text:
Macpac Minaret
A sturdy four-season tent, lightweight and pretty…
Source: bought it new
Price Paid: $450
A sturdy four-season tent, lightweight and pretty much bomb proof. Integral pitch design makes it a snap to get up in any sort of weather, but can also have fly and inner pitched seperately.
- Light
- Solid in strong wind
- Well made
- Small inner
- Hot in summer
- Small vestibule space
The Minaret is an easy to pitch tent, requiring only a handful of pegs most of the time. The guy lines are pretty much unnecessary unless you are in some really strong wind. It pitches well, once it's pegged out tight, the rest just comes together.
The Minaret stays strong in the roughest of weather, the only real let downs in a bad weather tent day are that it is quite small. The specs say it is a 2-person tent, but I would consider it a 1-person tent, unless the two people are quite small (I'm 6'3 and struggle for space). There is not enough room in the vestibule for 2 packs and boots and other vestibule bits, which means you need to have your pack outside with a cover and make sure you have everything ;)
As a single person tenet, there is enough space in the tent to bring your pack in and it is great. For a rough weather solo tent, it is fantastic. In fact it is more comfortable during a gale, and the ventilation between the fly and inner keeps everything cool.
The only other big downs side is it is very hot in summer, in fact I usually have the main door just closed with the mesh part even in winter with snow outside ... it's that warm.
So for a single person tent that will get you through everything I would thoroughly recommend it. If you have 2 people or aren't going to be tenting in extreme weather (wind, snow) I would look at something else.
A four-season, plus two you never knew existed, tent.
Source: bought it new
Price Paid: Don't know
A four-season, plus two you never knew existed, tent. Absolutely bomb proof design, but a trifle on the small side for two.
- Excellent design
- Top fabrics
- Easy to pitch
- Stays where you pitch it
- Bloody heavy by modern standards
My son who works in Fiordland, NZ, has owned one for a number of years and this tent has never let him down winter or summer. It is heavy at just short of 6 lbs, but the weight is worth it when the going gets really tough.
On a trip out to Pysegur there were force 12 hurricane winds and torrential rain, a little inland and in a more sheltered site we spent two days tent bound. We emerged safe and dry. I know of no other tent that would have withstood the conditions we experienced with the possible exception of a Whillans Box designed for Patagonia.
For info on the Whillans Box follow the link: www.smhc.co.uk/objects_item.asp?item_id=31776
The Box was an answer to the very sever weather conditions experienced in the Patogonia expedition in the '60s to climb the Central Tower of Paine. Don was a Manchester plumber and a superb rock climber and after a few attempts came up with this design for the expedition. Joe Brown described it as "A dog of a Box"!
Thanks for the review of your Minaret, Heath. Now I want to know more about a Whillans Box...
2 years ago
Hi Heathcote -- This looks to be very much in line with Hillerberg and Helsport tents which use the same tunnel design. We have a Helsport Fjellheim X-trem Camp, nominally for 3 people and with a an extra hoop for a huge vestibule. It is too heavy for anything but full-on winter use and preferably with a sled. Fjellheims are the preferred tent for Norwegian polar travellers like Aleksander Gamme. I haven't reviewed ours simply because we haven't really used it that much in rough conditions (the whole thing was my wife's idea). BTW I was hutkeeper at Mintaro for two seasons in '78, wondering if your son is working for the NP?
2 years ago
Thanks, Heath.
2 years ago
The standard by which other tents could be judged.
Source: bought it new
Price Paid: $450 NZ
The standard by which other tents could be judged. Capable of keeping you dry and sheltered in gale force winds and torrential rain—this, after all, is what a four-season tent is all about.
- Bombproof
- High quality
- Relatively affordable
- Fast to pitch
- Could be lighter
The first Minaret I ever used was loaned to me by a good friend for a trip into the central North Island sub alpine country in summer. That was over fifteen years ago. This version was over 10 years old and was pretty faded but it still did a good job.
A few years later I purchased another one secondhand that I had not inspected first. This one had severe UV damage and leaked like a sieve.
Not to be put off I purchased a brand new version from Macpac and I couldn't be happier with it.
On that note I should mention that the RRP is around $750 NZ, but Macpac often has specials and you can pick them up for $450, which is tremendous value for a four-season tent.
The Minaret is marketed as a two-person tent, but really it's a good single-person tent with enough room for all your gear both inside and outside the vestibule. It's really too small for two people unless it's an emergency. There are many pockets for storing bits and pieces and the detail is pretty high.
You can pitch the thing quickly with the fly and inner already attached to each other and this is what I normally do. It comes with good quality pegs and guy ropes.
Condensation is about normal for a two-wall tent and can be managed effectively by opening the vestibule etc.
At 5.2 lbs it's probably a bit heavy by today's standards, but it does pack up fairly compact and I don't mind packing the weight knowing I have a shelter that is really going to save my bacon if the weather goes bad.
I have personally been inside the thing when it was pitched on frozen snow and had a night of torrential rain, sleet, snow, and high winds. The next day my sleeping bag was still dry, which is all you can really ask for.
Though I have one, I think I'm going to buy another as a brand new spare in case MacPac stops making them.
Highly recommended.
Nice review of your tent, Robert. Do you have any pictures of it set up you could show others in your review? Thanks!
2 years ago
Good winter tent! I recommend adding stake loops along the fly hem to nail it down in very high winds.
2 years ago
Used a roughly 12- or 14-year-old Minaret tent last…
Source: bought it new
Price Paid: Paid about $NZ800
Used a roughly 12- or 14-year-old Minaret tent last year when crossing the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean (the High Route, not the GR10). So for seven weeks two men (from New Zealand) slept in it nearly every night.
We solved the small vestibule problem by leaving one pack outside at night with a pack cover on it. We set off in 36 degrees Celsius and hit minus 6 at the base of Pic Carlit. We had rain, heat, cold, and wind. The Minaret handled it all with aplomb. Quick to erect and pack and not too heavy. Would we choose it again? Too right!
- Stable, tough, and waterproof
- Easy to erect
- Versatile: fly only; inner only; or both
- Stable, tough, and waterproof
- Could be lighter
- Needs more ventilation
- Could be lighter
Never leaked. Never felt unstable. Was only just big enough for two blokes, but the pockets were big enough and well placed for books, spectacles, cameras etc. Vestibule was easily big enough for a pack and two pairs of boots.
Nothing better than lying at night with just the mesh closed, looking at the stars. It just needed to be a little lighter.
Welcome to Trailspace, Adrian. Thanks for the great review!
5 years ago
That sounds like a fantastic trip, Adrian!
5 years ago
Nice review. Although not a kiwi myself, despite the name, it's good to see some on Trailspace. Welcome abroad. I'd love to see more reviews on some of the gear you took on the 7-week trip.
5 years ago
I have owned Macpac Minaret tents for the past 20…
I have owned Macpac Minaret tents for the past 20 years, used extensilvely throughout the world, above snowline, and in deserts. Highly recommend.
Only problem is the fly on some models goes a bit tacky, seems to be the waterproofing, not the material itself. As always Macpac is happy to change under warranty.
We love this tent. My wife and I have used this extensively…
Design: 4 Season 2 pole tunnel
Sleeps: 2
Ease of Setup: Easy
Weight: 2.7kg
Price Paid: $AUD 450 (12 yrs ago)
We love this tent. My wife and I have used this extensively over the last 12 years bushwalking in Australia -- Tasmania and NSW. It has had to stand very wild, wet and windy conditions (though we haven't tried it in the snow) and has always come through with flying colours. In bad conditions you appreciate the amazing thought and detail in its design which makes life so much more comfortable.
Due to its design and pole sleeves sewn into the fly, when pitched into the wind and guyed out, it is rock solid. The continuous pole sleeves and ability to erect the tent and fly in one go make it quick to erect even when the tent and everything else is wet. I can set it up in a couple of minutes singlehanded. After 12 years, it still hasn't leaked!
Things I like include the extendible vestibule (you can unclip the inner when the tent is pitched, to increase the vestibule area) which allows a large storage or sheltered entry when the rain is bucketing down. The vestibule can be entered through either the main door or one of the triangular side flaps. This allows very flexible ventilation when the wind and rain are up, as well as a sheltered entry (through one of the side flaps) without exposing the gear in the vestibule or the inner to the elements. While the inner dimensions are quite cosy it has its room in the right places and feels bigger than it is. The maximum height and width is near the door. The inner mesh pockets are in the right places. There are a variety of ways the main entrance can be unzipped, allowing you to leave quite a bit open even in bad weather. It's nice to have a window when tentbound by the elements.
While this tent is an overkill for good weather or summer camping (we just use something like a tarp then), where the weather is wild, cold or marginal, this is a tent you can rely on.
Yes this is still a great tent. Intergral pitch allowing…
Design: four season
Sleeps: 2
Yes this is still a great tent. Intergral pitch allowing you to to slide a couple poles in bang in four pegs and go to bed while the others are out in the rain trying to get a fly over is even sweeter when the next morning with the rain continuing you can un-velcro the tent with the fly still up pack the dry inner and all your belongings before going out to drop the fly. Expect it to weigh more than a US style as it has a functional floor material and doesn't really need a groundsheet. After many mountains mine was just getting too thin (My other 2 macpac tents are still fine after about 20 years) but I didn't buy another (went Wlderness Equipment) as a couple of new features annoyed me. The vestibule only has only one zip to save weight where as the old version had 2 hence a choice of opening the vestibule on the lee side and cooking in bed. The hoops are now similar heights. Having one smaller while losing headroom gave you a quieter night as its shape held the wind better. Yes, I admit it still must be a great tent if my complains are getting this picky.
An exceptionally light tent. Outstanding groundsheet.
Design: ALPINE GRADE TWO-POLE TUNNEL
Sleeps: 2
Ease of Setup: POSSIBLE TO PITCH FLY AND INNER TENT SIMULTANEOUSLY IN BAD WEATHER. POLES SECURED AT END OF CONTINUOUS SLEEVES, SO ONE PERSON SETUP IN STRONG WINDS - NO PROBLEM.
Weight: 2.4Kg (new pegs)
Price Paid: approx. £300 UK
An exceptionally light tent. Outstanding groundsheet. Stable in strong winds. The inner tent can be reduced in size to allow more cooking space in the vestibule.
I do not have a single complaint after using this tent in freezing and WET Scottish mountain winters, and a sweltering hot summer in the Picos De Europa in Northern Spain.
Perhaps not ideal as a base-camp tent because of the lack of head room for extended periods. However, as a lightweight mountain tent for backpackers, it will handle some of the worst.
The tent can be pitched outer alone (v.light), inner alone (when it's hot and dry), or both at once (v. quick, and stops the inner getting wet). The fine mesh of the inner tent provides excellent ventilation (one opening at either end of the tent), yet prevents entry of all insect life.
This one replaced a Marmot Peapod which was so leaky it was quite literally a bathtub in its first British winter.
Worth every penny.
In the Antipodes, Macpac is renowned for its very…
Design: 2 person, hoop, four season
Sleeps: 2
Ease of Setup: Medium
Weight: 2.6 KG (get metric, US)
Price Paid: $750 (NZ)
In the Antipodes, Macpac is renowned for its very high quality equipment which employ superior fabrics and craftsmanship to be world leaders. The Minaret is part of the "Zenith" series of four season or expedition grade tents. This series uses UV40 materials to be amongst the most waterproof and resilent tents available. Recently I returned from a testing trip in Tasmania, in the "Roaring Forties," and found that the Macpac was a superb choice. The floor is without doubt utterly bombproof (as I was stuck for three days on a high sodden moor without seepage). Strong winds and rain didn't bother the Minaret. For resilence, and waterproofness I can not recommend any tent more emphatically than the Minaret. In comparison to the vast majority of European, Asian or American alternatives, the Macpac is streets ahead.
Now for the minor grievances, the attachment of the fly to the inner is by way of velcro strips that can be annoyingly short and inconvenient to attach for those who separate the fly from the inner and erect the former first. All Macpac tents have this very convenient option of erecting the fly and then attaching the inner, so that in really wet conditions the inner can be stored separately and kept dry for longer. There is, as with many Macpac designs, limited air flow as the rear of the tent has a next to useless flap. The use of an asymmetrical design for the vestibule has provided a very limited amount of vestibule space. Speaking of space, the Minaret is barely a two person tent for longer walks. Considering the interior space of the tent, it is a superb one person and quite passable two person production - but for very long walks it is only for close friends. The tent can be used judiciously above the snowline, although the two pole design might be something of a compromise over the stronger (and substantially heavier) three pole competition. Strongly recommended.
A truly fantastic lightweight all weather performer.
Design: 4 season alpine tunnel
Sleeps: 2
Ease of Setup: elementary
Weight: 2.6kg total weight
Price Paid: a$690@Paddy Palin
A truly fantastic lightweight all weather performer. The offset vestibule provides sheltered entry. Excellent ventilation, considering it has only one entrance. Excellent interior storage space. I thoroughly endorse this tent.
Where to Buy
The Macpac Minaret is not available from the stores we monitor.


