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Leonardo da Vinci: 500 Years of Genius - Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
2001 Colorado Blvd.
Denver, CO 80205
Phone: 303-370-6000
Website: Click to Visit
Denver, CO 80205
Phone: 303-370-6000
Website: Click to Visit
Mon., May 13, 2019
Inventor, artist, scientist, anatomist, engineer, architect, sculptor, philosopher. Although Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519, his enduring influence comes to life in the new exhibition, Leonardo da Vinci: 500 Years of Genius. You will see why the ultimate Renaissance man remains an inspiration for the ages!
- See nearly 70 of Leonardo's machine inventions, built using detailed concepts from his famous codices (notebooks), including a helicopter, airplane, automobile, submarine, and military tank.
- Explore the exclusive "The Secrets of Mona Lisa," an analysis of the iconic painting conducted at the
Louvre by scientific engineer and photographer Pascal Cotte.
- Be immersed in Leonardo's works through a multisensory cinematic experience using Grande
Exhibitions' SENSORY4 technology.
- Test a Leonardo-inspired catapult, and encounter the Museum's historical enactors, presenting
characters who bring a personal perspective to the story of Leonardo.
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Posted by Editoress on 05/26/03
Times Colonist Cycling Festival
Report courtesy Joanna Fox, Manager Communications, PacificSport Canadian Sport Centre, results courtesy organization
SISU Road Cup
Stage 2: Bastion Square Cycling GP
Senior 1/2Men
Senior Women
Cat 3 Men
Final GC
Senior 1/2Men
Cat 3 Men
For all other results go HERE
Victoria's Melanie McQuaid (Ford Outfitters) and Nanaimo's Matt Usborn (Symmetrics Cycling) were the overall winners of the 2003 Times Colonist Cycling Festival that saw more than 700 cyclists hit the roads of Victoria this weekend.
McQuaid lapped the field to take the B107.3 Bastion Square Grand Prix in 53.37, over a minute faster than former national teammate Lesley Tomlinson of North Vancouver (Rocky Mountain/Crystal Decisions) and Vancouver's Marnie Prazsky (55:07 - Trek/Volkswagen). McQuaid needed the impressive win to clinch the overall title after a fifth place finish in the Cardinal Law Sooke Classic Road Race yesterday, where Leah Goldstein of Vancouver took the win, followed by Sarah Noble (Penticton - Bike Barn) and Tomlinson.
Usborn was the bridesmaid in both races, but had enough points overall to take the title. In today's B107.3 Bastion Square Grand Prix he lost a sprint finish to Olympian Andreas Hestler (North Vancouver - Rocky Mountain/Crystal Decisions). Third and fourth were also decided by a sprint that saw Victoria's Tony Zarsadias (Symmetrics Cycling) take Olympian Geoff Kabush (Victoria - Kona Clarks Factory Team) to the line.
Yesterday Usborn came second in the Cardinal Law Sooke Classic Road Race to Mission's Dylan Sebel. Third was 1988 Olympian Luca Segato (Victoria - Bellcom).
Other Bastion Square Cycling Grand Prix Top 3 results:
Cat 3/Master A & Junior Men: 1 - Max Plaxton (Junior), 2 - Robert Cameron (Vet), 3 - Marsh Cooper (Junior)
Cat 4/Master: B,C,D & Cadet Men: 1 - Charles Detheridge (Vet), 2 - Ryan Clark (Senior), 3 - Steve Morrison (Senior)
Cat 5/Novice Men: 1 - Greg Stubbs (Novice), 2 - Ryan MacDonald (Novice), 3 - Jackson Buehler (Junior)
Cat 4 Women: 1 - Claire Cameron (Senior), 2 - Naomi Cooper (Junior), 3 - Brooklyn Davis (Senior)
Other Sooke Road Race Top 3 results:
Cat 3, Junior & Cadet Men: 1 - Robert Cameron (Vet), 2 - Bradley Fairall (Junior) 3 - Steve Bachop (Vet)
Cat 4 Men: Charles Detheridge (Vet), 2 - David Perrin (Senior), 3 - Steve Morrison (Senior)
Cat 4 Women: 1 - Claire Cameron (Senior), 2 - Naomi Cooper (Junior), 3 - Brooklyn Davis (Senior)
The ING Western Union Tour de Garden City had over 200 riders participate in the various distances and the Tim Horton's Timbits Challenge saw over 120 kids between the ages of 4-12 complete a 900m-lap of the Bastion Square Cycling Grand Prix course. In the Helijet Cops/Courier Challenge, the Courier's team, took the win, followed by the Helijet Frequent Flyers and the Victoria Police Department.
One of the partners of the Times Colonist Cycling Festival is the PacificSport Canadian Sport Centre Victoria, that consists of six national training centres (athletics, cycling, rowing, rugby, swimming, triathlon), and nine regional training centres (badminton, canoe-kayak, curling, cycling, diving, field hockey, swimming, synchronized swimming, tennis). The centre is one of eight Canadian Sport Centres, including Atlantic, Calgary, Montréal, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Vancouver.
|Return to Canadian Cyclist homepage | Back to Top

