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We're looking for long term business partner, if you are instested in being adistributor of Niumag NMR/MRI instruments, pls feel free to contact us.
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Industry News
Farouk Systems Appoints Feldshon Senior Vice President of Sales
Farouk Systems has announced that Stuart Feldshon, Senior Vice President of Sales in North America and Canada, will now oversee national chain business. Feldshon joined the Farouk Systems team in 1998 as the Northeast Regional Sales Manager.
"Our strategy is to give an opportunity of growth to our loyal employees. Stuart has been with Farouk for 15 years and in this additional responsibility gives him a broader perspective of our business," said Andre Chiavelli, Executive VP of Global Corporate Strategy.
Beverly Kruegel, Director of Business Development, and her team of regional sales managers, Mariam Schragel and Shelley Aguilar, will now report to Feldshon.
"This allows me to be involved in more divisions of our company and add support as needed for our business partners. Beverly and her team are dialed in with their accounts and will be a great resource for me to work with to better serve our customers," said Feldshon.

subset: commoncrawl


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Developer - ABB Ltd.
Playlist "ABB Ability"
smart cities
Developer - ABB Ltd.
Playlist "ABB Ability"
smart cities
ABB Ability – for food & beverage
Published on Mar 16, 2017
As ABB marks the commercial launch of ABB Ability, which brings together all of ABB's digital expertise under one offer, some of the experts at ABB Customer World in Houston explained its potential for Food & Beverage customers.
Smart factories and ABB Ability
Published on Apr 24, 2017
The factory has never been smarter. As ABB prepares to highlight its ABB Ability solutions at the Hanover Fair – one of the largest and most important industrial fairs in the world – we take a look at an example of what this technology can do when it works together, at a cutting-edge factory in Heidelberg.
ABB and IBM partner in industrial AI solutions
Published on Apr 25, 2017
ABB and IBM have announced a strategic collaboration that brings together ABB's industry-leading digital offering, ABB Ability, with IBM Watson Internet of Things cognitive capabilities. Speaking from this year's Hanover Fair, ABB's Chief Digital Officer explained the value and power that will come from the pairing.
"Connected intelligence": ABB Ability at Hanover
Published on Apr 28, 2017
We caught up with the head of ABB's Electrification Products division at this year's Hanover Fair – one of the world's biggest and most important industrial trade fairs – to explain the game-changing value of the company's digital offering, ABB Ability.
Italian water utility goes digital with ABB Ability
Published on Jun 27, 2017
In the winemaking countryside of the Valpolicella in Italy, water management is a key issue. The local water utility, the Consorzio di Bonifica Veronese, has now found a way to cut operational costs in its plants by up to 30 percent – thanks to the ABB Ability™ Electrical Distribution Control System.
ABB Ability Connected Atomizer
Published on Oct 3, 2017
ABB Ability Connected Atomizer is designed for quality and efficiency performance like no other. It allows high paint transfer efficiency and sets a new benchmark for paint loss during colour changes and energy consumption. It is designed for ease of use, long service life and low contamination.
New ABB Ability™ remote services help boost wind parks' performance
Published on Nov 30, 2017
New ABB Ability™ Condition Monitoring with data visualization enable wind park operators to increase wind turbine uptime, lower operation and maintenance (O&M) costs and reduce the levelized cost of energy.


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- 1. The wildlife: without a doubt, Yellowstone has the best wildlife viewing in all of North America.
- 2. The geothermal activity: Yellowstone is home to more geysers, hot springs, bubbling mud pots, fumaroles, and steam vents than the rest of the world has combined.
- 3. The bragging rights: you'll be able to say you've been to the world's very first National Park.
- 4. Our insider's access: known only to locals (and of course our guides), we want you to see Yellowstone like a local.
Travel + Leisure
World's Best Awards
Top Tour Operator and Safari Outfitter for Families


text:
Sony UVW100 ENG Video Camera
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updated 2019-01-17
After filling out email to firstname.lastname@example.com or fax to 818-843-6884 After filling out email to firstname.lastname@example.com or fax to 818-843-6884 revised 2019-01-17. nac.
Shooting with the IOI Flare 4K Camera on location in San Francisco. San Francisco offers an excellent opportunity to compare footage shot on new cameras with footage shot at the same locations in past years. In the past these tests have required at least 2 crew members to move the required equipment. The current package […]
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text:
How old can they go? Harrison Ford has expressed interest in reprising his gun-slinging intergalactic smuggler Han Solo for Disney's planned "Star Wars" sequel. This would make the action star, who was 35 the year the first "Star Wars" film was released, 73 years old for the expected 2015 release date.
Reuters, AP (2)
Action stars Harrison Ford (73), left, Bruce Willis (57), center, and Tom Cruise (50) are still going strong.
How long can a guy keep believably kicking butt on the big screen?
Seemingly forever.
Ford, who also reprised his beloved Indiana Jones character nearly 20 years after staring in the one-time-trilogy's third film, is in good company.
Viewers turned out in droves to see Sylvester Stallone's assembly of over-the-hill action stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren in "The Expendables" and The Expendables 2."
With ages spanning from 72 to 52, the actors blew up jets, helicopters, cities and an uncountable number of cars while wielding guns, knives, bombs, planes and their own fists onscreen. Combined, the films have taken in over $500 million worldwide and they'll be going for more. A third movie, which will potentially include 82-year-old "Dirty Harry" star Clint Eastwood, is in the works.
Next year Willis, 57, will also bring back his "Die Hard" detective John McClane and play the original G.I. Joe, Joe Colton, in "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," in which he keeps step with 32-year-old Channing Tatum.
Even Tom Cruise, who celebrated his 50th birthday this year, continues to take on extremely physical roles. The "Top Gun" actor, who scaled the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa in Dubai, for 2011's "Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol," is playing a tough-as-nails former Army officer in "Jack Reacher," out Dec. 21.
The trailer shows a ripped Cruise, who notoriously loves doing his own stunt work, busting down doors, driving cars off the road and street-fighting five men on his own. Age is just a number
So you tell us, does an action star lose his believability at a certain age? Take our poll and sound off on Facebook.
Related content:


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Sham Pooch, located at 107 N. Mill St. in Pontiac, is a new dog grooming business which has opened in Pontiac. The operation offers everything from a wash and trim to a specific hairstyle.
Sisters-in-law Dawn Dee Carter and Mariane Carter co-own the business and are gearing up to serve the puppy community in the fast-coming holiday season.
"We officially opened Tuesday," Mariane Carter said. "With Christmas coming up, we've had a lot of interest from people wanting to bring their pets in and get them all pretty for the holidays."
They said they offer full-service grooming for smaller and midsized breeds.
"Some of the larger dogs we'd like to service, but we'll have to get through the holidays and upgrade a little bit. For now, we'll take care of midsize dogs; anything 75 pounds and smaller, we can do," Marianne Carter explained.
The store also offers goods, including dog sweaters, collars and leashes. They are also looking into expanding to different sized dog beds and dog foods.
Something they are looking forward to doing in the Pontiac area is giving back to the community, specifically, to the senior citizens.
"If the older generation is housebound, we can go to the homes and pick the dogs up. (Their pet) is their companion while their kids or caregivers are at work. They have to have that. We want to make sure that we can keep their companions healthy and shiny and pretty for them," Mariane Carter said.
Both women, who have worked in dog grooming in the past, say that they take the extra step to care for their customers' dogs.
"We understand that your dog is like your child so we give the same love and care as it would be to one of our children, so that sets us apart," Mariane Carter said.
Dawn Dee Carter added, "We have a lot of experience with certified groomers throughout the country, so we have a lot of information. There's a difference between someone who's a groomer and a pet stylist and that's what we are, so if you have a style from a magazine, we can give you that. It's not like we're just cutting your puppy down and taking off half and hoping it looks good at the end. We actually do AKC styles.
We are full service. We do nails, any styles. We do Airedale terrier, poodle, schnauzer, we have yet to do an Afghan hound, but I haven't seen one in the area yet."
The owners are certified and insured, which they say gives peace of mind to all the dog owners dropping off their pets at the shop.
"We do everything we can to prevent any incidents, but they are dogs and they don't always just sit and don't understand English the way we'd like them to. So, we can take care of dogs who might not have the best behavior because we have the insurance," Dawn Dee Carter explained.
Sham Pooch is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. To make an appointment or for any questions, contact the business at 815-842-1888.
Full-service dog groomers open shop
Sham Pooch, located at 107 N. Mill St. in Pontiac, is a new dog grooming business which has opened in Pontiac. The operation offers everything from a wash and trim to a specific hairstyle.


