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The Anointed Liturgical Youth Dance Ministry of Regular Baptist Church will present "An Evening of Worship In Dance" on Dec. 7 at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The event will feature dance, mime and song followed by a post-recital fellowship. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. The church is located at 901 5th St., Gretna. The Rev. T.A. Hodge is pastor. Sister Sean Johnson is chairwoman and Sister Tandra Taylor is co-chairwoman. Call 504.458.5392 or 504.402.7111.
St. Joseph Missionary Baptist Church Fashion/Talent Ministries, 236 Robinson Ave, Marrero, invite the public to their seventh annual Fashion/Talent Banquet Dec. 7 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church Multipurpose Center, 1009 Pailet St., Marrero. The theme is "Saints on Parade with Style." Sister Idella Washington is director.
St Joseph's Food Bank will be open to the community on Dec. 8 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Brother Willis Clofer and Sister Rhonda Clofer are co-directors. The Food Bank is open every Saturday before the second Sunday.
The Youth Department of St. Joseph invites the public to its Annual Youth Day to be held on Dec. 9 during the 11 a.m. worship service. The theme is, "Train Up a Child in the Way He Should Go," Proverbs 22:6. Sister Sharon Pipkins is the director.
Visit www.stjosephbaptistchurch.org. The M.C.Zeno is pastor and teacher.
Author Teena Myers, a resident of Westwego, will sign copies of her book, "Finding Faith in the City Care Forgot,'' Dec. 7 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Metairie Country Club, 580 Woodvine Ave, Metairie.
Second St. John Baptist Church will celebrate its 12th anniversary Dec. 9 at 8:15 a.m. at 242 Avondale Garden Road, Avondale. The theme is "After 125 years: We are still building up the Church", Ephesians 4:11-16. The Gospel message will be delivered by the church's pastor, the Rev. Charlie R. Davis.
Potter's House Assembly, 116 J St., Belle Chasse, 504.393.1675, will hold worship Dec. 9 at 10 a.m. with evangelist, the Rev. Jimmy Carlilse, and singing by The New Gospel Travelers. The Rev. William D. Murray is pastor.
The Women of St.Stephen Ministry of St. Stephen Missionary Baptist Church located temporarily at St. Julian Eymard Catholic Church Cafeteria, 2701 Lawrence St., Algiers, will have its annual Women In Red program on Dec. 9 at 7 a.m. The theme is "Redeemed by the Blood of Christ." The speaker will be the Rev. Norman N. Francis. Women's ministries are invited to attend and wear red. Sister Gaynell Urquhart is ministry leader and the Rev. Norman N. Francis is pastor.
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Marrero, 4401 7th St., will celebrate the annual Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe Dec. 8 at 6 p.m. The Mass with Mariachi music in Spanish will include a few prayers in English. After Mass there will be a reception in the school cafeteria featuring more mariachi music and Matachines, an indigenous dance group representing the Aztec civilization. For more information call the rectory 504.341.9516.
Pastor T. A. Hodge and The Regular Baptist Church Family, 901 Fifth St., Gretna, invite the public to the Anointed Liturgical Youth Dance Ministry's presentation of "An Evening of Worship in Dance" Dec. 7 at 7 p.m.
The annual "Christmas Explosion" will be Dec. 11 at 7 p.m. C.E. Maze of Mount Zion Baptist Church of Temple, Texas will be the guest speaker.
Algiers United Methodist Church at 637 Opelousas Ave. in Algiers Point will present its annual Christmas Program on Dec. 9 at 10:15 a.m. The AUMC Choir and Bell Choir will perform Christmas music. The Metairie Lodge Jazz Band will play before the service.
The live nativity and caroling will be held on Dec. 16 at 5 p.m.The annual Christmas party in the Fellowship Hall will follow.
On Dec. 24 at 7 p.m., the church will hold their Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. Call 504.361.1334.
New Revelations Prophetic Ministries International, 7521 West Bank Expressway, Suite H, Marrero, will present "Seed and Deed Night" Dec. 8 at 7 p.m. Apostle C. P. Francois is pastor.
The Birthing Place and New Revelations Prophetic Ministries will present "Prophetic Alignment Summit 2012'' Dec. 11 and 12 at 7 nightly at The Birthing Place, 909 Garden Road, Marrero.
The event will feature 12 speakers: Psalmist Alicia Harry, Apostle Marvin Anderson (Baton Rouge), Sister Tracy Louis, Minister Vernell Payton, Prophetess Gwendolyn Cotton, Minister Kendell Pritchett, Pastor Dewanda Chancellor, first assistant Antoinette Montegue, Prophetess Delisa Spencer, Elder E. Charles Doley, Prophet Alec Scott ( Baton Rouge), and Co-Pastor Gaynell Davis (Laplace).
"Promise Kept: Free Christmas Drive-Thru Spectacular" will be presented at Christ Baptist Church, 3000 Manhattan Blvd., Harvey, Dec. 7 from 7 to 10 p.m. and Dec. 8 and 9 from 5 to 9 p.m. FIve of God's promises are depicted through scenery, actors and music. Visit www.christbaptistharvey.com.
Gretna United Methodist Church, 1309 Whitney Ave., is sponsoring Christmas caroling in front of Gretna City Hall on Dec. 15 from to 6 to 7 p.m. Carols will be sung by candlelight, ending with "Silent Night.'' The public is invited.
"Tapestry of LIght: A Celtic Christmas Celebration'' will be presented at Gretna United Methodist Dec. 16 at 8:30 a.m. Hear the story of Advent and Christmas with readings and familiar carols and songs in a Celtic style. See the story in paintings by Mary Wall.
The church will present "Mosaic Christmas Worship'' Dec. 24 at 6 p.m., and traditional Christmas worship Dec. 24 at 4 p.m.
Email church news briefs to community news editor Melinda Morris at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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If you're new to this blog, then read our guides to the basics: Skin (Part I), Skin (Part II), The Supernatural, Color Theory I, Color Theory II, Eyes, and Brushes.
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Of all the tricky things to paint, human flesh is the most difficult to represent accurately.
Historical distribution of skin tones according to levels of UV radiation.
It's not that we're such a rainbow, from from it; we're not wildflowers or birds of paradise. In human coloration, there's only a few elements in play, a limited gradation from pitch brown-black to transparent, pink-tinged ivory: the brown-black eumelanin, the red-brown pheomelanin, and beneath that filter, the red of our blood. Only a creature as self-regarding and egomaniacal as we are can mine political hierarchies out of these shades of brown, but be that as it may, our eyes are extraordinarily sensitive to the minutiae of the human face. A lipstick that's slightly off, we're not conscious why the woman doesn't look pulled together, until she swaps it for one that flatters and instantly it clicks: aha, so that's what was missing.
If the purpose of makeup is to create illusions, then choosing the right colors is all about creating optical illusions, shifting natural coloring into optimum balance. Consider J. Lo, lately become a parody of herself. In all likelihood, she was younger when photographed in that red lipstick, but there's a discernible glow added to her skin and eyes, once she adopts her signature nude.
Browns are complex—mixtures of other, more primary colors—they absorb rather than reflect light. The purpose of melanin is to protect us from the damaging effects of the sun. This is why, much to the exasperation of black women everywhere, pigments disappear on darker complexions; the melanin performs exactly as nature intended, swallowing up light. In latitudes where melanin hinders absorption of vitamin D, its dilution, like a drop of oil refracted on rain-slick asphalt, reveals its true colors. At saturation, eumelanin is responsible for black hair, but just a drop stretched out over a strand manifests as blond. Physiological differentiation may have yielded vastly different phenotypes, but pale Asians share more shades in common with cool blondes than with more olive-yellow hued (the presence of pheomelanin) women within the same race.
At present, there is no satisfactory system for categorizing skin tones, at least one comprehensive enough to accommodate a wide range of ethnicities. The alternative, matching foundations to your skin, only serves as reference; whether you're a MAC C25 or a Kanebo YO02, you gain no further direction as to which colors will flatter you best. Consequently, let's start from the ground up. We may not end up with a reliable system of prediction—you'll still have to experiment with colors (that's half the fun)—but at least it'll cut away some of the confusion.
