damages, and the possibility of collecting up to 30 percent of any settlement, a victory could make him one of the wealthiest men in the world.
The federal government can intervene in a False Claims Act case it deems sufficiently promising, but it has not done so in Grynberg's action. Last month, a federal judge in Wyoming overrode the recommendations of his own special master and dismissed most of the 73 cases, ruling that Grynberg's claims don't meet the exacting specifications of the False Claims Act. Grynberg, who's had a fair record of getting unfavorable lower-court decisions reversed by higher-ups, has vowed to appeal.
The ruling is just one more bump in a long road that has tested his tenacity and shaped his combative nature, going back to his childhood in eastern Europe during the Holocaust and an adolescence spent partly as a soldier in Israel. His high-stakes battle with his own industry is far from over.
"Grynberg is a David taking on a whole host of Goliaths," says Jim Moorman, president of the False Claims Act Legal Center. "The oil and gas industry is very good about procedural confusion, but the court should be looking at whether he's right or wrong on the facts."
Several industry sources declined to comment on the record about Grynberg, citing his litigiousness. But in private, they dispute his motives and his conclusions, suggesting that he's exaggerating problems stemming from outmoded "legacy equipment" and other issues in pursuit of his own gain. "I don't think anyone is opposed to accurate measurement," says one industry observer. "We get paid on that."
Yet his long-running lawsuit is only one prong of Grynberg's current attack. He's assisted state and local officials mounting their own legal battles against energy companies, from Alabama to Aspen, and all without pay. He's pushed for changes in federal law to correct what he sees as inequities in the False Claims Act. He's met with lawmakers seeking to change the way business is done at MMS. And he's been a major force behind a proposed bill that could have a profound impact on standard practices in the American gas industry.
"I'm optimistic," he says cautiously, "that a number of things can be set straight."
W ildcatters rise or fall depending on their ability to stick to a few simple principles. Luck has something to do with it, to be sure, but probably not as much as gut feelings and a solid grasp of geology. In the case of Jack Grynberg, a keen instinct for survival and a fascination with science have served him well.
Grynberg was born in Brest, Poland, in 1932. He was in his second year of grade school when the Nazi invasion ended his education. Grynberg's mother served as a doctor in the partisans; by age twelve, young Jack was toting a rifle and guarding German prisoners in the woods of Belarus. After the war, he and his parents attempted to flee the new Communist regime, only to be caught by Czech state police and sent back. They spent two weeks in prison, were released and fled again.
After a year of high school in Scotland, Grynberg went to Palestine in 1947 and joined the Irgun, an irregular militia outlawed by the British. "I was a terrorist," he says with a slight smile. "A blond, blue-eyed kid who spoke with a Scottish accent." He was there for twenty months during Israel's war of independence, when the Irgun was folded into the regular Israeli army.
A scholarship from the Colorado School of Mines brought him to the United States at the age of seventeen. He completed a chemical engineering degree in two and a half years, worked briefly in research and development at Conoco, then launched his own consulting business. His knowledge of Russian led to a stint in the U.S. Army's radioactive-warfare section in Maryland in the mid-1950s ("worked as a scientific spy," his resumé explains). While stationed there he met a college senior, Celeste Bachove, and soon married her. The couple has three grown children.
Grynberg returned to Colorado and began prospecting as an independent oil and gas man in the early 1960s. He reworked a Wyoming gas field that had been written off by a previous operator and soon struck it rich. His company, Oceanic Exploration, went public and began exploration on an international scale. In the 1970s, a court battle broke out between Grynberg, the company's largest stockholder, and company management; in 1981, Grynberg took over Oceanic's offices in downtown Denver and locked out its corporate executives. He sold his interest in the company a few months later.
By that point, he'd dabbled in uranium mining, drilling contracting and a host of other projects. In more recent years, he's focused on oil, gas and gold ventures in the former Soviet Union, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. On any given day in his Denver Tech Center offices, it isn't unusual to hear talk of the prospects of generating electrical power from sugarcane in the Caribbean, good news from a well in New Mexico and an update on Grynberg's interests in the gas fields of Kazakhstan.
It's also not unusual to hear discussion about Grynberg's other long-range, high-risk enterprise: battling energy companies in court. His disputes with pipeline companies date back to the late 1980s and early 1990s, when he became embroiled in a series of lawsuits with Enron, Questar and KN Energy (now Kinder Morgan) over the value of his gas. The companies claimed they were following standard practices of a highly regulated industry, but the closer Grynberg looked, the more suspect the "standard practices" appeared.
Grynberg had seen digital meters on state-of-the-art pipelines in Europe and Canada. Many older American pipelines used less accurate analog meters, and the errors he found tended to favor the pipeline companies. In other countries, the temperature probe measuring heat content is located upstream of the meter. The probes on Grynberg's gas were placed downstream of the meter, farther away from the wellhead and in the wake of a cooling process, known as the Joule-Thomson effect, that occurs as a result of the gas compressing as it passes through the meter and then expanding again. The result is a lower BTU measure, and a lower price to the seller.
It would be one thing if these practices were consistent throughout the American gas industry, but Grynberg insists they aren't.
"You tell me the answer," Grynberg says. "When Questar buys gas from me, they put a probe downstream of the meter. When the gas reaches Salt Lake City and it's sold to a Questar affiliate, the probe is upstream of the meter. They make my case."
As Grynberg dug deeper, he found a pattern of what he considered deliberate cheating. The pipes carrying his gas led to a master meter miles away. Because of the inevitable leaks and shrinkages involved in transporting gas over long distances, you would expect the figures on the master meter to show at least a slight decline in the volume of gas compared to the measurements of the same gas at the wells. But the master meter figures for one of the pipeline companies showed a significant increase over what the company was reporting to him. "They were stealing as much as 12 percent a month," he claims.
There was more. Lines supposedly used for maintenance that bypassed the meters entirely. Ways of skimming condensate or creating turbulence in the line to temporarily lower BTU figures. Using the wrong filters or outmoded equipment to undervalue the gas. Some of the techniques reduced the payments the pipelines made to him by only a percentage point or two; if employed collectively, though, they amounted to as much as a third of the total value of the gas.
Grynberg intently studied the paperwork the companies had to submit to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, hunting for discrepancies between what they reported to him and what they reported to the government. He even devised a formula expressing the relationship between the specific gravity of natural gas and its heating content so that he could chart the undervaluations. When he found numbers that simply wouldn't add up on a form submitted by an Enron subsidiary, he brought it to the attention of the regulators -- and soon became convinced that the government was, to some extent, complicit in the scam.
