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I am a family medicine doctor – but that is only a small part of who I am. Father, husband, photographer, social media guru, writer, singer — these are only a few of the many ways I define myself. But when I am on my deathbed, hopefully many decades from now, and looking back on my life, what will I list as my top accomplishments? What will resonate deep in my heart that I've lived a full life? Would it be my career? Actually, yes, this would be partly true. Of course my most satisfying moments will be a legacy of family and children, and I'm happily on that path. I am sure that I won't find any more joy than surrounding myself with my wife, children and future generations. But regarding a career, I am extremely fortunate that I truly love my job and derive deep satisfaction from my 9-to-5 career. Very few people can say that about their job. Can you? And if you can't say that, then perhaps you should do what I did – change your career path. It's never too late.
Becoming a family medicine doctor was a second career for me, a life-changing decision that I made far after my undergraduate years at Columbia University. I never grew up thinking about becoming a doctor. My wonderful parents were very American in their approach to raising their four children – very hands off, letting us all figure out our career paths on our own, no matter how late we were in deciding. I almost wish my parents did have a bit more Chinese "tiger mom" strict parenting style and had guided me with a firmer hand while growing up. But now that's neither here nor there, and I consider myself a much more well rounded person by becoming a doctor later in life.
My desire to have a career helping people started during my high school days with two pivotal events. The first was my two year stint in Peer Ministry, where I and other students hosted weekend or overnight events and meetings with other teens, from schools across our state of Massachusetts. Our mission was mostly to help other teens cope with typical teenager struggles: parents, relationships, self esteem and the like. During these wonderfully open sessions, I blossomed into a self confident young man, finding deep satisfaction in helping others with their problems.
My second pivotal event occurred during my sophomore year of high school, during a student trip to the poor towns of West Virginia state, filled with old, abandoned coal mines. We helped rebuild homes and also assisted in teaching Bible school to a group of seven year old kids. They were too young to really understand Bible stories, but I had loads of fun dressing up as a cow and crawling around the gymnasium floor, with two dozen adorable kids happily crawling behind me, mooing and ringing their bells. I felt a deep emotional satisfaction bringing joy to those kids, and even right now I can still remember that feeling I had during that all too short week. A child is a miracle of hope and happiness!
Ever since those two pivotal events in my life, I had tried to find a career that could recreate that deep emotional satisfaction from helping others. In high school I enjoyed and excelled at math and science and was considering becoming an engineer (not a doctor). I also was thinking that if I became skilled at these sciences, I could later become a professor and teach others. So I was thrilled that I got into Columbia University's College of Engineering, and off I went to New York City.
New York City was an intense new world for me, but I definitely felt like a "country mouse in the city," overwhelmed by the city's intensity. It took me a while to find my groove, and I soon realized that my Columbia College friends were having a lot more fun than I was in Engineering. My liberal arts friends filled their days reading classic books, taking in the theatre, and discussing politics. How much more exciting for me! I decided to switch from the Engineering College to the Liberal Arts College, eventually graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English. I especially loved my senior year, sitting on the great lawn in Central Park and reading Plato and Hunter Thompson in the glorious spring sunlight. It was there at Columbia that I honed my writing skills, mostly focusing on creative writing and drama. I especially loved my senior year when I wrote and acted with a hilarious and talented group of students for a comedy TV show. We called it "The Velveeta Players" because it was so cheesy! (Velveeta is a famous American brand of processed cheese).
I graduated from Columbia with an English degree and great enthusiasm for my future, but I still wasn't sure which career path was best for me. I still loved the idea of teaching, but I didn't feel like a master in any subject enough to teach. I loved to write and edit, but even a Columbia grad needed to start entry level in a publishing house, slowly climbing the career ladder.
I moved back home, looking for editorial work in Boston, when my identical twin brother volunteered for a sleep research study at Harvard University School of Medicine, spending 35 days and nights there. He made quite a bit of money doing this, and the doctors were thrilled at the chance to perform sleep deprivation tests on identical twins. So I also volunteered, and we both spent 11 days and nights inside their lab, in separate rooms, completely isolated from all time cues from the outside world, with no windows, TV or radio (this was pre-internet). I was literally poked and prodded every couple hours, constantly monitored with machines and blood tests, saliva samples, video cameras, memory tests and mood scales. Every night they glued a dozen electrodes to my scalp and monitored my brain waves. I found out later that they had us on a 22 hour day, thus cutting away 2 hours a day from normal life and flipping our sleep cycles completely in a week. At the end, to reset us back to normal, they kept us upright in a bed, forcing us to stay awake for around 50 hours using any means possible; we played a lot of cards and sang silly songs. It was all quite surreal and strange and fascinating, and it was my first true foray into medicine. All the lab workers were medical students or doctors, and they loved their work and the science. I was hooked on medicine for the first time! But I still wasn't ready to become a doctor.
It took another year or so, after moving to wonderful San Francisco and still struggling to find a decent editing job, that I again found myself in the medical world. This time I was an editor and desktop publisher for a private medical company deep in the foggy cliffs of the Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital. Again I was surrounded by doctors and medical students doing fascinating research, loving their work, and getting paid well for it. And finally it clicked: I should become a doctor!
Medicine was — and still is — the perfect mixture of my skills and desires: I could help people every day, in truly life-changing ways. And as a family doctor, I would never get bored, even forty years later, as every patient would be a new dilemma, with a new story.
I went back to school part time and aced my premedical classes, volunteering at Shriner's Hospital for Children and other places to get more experience. I vividly remember my first real test: watching a person get open heart surgery. I'll never forget the surreal sound of a saw cutting open his rib cage, or the smell of his burning flesh from a cautery gun stopping small bleeding, or looking down into his open chest, watching his heart beating. Many people would just pass out at that moment — but I thought, "wow, this is really cool!"
I eventually took the grueling and exhausting MCAT exam and soon got accepted into Saint Louis University's School of Medicine. I had finally found my calling – and I remain thankful that I pursued this dream. In my life choices, my number one most important decision was asking Joanna to marry me; my second most important was deciding to become a doctor.
Many people ask me why I decided to become a family doctor and not specialize in something like cardiology or neurosurgery. I especially got this question while living in China because almost all doctors specialize there, and there really isn't even a developed program for primary care doctors in China. Most Chinese people don't realize that family medicine actually is a specialty, complete with extra training and our own medical exam and certification.
The classic American view of a doctor is of a small town doctor who the community knows and loves dearly, who has delivered generations of babies over their 40 years of practice. A good family doctor is deeply involved in their community's health, their schools, their public safety. I always loved that classic American image of a doctor, and that's what I strive for each day in my practice. I see people of all ages, from newborns to the elderly, and I follow them for years. It's a deeply satisfying career, a true honor to deeply understand a patients' health and history, and to do all I can to keep them thriving and healthy.
(this is an excerpt from my book translated into Chinese. I moved back to the USA last summer and now work at Swedish Bainbridge Island Primary Care Clinic in Washington state.)
Follow me on:
Twitter @RichardStCyrMD
Facebook @BainbridgeBabaDoc
Photography: richardsaintcyr.com


text: A Happy One Year Anniversary Shout Out to Jill & Dan! There is so much to enjoy about their wedding. One of the cleverest first looks ever to a super dope ring bearer. And, what a view? They two exchanged their vows under a birch hand-held chuppah overlooking the skyline of New York City. Talk about a Modern Jewish Wedding. These two clearly enjoyed themselves all day long. Just look at Jill's face while she's…READ MORE

