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The female athlete, during her reproductive years, has a complex and ever-changing milieu of female steroid hormones, whether it is the endogenous variations in estradiol and progesterone of a regular menstrual cycle, or the exogenous synthetic hormones of the oral contraceptives. Both estrogens and progestins have individual, interactive and sometimes opposing physiological actions with potential implications for the exercising female.
In retrospective surveys on the menstrual cycle and performance, from 37 to 63% of athletes did not report any cycle 'phase' detriment, while 13 to 29% reported an improvement during menstruation. The best performances were generally in the immediate postmenstrual days, with the worse performances during the premenstrual interval and the first few days of menstrual flow. However, this type of study has an inherent built-in bias, and is further limited by the lack of substantiation of cycle phase.
Many of the women studied associated premenstrual symptoms, such as fluid retention, weight gain, mood changes, and dysmenorrhoea with performance decrement. Such factors have also been causally linked with an increase in traumatic musculoskeletal injuries during the premenstrual and menstrual period. Neuromuscular coordination, manual dexterity, judgement and reaction time for complex tests have been shown to be adversely affected in women with premenstrual syndrome or symptoms, but confounding variables may include nutrition status and blood sugar levels. In addition, not all women suffer to the same level with premenstrual symptoms.
Fluctuations in many physiological functions occur throughout the normal menstrual cycle. Results of early studies are difficult to interpret owing to the small numbers of women studied, wide range of fitness levels, and variability in the definitions of cycle phase. Nevertheless, investigators did not document any significant changes in measures of athletic performance as a function of timing of testing during the menstrual cycle. Swimmers have shown a premenstrual worsening of performance times, with improvement during the menstrual phase and on the eighth day of the cycle. An increase in perceived exertion was noted premenstrually and during the early menstrual stage with very intense exercise. In cross-country skiers. the best times were recorded in the postovulatory and postmenstrual phases. prompting the recommendation that training loads be selected according to cycle phase to achieve maximum benefit.
Investigations using estradiol and progesterone levels as a confirmatory index of ovulation have not generally found significant differences across the cycle in either maximal or submaximal exercise responses, although a slight decrease in aerobic capacity during the luteal phase has been reported. In contrast, an enhancement of endurance performance during the luteal phase, without any concomitant changes in cardiovascular variables has also been reported.
There is evidence to suggest a decrement in isometric strength and endurance. potentially related to an increase in deep muscle temperature during the luteal phase. however, little accurate information exists on the influence of menstrual cycle phase on strength.
Increased progesterone and estradiol levels during the luteal phase leads to a net fluid retention because of a complex interaction of the aldosterone/renin/angiotensin systems. Consequently. there are changes in serum electrolytes. osmolality, and minor variations in haemoglobin. but these have no measurable repercussions for performance. Cardiac output is increased, primarily through an increase in plasma volume and stroke volume.
Results of studies, with and without hormonal documentation, are inconsistent regarding heat stress responses during exercise. Similarly trained and acclimated men and women do not display any differences in thermoregulation. Sweat rate is not significantly affected by the alterations in steroid hormones during the menstrual cycle. Nevertheless, the higher core temperature during the luteal phase is postulated to increase cardiovascular strain (as evidenced by an increased heart rate) and level of perceived exertion during exercise. The temperature-induced increase in metabolic rate has also been associated with decreased exercise efficiency and increased mean oxygen consumption.
High progesterone levels during the luteal phase and pregnancy stimulate ventilation and the ventilatory responses to hypoxia and hypercapnia. Success in endurance sports has been correlated with blunted respiratory drives, therefore enhancement of this ventilatory responsiveness may be detrimental in athletes. Nonathletic women have been shown to have altered exercise performance, possibly because of a subjective sensation of dyspnoea, but no effects have been shown with elite female athletes. A synthetic progestin. medroxyprogesterone acetate, when administered to both men and women, causes similar respiratory changes without any corresponding performance decrement. Investigators have not been able to correlate actual progesterone levels with the alterations in ventilatory drives. Estradiol acts to potentiate the action of progesterone through its induction of progesterone receptors.
There is a gender difference in substrate metabolism during exercise. Estrogen and progesterone enhance muscle glycogen storage and uptake. Increased estradiol levels also promote lipolysis and lipid synthesis. A shift in metabolism towards free fatty acids leads to a decrease in glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis. A greater urinary protein loss during the luteal phase reflects greater protein catabolism. Blood glucose levels vary during the menstrual cycle. but differences are affected by altering the pre-exercise nutritional status of the athletes. Other hormones, particularly catecholamines and growth hormone have also been shown to be important. Increased estradiol levels act to increase growth hormone. which in turn stimulates fat mobilisation.
Oral contraceptives are frequently administered to athletes for a variety of therapeutic reasons. The original formulations contained higher dosages of both estrogens and progestins. Surveys showed that half the women did not notice any difference in performance, and 8% even noted an improvement with higher dosages. Musculoskeletal injuries have been shown to be reduced in women taking oral contraceptives, possibly because of a reduction of dysmenorrhoea and premenstrual symptoms. Some cross-sectional studies have found an increase in oxygen consumption for a standardised workload in women taking oral contraceptives. A slight decrease in maximal aerobic capacity with a decrease in muscle mitochondrial citrate has been demonstrated, suggesting a potential cellular mechanism. Recent investigations have shown a slight decrease in maximum oxgen uptake (VO2max), without alterations in any of the cardiovascular variables.
Oral contraceptives appear to have little impact on strength indices, although there is limited evidence of a detrimental effect on isometric endurance. Since the androgenic actions of the progesterone component diminish with the newer preparations, there is likely no significant influence of the exogenous hormones.
Synthetic steroid hormones can influence vascular volume, ventilation and substrate metabolism. Combined oral contraceptives increase cardiac output more than progestin-only formulations implying that the estrogen effect dominates. An augmented stroke volume may potentially increase oxygen delivery to the tissues, and the reduction in menstrual blood loss may also be beneficial for performance. An increase in ventilation has been demonstrated with oral contraceptive use, but the studies which showed small alterations in performance, however, have not shown any of the respiratory changes.
Substrate metabolism is also influenced by oral contraceptives, with varying effects on glucose and insulin. Other hormones such as thyroxine, cortisol, catecholamines and growth hormone have a counterregulatory action. Progesterone acts to oppose insulin binding, through a decrease in insulin receptor numbers. The effects on growth hormone (GH), which is also a potent stimulator of lipolysis, depend on the relative concentrations of estradiol and progesterone, which increase and decrease GH levels, respectively. A net shift towards triglyceride use may be potentially advantageous during extended endurance exercise. Lower blood glucose levels and decreased carbohydrate utilisation found both at rest and during exercise may result from the glycogen-sparing actions of the hormones and may also reflect decreased hepatic production.
In general, the effects of oral contraceptives on athletic performance have diminished with the lower dosages of these medications. The overall advantages, including the noncontraceptive health benefits, probably outweigh any small observed differences. There is, however, a large degree of interindividual variability that must be considered in the clinical situation, both during the menstrual cycle and with administration of oral contraceptives.


text: Following the inauguration of President Trump, we continue to see mass hysteria throughout the culture, and liberals shouting the same tired talking points. They're living in the past, and haven't refreshed their thinking, or their rhetoric. It reminds us that even in the Church we have to sometimes discipline ourselves to think…again.

subset: commoncrawl


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Duct cleaning
Duct Cleaning review in Hamilton
Ali and his partner were very accommodating and understanding when I requested an appointment ASAP for my home. Ali explained his process every step of the way and very thorough in his work. He answered my questions and addressed my areas of concern. The purpose of the duct cleaning was to get rid of a smell coming from the ducts and when it didn't work the first time, Ali was very quick to come back again to make sure I was happy with his services. I am very satisfied with their services and would highly recommend them to others as they are detail oriented as well as ensure their customers are satisfied before their job is complete. Thank you!
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- Company Response
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BOND: In masonry, brick bond describes the various styles of laying bricks to create different patterns. The bond is the method by which masonry "units" -- or bricks -- are interlocked or joined and the adhesion of mortar to the bricks. (By Lisa Hallett Taylor, About.com Guide)
MASONRY: Pronunciation: This word is pronounced "MAY-SON-REE" - only 3 syllables. If you say 'may-son-air-ee' (4 syllables) in my presence, I reserve the right to torment you mercilessly. Go ahead, say these out loud to yourself so you are sure of the difference.
LULL: A commonly used term for a telescoping boom forklift. "Lull" is the proprietary name for a piece of JLG equipment.
Articulating Manlift Comparison (Overly-Simplistic Words-Only Format)
An articulating manlift goes up and down and the base rotates - whoop-de-doo.
An articulating manlift with a jib goes up and down, the base rotates, and the people bucket can move left and right independently of the up and down articulating arm - WOOOO-HOOOOO! This makes one's life much easier, safer, and work much more accessable.
Easier accessability means more productivity, quicker work, and a lot less cussing!