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Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Ford! Now that I have your attention...
Did Rob Ford's approval ratings actually go up after Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair confirmed the existence of a video seeming to show the Toronto mayor smoking crack cocaine (which he admitted to yesterday)? The answer is: probably not. I took a look at this, among other things, in my article today for The Globe and Mail (available to subscribers only, please consider a subscription if you can), but considering that the notion that Ford's approval ratings increased after Blair's press conference last week has been cited all over the place - including CNN and on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night - I wanted to address this here in more detail.
First of all, the polls in question come from Forum Research and I have already gone over some of the potential sampling issues with their methodology before. But secondly, their numbers need to be placed in a lot more context. Ford's approval ratings did go up, but only after they plummeted. After polling between 44% and 49% over the summer, he managed 39% in a late October poll. So when his numbers moved back to the 43% to 44% range over Forum's last two polls, the moral of the story seemed to be that crack cocaine is good for your re-election chances. But is that really accurate?
I have highlighted the four polls done over the summer, conducted after the initial aftermath of the first Gawker report on the existence of the video, and before the odd 39% poll that Forum released at the end of October. If we compare that group of polls to the more recent one, we see that Ford's approval rating is more likely to have decreased due to Blair's report than increased. That 39% poll looks a lot like an outlier. It was the worst poll Forum had put out for Ford since February 2012, and of 32 polls conducted since September 2011 it was in the bottom three.
Can we now put to bed the claim that his poll numbers increased? It seems much more likely that his poll numbers decreased from around 46.5% over the summer to 43.5% immediately after the police chief's report. Where they will go from here, we will soon find out.
Ford made it clear that (for now, at least, things seem to be changing from hour to hour) he will be running again in October 2014. His chances of re-elections are, perhaps, not very good. But they are also a lot better than they probably should be, considering the events of the last few days.
Forum has been conducting hypothetical mayoral polling for some time now, with unusual names sometimes thrown into the mix. But the field is starting to get a little clearer: Karen Stintz, a city councilor, and David Soknacki, a former city councilor, have both announced their intentions to run. Olivia Chow, a downtown NDP MP, is also considered likely to run. How would Ford do against these candidates?
this poll was done before yesterday's circus, and that I have removed the undecideds (numbered at 21% in the poll on the left, 10% on the right) myself.
Against Karen Stintz, Rob Ford comes up short with just 42% support against 48% for Stintz among decided voters. Soknacki takes 10% of the vote. That is still relatively close, though, and certainly close enough that Ford couldn't be ruled out in a campaign one year from now.
And he still has a bit of a regional base. He wins North York with 48% of the vote against Stintz, as well as Scarborough with 54%. Stintz takes Etobicoke with 48%, while she dominates the old city of Toronto with 62% of the vote.
Once Olivia Chow is included, however, Stintz falls away significantly. This suggests that Stintz's support in the first poll is more about not being Rob Ford than it is about being Karen Stintz. Chow wins by a much wider margin with 43% of the decided vote, against 32% for Ford, 18% for Stintz, and 7% for Soknacki. Chow wins every region of the city, with 48% support in old Toronto, 44% in North York, 41% in Scarborough, and 38% in Etobicoke (where Ford comes closest to winning).
In the first poll, Stintz manages to drag 21% of Ford's 2010 vote towards her. In the second poll, Chow captures 20% of Ford's vote, while Stintz takes another 10%.
The Toronto mayor still has a potent base and it makes him potentially competitive in the next campaign (if he holds on until then, and his vote does not tank after yesterday's admission), but it might have shrunk to a size that does not make him capable of winning. In the end, though, we need to wait and see how things shake out before coming to any initial conclusions about his electoral chances a year from now. The current landscape is just changing too much. But reports of Ford's resilience may be exaggerated.
27 comments:
If anybody needs to disappear from the public stage it's this oaf, Rob Ford !ReplyDelete
Peter I agree. believe it or not I'm thinking of voting Liberal in the next Federal election. I don't like the anti union stance of the CPC. Tony Clement is just a hatchet man. I'll be interested in seeing how all of this is looking a year from now.ReplyDeleteReplies
Peter and Earl,Delete
Your comments demonstrate why Ford won in 2010. They are patronising to be polite and show a disrespect for choices that do not agree with your own.
In 2010 Torontonians overwhelmingly rejected the diktat of the Ontario Liberal party in choice of mayor and they will do so again if they feel the Liberal and NDP parties are forcing their choice upon Toronto.
If you think the libs are gonna be better, you've got another thing comingReplyDeleteReplies
Maybe not but at least it will be a change from one farce to another, eh?Delete
In terms of regulating unions, I do think it would be reasonable to expect a different approach from the Liberals than the Conservatives. How you view that difference is going to depend on how you view unions of course.Delete
Honestly this anti-union thrust by the CPC is simply not Canadian !! It's symptomatic of the insanity of the Tea Party in the USA !!Delete
Let's bring things back on topic.Delete
Éric, my sense is that Rob Ford won't be mayor for much longer and won't be on the ballot next year.Delete
However, if he does manage to run again, my fear is that he could win with ~30% if the "anti-Ford" vote splits multiple ways. Denis Coderre just proved in Montreal that 32% is enough to win in a crowded field.
If a lot of "serious" candidates run against Ford (John Tory, Olivia Chow, Karen Stintz, etc.), Ford could win if he polled 32%.
I think the provincial government should change the electoral law for Toronto (and perhaps other large cities) to require a preferential or run-off ballot.
Doug Varley - agreed 100%. For all 'first past the post' elections we need a run off of some kind - ideally the preferential ballot method where each voter can say #1 choice, #2 and so on so splitting the vote is removed from our election vocabulary.Delete
Dear Toronto,ReplyDelete
Please re-elect Rob Ford. He's God's gift to Liberals in Ontario, and he's hilarious to watch.
It always baffles me that the conservative base is all about law and order, long prison sentences, and whatnot. Until it's one of their own that's breaking the law.ReplyDeleteReplies
Yeah, It's not at all like love of insite, rehabilitation, forgiveness..... until its a conservative....Delete
Not like that at all.
You can pretend that all the hypocrites are on the other side all you want though.
But poll after poll for people like Harper, McGuinty, Ford would seem to show that people don't think there is another chose no matter how bad you think the guy there is.
Do as I say not as I do ??ReplyDelete
As we know municipal elections often have very low turn out around one third of eligible voters. After the BC election some polling firms have begun weighting responses most notably among the under 35 cohort.
If the polls above (Toronto mayoral election 2014) were weighted for likely turnout how would the numbers change?Replies
A cursory look tells me that it wouldn't change the Stintz vs. Ford numbers much, but would narrow the gap considerably in the Chow vs. Ford poll.Delete
Thanks Eric.Delete
It certainly will be an interesting and competitive race.
This guy still seems to buy heavily into the poll: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mitch-wolfe/rob-ford-mayor_b_4254026.htmlDelete
Given Eric's chart above Olivia Chow would destroy Ford.ReplyDelete
Bring on an election !!
Ford was wayyy ahead of Smitherman six months before the election...but people were in denial. Also Chow is an attractive candidate. Smoitherman was repulsive.ReplyDeleteReplies
Chow is a very flawed candidate. She may appeal to the 33% who live downtown but, she will have trouble attracting the majority of citizens.Delete
In my opinion Chow is far less attractive than Smitherman for a variety of reasons; Smitherman for all his faults at least had executive management experience in cabinet. Never mind the fear among many that Chow as mayor will increase taxes and pursue an agenda of high spending.
As I said above if the people of Toronto feel a candidate is being forced on them by a cadre of downtown "elites" they will choose a candidate who best reflects their opinions.
If Toronto was still split (as it was pre-Harris) then Chow would be a lock and Ford would easily be mayor of Etobicoke but also would be ignored.Delete
There have been big movements of support during most of the recent Mayoral election campaigns in Toronto. Perhaps this is because the candidates do not run for particular parties which would anchor their support to some degree.ReplyDelete
Although Ford may have a fairly solid base of between a quarter to a third of the electorate, pretty much everyone else is appalled by him. Therefore I would expect that over the course of the campaign a great many voters will coalesce behind whoever emerges as Ford's main opponent. For this reason I don't think he will be able to be re-elected on a split vote.
Toronto Star todayReplyDelete
Mayor Rob Ford caught in video rant
Rob Ford has been caught on a new video staggering around an unknown living room ranting gibberish and acting wildly.
As someone who was a long-time supporter of Ralph Klein, I do not care what a politician does in his private life. If I were a Torontonian, I would judge Rob Ford purely based on how good a job he's doing as Mayor.ReplyDelete
I am completely indifferent to Rob Ford's drunken stupors.
My taxes are going UP under Ford to help pay for his hare-brained white elephant of a subway to no where in Scarborough...Thanks to Ford i pay MORE tax and get LESS service.ReplyDelete
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the worst cinema motion picture release of all time, released in 1990. The storyline and plot are badly written, the acting is crummy to the hilt, the comedic elements and jokes are a bit on the sadistic nature - hell, even the obligitory sex scene is so phony you won't believe the directors and producers put it in like they did. It stars Kirstie Alley who was then starring in the cool TV series Cheers.
Don't waste your time with seeing Sibling Rivalry. It's absolutely depressing that this shit was actually promoted and advertised as a comedy.
by I Saw U2 Live Twice February 25, 2007
buy the domain for your diy blog


text: Monday, October 17, 2011 New Brief Examines Multidisciplinary Pain Programs Physical therapy is an essential part of physical reconditioning, 1 of 4 treatment areas for chronic pain examined in a new technical brief from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The brief identifies important issues and gaps in the evidence base assessing multidisciplinary pain programs (MPP) for chronic noncancer pain and describes some of the key trends and challenges with implications for the future of MPP treatment. The most pressing problem facing MPPs is declining access, including obtaining adequate reimbursement from third-party payers to providers of MPP treatment. In addition, says the brief, "carving out" certain benefits, such as physical therapy and psychological/behavioral treatments, has "paradoxically produced the effect of steering patients away from multidisciplinary treatments that demonstrably reduce health-care utilization, and toward more extensive unimodal therapies associated with poorer outcomes." The 183 papers considered in Multidisciplinary Pain Programs for Chronic Noncancer Pain followed a biopsychosocial model of chronic pain, including treatment components in each of 4 areas: medical; behavioral; physical reconditioning; and education. Most of the studies were observational before-after designs. Although several different clinical conditions were studied, 90% of the studies included chronic back pain, the most frequent condition addressed in the literature. Differences were apparent between studies based in the United States and those in Europe. Recent European studies were more likely than US studies to include inpatient delivery of MPP treatment.


