text:
Audio Clip
- Max Vangeli (12/29/10)
The Details
- Max Vangeli and Tiesto
- The Joint at the Hard Rock
- January 1, 2011, 9 p.m., $100 and up
- Beyond the Weekly
- Max Vangeli
2010 was a very good year—for Max Vangeli. The Eastern European-born DJ/producer created remixes for Gorillaz, The Prodigy and Switchfoot; worked on original productions; and partnered with Steve Angello's little bro, AN21. Vangeli's career should only get bigger in the New Year, which begins with him teaming with Tiësto on January 1 at the Joint ($100 and up).
Most Americans probably can't find your native Moldova on a map. When did you first come to the U.S., and how do both countries influence your music?
I lived in Moldova until I was 12 … It's a really, really small country and I'm fortunate that my parents decided to move to the U.S. My roots are definitely from Europe, and I kept [going] back over there every single summer to visit my family. That's when I started getting into clubs, because over there you can go when you're underage. That definitely helped me shape my interests in electronic music, because over there it's been big for many years. I carried it over here, started DJing in San Francisco and combined the two influences when I started making music.
When you're not working on EDM, what do you listen to for inspiration?
I used to be in a rock band, actually. I used to play guitar … The problem with rock music is that you need to get a band together, and it always has to be organized, which is a huge pain in the butt. So I decided to become a one-man band and do everything myself.
So you listen to a lot of rock?
I listen to everything, but yeah, I love rock. I'm a huge Queen fan. Rock is still awesome. I think it's going to hopefully come back a bit more because it was so big in the '90s and right now it just completely went to shit. I'm hoping that it's going to make its return back with some good tunes. I have a few records—Switchfoot for example—where I want to associate rock vocals into house for something fresh, something new.
Your gig here is New Year's Day—right after people party their asses off the night before. Got any hangover cure recommendations, so people can make it out to see you and Tiësto?
I'm probably going to have the biggest hangover in my life at that gig because I'm doing five shows in a row … The only cure for a hangover when you're drinking every day for a few days is to just kind of keep partying. So my best solution for a hangover is to have a few more beers and relax and continue drinking until you're done partying. Then you can go through that hell day, when you're not drinking anymore. It's kind of like the punishment from all the partying that you do.
Download the full interview with Max Vangeli in the free Nocturnal Admissions podcast here.
Music featured in this podcast: Prodigy, "Smack My Bitch Up (Max Vangeli and AN21 Bootleg)"

subset: commoncrawl


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|For the shooting range in GTA VC, SA and V, see Ammu-Nation Shooting Ranges.
Phil's Shooting Range is a side mission in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, located at Phil's Depot, Viceport. As the name implies, it is a shooting range to give the player practice with manually aimed weapons. Like the shooting range in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, it can be very difficult due to the limitations of the analog stick or D-pad of the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2 consoles being used as the manual aim.
The shooting range has five rounds. Once the rounds are complete, Vic will get a 25% discount for all weapons in the shops. The rounds have to be completed in a single try; if the player fails or quits, they will have to start from the beginning. The guns used for each round are 9mm pistol, Micro SMG, Shotgun, M16 and the Dragunov laser sighted sniper rifle. The shooting range is opened and available for use at any time after the mission "Cleaning House".
A similar shooting competition-style side mission is played in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The major difference is that the GTA: SA game is a competition with AI-controlled characters, whereas the VCS version is only Victor vs. the clock.
Video walkthrough
|PSP version


