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Note: Maddie Fennell, former Nebraska Teacher of the Year and chair of the National Education Association's Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, is guest posting this week.
In 2007 I was honored to be named the Nebraska Teacher of the Year. Like many of my fellow state Teachers of the Year, after the congratulations, the first question was, "When are you leaving the classroom?"
Why do people immediately ask accomplished teachers why they are leaving the MOST important job in a school? Would you ask the best surgeons to put away their scalpels at the height of their careers?
The sad reality is that while the public emotionally values great teachers, the American education system puts teachers on the lowest rungs of the professional ladder. The hallmarks of value in our society - professional autonomy, greater responsibility, and increased compensation - are given to those teachers who leave the classroom. Administration shouldn't be seen as a permanent path out of the classroom, but as one path in a multidimensional system of changing roles and opportunities.
The problem isn't individual teachers, it's the system. We are still operating our profession - and our schools - in a modality that was largely created in the early 20th century (some might argue even earlier.) We have 21st century learners - and teachers! - who can no longer fit into an antiquated system that doesn't reflect the complexity of our current reality.
So to tackle the problem, you have to take on the system. Gee, isn't that a fun and easy task?
We have limited space here, so for today I want to talk about two components of the system that need to be completely overhauled in tandem - evaluation and compensation. I want to note that some of the ideas I describe here are already being implemented to some degree in a few places, but none of them (to my knowledge) have been established as interrelated systemic changes.
We have too many traditional evaluation systems that are big on "gotcha" and miniscule on "grow ya." We get caught up in the interconnectedness between learner and learning, between teacher and teaching. Did you learn to become a great writer because you had a great English Language Arts teacher or because you read all weekend? It becomes so easy to become focused on the complexity of it that we just throw up our hands and say "it can't be done" or perhaps worse, "just use a test score." If the evaluation isn't valid in its development, structure, and execution, everyone loses confidence in the system. When people lose confidence, they develop state of the art defense systems to protect themselves against abuse.
Teaching, like every profession, has practitioners that aren't up to snuff and need to leave. But we also have great teachers who are being caught up in the same system! I have met many accomplished teachers who have been publicly lauded for doing what they were privately told to stop doing.
As teachers, we are in an interesting position as professional employees predominantly employed in the public sector. This means that government does have a role in our evaluation, in addition to, of course, our employers.
However, as professionals, we need to be sitting down with management to thoughtfully develop and execute evaluation systems. We need to get serious about teacher evaluation and its purpose; and when I say "we," I mean teachers in the classroom, as well as administrators. Teachers must share responsibility for the professional practice of every teacher in their school. Teachers ceded our role as quality guardians in our profession when we allowed the role of evaluation to be placed solely in administrators' hands.
Evaluations should be conducted by a trained team that includes administrators and teachers. The goal of the evaluation should be to target every teacher's areas of strength and areas of needed growth. The system needs to have opportunities for colleagues to observe examples of effective teaching so that those practices can be replicated. The lens through which teaching is judged should be the teacher's ability to improve student learning in clear and demonstrable ways - NOT JUST BY TEST SCORES (sorry to shout, but I could already hear the grumbling.)
Remediation and plans of assistance should be offered where they are needed. But eventually, if success is not achieved, we as teachers need to shoulder the professional responsibility to be a part of the evaluation team that says "No, you shouldn't be in this classroom. You are not meeting the needs of the students, and their needs come first."
With robust evaluation systems that provide regular opportunities for reflecting on practice, we can also differentiate professional development for teachers, just as we differentiate instruction for students. I'm a good teacher, but my skills need to continuously adapt to meet the diverse needs of the ever-changing group of students that I work with every year. I would love to have my own "Teacher IEP" (Individualized Education Plan) that details my strengths and weaknesses and provides targeted training opportunities based on my areas of need.
Let me give you a concrete example: Several years ago, I received my Master's Degree in Elementary Education with a specialization in math and science - and I ended up being the writing teacher that year! I didn't love writing and, honestly, I wasn't really that great at teaching it. No one came into my room to observe me, and no one said "Maddie, let's help you get better at this." I knew I wasn't meeting my students' needs, so I started looking for professional development opportunities to sharpen my skills.
Why wasn't there a system in place that would annually monitor my progress, offer feedback, and advocate for skill development? And once I gained those skills, why wasn't there an opportunity, within the system, to share my learning with my colleagues so that they could become more effective? Teachers know the best ideas in education are often borrowed or stolen from other teachers, but this is too often by happenstance and "off the clock" collaboration. We need to build in meaningful collaboration among professional colleagues into our system, not just try to catch time between classes or outside of school.
Once we have evaluation systems that everyone has confidence in, I believe we can take the leap from differentiating salary primarily by degrees and years of service to differentiating based on skills, assignments, and effectiveness. In a redesigned compensation system, we would move away from "steps and ladders" to something a bit more complex that recognizes the work that teachers are doing and how well they are doing it.
I believe that the public wants to pay teachers more, but they always have an excuse not to - that "bad teacher" again. If we could prove to them that the highest salaries were going to those who worked the hardest (as measured by their skills and assignments through a professional continuum) and achieved the best results (their effectiveness as determined through valid and reliable evaluations), the public's sense of "fairness" would be fulfilled.
Let's move on to the professional continuum. Our current professional continuum is generally student teacher - teacher - retired teacher. Generally, teachers can only alter that track by leaving the classroom to become a specialist (like a reading teacher) or an administrator. Hence the question to Teachers of the Year - when are you leaving the classroom? - comes from the fact that our ability to differentiate among teachers in our current system is so limited.
As Jeremy Burrus presented last week at the National Network of State Teachers of the Year annual conference, "Continuums allow a practitioner to grow and develop, plan career trajectories, and advance in their careers."
To combine some of the work I have been involved with over the past year with the Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, the NEA Professional Standards and Practices Committee, and the National Network of State Teachers of the Year, I propose the following continuum:
Novice: New teachers who have been licensed by the state. They work under the direction of a professional or master teacher who guides them in their skill development. They primarily follow things "by the numbers" as they acquire the skills needed for effective teaching. They have no assigned professional duties and their class loads are lighter.
Proficient: They have shown mastery of basic effective teaching practices and may be advanced in limited areas; they are proactively seeking to increase their skills. They are allowed additional duties beyond their teaching assignments that match their skills sets (such as coaching, scheduling, and community outreach).
Professional: They exhibit advanced effectiveness. They have a holistic knowledge of teaching, accept responsibility for student learning, and fluidly integrate best practices into their lessons. They practice collaborative autonomy with their peers and regularly reflect on their practices. They may be part of an evaluation team, lead building committees, or be assigned to mentor student teachers. They are assigned more challenging students who are in need of their skills.
Accomplished or Master Teacher: Teachers who have reached "expert" status in the profession. Their mastery of professional skills has been recognized by their peers in a public manner (awards, National Board Certification, etc.). They may be adjunct faculty at a university, mentor novice teachers, share management responsibility at the building-level, or lead district-level committees. They are assigned the students most in need of their advanced skills.
A teacher's position on the career continuum establishes a base level for annual compensation, but salary levels can increase by demonstrating continued excellence in formal evaluations, evidence of student growth, teaching in hard-to-staff locations or subjects, and taking on additional roles or leadership responsibilities. Compensation is grounded in criteria such as teaching performance, leadership, and student growth, and not simply by years of service or classes taken.
We need the best teachers rooted in our classrooms while allowing them the flexibility to share their myriad skills and expertise across the professional continuum. Let's get rid of the glass ceilings in our classrooms and seize the opportunities inherent in professional continuums and increasing compensation. Let's change our system so that the highest compensation and professional acclaim is for staying IN the classroom, not leaving it!
--Maddie Fennell