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Talk:Video capture card
From MythTV Official Wiki
Revision as of 20:55, 5 February 2006 by Gregturn (talk | contribs) (Talk:Video Capture Card moved to Talk:Video capture card)
I think these three articles carry much common information that users would wish on one article
It seems this article and Capture Card Matrix are swirling around a lot of common information. In my opinion, one single, centralized article citing all the good, bad, and ugly cards is good. Then, someone reading can either venture off into the hardware realm, or into the driver realm from this central location. I'll post this on the Talk:Capture Card Matrix as well. --Gregturn 05:38, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
- It would appear Tuner Card should also be considered in this effort. --Gregturn 03:58, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
- I think it should --jogibear 11:09, 26 Janary 2006 (GMT) (moved from Talk:Capture Card Matrix --Gregturn 20:27, 4 February 2006 (UTC)


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Leonardo di Caprio mentions ur shameful Barrier Reef devastation and we act like its a bad thing. Like tourism is our biggest issue here? What about truth? What about climate change?
A new solar roads project shows what we all know. We can't wait for governments to make this call. It's time to act. A people's revolution is required. Democracy is failing us. So far, smugness and stupidity seem a more likely sinkhole for the democratic experiment than the bloodshed and tyranny that George Washington predicted, but if climate change really gets going it could still come to that. Democratic governments are abject moral cowards. Like bad parents they yield to our demands before we even voice them.
Tony Abbott is a particular embarrassment, unilaterally tripling our carbon emissions target while US President Barack Obama reduces America's by a third. New South Wales Premier Mike Baird also reveals a dangerous mix of expedience and ideology, selling filthy public power stations to fund even filthier roads. As if roads could end congestion; as if roads were the solution, not the problem.
It seems we're stuck with this knuckle-dragging devotion to old fuels and technologies while other countries welcome and celebrate change. So perhaps it's time to sidestep government and vote with our credit cards.
Cities are hot. Fashionable, yes, but also hot. A chef in Asuncion, Paraguay, recently made television news when he cooked a meal for six on the footpath. No added heat. Just black asphalt in the sun. True, Paraguay has razed 80 per cent of its native forests, so Asuncion is hotter than most. Still, it wasn't just eggs. He also cooked bacon, fries and some kind of sausage thing in a pan on the footpath.
The point is, cities are hot because roads are hot. Roads heat the planet by their function – spewing carbon into the atmosphere – and by their blackness, absorbing and re-radiating the sun's infra-red.
Australia has the highest sunshine count on earth. We also have the most road kilometres per capita, as well as the highest carbon emissions and biggest waists. What does all this say? Hmm. Perhaps we need to drive less, not more.
I know, it's a big country. There are times when driving is unavoidable. But by far the largest part of our road surface is suburban, not remote.
Already, in Sydney, action is being taken to cool our roads using shade and reflectivity (trees and pale asphalt). Michael Mobbs, who has curated a road-cooling project in Chippendale, insists we can cool our cities 2 degrees by 2020 simply by shading and recolouring.
But a more extreme proposal recently went viral on YouTube. Solar Freakin' Roadways is an idea from husband and wife engineering couple, Julie and Scott Brusaw. The idea is simple. It involves repaving roads, parking lots, cycle lanes, driveways and sports surfaces – everywhere that is currently asphalt – in a photovoltaic surface. Simple idea, immense ramifications.
Across America's 60 billion square metres of road surface, the Brusaws calculate, the panels would – even at 15 per cent efficiency – generate three times the country's total energy use.
The roads are made of interlocking hexagonal glass-covered panels containing microprocessors and LEDs. The panels, which are "superstrong, textured and tempered" to meet impact and traction requirements, can be replaced individually if damaged.
Electric vehicles would run silently and cleanly, transforming the city's aural culture and the global warming situation in one go. The embedded LEDs would provide lane marking so that, instead of constant repainting and resurfacing, roads would simply be reprogrammed. Netball courts could be transformed with a switch-flick into basketball or ice hockey or indeed, car parks.
Lit lane-markings would enhance night safety. The surfaces also would detect the presence of large animals, such as roos, because they would be pressure-sensitive. Plus, since the panels would be self-heating, safety in snow and ice would also be improved.
Two sub-surface corridors, one for cables, the other for stormwater – which would be filtered for recycling – would be included. Finally, trumpets Solar Freakin' Roads, "it's finally going to look like the freaking future out there!"
It's a bold and brilliant idea – ending both the heating effects of roads in one swipe, and generating electricity to boot. Plus there's the huge new industry that would carry out the design and construction of it all. So, would it work?
The Brusaws' video has clocked up almost 16.5 million views and helped securedtwo successive US Federal Highway Administration grants to prototype and test a sample parking lot. Tests for strength, durability and traction, the Brusaws say, "exceeded all requirements".
Yet there are doubters. One in particular, scientist Phil Mason (also known as Thunderf00t on YouTube), ridicules the idea in terms of cost, material, performance (specifically traction), efficiency and power storage.
Mason's arguments set out the project's future R&D agenda. Will the benefits of job creation outweigh cost? Is stopping traction impossible on glass? Is point-generation of power more efficient (as Mason dubiously asserts) than a massive decentralised grid? Will tiled roads allow washouts?
More interesting, in view of the $2 million that has so far been raised via crowd-funding, is what the project says about what people want.
Two million, measured in personal, non-tax deductible dollars, is a lot. What they suggest, contrary to what our fearless leaders apparently believe, is that people want change. Ordinary, out-in-the-streets people want a clean, smart future so much that they are prepared to invest their own money and time.
Imagine if Baird's WestConnex was a solar highway. Imagine if the cycle lanes and the footpaths generated clean energy. Then selling off the dirty, old coal-fired power stations might be an even deal for the public.
Twitter @emfarrelly


text:
The Plant list
PRIMULA auricula Camelot
Double. Deep mulberry blooms. Strong form and long flowering. Lightly fragrant. April-June. Ht. 15cm. Sp. 15cm. Well drained soil. Shade in summer. Garden border or cold greenhouse.
Plant Details: PRIMULA auricula Camelot
Plant: PRIMULA
Species: auricula
Variety: Camelot
Common name: Auricula
Family: Primulaceae
Origin: European Alps
Flower colour: Purple, Red
Flower month: Apr, May, Jun
Flower scent: Sweetly
Foliage colour: Green
Autumn leaf colour: Green
Winter leaf colour: Green
Hardy: Hardy
Soil type: Well drained soil
Aspect: Part Shade
Evergreen: Evergreen
Height: 15
Spread: 15
Flower type: Double
Flower style: None
Leaf colour: Green
Container: Butlers Sink, Small Pots, Window Box
Winter grow conditions: Cold frame
Compost: Soil Loam Based
Web rating: Woottens rating 7/10
Pot Size: 9cm
Mail Order Details
We aim to dispatch our container grown stock within 5-7 working days & 7-10 working days' for bareroot stock. However there may be a delay on certain plants due to regular changes in availability and plant quality. We only send plants of optimum quality therefore your delivery may be split and plants sent to follow later. Whilst we try and keep our website up to date inevitably during busy period's plants may sell out.
We advise you contact the nursery regarding availability should you have any concerns. Or Click Here to find out more about our mail order plants.
Collections – For container grown stock we need 4 workings days' notice before collection & 10 days' for bareroot stock. You can collect from the nursery on a Wednesday between 9am-4pm or a Saturday between 9am-12noon or on one of our open weekends.


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Gunman at large after shooting 4 cars along highway near Sea-Tac Airport
BURIEN, Wash. -- The search for a gunman who terrorized drivers on SR-509 continued Wednesday night after the highway near Sea-Tac Airport was shut down for more than five hours.
State Patrol trooper wrapped up their search for evidence and the person that opened fire on at least four cars.
No one has been hurt, but the gunman remains at large.
The shooting took place along SR-509 near the south side of the airport sometime around 1:30 p.m., troopers said.
Investigators say whoever did this was on the side of the highway and not in a moving vehicle, based on the trajectory of the bullets. All four cars were hit on the driver's side of their cars.
Detectives don't have any reason to believe that the vehicles were targeted.
Troopers said since it was a chaotic scene, they are still trying to confirm a timeline of when all the shootings happened and if more shots were fired after the initial four cars were shot.
"When we're arriving at things like this, we are putting on our active shooter gear-which is a blessing to have—the heavier vests that stops rifles and helmets," said Trooper Rick Johnson.
At one point, troopers shut down both directions of SR-509 between 160th Street to Des Moines Memorial Drive. The western-most runway at Sea-Tac Airport was also closed "out of an abundance of caution," according to airport spokesperson Perry Cooper.
The southbound lanes and one northbound lane of SR 509 and one northbound lane of SR-509 were reopened around 6:30 p.m. All lanes were back open around 8:45 p.m.
One of the bullets went through the windshield of Mary Ertl's car.
"I heard a boom and then glass all over my face," she said. "I thought it was a rock until I looked at the passenger side, and then I knew it was a bullet... So I slowed down, and called police."
Another driver who's car was hit showed a bullet hole in his driver's side door.
"Was just about to go back to the office and just heard a loud bang," said Mike Luiz. "The bullet hole is through the bottom part of the door and went into the seat -- so the bullet's in the seat somewhere.
"I feel like I was more lucky because where the bullet hole entered and exited," he continued. "Some of the other people had higher-up shots fired on them."
Troopers said they can't remember anything like this happening in recent memory.
In the meantime, drivers are grateful no one was hurt.
"We're all still standing," Ertl said. "We're all still alive."
Troopers said if anyone was in the area before the shooting and they saw anyone walking, carrying anything or acting weird, please, call 911.