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Jacob Liberman, O.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Jacob Liberman is a pioneer in the fields of light, vision, and consciousness, and author of Light: Medicine of the Future, Take Off Your Glasses and See, and Wisdom from an Empty Mind. He earned a Doctorate of Optometry in 1973, Ph.D. in Vision Science in 1986 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science in 1996. Dr. Liberman is the inventor of several light therapy devices and the only FDA-cleared medical device that significantly improves overall visual performance. He is the founder of Exercise Your Eyes, Inc. and EYELIGHT, and president of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine.
Lectures for the 2014 Cruise
Keynote Lecture: The Eyes Are the Windows of the Soul
Most people know that light interacts with the eyes, resulting in vision, but few are aware that light entering the eyes also directs our physiology so that each cell orchestrates its internal function and synchronizes itself with Mother Nature. The eyes are truly the windows of the soul, mediating the profound effect of light on our physical health, emotional wellbeing and ability to see, learn and perform at our maximum potential. For the past 40 years I have utilized light therapy and vision training with thousands of individuals. Because our eyes guide every step we take, changing our vision can change our lives.
Lecture: The Healing Power of Color
Experience the power of color and learn how it can transform our lives. Our response to color is as unique as our fingerprint. Colors we like are related to aspects of life we feel most comfortable with. Colors we dislike are related to experiences we are not yet able to embrace—aspects of life we have kept in the dark. As we become comfortable with colors we once disliked, awareness expands, health improves and we gradually disconnect from emotional issues that trigger stress in our lives. As we embrace the full spectrum of LIGHT, we embrace the full spectrum of LIFE.
Lecture: Training Exercises to Improve Vision
Thirty-eight years ago, after years of wearing glasses, my vision cleared—instantaneously changing my life. I discovered that vision is not the same as eyesight, and that vision training can allow us to see in a whole new way. Inefficient vision results in inefficient attention, reading and learning. Keeping your eye on the ball can make the difference between an average performance and an exceptional one. Whether you wear glasses or not, training your eyes can give you the winning edge in all aspects of your life. Discover your visual potential. Exercise your eyes and see.


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Commercial properties to let in Acharacle
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The subjects comprise a mid terraced brick built retail warehouse unit arranged over ground and first floors. Internally, the premises comprise a main showroom area to the ground floor with ... read more
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Mace Store & Post Office, 3 Station Road, Kyle Of Lochalsh IV40
Description The Mace Shop and Post Office within the village of Kyle of Lochalsh is a single storey modern property in a prominent roadside trading location. Built in the late 1970s this open ... read more
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Well-situated in the thriving business area of Glengallan Industrial Estate, Oban within a fully-established premises, the office space to let consists of a suite of four offices. In ... read more
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The subjects comprise double fronted retail accommodation arranged over ground floor only. Internally the premises comprise a main retail sales floor in addition to staff/stock room space, ... read more
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Second Floor Office Suites, Unit 5/5A, Mallaig Industrial ...
Suites from 120 . Situated within popular industrial estate canteen facilities available rental: On application flexible lease terms The offices are located on the northern edge of Mallaig ... read more
Light industrial to let
Units 1 & 2, Site 3, Annat Point Industrial Estate, Fort ...
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Prominent Commercial Development Site, Carr's Corner, Fort ...
Suitable for hotel, industrial, business, roadside uses total area: 8 ha / 19.8 acres or thereby lease options available prominent site on A82 trunk road available as whole or smaller lots ... read more
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Waverley House, High Street, Fort William PH33
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3-5 High Street, Fort William PH33
Guide price: On application total gia: 14,650 or thereby prominent building located centrally in fort william potential conversion to residential subject to necessary consents read more


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The quarterback recruiting dominoes appear to be falling for USC. Tuesday one target, Garrett Shrader of Charlotte, committed to Mississippi State. Wednesday, according to a source with knowledge of his plans. Ryan Hilinski plans to announce his college commitment. Like Shrader, Hilinski is coming off a weekend visit with the Gamecocks.
According to the source, Hilinski plans to announce his decision on Twitter at 5:00 PM Eastern Time. Georgia, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Arizona, Arizona State and Oregon were the other schools on his short list.
But he expressed some strong feelings for the Gamecocks following his visit last weekend.
"I think South Carolina set the bar this past weekend with that visit," Hilinski said. "I use South Carolina as a weighing point. I would say South Carolina is the bar that has been set so far."
On the visit, Hilinski met with university president Dr. Harris Pastides. He also chatted up Marcus Lattimore and Jeri Spurrier.
Part of the decision involved Hilinski's brother who plans to enroll in pre-med at the chosen school, and he met with a representative from USC's medical school on the visit.
Hilinski and his family are on their annual spring break vacation in Hawaii. But this trip had much more meaning than just leisure. It was also a trip to release the ashes of his late brother Ty into the Pacific Ocean.
Hilinski is a highly regarded double threat quarterback who passed for 3767 yards and 33 touchdowns last season.


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RCMP in Surrey are saying thanks to a lengthy investigation a significant amount of drugs and a loaded handgun is off the streets.
Police issued a search warrant on Feb. 13 at a home on 84 Ave. and 154 St in Guildford.
Once in the home, police found drugs, stolen property and a stolen, loaded gun.
Amounts equivalent to:
- 50,000 doses of suspected methamphetamine
- 2,600 doses of suspected heroin,
- 600 doses of suspected marijuana,
- 250 doses of suspected cocaine,
- More than 100 pieces of various stolen and counterfeit identity cards.
- Many items suspected to be from retail theft.
- A loaded semi-automatic Walther PPK pistol — believed to be stolen from a residential break and enter in Chilliwack.
Police says the neighbourhood reported the house a being a problem.
"We're very thankful for the community's assistance on this file," says Cpl. Scotty Schumann. "Residents in this neighbourhood were keenly aware of what was going on in the immediate area and the investigation certainly benefited from their observations. The Surrey RCMP and the community it serves can improve the safety and livability for all residents when they work together to solve the crime."
Officers are continuing the investigation while processing and analyzing all of the exhibits seized. Arrests are expected at a later date.
Anyone with more information about problem properties is asked to contact the Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502.
If you wish to make an anonymous report please contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or www.solvecrime.ca.


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This Saturday: at Wake Forest, Groves Stadium, Winston-Salem, N.C., 1 p.m.
Previous game: The Terrapins' 44-21 loss at North Carolina State looked like the majority of their outings. They fell apart after a promising start and are threatening to become the first Maryland team to lose 10 games in a season. The Wolfpack kept alive its hopes for a sixth straight bowl game by erasing a 7-0 deficit and putting Maryland away by the third period with big plays and by capitalizing on Terps errors. Maryland is 6-26 since 1991. . . . Wake Forest lost to Georgia Tech, 38-28.
Key statistics: The Terps defense allowed N.C. State points on seven of eight possessions after Maryland took its early lead and the offense moved the ball 51 times in four possessions following the opening touchdown. . . . N.C. State gained 540 yards to put Maryland within reach of the NCAA record for yards allowed in a season and reached its 1993 high in scoring. . . . Five Terps turnovers led directly to 13 N.C. State points. . . . Junior-college transfer Allen Williams led Maryland in rushing with 93 yards on 17 carries.