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Hip Shower Heads for Loft Bathrooms
We should all be fortunate enough to be furnishing a loft. (Most of us are not.) Should you not be of the exposed-brick and enormous industrial windows crowd, these shower heads are still worth a look, just because they are beautiful. They're simple and tough-looking but sophisticated. They have the right amount of chunk to look either modern, or rustic, or both. One is a bit sleeker and more feminine, but its odd triangular head is unique; it would definitely fit into a loft bathroom. Have fun drooling over these hip, hot shower heads, whether you are plumbing a bathroom in a loft or not.
The WaterBridge Shower Head by Sonoma Forge: There are several models of the WaterBridge exposed shower system, available in rustic copper, nickel, or oil-rubbed bronze. They are obviously an investment, but also a statement. The old-fashioned look belies a modern, water-efficient shower system. Nothing says, "My Internet startup is performing really well," like one of these puppies.
Gessi Segni Series: Although there are quite a few shower heads in the Gessi Segni Series, my favorite is the round tubular shower head. Though it is minimalist and futuristic, it expresses a sense of humor and whimsy.
TOTO Guinevere High Efficiency Shower Head: The chunky connection hardware and concave rim are what caught my eye. Though the TOTO Guinevere is a bit more demure than the previous two shower heads, it has enough personality to match an industrial chic loft bathroom. BONUS: it's on the affordable end of the spectrum.
Altman's Anti Lime Rain Shower Head: I love the long arm of Altman's Anti Lime Rain Shower head. It's an old fashioned feature that takes a regular rain shower head and turns it into something hip enough to be installed in a DUMBO loft by one of Brooklyn's best plumbers. Contact a dealer for prices.
Speakman Dounpour Rain Classic 96: Check out the curved neck on this shower head. It is graceful and unusual; perfect for the artist about town. If you're looking to add a bit of softness and grace to a loft bathroom, this is an excellent choice.
Vola 080: Made by the Danish company Vola, this 5-and-change-inch, compact shower head is ultra modern and ultra efficient. It's an excellent space saver for smaller bathrooms, that certainly does not skimp on style or strength.
Watermark Urbane: Made in Brooklyn (and therefore truly made in the USA), this tough guy has plenty of heft. Although the Watermark Urbane looks rustic, it's specifically sold to the luxury market and can be found in boutique hotels.
Mico Designs 790-SQ-CP: This stout, masculine shower head has a chrome plated body and a very cool square flange. It is an excellent compact choice for a small shower stall. Contact dealer for price.
JADO Pyke Shower Set: I like this designer shower set because of its feminine, classic lines. The triangular shower head is a fun play on a classic look, that brings classic into the realm of loft-worthy.
California Faucets 6 Inch Shower Rose: I love this shower head. If you're looking for the look of old plumbing, or if you want your plumbing to match your metal pendant lights or industrial upcycled chandelier, this shower head would be perfect for you. Shaped like an industrial metal pendant light, it is available in 2.5 gpm or lower flow. Available in 31 different finishes (!).
Porcher Reprise Shower Kit: This is a compact, high end, designer rain shower head and faucet. The slightly asymmetrical design of the faucet flange marks the Porcher Reprise Shower Kit as a unique and arty piece. The chunky hex nuts that connect the shower head to the arm finish the look with an industrial edge.
Chaya Kurtz writes for Networx.com.
Updated May 9, 2018.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Europe's financial crisis is spreading eastward
| Berlin
A rapidly mounting currency crisis within Eastern Europe is threatening to spill across the wider European Union, an event that could spark a second epicenter in the global financial crisis, economists say.
That's why the International Monetary Fund (IMF) moved quickly to approve loans to Ukraine and Hungary Sunday. Belarus and Serbia are also asking for assistance.
The IMF loan helped stabilize Hungary's currency on Monday. But many Eastern European currencies have fallen as much as 25 percent against the dollar and euro. The euro's own devaluation of late is part of the problem.
The euro hit a two-year low against the dollar Monday, reflecting new concern that Western European banks are too exposed to the emerging economies of Eastern Europe, having lent heavily to many when they joined the European Union (EU) in 2004.
With currencies there diving, and credit drying up overall, the fear is that these countries will soon not be able to finance their debts, threatening Western Europe with large losses.
Economists say the currency panic recalls the "Black Wednesday" collapse of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism 18 years ago. Neil Mellor, an analyst at Bank of New York Mellon, told London's Daily Telegraph Sunday, "This is the biggest currency crisis the world has ever seen."
So, the IMF is stepping in to help some countries finance their debts. On Sunday, the IMF closed bailout deals with Ukraine and Hungary, agreeing to loan Ukraine $16 billion and Hungary an unspecified amount that's likely to be more than $10 billion, say some analysts. Belarus is asking the IMF for a $2 billion loan, and Serbia is expected to make a formal loan request soon; an IMF team arrives in Belgrade Wednesday to begin talks with the government.
Eastern European economies that only a month ago seemed fundamentally sound are now foundering, not because of toxic mortgage loans as in the United States, but rather because of the credit crisis' impact on capital markets. Governments in the region borrowed and spent heavily to improve institutions and infrastructure ahead of European Union membership.
After joining the EU, foreign investment poured in, property values soared, housing markets boomed, and ordinary consumers found themselves with access to credit that was unthinkable during the dark days of communism.
The Baltic countries of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, for example, boasted annual economic growth of nearly 10 percent in recent years.
But as European economies slow, and credit tightens, stock markets have fallen. The market is down 50 percent in Poland and Latvia, 72 percent in Romania, and nearly 80 percent in Ukraine.
The Baltic countries, Romania, and Bulgaria have current account deficits – the net flow of goods, services, and transactions between countries – in double-digit percentages to their gross domestic products (GDP). Hungary's public debt is now roughly 60 percent of its GDP.
"No matter how well your economy is doing you will have problems as soon as you have debt and are not able to refinance it," says Vasily Astrov, an expert in the region's economies at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies.
Why Western Europe is worried
In many cases, the loans Western European banks have made to Eastern European customers for mortgages were made in foreign currencies – euros, dollars, Swiss francs, and others – at substantially lower interest rates than they would have received in their own currencies, which were strengthening rapidly.
That wasn't a problem, as long as those Eastern European currencies remained strong, says Katinka Barysch, the chief economist at the Center for European Reform in London.
"But now these currencies are under pressure," Ms. Barysch says, "and you will really struggle to service your mortgage if the value of your own salary is collapsing vis a vis your mortgage payments in Swiss francs or euros."
For example, if a Hungarian had a home mortgage payment of €300 per month, that's equivalent to 73,200 forints. If the forint drops 11 percent against the euro, that means his monthly mortgage bill goes up to 81,300 forints. But his salary, in forints, doesn't increase.
Eastern European countries currently hold about $1.6 trillion in foreign currency debt, according to Morgan Stanley, and it's overwhelmingly owed to Western Europe, whose large banks own 60 to 80 percent of Eastern Europe's banking sector.
Western Europe is among the world's most exposed regions to debt from emerging markets, not just in Eastern Europe but in Latin America and Africa. While exposure to emerging markets accounts for about 4 percent of the USs' gross domestic product, in countries like Switzerland it's as high as 50 percent, according to the Bank for International Settlements.
The concern in Western Europe now is whether Eastern European countries will begin defaulting on those loans.
Not all Eastern European countries are struggling for the same reasons.
Ukraine has been hit hard by sharply falling commodity prices, especially for steel, an major export. The Baltics are seeing a housing bubbles burst. The Czech Republic, Slovakia, and, to a lesser extent, Poland are in better shape because their economies are considerably more export-driven, which reduces the need for borrowing.
Those three countries also chose to keep their currencies floating, rather than fixed, against the euro, which gives them a degree of flexibility when the euro heads south. They can devalue their own currencies as an offset, which helps exports.
A rush to adopt the euro?
Eastern Europe's woes are sparking a fresh debate about the wisdom of pegging currencies to the euro. Economists predict that a currency crisis will drive more countries to adopt the euro, citing the safety net against currency runs. Iceland, Sweden, and Denmark are weighing this. Poland is now planning a referendum on euro adoption next spring. In January, Slovakia will formally adopt the euro, the first ex-Soviet bloc country to do so.
"If that goes through without trouble, it will be an extremely important sign for other countries," says Daniel Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. "If you want to be safe, you better be in the euro zone."


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The Yachtsman (beware, hammered)
The first time I heard that word odious, my mother used it in reference to me having a particularly nasty spoiled upper middle class white kid episode somewhere around the 6th grade. Basically, I was given everything I ever wanted in life, and was never left hungry and/or cold. Somehow I still found a way to bitch about something I didn't get-probably an outlandishly expensive toy that only a little spoiled bag of cocks like me would make a scene about. I thrashed and thrashed and thrashed, probably stamped my feet, and said odious nasty little things only a shitty mouthed 6th grader with no concept of consequences or morality could say (thank crap my parents sent me to State School for college, otherwise I probably would have been an odious little shit for the rest of my days). I don't remember the outcome, but hopefully my father gave me a fresh one across the back of the head to straighten me out. I took one thing from that episode:
No seriously, all that shit happened. Ask Joe Pinzone.
Seriously Ralph, you bought the team for $50,000....sucked off the county TIT for almost a half century, and now, when it's time to sell the team or keep it for your probably ugly offspring...you're not gonna budge. We all know what this is, you dementia'ed assed old creep-o: this is you taking a shot at "pipsqueak" Roger Goodell and the current NFL Big Market reality. WELL GUESS WHAT, RALPH CORNELIUS (NOT TRUE) WILSON: NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON IN BUFFALO CARES ABOUT YOUR PETTY RICH PEOPLE PROBLEMS. EFF YOURSELF, SELL THE TEAM, AND MOVE BACK TO DETROIT WHERE YOU CAN LIVE OUT YOUR DAYS WATCHING MATTHEW STAFFORD GETTING SACKED ON SUNDAYS.
Which brings me back to my original, rambling, outlandish point: Ralph Wilson is an Odious Taint. I'm sick and tired of hearing how shitty a market our area is. The least you can do for an area that has CRAFTED ITS FUCKING IDENTITY around your little country club project is to turn around and open up ownership negotiations. The City of Buffalo made you fucking Rich Ralph. It's time you turned the hell around and gave something back.
I fell asleep twice during the creation of this post and I am clearly still a bit sauced. This was stream of consciousness whining. I'm not even going to review content. I beg you to rip me to shreds in the comments section. This was irresponsible of me, but I fucking hate Ralph right now. He is a fucking douche.
This post was brought to you by the song "Whiplash" by Metallica


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Of Osvif Helgison.
Online Medieval and Classical Library Release #32
Osvif was the name of a man. He was the son of Helgi, who was the son of Ottar, the son of Bjorn the Eastman, who was the son of Ketill Flatnose, the son of Bjorn Buna. The mother of Osvif was named Nidbiorg. Her mother was Kadlin, the daughter of Ganging-Hrolf, the son of Ox-Thorir, who was a most renowned "Hersir" (warlord) east in Wick. Why he was so called, was that he owned three islands with eighty oxen on each. He gave one island and its oxen to Hakon the King, and his gift was much talked about. Osvif was a great sage. He lived at Laugar in Salingsdale. The homestead of Laugar stands on the northern side of Salingsdale-river, over against Tongue. The name of his wife was Thordis, daughter of Thjodolf the Low. Ospak was the name of one of their sons. Another was named Helgi, and a third Vandrad, and a fourth Torrad, and a fifth Thorolf. They were all doughty men for fighting. Gudrun was the name of their daughter. She was the goodliest of women who grew up in Iceland, both as to looks and wits. Gudrun was such a woman of state that at that time whatever other women wore in the way of finery of dress was looked upon as children's gewgaws beside hers. She was the most cunning and the fairest spoken of all women, and an open-handed woman withal. There was a woman living with Osvif who was named Thorhalla, and was called the Chatterer. She was some sort of relation to Osvif. She had two sons, one named Odd and the other Stein. They were muscular men, and in a great measure the hardest toilers for Osvif's household. They were talkative like their mother, but ill liked by people; yet were upheld greatly by the sons of Osvif. At Tongue there lived a man named Thorarin, son of Thorir Saeling (the Voluptuous). He was a well-off yeoman, a big man and strong. He had very good land, but less of live stock. Osvif wished to buy some of his land from him, for he had lack of land but a multitude of live stock. So this then came about that Osvif bought of the land of Thorarin all the tract from Gnupaskard along both sides of the valley to Stackgill, and very good and fattening land it was. He had on it an out-dairy. Osvif had at all times a great many servants, and his way of living was most noble. West in saurby is a place called Hol, there lived three kinsmen-in-law -- Thorkell the Whelp and Knut, who were brothers, they were very well-born men, and their brother-in-law, who shared their household with them, who was named Thord. He was, after his mother, called Ingun's- son. The father of Thord was Glum Geirison. Thord was a handsome and valiant man, well knit, and a great man of lawsuits. Thord had for wife the sister of Thorkell and Knut, who was called Aud, neither a goodly nor a bucksome woman. Thord loved her little, as he had chiefly married her for her money, for there a great wealth was stored together, and the household flourished from the time that Thord came to have hand in it with them.


