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No words can even attempt to describe the horrifying tragedy that shattered a Connecticut community and our nation today. The news coming out of Newtown, Conn., is devastating, nauseating, maddening, and terribly saddening. Twenty children and eight adults' lives and futures are lost.
When I went to pick up my kids at their San Francisco public school this afternoon, I approached a teary-eyed mom. "Something is wrong," she said. "Something is seriously wrong."
Something truly is wrong in this country filled with far too much loneliness, greed, guns, violence, screen time, untreated mental illness, ill-equipped families. There are far too many violent video games and movies and not enough role models for our children. Not enough time spent playing outside. Not enough love and hugs. Far too many smart phones and tablets and not enough building, creating, experimenting. There's tons of money but not enough for schools and the mentally ill. And people are walking around with semi-automatic weapons.
Today, I felt myself wanting to do something to cope with this overwhelming feeling that something just isn't right. What can I do to help? Yes, our nation's leaders need to lead the charge but also as individuals we should all pitch in, and not just today but everyday, whether that means taking the time to listen to our kids or volunteering our time to help kids who aren't our own but who are in need.
I started coming up with a list of things to do and I hope you'll add to it in the comments…yes, we should cry but we should also act and do something because something is wrong and only we can change that.
Hug your kids. Squeeze them hard. And not just today. Every day, especially when they grow into withdrawn teenagers and act like they don't want hugs, even though they really do want them.
Send a message to the families who were affected by the shooting. You can do this on the website, WeAreBetterThanThis.org.
Advocate for gun control. When our founding fathers created our nation's constitution and included the right to bear arms they weren't referring to semiautomatic weapons that fire dozens of bullets. We need to get these weapons out of the hands of dangerous people. If you're pro gun control, sign this petition from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. You can also sign this petition.
Know your neighbors. Knock on the door next door. Open your doors. Host an open house for your neighbors. Invite people to bring food. Talk. You just might touch a lonely soul, and you'll be a lot happier when you're part of a community.
Contact your state and national representatives to ensure they are working for people with mental illness. We can't diagnose through the news media what happened today in Newton, Conn. Not enough is known about the killer at this point. But often these situations involve mental illness. Although generally people with mental illness aren't violent, sometimes a glitch in our nation's healthcare system fails to reach someone who desperately needs it. Speak out for better treatment for these people.
Become a big brother or a big sister. There are hundreds, thousands, of kids out there who don't have the support system and role models they deserve. Become a mentor, a friend, a teacher to one of these kids through the Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area program.
Watch the new Muppets movie. If only Hollywood created more movies like this for families. Life, at least for children, should be a happy song, not a war zone.
Join the National Alliance for Mental Illness—and join the thousands of Americans dedicated to improving the lives of people with mental illness.
Cut back on the violent video games. The violence in video games has increased tenfold in recent years. Try to mix in some nonviolent video games. Nothing wrong with PacMan. Over at DivineCaroline, Allison Ford recommends Flock!, Peggle, Little Big Planet and Trauma Center: Under the Knife.
Give to schools. If there is a God, and on days like this it's hard to imagine that there is one, our nation's teachers are the ones on the ground doing God's work. Yet, they're operating in cash-strapped public schools with few supplies and little support. They're raising our nation's children yet in many cases they don't even have paper. Go to DonorsChoose.org and help buy crayons for a kindergarten class or books for a middle school. Here's a San Francisco teacher who would like folk and fairy tale books for her kindergarten class and here's a debate team in Oakland that needs a podium. Let our teachers know that we care.
Encourage your kid to engage, build, create, discover. Lure your child away from the screen by inviting him to play a board game. Or come up with a project or experiment the two of you can do together. My husband and kids are tracking our backyard birds and they're keeping a tally of all the different species.
Don't go see violent movies. Maybe you like them, but there's no need to take kids to a movie showing someone randomly and senselessly killing people. The movies only continue to get more and more violent, and Hollywood keeps producing them because we all go see them.
Eat dinner around the table with your family every night. This time with you all together is the most valuable, important part of your day. It doesn't matter whether you're sharing a gourmet meal or delivery pizza. What matters is the time and the conversation.
Help tutor kids. Through the Boys & Girls Club you can help kids learn to read or ace a math test. There are thousands of kids who need that extra attention and you could be that person who makes a difference and puts that kid on the right path.
Turn off your phone.
Talk to the person sitting next to you on the bus.
Listen to your kids. That means stopping what you're doing and really listening.


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Angry Birds creator Rovio said its new ToonsTV animation channel has surpassed 1 billion views, demonstrating that entertainment distributed through a mobile game application represents a powerful new way to reach viewers.
Seven months after launching "Angry Birds Toons" through its popular game app, Rovio Entertainment said the company has achieved the viewing milestone. The Finnish company said it would create a second season of "Angry Birds Toons" for 2014, as well as spinoffs dedicated to other game characters, Bad Piggies and Stella, the pink bird.
Rovio launched the "Angry Birds Toons" series in March through its game app as well as through Internet-connected smart TVs and devices. The series also aired on more than 20 television networks worldwide.
PHOTOS: Cable versus broadcast ratings
BTIG media analyst Richard Greenfield wrote that this strategy allows Rovio to serve as its own gatekeeper, building its own content library and creating a meaningful video platform where the company controls the economics.
"Investors have not paid significant attention to how far Rovio has come in the past seven months," Greenfield wrote in a blog post. "That is going to change."
Greenfield estimates that ToonsTV is carried on more than 25 million devices, giving it a bigger distribution platform than the nation's largest cable TV distributor, Comcast. He projects that the potential audience will continue to grow, thanks to fresh content, like the just-released "Angry Birds Star Wars II," and more devices connected to the Internet.
Other Hollywood studios have begun to take notice.
PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments
Rovio said it had struck deals to bring more content to its channel, including "Stan Lee's Chakra the Invincible" from Pow! Entertainment, specials from Hasbro Studios, "Amazing Animals" from National Geographic Kids, "Fraggle Rock" from the Jim Henson Co. and the French animated series "Oggy and the Cockroaches" from Xilam Animation.
"Given the size and reach of our massively engaged audience, it seemed only natural to extend beyond our own storytelling and partner with the best content creators to bring our fans even more fun entertainment," Rovio Chief Executive Mikael Hed said in a statement.
Fears of TV cord-cutting overstated, survey finds
Hollywood United Methodist Church puts its faith in filming
Disney's Bob Iger lauds Netflix, touts theme parks at conference
ON LOCATION: People and places behind what's onscreen PHOTOS: Biggest box office flops of 2013 PHOTOS: Celebrity production companies
ON LOCATION: People and places behind what's onscreen
PHOTOS: Biggest box office flops of 2013
PHOTOS: Celebrity production companies

subset: commoncrawl


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Landscape Edging and Its Amazing Benefits
Landscape edging may be a new thing when we talk about this decoration in some under developed country because this decoration is often given to the house which comes with great yards. The edging for landscape actually is not a big deal for everyone to make it but there are some reasons which make this edging becomes so interesting when we want to create outstanding appearance in the house. Now, let us learn about some advantages that you will get when you have the edging.
Tidying the Look of the Landscape
When we are talking about the benefits of the Landscape edging, the most visible benefit that you will get is the tidy look in the landscape. First, you will get a good lining in the edge of the landscape that you have. You can install the edging for creating a boundary that isolates a space in the landscaping so there will be some kinds of important space that can be used for walking. You can also use the edging for separating two distinct features in the landscape such as grass with stone.
Then, the second way of this Landscape edging in tidying the landscape is restricting the growth of the grass. Grass is a wild plant originally and the growth of the grass is really fast. When you do not have the landscape edge, the grass will surely grow overwhelmingly and make your landscape look like a wild savanna. The look of the landscape will be messy and the overgrowth of the grass will reduce the composition of the fertility in the soil.
Increasing the Aesthetic Value of the Beauty
Then, the net benefit that you get from the Landscape edging comes from the aesthetical side. The advantage is the variation of the beauty. There are many kinds of material which you can use for the edging. For example, when you get the metal for the edging, you will surely add more modernity to the look of the landscape. Then, when you want to have more traditional but chic design, you can have the stone edging for restricting the plants in your landscape.
Then, the next benefit is the creation of new soil for planning good tress. The Landscape edging often comes with many places which are filled with decoration and when you have the edging, you can isolate a space to be used for planting the tress that you like. The soil which is kept away from the grass that surrounds it will surely give a good quality of soil as there will be no other plant which competes with other plants.
Now you see that the Landscape edging is surely something that will give many benefits. The benefits do not only come from the aesthetical benefits but also from the functional benefits. The functional benefit will surely make you have less troublesome treatment to the landscape that you have as the growth of the grass will be restricted by the edging of landscape. You just have to remember to create your best design for the placement of the edging.