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Effects of Anti-HIV Therapy on Nervous System Function
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00432003
Recruitment Status : Completed
First Posted : February 6, 2007
Last Update Posted : April 17, 2014
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- No Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
|Condition or disease
|HIV Infections
AIDS dementia complex (ADC) is a condition characterized by cognitive impairment, psychomotor slowing, and behavioral change. A milder form of ADC, called HIV minor cognitive/motor disorder (MCMD), is characterized by similar symptoms but has less of an impact on daily functioning. The neurocognitive impairment that results from ADC and MCMD carries an increased risk of poor drug adherence, morbidity, and mortality. It is unclear if highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is effective in preserving neurocognitive function or in preventing or treating neurocognitive impairment. Distal symmetric sensory polyneuropathy (DSPN) and nucleoside-related neuropathy are two other serious conditions that HIV patients are at high risk for. DSPN is thought to be caused by active HIV infection; nucleoside-related neuropathy is thought to be caused by mitochondrial toxicity related to the use of certain antiretrovirals. These 2 conditions may lead to severe pain and discomfort in the feet. It is unknown what connection, if any, there is between DSPN and nucleoside-related neuropathy and the use of HAART. More data are needed on the natural history of these conditions.
This trial is a substudy of a study of management of antiretroviral therapy (SMART). In the SMART study, patients will participate in one of two strategies: a drug conservation (DC) strategy and a viral suppression (VS) strategy. Participants in the DC group will stop or defer HAART, then receive episodic HAART treatment for the minimum time needed to maintain a CD4 cell count of at least 250 cells/mm3. Participants in the VS group will receive HAART to maintain a viral load as low as possible, regardless of CD4 count. The purpose of this study is to compare changes in neurocognitive functioning and peripheral neuropathy symptoms between the 2 strategies of the SMART study.
Patients will participate in this substudy and the main SMART study at the same time. Within 45 days prior to randomization into the main SMART study, participants will have baseline data collected for this substudy. This data will include peripheral neuropathy assessments, treatments for symptoms of peripheral neuropathy. At selected study sites, additional measures will assess neurocognitive function, depression, alcohol and drug use, and education. At 6 months, 12 months, and every 12 months thereafter, peripheral neuropathy symptoms and treatment for the symptoms will be assessed; a pain questionnaire will also be completed. Participants will be followed until the SMART study ends.
|Study Type :
|Actual Enrollment :
|297 participants
|Time Perspective:
|Official Title:
|Neurology: A Substudy of a Large, Simple Trial Comparing Two Strategies for Management of Anti-Retroviral Therapy (SMART) to Determine the Impact of the Strategies Upon Central and Peripheral Nervous System Function
|Study Start Date :
|March 2005
|Actual Primary Completion Date :
|July 2007
|Actual Study Completion Date :
|July 2007
- Change in QNPZ-5 scores
- time to development of symptomatic peripheral neuropathy
- change in peripheral neuropathy symptoms
- Time to neurocognitive impairment
- time to development of ADC, stage 2 or greater
- chage in peripheral neuropathy symptoms
- time to development of asymptomatic or symptomatic peripheral neuropathy
- time to resolution of symptomatic peripheral neuropathy
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- Coenrollment in the SMART study
Exclusion Criteria:
- Unable to comply with all study requirements
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT00432003
Show 45 Study Locations
|Study Chair:
|Edwina Wright, MBBS, FRACP
|Infectious Disease Unit, the Alfred Hospital
Additional Information:
|Responsible Party:
|National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00432003 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
10115 ( Registry Identifier: DAIDS-ES )
|First Posted:
|February 6, 2007 Key Record Dates
|Last Update Posted:
|April 17, 2014
|Last Verified:
|April 2014
Keywords provided by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID):
Treatment Experienced
Antiretroviral Therapy, Highly Active
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
HIV Infections
Lentivirus Infections
Retroviridae Infections
RNA Virus Infections
Virus Diseases
Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Viral
Immunologic Deficiency Syndromes
Immune System Diseases


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4" DOUBLE DUCT ADAPTER FOR 4C448 465 cfm DAYTON BLOWERS connect 4 inch ducting to fan or wall.This fan tube adapter will mount to the exhaust port of the Dayton 465 cfm and 750 cfm blowers. You can attatch this fan tube adapter to the wall for intake air and run plastic 4 inch ducting to a box that contains the blower. Attach the fan tube adapter or adpters to the box. Fasten another to the output blowing side of the blower the exits the box and direct the air to air-cooled reflectors, ajoining rooms or simply refresh the growing rooms atmosphere.
— Ships from Portland, Oregon USA.


