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The Story
As he waited behind the 7-Eleven in Southampton Village, New York, Guatemalan day laborer William Fuentes, 29, paced on the sidewalk of Aldrich Lane next to a sign that reads "Keep off the grass" in Spanish. Identical signs dot the village's Main Street.
Fuentes came to the United States in 2013 to make money for himself, uncertain of what he'd find here.
"I heard you can make $88,000 working in the U.S., but others said it was closer to $17,000," Fuentes said.
Fuentes is among dozens of men waiting here for work — men who also crossed the Mexican border without documentation.
There are about 99,000 undocumented immigrants in Nassau and Suffolk counties and two-thirds are employed as of 2014, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Although day labor by undocumented immigrants is illegal, the practice has become normalized in much of Long Island over the past two decades. The island has seen various attempts at regulating day labor, revealing what does and doesn't work when dealing with hiring sites.
The place where Fuentes waits is one such place, a place where Village Mayor Mark Epley once hoped to create a sanctioned hiring site.
"I went to a variety of sites in Florida and Long Island to come up with some ideas, and I made a decision to do something with that site next to the 7-Eleven," Epley said. "When a community supports it, you get successful hiring sites."
But the community did not support it. Epley is facing two lawsuits for trying to use parkland on the lane for a sanctioned hiring site. He announced in March 2007 his plans to add benches, portable toilets and a gravel driveway to the park so contractors could drive in to pick up laborers.
But a group of residents sued Epley to block the proposal. Protesters, he recalled, stood outside his house for nine weeks.
An appeals court in November 2009 ordered the removal of the preliminary injunction that prevented day laborers from using the park as a hiring site. The lawsuits are still ongoing.
Preliminary injunction for Southampton hiring site – January 2008 by Arielle Martinez on Scribd
Southampton Village is the norm when it comes to hiring sites on Long Island: a place where day laborers informally gather, waiting for employers to pick them up off the street. Few hiring sites are sanctioned and funded by the government and operated by nonprofit organizations.
"A proper hiring site, from what I understand, is a place promoted by the local government for day laborers to use as a waiting area to look for work," said Cero Barona, a day laborer at a sanctioned hiring site in Freeport.
Barona sips his morning coffee inside the Freeport Trailer, a red structure on Bennington Ave. where day laborers wait for contractors to hire them. The men distract themselves as they wait by watching TV, arguing about politics and playing soccer in a makeshift court.
They recently finished painting the Trailer red, with an American flag at its center. They're now focusing on renovating the floor to keep out the cold in the winter because some of them sleep inside the trailer when snow falls.
"When the winter comes, some of the guys here would be in big trouble without this place," Barona said.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to deport the country's undocumented immigrants, which number about 11 million, according to a 2014 report by the Pew Research Center.
But Trump's proposals aren't a concern to every immigrant. "I'm not worried," said Alexander Sanchez, 30, a Honduran day laborer. Sanchez waits for work at another spot that's popular for day laborers: a CVS parking lot in Huntington Station. "I'm only scared of God," he added.
Epley said that his previous view on immigration "was a conservative approach, that there were people in this country, people who came illegally, and that we should actively look to deport them. That was the bottom line."
It also became something personal for Epley when his friends began experiencing economic hardships because of day laborers.
"I had a few friends of mine who had to go through the process of hiring these individuals properly, the insurance from paying the payroll taxes, etc, etc, and being in competition with people who were going to job sites, picking people up, and undercutting them," Epley said.
Complaints about day laborers fueled former Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy's push for the deportation of undocumented immigrants in the early 2000s.
But overall, immigrant labor has had little to no effect on the wages and employment of American citizens, according to a 2016 study from the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine, which found that "particularly, when measured over a period of 10 years or more, the impact of immigration on the overall native wage may be small and close to zero."
And Americans' views about immigrant labor have softened, according to a report from Pew Research Center. In 2006, 55 percent of Americans surveyed said the presence of immigrant workers hurt U.S. laborers. In 2016, only 45 percent said the same.
But municipalities have tried to use tactics like anti-loitering laws to rid their streets of day laborers.
In the 1990s, the City of Glen Cove passed an anti-loitering law that prohibited day laborers from soliciting employment on streets. Before the decision was appealed, city officials agreed to establish a sanctioned hiring site and withdraw the ordinance. The site, then a trailer and portable toilet near the train station, opened in 1994.
In 2009, the Town of Oyster Bay passed an ordinance that prohibited people from soliciting work on the streets and sidewalks because day laborers were waiting for work on four blocks of Forest Avenue in Locust Valley.
Residents argued that day laborers were chasing after cars, urinating in public and making the sidewalks unsafe and unsightly, according to a lawsuit filed by the Centro de la Comunidad Hispana de Locust Valley and the Workplace Project against the Town of Oyster Bay.
The town argued that soliciting for work on the streets and sidewalks was infringing upon the public's right to proceed on a public route without interference. The ordinance was strict enough to fine $250 for so much as a wave of the hand.
"The term 'solicitation of employment' includes, but is not limited to, shouting at cars, waving arms or signs, making hand signals, approaching motor vehicles or standing in public roads facing in the direction of oncoming traffic," the Oyster Bay ordinance read.
But a federal judge ruled in September 2015 that the law was too broad and ordered that enforcement of it be stopped.
Court decision on Town of Oyster Bay loitering law by Arielle Martinez on Scribd
Efforts to control where day-laborers stand to wait for work aren't always successful, said Lorie DeFelice, the manager of the Southampton 7-Eleven near where the day laborers wait. Her store has signs in Spanish that ask people not to trespass or form groups on store property.
DeFelice said the day laborers are here because they often work on renovating the houses for property owners in the Hamptons.
"If they weren't needed, they wouldn't be standing out there," she said.
She added that the day-laborers are good customers, but when trouble does happen, like fighting due to daytime drinking, she will call the police.
Day laborers can easily fall into abusive drinking habits because the culture around unsanctioned hiring sites normalizes excessive drinking, according to a 2013 study by the Multicultural Institute and the University of California.
"Once they get to the point that they're drunk somebody may say something someone doesn't like and next thing they know they're hooking it up in a fight, and at that point we might be making an arrest for disorderly conduct," Det. Sgt. Herman Lamison of the Southampton Village Police Department said.
Hector Aparicio, 45, a Salvadoran day laborer who waits for work near the Huntington Station CVS, said he does his best to stay out of trouble. "If you don't drink and don't smoke marijuana, you'll never have problems with the police," he said. "I work, I go home, and that's it."
Day laborers can behave in ways that bring anger and disgust from the local community.
When anti-immigration groups protested the proposal of a hiring site in Farmingville in the early 2000s, residents complained about public urination from day laborers, which was a key reason for why the Freeport Trailer includes bathrooms in its site.
"They're waiting hours and hours for work and where else are they going to go," said Liz O'Shaughnessy, a founder of the Trailer. "This provides them a basic level of dignity and helps the town."
The Trailer helps the day laborers avoid fines or arrests for public urination, O'Shaughnessy said.
While providing a space for contractors to hire day laborers, the Trailer also offers breakfast, English lessons and a community integration program that introduces day laborers to resources in their neighborhood.
"We even help them get library cards," said Mirna Obers, a bilingual volunteer at the Trailer. "There's this one guy who who's using his library card to study because he wants to take a citizenship test. He even started a conversation with someone in English the other day."
In the winter of 2009, the Trailer lost its funding from the Hagedorn Foundation, an organization that funds nonprofits throughout Long Island. The Catholic Charities, which ran the site, had to shut it down.
"We never went anywhere," said Jose Diaz, a day laborer from Colombia who's over 50 years old. "We went around the back and put up a campfire and just waited for the contractors to come. This was our place, and everyone around here knew it."
When the Trailer was closed, Diaz and the other day laborers not only stayed but also kept to the old rules of the Trailer, like the first come, first serve policy.
"It may have been closed, but we had developed a culture here that we were going to stick to," Diaz added.
He takes a special sense of pride looking at the American flag he helped paint for the Trailer. And he doesn't even want to think about what would happen if the Trailer were to shut down again.
Sandra Dunn, director of immigration at the Hagedorn Foundation, said the future of the Freeport Trailer is uncertain. She says, once the foundation dissolves in 2017, it'll take away the $65,000 that go to the trailer every year.
Funding has long been an issues for sanctioned hiring sites on Long Island. One site in Huntington closed in 2010 after a decade of operation. The Family Service League ran the Labor Ready Site on Depot Road, but the Town Council decided not to renew its contract for the site's operation, according to A.J. Carter, the spokesman for the town government.
The site "was underutilized," Peggy Boyd, the Family Service League vice president, said. "If I was one out of many at the site who switched to looking for jobs on my own, there would be a greater chance of me finding one."
Funding became an issue for the Huntington site after it had lost $15,000 of State Senator Carl Marcellino's legislative funding, according to a report released by the Family Service League after the closing of the site.
South of Huntington, Farmingville lost its chance to open a sanctioned hiring site when former Suffolk County Executive Robert Gaffney vetoed the county legislature's vote to set aside $80,000 in taxpayer money to open a site.
Levy agrees with his predecessors' decision.
"I mean, it's bad enough that this stuff was happening under our noses and the government was looking the other way," Levy said. "But now it's the ultimate insult to taxpayers to suggest that they must facilitate this illegality."
While the previous Suffolk County executives were against the sites, former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi backed the Glen Cove hiring site when he was the mayor of the city.
The site became the first indoor hiring site on Long Island in 2001 when it moved from a trailer into a building on Sea Cliff Ave. It is run by La Fuerza Unida, a nonprofit organization.
After Suozzi lost his reelection bid in 2009, La Fuerza Unida experienced a decrease in government grants, said Alberto Munera, the organization's executive director. The organization lost the space for its hiring site in 2013 because it could no longer pay the rent.Now after three years, La Fuerza Unida has secured a new spot for its hiring site on Glen Cove Ave.
La Fuerza Unida's hiring site offers Internet access and English classes for day laborers who do not get hired after 10 a.m. or so, Munera said.
Suozzi wasn't the only Nassau politician to give hiring sites a chance. Freeport Mayor Robert Kennedy officially sanctioned the Freeport Trailer after it reopened in 2010.
"We just felt that it was a positive program for the community," Kennedy said. "It's a successful program, and hopefully we'll continue to work with it. And it's at no cost to the village."
In Southampton, Epley says he sees the importance of the humane approach to dealing with this issue."There's a limited opportunity in the countries where these people come from," he said. "A lot of them don't read and write. They're taken advantage of. There's a whole underground society around here. Individuals are afraid to come into the spotlight."
Fuentes is one of those individuals. He keeps a low profile, taking the bus to Southampton from his home in Riverhead and not risking driving without a driver's license. And he has been a victim of wage theft many times, he said.
But he does what he must. He has been in the United States for about two years, and he works to support his family, including his 5-year-old daughter, back in Guatemala.
"Here, anyone can look for work because this is a place where Americans who need help with things come to pick up somebody here who can help them," he said.
And for now, it looks like Fuentes and the other day laborers aren't going anywhere any time soon.
In Southampton, Some Residents Offer Helping Hand To Day Laborers
Just around the corner from where over a dozen day-laborers wait for work on the sidewalks of Aldrich Lane in Southampton is a tire shop run by Carol and Al Whitby. There, the Whitbys run a soup kitchen for the day-laborers.
Out by the front counter of Southampton Tire is a set of shelves piled high with donated cans of soups, cans of vegetables, and cake mix boxes.
"We keep this soup kitchen open 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year," Carol Whitby said. "We donate and sell discounted clothes and shoes. And we're usually really busy on Thanksgiving and Christmas."
The Whitbys, who have lived in Southampton for over 40 years, started the soup kitchen in 2009 because of the economic recession. She recalled that a young man rode his bike over to her one day and asked for a dollar for something to eat.
"The bad economy hit hard and they couldn't find any work," she said. "We saw sad faces, and they were asking for a $1 so they could buy something to eat. So we got some help from the church (Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary) to open up the soup kitchen, but no one is helping me anymore."
"Most of what we do is out of pocket," she added. "We gave out sandwiches yesterday for everyone to eat."
Latino immigrants aren't the only ones who come to the soup kitchen. Carol said that she serves people of all races and backgrounds. The number of people who come to the soup kitchen varies each day. During November and December, when there's less work available for the day-laborers, up to 60 people come each day.
Whitby says that those who need food come to her tire shop. She doesn't bring food out to the day-laborers waiting on Aldrich Lane because she fears retribution from Tom Wedell, a man who stands in the intersection near the tire shop many days, carrying signs protesting the day-laborers.
But Carol doesn't like the term "day-laborer." She prefers to call them "amigos."
"They're my friends," she said. "I don't like day workers or laborers because they work longer than a day. They work hard."
Wage Theft: An All-Too-Common Problem For Day-Laborers
At unsanctioned hiring sites, day laborers can also fall victim to abuse from employers, specifically in terms of wage theft, Fuentes said.
"Here, we've seen the problem of companies not paying us," Fuentes explained. "Suppose they give you a check. The check won't have funds and will bounce. The boss will be like, 'Sorry, I'll give you another check.' And when that check doesn't come, it starts adding up. That's happened to me before."
Seventy percent of day laborers nationwide do not know where to report a workplace violation, according to the 2006 National Day Laborer Study. As a result, abusive employers are often able to continue to violate workers' rights with impunity.
But that problem is lessened in sanctioned hiring sites, as Southampton Village Mayor Mark Epley explained about a hiring site in Jupiter, Florida that he visited. Because the Jupiter hiring site requires that employers write down their contact information and the location of their worksites, "the person in the site is protected because you don't have to worry about getting dropped off someplace and not getting paid or abused," Epley said. "And it helped the community so the police could go to the guy who's over there and say, 'You didn't follow the procedures here. If you're going to be here, you need to follow the rules.' "
The Freeport Trailer had also seen instances of wage theft.
"Wage theft is unbelievably prominent, but we have ways to deal with that now," O'Shaughnessy said.
With help from the National Day Laborers' Organization Network, workers can use an app to share information with other day laborers and keep track of employers who have not paid day laborers in the past.
"We want to help all workers feel that they can be supported despite their immigration status or where they're from," Gonzalo Mercado, New York director of the NDLON, said.
As Barona pointed out, the app is useful to the day laborers in the trailer. And instructions on how to get and use the app hang near the doorway.
This project was produced by three students — Demi Guo, Arielle Martinez, and Ronny Reyes — for the course JRN 364 in Stony Brook University's School of Journalism during the Fall 2016 semester.
Photos from Huntington Station and Freeport by Demi Guo.


