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Fresh off a high-stakes address before world leaders at the United Nations, Obama is set to address rallies Wednesday at two state universities, hoping to generate the kind of enthusiasm among young voters that helped fuel his victory four years ago. Romney plans three stops in major metropolitan areas of the state as part of a bus tour geared toward drawing a contrast with Obama on middle-class economic issues.
Both candidates recognize how critical Ohio's 18 electoral votes will be this fall. Losing here would dramatically narrow Romney's paths to the 270 electoral college votes required to win the White House — and no Republican has ever lost Ohio and won the presidency.
Buoyed by signs of an improving economy, Obama has the edge in polls in Ohio six weeks out from Election Day. The president has led Romney in a series of recent surveys in the state, with a Washington Post poll on Tuesday showing Obama with a lead that was outside the poll's margin of error and a CBS/New York Times poll also showing Obama ahead here. Even on handling of the economy, where Romney until recently has had an advantage, Obama now leads.
Working to close the gap, Romney's campaign released a new, minute-long ad on Wednesday, featuring Romney speaking straight to the camera and acknowledging his opponent's good intentions. "President Obama and I both care about poor and middle-class families. The difference is my policies will make things better for them," the Republican nominee says in the ad. Republicans wouldn't say where they planned to run the ad.
Ohio has become a focal point for the two candidates on the airwaves, with even more TV ads airing here than in expansive Florida. And with early voting set to begin in Ohio on Oct. 2, time is running out for Romney and Obama to make their cases to maximum effect.
The candidates exchanged barbs Tuesday over trade policies with China, an implicit struggle for votes from working-class voters whose livelihoods have been affected by competition from Chinese manufacturers.
"When people cheat, that kills jobs," Romney said at a rally Tuesday afternoon in Vandalia, near Dayton. "China has cheated. I will not allow that to continue."
In a statement, Obama campaign spokeswoman Ben LaBolt criticized Romney's own investments in Chinese companies. "How can we trust Mitt Romney to stand up to China when he profits from China breaking the rules?" he said in a statement.
The Obama campaign said the president planned to highlight his record on China during his Wednesday visit to Bowling Green State and Kent State universities. The campaign said the president has brought more trade cases against China in one term than President George W. Bush did in two.
The Obama administration filed a complaint this month with the World Trade Organization over Chinese subsidies to its auto and auto parts industries, the latest in a series of actions dating back to 2009 to protest what U.S. manufacturers say are the unfair advantages China gives its own companies.
Romney is promising an aggressive course on China as well. In particular, he has vowed to issue an executive order in his first day in office labeling China a currency manipulator, a designation that would trigger negotiations between the two countries and could ultimately lead to U.S. trade sanctions against China. The Obama administration has not been willing to take that step, which is opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Ohio's automobile and manufacturing industries compete with their Chinese peers, leading to widespread resentment over perceived trade transgressions by Chinese companies and their government. The issue has emerged as a central theme in House races, as well as in the state's competitive Senate race.
For Romney, Ohio was fraught because of the state's better-than-average economy. The jobless rate in Ohio stands at 7.2 percent — almost a full percentage point lower than the national average. Romney and other Republicans credit Ohio's Republican governor, John Kasich, but the good news undermines Romney's pitch that Obama's policies aren't working.
Obama's visit on Wednesday marks his 13th trip to Ohio so far this year, his campaign said. And as Romney was making his way to Ohio on Tuesday, Obama unveiled a new campaign ad titled "Fair Share" that seeks to remind voters that Romney paid a lower tax rate in 2011 — just over 14 percent — than many middle-class families. The ad will air in Ohio and seven other competitive states.
Romney has visited the state 10 times since May 1, his campaign said, with an additional seven visits during the primary campaign.
Democrats, hoping to neutralize Romney's Ohio swing with a bus tour of their own, worked to keep alive comments Romney made in a secretly recorded video about how almost half of Americans see themselves as victims and are unwilling to take responsibility for their lives. They also dispatched former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland to make the case that Romney is "writing off the middle class."
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FA Insight's 2011 advisor study focuses on human capital and what it means to advisory firms. As firms grow, so does their need for people to run it—and so do the firm's expenses.
Consequently, firms need to be strategic about how and who they hire. Building a strong practice is not just about attracting and retaining talented people, but about putting them on a path to leadership to meet the firm's inevitable succession needs.
The 2011 study looks at human capital both from the perspective of a young firm trying to build a capable team and an older firm facing important decisions about its future.
Endangered Supply: The 2011 People and Pay Study, September 2011
For advisory firms, people represent the critical ingredient for growth as well as building value and effective succession planning. Achieving these objectives, however, will require firms to shore up weaknesses with regard to how they deploy and develop staff. Reflective of growing labor scarcity, compensation levels are on the rise again, retention is at risk and the source of the next generation of firm leaders is unclear.
With "The 2011 FA Insight Study of Advisory Firms: People and Pay," FA Insight endeavors to support advisory firms in confronting these challenges. People and Pay, our recently released third annual industry study, is our second study with a special focus on human capital. A primary intention of the 2011 People and Pay study is to assist firms to not only attract and retain the right individuals, but to map a path that progresses people toward ownership and management responsibility.
Read more from the September 2011 issue of Investment Advisor. View the People and Pay archive here.
Sounding the Alarm: The 2011 People and Pay Study, January 2012
Lately an advisor can rarely open a trade publication without coming across at least one article focusing on succession planning. Most of these columns center on how dire the problem is with the hope being that couching lack of preparedness in such alarming terms will inspire advisors to action. Outside of recommendations to begin succession planning sooner, specific solutions are often in short supply.
Frankly, based on our research history we are guilty of perpetuating the succession fixation as well, citing in our recently released "2011 FA Insight Study of Advisory Firms: People and Pay" that lack of preparedness for succession presents "the greatest vulnerability for all firms." The latest FA Insight study goes further, however, in striving to identify why succession is such a serious challenge and recommending key areas of focus for advisors to improve their preparedness.
Read more from the January 2012 issue of Investment Advisor. View the People and Pay archive here.
Building a Talent Hothouse: The 2011 People and Pay Study, April 2012
The industry's talent shortage is an old phenomenon that is re-emerging as a central issue. As independent advisory firms recover from the 2008–2009 security market downturn, ensuring a steady supply of qualified labor is once again a critical factor for business sustainability. The good news for advisory firms is that a solution is close at hand, but with one key proviso: Firms must create an environment where talented people can flourish.
These findings and conclusions stem from "The 2011 FA Insight Study of Advisory Firms: People and Pay," our second examination of this topic since 2009. FA Insight, in partnership with Investment Advisor, released the study in the fall of last year. The current "People and Pay" study provides concise recommendations for addressing human capital-related challenges that are fundamental for growing a firm, building value and preparing for succession. In this third article of the 2011 "People and Pay" series, we share excerpts of the study as they relate to effective organizational design, career path planning and people development—all critical components for bridging a rapidly widening talent gap.
Read more from the April 2012 issue of Investment Advisor. View the People and Pay archive here.
Smaller Pieces Make a Bigger Pie: The 2011 People and Pay Study, June 2012
Across all stages of development, better-performing advisory firms distribute equity more broadly among their team members. While firm owners often view transferring shares as a way to "cash out," distributing shares is as much about creating value as it is about realizing value. Sharing equity with team members can serve as a powerful incentive for attracting and retaining key talent. Broader equity distribution also improves succession options by reducing the amount of shares that owners need to liquidate prior to their exit while concurrently creating a pool of acquirers for any future equity transition.
"The 2011 FA Insight Study of Advisory Firms: People and Pay" provides strong proof that the benefits associated with distributed ownership have a meaningful impact on the performance and, ultimately, the value of an advisory firm.
Read more from the June 2012 issue of Investment Advisor. View the People and Pay archive here.

