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"5D" growth has been saved
External and internal pressures can lead growth-seeking executives to focus almost entirely on share gain and retention, blinding them to other avenues to organic growth.
Every industry seems to have an implicit set of rules about where and how to compete, almost as if the industry were a sports league. Over time, seemingly sensible organizational design choices, competitive cultures, and intrinsic human biases combine to lead executives in the various firms in an industry to share a rather narrow set of assumptions about where and how to grow. They can come to believe that growth primarily comes from retaining their existing customers longer through better customer satisfaction while taking customers away from weaker competitors (that is, gaining share). This places a hidden but strong brake on their ability to grow rapidly and reliably. For, seeing the industry this way, most, if not all, act as if they were in a continuous series of win-lose games. They copy each other as rapidly as they can: Their product-line strategies become near-mirror images, and they invest in the same best internal practices. The result is that all firms' growth rates tend to rise and fall with the industry average. Even those who play the game very well find that they live in a world of two steps forward, one step back, as competitors match (perhaps not perfectly, but reasonably) any effective move on their part.
Some executives and some firms, however, refuse to be constrained to the "2D" world of share and retention. They play in a "5D" world, outside the usual rules. They create or tap into a wider set of often less-contested options that then allows them to grow faster and more reliably than those with a narrower vision. Of course, these firms protect their competitive "flanks." They, like other firms in their industry, invest substantially in programs to retain their customers and poach those of rivals. But they also see and invest in one or more of the other three sources of organic growth:
These are sources of organic growth that some firms more or less create, or appropriate, for themselves. They are not free or riskless. However, they can be large and, because so few firms pay attention to them, are usually much less contested than share or retention. So companies seeking broad growth should round out their portfolio of growth initiatives, combining moves to anticipate the future, expand usage, and/or broaden the category with their more routine efforts addressing share and retention.
Drawing new customers into a category and to an existing product bypasses conventional rivalry (by definition) and can bring big rewards. For example, a portion of Starbucks' success is due to its ability to convince younger people who like sweet, flavorful, and energizing beverages to try something hot, albeit with the additional lure of a cool place to hang out. In effect, Starbucks graduates them from the soft drink category to a category of beverages based on high-quality coffee—for example, the range of lattes and lattes with flavors that characterize Starbucks' offerings. Similarly, Southwest Airlines was able to accelerate its growth rate by offering a schedule that made it worthwhile for people to fly between city pairs a few hundred miles apart instead of driving, in effect pulling people from the ground transport category into the air transport category. Likewise, Enterprise grew both the car rental market and itself by making it easy and inexpensive for people whose cars were being repaired to rent instead of using public transportation or borrowing someone else's car.1 In doing so, it sidestepped much of the ferocious head-to-head battle for airport-based business or vacation rentals. As these examples suggest, drawing new customers into a category and to a product in particular always involves a good dose of marketing and usually some degree of innovation.
Firms that better anticipate where demand will be growing, and position themselves promptly and properly will grow faster than those that stay still or anticipate incorrectly.
Apple's extraordinary high-growth, high-margin performance over the past decade may well be due more to getting customers to use "phones'' in more situations, and more intensively, than to the superiority of its devices relative to competitors. Apple iPhone® and iPad® mobile devices have sleek designs and smooth interfaces—but so do Samsung's and Motorola's devices.2 What seems to have driven the growth of Apple's devices was the inexpensive, easy way customers could make the device useful in more situations—for game playing, navigation, taking and sharing photos, texting, etc. In general, a firm can stimulate "situation-based" growth in three ways: first, by getting customers who sometimes consume its products in situation "X" to consume it more often, ideally every time they are in situation "X"; second, by getting them to consume it in a new situation (situation "Y") where they haven't before; and third, by getting them to consume a bigger amount than they currently do. While smartphones are a particularly notable example of the possibilities of this dimension of growth, firms in more prosaic industries have grown this way as well. Arm and Hammer, for example, generated significant sales growth for its iconic yellow box of baking soda by getting customers to use the baking soda as a refrigerator air freshener as well as for baking. The Milk Production Board, for another, has been successfully convincing athletes, especially young ones, that milk is a great after-sport replenishment drink and not just an accompaniment to cereal in the morning. Instead of accepting conventional industry wisdom on "where" their products should be used, these companies grew by adding new, and less competed, spaces to their mix.
Firms that achieve above-industry-average growth rates also source their growth from the future by anticipating the inevitable but tricky-to-spot shifts in growth rates for consumer segments, channels, and geographies faster and better than others. Industries inevitably evolve in uncertain ways. Short-term factors—fads, different rates of growth in different geographies, product variants—ceaselessly drive growth rates up in certain channels and consumer segments and down in others. Over the longer term, significant macro trends—connectivity, major changes in regulation, shifts in raw material availability, technology, globalization—reshape every dimension of an industry: who and where the customers are, where and how they buy, and what they buy. The simple point is that there is a "tide" in demand in every industry that rises unevenly along the industry "coastline," and firms that better anticipate where demand will be growing, and position themselves promptly and properly will grow faster than those that stay still or anticipate incorrectly. Toyota, for example, began aggressively working on its hybrid engine technology in anticipation of ever-higher fuel efficiency standards and gas prices even though, at the time, oil prices were low and CAFE standards had not changed for many years. When the USSR collapsed, and the Communist world opened up in the early 1990s, Coca-Cola Company moved swiftly and aggressively into a slew of markets, and has found that growth in these areas has more than offset declines in its traditional Western European and North American markets.
The firms in these examples have a more robust and diversified growth story than those who limit themselves to share and retention.3 But what prevents more firms from widening their options? The "other three" dimensions of growth are hardly unknown to business leaders: They are part of business school curricula, and they are mentioned, albeit not often, in the business literature.4 Yet, by and large, executives don't do anything with that knowledge. They channel their thought and investment into head-to-head battles. They really do stay within the box.
Ironically, many executives are limiting themselves. Their "2D" focus is the natural systemic outcome of individually sensible, practical choices they make about how to organize and run an enterprise—choices whose combined effect is exacerbated and baked into culture by common experiences and common outside pressures (for example, from Wall Street). As shown in figure 1, some of these choices and pressures combine to motivate executives to disproportionately look for and fund initiatives and activities that can "move the needle" relatively quickly. Certain other organizational choices and constraints then channel that desire for short-term growth into initiatives and activities that disproportionately—indeed almost exclusively—look to source that growth through share gain and retention.
Business leaders' nearly unquenchable desire for initiatives that can be designed, implemented, and show results relatively quickly is born of both Wall Street's and their companies' promotional policies and practices. Wall Street's short-termism is too well documented to need much explication, but it does exert a steady background pressure on every company to find things that work now. The effect of companies' promotion policies on the source of growth that they look for is less well understood, because it operates indirectly and is therefore hard to see. Companies typically reorganize themselves and/or arrange for promotions every 18–36 months. This means that, on average, an ambitious, rising manager expects to spend 24–30 months in a given role, and then be promoted. (If they spend much more time in a role, they start to worry about their career prospects at that company.) While the specifics of their policies and criteria vary, companies all sensibly look for demonstration of competence as the rationale for promotion, preferably in the form of better results. Aspiring managers respond by trying to demonstrate their competence in a way that bears their stamp, that makes them visible—something that is new and better and notable. And they'd prefer not to incur much risk in doing so. This gives them a very strong bias toward initiatives that can be conceived and implemented within 6–12 months, and whose results can be seen in what they hope will be the final 12 months of their tenure.
This double-barreled pressure for short-cycle results gets channeled into institutional focus on gaining market share, or retaining existing customers, because of the metrics and organizational structures companies put in place, and because of the intrinsic differences in the speed, difficulty, and risk of pursuing the various possible sources of growth.
Almost universally, the core metrics for the revenue-oriented functions in companies are revenue—absolute and growth—and margin. They are important and measurable. Almost as ubiquitous are metrics for market share/share gain in a given period, as well as, increasingly, some form of customer satisfaction measure (think of the proliferation of Internet-based post-transaction customer satisfaction surveys for car dealers, health care providers, banks, and so on). It is not that companies do not care about other metrics, but, practically, market share and customer satisfaction are the most measurable, at the least expense. Further, these metrics are valued for intrinsic and cultural reasons in the two most market-oriented functions—sales and marketing. If, as the old saying goes, what you measure is what you get, then by explicitly measuring only market share and/or customer satisfaction/retention—and not the number/value of new-to-category customers; increased usage levels or situations; or presence in the fastest-growing segments, geographies, technologies, etc.—companies transform their managers' intense desire to get ahead into efforts to get ahead by gaining share or maximizing customer satisfaction. They literally will not look anywhere else.
The attention drawn to share and satisfaction is further reinforced, in many industries, by corporate decisions to create departments and groups dedicated to share gain or to customer satisfaction. While not ubiquitous, companies in a wide swath of the economy, including the telecommunications, software, cable, retail, financial services, hospitality, and transportation businesses, often hardwire the focus on market share or customer retention into their structure. They establish groups within marketing and sales whose roles and charters focus them exclusively on the acquisition of customers from competitors or retention of their own customers. And these groups play important, if not dominant, roles in designing the marketing and sales efforts of their companies. In the United States, for example, these retention groups spend upward of $50–60 billion a year on loyalty programs that involve, cumulatively, about 2.8 billion members.5
While not ubiquitous, companies in a wide swath of the economy, including the telecommunications, software, cable, retail, financial services, hospitality, and transportation businesses, often hardwire the focus on market share or customer retention into their structure.