subset: commoncrawl


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Boutique fitness. Technology. Functional training systems.
Those three trends in the fitness industry were my biggest takeaways from the 2016 IHRSA International Convention and Trade Show show last week in Orlando, Florida.
It is clear the boutique fitness studio trend is on the minds of many multipurpose club owners and operators as we settle into 2016. I attended two sessions on boutique studios and programming: one led by Club Intel co-founders Stephen Tharrett and Mark Williamson, and another led by Tara Sampson, Vida Fitness director of marketing. The biggest message in those sessions is that your business – and even businesses outside of the fitness industry – should start thinking about millennials as a psychographic rather than a demographic. The speakers offered insights into the consumer behaviors of millennials and explained how those behaviors are beginning to expand outside of the traditional 18- to 34-year-old millennial demographic. You'll hear more about those sessions in an upcoming story on ClubIndustry.com.
Here is the question that naturally followed those sessions: how does a traditional fitness club tap into the boutique consumer mindset? Is it programming? Is it technology?
The show floor may have offered some answers to those questions.
At the booth for Mio Global, the wearable technology manufacturer behind Orangetheory Fitness' new heart rate monitor, a handful of cyclists demonstrated how the wrist-based Mio functions in a group exercise setting. Essentially, a single screen showed a variety of real-time data points for every cyclist. It's easy to envision this product in clubs looking to add a level of sophistication to group cycle classes.
Power Plate, a Performance Health Systems brand, showcased its Power Plate pro model in a variety of group exercise settings. I was on hand for the barre class demonstration and also had the chance to look at the new Personal Power Plate, which has a smaller footprint at a lower price point.
I enjoyed watching the Stages Cycling group exercise demo. It was visually appealing with a series of dashboards tracking individuals' performances over a TV-style Tour de France race. The performance on the Stages indoor bikes were tracked by the generation 2 Stages Power meter, a high-end carbon device that measures power.
One of the more unique group exercise demos I saw was from bellicon, makers of a mini trampoline that the company says became more popular when Chicago Bulls player Joakim Noah started training with it in 2013. At IHRSA, bellicon had about two dozen of its mini trampolines in use as an instructor guided the class through various exercises on the product. Earlier this month, bellicon announced its launch of the bellicon Academy, which trains bellicon users and future instructors in total body fitness offerings.
On the functional fitness front, Precor's Queenax was on display as well as Aktiv Solutions' GYM RAX. TRX debuted its new TRX Training Zone on the show floor.
I had the chance to talk with TRX CEO Randy Hetrick and TRX president Paul Zadoff about the brand's latest products, which included a redesign of the TRX Suspension Trainer and the release of the TRX For Yoga digital education course.
As we were talking, Hetrick pulled out his phone and showed a photo of himself at IHRSA in the mid-2000s when TRX had what appeared to be a much smaller booth.
"We were functional training before it was a category," Hetrick said.
Fast forward to IHRSA 2016, and the TRX Training Zone ecosystem was large enough for a few dozen people to walk under it. A smaller version of the Training Zone designed for tight club spaces was displayed in a corner.
The large Training Zone featured a storage system to hold TRX products when not in use. The rubber floor had a variety of graphics printed on it to encourage independent circuit training designed for the lone user unfamiliar with a TRX workout. The customizable, modular systems are built for commercial facilities intent on delivering a more robust functional training experience. In addition to clubs, the TRX Training Zone is expected to become part of some recreation centers, corporations and hotel fitness centers.
"It is circuit training at half the cost, and it is scalable," Zadoff said. "The idea was to optimize space, optimize the tools and optimize the education for multiple spaces."
What was your big takeaway from IHRSA 2016? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.


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New Digimarc Barcode for Thermal Label Simplifies Retail Checkout & Reduces Product Shrink
BEAVERTON, Ore., Jan. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC), inventor of the Intuitive Computing Platform™ featuring Digimarc Barcode, unveiled its new Digimarc Barcode for Thermal Labels. Retail thermal labels with Digimarc Barcode scan even when ripped, creased, smudged or damaged, making checkout faster and easier for both customers and cashiers. Digimarc Barcode for Thermal Labels additionally encode GS1 Application Identifiers (AIs) for fresh foods, allowing retailers to dynamically adjust pricing on soon-to-be-expired fresh foods or sell items at a discount, instead of discarding them as shrink.
Digimarc delivers a complete solution in conjunction with leading retail scale and POS (Point-of-Sale) scanning manufacturers. Together, these firms account for more than 80 percent of thermal labels printed in the retail perimeter departments. Digimarc Barcode for Thermal Labels can be reliably and efficiently scanned at the front of the store by Digimarc-capable models of POS scanners from leading manufacturers, including Datalogic, Honeywell, NCR and Zebra. Digimarc will be showcasing this solution with their printing and scanning partners in booth #2875 at NRF 2018 on January 14-16.
A new Harris Poll survey reveals cashiers find damaged thermal labels difficult to scan because of problems like wrinkles, moisture or poor placement on food items. Seventy-six percent of cashiers experience a label not reading from the meat/seafood department at least once per shift. Ninety percent strongly agreed that reducing hard-to-scan thermal labels would improve their productivity. The new Digimarc Barcode for Thermal Labels addresses these problems by making scanning easier and more reliable.
"The recent Harris Poll data confirms what the industry has known anecdotally for years, and that's the inefficiencies of fresh food labels," said Bruce Davis, chief executive officer, Digimarc. "Digimarc Barcode for Thermal Labels address this problem head-on by providing a seamless and efficient solution from the fresh food counter to the front-of-store at checkout."
Digimarc Barcode is repeated multiple times across the surface of a label. This broad label coverage provides scanners and mobile devices with a larger and more reliable scanning surface than a label with a traditional barcode. Retailers also have an opportunity to engage consumers by making it easy for shoppers to scan a label with their mobile phones to access coupons, recipes and videos.
Learn more about Digimarc Barcode for Thermal Labels here.
About Digimarc
Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC) is a pioneer in the automatic identification of everyday objects such as product packaging and virtually any media, including print, images, and audio. Based on the patented Intuitive Computing Platform (ICP™), Digimarc provides innovative and comprehensive automatic recognition technologies to simplify search, and transform information discovery through unparalleled reliability, efficiency and security. Digimarc has a global patent portfolio, which includes over 1,100 granted and pending patents. These innovations include state-of-the-art identification technology, Digimarc Barcode, as well as Digimarc Discover® software for barcode scanning and more. Digimarc is based in Beaverton, Oregon, with technologies deployed by major retailers and consumer brands, central banks, U.S. states, film companies and professional sports franchises, among others. Visit digimarc.com and follow us @digimarc to learn more about The Barcode of Everything™.
Other Barcode News
- ISA welcomes Brian Curtis as its 2018 Society President
- Top Retail Brands Worldwide Adopting RAIN RFID
- Cashier Survey Reveals Widespread Problems Scanning Barcode Labels
- Coty and Shelfbucks to Showcase Impact of In-Store Merchandising Optimization at NRF 2018
- Brother to Demonstrate Advances in Retail Printing to Enhance Efficiency at #NRF2018
- Roadrunner Intermodal Services Awarded Drayage Carrier of the Year by Harbor Freight Tools
- China's Tuya Smart Announces Smart IoT Solution for U.S. Market
- Campari America Taps Thinfilm's NFC Mobile Marketing Solution to Drive eCommerce
- IBM Breaks Records to Top U.S. Patent List for 25th Consecutive Year
- 3PL Central Innovates Third Party Logistics Industry With Next Generation 3PL Warehouse


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Wedding Bands Live
South Wales's Finest
Daarcy is the new standard in live music management, providing couples with the best in wedding and function entertainment. Daarcy wedding bands are made up of the most sought after talent in South Wales, trained specifically to make your big day unforgettable. They are reliable, punctual, crazy and fun.
Daarcy Agency
Daarcy is a community of like-minded singers and musicians who wanted to do things for themselves, free from the whims and monopolies of the big live music agencies. We wanted to reintroduce a sense of honesty into live music and be more than just a resource that allows savvy business individuals to cream a percentage off the top of our profits. To that end, we set up a business that is so much more than just an agency. For instance, the Daarcy Group incorporates its own academy.
Daarcy Academy
That's right: Daarcy is the first live music agency that trains up its own singers and musicians. We invest in people and take a long-term view of the development of talent. We feel, as a business, that it is our responsibility to make a valuable contribution to the community that we serve. We feel it is vital both for our business and for our position in the world that we give young people the chance to hone their craft and develop their skills in a live setting. If you want to check out just how far into the future we are looking for the training of talent in our business, check out the following video:
Daarcy AV
Daarcy also incorporates its own Audio Visual Department. Here, we give our bands the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of planning, shooting and editing their own promo material. Astute visual representation is a vital tool in the development of any brand and it seemed to us a no-brainer to give our troops an outlet for their creativity in this field. In the process of creating their own Youtube videos, they learn in a fun and creative way how to market themselves appropriately: valuable knowledge for wherever their careers might take them.
What we do
Daarcy is a South Wales community of like-minded singers and players dedicated to rocking UK joints.


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1 Year Of Blockbuster Theri : Ilayathalapathy Vijay starrer trends worldwide
Tamil actor Ilayathalapathy Vijay's 2016 blockbuster, Theri completed 1 year on 15 April. The film, directed by Atlee and produced by Kabali maker Kalaipuli S Thanu also starred Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Amy Jackson. Theri also marks the acting debut of Meena's daughter Baby Nainika.
The Atlee-directorial action-thriller was released on 14 April last year, on the occasion of Tamil New Year. On its opening weekend, Theri had minted Rs. 4 crore to see the highest four-day opening weekend in Chennai, later surpassed by Rajinikanth film Kabali.
Theri is also the second fastest Rs.100 crore Tamil grosser after the Thalaivar blockbuster. The Vijay film was a huge hit in Kerala as well by raking in nearly Rs. 19 crore to become the top Non-Malayalam grosser of 2016 at the Kerala Box Office.
Vijay's character's name in Theri was also Vijay and is his 9th film to have his real name as his character's name. By the end of its theatrical release, Theri had collected Rs.175 crore at the Box Office to become the 6th all-time Tamil grosser after Kabali, Enthiran, I, Vishwaroopam and Thuppakki.
Meanwhile, Ilayathalapathy fans are trending the film on Twitter with many hashtags including #1YearOfBlockbusterTheri and #1YearOfTheriStorm.