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The American Heart Association covers many areas when it comes to heart disease and stroke (see list at right). The current priority is to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke by reducing tobacco use, particularly among children.
Increase Tobacco Excise Taxes
- Support significant increases in tobacco excise taxes at all levels of government, including state, county or municipal.
- Seek opportunities to allocate revenues generated by increased tobacco excise taxes to tobacco control, prevention and cessation programs, and other heart disease and stroke related health initiatives.
Establish, Strengthen and Protect Smoke-Free Workplaces Law
- Promote and protect comprehensive smoke-free workplace laws at the state and local levels, in compliance with the Fundamentals of Smoke-free Workplace Laws guidelines.
- For states with preemption, work to remove preemption provisions and/or strengthen statewide smoke-free air laws.
Support Tobacco Control Prevention and Treatment Programs
- Establish sustainable funding for state tobacco prevention and cessation programs to levels that meet or exceed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations.
- Tobacco control programs should be comprehensive in accordance with CDC recommendations, constructed intelligently, staffed appropriately and administered effectively with periodic evaluation.
For more information about the policies on this page, please contact Carter Headrick, 512.423.5733


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Dark Voices Vol. 2 is a collection of 116 one shot vocal samples suited to the dark Techno, Electro, Drum & Bass, minimal, Trance and more.
These effected and tweaked out files are all royalty free, and ready to use in your personal or commercial projects.
'The Dark Voice Samples vol 2' collection from Gigaloops includes over 100 one shot and 'dark talk' style Vocal Samples.
In this unique pack you can expect to find vocoded and distorted, dry and compressed vocals.
These royalty free WAVs are suitable for use in all compatible software.
- 43 Mb Complete Pack Content.
- 16 bits / 44.1khz
- PC/MAC Compatible (Logic, Cubase, Live, Reason, SonyAcid, Fruity loops, GarageBand, etc...)
- Aiff
- Wav
All of the content is 100% royalty-free. Once purchased, you can use these audio loops in your music releases, both commercial and underground, with no restrictions.
How to Order:
Simply click BUY "Add to Cart". When you finish your order, click "checkout". If you are a new costumer you need create an account, if you are a returning costumer only fill up the form. Your Download Link will be sent in you account in Loophunter immediately after your payment has been received.
For any problem send a email email@example.com
*Note: The previews are low resolution MP3s. The quality of the files you will receive will of course be much higher, uncompressed WAV-AIFF, stereo, 44k, 16-24 bit.
Producer: Gigaloops


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Instant Messaging to Account for 75% of Mobile Messaging Traffic by 2018, But Only Generate 2% of Revenues
Impetus lies with 'free' messaging apps to monetise substantial user bases…
A new report from Juniper Research highlights the growing disparity between traffic volumes and revenues in the mobile messaging market. It states that despite accounting for 75% of the traffic – or 63 trillion messages – by 2018, IM (Instant Messaging) apps will only generate 2% of the mobile messaging market's revenue, at just over 3 billion USD.
The Impact of IM
The report – Mobile Messaging Markets: IM, Social, SMS, MMS, Email, RCS/RCS-e 2014-2018 – stated that the increasingly high IM traffic volumes are the result of a number of factors, but chief among them is the fact that usage of IM apps is inherently different to usage of SMS; users typically send up to 10 'chats' to convey a message which could be contained in 1 SMS.
In addition to this, stickers, emoticons, images and group conversations all add significantly to IM traffic, as well as the fact that handset users – the younger demographic in particular – typically install multiple IM apps. Report author Sian Rowlands added 'adoption of IM apps has rapidly accelerated over the past 18 months, something which has led Juniper to revise upwards our forecast for the volume of IM traffic.'
Routes to Profit
Nevertheless IM apps are continuing to encounter difficulties in generating revenues, given the infancy of the market. The hundreds of IM apps available are taking different approaches, some utilising in-app purchases and games, others with advertising or subscriptions. Indeed, some apps – such as Facebook Messenger – are loss leaders, and only serve to increase engagement with a companies' separate revenue generating app.
Other key findings from the report include:
• Mobile operators are continuing to work on the RCS (Rich Communications Suite) initiative, which has potential to see traction after 2018, although progressing at a slow pace.
• The Far East & China will generate the most traffic across all mobile messaging formats, throughout the forecast period.
The 'Mobile Messaging ~ War of the Words' whitepaper is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the full report.
Juniper Research provides research and analytical services to the global hi-tech communications sector, providing consultancy, analyst reports and industry commentary.


