text:
As business ideas go, David Pfleegor's was so simple it was sheer genius.
Pfleegor opened a cleaning business, Rigmaids, marketed specifically for energy companies in Pennsylvania's northern tier, an industry whose workers spend 12 hours or more per day on the job, two or three weeks at a time.
"It's nothing crazy different," said Pfleegor. "It's not a great invention or anything, we're just kind of doing it in a different way. We started a cleaning company, but the way we are different is we have all the insurances - it's amazing to think a maid service needs a couple million dollars in insurance, but that's what we needed. And we got workers' compensation for our employees, safety equipment and clothing, and the training to go with it.
"Our thing is, we're not some mom and pop business rolling up in our personal vehicles. If anything ever happened, we'd be in a lot of trouble if we didn't have all the contracts and agreements in place. Because of the insurance policy I have in place, we were able to go out and sign a Master Services Agreement, that's a big thing - it's a contract to work in the gas industry. It's not like we're inventing the wheel, we're just making it turn a little faster. It's kind of crazy to go out and purchase a $3 million insurance policy for a maid service, but that's what you have to do if you want to work in the drilling industry. It's what we did."
Pfleegor's Rigmaids, in fact, has all the documentation in place to do business with the shale industry plus it's built good word-of-mouth. Those two things make growing the business easy.
Rigmaids' first location, in Williamsport, Pa., has been held up as the model for entrepreneurial-wanna-be's looking for a slice of the shale action. Pfleegor is currently opening a second office in Carnegie, Pa., to tap into the southern tier, and a third in Cambridge, Ohio, to capitalize on the Utica play.
"I think it's just mainly a novel idea, and it filled a need," said Jefferson County Progress Alliance Director Ed Looman, who said for months he'd heard business leaders in Pennsylvania communities describe Rigmaids as a kind of entrepreneurial benchmark. "It's one of those things where you think about what will work, what do they need, and the person who started the company hit on a real need. It's grown, the business seems to be doing very well. The novelty of the niche they look for, it really paid off in this particular case. And if you look hard enough at the industry, there's going to be other niches that pop up and people will fill them ... you don't know until you start to explore the needs of these companies what niche might need to be filled."
Looman said he's hoping area residents will show the same kind of ingenuity in developing their own shale-related business ideas.
For his part, Pfleegor said it helps that he knew his way around the boardroom, even before Rigmaids. He and his brother, Adam, and father, Dave Sr., are principals in family-owned Keystone Filler in Muncy, Pa., a company that processes anthracite coal for the steel industry. The brothers represent the fourth-generation of family ownership.
''Last year the gas boom really started hitting Williamsport, where I was born and raised," he said. "It's basically the hub for the northern tier of the Marcellus shale. Our family company, Keystone Filler, is a great company and we still run it. It's our full-time business, but we saw the gas industry coming in, so we sat down and said, 'How can we capitalize on it?'"
Dave Sr. opted to start an energy management company that's done so well that he already has a location in Cambridge. Adam launched a containment business, helping process the mud that comes out while they're drilling.
"I wanted something not so capital laden," he said. "It's not like I had millions to throw into the company, this was it, and Rigmaids didn't need much financing to start."
He currently has 10 employees, though he expects that number "soon to be 12." All have been trained in the ins- and-outs of well pad safety, so they know exactly how to conduct themselves on site.
"These (oil and shale) guys work 12 hours on, 12 hours off, and get two weeks in town and two weeks out ... the last thing they want to do is come in from home to a dusty, dirty shack," he said.
"I'm definitely surprised at how it took off," he said. "We started back in February with one van, now we have four in the northern tier, two in the southern tier and two in Utica. It's been great a little overhwelming at times. It's a very on-demand business. But we're not restricted to anything. We do offices on weekends a lot of the companies we clean for onsite have corporate offices in town, so we fill up our weekends with that. As far as starting up the business, at no point in time did I think maybe I shouldn't do it. Everyone thought it was a great idea, and it kind of caught on right away. We went from one to four vans really quick, and we're looking to add more."
By March, he's hoping to have more than 20 employees on the Rigmaids payroll.