text:
You Say You Want A Revolution?
You Say You Want a Revolution?
Emerging economic strategies may hold the key to broadening democracy and enhancing environmental protection at the same time.
Since the modern environmental movement was born in the 1970s, enormous funds and energies have been expended globally to understand and cure our environmental ills. The result has been some spectacular successes-the Montreal Protocol to control chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) emissions and preserve the stratospheric ozone layer usually springs to mind-as well as growing understanding of the Earth's ecosystems and our effects on them, and a widely expressed commitment (at least on paper) to their health. In most countries, nearly everyone says he or she is an environmentalist.
So why don't the trends look better? Consider a few examples from Vital Signs, Worldwatch's periodic look at environmental indices. Nearly one in four mammal species is in serious decline. The Earth's ice cover is melting as global average surface temperatures continue to rise, due in major part to the largely unrestrained burning of fossil fuels. Half of the world's wetlands, key ecosystems that protect enormous numbers of species and provide critical ecological services, have disappeared since 1900 to pollution and development. During the 1990s, the planet lost 9.4 million hectares of forest every year-an area about as large as Portugal. In general, despite more than 30 years of modern achievement-and well before the Bush era-many of the most important environmental trends have been moving steadily in the wrong direction.
There are three types of progress on the environment. First are absolute "breakthroughs" in connection with discrete problems, such as the near-total elimination of DDT and lead. These are important but limited in number and overall impact. The second type includes a range of policies, programs, and regulatory efforts which serve to "do something about" a critical environmental problem but only retard, rather than reverse, a major trend. Thus the U.S. wetland-loss rate has slowed, yet losses in the 1990s continued at over 20,000 hectares a year. Likewise, in the United States gains were made for awhile in average passenger car fuel mileage, but these were overwhelmed by a rise in the number of cars, a shift to less efficient light trucks and SUVs, and an increase in miles driven.
The third type of achievement actually reverses the direction of a destructive long-term trend. Examples include the Montreal Protocol mentioned above (which, despite a post-ban black market in CFCs, has vastly reduced their release into the atmosphere), certain air- and water-pollution reductions, and the clean-up of Lake Erie.
Unfortunately, even before the Bush Administration's destructive policies, most environmental gains were in the second category: they did very useful things, but the positive achievements were not sufficient to reverse long-term negative trends. And that's clearly not good enough.
How do we get ourselves unstuck? Any strategic effort to get at and ultimately reverse these trends must begin by confronting the implications of an obvious truth: whatever people's true feelings about the environment, they will understandably choose jobs over the environment when the two appear to conflict. Air and water pollution, for example, is commonly difficult to deal with at the local level because citizens and political leaders fear the loss of jobs that a challenge to corporate polluters might produce, even when the threat is severe. The citizens of Pigeon River, Tennessee, for instance, chose a few years ago to tolerate potentially carcinogenic emissions by North Carolina's Champion International paper mill because of fear they might otherwise lose 1,000 jobs. A 51-year-old worker who supported keeping the plant open despite the danger spoke for many: "What do you do when you're my age and faced with the prospect of being thrown out on the street?"
If we are unable to solve the jobs problem, there will be continued political opposition to important environmental measures that might cause economic dislocation. On the other hand, to the degree communities can be assured of economic stability, their ability to deal with environmental problems can clearly be greatly enhanced.
A Thousand Blooms
To accomplish this, however, would require the environmental movement to develop a much broader strategic approach and, with it, new allies. Is this possible? And not simply with labor unions, but with a range of other key groups in local communities?
There are hopeful signs. Environmentalists have demonstrated a capacity both to expand the agenda and to create new allies in some areas in recent years. In connection with sprawl, for instance, for many years the primary emphasis was on policies to constrain growth. However, many now realize that the outward-moving pressures that contribute to sprawl are often the result of economic development failures in the central city. Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution puts it this way: The "flip side of the rise in concentrated urban poverty is the surge in suburban and exurban sprawl."
In response, a number of groups have added community economic strategies to their once narrowly environmental agendas, and in doing so have found new allies. For instance, Miami's "Eastward Ho! Brownfields Partnership"-a collaboration of government agencies, community organizations, and private groups working to redirect development in southeast Florida-is working hard to promote "infill" development to revitalize Miami's urban core and other coastal communities and thereby reduce development pressures on the Everglades. Maryland's Smart Growth & Neighborhood Conservation Initiative follows the same political-economic logic.
A larger, longer-term strategy would build on such ideas and organize broad coalitions around specific policies and new economic institutions aimed at community economic and environmental security. And although national political action, at least in the United States, is stymied in many areas at present, there are growing possibilities-and indications of a potentially major shift-at the state and local levels.
Just below the radar of media attention there has been a quiet explosion of new state and local policies aimed at retaining jobs, building greater local self-reliance, and increasing local economic "multipliers" so that money spent in a community recirculates to produce additional jobs. For example:
- U.S. state governments now regularly shape public procurement to boost local economies. Community-based small businesses, for instance, can receive a five-percent preference on bids for state contracts in California, New Mexico, and Alaska.
- Many cities (roughly half the municipalities in a recent survey) use public contracts to help neighborhood-anchored community development corporations (CDCs) and simultaneously improve the delivery of government services.
- Publicly sponsored "buy local" programs are widespread. The Rural Local Markets Demonstration in central North Carolina identifies products, services, parts, and raw materials that manufacturers would like to purchase locally, and then assists other local firms with the development of such products and/or helps establish new local firms to fill the supply gap.
- Pension funds now regularly seek ways to enhance local economic health. More than half of U.S. states have established Economically Targeted Investment programs to promote investments that help communities.
Perhaps even more importantly, an extraordinary range of new economic institutions that both anchor jobs and change the nature of wealth ownership are also at the threshold of potentially explosive strategic expansion. For example, roughly 11,000 substantially or wholly employee-owned businesses are now operating around the country. More people are involved in these firms than are members of unions in the private sector. Not only is the record of such companies impressive, their capacity to anchor jobs is of extreme importance to community stability; few companies owned by local employees ever get up and move to Mexico! Moreover, many worker-owned firms are also on the cutting edge of environmental sustainability efforts. Cranston Print Works in Rhode Island, for instance, has regularly won awards for reducing its use of toxics. The office furniture and services firm Herman Miller, Inc. has been recognized by the National Wildlife Federation and the state of California for outstanding reductions in material waste. Kolbe and Kolbe, which makes windows and doors, has dramatically reduced its hazardous waste output as a result of suggestions by employee-owners.
Worker-owned firms are not the only emerging institutional form that can help stabilize local economies and change who owns and benefits from wealth. For instance, there are now roughly 4,000 neighborhood-based community development corporations actively at work in all parts the United States (by some estimates, 6,000). More than 115 million Americans are members of cooperatives. Hundreds of new land trusts are now operating in diverse communities. Numerous municipalities, under both Democratic and Republican mayors, have established little-noticed but important publicly owned city enterprises.
When there is determination and clarity of vision, these institutions can resolve the apparent conflict between community job creation and ecological sustainability. Many municipalities, for instance, create jobs and generate revenues through land fill gas recovery business enterprises that turn the greenhouse gas methane (a byproduct of waste disposal) into energy. Riverview, Michigan, now recovers more than 4 million cubic feet of methane daily. In turn, the sale of gas for power production helps produce over 40,000 megawatthours of electricity per year and generates revenues for the city. Similar recovery efforts can be found in all parts of the country. Among the many other innovative and successful methane recovery operations are those run by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, the South Carolina Energy Office, Los Angles County, and the city of Portland, Oregon.
Local Services Rule
A few examples don't make a movement. But recent research suggests that the policy and institutional experience necessary to mount a much larger and longer-term national effort focused on community economic and environmental security is developing fast. There are also important sectoral changes under way that, over time, could elevate such an effort from marginal to strategic, above all the decline of manufacturing.
In 1950 fully 31 percent of the U.S. non-farm work force was involved in manufacturing. Twenty years later such employment had slipped to 25 percent, and by 1990 it was 16 percent. Currently those working in the manufacturing sector number only a little over 11 percent of the labor force, and this figure is projected to decline further. The fact is that the U.S. economy has for many years been dominated by services-a sector that is far more locally oriented, more stable, and less dependent on (or sensitive to) the vagaries of global trade than manufacturing. (Only 5-7 percent of U.S. services are exported.) Though rarely noted in the overwhelming media focus on manufacturing, these ongoing sectoral changes favor more stable, locally oriented economic development. The work of economist Thomas Power, in fact, suggests that "about 60 percent of U.S. economic activity is local and provides residents with the goods and services that make their lives comfortable. This includes retail activities; personal, repair, medical, educational, and professional services; construction; public utilities; local transportation; financial institutions; real estate; and government services. Thus almost all local economies are dominated by residents taking in each other's wash."
Locally oriented economic activity increased from 42 percent in 1940 to 52 percent of total community economic activity in 1980. Over the period from 1969 to 1992, Power notes, "the aggregates of retail and wholesale sales, services, financial and real estate, and state and local government" have been making up "a larger and larger percentage of total earnings, rising from 52 to 60 percent...." As economist Paul Krugman puts it, "Although we talk a lot these days about globalization, about a world grown small, when you look at the economies of modern cities what you see is a process of localization: a steadily rising share of the work force produces services that are sold only within that same metropolitan area."
In short, a determined effort to make local economic and environmental security a strategic priority would be working with, not against, the grain of ongoing sectoral change. A long-term initiative aimed at building up state and local alliances might accordingly hope to create the political and experiential basis of a national capacity to undercut the job fears that weaken local environmental efforts.
Far more is at stake, however, than local economics, or even environmental policies. Any serious attempt to deal with the longer-term sources of our difficulties will ultimately have to come to grips with questions of democracy, on the one hand, and a more environmentally supportive culture, on the other. Although almost everyone gives lip service to such abstractions, the real question is whether it is possible to begin taking them seriously as a matter of policy and strategic commitment.
democracy and Democracy
This brings us to the demanding implications of really "Thinking Globally and Acting Locally." In recent years several theorists have focused attention on the first of these implications: what it takes to truly nurture democracy. In his widely discussed book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam probed well beneath surface indicators of democratic engagement, such as the fall-off in voting, to focus on the decline in local citizen associations, networks, formal and informal clubs, neighborhood groups, unions, and the like. He suggested that this decline, in turn, had weakened the foundational requirements of democracy in general. What is not at the center of this analysis are national political parties, national interest groups, national lobbying, national campaign finance laws, or national political phenomena. Important as these are, what Putnam and others have increasingly stressed is the micro-level of citizen groups and citizen involvement. Here is the place to begin to look for democratic renewal in general. If you can't have Democracy without democracy, then a necessary (if not sufficient) condition of rebuilding the former is to get to work locally.
It's an old lesson, putting into modern form Tocqueville's contention that in "democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge...." John Stuart Mill, another 19th century theorist, likewise held that direct experience with local governance was essential to "the peculiar training of a citizen, the practical part of the political education of a free people. ...[W]e do not learn to read or write, to ride or swim, by being merely told how to do it, but by doing it, so it is only by practicing popular government on a limited scale, that the people will ever learn how to exercise it on a larger."
The critical question, of course, is what are the real-world conditions required to make this meaningful? Citizens' participation in local community efforts is all but impossible if the economic rug is regularly pulled out from under them. Indeed, what precisely is the "community" when "citizens" are forced to move in and out of a locality because of volatile economic conditions? And who has any real stake in long-term decisions?
Real community democracy requires real community economic health and the kinds of institutions which can sustain it. Any serious longer-term community economic and ecological security effort, accordingly, must take seriously what it will require to rebuild the local basis of democracy.
It should be obvious where this is leading: economic instability radically weakens all forms of civil society network-building, including those that nurture democracy and communities' interests in their environments. Conversely, strategies that help achieve local stability produce, at the same time, a more supportive context for democracy-building civil society associations in general, and for citizen organizations concerned with the environment in particular.
Moreover, these local strategies have ripple effects in both time and space. Research by Giovanna Di Chiro has demonstrated how the agendas of grassroots groups commonly evolve from defending a localized "place" orientation to supporting broader, more universal concepts of environmental justice. Raymond DeYoung, Stefan Vogel, and Stephen Kaplan have examined the diverse ways that direct local participation builds stronger environmentally oriented attitudes in general. The resulting changes in consciousness-and in "acceptable" standards and norms of environmental management-are critical, in turn, to producing support for broader, longer-term national policy change.
I believe that we are quietly approaching a time when there may be a realistic chance of systematically laying the structural foundations at the state and local level for a long-term strategy aimed not only at undercutting the economic instability which weakens efforts to control pollution, but of attempting to nourish the basis of a re-energized democratic and ecologically healthy culture.
I concede that the idea of building a new long-term agenda is daunting, especially given the difficulties of the Bush era. On the other hand, other historical periods of great difficulty have often given way to positive change, often in significant part because individuals have been forced to reassess and develop new strategies.
Years ago I was legislative director for the late Senator Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day. Nelson had been a "conservation governor." When he was first elected to the U.S. Senate, the idea that environmental issues might one day become important in America seemed far-fetched. Indeed, everyone knew this was a non-starter. Over only a very few short years, however, what seemed impossible became an extraordinary movement.
In the pre-1960s South, the idea that the odds against change were too high was also widespread-and here the odds were enforced not simply by reactionary politicians but by deadly terror. Blacks, and even some white Americans, were murdered for demanding their basic rights. To many in the South in the 1930s and 1940s the possibility of change seemed far more distant than it does to today's environmental movement. And yet those working against the odds ultimately laid the foundation for an extraordinary explosion of positive change.
Most people also tend to forget how marginal conservative thinkers and activists were in the 1950s, even before the Goldwater debacle of 1964. The ideas and politics that currently dominate American reality were once regarded as antique and ridiculous by the mainstream press, by national political leadership, and by most serious academic thinkers. Committed conservatives worked in very difficult circumstances to develop their ideas, practices, and politics for the long haul. And though I disagree with them, they demonstrate what can be done against seemingly long odds when people get serious.
All of this underscores a more fundamental point: to suggest the realistic possibility of developing new long-term alliances around a community economic and ecological security agenda opens the door to embracing a larger overarching vision of comprehensive, indeed systemic change-one that can help satisfy goals of democracy and community writ large. It is not simply, therefore, a matter of policies and alliances, though both are necessary. The only way ultimately to achieve the motivation and committed energy needed for major change is to offer a morally compelling realistic vision that goes beyond ecological issues to the question of democracy itself.
Gar Alperovitz is Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland. This essay is based upon his recent book America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Democracy, and Our Liberty.


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Oregon scout-team player Dane Ebanez had played a handful of snaps in his career, but never made it onto the field in a bowl game.
Ebanez is 5'9" and 180 pounds. He doesn't have a scholarship, and he has taken out around $70,000 in student loans to pay his way through Oregon, according to John Canzano of the Oregonian.
Canzano wrote a fantastic profile of Ebanez before Oregon played Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl.
It turns out that Ebanez is a Rudy-esque figure — a walk-on who worked hard and found his way onto one of the best teams in the country.
He grew up in North Pole, Alaska, and he explained, "They have candy canes for light posts on the main street, and a giant Santa house."
He's graduating in the spring, meaning the Fiesta Bowl was his last game ever, and his coaches and teammates love him. So it should come as no surprise that one of his teammates pulled a clever trick to ensure that Ebanez would get on the field at the Fiesta Bowl.
From Canzano:
Apparently, his teammate, Keanon Lowe plotted to get Ebanez into the game. Lowe faked an injury as they broke the special teams huddle, prompting assistants to wave for Ebanez, his back-up on the kickoff team, to hurry onto the field.
It happened with 2:30 left in the game and Oregon up 35-17.
Lowe is a sophomore WR who had 22 catches and 3 TDs this year.
Pretty cool.


