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Having specialised in board artwork since our original conception in 2009, these wall hanging artworks have seen many walls Worldwide.
Made here in our cherry farm workshop, our unique 'classic-shaped' wall-hanging art boards are crafted from locally grown sustainable macrocarpa, recycled rimu or recycled Marlborough wine barrels. The artworks are either laser etched or painstakingly hand-painted as one of a kind artworks.
For each board sold, a donation is made towards the native replanting of areas affected by the 2019 Nelson bushfires. Support New Zealand-made design with one of our unique wall-hanging skateboard artworks.
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Here are a few X-mas wants, needs, craves...whathehell, WHIMS!
I already got myself a pair of Hunter boots a few X-mas's ago, but these Jimmy Choo ones have been pulling my eye for a while. I can't have enough Jeff. C's or Sam Eds., and I just need a Kiwi Strawberry Snapple in my life right now or a Peach one would be great too.
I'll post some more X-mas lists up soon.
Just a random question: have you seen the movie Ramona & Beezus? I know it might sound extremely childish but it is officially my new favorite movie. Maybe it's because I was in the whole Thanksgiving mode but I cried like I haven't cried in a movie in a long time and laughed so hard my stomach still hurts (I really think Ramona's character was based on me).
Ever since we got Apple TV, all I do is watch movies, like for example, this CRAZY ASS movie you have to watch if you're into scary/crazy/weird movies: HUMAN CENTIPEDE.
Enough of that.
BIG toast for BARCA who beat MADRID 5-0 tonight!!! It seems that every time a MADRD-BARCA game goes on, the world goes crazy (considering it's NOVEMBER and it SNOWED in Madrid today!) I loved today & this is what I wore to the game, nothing out of this world just a simple cozy outfit with rain boots to fight any unexpected weather craziness.

subset: commoncrawl


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We have been in operation since 1977 providing many years of experience moving vending machines and equipment, coin operated machines (such as arcade games, pinball machines) pool tables and much more. We take pride in the service we provide to our customers and our competitive rates. Located in Baltimore Maryland, we service MD, DC, VA, PA and Delaware. We are committed to providing our customers with the highest quality of service. For more information give us a call at 410-284-2845 Jimmy The Mover LLC
Vending Machine Movers in Dundalk, MD
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Collection and Storage of Umbilical Cord Stem Cells for Treatment of Sickle Cell Disease
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Know the risks and potential benefits of clinical studies and talk to your health care provider before participating. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00012545
Recruitment Status : Recruiting
First Posted : March 12, 2001
Last Update Posted : January 18, 2020
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- No Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
This study will determine the best ways to collect, process and store umbilical cord blood from babies with sickle cell disease, sickle cell trait and unaffected babies. Sickle cell disease is an abnormality of the hemoglobin in red blood cells that causes the cells to change shape and clump together, preventing their normal flow in the bloodstream. This impairs blood flow to various organs, and the resulting oxygen deprivation causes organ damage.
Cord blood is rich in stem cells (cells produced in the bone marrow that mature to different types of blood cells), which may prove useful in new sickle cell therapies. However, cord blood from babies with sickle cell trait, sickle cell disease and normal babies may act differently under laboratory conditions, so it is important to learn how best to work with blood from all three groups of babies for future use in possible treatments.
Pregnant women between 18 and 45 years of age who are at risk of having an infant with sickle cell disease and normal volunteers who are pregnant and not at risk for this disease may be eligible for this study. Potential participants will be counseled about donating her infant s blood in order to make an informed choice.
All women who participate in the study will provide a medical history and have blood collected from the umbilical cord and placenta (afterbirth) after the baby s delivery. The blood will be tested for various infectious diseases, processed, frozen and stored for research purposes. In addition, blood from women with babies at risk for sickle cell disease will be tested for the presence of the sickle cell gene, tissue typed, and used for research as follows:
- Sickle cell disease If cord blood tests show the baby has sickle cell disease, the blood will be frozen for an indefinite period of time for possible use in future treatment of the child. This treatment could include stem cell transplantation or gene therapy, treatments are not currently considered routine for sickle cell disease.
- Sickle cell trait or normal hemoglobin If cord blood tests show the baby has sickle cell trait or is unaffected, the blood will be processed and stored for up to 3 years, during which time it may possibly be used to treat a currently living or future sibling with sickle cell disease. After 3 years, the participant may agree to either have the blood discarded, given to research or moved to another facility for continued storage at the participant s expense, if there is a storage fee. Alternatively, if there is no anticipated future need for the collected blood, or if it does not meet standards needed for future treatment, it will be used in NIH-approved research studies.
Participants and their family doctor or the baby s pediatrician will be contacted twice a year for information about changes in the baby s health. Participants may also be asked permission to perform new tests developed by researchers.
|Condition or disease
|Sickle Cell Disease Sickle Cell Trait
|Study Type :
|Estimated Enrollment :
|99999999 participants
|Observational Model:
|Time Perspective:
|Official Title:
|Collection and Storage of Umbilical Cord Hematopoietic Stem Cells for Sickle Cell Disease Therapy
|Actual Study Start Date :
|March 8, 2001
- To procure umbilical cord blood (UCB) from newborns at risk for sickle cell disease, sickle cell trait, and related disorders as well as normal newborns, as controls [ Time Frame: End of study ]To evaluate the feasibility of performing directed donor umbilical cord blood banking for families at risk for having children with congenital diseases amenable to treatment by autologous gene therapy or allogeneic hematopoietic transplantation; in this protocol, the feasibility will be studied specifically in families with risk for sickle cell anemia and related syndromes.
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years to 45 Years (Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
|Sampling Method:
|Non-Probability Sample
Pregnant women who are at risk of having an infant with sickle cell anemia (HbSS), as well as woman who are not at risk and wish to serve as control subjects, will be identified and referred by their health care providers or will be self-referred.
Maternal subjects must be between 18 and 45 years old, may be in their first or subsequent pregnancy, and must be able to provide informed consent.
The maternal subject will not be eligible for study if she is known to be positive for one or more of the following diseases transmissible by blood: HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, or HTLV; is unable to give informed consent; or is known to have a fetus with a significant congenital anomaly.
Subjects may be excluded at the time of delivery if the attending physician or collection staff, due to unanticipated obstetrical complications, deems cord blood collection inadvisable.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT00012545
|Contact: Wynona Coles
|(301) 402-2104
|Contact: John F Tisdale, M.D.
|(301) 402-6497
|United States, Maryland
|National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, 9000 Rockville Pike
|Bethesda, Maryland, United States, 20892
|Contact: For more information at the NIH Clinical Center contact Office of Patient Recruitment (OPR) 800-411-1222 ext TTY8664111010 firstname.lastname@example.com
|Principal Investigator:
|John F Tisdale, M.D.
|National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Additional Information:
|Responsible Party:
|National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|First Posted:
|March 12, 2001 Key Record Dates
|Last Update Posted:
|January 18, 2020
|Last Verified:
|January 15, 2020
Stem Cells
Sickle Cell Disease
Umbilical Cord Blood
Anemia, Sickle Cell
Sickle Cell Trait
Anemia, Hemolytic, Congenital
Anemia, Hemolytic
Hematologic Diseases
Genetic Diseases, Inborn


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Butiama Beach map: Mafia Island in Tanzania
Below is the most detailed current Google satellite map of Butiama Beach. To zoom out, to see more, click the minus sign (-) at the bottom of the bar on the left.
For a Google map of all the lodges in the area, including Butiama Beach, see our Google map of Mafia Island.
For a more graphical, original map, also with clickable lodges, see our Mafia Island reference map.
Navigating around this Butiama Beach map
Drag-and-drop the sliding marker along the vertical scale to zoom the map in (+) and out (-).
Move the mouse over the pins to see lodge names.
Click on a blue lodge pin to open a bubble with more information. In the bubble, click on the lodge name to read more information about the lodge.
Brown pins indicate points of interest, while black pins show important villages and towns.
|Butiama Beach
Mafia Island
|No. of bedrooms: 15 bungalows
|Season: June–March
|Situated just west of Kilondoni, the main town on Mafia, Butiama Beach is a simple beach lodge with friendly managers and a laid back vibe.
|Read more about Butiama Beach
|See satellite map of Butiama Beach


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Often underestimated, the differences between Europe and the USA networking are highlighted by InContact Director Ashley Banfield:
"Globally we all share the same technology, protocols and standards but when it comes to network provisioning, the collaboration and working practices that take place at a local level can be quite different. We just don't have the expertise or resources to bridge that gap. By using Genius with their expertise in integrating European carrier networks, we have the confidence to push forward with our expansion into this growing market."
Case studies
Case studies


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1 mile run
100 pull-ups
200 push-ups
300 squats
1 mile run
At CrossFit Syracuse our athletes work their butts off every day in the gym and eat a clean diet so they can live the American dream. They want long, energy filled, lives. They want to come home from work and play with their kids. They want to grow old to see their kids have kids. They want to posses the ability to handle whatever life throws at them.
The men and women who lost their lives serving in our armed services fought so we could live the American dream. Today is about recognizing these individuals for what they have given us.
"Murph" is about gutting through something that seems grueling and somewhat impossible. But what we suffer through in this workout is nothing compared to the sacrifice the men and women we are remembering today gave.