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Factor XIII (13) deficiency is an inherited bleeding disorder caused when person's body doesn't produce enough of a protein in the blood (factor XIII or FXIII) which helps blood clot or the factor XIII doesn't work properly. It is rare, affecting approximately one in 1,000,000 people. It affects both males and females.
What Is Factor XIII Deficiency? (World Federation of Hemophilia) See the About Bleeding Disorders section. Explains the causes of this blood disorder, its symptoms, diagnosis and treatment.
Factor XIII deficiency (Canadian Hemophilia Society, 2001) Explains how factor XIII deficiency is passed on, what causes it, diagnosis, symptoms, treatments, preventing and treating bleeds, issues relating to women, pregnancy and fertility, lifestyle and vaccinations.
Factor XIII deficiency (National Hemophilia Foundation, USA)
Source: What are rare clotting factor deficiencies? World Federation of Hemophilia, Montreal, Canada, 2009.
NB We provide these links as a service to the haemophilia community. As web sites can change or should you find a site to be no longer active please notify [email protected]. Haemophilia Foundation Australia is not responsible for the content of any external web sites. The featuring of a site on this page is not an endorsement by HFA of the information or views expressed therein.


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Visitors are
Interested in |
Welcome to the Home Page of the North American Barbados Blackbelly Sheep Registry
P.O. Box 237, McKean, PA 16426 About the NABSR... This registry is dedicated to the preservation of a unique genetic resource - the Barbados Blackbelly hair sheep. The herdbook of the NABSR will remain permanently open to any individual sheep which passes inspection and has adequately demonstrated its ability to reproduce in kind.
How Can I Join the Organization? How Can I Obtain a Listing of Barbados Blackbelly Breeders?
Please check the Breeder's
Listing here at this website; as it
is the most up-to-date listing the organization maintains. All
breeders with registered sheep may, at their option, have their name
added to this list. Only breeders with registered stock who indicate a desire to be included will be listed here. Please let us know if you find any listings are out-of-date. Want to see YOUR registered sheep's picture on these pages ? Contact us by email! |
©2016 NABSR. All Rights Reserved. This page updated October 2016. |


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By David Crane
defrev (at) gmail (dot) com
All photos and video contained in this article were shot by DefenseReview.com, and are copyrighted. DefenseReview.com owns the copyright on these photos. The photos and video clips were shot with a Canon PowerShot S90 10-megapixel digital camera (still camera with video capability).
August 19, 2011
Gun silencers/sound suppressors, or "muzzle cans", for tactical firearms have been an area of interest for DefenseReview (DR) for a long time, now, and we're happy to report that there's an interesting new kid on the block called Silencerco, LLC that DR came accross at SHOT Show 2011. I remember cracking up immediately upon seeing a giant white sign containing only the company name and logo and the following quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the Gods.
The reason I laughed upon reading the above quote, aside from the fact that a gun silencer/sound suppressor company was quoting a true literary giant, intellectual, and transcendentalist for marketing purposes, is that I was actually forced to read Emerson while I was in school (benefits of a private school education that included a focus on classic American writers and literature). The quote was taken from an essay on friendship, appropriately titled "Friendship", published in Emerson's first series of essays in 1841.
I don't think I have to explain why a quote about friendship is highly ironic when used as an advertising tool for tactical firearm silencers. As it happens, I enjoy irony, and I really like silencers! Unfortunately, I didn't have time to conduct an on-camera interview at the booth to find out who's idea it was to use the quote, but we did shoot some photos of their products, as you can see.
Frankly, any silencer company that quotes Emerson has to be a little bit different, and Silencerco certainly is. That's evident in the shape of their products. Silencerco specializes in "eccentric" "brick"-style rectangular polygonal firearm suppressors for tactical pistols (9mm Parabellum/9x19mm NATO, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP), rifles/carbines/SBRs (Short Barreled Rifles), and PDWs (Personal Defense Weapons). Defense Review photographed a 300 AAC Blackout AR SBR outfitted with a Silencerco 9Osprey can while we were at the booth. The company is also developing a 5.56mm NATO/.223 Rem. can , and we can only assume they're at least working on a 7.62mm/.308 Win. can, as well. The only prior experience Defense Review has had with rectangular-format suppressors is with the Gemtech "Brick" 4.6mm suppressor that we ran on a HK MP7A1 PDW (Personal Defense Weapon) (4.6x30mm) at NDIA Infantry Small Arms Systems Symposium 2007 in Virginia Beach, VA.
The primary purpose of Silencerco pistol suppressors' "eccentric" rectangular polygonal shape is to bring the majority of the suppressor's volume below the pistol's bore line (barrel), so you can use the factory/standard pistol sights. The added benefit is that you can, at least theoretically, holster and carry the weapon (pistol) in the same/standard open-bottom holster with the suppressor still attached. Silencerco's 9mm/.40 S&W./.45 ACP suppressor is called the Silencerco Osprey (9Osprey, 40Osprey, and 45Osprey, respectively), which would appear to be Silencero's rectangular equivalent of the AAC Ti-RANT pistol silencer line. Advanced Armament Corp. (AAC) has been kicking ass and taking names in the muzzle can business for awhile now, and their Ti-RANT pistol silencers are no exception. They're excellent, but some healthy competition is a good thing, and the Osprey can provides just that.
Silencerco also makes a .22 LR suppressor called the 22Sparrow that utilizes patent-pending Multi-Part Containment (MPC) technology, which allows it to be quickly and easily disassembled for maintenance. According to the company's website, the Silencerco Osprey "contains approximately 30% more internal volume than a traditional round tube silencer at the same length, but does so without obscuring the shooter's sight picture or adding excessive width and length."
The Silencerco Osprey silencer/sound suppressor utilizes a patent-pending cam lever locking and indexing system to allow the shooter to time the silencer to any host pistol. Osprey mounting instructions are as follows: "To mount, simply thread the Osprey on the muzzle just as you would a traditional silencer with the cam lever in the locked position. When the Osprey shoulders, hand tighten to ensure a tight fit then release the cam lever and rotate the Osprey to the proper orientation. Finally, move the cam lever back to the locked position. The Osprey will return to this index point for subsequent mountings until you change the host pistol or remove the piston assembly for cleaning."
Working in harmony with the Osprey's patent-pending cam lever locking system is the booster/Nielsen device that "allows flawless cycling with all relevant semi-automatic handguns." Silencerco's booster device is similar to a device we saw at the KRISS/Sphinx booth for use with Defiance tactical pistol/submachine gun silencers.
Silencerco has thought through every last detail on the Osprey, including where to place its serial number. Silencerco designed the Osprey for quick repairs and "placed the serial number on the part least likely to be damaged by baffle strike or other mishaps. Warranty repairs are quick and easy."
DefenseReview doesn't yet know what Silencerco's developmental 5.56mm NATO/.223 muzzle can (pictured above left) is called, or whether or not it will be able to handle heavy/high-round-count full-auto fire. A proper test would be to see if the Silencerco 5.56mm suppressor can work reliably and durably (i.e., hold up and not blow up) for the duration of a 5-day Falcon Security Group (FSG) select-fire/full-auto SBR (Short Barreled Rifle/Sub-Carbine course, which the FSG operator/instructors conduct using Ferfrans SOAR-P (Piston) gas piston/op-rod (push-type operating rod) tactical AR SBRs. DR wouldn't mind getting a Silencerco 5.56mm can into their hands for testing, if the FSG instructors would be willing to run it through a course.
A 6.8 SPC (6.8x43mm SPC) can (suppressor) might not be a bad idea, either. Ferfrans Specialties also makes 6.8 SPC tactical AR SBRs.
DR would also like to run Silencerco's muzzle cans for ourselves. Perhaps we'll get that opportunity soon. So far, we've only run AAC, Gemtech, and Ops Inc. cans at the range.
Finally, we should note that end-user feedback on Silencerco's products and customer service has been very positive on the tactical firearms boards. "Fireman1291" from M4Carbine.net states in the M4Carbine.net thread titled "SilencerCo eccentric silencers", "Silencerco builds one hell of a suppresser with most likely THE BEST customer service in the biz. The [sic] stand behind thier product 100%." Even Kevin Brittingham from AAC has positive things to say about the Osprey. In the same thread, Brittingham states: It is a good product that uses good technology and provides good sound suppression. Choose it or our Ti-Rant. Everything else is honestly a few years behind." When your competitor is complementing your product, it's gotta' be pretty good. "glocktogo" compliments both AAC and Silencerco products, stating "Major Malfunctions Munitions is the largest suppressor dealer in the nation. He is the #1 dealer for Silencerco & AAC. I helped him run a NFA day shoot at the United States Shooting Academy last spring. As the CRO, I got to hear a LOT of cans side by side on multiple platforms. Kevin is correct in that the Osprey and Ti-Rant are head & shoulders above the rest. From there it just depends on whether you want a traditional tube or an eccentric."
"True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment." William Penn
"Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment." Henry David Thoreau.
Tactical gun nut NUTNFANCY has a good two-part video on Silencerco suppressors. You can watch it below:
Click here to visit NUTNFANCY's YouTube channel.
Silencerco, LLC
5511 South 6055 West,
West Valley City, UT 84118
Phone 801-417-5384
Fax 801-417-5002
Email Contact Page: http://www.silencerco.com/?page=Contact
Website: http://www.silencerco.com
Advanced Armament Corp. (AAC)
2408 Tech Center Parkway
Suite 150
Lawrenceville, GA 30043
Office: 770-925-9988
Fax: 770-925-9989
Website 1: http://300aacblackout.com
Website 2: http://www.advanced-armament.com
FERFRANS Specialties
214 Calle Moreno
San Dimas, CA 91773
909-599-8094 Office
Falcon Security Group Inc. (FSG)
Huntington Beach, CA
Main Number: 714.248.6509
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Website: http://falconsecurity.us
© Copyright 2011 DefenseReview.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without receiving permission and providing proper credit and appropriate links.
Related Articles:
HK MP7A1 PDW/Gemtech 'Brick' Silencer/Sound Suppressor Combo at NDIA