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Vietnam has the highest urbanization rate in Southeast Asia. Just a decade ago, only 24% of its population lived in cities, with 65% of the labor force employed in rural agriculture. Today, already more than 30 million people live in urban areas, accounting for approximately 34% of Vietnam's total population. The country is witnessing a rapid proliferation of urban areas, with the number of towns or cities at 755 and rising. Planners estimate that Vietnam's cities will be home to more than 46 million people by the year 2020. The largest of these cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are the growth engines of the country, supported by a relatively low urban unemployment rate of 4.6%.
With its newly attained status as a middle income country and its ambitions to achieve higher levels of human development, Vietnam needs to address challenges in basic social service provisions for both rural and urban populations. In particular, Vietnam will have to cope with rural-urban migration, a global megatrend that will continue to trouble city planners for the foreseeable future. Many poor rural Vietnamese will try their luck in the thriving urban centers, perceiving them to be full of job opportunities for both skilled and unskilled workers. Urban planners need to find a way to accommodate this influx of migrants and account for the fact that most of them are ill-equipped to participate in the urban economy.
The latest infographic (see below) from the Asian Trends Monitoring (ATM) team tells a story about Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, and how it fares in its struggle to provide basic services for its people. The numbers and information in the infographic are a combination of secondary data from the World Bank, primary data from the ATM poverty profile survey, as well as information from interviews ATM conducted in the field in September 2012.Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.
This infographic highlights the emerging issues that Hanoi's poor must contend with. Although Vietnam's GDP is growing and income levels among the poor are rising, it does not necessarily translate into improved access to services. There are several limitations to the government's service provision capacity, which leads to things like a strict "poor list" of eligible households.


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MetalNoir needed a new stationery design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 29 designs submitted by 11 freelance designers.
Metal Noir is a custom design jewelry company based in Las Vegas, Beverly Hills, Miami and San Francisco. We design heavy rockstar silver jewelry with a neo-gothic theme with the highest quality materials - think Fleur De lis - old english - crosses - daggers and swords.
Metal Noir
Dare to Create
Desired Color Scheme:
Sharp blacks - matte blacks - white - dark grey - smokey grey color
Desired Style:
Old english - european - medieval - goth - sexy
Accepted File Formats:
Standard Web Formats (.jpg, .gif or .png); Vector Formats (.eps, .pdf or .ai); Layered Formats (.psd or .tiff)
Please e-mail us @ email@example.com for specific font style, type and requirements and inspiration. We are looking for a very edgy design - old style - dark and sexy goth. For inspiration - http://www.kingbabystudio.com - chromehearts.com - goodarthlywd.com


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Crucial Part Number CT2890487 Equivalent
2GB DDR2 PC2-5300 667MHz DIMM
|Part Number
|Memory Type
|Product Line
|Certified Spec
|Total Size
|Kit Size
|Part Numbers
|In Stock
Quantum Technology™ Certified Spec RAM Memory is manufactured to 100% Original Manufacturer Certified Factory Specifications. We are a Registered Developer with every Major Manufacturer of PC Systems, Servers, Laptops and Consumer Electronics Worldwide. We incorporate dozens of pages of Original Manufacturer Factory specifications into each of our RAM Memory modules to ensure guaranteed original quality. This is a Far Superior grade of quality and performance RAM Memory than the commonly available guaranteed compatible offerings being offered at steep discounts everywhere online – you get what you pay for! DON'T RISK YOUR PRECIOUS SYSTEM AND DATA with Cheap, Generic, Sub-Spec and even Salvage, Used RAM Memory! Quantum Technology™ RAM Memory upgrades are aggressively, competitively priced against the Generic upgrades while offering a superior grade of product and performance – definitely the best way to go!
This item has a Manufacturer Lifetime Warranty. Our Lifetime Warranty is 100% Transferrable and does not require an original receipt. All that is required to obtain a replacement under our warranty is the original item with the original barcode label on it.
Warranty Information
All of our RAM Memory upgrades as well as our Solid State Drives are completely covered by our comprehensive Manufacturer Lifetime Warranty.
Our Lifetime Warranty is 100% Transferable and does not require an original receipt. All that is required to obtain a replacement under our warranty is the original item with the original barcode label on it.
Please make sure to handle your modules carefully, taking proper precautions for sensitive electronic instruments and package them carefully for return shipping as our Warranty does not apply to any items damaged by the customer or damaged in transit.
Any Warranty Claims require that an RMA - Return Merchandise Authorization be obtained from Quantum Technology™ prior to returning an item for Warranty Replacement. Returns received without an RMA will be returned to sender.
Please call to speak with a Customer Service representative regarding any Warranty Claims Monday through Saturday 9am-6pm EST @ Toll Free 800-240-8577 or International/Direct 404-935-4048.
For more information read the full warranty details.


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Mange Azure Virtual Machines using REST API
This sample demonstrates a how to mange Azure Virtual Machines using REST API. To operate Azure Virtual Machines, using the Azure PowerShell isn't the only way. We also can use management service API to achieve this target. We can use GET/POST/DELETE requests to operate an Azure Virtual Machine.
Running this sample
To run this sample you will need:
- Visual Studio 2015
- An Azure subscription
Step 1: Clone or download this repository.
From your shell or command line:
git clone https://github.com/Azure-Samples/virtual-machines-dotnet-rest-api-manage.git
Step 2: Create a cloud service.
The cloud service to which you want to deploy the Virtual Machine.If you already have a cloud service in your Azure, you can skip to the next step. If you create a cloud service, you can create it by using the Management Portal, by using Create Cloud Service, or by using the New-AzureService cmdlet.
Step3 : Create and Upload a Management Certificate for Azure.
You make sure that the Create Virtual Machine Deployment request that is made to the management service is secure.Secure requests to the management service can be authenticated by using management certificates over SSL. To use a management certificate, it must be uploaded to Azure.
Step 4: Open the AddVirtualMachine.xml, fill your own value to this xml file.
This xml file shows the message we need when create a Virtual Machine.
Step 5: Run the Sample.
- Press Ctrl+F5 to show the console application.
- Fill your own Subscription Id, Cloud Service name, Certificate Thumbprint.
- Choose the operation, and check it on your Azure portal.


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Water is life and sanitation is dignity.
That's a catch-phrase thrown around a lot in global development circles. Most often, it's used by NGOs to galvanize support from the international community to recognize access to water and sanitation as a legally-entrenched human right. So far so good. In 2011, the United Nations, by a vote of 122-0, declared that access to safe and clean drinking water is essential to the enjoyment of life and all other human rights.
Okay good. So now what?
The elegance of the phrase lies in its simplicity. But water and sanitation are anything if not complex. In fact, the two make for uncomfortable bedfellows. Water efforts are all about access, while sanitation is about usage. Marrying the two has allowed clean water efforts to prosper, but caused sanitation to fall through the cracks (pun intended).
As a result, I have decided to dedicate my next two blog posts to detangling these issues. By looking at the financial challenges facing water and sanitation in their own light, hopefully we can forge inclusive solutions to both.
This week we'll discuss financing for clean water, next week financing for sanitation.
So, how do people in developing countries access water, you ask? Good question. The answer is any way they can.
In larger towns and cities, most people have water piped directly to their homes. Families have meters and pay set fees based on the volume of water they use. Often, this water is low quality and sometimes doesn't arrive for days at a time. For example, one of my colleagues in Kathmandu, Nepal has water every four days for a limited number of hours. And he still needs to boil and filter this water before drinking it.
Those without piped water use public standpipes or buy water from trucks where it's sold by the jerrycan (a 20 liter or 5 gallon bucket). For the privilege of walking and carrying 40 to 50 pounds (18 to 22 kilograms) of water, a family must pay the highest volumetric tariff, reserved for industrial users. This usually means that lower income households are paying double or triple for water.
In rural areas, people use a mixture of water sources that are usually free but often contaminated. Surface water is diverted into trenches, and rainwater is stored for later use by humans and animals. Some wells and boreholes are fully subsidized by non-profits that then leave their maintenance and operation to untrained locals. Suffice it to say, all options are infinitely more complex than choosing between tap or sparkling at your local eatery.
Financial interventions in the sector have had trouble accounting for this diversity of water access options.
Major international donors have traditionally supported governments to extend piped services to outlying urban areas, leaving non-profits to deliver water to poorer urban and rural communities. These efforts have suffered mightily in the face of dwindling national budgets, restrictive regulations and poor coordination among multiple actors.
On top of those obstacles, lack of land titles for marginalized groups prevents them from accessing government projects and subsidies. Ironically, it's this same hurdle that excludes many from financial services. Loans for individual water projects -- like a well or pump -- are hard to come by, because banks view those lacking water as too risky or too poor to finance. To change this picture, Kiva is collaborating with nonprofit Water.org to develop specific loan products with our Field Partners to help families finance water improvements.
Still, most rural areas have no hope of receiving piped water in the near future. And lack of easy access to water continues to be a significant barrier for rural development. I wrote about this extensively in my last blog on the subject of clean water. The current trend of relying on non-profits to subsidize the construction of water access points with grants is not a panacea. In several places, Rwanda in particular, full subsidies have even undermined the sense of community ownership that is essential to the maintenance and upkeep of water resources.
In some cases, local non-profits are developing their own programs to fill this gap. A few have encouraged village savings and loan groups to organize a water-specific fund for the safeguarding of access points. Others have encouraged whole villages to purchase water tanks to store water to sell to neighbors during droughts or shortages. In this way, access to water can also become a source of income.
Flexibility in water financing is the name of the game, as most of those who lack access to water are poorer than your average microfinance customer. Yet it's these types of flexible solutions that are needed to tackle complex problems. Local companies and non-profits have the tools at their disposal to make nuanced decisions about community water needs. What's missing from the equation is low-cost capital.
At Kiva, we are searching high and low for innovative partners to meet household demands for safer and cheaper water. We'll keep you posted.
Ian Matthews is an intern on Kiva's Strategic Initiatives team, looking for new partners and loan products to extend opportunities and access to even more people around the world. Ian has an MSc in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and has previously done field work in Honduras. Send him your feedback on this blog series at email@example.com.
This is part of a larger series on Kiva's strategic initiatives and innovative loan products, which are designed to expand opportunities for more borrowers. Kiva is excited to partner with companies and organizations innovating to help poor and low-income families access clean water.
Photos courtesy of Staff of Hope, Living Water International, Sustainable Sanitation, Clayton Jay Scott.