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Posted on 11/25/2015
Automation Alley's Executive Director Ken Rogers and Director of International Business Noel Nevshehir were featured on CBS Detroit's Michigan Matters program on Sunday to discuss the restoration of diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Cuba with Dana McAllister of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce and host Carol Cain. The segment focused on new opportunities for U.S. companies looking to do business in Cuba and how Automation Alley's trade mission to Cuba in 2016 will help Michigan companies explore this new frontier.
Skip to 13:35 for the start of the segment.
Automation Alley Staff
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About two months ago, I published my young adult romance novella, Prom Queen Perfect, on Amazon.
The earth didn't stop spinning on its axis.
I didn't turn into an award-winning, critically-acclaimed author overnight.
Life went on as usual, but did that lessen the thrill of knowing my book was floating around the Internet and that someone could actually buy it?
Not one bit.
Self-publishing a book for the first time was such a whirlwind, not to mention rewarding, experience that I can't wait to do it again. And again. And again for the foreseeable future.
But there are some things I'll definitely do differently next time. Here they are, in no particular order:
Don't hesitate to offer free copies in exchange for honest reviews.Aside from the blogger who organized the virtual book tour for Prom Queen Perfect, I didn't reach out to other bloggers—or even other people, come to think of it—to review my book. It was my biggest mistake and made my book launch not as successful as I hoped it would be.
My pride stopped me from offering free copies in exchange for honest reviews. It felt too much like I was begging people to read Prom Queen Perfect. A part of me hoped they'd discover my book, love it, and review it on their own.
In a perfect world, maybe something like that would've happened, but I failed to realize that it was my first book and nobody had any idea who I was. There was nothing wrong with making sure that as many people as possible realized my book existed.
I mean, how can people love it if they have no idea it exists, right?
Experimenting isn't a bad thing.During the weeks leading to my book's release date, I started playing around with Facebook ads. I posted Prom Queen Perfect's cover on my Facebook page and boosted it with a budget of around 150 pesos. I used random keywords like Gossip Girl, young adult books, Sarah Dessen, etc. The photo got more than 300 likes.
More than 300 people knew my book existed and even took the time to like the cover! Yay!
It was a pretty cool experience.
List down all your mistakes along with what you should've done instead.Remember what I said about experimenting with Facebook ads?
The one where over 300 people liked Prom Queen Perfect's cover after I posted and paid to boost it?
I'm willing to bet none of the 300 people who liked the cover bought the book.
The post I boosted didn't even include a purchase link or a link to the book's Goodreads page. Most of the likers probably saw the cover, liked it, and went on to brush their teeth, eat ramen, or continue with whatever they were doing at the time.
They forgot about my book, because I let them. I didn't give them a chance to think of it again by including a link or two that would ensure they REMEMBERED it.
At my big girl job, we're taught to find the root cause behind a problem before even attempting to solve it. The root cause behind my Facebook ads' failure to fully promote my book? I had no idea what I was doing and was in too much of a hurry to experiment with boosting a post to do any research. I used the first keywords that popped into my mind and had no idea which location or age group I was even targeting.
To misquote Cher Horowitz, I was totally, utterly clueless.
I'm going to learn from the experience and figure out how I can or if I should even utilize Facebook ads when I release my second book. Realizing your mistakes and figuring out how to rectify them is a priceless learning experience.
Know the rules before you break them.Before I wrote the blurb for Prom Queen Perfect, I read a bunch of blurbs for young adult romance novels and called it a day.
Horrible, I know.
I discovered too late that there are certain patterns you need to follow when writing blurbs for young adult books. You have to mention the main characters' ages, and so forth, something I would've learned if only I'd done more research. A mistake I won't be making again.
Unless you have a ton of fans who'll keep posting about your book, your big COVER REVEAL shouldn't be too far away from your release date.The cover for Prom Queen Perfect was revealed two months before the actual release date. Over twenty bloggers signed up for it, their posts all going up on the same day. I remember being so excited.
When the book was actually released, any buzz the cover reveal might've created had all but faded. I forgot to keep in mind that this was my first book, and that I was most likely going to be the only person who was going to keep posting about it.
My book will be on the Internet FOREVER.I'm glad I learned this lesson early on from a blog post on The Creative Penn. It saved me from panicking about book sales and not getting enough reviews.
When your book is going to be available for purchase forever, you can promote it for as long as you want. There isn't a chance of copies running out, so people can always stumble upon it and, you know, love it. It may take a while, but the book will find it readers.
Attempt to stop being so awkward and make friends.This is a thing I'm still working on.
I mean, how do you reach out to writers you admire without sounding like an overly enthusiastic stalker? Do you play it cool and pretend you didn't love their work... that much? Do you try to share their posts with witty, little captions? How?!?!
Somebody tell me, because I need to know.
I've taken baby steps by interacting with people from #romanceclass on Twitter and Facebook, but I'm still working up the courage to send a few of them overly enthusiastic messages. Haha. You've been warned, guys.


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- Anti-blemish Cream
- Skin lightening cream.
- Harmonises and Unifies the complexion.
- Improves any skin pigmentation from sun, liver and age spots anywhere on face and body
- 30ml
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At Kingsbery CPAs, we help you see beyond the numbers.
For over four decades, we've partnered with clients large and small to deliver financial insights that make a meaningful – and measurable – impact. From tax preparation to providing detailed financial intelligence, at Kingsbery CPAs, we strive to become a trusted advisor – a true partner in your success.
For more than 4,000 clients (and counting), we're a true partner. And more.
Put our expertise to work for you.
Tax Services
We can handle all of your tax needs – individual, partnership, trust, estate, corporation, or nonprofit.
We provide a full range of accounting services including compiled financial statement preparation, bookkeeping, payroll and accounting system setup.
We have decades of proven expertise that can add value to almost any business or financial decision.
Have a question?
For an even higher level of service,
explore Kingsbery Concierge.
Sophisticated, User Friendly, & Always Top-Notch As a Boulder-based independent wealth advisor, we've had the opportunity to collaborate with many accounting firms over the years. This gives us some perspective to say that Kingsbery's service and solutions are sophisticated, user friendly, and always top-notch. And as... read moreBen Weaver & Drew SimonBSW Wealth Partners11/26/2018
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Astrotheque, the digital dream-pop stars of Austin, has premiered their latest single, 'Sweet the Sound', taken from their forthcoming debut album Return to Form right here on Track Rambler. A headlining show at Barracuda in Austin on September 2nd with Hamerzya and Obsolete Machines will be home to the group's widespread release of the single, with each attendee receiving a free download of 'Sweet the Sound'. While we don't have a definitive release date for Return to Form (Fall 2017), "Sweet the Sound" is enough to keep eardrums occupied in the meantime.
The track is a cognitive arrangement of two genres that are ever-so-popularly being seen together; indie rock and digital pop. Each genre retains its own identity when under inspection, but upon a step back, it all melds together quite like a finished puzzle. Piecing it all together are Astrotheque founders JDub and Claudio Ramirez, a duo that has thrived off of experimenting with sounds unexplored in previous endeavors. With John Looke taking responsibility for synth, keyboards and programming, and Dave Terry locking down the trapset, the group's live performance is promised to be just as stimulating.
JDub, the energetic lead vocalist, guitarist, and multi-instrumentalist, boasts a satin-smooth voice through the song, easily floating through moving melodies while laying down a perplexing melodic-minor progression on guitar. On the other side, Ramirez drops a powerfully enigmatic soundscape as the digital producer, captivating listeners with an array of distorted sounds.
The intense combination is a battle, one from which the audience walks away victorious. It becomes easy to get lost in both spectrums, whether it be the cool, groovy indie half, or the bombastic, head-turning half. Return to Form is promised to be an adventure into the minds of these arranging masterminds. Click below to get lost in the digital dream-pop cosmos of 'Sweet the Sound'
Tickets to Astrotheque at Barracuda w/ special guests Hamerzya and Obsolete Machines can be purchased here.
Written by: Sawyer Click


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Kentucky State Amateur First Round Update
The Kentucky State Amateur First Round began today, where multiple current and Former Tigers participated at Big Springs Country Club.
The Musselman Family led the charge for the Tigers, as Cooper Musselman and his father, Chester, took the course one right after the other this morning. Cooper has his dad by one stroke through 18 holes.
Both Allen Hamilton and Former Tiger Paxton Duff shot under par on the back nine (they started on hole 10), but they found the front nine rather difficult.
Class of 2014 graduate, Brendon Doyle had an impressive round as he shot a 74 and finished tied for 17th. Brendon's younger brother and possible member of the St. X Class of 2020, Drew Doyle, shot an 83.
Current Tigers
T-45 Mike Sass (+4)
T-58 Allen Hamilton (+5)
T-70 Billy Basham (+6)
Former Tigers
T-7 Cooper Musselman '13 (E)
T-12 Chester Musselman '81 (+1)
T-17 Brendon Doyle '14 (+2)
T-45 Stephen Stallings '13 (+4)
T-45 Paxton Duff '14 (+4)
T-58 Christian Vinning '14 (+5)
Reminder to Tiger Golf Fans: The 2015 EXPYS nominees will be released on June 24th. You may be able to vote for the Tiger Golf Team as Best Team and in a few other categories.
Posted on June 16, 2015, in Former Tigers, Tiger Golf and tagged Allen Hamilton, Brendon Doyle, Cooper Musselman, Kentucky State Amateur. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.