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Over the past several years, Adam Pearce has gone from losing opening-card matches in Ring of Honor to becoming one of the most influential and respected personalities in the sport of wrestling. And, yet, many wrestling fans may never have heard of him.
After longtime ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky was fired in 2008, "Scrap Iron" took over as the creative head of the nation's third-largest wrestling company. Under Pearce's leadership, ROH has developed a new following on national television, pioneered a new Internet pay-per-view market, and helped craft some of the most compelling storylines in all of wrestling.
But that all came to an end in August when news surfaced that Pearce had been fired as ROH's booker.
Even without that job, Pearce still holds one of the most historically prestigious posts in the sport—National Wrestling Alliance heavyweight champion. The three-time NWA champ has been especially busy as of late, defending the title against the likes of Bryan Danielson and Charlie Haas and being featured on the new NWA Championship Wrestling From Hollywood program on KDOC-TV in Los Angeles.
In this interview—Pearce's first following his departure from ROH—the 15-year wrestling veteran spoke with Senior Writer Al Castle about his falling-out with ROH, his thoughts on ROH's future, and the NWA's place in the sport in 2010.
AC: You've been in the news as of late, largely because of your parting of ways with Ring of Honor. You've said a little bit about what happened, but can you tell me more about how that came about?
AP: I think basically what it boils down, and I've said this to practically everyone I've talked to, is that it's a different ideology having literally nothing to do with the wrestling side of the operation. I've thought, and I've been adamant from the beginning, that if and when Ring of Honor finally closes its doors, the wrestling side of it—the in-ring, the creative—is never going to be the reason why. I really mean this: It doesn't matter who the booker is. Whether it's Gabe Sapolsky, me, Delirious, or somebody you pull off the street, it really doesn't matter because the in-ring is going to be so strong and what Ring of Honor is going to be remembered for. It's those other things that are equally important and often forgotten and those things away from the public eye that are going to be the things that drag the company down. And those ultimately turned out to be what the main difference of opinion was between myself and some of the other guys in Ring of Honor.
AC: Is that to say that you think there are some bad business decisions being made in Ring of Honor?
AP: I think that there are opportunities that Ring of Honor has had over the last two years, that I've seen with my own eyes, and doors that have gone unopened and things that are left on the table that I think the company could have really taken advantage of and have been better for business in the long term and certainly better for the wrestlers in the long term. And it's unfortunate.
AC: What's kept those things from happening? Is it just a disagreement about whether those things would, in fact, help the company? I imagine if those in power thought these were good things, they would do them.
AP: You would think that would make sense. You know you have good people that you work with. Ring of Honor over the last two years has come into partnerships with some strong businesses people—HDNet, obviously owned by Mark Cuban, who is a billionaire. And, from the outside looking in, you'd take it as a given to want to get in bed with a billionaire who obviously is a fan of wrestling, who has put himself in the ring in WWE several times and fronted the money to put Ring of Honor on a national platform on his television network. You'd think you'd want to expand that relationship and try to get away from a business model that has proven to not be successful—the DVD market. I don't think it takes a lot to realize that if WWE is having problems selling WrestleMania on DVD the last couple of years, what makes anyone think that you're going to be able to sell any other wrestling DVD, especially from a company with a percentage of the notoriety, a percentage of the familiarity of WWE? And expect to sell them at a volume to where you'd not only break even, but draw enough of a profit to sustain your business going forward? I think that Ring of Honor needs to take a look at how it's operating and what it's expecting. I just think there have been doors that have been knocked on and just haven't been answered.
AC: Can you give any specific example of an opportunity that you think they didn't take?
AP: I think the number one thing that should have been done in Ring of Honor is expand its deal with HDNet. And I know that there are opportunities to do that that were declined… Stronger help on the television side of things. Ring of Honor has been off of cable pay per view for a couple of years. And there are opportunities there to sit down with HDNet and talk about that. There's the continued use of the DVDs that Ring of Honor has been putting out that are not in high definition format – basically just not keeping up with the technology of the day. These are all things that could have been mitigated – and in my opinion should have been mitigated – if the company is going to stay on the winning path and is going to move toward becoming solvent and well off. These are things that need to be done. People are complaining about the quality of the DVDs – that's it's not shot in widescreen format and it's not in HD.
Basically, Ring of Honor, I think, on the business side of things, is stuck in 1998. They're a generation behind of where they should be. And on one side of the coin, your wrestling is supposed to be this revolutionary product, but everything else isn't. I was championing those things, which is why I was happy that we took a step forward with the Internet pay-per-views and the online, on-demand portal. You're going to see that over the next five years, that's going to be how people rent things. I don't think there's going to be DVDs coming off of shelves at the Blockbuster. We're going to be looking more toward the Netflix download system. WWE's got their online portal, and so does TNA. And they're drawing strong revenues from that. And I think that it's totally natural that as technology advances, you have to keep up with it. And I don't see that happening at Ring of Honor.
AC: Was it a situation where you couldn't remain silent and felt you needed to speak up about these problems you were seeing?
AP: I've always been that guy. I'm outspoken and when I see something that I see as a deficiency or something that needs to be corrected, I'm on it. The good side of that is that that's why I'm always looked to as a leader in practically everything I do. The bad side of that is that my voice is always a little bit louder. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This time I didn't get the grease I was looking for.
Anytime you've got two strong personalities in the same office on opposite ends of the spectrum as it pertains to an issue, there's automatically division. If I say black and someone else says white, that puts the owner, Cary Silkin, in the middle. And if that argument continues for months and months, and there's bitterness on both sides that has been festering, then a change is coming. And Cary Silkin was, unfortunately, in a position where he felt that he needed to make a change he thought was easiest for the company. I don't like it, but I understand it.
AC: So you're butting of heads wasn't with Cary.
AP: Not at all. Cary Silkin is the most generous man I've ever met in my life. I consider him a tremendous friend and probably the best boss I will ever have. I can't say enough good things about Cary. But, again, to have himself in the position that he's got one person chirping in his ear constantly about one thing and someone else chirping in his ear about the opposite—I think there's some hard feelings both ways, and I certainly accept the part of the turmoil that I created. But he knows. I've had conversations with Cary since I was let go and he knows that where I was coming from was a place of bettering Ring of Honor and taking care of the people who we have under contract on the creative side who deserve, in my opinion, more than they're getting.
AC: I've got to ask who the person was that you were clashing with. Is it Syd (Eick, ROH vice president)? Jim Cornette?
AP: Absolutely not Jim Cornette. It's not hard to figure it out.
AC: You said something a little while ago that some people would find alarming. You said "if and when" Ring of Honor shuts down. I think for realists who watch this company surviving on DVD sales and few hundred people at live shows, that's been in the back of their heads for a long time. But I know I've gotten assurances from Cary over the years of, "No, we're fine. We're not shutting down anytime soon." Maybe you could offer some insider perspective. Is that a realistic possibility?
AP: I think anytime you're dealing with a small business—and I still consider Ring of Honor to be a small business and I think Cary would—in the economy we have and in the entertainment field, whose existence is based solely on selling one item, I don't really consider the people in the area buying the tickets. That's almost second to the DVD sales. That's the driving force of the company. Because by the time we walk into the building and the people show up, their money is already spent. So it's on the back end that you're trying to make a profit. So I think when you limit yourself to saying, "We're going to rely on "X" and "X" is your bread and butter, and if you haven't turned a profit in "X" since 2005, then I think you have to take a look in the mirror and ask, "Why are we in business? And if we're not making any money, why are we in business? And if we're not turning a profit at these shows, why are we running these shows?"
To Cary's credit, the schedule was cut quite a bit from two or three years ago to where it is now. And the TV tapings are subsidized by HDNet, so that's not a huge expense out of Cary's pocket. I think, at the end of the day—and this is just me, personally—Ring of Honor will continue to operate as long as Cary Silkin wants it to. But what that entails is him pulling his private funds out of his own wallet to make that happen. And the thing that I fear, and I've said this to him a hundred times, is that he's going to continue pulling from his own kitty, and one day he's going to reach in and there's not going to be anything left. And then it's going to be reflection time. "Oh, no. What did I do? What could I have done differently? Where did all the money go?" I would hate for that to happen for him, because I don't think he deserves it.
Like I said, this is the most generous man that I've ever met in my life, who's taken care of so many people. He's so generous, I think to a fault. He's primed to be taken advantage of. And I think in some situations he has been. And I think he needs the right set of people around him on the business end of things to make sure that at the end of the day not only is it bigger, it's profitable, but also that he's not depleting his own personal funds. At the end of the day, he's really the one who's going to be worse off than anyone else. The wrestlers could always go and work. I'm going to find another job. People in the office can go and find another job. If his business fails, what does Cary do next? And that's a scary question.
AC: I think it's fair to say it will be a very sad day for the wrestling landscape when Ring of Honor isn't around. Inasmuch as people think of a "Big Three"—even though I know Ring of Honor's fan base is far smaller than even TNA's—Ring of Honor has really been carrying the weight of athleticism and wrestling as a sport on its shoulders. And I think that's something that would be sorely missed if Ring of Honor weren't around.
AP: Yeah, and I've said that to the guys in the locker room. Before every show I do a little rah-rah speech or something like that and address issues. No one will ever be able to take Ring of Honor out of the wrestling history books. And that's good. On some level, we've all forged a little niche on the totem pole of wrestling through the years that will never be erased. And that feels good. But at the same time, you want it to mean something. You don't want it to be an afterthought, like "Hey, Ring of Honor was this great wrestling company that had so many great talents, and good bookers, and legends that came through. But at the end of the day, man, they just couldn't get it together, and they're gone." You don't want that epitaph to be more bitter than sweet.
I'm not saying that Ring of Honor is going to end up being a multimillion-dollar company. I don't think anybody would love anything more than to be able to make a good living in the wrestling business working for Cary, because we all love Cary, but I just don't know what the future holds.
AC: Lets backtrack a bit. I'm interested in how you got involved in the creative side of things. I guess it was about two years ago that the bombshell comes out that Gabe's been fired. And Gabe was a pretty popular booker among fans and among the wrestlers. They hear Adam Pearce is the new booker, and I think for a lot of people it was a real head-scratcher. Adam Pearce—the guy who's wrestling in opening-card matches? What does he know about booking? Can you talk about what you brought to the table that made you a viable option?
AP: I think you hit the perception right on the head. People who were watching Ring of Honor went from one day having Gabe Sapolsky, who has this awesome knack to take people who are on the Internet and suck them into whatever idea he's got or whatever idea he's working with people on, and he turns them into this cult, ravenous following. It's like him and Paul E. are the only people able to do that. And then, like you said, here's this first, second, or third match heel putting babyfaces over, which just happened to be what my job in Ring of Honor was. I was the lower-to-mid-card heel gatekeeper for these babyfaces who were going to be moving up to the upper card or even higher than that. And the reason that job was mine was because I was experienced enough to get in the ring with guys who hadn't been wrestling as long as I was and kind of teach them how and what to do to get on to that next level. I think if you look at your card, every spot on the card is important. You need to have your skilled and your tenured people in the right positions to mold guys going forward. And Ring of Honor has always been about the young talent ready to break out and take the next step and make themselves stars. And I think when you have that young talent doing so many moves and so many spots—these awesome things visually—you kind of lose sight of what working really is. These days, practically every locker room I go to I am the veteran. That was my job, to kind of reel people in and say, "Okay, You can do 10 flips, but we're going to do two of them tonight and here's where we're going to do them and here's why." I don't want to say "teach people how to work," but just polish them. That was my job. And for three years I loved that job. I didn't have to be the top guy. I didn't have to be the main event …
Moving into the creative side of things, like you said the bombshell was dropped and Gabe was let go. That was a shock to everyone in the locker room, including myself. I didn't know what was going on until actually my last date in-ring. It was September of 2008 in Philadelphia. I wrestled Brent Albright in Philadelphia and took the NWA title back from him, and I was being cut from the roster. It was a cost-cutting thing. I live in San Diego, so I'm flying everywhere. It wasn't a drive to any of the towns. So that took a toll, and just operating expenses were being reduced. I wasn't being featured, necessarily, in the main event. For me to be kept on for three years in the role that I was given at the expense that was incurred, I think says a lot.
And along the way I would be asked about things I might change. As a wrestler, I think it's second nature to always question the booker—just like it is for any line of work for a subordinate to question their boss. But the guys would always come to people like me or some of the other tenured members of the locker room for ideas on how to put their match together or, "We're stuck on a finish," or just looking for someone else's perspective on how to do something. I was always one of those guys as a veteran guy who they would come to. I was never shy on ideas on finishes, or angle ideas. When Gabe would say, "I want some kind of angle here," I was always one of the first guys to wrap his head around it and we'd all knock our heads to figure out what we're doing.
So over the last 15 years, I've always stuck my nose in creative, for good or bad. There have been people who appreciated and people who it's pissed off. For Gabe it was his baby. Gabe had this thing where it was his show and he'd write everything. And I think that's somewhat misleading. From that standpoint, it wasn't hard for the boys to get on board with me captaining ship, because I was kind of doing that in the locker room anyway and giving young guys ideas anyway. So from that standpoint, it wasn't a difficult transition, I would say.
AC: I talked to Chris Hero, who said that one of the things you brought to the table was that you were one of the boys, so to speak. And that goes a long way when you're asking guys to do certain things. They know that you would and you are doing them yourself. Do you agree with that?
AP: Absolutely. People ask me what the biggest difference between me and Gabe Sapolsky was, and it comes down to being as simple as anything I ever asked anybody to do, I had already done it. Period. I had been in there, and these guys knew they weren't going to be put in a situation that I hadn't put myself fin or been put in before. There's a camaraderie and respect that's inherent when you're one of the boys. I think the guys knew that they weren't going to be asked to do something outlandish or something that I thought was stupid.
At the same time, I could push the envelope a bit with guys who may not have been comfortable, necessarily, with things that I wanted them to do. They trusted me because they knew Pearce had been there, done that. But they all understood that my style and the things that I was looking for weren't going to be insane anyway. They weren't going to be diving off the top of steel cages or going through flaming tables. That's just not my bag.
From that standpoint, it made it for the boys profoundly easier to relate. A wrestler relates to a wrestler. And if your booker isn't a wrestler, there's a gap that needs to bridged. And some people are really good about bridging that gap and some people aren't … If respect is a cup that you could fill up to 10, if you're not a wrestler, you could never fill that cup to 10. You might fill it to nine, but you're never going to fill it to 10.
AC: Was it a delicate balance that you had to try to reach? Because on one hand, you had your own style and your own ideas, but on the other hand, Ring of Honor came into its popularity and grew its cult following under Gabe's booking and Gabe's style of wrestling. So, I guess you had to be careful not to completely turn that upside down, because then you're alienating your fans.
AP: I think what people need to realize, too, is that, if a change in Ring of Honor in style and in creative wasn't wanted, there wouldn't have been a need to change the booker. It's like you said, you're walking that delicate, fine line where you've got your fan base that's already built up and they're accustomed to being catered to and they're accustomed to seeing certain things. But at the end of the day, if the person writing the checks wants something different in the ring, then that's what you do. And I knew that I would be the one taking the bullets for that. And, frankly, I don't think it mattered who the successor to Gabe Sapolsky was going to be. I think the fact that it was me, a heel who had always been a lower-card guy in Ring of Honor, it's not as if it went from Gabe Sapolsky to Jim Cornette. It was Gabe Sapolsky to a lower-card heel who wasn't particularly Internet-friendly to begin with. I wasn't out there giving interviews and making myself accessible the way that Gabe did. So I think in a certain respect that kind of hindered my cause more than it would have hindered someone else.
At the same time, one of the issues that the wrestlers always had with Ring of Honor was that it seemed like Gabe Sapolsky got more credit for Ring of Honor than anyone else. This goes back to wrestlers and filling that cup of respect. Gabe wasn't in the ring doing it. That chapped a few hides along the way. And I wanted to make sure that I, as the head of creative, took myself as far out of the spotlight as I could. I didn't do an interview at all for three years nearly. I took myself out of the ring in Ring of Honor nearly completely for two years. I think it was important for me that the honor and the attention in Ring of Honor was on the wrestlers and not the booking.
AC: Obviously, a pitfall that a lot of wrestler/bookers have fallen into over the years has been pushing themselves and making themselves the centerpiece of big angles. Once you started booking, we hardly saw you in the ring—at least in Ring of Honor. Was there any temptation along the way of, "You know, I have this opportunity here to really get myself over"?
AP: Absolutely not. And I don't want to toot my own horn, but I think that speaks volumes of what I thought about the product. It would have been easy. And nobody ever told me that I couldn't wrestle. Cary Silkin never came to me and said, "Hey Adam, now that you're going to lead things, maybe it's a good idea to get out of the ring." In fact, he would ask me, "Hey, do you want to bring the NWA title into Ring of Honor?" or "Hey, do you want to work tonight?" And the answer was always, "No. The focus is going to be on this locker room and these guys because they deserve it." I didn't want to be that guy and follow in the same steps, as you said, of so many wrestler/bookers who took the opportunity when they had it to make themselves the champion or to be at the top of the card or to get the TV time.
I mean, think about it from this standpoint: Ring of Honor gets a national television deal … Hell, I could have put myself on the TV show every week, and benefited myself personally. I would have the greatest tape ever on myself. I never appeared once. I thought to myself, If I don't have the respect of my locker room now, which I did, I don't think they could help but respect me by doing that. And that's why I did it.
AC: What are you most proud of from your time heading creative? Is there an angle or a storyline that you look at and really feel was kind of a testament of what you brought?
AP: To be honest with you, being the head of creative with Ring of Honor was my dream job. I loved it. I have a family and child and the schedule didn't require me to be on the road 200 days a year, but at the same time I was writing a television show that was airing nationally. And we were playing houses and doing reasonably well. In fact, numbers started to creep up during the last year or so, and I was really proud of that.
I think at the end of the day what I'm going to love most about what I did was solidifying the locker room in 2008. Up until the end of Gabe Sapolsky's run, it was really fractured and really insecure—just really unnerved in not knowing what was going to go on, and really unhappy. And I was a part of that. I hated that feeling. No one wants to go to work when they hate their job. I'm not saying that the boys hated working for Ring of Honor, but that unknown, the uncertainty of the future, cast a dark cloud over what we would have been doing. It took some time when I came in because people thought that was the bottom—the beginning of the end of Ring of Honor, when Gabe Sapolsky left. It was his baby. It took some time to rebuild the confidence of these guys that, "Now we're going to continue. We're going to fight a different fight. We're going to continue to fight the good fight. And at the end of the day, if we play our cards right and we get the right people on our side, we're going to stay in business and it's going to be better than it was before."
I think on one hand there are some things about Ring of Honor that wouldn't have been possible pre-2008. And there's some really positive things to take from it. The television show I'll put up against any wrestling television show on the air. If you're a wrestling purist, if you like wrestling and you like athletic wrestling, and you want a little bit of sizzle with your steak, instead of a little steak with your sizzle, I don't think you get a better hour of wrestling on television anywhere.
When I couldn't get to the television, that was tough. Because, like the Ring of Honor's DVD storylines from 2002 to 2008 were Gabe's, the television show was my baby. And that was really hard.
AC: Any thoughts about where Ring of Honor goes now under Hunter Johnston (a.k.a. Delirious, ROH's new booker)? Does he share some of your ideals? Do you expect him to go in a radically different direction?
AP: I don't think so. From what I understand from talking to Cary Silkin and Hunter myself, I don't think he's going to do anything really different than what we were already doing. I think it's more about having a different personality in that position that might be easier to work with on the other side of the business. Fortunately for the locker room, everyone knows Delirious. He has an extremely good reputation as being one of the boys with a sound mind, and a good mind. I can say unequivocally that he and I agree on nine out of 10 issues and came to same conclusion as far as wrestling goes. We see things much the same. And probably over the years I've spent more time in the ring with Delirious than with any other guy. He's earned my respect tenfold.
So in that respect, you're not going to see any radical shifts in what's going on creatively. He'll also have Jim Cornette to lean on. As great a mentor as Jim was for me in allowing me to be the boss and allowing me to succeed on my own merit, I hope he'll do the same for Hunter going forward. And at least with Jim and (ROH producer) Dave Lagana on the television side going forward, you don't lose that continuity. You still have two-thirds of the three-headed monster. And Hunter I think from a temperament standpoint, if my fuse burns at a thousand degrees, he's a much calm, cooler guy than I am. I don't want to say he's less passionate, because I don't think that's accurate. But he's kind of an easy, laidback kind of a guy. And maybe that is what Cary was looking for.
AC: So do you think your career on the creative side of wrestling is now over and do you want to just go back to concentrating on your own wrestling career? Obviously, there's been talk of you maybe having a role in TNA. I think a lot of people would say your creative skills could really be used there.
AP: There have been conversations with people in TNA. I think some of the things that have been reported have been a bit overblown. I have a lot of friends that work in TNA, and a lot of them came from Ring of Honor. D-Lo Brown, who is in a good position there now, worked for me and Cary Silkin in 2009 for a stretch. And I've known Terry Taylor for more than 10 years, and obviously he's head of talent relations there. There have been talks, but I talk to those guys all the time. But there's been nothing set in stone about me going over there to try out. But you never know.
I don't know what the future holds. I have obligations to the National Wrestling Alliance. Today we're taping television in Hollywood that will later broadcast on KDOC TV—real Los Angeles television, finally, for David Marquez, who I'm excited for. And for the talent here in the Los Angeles and the Southern California area, this is an opportunity to really do something that hasn't been done in Southern California since the days of the Olympic Auditorium. This is kind of the dawn of a new era in a part of the country that in the Internet doesn't get a whole lot of play outside of PWG. We'll see what happens. I'm sure I'll be involved on the creative side of that in some way. Beyond that, who knows?
AC: Let's talk a little bit about the NWA. Some people would say that the NWA is a shell of what it was 20 years ago. How do you think the NWA fits into the wrestling landscape today?
AP: The only difference between the NWA of today and the NWA of its heyday is money. It's that simple. When Jim Crockett closed his doors, some would think that was the end of the NWA. It depends on what your perspective is. At that time, when Jim Crockett closed his doors, there were still 29 members who said, "This ain't over yet." But in the entertainment business, everything comes down to dollars and cents. So if you're going to find the right kind of exposure, you're either going to find a partner with a lot of money who could buy it for you, or you're going to have to have a lot of money so you could buy it. And the NWA hasn't had that. I think you could count on one or two fingers the people who have that money. Vince McMahon and the Carter family. I think for any wrestling company, Ring of Honor, PWG, any of these entities to try to take on and be a direct competitor to those two is foolish. People can say what they want about TNA, but TNA is on Spike TV every week. And even if they're drawing a 1.0, I think people need to understand what that is. I would kill to draw a 1.0. We never got numbers from HDNet, so I don't know what our television ever did.
The NWA I think has, obviously, a place in wrestling history. The unfortunate thing for people involved in the NWA is that without the visibility that they had in the late-'80s, today's wrestling fan has no idea what the NWA is. Vince McMahon has done a great favor to the people involved in the NWA by putting out these DVDs about The Four Horsemen and Ricky Steamboat featuring all this great action from early in their careers that happened in the NWA. If used right, they can kind of re-light a candle that's been smoldering for almost 30 years. I don't blame that on the NWA board of directors. You play the hand you're dealt. And if you simply don't have the operating capital to go out and make a splash, then you do what they've done and keep a low profile and you keep it grass roots and you keep it local and you keep it alive. From that standpoint, I'm 100 percent behind the NWA because as a governing body, they could have folded up shop and left people without a proverbial pot to piss in 30 years ago. And for good or bad, these people have been struggling to keep something alive because it has a place in history.
It's a matter of finding the right partner with the right television exposure and the right money to do something else. And David Marquez, I think, has been the one champion of the NWA, certainly in my time in the last three or four years, who has always been on the cusp and the cutting edge of seeking out and finding people. He was on Dish Network for a year. David Marquez' NWA Pro Wrestling in 2007 and 2008 was running arenas throughout the desert Southwest. We drew 4,000 people in Las Vegas, nearly 4,000 people in El Paso, Texas. We had over 5,000 in Houston. But the Internet doesn't follow these events, so it doesn't get the notoriety.
But when the economy really took a dump, the first thing that goes is your entertainment dollar. And shows that David Marquez was able to sell in 2007 and 2008 for $24,000, the same buyers were only offering eight or twelve thousand. And in any economic climate, you get what you pay for. So, if you can't afford the big name lucha libre stars and go into Phoenix and draw two or three thousand, maybe you just bring one or two stars and you draw a thousand. He was never going to put his own money in, and that's a smart thing. And the mindset of most NWA promoters is, if you're going to run wrestling, rule number one is don't spend your own money.
AC: The same way that Harley Race was the definitive NWA champion of one era and Ric Flair later of his era, I think it's fair to say you're the definitive NWA champion of the last several years—the post-TNA era. Obviously, it's a different era for the NWA, but what does that mean to you, to be the flag-bearer of this company that has so much history? And what do you think you bring to the table as a performer that's given you this opportunity?
AP: I'm always going to be honored that the people in charge of the NWA, the board of directors, found that my skills were worthy enough to put a championship around. I've been wrestling 15 years and three of those 15 years were spent in Ring of Honor. When I started in 1995, the Internet was in its infancy. There was no Youtube. People got along by sending VHS tapes to promoters and then calling them and bugging the hell out of them until they gave you a tryout. And it wasn't uncommon for David Prazak and I to drive 20 hours for 20 bucks, and then get shorted when we got there. The NWA has given me an opportunity to keep my in-ring dreams alive, as cliché as that may sound.
I had opportunities in the late-'90s and early-2000s with WCW to take the next step and go to a big time promotion, which obviously was on its last legs at that point. And I made a decision, personally, not to do that. And I've kept myself on the periphery of always taking that next step. Colt Cabana likes to say I'm the one guy who's had every opportunity and turned them all down. And in a way he's right. And the NWA has allowed me to live out some of the things that may have been had I made different decisions and allowed me to be in a position to be a focal point and showcase the skills that I have. I consider myself a humble person and I don't like to put myself over, but to me drawing is talking. I think history has shown that you don't necessarily wrestle them into the seats. You talk them into the seats. And I would put my skills on the microphone up against anybody in the world, truthfully. I think that's the alluring part of me. That's the entertaining part of "Scrap Iron" Adam Pearce.
Beyond that, I'm good to do business with. I do my business with the guys I'm in the ring with. My role as NWA champion, especially in this third reign, is much like it was in the '70s in that I go to an NWA promoter in a given part of the country, let's say it's Kansas, and I face his top babyface. And my job is to go in there and make that wrestler look as good as I can and leave him a step higher on the pecking order than he was before I got there. And that's what I do. And that's what Harley Race did, and that's what Ric Flair did all those years. And, granted, we're not on the same level of exposure and we're not on the same level of notoriety and we all understand that. But the job is the same. The job hasn't changed.
And from that standpoint, it's extremely gratifying to go into a town and work with somebody I've never worked before and, in the end, having him say to me, "Man, that was the best match I ever had." And as ridiculous as that may sound to some people on the Internet, that happens to me all the time. And that means more to me than getting paid huge money or having a great amount of notoriety. And I'll always be grateful for that opportunity.
I love professional wrestling, and I always have since I was a little boy. And for the last 15 years—we're talking nearly half my life—it's allowed me to be one of the guys who's not in WWE or TNA and is making a living off of this thing. And that's all I ever wanted to do.


