text:
Today would have been my 16th wedding anniversary to my first husband.
ACK yes I'm one of those who has been married twice, going on a third time...but I can explain!
My first husband was an amazing man. We had such a beautiful relationship. I met him when I was 17, still in high school. He had graduated a year or two before me. We had met through a mutual friend and hit it off instantly.
We knew we were meant to be together...through good times and bad. We dated a little over three years by the time we tied the knot in a small ceremony....the sun was shining and it was warm out.
As we grew older, we grew apart. We were better friends than lovers. And eventually, shortly after building our first house together, we filed for divorce.....11 years together....8 of them married.
To this day we are still friends. He attended my mom's funeral almost three years ago, and even visited her in the hospital two or three days before she died. We often exchange emails to catch up on our daily life. He's happily remarried, with no children. I'm in constant touch with his brother and his family through Facebook. While my ex and I have emailed through Facebook we have yet to 'friend' each other on there. I just think it would be too weird, so neither of us have attempted it.
I never hated him and I never will. He was one of the best things to happen to me in my life. I treasure the special time we had together and will always remember that he loved me and I loved him. One would think we could have fixed what was wrong, but for some reason, in our hearts, we did what was best for us...parted ways, happily, never regretting one moment of our time together.
Now if you ask me about my bastard second husband, I'll tell you...he was a drunk, alcoholic, who physically abused me when he was drinking....who had the best family ever, but that was not enough to keep me with him. We dated three months before we got engaged....we were engaged 13 months, and married 2 years and 11 months by the time the divorce was final. Worst three + years of my life. He had the best family though....giving, thoughtful, hopeful, amazing. I was most sad to lose the relationship with his family. I just hope I never ever have to see that man again. I cringe when I think about how I actually thought I loved him. Pretty sad actually.
But I digress.
Today is a happy day for me. A reminder that there are good, amazing people in this world. A reminder that no matter the struggles, I can make it through anything.
If you're out there BT....thank you for showing me the way.
Friday, May 28, 2010
16 Years Ago
Today would have been my 16th wedding anniversary to my first husband.
Posted by Danica at 8:12 AM 7 comments
Labels: anniversary
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
I'm back.......
Vacation was a nightmare....a complete and total nightmare.
I'll start with the good stuff though.
Our plane landed. The end.
Seriously it was that bad. Not because of the company we held, or the location, but because LW and I got food poisoning. M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E
Our plane landed on Friday morning so we pretty much rushed straight to the mall to meet Lauren so she could get her makeup done and then it was on to her senior picture shoot. We spent two very long hours getting her pictures done, but I have to say, they turned out AMAZING (I have seen the proofs already and I cried my eyes out they were so good.)! Once I get them back I will share them with all of you.
Saturday we had to go back into Glendale to complete the photo shoot for her out door session. It was suppose to happen on Friday but there was a mix up with the photographer, thus the reason I got a 25% discount on her pictures! Score one for me. Most of Saturday though we spent tooling around Tempe. Neat area.
Sunday Lauren took Kassidy to her house and they swam and played together all day. LW and I had the condo to ourselves for the entire morning and afternoon and we took advantage of it. That was the best day we had the entire trip. It was relaxing and peaceful and we weren't sick....yet. Sunday night I met Lauren's mom, who was very nice to me and is SO BEAUTIFUL (what was LW thinking hooking up with me?). We conversated for a bit and then LW and I took Kassidy to play putt-putt while Lauren hung out with her friends at her graduation party.
Monday had us driving to the Grand Canyon (3 hours each way). Long drive, beautiful scenery. I think the kids expected more, but as always, I enjoyed it. The weather was cooler than I expected so we were grossly under dressed. The high was something like 64/66 that day and here we were in shorts, tanks, tshirts....hot AZ weather kind of clothing.
Monday night LW made dinner for Kassidy and I while Lauren went home to rest up for her big day on Tuesday. This would be the reason we were sick....but don't tell LW!
Tuesday was rough. We took Kassidy to the pool while Lauren was getting ready for her graduation. After swimming LW went to lay down while I fed Kass lunch. I ate but I was feeling pretty bad...stomach was crampy and I was feeling a little sick. We all rested and then changed for Lauren's graduation. LW said he was OK but felt kind of sick. Kass felt great. Mind you we all THREE ate the same thing Monday night.
We arrived to Lauren's graduation and sat with Lauren's mom and family. Kass on one side of me, LW on the other, Lauren's Mom next to Kass. Then as quickly as we sat down LW looked at me with sheer panic on his face and said "I don't feel well." He started sweating so much his clothes were soaking wet....and then he passed out. Out cold at his daughter's graduation!!!!! He saw her walk in and then bam....he was out. I'm slapping his face trying to wake him up and it's not working. Finally Lauren's mom ran over to help me because she is a nurse and skilled with this kind of thing. We got him awake and the paramedics took him away. He didn't want to go to the hospital so he stayed in the First Aid station at the arena and watched Lauren walk across the stage to receive her diploma. He was hooked up to all kinds of contraptions though....monitoring his heart because at the time we thought he might be having heart trouble. Ended up his blood sugar was too low from not eating pretty much all day. So I fed him, blood sugar went up, but he was still sick. This whole time I'm trying not to throw up because I feel bad.
After graduation we took the kids to their graduation dinner (Kassidy, Lauren, her boyfriend and a friend), where shortly after taking a couple of bites of food, I started running to the bathroom where I threw up all over the place. Insane!
So that my friends was our trip. Oh wait. There's more!
See after all of that, and after spending a painful night shitting (TMI I know) ourselves to death we had to roll out of bed on Weds afternoon and drive three hours to see my dad in Nevada!
By Weds I was throwing up, crying, saying I can't drive to see my dad. And LW is doubled over in pain saying he can't drive.
We sat there and had to think about how we were going to get to NV because I had to see my dad. See my dad is sick and I honestly don't know how many more days I'll get with him, so it was important for me to see him. So I drove while LW and Kassidy slept. It was the most miserable three hours I have ever spent in a car. I would sip Sprite and much on corners of crackers.
Sad stuff.
Pretty much Weds through Sat we took turns getting sick and taking care of Kassidy. We had to remember that no matter how bad we felt, we still had an 11 year old who needed to eat, and needed entertainment. She didn't know my dad so I didn't feel like I should send her to hang out with him. There were some moments however where we felt okay enough to get out.
I took Kassidy to Oatman, AZ one day to see the donkeys. And on Friday the entire family drove to Lake Havasu to see an old elementary friend of mine whom I hadn't seen since I was in the 4th grade (thank you Facebook!).
But other than that the remainder of the trip was a bust. No energy to really gamble, although I did and lost. No engery to walk through town to see the different casinos. No energy to do any hiking. No energy what so ever.
It was truly sad. My dad was understanding and honestly he took great care of us to the best of his ability.
I'm glad I gathered my composure to go see my dad though. He's doing poorly. He can't see and was moving so slow. I felt like I was watching him die...just as I had my mother. I know I don't have much longer with him....like maybe another year or two if I'm lucky...so I did the right thing, no matter how crappy (no pun intended!) I felt.
So that my friends is my ridiculous trip. I'll post pictures as soon as I can.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
This is my last post for a week or so.
I'm outta here!
Friday morning at the crisp hour of 6:02am my plane leaves from Ohio headed to the sunny state of Arizona. In tow will be Kassidy and LW. The occasion you may ask? Lauren graduates high school!
I know I'll be one of those proud momma's sitting in the stand crying my eyes out. I've only personally met Lauren in March, but I've dated her daddy for over two years and as of last week, I'm engaged to her dad. Even before I met Lauren I knew I loved her. I had her pictures proudly displayed all through the house even beore I laid my eyes on her pretty smile. Soon she will be my daughter so rightfully so I'm allowed to shed those tears. I'll probably cry more when Kassidy graduates though, because I will have spent longer time watching Kassidy grow up into a young woman. Lauren has already grown into that beautiful young woman.
::wiping tears away::
While in AZ we plan to take the girls to the Grand Canyon, have a re-do session on Lauren's senior pictures, attend a BBQ in Lauren's honor, watch her graduate, and spend quality time as a family.
By the middle of next week, we plan to leave AZ and drive four hours to see my dad in Laughlin, NV. In Nevada we plan to pop over to Oatman, AZ to see the donkeys and visit Lake Havasu in AZ where I will connect with my elementary school BFF (thank you Facebook!). So I guess we aren't doing much in NV other than hanging out at the casino we are staying at: Don Lauglin's Riverside Resort. Believe me when I say this place is nothing like Vegas, but for my dad it's been his home for almost 19 years, so it's home for me too. I know my way around there with my eyes closed.
I'll do my best to get pictures loaded quickly upon my return. And I'll try hard to catch up on everyone's blogs. But in the mean time I hope everyone has a great weekend and week ahead...stay safe, stay warm and have fun.
::putting my sunglasses on, or if you're in Ohio today....my gloshes!::
Peace out friends!
Posted by Danica at 11:44 AM 5 comments
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Wedding planning is ridiculous.
I see now why LW just wants to go away. And quite frankly that's what we're doing. I'm waiting on a packet to come in from a resort in St. Lucia. I believe we will tie the knot in a beach ceremony in St. Lucia. We plan to invite about 50 people with the hopes that we have at least 6-10 people who would like to join us. We'd like more people to come, but we understand it's not a cheap vacation. We are thinking end of April, beginning to middle of May next year.
Once that's settled, we're thinking about what we would like to do at home. LW wants a party but last night when I told him how many people I had on just my list alone (149 people), he laughed and said maybe we should just invite a few people to the house for a cook-out....so that list may be getting cut. Of course close friends and family will be invited...it's those distance relatives and co-workers we can leave off the list.
I think the more I talk about it, the more I really just want to be married. It's not about the ring, the party, the wedding...it's about the four of us becoming a family. We have lots to figure out, and I pray that in my head I can get it all organized.
Why can't money grow on trees?
Posted by Danica at 8:35 AM 5 comments
Labels: wedding
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Big News
I am….officially….ENGAGED!
LW popped the question last night in front of some of our dearest friends.
I think I'm still in shock. I've had a stomach ache since last night. It's hard to eat, I couldn't sleep…I have these giddy little butterflies jumping around in my stomach. Just a little bit ago I texted him to tell him that I am blowing off the gym tonight…because I just want us to go home and be alone. To celebrate in our own private way before we tell his entire family this weekend.
Giddy as a school girl!!!
I must say he did the most amazing job finding a ring to suite my personality. The ring is everything and more than what I would have selected for myself. Below is a picture, although the picture does not do it justice. The center stone (princess cut) is sitting on a bed of tiny antique looking diamonds with round stones going down the side and down the front and back, which are NOT visible in the picture.
The proposal came as a surprise. Sure I was expecting him to one day soon ask me to marry him. I just never expected it to be LAST NIGHT! There we were sitting at a Cinco de Mayo dinner with 18 of our closest friends….socializing, laughing….when all of the sudden LW dropped to one knee and without speaking a word the crowd of friends burst into clapping, tears, screaming, and the like. The entire restaurant came to a hault and they too joined in the clapping, whistling, and cheering! It was an amazing moment. I wouldn't change anything.
I can honestly say there is something so wonderful about being engaged to LW. I feel like I'm on this tiny cloud of happiness. This is what saying 'yes' should feel like….this is what it feels like to be part of a real family…this is what love is suppose to feel like. It's the most amazing feeling in the world.
After he proposed I called several really close friends who were not with me….I called family, I even called some of my closest co-workers. However, we have yet to tell the girls or his family. We plan to tell Kassidy tomorrow and call Lauren over the weekend. Then of course on Mother's Day we will share the good news with his Mom and sisters. So please, if you are my Facebook friend, please do not post anything until I've posted about it. We are trying to get to as many family members in person as possible. As hard as it is to wait, I have to.
Happiness. I seriously am THAT happy.
This is my future…
Posted by Danica at 2:27 PM 16 comments
Labels: engagement, LW
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
So I failed big time last night!!
Just last week I ran 2.26 miles and walked 1.2 miles with a pace of 9:43 min/miles totally 3.46 miles. Well folks, last night I bombed it all.
I finished with....get this...10:45 min/miles.
What the heck? I ran 3.35 miles and walked .08 miles! What the heck??? I'm walking faster than I run.
I was so utterly disappointed last night that I wanted to throw the towel in and admit defeat. I can only think that the reason why I was so slow was because my legs are starting to feel like weights after the second mile. I hope this is normal. My breathing is crazy under control and I feel good there. It's just been hard to get my legs cranking on the third mile without walking. I'm sure the two Vanilla Waffers I ate before I ran didn't help either. :-(
So I hang my head in shame today. I know it's still an accomplishment, but I might as well have walked the whole thing if I'm going to post a time like that.
I'll try again on Saturday morning though. Tonight is a rest up day and tomorrow I'll be lifting weights at the gym and doing mild cardio on the elliptical.
I can't quit now, no matter how upset and disappointed I am.
Posted by Danica at 12:20 PM 2 comments
Labels: running
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
In the beginning of April(end of March actually) I started my journey to run a half marathon. By no means will I finish in the amazing amount of time that my friend Colleen (who BTW if you don't know her is an amazing athlete!) can run a half marathon in, but I must admit I have gotten so much better over the recent weeks.
I keep a log of everything I do from...what I do at the gym, to what I run at home, to how many minutes I sit in the sauna. I won't bore you with the mindless details that mean nothing to you, but I will say that I ran 69.69miles this month! May not seem like a lot to some of you athletes out there, but to me, it means that I didn't sit on my ass every day for a month; it means that I cared enough about my goal to work on it; it means I'm putting my health first for once; it means I'm 69.69 miles closer to my goal.
I'm proud of myself. It's not been an easy journey at all. I was born with a hip disorder which severly limits me from running every day and sometimes every other day. The pain from it can be excurciating thus the reason why I've been at the gym more, so that I can work through the pain on less harder cardio machines. If it wasn't running it would be something else causing me issues (heck even sitting on an airplane for too long can send me into pain). But I push through because I can..and because I want to achieve this goal. I also injured my knee in a rollarblading accident 11 years ago, so I've had to push through those issues as well.
But I'm kicking butt and taking names. And I'm proud!
Thursday of last week, for the first time since I was in my 20's, I ran for 2.26 miles....without stopping! I ended up finishing 3.46 miles in my best time yet...9:43 min/miles.
Amazing for someone like me struggling with old injuries.
But I refuse to let my injuries run my life. I've been monitoring my pain level though and if I feel like I can't do it, then I won't, but I certainly won't sit home. If I can't run, then I walk. If I can't walk, then I swim. There's no excuse to not exercise...I just have to find a different form of excersise every now and again.
My goal time to finish the half marathon in is in 2 hours and 45 mins. I want to be under the 3 hour mark. For some of you that may be cake, but for me, suffering from these injuries, it will be an amazing feat....a journey well worth taking.
Tonight I'll be going home and running my normal route which is 3.46 miles. So tonight I'm going to work on making it 9:35 min/mile. I can do it!!!!
Wish me luck! :-)
Posted by Danica at 12:15 PM 8 comments
Monday, May 3, 2010
Happy Two Years
On Mother's Day LW and I will be together two years.
It's hard to believe it's been two years…..because honestly I feel like I have known him forever. He's my best friend. When I look at him I can't imagine life without him. He's everything I have ever wanted in a man.
He's a great father.
He's a good friend.
He's giving.
He's shy when he wants to be.
He's outgoing.
He's educated.
He's attractive.
He's funny.
He's supportive.
He's successful at his job.
It's amazing how much two years has changed us. We went from dating, to living together, to being a family. I do not need a wedding ring to know that we are family. I love those girls like they are my own. I love LW like a wife would love her husband.
I never thought it would be possible to love him any more than what I already do. At night I'll sit on the couch next to him, and not want to be anywhere else. No one understands me like he does. No one tolerates me like he does. And no one could love me as much as he does.
To celebrate (we had to celebrate early because we have Kassidy next weekend and of course it's Mother's Day) our two years together he took me to dinner at P.F. Chang's and then we went to the Funny Bone and watched a crazy comedian hypnotize people. It was a fabulous evening.
I look forward to many more years with LW. I know I have found my Mr. Right. I feel it in my heart.
Posted by Danica at 8:22 AM 6 comments
Labels: LW