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Publication Date
Embargo Period
Degree Type
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PHD)
International Studies (Arts and Sciences)
Date of Defense
First Committee Member
William C. Smith
Second Committee Member
Bruce M. Bagley
Third Committee Member
Laura Gómez-Mera
Fourth Committee Member
Lilian Yaffe
This dissertation examines the political and institutional context in Latin American countries between 2000 and 2012 to explain the decline in labor relations reform after 1999. First, I synthesize the empirical literature on Latin American labor relations reform and present the governing debates in the literature. Second, I argue that a comprehensive understanding of labor relations reform requires a focus on de jure and de facto labor institutions. Third, I conduct a comparative analysis of labor relations reform in Latin America between 2000 and 2012 employing a mixed-methods approach based on panel data models to explain the factors that influence labor relations reform; fuzzy set models to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions of labor relations reform; and analytic narratives to explore the causal mechanisms that underlie labor relations reform. This dissertation contributes to the existing literature by 1) presenting a theoretical framework that provides a more comprehensive approach to the study of labor relations; 2) introducing a large-N data set on labor relations reform in Latin America for the years 2000 to 2012; and 3) applying a panel data and fuzzy set mixed-methods approach to the empirical study of labor relations.
Latin America; labor relations, labor reform; mixed-methods; de jure institutions; de facto labor institutions
Recommended Citation
Bustamante, Ali Rodolfo, "Labor Relations Reform in 21st Century Latin America" (2017). Open Access Dissertations. 1794.


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Jamia Millia Islamia, a Public Central University has been established in 1920, originally at Aligarh in United Provinces which in 1925 initially moved to Karol Bagh, Delhi and later built up in Jamia Nagar. In 1988, it became the Central University by an Act of Parliament since then it is expanding in different directions achieving the new dimensions.
The University is the result of the tireless efforts of its founders, such as Shaikhul Hind Maulana Mahmud Hasan, Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Dr. Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, Jenab Abdul Majeed Khwaja and Dr. Zakir Husain. It symbolizes the unflinching and resolute commitment of these great visionaries in bringing about socio-economic transformation of common masses in general and Muslims in particular through the vehicle of education. The distinct identity of Jamia Millia Islamia has been eloquently explicated by Dr. Zakir Husain Sahib. (Reference:http://jmi.ac.in/upload/admission/prospectus2018.pdf)
Senior Sec. School Certificate or an equivalent examination with not less than 50% marks in aggregate of best 5 - papers or in the subject concerned.
|Guwahati, Patna, Delhi, Srinagar, Kozhikode, Kolkata
|Start Date
|Last Date
|Application Form
|14/03/2018 05:30 am
|Application Form Correction
|18/03/2018 05:30 am
|Admit Card Release Date
|JMI Entrance Exam - B.Com. (Hons.) 2018 Exam Date
Offline Dates
|Declaration of result
Link: View/Download
Examination Time - 09:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
Program Duration - 6 - semester
Seats - 55
Total Course Fee - Rs.7,100/- Payable per year
Steps to be followed for filling the online application:
Before proceeding to fill up the online application form, please ensure that you have the required details and scanned image files of you
The entire process of filling online application form can be completed in six stages. The six stages are:
(Reference - https://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/ucanapply/jmi/Guidelines-JMI.pdf)
Rejection of Application Form
Jamia Millia Islamia reserves the right to reject the application form(s) if a candidate submits more than one application form for the same Program and for any other reason.
Admission will be cancelled
All applicants should note, that :
For more details visit : http://jmi.ac.in/upload/programme/ets_fss_cbs_bcom.pdf
Syllabus Link: View/Download
Link: View/Download
|Result Declaration
|Result URL
|Check your result here
PLEASE NOTE: In case a provisionally admitted student is unable to submit the result of the qualifying examination for verification in the concerned Department / Faculty / Centre of JMI in support of the eligibility for the program by 15.09.2018, his / her admission will be cancelled and all fee shall be forfeited.


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Sunday, May 15, 2011
Three years ago today.
I sank low in a hot bath, hoping to wash away the longest day of my life. Holding my breath ... anticipating the phone call that would change everything.
Cancer, she said. (me? me) Cancer.
And since then, it's gone. (they say it's gone)
And since then (and for always?), there's a shadow that creeps through life with me. Everywhere. It wakes up with me, it falls into bed with me. It seems to tap me on the shoulder and say ... I could come back. Happy? And safe? (Ha! it says. For now!)
But it's just a shadow. I can't even catch it on film. No one else can see it, hear it, feel its cold fingers. Not like I can.
Just a shadow.
Intangible. Not like the other shadows, the happy ones.
The living ones. These ones.
The ones that make me forget to be afraid ... for even a few, precious moments.
Happy Anniversary,
Amanda xx
6 comments:
- Paula said... [Reply to comment]
Happy Anniversary dear Amanda. This was such a powerfully poignant post. Prayers offered for you and everyone else who must walk amidst the shadows that you always feel the warmth of the sun for many, many years to come.
- May 15, 2011 at 10:38 AM
- Easy peasy organic said... [Reply to comment]
@The Vanilla Bean Baker Thank you, Paula, for your lovely words :)
- May 15, 2011 at 4:46 PM
- sheila @ Elements said... [Reply to comment]
It's so hard to know what to say to say after reading this post. Your words left my chest heavy because I have shadows lurkin' about too. They're not the same as your shadows but I can relate to what you're saying because my shadows are similar.
All I can say is that you're a survivor and a fighter. You're tough and you're strong. And you're filled with the glow of life that burns strong within you.
Light some candles to celebrate and commemorate all that is you. You deserve it.
- May 16, 2011 at 12:15 PM
- Easy peasy organic said... [Reply to comment]
@sheila @ Elements Sheila - thanks for writing, even when you weren't sure what to say. Your words inspire, thank you.
- May 16, 2011 at 8:29 PM
Such an insightful, honest and touching post Amanda. Thank you for sharing your reality of life post cancer. Happy Anniversary!
- May 17, 2011 at 5:01 AM
Thanks so much for sharing. When I first read your post my heart felt heavy for you, then I thought NO this is a time for Champagne and celebrations for an amazing woman and an amazing body that has over come the BIG C Happy Anniversary To you, your family and your amazing body. Congratulations on your amazing achievements and inspiring blog,( that I love to read) Cheers Emma
- May 19, 2011 at 12:34 AM


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My Courses |
My Tokens |
My Account
What do you want to learn today?
Course Code: REL-HHS-0-IR
Hours: 1
Type: Online Course
Content Expiration Date: 2/28/2021
Learning Objectives:Define the purpose of incident reporting.Identify what basic types of incidents that need to be reported.Report incidents appropriately and on time.Describe the best practices for making reports.
Outline:Section 1: IntroductionA. About This Course B. Learning Objectives Section 2: Identifying IncidentsA. Meet SusanB. IncidentsC. Purpose of Incident ReportingD. Types of IncidentsE. Causes of IncidentsF. Is It an Incident? G. Remember SusanH. Section SummarySection 3: Documentation of Incidents A. Reporting an IncidentB. Disclosure PracticeC. Basic InformationD. Completing an Incident Reporting FormE. The Narrative Section F. Documenting the Incident Involving SusanG. Examples: Documenting and ReportingSection 4: ConclusionA. SummaryB. Put Into PracticeC. Congratulations!
Instructor: Jeremy King, LCSW, CASAC
Jeremy King has over ten years of experience providing management and training to professionals in the field of behavioral health. Mr. King is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Credentialed Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselor in the state of New York. He also holds a BS in Economics from Fordham University and is a Certified Training Provider for the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services. For the past ten years, Mr. King has provided training and technical assistance to human service organizations in the following areas: Substance Use Disorders; Trauma Informed Services; Co-Occurring Substance Use and Mental Health Disorders; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Cultural Competence; Group Facilitation Skills; CCAR Recovery Coach Academy; Motivational Interviewing; Tobacco Dependence; Confidentiality; Working through Resistance; Screening and Assessment for Mental Health Disorders; Theories of Human Development; and The Client/Counselor Relationship.
Disclosure: Jeremy King, LCSW, CASAC has declared that no conflict of interest, Relevant Financial Relationship or Relevant Non-Financial Relationship exists.
Target Audience:The target audience for this course is: entry and intermediate level General Staff; entry level Direct Support Professionals; entry level Human Resource Professional; in the following settings: Health and Human Services.
Relias Learning will be transparent in disclosing if any commercial support, sponsorship or co-providership is present prior to the learner completing the course.
Relias Learning has a grievance policy in place to facilitate reports of dissatisfaction. Relias Learning will make every effort to resolve each grievance in a mutually satisfactory manner. In order to report a complaint or grievance please contact Relias Learning at firstname.lastname@example.com.
All courses offered by Relias Learning, LLC are developed from a foundation of diversity, inclusiveness, and a multicultural perspective. Knowledge, values and awareness related to cultural competency are infused throughout the course content.
To earn continuing education credit for this course you must achieve a passing score of 80% on the post-test and complete the course evaluation.
Course Delivery Method and FormatAsynchronous Distance Learning with interactivity which includes quizzes with questions/answers, and posttests.
Relias strives to measurably improve the lives of the most vulnerable members of society and those who care for them by providing online analytics, assessments and learning across healthcare. The product of a merger between Silverchair Learning, Essential Learning, and Care2Learn, Relias delivers a breadth and depth of content unrivaled by its competitors. We provide flexible e-Learning solutions to meet your needs: Relias Academy for individuals, Relias Learning Management System for organizations, Enterprise solutions for large organizations and partnerships. Relias Learning is based in Cary, North Carolina. For more information, visit www.reliaslearning.com.