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"For Your Eyez Only" Album Review
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In J. Cole's newest project For Your Eyez Only, the Roc Nation rapper tries to weave together two separate narratives: the life story of his friend James McMillan and how Cole's perspective has changed through his experiences with love. The album takes form as a message from Cole at McMillan's request to Nina, James' daughter, that tells the story, regrets, and lessons of her father, a young man who left this world too soon due to drug violence in the North Carolina projects. While the task Cole takes on has incredible depth and weight, the execution lacks cohesiveness, detail, organization, and creativity for most of the project. For Your Eyez Only, promises to deliver an emotional and powerful message, but mucks up the delivery with unnecessary lyrics and superfluous songs.
From the first track, "For Whom the Bell Tolls", Cole sets the dark and painful mood of the narrative of the record. The inescapable trap of selling drugs and the violence that emerges from it breaks down the will of the individual to aspire for more, compounding vice upon vice. Cole does successfully set the tone for half the album in this track, using the "rain falling" before his very eyes and "bells getting too loud" to set the chilling, traumatic scene of a funeral, playing to the McMillan narrative.
As the record continues, Cole attempts to introduce a second focus, love, but fails to effectively synthesize his two subjects. Generic beats, the constant shifting between McMillan's story and Cole's personal one, and often lazy lyrics depreciates the significance of the story Cole strives to tell. In "Ville Mentality" Cole drifts from the initial narrative, although the beat and vocals of the track lends itself to the desolation and pain of McMillan's story. Cole also lacks the vocal range he attempts to reach in the track, causing an unnecessary distraction. In "She's Mine, Pt. 1" Cole digresses from the McMillan's story entirely to portray a love story from his youth. "Neighbors", while a very vocally and lyrically pleasing song, lacks a defining personality in its beat, leaving the listener to discern the urgency of its message. The constant swerve from the main narrative so articulately displayed in the first two tracks is too overwhelming a distraction and picks away from McMillan's dying request; the two different narratives conflict each other rather than complement one another.
None of the poorer tracks of the album even compare to the abomination that is track eight, "Foldin Clothes", where Cole expresses all the small changes he makes in his life to help pregnant wife. Beyond the seemingly random digression from McMillan's narrative, Cole's obvious and shallow lyrics ("Baby I wanna do the right thing, feels so much better than the wrong thing") in the hook weakens the message. The lyrical shortcomings of the track are paired with awkward instrumentals that paint a completely different emotional picture from the rest of the album, shifting from the passionate emotion of the previous tracks to a casual, almost relaxed tone that seems out of place from the rest of the album, leaving the message and narrative of the album muddled.
The saving grace of the middle section of Eyez is the sixth track, "Change". A song that plays to both of the conflicting narratives, Cole explains that true personal change can only come from within the individual, not from the lyrics of an artist or the words of a critic. The track applies this philosophy to the change that McMillan wish he had made prior to his death, and the change that Cole had to realize to escape the grim realities that haunt his hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina. Lyrically, the track is clever and perceptive, and the beat establishes a hopeful attitude that encompasses the philosophy that Cole is portraying. The track seems as though it would have been better suited toward the end of the album, but the universal message that Cole is trying to convey makes the song versatile enough to carry the middle section of the record.
Where Eyez draws its most emotionally impactful and effective images is during the last two tracks, "She's Mine, Pt. 2" and "For Your Eyez Only". The former of the two relates Cole's feelings as a father to how McMillan feels about his own daughter. With "For Your Eyez Only," Cole truly saves his best for last. Rapping one half of the song channelling the voice of McMillan and the other half rapping as himself, Cole recounts the night before her father passed to Nina. In his most emotionally charged verse on the album, Cole raps from the perspective of McMillan. "My worst fear is one day that you come home from school/And see your father face while hearing 'bout tragedy on news/I got the strangest feeling your daddy gonna lose his life soon/And sadly if you're listening now it must mean it's true," he says. McMillan wants his daughter to be everything he couldn't be, he wants his last words to her to have meaning that will impact her and lead her to a more prosperous life.
Cole's half of the song focuses more on how much he reveres McMillan for leaving this message to Nina. "Your daddy was real… 'cause he loved you," Cole tells her in the last verse on the album. Unequivocally the best track on the album, Cole offers a perfect summation to his main narrative with an emotionally straining track that ties together the bond between father and daughter. Cole uses this narrative to describe the tragedy that occurs all too often in the North Carolina projects where he grew up, as well as the unimaginable struggle that Nina is going through, without her father's help.
Overall, the disorganized and confused nature of the record detracts from the message Cole is trying to convey. The emotionally powerful beginning and end of the record are outweighed by the lyrically and sonically lacking tracks that make up most of the album. His constant diversions and digressions from one plot to the other (that for most of the record seem completely distant) are bothersome and poorly delivered, and therefore each individual narrative carries less influence over the listener. An overall misfire for Jermaine Lamarr Cole, the Fayetteville rapper struggles to control the two narratives for much of the album, and the message of allowing others to help you find internal change becomes cluttered and marginalized.
Album Rating: 3/5
Uri is 16 and in his junior year, which is also his first year of Deerprints. Impressively, he's bilingual and can speak Hebrew on top of English. He...


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Should We Be Worried about Bird Flu?
Man is the only creature that can contemplate, and enjoy the contemplation of, his own extinction. One of the means by which he might disappear from the face of the earth, at least in the imagination of the writers of pulp fiction, is by the development, either by chance or design, of a fast-spreading and fatal new virus against which he has no resistance.
The emergence of bird flu fifteen years ago conjured up visions of a viral Armageddon. It was previously unknown and it was dangerous. It gave rise to the archetypal health scare, that is to say a panic about a remote possibility that was much more frightening than more real, constant but everyday dangers with which we are so familiar that we ignore them.
Bird flu was frightening because the case-fatality rate (the proportion of people who died having contracted the disease) was high and there was no treatment for it. Fortunately, though, its communicability from bird to man was low, and from person to person virtually unknown. According to a recent paper in The Lancet, 344 of 583 people known to have contracted it in the last 15 years died of it, a very tiny absolute number by comparison with the total numbers of deaths in the world during that period.
Is complacency then in order? The problem is that viruses mutate quickly; and theoretically a mutation could take place which permitted the bird flu virus first to spread more easily from bird to man, and then from person to person, in which case there could be a pandemic as large and fatal as that of the Spanish flu in 1918-1919 that killed more people than the First World War.
According to The Lancet, researchers have now genetically-engineered strains of bird flu that can pass easily from ferret to ferret (the animal model often used in flu research) by means of aerosol, that is to say by air exhaled from the lungs. This demonstrates the possibility that a bird flu virus could emerge that would threaten the health of mankind.


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A large number of consumers, officers and officials from various government departments, representatives of service providers and students participated.
Shreenivas Galgali, regional head (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Goa) explained the initiative taken by TRAI to make consumers aware of various laws and other directions given by the regulatory body and its subordinate agencies to ensure better services to consumers.
The participants appreciated the efforts taken by TRAI to educate consumers. During an interaction session, the participants raised some issues relating to services provided by different providers and also gave suggestions. TRAI instructed service providers to note these issues and resolve them at the earliest.
Questions were asked about bad network coverage and poor speed of BSNL broadband.
Galgali replied to the queries and instructed providers to look into the issues and resolve them so that BSNL services could be appreciated.


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Are you unhappy with the shape of your lips? Are they too thin for your face? Do they sort of disappearing when you smile? Well, maybe you should do something about them and add some volume there because beauty and voluptuous lips go hand in hand.
Lip enhancement in Dubai and elsewhere is emerging as a popular cosmetic treatment with many people increasingly opting for it. If you too are thinking to go for it, here's all you need to know.
You may be born with thin lips, but if you don't take adequate care of them, your lips can become even thinner. In fact, lack of attention can make even the fullest of lips to appear thinner. Usually, lips lose their volume due to the following reasons:
All of these factors essentially reduce the amount of collagen in the lips and skin, which is responsible for keeping the skin elastic. When its amount is reduced, it causes the skin to lose volume and become saggy.
Well, yes, they can be. There are plenty of techniques you can adopt at home to make your lips look plumper. Homemade moisturizers and exfoliators made from natural products found in your kitchen are a good start. For instance, you can exfoliate your lips with a mixture of sugar and olive oil. This you can follow up with a moisturizer like fresh milk cream. Similarly, you can use a lip plumper that can be easily found in cosmetic shelves.
Most homemade remedies, however, will not always work. They are usually good for people who wish to see only a subtle change in the size and volume of their lips, because natural products aren't designed to bring about drastic changes. If your lips are too thin, you may want to consider a cosmetic treatment. Some of the most commonly used and effective ones are identified below.
Dermal fillers are very popular for making thin lips go fuller and voluptuous. They're basically made up of hyaluronic acid—a substance which is naturally found in the body. It is directly injected into the lips, making the lips go plump instantly. The results, however, are temporary, lasting usually for about 6 months.
Fat transfer involves extracting fat from one area of the body through liposuction and then injecting the same fat back into the lips. This procedure is repeated until a desired lip volume has been achieved. An additional benefit of this method is that since the fat is from your own body, there are fewer risks involved.
If you're looking for a more permanent and long-lasting solution for your thin lips, then you may want to give lip implant a thought. It is a surgical procedure that involves inserting a small implant material into the lips. Once inserted, the lips instantly get thicker and remain so for the rest of your life. However, the process itself is complicated and there are some serious risks involved.
To be honest, there is no best treatment. Every treatment option has different outcomes and you need to choose those that align with your goals. If you believe that you need only a subtle enhancement in the shape of your lips, you may want to try a home-made remedy. It will do a satisfactory job if you are patient and do it regularly.
For more dramatic changes, you may want to go for an inject able filler. They offer excellent results. However, if you cannot spare the time or energy for repeated treatments, you might consider a lip implant then.
Fill in the form to get Consultation100% Financing with 0% Interest


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I've been learning quite a bit about after effects the past few months and when Danny and I discussed creating the logo for, the then, Faolen Studios it came in handy.
Danny liked the idea of a jumping wolf design and so I created this.
I firstly drew the shape of the wolf jumping in Illustrator then went into after effects. I made a black background, added a layer with triangular particles flying out and then brought in the wolf as a new layer and changed the alpha settings.
Then when I was satisfied with how the particles looked in the wolf and that there were no gaps, I rendered out a frame as a .jpeg.
However, after thinking about it, Danny thought it was too detailed so I bumped up the particle size and got this.
Now Danny has created this logo, (not the finished version). Also trying to think of a new name for the company at the minute it is now Blu Q Studios.