text:
vprelovac necesitaba un nuevo diseño de botón o icono y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 27 diseños de 12 diseñadores freelance.
A real time web analytics application. The houses will represent different websites.
Ordinary web users and webmasters
The contest is for design of two sets of 5 cartoonish looking village houses..
The houses should range from small huts to big mansion or villa types representing 5 different sizes.
One set can be rural and other one urban/futuristic.
The graphics will be used in a menu to represent user websites in a web-analytics application, ranging from small sites to big sites.
So if the user has 20 registered websites, instead of a normal list we will show them 'village' containg websites represented as houses labeled with the sitename.
The design should include an image of 10 proposed house designs, labeled with text (Websiteone.com, Websitetwo.com...) scattered in some sort of a grid that we can later program in a web application.
We are looking for 2D, cartoonish, easy-going design. The size of individual graphic should probably be up to 100x100 pixels.
Some inspiration:

subset: commoncrawl


text:
UED6015, New August 1980
Missouri CourthousesContact and other information about this county is available on the National Association of Counties website, http://explorer.naco.org/
It was first thought that Cape Girardeau would be the county seat of Cape Girardeau County. But because of a legal question concerning the title to the land donated to the county, commissioners chose not to build on the Cape Girardeau site. Instead they bought 50 acres in nearby Jackson and located the county seat there.
Volumes A and B of Cape Girardeau County Court records are reported missing, so there is no official confirmation of the earliest account of the Cape Girardeau courthouse in Jackson. Louis Houck's History of Southeast Missouri, 1888, described the first courthouse as a "barn-like" structure built in 1818 by John Davis for $2,450. After the 1818 building outlived its usefulness, the court ordered it sold and specified that it be removed in April 1839.
Next, the court ordered a 45-foot-square, two-story, brick and stone building with cupola in 1837 and directed that it be built on the most suitable part of the public square at the discretion of the commissioners. The initial $3,000 the court borrowed from the road and canal fund; later, an additional $2,000 was appropriated.
Missouri historian Louis Houck saw the building in 1869 and described it as old and neglected. He recalled that the courtroom was on the second floor and the clerk's office on the first. This courthouse was destroyed by fire July 18, 1870. No known photographs exist.
E. D. Baldwin of St. Louis served as architect of the next courthouse. The court accepted his plans Nov. 18, 1870. The building contract was awarded Joseph Lansmann. The cost came to $25,000. The court stipulated no wood should be used on the floors or stairs. The two-story, brick and stone building with cupola was accepted by the court April 17, 1872 (Figure 1). The building was south of the present courthouse. It was razed to make way for the 1908 courthouse.
Figure 1Cape Girardeau County Courthouse at Jackson, 1870-1908, photo ca. 1908. Architect: E. D. Baldwin (From: Jackson, Missouri, Souvenir Historical Program, 1965)
The county bought additional land north of the 1870 courthouse site to enlarge the square and provide space for a larger courthouse. Among those submitting proposals for the court's consideration were Jerome Legg, architect of the nearby Mississippi County courthouse and the 1885 remodeled Cape Girardeau Court of Common Pleas; J. B. Blackwood from Cape Girardeau; and Robert Kirsch, architect of recent Adair, Carroll, Polk and Vernon counties' courthouses. But the court selected architect P. H. Weathers' design because it was fireproof; the others were not. Weathers was a prolific courthouse architect in the Midwest. The plan he presented Cape Girardeau County was not specifically designed for Jackson, so he adapted it to suit the local situation.
Bids were opened Dec. 18, 1905. Low bidder for the contract was M. T. Lewman and Co., Louisville, Kentucky. The original bid of about $66,000 was based upon the assumed use of Bedford stone for the 81-by-108-foot building that would be 90 feet high, but the people preferred locally quarried stone, which raised the price about $3,000. The site of the old and the new courthouse was on the same square, so as construction proceeded, county officials conducted business in the 1870 courthouse until the new one was finished and dedicated in August 1908 (Figure 2).
Figure 2Cape Girardeau County Courthouse at Jackson, 1908-. Old courthouse (Figure 1) visible on left. Architect: P. H. Weathers (From: Jackson, Missouri, Souvenir Historical Program. 1965)
The Circuit Court room on the second floor occupies most of the east half of the floor. Daviess County has a courthouse of the same design, built by Weathers in 1906-08 and Stoddard County, adjacent to Cape Girardeau, remodeled in 1909 using Weathers' same design, but with brick as the principal material. Costs on the Cape Girardeau courthouse came to about $125,000.
Order publications online at http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/shop/ or call toll-free 800-292-0969.


text:
Passed by Congress in 2005, the REAL ID Act enacted the 9/11 Commission's recommendation that the Federal Government "set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver's licenses." The Act established minimum security standards for state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards and prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards. States have made considerable progress in meeting this key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and every state has a more secure driver's license today than before the passage of the Act.
New applicants
— Steemit New Complete Accounts Identity Create With And Drivers Whitehat Trading Card Volume Crypto A License Debit Four; New applicants that successfully complete the requirements for a Vermont DL or ID card will be issued a REAL ID marked card.
Current DL or ID card holders
Go to any Vermont DMV office and present the same documents a new applicant would present. This can be done when you renew your existing card; or you may surrender your current card and request a duplicate that is REAL ID marked. Duplicates require paying a replacement fee.
All applicants must provide proof of identity; date of birth; Social Security number; Vermont residence; and lawful status or presence in the United States.Ids Premiumfakes com Massachusetts Buy Scannable Id Fake
TSA Information on REAL ID Enforcement and Requirements at Airport Security
- As of January 22, 2018, driver's licenses or state IDs issued by states that are not in compliance with the REAL ID Act and have not been granted an extension by DHS may not be used to fly within the U.S.
- If your Vermont license has a gold circle with a star in it in the upper righthand corner, it is Real ID compliant.
- Beginning October 1, 2020, every traveler will need a REAL ID-compliant license or state ID or another acceptable form of identification to fly within the U.S.
TSA information on acceptable identification available here
TSA FAQs available here
DHS REAL ID brief page is available here


text:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Christopher Beha, has written a new novel about those who have the capacity for faith and those who don't. It's also about parents' responsibility to their children and children to their parents and the risks of trying to save someone's soul when that person doesn't want to be saved.
Beha also writes about the urge to write and to tell stories. The novel, "What Happened to Sophie Wilder," begins with Charlie, a 28-year-old writer living in Greenwich Village whose recently published first novel got a big advance but no readers. At a party, he reconnects with Sophie, who he fell in love with in freshman writing class.
She's given up writing, she's married, has become a devout Catholic and is caring for her dying father-in-law, who's estranged from her husband. Christopher Beha is an associate editor at Harper's. His previous book, "The Whole Five Feet," is a memoir about reading all the Harvard Classics. It's a set of great books compiled by Harvard's president in 1909. The memoir reflects on reading those books, on his life and on caring for his dying aunt.
Christopher Beha, welcome to FRESH AIR.
CHRISTOPHER BEHA: Thank you very much, I'm thrilled to be here.
GROSS: So let's start with a reading from "What Happened to Sophie Wilder," and this is from the middle of the book, and it has to do with religion. Would you introduce the reading for us?
BEHA: Sure, the speaker in this passage is a young writer named Charlie Blakeman, and he is talking about the title character, Sophie Wilder, who was his love in college and he fell out with, and she subsequently converted to Catholicism, which is a decision that he's trying to make some sense of.
And at this point in the novel, Sophie has gone to take care of her father-in-law, Bill Crane, who is dying.
(Reading) I'd almost laughed when she told me that she'd gone to save his soul. I couldn't quite take it seriously. I'd been raised more or less Catholic myself, gone to Catholic school my whole life before arriving at New Hampton, but I don't think I knew a single person who would have spoken in that way about saving someone's soul.
(Reading) The religious people I knew talked about their faith apologetically. It was an embarrassment to their own reason and intelligence, but somehow a necessary one. Their justifications often suggested something vaguely therapeutic. They needed a sense of meaning in their lives. They wanted to believe that things happened for a reason.
(Reading) To speak of souls and damnation, to speak of intervening in another life for the sake of salvation was beyond all this. I didn't ask questions about her religion since her answers would only mark out the distance between us. Mostly, it didn't seem real to me. I still pictured Sophie as I'd always known her, and I couldn't imagine that person turning to God at a time of need.
GROSS: Thank you for reading that. Why did you want to write about the inability to imagine someone you know turning to God in their time of need? Why did you want that to be a central part of the novel?
BEHA: Well, I suppose that in a lot of ways, both Charlie and Sophie are parts of myself, and I am someone who was raised Catholic and was indeed a believing Catholic - not just sort of a cultural Catholic by upbringing - who then lost his faith. And in a lot of ways, faith became much more interesting to me once I didn't have it. I'd sort of taken it for granted when I did.
And so I was interested in writing about a person of faith while also writing about the attempt of someone who does not have that capacity for faith to try to understand it.
GROSS: I like the expression that you use, the capacity for faith or the capacity to experience God. Is that how you think of it, as an innate capacity that some people have and some people don't?
BEHA: I do. I often think that intellectual arguments for or against the existence of God tend to be fruitless for the reason that most people come to an intuitive conclusion on these matters and then build up whatever rationale they're going to have. If you speak about it from the standpoint of faith, I think you would talk about grace; that God has gifted some people with the ability to feel his presence in the world and has, for whatever reason, withheld that gift from others.
GROSS: So you have a great quote in the question-and-answer piece in the interview that you did for your publisher, which is actually included in the promotional packet with novel, which I hesitate to quote from, but this quote is so good, I'm going to anyways.
GROSS: And here's what you said. You said: One of the many things that religion offers is a framework for talking about big questions that isn't considered pretentious or embarrassing. Both Charlie and Sophie in the novel are looking for such a framework. It's Charlie's tragedy that he has not found one, it is Sophie's tragedy that she has, and it is my own tragedy that even as I write those words, I anticipate undermining them with a wink or a joke.
BEHA: That's right.
GROSS: So it's Sophie's tragedy that she finds religion, and I don't want to give away too much of the story, but it does become tragic, and the things that should make her feel saintly make her feel damned. Why did you set her up that way?
BEHA: Well, one of the things that I find dissatisfying about a lot of modern or contemporary versions of religion is the extent to which they're geared toward the therapeutic, the extent to which - if you look at something like The Prosperity Gospel, religion is supposed to make you feel good about the things you naturally want already, particularly material success.
And I'm interested in religion as a challenge and, you know, Jesus bringing, as he says, not peace but the sword. And so I had an idea of having a character who is converted, but that conversion doesn't necessarily lead to peace, doesn't end her struggle but rather leads to a new struggle.
GROSS: So in that quote that I read, you write, referring to yourself: It is my own tragedy that even as I write those words about religion, I anticipate undermining them with a wink or a joke.
GROSS: That's so - do you think part of the condition of living in your own personal Godless world is irony?
BEHA: I think so. So when these characters, Sophie and Charlie, meet each other, they're in college. And as I experienced it, at least, and I think others do, college is the first time that you are in an environment that is really based around the intellect. There is obviously a lot of other extracurriculars going on, but you're given an environment where it makes sense to ask a lot of questions, big questions, and to seek out complicated answers for them.
And you maybe start to think if you - you know, having come from high school to a college campus, that this is what adulthood is like. And then when you get out of college and into the working world, you get a kind of rude awakening, and you discover that most people ask fairly practical questions about their day-to-day existence, and if you spend a lot of time wanting to think or talk about sort of larger abstract questions, people are going to think you're a little bit pretentious, basically.
And so you have to find ways to be sort of self-knowing about it or to ironize your own interest in these questions.
GROSS: But your book is not ironic.
BEHA: No. Not at all, really, and in fact, you know, there are - at certain points it depicts, particularly in the beginning, Charlie's lifestyle, living in this kind of ironized, literary world. But my effort was even for the depiction of this ironized world to be an earnest depiction, if that makes sense.
GROSS: Yeah, so at what point did you feel like you left the world of irony? And like how much of a participant in ironizing everything were you when you were in college?
BEHA: Well, I read a lot of David Foster Wallace in college, and people who are familiar with his work will know that this is something that he thought a lot about, was the way that irony, which had once been a kind of subversive gesture, had basically been co-opted so that it is very common to see what used to be kind of corrosive literary irony used in television commercials, for example.
And what once had a good purpose, to break down kind of old, outdated norms, was not very good for building something back up in their stead and perhaps had outlived its usefulness. This is all very broadly speaking, of course.
And then the struggle was what comes next. It's - it may not be the case that you can simply retreat back to an old kind of earnestness. Irony is one of those things that once it creeps into the way you talk and think about the world, it's very difficult to snuff out, and you can't sort of go back to the garden.
So what do you do next? Is there some way to push through? This was a question that occupied me a lot in those years and continues to occupy me.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Christopher Beha. He's the author of the new novel "What Happened to Sophie Wilder. He's also an associate editor at Harper's magazine. Let's take a short break here, then we'll talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Christopher Beha. He's the author of the new novel "What Happened to Sophie Wilder." You have two different tones in your book, the sometimes ironic tone that Charlie the narrator has, and the more straightforward tone that the chapters about Sophie - which are told in the third person - have. The Charlie stuff is in first person.
I want you to read the first chapter of the book, and this is in the first person, this is Charlie writing about his own life, and this is when he's explaining how, in his 20s, he really wanted, you know, to be all about ideas, like a life of ideas and a literary life, he and his cousin Max.
BEHA: His cousin Max is mentioned in this passage, and the two of them are living together on Washington Square in Greenwich Village in Manhattan.
(Reading) No one had read my novel when it came out a few months before, but this wasn't by virtue of any aesthetic stratagem. I would have been more than happy with an audience. My publisher had paid me well and put its energy, as they call it, behind the book.
(Reading) I'd been reviewed where one hopes to be reviewed; some of the notices had even been good. Max and I share the same last name - our fathers are brothers, or were while mine was still alive - and there had been brief talk, much of it generated by Max himself, about the Blakemans representing some new cultural moment.
(Reading) That had all passed after my book sank quietly from view. Outside the world of mean-spirited media blogs no one had any idea who we were. Max secretly faulted me for this, though in truth people were simply tired of comfortable young white guys from New York. I couldn't blame them; I was tired of us, too.
GROSS: Well, that puts you at a real disadvantage of a writer if you're empathizing with Charlie at all, if you're a white guy from New York, and you feel like everybody's bored reading about the little problems of white guys from New York. So was that an issue for you as a writer?
BEHA: Yeah, well, I suppose what - that's what I wanted to write through, which is why part of the story of the book is Sophie's return and the way that it breaks up this kind of solipsistic life that Charlie is in and forces him out into the world and forces him into other people's problems and forces him into considering other people's problems in a way that is not always seeing it through the lens of how it makes him feel, or what kind of writerly or appropriately stylized response he can have to it.
But I'm certainly aware of the risks, yes, and there have been, I'll admit, a couple of critics who have read this as a comfortable-young-white-guy-from-New-York novel and been appropriately frustrated by it.
GROSS: You've been appropriately frustrated by it?
BEHA: Oh, no, I think - I mean to say that the reviewers have been frustrated by the - by another comfortable-young-white-guy novel. And for me to say, no, it's really a critique of or a deconstruction of the comfortable-young-white-guy novel is, you know, not an acceptable response in their eyes, although it is to me.
GROSS: So have you read a lot of contemporary fiction by people in their 20s and felt - well, what have you felt about it? I'm sure you have read a lot of fiction by people in their 20s.
BEHA: Yeah, I mean, some of it's very good. Some of it's very good while being very personal, in fact, and in a lot of ways, I think the fiction by younger writers that bothers me is the fiction that is very self-consciously quirky, rather than the fiction that seems too obviously autobiographical.
But I didn't - you know, I didn't have a particular novel in mind that I wanted to respond to. It - what I wanted to respond to was just the tenor of the culture at large and the tendency to - that we all have, I think, to roll our eyes a little bit when certain kinds of questions come up, to at least in certain, you know, corridors of the Northeast or the West Coast, roll our eyes a little bit when people speak earnestly about the feeling of religious devotion or when people speak about the search for meaning in the world.
So the tendency I'm talking about is, as I see it, a lot more pervasive than merely being present in a certain brand of literary novel written by a writer of a certain age.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Christopher Beha. He's the author of the new novel "What Happened to Sophie Wilder." In the acknowledgements, you write: Much of this book was conceived while I sat beside Mimi Escot(ph) in her final months - she's your aunt. She gave me not just her permission but her encouragement to make use of the time we spent together in whatever way my imagination saw fit. This was a gift she hardly owed me, but it pales beside the gift of having known her for 27 years. So when your Aunt Mimi was dying of melanoma, which had metastasized to her brain, what exactly did you ask her permission for?
BEHA: Well, she actually in a way volunteered it before I ever asked. She said: You're going to write about this. And I did write about it in straight nonfiction in my first book, "The Whole Five Feet." But then I began speaking with her about it, and I said, well, would it be all right if I did do that? Then she said yes, and I spoke with her about changing things, and she said you can do with this what you want.
Now, I would say that despite her having said that to me, I still felt a real responsibility to do justice to her experience. I didn't take that as total license.
GROSS: Why did you feel you needed her permission in the first place to write about her experience - or your experience of her experience - in a fictionalized form, so fictionalized one might not even have made the connection? I mean, it's not an aunt who's dying, it's a father-in-law, the father-in-law is estranged from the - you know, it's Sophie's father-in-law, who is estranged from Sophie's husband who is the person who is dying in this.
BEHA: Sure. Yeah, I mean, I think there is just - there is a tendency for a lot of writers to think that the world, up to and including other people's suffering, exists to be their material. Now, that's not to say that any time you want to draw something from life, you need to get permission from the people involved, even if you intend to fictionalize it.
What I do think you need to do is you need to earn it on the page. You need to do something with it that makes meaning out of the experience. Otherwise you'd just sort of being a scavenger.
GROSS: Are there other people in your life besides your aunt who you've asked permission to write about before writing about them?
BEHA: I haven't, but I - well, I take that back. When I wrote my memoir, I gave a copy before it was published to basically all my entire family and allowed them to not exercise veto power but to tell me about anything that was in it that they weren't comfortable with.
And in fact, whether out of politeness or for other reasons, nobody suggested any changes on that basis. I come from a family of readers, and in fact there are other writers in the family. And so I did have people making aesthetic suggestions about the book, but - and people essentially doing edit work. But I didn't have anyone fact-checking, and I didn't have anyone say to me I'm not comfortable with the way I'm being depicted in this scene, or that's not really how it was or anything like that. But I did give them that opportunity.
GROSS: Did you have to point you hadn't asked them to edit the book?
BEHA: Yes, but that's - that's a problem that I often have.
GROSS: Christopher Beha will be back in the second half of the show. He's the author of the new novel "What Happened to Sophie Wilder." I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Christopher Beha, author of the new novel "What Happened to Sophie Wilder." He is an associate editor at Harper's Magazine. His previous book, "The Whole Five Feet," is a memoir about reading all the Harvard Classics.
Your novel is in part about religion, about a character named Sophie who finds faith in Catholicism and that kind of changes the course of her life and the course of some other people's lives as well. And, you know, we've talked a little earlier about how you think some people have the capacity for faith and other people don't have that capacity. Apparently, when you were young you had the capacity for faith and when you got older you lost that capacity. Correct me if you don't like the language that I've been using to describe that.
BEHA: No. I think that's a fair characterization.
GROSS: So, like, how did that change? Like let's start with when you had the capacity. You were an altar boy with your twin brother.
BEHA: I was. My twin brother and I were altar boys.
GROSS: And did it feel, make you feel like particularly connected to religion to be like of the ceremonial part?
BEHA: Yeah. You feel like you're actually participating in an intimate way in the ceremony, rather than - now, I mean the Mass is designed, you know, it is a communion and everybody is participating. It's not as if there are the performers and spectators. But when you're on the...
GROSS: But they have cameos and you have a co-starring role.
BEHA: Right. Exactly. Exactly. So that yeah, there was a real feeling of intimacy with the ceremonies of the faith.
GROSS: And what kind of Catholics were your parents at the time?
BEHA: Oh, well, basically, my entire family are, you know, practicing, go to church every Sunday and say grace before meals and say a prayer before going to bed at night Catholics. And believing, I would say - I don't want to speak for other people's beliefs, even my own family members. But not just cultural Catholics, people for whom the church is an integral part of their day-to-day existence.
GROSS: When did you stop being one of those people?
BEHA: You know, I would say having put it in those terms, I would say that I didn't stop being someone for whom the church is a part of my daily existence and that I still spend an awful lot of time thinking about Catholicism and writing about it. But it was in college when I stopped - toward the end of high school, the beginning of college when I stopped believing. And I was going to a Jesuit school in Manhattan, Jesuit high school called Loyola, and I went to one of the priests and talked with him about it. And I continued to go to Mass when I was in college although, you know, I didn't have the family there pressuring me to do so necessarily. And then I just decided that it didn't mean for me what it used to mean and I stopped doing it, basically. But I continued to go with my family when I was home for a time, continued to go up and take Communion. Then I decided I was not going to do that, which was, you know, a matter of some familial controversy. But ultimately I think again, without speaking for them too much, my family has been supportive of my decision because they understand that it was something that was done with thought and that these are issues that I continue to struggle with and it was not a simple matter of a kid who decided to rebel against his parents when he got a little older, or someone who decided that he was too lazy to get out of bed go to Mass on Sunday morning once he got to college and no one was there to make him do it.
GROSS: How did you experience the absence of the faith that you once had?
BEHA: Well, it's a funny thing about experiencing absence, right. If I had never had in the first place I would not have experienced it as an absence. I just, there was something that had been there in my life, which was a fundamental belief about the metaphysical groundings of existence, basically, that had helped me order and think about my life that was no longer there. And at that point, when you realize that, you've got to go about reordering things entirely. It's not, you can't sort of take that card out from the bottom of the house of cards and stick something else in its place. You know, the whole thing that you built around it is going to collapse, at least as I experienced it and you're just going to have to start over.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Christopher Beha. We're talking about his new novel "What Happened to Sophie Wilder." He's also the author of a book called, an earlier book called "The Whole Five Feet: What the Great Books Taught Me About Life, Death and Pretty Much Everything Else."
You're previous book, "The Whole Five Feet," was basically an exercise you gave yourself of reading all of the Harvard Classics and these are the books, five feet worth on a bookshelf, of classics as chosen by the president of Harvard in 1909, Charles Elliott.
BEHA: Yeah.
GROSS: I mean that's a really - how many books were there?
BEHA: So there were 52 volumes. Some of the, many of the volumes contained multiple books. And some of them in some cases it was, you know, a set of plays or essays. So it's tough to pin down the number of individual works. But basically it's 52 volumes, all of them between, you know, four and 500 pages.
GROSS: Why did you decide to do that?
BEHA: These books were on my shelves when I was growing up - on my family's shelves - and I came to learn that they had belonged to my grandmother and I came to learn that she had bought them in her own young adulthood and read in them, having left school during the Great Depression to help support her family. She then found herself in - living up near Columbia University and in something of an intellectual milieu and she decided that she needed to do, to educate herself. I wanted to do this thing that this woman who died when I was still quite young had done when she was roughly the age that I then was when I was picking the books up.
Once I started the project I would pick certain things out and talk with my mother and my aunts about them and they would remember hearing stories from my grandmother about them.
GROSS: In your book "The Whole Five Feet," about reading all the Harvard Classics, you also write about how five years earlier you were diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma which is, you know, happily, a treatable form of cancer.
BEHA: Mm-hmm.
GROSS: But it connected you with mortality in a way that you'd never felt quite connected before. Did like reading the great texts help you deal with, you know, thinking about your mortality?
BEHA: Absolutely. I don't want to oversell the therapeutic values of literature because I don't necessarily think that that's what's most powerful about them. But certainly to know that the problem of mortality, for example, is something that people have been struggling with for as long as they have been capable of speaking and thinking and writing down words. And to know that a huge portion of the output of the people struggling with that, of really the finest minds in human history is available to us, that that's our heritage, is incredibly comforting to me. Despite the fact that very often what they have to say on the topic is not particularly comforting as such.
GROSS: You left the world of faith at a time when it's acceptable to do that in a way that it wasn't always historically acceptable...
BEHA: Right.
GROSS: ...to be secular. And I think a lot of people have left the world of books, your world...
GROSS: ...you know?
BEHA: Yeah.
GROSS: And they've left it for, you know, movies and television and video games and, you know, and the Internet and the blogosphere and Twitter, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So do you feel like OK, so you found like some, you know, some world for yourself in literature, not to equate it with religion but it gives you, you know, it gives you that sense of like a narrative in the world and...
BEHA: Sure.
GROSS: ...a connection to the past and, you know, like metaphors for like understanding your own reality and so on.
BEHA: Absolutely.
GROSS: And it's at a time when a lot of people have like left that world.
BEHA: Yeah. I don't do a ton of hand wringing over that stuff because, you know, maybe this is naive of me but in my day-to-day life I am surrounded by people who are great readers and who love books, and from whom books are deeply important. When I write something and it gets published, I get emails from people who have read it, who have thought very carefully about it, and have very interesting responses that I find illuminating. And, you know, I did live through the period where it was the dominant cultural force, so I'm not comparing my experience to the experience of, you know, novelists writing in the, maybe in the '50s or '60s, where you could be a cultural hero by being a novelist, nor is that something that is particularly an ambition of mine, you know. I'm interested in telling the stories that I feel need telling, and my experience has been that when I do that and they go out into the world, they're not getting the kind of responses that a television show gets, needless to say. They're not even getting the kind of responses that many novels do. But the people who do respond are engaging with them thoughtfully and it's meaningful for them. So I don't, as I said, do this to the level of hand wringing or, you know, Cassandering that some people do about what's happening to the world of books.
GROSS: So one final question. Is there a priest in your life was going to be calling you if they hear this interview and saying, you know, Christopher, come back to the church?
BEHA: You know, there are priests in my life I have - and there are priests who have read the book and spoken with me about it. But they - I don't think that what I'm saying in this interview will be news to them.
BEHA: If they were going to make those overtures to me they would've done it some time ago.
GROSS: OK. Well, thank you so much for talking with us.
BEHA: Thank you very much for having me.
GROSS: Christopher Beha is the author of the new novel "What Happened to Sophie Wilder." He's an associate editor at Harper's magazine.
Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews the new album by hip-hop artist Frank Ocean who has written songs for Beyonce, Justin Bieber and John Legend.
This is FRESH AIR.
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We've spent years wondering about the villains and love interest(s) in Christopher Nolan's third Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises - and now we at last have some definitive answers.
Christian Bale will return as the Caped Crusader in Batman 3 opposite two new foes - Oscar ceremony co-host Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle (a.k.a. the sinewy anti-heroine, Catwoman) and Inception's Tom Hardy as the bruiser referred to only as Bane.
Warner Bros. made the announcement via a press release that featured the following quotes by Chris Nolan - who also cowrote the Dark Knight Rises screenplay with his brother, Jonathan:
"I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Anne Hathaway, who will be a fantastic addition to our ensemble as we complete our story... I am delighted to be working with Tom again and excited to watch him bring to life our new interpretation of one of Batman's most formidable enemies."
Hathaway was previously shortlisted as one of the actresses being considered to appear in Nolan's followup to The Dark Knight. She will follow in the footsteps of many an actress before her who played Batman's sleek foe (and love interest) Catwoman onscreen - with perhaps the most memorable live-action incarnation being that of Michelle Pfeiffer in Tim Burton's Batman Returns back in 1992 (we'll pretend that Halle Berry movie never happened).
Bane has a long history in the Batman universe as well - the character is not only a brutal, muscle-bound thug who can match the Caped Crusader in terms of physical prowess, he even once left Bruce Wayne paralyzed by snapping his spine during one of their battles in the epic comic book storyline "Batman: Knightfall". It's an excellent move on Nolan's part to select a vicious villain like Bane to be the antagonist in the next entry in his gritty, hard-hitting trilogy about the dark vigilante. Just don't expect Hardy to dress up like this for the part:
What do you think of this casting news for The Dark Knight Rises? Are you happy with Catwoman and Bane as the rogues? How about the actors playing them?
[poll id="115"]
Follow us for more Movie and TV news on Twitter @screenrant and @feynmanguy.
Source: Warner Bros.