In sum, promotion policies and expectations, along with Wall Street, create a demand for short-term results; metrics and organizational structures convert the demand for near-term success into a demand for share gains and better retention. What then seals the logic of share/retention in managers' minds is their belief that it is intrinsically easier, faster, and less personally risky to gain share and/or retain customers than to position for the future, grow the category, or increase product usage. "Experience" teaches them that they can get share by clever but modest tweaks to pricing or to messages, or by modifying package size or format. It also teaches them that it can be hard and risky to try to focus on the long-term growth available from anticipating the future, or to rely on marketing or market development activities to reshape demand. Of course, what experience teaches is usually wrong—very wrong. On the one hand, share gains are nearly impossible to hold in the absence of fundamental, decisive competitive advantage in product or cost, which most firms do not possess. On the other hand, while it does take time, reshaping or growing demand is often easier to do than many think. Executives come to fundamentally overestimate the odds and value of share gain and underestimate the feasibility and value of growing usage or the category.
It would be difficult for business-unit-level executives to change the full range of organizational elements that cause and sustain tunnel vision, and CEOs, who can change them, are loath to—they, more than any, are tied to shorter-term objectives. However, there are a handful of relatively easy, almost bolt-on, initial moves and investments through which CEOs and business-unit leaders can start tapping into the non-competitive sources of growth in a meaningful way.
First, senior leaders can establish distinct, empowered teams with meaningful budgets to focus on the most promising noncompetitive sources of growth. Each team should address a specific type of noncompetitive growth—that is, one for category development and another for usage development. And each team has to have the scope and authority to design and commission product variants and go-to-market campaigns tailored solely to its strategy, and to do so in parallel with whatever mainstream campaigns the firm is running for acquisition and retention. Pharmaceutical companies routinely establish separate teams to demonstrate to regulators and doctors that the same drug is safe and effective in multiple indications, that is, in treating different diseases or different aspects of a disease. They have learned that it is very difficult for one team to do an excellent job addressing very different sources of growth.
The authority to do things differently matters greatly, especially early on. Indeed, the rationale for separate, complementary teams is that the fundamental nature of the marketing and sales task differs across the types of growth. On the one hand, campaigns intended to gain share or retain customers are usually built around frequent, very short TV, radio, and email/banner ads that remind customers about the benefits of a brand or compare and contrast it (favorably, of course) to a rival brand. The key "news" in the ads is often a promotion—a price cut or a boost in a loyalty program. Campaigns intended to expand usage differ in many ways. These campaigns cannot just remind; they have to engage and educate. They must show customers that there is a better way of doing something. So, communications are necessarily longer—60-second TV spots or even 10–15-minute infomercials. The messages and stories are more complex: They introduce the product, show it being used, compare and contrast it, and paint a picture of a better life. The most effective tactic would be to actually get potential customers to handle and use the product in the new situation, which means mounting sampling-type efforts alongside the traditional media. And to achieve that kind of sampling, companies often have to enter or create new channels. Clearly, the design of a great campaign to gain share differs significantly from the design for a great campaign to expand usage, and warrants, if not requires, different teams.
When business-unit heads and CEOs sanction multiple, parallel campaigns, they often create heartburn and, initially, a good bit of political resistance. After all, the resources for these new sources of growth are seen as coming from resources that would otherwise be used for acquisition and retention. But management should not flinch.
Second, the way team leaders dedicated to a new source of growth are measured and promoted also matters a good deal. Typically, a manager's performance is measured against both quantitative goals (for instance, revenue growth and market share) and qualitative objectives (for example, completing certain initiatives). Both should be modified if a firm wants to achieve "5D" growth, which will involve investment in the new systems and capabilities to gather new data and changing criteria and practices, especially with respect to promotion. To begin with, each team created to pursue a new source of growth will likely have to design and operate a custom-designed tracking system in order to generate metrics that allow for a fair evaluation of how successful they have been. Product-line revenue numbers are too high-level—they are affected by the work of all the teams. What is needed are metrics appropriate to the growth source. Most firms' tracking research samples only customers in the category and gathers information on overall purchases, consumption, and brand choice, meaning it is only possible to calculate changes in share and retention. So firms have to modify and/or create new tracking research to get the right data for pursuing different growth sources. A team focused on growth through new-to-the-category customers will have to create a tracking system (or modify the existing one) to sample people outside and inside the category, and to carefully track the behavior of transitioning customers. A team focused on increasing usage, by contrast, will need a tracking system that isolates existing customers' behavior in a much more granular way: brand choice and usage by each occasion.
It is equally important to change qualitative measures and promotion policies to get the right level of attention on new sources of growth. The issue is a timing mismatch. Promotion cycles in most companies are generally shorter than the time needed for initiatives and campaigns aimed at the new sources of growth to be designed and implemented properly. If being on track means promotion every 20–24 months, as is commonly the case, then managers will agree to be measured on only those initiatives that they can design, implement, and see the results from within 12–14 months. That translates into a bias away from taking the time to develop deeper insights and the multidimensional, engaging educational campaigns needed to draw people into a category or change their usage. This bias for short-cycle, share- or retention-oriented initiatives in managers' yearly objectives can be reversed by changing promotion criteria. What it takes is making it clear to aspiring managers that they cannot be promoted until they have brought, say, two of their predecessor's longer-term growth initiatives to a successful conclusion and have designed and are well along in implementing at least two longer-term growth initiatives of their own; that is, they have "landed two" and "launched two." The point is not how many initiatives to land and launch, as it could be one or three; rather, it is to make managers accountable for growth initiatives that last longer than they expect to remain in a particular role.
Third, top executives can insist that their teams dig deeper for insights, pushing them to reallocate existing research funds and then, when and where it is needed, providing additional funds. Insights about customers and the future is the fuel of non-competitive growth. If the newly established teams do not see the world differently, or see things that others don't, then those teams will not be able to create distinct growth programs. Unfortunately, most firms spend too little on research, and worse, the vast majority of what they do spend is focused on tracking—that is, on tracking brand health or share, or advertising effectiveness. Not enough is spent on discovery.
Specifically, senior executives can insist that the new-to-category and the new-uses teams relentlessly pursue insights into the daily lives and thinking of customers and non-customers, largely through ethnographic and neuroscience-based research methods. The real key to noncompetitive growth is the ability to understand what customers are trying to accomplish and feel in different situations and occasions, and do so in detail and over time. Understanding the job, to use Clayton M. Christensen's term, is critical for knowing how to tweak the product to be more valuable in a new-use situation, or to draw someone into the category, and is equally important for determining how best to communicate with potential customers.6 Noncompetitive growth is won one occasion or situation at a time.
Senior executives should also support the research agenda of their future-oriented team(s), and devote more of their own time to structured thinking about the direction and pace at which their industry is evolving. Most new things in an industry are long foreshadowed; the impact of demographics on demand, the rise of different channel formats, and the twists in consumer preference or in regulation—all of these can be seen in the market years before they become the new reality. Management teams often "know" about these changes but ignore them because they are "too small to move the needle" this quarter. A key to repositioning a firm to take advantage of industry evolution is to ensure that the future has a share of management's mind commensurate with the opportunity. Today, many management teams devote almost no formal time to considering where their industry is headed, or trying to judge how fast it can get there—or if they do, it may be for a couple of hours during a once-a-year strategy review. The antidote is to exaggerate the future deliberately—to spend a couple of hours every week considering the evidence of the magnitude, pace of change, and direction of change in their industry, and how to make money from that evolution.
Pogo, the lead character of a popular cartoon strip in the mid-to-late 20th century, once famously said, "We have met the enemy—and he is us." He might as well have been a CEO making a candid assessment of his company's growth prospects. The world outside a company certainly poses big challenges to its growth—demanding customers, difficult suppliers, and tough rivals, along with the headwinds posed by a volatile global economy. The world inside, however, poses equal or greater challenges to a company's organic growth. The way companies measure and promote their leaders and the way they structure and focus their teams typically lead them to focus narrowly on just two dimensions of growth: gaining share among and/or retaining existing customers. No matter how well they execute, the sheer competitiveness of the world bounded by those two dimensions makes it harder to grow faster than the industry average.
Any company can stop being its own "growth enemy," but only if it is willing to widen its vision and hence its options. There are at least three other dimensions of growth always available to a company—namely, drawing people into the company's category, convincing existing customers to use more of its products, and positioning itself to take advantage of the natural evolution of its category before rivals do. By tapping one or more of these, companies can define their own playing field, and because it usually has less competition than the "2D" one most of their rivals constrain themselves to, they can achieve a higher rate of growth and better margins.
There are four straightforward but unconventional moves executives can make to diminish or abolish the "growth enemy" they themselves have inadvertently created and sustained. They can broaden and lengthen the way they measure key P&L leaders, and change the promotional policies for them—for example, by requiring aspiring general managers to successfully "land" longer-term growth initiatives launched by their predecessors, as well as to "launch" new longer-term growth initiatives, before they can move up. A second move is to create or dedicate teams focused on sources of growth other than gaining share or retention, and to give them the authority and budget to run distinct campaigns. The third and fourth moves are all about boosting the company's ability to see the market in new, deeper ways: namely, to invest more heavily in ethnographic and observational research into customers' lives, and to invest more time and thought into detecting, anticipating, and figuring out how to exploit key trends in the industry.