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Online English Teacher, part-time, work from home
- Employer
- Qkids
- Location
- Bowie, MD
- Posted
- Feb 18, 2019
- Closes
- Feb 21, 2019
- Function
- Childcare, School and Teaching, Teacher
- Industry
- Education, Primary and Secondary, Other
- Career Level
- Experienced (Non-Manager)
- Hours
- Full Time
About Qkids Qkids is an interactive online teaching platform that connects English teachers to young language learners in real time with fun, user-friendly software. Founded in 2015, we are now a national leader in cross-cultural E-learning with over 100,000 Chinese elementary and secondary students. Connected on our patented and effective game-based learning platform, English teachers from the United States and Canada guide students through a curriculum of fun, dynamic, and engaging narrative gaming adventures from the comfort of their own homes. We are ready to build lasting growth for both learners and teachers, and we pride ourselves on providing the authentic North American classroom experience for our students in China. Your Work * Teach English to young learners between 5-12 years of age through our online platform * Teachers will be teaching classrooms with up to 4 students * Our Class Coordination Team will handle scheduling and student assignment * Each in-lesson time is 30 minutes * Training and support provided * Curriculum is preset, no lesson planning required Requirements * Eligible to legally work in the US or Canada * Earned a Bachelor's degree or currently enrolled in a university program * Digital literacy and the ability to lead an engaging learning atmosphere * The minimum time commitment is 6 hours weekly * Prior teaching experience or equivalent in education, tutoring, mentoring, homeschooling preferred * English teaching certificates (TESOL, TEFL, CELTA, ESL) preferred * Technical requirements: a computer with stable internet connection and clear audio/video capacity Position Details Contract type: Independent Contractor Contract Term: Flexible Start date: Immediately Location: Remote, online Rate: $16-20 USD/hr (2 lessons) [Available class time slots] 19 hours in total Monday - Sunday Morning Eastern Time (AM - EST): 6:40-7:10, 7:20-7:50, 8:00-8:30, 8:40-9:10 Plus Friday and Saturday - Night Eastern Time (PM - EST): 8:40-9:10, 9:20-9:50, 10:00-10:30, 10:40-11:10, 11:20-11:50 Payment: The base rate for our teachers is $16 USD per hour, equivalent to 2 lessons. There are attendance and performance bonuses, $1USD each, calculated weekly. With full bonuses the pay is $20 USD per hour.


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BREAKING NEWS [last modified 6/21 @ 4:30pm]: US federal prosecutors have charged whistleblower Edward Snowden with espionage, theft and conversion of government property in a sealed criminal complaint, and asked Hong Kong to detain him ahead of a move to extradite him.
Now, it's more important than ever that Diane Feinstein use her influence to convince Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department to drop all charges against Snowden!
more than 10 years intelligence experts and politicians have
repeatedly assured the population of the United States of America
that the government was not spying on the personal details of their
lives. We now understand that our elected officials and agency
experts lied. This raises questions about the "representative"
nature of our government.
When can efforts to "protect" the American people supersede the constitutional safeguards of privacy? When the government does little more than selling the fear of rag-tag terror networks while passing legislation allowing the government to skirt the privacy protections found in our Constitution, there is the seed of tyranny; one set or rules for the people, and one for the ruling class.
Over the years, whistleblowers have sounded the alarm about likely government violations of American privacy rights. At what point will the government recognize the validity of the voices, and the reasons behind, our whistleblowers? After all, this great nation was founded on principles of dissent.
We the undersigned assert that NOW is the time to listen to whistleblowers, like Edward Snowden, and to re-evaluate how far the surveillance state will go to protect themselves, while selling out, and spying on, the American public.
The argument that his leaks have given terrorists the upper hand is absurd. Any terrorist who doesn't know the US is watching them is an idiot. These leaks only exposed what the NSA is doing to it's own citizens.
End the witch hunt for Edward Snowden.
Jay Tao
This petition closed about 6 years ago
There comes a time when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders. Those who break protocol and bring misdeeds to light when the public needs and deserves to know, are the ones who need...
There comes a time when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders. Those who break protocol and bring misdeeds to light when the public needs and deserves to know, are the ones who need our protection.
Tell Senator Feinstein to end her witch hunt for Edward Snowden.


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- Milton Brasher-Cunningham
- Donna Denizé
Great Expectations
- Dirk Detlefsen
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
- Sharon Madison
- Pauline Moller
Bridge to Terabithia
- Frazier O'Leary
A Lesson Before Dying
Song of Solomon
- Ashby Reid
Flowers for Algernon
- Diana Russell
To Kill a Mockingbird
- Betty Williams
Things Fall Apart
In Search of the Novel: Teachers & Lesson Plans
Dirk Detlefsen
Dirk Detlefsen teaches sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade English in Gaviota, California, and he is presently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Santa Barbara. In 1998–1999 he taught in a middle school in Cairo, Egypt. A theater major in college and an experienced actor, Mr. Detlefsen directs his schools yearly plays and brings his skills in teaching drama into his literature classes.
Lesson Plan for
Potter and the Sorcerers Stone
To encourage students to find the voice in the novel and to allow them to find their own individual ways into the experience through various projects.
(Sixth grade, four weeks)
Daily: We begin each lesson with a discussion of the previous chapter, especially if it was finished for homework. We then read together 5-7 pages. I usually have each student take a paragraph. When we finish our reading, we find five new vocabulary words to add to our personal dictionaries. The students are required to look them up and use them in a meaningful sentence for homework. We save the last 20 minutes for project time.
- Author parody: Rewrite a chapter of the book in the author's style, but with a personal touch and plot twist.
- Butcher-paper illustrations: The students choose a favorite character and create a painted poster-sized illustration with a quote the character is known for.
- Newspaper: Students make a two- to three-page newspaper from the setting of the story, i.e., "The Hogwarts Gazette."
- Newscast: Students simulate a television news program with events from the novel.
- Dramatic reading/reader's theater: Students take a passage from the book and present it orally to the class.
- Students are responsible typically for two or three of the above projects. One must be done individually, the others in a small group. I assess the class's knowledge of the novel with a combination of projects and written work. I usually have a weekly quiz on the vocabulary and a short paper on character, plot, and theme toward the conclusion of the book.


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TORONTO - A Nova Scotia family dog that pulled her owner from a burning home is among the courageous canines being inducted into the Purina Animal Hall of Fame.
Bella, a two-year-old Bernese mountain dog from Milton, N.S, was among the four-legged heroes being honoured at the annual ceremony hosted at the PawsWay in Toronto.
The Purina Animal Hall of Fame recognizes extreme acts of courage, bravery and devotion by Canadian pets and service animals.
Last November, Bella's owner, Chris Larocque, was home alone checking on his lunch in the oven. An ankle injury he'd sustained from an auto accident flared up and he fell and hit his head. On the way down, the cloth he had in his hand grazed the elements in the oven and caught fire, quickly moving up his arm and onto his clothing.
Larocque removed the shirt and threw it against the wall, and the walls of the kitchen caught fire. Unable to rise on his own due to his injuries, he called for Bella and was able to grab her collar and coach her to pull him from the burning house.
"Without Bella's devotion, strength and courage, I would have died in the fire that destroyed my home," Larocque said in a release.
The other inductees are:
Service Dog of the Year: Teak from Vancouver. The eight-year-old German shepherd caught and brought down an armed robbery suspect on Jan. 11. When Teak's partner, Const. Derrick Gibson, caught up with the canine, he saw the suspect slashing the dog on the neck with a knife multiple times. Teak had two surgeries and has nearly healed from all of his wounds. He has since retired from the Vancouver Police Department.
Vicious from Trail, B.C. After a cougar entered the family home through an open sliding door in the backyard and pounced on owner Angie Prime, Vicious, a 12-year-old border collie/Labrador cross, lunged at the cougar, chasing the wild cat out of the house. Vicious returned unharmed.
Snickers from Oshawa, Ont. Police responded to a call about Snickers, a four-year-old border collie/pointer cross, incessantly barking and pacing outside a resident's driveway, blocking their attempts to leave for work.
After peering into the window of the home next door, Const. Rob Garnett saw Gregory Gould — who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — lying unconscious on his living room floor. After getting inside, Garnett realized that Snickers had thrown his body repeatedly against the screen door to help trigger the release to get outside in an effort to seek help for his owner.
"The tenacity of our 2013 inductees to rescue and protect people from harm — whether it's a wild animal, house fire, criminal or a medical emergency — showcases the connection animals have to humans and the physical risks they will take to keep them safe," Purina PetCare Legacy executive director Mary Siemiesz said in a release.
Since its inception in 1968, 132 dogs, 26 cats and one horse have been inducted into the Purina Animal Hall of Fame.
Also on HuffPost