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Letters and Science Distinguished Speakers Series, John Delaney
- Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 4:00pm
- Strand Union Building - view map
John Delaney, professor of oceanography at the University of Washington and the principal investigator and director of the National Science Foundation's Regional Scale Nodes Program in the northeast Pacific Ocean, will present "Understanding the Planetary Life Support System: Next Generation Science in the Ocean Basins."
Delaney's research focuses on the deep-sea volcanic activity of the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the northeast Pacific Ocean. He will discuss next-generation ocean science that uses new approaches made possible by distributed, remote, sensor-robotic networks throughout the oceanic environment. Delaney leads a team developing a network that will convert a sector of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate and overlying ocean into an internationally accessible, interactive, real-time natural laboratory capable of reaching millions of users via the Internet. Such networks are at the leading edge of ocean and earth science research and education.
Delaney has published nearly 100 papers scientific papers and articles, and has served as chief scientist on more than 45 oceanographic research cruises, many of which have included the Deep Submergence Vehicle Alvin and the Remotely Operated Vehicle Jason. In September 2005, he co-led the VISIONS'05 research expedition, which successfully broadcast the first live, high-definition video from the seafloor across the world. Scientists, educators and the general public viewed the real-time broadcasts from the underwater volcanoes of the northeast Pacific Ocean over cable and satellite television and on the web via the ResearchChannel.
Delaney's lecture is sponsored by MSU's Department of Earth Sciences, and is presented by the College of Letters and Science's Distinguished Speakers Series. The series, which began in the spring of 2011, brings distinguished scholars to MSU to give a public talk and to meet with faculty and students to enrich the intellectual life on campus and to enhance research connections.
For more information about this and other L&S Distinguished Speakers Series lectures, visit http://www.montana.edu/lettersandscience/speakers_2013.html or call (406) 994-4288.
More Info:


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Reality star Dean McDermott has been released for the intensive care unit of a Los Angeles hospital after suffering a punctured and collapsed lung from a motorcycle accident on Tuesday, People reported.
Wife Tori Spelling tweeted Friday that she was bringing the pair's two kids to visit him in a "regular room," and later lashed out at the celebrity shutterbugs who shadowed her on the trip.
"SUPER disrespectful for tons of paparazzi to follow us and take pics as our family is trying to enter hospital to visit ... NOT COOL!" Spelling wrote.
Spelling, 37, who co-stars with McDermott on Oxygen's "Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood," earlier told People that her 43-year-old hubby crashed while out dirt bike riding with two friends on Tuesday.
"He's in a lot of pain," Spelling said after the accident, but added that her husband was expected to make a full recovery.
McDermott suffered a broken shoulder in a previous bike accident earlier this year. After the crash, McDermott pledged to quit professional racing to allay his wife's fears over his safety, according to People.
Spelling said initially she was "pissed" to learned of a second crash.
"But when I showed up and saw him lying there, and they told me they were admitting him to ICU with a collapsed lung, my heart dropped," she said. "My biggest fear had come true."
This time McDermott has apparently agreed to sell his bikes and give up riding for good.
"Let's just say, I wont be dirt biking anymore," McDermott tweeted on Thursday.


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Debbiehairdresser necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 84 diseños de 13 diseñadores freelance.
Tippy Toes
Pedicure, Manicure, Massage and Hair salon. The Main focus is on the pedicure and manicure
This is a pedicure nail salon on the beach in the tourist town of Mazatlan mexico. The theme of the salon is beach, surfing and fun in the sun. I am very open to anything. The spa is going to be bright and fun with lots of color. I do not want a normal pedicure spa logo. This is a tourist walk by location and needs to be very eye catching. This logo is also going to be painted on a sign , cups, tee shirts etc. I would perfer not to use photos ( example: I do not want pictures of feet and painted toenail)
This logo is going to be on my main store front sign. The salon is in mexico and we will have 50/50 english speakers and spanish speakers. The picture needs to be clear that it is a pedicure salon. I am really open to anything that is fun and eye catching. THis is a fun town and the salon is going to be fun. I want the logo to reflect fun.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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At holiday baking time, a few choice words about freezing cookie dough
There is any number of reasons why you might want to stash some cookie dough in the freezer. Maybe you like having treats on hand in case company stops by. Maybe the cold weather kick-started your holiday baking gene. Maybe you want a special treat to give your son or daughter at college, or a friend who just had a baby. (Side note: Give new parents frozen cookie dough and you win. Forever.)
But we're friends here, so let's be honest. Frozen cookie dough in our freezer means warm, gooey, fresh-baked cookies any time we want one. Or three. No judgment. Here are the best ways to freeze your favorite cookies for later.
For the purposes of freezing, let's divide cookies into three main categories: chunky cookies, tender slice-and-bake cookies and cut-out cookies.
Chunky cookies like chocolate chip and oatmeal-raisin freeze best if you portion out the dough beforehand. Scoop out the dough just as if you were about to bake it, but then freeze it instead. Once frozen, the little balls of dough get sealed up inside a plastic freezer bag — when you need a cookie fix, just grab as many as you want to bake.
By slice-and-bake cookies, I am referring to any fairly smooth, fairly tender cookie, like shortbread or sandies. These get pressed into logs, wrapped in wax paper, and frozen solid. They can be crumbly right out of the freezer, so when you're ready to bake, let them warm for a few minutes before slicing. If you can plan ahead, letting the logs thaw in the fridge for a few hours is even better.
Last but not least, we have cut-out cookies like sugar cookies and many holiday cookies. The dough for these cookies can be frozen in disks like pie crust. When ready to bake, thaw until pliable and continue with the recipe. Freezing the dough for cut-out cookies is a little less of a time- and labor-saver than the other cookies, but it's handy to break up the work of a big cookie-baking project or if you start a batch of cookies and get interrupted in the middle.
Most frozen cookies will need an extra minute or two in the oven. Otherwise, prepping and baking the cookies is exactly the same as in the recipe — you're just giving them a freezer vacation in the middle.
Very good reasons (excuses) to freeze cookie dough
n Instant cookies, any time of day
n Bake only a few cookies at a time, as needed
n Prep for a bake sale, upcoming holiday, or a busy time of year
n Cookies on hand when company stops by
n Gift for students, new parents, an elderly parent, or anyone you love. Cookies equal love, as we all know.
How to freeze cookie dough
n 1 batch cookie dough
n Baking sheets
n Parchment paper or Silpats
n Wax paper
n Freezer bags or other freezer containers
Line a baking sheet with parchment or a Silpat. Prepare the dough as usual, then portion out the cookies onto the baking sheet. Since we are freezing and not baking the cookies, you can crowd the cookies close together, but do not let them touch.
Freeze the portioned cookies on the baking sheet until solid, at least 6 hours or overnight.
Once solid, gather the portioned cookies in a plastic freezer bag or other container. Press out as much air as possible, label the bag, and store in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Line a baking sheet with parchment or a Silpat. Remove as many cookies as you'd like to bake and space them a few inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake as directed by the recipe, adding on an extra minute or 2 to the baking time.
Freezing slice-and-bake cookies
Prepare the dough as usual. Turn the dough out onto your work surface and shape into one or two logs (whichever fits in your freezer bag or container).
Wrap each of the logs in wax paper and tuck in the ends.
Transfer the logs of dough to a plastic freezer bag or other container. Press out as much air as possible, label the bag, and store in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Baking slice-and-bake cookies: Line a baking sheet with parchment or a Silpat. Unwrap the log of cookie dough and let it warm on the counter for 10-15 minutes. It should still be cold to the touch and firm, but slightly pliable. Slice the cookies into thick disks with a very sharp chef's knife or a serrated bread knife. Space the cookies a few inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake as directed by the recipe, adding on an extra minute or 2 to the baking time.
Freezing Cut-Out Cookies
Prepare the dough as usual. Shape the dough into two disks roughly 1 inch thick.
Wrap the disks in plastic or wax paper and transfer to a plastic freezer bag or other freezer container. Press out as much air as possible, label the bag, and store in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Remove one of the disks from the freezer and let it warm up at room temperature on the counter. When pliable, roll into a 1/8-inch thick disk, cut out the cookies, and bake as directed.
Emma Christensen is recipe editor of TheKitchn.com, a nationally known blog for people who love food and home cooking. Submit comments or questions to email@example.com. © 2013, Apartment Therapy. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.