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Contributed on 10/5/13 by blplek
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Record #: 261670
Thank you for visiting the Nebraska Gravestone Photo Project. On this site you can upload gravestone photos, locate ancestors and perform genealogy research. If you have a relative buried in Nebraska, we encourage you to upload a digital image using our Submit a Photo page. Contributing to this genealogy archive helps family historians and genealogy researchers locate their relatives and complete their family tree.
Submitted: 10/5/13 • Approved: 10/5/13 • Last Updated: 10/8/13 • R261670-G261669-S3

subset: commoncrawl


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Time: April 21, 2011 from 7pm to 8:30pm
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Overlook by our animal cemetery
Last year was as problem-free with our alpaca births as we have ever had... We had trimmed our numbers down quite a bit which always makes things easier, but we never had a single issue with birthing or babies. Almost all of our spring-bred girls are due in May this year, but the recent short heat wave had me a little worried since the alpacas are in their fullest fleece (our alpaca shearers are coming next week) and 85 degrees with a fur coat on is HOT, even IF we pamper them with fans and such.
Today we moved the girls due in May to our "birthing" barn, and it wasn't much more than an hour later that a new cria was found, 3-4 weeks premature. Uh oh..... Premie alpacas can survive with lots of help and we have pulled some through, but they take full-on, intensive care from the start- I knew that even if we had chosen to take her to Ohio State or University of Tennessee, she wouldn't make the trip without intervention first. Often they are too weak to nurse, so it's important to substitute the dam's all-important colostrum (first milk, full of antibodies, etc.) for colostrum and/or plasma from another dam. In this case, we had both.
Mom encouraging weak, premature cria
This was a beautiful, 11 pound white girl, very weak and floppy, so we burst into quick action. Our helper started drying and warming the baby, which seemed cold from the start when I put my finger in her mouth to test her warmness and suck reflex. She was floppy like a dishrag, breathing slowly, and unable to lift her head.
I quickly thawed some frozen colostrum and plasma to give to the cria. Alpaca babies are born slightly dehydrated and with low blood sugar, and this one needed all the help she could get since she wouldn't be able to stand to nurse. She was unable to suck from a bottle, so I tube-fed her while we continued to try warming her on a large heating pad made for piglets.
We also gave her oxygen supplementation, my only regret is that I didn't think of this sooner, otherwise I know that we did EVERYTHING possible for this baby. I guess she was just not meant for this world, and she died about 2 hours after birth.... We let her mom stay with her for a few minutes alone so that she would understand that her baby was gone, but a while later when she was back with her herdmates she still seemed to be asking us what we had done with her...
As I took the baby's tiny little soft body to a remote area at the back of our farm where we sometimes lay out creatures that have died, I reflected on how far I have come from being a city girl to living on a farm for over 23 years.... how I used to be devastated by a cria's death... and how now I was sad but quietly accepting it. I comprehend now that one animal's death is sometimes another's food (the vultures, foxes, possums and coyotes normally strip a dead animal clean within a few days), and that each and every baby isn't necessarily meant to survive. And sometimes there are unseen problems in a cria that won't allow them to live a healthy, quality life.
I know that when we lose a cria, there are usually others to look forward to. I realize that there are tragedies and challenges WAY more serious than losing a baby alpaca (even an especially valuable one), as I remember friends that are struggling with cancer, the unexpected death of a family member, hungry and orphaned children in remote places, and my own life challenges.
I know that when we lose a cria, there are usually others to look forward to. I realize that there are tragedies and challenges WAY more serious than losing a baby alpaca (even an especially valuable one), as I remember friends that are struggling with cancer, the unexpected death of a family member, hungry and orphaned children in remote places, and my own life challenges.
Rest in peace, innocent one
Yes, I am sad... but I also feel so very fortunate to have been able to be close to this natural cycle of life and death on our farm. Faith and perspective, living on the farm has taught me about these things and so much more.