"I write to FERC," he recalls. "I say, 'Hey, look at these forms. They're stealing.' I call them up, they say, 'We're studying it.' I call them up again. 'We're still studying it.' Finally, I call them up, and they say, 'Don't call us. We'll call you.' Three months later, they discontinued the forms. The lobbyists earned their money on that one."
In a contractual dispute over gas prices with Enron, Grynberg brought in Lawrence Klein, the Nobel-winning pioneer of econometrics, to testify as an expert witness. On the fourth day of trial, the smart lads at Enron handed Grynberg a check for $8.5 million to settle the matter. Grynberg's lawsuit against Questar also went to trial. Although his stolen-gas claims were dismissed, the jury returned a seven-figure verdict in his favor on pricing issues. The judge reduced the amount to a mere $250,000; an appeals court reopened the matter, eventually leading to a settlement more in line with the original award.
Not all of Grynberg's suits were successful. Some got thrown out. Others became knock-down, cash-draining battles stretching over a decade or more. The litigation with KN Energy's Rocky Mountain Natural Gas Company began before his trip to the Blue Gravel Field in 1994 and chugged on for years, bouncing from one courtroom to another. At one point Grynberg produced an affidavit from a former company accountant stating that he'd been ordered to pay Grynberg on a different basis than his contract called for, shortchanging him by at least 15 percent, and that gas produced by wells owned by the company was valued at double the rate Grynberg was paid for gas of comparable quality. According to court and SEC records, the complex dispute was finally settled in 2002, with Kinder Morgan making payments to Grynberg totaling more than $32 million, while making no admissions of wrongdoing.
Yet there are other costs to taking on the powers-that-be in the energy business. Grynberg says some independents are reluctant to complain out of fear of retaliation: "They're definitely afraid. They do other business with these companies, or they're partners with them, in some cases. I have been victimized. I'm persona non grata at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers -- they won't do any corporate finance business with me.
"Goldman Sachs fired me after fourteen years of doing business because I've sued some of their best clients," he claims.
But that hasn't altered Grynberg's ways. Last year he even sued Israel for refusing to allow him to drill offshore for natural gas. He worked behind the scenes pro bono, advising the state of Alabama in a lawsuit over gas royalties that led to a record $11.9 billion verdict against Exxon Mobil in 2003; reduced to $3.6 billion by the trial judge, the judgment is currently on appeal. And he persuaded the city fathers in Aspen, where he's a part-time resident, to file suit against Kinder Morgan, claiming that the company was overcharging residents for natural gas because it calculated BTUs at sea-level heat content rather than the reduced heat value when the gas reached an elevation of 8,200 feet. A district judge ruled that the dispute should go to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, not the courts; that decision was upheld on appeal earlier this year.
Aspen city attorney John Worcester says officials there haven't decided yet whether to file a protest with the PUC, but he believes that Grynberg's argument has merit. "It's like saying you're going to sell potato chips, and there are fewer chips in each bag, depending on where they're sold -- but the bag costs the same," he notes. "There are other utilities in the state that don't charge by volume; they charge by BTU content. You'd think the PUC would have the same methodology for everybody."
Yet all of Grynberg's other cases pale compared to his False Claims Act lawsuits. Taking penalties, triple damages and other multipliers into account, Grynberg estimates the total amount owed to the public and the Indian tribes in the cases he's developed at around $400 billion. His own private duels with the energy companies have shown him how you can shave a percentage point here, another there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.
"I said to myself, 'If they do things like this, how else do they cheat?'"
T hese are not the best of times for the Minerals Management Service and its parent, the Department of the Interior. Scathing reports in the New York Times have detailed how MMS signed off on sweetheart offshore drilling contracts that could cost the government $10 billion in lost royalties. Congressional hearings last summer exposed what Interior's inspector general described as "ethics failures" at the highest levels of the department. A Government Accountability Office probe of how the MMS handles its royalty collections is looming.
And the agency's own auditors are going to court, claiming that they've been thwarted in their efforts to catch fraud committed by the companies producing oil and gas on federal lands.
Some of the problems at MMS, including the botched offshore leases, date back to the 1990s. But the agency's critics say the situation has deteriorated under the Bush administration, which has cut back on auditors and placed former energy-industry lobbyists in key positions at Interior ("Grazin' Hell," April 7, 2005). "This looks like an agency that has been captured by the industry it is supposed to oversee," commented Representative Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat (and soon-to-be chairman) of the House's Committee on Government Reform, during last summer's hearings.
Nearly a third of domestic oil production and a fourth of domestic gas comes from leases administered by MMS. Yet with oil and gas prices and production soaring in recent years, the amount the agency collects from its audit activities has sharply declined -- from an average of $176 million annually in the 1990s to $46 million in the years 2002 through 2005.
MMS officials say that's because they've handed over more auditing responsibilities to Indian tribes and state agencies and are collecting more royalty payments in the form of crude oil or gas rather than cash, a system known as "royalty-in-kind." In addition, they're conducting more "compliance reviews" rather than full-fledged audits in the name of efficiency.
But tribal leaders and watchdog groups have questioned the compliance-review procedure, since it depends on self-reporting by the energy companies. "It's not a real audit," says POGO's Beth Daley. "It's basically a pass for the company. If nobody double-checks, they can report whatever they want, and taxpayers are at risk. The oil and gas industry has figured out ways to game the system."
Or as former MMS auditor Bobby Maxwell told Westword last year: "Government is doing less, so the companies can do more -- more cooking of the books."
Maxwell worked for MMS for more than two decades and was regarded as one of the agency's top performers. Four years ago he was told by his superiors not to pursue an inquiry into oil royalty payments by Kerr-McGee, which Maxwell believed to be $12 million short. While working as a program manager in the MMS Lakewood office, Maxwell decided to file a False Claims Act lawsuit against Kerr-McGee on his own. Shortly after Kerr-McGee attorneys received a copy of his complaint, Maxwell was told that his position was being eliminated. He later received a substantial settlement from the government over his termination and is now preparing to go to trial against Kerr-McGee.
It's highly unusual for a government employee to file a false-claims action alleging fraud against his own agency. But since Maxwell made headlines last year, four other MMS auditors have filed similar actions in Oklahoma; two claim they were instructed not to pursue a fraud case against Shell Oil. The Department of Justice intervenes in only about a quarter of whistleblower-initiated false-claim cases, known as qui tam lawsuits. The DOJ hasn't intervened in any of the rogue auditors' cases, but it hasn't moved to dismiss them, either -- despite the obvious displeasure at Interior over the employees' rebellion.
