text:
Preview | Generally available | News & updates | GTC 2019 | Technical content | Azure shows | Events | Customers, partners, and industries
Now in preview
Windows Virtual Desktop now in public preview on Azure
The public preview of the Windows Virtual Desktop service is now available on Azure. Customers can now access the only service that delivers simplified management, multi-session Windows 10, optimizations for Office 365 ProPlus, and support for Windows Server Remote Desktop Services (RDS) desktops and apps. With Windows Virtual Desktop, you can deploy and scale your Windows desktops and apps on Azure in minutes, while enjoying built-in security and compliance. Access to Windows Virtual Desktop is available through applicable RDS and Windows Enterprise licenses.
Azure Data Studio: An Open Source GUI Editor for Postgres
Support for PostgreSQL in Azure Data Studio is now available in preview. Azure Data Studio is a cross-platform modern editor focused on data development. It's available for Linux, MacOS, and Windows. We're also introducing a corresponding preview PostgreSQL extension in Visual Studio Code (VS Code). Both Azure Data Studio and Visual Studio Code are open source and extensible – two things that PostgreSQL itself is based on. If your primary use case is data, choose Azure Data Studio to manage multiple database connections, explore database object hierarchy, set up dashboards, and more.
Azure Container Registry virtual network and Firewall rules preview support
Announcing Azure Container Registry (ACR) now supports limiting public endpoint access. Customers can now limit registry access within an Azure Virtual Network (VNet), as well as whitelist IP addresses and ranges for on-premises services. VNet and Firewall rules are now supported with virtual machines (VM) and Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS). VNet and Firewall rules are available for public preview in all 25 public cloud regions. General availability (GA) will be based on a curve of usage and feedback.
Also available in preview
- Public preview: Azure Log Analytics in France Central, Korea Central, North Europe
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster autoscaler is in preview
- Azure Kubernetes service (AKS) control plane audit logging is now in preview
Now generally available
Azure Backup for SQL Server in Azure Virtual Machines now generally available
Now generally available, Azure Backup for SQL Server Virtual Machines (VMs), an enterprise scale, zero-infrastructure solution that eliminates the need to deploy and manage backup infrastructure while providing a simple and consistent experience to centrally manage and monitor the backups on standalone SQL instances and Always On Availability Groups. Built into Azure, the solution combines the core cloud promises of simplicity, scalability, security and cost effectiveness with inherent SQL backup capabilities that are leveraged by using native APIs, to yield high fidelity backups and restores.
Also generally available
- General availability: Azure Kubernetes Service in India Central
- Azure premium blob storage is now generally available
News and updates
Microsoft's Azure Cosmos DB is named a leader in the Forrester Wave: Big Data NoSQL
Announcing that Forrester has named Microsoft as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Big Data NoSQL for the first quarter of 2019 based on their evaluation of Azure Cosmos DB validating the exceptional market momentum and customer satisfaction. According to Forrester, "half of global data and analytics technology decision makers have either implemented or are implementing NoSQL platforms, taking advantage of the benefits of a flexible database that serves a broad range of use cases." We are committed to making Azure Cosmos DB the best globally distributed database for all businesses and modern applications. With Azure Cosmos DB, we believe that you will be able to write amazingly powerful, intelligent, modern apps and transform the world.
March 2019 changes to Azure Monitor Availability Testing
Azure Monitor Availability Testing allows you to monitor the availability and responsiveness of any HTTP or HTTPS endpoint that is accessible from the public internet. At the end of this month we are deploying some major changes to improve performance and reliability, as well as to allow us to make more improvements for the future. This post highlights and describes some of the changes needed to ensure that your tests continue running without any interruption.
Data integration with ADLS Gen2 and Azure Data Explorer using Data Factory
Introducing the latest integration in Azure Data Factory. Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 is a data lake platform that combines advanced data lake solutions with the economic, global scale, and enterprise grade security of Azure Blob Storage. Azure Data Explorer is a fully-managed data integration service to operationalize and manage the ETL/ELT flows with flexible control flow, rich monitoring, and continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) capabilities. You can now meet the advanced needs of your analytics workloads with unmatched price performance and the security of one of the best clouds for analytics.
Additional news and updates
- The PowerShell Extension is now in the Azure Data Studio Marketplace
- Azure Boards and Azure Pipelines GitHub Integration Improvements – Sprint 149 Update
News from NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference
Over the years, Microsoft and NVIDIA have helped customers run demanding applications on GPUs in the cloud. Last week at NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference 2019 (GTC 2019) in San Jose, Microsoft made several announcements on our collaboration with NVIDIA to help developers and data scientists deliver innovation faster.
Microsoft and NVIDIA extend video analytics to the intelligent edge
Microsoft and NVIDIA are partnering on a new approach for intelligent video analytics at the edge to transform raw, high-bandwidth videos into lightweight telemetry. This delivers real-time performance and reduces compute costs for users. With this latest collaboration, NVIDIA DeepStream and Azure IoT Edge extend the AI-enhanced video analytics pipeline to where footage is captured, securely and at scale. Now, our customers can get the best of both worlds—accelerated video analytics at the edge with NVIDIA GPUs and secure connectivity and powerful device management with Azure IoT Edge and Azure IoT Hub.
Microsoft and NVIDIA bring GPU-accelerated machine learning to more developers
GPUs have become an indispensable tool for doing machine learning (ML) at scale. Our collaboration with NVIDIA marks another milestone in our venture to help developers and data scientists deliver innovation faster. We are committed to accelerating the productivity of all machine learning practitioners regardless of their choice of framework, tool, and application. Two of the integrations that Microsoft and NVIDIA have built together to unlock industry-leading GPU acceleration for more developers and data scientists are covered in the next two posts.
Azure Machine Learning service now supports NVIDIA's RAPIDS
Azure Machine Learning service is the first major cloud ML service to support NVIDIA's RAPIDS, a suite of software libraries for accelerating traditional machine learning pipelines with NVIDIA GPUs. With RAPIDS on Azure Machine Learning service, users can accelerate the entire machine learning pipeline, including data processing, training and inferencing, with GPUs from the NC_v3, NC_v2, ND or ND_v2 families. Azure Machine Learning service users are able to use RAPIDS in the same way they currently use other machine learning frameworks, and can use RAPIDS in conjunction with Pandas, Scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow, etc.
ONNX Runtime integration with NVIDIA TensorRT in preview
Announcing the open source the preview of the NVIDIA TensorRT execution provider in ONNX Runtime. Taking another step towards open and interoperable AI by enabling developers to easily leverage industry-leading GPU acceleration regardless of their choice of framework, developers can now tap into the power of TensorRT through ONNX Runtime to accelerate inferencing of ONNX models, which can be exported or converted from PyTorch, TensorFlow, and many other popular frameworks.
Technical content
Reducing security alert fatigue using machine learning in Azure Sentinel
Alert fatigue is real. Security analysts face a huge burden of triage as they not only have to sift through a sea of alerts, but to also correlate alerts from different products manually. Machine learning (ML) in Azure Sentinel is built-in right from the beginning and focuses on reducing alert fatigue while offering ML toolkits tailored to the security community; including ML innovations aimed at making security analysts, security data scientists, and engineers productive.
Breaking the wall between data scientists and app developers with Azure DevOps
Data scientists are used to developing and training machine learning models for their favorite Python notebook or an integrated development environment (IDE). The app developer is focused on the application lifecycle – building, maintaining, and continuously updating the larger business application. As AI is infused into more business-critical applications, it is increasingly clear that we need to collaborate closely to build and deploy AI-powered applications more efficiently. Together, Azure Machine Learning and Azure DevOps enable data scientists and app developers to collaborate more efficiently while continuing to use the tools and languages that are already familiar and comfortable.
Step-By-Step: Getting Started with Azure Machine Learning
In this comprehensive guide, Anthony Bartolo explains how to set up a prediction model using Azure Machine Learning Studio. The example comes from a real-life hackfest with Toyota Canada and predicts the pricing of vehicles.
Intro to Azure Container Instances
Aaron Powell covers using Azure Container Instances to run containers in a really simple approach in this handy introductory guide. It walks through a hello world demo and then some advanced scenarios on using ACR and connecting to Azure resources (such as a SQL server).
Getting started with Azure Monitor Dynamic Thresholds
This overview from Sonia Cuff discusses the new Dynamic Thresholds capability in Azure Monitor, where machine learning sets the alert threshold levels when you are monitoring metrics (e.g., CPU percentage use in a VM or HTTP request time in an application).
How to Deploy a Static Website Into Azure Blob Storage with Azure DevOps Pipeline
In this third video and blog post of Frank Boucher's CI/CD series, he creates a release Pipeline and explains how to deploy an ARM template to create or update Azure resources and deploy a static website into a blob storage. This series explains how to build a continuous integration and continuous deployment system using Azure DevOps Pipeline to deploy a Static Website into Azure Bob Storage.
Fixing Azure Functions and Azure Storage Emulator 5.8 issue
If you happen to run into an error after updating Azure Functions to the latest version, Maxime Rouille's hotfix is for you. He not only explains what to do, but why this might happen and what his hot fix does.
Using Key Vault with Your Mobile App the Right Way
You know you need to keep your app's secrets safe and follow best practices – but how? In this post, Matt Soucoup uses a Xamarin app to walk through how and why to use Azure Key Vault, Active Directory, and Azure Functions to keep application secrets off of your mobile app and in Key Vault – without tons of extra work for you.
How do You Structure Your Code When Moving Your API from Express to Serverless Functions?
There are a lot of articles showing how to use serverless functions for a variety of purposes. A lot of them cover how to get started, and they are very useful. But what do you do when you want to organize them a bit more as you do for your Node.js Express APIs? There's a lot to talk about on this topic, but in this post, John focuses specifically on one way you can organize your code.
Securely monitoring your Azure Database for PostgreSQL Query Store
Long running queries may interfere with the overall database performance and likely get stuck on some background process, which means that from time to time you need to investigate if there are any queries running indefinitely on your databases. See how you can set up alerting on query performance-related metrics using Azure Functions and Azure Key Vault.
Expanded Jobs functionality in Azure IoT Central
We have improved device management workflow through additional jobs functionalities that make managing your devices at scale much easier. In this brief post, learn to copy an existing job, save a job to continue working on later, stop or resume a running job, and download a job details report once your job has completed running.
Azure Stack IaaS – part five
Self-service is core to Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Azure's IaaS gives the owner of the subscription everything they need to create virtual machines (VMs) and other resources on their own, without involving an administrator. This post shows a few examples of Azure and Azure Stack self-service management of VMs.
Additional technical content
- Lesson Learned #78: DataSync – Cannot enumerate changes at the RelationalSyncProvider for table 'customertable' – Execution Timeout Expired
- Lesson Learned #80: Monitoring Login-Logout events in Azure SQL Database using Extended Events
- Lesson Learned #81: How to create a linked server from Azure SQL Managed Instance to SQL Server OnPremise or Azure VM
- Lesson Learned #82: Azure SQL Database Managed Instance supports only COPY_ONLY restoring a database backup
- Deep dive # 2: How to configure Exchange on-premise Server hybrid integration with Office 365/Azure Infrastructure and test REST API calls?
Azure shows
Episode 271 – Azure Stack – Tales from the field | The Azure Podcast
Azure Stack experts from Microsoft Services, Heyko Oelrichs and Rathish Ravikumar, give us an update on Azure Stack and some valuable tips and tricks based on their real-world experiences deploying it for customers.
One Dev Question: What new HoloLens and Azure products were released in Barcelona? | One Dev Minute
In this episode of One Dev Question, Alex Kipman discusses Microsoft Mixed Reality, featuring announcements from Mobile World Congress.
Data Driven Styling with Azure Maps | Internet of Things Show
Ricky Brundritt, PM in the Azure Maps team, walks us through data driven styling with Azure Maps. Data driven styling allows you to dynamically style layers at render time on the GPU using properties on your data. This provides huge performance benefits and allows large datasets to be rendered on the map. Data driven style expressions can greatly reduce the amount of code you would normally need to write and define this type of business logic using if-statements and monitoring map events.
New Microsoft Azure HPC Goodness | Tuesdays with Corey
Corey Sanders and Evan Burness (Principal Program Manager on the Azure Compute team) sat down to talk about new things in the High Performance Computing space in Azure.
Get ready for Global Azure Bootcamp 2019 | Azure Friday
Global Azure Bootcamp is a free, one-day, local event that takes place globally. It's an annual event run by the Azure community. This year, Global Azure Bootcamp is on Saturday, April 27, 2019. Event locations range from New Zealand to Hawaii and chances are good that you can find a location near you. You may even organize your own local event and receive sponsorship so long as you register by Friday, March 29, 2019. Join in to receive sponsorship, Azure passes, Azure for Students, lunch, and a set of content to use for the day.
How to use Azure Monitor Application Insights to record custom events | Azure Tips and Tricks
Learn how to use Azure Monitor Application Insights to make your application logging smarter with Custom Event Tracking.
How to create an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster in the Azure Portal | Azure Portal Series
The Azure Portal enables you to get started quickly with Kubernetes and containers. In this video, learn how to easily create an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster.
Phil Haack on DevOps at GitHub | Azure DevOps Podcast
Jeffrey Palermo and Phil Haack take a dive deep into DevOps at GitHub. They talk about Phil's role as Director of Engineering; how GitHub, as a company, grew while Phil worked there; the inner workings of how the GitHub website ran; and details about how various protocols, continuous integration, automated testing, and deployment worked at GitHub.
Episode 3 – ExpressRoute, Networking & Hybridity, Oh My! | AzureABILITY
AzureABILITY host Louis Berman discusses ExpressRoute, networking and hybridity with Microsoft's Bryan Woodworth, who specializes in networking, connectivity, high availability, and routing for hybrid workloads in Azure.
Microsoft Azure for the Gaming Industry
Cloud computing is increasingly important for today's global gaming ecosystem, empowering developers of any size to reach gamers in any part of the world. In this wrap-up post from GDC 2019, learn how Azure and PlayFab are a powerful combination for game developers. Azure brings reliability, global scale, and enterprise-level security, while PlayFab provides Game Stack with managed game services, real-time analytics, and comprehensive LiveOps capabilities.
The Value of IoT-Enabled Intelligent Manufacturing
Learn how you can apply insights from real-world use cases of IoT-enabled intelligent manufacturing when you attend the Manufacturing IoT webinar on March 28th: Go from Reaction to Prediction – IoT in Manufacturing. In addition, you'll learn how you can use IoT solutions to move from a reactive to predictive model. For additional hands-on, actionable insights around intelligent edge and intelligent cloud IoT solutions, join us on April 19th for the Houston Solution Builder Conference.
Customers, partners, and industries
Power IoT and time-series workloads with TimescaleDB for Azure Database for PostgreSQL
Announcing a partnership with Timescale that introduces support for TimescaleDB on Azure Database for PostgreSQL for customers building IoT and time-series workloads. TimescaleDB allows you to scale for fast ingest and complex queries while natively supporting full SQL and has a proven track record of being deployed in production in a variety of industries including oil & gas, financial services, and manufacturing. The partnership reinforces our commitment to supporting the open-source community to provide our users with the most innovative technologies PostgreSQL has to offer.
This Week in Azure – 22 March 2019 | A Cloud Guru – Azure This Week
Lars is away this week and so Alex Mackey covers Azure Portal improvements, the Azure mobile app, Azure SQL Data Warehouse Workload Importance and Microsoft Game Stack.