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RPi Using Skypekit
Back to the Hub.
Community Pages:
Tutorials - a list of tutorials. Learn by doing.
Guides - a list of informative guides. Make something useful.
Projects - a list of community projects. Help others out.
Tasks - for advanced users to collaborate on software tasks.
Datasheets - a frambozenier.org documentation project.
Education - a place to share your group's project and find useful learning sites.
Community - links to the community elsewhere on the web.
Games - all kinds of computer games.
About SkypeKit
Sadly, there's no desktop Skype application currently available for the Raspberry Pi. However, Skype do have a Developer Program, and through that program it's possible to get the basic bits & pieces needed to put together a Skype client that will run on the Pi.
SkypeKit is an SDK & set of runtimes provided by Skype to developers who want to create applications with Skype-based functionality.
You can think of a runtime as a 'headless' version of Skype: it's an executable which has no interface, runs on the commandline & connects to the Skype network and provides stuff like contact lists and the ability to make calls. The SDK allows you to write code which talks to the runtime. You're never dealing with the Skype network directly; just manipulating the runtime. When you're developing with SkypeKit, presenting an interface to the user is your responsibility. The core Skype functionality is the runtime's responsibility.
There are a number of runtimes available for various combinations of OS & architecture. Luckily for us, there's a linux-armv7le-eabi runtime which runs on the Pi.
Handily, the SDK also comes with a bunch of example code which lets you do things like chat & make and receive calls on the command-line.
The purpose of this guide is to get you to a point where you can hack about with SkypeKit on the Pi. It's not a canonical guide to making Skype calls on the Pi, although hopefully may make such a thing possible in the future.
There's a fair bit of footwork required to get to the point where you can get your Pi connecting to Skype. Firstly, most importantly, and the reason that this stuff is currently only useful to developers is the fact that you'll need to sign up to the SkypeKit Developer Program to get the runtime and the application keys needed for its use.
Getting the SkypeKit SDK & runtime
- First, you'll need to sign up to the SkypeKit Developer Program. Visit https://developer.skype.com/signup. Click "Sign in with Skype" and do that thing.
- Once you're signed up to the Developer Program, you'll need to sign up to the "SkypeKit for Embedded" Program to download the runtime for Pi. Go to http://developer.skype.com/account/projects and click the link that says Join for US $5 on the "SkypeKit for Embedded" line in the Programs section. The astute will already have realised that it costs $5.
- Once you're signed up to the SkypeKit for Embedded program, you'll need to create a Project to get the key pair that the runtime requires to run. Visit http://developer.skype.com/account/projects again; you should now see that where the Join for US $5 link was which you used to sign up to the Embedded program, it now says "Create a new project". Click that link and follow the instructions to create a project.
- Once you've created a project, you'll be able to download the SDK, runtime & key pair you need to run a runtime on the Pi. Visit http://developer.skype.com/skypekit/releases. Remember, we're interested in the Embedded runtime for the Pi's ARMv7 chip; at the time of writing, this download is the 4.2.1 for Embedded SDK from the Step 1 section.
- You'll need to request the runtime, since they're built uniquely against a Developer Program account. Click "Request a runtime" in Step 2: Request and download runtimes. We're after a Linux / ARMv7 runtime, so select those in the dropdowns at the column headings in the table which appears. There's a few which can be used; I'm currently working with linux-armv7-skypekit-voicepcm-novideo, so that's as good a choice to make as any at this point.
- Finally, we'll request a key pair. Go back to the project that you created and click "Development key pair". Then click "Request a new key pair" and give it a name (I use dates). Click "Request key pair" after proving you're a human, then "Download the key pair"
- That's it! You now have everything you need to start slapping together a simple Skype-connected app
Building an Audio Host & running an example app
Now we've got the SDK, runtime & keyfile, we're ready to start putting things togeher on the Pi. Copy over linux-armv6-skypekit-xxx.gz, linux-armv6-skypekit-xxx.tar.gz, skypekit-sdk_sdk-xxx.tar.gz and the .pem keyfile to a sensible place on your Pi (I made ~/dev/skype and put them there) and uncompress both archives with:
tar xvzf filename.gz
The rest of this guide is all Pi-side, since I'm not quite ready to attempt to get my Mac cross-compiling for the Pi just yet.
About Audio Hosts
The Skypekit ARM runtime needs to connect to an Audio Host at the time that it connects to the Skype network, even if we're not actually interested in making calls (say, using the runtime for chat). An Audio Host is a standalone binary which runs alongside the runtime and provides it with access to audio in & out connections. The Audio PCM Quick Start guide on http://developer.skype.com gives more detail about this setup, but the practical upshot is that we'll need to compile an Audio PCM Host before we can use any of the services provided by the runtime.
Most of this information is extracted from Skype's Audio PCM Quick Start guide, but this doc seems to lag behind regarding the build system used in more recent versions of the SDK (4.2.1 at time of writing). There's some tidbits of information about the new build system in the Release Notes for 4.2.1, but other stuff I've basically guessed at/worked out through trial & error. YMMV.
Building voicepcmhost-loopback
The simplest reference Audio Host provided in the SDK is voicepcmhost-loopback, which as the name suggests, just copies audio data from its input back to its output.
- Build voicepcmhost-loopback. Change to the relevant build directory:
cd ~/dev/skype/skypekit-sdk_sdk-22.214.171.124_1379776/reference/voicepcmhost-loopback/build/gmake
and build it:make
Hopefully, we should now have a built binary at ~/dev/skype/skypekit-sdk_sdk-184.108.40.206_1379776/reference/voicepcmhost-loopback/build/voicepcmhost-loopback.
Building voicepcmhost-rtaudio
If you'd like to try making a call through to actual audio hardware on the Pi, you can build voicepcmhost-rtaudio which uses the RtAudio library to connect to an audio device.
- RtAudio. At the time of writing, the most current version is 4.0.11 which can be downloaded here.
- libasound2-dev, the ALSA shared library which RtAudio needs to connect to ALSA (if you're wondering, ALSA is the Linux sound system[1]). Install this library with
sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev
- A USB soundcard which has an audio-in port. voicepcmhost-rtaudio fails if it can't connect to an audio input, and the Pi's onboard sound only has an audio-out connection. Connect the device before you turn on the Pi; if its chipset is supported, drivers will be loaded at boot.
- Premake, a build utility which generates a correct makefile for voicepcmhost-rtaudio.
- Download the source from http://industriousone.com/premake/download.
- Extract the source somewhere useful. If you're following my directory structure, copy the downloaded tarball to ~/dev, then extract with
unzip premake-4.3-src.zip
- Change to the build folder in the extracted source directory
cd ~/dev/premake-4.3/build/gmake.unix
and build premakemake
- Make the premake binary available to the system by copying it to /usr/sbin
sudo cp ~/dev/premake-4.3/bin/release/premake4 /usr/sbin
Once you've taken care of the prerequisites, we're ready to compile voicepcmhost-rtaudio.
- Extract rtaudio somewhere useful. If you're following my directory structure, extract it to ~/dev with the following commands:
- Copy the rtaudio tarball to ~/dev
tar xzvf rtaudio-4.0.11.tar.gz
This should leave you with an extracted folder named rtaudio-4.0.11 in ~/dev.
- Move to the directory where the voicepcmhost-rtaudio source lives:
- Make a link to the RtAudio source. The makefile for voicepcmhost-rtaudio expects the source for RtAudio to be present in this folder at compile-time. We'll make a link back to the extracted source to keep things tidy.
ln -s ~/dev/rtaudio-4.0.11 ./rtaudio-4.0.6
Note that the link is named rtaudio-4.0.6: the makefile is expecting an older version of RtAudio, and rather than mucking about with the makefile, it's probably just better to be a little disingenuous with the link name. This strategy works fine at the time of writing with rtaudio-4.0.11 standing in for 4.0.6. - Generate the correct makefile for voicepcmhost-rtaudio, since the default one doesn't work.
This will generate a bunch of makefiles and try to build voicepcmhost-rtaudio, which will fail. This is OK though, since we'll build it in the next step. - Build voicepcmhost-rtaudio with the following commands:
cd ~/dev/skype/skypekit-sdk_sdk-184.108.40.206_1379776/reference/voicepcmhost-rtaudio/build/gmake
If all of this worked, you should be left with a built binary at ~/dev/skype/skypekit-sdk_sdk-126.96.36.199_1379776/reference/voicepcmhost-rtaudio/build/voicepcmhost-rtaudio.
Making a test call to the Pi
Let's try putting the whole thing together and making a test call to the Pi. If it works, we'll hear our own voice echoed back to us through the loopback host. You'll need the logins for two different Skype accounts: we'll use on the Pi and one on your desktop. You'll also need Skype installed on your desktop.
- Copy the .pem keyfile to ~/dev/skype/skypekit-sdk_sdk-184.108.40.206_1379776/examples/python/tutorial. We'll use it later to run a test app. Edit ~/dev/skype/skypekit-sdk_sdk-126.96.36.199_1379776/examples/python/keypair.py to reflect the filename of the keyfile.
- Start the ARM runtime in the background:
~/dev/skype/linux-armv6-skypekit-voicepcm-novideo_18.104.22.1683_1708442/bin/linux-armv6le-eabi/linux-armv6-skypekit-voicepcm-novideo &
- Start a Voice PCM Audio Host in the background:
- For voicepcmhost-loopback:
~/dev/skype/skypekit-sdk_sdk-22.214.171.124_1379776/reference/voicepcmhost-loopback/build/voicepcmhost-loopback &
- For voicepcmhost-rtaudio:
~/dev/skype/skypekit-sdk_sdk-188.8.131.52_1379776/reference/voicepcmhost-rtaudio/build/voicepcmhost-rtaudio &
- For voicepcmhost-loopback:
- Move to the folder containing the Python app examples:
cd ~/dev/skype/skypekit-sdk_sdk-126.96.36.199_1379776/examples/python/tutorial/
- Run the autoanswer.py example. This is a simple Python app which will automatically answer any incoming Skype call and connect it to the running Audio Host.
python autoanswer.py <Skype account #1 login> <Skype account #1 password>
- On your desktop, login to Skype with the details for account #2 and place a call to account #1. You should see a whole load of output spill across the Pi's console, including the lines
Incoming call from: <Skype account #2 name>
and<Skype account #2 name> is now live.
At this point, we should have a Skype call connected to the instance of SkypeKit running on the Pi. Congratulations! Say something.
- If you're using voicepcmhost-loopback, you should hear your own voice coming back to you over the Skype connection.
- If you're using voicepcmhost-rtaudio, you should hear your own voice coming out of the USB audio device connected to the Pi.
And that's how to make a Skype connection to the Pi. Have fun hacking around it with it, build awesome stuff!