"That's a very significant signal I don't think anyone has picked up on," says Moorman of the False Claims Act Legal Center. "Sometimes Justice doesn't intervene because it doesn't look like fraud to the government, but in some cases it's because they can't get the cooperation of the agency that's been defrauded."
Close to 80 percent of qui tam cases filed over the past twenty years have involved health-care issues, such as Medicaid fraud, or defense-contractor frauds. But the number of actions involving royalty underpayments by energy companies is growing, and so are the stakes. One case in the late 1990s involving twelve major oil companies eventually led to a $400 million settlement.
Regulators have long recognized that the potential for fraud in the natural-gas industry is even greater than it is in the oil business. A Senate investigation into royalty shortfalls on tribal lands in the 1980s reported that the MMS "failed to safeguard Indian oil and gas properties against wholesale theft and gross under-reporting of production volume by industry." The same probe found "a vast opportunity...for theft and mismeasurement in the natural gas area."
Now in its eleventh year of wandering the wasteland of the courts, Grynberg's False Claims Act litigation is fundamentally different from the auditors' lawsuits and most qui tam claims. He's attempting to demonstrate "wholesale theft" through mismeasurement at the wellhead, rather than just in the creative accounting that follows. It's a daring argument, but whether he can persuade a federal appeals court that it deserves a fair hearing is another matter.
"Jack has been refining his methodology for detecting royalty underpayments over many years," notes Daley. "There seems to be something there. He certainly has shed light on many points of interest where fraud could be taking place."
But not all of Grynberg's pupils have taken his lessons to heart. Ten years ago, he says, he gave a lecture in Cheyenne on the primary ways pipeline companies can cheat their suppliers. Among those in attendance was Johnnie Burton, then the director of Wyoming's Department of Revenue -- and now on the hot seat as the director of the Minerals Management Service.
"At the end," Grynberg recalls, "I turned to her, just making conversation, and asked, 'Did you understand what I described?' She said, 'Not a word.'"
I n 1996, when Grynberg's False Claims Act case was still in its infancy, the Colorado State Land Board solicited expert opinion on whether it should mount a similar lawsuit. The land board was interested because it relies on oil and gas royalties to help fund schools and other projects. In response to the inquiry, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission consulted its staff of professional engineers, many of whom had worked in the industry, and recommended steering clear of Grynberg's crusade.
"We find the referenced lawsuit to be baseless and without merit," a COGCC memo stated. "It misrepresents the processes of measuring, buying and selling natural gas under field conditions in the real world. Colorado should distance itself as far as possible from this lawsuit."
Several of the items Grynberg was complaining about, such as downstream probes, bypass lines and analog meters, are widely used in the pipeline industry; some are even specified in the contracts. While the industry's long-accepted standards for measuring gas "may not be perfect," the memo argued, a better solution would be to push for more modern methods in new contracts rather than litigating them. Proving in court that the standards were rigged would be no easy task.
A decade later, Grynberg still hasn't had the opportunity to prove his case in court. The litigation has been mired in procedural problems from the start. He originally filed his complaint as a single lawsuit against a small host of defendants in Washington, D.C. In 1997 U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan dismissed it, saying Grynberg had taken a "shotgun approach" and not made his allegations specific enough.
Grynberg then filed dozens of separate qui tam lawsuits in federal courts in eight states, including Colorado. Most of the cases ended up being consolidated under the jurisdiction of Judge William Downes in Wyoming. Denver attorney and former magistrate judge Bruce Pringle, appointed as a special master in the case, waded through thousands of pages of defense motions and briefs, many of them arguing that Grynberg didn't have standing to sue the companies under the False Claims Act.
A basic obstacle for any whistleblower plaintiff is what's known as the "original source" problem. In order to keep opportunists from simply lifting allegations of fraud from a government report or newspaper article and filing "parasitic" false-claims actions, the law requires that the plaintiff have firsthand information about the alleged fraud that hasn't already been publicly disclosed. In practice, meeting those qualifications can be difficult; the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to tackle the issue next month in the case of former Rocky Flats employee Jim Stone, who's been trying to collect on a whistleblower case against Rockwell International since 1989.
Pringle found that 35 of Grynberg's 73 cases met the requirements.
Judge Downes disagreed. In his ruling last month dismissing many of Grynberg's claims, he wrote that various public disclosures, including Grynberg's own earlier lawsuit that was dismissed by Judge Hogan, had already put the government on notice of the gas industry's dubious measurement practices. Grynberg, in his view, is "an 'opportunistic plaintiff' who has little or no significant information to contribute of his own."
The case is a classic example of overreaching, Downes decided: "Grynberg deliberately chose to make sweeping allegations of fraud against nearly the entire industry, based in large part on rank speculation. By employing such odious tactics he now becomes the instrument of his own undoing."
Grynberg seems baffled by the rebuke. "I filed 73 cases," he says. "I've spent over twenty million dollars of my own money. I've only collected on one of the cases, about a million and a half. You tell me: Am I opportunistic?"
He says a federal prosecutor told him that he had to file against every energy company for which he had evidence of fraud. "He said, 'If you just pick some of the big ones, I'll recommend that it be dismissed,'" he remembers. "I was forced to file on everybody."
There could be some consolation, perhaps, in the judge's reasoning that allegations of fraud in the oil and gas industry are now so commonplace that Grynberg shouldn't be considered an original source. But Grynberg claims he's the one who figured out where and how the alleged thievery is taking place, that he did extensive firsthand research -- traveling to producing properties, interviewing witnesses, studying the layout -- to build his case.
"From what I know, he's clearly the original source of his case," says Moorman of the False Claims Legal Center. "He hasn't taken someone else's work. His case should be allowed to go forward."
Grynberg has prepared a weighty document proposing revisions to the False Claims Act. The notion that his own prior complaint qualifies as a "public disclosure" that bars his current lawsuits against the same companies strikes him as highly ironic; such an interpretation, he writes, "rewards a notorious defrauder by providing it with partial immunity for later and distinct claims of fraud."
A hearing and formal order by Judge Downes on Grynberg's case is scheduled for November 17. Regardless of the outcome, Grynberg wants to see the False Claims Act amended to make it easier for whistleblowers to get to court. He's also keen on shaking up the standard practices of the gas industry. A bill soon to be introduced by Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York calls for the National Academy of Engineering to study methods that could improve the collection of federal oil and gas royalties. Many of the suggested changes -- requiring digital meters, fixing chipped orifice plates, temperature probes upstream of the meter, and so on -- are issues Grynberg has been harping about for years.
