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If you have been researching kitchen countertops, it's likely you've come across IKEA butcher block countertops as an option.
There are a lot of reasons they could be a great choice – including cost and looks. But there are lots of people who warn against using wood butcher block for counters. And I constantly get questions about how we like IKEA butcher block after living with them for 18 months.
So, here's my totally honest review of our counters after a year and a half. (This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.)
The background: Why IKEA butcher block?
When we were renovating our kitchen, I debated countertop options. Knowing that this is a short-timer house for us and we were undergoing a full-home renovation, expensive countertops were out. Also, they would price the house out of the modest neighborhood. We'd never make that money back.
Our last kitchen remodel included laminate countertops and I actually really liked them. They were cost-effective, easy to keep clean and looked nice. Plus, the cost was good and we got our money back.
But my heart was really set on butcher block this time around.
I loved the warm look with white countertops. And when we went with IKEA cabinets, going with butcher block was sort of a no-brainer. I could pick them up with the cabinets and they were insanely cheap.
They are even cheaper than laminate.
We went with the Numerar Oak Countertops from IKEA. (While oak counters are no longer available at IKEA, you can still buy birch countertops in the solid wood variety. Other options are not solid.) I think the information is still basically the same.
At the time we purchased, we needed two "slabs" for a total of $338. The prices for other options have remained fairly similar.
When we chose it, there were some naysayers for using butcher block for countertops. As I mentioned, several smart people told us that it wasn't a good idea, for various (and some good) reasons.
Would it get stained by water? Is it sanitary? Will it be okay for resale?
Sealing IKEA butcher block with Waterlox
It's worth mentioning that I had no intentions of using the countertops as a cutting board. I wanted them sealed and sealed well.
Neither Ryan nor I are clean freaks and I wanted the counters to look good and be easy to keep clean and sanitary. I also wanted something that would protect the wood from water damage, particularly around the sink area. Although if I'm being honest, there's always water on the counters from glasses, washed dishes, etc. Sealing them protects the finish and was super important.
I had read that Waterlox was the best way to go. I had to order it online since it's not sold locally. I ordered a quart of the original and a quart of satin finish. It's not cheap, but it goes a really long way and seems to do it's job well.
After Ryan sanded all the edges, I got to work.
First, I sealed the underside of the countertops twice. (This was really important to me since we have a dishwasher and the last thing I wanted was warping.) Then, I sealed the tops of the countertops four times. (I also did about 8 coats of Waterlox around the sink for safe measure, after reading Vanessa's tips and tricks for sealing countertops.)
For application, I used old rags and cloths. I found it was pretty important to get a good amount of Waterlox on the counters when applying but not to where it was pooling. Between coats, I sanded with fine steel wool and paper bags (which oddly really works to get the counters smooth). Then, I made sure to get all the dust off with a tack cloth.
A few notes about Waterlox:
- I used the original finish for all coats until the final coat, when I used satin because I didn't want the super shiny surface. I much prefer the satin finish myself.
- It's super strong-smelling. You need to have a very well-ventilated area to work. I did it in the garage.
- It's very easy to get dust and debris in the finish. This was the hardest part for me to avoid. Sanding well between coats is key.
- Each coat takes 24 hours to dry, so while the actual finishing isn't time-consuming, the process takes a very long time. This is difficult if you are like me and very impatient.
- And it probably goes without saying that you shouldn't flip the counters until you are completely done with the side, or risk messing up your hard work.
Here are the counters after installation. I'm not going into detail on the installation, but suffice it to say that my husband and father handled it beautifully.
They cut the corner piece straight to the wall and attached the pieces together. I do know that the cutting was a challenge because the wood was solid and thick. But they did an awesome job.
And the counters today.
The verdict.
We've been living with the countertops for over a year now. What do I think? The short answer – I like them.
I don't love them.
- I like that they still look nice, give a warm feel to the kitchen and really fit in with the period of the house.
- I love the price.
- I don't love the finish. If I were doing it again, I'd have gone with my gut, sanded them down and stained them before sealing them. I think I would like them with a deeper stained tone, instead of the orange tones. And I would have been more careful with the Waterlox application. I'm not thrilled with the finish and the small imperfections and dust specks that I didn't get out. (Edited: We learned from our mistakes and had a beautiful, darker finish on the butcher block the second time around.)
The longer answer – They really look nice overall and I get a lot of compliments on them, in person and on the blog. They are a great value. I'm quite happy with the Waterlox finish.
(We actually liked the countertops well enough to do it again. We actually went with birch countertops stained and sealed with Waterlox in the barn apartment.)
I personally wouldn't forgo the Waterlox for tung oil or another finish if the countertops butt up to the sink or if there's dishwasher. The water could definitely warp the wood so quickly and I wouldn't risk it. The countertops have really held up beautifully to water.
How the Waterlox finish has held up.
Ryan and I are not people who are insane about wiping up water if it spills. Every time my husband does the dishes (every night), there is splashed water around the sink. The Waterlox gives it a nice finish and the water beads up and makes it easy to wipe up. The wood is truly impenetrable to water.
I think your personality will determine whether you like the butcher block countertops. We aren't clean freaks and we aren't perfectionists. I actually would say I do love them at first glance, but it's the small imperfections that I think would cause a perfectionist to go to the loony bin and makes me not love them.
For example, there are a few spots where dust got under the Waterlox and it's a little bumpy to the touch. There are a few areas of paint that dripped and I cannot get off for the life of me. (I think I would have to sand and refinish to take care of them.) There are a couple of scratches, but nothing major. And there are a few spots that the Waterlox has worn off from none other than hot glue – I probably should have used some sort of protection when crafting.
In other words, we've used the heck out of these counters in the past year. We cook, we do projects, we craft … they are hardworking counters and I think it's to be expected.
None of this is noticeable to a casual observer, or even to me on most days. But if you are a perfectionist, it would likely drive you batty.
Are they perfect? No. But, they are a really cost-effective option and they look really nice overall. And I definitely think they make an impact in the room.
Would you go for butcher block?
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Lately it seems as if the tables of contents in magazines are becoming the nonfiction shopping lists for book publishers. Just within the last week, for instance, this fascination with magazine cover stories has had publishers thrashing over those in Esquire and The Atlantic Monthly.
In the July issue of Esquire, the cover article was about the Worcester, Mass., warehouse fire last December in which six firefighters died. The headline inside the magazine, although not out front, was ''The Perfect Fire,'' an obvious knockoff of the title of the best-selling Sebastian Junger book and George Clooney movie ''The Perfect Storm.'' Within 24 hours the article was sold to Warner Books for a sizable six-figure advance. Moreover, the article, as it appeared in the magazine, was apparently considered such a potent awareness builder for a full-length work that it was sold without a book proposal or even an auction for potential buyers. According to Variety the story is already ''sending twitters'' around Hollywood. (The publisher, at least, promises the book will have a fresh title.)
The Atlantic Monthly's June issue had on its cover ''Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber,'' and, after an auction, a book based on it was sold to W. W. Norton for an advance of more than $300,000.
There's nothing new about turning magazine articles into books. John Hersey's classic ''Hiroshima'' was first published as the entire issue of The New Yorker in 1946 before becoming a Knopf book; like it, Rachel Carson's 1962 book ''The Silent Spring'' (Houghton Mifflin) also first appeared in The New Yorker. More recently, there is Michael Paterniti's soon-to-be-published ''Driving Mr. Albert'' (Dial Press), the true chronicle of conveying Einstein's brain across the United States in a car trunk that first appeared in Harper's; Jon Krakauer's ''Into Thin Air'' and ''Into the Wild,'' (both Villard), grew from work in Outside magazine. But The New Yorker still seems to be the best source. ''The Tipping Point'' (Little, Brown), by Malcolm Gladwell, was an expansion of an article in that magazine, and so, too, was Anthony Bourdain's ''Kitchen Confidential'' (Bloomsbury).
The question really is whether these concepts would have as quickly and as lucratively become books had they not been prominent magazine articles and instead were peddled only through the traditional method of authors' agents submitting written, often lengthily, book proposals to editors and publishers. A book proposal is the prospectus or the campaign map of a concept, showing how the writer will attack the material, laying out in almost diagnostic fashion what will be in the finished manuscript. And it shows the author's mastery of material and writing style, although it's not uncommon for a really good book writer to produce a really terrible proposal. Which is one of the risks of the game.Continue reading the main story
David Black, one of a few literary agents known for torturing clients into writing the perfect proposal, sold Sean Flynn's story of the Worcester inferno to Rick Horgan, an executive editor at Warner Books without a proposal and without offering it to another publisher. It's something he doesn't like to do. This was an anomaly. ''Most magazines are running shorter pieces, rather than longer ones,'' Mr. Black said, ''so you need a good proposal to develop the blueprint for a book. In this case, the piece was long and didn't need the transition. You got a lot of the framework.'' He says a well-done proposal is not only a selling point but usually leads to a well-done book: ''Most of my client list are journalists, and most of them spend a lot of time developing proposals before the book is sold.'' Often, of course, his clients have both: a magazine article and a proposal. He said, ''With a great proposal, you have a writer who has thought through the larger themes; what they are presenting is a larger canvas.''
Mr. Horgan of Warner Books said that ''the shorter magazine piece makes the dramatic arch of the story visible, and sometimes the conclusion you reach is that a magazine article is the best format for that particular story.'' He said: ''Generally I want a proposal, but this time it was obvious from the magazine article that if the writer had more room to work with he could have layered in more material, deeper characters. We did have a lengthy conversation on how the book should be shaped.''
Publishing is a risk business involving, among many factors, keeping one's eye on the competition. ''It's incumbent on editors these days to take a flier once in a while,'' Mr. Horgan said. ''So I decided to make a quick offer. I called David at 9:30 a.m. last Tuesday, and we had a deal in principal in place by 2 p.m. We both took a risk. You can get carried away in the fray of an auction while you're evaluating the competition. We have a saying here that sometimes he who wins the auction loses.''
Over at W. W. Norton, its editor in chief, Starling Lawrence, had a proposal on Alston Chase's story of Theodore J. Kaczynski, the Unabomber, from Mr. Chase's agent, Deborah Grosvenor. It elaborated on the Atlantic article and offered material not in it, including information about Mr. Kaczynski's sexual history that goes somewhat beyond the court records of the case, which revealed that he had considered a sex-change operation.
''The proposal also showed the direction in which a book would grow from a magazine article, how Alston would attack the subject, and what his insights are,'' Mr. Lawrence said. ''You always want to see the thinking that makes a book from a magazine article.'' David Hirshey, the executive editor of HarperCollins and the former editor of Esquire, said that although ''it seems insane to pay out so much based on a magazine piece, these articles can be very seductive because it gives the book editor a tangible illustration of what the book could turn out to be.'' But he added: ''It's much like viewing a movie trailer. Often you see great trailers turned into disappointing movies. The best of all possible worlds is a great magazine piece and a proposal that says, 'Here's what I didn't say in the magazine and it's even better than what you read.' ''
There are agents who encourage their clients to negotiate their own magazine sales, because such sales take up too much time for 15 percent of relatively small fees. This will certainly change if the trend from magazine cover into lucrative book deal gets even more bullish. For if it does, the same material will then command not one but two, more robust paydays; or even three, if there's a movie at the end of the line.Continue reading the main story