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Let me preface this by saying that the vast majority of people are never really going to dabble in cell phone repair. If something more substantial than a slight nick on the screen goes wrong, they'll either go to a professional, ask for a free replacement under warranty, or just give up and buy a new phone. If you are the repairing type, though, the HTC Droid Incredible 2 could prove to be your easiest challenge yet.
That's according to the teardown as performed by the kindly folks at Repair Launch. They took the Android smartphone apart, bit by bit, documenting each step along the way. Taking a smartphone apart certainly isn't for the feint of heart and it's definitely more challenging than a simpler phone, but the Droid Incredible 2 is being rated as "the easiest repair in recent history."
There are a total of nine screws that need to be removed, seven of which can be accessed right after you take off the back plate (which snaps off as easily as any other phone), battery, SIM card, and microSD card. That's easy enough. You'll want to be gentle with your prying tool for the other steps, but it does look pretty straightforward.
Removing the glass and LCD will involve a heatgun, but that shouldn't be too much of a hurdle for people who have taken apart similar electronics in the past. What about you? Have you ever taken apart your phone to fix a component? Or do you just call in the warranty?

subset: commoncrawl


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Welcome to our WROX Sample Chapters section. Here is an opportunity for you to browse through the contents of
various WROX XML titles which are highly recommended by us.
Select a sample chapter from the book list on the right.
Select a Book
Beginning XML
Beginning XHTML
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Professional XSLT...
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Designing Distributed Applications...
Professional Java XML...
Professional WAP


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She was removed from the roster. She appealed. She got reinstated.
And during the Resort Wear Competition of Miss Philippines Earth 2015 at Hotel Pontefino in Batangas City last weekend, Angelia Ong was somehow redeemed by showing the way in the segment en route to capturing the Gold Medal, ahead of Silver and Bronze medalists Danica Ebrada and Jona Sweett, respectively.
Inspite of such, I still feel that the pre-pageant is favoring two ladies from Nueva Ecija who are being seen by most as the likely top contenders to become Jamie Herrell's successor. And they are Chanel Olive Thomas from San Antonio and Diana Mackey from Cabanatuan City.
At any rate, I am hoping Angelia can still recover some lost ground and give the perceived top entries a run for their money.


