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Tween Reads
November 2016
"Sometimes, it turns out, the most important decisions in life are made by your dog."
~ from Adam Gidwitz's
The Inquisitor's Tale
Recent Releases
The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, the Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog
Adam Gidwitz; illuminated by Hatem Aly
Historical Fantasy. Okay, so the dog dies -- but don't worry, she comes right back to life! Canine resurrection is one of many miracles in this inventive, multi-layered story set in 13th-century France.
The Inquisitor's Tale
follows three friends -- Jeanne, a peasant girl who sees visions; Jacob, a Jewish boy with a gift for healing; and William, a super-strong, biracial monk-in-training -- as they flee persecution and face enemies ranging from a farting dragon to King Louis XI. Like a medieval manuscript, the book is "illuminated" with lively drawings that add even more depth to this unusual, funny, and unforgettable story of faith and friendship.
Dive! World War II Stories of Sailors & Submarines in the Pacific
Deborah Hopkinson
Nonfiction. From the officer who pushed for an onboard ice-cream maker to the 15-year-old who lied so he could enlist,
shares the intriguing true stories of American sailors who served on World War II submarines in the Pacific. These first-person tales ooze with suspense: bone-shaking depth charges, daring missions into enemy waters, and other terrifying realities of submariners are described in breathtaking detail, accompanied by photos and sidebars linking submarines to the big picture of WWII. Whether you're curious about military machines or looking for high-drama history, you'll want to go deep into
Once you've surfaced, you
may also want to try Sally M. Walker's
Secrets of a Civil War Submarine
Falling Over Sideways
Jordan Sonnenblick
Fiction. Claire is having a normal breakfast with her dad one morning when he suddenly falls onto the table. It's a stroke, and though he survives, his recovery is slow and uncertain. Now, in addition to worrying about typical 8th-grade stuff like mean girls at school, horrible new braces, a too-perfect brother, and being left behind by her ballet friends, Claire is afraid that her dad won't ever be himself again. As always, author Jordan Sonnenblick delivers an emotional yet down-to-earth take on the pain and hope of real life. Readers who want a similar but less angsty story should pick up Megan Jean Sovern's
The Meaning of Maggie
Focus on: Native Characters
My Name Is Not Easy
Debby Dahl Edwardson
Historical Fiction. They call him Luke at the Sacred Heart School because his Inupiaq name is too hard for white people to pronounce. He's only 12 years in old 1960, when he arrives at the Catholic boarding school after being taken from his Alaskan village. Yet amidst his homesickness, Luke (along with his schoolmates, who take turns narrating) has to navigate strange food, strict rules, and abuse, not to mention clashes between racial and tribal groups. For another haunting look at the experiences of Native Alaskans, check out
Fatty Legs
, a memoir
by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton.
If I Ever Get Out of Here
Eric Gansworth
Historical Fiction. As the only American Indian kid in the gifted program at a mostly white school, seventh-grader Lewis Blake feels like he may as well be from a different planet instead of from New York state. He's nearly given up hope of making friends when he and new student George connect over their shared love of the Beatles. Still, Lewis is afraid that he can never be honest with George about his messed-up family and their life on the poverty-stricken Tuscarora reservation. Set in 1975 against a backdrop of classic rock (there's even a playlist included),
If I Ever Get Out of Here
is an unhurried, authentic story of unlikely friendship.
In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse
Joseph Marshall III
Fiction. Jimmy McClean is three-quarters Lakota and one-quarter white, but his light hair and blue eyes make him a target for the bullies at his school on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. Seeing Jimmy's frustration at having to constantly defend his heritage, Grandpa Nyles decides to take him on a "vision journey" to explore the life of another light-haired Lakota: the famous leader Crazy Horse. As they travel across the Great Plains, stopping along the way for Grandpa Nyles to tell intriguing stories about Crazy Horse's victories and struggles, Jimmy gradually discovers a sense of pride -- not just in himself, but in the pain and power of his people's history.
How I Became a Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Story
Tim Tingle
Historical Fiction. Ghostly Choctaw narrator Isaac begins his tale with a warning: "I am not a ghost when this book begins, so you have to pay very close attention." In 1830, as his tribe is forced to abandon their Mississippi homeland and travel west, ten-year-old Isaac is horrified to see his visions of violence and illness coming true. Even as he glimpses his own death coming, Isaac finds support, from
not only
his flesh-and-blood family, but also from a little ghost girl, a shape-shifting panther boy, and his talking dog, Jumper. If you're hooked by Isaac's gripping, heartbreaking story, you're in luck: it's the 1st in a trilogy.
Contact your librarian for more great books!
303 Laura St. N.
Jacksonville, Florida 32202


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Probation Service Annual Report 2018
Offending behaviour often is connected to the personal or societal difficulties faced by an individual. The Probation Service has partnerships with a number of other agencies tackling these issues as they contribute to crime, including: homelessness, drug or alcohol addiction or social deprivation.
This section explains what probation is and how it can be an opportunity for you to change the track you are on. It also outlines what to expect when you are referred to the Probation Service by the Courts.
This section outlines what happens when you are first referred to the Probation Service for Assessment. This includes information on what the Probation Officer will seek to cover with you, how long it may take and what happens when the assessment is finished.
A Study of the Number, Profile and Progression Routes of Homeless Persons before the Court and in Custody - 2005
An Empirical Study of Community Service Orders in Ireland by Dermot Walsh & Paul Sexton, 1999
Community Return Study Report (November 2014)
10th Martin Tansey Memorial Lecture. Desistance as a Social Movement. Dr. Shadd Maruna 27th March, 2017 at the Courts of Criminal Justice
9th Annual Cross-Border Public Protection Advisory Group Seminar
Address by the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald T.D. at the Launch of the Irish Prison Service Annual Report 2016, the Probation Service Annual Report 2016 and the launch of "A New Way Forward - the Joint Social Enterprise Strategy 2017 -2019, Mountjoy Prison - May 15th 2017
Department of Justice and Equality, maintaining and enhancing community security and promoting a fair society through a range of policies and high quality services.

subset: commoncrawl


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In the middle of May 2013, Kofi (whose name was changed for this story) was detained and deported to his home country in Africa. The family he left behind—including a girlfriend and two children—are struggling with his absence, unsure of their future or his fate. Listen to the story of this family, and hear how the AFSC community in Newark is speaking out against his deportation and others that tear apart families.
You can read AFSC staff member Elissa Steglich's account of Kofi's deportation Witness to a Family's Tragedy.
To listen to more audios stories, see the Calling forth the Goodness podcast page. For more audio stories like this one, subscribe to the Acting in Faith podcast.
Transcript (Excerpt)
Madeline Schaefer: On May 17th, Kofi, a man seeking asylum and working as a mechanic in Newark, New Jersey, who had fathered a child and was supporting a family, was detained and deported without warning.
Kofi's girlfriend: He left with nothing, no money, no nothing. No clothes. He didn't even say goodbye to the children...and it's very hard.
Madeline Schaefer: How do you tell your four year old daughter that her father has been sent away, indefinitely, and contact with him is infrequent, at best? Kofi's girlfriend, who asked to remain anonymous for our interview, still struggles to find the words to tell her.
Kofi's girlfriend: It's hard to explain because he has been with them since, especially her, since she was baby and he always took care of her. And now to explain to her that he's not coming back it's something so difficult for me to explain. And every time she ask me why I start crying, she asks me what's wrong, but I don't know what to say.


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James Whitcomb Riley
James Whitcomb Riley (7 October 1849 - 22 July 1916 / Greenfield, Indiana)
» Click to list general statistics » OR, select a date :
The Rainy Morning
The dawn of the day was dreary,
And the lowering clouds o'erhead
Wept in a silent sorrow
read more >>
- Hits: Number of visitors who read the poem on the given date.
- Posts: Number of visitors who posted the poem to a friend (via e-mail) on the given date.
- Dates that have "0" hits may not be shown on the list.
- Dates, poems and poets that have "0" hits may not be shown on the list. Statistics are generated daily.


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Wow, way to disappoint Canacorn…a whole week since your last post?
Um..about that…I'm just lazy I guess.
So with that being said, I might as well keep this blog-train a rollin' straight past disappointment and into complete and total failure…
Who's hungry for some TACO*!?!?
Okay, okay…I get it, you're worried I'm gonna' hit you up with Puttin' On The Ritz? Believe me, I was tempted, but you should have a little more faith in your ol' buddy.
Let's kick things off with, Under My Tight Skin!
Oh Taco, you ARE awesome!
What else you got for us today?
How about, Tell Me That You Like It (I'd like to dedicate the top and hairdo worn by the announcer at the beginning of this video to my pal, Yum-Yum, and the fabulous dancers to my Auntie John!)
Man, these live performances are truly works of art! I love how the post-Ritz-Taco is this bizarre combination of Wayne Newton and Perez Hilton!
I just have to play one more video…if only to thoroughly disgust Bwana and completely piss off Myrtle:
Last stop: Heart Break City
There's your daily awesome for today….thank me later….
Canacorn out!
*No, One Night In Bangkok is not a Taco song…That's


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- This event has passed.
DeMset 2013
July 9, 2013 @ 3:00 pm - July 13, 2013 @ 3:00 am
Design and Modeling in Science, Education, and Technology
Design and modeling are concepts and activities common to several disciplines in Science, Education, and Technology. Consequently, design and modeling provide effective concepts, theories, methodologies, and tools for intra- and inter-disciplinary communications. The World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics: WMSCI might provide synergic relationships with a conference on Design and Modeling, and vice versa. Attendees of these conferences might gain insights and have effective analogical thinking in both the formal and informal communication they usually have in meetings, symposia, and conferences. On the other hand research activities are also common to several disciplines in Science, Education, and Technology, as has reciprocal relationships with Design and Modeling. Descriptive models are used in Science, and prescriptive modeling activities are used in designing scientific activities, educational methodologies, and engineering or technological products.
Design, Modeling, and Research are transdiciplinary concepts that might serve well in disciplinary and inter-disciplinary communication. Consequently, the purpose of organizing the 2nd International conference on Design and Modeling in Science, Education, and Technology: DeMSET 2013 is to promote intra- and inter-disciplinary communication by means of common concepts, methods, and tools used in different sub-disciplines and disciplines. Formal presentations might be made in disciplinary and interdisciplinary terms, while informal inter-disciplinary communication could produce insights and analogical thinking.


