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Checking in on… the CAAPosted by Brian Goodman on January 3rd, 2011
Nick Camarotta is the RTC correspondent for the Colonial Athletic Association.
A Look Back
Should old out of conference schedules be forgot/and never brought to mind/should conference play be coming up/for Auld Lang Syne.
Or something like that… At any rate, it's time to wrap up the out of conference schedule (save the BracketBusters and NCAA Tournament), and look ahead toward the beginning of league play. This past week was a bit disjointed because of the holiday schedule, but while the games weren't all too exciting, the accomplishment of the conference as a whole was. The CAA now holds a 77-53 out of conference record, which is the league's best-ever mark. The CAA's previous best came during the 2005-06 season (76-52) when George Mason reached the Final Four, and Old Dominion and Hofstra played in the NIT. The only other time the Colonial finished more than 10 games above .500 was in the 2008-09 season (81-70). In addition, four teams are ranked in the Mid-Major Top 25 poll: Old Dominion (2), George Mason (7), Drexel (9) and Virginia Commonwealth (16). James Madison just missed the cut with 56 points to No. 25 Furman's 65. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's look at the best out of conference win for the league so far. And the worst out of conference loss.
- Best out of conference win: Drexel 52, No. 20 Louisville 46. Naturally, this game gets top billing as Drexel went into the KFC Yum! Center and gained national attention for itself and the conference.
- Worst out of conference loss: Longwood 83, William & Mary 81. Longwood is, well… see for yourself.
Here are some great reads before we get started with the power rankings:
- Brian Mull of the Star News has a fantastic look at the CAA season to this point, examining each team's out of conference schedule and the CAA's chances as a multiple-bid conference.
- Diamond Leung writes a nice piece on Drexel's Chris Fouch, and his interesting role as the team's leading scorer off the bench.
Player of the Week
Brandon Rozzell, G, Virginia Commonwealth: With another week of few games, thanks to the holiday season, the Player of the Week's stats might not be as gaudy as we're used to, but senior guard Brandon Rozzell was the best of the bunch. The 5'10 Richmond, Virginia, native poured in 41 points in two victories for the Rams last week, including 10-of-21 from beyond the arc. On the season, Rozzell is among VCU's top three scorers, averaging 13.2 points per game. Unfortunately, that's all he has shown he can do thus far, producing mediocre averages of 2.2 rebounds per game and 2.2 assists per game.
Team of the Week
Towson: Reach into a hat and take your pick… No team was particularly impressive this past week, and nobody played a marquee opponent. This was simply the calm before the storm – the last handful of blah games before the New Year. Towson gets the nod this time for an impressive win against LaSalle, and some news off the court as well. The transfer of junior guard Troy Franklin came as quite a shock to the league. Franklin was leading the team in minutes per game (35) and was scoring 12.6 points per game. Quite a blow to a team that already lacked depth before the start of conference play.
Stat of the Week
2: Number of CAA teams that won their respective holiday tournaments: Georgia State and Virginia Commonwealth. The Rams took home the title in the Hardwood Classic with a victory against New Hampshire, while the Panthers took care of business in the Dr. Pepper Classic by beating Chattanooga in the title game. For the Rams, it was their first in-season tournament title since the 1980s.
Charles Jenkins Watch
Week Two of our Charles Jenkins Watch takes us to, well, the same exact place it did last week. Even in a loss, Jenkins netted 20 points, but did have a streak of five games with five or more assists snapped in the defeat against Iona. Jenkins is averaging 23.5 points per game – tops in the CAA, and seventh in the nation.
Power Rankings
1. Old Dominion
Last week: L 81-58 @ No. 10 Missouri
This week: 1.03 @ Towson, 1.05 vs. Northeastern, 1.08 vs. George Mason
Previous rank: No. 1
The general consensus was that Old Dominion's game against 10th-ranked Missouri would be just that – a game. Instead, the Monarchs fell flat, and couldn't hang with the Tigers, who shot 47.4 percent (9-of-19) from beyond the arc. The loss is a humbling one for Old Dominion (ranked second in the Mid-Major Top 25) as coach Blaine Taylor's team gears up for the beginning of conference play. Towson and Northeastern should provide nice momentum for a showdown against George Mason on Saturday.
2. Drexel Dragons
Last week: W 84-39 vs. Niagara
This week: 1.03 vs. Hofstra, 1.05 @ Virginia Commonwealth, 1.08 vs. Delaware
Previous rank: No. 2
While Drexel played only one game last week, we'll take a look at two. On Dec. 22, the Dragons had a chance to beat their second ranked opponent of the season, but the task proved too difficult – No. 5 Syracuse at the Carrier Dome is simply too good. The Dragons lost, 93-65, but rebounded nicely with a demolition of Niagara in their final game before CAA play. Speaking of rebounding, Bruiser Flint's squad ranks ninth nationally in rebounding percentage. The Dragons also rank first in the country in 3-point percentage defense (25.3).
3. George Mason
Last week: L 73-67 @ Dayton
This week: 1.03 vs. Delaware, 1.05 @ Hofstra, 1.08 @ Old Dominion
Previous rank: No. 3
According to kenpom.com's four factors, you're looking at the best team in the conference. Ranked 50th on Pomeroy's website, the Patriots deserve to be in the mix with Old Dominion and Drexel, though Wednesday's loss against Dayton really hurts their chances at an at-large bid (if there were even any before that). That 73-67 loss ended a seven-game winning streak. Senior guard Cam Long scored 20, but missed eight shots from beyond the arc (2-10) that could have made the difference.
4. James Madison
Last week: W 60-51 @ Kent State
This week: 1.03 vs. Northeastern, 1.05 vs. Towson, 1.08 @ William & Mary
Previous rank: No. 5
The first team in the conference to reach the 10-win plateau, the Dukes also ensured the CAA its best-ever out of conference record, netting the Colonial its 77th win. Kent State suffered its first home loss in the 60-51 defeat. James Madison will ride a four game winning streak into conference play, and its schedule is quite favorable in this first week of league action. None of the teams the Dukes play have a winning record – the only three such teams in the CAA.
5. Virginia Commonwealth
Last week: W 75-66 vs. Wofford, W 78-65 vs. New Hampshire
This week: 1.03 @ Georgia State, 1.05 vs. Drexel, 1.08 @ UNC-Wilmington
Previous rank: No. 4
A pair of games and a pair of wins for the Rams, who are still scoring and assisting at an impressive clip (74.4 points per game, 16.0 assists per game). While the quality of VCU's final two conference opponents is a tad sub-par (Wofford and New Hampshire), the Rams should like their chances entering the first week of conference action. The scoring is balanced at the top (Jamie Skeen, Bradford Burgess and Brandon Rozzell all average more than 13 points per game), so if one has an off night, the others should pick it up.
6. Delaware
Last week: W 54-53 @ Santa Clara, L 83-71 vs. American
This week: 1.03 @ George Mason, 1.05 vs. William & Mary, 1.08 @ Drexel
Previous rank: No. 7
Guard Devon Saddler nailed a key bucket down the stretch and was the only player in double figures in Delaware's 54-53 victory against Santa Clara. The Blue Hens couldn't string two together, however, as the short trip to American resulted in a 12-point loss. This week appears to be a difficult one for the Blue Hens, however, as they make trips to both George Mason and Drexel. Then again, Delaware is one of three teams to be Old Dominion this season, who knows what will happen?
7. UNC-Wilmington
Last week: W 64-42 vs. Toledo
This week: 1.03 @ William & Mary, 1.05 vs. Georgia State, 1.08 vs. Virginia Commonwealth
Previous rank: No. 6
While the NFL's version of the Seahawks were busy fighting for their playoffs lives, UNC-Wilmington held Toledo to its lowest points total of the season in an effortless win. It was also the fewest points the Seahawks allowed so far this season. But, it was against Toledo, which has been abysmal thus far. Right now, UNC-Wilmington is depending far too much on its 3-point shooting abilities (98-241 for 40.7%). That must change as play goes forward.
8. Hofstra
Last week: L 87-62 @ Iona
This week: 1.03 @ Drexel, 1.05 vs. George Mason, 1.08 @ Northeastern
Previous rank: No. 8
Hofstra is just kind of… there. Not overwhelmingly talented, but certainly not deserving of any lower a ranking. The biggest thing the Pride have going for them is the play of Charles Jenkins, who continues to score at a fantastic rate, and is 10th in the nation in true shooting percentage (70.7). Still, kenpom.com predicts the Pride to finish the conference schedule 7-11, which is certainly not where coach Mo Cassara wants his team to be.
9. Northeastern
Last week: L 65-63 vs. Princeton, L 75-62 vs. Furman
This week: 1.03 @ James Madison, 1.05 @ Old Dominion, 1.08 vs. Hofstra
Previous rank: No. 9
The turbulent season in Boston continues, as the Huskies escaped the snow storms that plagued the Northeast to play in a few holiday tournaments. After finishing the Cancun Governor's Cup with two wins, Northeastern couldn't muster a victory in the UCF Holiday Classic and dropped games to Princeton and Furman. Still, as bad as things may appear, the Huskies' strength of schedule is a robust 33, and once conference play begins, perhaps Bill Coen's team will regain its swagger.
10. Towson
Last week: W 93-90 (OT) @ LaSalle
This week: 1.03 vs. Old Dominion, 1.05 @ James Madison, 1.08 @ Georgia State
Previous rank: No. 12
Well isn't this nice? We know, this is probably a bit too high for Towson, but let the Tigers have their moment in the sun. Once conference play begins, they'll probably drop back down. But to go to LaSalle and come away with a thrilling overtime win in the final OOC game of the season (so far), is nothing to sneeze at. The Explorers are a deep, talented team, but Isaiah Philmore and Braxton Dupree both poured in 27 to gain the victory.
11. Georgia State
Last week: W 72-42 vs. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, W 81-76 @ Chattanooga
This week: 1.03 vs. Virginia Commonwealth, 1.05 @ UNC-Wilmington, 1.08 vs. Towson
Previous rank: No. 10
What a nice little way for Georgia State to wrap up its out of conference slate – with two wins and a record above .500. Still, the Panthers must improve their free-throw shooting (55.9 percent – 344th in the nation) and turnover ratio if they want to notch some victories against some of the tougher teams in the CAA. A difficult test against Virginia Commonwealth looms on the horizon.
12. William & Mary
Last week: L 83-81 @ Longwood
This week: 1.03 vs. UNC-Wilmington, 1.05 @ Delaware, 1.08 vs. James Madison
Previous rank: No. 11
Unfortunately, for the Tribe, it doesn't get much worse than a two-point loss to Longwood. Unless, of course, it was a 20-point loss to Longwood. Either way, William & Mary has to do better than its current 42.7 field goal percentage if it hopes to remain competitive in conference play. Junior swingman Quinn McDowell and his 15.2 points per game won't solve all the problems.
A Look Ahead
This is, aside from the conference tournament, perhaps the most exciting look ahead of the season. All of the anticipation that comes along with playing teams in your own conference is a mere 24 hours away. The CAA plays on three days this week. Here's a look at what should be the best matchup on each:
- Jan. 3, Northeastern (4-8, 0-1) at James Madison (10-3, 0-1): The struggling Huskies know they're better than 4-8. The streaking Dukes are out to show that their loss against Georgia State in the CAA tune-up was nothing more than an anomaly. Player to watch: Northeastern's Chassion Allen. The senior guard is clearly the leader of the Huskies, scoring 16.3 points per game and pulling down 5.8 rebounds per game. He can't help the Huskies' 3-point shooting percentage (35.9), however.
- Jan. 5, Drexel (9-2, 1-0) vs. Virginia Commonwealth (9-4, 1-0): Of the games on this list, this is the only one where both teams have undefeated conference records. It may not seem like much, but when every win is so valuable in this ultra-competitive conference, this is a big one. Player to watch: Drexel sophomore guard Chris Fouch. It's hard not to watch the sparkplug from New York, who's averaging a team-best 19.1 points per game.
- Jan. 8, George Mason (9-3, 1-0) vs. Old Dominion (9-3, 0-1): This appears to be a fantastic matchup on paper. Naturally, a lot depends on what these two teams do in the two games preceding this one, but even still – this is an early battle for top positioning. Kenpom.com has the Monarchs winning, 64-62, and if the actual game is that good, this should be a real treat. Player to watch: Senior forward Frank Hassell. He has been a beast all season, and is averaging close to a double-double with 12.3 points per game and 9.5 rebounds per game. He'll be a handful for the Patriots.
YouTube Highlights
The CAA's YouTube page is a one-stop shop for all CAA highlights. Check it out.