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DJ/producer Michael Christopher is a Boston transplant who moved to Miami in 2004 to pursue a college baseball career, and soon became a mainstay of the local underground dance scene, playing various weekly residencies and parties throughout the years at local venues like Blue, Laundry Bar, White Room, and PS14.
He has since become affiliated with the local PL0T collective (headed by DJs Alejandro Sab and Basti) spinning in support of artists like Adultnapper, Ryan Elliott, Seth Troxler, Butane, and most recently Matt Tolfrey and Crazy Larry. Christopher additionally has some collaborative productions in the works with local artists Tucson, Basti and Pedro Zanetti, with expected releases in the near future -- in the meantime you can check out some of his dark, atmospheric minimal stylings on Myspace.
Here is an exclusive recording of Christopher's opening set for Matt Tolfrey and Crazy Larry at the last PL0T party at Electric Pickle on Friday, September 18. A mix that perfectly encapsulates the sultry and hypnotic sounds of minimal techno and microhouse that have taken over the Pickle's upstairs room at PL0T's Friday night sessions.
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Click here to download Michael Christopher's opening set from that party.


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Best Holiday Travel Tips For Navigating a Busy Airport
October 1, 2019
Intro It's that time of the year again folks – the holiday travel season. A time ridden with inclement weather, first time travelers, screaming children, and trying to get along with the other side of the family. For some, it's an easy 10 minute car ride to see your loved ones on the other side of town. For others, it's…read more


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Edinburgh has one of the UK's most productive and highly qualified workforces, which, when coupled with the city's exceptional quality of life and globally renowned cultural offer, make Scotland's capital appealing to employers and employees alike.
International workforce
In 2018, Edinburgh had one of the most economically active populations of any UK city, with 75.6% of residents (aged 16 to 64 years) in employment. Nearly half of those who were not (42%) were registered as students.
Edinburgh's diverse talent pool reflects its international appeal as an inspiring city in which to live, as well as its thriving student population of nearly 80,000 people enrolled in further and higher education.
Edinburgh attracts talent from all over the world, drawn to the city by a critical mass of rewarding career opportunities generated by a thriving, diverse regional economy, a renowned quality of life and a cultural offer that is second to none.
According to a 2018 study, Edinburgh was named the best city to live in the world thanks to its low crime rate, high levels of education and the overall health of its workforce. The report, published by global consultancy Arcadis, measured the social, environmental and economic health of 100 cities around the globe in its 2018 Sustainability Cities Index.
The combination of a wonderful lifestyle with world class research environment and a rich entrepreneurial culture provides an attractive package for talented people looking to move or be in Europe.Sethu Vijayakumar, professor of robotics, at the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics
Talent pipeline
With a student population of more than 80,000 people in further and higher education, 60,500 of whom are at university, Edinburgh also benefits from a rich and diverse talent pipeline.
There can be few better endorsements of the opportunities Edinburgh offers to young people than the fact that nearly half (42%) of all graduates from the city's four universities – The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University, Heriot-Watt University and Queen Margaret University – chose to stay and build their careers in the city after graduation.
Regional commute
Edinburgh benefits from a large metropolitan travel to work area. More than 1.6 million people live within a 90-minute travel to work area.
Excellent rail connections across the city region mean people commute into Edinburgh from the Lothians, the Borders, Fife, Dundee and Perth, while around 25,000 people a day also commute daily from Glasgow. Typical travel times to Edinburgh city centre include Livingston (18 mins); Falkirk (23 mins); Dunbar (25 mins); Dunfermline (31 mins); North Berwick (33 mins); Stirling (41 mins); Berwick upon Tweed (42 mins) Glasgow (49 mins) and Kirkcaldy (55 mins).
Despite is growing population, Edinburgh remains a compact city. Named the UK's most walkable city in 2017, 55% of city residents use the bus, cycle or walk as their main mode of travel. Edinburgh was the first UK city to sign up to the Charter of Brussels, which sets out to have 15% of journeys by bike by 2020 and the city now spends 10% of its transport budget on active travel infrastructure.
Get in touch
Investor Support Team
City of Edinburgh Council


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The strands of tropical storm Alberto raced around the sky like the skirts of twirling Sufi dancers. Overhead, charcoal-colored clouds close to the ground sprinted by with breathtaking speed. Above them, lighter gray shapes rolled by more slowly. Occasionally there were breaks in both that exposed the blue sky high above delicately laced with wispy, seemingly-unmoving dots of white.
I watched it all from a comfy chair in a sheltered niche in my courtyard where the warm, humid tropical wind was flinging about the fronds of my pygmy palm. As I sipped my morning tea, I found it all so dramatic and thrilling that I had trouble just being with such wild energy. So I tried to capture it on video. Soon I gave up, knowing I could not include the whole panorama: the sensation of the wet tropical air, the hawks playing in the currents under the clouds, nor the connection I felt with the little brown lizard sitting quietly on the bricks with his head up, also looking at the sky.
Relaxing back on the soft cushions of my swivel rocking chair, I surrendered to the exciting intensity of the morning. I could imagine myself one of those birds with unflapping wings gliding and wheeling effortlessly above.
Eventually, the call of breakfast brought me back to earth. I watched my egg boil and marveled at the miraculous nature of water. It cooks my food and freezes to preserve it. Amazing.
My stomach satiated, I decided to trim my dwarf bougainvillea in the little garden area. As I had learned, plants grow in warm, humid Florida like nothing I had ever seen in the northeast. Just as I got hot and sweaty snipping away at the stems, the clouds graciously cooled me down with light sprinkles of gentle rain. But, when they decided I'd had enough, they unleashed a tropical downpour that sent me scurrying inside. I was done anyway.
After I dried off, nature upped her game with an impressive thunderstorm, so I tucked into an episode of Stranger Things—which I thought best to do during daytime to ward off weird dreams at night. Accompanied by the rumble of thunder and torrential rain on the roof, a young girl floated in salt water on my computer screen. Somehow that water enabled her to slip into a terrifying world of monsters. It mercifully ended along with the storm outside.
The sun came out. I went for a swim in my salt water pool. Happily, I was not suddenly transported to a dark world of slimy stuff. Instead, above me, in a sky of richer blue than I ever remember seeing, mountainous forms of puffy white floated by serenely. I think I heard a hint of harp music from angels lolling about on top of them. I swam for an hour in the miraculous element that wonderfully enables me to defy gravity. Amazing!
That evening, I ventured to the beach at sunset. It was obvious that Alberto, out beyond the horizon, was churning up the usually calm Gulf into an imitation of Atlantic rough seas. The booming sound and sight of crashing waves on the shore was exhilarating.
A gangly, pre-teen black boy caught my eye. Sitting in the water's edge, he was wearing clothes rather than a bathing suit, but he didn't seem to care. He had not reached the age of self-consciousness. At first the boy let the water wash over him just a little. Then he jumped up and walked further into the surf where a breaking wave knocked him down. He loved it. I worried a bit that he would get caught in undertow, but his big strong father was standing nearby keeping a close eye on him.
It seemed as if the energy of the sea increased the boy's own high spirits. He began running along the sand as if unable to contain his bliss. He did flips. He tumbled and rolled in the water and laughed when a wave crashed on top of him. He was like a young puppy scampering wildly just for the sheer pleasure of it and need to move. His joy was contagious. I laughed with him.
Ah, water! Yes, it can do fearsome damage. Too much or too little is not a good thing, but it serves us in so many miraculous ways. What a blessing. I know I will take it for granted again, but just for this Walt Whitmanesque moment, I celebrate it. Amazing!


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Each giveaway will last 24 hours, and a winner for each giveaway will be chosen using Random.org.
The second giveaway is for this super fun pair of Riviera women's sunglasses that originally retailed for around $26. There are no tags on this pair, so they are ready to wear! They are white and have a purple tint to the lens, with purple and leopard print on the inside (see below).
front view
side/interior view
To enter this giveaway, just leave a comment. That's it! Have fun!
This giveaway will end at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, August 11, 2010, and the winner will be announced sometime tomorrow.
Good luck!