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Ann Arbor, Michigan
St. Mary Student Parish is the Catholic parish for the students, faculty and staff of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, located just two blocks from the center of campus. St. Mary Student Parish has been serving the Catholic community at U of M for more than 80 years. Catholic campus ministry is the core mission of the parish, which is staffed by members of the Society of Jesus.
Though the parish's emphasis is on campus ministry, it offers a mix of faith and service activities for parish members and families. The Catholic Student Association (CSA) is the primary student organization on campus committed to serving students by promoting and inviting students to the various programs St. Mary Student Parish offers. Additionally, CSA organizes regular outreach activities to engage the campus community.
The Graduate Students & Young Professional Group (GRAD) hosts gatherings at a local restaurant for "Soulfood," a social hour followed by a speaker and discussion on a topic related to their Catholic faith. Undergraduate students can participate in Newman Student Gatherings for prayer, discussions and fellowship.
Additionally, St. Mary's offers student an Alternative Spring Break. Participants put their faith into action for a week of service to one of nine U.S. sites or to one of two international sites for a service immersion trip.


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Eleanor Noss Whitney and Sharon Rady Rolfes created the textbook Understanding Nutrition for Cengage Learning in 2010. If you want to buy Understanding Nutrition online but you don't want to pay top dollar for the 12th edition, we can help. Cheap Understanding Nutrition copies are available if you opt for pre-owned textbooks. Get your textbook now by browsing the collection of discounted Understanding Nutrition copies below. Learn how to spend less on affordable textbooks on nutrition right here. Medical and nutrition students will be thrilled to hear they don't have to spend as much on their textbooks as they thought. Eleanor Noss Whitney is the author of 'Understanding Nutrition', published 2010 under ISBN 9780538734653 and ISBN 0538734655.[read more]
{{post.questionOneAnswer|unescape}} {{post.questionTwoAnswer|unescape}}[read more]
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Generic name:
Sennosides - oral
Brand name(s)
Senna , Senokot
Generic name:
Sennosides - oral
Brand name(s)
Senna , Senokot
Sennosides are used to treat constipation. They may also be used to clean out the intestines before a bowel examination/surgery. Sennosides are known as stimulant laxatives. They work by keeping water in the intestines, which causes movement of the intestines.
Take this medication by mouth as directed by your doctor. If you are self-treating, follow all directions on the product package. If you have any questions, ask your doctor or pharmacist.
If you are using the chewable tablets, chew each tablet well and swallow. If you are using the dissolving strips, allow each strip to dissolve on the tongue and then swallow, with or without water. If you are using the liquid form of this medication, measure the dose carefully using a special measuring device/cup. Do not use a household spoon because you may not get the correct dose.
Dosage is based on your age, medical condition, and response to treatment. Do not increase your dose or take this drug more often than directed. Do not take this medication for more than 7 days unless directed by your doctor. Serious side effects may occur with overuse of this medication (see also Side Effects section).
It may take 6 to 12 hours before this medication causes a bowel movement. Tell your doctor if your condition persists or worsens, or if bleeding from the rectum occurs. If you think you may have a serious medical problem, seek immediate medical attention.
Stomach/abdominal pain or cramping, nausea, diarrhea, or weakness may occur. If any of these effects persist or worsen, tell your doctor or pharmacist promptly.
This medication may cause your urine to turn reddish-brown. This effect is harmless and will disappear when the medication is stopped.
If your doctor has directed you to use this medication, remember that he or she has judged that the benefit to you is greater than the risk of side effects. Many people using this medication do not have serious side effects.
Tell your doctor right away if any of these unlikely but serious side effects occur:
A very serious allergic reaction to this drug is rare. However, seek immediate medical attention if you notice any symptoms of a serious allergic reaction, including:
This is not a complete list of possible side effects. If you notice other effects not listed above, contact your doctor or pharmacist.
In the US -
Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088 or at www.fda.gov/medwatch.
In Canada - Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to Health Canada at 1-866-234-2345.
Before taking this medication, tell your doctor or pharmacist if you are allergic to it; or to senna; or if you have any other allergies. This product may contain inactive ingredients, which can cause allergic reactions or other problems. Talk to your pharmacist for more details.
Before using this medication, tell your doctor or pharmacist your medical history, especially of:
Before having surgery, tell your doctor or dentist about all the products you use (including prescription drugs, nonprescription drugs, and herbal products).
Chewable tablets or dissolving strips may contain sugar. Caution is advised if you have diabetes or any other condition that requires you to limit/avoid sugar in your diet. Ask your doctor or pharmacist about using this product safely.
Tell your doctor if you are pregnant before using this medication. Using it for long periods during pregnancy is not recommended. Consult your doctor for more details.
This medication passes into breast milk, but is unlikely to harm a nursing infant. Consult your doctor before breast-feeding.
The effects of some drugs can change if you take other drugs or herbal products at the same time. This can increase your risk for serious side effects or may cause your medications not to work correctly. These drug interactions are possible, but do not always occur. Your doctor or pharmacist can often prevent or manage interactions by changing how you use your medications or by close monitoring.
To help your doctor and pharmacist give you the best care, be sure to tell your doctor and pharmacist about all the products you use (including prescription drugs, nonprescription drugs, and herbal products) before starting treatment with this product. While using this product, do not start, stop, or change the dosage of any other medicines you are using without your doctor's approval.
Keep a list of all the products you use. Share the list with your doctor and pharmacist to reduce your risk for serious medication problems.
If someone has overdosed and has serious symptoms such as passing out or trouble breathing, call 911. Otherwise, call a poison control center right away. US residents can call their local poison control center at 1-800-222-1222. Canada residents can call a provincial poison control center. Symptoms of overdose may include: severe stomach/abdominal pain or cramping, persistent nausea/vomiting/diarrhea.
Keep all regular medical and laboratory appointments.
Lifestyle changes that may prevent or relieve constipation include exercising, drinking enough water, and eating a proper diet with fiber-rich foods such as bran, fresh fruits/vegetables. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist about lifestyle changes that might benefit you.
If your doctor has directed you to take this medication on a regular schedule and you miss a dose, take it as soon as you remember. If it is near the time of the next dose, skip the missed dose. Take your next dose at the regular time. Do not double the dose to catch up.
Different brands of this medication have different storage needs. Check the product package for instructions on how to store your brand, or ask your pharmacist. Keep all medications away from children and pets.
Do not flush medications down the toilet or pour them into a drain unless instructed to do so. Properly discard this product when it is expired or no longer needed. Consult your pharmacist or local waste disposal company for more details about how to safely discard your product.
HOW TO USE THIS INFORMATION: This is a summary and does NOT have all possible information about this product. This information does not assure that this product is safe, effective, or appropriate for you. This information is not individual medical advice and does not substitute for the advice of your health care professional. Always ask your health care professional for complete information about this product and your specific health needs.
Information last revised May 2020.
Copyright(c) 2020 First Databank, Inc.
Selected from NATIONAL DRUG DATA FILE (NDDF) data included with permission and copyrighted by First Databank, Inc., 2019. This copyrighted material has been downloaded from a licensed data provider.
The above information is intended to supplement, not substitute for, the expertise and judgment of your health care professional. You should consult your health care professional before taking any drug, changing your diet, or commencing or discontinuing any course of treatment.


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Tax G - Hard Headed [Unsigned Hype]
Secret Society Presents -
Single off Tax G's mixtape "WATER" available 1/1/12 on DatPiff.com.
Follow Tax G on Twitter @TaxG
Email firstname.lastname@example.com for video and booking information
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
Comments will only be displayed by verified emails. No Spamming or Racism.


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$.28 per page view would be pretty remarkable, so I investigated. It appears to be true. In Yahoo's Q2 conference call slides (PDF), they say they got 3.14B page views in Q2 2005 and made $875M in revenue.
That's $.28 per page view. Impressive.
Seven months ago, it made a bit of a splash that Google was earning a dime per search. Yahoo's current numbers of $.28 per page view is quite a bit of progress on top of that. It appears the potential to monetize traffic with online advertising just keeps getting better and better.
Update: Umm... No, they don't.
In the comments to this post, Henrik Torstensson points out that the 3.14B page views is per day, not per quarter, so the revenue per page view is closer to $0.003. John Battelle, in his post, quoted Safa Rashtshy as saying $.28 "of revenue per average daily page" which I then misinterpreted.
Sorry, folks, my mistake. I got this one totally wrong.


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Signing Up For Games
A referee is required to be a member of ArbiterSports, the online game scheduling system. Click Here to access the ArbiterSports site.
Click Here to create a District 2 Master Arbiter account.
At the end of the registration process, be certain to select Orchard Valley (OV) as a league within which you wish to officiate games. OVYSL's Referee Assignor will have the option to either accept or deny a referee's request to officiate games for OVYSL.
All referees will be ranked by OVYSL's Referee Assignor, according to OYYSL's Standards of Ranking. Each referee's ranking is documented in OVYSL's Arbiter account. Rankings range from 100 to 800, with 100 being the highest. Referees with zero to little working experience will begin at level 800 and have the ability to increase their ranking to level 100 by working games as Center and Assistant Referee. Each position is ranked separately.
Experienced referees, new to OVYSL, are required to email the Referee Assignor and the Program Director, providing detailed information about past experience, such that a ranking can be determined.
All approved and scheduled games are entered into Arbiter as soon as they become available. Referees will be notified via email by OVYSL's Referee Assignor when games become available in Arbiter.
Approximately 90% of the games are self-assigned. OVYSL's Referee Assignor will assign all games that require a higher level referee, due to the game's complexity and level.
Referees only have visibility to games for which their rank qualifies them and games that have available positions to be filled. If a referee does not see games, one of the above conditions must apply.
Referees may be limited as to how many games they will be able to self-assign per day.
Once you have signed-up for a game, check the field location carefully and allow time for traveling between field locations, if you have sign-up for more than one game on a given day.