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The Creation, Care and Feeding of an Analytics Center of Excellence
Analytics are key to making your company agile, and to making better market, customer, and competitive decisions. An analytics center of excellence provides the company with valuable insights, protects privacy and brand reputation, and guides the prioritization and selection of opportunities for greatest growth. Join Laura Patterson in a discussion about:
· How an Analytics Center of Excellence make a difference to the company, customers, marketing
· What is an Analytics Center of Excellence, establishing its purpose, and creating the vision
· The key functions and capabilities needed
· The journey's key stages, associated challenges, and what do you need to do to get to the next step
· What metrics you should select to measure the value and impact of an Analytics Center of Excellence
Mar 19 2015
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Media and Marketing
How to Build a Profitable Client Portfolio via Authentic Connections
Dec 23 2019
4:00 pm
60 mins
Irene Rivkah Krasnoff, Digital Marketing & Sales Strategist, Sapir Management Group
Social Selling is the art of selling via social media. It's based on cultivating relationships and building authentic connections so that the selling process isn't awkward. As a result, your prospective client isn't defensive, anticipating having to say "no" to you. Why? Because you already laid the groundwork by building relationships via social media, and establishing a deep sense of trust where you're seen as the expert. Soulful social selling is about framing the sales conversation as a two way process to dig deeper into their specific challenges in a totally relaxed environment where the prospective client feels it's OK to say no.
You can even sell via livestreams and get "hell yeses!"
By using social media to produce compelling and valuable content, you're laying the groundwork during the early stages of the marketing and sales cycle for the client to internally say "yes" to your products or services. You'll learn how to use social media to develop relationships across 4 key phases: captivate your ideal clients' attention, cultivate online conversations, connect with your ideal clients and deepen the relationships & convert to paying clients without resorting to closing techniques that feel contrived, manipulative and product focused versus client focused.
Social selling is soulful because you're relying on your intuition to guide the conversation versus using a rigid structure. The conversations are still structured, but you have the flexibility to move in a different direction based on what your ideal client shares with you.
Save your seat
Take Best-Practices to Next-Practices: Forward-Thinking B2B Marketing Strategies
Oct 9 2019
3:00 pm
60 mins
Christa Kleinhans Tuttle, Entrepreneur, Experienced Marketer and CEO, Launch Marketing
Executive leaders that are willing to take risks and stay on the cutting edge of marketing trends often position themselves to capture lots of new business, talent and market share. The most successful leaders, however, know how to build a strategic foundation that is strong enough to support innovative trends while providing a tried-and-true baseline that keeps things grounded as the marketing landscape continues to evolve.
Join Launch Marketing's Founder and CEO Christa Tuttle as she illustrates how webinar attendees can create best practices that can evolve into "next" practices, moving the needle on both innovative and stable success. This presentation will cover several cornerstones of B2B marketing, including messaging and positioning, integrated marketing plans, marketing automation and more.
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Value Over Volume: Zeroing In on Data that Drives Revenue
Aug 14 2019
3:00 pm
45 mins
Christa Tuttle, Founder and CEO, Launch Marketing
In order to make intelligent decisions from marketing data, B2B marketing execs need smart, precise data. Locating, vetting and analyzing this data, however, is one of the least exciting things for companies to prioritize. Many companies will choose volume over value and continue piling new data into their CRMs rather than taking on the slower, long-term work on proper data cultivation.
Join Launch Marketing's Founder and CEO Christa Tuttle as she explores the importance of a strong data foundation in maximizing the profit potential of marketing. This presentation will discuss the true value of data in several components of an integrated marketing plan, from messaging, lead generation and more.
About Christa Tuttle
Christa founded Launch Marketing, a boutique marketing firm that acts as a virtual marketing team to B2B tech companies, in 2001. Under her leadership, the company has grown exponentially, to a portfolio of more than 150 clients to date.
Prior to founding Launch Marketing, Christa worked for Austin venture capital firm TL Ventures, where she managed marketing in-house and lent her expertise to its portfolio companies, helping them develop marketing plans and bring their first products to market. Before that, she led a marketing team at enterprise software company Trilogy, where her team successfully drove more than 50% of the lead generation.
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Marketing Data Driving You to Distraction
Aug 14 2019
2:00 pm
45 mins
Thomas B. Cross CEO TECHtionary
"Are you missing the mark by focusing too much on the point"
Here are the Top-10 issues behind data driving business growth to distraction: Tracking, Timing,
Technology, Tips, Tasks, Terrorism, Trust, Tools, Team and Trends. This 30-minute webinar will address each one and provide actionable tips and ideas:
1 - Tracking - KTO-keep track of it all
2 - Timing - market, industry, global
3 - Technology - Faster than ever.
4 - Tips - "You can sell what you don't know"; Knowing what you are selling and to all those throughout the channel.
5 - Tasks - ahead and looking back
6 - Terrorism - for purposes of this presentation, terrorism are events perpetrated by others against you. Trust are events or efforts of goodwill or negligence/incompetency by you.
8 - Trust - You don't get a second chance to make a first impression.
7 - Tools - Human, Power, Quantum
9 - Team - Lead people, manage things
10 - Trends - Direct, not predict or react
By Thomas B. Cross CEO TECHtionary
Winner Corporate Vision Magazine Social Media Company of 2019
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Essential data for marketing content that converts
Aug 14 2019
12:00 pm
45 mins
Rene Power, Founder, Vision B2B Marketing and Training Ltd
If you don't know what aspects of your marketing deliver the most results; or if you have access to analytics but don't understand what's it's telling you; or if data is hoarded by I.T in your organisation, you'll love this primer on how accessible marketing data can help you make better marketing and business decisions.
In another all new BrightTalk webinar, regular contributor René Power from Vision B2B Marketing and Training Ltd in the UK will share powerful strategies to help B2B product and service businesses maximise their expertise and marketing resources to drive the right kind of inbound enquiry.
In this session you'll learn how to
- Understand what data you really need to help drive inbound traffic
- Test and learn when it comes to all your marketing activities and content
- Establish how free to use web, email and social media tools can give you a real advantage over competitors
- Improve awareness, engagement and conversion of traffic
Webinar attendees can get access to a bonus workbook for the webinar by emailing firstname.lastname@example.com ahead of live broadcast.
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How to Boost Your Sales, Leads, and Clients on Instagram in 2019
Aug 14 2019
10:00 am
45 mins
Laurie Wang, Digital Marketing Consultant
In this webinar, you will learn:
1. The secret to spend less time on Instagram and get more results
that you must know to dramatically cut down the time that you spend on Instagram, yet getting you more results and profits
2. The top 3 mistakes that business owners make on Instagram in 2019
by following advice that no longer works and I'll show you my insider tips on what does
3. The most effective way to sell your services and products on Instagram in 2019 and confidently connect with your followers like a pro to create more impact online
Instagram is constantly changing and is dramatically different in 2019 and beyond.
Instead of just another social media platform, Instagram can become the main source of your business leads, sales, and booked clients.
But a lot of the information and advice are outdated because so much has changed on this powerful platform.
Join this webinar to get the most updated on what it takes to market you and your brand successfully on Instagram in 2019.
About Laurie Wang:
Laurie Wang is an award-winning digital marketing consultant, coach and trainer helping entrepreneurs and business owners grow their audience online and convert their audiences into paying customers and clients. Her knowledge and understanding of the digital landscape have benefited an eclectic mix of clients from solo entrepreneurs, young start-ups to FTSE 100 giants, from Google to global advertising agency Ogilvy.
She has been featured by the Guardian, Fast Company, and write for publications such as Elite Daily and Digital Business Women. In 2017, she was named by the British Interactive Media Association as a top Rising Star in the UK Digital industry.
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INSIGHTS > STORIES > TRUST > REVENUE > ROI : 5-phase guide to STOROI marketing
Aug 14 2019
8:00 am
45 mins
Philippe Ruttens, B2B Marketing & Sales Transformation Consultant & Coach
2020: The CMO is dead. Long live the Chief STOROI Officer !
B2B marketing used to be simple, now we live in a post-big data world, inundated by information, reports and dashboards.
Since 2010, B2B CMOs and their teams have been transforming too slowly from Marcom functions to demand gen, pipeline, ROI and revenue marketing models... but few have really been able to analyse data and visualise insights in the right way yet. Why is it so? Lack of process, talent, tools or wrong mindset?
From personas & pain points to channels & content, you will learn in one hour the key steps, tools and tips to save your and team's career by increasing your stakeholders' trust and becoming a revenue growth engine, from Insights to Stories and ROI.
In 2020, most CMOs and their teams will face the ultimate battle with their CEO/CFO: defending their budget and job by proving their value, strategy, campaigns and optimising their ROI fully.
Transforming to a Revenue Marketing Center of Excellence is a must and marketeers MUST act NOW !
We will shortlist 5 main phases, 10 KPIs and 25 actions to focus on the right 20/80 of your marketing operations and increase commercial ROI. Get ready for an energetic tour of core benchmarks, guidelines and inspiration to ensure that your team & career will not hit the "data wall" in 2020!
About Philippe Ruttens
Bringing over 25 years of experience as a B2B marketer at firms like Accenture, EY, MasterCard and Iron Mountain, Philippe coaches CMOs and helps sales & marketing teams transform faster into Revenue / ROI-driven marketing centres of excellence. Leveraging his multi-sector consultant and interim manager expertise combined with templates & process applied at many B2B clients, he combines his strategic demand generation vision, quick wins on campaigns & channels with a pragmatic people- and data-focused approach. Philippe's WHY is to boost marketing teams transformation and help executives achieve faster & higher commercial objectives.
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Generating Sustainable Revenue is key to long term success
Jul 11 2019
33 mins
Elliot Zissman, Director, Phase 2.
Join this 30 minute webinar and learn how scaling a business needs an ongoing stream of consistent sales opportunities. Attendees will hear how to achieve this, along with the processes, people and technologies that are required, along with the common mistakes made when implementing.
This session will also address:
● What is sustainable revenue all about?
● How do outbound "cold" efforts sit alongside inbound marketing - what are the differences and benefits of each?
● The ideal sales team: as you grow, who do you need and when?
● Start with data and end with data, and repeat
● Using technology: CRMs, automation, LinkedIn: which tools are best?
● Cold calling 2.0: there's still a place for the phone
● Carouselling for success: never give up
About the presenter:
Elliot Zissman brings 20 years of success of taking technology companies from a low base to a strong number. For the last decade, his focus has been working directly with international companies, to launch into Europe, and with founders of businesses, to commercialise their sales operations and take them to the next level. Prior to this, he was a consultant for global enterprises advising on how the internet would disrupt their business.
He started his career at HSBC and holds a Masters in Economics from the University of Cambridge. Elliot is the founder of Phase 2, a growth accelerator. https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliotz/
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Creating a Winning Content Strategy for Your Business Using Tech Platforms
Jun 19 2019
42 mins
Jean Ginzburg, Founder & CEO, JeanGinzburg.com
Content is now the way that businesses should be selling their products and services. Creating a consistent content strategy will set you up for success. The presentation will cover ideal target market, marketing messaging, content creation, content hack to create a month worth of content with just one source and creating a content calendar.
The presentation will go deeper into the types of content and using a Content Hach where you can create ONE piece of content and repurpose it for the entire month. And lastly, the presentation will get into how to create a content calendar and distribute content, using tech platforms and social media platforms.
Watch now
Building Strategic Customer Assessments
Jun 19 2019
35 mins
Thomas Cross, CEO, TECHtionary.com
In this webinar, we will explore how selling practices whether traditional or ABM-account based marketing need to see the world through the eyes and "moccasins" of customers. Selling must embrace who their customers sell to and help them "pull their products off the shelf" of their customers.
Watch now
Optimizing Marketing and Sales for Greater Value and Profitability
Jun 19 2019
45 mins
Christopher Ryan, CEO & Founder, Fusion Marketing Partners
When properly aligned, the marketing and sales teams can generate enormous value for
prospects and customers as well as profitable revenue for their organizations. In this
informative session, revenue growth and B2B marketing expert Chris Ryan will share actionable
strategies for utilizing your people, processes and technologies to create an unstoppable
revenue machine. Specifically, Chris will cover:
1. How marketing can help your sales reps move up the value chain.
2. The essential elements of an effective lead-to-revenue framework.
3. How to use a service level agreement to boost performance.
4. Why marketing needs to prove its contribution to revenue.
5. How to quickly assess performance and stop marketing and sales leakage
Watch now
Linking Sales and Marketing to Boost Bottom Line Impact
Jun 19 2019
38 mins
Christa Tuttle, CEO, Launch Marketing
Laying the groundwork for sales and marketing alignment is vital to success. According to MarketingProfs, alignment leads to 36% higher customer retention rates and 38% higher sales win rates. Even though alignment is proven to be critical to success, it can be difficult to get teams on the same page with processes that facilitate synchronicity.
In this webinar, Launch Founder and CEO Christa Tuttle will help sales and marketing teams build the LINK to lock down criteria, identify standard processes, normalize regular communication and keep track of progress. By creating a shared language, processes and measures of success, B2B teams walk away from this webinar ready to establish a more efficient and united task force within the company.
Watch now
The Definitive Guide to the Ambiguous Role of Product Marketing
Jun 19 2019
37 mins
Elisabeth Cullivan Thomas, Founder, Launch Product Marketing
Product marketers are not building a product, nor are they selling a product, so what do they do? Most often, they find themselves at the intersection of product development, sales, and marketing. The role is ambiguous - sometimes strategic with persona development, pricing, and messaging responsibilities or tactically focused on collateral, webinars, and research. Great product marketers thrive on the role's ambiguity and cross-functionality. Attend this webinar for an inside look at the high-demand role of product marketing.
Watch now
How to align marketing content with audience buying behaviour…and sales goals
Jun 19 2019
64 mins
Rene Power, Founder, Vision B2B Marketing and Training Ltd
In all new BrightTalk webinar, regular contributor René Power from Vision B2B Marketing
and Training will share powerful strategies to help B2B product and service businesses
maximise their expertise and marketing resources to drive the right kind of inbound inquiry.
In this session you'll learn how to
- Reverse engineer a sales funnel and align marketing activity to it
- Identify and understand the needs of target audiences
- Creatively create multi-use content and powerful integrated marketing programmes
including lead magnets, article syndication, email, PR, social and more.
Webinar attendees can get access to a bonus workbook for the webinar by email@example.com ahead of live broadcast.
Watch now
5 LinkedIn Marketing Moves Your Sales Force Will Love You For
Jun 19 2019
61 mins
Sarah Hughes, "The LinkedIn Lead Generation Expert" & Founder, Boost Business Growth
Is there sometimes a mismatch between your sales and marketing teams around social selling?
Perhaps all's good, but you want great?
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Title: The Creation, Care and Feeding of an Analytics Center of Excellence
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Alvarez: Walk-Ons Were His Key to Success, Too
To "Respond to Randy" click on the link below and choose "Randy York's N-Sider" under "Area of Interest" on the new screen. Please include your name and hometown and share your thoughts. Your ideas may be published on "Randy York's N-Sider" page on Huskers.com. Please check back for updated comments.
He's never publicly acknowledged this, but Barry Alvarez turned down the head football coaching job at Miami three times, and he rejected the head coaching job once at Oklahoma.
It takes some character to make those kinds of decisions, but Alvarez is, after all, a Nebraskan at heart, so don't be so surprised.
"I feel like this is my home state . . . I really do," said Alvarez, the former Wisconsin head football coach and now the school's athletic director who roamed the hallways at the Nebraska athletic complex Friday afternoon before addressing 800 coaches Friday night at the 2009 Nebraska Football Coaches Clinic.
The Barry Alvarez Success Story should sound fairly familiar to any captive audience.
"Almost everything we did at Wisconsin, we stole from Nebraska, including the fabled walk-on program," said Alvarez, who has Wisconsin's best all-time winning percentage and the school's highest winning percentage ever in bowl games.
How did he do it?
"I used the Nebraska blueprint," he said. "We analyzed what we could do and what we could consistently have, and then we implemented our strategy. First, we kept the best in-state kids at home. Then we recruited the best players we could recruit to be a very physical, run-oriented team. And, finally, when we realized no one in the Big Ten was doing what Nebraska was doing with walk-ons, we went after it."
Wisconsin went after it in a way big enough to impress both Bob Devaney, Alvarez's head coach at Nebraska, and Tom Osborne, Devaney's successor who perfected the nation's best walk-on program.
Walk-Ons: The Ultimate Recruiting Erasers
"Walk-ons were a big key to my success and still are to our program," Alvarez said. "For all the mistakes we make in recruiting, walk-ons are our erasers."
Like they have for the Huskers, walk-ons kept the Badgers consistent and productive. "When I was coaching, we'd bring 20 to 25 walk-ons in every year," Alvarez said. "At least four or five of those walk-ons would turn out to be really good players. In the 16 years I was head coach, we probably awarded scholarships to about 140 walk-on players . . . at least eight or nine a year."
A few of his walk-ons would earn scholarships fairly early. Some didn't earn them until their third, fourth or fifth year – "another idea I stole from Nebraska that kept players motivated and working hard with an end goal in mind," Alvarez said.
The big exception to the rule was Jim Leonhard, a walk-on from tiny Tony, Wis. "He was a little safety that no one recruited," Alvarez said. "By his second year, he was leading the Big Ten in punt returns and still wasn't on scholarship. We got him on scholarship in a hurry after that."
And where's Jim Leonhard now? "In his fifth year in the NFL," Alvarez said. "He just signed a big contract with the New York Jets. Rex Ryan, his defensive coordinator when he was with the Ravens, is now in New York."
As great as that walk-on story is, it's not even close to his favorite walk-on story ever. "That would have to be Trey (Langston) Coleman – the first walk-on Bob Devaney ever had," Alvarez said. "He was one year ahead of me and came out of nowhere from Washington, D.C. He claims to have hitch-hiked and taken bus rides to get to Lincoln, but I'm pretty sure he hopped a box car or two to get to Lincoln."
In High School, Coleman Was a Drop-In, Not a Drop-Out
The player Alvarez calls "Nebraska's original walk-on" is a punch-line, too. "Trey enjoyed telling people that in high school, he wasn't a drop-out – he was a drop-in. We always laughed at that one, but few knew how literal that really was. I mean, he came right off the streets of D.C."
Alvarez remembers Coleman living at the Downtown YMCA for $2 a night when he first arrived in Lincoln. "We used to kid Trey that the only clothes he ever wore were the ones he got out of the laundry every day in the equipment room," Alvarez recalled. "When he came here, it was do-or-die. He had to make it, and he wasn't going to let anyone stop him from making it."
The funniest story of all is relating how Coleman first got on the field. "This is a true story, and one of my absolute all-time favorite stories," Alvarez said. "When Trey was a sophomore, they only had one college football game a week on television, and one week it was Nebraska at Minnesota in 1964. We were in the last year of the two-platoon system at the time, so there was a little confusion out there now and then."
Coleman was getting antsy when it didn't look like he was going to play, so his friends could see him back home on TV. Finally, All-America teammate Freeman White convinced Coleman to run out on the field – on his own accord – to substitute for Chuck Doepke. "Freeman got Trey all fired up, and so he finally just went in and made a couple of quick plays," Alvarez recalled.
A while later, White convinced Coleman to run onto the field again – on his own – for Doepke. "This time, Trey really lights up the field on defense," Alvarez said. "He ends up being our Player of the Game, the Sophomore of the Year in the conference, and he never sat on the bench again that year or the next two years. You couldn't keep him off the field, not even the coaches. No one messed around with Trey at practice either. Ask Tony Jeter. He was always baiting Trey, and once, Tony got his head bashed in. Obviously, he never antagonized him again.
"I had a lot of respect for Trey Coleman," Alvarez said. "He was truly one of those self-made guys, and we ended up working together at the Job Corps one summer. I came to Nebraska from Burgettstown, Pa., and Tony from D.C. We learned how to work, and we learned how to study. That's what's always made Nebraska so successful – the way they teach you how to reach your potential in football and everything else in life. They let you know it's all up to you."
The Ultimate Rags-to-Riches Walk-On Story
Last fall, Nebraska's School of Nutrition and Health Sciences honored Alvarez, but he said Coleman is the one still deserving of academic recognition.
"Trey's the guy who really kept after it," he said. "He turned into a very serious student late in his career and has had his doctorate degree for many years. He's the best rags-to-riches walk-on story I've ever known. I love talking to Trey. He'd call me whenever we'd make the Rose Bowl. It's nice that after all these years, we still stay in touch."
For Alvarez, a former All-Big Eight linebacker who finished his four-year Husker career before he was 22, the laughs come easy, and the memories never fade.
"I idolized Bob Devaney. I really did," Alvarez said. "I tried to emulate everything he did, even to the point of becoming an athletic director after being a football coach. I tried to pattern my career after him in every way possible."
Like Devaney, Alvarez got into coaching for the love, not the money. That's why he bypassed offers from Miami and Oklahoma. Nebraska was, is and continues to be the benchmark program for him.
"I love Nebraska," Alvarez said. "Why else would I agree to be in one of Nebraska's recruiting videos? Whenever anyone asks me where I went to school, I tell them, very, very proudly, that 'I went to school at Nebraska, and I played for the Huskers.'"
Alvarez and his wife, Cindy, lived in Lincoln 10 years. "Every time I come here, I feel like I'm coming home," he said.
After graduating from Nebraska, he worked two years for the Lincoln Police Department before teaching and coaching for four years at Lincoln Northeast High School.
The next stop was two years at Lexington, followed by three at Mason City, Iowa, then eight more on Hayden Fry's staff at Iowa.
Alvarez spent three years with Lou Holtz at Notre Dame, the first as a linebacker coach and the last two years as the defensive coordinator on teams that lost only one game.
Melton and Devaney Mentored Alvarez
John Melton, the coach who recruited Alvarez to Nebraska from his own hometown, was also the one who encouraged him to "make a name for himself outside of Nebraska." Devaney told Alvarez to set a goal of becoming a Division I head coach by the age 42 – the same age Devaney was when he began his head coaching career at Wyoming.
"I missed that goal by one day," said Alvarez, 62, and as active as ever.
Like Devaney, Alvarez is a good story-teller. Because of that ability and because he's the only Big Ten coach ever to win the Rose Bowl in consecutive seasons, Alvarez has been an analyst on the Fox TV team for two of the last three Bowl Championship Series telecasts.
He's also one of the chairs of the NCAA's Football Academic Enhancement Group, which was formed to review and recommend improvements for the APR rating. "Part of my Nebraska background, my Nebraska training and my Nebraska commitment," he said. He's also on the NCAA's Football Rules Committee and the NCAA's Infractions Committee.
He's a busy man and a family man. Brad Ferguson, a former Husker letterman linebacker (from Chadron) in 1987 and '88, came to Lincoln this weekend with Alvarez, his father-in-law.
On Saturday, Scott Raridon, another former Husker letterman lineman who played on Alvarez' state high school championship team in Mason City, Iowa, will pick up the Wisconsin athletic director and his son-in-law in Lincoln and fly them to Detroit for the NCAA Final Four.
Life is good for a man who recently signed a new five-year contract as AD.
"Everything I ever accomplished can be traced right back here to Nebraska," Alvarez said. "That's why it's such an honor to come here every time we get the chance."