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A lifelong Republican, these days Grynberg finds himself spending more time talking to Democrats about what's wrong in his industry. "I'm hopeful that with a new governor and a new Congress, we'll see some changes," he says.
But not all of the news now coming out of the courtroom is bad, as far as Grynberg is concerned. The Justice Department did intervene in one of his false-claims cases, one involving carbon dioxide gas wells on federal lands in southwestern Colorado. Grynberg alleged that the exploration company was valuing the gas at seventeen cents per thousand cubic feet for royalty purposes but selling it at a rate of $2.87 per thousand cubic feet. The Justice Department settled the case for around $6 million; Grynberg received a quarter of the settlement.
Just a few weeks ago, Grynberg settled several other cases involving carbon dioxide production in the Cortez area against Shell, Kinder Morgan, Exxon Mobil and related companies. He can't talk about the settlement, he says, but he acknowledges that it was a "respectable" result, even by his demanding standards.
Of all the dark secrets of the oil and gas business, that seems to be the one topic Jack Grynberg won't talk about: how much it takes to make him go away.


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A ruling to make Connecticut proud
The Supreme Court on Wednesday showed that the rest of America is starting to catch up to Connecticut.
For all the issue's volatility nationwide, it remains notable how uncontroversial same-sex marriage is in this state. There has been some opposition, though far less now than when it was approved five years ago, but state residents have, in general, shrugged off this debate.
Connecticut was a pioneer. Back in 2005, it became just the second state to allow civil unions for same-sex couples, which were sold as providing all the rights of marriage. Three years later, though, the state Supreme Court invalidated the civil unions law, saying it fell short of offering same-sex couples the full rights of married couples, and ordered same-sex marriage legalized. In response, the Legislature passed a bill updating marriage statutes and Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed the law.
But even then, the rights and responsibilities of same-sex couples fell short. Thanks to the federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 (defense against whom was never specified), passed by bipartisan majorities and signed by President Bill Clinton, same-sex couples were denied standing under federal law. This meant, in addition to basic inequality, many couples legally married in the state of Connecticut had different tax status, different rights to federal benefits, and dozens of other differences large and small that had the effect of declaring their marriages to be second class.
This was what the U.S. Supreme Court ruled invalid on Wednesday. There will be no more second-class marriages after a majority on the court declared that the 1996 law served no purpose other than to discriminate.
It is a landmark in the fight for equality.
And it is one Connecticut should take special pride in celebrating. This is a state that helped show the rest of the country what marriage can mean. This state showed that expanding marriage rights to same-sex couples can benefit everyone and while harming no one.
The joy of Wednesday's ruling, however, only partly overshadowed the damage done the day before, when a majority on the same Supreme Court eviscerated the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.
No matter how times have changed in recent decades, the right to vote remains under attack in much of the country. The never-ending drive for unnecessary voter ID laws, which do nothing to combat fraud but only serve to discourage legitimate voters, is proof enough of that. Yet the court took the view, unsupported by the facts, that the country no longer needs to vigorously protect every citizen's right to the franchise. It was as demoralizing a defeat as Wednesday's victory was exhilarating.
Taken together, they combine to show how far our country has come, and how far we have to go.

subset: commoncrawl


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Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Wordless Wednesday
Posted by sprinkles at 10:05 AM
11 showed me some love:
- Sugar the Golden Retriever said...
Woof! Woof! Happy WW! Lots of Golden Woofs, Sugar
- March 30, 2011 at 10:27 AM
Great pictures! I like the one where it looks like he's being kicked. :P
- March 30, 2011 at 10:47 AM
- Sam and Pippen said...
Great pics! We love the crazy kitteh!
Sam and Pippen
- March 30, 2011 at 12:17 PM
- ♥♥♥ The OP Pack ♥♥♥ said...
Ha Ha - those are great - you made us all chuckle.
Woos ~ Phantom, Thunder, and Ciara
- March 30, 2011 at 12:48 PM
- Mr. Pip said...
These are all great! Thanks for the smiles.
Your pal, Pip
- March 30, 2011 at 6:40 PM
- the booker man said...
happy WW, miss sprinkles!!
pics #2 and #3 are really crackin' me up. :D
the booker man
- March 30, 2011 at 8:06 PM
- Lorenza said...
Good ones!
Happy Wednesday!
Kisses and hugs
- March 30, 2011 at 8:21 PM
- Zuzana said...
Ah, these were great! I truly enjoyed these images, what an illusion can do.;) I love the first one particulary.;)
Happy Thursday dear sprinkles.;)
- March 31, 2011 at 12:39 AM
- Sarge said...
Hey Wylde One!
Wow, you have the most pawesome pix. I got a big chuckle from these. Boy, I'd like someone to pull that wagon full o' sun over here to my house!
Grr and a Giggling Woof,
Sarge, COP
- March 31, 2011 at 4:59 PM
- Velvet Over Steel said...
OMGoosh, my son wants that Dog head mask!! Too funny!!
Hope your Spring Break is going Great!! XOXO
- April 1, 2011 at 7:17 AM
- Velvet Over Steel said...
Haha.. I need to put my contacts in for sure! I looked that the picture Again and Really see it this time! lol
I am such a dork!! Hope I made you laugh, Sprinkles!! HUGS!
- April 1, 2011 at 7:20 AM


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The Toll: 1995-2004Each year in January, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) publishes a list of journalists killed in the line of duty around the world. This list has become the most widely cited press freedom statistic and is often seen as a barometer of the state of global press freedom.
While the correlation between the number of journalists killed and the state of press freedom in a particular country is far from exact--no journalists have been killed in Cuba, for example, and only one has been killed in China during the last decade--the annual list does give some sense of the range of risks that journalists face in reporting the news. To provide a more complete statistical picture, CPJ releases a list of journalists killed during the last decade. The list has been broken down by year, country, and a variety of other categories.
As with all of its casework, CPJ applies strict journalistic standards when investigating a journalist's murder. We consider a case "confirmed" only if our research confirms or strongly suggests that a journalist was likely killed in direct reprisal for his or her work or in cross fire while carrying out a dangerous assignment. We do not include journalists who are killed in accidents--such as car or plane crashes--unless the crash was caused by hostile action (for example, if a plane were shot down or a car crashed trying to avoid gunfire).