text:
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an executive order that bans protests around the site of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.
The AP reports Putin issued the 10-week ban along with other orders designed to tighten security. Of course, the ban comes amid international consternation about Russia's laws prohibiting people from publicly supporting "nontraditional relationships."
As we've reported, athletes competing at the 2013 IAAF World Championships in Moscow have challenged the law in subtle ways: Emma Green Tregaro, the Swedish track and field athlete, painted her nails the colors of a rainbow and American runner Nick Symmonds dedicated his medal to his gay and lesbian friends.
The Wall Street Journal writes about the protest ban:
"The executive order published Friday isn't the first Russian regulation to tamp down on public demonstrations. Russia's Parliament introduced new restrictions on public gatherings in June 2012, stepping up punishments for unauthorized rallies just a few months after mass demonstrations against Putin's rule swept Moscow. ...
"The executive order was published a day after the International Olympic Committee said it received a letter from Dmitry Kozak, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister in charge of handling the Games, guaranteeing that everyone would be welcome at the Games 'regardless of their sexual orientation.'"
The Winter Olympics are scheduled for Feb. 7-23 at the Black Sea resort.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Take Advantage of Easy Trailer Financing
Working towards earning your customer satisfaction and providing prompt service, J and J Sales & Service is supplying customers with more than just trailers. With our trailer financing from Sheffield Financial, our customers in its surrounding areas will find the funding solution they are searching for.
Currency Financing
Our flexible finance options make owning a trailer quick and easy. We are proud to offer financing through CurrencyPay. For over 12 years, CurrencyPay has specialized in equipment financing. The online application process is fast, secure and hassle free. Best of all, CurrencyPay has financing options and flexible payment terms for virtually everyone!*


