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At Absolutely Barking we provide the very best service in a calm relaxing environment. The services we offer are tailored to suit your dog's needs and range from teeth brushing to our full grooming packages. If you aren't sure what all you would like done to your furry friend we are always happy to help and advise. At every visit we give your furry friend a basic health check, meaning we check for any debris in the coat, debris in the skin and any lumps or bumps around their body.
The following are the services offered. Click on each to find out more about them and also some guideline prices.
Puppy Grooming Introduction Sessions
Nervous or dogs with behavioural problems
Dog Pick up and Delivery Service
Full Groom
The Full Groom is our main package and your furry friend will get the following pampering
- Bathed in an all natural shampoo and if appropriate a conditioning wash also
- Clipped or styled to breed standards while respecting specific requests of the owner
- Teeth brushed
- Ears cleaned
- Nails clipped
- Finished off with one of our doggy colognes
Please note, styling is dependent on coat condition
|Dog Type
|Prices From
|West Highland Terrier, Schnauzer, Scottish Terrier, Fox Terrier, Small Terrier, Labrador (de shed treatment)/td>
|Shih Tzu, Lhasa Apso, Poodle, Pomeranian, Tibetan terrier, Cavalier King Charles, Bichon Frise
|Poodle, Bichon Frise, Collie, Cocker Spaniel, Springer Spaniel
|Golden Retriever, setter (irish, English, Gordon), Kerryblue, Wheaten terrier, Short hair German Shepard
|Rough Collie, Standard Poodle, long hair German Shepard, Japanese Akita
|Bouvier, Samoyed, Alaskan malamute
|Russian Black Terrier, Newfoundland, St Bernard
Bathing and Drying – Prices from £17
Get your dog smelling and looking great with our bathing and drying service. Your doggy will be pampered and washed in our purpose built bath using only natural shampoos to leave their coat looking and smelling great.
After the bath they will be towel dried to remove excess water before being dried using a drier specifically for dogs.
If your dog requires bathing in a medicated shampoo we are happy to carry this out for you.
Please note, price varies on breed, size, and length of coat
Sanitary Clips – Prices from £17
An ideal clip for longer haired dogs, this service removes hair from areas that can get smelly and dirty from urine and faeces. We can either completely shave the area or trim it making it easier to keep clean.
Nail Clipping – Prices from £8
An important part of dog's health which is often overlooked. Dog's nails will generally wear down naturally with regular walking on hard surfaces however sometimes they don't for many different reasons. This is where Absolutely Barking comes in. Rather than have an expensive vet visit, we can trim your dog's nails for a fraction of the price. When clipping dog's claws you have to be careful that they don't cut the kwik as it will bleed quite a lot. This is ideally best left to people who provide professional dog care services.
Dog's also have what is known a dew claw and these if left can curl under and grow back in on itself, untouched it will actually start to grow into the pad. This should be avoided and prevented at all costs.
Anal Gland Expressing – Add on Service – £3 with a full groom
Dogs have anal glands that produce a fluid and empty with bowel movements. Unfortunately it is not uncommon for them to not function correctly and become impacted which makes bowel movements difficult or painful and potentially lead to infections. If you become aware of your dog chewing on their back leg, biting at its behind or scooting along the ground on its bum these can be signs of impacted glands.
Absolutely Barking can express the anal glands to clear this problem.
Puppy Grooming Introduction Sessions
These packages are arranged to suit your individual puppy and will be priced accordingly. Some puppies are more acceptable to grooming than others and we at Absolutely Barking aim to make each trip as stress free and enjoyable to each puppy making every time not so scary for them and you.
Nervous or dogs with behavioural problems
Sometimes our pets just need a little bit of positive encouragement and this may take time. They need to learn to trust us and the environment they are in. As with puppies these packages are tailored around the individual dog, and some may need longer than others and will be priced accordingly.
Dog Pick up and Delivery Service
New for 2015, Absolutely Barking are pleased to announce we now offer a dog pick up and delivery service. If you dont have the means to get your dog to us, our specially equipped van will come to your home and collect your dog.
The van is kitted out with 4 cages for all sizes of dogs, solar powered air vents and rubber floors to ensure your dog is safe and comfortable on its journey to and from our salon.
The van is driven by our experienced staff meaning your dog is in good hands at all time by people who know dogs. They will also be able to discuss what way you would like your dog to be groomed when at the salon at the time of pick up.
*Please note this service incurs a charge, please phone to discuss. We cannot transport people along with their pets on this service.


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Division 12 - Property Damage and Environmental Pollution
The wilful and unlawful destruction, damage or defacement of public or private property or the pollution of property or a definable entity held in common by the community.
122 Environmental Pollution
Possessing any object with intent to destroy or damage property. These should be coded to Group 1314, Criminal Intent
Threats to damage or destroy property. These should be coded to Group 1613, Threatening Behaviour.
Subdivision 121 - Property Damage
The wilful and unlawful destruction, damage or defacement of property excluding pollution.
1212 Graffiti
1219 Property Damage, nec
Damage/kill flora/fauna
Rioters causing property damage
Tamper with a motor vehicle
Property damage to a structure where entry was unlawfully obtained. This is coded to Group 0711, Unlawful Entry with Intent/Burglary, Break and Enter
Property damage caused by fire or explosion
Property damage caused by the application of substances (e.g. paint, posters and/or plastic, metal or wood based compounds) to the surface of the property.
Graffiti/deface building
Bill posting
Property damage other than by fire or explosion.
Kill/injure cattle or other animals
Damage/obstruct mines
Tamper with a motor vehicle
Graffiti/ deface building. These are coded to Group 1212, Graffiti
Bill posting. This is coded to Group 1212, Graffiti
Subdivision 122 - Environmental Pollution
Actions leading to the polluting of property.
1222 Water Pollution Offences
1223 Noise Pollution Offences
1229 Environmental Pollution Offences, nec
Offences concerned with motor vehicle pollution. These are coded to Group 1422, Roadworthiness Offences
Offences involving breaches of environmental rules and regulations but not actually involving pollution. These are coded to Group 1691, Environmental Regulation Offences
Actions leading to the polluting of air.
Actions leading to the polluting of water utilities.
Actions leading to levels of noise exceeding government regulations.
Environmental pollution offences not elsewhere classified in Subdivision 122, Environmental Pollution.

subset: commoncrawl


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Planning the Portfolio, Part II: The Pitfalls
This is part two in a three-part series discussing the importance of portfolio planning. This series provides insights on portfolio management best practices in process, metrics and reporting.
When organizations set a budget they typically go through a process to essentially build lists of things that they need or would like to get accomplished during the budget cycle, assign a cost to that activity, and go through some prioritizing to get to the total assigned number. Whether you know or not, if this sounds like a process you have then you are executing a non-structured portfolio activity.
This old-school process has been successful for decades, but with today's pace of business and the impact of macro-environmental change, organizations need to build processes that are more responsive to that change.
Recognizing this, organizations are beginning to evolve and adopt portfolio concepts. However, these efforts tend to lag, mostly due to a focus on improving the prioritization process and fall into some classic pitfalls:
- "We're overworked." A tendency to focus on capacity first. Although I argue that capacity is one of the constraints in portfolio management, initiating planning exclusively to focus on managing capacity is froth with errors. Organizations focused exclusively on workload have a tendency manage resources at a micro level and that just isn't sustainable. I once had a client that when he moved his focus from matching capacity to demand and focused on the right things, the dialog changed and he became more connected to the business. Dialog between the organizations ensued that actually increased the quality of business outcomes.
- "Emotional" I call this prioritization without principles. Without a framework to evaluate an investment, it always ends up that the individual who screams the loudest, has the best presentation (sales skills), or was the last one in with the bosses won.
- "We've already spent the money." It's OK to hold or cancel and investment when change happens – It just makes good business sense. When an organization doesn't hold or cancel a project, when it's not the "right thing" and the investment resources are tied up in the wrong projects, that's a lost opportunity.
- "We don't revisit the evaluation criteria." This is the one that really frustrates me. Just because it worked three years ago doesn't mean the criteria is still valid. In reality this criteria not only reflects current business climate, it also represents the decisions we made in the past. Good governance always validates the criteria before anything in the portfolio.
- Lack of Investment Selection Cycles. Once a year (budget time) really is no longer valid. An organization needs to match their investment selection cycles with the velocity of their executing projects. In other words, if the majority of your projects are short term, then more frequent cycles are required. If, however, the majority of your projects are multi-year then a minimum of four times a year should be sufficient to just validate the investment outcomes are still desirable.
- No Formal Investment Governance. Governance provides transparency. We now know (during the recent economic crisis) without proper transparency, investment chaos ensues.
- Everything in the Same Bucket. If we only work on the highest priority projects, then quality/value of lesser priority assets will erode to a point of being a liability to the organization. Having a well thought out diversified project portfolio insures that organization remains healthy.
Non-structured portfolio activity is unavoidable, but knowing what to expect and understanding the potential pitfalls related to portfolio planning will help you plan for and address them in advance, keeping your portfolios on track—and saving valuable time and resources.
In Part III of Portfolio Planning, I will demonstrate the portfolio lifecycle and the key characteristics of the framework.