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Danny Bonaduce Goes In For a Kiss — And Loses Some Face
It's been a rough week for '70s child stars. First we learned Joanie Cunningham is drunk and homeless, and now Danny Partridge has fallen prey to a fan who tried to take a piece of his cheek home as a souvenir. In her mouth.
Danny Bonaduce, the ginger-haired former 'Partridge Family' star and radio show host, made an appearance at a casino on Friday as master of ceremonies at a Hell's Belles concert. Hell's Belles, for the uninitiated, are an all-female AC/DC cover band. So it stands to reason that the people there were more than a little unconventional.
But as Bonaduce would soon learn, there's "unconventional" and then there's "face-eating unconventional."
As he later told KIRO-TV, a woman approached him and said, "I love your radio show. I loved you on the 'Partridge Family.' Can you kiss me?"
He agreed, and that was his unwitting strategic error. He leaned in, the woman put her arms around him — and then she sank her teeth into his cheek and wouldn't let go.
"They were tiny little Chucky teeth. Man, they just gnawed like piranhas," Bonaduce said. "People are trying to pull her off me … I'm screaming like a baby … [It was like] someone wadded up 10 lit cigarettes and stuck them on your face, but they didn't go out, they just stayed that hot."
Regardless, he isn't pressing charges because he feels the woman had lost her grip on reality (a state of mind with which he's familiar). "I think she was truly, truly delusional," he said.
Can't argue there. What person in her right mind would try to kiss Danny Bonaduce?


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New Credit Strategies
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As a trusted leader in the industry, we employ progressive strategies to identify new markets and new opportunities in this volatile economic landscape. We deliver unique predictive insight to redefine how you target your customers and manage your portfolio. Our unmatched expertise in data, analysis and innovative technology will guide you decisively, mitigate risk and maintain those valuable profitable relationships.
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Understanding a consumer's past behavior is crucial to developing a strategy for the future. Portfolio managers need to redefine their policies and practices to attract and retain profitable customers.
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- Experian TAPSSM - Total annual credit card and charge card spend
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The new universe of prospective customers is moving steadily beyond prime to a variety of near-prime segments outside of the marketing spectrum that lenders have targeted for the past three years.
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Learn more about the underserved and underbanked market and how Experian can help you build your portfolio.
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- Prequalification - Prequalify consumers for credit in real time at the point of contact
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LendFriend – In Friends and Family We Trust
Top 5 Submissions Awarded a Free Promissory Note and Digital Signature [$49.98 value]
Successfully borrow money from and lend money to your friends and family.
Made in New York City and Washington DC | Copyright © 2014 · StartUpLift, All Rights Reserved. | Email: firstname.lastname@example.com | Phone: (347) 855-5438


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If Your Child Has Type 2 Diabetes—What He or She Needs To Know
It is easy to understand why your child may have problems with the necessary treatment program for type 2 diabetes. Adolescence is a time when teens struggle for independence and a desire to be like their friends, and because they feel invulnerable, they may engage in risk-taking behaviors for excitement. Developing type 2 diabetes could not come at a worse time!
Therefore, your child needs to understand that it is important to work as a family to manage his or her diabetes—and although lifestyle changes may be difficult, they are essential.
Adolescents are not generally motivated by rewards in the future—rather, motivation for learning to manage their diabetes may more likely come from immediate gratification, such as improving acne, regulating menstrual cycles, improving their physical appearance and gaining more energy.
Related Links
Page last updated: September 20, 2019


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Quick, name a technology company with a REALLY good reputation?
Nope. Nah. Sorry.
If you're on the same page as former Apple bigwig Jean-Louis Gassée, the company that should have jumped to mind first is Microsoft.
In fact, Gassée says his old firm should try harder to emulate Microsoft's public relations tactics.
Last week, Apple marketing boss Phil Schiller reached out ot a bunch of big business publications to trash Android and Samsung the night before Samsung launched its new flagship phone, the Galaxy S4.
Schiller got a lot of criticism for doing this. This happened for two reasons:
- Schiller got a crucial fact wrong about which version of Android the S4 would use.
- Apple bloggers said he made Apple sound weak and defensive.
Now, Gassée, the former president of Apple Products, is getting a lot of attention for a blog post he wrote explaining how Apple could do better talking to the press.
In it, Gassée writes "Apple has lost control of the narrative; the company has let others define its story."
His solution: Apple PR should operate more like Microsoft PR.
He thinks Apple needs to hire an outside PR firm - "hired media assassins" - and use it for "attacking competitors, pointing to their weaknesses, and trumpeting [Apple's] achievements."
He says that Microsoft did this to great effect back in the day, working with Waggener Edstrom.
Apple has lost control of the narrative; the company has let others define its story. This is a war of words and Apple is proving to be inept at verbal warfare.
In another of his sharply worded analyses titled Ceding the Crown, John Gruber makes the same point, although from a different angle:
The desire for the "Oh, how the mighty Apple has fallen" narrative is so strong that the narrative is simply being stated as fact, evidence to the contrary be damned. It's reported as true simply because they want it to be true. They're declaring "The King is dead; long live the King" not because the king has actually died or abdicated the throne, but because they're bored with the king and want to write a new coronation story.
I agree with the perception, but blaming the media rarely produces results, we shouldn't point our criticism in the wrong direction. The media have their priorities, which more often than not veer in the direction of entertainment passed as fair and balanced information (see Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman). If Apple won't feed them an interesting, captivating story, they'll find it elsewhere, even in rumors and senseless hand-wringing.
Attacking competitors, pointing to their weaknesses, and trumpeting one's achievements is better done by hired media assassins. A company, directly or through a PR firm, engages oft-quoted consultants who provide the required third-party stats, barbs, and encomiums. This isn't theorizing, I once was a director at a company, one of many, that used such an arrangement to good effect.
A brief anecdote: When Microsoft was Microsoft, Waggener Edstrom, the company's PR powerhouse, was an exemplary propagandist. I distinctly remember a journalist from a white-shoe East Coast business publication coming to my office more than twenty years ago, asking very pointed questions. I asked my own questions in return and realized that the individual didn't quite know the meaning of certain terms that he was throwing around. A bit of hectoring and cajoling, and the individual finally admitted that the questions were talking points provided by the Seattle PR firm. A few years later, I got a comminatory phone call from one of the firm's founders. My offense? I had made an unflattering quip about Microsoft when it was having legal troubles with Apple (the IP battle that was later settled as part of the 1997 " investment" in Apple and Steve Jobs). PR firms have long memories and sharp knives.
The approach may seem cynical, but it's convenient and effective. The PR firm maintains a net (and that's the right word) of relationships with the media and their pilot fish. If it has the talent of a Waggener Edstrom, it provides sound strategic advice, position papers, talking points, and freeze-dried one-liners.
Furthermore, a PR firm has the power of providing access. I once asked a journalist friend how his respected newspaper could have allowed one of its writers to publish a fellacious piece that described, in dulcet tones, a worldwide Microsoft R&D tour by the company's missus dominicus. "Access, Jean-Louis, access. That's the price you pay to get the next Ballmer interview…"
Today, look at the truly admirable job Frank Shaw does for Microsoft. Always on Twitter, frequently writing learned and assertive pieces for the company's official blog. By the way, where's Apple's blog?
The popular notion is that Apple rose to the top without these tools and tactics, but that's not entirely true. Dear Leader was a one-man propagandastaffel, maintaining his own small network of trusted friends in the media. Jobs also managed to get exemptions from good-behavior rules, exemptions that seem to have expired with him…
Before leaving us, Jobs famously admonished "left-behind" Apple execs to think for themselves instead of trying to guess what he would have done. Perhaps it's time for senior execs to rethink the kind of control they want to exercise on what others say about Apple. Either stay the old course and try to let the numbers do the talking, or go out and really fight the war of words. Last week's misstep didn't belong to either approach.
Get the latest Microsoft stock price here.


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Drivers on the hook for expired plates after Service Ontario glitch
If you count on the province to remind you to renew your driver's licence or plates, you might want to sneak a peek at your vehicle.
About 100,000 Ontarians didn't get their customary renew-now letter from Service Ontario before the end of July — and as many as half those people might still be driving around with expired plates.
Normally, people with birthdays in mid-July would have received reminder notes in the mail in mid-April.
But, somehow, there was a glitch and those letters were never printed.
"We're still investigating what the exact cause was," said spokesperson Anne-Marie Flanagan.
Last Thursday, letters finally went out to 50,000 people who hadn't already renewed — the other 50,000 had apparently figured out renewals come due on their birthdays — to apologize and encourage drivers to renew their licences and plate stickers.
Meanwhile, those overlooked thousands shouldn't expect the government's brain cramp to give them a break if they're stopped by police for driving with expired plates and identification, Flanagan said.
"Keeping documents up-to-date is ultimately the responsibility of the individual," and ServiceOntario sends reminders only as a courtesy, she said.
The only leeway offered is for those who need both renewed licences and a vehicle emissions test: they won't have to pay $20 for the 10-day temporary sticker they'll have to request in person from their licensing office.