The most basic and readily obvious characteristic: lighter skin tones are dilute in melanin, darker complexions are saturated. When exposed to intense sunlight, some people tan (melanogenesis), others simply burn. While depth of skin does not indicate specific color families, as a general rule, the deeper your skin tone, the richer the pigmentation required.
If depth is the concentration of melanin in the skin, undertones are determined by the proportions of the pigmentation. To my eye, human skin tones are mixtures of three basic undertones: yellow, olive, and pink.
The most common undertone, yellow, is caused by the presence of eumelanin, the brown-black pigment, which dilutes to a golden tint. On pale complexions where yellow is dominant, the underlying blood lends the skin a peachy tone. In many cases, yellow undertones are mixed with lesser quantities of olive, the proportions individual to every person. Consequently, warm skin tones exhibit the greatest variation, especially at medium strength; many darker Asian, hispanic, and light-skinned black women can be said to have golden undertones, but the colorings are quite dissimilar. Yellow undertones are frequently described as warm (except at MAC), primarily because warm blushes like peach and coral provide the ideal complement, while a cool, blue-leaning pink is jarring. If you lean only slightly yellow, then a peach-pink blush hits the sweet spot; no surprise that this is the most popular shade of them all. Often, women with strong yellow undertones, which carries a negative connotation in many cultures, bleach their skin, or lighten their hair, as the dilution creates the optical illusion of a more balanced complexion, or lavish their skin with fake tanners and bronzers, as bronze is richer in tone.
We're guessing that olive undertones are primiarly the result of pheomelanin, the pigment responsible for red hair in the absence of eumelanin, since many natural redheads also have an olive tinge to their skin. Olive undertones occur less frequently than yellow; many cultures originating in the Mediterranean (Jewish, Italian, Arab, Spanish, etc.) do feature a strong tendency towards olive, but it's not particularly useful to approach the question of undertones from an ethnic perspective, as many women with East-Asian and Celtic ancestry often have olive skin. Strong olive undertones, especially those with lighter complexions, can make the face look fatigued, even ill, what's often described as "sallow", best remedied by mauve or plum blush, properly muted, or a dusting of bronzer. If the skin is pale, a lavender-tinged powder cancels out the green for a porcelain effect; at medium strength, olive skin beige to tan, and quite flat, so metallics are recommended. Olive skin is not receptive to bright colors, especially pastels, and women often find it's easy to overdose on makeup. Jewel tones, such as forest green on the eyes or a berry lipstick, can be extremely wearable, but on the whole, the most reliable shades are complex neutrals and earth tones. They may be muddy in the pan, but somehow they come alive over olive undertones. For that reason, olive skin is frequently described as "neutral", a pretty meaningless label.
Everyone's skin has some pink, from the blood beneath the surface of the skin, but in most cases, melanin shifts the color in other direction, like a filter. In that sense, we might consider pink the absence of undertones, skin transparent enough that the dominant color is not the skin itself. Pink is the least common of the three undertones. It should not be confused with surface ruddiness, from acne or broken capillaries or rosacea, but should be an allover pink from beneath the skin. Though darker complexions may take on a pink hue, provided the skin is quite thin and clear, it more frequently occurs on pale skin, where melanin is dilute to begin with (albinism is the extreme). For that reason, pink undertones seem lighter than yellow or olive undertones; Asians with pink undertones are often described as "white-skinned", though of course they are not that pale. With fewer competing undertones, this "cool" complexion, according the usual parlance, can accommodate a greater diversity and intensity of colors, though icy blues and bright pinks seem to be preferred. Indeed, without color, pink complexions look washed out and drained of life, unless of course you flush easily. On the other hand, brown-based neutrals, which replicate skin tones, look like a smear of dirt; opt for greys and navy, instead.
Somewhere in between the extremely olive Natalie Portman and the decidedly pink Christina Hendricks, lies pink/olive Angelina Jolie, with emphasis on the olive. While some people have a single dominant undertone, the vast majority are mixed, which is why categorizing skin tones is so complicated.
It takes an experienced eye to pick out undertones. If you're interested in figuring yours out, examine your complexion while wearing a white shirt, which emphasizes undertones (black diminishes). The surest litmus test is blush, since it is the cosmetic that works most in concert with natural skin tones. It is not fail safe, as hair and eye color can shift things—Hendricks naturally a blonde, must wear warmer, peachy-toned blush to keep her pink undertones from clashing with her ersatz red—but between a vivid orange blush (flatters yellow undertones), a pure pink (picks up on pink), and a rich plum (complements olive skin), one is bound to blend out into a convincingly natural glow. Make sure to cancel ruddiness with foundation first, if necessary. Cream blushes are easier to overapply then sheer out, but powder blushes, even lipsticks, will do as long as the color is intense, even harsh, and as you're grimacing at the grotesque pink cheeks in the mirror, you can be certain your undertones are not pink-dominant, i.e. "cool". If you're shy about approaching the counter, then experiment with three blushes from the drugstore at home.
reference colors for a general sense of direction, not necessarily the ultimate shade for you
Few people can carry off a shade as vibrant as Stila Gladiola (shown above), but if it tests better than Bobbi Brown Pale Pink or Becca Lotus, you can branch out into less aggressive members within the same color family: peach, apricot, coral, terracotta, brick red, red-chocolate, etc. Gladiola has served its purpose: a little red mixed in with yellow, just like your skin.
It's not exactly necessary to know your undertones. We gravitate towards colors that flatter, by instinct rather than design, not knowing they flatter because they complement our undertones. Nor do we always want what's best for us; sometimes, a contrast is more fun than a complement. But as our eyes are so sensitive to subtle shifts in color—when rival companies shamelessly reproduce a bestselling shade, reviewers are quick to spot the differences—a little education does facilitate the process of refinement. There are some with no dominant undertone, truly neutral, with pink, yellow, and olive in harmonious balance. She can pull off any color. A great example is Natalia Vodianova, among many models, who handles the entire rainbow with ease. The rest of us, more disproportionate, must make slight adjustments and choose colors in better concert with our undertone(s), shades that shift the balance back towards neutral.
In extreme cases, it is possible to correct strong undertones. If you're more adventurous, you can correct sallowness with lavender, ruddiness with mint green, but both must be blended beneath normal skin tones.
Almost everyone has some localized discoloration beneath the eyes from the minute blue veins beneath the surface of the skin: usually a mauve-tinged brown, sometimes greenish-brown. Undereye concealer that leans slightly pink, peach, salmon, even mauve, depending on the depth of your skin, brightens better than one that matches your skin exactly. It's the principle behind the infamous Touche Eclat (by Terry de Gunzberg), a milky pink-peach highlighter; instead of covering discoloration, it corrects the purple or green tones. To lift sallowness and fatigue allover, a tinted loose powder has just enough transparency for subtle brightening: a cool pink like T. LeClerc Orchidee or the soft peach of Chanel Poudre Universelle in Clair. Since shimmers draw light, a highlighter with a dimensional shimmer—silver, white, pink, lavender, mint, blue, gold, peach—scatters it better than one solid color, though the proportions should be shifted to your undertones. Silvery pinks work better on cooler complexions, peachy golds on warmer: to test, try on a silver-based shadow on one eye, makeup-free, gold-based on the other—one will brighten better, even without the aid of concealer.
Laura Mercier Secret Concealer combines corrective tones with coverage, if Touche Eclat disappoints.
For ruddiness, a similar principle applies, only worked out in yellow. If the irritation is more generalized, from broken capillaries or irritation, then a yellow-toned powder, like Bobbi Brown's, might suffice. Primers are also an option, and you can risk a stronger yellow or mint if you've got serious rosacea, since foundation will soften the impact. For blemishes, while the depth should match your skin tone exactly, a hint of yellow to the flesh tone never hurts, and it is not too difficult to source considering that yellow-based bases are now the norm; it helps to cancel the red better.
* I got my information off the Wikipedia article for melanin.