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All interaction with a remote COM server is done via its interface pointers and the most common way to obtain the first interface pointer is using the function create-instance. This takes the CLSID of the server and returns an interface pointer for the i-unknown interface unless another interface name is specified.
For example, the following will create an instance of Microsoft Word:
(create-instance "000209FF-0000-0000-C000-000000000046")


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We were up on "the island" for a few days over the Fourth of July, where friends of ours got married. Beach time, biking, lots of sun and fun. A really fantastic and memorable trip.
Tag: nantucket
Summer Days and Summer Nights
I won't lie. I miss the hell out of Mrs P.
Luckily I have a lot of good friends, ones that I can hang with in New York, and ones I can reach by phone around the world – and my family makes for pretty good company, too. So it hasn't been terrible. But without my girl, things aren't complete. We're supposed to be together – we've got a plan!
Relax, I tell myself. The plan is still in place. It just feels like a giant interruption.
Meanwhile, I have been having quite a lot of fun.
There was the giant Phish festival – SuperBall IX – in Watkins Glen, NY, which is practically a home town for me, with Seneca Lake and Geneva – the birthplace of my grandfather – right there. I've been going to Seneca Lake since I was three months old, but I never went to a three-day rock festival at the race track and camped out on the grounds – over Fourth of July weekend. That was awesome.
I even managed to get up to the old lake house and have a swim!
My campgrounds for the weekend were comfortable and pleasant:
Also, I went to Nantucket with the GRP – my old reggae band from college. What a fantastic weekend that was!
My friends took a great shot of me walking on a beautiful beach:


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Sir Ken Robinson is a brilliant communicator and educator. It's almost impossible to not love his TED talks and this particular quote, ""Creativity is now as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status."
But what is creativity?
Beyond thinking differently?
Ulrich Kraft, a researcher and writer, frames it this way in his 2005 paper Unleashing Creativity (also featured in F.Bloom (Ed)., Best of the brain from Scientific American: Mind, matter, and tomorrow's brain), "Fresh solutions result from dissassembling and reassembling the building blocks in an infinite number of ways. That means the problem solver must thoroughly understand the blocks."
Dr. Mariale Hardiman, author of "The Brain Targeted Teaching Model for 21st Century Schools", reframes for the classroom like this, "In order to think creatively about something you have to have mastered some knowledge about it."
It's the old adage of knowing the rules before you can break the rules.
Which is going to involve the F word.
When something doesn't go quite as planned.
In the film, Jeremy Mettler talks about the push to encourage creativity in his classroom, "If you're trying something new you're probably going to fail because you're just not going to get it on the first try. If you do, then it was too easy or it was a problem that was solved before."
So the question isn't so much teaching our kids to be creative, as it is teaching our kids to start over, in the face of failing.
Which brings up the R word.
Resilience is swiftly falling into the overused category in education. It's up there with grit. But it demands examination. Why does one student, when faced with failure, tackle it with curiosity and inquisitiveness as in, "Hmm…I wonder why that happened," versus another, who wilts, taking the failure as a personal defeat, personalizing and owning it, as in, "I am a failure."
Jessica Lahey has written an entire book on failure so I won't get into it too much, other than to recommend The Gift of Failure and this article she wrote for The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/08/when-success-leads-to-failure/400925/
The gist of it is that parents need to give their children a chance to work through obstacles. Mettler does the same thing in his classroom, "When kids ask me for help, chances are very good I'm not going to get there right away. It's a class of 25 students. But I also want them to try it on their own first. It gives them a chance to test their abilities and a lot of times, they figure it out. Too often, students assume something is hard, and they haven't even read the question."
Angela Watson, from Cornerstone for Teachers, wrote a great post for when students say, "I don't know."
So what's the Y word?
It's three letters.
And it can make a world of difference to learners.
As in "You don't know yet. But you'll figure it out."
So what will you do differently on your next try?


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These are pages 2 and 3 from my story "Silent Echoes", part of the Out of Picture Anthology.
mixed media
9 x 13
The success of the "Out of Picture" Anthology continues to show its fruit.
Many of us who have been involved in this collaborative art book are presently showcased in the 49th Annual Exhibition at The Society of Illustrators in New York.
The photograph bellow represents pages 2 and 3 from my story that were sent to the show in NY.
I took a little extra time and built the frame myself in an effort to pay tribute to our friend Dice and to the "Out of Picture" circle of artists friends. "Wootie"(in close up) was created by Dice as the symbol for the book. It has come to represent our group. The engraving of Wootie on the frame that holds my piece is my homage to him and to our group of artists in this ongoing and exciting project.
Before getting into the thick of things, I must apologize for the lack of postings this last month and more importantly for my lack of response to some of your comments. Soon, I promise to contact those of you who have tried to reach me through this blog.
The image bellow, is a portion of a larger development image for my upcoming contribution to the next "Out of Picture" anthology, currently in development
These series I did for the Movie ROBOTS some years ago.
In retrospect I know now that this movie was more fun to research and design for, than it was to watch.
We spend a long time developing the world that these robots lived in. We looked at the history of everything "machine", from the advent of the industrial revolution which brought about the machine age, to today's computer manufactured machines (machines that build machines). What this meant is that we had to be faithful to the materials and technology of each of these eras. Ultimately we divided the world into 4 mayor periods:
STEAM, COMBUSTION, ELECTRIC and HI-END.
Architecturally, it echoed human architecture, at least in how we view them emotionally. It most certainly aimed to express a nostalgia for American cultural history. Contrasting the romanticism of early American culture and the skepticism of today. The Star of the film had to remind us of all that we loved about the past in a way that could also inspire the future. Someone of traditional values with present ambitions.
The world around him needed to support all this as well. Ultimately, I think the story failed to support the star of the film and the robot world. I can only speak for that which I was called to do, and say simply that it came down to the budget , the pacing of the film and the studio's lack of faith for the original story.
80% of the architectural potential never could be realized in 3D within budget and the accelerated pace of the film prevented it from taking its time to accurately portray the contrast between the more nostalgic world that the star of the film came from and the precipitous bustle of the world that he came to inhabit. Ultimately all machines worked equally as fast, or not at all. Like all the steam and moving mechanisms we wanted for the depths of the city. Originally intended to look, feel and work like an old watch. Sadly, since only 20% of the architecture was ultimately built, there was only so much we could hope for.
Lack of Budget, lack of resources... Our mistake was designing a movie that was clearly well out of budget.
images © 2005 20th century fox film
Small town Steam era (Above). Pencil/digital.
Big city Steam era (Above left) and Hi-End (Above right). Pencil/digital.
Big city Steam era (Above). Villain's Lair. Pencil/digital.
Big city Electric & High-End (Above). Pencil/digital.
Because the robot city was intended to have been built from the ground up, this presented us with the opportunity to build the next modern era above the previous one. Thus, allowing us to echo the kind of eclectic architecture prevalent in Europe today. Modern structures built directly upon gothic bases, for example. The difference was that we would continue to build vertically so that the Hi-End structures reached into the sky while the ancient steam powered architecture rusted away at the core. But again, since only 20% of the architecture could be built in 3D, most of these concepts became blurred.
Those few buildings that did get built in full detail however, are testament to what "could have been". The folks at that studio are of such great talent, it is a shame that they were not better supported by some of the leadership, to accomplish the goals that the artists faithfully set off to achieve.
A friend's project for whom I did a few designs to help pitch the thing to Blue Sky Studios.
Before getting into the rhetoric, I want to thank you all for your feedback on my work. Thanks!
So I found myself digging back into some old files and I found these. I worked on this pilot show "3.2.1.Penguins!" six years ago. I have to admit that despite the production limitations (which were very many) it was fun working on it. I got to work with the amazing Michael Spooner who became my mentor. His talent and generosity are not of this world.
#1 was for the penguins' spaceship, which was probably the most fun to design. Inside and out. I even ended up modeling it in the computer, for the show. I inspired the design from Raymond Loewy's 1934 pencil sharpener.
#2 was for an episode with jelly aliens whose mob boss was this scout leader named Uncle Blob. I created a whole set of characters and gags that ultimately were not used. The only thing that was used from what I proposed for that show was the name of Uncle Blob. Ha! Showbiz baby!
#3 was the Space Lounge where the Penguins would perform the end show musical number as a throwback to Hanna-Barbera's "Banana Splits" show.