text:
Chuck Hagel's question time.
First, read our editorial on the nomination of Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense. Then watch the confirmation hearing here:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
About the Author
25 comments
- All
- Editor Featured
Nice to hear him remind us that the great President Harry S. Truman "helped give birth" to the State of Israel.
Over the strong objections of Secretary of State George Marshall.
Margaret: Who do you think was right? Truman or Marshall?
The Republican senators are so devious in this confirmation hearing. They start of with "thank you for your service in the military" and then they pile on. I am convinced that they really want to humiliate him.On the other hand, I do not think that he has answered some of their questions well. Claire McCaskill may have picked up on that when she made the point in an interview on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell that senators are more used to asking questions than answering them.
Jeff: I think Truman made the right decision; he should have done a better job of building consensus with and among his foreign policy advisers.
The State of Israel's creation would have been much more acceptable through time and place if it has NOT been created as a Jewish State but, rather, as the State of Palestine with citizenship open equally to Jews and Arabs. Would it have been a slam-dunk? No. Is today's situation any better for those who are not Jewish?
Watching McCain-Hagel back and forth, McCain is still making up for loosing in 2008. Pretty sad.
Ted Cruz, junior senator from Texas, seized his moment too, showing he can grandstand with the best of them.http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/ted-cruz-goes-after-hagel-ov...
Hagel's problem: he understands how complex these issues are...his Iraq back and forth with McCain was telling... McCain wants a yes or no on the surge...Hagel want to discuss the whole war...and by the way offers a fuller picture of the surge's dependence on the "Sunni Awakening."
Sour grapes from the Republicans: They obvious don't like it when one of their own has gone off the plantation bringing attention to their chauvinist attitudes and the grandiose proportions of their own self-importance.Bill Maher says it best:Ted Cruz is the newly minted, teabag-endorsed, junior senator from Texas. Hes a Canadian-born Harvard Law graduate, but he speaks fluent s-kicker, Maher blogged Wednesday.Ted Cruz is 42 years old. So he wasnt born when Chuck Hagel won two Purple Hearts in Vietnam and John Kerry won three. You get those for being wounded in action, but maybe Ted doesnt know that. And Im not saying you dont get to have an opinion about war if you werent a soldier, Maher wrote, adding Im just saying, its an odd world where a guy can be a senator for a month and start doing eye-rolls at John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, as if they obviously have m - - - e b - - - s.
Jim: The Palestinians would have had their own state in 1948 had they simply agreed to the two-state solution recommended by the U.N., instead of going to war to prevent it, and even after Israel fought the Palestinians and the invading Arab armies to a standstill and entered into armistice agreements in 1949 with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, the Palestinians could still have had their own state on the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as the capital. The reason that didnt happen in 1949 had nothing to do with Israel. Its because Jordan annexed the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Egypt annexed Gaza. So, blame Egypt and Jordan for that.As for Israel being the Jewish state, the region is littered with one Islamic state after another, but they dont seem to cause you any problem. And the Palestinians enacted a provisional constitution in 2003 in which Palestine would be dedicated to the Arab people (chap. One, art. 1) and in which Islam would be the official religion (chap. One, art. 4), but that hasnt caused you to believe that their national movement has been rendered illegitimate. But for there to be one Jewish state in the world seems to cause consternation in some people. You would think that given our history, there would be a little understanding in this regard.For the Palestinian constitution, see http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Palestine_(2003)#Introduction.
Here's the unexpurgated Bill Maher on Cruz & Hagel ..... caveat emptor!http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/bill-maher-hits-ted-cruz-for-chuck...
It's a sad day when a magazine that's committed to Gospel values resorts to quoting Bill Maher.
Can't you troll elsewhere?
If this represents the majority thinking in Israel today, then there is no hope.http://www.koshertorah.com/PDF/israeldemocracy.pdfTo have a Jewish state means there must be, by the nature of the state and its government, a curtailment of the parameters of democracy to allow for the continuation of the Jewish character of the state. This would therefore be defined as a limited democracy. To have a completely democratic state means that there must be the political framework in place to undermine and dispose of the Jewish aspect of the Jewish state and to replace it with something else democratically elected upon by the majority vote. Moreover, as said above, if Israel were to cease being a Jewish state and a national Jewish homeland, then it would loose all legitimacy to exist as a state in the Middle East surrounded as it is by a hostile Muslim population who hate it and Jews down to their very souls. The answer to the contradiction is rather simple and easy. I have already suggested it above. Israel needs to define herself as a state of limited democracy. It needs to exist as a Jewish state and as nothing less, for as we know, nothing less, will soon lead to nothing at all. Israel needs to cease its irrational pursuit of pleasing western powers and mimicking western ideals and morays. Israel is a part of the Middle East. It is not the 51st state of the United States, nor is Israel a nation of Europe. The western model cannot and does not fit the Israeli modality.
Ms. Steinfels and Jeff - unfortunately, the question whether Truman was correct or not is like closing the barn door after the cows have escaped. As you know, the history from the Balfour Declaration (or earlier) until Truman recoginized Israel is littered with hypocrisy and betrayal of the indigenous Palestinians. In the short term, can see approving of Truman's decision but, in fact and sadly, there were other options but no will to look at them. In the long term, Truman's decision only continued the mess of 1948 and laid the foundation for the mess in 2012.Cruz - understand that he is playing to his Texas, red, tea party base - nothing else. What he knows about military, defense, etc. would barely fill a thimble. Did you see his antics yesterday on the gun control issue (the plastic handle?) - same playing to his base. Sad, he is supposedly Hispanic but identifies and has experienced nothing like what 95% of Texas Hispanics live like.Prediction - he will be a one term governor; in six years time, Texas demographics and, if Cruz continues to play the tea party act, will cost him any future positions. Funny - connection between Israeli politics and Cruz - demographics will catch up to both and provide the future if they both don't learn something beyond knee jerk ideologies.
Sorry, meant to say *senator*
Jim: Not only do most Israelis not think that way, Israel does not operate that way. Its Arab citizens have the same rights of citizenship as its Jewish citizens, including the right to vote. So, why quote an extremist view as though it describes the facts on the ground in Israel, when you must be aware that it doesnt?And, of course, you left unaddressed my point that you dont seem to mind Islamic states, only the Jewish state. For some reason, you seem to think that the only just solution is for the Arabs to control 100% of the land in the Middle East, and that for the Jews to control one-half of one percent of the land is a crime against the Arabs.But its worse than that. When the Palestinians went to war in 1947, to block the two-state solution, they werent fighting for an enlightened single state of Arabs and Jews living democratically together and enjoying equal rights. They were fighting to preserve an Islamic domination in which the Jews would be subject to the enforced inferior status that had been the hallmark of Arab treatment of Jews in the Middle East and across North Africa for a millennium. Israel is a liberation movement from that kind of treatment at the hands of the Arabs, a liberation movement that you seem to wish had been defeated.
Bill de Haas: "Ms. Steinfels and Jeff unfortunately, the question whether Truman was correct or not is like closing the barn door after the cows have escaped. As you know, the history from the Balfour Declaration (or earlier) until Truman recoginized Israel is littered with hypocrisy and betrayal of the indigenous Palestinians. In the short term, can see approving of Trumans decision but, in fact and sadly, there were other options but no will to look at them. In the long term, Trumans decision only continued the mess of 1948 and laid the foundation for the mess in 2012."Being linked with Jeff is little bit like drowning because I couldn't get off my wool jacket and boots as you tossed both of us into the cistern!!I would add that Truman instead of consulting with his foreign policy advisers also acted precipitously. He could have certainly waited and gotten the lay of the land vis a vis both Israelis and Palestinians. The British in the Mandate Period and the Balfour Declaration were a source of hypocrisy to the Arabs, but also to the Jews. I don't think we should hold back from holding the British responsible for this mess. The British under fire from both sides did not do what they should have done-- stayed to negotiate a peaceful departure, in this the Jewish attacks on the British, including the bombing of the King David hotel, may have been more determinative than anything the Palestinians did to the British. And then, Rashid Khaldidi, part of the Palestinian clan, in his book, The Iron Cage, is highly critical of the Palestinian factionalism, naivete, and lack of organization vis a vis the end of the mandate and the Jewish Community, which was highly organized with virtually a parallel government to the British, and good for them. The Palestinians were not. If the international community had intervened to prevent the war and to open Palestinian eyes to their situation would things have been different. Well, barn door and all of that. Did Truman do anybody any favors by his immediate recognition. Definitely open to discussion.
Not all arabs are muslim. There are jewish and christian arabs who lived and still live in islamic mid east countries.Christian and jewish arabs had their own courts though the dominent favored religion in an islamic theocracy was of course islam.In christian europe for over a thousand years the christian faith -of whatever denomination[catholic prior to the reformation and anlgican and then protestantism after the reformation in certain countries] was likewise favored in europe.And today in israel, arab jews are discriminated against by israelis of european descent -which are most of israelis. Zionism is a colonial settler movement started in europe. If you want to call settling land already occupied as a liberation movement then you're denying the equal rights of the arab native population. But regardless of the origin of the state of israel-today all arab countries and iran and all "terrorist" organizations[freedom fighters they and their supporters would claim] all of them say that today they would accept the original pre 67war borders of israel. The land Israel seized in that war is what their struggle today is against.Since world war 2 it is illigal to aquire land through war. Hence the continued resistence of the palestinians and the recognition by most of the world that israel should return to it's legal 67borders.That israel only has 1 percent of land is irrelevant;palestinian arabs were and are being expelled from their communities-to make way for others.That is ethnic cleansing. What's also relevant is that the land israel seized in the 67war is illigally aquired land and by law and by right-should be returned to the proper native inhabitants.It is Israel that is the rogue state here seizing land illigally. That is the issue today-not the existence of the state of israel.Though arabs originally[and rightly] objected to the european zionist colonization-and fought them-today they would accept the original borders of israel. It is the 67occupation and land annexation that they resist today.Muslim theocracies are by definition islamic. Israel was not formed by religious Jews but by secular europeans.Israel claims to be a democracy yet it also claims that it must have more people who are Jewish then non Jewish .That is racist. That is not about religion,but about ethnicity. Arab muslim theocracies are not concerned with the ethnic make up of their state.They are concerned with theocracy.Iran is not arab yet sides with arab palestinians[some of who are christian btw].
There are many countries that have a national religion, other countries that have settled land where there were already occupants ... Britain's monarch is the head of their Christian church (who up to now couldn't marry a Catholic) and they still occupy N. Ireland. In a region where democracy is rare and where freedom of religious worship is rare, Israel is practically a beacon in comparison to the other countries around it.
Even many Jews realize that Marhsall was right but conclude that once the decision was made it is difficult to reverse.The Senators questioning Hagel are so upset that Hagel was one of the few who realized the folly of starting the Iraq war. So they focus on the one point that has any legs--the increase in troops once we were there. Clearly they showed the jackasses they are. McCain in particular. Hagel is extraordinary in that he is his own person more than most Senators. Politicians always have problems with a statesman.
Juan Cole captures the surrealism of the Hagel hearing:http://www.juancole.com/2013/02/mauled-bizarro-senate.html"The confirmation hearing in the Senate for Chuck Hagel, President Obamas nominee for Secretary of Defense, was painful to watch because it displayed the tomfoolery, pretense, self-righteous know-nothingism, and embarrassing lack of contact with reality that dominate the landscape of Americas broken democracy. It was like watching a Nebraska ordinary Joe set upon by circus freaks a phalanx of moral midgets, stalking cat-men, vicious lobster boys and ethical werewolves."Those who regretted that Hagel seldom stood his ground, often just deflected persnickety questions, and sometimes was made to recite the catechisms of Neoconservative orthodoxy, should remember that what is important in Washington is willingness to conform orally, regardless of what one actually believes or how one acts. Hagel might agree to look like he is being pushed around by his former colleagues, for the sake of their face and his. He wont agree actually to be pushed around once he is in office."
If the Senate confirmation hearing had been conducted like a blog on the Internet, McCain, Graham, Cruz et al. would be considered trolls.
Helen: yep. They are.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
This weeks greatest news is the discovery of higgs boson like particle. My question is where higgs boson is found; whether it is found in both matter and antimatter or it is found only in matter, if only in matter then there is any theoretical anti higgs boson like particle present in antimatter or not?
This 125 GeV new particle is a neutral boson.Elementary neutral bosons are their own antiparticle, like the photon, the Z0 and now the Higgs. Composite ones may be so too, depending on the quantum numbers that the quarks they are composed of carry. The pi0 for example is its own antiparticle, since quark-antiquark switch roles.
Evidently, at the LHC. :)
The Higgs boson, as conceived in the Standard Model, is the observable quantum of 1 of the 4 degrees of freedom of the Higgs field. Loosely speaking, the anti-particle of the Higgs is "eaten" by the Z boson and so is not observable (except as the mass of the Z).
Higgs Boson is found everywhere in the universe (even where there is no matter). Its messenger particle of universe-wide Higgs field.
What is Messenger Particle?
Charge is determined by level of interaction with electromagnetic field. Similary, rest mass is determined by level of interaction with Higgs field. So, Higgs Boson gives something "Rest Mass" based on level of interaction with it. For example, photons don't interact with Higgs Boson at all, so photons don't have mass. Up Quarks interacts with it upto high extent, so they have high rest mass.


text:
I decided to follow this guide, but they only make a passing mention of using a custom domain name:
Insert the following details when asked (replacing server1.example.com with your domain name if you have one):
If I own the domain name
frank.com, it won't be enough to simply put in
frank.com into these fields, right? I'm planning to set this up in a VM on my laptop to use as a portable mail server (obviously only when the laptop is on), mainly as a learning experience, but I imagine I'll need to configure something with my domain registrar at the very least. Otherwise how will the emails show up? Not
email@example.com, but as some IP address perhaps?
I assume the answer isn't simple, but a pointer or two in the right direction would still be really helpful.


text:
This is something I used to do a lot on Windows, but after my recent fiasco I want to make sure. Is it safe to do
sudo rm -rf /tmp/*
This is something I used to do a lot on Windows, but after my recent fiasco I want to make sure. Is it safe to do
In general, no.
If it's filling up with junk, you may want to look at what software isn't cleaning up after itself.
You can also use find to identify files which haven't been modified or accessed in a long time that are probably safe to delete.
The real answer is - it depends. /tmp may be used by applications that require lockfiles or temporary logs to be present in order to run, or it may not. There may be symlinks in there...not sure what for, but it's always possible.
You should really look at what is in there before you decide to remove it. doing an rf -rf * on anything is inherently dangerous.
No. For example, if you have a MySQL database running on your computer that will kill its socket, or if you are using emacs as a server that will kill the server process. There are many other cases where it is not safe to remove these files. The best thing to do is to write a script which checks the date of the file and only removes it if it is old.
Please use tmpreaper.
But you could a ramdisk for the /tmp dir then it would be empty after every reboot of the system. And as a side effect your system may become a little big faster.
Google has a lot on info on tmpfs and/or ramfs.
I would like to ask why you want to delete files in /tmp? Is it because it is filling up, or is it for privacy reasons? If it's a space issue, it may be due to a badly behaved application, or it may be that it needs to be on a larger partition. If privacy, there are other alternatives, such as using encrypted filesystems that you may want to consider.


text:
I have some ideas for improvements on my touchpad, ranging from the run of the mill scroll horizontally at the bottom, tapzones for right click, to more complicated ones. But I have no idea where to get started? I'm working on Windows 7 Home Premium, its an Asus laptop, and I have none of these options natively available to me. Regardless, I want to write something that anyone can use.
Where would I start?
(it'd be nice to write in c++? is that possible? what are the requirements here? what language would be recommended?)