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NORTH MANCHESTER, IND. – Ally Roskos couldn't have picked a better way to wind up her home collegiate athletic career Saturday, Nov. 11.
Joining four Class of 2018 teammates in their final meet at Strauss-Peabody Aquatic Center, the two-time Ohio Athletic Conference champion and NCAA Division III regional diving qualifier defeated Franklin College and Indiana Wesleyan University foes in the six-dive competition. She tallied 240.95 points and nearly made it a sweep in the five-dive event, tallying 164,45 to end second to Franklin's Lexi Blackburn (175.15).
Her event title led the Spartans' women's team to 55 points against IWU and 52 versus the Grizzlies. Freshman swimmer Shelby Kell (Charlottesville, Ind) resumed an impressive season, setting a program record in the 500-yard freestyle (5:58.25).
On the men's side of the ledger Saturday, Coach Mike Kroll's squad was guided by sophomore Christain Poole. The Anderson, Ind., native won the 50-yard freestyle for a second straight meet, hitting the pad in 22.47 seconds. MU turned in 34 points in a head-to-head meeting against Franklin.
Manchester University wraps up its pre-Thanksgiving schedule Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 18 and 19, at Ohio Wesleyan University's Corbiere-Merion Invitational.


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Monday, April 30, 2007
Ed Yourdon
I recently attended the IT Metrics - Software Best Practices Conference in Princeton, NJ. Ed Yourdon gave a presentation on the Top Ten Best Practices. Great information and great approach (mind mapping). The best part about it was the Top Ten list have been around since the 1980's and Ed Yourdon was just reiterating the need to apply the basics to be successful. Great conference - humbling experience. BACK TO THE BASICS!
Posted by Meade at Monday, April 30, 2007
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Monday, April 23, 2007
5 Steps to Project Success
Posted by Meade at Monday, April 23, 2007
1 comment:
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Raising Expectations
Re-reading Managing the Absurd by Richard Farson recently and ran into the Theory of Rising Expectations:
'Revolutions are most likely to occur when a prolonged period of objective economic and social development is followed by a short period of sharp reversal...' - James C. Davies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Davies)
In terms of projects: If the project is proceeding very well and exceeding expectations - then runs into an 'issue', is the reaction from client, team, etc. more dramatic then if the project was proceeding as planned or not meeting expectations and then ran into an 'issue'...??? Makes one want to rethink how we communicate how successful a project is proceeding ('Gee, you told me last week we're ahead of schedule by a month and now you're telling me we're only ahead by 3 weeks....think we have to replace the project manager...') - something to think about.
Posted by Meade at Thursday, April 19, 2007
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
The Standish Group - CHAOS Report
A must read - the report is over 10 years old, but the findings, approach and underlying information is still valid (which shows how little progress has been made in ten years):
And the follow up - Unfinished Voyages:
From the Report - success scale - performing this exercise itself would most likely improve your project's probability of success
And the follow up - Unfinished Voyages:
From the Report - success scale - performing this exercise itself would most likely improve your project's probability of success
|1. User Involvement
|2. Executive Management Support
|3. Clear Statement of Requirements
|4. Proper Planning
|5. Realistic Expectations
|6. Smaller Project Milestones
|7. Competent Staff
|8. Ownership
|9. Clear Vision & Objectives
|10. Hard-Working, Focused Staff
Posted by Meade at Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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Monday, April 16, 2007
Culture and Project Management
Recently reading up on corporate culture and was wondering what impact it has on project management. Culture is divided into three groups:
- Cooperative - everyone works together in a productive manner
- Aggressive - power play and positioning
- Passive/Defensive - CYA - don't do more then you're title calls for, etc.
Passive/Defensive - make sure you have clearly defined deliverables and who has the responsibility for it. Ensure they are consistently reminded of their assigned tasks and reinforce by naming names. Is there one culture more productive then another? Perhaps, but perhaps it's a matter of understanding the culture and working it in the way required to get the results you need. A Passive/Defensive culture, if understood and plans adjusted accordingly, could outperform a Cooperative one - for instance a Cooperative culture might stray from the project's desired results in order to provide a more creative (and more costly) approach as opposed to one that is truly needed or required (gee - you built a great bio-feedback brain connected data capture device - however all we needed was a keyboard connected to the computer).
Posted by Meade at Monday, April 16, 2007
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Thursday, April 12, 2007
The bigger the plan the less the value
'In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.' - Dwight D. Eisenhower
In some cases plans are worse the useless, they become a detriment to the project - they become a risk to completing the project on time, on budget and with the expected quality.
Planning is a method of:
- uncovering tasks required to complete a project
- identifying risks
- identifying level and types of required resources
- uncovers potential conflicts with other projects
- communicating to users, team members and sponsors
- the potential timing of deliverables
Take a close look at the 10,000 tasks MS Project plan you've just printed out and think about the time (cost) associated with maintaining it - could you gain more benefit from a less detailed plan? Did the project team lose sight of the project planning benefits? (risk reduction through identification of required work, risks, etc.)? Make sure that the project plan is not an anchor instead of a guide.
Herding the Ox
Here's another great example of the Zen 'Searching for the Ox' metaphor: http://www.emoyeni-retreat.com/id99.htm
I think one of the unspoken teachings is 'be careful of the ox you seek for you will become it and it will become you'.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Still in the process of reading Software Estimate by Steve McConnell and I'm still very impressed with the book. One idea in the book is that, as your project proceeds you need to continually re-estimate - you start with a range, over the course of the project the range of delivery time/effort/cost gets more precise and you really know the true effort once the project is complete. I'm in totally agreement with this - HOWEVER - how the hell do you provide a proposal for a project to a client with a range? Internally it's difficult (gee, it could take anywhere from 4-24 months and 2-5 resources to complete)....but when you work with external clients - how do you help them understand and accept? If you provide a range they'll need to know an exact amount (precise but not accurate) so they can plan their budgets - and it would be a very difficult thing to come back every month with a new estimate that could be +/- 200% or more. 'Gee Sue - project X could cost $10,000 or $90,000 - I'll provide a monthly re-estimation until we're done.....'.....
I'm in complete agreement that this is reality - you don't know how long something will take until it's complete (and don't forget the quality factor) - but how can you utilize the estimation techniques to provide a good-enough estimate, one that will not lose you money on the project and one that is not high-above all of your competitors. I guess that's the million dollar question.
Posted by Meade at Tuesday, April 10, 2007
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Monday, April 9, 2007
Pick your environment
The book I'm currently reading - Software Estimation - comments on the fact that interpretive languages tend to allow programmers to be more productive then compiled - php vs. C# for instance. True??? In my time of writing code, I've found it to be true. You can relax some standards, get quicker feedback and focus on problem solving instead of code creation tasks. I'm sure this will upset many people (or in reality those few who will read this), but that's my gut reaction to the comment in the book. I know there are many arguments regarding whey compiled languages and more rigid development environments produced better quality, more reusable code, etc...but I think both are arguments that need to be substantiated with quantitative research. The simple measurement should be business value. What tools (languages, IDE's, base platforms) provide for the best ratio of benefit to costs, both short and long term. Will we find that interpretive type of environments lend themselves more to short term benefits and more rigid one's to long term benefits? Perhaps....
Posted by Meade at Monday, April 09, 2007
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Thursday, April 5, 2007
The value of metrics in in the value of the answers that they provide to our questions. To ensure the most value is provided, we need to ensure that the most valued questions are being asked. Historically, metrics have been gathered to determine how systems have performed and how the systems compare to competitive systems. The higher level value is in asking where should the systems be directed and how can we ensure the highest life time value (LV) is obtained from our customers.
Posted by Meade at Thursday, April 05, 2007
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Monday, April 2, 2007
Software Estimation - great book!
Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
by Steve McConnell
I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book and it's A GREAT BOOK and GOOD READ. The discussion on Over Estimating vs. Under Estimating is worth the $ and the time in itself. What are the cost, risk and overall project benefits between underestimating a project compared to overestimating? Steve M. gets into it - you may agree or not agree, but the reasoning, historic data, research, etc. provides a lot to think about. Without a good estimate, project justification, planning, etc. has no legs to stand on. Tired of throwing the dice/spinning the wheel in getting an estimate? I think this book provides more common sense guidance then I've read in a long time.
by Steve McConnell
I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book and it's A GREAT BOOK and GOOD READ. The discussion on Over Estimating vs. Under Estimating is worth the $ and the time in itself. What are the cost, risk and overall project benefits between underestimating a project compared to overestimating? Steve M. gets into it - you may agree or not agree, but the reasoning, historic data, research, etc. provides a lot to think about. Without a good estimate, project justification, planning, etc. has no legs to stand on. Tired of throwing the dice/spinning the wheel in getting an estimate? I think this book provides more common sense guidance then I've read in a long time.
Posted by Meade at Monday, April 02, 2007
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Experience a day of fun on Magic Island and have the thrill of a lifetime with 5 different levels of cliff jumping. Relax and swim or go snorkeling around the Island.
Enjoy a feast of local barbecue for lunch with refreshing cold drinks. This tiny tropical island is fantastic for amazing photo ops.
Perfect for: Solo Travelers, Couples, Families and a Fun Bunch of 16 pax.
Duration: 4 hours
Best time to go: Sunny days
Guide / instructors:
Price: 2,200 PHP per Person


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Stay tuned, brokers, says Pacific Mortgage Group CEO Ron Swift on the heels of the Argentum acquisition, network consolidation will undoubtedly continue as companies struggle to achieve scale.
MortgageBrokerNews.ca has just learned that Mortgage Architects has acquired Argentum Mortgage and Finance.
One broker tired of doing all the work and watching the client jump ship to a big bank matching rate is reigniting the debate on exclusivity agreements.
The skills for writing a contract are there with new agents, say brokers, but it is the crucial qualities that make a good salesperson which are most lacking.
A controversial Toronto Star article showcasing broker know-how still hold value, say the broker at the centre of the conflict, suggesting clients will look past the corrections and clarifications to see the value in choosing a mortgage broker.
Has Canada Revenue put the fear of God into brokers? Well, at least the fear of an audit, if the latest MortgageBrokerNews poll is any indication.
More than 10 per cent of Ontario brokerages are operating without the errors & omissions insurance required by the industry's governing act, according to FSCO.
The only sure cure for Ontario's sagging housing market is more people moving into the province, a CMHC analyst told brokers last week.
The Mortgage Brokers Association of B.C. is following its Ontario counterpart in offering member coverage for legal services in the event of an investigation by FICOM or a CRA audit.
Probably 75 per cent of brokerages are operated by unsuccessful mortgage professionals, and that can be laid at the feet of FSCO, says one broker.