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PRINCETON, N.J. – The Yale women's swimming and diving team wrapped up the third and final day of competition at the 2011 Ivy League Championships Saturday with some of its best times of the season. The Bulldogs picked up two additional second-place finishes in individual events, as well as a third-place relay finish and two top-five diving performances. Hayes Hyde brought in Yale's first and only win of the meet in the 200-yard butterfly. Hyde and five other swimmers on the Bulldog roster were able to punch their ticket for NCAA's with B cut times, relays included. After three days and 21 events, Yale finished in fifth position with 860 points. Princeton won with 1562 points.
Morning Preliminaries
The last first preliminary of the weekend was the 200-yard backstroke, where Molly Albrecht finished third in a time of 1:56.90. Albrecht led for the first 50 yards, and would go on to post competitive splits and end up just 0.82 seconds out of first place, where Princeton's Meredith Monroe broke her own meet record set last year. Kristin Darwin finished 22nd (2:08.67) and Victoria Lawrence finished 23rd (2:11.38) headed to the C final.
In the 100 free Cynthia Tsay finished in 51.38 seconds to place 10th, almost the same position she held on the field after Friday's 200 free preliminary. Michelle Huang finished 24th (52.61) to go on to the C final.
The rest of the prelims went tremendously for the Bulldogs. Athena Liao finished second in the 200-yard breaststroke. Liao was seeded second-fastest coming into the event, but swam more than two seconds faster than her seed time to post time of a 2:12.99. Angela Lee and Chelsea Dunlap were headed to the C final of the same event based on their preliminary times.
Hayes Hyde turned some heads in the heats of the 200-yard butterfly, placing first by a margin of 0.01 seconds. Hyde's time was 1:58.11, just ahead of Harvard's Katie Mills who beat Hyde in the event a month ago back at HYP. Joining them in the evening's A final would be Ileana Lucos, who finished eighth in a time of 2:02.04. Allison West finished 17th (2:05.44) to seed herself fastest in the C final.
The Bulldog divers were back at it the one-meter event. After failing to make the final and defend her title in the three-meter, Rachel Rosenberg finished fourth in the one-meter prelims with a score of 245.20. Paige Meneses, who placed second in this event last year, finished sixth with 235.85 points. Christina Brasco was 20th with a score of 209.40, just missing a spot in the consolation final by ten points.
Evening Finals
The Bulldogs entered the final phase of competition Saturday night in third place with 600 points, and Penn waiting in the wings at 596 points. Unfortunately a win for Penn's Shelby Fortin in the 1000-yard freestyle would mean that Yale would drop back to fifth place and would not recover. Abigail Nunn and Annie Killian both beat their seed times to bring in some points for the Bulldogs, but Penn and Columbia gained crucial ground in this event and would prove hard to catch the rest of the night.
Molly Albrecht raced a veritable fingernail final in the 200-yard backstroke, finishing second in a time of 1:56.72. Albrecht led for the first 50 again, and this time the top three all touched the wall within 0.32 seconds of each other. The new pool record set in the morning, however, would not be broken. Victoria Lawrence finished 23rd with a 2:09.46, while Kristin Darwin finished 20th in a time of 2:06.98, her last race as a Bulldog.
In the 100 free, Cynthia Tsay finished third in the B final to take 11th overall. Her time was 51.28. Michelle Huang finished 24th in 53.65.
Athena Liao matched her second place preliminary swim 200-yard breaststroke to take second in the finals with a time of 2:12.64. This is a career best for Liao, who finished fifth in this event at Ivy's last year with a time of 2:16.54 to get her first career NCAA B cut. The B cut this year is 2:16.20, proving Liao to be very competitive in the event and showing an almost four second improvement in one year's time. In the C final of the 200 breaststroke, Chelsea Dunlap took 23rd (2:23.79) and Angela Lee 24th (2:24.06).
Yale blue and white was at the top of the podium for the first time after the 200 fly. Hayes Hyde had her first and the team's first win of the meet with a time of 1:57.74. Hyde touched first at every turn to situate herself even further away from the B cut time of 2:00.69. Ileana Lucos finished eighth in a time of 2:03.68 to make the A final of the 200 fly a big point-getter for the Bulldogs. Allison West also brought in some points from the C final, finishing 18th in 2:04.79.
Rachel Rosenberg then finished third in the one-meter diving event. Her score was 268.70, just barely missing out on second place by 0.15 points. Paige Meneses finished fifth with 264.60 points. This score is better, however, than Meneses' score from the event last year at Ivy's, where she took second place with 253.55 points. Rosenberg's score at Ivy's also improved since last year, where she took sixth with 244.30 points.
After wrapping up the individual events, the Bulldogs put a bow on the weekend with a third place finish in the 400 free relay. The relay team of Cynthia Tsay, Ileana Lucos, Hayes Hyde and Joan Weaver clocked in at 3:23.22 to net an NCAA B cut and best its seed time by more than two seconds. The last time the Bulldogs swam this event was at home against Brown, winning in a time of 3:30.08. Saturday's time of 3:23.22 is a season best for the Bulldogs in what has become one of their most competitive and exciting events.
Yale finished the meet in fifth place, earning 860 points over 21 events. Princeton won the meet to make it the Tigers' 10th Ivy title in the last 12 years. Their point total was 1562, followed by Harvard with 1436. Columbia (894) and Penn (888) were just out of reach of the Bulldogs.
Next up is the NCAA Zone Diving Championships on Mar. 11-13, where Paige Meneses and Rachel Rosenberg will compete. But for most of the team, this weekend marks the end of the road for the 2010-2011 season.
Report filed by Tom Lynam '13, Yale Sports Publicity