text:
Following the 2014 football season, Al Bagnoli retired as the George A. Munger Head Coach of Football at Penn, after 23 years. On December 1, he moved into a new position in the athletic department in the position of Director of Special Projects.
In the case of the George A. Munger Head Coach of Football Al Bagnoli, the numbers don't lie. As the active wins leader in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), owner of the second-highest winning percentage in Ivy League history, the only Ivy coach to ever capture nine outright titles, the winningest coach in Penn's 137-year football history and as one of just six coaches in FCS history to record 200 career wins, Bagnoli is clearly one of the living legends in his sport.
Reading Into The Numbers
♦ His 110 Ivy League victories rank him first among active Ancient Eight head coaches and second all-time in League history.
♦ Bagnoli's Quakers own the three longest Ivy winning streaks in league history, including a 20-game Ivy unbeaten streak from 2001-04 and more recently, a string of 18 straight Ivy wins from 2008-2011.
♦ Another number that shouts for attention is 12 — where Penn finished in the I-AA polls after the 2003 season. The Quakers were ranked 20th after the 2009 season and 16th after the 2010 campaign.
The Bagnoli Era - The Early Years
The story begins just two days into the calendar year 1992, when on a cold Philadelphia winter's day Bagnoli was introduced as the 21st head coach of the Red and Blue. His mission was to restore the pride of a program that, despite winning six Ivy banners in 10 seasons, had slipped with three consecutive losing campaigns.
Bagnoli did not disappoint the Penn faithful, immediately guiding the Quakers to a 7-3 overall record and a 5-2 third-place finish in the Ivy League, the Red and Blue's highest in four years. It was also the second-best turnaround in program history and a sign of things to come. One year later, in 1993, Penn returned to the top of the Ancient Eight for the first time in five years, as the second-year coach navigated Penn to just the ninth undefeated campaign in program history (10-0 overall and 7-0 Ivy), and first since 1986.
For an encore, Bagnoli led the Red and Blue to its second-straight perfect season (9-0 overall and 7-0 Ivy) in 1994, making him only the second coach in program history to accomplish that feat (George Woodruff was the first in 1894 and 1895). His back-to-back Ivy championships were Penn's first multiple titles since winning a record five-straight from 1982 to 1986.
Success Came Early and Often
His fifth banner came in 2002 and signaled the Red and Blue's third championship in five years. Penn posted its third nine-win season under Bagnoli in the process, going 9-1 overall and 7-0 in the Ivy League. Penn's sixth Ivy title under Bagnoli and 13th overall capped a revisit to perfection, as the Quakers finished 10-0 in 2003 and 7-0 in the Ancient Eight for the second-straight season. The Class of 2004 ended its reign in West Philadelphia with a 26-2 Ivy mark and were unscathed at Franklin Field in 19 contests, the only class to leave Penn unbeaten in Franklin Field.
During His Watch
A Union Man
The Dutchmen were named the ECAC's Team of the Year for the 1983 campaign. Union reached the NCAA playoffs six times and posted 10-consecutive winning seasons during Bagnoli's tenure in Schenectady, N.Y. In 1989, Bagnoli guided the Dutchmen to the program's greatest season ever, rolling to a 10-0 regular-season record and three-straight NCAA playoff victories en route to the NCAA Division III National Championship game (Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl). Two years later, Bagnoli received the Eastman Kodak Award as the American Football Coaches Association Region I Coach of the Year.
Prior to being named head coach of the Dutchmen, Bagnoli served as Union's defensive coordinator from 1978-82. Bagnoli is a two-time recipient (1993 and 1994) of the Scotty Whitelaw Award as the Division I-AA Coach of the Year, voted by the Metropolitan New York Football Writers Association.
While at Union, Bagnoli's 1991 team had the nation's top scoring offense, averaging 46.1 points per game, while his 1984 squad boasted the top defense, allowing a measly 4.6 points per game.
Time For More?
Undergrad Days
Keeping It In the Family


text:
There are no items in the cart
When a bomber, a patricide, a pornographer, and a mad biker, together with various other forms of social detritus, break free from jail, it is not surprising that mayhem follows in their wake. What is surprising is the degree of sympathy that brilliant young director Toshiaki Toyoda (Blue Spring, Porno Star) elicits with elegant ease from the spectator, as the gang of misfits roams the land in a despair that is crueler for being comic. This is humanity on the run to nowhere. Although originally inspired by The Great Escape, the film has more of a feel of Les Miserables mixed with a hallucinogenic, cut with speed. A truly original addition to the jailbreak genre!


text:
Getting Back In the Swim After Sandy
The rebirth of the New York Aquarium began at 4 a.m. the Friday after superstorm Sandy when its director waded chest-deep into a flooded, underground passageway and trained his flashlight on tanks housing sea horses and starfish. They were alive.
"That was such a tremendous lift because it's like, 'God we didn't lose everything,''' director Jon Dohlin said Thursday. "'We can leap into action now—we can get those animals out of there.'"
Five months later, the aquarium remains a construction site, with cranes topping the trees outside and several exhibits still in ruins. The Coney Island institution is scheduled to reopen to the public May 25, with about half the sites restored. Those include Glover's Reef featuring sea life from Belize, outdoor viewing areas for walruses, sea lions, sea otters and penguins, and a renovated Aquatheater with a new sea lion demonstration. Pricing hasn't yet been determined, officials said.
More than 80% of the aquarium's 12,000 animals survived the storm. Still, a full restoration—including new flood protection measures—will cost about $65 million, officials estimate. That figure could change, official cautioned.
Workers have pumped out about 1 million gallons of storm water, but the aquarium's underground passageways remain unusable. On a recent morning, walls and floors were ripped out of several exhibits, including the Sea Cliffs (much loved for its intimate views of walruses cavorting underwater) and the Alien Stingers building.
Some tanks remain drained, while others featured fish swimming in front of empty corridors, the wildlife for once without an audience. Officials said they didn't know when they would reopen these areas.
The aquarium, which is run by the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society, had been scheduled to break ground on a $120 million shark exhibit three days after Sandy hit. That project has been delayed at least a year. Officials estimate that additional flood-protection measures—such as raising the new structures, including one to house shark breeding—could raise the price by $3 million to $5 million.
Now officials are instituting a series of upgrades to better match the 100-year flood projections released by FEMA earlier this year. Larger flood protection doors are being installed, air vents are being moved to the roof, and electrical equipment is being repositioned on higher ground.
Officials have restated their commitment to being part of a coalition of government agencies and universities trying to create the Jamaica Bay Science and Resilience Center, which will study how to conserve the sprawling wetland. But there is a role they can play on their own site, too, Mr. Dohlin said.
"We're still working out how we will tell this story in the reopened aquarium," he said. "We have a responsibility and an opportunity to tell this story."
Sandy's devastation was uncharted territory for the aquarium: Despite its oceanfront location, it had never flooded since it relocated to Coney Island from Lower Manhattan in 1957, Mr. Dohlin said.
That isn't to suggest that they took the storm warnings lightly, he added. Staff members spent two days before the storm piling sand bags, checking generators, removing or raising electrical equipment and distributing oxygen canisters around the site. When the power goes out, the canisters can be used to raise the dissolved oxygen in tanks so fish can survive. "It's a slow moving disaster," he said. "You have a lot of warning."
The night of the storm, Mr. Dohlin said, he felt relieved when the waves crept only partway up the Coney Island beach outside—until an employee called to report that water was coming from the other direction.
The Army Corps of Engineers had built up the beach, but the ocean still flows to a creek that curves around the back of Coney Island. Although special doors under the boardwalk had blocked the surge, air vents 7 feet up the walls and other openings were vulnerable.
Some generators had been placed on roofs and survived, but the electrical panels that fed them power were stationed in the basement. Only a gas-powered generator on the roof of the aquarium's hospital continued working.
In the days after the storm, stranded staff members raced through the aquarium plunging oxygen canisters into the tanks and trying to restore power to the filtration systems. About 10 employees lost their own homes in the storm.
Their morale seesawed with a series of unlikely discoveries.
Mr. Dohlin realized that 300 to 500 freshwater koi fish would die when the saltwater surge flooded their pond.
But spirits rose when an American eel, presumed dead, was discovered days later splashing around an employee shower stall.
And the staff was worried about Mitik, an orphaned baby walrus the aquarium had recently adopted. He was still quarantined in the aquarium hospital. Mr. Dohlin laughed when he recalled what he saw when he opened the door to the flooded room: "He's swimming around on his back like he like he'd never seen a pool that big in his life."
Write to Sophia Hollander at firstname.lastname@example.com
- 72


text:
Ride free from worry
While Assos has a multitude of seemingly complicated shoe coverings to choose from, these are easy to explain. They're the direct descendant of Assos' legendary airBlock bootie. The Assos winterBootie_S7 is aimed at the same temperature range and does everything the now-discontinued airBlock did, only better.
To start, Assos employed the strataGon fabric for its enhanced waterproofing and breathability. It handles nasty weather better than airBlock, and ultimately, it leaves your foot more comfortable over a long duration. This new fabric's success hinges on Assos' new flexible membrane. Incredibly, the membrane closes down its microscopic pores when cold and opens them up when warm. Not only is the material more waterproof on its own, but thanks to the new panel design, it's increasingly difficult for water to seep in through the seams. There's a large panel that covers up to the ankle without seams, effectively shielding the entire forward portion of the foot with one seamless layer. Two smaller side panels run up from the heel alongside the ankles.
The winterBootie is designed to fit snug around your shoe. While it might require a bit more effort to pull them on, they seal perfectly around your shoe once in place. The toes, cleat areas, and heels have been reinforced with an external layer of durable nylon swatches. The zipper is waterproof with a locking lever and a reflective stripe running the length of the zipper.
The Assos winterBootie_S7 is part of Assos' climaRange 6. Assos calls this Winter, and defines its effective protection range being between 32-46 degrees Fahrenheit (0-8 degrees Celsius). The winterBootie is available in the colors Black and White and in Size 0 (35-38), Size I (38-42), and Size II (43-46).
Tech Specs
View more Shoes Covers
Size chart
|US Men's Shoe Size
|6 - 9
|9.5 - 13
|US Women's Shoe Size
|4 - 7.5
|8 - 11.5
|EU Shoe Size
|35 - 38
|39 - 42
|43 - 46
Reviews & Community
Do not buy these booties.
- Familiarity: I've used it several times
- Fit: True to size
- Size Bought: Large
I bought these booties as a supplement to a couple of other pairs that I own, primarily for temperatures around 40 degrees. The booties performed well at that temperature, what did not perform well were the zippers. The zipper on one separated after minimal use. Ever tried returning a defective item to Assos? Spare yourself the frustration, don't.
I bought a pair of these booties recently , and checked out the quality of the product. After checking out the quality, there is no finer shoe cover on the market. There is a certain technique to putting on the assos product....now i did not pay nearly as much as you gentleman paid, but i can tell you they are well made. I will be testing the product , and will be posting if i have any problems with the zipper or any other defective flaws.
Also that shoe chart is not correct.
Really disappointed
- Familiarity: I've used it once or twice and have initial impressions
I wear a US size 10.5 for starters. When I initially tried to put these on I had a ton of trouble getting them to fit over my clip on's and gave up for some time. A few foot soaked rides later I tried again and was able to fit them on. They fit great and worked as advertised. I was stoked! They were pretty dirty after a 30 mile ride in the rain so I threw them on gentle cycle with my other assos gear I used for the ride. A couple days later as I prepped for a rainy ride to work I broke the zipper on the booty. Hoping to arrive with one dry foot I tried the other on and that zipper broke also! Super bummed that I paid so much and got just one ride out of these. I spoil myself with a lot of assos gear but this product disappoints.
Any one who does pony up for them please know to handle with care as you put them on. It is a wrestling match getting them on over the shoe clips but must be done with patience and delicate care. This is my first true winter riding and I confess I am a noob. Maybe this is common knowledge and I learned the hard way. Yet my next pair will come at a much more reasonable price point. There must be other quality booties out there for much cheaper. And if I do break them I won't be pissed that I just wasted $179!!!!


