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London: If you are regularly in the habit of popping up over-the-counter painkillers, beware, you may be at double the risk of becoming obese as well as have poor sleep, a study has revealed.
Over the past 10 years, there has been a large increase in the prescription of medications such as gabapentinoids such as gabapentin, pregabilin and opiates, for chronic pain management including migraine, diabetic neuropathy and chronic lower back pain.
The findings showed that people on opiates and cardio-metabolic drugs reported 95 per cent rates of obesity, 82 per cent "very high" waist circumference and 63 per cent hypertension, as opposed to those on cardio-metabolic drugs only.
These chronic pain medications should be prescribed for shorter periods of time to limit serious health complications, the researchers suggested.
"We already know that opiates are dependency-forming but this study also found patients taking opiates have the worst health. Obesity rates are much higher and the patients reported sleeping poorly," said lead author Sophie Cassidy, research associate at the Newcastle University.
Opioids act as a sedative which makes patients less active and they have been shown to alter taste perception with a craving for sugar and sweet foods.
Opioids are also known to worsen snoring and untreated sleep apnea, as well as causing problems with nocturnal hypertension.
"These results add further weight to calls for these chronic pain medications to be prescribed for shorter periods," Cassidy added.
For the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, the team assessed the inter-relationship between metabolic and cardiovascular disease in more than 133,000 participants from the UK.
Body mass index, waist circumference and blood pressure were compared between those taking painkillers for chronic, non-cancer pain and cardio-metabolic drugs, compared to those prescribed cardio-metabolic treatment only.
Opioids are recognised as being among the most dangerous prescription painkillers because they are addictive which can lead to them being abused. Patients can require continuous use of the drugs to feel normal and avoid symptoms of withdrawal.


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Encouragement of ClimbSynopsisHinata and Aoi used to be good hiking buddies, but after a fall from a jungle gym -- a playground climbing attraction -- Aoi breaks her arm and developes a fear of heights. This does not discourage Hinata from trying to drag her to the mountaintops, though, but there's a few things the girls have to learn before they're ready to undertake the big hikes. ReviewWhen I heard there was going to be an anime -- even better, a slice-of-life of sorts -- about hiking, I just had to be there. Living in an area that spoils the interested hiking connoisseur rotten, I was honestly more than a bit curious how an anime -- a web animation in particular -- would manage this. The first question is therefore going to be this: "Is twelve four minute episodes going to be enough?" And the answer is... just barely. (My brain was actually going "giri giri safe" -- surely a sign that I need to cut down on anime.) Encouragement of Climb's approach to the whole thing is basically a beginner's course in hiking, camping and choosing appropriate gear for various tasks. Rudimentary, yes, but good advice all the same. Furthermore, the show is absolutely adorable. It goes with the old "shy, antisocial girl vs. hyperactive loudmouth" dynamic for its main characters, but there's no reason to be hesitant. Any friction between the two is quickly dispelled, and the two eventually gain more friends following along; tall and mature Kaede plus the excessively feminine and girly Kokona. Together, the four of them (there are always four) quickly form a hiker's circle of friends. For all its talk about conquering mountains, though, the girls doesn't really do a whole lot of that. Their hikes are mostly taken along tourist trails leading to various attractions and tourist viewpoints -- though in all fairness, they are nice trails that I'd be more than happy to undertake myself on a free day. Another point of relief comes with the art and animation territory -- meaning it's mostly quite nice. True, there's a kind of hazy, CG quality to some of the background art, with a particularly egregrious example in the first episode as the camera slowly traverses a classroom filled with students, but that particular example was thankfully never revisited. More so, the show completely redeems itself by featuring a lot of really nice background scenes, like the few spots the girls do visit, or even the stores they go to for the sake of getting equipment. If Encouragement of Climb's goal was to get its audience excited about hiking, I'd say it's been pretty successful. Honestly, the whole thing just makes its briefness even more melancholic; now that the entire show is available, it's over in around 42 minutes. That's barely two episodes worth as far as regular TV shows go, and I wanted to see more of this. The show ends with a 'see you again'. I really hope it's allowed to honor that statement. — Stig Høgset Recommended Audience: It's a quiet slice-of-life about relatively young girls, so the show is pretty short on anything that can be considered objectionable. "Wholesome family entertainment" is rarely as true as in this case. Version(s) Viewed: Digital stream from Crunchyroll, Japanese with English subtitles. Review Status: Full (12/12) Encouragement of Climb © 2013 8-bit / Earth Star Entertainment |
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subset: commoncrawl


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I am making a 2D scroller game where the player controls an airplane via the accelerometer I would like to know if it is possible to scale in and to scale out the sprite/airplane using the accelerometer z axis. I would like to know how to do this to create a depth illusion.
Any suggestion, tutorial recommendation, and comments are appreciated.


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A top priority of Democrats nationwide is to try to expand early voting even beyond the more than 40-plus million votes that were cast on days other than Election Day in 2012 or by mail. The present system balkanizes and deprives our nation of the unifying value of one nation on Election Day.
The Democrats know that their massive use of early voting was a major factor that enabled them to pile up the winning votes to reelect Barack Obama. Obama enthusiastically supports early voting; he urged 10,000 fans at his campaign speech in Urbandale, Iowa to vote right now "starting Sept. 27 ... You don't have to wait until Nov. 6 to vote."
On the first day of the new Congress, the House Democrats showed what they think is really important by pushing (fortunately unsuccessfully) for a new federal law that would require 10 hours a day of early voting for 15 days before any federal election. The bill also would have invented a new voting "right" that no one has to stand in line more than one hour.
Republicans think the goal of voting reform should be honest elections, not convenience, plus maintenance of safeguards against voter fraud and coercion of voters.
Republicans want to make sure that only U.S. citizens can vote, that voter ID is used in every state, and that ballots from our armed forces abroad are really counted.
Early voting bypasses many safeguards for voting integrity such as having poll watchers from both political parties to monitor everything going on to deter polling place monkey business. It's expensive and nearly impossible to secure poll watchers for the many days of early voting that were allowed in Ohio (35 days) and other swing states.
Early voting is a liberal gimmick that disenfranchises Election Day voters by determining the outcome before Election Day and, contrary to liberal propaganda, early voting decreases overall voter turnout. Early voting increased substantially in Ohio in 2012, but overall turnout decreased significantly.
Early voting violates federal law, which for more than a century, has required national elections to occur on the same day. Early voting adds heavy costs to the taxpayers and to the candidates because it significantly lengthens the campaign.
Early voting is unfair because it prevents voters from changing their minds up until Election Day. Early voting encourages uninformed voting because many voted before the presidential debates were held.
Early voting makes campaigns more expensive; it lengthens the time period for advertising. It harms third-party candidates who lack a political organization to get out early voters.
Early voting is a misnomer. More precise names would be premature voting, uninformed voting or political machine voting.
What if jurors were allowed to decide they are tired of a lengthy trial and want to vote to convict a defendant midway through the trial and go home? Isn't it just as important for voters to hear all the facts about candidates before voting?
Absentee voting provides another big opportunity for election fraud because it deprives many voters of our precious secret ballot. Here is one way that absentee voting works.
An Arkansas state legislator, Rep. Hudson Hallum, bribed voters with money and food to cast their absentee ballots for him, obtained and distributed ballots to those voters, and then collected then in unsealed envelopes. If the ballots were marked for Hallum's opponent, Hallum pitched them. Hallum pled guilty to election fraud.
Mail-in ballots are subject to the same problem. Most of them are probably not secret ballots but cast without traditional safeguards of secrecy and freedom from coercion, and you don't know who is looking at them before they are dropped in the ballot box.
Obama's margin of victory was only a few hundred thousand votes in the four swing states of Florida, Ohio, Virginia and New Hampshire. That was far less than the number of mailed-in ballots cast.
Another easy way this racket works is to take absentee ballots to nursing homes and assisted-living institutions. The campaign worker "helps" the physically or mentally disabled senior citizens choose for whom they want to vote, marks the ballot and then turns it in.
The Democrats' party line is that voter fraud is a myth, but that illusion was dispelled by another stunning case of fraud by a prominent incumbent. The son and field director of U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, who has been in office for 22 years representing Virginia's Washington suburbs, was filmed by videographer James O'Keefe advising an undercover reporter how to bypass Virginia's voter ID law. The method was exquisitely ingenious: it called for creating fake utility bills on the internet to substitute for voter ID.


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No Other Woman (Ruel Bayani, 2011)
Ruel Bayani's No Other Woman has supposedly earned for itself the distinction of being the highest grossing Filipino movie of all time, for now. It's essentially about marital infidelity, tackling the sordid turns in a married couple's life when another girl enters frame. The premise alone makes it an unlikely crowd-drawer. However, the movie is designed for commercial success, featuring pretty faces and sexy bodies living and breathing in places that are seemingly removed from the reality that its targeted audience should be familiar with. It's essentially escapist fare, piling gloss upon gloss to arrive at a final product that resembles the tacky front cover of a random lousy romance novel.
Ram (Derek Ramsey) has been selected to supply furniture to a luxury resort, where he meets Kara (Anne Curtis), the daughter of the resort owner. The two start an affair. Charmaine, Ram's wife, starts to become suspicious and eventually discovers the affair, forcing her to compete for her husband's attention. The story's quite thin, riddled only by extraneous complications involving the characters' familial histories, supposedly adding depth to the characters' convictions and motivations. Unfortunately, the characters, despite all the needless details, are nothing more than caricatures that are meant to be objectified.
Although the movie parades with the sheen of seriousness and importance it borrows from its subject matter, it sometimes resolves to treat the subject matter with disarming humor. The movie shines when it is upfront with this irreverence, such as when the movie's internal rules of fate and circumstance connive to have the wife and the paramour meet each other in the mall while wearing outfits of the same hue, with both of them bursting in the seams with knowledge of each other's secrets, throwing each other one-liners with irresistible double-meanings. Joey Gosiengfiao is an obvious reference. However, Bayani seems unable to completely surrender to the pleasures and sophistications of camp, making his movie an unwieldy and inconsistent romp that leads essentially to something that is best described as dull, ordinary, and ultimately offensive to the intellect.
The movie is mired by an utter lack of integrity. It is unable to decide what it wants to be, a persisting problem of movies produced by mainstream studios whose addiction with formula and morally and socially acceptable but completely illogical endings has ruined nearly most of their films. Kara, a promising character who represents the Filipino woman that is uncharacteristically not beholden to marital vows and declares herself immune to love and guilt, unfortunately drowns in remorse, betraying whatever complexity the character has. The marriage of Ram and Charmaine, in what seems like a product of the director and his writers' chronic lack of imagination, is as good as new. Even more bizarre is the resolution wherein the married couple actually becomes civil with the woman who nearly threatened their relationship, completely forgetting all the shouting sprees and the violent catfights.
It is as if nothing happened, and the entire ordeal is simply an avenue to learn lessons in life and gain new friends. I don't even see why Bayani bothered to tell that story of infidelity at all, if infidelity turns out to be that inconsequential, that negligible. But then again, there's big money to be made serving junk in pretty platters.
(Cross-published in Twitch.)


