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Hong Kong Day 2
I'm loving it here! I was out like a light last night and woke up at 7AM. The hotel has a breakfast buffet and I went with my sista, BIL, and twin. We helped ourselves to the greatest scrambled eggs, the sweetest pineapple, the thickest french toast (made with baguettes), and the chunkiest hashbrowns.
I headed to the gym for a workout since I'm eating like there's no tomorrow here. Momma said I wouldn't gain any weight with all the walking I'm doing, but I don't believe her. There's too much good food here!
Headed back to the room to clean up then the twin, sista, and I went to go exchange a jacket my sista had purchased earlier. Ran into my Momma and Dad and the former joined us on our outing while the latter headed back to the hotel–he was over the heat! After we did the exchange (and I purchased a cute polka dot sweater) Momma pointed me to a doggie store. I found an adorable harness and leash set for Lily with strawberries on it and "grandma" bought it for her. I'm still on the hunt for some toys! After that we discovered a shopping plaza and a mall. The latter was HUGE so we were unable to really shop around. I was able to grab some gelato though!
Went back to the hotel to meet up with my Aunty and cousins–they flew in from London! The fam bam welcomed them and we went out for a stroll. There's an alley way with street vendors on both sides. It's so narrow–one person wide and if you take a step to the left or right you're stepping into a 'store'. That took a while so we headed back to the hotel for a buffet dinner. The staff is so nice–they gave us a complimentary bottle of champagne to toast my twin and I. When the both of us got back to the room, they had a cake waiting for us! So so sweet they are 🙂 I don't even know how they found out about our birthday, I believe they just heard about it in passing.
I'm off to go to bed–I'm getting up at 5:30 in the morning tomorrow. The sista, BIL, and I are going for a run through HK!
Things I learned today:
Harem pants are BIG here
Tattooed people (even moreso girls) are a novelty. I caught one guy taking a picture of me with his cell phone and a second man taking a picture of me with his fancy shmancy Nikon DSLR from across the street!
Bamboo is usually used for scaffolding. High rises were being built and stacks and stacks of bamboo line the sidewalks.
HK time: 10:40PM: July 9, 2010
debbie permalinkJuly 9, 2010 9:49 pm
The strawberry harness and leash are going to look great on Lily! Are you a twin? It would have been cute to have the 2 Frenchies!


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subset: commoncrawl


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1323 E. Brady St.
Milwaukee, WI 53202
(414) 727-4217
The multi-leveled lounge design and the occasional live DJ provide a fun and relaxed space for patrons to mingle among friends with unique food and drinks from the full bar, many created with fresh fruit infusions. Daily kitchen hours run until 1 a.m. and allow guests to relax in comfortable lounge style furniture, including several cozy booths.
Recent articles about Crisp Pizza Bar and Lounge
In search of the perfect pizza: Crisp Pizza BarBy Rick Rodriguez - June 12, 2013
Half restaurant, half lounge, Crisp Pizza Bar, 1323 E. Brady St., opened three … Read more...
Crisp keeps pizza interesting on Brady St.By Julie Lawrence - April 07, 2010
A Brady Street newcomer should come to mind when you get a hankering for a hand- … Read more...
Crisp to cut slices on Brady StreetBy Maureen Post - Dec. 04, 2009
Crisp will be a lunch and dinner stop for New York style pizza by the slice or … Read more...
11 comments about this article.
Post a comment / write a review.
Recent Talkbacks ...
Posted by alexinabobina on March 3, 2011 at 1:20 p.m. (report)
I love Crisp pizza bar and lounge! Ive gone there several times and every time I do, I'm pleased. One great experience I had there (about a month ago), was when I went out for a friends birthday. The hostess was friendly and hot, seated us right away. About 2 minutes after that we had a waitress came over and tell us about the food and drink specials. We ordered a few martinis, sweet chili shrimp pizza, funky salads (they have like 100topings), and some calamari. The martinis took about 10min and the food took about 30min, not to mention, it was a really busy night. Go to Crisp pizza bar because the atmosphere is hip, the food is original, the drinks are great quality, the service is good (nice people), and lastly experienced DJs come in at 10pm! Oh and did I mention there are hookahs? Hell yea Go to Crisp pizza bar because the atmosphere is hip (dark, loungy, and experienced DJs that come in at 10pm), the food is original, the drinks are great quality, the service is good (nice people), and lastly
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Posted by smallfry on Sept. 12, 2010 at 12:01 a.m. (report)
service sucks. waitress seated and left us. had to go up to the bar to ask for water. waitress was an airhead and totally left us hanging. practically had to beg to have our order taken and then too, it was screwed up when it arrived. waitress was hanging around bar talking to people and it was NOT busy. didn't seem to care much about the customers and acted like they were doing us a favor by letting us sit there. lousy customer service. won't be going back
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Posted by whoda_thunk_it on June 4, 2010 at 10:30 p.m. (report)
Just finished a table of 4. 3 salads, 2 individual pizzas and 1 large. The salads came after about 10 minutes. Large pizza 15 later. 2 individuals 15 after that. The large pizza looked great, and tasted great...I know since we had time to try it before ours arrived. The individual pizzas seemed to have used the same amount of dough each as the large, but only 1/10 of the toppings. 5 slices of pepperoni (there were more on 1 slice of the large), <1/8 the onions you would find on the average hotdog, less broccoli than you would put on the fork of a 5yr old to eat before they could leave the table, and sadly you could find more cheese on a Cheeto. I'll say they were gracious about the complaints and took 50% off the smaller pizzas, but it wasn't satisfactory. I had no problem with the price or flavor of the ingredients, but a big problem with the timing, micro portions of the toppings, and end product served. I am not an all-you-can-eat person, but do expect to get what is paid for. Typical of current Mke restaurants - charge New York prices but serve Hooville meals, and let your customers grab a burger on the way home...and never see them again. Does anybody remember how great The Social was before they went off the deep end??? I'll give them a second chance, but expect them to go the way of the two previous occupants of the location.
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Posted by Funsize Foodie on April 6, 2010 at 2:49 p.m. (report)
It would be nice if their website was up and running.
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Posted by macy10 on April 2, 2010 at 11:28 p.m. (report)
Hmm when I come back to mke this summer I may have to try:) After living in chicago, and now NYC..I take my pizza (or pie) seriously!!I still do not understand why people fold their pizza when they eat it here!!I always love going to brady st. and hope Crisp is good!
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This is the 12th year that we have published the IA 25, our annual list of the most influential people in and around the advisor industry. All the editors of the Investment Advisor Group—of Investment Advisor and Research magazines and ThinkAdvisor.com—weighed in over several months to choose individuals who in our judgment have been influential, are influential and likely in the future will influence the markets; how advisors invest and plan retirement for clients; and who will affect the regulatory and legislative environment in which advisors operate.
These are women and men whose decisions, intellectual capital, guidance and example—for good or ill—will affect how advisors run their businesses and invest their clients' money.
As you might expect, some of the people on this year's list are repeat honorees—Mark Tibergien has been on the list every year we've published it, while Dale Brown and Deena Katz have been honored eight times. However, there are 11 people (well, 12, counting Dave Drucker and Joel Bruckenstein, whose close partnership allows us to count them as one) who are on the list for the first time.
This is the fourth time that Bill Gross has been a member of the IA 25, and while money has been flowing out of PIMCO's flagship Total Return Fund for some time, we know that advisors continue to be keenly interested not simply in the drama surrounding Mohamed El-Erian's departure, but in Gross' thoughts about the future behavior of the Fed and the direction of interest rates. How do we know that? The analytics that our editors access on an intraday basis confirm our readers' keen interest in Gross. They also display the primary concern of advisors: regulation.
That has been the top worry of advisors and their partners for a number of years, as reflected in our annual Broker-Dealer Presidents' Poll (look for those findings in the June issue), and in TD Ameritrade's annual sentiment survey of its affiliated RIAs for five straight years, as honoree Skip Schweiss told me. That's why we've included on this year's list the SEC's enforcement chief, Andrew Ceresney, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard's Knut Rostad, consumer advocate Barbara Roper, securities attorney Tom Giachetti and the aforementioned Mr. Schweiss. Then there's SEC Chairman Mary Jo White, who shared her insights into what the commission will be focused on in an exclusive interview with our Washington Bureau Chief Melanie Waddell. As in the markets, advisors and their partners hate uncertainty in the regulatory arena as well. Here's hoping for more certainty.
Regulation is not the only issue that keeps advisors up at night, and where smart, passionate people in the industry have real influence on events and products and policies. Advisors are particularly interested in what their peers think and do, so several standout advisors are on the list this year.