text:
Accessibility features
Information for passengers with disabilities is available from Heathrow Travel-Care either at counters or by telephone (tel: (020) 8745 7495). Detailed access information is also available on the airports website. There is a Minicom information line for the hard of hearing (tel: (020) 8745 7950), wheelchair-accessible telephones and text telephones, as well as induction loops. Reserved seating and disabled toilets are also available in all terminals. Wheelchairs push and provision, and help with baggage from Departures to check-in, are available free of charge and can be pre-booked through Skycaps (tel: (020) 8745 6011/5727). Assistance is also available by using the telephones at the various help points situated throughout the airport. Passengers requiring wheelchairs and special assistance should also contact the individual airlines prior to travel. The Help Bus (tel: (020) 8745 6261) is a free wheelchair-accessible bus service that operated between all terminals and the central bus station. Disabled parking is also available. The Heathrow Express, black taxis and many bus and coach routes provide facilities for wheelchairs.


text:
All Rise...
Editor's Note
Our review of Born Free (1966) (Blu-ray), published January 20th, 2016, is also available.
The Charge
Born free, as free as the wind blows…
Opening Statement
Born Free is the film adaptation of Joy Adamson's book Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds. Adamson's book, based on her true-life adventures with the animals of Kenya, became a world-wide best seller, captivating millions with her stories of life in Africa among the wild animals.
Facts of the Case
Joy and George Adamson are Britons living in colonial Kenya in the mid-1960s. George (Bill Travers) is part of the colonial administration, serving as chief game warden in the northern province. His duty is to protect wildlife from poachers, and to protect people from unruly wildlife. When a man-eating lion begins terrorizing nearby villages, it is up to George and his men to destroy it. They track the lion down and kill it; just as they think their mission is complete, they are surprised by the lion's mate and are forced to kill her as well. In the aftermath, they find three now-orphaned lion cubs that will starve without protection.
Joy (Virginia McKenna, Sliding Doors) falls in love with the cubs almost immediately, and the couple adopts them. After several tries they concoct a milk formula that the young lions will accept, and begin to nurse them to health. As the cubs grow, the difficulties of raising lions becomes apparent; having three frisky kittens the size of terriers (and later, German shepherds) in the house wreaks havoc on everything from furniture to dinner guests.
The Adamsons make the difficult decision to send the lions away to a zoo where they can live out their lives in safety. Joy knows it is for the best, but is heartbroken at losing them. However, the wily George secretly keeps Joy's favorite, the young lioness that Joy has named Elsa.
The three live together as a family until Elsa reaches adulthood, at which point even Joy realizes that a lion just isn't a very good family pet. Rather than pack her off to some European zoo, Joy determines that she and George will teach Elsa how to hunt and fend for herself so that they may return her to the wild.
The Evidence
Born Free won two Academy Awards upon its release in 1966: one for Best Score, and the other for Best Song. Yes, that's right, this movie is the source of the song "Born Free," which has appeared in everything from bank commercials to episodes of The Simpsons. The man behind this excellent musical score is none other than John Barry, known for such other sweeping scores as Out of Africa and Dances With Wolves, as well as being the genius behind the distinctive "James Bond Theme" and the title song from Goldfinger. Barry seems at home here, with his music capturing the spirit of the magnificent open vistas of Africa and teeming wildlife. So powerful is Barry's score that it elevates the film, giving a sense of scope, grandeur, and unity to what otherwise might feel a bit like a Lifetime Network special, or a really, really long episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
Which is not to say that Born Free is a bad movie. There is something charming and refreshing about this pre-political correctness tale of two people and the lioness they love. It is an innocent story, free of cynicism or irony or any trace of mean-spiritedness. It is a story that takes one back to a gentler, happier time. Indeed, Joy Adamson's stories about Elsa have been published in many different forms; I am quite sure I remember having a picture book about her entitled Elsa Gets a Kitten, or something to that effect, when I was a small child. (I'm also pretty sure that when my mom and my sister read this, they will call me and tell me that they remember no such thing, and that I should quit making up childhood memories.) The movie itself, while perhaps a bit slow at times, tells the story of Elsa and the Adamsons in such a loving way that it is hard not to fall under its spell.
McKenna and Travers do nicely in their roles as the colonial couple. McKenna has a fresh-faced, unassuming, unglamorous sort of beauty that makes her completely believable in the role. Travers, for his part, plays George as suitably British, dignified and stiff upper lip, but not above letting his feelings for Joy or Elsa show. Perhaps their most remarkable achievement is reminding the audience that this is not just a film about lions, but also a film about two real people who love each other very much and are very devoted to each other.
The DVD from Columbia TriStar presents two versions of the movie: the correctly framed widescreen version and a completely gratuitous hack-and-scan transfer. Both of these are found on the same side of the disc, and are accessed through a menu option. Watching it, one gets the feeling that this movie has seen better days. The picture quality is about what one might expect from a 36-year-old family film; in other words, just not very good. The source print has aged and yellowed over time. The image is noticeably soft much of the time, often showing large amounts of grain, picture noise, or both. Many nicks and scratches are visible at various points in the movie. Colors are generally faded and washed out, giving much of the movie a sort of beige sameness. This is broken by moments where the colors are oversaturated and garish. The opening credits, for example, are done in a nasty blaze orange typeface and bleed so badly as to be mostly illegible. At times there is massive edge enhancement and associated haloing, as well as massive aliasing or "jaggies" in what should be smoothly curved surfaces. Worst of all, there's an apparently VHS-inspired flicker at the top of the frame from time to time. In short, it's a pretty typical Columbia TriStar release.
Audio is presented in Dolby Stereo. This is surprisingly good, given the age and nature of the source material. The audio is a bit limited in range, but comes through pleasantly and relatively clearly; dialogue is clear and easy to understand.
Extra content is nothing special. There is a trailer for this film as well as its sequel, Living Free. Other animal-themed trailers included are Fly Away Home and Running Free.
The Rebuttal Witnesses
If there are criticisms to be made of Born Free, they probably lie in the area of the overall story and pacing. This is a very episodic story that tells the tale of the Adamsons and Elsa over the course of a number of years; as such, it can feel a bit disjointed at times, as though the individual vignettes don't knit together very well to make a unified whole.
Virginia McKenna, as noted earlier, does a good job as Joy Adamson and brings a sense of grace and honesty to the role. However, at time she is guilty of bringing a bit of melodrama as well, and some of her overwrought laments over Elsa's fate can be a bit grating. These are only minor and infrequent flaws, however, and only detract a bit from what is otherwise a good performance.
Closing Statement
Born Free is pretty good family entertainment. As I watched it, I rather wished I had kids to share it with. (Of course, I wish that a lot, but that's not important right now.) In any other context, however, it is a bit dull, really, and the picaresque storyline feels more than a bit disjointed. Still, even the adults in the audience will find it hard not to be moved by this touching, wholesome story of two people who truly love each other and who also share a deep love for the lion cubs they adopt.
The Verdict
It's a close call, but we find Born Free Not Guilty. Taken for what it is, it accomplishes what it sets out to do quite nicely. It's a family film about interesting people and cool animals, and it manages not to insult or talk down to the audience along the way.
The studio, on the other hand, obviously put less time and energy into this DVD than it takes to watch it. On the other hand, what do you expect for a rickety old family flick? One supposes we should just be grateful that Columbia TriStar is paying any attention to their older catalog titles at all; other studios have not done as much.
We stand adjourned.
Give us your feedback!
Did we give Born Free a fair trial? yes / no
What's "fair"? Whether positive or negative, our reviews should be unbiased, informative, and critique the material on its own merits.
Other Reviews You Might Enjoy
• Mr. Nanny
DVD Reviews Quick Index
• DVD Releases
Scales of Justice
Perp Profile
Studio: Sony
Distinguishing Marks
• Theatrical Trailer
• IMDb
DVD | Blu-ray | Upcoming DVD Releases | About | Staff | Jobs | Contact | Subscribe | Find us on Google+ | Privacy Policy
Review content copyright © 2003 Erick Harper; Site design and review layout copyright © 2016 Verdict Partners LLC. All rights reserved.


text:
You are visiting our UK site. Click here to view our US site
A selective range of acu-tape for the acupuncturist.
Subscribe To CMT
Shopping Basket
Your basket is empty!
Change Language
Change Currency
Events Calendar
Qigong for Self-Healing with Daverick Leggett (Saturday 15th October)
The focus of the day will be self healing through the practice of Qigong. [more]
Working with Excess- TCM Nutrition with Daverick Leggett (Friday 14th October)
Many,or perhaps all, chronic conditions have an underlying deficiency at their root [more]


text:
Private games hosted outside casinos, typically in a host's residence. Table rules, stakes, and pay quality will vary wildly. Questions may involve hosting, blind structures, game styles, amateur tourney moderation.
837 views
Handling "running it twice" situations
When players agree to "run it twice" (or more times), should any additional cards be burned before each replayed step? Also, shouldn't the cards turned in the first run be shuffled back into the deck ...