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Seal of Insight is the last major paladin mechanic that has yet to be added to the simulation. The last piece of the puzzle, as it were. There are a number of reasons I've put off adding SoI, some of which I discussed in the last two posts.
SoI is a more complicated beast than effects like Sacred Shield, for starters. It has a lot of "moving parts" as far as the simulation is concerned. While we don't have to cast it, it requires adding melee swings to the simulation, which means adding another event type. It also adds another buff to track in the form of our fake absorb bubble, and we'll need a model to calculate the effectiveness of that bubble. And since we're adding melee swings, we also need to add parry-hasting if the model is to be completely accurate. That doesn't mean any of the logic is particularly hard, just that it has tendrils in several sections of the simulation, which makes it annoying to implement and bug-check.
It also causes a moderate performance hit. First, from the inclusion of another event type (melee swings), and then from the additional calculation being performed each time that event occurs. There's also a small performance decrease due to the extra calculations on the SoI absorb bubble. Together, that all added up to be a bit of an issue. Performance had been a problem with the simulation in general even before this point, and now seemed like an appropriate time to fix it.
I enlisted the help of a friend of mine who happens to be a real computer scientist type, and he promptly told me to stop thinking like a physicist and start thinking like a computer scientist. Together we (and by we, I mean he) hashed out a few improvements that would drastically improve performance. To give you an idea of how significant that improvement was, it now runs about five to six times faster than it did before I added Seal of Insight. Runtime dropped from about 400-500 seconds per simulation to around 60 seconds.
So now that it's implemented, I can spit out lots and lots of data relatively quickly. But first, we need to discuss exactly how we're modeling Seal of Insight, and provide some justification for that model. That will be the topic of today's post.
Effectiveness – Logs
The first part of modeling is figuring out exactly what we're aiming for. One of the big arguments about Seal of Insight is how much of it ends up simply being overhealing. It's going to be important to get that right, so rather than guess, we go to the logs and see what they say. I scrutinized about 20 different logs from the last month for a variety of guilds ranging from normal-mode to heroic-mode content in both 10- and 25-man categories. While this only gives me a few data points per individual boss, it's enough to get a rough idea of how much overhealing we expect. Here are the numbers:
|Council of Elders
|Dark Animus
|Iron Qon
|Twin Consorts
|Lei Shen
That's a lot of overhealing. This data doesn't suggest that there's a huge difference between 10- and 25-mans. And note that there's a mix of data in here. Some logs are from solo-tanking a boss, while some are from multiple-tanking; some tanks are on boss duty while others are on adds. So there are larger variations to be had on a situational basis.
The lack of distinction between 10- and 25-man seemed a little strange at first. My intuition is that in 25-mans, you'd expect a dedicated tank healer, leading to higher overheal values for SoI. In 10-mans, I'd expect the "tank healer" to split his attention a lot more to help with raid healing, and thus allow SoI to pull more weight. But while there may be a little of that happening, it's not a large effect. We're not seeing many cases where we get double the overhealing in 25-mans (Primordius stands out, but I suspect that's due to 1- vs. 2-tanking distinctions).
To take a look at why that is, I looked a little more carefully at my own healing taken breakdowns. And I was actually a bit surprised by what I found.
First, Sacred Shield and Seal of Insight regularly produce 35%-50% of my total healing taken. That Sacred Shield is consistently 20%-30% isn't all that surprising – absorption effects are your first line of defense against damage, so they'll naturally be pretty efficient and will tend to get utilized. But Seal of Insight fairly regularly shows up in second place, accounting for 10%-20%. That's a bit higher than I expected, to be honest – I thought that when we're pushing 60%-70% overheal, it would account for much less.
But what's more surprising is the sheer amount of healing that's coming from passive sources. When I totaled up the amount of healing coming from "passive" sources, including HoTs and incidental absorbs, it was 75%-80% of all healing I received. Only 20%-25% is due to "direct" healing, like Holy Light, Divine Light, Nourish, Healing Touch, etc.
Now, that's considering all healing done, including overhealing. You might assume that the passive sources show a much higher amount of overhealing than the direct sources. And to a limited degree, that intuition seems correct. But even the direct heals are seeing a large amount of overheal. Holy Light and Nourish regularly clocked 60%-80% overheal in my logs. Big heals like Healing Touch and Divine Light tended to be lower, ranging from 30% to 50% from boss to boss.
From all of that, we can draw a few conclusions. First, we're a long way from the "spam Holy Light on the tank" healing model of Wrath. The triage model seems to be working correctly, with healers dropping efficient, low-cost heals (HoTs, Holy Light) on the tank when the situation is relatively safe, and only resorting to big or fast direct heals when they're needed. This also explains the similarities between the 10- and 25-man data; in both cases, a dedicated "tank-spamming" healer really isn't necessary most of the time.
Second, I think it reinforces this idea that spike damage is the only dangerous damage. We're blanketed with an incredible amount of healing from passive sources, so low-throughput sections of an encounter will rarely cause a death. It's really those situations where we take a sudden spike of damage that our healers even reach into their toolkit for the big, fast heals. And the best thing we can do to survive is to reduce the number of times they need to do that and buy them as much time as possible in the cases where they do.
But most importantly, it's somewhat amazing how much self-healing we really do. In many cases, we're not even receiving direct heals, and just being kept afloat by HoTs and our own healing contributions. It also means that it's probably not fair to toss aside SoI as irrelevant because of the sheer amount of overhealing it does. A lot of that overhealing happens during the stable, low-throughput situations that we don't care that much about. But during a spike, the amount of overheal will be very small. And while it's not guaranteed healing since SoI is a proc mechanism, it's still going to give us some degree of buffer against those spikes because it's passive. There's no reaction time involved – it just happens when it happens, which means some of the time it will be there exactly when it needs to be.
Overhealing and Effective Overhealing
The other thing to consider is that this isn't the entire story. This is the overhealing that World of Logs registers, but it's not representative of the effective overhealing. To explain that thought, consider the following situation. You take 30k damage, and within the next second you get a 30k SoI proc, a 30k Rejuvenation tick, and a 60k Holy Light. Any one of them brings you up to full health individually, so which one overhealed?
The game and World of Logs will register the first heal received as being effective, while the latter two will be recorded as overhealing. But that's not very realistic – for example, if the SoI proc hadn't happened, the Rejuvenation tick would have healed you to full anyway. So you end up in the same state whether the SoI proc occurred or not. In some sense, the SoI proc was completely irrelevant, because it didn't do anything effective for your survivability in that situation thanks to the competing heals. Right?
Well, you could make the same argument about the Rejuvenation, or the Holy Light. It's not entirely clear which of the three should get credited with overhealing, because any two of the three are irrelevant depending on your perspective. But they weren't all irrelevant, because clearly one of them did something.
This is one problem with logging. It will always credit the early heals, but can't easily figure out how much overhealing those heals create later on. In the case of Seal of Insight and Rejuvenation, I think you could argue that the difference comes out in the wash. It's probably about equally likely that the Rejuv tick follows the SoI proc as it is for the reverse to happen. So the logs probably already account for this interaction between passive effects. But when it comes to the direct heals that have a cast time, these periodic ticks and procs eat away at the effectiveness. You may have benefited from the entire Holy Light at the time the cast started, but half of it may be overheal by the time the cast finishes.
So while we might see 60% overhealing for Seal of Insight in a given log, it's likely that it's created some non-trivial amount of overhealing in our direct heal accrual. It's very hard to say exactly how much that will be without looking at specific logs, and it's likely to vary significantly based on healer composition. A tank being healed by a Restoration Druid and a Holy Paladin's Beacon of Light is going to have a very different amount of direct heal contribution than, say, a Restoration Shaman and an Atonement/Discipline priest.
But this raises some obvious questions about how to accurately model SoI. Do we try and model it with the overheal values given by World of Logs? Do we aim a little higher to account for heal-sniping? If so, how much higher? And how exactly do we implement that overhealing?
Overhealing Implementations
I've had a number of conversations about this topic over the past week, and gotten a lot of different answers. If you recall, we model heals in the code by granting small absorption bubbles that last for a limited amount of time. We model overhealing by adjusting the size of these bubbles.
Of course, there's the simple method that we've used previously with Word of Glory, which is to just reduce the size of every single heal by a certain amount to account for overhealing. In other words, if we want approximately 50% overhealing, we just halve the size of each SoI proc. The downside is that this version doesn't adapt to damage intake, so an SoI proc occurring after a few avoids gives us the same absorb bubble as one occuring after three full melee hits in a row, even though the latter is far less likely to be overhealing than the former.