subset: commoncrawl


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Bill Moyers Journal – May 5, 2008
This is a comment made by Bill Moyers about the break between Obama and his pastor Rev. Wright. I hope this is helpful and that you are able to see Mr. Moyers' very thoughtful statement on the controversy and the outcome. I thought it was a very rational piece worthy of attention.


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Belize voted as most wished place to visit on Airbnb
Airbnb, the world's leading hospitality site, recently released its latest Wish List, voted on by hundreds of travelers, and Belize was voted as the place people most wanted to visit.
Forget skiing, when people want to get away nothing is better than sun, sun, and more sun. Airbnb discovered that the destinations with the highest percent of listings on Wish Lists are almost exclusively known for their warm weather and Belize is at the top.
Known for its white sandy beaches, luxurious island resorts, world class scuba diving at the Great Blue Hole and snorkeling tours, Belize is the ideal tropical destination. Nothing compares. And if that isn't enough, Belize's beaches and marine attractions are just miles away from the lush Central American jungles and pristine cave systems; it's the best of both worlds.
Other destinations that followed Belize as top Wish List destinations included Okinawa, Japan; Savannah, Georgia; Turks and Caicos; Mendocino, California; Kyoto, Japan; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Margaret River, Australia; Jervis Bay, Australia; and Tamarindo, Costa Rica.
According to another one of Airbnb's Wish List's the most wished for kind of property experience was not a luxury hotel or condo, instead most people wished for a tree house! Other property types on the list included igloos, vans, lighthouses, caves, islands, trains, lofts and cabins. People seem to prefer smaller, cozy experiences.
So according to Airbnb's Wish List travelers the ideal get away is a treehouse getaway in Belize! Awesome.
Founded in August of 2008 and based in San Francisco, California, Airbnb is a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world – online or from a mobile phone. Whether an apartment for a night, a castle for a week, or a villa for a month, Airbnb connects people to unique travel experiences, at any price point, in more than 34,000 cities and more than 190 countries. And with world-class customer service and a growing community of users, Airbnb is the easiest way for people to monetize their extra space and showcase it to an audience of millions.


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Here is a letter I wrote, last summer, while potty-training the twins. Please remember, I live in a rural area, where the family bathrooms are few and far between. Who ever invented family bathrooms should be kissed!
A Letter to Public Restroom Owners
(the names have been changed, to protect the innocent….)


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The decor will be impacted massively by the sort of chairs you get. Furniture forms a vital part of your house. Outdoor furniture ought to be selected dependent by how much space you've got and the way you intend to utilize it. The furniture from cane has turned into a part of contemporary house decor not just since it's light weight and easily portable but also because it's durable and offers a trendy appearance to the space where it's used. All wood has to be treated. Additionally, there are hanging frames it's possible to purchase to hang the majority of these chairs on should you not have the capacity to hang them inside or outdoors.
A lot of people think them to be this comfortable you'll never want to depart from your seat. Such a chair will compliment the appearance of any deck alongside offering a cozy relaxation spot for the whole family. The hammock chair will supply you with lots of of comfort since it's woven by hand. That fashion in which you can learn about the various types of hammock chairs. For a smaller sized deck, you won't have the ability to place because many chairs or include because many other additional accessories. Hanging chairs are the ideal thing for virtually any deck. Indoor hanging chairs are for people who wish to feel they're floating in the air when listening to music.
Hanging chairs are becoming more and more popular. They are well known for the fact that they're comfy as well as for the coziness they bring anywhere you place them. Hanging chairs and swings are astoundingly comfortable and add a traditional appearance to your home or backyard.
In regards to a hammock, whether complete dimensions or in chair form, comfort is crucial. If you decide on an outdoor hammock, then you may want to have a canopy or netting as a way to shelter you from bugs in addition to the weather. Whether or not you choose an indoor or outdoor hammock, hammock accessories are the trick to creating a joyful experience. Hammocks have existed for centuries. They are made from different materials. Take measurements of the region where you want to hang the hammock. Discount hammocks aren't necessarily cheap hammocks so be cautious about what it is you are purchasing and also ensure that you're not compromising on the quality.
There is a wide array of health advantages connected with the use of hammock chairs. It was intended for outdoor usage, in gardens specifically. You also have the choice of experiencing a couple of chairs near each other so you are able to relax with friends and family members. Thus, gradually it has turned into a preferred selection of furniture for many. You must consider it. Or it may be somewhere to relax and wind down. It's contingent on the location you wish to hang the chair in regards to what material you're going to need.


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Im a 52 years old man, and since I was 28 I" ve been told my voice is so smooth and deep, comfortable to listen , and telling me I should be working in a radio or Tv.
Now after all this years, I bumped into a young woman who told me just the same thing but gave me a different approach , as a linguistic professional she strongly suggested I should give it a try.
here I am . hope I do something positive about it.
English (North American), Spanish
North American, Spanish
Child, Middle Aged, Senior, Teen, Young Adult
Special Skills
Audiobooks, Business, Cartoons, Documentaries, Educational, Internet, Movie Trailers, Podcasting, Radio, Telephone, Television, Videogames
Payment Terms
Hire EDUARDO as a voice actor. Payment is made through Voices.com SurePay, an escrow service that guarantees your work is done to your satisfaction. Send payment securely by Visa, Mastercard or PayPal through Voices.com then download your files from the website.
Watch a video to see how to make a payment
Next Steps
To contact EDUARDO RIVAS about your project, request a quote today. We'll walk you through the process step-by-step. It's fast and easy.
This talent has not uploaded any demos yet.
Hire EDUARDO RIVAS as a voice actor. Working with EDUARDO RIVAS is fast and easy. We'll walk you through the process step-by-step.
Request a quote for your project today.


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A Piece of Acid Protection
Some time ago my love and I went to a great concert and I bought a girly from one of the bands: Nile.
I made this look with the colours of my shirt in mind. I also wanted to use a little brown or gold with it to make sure it didn't look too much like the looks I've made before.
I used the golden pigment from the Essence Breaking Dawn part 2 collection called A piece of forever. It gives a nice brownish touch in the inner corner. Less gold then I had in mind though!
I also used a green eyeliner by Gosh on the waterline but that didn't really stick 😕
And here are some fullface pictures. I used the lipgloss from the Essence Breaking Dawn part 2 collection but looking at these pictures I'm now certain I don't like this product. It's too sheer for my taste!
I really love this shirt. The look…. not as much as the shirt, lol.
What do you think of the shirt and the look? Do you match your looks with your clothes? Please let me know in the comments!
Products used
- Hema Eyeshadow Base
- Gosh Mineral Waterproof Eyeshadow Stick, Brown
- Essence Breaking Dawn part 2 LE, pigment A Piece Of Forever
- Essence Breaking Dawn part 2 LE, pigment Jacob's Protection
- Sugarpill Junebug
- Sugarpill Acidberry
- Rimmel Professional Liquid Liner
- Gosh Velvet Touch Eyeliner, Lemon Soda
- Gosh Catchy Eyes mascara
- Gosh Velvet Touch Foundation, Ivory
- Essence Breaking Dawn part 2 LE, blush Renesmee Red
- Essence Breaking Dawn part 2 LE, lipgloss Renesmee Red
Posted on December 13, 2012, in Make-up looks and tagged Breaking Dawn part 2, EOTD, Essence, FOTD, gold, Gosh, green, lipgloss, Sugarpill, Sugarpill Acidberry, Sugarpill Junebug. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
Wauuuw ik ben helemaal verliefd op jouw oogkleur! Mooie look ook!
Awesome! I hardly ever do looks based on my clothing but maybe I should. Never would have picked you for a Nile fan. Awesome!


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Our Philosophy
From the beginning, we've offered our patients much more than standard outpatient clinic services as the Long Island Clinical Center of Excellence of the WTC Health Program. The importance we place on patient retention is built around the idea that people who feel invested in their healthcare will participate in and prioritize it.
Grounded in Dr. Luft's vision for a vibrant and integrative patient-centered program, our clinical center is exceptional in its care for 9/11 responders. Our approach integrates personalized preventive care and treatment, social work and psychiatry, and other specialties as part of our distinctive standard paradigm. Because of the nature of how 9/11-related illnesses are manifesting (many not for years after initial exposure) we are continuously assessing and evolving our medical care model. Many of the disease trajectories and treatment response patterns are atypical; thus, the medicine we practice is highly specialized, requiring a vibrant research program that drives innovative approaches to care.