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Press Release – Morongo
Rockstar/Hart & Huntington Tattoo Co./Motostrano.com-JSTracing/Leo Vince/Carter Powersports
Wow! What a great weekend for the Rockstar/Hart & Huntington team at the Morongo! The weather was a bit uncooperative, but the track was fun and the crowd was great! The fierce competition kept Carey, Travis, and Doni on their toes.
We would like to thank our sponsors for all their support, especially;
Rockstar, Hart & Huntington Tattoo Co., Carter Powersports, Motostrano.com-JsTRacing,
Leo Vince, Weekend Warrior, FOX, Parts Unlimited, DVS Shoes, TAG Metals, Alpina Wheels, Dunlop Tires,
MotionPro, Works Connection, Factory Effex, MB1 Suspension, Hinson, ACERBIS, Pinit Motorsports, Magura,
and Moto-Master.
About Hart & Huntington Tattoo Company: Hart & Huntington Tattoo Company is the tattoo shop founded by freestyle motocross legend Carey Hart. The first Hart and Huntington Tattoo Company Shop opened in 2004 in the Palms Casino is
About Motostrano.com:
Motostrano.com is the leading supermoto parts and accessories company in the


text:
Santiago, Chile, Apr 11, 2013 / 15:02 pm
The president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, encouraged Catholics to make bold use of new technologies in the work of evangelization.
During the second International Seminar on Communications in the Church taking place in Santiago, Chile, Archbishop Celli used statistics and graphics to show the evolution of the use of the social networks by different generations, underscoring their strong impact on young people.
In his address entitled, "Communications and the Second Vatican Council: Can a Council held 50 years ago still be current?" Archbishop Celli recalled that the last pontificates have highlighted the challenges raised by the new technologies.
"The new technologies are part of the Church's very mission. The last pontiffs help us to understand that the vocation of social communications in the Church means presenting the truth about man," he said.
Archbishop Celli noted that Blessed John Paul II placed great importance on the use of the new technologies in evangelization, especially with his Apostolic Letter entitled, "Rapid Development."
In addition, however, Benedict XVI emphasized that evangelization needs authentic Christian testimonies. "We cannot imagine that the proclamation, with the most current technologies, not include a profound personal testimony of faith in Our Lord," he said.
"That is why people today like listening more to those who share their testimonies than to those who teach. And if they listen to those who teach it is because they share their testimonies."


text:
Strawberry shortcake is a summertime classic and it will always be one of my favorite desserts to make when I have fresh strawberries on hand. Most of the time, strawberry shortcakes just call for piling slices of strawberries on top of whipped cream and some type of cake or biscuit. To mix things up a little bit, I used roasted strawberries to make this Roasted Strawberry Shortcake.
The biscuit part of the shortcake is a buttery, scone-like cake that has a hint of vanilla to it. It is sturdy and slightly sweet, which makes it a great base to hold up to all the whipped cream and strawberries that are piled into it before serving. The strawberries are roasted in the oven before being added to the dessert. Roasting them intensifies their flavor and it also releases some extremely flavorful juice from the berries. I am just as generous with that juice as I am with the berries when it comes to plating these desserts, since it soaks into the biscuit base and ties everything together.
Strawberry shortcake is one dessert where I don't like to skimp on the whipped cream. The cool, vanilla cream goes extremely well with the bright red berries – both in color and in contrasting flavors – and I like to make sure that I have some in every bite of my shortcake. To mix things up, you could transform this shortcake into a cool version of the dessert by using vanilla ice cream instead of the whipped cream, though I recommend making extra berries so that you have even more sauce available for plating that option!
Roasted Strawberry Shortcake
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, cold and cut into small pieces
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2-2/3 cup whole milk or half and half
coarse sugar, for topping
3 cups roasted strawberries
1 – 1 1/2 cups whipping cream
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 375F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until mixture is coarse and sandy, with no pieces larger than a big pea remaining.
Combine the vanilla and milk in a measuring cup and pour 1/2 cup of the milk into the flour mixture. Stir with a fork until the dough starts to come together into a very slightly sticky ball. Add more milk if necessary to bring the dough together.
Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat it into a smooth, round disc about 1-inch thick. Using a sharp knife, cut the disc into 6 equal triangles. Arrange on prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with coarse sugar, if desired.
Bake for 18-22 minutes, until biscuits are a light golden brown. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
Pour whipping cream into a large bowl and beat to soft peaks with an electric mixer. Beat in the confectioners' sugar, adding more to taste if desired, and vanilla.
Split the cooled biscuits in half and top each with about 1/2 cup roasted strawberries and 1/2 cup whipped cream.
Serves 6.


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The price of synthetic raw materials used in flavor and fragrance compounds is expected to remain stable, according to an Elixens Group market report, but natural raw materials will fluctuate in direct correlation with supply and demand.
"Therefore we advise to watch carefully the combination demand/harvest levels/possible speculative phenomena," Elixens Group indicates in a research note. "All related costs to the raw material costs will be strongly inflated."
The report says reversals of market cycles in 2012 have had a beneficial effect on raw material prices. As a result of a sharp decline in economic activity in Europe and a general slowdown in Asia and America, prices have stabilized for many synthetic raw materials and commodities. This decrease in demand, combined with good crop results, have also caused prices to decline for certain essential oils, including key materials such as orange and lavender essential oil.
Unfortunately, the report notes, these same phenomena favorable to certain raw material costs were offset by upward trend factors resulting from demand from emerging countries, especially on basic natural raw materials, global world inflation driven by competing activities in the production of raw materials, natural disasters, and the structural rise in energy and transportation costs.
Meanwhile, new institutional factors result in even more inflation, the report says. Regulatory constraints applied to aromatic raw material producers and fragrance and flavor industrials were greatly magnified in recent months and now affect production costs significantly. Certification processes, particularly, generate extra costs.
To view Elixens Group's table of aromatic raw material 2013 estimates, click here.


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TV chef Art Ginsburg, better known as Mr. Food, dead at 81
(CNN) -- Art Ginsburg, who as "Mr. Food" demonstrated recipes and cooking tips in 90-second segments for millions of TV viewers over more than 30 years, died Wednesday of cancer, a company official said.
Ginsberg, 81, died at his home in Weston, Florida, said Howard Rosenthal, an executive at Ginsberg's Florida-based Mr. Food Brand.
Ginsberg, whose syndicated "Mr. Food" segments were shown on more than 125 television stations nationwide as of June, was known to enthusiastically sign off with his signature phrase, "Ooh, it's so good!"
"What you saw on TV was how Art was off TV," Rosenthal said.
Ginsberg's "commitment to anyone-can-do recipes and passion for helping others made him well-loved among his peers and among television viewers and website visitors," a message on the "Mr. Food" website said. "He was one of the first television celebrity chefs and paved a road for many who came after him."
Ginsberg worked as a butcher and owned a catering business before debuting a cooking segment on a TV talk show in upstate New York in 1975.
He began self-syndicating a 90-second "Mr. Food" TV segment to nine television markets in 1980. King World Productions -- now CBS Television Distribution -- began syndicating him in 1982, his company's website says.
He established his own company, which by 1994 had a TV studio, a test kitchen and publishing offices in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His company has produced more than 50 cookbooks by 2009.


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Figwit, Our Favorite Extremely Minor Elf
In 2001, actor Bret McKenzie (of Flight of the Conchords and music guy for the recent Muppet movies) appeared as an unnamed elf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. He had no lines, appeared onscreen for roughly three seconds, and created Internet waves solely by being handsome.
Super-fan Iris Hadad named the character "Figwit," apparently an acronym for "Frodo Is Grea... Who Is THAT?!" (Figwit is shown right after Frodo says, spoiler alert, "I will take it!" in the Fellowship scene where he claims the Ring.) Hadad and her friend Sherry de Andres launched Figwit Lives!, a fan site to end all fan sites, and the rest is meme history.
In this 2002 clip from New Zealand's 3 News, we see a very young Bret and Jemaine performing early Flight of the Conchords material and discussing the Figwit phenomenon. Um, wow:
Things got weirder in 2004 when a 45-minute documentary on the character was released, featuring interviews with tons of luminaries from the LOTR films, as well as footage of Bret meeting the Figwit fan community. You can watch it here, but -- you've been warned -- I have only skimmed through it. I'm just amazed that this exists:
The documentary includes a performance by Flight of the Conchords playing "Frodo's Song." Here's a version complete with a rap breakdown:
For more hot, hot Figwit action, check out the Figwit Know Your Meme page. It's got everything.


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SITKA DOT-Hazardous Material Transportation 12 Hour Initial Class
Hazardous Materials Transportation DOT 12 Hour
This 12 hour course meets the training requirements of 49 CFR Parts 172.700-704. It is designed for those responsibilities for preparing Hazardous Materials and Wastes shipments by air, water, highway, or rail transportation.. Classroom material reviews classification, preparation of shipping papers, packaging, marking, labeling, compatibility and load segregation. Hands-on training includes preparation of multi-modal shipping documents, packaging, and load compatibility.
Hourly Schedule
Day 1
- 8:00am - 4:00pm
- Day 1
Day 2
- 8:00am - 1:00pm
- Day 2


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You can have a golf swing that will grind out powerful and accurate shots just like a champion, let me tell you how.
The golf swing of a successful player differs from that of an ordinary player in two main respects; it is both correct and well-grooved.
What do I mean by a correct golf swing? I mean that when the player swings the club with maximum power their body moves through a series of linked positions which enable them to control the club and thus achieve accuracy. Conversely, when an ordinary golfer tries to exert power they throw their body into incorrect positions and lose control and power.
A good golf swing is actually made up of a series of movements each of which positions the club correctly. It is this ability to make the correct body movements that allows the player to position the club correctly.
These different positions of the golf swing are not hard to achieve. The difficulty for most players is stringing them together and then keeping them together when they try to hit the ball hard.
If your golf swing tends to become erratic the moment you try to hit the ball hard you need to go back to basics. No, you don't have to start learning all over again, but you do have to analyze each position and make sure that it is correct.
Then, once you know that each position is as it should be, you can start to link them together into an entire swing. And that is what I mean by well-grooved. The linked-together golf swing repeats itself time and again, even under the greatest pressure.
When you watch a really successful golfer swing the club you will notice that they all have a routine. The way they set up to the ball is always the same. Their pre-swing routine is always the same. The actual golf swing always looks the same – except when they make a poor shot. Then you will notice that they look off-balance and their body is often leaning over as they anxiously watch the flight of their ball.
The easy way for an ordinary golfer to achieve a correct and well-grooved golf swing is to develop a mind movie of their swing. Then, simply by running this mind movie every time you set up to the ball, you will set your well-grooved swing in motion. This is what Jack Nicklaus always did.
You can learn how to do build your own golf swing mind movie by going to the Google Internet search engine and type in the words 'golf mind movies'. There you will find a number of sites that will tell you how to develop a powerful and accurate golf swing that repeats even under pressure.