Labels: becca, bobbi brown, chanel, laura mercier, t leclerc, the beauty primer, ysl
2/19/2011 [1]
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - "Every day feels like Election Day," says Ravi Gupta, 29, a former Staten Islander who founded a charter school in Nashville, Tenn., in 2011.
And Gupta knows well what Election Day is like -- from inside campaign headquarters.
Having worked on Barack Obama's presidential campaign while enrolled in Yale Law School, and later as a special assistant and speechwriter to U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, he was poised for career success.
Voted as one of Forbes Magazine's 2012 "30 under 30," Gupta made an early entry into politics, but decided to pursue his goal of making changes in education by launching a charter school in Nashville.
Living in Travis and later in Westerleigh, Gupta says he developed an early understanding of the educational system while growing up on Staten Island.
"As a Democrat I knew too much about the urban politics of education to believe that real change would be possible," he said. "So I put it in the back of my head and said to myself, 'The things I think need to happen, urban politics will not allow.'"
So he put his early desire to make changes in the educational system on the back burner, and decided to pursue a juris doctorate at a time when world politics, war and the future of the country were on the minds of many.
"The Iraq war was 'the experience.' Watching that happen was the thing that affected me the most politically during that time," said Gupta, who is a distinguished Moore Catholic High School graduate. "When I saw a candidate with my position on that war, and one who also embodied the spirit of our generation, I was inspired."
So inspired, Gupta tracked down Obama's committee to be among the first to work on his campaign. "I said to myself, "I better find his people now before he starts to campaign so I can tell them I will sweep floors; I will do anything just to get into this movement that I truly believe in,'" he said.
But after reaching out in Jan. 2007, Gupta wasn't sweeping floors. He began working as a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., and took time off from law school to work on Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. He also worked as an assistant to chief strategist David Axelrod during the general election.
While working on the campaign, Gupta received a call from Ambassador Rice. It wasn't long before he became her special assistant and speechwriter.
Ms. Rice noticed his promise while Gupta was working under her wing. "Ravi is bright, energetic and very creative. He is also great fun to work with. I am proud of what he has accomplished at Nashville Prep," she said.
Amid his political endeavors, Gupta thought back to his early beginnings on Staten Island, and his desire to become a leader in education.
"I started linking up with organizations that help people start schools," said Gupta.
With intense focus and determination, his desire to start a charter school soon became reality. "I first thought my charter school would be on Staten Island," he said. "While I wanted to stay in New York at that time, there was a big question as to where the cap would be on charter schools."
He soon became founding director and principal of Nashville Prep Charter School, a college-preparatory public school for students in grades five through 12.
"The amount of work to start a school is almost like running a campaign every single day. Every day is election day for me at Nashville Prep," he said.
"Our job is to get kids who no one believed in their previous school to totally re-conceive the ways schools work and get their families to reconceive it," said Gupta, noting Nashville Prep, a non-profit school, was ranked the No. 1 charter school in Tennessee last year by Stanford University. "The power of this model [charter school] always makes me think about Staten Island. It would be great to start a school like Nashville Prep on Staten Island."


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Online Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology (Associate of Science) Degree Program
At Grantham University, we can help you launch an exciting career in the field of engineering and technology. Through the convenience of our 100% online format, you can earn your Associate of Science in Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology degree (AS-ECET) – giving you a basic introduction into electrical and electronics design. At Grantham, we strive to make earning your degree fit into your busy schedule. Whether you work full time or you're serving as active duty military personnel, our online format is designed to fit your schedule.
With this degree, you will have specific courses in DC/AC circuit principles and design, digital electronics and analog electronics, as well as two courses in computer programming. The program satisfies the first two years of the Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering Technology or the Bachelor of Science in Electronics Engineering Technology – so you'll be well-prepared should you choose to continue your education.
Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology Program Outcomes
At the successful completion of the program, the student will be able to:
- Apply knowledge, techniques, skills and modern tools to narrowly defined engineering technology activities
- Apply a knowledge of mathematics, science, electronics engineering and technology to engineering technology problems
- Conduct, analyze and interpret experiments
- Identify, analyze and solve narrowly defined technical problems
- Function effectively on teams
- Apply written, oral and graphical communication
- Address professional, ethical and social responsibilities
- Demonstrate a commitment to quality, timeless and continuous improvement
For more information about the graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed the program, and other important information, please visit http://www.grantham.edu/disclosures/AS-ECET
Learn how an online degree from Grantham could change your life and ignite your career success. Our online classes are a great fit for active duty military, veterans, military spouses, military personnel, high school graduates, government employees, etc. Contact us at (888) 947-2684 to find out more about our accredited degree programs, financial assistance opportunities and enrollment process.


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JUPITER, Fla. — Here's your daily dose of Carlos, a couple hours after Beltran finished up his appearance at the plate in a intra-squad minor-league game:
Beltran will play five innings in right field on Saturday in a minor-league game.
He did not run hard today, a day after testing his legs in a simulated game. Beltran went 5-for-11, including a pair of hits off Chris Young, with two doubles.
Meanwhile, Tim Byrdak sealed up a spot in the major-league bullpen as the left-handed specialist. The Mets selected his contract and added him to the 40-man roster. Mike O'Connor, his main competition, was sent down to minor-league camp.
That means one spot in the seven-man bullpen is left. These six appear locked: Francisco Rodriguez, Bobby Parnell, D.J. Carrasco, Taylor Buchholz, Pedro Beato and Byrdak. Those vying for the final spot: Jason Isringhausen (tagged for four runs in that minor-league game today), Blaine Boyer, Pat Misch and Manny Acosta.
For more Mets covergae, follow Andy McCullough on Twitter at twitter.com/Ledger_NYMets
Andy McCullough: firstname.lastname@example.com


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End of an Era
Previously, I've had the excuse (and it was real) that I could only write in short snippets. Well . . . now I've got six whole hours solid. The question is: Will I be more productive? How long can I focus? Will I succomb to the temptation of Facebook and other potentional time-wasters? How long can I write without falling asleep at the computer? (I have really low iron and get to bed at midnight and wake up at 5:30 a.m. which doesn't help.)
I've decided it all comes down to goals. Plain and simple. Sometimes my writing goal is the number of words written. Sometime it's to get through a chapter. I'm not sure what is best. Maybe there is a better way; all together.
What kinds of writing goals do you find most effective?
7 comments:
Congrats on sending the youngest to first grade~ I'm sure I'll cry like a baby when I do that with mine :) Cute photo! Best of luck managing your newfound time!ReplyDelete
Here, we have all-day kindergarten and my youngest starts in a few weeks, too. But I teach at his school, so while it's a milestone, it's different for me - I was much worse last year when my oldest went to the "big kid's school" (4th grade)!! I think you definitely need a schedule or it's super easy to get off-track.ReplyDelete
For me, I have to shower and dress and act as if I'm going to work in order to get anything productive done for the day. If I'm in my jammies and yucky hair, I do nothing. Good luck (with everything!).
These milestones are hard. Protect your time to write, don't get sucked into volunteering all the time. Goals are good!ReplyDelete
Aw! congratulations and good luck with the last child sending-off. Yep, ignore those social networking sites; otherwise, you'd be surprised at how f-a-s-t that chunk of time will go!ReplyDelete
Good for you for planning some goals. Either time OR chapters/projects--whichever works best for ya (I think writers are all different; experiment to see what works best for YOU.) I never do word counts, for instance; it's too intimidating and inhibiting. I just be sure to work, period.
Congrats on the 1st grader!ReplyDelete
I have one kid going into 6th grade, another into 5th, and a 9mo going back to daycare next Monday. No grade is easy.
I have two computers. I find that if I can't write on one, if I switch to the other (transfer the story with a thumb drive), I can focus better.
Or I write it out long-hand. This is for summary/plot only, not the writing part.
Or I'll find a coffee shop, or go to this Irish Pub nearby that has wireless, and write there. Change locations.
Or I put on new music. Or I turn off the music and sit in silence.
I need mini-breaks and don't fret myself over them. I get coffee, use the restroom, check emails, and indulge my inner OCD. If I fight it, I won't get anything done.