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The eastern German city of Leipzig is allowing anyone who owns a car to use public transport for free until Friday, in a bid to get more people off the roads.
The four-day campaign, called 'Down With Petrol Insanity' is the first of its kind in the country.
It was launched a week after petrol prices in Germany hit a record high of 1.70 euros per litre.


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List of repositories | List of collections at Glamorgan Archives | Repository home page | Contact details
Reference code(s): GB 0214 EBRISEC
Held at: Glamorgan Archives
Title: Bridgend Intermediate Boys and Girls School records
Short Title: Bridgend Intermediate Boys and Girls School records
Creation date(s): 1891-1933
Level of description: Fonds
Extent: 0.04 cubic metres, 16 volumes
Name of creator(s): Bridgend Intermediate Boys and Girls School
Administrative/Biographical history: In 1896, under the provision of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889 a secondary school, then called an Intermediate school was erected at Bridgend . Originally, the school was for both boys and girls until 1934, when the boys section was moved to new buildings on the site of an old house called Brynteg. The girls school, which had been reestablished as Bridgend Girls Grammar on its separation from the boys school, continued to occupy the original site.
Scope and content/abstract: Bridgend Intermediate Boys and Girls School records comprising of minute books, 1896-1925; letterbooks, 1891-1926; treasurers receipt and payment book, 1930-1933
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement: Bridgend Intermediate Boys and Girls School records arranged chronologically by record series
Conditions governing access: Items containing information on named Individuals may be restricted in accordance with the Data Protection Act and Record Office policy
Conditions governing reproduction: Normal Glamorgan Record conditions apply
Finding aids: Handlist available at the Glamorgan Record Office
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information: All records offered have been accepted and listed
Accruals: Accruals are possible
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition: Deposited, 1955
Related material: EBRGSEC ; DX703
Archivist's note: Compiled by Annabel Wickham for the ANW Project; Sources used: Glamorgan Record Office finding aids; H.J. Randall, Bridgend, the Story of a Market Town, (Newport, 1955)
Rules or conventions: Description follows Archives Network Wales guidelines based on ISAD(G) second edition; AACR2 and LCSH.
Date(s) of descriptions: January 2006
List of repositories | List of collections at Glamorgan Archives | Repository home page | Contact details


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Center History
Permanent Collection
How to Help
About the Center
The Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts celebrates the arts and promotes wide-ranging approaches to self-expression including painting, ceramics, film, music, woodworking and photography with exhibitions, performances and workshops. The permanent collection preserves the legacy of Beatrice Wood through the artist's work, her collection of folk art from around the world, an extensive library and archives of historical material. The Center celebrates her spirit of experimentation and originality. Exhibitions featuring both acclaimed and emerging artists are documented and shared through film and new media. Operating as part of the Happy Valley Cultural Center, the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts is committed to serving both the local and international art community.
Gold Luster Bowl with 12 Gold Luster Figures (1985)
Beatrice Wood Permanent Collection
The Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts is Open to the Public Fri, Sat, & Sun 11:00 am - 5:00 pm.
8585 Ojai-Santa Paula Road, Ojai, CA 93024
Driving Directions
Home | About the Center | Artists & Exhibitions | Schedule of Events | Education | Store
News | About Beatrice Wood | Secondary Market | Contact
Copyright © 2015 Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts


text: a "300t10v" ? :). What year? I'll assume whatever you have is the same as my '89 200TQ. First of wall, I'm no mechanic. I'm just a guy who tries to do as much work on the car myself as I can. Nothing stated below should be treated as gospel. I assume your heater core was replaced a few weeks ago -- as it would be the most likely "fog" source. If so, the cable controlling the positions of the flaps may be slightly bent. There's some way to "tune" this setup so it will work with the Delco peice of $%#^@*, but I don't know how to do it. I would: Under the hood, remove the plastic "firewall" cover (you'll have to remove a windshield wiper to do this). The large plastic box in the middle of the "firewall" is the heater box. On the passenger side 1/2 way down the box toward the road is an interlocking set of levers. In roughly the same position on the driver's side of the heater box is a small motor in a black plastic enclosure. This little motor moves the flaps back and forth. Start the car and shift the temp on the Delco Climate Control from all the way "High" (Hot) to all the way "Low" (Cold). The levers on the passenger side should change positions from one extreme to another. They almost certain do not given the symtoms you mentioned. If this is true, remove the small motor from the driver's side and try moving the levers on the passenger side by hand to all the way "Low" (cold). Take the car for a drive. If this solves the "unwanted heat" problem, either the little motor is shot or whatever tells the little motor to move is shot. If moving the levers manually does not solve the problem, I'd bet the internals of the heater box are not put together correctly or they are broken. That little motor is $100+ from the dealer ($150+ I think). Not sure of any cheaper sources. Each time I have replaced a heater core, I have run clutch cables to the vent controls (the levers mentioned above are one of these), and mounted them in spare switch slots or under the dash. This is a *very* cheap and simple way to approach the problem. To make the clutch cable change, you should also pull out the carpeted "skirts" on the sides of the center console in the drivers and front passenger footwells. With these removed, you should be able to disconnect the vacuum control hoses on the bottom (inside cabin) part of the heater box and plug them (vacuum leaks are bad) with a small screw or golf tee. Todd firstname.lastname@example.com ---------- >Come on guys....please have 1 person reply me back on this question. Spring >is coming and I can't take the heat anymore. Please Please Please Please >Please help me! Thanks! > >Jason C > >In a message dated 3/22/99 4:45:59 PM Pacific Standard Time, >firstname.lastname@example.com writes: > ><< I apologize if this has been in a previous post, but I'm new here, so sue >me. > My car had the Flap problem(a.k.a.- its foggy in here) and was fix a few >weeks > ago. Now I have a problem with the car giving me heat when I don't need it. > It seems like when I pound on the accel. I get heat even when the system is > off. So in the off position it give me heat(from the bottem vents, near the > legs) and in the Auto or the Econ it just blows me heat. Only when it is >turn > to LO and in Auto or Defrost that it give me Cooler air(not cold air, but > COOLER) Anyone has a solution for this? Any BTDT? TIA. > > Jason C > Audi 300t10v > Redmond WA >>


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This is another post I came across on my old site that was just begging to be reposted. Bunny still talks about this special meeting to this day. It really made an impact on her and I still get teary-eyed remembering it all. Originally posted in October 2011.
Bunny has been a Sleeping Beauty fan from the moment she understood the word "Princess". She really hasn't watched the film very often (it tends to scare her a bit, which I find ironic seeing as the kid loves Nightmare Before Christmas, but I digress), but she talks about Princess Aurora constantly.


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To launch the new Adobe Stock feature in photoshop we challenged digital artists to re-created famous lost and stolen masterpieces entirely out of Adobe Stock photography without ever leaving photoshop.
D&AD • Gold Pencil
CANNES • Silver Lion and Short list
ADC • Gold, Silver and Bronze
ADDY • National Gold, 2 Silver
The San Francisco Sit and Lie ordinance created in 2011, made it a crime to rest for more than 3 minutes on public property at any time. This law, directed at the homeless, made it legal for the cops to push the homeless around and out of view. Keep The Meter Running was my protest to this new ordinance.
ANDY • Best in Show
CLIO • Gold
ADC • Gold
ADDY • Best in Show
BEES AWARD • Gold
Adobe Marketing Cloud provides a number of useful tools to service businesses and their customers better.
CANNES • Shortlist Film Craft
In 2016 we ran Chester Cheetah for mayor in the actual town of Chester, Montana. The whole town got to participate, even the incumbent mayor Noel Walston played along.
ADDY • National 2 Gold & 2 Silver
Trucks and Vikings on the Icelandic tundra. Enough said.
To prepare for "Watchathon Week," a seven-day binge-watching TV event, Xfinity wanted superfans to get even more invested in their favorite shows. So we partnered with Airbnb to let fans actually live like their favorite characters.
ADDY • Silver
CMA • Gold
It's hard for milk to compete with crazy fizzy sodas and neon-colored sports drinks. That is, until you get out a plate of cookies. Or a bowl of curry that's just a liiiittle too hot.
ADDY • National Gold & 3x Silver
When you check in on a Princess cruise you check out from everything else.
A campaign about the calming powers of drinking Milk before bed.
ADDY • 4 Gold & 3 Silver
ONE SHOW • Merit
Love is a two way street and guys need to feel pampered too. So we worked fast and furious to create a social campaign to show your love for the guy in your life with the Doritos Bouquet.
This entire campaign from start to finish was created in the three weeks leading up to Valentines Day.
Herein lies the salty tale of the oceans largest dick.
In 2016 California was in a sever drought. Most people think about conserving water by showering less but what most people don't know is that a simple decision in the grocery aisle could save hundreds of gallons of water. So I did a little guerrilla marketing of my own and created replica supermarket stickers that replaced the cost of products with its weight in water.
One lazy Sunday my friend Ronnie and I decided to create the worlds largest game of Pictionary. Using Instagrams existing UI, and a dry erase board we got everyone in the park posting pictionary drawings and guessing the answers through the comment section. It was a simple game that allowed anyone to participate..