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Student or Learner
The description of the word "enough" seems to be confusing.
Sorry, posted in the wrong forum...from https://www.usingenglish.com/members...d.php?w=ENOUGH
* Enough comes before an adjective (Is it placed before or after an adjective?)
* Enough comes before an adverb (Is it placed before or after an adverb?)
* Enough usually comes after a noun (Is it placed before or after a noun?)
I really meant to post this thread in the forum "Comments & Suggestions". Could someone kindly move this thread to that forum?
Last edited by Red5; 06-Apr-2006 at 23:23.
Thanks, Dihen- it will be dealt with.


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Cobb County flasher arrested | Crime
MARIETTA, Ga. -- The man accused of flashing and attacking two women at a Cobb County park has been arrested.
William John Jacobson Jr. was taken into custody Wednesday. The 34-year-old Dallas man faces battery and public indecency charges.
PHOTOS | Mug Shots: See 'em to Believe 'em
Cobb County Police Officer Mike Bowman said Jacobson is accused of charging at two women as they walked in Kennesaw National Park last month.
The victims told police they saw a half-naked man masturbating in the wood line. They said the man then knocked one of them to the ground before running off and driving away in a red pickup truck.
Jacobson confessed after he was questioned in the case, Bowman said.


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ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland's gubernatorial race officially has gained another candidate.
Anne Arundel County Del. Ron George filed to run in the Republican primary for governor Tuesday with his newly announced running mate, Shelley Aloi.
The deadline for candidates to file is 9 p.m. Declared candidates have until Thursday to withdraw.
The primary is June 24. All 188 seats in the Maryland General Assembly will be decided in November.
Statewide offices such as attorney general and comptroller will be on the ballot. A Republican is running for attorney general after the GOP didn't field a candidate in 2010. Jeffrey Pritzker filed this week.
Comptroller Peter Franchot, a Democrat, is running for re-election. Republican William Campbell also is running. Franchot won in 2010 with 61 percent of the vote to Campbell's 39 percent.
(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)


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(CNN) — Democrats will again be ready and waiting next week to make noise when embattled New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hits the road for another high-profile trip.
The Democratic National Committee says it will send former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland to hold a news conference in Chicago on Tuesday, the same day Christie will be in the Windy City fundraising as chairman for the Republican Governors Association.
View original post 334 more words


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While riding New York City's L Train, I spotted this tattoo on an anonymous Williamsburg-bound hipster. I only had a few moments to chat with him as my stop was coming up, but he claims it is a full schematic for a guitar amplifier circuit. It heartens me to think that a piece of engineering ephemera has elevated itself to hipster tattoo art, but another part of me is dismayed. After further inquiry, it turns out the tattoo owner is a musician and actually has no clue what any of those strange symbols mean on his arm.
The first night I met my wife, I noticed the schematic symbol for A/C on her wrist and thought she might be a keeper (especially after finding "soldering" listed under her hobbies on MySpace and realizing that she could cogently explain the difference between alternating and direct current).
Have schematic tattoos become the hip ink du jour? Are they indelible reminders for the rebuilding of a post-apocalyptic society, or just another tattoo fad like tribal markings or cryptic characters in foreign languages?


text:
Fire Report: March 28, 2019By STAFF,
- Read more about Fire Report: March 28, 2019
- 1359 reads
Thu, 03/28/2019 - 12:00am
Editor's Note: Information printed in the "Fire Report" comes via the responding department(s). The Columbian-Progress will correct any errors. Call Editor Charlie Smith at (601) 736-2611 to request a correction or clarification.
Monday, March 18


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- Repairing the Glass Front Panel on an iPhone 3GS
- posted by brian on 2010.12.04 at 04:05 pm
You've dropped your beloved iPhone and smashed the front glass. There are few things more sad. This scenario played out for my wife, who had dropped hers this summer, only 9 months into her AT&T contract. Luckily the phone was still very usable; it was just not easy to see anything on the top third of the display.
If you've cracked your iPhone, you may already know that your warranty does not cover accidental damage (although, you should check with your credit card company…some, especially AMEX, will pay for a replacement if you bought it with a qualified card!). You've probably inquired with Apple and they've told you they offer a "service replacement" for $200. Cheap? No.
It is possible to repair an iPhone yourself and probably for less than $200. You can find repair kits and extensive instructions online. Let me put this out there as a (former) triple-Apple-certified technician: it is not easy to repair your iPhone. My recommendation is that you don't try this yourself unless you're experienced at repairing electronics with extremely small components and tight tolerances.
Now that I have that disclaimer out there, I do have experience repairing Apple electronics. So I repaired my wife's display using a kit and instructions from iFixit.com. It was not easy. The instructions themselves rank the repair as "Difficult". The repair is very simple, but one step in particular is very difficult. Removing the front glass panel from the components that are glued to it is challenging. With the proper tools, it took me more than an hour.
I'm writing this post for anyone who has also bought the iFixit iPhone 3GS Front Panel kit so if you get stuck where I got stuck, hopefully Google has lead you to this post and my commentary is helpful.
Keep reading for the full details.
- Posted in: Apple · Technology
- 0 Comments
- What are you thinking Sidney, NY?
- posted by jake on 2010.10.08 at 12:04 pm
The town should have spent its energy visiting the soccer hall of fame. Then maybe it would still be open.
Town Wants Muslim Graveyard Gone (via digg)
p.s. How does NY State get so many hall of fames? They're all out in the middle of nowhere.
- Posted in: Rant
- 0 Comments
- Elvira coming to ThisTV.
- posted by jake on 2010.08.20 at 05:21 pm
The crazy thing about the return of Elvira, Mistress of The Dark to the small screen is that it's taking place on ThisTV. Crazy because all us people who don't have cable still have a chance to watch. I was too young in the 80's to appreciate her sense of humor and the campy horror movies she shared. I'm excited to check out the show.
- Elvira Returns To The Small Screen
- A thorough interview from a couple years ago, Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark
- Elvira, Mistress of the Dark at Amazon.
Update: Missed the first show this weekend because I was out of town. But here's another article delving into Elvira's history. (via BoingBoing)
- Posted in: Television
- 0 Comments
- Woot.com acquired by Amazon
- posted by jake on 2010.07.01 at 01:29 pm
Even if you've never made a purchase from Woot, and when they sell stuff like "bags 'o crap" I wouldn't blame you, you should read the hi-larious post about the acquisition.
I know I say this every time I find a picture of an adorable kitten, but please set aside 20 minutes to carefully read this entire email.
- Posted in: Humor
- 0 Comments
- Metafilter community saves Russian women from human trafficking.
- posted by jake on 2010.05.21 at 11:40 am
This is way too big an event to simply "share on Facebook."
A user on Metafilter gets contacted by an old friend and student about coming to the States and getting a job in NYC. She traveled from Russia with a friend and her communications started raising flags that she might be in over her head. Worried that human trafficking might be involved and distant from the situation our hero starts a thread at Metafilter and the community goes to work…
- Posted in: Recent Events
- 0 Comments
- First chapter of HTML5 For Web Designers
- posted by jake on 2010.05.06 at 05:50 pm
After reading the first chapter of A List Apart's foray into books I can't wait for it to arrive.
After HTML 4.01, the next revision to the language was called XHTML 1.0. The X stood for "eXtreme" and web developers were required to cross their arms in an X shape when speaking the letter.
No, not really. The X stood for "eXtensible" and arm crossing was entirely optional.
- Posted in: Design · Web
- 0 Comments
- More SimpleXML to display OPML
- posted by jake on 2010.04.22 at 05:28 pm
Matt Katz recently sent in an email regarding the code we use to display our OPML lists. He needed a second pair of eyes to go over his new class. Turned out the bug wasn't in his display function but the once over highlighted some other issues with ours.
The pages here are now updated but we can't keep this all to ourselves. Here's the updated code for traversing an OPML file.
function displayChildrenRecursive($xmlObj,$depth=1) { $outPut = ""; if (count($xmlObj->children()) > 0) { $outPut .= str_repeat("\t",$depth).'
'."\n"; } foreach($xmlObj->children() as $child) { if (isset($child['htmlUrl']) || isset($child['xmlUrl'])) { $outPut .= str_repeat("\t",$depth).'
'; if (isset($child['htmlUrl'])) { $outPut .= ''.$child['text'].''; } else { $outPut .= $child['text']; } $outPut .= (isset($child['xmlUrl'])) ? ' [XML Feed]' : ''; $outPut .= '
'."\n"; } elseif (isset($child['text']) && !isset($child['xmlUrl'])) { $outPut .= str_repeat("\t",$depth).'
<h'.($depth+1).'>'.$child['text'].'</h'.($depth+1).'>'."\n"; } $outPut .= displayChildrenRecursive($child,$depth+1); }
if (count($xmlObj->children()) > 0) { $outPut .= str_repeat("\t",$depth).'
'."\n"; if ($depth > 1) { $outPut .= str_repeat("\t",$depth-1).'
'."\n"; } } return $outPut; }
- Posted in: Programming · Web
- 0 Comments
- iPad: A shift
- posted by brian on 2010.01.29 at 12:40 am
There's a lot of talk every time Apple releases a new product. The vast majority of that judgement comes without ever having seen or touched the new product. Hey, I can do that too.
I almost wasn't going to share my thoughts after reading Jeff Croft's blog post about the iPad this morning. But I'm hardly one to be shy.
I think the iPad is the future of the PC. Period. Looking at the specs, it's easy to dismiss the iPad as just an up-sized iPhone. The fact of the matter is, it basically is. So how is "now" equal to "the future"? The answer, lies in Japanese mobile phone habits.
In Japan, a majority of people count their mobile phone as their primary computing device. Their phones are typically capable of many more things than your typical handset. Until the iPhone went on sale in Japan, non-Japanese phones sold very poorly in the that market, because they couldn't handle the day-to-day computing that people had become accustom to. For the past ten years, the mobile web has been a part of daily life for many Japanese.
- Posted in: Apple · Technology
- 0 Comments
- Chrome 3 Has Issue With @font-face and letter-spacing.
- posted by jake on 2009.12.01 at 03:20 pm
While working on a friend's wedding web site an oddity in Chrome's handling of
@font-facecame to light. Paul Irish's code works wonders for enabling the inclusion of alternative typefaces across browsers. Using Goudy Bookletter 1911 on a production site is exciting. But the navigation breaks when I load up my site in Chrome 3 at work.
As you can see here, the letter spacing of
.2emis not applied to the typeface.
But as soon as I remove the "Goudy Bookletter" declaration from the CSS it magically starts working.
A search through Google produces nothing relevant so I thought I'd document the problem here. Considering this does not affect the latest version of Safari I have no problem waiting for the fix to work its way into Chrome.
Update: Just to clarify, Chrome 4 fixes this issue.
- Posted in: Design · Web
- 0 Comments
- O'Reilly: Soothsayer or Condemner
- posted by brian on 2009.11.18 at 12:15 am
Tim O'Reilly is getting a lot of links to his "War For the Web" piece. For the most part it's worth a read. However, I wonder what goes through a "guru"'s mind sometimes when they write lofty pieces like this. Do they just run it off all in one blast, (like I will on this post) or do they let it sit a couple days, edit, rethink and then post?
I ask because in the middle of his piece, where he names those who "threaten" the future of the open web, he goes after Apple's App Store policy, exposé-style:
The Apple iPhone is the hottest web access device around, and like Facebook, while it connects to the web, it plays by a different set of rules. Anyone can put up a website, or launch a new Windows or Mac OS X or Linux application, without anyone's permission. But put an app onto the iPhone? That requires Apple's blessing.
There is one glaring loophole: anyone can create a web application, which any user can save as clickable application on their phone. But these web applications have limits – there are key capabilities of the phone that are not accessible to web applications. HTML 5 can introduce all the new application-like features it wants, but they will work only for web applications, and can't access key aspects of the phone with Apple's permission. And as we saw earlier this year with Apple's rejection of the Google Voice application, Apple isn't shy about blocking applications that it considers threatening to their core business, or that of their partners.
So, because Apple limits what apps can be on the phone, they're closing down the web? Um… wha? The iPhone is a bit more than just a web-access device, by the way.
He says "one glaring loophole" as if Apple mistakenly forgot to lock down Safari to only approved websites. Name the last time Apple forgot to lock something down in error. The iPhone is not the web. iPhone Apps don't alone give access to the web. The device, although popular with geeks, doesn't have the marketshare it's influence might lead you to believe.
Secondly, there's nothing in HTML5 that is available in the iPhone that Apple only allows access to by an App. No, a web app doesn't have access to various APIs available in the iPhone, but those functions aren't part of the (actually still incomplete) HTML5 specs. In other words, Apple hasn't broken anything web related. In fact, they should be given credit for a) bringing HTML5 to the mobile world b) being a forebearer of HTML 5 in the first place… hello? WebKit? You know, free, open-source and the same thing Chrome and a number of mobile browsers are based on? C) bringing the real web of any kind to a phone.
I'm all for a transparent App Store review process, and I'd love to see Google Voice natively on the iPhone. But this passage simply lacks logic. It's more as if Mr O'Reilly needed more big names to bash in his piece.
- Posted in: Apple · Software · Technology · Web
- 1 Comments


