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Writing article on personal development via RPGs
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Topic: Writing article on personal development via RPGs (Read 5443 times)
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Writing article on personal development via RPGs
April 05, 2010, 12:25:30 AM »
I am posting this here initially, as you guys seem to be the most brainy and open-minded of the various RPG forums available online
I hope I will get my message across with minimum confusion.
Anyway, I am writing the sequel to an article I wrote last year called "Betatesting life: RPGs as a tool for personal development". You can find it in issue 1 of my magazine "Interesting Times":
The article is below in case you don't feel like downloading the PDF.
Betatesting life: RPGs As A Tool For Personal Development
By AHA
Betcha found that article title interesting? If you want some tips on how to advance your self-growth using rocket-propelled grenades, I'm sure we'll write about that at some point. Today's text is about role-playing games, however.
How can a bunch of Dungeons & Dragons crap help anyone? Isn't that stuff for fat pasty virgins? Sure, it is. But, as I am about to demonstrate, it can also be a tool for elite people like us. (Fact: Vin Diesel has been a hardcore D&D player for 20+ years.) Look at it this way: Real Life has orgasms and beer. RPG-land is (barring holodecks and AIs) the most potent arena for interactive fiction and open-ended exploration at our disposal. If you could find a way to combine the two, wouldn't that be something?
The Metaphor of Life As RPG: Even Clerks Can Be Barbarians
Take your typical RPG character sheet. Depending on the game system, you'll have your hitpoints, various strength/agility/intelligence/charisma/etc attributes, skill percentages, possessions, list of spells you know, and so on and so forth. Would you agree that this summarizing and quantifying of your character adds to the enjoyment of the game? One glance at your sheet and you know your exact progress. This is a big part of why people become roleplaying nerds: you get addicted to experience points, exotic loot, skill increases, superhuman cyborg implants, and all that good stuff. The virtual world is highly responsive and rewarding. Whereas in Real Life, results tend to be a lot more vague, open-ended and anti-climactic. For most people, fiction simply pwns reality in the fun department. How can we take that addictive grinding and leveling-up quality and certainty and transfer it to Real Life?
Exercise: create a character sheet for yourself. Be realistic here, you're not Hercules.
Exercise: determine your current level on a scale from 1-20. Try to see what you would need to do to get to the next level. I'm probably a level 14. I personally feel that levels are somewhat logarithmic, so you need more and more experience points to level up, but then again you also get better at scoring experience points.
Exercise: get into the RPG headspace while keeping your Real Life avatar and situation in working memory. Looking at the character sheet, what patterns can you see? What would you like to improve? What kind of adventurer party would you like to run with? Where would you fit in with one?
10 000 Ways To Fail: Making Lemonade, Eating Crap And Talking Smooth
Ever watched that Burn Notice show? The one with the MacGyver spy and Ash from Evil Dead? If not, shame on you. Anyway, did you ever wish you could have that kind of think-on-your-feet, talk-my-way-out-of-anything, shit-eating-grin kind of smoothness? To always have a plan, to always see opportunity where others see adversity, to make lemonade when you all you have is explosive pineapples, to always take charge, leaving everyone wondering how someone can be so kick-ass.
If you wish to do that, you first have to deconstruct what it means. And once you do that, you can devise exercises employing gradual progressive overload until you get where you want to be. The role-playing game is not a bad medium for this, seeing as its basic structure is so malleable and expandable.
When you play a computer RPG, even a relatively free-form one like Fallout or GTA, you still get most of the path laid down for you. There are a few different routes to the goal and a few different dialog trees, but the situation is always one of choosing between rigid alternatives. With a pen & paper RPG, there is no such choice. You have to CREATE. The GM may have some idea of how to get to the goal, but he sure as hell ain't gonna tell you. You have to take charge and solve the problems. You have to trust in your own ability. You have to convince your party comrades to see it your way. If you choose the manipulative route, you have to talk smooth and outwit the GM. If you choose the ninja route you have to make a plan and make it all come together. If you choose violence, well... then you just roll the dice.
Exercise: smooth talking. Pick a random word from the dictionary and just riff off of it. Write down awkward situations in TV shows where the protagonist has to talk his way out of trouble, try to identify general patterns. Do improv theather stuff with your friends. Read books on social engineering. Keep a notebook and test out the stuff in-game.
Exercise: problem solving. Any time you see some problem to be solved, whether it's a plot development on TV, a political issue in the newspaper or something in your personal life, take stock of the facts and develop a plan. Always be doing this. Make backup plans for contingencies. Time yourself, try to think faster. Get your adrenalin up and observe effects on cognition. Practice calming yourself down and getting clear in the head. Convince your GM to give you lots of tricky problems.
Some Bugs May Be Features: Performance-enhanced Daydreamin', Debuggin' & Dice-rollin'
What would it be like to be a highly trained special ops soldier with access to the latest in experimental military hardware? To have elite social wits, charisma like Casanova, and super models chasing you around as par for the course? To be a demi-god among men, whether due to magics, cybertech or unlife? To be insanely rich and well-connected, and have legions of minions doing your bidding? Roleplaying provides an intermediary level between your paltry imagination and the one-shot, irreversible nature of Real Life. Think of RPGs as a hybrid between a novel and a daydream. (Or Buffy and a wetdream). The GM sets the basic structure, but you get to do whatever you want. If you're familiar with personal development techniques, this is basically like visualization on steroids.
Exercise: come up with a list of long-term heroic goals you would like to test-drive. It should be stuff that's quite out of your reach at the moment. If you're already a billionaire with a schwarzeneggerian physique, weekly movie-grade adventures, a private army and personal harem, then I guess you can skip this exercise. When you find yourself being extra motivated in the game, try to get a description on paper so you can recall the experience for motivation later. Aim for vivid images and inspiring descriptions.
Exercise: come up with a list of things you are pondering doing right now. Stuff like asking out that waitress, starting that exercise program, quitting your job, etc. Try different branches of what-ifs. Write down any "aha!" moments. Most of us don't have very good prediction models. By enlisting the aid of others, we can avoid having our decision trees derailed by unexamined heuristics and biases.
Life As Narration: Where Heroic Adventures Come True
When roleplaying, it's quite common for players to be a lot more bold and careless than they would be in Real Life. A common trope of RPGs is that players will tend to solve every problem with violence, even starting fights with random NPCs out of boredom. Some self-preservative restraint will usually be seen when the players start to become powerful, simply because it sucks to have your level 70 Cybertroll or whatever slain by an annoyed GM. However, what's interesting is that there is a class of actions which are inherently safe in both worlds, yet we hesitate to do them in Real Life but have no fears in RPG-land. The PC chatting up every female the party comes across would be the classic example.
Exercise: make a list of all the relatively safe things you do in RPG-land but hesitate to do in Real Life for fear of embarassment or whatever. List pros and cons of doing the activity in Real Life. Trying to steal everyone's stuff would be an example of something with a lot of disadvantes, but how about talking to and trying to befriend every interesting person you see? How about incessantly haggling over prices?
Exploration is at the heart of role-playing. The dungeon-crawl, with its endless supply of cobwebbed doors and treasure chests, seemingly strewn about at random, is probably the most abused RPG trope ever. But how can you be an explorative adventurer in Real Life? Here's a list of suggestions of fun stuff to do:
* The Military. You get weapons training, cash, and interesting adventure leads. You can zone out for long stretches of time while your skill points increase.
* Urban Exploration. IRL dungeon-crawling. Combine with parkour for that added cyberpunk flair.
* Pick-Up. An esoteric rogue art with its own secret guild lairs, arcane terminology and huge range of spellbooks to study. And the reward for leveling up comes in the form of increasingly hot women. When you get good enough, those ComicCon booth babes with the Elf ears and chainmail bikinis will be yours!
* Treasure hunting. Your chance to be Indiana Jones. And a pretty decent excuse to study archaelogy. You may want to start out with something easy like trolling public parks for petty cash with metal detectors, rather than ransacking sunken Spanish galleons and stuff.
Exercise: make a list of things you can do to increase the adventure in your life. You're going to need a troupe of minions, so write a convincing sales pitch for each activity.
Alternate Reality: Live-Action Drills & Frills Guaranteed To Make You Eccentric
Alternate Reality Games and Live-Action Role-Play are what you get when you do a postmodern take on RPGs and try to crossbreed them with Real Life. Here are a few ideas that fit into the genre:
* "Bang! You're dead!" A drill where you're constantly trying to virtu-kill your friends by pointing sticks at them and making shooting noises, or placing shoeboxes in their rooms with notes saying "Boom! You just triggered a simulated bomb!" Promotes situational awareness and healthy paranoia.
* Gold farmer. Pick up every damn coin and refundable Coke can you find in the streets. Put the money in a jar and buy a sword or something.
* Urban escape and evasion. A bunch of megacorp gunslingers (or vampire hunters) are hunting you down. The main mission is to lay low and avoid capture, but to make it challenging you have objectives you need to achieve. Some good ones would be objects you must retrieve, places you must visit at certain times, NPCs you must interact with, stuff like that. Neill Strauss did this drill in his latest book (see the review in this issue) and he actually did some very RPG:y outside-the-box things such as recruiting minions on Myspace, pre-planting caches all over the city, and getting creative with lockpicks.
* Boot camp. You're a fresh-faced grunt in some elite black ops force or paramilitary vampire slayer's association, doesn't really matter. You're going to be spending a few days simulating a few months worth of physical exercise, weapons training and camaraderie-building. As a bonus, your GM will get to roleplay the quintessential sadistic DI.
* Megacorp infiltration. Use all your social engineering savvy to explore the Leviathan from inside. Don't do anything malicious of course, but if you're at a conference or something then you might as well stock up on corporate catering and Cyberdyne t-shirts...
* Saving throw. When I need to avoid binging out on dirty cheezburgers or whatever, I do an imaginary dice roll against my Willpower stat.
We'd like to run an article just on this topic, so send in more ideas for drills!
The Social Aspect: Running A Guild Is Way More Fun In Real Life
Once people get to a high enough level in online RPGs, it's the social dynamics that keeps them hooked. And I totally understand why: in Real Life, you're a down-trodden clerk, a cog in the Machine. A modern peon, really, an office serf with little to no say in anything. In the game, you're a high-ranking guild leader, you have hundreds of people taking orders from you, you're always hustling for alliances and organizing raids. You matter. People miss you when you're AFK (Away From Keyboard). Shit yeah you can get addicted to that. Of course, running a Warcraft guild is going to be of limited long-term value, barring some increased leadership skills and new acquaintances. What you need to do is build your own guild in Real Life. Much harder, but ultimately a hell of a lot more rewarding.
Unfortunately, I can't be Mr Wise-Ass about this particular project, since it's still a work-in-progress for me. But rest assured that I will keep you updated with more articles on the fine art of building a fanatically loyal private army. In the meantime, here's some general tips:
* Develop a routine for assessing new acquaintances and for transmitting your interests and stuff. You can literally write a question sheet for new friends, and a CV for them to read. Also, look up Tim Ferris' ideas on this, just google "tim ferriss test drive friends".
* Practice social networking. There are books on this, and you're bound to see me write on this if you stick around long enough, seeing as how it's an obsession of mine. The basics are just about being proactive, always being on the hunt for interesting people, actively engaging and helping people, introducing different friends to each other, staying in touch with your network, stuff like that. Not exactly rocket science, just a lot of work.
* Develop a repertoire of activities that you can easily enroll new friends into. Examples could be going to the gym, picking up chicks, role-playing games (crazy, I know) and doing survival/tactical preps. It should be stuff where you take a natural leadership role and enhance the lives of your new recruits, so just going out and getting randomly drunk doesn't work so well.
* Create a mission statement for your new militia/army/guild/party/whatever. Just pandering to your personal narcissism and powerlust ain't gonna fly, people need something bigger to believe in. You want to be seen as "first among equals".
Tying It All Together: of Grotesque Grinding And Grumpy GameMasters
Some closing notes:
* Finding a decent group is not going to be easy. Most players will probably want to just slay Orcs and level up the way it's always been done. Hell, most people are pretty hostile toward crazy stuff like self-improvement, so you'll have to stay persistent. It helps if you come across as somewhat sane, and not totally crazed out on Tony Robbins or whatever (not that there's anything wrong with that).
* Finding a really good GM is essential. You need someone who encourages creative players, not the type who punishes you for thinking outside the box.
* What with hi-tech and all, you can probably find someone online to get your fix on with. Doesn't beat face to face, but it's something at least.
* The idea of using RPGs for personal development was something I came up with during a brainstorming session. As far as I know, I am the first to really flesh out the concept. What fields can YOU combine to make something fresh that gives you an edge in life? And will you let me in on your secret?
I hope I gave you all some food for thought. The field of personal development can be a bit trite and stale at time, and we need to keep innovating and coming up with new and exciting techniques. Just as it is in RPG-land, leveling up as people and raiding increasingly powerful booty ought to be the main mission of Real Life.
We want your feedback! Send in your RPG stories to
Anyway, like I said, I am writing part 2 of this. I am not a very experienced roleplayer but I do have some experience. Got any good ideas for me? Is anyone here into roleplaying game AND self-development stuff, or am I just weird?
While I gather up and structure my own ideas for part 2, maybe you can help me out?
Eero Tuovinen
Acts of Evil Playtesters
Posts: 2591
Re: Writing article on personal development via RPGs
Reply #1 on:
April 05, 2010, 09:50:36 AM »
This is likely more of an Endeavour topic - moderator'll be around to move it at some point, I expect.
I love how you think you're 14th level. Aside from that, I'd like to hear more about the background: who are you writing for? Are you writing for the general population or roleplayers, or what? A lot about how I'd react to the article depends on that.
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Re: Writing article on personal development via RPGs
Reply #2 on:
April 06, 2010, 01:10:46 AM »
Quote from: Eero Tuovinen on April 05, 2010, 09:50:36 AM
This is likely more of an Endeavour topic - moderator'll be around to move it at some point, I expect.
Sure. I had no idea where to put this.
I love how you think you're 14th level. Aside from that, I'd like to hear more about the background: who are you writing for? Are you writing for the general population or roleplayers, or what? A lot about how I'd react to the article depends on that.
Well, I would say that I am writing for the section of the general population that reads my magazine
Am I writing for hardcore roleplayers? Sure, but the main target group would be people who are into self-improvement and are willing to try out new tools and perspectives. I can see why one would play these games just for enjoyment or whatever (and I'm planning to join a gaming group ASAP in fact) but in this case I am using RPGs as a tool to accomplish a goal that lies outside of the game, namely personal development.
Of course, I shouldn't just blindly assume that everyone shares the same framework, so here's what Wikipedia has to say:
Personal development refers to individual self-development and the development of others. By extension, personal development may involve programs, tools and methods. At the level of individuals personal development includes goals, plans or actions oriented towards one or more of the following aims:
* improving self-awareness
* improving self-knowledge
* building or renewing identity
* developing strengths or talents
* identifying or improving potential
* building employability or human capital
* enhancing lifestyle or the quality of life
* realizing dreams
* fulfilling aspirations
* defining and executing personal development plans
Oh, and that article was written last summer. Level 14 is soooo 2009...
Posts: 3
Re: Writing article on personal development via RPGs
Reply #3 on:
April 06, 2010, 04:38:14 AM »
Oh btw, if someone else wants to take up the reins and write the article, they would be more than welcome
Eero Tuovinen
Acts of Evil Playtesters
Posts: 2591
Re: Writing article on personal development via RPGs
Reply #4 on:
April 06, 2010, 01:21:04 PM »
That seems reasonable regarding your audience - I checked out the website and understand a bit better now.
Your article topic is pretty challenging, as it requires a highly specific outlook and expertise of the writer. Perhaps somebody here is able to help out.
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Zombie Cinema
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If you enjoy satiric television comedy and Democratic politics, here is your moment of zen: Barack Obama will appear on "The Daily Show" on Oct. 27.
The episode is to air three days before "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart leads his "Rally to Restore Sanity" event on the National Mall and less than a week before the mid-term elections. (Obama has said that he is "amused" by the idea for the rally.)
The president has been on Stewart's show before -- beaming in via video days before the 2008 election -- but this time he will be live in the studio. The appearance is part of the White House's full-on courting of young voters, a group that motivated in great numbers to help sweep Obama into office two years ago. For that election, 52 percent of registered voters between the ages of 18-29 hit the voting booths, the second-greatest turnout ever by that demographic.
U.S. & World
Facing potentially disastrous mid-term elections for Democrats, Obama has ratcheted up his campaign presence with an emphasis on again reaching younger lever-pullers. He's recently appeared in Rolling Stone magazine and on MTV.
Jon Stewart's nightly faux-news program is arguably an even more effective arena for reaching politically engaged 18-49 year olds. A recent study found that young people turn to "The Colbert Report," "The Daily Show" and the New York Times more than any other sources for their news. Yes, in that order.
Selected Reading: The Christian Science Monitor, Psychology Today, The Insider.