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Last Friday at the G20 countries agreed to phase out subsidies for oil and other carbon dioxide-spewing fossil fuels in the "medium term" as part of efforts to combat global warming. This article documents NEW taxpayer subsidies to some of the world's richest corporations]
By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 29 2009 (IPS)
Despite the economic slow down, growing numbers of world leaders are calling for urgent action on climate change while many governments used their economic stimulus packages to increase subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
Consider Europe, with the strongest public commitment to reduce carbon emissions that are causing climate change.
In the past five years, 8 billion U.S. dollars of public money went to Europe's fossil fuel companies mainly to the natural gas sector. And in May the European Parliament approved an additional 3.35 billion dollars in subsides as part of Europe's 225 billion dollars economic recovery plan, according to a new research report by Friends of the Earth Europe.
"We Europeans are supposedly leading the world on the path to a new green economy but we're putting billions of euros into fossil fuel sector that's taking us in the opposite direction," Darek Urbaniak of Friends of the Earth Europe.
"Its complete hypocrisy," Urbaniak told IPS from Brussels.
Perhaps recognising this fact, global business leaders at the World Business Summit on Climate Change that concluded May 26 called on governments to "strive to end the current perverse subsidies that favour high-emissions transport and energy".
Continue reading


text: projected National Geodetic Survey http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/INFO/Policy/st_plane.html 2016-07-13 true false Engineering survey, topographic mapping. 3566 NAD83 / Utah Central (ftUS) State law defining system in International feet (note: not US survey feet) has been withdrawn. Federal definition is metric - see code 32143. For applications with an accuracy of better than 3 feet, replaced by NAD83(HARN) / SPCS.


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Have not had a chance to get up and running yet, but I'm sure it's going to be great
Fits everything but main zipper is flimsy, it needs straps to carry it besides the backpack straps and it should also have handles on the top and bottom so that you can move the bag when it's open while on location. I'll store my stuff in it but would not want this in the field.
The Edelkrone Backpack is really good to put all of your Edelkrone Products in there, it can fit most of what you're thinking of buying right now, so there's no issues to that, apart from one. I wish that this bag had a compartment for laptops, other than that, this is one of the great bags to get all of your stuff in it.
I love how much space it has inside and its simplicity. Wish it wasn't so tall but I understand why it's made that way
Quality build and very comfortable for those off site productions. Absolutely fantastic I also use this pack as storage to keep my equipment nice and clean while not in use.
I actually really like this bag its able to put basically everything I need for the jib-one, head plus, pan pro and the batteries, chargers and etc in the bag. Its heavy when carrying the weights but its holding up like a champ so far. My only complaint is where the the handle to lift the bag up is almost mid back just above the straps. I would have preferred it to be further up towards the top and possibly another handle on one of the sides to make it easier to load or pick up. Other than my personal preferences its an awesome bag!!!
Bag is large and sturdy enough to hold your edelkrone products. However, the zipper is often gets snagged on itself inside (maybe fabric gets caught in the zipper itself). My only other gripe is the cost. No matter how you look at it, this is still a bag. Why does it have to cost so much. Branding is good but costs around the $300 mark. Wait for the discount.
Out of curiosity, I bought the edelkrone Backpack, thinking I'd end up returning it. Now that I have it, I'll never part with it! Very well made to the expected edelkrone standards. Once adjusted to my build, it is a comfortable and effortless carry. It's the way the load gets transferred to the waste, the lowest possible center of gravity. Spacious interior fits all required equipment in a well-padded environment. Exterior storage pockets are a convenient place to put tickets, keys, directions, whatever. Overall, this Backpack deserves a place with all my other edelkrone equipment. Always well made and thought out for the photographer in all of us. A little pricy. In the long run, probably worth it.
Love your products, they definitely help me get the best shots. Backpack is of high quality!!! Thank you Edelkrone.
I pretty much like everything about this pack. It is well made with good quality materials and my SliderPlus V5 Pro fits into perfectly. There are two things that kept me from giving this product five stars. I am a little concerned about the ruggedness of the zippers that are being used on this pack. They seem to be a little middle of the road in comparison to other camera bags and backpacks that I have purchased in the last 2-4 years. The second thing. There are no handles or grips along either long side of the pack. This would be extremely helpful to have for lifting the pack in and out of a car trunk.
Design, Quality, Delivery Speed and Free Delivery fees for orders exceeds 1k $. All of them are reasons for me to buy edelkrone products.
Well built, well designed and perfect for transporting and storing your equipment.
Well built and easy to carry. Designed to make moving your equipment in the field without issue. 10 stars
The design is versatile, allowing you to customize for all of your equipment. The quality is first rate. I still am giving a 5 star despite it can be a little heavy when fully loaded. Thanks Edelkrone.
design and quality
The bag is made from top notch materials, is sturdy, well padded and best of all, fits all of my Edelkrone gear. From the Head Pro, to the Jibone. Would definitely buy again.
All things that you need in one bag .... Great for small project gears!
It was great. I recently used this bag on a beach shoot and it held all my gear easily. It was very compatible. I would definitely recommend this bag.
Excellent and holds everything as described
I took my time writing this, coz i wanted to really experience the bag before writing something, Don't get me wrong since It does look great out of the box, but i wanted to feel how it perform on the daily charts of a videographer. until this bag i used the peak design backpack, which is great as well, just quite small compare to this one. the ability to take everything in one bag is insane! it's also quite comfortable to carry coz you have a well padded waist straps (Besides the well padded shoulder straps). the inner compartments are flexible, and can be shaped fittingly to the task. being able to mobile the slider and headplus out for shoots that easily is a game changer. the bag itself is made from quality materials, the design is cool and definitely gets the attention you want as a pro. its lightweight, the zippers are solid, and I really love it. makes my shoots starts faster, and my life easier. definitely recommend this.


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Food Standards Agency (FSA) Member (Reappointment)Announced
|Appointing Department:
|Department of Health and Social Care
|Health and Social Care
|Number of Vacancies:
An announcement has been made on the outcome of this appointment.
Mr Ram Gidoomal has been re-appointed as a Member of the Food Standards Agency for one year from 1 May 2017.
The appointment will involve a time commitment of 36 days per annum. Remuneration for the role will be at a rate of £10,772 per annum.
This re-appointment is made in accordance with the Cabinet Office Code of Governance for Public Appointments. The regulation of public appointments against the requirements of this Code is carried out by the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
The appointment is made on merit and political activity played no part in the decision process. In accordance with the Code, however, there is a requirement for appointees' political activity (if any declared) to be made public. Ram Gidoomal has not declared any political activity.
Date: 17/03/2017View Announcement
This is a reappointmentReturn to Search


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New Director: Museum Should Invite, Incite Discussion in Community
Dec 14, 2015
Gary Morgan wants to expand the museum's reach and increase the scope and nature of the museum's collections and exhibits.
Dec 14, 2015
Gary Morgan wants to expand the museum's reach and increase the scope and nature of the museum's collections and exhibits.
Dec 12, 2015
(VIDEO) In case you missed it, Texas Tech University's Fall Commencement is now available for viewing online.
tags: Academics, College of Architecture, College of Education, College of Engineering, College of Human Sciences, College of Media and Communication, Events, Honors College, Provost, Rawls College of Business Administration, Research, School of Law, Stories, Vice President for Research, Wind
Dec 11, 2015
U.S. News - The college admissions cycle is a long process with a lot of moving parts. In the midst of all of the upcoming deadlines, parents and students may overlook some of the ways that college will affect the family dynamic. Discussing expectations beforehand can help students choose the best school for them and help families feel more confident about the transition to campus.
tags: Texas Tech in the News
Dec 11, 2015
Consumerist - Two years ago, the Food and Drug Administration — after decades of delay — paid lip service to the idea of reducing the use of medically important antibiotics for growth-promotion in farm animals, by asking the drug makers to voluntarily stop selling antibiotics specifically for that purpose. Critics called the FDA actions pointless while the drug and beef industries weren't bothered in the least. And now, by the FDA's own numbers, we can see why.
tags: Texas Tech in the News