We could be a little more sophisticated and include a degree of randomness to the size of the overheal bubbles. Rather than using a half-sized bubble to represent 50% overhealing, we could just roll the dice for each proc. We'd grant a full-sized bubble 50% of the time, and no bubble the other 50% of the time. That "random binary" model would probably mimic the randomness of heal-sniping pretty well, but it still doesn't give us a method that adapts to damage intake. In the comments of a previous blog post, Weeby and I discussed using a discrete set of different probability distributions, dynamically choosing which one we use based on prior damage intake.
The method I originally thought about using was to implement an adaptive overhealing function. Basically, every time we got an SoI proc we would calculate the amount of overheal for that proc based on the previous few boss attacks. The functional form is a little bit arbitrary, but the essential characteristics I had in mind were as follows:
- If we took very little damage in the last few attacks, then the SoI proc should do basically nothing, because passive heals from other sources will top us off.
- If we took a lot of damage in the last few seconds, the SoI proc should be 100% effective, as we can use all the healing we can get.
- In between those extremes we should have a continuous variation in effectiveness.
The function I had in mind is one encountered commonly in solid-state physics: the Fermi-Dirac distribution, or "Fermi function" for short. The Fermi function is actually the inverse of what we want – it takes on a value of one for small $x$ and a value of 0 for large $x$, and we want the reverse, so the modified form I used is this:
$$\large f(x)=\frac{1}{1+e^{-(x-x_0)/\sigma}} $$
where $x_0$ and $\sigma$ control the size and shape of the transition. If we plot this function, it looks something like this:
On the y-axis we have the effectiveness of Seal of Insight, while the x-axis it the sum of the damage from the last three boss attacks. By setting the halfway point at $x_0=1.5$ we end up with about 75% overheal, which is a little on the high end of our estimates. But we can tweak $x_0$ and $\sigma$ to match the function to whatever level of overheal we'd like.
There are a few problems with this method, though. It's very deterministic by design, so if you take 2-3 full attacks in a row, you're always going to get full strength SoI proc. But there are situations where that isn't an accurate model. For example, if you receive a Lay on Hands immediately after the third attack, any subsequent SoI procs are basically useless. And on the other extreme, if you only take a few very weak hits in a row while your healer is distracted, those SoI procs will just heal you up and allow the healer to focus on whatever they're doing.
So while I like this idea, I also think it introduces a lot of complexity without really accomplishing much. We could probably get a similar effect by just assuming a flat amount of overhealing on every SoI proc or using one of our random models (binary or discrete set).
One school of thought is to not include overhealing interactions at all – every SoI acts at full strength, no matter what. The reasoning is pretty simple: we can't turn it off. It'll be there when it occurs no matter what, regardless of what or how many healers you have. The healers can choose to use that GCD in another way, but our only choice is to swap seals to a mediocre DPS seal.
There's another argument for full-strength SoI. We care most about the high-damage spikes, and those are situations where SoI tends to do less overhealing. We care about healing during that critical time between the start of the spike and our healers reacting and dumping heals on us, and pretty much every SoI heals for its full amount during that window. So by assuming SoI is full strength, we probably get a fairly accurate representation of how it works during the danger periods that we care about most. The downside is that during low-damage periods, we'll be overestimating its value during the low-damage periods, which will skew our TDR metrics. But if we're not that concerned about those low-damage periods anyway, maybe that's OK.
Backwards-Facing vs. Forward-Facing Modeling
There's another issue that I've been wrestling with for the past few weeks, which is how to model healing more effectively. The absorb bubble method I've been using is a little artificial, in that it makes healing apply to future attacks rather than previous attacks. But of course, in practice healing replaces damage that's already occurred. I think you could make a good argument that healing is essentially giving you extra hit points that future attacks need to chew through. But it's also not a very intuitive model for most people.
Instead of this "forward-facing" method, we could use what I call a "backward-facing" method. For example, when we get an SoI proc, we just apply it to a previous attack and reduce the damage that attack did retroactively. This better matches peoples intuition for how healing works, and doesn't end up to be much more computationally expensive than the forward-modeling method.
In a pure stochastic sense, it shouldn't matter which we do as long as the size of the SoI proc doesn't depend on the attacks surrounding it. We're just as likely to avoid the attack before an SoI proc as we are to avoid the attack afterward. But when you start putting any sort of time dependency into the simulation you get some subtle differences in the results the two modeling methods give you. And we have a lot of that going on in our system.
For example, SotR itself biases the results. SotR is a proc trigger for Seal of Insight, and the attack after a SotR cast is about 50% smaller on average than the attack before a SotR cast. As a result, if you use the forward-facing model, you'll get more overhealing overall because those procs are being applied to smaller attacks. The backward-facing model doesn't have that same bias. Parry-hasting causes a similar effect, but in reverse: a parry results in 0 damage taken and increases the likelihood of a proc, which causes slightly higher overhealing in the backwards-facing model.
Dynamic overhealing models and Sacred Shield absorbs can enhance or suppress some of those effects, causing further perturbations. And the SH finisher models create even more complicated interactions between all of those components, because they moderate SotR usage based on damage taken in the last few attacks. Thus, SoI procs can suppress SotR casts in the backwards-facing model or exacerbate the overhealing caused in the forward-facing model.
I've modified the code to be able to handle both methods, but I think I'm probably going to transition to the backwards-modeling case. It's easier to explain, for starters, and I think it's a little more intuitive. But most importantly, I think it tends to be a little more realistic due to the interactions with SotR, especially for conditional finisher queues. I'll probably convert WoG over to the backwards model as well so that I can more naturally incorporate the effects of overhealing, and even come up with queues that only use WoG if it will not be wasted.
Going Forward (But Healing Backward!)
Now that the code's been updated, we just have to settle on the correct way to do the modeling. We have a lot of options, but despite all of the sophisticated techniques we have to employ overheal modeling, I'm actually leaning towards the "no-overheal" method, where every SoI proc occurs at full strength. If we're mostly concerned with large damage spikes, then this model seems like it would do the best job of accurately representing how SoI affects those peaks. It does come at the cost of reducing the accuracy of our information during the low-damage periods, though.
It's possible we could use the Fermi function to adjust for that by setting a fairly low threshold $(x_0)$. But I'm a little hesitant to do that, because the whole thing feels fairly artificial to me. It might give us the behavior we think we want, but it's hard to trust data if we're not sure we trust the model. At least with the "full-strength" SoI model, we're aware that we may be over-estimating its effectiveness in certain situations, as well as which situations those are in particular. And the backward-facing SoI method tends to reduce the impact of dynamic overhealing modeling anyway, so maybe it's unnecessary.
Even with the "full-strength" SoI model, we get a fair bit of overhealing. For starters, we're only applying Seal of Insight to adjacent melee attacks – in other words, with the backward-facing model we only look one attack into the past. So if we avoided the previous attack, that SoI proc is all overhealing, because there's no damage to remove. The same can be said of the forward-facing model if we avoid the following attack.
And on top of that, we get some overhealing due to other mitigation effects. Multiple SoI procs, for example, can reduce a blocked or mitigated attack to zero damage. Keep in mind that each SoI proc is approximately 20% of a boss attack, making it almost as large as a block. Three SoI procs following a SotR-mitigated block is enough to null out all of that damage. And in a high-haste set, we get about 25% more SoI procs than we do boss attacks, so we expect about least one SoI proc per attack, and often get clumps of 3 (melee+SotR+CS all falling within 1.5 seconds).
When you throw Sacred Shield absorbs into the mix, you can get situations where even a single SoI proc is predominantly overheal. In my testing, with Sacred Shield turned off we get about 19% overhealing due to our ~19% avoidance, but with Sacred Shield turned on we rocket up to about 33% overhealing. About 6% of that difference is due to full absorbs via Sacred Shield, but the last 8% is due to multiple SoI procs.
I think that it's worth dwelling on the block analogy here. In the past, we've discussed how mastery gives us an active benefit (SotR mitigation) and a passive benefit (block chance), while haste primarily gives us an active benefit. But if we include Seal of Insight, that's not really the case. Haste also gives us more passive SoI procs, which act like slightly smaller blocks. So both stats give us a fairly significant passive benefit, though in haste's case it does still rely on us following a rotation and attacking the target.
In any event, I think that many people, myself included, haven't been giving Seal of Insight enough credit. I've generally written it off as a fairly small effect, and didn't think too much about it because of the sheer amount of overhealing involved. But if you asked me if I'd like a bunch of free 20% mitigation blocks, I certainly wouldn't pass that off as irrelevant. As long as some of them are occurring during a spike period, I'd care. And given how frequently we get procs in a haste set, we're almost guaranteed to have at least $N$ procs within any given string of $N$ attacks.
I hope to have some data ready to publish later this week, as things are finally starting to slow down in real life. I may put up a post comparing and contrasting several of the different SoI modeling techniques to see what, if any, difference they make in the overall data. It's possible that for all of my agonizing over the different models, they all give more or less the same results, at which point maybe we don't need to worry as much about scrutinizing the model in the first place.