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VH1 and Flavor Unit Entertainment Give Summer a New Sizzle With VH1's First Hour-Long Scripted Series "Single Ladies"
"Single Ladies" The Movie Premieres Monday, May 30 at 9PM* and the Series Premieres June 6 at 9PM* on VH1
Visit SingleLadies.VH1.com For Bonus Content And Sneak Clips
NEW YORK, April 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- This summer, VH1 and Queen Latifah's Flavor Unit Entertainment bring viewers "Single Ladies," a new romantic comedy series that asks the question: What do women really want in a relationship? The series will mark VH1's first foray into the hour-long scripted series genre. "Single Ladies," the two-hour movie event, premieres Monday, May 30th at 9PM*, and the one-hour ten episode series kicks off a week later on Monday, June 6th at 9PM* on VH1.
"Single Ladies" is a new romantic comedy series about Val, Keisha, and April - three best friends with different philosophies on sex and relationships, proving not all women have the same desires. Val (Stacey Dash) is an ambitious, aspiring fashion mogul who believes in fate, romance and finding that special someone to be with forever. Keisha (LisaRaye McCoy) is a former video dancer who believes in making her own luck, her own money and choosing men with her head instead of her heart April (Charity Shea,) has found the "perfect" man for the "ideal" marriage - but is learning that marriage might not be her happily ever after. The series introduces Christina (Kassandra Clementi) a free-spirited, wild child intern with an eye for fashion that Val takes under her wing. "Single Ladies" is a modern, sexy series set in the world of Atlanta fashion, music, and celebrity that will constantly explore which woman has the right approach to relationships.
"We are thrilled here at VH1 to be delving into our FIRST hour-long scripted series with "Single Ladies." This series taps directly into relationship and love issues and shows women with real strengths, vulnerabilities, and flaws that many of our audience can directly identify with. Also what better person to bring this gorgeous, funny, and diverse cast of talented and strong women to television than Oscar Nominated and Grammy Award winning actress/musician, Queen Latifah," stated Jeff Olde, EVP of Original Programming and Production, VH1.
"My partner Shakim Compere and I are excited our production company Flavor Unit is working with VH1 on their first venture into the hour-long scripted series genre. 'Single Ladies' is a sexy and smart show ...something that we feel TV has been missing for far too long and we knew VH1 was the perfect home for it," says Executive Producer, Queen Latifah.
The cast includes: Stacey Dash, LisaRaye McCoy, Charity Shea, Kassandra Clementi, DB Woodside, Anthony Montgomery, and Travis Winfrey. "Single Ladies" the movie features guest appearances by Lauren London, Eve, Common, Chili, and Kim Porter. Executive producer, Queen Latifah, will make a guest appearance in the series.
For sneak clips and bonus content throughout the season, visit SingleLadies.VH1.com.
Executive producers include Queen Latifah, Shakim Compere, and Shelby Stone for Flavor Unit Entertainment. Executive producers also include Maggie Malina, Alex A. Motlagh for POPfilms, Stacy A. Littlejohn, and Tamra Davis. Executive producing for VH1 are Jill Holmes and Jeff Olde. "Single Ladies" was written and created by Stacy A. Littlejohn and directed by Tamra Davis.
VH1 connects viewers to the music, artists and pop culture that matter to them most with TV series, specials, live events, exclusive online content and public affairs initiatives. VH1 is available in 98 million households in the U.S. VH1 also has an array of digital channels and services including VH1Classic, VH1 Soul, VH1 Mobile, VH1Games and extensive broadband video on VH1.com. Connect with VH1 at VH1.com.
*All times ET/PT
Contact: |
Nyle Washington |
Jake Slane |
212-846-5576 |
310-752-8370 |
For up-to-the-minute and archival press information including releases and photographs, visit VH1's press-only Web site at www.vh1.com/press.


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Advanced Search
2011 Campus Technology Innovators | Teaching and Learning
The Human Presence Learning Environment is a sophisticated Moodle customization that engages students via multiple social components, including streaming media, voice boards, presence indicators, microblogs, and interactive class assessments.
Project: The Human Presence Learning Environment
Project lead: Douglas Hersh, dean of educational programs
Vendors/technologies used: EduStream Elluminate (Blackboard) Moodle Remote-Learner Skype Twitter Wimba (Blackboard) YouTube
When Douglas Hersh was named dean of educational programs at Santa Barbara City College (CA) in 2007, he had just finished writing his doctoral dissertation on what's missing from distance education and how to fix it. But he never thought he'd have the opportunity to put his ideas into practice so soon.
Convinced that the lack of personal interaction online is behind low student satisfaction and class-completion rates, Hersh persuaded colleagues to join him on a journey to remake the school's learning management system. Rolled out in 2009, the school's Human Presence Learning Environment is a sophisticated customization of the open source Moodle LMS. It introduces a social component by including streaming media, voice boards, presence indicators, microblogs, and interactive class assessments.
Hersh believes too many distance-learning efforts have downplayed the importance of the social aspect of learning. "What turns students off most is a bad interface," he says. Among the adjectives he applies to the typical LMS are cold, impersonal, alienating, static, and text-driven. "If students get frustrated and apathetic in the first few meetings of a course, they are toast, because the cohort has passed them by and they drop out." In planning the Human Presence Learning Environment, he hypothesized that greater levels of engagement with instructors and other students would lead to a higher level of success.
It took Hersh a year to convince colleagues to transition away from Blackboard and to develop a governance structure for the new open source system. He even made a film for campus stakeholders about his vision of the future of education and the role of technology. He credits SBCC Superintendent/President Andreea Serban, Executive Vice President Jack Friedlander, and David Wong, director of the Faculty Resource Center, with providing the executive leadership to make the transition happen campuswide.
"We have created an expectation that all instructors are regularly in touch with each student," Hersh says.
On the technology front, Hersh and Jason Walker, SBCC's director of educational applications, worked with Remote-Learner, a consulting firm that specializes in Moodle customization, to incorporate as many free and low-cost web-based communication applications as possible, including Skype, Elluminate, Wimba, Twitter, YouTube, and EduStream. Instructors use Skype for office-hour chats with students, a new requirement for online courses. They use collaboration tool Elluminate (now part of Blackboard) for synchronous presentations, which are recorded for those unable to attend. The system also features a voice board, similar to a discussion thread that uses voice messages instead of typing. And the Twitter feed can be used by faculty to remind students of an upcoming quiz, for example. In addition, a presence indicator allows students to see who else is online so they can engage in a chat.
Webcams and Flip cams are used to record video presentations. "The streaming video is important," Hersh says. "The students can see the whites of their instructors' eyes, their laughs, their nonverbal communication." Once enrolled in a course, students watch a brief video developed by the instructor that outlines the week's goals; read the notes for that week; engage in the voice board; and take online quizzes.
SBCC's Faculty Resource Center works with instructors to pepper their courses with videos, interactive quizzes, and other learning activities. It also built a course-regeneration tool that allows faculty members to "roll over" their prior semester courses and make modifications.
Hersh closely tracks student satisfaction, completion, and success rates: His research has found that students prefer the new environment, and tend to remain enrolled in courses longer and perform better. In 2009, student engagement and satisfaction with the Human Presence Learning Environment were 9.3 percent higher than with any other LMS in use at SBCC, and class-completion rates were 5.1 percent higher. Academic success, a measure of students completing their courses with a grade of "C" or better, was 9.4 percent higher.
Although the open source system is less expensive than a commercial product, Hersh stresses that "this is not about saving money. We are reinvesting the money we spent on Blackboard on instructor stipends for training and other tools. It is about giving faculty the freedom to teach the way they teach as mentors and establish that human connection with students."
About the Author
David Raths is a Philadelphia-based freelance writer focused on information technology. He writes regularly for several IT publications, including Healthcare Innovation and Government Technology.
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NAIROBI, Kenya, 2019-Jun-28 — /Travel PR News/ — Kenya's tourism industry is booming in business and 2018-2022 is looking even better after recovery for a long time. Cruzeiro Safaris Kenya's strength in packaging tours and committed service delivery is expected to increase in the future.
Undoubtly, Kenya is the best African country for safari experience with lots and lots of wildlife viewing. For a long time Cruzeiro Safaris Kenya, has taken travelers to various destinations within Nairobi and tourist destinations within Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar.
The Tour Operator has for years utilized the distributions of International brands to marketer and distribute their tours on commission basis. The distributors had a competitive advantage in that the clients could read and book tours online to the last stage. They will still continue distributing through their online partners.
Cruzeiro Safaris Kenya saw this as an opportunity to exploit and dive into the big ocean of international brands. This challenge has been overcome and now this Online Tour Agency (OTA) and operator have launched their online tours booking platform in collaboration with payment getaway PESAPAL which is verified by VeriSign International. PESAPAL accept credit cards VISA and MASTERCARD and mobile money as well.
'Delving into the online market is worth the risk, because Nairobi is become the hub for multi-national corporations, we believe we shall make significant strides in terms of sales revenue. Our service delivery remains top-notch and continuous priority as you can read from the trip advisor page and other pages. Just Google Cruzeiro Safaris Kenya' says Susan the Tourism Manager.
Some of the tours they offer in for a start on their online tours platform in Nairobi are:
- Nairobi National Park Morning
- Nairobi National Park Afternoon
- Elephant Orphanage Tour
- Elephants Orphanage And Giraffe Center
- Nairobi National Park Tour And Elephants Orphanage
- Nairobi National Park Tour, Elephants Orphanage And Lunch
- Nairobi National Park Tour, Elephants Orphanage And Giraffe Center
- Nairobi National Park Tour, Elephants Orphanage, Giraffe Center And Lunch
- Full Day Tour To Lake Nakuru National Park
- Full-Day Safari Tour To Amboseli National Park From Nairobi
Some of the overnight safaris they offer are only related to Luxury travel lodges and one fly's by Air (Safaris by Air). The destinations includes:
- Masai Mara Safari Low Season Offer
- Masai Mara Safari to Governors Camp
- Masai Mara Safari to Eagle View Luxury Camp
- Keekorok Lodge
- Airport Transfers from Airport to Nairobi Hotels
- Airport Transfers from Airport to Other Hotels listed
- Full-Day Stone Town And Prison Island Tour In Zanzibar – Central Hotels And Fumba
- Full-Day Stone Town And Prison Island Tour In Zanzibar
- Full-Day Stone Town And Prison Island Tour In Zanzibar- Stone Town Hotels
- Spice Tour Of Zanzibar – South Hotels
- Spice Tour Of Zanzibar – North East And Central
- Spice Tour Of Zanzibar – Stone Town Hotels
- Spice Tour Of Zanzibar – North Hotels
- Zanzibar Arrival Transfer: Zanzibar Airport To Hotel
However, there are more packages available in their main website with several detailed tailor made safaris by road ranging from 1 (one) day to 15 (fifteen days) safaris. www.cruzeiro-safaris.com
We wish you happy holidays, great experiences in Kenya and book through Cruzeiro Safaris Kenya.
SOURCE: EPR Network


