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VANCOUVER —It's been just 14 months since Samuel Baron ditched living in a typical West End apartment, sold his car and moved into a micro loft in the five-storey Burns Block building at 18 West Hastings.
His first, 263-square-foot suite faced onto an animated section of Hastings near Pigeon Park, where he lived for 11 months before transferring to a quieter unit overlooking a parking lot that came furnished with a coveted desk in January.
His current suite, which is better laid out than his first — measures 248 sq. ft. For that, he pays $1,000 a month— $25 more than his previous suite.
It's Baron's 11th apartment rental in five years. This time, he doesn't plan on moving anytime soon.
"I was unhappy with my previous living arrangement in the West End," he said, sitting at a fold-down table in his bright, uncluttered and airy suite. "I love the West End, but it was a bit pricey for the quality of housing stock. I really enjoy urban living and I wanted to stay downtown, so I moved further east. When I moved to Vancouver, I also wasn't familiar with the city so living downtown has made exploring and living without a car that much easier."
Baron, who was paying $700 a month for a spacious suite in his native Edmonton, moved to Vancouver in July 2012 to start a job as a student adviser at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and enrol part-time in a Masters of Urban Studies program at Simon Fraser University's Harbour Centre campus.
His first Vancouver rental was "a grungy, dirty" 600-sq.-ft. West End walk-up with a silver fish problem that went for $1,100 a month. Because he arrived in Vancouver with only what could fit in his car — clothes and books — the apartment remained sparsely furnished except for a bed.
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"For the amount of money I was spending for an apartment, I barely spent time in except to keep clothes in a closet. I could move into a smaller space that was more modern and a lot cleaner and had a lot more amenities," said the 28-year-old, who cycles or walks everywhere.
"This suite allows me to live 'light' because I have no substantial investment in possessions. My carbon footprint is much smaller than it used to be."
Micro living isn't for everyone — although the concept is gaining ground in Canada, especially in pricey Metro — but the nano-suite concept suits the 28-year-old perfectly. He is living what one New York website dedicated to micro living calls an "edited life" where people can have more "money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy."
Each of the 30 suites in his building is furnished. Rent includes Wi-Fi, cable, access to a gym in the basement and a 1,000-sq.ft. rooftop deck outfitted with a communal barbecue.
"Living here keeps my spending in check — I'm not going to Ikea and buying stuff to fill my apartment," he said.
An anti-pack rat, Baron keeps his all-white suite tidy. You have to, he said, otherwise you'd be tripping over things. Shoes are neatly arranged on a rack behind the door. The kitchen — complete with microwave, two-burner stove, counter-height fridge and ample cabinet space — occupies almost the entire length of one wall. Along the same wall is a standard-size black desk with a wall-mounted flatscreen TV above it, which Baron hardly uses.
Natural light floods through the large windows onto the wide-plank white oak floor and reflects off all the white surfaces. The one pop of colour is a light-green two-seater couch. Baron did purchase a three-drawer dresser that fits neatly beside the couch and blends in with the white decor. A black metal chair occupies the only available corner space.
To maximize the square footage and create flex space, a built-in pull-down wall bed (or Murphy bed) reveals a small folding kitchen table when raised. Cabinets and closet space frame the bed. With no bookshelf, which his previous unit had, Baron stores his books on top of every available cabinet space. There is even a slim pullout table sandwiched into the closet space for coffee in bed. The bathroom — with a wall-hung toilet, sink and good size shower stall — is tucked behind frosted glass walls.
"The only thing annoying right now is my bike," said Baron, who has parked it in front of his desk. Each unit has a small storage locker in the basement but Baron uses his bike almost daily, so he keeps it in his suite for easy access.
Baron has only one overnight visitor — his brother who slept on an air mattress next to the bed. Baron thinks he could easily entertain four or five people comfortably for a dinner party. But don't expect a roast. There is no conventional oven.
"I find this style of living kind of like Europe," said Baron who lived briefly in Lille, France. "My fridge is so small, I shop almost daily for fresh produce."
Developers Reliance Properties and ITC Construction Group billed the suites as "an affordable and much needed non-subsidized rental housing opportunity in downtown Vancouver" when the units started renting in 2011. Reliance president Jon Stovell defends the rents because the suites "trade space for place."
"There is no need for a car or even a transit pass because you can walk to every kind of amenity," said Stovell.
"You're also sacrificing space to not have roommates." Stovell said many of the female tenants have told him they want control over their environment and are not interested in living in a basement suite with a potential stranger, he said.
"People wouldn't rent the suites if they were unaffordable, but they are renting them because it is affordable," he said. "People are basically saying 'I'm willing to pay those rents,' not just paying for the space inside those four walls but paying to live in the centre of the city.'"
The building's waiting list proves his theory. An average of five people a month wait to get in the building for every suite that becomes available — despite the neighbourhood's challenges.
Located across from the Army & Navy store, the B.C. Housing-run Beacon Hotel (formerly the bug-infested Backpackers Inn) and Pigeon Park, the building's front door is steps away from the Portland Hotel Society clinic. Baron routinely has to sidestep needles in the front and back entrance, but gives PHS kudos for doing its best to keep the block swept clean of syringes. On one occasion, he returned home to find an unconscious man slumped outside the door preventing him from getting inside. Baron simply knocked on PHS's door for help and someone immediately came to the man's aid. He also often comes home to find men charging their cellphones at an electrical outlet outside the building's entrance.
Despite the area's well-documented drug and alcohol problems, Baron feels safe and very much at home in the 100-year-old refurbished building whose previous incarnation was as a Single Resident Occupancy (SRO) hotel. A key-fob is needed to get inside the elevator and through any common door. And if it gets too noisy at night, he turns on a white noise app on his tablet for sounder sleeps.
"I love living in this space and I enjoy the neighbourhood," said Baron, who ideally would like to pay $800 a month. "Nothing is perfect … but within five minutes I can walk to the seawall and feel like I'm a million miles away."
Alternatively, if he needs a stiff drink, Baron doesn't have to stray too far. Embedded in the building at street level is the Bitter Tasting Room gastro pub. Between his job and studies, however, Baron isn't out bar hopping often.
Reliance Properties might be the pioneers of micro-lofts in Canada, but another company — Surrey's Tien Sher Homes — is equally enthusiastic about the concept. It recently started framing Surrey's first micro-suite project at Grosvenor Road and Whalley Boulevard. It's a 56-unit building called Balance in the City Centre area of Surrey, about a five-minute walk from the Gateway SkyTrain station and a 15-minute walk to SFU's Surrey campus. Its expected date of completion is February.
The micro-lofts are as cleverly designed as those in the Burns Block, but the units in Balance are a minimum 298 sq. ft and each come with a 60-sq.-ft balcony. Starting price was $109,000, but those units quickly sold out. Remaining units are priced at $130,000. As of early May, 70 per cent of the units had been sold.Tien Sher president Charan Sethi says micro lofts can only work if they are near transit hubs or downtown.
"We are so close to the SkyTrain and I've always been interested in affordable housing, but transit hubs are key. These are for people without cars," said Sethi. "They might be more conducive to the downtown market, but I thought 'Let's try one out in Surrey.' So what we did was start backwards. We asked ourselves, 'What can a person afford? Who is our target market and how we can we get them into the market?'"
Sethi, whose company owns about 12.5 acres of land in Surrey, estimates an annual income of $25,000 is needed to buy into the four-storey Balance, which is a mix of micro lofts and one-bedroom suites.
As Sethi planned the project, he looked at other space-strapped areas of the world to see how micro apartments were designed.
In Japan, where there are 873 people per square mile (versus nine in Canada), some of its famous "one-room mansions" (wan rumu mansion) are as small as 110 sq.ft., but modern, functional and well-designed.
Tiny, cramped Hong Kong, with 18,000 people per square mile, has gone even further — and caught the attention of human rights groups in the process — with its shocking 40-sq.-ft cubicle apartments. Unlike Japan's one-room mansions, these micro dwellings are illegal. Sethi also found suites as small as 150 sq. ft in Mumbai.
The city of Surrey has no minimum size for suites, leaving that decision with the developers for now, said Jean Lamontagne, Surrey's general manager of planning.
"[But] once built, we will be monitoring this project and evaluate if the city should consider regulating a minimum size for suites or not," said Lamontagne.
But as cities grow denser, a fundamental shift in living spaces is occurring — even in a space-rich country like Canada.
"The reality is our dollar is shrinking and our land is at a premium [in the Lower Mainland]," said Sethi.
Sethi's market research revealed that younger people on limited incomes expressed a desire to move out of their parents house, but not wanting a roommate in their longing for a place to call their own.
Eschewing a roommate is a reason Baron also cited for his move to a micro suite in the Burns Block where the floor space range is 229 to 265 sq. ft with rents ranging from $800 to $1,100.
Sethi said he initially faced resistance from the city of Surrey on the suites' sizes as well as from banks reluctant to finance micro-loft mortgages. But he eventually won both groups over.
Banks weren't convinced Balance was the best project on the market and didn't want to finance anything under 400 sq. ft, he said.
"Then I brought two managers from a Royal Bank to look at the show home because I was so committed," said Sethi. "Once they saw how the suites looked, they got on board. Other banks then followed suit."
Sethi is now scouting other sites in Surrey for a similar project. "It will only make sense if it is near transit hubs, though," he said.
Reliance Properties also has an amenity-rich condo project under construction in Victoria called the Janion (starting price $109,000 for 250 sq. ft), which is almost sold out, and is hoping to build a highrise rental unit in downtown Vancouver with "extensive amenities," such as study halls, dining halls, boardrooms and bike repair shops. He won't disclose the location, but said it will be 30 storeys if approved. But Stovell said he's encountering "bureaucratic inertia" at city hall.
"Various members of city council, like Coun. Kerry Jang, are enthusiastic," said Stovell. It's the bureaucrats who are resisting for two reasons — the space is less than the minimum 298 sq. ft and the initial plan was a condo project. Because city officials were concerned with land speculation and its unintended consequences, Reliance offered to make it a rental building.
"The city is behind the curve in embracing this new housing demand to trade space for place — it's the right thing to do," he said. "They are forgetting and ignoring all the young adults desperate to live in the city."
A look at Balance, a new microsuite development in Surrey by Tien Sher Homes
Financing example based on studio home:
· 301 sq.ft.
· $130,900 (or $435/sq.ft.)
· strata fees of $111.95/month
· Well-qualified homebuyers may purchase with as little as five per cent downpayment, or $6,500. Annual income required to purchase this unit is $26,000/year (with little to no other debt)
• Monthly mortage of $496
• Hourly wage required (at 40 hours/week, 12 months of the year) : $13.54
Development is 70% sold out.
UDI/Fortis Housing Affordability Index