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Surgeons have been performing nipple surgery for years to improve the look of enlarged nipples, correct inverted nipples or achieve areola reduction. Dr. Grant Stevens is known for nipple repair procedures and has seen an increase at his practice.
Marina Del Rey, California (May 5, 2011) – According to Dr. Grant Stevens, a board-certified plastic surgeon and founder of Marina Plastic Surgery, more and more women are coming to his practice seeking nipple surgery for repair, correction and enhancement.
"The fact is that even though nipples may be hidden, women still want them to look attractive," says Dr. Stevens. "Millions of women suffer with nipple and areola abnormalities such as inverted nipples, enlarged nipples, and puffy, enlarged or discolored areolas. Many of these conditions can impact breast function, but they all impact the way women feel about their bodies."
Dr. Stevens had so many requests for repair that he created a nipple surgery website, www.nipplerepair.com, where women (and men) can go to choose the perfect nipple. "The nipple can be repaired during outpatient surgery or during breast reduction or breast enhancement surgery," says Dr. Stevens.
There are various nipple conditions including:
- Nipple inversion is a disfiguring condition that affects two percent of all women. The degree to which a nipple is inverted will vary from "shy" to severely retracted.
- Enlarged nipples can be corrected with simple outpatient surgery reducing the length or diameter of one or both nipples.
- Reducing enlarged areolas is a quick fix as the areola can impact the appearance of the breasts more than any other feature.
- "Puffy" areolas put a cone-like cap on the breasts that some people find unattractive. A simple surgery can flatten the areola and beautify the breasts.
Dr. Stevens trained extensively in both general and plastic surgery before establishing his successful Los Angeles plastic surgery practice. Dr. Stevens has published extensively in clinical research publications showcasing some of the latest developments in plastic surgery procedures and has gained recognition as a pioneer in new techniques for procedures including liposuction and breast reduction.
Dr. Stevens has advanced experience in all forms of cosmetic breast surgery, including nipple surgery and areola reduction. Request a free consultation online for more information.


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Reading time is around minutes.
There is no doubt that the mobile market has gotten huge. Everyone is building devices to enable, extend, accessorize, and maximize the mobile experience. Mobile data usage (which really means media consumption) has gone through the roof. What is interesting about the usage numbers is that they are not all 3/4G in most cases the data is flying over public or private Wi-Fi networks. This has opened up a market for a new class of device and as you might imagine manufacturers have stepping into fill this need. The first generation was all about getting the media to your device, but was limited in a couple of ways; you could not expand the memory and also there was no way to prevent battery drain on the device you were using to access the media. This is where the second generation comes in; devices with media ports instead of fixed memory and also the ability to charge your mobile device. Today we are taking a look at the ADATA DashDrive Air AE400; let's see what it brings to the table.


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Eucalyptus Systems (see previous CloudAve coverage), the academic project turned commercial venture offering private cloud solutions for enterprises, today announced a partnership with RedHat (see previous CloudAve coverage), leading enterprise Linux vendor who is shifting their focus to cloud computing recently. This partnership suits both the companies and it can go a long way towards tightening their market position in the enterprise cloud segment. Well, if I have to give unsolicited advice to RedHat, I would say that RedHat should buy Eucalyptus Systems to get a stronger footing on the enterprise cloud market.
What is the partnership about?
With this partnership, Eucalyptus will support RedHat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV). They are also announcing support for Apache Deltacloud API, a single REST API for many different clouds which was originally released by RedHat in 2009 and eventually moved to Apache Incubator in 2010. Even though Eucalyptus has been supporting KVM for a long time, the support for RHEV is important because it is a crucial part of RedHat's cloud strategy. By integrating Eucalyptus with RHEV-M, the management module, customers can seamlessly manage the infrastructure between the virtualization and cloud environments. Clearly, Eucalyptus is interested in piggybacking on RedHat's enterprise strategy as they focus to move deeper into the enterprise market. However, they also help fill a gap in the RedHat cloud arsenal. This is a mutually beneficial partnership for both companies as they enter 2011, which is expected to be a year of enterprise hybrid clouds.
The other part of the announcement is their support for Apache Deltacloud API. This is bit of a surprise for me because even though Deltacloud API is pretty robust and language agnostic, its support for cloud providers is pretty limited compared to, say, jClouds. Already, Eucalyptus is supporting Amazon EC2 API and vCloud API and this partnership only brings Rackspace Cloud into the table. When I pressed Marten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus Systems, on this, he frankly told me that the decision is based more on business considerations than technological considerations. Having said that, there is no denying that Deltacloud API will add support for more cloud providers in the coming years.
Then, there is the question of "Why RedHat when there is already a deeper collaboration with Ubuntu?" and I asked Marten about it. He categorically told me that both RedHat and Canonical are their partners but he differentiated the market segments where Eucalyptus consider them as the right partners. He told me that they see RedHat as a stronger player in the enterprise space and Ubuntu as a stronger player in the mobile and web space. He said Eucalyptus is partnering with both the Linux vendors to target these different segments. However, my personal view is that Canonical is clearly making a push in the enterprise market with Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud and till sometime back, they were leading RedHat in the buzzdom because of lack of cloud computing efforts from the RedHat side. With the reports of Canonical embracing OpenStack, it is time for Eucalyptus to reach out to other Linux vendors with a clear cloud strategy. Eucalyptus is doing just that and with RedHat being a clear leader in the enterprise space, it greatly helps Eucalyptus' strategy as they try to penetrate deeper into the enterprise market in the coming year. In short, it is an interesting move by Eucalyptus and I am expecting them to compete hard with OpenStack in creating buzz in the tech media in 2011.
Related articles
- Red Hat buddies up in the cloud with Eucalyptus (infoworld.com)
- Eucalyptus Systems Partners with Red Hat to Deliver Open Cloud Solutions (prweb.com)
- Red Hat Buddies up With Eucalyptus (pcworld.com)
- OpenStack infiltrates Ubuntu's Koala cloud diet (go.theregister.com)
- Eucalyptus Open To OpenStack (cloudave.com)


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Learn More About Edward Shatverov
Click Below To Learn More About The Millionaire E-Commerce Expert And All Of His Accolades.
Edward Shatverov
(E-Commerce Expert)
Edward Shatverov is an American millionaire entrepreneur known for his E-Commerce marketing skills and strategies. Shatverov became a millionaire at the age of 18. Edward Shatverov owns multiple online businesses and is striving to assist others in achieving financial freedom. Shatverov was born in Los Angeles, California.


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At LockTech, we develop locksmith related tools designed by locksmiths to aid in performing different tasks easier and more efficiently. Among our lineup is the popular AccuReaders, specialized ignition removal kits, as well as many other tools related to lock-smithing.
With Motorcycle AccuReaders you can read from any lock, including the ignition. Have you ever had to originate a motorcycle key by removing the gas cap and disassembling the lock… only to find out the ignition had been changed? What a huge waste of time! Even if the motorcycle has different keys for the ignition, gas cap, and helmet lock, AccuReaders will let you make a key for each lock in minutes, and with no dis-assembly!
Now the same technology that started our Motorcycle AccuReaders available for automobiles. AccuReaders for motorcycles have been such a big success, the next logical step was to make them for automobiles. Auto AccuReaders are designed to be used in doors, trunks, etc. They are not designed to be used in sidebar ignitions. Look for many new automotive AccuReaders in the near future.
What Can AccuReader Do
For You?
Pays for itself on the first job.
Reads actual depths (with some exceptions).
Save tons of time on your key origination.