text:
- Tanácsadási szolgáltatások
Azure Database Migration: 4-week Implementation
Easily migrate data, schema, and objects on-premises to Azure at scale with ECF Data's simplified and strategic Database Migration Service.
Optimize your data's potential and rapidly drive innovation with ECF Data's Data Migration Implementation. The 4-week implementation services migrate your database asset to Azure. Its goal is to automate and simplify the transition from multiple resources to the cloud. The Azure Database Migration Service supports MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSWL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL server migration to azure from on-premises.
ECF Data's team of experts utilize the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework to successfully execute migrations without the complexities, downtimes, and costly errors. We help you leverage cloud scale using IaaS or migrate to modern technology with Paas.
Our strategic approach helps you execute an end-to-end migration strategy that moves your key assets to Azure, pursuing this path:
Week 1: Assessment and Planning
-Introduction of migration impact and core benefits
-Discussion of business objectives and technical details like usage scenarios and applications, target database profile, security, network configuration, etc.
-Building of sequence database migration plan (includes architecture, app connectivity, monitoring configuration, automatic patching, test migration planning, etc.)
Week 2: Test and Validate
-Configure environments, execute test migration, and test rollback
Secure database continuity, application connectivity, security, and general configuration
Remedy issues and endorse final migration plan through additional testing
Week 3: Go-Live
-Conduct final database migration cutover and verify success
Week 4: Optimize and Handover
-Safeguard monitoring, management, and cost-optimization configuration
-Handover to client database support team for ongoing support


text:
Leonard Cohen: The Partisan (La Complainte du Partisan) (French text: Bernard, Music: Anna Marly, English text: Hy Saret) from the CD's "Songs from a room", "Greatest Hits" and "Heart Housed in a Thorn Bush" (Live at Montreux, 1984) the pattern I play I've learned from a friend (erwin). Its easier to play, but may be there is a certain loss of quality. erwins pattern Am C* E* e:----------0---------------|-----------0---|-----------0--| B:-------1-----1------------|--------1------|--------0-----| G:----2-----------2-----2---|-----0---------|-----1--------| D:-------------------2------|---------------|--------------| A:-0------------------------|--3------------|--------------| E:--------------------------|---------------|--0-----------| p i m a m i p i p i m a p i m a The pattern is played two times per bar (indicated by / in first verse). In the first and second line of every verse there are three chords per bar and i play the pattern C* and E*. Cohen plays ?don't really know? Am C* E* e:-------------------------0----------|--------------------|-------------------| B:-------1--------1-----1-----------1-|--------1--------1--|--------0--------0-| G:----2--------2-----2-----------2----|-----0--------0-----|-----1--------1----| D:----------2-----------------2-------|-----------2--------|-----------2-------| A:-0----------------------------------|--3-----------------|--2----------------| E:------------------------------------|--------------------|-------------------| p i m p i m p i m p i m etc. There are twentyfour notes (triplets) per bar, to much for my fingers. Am Am / Am Am /C* E* Am When they poured a-cross the border /C* E* Am I was cautioned to sur-render, /C G /G (2/4) this I could not do; F F /C E /Am Am/Am Am I took my gun and van-ished. C* E* Am I have changed my name so often, C* E* Am I've lost my wife and children C G G but I have many fri-ends, F F C E /Am Am/Am Am and some of them are with me. C* E* Am An old woman gave us shelter, C* E* Am kept us hidden in the garret, C G G then the soldiers came; F F C E Am Am/Am Am she died without a whis-per. C* E* Am There were three of us this morning Hier encor nous 'tions troi C* E* Am I'm the only one this evening Il ne reste plu que moi C G G but I must go on; Et je tourne en rond F F C E Am Am/Am Am the fron-tiers are my pri-son. Dans la prison des frontieres C* E* Am Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing, La vent passe sur les tombles C* E* Am through the graves the wind is blowing, La libert' reviendra C G G freedom soon will come; Oh nous oubliera! F F C E /Am Am/Am Am then we'll come from the shad-ows. Nous retrerons dans l'ombre. C* E* Am Les Alle-mands '-taient chez moi, [The Germans were at my home C* E* Am ons m'a dit: "Re-signe toi," They said, "Sign yourself," C G G mais je n'ai pas peur; But I am not afraid F F C E /Am Am/Am Am j'ai repris mon ƒr-me. I have retaken my weapon. C* E Am J'ai chan-g' cent fois de nom, I have changed names a hundred times C* E* Am j'ai per-du femme et en-fants I have lost wife and children C G G mais j'ai tant d'a-mis; But I have so many friends F C E Am Am/Am Am j'ai la France en-tiŠre. I have all of France C* E* Am Un vieil homme dans un gre-nier An old man, in an attic C* E* Am pour la nuit nous a ca-ch's, Hid us for the night C G G les Alle-mands l'ont prisent; The Germans captured him F F C E Am Am/Am Am il est mort sans surpri-se. He died without surprise.] C* E* Am Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing, C* E* Am through the graves the wind is blowing, C G G freedom soon will come; F F C E Am Am/Am Am (appregio) then we'll come from the shad-ows.
Submit corrections