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I am urgently in need of the Best Rodent Control Service Los Angeles. One of my tenants has mice and rats that have invaded her rental. She even found a nest of rats in her couch!
There are rat nests, and mice running around everywhere. These conditions are obviously unacceptable and must be corrected immediately and so I starting doing Google searches looking for Best Rodent Control Service in Los Angeles. One who will eliminate these infestations and prevent them from reoccurring!
I know that I need a reliable service that is willing not only to come and kill the rodents that are at the home but who are confident enough in their work to place a guarantee on what they do so that there will not be any future infestations I will be comparing humane elimination, poison, trapping, exclusion and anything else I can learn and pass on to you.
I will give you my findings as time goes on with updates and photos as I learn more.
I had two companies come to the property today. The first, a single gentleman who only briefly looked through the home, said he would 'smoke bomb' the rental which would kill all the rodents. He seemed quite lazy and when I asked him how would he find the dead rodents, he said "we'll find them." I did not like the sound of that at all. When I asked him how long they guarantee their work, he said they didn't but the mice and rats would not come back. Later, the folks from Rodents Stop came to the property.
There were three, very professional men who got right to work looking everywhere for the cause of the rat and mouse problem.
The crawled arouund eveywhere, were on their hands and knees with flashlights in hand. They found holes that the rats and mice could enter the home not only in the home but outside the walls in the crawl space as well.
I was very impressed with how thorough and detailed and fast the men from Rodents Stop were. They said that they would need to screen off all the possible entry points and thoroughly clean all the rat and mouse droppings and all the areas that they had been to remove their scent to keep future rodents from trying to enter the premises. Rodents Stop offers an amazing 5 Year Guarantee! When a company is willing to offer such a backup, I want to deal with them


