text:
Copenhagen 1856
The young woman looked out her bedroom window and wondered if she could live with her decision. She convinced herself she had no other choice. It was only a little lie, she thought as she touched the locket around her neck. She had committed to him and now she had to accept what came with it.
Earlier that day, Johan Pedersen nearly wore a hole in the thin braided rug covering the floor of Mr. Rasmussen's silver shop. An ordinary looking young man, Johan wasn't handsome and he wasn't ugly. He wasn't tall and he wasn't short. His hair was thin and a sort of muddy color of brown and his pale features were mainly unmemorable. People often forgot they had met him forcing him to constantly re-introduce himself to those he had met many times before. He simply got used to doing it and didn't really give it a second thought. It was the way it was. Johan was dull but reliable, though he didn't know it. Today, dull but reliable Johan perspired as he paced back and forth across the front room of the tiny silver shop. He pulled out his watch for the tenth time and sighed when he saw the lateness of the hour.
"Why was it taking so long?" he wondered. "I absolutely must see Lena today, before it gets too late." He had something important to ask her and needed Mr. Rasmussen to finish the silver locket. For almost a year, Johan had painstakingly saved the money to have the piece made especially for Lena. He was convinced if he presented the necklace at the same time he asked her the question, there would be a much better outcome.
The front door of the shop was pushed open setting off a little bell that was attached to the top of the door. Mr. Rasmussen heard the tinkle and rushed out from the back of the shop to wait on his new customer.
"Hurry, hurry, please, Mr. Rasmussen," thought Johan as he fidgeted near the door, "if you stop every five minutes to talk to your customers, I'll never get out of here before dusk. Then, it will be too late to take Lena for a walk."
Lena Jensen was in most people's opinion, the prettiest girl around town. No one was quite able to put their finger on what made Lena so fetching. Each of her facial features on their own were not spectacular. Her bright blue eyes that curved upwards at the corners were small and somewhat closely set. Her lips were possibly too big for her face and her nose turned up almost a little too far. While each feature alone seemed ordinary, together they created a symphony. Her pretty face combined with a thick head of magnificent strawberry blonde hair made her the envy of all the girls and the center of attention for all the boys.
Lena came from a hardscrabble hardworking family that owned a small local general store. She and her two younger sisters worked in the store every day after school. Many of the local young men admired Lena's charms and secretly wished they would be the one she would ultimately choose. For most of them, she was an unattainable dream — but not for Johan.
Johan walked past Jensen's General Store every day on his way home to ensure "chance meetings" with Lena would happen frequently. She always smiled and laughed at his jokes whenever he accidentally bumped into her on street. Even if she was busy with a customer, she found time to give him a free piece of candy or cake if she didn't have time to talk. He was sure she danced with him more than anyone else at the Christmas ball last December. Surely, those were all clear signs of her affection for him. Johan's love for Lena so overwhelmed him, he presumed she surely felt the same. He was certain they were meant to be together forever.
While Johan thought Lena to be his true love, she barely noticed he existed. Her sights were focused on another. Unbeknownst to Johan, the lovely Lena Jensen had fallen for a roguish actor from a touring theater troupe. Sadly, that actor's intentions were not entirely honorable.
It had started almost four months before when Lena, her mother and sister had gone to see a play at the local theater. The lead actor was extremely handsome and charming and had many of the girls in the audience swooning. He was tall, muscular and lean with thick wavy dark brown hair and a thick mustache to match. His soulful eyes and devilish demeanor captured Lena's heart. From the second this actor stepped on the stage, she was smitten. No matter where the action happened in the play, Lena's eyes never left his face. Her gaze from the front row was so intense that she thought she saw the actor look back directly at her. She had never felt anything like this for anyone before and thought it was the strangest sensation. Her skin felt hot, her heart pounded and she could scarcely catch her breath as she sat in the dark auditorium. She was accustomed to all the boys admiring her, not the other way around. Yet, she had to admit to herself, here she was, completely in love with a total stranger and she liked it.
Each afternoon for the next few days, Lena managed to scrape together a few kroner from the store's money till to buy tickets to the play. She would sneak out of the store early, meet a friend on the corner and together they would go sit in the front row of the theater. On the second day, the handsome actor noticed the same pretty young woman with strawberry blonde hair gazing up at him adoringly. Lena enlisted different friends to accompany her for the first three performances but on the fourth day, everyone was otherwise engaged. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to see her actor, she ventured to the theater alone and sat in her regular front row seat.
On this fourth day, the handsome actor sent her a note at intermission, inviting her to join him in his dressing room after the performance. Lena could hardly believe it when the stagehand gave her the note. Of course, she would go meet him, she thought. This was a sign that possibly he felt the same way she did. He must love me the same way I love him, she thought. Lena could hardly wait for the second act to end.
When the last curtain call was taken where her actor got a standing ovation, Lena walked out of the theater and around to the side stage door entrance of the building. Her heart nearly beat out of her chest as she approached an old man sitting on a stool reading a newspaper. Shaking, Lena handed him the note from the actor.
She was prettier than a lot of the others who had shown up with similar notes, the old man thought. He remembered a few of the young girls had been downright plain and one had enormous feet. But this one he reckoned, was quite attractive and smelled of honey and rosewater. The old man looked at the eager young girl, shook his head with a mixture of pity and disdain and pointed to a door down a hallway.
"You sure you want to go in there, Miss?" grumbled the old man with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm sure I do," said Lena defiantly lifting her chin with superiority. She breezed by with such determination that the movement of her skirts caused the newspapers on the old man's table to blow onto the floor. She marched to the dressing room door and knocked confidently, mainly for the old man's benefit. Then she heard the unmistakable baritone voice of her actor through the closed door.
"I'm getting changed, but the door is open, come in, close it behind you," he called out.
Until this point in her short eighteen years, Lena had been nothing but appropriate. This day she succumbed completely to the actor's charms right there on the threadbare gold brocade chaise lounge in his dressing room. When they were through, Lena dressed and made sure everything was back in its proper place. The actor walked over to her and smiled. He kissed her on the forehead and told her he hoped to see her in the audience again.
She walked out of the theater past the old man and heard him mutter something she couldn't quite make out. She didn't care what that old man thought. She only cared what the actor thought. She was in love and she was almost certain her actor loved her too. He must love her. How could she possibly feel so much for him unless they were meant to be together?
For the next six afternoons, Lena attended each matinee performance. Afterwards, she gave the actor a private performance on his gold chaise lounge. On the sixth day, as Lena buttoned the cuff of her sleeve, the actor shared some news.
"You know something, I will truly miss you, Lena," said the actor admiring himself in the mirror while he smoothed his thick mustache. "Our company is leaving tomorrow to travel around Europe and then we're off to America. We've got performances in twenty-eight cities already scheduled. It will be at least a year or two before I'll return to Copenhagen."
Lena's ears started to ring and she couldn't get air into her lungs. He was leaving her. He didn't love her the way she loved him. They were supposed to be in love.
"You'll be gone for a year," she cried. "But I thought we were going to be together. I don't understand. I thought we would get married."
The actor wondered to himself why all the young girls always read so much into everything. They all had a good time. He sighed and walked over to his trunk and opened it. At the bottom of the trunk was a wooden cigar box filled with several dozen beaded bracelets each with a single charm in the shape of a flower. On each charm was engraved, "with love, J. W. B.". The actor extracted a single bracelet, closed the trunk and turned around to face Lena.
"Put your right arm out, Lena. I have a very special gift for you." Then with great fanfare, he placed the beaded bracelet on Lena's wrist and stood back to admire it.
"I hope you like it, Lena, I had it made especially for you to remember me," he boasted.
Speechless, Lena gently touched the charm so her fingertips could feel the roughness of the engraving on its surface. It says, "with love" she thought. Maybe he does love me, she told herself with a sense of relief.
The actor continued his announcement in a professorial and disinterested tone.
"My acting career requires me to move around freely to experience the world. I hope you didn't misconstrue the nature of our most pleasant relationship. Of course, I have deep affection for you which is why I had the bracelet made just for you. Being an actor requires me to maintain independence for my art. Surely, you understand that, sweet Lena." He kissed her quickly on the forehead and went back to his dressing table to continue his grooming.
"Will you close the door tightly Lena, when you leave? I've got to get changed for dinner."
Lena didn't remember leaving the theater but somehow made her way home and went straight to bed. Her brain and her heart were at war with each other. Everything was firing inside her head. What have I done, she thought. I have been so stupid. He doesn't care at all about me. I was so gullible. No one will ever find out, what a horribly foolish girl I have been. She vowed she would never speak of him ever, to anyone.