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FIRST FOSSIL in New Zealand's Te Papa
5000 years ago (or he is a trickster god who buries fake fossils
in order to have fun with atheists!) -- is held in New Zealand
Listen to this talk, and hear the Authority brag about it!!
4. Age of The Earth: The Victorians
How is the age of a rock or a fossil determined? The answer has much to do with the amazing discoveries of Lord Rutherford and Albert Einstein. Thanks to the amazing intellect of these scientists and their Victorian colleagues, humanity discovered how to decipher Earth's history. No longer could rock be perceived as dusty, boring, hard grey matter and geologists as quaint nutters with hammers. Rocks, minerals and fossils are the memory banks of our planet.
Hamish Campbell will discuss a number of exciting earth science research projects: the age of New Zealand's oldest rocks, the origin of New Zealand's oldest sedimentary rocks, the age of the New Zealand land surface, the age of the Chatham Islands, the characterisation of New Zealand nephrite (pounamu) on the basis of age, and not least, the age of the Earth itself.
Dr Hamish Campbell, Geological and Nuclear Sciences/Te Papa.
(duration: 48.27.)
Download mp3:
(join the two lines)
Gideon Algernon Mantell MRCS FRS (Lewes, 3 February 1790 . London, 10 November 1852) was an English obstetrician, geologist and palaeontologist. His attempts to reconstruct the structure and life of Iguanodon began the scientific study of dinosaurs: in 1822 he was responsible for the discovery (and the eventual identification) of the first fossil teeth, and later much of the skeleton, of Iguanodon. Mantell's work on the Cretaceous of southern England was also important.
Mantell was born in Lewes, Sussex as the fifth-born child of Thomas Mantell, a shoemaker,[1] and Sarah Austen.[2] He was raised in a small cottage in St. Mary's Lane with his two sisters and four brothers. As a youth, he showed a particular interest in the field of geology. He explored pits and quarries in the surrounding areas, discovering ammonites, shells of sea urchins, fish bones, coral, and worn-out remains of dead animals.[3] The Mantell children could not study at local grammar schools because the elder Mantell was a follower of the Methodist church and the 12 free schools were reserved for only those who had been brought up in the Anglican faith. As a result, Gideon was educated at a dame school in St. Mary's Lane, and learned basic reading and writing from an old woman. After the death of his teacher, Mantell was schooled by John Button, a philosophically radical Whig who shared similar political beliefs with Mantell's father.[4] Mantell spent two years with Button, before being sent to his uncle, a Baptist minister, in Swindon, for a period of private study.
Mantell returned to Lewes at age 15. With the help of a local Whig party leader, Mantell secured an apprenticeship with a local surgeon named James Moore.[5] He served as an apprentice to Moore in Lewes for a period of five years, in which he took care of Mantell's dining, lodging and medical issues. Mantell's early apprenticeship duties included cleaning vials, as well as separating and arranging drugs. Soon, he learned how to make pills and other pharmaceutical products. He delivered Moore's medicines, kept his accounts, wrote out bills and extracted teeth from his patients.[6] On July 11, 1807, Thomas Mantell died at the age of 57.[7] He willed his son with some money for his future studies.[8] As his time with the apprenticeship began to wind down, he began to anticipate his medical education. He began to teach himself human anatomy, and he ultimately detailed his new-found knowledge in a volume entitled The Anatomy of the Bones, and the Circulation of Blood, which contained dozens of detailed drawings of fetal and adult skeletal features.[6] Soon, Mantell began his formal medical education in London. He received his diploma as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1811.[9] Four days later, he received a certificate from the Lying-in Charity for Married Women at Their Own Habitations that allowed him to act in midwifery duties.
Inspired by Mary Anning's sensational discovery of a fossilised animal resembling a huge crocodile (later identified as an ichthyosaur) at Lyme Regis in Dorset, Mantell became passionately interested in the study of the fossilised animals and plants found in his area. The fossils he had collected from the region, known as The Weald in Sussex, were from the chalk downlands covering the county. The chalk is part of the Upper Cretaceous Period and the fossils it contains are marine in origin. But by 1819, Mantell had begun acquiring fossils from a quarry, at Whitemans Green, near Cuckfield. These included the remains of terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, at a time when all the known fossil remains from Cretaceous England, hitherto, were marine in origin. He named the new strata the Strata of Tilgate Forest, after an historical wooded area and it was later shown to belong to the Lower Cretaceous.
By 1820, he had started to find very large bones at Cuckfield, even larger than those discovered by William Buckland, at Stonesfield in Oxfordshire. Then, in 1822, shortly before finishing his first book (The Fossils of South Downs), his wife found several large teeth (although some historians contend that they were in fact discovered by himself), the origin of which he could not identify. In 1821 Mantell planned his next book on the geology of Sussex. It was an immediate success with two hundred subscribers including a letter from king George IV at Carlton house palace which read "His majesty is pleased to command that his name should be placed at the head of the subscription list for four copies."
How the king heard of Mantell is unknown, but Mantell's response is. Galvanised and encouraged, Mantell showed the teeth to other scientists but they were dismissed as belonging to a fish or mammal and from a more recent rock layer than the other Tilgate Forest fossils. The eminent French anatomist, Georges Cuvier, identified the teeth as those of a rhinoceros.
Although according to Charles Lyell, Cuvier made this statement after a late party and apparently had some doubts when reconsidering the matter when he awoke, fresh in the morning. "The next morning he told me that he was confident that it was something quite different." Strangely, this change of opinion did not make it back to Britain where Mantell was mocked for his error. Mantell was still convinced that the teeth had come from the Mesozoic strata and finally recognized that they resembled those of the iguana, but were twenty times larger. He surmised that the owner of the remains must have been at least 60 feet (18 metres) in length.
He tried in vain to convince his peers that the fossils were from Mesozoic strata, by carefully studying rock layers. William Buckland famously disputed Mantell's assertion, by claiming that the teeth were of fish.
When it was proved Mantell was correct the only question was what to call his new reptile. His original name was "Iguana-saurus" but he then received a letter from William Daniel Conybeare, "Your discovery of the analogy between the Iguana and the fossil teeth is very interesting but the name you propose will hardly do, because it is equally applicable to the recent iguana. Iguanoides or Iguanodon would be better." Mantell took this advice to heart and called his creature Iguanodon.
Years later, Mantell had acquired enough fossil evidence to show that the dinosaur's forelimbs were much shorter than its hind legs, therefore proving they were not built like a mammal as claimed by Sir Richard Owen. Mantell went on to demonstrate that fossil vertebrae, which Owen had attributed to a variety of different species, all belonged to Iguanodon. He also named a new genus of dinosaur called Hylaeosaurus and as a result became an authority on prehistoric reptiles.
In 1833, Mantell relocated to Brighton but his medical practice suffered. He was almost rendered destitute, but for the town's council who promptly transformed his house into a museum. The museum in Brighton ultimately failed as a result of Mantell's habit of waiving the entrance fee. Finally destitute, Mantell offered to sell the entire collection to the British Museum, in 1838, for £5,000, accepting the counter-offer of £4,000. He moved to Clapham Common in South London, where he continued his work as a doctor.
Mary Mantell left her husband in 1839. That same year, Gideon's son Walter emigrated to New Zealand. Walter later sent his father some important fossils from New Zealand. Gideon's daughter, Hannah, died in 1840.
In 1852, Mantell took an overdose of opium and later lapsed into a coma. He died that afternoon. His post-mortem showed that he had been suffering from scoliosis. Richard Owen, his long-time nemesis, had a section of Mantell's spine removed, pickled and stored on a shelf at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It remained there until 1969 when it was destroyed due to lack of space [15].
Mantell's surgery, on the south side of Clapham Common, is now a dental surgery.Stumble It!


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CSA Board - Directors at LargeWinter 2001 CSANews Issue 41 | Posted date : Apr 03, 2007.Back to list
On January 30, 2002, the Canadian Snowbird Association's acclaimed nominated slate will be inaugurated as its Board of Directors for the 2002-2004. The ceremony will take place at the Canadian Snowbird Association's Annual General Meeting, at the Lakeland Centre, Lakeland, Florida. All CSA members are invited to attend and meet the new Board.
Pic 1:
Jacques André Gratton
Pic 2:
Michael A. Wedekind BA, LLB
Pic 3:
Harley Sundbo B Ed, M Ed
Pic 4:
Jack Mann
Pic 5:
Lewis Kehoe
Pic 6:
Peter Sloggett C.A.
British Columbia/Arizona


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Baby Hazel Pharmacist Dressup
1/5 based on ratings
Baby Hazel Pharmacist Dressup
Date added: 2017-05-28
Tags:Baby kid hazel pharmacist Dress
Baby Hazel Pharmacist Dressup
It is not the first time that Baby Hazel has come up with an idea that has surprised everyone. The little girl who loves to do things that come to her mind has decided to get dressed up as a Pharmacist. You can see that she has spent a lot of money shopping. Thankfully, she now has a very lavish collection of outfits and accessories that we a Pharmacist would wear. The little girl is a bit confused though. She will be very happy if you could spare some time for her and get her dressed up in the best possible way.
How to play:
Use the mouse to interact.
Game Submitter:Sandip
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More games you may like...


text:
Moonwalk, Zillertal - Austria
Wade across the river
in an unexplored region by climbers
Spring bouldering
Rock Climbing
In the Lusatian Mountains
limestone climbing
Bouldering area in the Czech Republic
Labak = the best climbing area in the world!
Sport sandstone area in the North Bohemia
Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.
Jakub "Miki" Mฤkota
E-mail: email@example.com
Skype: jakub.mekota
Clanky (RSS)
a Komentare (RSS).


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birthday cardsMarch 22, 2007 at 2:25 pm | Posted in Projects, Simply Scrappin' Kits, Stamp Set- Dotted, Stamp Set- Eat Cake, Stamp Sets, Stampin' Up! | Comments Off on birthday cards
My brother and his wife came for a weekend visit. My brother's birthday just passed, and my sister-in-law's birthday is coming up.
For both of their birthday cards, I used layouts that I've recently had success with.
This card uses the same idea as a card that I made for my February workshop projects.
Stamp Set: Eat Cake, Dotted background
Paper: Mellow Moss, Night of Navy, Bordering Blue, Whisper White
Ink: Mellow Moss, Night of Navy & Bordering Blue Markers
Accessories: 3/4″, 1 1/4″ & 1 3/8″ Circle Punches, Navy Grosgrain Ribbon, Dimensionals
I somehow lost my photo of my sister-in-law's card closed! Arg! But this is what it looks like when it is open. It uses the same fold as my st. patty's card.
Stamp Set: Sincere Salutations
Ink: Sage Shadow
Paper: Simply Scrappin' Kit- In Full Bloom, Lovely Lilac Cardstock
Accessories: White Grosgrain Ribbon, Dimensionals
Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.


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Intelligent Software Solutions in Spectrum Management and Spectrum Monitoring
ATDI has been introducing National Spectrum Control main techniques in Beijing on July 2015 to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the State Radio Spectrum Management Center:
1. The State Radio Monitoring Centre (SRMC) – frontal presentations to the management and engineering team in charge of regulation;
2. The State Radio monitoring Testing Center (SRTC) – management team and senior engineers.
Dr Haim Mazar, ATDI expert in Spectrum Regulation and Spectrum Monitoring, vice-chairman of ITU-R Study Group 1 (Spectrum Management) , active in ITU for more than 24 years, has introduced National Spectrum Monitoring, International, Regional and National Regulation of Short Range Devices (SRDs) and RF Human Hazards. Engineer Rubén Perdiz, ATDI expert in Automated Spectrum Management System (ASMS) project management, has introduced Intelligent Software Solutions in Spectrum Management and Monitoring. Considering the environment in Chinese cities, due to the huge population, Dr Haim Mazar has been requested by Dr Song Qizhu (Director General of the SRTC) to assist them to solve RF interference issues in Beijing.
ATDI has been also invited to the 3rd International Symposium on "Radio Monitoring Technology and Its Application", held by the Xihua University in Chengdu, Sichuan, chaired by Mr XIE Feibo, Director General of the Bureau of Radio Regulation of the MIIT. Dr. Mazar has introduced National Spectrum Monitoring:
Spectrum Management and Monitoring – New Technologies. ATDI has introduced its flagship RF planning, Spectrum Engineering and Optimization software, ICS telecom.
More about MIIT, SRRC, SRTC, Xihua University


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Fun Water Games
Arizona's Park & Co.'s website is all about water conservation. They also have a webpage filled with games and fun information.
Tip Tank is a fun concentration game that lets you match photographs of water saving devices with each other. I played it over my morning (fair trade and sustainable) coffee and found it about the right level of challenge.
The Water Wisdom and Games pdf is a 2 page layout. It starts with a water usage quiz about how much water you'd save if you use the items in the Tip Tank game. Then you have a word search and a coloring page.
Under the Games & Links heading, the H2OUSE game offers a virtual ton of information about saving water at home. As well, there are 4 other games to explore.