I write in fits and spurts wherever and whenever I can.
That's part of the curse of writing. There's never a good time, no matter how much time you have.
- Eric
Here's a goal for you: Get more sleep! I mean it. 8 hours. Every night. I mean it. :) You're health (both physical & mental) is totally worth it. Totally. Worth. It. You'll be amazed at how much more you can get done on enough sleep. (We can grieve together -- I'm sending another one away to college :( -- so sad/happy to see them moving on)!ReplyDelete
Goals are a good thing as long as you make them reasonable. Plus, they help you when you're trying to make a deadline your editor has given you. Goals work! They've been my good friends for many years.ReplyDelete
Cute pic!
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Horsing around: A Florida man pleaded not guilty to riding his horse while intoxicated during a half-hour police chase through the streets of Bunnell, Fla. He refused their request to get off the horse. He was arrested after the horse got tired.
Toys in the attic: A New Mexico woman burned down her own house after claiming to hear noises in the attic. She was arrested last week. She said she heard someone living above her, bugging her conversations.
Funny money: A man who stuffed counterfeit bills in the ATMs of two Manhattan banks has been arrested. He was hired to service the machines. He faces embezzlement charges.
Louisiana moon: Baton Rouge, La., police arrested a University of South Carolina fan after he mooned fans at the Louisiana State University-South Carolina game. He was booked on one count of obscenity.
High seas: The U.S. Coast Guard found more than 3,000 pounds of marijuana floating in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego. The marijuana was divided into 77 bales and wrapped in plastic. It was found Wednesday about 35 miles west of Mission Beach, Calif.


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Sometimes in my writing for the Fool I proclaim that I'm one-part gem hunter and one-part Rule Breaker. For those new to the Fool, what this effectively means is:
a) I enjoy investing in individual stocks;
b) While I like being aggressive, nothing warms my investing heart like conservative growth stocks; and
c) I'm a sucker for calculated risks that can pay off huge.
But how do I know this about myself? After all, I didn't hike into the wilderness loaded with stacks of tomes by Graham, Fisher, Lynch, and the other investing greats, leaving only after achieving total understanding of the spiritual underpinnings of the P/E ratio. I never sought the meaning of my financial life in their masterful texts, either. And you'd be hard-pressed to catch me chanting anything, let alone mantras aimed at achieving better results for my portfolio. When it comes to investing, I'm just not all that spiritual.
So, again, how do I know? Easy. I finally sat for half an hour and wrote it all down.
You've done it before
Think about any financial task you've set forth to accomplish. Take budgeting, for example. If you're anything like most of us, you've developed 15 budgets...over the past 12 months. What about your retirement plan? That's got to be written down somewhere. Your will? Same deal. So why is it so easy to skip developing an investment strategy? I'll bet I'm speaking for most when I say simply that it just never comes up. That's why I didn't have one till this week.
The fact is I never fully appreciated the idea of committing a strategy to paper till I read Hewitt Heiserman Jr.'s It's Earnings That Count. He writes: "The poet E.B. White believed that if your thinking was clear, then your writing will be clear. The same is true of investing, so formulate a strategy and write it down. This discipline will help you zero in on the kinds of companies you want most and avoid getting distracted by situations that are of peripheral interest. Naturally, your investment strategy should match your personality."
In other words: If you've got a strategy you'll hold yourself accountable for your investing decisions. And that ought to make you far less likely to take a flier on that stock Uncle Joey says will be the next big thing but looks terrible on the merits.
One of my closest friends, whom I've known to be a pretty good investor and who was smart enough to write down a strategy awhile back, puts it slightly differently: "Writing it down helped me think through the strategy, consider if there was anything I was missing, and narrow it down to what I thought was important." He also got more than a little advice from his dad, one of the first superior investors I ever met.
I finally did it
It's that last sentence in Heiserman's argument for writing out an investment strategy that really caught me when I first started thinking about it: "Naturally, your investment strategy should match your personality." Exactly.
Being the exploring type who digs a good discovery it was an easy call for me to get in early on Tom Gardner's Motley Fool Hidden Gems. And seeing that I had worked in and around the tech industry for more than a decade, the idea of investing in unproven businesses with huge potential was like second nature to me. Would I commit my entire portfolio to a wet-behind-the-ears upstart? Never. But I'm as juiced as any Motley Fool Rule Breakers subscriber at the idea of getting in on the next big thing as early as possible. And that's really all I needed to know to start writing. Here's a sample of what I came up with:
I am an aggressive investor who believes the surest way to long-term wealth creation is through regular saving and investing in individual stocks. I seek to invest in companies that have large competitive advantages, growing sales and earnings, widening margins, and understandable business models. I only seek businesses run by management of the highest integrity who use plain language in their financial filings and press releases. I prefer stocks that have great growth potential but also pay dividends. Every time I invest in stocks, I do so with a three- to five-year plan. In most cases I'm seeking to at least double my money.... I also occasionally invest in special situations where other investment vehicles such as stock options or going short may be appropriate, but I always seek to have these instruments comprise no more than 10% of my portfolio. I also occasionally invest in Rule Breakers (aka, informed speculations) to help my portfolio earn market-trouncing returns.
Do I practice what I preach?
The first thing I did after creating my investing manifesto was to apply it to the stocks I already own. I figured it was worth knowing whether I have been investing according to my own rules. Let's take a look:
One of favorite stocks is AkamaiTechnologies (Nasdaq: AKAM ) , which has what's called a content delivery network that brings Web content and applications geographically closer to users. I consider the company a Rule Breaker because it is the dominant provider in a fast-growing market and also because the stock trades for an extraordinary premium-to-earnings and cash flow.
Akamai went public during the height of the tech boom, crashed, and then began an impressive recovery in 2003 that has led to profitability and growing free cash flow today. I'm impressed by the turnaround, which I attribute to a skilled and committed management team that took steep cuts during the bust to get the company back on track. Though an informed speculation, I understand its business intimately, which all but eliminates the intellectual risk that has burned me in the past. Further, I believe the company is conservatively managed, witnessed by big improvements in sales, earnings, and margins. Is it still a good fit for my portfolio? Yep.
Another of my favorites is Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL ) . After researching the stock for a summertime duel here at Fool.com, I found its prodigious cash flows and growing margins too attractive to ignore. With its deal for PeopleSoft (Nasdaq: PSFT ) , Oracle could still prove a conservative value on a cash flow basis, especially when compared with its peers. Risks still exist, of course. But Oracle is still the leading provider of database technology at a time when RFID and other emerging technologies are producing hundreds of terabytes of new digital information daily. I think it's still fair to call Oracle a conservative growth stock. Therefore, it still fits snugly in my portfolio.
Then there's Buffalo Wild Wings (Nasdaq: BWLD ) , which I picked up from Hidden Gems. The company possesses many of the elements I love in an investment: substantial insider ownership, a young but growing franchise, good management, positive net cash on hand, and improving structural free cash flow. Mix all that in with an enterprise value of less than $250 million, and the stock appears to me as an above-average candidate to at least double in the next five years. Is it worthy of my portfolio? I only wish I had more shares.
Now let's take a look at Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS ) . I bought the stock largely on the idea that it would do well with a raft of popular new books coming out, including President Clinton's autobiography. Plus, the stock was trading cheaply on a cash flow basis then and still is. A check of Yahoo! Finance pegs Barnes & Noble's free cash flow-to-enterprise value at seven, roughly even with its three-year free cash flow growth rate. Perhaps that's why insiders have bought shares recently. I'm also encouraged by yesterday's holidays sales report and figure the company will see a nice windfall from upcoming Harry Potter sales. Good growth, an understandable business, and management with skin in the game. Yep, Barnes & Noble remains a keeper.
Finally, there's the black sheep of the herd: Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG ) . Ironically, we've held stock in this holding company for advertising, marketing, and PR firms longer than any of the others, for more than seven years. But poor management and results have tainted the business. It really doesn't belong in my portfolio any longer, but our position is so small that I figure we might as well hold to see whether the firm's promised improvements take root.