subset: commoncrawl


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If you haven't heard yet, Microsoft has made some significant changes to the MCM program. The changes make the certification more accessible to the masses.
You can read more about that from sources such as the following:
This post is not so much about the changes. More it is about the information dissemination related to the MCM. I saw on twitter that there were some videos available to watch concerning the MCM training. I was curious where these videos were so I decided to go looking for the videos. In my search for the videos, I came across the Blog post referenced above by Jason Strate. In that post, he has a link to the videos. I decided to check out the videos and I decided to start downloading them so I could use them as study aids as I work on the MCITP.
Downloading those videos one by one is somewhat tedious and time consuming. Thus while some were in the process of downloading, I started working on a few other things and saw another twitter post come across about a Powershell script to download those MCM training videos. This is great news – except I have never run a powershell script.
Well, no time like the present to learn. First thing to do is to check out the blog article about the script – it has a few downloads. The blog post is by Eric Humphrey, and can be found here. After having read what he had to say about the script and downloading the necessary files that he lists, it was time to find out how to run a powershell script. A little looking and I came across this article.
Excellent I am well under way now to run this script. After following some of the recommendations in that article (e.g. security settings), it was time to look at the script and see what I needed to know from there, such as paths required for add-in files or paths for destination files. Some quick adjustments to the userprofile path and to the download directory, as well as copying the HTMLAgilityPack into the userprofile path – and we are all set.
Now I have the script running and downloading the files – but it looks like it is going to be running for a long time. This is a very useful tool for me at this moment. This demonstrates another use for Powershell as well. I haven't yet decided that I will pursue the MCM, however I will use these videos to improve my knowledge base on SQL server. I would recommend that people go check out these videos. It was somewhat surprising to me to see that many of the pages had not been viewed very frequently at all. This is great training material. I recommend getting it and adding it to the reference material you may already have.
If you are just looking to browse the videos individually, you can find the site here.