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So here we are at the end of September. I don't know about you, but for me, September is always a nightmare. Here's something that I hear all the time: "the kids are back to school, we're getting into a routine, things feel a little easier but omg. I can't believe I have to pack lunches every.single.day."
Yeah, I get it. Lunches don't pack themselves, and it can feel like a chore. I designed the LaLa Lunchbox app to make that chore easier for parents (more about that here) but I also understand that some parents don't want to get kids involved in the lunch packing process. Handing over the reins doesn't mean you let your kid choose from everything under the sun. With the app, there's still division of responsibility; parents control what's available and kids choose from that selection. But of course, there isn't one way to pack school lunch and the world is big enough for all of us.
Over on The feedfeed, I'm curating the school lunch feed designed to inspire all types of lunch packers. Below is a little sneak peak of what's new there... Hop on over, check it out and share with your fellow lunch packers! We're all in this together.
Don't forget to follow along on Instagram where I share lunches and other food adventures daily.


text: Actress Eva Longoria has finally addressed her new romance with Penelope Cruzs younger brother Eduardo, insisting shes very lucky to have met him. The Desperate Housewives star, 36, has been linked to 26-year-old Eduardo Cruz for much of 2011 - following her divorce from basketball player Tony Parker in January, and the couple has been photographed together on multiple occasions ever since. But Longoria has only now confirmed their relationship in the new Spanish edition of Vanity Fair magazine. The Latina beauty admits she feels blessed to have Cruz in her life after the turmoil of her failed marriage to Parker. She tells the publication, Love did not work with that person (Parker). But it can work with another. The only thing I will say is I was very lucky to find Edu (Cruz). And Longoria is adamant she holds no hard feelings towards Parker for the way their marriage unravelled, because she still believes in love. She adds, Theres a reason I fell in love and got married. I believed in it. Supposedly I should be angry, resentful and disillusioned about relationships. But Im not. Neither Longoria nor Parker have spoken about their reasons for the marriage split. ON


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Time Waster : cubo.cc
Remember the pair of eyes on the screen that followed the mouse pointer? This is a more advanced version of the same thing except that this is a actual face, well one thing the effects/expressions are nice check it here http://cubo.cc
3 Responses
this is amazing dude…. i guess we r on the verge of conquering one of the final frontiers in our effort to create an interactive,human-like,configurable, limitless learning skill wala artificial lady.(note:can be a man too.).
-the face, facial expressions, n emotions as can be conveyed thru body language depicted graphically without any limits, except those that r imposed by the muscle structure of the artificial face in question.
note: once the face can respond to any stimulus will it really be that hard to teach it n program it 4 emotions?
….i dont think so.altho, ur views on the last point will be sincerely looked forward to.
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation 🙂 Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Enumerative
Your site ranks really high in google.au, just thought i'de drop in and say greetings from down under


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FUJINON weather-resistant long zoom lens with Optical Image Stabilisation for Fujifilm X Mount (design tentative)
Conns Cameras is a family-run business established by Phil Conn in 1968. Bob and Mike Conn together with an excellent team of knowledgeable and helpful staff can guide you through the maze of new technology.
We sell only certified European stock, not grey imports. As well as dealing directly with each brand we stock, or their European distributor, we are a certified professional / premier dealer for Canon, Fuji, Leica, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic and Sony. We also deal directly with the best authorised repair centres for each brand.
Plus we offer unrivalled extra back-up and support services over and above the standard manufacturer's warranty you will receive from other retailers.
Orders are generally dealt with as soon as they are received.
Parcels are picked up from us in the early afternoon, and orders before 2pm will normally be shipped for delivery within Ireland the next working day (delivery to Britain is normally two working days). Please call us on 01-6777179 if you need an item urgently to confirm we can get it packed before the respective courier picks-up.
more details...
Items ordered directly from the website or by phone are covered by a 14 day cooling off period (under EU Distance Selling regulations) within which you may cancel the item and receive a full refund. If the item has already been dispatched then you are under obligation to return it at your own liability for the cancellation to stand, and you refund will be less our shipping costs. Orders made in person are not covered by any such statutory cooling off period.
To deliver the best image quality in its class, this luxurious telephoto zoom uses an optical construction comprising 23 glass elements in 16 groups, with five ED lens elements and one Super ED lens element comparable to a fluorite lens. This maximizes the reduction of chromatic aberrations and delivers high resolving power.
Applying Fujifilm's unique HT-EBC (High Transmittance Electron Beam Coating) to the entire area of the lens surface ensures ghosting and flare are controlled for sharp, clear images. Also, using the newly developed Nano-GI (Gradient Index) coating technology, which alters the refractive index between glass and air, ghosting and flare are effectively reduced for diagonal incident light.
Like other XF lenses, seven rounded aperture blades create a smooth, circular bokeh. An optical design has been used to produce beautiful bokeh at both front and back.
An inner zooming mechanism means the lens does not change length so the lens' balance remains the same throughout the zoom range.
By combining this lens with an X Series camera body* with Lens Modulation Optimizer** (LMO) technology, the performance from the lens is improved even further. LMO corrects for diffraction*** to produce images with edge-to-edge sharpness and create a realistic three-dimensional effect, even at small apertures.
An Inner Focusing System*4 is used for high-speed AF. By reducing the weight of the focus lens and mounting the Triple Linear Motor at intervals of 120°, high-speed, quiet AF is possible.
Faster AF is possible when by combining this lens with an X Series camera body offering Phase Detection AF. Combined with the near-silent shutter sound, photos can be taken unnoticed in quiet locations.
As AF operates using a signal from the imaging sensor, extremely high-precision focusing is possible.
With a minimum working distance of 1m for the entire zoom range, this lens is also great for close ups.
Thanks to a high-performance gyro sensor and unique algorithm that cancels drift due to temperature changes, the FUJINON LENS XF50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR delivers the best image stabilization performance in its class. Combined with a bright F2.8 aperture, handholding is now possible in new areas for a telephoto zoom.
By applying seals to each portion of the barrel, the lens is weather-resistant, dust-resistant and -10°C low-temperature operation, making it the perfect companion for the FUJIFILM X-T1, which has the same levels of protection.
Both the focus and aperture rings are metal, plus metal is also used on the exterior of the lens body for a high-quality finish. Thanks to long-term experience and broaden know-how for other top-end professional lens fields such as Broadcasting and CinemaScope, the texture and torque on the rings makes for comfortable shooting. The lens mount is made from brass for improved strength.
Combined with a camera body, the lens is approximately 60% of the weight of a full-size system*5, considerably reducing the burden on the photographer.
The AF+MF function enables seamless manual focusing. After pressing the shutter to autofocus on the subject, fine adjustments can then be made using the manual focus ring.
|XF50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR
|Lens construction
|23 elements in 16 groups (includes 5 extra low dispersion elements and 1 super extra low dispersion element)
|Focal length
|f=50-140mm (76-213mm)
|Angle of view
|31.7° - 11.6°
|Max. aperture
|Min. aperture
|Aperture control
|Number of blades : 7 (rounded diaphragm opening)Step size : 1/3EV (19 steps)
|Focus range
|Normal 1m - ? (whole zoom position) Macro 1m - 3m (whole zoom position)
|Max. magnification
|0.12x (Telephoto)
|External dimensions
|ø82.9mm x 175.9mm (Wide / Telephoto)
|995g - excluding lens caps and hoods
|Filter size
Just one thing - you need to be signed into an account to create and add items to your wishlist.
If you are an existing customer, please click the link below to loginLogin
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If you are an existing customer, please click the link below to loginLogin
When you set up a user account with our website, the order process is quicker and you can enjoy the many functions of your account, including your wishlist. With your customer account, you can also check the status of your order, and much more.Register Now


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Dawn over the fells from Great End background
Stood on the summit of Great End before 4:30am waiting for dawn, this was the view looking north-east towards the rising sun: the ridges of Lake District fells coloured blue in the pre-dawn light.
In the foreground the slopes of Glaramara lead down to Borrowdale, beyond which the High Seat ridge separates Watendlath from the Thirlmere Valley. And in the background a misty Eden Valley can be seen in the gap between the slopes of Blencathra and Clough Head.
The full story of this night out is told in a blog entry about wild camping on Great End.