subset: commoncrawl


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CoPilot Live Premium HD Europe full review
CoPilot GPS is a satnav app for the iPad and iPhone. The basic app is a free download from the app store and includes maps for one country or region free of charge. See all iPad app reviews and iPhone app reviews.
The maps are stored on the iPhone or iPad, and no data connection is required as they are used from the device rather than across a data connection. This has the obvious advantage that when you don't have a data connection available you're not going to lose the directions as to where you need to go. Stored within the maps are points of interest; so if you need to find a hotel it's likely to be within the app; if it's not you can search using the Bing search engine or Wikipedia. See also Group test: what's the best satnav?
You can make a phone call to points of interest directly from the app; a useful touch allowing quick and easy contact with your destination. Take a look at our TomTom app review and Google Maps app review too.
If you're exploring unfamiliar territory on foot you can set the app to walking mode. In this mode the app responds in a form useful for foot-based explorers rather than those in a car; giving pavements rather than roads.
An interesting feature is the inclusion of social network sharing, in that you can let your friends know where you are with updates via Twitter and Facebook. The only potential problem with this is that when letting you friends know via a social networking site that you're not at home you're also letting millions of people you don't know that you're not at home.
Via an in-app purchase you can upgrade to a voice-guided, turn-by-turn, navigation experience; 3d maps; Safety camera alerts; Speed limit warnings and a lane indicator. You can also purchase ActiveTraffic to get an idea of where the most traffic is at any given time.
Of these the voice-guidance and 3D option should really form a part of the basic feature set. Essentially every satnav has these within their most basic feature set, and it's a little difficult to get used to a 2D map with no voice assistance.
CoPilot Live Premium HD Europe: Specs
- Size: 30.4MB
- Languages: English, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
- Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.
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Bonds led the National League with 73 home runs, setting the single-season mark, while A-Rod paced the AL with 52. The Josh Gibson Legacy Award is given annually to the league leaders in home runs. Gibson was considered by many to be the "black Babe Ruth," though some argue that Ruth was the "white Josh Gibson." In 1936, Gibson hit 84 home runs in a season and is still believed to be the only man to hit a ball completely out of Yankee Stadium.
The "Cool Papa" Bell Award is given annually to the National and American League "Stolen Base Leaders." Bell is believed to have been the fastest man to ever play baseball. He was clocked circling the bases in an amazing 11.4 seconds. He once stole 175 bases in just under 200 games and twice scored from first base on a bunt in exhibition games against Major League All-Stars.
The Buck Leonard Award is given annually to the National and American League batting champions. Leonard, who was often referred to as the "black Lou Gehrig," was an outstanding hitter. In 1947, at age 40, he hit .410 for an entire season with the great Homestead Grays.
The Legacy Awards were established by the NLBM to honor Major League Baseball's best with awards given in the name and spirit of Negro League legends.
Rob Scichili and Mark Feinsand are reporters for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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February 2013 by Ronald D. Schultz, MS, Ph.D., Diplomate, ACVM
Audience: Veterinary Team
Video Length: 90 minutes
Are you relying on guesswork to understand what infectious diseases are occurring in your shelter population? Are you unsure what diagnostic tests are available, what the results mean and how reliable they are? Do you think diagnostic tests are not practical or cost-effective in a shelter setting?
Many diagnostic tests can be of tremendous value in helping shelters prevent future outbreaks of infectious disease. Diagnostic testing can also save money and - most importantly - can save animal lives.
Please join us for a free webcast from Maddie's Fund® with leading veterinary researcher Dr. Ronald D. Schultz of the Maddie's® Laboratory for Diagnosis and Prevention of Shelter Diseases at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Schultz will give the audience insights on Cracking the Infection Control Code: Using and Interpreting Diagnostic Tests to Control Infectious Diseases in Shelters.
Information covered will include:
- Diagnostic tests available to aid in diagnosis of infectious diseases in shelters.
- How and when to use the available tests.
- Cost, ease of collecting samples and time to obtain results.
- How to interpret test results.
- How to use test results to control diseases including canine distemper, feline panleukopenia, canine parvovirus and feline and canine infectious respiratory disease complexes.
- What to expect from an effective vaccination program.
Cracking the Infection Control Code: Using and Interpreting Diagnostic Tests to Control Infectious Diseases in Shelters is part of an ongoing series of educational programs from Maddie's Institute, a program of Maddie's Fund®, the nation's leading funder of shelter medicine education. Maddie's Institute brings cutting edge shelter medicine information from universities and animal welfare leaders to shelter veterinarians, managers and staff as well as private practice veterinarians, rescue groups and community members to increase the lifesaving of homeless dogs and cats community-wide.
This course has been pre-approved for Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits.
After viewing the presentation, click here to take the quiz and receive a Certificate of Attendance!
Ronald Schultz, MS, PhD, ACVM
Dr. Schultz, chair of the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, is one of the world's leading experts on veterinary vaccines, virology and immunology. In addition to his work with the Maddie's® Laboratory for Diagnosis and Prevention of Shelter Diseases at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Schultz was the first president of the American Association of Veterinary Immunologists and received the first Distinguished Veterinary Immunologist Award and is a member of the AVMA Feline Vaccine Associated Sarcoma Task Force. Currently, he is a member of the American Animal Hospital Associations' Canine Vaccine Task Force, the American Association of Feline Practitioners' Feline Vaccine Task Force, and the Veterinary Vaccine Group of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association.


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Pro chefs have their kitchen grunts to handle the cleanup but we home cooks have to do it ourselves. And the way to do it is as you go. I think the clean-up is as much a part of the cooking process as the mixing and chopping, the slaughtering of the ox, all that kind of stuff.
I've rarely tackled a cooking task that didn't allow little spaces here and there in which to do some cleanup. Rinse and put away utensils, wash dishes, mixing bowls, pans or get them into the dishwasher. There's always a little extra time to do something. And that something will be one something less to deal with when the cooking and the eating are done.
I make a game of it. I like to have as much as possible cleaned and either put away or in the dishwasher by the time I serve the meal. With the vegetables always at precisely nine O'clock. Not that I'm compulsive or anything. I just like order. A lot of it.
Let's get all Heloise-y here and share some favorite cleanup tips. I'll go first. White vinegar. For everything. I mix it half and half with water and keep it in a spray bottle. Great for counters and stainless. You?
"...you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again."
– Joan Rivers


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Pirate Party Wants To Host The Pirate Bay From Inside The Swedish Parliament
from the will-access-be-blocked-now? deptNo matter how you feel about The Pirate Party of Sweden, you do have to give them credit for knowing how to make a statement. Back in May, we noted that the Swedish Pirate Party had agreed to start hosting The Pirate Bay. Despite what many believe, The Pirate Bay and The Pirate Party are two totally separate entities, so this bringing them together in some form was a bit of a surprise. However, it looks like The Pirate Party is taking this effort a step further to make its point clear: it wants to host The Pirate Bay from inside the Swedish Parliament. Of course, to do that it needs to win some seats in the September election, and it's not clear if it will be able to do so (even if it has won seats in the EU Parliament).
The idea of hosting it from Parliament is that apparently the Swedish constitution has a clause that gives "Parliamentary Immunity" in any lawsuit, for actions that were part of a political mandate, and thus it would effectively shield itself from the laws by embedding itself within Parliament. The party's platform is also probably going to get some attention for taking extreme positions like making lawsuits against non-commercial file sharers illegal. Ditto for suing service providers who are merely linking to copyrighted material.
Obviously, no one expects most of these platform issues to become law, but the idea is to highlight how the entertainment industry has effectively done the same thing, using the law to prop up its own business model, outlaw perfectly reasonable activities and generally try to shield themselves with politicians. While it does feel quite a bit like a big publicity stunt, for a party like The Pirate Party, that's often what it needs to do to get attention.
In all of this, there is a serious and very real point, though, that many will probably miss. This isn't about "getting stuff for free." There are very real economic consequences to constantly outlawing technological innovation:
"Sweden has long been a nation at the forefront of IT. But we have fallen in the rankings, largely because today's politicians do not see the connection between file-sharing culture and future industry skills. We have now moved from place form place three to eight in available household bandwidth.... We can never accept the copyright industry's way of systematically and legally harassing anyone who tries to build next-generation industries. The approach is criminal in the world and should be criminal in Sweden also, professional saboteurs are professional criminals, whoever they get their money from,"Copyright system defenders will, undoubtedly, scoff at this claim, but it is making an important point. If the copyright industries had their way, all sorts of important technologies that it deemed awful "pirate" technologies would never have existed. Player pianos, radio, the VCR, mp3 players. It's incredibly shortsighted of the industry to keep working so hard to try to ban the technology that may become the next huge innovation that drives more and more revenue for the industry.
Filed Under: pirate party
Companies: the pirate bay