text:
Andrea Branas, MSE, MPT, Andrea Cheville, MD, Lora Packel, M.S.P.T.
The Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania
Last Modified: September 8, 2002
Copyright © 2002 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission in writing from the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
The following exercises are to help you regain your normal flexibility of the trunk, pelvis and hips after your surgery or radiation treatment. Check with your doctor, nurse or physical therapist before beginning these exercises!
|Exercise 1 of 5: Deep Diaphragmatic Breathing
|Exercise 2 of 5: Prone Lying
|Exercise 3 of 5: Lower Trunk Rotation
|Exercise 4 of 5: Groin Stretch
|Exercise 5 of 5: Gluteal and Lower Trunk Stretch


text:
Published on Sun, Jun 16, 2013
Mary Giovagnoli, the Director of the Immigration Policy Center, was quoted in a recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times on Senator John Cornyn's proposed border amendments in the Senate immigration bill:
"Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) wants to halt the legalization of undocumented immigrants after a required 10-year wait if border security fails to meet potentially unattainable standards.
"He might as well say he is against immigration reform. His plan would effectively kill it, which is why some, including Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), have called his proposal a poison pill.
"'It becomes a way to say we can't move forward,' said Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Immigration Policy Center."
Published in the Chicago Sun-Times


text:
As someone who enjoys flavorful and healthy recipes enough to host my own healthy cooking blog, I give this recipe 2 big thumbs up! Made 6 servings for us and the leftovers reheated like a champ for filling lunches. I would suggest using regular diced tomatoes and adding your own seasoning, but in a pinch the seasoned diced tomatoes work too...
Skillet Gnocchi with Chard & White Beans
From EatingWell: January/February 2009
In this one-skillet supper, we toss dark leafy greens, diced tomatoes and white beans with gnocchi and top it all with gooey mozzarella. Serve with a mixed green salad with vinaigrette.
419 Reviews for Skillet Gnocchi with Chard & White Beans
This is a great dish. Very easy. I made it even healthier by using whole wheat/potato gnocchi and using less cheese (I used the 2% Italian blend) and just putting a small amount on each portion.. I also substituted a whole 5 oz. package of fresh baby spinach, b/c I had it on hand. Great pantry recipe to keep on hand. My sweetie loved it and loved that it was filling.
So good!
Definitely will become a staple. I was unable to find gnocchi (frozen or shelf stable) at the grocery store nearest to me, so I used tortellini instead (boiled and added at the end). So simple to make and yet we almost didn't have leftovers because it was so delicious (there are only two of us)!
Look forward to trying again with gnocchi!
CB, Honolulu, HI
I make something like this using pierogies. So, I think I will boil the gnocchi for a minute or two and then brown it in the skillet the way I do pierogies. I don't have chard either but I do have spinach, and I only have butterbeans, but it is the white ones, so....now that I think about it, I'm probably making a completely different dish but the idea is what I love. Beans, greens and Gnocchi. Thanks.
I added asparagus, omitted the mozzarella cheese and added a little extra Parmesan, it was delicious. I've made it the normal way too, but I really liked it with asparagus this time!


text:
As a Christian, you're called to surrender yourself to God's plan for your life. World Vision President, Rich Sterns says, "being a Christian isn't about simply being a "decider," living a dumb downed Gospel just so you can get your "get into heaven" card. It is about being a "disciple" and making Jesus Lord of your life." Christ cautions us about living any other way.
Billy Graham said it so well, "God leaves us here because He has a mission for us to fulfill. We aren't here by accident; neither are we here simply to enjoy the good things life has to offer. We are here because God put us here, and He has a sovereign purpose in keeping us here. It's true for us as individuals, and it's true for His body, the Church, in all its fullness. As Jesus prayed just before His arrest and trial, "I am not praying that You take them out the World… As you sent Me into the World, I also have sent them into the World." (John 17:15,18)
As we set out on this journey to take "Love Around The World," our World Vision host, Steve Quant told us to "look in the cracks, for it is in the cracks that you see poverty at it's worst." And boy has he been right, in every city, in every country and on every continent that we have traveled to, we have seen that. Lurking in the shadows of skyscrapers, hotels, apartment complexes and homes, we have discovered those forgotten by society, those who live in the cracks, those that we so often ignore.
"Looking in the cracks" has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my entire life, within those cracks lie some of the sweetest, kindest and most humble people I have ever met. Within those cracks lie hopes and dreams clinging to life, hopes and dreams that God calls us to breath life into. I have said it before and I will say it again, we have met the "least of these" living in these cracks, the very ones that Christ, himself, calls us to care and look out for.
For twenty-six years, Andrea has lived in one of these cracks with her 5 children, forgotten, alone and desperately poor. Her home consisted of a space literally in a "crack" between two buildings, thrown together with whatever scraps she could find, a wooden pallet here, a piece of plastic there. A roof that leaked like a sieve when it rained, leaving her home soaked, full of mold, that constantly kept her and her kids sick. In the 12 years that Steve Quant has worked for World Vision, he says it one of the most heart wrenching and worse living conditions he has ever seen. I am happy to tell you we didn't see it, thanks to World Vision's work in Andrea's Sao Paulo neighborhood, she is no longer forgotten, her family has a new found hope. Andrea is now dreaming about her kids' futures once again!
They still live in that same crack because they simply have no money and nowhere else to go, but thanks to World Vision's commitment to change kids, families and communities; and the help of her church, Andrea's crack will have real walls, a real floor and roof that will keep her and the kids safe and dry for the time in twenty-six years.
Andrea has had a very difficult life, she is very quiet and soft spoken, but when she shared what a difference World Vision child sponsorship had made, her face filled with hope and gratitude poured forth from her lips. For what you spend on a monthly manicure or pedicure, a trip through a drive thru with your family, or on a trim for the dog… You can change the life of not only a child; but their family and their entire community. Everyone in Andrea's neighborhood has seen what love has done to bring forth new life.
This shouldn't be something that we have to mull over, and pray about, in hopes of God letting you off the hook; Over and over and over again, the Bible tells us this is what God EXPECTS of us as Christians, as "disciples!" There are more kids, like Andrea's, that are still waiting for YOU to make them a part of your family. Start that relationship TODAY! Just click the link to find your child… http://www.worldvision.org/Love-around-the-world
Mother Theresa wrote, "We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty."
Today we met a woman named Hannah in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia who found herself just as Mother Theresa had described. She was a widow with two young boys who not only found themselves naked, hungry and homeless, but unwanted, unloved and uncared for. They were without hope, living in under a sheet of plastic on a street when World Vision found them and reached out to help.
Since that day Hannah and her boys, Masfin and Yeabsira, have hope. World Vision has helped Hannah and her boys find a home, granted, it's made of mud, dung and straw and is smaller than the bathroom in my hotel room, but it's a home. Sponsorship has helped the boys enroll in school, and dream about what their future holds, Masfin, in fact, shared that he wants to be a doctor, because he wants to help take care of others. This is a dream that now lives because someone thought Masfin was worth investing a dollar a day in!
Those people are Clive and Martina, his sponsors. When I asked if he knew his sponsors, he proudly reached for a picture that was kept in a place of honor in their home with all of the other family photos. Hannah expressed the love that they had for them, because their kindness was changing their family's life and giving them hope!
World Vision sponsorship is much more about, "Teaching a man to fish and feeding him for a lifetime; than giving a man a fish and feeding him for the day." Yes, World Vision is making sure that Hannah and her boys have what they need, but they are also making it possible for the boys to do well in school. They have provided a means to making some money by purchasing Hannah a washer and dryer so that she could start a business, which is now flourishing in her neighborhood. The ability that Hannah now has to help provide for her family has built her self-confidence. She and the boys are still living on less than $2 a day, but they are so grateful that the love from people like Clive and Martina, are giving them hope and dreams for the boys' futures.
Mother Theresa, who spent her life caring of the poor and the leper, said it so well, "If you can't feed a hundred people, Feed just ONE!" You feeding and pouring into just ONE boy like Masfin can make a World of difference! Clive and Martina's love for this ONE boy, has transformed his entire family. Their love for this ONE boy has sparked dreams of a life beyond the slums of Africa, a life lived helping those less fortunate. Thanks for taking time TODAY to find the ONE World Vision child that you'll invest in! Let's CHANGE the World, ONE Child at a time, visit http://www.worldvision.org/Love-around-the-world today!
As I am writing this, I am sitting here in tears after reading another chapter from World Vision President, Rich Sterns' new book "Unfinished" and listening to Lincoln Brewster's "The Power of Your Name." I thank God that I will never be the same after this trip, and I hope that you'll join me on this journey. Lincoln sings, "I will live to carry your compassion, to love a world that's broken. To be your hands and feet. And I'll give with the life that I have been given. And go beyond religion to see the world be changed…"
I have come face to face with some of the 1 billion people who will go to bed hungry tonight, that's triple the population of the United States. Sadly, more than ¼ of the World's 2 billion children suffer from malnutrition, but even worse is that they become victims of human trafficking, the AIDS epidemic, other pain staking diseases and for 18 million of them, they face these things all alone because they are orphans.
The more that we have traveled on this journey to take Love Around The World, the more I am realizing what a bubble most of us live in. The thing about living in a bubble is that you can see out, you can see the need, but you're so comfortable inside the bubble that you don't want to anything to burst it. Comfort can be one of the greatest enemies we face as Christians, it can render us useless to God's plans for our lives.
Imagine what would have happened after Jesus left, if the Disciples would have went back to being fisherman, tax collectors and Pharisees. Instead, they realized that Jesus didn't call us to just sit inside a church building on Sunday, sing songs and listen to a good sermon. He called us to go to the ends of the earth, to usher in His Kingdom, a kingdom that looks different from anything else the world has ever seen. That call may cost us dearly, as it did the disciples, but it's the call that Christ calls each of us to answer.
The comfort that we have become accustomed to has distorted our worldview. C.S. Lewis cautions, "Prosperity knits a man to the world, he feels that he is 'finding his place in it,' while really it is finding its place in him." In Luke, Jesus issues us this caution, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist of an abundance of possessions."
Rich Sterns writes in Unfinished, "How can we compensate for the distortion within our worldviews? How can we hold in one hand the truth that Jesus loves the poor, widow and orphan, yet hold in our other hand the tickets to our Disney vacation? Disparity makes us uncomfortable, especially when we know we could do something about it. So what does our faith do in the face of this disparity? Again, if we are to build our lives on the foundation of God's truth, we must learn to see the world as He sees it. Should we not weep for what He weeps for and treasure what He treasures? Should we not "seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness" rather than the kingdoms of our own making?"
Seeing human suffering always makes us uncomfortable, but we must ask 'How does God want us to respond?' Rich Sterns says it this way, "We, as followers of Jesus Christ, have failed to do this one thing that He commanded us to do. We have failed to obey Christ's commands to live radically different lives, to build and establish the kingdom of God, to make disciples of all nations and demonstrate His love to a hurting world. And in failing to do these things we have not only failed our Lord Jesus, but the lost and hurting of the World… And we have failed ourselves. Christ did not call us to retreat from the World's pain, but to enter it. He called us to go. The twenty-first century Church has everything to finish the job… The resources, the knowledge and the mandate. But the great commission given to us by Christ lies 'Unfinished.'
Rich's words cut straight to the heart because we find it hard denying the truth of what he says. He is right, and I will be the first to admit, that I have fallen short… I want to change! I want to burst forth from this bubble and live a life for which the Lord can say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Now Playing: One Step Away
Artist: Casting Crowns
On-Air: Morning Show
Thanks for listening to the Scott and Kelli Show! You can listen online weekdays from 5-9pm Eastern at www.klove.com/listen.
Like Us
Scott Smith
Kelli Caldwell