Write yours today
Investing without a portfolio strategy -- sorry, "I want to get rich" doesn't count -- is like traversing the Arctic in winter without a coat and a compass. If you get where you're headed, it will only be because of sheer luck. Don't take that chance. Writing a strategy takes nothing more than a little study, a little introspection, and 30 minutes of writing and polishing your manifesto. And don't tell me you can't spare the time. I can see the reruns of Gilligan's Island playing behind you. So no more excuses, please. After all, you may find that in developing a strategy, you'll earn enough to retire to a tropical island. And isn't that better than watching one on TV?


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What is truly essential?
Here's an interesting exercise: gather the department heads in your library and ask them what are the most essential services that your department offers. To facilitate the discussion, you might want to frame the question in a scenario-type situation, such as what services do you provide that would have a great impact on your patrons if the library needed to close due to a severe storm.
We performed this exercise last week with an interesting outcome. The following four services were identified as essential: availability of library's web page, providing access to online journals, checking out laptops or projectors to someone that needed equipment for a conference, and providing patient care document delivery. The group felt that all other services we provide could withstand a day of closing without much of an impact on our patrons.
Your results may differ based on your environment. Please let us know what you discover.


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Guigal La Doriane Condrieu 2007
Viognier from Condrieu, Rhone, France
Winemaker's Notes
100% Viognier
Intensely powerful and elegant aromas of white flowers, apricot, white peaches. The palate is fresh, round, rich and full-bodied. Fully expressive of the terroir with great finesse. A pleasant light acidity is well balanced with round, fleshy fruitiness.
Enjoy as an aperitif, or with foie gras, scrambled egg and truffles, or delicate fish.
Critical Acclaim
The Wine Advocate - "This full-bodied white was aged in one-third new oak and two-thirds tank. One hundred percent of the 2007 Condrieu La Doriane is vinified in new oak, and put through malolactic. It is then aged for 11 months prior to bottling. Absolutely exquisite, with the oak pushed to the background, this wine's fruit character is dominated by apricots, peaches, honeysuckle, and marmalade. The beautiful floral and honeyed fruit aromatics are followed by a sumptuous, full-bodied white that is never heavy (because of good acidity) or flabby. Consume it over the next 2-3 years. "
Wine Spectator - "Really dense, with a massive core of white peach, fig, almond and Cavaillon melon notes carried by a remarkably creamy-textured palate. Long and pure through the finish, with mineral and floral notes waiting in reserve. Best from 2009 through 2014."
Wine Enthusiast - "Guigal's luxury cuvée from Condrieu is a blend of vineyards, all vinified and agfed for eight months in new oak. The result is a big, spicy, rich wine, graced with smoky nuances but built on concentrated honey and apricots. It's long and powerful on the finish, ending with impressive spice. Drink now-2015. "
International Wine Cellar - "Pale yellow. Intensely floral, sexy bouquet of tangerine, white pepper, lavender and brown spices. Very fresh in the mouth, with sweet citrus and pit fruit flavors, tangy mineral bite and a suave chamomile quality. Really clings to the palate, finishing with excellent clarity, lift and thrust. This has the balance to reward patience but is already extremely seductive."
Wine & Spirits - "Richer than Guigal's basic bottling, La Doriane is pushed to super ripeness, the peach flavors taking on a slightly roasted character, a white pepper heat on the finish. Together with the lush texture, it's a big wine for a rich dish, like roasted marrow bones and a parsley salad."
- View All
Guigal Winery
The Guigal domain was founded in 1946 by Etienne Guigal in the ancient village of Ampuis, home of the wines of the Côte-Rôtie. In these vineyards that are over 2400 years old, you can still see the small terraced walls characteristic of the Roman period. Etienne Guigal arrived in this region in 1923 at the age of 14. He made wine for over 67 vintages and, at the beginning of his career, participated in the development of the Vidal-Fleury establishment.
Despite his young age, Marcel Guigal took over from his father in 1961 when the latter was victim to a brutal illness rendering him blind. Marcel's hard work and perseverance enabled the Guigals to buy out Vidal-Fleury in 1984, although the establishment retains its own identity and commercial autonomy. In 2000, the Guigals purchased the Jean-Louis Grippat estate in Saint-Joseph and Hermitage, as well as the Domaine de Vallouit in Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, Saint-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage.
In the cellars of the Guigal estate in Ampuis, the northern appellations of the Rhône Valley are produced and aged. These are the appellations of Côte-Rôtie, Condrieu, Hermitage, Saint-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage. The great appellations of the Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Tavel and Côtes-du-Rhône, are also aged in the Ampuis cellars. View all Guigal Wines
About CondrieuView a map of Condrieu wineries (con-dree-UH)
This tiny appellation just south of Cote Rotie produces all white wine, all from Viognier, the heady, perfumed grape that is at its best in the Northern Rhone. The slopes are south facing and made of granite, with a very specific top soil made from mica, called arzelle. Condrieu is small, with only 300 acres of vine. Within Condrieu lies Chateau Grillet, a sole estate and an appellation – the smallest one in France at under 9 acres of vine. Also a Viognier-only region, the wines from here are small production (obviously) so somewhat expensive, but not always superior in quality to Condrieu.
Notable FactsDue to Viognier's fickle nature, the yields in Condrieu are kept low and the grapes are carefully tended. This in turn leads to low production and high quality - not to mention high prices. Slopes face the south and so protect the vines from the disruptive (yet cooling) winds of the Mistral. The wine is meant to be drunk young (within 3 years) because the grape does not often have the acid to hold the wine up for longevity. Typical of Viognier, the wines exude intense scents of apricot and honeysuckle. For the true essence of Viognier, Condrieu is the wine to try.
About France - Other regionsWhen it comes to wine, France is a classic. Classic blends, grapes and styles began in the country and they still remain. Think about it - people ask for a Burgundian style Pinot Noir, they refer to wines as Bordeaux or Rhone blends - Champagne even had to pass a law to stop international wineries from putting their region on the label of all sparkling wine.
The top regions of France are: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Languedoc-Roussillon, Loire, Rhone. And these regions are so diverse! It makes sense that wine regions throughout the world try to emulate their style. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah are no longer French varieties, but international varieties. They may not be the leader of cutting edge technology or value-priced wines, but there is no doubt that they are still producing wines of great quality and diversity.
Customer ReviewsSign In to Add Your Review4.54.5 out of 5 stars
1 rating, 0 with reviewsAlma Leon Reveles (of Wine.com) - Oakland, CA44/14/2011


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It's a relatively new phenomenon, but all the kids are doing it. It's all over the media. Books, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram, you name it. The paparazzi would be out of a job without it. Twerking? Nope. The selfie? So mid-August. It's the School Run, silly.
It's November. I've been doing it for a few months now, and the habit is becoming ingrained in my reptilian mommy brain like a hardcore addiction. From the relentless requests to put on shoes now now now please (WHY do kids avoid shoe-putting-on like the plague?), to the joy of watching my daughter feed her younger brother breakfast from leftover crumbs on the backseat, the morning routine brings it's own kind of chaos. I may sometimes hate it, but could never give it up. I flock to it like a daily Mommy and Me meets Burning Man.
It's been the subject of love and hate for a recent spout of books (The Hive, Where'd You Go, Bernadette and even, yes, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy), celebrity gawping (If I see another pic of Elle McPherson or Claudia Schiffer looking way too fabulous for a.m. hours I may need one of the barf bags I keep in the car for the kids) and the subject of searching articles like Anita Naik's hilarious take on the Huffington Post. There's even a Twitter Feed called The School Run, which I honestly can't figure out what it's about – a meta commentary about the school run if there ever was one.
The School Run is too concrete, literally and figuratively, for me to be meta. Here's 10 reasons I secretly love it.
**All photos credit dreamstime & Morguefile**
10 Reasons I Why I Secretly School Run 1 of 10
Click through to find out why the daily trek to school isn't really all that bad ...
Free Association 2 of 10
It gives me creative opportunities when I have to give my 6-year-old a feasible alternative to questionable hand gestures thrown at passing cars.