text:
Memorise: As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. – Proverbs 26:11
Read: Proverbs 15:20-21 (KJV)
20 A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish man despiseth his mother.
21 Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom: but a man of understanding walketh uprightly.
Bible in One Year: Ephesians 1:1-4:16, Psalms 18:20-28
Foolishness is not a virtue; rather it is a vice that costs its victim eternity in hell fire. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). In other words, lack of the fear of God is the beginning of foolishness. So, when someone decides to live without the fear of God, he does whatever he pleases without consideration for the Word of God, he feels he is free to do whatever he likes with his life, he behaves as if he owns his life, but in actual sense, his life is borrowed and the Owner may ask for it anytime. Our Lord Jesus told a parable of a prosperous farmer who did not reckon with God in all his dealings. Considering the wealth he had possessed he said:
"19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" - Luke 12:19-20
Some people who claim to be children of God behave foolishly sometimes. Our memory verse for today says: "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." Some brethren who had been modest and holy are now regretting their past pure Christian life! Those vanities they forsook in the past are now back in full force. This scripture is now fulfilled in their lives. Jesus said when a demon is cast out of a man, he goes away but after sometime he comes back to check whether that life is still empty. If he finds the life empty he goes back to take seven more powerful demons to take possession of the life (Luke 11:24-26). It is foolishness to go back to your old lifestyle after you have been cleansed from your former sins and impurities. The Bible says:
"For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning." - 2 Peter 2:20
In the past, you could identify a child of God from afar off (with the few exceptions of those who were pretenders). Many things that are now being celebrated were abominations in those days. It is unfortunate that a wholesale return to those vanities is now in vogue. Some Christian scholars were brought to me in my office by their leaders many years ago and I saw assorted wild paintings – red, green, silver, brown, pink etc on their faces and lips. I could not help but tell them that was the first time I would see Bible scholars in such a wild exhibition of vanities. Their leader then promised that he would do something about it and that when Lazarus came out from the dead he was gradually striped of the grave clothes he had on. Theologians know how to explain things away. Beloved, going back from your first love is not a virtue; it is rather a vice. Repent today, tomorrow may be too late.
Action Point: Check your life and see if there is any foolish act of sin, unrighteousness or backsliding. Repent.


text:
All messages to the Godoku staff are welcome. Please enter valid contact details and your message below. Clearly, if you do not have an account, you will not need to enter a username.
If you need an answer, please check the Members' FAQ to check that we have not already responded to a similar query.


text:
Red Hot Rose Apples
Aloha Dreams
Fabulous Recipes, Cooking for a Crowd & Dream Home Design
Red Hot Rose Apples
These apples roses are fabulous! Every time I serve them, folks are wowed. And they have no idea how easy they are – until they ask for the recipe and try them. You'll want to too!
They take some prep work, but the finished product is well worth it. They taste fabulous and they look even better. They are perfect for a Wedding Reception, Wedding Dinner, Valentines Day Party, Fabulous Christmas Feast, Mother's Day Brunch or any kind of celebration.
Here's how they came about.
Recently I agreed to coordinate the food for a small church Christmas party of approximately 100 folks. (In case you had any lingering doubts as to my sanity, you can now dispense of them.) I wanted to create a Christmas-present of a dinner with abundance and decadence and I wanted to include a classic (retro) dish mom made at the holidays – candied rose apples. So in case you need to host a Fabulous Feast for a Crowd for any occasion, you can find the entire menu here! (I'm in the process of adding all the recipes.)
Mom would cook whole cored apples in a red hot cinnamon candy bath and then stuff them with a cream cheese walnut filling. (Recipe coming eventually over in the 'Cooking with Betty – Rockin' Retro' section. They are WONDERFUL for Thanksgiving.) They are a great side dish for a casual, retro-inspired meal by the way! They taste marvelous, but they have a very retro Betty Crocker look about them. There's nothing wrong with that, but it wasn't what I was going for as part of the Fabulous Feast. So I googled apple roses and I saw a lot of very fancy looking mini apple rose tartlets. I loved the look and their bite-size aspect would be perfect for the dinner. I figured maybe I go with them instead of mom's recipe. But when I whipped up a batch of the mini apple rose tartlets to try, guess what?
We've all seen it. Food that looks amazingly delicious but tastes only okay. Those mini apple rose tartlets are a perfect example. They look fantastic but their taste is down right 'meh'. The plain apples were tasteless and the sugar cinnamon sprinkle lacked punch. Worst of all, they had an annoying tendency to burn, imparting a bitter acrid taste. Not good.
First rule of the day: we don't serve anything that tastes 'meh.' I don't care how great they look. They have to taste fabulous too. If we're going to do it, we might as well WOW them, don't you think? (We have a reputation to maintain after all.)
So I thought about it and something came to mind. I could combine the wonderful taste of mom's apple roses with the fancy preparation of the mini tartlets. So I cooked the apple 'petals' for the mini tartlets in mom's cinnamon candy bath and then, to send them over the top, I drizzled on the cinnamon candy cooking syrup over them once the apples were baked. Score! It resulted in treats that guests were taking seconds and often thirds of with multiple requests for the recipe. A clear winner.
While it's not necessary, this is a great recipe to make with one or two helpers. It goes very quickly if it's made assembly line style. A suggestion: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PREPARE THESE THE DAY OF SERVING. (Was that strong enough? I hope so, because if you do make them the 'day of', you'll be pooped and feel very pressured. Ask me how I know…) Instead, just make them up to 2 months in advance and freeze them. Then bake them just before serving. They'll be perfect.
Here's how you do it.
Along with several packages of Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry (2 sheets per package), these are all the ingredients you need. Very simple.
Prep your apples by cutting them in half, coring them and cutting them into paper-thin slices, using a mandolin set to 1/16 inch slices. You'll want to put the cut slices in water with a little lemon to prevent discoloration while you're cutting the remainder of the slices.
In a large sauce pan, over medium heat, bring water, red hot candies and sugar to a boil. Stir until red hots are dissolved. There may be a few unresolved ones, but that's just fine.
Drain and add apple slices to the pot with the red hots.
Reduce heat to medium and cook, uncovered, for 5 – 10 minutes until apples are tender. They should be cooked enough to bend without breaking. If they break you need to cook them a bit more. They should be a pretty red-pink in color. Like this.
On a floured board, roll out 1 sheet of dough until it measures 10 inches by 14 inches. Like this.
Then cut your dough in half length wise with a knife or pizza cutter and cut it in 8 strips from side to side. Like this.
Then cut each of the strips in half the LONG way, so you have 16 long skinny pieces of dough. Brush each piece of dough with the apricot jam. and lay on about 5 to 7 apple slices, overlapping the slices. Like this.
Next, fold up the bottom of the dough, so the roses are laying in a 'dough pocket' (see example below.) Then, starting at one end, carefully roll the dough up, so the apple slices form a rose. If the apple slices start to slip out from between the dough, just poke them back in. Here is what the dough looks like folded up to form the 'dough pocket' and here is what a finished rose will look like. Isn't that pretty? You can do it too!
These tartlets take 50 – 60 minutes to fully cook. Without the proper precautions, that's plenty of time for the bottoms and sides to burn to an almost inedible state (almost). To solve that problem, I employed the following system. You'll need 2 baking half sheet pans, a rack, parchment paper and water:
• Place one half-sheet pan on the lower rack of the oven.
• Fill it ½ way full with water.
• Set a rack in the second half-sheet pan. Lay a sheet of parchment paper on the rack.
• Place the tartlets on the parchment paper and lay aluminum foil loosely over the tartlets.
• Set the pan with the tartlets on the top rack directly over the pan with the water.
• Bake at 375 for 50 minutes. Then start checking every few minutes until the tartlets are done.
They are somewhat labor intensive. It will take you about 4 -5 hours to make 100. But best of all, you can (and should) make them in advance and freeze them if you are cooking for a large group. When ready, you can just bake and serve. They are delicious either hot out of the oven or at room temperature. They will earn you many happy raving fans!
- 2 cups Water
- 1 cup Sugar
- 1 cup Red Hot candies
- 5 medium apples, sweet, red Gala, Red Delicious, or Rome
- 1 lemon
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 2 packages Pepperidge Farm puff pastry thawed (each cut into xx strip1 package (2 sheet2 packages (4 sheet4 packages (8 sheets)
- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 1 half sheet baking pans
- 1 parchment sheet
- aluminum foil
- 1 rack
Thaw the puff pastry at room temperature if you haven't done so yet. It should take about an hour.
If you're going to be baking the day you make them (which I don't recommend) then preheat the oven to 375º F. Place racks in baking sheets. Line racks with parchment paper.
Fill a large bowl with water and squeeze the lemon juice into the bowl.
Cut the apples in half, remove the core and cut the apples in 1/8 inch slices (with mandolin if possible). Put the cut apple slices in the lemon water to prevent discoloration. Set these aside while you prepare the red hot poaching syrup.
In a large saucepan, bring water, red hot candies and sugar to a boil over medium heat; boil and stir until candies and sugar are dissolved.
Reduce heat; carefully add apples. Cook, uncovered, about 5-10 minutes until apples are tender and red-pink. The apple slices should be cooked enough to bend without breaking. If they break, you need to cook them a little more. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain in colander. Let the poaching red hot syrup cool and reserve it in a small container.
Unwrap the puff pastry over a clean and lightly floured cutting board. Using a rolling pin stretch each sheet into a rectangular shape of about 14-16 x 9 inch (30 x 22 cm). Cut the dough in 8 strips, each about 2 x 9 inch (5 x 22 cm).
In a bowl, place the apricot preserve with two tablespoons of water. Microwave for about one minute (or warm up on the stove so that the preserve will be easier to spread.
Spread a thin layer of preserve on each strip of dough. Arrange 7-9 apple slices on the dough, overlapping one another, as shown in the picture. Make sure the top (skin side of the slices sticks a little out of the strip)
Starting from one end, carefully roll the dough, keeping the apple slices in place. Seal the edge at the end, tucking the tail into the previous row pressing with your finger, and place on the parchment lined rack.
An hour and 15 minutes prior to serving, remove the roses and the poaching liquid from the freezer. Let the poaching liquid thaw on the counter.
Place one of the oven shelves in the middle - upper third of the oven and the other oven shelve anywhere below it and pre-heat the oven to 375 º F (190 º C).
Meanwhile, put a cooling rack in a half sheet pan. Line the cooling rack with parchment paper.
Set the tartlets on the parchment covered cooling rack.
Put the tartlet pan in the oven.
Cover tartlets loosely with aluminum foil.
Set another sheet pan on the lower shelve of the oven.
Fill bottom sheet pan half-way full with water this is to keep the tartlets from burning, which they have a tendency to do without these precautions.
Bake tartlets for about 50 - 60 minutes. Test one at about 50 minutes for doneness. Continue baking till dough is cooked.
When done remove from oven. Lightly drizzle the reserved Red Hot syrup over the tartlets. Sprinkle lightly with powder sugar.
These are best eaten right after baking, when still warm and crisp. But they are still very good at room temperature.
Tarts can be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to two days. Or in the refrigerator for up to three days. You can always warm them up for a few minutes by placing in the oven before serving.
Welcome to Aloha Dreams!
I'm so glad you dropped by. I'm Betsy. Here you'll find my favorite fabulous, trusted recipes - everything from delicious, quick meals for your family to wonderful classics made easy.
I'm also here to help you with large group recipes from 20 to 200. So next opportunity you get to cook for a large group - Say 'Yes!' Then relax. I've got your back.
Ever wished you could build your dream home? How about building your dream home in a tropical paradise? Join me, room by room, as we design and build a fabulous dream home in Hawaii!