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For those who are interested, it was in the latest issue of Zootaxa, published online here (I don't believe the print version is out yet).
The paper focuses on a group of tropical shallow/deep goniasterid sea stars which include reef setting genera such as Neoferdina but also seldom studied genera such as Ferdina and their relatives. I actually ended up describing 3 additional new genera and MANY new species!
The whole thing is a lot to unpack.. and so here's some take away lessons that I thought I would share from writing it!
I've talked about this before.. the world is flooded with divers, photographers and interested people with cell phones all over the world!
Thanks to a combination of museum collections and divers I was able to identify and describe several new species and even add color variation to poorly known species in the group I published on! Many times these get misidentified as people try to "shoehorn" them into known species in field guides.
This new species for example, Neoferdina oni from the Philippines! I actually identified this species based on material collected by the California Academy of Sciences from one of their recent expeditions (such as this one)
The photographer of this specimen, Martha Kiser was incredibly helpful in allowing me to see her photos of this new species. You can see more of her work on Flickr here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/martykiser/sets/with/72157634344493477
Images such as this one gave me more insight into how the colors vary in already established species! and provide leads to possible NEW species...
2. The Mesophotic Zone: New studies and new Species!
There's a depth region in the ocean that falls just below "coral reef" (~30m) depth but just above the "deep sea" (above 200m).. that's roughly between 100 and 500 feet. More about this area here. and this entire website devoted to this area!
This area is also known as the "Twilight Zone" aka the "sub Reef area" and contains a fauna that is related and similar but distinctly different from those seen at the surface.
The California Academy of Sciences's research division as well as their Steinhart Aquarium have both been studying this area in the Philippines. In 2015, they collected this lovely beast, (and here was a news account showing it off) which I had also been observing in the Paris collections from areas throughout the Indo-Pacific!
I initially identified it as a familiar genus, Neoferdina, but eventually realized it was actually a separate and undescribed genus which I named Bathyferdina!
I've actually been describing Mesophotic Zone starfish for quite a long time. Here was Astrosarkus idipi from many years ago aka the "Great Pumpkin Starfish" and there were several more as well...
One important take away message: Describing new species is PART of understanding the biology of a NEW ecosystem. This was the same thing that happened with understanding all of those predatory coral starfish.. new species led to understanding each "character" of a new ecosystem!
3. Museums & Travel: Where the New Species Roam
Here's a neat new species from the western Indian Ocean-Madagascar and the east coast of South Africa.. Ferdina mena! Identified by the two distinctive bald patches present in each interradius (i.e. the "armpit") of the starfish.
Thanks to the stunning photos of "Optical Allusion" I was even able to find living images of this species in South Africa!
During one of my recent visits to Paris and the Museum national d'HIstorie naturelle in Paris, I discovered that this wasn't just an odd specimen with the twin bald, red spots in each interradius..it was present on ALL of the specimens collected from a collection made from Madagascar!!
and to return to the citizen science angle.. images on Flickr further showed this species in Mozambique as well as further color and pattern variation of this species from South Africa thanks to photographer Derek Keats and others!
So, somewhere in there, this seems to be consistent with the "21 years" which malacologist Dr. Philippe Bouchet has published as the average time it takes for a specimen to get from collection to publication!
This was an interesting lesson.
For one of the new species I had discovered, Paraferdina plakos, I only had one or two individuals on which to base my new species description. Were they the same? Was it variation? How do different individuals differ from one another? Are the defining characters the same across the species range?
SO, I took advantage of some aspects of the internet which I usually list as pet peeves...
1. Misidentified species made by people who don't want/need to figure out the correct species
2. Pictures of species collected by Internet aquarium and pet shops
I was actually able to make OVER TWENTY OBSERVATIONS of this species misidentified as the common "peppermint star" Fromia monilis!!
What does this tell us? Not ONLY are A LOT of new species yet to be discovered but we are ALREADY seeing them sold in the pet trade.. and with no correct identifications by scientists to recognize them, are they endangered? For a species that has just been described we know NOTHING bout its reproductive biology, populations, can they handle the strain of being "fished" for this trade???


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Incase you're wondering what I'm up to check out Carrboro Creative Coworking.
Carrboro Creative Coworking is a professional shared workspace with a community atmosphere. It is designed to be a welcoming environment for microbusiness, freelance professionals, home-office workers, entrepreneurs, start-up business owners, tech workers, graduate students, writers, architects, civil engineers, designers and others. Coworkers receive access to a reliable office space inside a unique modern community.


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Everytime I wear one of my new Crocs the comment is the same. "Cute Shoes" "Thanks, they're Crocs" "Crocs? They make real shoes?" "Yes, Crocs have a whole line of great shoes." They've used the same technology to create comfortable long lasting shoes, from flats, to sandles, to wedges. They're shoes worth getting.
Women's Kadee Patent Flats
I love ballet flats, but sometimes on hot days not enough air gets in and my feet feel like their suffucating. With the Kadee Patent Flats, I don't have to worry about that, because I get the "classic flat profile with distinctive heel windows," to keep my feet cool on a hot summer day. Also, I can walk around in these all day and my feet won't be sore at the end of the day.
Women's Huarache Flats
"Modeled after hand woven huaraches, this version adds festive colors and lightweight comfort to your warm-weather wardrobe." I was at a pool party and recieved a ton of complements on these Huarache Flats. I was a bit skeptical when I first put them on because the straps around the upper part of my feet and around the heels felt light, and slightly loose and I thought for sure they wouldn't stay on. But I was wrong, I have never had them sip off, the Croc material is comfortable and keeps your feet in place.
Women's Walu Canvas Loafers
I was in need of some new work shoes that were sturdy and comfortable for eight hours on my feet. These Walu Canvas Loafers have both that and more. "From the outside, a stylish, refined look is ready for whatever the day holds." They are made with canvas outside and have suede accents. There is a removable microfiber insert which adds to their comfort. They are easy to slip on and off and can be worn with or without socks. Perfect for a day out with friends, or a long day at work.
Women's Sanrah Patent Sandal
My favorite part of these sandals is the "masage-pod footbed." For those, like me, who don't like the strap between your toes from filp-flops, these are a great alternative. These Sanrah Patent Sandals are comfortable and stylish.
Crocs Reto Clog
As always the Classic Croc has the comfort and durability anyone needs. Their great for gardening or just cleaning up around the house. The Retro Clogs come in many different color combinations. "A little funky, a lot of fun! It's the iconic Crocs Clog re-imagined as a 70's-inspired track shoe." They have great traction and great comfort.
Men's Santa Cruz Flatbed Clog
These Santa Cruz Flatbed Clogs for men come in three colors, and are comfortable to wear. "Open to whatever the day holds. Comfortable and casual, this flatbed hauls your feet in simple slip-on style." The new design is easy to get on and off, and has a relaxed canvas top.
If you like Crocs, and want their comfort, but are looking for a slimmer design, look no further. Visit the Croc website, or a store near you to see all their new designs.