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This topic describes how to post teacher-submitted grades to WVEIS for schools in a district.
- Select WVEIS Logs from the left sidebar.
- Select the Post Grades tab.
- Select the name of the school for which you would like to submit grades to WVEIS.
- Select the appropriate Grading Period from the drop-down menu (there will generally be only one grading period for a school year, usually GP1).
- Select the Process for which you would like to submit grades to WVEIS.
Depending on your district's configurations, there may not be a Process option for each submitted grade type (for example, semester exam grades). If there is not a Process for a needed grade submission, please contact your Engrade account manager for more information.
- Select the appropriate Class Type.
- Select the desired Grade Levels.
- Click the green Submit to your SIS button to post the grades and comments (if applicable) from Engrade to WVEIS.


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As the marketing director for the Monterey Jazz Festival for 30 years, Paul Fingerote developed many valuable associations with jazz royalty.
Fingerote, who has worked as a creative director for major ad agencies throughout the world, recently co-authored "Jazz On My Mind" with Herb Wong.
Wong, who passed away in 2014, was a pioneer in jazz education and a prolific jazz journalist, producer and broadcaster.
Our jazz music director, Gary Vercelli recently spent time with Fingerote discussing how the book came about.
He began by asking Paul why he decided to approach Herb Wong with the idea of collaborating on this project. We hear this interview on Insight.


text: We recently purchased our fourth Mooney aircraft and it has now joined our fleet in our hangar facility at the Corvallis Municipal Airport (KCVO). This beauty is a 1999 Mooney M20M Bravo that includes the factory 270 hp turbocharged Lycoming TIO-540 engine. This model is a full foot longer than our other aircraft and allows more flexibility and capacity for our sensor systems. We hope to have our pilot interface, computers and acquisition system installed soon so we can begin using it to meet our customers' needs.


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What thoughts do bubbles churn in you?
For me… It's a craving to go back in time and relive childhood, the happiest days ever! The time when we knew no worries, the time when we smiled for real, the time when loving was not considered a weakness, those were good times. When we did not have to wear a mask, when showing the real self was not absurd, when fake had no meaning! Launch a time machine and I'll be the first to go back in time…and never return!


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12 Students will be shopping for college with $1,000 more than expected. Office Depot has given the DPSCD students the shopping sprees as a way of congratulating them for outstanding academic achievement.
"This shopping spree meant that the four years of effort that I put into high school was greatly recognized and appreciated," said Robin Ryce, a Renaissance High School graduate who will major in engineering this fall at the University of Michigan. "The first item I chose was a laptop. With this laptop, I will have more accessibility to my schoolwork, and get it done more efficiently."
The Michigan Chronicles shared more on Akoco Grace of Office Depots brainchild.


text: At The Fremont Senior Living, we understand just how valuable helping your local community can be. Studies show that volunteering can decrease anxiety, depression, and loneliness in seniors! That's why we encourage our residents to donate some time and energy into aiding the needy in the surrounding areas. We actively seek out opportunities for residents to serve local veterans, food banks, shelters, and more!


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The EU-African SME Summit 2019 was divided into two important moments:
– First, on the 20th March and 21st Morning, the Shared Value Business Lab to generate creative business ideas addressing development challenges.
– Second, the EU-African SME Conference on the 21st March afternoon.
The whole Summit had the following objectives:
- To highlight the importance of SMEs in the economic development of Africa and underline the role of European SMEs in this process.
Small and medium-sized companies can contribute massively to the economic development of African countries. They are deeply rooted in the territory and can help provide immediate hands-on solutions to many problems faced by the local population.
European SMEs are already the backbone of the EU's economy and can help Africa to flourish and develop. A strong investment in the local territory, while working hand-in-hand with local companies, would be mutually beneficial, furthering boosting development.
- To tighten the relationship between SMEs from Africa and Europe, laying down the foundations of a highly-needed intercontinental SME network.
The summit wants to be the starting point of a deeper engagement between and among SMEs in the two continents. It aims to pave the way for further and stronger collaboration, with the further goal to set a network, spamming across Europe and Africa, of companies working together for an intercontinental permanent collaboration.
- To call the European Commission for action to offer tailormade tools and solutions for SMEs to support their business approach towards and investments in Africa, like g. an "SME-Instrument for Economic Cooperation with Africa", but also hands-on and practical support for intercontinental business networking.
The start of an intercontinental collaboration between needs to be supported to overcome obstacles that European SMEs would face when starting their collaboration – setting up the business, developing contacts, finding local providers, building the client base, etc… – the period that it takes to do so is usually referred as the "valley of death" as it is the time when companies are at the highest risk of failing.
The European Commission can help the m overcome such risk by providing practical solution that would help making the first years of activity sustainable. We envision that an "SME-Instrument for Economic Cooperation with Africa" would be suitable for the task, but any other support with real impact would be extremely valuable in moving forward with an intercontinental SME collaboration.


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When I walked through the security gates at Electric Zoo — a dance music festival that takes place every Labor Day weekend in New York City — in 2015, there was a noticeable nervous vibe in the air.
Police walked dogs up and down the aisles of festival-goers waiting to enter the grounds, as security thoroughly patted down anxious entrants. These increased measures came after the deaths of two at the festival, reportedly due to MDMA overdoses, in 2013. These tragedies were only one example of an increasing trend: Mingled with the eclectic bands and vibrant fashion trends, abusing drugs has become a staple of festival culture.
The popularity of drugs — most of which are illegal and synthetic — combined with festivals' generally poor safety precautions, has led to dangerous instances across the country. Following the incidents at Electric Zoo in 2015, two and three college-aged kids died at Hard Summer in southern California in the summers of 2015 and 2016, respectively.
Approximately 32 million people will attend music festivals in the U.S. this year, according to Billboard— a 2016 report from Aloompa showed that 51 percent of Americans attended a music festival in 2015, up nearly 10 percent from 2014. As the number of music festival-goers increases, drug-related deaths at these festivals have likewise been increasing in recent years. While the large bulk of deaths are due to trampling, structural collapses or motor-vehicle accidents, a 2014 Canadian study found that 13 percent of all deaths at music festivals were related to drug and alcohol use between the years 1999 and 2014. Meaning that of the deaths not involving physical trauma, drugs and alcohol were by far the most prevalent causes. Additionally, the authors of the study noted that this number doesn't include unreported deaths, a figure that could be much higher. Add that to the number of people who are harmed by drugs, but not fatally: there are still numerous hospitalizations for sickness, injuries and arrests at festivals.
If we noticed an uptick in people dying or being injured from stage malfunctions — microphones short circuiting, platforms collapsing, roofs falling in — we'd be coming up with solutions immediately. We should do the same for increasing drug abuse at festivals. First, we need to acknowledge that young people attending concerts aren't going to stop experimenting with drugs, regardless of how many of their peers die from it or how aggressive security may be. The "just say no" to drugs approach isn't a relevant one here. Because many of the drugs most frequently taken at these events are illegal — MDMA, LSD and cocaine — people are less likely to report their usage, making it more difficult to determine how many attendees are consuming them.
DrugAbuse.com — a website dedicated to providing information and resources about drug addiction and recovery — conducted an Instagram-based study in 2015 that measured how often people hashtagged or mentioned certain types of drugs in the captions of photos taken at music festivals. The results showed that alcohol was the most commonly mentioned drug with MDMA/ecstasy a close second. Although this study does not decipher whether those who mention the drugs are in fact taking them or just talking about them, the correlation is still clear.
Although deaths from MDMA or other drugs are often reported as overdoses, this isn't always the exact case. DanceSafe — a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating people on how to safely take drugs — argues that most reported MDMA overdoses aren't even technically "overdoses" but rather deaths and injuries due to heatstroke and other complications from these drugs.
Music festival organizers know that their target ticket-buyers aren't going to give up drugs. And they know which kinds of drugs are most likely to be abused. So instead of ignoring the issue as an unfortunate side effect of "festival culture," we should be doing something to make safety a bigger priority.
Offering better access to water and medical help in addition to implementing drug-testing stations are steps that should be taken to immediately to help prevent possible deaths this upcoming festival season.
At an Avicii concert in Boston in June 2014, the temperature reached almost 90 degrees, and 36 concert attendees were rushed to the hospital, reportedly for dehydration, which is a side effect of both MDMA and alcohol.
In order to combat the negative effects of these illegal drugs, it is imperative that music festivals provide the resources for their ticket holders to be properly cooled and hydrated. Many festivals, such as EDC Vegas and Bonnaroo, provide water refill stations, but large crowds pile up into long lines at the fountains. And the cost of purchasing a bottle of water from a vendor with a shorter line can be high — with the average being $4, according to EDM.com — making people less inclined to buy them.
Festivals should make sure the cost of water bottles is affordable or that there are enough water refill stations to provide for the crowds.
Dehydration and hyperthermia aren't the only risk factors that accompany drug use, so it will take more than just a few extra water stations to fix the issue. Because so many drugs consumed at these festivals are illegal, a buyer doesn't always know what might be in them or if that ecstasy is really ecstasy.
Drug testing stations where attendees can check the contents of their pills with anonymity and no repercussions can help combat the danger of attendees accidentally consuming unknown drugs. In the United Kingdom, a nonprofit organization called The Loop makes its rounds to various music festivals with the purpose of testing drugs and providing drug safety information.
In the U.K., the group is allowed to test a sample of the drug, and since it's often destroyed during the process, there's nothing to be returned to whoever submitted it. In the U.S., groups who try to do similar work give out self-testing kits instead. Right now the process is not, strictly speaking, legal. So those in charge of the stations, usually nonprofit organizations, either have to convince the police at the festivals to look the other way or risk fines and confiscations.
By instituting greater safety measures, such as better access to water, and by allowing legal drug testing stations or self-testing kits in the U.S., we can make safety part of the vibe at music festivals.
Festivals have never been — and probably never will be — drug-free. But we can do more to make sure they're death-free.
Julia primarily writes about politics and social issues for The Pitt News.
Write to Julia at [email protected].