subset: commoncrawl


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Cathy Y
Joined: 28 Apr 2000
Posts: 120
Location: Middletown, NJ 07748
Posted: Sat May 20, 2000 12:44 am
Post subject: Rave review of "The Yards"
A report from the Cannes festival posted on the Film.com website praises "The Yards" as "magnificent." In fact, the critic says that so far it's his favorite film of the festival. The only thing that puzzles me is, where could the critic have seen it, given that the screening isn't until Saturday ... was there some sort of special preview? Anyway, you can read it here:
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Annie M
Joined: 08 Jan 2000
Posts: 1683
Location: Muskogee, OK, USA
Posted: Sun May 21, 2000 10:40 pm
Post subject:
I just read the paragraph from that link about "The Yards". Yeah, makes you wonder how the guy saw it sooner. It is nice to see some possitive fb. for Mark and the others! It's pretty high praise, considering how long James Cahn, Faye Dunaway and Ellen Burstyn have been in the biz... and here comes Mark and the other 2, and they keep pace! I also noticed that there was no mention of any retakes for Mark!
I have heard several times that he has a rep of "getting it right the first time" as far as his lines are concerned. I think a lot of his success is from the fact that he takes his work seriously. If nothing else, he will never be an "out-of-work" actor!!
Annie M
[This message has been edited by Annie M (edited 21 May 2000).]
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Cathy Y
Joined: 28 Apr 2000
Posts: 120
Location: Middletown, NJ 07748
Posted: Mon May 22, 2000 1:33 am
Post subject:
Here's a short but very enthusiastic review of "The Yards" (from a general wrap-up of the films shown at the Cannes festival) from Saturday's edition of The Guardian, one of the leading newspapers in England:
"Easily the best English language movie this year - and perhaps even the best of the lot - is The Yards , a sensationally thrilling, devastatingly tough and sinewy tale of gangland violence and city hall corruption in New York from James Gray, the director who brought us Little Odessa. James Caan is outstanding as Uncle Frank, the industrialist who bribes his way into city contracts, and gives a job to ex-con Leo (Mark Wahlberg), who in turn teams up with his smooth-talking buddy Willie (Joaquin Phoenix).
All the principals are superb, and the film is set to become a modern classic."
And we have to wait until September to see this! Aaaargh!
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Annie M
Joined: 08 Jan 2000
Posts: 1683
Location: Muskogee, OK, USA
Posted: Mon May 22, 2000 7:44 pm
Post subject:
Oh well....... at least we have "The Perfect Storm" to tide us over!! Better a Mark movie to hold us until the next one, than none at all! lol! If he keeps doing 2 or 3 films a year, we will be sooo spoiled!!
Annie M
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Cathy Y
Joined: 28 Apr 2000
Posts: 120
Location: Middletown, NJ 07748
Posted: Mon May 22, 2000 11:55 pm
Post subject:
They must have had a pre-screening for "The Yards" because Entertainment Weekly online had a short paragraph about it on May 19! (Not a review, just the reporter saying she had seen it.) I've been checking for more reviews. The critic from "Variety" didn't like it too much and specifically said that Mark's performance was "OK but too restrained," but also acknowledged that it was probably going to get some good reviews... on the other hand, here's something nice from a Cannes wrap-up in the Washington Post:
"James Gray's second feature, "The Yards," is a gritty urban drama starring Mark Wahlberg as a young ex-con who finds himself drawn unwillingly into a world of corruption in and around New York's subway yards. Wahlberg's intent watchfulness and latent tenderness anchor the film, as does Joaquin Phoenix's freewheeling portrayal of his flamboyant, slippery best friend."
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Annie M
Joined: 08 Jan 2000
Posts: 1683
Location: Muskogee, OK, USA
Posted: Tue May 23, 2000 9:13 pm
Post subject:
Thx. for all the clips and everything! I'm afraid that I would make a rotten critic! I just cannot be objective when there are ppl. I like in a film! And certainly not with Mark's films! I know I'm going to love it!
Annie M
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Careers in the financial advising field are expected to grow at twice the rate for all jobs between now and 2020—but where are the women?
The Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) on Monday released new research findings that identify strategies to recruit more women to the financial advising field because of what amounts to a desperate shortage of them. Although financial advising as a career is projected to grow 32% from 2010 to 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a large part of that that growth needs to come from women, says Cathy Weatherford, IRI President and CEO.
Only three in 10 advisors are now women, yet 70% of women would prefer to work with a female advisor, the IRI study finds.
"What we have is a women's market that is flourishing," Weatherford said in a statement. "By and large, women consumers would prefer to work with women advisors. The financial advising field is already experiencing considerable growth, but given the emergence of the women's market, the opportunities for women advisors are more than substantial. As such, firms' ability to recruit and retain women advisors is only going to grow in importance."
Weatherford announced the study's findings at Advisor Group's seventh annual Women's Conference in Chicago, a day after Advisor Group announced its own Generation I initiative to recruit more women to the firm. Advisor Group President and Chief Executive Larry Roth is the chairman of IRI's board of directors.
"I want to share with you a personal goal," Roth told 250 female financial advisors from FSC Securities Corp., Royal Alliance, SagePoint Financial and Woodbury Financial in attendance at the Advisor Group conference. "Before I retire—and I'm not a young man—I would like to see the advisor population mirror that of your client base. We know that half of the wealth in this country is controlled by women. Let's get rid of the old white guys. The way to do that is with more female advisors in the business."
Based in Washington, D.C., the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) is a not-for-profit trade group that for 20 years has represented the interests of the insured retirement industry. IRI also serves as an information source about annuities, insured retirement strategies and retirement planning.
Key findings from the IRI report:
- The survey of college-educated women age 25 to 49 found job-training provisions would increase the likelihood of women pursuing careers as financial advisors. On-the-job training would be the most effective, followed by online training or training through a local college or university.
- When evaluating a job, 94% of college-educated women value work/life balance. Among other very or extremely important factors, 90% value a good relationship with their boss, 87% value meaningful work, 85% value good relationships with colleagues and 85% value salary.
- Of women who expressed an interest in becoming a financial advisor, salary considerations and growth of the field were the primary drivers.
- Firms can enhance their appeal to women by providing affinity groups and mentoring programs to enhance on-the-job training. When recruiting female advisors, firms should emphasize these programs as well as efforts to improve work/life balance to overcome perception barriers regarding generating clients and job stress.
- Testing associated with licensing to become a financial advisor does not inhibit most women from pursuing the profession. Three-quarters of women said testing has no influence on their interest in becoming an advisor.
Read Middle-Age White Guys Need Not Apply: AIG's Advisor Group Diversifies Recruitment at AdvisorOne.com.


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The social networking giant Facebook has figured out yet another way to monetize the site. According to Facebook, it is testing a new service that will enable advertisers (or anyone) to send messages to Facebook users with whom they are not connect with, and guarantees that this message will be delivered right into the users' inbox, rather than the rarely-visited folder "other."
That sounds like "premium" spam messages to me.
Facebook launched the "other" folder back in 2011, which was basically used to store messages that were sent from a non-Facebook friend. In other words, the "other" folder acts pretty much like a spam folder. However, with the new service, users will be able to pay $1 to route their messages to the inbox.
Facebook states that this will benefit both the sender and the receiver:
"For example, if you want to send a message to someone you heard speak at an event but are not friends with, or if you want to message someone about a job opportunity, you can use this feature to reach their inbox."
"For the receiver, this test allows them to hear from people who have an important message to send them."
Also it worth noting that messages sent to [email protected] from your regular email services like Gmail will also end up in the "others" folder.
Facebook said the new $1 fee could help reduce spam or irrelevant messages from being sent to inboxes. They have said the option will only be presented to a "small number" of users in the U.S. at this point, and people will be limited to one paid message per week to start.


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text:
ABC announced its new fall schedule Tuesday, adding new series Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to lead off a brand new Tuesday slate and reducing Dancing with the Stars to one night a week.
Dancing will combine its performance and results shows into two hours on Monday nights. That opens up an hour on Tuesdays, allowing ABC to launch four new shows on the night: S.H.I.E.L.D., The Goldbergs, Trophy Wife and Lucky 7.
The post-Modern Family slot will be taken over by Rebel Wilson's Super Fun Night, with The Neighbors moving to Fridays. The Once Upon a Time spin-off will precede Grey's Anatomy and Scandal on Thursdays.
Get the latest upfront news from ABCNotably missing from the fall schedule is Suburgatory, which was renewed last week.Check out ABC's full fall schedule for 2013-2014 below: Monday
8/7c: Dancing with the Stars
10/9c: Castle
8/7c: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (new)
9/8c: The Goldbergs (new)
9:30/8:30c: Trophy Wife (new)
10/9c: Lucky 7 (new)Wednesday
8/7c: The Middle8:30/7:30c: Back in the Game (new)9/8c: Modern Family9:30/8:30c: Super Fun Night (new)10/9c: Nashville
8/7c: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (new)9/8c: Grey's Anatomy10/9c: Scandal
8/7c: Last Man Standing8:30/7:30c: The Neighbors9/8c: Shark Tank10/9c: 20/20
8/7c: Saturday Night College Football
7/6c: America's Funniest Home Videos8/7c: Once Upon a Time9/8c: Revenge10/9c: Betrayal (new)Which new shows are you most excited about?