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HaChayim HaYehudim Jewish Photo Library
Vast image library featuring more than 40000 photographs from 84 countries & territories on 6 continents, of ALL aspects of Jewish life. Includes memorial name-tablets from synagogues, headstones from Jewish cemeteries etc. Relative scarcity of East & Central European photos due to Holocaust emphasizes importance of this ongoing project.
Sherlock COHN, The Photo Genealogist
Ava COHN, aka Sherlock COHN, The Photo Genealogist is the only professional genealogist to specialize exclusively in the analysis, dating and interpretation of Jewish family photographs, 19th & 20th centuries; Eastern European & American. Member of Association of Professional Genealogists.
Jewish » Photographs & Memories
2 Links


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Eight Years Ago This Very Day…
I sat down at a long-since retired computer and began a journey. I didn't know what I was doing. Heck, for that matter I still don't know what I am doing. All I knew was I was having fun doing it.
That's right. Today is an anniversary for my blog. Count them…Eight! Long! Years!
Oh, has my life changed and so has this blog. In the beginning I had no solidly established goals. Truth is, during those first years I'm not sure very many other eyes happened upon this writing other than my own. Blogging was in its infancy. It received little to no respect. Most people hardly understood what it was even about. For that matter, the majority of Internet browsers had no appreciation for reading the occasional ramblings of some writer transforming thoughts into computer pixels on a personal weblog.
Let's be honest, I started this blog writing for myself. Those first months I used it as an escape to detail the type of topics that were on my mind at the moment. Yes, it was a soapbox at times. I certainly shared my opinions…got stuff off my chest, so to speak. It was a way to release energy while at the same time attempting to share a love of the outdoors.
Folks have asked me what blogging was like when I started. Oh, there were several blogs of national prominence sometimes making waves for breaking news…but the landscape was much different in the outdoors world. Particularly with hunting and fishing bloggers. As my memory recalls, there were no more than perhaps a dozen of us bloggers actively promoting the outdoors lifestyle via this up-and-coming form of communication.
Indeed, some of my early compatriots in outdoors blogging were, as memory serves me:
- Bass Pundit
- Black Bear Blog
- Bright Idea Outdoors Weblog
- Dave Richey's Weblog
- Deer Camp Blog
- Fishing Jones
- Muskoka Outdoors Blog
- Outdoors With Othmar Vohringer
- PA: Hunt. Fish. Shoot
- Rich Lindgren's Bassin' Blog
- Trout Underground
Now, likely there were other prominent ones I have unintentionally missed, but these are some of the pioneers in outdoors blogging. I tip my hat to each of these guys as it appears they are all continuing to blog to this day, at least to some degree. (If I missed you and you were blogging back in 2004, leave a comment below and tell us)
Yeah, a lot has changed in eight years. Too much, in fact, to detail in this single blog post. But I am so proud of what blogging has become. It wasn't long ago most of the professional writing associations were scoffing at bloggers–certainly not taking us serious as legitimate communicators. Fast forward to today, most of these same organizations AND the same people in charge have become enlightened to the potential of blogging. Now, these same professional organizations are looking for ways to embrace bloggers and bring them into their membership fold. And I might say it's about damn time!
When people used to ask me what outdoor publications I wrote for I would list them off. They would subsequently nod their heads and say something like, "that's cool." But do you think they ever went back and dug through some back-issues to read something I wrote? Heck no! If I also told them I blog…they would respond with something like, "okay," seemingly not very impressed.
Not so today. I no longer tell people that I once wrote for radio or provide a laundry list of what print publications I've been in. It just doesn't matter to most folks these days. Instead, they want to know how they can read what you write from their computers, their portable tablets, heck…even their smart phones. WOW! Have things ever changed. If you told me back in 2004 that not only would I still be blogging eight years later, but that I would be doing it sometimes from my phone and my readers would also be reading it in a like manner…I would have said "NO WAY!"
But, here I am on my eighth anniversary of this blog doing some reflection and introspection. I'm excited! It's hard to imagine where this is all going for the future. No longer do I write this blog merely for my own entertainment. Nope! Today, each post is constructed with an eye toward how can I teach or enlighten my readers with about 700 words or less. Sometimes I achieve that goal…and other times, well, you'll have to keep reading to find out.
In closing, a final tip-of-the-hat to all my loyal readers who have stuck with me over the years. Here's hoping we have several more good years to come. Thanks for reading SPORTSMAN'S BLOG!
©2012 Jim Braaten. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction without Prior Permission.