text:
I've seen a couple of different weapon chests. Two from the original game, one that looks like a car trunk, etc. Do any of these containers have an higher chance of containing higher level items? Do their contents scale with your level? Do all players see the same loot?
Yes, different items have different loot. Most have "minor loot" (ammo, cash or health) but certain containers always have guns. Containers that always have guns also tend to have better weapons on average.
Chest contents generally don't scale with your level (though in Borderlands 2 they did in playthrough 2.5), however the Golden Chest items do scale with your level
Stuff that has guns
These chests always have guns and the items they drop are noticeably better than the typical gun drops from baddies or "non-gun" containers
Stuff that has minor loot
I'll try and get pics on these while I'm playing
All players in coop see the same loot except when it's mission loot (you get slightly different reward items).
With regards to containers that can only hold certain items:
You'll also see a bunch of exploding items (gas tanks, gas canisters) which have a green light like unopened chests. If you blow these up, they drop ammo and money, and (possibly, I can't remember) a common item.


text:
Lehigh Valley IronPigs vs Scranton Wilkes-Barre YankeesFri, August 30, 2013 - 7:05 PMCoca Cola Park in Allentown, PA
We are sorry, the date for this event has already passed. This event took place on 8/30/2013. Click here to view upcoming events for Lehigh Valley IronPigs.
Still unsure? Check out our user reviews for:
Have a question? Need help? Call us at 800.477.5285


text:
WEIRTON - The Italian company that wants to build a $9 million plant in the Three Springs Drive business park will be testing demand here in the U.S. during the next 18 months.
Pietro Fiorentini General Manager Sergio Trevisan said they're confident there's a market for their products - pressure regulators, valves and pressure reducing and metering systems.
"But we need to test the reaction of the shale gas market to our presence," he said. "We have a good feeling, but we need to test it."
Article Photos
TAKING IT OVER — Discussing plans for Pietro Fiorentini's presence in the Three Springs Business Park Tuesday were, from left, Marvin Six, assistant director of the Business Development Corp. of the Northern Panhandle; Angela Mascia, interim director of the West Virginia Development Office's European office; Pietro Fiorentini General Manager Sergio Trevisan; Weirton Mayor George Kondik; Pietro Fiorentini General Counsel Valeria Buffoni; West Virginia Economic Development Authority Executive Director David Warner; and BDC Executive Director Pat Ford. The Italian company plans to spend $9 million on a production center in the business park. -- Linda Harris
If the tests pan out, he said construction of the 50,000-square-foot plant will start late in 2014. In the meantime, the company has leased a 15,000-square-foot space in the former Wheeling Corrugating plant in Beech Bottom where it will set up shop temporarily.
"We don't have a problem spending $9 million (to build a plant) if it's necessary and if the market reacts positively to our presence," he said.
Trevisan said the 70-year-old company has a sales office in Atlanta, but the Weirton plant will be its first production facility in the U.S.
"We have the knowledge to sell all over the world, in every country except here," he said, pointing out they currently have two plants in China, others in France and Hungary.
"Our strategy is for a local market, we want to be present in the local market, be a local production facility."
Trevisan said they'd considered several states "but at the end, we chose West Virginia. Mainly, it's at the center of the Marcellus and Utica shale."
But in addition to the easy access to customers in the developing Marcellus and Utica shale plays, he also said they'd received "some very interesting support" at the state and county level.
"Our feeling is that we found the right culture, very similar to our culture," he said. "People are committed, they're good. To do good business, you need good people first."
The buildup already has begun: He said several of his colleagues participated in Hackman Capital's equipment auction Tuesday at the corrugating plant. Los Angeles-based Hackman and the BDC teamed up in November to purchase the 650-acre corrugating property, with Hackman retaining ownership of the equipment left on site and working with local leaders to market the property.
"We are spending money to buy equipment," Trevisan said.
West Virginia Economic Development Authority Executive Director David A. Warner, on hand for Tuesday's discussions, sees the international interest as a "very positive" development for the Northern Panhandle.
"This is a very reputable company we're working with," Warner said. "They're a manufacturing company interested in a particular piece of property at the Three Springs Business Park and a product line in the middle of the Marcellus and Utica sale.
Warner credited a "very accommodating and cooperative Business Development Corporation and a very cooperative mayor" with getting the deal done.
"All these things came together, and we're pretty confident it will lead to success and, hopefully, expansion some day."
BDC Executive Director Pat Ford said it's been "well over a generation since we've seen investment in new manufacturing." Rather than focus on preserving and expanding existing business, he said they're looking at bringing in an all new industry, he said.
Since restructuring and redefining its plan four years ago, he said the BDC "has been working with this in mind."
"And when an opportunity arose with a prospect of this magnitude, we were prepared," he said.
Trevisan said production could begin late in 2015. Initially, they'll employ 41 people, but that number will grow as the business grows.
"This is a great cooperative effort between the city, county, state and BDC," Weirton Mayor George Kondik added. "It's an honor to have a company of this magnitude coming to our city, let alone the state. It's one of the first pieces of the puzzle, just the start. We not only have the perfect location, but we have the economic components" they need.


text:
After 4 days of laying out their proof that Lucas Goodrum raped and murdered WKU freshman Katie Autry, prosecutors rested their case Monday.
The prosecution's case rests squarely on the testimony of co-defendant Stephen Soules, who says Goodrum forced him to participate in the brutal rape and sodomy of Autry, whose body was set on fire inside her dorm room May 4, 2003. Soules' story is backed up by the testimony of 3 current or former inmates in the Warren County Regional Jail, who say Goodrum confessed to being part of the crime while behind bars.
Goodrum's lawyers have repeatedly made the point that prosecutors have no physical evidence (DNA, fingerprints, etc.) tying their client to the crime. Defense attorney David Broderick grilled lead investigator Mike Dowell of the WKU police for more than 2 hours Monday, wondering why investigators waited until last month to follow up with Goodrum's stepmom, who is part of Goodrum's alibi. Broderick and Goodrum's mother Donna said they believe police are guilty of "a rush to judgement," which lead them to charge Goodrum.
Judge Tom Castlen will rule Tuesday on a motion by the defense for summary judgement, standard in capital cases. If granted, Goodrum would be instantly acquitted, and the week-old trial halted. If not, the defense will begin with the testimony of its forensic experts, who will point to the lack of physical evidence.


text:
I recently started using the Amazon App store, and noticed that it copies the apps I already purchased or downloaded to other Android devices if I sign in using the same account. Is there any specified limit on the number of devices that this is supported on? If I have 10 Android devices can I buy an app once and install it on all of them?
Yes, you can install all the apps you buy from the Amazon appstore on any device which is linked to that Amazon account. It operates just like paid apps in the Android Market which are available to all the devices associated with that particular Google Account.
I have 3 Android devices and all they are all linked to the same Amazon account and the same Google account and when I purchase an app through the Market or the Appstore I have it on all three devices.
The max is 25. It'll tell you that your username or password is wrong if you try to auth any more. Though it's pretty easy de-authing them from the amazon website
Found a source: http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-1315474.html
Applications purchased are tied to your Amazon account. You can also tie multiple devices to your Amazon account. However, every device must have the Amazon Appstore app installed on it and must be logged in to access the apps installed via the Amazon Appstore, which would give anyone with any of these devices the ability to purchase additional apps using your Amazon account and it's payment information. So, as the Amazon help describes it, it does look like it's possible. However, it also looks like a really bad idea unless you absolutely trust everyone who has each of these 10 devices.