Drivers Ed 3 of 10
I get to hone my driving skills when I'm simultaneously hitting scan on the radio (to satisfy my daughter's request for Taylor Swift while dodging morning talk show DJs droning on about celebrity arrests and boob jobs) and successfully avoiding accidents!
A Life of Their Own 4 of 10
I get to realize my lifelong dream of wearing the same yoga pants everyday until my husband fears they will walk downstairs by themselves, but it doesn't matter because everyone else does same thing.
The Great Leveler 5 of 10
You can always look around and spot someone who had a worse morning than you.
A Day in the Life 6 of 10
... of a lab rat. I get to see how many times it takes driving the same route every day with no new outcome before I snap and begin gnawing on my own limbs.
The Hairy Eyeball 7 of 10
You get a chance to eyeball the teacher in the morning and see if she's still mad at your 6-year-old for asking if she's pregnant.
The Hairy Eyeball II 8 of 10
You get a chance to eyeball the teacher and see if she is indeed pregnant.
Peace Out 9 of 10
I can practice perfecting my alternate Bridget Jones persona by vowing not to flash the lame peace sign to other mothers in the carpool, but do it anyway because it's better than having to explain the middle finger again.
Count My Lucky Stars 10 of 10
... That I get to be around people who can empathize with both the fun and terror that comes with the roller coaster of parenting.


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Image: Last Monday by SuperNova K, taken in January at UBC during a storm.
The Ghost in the Hologram: Back in 2005, my friend Joe Bageant was invited to be part of a conversation on "the condition of the world". The result was published in the long-running e-journal Swans (thanks to Jon Husband for the link). Teaser:
Now with the approaching death of widespread yeoman textual literacy, and the advent of technology driven quantum experience among our species, it is understandable that folks of our type are frustrated, anxious and depressed over what is ahead. Certainly the lush, funky, sexy, organic planetary experience as we have known it through human history is ending. The progression of technology is geometric, self-squaring, and what we are now witnessing is sort of a Doppler shift in which human perceptive experience approaches warp speed. The man becomes the holographic man, then the ghost in the hologram animated by the very mechanism he created, grown complex and labyrinthine and self-manifesting through man himself. Unintelligent, soulless, but self-manifesting nevertheless. I think too many idealists in our neurological caste (artists, visionaries, pimps, heart burglars, whatever) cannot grasp that the masses, the majority of modernized technical humans, find the hologram just peachy. They are made for it because they were created by it.
Holons in Holarchy: The Cell, organ, body, community, Gaia — Elisabet Sahtouris provides a circles-within-circles model of the living universe and how its elements all co-conspire to optimize, continue and evolve life. It's too bad she gets sucked into the 'progress' myth (that evolution is moving 'forward' rather than just adaptation to change) and pays homage to the progress mythologists (spiral dynamics etc. — ugh), because the rest of her model is brilliant. Thanks to Don Dwiggins for the link.
Imagine Why The World is So Sad: An interesting video by a religious group suggests that there's not much point in getting angry or upset with people — we're all struggling in a world of quiet desperation, and if we understood what others were struggling with, we'd go much easier onthem, and save ourselves and them a lot of stress. Thanks to Mitch Ditkoff for the link.
Dolphin Rescues Beached Whales: Humans had tried in vain for hours. It only took the dolphin a few minutes to communicate with and lead the whales to safety. Thanks to Cassandra for the link.
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text:
…because knowing the end is the surefire way to move forward right.
I AM still listening.
Previously, my head is still a mess.
In fact, I don't think it will ever get as tidy as I want it to be. Science knows that the beauty of the mess is what procreates life. So, might as well let it be.
"TRUST mommy's words, and you know you'll get there," said my mother when we were driving home late last night.
The last time we spoke, she told me what's wrong. The time before that, I was not responsive. The previous notes I wrote in here, I committed myself full-time to do writing as my main course of living. When the soul dies, then rose up again, it knows exactly what to do after it awakens, without hesitation.
ALL THINGS ARE TRANSIENT. All things are temporary in this world, in this life. When you're dead, it doesn't matter. What matters is love, and true happiness. Money is not happiness.
"As long as you have a good heart, it's all good. God knows." That's the vision.
Taking a trip down to memory lane from the last page in Talk Therapy I, the problems are: I fear making myself not useful and therefore life not meaningful. Behind all that fear lies my deepest yearning to put all my heart into all things I really believe in; all people I feel for and desire to give to.
"I used to believe in Ai. You know Ai. Everybody knows Ai. I threw her away…" I told my mom and I told my friend. The friend tells me I am being a crybaby. But my mommy tells me other things, more important things.
ONCE UPON A TIME, there was this character called Ai who dreams. She daydreams a lot, both day and night. I told everyone I love around me about her, and how cute she was and how much she means to me. She faces fears in the world but with a cheerful heart that never dies. She doubts whether she can reach the moon, and with every full moon passing her by, she cries at night. She's no pig, but she can't fly either.
Yesterday I was watching my videotapes when I was still a kid. Chubby cheeks, curious eyes, and fascinating smile. I don't know who she is, but I don't recall myself as that girl. Hold on. She's a lot like Ai. I watch her move in front of the camera. What may become of her?
"Do it," my mother tells me. That girl loves to dance. Whenever she gets tired, she does not want to do anything else but hug her mother. The other day on the Discovery Channel, I saw a momma hugging her baby chimp, caressing the kid as if she the kiddo meant the world to her, and then nothing else matters.
DO WHAT? I was so confused. That girl on TV looked curiously at the camera; what is this light? Why am I here? Where am I going? I just want to be in the comfort of my mother's warmth, as my "dada" in the corner is watching after me.
Even if I don't seem to be in his arms as often, I dream a lot about being in his arms, because then, I have believed the lie I tell myself that I have a father's warmth.
From the bottom of my soul in the depth of the oceans there's a heavy burden of water dying to flow out, in speech of words, to convey this innate desire to give, search for like-minded souls, and bind for eternity.
I have always, always thought it would be the form of alma mater, so it goes that I'm stuck behind hardcovers and Penguin paperbacks. But maybe, just maybe, I've found it all along, in my head, on my mind, from the heart, on the paper. And her name is Ai.
DO: Write.
My mother pets my head and caress my head slowly as I cry. "Good kid, good kid…"
I was in tears the whole time I was talking the other day to my mother. Now, all I do is keep listening.
SHUT UP AND LISTEN is probably the most popularized advice there ever is out there, but it's priceless. Maybe it's the multimillion-dollar marketing industry that keeps unfulfilled spirits alive, and I seem to recall telling myself lies, damned lies, and therefore keep finding statistics out there to keep myself alive:
… But the positive lies I tell myself are no longer lies. In fact, the act of lying to yourself pushes your limits so that you collect as much mental capacity for yourself to prove and tell the world your truth.
And then now my mother told me that as long as I remember I'm a good person, then I'm all good. And then my problem does not seem like a problem anymore, so much more than that it has become a solution.
"At the most specific level, these are your problems: 1. You are afraid that you will become a useless person. 2. You have a big heart that you have a deep desire to give."
GIVE, with all my might I give off my time and effort to make everybody else happy that I've forgotten how to give myself. She told me, on the car ride back to home last night after a whole day of shopping together, eating together, laughing together and, to a degree of crying together at heart, we shared the happiness I haven't felt in a very long time, wasting my time worrying about the world, and the inequalities everyday we face, and the poverty that does not make living my own life seem fair, and the racial boundaries we all seem to differentiate among ourselves when the truth is that our soulful human touch and the capacity for delivering it to one another, is only separated by the thinnest organ enshrouding our body: the skin. Much more deeper beneath the skin lies prisoners of its soul dying to be free and feel that they belong to Mother Earth and as part of the citizen of the world. As all things are transitory, we can never stop fighting for our belongings, and about our differences – Which should we take and what should we give away? But we have long failed to realize, then remember, that we're so much more similar than we are different from one another, as does haters have forgotten to see eye to eye with love, beauty, health, peace and prosperity, springing out of the lost place in time of which we originate from, that which we are growing more and more of our desires to go back in to.
IN TRANSIT, do we fight or do we fly? Which is better?