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BOSTON, April 8 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, died Monday in her sleep in Boston after a lengthy battle with cancer.
Onyango, who was born in 1952 in Kenya, was Obama's father's half-sister.
The 61-year-old was denied asylum in the United States three times, and finally won on her fourth try in 2010 with the Immigration Court in Boston.


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*Note: Some events will require registration even if the event is free.
To register just select the number of tickets you need and purchase them by "Checking Out" for free.
All events for Wednesdays Together
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June 2022
Wednesdays Together
Please come join us for a Pot Luck dinner then Adult/Youth/Children Fellowship, Activities, Conversation, and Devotional time. Nursery Available.Find out more


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Get DVD Talk Feeds
Laurel Canyon is the kind of film that wins you over with its easy style, its laid-back charm, but when you start thinking about its characters and developments, it just frustrates you with its shallowness. Which is unfortunate, because there are some very likable elements here, not least of which is an incandescent performance by Frances McDormand.
Sam (Christian Bale) and his fiancée, Alex (a luminous Kate Beckinsale) are about to travel to LA, where he will begin his residency as a psychiatrist. He's somewhat irritable and shifty-eyed, and she's a fussy little uptight bitch with a snippy reply to everything Sam says. (She also enjoys good oral sex, as the opening scene lets us know in no uncertain terms.) They plan to stay at the Laurel Canyon home of Sam's mother, Jane (Frances McDormand), a chain-smoking record producer who has led a life of bohemian sexual freedom. She's supposed to be out of town when they arrive, but much to Sam's dismay, she's still in residence, along with her current lover and a band that's recording an album. Our two main characters, whom we dislike for most of the film, settle into their new life and soon, particularly in Alex's case, they begin experiencing sexual awakenings.
The best compliment I can pay Laurel Canyon is that it is an undoubtedly sexy film, from Jane's uninhibited nature to Alex's burgeoning sexuality to the lazy sprawl of the film's tone and pace. It's a film with sex firmly on its mind, and yet many of the characters—including Sam and Alex—are so unlikable and so shallow that the film's "sex drive" becomes much ado about nothing. All I could think was how much of a turn-on this film could have been had I liked the people involved. And in one case, I did—this may be Frances McDormand's finest performance since Fargo. In Laurel Canyon, she exudes an easy carnality, and she also infuses Jane with an emotional depth. The same can't be said of the rest of the cast, unfortunately, despite the fact that Kate Beckinsale is drop-dead gorgeous.
Paramount presents Laurel Canyon in a spectacular anamorphic-widescreen transfer of the film's original 1.85:1 theatrical presentation. This is solid transfer, in all respects. Detail is wonderful, reaching deeply into backgrounds. The rich color palette is brought forth with stunning clarity and vividness. Flesh tones are natural and solid. I noticed no compression artifacts of any kind. Edge halos are all but absent. Paramount is making a habit of churning out first-rate efforts. Bravo!
The disc's Dolby Digital 5.1 track comes alive in a few of the film's musical interludes, pushing the sound into the rears, but otherwise, this film is a dialog-heavy affair that stays right up front. This is not a soundtrack with which to show off your system, but the film doesn't require audio fireworks. This track more than suits the material. Dialog is accurate and clear.
First up is a Commentary with Director Lisa Cholodenko. She's a very well-spoken woman who provides an engaging conversation over the film. She talks about the inspiration of Joni Mitchell's album Ladies of the Canyon and the way McDormand's free-loving chainsmoker is based on Mitchell. She also mentions patterning the character on a producer like Daniel Lanois. She talks at length about her actors and obviously holds all of them in very high esteem. And she doesn't shy away from the erotic aspects of the story and how difficult they sometimes were to film. She is clearly quite proud of her film, and the pride is infectious.
Interestingly, the 21-minute Featurette is an interview piece that repeats many of the comments that Cholodenko makes in the commentary. Except this time, you get to see her talking, interspersed with scenes from the film. She walks through the hiring of the five principal actors, and discusses the cinematographer and the music.
You also get Filmographies, TV Spots, and Trailers for Laurel Canyon, All the Real Girls, Love Liza, and Talk to Her.
Give Laurel Canyon a shot for McDormand's wonderful performance and for the engaging supplements by the film's director. Don't expect deep emotional resonance, but do expect a pretty sexy little drama.


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Home › Classroom Resources › Lesson Plans
Lesson Plan
A-Z: Learning About the Alphabet Book Genre
|Lesson Plan Type
|Estimated Time
|Seven 20- to 30-minute sessions, at minimum
|Lesson Author
Walhonding, Ohio
This lesson exposes second-grade students to a variety of alphabet books to increase their knowledge and understanding of the genre. Students are involved in an interactive read-aloud of A My Name is Alice by Jane Bayers, during which they identify and examine the characteristics of alphabet books. Students then engage in shared writing to create a class alphabet book. After completing the class book, they work in small groups using technology to write their own alphabet books. These books are later shared with an audience, giving an authentic purpose to the writing experience.
Alphabet Organizer: This interactive tool allows students to input a selected word and sentence for each letter of the alphabet.
Olness, R. (2005). Teaching writing and genre literature. In Using literature to enhance writing instruction: A guide for K5 teachers (pp. 1034). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
- Shared writing provides students with a model for their own guided and independent writing.
- Writing pattern books is an effective and nonthreatening way to have students create shared stories.
- Adapting the style of established authors appears to be a significant stage in a child's writing development.
- Alphabet books provide the means to learn: letters and sounds, visual literacy, phonemic awareness, organizational skills, sequencing skills, identification and labeling of objects, content area information, and themes.
Chaney, J.H. (1993). Alphabet books: Resources for learning. The Reading Teacher, 47(2), 96104.
Alphabet books meet a wide range of students' needs, ages, abilities, and circumstances. They not only provide emergent readers with opportunities for oral and written language development, but also allow older students to experience a unique genre of books. Alphabet books can be used to introduce or provide an overview of a topic, to research a topic, or to foster multicultural awareness.


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For loop in bash (can be used on command line or in script)
May 15, 2009 1 Comment
There are so many versions of Bash around and it can be frustrating, to me at least, to do some things for not knowing what is available on a given machine. Well here is one, the for loop. Here are a few different ways to do the same thing (and I am sure there are many others) . The first two below work on current linux machines but only the third works on Solaris 5.8's version of Bash. Enjoy
for ((i=0;i<=5;i+=1)); do echo anda$i; done; for seq 6 7; do echo anda$i; done; for i in 8 9 10 11 12; do cvs tag -d anda$i; done;