If the motives are unclear, but it is possible that a journalist was killed because of his or her work, CPJ classifies the case as "unconfirmed" and continues to investigate to determine the motive for the murder. For this 10-year statistical analysis, we used only confirmed cases.
While we believe that this list is both comprehensive and accurate, we generally have more detailed information about more recent cases. Our staff has grown over the years, and new technology such as the Internet and e-mail have made it much easier to report on the killing of journalists, even in remote places.
Murdered with impunity
During the last decade, 341 journalists have been killed while carrying out their work. While conflict and war provide the backdrop to much of the violence against the press, CPJ research demonstrates that the vast majority of journalists killed since 1995 did not die in cross fire. Instead, they were hunted down and murdered, often in direct reprisal for their reporting. In fact, according to CPJ statistics, only 68 journalists (20 percent) died in cross fire, while 247 (72 percent) were murdered often in reprisal for their reporting. The remaining journalists were killed in conflict situations that cannot be described as combat--while covering violent street demonstrations, for example.
Since 1995, CPJ has recorded only 35 cases in which the person or persons who ordered a journalist's murder have been arrested and prosecuted. That means that in more than 85 percent of the cases, those who murder journalists do so with impunity. In many cases, journalists are murdered either to prevent them from reporting on corruption or human rights abuses, or to punish them after they have done so. The brazenness of the killers is suggested by the fact that 60 of the 246 journalists who were murdered during the last decade were threatened before they were killed.
In 23 cases since 1995, journalists were kidnapped--taken alive by militants, criminals, guerrillas, or government forces--and subsequently killed. The kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journalreporter Daniel Pearl in early 2002 highlighted this terrible phenomenon. In several cases, notably in Algeria and Turkey, journalists have simply "disappeared" after being taken into government custody.
Who are they?
Photographing and recording combat are among the most dangerous assignments in journalism, and during the last decade 62 cameramen, photographers and soundmen have been killed. The majority of them died in cross fire in places such as Sierra Leone, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Russia. But others were deliberately murdered because of images they had captured. In January 1997, the charred and handcuffed body of Argentine photographer José Luis Cabezas was found in a rental car in a resort city near Buenos Aires. He had been killed because he had managed to photograph a reclusive business tycoon reputed to be the head of the Argentine mafia.
Sixty-one radio reporters were also killed during the last decade. The surprisingly high number highlights the importance of radio worldwide, particularly in isolated regions. Local radio reporters are exposed to heightened risk precisely because they are largely invisible to the outside world while being extremely visible in the communities where they report. Six of the eight journalists killed in the Philippines in 2004 were provincial radio journalists known for aggressive local political reporting.
At the other end of the spectrum are American journalists, either in the United States or overseas. U.S. reporters working abroad tend to be extremely visible, to be employed by powerful news outlets, and to work in danger zones for relatively short periods of times. While killings of U.S. journalists understandably generate intensive media coverage in the United States, they are relatively rare. In fact, only nine of the 340 journalists killed during the last decade were American.
Most dangerous years / most dangerous countries
The deadliest year in the last decade was 2004, when 57 journalists were killed. That was followed by 1995, when 51 were killed; and 2003, when 40 journalists were killed.
The deadliest country for journalists in the last decade is Iraq, where 38 journalists have been killed from the beginning of hostilities through 2004. Another 18 media support workers were killed in Iraq during that time.
Iraq replaced Algeria as the deadliest country over the decade. A total of 33 journalists were killed in Algeria since 1995, making it the second deadliest country during that time. It's worth noting that the decade-long snapshot encompasses only the tail end of 1993-96 civil conflict in Algeria that claimed the lives of 58 journalists. The Algerian conflict began after the government canceled elections in 1992 to prevent the Islamic Salvation Front from winning power.
In Russia, 29 journalists have been killed during the last decade. Many were killed covering the conflict in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, but at least 11 have been murdered in contract-style killings in the four years after President Vladimir Putin came to power. Among them was Paul Klebnikov, the American-born editor of Forbes Russia who was gunned down outside his office in Moscow in July 2004.
Lawlessness and war are also major threats to press freedom in Colombia, where 30 journalists have been killed since 1995. No journalists were killed there in reprisal for their work during 2004, but Colombian journalists say this is because provincial reporters are simply too afraid to cover the ongoing civil conflict.
A rash of journalist murders in the Philippines during 2004 brought the 10-year total there to 22. At least 48 Philippine journalists have been killed with impunity since democracy was restored in 1986.
Sixteen journalists have been killed in India since 1995, many victims in the dispute over Kashmir.
What does it mean?
The war in Iraq has highlighted the risk that journalists confront in covering conflict. Yet despite the death toll there, the 10-year statistics make clear that local journalists covering crime, corruption, and human rights violations continue to face the greatest risk. Even in Iraq, most of those killed have been local journalists. Covering combat is risky, but a much greater threat than a stray bullet are the murderers who kill journalists deliberately, using the generalized violence associated with war to cover their tracks.
Increasing safety for local journalists working in dangerous places means giving them greater visibility, and that means publicizing attacks against them. Doing so is one way to fight impunity for those who murder journalists, which is the single greatest threat to the physical survival of the press around the world.
|Ilustration: Béatrice Coron


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Joe Ellenberger
TRAINING: I like to do two workouts a day. One lighter, moderately paced, technical session. Those vary between boxing, wrestling, BJJ, and kickboxing. The other I like to do at a high intensity and it's a harder, very taxing workout. Those will also vary between MMA sparring, boxing sparring, kickboxing sparring, live wrestling, strength and conditioning, etc.
When and why did you start training for fighting? My brother signed me up on one night that he had also signed up for, thinking my wrestling would carry me through the fight. I ended up with a KO victory, and have been hooked ever since.
What ranks and titles have you held? Victory Fighting Championship 155lb Title, 2x NCAA All-American (Wrestling), NAGA Champion.
Do you have any heroes? My brothers.
What does it mean for you to fight in the UFC? It means I am fortunate enough to be able to do what many people dream of doing their entire lives. It also allows me to show the world how to overcome adversity as long as you light a fire in your heart, put your faith in God, and never, ever give up.
Did you go to college and if so what degree did you earn? I have my Bachelor's in Industrial Distribution and my Master's in Sports Administration, both from the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
What was your job before you started fighting? I was an Graduate Assistant wrestling coach at UNK and now I am the High Performance Solutions Manager and Home Energy Rater (HERS certified rater per RESNET standards, and BPI, inc Building Analyst) for American Energy Advisors, in Omaha, NE.