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The new agency overseeing the destruction of Iraqi weapons on Tuesday opened its first meeting with a keyboard of commissioners from 17 nations on how it would go about accounting for Baghdad's banned arms programs, Reuters said.
The two-day session was reviewing a fresh report to the Security Council drafted by Hans Blix of Sweden, the agency's director who was coaxed out of retirement after heading the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for 16 years, added the agency.
Blix is attempting to set up the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which replaced the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) as the agency in charge of scrapping Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
His report to the Security Council on how he would organize the new agency's work was discussed behind closed doors on Tuesday with the 17 commissioners, said Reuters.
The College of Commissioners, a mixture of outside experts and government officials, is designed to meet at least four times a year to provide professional advice and guidance.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov contacted Iraq about the ongoing discussions at the United Nations on resolution 1284, offering a suspension of sanctions in exchange for fresh arms inspections, AFP reported Wednesday.
Ivanov's message focused on the "talks which are currently taking place in the United Nations on resolution 1284" as well as "cooperation between Iraq and Russia."
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz backed Tuesday Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan's comments on the resolution.
"Iraq's position is closed when it comes to resolution 1284, which is not a solution and does not lead to a lifting or even a suspension of the sanctions" imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Aziz stressed, added AFP.
"Iraq appreciates Russia's position and its support for Baghdad's legitimate request to lift the embargo," he said.
Ramadan said that Iraq ruled out any dialogue with the Security Council, warning "this resolution will put Iraq in an even worse situation than at present".
Resolution 1284, adopted in December, offers a renewable suspension of the decade-old embargo in return for Baghdad's full cooperation with a new disarmament panel - (Several Sources)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)


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My Alienware crashes to a blue screen error
My Alienware crashes to a blue screen error
This article will guide you to troubleshoot a blue screen crash on you computer. A bluescreen is a stop error message from Windows to alert you about a malfunction in the software or hardware of the computer.
Supported Systems:
|Alienware Desktops
|Alienware Notebooks
|Alienware Gaming Console
The Blue Screen, known officially as a Stop Error or a bug check, is the error screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems upon encountering a critical error, of a non-recoverable nature, that causes the system to crash. A blue screen may occur when:
|Full Scan
|Blue Screen Checker
The Blue Screen Checker will provide you with the details of the error code and troublehsooting steps recomended
If your computer crashes into a blue screen before loading windows, try these steps:
If your blue screen error does not come up please try the following steps:
Click on a blue screen error code to get detailed troubleshooting steps
To run the Bootrec.exe tool, you must start Windows RE. To do this, follow these steps:
The /FixMbr option writes a Windows 7 and 8 MBR to the system partition. This option does not overwrite the existing partition table. Use this option when you must resolve MBR corruption issues, or when you have to remove non-standard code from the MBR
The /FixBoot option writes a new boot sector to the system partition by using a boot sector that is compatible with Windows 7. Use this option if one of the following conditions is true:
Perform the following steps to determine if your Processor is working:
Can't find what you are looking for?
Article ID: SLN129509
Last Date Modified: 09/14/2019 02:08 AM
Thank you for your feedback.


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by Matt Dalby, sports information graduate assistant
MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. – Freshman Shanteona Keys (Roswell, Ga.) poured in 19 points, but it was not enough as the Georgia College women's basketball team (4-15, 2-8 PBC) dropped a Peach Belt Conference (PBC) affair to the University of Montevallo (8-11, 3-7 PBC) 61-47 Wednesday night at the Centennial Center.
The Bobcats whittled the Falcon lead to just six, 41-35, with 8:35 remaining in the game but a quick 8-0 run would end the GC threat. Montevallo would seal the game at the free-throw line with an 8-for-9 (89 percent) showing in the second frame.
Keys scored her game-high 19 on 6-of-12 (.500) shooting from the field and 6-of-9 shooting from the charity-stripe, while grabbing four rebounds and dishing out a pair of assists.
The Bobcats received a great effort from sophomore forward Krysta Lewis (Woodstock, Ga.), who scored 12 on 4-of-10 (.400) shooting, going 2-of-3 from three-point land.
Helping on the glass was freshman Belinda Schaafsma (Momence, Ill.), who grabbed a team-high nine boards after leading the team with 10 against Lander University Saturday afternoon.
Fellow freshman Hollyn Phelps (Alpharetta, Ga.) enjoyed the best game of her young tenure notching a career-best six points on 3-of-4 shooting.
Montevallo controlled nearly all facets of the game shooting 23-of-56 (.411) from the floor compared to 17-of-44 (.386) from Georgia College. The Bobcats also lost the turnover battle 21-14, while being outrebounded by the Falcons 36-28.
Montevallo would place three scorers in double-figures, Taylor Beverly leading the way with 18. Tiffany McClure would tally 14 points of her own, as Zena Nasiloski earned herself a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
GC hits the halfway point of their six-game home stand taking on Georgia Southwestern State University Saturday, Feb. 4 at 1:30 p.m.
The Georgia College Department of Athletics, two-time winners of the PBC Commissioner's Cup, sponsors 10 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, Bobcat Athletics prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the teams' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Sign up at www.twitter.com/BobcatSports and www.facebook.com/gcbobcats for up-to-the-minute reports, and visit www.GCBobcats.com for more information, and to nominate your favorite former Bobcats and Colonials to the GC Athletics Hall of Fame.


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The Societe Generale Libano-europeenne de Banque (SGLEB) is the first international private bank to open a branch in a free zone in Syria, an advertisement said Monday, December 4, in the press.
The SGLEB branch will offer its services to transport, industrial and trading companies established in the free zones, the advert said.
"This will contribute to revive trade in these zones and develop the Syrian economy", the bank said. The SGLEB has two shareholders, Societe Generale-France and the Lebanese Sahnaoui group.
In June, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government allowed foreign banks to operate in free zones, in a first effort to liberalize the banking sector, which has been entirely controlled by the state since 1963.
Five other banks have asked authorization to open a branch in Syrian free zones. "Their applications have or will soon be accepted", Ghaftan Rifai, who is in charge of Syria's free zones, told AFP.
The five candidates are Fransabank, Banque Europeenne pour le Moyen-Orient (BEMO), Banque du Liban et d'Outre-Mer (BLOM Bank), Bank of Beirut and Arab countries (BBAC) and Societe Bancaire Arabe (SBA), a French-based bank with Syrian capital.
Syria created free-trade zones from 1972 in Damascus, Adra, 35 kilometers (23 miles) north of the capital, the northern city of Aleppo and the Mediterranean ports of Tartus and Latakia.
The ruling Baath party gave its green light Saturday to the establishment in Syria of private banks in the form of private or mixed shareholding companies, and also approved the creation of a stock exchange and a law on banking secrecy — (AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)


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Tennessee - Tracy City
Reverse Sales Tax Calculator of Tracy City
Calculation of the general sales taxes of the city Tracy City, Tennessee for 2017 Q1
How 2017 Q1 Sales taxes are calculated in Tracy City
The Tracy City, Tennessee, general sales tax rate is 7%. The sales tax rate is always 9.25%
Every 2017 Q1 combined rates mentioned above are the results of Tennessee state rate (7%), the county rate (2.25%). There is no city sale tax for Tracy City. There is no special rate for Tracy City.
The Tracy City's tax rate may change depending of the type of purchase.
Please refer to the Tennessee website for more sales taxes information.
Tracy City city rate(s)
9.25% is the smallest possible tax rate (37387, Tracy City, Tennessee)
The average combined rate of every zip code in Tracy City, Tennessee is 9.25%