In nearly every instance, an editorial staffer interviewed the honorees on our big list, which for convenience sake, we've split up into different categories. While we highlight certain honorees, we list them in alphabetical order by category. Brief vignettes of those interviews occur on the pages that follow, but throughout the month of May, we'll be posting enhanced versions on ThinkAdvisor.com.
And now, we present for your consideration the 2014 IA 25. —James J. Green
Mary Jo White
After declaring that 2014 will be the year that the SEC decides whether to move ahead with a rule to put brokers under a fiduciary mandate, Mary Jo White directed SEC staff to compile a list of "all of the potential options" available to the agency that could be used in drafting a fiduciary rule.
Why? "If the decision were made to impose a uniform fiduciary duty, there are a number of ways to do that," White told IA in an exclusive interview in mid-April.
White announced in a late March speech that "in order to more fully inform the commission's decision on this matter," she had directed SEC staff to compile a list of all those options, including, she said, "a uniform fiduciary standard for broker-dealers and investment advisors when dealing with retail customers, and other measures that may be more targeted and achievable in the shorter term."
As it stands now, White told IA that she has gotten "some initial recommendations and analysis from the staff," to which she has "raised some questions and given some reactions. I'm actively in discussions with the staff on those recommendations and analysis."
The priority, she continued, "is to get those [staff] recommendations before the commission on what I consider to be a very high priority issue for investors."
White decides what those recommendations should be, and then the five-member commission considers them.
In her mid-April talk with IA, White said that she's "driving this [fiduciary] issue because of how important I think it certainly is." However, she stressed, it's a "complex" issue. "It's hard."
White declined to give a formal deadline on when the agency would decide whether to move forward on a fiduciary rulemaking, stating only that deciding whether to reform the advice regulations governing brokers and advisors "is a priority for 2014."
When asked by IA if she believes that investors do not understand the difference between a broker and an advisor, White replied: "I think the data certainly shows that; that there is that investor confusion."
Another "very important aspect" of deciding whether to use its authority under Section 913 of Dodd-Frank is for the commission to determine whether to harmonize the rules for brokers and advisors, which White said would be a separate rule to any fiduciary rulemaking.
Increasing the number of advisor exams is also a "No. 1" issue for White. "You really can't overstate how pressing the need is to increase the exam coverage of investment advisors," White said during the interview. "The metrics are pretty stark; we were able to examine 9% of advisors last year, that's 25% of assets under management."
Despite the SEC exam force being "a lot smarter" by using risk-based exam methods to single out which advisors to examine, White said "that's just not sufficient coverage." While declining to comment on whether a self-regulatory organization could help provide that coverage, White argued that the commission "should be funded" by Congress so that it can boost those exam numbers and said, "I'm pushing very hard for that." —Melanie Waddell (Photo: Getty Images)
Click here to read the extended profile.
Andrew Ceresney
When asked what challenges come with being the sole director of the SEC's most high-profile division, Andrew Ceresney cited keeping pace with the "increased complexity of the misconduct" the enforcement division sees as it relates to products, the markets and "schemes."
"Over time, as matters have become more complex, we've been bringing on more industry experts and we've gotten smarter about using technology," Ceresney told IA. The division is dealing with "very complicated schemes where people are engaging in conduct that's hard to unravel, but we do it through hard work, smarts and the use of technology."
Ceresney said the division is also "litigating more cases." He added that the funding boost for the SEC under President Obama's 2015 budget would help the division handle more complex cases. Financial reporting cases, for instance, "take a lot of time to investigate, and you often have significant amounts of data to review."
The division's five specialized units, which Ceresney said are "all functioning well," include the Asset Management Unit, which focuses on advisor enforcement. "The vast majority of advisors mean to do the right thing and try to comply with the law," he said.
Ceresney said the division has "hesitated" to create additional units because doing so "creates challenges in terms of managing the division because you're creating a new set of supervisors." Instead, the division has created task forces to focus on specific areas, like the financial reporting and auditing as well as the micro-cap and broker-dealer task forces. —Melanie Waddell
Click here to read the extended profile.
Thomas Perez
Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez is being credited with re-energizing the Department of Labor's bid to ensure that a rule to amend the definition of fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act gets reproposed soon.
After being sworn in last July, Perez "immediately started focusing" on DOL's fiduciary rulemaking, said Knut Rostad, president of the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard. "He spoke to pro-fiduciary groups and started his rounds on the Hill to hear the concerns of lawmakers directly."
Perez told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee in mid-April that the redrafting of the proposal that was withdrawn in 2010 "has been slowed down at my direction significantly because we wanted to take a step back [to] listen and learn from everyone."
Said Perez: "The reason we've slowed the [redrafting] process down is that I want to hear from everybody; we've been engaged in a significant amount of outreach, and I've met with a number of senators and congressmen on both sides of the aisle and we're going to continue to do that."
In mid-March, Perez, a graduate of Harvard Law School who has served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, noted the "importance" of the DOL fiduciary plan, stating that a redraft would be arriving "in the coming months" and that DOL would continue its "due diligence" on the rulemaking.
Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Washington-based Better Markets, agreed that Perez going to Capitol Hill "was a smart thing to do," as "a lot of the industry generated misinformation about what the DOL is doing." —Melanie Waddell
Click here to read the extended profile.
Barbara Roper
One would think, said Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, that "the near destruction of the global economy" would have ended the regulation/no regulation debate. However, when it comes to our country's financial system, nothing has changed, and despite a series of successive disasters—the bursting of the tech-stock bubble, the accounting and analyst scandals, the mutual fund scandals and finally, the devastating financial crisis—it's pretty much business as usual on Wall Street.
Many investors, though, are still wary about getting back into the market. Cultivating their trust is of the greatest importance since "the markets depend on investors to provide capital at a reasonable cost," Roper said.
Although financial advisors are doing a stellar job of regaining and cultivating clients' trust for the long term, their efforts are more or less futile in the absence of system-wide financial sector reform and regulation, Roper said, particularly regulation that defines the advisor-client relationship as "a relationship based on trust."
"The broad consensus is to apply a single fiduciary standard to all brokers and advisors alike, but [the regulators] still hesitate to act and bring this one to the table. Now, even a sophisticated investor does not know whether their financial planning professional is an advisor or a broker, and they won't know until the regulation is changed," she said.
Roper serves on the SEC's Investor Advisory Committee. She is the 1991 recipient of NAPFA's Distinguished Service Award and a 2004 recipient of Consumer Action's Consumer Excellence Award. —Savita Iyer-Ahrestani
Click here to read the extended profile.
Knut Rostad
If you want to know about the fiduciary standard, Knut Rostad's your guy. Off the top of his head he'll rattle off details on the Advisers Act, on past SEC rulings, on the Committee for the Fiduciary Standard or the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard, both of which are advocates for the fiduciary standard and both of which he founded. He'll give you informed insight into what the prospects are inside the Beltway for new fiduciary rules from the Department of Labor or the SEC.
Rostad is also realistic. Over the last six months he said there has appeared "greater clarity" in how the SEC might rule on a fiduciary standard, and "it's not an optimistic picture." A rule from the SEC as it stands now would "look like the commercial sales/suitability standard with some extra disclosure requirements. Every broker would proudly proclaim their fiduciary" bona fides, he said, while "brokers wouldn't have to do much different than they do now. Investors would be far worse off."
The DOL, he said, "is a different situation." Rostad said that research from the GAO draws a picture showing that not only are "many, many investors […] not being treated with a fiduciary standard, it's worse: there's not even a suitability standard being met" in providing advice on retirement plans.
"I wonder," he said, "if we're a little too tolerant. Tolerance is good, but apply it to the situation on how advisors are handling clients […] deviating from the fiduciary standard. Leaders among advisors need to say, 'It's wrong.'" —James J. Green
Click here to read the extended profile.
Skip Schweiss
Skip Schweiss knows advisors. Skip Schweiss knows retirement. Skip Schweiss knows Washington. Skip Schweiss knows fiduciary.
So we asked him whether this could be a pivotal year for rulemaking on the fiduciary standard/redefinition at the SEC and the DOL. "I could spend an hour answering that question," he said before giving us the abridged answer. "I say it's like the duck going across the pond: On the surface, nothing seems to be going on, but underneath there's a lot of action, though right now there's no movement." Since "it's a mid-term election year, politicians won't be doing anything." And since "Congress by law has to approve an SRO for an industry, you won't see that this year" either (sorry, FINRA).
What about more SEC funding? "Every year, Obama asks for a 25% budget increase" for the commission, but "they don't get it" because the dollars come out of the House Financial Services Committee, and "the Republicans won't give the SEC a 25% budget increase."
And the SEC? "Mary Jo White hears [about fiduciary] everywhere she goes, but she's got a lot on her plate" that has a higher priority. The Department of Labor, however, "has a less complex mission—to protect retirement plan participants and workers"—than does the SEC with its three-part mission, "which can conflict with one another." While the DOL said its fiduciary redefinition will "come out in August, I'll bet you it doesn't happen then, and not before the election, but maybe shortly after the election." —James J. Green
Click here to read the extended profile.
Janet Yellen
Regardless of who holds the position, the Federal Reserve chairman always plays an influential role in the financial services industry, for both investors and savers. But Janet Yellen, the first woman to serve as the chair of the Fed Board of Governors, arrived in office just as the Fed was beginning to tighten the quantitative easing spigot. As the Fed tapers, many observers worry about the effect on the stock market, while others are worried about the risk of inflation or deflation and everybody is worried about the effect of higher interest rates on economic growth and for the bond market.
Some have wondered, however, if Yellen's tenure will simply be a continuation of her predecessor's.
She said as much in her semiannual monetary policy report before the House Committee on Financial Services in early February, pledging to continue former Chairman Ben Bernanke's work and emphasizing that she expects "a great deal of continuity in the FOMC's approach to monetary policy."
She added that she served on the committee as it formulated the current strategy. "I strongly support that strategy, which is designed to fulfill the Federal Reserve's statutory mandate of maximum employment and price stability," she said in February.
In an interview last year, another IA 25 nominee, Schwab's Liz Ann Sonders, said that while Yellen is a consensus builder like Bernanke, she may not let the consensus-building process go on as long as he was wont to do. "She may make a decision faster," Sonders said. —Danielle Andrus (Photo: Martin Klimek/ZUMA Press/Corbis)
Click here to read the extended profile.
Mark Tibergien
Mark Tibergien is the only person to have won a spot on the IA 25 for the 12 years of its existence. Is there anything new to say about his influence on the overall industry? Does he have anything new to say about the advisor business and its future? There's plenty.
Let's start with his focus on the importance of human capital. It emanates from three places: his experience as an employee; as a business leader at Moss Adams and Pershing; and a "combination of academic and professional studies that validated" what he already suspected.
Tibergien then segues into one of his trademark approaches: applying intellectual and process rigor to people management. "People tend to be somewhat superficial" about their management style, he said. "If you think the key to effective management is to say hello to employees in the elevator, you've missed the message." Properly motivated (or not demotivated) members of your team can accomplish great things. "People are smarter than we give them credit for," while "one of the worst things we can do is to underestimate people." Doing so as a manager, "we create 'dissatisfiers' that take them from being a self-driven person to someone who just wants to get the hell out."
For those advisor owners who are reluctant to let valuable younger employees participate in firm ownership, Tibergien pointed out that older advisors "were at one point younger advisors—they weren't born with gray hair and hemorrhoids," yet somehow "they were able to build businesses."
Moreover, he noted that "every other profession uses a master/intern concept, but for some reason financial services prefers to eat its young." He believes it's necessary for leaders in the industry "to change the conversation about how they're going to develop people," focusing on becoming "an employer of choice."
As for the future, Tibergien said he encourages everyone who has college-age kids "to take a look at" the profession, which is a "terrific business." He does worry, however, that "we're drowning in regulation, some of which contradicts and little that elucidates." His coda? "It's a tremendous opportunity—there's still a lot of money that has to be managed." —James J. Green (Photo: David Johnson)
Click here to read the extended profile.
Dale Brown
This is the eighth year that Dale Brown has been on the IA 25 list. It also marks the 10th year that FSI, the advocacy group for independent broker-dealers, has existed. By day, the BD members of FSI are fierce business competitors, so how does Dale Brown keep these rivals cooperating with each other?
"Over 10 years, we've had a laser-like focus on advocacy," responded Brown, "and within that overall mission we make sure we're working on issues that matter to our members and doing so in a constructive way." Who are the regulators that FSI is trying to influence? Yes, the SEC and FINRA and the DOL, Brown said, but "the states are important for our members" as well.
FSI is halfway through executing a five-year strategic plan that includes a core strategy of "resource growth and member engagement." FSI member firms "have supported us with their dollars to pay higher dues over time," Brown reported, and to subsidize membership for their reps (35,000 are now members). Over the next year, "we'll be working with the board on the next phase" of the plan, including "deepening members' engagement in advocacy" and "getting members to meet with members of Congress in their own districts." Another is FSI's "thorough upgrade of our technology," including a revised website and a member mobile app.
As for the aging advisor force, Brown noted the "numerous sessions" at its OneVoice conference on succession planning and the next generation of clients. "My expectation," Brown said, "is that we'll focus on this issue in our strategic plan for the next five years." —James J. Green
Click here to read the extended profile.
Bernie Clark
The head of Schwab Advisor Services warms quickly to a favorite subject: the next generation of advisors. "The generation that's coming behind: they look familiar, talk about having balance in their lives, want relationships, are very social." Because of their social media bent, the next generation of advisors may be able to accommodate more clients per advisor, he suggested.
That investment in the next generation of advisors is evidenced by Schwab's program under which students intern at Schwab offices. Schwab, he said, "may hire one or two of them, but our objective is to be in their local community," and for those students "to be talking about Schwab on their campuses."
At the same time, Clark "worries mostly about diversity" in the advisor and client ranks. "Women are underrepresented as clients," and "young people who walk into an advisor's office will want someone to walk along with them," he said. "Ethnicity and diversity will be more important in practices."
Schwab Advisor Services accounts for "half the company's assets and a quarter of its revenue," he said, and internally at Schwab, "we needed to not compete with each other." He admitted that there may be "some open competition" between Schwab retail and Schwab's RIAs, "but if a client happens to straddle the line, we may make a referral to an advisor or continue for a while at retail." Chuck Schwab himself "sees the merit" of the RIA business and will be "doing some print and digital advertising," acknowledging its importance. —James J. Green (Photo: Tom McKenzie)
Click here to read the extended profile.
Tom Nally
When Tom Nally was first honored on the IA 25 in 2012, his profile was as much about his predecessor at TD Ameritrade Institutional, Tom Bradley, as it was about Nally. Two years later, it's all Nally, who has stamped his own personality on the RIA custodian.
While Nally is a cheerleader for the RIA model, he's no Pollyanna when it comes to the challenges that RIAs and TDAI face. In an April interview with IA, he declared, "We try to be an industry leader in all the areas of the market where we engage," but "we can't be all things to all people." He then listed the areas where he believes the firm shines: providing great service, "we publish our CSI scores in our advisor magazine—we're transparent about that"; technology, critical to helping its RIAs "build scalable businesses"; trading, increasingly a "differentiator for advisors"; practice management, "we don't want to be publishing white papers" but rather "take a more tactical solutions approach" reflecting "our fundamental belief in the RIA model"; and human capital, including in its hiring practices where TDAI management values job candidates for "what their capabilities are more than what their experience is."
He admitted that as an industry "we still have a lot of work to do" in rebuilding trust among the public, and "we need to do a better job of adapting our business model to better serve" sectors of American society. That includes younger people, women, the less affluent and the less white. "It's about embracing diversity; your team should reflect the market you're selling into. We must attract more women and minorities." —James J. Green
Click here to read the extended profile.
Nicholas Schorsch
In June 2013, RCAP Holdings said it planned to buy First Allied Securities and the Legend Group from Lovell Minnick Partners, a private-equity group. RCAP Holdings owns Realty Capital Securities, a wholesale broker-dealer and affiliate of American Realty Capital Properties.
Now, the Realty Capital organization has four more IBDs under its umbrella (though the deals are pending): Cetera Financial Group, Investors Capital, J. P. Turner and Summit Financial Services. This means it has close to 9,000 independent advisors serving about 2.5 million investors.
Also in 2013, Realty Capital Securities recruited Larry Roth from Advisor Group, the 6,000-rep independent broker-dealer network owned by AIG, to become its CEO. As a manager, Nicholas Schorsch is very supportive of those he works with, according to Roth: "He understands what businesses we need to be in. He expects everyone to work hard."
Thanks to this work ethic and his business skills, Schorsch received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2003 Award and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award for real estate.
First Allied CEO and President Adam Antoniades said Schorsch "sees himself as a strategic operator who's there to serve as an asset to the group's managers, to empower them to move on the business model, to take obstacles out of their way and to find solutions."
That role is important because Schorsch "works at a pace and speed that are intense," said Antoniades. "I have never experienced anything like it before." —Janet Levaux
Click here to read the extended profile.
Dan Skiles
Dan Skiles' profile was raised last year when he was promoted to president of Shareholders Service Group, the RIA custodian, but for many advisors, Skiles was already well-known from his work at Jack White and Charles Schwab. He's among that elite coterie of advisor partners who thoroughly understand not just advisor technology but how it can best be used to improve a firm's business.
Skiles is passionate about employee-owned SSG, which has grown rapidly since he joined the firm in 2009 from less than 400 RIAs on its platform to more than 1,200. SSG's advisors are mostly smaller RIA firms, but Skiles argued that "size doesn't matter anymore" because "with the world of outsourcing and cloud-based systems […], in some cases, firms with only $50 million in AUM can run and leverage better technology than even much bigger firms."
On the aging advisor force, Skiles argued that "succession planning will change" as new technology is constantly rolled out that is accepted—or even demanded—by clients. On robo-advisors, Skiles sees a threat to advisors who focus solely on investing. Most clients have complex lives, he said, because "life is not consistent; questions come up throughout the year that you never anticipated." Human advisors "are there for those questions." He also encourages advisors "who've been raising their minimums to think about a different offering that allows them to serve people with less money. Getting experience in serving less affluent clients may well help you bring on as clients those beneficiaries of your current clients." —James J. Green
Click here to read the extended profile.
Josh Brown
Many enthusiastic bloggers, financial or otherwise, have fallen and will continue to fall by the wayside, but not New York-based financial blogger par excellence, Josh Brown. He launched his blog, TheReformedBroker.com, in 2008 as "a place to vent and give people an idea of what it felt like to be a broker in a financial crisis." Brown believes a blog is a beast that must be fed, and today, he is as prolific as ever in the blogosphere. The issues he's writing (or venting) about might have changed since 2008, but the blog's readership is as strong as ever, and Brown continues to inform and entertain his readers with his market-related insights and thoughts on various events as they unfold.
"Most of the feedback I get is from other advisors who say, 'Thanks for doing what you do,' or 'You just said out loud what I've been thinking all day,'" Brown said.
He credits the success of his writings to his outspokenness and frank, forthright approach.
He cited a recent post, "The Relentless Bid, Explained," as one of the best examples of the kind of interactive discussion his blog generates. The post—which, he said, went viral—discussed Brown's view on the nation's largest traditional advisory firms having accelerated their push toward fee-based management and away from transactional brokerage, which in turn has a huge impact on how the money itself is managed and also affects the performance of the stock market.
Last September, Brown launched his own fee-based investment advisory firm, Ritholtz Wealth Management in New York. —Savita Iyer-Ahrestani
Click here to read the extended profile.
Caleb Brown
When Caleb Brown graduated from the Texas Tech financial planning program in 2002, it took him a while to get an advisor to "take a risk" and hire him. After that, he saw a lot of other qualified students "who were built to be great financial planners" leave the industry entirely because they couldn't find a job or the jobs they did get weren't right.
"I said to myself, 'We can't continue as a profession if we continue to lose these quality people, so I'm going to try to do everything I can for this not to happen,'" Brown recalled in an interview with IA.
Since then, Brown has served on the board of directors for FPA Dallas-Fort Worth, where he implemented a career day program that has been adopted by several other chapters.
"Up until that time, career development meant, 'We're going to provide a program for the 55-year-old CFP, business owner, bald-headed guy,'" Brown said. "And I said, 'We're not going to do that anymore.'"
Brown started a program that focused on career changers and students, educating them on the career options the financial services industry provides. He started New Planner Recruiting in 2009 with Michael Kitces and now spends the majority of his time helping firms "get it right" when it comes to bringing in the next generation of talent.
Attracting the next generation isn't much different from attracting new clients, Brown argued. To add either, firms need to differentiate themselves. "When I'm on the phone talking to candidates, I've got to have something that I can get them excited about. If they're any good, they're going to have two or three different offers. If my client doesn't have a good story to tell, I'm never going to get the position filled."
Beyond that, firms need to offer students the opportunity to grow into advisors. "New planners want to have exposure to client meetings," Brown said. "The fact of the matter is, the CFP programs are very good, but you're learning the science of financial planning; you're not really learning the art," he added. "In our business, unlike law, medicine or accounting, it's much more art than it is science."
As advisory firms focus more on career changers and next-gen for talent, Brown expects fewer firms will steal experienced advisors away from competitors. "Even though hiring someone with very little experience is a time commitment, you at least have a clean slate to work with; it's going to be a time commitment with an experienced person as well," Brown said.
Instead, firms are building internal internship programs, Brown said, to look for talented future advisors. "It's like a baseball team," he said. "Let's see what our farm team looks like and see if we want to make a hire."
One strategy established firms are adopting, according to Brown, is to implement an "emerging wealth division."
"They're taking the same approach to developing their new talent to develop their next generation of clients," Brown said. "Someone who doesn't have $2 million to manage but who is 30 years old and is going to earn a lot of income, let's turn them into a good client. When I started the business, the firms out there were not interested in clients like that." —Danielle Andrus (Photo: Stan Kaady)
Click here to read the extended profile.
Joel Bruckenstein & David Drucker
From their first book in 2002, "Virtual Office Tools for a High Margin Practice," to their conference, Technology Tools for Today (T3), Joel Bruckenstein and David Drucker have made a name for themselves as the authority on technology for advisors.
"Early on, advisors knew very little about technology and specifically about technology for this industry," Bruckenstein said. "As advisors have gotten more sophisticated about technology, we've had to up our game."
At the 2014 conference, there was an emphasis on emerging technologies, Bruckenstein said, with "a record number of new companies with interesting products. There's a lot more interest among people who are interested in building technology for the financial services industry, and more and more of them are targeting the RIA space."
The goal isn't to host a huge event every year, Bruckenstein said, but to "bring technology to the masses," according to Drucker.
From about 150 advisors to 600, the conference has grown as a way to educate advisor tech users, but has also served the tech makers. "The sponsors at our conferences probably get as much out of visiting with each other as visiting with the advisor attendees," Drucker said. "Many product integrations have grown out of the relationships that were formed at our conference."
Bruckenstein and Drucker have even added an enterprise edition of the T3 conference to bring tech education to executives at broker-dealer firms. The second annual enterprise conference will take place in November. —Danielle Andrus
Click here to read the extended profile.
Harold Evensky & Deena Katz
Between them, Deena Katz and Harold Evensky have been on the IA 25 a total 13 times, which isn't bad when you consider this is only the 12th time we've published it. Why is this husband-and-wife advisor team on the list again?
Partly it's their body of work—they've both been influential for years because of their intellectual capital, their early adoption of the fee-only model, their work on getting advisors recognized as a profession, their leadership in advisor associations and their promotion of female advisors.
At a stage in their careers when many advisors might be expected to slow down, Katz and Evensky are instead doubling down on their commitment to the next generation of advisors. Beyond teaching classes and mentoring students at Texas Tech University, and helping graduates get actual jobs, they're also evangelists for the next generation of planners.
To build an academic program that gets respect from the academic community—no small matter, if you've spent any time in the groves of academe—they're also mentoring that next generation of financial planning researchers and instructors for Texas Tech and other universities.
As Evensky noted in an interview, he's also "teaching" researchers to be as practical as they are academically rigorous. Researchers too often make "simple assumptions," failing to consider what practitioners like Katz and Evensky would be sure to include, such as transaction costs. —James J. Green
Click here to read the extended profile.
Tom Giachetti
Tim Welsh of Nexus Strategy likes to call Tom Giachetti the only "celebrity securities attorney." The chair of the securities practice at the law firm Stark & Stark, Giachetti has parlayed his skills to become a sought-after speaker who translates in blunt language, and with a Jersey verve, what regulators are looking for when they examine advisors.
So what should advisors worry about, and what should they ignore? "What they're not worried about but should" is to think that "the SEC can't be concerned about a small firm like mine." In fact, the SEC is "looking to send a very aggressive, punitive message" to even smaller advisors. Giachetti said that SEC Chairman Mary Jo White was brought in "to clean up Wall Street, and advisors have become part of Wall Street." He worries that she and the other commissioners may know much about the law, but have inadequate knowledge of the Advisers Act. Instead, White has "hired a lot of prosecutors, and what do prosecutors do? They prosecute."
White and the SEC also fail to understand that "advisors did not blow up the markets in '08 and '09," so "the prosecutorial attitude taken by examiners," he said, "is misplaced." Moreover, he said SEC exams are being used by the commission "to make laws that don't exist, couching them in recommendations."
He said that there is a way to resolve the current situation where SEC commissioners and examiners "don't know anything about the '40 Act," jokingly promising that "I just want six months as commissioner, and I can fix it." —James J. Green
Click here to read the extended profile.
Michael Kitces
One has to wonder how Michael Kitces does it: the advisor, blogger, Twitterphile, industry speaker and NextGen founder is constantly evolving and taking on new challenges not only so that he stays ahead of the curve, but so that his peers can do so as well.
"It's just the way I am—I'm hard-wired to look a couple of years down the road," Kitces told IA in an interview.
Indeed, helping advisors "stay ahead" is really the catalyst for Kitces reviving his popular Nerd's Eye View blog, available via Kitces.com, about three years ago. Since "reinventing himself" in the fall of 2010 and getting "active on social media," his blog, website and Twitter following has experienced "incredible growth." Kitces.com gets 50,000 unique visits per month, and he has more than 13,000 Twitter followers.
One recent trend that Kitces alerted advisors to via his blog is what he calls "the crisis of differentiation." Said Kitces to IA: "It wasn't all that long ago that comprehensive financial planning made you unique; that's not true anymore." Advisors must find out what differentiates them and build toward a niche, he said.
Kitces will officially be "kicked out" of FPA's NextGen this year when he turns 37. But he isn't leaving the younger advisors—or clients—behind. In early April, he co-launched the XY Planning Network, a platform to help young planners build a fee-only business targeting Gen X and Gen Y clients.
Members, who "must offer monthly retainers and be willing to work with clients virtually," should be "live and active" on the network by June 1, he said. —Melanie Waddell
Click here to read the extended profile.
Sallie Krawcheck
Sallie Krawcheck's "real career" started "just shy of 30" when she became a research analyst, she told IA in an interview.
"Every firm on Wall Street rejected me. Lehman Brothers rejected me about three times. Smith Barney rejected me because they didn't think I'd work hard. I later fired that director of research," she said.
After a few well-publicized job changes, she purchased 85 Broads, the "unfortunately named professional women's network" of about 35,000. The network started as an informal alumni network for women who worked at Goldman Sachs—originally at 85 Broad St. in New York—but with Krawcheck at the helm, the group is expanding its focus to include education.
Networking is the "No. 1 unwritten rule of success in business," Krawcheck said, but the organization is also educating its members so "they have the tools they need to move themselves along to make themselves more successful economically and financially."
What about that niche advisors are starting to realize isn't a niche at all? "Everyone has a women's initiative and everyone has a women's panel," Krawcheck said. "We went past the 'ignore women' [stage]. The stage we're now at is everybody is marketing to women, but nobody is really serving women; that's a big difference."
Krawcheck said of 85 Broads that the mission is "driven in good part because of my lessons learned about the importance of diversity."
As for the name, "Oh, we're definitely going to change it." —Danielle Andrus
Click here to read the extended profile.
Amy Webber
"Starting with the fact that we can't control things like the market and economy or regulation, I'm wildly optimistic about our industry," Amy Webber, president of Cambridge Investment Research, began our IA 25 interview. "I just believe that the independent model is extremely resilient."
Webber is focusing on what Cambridge can do today to strengthen the industry in the future. The firm has continued to support the next generation of advisors with projects like the Synergy Exchange mentoring program.
"We started Synergy Exchange a year ago in the female advisor space," Webber explained, "but have recently expanded it because we realized we could replicate the need for mentoring to the next generation as a whole."
The firm just launched a new reverse mentoring program for older advisors who are interested in whether younger or female advisors can provide a "better view into the psychology of the investors that they should be thinking about," Webber said.
While those programs are new, Cambridge's focus on the next generation isn't. Over the last five years, it's gotten the "60-something advisor to recognize they need a 40-something advisor," Webber said. "Now we need to get those 60- and 40-somethings to realize that they can get value out of the 20-something."
Other initiatives include the New Century Council, an advisory council of advisors in their mid-40s, and WealthPort, a "huge project" Cambridge undertook last year to "build a technology and service platform for our managed account solutions." —Danielle Andrus
Click here to read the extended profile.
Liz Ann Sonders
Financial markets are best entered at the inflection point, when even if the data that most people use to make their decisions is ugly and the news is not so great, there exists nevertheless a launching point for a new, positive market cycle.
Unfortunately, the investor psyche is wired such that "people want data that confirms market optimism," said Liz Ann Sonders, senior vice president and chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab & Co. "They don't feel comfortable till all the unemployment and trade data is out, and inevitably, they miss the inflection point at which they should have entered the market."
That's why investor psyche and sentiment are at the heart of what Sonders does.
As one of the most popular and respected voices among advisors on market and economic outlook, Sonders believes she has a duty to keep things simple and to tone down what she terms "the fire hose of information" that hits the investing public.
The simpler the information is, the easier it will be to bring investors back into the markets. That many still have a "muscle memory" of the crisis is a good thing, she said, but at the same time, the pervasiveness of skepticism that is still causing many to hunker down and stay away from the markets is doing them a disservice.
Why is Sonders an advisor favorite? Partly it's her optimism about the benefits of investing, which reflect advisors' generally bullish views, but also her research into what the past and present can suggest about the future.—Savita Iyer-Ahrestani (Photo: David Johnson)
Click here to read the extended profile.
Michael Finke
As professor and coordinator of the doctoral program in personal financial planning at Texas Tech University, Michael Finke is helping drive the university's goal of serving "as an educational home" for the financial planning community.
"Our hope is to build a set of research-based best practices through our own research," Finke told IA.
Indeed, Finke said that he's most proud of a series of articles that he wrote last year along with American College professor Wade Pfau and David Blanchett, head of retirement research at Morningstar, that looked at the impact of low asset yields on the sustainability of retirement portfolios. "We tried to make a number of points," Finke said. First, that "the traditional way that advisors think about building retirement income, the 4% rule, may not be as safe as many advisors are led to believe if we have a low-return environment."
Finke said he and his colleagues' goal is "trying to introduce a different way of thinking about building a retirement income plan" and retirement risk, including the importance of considering "partial annuitization," responding to changes in the marketplace and how much retirees should spend.
Retirement income is "increasingly important" as boomers rely on their savings to fund their retirement, he said, so it's crucial to develop strategies to turn their money into income.
Finke hopes to look "more closely" at incorporating strategies such as "longevity hedge products" into portfolios. "These products' availability is somewhat limited now, but I'm hoping to see more product innovation in the future." —Melanie Waddell (Photo: Jim Olvera)
Click here to read the extended profile.
Bill Gross
"Treasure your pets and all living things. Eventually we all stop living."
So wrote Bill Gross, founder of bond behemoth PIMCO, in his April investment outlook letter dedicated to his beloved cat Bob.
When you look at things that way, not much else matters—not even, perhaps, in the grander scheme of life, the disappointing performance of PIMCO's flagship Total Return Fund (PTTRX), which has been on a downward trajectory for nearly a year.
The negative performance of the largest bond fund in the world—it has been trailing 87% of its peers this year as of April, according to data from Morningstar—has been an important item of financial news for months. For many financial advisors, it remains a source of great disappointment.
The parting of ways between Gross and PIMCO's former CEO and co-CIO, Mohamed El-Erian, also generated a great deal of press and caused many institutional investors to watch PIMCO even more closely.
Yet PIMCO and Gross are inextricably linked, and recent problems aside, Gross' long-term track record in the market is still one that's tough to beat. Over the past 15 years, the fund's risk-adjusted returns have been among the highest. There is something about Gross that continues to intrigue advisors and their investors, and makes them believe that the man who once turned $200 into $16,000 at the blackjack tables and who, he has said, gets some of his best investment ideas while practicing the Sirasana, or headstand, still has it. —Savita Iyer-Ahrestani
Click here to read the extended profile.
Wade Pfau
Teaching retirement income in The American College's new Ph.D. program for financial and retirement planning is a sea change from teaching macroeconomics to public policymakers from emerging market countries.
But for Wade Pfau, who came to the Bryn Mawr, Penn.-based American College in 2013 after a decade at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, the radical shift in career is a very welcome one.
"Economics focuses on trying to demonstrate mathematically why some models work, whereas with financial planning, you can't get away with using models and assumptions. You have to explain things so that they're both understandable and relatable," said Pfau, who considers it his priority to bridge the gap between academic research and its practical application.
His name first came into the spotlight in 2011 with a research paper entitled "Safe Savings Rate: A New Approach to Retirement Planning over the Life Cycle," and much of his work is still centered on its main concept: That anyone who saves at their own "safe savings rate" will likely be able to achieve their retirement spending goals, regardless of their actual wealth accumulation and withdrawal rate.
The viewpoint is catching on with advisors and consumers, but retirement research is still largely focused on the notion that individuals need to find a safe withdrawal rate for their retirement and then use that as a barometer to compute a wealth accumulation target in order to fund their desired retirement spending. —Savita Iyer-Ahrestani


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Ed. Note: Taking the GMAT is an essential part of a good GMAT instructor's job because it gives us a whole new perspective when advising students. Bell Curves requires all teachers to regularly take the actual GMAT in order to hone their skills in the actual setting of the test, discover new trends, and report back experiences that can benefit students. On an unseasonably warm Monday the third week of November, three members of Bell Curves GMAT development team took the GMAT in order to experience the new Integrated Reasoning (IR) questions first hand in the real setting. This is Ajani's experience on that particular day. To see reports of that same day from Akil or Jason click either of their respective names. Keep an eye on this blog for an upcoming post about those aforementioned IR questions, as well as novel insights on cigarettes and the GMAT, and why NOT to sweat the AWA.
Last week, my curiosity got the better of me regarding the new Integrated Reasoning question types GMAC were going to test out as part of preparations for the Next Generation GMAT rollout in 2012. So I went along with a couple colleagues and sat for the test. Given the crowded waiting room at the Herald Square location (Manhattan), clearly I wasn't the only one on pins and needles about the new IR questions. Okay, maybe most of the people there were to take the GMAT to get into Business School, but it was an interesting experience nevertheless.
Wiling away the hours (and my goodness how many hours – arrive the requested 1/2 hour early, start the test almost 1/2 an hour after the scheduled time, plus the test, breaks, and 45-minutes for the IR research section meant I was there for nearly five-hours!), I realized there might be a few test-taking tidbits to pass along that might help others as they prepare to do battle with the GMAT.
One of the chief dynamics that undermines performance on the GMAT is allowing the environment and circumstances of the real test to throw you off your game. Early on in the Quant section I was faced with just such a circumstance. Question 3 was, on first glance, unlike anything I'd seen before (and I've seen a lot of GMAT questions). Here's rough facsimile of it (to avoid conflicts with GMAC and maintain question integrity we've altered the question from its original):
A certain number line has 3 evenly-spaced hash-marks labeled A, B, and C. If B has a value of 314 and C has a value of 315, what is the value of A?
As this question came early in the test, the degree of importance was pretty high. Looking closer revealed some familiar concepts (exponents and number lines to name two), but combined in such a way that made almost no sense. I spent a solid two minutes studying the question for familiar ways to access it and rechecking my thought process to see if I'd overlooked some fundamental aspect of the problem. I didn't see any way in and the seconds were ticking away. So I had a choice to make: spend a bunch more time figuring it out or make my best guess and move the hell on. I always tell my students, "no one question can ruin your score, unless you spend too much time on it."
The key to preventing the test from throwing you off your game is follow through. Follow through on the preparation you've done. Follow through on the knowledge and tools you've built through practice. Follow through on the strategies and approaches you've honed and developed through timed work and practice tests. These strategies will allow you to comfortably take the necessary steps (such as, in this case, abandoning ship in the interest of time) to get you your target score without all the worry that comes from over-thinking questions and wasting time doing so.
Here are a few helpful tips to help replicate on the real thing the abilities you've acquired through practice:
1) Stick to Your Guns (Pacing) – The work you've accomplished on practice tests to hone your pacing ability should serve you in good stead come official test time – if you use it! Before the break ends prior to the Quant and Verbal sections, briefly think through your pacing plan and reaffirm your intentions regarding your pacing. Regardless of what kind of test taker you are (see this blog post for more on pacing and different kinds of test takers), you should have a pacing plan by the time you sit for the real thing. To ensure you're sticking to your hard-earned pacing plan, use the end of each break to reaffirm your plan so you're less likely to stray from it.
2) Stick to Your Guns (Question Management) – intimately tied to pacing, question management speaks to the time and strategy used for any given question. You should have generated a host of question-management skills through your practice. If you've done this, why would you let some anomaly on the real test throw you off your game? There will always be a wacky Reading Comp passage, or that Quant question you're sure is testing calculus (or your skills of divination). Don't let a particularly tough question pull you away from your plans. Manage the question, don't let the question manage you.
3) Forget Spilled Milk – I was pretty sure I'd gotten that Quant question I discussed above wrong (after all, I'd guessed). And though it came near the start of the test, I didn't care. I'd decided through practice that I won't spend more than 2 minutes on a question I've used my tools to try to crack and rechecked my thinking. I'd rather bail and make the most of subsequent questions. By the time Question 4 appeared on the screen I'd forgotten about the nightmare that was Question 3. Carrying baggage from a question you already answered is a waste of time. Trying to calculate the effect of a single question on your score (or fretting over said effect) is a waste of time. The GMAT will allow you to show your true abilities…if YOU let yourself. When you're done with a question, move on!
4) Guess Wisely You Should – my own little ode to Yoda. If you've got to bail on a question, at least do yourself the favor of guessing wisely. Get rid of any illogical answer choices, make your guess and get to the next question. In my Question 3, I knew that 313 was a red-herring because it was the next value in the pattern of the original two exponents (15 –> 14). -315 was also a trap answer because it was the smallest value of the bunch. -314 looked like a trap too, but I wasn't ready to boot it. I kicked those other two answers and made a guess (the wrong one, but still, only cost me two minutes).
Incorporating these techniques into your practice and the real thing should help you better manage your test. As it turns out, I'm glad I didn't waste any time worrying about question number three. As a consequence of the question management for 3, and elsewhere in the section, I only had to guess on the last 4 or 5 questions. And my Quant score ended up a 46, right around the 47-50 I usually get. Now if only I could've smoked a cigarette before doing the verbal section (that's a whole other story…).
For more on managing questions and your emotions in situ see Akil's post from a test the same day.
Until next time…


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Sven Nys continues to dominate the World Cup, the Superprestige series, and most major one-day races. Yet he's only won one world title as an elite. Christine Vardaros talks with Nys before the big race as he enters Hoogerheide with what he says is his best form of the season. Also, see our pre-Olympics interview with Nys earlier this summer.
by Christine Vardaros, photos by Joe Sales
How are you feeling going into worlds?
At the moment I feel really good. The last two or three races were like I thought it should be. I won in the sprint in the last world cup against Lars boom. I feel confident. It is a good feeling going into the world championships with the last race a victory – the whole season is good. I am champion of Belgium, sportsman of the year in Belgium, I won the World Cup overall so it's ok, yeah?
Race strategy for Worlds?
That's difficult…when it's raining it's really hard you must not have a tactic because the strongest will win anyway. But it is not going to rain the last days before Worlds so now I think it is going to be a tactical race. You must be in the front three or four riders, stay alert and hope that you can have a good feeling in the last two or three laps. And then I must do something because I don't think I am the fastest in the sprint . I must try to do something in a place where I feel myself really good and that [place] I must see in the race.
I think Lars Boom is really good at the moment . He is a home rider from Holland. And Zdenek Stybar [Czech Republic] is riding with a good feeling and he is also good on fast races. So those are my two biggest competitors.
There is talk of Belgians needing to work together to beat Lars. Do you really think that will work?
I am going to speak with a lot of the riders the last two days. But it is difficult because they all think that they can win the world championships. It is different than in other countries where they have one or two favorites but here all seven riders think that they can win the world championships but it isn't true. For this reason, it is difficult in Belgium to have a team . But I will try to speak with them and I hope that I can have one or two guys with me at the final and maybe they feel then that they can't win the race and that they can help me or that I can help them if I feel that I am not going to win. We must speak the last two days with the guys; if there is a team or not.
Special equipment change?
No, not really. It is dangerous to do something with stuff you don't train with or race with. And the weather conditions are not so special that I must do something new . I'm gonna ride with the things that I am used to. I know that I can ride with things I won with, so I feel good with my bike.
Special words for your American fans?
I hope that you support me the next two or three years and I hope to come to the US to do some nice races there in the future. We'll see…
Photo Gallery:


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Humpty Dumpty sat on the, wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! We all know the famous children's nursery rhyme about a poor egg that broke into a thousand pieces after falling from a wall. Well, leading artist Jim Rosenau, has used this ancient tale to create a "tongue-in cheek" bookshelf which reveals to the world a secret….
It seems Rosenau has inside knowledge of who pushed Humpty Dumpty off the wall and has used three individually and carefully sourced books to name the culprit! Not only that , he seems to have found the suspected weapon used by the murderer – AN EGG WHISK!
Acutely named "Who done it?", the shelf consists of three black and red books which have taken Rosenau years to source and holds a whisk through the middle of the base. I'm just in complete and utter love with Rosenau's creativity and use of 3-D haiku's to convey cheeky messages to passers by.
Rosenau creates an array of other wonderful pieces of furniture from his California studio, This and That which are also made from books. It's no surprise this artist has such a flair for words, as he was raised in a house containing over 5000 books – not short of inspiration then!
You can buy one of Jim Rosenau's off-the-wall shelves for roughly £600 which isn't bad for something which is deep in meaning and has taken years to form.


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The documentary Bronx Princess is all about culture clash. Rocky is a literal princess; her father is a chief in Ghana. We watch her take two journeys: her first trip to Africa, and Freshman year at couldn't-be-farther-from-the-Bronx college.
The film, which aired on PBS last night, stars Rocky Otoo, 17, who lives in the Bronx with her mother. Her mom works in a beauty supply store and is known as Auntie Yaa. Although Rocky's a stellar student who edited her school's newspaper, starred in its musical, played basketball and has a full college scholarship, her mother thinks she's insolent and insufficiently respectful. Rocky thinks her mother is old-world and doesn't understand her.
Her father, meanwhile, has returned to Ghana to take over the chiefdom of his community. Rocky looks forward to staying with him, because she feels her father understands her better.
However, she soon clashes with her father, too, and feels out of place. It takes her a while to begin to feel at home; when she does, she begins to understand her mother a little more.
Once home, Rocky starts at a picture-perfect college that's as white as they come. (Dickinson.) She's the first person in her family to go to college, and her parting with her mom is emotional. The culture clash between her mother and the well-intentioned college orientation woman is kind of painful.
And yes, Rocky's roommate is fascinated by her hair. Which she touches.
By the time Rocky comes home for vacation, she and her mother seem to have come to an understanding. In the two years since the film was made, Rocky has apparently thrived: she's become a women's and gender studies major, is an officer of the African American Society, on the step team, and a regular contributor to a campus feminist magazine. In other words: the kids are alright. The entire film, by the way, is now online.
Related: Bronx Princess [PBS]
Full Description [PBS]
Film Update [PBS]


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Fast pace of Arctic ice melt a sign of 'planetary emergency'
THE DRASTIC melting of Arctic sea ice has finally ended for the year but not before demolishing the previous record – and setting off new warnings about the rapid pace of change in the region.
The apparent low point for 2012 was reached on Sunday, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, which said that sea ice that day covered about 1.32 million square miles, or 24 per cent, of the surface of the Arctic Ocean. The previous low, set in 2007, was 29 per cent.
When satellite tracking began in the late 1970s, sea ice at its lowest point in the summer typically covered about half the Arctic Ocean, but it has been declining in fits and starts over the decades.
"The Arctic is the Earth's air-conditioner," said Walt Meier, a research scientist at the snow and ice centre, an agency sponsored by the government. "We're losing that. It's not just that polar bears might go extinct, or that native communities might have to adapt, which we're already seeing – there are larger climate effects."
His agency waited a few days before announcing the low to be sure sea ice had started to refreeze, as it usually does at this time of year, when winter closes in rapidly in the high Arctic. A shell of ice will cover much of the Arctic Ocean in coming months, but it is likely to be thin and prone to melting when summer returns.
Scientists consider the rapid warming of the region to be a consequence of the human release of greenhouse gases, and they see the melting as an early warning of big changes to come in the rest of the world. Some of them also think the collapse of Arctic sea ice has already started to alter atmospheric patterns in the Northern Hemisphere, contributing to greater extremes of weather in the United States and other countries, but that case is not considered proven.
The sea ice is declining much faster than had been predicted in the last big UN report on the state of the climate, published in 2007. The most sophisticated computer analyses for that report suggested the ice would not disappear before the middle of this century, if then.
Now, some scientists think the Arctic Ocean could be largely free of summer ice as soon as 2020. But governments have not responded to the change with any greater urgency about limiting greenhouse emissions. To the contrary, their main response has been to plan for exploitation of newly accessible minerals in the Arctic, including drilling for more oil. Scientists said on Wednesday the Arctic had become a prime example of the built-in conservatism of their climate forecasts. As dire as their warnings about the long-term consequences of heat-trapping emissions have been, many of them fear they may still be underestimating the speed and severity of the impending changes.
In a panel discussion on Wednesday in New York sponsored by Greenpeace, the environmental group, James Hansen, a prominent climate scientist at Nasa, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said the Arctic melting should serve as a warning to the public of the risks that society is running by failing to limit emissions.
"The scientific community realises that we have a planetary emergency," Mr Hansen said. "It's hard for the public to recognise this because they stick their head out the window and don't see that much going on."
A prime concern is the potential for a large rise in the level of the world's oceans. The decline of Arctic sea ice does not contribute directly to that problem, since the ice is already floating and therefore displacing its weight in water.
But the disappearance of summer ice cover replaces a white, reflective surface with a much darker ocean surface, allowing the region to trap more of the sun's heat, which in turn melts more ice. The extra heat in the ocean appears to be contributing to an accelerating melt of the nearby Greenland ice sheet, which does contribute to the rise in sea level.
At one point this summer, surface melt was occurring across 97 per cent of the Greenland ice sheet, a development not seen before in the era of satellite measurements, although geological research suggests that it has happened in the past.
The sea is now rising at a rate of about a foot per century, but scientists such as Mr Hansen expect this rate to increase as the planet warms, putting coastal settlements at risk.
A scientist at the snow and ice centre, Julienne Stroeve, hitched a ride on a Greenpeace ship in recent weeks to inspect the Arctic Ocean for herself. Interviewed this week after putting into port at the island of Spitsbergen, she said one of her goals had been to debark on ice floes and measure them, but that it had been difficult to find any large enough to support her weight.
Ice floes were numerous in spots, she said, but "when we got further into the ice pack, there were just large expanses of open water". – (New York Times)


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Are you looking for a creative way to display your stock of many candles? Or just want a fresh idea for your seasonal centerpiece? Head over to Pottery Barn.. lots of ideas over there. Check out this Eclectic Glass Bottle Set it's on sale. Oh, so you don't want to spend on empty bottles? Well get your DIY on! I'm sure you have some wine bottles laying around.. Hmm? After you enjoy the wine ( or whatever was inside the bottles) strip the labels, wash it up and Wha-La!
Friday, November 5, 2010
Unconventional Candle Holders
Posted by Unknown at 10:28 AM
Labels: centerpieces, DIY, Holiday Decor, Seasonal Soirées
1 comments:
- Putting All the Ps in one POD! said...
I heart this idea...eclectic, simple and WOW!! Thanks a mil for allowing me to repost your pictures on my blog...
- November 7, 2010 at 6:08 PM
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Brennan: Official says judges slanted toward Adelina Sotnikova
A high-ranking Olympic figure skating official, who spoke to USA TODAY sports on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic, said the geographic makeup of the judging panel "was clearly slanted towards (Olympic gold medalist) Adelina Sotnikova," adding "this is what they can do."
The Ukrainian judge, Yuri Balkov, was suspended for one year when he was tape-recorded trying to fix the ice dancing competition at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. The Russian judge, Alla Shekhovtseva, is married to the powerful general director of the Russian figure skating federation, Valentin Piseev.
1. Sotnikova's PCS
Her PCS has increased by a total of 19.48 points (counting both short and free skates) in a space of 6 months.
Cup of China
Trophee Eric Bompard
Grand Prix Final
Total increase
The NY times Kurt Browning,
"I was shocked. What, suddenly, she just became a better skater overnight? I don't know what happened."
This year, Sotnikova's PCS was consistently scored at 30 points in the short program and 60 points in the free. It was not until the European Championships that Sotnikova's PCS started to increase at an astonishing rate; the Olympics saw even further increase. That is a meteoric climb by figure skating standards. Generally speaking, judges tend to keep PCS of an athlete at a certain range.
The question is, has she shown improvements in her skating skills as to merit such an increase? The PCS does take into account some subjective areas of judgement but subjectivity itself should not be an excuse for anything. There are guidelines and rules which ISU provides and should be adhered to as objectively as possible. For fair play to be upheld in the sport, the marks given, even if they are subjective, should always be justifiable on the basis of those standards.
The dramatic inflation of Sotnikova's PCS also begs the question of whether she is actually at a level where she might be awarded similar marks as Carolina Kostner or Yuna Kim. They are mature skaters who have been consistently awarded higher PCS. Taking into account this consistency and Sotnikova's increase, it is more than a little puzzling that Yuna's PCS has been scored at 7 points in the Olympics by some judges.