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Master IT Architect, working for Hewlett-Packard since 2002, has 17 years of experience with Computing Industry, delivering project for the Financial Services customers. Leszek has gained programming, solution development and project leading experience, building IVR systems, database projects and Web applications. Prior to joining HP, Leszek worked for Metrosoft, Inc, delivering solutions for major US brokerage houses and investment banks.
Representative accomplishments are: SOA platform implementation for National Bank of Poland, Multi-Channel Platform and Corporate Electronic Banking application for Lukas Bank (Credit Agricole), Investor Phone System for TD Waterhouse and Quick & Reilly, Bloomberg Investor Phone for GTE Airfone (Verizon). Leszek's current focus is on Internet Banking Solutions, Service Oriented Architecture featuring both, JEE and .NET technologies, Enterprise Security and Master Data Management solutions.
SOA in Banking: A Review of Current Trends and Standards based on an Example of a Real-Life Integration Project Delivered to a Financial Services Customer Published: June 11, 2014 • Service Technology Magazine Issue LXXXIV PDF
Abstract: The following article is based on the example of an actual banking project, delivered by HP Professional Services to a major European bank. A similar approach has been taken in other integration projects to extents, depending on the legacy constraints and requirements of the customer.
Due to rapid growth in the market, a European bank decides to replace its IT application infrastructure, including its core processing system, integration platform and all front-end delivery channels. One of the challenges of this project was the integration of over 20 back-end systems being used by the bank, as well as integration with external service providers.
Three main challenges of the project were: (1) business related, to bridge the gap between business requirements and technical specifications, (2) management related, to shorten development time and meet the aggressive timeline of the project, and (3) technical, to assure that performance requirements will be met on the given hardware platform. The performance of the transactional system, especially the middleware layer, is extremely important because of strict rules imposed by the systems being interfaced. An example is how ATM requests processed in the online mode are governed by strict time-out rules.
Two key areas of the solution were: (1) the definition of a unified, enterprise-wide data model for communication, and (2) selection of tools, allowing high-level definition of orchestrated services, that will meet agreed performance requirements in the production environment and allow business analysts to participate in the service design process.
The project team acknowledged that the resulting data model would need to follow business requirements but also need to comply with the requirements of the existing legacy systems. While basic data transformations can be performed directly in the service interface of the back-end systems, fine-grained business requirements can be fulfilled only by the orchestration of coarse-grained back-end services.
In contrast to business services exposed by the back-end applications, services resulting from the orchestration were called virtual services.
Figure 1
Unified Data Model
Building a unified data model was the first step on the transformation roadmap for a service-oriented architecture. After an IT assessment, 21 different back-end applications have been identified that provided various services in the bank's production environment. Applications were operated internally by the bank itself or externally, usually by another bank, exposing a set of remote services. After identification of the distinct data areas, a "primary owner" or "source application" (application that owns the particular data) has been assigned to each data area, redundancies (multiple systems storing the same data) have been identified and finally systems that were dependent on the selected data have been found. As a result, representation of the particular data item has been defined as an XML schema type.
How to Start the Process?
Common approaches to the data modeling were to:
The first option was ruled out, because there were no single standard defining end-to-end banking operations. Also, country specific regulations are very often inconsistent with particular standards, leading to the need for proprietary extensions.
The last option was ruled out, because the effort (cost and time) estimated for the "build from the scratch" approach far exceeded the available resources.
A Unified Data Model was created based on a template: XML Reference Data Model developed by our team, using several industry standards and applicable to the financial industry, like SWIFT, IFX (Interactive Financial eXchange) or ISO20022 (ISO Standard for Financial Services Messaging), and drawing on our practical experiences previous projects.
This selection allowed for a pragmatic approach to the standardization process within the bank. Instead of enforcing some specific standard, it provided an effective framework and templates for the implementation teams in all the relevant banking operations' areas. It was positioned an effective baseline for the Gap Analysis and subsequent analytical and design activities, with the final result being a full, customized XSD representation of the actual bank's environment. We found such an approach very practical and effective in several other banking projects.
Another question to be answered was the scope of the project, defined as:
Although the project would follow similar steps and activities in both cases, an enterprise-wide project would require much stronger governance, in order to synchronize work performed by the teams focusing on particular domains.
The project referenced in this article was recognized as an enterprise-wide project, and the work was organized around the following activities:
Identification of Business Domains
Particular domains and sub-domains have been associated with different business units of the Bank. For example:
Another aspect of such a split was the definition of data ownership. Data ownership can be viewed from an IT (technical) or a business perspective. IT is mainly focused on where data is being stored, while business looks at the data from an operational perspective. Very often those two perspectives are different. For example, in case of the bank using multiple core banking systems (CBS) data entities belonging to the same logical domain are stored in different core systems. Looking from this perspective, the application of logical views allows for the identification of important links that are not visible on the technical level.
The following diagram presents different ways to split the data, depending on the viewpoints described in the next chapter.
Figure 2
Definition of the Design Standards
The consequence of the decision to follow service-oriented design approach was the ability to involve business at any stage of the project, starting from the analysis through to design, implementation and maintenance. In order to ensure that such cooperation is possible, the project team had to prepare set of simple, yet extremely important design standards enabling this cooperation, such as:
Naming Convention
A rule of the thumb is that naming conventions should be self-explanatory and human-readable. It is also good to agree on the consistent usage of a
The first part of the example shows basic types, that might be either enterprise-wide (as Amount or Currency), or domain-specific, such as Address type.
The second part shows domain specific types, where "basic" type is always defining a minimum subset of the data common for all the sub-types. An example is how "personal" and "corporate" sub-types of the user is demonstrating different identities of the same entity (e.g. the user can be identified as an employee of the corporation, or individual customer of the bank). "Permission" type is an example of a set of properties that are applicable to any user. Finally, UserType is a super-type, grouping all possible details of the user together.
The third part of the example is presenting message parts that will later be used to build services and service operations (functions).
Organization of the Physical Assets of the Project
Although it may sound like a minor decision, the organization of the data model in terms of folders and files can have significant consequences, both for IT and for business. While the technical approach focusses on the organization of files based on their technical properties (e.g. simple types, complex types, interfaces), the business approach would be oriented around grouping the files based on data ownership.
Enterprise-scale projects usually require a number of teams working in parallel. Proper organization of the physical assets was very helpful in achieving a certain level of independence between the teams, focusing on different business domains and working with different counterparties from the bank.
Structure of the Data Dependencies on the Analytical Level
Another fundamental decision is to distinguish between enterprise data that will be shared between various business domains and domain specific data that most likely will be governed within the domain.
In both cases, common data will be organized in the form of dictionaries. While domain-specific dictionaries are governed locally by the team responsible for that particular domain, enterprise dictionaries will be shared between the teams and hence would require special governance procedures.
Tools and Document Templates
The most important part of collaboration between the project teams is to focus on the business and functional contexts. This is why proper selection of the design tools and document templates is critical for effective collaboration between the teams, ensuring that the results can be easily shared and merged together on the enterprise level.
Selection of the tools for data modeling.
In the project referenced in this article, a choice was made between two tools:
While those tools are significantly different in nature, both allow for the definition and maintenance of the data model. The main differences are the following:
The choice made on the project level was to use XSM Spy as a primary data modeling tool, because of the outstanding quality of the XSD produced by this tool.
In the other project, a similar decision related to the choice between EA and XML Spy led to mixed approach. Thanks a high-quality API exposed by EA, small application were developed to automatically synchronize work between the two tools.
Introduction of Service Governance
Service governance is essentially related to central management of the enterprise resources that span between domains and business areas. All the already mentioned design standards are contributing to the overall governance, but cover only one aspect. Tools and templates won't work without strong management procedures that needs to be followed at any stage of the project.
Unfortunately, event templates and procedures are not sufficient for overall success. It could be the case that, especially during the analysis phase of the project, work done in accordance with agreed standards could lead to meaningless results. In the project referenced in this article, a team working on the transaction authorization procedures came to the point where processes were so complicated that there was no simple way to model them in any of the available tools.
Such illuminate the most important aspect of governance – strong leadership. It could be the Chief Architect or any other team member with a clear vision of the overall solution and the ability to put several small bits and pieces into the big picture to represent expected results of the project. In the referenced project, the decision was made to establish an Architecture Board consisting of the Chief Architect and a few other team members with good overall knowledge of the project. Throughout the project the Architecture Board was responsible for reviewing of all the analytical documents, to achieve overall consistency. In case of conflicts, members of the Architecture Board were dealing with business to produce satisfactory solutions.
Definition of the Physical Data Model
Definition of the physical data model was following top-down vs. bottom-up approach.
Top-Down Approach
The primary focus of the top-down approach was to understand the future needs of the business stakeholders, by:
Figure 3
Bottom-Up Approach
The bottom-up approach focused on the existing applications by:
Figure 4
Design of the XML Schema
Results of the top-down and bottom-up analyses lead to the creation of the unified data model defined as an XML schema, where:
Figure 5
The prefix CFM stands for Common Message Format. In various banking projects, data models defined for particular banks were named individually for each bank. For example, the model for Bank X could be named BXMF.
Design of the Service Messages
Although XSD was used to define data structures, the ultimate goal of the SOA project was definition of the services. This is why the data model was usually referred to as a "message model".
Message-specific data types extended the following abstract types:
Figure 6
Figure 7
Usage of the common types for request and response messages brought another level of standardization. Despite technical data transferred in case of Web services in the SOAP header, common types were defining common parts of the body of the messages.
Design of Web Services
The Web services were defined for "business services" exposed by the back-end systems and for "virtual (orchestrated) services" exposed by the service orchestration engine separately. In both cases:
Figure 8
Selection of Service Orchestration Tools
The ability to create fine tuned business services following detailed specifications prepared together with the business was one of the fundamental requirements that justified adopting the service-oriented approach for the project.
The selection of the service orchestration tool was based on the following set of goals, highlighting particular business and technical requirements of the project:
The tool that was selected for the project was based on the proprietary solution, and is due to be replaced by an off-the-shelf software package. Currently a number of leading ESB-class applications available on the market is fulfilling the requirements stated above.
The project resulted in the identification of approximately 140 business services provided by internal and external service providers. These services were further orchestrated into 500 highly specialized, fine-grained virtual services in support of various service consumers that were mainly front-end applications.
Figure 9
Following the top-down and not bottom-up approach, the services delivered for the front-end applications almost perfectly matched requirements stated by the business stakeholders, while only minor modifications to the back-end systems were required.
All the data transformations between internal data structures of the back-end systems and unified data model were implemented in the specific adapters, exposing services from the particular systems. In some cases, services were implemented using native capabilities of the back-end applications (e.g. internal scripting languages), while in other cases, adapters were placed on top of the legacy systems as a separate, add-on applications.
From a technical perspective, service orchestration was implemented on the ESB-class platform that was selected for the project.
Figure 10
Since most of the online communications, including a timeout-sensitive ATM channel, were based on the orchestrated services, detailed performance testing was performed to measure the actual overhead of the orchestration:
Figure 11
These results proved that properly designed service orchestration that focuses on business requirements and avoids extensive data transformations brings only minimal performance overhead.
Later on, orchestration capabilities were used several times to develop new capabilities required by the business. In one of the examples, the creation of brand new line of "saving" products, combining term deposits with mutual funds, was completed in only three weeks, while a similar task would have required three months following the traditional and not service oriented approach.