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As I showed last time, you can use the Conversation service visual Dialog Builder to create your conversation flow using the Intents and Entities you define. But what if you have a very large conversation you are trying to model? Let's say hundreds, or maybe thousands of potential questions that the user can ask with various different ways to ask the same question. Trying to model that with the visual Dialog Builder without errors would be quite a challenge. So in this blog post, I'm going to show you how to automate the creation of your dialog flow programmatically without needing a person to create the flow visually.
In order to demonstrate this capability, I am going to use a currently undocumented method. The Conversation service definition (all your Intents, Entities, and Dialog flow in a Workspace) are exportable in JSON format. Similarly, you can also take a previously exported JSON Conversation definition and import it into a new Workspace to create an instance of that definition. While the import/export function is documented in the official APIs, the details of that JSON format are not (at least not yet, it is anticipated that it will be at some point). In this post, I am going to leverage this capability to show how you can programmatically create this JSON format of a Conversation Workspace to import and create your Conversation instance. Doing it this automated way will reduce time to create your Dialog flow, as well as reduce errors, and make it a repeatable process for testing purposes, especially when we are talking about scaling to hundreds or thousands of Dialog entries.
For this demo, I'm going to keep the Dialog flow relatively simple and just concentrate on an Conversation app that will mimic a Question and Answer forum where the Dialog flow is only limited to a depth of one. This means, in this case I don't have to concern myself with defining Entities, but instead create a series of Intents with sample user input that represent the questions, and map that directly to the expected answer. In Watson terms, this represents our ground truth which is the gold standard for the learning algorithm in what the answer should be for a set of questions.
In order to create the ground truth, I need to define a corpus (all the questions, and their resulting answer) in a way that it can be programmatic read to build our Conversation model. Keeping things simple for this demo, I will go ahead and define the corpus in a CSV (Comma Separate Value) file which for each row will contain in the first column the answer, and the remaining columns the various ways of asking the question. Doing it this way will allow me to enter this information using any one of my favorite spreadsheet editors (e.g. OpenOffice) and export the contents to a CSV which has the added benefit of automatically encoding special characters so they can be imported directly to create a valid JSON document. For example, the corpus would take the format:
Where A.N is the answer to questions Q.N-M. For example:
A.1 = On target earnings is a term often seen in job advertisements. The typical pay structure may be composed...
Q.1-1 = What is on target earnings?
Q.1-2 = What is target earnings?
Q.1-3 = What are the elements of on target earnings?
Q.1-4 = How is on target earnings calculated?
Q.1-5 = Is on target earnings part of a reference salary?
This is just a very small sampling of questions, a more typical example would have many more to more accurately train Watson.
Once the corpus is defined, I need to build the JSON definition for the Conversation Workspace based on this corpus. So first, let's look at what this JSON format looks like. To obtain one, just go to a Conversation Workspace instance that you have previously created and select the menu item to export as shown:
Here is an example downloaded JSON format. Note that I've beautified the output using a simple online tool ( http://jsonprettyprint.com ) as well as color coded it to highlight 4 distinct parts of the JSON that I will explain below. I also removed some text that was repetitive in terms of the explanation and replace it with "..." to make the size of this example manageable. Lastly, I inserted the corpus elements (questions and answer) in how I intend to model this Q&A model and will explain that below. Note, if you are unfamiliar with some of the sections and terms in use here, please go back to the original blog post I mentioned above to first become familiar with the Conversation service.
"workspace_id": "fede7b10-f035-44d8-9fcd-80cddbcf08db"
"name": "Workspace Test Name",
"description": "Workspace Test Description",
"language": "en",
"metadata": null,"created": "2016-08-16T02:10:04.048Z",
"created_by": null,
"modified": "2016-08-16T02:10:04.048Z","modified_by": null,
"intents": [
"intent": "my_intent_0",
"created": "2016-08-16T02:10:04.048Z",
"description": null,
"examples": [
"text": "Q.1-1",
"created": "2016-08-16T02:10:04.048Z"
"text": "Q.1-2",
"created": "2016-08-16T02:10:04.048Z"
"intent": "my_intent_1",
"entities": [
"dialog_nodes": [
"go_to": null,
"output": {
"text": "A-1",
"parent": null,
"context": null,
"created": "2016-08-16T02:10:04.048Z"
"metadata": null,
"conditions": "#my_intent_0",
"description": null,
"dialog_node": "node_1_1471313404048,
"previous_sibling": null
The first section (highlighted in green) is the general information regarding the Workspace definition. Keep in mind, depending on how you set up your instance, the values might be different. In this case, the fields that we are most interested in are "workspace_id", "name", "description", and "language". These are pretty self explanatory, where the "workspace_id" is a Universal Unique Identifier (UUID).
The second section (highlighted in blue) defines all the Intents for this Workspace. This section of the JSON contains an array containing each intent. For each intent, there is an intent "name", "created" date and "description" (that I didn't use). Then there is an array of "examples" for each intent. Remembering how I defined the corpus, I can map the questions the user might ask for a particular answer each as an "example" under the parent intent. In this example you can see I used the symbols (i.e. "Q.1-1") but in the real example this is the actual text the user would say.
The third section (highlighted in red) defines all the Entities for this Workspace. Since I previously said that this Q&A example was not going to model a back and forth dialog for this particular demo with synonyms for objects, I don't need to use entities and thus this section is blank. If you did use entities, it would be modeled very similar to how the intents are modeled except using the synonyms instead of examples. So we can ignore this section for the remainder of this demonstration.
The fourth section (highlighted in yellow) defines all the Dialog nodes that you would normally model in the visual Dialog Builder. There is an array that contains for each element a definition of a node. For this example, the most important attributes to worry about are "output", "conditions", "dialog_node" and "previous_sibling". The "output" attribute defines a child "text" attribute that contains the text output that Watson would say for this particular node. Going back to how we modeled our corpus, this would be an answer (i.e. A-1) for a set of questions. In order to map this answer to the original questions defined by the intents, I need to set the "conditions" attribute. In this case, our condition is simply our intent name that then maps our questions directly to the ground truth answer. Lastly, there are two attributes "dialog_node" and "previous_sibling" which need to be defined correctly. For "dialog_node" this is a name that starts with the prefix "node_" and then has a count number (1-N) for each node defined, followed by a time stamp (milliseconds from 1970). For "previous_sibling", this points back to the name of the node previously defined at this depth of the node tree branch. In the example above, it shows null because this is the first node at that branch, but this would point to the previous sibling node for any subsequent nodes.
So now that I have defined the Q&A corpus model, and explained how we intend to insert that information in the JSON definition for a Conversation Workspace instance, I will turn attention to how we code up this solution in a generic way. I've decided to use Node.js because it will allow me to quickly create a CLI (Command Line Interface) tool that I can publicly share on npmjs.org. This CLI will import the CSV corpus file, create the required Conversation JSON object based on that corpus, and export it to a JSON file that can be imported into a Conversation Workspace. I will also set up the project so that the source code is available on GitHub.
So I start by picking a Node.js npm name for this project (e.g. bluemix-watson-conversation). You can use the following command to test to see if it's already in use:
$ npm view bluemix-watson-conversation
npm ERR! 404 'bluemix-watson-conversation' is not in the npm registry.
$ mkdir bluemix-watson-converation
$ cd bluemix-watson-conversation
$ npm init
This will ask you a series of questions, most of which are self explanatory, or you can take the defaults for. If you will be managing your code in GitHub source control as I do, you will need to create a new Git repository for your project, and then provide the "git repository" information when prompted so it can be included in your project descriptor.
The result of this command and questions will be a new directory for your Node.js project containing the package.json descriptor for your project. Assuming you took the default index.js file for your main project code file, you will need to create this empty file in your directory first which will be where all the following code I demonstrate will go.
So let's think a bit again about our CSV corpus model and the resulting Conversation JSON format. The modeling of these two artifacts are different in how the Questions and Answers are exposed in each document. In the CSV, the resulting answer and the possible questions are all contained in each row of the spreadsheet. However, in the JSON document, these elements are broken apart across the two different sections "intents" (for the questions) and "dialog_nodes" (for the answers) with the dependency established using the "conditions" attribute in the "dialog_node" as intent name reference. With that in mind, I will structure the code so that we can build our JSON document in one pass through without having to create an in between in-memory model to build that linkage. Here is the outline of the code:
module.exports = function() {
function buildDialog( ... ) { ... }
function buildWorkspace( ... ) { ... )
function promptUserForInput(action) { ... }
function main() {
promptUserForInput(function() {
In this incomplete code snippet, I define the basic structure for our Node.js code.
- First, I will list the Node.js module dependencies that will be used.
- Second, I export the function so that anyone downloading this module will be able to run the CLI tool.
- Third, I have a place holder section for constants I will define that will represent the default values for various inputs that I might want the user of the tool to customize.
- Fourth, I define 2 functions. The first function buildDialog will be used to build the sections of JSON responsible for defining our dialog nodes. The second function buildWorkspace will be used to build the overall JSON document, calling out to buildDialog where necessary to build those sections.
- Fifth, is a function promptUserForInput which will be used to allow the CLI to get input from the user to customize the generation of the output JSON.
- Lastly, is the main function that the module exports and will first prompt the user for input, and then call the building of the Workspace function.
It's always best to reuse code, rather then build from scratch, so I chose a couple existing Node.js modules ( http://npmjs.org ) to help me build this program. First, fs which is the standard Node.js module for interacting with the file system. Second, csv-parse which is a module that can be used to parse our input CSV to ultimately create our JSON output. Third, prompt which is a slick module for gathering input from the user for our CLI tool. So in order to create these dependencies, first we need to install them locally as well as add those dependencies to our project descriptor package.json with the following commands inside our project directory:
$ npm install fs --save
$ npm install csv-parse --save
$ npm install prompt --save
Now I need to add those dependencies to the very top of our code index.js file:
var fs = require('fs');
var csv = require('csv-parse');
var prompt = require('prompt');
Next I will define the constants that the code will use placing these right under the //CONSTANTS comment:
var FILE_CSV_INPUT = './corpus.csv';
var FILE_JSON_OUTPUT = './output.json';
var WORKSPACE_ID = 'fede7b10-f035-44d8-9fcd-80cddbcf08db';
var WORKSPACE_NAME = 'Workspace Test Name';
var WORKSPACE_DESC = 'Workspace Test Description';
var WORKSPACE_LANG = 'en';
var WORKSPACE_ANYTHING_ELSE = 'I do not understand what you are asking.';
var WORKSPACE_INTENT_NAME = 'my_intent';
var WORKSPACE_DATE = new Date();
var WORKSPACE_DATE_JSON = WORKSPACE_DATE.toJSON();
The constants are defined as follows:
- The first 2 constants starting with FILE_ are used to designate the input corpus CSV file to use, and the output JSON file to generate.
- The next 4 constants WORKSPACE_<ID, NAME, DESC, LANG> are pretty self explanatory, but note that the UUID used for the ID is arbitrary as it will be replaced on import.
- The constant WORKSPACE_ANYTHING_ELSE will be used to define a dialog node text to generically respond if none of the corpus questions are recognized and matched.
- The constant WORKSPACE_INTENT_NAME will be used as the prefix for our intent names in the JSON.
- Lastly, the two WORKSPACE_DATE constants are used to populate dates in the JSON document as we build it in the code.
Now I will write the code for how to modify these default constants to customize the CLI using the prompt module. It would be repetitive to do this for each constant shown above, so I will just show one here in the promptUserForInput function. For more details on how to use the prompt module, see it's accompanying documentation ( https://www.npmjs.com/package/prompt ).
function promptUserForInput(action) {
var promptSchema = {
properties: {
fileInput: {
description: 'Enter the File Input (CSV Corpus)',
pattern: /^[a-zA-Z0-9\_\.\/]+$/,
message: 'CSV file name must be a valid file name.',
required: true,
default: FILE_CSV_INPUT
// Prompt user with defaults, then override with input from user.
prompt.get(promptSchema, function (err, result) {
FILE_CSV_INPUT = result.fileInput;
First thing I do is create the schema for the prompts we want for each constant setting the default value for the prompt to what we already defined as the default value in the code. Notice that for each prompt you can provide validation using a regular expression which is very flexible and useful for providing fool proof user prompts.
After all prompts have been defined, I call the start method to start the module and the get method to prompt the user for input on the command line for each prompt defined in the schema.
Lastly, I set the constant variables to the input from the user and when all variables are set, I call the provided action function that was passed in to kick off the creation of the JSON object.
The next step is to build the heart of the code in the buildWorkspace function which is defined to take the CSV file name as input. This is a lot of code with string manipulation to create the JSON which I will describe in more detail below. It also uses a few helper functions that I leave out of this code snippet to reduce the size (the complete code can be downloaded at the links at the end of the article).
function buildWorkspace(csvFile) {
var parser = csv({delimiter: ','}, function(err, data) {
var intents = '[', dialogs = '[';
var nodeName = null, nodeNamePrev = null;
var i = 0;
for (; i < data.length; i++) {
var intentName = WORKSPACE_INTENT_NAME + '_' + i;
var intent =
'{"intent":"' + intentName + '",' +
'"created":"' + WORKSPACE_DATE_JSON + '",' +
var answer = '', questions = '[';
for (j = 0; j < data[i].length; j++) {
if (data[i][j]) {
if (j == 0) {
answer = data[i][j];
else {
questions +=
'{"text":"' + data[i][j] +
'","created":"' + WORKSPACE_DATE_JSON + '"},';
questions = removeComma(questions) + ']';
intent += '"examples":' + questions + '}';
intents += intent + ',';
nodeNamePrev = nodeName;
nodeName = createNodeName(i);
dialogs += buildDialog('#' + intentName, nodeName, nodeNamePrev, answer)
+ ',';
intents = removeComma(intents) + ']';
dialogs += buildDialog(
'anything_else', createNodeName(i), nodeName, WORKSPACE_ANYTHING_ELSE)
+ ']';
var workspace =
'{"name":"' + WORKSPACE_NAME + '",' +
'"created":"' + WORKSPACE_DATE_JSON + '",' +
'"intents":' + intents + ',' +
'"entities": [],' +
'"language":"' + WORKSPACE_LANG + '",' +
'"metadata":null,' +
'"modified":"' + WORKSPACE_DATE_JSON + '",' +
'"created_by":null,' +
'"description":"' + WORKSPACE_DESC + '",' +
'"modified_by":null,' +
'"dialog_nodes":' + dialogs + ',' +
'"workspace_id":"' + WORKSPACE_ID + '"}';
fs.writeFile(FILE_JSON_OUTPUT, workspace, function (err) {
if (err) {
return console.log(err);
console.log('Worksplace JSON file saved to "' + FILE_JSON_OUTPUT + '".');
Let me break this down a bit:
- First I use the csv Node.js module to parse the CSV resulting in a data object 2x2 array containing the columns and rows of the input spreadsheet.
- Next I use a for loop to go through each row of this CSV (remember a row represents the answer followed by a list of potential questions).
- Within each pass of this for loop is another loop to iterate through each column entry in the row until there are no more questions (there might be blank entries depending on the amount of questions, so we ignore those).
- For the inner loop I extract the questions from the CSV that will be used to create the child "examples" attribute that will be contained in the "intent" attribute of the JSON object.
- For the outer loop I create the "intents" JSON attribute which contains all the intents and their examples (questions). For each pass, I also build up the dialog nodes definitions that will be needed later. I use the helper function buildDialog passing the intent name (used as the "condition"), along with the node name, previous node name and the answer text.
- After the loops are completed, I do one more call to buildDialog to generate the "anything else" condition node that will be selected if Watson can't find a matching answer to a question asked.
- And lastly I build the overall Workspace JSON inserting the "intents" and "dialog_nodes" that I created in the for loop passes and save that resulting JSON object representing the Conversation Workspace to the local file.
Lastly, I define the creation of the dialog JSON representing a dialog node:
function buildDialog(conditions, nodeName, nodeNamePrev, textOutput) {
return dialogJSON =
'{"go_to":null,' +
'"output":{"text":"' + textOutput + '"},'+
'"parent":null,' +
'"context":null,' +
'"created":"' + WORKSPACE_DATE_JSON + '",' +
'"metadata":null,' +
'"conditions":"' + conditions + '",' +
'"description":null,' +
'"dialog_node":"' + nodeName + '",' +
'"previous_sibling":' +
(nodeNamePrev ? '"' + nodeNamePrev + '"' : null) + '}';
And that's it! This code will now take as input our CSV corpus file, ask the user a series of questions to customize the output, and then generate our Conversation Workspace JSON file that can be imported into a new, empty Workspace you create on Bluemix. Just select import as shown below:
You can run the CLI with the following command inside your project directory:
$ node
$ > var run = require('./index.js');
$ > run();
Before I finish this blog post, let me show you how to publish this new CLI tool as a module on http://npmjs.org as a module you can share, as well as check in the code to source control.
If you are a new user to npm, you first need to create your account:
$ npm adduser <your username>
Now we can check in the code and publish it with the following commands:
$ git add package.json index.js
$ git commit -m "Check in 1.0.0"
$ npm version 1.0.0
$ git push && git push --tags
$ npm publish
That's it, now all the world can see and download your work! You can download the full code for this project from my GitHub repository here:
And download the Node.js module here and include it in your own projects as a required module:
To try it out locally:
$ node install bluemix-watson-conversation
$ node
$ > var run = require('bluemix-watson-conversation');
$ > run();