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For several years, U.S. honeybees — key for good crop yields — have been dying off or abandoning colonies en masse, resulting in fears for the pollination of U.S. crops. The die-offs and set of odd behaviors exhibited by honeybees is known as colony collapse disorder, a malady researchers have yet to pinpoint the cause of.
In 2006-07, problems with colony collapse disorder-affected hives had largely been an East Coast problem. Tens of thousands of colonies were lost to the disease. By last summer, the problem had shifted to the West Coast, where crops like almonds rely heavily on the insects.
Where does the U.S. apiary industry stand now? "Over this winter, we've not yet had dramatic reports of honeybee colonies dying all over," says Jerry Hayes, assistant chief for Plant and Apiary Inspection in Florida. "Have we had reports from individual beekeepers with dramatic losses? Yes, that continues."
Early reports out of some California almond pollination locations are that bees are declining in strength. However, at this time of year, that isn't unusual.
"Since a lot of the losses last year were while the bees were in almonds, we're just biding our time for the next couple of weeks to see if there's a trend going here. Or maybe Darwin's in action and all the weak ones have been killed off and we'll have a bit of a reprieve with stronger bees left. The jury is still out."
Asked if researchers have determined a cause for colony collapse disorder, Hayes says the search is still ongoing. However, "we know a lot more about the stresses the bees are under. There has been a lot of interest in this. Money has been spent on CCD and honeybee health issues in general. There are some new projects that will be getting up to speed this year.
"Unfortunately, research never moves quickly. But there have been a lot of smart people with expensive equipment looking at honeybees who haven't studied bees before.
"All sorts of things, some maybe scary, have been found. At this point, we're not sure exactly what it means, though."
Asked for examples, Hayes points to studies being done at the University of Montana in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Defense.
"The Defense Department has equipment that can analyze air, tissue and what have you for pathogens so that our troops can be protected if there's a biological warfare threat."
This Department of Defense precise equipment has been used on honeybees and found a "tremendous amount of virus-size particles in them. It was quite surprising. But what does that mean? We aren't sure if these have been introduced or are something that has been around. Most of these viral particles don't have names."
Other viruses worry researchers. "In particular, Israeli acute paralysis virus was identified in Israel but seems to be most prevalent in Australian honeybees, which have been imported in large numbers over the last several years."
There's also a type of fungal pathogen that lives in the gut of honeybees. "It causes them to not be able to absorb nutrients, become weaker and die prematurely."
With all the analysis of honeybees, the comb they live on, and the pollen they bring in, researchers have found an array of chemicals. "Those include pesticides and environmental toxins. Honeybees are flying dust-mops, if you will, when they go into the environment. Because they forage in such large areas, they bring all sorts of things back to the hive you wouldn't expect."
Case in point: Hayes and colleagues have about 100 colonies of honeybees they use for research purposes. "We decided to look at those just to see what was in them. Lo and behold, in some colonies, there were high levels of styrene. I was thinking, 'Where in the world is styrene coming from?'
"Well, we began looking in the area and there's a plastic pipe manufacturer about 30 miles from the research colonies. As the (materials used to make pipes) goes up the chimney, it's spread around and bees pick it up as they forage on flowers."
Honeybees are environmental samplers, says Hayes. As such, they can be used in unexpected ways.
"Maybe 20 or 30 years ago, honeybees were used in Canada to find gold deposits. That's because as plants take up minerals from the soil, they concentrate them in the pollen and nectar.
"Researchers and mining experts would analyze the pollen bees brought back. The pollen with higher gold content had a better chance of coming from an area containing larger gold deposits. Imagine that!"
Take a step back, says Hayes, "and consider how the bees are interfacing with the environment. Getting the whole picture isn't easy."
Regarding Australian honeybee imports, a vocal faction of U.S. beekeepers want them kept out of the country. Last year, a plan for the importation of Mexican honeybees was likewise contentious. Does Hayes believe concerns about importing foreign honeybees are overblown?
"Not really. In regards to imported honeybees, I don't believe we have good enough oversight of the pests, predators and diseases that might be brought in with these insects. We certainly appreciate the Australian Department of Agriculture studying and surveying their colonies.
"However, it's already been proven that their honeybees had one virus and, because they haven't been challenged by varroa mites and some of the other things U.S. honeybees routinely deal with, they're genetically weaker. They don't live very long. They live long enough to pollinate, of course, but another concern is they weaken the U.S. honeybee population."
Last year, Mexican honeybees weren't allowed into the country. But the need for them wasn't as pressing as once feared.
"In fact, the Californian almond industry, which has been driving the commercial U.S. beekeeping industry, seems to be shrinking. California has many issues with adequate water. Growers have to pay for water and with the lower price of almonds, some have decided to stop with the crop. In some cases, they're actually bulldozing orchards. The formerly brisk pace of orchard planting has slowed."
Also, for crop insurance purposes, the rules about having two honeybee colonies per acre are being modified. The requirement could be dropped to one colony per acre.
"All that means there's less need of honeybees in California. That should continue at least for a few years."
How are current honey prices affecting the beekeeping industry? "The honey price is still up, although not as high as it was last spring. Of course, the overall economic downturn has impacted the bee industry too. But the prices are still high enough for good grades of honey that the expense of East Coast keepers heading west, along with less need for pollination already mentioned, make it cheaper to leave the bees on this side (of the country). That means money is being saved from transportation costs. Also, bees that aren't involved in big moves don't seem to have the same health concerns."
Europeans, warns Hayes, are banning pesticide use "left and right because of pollinator concerns. I don't know that's the answer. Chemicals in production agriculture are tools that, when used well and wisely, are a positive."
Many people believe chemicals are the "boogeyman" in the continuing problems with honeybees. Hayes agrees that "they probably don't help.
"But I also want your readers to know that without those tools it would difficult for all of us to eat three meals a day. We must have a balance between protection of pollinators and producing quality crops.
"Food doesn't come from the grocery store. And the USDA projects that the United States will get something like 40 percent of its vegetables from China by 2012-13. Another projection is the United States will be a net food importer in 50 years."
If no one cares about that, "I'm wasting my time. If they do care, though, they should take comfort in knowing researchers are trying to solve these pollinator issues."
For more, see: http://deltafarmpress.com/mag/farming_apiary_study_shows/index.html.