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Innovate FPGA contest
A global FPGA design contest held by Intel and Terasic, starting tomorrow! All FPGA developers can join the contest as teams and compete or join as a community member and vote! "The Innovate Asia, Nordic, and North America contests have inspired thousands of aspiring engineers to design, create, and innovate. This year, these regional events have been combined into a single global contest – Innovate FPGA – where teams from around the world compete as they invent the future of embedded compute with Terasic and Intel. The competition is open to everyone including students, professors, makers, and industry. Teams can showcase their creativity and innovation with actual results and real-world designs. Eligible teams will receive a FREE DE10-Nano development kit!"


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Source: Dana DiFilippo / Philly.com
The family of the late radio legend and civic leader E. Steven Collins has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Chestnut Hill Hospital, saying staff there failed to immediately diagnose and treat the heart attack that killed him last fall.
Collins, 58, arrived at the hospital at 9 p.m. Sept. 8 with the classic symptoms of a heart attack – pressure and pain in his chest, high blood pressure, labored breathing, clammy skin and related complaints, said attorneys Tom Kline and Dean Weitzman, who filed the complaint in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court this morning.
He promptly and properly received an electrocardiogram, Kline added. But instead of treating Collins immediately with the standard blood-thinning and artery-opening drugs like aspirin, nitroglycerin and heparin, an emergency-room doctor ordered a drug that lowered his blood pressure so much that his heart couldn't recover, Kline said.
The doctor also failed to immediately consult a cardiologist, diagnose an acute arterial blood clot or order a follow-up electrocardiogram and drugs that could have saved Collins, Kline added.
To read this article in its entirety visit Philly.com.


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Since its inception in 1990, the public Kedumba Collection has acquired almost two hundred drawings. These have been sourced from the annual Kedumba Drawing Award, approved gifts from artists and other benefactors, and acquisitions by the Artist Trustees and Director on behalf of the Collection. As a result of this unique approach, the collection is considered by distinguished art authorities to be of outstanding significance and importance.
The diversity of work highlights just how varied the personal visions of different artists can be within a single discipline. Artists represented include Rick Amor, Elisabeth Cummings, Rachel Ellis, Donald Friend, Kevin Lincoln, John Olsen, Lloyd Rees, Jan Senbergs and Aida Tomescu among many others.
It also demonstrates the varying subjective tastes of the judges of the Kedumba Drawing Award over the years, a list which includes notable artists such as Kevin Connor (1991), James Gleeson (1993), John Wolseley (1997), Garry Shead (2001), Nicholas Harding (2005), Cherry Hood (2007) and Jenny Sages (2008).
It is important to acknowledge the vital role that the Kedumba Award and Collection have played in fostering the appreciation of drawing in this country over the past two decades.
Drawing is the foundation of all visual art and this principle lies at the heart of the Kedumba Collection. While there are periods when the art of drawing is overlooked in teaching institutions and the contemporary art world, it continually re-emerges as an essential practice. This is largely because it is the primary means of visual expression, offering to the artist a direct and immediate way of responding to experiences and expressing ideas.
The appeal of drawing generally is that there are no secrets to how most drawings are made and it is less mediated than most digitally based or graphic arts. Usually burnt pieces of willow, a simple pencil or watercolour wash are enough. The rest depends on how well the artist integrates the hand, the eye and the mind.
The Kedumba Collection embodies and reflects all the elements of outstanding drawing created in Australia over more than thirty years. Recently, for the first time in the Collection's twenty-two year history, almost the entire collection was exhibited at the Orange Regional Gallery for a period of seven weeks giving audiences in the Central West an unprecedented overview of the art of contemporary drawing in Australia. Over the next two years some of the Collection will be exhibiting at Orange Regional Gallery and at the galleries annex at the Orange Hospital.
The current planning by the Kedumba trustees is for the Kedumba Collection to travel to other Regional Galleries throughout Australia.