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The following obituaries were received for Wednesday –
Agnes Marie Fish – Bedford
Agnes Marie Fish, 85, of Bedford, passed away at her home on Monday, June 25, 2012.
Born March 8, 1927 in Monroe County, she was the daughter of Clyde and Elsie (Goad) Wagner. She married Gordon Fish and he survives. She retired from RCA in Bloomington and was a member of Mt. Pleasant Christian Church and a former member of the C.B. Club.
Survivors include her husband of 68 years, Gordon; three daughters, Lana Wray and husband Joe, Linda Olson and husband Larry, Diana Sego and husband Jerry, all of Bedford; one grandson who was raised in the home, Sean Benhan, of Chicago; 9 grandchildren; two sisters, Doris Warren and Helen Reynolds; three brothers, Clyde Wagner Jr., and wife Porshe, Jack Wagner and wife Linda, Kenneth Wagner and wife Cathy.
She was preceded in death by her parents, brothers-in-law Harvey Warren and Dale Reynolds and a grandson Brian Olson.
A celebration of life will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, June 27th at the Otis Park Bath House. The family asks that friends consider memorial contributions be made to the American Diabetes Association @ www.diabetes.org/Donations.
Friends and family are invited to sign the guest book and light a candle in memory of Agnes at www.daycarter.com.
Arrangements are under the direction of Day & Carter Mortuary.
William E. "Peewee" DeFord – Bedford
William E. "Peewee" DeFord, 67, of Bedford, passed away at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, June 25, 2012 at I.U. Health in Indianapolis.
Born July 28, 1944 in Indianapolis, he was the son of Max and Betty Alice (Wright) DeFord. He retired from Reynolds and was a member of the Moose Lodge.
Survivors include two sons, Eric DeFord and wife Kathy, of Indianapolis, Billy E. DeFord, of Ohio; a sister, Diana P. Meadows, of Bedford; a daughter, Stephanie Williams and husband, Buddy, of South Bend; five grandchildren, Cody and Samantha Chastain, Ross, Dylan and Alec DeFord.
He was preceded in death by her parents, three brothers, Richard L. Wright, L. Danny and Joseph S. DeFord.
A celebration of life will be announced at a later date. Interment will be in the Clear Creek Cemetery in Monroe County.
Family and friends are invited to sign the guest book and light a candle in memory of William at www.daycarter.com.
Arrangements are under the direction of Day & Carter Mortuary.
Marnice Kay Fender Prince – Bedford
Marnice Kay Fender Prince, 61, of Bedford, passed away at 5:24 p.m. Monday, June 25, 2012 at I.U. Health Bedford.
Born May 21, 1951, she was the daughter of Charles Randall Fender and Bernice Meadows Fender. She married Roger Prince on June 4, 2005 and he survives.
She was in food service at Indiana University and later worked for Indiana Home Health, she and her husband also delivered for the Time-Mail. She was of the Pentecost faith and loved to garden and can.
Survivors include her daughter, Stephanie Fender and her companion Mark Perry, of Spencer; her husband Roger Prince, of Bedford; 3 brothers, Charles "Chub" and wife Carol Fender, of Bedford, Jackie and wife Wanda Fender and Rex Allen Fender, both of Heltonville; 5 step-children, Marylee Atterberry, of Avoca, Sandy Hazelip, of Tell City, Susan Deckard, Worthington, Brian and Brent Prince, both of Bedford; several nieces and nephews and grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her parents, one sister, Ladona May Fender and one brother, Carl Fender.
Funeral services will be on Friday, June 29, 2012 at 1 p.m. at Ferguson-Lee Funeral Home. Burial will be in Chapel Hill Cemetery.
Friends may call on Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. at the funeral home.
Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.fergusonlee.com.
Mary Edna Richman – Huron
Mary Edna Richman, 90, lifelong resident of Huron, passed away at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, June 23, 2012.
Born September 20, 1921, in Huron she was the daughter of Leonard and Cleo (Bridges) King. She was united in marriage to Robert Richman November 20, 1941, at the Huron Baptist Church, and he preceded her in death November 25, 1987. In her early life she worked at RCA, Crane, and for 21 years in the superintendent's office at Mitchell Community Schools. For many years she was the Huron news correspondent for The Mitchell Tribune, Bedford Times Mail and the Progress Examiner in Orleans. She was widely known as the Huron Historian because of her vast interest and love of the Town of Huron and its history. For more than 70 years, Edna was a member of the Huron Baptist Church and the Huron W.T. K. Club. She was a graduate of Huron High School in 1939. She and her late husband owned and operated Edna's Antiques in Huron. They enjoyed traveling and spent every summer and fall camping in the Great Smoky Mountains. Her hobby was growing unique plants and flowers, and working in her booth at the Gasthof Flea Market.
Edna is survived by her daughters, Mary Ann Brown and husband, Farrel, of Orleans; Karen Hosek, of Plainfield; Evelyn "Chippy" Stewart, of Huron; five grandchildren, Christopher and wife Molly Hosek, Alison and husband Jon Mace, Stephanie Stewart and companion Jeremy Davis, Daniel and wife Laura Stewart, Tim and wife Eileen Brown; Great grandchildren, Tori, Thomas, and Troy Mace, Jaxon and Quincey Hosek, Braden Stewart, Kayle and Rob Brammer,
Erin and Erica Brown and many loving cousins
She was preceded in death by her parents and husband of 46 years.
Funeral service will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 30, at Huron Baptist Church with Rev. Ron Allender, Rev. Larry Williams, and Rev. Dwight Dunbar officiating. Burial will be in Clark Cemetery.
Friends may call from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday at Chastain Funeral Home & Cremation Center and from 9 a.m. until the service on Saturday at the church.
Casketbearers: Christopher Hosek, Daniel Stewart, Jon Mace, Jeremy Davis, Eugene Roberts, Jerry Lee, Kenny Beasley, and Paul Noblitt.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Huron Baptist Church.
Condolences may be sent to the family at www.chastainfuneralhome.com
Chloe E. Walter – Bedford
Chloe E. Walter, 83, formerly of Bedford passed away at 6:12 a.m. Saturday, June 23, 2012 at Homeview Nursing Home in Franklin.
Born March 13, 1929 in Ft. Ritner, she was the daughter of Fred and Mattie Beavers.
She married Sharron Lee Walker on June 29, 1950 and he survives. She was of the Luteran Faith and was confirmed into the Medora Good Shepherd Lutheran Church November 1947. She graduated from Vallonia High School. She was a registered nurse and held a bachelor degree in Nursing. Chole was active in 4-H and had raised a calf and helped on the famly farm, she was a good at growing flowers and vegetables.
Survivors include her husband, Sharron Walker, of Franklin; two sons, David and wife Debbie Walter, of Seattle, WA and Eric Jennifer Walker, of Indianapolis; one daughter, Sheila McGregor, of Franklin; 5 grandchildren, Stephanie, Jennifer, Katie, Josh and Stacy; 4 great grandchildren, Emily, Silas, Junior and Riley; 6 sisters, Pearl Wright, of Medora, Mildred Petra, of Indianapolis, Frances Dalton, of Ft. Ritner, Mary Foster, of Seymour, Lullia Wolka, of Vallonia and Ruth Silberman, of Florida.
She was preceded in death by her parents and five brothers, Thurman, Edmond, Curtis, Eugene and Thomas.
Funeral services will be at 1 p.m. Thursday June 28, 2012 at Ferguson-Lee Funeral Home. Burial will be in Dixon Chapel Cemetery. Friends may call on Thursday from 10 a.m. until the service hour.
Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.fergusonlee.com.


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"From Durban to Beersheba"
Gerald M. Steinberg & Simon Plosker, "September Letter from NGO Monitor," in response to "From Durban to Beersheba," Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, September 3, 2004.
The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
September 3, 2004
Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman
NGO Monitor Note:
In their article "From Durban to Beersheba" (Sept. 3, 2004), Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Dr. Harold Brackman provide an important perspective how NGOs lead the demonization campaign that began at Durban. They also note that NGO Monitor is central in holding these non-governmental organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty, to account for exploiting the rhetoric of human rights while perverting its substance. Please note that the NGO Monitor is not based in Geneva, as stated in the article, but rather is part of the Israel-based Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and funded by the Wechsler Family Fund. NGO Monitor's material and resources are available at http://www.ngo-monitor.org.
Gerald M. Steinberg
Editor, NGO Monitor
Simon Plosker
Managing Editor, NGO Monitor
The horrid bus bombings in Beersheba on Tuesday, which claimed the lives of 16 Israelis, including a 3-year-old boy, are grim reminders that the war on terror continues to rage in Israel.
Indeed, in 2004, the month of September has klal Yisrael reeling from this brutal attack and three other intertwined disasters. The images of Sept. 11 are imprinted indelibly on our minds and hearts, as powerfully as Pearl Harbor transformed an earlier generation. Sept. 29 marks the fourth anniversary of the second intifada, which has murdered and maimed thousands of Israelis, ruined Palestinian life and economy and destroyed any hope of rapprochement in the Holy Land for generations.
Dayenu? Enough already? No, we forget the other September anniversary at our own peril — the United Nation's 2001 World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), held in Durban, South Africa. Just days before Sept. 11, Durban launched the war to demonize Israel and provided the supercharged ideological hatred that fuels terrorist attacks on the United States and the epidemic of suicide bombings.
What went wrong at Durban three years ago, and why is it still important?
Attended by 15,000 delegates from governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) worldwide, the Durban Conference was supposed to address problems of bigotry in all its forms. Unfortunately, conferences, like airliners, can be hijacked. The Durban Conference was commandeered by a virulently anti-Israel, anti-American third-world bloc, made up primarily of Arab and Muslim nations with the complicity of Europe's NGOs, that ignored other human rights issues while demonizing Israel as the "21st century apartheid state" and reviving the 1975 U.N. resolution equating "Zionism with racism."
A meeting touted to combat hate instead degenerated into slander and intimidation both on the streets and in conference halls as some Jewish delegates felt compelled to hide their accreditation badges. Meanwhile, copies of "Mein Kampf" and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" were widely distributed by Muslim activists, while a mob marched on Durban's Jewish community center shouting, "Hitler should have finished the job." Only the U.S. and Israeli delegations walked out in protest.
In the aftermath of this hatefest and the devastating mass murders of Sept. 11 — some in the international community had second thoughts. Following a belated joint declaration against anti-Semitism by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights in 2002 used the first anniversary of Durban to issue a blistering report condemning European governments for failing to monitor or report the rising tide in anti-Jewish hate crimes across the continent. This set the stage for the European Union's own internal report exposing anti-Semitism, which that organization initially tried to suppress, as well as the subsequent forthright public stands taken by the European Union's Brussels Conference Against Anti-Semitism, the Berlin Declaration against Anti-Semitism and June's United Nation's Anti-Semitism Conference in New York.
But these positive gestures have been overwhelmed by the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe, the adoption by the Arab and Muslim bloc of Anti-Semitism as statecraft and the refusal of the caretakers of global "civil society" to support Israelis' desperate efforts to exercise the ultimate human right-the right to live!
The Geneva-based watchdog NGO Monitor paints a troubling picture:
Despite backing from all four members of the International Quartet — the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia — for Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan from Gaza, prominent NGOs including HRW, Amnesty International, Britain's Christian Aid, Oxfam and European Union-funded Medical Aid for Palestinians immediately, in lock-step, fell in behind Yasser Arafat. They issued one-sided condemnations of the plan as "another blow to Middle East peace" that didn't even mention Palestinian suicide bombings.
Britain's War on Want, until recently run by former minister and alleged paid Saddam agent George Galloway, described Israel's security barrier as "twice as long as the Berlin Wall, and three times as high," without noting that its purpose is to keep out terrorist killers not keep in freedom seekers.
The record of American NGOs is somewhat better. Oxfam America, the YMCA and the American Red Cross protested to their own international bodies for discriminating against Israel, and CARE USA aids Palestinians without politicizing. But the poisons unleashed at Durban pollute college campuses and threaten interfaith relations — as evidenced by the shocking decision of General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to equate democratic Israel with apartheid South Africa and initiating "phased selective divestment" from the Jewish state. The resolution omitted any reference to the menace of Palestinian terrorism.
As U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said in New York: "The United Nations emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust. And a human rights agenda that fails to address anti-Semitism denies its own history."
Now, also in Durban, a Nonaligned Nations Summit passed resolutions blaming all Mideast ills on Israeli "setter colonialism" and calling for U.N. sanctions. And in a move echoing the Nazi era, they urged an international ban on Israeli citizens living beyond the Green Line from traveling to any of its 121 member states.
This year, Sept. 11 coincides with Selichot, the start High Holidays. Let's use the time to reflect on our past deeds, recharge our spiritual batteries, and gird for the struggles ahead that were spawned by the horrors of Sept. 11, Durban and the intifada.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He served as the spokesman for the Jewish groups at the 2001 United Nations Durban Conference. Dr. Harold Brackman is a historian and consultant to the Wiesenthal Center.