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I'm sitting at San Francisco airport, staring out over runways and mountains untouched by the cold or snow that await me at home, remembering with fondness the sights and sounds, products and people of Macworld|iWorld 2013, and already looking forward to next year. We shot a ton of video, and you'll be seeing it go up all this week. Enjoy it, because Paul Kent and crew once again proved it's the people that make all the difference.
But now it's February and that means it's fitness month, Mobile Nations post-CES, iMore's post-Macworld-iWorld tradition. And it's all shades of kick-in-your-ass awesome.
The core idea is this: After the holidays, we all have the best of intentions and hit January with more activity, cleaner eating, better rest, and overall healthier lifestyles than any other time of the year. Then life smacks us in the face. Hard. And we go right back to the same bad habits we chided ourselves about for the entirety of the year before.
That's why we chose February for fitness month. January is done. Win, lose, or draw, we get a second chance. And thanks to the iPhone and iPad, and all the apps and accessories that have come out, all the new technologies that have let us improve our exercise, improve our nutrition, maximize our rest and recovery, and make ourselves healthy, we get a really, really good chance. Especially when you factor in the power of our communities.
So, starting tomorrow, we'll be posting a bunch of app reviews, accessory reviews, contests, podcasts, and other great content. Starting tomorrow, we'll be working together to make fitness month the best, most fun, most successful event of the mobile year.
We'd love for you to join us, so check back tomorrow morning and get ready to get it in gear.


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Bare Back Grill, Cali Kebab, Ciro's Pizzeria & Beerhouse, TapRoom and the High Dive have partnered up to share a craft-pub crawl experience that highlights the best craft brews Pacific Beach has in store, as well as offer a free ride among the five establishments on the first Wednesday of each month.
The event was modeled after North Park's Drinkabout to promote an often-unseen aspect of PB's bustling beach district.
"The craft beer scene in PB is just as good as anywhere else in San Diego. We don't get a lot of recognition for it in the craft-beer community," said Ciro's owner Kenny Casciato. "Plus, we have something that a lot of things that other neighborhoods don't. We have the Pacific Ocean right there."
The Pacific Beach Craft Crawl started in November as the brainchild of Bare Back Grill's bar manager Rory Farrell.
The idea behind the concept is threefold: to promote Pacific Beach's craft-beer scene, to thank local patrons who support the local merchants, and to encourage safe habits among their clientele.
"We're all part of the community. All the money we generate as a small business gets spent here," Casciato said. "Of course, we want a little recognition as a craft-beer scene, but we also want to do something good for the people that keep us going."
He said although some patrons inevitably come to the beach bars to drink heavily, Casciato, Farrell and the rest of the craft-brew crew genuinely care about the wellbeing of their patrons and hope they can help take the danger out of having a good time.
"We really want to show that we, as small business owners, care about the people who patronize our establishment. We want them to be safe when they're drinking," said Casciato.
Each month, the five local business owners pitch in to rent two buses that loop among the five local venues every 15 minutes from 7 to 11 p.m.
"At each venue we try to do something unique," said Casciato. "If nothing else, we want to be there for the community to get around safely."
He said his local community is more multifaceted than it may appear on the surface.
"It's not just the five places on the Craft Crawl. We've got Turquoise Coffee doing some really cool things with their craft-beer lineup and The Coaster in Mission Beach," he said. "PB has a lot of layers, and this is one of those layers that needs to have a spotlight on it."


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Whether you're reading a self-help book, a leadership guide, or any number of blogs, you're likely to hear a lot about the importance of keeping commitments.
Indeed, the ability to follow through—to exercise self-control—is critical to success and happiness, according to the new book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by research psychologist Roy Baumeister and New York Times writer John Tierney.
As I recently wrote in Huffington Post, there are a number of proven strategies helpful in keeping us on course, including tracking our progress, limiting our priorities, and keeping our bodies fueled with the glucose that facilitates self-control. One of the more innovative (and amusing) solutions is StickK.com, the brainchild of two Yale professors and one of their students. It works like this: Pick a goal. Report your progress. Fail to do what you promised? You are hit with an automatic penalty, such as making a payment to an "anti-charity"—a group with views you detest.
Such strategies can be especially helpful in Plan B Nation, where continued movement towards important goals can be especially hard to keep up. It's one thing to finish a project on time when a boss is breathing down your neck. Quite another to plug away day after day alone on a seemingly unending job hunt. Over time, I've adopted a number of the strategies the Willpower authors describe—along with some of my own. They've helped me to move forward on numerous fronts, including launching this blog.
At the same time, as with pretty much everything, there are limits to willpower. Yes, thriving in Plan B requires a more-than-usual infusion of determination. But it also requires more-than-usual flexibility—a willingness to improvise, to take our opportunities where we find them. If we become too fixated on our goals, we may fail to recognize (and take advantage of) unexpected strokes of luck. Focus is good. Blinders are bad.
These thoughts have been on my mind as I wind up my first seven days of NaPerProMo. This is my personal (and intentionally silly-sounding) answer to National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo, wherein more than 200,000 would-be novelists commit to penning 50,000 words in the course of 30 days. Taking this model as a jumping off point, I announced that on December 1, I would embark on NaPerProMo—National Personal Project Month—with the goal of writing a blog post a day.
It sounded like a good idea—indeed, such a good idea that I recently learned that the BlogHer network of women bloggers just concluded NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month). At the same time, as I've found in the past week, it isn't quite feasible, at least not if I want to write the sort of posts that you'll likely want to read. In large part this is because I've suddenly (and happily) been getting some paying freelance work, and for me, it was a no-brainer that this had to take precedence.
I remember remarkably little of what I learned in law school, but one thing that sticks with me is an arresting list of conflicting "canons of construction"—rules for how we go about figuring out what a law means. Legal realist Karl Llewellyn famously listed 28 examples of such conflicting rules. (For example, the rule that "A statute cannot go beyond its text" exists alongside "To effect its purpose, a statute may be implemented beyond its text.") When judges go about interpreting laws, there are "correct, unchallengeable rules of 'how to read' which lead in happily variant directions," Llewellyn concluded with dry humor in a 1950 law review piece.
Here, it seems to me, that life is very much like law. Stick to your commitments. Be open and flexible. These are both great pieces of advice so far as they go, but at times they will conflict. And at such points we, like Llewellyn's judge, will have to find our own "right" answer. For me, right now, this means keeping in mind the spirit of my goal (writing more, building community, connecting with My People) but being flexible in how I go about it. And while I may not write a blog post each and every day, I can still keep moving forward.


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Friday, July 12: Watch Dell, J.P. Morgan
Chris Dieterich takes a look at some of the stocks traders will be watching, including Dell, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Photo: AP.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the ... three stocks ... we were talking that thinks a little bit early let's think of that other technology companies still in the news ... Buyout Dell still in use it's not it's not going away investors seemed to like Dallas morning it's up a little that we had some more agitation from ... activist investor Carl Icahn is ... sort of advocating that investors rather than vote in next week's ... UN ... it's sort of go private ... to be devoted to approve the Silver Lake buyout offer Silver Lake and Michael Dell the sixteen sixty five per share buyout offer by ... Icahn be something about that appraisal rights he wants shareholders to Readies advocating the paper with the with what they would use not go in and around the exercise their appraisal rights that would perhaps ... to send it to court appraisal that might ultimately lead to a higher valuation for the company ... we'll see aam Singh is also saying he's Guinea come out I think with with a higher bid will will see with what's really the place to develop affecting he certainly wants can move around the exit would also ruin but not forgetting about banks JPMorgan shares ... are and how are they reacting to earnings this morning there up ... after some of the slitting of it and then Neil and I have the here and say they're they're out in ... about a half percent percent so looking good for them and after a twenty percent run-up this year ... aam ... people seem to be willing to to to to come back and let's let's also look good at Wells Fargo quickly ... I think that one also was up ... to get the upper center sells above the two percent after again it's it's okay now are up about two percent so moving from an Arabic again that's Nowitzki there is is the isthe mortgage originations in the improvement there that's initially actually the stock had fallen so ... aam now were woken from a hat ok Chris Dietrich think so much thanks