Ranks in any martial arts styles: Blue belt in BJJ under Scott Morton and Rodrigo Vaghi.
Favorite grappling technique: Chokes
Favorite striking technique: All of them that land
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Good Stuff Thursday July 28th, 2011 with Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines
28 July 2011
Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines on "Good Stuff"
In addition to winning several local music awards in San Antonio and Austin (including "Best Singer-Songwriter," "Best Folk Act" and "Best New Band"), Hendrix co-wrote a Grammy-winning instrumental ("Lil' Jack Slade") on the Dixie Chicks' multi-platinum "Home" album. But the biggest professional and personal honors of her career have all come about in the last year.
In 2010, she was inducted into the South Texas Music Walk of Fame in Corpus Christi, joining such Lone Star luminaries as Guy Clark, Kris Kristofferson and Doug Sahm. She also received the Art of Peace Award from St. Mary's University in San Antonio, honoring her for creating art in the service of peace, justice and human understanding. And in February 2011, she returned to Abilene to receive an Outstanding Alumni Award by Hardin-Simmons University; the award is given each year to three alumni who have attained outstanding achievements in their ï¬eld of endeavor, community, state or nation. terrihendrix.com
Lloyd Maines, multi-instrumentalist, Grammy-award producer of some of the finest CDs that come out of Texas (and father of Dixie Chick Natalie Maines) is Terri's right hand man on her tour, adding sweet, deft, tasteful licks and harmonies to her music.
Lloyd Maines website : Lloyd Maines website
Terri Hendrix website : Terri Hendrix website


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(This blog article has been adapted for ASHASphere from the "PediaStaff New Graduate Guide." Click here to download the entire guidebook.)
We're sure you've heard the old adage that "Timing is Everything!" This has never been truer than as you take the next step toward becoming a Speech Language Pathologist. This blog article will help you navigate what we like to call the "road map to success."
At the Beginning of Your Degree Program:
- Create a favorites folder in your computer browser where you can start to catalogue the various websites of job search and clinical resources that you will come across.
- Start 'networking socially' specifically for your profession. For example, join Twitter and follow the "#SLPeeps" hashtag, join the ASHA LinkedIn group, and if you are going to work with kiddos, the Pediatric and School Based Therapy group on LinkedIn.
- Subscribe to all professional newsletters and blogs you can find relevant to your course of study. Many of the not-for-profit organizations that specialize in specific communications disorders have robust newsletters that contain information-packed articles and current news items. SLPs are prolific bloggers! Sean Sweeney of the Speech Techie blog has put together a great Blog Bundle of 17 bloggers that blog about speech-language pathology topics.
- Begin preparing your professional resume. List all pertinent class work, projects, awards, publications, and workshops you've attended. Also include para-professional employment and volunteer work if applicable. Use bullet format please. This is a work in progress!
- Since I am not fond of "Don'ts," here are a few "Do's" for you to consider when beginning your search:
- Do post your resume…but limit where and how many…YOU take control of your job search.
- Do choose your recruiter carefully…the right one is your "best friend and ally" in your search.
- Do stay focused on what's important now….your clinical experience and preparing for your professional exam.
In the Final Year of Your Degree Program (6 months from graduation):
- Continue working on items in the section above.
- Begin the process of identifying your location preferences and communicate them with the recruiters you've identified and others who you have asked to help you with your search.
- Set up a separate email account (Yahoo, Gmail, etc.) for ONLY job search related issues. Keep it professional! (For example: email@example.com, or firstname.lastname@example.com)
- Update your resume. Include all clinical work…quantify whenever possible (worked with 8 students at John Jay Elementary School…list diagnoses and treatment used.)
Three Months from Graduation – During your Clinical Fieldwork
- Same as above. Begin to narrow down your employment preferences.
- Definitely start connecting with a recruiter that you trust in your area to discuss job prospects, specifically one that will customize a search for you. Establish and convey your availability for phone and face-to-face interviews to that person or persons.
Two Months from Graduation
- Schedule your PRAXIS exam if you have not already done so.
- Make sure you update your resume to include clinical affiliations and resend to everyone that you previously sent a copy.
- Develop a reference list – Ask your references for permission so they know you're listing them, and ask each for a written reference, these are sometimes helpful.
- Build a schedule of available times for phone interviews and visits with prospective employers.
One Month from Graduation (Oh my Goodness, it's Getting Close!)
- Continue to conduct interviews as needed.
- Begin licensure research, review requirements for the state(s) you are interested in.
- Develop plans for relocation (if necessary).
- Finalize your resume with graduation, professional exam results, and any articles published or continuing education taken.
- You should be in weekly contact with the recruiter(s) that you are working with.
- Be sure to have your relocation plans in place to include cost of relocation.
We highly encourage you to plan for some down time for yourself! It is important for you to begin your new career rested, refreshed, and ready to tackle the challenge ahead!
Heidi Kay is one of the founding partners of PediaStaff and is the editor-in-chief of the PediaStaff New Graduate Guide [PDF], and the PediaStaff Blog, which delivers the latest news, articles, research updates, therapy ideas, and resources from the world of pediatric and school-based therapy. PediaStaff is a nationwide, niche oriented company focused on the placement and staffing of pediatric therapists including speech-language pathologists.


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The Reserve Bank of Australia decided to once again leave the official cash rate unchanged at 1.5% with the last rate move back in August 2016. I'd like to share today's rate announcement and the thoughts on why the Reserve Bank of Australia has made this decision.
In making this decision the RBA looks to have taken into account the lack of economic growth in Australia, evidenced by the continued falling of house prices, a rise in mortgage arrears and a drop in the number of dwelling approvals in July.
The move to leave the cash rate on hold, rather than decrease rates, has been debated by some of Australia's leading economists, with many Australians recently subjected to "out of cycle" rate increases. The term "out of cycle" referring in to lenders increasing rates independently of the Reserve Bank – activity we saw just last week with a large number of Australia's lenders raising their rates and others tipped to follow suit.
Australian lenders are confronting the same dynamics of rising cost of funding and a weakening lending market. They have much more complicated funding structures including accessing offshore wholesale and securitisation markets.
Regulatory changes designed to strengthen the banking system have also seen the amount of capital lenders are required to hold increase, which means they have had to look to more expensive sources than their own balance sheets to fund loans.