text:
Last stop at King's Cross
NOTE: I took down my post about "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" last week in deference to readers who were concerned about spoilers in the post's comments. No spoilers in this revised post, but I have no power to Obliviate your memory if spoilers appear in the Comments. If you're still reading the book and don't want to know what happens, don't click on the Comments.
NOTE: I took down my post about "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" last week in deference to readers who were concerned about spoilers in the post's comments. No spoilers in this revised post, but I have no power to Obliviate your memory if spoilers appear in the Comments. If you're still reading the book and don't want to know what happens, don't click on the Comments.Our family has now lived through one of the great popular literary events of the past 100 years: We have completed reading the final installment of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.
I'm a bit relieved the hooplah's over, though with it goes a large chunk of our son's childhood.
We've read Harry Potters to our son since he was 5. Read them to distract him when his throat was on fire from a tonsillectomy. Read them on camping vacations around the firepit. Read them on Christmas vacation when boredom crept in. Read extra chapters as bribes for doing chores. Read them at Halloween to make Harry Potter-inspired costumes as realistic as possible. Read them at bedtime and and listened to many pleas to stave off lights-out for just a few more pages, just until the next chapter..
Our son has drawn countless illustrations of exciting scenes from Harry Potter. I confiscated one doodled during Mass that was inspired by "The Chamber of Secrets," in which a stick figure Tom Riddle tells Harry, "Your brid has blinded the snak but it can still here you!"
Critics (including me) will continue to grouse that Rowling is not the best literary stylist. People "stride" and "soar" too much, and the comma splices get annoying. But parents (including me), teachers and librarians will continue to marvel over how much this series has done to inspire reading among that hardest of hard-sell groups: adolescent boys. The last person to do so on such a grand scale might have been Thomas Malory.
And there's plenty of Malory--and Dickens and Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and Beowulf and the Mabinogeon and T.H. White and St. Guthlac's hagiographer--in Rowling, and, of course, enough to fuel thousands of English lit dissertations for decades to come.
But I leave that to the academics.
As a parent, I appreciate that Rowling offers an alternative to the pablum that passes for children's entertainment, the pointless video game duels or saccharine play-nice-nice stories in which the bully is always reformed with kindness and understanding. Rowling acknowledges straight up what kids already suspect--that there are still dragons to be slain, and sometimes the fiercest are the ones inside ourselves.
Rowling does not insult the intelligence of children who are learning that life is not black and white. She confirms that life is made up of gray areas and imperfect people, and that kids must rely on knowledge, faith and courage to see them through. I thought of that when I listened to a story about the 2005 documentary "Children of Beslan." A boy about my son's age tells that while terrorists held people hostage in his elementary school, he kept up his courage by thinking about Harry Potter: "I remembered that he had a cloak that made him invisible. And he would come and wrap me in it, and we'd be invisible, and we'd escape."
The child in Beslan did not hang onto Harry in order to escape into a pleasant fantasyland, but because Rowling has assured kids in book after book that they have within them the most powerful magic of all, the power of love that allows them to be brave and endure, and that that in the end, that's what makes all the difference.
Harry's not a new story at all, but one that bears repeating and savoring in every generation.
13 comments
- All
- Editor Featured
I agree, the Potter series is an epic story of the same proportions as the others you mention, and a positive moral influence.I just wish, in this same story that is told afresh every generation, there wasn't always a war.
Jean, I agree with you about Rowlings style being a bit of a problem, especially those sudden drops in register. But I thought she managed the conclusion of the Potter saga in a very satisfying way. The final book would deal with dark matters, and the dramatic logic of her plot demanded some painful confrontations, so it must have been hard to write the last chapters, knowing how deeply invested many of her young readers would be in the outcome. But the two Kings Cross chapters work beautifully at the end. Plenty of joy and consolation, there for everyone.And actually, this time around, the treatment of death, judgment, the immortality of the soul, the prime importance of love, and the nobility of a willingness to lay ones life here down for ones friends foreground religious values. At a key moment in his quest, Harry even comes upon an inscription that has important thematic value: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6: 21). He wont come to understand its full meaning until the first Kings Cross chapter, when he is finally in a position to see life from a different perspective, but maybe we are all in that position, and how neat that Rowling lets her readers see that.
Susan, I liked the "theology" in Book 7, especially the King's Cross chapter, but did you think that the hallows muddied the plot?Harry, as the master of the hallows, conquers death, and that's a possible reason he "comes back." I think that takes away from the notion that he gains (or rejoins) the world because he is willing to lose it (or at least his own life). The hallows, of course, could be seen as emblematic of his willingness to give up his life, because he has to give up something in order to gain each hallow--his parents to obtain the cloak; his wand to obtain the Elder Wand; and being with his parents and dead friends in giving up the Stone.It just seemed to me that she had enough magic/quest items on the table to tie things up without them. And it wasn't until the last 300 pages, when Harry got back to the horcrux quest, that things started to take off again.Viz a viz style, I think if you've made billions for book companies around the world, they really don't waste the profit margin on editors. They only make a book as good as it has to be ....
I thought that another function of the hallows was to pointedly show the difference between Dumbledore and Harry, and especially to bring Dumbledore down into the mortal realm.He's not Gandalf, after all.I'm very glad he is not godlike, given his preferred mode of dying.
Kathy, I agree that the hallows was to show Dumbledore's unworthiness--too much brain, too little heart, though it seems that he develops emotionally from knowing Harry.And the hallows also underscore that, while Harry makes different choices from Voldemort, his nemesis who is power and cruelty, he also makes different choices from Dumbledore, his Merlin, who represents curiosity and cold logic.But, storywise, the hallows seemed kind of clunky.Do you think Dumbledore does parallel Gandalf in this: Gandalf and Dumbledore both have a reappearance after death, both having grown stronger through self-knowledge.Though I hate to make too many parallels between HP and LOTR.
Jean, have you seen the HP movies? That might be a good way to talk about Dumbledore.I've thought that Richard Harris was the perfect Dumbledore. He didn't do his usual overacting that has distracted me since Camelot (unbearable in Cry, the Beloved Country). Then this Michael Gambon comes along and makes the princely, courtly Dumbledore into a disheveled and rude, sometimes fuddled character. At least that's how I was thinking. At best, I thought, Gambon's Dumbledore is much too dark a character.The coincidence of Movie 5 and Book 7 have made me reconsider Gambon, who is much more refined and masterful in Movie 5 (though still disheveled). The princely, omniscient Dumbledore of Harry's first steps into the wizarding world has become more human, fallible and psychologically complex. (Although the Dumbledore who physically and mentally pushed people around in Movie 4 was still over the top, I think.)Aberforth's characterization of his brother shows the courtesy of Dumbledore in a different light. We have seen Dumbledore manipulate many situations with courtesy--in contrast to Harry's customary blurtings. This difference between them--Harry doesn't lead people around--is that part of the reason that Harry is a better man? Is it part of being a better man to be a lousy Occlumens?Richard Harris' Dumbledore was genuinely kind. Gambon is more believable as a wizard at war, who will manipulate and trick and move people around like a general.
Kathy, interesting point. I've always wondered to what extent the movies have driven the books. I still "hear" Richard Harris when I read HP. I also "heard" Patricia Routledge as Umbridge. One of the pitfalls of the books and movies coming out simultaneously (or nearly so) is the urge to cast the movie while reading the book.Anyway, I think Harris, had he lived, would have had to allow his princely, aloof Dumbledore to crack. He would have had, as in the book, to become more human as he became weaker. I also would have liked to have seen what he'd have done with Aberforth.My sense is that Gambon will make a better Aberforth than a Dumbledore (we saw a glimpse of that in movie 5 in the Hogshead scene). Great ponder point about occlumency; Snape is furtive and tragic--and the master Occlumens. Harry is willing to open his mind to knowledge and pain. And interesting connection of those two things.
Do you take Aberforth's point of view as biased against Dumbledore, because of their sister? Or do you think he has a good grasp of D's character--particularly his use of people?Poor Snape. To see Lily's eyes in James' face, for six years...
I think both Aberforth and Dumbledore have exaggerated each other's bad points. Aberforth is bitter and unforgiving. Dumbledore is arrogant and proud. Both are good men, but they are flawed and they've hurt each other.The upshot for Harry is that he must accept that Dumbledore isn't omniscient and that his own intuitions about Voldemort are more to be trusted.
That sounds right. What do you mean about Harry's intuitions about Voldemort?I agree that the Hallows were inadequately integrated into the plot. But I thought that the weakest device in 7 was Voldemort's refusal to believe that anyone could know about the Room of Requirement except himself. I mean, how could he be the only one, if all those books and cauldrons and quidditch robes were lying around?
J. R. Rowling has said recently that she doesn't --at present-- intend to write more Potter books, but she has also said that she can't say that she will never change her mindabout that . So perhaps the elder wand , the cloak, and the resurrection stone (conveniently dropped in the forest at Hogwarts) will turn up again?
Susan, I think that, if they do, they might be in the hands of Albus, who was kind of set up as the 2nd generation Harry. He had Lily's eyes, and the same anxiety ro be in Gryffindor instead of Slytherin.Btw, Rowling fills in missing details of the epilogue here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/
Not that anyone is reading this anymore, but there's an extensive review in Time that includes this:"If Rowling makes a more subtle point, it's this. Throughout the series Harry has had to confront and forgive an apparently endless series of fathers and father-figures. It's a wise child that truly knows his father, and Harry has had to gain that wisdom again and again. Learning about and accepting James's and Sirius's flaws their arrogance, their cruelty towards Snape was a crucial part of growing up for Harry, and in Deathly Hallows he must go through the process again, with a father-figure more important than his actual father, namely Dumbledore himself. It is of critical importance that Harry understand and accept Dumbledore's fallibility, and by extension his own. It is yet another thing that separates Harry from Voldemort, who understood his father's imperfections but could not forgive them. (He solved this little problem in Half-Blood Prince, through patricide.) Though thematically speaking it's a sidelight, it's one of the key differences between Rowling and her great literary forebears. Rowling has been careful to build Harry up from boy to man, student to leader, but she has been equally attentive to the task of breaking Dumbledore down, from a divine father-figure to a mere human. Her insistence on this point is a reflection of the cosmology of the Potterverse: there are no higher powers in residence there. The attic and the basement are empty. There may be an afterlife, and ghosts, but there is certainly no God, and no devil. There are also no immortal, all-wise elves, as in Tolkien, nor are there any mystical Maiar, which is what Gandalf was (what, you thought he was human? Genealogically speaking, he's closer to a balrog than he is to a man.) There is certainly no benevolent, paternal Aslan to turn up late in the book and fight the Big Bad. The essential problem in Rowling's books is how to love in the face of death, and her characters must arrive at the solution all on their own, hand-to-hand, at street level, with bleeding knuckles and gritted teeth, and then sweep up the rubble afterwards." http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1637886_1637891,0...