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Join artist Micah Ganske as he draws on the basics of mixing, glazing and layering to create a narrative portrait.
Join artist Micah Ganske and learn expert tips for painting portraits in acrylic. Whether you're new to the medium or a veteran painter, you'll build the skills to create compelling likenesses that tell a story about your subject. You'll start with the basics of choosing a photo, transferring the image to canvas and building a portrait with glazes. Ganske explains the many layers of acrylic in an intimate environment as he demonstrates how to build a painting from the underpainting to the finishing touches. With a crisp, over-the-shoulder view of Ganske's work, you'll gain thorough insight into how an accomplished painter moves and constructs an image.
If you're not delighted with your Bluprint experience, we'll make it right or give you a full refund.


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Now more than ever, wildlife is counting on us. We're ready to go toe-to-toe with the Trump administration over its harmful policies, but we need you to help us do it.
It is essential that we work together to be the voice for the animals that cannot speak for themselves.
Help Defenders of Wildlife save endangered and imperiled species and the habitat they need to survive with a tax-deductible donation!
To make your gift go even further, become a Wildlife Guardian for just $9/month and help save critically endangered animals every day. Sign up today!
If you would like to contribute by phone, please call our toll-free member number 1-800-385-9712.
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text:
"Nixon By Nixon: In His Own Words" on HBO, still shocking
Forty years later, Richard M. Nixon still has the power to shock: "Nixon By Nixon: In His Own Words," a documentary premiering on HBO Monday, Aug. 4, will leave you alternately gasping aloud, chuckling and groaning.
Revealing, even after all the books, films and profiles of the former president, "Nixon By Nixon" is an unfiltered effort, directed by Peter Kunhardt, who previously won an Emmy for "Teddy: In His Own Words." No parody can come close to relaying the angry, bitter, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic chatter, captured on tape.
Kunhardt puts text of the dialog onscreen, so there's no mistaking Nixon's comments about Daniel Ellsberg at the start of the Pentagon Papers affair ("the Jews are born spies," "most Jews are disloyal"); Nixon's instructions to underlings ("I don't give a shit about the law"); Nixon's talk of "wetbacks," ""little Negro bastards" and more. Plans to harass media people, notably Daniel Schorr, Dan Rather and others are discussed. "Screw the New York Times, screw the Washington Post," he rants. Prejudices beam through loud and clear, along with the vile language. "Sure Aristotle was a homo…"
By juxtaposing the scheming on the tapes with the public pronouncements, Kurhardt reveals the lies that were a key part of the Administration's policy.
You may have read the transcripts over the years, but to hear the dialog, now on the eve of the 40th anniversary of his Aug. 9, 1974 resignation, is newly eye-opening.


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Luana Kaderabek, UCL Digital Anthropology
This documentary has been created as part of the Digital Anthropology (MSc) program at UCL. The filmmaking module, led by the visual anthropologists Vikram Jayanti and Richard Curling, challenges anthropologists to incorporate digital media as a research tool in their ethnographies.
The Minstrel has been nominated one of the three best films in the autumn/winter class in 2012. It is about Ozan Figani's life, a hairdresser originally from Turkey, Anatolia, who owns a traditional Salon in East London. Little by little he starts to reveal his true first job (music and poem writing).
He is an Alevi. In Turkey, Alevism (considered by many to be a religion similar to Buddhism or a simple way of living) is a popular belief embedded in many political conflicts.…


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I still use the post office, to mail books and packages. I also occasionally send letters, certainly "thank you" cards (the wife is a genius with the "thank you" cards). So, "Do We Really Need to Live Without the Post Office"? I can't imagine life without it. But read on, this looks like a good one.
[Photo Credit: Eclectic Musing]