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I've been playing Borderlands 2 on Xbox recently (havent played the first yet) and am wondering how the save game works.
If I hit Start and select Save and Quit from the menu then load my game again later it always returns me to the start of the level, meaning I have to go through and fight the same enemies again to get back up to where I originally saved. However, all my characters stats and items are saved.
Is the save meant to happen this way? I would have thought you would have loaded at the closest New-U machine rather then all the way back to the start of the level

subset: commoncrawl


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Armadale Salmon Fishing is a family firm based in Bettyhill, a small village on the north coast of Scotland. Owner James Mackay has built up the fishery over the past 25 years and the company is now entering it's third generation of the family. The team consists of family and local crew. In 2002, Armadale Salmon Fishing was one of many Scottish fisheries featured in a DVD titled "Netting Scotland's King of Fish", which is about the history of Scottish wild salmon fishing industry. |
The Salmon & Grilse we catchThe fish we catch are of a pristine condition and quality. Our traditional fishing techniques ensure the fish can swim around within the net until they are caught. This approach guarantees the fish do not end up with net marks, bruising or scaling. Freshness is ensured by quickly preserving the fish in ice. Generally, like most of the fishing industry, we sell fish based on their weight grade. The grading varies from 1Kg up to 10Kg. The fish is carefully packed in polystyrene fish boxes and dispatched daily by refrigerated lorry to markets all over the UK and Ireland. |
Wild Armadale SalmonLocal smokehouses and customers can also buy our product direct. It's important to remember, legal netting companies such as Armadale Salmon Fishing, are the only source to purchase Wild Salmon in the UK. It's illegal to purchase rod caught Salmon. Read More About Our History |
View more articles, photos and videos here. |
Study to investigate movements and depth use of salmon returning to Scotland's north coastLittle is known about the migration routes and depth use of salmon following their return to the Scottish coast from marine feeding grounds. The information is of great importance to help us to understand, for example, if there is potential for interaction with the developing marine renewable industry. |
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© 2014 Armadale Salmon Fishing. All Rights Reserved


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2015 Durga Pujo >> Artworks Photos 2
This entry was posted on October 22, 2015. It was filed under Artworks and was tagged with 2015 Artworks.
Devi Darshan App is to guide you through the Pujo locations you must not miss.
Detailed Pujo maps of 4 regions of Kolkata are prepared for you. You are also invited Pick Your Pic game. As you visit pujo installations, click photos of Pratima orArtwork intricacy or Pandal / edifice elegance or Lighting innovations that you think are great!
Siddharta Gangopadhyay
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Invest to achieve your goals
We live in volatile times. With markets moving faster than ever before, it can be hard to know where to focus your attention. Our job is to show you the bigger picture, and help you make sense of it all. When we work with you, we follow a strict process, from creating your investment strategy to monitoring the markets and keeping your portfolio in line.
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Building a strategy
Building a strategy
Before we even think about investing, first we find out your goals in life. Are you more focused on preserving your family's wealth, or growing your business? Once we understand what matters to you, we'll build your financial plan.
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Monitoring the markets
In an increasingly complex investment environment, our investment management process guides you through the ups and downs. The task of our Chief Investment Office (CIO) is to figure out how the world works and then use that knowledge to optimize your investment strategy.
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Our portfolio managers then apply this rigorous research to your portfolio. Our investment process is constantly refined and adapted to changing market conditions to give you the best possible performance.
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With UBS My Way you build your own portfolio from more than 40 different building blocks – together with your Client Advisor. We take care of day-to-day management tasks and risk monitoring.
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Delegate the day-to-day management of your portfolio to us.
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Take every wealth investment decision yourself - with our advice.
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Without a map, how can you be sure you're on the right path? At UBS, wealth planning means looking at the bigger picture to really understand what's important to you. This allows us to build a financial plan around your life as it is now, and how you want it to be years from now.
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Welcome to Cofton Collections
Cofton Collections have been trading for over 30 years. We have been trading from our retail shop in Northfield, Birmingham for nearly 30 years. We have been a successful business seller on eBay for over 15 years. We sell First Day Covers, Trade Cards/Cigarette Cards, Stamps, Coins, Postcards, Trading Cards, Albums and Accessories. We also regularly buy quality collections and pay a fair price. We stock a full range of G.B. First Day Covers including Royal Mail Covers, Post Office Covers, Cotswold Covers and Stuart Covers as new issues. Back issues cover Royal Mail FDC, Cotswold FDC, Stuart Covers, Bradbury Covers, Benham Covers, Buckingham Covers, Covercraft Covers, Cricket Covers, Meter Mark First Day Covers and other various official covers and FDCs. We also have a range of Coin Covers and Autographed Covers.
We now have over 7000 products live on this site and we are steadily adding more stock. Please check regularly to see new items as they are listed. If you can't find what you are looking for yet, please contact us so we can assist you, or to view our full stock please visit our Ebay store.