Lena never did speak of the actor to anyone but less than three months later she discovered that she was undeniably pregnant. The changes in her body were clear and she knew what was coming in six or seven months. The day she realized this, was the same day Johan Pedersen came calling with his silver locket. She thought Johan was nice enough but he didn't stand out any more than the dozens of other boys who competed for her attention. They say timing is everything so when Johan showed up with his shiny silver locket the same day Lena realized she was going to be a mother, the distance between them narrowed.
It was a windy Saturday afternoon. Lena had just finished stacking boxes of shoes at the store when Johan stopped by to ask if she was free to go for a walk. Normally, she would have given him a piece of candy to get rid of him and tell him she was too busy but today, she was glad for an excuse to get out of the store. She asked her mother if she could go for a walk and got her cloak. The red, yellow and brown fall leaves blew around their ankles as they walked along the streets of Copenhagen. Johan talked about ordinary things like the goings on about town and local gossip. Lena barely focused on his words as she tried to come up with a solution to her tremendous problem.
When they turned a corner, a big gust of wind blew heaps of leaves and debris at the couple. Johan stopped to block Lena from the wind and in doing so faced her very closely. He decided this was his moment. He took her hand and told her there was something extremely important he wanted to say. Lena looked up at his blotchy red face. He's perspiring and breathing so hard. It's not even warm out today, she thought and wished more than anything he would go away. He is squeezing my hand so hard, she thought, trying to pull it away. I have a big problem and this foolish idiot is prattling on about nothing.
Then, right there on the blustery street corner, Johan blurted out his big question.
"Lena, I have loved you from the first moment I saw you and I've come to believe over the years that you may feel the same way," said Johan. "If you would agree to be my wife, I promise you a lifetime of love. You will never have to worry about anything and I will always take care of you." Lena's mouth hung open and her eyes widened. She had not anticipated this at all. Before she could respond, Johan nervously pulled out a small blue box and opened it.
"I saved up for a nearly a year to have this made for you, sweet Lena," he proudly announced. Inside the box sat a shiny oval-shaped silver locket with a granulated point on each end. The locket hung from a thick silver chain and had a very fancy clasp. There was an engraved heart on the front and when you turned it over it said "LENA". He opened the locket and inside was engraved, "You are my Heart".
Over the years, Lena Jensen had received a few marriage proposals but she had never been pregnant before. The wheels in her mind turned. Johan was a decent man, she thought, though rather ordinary and dull and he keeps breathing so hard. On the other hand, she thought, he did go to an awful lot of trouble and expense to have that locket made for me, that was rather sweet.
She didn't have much time to play with because the baby would soon start to show. After a few moments of internal debate seeing no other immediate solutions or marriage proposals on the horizon, Lena smiled and accepted his proposal along with the locket. She agreed to marry him, providing he agreed to marry right away.
"Once I make up my mind Johan, I simply cannot wait," she told him. Johan clapped his hands with delight and proclaimed he was the "luckiest man in the world". Gingerly, he placed the silver necklace around her long white neck and made Lena promise she would never take it off, ever. The locket would be the symbol of their eternal love.
The following week the two families met at the chapel where Father Schmidt united Lena and Johan in the eyes of God. At the end of the ceremony, Johan kissed his new bride. He was delighted. She was relieved.
Seven months later, a daughter was born, "prematurely," Johan was told. Despite the baby's early arrival, she was quite large, much to everyone's surprise. The baby girl was the spitting image of the actor. Lena hoped no one would notice and fortunately, no one ever did.
As promised, Lena wore the silver locket every day of her marriage. It was a constant reminder of her love lost, the embarrassing rejection by the actor and the loveless life and marriage she had accepted and lived with. She hated that locket more than anything.
Eighteen years later, on her daughter's wedding day, the wheels in Lena's head turned once again. She had a plan to finally rid herself of the onerous locket. She told Johan she should like to give the necklace to their daughter as a wedding gift. She convinced him the locket would bring love and luck to their daughter as it had to them.
"I will hate to take it off," Lena said, "but wouldn't it be nice to pass the symbol of our love to our beautiful daughter?" It took Johan a few moments to process the notion but he eventually agreed.
As Lena dressed for her daughter's wedding, she stood in front of the mirror and admired her bare neck. She smiled and took a moment to congratulate herself. It had always felt like that necklace was strangling her. Now, it was finally off her neck and she could breathe again.
Lena's daughter wore that locket from that day forward. In the first ten years of her marriage she had four boys and two stillbirths that were girls. Finally, on the eleventh year, a baby girl was born and given the locket that same day because her poor mother had died during childbirth.
The baby girl wore her dead mother's locket every day and in 1915, she married in Copenhagen. She and her new husband immediately set sail for a new life in America, settled in Queens, NY and had three children. When the first World War broke out, her husband joined the U.S. Army and went to fight the Germans, leaving his wife pregnant with their third child. Her husband never came home having died from mustard gas poisoning on the fields of France.
With three children to feed, the new widow did the best she could with her husband's small army pension but still had to take in washing and sewing to make ends meet. During a polio outbreak, her oldest daughter lingered for many months, and finally died. That's how the younger sister Mae, came to possess her great grandmother Lena's silver locket. Mae's mother gave her the locket in 1943 on the day Mae married Joe.
"Mae, this was your great grandmother's locket. My grandfather gave it to her as a symbol of their great love. Wear it always and one day pass it to your eldest daughter as I am passing it to you." Mae treasured the locket and proudly wore it every day of her life, just as she had promised.
Five generations of women who proudly wore Johan's silver locket were not even related to Johan. All were descendants of a self-absorbed actor who didn't know or care that they existed. The moment Lena accepted Johan's love and the silver locket under false pretenses, she and all her descendants had to live with the consequences of her lie.
New York, Summer 1988
While she waited to check her backpack at the Air India counter, Trina Holmgard played with the silver locket around her neck. It had been her grandmother's and Trina cherished it more than anything. A year later she would give the precious locket away, an act that would ruin her life and cause thousands to die.
The international terminal at JFK International Airport was packed with summer travelers and after months of planning, Trina was one of them. Jenn Fairchild stood next to her absorbed in a celebrity magazine, oblivious to the airport chaos. Inseparable since freshman year of college, she and Jenn had bonded over their mutual dream of becoming editors at a magazine likeVogue, Rolling StoneorGlamour.Practically carbon copies of each other, both women were exactly five foot five inches tall with fair complexions and shoulder length dirty blonde bobs. They shared their clothes and their dreams with equal passion and always had each other's backs. Sisters forever.
As she and Jenn walked to their gate, Trina felt a lump in her throat as she thought about Nanna Mae and the year she had lived without her. Trina took in a deep cleansing breath through her nose, blew out through her mouth and forced herself to smile.
"Just put a smile on your pretty face," Nanna Mae used to say with a wink, "It will trick your brain into thinking you're happy, even when you're not. Trust me, Cookie, it works."
Trina visualized her tiny, wiry Nanna Mae wearing one of her blue house dresses banging two pot lids together as makeshift symbols while dancing around the kitchen on the day she learned Trina had won a scholarship to college. Hours later, Trina found out the boy she had a huge crush on had asked another girl to go to the senior prom. One moment she had been so happy and the next, misery. Nanna had wrapped her arms around Trina, hugged her and told her that everything would be alright and Trina had almost believed her.
"There will be plenty of other boys out there for you, Cookie. Better than that stupid Tommy what's-his-name," said Nanna Mae giving her another squeeze. "I promise you that. That Tommy obviously has terrible taste and that's all I'm going to say about him."
Nanna Mae had been her mother, teacher and most importantly, her champion. Their small two-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens used to have the delicious aroma of one of Nanna Mae's homemade soups endlessly cooking on the stove or her special coffee cake muffins fresh from of the oven. Now, there was only the faint odor of mildew mixed with stale cigar smoke that drifted up through the floor boards from the fat guy who lived downstairs. Her last conversation with Nanna Mae continued to play on an endless loop in Trina's head. She had made promises to her grandmother and in exchange, Nanna Mae gave Trina her antique silver locket. It was Nanna Mae's greatest treasure and had been given to her by her mother. Trina took the locket reluctantly, knowing what taking it meant. When she held it up, the sun reflected off its shiny face and cast a tiny dancing light onto the wall above Nanna Mae's bed. Trina moved her hand causing the light to flicker down onto Nanna Mae's face.
"Trina, don't stand there playing with the locket," Nanna Mae gently scolded, as she squinted from the light in her eyes. "Put it on," she said. "It's yours, now. Wear it every day, like I did, until the time comes for you to give it to your own daughter. Remember, the locket will protect you like it did for all the generations of women in our family." Trina quickly turned her face away so her grandmother wouldn't see the tears welling up in her eyes and put the locket on for the very first time.
"As long as you wear it, you'll know I'm there right next to you," said Nanna Mae softly. Trina nodded with understanding and acceptance.
"Never take it off, promise me," Nanna Mae said and Trina promised her grandmother with all her heart. Satisfied, Nanna Mae smiled, closed her eyes and a moment later, she was gone.