text:
Before the 2007 summer season even starts, the American Junior Golf Association is busy preparing the 2008 schedule.
And help is needed.
"We are seeking top-notch companies and golf courses whose goals are the same as those of the AJGA," said Jason Etzen, executive vice president of corporate partnerships. "We want to provide the best experiences for junior golfers across the nation and help them access the best competition for college scholarships."
Many referrals to sponsors and courses begin within the AJGA membership and from friends of the association. For example, Jeff Silverstein, a former AJGA parent, was featured in February's issue of The Link for his wide range of assistance to the association.
Every year Silverstein orchestrates the I.R.I./Srixon Mixed Team Championship hosted by Jim Furyk, a unique format event where juniors participate more for the fun and atmosphere but still have some great competition amongst their peers. The Championship is held at Arizona National Golf Club, which is one of many courses that donate the use of their facilities to the AJGA.
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text:
Good memory, irminator. As expected I got busier than ever the first year or so - produced (with help from my friends) the Survival Guide for Dreamers which sends a short message to your inbox every morning for a year. (Lots of it is about Resistance, which was something I wanted very much to do.) It's been surprisingly popular, and people really love it. I'm very proud of it. (You can find it over at Barbarasclub.com) And, of course, I'm always interacting with the WriteSpeakers to help them turn out their books, with wonderful success! Of course, I can't keep away from the discussions in Hanging Out With Barbara Sher and the wonderful conversations in all the book clubs as people slow down, do the exercises and discover more about who they are and where they want to go than ever before. These are just fascinating.
But at the end of that first year of 'retirement,' I had some surprisingly heavy health problems thrown at me and really had to stop doing much. Broke vertabrae in my back 4 different times - for no discernable reason, and had a serious gall bladder infection that almost did me in.
I've recovered nicely but all those ambulances and hospital stays interrupted my more creative enterprises. I had to lay on my side for hours and hours every day for almost a whole year. Binge-watched a number of barely tolerable youtube shows. I confronted boredom for almost the first time in my life, and it was just awful.
Physically, I had to limit myself. I stopped training coaches or running retreats. And I stopped traveling much, so I didn't do many speaking engagements - which I really missed. (I loved running those short workshops with the Idea Parties at the end!) It has become so strange to have all that time on my hands! I guess that's what people experience when they retire, I guess.
I did a lot of reading, but it's not my style to just take things in. I like to turn things out, too. I love to learn, but I also love to make things, and invent and create things, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way. So I've been wondering how many people have run into that problem, especially later in life.
To my surprise, I actually feel satisfied that I did the work I really wanted to do in my life most. And I'm very happy that I've trained so many talented people to carry on that work. But I'm not sure what kind of thing I want to do next. I'm still working on answers. I'd love to be driven by something new for sure. Maybe it's time to start a discussion on this subject. What do you think?


text:
Hi carrie
about to pos this:
I've beea member of ROC since it's inception.\Thoughly discused with the outrageos and obvious cheating going on (i.e. suyo-clicking this age) have considered it neceasary to leave you all. A couple of mew ,members have told me they will not continue to play because of the cheating. Some of us has put up with it for too long. ADMIN (dammit) stop it if you want ROC to keep alive. It's very apparent to see who is doing the cheating, so why do you continue to let it happen??? BAH
Yes, I feel sure my acct here will also be deleed, as whill thi msg. Stil some wil see it.
/s/ Badger (IGN) Smitty
Thanks for closing the WP Suicide thread.... war is over. Both sides capitulated.
You are banned: Using Automated Tools
This ban is permanent.
Your ban appeal has been denied.
From: Admins
Time: 7 minutes ago
The sad thing is your cheating annoyed me the most. I actually used to like you. Good luck in whatever it is you choose to do from here on out.
From: stonewall_cougar
Time: 19 minutes ago
You are using the Auto clicker that was made come now. so you admit DN has made an auto clicker. Come now with your admission you should quit as a mod . everyone knows you cheat and have been
From: stonewall_cougar
Time: 32 minutes ago
I'm not using DN's gold finder or their auto clicker . Oh you are in DN
yours truely since Age 1
Junior Member


text:
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text:
If you frequent the nightlife scene in Charlottesville, you've undoubtedly encountered Sidney Tapscott. You can't miss him– he's got a distinctive look and has earned friendships with many locals from musical gigs at the Blue Moon Diner and Miller's.
His picture has been front and center at the Blue Moon Diner for nearly 20 years. I should know, having been a Blue Moon waitress back in 1987.
Current Blue Moon owner Marcus Hahn threw a big bash for Sidney's 80th birthday Saturday, March 8. The Hogwaller Ramblers were on hand to play some down-home tunes, with frequent frontman Sidney stepping in now and then to play the harmonica with his vegetable can (you'll have to see it sometime).
The diner was packed with birthday revelers, including many artists and musicians, and by the time he left, Sidney's gift bags were overflowing.
Next time you see Sidney, ask him to play you a ditty. I'm pretty sure he has his harmonica with him at all times, and he can make it come alive. You can tell him that "Becky" told you to ask.


text:
Worst Hair: Zac Efron
Did you see it from the back? There was a piece sticking up. And every woman on the carpet except for his handler wanted to smack him there and flatten that sh-t out. This is the problem with Zac Efron. The vanity.
On the one hand he's sweet and obliging and eager on the carpet. You know this is a kid who wants to work hard, is willing to walk that line without turning into a complete robot (oh hi Taylor Lautner), and who is smart enough to take good advice from good people.
But then there's the LipGloss. He can't wear a pair of ripped jeans without thinking about it for an hour. He can't put on a beanie without long deliberation about the colour. He can't come to the Oscars without making his hair a f-cking topic of conversation. Come ON. Really?
Also – please mention to his publicist that she needs to start carrying around some blotting paper. This is why I call him LipGloss. Because his entire face is like one glossy lip. Moist. Too moist. And too short. Sooooo short. Hate to be a height-ist all the time, but he's 5 ft 8. No more.
Photos from Wenn.com