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Item specifics
|New without tags :
A brand-new, unused, and unworn item (including handmade items) that is not in original packaging or may be missing original packaging materials (such as the original box or bag). The original tags may not be attached.
|Secondary Stone:
|Silver Filled Stamped 925
|Country/Region of Manufacture:
|Main Stone:
|Fire Opal
Does not apply
(Guaranteed 100% Sterling Silver)
Fabulous brand new high quality sterling silver ring with blue inlay lab created Fire Opal stones on solid 925 sterling silver and stamped with 925. Our silver is genuine 925 sterling silver and Rhodium plated for better quality and prolonged shine. You will receive the item in a gift box. Thanks for looking and check out more items in my Ebay Store for more great items and deals!
· Item Material:Silver Filled Stamped 925
· Item Type: Ring
· Ring Stone: Fire Opal
· Item Condition:100% brand new and High quality guaranteed
· Country of Manufacture: China
· Packing: With Kermesinua Box
We take care in packaging all items carefully and ship within 48 hours of payment. Please send us a message if you have not received your item in a timely manner and we will be happy to assist you.
All Canada and Worldwide delivery time can exceed 20 days due to international custom clearance.
We hope you are satisfied with your purchase. Please leave us 5 star as we appreciate the opportunity that we can continue to offer great products at great deals! Thank you! Please send us a message before leaving negative feedbacks as we are here to provide professional customer service by resolving all issues and making all our customers happy.
We promise superior service which includes fast and free shipping, great communication, and overall customer satisfaction!
You can contact us at the "Have a Question" link at the bottom of this listing. We will respond promptly. Thank you.
If the product you receive is not as described or low quality, the seller promises that you may return it before order completion (when you click 'Confirm Order Received' or exceed confirmation timeframe) and receive a full refund. The return shipping fee will be paid by you. Or, you can choose to keep the product and agree the refund amount directly with the seller.


text: At One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning, we know you can't always plan for disasters, yet they happen anyway. We also know you can't compromise when it comes to your family's comfort and safety. That's why we offer you important savings on our industry-best HVAC care. Here are the Special Offers currently available:


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RIAA Takes The Cake: Equates File Sharing To Children's Fairy Tale
from the more-pie-for-everyone deptSomething must be in the water over at the RIAA. After first trying to link the Chinese hack of Google to Google's position on copyright and then ridiculously claiming that file sharers were undermining humanitarian aid in Haiti (despite neither being even close to true), now it's resorted to using simplistic fables to try to demonize file sharing. Perhaps it's part of the RIAA's propaganda campaign for school children, but in a recent blog post, RIAA VP Joshua Friedlander compared the file sharing situation to the children's fable Nobody Stole the Pie by Sonia Levitin (by the way, you would think that the RIAA, so concerned about content creators getting paid would at least provide a link to information about that book so you could buy it if you wanted to -- but we'll fix that omission for the RIAA).
You may have heard the story. It's about a bunch of villagers all taking a little nibble of a pie, insisting that just a little bit won't hurt -- and then, of course, the entire pie is gone, and everyone claims that it was "Not I" who ate the pie.
Yes, it's a wonderful fable that you should read to your children in nursery school. But, for the adults who actually understand basic economics, it's clear that the situation the RIAA is facing has absolutely nothing to do with the situation described in the book. So let's fast forward from nursery school to econ 101, and perhaps educate the RIAA a bit.
The reason the pie story functions the way it does is because the pie is a scarce and limited resource. As such, each time someone takes, it means that there is less for others. It's a zero-sum game. In contrast, with a digital file, the content is abundant and an infinite resource. Each time someone makes a copy, rather than less for everyone, there's actually more for everyone. You're actually growing the pie. Neat!
The problem the RIAA and its labels face is not everyone nibbling on the pie. It's that it has always focused on selling pie at greatly inflated prices, because in the old world, you could only get the pie from a few RIAA-run pie shops. In the new world, with abundant pie, where each copy of a piece of pie expands the pie, suddenly people can get their pie from many other places. And it's been great for pretty much everyone, other than the proprietors of the RIAA pie shops. More musicians are able to get their "pies" out there, since the old pieshop gatekeeper is no longer the bottleneck. More musicians are able to make money since they no longer have to rely on the pieshop to fund their ability to make new flavors of pie.
Now, when you have a market with an abundant resource, that actually tends to open up all sorts of new business models around pie (pie eating contests, pie toppings, pie making lessons, pie crusts, pie tins, etc.). In fact, those business models are working quite well. But the RIAA seems to have become confused about where the pie has gone:
In the music industry, it takes the investment of many peoples' money, effort, and time to create the songs and albums we all get to choose from and enjoy. Since most acts never even reach the breakeven point in sales, music labels need to operate like venture capitalists and count on the successes to subsidize the continued development of many artists and releases that may never break out of the red. And it's easy to ignore the harm being done when you're only stealing one copy.Such a nice story. Too bad that it's just as much a children's fiction as the original pie fable. Recent studies have shown that the music industry has been growing, not shrinking over the past few years. It's just that the money is going to different places. Again, the RIAA has a blindspot for all the other places where people can get pie, and how they've build up great business models around it, assuming that if you're not getting pie from an RIAA shopkeeper, then you must be "stealing." But that's like saying every time I order pizza from Domino's, I'm stealing from Pizza Hut. Or, even worse, every time I make my own pizza at home, I'm stealing from Pizza Hut.
Music companies continue to develop more ways for fans to enjoy their favorite artists and songs legitimately -- and provide additional sources of revenue. But when more music is obtained illegally, and less money is available to invest in finding, developing, and recording new artists, the resources available for the next round are diminished. So if the investments dry up, and fewer new artists are able to be developed, will filesharers who stole bit by bit look at each other and say it was "Not I" who stole the pie?
The real problem is not different people taking "just a little bit." The people haven't been taking, they've been growing the pie. Massively. And the musicians and record labels who understand this have been growing and profiting nicely. So, seriously, RIAA, let's leave the children's fables where they belong and start focusing on updating your antiquated business model to deal with the twenty-first century.
Filed Under: economics, fables, fairy tales, pie, riaa
Companies: riaa


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Thom Browne Pre-Fall 2013 | Michelle Obama's Inaugural Coat
Shop It Now: Thom Browne Pre-Fall 2013
Shop It Now: Thom Browne Pre-Fall 2013
Michelle Obama wore it, and now you can too. Available now at Moda Operandi, is Thom Browne's smartly tailored Pre-Fall 2013 collection, which includes pieces very similar to the custom-made fit-and-flare coat that Mrs. Obama sported at the inauguration in DC on Monday.
Among the goodies are a handful of double-breasted dresses cut in the same navy silk tie jacquard, as well as a pleated dress in midnight blue whose silhouette bears a striking resemblance to that now-famous piece of outerwear. For those who admire Thom Browne's figure-enhancing cuts but do not wish to be the first lady's mini me, there are also plenty of other gorgeous, menswear-inspired ensembles; our favorite is an extremely luxe-looking wool houndstooth ensemble made up of a crewneck shell, round-shouldered jacket, and knee-length pencil skirt.
Click through to see the entirety of the Thom Browne Pre-Fall 2013 pieces available for presale on Moda Operandi, and hurry — not only does the trunk show end Jan. 25, but judging by the amount of buzz Browne is currently receiving, these pieces are sure to be snapped up very soon.
Photos courtesy of Thom Browne.


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Please note, when your select items to purchase from the same warehouse you will save on shipping charges. Each of our warehouses individually price their products and prices may vary by warehouse.
Firearms typically ship within 5-7 business days after payment and a valid FFL is received.
All of our inventory is available for online purchase only.
Flat rate shipping is only $14.95 for unlimited accessories and ammunition for Warehouse 2 & 3 products. All accessories and ammunition from Warehouse 2 & 3 ship within 24 business hours.
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The King Cobra Target was thoughtfully engineered to adapt the powerful .357 magnum King Cobra revolver to the competitive range. Featuring a 4" barrel, adjustable rear sight, elevated fiber optic front sight and custom wood medallion grips, the Target is the third model in Colts re-imagined King Cobra series.
|Colt Mfg
|357 Mag
|King Cobra
|Barrel Length Range
|4" to 4.99"
|Fiber Optic Front, Adjustable Rear
|Frame Description
|Matte Stainless Steel
|Altamont Wood
|Search Code
|Similar Items
|Barrel Length
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1. Please verify the Firearm is legal in your state. You can do this by checking your state's particular rules or simply ask a local gun dealer. Each state's rules vary and some states restrict not only who may purchase and possess a handgun, but what particular models are permitted for such possession within that state.
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2. If the firearm is legal in your state then you can make your purchase online.
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3. Once, you have made your purchase contact your local FFL Dealer and have them Fax (603-974-2641) or email their FFL to firstname.lastname@example.com. Please have your Customer Order # (which you will find on the top right hand corner of your invoice after you purchased your firearm) and your Name on the FFL.
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DJtroymichael necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 214 diseños de 49 diseñadores freelance.
Troy Michael Wedding DJ
Logo used for a new website to take my current branding to the next level. My new tagline is relax..enjoy...dance.!
My current site is http://www.troymichaeldj.com.
I am a laid back perfectionist whith a deep love for music & weddings.
I am a DJ with a strong reputation for the highest level of service & one most sought after Wedding DJs in Hawaii.
My style can be described as "Fun, Refined, Contemporary". I strives to be different & unique. I do not play "The Chicken Dance", "YMCA", or "Macarena" type songs.
Unlike many DJs I am not Flamboyant or cheesy. I specialize in Destination Weddings in Hawaii.
Destination wedding Brides 25 to 40 years old who High End and want only the best and something better than the norm at their wedding.
Educated, stylish, & trendy females.
Transmits my style & is minamalistic, fresh, modern, elegant & fun. The Logo primary use is for a Website Head.
1. Do Not use any DJ related graphic elements(music notes, headphones) for the logo. No hearts or flowers or rings either.
3. Do Not think of this as a typical DJ logo...think more in line of what a wedding photograhper or planner would want.
2. Intials use ok as part of the logo or a soft abstract would be cool. Text based only is also ok.
3. Use simple clean Fonts.
4. Use one primary Color... I Like troquiose, Cyan , Light blue...White black, Grey as secondary ok.
5. Do not Make "WEDDING DJ" & "Troy Michael" to small in comparison to the other.
http://www.weddingstylemagazine.com/ I Iike the Grace Ormonde Wedding Style fonts and setup. I like the way the text of the her name "grace ormonde" stacks on WEDDING STYLE I believe the font is called "Cosmos Light" I like this font as well as the other font for "grace ormonde" If you can make "DJ" standout in a suttle way like is done for "STYLE". I like the use of uppercase & lower case. I did not really care for the GO intials here.
The files we will require are:Print file format & Web file format
THANK YOU in advance for your hard work on this logo. Make it your best and there may very well be more paid work for you in the future.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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The Browns are, so far, managing not to embarrass themselves—Cleveland's within a touchdown of the Ravens in Baltimore as of this writing. More serious injuries notwithstanding, we are concerned about the health of Browns center Alex Mack, who appears to be bleeding from a place you really do not want to be bleeding. His Secret World, if you will.
What's to blame? Handsy and lacerated Ravens D-linemen? Taco Bell pre-game dinner? The internets are buzzing about the bloody ass. Let us know if you have an answer!
Update: Browns quarterback Brandon Weeden is bleeding from his hand, which makes sense.