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Students should be at the bus stop 10 minutes prior to the posted arrival time. If the bus is late, we ask families to wait at least 10 minutes after the posted time. Construction, detours, traffic, trains and inclement weather are all factors in arrival and departing times. Parents/guardians are responsible for students' behavior while waiting at the bus stop.
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Bus information for 2022-23 school year were posted in Aspen on August 15, 2022. Please check your family Aspen account. If you need a password reset, please visit our self-service password tool: APS Password Self-Service. If you do not know your Aspen Family Portal login information, please email email@example.com.
If you are a custodial parent/guardian and would like to request your child's full bus route to be emailed, please contact Cindy Button.
Some families will experience a change in bus number and/or bus driver. Some bus routes may also have changed. It will be important that you review all information posted for this school year.
For eligible students in grades K-5, please call your school and they will contact Central Office to set up school transportation. Please note that it takes several days before transportation will begin.
For eligible students in grade 6-12, contact Cindy Button, Transportation Manager, by phone at 978-247-7065 or email firstname.lastname@example.com. If your student is in grade 7-12, the bus pass fee will need to be paid before it can be issued. If you utilize transportation after the start of the school year, the bus pass fee will be pro-rated according to the Transportation Policy.
Seating on the bus is typically assigned by age/grade level with the youngest students taking the seats in the front of the bus and older students moving towards the rear of the bus.
In general, all students are expected to board the bus and sit in an appropriate seat. Students are expected to remain seated at all times, facing forward and speaking quietly only to other students who are next to them. Click here to view Student Conduct on Buses.
Please contact the principal where your student attends school to voice your concerns.
The district policy is kindergarten students need to be escorted to and from the bus stop by a parent/guardian or responsible adult. Kindergarten students WILL NOT be released in the afternoon if there is no parent/guardian at the stop and in clear view of the driver. They will be returned to school and will need to be picked up there. Parents/guardians are responsible for students' behavior while waiting at the bus stop. Click here for more "Kindergarten Bus Information."
Each year, as the bus population changes, it may become more efficient to have a group stop in a slightly different location to accommodate the most children in one stop. Unless you are in a unique circumstance, bus stops can and will be moved to make routes more efficient.
Unfortunately, it would add a considerable amount of time to bus routes if we agreed to such requests for everyone.
No. Bus stops will likely be farther from your house than they were for elementary school. The buses have to provide service to the entire town for elementary, middle and high schools. It isn't possible to provide the same level of neighborhood service as student's transition to middle and high schools. Students in grades 7-12 may be as far as 1 mile from their bus stops. Click here For the School Committee guidelines for Student Transportation. (EEAA)
The policy currently adopted by the Andover Committee states, students in grades K-6 are eligible to ride the bus if the distance from the student's residence to school exceeds 1.5 miles. Students in grades 7-12 are eligible to ride the bus if the distance from the student's residence and school exceeds 2.0 miles. This distance is determined by using our in-house program called "Versatrans." By using only one source for all calculated distances, we are able to eliminate questionable distances caused by using different programs like Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, or MapQuest.
From time to time, special circumstances may exist that make your family's needs unique. Bus stops are created to make routes efficient and safe. It is our policy to create group stops whenever feasible so we can pick up as many children as possible at each stop. Door-to-door stops increase the time of bus runs, and are therefore avoided unless necessary. A bus stop that is not located in your line-of-sight from your home does not constitute a hardship. A bus stop may be around a curve or corner from your home, or across the street, if it is more sensible when creating an efficient bus route. If you feel you have an extraordinary circumstance that needs to be accommodated, please contact us to discuss your situation.
The Andover Transportation Department evaluates every proposed school bus stop for safety. The Department considers if the bus stop needs to be driver door side pickup/drop off or not. We evaluate the walk to the bus stop, and the proposed areas where students will stand and wait. The Transportation Department receives support and collaborates with the Andover Police Department's Safety Officer.
Eligibility for bus transportation is determined based upon a student's permanent residence. If a student who is not eligible goes to another family's home or to a relative's home after school, that student is not eligible for bus transportation, even if the friend's or relative's home is more than 1.5 miles from school (or in a safety zone). It will become the responsibility of the relative or friend to provide transportation to or from school, or for the parents/guardians to make other transportation arrangements, if the friend or relative is unable or unwilling to provide transportation.
No. We only transport students from their permanent residence to and from school. Parents must make arrangements for other transportation.
No. Riders in grades 6-12 are required to have a bus pass, however, only riders in grades 7-12 are required to purchase a bus pass. There is no fee for a bus pass for grade 6. In addition, all students will be assigned a specific bus number which will be printed on their bus pass. Students must ride the bus they are assigned each day. Students will not be permitted to ride on a different bus. Click here for Bus Pass information.
No. We contract buses for the school year. Bus passes allow for school transportation service for the entire school year.
If your family is eligible for Family Financial Assistance, you may have your bus fee waived. If you feel you do not qualify within the free or reduced lunch guidelines, financial assistance may still be available to you if you meet the income requirements. Click here for the Waiver Income Guidelines. Information and application can be found here. Please note you must submit a new application each school year even if there have been no changes in your status.
Please call the transportation office at 978-247-7076 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
Our transportation service is contracted with Trombly Bus. Please contact them directly at 978-937-3422 X2.
Our specialized transportation service is contracted with NRT Bus and OBAS. Please call them directly.
For specialized transportation, our service is contracted with NRT Bus and OBAS. Please contact them directly at
No, unfortunately in most cases the bus cannot go back and pick up your child. Our buses run on a 2-tier system. If we send a bus back for your student, all of the students on the bus will be late AND the bus will be late for the next tier.
Yes, all of our buses are equipped with surveillance cameras. In addition to the cameras, all buses also have GPS Systems.
NRT and OBAS provide our specialized transportation services. NRT or OBAS will call contact you within 24 hours of when transportation is due to begin with an approximate pick-up and drop off time. Please be ready 10 minutes before the scheduled pick-up time and allow the driver 10 minutes after your scheduled drop off time.
If your student is going to be out of school for a day, please call:
If you require a change your student's transportation schedule for any reason, please call the Student Services Office at 978-247-7051 or email firstname.lastname@example.com
No. Our bus companies will not transport a student who attends a school in a City or Town that has cancelled their Public Schools due to weather conditions. Also, they will not transport a student who lives in a City or Town that has cancelled their Public Schools for the day due to weather conditions. NRT Bus respects the decision of each local area in determining the safety of their road conditions for student transportation. Click here to view NRT's Snow Policy.
Yes, Andover provides transportation to Montessori, Pike and St. Augustine Schools as long as your student's permanent address is in Andover. We transport according to Andover Public School calendar.


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The blue and white gingham shirt is a fail-safe option—a classic style that looks great on any guy. It's a shirt that can be worn with everything from white denim to wool trousers, from unlined khaki blazers to charcoal suits. And while appropriate anytime of the year, it looks particularly crisp during the warmer months. The key is finding the right one. We're particularly fond of this icy shade of light blue, from online men's shop Sir Jack's. It's tailored slim with side back pleats for ease of movement and is finished with a spread collar and natural trocas shell buttons. It's made in America from a smooth, breathable lightweight cotton. But perhaps even more valuable, the subtle check pattern looks cool and renders sweat stains imperceptible—which is what you want on your back when it's ninety degrees in the shade.
$135, by Sir Jack's
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The Suite Queen Family Full Extra is a bright and spacious room. It combines modern materials with multicolor Surinamese wooden accents and comes with a Queen Bed, Twin Bed, two seat chaise longue sofa bed, modern kitchen, dining table, closet and bathroom. The kitchen is complete with a fridge/freezer, glass ceramic cooktop, range hood, microwave, water cooker, dish rack and set of cookware. The modern bathroom is fully tiled, well lit and has hot and cold running water. The individually controlled air conditioning, flat screen TV, free in-room Wi-Fi and telephone are sure to make your stay even more comfortable. The room has blackout curtains and is located on the second floor.
- Airconditioning
- Hair Dryer
- Telephone
- Television with cable TV
- Hair/body soap
- Kitchen