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(CW BAY AREA) – Four black dresses, three hairstyles, two make-up looks and one Oscar: that was Adele's style profile for Oscar night. She earned rave reviews for her dress by British designer Jenny Packham on the red carpet, switched to a crystal-embroidered silk dress from the iconic British design house Burberry that weighed 33 pounds and gave the audience one final wardrobe change into another black floor-length Burberry gown for her acceptance speech. She made one more costume switch for the Governor's Ball, slipping into a fishnet topped, 3/4 length sleeve black gown.
While her dresses all garnered praise, many women were wondering how to get her make-up look for themselves. It is possible, even easy, without the help of a professional.
STEP 1: Foundation Adele starts with a palette of nice, smooth skin that is well hydrated. Even if your skin is not quite so clear, Sephora's Instant Airbrush Foundation ($9.00) will help smooth you out and give you an approximation of Adele's look. It includes a dial that you can adjust for heavy to light coverage.
STEP 2: Bronzer & Blush To compliment her coloring, Adele veers towards pinks and browns. Recreate it with Studio Contouring Blush & Bronzing Powder($8.95). Adele the crease down the middle of her face in a dark bronzer and the lower part of her cheek bones with a healthy dusting of pink blush.
STEP 3: False Lashes A big part of getting the Adele look is layering on thick, Motown-esque false lashes. If you're really, really not ready for that step, try out Lancôme's Hypnose Drama Instant Full Body Volume Mascarain Black ($24.99). After the initial application, powder your lashes and apply a second coat.
But if you are a master of false lash application (non-masters, check out our Style Files: Red Carpet Edition tutorial), select a heavy fringe like Ardell Fashion Lashes($13.11/four pack).
STEP 4: Black Eye Liner + Brown Eyebrow Pencil Her eyes are always the centerpiece of Adele's look, but they're surprisingly simple. For the Oscars, Adele went with a simple black liquid liner around the entire eye that is embellished with a black shadow to create a controlled smudge under the eye and definition on the lid. Use Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner in Carbon Black ($18.38) to keep the tears from smudging you up and wing the eye at the edges. Then take an eyeliner brush and smudge a bit of L'Oreal Color Infallible Eyeshadowin Burning Black ($4.99) at the bottom outside corner of each eye. Finish off by using that same eyeshadow on the crease in your upper lid.
Finish off your Adele eye look by filling in your brows with Revlon's Brown Fantasy Pencil($7.10).
STEP 5: Plump, Matte Lips Since Adele plays her eyes up so much, she tends to keep her lips natural. Create a base color with added lip volume by using Laura Mercier Lip Plumperin Bronzed Berry ($30.00). Avoid glosses at all costs.
To amp it up for Adele's dramatic red-lipped Oscar acceptance speech look, simply layer on MAC Ruby Woo($18.99), a universally flattering red and reapply as necessary.
(Copyright 2013 by CW Bay Area | CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

subset: commoncrawl


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Monday, February 28, 2011
Dear Brooks,
19 comments:
- Nicole Marie said...
oh my gosh that first picture of you guys are your first walk is absolutely adorable!! i love that you can see your shadows.. needs to be framed!
- February 28, 2011 at 9:52 AM
- Unknown said...
oh my gosh this is so cute! I can just tell how much you love that sweet boy. He's lucky to have such a great mommy!
- February 28, 2011 at 10:38 AM
- Mighty Burns said...
how cute :) you guys all share the same happy smile.
- February 28, 2011 at 10:49 AM
- Chelsea said...
I too loved that first picture!
what sweet words. he is lucky to have such a great mommy!
- February 28, 2011 at 11:25 AM
- b. lee said...
flippin' aMaZiNg pic of the fams 1st stroll * & what a sweet paint job :)
- February 28, 2011 at 1:16 PM
- kylee said...
so much goodness right now.
five guys. nielsens. all my favorites.
and your little guy? freakin adorable.
- February 28, 2011 at 2:49 PM
- Ashley {hudson's happenings} said...
This post makes my heart happy. I have such a special memory of our first walk with tiny Hudson, too. One day Brooks will love hearing how you two felt when he was a teensy little guy. And of course, he love hearing about how much you love him. ;)
YAYAYAYAY Brooks for taking your first steps! What a big boy!
- February 28, 2011 at 3:02 PM
- Shay said...
I love these little letters- SO SWEET! I cannot believe he is already almost a year, that is crazy!
- February 28, 2011 at 3:15 PM
- Unknown said...
Haley, this is so precious! He is just so adorable and I'm sure you're one amazing mama!
- February 28, 2011 at 4:21 PM
- A. Mae said...
Hales, I sooo remember you talking about your first walk as a family of three :) What a tender moment. Brooks is sooooo stinkin' cute and ohh how I just love all the pics. you really are such a good mommy. Since the day I met you, you have always inspired me and that hasn't changed one bit. you still do! I love you Hales and hope to see you three soon! Keep all those tender moments comin' cause I lovem' :) xoxo ♥
- February 28, 2011 at 5:17 PM
- thatjordangirl said...
That first photo is so adorable, how sweet. I love that you do these letters to him, he is going to treasure those when he's older!
- February 28, 2011 at 5:36 PM
- Eva Marie said...
oh how beautiful that first picture is.. i remember like yesterday our first walk with our babe - it was freezing but a must
I can't believe baby Brooks is going to be a big 1 year old now. time really does go way too fast..
the sneeze is funny hehe
- February 28, 2011 at 5:53 PM
- Nicole said...
cute little buns :)
- February 28, 2011 at 10:44 PM
- Chelsea said...
(absolutely you can use a few of my photos!)
- March 1, 2011 at 6:38 AM
- Angela Brian said...
i am dying over that picture of lil naked brook.
why are babies so cute naked???
you must feel ultra special knowing that you have the ability to create the worlds most gorgeous baby!
aw. your making me excited to finally be a mom.
- March 1, 2011 at 9:06 AM
- Erin said...
what sweet pictures these are! now you've made ME baby hungry! i especially love that second one.
- March 1, 2011 at 11:44 AM
- Unknown said...
It seems like everyone is doing this these days. I hope to do it too...in the not too distant future...I hope :)
- March 1, 2011 at 2:25 PM
- Hilary said...
OH he is so sweet! I love all your pictures! I totally make Blayke exercise with me too...well she watches and laughs at me :)
- March 1, 2011 at 5:22 PM
- Jenni Austria Germany said...
he is seriously too cute.
- March 2, 2011 at 4:10 AM


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Product description
- A very popular, classic ESP model, with absolutely professional features and an outstanding price-quality relation.
- Finish: Oxidized Iron - new exclusive 2011 finish, very elaborate and detailed, with a fine structure. With black nickel hardware.
- Body: Ash.
- Neck: Maple, 3-piece. "Thin U" neck profile. Neck-thru-body construction - this enables a very good sustain, and a super easy access to the upper frets.
- Scale: 25.5" - Standard.
- Fretboard: Ebony, with ESP Custom "Offset Block" inlays.
- Frets: 24, XJ (Jumbo) - with a perfect fretjob, another famous feature of ESP instruments.
- Nut: FR Locking, 42 mm - Standard.
- Headstock: ESP M-style - matching the body color.
- Bindings: White, overall (body, neck and headstock) - a very noble looking instrument!
- Tuners: Orig. Gotoh.
- Bridge: Original Floyd Rose tremolo - stays perfectly in tune.
- Pickups: EMG 81/85 active humbuckers - this classic Zakk Wylde combination is very versatile, provides lots of gain for aggressive sounds, fits well for downtuning and is absolutely quiet, due to its active design.
- Alternatively, upon request of the purchaser, we can also perform a professional installation of a different pickup combination, e.g. any DiMarzio, EMG or Seymour Duncan etc. (Very fair prices per pickup swap). Furthermore, we offer installation of active boost and EQ circuits like EMG Afterburner, PA-2, SPC, RPC, VMC, EXG etc. Please ask for details if interested.
- Electronics: 1x volume, 1x tone, 3-way toggle switch.
- Absolutely outstanding quality of selected woods, craftsmanship, handling and sound!
- The guitar comes in a high-quality original ESP Horizon Series formfit hardcase with ESP logo.
Additional information
|ESP Horizon FR EMG OXI - Oxidized Iron
|Electric guitar
|Product group(s)
Order processing time
We ship worldwide on daily basis, with DHL, DPD, and UPS. All in-stock items are usually shipped within 24h upon receipt of payment, mostly on the same working day. Of course, all orders are checked by our qualified personnel and professionally packaged for shipping. Express delivery options are available upon request.
A transport insurance cover up to the full value of the purchased item(s) is already included, at no extra charge.
COD (cash on delivery)
5.00 € COD fee for shipping within Germany. Unfortunately, we currently don't ship COD to addresses outside of Germany.
Personal purchase at our store
Of course, you are absolutely welcome to personally visit our shop premises in Munich to check, test, compare, purchase and take home your items right away, without any waiting, stress or pressure, and with a proper professional advice from our product experts. Please feel free to contact us for your individual time appointment, or simply visit us during our business hours!
Shipping outside the EU
Shipping costs to most EU destinations, Switzerland and Norway are included in the overview on the left. Selling and shipping to any countries not mentioned in this overview is subject to prior inquiry and receipt of our shipping quotation. Please also note that not all orders from all countries can be automatically processed through our website at this time; such orders must be handled on individual basis. If you are outside the EU, please make sure to contact us first, for necessary details on the ordering procedure, shipping and payment. Please make sure to provide us your full address for a correct calculation of the shipping expenses.