text:
Combat ban lifted, but trouble is ahead
A longstanding Pentagon rule barring women from critical ground combat units that include the infantry and special operations was rescinded Thursday, but changes won't come quickly, and Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans warned of rough times ahead for women and the military.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta unveiled the change, saying that, in tearing down barriers to women who want to serve in the military's most dangerous jobs, "we are making our military stronger, and we are making America stronger."
Advocates agreed, echoing his view that ability — not gender — should decide who serves in 237,000 jobs that will open to women.
But others said women have struggled to serve as equals in a male-dominant military, and one sociologist warned the transition would be more difficult for the first women blazing the trail in once-forbidden specialties.
Former Spc. Kasey Hunter, one of only four women in an aviation unit near Baghdad in the Iraq war, said she was taunted about her breasts. Before arriving in Iraq, Hunter, then 21, said GIs took bets on who would sleep with her.
"I went into the military a very naïve, trusting, innocent girl and I came out something totally different," said Hunter, a 2005 Churchill High School graduate. "Jaded, I guess, broken, I was just changed completely. Jaded, I mean angry at the world. I have a hard time trusting people, I'm very on edge and lots of anxiety."
The policy change had been weighed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the past year and ends an era for a military that long had limited opportunities for women.
The services were told to evaluate their occupational performance standards and submit them in mid-May. The process will be completed in three years.
Women make up roughly one in every six of the 1.4 million active-duty troops, and they serve in a wide range of once-shuttered specialties, from the Air Force's Security Forces and Army medics to helicopter and jet pilots.
Only a relative few specialties remain closed, most of them tied to direct ground combat. But Anu Bhagwati, a former Marine Corps company commander, blamed the 1994 combat exclusion policy for much of the harassment women continue to face.
"Women deal with daily discrimination and harassment in large part because legalized discrimination exists in the Marine Corps and the Army and the Navy ... through the combat exclusion policy, so it's given rise to a culture in which it's OK for women to be told they're second-class citizens," said Bhagwati, executive director of Service Women's Action Network.
Panetta said women ought to be able to serve if qualified, a view echoed by Bexar County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau, a retired Air Force major general, who said, "Each job is based on requirements ... and if a woman meets those requirements, then I think she ought to have an opportunity to compete."
But Hunter, 25, of Belton, and Spc. Cody Nusbaum, an infantryman shot 11 times in Kandahar and now at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, expressed reservations, pointing to women who are posted in austere environments surrounded by men.
"My main concern is just the bickering and the I-liked-her-first sort of thing, because when guys get overseas and they've been away from women awhile, they get weird," said Nusbaum, 23, of Camden, Ohio.
"I don't know whose idea it was to do this, but I feel like it's going to get a lot of people hurt," he added.
"I like to call it the perfect storm, when you have men who have been separated from spouses, they're hyped on testosterone and aggression," said Hunter, who said that NCOs and even junior soldiers made sexual comments to her.
Two senior Army commanders said surveys had shown shifting standards were a concern for GIs. Gens. Howard Bromberg and Robert Cone said it was important to ensure that standards were equally applied to men and women.
The Army is developing a universal physical fitness standard, as well as standards for each specialty.
Cone and Bromberg said strong leadership would play a major role in ensuring that women can compete for jobs in now-closed specialties.
University of Maryland military sociologist David Segal agreed, but said the experience of other militaries is likely to be repeated here — with women aiming high but too often falling short.
"It is going to be a more difficult transition than the lifting of don't ask don't tell," he predicted. "It is a male-dominant culture with a history of sexual harassment and sexual abuse, and I think in the long run the change in policy is going to move the military away from that, but in the short run there are going to be a lot of bumps in the road."


text:
Bob's Homecoming
I don't think I'm a very good traveller, at least not in the long term. One thing I've struggled with during this voyage is being so far away from the people I love. I sometimes found it exhausting to put in so much energy making friends, only to say goodbye after a few short weeks knowing that I will probably never see those people again. Being surrounded by familiar faces is something that I completely took for granted before this voyage, and their absence is something I've never quite gotten used to.
Homeward Bound
I keep a running list of jobs to be done. 'Replace head gaskets'. 'Check rigging'. 'Clean filter'. Stuff like that. The list is never finished, but I try not to let it get too long. The more important things, like 'check rigging before next leg' go straight to the top, and other things stay there for weeks, months or even years.
Today I was looking through the list and came across one or two things that have been put off for a while. 'Replace engine belt' and 'oil change on high-pressure pump'. "I'll do that in the next port", I thought to myself. "Where are we going again?" "Oh, wait, that's right………… we're going to Bermuda."
Our Penultimate Destination: the British Virgin Islands
You know those feelings when you're in the last few days of an epic holiday? The feeling of impending doom as your holiday nears its end and you have to get back to the 'real world'? As your vacation countdown clock ticks away and you feel a tremendous pressure to fully enjoy every last moment? Well, these are what I am feeling now, in our penultimate destination of our three and a half year voyage: the British Virgin Islands, or the 'BVIs'.
Closing the Loop
On Wednesday February 10th 2016, Bob hauled in her anchor and set sail from Marigot Bay, St. Martin, bound for Cartagena, Colombia. A little under 3 1/2 years later, on the afternoon of June 10th 2019, the same anchor found purchase on the same sand, and Bob found herself once again clustered
Crossing the Atlantic
The photo above is looking up at Bob from somewhere in the depths of the South Atlantic Ocean.
We've made it from one side of the Atlantic to the other. Woohoo! Don't get me wrong, there's still a reasonable chunk of Atlantic lying between us and Bermuda that we'll be tackling over the coming months, but it still feels like a major achievement to cross such a huge swathe of ocean. We're currently in the Caribbean and working our way north, from Martinique to Nevis, where Alex will be the best man for his best friend's wedding. I can't think of anything better after almost two months at sea than a week of celebrations with good friends.


text:
Taiwan's housing market remained sluggish last month as new construction volume and value fell 20 percent and 40 percent respectively from September on deepening uncertainty as the presidential election draws near and the global economy falters, a report by the Chinese--language Housing Monthly showed last week.
The monthly report flashed a "yellow-blue" signal for home sales, indicating that the market is at risk of recession in the coming months.
"The three-way presidential race adds to public unease about the nation's future political landscape, driving developers and brokers to cut advertisement money," the report said, referring to the addition of People First Party Chairman James Soong to the Jan. 14 presidential elections.
The total score for the housing market index stood at 40 last month, down one point from September, while the number of prospective buyers declined 20 percent, the report showed.
A reading between 33 and 42 suggests a downturn, while a smaller score indicates recession, it said.
"The sentiment made developers reluctant to launch new construction projects, pushing new pre-sale housing projects down 40 percent last month from one month earlier," the report said.
A total of 62 percent of new pre-sale projects are concentrated in New Taipei City, Taoyuan County and northern Hsinchu, where housing prices are more affordable, the report said.
Prices for pre-sale housing showed little change at NT$720,000 (US$23,980) per ping (3.3m2) in Taipei and NT$340,000 per ping in New Taipei City last month, the report said, adding that some projects in Taipei were higher priced than in September.
Transactions contracted 20 percent last month from one month earlier, while advertisement money fell 13 percent, the report said.
The room for price concession narrowed from September, at 12.6 percent, to 12 percent last month because of a sharp decline in supply, the report said.
The second-hand housing segment was equally dismal last month as transactions in New Taipei City plunged 40 percent compared with the same period last year, city government data showed.
Last month saw only 6,178 units transferred, less than the low of 6,278 units recorded during the 2009 global financial crisis, said Sinyi Realty Inc, the nation's only listed broker.
Stanley Su, head of Sinyi's research department, linked the quiet market to the ongoing equity market corrections at home and abroad.
H&B Realty Co., the nation's largest real--estate broker by number of franchises, said that housing prices remained virtually unchanged at NT$514,000 per ping in the capital last month, compared with NT$518,000 per ping the previous month, while it took an average of 70 days to close a deal last month in Taipei City, from an average of 53 days in September.
Source: Taiwan Times


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Seven female coaches have been selected to participate in the Women's Sport Leadership Academy for High Performance Coaches.
Activate is a simple-to-implement exercise programme that reduces the risk of injuries in the game and contributes to player performance
World Rugby has announced the appointment of Olympic gold medallist, former International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board Member, and CEO of Sports Innovation Lab's Angela Ruggiero as an independent member on its Executive Committee.
World Rugby has announced that its flagship 15s and sevens Rugby World Cup properties will no longer include gender in their titles.
World Rugby has announced an immediate amendment to Law 3 to stipulate that a match cannot restart until a player leaving the field of play for a blood injury or Head Injury Assessment (HIA) has been temporarily replaced.
Injury-prevention focused law change has taken another significant step forward with World Rugby's Executive Committee approving a package of law amendments for trial in London.
24 July, 2019 marks exactly one year until the start of Tokyo 2020, where rugby sevens is set to make its second appearance at an Olympic Games after its debut at Rio 2016.
Reaffirming its commitment to evidence-based injury-reduction in the sport, World Rugby has announced details of a minor amendment to the scrum law, reducing the 'axial' or rotational load on front row players on engagement.
A record number of people are playing rugby worldwide as the sport continues to grow and prosper across the globe, according to the World Rugby Year in Review 2018.


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Meet the Pros at Big Winds, and Movie Premiere at Big Horse Brew Pub!
Free beer served at the shop from 5:30 to 7, then the party moves to Big Horse Brew Pub for food and beer, with movie premiere at 9 o'clock.
We are offering a 2 hr., in store only, deal on all in stock Cabrinha kite gear (kites and boards) from 5 o'clock to 7 o'clock. Biggest savings of the year!