text:
EXCLUSIVE: Lauren Conrad Goes Brunette for Harper's Bazaar
Courtesy of Harper's Bazaar
We already got a sneak peek at Lauren Conrad's brunette tresses when she was spotted on the set of a photo shoot for Harper's Bazaar and now, the images are out! The fashion magazine had the California girl change up her signature blonde hair for a day-long experiment. But even a wig wasn't enough to disguise the famous reality star. "I think initially the wig threw people off, but they figured it out. I felt like it only disguised me for a moment, and then it made me feel like I was hiding, which made me feel silly," Lauren tells Harper's. Lauren might have considered dying her hair dark to keep the Hills producers from for coercing her to come back on screen, but "I went into a wig store and tried on a brown wig, and they all laughed at me. All these women [who worked there] were like, 'You look like Hannah Montana.' So after a day in her dark wig, Lauren's verdict was in. "Day to day, I can only do blonde. Everything else makes me look sort of plain-Jane." Pick up the August issue of Harper's Bazaar to read more about of Lauren's day as a brunette. Issue hits stands July 21st. Tell us: Do you think Lauren looks good as a brunette?
Courtesy of Harper's Bazaar


text:
Chippewa Men's 9" Waterproof Super Logger Style: 25406 Features:
Men's Sizes E 6-12,13,14 EEE 6-12,13,14These Chippewa Men's 9" Waterproof Super Logger lace up boots feature a 9" shaft of Bay Apache leather along with Storm welt construction by Goodyear. The lining of the boot is Dri-Lex 2000 in Ruby. The removable insole is Texon 460 waterproof and the Outsole is Yellow Plug and Vibram Tacoma. The midsole is 6 Iron Robus/4 Iron Rubber. This boot features a steel shank and waterproofing by a waterproof bootie by Chip-A-Tex. The sizes available are E 6-12, 13, 14 and EEE 6-12, 13, 14. This boot has the Chippewa name on side and the logo at the heel. This boot also features hooks and eye grommets for faster lacing. This boot provides the ultimate in weather protection with an outsole of Vibram Tacoma to keep you steady on uneven surfaces no matter where you are when you are working. This keeps feet nice and warm without putting a lot of weight on your feet.


text:
The ride of your life.
Mavic's approach to apparel design mimics the attention to detail and quality of the hard goods that put this French cycling manufacturer on the map. This is blatantly apparent with the Stratos Shorts. Top-tier materials, chamois compatibility, and a fit that blends all-mountain looseness with an athletic cut allows you to stay comfortable and focus on the trail.
The Stratos shorts are made from a combination of Mavic's Trail Tech and Trail Tech ST fabrics for the right blend of abrasion resistance and stretch. In fact, the built in stretch compliments the Stratos' semi-baggy cut in order to allow a total freedom of movement. So, by creating a semi-loose fit with the same stretch of an all-mountain baggy, Mavic has ensured that you'll avoid snagging a saddle or having the fabric bunch on you while pedaling.
Also preventing short migration are wide hook-and-loop closures located at each hip. Additionally, this adjustment system allows you to fine tune the fit at the waist. For storage, there are bonded zippers over the pockets on each thigh, and the pockets are just big enough for essentials like keys, phone, and a few gels. And in terms of ventilation, Laser cut Micro Vents at the hips aid in both moisture management and in keeping the ride from getting too hot and sweaty.
And while these are shell shorts, they can be worn solo, or teamed up with Mavic's Stratos liner for added comfort and support in the form a chamois.
The Mavic Stratos Shorts are available in six sizes from X-Small to XX-Large and in the colors Autobahn/black and Black.
- Trail Tech fabric with Trail Tech ST stretch panels
- Micro Vent ventilation panels
- Hook-and-loop waist adjustment
- Zippered thigh pockets
- Semi-relaxed fit
Tech Specs
View more Men's Baggy Bike Shorts
Size chart
|32.7 - 34.3in
|34.6 - 36.2in
|36.6 - 37.8in
|38.6 - 40.2in
|40.6 - 42.5in
|42.9 - 44.9in
|45.3 - 47.2in
|28.0 - 29.5in
|29.9 - 31.5in
|31.9 - 33.1in
|33.5 - 35.4in
|35.8 - 37.8in
|38.2 - 40.2in
|40.6 - 42.5in
|33.5 - 35.0in
|35.4 - 37.0in
|37.4 - 38.6in
|39.0 - 40.9in
|41.3 - 43.3in
|43.7 - 45.7in
|46.1 - 48.0in
- How to Measure:
- For best results, take measurements over your underwear.
- Chest:
- Measure under your arms, around the fullest part of your chest.
- Natural Waist:
- Measure around your natural waistline, keeping the tape a bit loose.
- Hip:
- Measure around the fullest part of your body at the top of your legs.
- Inseam:
- Using pants that fit well, measure the crotch seam to the bottom of the leg.
- Sleeve:
- Measure from the center of your back to your wrist with arms held out.
Reviews & Community
What size is recommended for 32/33 waist?
Mavic Stratos Shorts
- Familiarity: I've put it through the wringer
These shorts are durable, lightweight and well made. The fit could be dialed in a bit as the waist is a bit larger than what the size tag would indicate. Longer Velcro tabs to tighten up the waist would be helpful. I have worn these all year and would recommend them. Would like them even better if the size was dialed in. Worn in variable conditions, lots of miles and they don't need to be washed very often.
does the sizing run true to their size chart?
Hey Shreddy,
Yeah, these do run true to size to the sizing chart.
Been trying to find these Stratos shorts...
Been trying to find these Stratos shorts in size S for a while. Any plans to have that size in stock any time soon? Thnx.
Sorry Jason but we do not have any additional inventory for these shorts coming in within the foreseeable future.
Tre Awesome
- Familiarity: I've put it through the wringer
I never notice these shorts while I am riding. The are light, and therefore excellent in the summer, they fit me well (wearing a size large with 33/34 waist) and they have just the right amount of styling to make other people think I know what I'm doing out on the trail. I use the pockets but for lighter weight items. I've also found these to be acceptably durable.
I use a now extinct Swobo liner underneath. These shorts also fit POC's VPD hip shorts underneath them. No experience with kneepads, though.
All in all a solid short.


text:
Challenge: A good deal on a telephoto zoom lens for a Canon XSi DSLR.
Just got this DSLR a couple months ago: Canon XSi.
I got it for my wife and neither of us have any experience using SLRs. It came with the standard 18-55mm lens. So I'm thinking the next lens to buy would be the telephoto zoom.
I'm thinking the zoom will come in more handy than any other lens.
Feel free to offer any thoughts or suggestions.
5 Answers answer
Something like this?
or this...
500mm 8.0 telephoto for under $100/free shipping from Buy.com
Hooooo, mama! 650-1300mm for $219.95!
OK, here's the thing, though - to a certain extent, price equals quality. Pros pay thousands of dollars for lenses for a reason, but it'd be hard to go far wrong with a price like this on these specs.
Watch out for the weight of those super-zooms, they can be too much for normal use, and require extra strong (and expensive) tripods.
That first choice above looks a sweet deal though.
Didn't believe the Amazon weights so checked Optika's own website.
500mm = 22 oz.
650-1300 = 70 oz.
Read this http://photography-on-the.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-169703.html before considering an Opteka lens.


text:
I am looking for problems that use induction in their proofs such as this one: Given a checker board with one square removed you can cover it with L-shaped pieces made out of three squares. This problem is very different from most induction problems which are algebra driven. Do you know of any other? I am looking for geometrical or algorithmic type problems.
Some problems with some illustrative pictures provided below. All of the problems were taken from Daniel J. Velleman's excelent book How to Prove It: A Structered Approach.
$\textbf{Problem 1:}$ For all $n\in \mathbb{N}$, if $n\ge 3$, then if $n$ distinct points on a circle are connected in consecutive order with straight lines, then the interior angles of the resulting polygon add up to $(n-2)180º$.
Case $n=4$:
Inductive step:
$\textbf{Problem 2:}$ Let $n\in \mathbb{N}$. An equilateral triangle is cut into $4^n$ congruent equilateral triangles, and one corner is removed. Show that the remaining area can be covered by trapezoidal tiles that look like this: .
Case $n=2$:
$\textbf{Problem 3:}$ Let $n\in \mathbb{N}$. Suppose $n$ chords are drawn in a circle in such a way that each chord intersects every other, but no three intersect at one point. Prove that the chords cut the circle into $\displaystyle \frac{n^2+n+2}{2}$ regions.
Case $n=4$:
$\textbf{Problem 4:}$ Let $n\in \mathbb{N}$ and suppose that $n$ chords are drawn in a circle, cutting the circle into a number of regions. Prove that the regions can be colored with two colors in such a way that adjacent regions (that is, regions that share an edge) are different colors.
Case $n=4$:
You might want to look at this pdf: Structure of Proof by Induction, which provides both "traditional, formula based" induction to help explain the logic of inductive proofs, but starts with, and includes some scattered examples of its applicability to recursive-type algorithms and counting arguments: domino problem, coin-change problem.
Indeed, the correctness of the recursive algorithm for solving the Tower of Hanoi Problem boils down to proof by induction (see logical analysis of recursive solution). Inductive proofs are also often used in graph theory.
See also this post linking you to a previous post asking for examples of mathematical induction. You'll get some rich mix of problem types, and see the breadth of its utility!


text:
Dealing with Holiday Conflicts (and Satisfying Your In-Laws)
9 of 11
Involve Your In-Laws in Your Traditions
It's not always easy to get everyone to play together nicely. For instance, some in-laws want to be included in every party and get angry if they're excluded; others just have very different styles of entertaining. Nonetheless, set aside some time for a ritual or two. Your rituals may be small and charming, like an hour of caroling or a evening of hot chocolate and cookies.
Next: Family Matters
More on: Marriage and Divorce
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dealing with In-Laws © 1998 by Laurie E. Rozakis, Ph.D. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book visit Amazon's web site or call 1-800-253-6476.