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Published on August 11, 2013
What are the Symptoms of Hip Osteoarthritis?
Symptoms of hip osteoarthritis tends to develop gradually over time. As hip osteoarthritis and degeneration progress most people begin to experience hip pain with weight bearing activities and with movement, as well joint stiffness is present typically after rest and or in the mornings.
As hip osteoarthritis develops people tend to notice joint pain becoming more severe with noticeably less hip flexibility and pain at nights with sleeping on the affected hip. Some also notice a grinding sensations in their hips with certain movements such as with getting in and out of bed. Joint stiffness after sitting for extended periods of time, pain and swelling or tenderness in the hip joint, as well as an inability to move the hip in certain ranges which may limit a persons ability to perform certain activities of daily living.
Pain experienced with hip osteoarthritis typically can be felt into the buttocks region and or front of the hip and groin area. Occasionally some experience referred pain to their thighs and or knees. In the later stages of hip osteoarthritis some people begin to develop a limp with their walk and also muscle wasting due to the inability to move the hip and leg through its range.
Little can be done to stop the process of hip osteoarthritis and degeneration around the joint, but there are complementary therapies available to help people still remain active.
Treatment For Hip Osteoarthritis:
Treatment options for those with hip osteoarthritis can be either non-surgical or surgical.
The primary goal of non-surgical hip osteoarthritis treatment is to help patients remain active without aggravating symptoms by maintaining strength and mobility to slow down and avoid further deterioration. Treatment tends to be directed at improving hip range of motion and strength. One key component is to get patients to rest from aggravating activities and to balance weight bearing activities with periods of rest to help keep symptoms to a minimum or absent.
In choosing activities it is important to choose activities that don't increase symptoms. Swimming, and bike riding are fairly low impact and can be of benefit for those with hip osteoarthritis. Keeping active and moving is important as it helps to prevent stiffness and weakness from developing. Pain relief with anti-inflammatory medications can help assist with pain management. A chiropractor and or physical therapist can help with joint mobilization treatments and manual or instrument assisted soft tissue therapies, electrotherapies, acupuncture, ice and or heat therapy and exercises to help improve strength, flexibility and balance. In addition your therapist can provide information on topics such as walking aids, footwear and orthotics and advice on activity and lifestyle modifications.
Typically during later stages of hip osteoarthritis when non-surgical treatments do not seem to sustain the pain management and mobility issues become limited, surgery may be needed with the use of a total hip replacement to provide pain relief and improve mobility. The optimal time for joint replacement is not known and is something that needs to be discussed with your healthcare practitioner.


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Off-Grid Water Purification Breakthrough
I've heard the Lifesaver bottle advertised on The Survival Podcast, but was not excited about it until I saw this TED Talk video from 2009 of Lifesaver's inventor and CEO Michael Pritchard's presentation at Oxford, England.
The Lifesaver system filters out contaminants larger than 15 nanometers. It's 100% effective against the 25 nanometer sized polio virus and other water borne viruses. And certainly 100% effective in filtering considerably larger bacteria and infectious cysts.
The demonstration is very impressive. Gather the water through the base, pump a few times by hand like a big water squirt gun, uncap the top and immediately get pure sterile safe drinking water from out of the most horrific sources. Very important for disaster relief and economical for day to day off-grid usage.


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Online over 1 year ago
Rent budget
Preferred stay length
Move date
Hi! I'm Hamish,
I'm an 18 year old part time worker in the city, an avid musician, a reader, love to go out and have a good time, as well as stay in and relax with a movie. I'm looking for somewhere to stay fairly long term, and id love to get to know you guys.
I work as a barback in the city and I'm a cook with Fonda, so I'm very comfortable with dishes! I'm very friendly, I like to cook, and I'm always willing to have a chat!
Let me know if you would like to be my new roommate/s!


text:
- 50 years old
- Date of birth: Jul 17, 1965
- Date of passing: Dec 25, 2015
|Let the memory of Mark be with us forever
"2 years on,& still sadly missed, always in our thoughts,xx"
"I always have flowers next to your photos
In memory of you"
"Tomorrow would of been your 52nd birthday
Will be thinking about you, Always in my thoughts & heart,& still sadly missed,"
"One year on, & your stll missed very much,
Always in my thoughts.....
Love your spanish girl xx"
"Merry Christmas Day, miss you loads, RIP"
"Uncle Mark love and miss you so much your forever in my heart"
"My lovely Mark,
Would of been your 51 birthday, today,
You will be in my thoughts like you always are
Still miss you,& especially your singing in the car
When we went for our long drives, luv u..."
"Hi Mark
Just like to wish you all the best for today, your are one of the best wishing you were still here"
"Thinking of you Dad, missing you crazy, A day hasn't gone by when I don't think of you. Happy Fathers Day, Xxxx"
"r.i.p. mark one of the nice guys from kevin and douglas hunt"
"Such shocking news - RIP Mark xx"
"I'm so lucky to have met you on that bus in 1976 on our journey to school, you were one of the nicest young men back then & grew into a lovely fella who everybody loved. Going to miss you on FB Mark, may you rest in paradise. Xx"
"A wonderful,caring and loving uncle and I am always going to miss u. You always made us laugh ,u will always be in my heart and I will never forget all the good times love u loads and miss u xxxxxxxxxxx R.I.P uncle mark"
"A truly nice guy who will be missed by so many. Now you have peace and no pain xx"
"I feel so lucky to have known Mark, such a kind hearted man who brought a lot of smiles and laughter to our little house in Isleworth.
I will remember the happy memories always, rest in peace xxxxx"
"You was a lovely guy. You was always very kind to everyone . Jackie always spoke very highly of you. She is a very proud mum . You always looked after her and Fred . Sleep well mark my thoughts are with your familyxxxx"
"To my lovely Mark,
We were only together for a short while,
I will cherish , all our memories,
I will miss you dearly, & will miss talking/teaching you spanish words
Love you always, your spanish girlxxxxx
"A truly amazing man and father of my children. your always be in my heart. we had some amazing times together and laughs. will miss you so much sleep tight xxxx"
"A truly beloved brother you may be gone but your never be forgotten my heart is aching with the thought I will never see you again love and miss you at least I know both sets of grandparents will look after you
RIP my darling your little sister xxxxc"
"One off the greatest cousins ever will be sadly missed by all . x"
"A truly amazing uncle always in my heart forever miss you so much love you sleep tightxx"
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The yellow metal has remained quiet so far this year – bitcoin is grabbing the business headlines these days. It is trading at around $1,250 and not a lot of movement is occurring. But should goldbugs focus on gold's short-term or long-term prospects? One former presidential candidate says he sees it over a 100-year period.
Former Texas Republican Congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul spoke to CNBC's "Talking Numbers" Tuesday to discuss precious metals. Essentially, he sees last year's decline in the price of gold simply a bump in the road and it will not hinder its bullish run or the inevitable rise of gold's value.
"I don't see gold so much in short-term because I see it in over a 100-year period," said Paul. "Long-term, it will always go up so long as we have a [Federal Reserve] printing money. But, on the short-term, the traders have a lot to say about this. A correction like we just had last year – one year out of 13 – that's not a big correction. That doesn't destroy a so-called bull market."
Eventually, says Paul, investors will head to gold due to growing national debts, fear in the overall economy and markets and continued stimulus from both the Fed and the federal government. Also, gold serves as a practical policy function.
"I think they're going to move to gold. Gold is going to be the safe haven which it's been for 6,000 years," stated Paul. "The most important thing about gold is it restrains the temptation of those who think they know best in what interest rates should be and what the money supply should be."
At the time of this writing, gold is trading at $1,250, while silver has dropped to less than $20.
To catch up on the latest Dr. Paul news, you can watch the State of the Union with Ron Paul and fellow libertarians Tuesday at 6 p.m. on the Ron Paul Channel.


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On the cover:
Dress, $95, earrings, $135, both at Angelique Shoe; macarons, $17.50 for a box of eight at Sucre.
Special thanks to Houmas House Plantation (40136 Highway 92, Darrow, 225-473-9380; www.houmashouse.com) for hosting our shoot.
Photography Greg Miles
Styling Aimee Gowland and Corrie Pellerin for ALG Style
Styling assistant Courtney Jones
Hair and makeup Leslie Claverie for Paris Parker Prytania
Model Helena Koclanes


text: im a solid baseline player that can get around the court. i would rate myself a 4.0 I've been using the more response for a few years now.. really haven't grown out of this racket, but have tested the o3 red mp an strangely my ground strokes tend to go long. just recently cracked my racket and am in need of something similar i guess.. going from the Prince More Response OS B950 to Prince More Control DB os 850 does this sound good? Prince More Response OS B950- http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/REVIEWS/PMRES/PMRESReview.html Prince More Control DB 850- http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/Reviews/PMCDB/PMCDBReview.html main thing im scared about is not being able to find a racket that was like my old one..