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Below are a few of our favorite travelers. Some we've met personally, others just online, all of them are doing something rad with their lives and if you want more info on how this whole "living on the road" thing works, dive into their various online forays.
Mali Mish 2010
Our favorite (other) family on the road! Cute kids, great people!
Barenaked Family 2001
The family that practically started the whole full-time RVing thing.
The Roaming Pint 2010
Traveling the world in search of beer.
Democratic Travelers 2013
This couple lets their followers vote on where they'll travel next.
A Solo Journer 2011
A young woman, her dog, and an Airstream.
Small Room Collective 2013
A traveling boutique.
Van Go-Go 2010
Young family living out of a conversion van, currently in Mexico.
Bumfuzzle 2003
Family of four who've sailed the world, currently full-time RVing in the US.
The Adventures of Dave and Ann (+2 little girls), overlanders, homesteaders and Airstreamers.
Live. Work. Dream. 2007
Two of the originals.
Edventures 2008
A family with teenage kids traveling the world.
Wand'rly 2008
Family of six, traveling in a Vintage Airstream, the people behind this magazine.
Aluminarium 2005
Couple previously living out of a Vintage Airstream, now a shiny new one. Creators of Campendium.
Cygnus III 2010
Full-time sailing liveaboard family.
Where's My Office Now? 2013
Couple living out of their VW Vanagon.
Live.Work.Wander 2013
Another couple in a high-top VW Vanagon.
Idle Theory Bus 2007
A beautiful young couple living in their 1976 VW Bus.
Watsons Wander 2012
Tim and Amanda traveling the US in their Airstream.


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Go Bailar
March 24 @ 9:15 pm - 10:30 pm
Free – $7
|Recurring Event (See all)
Weekly Social Dance
Get your latin groove on at our weekly Salsa & Bachata social!
Free if you take a group class that evening, $7pp at the door, or get a party pack of 5 for $30. (Party packs are good for all weekly Go Dance socials)


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Benny Weinbeck
I am available for
- Film Scoring to picture
- Original composition
- Concerts
- Venue consulting for live and recorded music
- Wedding receptions and other events
- Performing at private and public events solo piano or with my duo, trio, quartet or 6 piece jazz group.
- Video production, editing. I can video record your auditions or live performances and upload directly to youtube, vimeo, etc.
- Legacy video production, see Mill City Profiles
- Audio production from start to finished project
- Artist coaching, consulting, and producing
- Creative direction and consulting
- Private keyboard, piano and music production lessons
- Studio recording
- Recording studio troubleshooting and consulting
- Macintosh computer help, setup, lessons and troubleshooting
© 2020 Benny Weinbeck . All Rights Reserved. Powered by HostBaby.


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About JAM
JAM's philosophy is seated in the idea that music makes the world move!
The JAM community was created as a space within the Cornell community to foster growth, gain a better understanding, and build appreciation for all genres of music. Our residents are from a wide spectrum of the musical world and we strive to educate others (and ourselves) about the music diversity within our community. JAM encourages students and staff to be active participants in musically themed community.
As a community, we want to foster your growth as an aspiring artist or appreciator of music.
Be it EDM, Hip-Hop, Folk, Bluegrass, Rock, Metal, or A Cappella...we want to help you make things happen. Interested in throwing some beats or vocals down? We completely have you covered. JAM has a fully equipped recording studio, drum room and isolation room, as well as a performance space and stage!
If performing and producing are not what you're into, we definitely have something for you. We host a variety of programs that will be sure to grab your attention. If there is something you want to see or hear...let us know and we can try to make it happen! Wherever you are on the musical spectrum, we want you to make the best of your experience at JAM!


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Date added: 03/31/2017Testimonial by: Felicia Cumpanas of TimișoaraExcelentApreciez din ce in ce mai mult produsele Beauty Cosmetic,iar serviciul este foarte bun.
Date added: 10/22/2015Testimonial by: Felicia Cumpanas of TimisoaraRoxanne eau de toiletteThanks so much for product that is super,for fast delivery! You are wonderful! FC PS You also have the usual catalog on paper?
Date added: 10/06/2015Testimonial by: Felicia Cumpanas of TimisoaraBeautyCosmetic productsIt is the first time they I buy from Beauty and products are already very good.
Date added: 06/19/2017Testimonial by: Felicia Cumpanas of Timisoara RomaniaEVALUATIONIt's a store I can not quit; it's great!


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Cyber Storm II—The Most Comprehensive Cyber Exercise in U.S. HistoryBy Ericka Chickowski | Posted 2008-04-04 Print
The annual security-fest at the RSA Conference begins April 7. If you're currently planning your meetings and sessions schedule, be sure to consider the following track sessions.
7. Cyber Storm II—The Most Comprehensive Cyber Exercise in
Time: Wednesday, April 9,
Speaker: Greg Garcia, Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security and Communications, Department of Homeland Security
This session will feature DHS bigwig Greg Garcia, who will offer up results from the March 2008 Cyber Storm exercise and provide advice on how organizations can improve their cyber-response capabilities.
8. Avoiding the Security "Groundhog Day"
Time: Thursday, April 10,
Speakers: Mike Rothman, President, Security Incite; Richard Mogull, Founder
Securosis, L.L.C., Ronald Woerner, Security Engineering Consultant, Information Security, TD Ameritrade ThinkTech; Martin McKeay, Blogger/Podcaster, Network Security Blog; David Mortman, CSO-in-Residence, Echelon One
Picking a conference session is kind of like choosing college courses; you always want to pick based on the "professor," not the session topic. We think this session will be great because the panel includes some of the more outspoken characters in the security world. They'll discuss how to avoid wasting time making the same mistakes to solve the same old security problems.
9. Case Study: Implementing Open Source in a Corporate Environment
Time: Thursday, April 10,
Speakers: Richard Maathey, Information Security Manager, Experian CheetahMail; Barbara Fennell, BISO, Experian
Two of Experian's security experts will discuss their successes in changing the attitude in their organization to make colleagues comfortable bringing the power and flexibility of open source software to its security practice.
10. Understanding Sensitive
Time: Friday, April 11,
Speakers: Dan Manley, Senior Manager, KPMG LLP; Earl Porter , Director Information Security, Transamerica; Ted Claypoole, Member, Womble Carlyle; Renee Guttmann,
This panel will examine how to best develop methods to discover, analyze and categorize customer data in order to strike a secure balance of document maintenance, access control, confidentiality and cost.
For more information about these sessions and their location within
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Francois Hollande: anticipation yes, but no satisfaction
If Francois Hollande treats his women the way he treats his press conferences, I feel rather sorry for them. He starts slowly. Excitement builds and builds. Steadily, he keeps going. And going. And going. For what feels like ages. Until - hang on a minute. All of a sudden it seems to be over.
And as far as you can see, he is the only one who got anything out of it. You, in fact, nodded off several minutes ago.
Over the weekend it emerged that the French president has allegedly been cheating on his girlfriend - Valerie Trierweiler, France's "First Lady" - with a glamorous actress called Julie Gayet. I say "allegedly" because he still hasn't either confirmed or denied it.
Indeed by Tuesday, rumours were circulating in Paris that Madamoiselle Gayet is four months pregnant, although their truth or otherwise could not be established.
Other important details yet to be confirmed or denied include that he owns only one pair of shoes, and had to sneak into the actress's flat disguised in a motorcycle helmet.
Tuesday afternoon, in the Elyse Palace in Paris, Monsieur le President held a press conference. Not, of course, because he was desperate to unburden his soul about his clandestine passion; the event had been planned long before the scandal broke.
It was intended to be about the president's plans to revive France's sagging economy. Surely now, though, the interrogation would be dominated by another matter.
Five minutes late, the president entered, walking in a purposeful little trot, as if he were a small dog carrying an important message from its owner. Then, in that long-suffering pair of shoes, he stood behind the lectern and began. Conventionally what happens at a political press conference, at any rate in Britain, is that the politician says a few words of welcome and then invites questions.
Not, it would seem, in France. Monsieur Hollande started by talking about his plans for the economy. A minute passed. Then a second. Soon five had gone, then 10, then 20, then half an hour. On and on he talked, without possibility of interruption, about his plans for the economy. Throughout this lecture, the French journalists remained politely silent. They didn't so much as raise a hand.
How odd it all felt. Of course the economy was important. Monsieur Hollande's top priority was to tackle it. All the same, it was hard to help feeling that - comment dit-on en Francais? - il y avait un Elephant dans la salle.
Thirty-five minutes. Forty. Surely to goodness he couldn't put it off for much - Aha! At last! Monsieur le President was drawing his grand oration to a close. Time, finally, for questions. Come on, French press. Give him all you've got.
The first journalist opened his mouth - and then did something that, in the same circumstances, no Fleet Street hack would have done. He told the president it was an honour to ask him a question. He thanked him for his speech. He wished him a happy and successful 2014, and sent his best wishes to "all those close to you".
I started to wonder whether this man was the president's valet.
The question, or vote of thanks, had been going on for almost two minutes before it got to the point. An article, the president may have noticed, had recently been published concerning his private life. Would he be so kind as to clarify whether Mademoiselle Trierweiler remained the republic's "First Lady"?
President Hollande peered at his inquisitor with an air of faint contempt, as if he couldn't quite believe that so trifling a subject had been broached. "I'm sure you'll understand my answer," he said patiently. "Every one of us can go through difficult periods in our personal life and that is our case. They are painful moments, but I have one principle, which is that private matters are dealt with privately, within a respectful intimacy. Therefore it is neither the time nor the place to do so."
Surely the cream of the French press wasn't going to be fobbed off like that. In her role as "First Lady", Mademoiselle Trierweiler has a personal staff of five, at a cost to French taxpayers of €20,000 ($30,300) a month. And yet apparently they were subsidising a woman their president was no longer interested in. The follow-up question was bound to winkle a better answer out of him than that. "Monsieur le President," began the next journalist, boldly. "The responsibility pact you've just announced for French businesses will no doubt...¦"
Well, we British were being taught an important lesson. For centuries we had mockingly stereotyped the French as sex-mad. When, in reality, these spotlessly abstemious souls have so little interest in sex that when their own head of state is caught up in the juiciest scandal to hit politics since Clinton-Lewinsky, they only want to ask about social security.
The latest polling of the French public, incidentally, shows that, since the Gayet story broke, President Hollande's approval rating has marginally improved. Which shows either that they like this improbable new side of him, or that they don't really care.
After another 10 minutes or so of questions about banking and taxation, a journalist hesitantly returned the president to the matter of the affair - or rather, not the affair, but the manner in which it was reported. "My indignation is total," replied Monsieur Hollande. The story was "a violation that touches personal liberty". France must "maintain the principle of respect".
A journalist reminded him that next month he was due to visit Washington DC. Would he be accompanied by his "First Lady"? And if so - which one was she? As soberly as before - and thus, somehow, all the more amusingly - the president replied that he could not comment at this stage, but pledged to clarify in due course which woman would have the honour of performing this key role.
Oh, the French. Are they mad? Or are we?
Telegraph, London