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Yesterday an architect friend sent me a rather interesting article about the contemporary American artist Jeff Koons, which happened to re-trigger a thought process I had begun but abandoned some months ago regarding the American pop artist Andy Warhol. Those of you who know me or read these pages regularly might be surprised to find me writing about these two artists, but as I often do I beg you to bear with me. I think you will be rather surprised.
Jeff Koons (born 1955) is originally from Pennsylvania, and after studying in Chicago and Baltimore moved to New York in the 1970's. He has been something of a controversial figure in the art world and in popular culture for some time now. He is famous – or infamous, depending on how you look at – for creating works of art that are often regarded as bizarre, deeply offensive, or simply tacky objects of kitsch. Some tamer examples of his work include "Puppy", a giant, 43-foot-tall topiary in the form of a dog; and arguably his most famous work, "Michael Jackson and Bubbles", an 18th century-style gilded, white porcelain sculpture, depicting the late pop star and his pet chimpanzee.
There is no question that Koons is an artist whose work is often difficult to like. Looking at an exhibition or catalogue of his output, he veers seemingly without explanation from humor to pornography, from childlike delight to repulsive blasphemy. What some also find objectionable, beyond his sometimes prurient subject matter, is that more often than not Koons himself does not actually make any of the art which bears his name. Instead, he employs a veritable factory of assistants who produce his work, based on his ideas.
Interestingly enough, this production method ties him rather closely to the example of another controversial American artist, albeit from an earlier generation. Like Koons, the hugely influential pop artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987) also hailed from Pennsylvania, and left the relative sanity of the Keystone State to pursue his career in New York. Warhol established a "factory" method for his famous colored prints of Campbell's soup cans and Elizabeth Taylor, whereby he himself was not actually producing the art, in most cases, as indeed Koons was to do later.
Subject matter aside, it should be pointed out that this method of an artist's workshop producing work in the name of an artist, rather than the artist producing it all himself, is more traditional than might first appear. Today we think of the artist as toiling away in solitude, covered in sweat, paint, or flakes of marble, in some attic studio, but this is a comparatively recent phenomenon. As I wrote about recently in regard to the contemporary copy of Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" from The Prado, which was recently restored to glorious effect, many artists like Leonardo, Rubens, and Murillo had young artists-in-training who apprenticed with them, in order to learn the trade themselves.
This method of art production, controversial as it may be to some, turns out to be a clue to what we might call a kind of krypto-conservatism on behalf of both these very unconventional men. There is no question that Koons and Warhol challenge notions of the nature of art, such as what is and is not acceptable, both in their subject matter and in their way of producing art. However it is rather interesting that in order to do so they returned to a pre-modern philosophy, more common to the 16th century than the 20th, in order to achieve it.
And what is even more interesting is the fact that despite all of their hipster swagger, preaching a new world of self-indulgence to a godless congregation, both Koons and Warhol are rather different when they are off-stage. In their respective home lives, in the nests they create for themselves away from the paparazzi and the glitterati, they turn out to be not only somewhat conservative, but downright traditional. The reader will be rather surprised to learn that these two artists, known for their bad taste in the art they themselves produced, in fact display rather refined tastes in their own homes.
Koons lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan – not exactly a bohemian, starving artists community – in a home designed by architect Peter Pennoyer, chairman of the Institute of Classical Architecture. His traditional home is filled not with his own art, but with the work of well-established, great Western artists of the past six centuries, that read like a solidly thought-out collection from some conservative banking or industrialist family: Eduard Manet, Gustave Courbet, Nicholas Poussin, Quentin Massys, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and others. There is no bare-bones, cold glass and concrete living, here.
Similarly, when Andy Warhol died and Sotheby's was called in to value the contents of his Manhattan residence – again, an elegant, traditional house on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, and not some grungy bedsit in Alphabet City – they were shocked to find that in private, Warhol lived like a descendant of colonial gentry. He filled his house with things like museum-quality furniture from the American Federal period of the early 19th century, creating rooms that would look perfectly at home in the White House or the mansion of a Boston Brahmin family. Whatever his public persona may have been, in his private life Warhol was not living with furniture made out of plastic.
Both of these challenging, difficult artists play the offending fool in public, yet adopt the role of the tasteful courtier in private. In this respect they are not unlike other challengers of the status quo in modern history, such as Voltaire or Marx, who despite what they said or did in public, in their private lives sought out and enjoyed the kinds of luxuries which are normally considered the benefits of being successful members of the establishment. By acquiring such accoutrements, whether consciously or not, they betray a realization that the supposedly bourgeois values of tradition, comfort, and good taste are not such bad things as they are made out to be, by those who claim to abhor such things.
Of course it would be easy to simply dismiss such people as being nothing more than hypocrites. Yet the better way to absorb this knowledge is to look at it as a challenge to some assumptions held by those who seem to attack traditional ideas about culture, taste, and so on, as well as our own perceptions of both such persons and the relative strength of their convictions. In the end, perhaps the power of tradition is not so dead a thing as we have often been led to believe.