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Salary Range Assignments
for MSUAASF
The process used to assign new MSUAASF positions to a salary range and to review and, where appropriate, change the salary range assignment of existing positions when substantive changes in duties and responsibilities occur is described below:
Submission Procedure
- Complete and sign the Position Description (Form).
- Attach a complete organization chart. (Organizational charts must show individual positions, not functions.)
- Complete and sign the PRF - Unclassified (Form).
- Submit all documents to Human Resources.
After Submission...
- Human Resources reviews the documentation for completeness. Complete audit packages require the signature of the appropriate Vice President or Dean.
- Once the audit package is complete, Human Resources will convene a meeting of the Campus Evaluation Committee (CEC) .
- The employee/supervisor will be provided an opportunity to make a presentation to the CEC before the committee reviews and evaluates the position.
- The CEC will use the Position Allocation Matrix and supporting documents to formulate a committee recommendation on the appropriate salary range assignment.
- The CEC will complete the evaluation form to document fully the rationale for the recommendation.
- Where the CEC recommends the initial salary range assignment for a new position, or a revised salary range assignment for an existing position, Human Resources forwards the completed evaluation form, position description, organization chart and job audit cover sheet to the assigned Minnesota State Staffing Representative.
- Where the CEC decision is that the position should remain in the current salary range, Human Resources will notify the employee/supervisor of the CEC decision and forward a copy of the evaluation form to the assigned Minnesota State Staffing Representative for informational purposes only.
- Staffing Representative in Office of the Chancellor Review the documentation and the CEC recommendation and determine consistency and appropriate range assignment. If the CEC recommendation is not accepted, they will provide rationale for the determination. Minnesota State notifies the campus Human Resources Office of the range assignment.
- Human Resources will notify the employee, supervisor and CEC members of the determination made by the Staffing Representative.
Appeal Process
Using the following procedure, an appeal may be filed with the System Evaluation Committee (SEC) within 30 calendar days of the date Human Resources provides written notification of the original determination to the employee and supervisor.
- Write appeal, providing the rationale for the appeal and any additional information not contained in the original request for review.
- Submit written appeal to the Associate Vice Chancellor for Personnel or their designee, with a copy to the campus Human Resources Office.
- If no written appeal is timely filed, then the salary range determination of the staffing representative will be final.
- Upon approval in advance by the Associate Vice Chancellor for Personnel or their designee this deadline may be extended.
- All appeal information must be received by the Staffing Representative 3 weeks before the next scheduled SEC meeting.
- Written correspondence as provided in this provision may be by e-mail.
System Evaluation Committee's Role
- The Associate Vice Chancellor for Personnel or designee will convene regularly scheduled meetings of the SEC as needed.
- The SEC will provide the employee/supervisor with an opportunity to make a presentation to the committee before the committee reviews the appeal documentation.
- The SEC will evaluate the position using the Position Allocation Matrix and supporting documents.
- The SEC is not limited in its deliberation to the content of the appeal, but may consider all relevant information available to determine the appropriate range assignment of the position.
- The SEC's decision is final and not subject to the grievance procedure in the collective bargaining agreement.
- The Associate Vice Chancellor for Personnel or designee will notify the campus Human Resources Office of the SEC's decision.
- Human Resources will notify the employee and supervisor of the SEC's decision.


text:
Our Mission
Homeless Cat Network works hard to help cats and kittens in need in San Mateo County. We provide advice, support and guidance to people who have found and wish to help community cats, and our volunteers do hands-on rescue work. Our lifesaving initiatives focus on solving the root problem of cat homelessness and include: TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) programs for feral cats; kitten rescuing, fostering and adoption efforts; educational outreach; responsible community cat colony management; and mentoring people to help cats in need. We also have a unique Socialization Center, which gives abandoned and neglected adult cats the chance to heal from their emotional and physical wounds and find the home of their dreams. All of our efforts work toward a single goal: to bring about a day when there are no more homeless cats, and with your help, we'll make that dream come true.
Homeless Cat Network is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) non profit, no-kill rescue organization (Tax I.D. 94-3177950). Contact us here.


text: Each summer Park Scholars are given the opportunity to explore the world of medicine through the Brody-Park internship. The internship, coordinated by the Park Scholarships program, allows students to shadow physicians, residents, and medical students at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. Internship participants receive funding through the Park Enrichment Grant program.


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The Morning of the Magicians, Page 336
Stein and Day, 1964 - Occultism - 300 pages
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20 pages matching sleep in this book
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LibraryThing ReviewUser Review - Loptsson - LibraryThing
An interesting book. The section on alchemy was questionable but who knows. The section though which held my interest the most concerned the nazis. I have always felt that there was an extremely ... Read full review
LibraryThing ReviewUser Review - kencf0618 - LibraryThing
This hilarious mish-mash was one of the first books to link National Socialism with The Occult. ("The Occult" explains everything and nothing.) Lots of interesting bits and pieces which don't add up. Inspired the song of the same title by The Flaming Lips on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Read full review
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- WiFi
- Car park
- Air conditioning
- Swimming pool
- Airport
- Family
- Disco
Choose your room
Imperial Suites Hotel set in the heart of the city of Bur Dubai side, is the middel easts first all suites hotel and is within walking distance of the exciting shopping district of Bur Dubai and in close proximity to the banking and diplomatic enclaves.
The Imperial Suites Hotel is a deluxe property and has a choice of 153 suites, each with telephones, television, in-house movies and music channels. The hotel has a roof top swimming pool with attached pool bar.
The Imperial Suite Hotel is the only hotel offering a complete a suite for a value of a room. The hotel has some of the middle easts finest food and beverage outlets. Noble house, chinese restaurant, serves szechwan cuisine with menus drawn from both the canton and szechwan regions complimented by traditionl styled crockery, cutlery, etc. Haveli, indian restaurant, serves the myriad exciting flavors of traditional northwest frontier cuisine implemented by the ethnic decor and ambiance.
Border Town, tex mex restaurant open for lunch and dinner serving all those divine tasting. Hunters, english pub serves imaginative thirst quenchers, live entertainment and authentic pub grub. Pavilion, 24 hours coffee shop serves sumptuous buffet breakfast and a variety of ciusines for lunch and dinner.
The Imperial Suites Hotel has an exclusive parking area for its guest adjacent to the hotel with space for 100 cars.


text: Appointments for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus Children's Hospital Ophthalmology Foundation at Mass. Eye and Ear Our clinicians maintain regular office hours in Mass. Eye and Ear's downtown Boston center and in the Stoneham satellite office. Optimal satisfaction is based on building trust and forming a close relationship between the patient, the doctor and the staff members of the service. Our physicians, technical staff, surgical coordinators and support assistants are here to provide complete care. Contact Information CHOF at Mass. Eye and Ear 243 Charles Street, Floor 1 Boston, MA 02114 To make an appointment, please call: 617-355-6401 Pediatric emergency eye care is available around the clock at the Mass. Eye and Ear Emergency Department on the Lobby Level of our main building. The telephone number for the Emergency Department is 617-573-3431. Make An Appointment Today! 617-573-3202