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Cedar Point Realty has some of the finest Minnesota Lake Homes, Lake Lots and other Vacation properties for sale. Our areas of service include many of the small communities in the north central part of Minnesota. Walker MN, Hackensack MN, Longville MN, Remer MN, Backus MN, Pine River MN, Nevis MN, Park Rapids MN, Cass Lake MN and Bemidji MN are areas that if you are looking for real estate we can be of service. We have hundreds of lakes to choose from, some of the more popular being Leech Lake, Woman Lake, Ten Mile, and the Cass Lake Chain. If you prefer a small lake and would like more information about area lakes, give us a call. Whether you are looking for a lake home, lake cabin, acreage, residential home, or a commercial property in the area, we are the leader in real estate sales and devoted to providing top quality service. We are the office of the new millennium. Our real estate agents are highly trained and equipped with all the tools needed to make your real estate transaction successful. We are committed to caring; about you, your real estate needs and the communities we live in.
Just a stones throw from the shores of Leech Lake sits the thriving community of Walker, MN. Surrounded by the Chippewa National Forest and hundreds of miles of various lakeshore, this "City on the Bay" is as beautiful in the winter as it is in the summer. Interconnecting trail systems provide miles of biking and hiking in the spring, summer and fall along with snowmobiling in the winter. Fishing year round and hunting in the fall continue to bring visitors to this charming town. For more information on Walker, please visit the local Chamber of Commerce. You can search for Leech Lake real estate here.
Nestled in the heart of the north woods, Longville Minnesota has become a popular vacation destination. Hailed as the "Turtle Capital" of the world, this quaint little city offers much more. With the Boy River flowing through town on its way to Leech Lake, residents and visitors of the area enjoy the peacefulness of this community. Many lakes, large and small, surround this area providing endless amounts of fun. For more information on the Longville area, please visit the local Chamber of Commerce.
Located on the eastern shore of Birch Lake and just 10 minutes from Leech Lake, the community of Hackensack draws visitors from far and wide. With over 100 lakes within a 10-mile radius, Hackensack has become a great place to live or visit any time of the year. Special events take place all year building strong community relationships and offering endless amounts of family fun. With the Paul Bunyan Recreational trail running through town and eventually connecting with the Heartland Trail, cyclists, hikers, rollerbladers and others come to enjoy the peacefulness of this charming community. More information on the Hackensack area.
Nevis, Minnesota is known as the Gateway to the Paul Bunyan State Forest. Located just a few steps from Lake Belle Taine and hailed as "Home of the World's Largest Tiger Muskie", this peaceful community offers a wide variety of activities. Exploring hundreds of acres of beautiful forests and miles of lakeshore in this area is easy with the Heartland Trail running through this community's back yard. Enjoy fishing on the area lakes. More information on the Nevis area.


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First Look: Bluebird Bakers, Portland OR
Note: First Looks give previews of new dishes, drinks, and menus we're curious about. Since they are arranged photo shoots and interviews with restaurants, we do not make critical evaluations or recommendations.
Cookie Queen Chickie Massa and her staff of bakers have been delighting Portlanders since 2009 with a host of homemade cookies. Before the retail shop opened in February of this year, the cookie company was stocking their wares in local retailers like Lamb's, Zupan's, New Seasons, and Market of Choice (which they continue to do), but trust me, you want to go straight to the source.
There are a few important advantages of visiting the shop, which also houses the commercial bakery. First, because cookies are constantly being baked, it smells insanely good inside, especially during the early morning, when the intoxicating aroma of brown butter hangs in the air. Also, since everything is sold individually, you get to mix and match bars ($3 each), cookies ($2 each, $8.50/6, $15.99/12), and brownies ($3 each). But most the most important factor is the cookie bar.
Oh yes, the cookie bar: a row of pretty plates fully stocked with samples. You can literally taste every item on offer before you buy. Want to take a closer look at all of the cookies offered at Blue Bird? Check out the slide-show above.
Bluebird Bakers
2390 NW Thurman St, Portland, OR 97210 (map)
bluebirdbakers.com Note: Closed on Mondays.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


text:
10 Years / 1000 Shows - HD Video DL
More Information
Touche Amore – 10 Years / 1000 Shows – HD Video Download
February 16, 2018 marked the 10-year anniversary of the first show ever played by Los Angeles natives Touche Amore. To celebrate this anniversary the band played their 1000th show at the Regent Theater in downtown LA , and this incredible event was professionally filmed with five cameras and available for download here. 10 Years / 1000 Shows – Live at the Regent Theater features the full concert and unique behind the scenes footage from the event. Directed by Sean Stout, audio recorded by Evan Sebastian and mixed by Kurt Ballou at GodCity Studio in Salem, Massachusetts.