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Friday, February 26, 2010
It's gut-check time for Randy Ruiz
Meanwhile, AA is pitting Ruiz against Brian Dopirak in a Hell in the Cell Spring Training Death Match for one spot on the roster. And while we are rooting for both of them to break on through, we're going to have to side with the Brooklyn Buddha in this battle. (And this, in spite of the fact that Dopirak has been seen in New Balance kicks, which strikes us as the absolute coolest cleat choice ever. And those things matter to us.)
Speaking of aesthetics...
Note that Shaun Marcum is still refusing to wear the stupid NASCAR pit crew hats that New Era and MLB have mandated. You know why? Because Shaun Marcum won't lower himself to that sort of bullshit templated erroneous design. Which is why he's the ace of our staff. Because he's fucking nails.
11 comments:
It's gut check time for Randy as he'll be all up in your mother's guts like every day while your limp dick dad sits in the corner and cries.
- February 26, 2010 at 1:42 PM
This is hilarious. The reason why Mark McGwire and his brother had a falling out.
"The brothers haven't spoken since 2002. They fell out after Jay McGwire's stepson, Eric, tickled Mark and caused Mark to spill coffee on himself. Mark then swatted Eric on the backside. Jay's wife, Francine, then refused to attend Mark's wedding."
- February 26, 2010 at 1:47 PM
- Bwilly said...
If Dopirak does beat out Ruiz, would there be thoughts to keep Wallace at 3rd?
- February 26, 2010 at 3:10 PM
- Brad Fullmer Fan said...
- February 26, 2010 at 5:18 PM
- Ty said...
I'd be really surprised to see Dopirak beat out Ruiz considering the big guy's performance in summer ball. I know he was playing some LF there, does anybody know if he's decent enough to play out there once in a while? Cito would love the "versatility" (like Millar being able to play 3B!)
- February 26, 2010 at 5:24 PM
- Mike said...
Shaun Marcum > Gandhi
Man I hate those hats...
- February 26, 2010 at 7:04 PM
never felt inclined to comment on any of your articles but this one is great! Made me laugh out loud to the point that i had to try and explain why to my wife.
- February 26, 2010 at 7:31 PM
- オテモヤン said...
- February 26, 2010 at 7:50 PM
Gaston commented on Romero possibly being the #1.
"One thing you have to keep in mind," Gaston said, "is that the No. 1 guy, he's always facing the best pitchers in baseball."
thats ridiculous and untrue you cross armed lounger
- February 26, 2010 at 10:11 PM
- Darren Priest said...
Four guys standing around admiring another guy's weight loss. And we refuse to watch Oprah...why?
Good for him though. Must be nice to be able to see your penis without a mirror. I miss those days.
- February 27, 2010 at 8:06 AM
And I thought I like Sean Marcum before. Now I think I'm in love.
- February 27, 2010 at 1:04 PM


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As a Goal programme implementer, I agree to the following conditions before, during and after implementing the Goal program:
1. Have a FEMALE FACILITATOR/COACH lead all activities and discussion elements of the life skills part of the programme and use FEMALE COACHES if/when available during sport aspects of the programme.
2. Have a clearly posted CHILD PROTECTION POLICY, which includes sexual abuse and harassment. This policy will be signed by all coaches, volunteers, staff and participants and will be clearly posted, in conjunction with clear and accessible grievance procedures. Coaches, staff and participants should be trained on the policy and processes.
3. Conduct MONITORING AND EVALUATION specifically for the Goal programme. Administer and send to Women Win the baseline and end-line participant questionnaires (see Goal Programme website)
4. ADAPT the Goal curriculum for cultural contexts and purposes when needed and share adaptations on the Goal platform or directly with Women Win so that the entire Goal community can benefit and we can improve the curriculum.
5. DO NOT CONTACT Standard Chartered Bank or use their logos without authorization from Women Win.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License


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Today's post is a little different, and doesn't quite fit my standard definition of a wreck - but it's just too darn funny not to share.
Today's post is also probably NSFW, and unless you want some really uncomfortable discussions with your children, NSFK, either.
So, assuming you're at home and have no kids around, YOU MAY PROCEED.
In the spirit of Pan-Tastic, we here at CW want you to get the most mileage out of your shaped cake pans. To that end, allow us to present....er, this:
Juuuuust a lighthouse.
("Be a beacon?!")
(If you get that reference, I will personally award you one million geek points.)
And also this:
Old Macdonald had a farm.
Which was clearly compensating for something.
Of course, your pan may be a slightly different model, so there's also this option:
Those pesky UFOs - always taking off to the right.
Or this:
I'm coocoo for COCONUTS!
(Coconuts. Seriously. THESE JOKES WRITE THEMSELVES.)
By now I'm sure you're wondering where all these brilliant designs came from. Well, would you believe there's a whole website dedicated to finding alternative uses for that most distinctive of shaped cake pans? 'Cuz there is, and I think you'll agree that blogger/baker Holly is a veritable WIZARD at making me bust a gut laughing:
You'll never hear a reference to Mr. Wizard the same way again.
And here's one final option, spotted at an actual baby shower:
There's something ironic about using this particular pan for a baby shower cake. Or is it appropriate? Ironically appropriate? Whatever. IT'S FUNNY.
My thanks to Thomas S., whoever it was that originally sent me the link to Holly's site, and the rest of you for not yelling at me in the comments about how these aren't professional or at ALL appropriate. I KNOW.
But to be fair, neither am I. ;)