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So, you want to learn how to juggle 3 balls? Good. You've come to the right place. Give it a try. No matter what, it will be an interesting journey.
I learned the basic juggling pattern by watching a video (in a VCR!) when I was in grade school. The video suggested silk handkerchiefs or light plastic grocery bags are good to get the motions down. Even rolled up socks can work, but lighter objects can get some more hang time. I learned the basic idea with plastic bags when I was pretty young and then left it alone for a few years.
Then I saw a documentary with some good juggling and decided to learn how to juggle 3 balls "for real" with tennis balls. It took an afternoon or two and lots of dropping to start to figure it out, and then lots more practice/dropping to develop the muscle memory.
The sooner you start working with tennis balls, the better, in my opinion because eventually your hands need to get used to working with those. They're cheap and readily available. Might as well get used to them early on.
- Practice while facing a bed. When you drop, they're easier to pick up. Plus, you'll learn to make more controlled tosses. A common beginner problem is the tosses will go forward, kind of leading you away from where you're standing. The bed pretty much forces you stand in one spot. (But spend time practicing outside/ away from the bed, too. It's good to get used to juggling in different environments, plus you could end up using the bed as a sort of crutch without realizing it.)
- Ultimately, it's not about catching. It's about making good, consistent tosses in a rhythm. You'll probably have a lot more room to experiment with the height and rhythm of your tosses than you'll think at first.
- Take a break. Sometimes it's good to step away for a while. It gives your brain and muscles a chance to process what you've been working on. On a similar note, have a clear mind. Carlo (Carl Lewis) says in The Juggling Book "Free your whole body from tension, especially your head, neck and shoulders. Tension blocks the free flow of energy, which is vital to juggling. … I have learned that it is impossible for me to do certain complex variations when I am tense about something, not really 'there,' or not in an open, positive frame of mind."
Once you learn how to juggle the basic pattern (called the 3-ball cascade), then there are tricks to learn, different objects to juggle and shows to perform. The journey is just beginning.


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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — FAU has $2 million in the bank and two more losses to their name, but they might be better for it.
For Carl Pelini's rag-tag team of inherited losers (1-11 record last year), overlooked freshmen and under-the-radar transfers, playing two SEC teams, on the road, in front of packed houses can be viewed as a positive experience.
There were no major injuries. That's a huge positive for a team heading into confernece play. There were major accomplishments: giving Georgia a first-half scare (which made FAU trending topic on Twitter), and ending Alabama's shutout streak. (Are the Owls better than Arkansas? I'm not ruling it out, if Tyler Wilson is ruled out.)
For a team that had nothing to be confident about heading into the 2012 season, it's surprising that they're heading into confernece play with some momentum, even if they do have a 1-3 record.
It's the little things that count. I was once told that success is doing a million little things right. Now the Owls have some little things.
That's not to say that this team isn't flawed — it is. The defense is atrocious, and even against Sun Belt teams, the Owls will have trouble getting stops.
The offense is temperamental. Save for the opening half of play against Georgia, the Owls have had what the team has deemed "rough starts." Those aren't rough starts guys, that's are rough games, finished with a hint of dignity. When the pressure is off, they execute, but at any other point in the game, you don't know what you're going to get.
FAU's feeling-out period is up after Saturday's game against North Texas. It's a confernece game, one of FAU's eight remaining Sun Belt contests, but after that home contest comes a bye week — a bye week that marks the season's de-facto halftime.
The Owls have one more game to figure out what it is that ails them. They have one more game, against an evenly-matched opponent, to work out the kinks.
This optimism surrounding FAU, following a few moral victories should be hypothetical. Yes, it could have been a lot worse than it was. No, that doesn't mean that this team is better than we thought (ok, I thought.) It just means that they could be.
And that chance alone is an improvement.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — FAU has $2 million in the bank and two more losses to their name, but they might be better for it.


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from the England Pakistan test touring party who would you choose for the first test?
I thought this will be quite debatable considering the conditions and the youngsters coming through...
please also give reasons.
this is mine:
I would drop pieterson cause i think in those conditions Bell would do better and ultimately it would be an invaluable spin playing experience for him. I would pick loudon instead cause we can get an extra spinner in as well as another batsmen, also for him it will be an invaluable experience for his spin bowling and could eventually mould him into a world class all-rounder. I would pick Plunkett instead of Hoggard cause theres no conventional swing for him and he can't get away with bowling that slow on slow pitches with no movement, also Plunkett can bat a bit. Also Anderson to replace Simon Jones cause he gets good swing.
That gives Michael a lot of bowling options and strength in batting depth and also gives the youngens a chance and probably the most important expereince of their lives.
pick yours here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cric...or/default.stm


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Moonface :: Julia With Blue Jeans On
The opening of this last decade left a giant question mark on Moonface frontman Spencer Krug's career. Disbanding one of the finest indie bands to come out of Montreal – Wolf Parade – Krug left for Finland shortly after creating a solo project which he named Moonface. Before his most recent release, Julia With Blue Jeans On, he put out two other albums, Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums and Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped. In Finland, he released another album, this time with the collaboration of Helsinki-based rock band Siinai. Throughout these albums, a musical evolution is clearly visible, as Krug's sound is defined. The results are mixed and definitely confusing as they don't really follow a logical or necessarily clear artistic direction.
With Julia With Blue Jeans On, it feels like Krug tries to make his way back to the basics. In doing so, he falls back onto the instrument that brought him into the musical world: the piano. His latest album is stripped of all the trippy synth effects that defined some of his later pieces, but the result is not less impressive. It really seems as if the Canadian singer/songwriter took his time when writing and producing this album. And, if anything, it's extremely more emotionally charged than his other more complex compositions.
Julia With Blue Jeans On commands its listeners to listen to it with attention. It is not a light album to be played in the background of a coffee shop. If listened to closely, it tells the story, almost day by day, of a period in Krug's life which was deeply marked by love lost.
The opening is brilliant, it kicks off with a genius piano riff that sounds like it could be the theme song to a '90s TV show. On this track, 'Barbarian', Krug sings: "I am a barbarian / I've been a barbarian most of my life", realizing, in an intense moment of self-awareness, that he is in fact the reason why the girl described in the song (Julia, perhaps?) is crying. This brutal self-destruction sets the tone for the album, which, in turn, becomes an opus of self-examination and realization by the singer who constantly questions the choices made throughout his life.
Julia With Blue Jeans On is a passion-driven emotional journey, filled with great compositions by Canadian artist Spencer Krug. The sincerity of his music beckons the listener to really take the time to listen as the he pours his heart out with every piano riff and every lyric.
For more on Moonface, visit www.moonface.ca.