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W301 Music with Foundation BA Undergraduate 2020
|UCAS code
|Mode of study
|Full Time
|4 years full-time
|Durham City
|Alternative qualifications
|Department(s) Website
+44 (0)191 334 0172
Course Summary
Foundation Programme (Year 0)
The first year of this course is spent with the Foundation Programme developing the skills and subject knowledge required for successful study at degree level. The Foundation Year contains a number of core and discipline-specific modules. Compulsory modules are designed to develop higher level learning skills and familiarise you with studying and assessment at degree level. Discipline-specific modules help lay a foundation of knowledge that you will build upon as you progress to your chosen degree course. On successful completion of the Foundation Year, you will progress to the first year of your degree, once you have achieved the grade required for progression.
Foundation Modules
- Academic Practice in Arts & Humanities
- Foundations of Music
- Foundations of Music; History and Form
- English Literature
- Extended Research
- Introduction to Modern History
- Introduction to Liberal Arts
- Understanding Language
- Studying Social Life
Years 1, 2 and 3
As per years 1, 2 and 3 of W300 BA Music.
Course Learning and Teaching
This course is focused on non-traditional students and the modes of teaching and learning are designed to provide and facilitate high-quality teaching and learning in a supportive and productive environment which encourages self-awareness, reflective practice and cross-cultural awareness.
The course is delivered through a mixture of lectures, tutorials/workshops and practical classes. Typically, lectures provide key information on a particular area and this is consolidated through tutorials and/or workshops and practical classes where appropriate, particularly for laboratory and IT skills. The course provides up to 18 contact hours per week, but further consolidation takes place through independent study and/or voluntary workshops provided outside the course's formal contact hours. Emphasis is placed on developing confidence and classes are generally small, normally with 25 to 35 students to ensure individual needs can be met.
Students who require additional language and academic support are normally provided with an additional 4 hours of seminar/ tutorial contact time and opportunities to take part in additional small group and individual tutorials as appropriate beyond the formal contact hours.
Towards the end of the year, greater emphasis is placed on independent study, not just in preparation for classes and reading around the subjects, but also with students completing an individual project related to their future progression route.
Throughout the course, all students also have access to an academic adviser who will provide them with academic support and guidance. Students will meet formally with their adviser two to three times a year. However, in addition, academic advisors and teaching staff are normally available to meet with students at certain times each week on a 'drop-in' basis.
After the initial year, students should refer to the teaching and learning information for W300 BA Music.
Admissions Process
Subject requirements, level and grade
All students are requested to contact the Foundation Programme for an Information, Advice and Guidance discussion before applying.
We welcome applications from:
- Mature learners (over 21) with no formal qualifications*, but whose experience since leaving full-time education may have helped to equip them for further study.
- Mature learners (over 21) with A levels (or equivalents) which were obtained over three years ago.
- Young learners (under 21) with adverse circumstances which could not be mitigated by their academic provider (evidence will be required).
- Young learners (18 to 21) who have not engaged in post 16 education, but whose experience since leaving full-time education may have helped to equip them for further study.
- EU learners who have not had the opportunity in their home country to study qualifications suitable for direct entry to their chosen degree course at Durham University.
- Non-native English speakers with suitable IELTS (or University recognised equivalent).
*Some courses require evidence of instrumental skills.
Formal qualifications are not normally required for UK students. Evidence of academic qualifications is required for EU students. Applicants must have reached Grade 8 ABRSM instrumental standard. Applicants are advised that an audition may be required for entry to this course. For a complete list of subject requirements visit www.durham.ac.uk/foundation.programme
English Language requirements
Please check requirements for your subject and level of study.
How to apply
Information relevant to your country
Fees and Funding
Full Time Fees
|EU Student
|£9,250.00 per year
|Home Student
|£9,250.00 per year
|Island Student
|£9,250.00 per year
|International non-EU Student
|£20,500.00 per year
The tuition fees shown for home and EU students are for one complete academic year of full time study and are set according to the academic year of entry. Fees for subsequent years of your course may rise in line with an inflationary uplift as determined by the government.
The tuition fees shown for overseas students are for one complete academic year of full time study, are set according to the academic year of entry, and remain the same throughout the duration of the programme for that cohort (unless otherwise stated).
Please also check costs for colleges and accommodation.
Scholarships and funding
Career Opportunities
Foundation Programme
Students successfully completing a Foundation Year course will progress directly to their chosen degree programme at Durham University. Our graduates enter a wide range of occupational areas both in the public and private sector, including science, teaching, business and finance. Durham has an excellent graduate employment record, and the skills acquired during study serve as a valuable preparation for life after university.
We have been expanding the range of progression routes to other Durham degrees for Foundation Year students and provide routes into all Durham University departments.
Open days and visits
Pre-application open day
Pre-application open days are the best way to discover all you need to know about Durham University. With representatives from all relevant academic and support service departments, and opportunities to explore college options, the open days provide our prospective undergraduates with the full experience of Durham University.
Please see the following page for further details and information on how to book a place: www.durham.ac.uk/opendays
Discover Durham Tours
Discover Durham tours offer a brief introduction to the University. The tour begins at one of our undergraduate colleges, where you will receive an introductory talk from a member of college staff, followed by a tour of the college by current students.
Overseas Visit Schedule
Department Information
Foundation Programme
We offer specially tailored study programmes to prepare students for degree-level study, specialising in helping mature learners return to education and preparing EU students who are unable to study to a sufficient level in their own country for direct entry to university courses in the UK. We can also support students who are changing between academic fields.
Our students come to us from diverse educational and cultural backgrounds; many have had a long break from formal education. We help students to realise the skills and personal qualities they each possess and to apply these in developing the academic knowledge they will need as they progress through their studies.
Foundation Programme courses are fully integrated with Durham University degree programmes, counting as Year 0 of a full undergraduate degree. Students will progress directly on to their degree at Durham, once they have acheived the grade required for progression.
- Over 90% of Durham's subjects are ranked within the top 10 in the UK (Complete University Guide 2019).
For a current list of staff, please see the Centre web pages.


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Kanter Marine excels at turning dreams into reality. Designed without compromise, Kanter's custom-built aluminum-constructed vessels will fulfill your every desire while offering the ultimate in safety, performance and comfort.
The design and construction of a Kanter vessel is never compromised. Thanks to the skill of renowned Dieter Empacher, Dave Gerr, Ron Holland, Greg Marshall and Chuck Paine, every vessel we build is designed to boast unparalleled beauty, optimum performance, ultimate safety and timelss durability.


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A home office is one of the nicest touches a house can have - a quiet, professional space touched by personal aesthetic and business-like efficiency. But while having the space is a luxury, using it effectively and regularly is a lot more difficult, especially when the couch and television are right next door. Say you want to get your memoirs down on paper, or maybe have a large-scale project to finish for work - perhaps you actually work from home every day. What kind of décor and design will encourage you into efficiency?
Décor - like a job - is a year-round commitment. As the months come and go, consider designing your home office to take advantage of them. Don't be stuck in one, hermetic indoor climate - let the seasons inform your space.
Spring. Everything's coming up green and colorful, so add a touch of that to your office space. Bring in fresh-cut flowers and occasionally open the windows for a rejuvenating breeze. Keep in mind that junk - old magazines, newspapers, boxes - tends to gather during the winter, so go the spring cleaning route and clear out your office. You'll be happy for the breathing room in a month or two.
Summer. It will be hot. Turn on the fans or air-conditioner, but be sure to keep your window shades wide open. Large windows are essential to any home office, as natural light stimulates the brain where artificial illumination might just put a tired mind to sleep. When the weather's not miserably humid or there's a pleasant wind, turn off the AC and open a few windows for some healthy airflow.
Fall. If you live in the Northeast or any part of the country where leaves turn from green to gold, you'll be extra thankful for those large windows. Fall blends summery afternoons with hints of winter in the evenings. It's a great time of year to invest in comfortable furniture and a few couch throws. If you have a fireplace, all the better.
Winter. Don't let the cold break your routine. There are a variety of tricks to staying warm, but the best might be installing radiant floor heating. These heating systems fit comfortably under floors of almost any material and spread their heat over the surface and up into your room. More energy conservative than air ducts and better for air quality, these floors will keep you toasty long through February and March. Just remember to get them put in during the summer, before chilly autumn nights settle in.
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