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Waltz with Bashir
Director: Ari Folman
Year: 2008
Country:Israel, France, Germany, USA, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia
Length: 90 min
Language: Hebrew, Arabic, German with English subtitles
One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there's a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can't remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images.


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Technical Architect
- Recruiter
- Stride
- Location
- London (Greater)
- Salary
- £34,000 - £42,000 (depending on experience)
- Posted
- 01 Feb 2018
- Closes
- 29 Mar 2018
- Ref
- Job Function
- Architect, BIM, CAD / 3D Visualiser, Part III, Project Architect
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full Time
Stride are working in partnership with a well established and unique architectural practice who specialise in the construction phases of projects. The current requirement is for a qualified Architect with great technical experience to get involved in projects in a wide variety of sectors.
While the practice are specialists in the high end residential sector, they also complete education, healthcare, industrial and retail projects. The practice are ideally looking for somebody with site coordination experience and extensive experience post Stage E.
While the practice are not currently working in BIM, they do have Revit capabilities so somebody with a backing in Revit and BIM would be a bonus to push the practice forward. A backing in AutoCAD is essential.
Apply to Matt on firstname.lastname@example.com


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The Salting Barrel
[intro] This large ceramic barrel, made in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, was used to make and store salted meat and fish. Before fridges and freezers, food was salted, pickled, fermented, dried or smoked to make it last longer than a few days.[/intro]
[details] Many foods we enjoy today, like cheese and ham, were developed as ways of preserving fresh food. Preserving meat by salting was not difficult. A slaughtered animal would be cleaned and cut into roughly equal pieces. These would then be rubbed with salt to draw out the blood, and left for a few hours.
The barrel was scrubbed clean with hot water, and the "brine" (the preserving liquid) was prepared by heating salt and water over a fire to dissolve the salt. Spices, herbs and sugar were sometimes added to improve the flavour. Saltpetre might have been used to help the meat last a long time and keep its colour.
The pieces of meat were packed tightly into the barrel, and hot brine was poured over them until everything was covered. A wooden board on top of the meat made sure that it remained under the liquid's surface, and a wooden cover over the top of the barrel kept out flies, birds or scavenging animals. The barrel would be checked every few days. If it became slimy or smelled bad the brine was changed. In this way, meat could be stored for months without rotting.
When meat was needed for cooking, a piece would be taken out of the barrel. It would be washed, and left for a few hours in clean water before being boiled. Halfway through cooking, the water was changed.
The longer the meat stayed in the barrel, the more salty and tough it became. Spices or sauces were often used to hide the saltiness, while tough meat that had been cooked could be cut into small pieces and used in stews or soup. A lot of the food eaten by the people of the township was salty or smoky, tough and grey!
To read more about how they would have eaten and used meat at Auchindrain click here. [/details]


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Whither Thailand? The end of an Era: Death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej
The death of eighty-eight-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand on October 13, 2016 triggered an immense public outpouring of grief across the nation. Black clothing flew off the shelves, tens of thousands gathered to sing the royal anthem in his memory, and the prime minister declared one year of official mourning. This unprecedented show of mass sorrow is a testament to the unique position of King Bhumibol, whose influence extended far beyond the few powers formally delegated to him. Throughout his exceptional seventy-year reign, he was a beacon of stability in the fractious world of Thai politics.
King Bhumibol was a constitutional monarch with no official authority over daily governance, yet he built a strong rapport with the Thai people because of his extensive travels throughout the country and his support for rural development projects. Two Thai students at the University of Chicago, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Gate, "Stories of the King's projects, such as projects to improve irrigation, and his economic philosophy of self-reliance, are very popular in science and social science classes in elementary school." They added that the majority of Thais "love or respect the king; there is very little opposition to him, and the grief is genuine." It was this widespread public affection and respect that enabled King Bhumibol to intervene extensively in Thai politics throughout his lengthy reign.
Since it established a constitutional monarchy in 1932, Thailand has oscillated between periods of democracy and military rule, but no government has survived without being endorsed by King Bhumibol. In both 1981 and 1985, coups by factions of the military opposed to the government of General Prem Tinsulanonda collapsed after the king announced his support for Prem. On the other hand, the king endorsed a military coup in 2006 that successfully ousted the elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin was a populist with a fiercely loyal following among the rural poor, yet even with this popular support, he was unable to maintain power without the king's support. Most recently, in 2014, the king's endorsement facilitated the success of a military coup that suspended democratic rule and established the military junta that still governs Thailand today.
King Bhumibol's informal authority allowed him to wield tremendous influence as the final arbiter in Thai politics, and his actions could singlehandedly shift Thailand's political direction. This power led to the development of a symbiotic relationship between the military and the monarchy. On the one hand, the military needed the king's blessing to maintain power and to consolidate popular support for its political maneuverings. In return for this support, the king relied on the military to safeguard his interests, allowing him to maintain his image as someone who was "above politics." This dynamic was best illustrated by the events of October 1976, which came after three years of weak and unstable democratic governments. Faced with a rising Communist insurgency that directly threatened the existence of the monarchy, King Bhumibol endorsed the military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected government by appointing a palace favorite as the new prime minister, and he did not intervene to stop a military-led attack on thousands of students demonstrating against the return of a former military dictator. Since then, a biographer of the king, Paul Handley, has alleged that Bhumibol "gave up … on the idea of Western democracy," which perhaps explains why the king chose to side with the elite in Thailand's political struggles after 2006.
Now, the recent passing of King Bhumibol threatens the long established order in Thai politics. The monarchy's outsized influence in politics was possible only because of widespread public reverence for and deference to King Bhumibol, who cultivated the image of a devoted, hardworking, and moral monarch. The same cannot be said of his designated successor, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn. The crown prince is a playboy who has cycled through multiple wives and mistresses since the 1970s, when, according to Handley, he had his first illegitimate child with a "nightclub girl and aspiring actress." He has spent much time abroad, and he even decorated his pet dog, Foo Foo, with the rank of Air Chief Marshal. As one Thai student said, "You can find many portraits of King Bhumibol, Queen Sirikit, or their daughter, Princess Sirindhorn, throughout Thailand, but not the crown prince. People gossip about him in Bangkok."
In spite of the prince's poor reputation, the current military regime, led by General Prayuth Chan-ocha, has firmly allied itself with the crown prince. Since the King's death, the military has mounted an aggressive campaign against anyone perceived to be denigrating the monarchy using lèse-majesté laws, which punish anyone found insulting the royal family with up to fifteen years in prison. It has also attempted to sanitize the crown prince's image, in one case by installing the prince as the leader of a mass biking event, "Bike for Mum." Thus, even though the crown prince has yet to be officially declared King following his father's death, his succession seems secure.
When the crown prince succeeds to the throne, his lack of moral authority will likely weaken the monarchy's political influence. The succession comes after a decade-long political struggle between the traditional elite based in Bangkok and the pro-Thaksin populists, who derive their support from Thais in the politically disempowered north and northeast areas. While King Bhumibol's decision to side with the elite in this struggle went unquestioned because of his enormous moral authority in Thailand, the same may not be true of the less popular crown prince, should he choose to intervene in this political struggle. As Tom Ginsburg, professor of law and political science at the University of Chicago, told the Gate, "[the crown prince] will have to be much more cautious and will be much less effective." He added, "There is likely to be a vacuum in Thai politics." In light of this, it is reasonable to expect that the tensions between the pro-Thaksin populists and the traditional elite will rise considerably in the coming years.
These new dynamics between the monarchy, the military, and competing factions within Thai society will have broad implications for the political landscape of Thailand. First, the return of democracy, which was due to take place with general elections scheduled for next year, may be delayed, as the current military junta could justify remaining in power for a longer period in order to ensure a stable, complete, and unchallenged succession. This is not inconceivable, given that it has been suggested that the 2014 coup was orchestrated to ensure political stability during the succession. In the long run, uncertainty in Thai politics is likely to increase without King Bhumibol. Ginsburg credited Bhumibol's influence for reducing "the variance of regime quality" and ensuring that regimes remained either mildly authoritarian or mildly democratic. With the king dead, it is doubtful whether this will continue to be the case. Thailand remains a deeply divided society, and even if the military successfully emasculates its political opponents and consolidates power in the short run, the rising middle class and a large body of rural voters may eventually lose patience with political arrangements that place the old elite and the military firmly at its centre. This can be summed up in a phrase quoted by one of the Thai students, which originated during the popular uprising of 1973 that ended a long period of military rule: "Even in dark times, when guns are used to rule over man, mankind will still be its own master."
Given these circumstances, the power and influence of the monarchy is likely to diminish if not disappear entirely. Ginsburg speculates that the survival of the monarchy will be an "open question" for the next decade. King Bhumibol himself told the BBC in a 1979 documentary that "it is not for me to say" whether the Thai monarchy should continue to exist. Without the vigorous support of the people, it is unclear what forces in Thai society will maintain the monarchy, and the controversies surrounding the crown prince make it conceivable that the people may one day soon decide that the country no longer needs an unelected royal as the head of state.
The image featured in this article is licensed under Creative Commons. The original image can be found here.