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The meat on the grill isn't the only thing that's hot about the GrillHampton cooking competition and tasting event. Über hot band New Life Crisis will be performing at GrillHampton on Friday, July 12, RAIN OR SHINE! If you're new to the East End, or have been living under a giant Cronut (hey, it beats a rock), there are a few things you'll need to know about New Life Crisis (NLC) before heading to Sayre Park in Bridgehampton for the big night.
•Lead singer and acoustic guitarist Paul Mahos at the helm, drummer Steve O'Brien keeping the frantic beat, and lead/bass guitarist extraordinaire Jeff Allegue combine forces and their passion for music to create high-energy dance music from the '70s,'80s and '90s—rock and party, creating a dynamic, unique onstage concert experience with fresh takes on everything from Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash and Elvis to Cee Lo Green, U2, David Bowie, Elton John, Muse, Barry White and the Bee Gees.
•Although NLC is a well-known dance band playing in all the popular clubs and restaurants on the East End such as Dockers Waterside in East Quogue, Agave in Westhampton, Tiderunners, Oakland's and Dream in Hampton Bays, 75 Main, Southampton Social Club and 230 Elm in Southampton, as well as Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett and Montauk's Gurneys Inn, the band has had a long history with their original music.
In 2000, their debut single, "Daylight," appeared on MTV's platinum-selling Party to Go Remixed. "Daylight" was also recorded by the European group No Angels, and in 2001 and 2002 it sold more than 3 million copies worldwide and was nominated as "the No #1 Song of the summer."
•New Life Crisis's original music has been featured in television and film, including on The Guiding Light, Laguna Beach, The Real O.C. and The Opie and Anthony Show. In 2011 the band appeared on the USA Network hit show Royal Pains performing two original songs, "When Daylight Comes" and "Promises."
•New Life Crisis has released three CDs: Paul Mahos and New Life Crisis, featuring "Dirty Little Girl" and "Promiss," Three to Get Ready and most recently released, Odyssey; a mash-up of covers performed to a high-energy dance beat.
•Mahos has done a variety of acting/singing in his career, including Broadway and Off-Broadway plays, most notably in the national tour of Elvis: A Musical Celebration, which ran at the Las Vegas Hilton. Mahos also performed as Bono in a U2 tribute band that toured internationally, as well as in the Legends Shows (Imperial Palace) and the Freemont Street Experience Las Vegas.
•Lead guitar/bass player Jeff Allegue has played with Joan Jett and is a founding member of the multi-platinum-selling Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
•Allegue recently released a guitar solo CD, The Lovely Savages, which was critically acclaimed, most notably by guitar legend Al Di Meola and Everett Bradley (Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band).
•In addition, New Life Crisis has earned some notable awards, including:
In 2005, NLC was chosen to tour on the Steve Madden Rock and Sole Concert Series, which concluded at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame Museum in Cleveland Ohio.
In 2008 their original song "Breaking" was featured on the long time running daytime soap opera Guiding Light.
In 2009 and 2010, the band was voted "The No #1 Band in the Hamptons of Long Island, New York" by Hamptons.com.
In 2012, NLC was awarded "Best of the Best" band in the Hamptons by Dan's Papers!
GrillHampton will be held Friday, July 12, starting at 8 p.m. in Sayre Park in Bridgehampton. To purchase your tickets to eat, drink and vote for your favorite food of the night, go to danstasteoftwoforks.com.


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Where Does Your Cat's Energy Come From?
Food serves many purposes. It contains essential nutrients – amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, etc. – that the body needs to function. Food is also fuel, providing the energy that cats need to grow, maintain their bodies, reproduce, stay warm, and be active. All of the energy in a cat's diet comes from one of three nutrient categories: fats/oils, protein and carbohydrates.
Using the MyBowl tool is an excellent way for cat owners to learn about the importance of balanced feline nutrition and the proper way to incorporate the precise amounts of the right ingredients into their cat's diet. In this article, we'll take a closer look at the role fats/oils, proteins and carbohydrates all play as sources of energy.
Fats and oils are the most concentrated sources of energy. On the basis of weight, they provide twice as much energy (in other words, calories) as do proteins and carbohydrates. Too much fat in a cat's food increases the likelihood of weight gain and obesity, but enough is still needed to provide essential nutrients as well as make the food taste good to finicky felines. Cats with poor appetites or high metabolic rates may have trouble maintaining their weight on a low-fat diet.
When a cat eats a meal, the digestive tract breaks down large protein molecules into their amino acid subunits. These are then absorbed and recombined to form the exact types of protein that the cat needs at that time. Once a cat's body has all the amino acids it needs, the excess is converted into energy, stored as fat or eliminated as waste.
Too little protein in their diet puts cats at risk for metabolic disorders, muscle wasting and weakness. Too much protein can worsen preexisting kidney disease, the organ primarily responsible for excreting the waste generated by protein metabolism. Kidney disease is very common in cats, and using standard diagnostic tools it can only be diagnosed after two-thirds to three-quarters of kidney function has already been lost.
Cats are carnivores and as such do not have a dietary requirement for carbohydrates. However, research shows that healthy cats can effectively use carbohydrates as a source of energy.1-3 Incorporating moderate amounts of carbohydrate into a food allows the diet to contain healthy proportions of fat and protein – not too little, but also not too much. Ingredients like whole grains and potatoes also contain important nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, phytonutrients and fiber that all help maintain health.
Use the MyBowl tool to determine whether or not your cat's food is made from a healthy balance of fat, protein and carbohydrates – the sources of energy that fuel his or her day.
1 Kienzle E. Carbohydrate metabolism of the cat - 2. Digestion of starch. J Anim Physiol Anim Nutr 1993;69:102–114.
2 Morris JG, Trudell J, Pencovic T. Carbohydrate digestion by the domestic cat (Felis catus). Brit J Nutr 1977;37:365–373.
3 de-Oliveira LD, Carciofi AC, Oliveira MC, et al. Effects of six carbohydrate sources on cat diet digestibility and postprandial glucose and insulin response. J Anim Sci 2008;86:2237–2246.


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State v. Nigel Watkins
Date / Time:November 1, 2011 - 3:30pm
Order of the Supreme Court dated August 23, 2011:
It is Ordered that Mr. Watkins and Mr. Cross are directed to brief the issues concerning Double Jeopardy. Mr. White is directed to brief the issues concerning Due Process. Mr. Watkins, Mr. White, and Mr. Cross shall file their supplemental briefs no later than September 22, 2011. The State of Tennessee shall file a single supplemental response brief thirty days after the defendants' briefs are filed, but in no event later than October 22, 2011. Consolidated re-argument of these appeals is scheduled for November 1, 2011, at 3:30 p.m. in Nashville. Each side (the defendants collectively and the State) shall receive forty-five minutes of argument time, for a total of one and one-half hours of argument for all three appeals. The Court invites the Tennessee Bar Association, the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Tennessee District Public Defenders Conference, and the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference to submit amicus curiae briefs addressing any or all of the issues enumerated in the order, with the deadline for filing an amicus curiae brief of September 30, 2011. Other interested organizations may also seek leave of this Court to file amicus curiae briefs. None of the amicus curiae may participate in oral argument unless a party agrees to share its allotted time.
Per Curiam
Court:Supreme Court
Division:Middle Section


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More on the AZ Supreme Court Ruling
As Andrew Coulson noted earlier, the Arizona Supreme Court struck down two voucher programs today that serve special needs and foster children.
I think some of his points deserve an additional emphasis; this is a tragedy for many of the state's most needy and vulnerable children but it can be easily fixed. (See who school choice opponents are so determined to send back to an inadequate public school system here).
These children can be quickly and seamlessly supported in their school of choice through an immediate expansion of the state's two existing education tax credit programs, which have been ruled constitutional.
These children are in desperate need of the education they currently receive at private schools, and lawmakers must ensure that they can continue to attend their school of choice.


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Masaomi is out on the town, fervently trying to pick up girls. Confused, bewildered, Mikado goes along for the ride. Out
recruiting for the Russian sushi restaurant where he works is Simon Brezhnev. Also out is Heiwajima Shizuo and Tom Tanaka, out to collect on a debt they're owed. Yagiri Seiji is feverishly searching for someone and Sonohara Anri is walking around looking for her friend who hasn't attended a day of school since opening ceremonies. All sorts of stories intermingle in Ikebekuro as rumors of the Dollars spread. Mikado runs into his classmate, Anri, who is about to get into a fight. Thinking he'll rescue her, he calls out to her. But then, the info broker, Orihara Izaya, who he has been warned to steer clear of, appears.
Get the latest updates on show information, news, and more.