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The World Wants a Solution to Climate Change: Here It Is
- Dec 10, 2012 8:30 pm GMT
- 386 views
This week in Doha, Qatar, world leaders are struggling with how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast enough, and in amounts great enough, to protect people from the droughts, food shortages, rising sea levels, and severe weather events that climate change is likely to bring.
Leaders are debating a range of solutions including carbon sequestration and policies and practices to help people prepare for the effects of climate change ("adaptation"). In fact, world leaders have been meeting to discuss possible solutions to climate change for 20 years. Yet the cheapest, cleanest, and fastest resource the world has for reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains vastly underused: energy efficiency.
Energy efficiency means better practices and technological innovations that reduce energy consumption while getting the same or better results. Airtight houses that keep people comfortable. Cities with clean, fast public transit, light bulbs that produce the same amount of light for a fraction of the energy—these practices and technologies have been around for decades, yet they still aren't the norm. (See results of ACEEE International Scorecard where the highest score awarded for any country was just 67 out of 100.) The question that should concern leaders is, Why?
A new analysis by ECOFYS and commissioned by Philips for the United Nations Climate Change Conference estimates that energy efficiency can generate over a third of the emissions reductions we need by 2020. An ACEEE analysis found that in the United States the potential savings are even greater. Meanwhile, vast amounts of energy are wasted through outdated and inefficient practices while the greenhouse gases emitted by fossil fuels used to power these practices continue to billow into the sky.
If the world is going to address climate change in a meaningful way, world leaders must look beyond present policies that cling to old, outdated practices and technologies and instead adopt policies that will shape a future we all want to live in. Energy efficiency will help us get there.
Thank Sara for the Post!
Energy Central contributors share their experience and insights for the benefit of other Members (like you). Please show them your appreciation by leaving a comment, 'liking' this post, or following this Member.


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GRAMMY PERFORMANCES: The good, the bad and the ugly?
WATCH ABOVE as National Entertainment editor Mark Daniell and music critic Jane Stevenson look at who killed it and who tanked at the Grammys.
What do YOU think?
Tweet and Facebook us!
And don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel.


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Angie Tibbs is Senior Editor of Dissident Voice and Editor of Poetry on Sunday. She can be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.com. Read other articles by Angie.
This article was posted on Thursday, July 6th, 2017 at 2:36am and is filed under .
The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice Fredrik deBoer
US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide Gideon Polya
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History Nur Masalha
The Case for a Job Guarantee Pavlina R. Tcherneva
Capital and Ideology Thomas Piketty
Black Panther in Exile: The Pete O'Neal Story Paul Magnarella
No More War Dan Kovalik
The Activists Rainer Link
This Side of Too Late Gary Wenkle Smith
Those Who Hold Up the Earth Peter F Crowley
by Angie Tibbs / July 6th, 2017
This article was posted on Thursday, July 6th, 2017 at 2:36am and is filed under .
All content © 2007-2020 Dissident Voice and respective authors | Subscribe to the DV RSS feed | Top


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The Help
Emma Stone stars as a young woman in the South who befriends two black maids and encourages them to write about their lives and the indignities they suffer at the hands of their employers. Read our theatrical review and watch the trailer
The Hangover Part II
The Wolf Pack heads of to Thailand to celebrate Stu's second wedding, but once again things go horribly, horribly wrong. Read our theatrical review and watch the trailer
The Debt
Sam Worthington and Jessica Chastain are members of a team of Mossad agents sent to Berlin to capture a Nazi war criminal, Helen Mirren plays Chastain's older self, who most come out of retirement to clean up the mess they left behind. Read our theatrical review and watch the trailer
Cowboys & Aliens
Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde and Harrison Ford star in this comic-book adaptation about what happens when spaceships come down out of the skies over the Old West. Read our theatrical review and watch the trailer
Bobby Fischer Against the World
A fascinating documentary that looks back and the bizarre and tragic life of perhaps the greatest chess player who ever lived, and his decent into madness. Read our review and watch the trailer
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Jim Carrey stars in an adaptation of the beloved children's book about a New Yorker who inherits a flock penguins and teaches them to dance. Watch the trailer
Point Blank
A French thriller about a man in a race against time through the streets of Paris save his pregnant wife, who's been taken hostage. Watch the trailer
Life, Above All
Following the death of her baby sister, a young South African girl soon learns that her family is the target of vicious rumors that destroy her family and send her mother on the run. Watch the trailer
A French thriller about the kidnapping of a wealthy industrialist who begins to lose his grip while being held for a ransom that makes his family consider just exactly how much he's worth. Watch the trailer
New on Home Video: "The Help," "The Hangover II," "Cowboys & Aliens" Lead the Pack
The Help


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For those steering garden restorations, these are exciting times. Not only are research methods more sophisticated – field archaeology is now routinely used and tools such as aerial photography reveal historical features – but the amount of money available, compared with, say, the early Eighties, is staggering.
Recent completions say it all: Chiswick House, £12 million; Victoria Park in East London, £12 million, Great Dixter, £8 million and Lowther Castle, which is midway through its project, £9 million. The "seismic shift" in funding, as Dominic Cole, chairman of the Garden History Society, describes it, owes much to the existence of the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), which currently has £375 million a year to invest in heritage projects in Britain, and to the Big Lottery Fund, which has allocated £5 million this year for the rejuvenation of parks and cemeteries in England.
This doesn't mean fund-raising is easy. Organisations such as English Heritage and the National Trust rely on teams of skilled fund-raisers – but as John Watkins, head of gardens and landscapes at English Heritage, explains, "gardens are now assessed in the same way as other heritage assets, where once they felt like add-ons."
Garden owners have to think much wider than historical accuracy. They must get the visitors in (and keep them coming back). So from the start they have to provide "two Ps and T": somewhere to park, to pee and to take tea. Even Lowther, which aims to keep the romantic "lost garden" feel of the former Chatsworth of the North, opened with the Stable Courtyard reborn as a café and exhibition centre.
Another noticeable change is the extent to which volunteers are being used. The Olympic Games Makers sparked a surge of interest in volunteering around the country. In part, using volunteers is pragmatic: they can free up the trained gardeners to do the more skilled tasks. But it is also a key element in the sustainability of these gardens. In some cases, such as at Battersea Park, volunteers have formed themselves into friends groups and are driving the recovery of their green spaces.
The long-term future of parks is less certain. Although many have had well-funded restorations through the Parks for People programme – eight major regenerations were completed in London alone this year – local authority cuts are already biting, raising the prospect of friends groups or private trusts taking on their management. Here are 10 of the UK's best restored spaces.
Wrest Park, Silsoe, Bedfordshire
Two years ago an HLF grant of £1.14 million kick-started a 20-year restoration project at this 90-acre historic garden. Previously owned by the de Grey family, with help from Thomas Wright, Batty Langley and Capability Brown, Wrest is now in the custodianship of English Heritage, which is tackling the formal gardens close to the house first. This "best kept secret" is gradually revealing the elements, including the Versailles-like Long Water punctuated by the baroque Thomas Archer pavilion, that explain its Grade 1 listing. The Ladies Lake, restored and refilled, is now presided over by the statue of Diana that first stood there in the 1730s. The French Parterre, meanwhile, has been restored to its early 20th-century design of patterned box-edged beds, giant Versailles planters planted with Portuguese laurels and pencil junipers. In 2013 the American Garden will be restored (01223 582700; english-heritage.org.uk).