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Up-to-date power management system with a simple one-to-one -replacement
Up-to-date power management system with a simple one-to-one replacement
The Torpoint chain ferries are the UK's busiest inland waterways ferries, crossing the Hamoaze at the mouth of the river Tamar to connect Torpoint in Cornwall with Devonport in Plymouth. The service operates 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, carrying over 2.4 million vehicles and around 500,000 foot passengers and cyclists every year, and this generation of ferries has now been in service for 14 years. The three ferries, PLYM II, TAMAR II and LYNHER II, are named after rivers in the area and are operated by the Tamar Bridge and Torpoint Ferry Joint Committee.
Maintaining the resilience and availability of the service is vital, so the decision to upgrade to the new PPU 300's was an obvious one to make when the PPU-2's were declared obsolete. Retrofitting can be daunting, and working with a tight schedule, it was crucial that a detailed plan was made, and that deadlines were met.
To conduct the upgrade, the ferries need to be taken out of service, and the optimum time to do this has been during each of the ferries dry dock refits. The first ferry fit has now been completed, with the second due in April/May 2019, and the final fit in April/May 2020.
"Torpoint Ferries are very happy with the DEIF solution to continue with reliable service on our generators. The PPU 300 system has proved to be very user-friendly and trouble-free."
Technical Manager | Tamar Bridge and Torpoint Ferry Joint Committee
Essential refit extends lifetime
PLYM II was the first ferry to be upgraded from the obsolete PPU-2 to the new PPU 300 system from DEIF, and Project Engineer Simon H. Pedersen from DEIF's Marine Solution team went to England to conduct the retrofit.
"Upgrading the system on PLYM II was pretty simple as we could do a 1:1 replacement. The old PPU-2 controller could be replaced by the more modern PPU 300", says Simon H. Pedersen.
The existing switchboards could be reused and so could the alarm system and its interface. The project team from DEIF made everything from design, drawings, installation and commissioning ensuring Torpoint Ferries a smooth transition to the new power management system.
"My experience with DEIF and working with Simon on this project has been a very pleasurable experience from the outset. We had extensive contact with DEIF in developing the upgrade solution, and I was very impressed with Simons attitude and approach to preparing for the installation. He was very flexible and went out of his way to provide a service which was outstanding and very professional. His knowledge of the system was excellent, and he provided training and a detailed demonstration on how to use the PPU 300's", says Lee Hunt, Technical Manager.


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Julia Child let people in on the Cuisinart secret and so did James Beard. They were among the first culinary experts to hail the food processor as a revolutionary kitchen appliance when it was introduced to America in 1973 by the late Cuisinart founder, Carl Sontheimer. Today, Cuisinart is a universally recognized name.
Looking for an item? Please call us at 816-531-5588.


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Jay Leno's Garage did a nice review on this and I have to to say I am sold. This will be going into the Mustang in the spring.
Fox Body Mustang, 1979 to 1993 Ford mustang Restoration. This blog goes over the process of restoring Fox Body Mustangs. Fox Body Mustangs are any mustangs that were built from 1979 to 1993, although there are many similarities there also many differences through the years. This blog does discuss some of these issues.
- Convert 4 cylinder Mustang to V8
- 1979 Ford Mustang 4 cylinder to V8 Brake conversion
- Mustang Parts Car Demolition
- Mustang Radiator Core Support Removal and Installation
- Painting Engine Compartment
- Bro's 1988 GT Mustang
- Mustang Engine Work
- Mustang Floor Pan Replacement
- Mustang UNDERCOATING
- Bend fuel line like a pro
- Brakes
- Rear Seat and Trunk Patching and Repair
- Time Lapse Vids
- 1G to 3G Alternator Conversion
- Subframe Connector Install
- Power Steering Cooler for Autocross Competitions
- Plastic Welding Dash Repair
- Door Lock Replacement
- Reset Odometer Miles
- More Mustang Rust Repair
- M81 McLaren Research "Rarest Mustang Ever"
- Mustang Differential Maintenance
- Plan A Paint Scheme How To
- Mustang Roof and Rear Quarters sectioning
- Blog Owner Bio
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Evans Waterless Coolant
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A Prayer for the New Year
May God make your year a happy one!
Not by shielding you from all sorrows and pain,
But by strengthening you to bear it, as it comes;
Not by making your path easy,
But by making you sturdy to travel any path;
Not by taking hardships from you,
But by taking fear from your heart;
Not by granting you unbroken sunshine,
But by keeping your face bright, even in the shadows;
Not by making your life always pleasant,
But by showing you when people and their causes need you most,
and by making you anxious to be there to help.
God's love, peace, hope and joy to you for the year ahead.


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There are musicals about fairy tales, musicals about Founding Fathers and now a musical about one woman's journey through competitive college bhangra dancing. NPR's Hafsa Fathima has more.
ARI AFSAR: (Singing) When I dance, I'm connected. When I dance, I'm here.
HAFSA FATHIMA, BYLINE: That's the sound of "Ishq Ko Kal Mein Khojiye," a song from the new musical "Bhangin' It." It had its first production this spring at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. Bhangra is a Punjabi folk dance from India and Pakistan.
REHANA LEW MIRZA: As time gone on, it has become popularized in the U.S. through these intercollegiate competitions, where they honor the traditions of bhangra, and they put their own American flavor to it.
FATHIMA: That's Rehana Lew Mirza, who co-wrote the book for the musical. She's followed bhangra competitions around the country.
LEW MIRZA: I became obsessed with it shortly after graduating from college. And I would trade writing classes for tickets to bhangra competitions.
FATHIMA: She co-wrote the book with her husband, Mike Lew. Longtime playwrights, this was their first musical. And it explores similar themes they've brought to other plays.
MIKE LEW: Within our plays, there is a real bruising race politics. And, indeed, like, the way that our marriage was formed was from having a lot of conflict over what our responsibilities are as Asian American writers and as both individuals and kind of members of a community.
FATHIMA: Lew is third-generation Chinese American. Lew Mirza is the child of Pakistani and Filipino immigrants. The protagonist of their musical is a mixed-race college student named Mary, who joins her collegiate bhangra team in order to connect with her culture. But when Mary and her team disagree about how much their dancing should keep tradition or embrace new styles, conflict arises.
LEW: That conflict is a larger sort of meditation on being multigenerational Americans and sort of, how do we hold on to our culture and yet let it evolve?
FATHIMA: Lew and Lew Mirza turned to composer Sam Willmott to write the music and lyrics.
LEW MIRZA: We wooed him by (laughter) taking him to Basement Bhangra as well and to Big Apple Bhangra competition in Queens. We basically rented a Zipcar and zipped him away (laughter).
FATHIMA: Willmott loves Golden Age musicals that put dance at the heart of storytelling, but writing in the bhangra style was new to him.
SAM WILLMOTT: I think the first thing to do was just to listen, listen, listen, listen. You know, we went to bhangra competitions, but also just, like, broad strokes research.
FATHIMA: Over time, they added other styles of music - poetic recitations from India and Pakistan called ghazals, Bollywood numbers, and, of course, pop music. Willmott says it was important to give the music cultural depth and scope. So they brought in Indian classical musician Deep Singh to co-orchestrate.
DEEP SINGH: There's a moment where we go from, like, ghazal - but there's still a theater aspect to it. But then we go, like, suddenly into this classical world with tanpura and lira and classical tabla playing, and then we go back into theater again. It's the coolest thing ever to hear.
FATHIMA: The show runs at La Jolla Playhouse through this weekend and will head to Boston later this year.
Hafsa Fathima, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.