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Racing From The Meadowlands airs at 11 a.m. (EST) on TVG on Friday and Saturday and 10:30 am (EST) on Sunday. Friday & Saturday broadcasts are 30 minute replay shows, Sunday show is 1 hour. (Subject to change.)
Racing From The Meadowlands is back on SportsNet New York (SNY) and airs 2:00 a.m. for Thursday & Friday and 1:30 a.m. for the Saturday 1 hour recap show.
Regionally, TVG airs on channel 718 on Comcast, 402 on Cablevision, channel 315 on Verizon and 670 on AT&T NY. It is also available on DirecTV on channel 602 and DISH Network on channel 405.
Airtime change:
To find TVG on your local cable provider, go to:
Meadowlands Racing & Entertainment - 1 Racetrack Drive - East Rutherford, NJ 07073 - Call us at (201) THE-BIGM
If you are vision impaired or have some other impairment covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act or a similar law, and you wish to discuss potential accommodations related to using this website, please contact email@example.com
©2020 New Meadowlands Racetrack, LLC. All rights reserved. Gambling Problem? Call 800-GAMBLER


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Methinks Hasbro needs a new PR dept.
So what's the schedule for this weekend? Is anything going on today? When are we likely to see first photos from the floor? When is the official Hasbro presentation?Wondering how this is all going to play out with the backdrop of that huge blizzard and all...
I'm not sure we'll have a live twitter feed from the event (that's up to Steve and his cell service). I know Galactic Hunter will be attempting to live-tweet the media presentation and I'll be re-tweeting some of their stuff as it pops up so be sure to follow @jedidefender on twitter!
Only seeing facebook blurbs. SPOILERS. (I should wait for photos myself)Exclusives: Vintage TIE Interceptor. Vintage Slave 1. Republic Gunship. Bigg's X-Wing!, Scanning crew pack, Vader origins.Black Series exclusive Boba Fett with Han Carbonite. (SDCC?) No images shown.LEGENDS RETURNS as 5 point figures for $5.99 (We already knew that, more or less)Mission series: Anakin and 501st. Jango and
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Nondestructive inspection: Better, faster and cheaper
Faced with new time and cost pressures, NDI system suppliers are integrating inspection with manufacturing to reduce its share in part cost and cycle time.
#space #cuttingtools #autoclave
Innovation is often a result of the push and pull of market forces: new products or applications that push forward in one industry can pull in their wake significant technological innovations in a closely related field. Such is the case with nondestructive inspection (NDI) technology. Historically slow and costly, NDI accounts for as much as 25 percent of the cost of manufacturing high-end aerospace parts. These costs were viewed as an unpleasant necessity and could be absorbed in big-budget, cost-plus military programs. But the advent of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350 programs sparked rapid expansion of the commercial aircraft composites market, where production deadlines and price points are much less forgiving. The aerospace composites manufacturers who serve the commercial aircraft market are seeking more efficient, cost-effective inspection. And in response, NDI systems suppliers are working with customers to commercialize systems that incorporate entirely new approaches or step changes that represent significant improvements in utility, speed and cost.
Featured Content
Robotized NDI for complex geometries
A number of companies are supplying equipment and services for what is the first large-scale, industrial implementation of a new type of NDI, called Surface-Adaptive, Phased-Array Ultrasound, or Surface-Adaptive ULtrasound (SAUL) for short. SAUL integrates robotics and ultrasound scanning, and uses a unique, surface-adaptive algorithm to conduct faster, more accurate inspections of composite parts that have complex shapes and sharp radii. SAUL enables, for the first time, the inspection of curved parts with a single, flat multi-element matrix probe. Contour Dynamics Inspection Systems (Lévis, Quebec, Canada) is the system designer, integrator and manufacturer. One unit already is installed at EADS Composites Aquitaine (Salaunes, France) and has been used to inspect several shipsets of carbon fiber parts for the Airbus A350. Each shipset comprises several hundred parts with dimensions up to 700 by 200 by 200 mm (27.5 by 7.9 by 11.8 inches), with thicknesses of 1 to 9 mm (0.039 to 0.354 inch), and both convex and concave radii with curvatures that vary from 4 to 7 mm (0.157 to 0.276 inch). Defects of interest are delaminations greater than 6 mm (0.236 inch) in diameter and in-plane porosity greater than 2 percent — both are thresholds for part rejection. The goal is an average inspection time of four minutes or less per part. Although SAUL is now used to inspect relatively small, thin parts, it can be adapted to inspect larger parts, including long fuselage stiffeners and frame sections.
"The aerospace business has changed, and we have many more parts with complex shapes ... than we used to have," says Michel Brassard, a consultant who is under contract to Contour Dynamics to assist with the inspection implementation. "Today, NDI must become more fully integrated with the design and manufacturing process to meet requirements for efficiency and cost control."
Adopting and adapting technologies
The SAUL technology now in use at the EADS subsidiary incorporates three distinctive functions, each intended to improve the efficiency of inspection and reduce the overall cost by more fully integrating it into the manufacturing process, which includes provision for part recognition, automated part placement and removal, and robotic ultrasonic scanning incorporating surface-adaptive software. SAUL incorporates nine essential pieces of equipment (see SAUL workcell diagram in second image form top, at left):
- Two conveyors for loading and unloading parts, and a part rotator.
- A 5-axis robot supplied by Kuka Robotics Corp. (Augsburg, Germany, and Shelby Township, Mich.).
- Two cameras for part shape recognition and bar code identification.
- A 5-axis robotic immersion scannner (4.5m by 1.9m by 0.8m/14.8 ft by 6.2 ft by 2.6 ft) built by Contour Dynamics Inspection Systems (Levis, Quebec, Canada, and Wichita, Kan.).
- A 3-D SINUMERIK contour controller supplied by Siemens Process Industries and Drives (Munich, Germany, and Alpharetta, Ga.).
- A 2-D, phased-array, multi-element matrix probe supplied by IMASONIC (Voray sur l'Ognon, France).
- A 64-channel MultiX, ultrasonic phased-array controller with SAUL surface-adaptive software supplied by M2M (Les Ulis, France).
Prior to inspection, the CAD drawing for each part (drawn in CATIA, from Dassault Systèmes, Vélizy-Villacoublay, France), is imported into Mastercam path-generating software (from CNC Software, Tolland, Conn.) to generate a scan plan. The geometric design data for each part is converted into CNC codes, which, via the SINUMERIK controller, direct the 5-axis scanner during inspection. Thus, the scanning plan is much like the tooling paths generated from the CAD drawings that are imported, via a CAM system, into CNC-machining systems. During the implementation, but prior to actual inspections, Contour Dynamics and EADS carried out extensive testing, checking and fine-tuning the scan paths to ensure that the efficiency and quality of the inspection were optimized.
During operation, the robot retrieves a part from the feed conveyor and presents it to the digital cameras, which identify the part by the Datamatrix 2-D bar codes on the part's surface. Each bar code corresponds to a part number that is, in turn, categorized or coded by shape. The part shape determines, via internal programming, specifically where the robot will place it on the inspection table within the immersion tank. There are two inspection tables, or zones, located at each end of the tank. Within each table there are six subzones, each of which accommodates parts in a variety of generic shapes. The robot places the part on suction cups in the correct zone in the tank (±0.2-mm or ±0.010-inch accuracy), then the 5-axis scanner moves into position to commence scanning. Meanwhile, the robot moves to another zone to retrieve the part that the scanner has finished scanning, places it on the output conveyor, picks up a new part and repeats the cycle.
Several technologies were adopted and optimized for use in SAUL. Chief among them is M2M's integration of the surface-adaptive algorithm into its ultrasonic phased-array controller. The patented technique was originally developed by the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA) in France for systems used to inspect the steel walls of reactors, containment vessels and other components in nuclear power plants.
The alternative to SAUL is to use curved arrays to inspect parts with complex shapes, such as hat stiffeners and stringers, that include convex and concave radii. This approach is problematic, however, because it requires extremely precise and consistent positioning of the probe along the entire length of the part to obtain valid measurements. Unfortunately, the slight part-to-part variability associated with composites manufacturing can pose a challenge to the precise positioning of curved arrays when parts are inspected in high volumes. That's why SAUL, by means of its incorporated algorithm, uses a single flat matrix probe (located at the end of the 5-axis immersion scanner), comprising an array of 4 by 16 ultrasonic elements.
The M2M controller includes all the electronics needed to generate the electrical pulses to the probe's elements, calculate and apply time delays to the elements to focus, steer and electronically scan the ultrasonic beam, receive the return signals and process and display the data. When SAUL is applied, the elements of the probe are fired in transmission without focusing, and the shape of the specimen is measured from the front-surface echoes. Next, an iterative, algorithm-controlled process is applied that calculates time delays in real time, adapted to the part geometry to transmit an incident wave that is normal to the surface (see diagrams at left). The system records and displays time-of-flight and amplitude data in both B-scans (vertical cross-sections through the specimen) and C-scans (horizontal or top views though the specimen). Raw amplitude vs. time data is translated into 2-D and 3-D images.
The ability of the surface-adaptive algorithm to compensate for changes in surface geometry was demonstrated in a series of tests conducted prior to the implementation of the SAUL inspection system at the EADS facility. In one experiment a conventional curved ultrasonic array was precisely positioned over a carbon fiber composite bike steering column, which contained release film discs in the laminate to simulate delamination defects of less than 0.25, 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75 inch (less than 6.35, 6.35, 12.7 and 19.05 mm) in diameter (see image at lower left). As long as the position of the probe with respect to the curvature of the tube was maintained precisely (i.e., normal to the surface) good results were obtained in the B-scans and C-scans (See images on p. 35). Shifting the probe by 3 mm/0.12 inch in any direction, however, resulted in loss of signal. With the probe in the shifted position, the surface adaptive algorithm was turned on. This restored the signal and matched the resolution of the scans obtained when the probe was positioned correctly.