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Reds were hoping to complete the long-running transfer last week.
Shakhtar Donetsk's Henrikh Mkhitaryan has failed to show up at his club's pre-season training camp in Austria as the attacking midfield player attempts to force through his protracted £23 million summer move to Liverpool, reports the Daily Mirror.
The in-demand Armenia international has been the subject of intense speculation of late linking the player with a big-money move to Anfield for next season, although his club insist that they are still to receive any offers for their star man from the Merseyside giants.
And the Ukrainian champions are understood to be unimpressed by Mkhitaryan's no-show in the Austrian Alps as the club prepare for the new season, with Shakhtar CEO Sergei Palkin confirming: "Mkhitaryan did not come to the training session on Monday, but he had to. We do not know why.
"If he does not join the team in the coming days he will be fined.
"Concerning Mkhitaryan's behaviour, I know that he does not have any problems with his team-mates and coaches and we have not heard from him about his intention to leave Shakhtar.
"All the questions about Mkhitaryan's behaviour should be addressed to him."
And just where this latest episode leaves the transfer is open to debate, although it is believed that Liverpool head coach Brendan Rodgers is still desperate to bring the 24-year-old, who netted an eye-catching 26 goals in just 39 appearances in all competitions for his club last season, to Anfield when the summer transfer window reopens on July 1.


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Could You Pass the New GED Test?
This quiz originally appeared in our November/December 2015 print issue as a sidebar to the feature story, "Making the Case for a Good-Enough Diploma."
1. The following set of data is given: 29, 44, 59, 23, 36, 56, 37, 39, 23, 40, 34. Adding which pair will change the median?
A. 24 and 38
B. 25 and 59
C. 36 and 65
D. 43 and 46
2. If x is the set of prime numbers and y is the set of all two-digit even integers, how many numbers are common to both sets?
3. Jerry goes to the bank and borrows $9,000 for farm equipment. The simple yearly interest is 9.5 percent and he pays off the loan over a period of two years with 24 equal monthly payments. What is Jerry's monthly payment?
4. Animals that feed on plants are called:
A. Primary Consumers
B. Secondary Consumers
C. Tertiary Consumers
D. Primary Producers
5. The monetary value of all the finished goods and services that are produced within a country's borders in a specific time period is the:
A. Money Supply
B. Gross Domestic Product
C. Balance of Trade
D. Aggregate Demand
6. Which of these powers is reserved for state governments?
A. Conduct elections
B. Regulate trade between states
C. Establish post offices
D. Make treaties
7. Which of the following best describes the philosophy of the Libertarian political party?
A. Ecological wisdom, social justice, grassroots democracy, and peace.
B. Fiscal conservatism and social liberalism.
C. Principles found in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and social policies taken from the Bible.
D. Economic liberalism, fiscal conservatism, and social conservatism.
*Questions are courtesy GED Practice Questions, a free website dedicated to GED test preparation. GED is a registered trademark of the American Council on Education and is administered exclusively by GED Testing Service LLC under license. This material is not endorsed or approved by ACE or GED Testing Service.
1. D. The median is the middle number in a sequential set; here, it's 37. Since 43 and 46 are both larger, adding them will move the median to the right if the numbers are re-arranged in ascending order, and it will be changed to 39.
2. A. All even integers are divisible by the number two. The only even prime number is two, which is not two digits. Therefore, no number in set y would be prime because there are no two-digit even prime numbers.
3. C. Simple interest = principal x rate x time. The total that Jerry will be paying back is $9,000 (loan) + $1,710 (interest) = $10,710. The duration is two years, or 24 months. $10,710 / 24 = $446.25 per month.
4. A. Primary consumers are animals that eat primary producers.
5. B. The Gross Domestic Product is the main tool for measuring a country's economy.
6. A. Under the United States system of federalism, there is a constitutional divide of authority between the federal government and state governments, with each retaining significant authority. The power to conduct elections is reserved for states. The other powers listed here are delegated to the federal government.
7. B. Libertarianism is a political philosophy that emphasizes individual liberty. Libertarians want to minimize the power of the state in both economic and social matters.
Submit your response to this story to firstname.lastname@example.com. If you would like us to consider your letter for publication, please include your name, city, and state. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium.
For more from Pacific Standard, and to support our work, sign up for our free email newsletter and subscribe to our print magazine, where this piece originally appeared. Digital editions are available in the App Store and on Zinio and other platforms.


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Andy Welfle
|Andy Welfle
|San Francisco, California
|Social Media:
Andy Welfle (born February 20, 1983 in Fort Wayne, Indiana) is an American blogger, podcaster, and content strategist.
Early life and education[edit]
Welfle graduated from Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne in 2006, where he studied English. He started the pencil and stationary focused Woodclinched.com in 2010. He was a contributor to PencilThings.com, and one of his articles originally published in September 2007 on that site "A realist's review of the legendary Blackwing 602" was shared by sites such as BoingBoing and garnered over 10,000 page views.
Welfle published the first article to Woodclinched.com on September 9, 2010, titled "Economics of pencils". The site is regularly updated with product reviews on both pencils and other stationary related topics, as well as editorial pieces.
Erasable Podcast[edit]
In 2014, Welfle alongside Johnny Gamber and Tim Wasem started the Erasable Podcast, focused on pencils and other analog tools.
Personal life[edit]
Welfle moved to San Francisco, California in 2014 and started working as a content strategist at Facebook. In 2017, he left Facebook and joined Adobe as a Senior Content Strategist.


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If the suave gentlemen in the above photo had a beautiful woman beside him, I think the scene could hardly be distinguished from a Bond movie. Style, sophistication and an incredible amount of high explosive firepower!
Quite frankly, this is an awesome piece of hardware. I can't say much else than that. I hope to be writing more about this weapon in the near future.
A big thanks to Groot Mamba for the photos.