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As the financial crisis peaked in 2008, the wirehouse firms found their results and share prices plummeting. A toxic cocktail of bad bets on real-estate assets and collateralized instruments was dragging them down, way down.
To prop up their capital foundations and ensure their operational future, most of them participated in what analysts call "shotgun weddings": Merrill Lynch agreed to be acquired by Bank of America; Wachovia (having recently digested Golden West Financial and A.G. Edwards) was first courted by Citigroup, only to end up partnering with Wells Fargo; and Morgan Stanley grabbed a majority stake in Citi's Smith Barney operations. Only Swiss-owned UBS, embroiled not only in the mortgage mess but also in legal disputes with the IRS, kept its Americas-based advisor force out of an M&A during the crisis.
More than two years later, the wirehouses and their current owners are coming back, along with their stock prices. To be sure, they have a long journey ahead of them — Bank of America, for instance, is trading at around $13 after hitting five-year highs of around $52 and lows of near $3. However, experts say, the latest results show that the wirehouse M&As generally have been positive for the organizations involved, from a financial and organizational viewpoint.
From an advisor's perspective, though, the assessment is more mixed. "If you look at the wirehouses as a game of musical chairs, there are now less chairs in the room," says Bill McGovern, head of the recruiting firm B/D Search, in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Some brokers are feeling trapped by retention deals, while others see their firms' former cultures and service levels disappearing. Many FAs may be taking advantage of new cross-selling opportunities within their organizations to further boost assets, fees and commissions, but at the same time are likely experiencing pressures to expand their business in less than optimal ways.
To assess the pros and cons of the recent wirehouse M&As — and the rumored possibility of a future merger involving UBS-Americas and Wells Fargo — Research spoke with a variety of experts and industry insiders. Their opinions vary widely on which organization has benefitted most (and least) from the shotgun weddings — and on the outlook as integration work continues and the pros and cons shake out.
The New Wirehouse World: BofA-Merrill
Evaluating M&As requires various analytical tools. Really, says Richard Bove, a senior vice president of equity research for Rochdale Securities, it's about "looking beyond what the numbers say for the specific quarters and thinking about whether or not there was a meaningful strategic fit between the two organizations." He asks: "Together, do they generate more than if the two companies had remained separate?"
In Bove's view, the answer to that question for BofA-Merrill is an absolute yes. "There are so many synergies between these two companies that it by far made more sense than the other deals," he explains, and for a number of reasons.
For example, Bank of America was in many ways "a land-locked company in the sense that it didn't have any overseas operations, other than some small operations in London," Bove shares. Merrill had significant operations in Asia, Latin America and Europe. "Thus, the deal expanded Bank of America beyond its historic marketplace" in geographic terms, he adds.
In the U.S., Bank of America had a large number of branches before the merger, but a much small sales force than Merrill when it came to selling financial products. With the deal, "Merrill Lynch brought BofA a huge sales force that could sell products to a more upscale market than BofA traditionally dealt with," the analyst explains. In addition, BofA's strong position in fixed income was not complemented by similar strength in equity markets, currencies and other "esoteric products," according to Bove.
For its part, Merrill had the ability to sell a wide array of products, but it didn't have the array that BofA offered. "Also, BofA's capital dwarfed that of Merrill, which gave Merrill the opportunity to become involved in transactions that it previously couldn't touch, in mergers and acquisitions, in fixed income and other areas across the board," he notes.
And then there's BlackRock, which BofA owned a large stake in when the merger wrapped up on January 1, 2009, but then sold in 2010. "The addition of the asset management business to BofA was a major plus that Merrill brought, but the government largely forced BofA to divest the bulk of its investment in that area" via higher capital requirements, in Bove's view.
Even with the divestment of BlackRock, the BofA-Merrill deal gave both parties strengths that they did not have before, most notably a large potential customer base for Merrill brokers. "It has worked out really well," concludes Bove. "I think that over time Merrill Lynch will become the dominant of the two partners and will have a greater say in where the company is going than Bank of America. This was a coup for the Bank of America, and the best thing that could have had happened at that point in time."
Such influence, which moved from Merrill into BofA-Merrill, is already evident in the institutional and platform operations of the company, says executive-search consultant Mark Elzweig. "And it's still hiring in this area, which is good for the wirehouse side of the equation. In the case of this type of merger, where there was minimal overlap in the two organizations, you get a very strong positive result — including the advisors, who are very content with the leadership of Sallie Krawcheck given her deep roots in the brokerage business," Elzweig explains.
While this deal looks well done at the overall corporate level, though, there's some debate at just how positive it is for Merrill's thundering herd of reps. "I think the bigger issue is how well the firms can integrate," says Bill McGovern, head of the recruiting firm B/D Search. "And Merrill Lynch probably has the advantage, because BofA hasn't tried to dramatically change its culture."
Mindy and Howard Diamond of Diamond Consultants, a recruiter and consultancy that counts Morgan Stanley as a key client, do not share this view, however. "Merrill Lynch is the firm we have been hearing the most negatives about from advisors that we speak with," Howard says. "This was a traditionally pristine, well regarded, crème de la crème wirehouse — so to speak — and in one weekend it became part of a bank. And the wirehouse-bank mentality has not meshed yet."
In other words, the Merrill Lynch brokers are feeling constrained as part of a very large bureaucracy, one that is even bigger than what they experienced pre-merger. "It's becoming a bank-oriented culture," says Mindy, which is very different from the advisor's client-centric, book-of-business focus. "This is not to suggest that banks don't also have this focus, but rather that the two cultures do not always mesh together."
The New Wirehouse World: BofA-Merrill (cont.)
On paper, the BofA-Merrill deal looks very successful. "But the tremendous referrals have not come to pass," Howard indicates. "It was a lot of hype. "This makes it a very attractive place for us to recruit from."
Nonetheless, says Mindy, some Merrill advisors are pleased with the products and services gained through the BofA acquisition. "It's been a real positive for advisors with ultra-high-net-worth clients in need of things like yacht loans, for instance," she explains.
This point, however, doesn't change the Diamonds' overall view that "by and large, the majority of reps feel very negative," according to Mindy. "Were it not for the retention packages, many would have already left."
Recruiter Danny Sarch of Leitner Sarch Consultants, a recruiting firm, is no more sanguine. "Bank of America is very human resource-centric, and that's very different from Merrill. There are edicts that come out of BofA's corporate offices that brokers laugh at — 'Do this or else!' They tell me, 'I've never been threatened so much in a week as I have here,' and it's over little things."
Sarch does give Bank of America credit for doing some things right. For instance, the bank put a tab on Merrill advisors' workstations so the FAs can see what relationships the clients have with BofA. "If your client has a $500,000 mortgage, you can easily see that," he notes.
However, BofA is marketing credit cards, mortgages and other products to Merrill clients, "separately and aggressively," according to Sarch. "This means the broker is seen as the point person in a faceless bureaucracy, though the brokerage business is a high-touch, high-service business. And now Merrill advisors are seen as the entrée to all this stuff."
Advisors are indeed having some success at cross-selling. "But the problem is, once you sell it, you own it — including troubles associated with, say, a client's opening of a certain type of credit account. And the clients will end up blaming or crediting their advisor for all the problems. That has become a real problem," the recruiter explains.
There's also competition for high-end clients between advisors in Merrill's Private Bank Investment Group and those in U.S. Trust. "I hear anecdotally that there are mini-wars over clients as brokers claim to be experts in certain areas, though there also have been pockets of cooperation — when everyone can play in the same sandbox for the good of the client. But [BofA global-wealth head Sallie] Krawcheck may be unwilling or unable to adjudicate these disputes," suggests Sarch.
"At the end of last year, we successfully and quietly completed one of the largest broker dealer integrations in the history of Wall Street," says a Merrill Lynch spokesperson in a statement. "Our competitive position and capabilities have never been stronger, and it shows in our performance numbers." And, as for the issue of over-burdening FAs with products and services, the spokesperson says: "We have more than 800 wealth management banking and credit specialists who partner with our financial advisors across the country — many working within Merrill Lynch Wealth Management branch offices."
When it comes down to the numbers (see chart), the BofA-Merrill merger appears very attractive. "Merrill Lynch has added amazing capabilities to BofA, and it's at a scale that impacts BofA," argues Chip Roame, head of the consultancy Tiburon Strategic Advisors. "And they maintain their superior assets and revenue per advisor" Roame says.
Next page: Wells Fargo
The New Wirehouse World: Wells-Wachovia
Roame is equally upbeat about the merger of Wells Fargo and Wachovia (though he doesn't view either merger as the most successful deal of the past few years). "Wachovia Securities was also absorbed on a stand-alone basis into Wells Fargo, and has continued to do well," he says, noting that it appears to be the only wirehouse to have increased the size of its advisor force organically from 2008 to 2010.
Plus, Wells-Wachovia didn't pay retention packages to its advisors, points out Elzweig. "With the exception of some A.G. Edwards advisors, who didn't want to be caught up in the larger Wachovia organization, the merged company has had relatively few defections," the recruiting consultant says. "To me, that is a vote of confidence."
At the broader level, Wells' purchase of Wachovia "was an excellent merger," Bove states. "It meant the expansion of Wells Fargo's operations to all of the United States and gave it a larger sales force, along with the ability to sell more products, among other things."
Still, the Wachovia deal didn't bring to Wells what Merrill Lynch brought to Bank of America "in terms of the capital markets," the analyst says. Wachovia had a large sales force and customers, however, and this created benefits for Wells Fargo to take advantage of. "Wells Fargo is now a national bank, up there with Bank of America and JP Morgan in terms of deposits, branches and such," he concludes.
Wachovia joined Wells Fargo about five years after it acquired a majority stake of Prudential. With Prudential (2003) and later A.G. Edwards (acquired in 2007), Wachovia had a sales force that was larger "by a difference of magnitude" than anything Wells had in place in 2008, notes Bove.
With all of these acquisitions, though, Wells Fargo has to digest — i.e., integrate. "There are lots of unhappy advisors, and we are talking to many of them," McGovern says. "Remember, a lot of the A.G. Edwards advisors first got rolled up into Wachovia, and now with the second rollup into Wells Fargo, they are now even less happy."
The changes are both cultural and organizational, he explains. "We are talking about a big bank culture, a big push to cross-sell bank products and services, and a good deal of disruption here, too. And these challenging conversions … can be big distractions for brokers and often include changes in branch management," says the Florida-based recruiter and industry veteran.
On the technology front, Wells Fargo says it just wrapped up the conversion of Wells Fargo Investments, WellsTrade and H.D. Vest onto its brokerage technology platform. "The brokerage conversion has gone extremely well," explains David Carroll, head of Wells Fargo's wealth, brokerage and retirement division, in a statement. "By having our brokerage clients on a single operating platform, we can provide a consistent experience and common products and services."
As for the cultural divide between Wells Fargo and Wachovia, this isn't as great as
The New Wirehouse World: Wells-Wachovia (cont.)
that between BofA and Merrill, experts say. "This was also a 'shotgun marriage' as well by and large," says Howard Diamond, whose office is in Chester, N.J. "But there's not as much tension or as many issues. Wells Fargo has been a well-respected name that the Wachovia advisors were glad to get as their brand.
In the Wells-Wachovia merger, there were two banks coming together, rather than a bank and a wirehouse (with BofA-Merrill). "So you were [integrating] two organizations that had a bank mentality," he shares.
This merger also has had some managerial and geographic continuity. While BofA saw Merrill leader Bob McCann depart just after the merger (early 2009), Wells Fargo has kept Wachovia leadership in place: Former Wachovia Securities leader Danny Ludeman is president and CEO of Wells Fargo Advisors, which is part of Wells' wealth brokerage and retirement division. This unit is now led by Carroll, a former executive vice president of Wachovia Corp.
In addition, Wells Fargo Advisors is based in St. Louis, the former home of A.G. Edwards, not in San Francisco, where its parent company is headquartered. "Culturally, Wachovia-Wells does have a very different feel than the other wirehouse firms. So if an advisor is looking to get away from the Wall Street culture and likes a firm with a different feel, this offers them a Midwestern, kinder, gentler, slightly slower kind of place," Mindy Diamond shares. "But it's still a big business."
Plus, it's a complicated one. "What's also ironic to me is that Wells Fargo — prior to the Wachovia deal — had done a very good job of creating a successful brokerage environment on its own," says Sarch. "Now it has to fit in several different channels [of employee, independent and bank advisors, for instance] as part of its rebranding, which is very challenging. And the jury is still out."
The recruiter also believes the cultural and organizational differences should not be minimized. "Yes, Wells and Wachovia are having fewer conflicts than BofA and Merrill, since Wachovia isn't as focused on high net worth as Merrill," he explains. "But I do hear stories that an-ex Wachovia broker will get a mortgage or loan at a certain rate, and then a client will walk into Wells Fargo branch and get a different rate. This means the client goes back to the broker to ask about it."
Wells has also been a very "buttoned down, well-managed organization," he says. Wachovia, for its part, paid very high prices for both A.G. Edwards and Golden West with poor timing. "It arguably made two of the worst acquisitions in the history of the financial services industry," Sarch says. "Thus, at least on the banking side, the Wells Fargo staff must be scratching their heads."
On the brokerage side, the multiple channels seem to be competing with each other for advisors and clients, he describes. "This didn't happen within just Wells Fargo before," says Sarch. "And, remember, these brokers used to be with firms in which people knew their names when they called the home office," he adds, "and now you are a number. It's maybe not 1984, but … culturally, it is different."
Next page: MSSB
The New Wirehouse World: Morgan Stanley-Smith Barney
The final "big deal" to emerge from the recent financial crisis, of course, didn't entail an all-out merger: Morgan Stanley Smith Barney was formed in early 2009, when Citi agreed to sell 51 percent of its retail brokerage operations to Morgan Stanley. "This allowed the Morgan Stanley, primarily Dean Witter still, to radically grow its sales force and assets, and to benefit from higher average assets (per advisors) and revenue," says Roame.
Morgan Stanley's expansion — of its sales force from about 8,000 advisors to 18,000 and its client asset base from about $500 million to $1.7 trillion — was quite a feat, the consultant argues. It also gave Morgan Stanley a boost to its average trailing-12-month production (fees and commissions) and average assets under administration.
"UBS did not really do any M&A [recently], and both Merrill and Wachovia were absorbed without major change. The Merrill and Wachovia deals were bigger than the events in their private client group," Roame points out.
Thus, the consultant believes, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is the organization that has benefitted the most when viewed from private-client perspective. "Citi was in a tough financial position and got to participate [in this venture], which helped. But Morgan Stanley is the big winner by absorbing Smith Barney, a name that may soon be gone, too," he concludes.
"Morgan Stanley Smith Barney now produces about 40 percent of Morgan Stanley's net revenues and is an important component of CEO James Gorman's diversified, client-driven strategy," says Morgan Stanley Smith Barney president Greg Fleming in a statement. "We've accomplished a lot of integration and are now focused on completing the new technology platform and moving everyone onto it. The business's vital signs are healthy, and we're headed in the right direction."
But while the venture has the biggest sales force (when measured by Series 7, non-bank advisors), "Other than the larger sales force, Morgan Stanley didn't get anything else," Bove argues. "What's so exciting about the Bank of America-Merrill merger is the fact that there are many facets of the two companies that have improved as a result of the deal. And for Wells-Wachovia, some facets have improved."
Yes, size may matter in what, some argue, is becoming a scale-dominated business, Bove admits. "But it doesn't bring new products, geography or other areas of business [to Morgan Stanley Smith Barney]," he asserts. "It's more of a traditional merger, and it's not transformational like the other two deals."
The Diamonds, though they admit they're biased as recruiters for Morgan Stanley,
The New Wirehouse World: Morgan Stanley-Smith Barney (cont.)
believe the benefits of marrying two high-quality firms are significant. "To get away from the bank and into a true wirehouse and brokerage firm was probably seen as a breath of fresh air for many of the [Smith Barney] advisors," says Howard.
Furthermore, there were areas of the wealth-management business in which Morgan Stanley excelled over Smith Barney and vice versa. "They've brought together two best-in-class platforms and are making [the combined platform] better," says Mindy. "Or, put another way, they can keep the best and leave the rest," adds Howard.
To Sarch, however, the merger of two equals presents Morgan Stanley with "the greatest challenge" of all the wirehouse firms involved in recent M&As — since the change is entirely concentrated within the sales force. Yes, scale is advantageous for covering fixed costs and adding profit to cover those costs, explains. "But when you have too many brokers from the same firm in the same market, they get in each other's way!"
In other words, asks Sarch, "How is having 300 brokers in Paramus, N.J., giving you scale? You have such a dominant market share that every time an advisor calls a prospect that person already has a relationship with a Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Thus, rather than having wonderful scale, you have a lot of crabs in a bucket, crawling all over each other to get out. It's a problem."
In addition to the cannibalization — a challenge not only for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney advisors but for many FAs today within the wirehouse world — there's also the concentration of more advisors within the larger branch system, Sarch explains. After the merger, a branch manager might be covering 200-300 advisors and three or four branches, whereas in the past, the manager would be working at one branch with about 50 FAs.
"The Smith Barney managers, it needs to be said, were empowered to do so much more than the Morgan Stanley managers," the recruiter explains. "That's a tremendous culture change, and it impacts the service model," as does the organizational shift within the branch network.
For the advisor, "There are decisions to be made, and they have a very tough time of getting the attention of the people capable of making these decisions. You've slowed down the sales process and stilted it, while taking away some of your service," notes Sarch. "Ultimately client satisfaction suffers, and you end up losing business."
Next page: UBS
The New Wirehouse World: UBS
While UBS faced plummeting results during the financial crisis and global tax disputes, its wealth-management operations in the Americas have stabilized. Ironically, the needs of the Swiss parent may now push it into a shotgun marriage.
"UBS has tremendous capital needs," says Bove. "The Swiss banking authorities have made the decision that the Basil III requirements are not good enough and that the Swiss banks should be 50 percent more capitalized on a relative basis than other banks in the world."
As a result, UBS must shrink its operations dramatically, raise a lot of capital or do a bit of both, the analyst says. "One source of additional capital could be the sales of UBS [Americas], and we shouldn't discount the effect/possibility that a division of UBS could be sold."
Rumors persist that the suitor could be Wells Fargo. "I'm not sure, given Wells Fargo's current sales force, if it would make sense. At some point, large operations or sales forces become hard to manage. Also, for UBS, there's a need for a sales force to sell its bank products, which would be weakened by such a deal," Bove said. "But regulators are forcing UBS to move toward a sale."
The Wells-UBS deal could even be done as early as this summer, according to Roame (who predicted the BofA-Merrill deal in Research in June 2008). "UBS is undersized now relative to the 'big three.' And UBS is also very attractive as a takeover candidate for Wells Fargo Advisors," he says.
In addition to bringing Wells some 6,000 more advisors, such a deal would boost the average production and assets of its FA force, the consultant notes. "This would let Wells hold more successful advisors as case examples and allow the firm to trim some underperformers," Roame notes.
However, such a deal could create additional disruptions and distractions for advisors in both groups, according to McGovern. For clients of UBS and Wells, too, there would be confusion and probably some less-than-optimal outcomes, he notes. Finally, other experts point out, Wells-Wachovia would be digesting yet another significant merger, which would create serious organizational tensions and challenges that shouldn't be minimized.
According to UBS-Americas, rumors about its potential acquisition are completely unfounded. "UBS Wealth Management Americas is an integral part of the UBS AG business model and it is not for sale," says spokeswoman Karina Byrne.
She notes that in the last quarter of 2010, revenues grew 7 percent from the previous quarter, net new money inflows improved and net new money from same-store advisors was positive for the fourth consecutive quarter. "We are continuing to maintain and build a high-quality FA population.… The attrition of financial advisors [in the fourth quarter of 2010] was at the lowest level since 2006," says Byrne.
The New Wirehouse World: Synergies, Miseries
While further integration work remains to be done within the merged wirehouses, "I'd say these deals have been more beneficial than not," shares Bove. "Really, there's an array of things that now look well done. Whether or not the deals were well thought out or not is a separate issue — in '08, firms were shooting in all directions.
"Overall, what they did was staggeringly successful. Even the Fed has recently revealed that in '08 the U.S. banks didn't need as much capital as they thought they did at the time," the analyst adds. "And now, all the money's been paid back, which is an incredible success story. And the Federal Reserve made a fortune on those credit extensions. And most important, we're not in a depression right now."
On the other hand, argues Sarch, M&As in the financial services industry don't seem to do much for it in the long term. "I believe the future will prove such M&As are a large waste of money. Look at the industry's past disasters — Merrill taking over Advest, or Smith Barney taking over Legg Mason. The success rates and retention when the big firms take over the small ones are embarrassing," the recruiter says.
"Where have these deals worked? American Express tried it and failed. Citicorp tried it and failed. The big deals have proven difficult to manage, and the idea of cross selling, though in theory it sounds wonderful, turns out to be full of all types of traps and surprises," he shares. "It's not this wonderful increase in revenue … There are issues here that have to do with the size and size only — not competency. In other words, this may possibly be an impossible task."
In general, Sarch asserts, small firms end up merging with bigger firms "because they are paid more. It's a shame and may be better for shareholders in the short run, but in long term it is worse for shareholders. Since unhappy staff will leave over time."
From the advisor's perspective, though, the jury is still out, says McGovern: "The real measure will two years from now as we see how the execution and consolidation has gone, and if the reps are OK with the new homes they are working for."
Some advisors, says Mindy Diamond, are telling themselves, "If I can just hold on until 2012," which is when a large trench of the retention package at BofA-Merrill kicks in, for instance. "Then, I may be much more eager to go."
There also are plenty of advisors who have signing bonuses that last as long as eight or nine years, observes McGovern. "And it's going to be a challenge to manage advisor expectations and keep them happy in light of all the changes due to consolidation and integration, along with the feeling they have that they cannot leave. This is close to indentured servitude, and it's the worst kind of mindset…. What does [an advisor] produce when he or she is stuck?"
These and other changes — such as the pushing out of low-producing wirehouse brokers — have helped accelerate growth in other parts of the industry, as advisors have looked for new working environments. Many advisors focus on the change in culture at their wirehouse, says Mindy, "And how it doesn't feel like the firm they used to work for or how sad they are for the losses related to that change in culture."
As a result, Howard points out, advisors know they have fewer options in the traditional brokerage space than two years ago, but they also see a slew of other options. "Over the last two years or so, we've seen the emergence of independents, RIAs, the custodial channel and the breakaway broker phenomena," he says.
In other words, wirehouse advisors have changed their view of going independent 180 degrees. "They were never thinking of this before, when some used to think that going independent meant you 'couldn't cut it' [at the wirehouses]. Now, quite the contrary, those building independent wealth-management firms are seen as superstars."
HighTower, for instance, didn't exist before the Great Recession. "Most advisors, and from our perspective, we, too, believe that advisors have more legitimate options for their wealth management practice today than ever before," Mindy explains. Yes, it's ironic: There are fewer wirehouse players to consider — but as that side has compressed, there are still more legitimate options in the industry — the independents, the boutiques (like Barclays or Baird, Credit Suisse or JPMorgan) and the regional firms — have been major winners," along with the custodial firms.
Not so fast, insists Howard. "News of the death of the wirehouses is greatly exaggerated. Look at their balance sheets, stocks; they are profitable and are making money, selectively recruiting, still attracting assets and they are still appealing to that segment of the population that is only going to be happy if they have their money at a wirehouse," he explains.
Indeed, the latest figures on managed accounts assets, as tracked by Cerulli Associates, show the wirehouse advisors with their hands on more than 55 percent of the industry's $2.2 trillion in assets. The four firms count $1.2-plus trillion in their managed-account programs as of December 2010.
Still, cautions Mindy, "It's surprising that they are on their feet, given how bad things were. But still they are worse for wear. By and large, whatever advisor loyalty there was … is gone — all gone." Yet, there will always be advisors who are most comfortable working in the wirehouse environment, she admits. "But the group of advisors that stays at a wirehouse now does so because it is the easiest and best thing for them to do for themselves. It has nothing to do with loyalty."