The voice on the plane's loudspeaker pulled Trina back to the present as it warned passengers to make sure their carry-on bag was not too big for the overhead compartment. Trina and Jenn slowly made their way down the aisle of the plane, took their seats and settled in for the long trip. Hours later, after a connection in Frankfurt, the plane made a smooth landing in New Delhi, India. As the plane's wheels hit the tarmac, Trina felt a new-found sense of purpose. She would soon fulfill her grandmother's lifelong dream of going to the Taj Mahal.
Later that day, as the two American women walked through the downtown streets of Delhi, they could see the clear fingerprints of former British rule intermingled with a decidedly Asian culture. India was like nothing they had ever seen before. The sprawling city of Delhi was overrun with swarms of people moving through crowded dilapidated streets and along deteriorating sidewalks. The buildings appeared to crumble before their eyes. There was no order of any kind on the streets. People moved in every direction but seemed to go nowhere. Indian women in saris of every color wore stacks of shiny yellow-gold bangles up the length of their arms. Many had different sizes of colored dots on their foreheads and most had tiny jeweled studs in their noses. The two Americans walked by endless rows of makeshift stalls that sold food and trinkets and lined the roads as far as they could see. Trina nearly fell over a loose goat in a marketplace as roaming livestock darted in and out of alleyways looking for scraps food or water. Pedi-cabs by the hundreds tried to persuade Trina and Jenn to take a ride with them. Constantly waving people away, the American women explored their decrepit wonderland.
After half a day of wandering, they noticed something at the same time. Every few blocks they saw long lines of Indians patiently waiting on street corners but they couldn't figure out what they were lining up for. Curious, the women stopped to chat with a group tourists from Canada who looked like they knew their way around and asked them if they knew what the long lines were for.
"Oh that," said a Canadian tourist laughing and rolling her eyes, "Hold on to your hats, girls. See that little man there at the end, the one standing in front of the chair with the long metal tool?" Jenn and Trina nodded. "Those people are queuing up for that guy. They're all waiting for him to clean their ears."
"Ewww!" screamed Trina and Jenn at the same time as they looked across the street at one of the lines. That's when they spotted a little old man at the end of the line holding a long rusty metal rod. They watched him insert the metal rod into the ear of a surprisingly relaxed customer seated on a stool. Trina and Jenn screamed again as they watched and ran away leaving the Canadians laughing behind them.
The drama of the organized Asian chaos played out on a British backdrop. The architecture, roadways, roundabouts and left side of the road driving were the lasting remnants of former British rule making it feel as if the cast of a Bollywood movie had been dropped into the middle of a Dickens novel. Cars had no mufflers and gas exhaust visibly puffed thick black smoke out of tailpipes. The women heard sirens blare from every direction and the incessant honking of car horns for what seemed like no reason at all. Everyone shouted, pushed and tried to sell them something. The air was filled with a mixture of odors; gasoline, cigarettes, roasting meats and curry followed by the stench of rotting garbage. Then, there were the flies. Massive numbers of big fat black flies everywhere and on everything. Flies were on their food, on their faces, in their eyes, in their ears. The two friends agreed that India was a total sensory assault, both good and bad, exciting and horrifying all at the same time. Yet, despite the cacophony around them, the American women were exhilarated, all their senses dialed in, for better or for worse.
Before they left New York, their travel agent, who was a woman and had been to India several times, advised them to cover up and keep a low profile when they walked through the streets. They had been warned that young, Indian women never walked alone without a chaperone. The two friends tried their best to blend in with the locals and keep a low profile and wore headscarves, long skirts, long-sleeved shirts, and sunglasses. Their costumes didn't fool anyone. Their height and skin color gave them away. They were significantly taller and had much lighter complexions than the local people of Delhi and stood out. Young Indian men cat-called to them and said things in Hindi that they didn't understand but knew weren't nice. Because of all the American movies Indian men watched, many believed young Western women actually wanted sexual advances from them. Jenn and Trina were poked, squeezed, pushed and groped by men on the street. Warm hands grabbed at their thighs and thrust between their legs. Rough fingers brazenly grabbed at their breasts or cupped their buttocks. Hands in the crowds reached under their skirts and up the front of their shirts for a fast squeeze. After a few hours of being physically violated, Trina and Jenn decided they needed to take a more defensive stance.
"If one more guy puts his hands near my upper thighs" said Jenn defiantly raising her knee in the air, "he's going to feel some real pain right in his boy toy." From that moment, they consciously changed their body language from low profile and demure to "fierce warrior princess" as Jenn called it, and things changed. Instead of being victims, they walked boldly and looked everyone they passed, especially men, directly in the eye. Any future physical contact by men was met with a slap, kick or punch along with some choice American expressions.
While they walked through the streets, in addition to groping hands, they were also often surrounded by beggars. Old men and women reached their arms out, hands extended and begged the Americans for money. Some were missing a hand or a foot forcing them to hobble around on makeshift crutches. Packs of emaciated children, some who looked to be as young as three or four, dressed in tatters, followed and encircled the Americans. The children asked endlessly for money or food and grabbed at the women's skirts and pointed towards their own open mouths and cried, "baksheesh, baksheesh" which meant "donation".
When the two friends finally made it back to their small hotel, they asked the concierge at the front desk about the large numbers of beggars they saw with missing hands and feet. The concierge looked uncomfortable and took a deep breath before he answered their question.
"There is a highly illegal practice within the ranks of the extremely poor in India known as Untouchables," said the concierge. "The parents of Untouchable children sometimes deliberately maim their own kids. They think a child with a missing hand or foot would bring in more sympathy money from begging and better help support the family." Trina and Jenn's eyes grew wide and their mouths hung open. "The Indian authorities try to stop this practice but sadly, it still happens," he said shaking his head.
The next morning the women left their hotel to take the train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, just as Trina had promised her grandmother she would. They had been advised by their hotel to spend the extra money for First Class tickets for the two to three-hour trip to Agra. First Class, was clean, private and guaranteed an assigned seat. Second Class, not so clean and Third Class, the way most Indians traveled, was cheap, filthy and crammed with as many bodies as could be wedged in. Many people stood for an entire trip because there was only a tiny fraction of the number of seats as there were passengers. People might stand for as long as ten to twenty hours or be forced to sit on the floor. When the Americans arrived at the train station and saw the conditions, they were grateful they had spent the extra money for first class.
From the Agra station, they went directly to their hotel to change clothes to make it to the Taj Mahal for the sunset. The Taj Mahal was situated on the banks of the Yamuna River and had been commissioned in 1632 by the emperor, Shah Jahan, as a mausoleum for his favorite wife. The enormous building was constructed almost entirely of white marble. Nanna Mae had read extensively about the Taj and had made her promise to see the building both at sunset and sunrise. It was supposed to look completely different at different times of day when the light changed.
As evening approached, Trina and Jenn walked through the streets towards the one of the man made wonders of the world. The closer they got, the more crowded the roads became with foot traffic. Numerous signs saying, "Taj Mahal - This Way" dotted the streets. Crowds of tourists began to swell as they all walked in the same direction towards the prize. Soon, everyone's pace collectively picked up, as they all moved almost as one, closer to their destination. The two friends could feel the electricity and expectation that filled the air. Everyone felt it. They all knew they were about to see something special.
"This better be good after all the hype," moaned Jenn.
"Don't worry, it will be," Trina assured her. Nanna Mae had talked about the Taj Mahal endlessly over the years and Trina knew for sure they were both in for the experience of a lifetime. They moved along with the crowds and passed through an oversized, ornately carved stone archway. Then, just like that, there it was. Standing right in front of them was the massive Taj Mahal.
"Wow," said Trina placing her hand on her throat touching the locket.
"Whoa," said Jenn, "It's incredible."
The light hit the building in such a way that it glowed and looked surreal as if it was two-dimensional and painted onto the horizon. The colors of the sunset cast a pinkish melon hue over the entire building. Long reflecting pools leading up to the structure mirrored the building's pink reflection in the water below. It was simply beautiful. The women walked around the grounds to look at the Taj from every angle and commented on the changing colors of the building as the sun continued to set. Over the next thirty minutes, the Taj Mahal went from melon to hot pink to black.
"You know, I hate to admit it, but seeing this might have been worth that long hideous plane ride over here," said Jenn with unusual sincerity. Trina couldn't have agreed more. The Taj was breathtaking. Nanna had been so right, she thought, as she rubbed the locket between her fingers.
The next morning, they got up before it was light and repeated their trek to the Taj to see it at sunrise. This time the building went from orange to pale yellow and then finally to a bright glowing white. Trina thought it looked as if it was lit from inside because the light seemed to glow right through its gleaming white marble walls. The building seemed translucent and indeed looked entirely different than it had the night before.
After spending a couple of hours at the Taj and with nothing else to see in Agra, the two friends collected their luggage from their hotel and headed back to the train station for their return trip to Delhi. The following day they would take a long bus ride to Kashmir in the north of India to stay on a houseboat on Dal Lake for a few weeks. Nanna Mae had always said she wanted to sleep on a houseboat in Kashmir and now Trina would do it for her.