text: Gold Premium Soap *HIGH-QUALITY For ANTI-AGING + WHITENING + MOISTURIZING + SUN PROTECTION Collagen *99.8 percent of Alpha-Arbutin *Kojic Acid *Soybean Extract *Hyaluronic Acid Top 5 breakthrough whitening ingredients in the soap industry today KB Gold Premium Soap is the most expensive soap in the Philippines today as it bags the top five breakthrough ingredients in the skin care industry: Vitamin E from the Soybean Extract, Hyaluronic Acid (HA), Japanese Collagen, Kojic Acid and the most in demand of them all – Alpha-Arbutin. These ingredients are found to have radiance-enhancing capabilities in a quick use yet in a long-term effect especially when combined. • contains 99.8 percent of Alpha-Arbutin that blocks skin color. Medical studies say that Alpha Arbutin is a potent and proven ingredient as it reduces the degree of skin tanning after UV exposure.The use of Alpha Arbutin is widely recognized in the cosmetic industry as the fastest and safest way to achieve a white complexion. • KB Gold Premium Soap is formulated with the right amount of kojic acid as second whitening agent only to alpha-arbutin to prevent unnecessary skin pigmentation and irritation. • Hyaluronic Acid (HA) has powerful healing and hydrating properties, especially on skin tissues. Research shows that it helps to retain over a 1000 times its weight in water within the cells of skin, making it an excellent moisturizer. Widely used in cosmetic procedures because of its anti-aging abilities, its ability to remove waste matter from cells in blood circulation makes it also expensive therefore not available to all types of market today. • Japanese collagen from fish's ovary peptide as the fourth component is considered by the experts as the better type of collagen because of its first-rate absorption capabilities. It works by maximizing body's collagen supply that results in avoidance of wrinkles, saggy skin and aging-related concerns. • Soybean extract is a good source of Vitamin E and antioxidant that delays ageing and promotes moisturized and smooth skin. The unique features of soya stimulate collagen production which makes the skin supple and elastic. *considered the most expensive soap in the Philippines for containing high-quality ingredients How to Use: Rub KB Gold Premium Soap on wet hands or loofah to work up a lather. Gently massage lather in a circular motion. Rinse. Don't stay too long or wear sunblock before exposure to sun. Warning: For external use only. In the unlikely event of an adverse reaction stop using immediately. If symptoms persist consult your doctor. Inclusions: FDA-approved Hotline Fan page MEMBER OF CHAMBER OF COSMETICS INDUSTRY OF THE PHILIPPINES INC.


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Executives from Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., and other leading firms want to require all Massachusetts public schools to teach computer science, so local tech companies don't have to rely on foreign workers to fill future programming and engineering jobs.
The plan would compel the teaching of computer science classes as early as the eighth grade, add computing questions to the state's standardized tests, and create a statewide curriculum for technology instruction throughout high school. Massachusetts would be the second state to mandate the classes, after South Carolina.
"This is really about workforce development," said Steve Vinter, head of Google's office in Cambridge, one of the proposal's architects.
Vinter and other proponents will pitch the plan to state lawmakers and education officials on Beacon Hill Wednesday. Opposition is already forming.
The proposal would require millions of dollars in new spending to implement, as well as the retraining of hundreds of teachers and likely the hiring of new ones. It would also add another layer of teaching requirements and testing to schools.
"It's a matter of balancing a worthwhile goal against a universe of finite resources, and where there are many important goals," said Mitchell Chester, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
While Chester agrees with tech executives that Massachusetts graduates should be better equipped to pursue computer science careers, he said a better approach would be to incorporate computer teaching in existing course work, or to work with individual school districts to develop their own specific curriculums.
Moreover, the state is currently revising its standards to increase the amount of engineering and technology that public schools must teach, and Chester said additional computer science education is under consideration. Meanwhile a Massachusetts state senator, Karen Spilka, earlier this year filed legislation that would mandate more computer science classes in public schools.
Currently, high school students in Massachusetts are taught a core group of math and science subjects, including algebra and geometry, and engineering topics such as electronics and electronic communications.
In order to graduate, students must pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS, tests to determine core proficiency in English, mathematics, and one science and technology field, such as biology, chemistry, physics, or technology and engineering.
Massachusetts eighth-graders routinely lead the nation when it comes to test scores in math and science.
Some school districts in Massachusetts already offer computer science courses, but few students are taking them. Only 713 high school students took an advanced placement exam in computer science last year, said Morton Orlov, head of the Mass Math and Science Initiative at Mass Insight Education, a nonprofit group that promotes advanced learning.
"Computer science has been under-resourced, it's been an afterthought," Orlov said.
The tech executives have formed the Massachusetts Computing Attainment Network, or MassCAN, to promote the proposal. The group includes executives from Oracle Corp. and Intel Corp., as well as business organizations including the Massachusetts Business Roundtable.
Many school districts may not be prepared to teach the advanced work that is part of computer science; some still don't have adequate computers or high-speed Internet connections.
The firms said they would be willing to help pay for increased computer education, raising money to help buy equipment and retrain teachers. More broadly, the new federal budget proposed by President Obama would provide $3.1 billion to help schools increase science and technology instruction, including adding 100,000 teachers to the field.
Among the fastest growing sectors in Massachusetts, technology has become integral to the modern economy. More than 10,000 Massachusetts companies work in the industry, directly employing some 180,000 workers. But technology skills — computer know-how — have become pervasive in most other major industries as well, from health care and biotech, to finance and manufacturing.
Across the United States, companies every year need to fill an estimated 150,000 computer science and mathematics related jobs, according to federal labor data. But the nation's colleges and universities graduate around 100,000 students annually with degrees in those areas.
That shortage has prompted tech companies to increasingly turn to foreign labor to fill technology jobs. This year the federal government issued 85,000 visas to US companies to hire foreign skilled workers, many in tech-related jobs.
"When we look at what jobs are available, and what paths students are pursuing, what we see is a profound disconnect," said Chris Stephenson, executive director of the Computer Science Teachers Association.
She said the tech executives are right to pressure Massachusetts to add more computer-specific education, as opposed to making it a small part of a broader science and engineering curriculum.
"The industry folks are starting to speak up because they can't hire the people that they need," she said. "When industry steps up and says, 'I have 5,000 jobs and I can't fill them,' suddenly it just ramps up the whole issue."
While acknowledging that students need to know more about technology, education officials are uneasy about singling out a narrow subject such as computer science for special consideration when students should instead be learning the fundamentals of math and sciences that apply to a broader array of disciplines.
One of the architects of education reform in Massachusetts, Paul Reville, now a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, sympathizes with the goal of the business group, but said the tech executives are taking the wrong approach.
"We don't do well mandating top-down course-taking in the Commonwealth," said Reville, a former secretary of education in Massachusetts.
He, too, suggests the companies should start on a smaller scale, selecting a few schools as a pilot for a more focused approach to the skills gap in technology. If those proved effective, Reville predicted, computer science courses would spread rapidly.
"Those would become the envy of every school system in the state," Reville said.
Michael B. Farrell can be reached at email@example.com.


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Target 2% Lessons to Support Vocabulary for Grades K through 5
Vocabulary knowledge is an essential component of comprehension, language proficiency, and reading growth for all students.These vocabulary activities are designed to enhance the instruction of all teachers of reading and to meet the learning needs of all students, as indicated by data.
Restorative Discipline Practices in Texas
This resource provides information on Restorative Discipline Practices in Texas.
Mathematics TEKS: Supporting Information
This resource presents supporting information of the mathematics TEKS for Kindergarten through Grade 12.
Response to Intervention (RtI)
Response to Intervention (RtI) is a multi-tiered framework designed to recognize and assist struggling learners through a systematic approach that includes strategies for intervention across curriculum, instruction, assessment and implementation.
Write for Texas Overview Video
This resource links to the Write for Texas online resources and includes a short video overview.
Target 2% Lessons to Support Comprehension for Grades K through 5
These comprehension activities are designed to enhance the instruction of all teachers of reading and to meet the learning needs of all students, as indicated by data.
Flashing Lights Senate Bill 30
Flashing Lights: Creating Safe Interactions Between Citizens and Law Enforcement is a product of the Texas Community Safety Education Act (Senate Bill 30), passed by the 85th Texas Legislature.
17 OnTRACK Scientific Process Skills
This binder contains seventeen separate resources focused on the scientific processes for conducting laboratory and field investigations.
6 Targeting the 2 Percent
This resource provides reading intervention lessons for teachers who work with students in grades K–5. Targeting the 2 Percent (T2%) aims to improve the instruction, content knowledge, and academic achievement of Texas students transitioning from assessments based on modified standards to the general state assessment, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR®).
For more information about this project and other materials available, visit the T2% Support Center.
Prevention and Awareness: Human Trafficking of School-Aged Children
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) amended its child abuse prevention, mandatory reporting, and training requirements to include human trafficking in alignment with updates to state law concerning the definition of child abuse and neglect (TAC § 61.1051, Subchapter EE, Commissioner's Rules on Reporting Child Abuse or Neglect, including Trafficking of a Child).
Training concerning prevention techniques for, and recognition of, sexual abuse, trafficking, and other maltreatment of children including those with significant cognitive disabilities, must be provided as a part of new employee orientation and to existing school staff not previously trained as required by TEC §38.004.
The purpose of this module is to assist and equip educators in meeting the training requirements for the Commissioner's Rule (TAC §61.1051) on reporting Child Abuse, Neglect, including Trafficking of a Child. Each district and open-enrollment charter school must maintain records that include the name of each staff member who participated in training (TAC §61.1051). It is the responsibility of the LEA to track the participation and completion of this training module locally.
Local Education Agencies (LEAs) represent one of the largest professional resources for reporting suspected child abuse in Texas. It is critical for district leadership, educators, and school staff to remain vigilant in their identification and reporting of suspected child abuse, neglect, including the trafficking of a child.
11 OnTRACK Grade 8 Math: Proportionality
Students learn to to use proportional relationships to describe dilation; explain proportional and non-proportional relationships involving slope; and use proportional and non-proportional relationships to develop foundational concepts of functions.