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Nikki Sterling lives in Florida with her family and an inquisitive Tabby cat name Treetop.
She has been writing on and off for about 15 years.
She has won the Editor's Choice Award for outstanding achievement in Poetry by the International Library of Poetry and Poetry.com.
She has read many poems over the years and while she finds most of them
To be beautifully woven poems that are famous for their artistic elegance and style.
She yearns for the pragmatic words that stirs her soul emotionally.
She loves to write poems that are practical, passionate and easy to understand.
Her poems can be used to celebrate love, life, faith, and joy.
They can also be used to overcome loss, depression, loneliness, death and sadness.
As you take the time to read and reflect on her poems, may your souls be refreshed and your spirit renewed.
Nikki Moore
@Paragonwords 2018
All material written in this blog is Copyright © Nikki Sterling @paragonwords 2017, 2018
© [Nikki Sterling] and [Paragonwords], [ 2014-2018]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Nikki Sterling] and [Paragonwords] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
most images obtained from pixabay.com


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If you have been using Hotmail/Outlook.com for email, you would have noticed that the email, contacts and SkyDrive interfaces are all uniform, designed along the Metro principles of letting the content stand out and moving all unnecessary chrome and controls out of the way. One service which was still bearing the old Hotmail/Live look was the Calendar.
The Calendar was left in the old format for some strange reason even after Outlook.com left preview and became "production" recently. One of the early comments made by Microsoft about Calendar was that they observed that most people use the Calendar on mobile devices or via desktop applications and not the website, and hence they prioritized the Calendar update lower.
However, for those who got used to using the Outlook.com web interface (partly because it is so beautiful and functional), started feeling the eyesore that was Calendar. Until April 2.
Over on Office Blogs, David Dennis announced the new Outlook.com Calendar was finally available at http://calendar.live.com. Some of the salient features of the new Calendar are:
- The fresh/modern/Metro design. Finally in line with the email, contacts and storage services.
- Easier navigation and usage. The web app works much like a desktop application with drag across time periods to create an event, incorporating tasks within the same page as calendar, clicking to add/edit events, etc.
- If you connect your Microsoft account to Skype, LinkedIn and Facebook, you will automatically see birthdays (and other events) from those services in your calendar.
- Granular (but easy to use) privacy controls for sharing calendars and parts of calendars.
- Shared calendars with change notifications, enabling scenarios where parents share calendars and get notified when one or the other changes/adds events.
Overall, this is a much-needed and highly delayed change which finally makes the "Windows Services" consisting of Outlook.com email, Outlook.com Calendar, People and SkyDrive appear like a suite of services made by the same company.
There are still some features available in other services like Google Calendar that are missing from Outlook.com Calendar, but here's hoping that with this "big" update out of the way, the Calendar team will get more resources to focus on adding functionality to the Calendar, and enhancing how it interacts with the rest of the products in the Microsoft portfolio like Bing.
Do you use Hotmail Calendar? Have you been upgraded to the new version? What are your thoughts?
Image courtesy Office Blogs.


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Made popular 8 years 7 weeks ago
Bachelorette Synopsis and Credits
On the night before an old friend's wedding, three frisky bridesmaids go searching for a little fun but find much more than they bargained for. With lovely Becky (Rebel Wilson) set to marry her handsome sweetheart, Dale (Hayes MacArthur), the remaining members of her high school clique reunite for one last bachelorette bacchanal in the Big Apple. Regan (Kirsten Dunst) is an overachieving, űber-Maid of Honor who's secretly smarting over the fact that she's not the first to marry, while Gena (Lizzy Caplan) is a whip smart sarcastic who's actually a closet romantic, and Katie (Isla Fisher) is a ditzy beauty who loves the good life. Based on her critically acclaimed play "Bachelorette," Leslye Headland writes and directs this razor-sharp comedy about women on the verge of hilarious breakdowns, spectacular breakthroughs, and even closer friendships. But when Becky insists on keeping the bachelorette party tame, the women proceed with an after-hours celebration of their own. Things get very wild very quickly, sending the unholy trinity careening across Manhattan with a torn wedding dress in tow, bum-rushing a drycleaner's, charming their way into a shuttered tailor's, and crashing Dale's bachelor party. It's there that Regan meets her match in white-collar hedonist Trevor (James Marsden), Katie gets pursued by former classmate, Joe (Kyle Bornheimer) and Gena finds herself drawn to old flame Clyde (Adam Scott). Will the girls get through the night alive? Can they fix the dress, be there for Becky, and get to the ceremony on time? Time is ticking away, but the bachelorettes are only getting started in what proves to be a life changing weekend they will never forget.
"Bachelorette" stars Adam Scott, Andrew Rannells, Ann Dowd, Hayes MacArthur, Isla Fisher, James Marsden, Kirsten Dunst, Kyle Bornheimer, Lizzy Caplan, Paul Corning, and Rebel Wilson.
Directed by Leslye Headland.
Written by Leslye Headland.
Produced by Adam McKay, Brice Dal Farra, Claude Dal Farra, Jessica Elbaum, Lauren Munsch, and Will Ferrell.
Production company/distributor: The Weinstein Company.
Release Date: September 07, 2012
About jetli
Don't let the lower case letterings in his name fool you. He's quick and deadly with the headlines and he's always on target. His delivery could use more work though.