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Envisioning Home
No Easy Walk to Freedom
No Easy Walk to Freedom
Filmed in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Lucknow and rural India,
No Easy Walk to Freedom
, a 90-minute documentary by Nancy Nicol, tells the story of the struggle to strike down section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes homosexuality. Told through the voices of lawyers, activists and community leaders, No Easy Walk to Freedom exposes human rights violations perpetrated under section 377 and documents the growth of queer organizing in India in the context of this historic legal battle to overturn a colonial-era law.
In 2001, the Naz Foundation, an HIV/AIDS non-governmental organization in Delhi, filed a petition against section 377, an 1861 British colonial law that criminalizes "carnal intercourse against the order of nature." In 2009, the Delhi High Court struck down section 377 in a precedent-setting ruling celebrated by activists, human rights and legal experts worldwide. Citing Nehru and Ambedkar, architects of the Indian constitution, the High Court upheld "constitutional morality" and equality over this colonial era law. However in December 2013, the Supreme Court of India set aside the 2009 verdict and upheld section 377, recriminalizing LGBT people in India.
In an ironic twist of history, defenders of section 377 in India argued that decriminalizing homosexuality is "contrary to Indian culture," and that "homosexuality represents western values." In fact, homosexuality was never criminalized in India prior to the British, and pre-colonial societies in India were replete with diversity of gender identity/expression and sexual orientation. Section 377 in India was the first of such laws enacted by the British, which were later spread throughout the colonial empire. Today, this colonial legacy remains responsible for half of the laws that criminalize people on the grounds of sexual orientation, worldwide.
No Easy Walk to Freedom is moving examination of the struggle to decriminalize homosexuality in contemporary India, told through the voices of HIV AIDS workers, queer activists, community leaders and legal experts. It is a history with far reaching implications for the struggle to remove these colonial era laws and to uphold lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender human rights worldwide.
No Easy Walk to Freedom
© 2014 Intervention Video Inc
No Easy Walk to Freedom
, film production stills
"There is no easy walk-over to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow again and before we reach the mountain tops of our desire."
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
A Survey of Congress Politics
No Easy Walk to Freedom
92 min. 2014
Producer / Director:
Nancy Nicol
Line Producer:
Pearl Sandhu
Director of Photography:
Shakeb Ahmed
Production Manager:
Gurbeen Bhasin
Research & Production Assistant:
Phyllis Waugh
Nancy Nicol
Assistant Editor:
Kaija Siirala
Assistant Line Producer:
Sakaar Puri
Second Assistant Editor:
Adonay Guerrero
Research consultation:
Naisargi Dave
Location Sound:
Pratik Biswas
Sound Supervisor and Mixer:
Daniel Pellerin
Mixing Facility:
Theatre D Digital, The Royal
On-Line Editor:
Andrew Mandziuk
On Line Facility:
Fearless Films
Toronto Tabla Ensemble
Funded by:
The Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Special thanks to the following organizations:
Naz Foundation (India) Trust, Delhi.
Milan Centre, Naz Foundation (India) Trust, Delhi.
Lawyers Collective, Delhi.
Naz Foundation International, Lucknow.
Maan AIDS Foundation, Lucknow.
Voices Against 377
Sangama, Bangalore
Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore
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Coming every Saturday, Hodler's Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Top Stories This WeekBitcoin eyes $50K less than a month after BTC price broke its 2017 all-time high
Bitcoin is showing signs of a newfound rally after breaking the $40,000 resistance area, fueling hope that we might be about to see a new all-time high.
It'll be critical for Bitcoin to stay above this level in the foreseeable future. The uptick came days after MicroStrategy pitched Bitcoin to more than 1,400 companies.
Cointelegraph Markets analyst Michaël van de Poppe says BTC's strength means its market dominance is rebounding at the expense of most altcoins.
He added: "An apparent breakout above the all-time high above $42,000 however, should propel Bitcoin's price to $50,000."
This is the first time that Bitcoin has surged above $40,000 for 23 days, but this time around, market sentiment is a lot calmer, and the derivatives market isn't as overheated.
Some institutions have used this week's surge to take some money off the table, with Ruffer Investment booking $650 million in profits after doubling its cash in just two months.
Ether price breakout to $1,750 sees Ethereum network fees hit all-time high
ETH has been building on recent all-time highs this week, climbing ever closer to $2,000.
After hitting $1,756.51, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency took a little bit of a tumble, falling back to $1,672.99 at the time of writing.
The record high came off the back of intense trading interest in DeFi coins, many of which use the Ethereum network as their basis. Anticipation has also been building over the launch of Ether futures from CME Group.
There's just one problem: Gas fees are rising. At one point this week, transaction costs surged so high that some exchanges were forced to halt withdrawals altogether.
Amid fears this could affect the smooth running of DeFi protocols, Blockstream developer Grubles warned: "This is a legit crisis. Going to have to stock up on popcorn to see how Ethereum digs its way out of this."
"Ur welcome" — DOGE soars after Elon Musk returns to Twitter… to shill Dogecoin
To an extent, the surge in crypto prices could be attributed to Elon Musk. For reasons beyond understanding, the world's richest man is obsessed with Dogecoin.
The Tesla CEO raised eyebrows this week when he shared a doctored photo of himself masquerading as Rafiki from The Lion King, with a shiba inu superimposed onto Simba's face in the famous scene where the lion cub is held aloft on Pride Rock.
Musk helped DOGE surge this week, but remarks he made on Bitcoin during a Clubhouse discussion failed to have as much of an impact as last Friday when BTC leaped up by thousands of dollars because Musk added #bitcoin to his Twitter bio.
During the Clubhouse chat, the billionaire was quoted as saying: "I am late to the party but I am a supporter of Bitcoin."
New research this week examined six times when Musk had tweeted about BTC or DOGE, finding that his remarks caused price surges and a "significant increase" in trading volumes.
But the paper from Blockchain Research Lab warned: "While Musk's behavior and communication can be deemed positive or funny in nature (and therefore arguably uncritical), similar research has already revealed that negative tweets can also have a negative impact on financial returns."
Reddit rage as XRP price crashes 50% hours after hitting two-week highs
XRP was the subject of a trading frenzy last week, enjoying an 86% breakout after becoming the new coin of focus in r/Satoshistreetbets, a spin-off of r/Wallstreetbets.
The pump came despite the fact that XRP's legal woes have shown no sign of going away, with the SEC set to face off against Ripple later this month.
Telegram and Discord chats had encouraged people to buy XRP en masse on Feb.1 at 8.30 am ET, but as you might expect, the pump ended in tears. Within two hours, the altcoin crashed by almost 50%… burning new investors in the process.
Cointelegraph Markets contributor Keith Wareing tweeted: "Even though the $XRP army get aggressive when you warn them about the escrow shaped elephant in the room, I still can't help but feel sorry for those that bought at 0.75c today. X R (I)P."
PayPal to offer crypto payments for merchants, limited trading on Venmo
PayPal has revealed that its crypto trading service has "exceeded expectations" since its limited launch in the United States.
The payments giant is now set to double down on crypto, blockchain and digital currencies in 2021, with "significant" investment in a new unit. According to the company, those who bought Bitcoin ended up logging in twice as much as they did before.
Following on from the "exceptional response," CEO Dan Schulman said that crypto will be offered as a funding source when users shop at any of PayPal's 29 million merchants later this quarter, and an "extensive roadmap" of new services is going to follow.
In November, PayPal took a major step toward the adoption of digital assets by allowing its U.S. users to purchase crypto directly through the app. Customers based in the United States are limited to trading $20,000 per week. Since that time, crypto trading volume on the platform has reached record highs, peaking at $242 million in transactions on Jan. 11.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $40,776.40, Ether at $1,676.86 and XRP at $0.44. The total market cap is at $1,218,786,711,013.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are UMA, 0x and PancakeSwap. The top three altcoin losers of the week are HedgeTrade, ThorChain and Fantom.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph's market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
"After a record-breaking year in 2020 that saw it jump more than 300%, Bitcoin looks to stay strong in 2021 as more retail — and big-name institutional buyers — enter the market."
Jesse Cohen, Investing.com senior financial analyst
"While Musk's behavior and communication can be deemed positive or funny in nature (and therefore arguably uncritical), similar research has already revealed that negative tweets can also have a negative impact on financial returns."
Lennart Ante, Blockchain Research Lab co-founder
"If a single tweet can potentially lead to an increase of $111 billion in Bitcoin's market capitalization, a different tweet could also wipe out a similar value."
Lennart Ante, Blockchain Research Lab co-founder
"ur welcome"
Elon Musk, Tesla CEO
"We also saw an exceptional response from our crypto launch […] The volume of crypto traded on our platform greatly exceeded our expectations."
Dan Schulman, PayPal CEO
"The economic environment for Bitcoin right now could not be better."
Duncan MacInnes, Ruffer co-manager
"Even though the $XRP army get aggressive when you warn them about the escrow shaped elephant in the room, I still can't help but feel sorry for those that bought at 0.75c today. X R (I)P."
Keith Wareing, Cointelegraph Markets contributor
Prediction of the WeekBlockTower Capital CIO estimates another 9–22 months of bull run for crypto
With renewed optimism around how Bitcoin is performing, the inevitable question is this: How long will the bull run last?
Well, according to BlockTower Capital's chief information officer Ari Paul, we've got at least nine more months to look forward to.
He said: "This is where we get ongoing, dizzying rotation. BTC up, then when BTC takes a breather, ETH and some large caps (and in this regime, DeFi blue chips), then small caps, rinse and repeat. Of course, throw in some 30-60% retracements for fun."
In terms of how Bitcoin will perform, Paul added: "Price wise — my guess is BTC ends the bull run between $100k-$400k and alts do better."
FUD of the Week Guggenheim CIO under fire for the timing of his changing BTC sentiment
Scott Minerd's apparent shift from bullish to bearish and back again on either side of an SEC filing related to a $500-million investment in BTC has been raising eyebrows on social media.
The Guggenheim CIO had hit the headlines after claiming that BTC would see a "full retracement back towards the $20,000 level" — later adding there wasn't enough institutional support to warrant a price above $30,000.
Days later, Minerd claimed Bitcoin has the potential to reach $600,000 in the long run based on its scarcity and the value of gold.
Some on Twitter were not impressed. Economist Alex Krüger wrote: "Remember Guggenheim wants you to sell #bitcoin so they may buy lower. Been trying to scare the market into thinking price will crash to $20,000, even though they think it's worth $400,000."
New class action against Robinhood alleges oligopoly manipulation
It's been quite a week from Robinhood, the stock trading app that's continuing to reel from the backlash it suffered after restricting trading in GameStop.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed that the drastic move denied customers a chance to profit from volatility in GME shares — manipulating the course of the stocks.
Meanwhile, some reports suggested that Robinhood was planning on postponing its planned IPO as it tries to focus on tackling the PR disaster. Other outlets have cast doubt on this, saying a stock market debut is going ahead as intended.
It's also been claimed that Robinhood's CEO, Vlad Tenev, is going to testify before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee over the firm's role in recent volatility.
Robinhood, the stock trading app formerly popular with millennials, is facing another class-action suit, following its recent temporary suspension of purchases of GameStop and other "meme-stocks" through its platform.
Polish crypto exchange employee in induced coma after armed attack
A member of staff at a Polish crypto and gold exchange has been placed into an induced coma after an armed attack.
The offices of FlyingAtom, in the city of Olsztyn, were targeted on Jan. 22. The masked attacker managed to escape with gold worth approximately $120,000.
A suspect was subsequently detained in connection with the incident, with the exchange thanking the police for their help.
Best Cointelegraph FeaturesTime to shine? Crypto should be given a chance after GameStop drama
The GameStop pump may lead a number of amateur investors to finally learn about DeFi and the advantages it puts forth.
Going feeless is the only way to enable blockchain adoption
Feeless transactions can play a role in enabling DeFi, allowing the sector to further develop and grow in importance.
r/Wallstreetbets vs. Wall Street: A prelude to DeFi bursting onto the scene?
Was stock trading app Robinhood the villain in the GameStop saga? "In a decentralized trading market, no one would have that power."
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Fuck Yeah! 16 of our friends were arrested taking over a Chicago coal stack and blocking a coal barge on the Pulaski River. Are you ready for more? Click LIKE if you are willing to step up and take bold action for communities and the climate.
Greenpeace Activists Arrested At Chicago Coal Plants, Protesting High Levels Of Pollution
UPDATE: The Chicago Sun-Times reports Wednesday morning that activists who had climbed the smokestack of the Fisk Generating Station have come down and are now in police custody.