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European Football Weekends Czech correspondent, Iain Thomson takes one last look at the best floodlights in Europe before - deep breath now everyone - they are hauled down.....
This report, my first for EFW, is rather belated due to a terminal case of having-lots-on-my-plate-and-not-getting-round-to-it, but here you go:
The Czech winter break is a long one, lasting from mid-November to the end of February. Winter breaks in surrounding countries also mean that the months of December and January can be rather barren for football. So it came as a great relief when the last weekend in February came round and offered up the first round of spring fixtures in the Czech top-flight, the 1. Gambrinus liga.
While the main event of the footballing weekend for me was Monday's pairing of Baník Ostrava (my Czech team) and Sparta Prague (boo!), the chosen match for Saturday was at the opposite end of the country...
This isn't a true case of 'groundhopping', as I've been resident in the Czech Republic for six years now, and have been to Plzen before; in fact this was, in total, my eighth football-related visit there. However, Plzen has a lot to offer and it's always a pleasure to go back.
Before the game started, we visited Pivovar Purkmistr, one of four microbreweries in the city (not counting the more well-known Pilsner Urquell) for some lunch, where we enjoyed a fantastic meal and beer for very reasonable prices, and were also joined by a busload of Hradec Králové fans, who, I'm happy to say, were in good spirits, spending most of the time singing and being generally well-behaved. After this it was back into town and straight to the stadium.
FC Viktoria Plzen are the only professional team in the city (with a population of about 170,000, it's the fourth-biggest in the Czech Republic), and are currently enjoying the most successful period in their history: last year, they won the Czech Cup for only the second time, and topped that this year by winning their maiden league title (which was clinched two days prior to the writing of this article). The current squad features a slew of ex-Sparta players, the most well-known of whom is playmaker Pavel Horváth, who has previously enjoyed spells, albeit brief, at clubs such as Sporting Lisbon, Galatasaray and Vissel Kobe.
The opposition, newly-promoted FC Hradec Králové, came to the match in fine form, having guided themselves to mid-table respectability, and were never seriously in danger of relegation. I was expecting a good match, and that's how it turned out, with Plzen never quite imposing themselves and Hradec giving them a game. Plzen were still able to make it 2:0 with two second-half goals, with Hradec scoring at the death to make it 2:1.
Plzen's stadium, the Stadion ve Štruncových sadech, dates from the mid-50s and is situated bang in the centre of town, a stone's throw away from the old town and just across the river from the famous Pilsner Urquell brewery (and just as close to another, very nice, microbrewery, Pivovar Groll). The stadium, with a capacity of 7,500, formerly consisted of a massive main stand, with a ten-row deep row of crumbling terracing (some sections with plastic seats bolted on) surrounding an athletics track.
This was to be my last visit to the ground in this form - reconstruction work to make the ground UEFA-compliant and get rid of the track and terracing started in April and is due to be completed in the autumn. It's a shame as the ground is (was) one of my favourite professional grounds in the country. Happily, the imposing main stand will be retained, with the pitch being brought closer to this and three entirely new stands being constructed along the other sides. Sadly, it looks like the memorable floodlights (two massive pylons, each with two sets of lights) will have to go...
So, absolutely terrible news with Europe's best floodlights about to be 'filed under bin'. And to be replaced by what? EFW did a little bit of research, and were truly disgusted to unearth the plans for the new stadium. Work on that sterile ground is already underway. It's the kids I feel sorry for. Imagine a whole lifetime of identikit stadiums. On the plus side, Hradec Kralove, with their Trencin-like floodlights, will still be in their traditional (unreconstructed) stadium next season. Where do we sign?