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In designing an object-oriented application, a major tenet of design is "loose coupling". Loosely, not meant for the pun, "loose coupling" means that objects should only have as many dependencies as is needed to do their job - and the dependencies should be few. Furthermore, an object's dependencies should be on interfaces and not on "concrete" objects, when possible. (A concrete object is any object created with the keyword new.) Loose coupling promotes greater reusability, easier maintainability, and allows you to easily provide "mock" objects in place of expensive services, such as a socket-communicator.
"Dependency Injection" (DI), also more cryptically known as "Inversion of Control" (IoC), can be used as a technique for encouraging this loose coupling. There are two primary approaches to implementing DI: constructor injection and setter injection. Obviously, at some point, something must be responsible for creating the concrete objects that will be injected into another object. The injector can be a parent object, which I'll call the "DI controller", or can be externalized and handled by a "DI container" framework. What follows is a brief overview of the various approaches for using dependency injection techniques.
Constructor Injection is the DI technique of passing an object's dependencies to its constructor. The below example includes a class, Customer, that exposes a method for retrieving every sales-order that the customer made on a particular date. Consequently, the Customer class needs a data-access object for communicating with the database. Assume, an OrderDao ("order data-access object") exists which implements the interface IOrderDao. One way that a Customer object can get this dependency is by executing the following within the: IOrderDao orderDao = new OrderDao();. The primary disadvantage of this is two-fold:
IOrderDao orderDao = new OrderDao();
The aforementioned example follows:
public class Customer { public Customer(IOrderDao orderDao) { if (orderDao == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("orderDao may not be null"); this.orderDao = orderDao; } public IList GetOrdersPlacedOn(DateTime date) { // ... code that uses the orderDao member // get orders from the datasource ... } private IOrderDao orderDao; }
In the example, note that the constructor accepts an interface; it does not accept a concrete object. Also, note that an exception is thrown if the orderDao parameter is null. This emphasizes the importance of receiving a valid dependency. Constructor Injection is, in my opinion, the preferred mechanism for giving an object its dependencies. It is clear to the developer invoking the object which dependencies need to be given to the Customer object for proper execution. But consider the following example... Suppose you have a class with ten methods that have no dependencies, but you're adding a new method that does have a dependency on IOrderDao. You could change the constructor to use Constructor Injection, but this may force you to change constructor calls all over the place. Alternatively, you could just add a new constructor that takes the dependency, but then how does a developer easily know when to use one constructor over the other. Finally, if the dependency is very expensive to create, why should it be created and passed to the constructor when it may only be used rarely? "Setter Injection" is another DI technique that can be used in situations such as this.
Setter Injection does not force dependencies to be passed to the constructor. Instead, the dependencies are set onto public properties exposed by the object in need. As implied previously, the primary motivators for doing this include:
The code below modifies the Constructor Injection example to use Setter Injection instead:
public class Customer { public Customer() {} public IOrderDao OrderDao { set { orderDao = value; } get { if (orderDao == null) throw new MemberAccessException("orderDao" + " has not been initialized"); return orderDao; } } public IList GetOrdersPlacedOn(DateTime date) { //... code that uses the OrderDao public //... property to get orders from the datasource ... } // Should not be called directly; // use the public property instead private IOrderDao orderDao; }
In the above example, the constructor accepts no arguments. Instead, the invoking object is responsible for setting the IOrderDao dependency before the method GetOrdersPlacedOn is called. With Constructor Injection, an exception is thrown if the dependency is not set immediately, i.e., upon creation. With Setter Injection, an exception isn't thrown until a method actually attempts to use the dependency. Make note of the fact that GetOrdersPlacedOn uses the public OrderDao property; it does not call the private orderDao directly. This is so that the getter method has an opportunity to validate if the dependency has yet been initialized.
Setter Injection should be used sparingly in place of Constructor Injection, because it:
The next logical question is, what actually creates the dependencies that are to be injected into "injectees"? There are two appropriate places for adding creation logic: controllers and containers.
The "DI controller" approach is the simpler to understand and implement. In a properly tiered architecture, an application has distinct layers for handling logic. The simplest layering usually consists of a data-layer for talking to the database, a presentation-layer for displaying the UI, and a domain-logic layer for performing business logic. A "controller" layer always exists, even if not well defined, for coordinating UI events to the domain and data layers, and vice versa. For example, in ASP.NET, the code-behind page acts as a rudimentary controller layer. More formalized controller-layer approaches exist: Struts and Spring for Java; Front Controller and Spring .NET for .NET. All of these approaches follow some form of variant of the Model-View-Controller pattern. Regardless of what you use as your controller, the controller is an appropriate location for performing Dependency Injection "wiring". This is where concrete objects are created and injected as dependencies. What follows are two examples of DI performed by a controller. The first is an illustrative example of "production code" - code that you'd end up deploying. The second is an example of "test code" - code that's used to test the application, but is not deployed and does not have the need to have a live database.
Controller code performing the dependency injection (e.g., from an ASP.NET code-behind page):
//... code performed when the controller is loaded ... IOrderDao orderDao = new OrderDao(); // Using Setter Injection on a pre-existing customer someCustomer.OrderDao = orderDao; IList ordersPlacedToday = someCustomer.GetOrdersPlacedOn(DateTime.Now); ...
Unit-test code performing dependency injection:
IOrderDao orderDao = new MockOrderDao(); // Using Setter Injection on a pre-existing customer someCustomer.OrderDao = orderDao; IList ordersPlacedToday = someCustomer.GetOrdersPlacedOn(DateTime.Now);
One of the major benefits of using a DI-controller to inject dependencies is that it's straightforward and easy to point to where the creation is occurring. The drawback to using DI-controllers is that the dependencies are still hard-coded somewhere; albeit, they're hard-coded in a location that is often subject to frequent changes anyway. Another drawback is that now the DI-controllers themselves can't be easily unit-tested with mock objects. (Granted, a powerful tool such as TypeMock can do just about anything when it comes to injecting mock objects. But a tool such as TypeMock should be used only when absolutely necessary as it can lead to habits of not programming-to-interface. In fact, I'd recommend only considering the use of it on very difficult to test, legacy applications.)
In ASP.NET, I prefer to use the Model-View-Presenter (MVP) pattern, and have the ASP.NET code-behind page create dependencies and inject them to the presenter via Construction Injection. Additionally, I use UserControls as the View part of the pattern, so the ASP.NET code-behind acts purely as an MVP "dependency initializer" between the UserControls (View) and their presenters.
Another option to implementing constructor or setter DI is the use of an application container...
Inversion-of-Control/Dependency-Injection "containers" can be used to watch an application and inject dependencies whenever a particular event occurs. For example, whenever a Customer instance is created, it automatically gets injected with its needed dependencies. It's a strange concept at first, but can be useful for managing large applications with many service dependencies. Different container providers each have their own mechanism for managing dependency injection settings.
Spring .NET allows you to define dependency injections within an XML file. The following example Spring .NET XML uses Setter Injection to give an ASPX code-behind page its data-access object dependency:
<spring> <context type="Spring.Context.Support.WebApplicationContext, Spring.Web"> <resource uri="config://spring/objects" /> </context> <objects xmlns="http://www.springframework.net"> <!-- Data Access Object that will be injected into ASPX page --> <object id="daoFactory" type="MyApp.Data.DaoFactory, MyApp.Data" /> <object type="ViewDetails.aspx"> <property name="DaoFactory" ref="daoFactory" /> </object> </objects> </spring>
The ASPX code-behind simply exposes a public property called DaoFactory that "catches" the dependency whenever the page gets called. See Spring .NET's website for more details and more examples. For Java developers, be sure to check out Spring's website.
Many other containers exist, some of which don't require much XML management at all (for those of you that cringe at the sight of a 500 line XML file). For Java developers, take a look at Container Comparison for a good comparison of options. For .NET developers, the decision is simpler as fewer options exist. (Is that a good thing?) See Open Source Inversion of Control Containers in C# for some open-source options.
The greatest benefits that I've experienced using DI are cleaner unit testing and greater portability. Portability is a given as most of the dependencies are on interfaces. But let's look at how DI can benefit unit testing as well. It is often the case that developers write unit tests against a live database. This is all well and fine, but it quickly brings the speed of a suite of unit tests to a crawl. To keep unit testing from becoming a drag, it needs to be easy to turn off slow unit tests that actually hit the database while still testing the business logic that depends on data access. Mock objects are perfect for doing just this. A mock object simulates the responses of an actual object, acting as if it's using a real resource. They're great for mocking access to a database, mocking calls to IO, mocking calls to a web service, etc.
The below code shows a mock data-access implementation of the IOrderDao interface used throughout the article:
public class MockOrderDao : IOrderDao { public Order GetOrderById(long orderId) { Order foundOrder = new Order(); foundOrder.SaleDate = "1/1/06"; foundOrder.ID = orderId; return foundOrder; } }
This trivial, mock data-access object implements IOrderDao, and can therefore be passed to any object that's dependent on IOrderDao via Constructor or Setter injection. Now all your business logic can be tested without actually hitting the database. In my own test suite, I usually have a section that contains "real" database tests, and then pass mock database-access objects for testing my domain objects.
This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The BSD License
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Yes, both Planning and Building applications are available on the
Show All Answers
For current demographic trends, please visit the:
Please see the Town's Map webpage. Go to the main page and go to "Residents", then "Maps/GIS." Go to "Town Limits" map.
Active projects within Windsor's Growth Management Area can be viewed on the Town's Map/GIS webpage. Select "Community Development" to view locations of projects. To view surrounding zoning districts, go to the "Themes" tab, select the "Layers & Legend" tab, then click on "Boundaries", followed by "Zoning".
For a list of projects by type of land use application, status, and number of permits issued, please visit the Building Permit Reports page.
To view general land use designations for future development within the Town's Growth Management Area (GMA), visit the Town's Comprehensive Plan Land Use Plan Map:
Please visit the Interactive GIS Map and select Community Development icon.
For a list of active projects by type, status, number of building permits, please visit the Building Permits Reports page.
In addition to contacting Planning with your address and/or parcel number, you can search property information on the Windsor Information and Navigation Gateway or
Zoning dictates how your property can be used. It also establishes design parameters such as minimum lot size, minimum building setbacks, maximum building coverage, and maximum building height and the number of units allowed. Zoning regulations can be found in Chapter 16 of the Municipal Code.
Subdivision of property in the Town of Windsor requires approval of a subdivision application. You will need to contact a planner in order to determine the appropriate subdivision process. Please contact Planning at (970) 674-2415. Windsor's Subdivision regulations are outlined in Chapter 17 of the Municipal Code and the process in Section 14-2-60.
Table 14-2-10(a) Land Use Application Procedures
Application Type
Code Section
Neighbor-hood meeting
Concept Review Meeting
Decision Maker
Accessory Dwelling Unit
Sec. 14-2-100
Sec. 14-2-30
Sec. 14-2-180
Refer to section 14-2-180
Code Amendment
Sec. 14-2-190
Comprehensive Plan Amendment
Sec. 14-2-200
Conditional Use Permit
Sec. 14-2-130
Conditional Use Permit Oil & Gas, Gravel Mining
Height Modification
Sec. 14-2-160
Master Plan
Sec. 14-2-40
Non-Regulated Land Transfer
Sec. 14-2-50
Sec. 14-2-70
Sign Permit
Sec. 14-2-170
Site Plan – Major
Sec. 14-2-90
Site Plan – Minor
Subdivision, Major –
Sec. 14-2-60
Subdivision, Major - Preliminary
Subdivision – Minor
Substantial Change Hearing
Sec. 14-2-20
Sec. 14-2-110
Vacation of ROW or Town Easement
Sec. 14-2-120
Sec. 14-2-150
Variance, Minor
Sec. 14-2-140
Vested Property Rights
Sec. 14-2-210
1 Director may refer to PC/TB per Sec. 16-5-40(j) to be reviewed as a Conditional Use Permit
þ = Required
o= May be required by Director
PC = Planning Commission
TB =Town Board
BoA = Board of Adjustment
R = Recommendation
D= Decision Maker
* = Public hearing required
A = Appeal of Decision
S = Super Majority Vote Required (Ordinances require majority on 1st reading, super majority on 2nd reading)
M = Majority Vote Required
A variance, which requires approval by the Board of Adjustment, constitutes a change in the zoning provisions of the Municipal Code where, due to special conditions or circumstances, the literal enforcement of a zoning requirement would result in an unnecessary hardship. An unnecessary hardship is defined as a situation where the property cannot be reasonably used under the conditions allowed by the code. The situation will occur from circumstances unique to the property and will not be created by the property owner. Economic considerations alone do not constitute an unnecessary hardship. Variances, if granted, shall not alter the character of the surrounding neighborhood. Please review Section 14-2-140 (Minor Variance) and Section 14-2-150 (Major Variance) of the Municipal Code or contact Planning for further information.
All businesses in Windsor require an approved business license through the Town's Finance, per Section 6-3-20 of the Municipal Code. Those pursuing a home-based business need to complete the Home Occupation Registration section of the business license application. Home occupations shall meet all requirements of Section 16-3-20 of the Municipal Code.
Yes. The Town requires a building permit in order to conduct the required inspections and make sure that the construction meets the building code adopted by the Town of Windsor. Please contact our inspection company SAFEbuilt at 970-686-7511 for any specific questions about the roofing code. See the Residential Re-Roof (PDF) handout for more details.
A conditional use permit (CUP) allows a temporary use or specific land use once special review criteria is met. The permit does not allow for uses in zoning districts where the use is prohibited. Please see Conditional Use Permit review criteria in Section 14-2-130 of the Municipal Code and CUP review workflow.
Conditional Use Grant (CUP) and use applications:
Generally, no, as long as the fence meets the standard fencing regulations. For questions, please contact Planning at (970) 674-2415 and review the
In accordance with Section 16-3-10 of the Municipal Code, a permit is only required if: 1) the proposed shed exceeds one hundred-twenty (120) square feet; OR - 2) is taller than ten (10) feet at the peak. If a permit is required, the structure shall meet the Town's setback requirements. No accessory building, regardless of its size, shall be located any closer to the front property line than the rear corners of the principal building (accessory buildings are only allowed in rear yards) [Sec. 16-3-10]. For permit questions, please visit the Building Permit webpage.
Please contact the Town of Windsor Permit Technician at (970) 674-2436 to see if a permit is required. Some permit questions can be answered by visiting the Building Permits webpage.
Please note that any structure must be located on your property and meet the Town's setback requirements. Note: some encroachments into the setback are allowed, per Table 16-1-20(a) of the Municipal Code.
Table 16-1-20(a) Setback Exceptions
Accessibility ramps
May encroach into any setback but shall be no closer than 2' to any property line.
Accessory buildings, large (greater than 120 square feet in size or greater than 10' in height)
May encroach into side or rear setbacks up to 5', provided they are not located closer than 5' from the property line. In no case shall less than 20' of clearance be provided between an accessory garage and public sidewalk.
Accessory buildings, small (up to 120 square feet in size and up to 10' in height)
May encroach into side or rear setbacks.
May encroach into a secondary front setback provided they are located behind a solid fence which is at least 5' in height.
May encroach into side or rear setbacks up to 10', provided they are not located closer than 5' from the property line.
Fences or walls, including trash enclosures, and retaining walls less than 4' in height measured from top of wall to bottom of footer.
May encroach into any setback subject to fence and wall standards.
May encroach into any setback provided the flagpole is setback at least a distance equal to the height of the flagpole from property lines. Flagpoles and their related flags shall be setback sufficient distance to enable the flag to fly fully open without flying over the property of others.
Mail boxes
May encroach into front setbacks.
Mechanical equipment, ground mounted
May encroach up to five feet into side or rear setbacks provided no equipment or component of such equipment is located closer than two feet from any property line and the equipment is screened.
May encroach into any setback provided they are no more than 12 inches above grade and are not located closer than three feet from the property line.
Stairs, at grade
May encroach into any required setback up to six feet.
Stairs, above or below grade
May encroach into any required setback up to six feet provided they are not located closer than three feet from the property line.
Structural projections such as cantilevered bay windows, balconies, chimneys, eaves, or other non-foundational overhangs or projections
May encroach into side setbacks up to 2'.
May encroach into front or rear setbacks up to 3'
Swimming pools, hot tubs and/or spas
May encroach into side and rear setbacks provided they are not located closer than three feet from the property line.
Window Wells
May encroach into any setback up to two feet.
Yes. A building permit is required to install a sprinkler system whether you are hooking up to Town of Windsor water (potable water) or if you are hooking up to a non-potable system in your subdivision. A sprinkler permit generally takes about 5-10 minutes to issue on the same day you apply. If you have questions about the cost of a sprinkler permit, the permit process, or whether your subdivision is on a non-potable irrigation system, please contact the Town's Permit Technician at (970) 674-2436 and visit the
Yes. Most temporary signs require a permit, which you can obtain from Windsor Planning. A temporary sign cannot be displayed for more than sixty (60) days per calendar year (see Temporary Signs, Section 15-17-130, of Municipal Code for exclusions). Temporary signs must be directly related to the use of the lot on which it is located and must be made from durable material that will not deteriorate in wind or bad weather. These signs cannot be attached to trees, landscaping, traffic signs, utility or light poles or other similar structures, and cannot be located within the road right-of-way. The permit form is located on the Planning webpage under the tab "Applications, Forms and Handouts": Temporary Sign Permit. For specific requirements, please refer to Section 15-17-130 of the Municipal Code and contact Planning at (970) 674-2415 / [email protected] if you have questions.
There are no prohibited construction hours. For nuisances, please visit the Police Department FAQs or the Town's Municipal Code.
Please visit the oil and gas FAQ page. For complaints, please select tab: Who to Contact.