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The Sound and the Fury
(Be sure to click through all the images in the gallery above.)
The dense coastal fog made the pre-dawn blackness seem impenetrable that cool December morning. Yet the 29-foot Cobiasco steamed on south toward the barrier islands that offer Biloxi, Mississippi, some protection from the open Gulf of Mexico. Our destination: distant offshore oil rigs.
An odd pre-dawn sea, oily smooth over a lingering low swell, kept our cruising speed a bit less than maximum, but once we'd put about 40 miles between us and the northern Mississippi coast, tiny distant spikes began to appear on the pink-tinted horizon. At about 50 miles, I could make out more readily the varied structures of offshore oil — from huge Eiffel-tower-like platforms to single-pole antenna rigs.
I glanced around to make sure that, in my 4 a.m. stupor, I'd put my baitcasting and spinning rods aboard. As I did, I recalled my conversation with Kyrt Wentzell of Biloxi weeks earlier. He told me I could bring my light tackle and reasonably expect to use it without any weight because the red snapper will come to the boat. "But don't expect many small fish since you won't hook many little ones — and we'll get plenty of sows."
In the ensuing weeks since that conversation, I recall wondering about that thin line distinguishing confidence from arrogance. After all, Wentzell – who makes a device called the Chum Churn – sounded pretty darn sure of himself. He based that on knowing where to fish and how (with his Chum Churn, of course). But if this was just a sales pitch, it had worked: Here I was, ready for Wentzell to put up or shut up.
In another 20 minutes or so, Capt. Shayne Malpass had eased the bow up to one of the single-pole antenna rigs in 120 feet of water while Wentzell "gave it the hook," sliding around part of the platform's base the 6-foot-long, Bo-Peep-like stainless hook that serves rig-fishing skippers out here in lieu of anchors.
"A lot of people blow on by these 'little' rigs," Wentzell told me as he threw a couple of wraps of rope around the bow cleat. "So they get less pressure." Also, they "sprout legs" down below, offering more structure than the single pole visible above the surface.
Moments later, back in the cockpit, Wentzell quickly loaded his churn with whole menhaden — 5 pounds or so — and held it over the gunwale. He thrust up and down, forcing the blades to chop the baitfish on both up and down strokes. As I tied a 30-pound mono leader onto my 8-pound double line with a Yucatan or "no-name" knot, I could hear the distinct "swoosh" in the water upon each thrust.
"You'd better hurry up," Wentzell advised. "We'll have snapper under the boat in about two minutes."
Yeah, right, I remember thinking. If anything, that made me even more skeptical. I've fished enough to know that it takes a while to establish a chum trail and get the scent flowing before fish will come to or near the boat, if at all, from deep water.
"Good one!" came a shout from the stern. I looked up as I pulled my double clinch tight on the long-shank 4/0 bronze hook that Wentzell had handed me. My actions took on some serious urgency as I saw Malpass' rod arcing out away from the port corner and heard Wentzell's hoots of excitement. Less than a minute after Malpass had dropped over an unweighted cigar minnow, he'd hooked up.
By the time I'd baited up and gotten to the rail, flashes of scarlet greeted me as Wentzell netted that first red snapper. OK, it wasn't quite a sow at 12 or 13 pounds, but it was a start. And I was about to become a believer.
The Sound and the Fury
In fact, let's cut to the chase: We caught so many red snapper that day, along with the inevitable mix of other fish (including a couple cobia of 30 pounds or so, the first out of a group of four that also homed in on our enticements) that I ended up with no idea of just how many. I would have kept only one or two, anyway, but on this day we had no need to worry about keeping snapper or keeping track of our limits, since this was 100 percent catch and release. (Releases were facilitated by the fact that these reds were hooked very near the surface rather than hauled up quickly from the depths, which would have caused their swim bladder gases to expand.) The 2014 federal red snapper season opens on June 1 and runs just nine days, the shortest in history. We'd planned on releasing anyway, since the red snapper season was closed. That was fine with me. I wasn't there for meat; I was there for proof.
Wentzell made good on his guarantee. We didn't catch a single red snapper under the then-legal 15-inch minimum, and I can remember only two or three snapper that were even anywhere near that small. Mostly, I remember solid reds of 7 to 16 pounds or a bit more and several sows well over 20. And except for one stop at a huge rig known by locals as "Mr. Gus" late in the afternoon, most of the fish were in fact taken on free-lined baits which seldom sank more than 10 or 15 feet before being gobbled up. It was an eye-opening day for this old weight-dropper.
Wentzell customarily guarantees and delivers such action. From his explanation of what makes his patented Chum Churn work so effectively in getting fish to the boat in just minutes, one might cite the sound and the fury. The sound is something Wentzell never thought about when devising the long PVC tube and razor-sharp, swirling blades. But, he says, it makes sense.
"When those blades cut up fish, it evokes the sound of predators busting baitfish at the surface," he says. "The chum only flows in one direction — back with the current — and it takes a while for the scent to disperse through the water. So why do snapper show up in less than two minutes, as a rule? Sound travels almost instantaneously and in all directions, not just one." The sound, Wentzell is convinced, can be the only logical answer.
That sound also helps entice snapper away from the rig. "It's typically hard to chum oil rigs because you tie up and chum flows out with current and away from the rig, so snapper under the rig may not find much scent. But noise of the churn draws them out" initially, Wentzell says.
Once they're in the neighborhood, the fury keeps them around. After I'd made a few plunges of the handle, I could see swirls of fine bits of chopped fish flowing out amid a cloud of blood and oil and the multitudinous flashes of baitfish darting through. As long as someone reaches over and repeats that 30-second process once every few minutes or whenever the action lulls (which any angler can do with one hand, keeping his gear ready in the other), it's easy to keep a great chum slick flowing and do so with surprisingly few pounds of baitfish.
Wentzell started using conventional chum blocks shortly after he'd gotten his own boat some years back, but he wasn't entirely pleased. "I'd buy boxes of chum to last the day, but the stuff's expensive. It's five or six bucks a box; you put it in a mesh bag and it dissipates in 15 or 20 minutes. Add cigar minnows for bait and I was spending $40 or so."
Wentzell recalls coming up with the idea for his Chum Churn while working as a floor supervisor at the Biloxi casino crap tables. Shortly after, he made a prototype of stainless steel. (Wentzell's father is an inventor who holds several patents; "I grew up helping him and learning how things work and how to make things.") He says, "It was big and heavy, but it worked" – until he forgot and left it dangling over the side during a run from one rig to another, thereby losing his first prototype on its first day. He has since refined the design and gone to tough, lighter PVC and sells several hundred of the 2 1/2-foot-long tubes per year.
Spare the Lead and Don't Spoil the Action
"I have to tell people who use the churn: 'Don't use lead!' It's hard for some of them to get used to the idea of floating back a bait," Wentzell says. His choice of tackle, typically: a Calcutta 400 on matching rod, spooled with 20-pound test. But spinning gear also works, he says. While Wentzell doesn't fish the long rod, he has no doubt of red-hot opportunities for fly casters seeking to connect with big mama reds.
Anything heavier than 40- or 50-pound mono for leader (or any wire) will usually turn off bigger fish. "They didn't get that size by being stupid," Wentzell reasons. "Their eyesight's keen, and they take a good look at things." While he likes circle hooks when he's dropping a weighted line, for most free lining, "I tend to avoid them because it's harder to hide a circle hook than a conventional hook in the body of a sardine or cigar minnow." Wentzell likes to run the hook through the bait's mouth, out its gills and back into the side of the body to hold and hide.
Wentzell favors oily menhaden for chum. He buys 60-pound flats from places that sell to commercial crabbers. Despite lots of churning, we went through no more than 20 pounds all day. And any fish will work – for example, some pro kingfish anglers have shared their enthusiasm with Wentzell for the way the Chum Churn chops up blue runners.
This is certainly not to suggest that a Chum Churn or even bait, for that matter, are prerequisites to good fishing around the Mississippi rigs. On those occasions when fish are active and hungry, a jig and plastic tail can do the job, as I discovered when we tied up to Mr. Gus briefly in the afternoon before heading in. The snapper were in a biting mood and required no chumming. I dropped down various jigs with good results, but the best luck of all came with a 2-ounce lead-head and a big, copper-flake curly-cue tail which the snapper hit on the fall about halfway to bottom. My last snappers of the day grabbed that jig – one an 18-pounder that proved a real handful on 12-pound mono. Before we pulled away from the rig, the same jig caught another smaller red, a nice Spanish mackerel, and a couple of bluefish, and almost enticed the day's second big cobia to eat when it cruised up behind the boat. (Instead, it went for Malpass' cigar minnow.)
Leaving such fast action wasn't much fun, but Malpass pointed out that we had a long run back and in the short winter day it would be dark before we hit the dock. How right he was: We returned as we left, running the last 12 miles inside the barrier islands in the dark of night while enveloped in the dank, thick fog that had again settled all along the northern Gulf coast. The blurry lights of Biloxi's casino-lined waterfront were a welcome sight.
I came away with some new-found knowledge, including an appreciation for how great the winter fishing for red snapper can be around oil rigs off the Mississippi coast when the weather permits. Competition is down and, even if the season is closed, catch-and-release action is great for sow reds, and a mix of other species will typically give anglers something for the fish box. And I learned a few tricks from a couple of sow snapper experts, not the least of which is that sound seems to be a significant factor in attracting fish to within striking distance.