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"We need to step up what I call the incremental success the industry has had to date to lead a major transformation in the energy sector," Susan Reilly, CEO of RES Americas and incoming chair of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) told delegates at AWEA's annual conference in Las Vegas in May.
Central to that transformation, she said, is the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "I think carbon is going to be a major driver for our industry," Reilly said.
Utilities and large corporations, such as Exxon and Microsoft, are increasingly taking steps to price carbon within their business projections, said Gabriel Alonso, CEO of EDP Renewables North America. "The trend is there. There is growing concern about carbon risk," he said.
That concern has yet to prompt Congress, long reluctant to wade into the climate-change debate, to act. "Fundamentally we need policies that properly value carbon-free electricity like wind, which is not happening today," Alonso said.
AWEA's main priority will be to change that, said Reilly. But for now, the industry is pinning its hopes on new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules limiting carbon emissions from existing fossil-fuel generation. "We're very optimistic that the EPA regulations could create up to 17GW of demand for our industry," said Mark Albenze, CEO of Siemens Energy's wind business in the Americas.
Tighter carbon-emission rules
The EPA is currently collecting feedback on its proposal, with an eye to finalising the regulations in June 2015. But there could be roadblocks to overcome if some coal-producing states decide to challenge the agency's plan.
"There may be litigation in the future," said Jay Godfrey, managing director of energy marketing and renewables at American Electric Power (AEP), one of the country's largest utilities. "We are all just going to have to ride the wave until it hits the beach and we see what happens."
Analysts expect the biggest impact of the EPA regulations for wind energy will be an increase in power prices as cheaper base-load coal supply is replaced largely with gas generation. "Then wind can compete by selling into that power price," said Amy Grace, North American wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
With the increase in gas use, regulators and state policymakers will also be looking to wind as a hedge against some of the risk associated with gas-price volatility.
Water usage by gas-fired plants is also a growing concern, with 2013 being the driest year in recorded California history and some states, such as Oklahoma, have been grappling with severe drought conditions for the last four years. "I think water scarcity is going to be a significant issue, and I do believe it will significantly favour wind and solar as a consequence," said Dan Shreve, a partner at Make Consulting.
Every advantage wind energy can present to potential buyers will be critical to creating new opportunities, delegates heard. Load growth in the US is relatively flat and the state renewable-energy mandates that have driven much of the demand for wind energy to date are beginning to wane. Only about 28GW of new wind capacity will be needed to meet state renewable portfolio standards (RPS) through 2025, noted Tom Darin, AWEA's director of western state policy. "We need more tools to create demand," he said.
Creating demand
Selling the value of wind energy to regulators that approve utility generation acquisition plans is one of those tools, said Ron Binz, former chair of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. He pointed to an analysis Xcel Energy did as part of its 2013 Colorado integrated resource plan showing that the addition of gas generation by itself was more expensive than adding the same gas plant along with new wind generation. Key to Xcel's findings were the fuel savings the utility would realise by backing off gas generation when the wind capacity was generating.
It is not the kind of analysis that regulators, who are focused almost entirely on the relative cost of competing generation sources, are used to seeing. "But it is the kind of argument that has got to be sharpened and presented to people who are making decisions about wind on a dollars and cents basis," Binz said.
Regulators can have an enormous influence on the role wind plays in utility supply mixes, agreed AEP's Godfrey. "Ironically, the two states where we've added the most wind, Indiana and Oklahoma, do not have an RPS. But they have state utility commissions that are willing to listen."
PTC dependency
While the focus of the conference was clearly on moving the US wind sector past its dependence on the on-again, off-again production tax credit (PTC), it was equally clear the industry is not ready to give up on the $0.023/kWh incentive in the near term.
"Without it, industry would not have had the tremendous growth it has. We still need some support here to enable us to get the technology development cycles that are necessary to compete in a subsidy-free world," said Anne McEntee, GE's vice-president for renewables.
The PTC has a material impact on the market for US wind, with analysts such as Bloomberg's Grace forecasting annual installations in the 3-5GW range without the tax credit, compared with 7-8GW with it in place. But it also has detrimental effects that are becoming more pronounced as the industry works to lower the cost and increase the competitiveness of wind.
"One of the interesting things about the US market is that you can't innovate too much because of the PTC structure," said Scott Baron, global product line leader at developer and turbine manufacturer Acciona Windpower.
Tax-equity investors and other financiers tend to be risk-averse, requiring the use of proven technologies in projects. "You can't push something too radical into the market," said Baron. "Generally you are better off making incremental improvements to your platforms." The cyclical nature of the PTC also adds to costs. During PTC booms, towers are more expensive because of shortages in supply, for example, but during the bust part of the cycle tower makers struggle to keep plants open in the face of depressed demand.
"The relatively high volatility in the market is not necessarily supporting reductions in the levelised cost of energy," said Peter Nickelsen, head of product integrity at Siemens Wind Power.
The latest expiration of the PTC, at the end of 2013, has created a whole new set of issues for developers and turbine makers alike. Projects had to begin construction by the end of 2013 to qualify for the credit, either by spending 5% of total project costs or actually starting physical work on the project. They also need to come online by the end of 2015 in order to avoid scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
While many larger, well-capitalised developers were able to incur at least 5% of project costs, a standard that can be measured with relative ease, some smaller companies could not get access to the capital to make that kind of investment. "Their projects weren't actually mature enough, but yet they are still trying to qualify in this window," said David Hardy, vice-president of sales at Vestas.
Qualification uncertainty
Their only choice was to start physical work on their projects, but there is significant uncertainty about how much they actually had to get done to satisfy the IRS. Until that is clarified, investors are sitting on the sidelines, unwilling to commit to projects that may or may not be eligible to collect tax credits. As much as a third of the 12GW of US projects under construction at the end of 2013 could be in jeopardy - a prospect that is reverberating through all parts of the industry.
For turbine makers, there is significant uncertainty about whether some of the orders currently on their books will fall through. "That, of course, puts a lot of stress on the entire supply chain," Nickelsen said.
For developers, time is running out to firm up their turbine orders if they want to assure delivery in time to meet the 2015 commissioning deadline. "If we wait three more months or so it is going to be a bad situation," said Gonzalo Onzain, Gamesa vice-president of sales and marketing.
Another PTC extension would ease the situation by giving everyone more time to bring projects to fruition. The uncertainty could also drive significant mergers and acquisition activity. "If some of the smaller developers who have a power purchase contract are having difficulty executing on their project, they'll be snapped up by the larger independent power producers," said Andy Lubershane, a senior analyst at IHS Emerging Energy Research. "That will allow projects to get built. Not all of them, but some."
While a drop in attendance, from an estimated 10,000 in 2014 to nearly 8,000 this year, seemed reflected in a less-than-bustling exhibition floor, there was also a sense of optimism that the potential for continued growth is strong. "We're seeing developer talk not only about current projects but also future projects," said Daniel McDevitt, CEO of Nordex USA. "That's a good sign compared to let's say a year or so ago."
There was also a lot of discussion, both in and out of the conference's educations sessions about operations-and-maintenance strategies and enhancing the performance of existing facilities. "There is a lot of money and huge investment opportunities associated with a 61GW installed capacity base," said Shreve.


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Oh, man. Kottke delivers with this post on how to buy olive oil. It stars Tom Mueller who wrote an absorbing book about olive oil (birthday gift from mom).
I use a basic Fairway brand for cooking and then have a couple of nicer ones for more delicate things like salads. Frantoia does me right though I'm far from an expert.