text:
SECE Class, Lynn McCall and Wan Tsai Chen
Image by Lorena Mayra Leal Isida
Tags: Leadership Retreat 2017, Picture
Date: July 26, 2017
Lorena Leal-Ishida has been a Suzuki piano teacher for 10 years and has more than 30 years of experience in music education. Founder and director of the Leal Isida Art Center (CALI) Suzuki Music Education School, also the SUZUKI International Festival of Music (SUZUKI FIM) and Festival CALI Suzuki in the city of Monterrey, N.L. Mx. Since2007 she has been a major promoter of Suzuki education in Monterrey, bringing many children and their families closer to music. Some of its students have obtained the first places in national and international competitions. From 2014 to 2016 she was Regional Delegate of the AMMS (Mexican Association of the Suzuki Method). Committed to her community and early childhood education, she brought the Suzuki ECE training to Mexico and Latin America for the first time in June 2016. .


text:
Lagan Construction Group have been shortlisted as a finalist in the 2016 Irish News Workplace & Employment Awards. Nominated in two categories Lagan Construction Group will compete for two awards in the 'Workplace Wellbeing' category and the overall 'Best Place to Work."
The Awards which is in their tenth year, saw entries pass through the 150-mark for the first time and more than 70 companies and organisations throughout Northern Ireland have made the heavyweight short-list.
The gala presentation night will take place on Thursday 16th June 2016 at Titanic Belfast.


text:
Parinaz Naghizadeh, Researcher in economic network security, is named a Barbour Scholar
Parinaz's research is in combining communications with economics to assess the security of a network and then apply that to cyber-insurance contracts.
Parinaz Naghizadeh, a graduate student in electrical engineering, has been named a 2014 Barbour Scholar, a distinction awarded to women of outstanding academic and professional achievement who are natives of Asia.
Parinaz is conducting research in the general area of computer and network security, and more specifically, combining communications with economics to assess the security level of a network and then apply that data to design cyber-insurance contracts.
Recently, she has focused on the public good problem known as interdependent security. Interdependent security deals with the fact that the security of a network is increasingly dependent upon the collective efforts of each one of its interconnected users.
"Consider email attachments," explained Parinaz. "If a user installs the latest antivirus and refrains from downloading suspicious email attachments, she will protect not only her own computer, but potentially other computers as well." However, refraining from these precautions could have a broad negative impact because so many computers are interconnected.
Currently, cyber insurance is being researched as one of the most promising approaches to provide the necessary incentives for network users to invest in and practice the best cyber security protocols. "We want to give people an incentive to care about network security, and do things like keep antivirus software updated and change their passwords every six months," Parinaz said.
Designing the cyber insurance contracts is a highly complex mathematical and system problem. Parinaz hopes to use IP blacklists and reputation systems to help determine the risks present to the network's security. These reputation systems would be similar to those used by Amazon and eBay, where users provide feedback on sellers and that feedback is used to generate a rating that future customers can see before deciding to do business with that seller.
Parinaz says, "Once I know the risks, I can tell how important each of these systems is to the entire environment, and how important any one computer is to the network."
After completing the network assessment, Parinaz can design a contract based on the user's importance to the overall health of the system.
Currently, cyber insurance policies are only contracted with large entities like universities, banks and large companies, with premiums costing tens of thousands of dollars. The participation of smaller entities, however, is important to the security of the entire network.
Parinaz Naghizadeh will present the paper, Voluntary Participation in Cyber-Insurance Markets, co-authored by her advisor, Prof. Mingyan Liu, at the 13th Annual Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, June 23-24, 2014.
Ms. Ardabili's research is funded by the Department of Homeland Security, Cyber Security Division.


text:
Listed in: Art and the History of Art, as ARHA-102
Formerly listed as: ARAH-02 | ARAH-04 | ARAH-15
David I. Gloman (Section 01)
An introduction to two-dimensional and three-dimensional studio disciplines with related lectures and readings. Historical and contemporary references will be used throughout the course to enhance and increase the student's understanding of the visual vocabulary of art. How the comprehension of differing visual practices directly relates to personal investigations and interpretations within the covered disciplines of drawing, sculpture, painting, photography and printmaking. This includes applying elements of composition, weight, line, value, perspective, form, spatial concerns, color theory and graphics. Work will be developed from exercises based on direct observation and memory, realism and abstraction. Formal and conceptual concerns will be an integral aspect of the development of studio work. Class time will be a balance of lectures, demonstrations, exercises, discussions and critiques. Weekly homework assignments will consist of studio work and reading assignments. Two two-hour class sessions per week. No prior studio experience is required.
Not open to students who have taken ARHA 111 or 215. Limited to 25 students. Fall semester. Resident Artist Gloman.
Section 01
Tu 09:00 AM - 11:00 AM FAYE 101
Th 09:00 AM - 11:00 AM FAYE 101