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Today's CRAFT Pattern is the Tiny Perching Pigeons by Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochi Land. Knit up a bunch of these little birdies in no time! If you like this free pattern from Anna, check out more of her fantastic patterns available in the Mochimochi Shop. In addition to knitting patterns, she also has some adorable cross-stitch ones too!
Also, if you're a knitter in the London area, please join Anna and Stitch London for a Tiny Perching Pigeon party on June 21st!
Download the Pattern PDF | Subscribe in iTunes
(Right click to save the PDF to your desktop. Directions on downloading PDFs.)
About the Author:
Anna Hrachovec is a designer of cute and crafty stuff living in Brooklyn. She has appeared on The Martha Stewart Show, and her one-of-a-kind knitted toys have been exhibited in galleries in the US and Japan. Her blog and pattern shop can be found at mochimochiland.com.
4 thoughts on "CRAFT Pattern: Tiny Perching Pigeons"
the link says not found:-( when you click on it
It works now! thanks.
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text:
Catalyst::Utils - The Catalyst Utils |
Catalyst::Utils - The Catalyst Utils
See Catalyst.
MyApp::Foo becomes myapp_foo
MyApp::Controller::Foo::Bar becomes MyApp My::App::Controller::Foo::Bar becomes My::App
MyApp::Controller::Foo::Bar becomes MyApp::Controller My::App::Controller::Foo::Bar becomes My::App::Controller
MyApp::Controller::Foo::Bar becomes Controller::Foo::Bar
Returns the environment name for class.
MyApp becomes MYAPP My::App becomes MY_APP
Returns the uri prefix for a class. If case is false the prefix is converted to lowercase.
My::App::Controller::Foo::Bar becomes foo/bar
Returns a tempdir for a class. If create is true it will try to create the path.
My::App becomes /tmp/my/app My::App::C::Foo::Bar becomes /tmp/my/app/c/foo/bar
Returns home directory for given class.
Returns a prefixed action.
MyApp::Controller::Foo::Bar, yada becomes foo/bar/yada
Returns an the HTTP::Request manpage object for a uri.
Loads the class unless it already has been loaded.
If $opts{ignore_loaded} is true always tries the require whether the package already exists or not. Only pass this if you're either (a) sure you know the file exists on disk or (b) have code to catch the file not found exception that will result if it doesn't.
Base code to recursively merge two hashes together with right-hand precedence.
Checks for and returns an environment value. For instance, if $key is 'home', then this method will check for and return the first value it finds, looking at $ENV{MYAPP_HOME} and $ENV{CATALYST_HOME}.
Sebastian Riedel, email@example.com
Yuval Kogman, firstname.lastname@example.com
This program is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
Catalyst::Utils - The Catalyst Utils |


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Happy Trails
The summer season has come to a close and with that, it's time to say goodbye to some of our wranglers who are headed back to the "real world". Tember (left earlier in the season), Bryan, Shannon, Emily and Chadwick all headed off to college. We would like to give them a big THANK YOU for their great attitudes and hard work. Some days they would be up before the sun and going to bed way after it had set but always had a smile on their face. We hope you all have a great school year and will return to Horseshoe Canyon Ranch for the 2014 season, if we could only be so lucky.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Show All Answers
You can get a copy of your police report by responding to our Records Unit, located in the police headquarters building located adjacent to City Hall at 18611 N.W. 27 Avenue. They are open Monday through Thursday, 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM.
You can get an additional property form from the desk officer in the police lobby, fill it out and return it to the desk officer.
A burglary occurs when property is taken by breaking into a residence or a business. A robbery is when someone removes property from a person by using force or fear. A theft is when property is left alone in the open and is taken by someone.
You can call the Investigations Division at 305-474-1420 and provide either your name or the case number.
Yes, the lead detective will be in contact with you, and a member of the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office.


text: ===================================================== VOTING BALLOT ===================================================== Enter your votes as specified in the preceding "Instructions" and "Filling out the ballot" sections. FIRST CHOICE: Option B REASONS (first choice): Large address space removes the need to revisit this issue in the future. We would prefer that with this choice a reasonable constraint be provided that caps the size to a large but reasonable number of digits (19 digits would fit into a 64-bit integer value). We have some concern that absent this constraint vendors will choose their own limits potentially choosing too small of a value without other guidance. ***************************************************** SECOND CHOICE: Option C REASONS (second choice): Same as above, but we recognize the challenges a check digit would introduce for some communities of use. ***************************************************** LAST CHOICE: Option A REASONS (last choice): The suggested address space available with this option does not provide enough room for alternative usage patterns and may force us to revisit the identifier syntax again for the same reasons. In our view this option would be better if a larger address space was chosen. 19 digits, which would fit into a 64-bit integer, would likely be sufficient.