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Chicago Auto Show 2011
The last time I wrote about the Chicago Auto Show was… 2007. Wow. It's been four years, and so very little has changed.
Sure, the handful of concept cars is different. And at least a couple of concepts of the past few years—the retro-look Chevy Camaro and Dodge Challenger—have made it into production. Nevertheless, what little change has occurred is not entirely for the better.
Back in 2007 I wrote, "Honda has figured out that its Element, now in its fifth model year, is more popular among the thirty- and forty-something age groups, rather than the hip-hop and surf kids it was originally targeting." This was wishful thinking. Honda never knew what a gem they had in this vehicle—spacious, economical, fun to drive, versatile, and a great value. They insisted on marketing it to a demographic that couldn't care less about practical transport; and meanwhile the people that would have appreciated the Element's strengths—middle-class folks with families and a solid need for a dependable, do-everything daily driver—had no idea it was a viable option. Sure, the "Car Talk" guys have touted it week after week for years. But Honda did not.
And so, the 2011 model year will be the last one for the Element, and the lone example of the vehicle that Honda brought to the show was stashed in the corner, behind a giant display wall, treated like some unwanted stepchild. It was getting some attention, though—from current Element owners, commiserating about its demise. One guy said he owned two. His friend grinned and said he owned three Elements. Both were forty-somethings with families. They love their Elements, and spoke of them with the devotion of someone who would buy only Honda Elements for the rest of their lives. If only they could.
Airstream got smart, after last year's crowded traffic jams, and now has gated access to its area. A lovely spokesmodel stands smiling at the Tensabarrier and allows only four groups in at a time to view the four products on display: a pair of classic polished-aluminum trailers and two well-appointed Class B conversions. The elbow room makes touring the Airstreams so much more comfortable, and really fueled our desire to hit the road someday and see America through the windows of a small RV.
Kia was very smart too. Downstairs, near the ticket sales kiosks and outside the show proper, they had a booth set up with a pile of high-quality cloth tote bags. It's nice to have a tote bag at the show, to carry all the brochures and stuff, and it's extra nice if it's a bag you might wind up wanting to use later too. But to get a bag (and a baseball cap), they want you to take a five-minute test drive of the Kia Optima sedan.
No problem, I said, and we hopped aboard. It's really a terrific car. Comfort, ergonomics, legroom, fit-and-finish, it's all top-rate, especially for the price. The turbocharged four-cylinder engine gave it a nice kick in the pants as we cruised down Martin Luther King Drive. Sedans don't fit our lifestyle, so it's unlikely I'll ever buy one, but next time I'm renting a car if I see a Kia Optima on the lot, I won't hesitate to nab it.
Fiat stopped teasing us this year—after last year, when their only 500 model sat safely out of reach on a turntable—and brought a whole passel of the little coupés to sit in. Including a black one with bright blue racing stripes and a snowboard rack on its tail. These little babies are sporty and adorable; I'd want one if I weren't so worried about getting flattened by an SUV. Alas, Fiat left the 500 Abarth model, with its mad 170-horse powerplant, back in Italia.
Toyota continues to struggle with the aftermath of recalls and bad press, spending their effort this year with a lot of handwaving about "what's the plural of Prius?" Meanwhile, their FJ Cruiser is unchanged and remains two-thirds of a decent vehicle, looking classic from the front and fine in its chassis, but with its rear such an ignored design afterthought that any rearward view is all but impossible. The old, real FJ Land Cruisers were like terraria with all their glass; driving one of these is like sitting at the mouth of a cave.
Overall, one thing kept jumping out at me as I sat in numerous vehicles built by umpteen different manufacturers: the latest must-have, the portable music player connection, is not yet ready for prime time.
Amenities like this tend to go through phases: Phase One runs from prototype through early adoption, to the point where nearly every model has an example; Phase Two begins as real-world use and experience provide feedback that enables designers to redesign, upgrade, and improve the original.
Cup holders are a good example. For instance, our trusty '97 Toyota came out toward the end of cup holder Phase One; it has exactly one cup holder, sized to fit a standard 12-ounce pop can. Passengers (or the driver, if he's nice) must do without. An oversized cup won't fit. This cup holder is, to be honest, laughably inconvenient much of the time; in praxis, we tend to wedge our drink containers between the parking brake handle and the sides of our seats.
Nowadays, every car has multiple cup holders—often more than the passenger capacity of the vehicle. (That makes a good punchline, but really, if everybody aboard has a bottle of water and a cup of coffee, you'll want to have twice as many cup holders as seats.) Some are retractable; most are versatile in the size cup they'll hold. That Kia Optima I drove—like many others—even has cup holders in its doors, along with a little graphic telling you to use capped bottles and not open cups in those holders, so they won't spill when the door is used. The cup holder has come of age.
Not so the portable music player connection, which presently is stuck in the midst of its Phase One. Most cars now have an AUX jack; many include a USB port too. In recognition of modern use of cell phones, GPS receivers, iPods, etc., all at the same time, lots of dashboards have multiple 12-volt outlets (once upon a time, and occasionally still, used for cigarette lighters). This is rapidly becoming the norm.
However merely providing this connection is not enough—placement is important too. Most dashboards put the AUX jack on the face of the CD/radio unit; that's fine for the assembly line's convenience (aside from a different audio unit, nothing has changed and no extra wiring is needed), but where then do we put the music player? Most lacked a tray for it. Meanwhile, the power outlet is somewhere else entirely.
One manufacturer included an open slot for a player, presumably big enough for an iPod (though it looked tight for an iPhone wearing a protective cover) but left the device out in plain sight—and one thing we know from living in a city is that thieves won't hesitate to break a window if they spot anything inside the vehicle with even the slightest value. Another manufacturer put the audio jacks inside a center armrest console, good for security and storage; but left the power outlet outside, so that a power cord will prevent the console lid from closing.
The upshot of all this is that today's cars, with few exceptions, come with the unspoken expectation that we'll accept a dashboard that looks like a spaghetti farm, with cables strung every which way, while our expensive personal music devices and other gadgets toss about at random with every start, stop, and turn. And that we'll pack all that mess up every time we park the car.
Earlier, I mentioned the Honda Element. On the passenger side of its dash, in a flat, lipped tray above the glove compartment, is a 12-volt outlet and an AUX jack. It's exposed to view, making it still a Phase One design, and yet—my music player stays put, and all its cables can be neatly tucked away. And that was in the 2009 model.
By the way, if you're going to the Chicago Auto Show, I definitely recommend going on a weekday. The weekend crowds are completely insane.


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I have found that setting
\widowpenalty=10000\clubpenalty=10000 in the main document has not prevented widows and clubs from appearing occasionally in footnotes in a long and complex document I am working on.
I eliminated those widows and clubs by adding the same commands to a new command for creating footnotes:
but it seems to me that this is rather wasteful since it calls the two penalty commands over and over again. Is there, instead, a pair of commands that specify widow and club penalties for footnotes, and that only need to be called once?


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The advance press copies of Persona 4 Golden for the PSVita unlocked yesterday, and I've been playing the game it with every free hour I've had since then. The soundtrack, by Shōji Meguro, is so good I can't stand it.
The Vita version also has a bunch of new stuff from the original PS2 game, including this new battle theme. Which, as you will hear, totally kills. It kinda reminds me of a more hyped-up version of "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim, aka the song with the amazing Walken-dancing music video.
I'll have a lot more about this game in the coming weeks. So, I'd imagine, will Mr. Schreier. For now, listen, and enjoy.


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Log In
Named after the 17th-century term for music played in a "chamber" (musica da camera), the Da Camera Society was founded at Mount Saint Mary's University in 1973 to restore chamber music to the intimate environments for which it was originally intended. In 1980, the Society inaugurated CHAMBER MUSIC IN HISTORIC SITES® - a series of concerts matching world-class ensembles with historically and architecturally significant buildings.
With 21 to 29 concerts each year staged in relatively intimate settings, the Society is both the largest and the smallest presenter of chamber music in the Southland. Our historic-sites programs have included newly-discovered music of the California missions at Mission San Fernando, Marcus Roberts at the Dunbar (a focal point during Central Avenue's golden age of jazz), music from the court of Louis XIV at a Pasadena "chateau," a children's concert of Japanese traditional music at the Aikido Center in Little Tokyo, the great Milt Jackson at Union Station, the Tallis Scholars in an English Gothic-styled church, and Poncho Sanchez at the Mayan Theater.
Called "undoubtedly the most imaginative, permanent floating concert series in Southern California, if not the nation," (Applause Magazine), the program has been acclaimed as a model by local critics. "Amid all the local competition, the series that is simply the best - in venues, in consistent quality of performance, in the power to rejuvenate the listener as only live musical events can - is CHAMBER MUSIC IN HISTORIC SITES®" (Los Angeles Times).
In addition to enriching the Southern California community with outstanding musical performances celebrating our cultural landmarks, the Society's mission includes the goal of making a difference in the community by bringing music into the lives of those most in need of its enriching and affirmative powers - low-income and diverse audiences of young people, seniors, the disabled and the disadvantaged. These community programs not only nurture the audiences of the future, but also develop young people's sensitivity and self-esteem, help them explore their own creative abilities, demonstrate the value of discipline, and inspire them to aspire and to achieve. The outstanding musicians featured at these concerts both articulate and model these values, turning their performances into lessons in harmony and in hope.
Over the past 40 years, the Society has evolved from a modest, entrepreneurial project into a major cultural organization of regional and national significance. Join us today or at our next concert, and start your journey through the musical landscape of the Southland!