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It's About Damn Time, It's About Damn Time!
NBA Rookie of the Year, 8-time NBA All-Star selection, 2008 Scoring Title, 3-time NBA MVP, and 6-time NBA All First Team selection would seem to be enough accolades to be considered one of the best ever. Well, for Lebron James it wasn't until last night when he led his Miami Heat to the NBA Title and picked up his first ever Championship ring and Finals MVP award. The dark cloud that has been following over Lebron's head since he decided to take his talents to South Beach has finally gone away and now the best player in the world can get the credit he deserves. I can't say I was rooting for James to win it, but as a basketball fan and they way he won it was absolutely remarkable.
From the opening tip in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, James seemed determined to finish the series in Miami and not have to travel back to the most hostile environment in the NBA, OKC. Fittingly, Miami's first two points were from an emphatic slam by James and from that point on you just felt that his talents had finally surfaced in South Beach the way he promised his fans back in 2010. Throughout the playoffs I was cheering against Miami for no other reason than I am a huge supporter of the underdog. I mean I am a Mets, Knicks and Jets fan. In this game, as the minutes slowly diminished and Miami was rapping up their rout of the Thunder, 121-106, I found myself smiling and slightly impressed with what Miami had accomplished.
There's something to be said about winning a championship, but there is a lot more to be said about a team that wins a championship when most of the world is rooting against them. As much as I would like to not give any credit to anyone except Lebron, I can't. This Championship run was a legitimate team effort. From consistently strong games from Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, to surprising shooting performances from Shane Battier and Mario Chalmers, there was really no chance for OKC. The second that the Thunder developed a game plan, Miami seemed to have their counterattack ready to go.
In the clinching game 5, Miami's surprising star was non-other than "Sir Limps A Lot," Mike Miller. Like a robotic zombie, Miller limped up and down the court and just drained 3-pointer after 3-pointer. Miller entered the game 0-3 from downtown, but after game 5 finished he was an astonishing 7-11 for the series. For all you math whizzes out there, that means he went a lights out 7-8 from beyond the arc in an NBA Title clinching game…that is amazing! I hate to say it but even Miami's undeserving coach seemed to of run a few plays that actually looked like he knew what he was doing. I find it remarkable that a team that has basically been together for 2 years waited till their final game of the NBA Finals to show the world their best stuff.
Sure Miami won their second Championship ever as a franchise and it was a total team effort, but what the fans of basketball will always remember this series as is Lebron's first title. Now, will it be the first of many like Lebron promised us two years ago? In my opinion I think it is. If last night's game, and all of the playoffs for that matter, is any indication of how Lebron's game is improving then the rest of the world should step aside. Michael Jordan didn't win his first Championship until he was 28 and the now 27 year-old James has a platform to measure the rest of his career against. Congratulations to the Miami Heat for winning the NBA Championship and a special congratulations to Lebron James for not only proving the haters wrong, but proving that he is the best player in the world.
Super Mario and the Heat Are One Game Away
It wasn't Lebron James, it wasn't Dwayne Wade and it wasn't Chris Bosh, so who pushed the Miami Heat to a 104-98 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in game 4 of the NBA Finals? His name is Mario Chalmers and he was absolutely marvelous. When the Heat were down and needed a place to turn, Mario took a note out of Russel Westbrook's book and focused more on scoring rather than passing. Now that is not typically the mentality you want from your starting point guard but there are many times when it is effective. Chalmers scored 25 points which was only 1 point behind James for their team high. There were times late in the game where Chalmers looked as dominant as he once did when he played for the Kansas Jayhawks.
OKC came out to a blazing start and seemed to have complete control over the game. Unfortunately for the Thunder, they really only had one player show up and that was Russel Westbrook. Westbrook had a performance that I can only describe as one of the most impressive offensive outbursts I have ever seen in an NBA Finals game. Russel had a stat line of 43 points, including 17 in the fourth, and 7 rebounds and 5 assists. Westbrook's PIC (Partner in Crime), Kevin Durant, seemed a little flat during the game and although he finished with 28 points he never seemed to make the big shot that shifted momentum back into the Thunder's favor. Sixth man of the year, James Harden, was pathetic all game and if he doesn't turn it around then the Thunder have absolutely no chance to beat Miami Thursday.
Now I don't like making excuses, especially in the Finals, but something is getting out of hand. The refereeing in this series as well as every one of Lebron James' series, has been inconsistent and unfair. Westbrook had 43 points, he took 18 shots from within the painted area and seemed to get hacked nearly every time. He accumulated 3 foul shots. Lebron and Wade had 51 points combined, they took a total of 17 shots from within the painted area and got to the line 17 times. That stat seems a little off because there is no way the calls can be that lopsided. OKC went to the foul line the second most amount of times out of every team in the NBA during the regular season but only made it there 16 times in game 4. That is a fucking joke because the refs seem to cradle Lebron James' testicles in their hands as he hacks players without whistles on a regular basis. Even my PIC, NYBobby, called me during the game to say he noticed what I and the basketball world have been saying all year.
ESPN analyst Steven A. Smith has been criticizing the refereeing all playoffs long and said this morning that one of the reasons that Durant is getting the shit end of every call this series is because he is too skinny. That really pisses me off because with that logic I should be in the NBA because my fat ass would be getting every call in my favor. Now I will stop bitching about the refs and give some credit where credit is due. Lebron James is the best player in the world. He can dominate whenever he wants and in game 4 he even proved that he can score without being able to use his legs. Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after the game that James was cramping because he was dehydrated. Well Erik, maybe you should grab the man a cup of water once in a while because he is about to win you your first of many undeserved championships. The series seems to be slipping away from OKC and now Thursday's game will determine if these two teams are going to travel back to Oklahoma. If OKC can win Thursday then its anyone's series from there on.
The Fundamentals Are Not So Fun
Last night was the perfect description of what Pat Riley and the Heat organization envisioned when they put together their team of all-stars in 2010. Fluid ball movement and precision passing for easy baskets inside the paint is the only way Miami can succeed and they did it nearly flawlessly last night in their 91-85 victory. Led by 29 points and 14 rebounds from James, Miami found different ways to hurt the Thunder throughout game 3 of the NBA Finals last night. Wade, although he had a poor shooting performance, finished the game with 25 points and 7 boards and 7 assists, which was without question his best game of the Finals thus far. Chris Bosh also provided his second straight double-double since being reinserted into the starting lineup that seems to have the Thunder flustered.
So where did the Thunder go wrong last night? Durant finished with a respectable 25 points with over 50% shooting, while Russel Westbrook added a hard-fought 19 points. The key missing piece to the puzzle was James Harden. The sixth man of the year shot a pathetic 2-10 from the floor and finished with a dismal 9 points. The Thunder can not beat the Heat in Miami without the spark off the bench that has made them such a formidable team throughout the year.The loss might also be attributed to the fact that Shane Battier, Miami's former sixth man but now starter, is having one of the best 3-point shooting Finals of all time. Through the first three games of the series Battier has made at least four 3-pointers. No one in the NBA has done that in four straight finals games since Dennis "3D" Scott did it back in 1995 for Florida's other team, the Orlando Magic. It's amazing because Battier is coming off career lows for field goal percentage as well as 3-point percentage, but he has absolutely been Miami's x-factor this series. I'm sure NYBobby is thrilled with my shout out for Shane based solely on the fact that I am a UNC Tar Heels supporter, while he goes for their rivals the Duke Blue Devils, Battier's alma mater.
Maybe the reason that the Thunder lost isn't because Miami's "Big 3" got their shit together, or because James Harden was building a house with his bricks last night, or because Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra has a striking resemblance to a Tarsier Monkey from his native lands of the Philippines (I don't know why I feel the need to trash him, but I do). Maybe the reason the Thunder lost is based solely upon their lack of execution when it comes to basketball fundamentals. OKC shot an out-of-character 15-24 from the foul line and committed 6 fourth quarter turnovers. They also finished the game with a minuscule 11 assists on 33 field goals made. While the Thunder went most of the season lacking an assist man, they were also the best foul shooting team and they committed the second fewest turnovers, so these two stats are inexcusable. If OKC has any hope of making it out of Miami alive then they better get their act together. And maybe Scott Brooks shouldn't ever have his two best players, Westbrook and Durant, on the bench for the same time for 5 minutes like he did at the end of the third quarter where Miami made their comeback.
P.S. NBA referees please know that it is acceptable to call fouls on Lebron James!
Miami Gets Away With Murder
In a thrilling NBA Finals game 2, the Miami Heat were able to hold on to be the first team this postseason to defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder on their home court. With a 100-96 victory against OKC, the Heat travel home tied 1-1 in their best-of-seven series. Miami came out firing on all cylinders and scored from wherever and whenever they wanted to. Dwayne Wade found his shot early and Shane Battier once again proved why he was one of the better off-season pickups by draining three quick 3-pointers. Lebron was dishing with ease and Chris Bosh manhandled both Perkins and Ibaka for the first 3 quarters. The Heat led by as many as 17 points and looked as if they were going to run away with the game.
That's when Lebron James got to enjoy his favorite part of every game, the fourth quarter. As if it were rehearsed, the Thunder cut Miami's 13 point lead down to 4 with just 5 minutes running off the clock. It was quite incredible the way that Kevin Durant and Russel Westbrook were able to tear apart a defense that was able to keep them relatively quiet through three quarters. Durant's performance was even more impressive with the fact that he was playing with 5 fouls with just over 11 minutes remaining in the game. Lebron James had an overall great game and he seemed to be the little life the Heat had in the fourth, but he was nearly not enough. Wade looked as if he was nonexistent towards the end of the game and Scott Brooks seemed to devise a defensive plan that completely took Miami out of their rhythm.
The Thunder kept chipping away and it started to look like Miami was losing control. With their lead cut to 3, Lebron took the ball and made a beautiful fade away bank shot over Thabo Sefelosha with just under 96 seconds remaining. After a clutch three pointer by Durant followed by the stereotypical missed three by Lebron in the closing seconds, the Thunder possessed the ball just under 20 seconds. Westbrook quickly got the ball into the fiery hot hands of Durant. Durant made a stylish cross over dribble and pulled up for a routine 12-foot jumper when Lebron seemed to have raked his arm and leg for what should have been a foul call. Unfortunately for the Orange and Blue, the whistle wasn't blown and Miami gained possession and the win.
The most impressive play for Miami was probably from the newly inserted into the starting lineup Chris Bosh. With 16 points and 15 rebounds, Bosh finally provided those big man numbers that the Heat have been missing all playoffs. Even with Bosh and Battier having great games and Lebron and Wade both filling the stat sheet as usual, the Heat still almost found a way to lose. Mr. Inconsistency, a.k.a Erik Spoelstra, couldn't find a single lineup that worked in the fourth quarter and like usual seemed to defer all of his decisions to King James. Well Spoelstra, it seems as if your brilliant coaching tactics have once again led Miami to a victory. I would like to thank the NBA referees for once again proving their infatuations with Lebron James.
NBA Finals Preview: Lebron vs Durant
Elgin Baylor, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Pete Maravich, Reggie Miller, Patrick Ewing…Lebron James. What do all of these names have in common? They all have had Hall of Fame careers, but always fell just short of that elusive NBA Championship. Lebron James has a chance to remove his name from this list as he makes his 3rd trip to the NBA Finals and second in as many years. The 2012 NBA Finals has one of the most exciting matchups of all time, featuring the most hated man in basketball versus one of the most loved. Lebron James and Kevin Durant are headlining what is sure to be an epic duel of good vs evil.
The Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder make their way to the NBA's biggest stage having traveled completely different paths. OKC, formally the Seattle Supersonics, drafted Durant back in 2007 and spent years building around him to find the proper championship fit. The Miami Heat drafted Dwayne Wade back in 2003 and followed the New York Yankees philosophy of "if you can't beat them, buy them," to get their championship squad. Regardless of how they got there, we have a great matchup to watch over these next 2 weeks. Both of these powerhouse teams finished 2nd in their respective conferences, but were the favorites from most to make it to the big dance.
Even though they are playing in the same series, the pressures for both teams are on totally different levels. For Oklahoma City, this is the first trip to the Finals for pretty much everyone outside of role-playing center Kendrick Perkins and long time veteran back up point guard, Derrick Fisher. As for Miami, this is their second consecutive trip to the Finals and if you ask anyone in the organization I can assure you that they are playing by the mantra "win or the season is a failure." OKC is bringing the 3rd best offense in the NBA this season to the Finals to matchup against the 4th most stingy team when it comes to giving up points. Miami, or should I say Lebron James and Dwayne Wade, bring a level of intensity on defense that they will need every second of each 48 minute game just to stay in contention with OKC. The Thunder lack the defensive abilities that the Heat portray, but more than make up for it by draining shots from pretty much anywhere.
This might be an NBA Finals matchup between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Miami Heat, but the world will be paying much more attention to a very specific battle…"The Durantula" vs. "The King." The 3-time NBA MVP, Lebron James, and the 3-time scoring champion, Kevin Durant will fight for the most coveted award in basketball. I can assure you that either one of these players would sacrifice all of their previous accolades to get their hands on that 14.5 pound sterling silver hardware with a 24-karat gold overlay. Lebron, who turned the whole state of Ohio as well as most of America against him as he decided to bring his "talents to South Beach," has more to prove than anyone. James' birth certificate might say he is 27, but his receding hairline that requires a double headband to cover it up, says that he is closer to 60. Over the past 2 years since joining Miami, James has suffered through more high pressure situations than former president George W. Bush would in a Boggle tournament.
Like many others, I have given Lebron James and the rest of the Miami Heat a hard time throughout this season and there really is only one way they can all shut me up…WIN! The mightier pressure might be on Miami but my pick is OKC in a thrilling 7 games. Let me know if you agree or not.
Spurs of the Moment!
For almost two decades now the San Antonio Spurs have demonstrated exactly what it is like to play as a team. Year after year, the Spurs have proven that it does not matter who is in the game as long as you play as a team. With NBA championships in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007, the Spurs are looking to add a fifth title to the dynasty that started when San Antonio drafted Tim Duncan as the first overall pick from Wake Forest in 1997. Last night the Spurs finished their second straight sweep of an opponent in the 2012 playoffs and added to their win streak of 18 in a row dating back to the regular season. In round 1, San Antonio demolished the Utah Jazz only to be faced up with the young and talented LA Clippers in round 2. Fear of this high-flying acrobatic team that fans call "lob city," was nonexistent in the minds of the Spurs as they won all 4 games without missing a beat. At this point I do not see anybody being able to beat this powerhouse team, whether it be the winner of the Thunder/Lakers match-up in the Western Conference Finals or whomever they would face in the NBA finals.
Although this team is clearly led by their veterans Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli, San Antonio is a team with endless depth and can beat you from a million different angles. Second in the NBA in scoring, fourth in assists and ninth in rebounds, the Spurs hit on all facets of basketball fundamentals. The Spurs finished the regular season tied with Chicago for the best record in the NBA at 50-16. The incredible thing about that is that they played relativity under the radar all year. I guess that America has just come to expect that Tim Duncan will lead his team to success season after season. This season was extra special for San Antonio because their expectations were a lot lower after losing in the first round of the playoffs last year.
With a roster filled with relatively unknowns, San Antonio found ways this season to pinpoint each players strengths and weaknesses so they could put a solid 11-man rotation together. Role players like Gary Neal, Kawhi Leonard, Daniel Green and Tiago Splitter have embraced their opportunities as secondary options to the Spurs all-stars. Aging veterans like Stephen Jackson, Boris Diaw and Matt Bonner have bought into the idea of supporting rather than shinning, knowing that it will help their ultimate goal of winning a championship. Already tasting one championship in 2007, Matt Bonner has become a huge vocal leader off the bench, as well as providing the Spurs with a deadly 3-point shot. When the Spurs play it is always a complete team effort and it all starts with the marvelous coaching of Gregg Popovich.
With the Lakers trailing the Thunder 3-1 in their best-of-seven match-up, it looks like the Spurs will be facing off with yet another young and extremely talented team in Oklahoma City. I can't bet against the Spurs right now with the way they are playing, but I do feel that OKC poses a tough match-up. If the SAS make the finals it will most likely be against the Eastern Conference favorites, Miami Heat. If this is how it all plays out I will really look forward to seeing the Spurs and Heat duke it out till the very end. Regardless of what else happens for the rest of the playoffs, I think we should all pay our respects to the under-appreciated and over-achieving San Antonio Spurs.