With a large number of Australian lenders increasing rates out of cycle recently it is important to review your lending options regularly to ensure they remain the most suitable for your situation.There may be different rates available from our wide panel of lenders and I'm always available to ensure you have the right financial solution for your current and future circumstances.
If you'd like to have a chat about what today's news means for you and your finances, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
The RBA has opted to leave the official cash rate on hold at 1.5%.
The Reserve Bank of Australia decided to once again leave the official cash rate unchanged at 1.5% with the last rate move back in August 2016. I'd like to share today's rate announcement and the thoughts on why the Reserve Bank of Australia has made this decision.
Any advice contained in this article is of a general nature only and does not take into account the objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular person. Therefore, before making any decision, you should consider the appropriateness of the advice with regard to those matters. Information in this article is correct as of the date of publication and is subject to change.


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Laguna Art Museum
307 Cliff Drive
(949) 494-8971
Open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays and Fridays through Sundays; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursdays; and closed Wednesdays. Admission is $7 for adults and $5 for seniors, students and active military. Children younger than 12 are admitted for free. The museum is closed on the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's days.
Through Sunday: "George Hurrell: Laguna to Hollywood," photographs of classic Hollywood stars.
Through Oct. 13: "John Mason: Blue Wall," a large-scale wall sculpture.
Laguna Canyon Artists
3251 Laguna Canyon Road
Laguna College of Art & Design
2222 Laguna Canyon Road
(949) 376-6000
CES Contemporary
480 Ocean Ave.
(949) 370-0554
Open Tuesday through Saturday, and by appointment.
Specializing in local and international emerging contemporary art.
Through May 30: "White Space," paintings by Ira Svobodová.
[seven-degrees] gallery
891 Laguna Canyon Road
(949) 376-1555
Southern California Artists Assn.
3251 Laguna Canyon Road F3
(949) 715-6767
484 North Gallery
484 N. Coast Hwy.
(949) 715-4578
Open noon to 6 p.m. daily
Artists and musicians are welcome to bring an easel and instruments to paint, sculpt and play music on the first Sunday of the month.
AR4T Space— Artists Republic for Tomorrow
210 N. Coast Hwy.
Winter hours: 3 to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday
Multimedia gallery featuring fine art from the world of youth culture.
Through May 26: "Cloud Hunters," new work by Gomez Bueno and Kassia Meador.
June 1 through 29: "Expression Session: The Surf Gallery Retrospective," an exhibit of paintings, prints and photographs curated by Will Pennartz. Reception from 6 to 9 p.m. June 1.
The George Gallery
354 N. Coast Hwy.
(949) 715-4377
Through June 16: "Interstices," photographs and paintings by Fatemeh Burnes.
Sue Greenwood Fine Art
330 N. Coast Hwy.
(949) 494-0669
New artwork from Andy Burgess, Jason Kowalski, Robert LaDuke and Francis Livingston.
Through May 31: Works by Geoffrey Krueger and Lance Morrison.
Hobrecht Sports Art
350 N. Coast Hwy.
(949) 945-3283
11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday
JoAnne Artman Gallery
326 N. Coast Hwy.
(949) 510-5481
Through May 31: "Seeking Future," new works by international artist Rimi Yang.
Through June 30: "Lost in Translation," works by Belgium-born Anja Van Herle and Spanish-born Alberto Murillo. Reception 6 to 8 p.m. June 6.
Laguna North Gallery
376 N. Coast Hwy.
(949) 494-4324
Landscapes, seascapes, still-lifes and plein-air by award-winning artists: Kirsten Anderson, Storm Case, Jean Choi, Patti Cliffton, Laurie Downey, Julie Christiansen-Dull, Christine Hooker, Margaret Jamison, Linda Johnson, Pam Panattoni, Elaine Ruettiger and Albert Stanchfield.
Quorum Art Gallery
374 N. Coast Hwy.
(949) 494-4422
The Quorum Art Gallery is a cooperative association of 12 local artists and a guest artist, which allows us to provide our guests with diverse styles and an impressive collection of fine art paintings.
"Aspen Glow on the Minarets" by Mike Kinney is featured.
Sandstone Gallery
384A N. Coast Hwy.
(949) 497-6775
Open noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday to Monday and Tuesday by appointment.
Through June 3: "Land Escapes," landscape paintings by KL Heagen, and "Center of Gravity," mixed-media paintings by Jong H. Ro.
June 5 through July 1: "Cosmic Dream," abstract paintings by Sunny Kim, and "Seascape," paintings by Ann Kim. Reception from 6 to 9 p.m. June 6.
Schaar Art Studio
305 N. Coast Hwy.
(949) 497-7289
Call for appointment
Studio 7 Gallery—North
384 N. Coast Hwy.
(949) 497-8291
Open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily
Live guitar music and oil painting demonstrations by award-winning plein air artists during First Thursday's Art Walk.
Art Cube Gallery
266 Forest Ave.
(949) 376-8800
June 1 through 30: "Nostalgia for the Future," sculptures by Laurie Hassold. Reception from 6 to 9 p.m. June 1.
BC Space Gallery
235 Forest Ave.
(949) 497-1880
Gallery open 1 to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and by appointment.
Peter Blake Gallery
435 Ocean Ave.
(949) 376-9994
Ed Moses and Jimi Gleason.
City Hall Gallery
505 Forest Ave.
Open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday
Coffin/Fulton Fine Art
301 Forest Ave. (upstairs)
(949) 497-2214
Figurative and landscape work by A. Jane Fulton and Lesanne Coffin.
DeBilzan Gallery
224 Forest Ave.
(949) 494-2406 or (727) 804-7649
Featuring William DeBilzan, Tony Dow and Roberto Romano.
Open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.
Exclusive Collections Gallery
417 S. Coast Hwy.
(855) 372-8213
Fingerhut Gallery
210A Forest Ave.
(949) 376-6410
Artwork by contemporary and 20th century artists.
Friday through June 2: "Hats Off to Dr. Seuss!", featuring hats and artwork from Seuss' collection. Reception 6 to 9 p.m. Friday.
Forest and Ocean Gallery
480 Ocean Ave. Suite B
(949) 371-3313
11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Gallery Q at the Susi Q
380 Third St.
(949) 497-244, ext. 6
Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Works by students and participating artists from Irvine Valley College and City of Laguna Beach art education programs.
Through June 20: "Kreative Kids," artwork by children ages 5 to 17. Reception 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. June 13.