text:
Pellegrini: I wanted to spice up press conference
More To Watch
The Chilean was in a jovial mood ahead of the game, claiming he made his Monday announcement to spice up an otherwise dull press conference!
The revelation that Pellegrini is to move on in the summer is now a done and dusted issue as far as he is concerned though, with Leicester the only focus.
Pellegrini confirmed a lengthy absentee list, but there was brighter news on the injury front with Vincent Kompany and Eliaquim Mangala closing on returns.
Watch the video above for more pre-match thoughts.


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I was just thinking about this the other day… and I am still giggling about it. Sometimes, I think – technology sneaks up on us and ends up smacking some of us across the head with a big stick. When I had my babies (the last one almost 7 years ago! EEEK), we had the good old fashioned "wristband" security. The nurses wouldn't give the baby to anyone that didn't have a matching wristband. It seemed to work ok… I mean, you never saw a huge plethora of baby snatchings from hospitals on the news. Nowadays though, these little newborns have sensor tags ziptied to their brand new wrinkly selves – and when grandma takes the whiny infant for a bounce down the hall, they end up locking down the entire hospital with a "CODE PINK". While we were in Clinicals on Friday, this happened not once – but TWICE – in the six hours I was there. I was told by my instructors that if a code pink is ever called while we are on shift, we are supposed to head straight to the exit doors on our floor and watch for the bad baby snatchers. When this first code pink was called…. all of us first semester nursing students stood there with this aghast look of "OMG A CHILD ABDUCTION" on our faces, but the nurses on our floor had not a single change in demeanor. In fact, not one of them went to an exit door to look for the perp. I guess logic had the best of them – after all, we were on the fourth floor and L&D is down on the second floor – so odds are a babysnatcher would run down and out, not up. When the alarm rang again only a few hours later, it became apparent to all of us that Code Pinks might just be a giant pain in our collective asses.
Grandma! Put down the baby! You can't take him down to the cafeteria anymore! It's 2010!


text:
It has always bummed me out that we're forced into having such a fixed idea of how to celebrate Valentine's Day. Yes, yes, it's for lovers - and we plan to wine and dine lovers of all ages with a superb menu on February 14th - but why waste an opportunity to spread the wealth a little? As millions are gathering today to peacefully try and find common ground based on fairness, it's a good time to remember that to celebrate love in all the many forms it comes to us... is to honor life.
Because there are so many kinds of love, other than romantic, that awe, confound, excite, and humanize us. That keep us going. The picture above of Lukka and his just born niece, Loulou, is that rare thing, love at first sight. I believe in love at first sight - my daughter Isabel was born on a Valentine's Day, fathered by a man I fell instantly in love with - a love that's still going strong 30 years on. It happens. But spontaneous love of any duration is the rarity. Love can come in all shapes and sizes. Be for a person or a calling, someone or something we truly believe in. It takes patience, and respect, to keep it going. It's mark is indelible; the greatest self fulfilling prophecy we have.
Here are five enduring reasons that make life worth living around here, all year, not just on Feb. 14. Write a list of your own, then get out there, and grow it.
#1 Loving Fathers (Uncles and Grandads!)
#2 Farmers who give a damn
#3 Chefs who give a damn
#4 Animal Love
#5 The delicious art of eating the view
All images Jil Hales, with the exception of Big Dream Ranch produce, courtesy Kristee Rosendahl. Graphic design by Kirsten Petrie.