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Designing and manufacturing today's ever larger wind turbine blades and keeping them spinning for as long as possible is posing a continuing challenge to both manufacturers and wind turbine plant operators. The series blade failures that have hit more than one major turbine supplier during the past year or so are providing ample illustration that all is not well. Blades are too often coming to the market too quickly and with inadequate testing, say experts. Even when they are delivered in good order, not enough is known about the loads being transferred through the rotor to other components throughout the wind turbine and what damage these may be causing. How best to monitor these loads, the vibrations they cause and the condition of the blades is a subject of much industry discussion.
"You're building an aerospace-grade object at a boat builder's budget. That's really what a wind blade is. That's the problem with it," says Gary Kanaby from the wind group of Knight and Carver, a glass fibre products company in San Diego with a long history in the yacht building industry. Servicing blades for the wind industry has become a growing part of the company's business.
So many blades produced by various wind companies have been lacking in some way or another that 80% of Knight and Carver's blade repair business is only in repairing new blades that have yet to fly. These are blades from large production batches that have been determined by turbine manufacturers to be deficient in some way or another.
"We know a lot about the blade problems in the US and nobody sees more blade problems than us," says Kanaby. He compares the situation to the "bathtub curve" of product life where failures occur at two junctures in a lifecycle. A certain number of failures set in at the beginning of a given product's lifecycle, followed by a long period of problem free performance, capped off later in the cycle with an age related deterioration and failure. "That's what's really happening, except the bathtub curve at the beginning is worse than it should be."
Series failures
The modern wind industry has been living with series blade failures since its birth in the early 1980s and is clearly not over them yet. Over the past two years, blades for wind turbines supplied to American customers by Spain's Gamesa, India's Suzlon and home-grown Clipper Windpower have been deficient from the start, often requiring remediation work to many sets before wind farms could become fully operative. In March, Suzlon began one of the largest blade repair and replacement programs in America following the discovery of blade cracking across the fleet of its 2.1 MW turbines (Windpower Monthly, April 2008). The retrofit program involves the structural strengthening of 1251 blades (417 sets) at a projected cost of $25 million. The problems were mostly limited to blades in North America, which are manufactured at a facility in Pipestone, Minnesota.
Suzlon's problems came just months after Clipper reported its own blade rotor reinforcement program. This required retrofit work on the blades of about 260 rotors, with more than 150 of the rotors having already been delivered to customers and in various stages of deployment in the field. Costs were estimated in the range of $15 million. Prior to that, in spring 2007, Gamesa reported that seven blades at a new wind farm in Pennsylvania had gluing deficiencies, some of which resulted in large sections of the blade being thrown (Windpower Monthly, May 2007). The blades were from a new production facility in Pennsylvania. The company would not confirm if any of the more than 300 blades that had already been produced and shipped from that facility also required repair.
Those are the companies that have come forward and admitted to problems. Blade failure, however, may be more common today than is generally known. "Just about every company is having issues," says Kanaby, a view shared by Chris Bley from Rope Partner, which specialises in rope access to turbines. Neither will be more specific since they have customers among the companies concerned. According to an industry expert at a separate blade repair company, GE has had "its share of blade problems as well."
In defence of the turbine suppliers, Kanaby and others say they have been professional and responsive to blade defects, finding and admitting the shortcoming and moving rapidly to repair the blades at their own expense. "But how long can the industry survive with these types of serial problems, I just don't know," he says.
Consensus in the industry is that the frenetic pace of wind power development drives companies to move new blades through design-testing and commercial manufacturing too quickly. The rush to get products to market is particularly acute in America, where the emphasis lies on propelling projects into operation before the market collapses again at the next expiry of wind's federal production tax credit (PTC).
Time pressures
Congress has yet to renew the current PTC, meaning that projects not online before the end of the year risk economic disaster. Time pressure, in other words, is tending to take precedence over product control and blades are a particular victim. "Unfortunately with wind, we're seeing this across the whole industry," says Olen Richardson who co-founded blade repair company Wind Services Group, based in Texas. He too has seen a lot of blade repair problems, with about half his company's work devoted to blades already installed and the other half on defective blades fresh from the factory.
"People are ramping up so fast, there is such a demand to buy the product, that manufacturers are just making it, and customers want the product so bad they are saying that I have to have it right now or I'm going to lose my incentive for this, or my tax break here that I have to have it now. And that's helping feed the customers. No one is intentionally trying to get something out the door that's a bad product; it's just the cycle now."
Richardson spent five years working at GE Energy where he was involved in the company's wind turbine manufacturing start-up after GE bought Enron's wind business. He later led an in-house team specialising in blade repair for GE's turbines in the field. His experience on the manufacturing side leads him to believe that the large and quick ramp up of new factories in America has played a big role in blade shortcomings.
"There are learning curves that go on and these learning curves ramp up. Unfortunately you don't see these damages until many months into production, when they are actually up and running. And that's unfortunately when they find those problems, and then it's hard to put corrective actions in at a large scale."
Growing pains
Not surprisingly, companies are reticent to share much detail on the exact defects seen in various blade failures. Defective gluing bonds or "signs of weakness" have been cited by some of the major manufacturers. Kanaby and Richardson say bonding or sealing up blades becomes a much more difficult process as blades get bigger. "Look at five years ago, when thirty or thirty-five metre blades were king of the hill. Now forty-seven metre blades are not that out of place. That's fifty per cent growth in just over a few years. So weight and the issues are exponential," says Richardson.
With added length comes extra width, requiring more precision over a greater surface, whether it is maintaining a 47 metre gluing seam, or infusing more glassfibre. The more glassfibre, the greater possibility that the glassfibre can move or wrinkle, resulting in weakness or less uniformity that sometimes needs to be repaired.
Kanaby agrees with Richardson and others that at least some manufacturers are not doing more to validate blade design and construction than the basic in-factory fatigue tests required by major wind equipment certification entities such as Germanischer Lloyd (GL). In his experience, blades are rarely -- if ever -- field tested for fatigue before being certified by GL, says Kanaby. Often first sets of blades are built under very strict engineering and oversight by a company's best people, but that attention to detail is not always carried over to the later stages of mass serial production of hundreds of blades.
The added complexity and challenge in producing today's large blades is precisely the reason Knight and Carver is not yet producing blades larger than 25 metres. Behind repair work, about one quarter of the company's wind division business comes from producing these 25 metre blades for machines in the 750 kW to 900 kW size range. These are often replacements for California's aging fleet, particularly the many machines still operating today made by long-disappeared Zond, a company started over two decades ago by Clipper Windpower founder Jim Dehlsen.
"That's why you don't see Knight and Carver jumping in quickly to build full size blades. We don't want to get ourselves into the same position as these other companies, so why do it? Let's let blade production even out and see where it goes. Let's learn from others' mistakes. Maybe these other companies can afford to make mistakes but our company would go bankrupt. We're a little more conservative than that," says Kanaby.
Kanaby and Richardson are certain that the blade failures they are dealing with now have been financially serious enough for the wind turbine suppliers in question that steps are being taken to improve the frenetic cycle of production that contributed to the shortcomings.
Understanding loads
As wind turbines have steadily increased in size over the years, so have demands on blade producers. Rotor blade technology is being consistently pushed to the outer reaches of today's prevailing expertise in the industry. Critical to the understanding of wind turbine lifespan is the relationship between blade loads and their transference to other key components. More information is needed, says Toby King of Insensys, a British company specialising in fibre-optic sensors.
The wind industry is only now beginning to embrace sophisticated condition monitoring technologies for measuring the health of components in the field (Windpower Monthly, May 2008), much of which concerns vibration monitoring. What such equipment can provide is early warning of incipient component failure so that preventative maintenance can be done before a catastrophic failure occurs. Vibration monitoring also provides clues of the loads components are being asked to withstand.
"There are still far too many instances of major components in turbines going wrong," says King. "We think it's fine to have condition monitoring systems and it's fine to have measurements of your vibrations, but in our experience and in our opinion, the majority of those vibrations are the effect, not the cause."
King says there are surprising differences in mass and centre of gravity between any given set of blades attached to a rotor. With each rotation, there are out of balance loads and bending moments of the blade being transferred through the rotor shaft and into bearings and gearboxes. Those gearboxes are not designed to withstand those loads and, in a majority of cases, those gearboxes are derivatives of gearboxes from other industries, where exterior imbalances and bending loads are not normally transferred to the gearbox. It is a relatively new phenomenon for those component manufacturers, adds King.
The same goes for aerodynamic mismatches between blades since no two blades are identical. Blade surfaces can differ slightly as can the weight. And even more importantly, says King, minor errors in pitch systems, which tilt the blade angle in and out of the wind, are common. This creates imbalances that become more significant the stronger the wind blows and the larger the blades are. "If you just have a nacelle-based condition monitoring system looking at the drivetrain, you won't see those imbalances often until they have caused damage and caused a vibration signature," says King. "I'm not saying the state of the art is completely useless, but it's very much looking at the effect of imbalances and not the causes."
WindGuard is one company that derives much of its business from visiting wind plants, measuring imbalances in the rotors and correcting them in various ways. Something as simple as adding a few kilograms to a blade in just the right place or adjusting the pitch control system can increase power output for the turbine and reduce vibrations, which prolongs drivetrain life. "It's not unlike balancing a car wheel," says King. "You see how small those weights are but the effect if you have an out of balance wheel is huge."
Most turbines today have collective pitch control of the power output, where all three blades are turned to the same angle at the same time. But with rotor diameter averages on new machines pushing 90 metres, there can be significant wind speed differences across the rotor span. Having all three blades pitched at the same angle does not necessarily account for these differences.
Some turbines, such as the Vestas V90 3 MW model, have individual pitch control, but King does not consider these to be truly individual. They accommodate for different wind speeds along the vertical plane by turning blades slightly as they come down and cross the tower. That is not the same as constantly adjusting all blades individually based on the entire plane of the rotor, he says.
Big vibrations
Whether from minor pitch imbalances or different blade characteristics, concern over vibrations being transferred from blades to a drive train becomes a bigger issue as turbines and their rotor diameters get bigger. Blade length is proportional to the diameter of the rotor, but the force of wind loading is proportional to the square of that. This means the problems get much bigger as blades get longer, says King. A slight pitch angle imbalance on a ten metre long blade will have little or no effect, but when blades are 50 metres long, the imbalances and bending moments are exacerbated. Getting the masses and aerodynamics even between blades also gets harder the larger they are.
"It just becomes proportionally much harder to make things consistently when you're making them much bigger and harder to test them when they're that big," says King. "These fifty metre blades cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a set. You don't want to be testing too many of them." Even testing facilities get more expensive the bigger the blade. "It becomes more expensive and difficult to instrument the blades and load the blades to do fatigue tests. It's just a harder engineering challenge," he says.
Manufacturer warranties are another contentious topic. King asks a hard question: why should a gearbox manufacturer be liable for a failed or deteriorating gearbox when a turbine manufacturer has put three blades on the given machine with a 3% difference in mass between the blades. This is a question not being asked by the wind industry and a culture of mistrust between different players is stifling discussion.
"Trust, that's one of the biggest issues in this industry," says King, who previously spent time in the medical devices industry, which he describes as much more highly regulated, with different parties more obligated to share data with each other. "I didn't realise how much distrust and antipathy there is in many cases between manufacturers and operators."
The financial motivation, says King, is for turbine manufacturers to get the turbines through the warranty period with as few problems as possible and by telling the operator as little as possible about what is going on with the equipment. Conversely, operators are often reluctant to pay extra for sophisticated condition monitoring systems when during the warranty stage they are often not in control of the turbine and privy to all its operational details.
Precision monitoring
Insensys specialises in fibre-optic sensors that are either embedded into wind turbine blades during the manufacturing process or added as an aftermarket product to the finished blades. They operate by sending a light signal down fibre optic cables travelling the length of a turbine blade and in various locations. The signal returns to the home sensor at a certain wavelength, which is considered a baseline optical signature of the blade. But as the blade bends from varying forces of wind, the cables are stretched slightly, which registers as a change in the received light signature.
Bending, vibration, imbalances, shocks, even ice-build-up, can be measured with a precision of one part per million with the fibre optic systems, claims the company. The telecommunications and aerospace industries use the technology to monitor critical components. Bridges are often monitored in the same way.
Through complex software, the information received about the blades can be used to inform pitch control systems between different blades with a higher degree of precision. Once bonded into the blade, the cables are a permanent part of it and will last its lifetime. The sensors can also be used for precision testing of blades on their own or on how they impact drivetrains.
Insensys has provided its fibre-optic sensor systems to seven of the top wind turbine manufacturers. It is not a standard product yet, but it is picking up steam, says King. A lot of the systems are going into turbines that have yet to be manufactured or committed to a buyer or a project site. In effect, fibre-optics are being designed into the next generation of wind turbines. The systems cost between $10,000-$20,000 per turbine, with service and data monitoring incurring an extra charge on top of the equipment.
There is still much to be learned about wind turbines and the minor advancements and evolutionary steps that can be taken. "There are a lot of problems in how you characterise a fibreglass blade," says Sotirios Vahaviolos, CEO and President of Physical Acoustics Corporation (PAC). "We know how to deal with metals because we've been doing that for about 7000 years. But when it comes to blades, we haven't done that for more than 30 maybe 40 years in composite materials."
PAC is providing acoustic emission monitoring technologies to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado and to Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico for remote wind blade monitoring of fatigue and other load tests that could help the laboratories design better wind turbine blades or better ways of monitoring blade health.
Keep it simple
Complex electronic systems are one angle of the blade-monitoring spectrum. Simple inspections are the other end. Knight and Carver, Wind Services Group, and many other companies in America and globally provide simple inspection services for blades. This can be as easy as driving up to a turbine and visually inspecting the rotor with binoculars for any obvious wear and tear.
Knight and Carver has done regular inspections for big wind farm operators in the US like FPL Energy, Enxco, AES, and Caithness, among others. During calm times of the year, inspection crews in the nacelle will suspend a worker down the length of the blade in a basket.
Beyond visual inspections of the blades, thermal imaging systems allow the crews to look inside a blade and see its condition. The health of a small sampling of blades can often be extrapolated across the entire wind plant to determine the overall condition of blades and what if any work is needed. Ohm meters are used to ensure the lightening protection systems are in good shape. This type of preventative maintenance can often avoid bigger problems down the road such as a broken blade tip, lightening damage to the turbine or a thrown blade, which in rare instances can lead to a turbine collapse.
The potential for saving a large amount of money in the long run by spending relatively small sums up front has attracted the attention of wind farm insurance companies. Windpro, the largest insurance company for wind projects in the US, recently teamed up with Knight and Carver to establish a blade service program for Windpro's customers.
Wind plant operators insured under Windpro are given a better rate on their insurance premiums or deductible payments if they agree to a blade inspection and service plan through Knight and Carver. Windpro hopes the arrangement will lead to fewer insurance claims. "My feeling is that if you leave them alone and do nothing then you're going to have problems. It's what we've been preaching," says Kanaby.