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'Timbuktu' by Igor Ružić (Kazalištarije, Croatian Radio – channel 3)
Even though theater might be trying hard to convince its audience – but most of all itself – that it is socially engaged and aware of the moment it is happening in, and to which, or at least that is what it claims, reacts to, Croatian theater is an example that the truth is altogether different. Finding examples in which it truly reacted to the moment is no easier than finding an opposite example, where reality answered to theater, and that is the paradox that both the domestic stage and its repertoire bear on account of their audience and their own relevance. Between the satires that really aren't that and the actualization of classics, that precisely by being classics are our contemporaries (so no modernization is needed, but is done exclusively for egotism and narcissism of directing-dramaturgical cliques), exceptions almost as a rule occur outside of institutions, on the edges of the official culture and theater as its constitutive – even though, says the modern mantra, less truly important – part. On the edginess of phenomena in Croatian theater, that is their centrality in the sense of quality, the modes of theatrical thought and the issues dealt with, way too many words were spent, and to again prove that the edge of Croatian theater is actually its center would be a disgrace for all those who don't find theater in Croatia a total unknown. The edge, however, gained a new meaning in the newest production of Montažstroj – once a performance group and today a brand, in which Borut Šeparović signs his performance productions. Timbuktu, a play written on the basis of Paul Auster's novel, is the first play truly envisaged for the, up until a year or two, disgracefully unused stage in the International Center for Cultural Services in the New Zagreb area of Travno, run by the Zagreb Puppet Theater. Scene Travno is thus no longer a destination where the city theaters are almost punished into putting in guest appearances, but a thoroughbred theatrical space prepared to keep attracting audiences from probably the most densely populated, but culturally – in resource and program – completely derelict part of the so-called metropolis. Instead of yet another unsuccessful inscenation of the most popular fairy-tales or children literature classics, the likes of which are produced by the Zagreb Puppet Theater, Borut Šeparović and Montažstroj offered the audience in Zagreb and New Zagreb a project with extreme social charge, critical and political in its essence, as well as seductive in performance.
"A monologue for a dog on stage and an actor in the audience" is only nominally a play about humans and dogs. Timbuktu is actually exclusively a story about humans, in which dogs are only a metaphoric conveyer – attractive, cute and necessary, but not decisive. The inversion is expected and logical, because just like Paul Auster did not want to write a book about dogs, Šeparović did not want to direct a play about animals, even though the basic incentive for it were his dog and his young daughter. Timbuktu is hence one of the rare plays in domestic repertoires meant for the younger audience, older children and adolescents, although, as any quality production, it does not limit its potential viewers with that determinant.
Even though it was never a company that would perform a dramatic script literary or play a dramatization of prose without interpretation, Montažstroj did perform quite a respectable alternative reading in the two decades of its activity: from Heiner Müller, through August Strindberg, Sylvia Plath and Danilo Kiš to Paul Auster, and even Sarah Kane, even though Crave was a project Šeparović did not want to sign or brand as the work of Montažstroj, but only with his own name. Timbuktu is thus not the first prose that became a Montažstroj play, but it is the first novel, which is not irrelevant for the development of the text treatment on the dramaturgical and finally the performance level. While the 'Encyclopedia of the Dead' by Danilo Kiš was only an attempt at setting up a verbal, and no longer a physical or iconic communication with the viewers, and the poem 'Three Women' by Sylvia Plath served only as a working hypothesis for developing and fixating a performance that uses the human body and the object in the play 'Terrible Fish', in case of 'Timbuktu' it is formally Montažstroj's first decision to work with a novelesque form.
Although Auster's novel is the confession of a dog, focused on the relationship with his man and the emancipation after his death, it is also a simple metaphor which – aside from touching upon the relationship between animals (specifically dogs) and humans – actually speaks, through the relationship of humans toward dogs, about the relationship of humans toward – other humans. This double distance is what Auster implements in his text only later, when his narrative dog voice, after the death of an artistically enthusiastic homeless alcoholic, first becomes a dog without a master himself, in a way a homeless dog, and then experiences the conventional lives of humans and dogs and realizes, to utterly simplify, that the freedom of choice has no price – even if the price is life itself. Several levels of Auster's dog writing was translated into a theater synopsis by dramaturgist Jasna Žmak and Borut Šeparović, whose idea that a dog really should be played by a dog significantly alleviated the representative effect of the play, and gave it many other advantages as well.
Among the formal advantages is the systematic gliding of the actor in the audience toward the stage, which develops along with his monologue. In the beginning Sven Medvešek is in the audience, only lending his voice from the dark, over a microphone, to a trained dog named Cap who is on stage, the two of them together impersonating a dramatic character named Mr. Bones in Auster's novel and Kosta in the Croatian translation. As the play develops, he becomes more and more visible, in order to show up on stage along with his dog alter ego. However, as the illusion is destroyed, if it ever even existed, the actor turns from a storyteller into a protagonist, while simultaneously growing into what he never could have been at the beginning – human or dog, all the same. One of the postulates of this play is that a dog – in that learnt phrase, also man's best friend – today might be the only mythological being the Western culture will assort to. As such, he is one fourth human, and Timbuktu demonstrates it – through Sven Medvešek who really starts to function better, even in the sense of acting, when he adds some barking, walking on all fours, friendly sniffing of his colleague's intimates or discursive slips to the cold monologue, through which the theatrical game of representations becomes once again a confession.
That is when "Timbuktu" becomes a convincing story about freedom and liberation, about the difference between a situation where there is a collar around ones neck, in addition to an always full fridge, and the other, when a paper bag floating in the wind can also be art, instead of just garbage. Poetical – a little and maybe – but worth living. Or not, if one decides differently and accepts to be, as they say, arrested by life. That is the real story of Timbuktu, and of the Timbuktu as a metaphoric opposite to what today is not only Auster's America, but also all those Americas lived by the focused, disciplined and neoliberal world. Hence, the one Croatia is, one way or another, already a part of.
The play is only a part of the action, or project, through which Šeparović attempts to extract the theater out of the theater hall, as well as to introduce reality into it, in a significantly more concrete manner than sheer representation. Even though it is theatrical, Timbuktu is also a socially engaged project with an almost humane goal, because it was created in close collaboration with the Shelter for Abandoned Animals in Dumovec, the so-called city pound. Borut Šeparović likes to brag that this is by far his most extensive production and, in the number of participants, the biggest project in Croatia, because twelve homeless dogs, along with their so-called leaders, but really volunteers from the Dumovec Shelter, participate in the play. Along with them, as the most important part of the entire project, there are a dozen of real homeless people from Zagreb, all of which creates a basis for what makes Timbuktu different from yet another item on the domestic repertoire, and into a theatrical act that surpasses the usual interpretation of theater as the game about the world and its ability for change. Timbuktu reacts to that old thesis by Brecht, not by striping down reality in theater, but by conveying it into the theater. This, of course, is not yet the end of the game about the variability of the world but it is, to put it in terms of modern computer games, its crossing into the next, significantly higher level.
When reality in this way overflows the border of theater, even though it is usually the other way around, Timbuktu stops being a play and becomes a performance. Among the quality decisions Šeparović had to make in his work, is the one not to introduce his address-less associates into the play, because he did not show them but instead display them – making them only more noticeable and visible. This is probably the most that is allowed by ethics, because it is the last step before the level of exploitation – of both the reality and the humans. The domestic, real homeless people from Zagreb's shelters, of course, play themselves in Timbuktu, which is why they do not need to act. They do nothing aside from being, and not even on the stage but in the audience – but not by sitting alongside the audience, which might have been an interesting experiment of social awareness, elementary decency and so-called civilized taste. On the contrary, the homeless first just stand alongside the walls of the theater, with their eyes on the floor or the stage, as if careful not to meet the gazes of those whose primary role is to look at them, since they are a part of the play. The audience, however, only partially notices them, and some stage-fixated viewer doesn't even realize how different the situation symbolically turned with the entrance of these twelve others, and that the theatrical so-called ramp opened just as the iron net separated the space between the relatively free dog (trained in his first role in the theater) and the homeless dogs (wards of the Shelter for Abandoned Animals). At the moment when all the dogs are on the stage and all the humans are in the audience, with addresses or without them, Timbuktu is no longer just a play-performance about dogs and homeless people, but a smart didactic toy meant for any generation. And regardless of how redundant, illustrative and even naive material might be found in the rest of it, this breach of convention and of an inherited way of thinking theater turns it into a breaking-point for a new, obviously strongly socially responsible, aware and engaged phase of Montažstroj.
It is, hence, not surprising that, to put it a little cynically – along with all the conceptual games it brings with it – Timbuktu is saturated with an adolescent (meaning, uncompromising) impulse for rebellion and provocation. This is seen best not so much in the most distinct and favorite scene when the dog brings down the flag of the United States of America, behind which it was previously hiding, but in the last scene, which gives the play a final critical tone. In this epilogue of a kind – after the story's been told and after the human-dog protagonist said goodbye to the audience and life on this earth – cleaners enter the stage to remove all that the dogs were made to do by their physiology in those extraordinary circumstances, wash the stage floor and empty several doses of air freshener. In that, the production does its final double function: on the one hand, it accepts the world in which dogs, and many humans, are not allowed to stink, speak, and sometimes live, while on the other, it ironizes every attempt of disinfection, of both the living and the theater space. If the theater is a cage, as Paul Auster regards America to be, Montažstoj's Timbuktu does not offer escapism, but an opportunity to open the doors of that mental cage for at least a moment. Which is why it is a huge mistake to shed a tear after it – for the humans or the dogs, all the same.
About this entry
You're currently reading "'Timbuktu' by Igor Ružić (Kazalištarije, Croatian Radio – channel 3)," an entry on timbuktu
- Published:
- October 23, 2008 / 12:26 am
- Category:
- review
- Tags:
- Auster, Borut Šeparović, Igor Ružić, Montažstroj, Timbuktu