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Jayesh Limaye
18:43 28th Jun, 2012
Aakash Tablet Reaches Only 366 Students In Six Months
Devices were given out for testing and feedback during the October launch.
After all the hullabaloo over the past several months, it has been reported that the Aakash tablet has reached just 366 students. The low-cost tablet was launched six months ago and its intended consumers were supposed to be students, with the primary purpose to help them in their education. These were given out to students at its 5th October, 2011 launch, in order to get them tested for obtaining feedback. Incidentally, these are the same units that are part of the batch of 650, which was accepted by IIT Rajasthan out of the lot of 6440 supplied by Datawind at that time.
This information has been disclosed by minister Kapil Sibal in he parliament. He said, "IIT Rajasthan rejected rest of the lots as the number of defective LCADs (Aakash tablets) in those lots exceeded the stipulated 5% of devices. The first phase of 1,00,000 tablets were targeted to the students in higher technical education institutions so as to further ascertain technical feedback on its operation and usability. Since these LCADs were for the purpose of testing, no norms for distribution of LCADs to students were laid down".
Sibal further added that Datawind has been asked to provide better tablets at the same price. He further elaborated that the higher specifications included a 700 MHz Cortex A8 processor, 3200 mAh battery, and capacitive touch screen. These improvements have been decided upon, after taking into account the difficulties faced by the first version. He also stated that IIT Rajasthan has not paid any money to Datawind. Will India's most affordable tablet be able to overcome all the hurdles and finally become widely available? We really don't have the answer for that one, although we do wish that it happens soon.
TAGS: Tablets, Education, Government, Android, Aakash, Jayesh
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Jones latches the metal bar on the front of the bin to his truck. He flips a lever. A hydraulic lift called a "stinger" elevates the bin, then dumps it. The cart vomits yard debris and food waste into the truck. Moldy bread, rotten bananas, greenish-tinted hot dogs and carrots swim in a bilious sludge. Inhaling the essence makes me feel like I'm spinning around in the bottom of a garbage disposal.
"Pretty nasty, huh?" Jones says with a grin.
A belch of diesel exhaust as Jones pulls away from the curb provides relief from the sickly sweet smell of decay.
Jones' employer, Cloudburst, is one of 19 companies that have contracts to collect Portlanders' waste, recyclables and debris.
Cloudburst owner David McMahon operates from a dusty command post located close to grain terminals and concrete plants on the Willamette River's east bank. His company provides service to thousands of eastside homes and commercial or multifamily accounts. Founded in 1975, the company calls itself the city's oldest full-service recycler.
Cloudburst and its drivers, including Jones—who like most of his peers operates a one-man truck—are the first link in the chain of the city's new composting system, taking mixed yard debris and food waste from curbside to transfer station.
Although other leading recycling cities, such as San Francisco and Seattle, started recycling food waste before Portland took its program citywide last Oct. 31, Jerry Powell of Resource Recycling magazine says no other large city combined such a program to cutting garbage collection in half.
"That is a huge change," Powell says.
And it came fast. Haulers weren't ready at first. "It took people three or four months to get used to it," Cloudburst's McMahon says. "But it seems now to be accomplishing the city's goals."
Those goals: to increase the recycling rate, currently 58 percent, to 75 percent by 2015, and to reduce the amount of waste trucked to Portland's primary landfill in Arlington, Ore.
Lisa Libby, Mayor Sam Adams' planning and sustainability director, says the city is happy with the progress—garbage is down 44 percent, recycling is up 12 percent, and composting is up by almost three times.
"The program has exceeded our expectations," Libby says.
For Jones, the change means that two days a week he handles nothing but green bins. Since Oct. 31, figures show, the program has collected 59,000 tons of what the city calls "residential organics"—the equivalent of 260 million rotting apples.
To see how the system is working, WW followed residential organics from curbside to a transfer station to the composting facility.
It's a dirty, smelly journey that only a seagull could love.
Tracking food waste from beginning to end, it's clear that after some initial problems, Portland has successfully implemented a program reliant on voluntary compliance and a mixture of high-tech and old-fashioned processing techniques.
Cloudburst's McMahon says he's had to add some man hours to accommodate the changes, but the financial picture is about the same. Metro, the regional government in charge of solid-waste disposal, says the money it saves by not hauling waste to Eastern Oregon is offset by higher processing costs. Residents of North Plains, where the organics turn into compost, don't like being Portland's compost bucket. But even there, things are improving.
"It works pretty well," says Jones, the Cloudburst driver. "Most people try to do the right thing."
It's just before 6:30 am on a Tuesday when Jones fires up his 20-ton compost truck in the shadow of the Fremont Bridge.
For the past eight years, he's driven Cloudburst's territory on the central east side.
The Milwaukie High School graduate earns $18 an hour. That's less than Cloudburst's competitors have offered him, but he says he likes his colleagues and bosses.
A rafter and soccer player, Jones looks younger than his 36 years. He previously worked construction, laid turf for athletic fields and labored in a mill. But he's content driving a one-man truck with nobody looking over his shoulder.
"This is a good job," says Jones, who with his girlfriend, a chef, is raising two foster children. "People think it's a real dirty job. It's not."
Piloting his truck through Southeast Portland, Jones can block driveways, stop in front of hydrants and claim right of way from shiny new SUVs.
He's king of the road.
"Me and the mailman," he says.
It's dangerous work—sanitation workers such as Jones die on the job at a rate 60 percent higher than police officers. Last year, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics ranked garbage collecting as the seventh-most dangerous occupation in the U.S., just a little less dangerous than roofing.
Although his shiny white rig is enormous, noisy and topped by a flashing yellow light, Jones says he's invisible to impatient motorists. That's the biggest danger in the job, he and McMahon say—getting run over by an impatient driver.
Jones says he's had more than one close call. "Drivers just come flying by," he says. "They don't respect us like they do police cars or tow trucks."
There are also a lot of moving parts in his truck, which can handle trash or compost: The hydraulic "packer panel" slides back and forth like the jaws of a shark, crushing the greenery and slop into the truck's gaping storage chamber.
"A guy I know got his arm caught in one of those," Jones says. "Tore him up pretty good."
When the city introduced roll carts for yard debris in 2008, Jones' job got easier.
"Before, you'd come around the corner in Laurelhurst and there'd be a yard with six cans and 20 bags lined up," Jones says. Barrels often filled up with rainwater or the liquid from decomposing material. Hoisting them manually meant you got sore and often soaked.
McMahon, Jones' boss, refers to the old-style compost containers as "man-killers."
The roll carts are better, but since he can't see inside them, Jones raises the lid of each one to inspect for forbidden material.
"It's added a little time," he says.
All food scraps—including meat and fish, pizza boxes and napkins—can now go in with yard debris, but diapers and pet waste cannot.
Jones wears greasy-looking leather gloves when he handles the bins. He good-naturedly pulls soda and beer cans and more than the occasional bag of dog poop from the green roll carts before dumping them in his truck.
"One person left a dead duck in their bin," he recalls. "I wrote them a note."
If there's a lot more that shouldn't be in the bin, Jones will leave a pre-printed note affixed to the bin handle. (The City Council considered elevating those warnings to fines, but decided last month not to do so.)
As we stop at a home on Southeast 28th Avenue, Jones' truck pees out a brown liquid, the result of a faulty seal.
Jones peeks under the lid of one debris bin and shakes his head in disgust: full of garbage.
"These are folks I write up almost every week," he says, attaching a note to the bin. Compliance generally seems high—city figures show fewer than 1 percent of households put out contaminated material—and he writes only a couple of tickets in more than 75 stops.
Jones says people have mostly accepted weekly composting and have adjusted to every-other-week garbage pick-up.
Then again, it's just started to get warm.
"People keep talking about how bad it's going to get in the heat," he says. "But it's all the smell of money."
Jones says residential composting bins are largely vermin free. That's not true of the commercial dumpsters he unloads on other days.
"I've had rats and mice jumping over me," he says. "You hear about that guy who got the plague down in Redmond? It's something to think about."
At the end of his day, Jones drives his 5 tons of compostable material across the Willamette and down Highway 30 to the Metro Central Transfer Station, located next to a sea of oil tanks six miles northwest of the Fremont Bridge.
Metro Central receives most of Portland's garbage, recyclables and household organics on the second leg of their journey.
Calling Metro Central a transfer station does no justice to the glorious landslides of junk, trash and aromatic organics that flood the site each day.
Engorged garbage and compost trucks queue up at the facility's gate like a line of fat beetles waiting to discharge their cargoes.
Metro, the tri-county regional government responsible for waste disposal, contracts the facility's operations to California-based Recology, which handles San Francisco's food-composting program.
Paul Ehinger, Metro's director of solid waste operations, oversees Recology's work.
"It's not an overly exciting business," Ehinger, 63, a former consulting engineer, says of his oversight role. "But it's more enjoyable than I ever thought waste could be."
Garbage gets dumped in the west end of the facility, where it is sorted and loaded into semitrailers and driven 136 miles east to Arlington for burial.
Recyclable material—glass, metal, paper and plastic—is sorted at the north wall of the building and shipped out for reprocessing.
But since Oct. 31, the action is in the south side of the transfer station, where the residential organics come in.
In some ways, dealing with this material is a grown-up version of playing in a sandbox.
Jones and other drivers dump their loads on the concrete floor, where it is immediately attacked by a madly beeping Caterpillar front-end loader that slides on a sheen of goo as it brakes.
The loader quickly shoves the material toward a Rube Goldbergian contraption called a slow-speed shear grinder.
The material is ground and chopped as it travels up a conveyor belt at a 45-degree angle. At the top of the device, the processed material plunges off the belt and into a waiting semitrailer truck.
With beeping alarms, roaring diesel engines, the grinder and an even larger garbage-sorting operation in an adjacent space, there's so much noise at the Metro transfer station that it's easy to forget the smell—except when a load of commercial food waste arrives.
Commercial food waste comes in large plastic bags, which are pretty juicy by the time they get to Metro. The bags pop like enormous zits as the loader shoves them toward the shear grinder. Murky liquid spurts across the floor alongside fish parts, potatoes, bananas, pineapples and lots of mush that a CSI sleuth would struggle to identify.
"Even when a load is solid food, it's not so bad," Ehinger claims with a smile.
Ehinger says commercial food composting, which Metro began eight years ago, is where the real growth opportunities remain. Commercial establishments in Portland produce 150,000 tons of food waste annually and recycle less than one-fifth of that amount.
One reason the transfer station doesn't smell worse is because the compostable material gets shoved out the door. As soon as one semitrailer fills, another takes its place.
"We want to move it out fast," Ehinger says. "Quick turnover is really desirable."
In addition to minimizing the smell, Ehinger wants to keep varmints at bay.
Last fall, around the time Portlanders began mixing food with yard debris, airborne scavengers descended on Metro Central.
"An awful lot of seagulls showed up," Ehinger recalls.
The swooping, pooping seagulls quickly "turned everything white," he says. "They made it miserable around here."
Some public agencies use noise cannons, sharpshooters or even poison to get rid of pests.
Ehinger's team hired Airstrike Bird Control LLC, which specializes in "falconry-based bird abatement." Airstrike brought in three falcons—Oscar and Phantom, gyr-peregrine hybrids, and a prairie falcon named Malice.
Chris Fox, the birds' trainer, patrols the transfer station in an orange hardhat, keeping his eye out for gulls. He says the falcons rarely kill the seabirds.
"They just scare them away," Fox says.
Within an hour of entering Metro Central, the material Jones brings from Southeast Portland can be on a truck on its way out of the facility, passing the falcons' cage just before exiting.
Next stop—North Plains.
It seems a lot more than 21 miles from the oil tanks and chemical plants that surround Metro Central to the fertile, rolling fields that surround the Washington County hamlet of North Plains (pop. 1,947).
Residents of North Plains typically farm or work at either Oregon-Canadian Forest Products, the town's biggest employer, or in Washington County's high-tech belt.
But lately, the highest-profile part of North Plains is a 67-acre parcel just north of Sunset Highway called Nature's Needs.
Nature's Needs, now owned by Recology, is the third and final leg of Portland's composting program.
Jon Thomas, the facility's operations manager, is on the receiving end of the material Stacy Jones picks up curbside and Paul Ehinger grinds and ships. Thomas, 40, is a sturdy engineer who came west to Oregon State University and decided to trade Ohio's pastures and cornfields for Oregon's mountains and rivers. Now he finds himself facing a torrent of Portland's residential organics—and a PR problem.
"Stop the Stink," reads a roadside sign near the entry to Nature's Needs.
Some neighbors hate the smell and resent being Portland's compost bucket.
"The kingdom is shipping the stuff out where the peasants can't do anything about it," says Tony Spiering, owner of Valley Machine Service, a high-tech manufacturer located next to Nature's Needs.
On July 3, the deeply tanned Thomas fretted over a new high-tech compost processing system on which he says Recology has spent "millions," and also tended to the company's public-relations issues.
Based on its permit, Recology can accept 50,000 tons of material annually, enough to give each North Plains resident 50,000 pounds of compost.
That avalanche of the sometimes-fragrant city waste has engendered bad blood and hundreds of written odor complaints.
So Thomas needs to tend to public relations as well as processing a never-ending stream of material.
"Who wants to ride in the [Fourth of July parade] and throw candy?" he asked on a recent afternoon, as he handed his 10 dusty employees long-sleeved Recology T-shirts and encouraged them to be visible during North Plains' Independence Day celebration.
The highlight of that celebration? An elaborate fireworks show launched from Recology's facility and paid for by the company.
Like Portland's waste haulers, Recology hoped to have more time to get ready for food composting. At first, the flood of material overwhelmed the plant, leading to odor problems and a temporary reduction in the amount of waste Nature's Needs was allowed to accept.
"Legislation preceded infrastructure," Thomas says.
When the program started in October, Nature's Needs was still transitioning away from being a rudimentary facility that since 1995 handled only yard debris and wood waste.
Now, Thomas says, his operation is taking in about 900 tons a week, most of it from Metro.
Since last fall, Thomas says, Recology has upgraded the facility in an effort to reduce odor.
"Once the material gets here," he says, "the chefs start to work."
The "recipe" calls for adjusting the porosity, moisture content, temperature, oxygen and pH balance of the compost.
"It's a combination of art and science," Thomas says. Sometimes he gets the formula right, but then the ambient temperature shifts or it rains.
"We have all this heavy technology," he says, "and then Mother Nature throws us a curveball."
After trucks from the transfer station dump the compost, a front-loader shapes it into big loaves about 85 feet long, 28 feet wide and 6 feet high. Air pipes about 8 inches in diameter run through the loaves, and tarps are placed over the top.
Fans suck air through the pipes, drawing out moisture as microbial action breaks down the food elements of the compost as it cooks at about 145 degrees. The exhaust is filtered through berms of wood chips that remove more than 95 percent of the odor, Thomas says.
After 15 days, the loaves are "flopped" over, to cook under the tarps for another 15 days. The material then cures for 30 days, gets ground up, sifted, and then sold for $12.50 a cubic yard as certified organic garden compost.
Spiering says he's noticed some improvement in the smell as Recology upgraded technology.
"It's gotten somewhat better," he says. "But I still worry about the long term because the volume will only grow."
The facility smelled better than Metro's transfer station, which in turn smelled better than Jones' truck. On July 3, at least, Nature's Needs had the aroma of a Christmas tree lot after a rainstorm.
When Chris Fox, the falconer at the Metro Central Transfer Station, wants his birds to return to him, he puts a treat at the end of a string and whirls it in the air. The falcons zoom back for their reward.
The reward for Portlanders who put their table scraps in a green bin and forgo weekly trash pick-up is less dramatic.
But Metro's Ehinger says the city is on track to divert nearly 90,000 tons of organics next year—that's 2,900 truckloads of waste that can be sold as compost or burned as hog fuel rather than dumped in a landfill.
The result may be that Jon Thomas of Recology has to have a fire sale on organic compost—he's already undercutting the competition with his current price—or even give the stuff away. There are worse outcomes.
Stacy Jones, the Cloudburst driver, thinks the initial concerns about composting are over and it's time to move to the next challenge—how to deal with toxics like paint and chemicals left at curbside.
"I don't mind what I'm picking up," he says. "It all pays the same."