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President Barack Obama said it recently in Chicago, a city on track for 600 murders this year, the equivalent of two Sandy Hooks per month. Too bad he still does not understand that his left-wing ideology is the problem.
After the Sandy Hook tragedy, Obama, much of his party and much of the media have been calling for further gun control and advocating "common sense" measures such as limiting the number of rounds in a magazine, "universal" background checks and restrictions on "assault weapons."
But there is an 800-pound politically incorrect elephant in the room.
Most gun murders in America are committed by people of color, with the victims almost always people of color. Whites have the same access to firearms, listen to the same "urban" music and play the same violent video games. Why, then, do the murders disproportionally involve racial minorities, principally blacks and Hispanics, usually young men in urban settings, many with gang ties?
Obama, in Chicago, finally talked about the lack of fathers and the impact this has on crime rather than complain about the number of rounds in a magazine: "For a lot of young boys and young men in particular, they don't see an example of fathers or grandfathers, uncles, who are in a position to support families and be held up in respect. And so that means that this is not just a gun issue; it's also an issue of the kinds of communities that we're building. When a child opens fire on another child, there is a hole in that child's heart that government can't fill. Only community and parents and teachers and clergy can fill that hole."
He offers no alternative. Why would he? That would require a wholesale rethinking of the welfare state and of the perverse incentives that work against the interests of the very people the left claims to care about.
Perverse incentives? Columnist Walter Williams said that census data from 1890 to 1940 show that blacks were slightly more likely than whites to marry, and therefore their children were also more likely to be in a two-parent household. During the Great Depression, "going on the dole" was considered shameful, only done as a dire necessity of last resort after first seeking help from friends, family, churches and charities.
But by the '60s, government workers went door-to-door in urban communities and elsewhere urging unmarried mothers to sign up for benefits, thus "marrying" the government. Almost 75 percent of today's black children are born outside of wedlock, as are 53 percent of Hispanics and 29 percent of non-Hispanic whites. As recently as 1963 -- five decades ago -- those numbers for blacks were 23.6 percent. As for whites at that time, fewer than 3 percent were born outside of wedlock.
By 1965 -- just two years later -- out-of-wedlock births by black women had increased to 28 percent. By 1970, it had jumped to 38 percent. In the '80s, it rose to 50 percent, and by the '90s, the black out-of-wedlock birthrate exceeded 70 percent.
What to do?
We know that government welfare damages individual initiative and personal responsibility. After the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, the welfare rolls declined by half! The needy can and should be helped at the state and local level, ideally by nonprofits, religious institutions, self-help organizations and mentors.
A counselor recently wrote me. She asked not to be identified, fearing a backlash because of her condemnation of the bad choices women make in male partners. She argued that if women demanded more of themselves, men would get the message -- and they would be forced to behave more responsibly. To do otherwise, she says, is to behave selfishly -- for responsible parenting requires selflessness:
"No one is putting a gun to women's heads and making them have intercourse with unworthy men prior to marriage. It is done willingly, leads to a life from hell and harms everyone involved, even the bum who has no motivation to shape up since he is afforded all the reward a good, respectable, hardworking husband would get without having to be a good, respectable, hardworking husband.
"The term 'father' used to be considered synonymous with the man who, in this order, a) courted a woman, b) married a woman, c) impregnated a woman, and d) stayed around for the next 20 years paying the bills, playing catch, disciplining the kids and loving the mom. Now, mere siring or donating sperm to the creation of a kid is called 'fathering,' when it's barely more than breeding. It cheapens the meaning of the word 'father.'
"Now picture this: If all women, black or white or whatever race, said to black men, 'No marriage, sex, children or home-cooked food without toil and solid achievement first,' do you really think any lowered bars that had been established would have stopped black men from achieving the finances and success required for romance? I don't. They'd be working hard, wanting to get the top score and wanting to outshine others."
No romance without finance -- because dads matter.


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Chris Cander's 11 Stories received a starred review from PW Select, with our reviewer saying: "Her conclusion provides grounds for belief in the possibility of redemption; her sensitivity ensures that this novel will appeal to anyone with a story to tell, a group that includes us all." We chatted with Cander via e-mail about the self-publishing process and how she came to be an indie author.
Why did you decide to self-publish 11 Stories?
I wrote 11 Stories while my literary agent (Jane Gelfman of Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents Inc.) was shopping another novel, and it was actually her idea to self-publish it. The publishing industry seems to be more risk-averse than ever, especially with unknown authors. She thought that if 11 Stories was successful, it might help convince a cautious editor to take a chance on my other book. And if it wasn't successful? She told me there's no shame in having tried.
Once you decided to self-publish, what was the process like?
I took a break from writing and focused my efforts on learning the business of self-publishing. I read everything I could and took copious notes. From those, I built a business and marketing plan with deadlines and milestones and checklists. Two of my script-writing partners and I had created an LLC named Rubber Tree Press two years ago when we toyed with the idea of self-publishing. We didn't pursue it, but since we had the domain and a logo, I decided to publish 11 Stories under that imprint. I bought 10 ISBN numbers from Bowker. Once I assigned the paperback and electronic versions and set the price, I got the barcodes. I applied Rubber Tree Press for the Library of Congress's EPCN program, and got a pre-assigned control number to use on the copyright page. I hired a freelance editor to do two rounds of editing and help me write the flap copy. I asked one of my best friends, also a writer, to do line edits. I hired a well-known illustrator to draw the cover. I reached out to some authors I greatly admired and asked for their endorsements to use on the cover. I bought a template for the interior layout and did that work myself, but then I hired a company to convert my print-ready manuscript to mobi, EPub, and Smashwords EPub versions. For the paperback, I used CreateSpace, and for the various electronic versions, I created accounts with Amazon, B&N's Nook Press, Kindle Direct Publishing, and Smashwords. The total cost to publish was $3,283.72.
What have you done to publicize the book?
I launched a new Web site in the fall of 2011, and started blogging about once a week on topics that related to writing, reading, talking, and publishing. I established a Facebook author page, set up a Twitter account, and updated my information on LinkedIn. I built a Goodreads author profile and expanded my Amazon author page.
What has the reaction been to your book now that you have self-published?
I knew that my close friends and family were fans. When the book started traveling outside that inner ring to people who weren't even friends of friends, I started getting this wonderful feedback on Amazon, Goodreads, and through my Web site, which has about 50 times the number of subscribers it did a month ago. I've also been asked to be a guest speaker for several book clubs, and have heard terrific things from readers in person.
What advice would you give to other writers considering self-publishing?
The best decision I made was investing in a great cover. My illustrator, Greg Ruth, captured the essence of the story and emphasized the title's double entendre with a dynamic visual that invites a second look. I've had dozens of readers tell me it suggested a high-quality read and contributed to their decision to purchase, which proves why that familiar admonition was coined in the first place—people really do judge a book by its cover. Cover illustration and design was one third of my total publishing budget.


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In general, swales are the responsibility of the owner of the property upon which it is located. Driveways, and their associated culverts or bridges, that cross drainage systems (e.g., that cross over swales or streams) are also property owner responsibilities.
If you have a question on who is responsible for a swale or culvert please contact the Stormwater Division at firstname.lastname@example.com or 919-913-2999 and staff will assist you.
Driveway Culvert Maintenance
Swale Maintenance
To submit a request for maintenance of a public stormwater conveyance or report an issue within the Town right-of-way please use the Stormwater Service Request Form or the Stormwater Hotline at firstname.lastname@example.com or 919-913-2999
To request technical advice on a private drainage issue please use the Community Outreach Request Form Form or email the Stormwater Division at email@example.com or 919-913-2999 before you make any changes to ensure you are meeting all requirements and regulations.


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Clean Pro Gutter Cleaning Cleveland
Do the really smart thing — Let a Pro deal with those stopped up gutters!
Clogged gutter are more than unsightly- they can cause considerable water damage to your house. That's why local homeowners count on Clean Pro Gutter Cleaning Cleveland to get rid of those obstructions and debris and keep their gutters working appropriately year-round.
We understand that you can't afford a running gutter or water dripping into the home in these busy times. It can make your life miserable and cost you a lot of money. Our highly rated service will take care of your gutter clog woes and troubles fast and at a fair price.
Cleveland ( KLEEV-lənd), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. maritime border with Canada, 252 miles (406 km) northeast of Cincinnati, 143 miles (230 km) northeast of Columbus, and approximately 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of Pennsylvania. The largest city on Lake Erie and one of the major cities of the Great Lakes region, Cleveland ranks as the 54th-largest city in the U.S. with a 2020 population of 372,624. The city anchors both the Greater Cleveland metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and the larger Cleveland–Akron–Canton combined statistical area (CSA). The CSA is the most populous in Ohio and the 17th largest in the country, with a population of 3.63 million in 2020, while the MSA ranks as 34th largest at 2.09 million.Cleveland was founded in 1796 near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River by General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city was named.
Ambler Heights, Asiatown, Bellaire-Puritas, Big Italy, Broadway - Slavic Village, Brooklyn Centre, Buckeye - Shaker, Central, Clark - Fulton, Cleveland Neighborhood Development, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, Corlett, Coventry Village, Cudell, Cudell