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The most common types of hearing loss are noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) and presbycusis. NIHL is the result of exposure to excessive amounts of noise. Presbycusis is a gradual hearing loss in both ears that commonly occurs as people age. However there are more than 100 different causes of hearing loss. Here are just a few that help to outline the complexity of the auditory system and the multitude of ways in which it can be damaged. Frankly, it's miraculous that a problem that affects more than 36 million Americans isn't more prevalent.
Acquired hearing loss is defined as a loss of hearing that occurs or develops some time during a person's life but was not present at birth. The first list are problems that can occur in the outer or middle part of the ear. Fortunately a large number of these problems can often times be remedied medically or surgically.
- Cholesteatoma – A type of skin cyst located in the middle ear and skull bone (mastoid).
- Otitis Media – An infection of the middle ear.
- Osteomas – Small bony growths in the outer ear canal that can grow to completely block the ear canal.
- Eustachian Tube Dysfunction – The tube that allows your ears to equalize pressure between the middle ear and the back of your throat is not functioning normally.
- Benign Tumors of the Outer or Middle Ear
- Otitis Externa – An infection in the outer ear canal
- Otosclerosis – a hereditary disorder causing progressive deafness due to overgrowth of bone in the inner ear.
Problems that impact primarily the inner ear can be found below.
- Auditory neuropathy – A rare type of hearing loss that is caused by an abnormality in the transmission of nerve impulses travelling from the inner ear to the brain
- Head Trauma – a blow to the head can damage the outer, middle or inner ear or all three sections resulting in a temporary or permanent hearing loss depending on the location and the extent of the damage.
- Acoustic Trauma – A sudden, extremely loud noise (such as an explosion, gunshot, or firecracker), which can damage any of the structures in the ear, causing immediate and permanent hearing loss.
- Viral Infection – Can lead to sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL) in one or both ears
- Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease – a syndrome of progressive hearing loss and/or dizziness that is caused by antibodies or immune cells which are attacking the inner ear. In most cases, there is reduction of hearing accompanied by tinnitus (ringing, hissing, roaring), which occurs over a few months.
- Meniere's Disease – This typically causes dizziness, hearing loss, ringing in the ears (tinnitus) and a sensation of fullness or stuffiness in one or both ears. Meniere's disease occurs when excess fluid causes swelling in the inner ear.
- Otosclerosis – a hereditary disorder in which a bony growth forms around a small bone in the middle ear, preventing it from vibrating when stimulated by sound.
- Acoustic Neuroma – A slow-growing tumor of the nerve that connects the ear to the brain, usually benign.
Hearing loss that occurs at birth is called congenital hearing loss. Congenital hearing loss can be caused by non-genetic (not inherited) or genetic (inherited) factors. Genetic factors are thought to cause more than 50% of all hearing loss. Hearing loss from genetic defects can be present at birth or develop later on in life.
Non-Genetic Factors
- Maternal Infections (rubella, cytomegalovirus, or herpes simplex virus)
- Anoxia (a lack of oxygen)
- Low Birth Weight
- Toxins (including drugs and alcohol consumed by the mother during pregnancy)
- Rh Factor Incompatibility
- Maternal Diabetes
- Toxemia
Genetic Syndromes (where hearing loss is one factor of one of a group of signs or symptoms that together indicate a specific disease)
- Waardenburg Syndrome
- Branchio-Oto-Renal (BOR)
- Neurofibromatosis Type II (NFII)
- Stickler Syndrome
- Treacher-Collins Syndrome
- Usher Syndrome
- Alport Syndrome
- Jervell and Lange-Nielson Syndrome
- Pendred Syndrome
- CHARGE Syndrome
- X-Linked Congenital Stapes Fixation with Perilymph Gusher
For more information on the syndromes listed above, please visit Boys Town National Research Hospital.
Most hearing loss that occurs beyond the outer and middle ear tends to be permanent. Fortunately most individuals suffering with hearing loss can be helped with hearing aids. Call our office. We can help get you on the path to better hearing today.


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Our VPL-FHZ55 3LCD laser projector gives visitors to Georgia Aquarium a thrillingly immersive visual experience. Replacing the aquarium's fleet of conventional projectors, the reliable VPL-FHZ55 has cut maintenance requirements while delivering fabulous image quality, day after day.
Laser projection by Sony has slashed maintenance needs while boosting picture quality at Georgia Aquarium, the largest aquarium in the western hemisphere.
The spectacular colour, contrast and image clarity of the VPL-FHZ55 3LCD laser projector has helped capture the imagination of visitors at the popular aquarium that opened in 2005. Exhibits at the 10 million gallon attraction include underwater video footage of reefs and sea otters, plus a rear-projected fog curtain that creates the illusion of an underwater kelp forest.
Downtime is a no-no for the AV team at Georgia Aquarium who struggled against tough conditions with a costly and time-consuming maintenance programme for their previous fleet of conventional projectors. Something had to change, and our groundbreaking laser projector provided the opportunity to cut lamp/filter replacement and labour costs in a harsh operating regime.
Installed last year, ten FHZ55 laser projectors have been running non-stop for up to 13 hours a day during peak times at the busy visitor attraction.
"We had high expectations for the Sony laser projectors, and they've surpassed them," says Ryan Sheorn, Manager of Audio/Video at Georgia Aquarium. "We don't perform maintenance while our doors are open to the public, so staff members have one of the most challenging tasks — avoiding any downtime whatsoever. With the VPL-FHZ55, we have a solution that is a breakthrough across the board. It makes our work easier and reduces costs while delivering the necessary 'wow' factor for audiences."
"When I first heard about this breakthrough technology, I knew it could be just what we've been looking for" notes Ryan. "Then, when we got hands-on with Sony's VPL-FHZ55, there was no question."