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Main features
- Polyamide and wool cloth
- Long sleeve
- Ribbed knit
- Pique stitch fabric
- Nickel-free metal half ring
Made in: Serbia
Product code: 1044D2422_09B
80% Wool 20% Nylon
Clothing care
- Hand wash only. Maximum temperature: 40°
- Do not bleach
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- Flat dry in shade
- Delicate iron at maximum temperature of 110°C. without steam, which could damage the garment
- Professional dry-cleaning in: perchloroethylene. Delicate cycle


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Place to download PC Games
Place to download PC Game mods
Free fifa19 full download for...
4th November 2018
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Use this control to limit the display of threads to those newer than the specified time frame.
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Medical marvel: Varsity Hall packs up to move
Moving can be hard, especially for a 145-year-old, 600-ton building. But that's just what UVA's Varsity Hall will soon do, to make room for a 115,000-square-foot addition to a building at the foot of the Lawn.
"That is our current plan," says UVA landscape architect Mary Hughes, adding that despite earlier announcements of a summer move, no date has been set.
Ed Lay, retired architecture professor and author of The Architecture of Jefferson Country, says he's relieved the building, constructed for $7,500 in 1858, will remain intact.
"It has a unique HVAC system in it," says Lay, "so I'm happy it's being saved."
Used first as an infirmary through the late 19th century– where that unique ventilation system helped prevent the spread of typhoid– by the turn of the century, Varsity Hall had become home to Delta Tau Delta fraternity. Since 1951, the brick building has housed UVA's branch of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps.
Varsity Hall stands in the path of the planned expansion of Rouss Hall, one of the three Stanford White-designed structures at the foot of UVA's hallowed Lawn.
Initial plans called for the destruction of Varsity Hall, but UVA's Historic Preservation Master Plan– a survey of the university's 150 buildings pre-1965 structures– identified Varsity Hall as a keeper. The Board of Visitors voted in October 2003 to move the building, and it will land on the site of the soon-to-be-demolished 1950 Brugh House, at 204 15th Street, a logical location given its proximity to the medical center and Varsity Hall's medical history.
Now, it's just a matter of time before Varsity Hall hits the road. But, as one might imagine, moving the building is a bit more complicated than moving its contents.
For the job, UVA has tapped Expert House Movers, a decision that owner Jerry Matyiko attributes to the Maryland company's track record.
Matyiko is part of a family of structural movers– in fact, he was bidding against two of his brothers for the job. But he says, when it came down to it, "There's nobody who's moved this many buildings." He also cites his company's partnership with International Chimney, an engineering firm that specializes in moving structures, as a factor in his winning bid.
Among his "hundreds" of building moves, Matyiko cites four lighthouses, two theaters, and a monument from Arlington National Cemetery.
Moving a historic building like Varsity Hall comes with a special set of considerations, however.
For instance, says Matyiko, Varsity Hall's bricks aren't set in modern mortar– they're set in clay and lime, meaning his company will have to provide extra bracing for the building by wrapping it with more cables than usual so that when the structure is lifted on jacks and placed on a truck bed, the bricks won't crumble while traveling the mile between sites.
Then there's the issue of the turn-of-the-century windows, which actually extend behind the brick from top to bottom. In those places, the exterior brick wall, instead of being a foot thick, is only one brick thick, says Matyiko, providing another opportunity for cracking if everything isn't done perfectly.
Finally, there's a tower on one end of the building that has already separated from the primary structure.
In all, the move is fraught with potential problems.
UVA's Hughes knows this, acknowledging, "It's a last resort," she says.
So if it all falls apart?
"That would make it hard to get paid," chuckles Matyiko. And with a move like this one, getting paid means a hefty check.
Matyiko could not provide the exact price of the Varsity Hall move, but suggested a rough estimate of approximately $800 per ton. At 600 tons, that would put the Varsity Hall move at near $50,000. Not cheap, but still a far cry from what a building of that size and construction would cost new.
Though UVA didn't release the move date, Matyiko says he thinks it will be right around Christmas.
With a move this delicate, he'll have to look out for flying reindeer...
Moving a historic building like Varsity Hall is fraught with potential troubles.


text: Poland: Tax exemption for venture capital funds aims to foster innovation Global Tax News Share this 23 MAY 2016 By: Marcelina Szwed It is becoming increasingly clear that the legislature is striving to make Poland a technological and digital oasis. One of the tools intended to achieve this goal is a tax exemption applicable to venture capital funds. This year, the government announced its Responsible Development Plan, a set of tools aiming to boost innovation and improve Polish competitiveness on the international stage, as well as Start in Poland, a program to involve state-owned companies in financing Polish startups and promote Polish tech innovation. These are all signs of a strong pro-innovation trend, underpinned by the Act of 25 September 2015 on the Amendment to Certain Acts in relation to the Support of Innovation. Under this Act, a number of tax relief measures concerning research and development activities have been introduced, among them a tax exemption for venture funds. This exemption concerns income from the disposal of shares (stocks) in companies conducting research and development activities and may turn out to be an additional investment incentive for investors. What is the essence of the tax benefit? The tax preference applies to the income of venture funds from the disposal of shares (stocks) purchased in the years 2016 - 2017. Where the requirements provided for by the Act are met, this income will enjoy a total exemption from corporate income tax. Consequently, if a venture capital fund meets the requirements for enjoying the exemption, it may gain as much as 19 percent profit on the sale of shares (stocks). Of course, the higher the return on an investment, the greater the tax benefit will be. In the event of a large increase in the value of shares or stocks, the amount of savings may be considerable, which is illustrated by the table below: Taxation of income from the sale of shares (stocks) purchased on 31 December 2015 Taxation of income from the sale of shares (stocks) purchased on 2 January 2016 Purchase price: PLN 100,000 PLN 100,000 Selling price: PLN 1,100,000 PLN 1,100,000 Income: PLN 1,000,000 PLN 1,000,000 Tax: 19%* PLN 1,000,000 = PLN 190,000 PLN 0 Exemption is not applicable to all funds As stated above, in order to be able to take advantage of the exemption, a number of conditions must be met. One set of conditions concerns the venture capital fund, while another set concerns the target (i.e. the company whose shares are being purchased). The third set comprises conditions relating to the investment period and the level of engagement. Investment period The preference is time-limited; the exemption applies only to shares purchased in 2016 and 2017. What is important is that the date of divestment is of no relevance; however, the minimum two-year investment period and the minimum 10% share in the portfolio company (the target) must be maintained. Conditions to be met by a venture capital fund First of all, it is necessary that the venture capital fund operates in the form of a capital company or a limited joint-stock partnership. No registration in a specific register is required for the company to conduct its business activities for the relevant time. Therefore, it is possible (and, in practice, it often happens) that a separate venture capital company may be created for the purpose of a particular investment. In addition, in order to take advantage of the exemption, a venture fund has to conduct its business activity in the area of financial investments only, and the company should, among other things, invest 75 percent of the balance-sheet value of its assets in assets other than: a) securities issued in an initial public offer or admitted to trading on the regulated market (unless upon their purchase, the nature of the securities was different) b) money market instruments (e.g. interbank deposits, money bills and treasury bills, derivative transactions), unless they have been issued by non-public companies whose securities are not admitted to trading on the regulated market or whose stocks or shares make up an investment portfolio of a non-public company c) real properties. Also, the value of the assets in which a venture fund may invest may not exceed €50 million according to their purchase price. Conditions to be met by a portfolio company A portfolio company (the target) may not have the status of a controlled company (i.e. it may not be a foreign company to which the provisions relating to so-called controlled foreign corporations apply). Such a company may not conduct any trade activity and, most importantly, it must conduct research and development activity. Please note that the exemption applies both in the case of investment in companies from Poland as well as from other countries of the European Union and the European Economic Area. Exemption for a few? The exemption described above is definitely an advantageous option for venture funds. However, due to the imposed conditions, it will not be applicable on a broader scale. First, this is because the legislature did not provide for the exemption directly in the Act on Corporate Income Tax, but instead in the above-mentioned Act on supporting innovative activities – as a consequence, it is relatively unknown. Also, surprisingly, the application of the exemption is limited to shares (stocks) purchased in the years 2016 - 2017. Many observers have remarked that programs aiming to foster innovation should cover a period longer than two years in order to be effective. Also, the exemption is burdened with conditions that might be difficult to meet in practice, especially for funds with highly diversified portfolios. Find out more about this set of tax incentives by contacting either of the authors.