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I grew up going to the beach year-around, yes, I grew up in Ecuador, and our winter is just sweater-weather, but still I really enjoy spring days at the beach regardless of how chilly they may get. It is no news that I love J.Crew but let's be real, I can't buy everything there all the time, who has that kind of money?! I love shopping when there are good sales or I like to get the main piece of my outfit such as this super cute metallic shorts and pair it up with other cute items that I already have in my closet or that I can purchase at lower end stores such as H&M, Zara, Forever21… you know the list.
1. Banana Republic conversational small pouch CIAO $28 (also comes with XO, BELLA captions) | 2. H&M sunglasses $12.95 | 3. J.Crew lightweight camp shirt in whisper lame $88 | 4. J.Crew collection metallic eyelet trouser short $158 (such a cute short!) | 5. J.Crew Hayes metallic suede sandals $118 | 6. H&M straw hat $5 (get it now!).


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- Publisher: Nintendo
- Release Date: Feb 7, 2014
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
Dec 2, 2013An excellent classic JRPG adventure in the vein of the 8, 16 and 32 bit master gems. A great new addition for the always growing 3DS catalogue and an exciting new IP for Square Enix.
Dec 6, 2013Some elements like microtransaction feel inept, but most of the time the symbiosis of random battles, turn based tactics and time manipulation works surprisingly well. If you cherish old rpg virtues this is definitely for you.
Jan 29, 2014A terribly entertaining, meaty adventure that stumbles slightly with too much boss fight repetition near the end.
Feb 1, 2014Bravely Default is so full of old time good RPG fun that you could literally shake a stick at it and it wouldn't change a thing given how much quality is in this game.
Jan 23, 2014With everything you could want in a JRPG, Bravely Default is a must play for fans of the genre.
Dec 23, 2013Bravely Default is classic Final Fantasy in everything but name only.
Dec 30, 2013It is suitably complex mechanically to be challenging on a level beyond simply long fights with tough enemies, and tells a solid story reminiscent of the older Final Fantasy games from which it draws design elements.
Jan 28, 2014If you like JRPGs and own a 3DS, Bravely Default is easily one of the best available for the system.
Jan 28, 2014Its shameless implementation of 90s-era mechanics and design does mean that participants will need to have a love for conventional JRPGs—and perhaps a bit of patience to endure the homogeneity of the first part of the game—but beyond that, Bravely Default is a great experience.
Feb 3, 2014Bravely Default's more interesting ideas, particularly the mechanics behind the battle system, breathe some life into a very traditional RPG. However, the game is also let down by its fair share of derivative and less ambitious features. Bravely Default disappointingly wastes a lot of its potential, but Square Enix will get another shot with the already-announced sequel.
Dec 3, 2013This is a game that skilfully blends the safe with the courageous in an alchemical fusion of old and new, somehow brave and default all at once.
Feb 8, 2014Bravely Default is a reminder that classic Final Fantasy themes and gameplay elements are timeless in the right hands. Unfortunately, its later segments are some of the worst examples of unnecessary padding in RPG history. All told, it's a flawed masterpiece that shows more potential than any other current Square Enix RPG property.
Dec 3, 2013The core conceit adds new capacity for strategy; it's a genuine and interesting invention. And despite the now completely lifeless use of mystical crystals as a plot device, as the game progresses, scriptwriter Nataka Hayashi begins to subvert the clichés in unexpected ways. What's easy to dismiss as by-the-numbers plotting will delight and surprise you in time.
Nov 24, 2013Bravely Default is one of the best traditional JRPGs and the best new IP from Square Enix in years.
Dec 10, 2013Some say that this is the best Final Fantasy in many years, and it may be a great way to describe it: Bravely Default is a love letter for the old JRPGs, but it also has some good new ideas.
Dec 19, 2013Bravely Default is a masterpiece within the RPG genre. A title that combines nostalgia and modernity firmly and gently and offers a truly unique experience.
Jan 28, 2014Despite being plagued by a slow pace and late-game repetition, Bravely Default's core mechanics kept me engaged until the credits.
Dec 5, 2013More than a testament to JRPGs timeless traditions, Bravely Default represents the contemporary quintessence of this genre through the inspired use of technology and its audacious gameplay mechanics.
Apr 8, 2014It's got a lovely fresh coat of paint, but underneath that Bravely Default is the same old thing.
Dec 5, 2013Bravely Default is a classic j-rpg experience that doesn't aim high, but delivers where it matters, featuring robust gameplay and stunningly artistic visuals.
Dec 5, 2013Bravely Default is the best Final Fantasy game since part nine. Traditional JRPG-elements are perfectly combined with good new additions in the combat system. Bravery Default also utilizes the 3DS's capabilities quite well.
Dec 28, 2013Anyone with any sort of love for the JRPG-genre should definitely give Bravely Default some attention. This is as close to classic Final Fantasy as it gets without actually being classic Final Fantasy.
Games Master UKDec 25, 2013Great if you're a stickler for tradition, but progress can feel overly slow at times. [Jan 2014, p.84]
Dec 4, 2013If this is what Square Enix can do when they outsource the Final Fantasy property (even spiritually) we hope to see the core series go down this route, too; it's a damn sight better than the numbered entries' recent efforts.
Jan 28, 2014Bravely Default is the best JRPG you could play on the 3DS. If I were Square Enix, I would give this same team a Final Fantasy-sized budget and let them make a proper, numbered entry in the series.
Dec 14, 2013Despite that unwelcome intrusion and the lacklustre storytelling, Bravely Default is one of the finest RPGs Square Enix has been involved with in recent times.
Jan 8, 2014Bravely Default is ambitious without being unconventional: an effective, engaging addition to a genre often hamstrung by tradition.
Feb 7, 2014For all of its strengths, Bravely Default's best quality is its underlying enthusiasm that permeates almost every aspect.
Jan 28, 2014If you have any affinity for the Final Fantasy brand, you'll absolutely love Bravely Default.
Jan 29, 2014Bravely Default is one of those games that we knew was going to be something special when the first previews started showing up in Japan. The final product is nothing short of Game of the Year material. It may be too early to call it, but for now, it's definitely a front-runner for such distinction.
Jan 28, 2014Bravely Default's combat combines the best things that old-school JRPGs had to offer with some new and welcome additions, and its social features are incredibly forward-thinking. However, its sluggish pacing and over-reliance on repetition and genre conventions holds it back from being the Final Fantasy replacement we all wanted it to be.
Nov 25, 2013Ironically, Bravely Default is one of the best Final Fantasies in years. Taking the very best of 8/16-bit entries of the series, and bringing them up to date with some beautiful graphics, clever features and engaging gameplay, this is a must for someone looking for a more traditional JRPG.
Jan 28, 2014Bravely Default is a flagship series in the making and worth exploring even for the uninitiated; its craftsmanship is simply too good a testament to the medium to pass up.
Hyper MagazineFeb 12, 2014A JRPG that only occasionally gives into the genre's worst impulses, and one that rewards strategy and dedication. [March 2014, p.70]
Dec 5, 2013Fans and open-minded newcomers will enjoy a substantial adventure that proves the JRPG is alive and kicking.
Dec 12, 2013Bravely Default is a role-playing game that tries to match the old school with new ideas, giving the player a good combat system, a mature story, but also a lackluster exploration. Mission accomplished.
Dec 30, 2013For 2013, Bravely Default is easily the best RPG of the year that will keep fans of this genre extremely happy as they join these characters in their fight for freedom.
Dec 18, 2013Bravery Default is mostly built on a strong foundation that Square Enix built up over the last several years with RPGs. It does do a few unique things though. The Brave & Default system is well thought out and the 3DS-functionalities are put to good use during this enormous adventure. Too bad the story is a letdown and it starts of too slowly.
Jan 28, 2014My major bugbear with Bravely Default is it drags on by the end. Not because of length, but rather because the story forces the game to retrace its steps in a way that's not as clever as it thinks it is, or at least not clever enough.
Feb 16, 2014Bravely Deafult is the best game from Square-Enix in a long time and a must for fans of classic Final Fantasy. The battle and work system, as well as the history and the graphics is natural progresses of a gamemaking many deemed nostalgic.
Feb 5, 2014Bravely Default represents a solid revival of Square's old-school JRPGs with an extremely competent execution and rich, elaborate combat mechanics. However, it suffers from narrative stiffness, bad dialogue, unsympathetic characters and an altogether tiredness in it's cliché-ridden story.
Feb 6, 2014Enthusiasts will love the throwback gameplay, and the unique spin on battles complements both veterans and newcomers. There are plenty of reasons to keep playing and replaying the game, not the least of which being the variety of jobs available to test.
Dec 2, 2013Square Enix delivers one of the best JRPGs we've tried on 3DS. The new battle-gameplay mechanics are fun and immersive, and the story-line will keep us close to the 3DS for as long as the adventure lasts. It's a must-have for every 3DS owner and by far the best of its genre, plain and simple.
Dec 2, 2013A brave game indeed as it attempts to marry the best of old school Japanese role-players with new and modern ideas… and generally succeeds.
Dec 3, 2013Bravely Default is a superb game, plain and simple. Fans of the genre will love every second of it and newcomers will definitely understand why the genre is so much loved all around the world.
Dec 1, 2013Any 3DS owner with even a fleeting interest in role-playing games and a desire to get lost in an incredible, engaging adventure would be doing themselves a huge favour by picking up Bravely Default without delay.
Nov 25, 2013Bravely Default is a massive game, and one of the best examples of the genre available on the 3DS. While it harkens back to a simpler time, it still offers more than enough complexity to keep players engaged for a long time.
Dec 9, 2013Bravely Default matches all the cosy warmth of traditional themes and familiar role-playing customisation systems with fresh concepts and interesting twists that use many of the 3DS most underused used features. The game provides the JRPG genre with a much-needed shot in the arm.
Dec 24, 2013Most of the game is absolutely brilliant, looking back at classic RPGs while also pushing the genre forward. But sadly, the final hours of the game, those that should be the most memorable and climactic, are tedious beyond words, and undermine everything great that came before. And this is something that's hard to forgive.
Nov 27, 2013This is the road the Final Fantasy series should have taken; a refreshing new take on JRPG that will have fans of the genre giddy with excitement.
Dec 11, 2013Bravely Default breaks from the traditional JRPG mould time and time again, providing dozens of hours of clever adventuring.
Jan 30, 2014It feels like the product of many years dedicated to the crafting of JRPGs — and the team at Square Enix and Silicon Studio have nailed it this time.
Feb 10, 2014Bravely Default's combat system sits comfortably among some of Square Enix's best including those within games like Chrono Trigger, earlier Final Fantasy games, and Dragon Quest VIII. It's that good.
Apr 14, 2014It sounds like a lot, and it is, but not in an overwhelming way but in a fantastic, three in the morning, I can't stop playing this game kind of way. When it all comes together and you destroy a boss that gave you troubles just a few job levels ago, it feels great.
Dec 30, 2013This isn't the next big JRPG, but it'll certainly take you a long time to complete.
Dec 30, 2013Bravely Default is a triumphant blending of a classic template with some fresh ideas and modern user-friendliness, albeit with a few areas that could still be refined before going on to the next level.
Feb 10, 2014Square Enix may be taking its signature Final Fantasy series to new places, but Bravely Default shows that they still know what makes a good, traditional JRPG.
Dec 3, 2013It would be a crime not to play this little gem of a JRPG, that shows to everyone (to Square Enix in the first place) where the Final Fantasy saga should have gone. In fact, even not owning a 3DS would be a valid excuse: go out and buy one.
Feb 9, 2014Bravely Default is a joy to play for old school JRPG fans. The music, graphics and mechanics all blend together perfectly and it continues in a already strong lineup of RPGs on the 3DS. This little handheld is becoming quite the powerhouse for these kind of games.
Dec 2, 2013This is an outstanding game in every aspect, that also adds very interesting ideas. If you've ever enjoyed an Japanese RPG, this is a title you cannot miss.
Feb 13, 2014It comes so close to greatness that it's possible to overlook its glaring flaws. Just be warned that it'll be a slog to get to the end.
Dec 23, 2013This is a classic but very entertaining RPG. The framerate drop is one of the minor flaws in an otherwise nearly perfect game.
Jan 28, 2014Bravely Default stands currently as my first big game of the year contender and while there are a few minor missteps along the way, it's still a giant leap forward for what a traditional JRPG should be in the modern age.
Awards & Rankings
User Score
Generally favorable reviews- based on 569 Ratings
User score distribution:
Positive: 460 out of 569
Mixed: 62 out of 569
Negative: 47 out of 569
Dec 9, 2013Wow, the atmosphere is classic, the scenery is elegant. I am waiting for such a game so long time. Maybe I am a bit out of date, but this isWow, the atmosphere is classic, the scenery is elegant. I am waiting for such a game so long time. Maybe I am a bit out of date, but this is really my style. The only thing I don't like is the character setting, too cute.… Full Review »
Dec 6, 2013Awesome game, near perfect.
People will hate on the voice acting and script, but that's their opinion.
CG: 9.5 PR: 9 VI: 10 AU: 10 GP:Awesome game, near perfect.
People will hate on the voice acting and script, but that's their opinion.
9.6/10… Full Review »
Feb 8, 2014The game's visuals are great. The soundtrack, a masterpiece. The gameplay is engrossing, but highly repetitive. To complete random battlesThe game's visuals are great. The soundtrack, a masterpiece. The gameplay is engrossing, but highly repetitive. To complete random battles without crippling yourself you will have perform anywhere from 16 to 64 commands in a single turn. After a short while, it gets repetitive. Repetitive are also all the dungeons of the game. The Job system is the star of the gameplay, but if you played FF3, FF5 or their derivatives, this is just more of the same. Bosses will often perform the same 2-4 moves in order, being almost impossible to defeat for the wrong combination of jobs, but extremely easy for the right one, which doesn't really allow for any emergent gameplay, despite the jobs' apparent potential for it.
Finally, the rating is only 6 because story is to me the most important part of an RPG. Bravely Default tries to include higher depth and coherence than the usual JRPG fare, but fails to introduce any new structure to the game, which is an unforgivable flaw. Each dungeon concludes with a boss or event. If you are walking somewhere and there is a cave nearby, be assured that's your next story destination. There are 4 crystals and 4 continents, plus you can guess the order in which you will visit them from the very beginning. The game is, in short, extremely linear. While the plot tries to throw twists and mysteries at you, you will see everything coming long before it happens. The characters themselves are pure stereotypes. As a final blow, the endgame is already famously jarring and repetitive, involving forced grinding through the same content multiple times for a good ending.
Notably, though, the english voice acting is remarkable. You will probably still hate Agnés.… Full Review »