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Cubs' initiatives make positive mark on community
CHICAGO -- Cubs players walked, posed, dined and donated their time this season in an effort to give back to those less fortunate, and their fans chipped in, as well.
First baseman Anthony Rizzo hosted his first Chicago fundraiser in August, a "Cook Off for Cancer," featuring local chefs who presented their take on traditional ballpark food. It was a huge success, as the Rizzo Family Foundation received more than $150,000 in donations.
CHICAGO -- Cubs players walked, posed, dined and donated their time this season in an effort to give back to those less fortunate, and their fans chipped in, as well.
First baseman Anthony Rizzo hosted his first Chicago fundraiser in August, a "Cook Off for Cancer," featuring local chefs who presented their take on traditional ballpark food. It was a huge success, as the Rizzo Family Foundation received more than $150,000 in donations.
Rizzo will celebrate five years of being cancer free with his second "Walk Off for Cancer" 5-kilometer walk on Dec. 15. His inaugural event in his hometown of Parkland, Fla., raised more than $100,000.
In January, the players and coaches served lunch for active-duty military and veterans in partnership with the USO at the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Base. The visit was part of the Cubs Caravan tour, and allowed the players to say thanks to the servicemen and women.
Also in January, outfielder David DeJesus, his wife Kim and Cubs Charities held the first "Strike a Pose" celebrity fashion show to raise money for ALS research and support. The fight against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, was personal because Kim's high school friend was diagnosed with the disease.
Among the players who walked the runway were Rizzo, Darwin Barney, Shawn Camp, Tony Campana, Starlin Castro, Brett Jackson, Kerry Wood and Travis Wood. Even though DeJesus is now a member of the Rays, the event will be held again on Jan. 16, 2014.
The players weren't the only ones to participate in good causes. Chicago Cubs Charities donated more than $2.3 million in 2013 to Chicago-area non-profit organizations.
In July, Chicago Cubs Charities introduced the inaugural class of Cubs Scholars, a program that provides college scholarships to incoming high school seniors who are high achievers with demonstrated need. Five scholars were introduced and officially "signed" to the team. They received $20,000 toward the college of their choice, as well as ongoing mentoring and programming through the Cubs College Prep program -- which includes college counseling and support for five years with Chicago Scholars.
Cubs Charities also featured the first "Cubs on the Move" fitness trolley, a program designed to promote physical activity in the inner city. Cubs players and Laura Ricketts helped teach kids to play every day and work in 60 minutes of physical activity. Over 300 children took part in July.
More than 93,000 underprivileged children and families, veterans, non-profit organizations, children with special needs, and volunteers were treated to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field over the course of the season through ticket donations.
A new "Cubs Give Back" program allowed season ticketholders to donate their tickets to Cubs Charities, who worked with Illinois Mentoring Partnership to bring mentor pairs to the ballpark to enjoy a game.
Cubs fundraising events and donations raised more than $3.3 million in 2013 through the 50/50 Raffle and events such as the third annual Bricks and Ivy Ball, the Race to Wrigley 5K, Wrigley Field Road Tour, and Cubs Convention.
Cubs fans rallied in November to donate items for families devastated by the Nov. 17 tornadoes in downstate Illinois, and two trucks of goods were delivered to Peoria, Ill.
Besides the organized efforts, there was another example of giving back. Pitcher Carlos Villanueva and his wife, Arianna, donated their time and money to Casa de Luz in the Dominican Republic, a home to about 25 severely disabled children whose needs overwhelm their families. He's been able to arrange food and medical care for the kids.
"We don't gain anything back from this, just the satisfaction of seeing these kids," Villanueva said. "It breaks your heart when you go in there."
At Thanksgiving, it's a good time to say thanks to those who made the effort.
Carrie Muskat is a reporter for MLB.com. She writes a blog, Muskat Ramblings, and you can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat.


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Subscribe To Transformers: Age Of Extinction Footage Likely To Debut During Super Bowl Updates
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Where else would you expect Michael Bay to begin teasing his fourth Transformers movie, Age of Extinction?
In an official post on MichaelBay.com, the director tells followers that he has "completed our five and a half month shoot," and is currently "working hard cutting the movie right now." To that end, Bay said on the site:
I think the first piece comes out for the Super Bowl and a teaser right after that."
Makes sense. Paramount has the fourth Transformers movie slotted into a June 27, 2014 release date. Major studios typically use the Super Bowl as a platform for their upcoming summer blockbusters. And you can bet Bay's crowd will be dialed in to the big game. Hitting them with the first Age of Extinction teaser seems only natural.
For once, I'll be very excited to see what Bay has to show. We know next to nothing about this sequel, as it's a departure from the trilogy Bay helped launch back in 2007. No Shia LaBeouf. No Megan Fox. No John Turturro getting "urinated" on by an Autobot. Instead, Bay has Mark Wahlberg (of Pain & Gain) in his corner, leading up a story that might follow a teenage girl and a mechanic, who discover something that threatens the Transformer population.
Like I said: Bay's keeping this one close to the vest. Which I think is the right idea. After the bombast of Dark of the Moon, Bay needed to step back and reassess this franchise. That was a severely violent film, given that this franchise started as an action series adapted from a line of toys.
But Bay isn't sorry. Actually, the post on his site started out by letting everyone know that he does NOT apologize for anything he's ever done with the Transformers movies.
I did not 'apologize' for any Transformers movies. I did not say I shot the last three movies "less cool" than the new fourth installment. I was talking specifically about camera style and tone, of the first movie compared to how I shot the new installment with a very big scale, cinematic style. I was very specific in saying the first Transformers was shot in a 'generic suburbia' area, not trying to be cool with any cinematic flashes. I wanted it to feel like this could happen in any backyard in the United States."
Got that? So Transformers fans can expect "Bayhem" at the Super Bowl this year. And Age of Extinction will be in theaters next summer. Are you excited?


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Riverside Girls High School
In my work I used a bird's nest as the basis for reflection on concepts and ways of representing the world we live in. Using a range of media and techniques to communicate the sensuality, strength, innocence, purity, tranquillity and organic beauty of the eggs in a nest, I attempted to create a sense of flowing balance and unity in each of the pieces. I used sfumato, chiaroscuro and careful tonal choices, not merely to imitate nature but to reinterpret and speculate upon one aspect of it by viewing it in new light.