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Awards, Agreements, and Apprenticeship Orders Made Under the Industrial Relations Act, the Labour Relations Act, the Apprenticeship Act, and Other Industrial Legislation for the Year ..., Volume 87, Part 9
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This blog post covers the third of three panel/sessions at GeoM, held at MIT's NERD Center on Monday. It was hosted by Mike Schneider, SVP Director, Digital Incubator for agency Allen & Gerritsen. For highlights of the 1st panel, click here. For highlights of the 2nd panel, click here. Also, these highlight blog posts may be a bit jumpy, because they are comprised of the tweets I made during the sessions.
This final panel of the day was moderated by Mike Schnieder, and featured Dennis Crowley, founder of Foursquare, Seth Priebatsch, founder of SCVNGR, and Jeff Holden, CEO of Whrrl.
Dennis Crowley began by explaining that Foursquare was the successor to Dodgeball, which was a project he started while a student at NYU. He later sold Dodgeball to Google. He realized Dodgeball had a limited audience/purpose, so later designed Foursquare to appeal to a broader audience. Dennis also explained that check-ins are the beginning of the story, not the end. The data generated can be used for tons of interesting stuff.
The whole panel noted that marriage proposals as well as breakups are now happening via geolocation sites.
Jeff Holden: "Places are more semantically rich than simply location, so the check-in is what's important because the person has decided to designate the place that they currently are."
Seth Priebatsch: "Instead of check-ins, @scvngr is based on challenges."
Dennis Crowley: "Local merchants are now encouraging people to check-in via foursquare. That aspect was never anticipated by us. Reality TV (Bravo etc) shows overlap nicely with foursquare because both are reality-based. Reality TV viewers can now visit and check-in to the places where their favorite shows occur."
Seth Priebatsch: "SCVNGR's big goal is to build a game-layer on top of the whole world."
Seth Priebatsch also asks "What's the social coefficient of your store's location?" (How many people go there with friends?) "This type of metric has never been thought about before, because the data wasn't available. Now it is. When you visit a store or a place with friends, loyalty goes up, and people return more often. It's a more valuable social experience."
Dennis Crowley: "Mayors are our best salesforce."
Dennis Crowley: "It's not about the check-in, it's about what you do with the data/knowledge."
Jeff Holden explained that his background is in recommendation engine from Amazon. That's where his love for serendipitous discovery came from.
Seth Priebatsch: "The world has not yet reached its fun quota. We can make the world a lot more fun."
Dennis Crowley: "Just checking-in isn't all that great on its own, it's fast becoming a commodity. We're building things on top of the check-in; it's what you do with the check-in that counts."
Jeff Holden: "We're getting to the point in geolocation where there's enough awareness to get to mass adoption."
Dennis Crowley: "This whole world of geolocation startups, where we're changing the way people interact with their physical environment, is very new. It's a really good, fun time to be exploring in this (geolocation) space."
Jeff Holden: "We're NOW entering the era of the location-based web, which is entirely new, and a very different thing than mobile web. The mobile web was about making the existing internet available on your mobile device. The location-based web is ushering in a new world – a context-aware version of the physical world. These are exciting times!"
Highlights of the 1st panel. Highlights of the 2nd panel. Also, Eric Leist of host A & G has a recap that includes highlights and the blog posts that came out of GeoM.


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A North Carolina State University horticulturist is a member of a team of agricultural scientists that has embarked on what may be a decade-long effort to grow a $100 million broccoli industry on the East Coast.
The effort is backed by a $3.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with an additional $1.7 million in matching contributions from participating private-sector companies. The funding will be used to help develop broccoli varieties to suit conditions in the eastern U.S., recruit farmers, and organize networks for growers and distributors.
Led by Cornell University, the effort includes North Carolina State University, USDA, five other universities and 11 companies, including Raleigh-based L & M Companies.
While some broccoli is grown along the U.S. East Coast, the vast majority of the broccoli purchased and consumed in the eastern U.S. is grown in California and Arizona and trucked across the country, said Jeanine Davis, associate professor of horticultural science in the North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and North Carolina Cooperative Extension specialist. Davis, who is stationed at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River near Asheville, will represent North Carolina State in the project.
"This is an opportunity for our farmers that will result in fresher broccoli for our consumers," said Davis of the project. She added that a central focus of the project will be plant breeding. Most of the broccoli now grown in the eastern U.S. was developed for growing conditions in the western part of the country. Much of this breeding work will be done at a USDA Vegetable Laboratory in Charleston, S.C.
Will look for adapted varieties
Davis will play a role in the search for broccoli varieties suited to East Coast conditions. Beginning in the summer of 2011, Davis will grow from 30 to 75 different broccoli varieties to see which ones do the best. This work will be done at the Mountain Research Station in Waynesville.
It may be that some of these varieties will do well enough that they can be recommended to growers, Davis said. Some varieties may display specific characteristics that plant breeders may then try to tease out and include in new varieties developed specifically for East Coast conditions.
Davis also hopes to learn from the Waynesville plantings how best to grow broccoli for commercial markets. For example, Davis said most North Carolina broccoli growers sell their broccoli at farmers markets, and the broccoli sold at farmers markets tends to have a larger head than broccoli sold in grocery stores. There are only a few North Carolina growers currently producing broccoli on a large commercial scale for grocery stores.
Growers must learn how to produce the kind of broccoli grocery stores want if they are to tap into this lucrative market. That's part of what Davis will be doing, learning how to produce the kind of broccoli grocery stores sell.
She said this effort began last summer with a small planting at the Waynesville agricultural research station. In an effort to produce the smaller, more dome-shaped heads grocery stores want, Davis spaced her plants more closely together than would normally be the case.
As the project moves forward, Davis said she will work with growers to show them how to grow broccoli for grocery stores and develop Extension materials on growing broccoli in the Southeast.
The project is set to run for five years, Davis said, and may then be continued for an additional five years.
Another focus of the project will be the development of a coordinated infrastructure between various sectors of the industry. Economists and extension specialists will work to organize networks of growers, distributors and retailers.
Thomas Bjorkman, associate professor of horticulture at Cornell University, is the project's principal investigator. Said Bjorkman of the project, "Our assembled team of breeders, production specialists and market developers has the breeding stocks and expertise to develop an eastern broccoli industry. We are simultaneously developing a grower base, distribution network and market."


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Posted by Editoress on 05/17/08
BMX Nationals Day 1: A Hot Day in Abbotsford May 16th
Report from Brendan Arnold, Manager High Performance, OCA
Under 30 degree weather the Canadian National BMX Championships started Friday in Abbotsford, BC.
The track was well prepared by BC BMX Head guy, Adam Muys. Friday was Time Trials and many riders were looking to put some final laps together before the racing gets under way on Saturday.
In the Elite Women's class the battle between Christine Miller and Danielle Brisson heated up with Christine posting the fastest time in round 1 and Danielle coming back to post the fastest time in round 2, Danielle was the quickest overall and will be the favourite going into Saturdays championship.
In the Elite Men's class it was all about Crupi's Scotty "The Big Easy" Erwood. Scott put together a fast lap just beating out BC's Nick Goertzen and Alberta's Jimmy Brown for the top 3 spots on Friday. With some warm and windy conditions on Friday the Pro section became the highlight of the session with more than a few Elite Men struggling with the line and speed.
Ontario's Randall Neave also looked very fast on the technical Abbotsford track, Randall will be one to watch come Saturday afternoon.
With a trip to the worlds on the line the competition is sure to hit fever pitch come Saturday afternoon. In the Junior Mens category it was Alex Sailor who posted the fastest time, Alex made quick work of the track and looks to be the favourite going into Saturdays competition.
With 18 degrees and sun expected for Saturday, the racing should be exciting and intense.
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