Although no formal tests have been run to compare the efficiencies and inspection costs achieved by SAUL with those obtained by conventional phased-array or other NDI methods, Deborah Hopkins, CEO of M2M's U.S. distributor, BERCLI Corp. (Berkeley, Calif.), says the surface-adaptive technology provides a number of clear benefits. For example, the use of conventional phased-array ultrasonic methods to inspect a single hat stiffener would require a minimum of five arrays — two curved arrays at the radii and three flat arrays for the top and sides. Additionally, the mandate for precise positioning of the probes, and part-to-part variability, usually requires much manual tweaking of fixtures, software and scan plans, which adds more time and cost.
Hopkins claims the integration of the surface-adaptive software into ultrasonic inspection is a boon for the aerospace composites industry. "The technology is not trivial, and the real trick is to do it on the fly, in real time," she says. "It's a dream come true for designers and manufacturers because now you can truly optimize strength-to-weight on a centimeter to centimeter basis, and efficiently inspect the part you've built." Thus far, the program is exceeding its inspection time goal of one part every four minutes, with an actual inspection rate of one part every 2.5 minutes.
Laser ultrasonics gaining commercial acceptance
Like phased-array ultrasonic imaging technology, laser ultrasonic inspection systems have been on a development curve that has spanned several decades. In the 1990s, Tecnar Automation Ltée (St-Bruno, Quebec, Canada) became the first licenser of large-scale, commercial, industrial laser ultrasonic technology used for inline wall-thickness measurement of seamless steel tubes. Lockheed Martin is credited with commercializing the first laser ultrasonic NDI test system for composite part inspection. Today, the technology, as it pertains to composites, is closer to new applications in the commercial aerospace market. Companies that sell laser ultrasonic units for composite component inspections include Tecnar, iPhoton Solutions LLC (Fort Worth, Texas) and PaR Systems Inc. (West Shoreview, Minn.), which took over the technology developed by Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, Md.) for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
In a generic configuration, a laser ultrasound device comprises two lasers. One is a short-pulsed laser that generates an ultrasound wave in the surface of the composite material; the second is a single-frequency, high-coherence-length beam focused on or near the point of impact of the generation beam on the surface of the material. Any ultrasonic surface displacements that occur are encoded as frequency or phase variations in the reflected or backscattered light and are then converted into pulse-echo signals by an optical interferometer.
The principal advantage of laser ultrasonic inspection is that the generation laser beam does not need to be perpendicular (90°) to the material surface. The angle of incidence can, in fact, be as great as 45°. The inspection point (where the two lasers meet on the part surface) is indexed point by point over the material with an optical scanner to produce 2-D and 3-D ultrasonic images of the material. Because the scanner does not have to maintain a specific or consistent distance from the part surface, the system achieves inspection turnarounds on parts with complex shapes faster than those obtained with conventional, water-based ultrasound NDI systems that require upfront programming of the part shape into the scanner controller. Although laser ultrasonic NDI technology has been used in a variety of military and aerospace programs, including NASA's Space Shuttles, it has yet to be fully qualified for large-scale commercial airline programs.
Supplier iPhoton Solutions manufactures a line of three CO2 laser ultrasonic NDI systems for composites inspection. The company's iPLUS III model is currently undergoing qualification trials at Technocampus (Pays de la Loire, France) as one of the key components of a noncontact NDI system called LUCIE (see opening photo), developed in collaboration with Airbus Nantes (Nantes, France) and EADS Innovation Works (Ottobrunn, Germany).
Tommy Drake, iPhoton CEO, reports that the key differentiator of the company's patented NDI technology is the use of commercial off-the-shelf articulated robots mounted on linear rails to move and position the optical scan head, rather than a large custom gantry robot like those employed in other laser ultrasonic systems. Drake claims the integration of commercial robots reduces the system's footprint, installation foundation requirements, installation time and cost. The iPLUS III system for Technocampus' LUCIE has a 6-axis KUKA robot capable of penetrating more than 6m/19.7 ft into the interior of demonstrator fuselages now undergoing inspection as part of the program. Drake says the inspection rate of the system is about 64 ft2/hr (about 6 m2/hr). "A single inspection area can be fairly large, for example, 5 ft by 5 ft [1.52m by 1.52m], during which the robot remains stationary," he says. "The robot can then be indexed to another inspection area."
Clay McConnell, VP communications at Airbus North America (Herndon, Va.), says the benefits of LUCIE compared to other NDI systems (including those equipped with ultrasonic phased arrays) are the elimination of the coupling media (water) and programming and tooling associated with keeping the scan head in precise position relative to the surface.
McConnell says the validation program is on track, and researchers expect to complete the evaluation of the benefits (laser vs. other ultrasonic systems) in 2014. "We need first to understand the way the laser interacts with each specific carbon fiber laminate used in the manufacturing of Airbus aerospace parts," he says. "After this qualification process, there will, of course, be other activities to improve the performance of the technology — scanning speed, quality of signal, etc."
Recently, iPhoton inspected composite test panels subjected to impact testing for the Federal Aviation Admin.'s (FAA) Airworthiness Assurance NDI Validation Center at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, N.M.). Tests performed by Sandia's Infrastructure Assurance and Non-Destructive Inspection Dept. will produce data that will be used to evaluate a variety of NDI technologies.
Sandia fabricated two full-scale carbon-fiber fuselage sections, approximately 56 inches by 76 inches (1,422 mm by 1,930 mm). Each featured a 16-ply laminate and included cocured hat-section stringers and shear ties. The panels were fabricated from T800 unidirectional prepreg (Toray Composites (America) Inc. , Tacoma, Wash.) and autoclave cured. The panels are representative of laminates used on transport-category aircraft.
Simulated hail impact testing was conducted on the panels using 2.4-inch/61-mm ice balls and 2-inch/51-mm diameter steel-tip impacts. Using its iPLUS III laser ultrasonic NDI system, iPhoton conducted a C-scan inspection of the first panel, the results of which are shown and explained at the top of this page. As HPC went to press, Sandia was completing its testing report. However, iPhoton president Marc Dubois reports the total time for the inspection was about 45 minutes, which included preparation, and the data was considered of the highest quality.
Dubois says that iPLUS systems could appear in production facilities within two years, noting that the time span is due to the fact that the process for new technology approval on commercial aircraft can be more difficult than for military programs. "It takes a lot of time and effort to get a new technology qualified," Dubois says, but adds, "It's worth it, because we think our technology can reduce inspection cost by a factor of 10 for complex parts."
In October 2012, Tecnar entered into an agreement to assist the Beijing Aeronautical Manufacturing Technology Research Institute (BAMTRI, Beijing, China) as it develops a knowledge base in laser-ultrasonic composite inspection.
"Because BAMTRI is a research institute, they are not looking for an industrial system, such as our Laser Ultrasonic Inspection System (LUIS), but rather at smaller laboratory-scale systems we offer, such as the TWM model," says Marc Choquet, Tecnar's VP, Laser-NDE. He continues, "We are still in the initial stages of the agreement and exchanging information and looking for funding." Also in 2012, the company delivered its first industrial-scale laser ultrasonic NDI system, LUIS-2, to the Centre Technologique en Aérospatiale (CTA, Saint-Hubert, Quebec, Canada), which collaborates with aerospace industry on research projects.
Jacques Blain, Tecnar's VP of systems and technology, reports that the company has taken a different approach in the design of the CTA's LUIS-2 model. Blain says that when the laser is scanning at angles of incidence greater than 30°, the analysis of the resulting signal for defects, such as porosity, can be problematic. "When scanning a surface, and the laser goes, say, from 0° (perpendicular) to 30°, the absolute level of light intensity may vary easily by an order of magnitude," he explains. At these higher angles, surface reflectivity and roughness have an effect on signal calibration, which needs to be renormalized as it moves across the surface. Instead of renormalizing signals, the LUIS-2 system is equipped with a small probe mounted on the robotic arm, and a scanning trajectory derived from CAD data is programmed into the robot. This keeps the laser beam in a near-normal configuration as it scans the part, even on curved surfaces. "It greatly simplifies the analysis of the signal," Blain says, noting that many aeromanufacturers are uncomfortable with all the renormalization calculations performed during conventional laser ultrasonic scans.
The accelerated use of composites in aerospace, and the requirement that manufacturers inspect all parts before delivery, guarantees NDI a place in the aerostructures supply chain. But the speed and cost of manufacture are headed in opposite directions, which means that NDI systems must ultimately provide greater accuracy and efficiency. These have not been NDI hallmarks in the past, but suppliers are clear about the need and are developing systems that promise to reach those goals.
Related Topics
Thermoplastic composites: Primary structure?
Yes, advanced forms are in development, but has the technology progressed enough to make the business case?
A hidden revolution: composite rebar gains strength
Fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) replacing coated steel in more reinforced-concrete applications.
Lightning strike protection strategies for composite aircraft
Tried-and-true materials thrive, but new approaches and new forms designed to process faster are entering the marketplace.