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SAN MATEO (06/12/2000) - Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced that it is rewriting its licensing terms for server applications in an effort to broaden the products' appeal among Internet users.
The new licensing model, which will charge customers on a per-processor basis, will take effect with the next release of Microsoft's servers except for Exchange 2000, which is keeping its existing pricing model. Microsoft in the past has charged customers on a per-user basis.
"It's difficult to understand Microsoft licensing policies, and to comply with them can be a real pain," said Barry Goffe, a group product manager for SQL Server. "For example, the Internet connector licenses are different between SQL Server and Commerce Server."
Competitors IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp. introduced per-processor licensing last year, Goffe pointed out, and Microsoft customers urged the Redmond, Washington company to take a similar approach.
The move also makes sense as customers look to conduct more business on the Web, and Microsoft aims to facilitate that move with its Windows DNA 2000 line of technologies. Those products include SQL Server 2000, Host Integration Server 2000, BizTalk Server 2000, Commerce Server 2000, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000, and Application Center 2000.
"Our licensing model doesn't work for Internet applications," Goffe said.
Most small and midsize businesses won't see much of a change in the overall cost of the server applications, Goffe said, but larger companies would end up spending more money implementing SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition.
Microsoft Corp., in Redmond, Washington, is at www.microsoft.com.


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American Bandstand
Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n' Roll Empire
By JOHN A. JACKSON
Oxford University Press
Read the Review
After almost forty years in show business and broadcasting Jack Steck, program director at WFIL-TV in Philadelphia, thought he had seen everything. Summoned to the office of general manager Roger W. Clipp one afternoon in 1952, Steck arrived in the boss's lair and was greeted by Clipp and "this good-looking kid."
"I know this boy's father," said Clipp. "Audition him and tell me if we ought to hire him."
It was not out of the ordinary for Steck to conduct a job audition at WFIL, so he barely gave a thought to Dick Clark as he escorted the twenty-two-year-old prospect into the program director's office and handed him the usual assortment of tongue-twisting material he used to audition would-be announcers. Steck then showed Clark into a studio and said, "Look them over, son. I'll come back in fifteen minutes to listen to you."
Clark, who was then employed by a small television station in upstate New York, said in 1994 that the WFIL position "was the biggest one" of the three job offers he had at the time, and was the one he wanted so badly that he literally had something up his sleeve to help land it. "God, if I could jump from Utica, New York to Philadelphia, that'll be amazing," he thought to himself.
Steck, who began his show business career on the vaudeville circuit ("some of my best friends said I helped kill it") as a dancer, comic, and an emcee, did not expect to hear anything out of the ordinary when he returned to give the dapper job applicant a listen. At that point, Dick Clark was just another pretty face to the veteran program director, who sat with arms folded and head down. "I didn't want to look at him," recalled Steck. "I needed a man for radio and I didn't want to be influenced by his appearance. I wanted a voice!"
Steck had just begun to concentrate on Clark's delivery when he was interrupted by the engineer on duty, who said, "Hey Stecky, look at this kid!" Steck raised his head and observed Clark standing in front of the microphone, "with no notes in his hands, no papers, doing the commercials word-for-word, introducing the music, the sports, doing the whole thing."
"How the hell's he doing this?" wondered the program director. "Has he got a photographic memory?"
What Clark had was "Elmer," a Webcor wire recorder that was hidden from Steck's view. In one of Clark's ears was a tiny earphone connected to the recorder by a wire concealed under his clothing. As he surreptitiously listened to the recording he had just made of Steck's audition material, the young announcer repeated it for the program director without so much as a glance at the script.
It did not take Steck long to discover Clark's wire recorder and earpiece, and when he did he was impressed, not so much by Clark's ingenuity, but by the fact that he was able to repeat the playback without a faraway concentrated look in his eye. "He had mastered that thing!" recalled Steck, who fired off a memo to Roger Clipp: "In spite of his university education, this is a smart kid. Let's hire him."
* * *
Whether Clark would have landed the WFIL announcer's position without the assistance of Elmer will never be known, although the subsequent course of his career indicates that to think otherwise would be foolhardy. In order to display greater broadcasting skill than he then possessed, Clark relied on his hidden tape recorder for assistance, making himself out to be something greater than he actually was. But after being hired by WFIL and embarking upon his quest to become a twenty-something millionaire, Clark adopted a new, self-effacing tack, portraying himself as something less than he actually was. Despite his introduction to America as a benign television host, when it came to advancing himself, Clark was more akin to a wolf in sheep's clothing--a sharply focused self-promoter and cunning businessman who went to great lengths to contrive his public image.
As Jack Steck observed that fateful day in 1952, there was more to Dick Clark than met the eye.
* * *
Richard Wagstaff Clark was born on November 30,1929, the second son of Richard Augustus and Julia Barnard Clark, in the tiny village of Bronxville, a corporate executive haven of turn-of-the-century homes, located just north of New York City. Although Dick Clark was not born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, his father's position as sales manager for a New York-based cosmetics firm ensured that young Dickie, as he was called, would enjoy a comfortable, if isolated, childhood.
In 1933 the Clarks moved to the affluent Westchester bedroom community of Mt. Vernon, just south of Bronxville, where they leased a garden apartment adjacent to spacious grounds where Dickie and his brother Bradley could romp freely. The younger Clark brother, a frenetic, contentious nail-biter of a child, idolized Brad, who was five years his elder, and in later years would describe him as a "quiet, very loving, wonderful guy ... everything I wasn't."
Noted dancer Kathryn Murray was a neighbor of the Clarks and sometimes baby-sat for Dickie. Mrs. Murray remembered him as "the sassiest baby, always busy, always into something." But despite Dick's cantankerousness, the Clark brothers developed a tight bond. Brad "lugged Dick around everywhere and was so patient with him," Julia Clark told a reporter for the New York Post in 1958.
By the time Dick became a teenager, the personable, good-looking, and star athlete Brad was a Big Man on Campus at Mt. Vernon's A.B. Davis High. Meanwhile, Dick, who envisioned himself as "peculiar looking and generally odd," was handicapped by a severe inferiority complex. Not even his election as junior class president helped overcome any shortcoming Dick felt from being overshadowed by his revered older brother.
Brad graduated from Davis High in 1943, and, as World War II raged, he applied and was selected for a coveted spot in the army air corp' pilot training program. The realities of war were overshadowed by what Brad saw as a golden opportunity to learn to fly at the government's expense, and he elatedly shared his good fortune with his thirteen-year-old brother. But Dick did not share Brad's enthusiasm. "I sat on the bed in the room we shared and I sulked," wrote Clark in his autobiography, Rock, Roll & Remember. "It was like he was deliberately deserting me."
By the time Dick entered Davis High in September 1943, Brad was flying P-47 fighter missions over Europe. Cowed by the school's labyrinth of corridors crowded with upperclassmen who appeared to be a million years older than they actually were, Dick Clark's greatest fear was about to be realized.
A few days after Christmas, 1944, the Clark family received the devastating news that Brad had been shot down and killed during the Battle of the Bulge in Germany. The death of the older brother he idolized has had a profound effect on Clark, who each year finds it more difficult to comprehend that Brad died before reaching the age of twenty-one. "My children are all older than this man I visualize as my big brother," he told Ralph Emery in 1992.
Debilitated by his grief, Clark embarked on a mad spree to become the equal of his dead brother. He headed for the football field where Brad had starred as a first-string tackle. But the 120-pound novice quickly discovered that aside from being a tackling dummy he was not much use to the team. He tried other sports at which Brad had excelled, but failed to make the swimming and track squads as well.
Frustrated by his athletic failure, Clark retreated to his bedroom, turned on the radio, and sought refuge in what he called "the disembodied fantasy world that came out of the speaker." He had recently discovered what he termed "the magic world of radio" when, at age thirteen, his parents took him to New York City to see a live broadcast of the Jimmy Durante--Garry Moore radio program. Captivated by the performances of the radio personalities as well as by the behind-the-scenes activity in the control room, Clark told his mother, "That's what I want to do."
Clark was able to break the shackles of insecurity through his participation in the high school drama club, which his parents encouraged him to join. Clark's dramatics teacher recalled that because of his emotional performance in the senior class play, "there wasn't a dry eye in the house." Clark gave serious thought to becoming an actor, but his father--who once harbored those same youthful aspirations--dissuaded his son from the pursuit of what he viewed as a capricious facet of show business.
By the time Clark was ready to graduate from high school, vestiges of his future were evident. He gave great consideration to the pursuit of a radio career, and was deemed by his premonitory peers to be "The Man Most Likely to Sell the Brooklyn Bridge."
In the spring of 1947, just prior to Clark's graduation from high school, his family moved from Mt. Vernon to Utica, a small city located in the rolling hills of central upstate New York. Clark's uncle Bradley Barnard lived nearby in the city of Rome, where he owned the local Sentinel newspaper and the ABC-affiliated, Utica-based radio station WRUN. Aware of his brother-in-law's sales and promotion savvy, Barnard asked Dick Clark's father if he was interested in making a career change.
After twenty-six years, Richard Augustus Clark and his wife had had enough of the cosmetics business rat race and longed to return to their upstate roots. In addition, the elder Clark, who was aware of Dick's interest in a radio career, realized that a move to WRUN would enhance his son's broadcasting opportunities. So it was that when Barnard offered his brother-in-law the opportunity to become the station's first promotional manager, Richard Clark accepted.
When it came time for Dick Clark to apply to college his first choice was Yale, but Clark's grades were not up to Ivy League snuff. Rejected by Yale, he opted for nearby Syracuse University, his father's alma mater.
With Bradley Barnard's approval, Richard Clark hired his son Dick as a summer replacement at WRUN, where the college-bound student worked in the mailroom, ran the office mimeograph machine, and longingly eyed the broadcasting microphone. Dick's initial broadcasting opportunity came when he was assigned to read hourly weather forecasts for a vacationing FM announcer. Although Clark admitted he was buried at WRUN, "about as deep as they could bury someone without experience," it was of little concern. He was on the air, and the following morning he rigged up a home antenna so his mother could hear his voice on the radio.
Clark entered Syracuse University in the fall of 1947 as an advertising major with a minor in radio. Although he was required to concentrate on his major area of study, Clark was not deterred from seeking out WEAR-FM, the campus radio station known as Radio House. After auditioning for Radio House student manager Jerry Landay, Clark joined the WEAR staff as a disc jockey and newscaster. But the would-be announcer was already looking beyond the microphone. In 1987 Clark revealed that he "never fully intended to make radio announcing a lifetime pursuit," and that as early as his WEAR days he was eyeing the business aspects of broadcasting.
Clark worked at the campus radio station during his four years at college, and in January 1951--during his last semester before graduation--he landed a weekend job at WOLF-AM (1490hz), a tiny 250-watt station in downtown Syracuse. In less than a month he was working a full forty-hour week at WOLF, in addition to completing his studies at Syracuse University. From WOLF's Onondaga Hotel studios Clark announced the news and hosted a show called The WOLF Buckaroos, on which he spun country records by the likes of Gene Autry, Eddie Arnold, and Roy Rogers. After graduating from Syracuse that May with a B.S. degree in business administration, Clark stayed on at WOLF, where he earned a dollar an hour.
It was the wish of Richard Clark, then the communications-sales manager at WRUN, that his son eventually succeed him in that position. That June, Dick Clark quit WOLF and returned to Utica and a summer replacement job at the station where his father worked, but the younger Clark, who had moved back in with his parents at their home, was no longer comfortable working in his father's shadow. It seemed that whatever he accomplished, someone stood ready to credit the feat to his father's influence. "I was working too hard to prove myself to get put down like that," said Clark.
Determined to make his own mark, Clark left WRUN in the fall of 1951. To punctuate his emergence from his father's shadow, he changed his name to "Dick Clay." Clark was certain the name change hurt both his parents, and he even confessed to his own dislike of the moniker. But he kept it.
With his new name, "Dick Clay" went looking for a new job. He auditioned for a newscasting position at Utica-Rome's WKTV, where he was hired by the general manager, who had come to know Clark's father. It was while Clark was employed at WKTV that he was taken aback by fellow newscaster Bob Earle, who, rather than rely on a hand-held script to deliver the news, stared directly into the camera and did the entire newscast--up to fifteen minutes at a stretch--as if he had it memorized. Unable to contain his curiosity, Clark asked Earle how he was able to manage the feat, and Earle shared with him the secret of "Elmer," his wire recorder.
As impressed as Clark was, he set out to one-up Bob Earle. After purchasing his own Webcor wire recorder Clark devised a system that incorporated a foot pedal, which enabled him to start and stop the tape whenever he chose and then move about freely in front of the TV cameras. When Clark was not working he spent many hours secreted away at WRUN's radio studio, where, out of sight of his WKTV colleagues, he practiced his tape-recorded delivery. WRUN's Al Cole recalled that after Clark began doing televised news commentary on WKTV, "Utica teenagers suddenly became very interested in current events."
Clark's chores at WKTV also included playing Cactus Dick, the host of the television station's country and western music show, Cactus Dick and the Santa Fe Riders. Besides serving as the show's announcer, Clark did some singing. "Badly," he confessed to Ralph Emery in 1992. "They used to make fun of me."
Clark, who now earned $52.50 a week and was the proud owner of a 1941 Oldsmobile sedan, began to be courted by Syracuse's WHEN-TV. WKTV general manager Michael Fusco promptly upped Cactus Dick's salary to $75 a week, which kept his budding star from jumping to WHEN, but, salary increase or not, after less than a year, "Dick Clay" had grown too big for Utica. When he told his father he was ready to move on to a larger city, Richard Clark, knowing exactly who to contact, telephoned a colleague in Philadelphia whom he had befriended through ABC's executive channels. (WRUN was an ABC affiliate.) It was that call to WFIL's Roger Clipp that led to Dick Clark's audition with Jack Steck.
After Clark was hired by WFIL Steck offered him a summer replacement slot on the station's FM band, but not before the veteran program director, who envisioned the coming age of television, admonished the young announcer that he was crazy to even consider returning to radio--particularly FM radio, which was then considered a broadcasting graveyard. After his TV experience in Utica, Clark was not at all certain he wanted to return to radio. A job offer he had recently received from a television station in Schenectady, New York only served to complicate matters. But Schenectady was no larger than Utica, while Philadelphia was a major city where Clark knew he would attract more attention. Philadelphia was also closer to New York, an important consideration for a young man on the move who still considered himself a New Yorker. "After all," said Philadelphia's newest announcer as he bid farewell to Utica, "WFIL has a TV station, too."