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Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Local Love Fridays: The Sweetest of Sweet Gems
I don't think Matt Morgan and Tommy York could have planned it better. If they want someone to linger in their shop, what better strategy than to plant a chocolate kitchen by the front entrance?
The delightful odor of chocolate envelops you as you move closer and closer to Nancy Biehn's workspace - the kitchen and main showroom for Sweet Gem Confections, where Nancy is the Chief Executive Chocolatier.
I met Nancy at the end of a long day, and was somewhat mixed about a late-ish afternoon interview. All hesitation disappeared when I walked into her space. I felt like Charlie entering the Chocolate Factory.
Of course, there was also Nancy's wonderful energy and love for her craft, which was evident everywhere: the gorgeous display case, filled with myriad types of her hand-crafted, artisan chocolates, a wall of colorful ribbons, cooling racks filled with groups of the different truffles, crafted recently.
My next question seemed superfluous, surrounded by all this sumptuous glory. "How did you get started with all this?"
Nancy had taken a year in Ovieto, Spain to "find herself" as many of us do at some point or another in our lives. During that year she learned to really look at food for the first time. She grew up on a farm and food was definitely the mainstay of her family's life, but the attitude was always "eat to live". In Spain, influenced by the mother in the family she lived with, food began to take on an almost magical feel. She loved the care that went into cooking, the travel to taste new foods or wines, the different levels of aesthetics that went into each meal. After discovering a favorite chocolate shop in Oviedo, she completely fell in love.
When she came back, she knew she wanted to learn how to make chocolate. She spent the next ten years learning about her craft on her own, and then taking a couple of patisserie classes at Schoolcraft College in Livonia to learn tempering. After making chocolates as gifts for several years, a friend suggested she go into business. The whole Ann Arbor area is richer for her decision to follow that friend's advice.
Nancy's chocolates are as beautiful as they are delicious. They have been a part of special celebrations for our family ever since my husband and I met her at her stall at the Farmers Market on a cool, autumn day last year. Like all good, local food, her chocolates are seasonal, and while some favorites, such as milk chocolate mint ("cream infused with fresh mint leaves, mixed with milk chocolate, dipped in dark chocolate and embellished with a colorful finish") are available year-round, others are dependent on the seasons, such as the current Peach Truffles - tarragon-infused cream and peach puree mixed with Maralumi 45% milk chocolate and then dipped in dark chocolate. Nancy's selections are based on whim and by suggestions from customers; one of the things she loves about running her own business is the flexibility to change and to be spontaneous.
What makes Sweet Gems unique is that Nancy uses a variety of single-origin chocolates and then uses the essence of a particular chocolate, whether it's smoky or fruity, complex with various notes, or more straightforward, and matches it with the very best local ingredients or top-shelf liqueurs. She uses cream and butter from Calder Dairy, raspberries that she picks herself from Makielski's, strawberries from Gibbs Berry Farm and honey from various local sources. Before the demise of Leopold Brothers, she made a fabulous truffle that used their stout. To give you a sense of the range of her truffles, she creates items as basic (but oh so amazing) as my personal favorite, the Strawberry Pate - "Fresh strawberry pectin fruit pate dipped in Michel Cluizel's single origin "Conception" dark chocolate" to one of the most beautiful and complex in her current repertoire - Jasmine Tea w/ Citrus Zest - "Dark chocolate and fresh cream infused with pearl jasmine tea and grapefruit zest, diamond cut, dipped in white chocolate, and finished with a pattern of branches and flowers".
In addition to Nancy's extraordinary truffles, she also makes decadent caramels, chocolate barks of various types, chocolate covered toffee and a lovely, spicy cocoa mix. She also puts together chocolate-making classes for groups of four to six. Upcoming classes will be taking place from 1:00 - 3:30 on the following Saturday afternoons: September 19th, September 26th, October 24th, and November 14th. If you're interested about the experience, local blogger and wedding poet Chloe Miller has a lovely write up on her blog, Wordarrangement's Blog, of a recent class.
If you wish to see Nancy at work, you can watch a video of an interview with Nancy here.
Sweet Gem Confections can be found inside Morgan and York, 1928 Packard Road Ann Arbor, MI 48104. You can get more information from Nancy at 734-929-6513 or by e-mailing info at sweetgemconfections dot com. You can also order Sweet Gem Confections online.
Every week, a small Ann Arbor area business will be featured here. Please feel free to grab the button and highlight special, small businesses from your area and be sure to buy local! If you are able, and would be so kind, please leave comments about this post at my new writing gig here.
19 comments:
- Liz Dwyer said...
Oh my goodness... I want to eat all those. I don't even care if my pants stopped fitting!
- August 14, 2009 at 5:52 AM
- Lauren said...
I love this post! I'm a big fan of M&Y and I drool at those chocolates every time I go in...thanks for telling me a bit more about Nancy!
- August 14, 2009 at 9:27 AM
- Korie said...
Ahem, um, if you can make it to the wedding and feel like bringing some of these, I totally would have NO problem with that.
- August 14, 2009 at 12:28 PM
- Goofball said...
I love Lilacspecs' comment
- August 14, 2009 at 1:25 PM
- Goofball said...
I love Lilacspecs' comment
- August 14, 2009 at 1:25 PM
- Elizabeth Bradley said...
Shoot, I live to far away. Her chocolates remind me of some my husband brought back from Belgium. There was one infused with thyme and tea that I'll never forget. But I do believe the chocolates you have pictured here may be some of the prettiest I've ever seen. Even in Paris. Now I'm craving a bit of chocolate after reading your post.
- August 14, 2009 at 2:06 PM
- Brian Miller said...
so many good textures and layers here. the blends they put together, the fact they are local and use local...and its chocolate...i mean...
- August 14, 2009 at 2:22 PM
I LOVE how you are featuring small local businesses like this. Nancy seems like a gem herself! I get so emotional seeing people do something they truly love and are good at.
- August 14, 2009 at 7:59 PM
- Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...
These are calling to me. Love how you are featuring local businesses Jen.
- August 15, 2009 at 3:14 PM
- The P & A Food Chronicles said...
this is awesome, i would love to do tempering... woop woooop!1
- August 15, 2009 at 6:01 PM
- Shan said...
Beautiful chocolate!
- August 15, 2009 at 8:47 PM
- Jen said...
Oh my goodness - I'm so far behind - my apologies, Everyone!
Los A - they are truly remarkable - Nancy is an artist.
Lauren - I'm also a big fan of M&Y - it's a wonderful store and it supports so many different local food efforts. And I just love Nancy and her chocolates!
Lilac - I think that can be arranged. ;-)
LOL, Goofball! I'm afraid they wouldn't make it to Belgium, though, at least not if I were carrying them. Hi, hi!
Elizabeth - they're pretty extraordinary. I've had the great good luck to go to Paris on a few trips and I believe Nancy's are right up there with anything I've seen/tasted there.
Brian - yeah. Exactly.
Burp - indeed. And it fits in with love for the arts or any other deep passion. I'm so inspired by all these folks!
Thanks so much, Val. I'd love to get others in other locations to join! I know BC has amazing local businesses. ;-)
P amp - Do you live near at all? Nancy's got classes coming up. I'm definitely signing up for one of her September classes.
Shan - yes, aren't they?
- August 16, 2009 at 9:24 AM
- Marianne Arkins said...
Okay... this is the first time I'm GLAD I don't live there because if I did, I'd weigh 8 billion pounds! How do you resist buying one of everything?
- August 16, 2009 at 2:15 PM
- Jen said...
Well, they're kind of a special occasion item, Marianne, if that helps? But yeah, they're really, really amazing. What I don't understand is that Nancy looks great, and I sure wouldn't if I had her business and her talent!
- August 16, 2009 at 3:40 PM
- Jenn@slim-shoppin said...
What a wonderful place to visit!
I love chocolates that look really pretty too!
- August 16, 2009 at 6:09 PM
- Hotmamamia said...
I forgot to comment here after I commented at the other place....we are DEFINITELY planning on seeing you at the wedding...you just need to bring a tiny box for the wedding girl though...you will be my gift!
- August 16, 2009 at 7:08 PM
- Jen said...
Jenn - they're pretty remarkable, even by Chicagoland standards. ;-)
Hot Mama - Thanks! And chocolates are a natural for a wedding. ;-) I'd still like to have you all come up for a visit, too - and we can do some foodie things!
- August 16, 2009 at 8:37 PM
- Chloe Yelena Miller said...
Thanks for the link! Mmm... I have to return to Sweet Gems right away! What a great blog!
- August 17, 2009 at 8:15 AM
- Jen said...
Chloe - yours, too, and thanks for the kind words! Sweet Gems really are perfection, aren't they?
- August 19, 2009 at 6:55 AM


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For scribing inlay grooves in a radius. 11/16" minimum radius. Maximum is 4" without the addition of Extension Rods. Cutter is .032" thick. Thicker blades also available. Powder-Coated Aluminum body, Steel rods. Additional Pivot Point included. Patent pending.
Optional Radius Cutter Extension Rods offer a greater range of radii. Can be combined with more than one pair as needed.
Click here to view our YouTube video on Sharpening the Radius Cutter.
Click here to download a PDF copy of the instructions for this tool.
Our collaboration with Educator/ Cabinetmaker, Steve Latta, began in 2006, when he approached us about designing a selection of inlay tools based on the tools he'd developed over many years of studying and creating 18th century furniture. Our inlay tools are the first commercially available tools designed specifically for stringing inlay. These tools cut precisely and are easily adjusted. Additional blade thickness offer maximum design flexibility.
When arcs cross or intersect each other, cut and fill the first arc. After the glue has set for a few minutes (yellow glue is recommended) and the stringing has been leveled to the surface, cut the second arc slicing right through the stringing of the first. This method saves time and leads to cleaner work.
The cutting tips must be sharp. To check, angle the tool so that only one Radius Cutter tooth makes contact with the wood surface. Make a cut cross-grain. Roll the tool back and repeat the process with the other tooth. The cutting action should slice rather than tear the fibers. Keep in mind, soft or spongy woods are more likely to tear. If tearing occurs, the tips need to be filed until they function like a knife. Examine the tips of the teeth. If there are any flat spots, indicated by a reflection at the very tip of a tooth, the point needs to be re-established using a small triangular file.
For more information on using the Radius Cutter and how to use stringing inlay in your work, we recommend Steve Latta's DVD Fundamentals of Inlay: Stringing, Line & Berry.
Grind outside bevels on an edge sander, sanding belt or grinding wheel, using a medium grit belt (120-150). To file the inside edges, use a 4" double extra slim tapered file. Hold the file perpendicular to the blade, and angled at 45º (this will line it up with both bevels).
File lightly, touching both teeth at the same time, until you no longer see light reflecting off the points.
Make sure that the tips of the two teeth remain even. After filing, smooth the faces of the cutter on a honing stone.
Materials and workmanship are guaranteed for the life of your tool. Call for repairs or replacement parts. We are available for advice if you ever have a problem using your tool.
Bronze and brass alloys contain lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects, or other reproductive harm. Wash hands after handling.


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Back to Help prevent animal abuse!
Rare camera trap footage provides hope for this near-extinct species
A camera trap gave conservationists a rare glimpse of two Javan rhinos and their calves in Ujung Kulon National Park. The footage, filmed in November and December of 2010, proves that Javan Rhinos are breeding in the park, a crucial achievement. The park has only recorded twelve other Javan rhino births in the past decade.
Poaching, diseases introduced by domestic cattle, and tsunamis or volcanic eruptions are just some of the factors that have left only 40 Javan rhinos in the wild today. Although the few remaining Javan rhinos are protected in this national park, the area is highly vulnerable to natural disasters which could easily destroy all life in the protected area.
"What Javan rhinos need is protection from poaching and to safeguard their fragile numbers by establishing a second population through translocation," said Dr. Barney Long, WWF's Asian species expert. "We don't have much time to get the work done because there are no Javan rhinos in captivity. If we lose them in the wild then the world will have lost them forever."
You can read the whole story, and see the stunning footage for yourself, by clicking here: http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2011/WWFPresitem20367.html (http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2011/WWFPresitem20367.html)
Support WWF's conservation
Please help us save this critically endangered species—donate directly to our Javan Rhino conservation efforts. Your donation will help fund urgent projects that could make the difference between continued existence and extinction for the remaining Javan Rhinos.
https://secure2.convio.net/wwf/site/Donation2?4700.donation=form1&df_id=4700&s_src=AWE1108GD90R (https://secure2.convio.net/wwf/site/Donation2?4700.donation=form1&df_id=4700&s_src=AWE1108GD90R)
Thank you for your support!
Your friends at WWF