text:
The United Nations today resumed food aid for some 100,000 displaced people in Bangui, capital of the strife-torn Central African Republic (CAR), for the first time in nearly three weeks since deliveries were suspended when machete-wielding men stormed the distribution site and food was stolen.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) distributed food, buckets, tarpaulins and water containers provided by other organizations at Bangui airport where an estimated 100,000 people have sought refuge, and plans to reach all the displaced people there within 10 days. The last food distribution took place on 18 December.
At the same time, WFP voiced deep concern at deteriorating security in the northwest of the country and urged all parties to the conflict to ensure safe access to people in need of assistance.
Thousands of people are estimated to have been killed, nearly 1 million driven from their homes, and 2.2 million, about half the population, need humanitarian aid in the conflict that erupted when mainly Muslim Séléka rebels launched attacks a year ago and forced President François Bozizé to flee in March.
A transitional government has since been entrusted with restoring peace and paving the way for democratic elections, but armed attacks between ex-Séléka and Christian anti-balaka militias have escalated significantly in the past two weeks.
Yesterday during a briefing, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman warned the Security Council that the situation in CAR risks escalating into sustained violence along religious lines and spilling beyond the country's borders, further destabilizing the whole region.


text:
We sure recognize these Kings.
The ones who play their best — goaltending, defense and physical play — when they're facing elimination.
It's maddening and thrilling all in one. That the Kings put themselves in prickly situations is troubling. That the Kings have that uncanny ability to climb out of trouble is equal parts impressive.
It's just the second round of the playoffs, and already the Kings played their fifth elimination game Wednesday in Game 6 against the Ducks at Staples Center.
They did what they do best when they face elimination: won.
Trevor Lewis scored at 14:04 in the second period, on a rush in which he beat goaltender John Gibson and the puck trickled in to give the Kings a two-goal lead. The Ducks' Kyle Palmieri scored a wraparound goal in the second period at 15:42, and the Kings hung on for a 2-1 win in the Western Conference semifinals.
The Kings played a disastrous Game 5 in Anaheim in which they were down by three goals and allowed four, three of which were fueled by turnovers.
And with their season in jeopardy, the Kings came through once again.
"It's a result of this group being together and having been through a lot," said captain Dustin Brown. "That goes a long way in being in these uncomfortable situations. We have that trust. We've been through a lot worse."
Uncomfortable situations is leading this series 2-0 and having the Ducks win the next two games in Los Angeles.
It's disturbing to lose three consecutive games to face elimination, but the Kings were so good Wednesday that they killed five Duck power plays.
He had four turnovers in Game 5, but Jake Muzzin scored first for the Kings, beating 20-year-old Ducks rookie goalie Gibson stick side. Muzzin was fed a nice pass from Anze Kopitar — who leads the NHL in postseason points this season.
The team that has scored first has won every game this series, so that goal was beyond big. And Jonathan Quick was strong in goal, making 21 saves and surviving a wild final minute.
Kings coach Darryl Sutter knows how good the Kings have been under pressure since he took over midway through the 2012 season.
"It's our ninth (playoff) series from a leadership group," Sutter said. "They've won series and lost series and they fully understand what it takes to win them and the price you have to pay."
The Kings have lost only one of those series under Sutter. The Kings won all four series en route to the Stanley Cup in 2012 and lost to Chicago in the Western Conference Finals last year.
When asked about facing elimination games, Sutter was being Sutter.
"When you go into a playoff series, you're facing elimination, right?" Sutter said. "The first shift of Game 1 you're facing elimination."
Whatever works for Sutter.
But when the Kings are really facing elimination, as in they lose and their season is over, that's when they're at their best.
"Elimination games are exciting to play in, but you don't want to be in those games every series," Brown said.
Well, here they are again. Of course for this Game 7, the Ducks are facing elimination, too.
The Kings have been there and done that. And this is when they're at their best.
Gibson looked shaky in the first period, but he only allowed that one goal. With the Ducks trailing 1-0, Gibson went way too far out of his net to play the puck and nearly didn't get back in time. It was a dangerous move, and Kings fans taunted him just after with "Gibson" chants.
The two-goal cushion for Quick didn't last long. Just 98 seconds later, Palmieri beat Quick, but that was the lone goal Quick allowed, paving the way for the Kings to protect that one-goal lead.
And protect that swagger in elimination games.
The Kings sure know how to do pressure.
email@example.com @jillpainter on Twitter