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Turning over new leaf in climate change
TAKING THE HEAT / SECOND IN AN OCCASIONAL SERIES Artificial photosynthesis has big upside, challenges
In a tidy white lab on the southern edge of Berkeley, scientists are trying to duplicate one of nature's greatest tricks, pulling energy out of thin air.
They're designing artificial leaves that can convert sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into chemical fuel, much like the photosynthesis of flowers and trees.
The team has already built a crude prototype from silicon, polymers and platinum that can create a simple and clean hydrogen fuel. If the scientists figure out how to cheaply produce more complicated energy sources, it would enable mass production of "drop-in" fuels that could power automobiles, trucks, planes and ships without pumping more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
In other words, it could provide a viable alternative to digging up more petroleum, coal and other traditional energy sources widely blamed for global warming.
"We have no other option than getting off fossil fuels," said Heinz Frei, acting director of the lab, the north site of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis. "The research into artificial photosynthesis provides society with an option."
That simple, that hard
Without drastic changes to global energy systems, studies show that rising fossil fuel emissions could push global temperatures up as much as 3 degrees Celsius by 2050 and 6 degrees Celsius by 2100, unleashing a series of dangerous ecological consequences.
Researchers are investigating an array of possibilities for preventing or offsetting certain effects of a warming world, from sucking carbon out of the atmosphere to increasing the reflectivity of clouds. But even those exploring such options say the only way to address the full scale of global warming is to attack the root cause: cutting greenhouse gas emissions as much and as quickly as possible.
"The energy sources we use can't be fossil fuels," said Jane Long, former associate director for energy and environment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "It's just that simple and just that hard."
Venture capitalists, startups, corporations, government researchers and academic labs around the region are working aggressively to develop or deploy more efficient renewable energy sources, including next-generation batteries, electric cars, light bulbs, biofuels, hydroelectricity, and geothermal and wind power.
Tapping sunlight
But among clean energy options, tapping into the direct power of sunlight is uniquely promising. The sun casts more energy on the globe in one hour than all of humankind consumes in a year. The problem is that existing technology doesn't efficiently capture and store those diffuse and intermittent beams.
That's where artificial photosynthesis comes in.
It could retain more of the sun's energy than biofuels, which for a variety of reasons store well below 1 percent of the energy in the sunlight that touches them. And unlike solar panels, the energy produced by artificial photosynthesis would be highly portable, packed into a dense fuel that could power vehicles over long distances.
"There are lots of ways to provide electricity to things that don't need to take their energy source with them," said Graham Fleming, vice chancellor for research at UC Berkeley and a chemistry professor who has done groundbreaking research in photosynthesis. "But planes, ships, cars and trucks are a different problem and one we don't have a good solution for."
And it's a big problem. Transportation contributes more than a quarter of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and accounted for nearly half of the net increase during the past two decades, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The real challenge
During a tour of the Berkeley lab last month, Frei, a slight Swiss chemist with a head of gray hair, stopped at a work space and picked up the closest thing his team has to an artificial leaf.
The "engineering model" looks nothing like its natural counterpart. Four tilted purple strips fill the translucent box, which fits in the palm of his hand.
It would take a microscope to see that these thin strips are, in fact, tiny fibers made from silicon-based material. They absorb light to power a series of chemical reactions.
Iridium oxide catalysts attached to the tops of the strips split water into oxygen and protons. A membrane in the middle holds back the oxygen, but allows the protons to pass through. Finally, platinum catalysts on the other side of the strips convert the protons to hydrogen (H2), a simple energy carrier.
A convergence of technological and scientific advances has propelled the research to this point. Big strides in computer speeds and software capabilities have accelerated the ability to identify ideal materials. The birth of nanotechnology has allowed scientists to work at the necessary scale of atoms and molecules. And earlier work by Frei and others has enabled humans to capture energy from a larger portion of the sunlight spectrum (see related story).
But there's a major obstacle remaining: The device that Frei displayed isn't anywhere near economical. The components are too expensive and fragile, and the resulting fuel too inefficient.
"That's the real challenge JCAP is trying to take on - not how to do it, but how to do it with cheap, abundant materials," UC's Fleming said.
The other trick is to adapt the process to produce fuels with higher energy density, closer in kind to gasoline, yet renewable.
Such fuels would emit carbon dioxide. But since they would be made from the carbon dioxide already in the air, rather than extracted from the ground, the fuels would be carbon neutral - potentially providing a way to halt the rise of fossil fuel emissions.
The approach was promising enough to catch the eye of the federal government.
Joint project born
In late 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy announced plans to invest $122 million over five years into three "high risk, high reward" energy research projects, including an effort to produce fuel directly from sunlight. The goal was to drive scientific breakthroughs in promising research areas too costly or unproven for the energy industry to take on itself.
"Given the urgency of our challenges in both energy and climate, we need to do everything we can to mobilize our nation's scientific and technological talent to accelerate the pace of innovation," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said at the time.
The proposal from the California Institute of Technology, in partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other organizations, clinched the prize. The Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, or JCAP, was born in 2010, with offices in Pasadena and Berkeley.
Nathan Lewis, a chemistry professor at Caltech, serves as the organization's overall director. The cross-disciplinary team, on track to number nearly 200 researchers, includes synthetic chemists, material scientists, computational theorists, mechanical engineers and more.
Envisioning 'forests'
JCAP's researchers would leave the commercialization of the technology they are developing to others, but the ultimate idea is to cover millions of acres of land with artificial leaves. They probably would be made of a polymer-like material roughly an inch thick that could be rolled out like a blanket.
A key advantage over biofuels is that artificial leaves could be installed on nonarable land, reserving limited fertile acres for food production.
If man-made leaves covering 60 million acres converted just 1 percent of the energy in the sunlight that touches them into energy in the resulting fuel, Frei estimates they could produce all the energy now consumed by U.S. transportation. At 7 percent efficiency, they could produce all the energy used in the nation each year.
To be sure, 60 million acres is a lot of land, roughly the size of Oregon. But as Frei points out, there are more than 40 million acres of land devoted to the nation's interstate highways.
His analogy is a deliberate one. It's the space the country dedicated to an earlier national priority - transportation - that has contributed heavily to the problem at hand.
Another comparison: The nation leased more than 38 million acres of federal property to oil and gas companies at the end of fiscal year 2011, according to the latest data available from the Bureau of Land Management, and well above 60 million acres as recently as 1990.
"What it says is that society has already given away that kind of land, so it means it might be a socially acceptable level," Frei said.
High hurdles
Still, some observers doubt we'll see forests of artificial leaves anytime soon.
"I would not be surprised to learn that one day this will be done on a practical scale, at a reasonable cost," said Sally Benson, director of the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University. "But we are very far from that point."
"When the needed scientific breakthroughs take place is anyone's guess," she said. "And once this occurs, if we can learn from experience in the energy sector, it will be decades before it grows to sufficient scale to displace the alternatives available today."
Opposition, expenses
Indeed, high hurdles have cluttered the path even to proven sustainable energy systems, including political opposition, climate-change denial, human inertia and enormous economic disincentives.
As environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben stressed in a recent Rolling Stone article, there are 2,795 gigatons of carbon in the proven coal, oil and gas reserves of fossil fuel companies. That's five times more than climate scientists say the world could burn with some hope of staying below a 2-degree-Celsius rise in average temperatures, the threshold widely viewed as a dangerous tipping point for the globe.
But research firm Capital Institute estimates those reserves are worth about $27 trillion. They're the primary asset justifying the multibillion-dollar market caps of energy giants. Those companies' stock prices reflect the clear assumption that these fossil fuels will be pulled out of the Earth, whatever the environmental cost.
A growing chorus of experts argues the only way to correct for this economic "externality" - a real cost that isn't accounted for in actual prices - is for government to step in with aggressive public policy, including incentives and penalties to move companies, researchers and citizens in the right direction.
"We need to leave that fossil fuel in the ground, and the only way that will happen is if they're honestly priced," James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an address at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco last month. "Right now, they're heavily subsidized by you, the public."
But even if officials manage to enact effective policies, the world still faces a serious technical challenge. Studies show that the renewable energy options available to date can't get the world to a sustainable level of greenhouse gas emissions.
In fact, aggressively deploying existing technologies wouldn't be enough for California to reach its own legally mandated goal of making greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent lower than 1990 levels by 2050, according to a 2011 report by the California Council on Science and Technology. Achieving that aim will require "intensive and sustained investment in new technologies," the study concluded.
"You could get about halfway there," said Long, co-chair of the committee that produced the report. "The rest of the reduction will require innovation."
No other choice
That's why efforts like those under way at JCAP, specifically highlighted among possible "breakthrough technologies" in the study, are critical. No one knows yet what proposals ultimately will work. It's only clear that something has to.
For now, Frei and his colleagues are focused on achieving the goal they set when applying for the federal grant: building a working prototype that can produce fuel from the sun 10 times more efficiently than current crops. Year three of the Energy Department's five-year funding program just began.
Frei says he is confident they're on track and hopeful they'll secure additional money to continue refining the technology.
"We have to succeed," he said. "We have no other choice."
About the series
Inside cutting-edge Bay Area research focused on containing climate change.
Today: Creating artificial leaves for clean fuel.
Previously: Brightening the clouds to reflect away heat.
-- To see other stories and videos in this series, please visit www.sfgate.com/takingtheheat.
To learn more about these issues
-- Living With a Rising Bay: sfg.ly/XnaY3T
-- California Climate Change Adaptation Policy Guide: sfg.ly/UKJumf
-- Ten Things You Can Do to Help Curb Climate Disruption: sfg.ly/ZgE6dq
James Temple is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: email@example.com


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So last night on PBS was the premiere episode of Genealogy Roadshow. I believe there's going to be a 4-episode run - last night's episode took place at Belmont Mansion in Nashville. On to the bullet points! :)
Did you catch Genealogy Roadshow? What did you think of the episode?
- I guess I should have expected it from the title, but I didn't, that this would be oh so similar to Antique Roadshow. I thought the episode was going to focus on a couple of people from the Nashville area and their connections to local notables from history. But there were literally lines of people there to ask questions regarding their family histories, and the episode featured a bunch of them.
- The editing made it seem like people came and were given answers that very same day, but those of us who do this frequently know that never happens - I assume people lined up with their questions, PBS took the most interesting or most verifiable ones, and had them come back at another time for their answers. I mean, not for nothing, but I WISH I could get DNA results back in a day!
- Due to the number of people featured, the genealogists really didn't go into the details of HOW they arrived at their conclusions - at one point, my fiance was wondering how they knew to look for one girl's great-grandfather in Connecticut. I'm sure they followed a bunch of clues that led them there, but due to time constraints they just showed, boom, here in New York, then five years later, boom, there in Connecticut.
- I know I go on and on that genealogy is not about connecting to famous or infamous people (although, yes, that can be very cool), but for a show like this, that actually works. As average American viewer #276,591, it doesn't mean anything to me that you are related to Jim Bob Smith of Nowheresville, Tennessee, although I'm sure you are thrilled to discover that info, because you have a personal connection to him. For me, I know and recognize names like Jesse James and Davy Crockett, so you being related to them means something to me. I can connect to that.
- On a related note, though at first glance this show appears to be about connecting people genealogically to notable people in history, I think it's more about using genealogy to either prove or disprove oral history and tradition that has been passed down through the years, and I thought that was interesting.
- As we saw, a lot of times, oral history or tradition can be wrong (I kinda felt like I was watching Antique Roadshow at times, where people were hoping to connect to someone famous only to be shot down, like when people show up with what they think is a valuable family heirloom and it turns out their grandfather bought it at Ikea for 20 bucks, hee hee). But as the one genealogist pointed out, family stories aren't always flat out wrong - there's often a kernel of truth in a family's oral history. A cousin of I have just recently connected with on my Lindemann side of the family wrote to me that they had always heard that one of the Lindemann sisters drowned on the Titanic in 1912. Well, she didn't, but she did die in 1904 when the steamboat General Slocum caught fire and sank in New York's East River, resulting in the worst loss of life in the New York area until 9/11. See, kernels of truth.
- Though we were only treated to snippets of each person, I did get misty-eyed twice. No surprise there, right? The girl who had never known her father, who ended up meeting her cousin and getting all this info and all these photos, definitely struck a chord, and also loved the man who brought the photo of his ancestor as a young boy being held by an older black gentleman, and the two of them smiling and actually seeming happy, and then bringing out the descendant of that man...well, that also brought a tear to my eye. Nothing gets me like when genealogy helps people make those personal connections.
- Intrigued so far by the show. Not loving it like "Who Do You Think You Are?" or "Finding Your Roots," but I'll take my genealogy fix where I can get it. Without fail, watching a genealogy show gives me the shot in the arm I need to feel excited and motivated to just keep going!
Did you catch Genealogy Roadshow? What did you think of the episode?


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Fraser Red Modern Tartan Fabric
Price: $78.00
Code: CTBR-FZR-M
Fraser Red Modern Tartan Fabric
Our medium weight range of fabric consists of over 200 authentic tartans (400-410gm per linear metre 13 oz per linear yard 54" wide) While we try hard to ensure all of the following tartans are in stock, there may be some that have not been woven for some time. All of our fabrics are sold by the yard. This quality of tartan fabric is the medium weight that's available in our range. It is considered by many to be the best kilt fabric in Scotland and is the tartan of choice for many kilt makers and pipe bands world wide. Cloth woven in Scotland.
NOTE: Cut yardage is not returnable.
Ships in 24 hours if in stock. If out of stock please allow 1 - 2 weeks.