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Stripboeken browse by: Shop category:
Artist Pierre WachsBeschikbare series in de webshop categorie "Stripboeken"
Pierre Wachs in the COMICLOPEDIA
"Pierre Wachs studied art in Strasbourg and became an illustrator. He made his debut in comics in 1988 with the comics documentary 'L'Avant-garde du Rhin - 90 Ans d'Histoire', published by éditions du Signe. This was followed by 'Les Bonnes Fortunes de Cobalt Milos ou l'Histoire de la..." [ Lees meer ]

subset: commoncrawl


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AudioFile::Info::MP3::ID3Lib - Perl extension to get info from MP3 files.
This is a plugin for AudioFile::Info which uses MP3::ID3Lib to get data about MP3 files.
See AudioFile::Info for more details.
Creates a new object of class AudioFile::Info::MP3::ID3Lib. Usually called by AudioFile::Info::new.
Dave Cross, <firstname.lastname@example.com>
Copyright 2003 by Dave Cross
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.


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Cafe & Food | Business Email Mailing List
B2B Email mailing address list of 1,500 cafe and food outlet companies with website address and UK location.
This business email directory is part of the "Food and Accommodation Industry " database of British businesses.
Cafe & Food Outlets | Marketing Email Database
Company Email Mailing List
If your email marketing campaign is in need of an email cafe and food outlets by region, then our email database would be a perfect solution. This email list contains 1,500 addresses through the UK, conveniently split into different address locations that include London and south east England, Southwest England, Midlands, Northern England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland .
Cafe and food outlets business email directory:
|Cafe and Coffee Shops
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|Food Products
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April 22, 2009
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - No. 70 Yale concluded its season with a 4-3 victory over Brown to finish the season at 4-3 in the Ivy League and 14-8 overall Wednesday at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. Despite losing the doubles point, the Bulldogs won four of six singles matches to conclude their season with a victory.
Senior captain Jeff Dawson concluded his Yale career with a 6-2, 6-4 straight set victory at No. 1 singles over Chris Lee. It was a fitting end to an outstanding collegiate career for the senior captain. Fittingly, Jeff Dawson concluded his match at the same time that his younger brother junior Connor Dawson finished up at No. 2 singles. Connor Dawson rolled to a 6-2, 6-4 win over Jonathan Pearlman.
Playing No. 4 singles, sophomore Calvin Bennett cruised to a 6-2, 6-2 win over Skate Gorham. Freshman Erik Blumenkranz pulled out a 6-4, 7-6 victory over Kendrick Au at No. 6 singles.
Jeff Dawson and fellow senior Josh Lederman also won their final doubles match. The duo won at No. 3 doubles 8-4 over Au and Charlie Posner. The Bulldogs lost the other two doubles matches to lose the doubles point.
Complete Results
1. Jeff Dawson (Y) def. Chris Lee (B), 6-2, 6-4
2. Connor Dawson (Y) def. Jonathan Pearlman (B), 6-2, 6-4
3. Sam Garland (B) def. Michael Caldwell (Y), 6-7, 6-2, 1-0 (5)
4. Calvin Bennett (Y) def. Skate Gorham (B), 6-2, 6-2
5. Noah Gardner (B) def. Joel Samaha (Y), 6-0, 6-2
6. Erik Blumenkranz (Y) def. Kendrick Au (B), 6-4, 7-6
1. Gardner / Garland (B) def. Caldwell / C. Dawson (Y), 8-6
2. Lee / Basudev Ratnam (B) def. Bennett / Samaha (Y), 8-3
3. J. Dawson / Josh Lederman (Y) def. Au / Charlie Psoner (B), 8-4
Report Filed by Steven Horn '10, Yale Sports Publicity


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Come meet others interested in plant-based dining. People with any diet are welcome, but all food ordered must be vegan.
Come to a potluck, dinner, brunch or happy hour and discuss health, plant based foods, restaurants, movies, etc. Meet like minded people, and try out new restaurants and/or recipes. We meet mostly in North Alameda County; think Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, etc.
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Ben Bishop continued his history of stellar shootout play Thursday, giving his Tampa Bay Lightning a 4-3 shootout win over the Ottawa Senators here Thursday.
Bishop stymies Senators in shootout
TAMPA, Fla. — Ben Bishop continued his history of stellar shootout play Thursday, giving his Tampa Bay Lightning a 4-3 shootout win over the Ottawa Senators here Thursday.
The Lightning goaltender, who was a master at the penalty-shot competition while with the Senators and since being traded here, was a perfect 3-for-3, stopping Mika Zibanejad, Jason Spezza and Kyle Turris.
Tampa's Nikita Kucherov was the lone shooter to beat Senators goaltender Craig Anderson.
While the Senators blew a chance to pick up the win and two points, they did at least escape Florida with one point. For most of the third period, it looked like they would skate away with nothing.
That all changed when Chris Neil's knuckleball shot, with 2:18 left in regulation, flew over Bishop's shoulder and caught the top of the net, tying the game 3-3.
It was the 100th goal of Neil's career and it was the third time the Senators had erased a one-goal deficit.
The Lightning controlled play for extended periods through the first two periods, but the Senators pushed hard in the third period before Neil's tying goal.
The Senators have now registered at least a point in their past six road games, going 4-0-2 during that span.
The Lightning outshot the Senators 38-36 through overtime, including a 7-2 edge in overtime, when the Senators successfully killed off Cody Ceci's penalty.
Early on, the Lightning took advantage of sloppy defensive play by the Senators — expect the return of Marc Methot to the lineup for Saturday's matinee against the Carolina Hurricanes — and led 3-2 after rookie Ondrej Palat scored 5:31 into the third period.
The Lightning were the better of the two teams through the first two periods, but the Senators were in the game thanks to the play of Anderson and their power play, which was responsible for their first two goals.
Tampa Bay had been idle since defeating the Carolina 5-3 on Saturday and they had plenty of jump, keeping the Senators on their heels for extended periods.
If not for Anderson, the game would have been over early. The Lightning outshot the Senators 10-1 in the first four minutes and held a 15-3 edge at the 8:30 mark. The shot count was 26-18 after two periods and the Lightning had also held a 28-14 edge in the faceoff circle through the first two periods.
The poor defensive play served to highlight the controversial decision by coach Paul MacLean to sit Methot even though he had fully recovered from his minor hip injury.
Yet the Senators power play got them back in the game — both in the first and second periods. Clarke MacArthur deadlocked the game 2-2 with 3:03 remaining and the Senators enjoying the manpower advantage. MacArthur beat Bishop the legs for his 18th goal of the season, only three shy of his career high. The Senators have the league's most successful power play on the road.
Only moments before the MacArthur goal, Senators coach Paul MacLean shuffled his forward lines, moving Milan Michalek and Mika Zibanejad to Jason Spezza's wings.
Zack Smith served as a centre for Colin Greening and Chris Neil.
For all the talk about Ben Bishop's outstanding play in the Lightning net — he should be a leading candidate to win the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender — it was Anderson who rose to the challenge of keeping his team alive.
B.J. Crombeen had given the Lightning a 2-1 lead early in the second period, deflecting a Viktor Hedman pass off his skate and then off his stick behind Anderson.
The clubs were deadlocked 1-1 after the first period, with both goals coming on the same Senators power play. First, Tyler Johnson burst past Bobby Ryan at the Lightning blue-line and beat Anderson to the short side for a short-handed goal on a partial breakaway.
That lead lasted only 30 seconds. Erik Karlsson tied the game with the Senators still enjoying the man advantage, jumping into the faceoff circle and ripping the rebound of a Jason Spezza shot off Bishop's trapper into the net..
WHY THEY LOST: Ben Bishop closed the door in the shootout, picking up the 25th win of the season.
CHEERS: Viktor Hedman, Lightning: Hedman, returning to the lineup following a minor knee injury, and assisted on all three Tampa Bay goals in regulation.
JEERS: Poor period starts by the Senators. The Lightning dominated the play at the start of the first two periods and Ondrej Palat scored the Lightning's third (and winning) goal at the 5:31 mark of the third period.
NO POUTING HERE: Martin St. Louis's third period assist – the 598th of his career – extended his point-scoring streak to nine games. He has picked up at least one point in every game since not being named to the Canadian Olympic team.