text:
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text:
23 October 2005
Tasting Notes for October 22, 2005
Wine 1: 2004 Castle Rock Carneros Pinot Noir. Napa Valley, California. Bold and tannic, with a strong strawberry flavor. Somewhat off finish. $10.
Wine 2: 2002 Windy Ridge North Coast Pinot Noir. Victoria, Australia. From the southernmost winery on the Australian mainland. This is a dark wine with a pomegranate flavor, and strong finish. Interesting. $14.
Wine 3: 2003 Mark West Pinot Noir. Central Coast, California. Mellower and rounder than the above selections, but still maybe a little young. $15.
Wine 4: 2004 Edna Valley Vineyard Pinot Noir. A little buttered toast on the top, maybe some strawberry in the flavor. Decent little wine. $17.
Wine 5: 2002 Rodney Strong Estate Bottled Pinot Noir. Russian River, California. An aroma of alcohol and Port, giving way to a mellow flavor with light tannins. Classic, well produced Pinot Noir. $17.
Wine 6: 2002 Clos La Chance Pinot Noir. Santa Cruz Mountains, California. Very soft and rounded, delicate light cherry flavor. $20.
Wine 7: 2004 The Crossings Pinot Noir. Marlborough, New Zealand. Berry flavors abound, almost blueberry on the edge. Slightly tart but still well rounded. Really liked this one. $20.
Wine 8: 2004 Vision Cellars Pinot Noir Chileno Valley Vineyard. Marin County, California. Love the backstory on this guy: "I was born the son of a Texas Moonshine maker... Even though I grew up around distilled spirits and fruit wines, I did not develop a taste for either. It was not until I tasted my first Burgundy, long about 1955, that I fell in love with fine wine." Hints of vanilla and cream, but I found the tannins a little strong. This has a very spicy finish--almost like a chile pepper. $29.
Wine 9: 2001 Montevina Zinfandel. Amador County, California. Every time I try this wine, I get different things from it. This time there was a sort of menthol aroma on top, but the flavor is quite soft and well-aged. It's a good basic Zinfandel and a decent bargain. $13.
Wine 10: 2002 Abundance Old Vine Zinfandel. Lodi, California. Raspberry flavors, thin but fruity. This wine actually tasted a bit watered down to me, and aren't we supposed to get more concentrated flavors from old vines? $15.
Wine 11: 2002 Clos La Chance Zinfandel. El Dorado County, California. This one wasn't remarkable, but not bad either. I guess it would be a good neutral Zinfandel. $16.
Wine 12: 2004 Seghesio Family Vineyard Zinfandel. Sonoma County, California. Good tradtional Zinfandel, with plum and gingerbread flavors. Would be excellent around Christmas. $23.
6 comments:
MarsEdit to continue development
We're still recovering from the bacchanalia that was the DrunkenBlog event in Chicago, but I just wanted to report an announcement that was made during the panel discussion.
Thank you for viewing our site.
##mclaren clothing## i am glad you enjoyed viewing.
- 23 October, 2005 10:03
I'll be on the lookout for The Crossings Pinot Noir. I'll be spending most of Novemeber visiting family in Margaret River. Planning a drive through Pemberton, Denmark, Mt Barker and will try some wines while there.
- 23 October, 2005 17:34
Hi there " Benito " --- I was in the search engines researching SEO Software when I came upon your blog..... I don't know if you are out of place in the engines, or I am out of place and just don't realize it :-)
- 26 October, 2005 23:12
Hi there " Benito " --- I was in the search engines researching SEO Software when I came upon your blog..... I don't know if you are out of place in the engines, or I am out of place and just don't realize it :-)
- 28 October, 2005 13:24
The price on the Mark West Central Coast Pinot Noir is very high for that wine. It's sells for 11.00 a bottle in Seattle.
Are the pric es ones that were actually paid or are they based on prices at internet sites
- 29 October, 2005 09:11
Re: Anonymous
The prices listed are the standard market prices here in Memphis, Tennessee, typically the price offered at the institution offering the tasting. (A lot of times, these places will offer a discount for the wines shown at the tasting, but I always use the regular retail price.)
I've seen a lot of variation on prices at other blogs--some stuff that's dirt cheap here is expensive elsewhere and vice versa.
- 29 October, 2005 18:28


