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Publications – Commercial Insurance Update
|Sign up for the Commercial Insurance Update newsletter via email. Don't have Acrobat Reader? Download your FREE copy.
|June 2020
|Cybercrime in the COVID-19 World The COVID-19 world presents significant challenges for all businesses. large and small. Here are some general guidelines to keep in mind when planning your cyber security.
|Apr. 2020
|Employee Feedback: Why You Need It & How To Get It
|Feb. 2020
|Earthquake and Flood Coverage: What You Need to Know As we all know, it is not a matter of if, but when, a significant earthquake will hit the state of California.
|Dec. 2019
|Liquor Liability: It's No Party for Social Hosts: See what your responsibilities are and how to protect your company.
|Dec. 2019
|Special Wildfire Newsletter Learn ways to protect yourself and your home.
|Oct 2019
|The Relevance of Insurance: What You Can Expect from the Insurance Marketplace in 2020 Insurance is complex. Most of our clients don't want to be experts, but they need to understand insurance well enough to be able to effectively manage it for their company.
|Aug 2019
|Claims Best Practices – What Not To Do! Your personal feelings notwithstanding, there is a certain protocol you should follow to correctly respond to a claim.
|June 2019
|Do You Know D&O? Every company has exposures that can be covered by D&O insurance.
|Apr. 2019
|Employee Injury Reporting Best Practices The way a claim is handled or managed will materially affect the outcome of the claim as well as the cost.
|Feb. 2019
|Recruiting, Rewarding and Retaining Key Employees For any business, employees are the single most valuable asset. Here are some suggestions for providing additional benefits.
|Dec. 2018
|The Secret to Lowering Your Experience Modification What is an Experience Modification? An Experience Mod compares the loss experience of a company against all the similar businesses in a given state. In addition to the impact that a Mod might have on cost, it can also preclude you from working on certain projects.
|Oct. 2018
|2019 Insurance Market Outlook: What Can You Expect? Our annual State of the Market newsletter will provide background on the economics of the insurance industry and will give some perspective on where insurance rates are going in 2019.
|Aug. 2018
|You're Selling Your Company – What Insurance Should You Require the Buyer to Carry?
|Jun. 2018
|Auto Insurance Premiums Are Going Through the Roof! What Can You Do About It? What has caused this dramatic increase in loss ratios over the past eight years?
|Apr. 2018
|Cyber Insurance – What Does It Cover and Why Do You Need It? Data breaches occur every day, and not only to large companies. The good news is that insurance is available, coverage is fairly broad, and costs are reasonable.
|Feb. 2018
|How Good is Your Risk Control Program? The concept of insurance is unique. A business can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a product is hopes to never use.
|Dec. 2017
|Duties in the Event of a Claim: The Insured's Responsibilities: If a claim or circumstance that could give rise to a claim is not reported in a timely manner to your insurance company, they can deny the claim. Learn what your responsibilities are as an insured.
|Oct. 2017
|2018 Insurance Market Outlook: What Can You Expect? Read what is in store for 2018 regarding commercial insurance, surety bonding and health insurance.
|Aug. 2017
|Crime Coverage – Everyone is exposed and everyone wants your stuff! Criminals are incredibly creative, are you protected?
|June 2017
|The Sharing Economy – What You Need to Know Before You Share Your House or Car – As sharing applications become more familiar to us, many property owners are considering renting out their homes or driving part-time for extra money. But what are the risks? Will your existing insurance cover you if someone gets injured in your home or car?
|April 2017
|No Remix! The Importance of Managing Risk Correctly…the First Time! Jeff Cavignac shares stories of his recent trip to Nicaragua and how that relates to risk management and getting it right the first time.
|Feb 2017
|The World is Rapidly Changing…Are You Prepared to Travel in It? While most people don't equate planning their international vacation with risk, the fact is, the world is changing and travel – especially international travel – is becoming riskier. What are the risks and how do you mitigate or avoid them?
|Dec 2016
|Workers' Compensation – Executive Officers: Include or Exclude? This article answers some of the questions regarding whether or not to include or exclude officers from coverage and under which circumstances they should be covered.
|Sept 2016
|The 2017 Insurance Market Forecast: The Underwriter's Conundrum Read about our predictions for the upcoming year.
|Aug 2016
|Report Your Claims…PRONTO! There are several reasons why you should report a claim as soon as possible. Read more to find out.
|June 2016
|Are You Friends with Your Colleagues? The Pitfalls of Accepting "Friend" Requests from Coworkers on Social Media. While there are many benefits to this heightened level of connectivity among peers, these forms of communications can have their pitfalls.
|Apr 2016
|Zip Code 89410…Where Do You Want To Live? We all have a lot to do, so how do we get better? The first way is to learn from your mistakes. The second way is to learn from others. The third is by reading. Here are some outstanding books on business and personal excellence.
|Jan 2016
|The Modern Day Con Man and the Social Engineering Play! Social engineering is different from other forms of cyber theft like funds transfer and computer fraud.
|Dec 2015
|Is a Captive Insurance Company For You? At our core as business owners, we are managing risk every day.
|Oct 2015
|State of the Insurance Industry…And What This Means To You Learn how premiums are affected by the various insurance cycles and what you can do to control them.
|Aug 2015
|Drones! Are You Insured? While drones are currently legal if they are used personally, they are illegal, absent a waiver, for commercial use.
|Jun 2015
|2015 Wildfire Update Experts say the increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires results from two situations: changing housing growth patterns and changing climate
|Apr 2015
|How to Prepare Your Business for Disaster A disaster recovery plan is something every business needs, but something most businesses don't have. Why?
|Feb 2015
|The Secret to Lowering Your Insurance Costs! If you lower the cost of your losses, you will lower the cost of your insurance.
|Dec 2014
|Your Workers' Compensation Final Audit The workers' compensation audit process can be confusing, complex and, if done incorrectly, expensive.
|Oct 2014
|2015 Insurance Market Outlook: Putting It Into Perspective For many companies, insurance is one of their largest costs. It is critical to understand not only how to manage these costs, but also how to forecast your costs as you look into your next fiscal year.
|Aug 2014
|Fleet Safety: A Critical Element to Your Risk Management Program Why do you need a fleet safety strategy that goes beyond compliance?
|Jun 2014
|The Economics of Ergonomics The consequences of poor ergonomics in the workplace can be extremely costly. Find out some basic actions you can take to prevent injury and possible loss of work.
|Apr 2014
|Preventing Electronic Funds Transfer Fraud As an increasing range of financial transactions move to the virtual world of computers, a whole new set of liabilities arise. Find out about the available options that can help protect your business.
|Feb 2014
|Risk…Is Yours Being Managed? Cost of Risk is not a line item found on a company's income statement, yet this can be one of the largest and most volatile expenses that a company has.
|Dec 2013
|Contract Litigation Insurance The issue of attorneys' fees is high on the list of concerns for both the average litigant involved in a local business dispute as well as the sophisticated conglomerate involved in a "bet your company" matter.
|Oct 2013
|State of the Insurance Market…and What it Means to You! The purpose of this month's article is to explain where the industry is in the insurance cycle and what you can expect to see in 2014.
|Aug 2013
|Health Reform: What You Can Do Now to Protect Your Business and Your Future This month's newsletter provides some basic questions and answers that will help you understand current and upcoming changes, take advantage of new benefits and tax credits, and implement requirements established by the law.
|June 2013
|Return to Work Programs – Why You Need One As rates continue to rise, it will become increasingly important for employers to control costs associated with workplace injuries and illnesses. One of the biggest, yet most controllable, costs associated with workplace injuries and illnesses is lost time from work due to disability. The most effective way to have a favorable impact on these costs is to implement a Return to Work (RTW) program.
|Apr 2013
|Disaster Recovery: Lessons Learned from Superstorm Sandy Although it was classified as a moderate Category 1 storm, Sandy will be remembered as one of the most devastating storms in history. While some businesses had plans in place to deal with a situation like this, most did not. So if a disaster strikes your company, how prepared are you?
|The Parent Care Conversation – The conversations you should have with your parents…while you still can! Long term care for aging parents is a sensitive, often difficult, but ultimately inevitable issue for all of us. Read our February Commercial Insurance Update for some guidance with this sensitive subject.
|Understanding Business Succession: Utilizing Life Insurance to Avoid the Dangers of an Installment Sale – Many business owners expect to sell their ownership interest during their lifetimes. In fact, some see selling their business interest as a practical way to fund their retirement needs. Read our November Commercial Insurance Update to learn more.
|Oct 2012
|The Economics of the Insurance Industry and Why It's Important to You! – The insurance business like most industries is cyclical. It is affected by the general business climate but ebbs and flows subject to unique factors. The simplest way to understand the industry is to look at the critical indicators that drive the industry's results. Read our October Commercial Insurance Update.
|Aug 2012
|Insurance Ramifications of Mergers & Acquisitions – A merger or acquisition involves the combination of one firm with another, or the purchase of one firm by another. Whether a firm is merging, acquiring, being acquired, or if there is a majority change in ownership, there are risk management and insurance ramifications that need to be considered. Read our August Commercial Insurance Update to make sure you fully understand the risk management 'deal breakers' that need to be identified before a deal is consumated.
|Jun 2012
| Foreign Insurance – Business is becoming increasingly global. It is not uncommon for even small businesses to have sales overseas. But if you do business in a foreign country, will your domestic insurance program protect you? Read on to learn more about how your domestic insurance policy will respond to foreign exposures, and how to ensure that you are appropriately covered!
|Apr 2012
|How Smart Business Owners Protect Their Families and Companies – As a business owner, if your goal is to keep your company in your family when you retire or pass away, then it is critical to protect the entity, and to decide when and to whom to transfer it. Read our April Commercial Risk Management Newsletter to find out the best steps you can take to properly plan for succession.
| Safety Pays: The Importance of a Safe Work Environment – Business owners and managers realize that the cost of a lost workday due to injury is substantial. For every dollar you spend on the direct cost of a worker's injury or illness, you will spend at least that much, or more, to cover the indirect and hidden costs. Read our commentary on the best ways to prevent and mitigate workers compensation costs.
|Dec 2011
|An Employer's Nightmare: The Wage and Hour Issue – It will come as no surprise that the poor economy, which has resulted in massive layoffs and terminations, has caused employment-related claims and lawsuits in general to increase. Wage and hour litigation seems to be increasing the fastest; the Department of Labor estimates that wage and hour complaints increased 15% from 2009 to 2010.
|The Insurance Cycle: What to Expect in 2012 – The insurance industry marches to its own economic drum. Historically, it has fluctuated between what are called hard and soft markets. Interested to know what to expect for the coming year? Read Jeff Cavignac's annual update on the insurance industry in this month's Commercial Risk Management Newsletter to understand the current cycle, and where it is headed in the next year!
|Aug 2011
|Fiduciary Responsibility– You have responsibilities as a Fiduciary for your company retirement plan… Are you complying?
|Jun 2011
|Human Resources Hiring "Best Practices"– Hiring the right person for the job is one of the most important decisions a business owner makes. In this issue of the Commercial Risk Management Newsletter we suggest some "best practices" for hiring and outline a process that is designed to help you identify those candidates who are best suited for the job and your company.
|Apr 2011
|Extraterritorial Workers Compensation– Or When Do You Need Foreign Workers Compensation Coverage
|Feb 2011
|New ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability– We provide the answers to some common questions on the recent changes to the new ACORD 25 form.
|Dec 2010
|Cyber Liability
|Oct 2010
|The 2011 Insurance Market – What It Means to You– We provide facts and projections to consider as you begin the budgeting process for 2011.
|Aug 2010
|Life Insurance 101– Answers to basic questions about America's most underused risk management tool.
|Jun 2010
|Workers Compensation Injuries: Employers' Best Practices– Action steps to substantially improve your company's risk profile – and drive dollars to your bottom line.
|Apr 2010
|Social Media and Its Risk Implications– Social media (FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, Yelp, Twitter, etc.) has tens of millions of users – including employees that may work for you. This article addresses the problems and concerns that employers face, and offers action steps to minimize your risks.
|Feb 2010
|Workplace Investigations– Sooner or later, your company will face the need to investigate an employee. Find out how to conduct such an investigation quickly, thoroughly, and objectively
|Dec 2009
|Management Liability aka "Executive Risk"– Running a business involves its share of risk. See what protection is available and make a conscious decision regarding coverage – don't be caught unaware in the event of a loss.
|Oct 2009
|State of the 2010 Insurance Market– Based on past history and current critical indicators, we can help you budget insurance costs for 2010.
|Aug 2009
|Managing Your Corporate Auto Exposure– Whether your company owns 100 vehicles or none at all, you have a major exposure to loss arising out of autos used in your business. Effectively managing your automobile exposure can lower your company's Total Cost of Risk and drive dollars to your bottom line.
|Jun 2009
|Communication or Lack Thereof– Bad contracts and misunderstandings cause confusion, and confusion costs companies money. Read how an effective Communications Protocol can help reduce your company's cost of risk and drive dollars to your bottom line.
|Apr 2009
|Getting Paid… in a Slow Economy– Careful client selection is a cornerstone of risk management. Find out how to increase your chances of getting paid in bad economic times.
|Feb 2009
|The 'Obligation to Defend' Your Client – and Why You Should Avoid It at All Costs! (pgs 1-3)– Insurance companies never intend to provide coverage when their insureds do nothing wrong. A recently decided California Supreme Court case demonstrates the dangers of a poorly worded indemnity agreement. Don't be caught uninsured!
|Dec 2008
|Protecting Against Environmental Liability– Potential environmental liability concerns can be 'deal breakers' for business and property owners.Risk Management Seminars – 2009 Series
|Oct 2008
|State of the Commercial Insurance Market – Report for 2009 Employee Benefits Market for 2009– Insurance is often a major budget item – plan your 2009 budget now.
|Aug 2008
|Fiduciary Liability – Do You Need It?– See why fiduciary liability is an exposure you need to evaluate.
|Jun 2008
|Personal Insurance – Is Yours Adequate?– Over half the homes in our country are underinsured by 20% or more, and many people also carry inadequate personal liability limits. When was the last time you reviewed your personal insurance program?
|Apr 2008
|Business Continuation Planning– Have you taken the necessary steps to make sure your business can survive the loss of an owner or key employee?
|Feb 2008
|Crisis Management – Is Your Firm Prepared?– Your company's chances of managing a crisis increase significantly with the amount of preparation, planning and training done before a crisis strikes. Find out how!
|Dec 2007
|Waivers of Subrogation– Learn what they are, how they work, and what you need to know about them.2008 FOCUS SeminarsUpdated list of training seminars through January 2008.
|Oct 2007
|Commercial Insurance Marketplace – What to Expect in 2008– Whether the market is hard or soft, firms with favorable loss experience can expect the most competitive rates and best coverage terms.
|Aug 2007
|Managing Real Property Exposures– Background and overview of the risk management issues involved in the real estate lease exposure.
|Jun 2007
|You're at the Rental Car Counter – What Coverage Do You Need?– Understanding how your personal or business insurance works is the key to making an informed decision.
|Apr 2007
|Business Interruption Insurance– After a loss, business interruption coverage can make the difference between getting back in business – or folding your tent!
|Feb 2007
|Cost of Risk: Who's Managing Yours?– Regardless of how big your company is, formalizing the risk management function will lower your cost of risk and drive dollars to your bottom line.
|Dec 2006
|Timely Reporting of Claims and Claim Circumstances– Failure to report claims in a timely manner can jeopardize your coverage.
|Oct 2006
|Commercial Insurance Outlook for 2007– For many businesses, insurance is a major expense. Plan your 2007 budget now.
|Aug 2006
|Disaster Recovery – A 10-Step Checklist for Disaster Preparedness– A well thought out Disaster Recovery Program will go a long way toward reducing the potential impact of a catastrophic event.
|Jun 2006
|Contract Review – A Critical Element of Your Risk Management Program– The time taken at the start to quantify risk and negotiate a contract can yield substantial returns in the event of a problem.
|Apr 2006
|Telecommuting: Home Sweet Home Office?– Although staff members can live and work from virtually anywhere there is a high-speed Internet connection, take a look at the liability issues.
|Feb 2006
|Coverages to Consider – What You Don't Insure Can Hurt You– Although we don't recommend that you purchase insurance for all, or even most, of the hundreds of exposures to risk, you should be aware of the risks that exist for your firm and what it would cost to insure them.
|Dec 2005
|What You Need to Know About Crime Insurance– Crime coverage lends itself to being managed – find out how.
|Oct 2005
|Commercial Insurance Outlook for 2006: What Can You Expect? – For many businesses, insurance is a major expense. Plan your 2006 budget now.
|Aug 2005
|Soften the Blow of Rising Health Care Costs– Choose the employee health plan that's best for your business!
|Jun 2005
|Inland Marine Insurance– Read why you need an experienced Inland Marine insurance broker to identify your exposures and tailor appropriate coverage.
|Apr 2005
|Understanding Your Experience Modification: What You Need to Know– Find out what a workers compensation experience modification is, and how it affects your business.
|Feb 2005
|Is Your Property Adequately Insured?– See why spending the time to make sure your property is adequately insured is worth the effort, and how to go about it.
|Dec 2004
|Safety Programs: Safety Is YOUR Responsibility!– Accidents cost money. Read how to develop a Safety and Health Program for your firm that can reduce your claims and ultimately lower your insurance premiums.
|Oct 2004
|Commercial Insurance Outlook for 2005– Budget planning assistance based on educated assumptions about the state of the insurance market in 2005.
|Aug 2004
|Mergers & Acquisitions: Insurance Implications– A thorough analysis of a company's risk management and insurance programs is critical to a successful merger or acquisition.
|Jun 2004
|International Insurance: Do You Need It? – As more and more companies do business in foreign countries, use foreign suppliers and/or service providers, international insurance coverage has become a "must." See if you should have it!
|Apr 2004
|Your Workers Compensation Final Audit– The audit process is set up so that errors benefit the insurance company. Find out how to make sure the audit process benefits your firm!
|Feb 2004
|Employers Liability: What Does It Cover?– It's important to know the coverage provided by the "Employers Liability" section of your workers compensation policy.
|Dec 2003
|Workers Compensation Insurance: Extraterritorial Exposures– Workers compensation law differs from state to state. Do you have a workers compensation exposure in another state?
|Oct 2003
|Insurance Outlook 2004 – What to Expect– Provides premium estimates for 2004 based on educated assumptions to help you plan your budget.
|Aug 2003
|Protecting Your Electronic Assets– What would you do if your entire computer system had crashed or been destroyed?
|Jun 2003
|Mold Is a Four Letter Word– "Toxic Mold" – the "next asbestos" – is a major concern for everyone associated with the building industry and buildings in general.
|Apr 2003
|Employee Benefits: Defined Contribution Plans (HRAs) vs. Section 125 Cafeteria Plans– See what type of plan best fits your firm's needs.
|Feb 2003
|Mediation and Why You Need to Know About It– A great majority of civil suits are settled before trial. Learn how to work toward a conciliatory (win/win) settlement of disputes that may keep your client relationship in good standing and negate the necessity for more legal action.
|Dec 2002
|Negotiating– Manage risk and cut losses through the art of negotiation.
|Oct 2002
|Insurance Requirements in a Hard Insurance Market– Subcontractors are increasingly unable to provide the preferred additional insured endorsement required by their clients. What can be done?
|Aug 2002
|Reservation of Rights Letters– A reservation of rights provides an insurance company the flexibility to satisfy its duty to defend without committing to coverage. It requires careful monitoring and attention from the insured business owner.
|Jun 2002
|California's Workers Compensation Market: Is It Getting Any Better? – See what to expect at your next workers compensation insurance renewal.
|Apr 2002
|The State of the Insurance Market Today – What to Expect at Your Next Renewal–You've heard about the drastic insurance price increases taking place. Why has this happened, how long will it last, and what can you do about it?
|Feb 2002
|Controlling Employment Practices Liability Claims– Recommendations to help your organization reduce its exposure to employment practices liability claims.
|Dec 2001
|Workers Compensation Insurance – A Primer– As an employer, it is imperative that you understand how the workers compensation system works, the benefits it provides, and you rights as an employer.
|Oct 2001
|Managing the Employee Dishonesty Exposure– Employees stealing their employers' assets happens more often than you'd think, and the perpetrator is generally a long-term, trusted employee. Learn how to reduce your exposures to loss.
|Aug 2001
|I've Been Sued!– What should you do? What happens next?
|Jun 2001
|The Trouble with E-Mail– One minute it's your friend; the next minute, it's telling everyone your deepest secrets. You just can't trust it!
|Feb 2001
|California's Workers Compensation System: On the Verge of Collapse? – The California workers compensation insurance market is in trouble. Find out why, and how this will affect your premium costs.
|Dec 2000
|Internet Liability Insurance: Do You Need It?– Companies that disseminate information to the public, whether through an Internet web sites, desktop publishing, or e-mail, now face all of the exposures that traditional publishers face. Find out more about these exposures as well as available Internet liability coverage.
|Aug 2000
|State of the Current Insurance Marketplace – The downward premium spiral is at an end. Jeffrey Cavignac analyzes the current marketplace as insurance companies face downgrades, failures, and consolidation following twelve years which have benefited consumers with lower premiums.
|Jun 2000
|Auto Coverage in Mexico – Addressing the perennial problem– The Republic of Mexico considers any auto accident a criminal offense as well as a civil matter. Even though you carry U.S. insurance, Mexican authorities may not choose to recognize it. Don't become another sad example!
|Apr 2000
|Improving Employee Relations– Why employees and employers often perceive workers compensation to be adversarial
|Feb 2000
|Coverage Simplified: Commercial General Liability Insurance– It's a good idea to have a basic understanding of how your coverage works
|Dec 1999
|D & O Insurance– Do directors and officers of privately owned companies need coverage?
|Oct 1999
|Environmental Coverage for Non-Environmental Business– Many insureds have significant uninsured exposures; anyone who has even a remote exposure should at least consider this coverage
|Aug 1999
|Certificates of Insurance– The pros and cons of using certificates of insurance
|Jun 1999
|Workers Compensation: State of the Market–A brief history of workers compensation and the outlook for the future
|Apr 1999
|Executive Liability– Unique loss exposures faced by corporate executives
|Feb 1999
|Crisis!–How would your company handle a major crisis? Are you prepared?
|Dec 1998
|Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act – Determine how you can best take advantage of the new law's provisions to minimize your potential liabilities
|Oct 1998
|Employee Dishonesty – Could It Happen to You? – Most employee theft losses are caused by long-term, well-thought-of employees
|Aug 1998
|Life Insurance– How much do you need, and what kind? A quick and simple survey to help determine your needs
|May 1998
|Laptop Computer Security – How good is your security program? Suggestions to help protect your laptop and the information stored in it
|Mar 1998
|"All Risk" Property Coverage: There's No Such Thing! – The misnomer "all risk" has been changed to "special perils" to avoid misunderstandings


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Contractor Services Dunwoody, GA
American Outdoor Living offers complete contractor services for homeowners in Dunwoody, GA. From home repairs, to additions and remodels, we do it all. We offer driveway installation, sheetrock, carpentry, sheetrock repairs, painting, roof repairs and all residential home construction projects. The experts at American Outdoor Living understand completing the job correctly and in a timely manner are of the utmost importance to the Dunwoody homeowner. We will come to your home and consult with you about your construction project, then plan and coordinate the project to have as little an impact as possible on your household's daily activities.
Contractor services for the Dunwoody, GA homeowner
We have expert crews in all phases of construction and offer complete contractor services. Whether you need a new garage, room addition, roof repairs, driveway, or general repairs, the experts of American Outdoor Living can make your dreams a reality.

subset: commoncrawl


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<![CDATA[Following a busy day in Canberra, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended a party at Yarralumla, the residence of the Governor General. The Royal couple has been staying at the residence of Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove with their son Prince George.
William and Catherine meet a wide range of guests from the charity, conservation, arts, sporting and business fields on Friday evening in the drawing room at the Government House.
Chatting with the like's former pro-surfer Layne Beachley, INXS rocker Kirk Pengilly and sailor Jessica Watson; they also met Daniel Keighran, Benjamin Roberts-Smith and SAS Trooper Mark Donaldson, Australia's three serving Victoria Cross recipients.
They were among four Australians given the honour for their service in Afghanistan. Earlier this year, Corporal Cameron Baird was awarded the VC posthumously. Keith Payne, Australia's fourth surviving recipient of the VC was not in attendance on Thursday.
Commenting on Will and Kate's participation Friday at the Anzac Day services, The Governor General stated in his speech "I'm so pleased, I am delighted, that you will be here in Canberra to take part," Sir Peter said.
The gala was an end to a busy day for the Royal couple.
Earlier in the day, the Royal parents played with some children and planted a tree at Canberra's National Arboretum. They then were off to the National Portrait Gallery to view an array of the gallery's portraits.
William and Kate meet local children at a playground in Canberra #RoyalVisitAus pic.twitter.com/K2qeEgBrr5
— TEN Eyewitness News (@channeltennews) April 24, 2014
Following the gallery visit, William and Kate attended a reception at the Great Hall in Parliament House, where William delivered a warm and endearing speech:
"Australia has a quality of life and a level of excellence that makes it a magnet: an enormously attractive place to live, trade, invest, and indeed just visit. The arts and sciences flourish; Australian sporting success is legendary; agriculture – from the traditional to the technologically most advanced – is hugely successful. This is a country that is in the front rank internationally."
The duke also made mention of the couple's participation in Anzac Day on Friday and noted that he and his brother Harry would join in remembering next years centenary of Gallipoli:
Over the years, Australians have fought bravely for freedom in numerous conflicts. As those who were involved pass on, succeeding generations must remember and keep vivid the sacrifice they made. Catherine and I look forward to paying tribute to them at tomorrow's ANZAC Day commemoration; and – with my brother Harry – to taking part in next year's Gallipoli centenary.
Prime Minister Abbot stated in his address that: "Many decades, hence, when a currently unknowable Australian Prime Minister welcomes your son, King George VII to this building, that will be a sign of the stability and the continuity in the life of our nation.''
The Duke and Duchess will attend the Anzac Day commemoration on Friday where they will place a wreath before planting a 'Lone Pine Tree' in the Memorial Garden.
After the ceremony, The Royal Party departs for Australia Defence Establishment at Fairbairn where they will depart Canberra on the RAAF aircraft to transfer to an international commercial flight to London.
Photo Credit: @britishroyals and @DashRoyal ]]>


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What pours forth from that blazing glory hole? A shit-tonne of the purest gold on Earth. No joke. These fire-wielders are funneling 1000 kg of 99.99 percent pure gold into a mold to cast the hugest, most-valuable coin in history.
In an act of either divine inspiration or profound hubris an Australian mint just made a one-tonne Kangaroo Gold Bullion Coin—that's roughly 2200 pounds of gold. Why? To paraphrase the reasoning of the Perth Mint's CEO, "because we felt like it and we can." The whole process of making the coin, including design, polishing, and detail work, took over three months. Even though it would be horribly impractical to use this coin in real life, the mint, which is corporation owned by the Australian government, had it certified as legal tender worth $1 million. If the coin were actually for sale it would be a sweet deal: On the open market that huge hunk of gold would go for more than $50 million. [Perth Mint]
You can keep up with Mario Aguilar, the author of this post, on Twitter and Google+.
Making the Most Ginormous Gold Coin in HistoryPosted: October 30, 2011 in Uncategorized
via gizmodo.com


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Beginner #41 – French Eating Out, Part 7
A simple dialogue which takes place in a restaurant. Part 7 of 14 episodes. It is a good idea to listen many times to each part. This story is available in other languages at LingQ. You can use these versions to provide a direct translation.
Difficulty: Beginner
Category: Basic French
Duration: 0:47
Click here to listen to Eating Out, Part 7.


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Debuting @ #48 is a so-so debut. However, I'm happy that she's still got a career in the music business after all these years.
(My comment isn't meant to be snarky or rude - it's just that, in today's world of country music, it's hard to keep a career unless you "go with the flow" of what Nashville is doing - such as the crappy "bro-country" movement).


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This is the 6th post of a Budget and Tax Center blog series on public services and programs that face cuts in the budget process or have been underfunded in past years. See the other posts here.
If the Senate budget passes this year, rural communities are going to be living through a nightmare. Despite promises by the McCrory administration to support economic development in rural North Carolina, the budget passed by the state Senate last week continues long-term disinvestment in the very initiatives that rural communities need in order to create jobs and grow their local economies.
For most of the past 30 years, the state's primary actor in promoting economic development in the state's 85 rural counties was the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center. Incorporated as a state-charted nonprofit in the late 1980s, the Rural Center used a mix of state funding and private fundraising to support a range of rural development work—everything from small town revitalization efforts and building rehabilitation grants, to small business lending and workforce training programs.
Over the past three years, however, the legislature has significantly reduced state investment in these important activities, undermining the state's ability to promote job creation and economic revitalization in rural communities, many of which are still grappling with long-term decline in manufacturing. Even in the darkest period of the Great Recession in FY 2009, the state strongly supported these efforts by funding the Rural Center at $24 million. Unfortunately, the new legislative majority in 2011 significantly reduced support for rural development, cutting the Rural Center's budget down to $16 million.
Then, in last year's budget, the General Assembly eliminated all state funding for the Rural Center, instead opting to move some of these operations into a newly-created Division of Rural Economic Development in the N.C. Department of Commerce. As part of this move, the legislature reduced state funding for rural development even further, from $16 million in FY 2012-13 for the old Rural Center down to just $13.8 million in FY 2013-14 for the new Rural Development Division, of which $2.5 million was dedicated to a newly created Limited Resource Communities grant program intended to support economic development specifically in designated low-resource communities (e.g., the poorest 40 counties in the state). And the damage to rural development extends beyond the dollar reductions—the new division simply doesn't carry out many of the specialized initiatives once conducted by the Rural Center: the state no longer supports small business lending in rural areas, targeted rural workforce development, or small town revitalization efforts.
In this year's budget proposal, the Senate went even further in dismantling the state's ability to promote job creation and revitalization in the most distressed rural communities. Although the Senate allows the Division's appropriation to rise to $13.4 million in FY 2014-15, $350,000 of this is one-time money, which will vanish next year, and perhaps more importantly, the proposal eliminates the grant program for limited resource communities, a reduction of $2.5 million. As a result, if the Senate budget is enacted, total state investment in rural economic development will dropped from $24 million in 2009 to just $13.3 million in 2014—at a time when rural joblessness remains high and Governor McCrory says that supporting rural North Carolina should be a top priority.
This long-term disinvestment in rural economic development is a waking nightmare for many rural communities, and the Senate budget only makes it worse.


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To hear automakers and environmentalists tell it, electric vehicles (EVs) are the greenest and cleanest solution to personal mobility. But in his book Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism, author Ozzie Zehner argues that EVs are more symbolism and marketing than environmental and fossil-fuel saviors. And in many cases, EVs are actually worse for the environment than traditional gas-powered vehicles.
To prove this, Zehner, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, points to what he views as the fuel-inefficient process of manufacturing EVs, and claims that they don't make a big difference in greenhouse-gas emissions. He also contends that electric cars won't protect the U.S. against future oil price fluctuations, as many claim, and that it's a fallacy that prices for EVs will fall as the technology matures. He also maligns tax subsidies and government spending that support EV production as misguided. But two well-respected alternative powertrain reporters take issue with most of Zehner's and the book's arguments against EVs.
Although an academic, Zehner has deep Detroit-area automotive roots. He attended Kettering University (née General Motors Institute) in Flint and then worked for GM for five years, along with a stint in advanced vehicle development at the company's Opel division in Europe for three years. Originally from Kalamazoo, Zehner completed grad school at the University of Amsterdam, where he studied the sociology of science and technology. "My research was looking at how technologies are taken up in society — their benefits, limitations and unintended consequences," he says. "But cars have always remained a big interest of mine."
The main focus of the automotive portion of the book is to shift attention away from the amount of fuel used to power EVs once they're on the road to what's required to manufacture them. Zehner maintains that the manufacturing of EVs negates their environmental benefits, particularly the mining and processing of the copper, aluminum and rare earth metals used to construct the car. "All of those are very energy-intensive," Zehner told Wired. "So it ends up taking a lot of fossil fuel to build an electric car."
To support his point, Zehner notes that a National Academy of Sciences study found that roughly half of the energy used over the lifespan of a car is expended during its production, and that fuel consumption while driving — one of the biggest perceived environmental advantages of EVs — is the only part of the equation. "A lot of studies concentrate on whether or not it's better to use gasoline or recharging electric vehicles," Zehner says. "But when you look at the whole fuel cycle — from constructing a car to disposing of it — NAS concluded that the environmental damage from electric vehicles is actually greater than that from gasoline vehicles because of manufacturing. Sixty percent of the energy input comes from the manufacturing," he adds, "and that's where you're going see the larger trade-off between using gasoline and other types of [fuel]."
But Nick Chambers, who has written about EVs for outlets ranging from The New York Times to Plugincars.com, asserts that Zehner's claim that EVs are much more energy intensive to manufacture is "ridiculous," and that estimates on how much energy is consumed in their creation are dubious at best.
"The energy intensity for manufacturing anything large like an automobile — electric or not — will be very high," he says. "If anything, EVs and conventional cars are equally energy intensive during construction and are starting from the same point at the time of delivery. Because of this, the only energy usage numbers that matter in terms of comparison are what happens after delivery of that car — and that's where EVs win."
Green Illusions also seeks to dispel what Zehner says is a common misconception that electric vehicles are more expensive because they represent cutting-edge technology. "There's an impression that technological advancement will lower costs in the future, and I would expect electric vehicles to go down in cost in the future as well," Zehner says. "But I'm not sure how large those gains will be because there's already been a lot of research into motor technologies, and the motors are already pretty efficient and they've been economized for quite some time in other industries. But you still don't get away from the fact that you have to use copper and aluminum in the chassis, magnesium and rare earth metals in the magnets. There's no substitution at this point or even on the horizon for any of those materials."
Chambers says Zehner's consideration of the initial R&D costs for EV production overlooks a major point. "Most estimates place the cost of the battery pack in an EV like the Nisan Leaf at roughly 45 percent of the entire cost of the vehicle," he says. "If the cost of that battery can be brought down by even 10 percent, the cost of the vehicle changes by about 5 percent – a number most automakers would kill to be able to achieve. Try getting those kinds of gains in a conventional combustion vehicle. You can't because the materials sourcing and construction of the engine and entire drivetrain are close to being fully optimized at this point. Barring some kind of incredible leap in manufacturing technology, the cost of construction of conventional cars has essentially plateaued."
John Voelcker, editor of GreenCarReports.com, agrees, saying that "in general, the auto industry is exceptionally good at squeezing cost out of complex, high-quality electromechanical devices produced in volume. The same will apply to plug-ins."
Chambers adds that if Zehner was correct, the cost of the battery packs wouldn't have dropped so dramatically. "A few years ago, EV batteries were costing roughly $900 per kilowatt-hour," he says. "Today they are around $400." Estimates by numerous analysts have that cost reduced to about $250 per kilowatt-hour by 2015, notes Chambers. "So we've already seen the cost drop by more than 50 percent in the last few years and, if predictions hold true, we'll see a 70 percent drop by 2015. If, as Zehner says, batteries cost so much because of their fossil fuel intensive construction, how can they drop in price so quickly even as the cost of oil has risen?"
Chambers also points out that Secretary of Energy Steven Chu recently claimed that an electric car will cost $25,000 in 10 years time.
Voelker adds that while electric-motor improvements will come slowly, batteries for EVs are by far the biggest cost. "Auto-scale lithium-ion cells should fall at about 7 percent annualized, but not in linear fashion," he says. "That doesn't help this year, but 10 years hence it puts you in some interesting places."
Regarding Zehner's contention about the environmental and monetary costs of EV manufacturing, Voelcker points out that there are two types of electric motors – one uses rare-earth metals and one does not. "There is a great deal of research going into e-motors in general, particularly in the [non-rare-earth] category," he says. "It's not quite as grim as some would have you believe."
In Green Illusions Zehner also points to the public funding of EVs in terms of government subsidies, tax incentives and infrastructure, calling them wasteful. "American taxpayers as well as those in other countries give these vehicles priority parking, special freeway lanes and rebates even though there's no evidence they've done anything positive for the environment in return," he says. Zehner acknowledges that EVs do help reduce air pollution in urban areas. "But not very much," he adds, "because you need a lot of them to create much of an impact."
Chamber calls the idea that EVs don't help reduce emission because there aren't enough on the road a "laughable" statement. "Every new technology starts of with too few instances to make an impact," he adds. "The whole point is to encourage technologies that do make a difference, and hopefully they catch on."
Zehner says that instead of automakers, governments and consumers pouring large sums into getting a small numbers of EVs on the road, putting the money into initiatives he sees as more effective, such as more stringent emissions monitoring, would be more effective. "It's something that has been used in Europe: remote monitoring stations set up along freeway entrance ramps that monitor emissions particulates from vehicles and identify vehicles that are giving off a lot of smog." he says. Pictures of the license plates of offending vehicles are snapped and officials send notices to owners to have their cars repaired or pay a fine. Zehner claims that 20 percent of cars of the road are responsible for 80 percent of air pollution problem. "So what they're trying to do there is get those vehicles off the road," Zehner says. "Electric cars can help a little bit, but it's a very expensive way to achieve that kind of small advantage."
Voelcker says he can't envision the same situation applied in the U.S., given recent voter rebellions against speed cameras. "They're starting to get voted out town by town in a number of places," he says, "so remote emissions monitoring is going to be tough. Remember that states with any auto inspection at all besides emissions are a distinct minority. It's a good way to clean up the 'gross polluters,' but those are rare in Rust Belt states and more common in California, which has a much longer tail of old cars."
Perhaps the strongest case for EVs is to lessen the country's dependency on imported oil. "That's a fascinating argument, but it probably won't hold," Zehner maintains. "And the reason is because if oil prices – or energy prices in general – become more volatile or go up in the future, the cost of buying an electric car will also go up because it takes so much fossil fuel to build. That's why it probably costs more to build an electric car today than it would have 10 years ago."
Given the cost to manufacture EVs – and the instability of fuel prices to power them – Zehner claims the vehicles won't counterbalance increasing energy costs. "And, unfortunately, you run into that problem with a lot of energy technologies that are promoted as being a hedge against oil price volatility," he says. "But it's difficult to say because [power for] an electric car is drawing from a lot of different fuel sources. Some of the energy is coming from coal, some of it is coming from natural gas or nuclear and some of it from oil. In the future, if petroleum costs go up, there will be a lot of substitution, which will raise the cost of other fossil fuels as well. And so over the long term, we can't see electric cars as being much of a hedge against increasing oil costs – maybe for very short periods, but not long the long run."
But Chambers says the point is not really protecting against oil price volatility, but ensuring national security by relying on domestically produced energy. "No matter what fuels the power station — solar, wind, coal, hydro, natural gas — that electricity is usually produced at a mostly local level, and in the worst case came from a few states away," he adds. "That's the hedge: Even if things go bad around the world, our country stays secure because our fuel stays secure. Also, our electricity costs are largely insulated from the global demand for oil and there's no reason to assume that would change as more and more people drive electric cars. Electricity costs may rise over time," Chambers adds, "but usually in tune with inflation – and definitely not in tune with whatever oil-producing country is having a war at the time."
In Green Illusions Zehner pushes for government to put more money into public transit projects that will affect many more people before backing EVs that he believes benefit only few.
"If we're looking at ways to decrease the energy use in the United States, building more walkable and bikeable villages and cities and towns of various sizes would be a better funding priority than subsidizing electric vehicles," he says. "It would certainly help people if the federal government spent more money on building highways. But I'm not sure if it's really justified over the long term because it's just delaying an inevitable crunch that will occur. And when you end up paying for all the infrastructure costs and having to maintain the highways and bridges in addition to subsidizing the cars, it's a very expensive proposition. Right now, highways and roads represent almost all of the transportation budget and only a very, very tiny fraction is spent on bicycling or bicycle transportation infrastructure, and even that looks like it's going to be potentially wiped out with the next transportation bill."
But this is a big country, and bicycling or even public transportation isn't going to help the folks in rural communities who have to travel long distances to get to work or to buy food and other necessities. Notwithstanding predictions that the U.S. population will become more urbanized, Zehner acknowledges that his advocacy of public transportation and biking infrastructure won't work outside of urban areas. But he also asserts that EVs won't help in rural areas either. "I think people that live in rural areas are just going to be stuck with higher fuel costs in the future," he says. "I don't really see a way around that. But I'd just like to point out that electric vehicles are probably not going to be a solution either."
"He's right that electric cars won't be suitable for rural drivers," says Voelcker. "But we now have 1 billion vehicles on the planet, and by some estimates, that will double by 2050. There's a large opening for zero-emission vehicles. And just as we now pick vehicles in a 2- or 3-car household by body style – the Suburban if we're taking the soccer team, the Corolla if we're going to the grocery store – we'll start to have multiple powertrain types and use them according to the needed duty cycle."
"If you're like 63 percent of all American households," Chambers adds, "you have two cars in your driveway. Eighty to 90 percent of the time those cars sit in your driveway or are parked somewhere outside the home and the other 10 to 20 percent of the time they drive less than 40 miles per day. There is a very small percentage of the time that most people actually drive more than 80 miles in a day. But with two cars one of them could easily be electric and the household would never know the difference – except in drastically reduced fuel costs, maintenance costs and never having to go to the gas station again."Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.


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Holly Logan's 19 points help Cold Spring Harbor to Nassau B final
Cold Spring Harbor's Holly Logan doesn't know losing.
The sophomore point guard joined the girls basketball team in eighth grade and helped the Seahawks win two consecutive Nassau Class B titles.
In Saturday's county Class B semifinal, she knew what it took to give her team a chance at a third.
Logan scored 14 of her career-high 19 points in the first half as the top-seeded Seahawks knocked off No. 4 Oyster Bay, 55-33.
Cold Spring Harbor (15-3) will play No. 2 Carle Place in the Nassau Class B final, Saturday at LIU Post.
"Every year it's still nerve-racking in the playoffs because you never know what can happen with upsets, but I'm excited to be in the finals again," Logan said. "It never gets old."
Added Cold Spring Harbor coach Rory Malone: "I don't know if there's a correlation there if we got good when she joined the team but she's only known winning in basketball so we're trying to keep that going."
Logan led the Seahawks as they broke the game open in the second quarter after a tightly contested first period. Cold Spring Harbor outscored Oyster Bay 14-4 to take a 30-17 lead at the half, as the 5-3 Logan confidently took the ball to the hoop and was able to score inside.
"I think we tightened up our defense in the second quarter and Holly Logan took over," Malone said. "She's fearless driving to the basket and she made some incredible shots."
Center Brianna Noak said that the team re-energized itself after the first quarter.
"After we played the first we said, 'guys we're so much better than this, we have to show what we can do,' and we showed them what we got," Noak said.
Oyster Bay had stayed close in the first quarter as Caroline Kelly (12 points) and Hannah Kaiser (nine points) both converted key three-point plays. The Lady Baymen took their only lead of the game at 9-7 with 4:33 to go in the first, but Kelly Vassallo's three-pointer quickly put the Seahawks back ahead, 10-9.
Logan would score the last six points of the quarter for Cold Spring Harbor, crossing over her defender for a layup to make it 12-9 and driving through traffic on two straight possessions to make it 16-13 after one.
"We were fast breaking a lot so their defense was spread out and that created space for driving to the basket and opened lanes for me," Logan said.
In the third, a late pullup by Katie Durand at the foul line and a buzzer-beating baseline jumper by Alexandra Buonfiglio extended the Seahawks' lead to 43-27 heading into the fourth quarter.
Logan gave the Seahawks a 20-point lead on a three-point play with 5:04 left in the fourth when she took the ball end-to end for a layup and converted the ensuing free throw. Durand then hit a three-pointer to make it 53-30 with 3:52 to go.
Durand finished with 11 points and four blocks, Noak had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Logan added four steals.
"It's almost like you wait all season to get here again," Malone said of reaching the county final. "This is what we've been itching for to get back to and hopefully we play well."


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VANCOUVER -- Carla Edwards bowed her head low in B.C. Supreme Court Tuesday as she heard testimony about her dying son Tyson covered in blood in front of Richards on Richards almost four years ago.
Crown witness Ismael Aissani described coming across Tyson Edwards lying outside the Vancouver nightclub and someone appearing to kick him while he was down.
Aissani said he didn't get a good look at the assailant, who he described as black and wearing a black hoodie, because he was focused on assisting Edwards.
"No one was really helping, so I moved in," Aissani told Justice Victor Curtis. "His eyes were open and he was trying to speak to me and then I realized he was badly hurt and said: `call an amubulance.'"
Aissani said he then realized "I had blood on my hand, blood on my shirt."
The 21-year-old Vancouver man was stabbed to death about 2:30 am Feb. 1. 2009 after a rare night out clubbing with friends.
For months, his mom made public pleas seeking information in her son's death. In December 2009, manslaughter charges were laid against Patrick Avery Plowman, Sebastian Lucas Miazga, Kalum Lather Cain and Nolan Swallow.
Aissani told prosecutor Isobel Keeley Tuesday that he believed Edwards' assailant had kicked him in the body. He said the attacker appeared to be with several others and was "taunting" some of the people in front of him and around Edwards.
"It looked like the person was just angry," Aissani said.
He said he tried to intervene and said something like "hey, that's not fair" when he saw Edwards was down.
At one point, he went to look for his friends in the crowd and when he returned to Edwards seconds later, the assailant and those standing near him had gone, Aissani said.
He said police arrived minutes later.
Edwards died of his injuries in hospital.
Footage from the nightclub's video surveillance shows both Plowman and Miazga exiting the club at 2:18 am and 2:19 am, Vancouver Police Const. Eric Lott testified Tuesday.
Lott was shown the video in court and confirmed the identifies he had earlier conveyed to investigators in the Edwards' slaying.
Lott said he had dealings with both Plowman and Miazga in 2007 and 2008, so knew them well enough to identify them. He pointed out both men in the prisoners' box in court Tuesday.
There were two definite camps in the courtroom - with Edwards' family and supporters on one side and people connected to the accused on the other.
The trial continues.
read my blog at vancouversun.com/therealscoop
follow me: twitter.com/kbolan


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|DDDDDDDDDD dragon
Breath (see article), bite 3d8, claw 1d4, claw 1d4
|Base level
|Base experience
|Base AC
|Base MR
|-7 (blue)
-6 (black)
-5 (white)
-4 (red)
4 (gray, silver)
5 (orange)
6 (green)
7 (yellow)
|Frequency (by normal means)
|1 (Very rare)
|Nutritional value
|(see article)
|Resistances conveyed
(see article)
A dragon:
A red dragon also:
A green dragon also:
A yellow dragon also:
The dragons, represented by the overall glyph D, are a class of very powerful mid-game monster and are coveted for the scales they sometimes drop. With some superficial differences, they are nearly identical save for color. Each of them has a nasty breath attack associated with its resistance. There are also baby dragons, which do not have a breath attack. Baby dragons randomly occur only on those levels that are eligible for baby monsters; otherwise they can be created by hatching dragon eggs.
Each dragon has a specific resistance associated with it. Eating some dragon corpses can give you the associated intrinsics; others can give you the extrinsic characteristic when you enchant their scales to make dragon scale mail. (Dragon corpses are very filling, so using a tinning kit is usually a good idea. Be aware that tinning still won't work on half eaten corpses and, at least for lawfuls, eating after being satiated abuses your wisdom.) Dragons will always leave corpses, and they have a 1 in 3 chance of also dropping scales (1 in 20 if the dragon was revived). Baby dragons do not drop scales, nor do their corpses grant intrinsics.
The D Chromatic Dragon, the Caveman quest nemesis, is a special sort of dragon. Eating its corpse conveys a random resistance.
A shimmering dragon, whose scales grant displacement, appears in the code, but is commented out by default, because monster displacement has not yet been implemented in vanilla NetHack. However, these creatures do appear in SLASH'EM.
Dragons are guaranteed on the Castle level and at Fort Ludios. They can be randomly generated by normal random monster generation at rather deep dungeon levels, on the healer quest, and in throne rooms.[1] Other powerful monsters may generate them with the summon nasties spell.
Breath weapons and resistances
|Breath (4d6 unless otherwise noted)
|Corpse conveys...
|disintegration resistance
|same (100%)
|shock resistance
|same (100%)
|magic missile
|magic resistance
|nothing (magic resistance cannot be gained intrinsically)
|poison resistance
|same (100%)
|sleep, 4d25 turns
|sleep resistance
|same (100%)
|fire 6d6
|fire resistance
|same (100%)
|reflection and cold resistance; only reflection is provided by scales
|nothing (reflection cannot be gained intrinsically)
|cold resistance
|same (100%)
|acid resistance and petrification resistance; only acid resistance is provided by scales
|nothing (neither resistance can be gained intrinsically)
Black dragon
A black dragon is the only source of disintegration resistance in the game; this might make acquiring disintegration resistance tricky were it not for the fact that reflection is already a reliable defense against the black dragon's disintegration blasts. (The only other disintegration is wide-angle disintegration beams from angry gods, which can be survived only by being resistant, or avoided by being sensible regarding religion.)
Disintegration resistance will protect both you and your armor. If a dragon's blast of disintegration hits you (or a monster), and you (or it) are neither resistant nor reflecting, it will destroy:[2][3]
- a shield if worn, otherwise:
- body armor if worn (plus any cloak), otherwise:
- an amulet of life saving if worn;[4] otherwise:
- you (or the monster victim), as the case may be.
The rebound can still kill you (or a monster) if your gear saved you from the direct hit.
Gray dragon
A gray dragon (or baby gray dragon) is often the eventual result of repeatedly displacing your pet onto a polymorph trap, because it is magic resistant, and hence will polymorph no further. However, it can still polymorph if it eats a chameleon or doppelganger corpse.
Red dragon
There is a guaranteed red dragon on the Plane of Fire. This is the only place in the game where a specific color dragon is generated, not counting Ixoth, the Knight quest nemesis.
Fighting dragons
Dragons will use their breath weapons only at range (i.e. more than one square from the character), meaning that if you can get close to within melee distance, you can avoid the dangerous attacks in favour of the relative "safety" of their physical melee attacks. This is useful for characters without magic cancellation, magic resistance, or reflection to avoid or negate their elemental fire, cold, lightning, poison, or disintegration beams.
Dragons are considered kebabable, able to be skewered, and you receive a +2 to-hit bonus when using a weapon that uses the spear or javelin skills.
As pets
Dragons are excellent pets in the early game if you ever get one. The easiest way to get a dragon pet is through a dragon egg; the egg may be obtained by polymorphing into any of the dragons and then sitting if your character is female. If you repeatedly displace your pet onto a polymorph trap you will often end up with a gray dragon, since they are magic-resistant and will not polymorph further.
The most recommendable colors for dragons are silver and gray; they are immune to death rays and silver ones also immune to disintegration, while gray ones are immune to polymorph traps. Yellow is a good option too due to stoning-resistance.
Pet dragons can be used as steeds with the advantages of flight, fighting strength, and carnivorousness, which makes them easy to feed. However, they are quite slow and will spend most of their time either catching up with you or eating corpses unless you make them fast (eg by zapping a wand of speed monster at them).
Baby dragons
|DDDDDDDDDD baby dragon
Bite 2d6
|Base level
|Base experience
|Base AC
|Base MR
|0 (neutral)
|Frequency (by normal means)
|0 (Not randomly generated)
|Nutritional value
|(see article)
|Resistances conveyed
A baby dragon:
A baby red dragon also:
A baby green dragon also:
A baby yellow dragon also:
Baby dragons generally possess the resistances of their adult forms. However, baby silver dragons do not possess reflection.[5] They grant no intrinsics when eaten, they do not drop scales, and they do not have breath attacks.
However, one can still use tame baby dragons to obtain scales and/or resistances. Pet baby dragons will eventually grow up into their adult forms, which can then be killed (possibly via conflict or by rendering them non-tame through abuse) for their scales and intrinsics. Obtaining pet baby dragons can be accomplished via controlled polymorph for a female character fairly easily: all dragons are oviparous, and baby dragons coming from laid eggs will be tame. A male character can use an amulet of change to swap genders, or he can repeatedly polymorph into a dragon using the spell or the ring until he changes sex.[6]
Dragons have been substantially modified in UnNetHack. All dragons have been given new names and have their breaths, resistances, and colors randomized, with the exception of chromatic dragons, which possess all breaths, and all resistances except for magic resistance. As result it is impossible to predict breath type based on name or color. This behavior has been made a bit more friendly in the current version - dragons are randomized at the start of the game, but all dragons of the same name/color are of the same type - identify one, identify all of that type. They auto-identify upon witnessing the breath attack. In addition, a new type of breath attack has been added - a lava breath that does heavy fire damage and melts walls instead of bouncing.
Glowing dragon scales and scale mail function as an infinite light source, in addition to providing the resistance that glowing dragons possess in each individual game. Chromatic dragon scales and scale mail provide all resistances (including reflection) except magic resistance.
The following are the names given to random dragons in Unnethack:
- leviathan
- tatzelworm
- lindworm
- guivre
- sarkany
- amphitere
- wyvern
- draken
- sirrush
- glowing dragon
SLASH'EM also added two new dragons, the Shimmering D and Deep D variants, whose scales give displacement and drain resistance respectively. The hydra and wyvern monsters also use the D glyph.
FIQHack dragons are significantly faster (speed 20 instead of 9) and claw attacks are 1d8 instead of 1d4. In addition, they have special AI that allows them to use their breath weapon in melee, and will try to move more intelligently in general to move in line to breath at you, or out of line when they can't breath, and flee to preserve survival. FIQHack also includes the deferred shimmering dragons from vanilla, who have innate displacement, a stun breath and whose scales confer displacement when worn.
Hack 1.0 has a dragon that does not have an explicit color. This early dragon breathes fire and its corpse confers fire resistance, making it equivalent to the modern red dragon. Back then, it was the only way to get intrinsic fire resistance, so it was quite likely that the player wouldn't have acquired it yet by the time they would see dragons. This, combined with the lack of reflection and fact that in earlier versions of NetHack, dragons were allowed to use their breath attack in melee (on top of their normal melee attacks), made them significantly more dangerous.
NetHack 2.3e introduces all of the modern dragon types except silver. The corpse is still just a "dead dragon", without reference to the color, and eating it confers fire resistance, regardless of the type of dragon. Black dragon breath causes instadeath, and there is no reflection, disintegration resistance, or amulet of life saving, making genocide tempting; but fire resistance is necessary to enter Hell, and there's no way to genocide only black dragons.
NetHack 3.0.0 introduces baby dragons, makes the corpses separate, and also introduces dragon scale mail. Dragon scale mail is obtained by polymorphing a dragon corpse. Reflection is now available and black dragon breath is toned down a bit. It also becomes possible to genocide only black dragons.
NetHack 3.1.0 introduces dragon scales and with them the modern method of obtaining dragon scale mail. This version also adds the Quests and with them the Chromatic Dragon and Ixoth. Fire resistance is not necessary to enter Gehennom.
NetHack 3.3.0 adds the silver dragon and corresponding scales.
Encyclopedia entry
In the West the dragon was the natural enemy of man. Although
preferring to live in bleak and desolate regions, whenever it
was seen among men it left in its wake a trail of destruction
and disease. Yet any attempt to slay this beast was a perilous
undertaking. For the dragon's assailant had to contend
not only with clouds of sulphurous fumes pouring from its fire
breathing nostrils, but also with the thrashings of its tail,
the most deadly part of its serpent-like body.
"One whom the dragons will speak with," he said, "that is a
dragonlord, or at least that is the center of the matter. It's
not a trick of mastering the dragons, as most people think.
Dragons have no masters. The question is always the same, with
a dragon: will he talk to you or will he eat you? If you can
count upon his doing the former, and not doing the latter, why
then you're a dragonlord."
- ↑ courtmon in mkroom.c
- ↑ zap.c in NetHack 3.6.1, line 3686
- ↑ zap.c in NetHack 3.6.1, line 3542
- ↑ Corner case: an amulet of life saving is never destroyed by the blast, but it does not die instead of an undead or non-living monster. This case can only arise if a living monster wearing an amulet has been polymorphed.
- ↑ muse.c in NetHack 3.6.1, line 2141
- ↑ polyself.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 488
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
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There seems to be quite a flurry of talk these days about certification. There is evidence of it in the forums and editorials at SSC, as well as in several personal blogs of various SQL Professionals throughout the community. I even see it happening with the quarterly goals at my employer (yes we have quarterly goals).
I have, myself, taken several certification exams. I found them worthwhile for my personal and career growth. I haven't taken an exam in probably ten years though. I have always found that studying by myself with the materials I could find online or via a bookstore was the best way to go. Studying in this fashion, I could drive the pace and spend as little or as much money as necessary to pass the exam. Through this practice, I have earned quite a few letters after my name from Cisco to Novell to Microsoft to Citrix to A+ and N+ (it all started with the A+ certification due to employment requirements). Each of the certs was job related and useful when working in a one man shop type of setting.
Well, it is time again to commit to getting certified. I doubt I will pursue the MCM any time soon. However, I will be pursuing the MCITP certification as soon as possible. I will probably pursue some other vendor specific certifications due to work related goals and prior personal goals I never fulfilled. As I progress, I will likely blog about my successes and experiences. However, don't expect to find any information specific to my exams – other than general feelings upon completion.


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Home » Plan your visit » Refreshments - Refreshments
Nene Valley Railway offers a variety of catering and refreshment options for all of our visitors.
The café is now open 9am - 4pm every day. Serving a variety of hot and cold drinks, snacks, home cooked meals, cakes, confectionary and ice creams.
On running days, we offer our famous home made sausage rolls which are always in demand, and, unless sold out, we aim to always have a gluten free cake on offer, as well as our non gluten free options.
Have a look at our Café menu below for our current options.
Food is served between 9am - 4pm every day subject to special events, with drinks being served from 8.30am.
Click here for our updated Winter 2019 Cafe Menu
Sausage, Bacon, Egg and Toast
Lunch Box
A box containing sandwiches, chocolate, fruit, crisps and yogurt
All of our meals are £4.50 and come with a carton, fruit jet or water
For visitors embarking or alighting at either Orton Mere or Ferry Meadows, hot and cold drinks and confectionary are available in the station buildings on most running days.
Spaces are limited and include full Rover Travel - unless specified all dates are for ages 12 and over. Please note that payment is taken at the time of booking.
Our buffet car offers passengers a spot of light refreshment to be enjoyed alongside the charming Cambridgeshire countryside. We serve fresh filter coffee, tea, chilled soft drinks and a selection of alcohol, which includes, on special event days, a selection of real ales.
A great evening out with Fish and Chips served at your seat, our train contains a Bar Car for alcoholic and soft drinks. The train leaves Wansford at 7.00 pm returning at approx 9.30 pm. See our Jolly Fisherman event page for all running dates.
From birthdays to group lunches to corporate events, we are happy to cater for larger groups or parties in the café. Buffet lunches, Afternoon tea and cream teas as well as all options on our café menu are available subject to booking.
Our buffet lunches can also be pre booked, collected from our Wansford station and taken onto the train, if you would like to have lunch on the move, or a picnic at one of our other stations.
Children's parties are incredibly popular and can be catered for with our children's boxes which include half a sandwich, yoghurt, crisps, fruit, chocolate bar and a juice box.
Private charters are available for visitors who require something that little bit extra special. Our Swedish Railcar can be chartered for drinks and snack receptions, or, for fully catered charters, we will work with you to create a bespoke menu tailored to suit your culinary needs.
For groups using our Study Centre, lunches or finger buffets can be provided.
Our home-made cakes make a wonderful accompaniment to any of the above catering options.
For more information or to book, drop into the Turntable Café or email our catering manager email@example.com


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Science fiction and midwestern regionalism?: Bill Kauffman on Ray Bradbury. I haven't read Bradbury for a long time but what I remember fits with what Kauffman says: that he uses sci-fi and fantasy to make some very earthy points.
Ross Douthat on the American heresy. Douthat is Catholic and a bit of a prodigy in that he is a "senior" editor of The Atlantic while still (I think) in his 20s; I find it a very hopeful sign that someone with his views is in such a position.
—Maclin Horton


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Sante Romano, tailor
Sante "Sandee" Romano, 80, of Collegeville, a tailor who with his wife, Maddalena, op- erated a business in Chestnut Hill for more than three decades, died Nov. 4 of respiratory failure at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Romano's sho- p, at 7833 Germantown Ave., was known to local residents both for its red awning and marble stoop as well as for the friendliness of its proprietor who invariably could be found leaning over the counter, tape measure draped around his neck, sharing stories about current happenings on the Hill and reminiscences of his hom- etown in Italy.
Born in Bucchianico, Mr. Romano came to the United States in 1947. He learned tailoring at a trade school in Philadelphia and worked for several years for the Daroff clothing company before opening his own shop.
Longtime residents of Chestnut Hill, Mr. Romano and his wife moved to Collegeville after retiring in 2002.
He was fond of Italian food and wine, opera and traveling the world, and enjoyed vacationing in Sullivan, Maine, for more than 35 years.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Romano is survived by sons Anthony and Stephen, and a brother, Joseph. Two sisters, Anna and Giustinia, preceded him in death.
A memorial service was held Nov. 8 at St. Eleanor's Church in Collegeville. Memorial donations may be made to: Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania for the Benefit of the Cardiovascular Institute of Penn Medicine Development, c/o Carol Forte, 3535 Market St., Suite 750, Philadelphia, PA 19104. – WF
Christopher R. Rosser, lawyer
Christopher Rex Rosser, 72, a partner in the law firm of Thistle, Moore, Rosser and Tull, died of stomach cancer Nov. 20 – his birthday – at his home in Chestnut Hill.
Mr. Rosser was one of the founders of the firm, created more than three decades ago in a split from an earlier law firm. Among its clients were heavyweight champion Joe Frazier and the "Lawrence Welk Show" singer Natalie Nevins.
Raised in Roxborough and Chestnut Hill, the son of Gus and Emily Rosser, he was a graduate of the William Penn Charter School, Middlebury College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
He served in the Army Reserves after graduating from college.
Mr. Rosser, who had lived for 41 years in Wyndmoor, had a longstanding affection for Windsor Beach in Cape May, N.J., where he vacationed all of his life, eventually buying a house there that became a work in progress. It was not uncommon for him to play host to 15 overnight guests or porch parties for the entire neighborhood. The house was sold a week before his death.
He also was an avid watercolor painter and jazz connoisseur.
Mr. Rosser is survived by his wife of 46 years, Jane; a son, Mark; a daughter, Pam Thistle, and four grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 4, in the auditorium of the William Penn Charter School, 3000 W. School House Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19144. Memorial donations may be made to the school. – WF
Joseph B. Timoney, fire chief
Joseph B. Timoney, 85, a former fire chief of Wyndmoor Hose Company No. 1, died of cancer Nov. 22 at his home in Wyndmoor.
Mr. Timoney's 62 years of service to the fire company began when he joined it as a volunteer in 1948. He had served 31 years as a member of the company's board of directors and for 23 years as financial secretary, overseeing construction of a new fire station.
He was named fire chief in the mid-1970s, presiding over the company's 45 members for 20 years.
After retiring, he remained on the board of directors and became safety officer, appearing at fires to monitor safety procedures until shortly before his death.
He was a member of the Springfield Township Fire Board and a charter member of the Montgomery County Fire Board, which he chaired from 1986 to 1996, playing a major role in construction of the Montgomery County Fire Academy.
A lifetime resident of Wyndmoor, he was a graduate of Springfield High School. For a time he worked in King of Prussia as a building supervisor for what was formerly the Pennsalt Chemical Co.
He is survived by his wife, the former Norita Hartley; sons Joseph B. Jr. and Gregory; a daughter, Audrey Fasy; six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
A funeral Mass was celebrated Nov. 27 at Seven Dolors Catholic Church in Wyndmoor. Interment was in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.
Memorial donations may be made to the Wyndmoor Hose Company No. 1, 1043 E. Willow Grove Ave., Wyndmoor PA 19038. – WF


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Over the last three days I've been thinking deeply about the article that appeared in the New York Times on Monday, In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters. More specifically, I've been lamenting the fact that our city, Atlanta, holds the dubious distinction of being one of the cities where it is least likely that a child born into poverty has a chance to ever realize the American dream. Only 4% of children in Atlanta born into a family with income of less than $25,000 a year will rise to become part of our community's middle-class. This horrendous disparity is compounded in Atlanta where over 30% of children live in poverty.
The plight of these children, and their denial of opportunity, contradicts in the most visceral way our posture as a community 'too busy to hate' and a community that is touted as the Mecca of opportunity and equity in the South. As I began to contemplate "why", I realized that the true question is not why are children in our community, who are born into poverty, forever destined to remain in poverty. The real question is why do we as a community, when faced with the opportunities and choices, continuously chose to fail to address the conditions that sentence impoverished children, and their children's children, to intergenerational lifetimes of poverty.
Unfortunately, our failure to remediate the conditions that perpetuate poverty are deeply rooted in our misperceptions and beliefs about poor people and their complicity and/or willingness to transcend the impoverished conditions that envelope their lives. However, as highlighted in the article and supported by the study's data, where a child and her family reside and the conditions that surround them are the most predictive factors of her likely economic future and opportunity. In addition to whether she was born into a two-parent household, her access to high performing educational institutions; whether she lives in a mixed income neighborhood; and whether the residents in her city are civically engaged, are the constructs of her path from poverty to prosperity and economic mobility. This probability and potential is emphasized by the study's finding that children who moved from a city like Atlanta, where the chances of mobility from poverty are slim to none, to a city where mobility from poverty to higher income brackets is more likely, almost did as well economically as children who spent their entire childhood in cities with high mobility.
Without a doubt, where you are born in this country truly matters. We are not only our brothers' keeper; we are the solution to our brothers' distress. We can be the architects of opportunity and potential for children in our community to rise out of poverty and we can ensure that children where we live have the opportunity to achieve success. The study confirms what many of us know; that each and every one of us individually, and all of us collectively, can impact the lives of the children around us and their opportunities to be successful. It simply requires us to have the will and commitment to address those conditions that sentence children to a lifetime of poverty. Clearly, as highlighted in the article, if we would commit to justice and equity in our education system; ensure access to affordable and safe housing; the ability to attain employment that pays a true living wage; and access to reliable transportation, children who now live in poverty will not only have an opportunity to climb the ladder of success, there would actually be a ladder to prosperity for their families and, ultimately, our entire community will be forever enriched.
Kim E. Anderson, Chief Executive Officer.


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How could this happen with a source I should have known. Ever hear of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS)? Well, they have a library, a quarterly publication, bound yearly, called The Register (NEHGR) and a quarterly magazine called, "American Ancestors." As a member, you receive both publications. I use these frequently because of all my New England ancestors.
From day one, I used "NEHG Register" as my source, and I'm not sure why, but now realizing it needed to be corrected to "NEHGR," this was the day I decided to change the wrong to a right. My RootsWeb tree also had the wrong source name, and that's not all, each of the 703 NEHGR sources had the same incorrect footnote text (see below).
Below is my first printed page, and under NEHG Register, you'll see the text in the footnote, which appeared on all those 703 individual files. What am I going to do about it, nothing since there is no way possible I can redo each file. How did it happen? I wasn't paying 100% attention and thought the delete would apply to one file only, not all of them, all individual notations were lost. So, I learned a lesson, and I hope people who use other's trees with sources will learn that not all online trees are correct!
|This was entered for all 703 individuals.


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The Health Care Management Division is dedicated to understanding the role of professionals and organizations in providing health care both locally and internationally. Health care management research is a rapidly growing field in need of active scholars. It is a rich research environment, with data available on thousands of organizations and millions of leaders, managers, employees, professionals and customers.
Major focuses of research by divisional members include: the performance of health care workers and organizations; public policy issues, such as access to care, competition, cost control and quality of care, and their implications for managing health care organizations; health care finance and marketing; and empirical or conceptual application of theory to the study of health care organizations, even on topics that might also fall within another division's domain.
Learn more about the Health Care Management Division of the Academy of Management:


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Swimming for the Third Boat
Alumnus Darren Miller swims grueling open-water marathons for Team Forever, which assists families struggling to afford the cost of infant cardiothoracic surgery.
A competitive high school swimmer, Darren Miller came to Penn State Altoona in 2001 with plans to continue his swimming career in college. A back injury got in the way, so when he moved to the University Park campus, Miller helped coach its swimming club team, Big Cat Aquatics. After graduating in 2005 with a degree in broadcast journalism, Miller moved back to the Murrysville, Pennsylvania, area and now works for PNC Bank as Private Client Group Manager.
To replace swimming, Miller took up running. He completed his first marathon in June 2008 and decided to give ultra-running a try. He signed up for a fifty-mile race in Ohio and chose to run it despite a fractured metatarsal in his right foot. As a result, he ended up in a walking boot for six months. So in July 2009, Miller asked himself, "Now what? I love this running but I can't run, so I need to fill this addiction in my life." And then he read Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox, and his life changed forever.
"No matter what I am going through or how hard it is, it can't be more difficult than what families have gone through in losing their children. So I swim to help them."—Darren Miller
Discovering the open water
More of a sprint swimmer in high school and college than a distance swimmer, Miller nonetheless was inspired by Cox's swimming of the English Channel and her story of enacting political change between Russia and the United States in the 1980s.
"Three chapters into that book, I knew I wanted to do open-water marathon swimming," Miller says. He pitched the idea to his friend Cathy Cartieri Mehl, whose father had died in the late 1990s after open-heart surgery, as a way to honor his memory. He told her, "pay for me to go over and swim the Channel and we'll raise money in honor of your father for a specific cause." Mehl wanted to support heart-related issues; Miller wanted to help children. So, together they created Team Forever and the Forever Fund in December 2009, a nonprofit that assists families struggling to afford the costs associated with infant cardiothoracic surgery at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
After successfully swimming the English Channel, Miller again thought, "Now what?" And then he came across the Ocean's Seven Challenge, a group of seven long-distance swims scattered across the globe: the North Channel, the Cook Strait, the Molokai Channel, the English Channel, the Catalina Channel, the Tsugaru Strait and the Strait of Gibraltar. The idea had taken root, and all Miller needed was the training and the funding.
After Miller spoke at a Greensburg Rotary meeting about his English Channel swim, Peter Dochinez from the Trustmont Group approached him. "He said that he donates money to charities without knowing what the money really goes toward, so he wanted to support me and Team Forever," Miller recalls. "And they were my sponsor for the final six of the seven swims."
"Every breath is a gift. I want to talk about leveraging every breath in your body to see what you can accomplish, what you're really made of."—Darren Miller
The final six swims
Swim number two was the Catalina Channel, just south of Los Angeles, in August 2011. It is unique because it is a night swim, due to less boat traffic and calmer water. Wearing just a speedo, cap, and goggles, per Channel Swimming Association regulations, Darren entered the water at 11:45 p.m. and swam for about twenty miles, finishing in nine hours and fifteen minutes. "For a period of seven hours, it was pitch black," Miller says. "Starting in the dark and watching the sun rise over the ocean is amazing; it gives you a feeling I can't put into words. For the last mile, I swam with a pod of dolphins. It was incredible."
Swimming for hours upon hours, with only a support boat and kayak as company, what did Miller think about? "That's the number one question I get," he says. "It's all about the power of visualization out there. I call that the 'third boat.' You have your support boat, you have a kayak in the water, and you have a rowboat that nobody sees. That's my family, friends that I have lost—they motivate and inspire me."
Miller was greatly influenced by his grandparents, and he sees them in the boat as well. "My grandparents were a huge motivation in my life; they didn't have the best education, but they did what they could. When they passed away, they didn't have two nickels to rub together, but what they did have was the admiration and respect of everyone around them in their town," noting that his grandmother died suddenly while volunteering at church.
"Whenever I feel like I can't take another stroke, I look over and I see them all. I can't imagine telling my two friends who are now six feet under, 'Oh, life is too hard.' That's the main thing that drives me: thinking that no matter what I am going through or how hard it is, it can't be more difficult than what families have gone through in losing their children. So I swim to help them."
Miller goes out on a number of speaking engagements and when he talks with youth, he says, "You may think you are going to live another fifty years. But if you left this place tonight, and you got hit by a tractor trailer and today was your last day, could you honestly face yourself and say 'I've given my life, I've given everything I have'? That is what I challenge myself, and everyone, to do."
"Watching the sun rise over the ocean is amazing; it gives you a feeling I can't put into words. For the last mile, I swam with a pod of dolphins. It was incredible."—Darren Miller
The longest swim
The third swim in the Ocean's Seven was the Molokai Channel, from Molokai to Oahu, Hawaii. At twenty-seven miles, it is the longest of the seven swims. Tiger sharks are plentiful, as are box jellyfish, which are lethal to humans. One day per month, the jellyfish surface. As luck would have it, that date coincided with Miller's swim. In the first hour, Miller took a Portuguese Man of War right in the face. "It felt like someone put an iron right on my face," Miller recalls. "I was screaming, trying to rip this thing off. My dad took the deer spotter light to try to see what was going on, and the pilot knocked it out of his hand so that the light wouldn't attract sharks."
Despite the painful start, at the halfway point Miller was told that he was an hour under the record. With setting the record a real possibility, Miller swam on and broke the record by forty-one minutes.
The Strait of Gibraltar, the shortest of the seven, was the fourth swim. He accomplished it in three hours and forty-four minutes. While most of Miller's swims were solo, he had the pleasure of swimming this one with three friends. "The swim is between Europe and Africa, and saying you swam between two continents is pretty cool. Finishing up on African soil was just amazing."
The most difficult swim for Miller was his fifth, the Tsugaru Channel between Honshu and Hokkaido in Japan. "We were expecting a seven- or eight-hour swim, but after seven or eight hours, I realized I was nowhere near Hokkaido," Miller says. "It is a very fickle body of water, very unpredictable. The gentleman from Ireland who finished the Ocean's Seven first, had tried to complete this swim three times. He was a little depressed because he didn't think it was possible to get across this body of water, but I crossed it on my first try." Three days later, the Irishman made it across.
"The Strait of Gibraltar swim is between Europe and Africa, and saying you swam between two continents is pretty cool."—Darren Miller
Miller, too, had his doubts about making it across. "After eight or nine hours, I was just being eaten alive by this water, with two- to three-foot chops. It was brutal," Miller recalls. "At around thirteen hours, a shark swam right next to me. Finally, after sixteen hours, I got there. If you don't quit, eventually you'll get there."
Two weeks prior to Miller taking on his sixth swim—the Cook Strait between north and south islands in New Zealand, a 49-year-old film director was killed by great white sharks about ten miles from Miller's route. His family and friends were worried about this news, but Miller was not dissuaded. Miller swam with a friend, but toward the end sprinted ahead of him. It was beginning to get dark, and Miller suddenly realized he was alone in the darkened waters known to be inhabited by great whites. "The gentleman, who's like the Michael Jordan of open-water swimming and who runs the race down there, comes at me shouting because they couldn't figure out where I was. He grabbed me, put a blinker on my butt and told me to 'swim faster than you've ever swum before,'" Miller says. "I thought, 'Yes, sir!' and touched the rock wall at ten hours and forty-two minutes."
Miller arrived on site two weeks prior to the swim. "The first two weeks, all I did each morning and night was get in, swim for half an hour, and then submerge myself for an hour. I basically put myself in a hypothermic state, every day, twice a day," says Miller. Despite getting stung by some "gnarly jellyfish," after eleven hours and sixteen minutes, Miller touched Scotland, and completed the Ocean's Seven. "It was just one of the most rewarding experiences of my life to get it all done," he said.
Miller is the first person to complete all of the Ocean's Seven Challenge swims on the first try. Overall, he was the fourth to complete the competition, and the first American male.
Miller notes that, although he accomplished the seven swims in a three-year period, it was really four years with training. "I trained myself as much as I could in the water, swimming anywhere I could," he says. "But the mental training was just as important. I knew if I could sit in a tub of ice and mentally zone out for twenty-minute periods until I couldn't take it anymore, I could do it. That's the most excruciating pain possible."
Next up for Miller is pursuing his master's degree in sports psychology, more professional speaking engagements, and writing a book. "Graduating with a degree in broadcast journalism, I'd love to write about my mission. Swimming was just the 'middleman' for me. I didn't care if it was running, swimming, cycling, climbing, whatever. I just needed a way to continue to fund my charity work, to give to others. And for me, it had to be doing something extreme," he says. "The book isn't going to be about swimming per se, but about pushing yourself, because every breath is a gift. I want to talk about leveraging every breath in your body to see what you can accomplish, what you're really made of. I know I'm definitely making a positive difference, and I believe that's what I was put here for."
Feature photo credit: Dan Speicher Photography


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I recently finished the compelling book Fireproof Moth: A Missionary in Taiwan's White Terror, by Milo Thornberry, who secretly helped democracy advocate Peng Ming-min escape Taiwan (and thus also possible assassination by the KMT) in the bad old days (being, in this case, early 1970). Soon thereafter, Thornberry and his wife, now Judith Thomas, became the first missionary couple to be deported from Taiwan since the Japanese era — though not for their assistance in the escape of Peng, which the authorities did not uncover. Neither did Washington or Beijing.
For that matter, even though the authorities had people assigned to watch Peng night and day, they did not know for weeks that he had slipped away. Here's how Peng relates this:
My successful escape had stirred up a hornet's nest. Senior government officers were certain that I could not be in Sweden because their records, the reports of their subordinates, showed that I had been traveling here and there in Formosa until the very day the news of my escape became known, almost three weeks after I left my house in Taipei. According to these reports, I had been staying in the best hotels, eating at expensive restaurants, and enjoying the cinema. The proof in their hands were the police bills charged against the special account for my surveillance.
Then the truth became evident. During the months in which I had so often secluded myself for long periods, and probably since I was released from prison in 1965, and during the weeks after I had left the island, my guards, the Investigation Bureau agents, and the police had been submitting falsified accounts, false expense vouchers and claims, and pocketing the money.
Of course that, delicious as it is, has nothing to do with the usual subjects of this blog. So here's my excuse for bringing this up. In the following passage Thornberry describes the scene at the airport as he is awaiting deportation.
It took half an hour for four people to go through our few bags. They went through everything — jars of cold cream, tubes of toothpaste, and every piece of paper in my briefcase.
A difficulty arose when they found some sermons I had in my briefcase. Since they were written in Romanized Chinese, no one there could read them. They assumed they were some kind of secret code. So I spent several minutes with one of the men, reading the sermons to him and a couple of others who were looking on. I pointed to the words as I read. Finally, they decided that they were what I said they were and allowed me to put them back into my briefcase. I felt a certain irony as I preached to one of my guards in my last moments in Taiwan.
- Amazon link
- publisher's page on Fireproof Moth
- Brief review, Taipei Times
- Time Traveler: Fireproof Moth, Radio Taiwan International, December 21, 2011 (click on the small buttons below "Time Traveler" to hear the audio)
- Time Traveler: A US Missionary in White Terror Taiwan, Radio Taiwan International, December 21, 2011 (click on the small buttons below "Time Traveler" to hear the audio)
- Time Traveler: Democracy activist Professor Peng Ming-min, Radio Taiwan International, January 4, 2012 (click on the small buttons below "Time Traveler" to hear the audio)