text:
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text:
I'm so glad you followed the breadcrumbs to find my virtual home.
Because if you're here, it means that you – like me – know that your gorgeous life is a grand production…and it's time to step into your starring role. It means you're ready. It means you want to use your life and gifts to instigate change and instill joy.
And oh, I want that too. For you.
So that's what I do: I coach, provoke, encourage, inspire, support. You. To clarity, action, achievement, and joy. (Because life can and MUST be joyful. It's our divine imperative.)
I speak about the same. Most recently at TEDx Women.
And to help you practice joy and live your most radiant life, here's what I've created and collected for you:
If you're thirsty for an intoxicating brew of dreaming + doing, my blog is a heady – and free – cocktail of change-making resources, reflections, tips and techniques (Do drink deeply, often. Signing up to receive posts ensures you miss nothing.)
While you're there, I'd love it if you checked out some of my most popular pieces, like: You are not alone. Not by a long shot;Your people; Beautiful Feathers; Waiting for Your Big Break may Break You; The Finish Line; Have it be Easy; Your People; It's all relative…
If you are like the rest of us high-functioning achievers, I'm willing to bet you've felt the sting of the Impostor Complex. Sign up for my posts and download my 12 Lies of the Impostor Complex (and One Truth) and let's get it gone, so you can be free to be the leader that you are.
If you could use some perspective on how you're showing up in the world, download my Yum + Yay Goodness. It's a quick, powerful, meaningful, and beautiful exercise.
If you want to move into your magnificence by channeling – and living – joy, download The Joy Pages. It's my practical guide to the good life, now.
Perhaps you're here because you've heard tell of Board of Your Life. Yeah…it's pretty magical what happens when you combine coaching, brainstorming, intention, and people you love and respect. Soul fireworks, really, for everyone.
Maybe you have a group of people you love and want to inspire into their greatness. Yes, yes, yes…me too. Contact me to speak.
And then, after you've learned a lil' sumthin' sumthin' about me and my approach, we can get to work, with a Clarity Session (often called divining rods) or one-on-one coaching. And we will.get.it.done. If you'd love to get to where you want to go with the support of a powerful group of women, then I reckon my Step into Your Starring Role program is for you. Sign up here to find out when next we'll be rolling out the red carpet.
Above all, please get in touch with me:: I'd adore the opportunity to get to know you and find a way for us to work together. You can talk to me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and of course by e-mail.


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We provide top-quality education for your investment, and a warm, caring, family-like environment. Students at Clover Park Technical College can earn an Associate Degree, transferable degree or a variety of professional certificates. Clover Park Technical College agreements with other colleges and universities provide ways for students to get real-world work experience while they are preparing for work or earning a four-year college degree. Clover Park Technical College graduates are highly regarded by employers because they know how to apply their skills and knowledge to their work. The "Learn by Doing" educational philosophy at Clover Park Technical College helps students prepare for their professional careers.
International Admissions
Follow these easy steps to become an international student at CPTC:
- Fill out an admissions application and submit with the following documents:
a) Bank statement(s) showing sufficient funds available for the first year of your studies. The cost of studies varies by the program. Please contact us for more information.
b) Other supporting documents (see the application packet cover page for the list of required documents).
c) Enclose the $50.00 (USD) non-refundable application fee, which you can pay with bank check, money order or credit card payment with authorized signature.
d) A small color photo of your headshot.
e) A short essay about you and your education & career goals.
You can submit your completed application and documents by e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com, mail the originals to 4500 Steilacoom Blvd SW, Lakewood, WA, 98499 U.S.A. or fax it to us at 253-589-6056.
English Proficiency Requirement
- TOEFL iBT61/PBT500/CBT173 or higher.
- IELTS overall band score 5.5 or higher with no band score lower than 5.0.
(Please request your test scores to be sent to us directly from ETS or IELTS. Some programs may require higher test scores. Please contact international program office staff for more details.)
- No TOEFL/IELTS is required for admission if you completed the highest level of ESL program at accredited U.S. schools.
Coming Soon! English Language Training at CPTC
Intensive English Program and ESL Pathway Program are expected to start in 2019. No TOEFL/IELTS score is required for admission if you apply for our Intensive English Program. Successful completion of the ESL Pathway Program guarantees admission into one of many professional technical programs offered at CPTC. Please visit this Webpage regularly for updates or contact the International Education Programs at email@example.com for more information.
Release of Information
For your protection and because of U.S. Privacy Act considerations, we ask that you sign a Release of Information statement prior to Release of personal information to third parties.
International Transfer Students
If you're currently attending another U.S. college and want to transfer to CPTC, you will need to:
- Submit a CPTC international education application, following the instructions above and including the $50 fee.
- Submit your transcripts. You'll need to request your official transcripts from any current or past colleges and have them sent directly to the CPTC International Education Office.
- Submit copies of your I-20, I-94 and the visa page of your passport.
- Submit a Transfer Eligibility Verification Form. This form must be completed by the adviser (DSO) at your current institution.
About Clover Park Technical College
CPTC is located south of Seattle, only 40 minutes from the Seattle-Tacoma airport in the city of Lakewood. We look forward to welcoming you to our friendly and safe campus. We're ready to help you every step of the way, from the time you apply to the time you graduate. We offer airport pickup, housing assistance and personal attention with helping you settle in.
Housing Options
Homestay: If you need a host family, please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com you submit your application. We will send you the information on how to apply for homestay.
Apartment Living: There are many private apartments within walking distance of the college. If you choose to live in an apartment, you will need to rent or buy your own furniture, cook your own meals and pay for phone and electricity. Private one-bedroom apartments cost around $500 a month, while private two-bedroom apartments cost $600 or more, depending on size, location and amenities.


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The news that John Micek broke last night at Capitol Ideas that Paul Sunyak, the former editorial page editor of the Uniontown Herald-Standard, has accepted a position on Bill DeWeese's staff in Harrisburg has given the the folks here at CasablancaPA quite a chuckle.
For years, Sunyak has made no bones about how abhorrent the state legislature and Bill DeWeese in particular were for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
According to DeWeese's press secretary, Tom Andrews, Sunyak will be paid $67,000 a year with full-benefits (health care, pension, parking space, paid vacation, etc.) to work in DeWeese's Harrisburg offices to use "his 30 years of experience and master's degree in journalism/communications to help with messaging, research and policy development relative to the 50th District and Southwestern PA."
No doubt "help with messaging" translates into preparing the newsletters and television public service announcements he vehemently opposed for years and years at the Herald Standard.
Let's let Sunyak's editorials on the state legislature using taxpayer dollars to "help with messaging" speak for themselves:
"We simply believe that if DeWeese wants to curry favor with any particular group of voters, or all of them at one time, he should do so at his own expense, not the taxpayers'. DeWeese apparently believes otherwise and, in a testament to his own arrogance, displays no qualms or reservations about continuing to pick your pocket to do whatever he pleases to satisfy his needs." (Herald Standard 9/18/06)
"The Patriot-News reported that they've paid a Philadelphia public relations executive, Larry Ceisler, for years to perform similar work, albeit on behalf of rank-and-file members. Although no dollar figure was given for what you're paying for his services, even one red cent would be too much." (Herald Standard, 6/8/06)
Given that Andrews already gets $86k for the work Sunyak was ostensibly hired to do, it's astonishingly hypocritical of Sunyak now to take nearly $100,000 taxpayer dollars (factoring in his fat benefits package) when you consider his editorials about the size of DeWeese's staff ("Big payroll" Herald Standard, 4/9/06) and regarding the cushy-ness of the life of a state employee in general. ("State jobs: Nice work if you can get it" Herald Standard, 7/20/07)
Perhaps Sunyak thinks he will be part of the state's noble effort to create jobs and develop the economy. But, how does he square that with his attitude regarding the role of legislators and their ability to make a difference:
"And what jobs can any elected official really protect? Did - or could - DeWeese protect all the coal mining jobs that have disappeared from Greene County during his 30-year tenure in Harrisburg? We're not blaming him for the demise of any industry, mind you; we're just pointing out that neither he nor any other legislator is capable of such all-encompassing powers. The most any of them can do is provide some tax money as an inducement for an industry to come or stay here, which in essence amounts to a subsidy using our tax dollars. It's no great accomplishment to toss around public money that way, using it to build their own image of omnipotence to mythological proportions." (Herald Standard, 5/3/06)
Sunyak's role as DeWeese's most pointed and vociferous critic seemed to shift a few months ago from this:
"Democratic state Rep. H. William "Bill" DeWeese has evolved into an arrogant, self-serving political insider after a mostly unchallenged reign of 30 years. It's way beyond time for him to go." ("Vote Hopkins for much needed change" Herald Standard, 11/1/06)
To this:
"In one of the most closely watched races in Pennsylvania, the Herald-Standard editorial board endorses Democratic state Rep. H. William "Bill" DeWeese for re-election over his Republican opponent Greg Hopkins - by a narrow margin." ("DeWeese over Hopkins in 50th district" Herald Standard, 10/28/08)
What happened?
For one, the newspaper industry has changed dramatically and Sunyak was looking for a steady job. For another, DeWeese needed some good PR through an endorsement and could provide a steady job.
Sunyak himself knows what a hypocritical whore he is for taking a job with DeWeese. In this blow-job he gave himself in yesterday's Herald Standard, Sunyak fails to mention where he is headed.
Makes sense. After all, do you think the little boy in the photograph accompanying Sunyak's bon voyage piece figured he would grow up to be a hypocritical whore?