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Basic Instructions
You can connect to the Groupfiles share at the root level, which will show you every share that exists and give you access to the _IN and _OUT box in each share or you can connect directly to the department share(s) that you use regularly. This process is simple from either Windows or OSX:
Mapping the whole \workspace share
If you connect to the top level of the workspace area, you can see a listing of all the workspace shares visible to you. To map a path to the whole listing of workspace shares, follow the basic drive mapping instructions in the appropriate link above and enter this text to specify the drive name:
This can be a useful view for a few reasons:
- You can browse to any of the shares that you are a member of without needing to map each one to a different drive letter.
- You can locate the full path name of the department share so you can map it directly if you choose to.
Mapping an individual workspace shareTo map a direct path to the workspace shares you use the most, follow the basic drive mapping instructions in the appropriate link above and enter this text to specify the drive you want to connect to:
\\groupfiles.willamette.edu\workspace\'workspacesname' (e.g. 'rhet121' or 'anthoimages')


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WINCHENDON — A historic home on High Street that once served as a sanitarium was destroyed in an early morning fire today.
All tenants escaped safely, including a 15-year-old girl who was helped out of the burning building in a wheelchair by her barefoot 16-year-old brother.
Firefighters were called out at 3 a.m. in the bitter cold to fight the fire and were still on the scene at 9 a.m. putting out the last of the embers.
Fire Chief Thomas Smith said firefighting was hampered by the cold, causing hydrants to freeze.
"At 5 degrees, everything was freezing up," he said.
There was a hydrant not far from the building, but it was frozen. Firefighters from Winchendon and surrounding communities, including Gardner, Templeton, Rindge, N.H., and emergency management units from Leominster had to rely on tankers to transport water to the fire.
Chief Smith said tenants were able to evacuate the building, but the fire quickly spread, causing the roof to collapse.
Faith Curcio, who lived in the building with her family, said five adults and three children managed to escape the blaze. The fire was discovered by her son Ethan, 16, who noticed smoke, alerted the family and got his sister Jaina, 15, down from the second floor. She was in a wheelchair. Ethan fled the building with no shoes. His family was looking for something to wear as firefighters continued to put out the last of the fire.
Ms. Curcio said the fire appears to have started in the chimney and spread to the walls. The official cause of the fire is still under investigation. Along with the people living in the house, two adult dogs, a puppy that was a Christmas gift and a cat that ran off when it got outside, all safely escaped. Two hamsters may not have survived.
The American Red Cross helped the displaced residents, five adults and three children, with food and clothing. They are planning to stay with relatives.
The building was one of he most historic houses in town. Known as The Highlands, the 4,290-square-foot building was once the home of Dr. Ira Russell, who served as a chief surgeon on the staff of Union Gen. Joseph Hooker and later Gen. George H. Thomas during the Civil War. After the war the building and grounds were converted into a family home for people with nervous and mental diseases.
The mental hospital was run by Dr. Russell until his death and later by his son, Dr. Frederick Russell.
At the time of the fire it was being rented out for housing by its owner.


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Drugstore cowboys: CVS, Walgreen red hotNovember 5, 2013: 2:12 PM ET
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.
With each passing day, it's getting harder to say with a straight face that stocks are fairly valued.
But even though some parts of the market are looking as frothy as the top of a Starbucks Eggnog Latte (three cheers for seasonal beverages!), it is interesting that many boring consumer companies with reasonable valuations are leading the charge higher.
Sure, many stocks at all-time highs are momentum plays.
You've got your casual restaurant chains Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) and Chipotle (CMG), as well 3D printing companies 3D Systems (DDD) and Stratasys (SSYS). Buffalo Wild Wings, aka B-Dub for you sports fans, is the cheapest stock of these four. And it trades at 32 times 2014 earnings forecasts!
Related: 3-D printing stocks: Fad or for real?
Still, several stodgy firms are also hitting records. Take a look at CVS (CVS) and Walgreen (WAG). Is there anything more boring than a drugstore stock? But what CVS and Walgreen lack in sex appeal, they more than make up for with earnings growth, dividends and stock prices that aren't in the ionosphere.
CVS, which reported earnings that topped estimates Tuesday, rose more than 2% to a new peak. But it is trading at just 14 times 2014 earnings forecasts, in line with its projected earnings growth rate for the next few years. CVS also pays a dividend that yields 1.4%.
Rival Walgreen is hovering just below the all-time high it hit Monday. It's a bit pricier than CVS, trading at 17 times estimates for fiscal 2014. But it also offers a solid quarterly payout for more conservative investors. Its dividend yields 2.1%. Walgreen's shares have also done twice as well as CVS this year -- and CVS has hardly been a slouch!
Why are CVS and Walgreen doing so well? It could partially be an Obamacare play. More Americans with health insurance should lead to more demand for prescription drugs. That could be particularly good news for CVS, which owns pharmacy benefit management firm Caremark.
But both companies have also done a decent job of changing the makeup of their stores to focus more on the front end. Many drug stores are almost like mini-supermarkets or Wal-Marts.
Still, I think another force is at work here. For some investors, especially boomers on the verge of retirement, bonds are no longer the most attractive investments out there. Interest rates are low and returns are anemic.
So if you want a little more juice for your portfolio, why not buy a well-known brand-name stock that also offers the bond-like security of a dividend?
That may be a reason why other consumer-oriented companies are doing well too. V.F. Corp. (VFC), which owns The North Face, Timberland, Wrangler and Lee brands is at an all-time high. Shares trade for 18 times projected profits for 2014.
That's not dirt cheap. But it's less expensive than another apparel retailer, Michael Kors (KORS).
Kors-branded jeans may be more runway ready than Lee and Wrangler. But Kors, which hit a new record following strong earnings Tuesday, trades at nearly 30 times fiscal 2014 earnings estimates. And it doesn't pay a dividend. V.F. Corp., meanwhile, has a dividend that yields 1.9%.
Related: Michael Kors makes it work. Stock surges.
There are a bunch of restaurant chains trading at all-time highs too. And they aren't as richly valued as B-Dub and Chipotle. Brinker International (EAT) hit a record on Tuesday. Shares of the Chili's owner are valued at 16.5 times fiscal 2014 earnings estimates. The stock pays a dividend that yields 2.2%.
Cracker Barrel (CBRL) and Cheesecake Factory (CAKE) are a little richer (in stock price but probably in calories too) than Brinker. But each trades around 20 times earnings estimates for their next fiscal year. And they also pay dividends.
So neither of them are as expensive as Chipotle, which trades at more than 40 times 2014 profit forecasts.
Still, the valuations on some of the most azure of blue chip stocks are finally beginning to look stretched. Nike (NKE) is at an all-time high. It pays a dividend. But it trades at 25 times next year's earnings estimates.
And remember how I said the overall market was as frothy as a Starbucks (SBUX) drink? The may now be true of Starbucks' stock as well. Shares hit a new record Tuesday.
Related: Amazon is one of the most overvalued stocks
Don't get me wrong. I love the company. I devoted an entire column recently to why I think Howard Schultz is the best CEO ever. But Starbucks now trades at more than 30 times fiscal 2014 earnings estimates. That seems a bit excessive.
So investors who are following the 'buy what you know' model of portfolio management need to be careful. You can't just keep chasing momentum forever.
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon. Speaking of momentum, I joked on Twitter this week that one of the hottest stocks during the past few months is another boring company: aluminum producer Alcoa (AA). Shares of Alcoa are up more than 20% since the company was removed from the Dow in September.
That led me to a Name That Tune challenge on Twitter. Amazingly enough, there is a song that has the word aluminum in the lyric. (And it's not a metal band. Ha! Couldn't resist.)
Nice job, Dave. I love The Decemberists. (Mrs. Buzz and I saw lead singer Colin Meloy in a solo show Friday night!)
But this is sort of sad. It shows how old I am getting. I completely forgot I asked the same Name That Tune question for a Buzz column back in 2010. Oy. And I here I dreamt I was being original. (But not an architect.)


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Honoring Songwriting In Film: 2013 Oscars for Best Original Song
by Jessica Brandon
These are the nominees for the Academy Awards (Oscars) for Best Orginal Song. Notable past winning songs include: "Arthur's Theme", "Evergreen", "You Light Up My Life", "Flashdance... What A Feeling" and "Lose Yourself".
Who do you think should win this year? Watch the videos for yourself, here are the nominees for the 2013, Best Original Song:
"Skyfall" from James Bond movie "Skyfall" Written by Adele and Paul Epworth
"Suddenly" from the movie musicial "Les Misérables", Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg; Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil; Performed by Hugh Jackman
"Pi's Lullaby" from the movie "Life of Pi", Music by Mychael Danna; Lyrics by Bombay Jayashri
"Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from the movie "Ted", Music by Walter Murphy; Lyrics by Seth MacFarlane; Performed by Nora Jones
"Before My Time" from the movie "Chasing Ice", Music and Lyrics by J. Ralph; Performed by Scarlett Johanson and Joshua Bell
For more information on the 18th Annual USA Songwriting Competition, go to: http://www.songwriting.net


text:
Battery Technology
With this section, I want to give a brief overview of the current battery technology. It does not replace our day seminar. The aim is to inform quickly and give some advice on how to deal with batteries.
The photo shows the MobiCharge 1220 charger. An early development of the mid-90s, which allows to charge NiCd batteries, as they are often used as in diving lamps, from a car or truck (12 or 24V). It uses a reflex-charging method in combination with Minus-Delta-V cut-off and subsequent topping-charge. The design was registered to achieve a legal protection.