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Clearbit + Chargebee Integrations
In a matter of minutes and without a single line of code, Zapier allows you to automatically send info between Clearbit and Chargebee.
Connect Clearbit + Chargebee in Minutes
It's easy to connect Clearbit + Chargebee and requires absolutely zero coding experience—the only limit is your own imagination.
All Triggers & Actions
Triggers when a credit card expires.
Triggers when a customer is created.
Triggers when a payment fails.
Triggers when a payment method is updated.
Triggers when a subscription is changed from Trial or Future to Active state.
Triggers when customer details such as first name, last name, email, billing address, etc., are updated.
Triggers when a new invoice is generated(with line item support).
Triggers when a payment method is added.
Triggers when a payment is collected successfully.
Triggers when a subscription is scheduled for cancellation.
How Clearbit + Chargebee Integrations Work
- Step 1: Authenticate Clearbit + Chargebee.(30 seconds)
- Step 2: Pick one of the apps as a trigger, which will kick off your automation.(15 seconds)
- Step 3: Choose a resulting action from the other app.(15 seconds)
- Step 4: Select the data you want to send from one app to the other.(2 minutes)
- That's it! More time to work on other things.


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Vision, Alternativ
Vision Story:
Vision High-Technology Co. Ltd. is one of China's leading vape manufacturers, offering an array of vape pens, devices and vape accessories. The company began in 2007, focusing its efforts on the high-tech enterprise that includes the manufacture and advertising of vape hardware.
The company's production base encompasses 13,000 square meters with 4,000 meters dedicated to a clean production base. They also have the most sophisticated lab of the vape industry with nine innovation projects and 16 successful experimental projects. There are roughly 700 employees with Vision and 19 international standard production lines that ensure an output of 115,000 sets every day.
Brand reset
Vision Vapros Spinner 2 1600mAh Battery
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Iota E-Liquid by Alternativ Salts
Vision Spinner VV 1300mAh Battery
Omega E-Liquid by Alternativ Salts
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1. Mark Edmundson Current Lightning Rod of Outrage
2. David Lehman BAP Editor now TV star: PBS' Jewish Broadway
3. Rita Dove She knows Dunbar is better than Oppen
4. Matthew Hollis Profoundly researched Edward Thomas bio
5. Paul Hoover Status quo post-modern anthologist, at Norton
6. Don Share Wins coveted Poetry magazine Editorship
7. Sharon Olds Gets her Pulitzer
8. Michael Robbins The smartest guy writing on contemporary poetry now–see Hoover review
9. Marjorie Perloff Still everyone's favorite Take-No-Prisoners Dame Avant-Garde
10. Natasha Trethewey Another Round as Laureate
11. Ron Silliman The Avant-garde King
12. Tony Hoagland The Billy Collins of Controversy
13. Billy Collins The real Billy Collins
14. Kenneth Goldsmith Court Jester of Talked-About
15. Terrance Hayes The black man's Black Man's Poet?
16. William Logan Favorite Bitch Critic
17. Avis Shivani Second Favorite Bitch Critic
18. John Ashbery Distinguished and Sorrowful Loon
19. Stephen Burt P.C. Throne at Harvard
20. Robert Hass West Coast Establishment Poet
21. Harold Bloom Reminds us ours is an Age of Criticism, not Poetry
22. Helen Vendler She, in the same stultifying manner, reminds us of this, too.
23. Dana Gioia Sane and Optimistic Beacon?
24. Bill Knott An On-line Bulldog of Poignant Common Sense
25. Franz Wright Honest Common Sense with darker tones
26. Henry Gould Another Reasonable Poet's Voice on the blogosphere
27. Anne Carson The female academic poet we are supposed to take seriously
28. Seth Abramson Will give you a thousand reasons why MFA Poetry is great
29. Ben Mazer Poet of the Poetry! poetry! More Poetry! School who is actually good
30. Larry Witham Author, Picasso and the Chess Player (2013), exposes Modern Art/Poetry cliques
31. Mary Oliver Sells, but under Critical assault
32. Annie Finch The new, smarter Mary Oliver?
33. Robert Pinsky Consensus seems to be he had the best run as Poet Laureate
34. Mark McGurl His book, The Program Era, has quietly had an impact
35. Seamus Heaney Yeats in a minor key
36. W.S. Merwin Against Oil Spills but Ink Spill his writing method
37. George Bilgere Do we need another Billy Collins?
38. Cate Marvin VIDA will change nothing
39. Philip Nikolayev Best living translator?
40. Garrison Keillor As mainstream poetry lover, he deserves credit
41. Frank Bidart Poetry as LIFE RUBBED RAW
42. Jorie Graham The more striving to be relevant, the more she seems to fade
43. Alan Cordle Strange, how this librarian changed poetry with Foetry.com
44. Janet Holmes Ahsahta editor and MFA prof works the po-biz system like no one else
45. Paul Muldoon How easy it is to become a parody of oneself!
46. Cole Swensen Some theories always seem to be missing something
47. Matthew Dickman Was reviewed by William Logan. And lived
48. James Tate For some reason it depressed us to learn he was not a laugh riot in person.
49. Geoffrey Hill His poetry is more important than you are
50. Derek Walcott A great poet, but great poets don't exist anymore
51. Charles Bernstein A bad poet, but bad poets don't exist anymore, either
52. Kay Ryan Emily Dickinson she's not. Maybe Marianne Moore when she's slightly boring?
53. Laura Kasischke She's published 8 novels. One became a movie starring Uma Thurman. Who the hell does she think she is?
54. Louise Gluck X-Acto!
55. Rae Armantrout "Quick, before you die, describe the exact shade of this hotel carpet."
56. Heather McHugh "A coward and a coda share a word."
57. D.A. Powell "Of course a child. What else might you have lost."
58. Peter Gizzi Take your lyric and heave
59. Marilyn Chin Shy Iowa student went on to write an iconic 20th century poem: How I Got That Name
60. Eileen Myles Interprets Perloff's avant-gardism as mourning
61. Lyn Hejinian As I sd to my friend, because I am always blah blah blah
62. Nikki Finney Civil Rights is always hot
63. K. Silem Mohammad This Flarfist Poet composes purely Anagram versions of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Fie on it.
64. Meg Kearney Lectured in public by Franz Wright. Still standing.
65. Noah Eli Gordon Teaches at Boulder, published by Ahsahta
66. Peter Campion A poet, a critic and a scholar!
67. Simon Ortiz Second wave of the Native American Renaissance
68. Maya Angelou She continues to travel the world
69. Lyn Lifshin "Barbie watches TV alone, naked" For real?
70. Ange Mlinko Born in '69 in Philly, writes for The Nation
71. Jim Behrle They also serve who only write bad poetry
72. Elizabeth Alexander She read in front of all those people
73. Dorothea Lasky The Witchy Romantic School
74. Virgina Bell The poet. Do not confuse with burlesque dancer
75. Fanny Howe Wreaks havoc out of Boston
76. Erin Belieu Available for VIDA interviews
77. Ariana Reines Another member of the witchy romantic school
78. Jed Rasula Old Left poetry critic
79. John Hennessy "Too bad I felt confined by public space/despite her kinky talk, black net and lace"
80. Timothy Donnelly "Driver, please. Let's slow things down. I can't endure/the speed you favor, here where the air's electric"
81. Clive James His translation, in quatrains, of Dante's Divine Comedy, published this year
82. Danielle Pafunda "We didn't go anywhere, we went wrong/in our own backyard. We didn't have a yard,/but we went wrong in the bedroom"
83. Michael Dickman Matthew is better, right?
84. Kit Robinson "Get it first/but first get it right/in the same way it was"
85. Dan Beachy Quick "My wife found the key I hid beneath the fern./My pens she did not touch. She did not touch/The hundred pages I left blank to fill other days"
86. Ilya Kaminsky Teaches at San Diego State, won Yinchuan International Poetry Prize
87. Robert Archambeau Son of a potter, this blog-present poet and critic protested Billy Collins' appointment to the Poet Laureateship
88. Kent Johnson Best known as a translator
89. Frederick Seidel An extroverted Philip Larkin?
90. David Orr Poetry columnist for New York Times wrote on Foetry.com
91. Richard Wilbur Oldest Rhymer and Moliere translator
92. Kevin Young Finalist in Criticism for National Book Critics Circle
93. Carolyn Forche Human rights activist born in 1950
94. Carol Muske Dukes Former California Laureate writes about poetry for LA Times
95. William Kulik Writes paragraph poems for the masses
96. Daniel Nester The sad awakening of the MFA student to the bullshit
97. Alexandra Petri Began 2013 by calling poetry "obsolete" in Wash Post
98. John Deming Poet, told Petri, "We teach your kids."
99. C. Dale Young "Medical students then, we had yet to learn/when we could or could not cure"
100. Clayton Eshleman Sometimes the avant-garde is just boring