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Learn how to make baked goods that are so delicious no one will believe they're gluten-free! Create satisfying cookies, pie crusts, quick breads and more.
Join Certified Master Baker Richard Coppedge Jr., as he shares years of research and expertise in baking mouthwatering gluten-free treats. Get started by learning how to mimic the texture and taste of your favorite gluten-filled goodies. Then, create custom flour mixes, one for tender doughs that won't crumble and one for stronger doughs with the structure you need. You'll even find out how to modify commercial gluten-free flour blends for your own unique uses. Moving on, whip up the ultimate Saturday morning pancakes, and ensure that your cookie jar is always well-stocked with jam-filled spritz, Mexican wedding and shortbread cookies! Favorite quick breads like blueberry muffins, biscuits and Irish soda bread will no longer be out of reach after learning Richard's secrets for mixing and baking. Plus, create the perfect pie crust filled with luscious chocolate cream. Finally, master the holy grail of gluten-free baking light, yeast-raised bread!
If you're not delighted with your Bluprint experience, we'll make it right or give you a full refund.


text:
Posts Tagged 'musical theater'
Episode 7, John Moses
July 16, 2011
Find out what life is like in the orchestra pit on Broadway. John Moses, veteran of twenty-six shows gives us the inside story and also shares the joys of a musician's life. What's this, a new character arrives? Yes, we have a new friend on The Mikie Show, Claude. As usual, there's a whole lot […]


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The trial of a career thief accused of burglarizing the Anne Frank Center ended in deadlock today, with nearly the entire jury believing that he could have gone inside the downtown museum simply to peruse the Holocaust artifacts.
Prosecutors had been barred from prejudicing the jurors by telling them about the 30 theft and drug sale arrests on the rap sheet of Michael James, 53 — or about his three prison stints for burglary, robbery and possessing stolen goods.
"That would have been hard for us to ignore," one female juror noted of James' record.
"I just thank God that enough things worked out the way they worked out," James said as he left court. He must return next month for a possible retrial.
James admits having gone inside the Park Place center 15 minutes before it opened one February morning last year, as confirmed by his fingerprints and video showing him easing the unlocked front door quietly closed behind him.
He was also identified by the center's Dutch-born executive director, Yvonne Simons, who told jurors of seeing him run out of her office. "I'm a messenger," she testified he told her.
Simmons quickly realized her wallet was missing from her office chair, and three of her five credit cards were used to buy Metrocards later that day, according to testimony.
Still, none of the jurors found solid proof that James intended to do anything criminal when he entered the center, and only two jurors believed he intended to steal something when he entered Simons' office, which was located behind a full-scale recreation of Anne Frank's bedroom.
"He should get judged factually based on what the evidence is in this case only," defense lawyer Eugene Nathanson said afterward of the jurors not knowing his client's lengthy record.
"A person is not guilty just because they've been guilty in the past."


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Room Additions, Enclosures and Roofs
A room addition can bring a unique extension to your home - whether it's an extended family room, expanded spacious master bedroom, or a new, luxurious living room addition, TLS Carpentry Inc. has the solutions to increasing your living space without having to move. Just simply adding a roof over your deck or patio can make it much more usable.
Enclosures, sunrooms and 3-season rooms can give you the added space you desire. We can custom-build a room encloser that increases the value of your home and leaves you completely satisfied. Contact us today and we will come to your home personally and give you a free estimate.
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"We were very particular about some of our choices. We were trying to save money but still end up with a quality job. TLS Carpentry Inc. partnered with our needs very well and did an excellent job with enthusiasm. We loved their attention to detail and their top notch work ethic."
"TLS Carpentry Inc. was very prompt, detailed, and friendly. We are thankful we chose them. You will hear from us again, either from referrals or our own business."


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Wine on the Willamette
Since 2008, Unitus Community Credit Unions' Wine on the Willamette has raised over $439,000 to help children treated at Doernbecher Children's Hospital, a Credit Unions for Kids and CMN Hospital. Celebrate the end of summer with a fun evening of food and wine sampling, live music, and a fabulous wine pull.
aboard the Willamette Star
RiverPlace Hotel and Marina
1510 SW Harbor Way • Portland, OR
Dress: Cocktail and Business Attire
Friday, September 15, 2017
$250 per ticket
Event Timeline
Registration, Champagne Reception
5:15 p.m. - 6:45 p.m.
RiverPlace Hotel
Guest Boarding & Event Cruise
6:45 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
RiverPlace Marina/Willamette Star
Evening Reception
9:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.
RiverPlace Hotel
Special Guest Wine Maker
Evening Entertainment
Wine Provided By
John Nilsen, Portland Pianist
Trent Moffett, Moffett Vineyards
Hotel Accomodations
A limited number of rooms have been reserved at a special rate of $289 at RiverPlace Hotel. For room reservations, please call 1.888.869.3108. Request the "Unitus Community Credit Union Wine on the Willamette" group rate or click the following link: WINEONTHEWILLAMETTE. This link will place you into the group block to reserve a room at the discounted rate. Discounted $20 overnight valet parking is available.
Reservation cut-off date is August 22, 2017.
Can't attend this year but want to support Doernbecher Children's Hospital with a donation?
With more than 97,000 sick children admitted to Doernbecher for care each year, all funds raised will support the Credit Unions for Kids Endowed Fund for Pediatric Cancer Clinical Trail Research at Doernbecher and the building of the Gary & Christine Rood Family Pavilion - a new guest home for out-of-town patients. Click here to learn more about how this guest home will help families during a time of crisis.
Thank you to our 2017 Sponsors:
Thank you to all our generous sponsors for their contributions and ongoing support over the years. Interested in learning more about becoming a sponsor? Please contact Aimee at 503.423.8346 or email@example.com.
Highlights from Previous Years
©2017 Wine on the Willamette
Unitus Community Credit Union
All Rights Reserved


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Ask someone to teach their dog to "Heel" and we're talking serious obedience training. Stern voice, repetition, and sometimes even frustration when we can't get it right. Ask someone to teach their dog to "Shake Hands" and the mood lightens. It's hard to be serious when you're teaching your dog a trick.
Guess what? It's ALL tricks!
You read that right! Even an obedience "Heel" is a trick as far as your dog is concerned. Whether the behaviour is important to you or just for fun, your pet is relying on you to give him clear information to help him succeed. He is using that information to figure out what behaviours will lead to fun things happening for him, and when he figures that out he will try it more often! That's how learning works.
So why do we like to get our panties in a twist over our basic "obedience" behaviours?
We don't have to, and indeed we are likely to see better results if we lighten up. By relaxing, being clear, and having fun, we are likely to be more thoughtful when training our pets. A training failure is a puzzle to solve, not a serious offence, and we can work towards a training goal in partnership with our dog rather than trying to drill a behaviour into his muscle memory.
In the training classes I instruct or assist with, I like to give owners a trick to teach their dog. The dogs always learn the trick faster than any of the "serious" stuff. Why? I think it is because the owners have no preconceived idea as to how to teach a trick, while they probably have taught sit, drop, or stay a certain way in the past. Without the baggage people are free to try teaching without force, and they see the results quickly. If the owner is having a great time, their dog is usually loving training too.
The important "tricks" vary from owner to owner as well. When Wilbur joined the Treat. Play. Love. family one of the first things i taught him was "Shake Hands". Why? Because i had never owned a dog who could shake hands, and i'd always wanted one! That mattered to me. For someone else sitting at doors or retrieving may be more important, or perhaps that awesome down-stay. It's not a matter of whether a behaviour is a "trick" or "obedience", what really matters is if it is important to you, and that you and your dog enjoy the learning process together.
Train smart, not tough!


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I am a physical oceanographer with a passion for understanding the driving forces of ocean circulation and how the ocean-atmosphere system is responding to climate change. The sea is vital to our planet, covering over 70% of our Earth's surface, it provides us with valuable natural resources in addition to moderating our climate. Yet despite its importance, very little is known about this life-giving body of water, and what is known is poorly communicated to humanity. This is what I want to change. I want to share my knowledge and enthusiasm with others, and in doing so I hope to inspire people to conserve this vital resource. I love the physics of the ocean; the dynamics of how the ocean works is absolutely fascinating.
I am a final year PhD student in physical oceanography at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and my project is a collaboration between UCT (www.uct.ac.za), the South African Environmental Observations Network (SAEON; www.saeon.ac.za), the University of Miami and l'Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer (IUEM).


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About Core & Main
Core & Main (www.coreandmain.com) is one of North America's largest distributors of water, sewer, storm, fusible piping and fire protection infrastructure products that serves the needs of both contractors and municipalities in all aspects of the water, wastewater, clean water, landfill, energy, and fire protection industries. Core & Main operates more than 246 branches serving North America, the Caribbean and international markets. The company provides localized, customer-driven services including jobsite delivery, will call or direct-ship options, diversified logistics and innovative solutions that contribute to its customers' success.
Job Summary
Make deliveries to customer job sites while adhering to all DOT regulations and safety procedures. Load inventory on truck and unload at customer site. Operate trucks to pick up and deliver products, supplies and equipment to and from organization, supplier and customer sites. Duties may involve complex pickups and deliveries, e.g., night deliveries, transport of dangerous and hazardous materials.
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Having a heart or vascular condition can be distressing, but knowing more about your condition can help relieve your fears. Our caring staff guides you every step of the way through diagnosis, treatment and recovery, helping you resume a full, active life.
Nationally Recognized Heart and Vascular
When you choose Medical Center of Trinity for cardiovascular care, you can count on high-quality care at a hospital accredited for heart attack, stroke and more. Learn more about our awards and accreditations for heart and vascular care.
Heart and Vascular Conditions We Treat
We specialize in comprehensive care for patients with a wide range of cardiovascular conditions, including:
Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
The aorta is the body's largest artery, carrying blood from the heart to the rest of the body. An abdominal aortic aneurysm is a weak, bulging area in the wall of the aorta where it passes through the abdomen.
An arrhythmia describes any type of abnormal heartbeat, such as those that are too fast or too slow, or extra or skipped beats.
Congestive Heart Failure
This condition occurs when the heart weakens and cannot pump enough blood through the body. Blood and excess fluid begin to back up in the veins and into the lungs, legs and feet.
Heart Attack
A heart attack happens when an obstruction, usually a blood clot in the coronary (heart) artery slows or stops the flow of oxygen and blood to the heart.
Peripheral Artery Disease
Narrowing of the arteries outside the heart is called peripheral artery disease. It is caused by atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque along artery walls.
Renal Artery Stenosis
This condition is narrowing of the renal (kidney) arteries, which is also usually caused by atherosclerosis. It can lead to kidney disease and failure, among other complications.
A stroke is a medical emergency that happens when blood flow to the brain is slowed or blocked. Brain cells begin to die within minutes, so immediate medical attention is critical to a full recovery.
Learn more about these conditions and their symptoms, causes, treatment, prevention and more in our Health Library.
- Abdominal aortic aneurysm
- Arrhythmia
- Congestive heart failure
- Heart attack
- Peripheral artery disease
- Renal artery stenosis
- Stroke
Assess Your Risk of Heart Disease Online
At Medical Center of Trinity, we offer online tools for assessing your health, including a cardiovascular risk calculator. Visit our self-assessment tools to learn more.
Medical Center of Trinity: Treatment for Heart and Vascular Conditions
We treat all of the above cardiovascular conditions and more, with the latest treatment options available. Learn more about how we care for our patients:
Contact Us for Heart and Vascular Care
For more information about our hospital, to get a physician referral or to speak with a registered nurse about your health questions, call Consult-A-Nurse at (727) 834-5630.


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As a fourth generation Texas Real Estate Professional, multi-million dollar producing full-time Realtor® with Keller Williams Realty, I have over 12 years of experience to help you market and sell your home for more, or find that perfect dream home! Read my Client Testimonials to see the service level I provide my clients!
3600 Preston Road, Ste. #100
Plano, TX 75093
(972) 322-1363
Contact Rhonda


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Published on : January 16, 2017
Voice of the Vatican brings news each week from Rome, to your home. Up Close with Fr. Martin Schlag of Opus Dei on Bishop Echevarría, Sacred artist Mark Sanislo, St. Joseph Vaz.
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Tomorrow, the Zoning Commission considers magnanimously granting a second three-year extension to developer Steve Tanner and his Square 643 Associates for the Old Friendship Baptist Church in southwest Washington DC. The Commission's decision will determine whether the developer, who bought the property for $550,000 in 2003, can continue waiting with fingers crossed for dramatic change in the SW neighborhood, or whether a denied extension and defunct PUD will mean a renewed effort or the end of the line. Tanner has a bit more at stake than just the PUD; the property, advertised as 800 Delaware Avenue on the Woodmark website, has been on the market for over a year with an asking price of $3.5 million. Certainly denying the PUD would put a damper on the price for a property that has not changed in an area that, according to the developer, has not seen much change either.
The development, designed by Shalom Baranes Architects (rendering pictured at left), may someday incorporate the Old Friendship Baptist Church, built in 1886-1887, into a mixed-use building, preserving the historic landmark as non-profit office space and constructing between 18 and 27 new condominiums, with one set aside as an affordable rental unit. The site will provide a minimum of 32 parking spaces with at least 23 for residents and 9 for a future but undetermined non-profit tenant. The L-shaped building will be four stories high on the east side of the church and seven stories high on the north, with no more than 10,000 s.f. set aside for non-profit office space. The ZC set limitations on the non-profit tenant, ordering that no more than 40 employees and volunteers can work on site during work hours limited to 7 A.M. to 8 P.M., which seems to mean they would need a court order to work overtime. Hm.
The Zoning Commission (ZC) originally approved the Planned Unit Development (PUD) September 15, 2005 and the current extension, granted in 2007, expired September 15, 2009. In 2007 the ZC granted a three-year extension to the PUD, meaning it would remain valid as long as the developer filed for a building permit within two years, and began construction within three. The developer failed to file a building permit and now the PUD is back before the ZC. In 2007, Tanner claimed the "current market conditions in the immediate neighborhood...made it impossible to attract a non-profit office tenant."
The developer had been banking on the nearby redevelopment of Randall School by Corcoran College of Art and Design and Monument Realty, a partnership which ended last spring. Potential non-profit tenants apparently hesitated to sign on without the reassurance that the area would be changing for the better in the near future. In 2007 the ZC said the extension was "justified by the uncertainty of market conditions" near the project - mind you this was in 2007, before the Big Mess. According to Office of Zoning records, between Jan. 2007 and October 2008 only seven time extension applications came before the Commission, one of which belonged to Tanner. Maybe the ZC will feel generous again.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
SW Developer Seeks Another Extension on SW Church
Posted by Shaun on 9/30/2009 03:02:00 PM
Labels: Shalom Baranes Architects, Southwest
Labels: Shalom Baranes Architects, Southwest
1 comments:
- Anonymous said...
another nice design by Shalom, but this project is not anything close to economically feasible, and probably never was.
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Whilst Enterprise Vault 12 is now available there are still quite a number of people who are on Enterprise Vault 11.0.1. Earlier in the year Veritas released 11.0.1 Cumulative Update 5, for Enterprise Vault.
This link has the information about the update. The update is a little over 300 Mb.
The main list of fixes are as shown below:
- Enterprise Vault server
- Etrack 3798339: Users' permissions on shared folders were sometimes removed
- Etrack 3851970: Enterprise Vault could not convert Microsoft Excel binary format (.xlsb) files
- Etrack 3854703: EVSVR operation Repair DatabaseReferences would fail with the error "Not implemented (0x80004001)" when attempting to repair Enterprise Vault 2007 or earlier savesets
- Etrack 3860168: PST Locator task failed to search for computers in multi-domain environments
- Etrack 3861886: In rare circumstances, Enterprise Vault would create unused 64-bit index volume folders for some 32-bit index volumes
- Etrack 3865480: EVSVR enhancement to re-queue items in the Failed Items folder of the Storage Queue
- Etrack 3867012: Performance issues after you enabled collection from certain EMC Centera partitions
- Domino server archiving
- Etrack 3800065: Domino Server Archiving became unresponsive if StorageCrawler process threads were forcefully terminated
- Etrack 3851223: Certain Domino cluster configurations could prevent iNotes from opening archived items
- Etrack 3858775: Items that included embedded images remained in archive pending state
- Etrack 3859836: Recipients were missing from the CC field when using "Reply to All with Internet-Style History"
- File System Archiving
- Etrack 3860415: FileScreenService.exe failed repeatedly
- Etrack 3862469: Target file servers in File System Archiving sometimes became unresponsive and stopped
- Etrack 3862474: Enterprise Vault failed to recall files to a NetApp C-mode file server
- SharePoint server archiving
- Etrack 3862825: Members of the Everyone group were sometimes unable to access items in a SharePoint 2013 document library
- Enterprise Vault Search
- Etrack 3852550: Enterprise Vault Search truncated the value of certain fields if tilde character (~) was the leading character