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An Accessibility Makeover: Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors
The Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors is a small, volunteer-run non-profit in San Francisco that provides sailing programs to people with a variety of disabilities. This video explains their impact better than I can, so go ahead and watch it. I'll wait.
When I started volunteering with BAADS they had a web site, but it had several problems:
- The site wasn't accessible to members with certain disabilities.
- They couldn't update content themselves and had to pay the web designer to do it.
- Because of the expense of updating they tended to wait until they had a batch of updates, so content was often out of date.
- The visual style was heavy and cluttered, and not what they considered their best representation.
Through the 1:1:1 program at Salesforce, where 1% of each employee's time can be taken as paid time off to volunteer, I built a new site for BAADS to help them serve their members better and showcase the great work they do.
Accessibility Issues
As is often the case, the accessibility issues weren't obvious to a sighted mouse user. But listening to the site in a screen reader was another story. (Pro tip: listen to your web pages. It's not enough to just proofread them.) Here's what the old site sounded like to VoiceOver.
Why the gobbledygook?
- HTML table-based layouts caused the screen reader to announce the columns and rows, and enforced a poorly structured content order.
- Images used for text in the heading and menu items had no alt attribute specified, causing the screen reader to announce the file names.
- The image for the Donate button had an alt attribute specified, but it didn't say what the button said.
If that wasn't confusing enough, none of the navigation menu "links" actually went anywhere: hovering over each item triggered a JavaScript-generated menu with the real navigation. But they were inaccessible by the keyboard, so screen reader users and sighted keyboard-only users couldn't navigate past the first page.
There were also additional problems for screen reader users:
- BAADS used Google Calendar, which doesn't mark up content correctly for screen readers, for their event calendar.
- The membership form did not mark up field labels correctly. (It also had an unintuitive workflow even for people who could see it.)
- Many headings and other important landmarks for screen reader users weren't semantically marked as such, which made it harder to understand the content.
The Redesigned Solution
BAADS needed a content management solution almost as badly as they needed an accessible web site. Both Drupal and WordPress have made good progress on accessible solutions; I went with WordPress because I was most familiar with the platform and because BAADS wanted a blog. I simplified the information architecture and redesigned the layout, adding a feature photo and clear calls to action on the front page. Graphic designer Grant Anderson provided the updated visual design, and I built an accessible WordPress theme with logical content order, semantic markup, and full keyboard accessibility.
Here's what the new site sounds like.
Other features of note:
- An accessible event calendar that is integrated with WordPress: the My Calendar plugin from Joe Dolson.
- A keyboard-accessible implementation of Google Maps (thanks to a tip learned from Derek Featherstone's webinar The Truth About JavaScript and Accessibility).
- Shortcuts to some of the common pages and the search menu with accesskeys: the Access Keys for WP Navigation Menus plugin.
Implementation Challenges
WordPress does a good job of generating semantic markup, but it has a couple of default behaviors that are problematic for screen reader users. One is the automatic titling of menu links with the same label as the link. This causes screen readers to read the link value twice: for example, "Link: Home. Home." The Remove Title Attributes plugin removes this audial clutter. The other issue is that the menu item for the current page (e.g. "Home" when you're on the home page) is distinguished only through visual style, which has no announced equivalent. This can be confusing for screen reader users, who can't tell if it's a link to the current page or a different one — particularly if the page title doesn't match the menu item label — and it also prevents the site from meeting WCAG 2.0. I don't have a good solution for this yet.
It was alarmingly hard to find plugins for the event calendar and the membership form that generated accessible markup. This shows both the good and bad side of the WordPress plugin ecosystem. It's so easy to write plugins that the barrier to entry is low, which is great if you don't know how to code, because you can find a plugin to do almost anything. But the barrier to entry is so low that you can also write plugins if you don't really know how to code, so there are many frequently downloaded, highly rated plugins available that generate terrible markup by default (I'm looking at you, Contact Form 7). Joe Dolson's My Calendar event plugin stands out here as a shining example of the good. I gave up on using a plugin for forms and hand-coded the contact form instead.
Implementing the background also turned out to be a bit of a challenge. Some of the pages are very long, extending beyond the background image. The water gradient eventually reaches a solid color that is too dark to read the text against, so it couldn't be the background color (in case images are turned off). The solution was to take advantage of CSS 3's ability to use multiple background images: one with the water gradient, plus a single pixel image with the dark blue. Browsers that don't support multiple background images and users with images turned off get a light blue background color with sufficient reading contrast.
Next Steps
So far feedback has been great: no members have reported problems accessing content. This is a big step up from before, when BAADS' Commodore at the time had to ask whether something was on the web site because he couldn't access the content with a screen reader. And several members have told me that they now feel good about referring people to the web site for more information.
BAADS has also taken advantage of the roles provided by WordPress to set up content managers for different areas of the site to make it more manageable. A drawback to this is that without understanding the need for semantic headings, lists and link text, it's easy for content managers to create less accessible content. They don't realize that selecting a sentence and setting it to bold doesn't actually create a heading, or that "click here" isn't useful link text. This is a training issue.
There are a couple of things I still want to fix, including implementing Terrill Thompson's jQuery solution for skip links. [UPDATE: Did that, works great!] I'm always learning new ways to improve things. But even without any additional changes, I feel good about my work on the BAADS site and what it's meant to them.
March 26, 2012 · Tags: accessibility, non-profits, volunteering, wordpress
2 Comments »
Hi, Shannon – Thanks for highlighting my "My Calendar" plug-in "as a shining example of the good" — that's a comment I certainly appreciate.
To be fair, the code still has a couple of warts that I need to resolve – but thank you, sincerely, for your appreciation!
Hi Joe — Your plug-in was well above the others I looked at, warts and all. Thanks for all your hard work, and also for the tips you emailed later!
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MGM Resorts International joins with the Jared Foundation to battle childhood obesity
MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) and the Jared Foundation announced plans to work toward expanding a program that addresses chronic weight and obesity issues among children living in the region.
"We are what we eat and the United States is facing a widely-documented crisis and epidemic," said Jim Murren, Chairman & CEO of MGM Resorts International at the announcement of the expansion of the Coordinated Approach to Childhood Health in Las Vegas.
"CATCH transforms a child's environment, culture and society by coordinating child health efforts across all aspects of the educational experience: classroom, food services, physical education, and family. CATCH adds healthy eating and physical activity to the school environment and drives the message home to parents through family and community outreach," said Jared Fogle, a healthy eating advocate and spokesperson for SUBWAY? restaurants.
Murren and Fogle announced a fundraising campaign of $235,000. MGM Resorts International has donated an initial $25,000 to help broaden the program.
CATCH has been recognized and recommended by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation among other organizations. It focuses on addressing the issues of childhood obesity by transforming a child's environment by coordinating child health efforts across all aspects of the educational experience: classroom, food services, physical education, and family.
CATCH has been implemented in 132 after-school sites in Southern Nevada since 2010, serving 7000 children daily with physical activity and nutrition lessons. A federal obesity prevention grant allowed Southern Nevada Health District to bring CATCH training and programming to four parks and recreation departments and after school program sites in Boulder City, North Las Vegas, the Cities of Las Vegas and Henderson, and the YMCA of Southern Nevada.