text: HELLOGOODBYE is a single panel I started in 2005. In a way it is the author's attempt to fish out a myth from everyday junk. The original cartoons are black and white. But when they are in a really good mood they got a color somehow. :) Welcome to the tour! © Andrey Feldshteyn www.cartoonblues.com


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Combine Jobs into one Call
You can save time, hence money, on electrical work by bundling projects together. Keep a running list of electrical problems or needs in your home. When the list warrants calling an electrician, do a walk-through of your home, adding to the list any problems you observe or needs to discuss. You'll find having the electrician attend to several smaller needs in one visit much more cost effective.
Clear the Area for the Electrician to Work
Most electricians charge by the hour, so being prepared for them to get to work upon arrival will save you money. This includes not only removing decorative or fragile items from the areas of your home where work will be done, but making sure there is clear access to your electrical panel. Having ready a detailed list of all work to be done can help the electrician work most efficiently.
Consider Investing in Upgrades that Payback both Now and Later
A good way to combat rising electricity costs is to switch from incandescent fixtures or bulbs to fluorescent ones providing as much or better lighting using less electricity. Another consideration is putting motion detector switches on outdoor lighting. You'll save money while enhancing your home's security. Attractive landscape lighting is another investment that you can enjoy now and benefit from when you sell your home.
Ask About Flat Rate Pricing
In selecting a contractor, it's not a good idea to pick one based on the hourly rate alone. Ask questions. Contractors with low hourly rates may add on separate fees or take longer to get the job done to offset the lower rate. Ideally, it's best to protect yourself by requesting a firm quote for work you want done upfront.


text: Princess Odette, Prince Derek and their trusted woodland friends reunite in this all-new adventure for their first Christmas celebration together! As the kingdom prepares for a festive holiday, the villainous Rothbart plots to destroy Christmas. Will the castle friends be able to stop Rothbart and save the day? Told in beautiful CG animation for the very first time and featuring music by Anna Graceman from TV's America's Got Talent, The Swan Princess Christmas is an enchanting musical holiday treat the whole family will enjoy!


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10 – Karina Krumina
Karina Krumina is an artist and illustrator born in Latvia. Actualy living and working in Porto, Portugal.
Studied visual communication at Art Academy of Latvia, in Riga. And after that in University of Porto, Faculdade de Belas Artes.
Dressed Fur is a collection of illustrations, that Karina has made over the past two years. It's an outcome of both love for animals and fashion design. Inspired by people and nature around the globe.
Sold Out
Weight | 135 g |


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Jeanette White is a freelance writer and editor living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. She and her husband are homeschooling two daughters adopted from China.
My daughters have been enamored with buses since they could point and say "Buh!" Spotting them on the street became a toddler game of Slugbug without the arm punch at every sighting. They knew all the words to "Wheels on the Bus" and sang them often. Too often. Even now, Mei-Mei and Jie-Jie like to watch kids disappear into school buses at a stop visible from our breakfast table.
My own fascination with school buses ended abruptly in first grade, after a few weeks of riding more than an hour a day. I remember pulled pigtails, boys' belching contests and painful boredom. But while one of the best aspects of homeschooling is the freedom to think outside the box, I couldn't seem to think outside the bus when it came to the girls' first day of school.
That's how we ended up standing at a city bus stop, chatting with strangers and soaking up a burst of September sunshine. We took the long way to a small Korean restaurant, passing parks and shopping centers and neighborhoods we don't often see. It was high adventure for two kids who live nowhere near a city bus route.
It's not your typical rite of passage, but their first day of school was commemorated with good kimchee, ginger candy, and a post-lunch visit to an Asian market, where we browsed and bought a bag of salty dried plums. I failed to take my camera, but the girls have 2-hour bus passes for their keepsake box.
Afterward, we were lured home by a stack of tantalizing new books and art supplies. For a book junkie like me, this part of homeschooling is a slice of heaven. First Language Lessons! Artistic Pursuits! Writing with Ease! The Case of the Fiddle-Playing Fox! (Oops, wrong stack.) Chalk pastels, watercolor crayons, whiteboard, 3-ring binders! Did I mention my fondness for office supplies?
I started our week with subjects we've been doing all along at a more relaxed pace, like reading, math and writing. As the days passed, we added new subjects to the routine one by one. I thought of jugglers who start their act with three bowling pins and add the rest one at a time, taking a moment to get their rhythm with each addition. I'll write more about how our lessons are going a little later.
We've scheduled two weekly classes away from home—fiddle lessons and beginning gymnastics. Jie-Jie and Mei-Mei have been fiddling for several months, but gymnastics class fills a new time slot for us. Is it too much? Just enough? We'll soon find out. Every friend I've quizzed has a different take on how much road time is too much. I'd love to hear your ideas about that.
We ended our week of homeschooling with a belated Moon Festival celebration at our friends' house, eating Chinese take-out and walking around the block with colorful paper lanterns lit up by tea candles. Four giggling girls led the way, circling back only when a candle needed to be lit again. Cloudy skies made it easy to forget the moon was nowhere near full. In a weird blend of cultures, Mei-Mei and Jie-Jie played The Chicken Dance on their fiddles while my friend playfully tried to follow on her erhu, shipped here from Shanghai.
Something tells me we'll manage to think outside the box after all.
Read-Aloud of the Week:
The Three Princes: A Tale from the Middle East, by Eric A. Kimmel
Quotes of the Week:
"I can spell a-e-i-o-u!" –Mei-Mei, 5
"It looks like a dot-to-dot W." – Jie-Jie, 7, spotting Cassiopeia while stargazing
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Wheels on the (Homeschool) Bus
Posted by Xiaoning at 9:07 AM
Labels: Home Schooling
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USA Today Bestselling Author
Mindy Klasky
USA Today bestselling author Mindy Klasky learned to read when her parents shoved a book in her hands and told her she could travel anywhere in the world through stories. She never forgot that advice.
Mindy's travels took her through multiple careers. After graduating from Princeton University, Mindy considered becoming a professional stage manager or a rabbi. Ultimately, she settled on being a lawyer, working as a litigator at a large Washington firm. When she realized that lawyering kept her from writing (and dating and sleeping and otherwise living a normal life), Mindy became a librarian, managing large law firm libraries. Mindy now writes full time.
For years, Mindy's dating life was a travel extravaganza as well. She balanced twenty-eight first dates in one year, selecting eligible gentlemen from sources as varied as Washingtonian magazine ads, Single Volunteers of D.C., and supposedly-certain recommendations from best friends. Ultimately, she swore off the dating scene entirely. After two years of carefully-enforced datelessness, she made one last foray onto Match.com, where she met her husband on her first match.
Mindy's travels have also taken her through various literary genres. In addition to her cozy paranormal romances and category romances, Mindy has written traditional fantasy novels (including the award-winning, bestselling The Glasswrights' Apprentice), short stories, and nonfiction essays. Mindy has been awarded the Career Achievement Award by the Washington Romance Writers. She has written more than forty books.
In her spare time, Mindy quilts, knits, and tries to tame her endless to-be-read shelf. Her husband and cats do their best to fill the left-over minutes.
Klasky's writing is top-notch, her pacing swift and sure.
– USA Today
Where is Mindy?
Mindy doesn't have any events scheduled at the moment, but check back soon!
Love may be blind, but making this relationship work is a real eye-opener!
Plus-size Amber Bergen thinks dating apps are a waste of time. Vampire Trevor Keene never imagined he'd be matched with his best friend's little sister. But one kiss later, this life-long friendship is changing into something more…