Dick Clark may have glided into broadcasting on his father's coattails, but the innuendos that linked Clark's advancement to being the boss's son understandably rankled him. His initial broadcasting success was due at least as much to his considerable professional aplomb as it was to his father's broadcasting connections. Nevertheless, Clark was once again beholden to his father. But what mattered most to the young announcer was that he would now be heard in Philadelphia, a city whose three-and-one-half-million potential listeners--a far cry from Utica's one hundred thousand--made it the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Clark began work at WFIL on May 13, 1952.
One of the country's oldest commercial broadcasters, WFIL was founded as WFI in 1922, became an affiliate of the fledgling American Broadcasting Company in 1943, and was purchased in 1945 by Triangle Publications Inc., a blossoming communications empire owned by Walter Annenberg, the wealthy son of a publishing magnate. In 1947 Annenberg established WFIL-TV, which was Philadelphia's first commercial TV station. WFIL-TV not only became ABC-TV's initial affiliate, it quickly developed into that network's key TV outlet outside New York City.
Forty-eight-year-old Roger W. Clipp, who ran WFIL for Walter Annenberg, was the quintessence of the obdurate organization man, and then some. After earning a degree from the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton School of Business, Clipp had embarked upon a banking career cut short by the stock market crash of 1929. Clipp received his baptism into the backroom world of broadcasting via a stint as an NBC accountant before advancing to assistant manager of NBC's owned-and-operated stations. He became WFIL's business manager in 1935, after which he methodically climbed the station's executive ladder until he oversaw WFIL's entire operation as its general manager.
Clipp "was a very unreasonable, temperamental man ... very cruel and pretty vicious," said Jack Steck, who recalled the time a young announcer committed a mispronunciation gaffe on the air just before Christmas and was summarily dismissed by Clipp. Many on the WFIL staff grudgingly characterized Clipp as "a son-of-a-bitch, but our son-of-a-bitch," which, thought Steck, "was a pretty good description." But despite Steck's animosity towards Clipp, whose antics were "carefully shielded" from Walter Annenberg, Steck conceded that the station's general manager was a "great administrator ... [who] turned WFIL into a $210-million property for the boss."
* * *
During the summer of 1952, WFIL combined its center-city radio facilities with the station's TV operations, already housed in a warehouse-type structure at 46th and Market Streets in West Philadelphia. No one had the slightest inkling that the beige brick building situated in the shadows of the Market Street elevated railway would spawn the longest-running network television show in history and for a time enable Philadelphia to become the pop music capital of the world. By then, WFIL was one of over three hundred ABC-affiliated radio stations, but those numbers were illusory, for when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lifted its four-year ban on the establishment of new TV stations that summer, network sponsors abandoned radio in favor of television. Local radio affiliates such as WFIL were thus forced to develop and expand their own radio programming in order to generate local advertising revenue. Since the most economical form of programming available to a radio station was a disc jockey with a stack of records, WFIL became one of hundreds of radio stations across America to fire their costly resident studio orchestras and embrace such a format. Due largely to such cost-cutting motives, the golden age of the disc jockey was about to begin.
As the summer drew to a close Roger Clipp and radio station manager George Koehler informed Dick Clark that WFIL was about to undergo a radical change in format and they wanted him to be a part of that change.
The decision was not surprising, considering that the hard-nosed executive Clipp, who Clark described as "respected and hated" and a "very difficult man" to work for, had hit it off instantly with his hard-driving young employee. "I found him to be intimidating," Clark revealed in 1994, "but I felt very close to him and he toward me." In fact, Clipp looked upon the recently hired Clark not as the son of a friend, but as the general manager's own son. "He took very good care of me and he didn't frighten me as badly as he frightened some of the other employees," explained Clark. Indeed, Clipp took such good care of Clark that he offered the young announcer a radio program of his own.
Dick Clark's Caravan of Music (weekdays from 1:45 to 6:00 P.M.) was added to WFIL's revamped radio line-up at a time when pop radio's biggest hits were sung by the likes of Patti Page, Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, Jo Stafford, and South Philadelphia's own Eddie Fisher. But Clark was ordered to forgo even those insipid tunes (which were deemed too extreme for WFIL's conservative daytime format) in favor of easy listening standards.
At that point, it did not matter much to him what type of music he played on his new program. Clark was happy just to have the job, for he was now a married man. One month after joining WFIL's permanent staff he married his high school sweetheart, Barbara ("Bobbie") Mallery, a pretty, blue-eyed cheerleader at A.B. Davis High when she and Clark first met at a Halloween party. Although Barbara was dating Clark's best friend at the time, she soon realized that "Dick was the only boy for me." She and Clark quickly developed into a steady item, but Barbara's mother took a dim view of her fourteen-year-old daughter seeing only one boy. "She liked Dick," recalled Barbara, "but she insisted I was missing half my life, going with just one boy." Barbara and Dick actually broke up for a time, but after dating others they came to realize how much they truly cared for one another. In 1946--Dick's senior year in high school--the couple began to go steady again, and this time, recalled Clark, "we were sure of ourselves."
When Barbara graduated from high school in 1948, the Mallerys moved to Salisbury, Maryland, and Clark began to date other girls at Syracuse. But he preferred seeing Barbara, who was then enrolled at Salisbury State Teachers' College, which necessitated what Clark described as seventeen-hour "sheer suicide" motor trips in his heaterless '34 Ford convertible in the dead of winter.
After two years of this long-distance liaison Barbara transferred to Oswego (N.Y.) State Teachers' College--a mere thirty five-miles from Syracuse--for her junior year. The couple saw each other every weekend until June 28, 1952, when, shortly after Barbara's graduation, they married. After subletting a one-bedroom apartment in suburban Philadelphia, Barbara obtained a job teaching second grade in a nearby school and Clark set out to establish himself at WFIL. Clark would parlay this storybook romance into a vital component of the "All-American Boy" image he so deftly projected to his audience, but, unlike most storybook endings of that era, this one would not find the parties living together happily ever after.
* * *
In 1952, pop radio in Philadelphia was dominated by WPEN-AM (950) and WIP-AM (610), two stations that, not coincidentally, played a part in the genesis of American Bandstand. If any program can be designated the prototype for Dick Clark's legendary dance show, that distinction goes to WPEN's 950 Club, named for the station's location on the AM dial. Originated in 1945 and hosted by the popular duo of Joe Grady and Ed Hurst, the 950 Club was the first radio show on which a studio audience was invited to dance to records being broadcast over the air. The show, which saluted a different high school each day, quickly became the focus of the area's bobby-sox set, who, seeking admission, deluged WPEN with two to three thousand pieces of mail each week.
But the scores of teenagers drawn to the center city skyscraper that housed WPEN also stuffed mailboxes, rode the elevators, and "created a problem for the tenants of the building" as they ran wild, recalled Ed Hurst, who added that WPEN eventually "got kicked out of the building." The radio station found a new home in a nearby facility that contained a luncheonette in the front and a dance studio in the rear, an arrangement that pleased everyone. The 950 Club crowd could now munch on hoagies and hot dogs as Grady and Hurst spun the top hits of the day, interviewed celebrity guests, and occasionally allowed the teenage dancers to introduce themselves on the air and mention the high schools they attended. By the early 1950s it was the number one afternoon radio show in Philadelphia and was recognized as a "must" stop by performers making promotional swings through the area. Hurst and Grady interviewed all the top names in the record business.
The big gun at WIP was local favorite Bob Horn. Born in 1916 (d. 1966) in Cherry Run, West Virginia and raised in Reading, Pennsylvania, Robert L. Horn attended the University of Michigan before beginning his broadcasting career in 1938 in Camden, New Jersey. He worked at WIP for a short time before venturing to California, where he put in a brief stint as a Hollywood newscaster. Horn returned to Philadelphia after World War II and landed a job at WPEN, where he developed an evening hour Bandstand show consisting of current top pop recordings. In 1951 Horn moved his highly popular Bandstand to rival WIP.
As Grady and Hurst cavorted over the airwaves with the Philadelphia area's teenage set, and Bob Horn drew large audiences to his radio Bandstand, WFIL radio remained a loser in the local ratings race. As such, the station began to eye Horn--considered about town to be the most knowledgable man on music of the day--to close the gap. "He had the highest rating," recalled Jack Steck, "and we decided to hire him."
Steck, who was then manager of programs and production for WFIL-TV, said Horn was "easy to get because he wanted to get out of radio and into television, and we were his opportunity." So fervently did the video fires burn within Horn that he jumped to WFIL even though there were no immediate television openings at the prestigious TV station. In joining WFIL, Horn reasoned that when such an opening did occur he would be there to grab it.
By far the hottest properties WFIL possessed, Horn and his radio Bandstand were assigned two shifts. But as he bided his time for a shot at TV, he was unaware that he had been snookered by his new employer. When the need for an afternoon TV show host arose at WFIL, Horn would be bypassed for none other than Joe Grady and Ed Hurst.
* * *
It was of no concern to Dick Clark that the music he was ordered to play on his WFIL radio program was not current and was certainly not aimed at Philadelphia's "950 Club" crowd. The music be damned. Besides hosting his daily radio program, Clark was afforded the opportunity to work as a commercial announcer on WFIL-TV. In addition to Clark's base pay as a disc jockey he received a fee for each TV commercial he read on the air. Radiating an aura of equanimity, the boyishly handsome Clark set out to do as many of them as humanly possible. "I was a great pitchman," he said. "I sold pots and pans, vacuum cleaners, diamond rings, Mrs. Smiths pies, the works. Eventually I landed the Schaefer Beer account. I did one hell of a beer spot." Clark later revealed in his 1976 autobiography that, "It was the commercials that kept me on the air."
Those close to Clark from childhood were not surprised at how quickly he recognized the lucrative financial opportunities commercial announcing afforded, for Clark had demonstrated a relentless proclivity for entrepreneurship as a youth. The motivation for the boy businessman apparently had had little, if anything, to do with the trappings that money could buy, however, and much to do with the inherent satisfaction of generating his own cash. Not content to draw freely from the family money dish Clark's mother kept in a bureau drawer, Dickie had opted to earn his own money.
As a boy, Clark did not have neighborhood friends so much as he had customers. His activities included publishing a neighborhood gossip sheet and peddling it for two cents an issue; running a "restaurant" in his family's home (when the family peanut butter supply ran out, Clark scoured the kitchen cabinets for old magazines and gum, which he proceded to sell); and operating a shoeshine stand where customers could have one shoe shined for three cents or both for a nickel.
Julia Clark said her son was also a compulsive collector who saved "everything not worth saving." She would periodically clean out his room only to find the same trash reappear, along with "whatever treasures the neighbors had thrown away." But what Clark's mother saw as trash her younger son viewed as valuable merchandise. He held a backyard carnival and used his cache of castoffs as prizes.
As Clark matured, his propensity to earn money grew stronger. One reporter wrote that Clark made himself "eminently hirable" while at Syracuse University, washing dishes in a hashhouse, husking corn, crating chickens, making frat house beds, and trying his hand as a door-to-door brush salesman. "He's always been that way," Julia Clark told a reporter in 1958. "He's always busy."
Indeed, once Clark managed to gain a national television audience of millions and set out to create his own pop music empire, his seemingly innate entrepreneurial drive would serve him well.
* * *
Dick Clark and Bob Horn gave each other a wide berth at WFIL. The fact that Clark, with his fresh, photogenic face, had quickly become one of Philadelphia's busiest commercial announcers particularly rankled the veteran Horn, who coveted a television career of his own. Clark, on the other hand, was solely intent on blazing his own trail and paid Horn no mind.
One of the first commercials Clark did on WFIL-TV was for Barr's Jewelers, the sponsor of the station's early-afternoon movie. He also did a considerable amount of announcing on Paul Whiteman's TV-Teen Club, which, along with Grady and Hurst's 950 Club, proved to be a crucible for WFIL-TV's afternoon dance show called Bandstand.
The first personality in Philadelphia to host a network TV show featuring local teenagers was the venerable bandleader-turned-disc jockey Paul Whiteman, the same figure who was dubbed the King of Jazz in the 1920s, but in fact was more "great white hype" than "king" (although he did display a talent for hiring great sidemen). Beginning in 1949, Whitemen invited local teens to a Saturday evening dance and talent show, Paul Whiteman's TV-Teen Club, which was televised by WFIL-TV. The show was also broadcast over the fledgling ABC-TV network, in part because Whiteman was vice president in charge of music for the struggling web, but mostly because the program's production expenses were footed by the financially independent Whiteman.
Tipping the scales at almost three hundred pounds, and clad in ornate shirts and loud sports jackets as he articulated hip teen phrases such as "Real gone!" the sixty-two-year-old "Pops" Whiteman seemed to enjoy a second childhood as he conducted his TV show, which was sponsored by Tootsie Roll candy. As the rotund host dispensed his sponsor's chocolate-flavored nuggets to his young guests, Dick Clark stood before the TV cameras and extolled the sugary treats to the viewers at home.
Although TV-Teen Club was the first television program to feature teenagers dancing, a more important circumstance of that show was the convergence of Dick Clark and musician/songwriter Bernie Lowe. Whiteman's TV show benefitted Clark in the short run by providing the young announcer with lucrative commercial opportunities, but, more significantly, for the long run it put Clark in good stead with Lowe, a man who in the not-too-distant future would command Philadelphia's leading rock 'n' roll record company.
After Lowe was named musical director of TV-Teen Club early in 1952, the show's teenage guests began to partake in what was described as "plain and fancy jitterbugging," to the sounds of his ten-piece band. What is more, the show's weekly talent contest enabled several local teens--Charlie Gracie and Bobby Rydell included--to embark on recording careers that would blossom during the forthcoming Bandstand era.
All of the components necessary for the creation of WFIL's televised Bandstand were now at hand. Ironically, Dick Clark, who was to become synonymous with the show, was not one of them. For the moment anyway, Clark's vaunted status as a TV pitchman on the programs of others, and the ample income generated by that role, was more than satisfactory to him. The same could not be said for Bob Horn, who burned for his own TV show. While WFIL had the veteran announcer's marquee name and his considerable broadcasting experience at its service, the station had absolutely no reason to offer him a TV slot. But that situation was about to be altered.
(C) 1997 John A. Jackson All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-19-509323-2
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General Secretary of WEA Visits NBS
World Evangelical Alliance General Secretary and CEO Dr. Geof Tunnicliff Visited NBS on Friday the 15th of March and met its leadership team.
The team shared with the guest about the vision, accomplishments and challenges of NBS.
Dr. Tunnicliff that was accompanied by Mr. Harm Tees, the WEA ambassador in the Holy Land, expressed support for the ministry of NBS.
NBS team included NBS board chairman Mr. Najed Azzam, NBS General Director Botrus Mansour, NBS Chaplain and Bible teacher Manal Haddad and NBS vice Principal and English teacher Elizabeth Shehadeh.
The WEA defines itself as a "network of churches in 129 nations that have each formed an evangelical alliance and over 100 international organizations joining together to give a world-wide identity, voice, and platform to more than 600 million evangelical Christians".
NBS board chairman Najed Azzam sharing with Dr. Tunnicliff about NBS
From right to left: Botrus Mansour, Harm Tees, Dr. Geof Tunnicliff , Najed Azzam, Elizabeth Shehadeh and Manal Haddad.