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Client acceptance: the forgotten piece of the SAP-Oracle puzzle?
SearchSAP.com reader Prafull Thakkar, HR Manager at Jet Airways in India, sent in this straggler comment on the SAP vs. Oracle debate:
"While I read the SAP vs Oracle face-off, an interesting thought came to mind. The comparison made between these two giants was obviously focusing on the technology, implementation challenges, roadmap and extensibility. However, one important point was missed and that was client acceptance.
Obviously, there will always be resistance against changing any current system.
In many cases, once a proposal is accepted by any client, the implementation is done in haste by people who may not fully understand the client's need. The client is provided with the standard output from the system which may increase the workload for the users by using alternative software. It is also expected the users will bring out the issues / problems to the implementation consultants which typically does not happen. It is very wrong to assume that the users have understood the technical aspects of the system during the implementation phase itself. We need to understand that the end users are mostly nontechnical people. Their knowledge about the system increases over a period of time.
It is very much required to provide after-sales service to the existing clients and extend the consultation services with no extra charge as and when required by the clients. In today's competitive world, people change their employment frequently. This has a positive aspect as well as negative. People who have experienced bad services in their earlier employment, will never propose or will oppose implementing the same system.
On a side note, I think Oracle and SAP should have a customer satisfaction as well as quality survey done for each and every client where their system is implemented and check whether their business partners/franchisees have done a good job or not. There should be periodic feedback taken from the clienteles. This will certainly decide who will sustain the competition….Oracle or SAP?"
There are some interesting thoughts here. I still recoil when I hear the words "Lotus 1-2-3" … In no small part thanks to a very rushed and very botched implementation I had to endure at my first job back in the stone age. We had this elaborate sales support thing with complex macros, automatic fax capability and whatnot, but of course it wouldn't work. It took a while before we figured out that it was the software and not just us being stupid. When my boss asked the consultants to come back and make it work, she got the perky answer that no issues had been raised during the stipulated post-implementation time frame, so now she'd have to pay the exorbitant hourly rate. We ended up doing work by hand for months.
While I certainly agree on the long-term business advantage of providing good implementation support, what about Thakkar's statement that after-sales services should be extended free of charge? As a customer, I certainly wouldn't complain about having perpetual support. But as a consultant or vendor, there's a limit to the generosity. SLAs and contracts aside, what should be reasonable to expect? And for how long?
Matt Danielsson


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In Sarah's class, most mornings are usually designated to teaching the planned literacy program. This involves developing skills for story writing, learning and practising spelling and grammar rules and working on the finer points of hand writing.
After morning tea, we usually focus on Mathematics. The afternoon timetable is varied and will include either PE, personal and whole class projects or a visit to the local library. Also included in our program are music and craft. Each week we also have a class meeting and a whole school meeting where we discuss important topics. Here are some of the children's thoughts about their class, some things they like to do and what they like about their class and school:
- I like that you can do projects with someone and by yourself. I love having free time and when people call out games and stuff.
- I like about the class that you can play plasticine and lego, and about the school I like that you don't have to wear uniform, you can climb trees and you don't have different teachers for different subjects.
- I like that my teacher keeps on challenging us, every time keeps pushing us up a notch. I love all the people in the school; they are really nice to everyone.
- I like that you don't have to wear uniform, shoes or hat. I like our class because everyone is respectful.
- I like how everyone makes their own projects because they are really cool. I like all of the teachers and all of the children.
- In our class we get to have our own plasticine and bases. We have monkey bars in the top playground; I like them.
- I like my class because it is really colourful and we get to have free Fridays.
- Every Friday we get to have an ice-block and I love the treehouse and monkey bars. I like my class because it has lots of different activities to do.


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Top Muscle Building Bodyweight Exercises
Pumping free weights and tackling weight machines at the gym are great tools for building muscle mass and strength. However, you can also get a body that's lean and mean by committing to a resistance training program that utilizes only your body weight. Such a strength program is an excellent option to get fit, build mass and sculpt your physique whether you don't have the time or money to join a gym, or you just want to change your workout routine.
In some cases, bodyweight exercises are better than gym workouts using free weights and machines because such gym techniques have a tendency to target specific isolated muscles. Bodyweight exercises, on the other hand, require balance and stability. These types of exercises involve a range of muscles, providing a more thorough workout.
The following top five bodyweight workouts utilize the most muscles so you can receive a total body workout in the shortest amount of time.
Pushups are an all-around good exercise to build a total upper body. They make a good addition to any exercise program because they will develop many weaker muscles that may be missed during major weight lifts. Pushups specifically target the major muscles of pecs, traps, delts, biceps and triceps.
There are also multiple versions of pushup techniques, each which target different groups of muscles. Therefore, you can vary between such pushup techniques as classic, incline, decline, dumbbell, as well as the plyometric handclap technique to work various muscles and build better mass.
Pull Ups
Pull ups are another great upper body workout option as they also strengthen pecs, traps, triceps, biceps, lats as well as your core. If you have a bar in your home then that makes the exercise easy. However, if you lack a bar, you can still benefit from this exercise by utilizing a strong, exposed ceiling beam or a sturdy branch in a backyard tree.
Triceps Dips
Triceps dips are a good strength training exercise to further develop these muscles. Triceps can often be underworked, which results in arms looking out of balance because the biceps tend to grow larger faster. Triceps dips will help to remedy this imbalance.
Parallel bars are generally used in a gym for this exercise (or you might find them in a nearby playground). However, another technique allows you to do triceps dips wherever a simple, sturdy chair is available, such as at home or the office.
Grasping the edge of the chair and with feet out and away from you, slide your bottom just off the edge of the chair while supporting your body weight with your arms. Slowly lower yourself down until your arms form a 90° angle and then slowly lift yourself back up and repeat.
Squats are another good all-around bodyweight exercise for the lower body as they work to develop mass in the main muscles of quads, hamstrings, calves, glutes and core.
Keeping the trunk of your body straight with arms out in front of you and parallel to the floor with your feet shoulder width apart, slowly lower yourself down until in a "sitting" position and then slowly raise yourself back up and repeat.
For added strength building, plyometrics can also be applied to this exercise. Lower yourself down as described above and then lunge upwards rapidly onto a sturdy crate or low brick wall, repeat the lowering movement and then lunge up and back to your starting position and repeat.
To build stronger quads, add classic lunges into your bodyweight exercise program. Try altering variations of the lunge, such as side, low, barbell, sliding side lunges and one-leg lunge reach, into your routine to strengthen other leg muscles.


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