text:
|Skip Navigation Links
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|Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 36 HTML Document Collection for Firmware Version 2.0
Network Management Connector and Pins
USB Management Connector and Pins
Preparing to Install the Switch
Suggested Tools for Installation
Antistatic Precautions for Installation
Verify Shipping Carton Contents
Install the Switch in the Rack
Verifying the InfiniBand Fabric
Understanding Routing Through the Switch
Understanding Administrative Commands
Administering the I4 Switch Chip
Controlling the I4 Switch Chip
Administering the Subnet Manager
Controlling the Subnet Manager
Administering the InfiniBand Fabric
Monitoring the InfiniBand Fabric
Controlling the InfiniBand Fabric
Configuring the Fabric Director Node List
Partitioning the InfiniBand Fabric
Understanding Oracle ILOM on the Switch
Understanding Oracle ILOM Targets
Installing the Oracle ILOM Firmware
Acquire the Oracle ILOM Firmware Version 1.1.3
Install the Oracle ILOM Firmware Version 1.1.3
Administering Oracle ILOM (CLI)
Accessing Oracle ILOM From the CLI
Access the Oracle ILOM Shell From the CLI (NET MGT Port)
Access the Oracle ILOM Shell From the CLI (USB Management Port)
Switching Between the Oracle ILOM Shell and the Linux Shell
/SYS/Switch_Diag and /SYS/Fabric_Mgmt Linux Shells
Switch From the Oracle ILOM Shell to the Linux Shell
Switch From the Linux Shell to the Oracle ILOM Shell
Monitoring Oracle ILOM Targets (CLI)
Display Switch Status LEDs States (CLI)
Display the Aggregate Sensors State (CLI)
Display Power Supply Status (CLI)
Display Board-Level Voltages (CLI)
Display Internal Temperatures (CLI)
Display the Oracle ILOM Sessions (CLI)
Display the Oracle ILOM Event Log (CLI)
Checking the Status of Services (CLI)
Display the HTTP Service Status (CLI)
Display the HTTPS Service Status (CLI)
Display the SSL Certificates (CLI)
Display the SNMP Service Status (CLI)
Display the SNMP User Accounts (CLI)
Display the SNMP Service Communities (CLI)
Display the IPMI Service Status (CLI)
Display the DNS Client Status (CLI)
Display the SMTP Client Status (CLI)
Verifying Other Aspects With Oracle ILOM (CLI)
Get Help on an Oracle ILOM Command (CLI)
Get Help on an Oracle ILOM Target Property (CLI)
Display the Alert Properties (CLI)
Display the Oracle ILOM User Accounts (CLI)
Display the Remote Log Hosts (CLI)
Display the Network Management Configuration (CLI)
Display the CLI Session Timeout (CLI)
Display Power Supply FRU ID (CLI)
Display the Firmware Version (CLI)
Display System Identification Properties (CLI)
Controlling Oracle ILOM Targets (CLI)
Performing General Tasks on Oracle ILOM Targets (CLI)
Restart the Management Controller (CLI)
Clear the Oracle ILOM Event Log (CLI)
Set the Remote Log Hosts (CLI)
Configure the DNS Client (CLI)
Configure the SMTP Client (CLI)
Back Up the Configuration (CLI)
Switch Configuration Information Backed Up
Restore the Configuration (CLI)
Create a Snapshot of the Switch State (CLI)
Snapshot Dataset Information (CLI)
Set the Network Management Parameters (CLI)
Set the System Identification Properties (CLI)
Performing Oracle ILOM User Tasks (CLI)
Add an Oracle ILOM User Account (CLI)
Change an Oracle ILOM User's Password and or Role (CLI)
Delete an Oracle ILOM User Account (CLI)
Disable the HTTP Service (CLI)
Enable the HTTPS Service (CLI)
Install a Custom SSL Certificate (CLI)
Remove the Custom SSL Certificate (CLI)
Disable the HTTPS Service (CLI)
Configure the SNMP Service (CLI)
Add SNMP Service User Accounts (CLI)
Modify SNMP Service User Accounts (CLI)
Delete SNMP Service User Accounts (CLI)
Add SNMP Service Communities (CLI)
Modify SNMP Service Communities (CLI)
Delete SNMP Service Communities (CLI)
Download SNMP Service MIBs (CLI)
Disable the SNMP Service (CLI)
Disable the IPMI Service (CLI)
Managing Other Aspects With Oracle ILOM (CLI)
Enable Alerts to Send SNMP Traps (CLI)
Enable Alerts to Send PETs (CLI)
Enable Alerts to Send Email Alerts (CLI)
Set the Oracle ILOM CLI Session Timeout (CLI)
Upgrading the Switch Firmware Through Oracle ILOM (CLI)
Verify Firmware Integrity (CLI)
Acquire the Switch Firmware Package (CLI)
Upgrade the Switch Firmware (CLI)
Administering Oracle ILOM (Web)
Access Oracle ILOM From the Web Interface
Monitoring Oracle ILOM Targets (Web)
Controlling Oracle ILOM Targets (Web)
Upgrade the Switch Firmware (Web)
Accessing the Rear Panel Diagram
Accessing Status Pane Information
Monitoring Parameters and Status
Administering Oracle ILOM (SNMP)
Monitoring Oracle ILOM Targets (SNMP)
Controlling Oracle ILOM Targets (SNMP)
Display the Sensor States (IPMI)
Display the Sensor Information (IPMI)
Display the System Event Log (IPMI)
Display FRU ID Information (IPMI)
Display Switch Status LED States (IPMI)
Disable the Locator LED (IPMI)
Understanding Oracle ILOM Commands
Understanding Service Procedures
Antistatic Precautions for Service
Remove the Switch From the Rack
Understanding Hardware Commands
Linux Shells for Hardware Commands
Understanding InfiniBand Commands
Linux Shells for InfiniBand Commands
Understanding the SUN-DCS-IB-MIB MIB OIDs
Understanding the SUN-FABRIC-MIB MIB OIDs
Understanding the SUN-HW-TRAP-MIB MIB OIDs
Understanding the SUN-ILOM-CONTROL-MIB MIB OIDs
Understanding the SUN-PLATFORM-MIB MIB OIDs
Understanding the ENTITY-MIB MIB OIDs
Nine aggregate sensors provide an overall status of particular aspects of the switch. Each aggregate sensor is the logical and summation of many binary sensor checks.
When all of the checks are true, the respective aggregate sensor's value property is set to State Deasserted, and the alarm_status property is set to cleared. This situation means all binary sensors indicate that there are no faults.
When one of the binary sensor checks is false, a fault occurs, the value property becomes State Asserted, and the alarm_status property is set to major. That aspect of the switch is in an unhealthy state.


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Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell and Janelle Monae are among the performers scheduled to appear at NBA All-Star weekend, according to billboard.com.
The weekend's Entertainment Series is slated to be hosted by Pharrell and is being presented by Sean John at Macy's.
Pharrell is slated to perform during player introductions for the NBA All-Star Game and be joined by guests during his set.
Kendrick Lamar is slated to headline the Saturday night schedule of NBA All-Star weekend, which is set to feature a performance prior to Sprite Slam Dunk.
Janelle Monae is slated to be among the performers during the NBA All-Star Game halftime show.
The NBA All-Star game is scheduled to take place February 16 at New Orleans Arena.
RELATED: Pharrell Williams Praises Kendrick Lamar For Not Waiting On A Label


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The 18-hole layout covers 7,040 yards for men and 5,858 yards for women and is a par 72 course for men and 74 for women.
Included in the lengthy list of events that has kept the University Golf Course in the national spotlight are the 1968 NCAA Men's Championship, 1988 NCAA Women's Golf Championships, the 1990 NCAA Men's West Regional Golf Tournament, the 1971 AIAW National Championship, two Missouri Valley Conference Championships, two High Country Athletic Conference Championships, two Big West Championships and many other amateur competitions.
This spring the course will host the NCAA West Region Championships, May 5-7, 2005.
Among the many upgrades to the course are new cart paths that were completed in March of 2002. These concrete paths have been installed around all of the tee boxes and greens, all of the par 4 holes along with #10. They have greatly improved the aesthetics of the golf course along with keeping the golf carts in better shape.
A new fleet of 65 golf carts arrived in March 2002 and the crown jewel of improvements, the new golf clubhouse, was opened in October of 2004. The new facility features a new, 15,000 square foot clubhouse with a 5,000 square foot cart barn.
Already one of the best and busiest golf courses in New Mexico, the new facility will again benefit a number of constituents.
"The current facility was built for 30 percent of the rounds we do today," says NMSU Director of Golf and former Aggie standout golfer Dan Koesters.
"It will help the golf program tremendously. It should really help with recruits while the coaches get new offices and a good meeting area they currently don't have."
The extra space will also benefit the academic mission of the University.
"We have some area for the PGM (Professional Golf Management) program and will attract kids to the program. There are a lot of classes taught out here. Currently we are teaching them in the maintenance barn and now they will be in a new facility."
The ability to generate revenue with the new facility will also benefit the general golfing public.
"We are already one of the best golf values in New Mexico," says Koesters. "With this new facility this it should keep our rates where they are at. It will be something the golfing public will be proud of."
Highlighted by beautiful scenery, the 18-hole layout is framed by the majestic Organ Mountains to the east and the picturesque Mesilla Valley to the west.
Easily accessible to the New Mexico State main campus, the University Golf Course is situated one-half mile to the east of the campus, just off Interstate 25. Open seven days a week for public use, the course and driving ranges are also used by both Aggie golf teams as a practice and training facility. The climate of the Mesilla Valley allows the course to be playable year round with an average of two unplayable days per year.
The initial cost of the 18-hole course, including the watering system and clubhouse, was $300,000. No state funds were involved in the construction or operation of the course with the financing coming from a 30-year revenue bond paid by course memberships, greens fees and a special fee passed by the University Student Commission of a rate of $1 per student per semester.
University planning for the course began in 1958. Floyd Farley of Oklahoma City, a designer of more than 50 courses, was hired as the architect for the project. The construction began on March 1, 1961. Grass was planted four months later.
The course features tees and fairways consisting of a Bermuda grass variety, Tifgreen 328, and the tees are overseeded in the fall with perennial rye grass. All of the course's greens are Bermuda.
The course obtains irrigation water from the University's wells and from a storage tank located south of the 14th hole. A fully computerized, state-of-the-art irrigation system was installed in 1982. The new system allowed the maintenance staff to cut peak water use from one million gallons per night to 700,000 gallons per night, a significant savings in the desert southwest.
The University Golf Course is located in Tortugas Arroyo on university property east of the main campus. It is protected by a 46-foot high earthen dam to the east, which was designed and built by the Elephant Butte Irrigation District in cooperation with the Soil Conservation Service to control any flooding on record in the past 125 years.
In the summer of 1989, a new maintenance building was built adjacent to the 10th and 15th fairways, providing more storage space for golf carts and other course equipment. The old maintenance building was torn down, leaving room for further expansion in the future. Since then, a new putting green was built adjacent to the 18th green and a 35-foot fence was added around the driving range, providing more safety for golfers.
In 2000, a golf course pavilion was built just west of the clubhouse. The pavilion can be used for posting tournament results or to hold outdoor receptions and dinners.
The course is long; championship distance is 7,040 yards for men and 6,084 yards for women. The par for both men and women is 72 strokes, 36 on the front nine and 36 on the back nine. The United States Golf Association course rating is 75.0. The average size of the greens is 9,100 square feet and the largest, No. 15 is 11,000.
Most greens have two to four sand traps each. Trees have been set in strategic locations at the corners of the doglegs, near tees and around greens. The course has four par-5 holes, 10 par-4 holes and four par-3 holes for men and women. Fairways are narrow about 30 yards wide and the roughs are difficult, filled with native creosote, mesquite, yucca and cactus.