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Abbas seeks urgent Security Council meeting over East Jerusalem construction
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants the United Nations Security Council to meet to discuss Israel's construction in East Jerusalem and beyond the Green Line.
Israel announced earlier this week it plans for 1,300 new apartments on land in and around Jerusalem which was annexed by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War. A further 800 housing units were planned for the settlement of Ariel in the northern West Bank.
A view of the predominantly Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan
|Photo by: Emil Salman
"Something must be done on the international level to halt the settlement expansion which the Israeli government is undertaking in the West Bank, including Jerusalem," Nabil Abu Rdainah, the spokesman for Abbas, said on Wednesday.
Abbas had instructed his delegate to the United Nations, where the Palestinians have observer status, to request the meeting, he told Reuters. The delegate, Riyad Mansour, said by telephone from New York he would make the request via Arab states that have full member status.
Israel has vowed to continue construction in East Jerusalem, keeping up a public back-and-fourth with the United States, which slapped its key Middle Eastern ally on the wrist over the issue three times in 24 hours.
"There was no freeze in Jerusalem. There will be no freeze in Jerusalem. This has been the policy of all Israeli governments for 40 years," said Cabinet Secretary Zvi He noted some 300,000 Israelis lived in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem built beyond the Green Line separating Israel from the West Bank.
"I don't think that anyone would conceive a freeze there. This city is developing, both for the benefit of its Arab and its Jewish population, in all its parts," Hauser told Israel Radio.
Israeli construction in those settlements, which he said would become part of Israel under any future peace deal, "never hindered the negotiations with Egypt, Jordan or the Palestinians in previous years," he argued.
The cabinet secretary tried to downplay accusations of a serious Israeli-U.S. rift over the issue, charging the media were trying to create drama.
He noted that Israeli authorities took the decision to build 1,345 housing units in the East Jerusalem settlements of Har Homa and Ramot already October 20, but charged "publication was timed for some reason with the premier's visit to the U.S."
U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday said such plans were "never helpful". A day earlier, the U.S. State department said Washington was "deeply disappointed" by Israel's plans to build in the settlements.
The plans were published in Israel newspapers earlier this week while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in New Orleans, where he met with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
Following the US criticism, Netanyahu's Jerusalem office issued a statement late Tuesday, insisting that "Jerusalem is not a settlement. Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel" and that "Israel has never accepted upon itself restrictions of any kind on construction in Jerusalem."
It added it saw "no connection" between the peace process and Israel's "planning and building policy in Jerusalem, which has not changed in 40 years."
U.S. Assistant Secretary Philip J Crowley, answering reporters' questions in Washington, however then countered that "there clearly is a link in the sense that it is incumbent upon both parties, as we have insisted all along, that they are responsible for creating conditions for a successful negotiation."
"So to suggest that this kind of announcement would not have an impact on the Palestinian side, I think, is incorrect."
Netanyahu is scheduled to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York on Thursday.
Israel says it wants Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem expanding onto West Bank land to be part of its self-declared capital under any future peace deal. But the Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and charge the construction is eating away at their future state and capital.
Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War.


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Use a range of pre-cuts to create four colorful quilts with timesaving techniques for Dresden blocks, monograms and more!
Unlock the secrets behind beautiful pre-cut quilts, including the the Craftsy-exclusive Field Day quilt! Join Moda fabric designer Camille Roskelley for her signature timesaving techniques, and brush up on basics with a cute Charm Square pincushion project. Then, learn to use Jelly Roll pre-cuts for the charming Spools quilt and conquer Honeycomb pre-cuts for the Juggle quilt - you'll learn to sew up these hexagons without tricky Y-seams! Quickly cut Dresden blades and centers using templates, and create an adorable custom monogram in mere minutes. Plus, explore machine quilting and nine stunning stitches to finish off your quilt in style, and shave hours off your project with machine binding.
If you're not delighted with your Bluprint experience, we'll make it right or give you a full refund.


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Samples From The County Engineer GIS Database
G.P.S. Survey & Data Collection
G.P.S. is an acronym for Global Positioning System. Lancaster County Engineers Department uses G.P.S. as a surveying tool to retrieve locational information for particular points by positioning a receiver at a location and receiving timing information from various satellites. This information is mathematically adjusted so that a precise position for each "control" point can be determined. These points or "control" creates the framework to be used in map and spatial data base creation.


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It was very tempting to post Pt. 1 for the 7th year in a row, but it's getting harder and harder to find anyone old enough to get the joke that Chris and I once worked at Empire Records. Anyhow, as you're probably aware, tomorrow marks Record Store Day 2014, undoubtedly a hectic afternoon for our many friends in music retail — here's hoping the staff at Best Buy manages to stay hydrated.
As for the workers and patrons at what I'm told are "independent music shops" (sounds pretty quaint, right?) it seems the event is not without controversy. On one hand, there's the perennial complaints about flippers, price gougers and most worryingly, the difficulty actual-functioning-in-2014 bands and labels are having getting their spring titles manufactured anywhere near mid-April. And on the other hand, there's the opportunity for music lovers to snatch up such quality items as the Cake box set, the "Ghostbusters" 10" or a long overdue Roxette reissue.
All of that said, no matter
how shitty your musical taste is where you stand on this divisive issue, it is my fervent hope we can all exercise patience and mutual understanding when we're queued up tomorrow morning. Just understand that if you get in my way when I'm trying to grab the last copy of this record, you're going down like Dave Brown.


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Love blossoms in ice and snow
Eternal vows and evanescence have a magical attraction for couples from around the world. Each winter, about 150 weddings are celebrated at ICEHOTEL, Jukkasjärvi. Perhaps it is because, in this unique setting, in the here and now that only happens once, the act of exchanging vows and rings is treated with extra special reverence. We met Eva Lundqvist, who is responsible for wedding arrangements at ICEHOTEL, to talk about love and passion in subzero temperatures.
"I have the world's best job. Just image what it's like to plan, give advice and participate in one of the greatest days in so many people's lives. And then meeting them here, witnessing the love and joy at first hand when their plans are realized. It is a very great privilege and something for which I have the utmost respect," says Eva Lundqvist.
Eva has worked at ICEHOTEL since 1995, managing guest contacts and bookings. At the turn of the millennium in 2000, a wedding in the ice church in Jukkasjärvi was broadcast worldwide on TV. That was the starting point for weddings at ICEHOTEL.
"The first working day in the New Year, we were overwhelmed with calls. People were calling from all over the world. Hundreds of couples wanted to get married in the ice church at ICEHOTEL. I took charge and, together, we built up an organization in the company. Weddings entail quite a lot of administration and paperwork. We want that part of the event to run smoothly for the couples, so they can concentrate on the other, fun aspects of their big day," explains Eva.
Most of the couples choose to marry in the ice church that is built, each year, directly adjacent to ICEHOTEL. Civil wedding ceremonies are also popular, for example, in an art suite or amid the columns in the spectacular main hall.
"It is entirely up to the couple to decide. The wedding is a memory for life and, naturally, it must be planned and carried out precisely according to the couple's wishes," says Eva Lundqvist.
During the planning stages, many questions and practical details including everything from catering to floral arrangements must be dealt with. Obviously, one of the most common issues is the question of attire. Especially for the bride, who may have concerns about bare shoulders and beautiful high-heeled shoes. How do you keep warm and still look lovely in a church made of snow and ice?
The indoor temperature in ICEHOTEL and in the ice church is more or less a constant -5°C. I usually recommend warm garments close to the body and, preferably, a shawl or cape over the shoulders, as well as a pair of warm shoes. Dinner is served in one of our restaurants, so bare shoulders, sheer stockings and high heels are perfect," explains Eva.
"Common to all couples who choose to marry in the ice church at ICEHOTEL is that they are looking for a special, out-of-the-ordinary setting. People want to make their wedding a truly unique event. Many have never experienced winter before. ICEHOTEL's surroundings, with the Northern Lights and sparkling white snow, provide a lovely setting that, despite the cold temperatures, creates a warm and lasting memory," concludes Eva Lundqvist.


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Dallas News Homes / SEARCH: 929 Fairway Ranch Parkway Roanoke, TX 76262
- 4 beds
- 3 baths
- $559,900 price
- 1476192 mls id
- Square Feet: 3,307 sqft
- Neighborhood: Fairway Ranch 75'
Listing Description
Located on ranch land once owned by Byron Nelson, Fairway Ranch is home to one of the largest master-planned communities in the area.. This beautiful community is surrounded by expansive greenbelts, neighborhood parks, miles of trails and acres of waterways. Fairway Ranch preserves the natural surroundings, provides the most sought-after amenities, and promotes long-term value for generations. Fairway Ranch is just a short distance from the Alliance Business Park and the towns of Southlake and Westlake, which offer countless dining, shopping and entertainment options. Students will attend highly-acclaimed Northwest ISD with new on-site elementary school!
- Bhi Subdivision Community Style MasterPlanned
- Builder Website
- NewHomeSource Listing
- NewHomeSource Subdivision Website
- New Construction Yes
Subdivision: Fairway Ranch 75'
929 Fairway Ranch Parkway Roanoke, TX
Dallas News Real Estate Powered by Placester


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The 12" Watts 774 Double Check Assembly was produced from 1998 and is still currently in production. The body is a single cover, stainless steel construction. The cover uses a victaulic style clamp. The check assemblies are self contained plastic cam style. The cam checks are bolted into the body. All 774 models are lead free. No special tools are required for servicing.
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It's time to get out there and experience the world!
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