text:
Articles in Lebanese Community, Technology, Community News, History, Food and Local News
When Lebanon Is A Jungle, Not A Country
Yves Nawfal was celebrating his 26th birthday at a pub called Powder in Faraya on Friday when he got in an altercation with a guy named Charbel Khalil and his friends over a girl. Normally, as is expected in such a familiar setting at a pub... Read full article
Jbeil Byblos - Jounieh Railway Opening 1942 (video)
"AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL" - The Day Before The Opening Ceremony of The Beirut-Tripoli Railway. Location: Jounieh, Maameltien, Oukeibe, Naher Ibrahim, Al Fidar, JBEIL BYBLOS. Date: 19 December 1942 ... Read full article


text:
TEDxNorrköpingTalks and Events
Nordic Follow-up October 28-29, 2008
Press and Media
Video Recordings (Mainly in English)
Visual Forum 2010
Seminars: Thinking and Learning
Seminars: Visualization
Lärstämma (Swedish) Norrköping. April 7, 2011
Varberg Nov 2011
Varberg 2013
ICOT-2020 has been postponed and the plans are:
ICOT-2021 in Melbourne, Australia, June-July 2021
ICOT-2022 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Summer 2022.
Dates and programs to be announced.
Thanks to support from Linköping University and Norrköping City, will we now be able to plan for two to four full TEDxNorrköping events per year, and also for one TEDxNorrköpingSalon event per month (except for summer and christmas months). These Salon events will normally be located to Thursday evenings.More at TEDxNorrkoping.com
Gustav Vasa skola, Stockholm, was among the first in Europe,. Principal Lena Arkéus about their objective and experience. (in Swedish with English subtitles). International experience from Gustav Vasa and 15 other schools in a book (Oct.2015); Swedish translation may come.
Carol Dweck's Mindset - Man blir vad man tänkernow available in Swedish. Today 215 SEK from Bokus.se. The video from her TEDxNorrköping Talk, with subtitles in 36 languages, has gained over 6 million visits on the Internet.


text:
An Inside Joke.
I was just thinking that there was a really funny quote I could use to start
off this review. Problem with it was, that although it was hilarious, only myself,
one of my friends, and perhaps the overworked, addled editors would get it.
That is a problem, because you, the "critically huddled masses," would not end
up laughing. Regardless, the joke was made and you should, simply because it
was there, roll on the floors laughing, squirming around like stuck pigs. Not
laughing, eh?
You're probably all pretty unsatisfied. I mean, the fact that something is
there does not really mean that you should react as if you encountered it…
right? It's sort of like knowing that behind all of the crap there is a gem,
sparkling in the sunlight, but… you can't see it, touch it, or pawn it and buy
yourself a car.
To try and
regain whatever relevance to Game Revolution this article probably already lost
[Too late. ~Ed], it occurs to me that the same quality of "it's there,
I just can't really see it" is the Achilles heel of the new adventure game,
Outcast. It's a game that, for all of its features, should be an absolute
knock-down, drag-out, kick-ass ride. However, it somehow manages to cover up
much of its deserved glory in favor of keeping your attention just a little
bit longer.
To deal with the mundane first (everything you need to know about the game's
background, which gives a context for my conceited ramblings), Outcast
is a 3rd person/1st person action-adventure set in the mysterious world of Adelpha.
It seems that scientists in the future have found a way to cross dimensional
boundaries into parallel universes. Unfortunately, the first probe sent to the
other-dimensional world of Adelpha was destroyed, and a big black hole has opened
up and will soon swallow the earth and pulverize all of the people, buildings
and teddy bears (naughty scientists, they screw up everything). You, in the
role of special military operative Cutter Slade (yes, you may roll your eyes),
are sent in with a few scientists to repair the probe… or turn the Earth into
a flapjack within a month. Once you get there, there are some complications
and so you must run all over the six continents of Adelpha, find your equipment
and teammates, help free the locals (called the Talons) from a despotic ruler,
and then save the Earth. No problem, huh?
To accomplish these goals, you must run around and swim a lot, talk with hundreds
of locals, engage in plenty of combat and go on numerous adventure game quests.
Sounds good – lots of space, lots of objectives, lots of people to talk to.
As the game begins, the sheer wealth of things to do and places to go may astound
many gamers. It is not until a little later, when you realize how silly most
of the things you have to do are, that the whole thing starts to feel like a
stalling act.
Basically, you
have to enlist the help of the locals in order to accomplish most tasks. Although
they regard you as some sort of Ultima-style avatar sent from the sky, they
still cannot stop asking you to be their little errand boy. You spend most of
your time utilizing Outcast's great gameplay system and ogling its production
values just to make a few Talon locals happy. The real meat of the game just
can't make up the game's 40-50 hours of gameplay time, so all these boring good
deeds are thrown in to keep you playing.
Hey, I like a long game as much as the next guy, but length for its own sake
is just boring. Half-Life wasn't very
long but we all loved it. Would you have liked it so much if you had to go find
cigars to bring to every security guard and scientist before they would follow
While you are completing these tasks, you are treated to some incredible production
values, with mixed results. The most impressive thing would be that the economic
fall of Russia was apparently a good thing for some people. Appeal, the designer
of Outcast, was able to hire the Moscow Symphony Orchestra (who have
recently, like their country, fallen on hard times) to record the movie-quality
soundtrack, and I mean a very good movie.
It is also apparent that a lot of time was put into the graphics. Outcast
has perhaps the best use of Voxel based 3D graphics ever; even better than Delta
Force. The environments are stunning at times, the atmosphere is incredible,
the viewing distance is very long, and there is a very cool water-rippling effect.
Good implementation aside, the nature of Voxels excludes 3D acceleration, and
so Outcast requires a monster of a system to run at its highest resolution,
which is only 512×384.
In other areas Outcast shines. The combat, which is best played through
the optional 1st person view (3rd person is preferable for most of the rest
of Outcast), is a more involved affair than your typical shooter. Often,
you'll find yourself taking Cutter into assaults on enemy compounds, while having
to contend with entire groups of soldiers that are all working in harmony to
bring you down. It is actually very impressive.
It's just a pity that the designers didn't spend more time working out a plot
with more substance. Sure, the thousands of lines of well-acted dialogue are cool,
but why waste all of that on going to the supermarket for some butter? Outcast
almost reaches a high point for action-adventures, but falls short thanks to a
lot of wasted time. Still, the ending cues up for an obvious sequel. Drop the
voxels, forget the little pointless quests, make sure to tip those dudes in Moscow
well, and next time we may have one hell of a memorable game. Until then, only


text:
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For details, Please feel free to call us at 888-884-3554


text:
Wolf Hall
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- Synopsis
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power.
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.
Man Booker Prize winner
- Copyright:
- 2010
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Excellent
- Book Size:
- 537 Pages
- 9780805080681
- Publisher:
- Henry Holt & Company
- Date of Addition:
- 10/30/09
- Copyrighted By:
- Hilary Mantel
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- English
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- Categories:
- History, Literature and Fiction
- Submitted By:
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You put up a leaked image of the concept art for Captain America, then step out of the office for a little while and what happens? You come back to see Thor has now found his way into cyberspace.
Drawings of Chris Hemsworth as Thor went up on Collider just minutes after we brought word of the Captain America images making the rounds. This peek at Thor isn't nearly as revelatory, as we got a look at an actual photo of Hemsworth in costume just a few weeks ago.
While the picture of Hemsworth was promising (if a bit dark and off-center), the drawings just look silly. Thor's duds look even more plastic than Cap's (though HitFix assures us it doesn't look that bad in real life) and his general appearance smacks of ren-faire doofus. And that hammer of his, the mighty Mjolnir, looks dumb. It's glowing for Odin's sake.
U.S. & World
It's important to remember that "character concept art is so damn silly looking and makes everything look... lame and dumb," as The Playlist notes.
Just look at the old pic again and take comfort in the fact that Hemsworth doesn't look like a complete clown while you patiently await the release of "Thor" on May 6, 2011.


text:
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Our collection of Christmas Tree Lights are a fantastic way to light your home this Christmas. All of our tree lights are ready to go straight out of the box and are available in a range of colours as well as quantities, ranging from 40 to 2000 lights.
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The Winter Workshop Code: W16174


text: The AD7818 and AD7817 are 10-bit, single- and 4-channel A/D converters with on-chip temperature sensor that can operate from a single 2.7 V to 5.5 V power supply. Each part contains a 9 s successive-approximation converter based around a capacitor DAC, an on-chip temperature sensor with an accuracy of 2C, an on-chip clock oscillator, inherent track-andhold functionality and an on-chip reference (2.5 V). The AD7816 is a temperature monitoring only device in a SOIC/ MSOP package.