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Posts Tagged 'Ancient'
Let's think out of the box
Posted November 30, 2011on:
Everyone has issues, challenges and problems in life. Everyone is trying to face those challenges and find ways to solve problems.
People are playing by the 'rules' of the game which are seldom challenged. Here is a short story from the Greek literature which brings a very interesting moral: 'There is more than one way to solve any problem in life'
Here is the story:
In ancient Greek mythology, Gordius, who was King of a state, gave a challenge to the people.
He declared that whoever could untie the 'knot' was destined to become ruler of all Asia.
People came one after the other and tried their level best to open the knot. No one was able to untie or open it fully. Puzzle remained where it was – the knot was still tied.
Then came Alexander the Great. He too tried his hand at the task but like others, he was also unable to get the knot untied. He got impatient.
He tried again and again with both hands to open the knot. However, knot was tied in a manner that he was unable to untie it with his hands. Impatience started growing.
Finally, he pulled out his sword and smashed it down on the knot, cutting it in half!.
Instead of using hands, he used his sword to cut the knot.
The king saw this and told the audience that his challenge was to untie the knot.
Though Alexander has used unconventional way, he has achieved the results. Alexander was awarded the prize and he became ruler of all Asia.
So, the moral of the story: There are more than one way to look at a problem. Unconventional ways may help at time! We might need to think more, re-frame the problem and think out of the box to find the solution.
Note: The above story is from the book: Tales for Coaching by Margaret Parkin


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Re: Re: computing residues
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg54837] Re: [mg54821] Re: [mg54785] computing residues
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl>
- Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 05:07:35 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
On 3 Mar 2005, at 04:29, Daniel Lichtblau wrote: > mjumbo wrote: > >> Hello, >> >> I would like to compute residues of analytical function, but >> Mathematica's built-in function Residue produces extremely strange >> results. E.g. >> >> Residue[1/Sin[z], {z, w}] >> >> gives 0, I expected it produce some conditional expression, or at >> least to leave this expression unevaluated, but 0 is surely >> incorrect. >> What I am doing wrong? >> >> MJM >> __________ >> www.newmail.ru -- >> >> > > You are not doing anything wrong but your expectation is not realistic. > You would like Residue to encorporate, among other things, a > (nonexistent) transcendental solver, and an oracle to determine when > the > expansion point might be treated as arbitrary. This would also raise > serious design issues in terms of how to describe the result. To see > what I mean, consider what output you think might be realistic for the > following examples. > > Residue[(z^2-1)/Sin[z*Pi], {z,z0}] > Residue[(z^2-1)/Sin[Sin[z*Pi]], {z,z0}] > Residue[(z^2-1)/Sin[z*t], {z,z0}] > Residue[1/(z-Tan[z]), {z,z0}] > Residue[1/(z-t*Tan[z]), {z,z0}] > Residue[1/Sin[z], {z,z0-Sqrt[z0^2]}] > > I can tell you how one might begin to approach this. Use Reduce to find > zeros of 1/f[z]. Give up when Reduce fails. Otherwise attempt to use > its > result as an assumption to Series in order to find information about > singular points. > > Among other issues this assumes that you can in some way recognize what > is the "variable" on which you will place assumptions. And that Series > can be used to advantage with appropriate assumptions. For example, > here > we find a pole, as desired. > > In[19]:== Series[1/Sin[z*Pi], {z,z0,1}, > Assumptions->Element[z0,Integers]] > > Sec[Pi z0] Sec[Pi z0] Tan[Pi z0] > Out[19]== ----------- + --------------------- + > Pi (z - z0) 2 > > 2 > Pi Sec[Pi z0] Pi Sec[Pi z0] Tan[Pi z0] 2 >> (------------- + -------------------------) (z - z0) + O[z - z0] > 6 4 > > Here we are not so fortunate. > > In[21]:== Series[1/Sin[z], {z,z0,1}, > Assumptions->Element[z0/Pi,Integers]] > > 2 > Out[21]== Csc[z0] - Cot[z0] Csc[z0] (z - z0) + O[z - z0] > > In summary, I see several things standing in the way of this rather > vaguely proposed functionality. > > (1) Lack of a clear design for what it should do, e.g. how to return > the > result. > (2) Lack of capabilities to discern singular points. > (3) Lack of an ability to recognize that the expansion point is in some > way not bound to a specific "value" (that is to say, how do we know to > treat it as being "possibly a singularity"). > (4) Lack of an ability to recognize what are the assumptions needed to > place us at such points. > (5) Lack of a reasonable way to expand series with those assumptions > that place us at such points. > > > Daniel Lichtblau > Wolfram Research > > > It seems to me that all the above arguments are reasonable and convincing but they still do not justify returning a meanngless 0 whenever Mathematica has no idea of what the answer should be rather than returning the result unevaluated as is usually done in such cases. The current approach is quite useless while the "normal" approach has soem uses, since it allows us to use an "inert" result for later substitution and evaluation. With the current approach we can construct (in Maxim's style ;-)) examples like: Residue[1/Sin[x], {x, Root[8*#1^3 - 6*#1 - 1 & , 1] - Cos[Pi/9]}] 0 FullSimplify[Unevaluated[Residue[1/Sin[x], {x, Root[8*#1^3 - 6*#1 - 1 & , 3] - Cos[Pi/9]}]]] 1 It does not appear programistically impossible to change this behaviour and it should not cause any serious backward compatibility problems. In fact, even a somewhat more ambitious approach might be possible: use the method you have indicated to see if you get any useful results you can and return an If statement just as definite integration with symbolic limits does. Personally I have doubts whether this is worth implementing, given that it is not likely to be used very frequently and a user that needs it can easily do it himself with the help of Reduce, but simply returning 0 seems to me to be completely useless and difficult to justify. Andrzej Kozlowski


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Canned pumpkin is back in stores and the world is right again. Deep sigh of relief. And I hope you all are as in love with pumpkin right now as I am, because there are many more recipes to come!
A few days ago, Jamie and I had a lot of fun picking out pumpkins at a pumpkin patch - I don't think I'd ever seen so many varieties and colors. I'm looking forward to carving the pumpkins when it gets a little cooler here and toasting pumpkin seeds, one of my favorite fall snacks to make.
For a relaxing breakfast last weekend, I made Pumpkin Pecan Oatmeal, slightly sweet, with a nice crunch from the toasted pecans, and a little tang from the dollop of Greek yogurt. You could, of course, top your bowl of oatmeal with whipped cream instead.
And for an engagement party last night, at the request of the bride-to-be, I made Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. They were a big hit, as were the Pumpkin Cake Truffles with Sea Salt. The cake truffles were the happy result of a not-so-pretty first batch of cupcakes. I had intended to make mini cupcakes (without a mini muffin pan), so I just set all the mini liners on a baking sheet and hoped they would hold their shape. They didn't.
Although the cake was delicious, it had spread out in every direction that the papers decided to go, so there was an odd assortment of squares, oblongs, and what was that weird shape from geometry? Oh, yeah, a trapezoid. Jamie tried to convince me that it didn't matter how they looked, just how they tasted, but I really, really wanted them to look pretty, too. So I set those aside and started over. The second batch baked in my standard-sized pan were perfect. Moist, pumpkiny, spicy, with just the right amount of cream cheese frosting, and a little pumpkin pie spice, fall-colored sprinkles and sanding sugar to finish them off.
As you know, I don't like to waste ingredients. So I stared at the pan of misshapen mini cupcakes for a few minutes, then decided I could do something with the crumbs. After crumbling them up in my food processor, they were already pretty moist to the point that they could be shaped into balls, so I just tossed them with a little caramel and sweetened condensed milk for a little more moisture and richness. And after all those crumbs were rolled into little cake balls, dipped in a bath of melted chocolate and sprinkled with a touch of coarse sea salt, I knew I'd created a little mouthful of heaven.
They were a real hit at the party and disappeared before we even got around to grilling the hamburgers and brats. One of the guys there, who I wouldn't have thought to have such a sweet tooth, is pretty determined now to get me to make him his own batch of cake truffles. What's wonderful about using cake to make these truffles is that it's a great way to use up the cake that's left over after leveling a layer cake, or maybe a few lonely cupcakes that you don't have enough frosting for, or even cakey cookies or pancakes.
And to end the week with one last pumpkin recipe, this morning I made Whole Wheat Pumpkin Pancakes with Honey and Caramel Cream. This perfect fall breakfast is just another reason to love pumpkin this time of year!
Pumpkin Pecan Oatmeal
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
- 1 cup oats
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup toasted pecans
- 1/4 cup Greek yogurt
- milk, if desired
In a medium saucepan, bring the water to a boil over medium heat. Add the pumpkin, oats, pumpkin pie spice, brown sugar, vanilla and salt, and stir to combine. Return to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 4-5 minutes.
Spoon into bowls and top with the Greek yogurt and toasted pecans. Add milk, too, if desired. That's how I like mine!
Yields about 3 servings.
Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
- 2 cups, plus 2 tablespoons, all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2/3 cup Greek yogurt
- 3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
caramel cream infusion:
- 1/4 cup caramel topping
- 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
cream cheese frosting:
- 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- 3 1/2 - 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1-2 tablespoons milk, if needed
- pumpkin pie spice
- fall-colored sprinkles and sanding sugar
Make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners. The liners I used were slightly bigger, so I only made 18 cupcakes, but depending on the size of your liners, you may get 24 cupcakes out of this recipe.
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside.
With an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and white sugar for 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl down and beat in the eggs, one at a time, for 2 minutes. Add the vanilla.
Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the yogurt, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Add the pumpkin and beat until just combined.
Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake for approximately 18 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pans for several minutes then transfer the cupcakes to wire racks to cool completely.
Make the caramel cream:
In a small bowl combine the caramel topping and sweetened condensed milk (you can make much more than what's called for here, using equal parts of each, and store the leftovers in the fridge to pour on pancakes, in coffee, etc).
Pour into a plastic squeeze bottle. Using the pointed end of a chopstick, poke a hole in the center of each cooled cupcake, not poking any deeper than halfway down. Insert the tip of the squeeze bottle and squeeze a small amount of the caramel cream in each. It will soak into the cake, creating a very moist center.
Make the frosting:
With an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla bean paste for 2-3 minutes until smooth. Gradually add the powdered sugar until you have reached the desired consistency.
Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes. Top each with sprinkles and pumpkin pie spice.
Yields 18-24 cupcakes.
Pumpkin Cake Truffles with Sea Salt
- 6 cups cake crumbs
- 1/4 cup caramel
- 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
- 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
- 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
- 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
- sprinkles
Place the cake crumbs in a large bowl and drizzle with the caramel topping and sweetened condensed milk. Toss with a fork until very moist and clumpy.
Using a tablespoon measuring spoon to keep the cake balls evenly sized, scoop a spoonful of crumbs into your hand. Roll firmly between your hands to shape into a ball. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and repeat with the remaining cake crumbs.
Melt both chocolates according to the instructions on the package. I would suggest working in batches, only melting 2-3 ounces of each at a time, then melting more as you need it. I coated mine pretty thickly with chocolate, so I used the entire amount.
Dip the cake balls into the chocolate and coat completely. Using a spoon, carefully lift them out of the chocolate and place in a mini baking cup. After coating 10 cake balls with chocolate, sprinkle those with a touch of sea salt and colorful sprinkles, before the chocolate sets. Repeat with the remaining cake balls and chocolate.
Refrigerate for 1-2 hours before serving, and refrigerate any leftovers. Be prepared for lots of compliments and bribes!
Yields about 45 truffles.
Whole Wheat Pumpkin Pancakes with Honey and Caramel Cream
- 1 cup whole-wheat flour
- 1/2 cup all-purpose white flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
- 3/4 cup honey-flavored Greek yogurt
- 1/2 cup skim milk
- 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- honey
- caramel cream (equal parts caramel topping and sweetened condensed milk)
- powdered sugar
In a large bowl, whisk together both flours, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining wet ingredients.
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon just until combined. Batter should be lumpy. Set batter aside for 15 minutes.
Heat a griddle to medium heat and spray with non-stick spray. Scoop 1/4 cup dollops of batter onto the griddle and cook for 3-4 minutes until golden brown underneath and air bubbles are rising to the surface of the batter. Flip and cook the other side until golden brown. Keep pancakes warm in a 200-degree oven while you cook the remaining pancakes.
Serve the pancakes with honey between each layer and topped with a small drizzle of the caramel cream and a sprinkle of powdered sugar.
Yields 14 pancakes.