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Some BIG BEAR Chopper Manuals PDF are above the page.
Motorcycles Big Bear Choppers - kastomy, produced in the US in small batches of the same name. In the line of their models more than enough extremely interesting iron horses, and it is not surprising that in a relatively short history of the company they have already a whole army of fans.
Big Bear Choppers began its history in 1998 - then the company was, in fact, a custom-atelier who made custom-made bikes. It turned out, apparently, very good for them, and already in 2001, handy Americans started small-scale production of their own models, assembled from parts and assemblies of third-party manufacturers.
The firm specializes in the production of orthodox choppers, not trying to fight monsters of the market like Harley-Davidson (PDF Manuals page) for the wallets of fans of classic cruisers, and bores its own narrow audience - lovers of long, radical, extreme choppers. Now in the Big Bear Choppers asset there are a few dozen models, many of which are produced or produced in several modifications, for example - a little more "classical" and a little more "radical".
Big Bear Choppers Reaper
This bike is the embodiment of the old school of chopper construction. Equipped with a 1.7-liter engine RevTech and 6-speed gearbox of the same manufacturer, it boasts 120 forces on the rear wheel, which are all transferred to it from the crankshaft by belt drive. Despite such outstanding characteristics, the motorcycle is quite simple in its design, there was not even a place for an injector in it - instead of it there is one carburetor Mikuni. Thanks to progressive shock absorbers this radical chopper is well managed, despite the extreme length and angle of inclination of the fork.
Big Bear Choppers Screamin Demon
This is no longer a chopper, it's a beaver, and it's equipped with an air-cooled engine, of course, with a volume of 111 cubic inches - about 1.8 liters. Screamin Demon is positioned by the manufacturer as one of the least expensive models, and a separate emphasis is placed on the fact that this bike is managed much better than most of its colleagues in the model line thanks to a short wheelbase. The five-speed gearbox of the famous manufacturer Baker, a real springer fork, one carburetor and belt drive - that's the bundle of this motorcycle. Nothing extra. The price of the new Screamin Demon in the US now is about forty thousand dollars.
However, in addition to choppers, Big Bear Choppers also have very unusual motorcycles, such as the model G.T.X.F.
This model is an attempt to get into the territory of Harley-Davidson, creating a motorcycle, suitable not only for evening pokatushek around the city, but also for travel. True, a high price (about 60 thousand dollars) discourages many - almost any Harley-Davidson in the US is worth less. But G.T.X.F. - in any case, very unusual motorcycle, a kind of hybrid chopper and cruiser.
Read - BIG DOG Motorcycle Manuals PDF.


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Is it just a wave that will die over time?
I can see a good number of us (for whom digital technology is a foreign culture) cringing at the sight of the word technology. But there is no need to fret: teachers in the 21st century should be prepared to learn from their students especially with regard to new media technologies. The traditional theories of teaching are being challenged. The new generation of students is socialized in a technology oriented culture. Some would probably have learning styles that are techno-centered, and we stifle their performance with our ancient text-book theories and teaching methods. Those who graduated in the same era as I, in 2000 or even before, in a developing country would know there is every reason to be scared at the mention of the word technology. But I can assure them, (I mean seriously) use of technology is a skill that can be learnt and it is not as difficult as we may think. The secret? Passion, commitment and practice! Here is a beautiful summary of the teacher-technology hype, with some bit of sarcasm.
The evolution
As I sat in the lecture room and listened as the assessment outline was explained, I began to think 'this is not for me. It is too technical'. And yes, I did consider dropping that subject. But my inner child kept whispering, "you don't want to be stuck in the past, do you?" Need I spell out how much of a struggle the subject was for me! I am so proud I made it and this blog is my 'testimony'. Now I see how technology would have helped me back then when I asked my students to write compositions about their painful life experiences. Blogs, and social media would have been wonderful platforms to facilitate interaction with online communities and the troubled students would have realized they were not alone in those situations. Professor Simon Haslett developed these marvelous slides on using Social Media for Teaching.
To new beginnings!
Thanks to technology teachers are now just a click away from solutions to their problems. They can collaborate with one another easily, connect with their students better. The list goes on. Of course it is not that simple. Teaching in the digital age has its own challenges. How do we ensure that our students do not get distracted by the ads and other moving images that clutter our screens when we launch our search? Do these students have the skills to evaluate the plethora of information from search results? To me it appears teachers have to be on their toes… I hope to hear from the community that will participate in this blog what their experiences and views are about this topic: Teaching and Technology. Right now I am having a great time 'sitting' in the classroom and believe me, the level of discipline required to stay on course and not get engrossed in celebrity gossip is high. We have to keep learning, or our students are going to overtake us on the way. Things are changing and they are changing fast, which is why there is need for teacher development. Check out 5 Reflections for teachers for a heads-up on how we can become tech savvy.


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Singapore is known for providing high-quality education but how is it doing in terms of educational equity, or ensuring that every student is given the opportunity to maximize their educational potential?
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings on 15-year-old students' math, science and reading skills are closely followed by educators and policymakers.
What some may not know is that the study also looks into equity issues, such as the relationship between social backgrounds and learning outcomes of students.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Deputy Director for Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher said in 2013 that Singapore is "a strong performer in (education) quality, but only an average performer in equity" (Ng, 2013).
So what is equity in education?
Educational Equity
According to Dr Teo Tang Wee, an Assistant Professor from the Natural Sciences & Science Education Academic Group in NIE, equity is not to be confused with equality.
"Equality means everyone would have equal access to resources, but we know that is not possible," says Tang Wee.
Even if all schools are similar, every student comes into the classroom with a different set of "capital".
In explaining the different types of capital, Tang Wee makes reference to the OECD's definition (OECD, 2008) of educational equity. It emphasizes two aspects: fairness and inclusion.
In a fair system, factors such as race, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status should not pose any obstacle to someone's ability to achieve their best educational potential.
Tang Wee categorizes the factors into four types of capital (Bourdieu, 1986): cultural, social, symbolic and economic (see box story below).
Another dimension of equity is inclusion. No one should be excluded from an education that endows them with the literacy and numeracy skills that enable them to communicate well and perform the basic functions (such as counting change) in everyday life.
It is not just about being able to read and write, says Tang Wee. What is important is that all of us have the ability to gather and use information to make important decisions in our daily lives.
Equity in Singapore
Having spent some years overseas, Tang Wee thinks that Singapore is doing well on some fronts in terms of equity. For example, schools here are well-funded across the board. "This structure is much more equitable compared to other countries where some of the school funding comes from taxpayers who are living within the same district," she says.
Describing herself as an equity researcher in Science education, Tang Wee shares, "My research has always been focusing on what I see as the marginalized groups – people whom we seldom talk about and research about."
As can be seen from the other articles in this issue, such groups range from those with special needs, to those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and even international students who may have to overcome numerous challenges to "fit in" the Singapore education system.
Tang Wee's research focuses on academic tracking. Explicit forms of tracking would be high- stakes exams such as the Primary School Leaving Exam. But there can be implicit forms of tracking as well, such as curriculum differentiation.
"When we talk about tracking, we often talk about providing curriculum differentiation that caters to different needs. In my work, I'd like to highlight these more implicit forms of differentiation that can sometimes advantage certain groups of students over others."
Structure and Agency in the Classroom
Along with other NIE researchers, Tang Wee embarked on the project "Examining Normal Academic/Technical Students Science Learning from a Sociological and Cultural Lens" involving 39 Singapore schools and 4,582 lower secondary Normal Academic (NA) and Normal Technical (NT) students.
Two schools were selected to be case-study schools. The researchers observed and video-taped two Secondary 1 and 2 NA and two Secondary 1 and 2 NT classes in each school, making it eight classes in total.
Tang Wee and her colleagues are looking out for the interplay of structure and agency in these classrooms. Structures can be physical (such as the seating arrangement in class), and social and cultural (such as classroom norms and rules).
Agency of teachers and students refer to their power to make decisions in the classroom.
"We are trying to identify in this OER study what the structures are and how the students and teachers are exercising their agency within these structures."
My research has always been focusing on what I see as the marginalized groups – people whom we seldom talk about and research about.
– Teo Tang Wee, Natural Sciences & Science Education Academic Group
Part of the Solution
For Tang Wee, equity is also about every student having a voice and the chance to participate in class. But many teachers have little time to sit down and listen to students about their needs or their feedback about the teaching.
The research team decided to introduce co-generative dialogue (also see "Co-generating Possibilities in Classrooms" in this issue) in one of the case study schools. For this, a teacher, a researcher and a number of students sat in a group to discuss issues of concern to the students.
"We set the ground rules first," says Tang Wee. Participants were told they should be authentic and open-minded. "The purpose of the dialogue was to highlight issues they were concerned about and propose actions for change. It's not supposed to be a complaint session where they just tell us all the problems."
The students suggested solutions which the researchers and teachers then implemented in the next few lessons.
What the researchers wanted was to give ownership of classroom issues back to the students. "It's better that those solutions are coming from them than from us," says Tang Wee. "Because of the generation gap, I doubt we really fully understand what is going on in the classroom!"
Predictors of Students' Science Inference Skills
For the two case-study schools, the researchers also tested students thrice on their science inference skills at specific intervals during a year. They then followed up with a survey to find out more about the "science capital" of these students.
One significant predictor of the lower secondary NA and NT students' science inference skill is having family members who encourage them to do well in science.
"This has important implication for policy making," says Tang Wee. "It means that parents have to be more involved in the science education of their children if they want them to develop good science inference skills."
Tang Wee also shares the main aim of her study – to find out and understand the many implicit, maybe even invisible forms of structure hindering the learning of their students.
"Are teachers aware of these things that are happening? We look at things which are often taken for granted to be true, things which are very explicit. But we unpack them and say, 'Hey, there are these more complex and nuanced things happening, do you see it?'"