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Remote Meeting Participation Instructions
Due to the COVID-19 State of Emergency, and the permitting of public meetings by remote participation allowed by the Open Meetings Act, the January 12 Pleasant Ridge City Commission meeting will be conducted via remote participation. The meeting will start at 7:30 pm.
Meeting documents are available at this link.
All members of the public will be permitted to participate during the public comment and public hearing portions of the meeting. There are two ways that members of the public can participate in the meeting:
Option 1 – Join Zoom Meeting
Click Here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 899 0049 8733
Password: 259087
Download the Zoom Cloud Meetings app from the Apple or Google Play store on your device and use the meeting ID and password to join the meeting. Or, you can join the meeting by going to www.zoom.us and clicking on "join meeting" at the top of the screen.
You can also dial in to the audio of the meeting by using any one of the following phone numbers and entering the meeting ID and password, although you will not be able to see the meeting video this way.
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
Option 2 – Participate Via Email
You can participate in the public discussion portions of the meeting by sending comments via email to firstname.lastname@example.com. You can do this while watching the meeting on the City's YouTube livestream at www.youtube.com/user/PleasantRidgeCity, the meeting broadcast on Channel 10 (WOW) or Channel 17 (Comcast), or you can submit comments via email if you are logged into the Zoom feed.
For ADA questions, please contact the City Clerk's Office at (248) 541-2901


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You grab your leash, and your dog automatically starts heading for the door. He knows it's time for a walk. Now its time to learn how to properly how to hike with a dog.
But this time it's no ordinary walk around the neighborhood. This time you've decided to go for a hike in a San Diego County park and you're bringing your canine companion along for the journey. But now you need to learn how to hike with a dog in San Diego County.
The good news is dogs are allowed at virtually all County parks. The only exceptions are Wilderness Gardens Preserve and the trails at Agua Caliente. Assistance or guide dogs are always welcome at all parks as long as they are in compliance with all regulations and check in with park staff.
Before you head out, there are some preparations to follow and guidelines and tips you'll want to keep in mind to make the hike enjoyable for both you and your dog. (How to hike with a dog in San Diego County.)
- First, plan out your hike. How long is the trail you're hiking and what's the terrain like? You should know your dog's fitness level so you can match that with the type of trail you choose. You can check out all the County parks trails online.
- Your dog should be up-to-date on vaccines and have a collar or been treated to prevent ticks and fleas. Also make sure your four-legged friend has current ID tags and a well-fitted collar in case you get separated. If your dog does become lost, contact the County of San Diego Department of Animal Services.
- Make sure the time of day you choose to hike with your dog is appropriate temperature-wise. Unless you hike with your dog often and they are used to that type of rigorous exercise, they could succumb to heat exhaustion. Dogs are much more susceptible to heat stroke than humans. Dogs' only sweat glands are on their feet. If the ground is too hot for your hand, it's too hot for your dog's paws.
- Always have plenty of water for both you and your dog. It's better to bring along a little extra than not enough. You might also want to pack a few doggie treats and search for a shaded area to take your breaks.
- Stay on the marked trail. In all County parks, dogs are required to be kept on a leash no longer than 6 feet in length at all times. A leash prevents dogs from becoming lost and protects them from having an unexpected encounter with a rattlesnake, mountain lion or a sick or injured animal.
- Make sure to maintain control of your dog at all times. Dogs that are out of control or that pose a demonstrated risk to others may be asked to leave by a park ranger.
- Always clean up after your dog. Practice the Leave No Trace principles that allow everyone to enjoy our parks.
- If you decide to make it a weekend or an overnight in a County park with camping, the fee for dogs in camping parks is just $1 per dog per night. You must be able to furnish current license and vaccination information as well.
Know how to how to hike with a dog.
Hiking with your dog in a County park is a great way to get some exercise and enjoy a change of pace from your usual walks around your neighborhood. If you observe the above tips and guidelines, you'll be sure to enjoy your hike and some quality bonding time with your pup. NOw you can see you really know how to hike with a dog in San Diego County


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Maple + Steel
The wood is protected by a hard acrylic coating, so the only things you have avoid is acetone and diluent.
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Give your jewelry a personal touch with laser engraving! Include a special, unique message on the inside of your ring; make it a memorable, one-of-a-kind experience. Just let us know what you'd like to engrave in the order note section, and any font/style preferences, and we'll make sure to bring your vision to life!


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"Their mix of talented kids and established veterans may be better than the Braves', but the Dodgers don't have John Smoltz."I'm crossing my fingers hoping that a number one pitcher will emerge. I might even settle for a reliable middle relief corp. That was definitely one of our most visible weaknesses last year. Overall, improving our pitching should pay us big dividends in '07.
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How Expert Web SEO Companies Boost Google Visibility
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These up-and-comers are actively molding SEO's future through their innovative approaches and commitment to business success. Monitoring their growth and insights can offer valuable strategies for maintaining digital competitiveness.
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text: SampleTank® 2 XL includes all the sounds you'll need to create professional music tracks: • 16 parts multitimbral plug-in sound workstation with layerable parts. • 3 synth engines: new STRETCH™, Pitch-shift/Time-stretch, Resampling. • 32 built-in DSP effects, 5 effects per part. • Loop sync and time/ pitch manipulation. • Import WAV, AIFF, SDII, AKAI®, SampleCell® plus native sounds. • 8 CDs of sounds, 4.5 GB of samples and more than 1.500 patches included. SampleTank® 2 allows you to use loops as an instrument with unlimited expression. SampleTank® 2 is the ultimate sample workstation. For the first time in a sample-based instrument, 3 synth engines can be switched on the fly to provide more sound flexibility than ever before: traditional Resampling (the conventional method of playback most samplers use), Pitch-Shift/Time-Stretch and our all new STRETCH™ engine. STRETCH™ (Sampletank® Time REsynthesis TeCHnology) gives complete sonic control over the tempo, pitch and harmonics of samples. No more "chipmunk sounding" transposition, no more loops and phrases out of sync, no more limitations in musical expression.