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Mission Statement
Production and Lift Technology provides a broad spectrum of services to the oil and gas industry. PL Tech is based on the core belief that training, analysis, and proactive implementation of best practices will provide production enhancements, reduce LOE, and effectively manage multiple data streams. Improvements in these areas can bring financial benefits to help insulate from price volatility that creates CAPEX and OPEX uncertainties. PL Tech will always focus on application, knowledge transfer, and long term asset value.
Locations Served
Locations serviced include Houston, Midland, Oklahoma City and San Antonio, plus other areas around the country.
Dr. Lea is currently teaching industry courses in all areas of Artificial Lift, Gas Well Dewatering and Nodal Analysis as well as consulting work in these areas. He was Chairperson of the Petroleum Engineering Department of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas for 7 years and was formerly the team leader of Production Optimization and Artificial Lift at Amoco EPTG in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he was employed for 21 years. He has over 100 publications on various subjects dealing primarily with Artificial Lift and Production Optimization. He is Chairman of the Board of the Artificial Lift Research and Development Council (ALRDC). He is recipient of the 1996 SPE International Production Award received the Legends of Artificial Lift Awards from the SPE in 2014. He is also the recipient of the J.C. Slonneger award from the SWPSC for outstanding contributions to artificial lift. Jim co-authored the "Gas Well Deliquification" by Lea, Nickens, & Wells, author of Chapter 16 in the book "Petroleum Well Construction" and chapter 16 of "Artificial Lift Completions." He is the author of the chapter in the new SPE Production Handbook on "Artificial Lift Selection." He was very instrumental in starting the annual forum on Gas Well Deliquification which is now an annual event in Denver. He is a member of the SPE and has served on many SPE committees related to artificial lift. He has co-authored the World Oil articles on "What's New in Artificial Lift" for over 20 years, including "What's New in Electrical Submersible Pumping." Jim received his PhD from SMU in 1980 and is a registered professional engineer in Texas.
Mike Brock has 35 years of engineering and operational management experience with ARCO and BP in the Permian Basin, working in primary, secondary and tertiary recovery projects. He has worked extensively with oil and gas well rod pump operations in the areas of design, failure analysis, and production optimization. He has conducted numerous pumper schools, rod pumping design and optimization courses, and service rig care and handling classes for multiple operators in the Permian Basin. Eagle Ford, Bakken, San Juan Basin, and East Texas fields. He is an active member of the Permian Basin Artificial Lift Group, Southwestern Petroleum Short Course Board of Directors, and Sucker Rod Workshop steering committee. Mike was the recipient of the SWPSC Duane Crawford Service Award in 2003 and the Slonneger Award in 2013. He has a BS in Petroleum Engineering from Texas Tech University.
Dan Phillips has 38 years in the oil and gas industry working in Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Texas fields. 31 years were spent with ConocoPhillips and the past 5 years with EOG Resources. Dan has spent the last 10 years in a variety of roles with much time focused on training both operations and engineering staffs how to design, operate, and optimize rod pump systems. At Conoco/ConocoPhillips Dan operated, designed, optimized, analyzed failures, and repaired wells in operations supervision and engineering team roles. He was a DuPont Engineering Excellence and Archimedes Award winner. At EOG Resources Dan started up and supervised the first production operations run company owned pump shop in the San Antonio Division. Through software programmers he developed and implemented EOG's first failure analysis software application and process. Dan developed a rod pump design, operations, and optimization course co-taught with Mark Garrett where 347 EOG personnel from all across USA and Canada were trained. Dan has presented and taught plunger lift, rod pump and failure analysis courses at the SWPSC, PBALF, Denver Gas Well Deliquification Forum, as well as several producer hosted and SPE workshops. Dan has served the past 4 years on the API 11 committee for sucker rod lift equipment, co-authored articles for World Oil Magazine, has been a member of SPE since 1996 and co-authored the SPE Petroleum Engineering Handbook Chapter on Plunger Lift Design and Optimization.
Rob Vincent has over 35 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, predominantly with Texaco/Chevron throughout North America, Oxy in the Permian Basin and California, and Williams/WPX in the Piceance Basin. Rob brings a diverse engineering background to the table, having operated everything from deep, hot and sour gas wells in the Williston Basin to primary, secondary and tertiary projects in the Rocky Mountains and Permian Basin, and from large steam floods in California to cold, heavy oil production in Northern Canada, and most recently, to deliquifying gas wells in Western Colorado. He has worked extensively in the design, operation and troubleshooting of most forms of artificial lift; root cause failure analysis; field development planning and execution; and writing procedures and supervising completions, stimulations, maintenance and other downhole work. He enjoys mentoring young engineers to help them apply both engineering fundamentals and pursue leading-edge knowledge beyond the textbook to solve technical challenges. He has developed presentations and taught courses in the subjects of rod pumping design for challenging wells, impact of wellbore deviation on artificial lift, root cause failure analysis of infant failures, gas lifting gas wells, and horizontal well completions. Rob has been a member of SPE since college and held several officer positions. He is a certified Quality Engineer with the American Society for Quality, and is certified as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Rob has a BSc degree in Petroleum Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.


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Our leather is tanned naturally by plant enzymes instead of chemicals (chrome). The vegetarian tanning process is a long process done with oil and extract/juice of bark, plants, branches, roots, and seeds. Tanning with plants is extremely in-depth and up to 80% of the tannic acid is absorbed into the leather, thus leaving little surplus material - what is in excess is even 100% biodegradable. Vegetable-tanned is generally very durable compared to leather tanned with chemicals and very environmental friendly. One of the best features in organically tanned leather is the reduced risk of skin irritation and allergies. Feel the difference!


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Filmmaker Amma Asante and actors Abbie Cornish and Amandla Stenberg dropped by the Variety Studio presented by AT&T at the Toronto Film Festival to talk about their new movie, "Where Hands Touch."
The film tells the story of Leyna (Stenberg), a young girl coming of age in World War II Germany. Cornish plays her mother, desperate to protect her from the world, and George MacKay also stars as a Hitler Youth who finds himself drawn to her.
Though set more than 50 years ago, the movie resonates with timely themes, and Stenberg detailed one day of shooting that was particularly unnerving. In the scene, Leyna and her mother are stopped by an SS officer who berates them, saying, "how Leyna is a blemish to the nation, how she should be ashamed of herself for having created a Negro child."
As it turned out, they were filming at the same time as the 2016 presidential election was taking place. "In the midst of filming this scene, we were waiting on the result of the election. We didn't know yet who was going to be president," reveals Stenberg. "It felt timely…the fact that there even was a candidate like Donald Trump."
She continued, "And then when we were in between scenes on a little bit of a break, this one actor who was dressed in an SS soldier's uniform took out his phone and he checked the news and he saw who had been elected and he said, 'Oh. Trump is president.' The eeriness of knowing what that would mean, anticipating it even then, and seeing those words come out of his mouth while he was wearing that uniform and we were filming that scene…it was terrifying."
Asante added, "I think what we understood really clearly in that moment is how language can be used to make the abnormal normal. And how the issues and the atrocities and the horrors that led to the Holocaust began with a use of language."


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meet the maker
Hi, I'm Morgen Coons. I am a mother, wife to a ceramic artist, & cosmetologist by day. My obsession with geometric art & statement earrings, along with my husbands expertise in clay, gave birth to Midwest Moons in September of 2019. I started working with polymer clay with a desire to express myself & to create beautiful, affordable, wearable art. I have dreams to do so much more... stay tuned. Thanks so much for being here! 🤍