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Bill of rites brings order to holy matrimony
JAWS drop when Robyn Edebohls tells people what her husband does. "He's a Catholic priest," she says, and they say: "Sure, what does he really do?"
But it's true. Father Bill Edebohls, newly installed as the priest at St Pius X in Heidelberg West, is Melbourne's first married priest to run a Catholic parish. Another married priest is a chaplain.
Father Edebohls was formerly the Anglican dean of Ballarat and archdeacon of Italy and Malta before switching to the Church of Rome a few years ago. He spent the past 18 months as assistant priest at St John's, Heidelberg. "It's been a life-long journey," he said yesterday.
Even as a teenager, he believed the unity of the church was important. "The separation of the churches is not the design of God, but the sin of humanity."
If there was a defining moment for Father Edebohls, it came in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. "It's the most bizarre church in Christendom," he said, "used by several churches who celebrate the liturgy at the same time, competing with each other. You get this cacophony. There was Roman Catholic and Orthodox of various types, and I wasn't in communion with any of these ancient churches."
He said he and Robyn had been warmly welcomed by priests and laypeople alike, although many Catholics were upset that good priests had had to leave their vocation to get married.
But Father Edebohls said most could see the difference between a priest who had vowed to be celibate, then had to leave, and the issue of other married priests coming into communion with Rome. By order of the Vatican, he is a "priest in charge" rather than a parish priest, but he said this made no difference to his daily parish ministry.
Nor is his ministry that different from an Anglican one, although, being a hospital chaplain as well, he is busier now.
The main difference, he said, was that Catholic parishes were much bigger, so priests could not enjoy the same intimacy they had in Anglican congregrations.
Robyn, who has a full-time job, said she kept herself behind the scenes, but she had done that as the wife of an Anglican priest, too.
"Depending on who you talk to, they'll say 'she's disinterested because she's working' or 'she's here to take over the place'.
"So much of Bill's work is between him, God and the people he's dealing with, so you keep out of the way of that."
They struck one problem — the parish house, designed for priests, has a tiny kitchen and bedrooms too small for a double bed. They are using one of several large, handsome sitting rooms instead.