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(Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Three Lions Entertainment)
Nicki Minaj kicked off the New Year as a single lady. Rumors have been swirling for months that Nicki and Meek Mill were having problems.
Both rappers posted a series of cryptic tweets around the holidays, and Nicki has just confirmed the news herself by posting this to twitter:
Maybe now Nicki can go back to being friends with Drake!


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Model: 81205/i
The Norco 5 Ton Jack Stands are built with a low profile design to support forklifts and heavy machinery. These stands feature a heavy duty adjustment pin that is secured to the stand, a handle that provides ease of positioning and carrying the stand, and a 9" square base that secures and stabilizes the load. Available as either USA made or imported. Sold as a pair. Order yours today!
• 9" square base secures and stabilizes load
• Handle provides ease of positioning and carrying the stand
• Pin type support column adjusts to four different height positions
• Heavy duty adjustment pin is secured to stand to prevent lose of pin
• 5 ton capacity
• Base size: 9" x 9"
• Saddle size: 3" x 4.5"
• Height intervals: 3 x 2"
• Height (low/high): 9.5" / 15.75"
• Download the spec pdf HERE
• Download the manual pdf HERE
• Shipping weight: 38 lbs. via 2 packages
Free shipping only applies to products that are marked "free shipping" or "ships free" in the title. Freight ship items have a predetermined max amount that can be spent under our free shipping policy. In the event you reside in an unusually high cost shipping zip code we may alert you that a shipping surcharge may be necessary.
Click OK to view our full shipping policy. Clicking cancel will keep you on the current page.


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Ideagen (LON:IDEA) has been reiterated to Corporate in a statement by finnCap earlier today.
- Updated: October 15, 2016
finnCap has reiterated Ideagen (LON:IDEA) to Corporate in a statement released on 10/13/2016.
On 9/06/2016, finnCap released a statement about Ideagen (LON:IDEA) maintained the target price at 69.00GBX that suggested an upside of 0.2%.
Having a price of 57.50GBX, Ideagen (LON:IDEA) traded 0.00% even on the day. With the last stock price up 2.19% from the two hundred day average, compared with the Standard & Poor's 500 Index which has decreased -0.01% over the same period. IDEA has recorded a 50-day average of 55.40GBX and a two hundred day average of 53.82GBX. Trade Volume was down over the average, with 48,060 shares of IDEA changing hands under the typical 128,832
Recent Performance Chart
With a total market value of 0 GBX, Ideagen has price-earnings ratio of 78.57 with a one year low of 44.11GBX and a one year high of 60.00GBX .
Brief Synopsis About Ideagen (LON:IDEA)
Ideagen plc is a provider of enterprise governance, risk, and compliance (eGRC) and healthcare information management software for organizations operating within regulated industries. The Company offers GRC solutions, which offers products, such as Pentana, Q-Pulse, Quality Workbench, Proquis Enterprise, KnowledgeWorker and Ideagen Capture. It offers GRC solutions for industries, such as accounting and finance, aerospace and defense, automotive, and others. The Company offers healthcare solutions, which offers products, such as dartCAPTURE, darted, dartEMR, dartKW, dartOCM, dartQSCAN, PatientFirst and Q-Pulse. It offers healthcare solutions for departments, such as medical record archiving, pathology (laboratory), radiology and others. The Company offers content solution, such as Easysite, which manages sites online, inline and in real time. It offers Easysite for content management, digital asset management, site management, social and personalization, Context Management and others.
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The Crawford Family Series', Train Station Bride Book 1 and Contract to Wed Book 2, will be joined this summer by a novella called The Maid's Quarters. During Contract to Wed, readers are introduced to, Jolene Shelby's personal maid, Alice Porterman. While Alice appears in quite a few scenes and is mentioned in internal dialogue, we know little about her. Near the end of the book Jolene and her husband, Senator Max Shelby, are grateful for the work and care Alice has provided during an Influenza outbreak at their ranch, and knowing Alice has a sickly brother, release her from her duties with full pay in order that she may tend to her sibling. Alice goes home to Boston and that is where The Maid's Quarters begins. This novella will be available this summer. A sample is below.
Boston 1893
Chapter One
Alice Porterman looked at Mrs. McKinnell. "What do you mean Ma and Jimmy aren't living here anymore. It is our house!"
"They're living in the two rooms at the back of the Church, Alice. I would have taken them in here but I have no room, none at all," Alice's mother's closest neighbor said to her. "You better get them, girl. Jimmy wasn't doing well the last time I stopped by. Your Mam can hardly leave him to get victuals or go to work. I've been shopping for her when I can."
"Thank you Mrs. McKinnell. I'll go right away." Alice turned and looked at the narrow two-story home where she had grown up. "I'll just put my bags in the house," she said and started down the walk that separated the Porterman and the McKinnell homes as she had just arrived from the train station from Washington D.C.
"Nay, you can't, girl," Mrs. McKinnell said. "They've changed the locks. Your Mam couldn't even get back in to get your brother's medicine. Leave your cases on my porch. I'll have one of the boys carry them in and we'll keep them here until you're settled somewhere."
"Thank you, Mrs. McKinnell," Alice said red-faced. "I will get them as soon as I get this straightened out."
"Don't worry, Alice. Just get your mother and brother back home where they belong."
Alice nodded and kissed the plump red-headed woman's cheek. "Thank the Lord you were here to help Ma."
"It's nothing. Neighbors do for neighbors. Your Mam would do the same for me, she would. So, your mother read me the letter she got from you that those rich nobs are paying you without you even working for them. La de! And look at them skirts of yours! That is fine wool, is it not, with them lacy petticoats sticking out? And a pretty little hat to boot!"
"Senator and Mrs. Shelby knew that Jimmy was ill and were very grateful for the help I gave them and their daughter when their ranch was struck with the influenza. They wanted to lighten my worry about Jimmy and Ma and offered me my full salary indefinitely. I will always be eternally grateful."
"I would say so!" Mrs. McKinnell said and belted out a laugh. She peered through the open door of her house and screamed. "Devon McKinnell! Stop your teasing! I'll have Mr. McKinnell whoop your hide when he gets home from the mill, I will!" She turned back to Alice. "Go on, now. Get your mother and get poor Jimmy back in his bed."
Alice waved her goodbyes and turned to climb the hill to the Saint Peter and Paul Catholic Church. How very angry she was! How could her mother have let this happen? Alice sent her the full amount of the rent on their small house every month from her pay as long as she had been employed. Even when she'd just started at Landonmore as an upstairs maid, her salary had been just enough to cover her mother's rent and pay for some food, although it left only a few pennies for herself. With her help, Alice's mother had been able to work mornings only at the dressmakers and still scrape by.
Alice let herself in the church gates and circled to the back of the building. She came to the small building and saw smoke coming from the chimney. What would it be costing in coal to heat this shack she wondered? The door opened suddenly and her mother was screaming and dragging Jimmy out into the cold air.
"Breathe, boy!" her mother shouted and plopped down in the dirt beside the steps. "Breathe!"
"Ma!" Alice said as she dropped her purse in the snow and hurried to where her mother was struggling to turn Jimmy onto his stomach.
"Help me, Alice! He's not breathing!"
Maeve Porterman thumped the back of the thin limp boy lying across her legs as she sat in the mud just outside the door of the building. She hit his back hard with a closed fist and Jimmy's shoulders began to shake. He sputtered and struggled to breathe and coughed until his eyes watered. Maeve continued to tap his back until he spit and cleared his throat enough to breathe calmly. Alice was kneeling in the mud holding him in place across his mother's knees lest he roll onto the ground. She chafed his arm through the thin cotton of his shirt and felt him shiver.
Please stop by my website at Holly Bush Books to read about my newest releases and appearances. Or catch me on Twitter at @hollybushbooks or on my FaceBook page.


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