text:
Apparently, pot bellies are the new cool. If you happen to be a young male hipster.
Stay with me here: This is all about the way the media treat women as opposed to men, and why it appears that women can't win.
According to The New York Times Style section, the Ralph Kramden look is In. And the growing presence of women in the workplace is as much to blame as Pabst Blue Ribbon. I don't make this stuff up. From the story:
Too pronounced to be blamed on the slouchy cut of a T-shirt, too modest in size to be termed a proper beer gut, developed too young to come under the heading of a paunch, the Ralph Kramden is everywhere to be seen lately, or at least it is in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene, the McCarren Park Greenmarket and pretty much any place one is apt to encounter fans of Grizzly Bear.
What the trucker cap and wallet chain were to hipsters of a moment ago, the Kramden is to what my colleague Mike Albo refers to as the "coolios" of now. Leading with a belly is a male privilege of long standing, of course, a symbol of prosperity in most cultures and of freedom from anxieties about body image that have plagued women since Eve.
Until recently, men were under no particular obligation to exhibit bulging deltoids and shredded abdominals; that all changed, said David Zinczenko, the editor of Men's Health, when women moved into the work force in numbers. "The only ripples Ralph Kramden" and successors like Mike Brady of "The Brady Bunch" had to demonstrate were in their billfolds, said Mr. Zinczenko, himself a dogged crusader in the battle of the muffin top. "But that traditional male role has changed."
Does this mean Macy's double-truck ads of edgy young men will feature beer bellies, unbuttoned shirts, straining T-shirts with ironic sayings and girl-cut jeans that nonetheless sag below the gut? The new measure of cool? Oh, the irony.
Because for women, the reverse is still painfully true. We may have begun to bring home the bacon — but clearly, we're not supposed to look like we eat any of it. At least as far as media images are concerned.
We all know that photo retouching has long been a staple of women's mags, and other kinds of advertising. Need a reminder? You'll find a before and after retouching of Faith Hill on a Redbook cover, courtesy of Jezebel, here. And don't forget the way Katie Couric was retouched in the CBS News promos right before she took over as anchor. Like magic, she lost a quick 20.
But nothing brings the point home faster than the latest cover of Self Magazine, where the photo of normal-woman-sized Kelly Clarkson has been retouched to make her look sleek and svelte in — what else — white jeans. You want irony? How about the teaser running across the bottom of the cover — and Clarkson's thighs: "Total Body Confidence."
You want more irony? Salon.com's Broadsheet not only posts a video of the real life Clarkson, as opposed to the glamour shot, but also quotes editor Lucy Danziger's rationale for the retouch:
As she explains, a fashion photograph of a hair-styled, made-up, retouched celebrity is "not, as in a news photograph, journalism." Fair enough. But while insisting that "the truest beauty is the kind that comes from within" and that "Kelly says she doesn't care what people think of her weight," Danziger explains that the cover photo is meant to "inspire women to want to be their best."
…After boasting of altering Clarkson's appearance to make her look her "personal best," Danziger says "in the sense that Kelly is the picture of confidence, and she truly is, then I think this photo is the truest we have ever put out there on the newsstand."
… Adding fuel to the dustup, Self's editorial assistant Ashley Mateo blogs furthermore that "No one wants to see a giant picture of some star's cellulite on the cover of a monthly mag — that's what we have tabloids for!"
Wait. There's more. We all know how supermodels Cindy Crawford, Amber Valetta et al. appear on the page. Usually. Here's how they look sans make-up and retouching courtesy Harper's Bazaar, courtesy New York Magazine. Still beautiful. Yet, fashion mags still taunt us with their retouched images of impossibility.
And there's this: Politics Daily heralded Hillary for sticking up for herself in the Congo. Then wondered, in WTF Fashion, what the Daily Beast's Tina Brown was thinking in an interview later with Joe Scarborough:
Sadly, despite feminism's long strides in the political evolution of our species, the way some women respond to other women still has a ways to go. I wasn't surprised when I heard from a colleague Thursday morning that celebrity editor Tina Brown, while seemingly being supportive of Mrs. Clinton, had just called her contemporary superwoman "fat." In the actual quote on Morning Joe, the Daily Beast editor-in-chief, who is a slim 56 years old, said she believed after a seven-nation, 11-day tour of the formerly dark continent, the sexagenarian secretary must be "feeling fat." Brown posited to Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski that perhaps Clinton, having stayed in Mogadishu a day too long, needed to "get back to the gym."
Finally, there's this, from the Daily Mail online: When it comes to women's tennis, center court at Wimbledon goes to the pretty girls, rather than the top seeds. And according to Jessica Faye Carter on True/Slant, the emphasis on looks, rather than ability, is starting to infiltrate women's golf as well.
Funny, when you juxtapose this all with those pot-bellied hipsters. But not really.


text:
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Product Code: TIN-0020-BLK
Rectangular Tube Inserts are easy to assemble with a wide range of sizes available.
Low Density Polyethylene
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text:
The voice of the people, the wrath of God.
That is a Greek proverb. (The verb "is" is understood: The voice of the people is the wrath of God). The Orthodox people know how to get rid of an unacceptable priest, bishop, or patriarch. There is no set method, as this is not a normal or usual occurrence. There is no protocol for it, but we find ways.
Fifteen or twenty years or so ago, in Athens, there was a bishop rumored to be a homosexual. Crowds gathered in front of his episcopal residence and simply chanted, "Unworthy, unworthy!" day and night until he departed. In 1996, a new Greek archbishop was enthroned in North America who was unable to command the following of the people. My own impression was that he was a good bishop; but rightly or wrongly, he was pushed out and replaced by the current Greek Archbishop, Demetrios, who is most likely a saint.
There are many ways to exert pressure. We use them only in extreme cases. We tolerate much.
One thing we do not tolerate in our clergy at all, however, is causing scandal among the faithful. If a priest or hierarch does this (for example, by preaching heresy or by sexual misconduct), he's out of office almost as fast as you can blink. The mere fact of his causing scandal, regardless of his actual deeds, is enough to make him unsuitable. We do not judge his heart; we continue to love and forgive him; but that does not mean allowing him to continue in office. There are very high standards for Christ's priesthood and it is not for us to dilute them. It is not as though anybody had a right to be a priest. Christ, through His Church, calls whom He pleases.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Authority: Addendum
The voice of the people, the wrath of God.
Posted by Anastasia Theodoridis at 11:05 AM
Labels: Orthodoxy, Other Faiths
1 comments:
- Anonymous said...
Just found your blog, searching for icons of the Bridegroom. I enjoyed this post. Very accurate observation.
Fr. Milovan
- April 22, 2008 at 11:07 PM


text:
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Mighty Mango soap is hand-poured in small batches. Patterns and colors will vary batch to batch.


text:
Conservation through Education
Home | About Zoo | Funding
The Cougar Mountain Zoo derives its funding for capital improvements and operating
expenses from the Zoological Society of Washington, Zoo generated income, private
donations, bequests, corporate contributions and in-kind giving. The Zoo does not
receive local, state or federal funding. All contributions are appreciated and necessary
for the Zoo to maintain its high standards.
The Zoological Society of Washington is a non-profit, tax exempt, charitable 501(c)3
organization. Your cash or in kind donations to help the Cougar Mountain Zoo, are
tax deductible and eligible for employer matching funds.
Cash donations of any size are appreciated and serve a great cause.


text:
OasISS European postflight tour
ESA astronaut Frank De Winne and his crewmates Roman Romanenko and Bob Thirsk will be on tour in Europe to present highlights of their historic mission.
Belgian ESA astronaut Frank De Winne, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk flew together to the International Space Station (ISS) on 27 May 2009. Six months later they returned safely after having taken part in a historic mission: the first two ISS expeditions to feature six crew members, with one of the expeditions (ISS Expedition 21) commanded for the first time by a European astronaut: Frank De Winne.
Form Thursday 22 to Wednesday 28 April 2010, they will come together again to present the highlights of the European OasISS mission during the so-called "OasISS European Postflight Tour". Together they will report about their life and work on board the ISS, 400 km above the Earth.
After a start at the European Astronaut Centre (ESA/EAC) in Cologne, Germany, the crew will then be present in Brussels, Munich and Noordwijk.
Mission Report at the European Astronaut Centre (ESA/EAC), Cologne, Germany 22 April 2010, 11:00
Michel Tognini, Head of the EAC, will welcome the astronaut crew on behalf of his team, for the first time since they returned to Earth on 1st December 2009. The three astronauts last spent two weeks in Cologne in March 2009 for their final European training session before the launch. On this occasion the crew will present a report about the OasISS mission and thank the European instructors for their support prior to the mission.
Event at the European Research Council (ERC), Brussels, Belgium 23 April 2010, 16:30
During this unique meeting between ERC representatives and the OasISS, the astronauts will speak about the scientific aspects of their mission and reply to questions from ERC staff.
Visit to the Columbus Control Centre (Col-CC), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany 26 April 2010
As the heart of European ISS operations, the Columbus Control Centre and its staff supported the OasISS mission throughout the six months, making sure that astronauts working within Columbus had a safe and comfortable environment in which to work and that the payload facilities had the necessary system support in order to function properly. This postflight tour visit will provide a perfect opportunity for the crew to thank them for their support.
Tour of the ESA/ARISS exhibition at the European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium 27 April 2010, 17:30
This cultural exhibition on the topic of 'European amateur radio benefiting society' will take place in the European Parliament in Brussels between 26 and 30 April 2010. On 27 April, an event will be hosted to which the astronauts will participate and interact with the visitors.
Media representatives wishing to attend these events are kindly requested to contact:
ESA / European Astronaut Centre
PR & Communications
Tel: +49(0)2203 6001 205
Fax: +49(0)2203 6001 112
Jean Coisne
Email: email@example.com
Jules Grandsire
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text:
Happy Independence DayJuly 3, 2019 12:00 am
Happy Independence Day to you and your family!
I want to take a moment to thank you for entrusting me with all of your home buying and refinancing needs. Purchasing a home is a special experience in a person's life, and I am thankful to be a part of that process. If I can ever be of service to anyone you know who is looking to buy or refinance, please know that I will use the same excellent care with them that I did with you.
I hope you have a safe and wonderful time celebrating this special holiday with loved ones.


text:
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Three time magician of the year Criss Angel will see the second season of his reality/magic show Mindfreak premiere on May 31st, replete with Angel's special brand of levitations, floating from rooftops and disappearing spectators. MSNBC.com caught up with Angel by phone to talk about his show, creating fresh illusions and what lies at the heart of effective magic.
© 2013 msnbc.com Reprints