Then again, this is just an opinion. Atypical. Ironically, I am urging the readers of my diary to conform. A public outcry is merely a means to end self-destructive behaviors in me, but I'm hoping also that this means the start a union movement in the human trial to harmonize, in spite of our ugly, unfriendly inequalities dividing us from others we yearn to conform with, all coming out of the unimportant things just above our skin. It's unreasonable. What more can we do if we are mere prisoners in our own skin?
"Luna dear, picture this: You are just one person. You are neither God nor a goddess, far less a fallen angel. You are just a human being. To the globe, you are one, tiny little dot. If you stop believing in yourself, if you cease to exist, and then you've failed living. You live as if you do dying as a living.
YOU ARE JUST ONE PERSON, and you cannot save the problems on Earth all by yourself. I know you have a big heart, my dear, but you are my little girl. You're young and you still have a lot to look forward to. In time, you can do whatever you wish to solve the problems of the world, if it still worries you later; but right now, seek your own happiness, and your sphere of influence can have a bigger impact on the people within your reach than how big the globe is as it is right now. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Hmmm…" And I'm still listening.
"Don't you see? If you disappear into the deep, dark hole that is only one tiny little dot, you really become nothing. You fail to come into existence. Look at me," she glanced at me.
I LOOKED into her big, black eyes. Classic beauty of the Orient. I see the same pair of eyes every morning in the mirror.
"I can guarantee you can get the things you want to get by the end of next year. You can earn a title, and you can guarantee a lifetime of trust with your loving partner. Mommy trusts you, daddy too, both your brothers are behind your back. You can earn them if you really, really want to. It's your happiness and it's right in front of you. Do you get me?"
"Yes, but…"
"Throw away your worries for now. Leave it in the back of your mind for later."
"I know."
"Do you trust yourself?" Her eyes thrusted through the retina of my eyes, all the way from the cornea. Skin of the eyeballs, so to speak.
"Yes, I -"
"Good. Mom has a lot of trust in you. I have a lot of confidence about you, dear. If you are willing to give yourself happiness, then you have succeeded in life."
THUS, this undying soul is for my mother. I didn't see any monetary exchange between our eye contact, though.
Money is not happines. Money can't buy happiness.
From the back of my head, a little girl with chubby cheeks and curious eyes, in some distant time, is pleasure-seeking all by herself behind a camera. And then after a while, she runs back to her loved one and give a big, big hug.
After we arrived home, I grabbed a guidebook to writing, pondered upon its words before I go to sleep.
"TO WRITE a good memoir you must become the editor of your own life, imposing on an untidy sprawl of half-remembered events a narrative shape and an organizing idea. Memoir is the art of inventing the truth," writes William Zinsser in his best-selling guide to nonfiction writing, On Writing Well.
To the world, I am just one tiny little dot. And I'm still shutting up and listening.
But, I do write.
SALUNA is signing off.
Saluna and her stories: View all / Diary entries


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If you want it to be part of your 20%, then go for it, but they aren't primal if that's what you're asking.
If you want it to be part of your 20%, then go for it, but they aren't primal if that's what you're asking.
$5 off iherb.com: QOC241
"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." - Voltaire
For nutrition/wellness tips:
Jams/jellies suck, they're loaded with sugar. There might be some more gentle alternative, but I do not know of it, and I do not care to know of it.
Gluten-free bread products are a scam, as I understand, because they replace one starch for another, slap a gluten-free label on it, and the consumer still dies.
If you're trying gluten free go the extra step and try full primal/paleo for a single month, you will not regret it.
Last edited by brachiate; 10-20-2011 at 09:24 AM. Reason: typo
Instead of jam or jelly, try natural (no sugar added) applesauce. Or, better, get the grapes or raspberries or blackberries that you would otherwise have in the jam/jelly, crush or puree the fruit, and make that your spread. Mmm, fresh blackberries!
As for gluten-free bread...meh. I would suggest that if you're going to have any bread at all (and once you get used to not having bread, it becomes very easy to Just Say No), maybe do Ezekiel. It's got gluten, but it's sprouted grains, so your body processes it differently. From what I've read elsewhere on this forum, Ezekiel bread isn't as lousy for you as regular wheat flour breads. Still not great, but can be part of your 20%, like tradawg said.
OP, check it out, I find this:
Gluten-free is going DOWN | The Heart Scan Blog
i do not read this blog, so i cannot tell you, from my own brain, if it is strong or weak blog, but at a cursory glance this article seems to be stupid dope, and it might answer some of your question
Good article, dado. For the life of me, I don't get the gluten-free craze. You can't have gluten-free cupcakes and still believe you're eating a healthy food.
Jam??? A little fruit and a ton of sugar?
Just say NO.
Life is an ongoing Experiment of One, so here's to science!
My Primal Journal: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread37576.html
I admit I tried a couple of gf products two years ago when I had to give up all gluten and dairy and the numerous other foods that I am allergic to ... but I after sampling a few things, I ended up returning unopened packages and throwing out the rest. Granted there are a few things that were fairly tasty ... bottom line though, it is still processed food and it is a fracking crutch.
Basically it is nothing more than trading one addiction for another.
Everything's shiny, Cap'n. Not to fret.
Bones & Feathers - My Journal


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Whenever you see the words full text search in the java world, the first thing you will run into is Apache Lucene. The powerful full-featured text search engine for java. To be honest, I have never used, it before since most of the applications I've worked on relied mostly on hand-crafted SQL queries that were enough to get the job done. Nevertheless, I've always wanted to learn how to use it, but never got the chance to get past the basic tutorials on how to setup a simple application and give it a spin.
Having played around with grails for a while now, I came across the Grails Searchable plugin, which brings the rich search features of Compass and Lucene to grails in a very easy to use way which made me decide to finally give the full text search experiment a go. Since I already have my sample phone book grails application up and running, it would be really cool if I could add a search feature (I mean what's the use of a phone book if you can't search!!)
DISCLAIMER: For the record, I have never really used Lucene before this experiment, and before running into this plugin I did not even know what Compass was, so this is my basic attempt at hacking away with this plugin; having no previous knowledge of the APIs it's built upon; and making search work (which was really easy). This should be good news for anyone trying this out for the first time, but I wouldn't say that what I have done here is in any way complete or correct, but it works! Here's a teaser of the end result
I will start by defining what the search function will serve in my application. Basically I want to be able to search freely for contacts by either their first name, last name, nickname and/or any of their phone numbers. Doing this with SQL queries is not very easy since I only want to have one search box that the user can type freely into and not some advanced search where each text field corresponds to a domain class property.
Ok so lets get to it. First things first, if you want to follow along you can grab the source code. I will be continuing on the phone book application from the last post.
Installing the plugin
In order to install the searchable plugin, cd to your application's root directory and issue the following command
grails install-plugin searchable
If you are on JDK 1.4 (Why are you still on 1.4 anyways!) you need to use this command
grails install-plugin searchable14
This will download the Searchable plugin and install it for use in your application. (As of this writing, version 0.5.5.1 is the current release). Out of the box, the plugin will introduce a SearchableService that allows for easy cross domain searching and index management as well as a basic search page (view) and a controller that will allow you to do quick searches without the need to create your own view and controller which is really nice for our first basic testing. But before trying to search for anything, we need to define how our domain model will be indexed and which properties are to be included.
Defining the mappings
Enabling the domain classes to be search-able is as simple as adding the following to your domain class
static searchable = true
This is enough to enable searching on all simple properties in your domain class, I bet this is much easier than you thought. In any case, my search requirements are a little bit more complex. I need to be able to find contacts by their phone numbers as well, so I will have to do a little more mapping to get what I want.