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The Committee to Save Edgewood Golf Course has more than 1,270 signatures that support saving this course for future generations ("Plain residents urge trustees to buy Edgewood G.C.," Oct. 9). This is not just a surrounding neighborhood idea.
A majority of the 468 readers who took The Repository's Daily Poll Oct. 10 support the idea of Plain Township buying the course.
Our group promotes a plan to collaborate with the township to acquire the course without additional tax dollars. The Edgewood Golf financials show that it can be self-supportiing.
A 2008 newspaper article reported that seven area cities own a total of eight golf facilities. Akron has two — the 18-hole J. Edward Good Park and nine-hole Mud Run. Cuyahoga Falls' municipal course is Brookledge, Stow's is Fox Den, Twinsburg's is Glen-eagles, Massillon has Legends, North Canton has Fairways and Hudson has Ellsworth Meadows.
For the most part, area city-owned golf facilities are doing all right financially. Officials in these cities say making money isn't the big reason to own a golf course. They say:
• ''It's like supporting the arts — you have to provide recreational activities for the citizens.''
• ''We bought it as a quality-of-life issue and for the preservation of precious green space."
• ''Another factor that isn't reflected in the golf course's bottom line is that the golf course and other aspects of our parks and recreation contribute overall to the economic viability of the city. You can't put a price on that.''
The Plain Township Comprehensive Mini-Master Plan 2012 supports our goal: "Priority Planning Issues: Preservation of open space and rural character as area continues to develop with residential subdivisions."
The Committee to Save Edgewood Golf Course believes this is a win-win situation for Plain Township and residents of all ages.


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Annual event a big draw in northcentral Kansas
WEBBER -- Lovewell State Park has scheduled its Free Park Entrance Days for Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 8-9. For those two days, vehicle permits are not required to enter Lovewell State Park, near Webber. However, those who plan to camp overnight in the park will still have to purchase a camping permit, available at the park office or self-pay station.
In conjunction with the Free Park Entrance Days, park staff will sponsor the 3rd Annual Chili Cookoff on Sunday, Sept. 9. Pre-registration for this event is due no later than 9 a.m. on the day of event. Prizes will be awarded to the first-, second-, and third-place chili entries. All entries will be eligible for prizes by drawing. Judging tickets will be available at 12:30 p.m., and judging will begin at 1 p.m. A $2 donation per ticket to judge entries will be collected. Donations will be used for prizes for the park's many special events throughout the year.
If notified in advance, staff will have an interpreter available for the hearing impaired. To request an interpreter, call the TDD Service at 1-800-766-3777. Any individual with a disability may request other accommodations by contacting Lovewell State Park at 785-753-4971.


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Landlocked For A Century, Bolivia Now Wants Access To The Sea, Asks Chile For Help
Officials from the governments of Chile and Bolivia met on Wednesday to discuss a way for Bolivia to access the Pacific Ocean. Felipe Bulnes, a politician from Chile, and Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé, the former president of Bolivia, appeared before a judge in the Hague after La Paz presented a petition in April.
Bolivia has demanded an access to the sea as part of a historic judicial action, which originated with a war that involved Chile, Bolivia and Peru between 1879 and 1883. The three countries signed a peace treaty in 1904, under which Bolivia lost territory to Chile and lost its Pacific Coast. Since then, the landlocked country has been trying to regain its lost coastline, which has led to tense diplomatic relationships between the two South American countries over the decades.
Bolivian President Evo Morales started the current petition in 2011, announcing that he wanted to go to "international courts and organizations, asking for the right of Bolivia to have its own way to the Pacific." Chilean President Sebastián Piñera froze the negotiations, prompting Morales to tell Venezuelan TV network Telesur that when "the Chilean brother says he is not going to give an inch, it's humiliating."
Bolivia's first strategy was to impugn the peace treaty, but then it switched to calling out the Chilean government for its initiation of negotiations with no follow-through for the last 60 years, including talks with former dictator Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile under a brutal military regime in the 1980s, and socialist ex-President Michele Bachelet, who had a good relationship with Morales until she left the presidency in 2010. Bolivia argued Chile is obligated to provide it with access to the sea and plans to provide evidence of Chile's past compliance on the issue in court, according to La Paz newspaper El Diario.
But Piñera's administration called this strategy "weak" and, as reported by Chilean newspaper La Tercera, assured it has no such obligations with its neighbor. "Beyond the specific expectations of Bolivia, they have no rights over Chilean territory, nor its seas, and that is going to be our position," Bulnes, the ambassador of Chile to the U.S. and designated official in the case.
Chile is also in the midst of a political campaign, with presidential elections looming on June 30. Piñera has asked all Chilean citizens to agree on a position regarding Bolivia's demands. The president has even suggested that all political candidates arrive at a consensus on the matter, particularly Radical Party candidate José Antonio Gómez, who has openly supported Bolivia's demands for access to the Pacific, as reported by Santiago radio station Duna.
Meanwhile, Chilean citizens apparently do not agree with Bolivia's stance. According to a survey by the Catholic University of Chile in 2012, 54 percent of the population asserted that Chile owes nothing to Bolivia, while 28 percent think Bolivia should have the right to use Chilean commercial ports, and 11 percent concede that Chile should give up part of its territory to its neighbor.
Bolivia's demands were not the first territorial issue that Chile has faced, Spanish newspaper El País reports. Chile and Peru started a maritime dispute in the Hague in 2008 to determine the exact distribution of fishing waters. The resolution to that trial will be out on July 25.
Follow me on Twitter: @PReyMallen


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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Cleaning up the To-Do List: A Tale of Two Light Fixtures
See that light fixture? It's the one I had in my home office until this morning. Unfortunately, at some point it became next to impossible to get the screws to line up, so the cover often hung down, leaving the exposed bulb - as you can see. This did not exactly create the ambiance I wanted in my office.
See this new light fixture? I bought it a few days ago. My wonderful handyman installed it this morning. It's much prettier, and it provides better light. My office feels good again.
How long did "replace office light fixture" sit on my to-do list? Let's not talk about that. And it wasn't as though this was a difficult task. I knew exactly what store I wanted to buy the fixture from, and I knew who to call for installation. The store isn't in town, but it's only a 35-minute drive away.
But whatever it was that had me procrastinating about some minor home projects, I seem to be crossing them off my list quite rapidly now.
The garage door that didn't go down when I clicked the remote - except in rainy weather, for some unknown reason - now has a new opener mechanism that works just fine. No more getting out of the car and walking into the garage to close the darn door.
And I've got an appointment for this weekend to drop off the household hazardous waste items (cleaning products, yard care products, etc.) that currently reside in my garage.
Now I have some momentum, and I want to get all my lingering mini-projects done. Any time now I might actually get a couple nice nightstands, sell a few things on craigslist, and finish my document scanning project.
What a difference it made once I decided to really focus on getting these projects done, one step at a time! And how much better things are for having gotten them done!
8 comments:
- Marcie Lovett said...
Beautiful light fixture, Jeri! I have to laugh, because I bought a fixture for my dining room and it took almost three years to get it installed. Yes, it sat on the dining floor for that entire time. I also found that I got motivated to get lingering projects done after I had the electrician come over. I'm still checking things off the list.
- May 19, 2010 at 8:21:00 AM PDT
- David said...
Sometimes it is good to spend a day on those "little" projects that keep getting put off - to focus on them and not on the big projects that are always with us.
Congratulations on the new light fixture! Looks nice.
- May 19, 2010 at 10:07:00 AM PDT
- Marilyn said...
Beautiful fixture! How fortunate you are to have a handy man to install it for you too. It is so nice not to have to do everything ourselves!
- May 19, 2010 at 11:57:00 AM PDT
- newleafnews said...
I call these "tolerations" - those things that, like a stone in your shoe, make every step less pleasant but that we often put up with anyway. I love your description of how tackling one of them seemed to unhook a whole log-jam of projects.
- May 19, 2010 at 8:46:00 PM PDT
- Cynthia Friedlob said...
Lovely fixture! Isn't it amazing that we will postpone taking care of small projects and yet completing them so often makes life considerably more pleasant? I like the label from newleafnews: "tolerations." It isn't a pretty picture when we tolerate too much for too long, so I think I'd better get to work on some of my tolerations!
- May 19, 2010 at 11:18:00 PM PDT
- Jeri Dansky said...
Thank you, everyone, for the thoughtful comments. I'm glad everyone likes my new light fixture - and it's nice to hear how many people relate to my situation.
Cynthia, I agree that "tolerations" is a great label for this sort of thing!
Marilyn, if I didn't have a good handyman, there are many things that would never get done around my house. I simply have no talent for doing home repairs.
- May 20, 2010 at 9:40:00 AM PDT
- Timo said...
I tend to tackle at least one of these low priority tasks on daily basis. I have realized that longer time it hangs on my todo-list, the more clutter (thoughts) it creates because I keep thinking of it all the time. The faster it's done, the sooner I can concentrate on other things.
Also, I have scheduled a "maintenance day" (one day of the week, Sundays) for these tasks so that I can batch them and accomplish as much as possible on a certain day.
- July 26, 2010 at 11:13:00 AM PDT
- Janet Barclay said...
I love Timo's practice of dealing with one low priority task every day. It sounds like a great way to keep them from accumulating to the point where we're too overwhelmed to tackle any of them!
And I also know from experience that once you get started, you're motivated to do even more.
Great post!
- March 7, 2012 at 8:35:00 AM PST