text:
Hello dear friends and faithful readers. I am extremely excited to inform you all that my wonderful blog, Six by 10 Tiny Kitchen, has found a new home. I've moved the blog to the Wordpress platform in order to host my own site and use all of the wonderful tools Wordpress has to offer.
So I hope you enjoy the new look and feel of Six by 10 Tiny Kitchen. It is, of course, still a work in progress and I will be making changes (slowly) as time goes by. I would love to hear what you think of the redesign.
Without further ado, follow the link below to our new address, and thank you, as always, for coming along for the ride.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
We're making a move...
Hello dear friends and faithful readers. I am extremely excited to inform you all that my wonderful blog, Six by 10 Tiny Kitchen, has found a new home. I've moved the blog to the Wordpress platform in order to host my own site and use all of the wonderful tools Wordpress has to offer.
Posted by Joel at 4:08 PM 0 comments
Labels: blog move, new address, Wordpress
Monday, September 20, 2010
2010 San Francisco Street Food Festival
Although it was a bit overcast, the weather did not at all dampen the spirit of people queuing up to sink their teeth into the creations of so many amazing chefs. Lines were long to be sure, but moved quickly and with little grumbling from the crowds. If stories from the first Street Food Festival are to be believed, this event was infinitely better planned as the expected crowds of thousands of Bay Area foodies had, at least comparatively, more room to move around, line up, or just grab a curb and enjoy their eats.
So enjoy the pictures we took, and use them either as a reminder of a great day spend chowing down in the Mission, or as inspiration to attended next years sure to be epic event. Because we certainly enjoyed taking them.
|Ramen from Hapa Ramen
|Prosciutto wrapped figs
|The huddled masses wait patiently
|Corn on the cob with honey butter from Zella's
|Fried chicken with harissa and corn from Aziza
|S'mores don't get much better than this
|Brulee the marshmallow... genius!
|The finale, a monsterous funnel cake
Posted by Joel at 2:57 PM 0 comments
Labels: 2010 street food festival, recap
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
A Chat with Flour and Water's Chef Thomas McNaughton
SF Chefs 2010 was a week-long culinary event celebrating the food and wine of San Francisco and Northern California. The event culminated last weekend with cooking demonstrations with some of San Francisco's top chefs, the fabulous Sugar Party showcasing many great restaurant's confectionery delights, and of course the grand tasting tent, taking over Union Square for two days, allowing people to sample and sip some of the best that San Francisco has to offer.
I was lucky enough to sit in on the cooking demonstration as Flour and Water's Chef Thomas McNaughton prepared a rabbit turine with rabbit confit and stone fruit compote. Thanks to the good people at Foodbuzz, I had a chance to chat with him for a few minutes after wards about his restaurant, San Francisco, and his passion for honest, unpretentious food. Here is what he had to say:
Sixby10: You started working in kitchens when you were 14 years old. What was it that made you want to become a chef?
Thomas McNaughton: So I started in kitchens when I was 14, but it wasn't until 16 or 17 that I started taking it seriously and started working in better kitchens. I remember I was actually a bit embarrassed by it at that age, I remember buying cooking equipment and telling my friends it was for my girlfriend or my mom. The other side of it was that I had never seen something like the inside of a kitchen before, it had that kind of badass feel to it. It's a unique work environment.
Sx10: After working in so many highly regarded kitchens such as Gary Danko, La Folie and Qunice, what has the experience of opening your own restaurant been like?
TM: Every restaurant job that I've taken, I haven't felt comfortable at. It's a learning experience taking that next step; I ran the kitchen at Gary Danko for a while, ran the kitchen at Quince for a while, and you always say how hard it would be to open your own place, but until you do it nobody knows how hard it's going to be. It's long hours, a lot of people in the kitchen work 16 or 17 hour days, but implementing the structure of a kitchen, until you do it 100% on your own from start to finish, you can't prepare for half of what is coming at you. You just kind of have to dive into it, everyone is going to get their ass kicked, and learn from that experience. As long as it's a learning experience and you come out the other side. But until you do it you have no idea how difficult it's going to be.
Sx10: Did you bring a lot of what you learned from those other kitchens to Flour and Water?
TM: Sure. But the most difficult thing about Flour and Water is that the kitchen was just completed 3 months ago. So it has been constantly implementing procedures in an unfinished space, which is very difficult. But every single job I've taken, at either Gary Danko, La Folie, or Quince, each of those positions I took for a specific reason. I went to La Folie to learn to be a really solid line cook. I went to Quince to deal with ingredients and build relationships with farmers, and I went to Gary Danko to learn the management side of it. The (Gary Danko) kitchen runs like a well oiled machine.
Sx10: You spent a good deal of time working in Europe and especially Italy, and seem to be drawn to Italian cuisine. What are some of the fundamentals you brought back from your time there?
TM: People think that we have a very loose Italian menu at Flour and Water. But most Italians that come into the restaurant get it, because the whole thing is that it's about what grows around you, it's what's in season, it's what's good, just try not to mess it up. You're not going to see that many avacados over in Italy, but we are surrounded by California avacadoes, so they are going to be on our menu. If you are trying to do something strictly from what is in Campanga or what's in Lombardy, those ingredients are out of season right now, or they are only very specific to that region. That's what Italian food is to me; use what grows around you, use it simply and translate that.
Sx10: You've mentioned in other interviews the importance of sourcing from small, local farms, using sustainable ingredients and making sure you use the whole animal. Can you share a little about how that became a priority for you?
TM: It's ten times a better product. That salad (a peach compote & salad he made to compliment the rabbit turine), if we had some disgusting Mexican peaches that tasted like nothing, the salad would be ruined. But what we have (the peaches) are amazing, so it makes our job easier. It's about amazing products, and as a cook you want to surround yourself with the best products you possibly can.
But it's also about supporting people. I love the interaction with farmers, and the relationships that we have together. I'd much rather call up a guy that I know and say "what do you have? Send it to me." and talk to him for a half hour about his kids, whats going on in his life. That's important to me, to build those relationships.
Sx10: You mentioned during the demo that in your kitchen, you don't really use recipes, but ratios, like 16 ounces of lean meat needs 8 ounces of fat back when making a sausage. I've always thought recipes are better as suggestions, because there are always so many variables. Could you share your thoughts?
TM: It's difficult in restaurants because you need to be streamlined. If you make a dish, it needs to taste exactly like he made the dish the day before, or she made the dish the day before that. But the food that we are using is ever changing. I can't stand sterile restaurants. There are certain restaurants that you go to that have that sterile feel, that people get into a routine of going to. Food needs to be a little bit dirty. You can have the most high-end restaurant with the most intricate food, but it needs to be dirty. There are those heightened flavors, and (the food) is less sterile. That doesn't mean rustic food to me, dirty food, it means the food is ever changing, bold flavors, it's not cookie cutter.
Sx10: Do you have a guilty pleasure dish?
TM: I'm from the East Coast, so I definitely miss cheesesteaks. But I'm going to have to go with a pork roll. Every single breakfast menu in the tri-state area has pork roll. It's almost like Spam. It's definitely not made from humane things, but it's just something I grew up with and every time I go back there I eat pork rolls.
Sx10: You have three new businesses opening up soon near Flour and Water. Can you talk a little about what they are and what the motivation was behind them?
TM: There is Central Kitchen, which is a new restaurant, then a salumeria, and bar. Everything goes with the neighborhood, goes as the natural next step. The salumeria is extremely rustic to-go food, a good day time business to capture a lower price point and serve people that can't afford to go to Flour and Water. Central Kitchen is little bit more high end; it's a bigger space, but everything (restaurant, salumeria, bar) just kind of flows together. Everything fits into a circle for what we think is going to be successful and the things that we want to do.
Sx10: What drew you and your business partner to the Mission as a place to open a restaurant?
TM: The building had been abandoned for 8 years, and I hate the term "up and coming" but there were definitely a lot of things happening in that neighborhood. You could see a surge of people moving there, and nothing was really going on. It's so far off the beaten Mission path, they're actually trying to change the name. People say that we are in the Mission, like when people think of 18th street, that corridor there, that just feels miles away from us.
Sx10: Steeling a question from the Anthony Bourdain playbook, what would be your Death Row meal?
TM: It might seem a little to open ended; but I would take a spread. I like big flavors, and I want to taste a little bit of everything. I just want a bunch of little bites, a bunch of little glasses of amazing wine. I know it's a bit open ended.
Thank you, Chef McNaughton, for taking some time out of your busy schedule to sit down and talk with me. It was a pleasure getting pick your brain a little for the readers of this humble little blog. I hope you all enjoyed getting to know the chef a little better, and be sure to check out Flour and Water as soon as you possibly can.
Posted by Joel at 8:20 PM 1 comments
Labels: Flour and Water, Foodbuzz, Interview, SF Chefs 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Summer Harvest
Where are you greatest food memories created? Is it at that impossible to get a table, once in a life time, four star restaurant with the out of this world wine list? Or that cozy neighborhood spot that serves your favorite dish, just the way you like it, every time?
Maybe it is a night in with good friends, eating that favorite home made dish and drinking just one too many bottles of wine? For me, often it is a rare weekend spent with family and long time friends. A day out in the garden, picking buckets of tomatoes and other veggies, working together in a crowded home kitchen putting together a feast, with everyone pitching in where they can.
We recently had just that weekend, and it was... well, there really are no adjectives to describe the enjoyment of time spent among the people you love, eating food grown and prepared by hand in a place so familiar you know it blindfolded. So for now, we'll just call it "home".
I've got no recipes for you this post, just some pictures of friends and family coming together to enjoy each others company and celebrate a garden's summer harvest. We enjoyed a beer braised pulled pork, some fried okra, corn with garlic and chili powder, some delicious grilled vegetables, and the star of the show my mother's beautiful and exquisite tomatoes fresh from the garden. Enjoy.
|Beautiful tiny carrots
|Garden of color
|The garden
|One morning's harvest
|Freshly picked tomatoes
|Fried Okra
|Grilled squash
|A beautiful caprese salad
|Colors of the garden
|Our Table
Posted by Joel at 3:21 PM 1 comments
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Beer Braised Pulled Pork
I have always been a champion of the simple things; the uncomplicated things, the things that take time, a long time, to get right. Simple, elegant and versatile dishes with a few basic, exceptional ingredients prepared with the patience to follow through and make sure it comes out perfectly. And while some people might equate a long preparation and cooking time with a complicated dish, this Beer Braised Pulled Pork could not be simpler.
With only a handful of ingredients, the success of this dish has more to do with just leaving it alone happily bubbling away rather than constantly fussing over it like a Thanksgiving turkey. Once it gets started just let the magic happen while it fills your house with amazing aromas.
Beer Braised Pulled Pork
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon ground chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4- to 4-1/2-pound pork butt (The original recipe calls for boneless pork butt, but that can be a little bit more expensive than bone-in. Also, the bone gives it a certain, something extra, and is super super easy to take out when the pork is done.)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
8 medium garlic cloves, smashed
2 medium habanero chiles, sliced into rounds
2 medium yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced
24 ounces brown ale (Newcastle works very well.)
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
Heat your oven to 300 degrees and arrange the rack in the middle. Combine salt, chili powder, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Coat pork butt with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, and the cover all sides with the spice mixture. Allow to sit for at least 30 minutes at room temperature.
Heat remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in a dutch oven (our 5 1/2 quart worked perfectly.) Once oil is hot, add the pork and brown on all sides, about 15 mins total. Once browned, remove pork to a plate and discard all but 1 tablespoon of the fat. (It works really well if you pour all of the fat out into a glass bowl and then spoon back in 1 tablespoon. You're welcome.)
Reduce heat to medium and add garlic, chiles and onions. Cook until soft and onions are translucent, about 10-15 minutes, frequently scraping the tasty bits from the bottom of the pot. Increase the heat to medium-high, and add the reserved pork and beer. (At this point, since you bought 2 16 oz bottles of Newcastle, you will have several ounces left over once everything has been added to the pot. Feel free to enjoy them with my compliments.) Bring everything to a boil.
Cover, transfer to the oven and cook until pork is tender and falls apart when shredded with a fork, about 3 hours. It will look a little something like this when it is done.
With tongs, separate the bone from the meat and discard. Carefully, very carefully, remove the pork from the liquid and place in a large glass bowl. Over another glass bowl, place a large strainer and pour the liquid and any remaining solids over the strainer. Allow as much liquid to pass through the solids in the strainer, using the back of a spoon to push it through. Once enough of the liquid has been strained, place the strained solids back into the pot. Reserve about 3 cups of the liquid, or certainly all of it if you plan to use it for another purpose. It is super flavorful and would make an amazing base for a gravy or stock.
Using forks, shred the pork and remove any large chunks of fat you find. Take your time with this, there is more than you think. Once you have discarded as much of the fat as you can and shredded the pork enough, place back into the pot with the strained solids.
With your reserved liquid, strain out the fat using a fat separator. Since I don't actually have a fat separator, I just used a spoon to slowly ladle out the liquid fat. It took a while, but it was worth it. It might be time to invest in a fat separator for next time, though.
The original recipe says to separate the liquid from the fat until you have just 1 cup of juice, but I had quite a bit more than that. No problems there, a little extra pork fat never hurt anyone, right? Add the cider vinegar and spoon the separated juice in generously, mixing with tongs as you go. Taste the pork frequently as you mix in the juice, stopping once the perfect balance of flavors is reached.
This being my first foray into the slow-cooked meats, I was impressed with how well this recipe came together. This pulled pork makes great sandwiches topped with just a dollop of guacamole, or on warm corn tortillas with a little cilantro and white onion. It was a deceptively simple recipe to prepare, and kept us well fed for several days afterwards.
Although I mangled this recipe around to accommodate lack of equipment and so on, thanks go to the good people at Chow.com for sending me this and many, many delightful recipes in my Inbox every morning. I hope you all have as much fun preparing this dish as I did, and as always, enjoy!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
A Day In The Park
We often plan our outings around the places we want to eat, and this day was no exception. Golden Gate Park can get a bit crowded, but I have been wanting to give the Chowder Mobile a try for a while, and what better way to enjoy lunch than sitting on a park bench, soaking up sunshine, munching on delicious sea food?
While the menu is a little pricey for what you might expect from a food truck, the quality is truly worth your money. The "shortie" lobster roll is fantastic, sweet flaky lobster chunks stuffed (barely) into a toasted butter slice of bread. The missus took on the fish and chips which were perfectly breaded and not terribly greasy, as some variations can be. I will warn though that the order of fries for $4 is actually an enormous order of fries, almost worthy of being a meal unto themselves. Unless you are sharing them with a couple of people or just really love fries, save your money.
Posted by Joel at 3:32 PM 1 comments
Labels: Golden Gate Park, Lobster roll
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Dishcrawl Through The Mission
Luckily, Mission Pie was all but empty on this Sunday afternoon, so we kind of had our run of the place. After perusing the delicacies behind the glass, the missus and I decided on the pluot frangipane tart with a little dollop of whipped cream. So simple, so delicious. Gone in a matter of bites. Mission Pie has without a doubt the most delicious pies in The City, and it is always a treat to get to stop in and enjoy a slice. Oddly enough though, on this day we ate pie before we ate anything that resembled dinner. Oh well.
After pie, we mozied down Mission Street to Rosamunde Sausage Grill, a local favorite that somehow I had never heard of before. The recommendation from those in the know was to get the beer sausage, so we ordered one to share with grilled onions and sweet peppers. While one of the least exotic items on a menu that includes chicken cherry, duck, and pheasant, the beer sausage hit the spot. A smoky spiciness from the beef and pork sausage, sweetness from the onions and peppers, and a little heat from the mustard added up to a perfect snack before moving along to our next destination deeper into the Mission.
I might have mentioned this before, but I love Mexican food. Love it. Cannot get enough of it. And if you are on the hunt for great, real, uncomplicated Mexican food, the Mission is where you go. Pretty reliably, you can walk down 24th street on any given day and be hypnotized by the wafting aromas of carnitas and carne asada, lulled in by the sounds of sizzling meats on a grill and too-loud soap operas blaring from wall mounted televisions. This isn't your financial district fancy, sit down, cloth napkin Mexican food, my friends. This is greasy paper plate piled with tender meat and warm tortillas, juice dripping down your hands, use ten napkins by the time you're done Mexican food.
And one of the best places to find that kind of Mexican food, the best kind in my humble opinion, is at Taqueria Vallarta, a deceptively large eatery along 24th that boasts it's own taco cart separate from the main counter. Pull up a bench in the dining room and enjoy the colorful and whimsical murals covering the walls. For a buck and a half per taco, you have your choice of a variety of meats, including the standard carnitas, pollo, carne asada, lengua, and al pastor that sizzle in a round bowled grill being constantly tended by the frantic cook behind the glass. Tell the man the meats you want, he slaps them into warm tortillas, then you toss on fresh chopped onions, cilantro, radishes, a squeeze of lime, and a little salsa. Pay the nice lady, and you are ready to chow.
I tucked into a carne asada and a carnitas taco, and honestly couldn't stop thinking about them for the rest of the afternoon. I truly could have sat at that table stuffing my face with those tacos until closing time. But we had a schedule to keep, and a few more stops to make before the evening was done.
Around the corner to Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream, where we all sated our sweet tooths with some of San Francisco's best and most creative ice cream. A crowd favorite was the olive oil ice cream, a strange combination of sweet and savory that really just worked. Some of the more original concoctions are secret breakfast (a mixture of bourbon and little flecks of corn flakes) peanut butter curry, cinnamon brittle, and the bizarre Jesus juice, a mixture of red wine and Coca-Cola.
To exacerbate the sugary caloric intake, we had a visit from Cindi Fleischer of the Anticupcake company, maker of deliciously diminutive personal sized cheesecakes. Cindi brought along a small cooler packed with her mini cheesecakes including dulce de leche and and s'mores, two exceptionally creative flavors that wowed the group. My one sweet weakness has always been cheesecake, and these little treats were first rate.
One more stop just another block up 24th street to La Victoria Panaderia. A great neighborhood bakery that has been a part of the Mission for over 60 years makes some of the most delicious pan dulce in The City. The hour was getting late and our appetites were flagging, but a walk through the Mission is never complete without a stop at La Victoria. While the remaining members of our Dishcrawl group waited patiently for an empanada, the missus and I grabbed a few delicious looking pastries for the road and left to nurse our food comas.
Posted by Joel at 11:00 AM 3 comments
Labels: Battledish, Dishcrawl, Mission
Friday, June 4, 2010
Simple Ingredients
I am not a good cook. And I am not saying that out of humility, fishing for a compliment. I say that because I am not learned in the refined techniques of turning raw ingredients into perfectly crafted dishes, or pairing delicate flavors together to dazzle the pallet. I have, for the most part, learned what little I do know by watching, by reading, and of course by making mistakes.
One thing that I know for sure though is that it does not take much to make something that tastes absolutely amazing. It certainly doesn't take much to turn a few ingredients into a mess of tasteless mush, either, but that typically happens when we try just a little too hard. The most important thing I have learned is that cooking is applying a certain amount of heat for a certain amount of time to raw ingredients. Sure, there is some chopping and stirring and seasoning involved, but what gives the dish it's flavor, what causes it to succeed or fail, are the ingredients.
I think so often we are either so snobbishly aloof or so brazenly indifferent to the food we eat that we forget exactly what causes that particular emotional (or lack thereof) connection. But believe me, the reason so many people seek out the best restaurants while others simply disregard food as anything but fuel will boil down every time to the quality of the ingredients in the food they eat. The greatest chefs in the world will tell you that any menu begins and ends with the freshest, highest quality ingredients. As a contrast to that, the lowliest fry cook at any fast food joint in the world will tell you that they don't know where tomatoes come from or when they are in season, they just know a slice of one is supposed to go on top of the patty.
The basic, raw ingredients come from somewhere, and it can't hurt to know where they came from and how many people have handled them along the way. Obviously, the fresher the ingredient, the more honest and vibrant the flavor, and the fewer hands an ingredient passes through to get to your kitchen, the fresher it will be. And whatever your ingredient, whether it is fiddleheads or flank steak, the fresher and more flavorful the ingredient, the less preparation needed to turn it into a spectacular meal.
I have never been particularly impressed with dishes that try far too hard to be something they are not; those precariously balanced towers of unnaturally shaped food or the modernist deconstruction of grandma's meatballs seem more like an ode to the chef's ego than real food. I realize there is a time and a place for a dish prepared with such meticulous and single-minded precision. But for me food is not precise or scientific; food is warm and organic, heartfelt, and not just a little messy. The elegance and pleasure of a meal comes not from it's artistic design and presentation, but from it's simplicity; a dish that relies on the quality of just a few exceptional ingredients.
Those ingredients, the raw materials of your dinner, are what make your meal delicious. So often the meals I make for my wife and I on a weeknight after a long day at work are made with the least amount of fuss and preparation. And more often than not, dinner is pretty darn good. I won't lie; we've had some disasters. But occasionally, we surprise ourselves and throw together something out of this world delicious.
But not once has it been because I am a good cook. When you rely on the exquisit flavors of a few exceptional ingredients, you don't need to be. Pasta with Chanterelle mushrooms and early girl tomatoes, Quinoa with fresh asparagus, sauteed green beans and garlic, or slices of fresh tomato with olive oil. A few fresh, simple ingredients, prepared with minimal fuss, letting the flavors of your ingredients shine through. Just add the heat.
Posted by Joel at 9:00 PM 2 comments
Labels: essay, Ingredients
Friday, May 28, 2010
Birthday Dinner At San Francisco's A16
Posted by Joel at 6:25 PM 0 comments
Labels: A16, birthday, restaurant