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This isn't the first crashed BRZ, nor is it the first Toyobaru to crash in the US, but it might be the first time an American BRZ has been crunched.
We have no details on how it happened, but it's clear that the Subaru was hit by another vehicle, and didn't just drift into something, as was the case with the FR-S crash. Perhaps BRZ buyers really are a more refined group of people?
(Hat tip to Franksters!)


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Jim Poterba's curriculum vitae spans 19 pages. Congressional testimony, fellowships, lectures, books and other publications he has bylined, even unpublished papers—it's all there.
Now, the 54-year-old economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology can add another line to his lengthy list of credits: the 2012 Achievement in Applied Retirement Research Award, presented this month at the Retirement Income Industry Association's fall conference. The award is sponsored by Research magazine and AdvisorOne.com, as well as RIIA.
"Jim's the academic economist equivalent of a gold medal Olympic athlete," notes Moshe Milevsky, who got the award in 2008. "He fully deserves this year's Applied Retirement Research award, and perhaps next year's as well."
For the past three decades, the MIT economist has focused his research on how taxation affects the economic decisions of households and firms. Poterba's recent work has explored the effect of taxation on the financial behavior of households, particularly their saving and portfolio decisions. And he has long been interested in the analysis of tax-deferred retirement saving programs such as 401(k) plans and in the role of annuities in financing retirement consumption.
The big takeaway for financial advisors: one size does not fit all.
As Poterba puts it, "Almost every time I look at data on household balance sheets and household circumstances, particularly at older ages, I'm struck by how much heterogeneity there is in the population."
At one end of the spectrum are people in their 70s, 80s and 90s who have very little in the way of assets beyond a Social Security claim, perhaps an employer-provided pension and, in many cases, an owner-occupied house. At the other end: high levels of wealth saved at rates that seem remarkable relative to income.
"It's important in thinking about policy design and some of the private sector financial questions the advisor community is working on. One-size-fits-all advice is very unlikely to do the job," observes Poterba, who did his undergraduate work at Harvard and went on to study at Oxford University, where he got a master's and doctorate in economics. "We really do need to recognize the different circumstances of households—the different desires, the different needs, the different risks. This is the challenge of advising the elderly."
The passion that underlies Poterba's academic research was first sparked when he was a freshman at a Pennsylvania high school. Two things happened to Poterba, the son of an accountant and an elementary school teacher. He took an economics class and joined the debate team. The national debating topic that year: whether the federal government should finance elementary and secondary education in the U.S.
"There was a lot about taxes, revenues, state versus federal, intergovernmental transfers. It's quite close to my subject of research today," says Poterba, who serves as president of the National Bureau of Economic Research. "We worked on the topic that whole year, taking both affirmative and negative positions so I learned a lot about associated issues like the regressivity of value-added tax and property tax. It certainly influenced my thinking."
By the time he graduated, Poterba's debate team was ranked one of the top in the country. The topic in his senior year involved allocation of scarce world resources. "You could not ask for a topic closer to the fundamentals of economics," says Poterba. "I guess the die was cast my freshman year."
That sense of right-place, right-time followed Poterba as he came up. At Harvard, he worked as an undergraduate research assistant for both Lawrence Summers and Martin Feldstein, notable economists interested in the tax system and its effect on households and corporations. When he began teaching at MIT in 1983, it was the early days of the 401(k) and the "IRA experience."
"Questions associated with tax rules on retirement savings were front and center," says Poterba. Then, in the early 1990s, the National Institute on Aging began sponsoring a biennial survey of households late in life, tracking people's health and economic circumstances. The survey results completely changed the way retirement research was done.
"This was transformational. The last two decades represent a revolution in the amount of high-quality information that's available about households in retirement," says Poterba, who is married to MIT economist Nancy Rose. "It's a data-rich environment. There's lots of numerical information to slice and dice. It's something I really enjoy—trying to think through how we tease information out of different data sets."
Milevsky, an associate professor of finance at York University and executive director of the non-profit IFID Centre in Toronto, calls Poterba one of the world's leading scholars in the field of public economics.
"He is a known guru on all aspects of taxation policy and how it impacts the economy. He is not only an academic theoretician, he has actually served on a number of presidential-level committees to investigate these things in the real world," says Milevsky. "If you want somebody to help you think through the tax implications of almost anything in economics, he is your man."
Poterba, meantime, continues to diligently follow where the research takes him.
"The work I've been associated with has shown up in many contexts—in public policy discussions and in private," he says. "But there's no Jim's plan or Jim's rule. It's simply following the thread."


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Alexander McQueen Cancels its Fall Show, Jean Paul Gaultier's Red Light District Striptease
McQueen Cancels Fall Show: Alexander McQueen is skipping its fall fashion show this season in favor of a small, exclusive presentation. Why you ask? Sarah Burton, the brand's creative director currently has something in common with one of her more famous patrons, Kate Middleton. She's pregnant! Currently expecting twins, Burton will remain on maternity leave in London during Paris Fashion Week. The brand will return to a show format next season. [WWD]
Jean Paul Gaultier's Strip Tease: Jean Paul Gaultier took a little inspiration from Amsterdam's infamous Red Light District when staging his menswear show yesterday in Paris. The enfant terrible as he's been coined by fashion fans had his models emerge from a pink-lit booths (complete with a plexiglass doorway)—each one stripping off their clothes off as they progressed down the runway. [Fashionista]
Luxury Retail Pop-Ups in DC for Inauguration: Luxury retail stores are popping up in high-end hotels throughout Washington DC in advance of President Obama's second term inauguration. Stores including Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale's, Montblanc, and Neiman Marcus have opened temporary locations inside of DC's renowned hotels to offer heightened services to those in town for the festivities. The Ritz Carlton's Northwest location is playing host to Saks, and is offering complimentary makeup appointments from Dior and Chanel cosmetics. Neiman Marcus's pop-up at the St. Regis is hawking black-tie essentials including tux shirts and black socks. [USA Today]
Jourdan Dunn Crosses the Pond: Model and cooking show host Jourdan Dunn is moving across the pond to New York. The 22-year-old, who was enlisted by Jay-Z to become a part of his new Life and Times YouTube channel with a show called Well Dunn, is making the move to explore other opportunities in entertainment. [Vogue UK]
Kate Young Designs for Target: Stylist Kate Young, who's responsible for dressing flawless celebrities like Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams, is teaming up with Target to release a capsule collection of eveningwear. Bowing on April 14 (just in time for prom dress-seekers), the limited-edition collection will include apparel and accessories that range in price from $14.99 to $89.99. [WWD]


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7 Reasons to Join
You care:
You still want to make a difference. We do, too. The Peace Corps community has a unique set of experiences and skills which – when brought together – can make a difference.
The Peace Corps experience doesn't end after 2 years. once you've been in the Peace Corps, you are connected forever to 200,000 other volunteers who share similar experiences.
Stay connected:
NPCA makes it easy to maintain your Peace Corps connections and make new ones through our social networking site, global events and member groups.
You need to take the next step:
Now that you're back home you're left with the question, "Now what?". NPCA's Mentoring program matches you with an Returned Volunteer to ask questions about your career and your next moves.
You know about the developing world:
NPCA and its member groups connect you to other people and projects in the developing world and the US.
Make your voice heard:
The Peace Corps and Peace Corps-related issues have always been at the center of our advocacy program. Help raise our community's collective voice and strengthen our actions in support of these important issues.
Everyone needs good reading material:
WorldView, our quarterly magazine, provides the Peace Corps perspective on global issues and highlights the work of the Community – stories you won't find anywhere else.
Everybody likes a discount:
Every penny counts in this economy. You are eligible for various discounts and opportunities to help you save.