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Promotional products are great for handing out after patient visits, at conferences and events, or to have available in your reception area. Here are our 8 favorite dental promotional products that help keep those pearly whites beautiful and healthy!
Flossing is one of the most important yet overlooked parts of dental hygiene. When you remind your patients to floss daily, why not give them the tools to follow through with their promise? These tooth-shaped floss dispensers will encourage them to add flossing to their daily routine for bright, white teeth!
Help your patients get the most out of the toothpaste they use twice a day! These easy-to-use toothpaste squeezers will make sure the toothpaste at the end of the tube doesn't get wasted.
Every dentist's office needs a custom toothbrush to give to their patients after a stellar checkup. You can get these in a variety of colors and let your customers choose their favorite!
Make sure all your patients can keep their teeth minty fresh on the go! Don't let their dental hygiene slip through the cracks because they're on vacation. These convenient kits have all the essentials in travel sizes, so it can go in a carry-on bag.
This hot and cold pack can help ease the pain for patients that have a toothache or have just had a dental procedure. Whether they put it in the freezer to make the gel cold or warm it up in the microwave, these packs are something they can reach for again and again.
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These sturdy cases are perfect for dentists and orthodontists. It can help protect retainers or mouth guards and has plenty of room on top for your logo and contact information!
Handing out a tube of lip balm at the end of a checkup will give your customers another reason to smile! Use a lip balm with SPF to keep every part of their smile healthy and protected.
We would love to help you customize any of these promotional products and thousands more. Contact us today to get started!


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Timothy Scott Elbert was born on August 13, 1985, in Joplin, Missouri. He is a left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. He attended the High School in Seneca, Missouri and was a standout in football and baseball where he played running back and as a junior and he led the state in rushing yardage and rushing touchdowns and was named as an All-State selection. He had an impressive record of 0.94 ERA, 433 strikeouts, 29 complete games, and 238.0 innings.
In 2004, Elbert was selected in the 1st round by the Dodgers- it was his first time playing professional sports. He struck out 45 batters in 49.2 innings when he made his professional debut.
Then in 2005, he went 8-5 with a 2.66 ERA in 24 starts where he played for Ogden Raptors and With the Single-A Columbus Catfish.
He pitched for the Vero Beach Dodgers in 2006 and earned Florida State League midseason All-Star honors. He was even promoted to the Double-A Jacksonville Suns, where he went 6-4 with a 3.61 ERA and was ranked as the #3 prospect in the Southern League by Baseball America.
In 2007, Elbert had a shoulder injury.
In 2008, he played as a reliever at Jacksonville where he earned his first trip to the Majors when the Dodgers called him up from the minors. This is also the year where he made his MLB debut where he pitched two thirds of an inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks in 10 games finishing the season with 0-1 with an ERA of 12.00.
In 2009, he was selected as the Dodgers "Minor League Pitcher of the Year" after finishing a combined 4-4 with a 3.84 ERA in 18 starts for Double-A Chattanooga and Triple-A Albuquerque. He finished the season with 2-0 with a 5.03 ERA and appeared in relief in Game 3 of the 2009 National League Championship Series.
In 2010, he started to pitch for Albuquerque and was promoted to the Dodgers on May 28, 2010. He was optioned back to AAA after he walked three left-handed hitting batters in that game. Then later that year he was selected to the "Rising Stars Game".
He started 2011 in the bullpen for Albuquerque and was called up to the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 11. He pitched in 47 games for the Dodgers, mostly he used this left hand the most. He then finished the Major League Baseball Season with a 2.43 ERA in 33.1 innings with 34 strikeouts and also saved two games.


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Spring puts on a show! Surprise someone with a bountiful basket of mixed potted plants. The colorful composition of spring plants features purple African violets, yellow begonias, hot pink kalanchoe and a charming little polka dot plant. It's a living gift that keeps on giving!
Four pretty potted plants - African violet, yellow begonia, hot pink kalanchoe and white hypoestes - are delivered in a natural handled basket.
Substitution Policy
Due to seasonal availability, if the exact flowers or container you have selected are not available, our expert florist will create a beautiful bouquet with the freshest available flowers. We will only substitute items of equal or higher value.


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Aboogy is designed to be your perfect homepage. By tying together your favourite websites and popular search engines, Aboogy will make your surfing experience both enjoyable and efficient. Hit next to learn more.
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Date(s) - 10/03/20
8:00 am - 6:00 pm
Range 35
We are currently offering our Intro to Handguns Course (a $75.00 value) free with every license to carry course. You may attend one or both courses for one low price.
Intro to Handguns: 08:00 AM to 11:00 PM
Lunch: 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
License to Carry Course: 12:00PM to 6:00PM
SPECIAL: LTC with INTRO TO HANDGUNS – You may attend one or both courses for one price.
LICENSE TO CARRY: Formerly known as the Concealed Handgun License course, the State of TX has now expanded your carry rights to include open carry. One license grants you both rights under the revised laws. Obtain a Texas Handgun License to Carry (LTC), upon successful completion of the class and submission of the application materials, the state will issue you a license as soon as 60 days, assuming there is no legal disqualification.
Our LTC class package includes the following:
- Training by a DPS certified instructor
- Qualify on site on our professional law enforcement range
- Application Preparation Assistance
- Complimentary Handgun Rental for use during range qualification
- Use of Safety glasses and hearing protection for use during range qualification
- Paper Targets for training and qualification
Course content includes:
- Texas laws related to Open Carry and Concealed carry
- Where you can carry and where you cannot
- When you can use force or deadly force
- Legal implications of use of force or deadly force
- Nonviolent dispute resolution
- Firearms safety
INTRO TO HANDGUNS: This course is intended for students who desire their License to Carry or plan to attend one of our Defensive Handgun courses but have not had any formal handgun training. Our Intro to Handguns course places strong emphasis on safe handling principles and basic marksmanship. Students will have the opportunity to manipulate and fire a handgun under the supervision of a qualified firearms instructor. This course is designed to boost the knowledge and confidence level of the student prior to taking the Texas Handgun LTC (License to Carry) Certification Course or attending a higher level of training.
Course content includes:
- Firearms safety
- Characteristics of the pistol
- Safe handling, storage, and transport
- Loading and unloading the weapon.
- Basic handgun marksmanship
- Introduction to the License to Carry course of fire.
John Brackett – John has been in law enforcement for over 25 years. During this time John has served as the Range Master and primary firearms instructor for a mid-sized metropolitan police agency. John is a certified FBI, NRA, and TCOLE law enforcement firearms instructor. John has authored and instructed numerous firearms training programs for law enforcement, military, and civilian students. John has been a factory certified armorer for Glock, Sig Sauer, Remington, Benelli, and Colt. John has served as a SWAT team leader, sniper, and has worked in the Patrol and Criminal Investigations division. John is subject matter expert in use of force issues. John has investigated officer involved shootings and drafted policies related to the use of firearms. John is a TX DPS LTC instructor and the senior lead firearms instructor for Range 35.
PRE REQUSITES: Texas resident, 21 years of age, meet the eligibility requirements established by the Texas Government Code, Chapter 411.172. Complete registration with TX DPS LTC Division.
REGISTER FIRST AT: Texas DPS LTC Application page: https://txapps.texas.gov/txapp/txdps/ltc/
If you have further questions: Texas DPS LTC FAQ page: https://www.dps.texas.gov/RSD/LTC/faqs/index.htm
EQUIPMENT REQUIREMENTS: Pistol, minimum of two magazines, belt, holster, magazine pouch, clear wrap around ballistic eye protection, ear protection, firearm cleaning kit, clothing appropriate for climate and conditions, water bottle or other hydration system, ball cap, sunscreen, note taking materials, snacks / lunch. NO cross-draw or shoulder holsters allowed.
AMMUNITION: License to Carry = 50 rounds | Intro to Handguns = 150 rounds (200 rounds total)
RENTAL: All equipment and ammunition is available for rental if you are interested in attending this course but have not purchased a handgun prior to registration.
Comfort Suites Hotel – Phone: (817) 293-7900
400 Village Park Dr., Alvarado, TX 76009
Rate Code: RANGE 35 (rate code available by calling the hotel directly)
Rate: $59.00 King – $69.00 double queen
Bookings are closed for this event.