Kush Fine Art
265 Forest Ave.
(949) 376-8017
Featuring original oils, jewelry, limited-edition giclees on canvas and sculptures by Vladimir Kush.
Laguna Art Group
A website that features various artwork.
Laguna Gallery of Contemporary Art
611 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 715-9604
The gallery was created by two gallery owners/gallery directors to bring contemporary work of the highest quality to downtown Laguna Beach from emerging to mid-career to internationally recognized artists.
The Lobby Gallery
Hotel Laguna
425 S. Coast Hwy.
(714) 787-4583
Pacific Edge Gallery
540 S. Coast Hwy., No. 112
(949) 494-0491Paintings by Maria Bertran, Tom Swimm, Sandra Jones Campbell, Jacobus Baas and Bryan Mark Taylor, as well as the artwork of John Lennon.
Saturday through May 31: "Tricoastal," oils by Jacobus Baas. Reception 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday.
The Signature Gallery Laguna
220 Forest Ave.
(949) 376-4244
Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Wednesday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Showcasing artwork by Charles H. Pabst, Cara Pabst Moran, Jenny Simon, Sue Averell, sculptures by Kira, and fountains by Wolfgang Vaatz.
Through May 31: "Randy O'Brien: Ceramics on Fire."
Townley Gallery
570 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 715-1860
Village Gallery
502 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 494-3552
Open seven days a week featuring Fabian Perez, Michael Godard, Sam Park and Thomas Kinkade alongside with 30 other traditional and contemporary painters who offer originals and limited-edition framed artwork.
Viszolay Gallery
577 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 497-0951
Oil paintings and reproductions of Hawaii, Laguna Beach, Catalina and other Southern California scenes by artist-in-residence Walter Viszolay.
Wassmann Fine Arts Studio
419 Ocean Ave.
(949) 291-6718
Wells Fargo Bank
260 Ocean Ave.
(949) 494-1145
Open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free.
Whitney Gallery
305 Forest Ave.
(949) 497-4322
Artist Eye Laguna Gallery
1294-A S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 497-5898
A cooperative venture of 16 local artists in watercolor, oil, acrylic and mixed media, as well as photography and sculpture.
Avran Art + Design
540 S. Coast Hwy., Suite 106
(949) 494-0900
Open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily
Through June 2: "Exposing the Layers," paintings by James C. Leonard.
Bluebird Gallery
1540 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 497-5377
Specializing in California plein air impressionist paintings. Featuring Felice Hrovat, Mark Cummings, Doug Stotts, William Dorsey, Joseph Aaron, George Gallo, Elaine Hughes, Stephen Schlanser, Mike Brennan and Renzi.
La Bottega Dell'Acquaforte
1590 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 497-6690
Coast Gallery
540 S. Coast Hwy., Suite 100
(949) 376-4185
Open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday through Tuesday.
Coastal Eddy, A Gallery
1417 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 715-4113
Through July 31: Works by 20 ceramic artists.
The Cottage Gallery
1524 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 497-8932
Cove Gallery
1492 S. Coast Hwy. No. 8
(949) 494-1878
The Cove is an artist-owned gallery featuring artists specializing in plein air, landscapes, still life, portraits, classic figurative work, contemporary and abstracts, mixed media and even Asian-influenced art.
DeMossa Gallery
1294-D S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 715-9229
Open noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
DeRu's Fine Arts
1590 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 376-3785
Floating Cloud Gallery
1999 S. Coast Hwy., Suite E
(949) 464-9300
The gallery features the unique work of Wai Sin Ton-Darbonne, a master of Chinese watercolor.
FOA South
1006 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 494-1145
Open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday.
Through June 15: "Three Painters," featuring work by Jacquie Moffett, Roger Folk and Gregg Stone.
Ivan Guaderrama Original Arts Gallery
1452 S. Coast Hwy.
(310) 383-5051
Mixed-media works by Ivan Guaderrama.
"Guardian Angels" exhibit is on now.
H Gallery
1294-B S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 497-5578
Featuring a collection of 20th century masters. Dali, Picasso, Miro, Vasarely, Erte, graphics and originals.
Joseph Wise Fine Art Gallery
1550 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 376-7902
Presenting contemporary and modern art, indoor and outdoor serpentine stone sculptures and fine art photography of Laguna beaches. Always original, always unique.
Now showing pastels by Mary Aslin and paintings by Paula Ware.
Kuhnert's Art Gallery
1493 Glenneyre St.
(949) 494-0676
Open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment
Featuring the original paintings, serigraphs, posters and digital prints of Manfred H. Kuhnert.
Lang Fine Art
The Art Center
1450 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 494-1397
McKibben Studios
540 South Coast Hwy. No. 110
(949) 715-4900
Open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily
purelagunabeach gallery
1590 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 315-5015
Featuring paintings by owner/artist Todd Kenyon and Mark Kerckhoff, and photography by Tom Lamb.
The Redfern Gallery
1540 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 497-3356
Specializing in important historical American art. Now showing works by the early California impressionists: Guy Rose, Edgar Payne, William Wendt, Granville Redmond and contemporary painting virtuosos Kevin Macpherson, Gregory Hull and John Cosby, with sculpture by Carol Alleman and Mark Rossi.
Salt Fine Art
1492 S. Coast Hwy., Suite 3
(949) 715-5554
Specializing in Latin contemporary art including masters and emerging talent.
Situ Art Gallery
1590 S. Coast Hwy. Suite #6
(949) 376-6703
Featuring fine contemporary art by Mian Situ, Andrew Peters, Ruo Li, Carole Cooke, Bi Wei Liang, Dan Goozee, Long Le, Lin Zheng and Ralph Oberg.
Transformation at Gallery 1951
1951 S. Coast Hwy.
Vladimir Sokolov Gallery
1540 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 494-3633
Studio 7 Gallery – South
1590 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 715-0012
11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily
The Vintage Poster
1476 S. Coast Hwy.
(949) 376-7422
Watercolor Gallery
1492 S. Coast Hwy., Suite 7
(949) 494-8838


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e-cbd needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 42 designs submitted by 25 freelance designers.
Simple corporate logo for a company that offers labour hire and recruitment services for the construction industry.
Enhanced Labour Solutions
We need a logo for a client which will form the basis of their corporate identity. It needs to be simple and use a bold colour scheme possibly incorporating maroon or red, possibly using the initials "ELS" as a feature with the actual words being smaller.
Any illustrative or graphical elements used need to be able to be trademarked, so all artwork must be entirely original.
- Bold colour scheme
- Simple
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.