text:
Chris Power's fortnightly round-up of electronic releases, featuring Mary Anne Hobbs' new Planet Mu compilation, Japanese psychedelia on DFA and one of the biggest tunes of the year from a certain J. Orbison
Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo (Hot Flush)
Yeah, I know, who needs to read another word about Joy Orbison and 'Hyph Mngo'? The very fact this review could have appeared at any time between the beginning of July and now - and would have been equally as expected and justified pretty much throughout that timeframe - kind of says everything you need to know about the tune's impact. Brilliantly (or idiotically, depending on your viewpoint) straightforward, Orbison's great achievement with his debut single (listen) is to pin down that adrenalised moment of recognition when a tune you know and love bursts out of the speakers, and expand it pretty much unadorned to track length.
With its two-note, dragged synth line trailing a beat behind a female vocal sample that sounds like the last snippet of the statement 'love you', South Londoner Peter O'Grady's production hits several peaks without ever going in for discernible troughs: this is a variation on the theme of a breakdown. Despite clearly being a child of garage and dubstep, in its minimally maximal euphoric simplicity 'Hyph Mngo' is heavily reminiscent of Carl Craig's 1993 track 'The Wonders of Wishing' (listen), which he released under his Urban Culture moniker). And if you're entertaining the notion that O'Grady might be a one-hit wonder, the busy, Mobb Deep-sampling strafe of 'Wet Look' (listen) on the flip puts paid to that. And just as good is the forthcoming 'Tentative Bidding', which closes Hot Flush label head's superb Mnml Ssgs mix.
FaltyDL - Party/Alpafun (Ramp)
Ahead of next month's excellent Bravery mini-LP on Planet Mu, the planet's favourite garage-style dubstepper Drew Lustman returns to _Ramp with the low-slung popping rhythms of 'Party'. Falty DL's debut album Love is a Liability (spanked over in AD006) announced the advent of a master of vocal sample manipulation and that skill is pushed to the fore once again here, the repetitious 'party' call aided and abetted by non-verbal coos and exhalations, synth tones dropping into the mix like quicksilver sinking into murky water.
AA-side 'Alpafun' foregrounds the more abstract elements of Lustman's palette, a dry snare clothed in snatches of fuzzier rhythmic tremors, the low-end providing a structural rumble above which shimmering keys waver like flickering stars. And if all that leaves your yen for Lustman unsated still then you can check him out talking about the similarities between beat quantization and sushi here.
Mary Anne Hobbs - Wild Angels (Planet Mu)
Anyone looking for a one-stop shop tO provide them with the freshest and most interesting produce of more dance-oriented laptops in 2009 should add this to their basket post haste. Following up 2006's Warrior Dubz and last year's Evangeline mix, Wild Angels is consistently on point, showcasing the hottest producers along the line running between circuit-fried hip-wonk-hop, dubstep and several of their bastard bass-music children (listen).
Moving from the oddly regal 8-bit splatter of Hudson Mohawke's 'Spotted' (from last year's Heralds of Change collaboration with New York-based Dubliner Mike Slott) and the slanting sunshine of the latter's 'Knock Knock', Wild Angels goes on to cover a far wider emotional range than might have been expected. The twilit woods of Darkstar's cover of Radiohead's 'Videotape' lead into the churning diva and choir-sampling melange of 'Esthian III' by Floating Points (one of the few exclusives here), while the swirling robot-folk of Sunken Foal's 'Of Low Count and Light Pocket' is what Autechre might have sounded like if they'd ever decided to pursue a folk direction.
Highlights abound, but I have to mention Hyetal's deep excursion 'We Should Light a Fire', spinning gloriously in the spaces between dubstep and dub techno, and the arid, bone-banging beats and ghost-zone vocal irruptions of last year's 'Discipline', perhaps Untold's finest moment to date (which is saying something).
Burnkane - You Know (Planet Mu)
Staying with Planet Mu - undoubtedly one of if not the electronic label of 2009 - their new 12 showcases the electro-acoustic dubstep of Washington DC's Burnkane, who used to produce drum & bass as Beatwife. 'You Know' starts with the sawing of a treated cello, around which clattering beats and a gloopy vocal refrain tumble and thrash. The presiding air of post-Burial mournfulness takes a step towards anger on the seething 'You Will Forget', its chanted vocal and vengeful MC'ing of James J.K. Hughes characterising the track as a darkside R'n'B stepper (listen).
Brendon Moeller - Big Shot EP (Connaisseur)
NYC-dwelling South African Brendan Moeller has had a very good year, from last September's remixes of Appleblim & Peverelist's 'Over Here' to Jazz Funk Safari EP compilation on Third Ear and 'The Mercy Dubz', a The The-inspired collaboration with The Spaceape on Resopal Red. The lead track here, the 'Big Shot Dub' sees him continuing to seed his expansive, driving dub techno excursions with dubstep elements, the beat fidgeting between 4/4 and two-step while celestial pads and heavy delays develop the track's ever-growing sense of near limitless space (listen).
Shafiq Husayn - Shafiq En' A-Free-Ka (Rapster)
Hip-hop of the none wonked, fried or otherwise awkwardly but thoroughly rogered variety has been painfully absent from Armchair Dancefloor thus far, but that's due to my own dilatoriness than any kind of carefully considered policy. Having said that, Shafiq 'En A-Free-Ka is only a hip-hop album in the loosest sense of the term: at once pop, soul, funk, jazz, electronica and esoterica, it covers so much ground it's probably better to just call it joyful noise than engage in the fruitless and curmudgeonly endeavour of trying to pin it down.
One third of Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Shafiq Husayn has taken the opportunity of this solo outing to blossom. Each track here is intensely detailed, their smeared soundbeds, as dense with life as a rain forest floor, revealing new details with each listen. Just check out 'The U.N. Plan', decalamatory rhymes modulated until they sound like they're being sucked down a plughole before the township-electro backing breaks down into a Balearic breakdown. 'Changes' (featuring Sonny Coates and Sa-Ra/recent Hyperdub alumni Om'Mas Keith) is another highlight, kneading together glich beats and arresting bass manoeuvres with a Sly Stone-style croon (listen).
Moebius - Kram (Klangbad)
Ex of Kluster, Cluster and Harmonia, Dieter Moebius has a weighty Krautrock pedigree. He's also distinguished himself as a solo artist over the years, not least with his superb 1983 album Tonspuren, which scores of today's laptop artists would sign their names to in a teraflop. In some ways it's disappointing to note, then, that much of Kram could have been written at any point in time since 1975. Take the plunging synth, isolated dramatic guitar chords and metronome (I won't say motorik if you won't) rhythm of 'Komit': if it was any more 70s Stuart Maconie would be gibbering about it on C4.
But while Kram could be seen as being essentially backwards looking, it remains a compelling and cohesive album. There's something of the dawn about the synth chirps and respirations of 'Dauert', while 'Steigert''s didgeridoo-like reverberations and 'Rennit''s corroded plosions generate a palpable tension. With so many producers and musicians presently aping Krautrock techniques you can't even say that 'Kram' sounds old fashioned. And even if it did, Moebius deserves to put his feet up after helping invent techno and what have you.
in brief
Peter Grummich - Elevation Funk EP (District of Corruption)
Head straight for the side-two title track here: 'Elevation Funk' is analogue house heaven, and it wrings every drop of tension and sweet relief from its 11-minute length. Patiently establishing a hypnotic thrum, Grummich's restraint makes stirring events of the occasional occurrence of a closed hi-hat or tinny cowbell, while dubby delays clamber crabwise across the track's smooth, glinting surface.
Yura Yura Teikoku - Dekinai (DFA)
Japanese psychedelicists Yura Yura Teikoku are stalwarts back home, and should become even better known over here now they've signed to DFA. Their own extended mix of 'Dekinai' is a muscular piece of Krautrock that foregrounds the relentlessly stamping drumbeat without losing sight of the original's wiry dynamics or celebratory melody(listen).
Steve Summers - Jack Flash EP (Clone)
Jason Letkiewicz uses his Steve Summers moniker to deliver perfect jack trax pastiches that are recorded on a vintage analogue tape recorder for added dust-on-the-needle authenticity. The title track is stripped-down dirty acid, while 'Dreaming in Color' lopes along like it just rolled out of Shelter (the Chicago club, not the homeless charity) on a bright summer's morning in 1986 (listen).
Tiger Stripes - Me & I (Get Digital)
Sweden's Tiger Stripes brings a forthright old school house energy to this digital-only release, the rumbustious funky-drummer beat pattern of 'Me & I' preparing the ground for a two-note synth stab of the sort that's retained its blunt hedonistic utility despite having been around since your mum met your dad in the Annexe at Cream (listen).
Chris Power is one half of British Males.