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We consider ourselves grass farmers. What is grass farming you may ask? Just as it sounds, we grow grass. Growing grass doesn't sound overly intersting or involved but it is the foundation of our pasture-based farm. Since our cows and our lambs eat nothing but grass, we focus on producing the best grass available to feed them the diet that they are designed for. By properly managing our livestock to graze (and eat down) and fertilize the grasses, we promote regrowth, increase soil organic matter and sequester a whole lot of carbon!
The cattle are only a piece of the puzzle. We rotationally graze our cattle in our pastures here in Walpole, NH. Along with our pasture-raised chickens, pigs, turkeys and lambs, the animal movements about the farm add manure to our fields. This manure feeds the soil and the animals are nourished by the perennial grasses that grow here in this fertile river valley.
Did you know that pigs, chickens and turkeys eat grass? The grass isn't only for the ruminants on the farm, it's enjoyed by everyone. The turkeys, chickens and hogs eat their fair share of the green stuff lending a delicate and delicious flavor to the chickens' eggs and meat.
One of our farmer idols Joel Salatin says that "herbivores do not require tillage or annuals, and that is why all historically deep soils have been created by them, not by omnivores." What we are trying to do here at Walpole Valley Farms is to create soils that will last for generations to come, soils that our grandchildren's grandchildren will be able to live off of. Our legacy will be the soil, a worthwhile legacy.
Over the past eight years since implementing a rigourous rotational grazing program for our cattle and rotating our laying hens, turkeys, pigs, lambs and broiler chickens, we have seen an amazing increase in the fertility and swath thickness of the grasses and deeper soils overall. We are proud of our rotational grazing program and we are reaping the benefits with more grass.
See us in action on the farm. Schedule a farm tour or stop on by during our farm store hours. We'd love to show you what we do and how we do it!
Resources like the one you mentioned here will be very useful to me!
I will post a link to this page on my blog. I am sure my visitors will find that very useful.
This is wonderful! Kudos to you! I am all for grass...except for lawns! I see so many horses around here (So NH) just hanging around looking sad on dirt paddocks...so over grazed they will never be productive again. I feel so bad for them. Once more thank you for caring about the land and the animals it supports!
Thank you for your comment Marie! Those dirt paddocks would come back to beautiful grassland if properly managed. It is amazing what we can do with a lot of love and manure! Check out Alan Savory on You Tube, he has some wonderful talks on grazing desert and bringing it back to grassland. Thanks again and hope to see you in the farm sometime. Caitlin
Taylor I meant to thank you as well. I hope you enjoy the links!!
Do you have a spam issue on this blog; I also am a blogger, and I was curious about your situation; we have developed some nice methods and we are looking to trade strategies with others, why not shoot me an e-mail if interested.


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The Lake District is one of Chile's most beautiful regions. Snow-capped volcanoes and views of the deep blue Lago Llanquihue are visible from all the small towns surrounding the lake. Puerto Octay is one of those.
The drive to Puerto Octay
Located on the north shore of Lago Llanquihue, about a half-hour drive from Frutillar, Puerto Octay hardly attracts international tourists. This small town is surrounded by fertile volcanic soil, suitable for farming and raising cows. You'll see plenty of trees, cows, farms with barns and a few houses if you are driving into Puerto Octay from Frutillar. The winding road along the lake offers views of Lago Llanquihue and the snow-capped volcanoes.
As you approach the town, the red roof church in the center of Puerto Octay dominates the horizon.
Puerto Octay town center
Puerto Octay was founded by German immigrants, and today you'll find many historic wooden homes built by them in the early 1900s. Some of these historic homes are occupied by grocery stores and inns. Most have been restored but a few are not in the greatest shape. Each home has a sign with the original owner's name and the year it was constructed.
The cheese
There was a house in the corner, in front of the town square that attracted the most people. Inside Casa Harwardt Robenko, were all types of cheeses made in Puerto Octay. The cheesemonger, Rodrigo Hernandez, was there to answer our questions. The problem was, we could hardly hold a conversation with him. Rodrigo spoke just as much English as we could Spanish - close to none.
The 'Cheeseman' Rodrigo was friendly and tried to explain the types of cheeses in the store - none of his explanation made any sense. The food, in this case, cheese, was the common language. So we resorted to pointing and smiling.
The store had limited seats and Rodrigo ushered us to sit by the window for coffee accompanied by a few pieces of cheese.
The Mennonite girls
As we were about to leave, three Mennonite girls walked into the store. We started having a conversation and found out they were from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Their family had moved to Puerto Octay five years prior. They were a missionary family of seven. The Mennonite girls spoke fluent Spanish and acted briefly as our translators. The girls were sent by their mom to pick up cheese and bread from the store.
Who would have expected to meet Mennonite girls from the US in a small town like Puerto Octay?
One of the girls came back to the store and handed us a pamphlet on Christianity, a gift from their parents with contact information as well. What a nice gesture!
In the cheese shop, we met a Brazilian couple, Joao and Flavia from Belo Horizonte. We shared tales, travel tips and cheeses at the corner of the cheese shop. We exchanged information and managed to meet up in our apartment in Bariloche, Argentina a few days later.
It only happened in Puerto Octay, a small town in Chile. Where friends gather to chat, strangers like my family, the Mennonite girls, the Brazilian couple and Rodrigo took the time to share and had a conversation with each other.
Puerto Octay was one of the highlights of our trip to Chile's Lake District. We traveled using local transportation, stopped and ate in places that locals eat in and visited places that tour buses may not have taken us to.
We took the last public bus at 6 pm from Puerto Octay to Puerto Varas. It costs 1200 Chilean pesos per person.
Note: Taxis and local buses are available from Frutillar and Puerto Varas to Puerto Octay.
This is an updated article. The original was published on April 17, 2013.


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UK Constitution
UK Constitution sources
UK Constitution principles
The constitutionThis topic is now complete, you should be able to:
25 (source) & 40 mark exam questions
Q June 2013 - Assess the strengths of the UK constitution. (25)
Q Jan 2013 – To what extent have constitutional reforms introduced since '97 made the UK more democratic? (40)
Q June 2012 - To what extent have the coalition's proposals to reform the constitution been controversial? (25)
Q Jan 2012 – To what extent have constitutional reforms since 1997 reduced the powers of UK gov? (40)
Q June 2011 –To what extent has the location of sovereignty in the UK changed in recent years? (40)
Q Jan 2011 – 'The UK constitution is no longer fit for purpose.' Discuss. (40)
Q June 2010 – Make out a case against the adoption of a codified constitution for the UK. (25)
Q Jan 2010 - 'The advantages of a codified constitution now outweigh its disadvantages'. Discuss. (40)
Q June 2009 – 'Constitutional reform since 1997 has not gone far enough.' Discuss. (40)
Other possible questions
Short answer questions – just knowledge
Q Outline two features of a codified constitution.
Q Distinguish between a unitary and a federal constitution.
Q What is a constitution?
Q Outline the role of a constitution.
Q What is sovereignty?
Q Distinguish between a codified and an uncodified constitution.
Medium answer – knowledge & a little analysis
Q Explain three sources of the UK constitution.
Q Where, in the UK constitutional system is sovereignty located?
Q How has devolution affected the UK's unitary constitution?
Q Explain, using examples, the sources of the UK constitution.
Q Explain the main features of the UK constitution.
Long answer – a range of points (both sides), analysis & evaluation
Q How and to what extent does the UK constitution remain undemocratic?
Q 'The reform of the British constitution remains unfinished business.' Explain & discuss
Q How much have constitutional reforms since 1997 reduced governmental power?
Q To what extent has the location of sovereignty in the UK changed in recent years?
Q Why have there been growing calls for a codified constitution in the UK?
Q Evaluate the arguments in favour of introducing a codified constitution in the UK.
Q Analyse the importance of conventions within the UK constitution. (A different way of asking for arguments in favour of our flexible constitution)
Q Why has the UK constitution been criticised?
Q 'The UK constitution is no longer fit for purpose.' Discuss. (40)


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I am often asked a question that I am forced to give the answer no one wants to hear.
The Question: "If I eat clean all week and train hard, why can't I eat what I want on the weekends?"
The Answer: No.
There are 365 days in a year, 104 of them are the weekend. This is roughly a third of the year. With 261 days dedicated to fitness and 104 dedicated to indulging, your results will drastically suffer.
Consider this: Eating an extra 80 calories a day, will add 8 pounds in 1 year! So choose your indulgences wisely! You don't want all your hard work to go to waste just so you can eat pizza on Friday, burgers on Saturday and a sundae on Sunday.
This doesn't mean skip out on meals. I never miss a meal. In fact, I enjoy food more than I should. So, this is a battle in my life. Because I don't believe in unbalanced living, I have found enjoying one meal on the weekend, of whatever I want, my key to success and food happiness! So tonight, I'm enjoying_________
The best part is it makes that meal taste so much better because it is special. Focusing all of our attention on counting calories or avoiding certain foods—tasks that make us feel limited—distracts us from enjoying foods we can eat and experimenting with new, creative options that seem unlimited. In short, focusing on what we can't have makes us want it that much more and causes us to war against ourselves. Remember that health is a lifestyle—it is something you will adopt for the rest of your life, so it has to be manageable. Don't cut out everything you love. Enjoy that special meal once a week.
God wants us to be happy. He provided us with so much delicious, organic foods to be found in nature, but he also loves what we create. There's no harm in enjoying what you want in moderation—but just always remember that God has provided everything we need to be happy and healthy. The food packed full of preservatives and artificial sugar are just distractions that get you know where. Good food will make you feel and look great.
It's the same thing as thinking about what the world says is right versus what God says right.
This works wonders for me, but what is your strategy for the weekends? Are they derailing your fitness goals?
Are you up for doing a challenge of reducing it to one meal versus the whole weekend, to break out of your plateau or push your results to another level?
Here to help you get happy, healthy, and F.I.T.,