text:
This happens every now and again, so I've girded the proverbials to post about it in the hope that doing so may help. Someone got caught out by this problem yesterday evening, btw.
It's like this:
- The forum and the underlying framework software have a number of anti-hacking provisions built in
- The one that is the subject of this post prevents the posting of HTML objects such as object tags, scripts etc.
- This means that you can't post things like embedded movies.
- You can however post links to other pages which contain these objects.
- It is possible to change this via settings in the framework, but I'm reluctant to do so as someone might post an object that compromised security for members. We got hacked once (via a security loophole in the forum software, which loophole allowed SQL Injection attacks) and I still have nightmares about the backlash from all the idiots who thought that I was directly responsible for sending them nasty viruses.
I hope that you understand
Site owner /administrator


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'European Football Weekends is a perennial source of pleasure' The Guardian
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Magnificent Madrid
Rayo Vallecano 1-0 Universidad de Las Palmas 23:03:08 (12pm)
Real Madrid 2-3 Valencia 23:03:08 (7pm)
My brief whilst back in Madrid was to see two games of football in one day. Kicking off with a starter of Rayo Vallecano v Universidad de Las Palmas who were kicking off at midday, allowing me plenty of time to also attend the main dish of Real Madrid v Valencia at 19:00.
I started the day, like all Sundays in Madrid should with a stroll around El Rastro, the largest flea market in Europe. Over the years I have developed an unhealthy amount of football badges and here I was able to pick up every Spanish 2nd division badge to add to my growing collection. I know, I know!
After snooping around El Rastro, I headed towards the working class neighbourhood of Vallecas. During the Franco regimethis area gained a reputation for resistance to the right-wing dictatorship. The pride of the area - at least they were in 2001 when they reached the last 16 of the UEFA Cup - are Rayo Vallecano FC.
Thesedays they ply their trade in the Segunda Division B (Division 3 to you and I). Their three sided Teresa Rivero stadium has a 15,000 capacity and is bedecked in the club colours of red and white. Rayos kit is a classic, think Madrid taxis (white with a red stripe) or the Peru kit of the 1978 World Cup finals and you´ve got it.
After a couple of cheeky beers in the supporters bar underneath the main stand I got my ticket. It set me back a very reasonable 10 euros.
To my delight to PA belted out an albums worth of punk classics at full volume prior to the match. We were treated to The Clash, The Ramones, Sex Pistols the works. All in keeping with the slightly anarchic feel to the club.
After taking in the first half however, I was rather thinking that 10 euros was a bit over priced. All I had to entertain me were the Rayo ultras behind the goal. Despite it being Sunday morning, they belted out songs non stop for 90 minutes.
Being a university team Universidad did rather live up to the student stereotype. The traffic-cone-collectors looked and played like they´d been up all night drinking subsidised cider and listening to The Levellers. They ´parked their camper van´in front of the goal and they weren´t going to budge for love or indeed money.
Thankfully in the 63rd minute, Michel of Rayo sent 5,813 fans into raptures with a piece of individual brilliance not all that in keeping with the game. His goal was to send Rayo up to second in the table.
Universidad annoyed me with their negative tactics. What is it with teams who only start to ´panic play´with five minutes left after putting in a half arsed performance beforehand!? In stoppage time they smacked the underside of the crossbar and the ball bounced on the line before 21 players pounced on it. I have seen them given.
After a brief conference, the lino and the ref decided they didn´t much fancy being chased out of Vallecas by a baying mob with pitched forks and awarded a free-kick to Rayo.
Just prior to that the referee realised he hadn´t dished out his full quota of yellow cards and brandished a flurry of them in a mad two minute spell. It´s one of the great pleasures in life watching a Spanish ref book a player as if his life depends on it.
The metro was located right next to the stand I was in and by the third peep of the full time whistle I was back on my way into town to meet the wife.
We met up in Casa Alberto on the Calle Huertas. The Sunday afternoon drink of choice in Madrid is Vermouth. This place serves up the hard stuff on tap. We got chatting to the landlord who insisted on giving us free drinks. Nice but after four or five vermouts it´s a struggle to see nevermind feel your legs.
Some lunch was called for so we headed to La Casa del Abuelo in Calle de la Victoria for some heavenly langostinos.
In sharp contrast to Vallecas, the Santiago Bernabeu is located in the heart of the Madrid business district. There´s not much to say about this place that everybody doesn´t already know. It´s a slightly ugly concrete jungle from the outside but inside it´s nothing short of magnificent.
Correctly rated 5 stars by UEFA the stadium has hosted three European Cup finals as well as the 1982 World Cup final. There are also plans afoot to add a retractable roof.
The match was a complete sell out meaning I had to buy my ticket from a tout. I paid 80 euros after he´d intially asked for 130. I knew the going rate was 100 euros so although feeling slightly robbed it could have been worse.
Sid Lowe of the Guardian newspaper keeps bleating on about this being the worse La Liga in recent years in terms of quality. Therefore, I wasn´t expecting much of a match. As it happened it was one of the most compelling I´d ever seen.
With the game poised at 2-2 going into the last few minutes - the Valencia striker Javier Arizmendi of all people saw world cup winner Cannavaro off like a puppy before out foxing Casillas from the acutest of angles to win the match. It was his first of the season and that from a player thought to be the worst in La Liga. Previously he´d ben so bad that the coach had him playing at right back.
Prior to Arizmendi´s comedy winner, Raul and David Villa had each score a brace apiece. In between rolling about the floor, Villa was easily the best player on the park and if he isn´t playing for Chelsea next season I´ll eat my sombrero. Total class.
It was a fairly cold night in Madrid but the Bernabeu has a rather unusual feature in that it has heaters situated on the underside of the stadium roof. Subsequently it was as hot as you like in there.
As per usual though the atmosphere was somewhat lacking. Aside from the Ultras Sur behind the goal, no-one seemed too bothered in creating an noise. Granted there was those dreaded hooters but in my eyes - whoever thought of allowing those things anywhere near to a football stadium needs putting behind bars.
After the match I headed into town to meet up again with the wife and a few friends and we engaged in a traditional Madrid bar crawl long into the night.
Over many a beer we discussed the important things in life such as the fact that "Go hang a salami, I´m a lasagna hog" reads the same backwards as forwards. Palindrome genius indeed. Good old life!
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text:
Manchester United Ashley Young #18 Bortatröja 2019/20 Kortärmad
- Artikelnummer: Fotbollmaster_45223
Manchester United Ashley Young #18 Bortatröja 2019/20 Kortärmad
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Think smoking's bad for your health? It's got nothing on your job.
According to new research, job burnout and stress — dealing with emotional, mental and physical exhaustion from your work — makes you a prime candidate for heart problems.
Those who were identified as being in the top 20 percent of the burnout scale were found to have a (yikes!) 79 percent increased risk of coronary heart disease — an accumulation of plaque in arteries that can lead to angina or heart attacks — according to researchers from Tel Aviv University.
Researchers studied nearly 9,000 apparently healthy employed men and women, aged 19 to 67 years. They were asked questions about their ability to focus, think clearly and be sensitive to their co-workers' and customers' needs, as well as their emotional investment in their work.
The results were even alarming to researchers, who said they were more extreme than they had expected. It makes burnout a stronger predictor of CHD than many other classical risk factors, including smoking, blood lipid levels and physical activity.
But just how alarming are these results, really?
Employees have known for years already how much work stress affects them — from working hard for peanuts, having a bad or difficult boss, long commutes, long hours and so on. The same goes for doctors as they have been treating heart attacks most often caused by stress and writing prescription after prescription. (Other research finds that women with high-stress jobs suffer a whopping 88 percent greater risk of heart attack.) Now that researchers know this, I suppose employers are the last ones to know it — or at least offer help or suggestions.
(And no, hearing how lucky we are to have a job in this economy isn't the most helpful suggestion.)
Work stress and job burnout may perhaps be our country's biggest common denominator. Americans work longer hours, take fewer vacation days and retire later than employees in other industrialized countries around the globe.
Burnout, by the way, is also associated with other health woes including obesity, insomnia and anxiety. Researchers also warned that job burnout can create a "downward health spiral and develop into a chronic condition."
So what's there to do? Researchers say we need to help avoid long-term damage — and everyone needs to do their part. Health care providers who know their patients are experiencing burnout, for one, should closely monitor for signs of coronary heart disease as well.
"Employers need to prioritize prevention by promoting healthy and supportive work environments and keeping watch for early warning signs of the condition. Simple diagnostic questionnaires that identify burnout are already available online," Tel Aviv University researchers wrote. "Workers can contribute to prevention by making healthy lifestyle choices, such as exercising more regularly; getting seven to eight hours sleep per night; and seeking psychological therapy if required."
There's also the idea, of course, of working somewhere else. But with these statistics, it seems like a bad work culture might just follow you — though I wouldn't bet your health on it.
See also:


text:
Parts are RoHS compliant
Snubber, IGBT & Power semiconductor power circuits, energy conversion
Capacitance: 0.015 uF
Dissipation Factor: 0.0005 Max at 1000 Hz and 25°C
Temperature Coefficient: -200 PPM/°C: -100 PPM/°C, 100 PPM/°C
Ripple Current: 2 A at 100 kHz and 70°C
ESR: 42 milliOhms (typical) at 100 kHz and 25°C
Self Inductance: 1
Nanohenries maximum per mm of body length and lead length
dvdt: 1050 V/µs
Tolerance: -10 % , +10 %
Temperature Range: -40°C to +85°C
Above 85°C the rated (DC/AC) voltage must be derated at per N/A°C
WVDC: 2500 Volts DC
SVDC: 3300 Volts DC
VAC: 700 Volts AC
Terminal to Terminal Dielectric strength: 2 times the rated DC voltage when applied between the terminals for 10 seconds
Terminal to case Dielectric strength: 3000 VAC when applied between the terminals and case for 60 seconds
Insulation Resistance (Terminal to Terminal): 30000 MINIMUM after 100 Volts DC is applied for 60 seconds at 20°C
300 failures/billion component hours
Load Life: 100000/30000 hours at 70°C with 100% of rated voltage
Capacitance Change: ≤3% of initially measured value
D.F. Change: ≤200% of maximum specified value
I.R. Change: >50% of minimum specified value
Insulation resistance (Terminal to Case): N/A Megohms MINIMUM after 0 Volts DC is applied for 0 seconds at 0
Diameter (D): 13 mm, MAX mm
Length (L): 29 mm, MAX mm
Lead Finish: Matte Tin
Lead Spacing (S): mm, +/- mm
Lead Diameter (d): 0.8 mm, +/-0.05 mm
Lead Length (LL): 35mm, +/- MIN mm