text:
The Fourth of July and election season are upon us, and political communications are becoming more and more present in our lives.
Your child probably has begun to notice campaign stickers, television commercials, and news coverage about the election. He might already be asking questions such as, "Who is the president?", "What does the president do?" or "Why do people vote?"
With all this going on, now is a great time to engage children in age-appropriate discussions and activities about democracy and patriotism. They will begin to appreciate that people may have different opinions, but we all have a voice in our country's future.
As our preschoolers progress through our curriculum, they will learn about similarities and differences among countries and cultures. Below are some of our classroom activities that focus on specific U.S. traditions, as well as activities you can do with your child at home.
BEGINNERS (ages 2-3):
- In the classroom: Our Beginner students sing patriotic songs and learn that the Fourth of July is America's birthday. They practice recognizing and naming the colors and shapes on the American flag.
- At home: Take a drive or walk with your child. Point out the American flag and ask him to name the colors of the stars and stripes. Ask him to teach you a patriotic song that he learned in class.
- Recommended songs: "Yankee Doodle" and "You're a Grand Old Flag"
INTERMEDIATES (ages 3-4):
- In the classroom: Voting is a common practice in our Intermediate classrooms. Students learn that everyone has an opportunity to vote, and that the choice with the most votes wins. They vote to determine songs to sing, books to read, and games to play.
- At home: Allow your child to vote on family decisions, such as what to eat for dinner or what to do on the weekends. Remind him that everyone in the family gets to vote.
- Recommended songs: "My Country Tis of Thee" and "America the Beautiful"
PRE-K/PRE-K 2 (ages 4-5):
- In the classroom: Our older preschoolers recognize national symbols such as the White House, the American flag, the Statue of Liberty, and the bald eagle. They also learn the meaning of freedom, talk about the roles of the president, and identify patterns on the flag.
- At home: Reinforce to your child that the president is in charge of our country, just like a principal is in charge of a school. Encourage him to write down what he would do if he were president. Ask him to share his ideas with you.
- Recommended songs: "The Star Spangled Banner" and "This Land is Your Land"
By exposing preschoolers to U.S. government and traditions, they gain a sense of pride in their country and a better understanding of the world around them.


text:
May Is Military Appreciation Month: 5 Financial Tips For Every Military Family
In honor of Military Appreciation Month, we recognize those in the military as well as their families. Military members and their families face one-of-a-kind challenges, such as deployment to conflict zones, overseas assignments and the constancy of change - all of which make dedicating time to personal finance a challenge. Luckily, there are special tax breaks and other benefits unique to service members. Follow these five tips to take advantage of potential benefits and simplify your military family's personal finances.
Tip #1: Focus on Retirement Savings
The Thrift Savings Plan is one way to save for retirement that's specific for military members. You may also have access to a Roth TSP, which acts similarly to a Roth IRA but without income restrictions. By contributing to a Roth TSP, you don't lower your taxable income now, but you will be able to withdraw the money tax-free when you enter retirement.
Tip #2: Save with High Interest
The Savings Deposit Program allows eligible personnel serving in designated combat zones to deposit up to $10,000 and earn up to 10 percent in annual interest.1 This can be an effective way to boost your savings for the future. By comparison, it's not uncommon to find savings accounts at various banking institutions that offer less than one percent in annual interest rates.
Tip #3: Tax-Free In, Tax-Free Out
Saving in a Roth IRA may be a good idea if you receive tax-free combat-zone pay. This allows you to deposit tax-free income and take tax-free qualified withdrawals in retirement. You can also withdraw contributions to a Roth IRA at any time, without income taxes or penalties.
Tip #4: Take Advantage of Your Education Benefits
The Post-9/11 GI Bill covers the full cost of in-state tuition, up to 36 months, plus housing fees and $1,000 a year to use for books and supplies.2 You can even transfer these benefits to your spouse or children if you don't plan on using them yourself.
Tip #5: Low-Cost Life Insurance
Backed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance protects your family with low-cost term life insurance coverage. If you are an eligible service member, you may be automatically enrolled in this program.3 Depending on your status or branch, you may have other life insurance options available to you as well. If you haven't already, you'll want to review your options and determine whether or not your coverage is up-to-date.
More Ways to Maximize Your Money
Aside from specialized programs and offerings, there are a few things every military family can do to help get or keep their financial standings in order.
Set Goals
Like any mission, success begins with articulating the goals you want to pursue. Make sure they're measurable, attainable and timely.
Establish a Budget
A budget can serve as the foundation of financial discipline. Having a weekly or monthly budget set in place can help you control spending impulses that lead to greater debt levels.
Pay Yourself First
Determine how much money you need to set aside to reach your savings goal, deduct this amount from your paycheck and budget yourself to live within the limits of what remains.
Establish an Emergency Fund
Uncertainty marks the lives of military families, so be sure you have an emergency fund that allows you to be as prepared as possible for these changes.
Control Your Debt
Indebtedness is one of the enemies of financial independence. Focus your efforts on paying down high-interest debt, like credit cards or personal loans.
As you think through your financial goals, remember that taking action today is your first and most important step. Take advantage of all your unique benefits and opportunities so that you and your family can live your best financial life.
This content is developed from sources believed to be providing accurate information, and provided by Twenty Over Ten. It may not be used for the purpose of avoiding any federal tax penalties. Please consult legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation. The opinions expressed and material provided are for general information, and should not be considered a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security.