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District judge resigns in texting case
State District Judge Elizabeth E. Coker--who sits on the bench over Trinity, Polk and San Jacinto counties--has resigned under fire in a texting controversy, according to a voluntary agreement with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
It stems from complaints and media stories alleging that Coker "had engaged in improper ex parte text communications with Polk County Assistant District Attorney Kaycee Jones while Judge Coker presided" over a criminal trial in August of 2012.
With those complaints, "the commission commenced an investigation into allegations that Judge Coker used Assistant District Attorney Jones to privately communicate information" about the case "to suggest questions for the prosecutor to ask during the trial" among other issues.
The agreement also said the commission looked into other complaints that Coker allegedy engaged in other improper communications and meetings with Jones, other members of the Polk County prosecutor's office, the San Jacinto County District Attorney and certain defense attorneys.
The agreement goes on to say "the parties agree that the allegations of judicial misconduct, if found to be true, could result in disciplinary action against Judge Coker." As a result, the parties sought to resolve the matter "without the time and expense of further disciplinary proceedings."
Coker did not admit any guilt or fault.
Her resignation will take effect Dec. 6 but she will take a voluntary leave of absence until that time and not perform any official duties. Under the agreement, she will be disqualified from sitting or serving as a judge in Texas,
Coker, 46, has been on the 258th bench for 14 years and is the third generation in her family to serve on an East Texas bench. Her father and grandfather also served.