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Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 9th Jul 2007 22:00 UTC, submitted by _mikk
"Intel and VMware announced today that Intel Capital is taking a USD 218.5 million stake in virtualization company VMWare. Intel will purchase 9.5 million Class A shares at USD 23 per share, which, at the completion of VMware's forthcoming IPO, will give Intel about a 2.5 percent stake in the company. Because VMware's stock is split between Class A shares, which have less voting power, and Class B shares, Intel won't control that many votes in the company, but they will get a board seat."
Thread beginning with comment 254140
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
The QEMU Accelerator (aka KQEMU) is now available under the GPL. Read about it here:
It's very cool stuff. QEMU is used in a variety of commercial products, and it's a critical part of the Linux KVM architecture.
All of the virtualization vendors are scrambling to give their software away to as many users as possible in hopes of gaining a foothold in this important market. It's more important to build marketshare than to drive licensing revenue.

subset: commoncrawl


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This is the first game this year I do not expect the Bengals to win. If you look at what the teams have done to put together 4-2 records thus far, their rankings are very similar. Both teams are dependent on capitalizing on turnovers and have decent but not great defenses so far. The Falcons D was lit up last week by Pittsburgh, so that might give us a ray of hope, but I'm not sure if our O is ready for a shootout at this point in the season. Both D's rank higher in points allowed than yardage allowed, probably as a function of the reliance on turnovers.
With all that said, I am pessimistic because of The Falcons' strengths--a scrambling QB and #1 rushing team in the NFL. Talk about the two biggest problems that the Bengals D has had over the last two years. If the rookie from TB and Charlie Fry can give the D fits with scrambles, it is scary to think of what Vick will be able to do with his feet this week. And we all should have fresh visions of Maroney stiff arming and dancing his way just a few weeks ago. Now, the top rushing team in the league comes to town. Yikes.
In the end, it might be the offense's turn to win a game in a situation where the D does not match up well with the opposing offense. Activate Chris Henry and use him before he inevitably ends up in court again, fire up the passing game, and see what happens. Oh, and Rudi, try bouncing outside every once in a while!


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Will Electric Cars and Solar Power Make Gasoline and Utilities Obsolete? 734
cartechboy writes "Since the dawn of time (or modern civilization) two things have happened: utility companies have made money by selling us electricity, and oil companies make money by selling us gasoline. But is it possible we are on the verge of upsetting this status quo? Tony Seba, an entrepreneur and lecturer at Standford University, is writing a book in which he essentially predicts electric cars and solar power will make gasoline and utilities obsolete by 2030. How, you might ask? In his book, titled Disrupting Energy: How Silicon Valley Is Making Coal, Nuclear, Oil And Gas Obsolete, he predicts that as people buy electric cars the interest in clean energy will increase because who wouldn't want 'free travel'? Combining the use of solar panels and electric cars, consumers would be able to do just that. The miles electric cars travel on grid energy stored in their batteries eliminates the demand for gasoline, and it turns out many electric-car owners have solar panels on their homes while eliminates or dramatically reduces their dependence on utilities. So as the amount of electric cars on the road increases, the cost of both solar panels electric-car battery packs will decrease, right?"


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Travel Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands with Borton Overseas
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Planning your Scandinavian Vacation
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LOMBARD – Svengoolie, a legendary Chicago horror movie show host, will visit the Lombard Jaycees haunted house from 4 to 6 p.m. Oct. 19 to sign autographs and take pictures.
The haunted house, which is themed Happy Hell-A-Days opens at 7 p.m. Oct. 11 and is located at 356 Yorktown Center, next to the outside entrance of Lucky Strike Lanes.
The house will be open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in October, following the opening night, along with Oct. 29, 30 and 31 and Nov. 1 and 2. Hours of operation are from 7 to 11 p.m. each night.
Tickets are $10 for anyone 10-years and older, or $5 for children. VIP tickets allow guests to skip the line and are $15 for adults or $7 for children.
From noon to 3 p.m. Oct. 26, the Jaycees will present a special matinee for children to tour the haunted house with the lights on. Nonperishable food donations will be accepted in place of admission fees.
For more information about the Lombard Jaycees haunted house, visit haunted-house.com or facebook.com/LombardJayceesHauntedHouse.


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Commissioning Engineer
- Recruiter
- Huxley Associates
- Location
- Salary
- £25 - £45 per hour
- Posted
- 07 Feb 2013
- Closes
- 07 Mar 2013
- Ref
- Contact
- Mohammad Nawaz
- Sector
- Engineering
- Contract Type
- Contract
- Hours
- Full Time
My client is looking for several electrical senior authorised person's to work on a power station in Cumbria Cheshire.
We are looking for SAP contractors who are looking for a challenging and exciting role..
As a SAP you will be required to carry out the following duties:
Carry out isolations on the power station if and when required
Make sure sub contractors have the required paper work before they are allowed to carry any work out on site
Maintain high standards of health and safety on site
Report to project manager and produce monthly reports
Able to work in a team and manager a team of contractors
The above are some of the duties required to be carried out by a SAP, there will be more duties involved but as a SAP you will be aware of the duties that are carried out on a day to day basis.
We are looking for experienced Sap's, whether it is on shore or off shore as long as your certification is up to date as a SAP and you are looking to progress your career in a challenging work place then please get in touch.
Alternatively why not pass my details on to a friend or colleague and do them a favour, if this role is not for you.
Please send me an up to date CV or give me a quick call on 0161 227 4403
To find out more about Huxley Associates please visit www.huxley.com


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- 4 veal rib chops, bone-in, 10 to 12 ounces each
- Creole seasoning
- 2 cups flour
- 2 cups fine dried bread crumbs
- 2 eggs beaten with 2 tablespoons milk
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 pound baby carrots, peeled and blanched
- 1/2 pound small red potatoes, quartered and blanched
- 4 medium plum tomatoes, cored, seeded and chopped
- 1 cup red onion, julienned
- 2 cups baby arugula, washed and patted dry
- Drizzle extra-virgin olive oil
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Using a sharp knife, butterfly each chop. Cover each chop with a large piece of plastic wrap. Using a meat mallet, pound out each chop, about 1/2-inch thick. Season the chops with Creole seasoning. In a shallow bowl, season the flour with Creole seasoning. In another shallow bowl, season the bread crumbs with Creole seasoning.
- Dredge the veal in the flour. Dip each veal chop in the egg wash, letting the excess drip off. Dredge each chop in the seasoned bread crumbs, coating each chop completely.
- In a large saute pan or skillet, heat the butter and 2 tablespoons of the oil. When the oil is hot, pan-fry each chop for about 4 minutes on each side. Remove from the pan and drain the chop on a paper-lined plate. Season the chops with Creole seasoning. In another saute pan, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil. Saute blanched carrots and potatoes until tender, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
- In a mixing bowl, combine the tomatoes, red onion and arugula. Season with a drizzle of oil, salt and pepper. Mix well. To serve, place the veal in the center of each plate. Spoon some of the tomato mixture on top of the veal. Garnish with parsley.
Recipe Details
- Source: Emeril Live EM1C52 [4]
- Dish Type: Entree [5]


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Sierra AGI CPC Disk Protection
Condensed from a thread on Sierra Gamers
Credit goes mostly to NewRisingSun
Condensed from a thread on Sierra Gamers
Credit goes mostly to NewRisingSun
Many of the early Sierra AGI games floppy disks cannot be backed up or copied. If you play the game copied to hard drive, it will ask you to insert the original disk. If you insert a disk with all the same files on it, including the hidden CPC.com file, and with the same label ("SQ DISK 1",) it will not accept it, so there is no way to make a backup disk that will work. This copy protection consisted of three files:
- AGI -- The actual program file. This file is encrypted to prevent you from renaming it to AGI.EXE or something like that and from evading the copy-protection. After it is decrypted, it is a normal .exe format file.
SIERRA.COM -- The "Loader". It loads AGI into memory, asks for the original disk, reads and executes CPC.COM to obtain the decryption key, then decrypts and runs AGI.
CPC.COM -- A hidden file on the original disk. Called by SIERRA.COM, checks for the presence of the copy-protected track (side 0, track 6), reads the decryption key and passes it on to SIERRA.COM.
So, whether the game starts up or not with your backup disk depends on whether CPC.COM recognizes the disk as an original disk or not. CPC.COM looks for the following things on side 0, track 6:
- Sectors 2 through 8 must have a nonstandard sector size of 1024 bytes per sector (a normal DOS sector has 512 bytes).
- Sector 1 must have a nonstandard sector size of 8192 bytes per sector. This sector contains the decryption key.
- Sector 1 *must* have a CRC error. (BTW: This is what prevents the copy-protection from working under Windows 98, because Win98's Int13 handler returns incorrect error codes (0Ah instead of 10h for CRC error))
- All sectors on track 6 must overlap, i.e. the data for sector 2 also contains the beginning of sector 3, and so on. The data from sector 1 contains *all* the following sectors.
- The checksum of the first 128 bytes from sector 1 must match a certain value (1Ch or something like that).
1), 2) and 5) can be reproduced with an advanced diskcopy program, like CopyIIPC or Teledisk. 3) and 4) can NOT be reproduced, because the PC's floppy controller doesn't allow you to write "bad" sectors (with CRC errors) on purpose, and it doesn't allow you to write overlapping sectors (it wouldn't make any sense, except of course for copy-protection purposes,) so, you cannot make a backup copy from these disks because this copy-protection without special hardware, such as the old Copy2PC option board (if you could even find one nowadays, or let alone a PC which takes ISA cards.)
To replace the interpreter with that from another game, you would need to replace the file "AGI" and all *.OVL files. However, AGI also has the gameId (i.e. "SQ2") hard-coded into the executable to prevent you from doing this (since you're not supposed to bypass the copy-protection).
There are unprotected versions of the AGI interpreter, some from Sierra's own AGI demos or from the compilation CDs. And then there are newer freeware/open source replacement interpreters such as NAGI and the defunct Sarien (which is what the ScummVM project used to add AGI support.
The most recommended solution used to be Anders M Olsson's old SUP (Sierra Unprotection Program v2.01. SUP patched SIERRA.COM so that the keydisk prompt no longer appears, CPC.COM is no longer loaded and the buffer which would be filled by CPC.COM with the decryption key at run-time will be already filled at program start. Or in short: It just "cracks" SIERRA.COM. Another older solution was Brian Provinciano's AGI Decryptor. It decrypted the "AGI" file into "AGI.EXE" The limitation of both of these old tools was that they are 16-bit DOS utilities which require low level access that modern Operating Systems do not allow.
The best modern solution is to use Cold Turkey's (siastbill1) AGI DiskFree Decryptor. AGI DiskFree Decryptor is a modern (Win32) implementation of SUP and the AGI Decryptor. Not only does it rum on modern x64 Windows, it does not require access to the original floppy, eliminating the need for low level access to the disk drive.
This is exactly what SIERRA did for the collection versions --- rather than properly recompiling the games to remove the copy-protection, they just used a "crack" on their own games!


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Editor's note: Please welcome Wes Rowe to A Hamburger Today! He's responsible for many of the beautiful photos on Serious Eats' San Francisco-based posts, but since he loves burgers, he's branching out into burger-reviewing territory. Expect more San Francisco burger reviews on AHT!
Show Dogs
1020 Market Street, San Francisco CA 94102 (map); 415-558-9560, showdogsf.com
Cooking Method: Grilled
Short Order: Surprisingly good burger served at a sausage place that's worth braving one of the seedier parts of town
Want Fries with That? Skip the regular fries and try one of the 4 seasoned alternatives or just enjoy the complimentary housemade chips
Price: Burger, $8.75; cheese, +1; bacon, +$2; egg, +$2; fries, $3.25-$5
Notes: Happy hour 4-7p.m. , $4 all pints
Most San Franciscans will warn you that 6th and Market* is a place you generally want to avoid. Few good food options exist (aside from Tu Lan), and the ambiance of drugs being sold openly and streets that smell of piss is not ideal for a place with sidewalk seating. Now that Tu Lan has closed and may not re-open, I want to give you another reason to brave this ornery corner: the burger at Show Dogs.
* For some insight into the area, check out these illustrations by Wendy MacNaughton.
The first time I noticed Show Dogs I wrote it off as another sausage place with a gimmicky name that probably wouldn't be as good as Rosamunde (home of another great burger). After recently finding out that Show Dogs was started by Foreign Cinema chefs Gayle Pirie and John Clark, whose burger I dearly love, I decided to venture down.
Disguised as a sausage place, Show Dogs is more of a seven-days-a-week diner with 12 sausage options including corn dogs and veggie dogs. They have a full breakfast menu every day, as well as your typical hot sandwich list: cheese steak, fried chicken, reuben, B.L.T, and pulled pork, in addition to a few non-traditional items.
There are two burger choices: the Elk burger, which comes with your choice of sunny side egg or house cured pastrami ($12.95), and the more traditional Show Burger ($8.75) which you can top with Swiss or cheddar ($1), bacon ($2), or egg ($2). Additionally, there are five types of fries, chili, onion rings and a pretty decent bottle and draft beer selection.
The new cook managed to impress me with his skills of the grill. The Show Burger's patty—a half pound of pre-pattied ground chuck from Golden Gate Meats—had a slight crust and nice grill markings, while leaving the center a rosy shade of pink. Served open face on a well toasted Acme organic pan de mie bun, the patty came set on a bed of fresh arugula and tomato and was topped with a generous amount of white cheddar.
The excitement I felt when seeing the 1.5 layers of cheese was quickly surpassed when I cut the burger in half revealing stratosphere of crusty brown to juicy pink meat speckled with bits of black pepper. The combination of the sharp cheese and well seasoned patty made my first bite a delicious mouthful of salty protein. It wasn't until the second bite that I noticed the peppery arugula and Show Dog's special sauce, which tasted similar to an aioli with lots garlic and lemon. The tomatoes were somewhat overpowered by all of the other flavors, but on the few bites I managed to taste them, they were fresh and ripe.
The burger came served with some of the most delicious homemade chips I have ever had alongside a burger. The thick and extra crispy fried potatoes were generously—but not overwhelmingly—seasoned with large flakes of sea salt, and another seasoning that tasted similar to Old Bay.
In addition a stellar burger, Show Dogs also has an impressive number of side options including onion rings, chili, salad, and several choices for fries. I opted for the green curry fries, ($4.50) which came in little hand-cut pieces, similar to In-N-Out fries, that were liberally coated in green curry spice mixture. The seasoning, which tasted predominantly of green chili and coriander, adhered nicely to the little fry pieces that begged to be dipped in the housemade serrano ketchup and eaten by the forkful. In fact, the spicy tangyness of the ketchup was so good I used the end of my burger to clean the excess off my plate. I'm not normally a ketchup-on-burgers guy, but the housemade stuff was so good I wanted to put it on everything.
Going in on a Tuesday at rush hour I expected the place to be busier—the street certainly was—but there were only two other guests. Outdoors there are eight tables that had the potential to be good seating, but were, frankly, tainted by a steady stream of stumbling and shouting people, followed by motorized sidewalk sweepers driving by only feet from the seats. Despite the location, Show Dogs proves to be a diamond in the rough intersection of 6th and Market.
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While many have wondered and speculated about the future of the Star Wars franchise at Dark Horse comics, it seems the publisher is only doubling down on stories based on George Lucas' most famous creation. They recently started up a series by Brian Wood and Carlos D'anda that takes place in the gaps of the original movie trilogy, and now they're giving Star Wars: Legacy, a series that takes place almost a century and a half after the first movie, another shot.
While the first volume of Legacy boasted the talents of long-time Star Wars comics creators John Ostrander and Jan Duursema, this new edition comes to us from the married creative team of Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Bechko, who have already successfully launched a motion picture-based licensed comic at Boom! with their Planet of the Apes material (two limited series and a current ongoing). Hardman and Bechko co-write, and Hardman provides the pencil art in an ambitious first issue that sets up what the world of Star Wars looks like generations removed from the moments we know best. The galaxy is explored at three levels. The first is the gestalt, macro level. The new governing body of the galaxy, made up of a combination of the Jedi Council, Imperial Court, and the Galactic Alliance, is trying to take hold of a fragile galactic ecosystem that's loosely-knit at best, and on the verge of falling apart before it has a chance to fully form at worst. This new government is trying to take steps to gain the confidence of far-reaching planetary systems by installing communication technology, bridging the large gaps between the governors and the governed. Focusing on the politics of communication and the appearance of goodwill from a newly-formed governing body is a smart way of grounding the story; though Bechko and Hardman are working in the milieu of a long time ago (though not as long) in a galaxy far, far away, they bring up issues that resonate in a contemporary, modern way. The tense formation of empire and the clashes between diplomacy and martial strategy are themes that hit home to comic readers today, and the creators of Legacy #1 are able to have them sing in the Star Wars universe just as strongly ("We're investing in window dressing, not solid statecraft," argues a former military general. "We need the galaxy's cooperation. They must agree to being governed," responds the new Empress Fel. "I'd rather put my trust in a strong fleet than perceived strength and promises," is the note the scene ends on).
While the debate goes on in the highest rulings classes, the comic also examines the practicality of the new government's plan, from the second narrative level – from the point of view of the boots on the ground. Master Val is the emissary knight sent by the Empress to a remote star system to install a new communications array. He is one of what must be many technicians sent out to carry out the master plan of the new government. Unfortunately for him, his mission does not go smoothly. Before long, questions are raised about the possibility of corruption in the government, the nature of the Sith presence in the galaxy is hinted at, and a new player whose motives remain unknown enters the fray, thus showing us that there is danger coming from all sides.
Third, there are those who are caught in between. Some people, regardless of what happens up top, are simply too low on the ladder to really be affected by high-minded matters of state. These are the junk haulers, the miners, and the everyday people who just go about and survive any way they can. It's here where we meet Ania Solo, descendant of Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa. Though she comes from a Royal family line, she also has the blood of a rogue smuggler in her, and her lifestyle shows it. Ania deals in junk, and lives in the muck, where she has to deal with crooks, dirtbags, and occasional run-ins with the law. Most endearing of all, she possesses all the hallmarks of wild youth and a sense of adventure. She's the type who will impulsively shoot first (ahem) and ask questions later while trying to get out of trouble. It's not an easy life, but it's hers. Still, she's out there searching for a bigger slice of life, and when she stumbles across an artifact that could lead to a big enough score to make that happen, she's all too happy to go forward and not let anyone get in her way. Bechko and Hardman set up a potential and always welcome buddy comedy dynamic between Ania and her new sidekick, a Mon Cal named Sauk who's really, really reluctant to go along with Ania's crazy plans. In issue #1, we get a glimpse of what this character interaction will look like, and we can anticipate some light-heartedness along with high adventure, not to mention a connection with iconic characters we grew up loving so much.
All of this is rendered in Hardman's gritty style that's heavily inked, giving the comic a weighty immediacy that's very personal and really fantastic to look at. The level of detail enhances the world we're looking at and reading about. Best of all is the sense of design in the book. Hardman, who also works in feature films as a storyboard artist, impeccably designs every single page, and it makes for some great visual storytelling. Hardman especially gives a master class in action scenes and moments of great kinetic energy during a lightsaber battle, which is wonderfully realized and conveys a frenetic sense of pacing. Hardman, being a co-writer, has a close relationship to the script he's drawing, and Legacy #1 is all the better for it. Meanwhile, Rachelle Rosenberg does a gorgeous job with the color art. Her muted palette establishes a sense of foreboding and her shadows and texture pulls the look of the comic together. This is a difficult and uncertain world, and Rosenber brings a rough-hewn quality that reinforces that fact. Still, she has moments where she gets to cut loose with a lot of boldness and frankly, her lightsabers just look awesome.
Star Wars: Legacy #1 is a comic that demonstrates what it looks like to look at a universe from various angles, and make them all work together as a whole. It's at once an expansive and intimate look at what our favorite universe can look like in its future, and it's a moody piece of storytelling that considers itself on a massive scale, while not forgetting about the smaller pieces that make everything work. There's a lot to take in, but Bechko and Hardman are able to follow through on their seed of an idea, and have opened up a lot of fascinating possibilities in this issue. It's a well-crafted first issue, and it's a great way to give us a new look at Star Wars.


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Jeremy Bernfeld
Jeremy Bernfeld is Harvest Public Media's multimedia editor and is based at KCUR. New to the Midwest, Jeremy joined Harvest in 2011 from Boston where he helped build wbur.org, named the best news website in the country by the Radio Television Digital News Association. He has covered blizzards and tornadoes and the natural disaster that was the Red Sox' 2011 season. A proud graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, Jeremy's work has appeared in the Boston Globe, the (Falmouth, Maine) Forecaster and on NPR's Only A Game.


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CHESTERFIELD, Mo. (KMOV.com) -- Students at the Parkway School District will no longer have to put their phones away in class.
The district is one of the first in the area to change its policy about using personal electronics at school.
The district decided this week to allow students to use WiFi-capable mobile devices, including laptops, netbooks, tablets, eReaders, smart phones, or similar devices in the classroom. These rule changes will go into effect after Thanksgiving Break, according to district officials.
Under the new policy, teachers will be allowed to tell students to put away the devices if they are not being used for school-related work.
The district's "Campus Technology Access" handbook states: "The classroom teacher has the final say. If a classroom teacher asks students not to use their technology devices, then students should follow those directions. Access is only available, not guaranteed, for each classroom situation."
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2018 KMOV. All Rights Reserved. For more information on this site, please read our Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service, and Ad Choices.


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By this time each year, the kids are back at school and parents have received fee notifications from their children's schools. With fees for year 12 at the most expensive schools reaching up to $30,0000, many parents will wish they started a savings plan and started it early.
Parents can always put money into a bank deposit but it will not earn much interest, says a financial planner and director of WLM Financial Services, Laura Menschik.
With school fees rising each year by about twice the rate of inflation, parents might have to take on some risk and invest mostly in growth assets, such as shares and listed property, to boost their capital, Menschik says.
For those with at least 10 years to invest, Menschik likes investment bonds. They are long-term ''tax paid'' investments. About half a dozen insurers and friendly societies offer investment bonds. Bonds pay tax at the company tax rate of 30 per cent. After 10 years, the money can be withdrawn from the bond without more tax having to be paid.
They are particularly attractive to parents in higher tax brackets. Bonds have a range of investment options with different mixes of assets. Some will have big exposures to conservative investments, such as fixed interest and cash, and others will have higher exposure to shares. You can usually change between the underlying investment options.
There are also savings vehicles specifically designed to save for education. Australian Scholarships Group has savings plans to help cover the costs of public and private schooling and post-secondary education and training.
And the Lifeplan Education Investment Fund, which is provided by Australian Unity Investments, helps parents pay for education expenses. The fund has access to 16 investment options from six fund managers. The plans use investment bonds as the underlying investments. Menschik says they can be good for helping parents keep on track because they are specifically earmarked for education. However, they can be less flexible and have higher fees than if the parents invest in investments bonds directly. For parents with a mortgage, making extra repayments into the mortgage and withdrawing the money later to pay school fees can be a good way to go, Menschik says.
There is a simplicity to the mortgage strategy.
There are no costs as there would be for an investment, though some lenders might charge a small administration fee each time a redraw is made.
The effective interest rate on the money is steady, changing only when the mortgage interest rate changes.
With other investments, such as shares and the investments bonds that invest substantially in shares, there is always the risk of a downturn in the sharemarket just before the money is needed to start paying school fees.
Menschik says the mortgage strategy requires discipline to keep making the extra repayments and use the redrawn money for the intended purpose of the children's education.
The head of Australian Unity's Lifeplan, Matt Walsh, says there is usually no single solution for parents. It will likely be a combination of investing, using the mortgage strategy and putting windfall financial gains, such as tax return payments, towards the children's education.
Also, as the children get older, often the parent doing the primary caring will increase their hours of paid work, he says.


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Tuesday, 2 October 2012
Adverts from the Tameside Guide
Nice to see that Kenyons is still in business.
If only it was that easy to get a job today!
4 comments:
Kenyon's made the ropes for the 1953 Everest expedition .
- Tuesday, 02 October, 2012
- Tom said...
Hi Marjorie,
I never new that thanks for your input.
Some comments have been removed as they were 'off topic'.. any complaints please send by email to firstname.lastname@example.com
- Tuesday, 02 October, 2012
Sir George Kenyon told me!
- Tuesday, 02 October, 2012
- Tom said...
Can't get better provenance than that Marjorie...
I liked Lady Kenyon... who I met quite a few times in my youth, I'm shamed to say it was in the local magistrates court where she chaired the bench.
Both of them give a lot of their time to Hyde. I think they lived on Chapel Street.
I saw Lady Kenyon whilst shopping in Hyde, many years after I had been in front of her on the bench, We were both queuing for Veg, at Crabtree's Fruit and Veg stall in the mall. I said hello and she responded likewise, then she said she recognised me from somewhere, and I explained where and how we had met. She give a knowing smile and said she knew that but had not wanted to embarrass me.. We then had a nice chat.. she was a lovely person, but was known to be quite stern at times.
- Tuesday, 02 October, 2012


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Keller will appoint a new board committee to investigate labor negotiation policies and practices and to make recommendations to the board and general manager.
"This committee will be charged with examining our labor negotiations process from top to bottom," Keller said. "We need to look at every aspect of how we negotiate contracts, including the system of checks and balances to ensure we never repeat the mistakes of 2013. Our riders and the taxpayers deserve nothing less than our best effort."
Keller also said that he will undertake a 60-day process to draft an advisory measure that will require future binding arbitration and ban strikes for BART transit workers if the district and its unions cannot agree on a contract by the June 30 deadline.
Keller said he will bring language forward for the measure and ask his colleagues to place the advisory measure on the ballot for November 2014 in the three-county BART area.
"We cannot put the Bay Area through another acrimonious bargaining season like the one that we had this year," said President Keller. "If we cannot agree, then we leave it to an independent arbitrator to sort it out for the Bay Area and not subject this region to more paralysis."
The board also unanimously elected Director Tom Blalock as the board vice president. Thomas Blalock first joined the board after his District 6 constituents elected him on November 8, 1994. Since then, voters re-elected him in 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010 to represent Fremont, Hayward (partial), Newark, Union City and unincorporated Alameda County (partial).
He served as vice president of the board in 1999 and president of the board in 2000. He served as president for the second time from December 2008 through December 2009.


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In the middle of fretting about my upcoming cataract surgery — I am too young for this, I hope the surgeon knows what he's doing, I hope that when it's over I'll see that all this worrying was unnecessary — I did something that seemed straightforward and easy: went to the drug store to fill the surgeon's prescriptions for eye drops.
"Can't do it," the pharmacist said. He explained that two of the drops were not included in the "formulary," the list of medications covered by the company that manages prescriptions for my Blue Cross HMO. Together, these two medications would cost about $350. The pharmacist offered to check whether the surgeon might want either to prescribe an alternative — a generic or a different brand-name drug included in the formulary — or to submit a request for a formulary exception.
I went home without my eye drops, mildly astonished that the pharmacist and the doctor's office were going to have to engage in these follow-up actions, which seemed like a waste of their time.
The next day I called my doctor's office and left a message. No one called back. Two days later, I went back to the pharmacy, prepared to pay for the eye drops out of pocket, using the drug manufacturer's discount cards given to me by the doctor's office. But the pharmacist pointed out that though the large print ("You pay as little as $35 and we'll pay up to $160") seemed to promise an overall price reduction, according to the small print the cards covered two circumstances neither of which applied to me. If I'd had no insurance, the cards would have reduced my cost drastically. If my insurance had covered these drugs, the cards could have made a relatively minor reduction in my co-pay. But since I was insured by a company that didn't cover these drugs, the cards weren't going to help me.
Curious by now about this whole drug company/insurance landscape, I called Blue Cross to see whether its formulary included any comparable eye drops. When I mentioned the first drug, Blue Cross gave me a list of three "covered alternatives." When I named the second drug, it came up with the same list. Did this mean that my doctor had prescribed two identical, or redundant, medicines? Or was the Blue Cross formulary missing something important? I got off the phone and looked up the two medicines my doctor had prescribed. The first was an anti-inflammatory steroid; the second was a non-steroid anti-inflammatory drop designed to — and this sounded pretty important to me — reduce pain.
The pharmacist called the doctor's office, and the doctor's office called me to come pick up samples of the eye drops. So I drove 40 minutes to the office and finally, four days after my first attempt to fill the prescriptions, I had the medicines in hand.
As I drove home, I wondered how many other people all over the country might be scurrying around, or being put on hold, or filling in paperwork, or trying and failing to understand some bit of fine print, having to do with prescriptions. The pharmacists checking with the doctors to make sure the doctors really meant it when they specified these drops or those pills; the doctors filling in paperwork or making phone calls to insurance companies to say that yes, they really did mean these drops or those pills; the patients running around — if they are healthy enough to be mobile — to turn in cards or repeatedly visit drug stores or travel to pick up samples, at a time when they are already worried about whatever condition or procedure they need the medicine for.
The drug companies and insurance companies are fighting about money, a clash of titans that is happening over and over again, above the heads of the people — patients and doctors — affected by it. The drug companies lunge with high-priced patent medicines; the insurers parry by listing generics and "covered alternatives." The drug companies merge, and the price of generics goes up. The insurance companies revise their formularies and co-pay tiers. The drug companies issue coupons. The coupons may not work. The country doesn't seem willing to look at single-payer insurance in which the government is able to bargain with the drug companies. The patient doesn't need eye surgery to see that something is wrong with this picture.Joan Wickersham's column appears regularly in the Globe. Her latest book is "The News From Spain: Seven Variations on a Love Story.''


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Hereditary elliptocytosis is a disorder passed down through families in which the red blood cells are abnormally shaped.
See also:
Elliptocytosis - hereditary
Elliptocytosis affects about 1 in every 2,500 people of northern European heritage. It is more common in people of African and Mediterranean descent. You are more likely to develop this condition if someone in your family has had it.
An exam by your health care provider may show an enlarged spleen.
The following test results may help diagnose the condition:
There is no treatment needed for the disorder unless severe anemia or anemia symptoms occur. Surgery to remove the spleen may decrease the rate of red blood cell damage.
Most persons with hereditary elliptocytosis have no problems. They often do not know they have the condition.
Elliptocytosis is often harmless. In mild cases, fewer than 15% of red blood cells are elliptical-shaped. However, some people may have crises in which the red blood cells rupture, especially if they have a viral infection. Persons with this disease can develop anemia, jaundice, and gallstones.
Call for an appointment with your health care provider if you have jaundice that doesn't go away or symptoms of anemia or gallstones.
Genetic counseling may be appropriate for persons with a family history of this disease who wish to become parents.
Gallagher PG. Hemolytic anemias: red cell membrane and metabolic defects. In: Goldman L, Schafer AI, eds. Goldman's Cecil Medicine. 24th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 164.


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Friday 25 May
Wildscreen with Photo Story Panda Award judge, Britta Jaschinski
Reforestation involves the replanting or regeneration of areas of forest which have previously been damaged or destroyed. Sometimes forests are able to regenerate naturally if sufficient trees remain nearby and seeds can be dispersed into the deforested areas via animals or wind. However, areas of forest which have been severely degraded are unlikely to be able to regenerate naturally and need to be replanted by hand using native tree species.
Reforestation is needed because huge areas of forest are being damaged or destroyed around the world on a daily basis. Some estimates suggest that an area of forest equivalent in size to 36 football pitches is lost every minute. This deforestation has a number of causes, including fires, the clearing of land to make way for agriculture or human settlement, logging, mining and climate change.
Forests are very important for a number of reasons and deforestation is a serious problem which affects us all. As well as being home to a huge and diverse range of animal and plant species, forests provide livelihoods for a vast number of people around the world and are a source of paper, timber, food and the ingredients of many other products, such as medicines and cosmetics. Forests are also vital for the health of our planet, maintaining the water cycle, preventing soil erosion and absorbing and storing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide which helps to limit the effects of climate change.
In order to tackle deforestation there are a number of organisations around the world that aim to replant trees and help to regenerate and restore forest habitats.
The Atlantic forest in South America is home to a wealth of wildlife, including 104 species found nowhere else on earth. Although often overshadowed by its more famous neighbour, the Amazon rainforest, the Atlantic forest is actually in far greater danger and is considered one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world.
Extending along the eastern coast of Brazil into Paraguay and northeast Argentina, the Atlantic forest has suffered a huge amount of deforestation, with as much as 92 percent of the original forest having already been lost. Once thought to have covered an area of over a million square kilometres, the Atlantic forest has now been reduced to a total area of just under 100,000 square kilometres. Worryingly, what remains is severely fragmented, with many areas of forest too small and isolated to support species in the long term.
Fortunately, there are a number of conservation organisations working to protect and restore the forest here, using a variety of methods including the creation and expansion of protected areas, environmental education programmes to raise awareness, and reforestation. Reforestation is particularly helpful in terms of creating wildlife 'corridors', areas which can be protected and replanted to help connect isolated fragments of forest.
Organisations such as REGUA plant seedlings grown in their own nursery from the seeds of around 50 native tree species, such as the guapuruvu tree, that are collected in the local area by staff and volunteers. By the end of the 2011/12 planting season REGUA had planted over 110,000 trees. To ensure a high survival rate, the seedlings are watered in times of drought and monitored to ensure they are not damaged by leaf-cutter ants or overcome by weeds before they become established. This careful monitoring has led to a seedling survival rate of around 95 percent.
Follow our blog to keep up-to-date with the latest news about reforestation in the Atlantic forest:
Find out more about reforestation in the Atlantic forest:
Explore the real science behind Team WILD's reforestation mission in the Atlantic forest.
Why do Root and Flora, our Team WILD science superheroes, need help replanting native guapuruvu trees in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil?
No large tropical ecosystem has suffered as much loss as the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. Covering less than 10% of its original land area, this once vast ecosystem has become so degraded and fragmented due to centuries of illegal logging, urban development, cattle ranching and agriculture, that it is now considered one of the most endangered habitats on Earth.
Scientists and conservationists are working hard to protect and restore this incredibly diverse and unique forest. Ambitious reforestation projects, such as the Plant a Billion Trees campaign led by The Nature Conservancy and restoration projects by REGUA, aim to replant native trees such as the guapuruvu tree, to help rebuild the Atlantic Forest for future generations. This huge restoration effort has the potential to remove 4 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every single year.
Image credit
© Luiz Claudio Marigo / naturepl.com
Nature Picture Library
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United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 117 911 4675
Fax: +44 (0) 117 911 4699
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Play the Team WILD game
Friday 25 May
Wildscreen with Photo Story Panda Award judge, Britta Jaschinski
Monday 21 May
Friday 18 May


text: If you look at the mod_security log, it should tell you what is being blocked. Perhaps you can paste the security alert here. Otherwise you'll need to do what I did, and that's searching through each mod_sec document in "modsecurity" and "modsecurity.d" and search for the text, kinda like when you do an edit in vB ya know? Find that text and depending upon the usage of it, you can alter the rule or remove it entirely if it's something like a blacklist. Nothing is perfect for all environments, but what I posted is for a WHM/cPanel environment. With DA I'm not sure how it compiles Apache, and what options you have and so forth. By process of elimination you can most of the time tweak the rule.


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World No. 1 Rory McIlroy withdrew from The Honda Classic on Friday after a difficult eight-plus holes.
The defending champion had a pair of bogeys, a double-bogey and a triple-bogey in his first eight holes Friday morning at PGA National.
McIlroy started his second round on the back nine Friday. He narrowly missed the water with his approach at No. 11, then ran his chip through the green. That led to a double-bogey.
A poor drive at the 13th led to a bogey. McIlroy dumped two balls in the water at the 16th. He walked off with a triple-bogey and was 6-over through seven holes. McIlroy 3-putted for another bogey from over 40 feet out at No. 17.
On the par-5 18th, he dumped his approach in the water. McIlroy took a drop and hit another ball, then walked off.
"I sincerely apologize to The Honda Classic and PGA Tour for my sudden withdrawal. I have been suffering with a sore wisdom tooth, which is due to come out in the near future," McIlroy said in a statement. "It began bothering me again last night, so I relieved it with Advil. It was very painful again this morning, and I was simply unable to concentrate. It was really bothering me and had begun to affect my playing partners. I came here with every intention of defending my Honda Classic title. Even though my results haven't revealed it, I really felt like I was rounding a corner. This is one of my favorite tournaments of the year and I regret having to make the decision to withdraw, but it was one I had to make."
It has been a tough start to the year for the top-ranked player in the world. He switched to Nike clubs in the offseason and has yet to break par this season.
He started with a pair of 75s in Abu Dhabi, a European Tour event, and missed the cut. He didn't play again until last week, where, as the No. 1 overall seed, he dropped his first match, 1-down to Shane Lowry.
McIlroy mixed two birdies and two bogeys in his opening-round 70. He was 7- over par for his second round when he withdrew, and at least six strokes over the projected cut.
He is slated to play next week at the WGC - Cadillac Championship.


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In a subgroup of six studies, 642 people were exposed to severely stressful arctic cold or intense physical activity. Those who took 200 mg to 2,000 mg of vitamin C per day had half as many colds as placebo.
Doctors believe vitamin C stimulates infection-fighting white blood cells.
In lab studies, echinacea activated white blood cells that produced antibodies to fight bacteria and viruses.
Echinacea purpurea is the most common form of echinacea.
In four of six echinacea purpurea studies, 764 healthy adults with cold symptoms who took echinacea saw milder symptoms compared to placebo, and cold durations shortened by 1.5 to 4 days.
Researchers said allicin, the active agent in garlic that causes its odor, contains antiviral properties.
In one study of 146 healthy adults during 12 weeks of winter, those who took an allicin extract for 12 weeks had 64 percent fewer colds compared to placebo.
Zinc is an essential mineral which, when deficient, raises chances for infection.
In four of five studies using 13 to 23 mg of zinc lozenges every two hours, participants saw milder symptoms and cold durations shorten by 1.3 to 6.9 days.
In 13 zinc lozenge studies, while there was no effect in five of the studies that used less than 75 mg of zinc per day, in five studies that used more than 75 mg of zinc per day, colds shortened by 20 percent.


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Your Galaxy Note 3 is a beautiful device that you want to protect, but without adding bulk. The Commuter Series Samsung Galaxy Note 3 case is the perfect combination of protection and style that will help keep your device looking great. The synthetic rubber slip cover and polycarbonate shell work together to provide tough protection for your busy, on-the-go life. The included self-adhering screen protector guards against scratches and scrapes to keep your beautiful display blemish-free. Wrap your Galaxy Note 3 with trusted OtterBox protection and keep your device on hand everywhere you go.
- Slim, stylish Commuter Series Samsung Galaxy Note 3 case
- Slick exterior makes it easy to slide device into pockets and bags
- Slip cover absorbs impact shock and has good grip in the hand
- Enjoy tough protection in the slim form of this OtterBox case for Galaxy Note 3
- Two layers of protection include inner slip cover and outer shell
- Port covers keep dust out of the charging port, headphone jack and volume controls
- All device features work properly right through the case
- Synthetic rubber inner slip cover cushions the device from impact
- Polycarbonate outer shell fits snugly around the slip cover
- A self-adhering screen protector is included to guard against scratches
Otterbox Commuter for Galaxy Note 3 Surf Blue.
- Price: $21.99 - In stock


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The transition between Thanksgiving and Black Friday can be depressing. A day spent at home with family appreciating one's good fortune is quickly followed by a day at the mall, jostling among strangers to spend a sizeable portion of one's fortune on stuff that'll be outdated or forgotten before next Thanksgiving. Such a precipitous drop from our higher values to our baser instincts can cause a kind of moral vertigo.
It reminds me of Sundays at the suburban church I attended as a kid, how the congregants went from earnestly wishing each other peace to cutting one another off in the parking lot within the span of five minutes.
It doesn't have to be this way. Gratitude and goodwill can coexist with consumerism when we choose to spend our money at the small, locally owned businesses in our communities.
Six years ago, I helped to establish the non-profit organization that runs the Portland Buy Local campaign. The initiative, which now has 400 participating members, has educated thousands of consumers about the benefits of supporting locally owned, independent (read: non-franchise) businesses. Like-minded groups have since sprouted in numerous Maine cities and towns.
The Buy Local movement has its limits. It cannot sustain enterprises that can't compete on the strength of their products, service and prices – nor should it. I do not support efforts to limit chains and franchises through zoning or other ordinances.
But the campaign has helped level the playing field upon which Mom and Pop vie for your dollar against the soulless outposts of corporations with massive marketing budgets. Member businesses in Portland report that the effort has brought new customers through their doors. While the increased business hasn't been enough to reverse the downturn caused by the recession, it has certainly helped many enterprises weather the financial storm.
Supporting local indies makes economic common sense. More of your money stays in your community, sustaining and generating jobs for your neighbors while bolstering the tax base. A study completed last year by the Maine Center for Economic Policy found that for every $100 spent at a locally owned, independent business, $58 is recirculated in the local economy, compared to just $33 of every $100 spent at a typical chain.
Indie businesses are also an integral part of what gives Maine places their unique character, which draws tourists and their dollars. And our willingness to support these businesses is crucial to keeping the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation alive, especially among the young. Lots of people dream of owning and operating their own restaurant. No one dreams of managing a McDonald's.
This is where the gratitude and goodwill come into play. Local entrepreneurs and their workers tend to appreciate your business in ways that employees of chains and their shareholders do not or cannot. If I buy a TV at Mega-Mart, the associate running the register has no reason to be glad I'm there, and the owners of Mega-Mart have no idea I'm inside their big box. The size and standardized culture of chains and franchises make the shopping experience less personal, less human.
Contrast that with the scene at Uncle Joe's TV & Appliance, a hypothetical indie shop. Chances are Joe's there. He and his crew are clearly happy you showed up and glad to share their expertise with you. Joe's employees are more aware than their Mega-Mart counterparts that your money is paying their wage, maybe even making a raise more likely.
Granted, there are managers and workers at chains and franchises who have real pride in their company and their role in its success, just as there are jerks who own and work at the indies. And anybody can have a bad day – particularly during the stressful holiday season.
But my experience as someone who's worked and shopped at both types of establishments has convinced me that my business is much more appreciated at the local independents. I know my dollar makes more of a difference in the lives of the owners and workers and does more to improve the quality of life in my one-of-a-kind city. Knowing that gives me an added sense of satisfaction and fellowship that the chains can never offer.
So buy local this holiday season. You'll be thankful you did.


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BOLINGBROOK – Days are getting shorter, local schools have resumed classes and swimsuit displays are being swapped out for Halloween costumes.
Summer is waning, and the Bolingbrook Park District is sending it off in style.
Summer's Last Blast, the park district's 16th annual end-of-the-season celebration, will be Saturday at Volunteer Park and will offer free and affordable family activities.
Bolingbrook Park District Executive Director Ron Oestreich believes the daylong event is a perfect way to give back to the community and showcase park district classes and activities.
"It's our chance to highlight all the services that the Bolingbrook Park District offers and it's a great way to show to the residents how much we care about them," Oestreich said.
The 2013 event kicks off with Parkie's 5K Family Fun Run/Walk at 8 a.m. Saturday at the Bolingbrook Recreation and Aquatic Complex, 200 S. Lindsey Lane. Advance registration cost is $20 for adults and $18 for children ages 6 to 17 years; day of registration fee is $24 and $22, respectively. Children 5 years old and under can participate for free.
Part of the generated proceeds will be donated to The One Fund, a relief organization formed by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino to assist the victims and families affected by the Boston Marathon bombings
Shortly after the race, a free fishing derby will be held from 9 a.m. to noon at Volunteer Park north, adjacent to the Bolingbrook Recreation and Aquatic Complex.
Also, the park district is offering discounted swimming rates at Pelican Harbor Aquatic Park during Summer's Last Blast. Admission is $1 for residents and $5 for non-residents, with proceeds benefitting the Bolingbrook Park District financial aid program.
The rest of the celebration will be held from noon to dusk at Volunteer Park south and will include a variety of free activities.
Microreality Stock Car Racing returns to Last Blast, as well as the "Raise a Stink raffle and Dancefest. A car show, petting zoo, a dunk tank, inflatables, live music performances, local food vendors, and an evening fireworks display, which will start around 8:30 p.m. and be shot off from nearby Jane Addams Middle School.


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MIDDLEBORO – Every kid needs a goal, says the new director of pupil personnel services who started work this week.
Second only to Superintendent Roseli Weiss in the School Department, Heather Larkin will oversee the school's $20 million special education budget, but her responsibilities are not limited to students with disabilities.
School Committee Vice Chairman Tobey Eugenio, a member of the search committee that recommended Larkin, said she is another layer of excellence for the district.
"She is dedicated, knowledgeable, passionate and willing to do hard work on behalf of children," Eugenio said. "She is gifted as an educator and very committed to the children."
Larkin will have a hand in the education of all students, dealing with everything from truancy to helping students set goals after high school. She will oversee grants, academic support and ensure that there is a smooth transition between grades.
She is responsible for building skills and seeing that students succeed academically.
Larkin says she plans to start a program that raised attendance in New Bedford, where there were hundreds of students missing school every day.
It is called: "Where are you headed?"
Noting that Middleboro has a "great" attendance rate of 95 percent, Larkin says the program can be tailored to the town's needs. It engages students, parents and the community, setting student goals for after high school, whether it is for college, the military, a technical school or getting a job.
"Kids don't really think about their futures and mistakes can hinder them," Larkin said.
By setting goals, they create a path to follow.
"It might start out in second grade with I want to be a ballerina."
Or it could be a student that wants to play baseball. The key is to help students identify and work toward their goals, she explained.
Students can't just aspire to be a ballplayer, they have to work toward it and actually play ball in local leagues if they want to make it to the big leagues, she said.
Acknowledging that special needs students can eat up enormous resources when sent out of the district to be educated, Larkin's goal is to keep the students in Middleboro whenever possible. Transportation costs alone can soar to more $100,000 a year and students lose a huge amount of time being shuttled to a school outside of Middleboro.
"Special education can be a difficult area, but it doesn't have to be that way," Larkin said. "There are so many unfunded mandates. One way to balance that is to create programs for students in the district so we don't have to pay $200,000 for one student. Imagine if you could build a program with that $200,000."
Larkin learned firsthand the difficulties a family faces when a child has special needs. Her sister suffered brain damage from an immunization, and for years, her family struggled to find services. Once her family relocated to Massachusetts Larkin said, "Finally my parents didn't have to fight for what my sister needed."
Larkin spent the past 17 years of her career in the New Bedford school system, starting in 1997 as the director of a foster child advocacy program. For the past 5 years, she was director of pupil personnel services. She left in June over a contract dispute with a newly appointed superintendent.
"I didn't go looking for Middleboro," Larkin said. H. B. Burkland Elementary School Principal Derek Thompson recommended her for the Middleboro job.
A friend emailed Larkin the posting and she said, "Something told me 'Go.'"
The Middleboro School Committee hired Larkin at $126,000 a year, with raises based on merit, rather than automatically.
"That's fine with me. I don't think I deserve a raise unless I've earned it," she said. "I've seen a lot of pay increases simply because they're in the union."
Larkin says the Middleboro position is comparable to her position in New Bedford – same pay and responsibilities – but many fewer students.
There are just over 3,000 students in Middleboro, while New Bedford has over 3,000 special needs students.
The 45-year-old mother of two lives with her husband in Dartmouth.


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Air control valve and fuel purge solenoid
Posted 18 March 2005 - 12:47 PM
I have had intermittent problems with the air control valve and the fuel purge solenoid. I read all the threads I could about these and couldn't quite figure out which was causing the problems, both codes would flash as soon as the car started to misbehave. High erractic idle, poor performance mostly in lower rpms, higher fuel consumption, stalling.
The fuel purge solenoid was easy enough to get out, I think it was a 12 mm bolt. As stated in past threads, I gave it a good soaking with wd40 and let it sit for awhile. I can't say if it helped, but, it shouldn't hurt either. One little trick I did figure out is when you are trying to put it back on use a pair of needle nose pliers to hold it (helps save your fingers from being caught in between the intake runners) the exact orientation isn't critical, then I put a small piece of plastic bag in the socket with a 3 inch exstention (without the rachet on), this was so the bolt wouldn't fall out when you are trying to get it into position. Once you get the bolt started then you can position the valve in the correct place and tighten it with the rachet.
I also removed the air control valve so I could clean it as well. This was also fairly simple once all the needed hoses were taken out of the way. I have tried spraying throttle body cleaner into the tube and brake cleaner into it, but, I'm not sure how effective it was. Once I had it removed from the car I sat down with a can of brake cleaner, a wack of Q-tips and some patience.
From what I understand the manual cars have a shutter type valve and the automatics have an oscillating valve (please correct me if I am wrong), anyways this was a shutter type valve, I think. I would spray the cleaner then gently clean the inside of the valve with a Q-tip, the shutters seem somewhat fragile so being gentle is a necessity. I unscrewed the top connecter portion of the valve, I didn't take it right off, I really didn't know if parts would fly out at me. I was able to turn the valve back and forth with it attached , and cleaned where I could. There was definately a lot of black gunk in it. I also cleaned the 2 tubes that have the coolant run through them. I reattached everything, pretty sure the top 2 bolts are longer than the bottom 2, I just put them back where I found them.
After everything was reattached I started the car, it fired up very quickly with no hesitation. The idle is much more stable and the engine seems to run more smoothly. I don't think this is a routine maintenance thing, but it does seem to help. Hope this can help someone.
I do have one question however. Where the headers go into the catalytic converter there is a hairline split around where the weld was made. I tried just patching it but that hasn't worked. Is it possible to re-weld it without having to take the headers off? I will have to take it somewhere to get fixed because I am not a welder, I don't want someone to jerk me around into getting new headers etc.
Thanks in advance
Posted 18 March 2005 - 12:57 PM
I do have one question however. Where the headers go into the catalytic converter there is a hairline split around where the weld was made. I tried just patching it but that hasn't worked. Is it possible to re-weld it without having to take the headers off? I will have to take it somewhere to get fixed because I am not a welder, I don't want someone to jerk me around into getting new headers etc.
Thanks in advance
Here in Quebec there is a Midas shop recommended by the APA that specialises in mig welding such cracks in Subary headers. I guess that if they can do it, others can.
Question: When you remove the IAC for cleaning was there any gaskets involved and if so did you just used the old ones again or replace them with new? I plan on cleaning it myself as preventive maint.
Posted 18 March 2005 - 01:21 PM
Posted 18 March 2005 - 01:33 PM
Posted 18 March 2005 - 01:44 PM
Posted 18 March 2005 - 01:46 PM
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Developing Web-Service-Driven, Smart Mobile Applicationsby Michael Juntao Yuan
Creating applications for mobile devices has its own set of unique challenges. Adding to the mix is the problem of maintaining connectivity over slow, expensive, and unreliable networks. Working with web services and other network protocols that were designed with broadband in mind can become a real burden to making applications really mobile. But there is hope; in this article, we will walk through the design and implementation of a complete end-to-end mobile application. It illustrates the common architecture and coding techniques for web-services- driven, smart mobile clients.
.NET Compact Framework and Smart Client
The wide adoption of the .NET Compact Framework on Windows Mobile devices (including PocketPCs and Smartphones) enables us to extend the existing Web Services infrastructure to support end-to-end mobile applications. The .NET Compact Framework has some important advantages over legacy mobility technology platforms.
Compared with micro-browser-based mobile thin clients, .NET-Compact-Framework- based smart clients are more reliable and faster because they are less dependent on the network and can cache aggressively to reduce network round trips. In today's unreliable, expensive, and slow wireless networks, offline operation capability is crucial to the success of a mobile application. In addition, smart clients offer richer user experiences via more interactive UIs that run locally on the device.
Compared with C/C++ native applications, .NET smart clients are easier to develop and less prone to errors, thanks to the advanced programming language/tool support in .NET and the managed execution environment. Since mobile devices have limited memory space and processing power, most smart clients delegate some data- or computation-intensive tasks to back end servers. The .NET Compact Framework offers superb support for XML web services, which allows us to build connected smart clients that easily integrate into the existing service infrastructure.
The .NET Compact Framework is specifically designed to follow the same application models and APIs that are available in the regular .NET framework. Together with familiar tools such as Visual Studio .NET 2003, it is very easy for a desktop or server-side .NET developer to get started with the Compact Framework. However, despite the apparent similarity in development environments, mobile devices and networks are different from PCs and Ethernets in several fundamental ways. Blind skill transfer from PCs to devices is often a source of frustration or even project failure. As developers, we have to understand the special requirements and characteristics of networked mobile applications. Now, let's first have a look at the sample application.
Introducing the MapPoint Smart Client Application
The sample application is a driving directions application powered by
the MapPoint web service. On a connected Windows Mobile device, it works as
follows: the user taps
from and
to addresses into
the UI form; the device queries a GIS (Geographic Information System) server,
and then displays driving directions and turn-by-turn driving maps. It
allows the user to look up driving directions any time, from anywhere in the field.
Figure 1 shows the workflow.
Figure 1. The workflow of the Driving Directions application
The complete source code of the application is available from here. To build and test the front-end mobile smart client, you have to have Visual Studio .NET 2003 and the PocketPC 2003 and Smartphone 2003 SDKs installed. Both SDKs are freely available from Microsoft's mobility web site.
MapPoint Web Service
At the back end, the Microsoft MapPoint web service, a hosted GIS solution, drives the application. A GIS server stores and processes geographic information. For example, the GIS server can: convert a street address to a pair of longitude and latitude coordinates, and vice versa; find the best route to connect two addresses; check yellow pages listings against addresses; find out points of interest (e.g., landmarks and shops) and potential hazards (e.g., construction sites and underground pipes) around a certain location or a route. GIS is widely used in military, city planning, construction, transportation, tourism, and many other industries. It helps planners to design the most efficient strategy and prepares field personnel for new environments. MapPoint takes care of the day-to-day GIS server management, as well as the licensing of up-to-date, high-resolution digital maps. Users pay for its services on a per-use or subscription basis. A big advantage of MapPoint is that it is accessible through an open SOAP web service interface. Being a web service ensures that MapPoint is ubiquitously available to a large variety of client and middleware applications.
Although we make use of the MapPoint SOAP API in the sample application, API usage is not the focus of this article. Interested readers can find the C# and VB.NET API reference in the MapPoint SDK from MSDN. In order to run the application, you need a service account with MapPoint. You can sign up for a 45-day free evaluation account, replace the account credentials in the MPfacade.asmx.cs file with your own, and then re-build the application.
Web Services Facade
MapPoint is a utility service. It offers fine-grained access to its GIS services. This allows us to write flexible applications without arbitrary limitations imposed by the API designer. However, the tradeoff is that we have to make many small-step method calls to complete a task. For example, in order to get driving directions between two addresses, we must complete the following steps:
- Convert the addresses to latitude and longitude coordinates.
- Calculate the route according to options.
- Render the overview map with the route and start/end locations highlighted.
- Retrieve turn-by-turn instructions for each route segment.
- Render highlighted turn-by-turn maps for each route segment.
The last two steps need to be repeated many times for a long route with many segments. All of those calls are remote SOAP RPCs performed over the network. For clients that only need to perform simple, pre-scripted GIS tasks (e.g., our driving directions client), those RPC round trips are excessive and cause drastic performance degrade over wireless networks. Therefore, it is not advisable to access the MapPoint web service directly from mobile clients. To minimize the round trips over wireless networks, we place a remote facade in front of the MapPoint web service.
A remote facade is a design pattern to provide a coarse-grained access interface to a set of complex remote subsystems. It is designed to shield the client from the complexity of subsystems. As a result, network round trips are greatly reduced. The facade pattern is probably the most widely used architectural pattern in end-to-end mobile applications. In our application, the facade takes in two human-readable addresses in a single RPC call from the wireless client, queries MapPoint via a sequence of remote calls over the wired Internet, constructs the resultant driving directions, and finally returns the results. The overall architecture and the facade call model are illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Smart mobile application architecture
Web Service:
In our example, the facade is implemented using ASP.NET web services. The
class in the project
MPfacade supports web methods such as
(i.e., get text directions) and
getSessMap (i.e., get a map),
which utilize the MapPoint web service to complete their tasks. To understand
the MapPoint API calls in the facade, please refer to the MapPoint SDK. The
facade essentially aggregates the complex MapPoint API into several simple web
Mobile Client:
On the client side, we need to support both the PocketPC and Smartphone UIs.
Those two UIs must be developed in two separate projects, since the two devices
have different screen sizes and support different sets of designer widgets. To
reuse the business layer code, we put all of the facade-client code in the
project. Both UI projects contain references to the
FacadeClient project.
In the next section, we will discuss the interaction between the .NET Compact
Framework client and the ASP.NET facade.
Client and Server Integration
At a glance, it is trivial to build a mobile client for the facade. We could
just add the facade service as a web reference to the project
However, by default, remote web service calls are stateless. Each request is
independent. Without remembering the user state, the server needs to start
fresh for every new request. In our example, that means it must build the entire
route over again every time the client requests a segment map; this is very
inefficient. A much better solution is to cache the calculated route in the
facade server. In a multi-user environment, we have to retrieve the correct
route object from the cache for each user. That requires the facade server to
recognize requests from the same user and group web service requests into
sessions. It works as follows.
When the client makes its first request, the server creates a session object and an ID. The ID is returned to the client. The client stores the ID and puts it in all subsequent requests to the same server. The server will then have a way to identify and link the request with session objects. The key is to exchange and keep track of session IDs. In the next two sections, we discuss two session tracking techniques: utilizing HTTP cookies and building session IDs into the RPC protocol.
HTTP Cookies
Since all of our web services calls in this example are made over the HTTP
transport, we could leverage HTTP's built-in session tracking mechanism,
HTTP cookies. Cookies are pieces of session identification strings embedded in
HTTP headers. When the client makes its first connection, the ID is created and
returned to the client via the HTTP
Set-Cookie header. If the
client is cookie-aware, it stores the cookie and puts it in the
header in all subsequent requests. This is the best way to track sessions in
ASP.NET applications, since the cookies are handled transparently to the
application developers, and this makes efficient use of the HTTP infrastructure.
To write cookie-aware ASP.NET web methods, we just need to add a
attribute in the method's meta data tag. A session object that is uniquely
associated with the current cookie can be retrieved from the runtime context.
We can cache the calculated route in the session object.
private CachedRoute getCache() {
CachedRoute cache = (CachedRoute) Session["CachedRoute"];
// This is a new session
if (cache == null)
cache = new CachedRoute ();
Session["CachedRoute"] = cache;
return cache;
public String [] getSessDirections (String fromStreet, String fromCity,
String fromState, String fromZip, String toStreet, String toCity,
String toState, String toZip) {
CachedRoute cache = getCache();
return getDirections(cache, fromStreet, fromCity,
fromState, fromZip, toStreet, toCity, toState, toZip);
All the client needs to do is to receive and remember the cookie. However, the
.NET Compact Framework v1.0 HTTP client library does not have built-in cookie
support (the
CookieCollection object is not supported). In
the .NET Compact Framework Service Pack 1 (SP1), which is built into Smartphone
2003 but requires manual install on PocketPC 2003, the application developer
can override the
GetWebRequest and
GetWebResponse methods
in the VS.NET-generated SOAP client-proxy class. We can manually build a
decorator class that subclasses the client proxy and add cookie-handling logic
to the
GetWebRequest/GetWebResponse methods. The code snippet below
shows the cookie-aware decorator methods.
FacadeService is the
web service proxy class generated by VS.NET when we added the web reference.
public class SessionFacadeService : FacadeService
private static string cookie = null;
protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri uri) {
HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest) base.GetWebRequest(uri);
if (cookie != null)
req.Headers.Add("Cookie", cookie);
return req;
protected override WebResponse GetWebResponse(WebRequest req) {
HttpWebResponse rep = (HttpWebResponse) base.GetWebResponse(req);
if (rep.Headers["Set-Cookie"] != null)
cookie = rep.Headers["Set-Cookie"];
return rep;
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