text:
You may be surprised to learn that the first recurring Bounty Hunter to appear in the Star Wars universe was not Boba Fett, but a character in the Marvel Star Wars comic called "The Hunter". Created by Archie Goodwin, "The Hunter" mirrors Goodwin's earlier Punisher work. Goodwin's "The Hunter", along with some of his other Star Wars comics, appear to have been directly adapted into the character debut of the iconic Boba Fett.
Merchandising visionary from the outset, George Lucas was pursuing a comic to coincide with the release of Star Wars even while still filming. After being turned down by Warren Publications, DC Comics, and initially by Stan Lee at Marvel, the Star Wars team was finally able to convince Marvel that the concept wasn't a financial disaster in waiting. The first Star Wars Comic was released a month before the film's release in May of 1977, and sales of the series rocketed along on the coat-tails of Star Wars's wild overnight success. Marvel Comics had a golden goose with their new ongoing Star Wars title, which quickly moved on beyond the plot of the original movie after the first 6 issues. To continue the title, Marvel was allowed to create their own original Star Wars stories. Legendary Marvel writer and editor Archie Goodwin took over writing towards the end of 1977 with issue #11.
A little history on Goodwin, back in 1976 Archie Goodwin penned the second feature appearance of a minor Spider-Man villain known as The Punisher in Marvel Super Action #1, drawn in black and white by Tony Dezuniga (color cover by Bob Larkin). The Punisher is a solider who's wounded and loses his family in a mob attack, and becomes obsessed with taking vengeance on criminals.
By late 1977 Goodwin was the writer for the Star Wars comic, and Tony DeZuniga also made the jump from Punisher, inking several of the early Star Wars books. Goodwin's new bounty hunter character named "Valance the Hunter" debuted in issue 16, drawn by Walt Simonson on pencils and Bob Wiacek on inks. Valance is a soldier who's wounded and loses his face in a rebel attack, and becomes obsessed with taking vengeance on droids.
Beyond the obvious similarities in character origin stories and the covers, there were strong cues in the appearance of the character as well. Like The Punisher, "The Hunter" also wore a skull on his chest, it was almost identical to the small skull previously used in the title logo of the earlier Punisher book.
When contacted about the similarities in the character for this article, Walt Simonson responded: "I certainly had no intention of doing any Punisher related visuals… I don't normally do character design sheets; I develop the character design as I draw the comic." Bob Wiacek also confirms "I used the facial features that Walter gave me and worked in shadows and rendering. The Punisher was the furthest thing from my mind". Nevertheless, the widow's peak, arched eyebrows, and broad facial features of the characters are strikingly similar. Though Simonson and Wiack may not have been intentionally referencing their fellow Star Wars artist Tony Dezuniga's earlier Punisher art, the two characters were written so correspondingly that Goodwin and DeZuniga's Punisher comes through strongly in the final Hunter character design.
Jaxxon the Green Rabbit was Marvel's first major original Star Wars character, and was mercifully eliminated from the title early after being ridiculed by almost everyone, including Lucas. Though Greedo was the first bounty hunter with a brief appearance in "A New Hope", "The Hunter" was the first bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe to make a return appearance, and was the first Marvel created Star Wars character popular enough with fans to return as a recurring character. Boba Fett followed, appearing later that year.
When Goodwin was interviewed on writing Star Wars, he stated that the Lucas team was content to let him create his own content, as long as Goodwin would submit a synopsis of the storylines to the Lucas team prior to book production for approval. After submitting "The Hunter" story, he mentioned that the droid prejudice storyline of "The Hunter" caused the Lucas team some pause, but they allowed Marvel to go ahead with it anyway. The title shipped in June for a July release. Simonson's cover art is dated April 1978, so the story would have likely have gone to Lucasfilm for approval in January or February of 1978, if not sooner.
The infamous Star Wars Holiday Special of 1978 was the international introduction of Boba Fett in an animated short created for the Special by Nelvana Studios titled "The Faithful Wookie." Either under Lucasfilm's direction or their own intiative, Nelvana appears to have adopted several concepts and characters from Goodwin's Marvel Star Wars comics #11-16, including a crash landing of the Millenium Falcon on a liquid planet, ocean dragon riders using forked prod rifles, and Goodwin's bounty hunter character of "The Hunter", now re-named Boba Fett and sporting a new suit of armor.
The Boba Fett name came from the April 1978 script draft of "The Empire Strikes Back" (the bounty hunters and Boba Fett did not appear in Leigh Brackett's February 1978 first draft of the "Empire" script, but they were added by the third draft in April 1978, after Goodwin's "The Hunter" book had been approved and begun production). The armor came from character design work already underway by Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie, and in June of 1978 an all-white "Super Trooper" character model was re-purposed as Fett's costume. This Boba Fett costume and name, along with many of Goodwin's comic book characters and scenes from Star Wars #11-16, went to Nelvana to develop into the final animated short for the Holiday Special, released to the world in November 1978.
Even the shoulder patch skull for Boba Fett's body armor bares the same characteristic jaw-less long-toothed half grin and stark oversized eyes as the characteristic Punisher death's head.
Soon after the Holiday Special, Boba Fett action figures appeared, and he became one of the breakout characters of the Star Wars universe on release of "The Empire Strikes Back". Over the years his legend continued to grow into one of the most popular scifi characters in pop culture history. But back at the very start, in the earliest history of Star Wars in the midst of all the comics and cartoons, was that skull badge on Boba Fett's shoulder intially the mark of The Punisher? Was the most famous gritty bounty hunter of the Star Wars universe originally the most famous gritty street vigilante of the Marvel Universe?
Thank you to Walt Simonson, Bob Wiacek, Dan at Ninja Skills, The Dented Helmet Forums, Carl Potts, Lilith Wood, and Dane&Jake at Punisher Body Count.
Source Material Links
Marvel Super Action #1
Star Wars The Original Years Omnibus
Overstreet Fan Magazine #5
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Archie Goodwin Interview:
Boba Fett:
Boba Fett Early Designs:
Boba Fett Test video:
Nelvana Cartoon Studio Info:
Star Wars The Hunter Info:
Joe Johnson Info:
Ralph McQuarrie Info:


text:
Join this webinar to learn how Tableau does visual analytics differently from other tools, including...
- How Tableau keeps you in the flow of analysis
- How Tableau enables you to discover powerful new insights
Learn about the key attribute that makes Tableau so different—you can quickly discover new insights by continually asking and answering questions of your data with ease.
You'll see a demo of Tableau in the flow of analysis, before showing you how Tableau makes it easy to visualise and share insights in a way that's easy to understand for your audience.
Watch the other webinars in our Secrets of Visual Analytics series.


text:
The Library of Congress has one of the world's premier collections of U.S. and foreign genealogy and local history publications. The Library's genealogy collection began as early as 1815 when Thomas Jefferson's library was purchased. Through generations of international giving, the Library's collections contain more than 40,000 compiled family histories and over 100,000 U.S. local histories. The Library also collects local histories from around the world. Researchers doing foreign research will find strong collections for western Europe, especially the British Isles, Ireland, and Germany.
Donations to the Library of Congress will be acknowledged, and may be tax deductible, depending on the donor's own tax situation. We strongly encourage the use of acid-free paper and if the work requires binding, please allow wide margins.
Copyrighted published genealogies are automatically added to the Library's collections; registered unpublished genealogies may be selected if the Library's selection officer is aware that the work is a genealogy. To assist in this selection, the title line on the application for registration of an unpublished genealogy should contain a reference to genealogy, for example: John Doe, family history (genealogy). This will help assure that it will be added to the Library's collections. The Library restricts the use that may be made of unpublished genealogies contained in its collections. Further information regarding copyright is available from:
Information Section, LM-401 Copyright Office Library of Congress 101 Independence Ave., SE Washington DC. 20559-6300 (202) 707-3000 Public Information Office (202) 707-9100 Forms Hotline http://www.copyright.gov/ email@example.com


text:
ARIES is a fast-paced marketer and innovator of truck, Jeep, SUV and CUV accessories. From automotive enthusiasts to professional builders, our products are built for the champions of individualism, innovation and attitude.
We offer the perfect combination of unique style and durable construction, specializing in custom-fit grille guards, bull bars, side bars and running boards, as well as Jeep Wrangler accessories.
ARIES products are made vehicle-specific for a custom fit, and they are available for a wide variety of makes and models sold in North America.
ARIES is a brand of CURT Group. CURT Group is a leading sales, marketing, engineering and distribution company of towing products and truck accessories for all types of vehicles, from passenger cars to commercial trucks.
Our family of brands includes CURT, ARIES, LUVERNE, RETRAC and UWS. We are a team of more than 1,000 associates world-wide, with manufacturing plants in Wisconsin, South Dakota, Florida and the Philippines, and 12 regional warehouses across the United States and Canada.
We stand for EXCELLENCE in our products and our associates. We aspire to be the industry LEADER by recognizing that the customer is KING and our associates are our greatest ASSET.


text:
Your company is unique. Shouldn't your business travel program be too? No one understands this better—or is more capable of providing customized solutions to meet your needs—than Travel Leaders.
Travel Leaders will collaborate and consult with you to find the perfect balance between service and fiscal management to create your company's one-of-a-kind business travel program. When you combine your organizations strengths with our travel expertise, everything comes together.
Contact Us | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy