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Last week at Build 2014, Bill Staples showed off a preview of the new Microsoft Azure portal for the first time. You can jump to his demo in Scott Guthrie's keynote.
The new portal was built from the ground up to put your applications at the center of the experience. This may sound like an obvious concept, but let us stop for a moment to consider the state of cloud development.
When developing for the cloud today, we are oftentimes managing individual resources (databases, storage, cloud services, virtual machines, and so on). It's left up to us as cloud developers and IT professionals to piece these resources together in some meaningful way and manage them over time. Have you ever provisioned a cloud resource and later forgot what it's being used for? Is this resource important, or was it just for testing? Which application was it for? I'm certainly guilty of this. The cloud makes it easy to use resources, and likewise it's easy to waste them if you aren't careful.
Furthermore, the planning, development, and testing of those applications is usually done elsewhere, such as within Visual Studio Online. Monitoring the health of those applications and troubleshooting problems might be done in yet another portal, such as with Application Insights. Billing is displayed on a separate page. And so on.
The new portal brings together all of the cloud resources, team members, and lifecycle stages of your application and provides you with a centralized place to plan, develop, test, provision, deploy, scale, and monitor those applications. This approach can help teams embrace a DevOps culture by bringing both development and operations capabilities and perspectives together in a meaningful way.
In this post, I want to highlight one of my favorite capabilities of the new portal, which is the ability to create a rich DevOps dashboard for your application such as the one below. Go ahead and click to open the full image. It's worth it. I'll wait here.
Pretty nice, huh? Believe it or not, this took us only about 15 minutes to create and fine tune using the new portal. Everything you're looking at here is real, nothing is faked or demo data. The application in this screenshot happens to be the Office blog (http://blogs.office.com/) which runs on Azure Web Sites. We simply opened up that Azure subscription in the new portal (http://portal.azure.com) and started adding the parts we wanted to visualize.
The new portal allows each user to transform the portal home page (called the Startboard) into their own customized dashboard. You can make it your own and keep evolving it over time to suit your needs.
Let's take a closer look at what you're seeing in the dashboard above.
Resource Map
I mentioned that the new portal was designed to bring together all of the individual resources of an application into a consolidated view. This is most evident by looking at the Resource Map part on this dashboard. The Resource Map is a visualization of a Resource Group, which is a model where the relationship between resources is stored (along with other important information). For this application, you can see the relationship between the production web site, the staging web site, and the billing plan. For other applications you might also see databases, database servers, or even Visual Studio Online team projects where the source code is managed and bugs related to this application are being tracked. To learn more about Azure Resource Groups, watch Azure Resource Group Model: Modern Management for Modern Cloud.
The new portal brings in Application Insights capabilities which provide you with a wide range of analytics for your applications. This allows you to understand if your application is available, how it is performing, and even how users are interacting with it.
For example, this graph shows you the top 5 pages which are being requested for your application:
Clicking the part above opens a new blade which details the top-requested page URL's.
Not surprisingly, the default page was the most-requested page. But a close second was the announcement of Office for iPad.
The Browsers part is another simple but effective chart which helps you understand the makeup of web browsers which are accessing your application. In the screenshot below, I have clicked on Internet Explorer in the Browsers blade to open the Internet Explorer blade. This new blade shows me a breakdown of the various versions of Internet Explorer being used by my application's visitors. I then clicked on the pie chart wedges making up Internet Explorer 9, 10, and 11. This gave me the sum total (75%) of Internet Explorer traffic attributed to those browsers. This can be helpful in making product development and testing decisions regarding which browsers I should be supporting.
Service Health
Building any cloud application means that you are taking dependencies on a range of services which are probably outside of your control. Since no cloud vendor can guarantee 100% uptime, it is important to understand at a glance if there is an outage for a service you depend on.
The Service Health part provides this global view across Microsoft Azure.
You can click on this part to open a set of blades which allow you to explore each Azure resource type and the regions each resource is available in. You can easily pin the resources you care about back to your Startboard to tell at a glance if a service you care about is degraded or offline.
Pricing and Billing
One of the top-requested features by Azure customers is for more visibility into how much cloud resources are costing them. The new portal provides unprecedented transparency into this information. The parts below show me the billing plan I have elected for this application, along with a projection of the total estimated charges for the month. The Current Spend part you're looking at below for the Office blog illustrates the economics of Azure Web Sites – this is for a site which serves up hundreds of millions of requests per month.
Clicking on the Pricing Tier part allows you to choose a different pricing plan for your Azure Web Site. From here I could select a new pricing plan, click Select, and in seconds my Azure Web Site would scale to the new resource model.
Customization Mode
Most customization is performed by entering a customization mode in the portal. If you are familiar with customizing a Windows Phone or a Windows 8 start screen you will be immediately familiar with customizing the portal. Enter the customization mode by clicking on your user avatar and selecting Customize.
It's worth noting in the screenshot above that "Restore default settings" would reset your Startboard back to the default state. Avoid clicking this if you have invested in creating a customized dashboard.
Alternatively, you can also right-click almost anywhere in the portal and choose Customize.
Once in customization mode you can select an individual part and click the orange pin to change the size of the part. Most parts support a range of tile sizes, each thoughtfully designed to present the right amount of information for that configuration.
You can also drag and drop parts to reposition them. A positioning grid helps you understand your alignment options.
When you are done customizing, click Done in the upper-right corner:
Or right-click anywhere and select Done customizing:
The portal works really great on a touch-screen device. I've tried it on my Surface, and on an iPad, but my favorite experience so far has to be on one of the Microsoft Perceptive Pixel devices we had at Build. We loved it so much, in fact, that we rolled it out on stage for Bill to show off during the keynote:
I expect that in the not-too-distant future these types of high-PPI touch-enabled displays will become commonplace in DevOps team rooms. But until then, you can get started with a cheap projector or LCD monitor.
All of the capabilities mentioned above are available to you today using the new Azure Preview portal. But you should be aware of some of the limitations of the preview.
Only a subset of Azure resources can be managed from this portal today – namely Web Sites, SQL, MySQL, and Visual Studio Online team projects. More resources will be coming over time, but you can always access the release version of the portal (http://manage.windowsazure.com) when you need to do something that the new portal doesn't yet provide.
Additionally, accessing the new portal requires that you are an administrator or co-administrator for a given subscription. This means that in addition to being able to view the health of your applications, somebody with access to your portal could accidentally (or maliciously) stop/delete resources or create new ones. This is no different from granting someone co-admin access to a subscription today, but it's something to be aware of if you intend to create a centralized dashboard for the entire team. Role-based access control (RBAC) is an important part of the team's backlog, and this will be coming in the future.
The new Azure Preview portal paints an exciting look at the future of DevOps. This is a first-of-its-kind experience which brings together all of the individual resources, people, and lifecycle stages of your application into a unified portal. In this post I have just introduced you to a very narrow set of its capabilities, and Microsoft is just getting started. There is a lot of future investment happening which will make this experience even better over time.
We want to see you take the portal and make it your own. I would love to see pictures of your own dream dashboard created with the new portal. You can link to them from the comments below, or hit me up on Twitter @briankel.
Thanks for reading!
I'm pleased to announce that the 2013 edition of our popular Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio book series is now available!
The purpose of this book has always been to educate people on the breadth of capabilities in Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server which enable software teams to collaborate across the entire lifecycle of an application – planning, developing, testing and operating. The 2013 edition of this book builds upon previous editions by including new chapters on release management, Git, portfolio management, and of course all of the other new and improved capabilities of the 2013 software release.
This book was written with the entire development team in mind, so whether you are a project manager, developer, tester, operations engineer, release manager, or team lead, our goal is that there should be at least a few chapters in here which will make your life happier and your software projects better.
As you'll see from the cover, we finally made it off the boat! Loyal readers of the 2010 and 2012 editions will understand that reference. :-)
We also picked up another Brian and another Martin! I'm thrilled to have Brian Randell and Martin Hinshelwood join our team of authors for this series. They are good friends and two of the top experts in the world on these technologies who love speaking and writing about this topic.
I just discovered a new book on TFS 2013 Customization written by Gordon Beeming, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on my last trip to South Africa. Gordon is one of these guys who I'm convinced never sleeps; in addition to his day job where he administers a TFS server for a large development team, he is also a very active member of the TFS community and is routinely providing suggestions about how to improve the product.
If you need to learn everything there is to know about customizing TFS 2013, you might enjoy this book.
It's just $9.99 on Kindle or $24.99 in print.
The Visual Studio 2013 ALM Virtual Machine was upgraded today to include the sample content and hands-on-labs / demo scripts which were previously introduced for Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 capabilities. This brings the total number of hands-on-labs and demo scripts which work with this VM to 24.
We also used this opportunity to address some fit-and-finish feedback we received on the initial release of the 2013 ALM VM, so it should be a nice improvement all around. As a reminder you can find the full list of ALM virtual machines here.
January 10, 2014 Update: I ran some tests again today and activation is working again! Please follow the steps in the "Working with…" document and you should be able to activate the virtual machine now (if not, please let me know). The bad news is that I still don't know what caused the activation servers to break in the first place, but I have some open mail threads with that team and I hope to learn more about how to ensure this doesn't happen again.
Back in November, people started reporting trouble activating the operating system in the Visual Studio ALM virtual machines.
While I admittedly don't fully understand the root cause yet, I do have some more information and suggested workarounds. If I learn more I will update this post.
The symptom: If you follow the "Working with…" document to attempt to activate your instance of the virtual machine, you will receive the following error message. Error code: 0xC004C032 Error description: The activation server reported that new time based activation not available.
Suffice to say, Windows is not activated at this point and no amount of retrying will fix the problem.
What's happening? After several tests, we determined that this problem seems to be impacting all Windows Server 2012 "R1" evaluation installations (which incidentally is the edition that the recent Visual Studio ALM virtual machines are built on). Since this worked prior to November, our running hypothesis is that the Windows activation servers are no longer allowing people to activate Windows Server 2012 "R1" evaluations. My speculation is that this is either "by design" since the Windows Server team is trying to encourage people to evaluate Windows Server 2012 R2, or accidentally because it stopped working and the right people haven't noticed yet. Unfortunately I have been unable to track down the right person(s) in Microsoft to help me answer this question, but I'm still trying.
What are the implications of not being able to activate? The good news is that you can use the virtual machines for up to ten days from when you first boot them up without ever activating. After ten days, an "Activate Windows" watermark will appear in the lower-right corner to indicate that Windows is not activated. When this happens you will be granted a one-hour grace period to use Windows before it will automatically shut down.
The other good news is that if you are using either the 2012 ALM Virtual Machine or 2013 ALM Virtual Machine, both of these VM's have their date & time "hacked" to be disconnected from the real world (this is so that the "current sprint" data is correct for the agile planning scenarios). Because the date & time are isolated from the real world, this means that if you boot up the VM, use it for 2 hours, and save state when you are done (or shut down the host PC they are running on) then you will only have used 2 hours of your 10 day grace period.
Finally, I always recommend that you take a snapshot/checkpoint after importing the VM and prior to completing a hands-on-lab / demo script. This way you can roll back to a previous state if you want to do it again (such as in a classroom environment or if you routinely demo the product). If you use this procedure with the 2012/2013 ALM Virtual Machines then you are pretty much guaranteed that you will never burn off enough time to exceed your 10 days of evaluation.
What can I do when I use up my 10 days? You can always restore to a fresh (unbooted) copy of the virtual machine and get another 10 days. There are a couple of ways to do this.
1) Delete the VM from Hyper-V and on disk. Then re-extract the original RAR's and follow the steps to import the VM again.
2) Another approach is to take a snapshot/checkpoint of the VM immediately after you import it, but BEFORE you boot it up. This way you can always restore to a "fresh" copy of the VM prior to starting your 10 day grace period.
Personally I tend to go for option 2, but you should be aware that there's a small disk I/O performance tax with using snapshots/checkpoints. The deeper your tree of snapshots/checkpoints goes, the higher this performance tax will be, although on most modern hardware 1-2 snapshots won't make a noticeable difference.
Can't you upgrade the Visual Studio ALM virtual machines to use R2? Given infinite time and resources, we could. But doing so is very expensive. We currently have 3 virtual machines which utilize Windows Server 2012 "R1" and 30+ hands-on-labs / demo scripts, so all of these would need to be updated and tested. Furthermore, you cannot upgrade directly from Windows Server 2012 "R1" evaluation to Windows Server 2012 R2 evaluation; this means we would need to perform a labor-intensive migration of all of the data, settings, etc. as well as QA this against the 30+ hands-on-labs / demo scripts. We will opportunistically move to Windows Server 2012 R2 at the next opportunity, but this probably won't be until the next major release of Visual Studio.
Sorry to folks who are impacted by this. Hopefully I can reach somebody in the Windows Server team now that end-of-year vacations are coming to a close to investigate other options. If I find any I will update this blog post as appropriate.
The RTM version of the Visual Studio 2013 ALM virtual machine and hands-on-labs / demo scripts are now available!
You can also find a consolidated list of all of the ALM virtual machines here: http://aka.ms/ALMVMs.
Updated November 26, 2013: This blog post is obsolete now. The fix referenced below has been resolved in the RTM version of the Visual Studio 2013 ALM Virtual Machine.
I have received several reports from people about the InRelease Preview Hands-on-Lab I published as part of the Visual Studio 2013 Preview ALM Virtual Machine not always working correctly. The most common symptom was that the release workflow would timeout during the "Build Web Sites" step. After investigation we determined that this was a bug in the InRelease Preview which will be fixed for RTM. In the meantime, there is a simple fix for getting the InRelease hands-on-lab working in the Visual Studio 2013 Preview ALM Virtual Machine. The steps are below and have also been published to the Hands-on-Lab document.
InRelease Preview Bug Fix:
1. Log in as Julia. All user passwords are P2ssw0rd.
2. Launch the InRelease Console by double-clicking on the desktop shortcut.
3. Click Configure Paths | Servers then double-click on VSALM to open the server properties window.
4. Change the IP Address Type to Gateway, then Save & Close the window.
Note: User Ralph Jansen reported in the comments that he had to wait a few minutes after booting his virtual machine before the "IP Address Type" radio button became active. Depending on the speed of your hardware your situation might be similar.
5. You may now proceed with the exercises in this lab.
I'm sorry to everyone who hit this bug. Hopefully this allows you to fully experience InRelease and understand how it might help you with release management in your organization.
When we shipped the Visual Studio 2013 ALM Virtual Machine earlier this month we were still in the process of finalizing one of the hands-on-labs / demo scripts. This work is done and you can now access Agile Planning and Portfolio Management with Team Foundation Server 2013.
If you are not yet familiar with the agile planning tools introduced in Team Foundation Server 2012, you should start with Exercise 1 of this lab. In this exercise you will learn how these tools can be used to help a small team manage their backlog, break work down into iterations, and track this work using a task board.
Exercise 2 introduces the new agile portfolio management capabilities introduced in Team Foundation Server 2013. These capabilities allow you to "scale agile" across your entire organization by providing you with a hierarchy for your backlog. This means that I can have several smaller teams sprinting together to achieve related objectives, and I can track that work in either a top-down or bottom-up manner.
Finally, Exercise 3 will show you a few of the ways that Team Foundation Server 2013 allows individual teams to maintain some autonomy in the way they work without requiring core process template changes on the shared team project that you might be using across the entire organization. Features such as the Kanban board and work item tags can be customized on a per-team basis to adapt to the individual needs of those teams.
We hope you enjoy this new lab, and as always your feedback is welcome.
In my job, I get talk to people every day who are excited about the new and improved capabilities of Team Foundation Server 2013. I have talked to several organizations who are already running Team Foundation Server 2013 Preview in production, which is great. But for some organizations, upgrading to pre-release software on their production servers can be a bit scary. If you are interested in upgrading to Team Foundation Server 2013 and you don't want to wait until RTM, we are here to help.
Team Foundation Server 2013 Upgrade Weekend is happening September 13-15 (Friday – Sunday). During this weekend, Microsoft experts will be standing by after hours to provide no-charge assistance for Team Foundation Server 2013 installation, configuration, and upgrades. If you are interested in taking advantage of Upgrade Weekend, please visit http://aka.ms/TFSUpgradeWeekend. This brief survey will pre-register you to take advantage of the Upgrade Weekend offer and will help us to appropriately staff engineering and support resources. If you don't yet have a profile on Microsoft Connect you will need to complete a brief Connect registration profile prior to accessing the survey. This survey will remain open until September 6th.
Here are just a few reasons to consider upgrading to Team Foundation Server 2013:
Of course, you don't have to wait until Upgrade Weekend to try Team Foundation Server 2013 or any of the rest of the products in the Visual Studio 2013 family. You can download previews of these products today from http://aka.ms/GetVS2013. All of these products have "go live" licenses which means you can run them in production and perform your day-to-day development activities with them. You can also contact Microsoft Support if you need assistance.
January 10, 2014 Update: I ran some tests again today and activation is working again! Please follow the steps in the "Working with…" document and you should be able to activate the virtual machine now (if not, please let me know). The bad news is that I still don't know what caused the activation servers to break in the first place, but I have some open mail threads with that team and I hope to learn more about how to ensure this doesn't happen again. Updated January 9, 2014: The VM was upgraded to include all applicable Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 hands-on-labs / demo scripts. This brings the total number of hands-on-labs / demo scripts you can run with this virtual machine to 24. Known Issue as of Jan 6 2014: Windows Activation for the evaluation O/S that this VM is based on is currently failing for all users. This issue is under investigation. Note that activation is not required to use this VM. More details can be found here.
The Visual Studio 2013 RTM ALM Virtual Machine is available for download along with 24 hands-on-labs / demo scripts which introduce you to many of the ALM capabilities which have been included in this release.
You can download and install Visual Studio 2013 (including Team Foundation Server 2013, .NET Framework 4.5.1, etc.). But if you would like a faster way to understand what is new for application lifecycle management in this release, this virtual machine is pre-configured with all of the necessary software and sample data for you.
Some important notes about this virtual machine:
This virtual machine is configured with:
There are 24 hands-on-labs for you to take a scripted approach towards learning this content. These labs double as demo scripts in case you want to show off these features to others.
New features in Visual Studio 2013:
Labs upgraded from Visual Studio 2010/2012: NEW
If you are looking for even more hands-on-labs and demo scripts, be sure to check out our other ALM virtual machines at http://aka.ms/ALMVMs.
Links to the files above are included in the download set below, so you don't have to follow the individual links above if you plan on batch downloading all of the files in this set.
Downloading the virtual machine and labs: I suggest using a download manager for these files since they are very large. My download manager of choice is Free Download Manager. You can use your own favorite download manager, but you may need to adapt the instructions below as appropriate.
1. Download and install Free Download Manager. This utility provides: - Auto-resume support for interrupted downloads. - Multiple simultaneous download streams for (usually) a much faster download experience. - As the name implies, it's completely free. 2. 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Launch the user interface for Free Download Manager (either from the Start Menu or via the system tray icon if FDM is already running). 4. Click File -> Import -> Import List of URLs from Clipboard. 5. When prompted for a download group, accept the default and click OK. 6. You are now free to minimize Free Download Manager while the files download. By default, they will be saved to c:\downloads. 7. Expand the files and self-extracting RAR set and see the "Working with…" document for more instructions.
I hope you will enjoy this content as a way of learning how Visual Studio can help you improve your team's overall application lifecycle management capabilities. If you have suggestions for how to improve this virtual machine and set of demos / hands-on-labs please let me know. Remember to check out our previous ALM virtual machines at http://aka.ms/ALMVMs to learn about other ways in which Microsoft is delivering tooling for application lifecycle management.


text:
The more I meet with my Grade 5 colleagues, the more I learn from them. Our school's Elementary team are passionate and innovative. They have the advantage of teaching and learning with their students every day, and reflecting upon this it seems easier to create a shared space through a blog with one class.
I've gradually become aware of the limitations of my school blog for Grade 6. While it is a great place to initiate online discussion, share links, show students' work and post tasks, it is ever changing, rather than static, and also used by my High School students. I believe that Grade 6 would benefit from a separate, single place which they can contribute to, and as a central spot for all their units and resources. It has the further advantage of turning a unit into a global collaborative project.
My final project for Course 4 is in its planning stages now, but will be launched and updated over the next academic year. I'm excited to work with my Grade 6 colleague to develop the wiki*, and for next year's Grade 6 cohort's ability to participate and contribute to teaching and learning in English. The plan is at the start of this post.
If you are thinking of starting up a wiki for your class, the following might be of some use:
Using Wikis to Promote Student Collaboration (useful links at the end of the post)
Wikispaces vs. PBWorks - Classroom 2.0 forum
*We will make a collective decision as to whether we use PBWorks or WikiSpaces.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Hope you're well. Forthwith, more questions that either were omitted or abridged from an interview I did with Georgia Tech AD Dan Radakovich a couple weeks ago, linked here. Most of these questions are about football ticket sales.
Q: For a family of four to buy single-game tickets to one of the ACC games, it would cost minimum $200. Does that seem like a reasonable cost?
A: I think we look at our peers and we're not out of line with our peers. To run an athletic program where you're a tub on your own bottom, that you need to generate the revenue to create everything here, those seven Satudays this year, or six in previous years, are really the main economic engines that we have to run the entire program.
We have other events that are free or nearly free – softball, volleyball, baseball, women's basketball. We have a lot of really good team events that are here on campus that people can come and enjoy for a greatly reduced price. Football is the one that we need to be able to create the revenue to allow all of those other things to occur.
My two cents: I acknowledge the point – that the pricing is in line with the market – but I guess I'd say that the market's prices are expensive, also. The other thing is that, while the prices may be competitive with the cost of Braves or Falcons tickets, the Braves and Falcons have large followings of fans who aren't season-ticket holders, where Tech obviously hasn't had that.
Obviously, it's a balancing act. Tickets have to be expensive enough to create revenue, even if it means sales volume isn't as high as you'd like. But, as Tech has found over the years, it will probably mean failing to sell out unless the team becomes consistently strong.
Q: Do you feel like you've reached a point within the alumni base that you can't sell more season tickets?
A: Yes and no, because we continue to graduate more people than we ever have before and many of them, we hope, are settling in the Atlanta area. One of the reasons why it's so important to continue to have great relationships with students is that very soon those students are going to be alumni. We want them to have a great time as students and then we want them to come back as part of the general fan base.
There's a great deal of passion associated with Georgia Tech and we want to make sure that as our alumni base continues to grow, we increase that footprint like I talked about earlier. But we also want to make sure that our students that are here right now understand that athletics is a great differentiator in their collegiate experience. Without athletics, Georgia Tech would be a very different institution and maybe not one that those students would have wanted to attend.
My two cents: It's a hopeful way of looking at the challenge and perhaps one that will in time bear itself out, particularly if the Paul Johnson era goes the way many anticipate. However, it doesn't appear that the school's increasing enrollment has made a noticeable impact on season ticket sales to this point, unless new alumni are replacing fans who are giving up their tickets.
Q: What's your opinion on the proposals to pay scholarship athletes a "cost of attendance" stipend?
A: I think that scholarship student-athletes, certainly, they get a lot of benefits being scholarship student-athletes. Some of them, because of their economic circumstance, receive additional dollars through federal Pell grants. To just say all scholarship student-athletes should get paid is a very broad statement and doesn't really get into individual circumstances.
There's some scholarship student-athletes that come from backgrounds where they don't need to get paid. So it's not a one-size-fits-all answer. I think it's good to have the debate and good to talk about, but the idea of moving the scholarship calculation from the cost of tuition, feess, room, board and books to then include the cost of attendance at a particular school has some problems with it.
Because right now, the various costs of attendance figures at schools are very different. You could have one school that adds an additional $5,000 because of their location and another school might have $2,000 within that number.
If someone is looking at just, 'Where am I going to make the maximum amount of money?' they would be moving towards the school with the $5,000 cost of attendance.
I think each school very thoughtfully does that because there are other scholarhips that are given academically or whatever around college campuses that do include the cost of attendance. So by just willy-nilly increasing that (cost of attendance) number is going to have a lot of affect on other parts of campus who are giving scholarships to other individuals. So it's really hard. It's a nice soundbite, but I think there's a lot more debate that has to go forward before we get to that point.
My two cents: I'm kind of with Radakovich on this one. There's a lot to wade through. I also wonder about the rationale of the proposal. If the idea is to let student-athletes share in the wealth that they're helping create, that makes some sense (although the truth is not many schools, Tech included, could handle the extra cost). However, if the people proposing the stipends think it's going to make street agents or shady boosters go away, they're bananas.
June 22nd, 2011
8:26 am
Good stuff Ken…..
Go Jackets!
June 22nd, 2011
8:38 am
Nice interview Ken.
June 22nd, 2011
8:39 am
And now, we await comments from moron dawg fans.
June 22nd, 2011
8:40 am
Sign better talent.
Win more games.
Sell more tickets.
It's not rocket science.
June 22nd, 2011
8:41 am
It was certainly before Dan's time, but he might want to find a way to reach out to the fans Dave Braine gave the shaft to and threw out of the east stands.
June 22nd, 2011
8:42 am
Tech football is a joke, and will be largely ignorned by the media this year, and overshadowed by UGA's run for the National Championship.
14-0 baby!
Gooooo DAWWWWGS!
June 22nd, 2011
8:46 am
Man it must really suck to live in Macon.
June 22nd, 2011
8:51 am
And there you have it Casual Observer……
June 22nd, 2011
8:57 am
14 daaug players arrested, 0 thrown off team……
June 22nd, 2011
9:00 am
Wait, so tech is having trouble selling football tickets to see the mighty honey bees?
Don't look now, but Georgia State football will surpass you in attendance by 2015 when they join the Big East. Sad, really.
At least then there will finally be a college football team in Atlanta more than once every two years.
June 22nd, 2011
9:16 am
$200 for a family of four??? What happened to the ticket+coke+hot dog promotion?????
June 22nd, 2011
9:17 am
Maybe I'm not smart, but what does "where you're a tub on your own bottom" mean? It is in the second line of his first answer.
June 22nd, 2011
9:18 am
Tech must try really hard to not sell out your hig school sized stadium in the middle of the largest city in the college football loving south.
June 22nd, 2011
9:23 am
More importantly, what happened to Dress-Up-As-A-Star-Wars-Character Night? It was always a sell out, but the nerds spent more time arguing over who was stronger in the "force" than watching the honey bees get destroyed or eyeballing those hideous tech cheerleaders. In other news, tech is negotiating with Coca-Cola to trademark "Joke By Coke," but Dawgs fans deserve some royalties for that one, right, nerds?
June 22nd, 2011
9:39 am
As GT has become more of an international school, would guess a lower percentage of new alumni remain in the Atlanta areaa. When you add the Tech Fund, tickets for ACC/UGA are closer to $100/ea. Success at the gate depends on getting the non-alumni to the game. Find the game experience less inviting with the late decisions on kick-off time, length of games,and cost of concessions.
Players are getting paid. They are called Pell Grants on top of a full scholarship for everything required to go to school including room and board.
June 22nd, 2011
9:48 am
And oddly enough, Tech's cheerleaders have actually been HOTTER than UGA's as of late…..even most of the Dawg faithful are flummoxed. Heck, I'm flummoxed! HA!
June 22nd, 2011
9:52 am
I'm amused that you think I'm making this up. Any journalist should know that sometimes fact is stranger than fiction, but I'll let the nerds show you themselves. At least we're in agreement that those cheeleaders are hideous, since you didn't accuse me of making that up.
June 22nd, 2011
10:04 am
creative? you kidding, Ken?
June 22nd, 2011
10:05 am
Thanks for the info, Ken.
June 22nd, 2011
10:15 am
Will Big Macon Dawg be leading the charge to fire Richt this year after he goes 6-7 again? Yes.
June 22nd, 2011
10:27 am
The pay for student athletes issue is a way for the programs on top to stay on top as a recruiting edge. Think about it, the conferences that are most seriously considering it are the SEC, BIG10/11/12, and PAC10/12. It's just like the BCS and a way for the elite to get more elite.
June 22nd, 2011
10:42 am
As a pretty ardent republican, it hurts me to say that the government needs to get involved in the way college football is run. There are a lof of people out there that say "we have more pressing needs for our government to address." But, from a financial standpoint, this is a MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR industry we're talking about. And, there are serious exclusion practices going on in NCAA Football at the moment. If players start getting paid, it will only get worse.
By the way, D-Rad's comment hit the nail on the head. That's pretty much what I've come to expect from D-Rad. Crazy smart.
June 22nd, 2011
12:38 pm
Your two cents is out of line. Which other sport would you drop to bring football prices below the market?
That's what would happen. Is it rather high, yes. Should the prices be reduced and other sports cut, no!
June 22nd, 2011
12:51 pm
Need to get some stats on what percentage of male graduates are living in a defined radius of Atlanta 5 years after they graduate.
June 22nd, 2011
12:59 pm
Ken, you just became my favorite contributor after that, "you're welcome to post, but, come on, please be a little more creative than the Star Wars jokes. i hope you've got better material than that." reply.
Way to stand up for Tech! And good interview. I would've liked to have heard more about how they plan on promoting Tech football more for this season (giveaways, etc.) but good work!
June 22nd, 2011
1:14 pm
After the 1990 National Champioship season, we did not sell out a 43,000 seat stadium. So the GTAA spent millions on the opponent's North stands and booted good Tech fans from the East stands.Now GTAA has a debt of $170 million and can't sell out the stadium. Have you ever heard of large debt causing major problems?
June 22nd, 2011
2:01 pm
kinda hard to find a woman attractive that has a permanent drool mark of 'baci' juice on her chins and that wears her makeup so thick it weighs more than a pound.
besides how could one not blow their lunch when they witness their date and cheerleaders squat on the library carpet to urinate!
June 22nd, 2011
2:39 pm
you ADMIT to being a republican and than lament about the pubs needing to get involved in college fb? dude…. what planet have you been living on. mars?
you act like pubs are for small government yet…. instead of working on jobs and the economy they have been getting involved in class warfare trying to tear down all that is the middle class.
no more collective bargaining
privatizing of the states
creating a gestapo state that takes away the rights of small towns to do their own thing. heck with the fact that they are tossing elected official to the wayside
drug tests for all govt employees and people who receive any kind of assistance
doing away with ss and medicare
more tax breaks for the rich
allowing for corporations to be treated the same as an individual
making it almost impossible for a woman to get an abortion for any reason
inacting laws that make it almost impossible for the poor and students to vote
doing away with child labor laws
etc etc etc etc etc….
it looks like at least 6 states will have massive recalls on republican legislators including the governors. can you say do over?
and your worried about college fb?
duuuuuuuuuude! if i were you i would be ashamed to admit i was republican!!!
i used to be a pub an i am ashamed of that fact and of that party.
June 22nd, 2011
2:53 pm
2:39PM post-this is NOT npr! the only delusions allowed here are about sports, not that pols of any stripe will fix anything…….
June 22nd, 2011
3:14 pm
Sure, a less than prime seat to an ACC game costs $50. Plus $20 to park. Plus gas. Plus way over priced concessions. It certainly is reasonable day out — if you are the family of an AD who makes $650,000 or so a year.
Here's the Catch-22 of college athletics. Athletic departments want to be a part of big money TV deals. They want all of their games on TV — and god forbid the networks fail to show their game in HD.
As a fan, I can sit at home and enjoy the best seat any fan can have for the game right there in my living room. Or I can drop about $250 to $300 for a not so great seat just so I can bask in the atmosphere of ACC football at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Hardly worth it I'd say — and a very hard sell to the very smart fan base that Tech has.
The fans who are paying the price for season tickets do so because Tech football is their passion/addiction. Good for them. And good luck trying to find a lot more like them.
June 22nd, 2011
3:28 pm
The base problem with the revenue is a bad team. Ticket prices should be comparable to the demand, and right now even the students (who get free tickets) don't show up until halfway through the 2nd quarter. I vote to get rid of the triple option and go with a more exciting offense to put butts in seats. I'm tired of seeing the ground and pound from CPJ.
June 22nd, 2011
4:36 pm
I like Tech Student's solution, who wants to brave Atlanta traffic, pay close to 200 dollars after parking and concessions, to see an offense that you can see free in alot of high school games for 5 bucks.
June 22nd, 2011
4:43 pm
Tech Student, you are full of it. Tech students have been late for games for the last 30+ years, even during the Hamilton years when Tech ran an offense which you claim is more exciting (more about that later). Students are late for games because they are either tied up with fraternity tail-gating, too hung over from the night before, or just too damn lazy to get out of the bed. And don't think that Tech students are unique in that aspect. I have not been to many games in Athens, but the students there have always been the last to show up for the games, Believe it or not, I attended one Tech – UGAg game in Athens many years ago where the mutt student section never filled up–not even close. As far as the excitement level of Tech's TO offense, since when is an offense that can regularly run up 400+ yards and 40+ points less exciting than a "standard" offense that puts up 300+ total yards (sometimes) and still only score 3 or 4 TD's? Since when is a 60 yard pass play more exciting than a 60 yard run from scrimmage. Ohio State in the 60s can rightfully be accused of running a ground and pound offense, but the TO definitely does not fall into that category. I for one think the TO, when run right, is the most exciting offense in football. A few (completed) passes might make it better, but Tech once beat a highly-favored Notre Dame team without ever throwing a pass, much less completing one. That was, of course, when Pepper Rodgers was coach and ran the wishbone. We even beat the hell out of the mutts that same year without completing a pass (attempted one, if I remember right). If you don't think Tech's offense now is exciting, then you must have been one of the hungover ones.
June 22nd, 2011
4:45 pm
italian_29, so which is it? free or 5 bucks? it can't be both. And I would repeat the same thing to you that I addressed to Tech Student.
June 22nd, 2011
4:47 pm
italian_29, in addition, have you ever been to a game in Athens? Even before they increased the capacity of Sanford and Son Stadium to its current level, traffic and parking were worse there than it's ever been in Atlanta. I live in Augusta, and it takes longer to get to and from Athens for a game there than it does to get to and from Atlanta for a game there.
June 22nd, 2011
4:54 pm
I recall during my years at UGA ('71 – 74 seasons) the games at Grant Field felt more like a UGA home game. (I guess that's why Tech got rid of the North Ave. end zone seats.) As a former UGA season ticket holder (kids came along – fall baseball, band, etc. no time to go to Athens, much less Jax), I can testify the donation to the Georgia Student Educational Fund (Hartman fund) was a lot higher than the price of the season tickets. I didn't major in economics, but with UGA's larger fan base supply and demand factors into the actual cost of a ticket. When Tech announced their version of the "donate to get tickets" plan struck me as a sure fire way to alienate the non – diehard Tech season ticket holders. I wonder if this is fact or fiction – any one have a clue? Tech's history and tradition will guarantee a certain level of support, but….
June 22nd, 2011
5:06 pm
Sugar Hill, I think the "donate to get tickets" definitely hurt attendance at Grant Field. Giving to the Alexander-Tharpe Fund didn't hurt much, if at all, but the year that DRad instituted the required predetermined donation, attendance dropped drastically. I'm not saying DRad was wrong in doing that; every other school in the country has been doing it for years. But Tech fans had been spoiled for so long, that I honestly believe they revolted. I am a die-hard fan, because I didn't stop buying tickets. The required predetermined donation is not so big as to deter me from buying tickets. But I bet if you took a poll, you would find that it did turn off a good many former season-ticket buyers.
June 22nd, 2011
5:09 pm
If they pay the athletes, I'm out of here> No more college sports for me.
June 22nd, 2011
5:42 pm
Yo, supersize – stay true to your school! Outstanding! I have two boys at Auburn, but I'm decked out in the Red and Black for that game! I'm sure you're as loyal to the Trade School as I am to THE University. Keep the faith!
June 22nd, 2011
5:50 pm
Sugar Hill, thanks. Nice to see a dawg fan in here who can keep it civil. Let's put it this way about my loyalty: I've been going to Tech games since 1962 and I'm not planning on stopping until I can no longer make the drive from Augusta. I've been through the worst and the best with the Jackets, and I love 'em no matter which.
June 22nd, 2011
6:40 pm
dawgmatic we gave up on Star Wars night when we saw what happened to the mutts when y'all all dressed up like Darth Vader and the Death Star errrrrr Alabama destroyed your planet
June 22nd, 2011
8:38 pm
With all the responses to dawgmatic, it looks like s/he really struck a nerve with the Star Wars comment. Relax, people.
June 22nd, 2011
9:25 pm
Wait…… tech can't sell football tickets??? wow, o wait they can't win games that explains it. How is that high school offense working out for you?
June 22nd, 2011
9:29 pm
Ken the real joke is when tek nerds put down UGA when we put the smack down on your jackits year in and year out.If you can't run with the BIG DAWG get out of the yard!Oh and one other thing good luck in the A-SHE SHE.
June 22nd, 2011
9:30 pm
nuff said!
June 22nd, 2011
9:41 pm
Can't spell, poor grammar skills, no idea that you leave a space after a period or exclamation mark and obvious latent homosexual issues ("A SHE SHE").
June 22nd, 2011
10:54 pm
superDawg, if you're going to run with the big dogs…stop pissing like a puppy


text:
BioShock Infinite graphics options revealed
I'll get this bit of reassurance out of the way: Infinite runs perfectly. Our demo PCs were admittedly above average: an AMD FX-8120 (an octo-core CPU) and a single card in the AMD Radeon 7900 series (I didn't have time to verify which one), alongside 16GB RAM on Windows 7. With that considered, I didn't experience any hiccups, frame rate dips, no texture pop-in, or crashes.
Digging into the settings menu, here's what was adjustable...
An Irrational developer told me that Infinite is running on DirectX 10, but that it does take advantage of some DX11 features.
Reassuring stuff - if only every dev gave the PC as much love.
Tags: 2K, Irrational, Bioshock Infinite, Bioshock, Irrational Games,


text:
As the occasional snowflake fluttered through the air and landed on a makeshift football field, Jahvid Best once again stood on the sideline, watching others play the game he loves.
This day, it was his choice. The Detroit Lions running back, who hasn't played a game since October 2011 because of multiple concussions, was one of 17 NFL players who visited St. Vincent's Villa in Timonium on Sunday morning. As Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson and Tennessee Titans wide receiver Kenny Britt captained teams of children, Best laughed, cheered and tried to stay warm.
Best and his peers are in Baltimore for Monday night's Ed Block Courage Awards Foundation banquet at Martin's West. The foundation, which benefits abused, neglected and at-risk kids like the ones who got to play football and shoot hoops with their heroes Sunday, will honor 32 players, one from each team, at its 35th annual banquet.
- Full coverage: Baltimore Ravens
- Ravens 26, Pittsburgh Steelers 6 [Pictures]
- Mike Preston grades the Ravens' 26-6 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 2
- Five Things We Learned from the Ravens' 26-6 win over the Steelers
- Cincinnati Bengals 23, Ravens 16 [Pictures]
- 2014 Ravens cheerleaders [Pictures]
See more photos »
Villa Maria at St. Vincents School, 2600 Pot Spring Road, Lutherville-Timonium, MD 21093, USA
Each player was selected by his teammates for overcoming some kind of adversity — usually a major injury like the torn Achilles that linebacker Terrell Suggs, the Ravens' honoree, returned from — during the 2012 season. Best is the only one who did not play in a game, though.
"It's a huge honor," he said. "All the hard work I put in then to have the letdown that I experienced. Having my teammates appreciate all of the hard work that I have put in, it means a lot to me."
But Best doesn't know if all the hard work will result in a return to the NFL.
One of the more prominent faces of the NFL's concussions crisis, Best suffered a serious concussion during his senior season at California and two more during the 2011 season. After attempting to make a comeback in 2012, he was placed on injured reserve in November.
The elusive dual-threat back has 945 rushing yards, 774 receiving yards and nine total touchdowns in 22 career games over three seasons.
Best says he feels good and is symptom-free, but he has not been cleared by neurologists to return to full-contact practices.
"It's tough. I don't know what the future is going to hold for me," the 2010 first-round pick said. "It's been about a year and a half now, but I'm still working out like I'm playing next week. … I am never giving up hope. I'm staying ready so if the opportunity does present itself, I'll be ready."
One of the 24-year-old's teammates in Detroit, veteran wide receiver Nate Burleson, said last month that if he were Best, he would "shut it down" to avoid further damage to his brain. Those comments contradicted a sometimes-stubborn football culture that says one should always play through pain.
Best reiterated that he plans to continue his comeback attempt because he loves the game too much. And even if Best never makes it back, his courage to try has not gone unrecognized among his NFL peers.
"You give your whole respect to a guy like that," said Britt, his voice hoarse after a couple hours of playing outside. "This guy didn't play last year, but he keeps fighting to come back."
Best occasionally allows himself to fantasize about what it will be like to run out of the tunnel again wearing a silver and blue Lions helmet, but on Sunday, he was not thinking about that. His thoughts were on all the children, ages 5 to 14, who warmly greeted him at St. Vincent's Villa.
The kids performed musical and dance routines, got autographs, and the most boisterous of the bunch playfully talked trash, trying to entice NFL behemoths twice their size to go play outside.
"The kids that are here have gone through a lot of adversity. To see that their heroes have also gone through adversity and make it, it just makes a tremendous difference for them," St. Vincent's Villa administrator Ezra Buchdahl said. "It's a great day and it's really something that kids remember for the rest of their lives. We have kids that come back today as adults, and they talk about Ed Block Day."
After watching the kids chase Peterson and Britt on that random patch of grass at St. Vincent's Villa, Best — now warming up inside — said they weren't the only ones who found inspiration Sunday.
"Seeing what they go through and how they overcome adversity and tough times, it motivates you and puts your life in perspective and makes you appreciate the things you do have," Best said. "The things they went through, and they still have smiles and hopes for the future. There's something you can really take from that."


text:
We hope you'll consider the Fuller Guest and Conference Center your home the next time you visit Fuller's Pasadena Campus and the Pasadena area. Designed with the needs of Fuller visitors, alumni, and friends in mind, the Fuller Guest Center offers you the convenience of our location near campus with easy access to the charms and delights of beautiful Pasadena!
Room rates are based on single or double occupancy. For current rate information and availability, please contact us via phone at (626) 578-1050, (626) 204-1100, 1-800-235-2222 ext. 5545, or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
If you have any questions or comments, please email firstname.lastname@example.com. We respond to all inquiries within 24 hours. We look forward to providing you with the information you are seeking.
The Fuller Guest and Conference Center is a part of Fuller Theological Seminary, one of the largest multi-denominational graduate level institutions in the world. The Guest Center provides lodging and conference facilities in support of the seminary's mission. The facility is available to students, alumni, trustees, faculty, staff, friends and supporters of the Seminary, as well as their family members. The Fuller Guest Center may also be available to churches, other non-profit and/or educational organizations and entities when space is available.
700 Locust Street, Pasadena, California email@example.com
Phone:(626) 204-1100 / (626) 578-1050or 1-800-235-2222 ext. 5545
Fax:(626) 204-1180


text:
VertiGo Solo
About VertiGo Solo
A fresh and original puzzle game, where players attempt to capture as many stones as possible before the board fills with stones. The ancient rules of Go add a classic strategy experience to the already fun and amazingly addictive gameplay.
- There are three colors of stones
- Place stones on blank spaces by clicking on the grid
- Groups of stones of the same color connect along rows and columns
- Freedoms are blank spaces around or inside a group
- If you place a different colored stone in a groups last freedom, the group is removed
- Your score is the number of stones of each color that you have removed
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5 Must-Have Beauty Products For Your 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s
20s: Your Color - CoverGirl Outlast Lip Stain
WHAT IT IS A long-lasting lipstain ($7; drugstore.com) with a marker-like precision applicator.
WHY YOU NEED IT This decade is about fresh-faced, natural beauty says makeup artist Amy Nadine, who works with Lauren Conrad. "The colors really pop without feeling overdone--plus they last for hours and aren't drying," she says.
20s: Your Blush - Make Up For Ever Diamond Powder
WHAT IT IS A loose shimmer powder ($24; sephora.com) with synthesized mother of pearl particles.
WHY YOU NEED IT "You can still pull off shimmer in your 20s," says Nadine. "This powder has the perfect proportion of glitter to pearly iridescence." Use an oversized powder brush and apply liberally over your foundation.
20s: Your Skincare - Benefit Foamingly Clean Face Wash
WHAT IT IS A gentle, foaming facial cleanser ($21; benefitcosmetics.com) that whisks away makeup.
WHY YOU NEED IT "Life in your 20s may equal late nights out," says Frieda Pinto's skincare expert Sunday Riley, "but it's critical to wash your face before bed, no matter how tired you are." A gentle foaming formula is a must.
20s: Your Hair Product - Frederic Fekkai Tousled Waves Spray
WHAT IT IS A lightweight styling spray ($25, fekkai.com) that adds definition--not crunch.
WHY YOU NEED IT "Women in their 20s like easy, undone hair," says hairstylist Marcus Francis, who works with Hilary Duff and Evan Rachel Wood. "A few spritzes of this spray and it's like you've been at the beach all day."
20s: Your Fragrance - Tocade by Rochas
WHAT IT IS A floral oriental fragrance ($37/3.4 oz, amazon.com) with playful notes of vanilla and rose.
WHY YOU NEED IT There's just something fun about this iridescent fragrance. "It's good for dancing nights and laughing days," says Tania Sanchez, co-author of The Little Book of Perfumes ($12, amazon.com) with Luca Turin.
30s: Your Color - CoverGirl Liquiline Blast Liner
WHAT IT IS A waterproof pencil ($7; drugstore.com) that provides the staying power of a liquid liner. Bonus: A built-in smudger for a subtle smoky look.
WHY YOU NEED IT "The 30s are the perfect age to pull off a cat-eye. It's such a strong and stylized look," says makeup artist Amy Nadine, who works with Rachel Bilson. "People are intimidated by liquid liner so I always suggest these pencils. They glide on as smoothly as kohl, but dry like a shiny, high-impact liquid."
30s: Your Blush - Tarte Cheek Stain
WHAT IT IS The cult favorite push-up cheek stain ($30; tartecosmetics.com) is jam packed with natural antioxidants like goji berry, acai and pomegranate.
WHY YOU NEED IT Into your 30s you want to project a supple, healthy glow. "They come in pretty, playful shades and leave behind a dewy, healthy finish," says Nadine.
30s: Your Skincare - Dr. Perricone Super Berry Powder with Acai
WHAT IT IS A powerful dose of antioxidants ($60; perriconemd.com) to protect against free radical damage. It's derived from a combination of berries including raspberry, blueberry and acai.
WHY YOU NEED IT New York City dermatologist Nicholas Perricone says, "Our skin reflects our diet almost immediately." This supplement is packed with vital nutrients, minerals and essential amino and fatty acids. (38-year-old Gwyneth Paltrow is a fan of Dr. Perricone's line.)
30s: Your Hair Product - Oribe Dry Texturizing Spray
WHAT IT IS An invisible mist ($39/8.5 oz, oribe.com) that absorbs oil and plumps strands, creating dynamic movement and weightless lift.
WHY YOU NEED IT The '30s are one of the busiest decades of a woman's life. "This spray is a fast, easy way to give texture that holds," says hairstylist Marcus Francis, who has worked with Michelle Williams and Bryce Dallas Howard. "The hair is instantly sexy and mussed."
30s: Your Fragrance - Odalisque by Parfums de Nicolaï
WHAT IT IS A flowery blend of jasmine and iris ($135/3.4 oz, luckyscent.com) that still manages to have a smooth, cologne-like finish.
WHY YOU NEED IT "This fragrance feels delicate but shows surprising strength," says Tania Sanchez, co-author of The Little Book of Perfumes ($12, amazon.com) with Luca Turin. "It's good for carrying you through a crisis." Or through getting married, buying a home, having a child...the list goes on.


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Why yes actually I am.
When you hear a old song on the radio…
At first you're like:I remember this!
As the song goes on, you're like: I forgot how much I loved this song!
Then you start boppin to it like: THIS IS MY SHIT!
Then the song is in your head all day and you cant stop dancing to it, like:


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Blake Shelton to play Jones Beach
Blake Shelton is already planning his summer vacation from "The Voice."
The Country Music Association's reigning Entertainer of the Year has announced his "Ten Times Crazier" tour, which starts in July and runs through October, including a July 21 stop at Nikon at Jones Beach Theater.
Tickets for the tour, which will support his still-untitled upcoming album that features his current single "Sure Be Cool If You Did," go on sale in March. Easton Corbin and Jana Kramer are set to open the shows.
"My fans, country radio, friends, family, you name it – they know I love to perform," Shelton said in a statement. "With 'The Voice' schedule, I was not able to go out and perform as much as I wanted last year, but I plan to make up for it this year. This summer is going to be a blast.... My fans are die hard country fans, they love to laugh and have a good time, and I'm going to join them."
Tags: Blake Shelton , Jones Beach , Easton Corbin , Jana Kramer


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Map It
Map City Services
Metro Newsroom
LouisvilleKY.gov Links
Wednesday October 31, 2012
Metro Parks is now accepting team registrations for adult men's basketball leagues at the Athletics office, located at the Louisville Tennis Center across from the Louisville Zoo on Trevillian Way. Metro Parks is offering adult men's basketball leagues on Tuesday nights beginning in January. Registration will extend to December 28th or until leagues are filled. Games will begin on January 8th. Participants must be 18 or older. Metro Parks Athletic leagues offer year-round opportunities for residents to improve their physical fitness, display their competitive spirit, and socialize with others. These games will be played at Cyril Allgeier Community Center at 6:30, 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. The fee is $400 per team and is due at registration.
For More Information:All information concerning league offerings, registration forms, rules, and team roster sheets can be found at http://www.louisvilleky.gov/MetroParks/recreation/athletics/Basketball/. Leagues are first-come, first-serve – no mail-in or over-the-phone registrations will be accepted.
For questions not found on the website, please contact Tahira Wilson at (502) 456-8173 or by email at email@example.com


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Emotions ran high Monday night as teachers and administrators from the region joined WNCN for a passionate discussion of public education at "The State of Our Schools – A Teacher Town Hall" at a historic elementary school in downtown Raleigh.
WNCN anchors Penn Holderness and Pam Saulsby hosted the event, which included State Superintendent June Atkinson and other educational leaders.
Atkinson made a forceful case for increasing pay for teachers, saying, "We must raise our teachers' salaries to a much higher place than we are now."
She called it "a sad state" that North Carolina is 46th in the country in teacher pay.
The state of education in North Carolina has been the subject of intense debate since Gov. Pat McCrory took office in January and teamed with a Republican-led General Assembly to put North Carolina on new paths.
McCrory included a 1 percent pay raise for state employees, including teachers, in his original budget proposal, but signed a budget that did not include raises for any state employees.
Teachers were irked that they received no pay raise yet again, and many raised concerns that the state was not pushing enough funding overall into public education.
>>>June Atkinson/N.C SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION: "Before we have a discussion about merit pay, we must raise our teacher salaries to a much higher place than where we are now.""Regardless of political party, public education is nonpartisan," Mark Jewell with the North Carolina Association of Educators said. "North Carolina thrives when business and industry and public education work together. That's what made us a world class system."
"Teacher pay, we've heard tonight is absolutely critical," Granville County Schools Superintendent Tim Farley said, "and I think class size is absolutely critical. We can't wait. We don't have any time for this stuff."
Read comments from WNCN followers on Twitter
It's an emotional, and important, discussion in a state that has taken immense pride in its public schools and universities.
The Murphey School, located on Person Street, was the first integrated school in Raleigh when Bill Campbell arrived as the first black student in 1960. The school auditorium is now the home of the Burning Coal Theater.
Teachers expressed their concerns inside that auditorium Monday night. One woman said she had to leave education after making the same amount in 2013 that she earned in 2009.
Another expressed concern about teachers with master's degrees not receiving higher salaries.
"I do see many of my colleagues leaving the state for other jobs that are higher paying," she said. "And I see people leaving the profession all together for a higher salary."
And a Durham teacher said she was "completely disheartened" by what she was hearing about funding for public education.
"It makes you feel like, what do I do now? Do I stay in this profession?" she said.
The first official government report shows 3.8 million fewer people are uninsured after Obamacare kicks in.
3221 South Evans StreetGreenville N.C. 27834
Telephone: 252.355.8500
Fax: 252.355.8568
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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A dog from Chicago has become an internet sensation after creeping his way into every photo of a Craigslist posting.
The ad for a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in Lakeview East shows pictures of the living room, kitchen, dining area, and bedrooms -- with a pooch popping up in each. The sneaky dog is seen peering around corners, over beds, and lounging around the house.
The photobombing dog went viral after Buzzfeed picked up on the posting.
The sunny, courtyard apartment is available on June 15, starting for $1,900 a month. It boasts a "great location near the lake and restaurants" and of course, is pet-friendly.
Follow @fox32news
35 Skyline DriveLake Mary, FL 32746
Phone: (407) 644-3535News Tips: (866) 55-FOX35


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Blue Book® Suggested Retail Value
Fuel Economy (city/hwy)
Quick Facts
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2012 Lexus CT 200h
The 2012 Lexus CT 200h combines the sporty nature of a hot hatchback with the fuel-efficiency of a hybrid…
User Reviews
The community thinks...
Great commuter car by J. in Atlanta on 02/09/2012. Trim: 2012 Lexus CT 200h 200h Premium, Owned less than 1 year.
Pros: This car delivers on the two items it advertises: gas mileage and luxury. It looks great and handles well. You won't get the same feeling of excitement while driving it as you would a BMW 3-series or an Audi A4 but that's not why you would buy this car, right? We looked at most of the 4-door hatckbacks out there (VW Golf, Ford Focus, Mazda 3, etc.) and this had the best package of everything we wanted - gas mileage, luxury, relaibility, a touch of fun, and small enough for my wife to be comfortable with behind the wheel.
Cons: - The trunk space is limited. - The navigation system is not as intuitive as it could be. Case in point: we've had the car for a month and still can't figure out how to cancel a driving destination once navigation has been started. (Haven't read the manual yet, though one would think it should be easy enough to figure out without resorting to a manual.) - Slightly pricey
Overall review: We've loved it so far. Our gripes are minimal. For people who are 5'8" and smaller this car is really comfortable - even the back seats. Larger people will definitely feel cramped.
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