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About Us
Maitri Sangha Boise
Maitri Sangha is a Buddhist community in the Thai Forest Lineage, in Boise, Idaho, focusing on the integration of meditation practices and philosophy, social justice, noetic sciences, and psychology. We meet every 2nd and 4th Thursdays at the Hyde Park Mennonite Fellowship Church at 1520 N 12th St, Boise, ID 83702 starting at 7pm. We are officially sponsored by the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), and often have special guests/presenters join us from IONS and collaborating partners during the 2nd Thursday of the month meeting. These meetings are donation based ($5-10 suggested) and open to the public.
Maitri House Yoga, LLC
MHY operates Maitri Sangha, a Buddhist group focusing on the integration of traditional meditation practices and philosophy, social justice, noetic sciences, development of human potential, and community empowerment. Michael has been given special permission to teach Buddhist Dharma and so Maitri House Yoga is now officially a branch of Wat Manee Banpot Worawihan (Wat Khao Khaeo) under the guidance of Abbot Ganchano. Wat Khao Khaeo is a Theravada Buddhist Temple that teaches Buddhist scripture and Vipassana meditation while serving local community members in Tak Province, Thailand. MHY is also growing as an International Teaching Collective, offering the teachings of Buddhism, Tantra, Yoga and Ayurveda under the guidance of various teachers.
Maitri House was originally Rachel Stalter's seed of an idea, planted in Michael's brain years ago. She suggested creating a healing space for local communities that included yoga, meditation, art, cooking, and various therapies. During Michael's service in the Peacecorps he was able to form a similar health and spiritual based community in Tak Province, Thailand. He began by teaching three women Yoga once a week and almost two years later there were 5 teachers and over 100 members. The Dharma then spread from that local temple, Wat Khao Khaeo, to schools, community centers, and hospitals. Yoga Tak today still runs under the guidance of those 5 teachers and has spread to include teaching in the entire province. We are fortunate enough to travel back and forth from the US to Thailand and host retreats for the teachers and the Thai community.
Once back in the States we created Maitri House Yoga to continue the work we began in Thailand. Now we host Maitri Sangha Boise, dharma events, thai cooking workshops, Thailand yoga retreats, integrated psychology therapy sessions, and more. Our newest adventure is Lime and a Coconut: The Art of Thai Cuisine, which showcases E's amazing culinary skills.
About Michael
michael sapiro, psyd, is a clinical psychologist, meditation teacher, and former Buddhist Monk. He is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and is teaching faculty at Esalen Institute. He began his yoga and meditation training early in 1998, and has received certification as a Traditional Hatha Yoga instructor and Teacher Trainer. He is the founding director of Maitri House Yoga and has recently been given permission to teach Buddhist Dharma in the United States from Abbot Ganchano of Wat Khao Khaeo, a Theravada Buddhist temple in Tak Province, Thailand. Michael has also trained extensively in the disciplines & practices of Zen (under Abbot Jan Chozen Bays, and Gyokuko Carlson) and Theravada Buddhism, Raja and Hatha Yoga philosophy, and spent time as an ordained Buddhist monk in Northern Thailand. During his PeaceCorps service he founded Maitri Tak, a local Yoga community and school. He has received certification as an Ayurvedic Life-Style Counselor with Dr. Frawley of the American Institute of Vedic Studies. Michael has worked in the Social Justice field for over two decades, serving marginalized populations in prisons, hospitals, clinics and rehab centers. He is on the Board of Directors for the Institute of Spirituality and Psychology. He teaches classes, workshops and retreats in the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, Southeast Alaska, Boise, and in Northern Thailand. He loves his wife and is a dedicated athlete as well. He is a life long musician and with others or by himself has recorded over 5 albums of original music.
Michael holds a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and is currently a Research Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He completed an advanced fellowship in clinical psychology at the Boise VA Medical center and specialized in rural health care for veterans, with an emphasis on combat trauma and PTSD. His other clinical/research interests include applications of neuroplasticity and meditation in treatment of cognitive disorders, chronic pain, substance abuse, and complex trauma. Michael also consults regularly with the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, California, where he works on the Future of Meditation Research project with a pioneering group of scientists, Buddhist teachers, and clinicians. His dream job is to work alongside Cassandra Vieten and Dean Radin from IONS and with Shamini Jain of the Consciousness and Healing Inititiave advancing the field of consciousness studies from the scientific to the healing realm.
Besides his PsyD in clinical psychology, he holds a Master's in Clinical Psychology from JFK University. He also holds a Master's of English from Illinois State University where he studied Social Justice and Feminist Pedagogy in the English Studies program. He has received certification as a facilitator of cultural competency, diversity, youth and community development trainings and still works in the community as a trainer.
Here is Michael talking about presence, awareness and vulnerability as the interpersonal aspects of meditation based interventions at the Institute of Noetic Sciences:
About Sararak
Sararak was raised in a small village in Northeastern Thailand, learning about the traditional and therapeutic uses of Thai herbs from her father, the community's local herbal doctor. Her passion for cooking is tasted and recognized by anyone who is fortunate enough to eat her art! She is also a certified Traditional Hatha Yoga instructor. She creates art for fun and spends most of her time in the garden. Her life goal is to "be simple, live in the woods, and drink tea every day." She is the chef and owner of Lime and a Coconut: The Art of Thai Cuisine, which can be found at the Capital City Public Market in Boise, ID, and at music and art festivals around the Pacific Northwest and Mountain Regions.
She has earned a degree in Agricultural and Environmental Education from Kasaetsart University in Bangkok and has found teaching boring. So now she is the chef and owner of an authentic Thai eatery. Every one who knows her says she's also very, very funny.


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Also from November 25
All stories
- More cuts to Kansas state budget could be coming, even after recent $259 million reductions
- November 25, 2009
- State officials said Tuesday that more budget cuts may be on the horizon when the Legislature starts its 2010 session in January.
- Commuter Forecast for November 25, 2009
- November 25, 2009
- Expect a chilly Wednesday commute with some reduced speeds between Lawrence and Topeka.
- November 25, 2009
- Five months after his arrest, a 67-year-old Basehor resident convicted of engaging in inappropriate sexual behavior with elementary-age students is off to prison for more than 10 years.


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How do I care for my new wood table?
Caring for your new Pasadenaville table (or other wood furniture) is simple. The finish requires no waxing, polishing, or other regular maintenance.
The finish we use is very durable and will withstand many years of normal use. We highly recommend that you do not expose your tabletop to high heat or prolonged moisture contact, as these will damage the finish. Many types of furniture are susceptible to damage if moved by dragging, especially over a thick carpet. Please use two people to safely move large pieces.
Additional information:
- It is best to dust with a damp rag using long strokes parallel to the grain direction. A small amount of mild soap can be added to clean up oily spills.
- Avoid aggressive scrubbing.
- Avoid polishes, oils, and all solvents. These occasionally react with the finish and can create a high-gloss surface.
- Avoid high heat, especially moist heat. Remember, this applies to boxes from the microwave as well as pans from the oven.
9% sales tax will be applied to California residents.
We ship to any valid street address in the United States (rates for Hawaii and Alaska could be higher). Most items are shipped via FedEx Ground; however, we may also use UPS, United States Postal Service, or select White Glove delivery service depending on the item, size and urgency of the delivery. In all cases, a tracking number will be provided. Sorry, we do not ship to PO Boxes, APO/FPO addresses, any of the U.S. Territories (including Puerto Rico) or outside of the U.S.
Very large items, such as dining tables and conference tables among others, may require freight or White Glove delivery and costs are to be determined. We do our best to ensure reliable delivery while making it as cost-effective as possible given that most of our items are large sizes.
Due to the nature of the items sold here, there are no refunds or exchanges. We strive to bring you rare and in-demand designs while making it possible for us to offer items at the lowest price possible to our customers. As a result, we are not able to accept refunds on some of our products. All sales are final, no exceptions. We urge you to please read the descriptions and dimensions, and inspect all pictures carefully. We love questions and are more than happy to assist you before your purchase!
We take great pride in the quality of our merchandise. We want you to be satisfied with our products, and we're committed to offering items made with high-grade materials and constructed by skilled and trusted sources.
In-stock items typically ship 24–72 hours after the order is placed. You may only cancel an order if it has not yet shipped or is on backorder. Once an item has shipped, we cannot accept cancellation. For custom orders, if raw materials have not been procured and/or altered or modified to the specifications of the order and/or work on the order has not commenced then you may cancel the order. However, any and all deposits will be forfeited. There are no exceptions.
Looking for a custom piece? Tell me what you have in mind and let's see what you and I can create. Convo me here via Etsy, email me at pasadenaville [!at] gmail.com or call me at 310.896.8124
The imperfections of live edge wood are part of what makes them unique and beautiful and set them apart from manufactured and mass-produced furnishings. These can include knots, checks, small cracks and splits, off-coloration from one part of the wood to another, voids (and other natural holes), inclusions and planer and/or sanding marks among others. In addition, while we joint and plane slabs to be as flat as possible surfaces may still not be completely flat (but always level enough to place items on). Please remember that these imperfections are either inherent in all live-edge wood or a result of the cutting or finishing process and we urge you to look closely at all photos before purchasing and to ask us questions.
If in doubt as to whether a table or other furnishing will fit in a particular room or space (such as in front of a sofa/couch), we recommend taking masking or painters tape and using it to outline the dimensions of a particular item onto that space. We always do our best to be exact in listing the dimensions of all our products.
Lead Time / Production
Each item is hand crafted per order. Production time takes approximately 3-4 weeks. This is our average lead time estimate and production times can sometimes vary. Please contact us at any time to receive an up-to-date production estimate. As we only make per order, we do not carry any items in stock. If you have an urgent rush please contact us.
VVOODS furniture is made-to-order. Items are non-refundable.
The quality of our products is guaranteed. In the event a damaged or defective item is received, we will be happy to issue a replacement piece[s].
We do our utmost to inspect all goods throughout production and prior to shipment. However, we ask all our customers to thoroughly inspect all items ordered upon delivery and before use. If any of our merchandise is found to be defective please contact us immediately.
VVOODS guarantees that your furniture will be replaced or repaired, should it be deemed defective because of faulty workmanship or structural defects. The reclaimed wood used in each VVOODS product shows knots and natural imperfections that make each item one of a kind. Due to the inherent nature of reclaimed wood, these variations are not considered defects.
Every item is carefully inspected before leaving our warehouse. Bend Goods, LLC does not accept returns for any reason other than manufacturer defect or shipping error. Orders may be changed or cancelled with approval, prior to shipment.
In the event that damage occurs in transit, or if you discover any defect in manufacturing please email us within 7 days at email@example.com with your order customer information. All returns must be pre-authorized with an RMA number.
Return shipping charges + 20% restocking fee apply for ALL returns and exchanges and are the customers responsibility no matter what the reason for the return. Bend Goods employees will inspect the product before refund is issued.
Returns and Exchanges Procedures
Please contact firstname.lastname@example.com with "return" or "exchange" in the header.
Product Disclaimer
All products made by Bend Goods are hand crafted and minor blemishes and imperfections may be visible. These are not considered defects and do not interfere with the quality and function of the product.
All products must be paid for in full before it will be made.
All product is made to order. Lead time is 3-5 weeks and may vary.
All orders over $50 are shipped with signature required, unless otherwise specified.
Any re-routing change of address after your order has shipped will be subject to a $15 service fee.
We do not except returns. If you believe your product to be defective and it has not been used or installed please contact us within 10 days of delivery so we can review your issue.
Due to the bespoke nature of our products and fluctuations in the digital printing process and texture of natural fibers, slight variations may occur.
We sell all our products with the belief that they are of suitable quality and will serve their intended purpose. You as the customer must take into account your particular situation and the conditions of the intended site. Any and all defects should be reported immediately when discovered. Our liability will not exceed the value of the products in question. We are not liable for loss of profits and consequential, financial and other losses.