2. The edge call on the triple Lutz
Lutz is differentiated from flip by the take-off edge when entering into the jump. The former uses a deep outside edge and the latter an inside edge. If this distinction is not upheld by the judges, there would be little point in awarding different marks for each jump. The judging call on the wrong edge take-off in the Olympics is all the more interesting in light of this fact: from 2013 World Championships to CoC, TEB, GPF and The European Championships, she tried 3Lz 7 times and was found to have used the wrong edge 6 times.
As the replay of her program will show, Sotnikova still jumped with the wrong edge in the Olympics. But there was no wrong edge mark in her protocol.
In fact, she received positive GOE for jumps that were done with the wrong technique. According to current rules, judges can request a super-slow video replay video of the jumps to verify the edge call. How could have the judges missed it?
3. The Under-rotation on the 3T in Sotnikova's 3LZ ? 3T in the free program
It goes without saying that to be awarded full marks for a jump, it must be fully rotated or at least come within the margin of rotation that ISU has deemed acceptable. That her 3T was under-rotated by 1/4 or 1/2 was visible even to the naked eye without the slow-motion replay. And as has been pointed out above, there should have been further deduction for her wrong edge along with the deduction for the under-rotation. Instead she was awarded plus GOE for the combination. Furthermore, 3T requires skaters to use the toe pick during the take off. Instead, Sotnikova used the full blade to jump off the ice?
a completely wrong and improper jumping technique.
4. The minus GOE on Sotnikova's 3F+2T+2Lo in the free program
In that jumping passage, Sotnikova made a big mistake on the landing of the last jump. She stepped out of the double loop and two-footed the landing. It seriously disrupted the flow of the jump. In addition, her rotation in the air was shaky. According to guidelines given by ISU, such mistake (two footed landing in particular) merits -2 to -3 level of GOE. But the penalty given was only at -0.9. Even if the judges had decided that -2 level of GOE would be sufficient, the point deducted would have been at least 1.4.
5. The call on the level of step sequence
To obtain level 4, the skaters only need to satisfy what the rule book states as necessary turns and steps as well as further elements to go up the level. Sotnikova was the only skater who got the level 4 in both short and free programs. 4 both short and free program in the Games, despite the fact others had also satisfied the requirement for it. The step sequence is about the use of turns and the edges on the ice. Skaters who do not use deep edges with consistent speed and/or do not carry out a variety of turns and steps cleanly should not be rewarded for their step sequence. It is laughable and incomprehensible that judges chose to reward Sotnikova with level 4 when they gave Yuna's step sequence (much more speed, deeper edges, spotlessly clean turns, variety of movements) level 3.
6. Awarding of GOE on the jumps
Giving positive GOE on executed jumps involves the consideration of ISU guidelines. Those include the consideration of flow, both in and out of the jumps, in-air position, and the take-off. In comparing Sotnikova's flip with Yuna's flip, the discrepancies in GOE are readily obvious. For one, Sotnikova clearly demonstrated poor take-off. The full blade, as opposed to just the toe, was in contact with the ice; the flow in and out of the jump also looked heavy and forced. Sotnikova's jumping mechanism is the same whether she jumps the flip or flutz (lutz with wrong edge take-off) - a clear indication of a technical flaw.
On the other hand, Yuna's flip was executed with perfect technique, blended into the choreography of the programme, with excellent flow in and out of the jump. But it was Sotnikova who was awarded the higher GOE's. One of the judges even gave Yuna zero GOE for her flip, when the quality of the jump called for plus GOE.
7. The rebuttal of the base value argument
Only 1.44 difference in the base value
The base-value argument, i.e. Sotnikova had one more triple than Yuna, is logically flawed. We only need to look at the TES in the short program to disprove it. Yuna, jumping 3Lz-3T, 3F and 2A, had more base values in jumps than Sotnikova. Yet she was awarded lower TES though her jumps were perfectly landed. Even if we were to argue on the basis of base-value argument, the difference between Sotnikova and Yuna is extremely slim. Calculating the base values in the short and free skates, there is only 1.44 separating the two. That is not even worth a double flip or loop.
The base-value argument fundamentally ignores the fact that the final score of the program also relies on the awarding of GOE as well as PCS. Whether there were 7 triples or 6 triples or 8 triples is only a very small part of the story. Mao Asada jumped 8 triples for the free program, but was scored under Sotnikova because of minus GOE. It is the actual execution of those jumps and judges' perception of their quality that determine the marks, not the plan on the paper. It has already been said that Sotnikova's executions of technical elements were not the cleanest on the night. But GOE given to her is something you would see given to perfectly executed elements.
At any rate, 1.44 is a difference that could be overcome by a skater like Yuna, whose quality of skating and interpretation very strongly merits a high level of positive GOE and PCS. That much is evident, easily proven by referring back to Yuna's protocols over the course of her career. Despite the fact that her free programme was executed perfectly well, her GOE in comparison to Sotnikova's was underscored. The base value argument is misleading in the extreme, trying to take away the attention from poor judgment calls made during the ladies' event. The level of PCS and GOE, as well as the edge call, given to Sotnikova should be the debating point, not Yuna's base values.
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Caring for a pet can be a fantastic way to teach children about responsibility, compassion and empathy.
But while most children at some stage will ask mum and dad for a new puppy, kitten, or guinea pig, it is important that children understand how to get the best out of their new furry arrival.
So what are the key things your children need to know when it comes to looking after a new fluffy friend?
To help parents and children, Pets at Home give their top tips on introducing a new pet to the family and getting the children involved in its care.
This year Pets at Home are hosting My Pet Pals Summer Activity Club, a series of interactive workshops designed to teach children how to care for pets responsibly.
Log on to our live webTV show to get tips and advice on how to introduce a new pet to you home and how to get the children involved in taking care of it.


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get on (one's) wick(redirected from get on her wick)
get on (one's) wick
To irritate or annoy one. Primarily heard in UK. The kids are really getting on my wick today with their constant fighting. I'm not trying to get on mom's wick, but every little thing seems to bother her today.
get on someone's wickBRITISH, INFORMAL, RUDE, OLD-FASHIONED
If someone or something gets on your wick, they annoy you. After three or four songs that voice really gets on my wick. Note: `Wick' comes from `Hampton Wick', cockney rhyming slang for `prick'. `Prick' is a slang term for penis, which many people find offensive.


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No matter how you smoke it, tobacco is dangerous to your health and affects your entire body.
The Effects of Smoking on the Body
Tobacco smoke is enormously harmful to your health. There's no safe way to smoke. Replacing your cigarette with a cigar, pipe, or hookah won't help you avoid the health risks associated with tobacco products.
Cigarettes contain about 600 ingredients. When they burn, they generate more than 7,000 chemicals, according to the American Lung Association. Many of those chemicals are poisonous and at least 69 of them can cause cancer. Many of the same ingredients are found in cigars and in tobacco used in pipes and hookahs. According to the National Cancer Institute, cigars have a higher level of carcinogens, toxins, and tar than cigarettes.
When using a hookah pipe, you're likely to inhale more smoke than you would from a cigarette. Hookah smoke has many toxic compounds and exposes you to more carbon monoxide than cigarettes do. Hookahs also produce more secondhand smoke.
In the United States, the mortality rate for smokers is three times that of people who never smoked, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's one of the leading causes of preventable death.
– See more at: http://www.healthline.com/health/smoking/effects-on-body#sthash.NEa1CoE7.dpuf


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Home » Plan Your Visit » Coach and Group visits - Coach and Group visits
Parties are welcome on any day of the year (except on Days Out With Thomas events and at Christmas) but arrangements must be made in advance for visits when the Centre is not otherwise open, and is advisable on other occasions.
Didcot Railway Centre's admission prices depend on the event, and range from £6.50 to £15.00 (adults), £4.50 to £11.00 (children) and £6.00 to £13 (over 60s). There is a 10% discount on normal admission prices for groups of 10 or more who book in advance.
We can provide lunch or afternoon tea on request. Please ask for details. Please enclose a stamped addressed envelope for your reply. We will confirm your booking as soon as possible after receiving the completed form.
All options include free admission and refreshments for the coach driver.
Groups may pay in advance or on entry. If you have ordered food, we ask for a deposit of £30 per booking.
To make a booking please E-mail, 'phone 01235 817200 or download the Group Booking Form (45kb .pdf file)
Stay up to date with events and what's going on at Didcot Railway Centre.
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