text: > > > This is very, very, VERY bad. > > > > indeed. is it safe to assume your machines are quite stable > > (memtest86-wise)? > > Yes. They run days and days without any errors. (S2466 motherboards > with single Athlon MP 2200+ processors, ECC enabled.) hmm. I don't think I've ever talked to anyone who had a cluster of AthlonMP's that they considered completely stable. at least not at the level of stability of clusters of Opterons, Xeons, etc. > just running two at a time in a couple of tries so total load > seems to matter, presumably on the master node, but maybe on > the switch? I'd be most surprised if the switch was implicated, simply because the 32K doesn't correspond well with switch behavior. > Every node logged these sorts of errors and the variation > looks like random scatter. Given the low rate (relatively speaking) > it is probably one event per file, and since the files are around > 1.3 Mb each, or about 40 blocks of 32k per mv, it seems like > the error rate per 32k block is 142/(1800*40) = .00197. not bad ;) seriously, I guess its also worth asking whether the 32K is aligned. > > does your > > server have DIRECT_IO enabled on NFS? > > CONFIG_NFS_DIRECTIO=y hmm. that was a "this is marked experimental and could be a race of some sort <vigorous handwaving>" sort of hmm. > > what kind of block device is it > > writing too, > > It's an IBM scsi disk going through the Adaptec controller > on the Tyan S2468UGN motherboard. Shows up as /dev/sde. > Not sure if that answers the question. that's fine - the driver/disk seems unlikley to just lose track of the occasional 32K chunk ;) > >and what filesystem for that matter? > ext2 OK, so 32K doesn't really match there, since ext2 tends to think in terms of 4k blocks. > > or have you already > > tried a different filesystem? > > No spare disk to build another filesystem on. I was mainly thinking ahead if you said xfs or reiserfs; the former has some larger-sized blocks, and the latter is something I don't really trust. I would definitely not rank ext2 as a high risk here. > Doesn't seem likely to be the file system since if it was > giving those error rates in normal writes that disk would be > swiss cheese by now. right, though this is a different load than you generate by other means, probably. > One last thing, one of these events was registered: > > Dec 3 14:52:10 safserver ifplugd(eth1)[1649]: Link beat lost. > Dec 3 14:52:11 safserver ifplugd(eth1)[1649]: Link beat detected. > > but it wouldn't explain all the errors because they were scattered > through the run time, and that took a lot longer than 1 second > to complete. > > Network is 100baseT through a DLINK DSS-24 switch. ouch! no jumbo frames then :( > cp /tmp/SAVELASTMEGABLAST.txt /tmp/TESTLAST.txt > mv /tmp/TESTLAST.txt ./TESTLAST.txt.$NODE > set `md5sum TESTLAST.txt.$NODE` > NEWMD=$1 > /bin/rm ./TESTLAST.txt.$NODE > if [ "$NEWMD" != "$HOLDMD" ] hmm. you're doing both the writes and reads from the slave node here. was that part of your original description? I'm wondering about bad writes vs bad reads. what happens if you run the md5sum on the master instead? in any case, I think I'd turn off DIRECT_IO first. it's an attractive feature, but it's easy to imagine how it might not quite work right, given the length of time nfs has been doing IO only to/from page cache. switching to a different wsize would be even easier. regards, mark hahn.


text:
Family Tree Maker 2011 - Program Updates
Service Pack 1 contains a number of user requested and reported updates and fixes.
The following fixes and updates are included in this service pack:
- General performance improvements throughout the program
- Performance improvements to Web merge
- Re-enabled right-click functionality in Web Search
- New option added to Options dialog to enable/disable enhancing merged images from Ancestry.com
- Resolved issue of media not being merge properly during Ancestry.com Web merge
- Resolved issue where user is unable to modify reference notes in Sources workspace
- And much more...
Click Here for a more detailed view of the enhancements and bug fixes included in this service pack.
- Connect to the Internet.
- Start Family Tree Maker 2011.
- You should receive a notification that an update is available. Click the "Update" button.
- Run the .exe file.
Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows 7 users may need to complete the following additional steps to auto-install the update:
- Close Family Tree Maker if it is open.
- Right-click the shortcut for Family Tree Maker 2011 and select "Run as administrator."
- You will be asked to confirm that FTM.exe should have rights to access the computer. Click "Allow."
- The notification that an update is available should appear at this time. If not, please complete the remaining steps listed below.
- Click the "Help" menu item at the top of the program.
- Click "Check for Updates…"
- The program will check for an update and notify you if one is available.
- If no notification is displayed then please do a manual install as described below
To manually install the service pack:
- Close Family Tree Maker
- Download the patch here (.zip) or (.exe)
- Unzip the file (if the .zip file is downloaded)
- Run the .exe file
To verify that the update worked do the following:
- Open Family Tree Maker 2011
- Click the "Help" menu item at the top of the program
- Click "About Family Tree Maker…"
- On the Product Information tab there is a version number. If the update was successful the version number will be 22.214.171.1246
- If no notification is displayed and your product version number is not 22.214.171.1246 then please do a manual install as described above
Copyright © 2010 by H R Worthington


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NEW YORK — Senator Charles Schumer of New York is calling on the cruise ship industry to adopt a ''bill of rights'' to guarantee passengers certain protections while aboard their ships.
The Democrat said on Sunday he'll ask industry leaders to voluntarily adopt the guidelines including guarantees that ships have sanitary conditions, back-up power, and medical staff.
Schumer's plan would also include the right to a full refund if a trip is abruptly canceled due to mechanical problems.
In the past two months at least three ships carrying US passengers experienced problems, including power failures.
The senator is also calling on the secretary of state to negotiate with countries that host cruise ships to adopt the bill of rights.


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•All classes running as normal. •NEW Beyond Beginner Ballroom & Latin courses Feb '24. MORE...
This course will be starting from Wednesday 10th Jan 2024. **Signing up now - Booking Below**
This is a special 5-week Ballroom & Latin course for adults taking place in Trowbridge at Wesley Road Club Ballroom, Trowbridge BA14 0AX from Wednesday 10th Jan 2024,
every Wednesday for 5 weeks from 7pm-7.50pm for 50 minutes. This course is especially for complete beginners with no or little prior dance experience and may be followed up with a beginners part two course at a later date.
This is a pre-paid course which costs £46.25 per person. All payments are non-refundable.
For those wishing to try a class before committing to our complete short courses, we accept a non-refunable deposit of £10 per person per class for the very first class you attend with us. You can then choose whether or not to continue and pay the remaining course fee balance prior to the next lesson.
We automatically provide free 12 month membership from the date of your first class (Which gives discounts for our private lessons). If you already hold membership, we will move the dates on accordingly.
You can book & pay now using our secure checkout for the pre-paid course. You must bring a partner to dance with and book together as we do not rotate partners during the class.
Don't forget to contact us and book your place first; please don't just turn up on the evening as we run a strict capacity for a good teaching ratio. Places are on a first-come, first-served basis, and if the class isn't already oversubscribed, you can join in any of the first two weeks of the course. Couples may wish to 'hop' classes to a parallel course running elsewhere in the same week if you cannot make your regular evening, subject to availability. Wear anything comfortable to dance in and any shoes that will stay on and aren't too heavy. Our Questions and Answers page gives a bit more information that might prove useful, or please free free to get in touch. You will also need to read and accept our Terms & Conditions here prior to joining.
Contact us via e-mail above for more information.
If you have already come along to the class as a trial, and wish to pay the remaining balance of the course fee, you can do so here using our secure Paypal checkout (even if you don't have or want a Paypal account).
The balance remaining for this course after the deposit is £ 72.50.


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Gediminas Grinius won silver at this year's 170 km (105 mile) Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc – UTMB, one of the world's premier ultra marathons. His secret? It's staying relaxed and finding his inner warrior.
Gediminas finding his inner samurai before an ultra marathon in Japan. © Gediminas Grinius
Lithuanian ultrarunner Gediminas Grinius is riding a high after an outstanding performance at UTMB in France. Winning silver tastes especially sweet because in last year's race he pulled out due to injury.
"Before this year's race I felt very good, the best shape ever," he says. "My preparation was excellent."
Here are Gediminas's tips for the different phases of an ultra marathon.
Race day morning
It's easy to feel pressure and stress before a race begins. It's important to do what you need to do to stay calm. The best way to do that is to stick to your routine, rather than adjusting it for others. I like to spend time with my family, just enjoying life, before a race begins.
© Gediminas Grinius
The start
The beginning of a race is often very fast and chaotic. Later in the race, many runners that started too fast are dead. It's important to be patient, to keep calm and follow your own pace. Don't try to keep up with other runners. The race is long so it's good to keep reserves for later. Now it's time to relax and enjoy the race.
It's also important to begin and maintain your nutrition routine, whether you measure it by aid stations or by time.
"Pain is temporary, glory lasts forever."
Settling in
As the race settles down, my plan is to stick to other runners, following their pace because together we're stronger. It helps me to feel stronger and I can push more from that place.
I'm not a good runner in the beginning. The first 30 or 40 km I'm warming up. After that I know how the race will be because I can feel how my body is reacting. If my body lets me go at a good pace, then I go with that. If it's not my day, then I go with that, and back off.
© Gediminas Grinius
The suffering
Eventually you reach a point when you are suffering. It's impossible to avoid. You know it's going to happen. You must be patient. I always remind myself, "pain is temporary and glory is forever". If you're suffering, remember it will pass.
When I'm struggling, I use a mental technique. For example, when I was in Japan competing in the Ultra-Trail Mt Fuji, I imagined I was a samurai warrior fighting bad guys. It's a kind of mental game to cope with difficulties. I visualise myself as different characters.
© Gediminas Grinius
"As a father, I remember I'm setting a good example to my children – to finish whatever you start."
Ending strong
During the final stage, I'm thinking about things that generate positive emotions. For example, I think about my family and how grateful I am they supported me during the long night of the race. It gives me some push and I can move faster. It's about cultivating good vibes. I know I will feel so much when I see them. As a father, I remember I'm setting a good example to my children – to finish whatever you start. My kids see how stubborn I am and that I do what I love. It's a good lesson for them.
Follow Gediminas's adventures on his Facebook page.
Other stories with Gediminas Grinius:
Tips for transitioning from road to trail
The Gediminas way of recovery
Main image: © Gediminas Grinius