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We take you home today with outstanding home video of a Pee Wee football league parents fight in Corpus Christi, Tex. It has been reported on already, but this is the first time we've seen a video of it.
Sometimes we think that parents should only be allowed to watch their children's games on closed circuit television in an area no closer than three miles from the actual games. Oh, and they should be in restraints and guarded by Lynndie England.
By the way, this video features exclusive Boot To Ass action!
Video Shows Corpus Christi Pee Wee Football Coach Attacking Ref [KLTV]


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So, picking up again, here's where we are.
The miscarriage isn't over, ladies and ladies. My last beta was on Saturday, and the level was...drumroll...1.6. This is down from 3.5 the week before. I've been bleeding again, for the past week and a half. I found out I was pregnant in October. The calendar says it's January. Will this one ever end?
Meanwhile, there was one final, craptastic piece of bad news I needed to hear about this loss: the result of the genetic testing. I suppose I'm grateful we had a result at all, as I realize this is not always the case. But it's not easy, no matter how mature and rational you think you can be, to hear about what was wrong with the fetus you thought might be your baby. I shook while the nurse told me this one had Trisomy 8. And although I knew it may not be totally advisable, I let her also share that it was XX.
We all build our own framework of how we think the world works: who God is, how we're all here, when we believe life begins. We listen to politicians debate the same, and sometimes we vote based on those beliefs. But those views are all theoretical, aren't they, until the lines are all blurred when we find out we're pregnant with a much-wanted baby and then it's gone as quickly as it came. Our frameworks break down. We're left with questions, curiosities. This fetus had a beating heart inside of me. Yet Trisomy 8 is a condition incompatible with life. So was it ever alive? Can you have a beating heart and not be alive? Was it ever really a girl if it could never actually be a person? It makes my head hurt. To say nothing of my heart.
When my beta finally reaches zero I will go in for a recurrent miscarriage panel to ensure nothing else is going on other than wonky, old eggs with genetic defects. Then I will try one IVF cycle and see if it works. I have no idea if it will, or if this is a good plan or where I will be if it doesn't work. Or if it does. At this point, I have questions and no answers.
Friends and family members are getting good pregnancy news. I have authentic, deep, boundless joy for them. Truly. But may I also admit this thought: why not me too? It wouldn't take anything away from anyone else, would it, for the universe to grant just one more? Why not a wait that ends with good news, just one more time, for this girl too?
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
So, picking up again, here's where we are.
Posted by Good Egg Hatched at 6:53 AM 6 comments Links to this post


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6 month contract paying up to £675pd - Immediate start (LONDON)
Project is for the development of a new Finance Data warehouse system.
Migration from Essbase to TM1.
Ideal candidate will have:
• Administrative/Development experience of TM1 (including processes, rules, security and control cubes)
• Knowledge of the CAFE (Excel) and Performance Modeller (Admin) interfaces an advantage
• Strong knowledge of Excel and a good understanding of Excel macros and VBA
Responsibilities include:
Further development of existing TM1 models/cubes as required
Development of new planning models as required
Owning and maintaining the VBA driven data upload template
Load data where necessary and carrying out reconciliations on the results.
6 month TM1 Developer Opportunity in City of London (up to £675pd)
Discuss / promote job opportunities for any OLAP / BI tool here.
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Are you Entertaining Challenged, Short on Time, Money or Inspiration?
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Choose from 300+ recipes to create the perfect menu along with download grocery lists.
Learn how to select the perfect wine & music to complement your event.
Plus much, much more!
Welcome to Memorable Entertaining!


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|Domestic Relations Section
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The Domestic Relations Section maintains and improves effective activity in promoting policy, legislation and awareness in the family law area, and in fostering quality among the family law bar. We are confident that you will find your Section membership to be valuable, both in terms of professional development and the nurturing of personal relationships with other family law practitioners in Virginia.
Our Section reviews, comments upon and, in appropriate circumstances, participates directly in the legislative and regulatory process on matters of professional interest to our members. Each year, the Section distributes a legislative summary to the membership immediately following the session of the Virginia General Assembly.
Our Section also typically sponsors advanced CLE programs at the Annual and Summer Meetings of The Virginia Bar Association, sometimes in cooperation with other substantive law Sections, on pertinent topics. The networking opportunities for Section members have proven particularly worthwhile over the years as well.
In previous years, our Section sponsored one edition annually of the VBA News Journal. Submission of potential articles from Section members for the VBA Journal is always encouraged.
We welcome your involvement in the Domestic Relations Section. Please contact any member of the Section Council if you wish to participate as a speaker in a CLE program, contribute an article to the VBA Journal, become a more active Section member, or with any questions, comments or suggestions for future Section activities. A listing of the Section's Council can be found on this website.
Thank you for being a member of the Domestic Relations Section; we look forward to working with you in our common quest to improve family law in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
9/1/2020 » 9/30/2020
Legal Food Frenzy 2020 Redux
9/21/2020 » 9/25/2020
ABA Business Law Virtual Section Annual Meeting


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Tagged: Shakira
Being There (Part II)
I didn't attend just the inauguration this past weekend. Since the four days were jam-packed full of all sorts of goodies, I decided to partake in as much as the cold would allow me, which is how I found myself at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday afternoon. I have never seen such a star-studded event. In fact, I have never seen such a star-studded few days. If you were watching during the inauguration, you may have noticed that Jay-Z, Puffy and Magic Johnson were all up in the stage. And of course, Oprah. But this did not even begin to compare to the concert. Shakira and Usher singing with Stevie Wonder. Tom Hanks' salute to the Great Emancipator. Jon Bon Jovi dueting on "A Change Gonna' Come." Jamie Foxx's Obama impression. Denzel! Tiger! The Boss! The list goes on and on. All we needed was Jack Nicholson and it could have been court side at a Lakers game.
However, there was also something a little weird about the concert. Each performer acknowledged the crowd as they finished their piece but then each one of them also gave a little bow towards the man who had brought them there. The President elect gave only a short speech and he wasn't even the one who ended the program (that honor went to the lovely Beyonce). But I couldn't shake the sense that this felt more like a coronation than a concert. Now, I in no way want to imply that the event was intended as such nor do I think that our new President would think so of himself. It just felt kind of strange.
But if you really want to talk about strange, let me tell you about the locked-down state of the nation's capitol. Almost every street corner had either police or National Guardsmen standing around. I'm not sure exactly what their function was and to be honest, it didn't really bother me that much. But, it's just a little disconcerting when in every place you walk in the town where you live, there are camouflaged men and women standing around.
All in all, though, it was a weekend to remember. It definitely had its highs and lows and I really wish that the 70 degree weather we enjoyed just a few weeks ago would have held off for this weekend instead. But, despite some miscues during the oath, power peacefully transitioned and the United States showed once again why "We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense."
So, that brings our RSBS salute to the inauguration to a close. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go continue my attempts at thawing out.


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The constant threat of narco-terrorism has everyone in Mexico on edge, which might explain why a pair of motorcycles backfiring sent crowds scattering in San Luis Potosi, Mexico this weekend. It's also why authorities in the town are charging the motorcyclists with terrorism.
C'mon, folks. loud pipes save lives. How many times do we need to tell you?
There's some debate as to whether or not the two motorcyclists intentionally revved their bikes in order to set off a stampede during an Easter week celebration, but no one is disputing the property damage and injuries that resulted. Both men have been charged under the country's terrorism laws and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted, even if it's highly unlikely.
So, next time you're in Mexico, keep loud noises to a minimum.