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Before we begin the review of SVC Chaos, I think it's important that we break the fourth wall between reviewer and reader long enough for me to make a confession.
It's true. My wife routinely kicks my butt at it, unless I can play Dhalsim, and even then it's a fifty-fifty shot. As fighting games go, I'm way more of the Dead or Alive, button-masher variety. It doesn't mean I don't love the game, I just can't play it very well. I have nothing but respect for the finesse and ability of my gaming brethren who can execute those cool combos and make Chun-Li kick upside down, but I felt that I should point out my lack of fighting skills before proceeding. Fighting game fans, take this review with whatever grain of salt you choose.
A new fighting tournament has begun in SVC Chaos: SNK Vs. Capcom, but the invitation ticket to this one is rather special. To enter it, you have to die, either in battle or by killing yourself. Apparently the prize is worth having, with everyone from Akuma to M. Bison looking for the pathway to enter it.
With appearances in this first volume alone from Ryu, Kyu, Mr. Karate, Vega, Balrog, Guile and Chun Li, there's plenty of fighting for fans to enjoy, and the artwork will more than satisfy readers, whether they're button mashers, know every combo or if they're just curious about the book in general. It's difficult to determine who will get how much focus at what time. Much of the book is focused on both Ryu and Kyu, but Chun Li has a bit of a humorous fight with traffic towards the end, and there's an all-too brief appearance by Vega which nearly steals the show from characters who are given many pages. Whether there will be appearances by others remains to be seen.
If a book ever benefited from the full-color treatment, this is it, and the higher price tag with lower page count is a reflection of the high-grade paper stock. Don't let it deter you, if you're a fan. Video games are just that&#Array;visual, and a book based on a video game property deserves no less than the best visuals it can get. SVC Chaos fluctuates from computer painting to pen and ink, but both are done with enough depth and skill to win over any fighting fan, no matter what their favorite game might be. Guile and Bison are larger than life, Akuma is suitably demonic, Kyu looks youthfully exuberant, and Chun-Li still possesses impossibly long legs capable of much destruction.
|SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos 1
Written by: Chi Wan Shum
Ultimately, this book comes down to fandom. If you're a fighting game fan, you're going to eat it up. If you have no idea what these games are about, or the history behind them, give it a pass, unless the artwork grabs you. It's uncertain how many beloved characters will appear throughout this series, particularly if it follows the videogame loyally, so fans of Cammy or Honda may want to hold out until a few more volumes come out, to see if there's any deviation from the cast of the game.
Me? I'm holding out for Dhalsim.


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My story of parenting, learning, living, laughing (hopefully lots of this!) and scrapbooking!! Hope you enjoy it!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Reflections on 2011
How has 2011 been for you?
Overall I think this has been a good year for me. I have met many challenges face on and feel I've come out on the other side with a better understanding of what I want, who I am, what I value and what's important to me right now. I'm not sure everyone around me shares these new found beliefs and ideals which may be problematic but ... I am happy. Right now. In this moment. With me, myself and I.
The rest of the world can either get on board or get out of my way!!
Ha, ha. I say that with such bravado but really I am a total people pleaser and even the act of thinking about myself and actively working on myself is a bit foreign to me. It's a struggle as a Mom and a Wife whose natural tendency is to put all others before herself, to remember the adage "Happy Wife, Happy Life" and that by taking care of yourself first, you are actually better able to take care of everyone else. Sort of like on the airplane when they say "put on your oxygen mask before assisting others". Well this year, for the most part, my oxygen mask has been firmly in place! And I plan to keep it there for 2012!!
My One Little Word for 2011 was Release. I wanted to release so many negative emotions that I've been carrying around for awhile. Through the help of a therapist I think I have done just that. (Some are of the lingering variety though ...) While I was trying to pick a OLW for 2012 several words flitted through my grey matter - family, fun, free - but the one that has stuck and that I will be (pun intended) focussing on is, FOCUS. I have felt a distinct lack of focus in my day to day life lately. I used to be so organized and never forgot where I'd put things or what events were on my calendar for the week. Now, and this may have more to do with being the Coordinator In Chief for a busy family of 5, I seem to always be searching for something (cell phone, diaper bag, camera charger, my children!) and if an appointment doesn't get written onto our large family calendar odds are it will be forgotten.
My attempt at a career with Stampin' Up! has been met with fervour and passion but a distinct lack of organization and trouble focussing on tasks which have led me to make the decision to step back for a bit. I'm not letting my Demonstrator status go just yet but I am actively re-evaluating how I want to proceed. How I can make it suit ME and how I can make it suit my family. I have been compiling a list of things to focus on in 2012 and Stampin' Up! is on that list (right now). Like Gretchen Rubin's 'The Happiness Project', it is my intention to focus on one thing every month for the year. Unlike her, my intention is not to see if I can achieve a greater sense of happiness out of it, merely to allow myself permission to work hard on one thing for a month. I haven't figured out what order my 12 areas of focus will be yet but #1 will likely be CAREER as the pressure mounts to start contributing financially to the family.
Well, this post has become deeper and longer than intended so I think I'll leave off there. There will be changes coming down the pipeline at home and here on the blog so look out for them. Don't know what they are going to look like yet ... we'll be surprised together!!
I wish you and yours a Happy and Safe New Years Eve and a New Year filled with joy, love, laughter and creativity! See you 2012!!
1 comment:
Hey, Alison, I read this post last night, but didn't get a chance to comment until today, and once again I am struck by the similarities in our lives! I think your OLW is fantastic, it is a word that would work for me at this point in time, too. I'm excited about 2012, I really think it's going to be a good year for me and my family, but I need to get some things in order. Well, I won't ramble too much here, as I am about to put together a post in my own blog that lays it all out, but I hope you had a fun evening out, and I also hope that we will be able to meet in person in the coming year - I really think it will be possible!!! Big hugs to you and your family, Rox.ReplyDelete
PS - I agree, let's do our own version of P12! That is one area that gave me focus in 2011, and it's a fabulous idea!