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When you're lazy
I have to admit, I am going through a dry period, blogging-wise. There's nothing in my brain.
(Okay, the shot was open. I will give you a few seconds to take it.)
As I recently referenced, I had a big inventory of posts stored up and now I don't. And I have to perform now, and my brain is not happy about it. Inertia is a brutal master.
Quite honestly, I don't want to write a blog post. I want to sit on my butt and watch something pointless and stupid, like the Jets playing football.
Hence, today's post about writer's block, in which I expose reason number 43 for it: pure laziness.
Seriously, I have to write this stupid thing day after day, every day. I deserve a day off, dammit. Several days off. The world owes me this, as I have entertained it for a lot of days in a row. I don't want to write a blog post, and nothing you can say will make me! So there!
In other words, I am feeling mighty lazy right now. There's nothing wrong with that, really. It happens to everyone. It's what you do with the next step that matters.
I've managed to find the secret to motivating myself to work out. Typically, I wake up early, tell myself I don't want to work out, delay a little, then get up and do my business. By the time I go to work, I'm glad I worked out. I'm not so good about the writing.
When you work out every day, it's easier to work out the next day. It's a habit. Habits are easier. If you write every day, then writing every day becomes easier, too.
Another thing about workouts is that they aren't all created equal. Some days my workouts are for crap. The day after Tough Mudder, I walked for half an hour. Slowly. That's what was there. You don't have to kick butt with every single writing session, either. Sometimes, the act of putting fingers to keyboard is enough. Even if you produce nothing, you're still feeding the habit.
What about you? How do you overcome laziness?
December 14, 2012 6:13 pm
One of my writers' groups, has an accountability e-mail list, and they keep me on track. One of the members pointed out that if we have time to write an e-mail to the group explaining why we didn't have time to write that day, we could have spent that time adding to our WIP instead. That really solidified my resolve. I haven't sent a zero report to the group since. Some days it's only ten or twenty words, but I no longer turn off my computer without adding something to my ms, even if it's just a note like (big fight scene goes here).
As for workouts–any time I'm tempted to skip going to the gym, I just remember the floaty-chair people from Wall-E. That does it.
Comments are closed.


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This is Teacher Appreciation Week, and you don't have to look far to find someone to appreciate.
There are thousands of dedicated educators right here in our local communities who go to work with the noble intention of preparing tomorrow's leaders.
This is Teacher Appreciation Week, and you don't have to look far to find someone to appreciate.
There are thousands of dedicated educators right here in our local communities who go to work with the noble intention of preparing tomorrow's leaders.
The teachers here aren't in it for the money. There is more of that to be found in other professions.
And they aren't in it for the accolades. Although those can be found from time to time, they are few and far between.
No, there is a simpler explanation for the reason so many caring professionals choose to teach: They want to make the world — and our local communities — a better place.
Thanks to their hard work, they are succeeding. And we will all reap the rewards of that work.
There have been numerous recent attempts at the state level to improve the educational outcomes that will do so much to shape the state of Louisiana in the future.
For instance, Gov. Bobby Jindal pushed through a host of educational reforms last year aimed at giving parents more options for their children's education and rewarding the best teachers.
Those reforms were met by some with criticisms that they were attacks on teachers. Instead, if they are allowed to work, they should make it easier for the best teachers to be rewarded for their excellence.
With more emphasis on teachers' performance and less emphasis on seniority alone, the state is trying to make things better for the teachers who create the best outcomes in their students and to challenge those whose students are struggling.
All the recent reforms will take time, of course.
In the meantime, the teachers will continue to do what they have always done, quietly and often unnoticed going about their business of educating our children.
The vast majority of them will continue just as they have, regardless of what is done at the state level. They will leave those decisions to the politicians and focus instead on their selfless calling.
For that, we should all give thanks, and there are plenty of people you can thank in person. If your children are in school, take time this week to thank their teachers for all they do, much of it on their own time, to make our future brighter. Even if you don't have children in school, the teachers' work affects you, too.
Thank a teacher. You and the teacher will be glad you did.
Editorials represent the opinions of
the newspaper, not of any individual.


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Episode #2122
series: Texas Parks And Wildlife
air date: 9/19/13 5:00 AM
Finding local fishing spots; deep woods of Stephen F. Austin State Park; historical outdoor films; bird's eye view of the Panhandle.
WARNING: Email reminders for this program have already been sent out. Your reminder may not reach the intended address in time for this program's airing.
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hi all can anyone explain me how to make 2 domains and 2 subdomain handlers on my virtual server running webmin ? if anyone can answer me itll be perfect. dont have much time to do it. thanks. just want 2 domains (i know how to do that) but i also want to make 2 subdomains and i dont know how to set it up. it should be like subdomain.domain.com should be /data/web/domain.com/sub/subdomain/
everything will help me


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I wonder if the citizens of Estherville realize that Estherville has a recreational opportunity to offer that not many other communities have. We have an indoor roller skating rink. There are not many roller rinks still operating in our area, but we have a great facility here. My husband and I both roller-skated a lot growing up and we started going again when our granddaughter wanted to go. She loves to skate, and we take her every opportunity we have, but we have also started going even when she's not with us. It is great exercise and not very expensive. The proprietors of the rink also promote a kid-friendly atmosphere. They have a reading program that offers free passes for a certain amount of pages read and they have a program that offers free passes for bringing in items to donate to the local food pantry. There are signs posted all over the rink that read Respect Yourself and they promote that as well as respect for others.
I just wanted to tell everyone what a great recreational opportunity exists here. If you have children - or not - come out and roller skate. It is great fun and exercise!
Alma Meyer,


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Submission + - Report Novell accepting bids from up to 20 compani (h-online.com)
Degrees writes: "Although Novell rejected the bid from Elliott Associates, the rumor now is that Novell has decided to embrace the inevitable. Are there any companies that don't have an enterprise grade Linux distribution, and ought to? Ditto workstation management, directory services, legacy email, and virtualization suite?"


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+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 6 of 6
- Location
- West London UK!, , United KingdomMember No: 23092
- Join Date
- Jan 2002
- Posts
- 4,092
- Rep Power
- 21
Plenty of time for you to research!!! I don't >>
personally know about renting a car in those countries as I've never done it myself. From hearsay, I think you'll be alright as far as taxes and surcharges go, they'll probably be included. Make sure you get all the insurances too as you never know right?!
One thing you'll be used to and ok with is driving on the same side as you're used to in Canada, but in place of that, you might have some language problems! (I had some excellent 'fun' driving on the 'wrong' side of the road in Canada one time - literally I flipped into 'auto' mode and happily drove about 5 miles on the wrong side of the road in Vancouver at about 3am after being out at a club! - I saw a car going the same direction as me when I flipped my head to the right and thought 'that bozo is on the wrong side of the road haha' and then 3 seconds later I [email protected] myself when I realised it was ME on the wrong side ! and for about 5 miles !!! makes me laugh when I think of that!!)
I'd 100% recommend in investing in some GPS kit. Get maps of Europe as well and over the next 8-9 months or so, plan where you want to go etc and once yer actually there use the GPS to program routes in.
If you want, I have TomTom Version 5 for PDA handheld PC's and I have full maps of UK, Europe & USA & Canada which I can sort you out with!
Hope some of this helps matey!
Cheers! Dennis! West London UK!!
Re: Plenty of time for you to research!!! I don't >>
thanks for your input, it's a family visit for 30 days so I don't to have to deal with problems in another country. Its my mother-in laws home land and she's 74. My son and his wive will have there first child at 3 months. My wife and I. So we'll need two vans.
I like your suggestion about a GPS for the trip, I do have a small hand held type ( Magellan ) I"ll check out the bigger type for road mapping in Europe.
Hey... hows life over there in my home land? I'm from western Canada
( Alberta ) the oil capital of Canada. This place is booming everybody is working 10 hours a day 6 days a week and we can't keep up. They say we need a bigger work force.
thanks again....
Dean Yardley
Alberta, Canada
- Location
- West London UK!, , United KingdomMember No: 23092
- Join Date
- Jan 2002
- Posts
- 4,092
- Rep Power
- 21
I was in Calgary on a business trip Feb 04>>
and met a few really cool Non-Calgarians! as well as the very few born and raised calgary people!!!
Used to work for one of Canada's largest IT companies, which in turn was a part of a large US corporate and you've probably heard of them, 'Intuit' - who make Quicken, Quickbooks and TurboTax!
Alas, made redundant 9 months ago, although I still keep in touch and am a Partner for them via my own consultancy now!
If you need 2 vehicles, ensure that each has a person with a Tri Band mobile phone. In case you get split up, you can phone each other and then use GPS again with a person in each car, to meet up again. Good thing would be to find out if any of the mobile operators in each country do a 'Pay as you go' SIM card - that means you'll get local calling rates rather than roaming on your Canadian mobile tarriffs! This is what I do whenever im over in the USA. So far I've not needed to do this whilst in Canada as my visits have been paid for by the company or i've had a really short trip or the US card covered it!
I think Magellan is a proprietary GPS solution, I'm not sure, I think I looked at them and was put off by the cost. Also, It may be that if you contact magellan, they'll want a stupid price for European maps.
IF you can beg, borrow or steal a Windows 2003 Mobile based PDA, then I'll *cough* be able to get TomTom for you at a very respectable sum of dosh as your also on this website like me :)
Lastly, I've been looking to move to the US or Canada for ages! all my family and friends keep buggin me to sort it out! I'm close on the Canadian points system for immigration to their required level and had i been successful in securing a transfer with that Canadian company I would have gotten the rest of the points! still looking though! know anyone hiring!?! ;)
Let me know on my email if there's anything else you'd like to ask, and I shall answer as best I can!
Cheers mate!
Dennis! West London UK!!
you said you are in the IT line of work. well in todays news paper an ad for your line of work is printed. anyway here's the needed info
the compant is Telvent. the web site is www.telvent.com
they are looking for analysts, designers,services people and specialist in the real time IT conpany. the closing date is Dec 31, 2005. they are out of calgary.....
good luck, and if you get the job let me know so we can get together for some real canadian beer...
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Nevada has the nation's second-worst rate of young adults who haven't graduated from high school, and a collaborative effort has been started to improve the state's standing.
Figures from the Census Bureau for 1998-2000 show 59,389 people in Nevada between the ages of 18 and 24 who weren't currently enrolled in school and lacked high school diplomas. That amounts to about 22 percent of the population in that age group. Only Arizona had a worse figure, 26.5 percent. The top state was Maine with 5.5 percent.
Former Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa told the state Board of Examiners on Tuesday that a "full-court press" is needed to improve Nevada's figure because more jobs will require technical or engineering training.
Del Papa is chairwoman of an oversight committee trying to get business, labor and education to work together to lower that number. Its goal is to reduce it by 10 percent per year.
Vicki D. Newell, the director of the project called "Give Yourself The Edge," said financial contributions are needed to expand adult education programs to serve a growing number of citizens.
Del Papa said Nevada's congressional delegation should be approached to get a federal grant for a demonstration project to work in Nevada.
The oversight committee wants to see business help with transportation or child-care costs for employees who attend adult high school or GED classes. And employees should receive paid time to attend the classes or have alternate work schedules arranged for them, the committee said.
State schools chief Jack McLaughlin said he and Gov. Kenny Guinn became concerned when the Census Bureau released its figures.
McLaughlin said Guinn, when he was superintendent of the Clark County School District in the 1960s, recognized the problem even then. Guinn started some classes at 4 p.m. so that young adults could go to school after working at a job.


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You better watch out, Rudolph… a new four-legged hero is coming to town…! Chilly Christmas, a new feature film releasing on DVD on November 6 will deliver a sleigh-load of fun for audiences of all ages. From Anchor Bay, the film features C. Thomas Howell, Brooke Langton, and Tom Arnold.
Chilly Christmas, produced by Steven Paul, follows 11-year-old Bobby Cole, his detective dad, and their lovable-but-destructive pooch, Chilly, who live together in Sunshine Beach, Calif. When Bobby's father is offered a job promotion in New York City, Bobby is thrilled for him–but his excitement quickly turns to heartbreak when he realizes he may have to say goodbye to Chilly, who is too rambunctious to live in a tiny city apartment. While the Coles prepare Chilly for the Big Apple, trouble begins brewing in their own backyard when a dog-napper and his crew suddenly show up in Sunshine Beach, hot on Chilly's tail. It's up to Detective Cole, Bobby, and Chilly to stop the thieves in their tracks and keep their family together.
This post was originally written by Sierra McCleary-Harris and published by ToyBook.com. For more news, visit www.toybook.com, follow The Toy Book on Twitter, and like The Toy Book on Facebook. The Toy Book is a bimonthly trade magazine covering the toy industry, published by Adventure Publishing Group.


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Looks like it's a 1.5/384 connection.
http://www.internetessentials.com/faq/index.html [internetessentials.com]
At the expense of replying to my own post:
I'm a little upset this is only for people with children in school. If you're just poor, you're out of luck. I am specifically thinking of seniors, but also the unemployed and perhaps homes with children who are either too young for school, or children in college. For the unemployed, they could use it to try and find work. With gas prices being what they are, $9.95 is much cheaper than driving/bussing to the unemployment office or library to use a computer, and cheaper than subscribing to a local newspaper. They could also gain job skills if they wanted to use it to find free training materials online.
As for seniors, I think there have been plenty of studies that show a wide array of activities -- almost all of them available via the internet -- can help keep their minds agile, and stave off senility. It might not be much, but it could reduce some burden on Medicare, as seniors could live on their own longer rather than living in a nursing home, or injure themselves less.
I think the potential economic benefit of internet for the poor is more than enough to justify whatever subsidies or tax breaks Comcast is getting for doing it.
I agree with everything you said, and would add that affordable internet access is a necessity in the US today. Most employers will just assume you have it, and to access the internal shift scheduling system you'll need home internet access. It's just as bad, if not worse, than not having a phone. If an employer found out you had no home internet access they'd probably skip over you just as often as if they found out you had no phone number or home address; you're just not worth the hassle. Obviously this isn't true for all jobs, but definitely for some.
The US model is fundamentally broken because it used public money to finance private infrastructure. The lines themselves should be public, which the government leases to private business to provide internet service, and if a new company wants to start up, they get the same chance to compete as the big guys. Until we have something close to that we're not going to have fairness or equity in the distribution of this essential utility. Private enterprise alone is not going to take care of the poor and their needs, despite the fact that there are some basic needs common to everyone, regardless of their income. It's just not profitable to provide poor people with internet.
Not giving those people the hand up they need hurts everyone in the long run, it's a shame that the mindset of conservatism seems to be not to do what is ultimately most fiscally responsible, but what perpetuates their notion of capitalist karmic justice. You can't help the poor, because they deserve to be punished. They deserve to be punished, or at least allowed to suffer, so they will improve themselves. You don't get to examine if they have the means for self improvement or not, that's beyond the scope of the notion of justice that conservatism holds. If you didn't deserve to be treated like that, you wouldn't be poor.
Doing too much for people is also bad, but we are soooo far away from that in the US that we can afford to go full tilt toward The Welfare State without risking going over the ledge of left-wing extremism and taking TOO much care of people. We've lost our center in the US. Conservatives see us drifting farther to the left, when in reality we are pegged to the right and the momentum is still in that direction.
The lines themselves should be public, which the government leases to private business to provide internet service
Why does the government have to be involved at all? Why not let individuals own the last-mile infrastructure. When you buy a house, you also buy the connection from the cabinet to your house. Take it a step further, and also buy a share in a cooperative that owns the connection between the cabinet and the exchange. Transit providers then compete to offer service to the neighbourhood.
Why not let individuals own the last-mile infrastructure.
Then the problem of pulling cable over a non-subscriber's land to reach a subscriber returns.
A simple solution is to let businesses own and operate the last mile, but implement some regulations that require these business to sell raw bandwidth for reasonable prices to any other business wishing to provide a service.
That's how it's done in a lot of Europe, and it works pretty well.
now it would be more accurate to say, most employers of people who frequent this site assume those employees have access the the internet.
There still are a good number of people who won't use the net even if you hand it them for free. It took our family years before our grandmother consented to even having a computer! We only convinced her that with a computer and internet she could get pictures of her grandkids daily, let alone e-mail from them. She didn't care to talk to her children all the time, she did
$9.95 is much cheaper than driving/bussing to the unemployment office or library to use a computer
I was under the impression that dial-up was still available at such a price.
Only if you also have a landline phone. In a lot of areas, subsidized phones are cellular, not landline; and even if a person isn't getting a subsidized phone, if money's tight they're likely to only have a cell because they're much more useful in an emergency.
Can't even use gmail on dialup more than half the time, it times out. Dialup is a non-starter today, and suggesting it is disingenuous at best.
Look, if they're going to offer subsidized internet access to low-income households, I think the real move should be to nationalize it altogether. If Comcast and/or the FCC can acknowledge that it is a public right to have affordable internet access for everyone, then it is high time the profit motive were removed from the equation. Oh, wait, you guys completely fucked that up with the national health care plan... carry on with your nihilistic ledger-padding then!
The internet situation is still better than the health care situation, though. Internet prices have fallen or remained the same while service levels increased.
Health care has gotten more expensive while service levels have fallen.
I actually think handing the reigns of the health care system over to Comcast might be an improvement... and that's sad to say.
Many Slashdot geeks like to act like Internet access hasn't changed in a decade but that is not at all true. You get a lot more for your money. I think about my own history on the net:
I first got a connection in 1996. It was dialup, 28.8k max. That was a little deceptive though as the ISP had only a 28.8 frame relay out, so if more than one person was using it, you got less throughput. It cost $15/month, but also needed a phoneline, which ran about $25/month so around $40/month total, about $55 in today's d
Still rather expensive per mbit, here (Denmark, Europe) I pay $50 for 60/60mbit (uncapped) connection with 3 fixed IPs.
A 200/200mbit connection is $191.
But the point is over all how you are getting lots more for less. I'm not saying the US Internet is the best in the world, I am saying it is not bad and has improved a ton in 15 years.
Also a few other things to consider:
1) Do you really get your promised rate, to all over the place? Something I've seen quite a few times, most particularly with Japanese ISPs but elsewhere too, is that they build a big WAN type of environment where there's a fast connection to the premises and to their stuff, but not to much
We like to act like that because it hasn't changed much in the last decade. I'm paying roughly the same amount of money now for the same connection that I was getting over a decade ago when I first got a cable modem. There has been a bit of a decrease in price, but that's been pretty minimal, I was paying $50 or so for a 4mbps connection and now I'm paying $55 a month for a 5mbps connection.
There's a lot of folks around here that aren't able to get more than 1.5mbps even though they live closer to the CO th
Look, if they're going to offer subsidized internet access to low-income households, I think the real move should be to nationalize it altogether.
That'll never happen as we're not socialist enough. If all ISP's were required to be a utility that would at least require approval from a public utility commission to raise rates etc and you would have another means of resolving your service issues.
I pretty much agree with you. Something that gets overlooked frequently is the unserved areas between the cities. There are certainly poor people out there too.
There's no incentive for businesses to run cable/internet out there because the return on investment is too low. Government has stepped in and provided money for infrastructure, but we're a long way from the kind of coverage that's needed.
For as long as it's profitable (mistreating customers is ALWAYS profitable when you have a monopoly on a good or service that is essential, and Internet access is)...or the people all out rebel.
I don't see the latter happening in the US, sadly.
I do hope you meant "excluding" Canada, not "example: Canada". In Canada, the absolute cheapest broadband I've seen is a 3meg/256kbit cable connection for $27.95/mo, and that'll still cost you $50 for the installation, and more for the modem purchase. If you already have other services, you can get cheaper (a 512/512 DSL for $24.95, for example... band rate for dry loop makes that one cost more than the cable option above). There's even a cellular provider who will provide you with HSPA for $20/mo if you already have cellular service with them... but that's the caveat: if you already have cellular service with them. That's a minimum $25/mo on top of that (or $20 if you can pay for the whole year in advance). To be fair, that particular provider will sell you unlimited local calling, and no bandwidth limit on the cellular connection for that price, but it's still nowhere near the pricing mentionned in TFA.
As far as I know, there's nobody who will sell you just a broadband Internet connection for anything approaching $10/mo in this country. If somebody can prove me wrong, I would be very interested to hear about it, but Internet is almost as much of a rip-off in Canada as the US.
Perhaps some other countries should be looked at. I'm not sure what he counts as "western" but the UK ought to qualify. I see a deal there for up to 50mbps for $60/month for cable Internet. Requires a 12 month contract. My local cable company offers 50mbps for $90/month with no contract ($60/month gets you 25mbps). In Spain I see 10mbit ADSL and phone service for about $60/month with a 12 month contract. That's in line with what you'd pay either the cable of phone company for similar service here. Italy see
I have Virgin cable, 50mbit/5mbit, but bundled with a budget cable TV package and a phone line (65+ channels, free weekend/evening calls) and it costs me $82/month.
It's been rock solid too - almost no downtime in the 2 years I've had it and no throttling or caps (although there was talk of them introducing throttling at peak times on all traffic, dropping my connection to 37.5mbit at those times, and in exchange for this they increased the upstream from 1mbit to 5mbit, but I think they have quietly dropped
You probably don't notice the throttling because your connection is so fast as to make little to no difference. I also have a 50mbit connection and it really is overkill. For 99% of things, I notice no difference over the 20mbit connection I had before. Both load webpages instantly (I wait for DNS or slow ass ad servers more than pages to load), I can stream HD video and surf no problems, and so on. The only difference I notice is my games on Steam download obscenely fast instead of very fast.
So when they c
What I meant by that is I have data for it, and there aren't any times of day where the data shows that the connection doesn't max out at 50mbit, either due to a file download, or 3 people watching iPlayer at the same time while someone else downloads etc.
We seem to get 50mbit/5mbit at all times of day.
And a liberal is someone who stays up at night because someone has more than they do. Take you pick greed or greed and envy.
Read the details: it's ONLY offered to families with young children. If you're single and down on your luck, you're still down on your luck; if you're an older couple with teenaged kids fallen on hard times, tough luck for you, too.
Ageism strikes again. Think of the children!
It would be interesting to see what the "poor" use the Internet for in a years time. Who here thinks the majority of the time will be spent filling out job applications or Khan Academy? I'm pretty sure YouTube, porn sites, and community flash mob organizing will be the major activities.
If they are paying the bill I don't care. When my bill goes up to subsidize somebody else I do care.
The well off dont get subsidized internet connections
Doesn't matter, there's a number of things where you really do need to have an internet connection to do. An increasing number of government agencies don't do anything via the phone anymore and have cut back or eliminated any way of getting in touch in person. I know that around here the Employment Security Department only does things via the internet, and the only accommodations they make for disability is for people that can't use the internet.
What is it worth for "the poor" to be connected on the same system?
Who wants to bet the "low-cost" computers Comcast gives out have cameras that can be turned on remotely?
I'm sorry, I'm paranoid. I stopped trusting anything a telecom does some years ago.
cameras that can be turned on remotely?
Because we all want a live video feed from inside Madea's house.
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.


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ARTISAN BREAD- what exactly is artisan bread? what qualifies it as artisan?
I'm from Germany and have always made my own bread. Since I moved to America 3 years ago I have always wondered what exactly Artisan Bread is? What makes bread Artisan?
It's just a question that's always foated through my mind. Maybe you can help me out.Martina


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Wonder why they say that perennials are best planted in October? I have been trying to fill up some of the bare patches that developed in the garden borders due to last years extended cold and snow bound Winter. So many plants withered and died. I don't think that we have ever lost so many at once before. So there has been a need to purchase more and hopefully find some that will weather a little better than before. This not only means they need to be able to withstand the cold but also the ever changing weather patterns – whether we are experiencing lack of rainfall, blustery winds, torrential downpours or any other unusual combination of weather conditions.
It has been very dry this year in England and trying to plant out deep rooted perennials has proved to be very difficult. Some of the roots have required not only depth but half an arms length in several directions. The easiest of the gap fillers has been some of the more common of the Spring bulbs.
I am hoping for a wonderful garden of Eden next year … I hope that these new plants all take and do not disappoint!
One plant that I have always wanted to introduce into the garden is the perennial or everlasting sweet pea. As it is known for its length of flowering time and the quantity of flowers produced it was a popular flower during Victorian times. I have bought five small plants which have been placed by two of the apple trees to hopefully eventually form a pretty backdrop to the far border … all they have to do is Winter well this first year and then they should be sturdy enough to bring years of beautiful colour … I do hope that they survive.
Perennial or Everlasting Sweet Peas


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Blogs tagged 'google'
Is iOS more user-friendly? Is Android more superior? Will these questions solve the mystery of life?
For the lucky few (such as yours truly) who managed to join the Google+ bandwagon, we are now faced with a dilemma - the presence of too many social networks. And therein lies the need to manage and keep our social network in order.
I'll admit: I've had my fair share of losing my way in unfamiliar territories. But that's not a problem, because I got my trusty mobile phone that can act as a GPS to show me the way.
Google Android 2.2, otherwise known as Froyo, has been official for months. Manufacturers such as HTC, LG and now, Huawei, have announced devices preloaded with Froyo, some with impressive hardware features, others not so. So how does one find the balance between the hardware and software aspect of an Android device?
Smartphones have become more than it was thought possible, and with its evolution, a growing threat to its security arises. Does this represent a rising need for mobile apps to keep your data safe, or is this a wake-up call for mobile users to be more wary and savvy with what they do on the phones?


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The Board of Commissioners of Grundy County Memorial Hospital has appointed longtime Chief Financial Officer Lisa Zinkula as Interim CEO of the hospital, effective January 1, 2013. Zinkula will serve in the role while a search is conducted to fill the CEO position left open as Pam Delagardelle begins her new position as CEO of Allen Health System.
Zinkula began working for Grundy County Memorial Hospital ten years ago. Her experience in hospital financial administration began at Allen Hospital, where she worked for six years before joining GCMH. She is a graduate of Luther College, and is active in a variety of community leadership roles. She was a 2010 recipient of the Twenty Under Forty Leadership recognition for young leaders in the Cedar Valley.
"We have every confidence in Lisa's experience and ability," remarks Board Chair Brenda Davis. "Lisa is equipped with in-depth knowledge of the hospital after serving as CFO for the past ten years."
Article Photos
Lisa Zinkula, GCMH CFO, appointed Interim CEO of Grundy County Memorial Hospital.
While the Board of Commissioners has not yet approved a search process to locate Delagardelle's permanent replacement, Davis says board members are comfortable with the present administrative staff and want to take time to find the right person to fill the top GCMH position.