It's important to note that setting search-able to true on each domain class, will create a separate index (in this case if I set the Contact to be search-able as well as the Phone I will get 2 separate indexes for each domain class) and I don't want that since finding a phone instance on it's own doesn't make sense, what I want is to get the actual contact when I search for his/her phone number. In order to achieve this behavior, I need to define the phones list on my contact as a Searchable Component, what this means is that the actual phones data is stored within the contact's search data/index (the owning object). The mapping I put together looks something like this in the Contact.groovy file
static searchable = { phones component: true }
Simple right? Well there is also one more mapping that needs to be done, since I want to search the phone numbers, the Phone domain class should be declared search-able as well, but it should not be defined as root, since I want the Contact object to be the first class citizen of this search (i.e. I don't want to find a phone object, but I want to find a contact object containing the phone I am searching for). The search mapping in Phone.groovy should look like this.
static searchable = { root false }
What this does is define the Phone domain class as search-able, but the root:false part indicates that I will be finding Phone objects through the owning object (Contact).
Note:If you are curious about where all the indexed data is stored, by default this data is stored as binary (?) file/s located in your home directory under the .grails folder (e.g. on my machine, /home/omarji/.grails/projects/phone-book/searchable-index/development)
Search Away
That's it, seriously, we are done. At this point we can run the application and point the browser to the prepackaged search page that comes with the plugin (http://localhost:8080/phone-book/searchable) and try out some search queries.
Pretty cool. But we need to integrate this search into our phone book list page so that we can see the complete contact card when searching. Doing this is very easy as well, all we have to do is add a search form to the phonebook.gsp page.
<g:form action="search"> <div class="search"> Search Contacts <input type="text" name="q" value="${params.q}" /> <input type="submit" value="Search" /> </div> </g:form>
And add a new 'search' action to the ContactController.groovy which will contain our search logic. In order to do that we use grails' convention over configuration to inject the SearchableService into our controller and use this service to do our searches like so
def searchableService //inject the service (make sure the name is correct) def search = { def query = params.q if(query){ def srchResults = searchableService.search(query) render(view: "phonebook", model: [contactInstanceList: srchResults.results, contactInstanceTotal:srchResults.total]) }else{ redirect(action: "phonebook") } }
As you can see, searching is as simple as calling the search method on the searchableService, off-course you can pass all sorts of different options to the search method in order to do pagination and whatnot, but I am using the simplest form here, and rendering the phone book view by passing it the list of Contact objects found by the search service. Now we are ready to test the phone book page with the new search box.
Here are some cool things to try out when searching your contacts (check the different query syntax options that Lucene provides for more option)
- firstName: John : Searches the first name property of our contacts which equal John
- +414* : Searches all properties (including phone numbers) for the string that starts with +414
- Daivd~ : Performs a fuzzy search (matches anything with a similar spelling to Daivd) on all properties
Here are some sample screenshots in action, starting with the sample list of contacts we will be searching
Searching for a contact with phone number "4148769234"
Searching for all contacts that live in the Wisconsin area code (+414)
Searching for misspelled "Daivd" instead of "David" on all properties
As you can see, adding the search functionality was very easy, and it exposed a lot of flexible search options with just a few lines of code, but what I have shown here is just part of a huge topic, ranging from suggested spelling fixes (ala Google's Did you mean: ), to analyzers, managing indexes, converters, configuration options, etc… but I still did not dive into trying to understand everything. The plugin page has all sorts of help topics to cover all those areas, also the documentation provided by Lucene and Compass is another place to find more information.
On a final note, I am not sure what the status of the plugin is at the moment, and whether it is still being actively developed or not, but I sure hope that it will still be taken care off.


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In most states you can't carry guns in schools. Or on public transportation. Or in government buildings. Or if you're a felon or mentally ill. In Chicago, you can't carry handguns all together.
On Monday, the Supreme Court shook up the gun control movement when it all but declared the nearly 30-year-old Chicago gun ban unconstitutional. In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Second Amendment right to bear arms extends to state and local gun laws.
The decision prompted bloggers to reopen the gun debate. Do Americans have the right to carry guns anywhere, anytime? Or do local and state governments have the right to impose strict gun laws — like New Jersey's new one-handgun-a-month law — to help keep their neighborhoods safe?
Even the Supreme Court isn't sure. This week's ruling left the question unanswered, opening the door for additional lawsuits and several more years of debate.
Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, blogging at The Huffington Post:
The winners in the Supreme Court decision in McDonald v. Chicago? The gun lobby and gun makers. Each seeks nothing less than the complete dismantling of our nation's gun laws in a cynical effort to try and stem the long-term drop in gun ownership and save the fading gun industry … The losers? America's communities and the victims of gun violence.
The 30,000 lives claimed annually by gun violence and the families destroyed in the wake of gun homicides, suicides, murder-suicides and mass shootings mean little to the gun lobby and the firearm manufacturers it protects. The decision will only add to this toll. At the same time, the decision will result in an inevitable tide of frivolous pro-gun litigation that will force cities, counties and states to expend scarce resources to defend long-standing, effective public safety laws.
Mac Slavo, blogging at SHTF Plan:
What's scary about this ruling is that four out of nine judges were against allowing American citizens the ability to protect their own homes. This was not an issue of whether we could openly carry a weapon in public, or even conceal-and-carry a weapon in public or in our vehicles. This was the most basic of freedoms. It is our view that the founders inherently believed that the right to bear arms is an absolute necessity designed to not only insure our liberty against tyrannical government and foreign invasion, but to secure our lives and happiness. Four of our current justices were against this most basic of American freedoms. Had the Supreme Court's mix included someone like Elena Kagan instead of a Justice John Roberts or Clarence Thomas, we would very likely be seeing a completely different headline. That should scare the hell out of every law-abiding, freedom-loving American.
Dekerivers, blogging at Caffeinated Politics:
Each year this nation buys 30,000 coffins for the folks who are killed from gun violence. In highly concentrated and populous urban centers such as Chicago, this court decision is one of the worst outcomes possible. Conservatives will argue that taking away local control is a bad idea on every issue, unless that local control tries to limit the rights of the National Rifle Association. If a city works to protect itself and limit even more violence, then it needs to be stopped. And the conservatives did just that today. How many of these conservatives who push for less restrictions on guns will chip in for the coffins that will be needed to bury those who will now die from increased gun violence?
Rikyrah, blogging at Jack and Jill Politics:
The only people in America who cannot legally obtain firearms are law-abiding urban dwellers like me. Suburban folks have them. Rural folks have them. The criminals that run rampant in urban areas certainly have them — the gun restriction laws have never slowed them down. I'm not saying that I will run out and purchase a gun. The point for me was, if I wanted to, I should be able to, as a law-abiding citizen of this country.
Oscar Michelen, blogging at Courtroom Strategy:
So what does all this mean? It means more lawsuits. The NRA now has the leverage to challenge antigun legislation at every turn. Where it used to be left up to the states, now the federal courts will be deciding if each state's gun laws overly restrict access. In New York, my friend Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel (a fierce gun-control advocate) has been trying to pass simple, common sense legislation requiring micro-stamping to make bullets easily identifiable. The minute it gets passed, it will be challenged under McDonald. … Other states will flinch before passing handgun laws for fear of being tied up for years in expensive NRA lawsuits.
Ted McLaughlin, blogging at Jobsanger:
I am not a big fan of gun ownership. I have never owned a gun, and I was shot by a criminal during a carjacking in 2005. It would make me happy if all guns were dumped in the deepest part of the ocean. However, I can read and the Second Amendment to the Constitution gives the right of gun ownership to American citizens. I know many of my fellow liberals think the Constitution gives the right of gun ownership only to state militias, but I'm convinced that is just wishful thinking … Nothing short of another constitutional amendment can take this right away, and the odds of that happening anytime soon are very slim indeed.
What do you think? Add your comments below.
Read other Jersey Blogs columns from the opinion page of The Star-Ledger.


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ADA TOWNSHIP, MI -- A man is in custody for allegedly firing a shotgun at his neighbor, apparently after learning he was on the state sex-offender registry.
The incident happened after 9 p.m. Monday, July 21, in the 400 block of Pettis Avenue SE.
Kent County Undersheriff Jon Hess said two people shared a driveway. At some point, they argued over the discovery that one of the men was on the state sex-offender registry.
Both men went into their homes. Later, when both men were outside again, a man in his 60s fired a shotgun filled with birdshot at his younger neighbor, a man in his 40s. Some of the birdshot struck the younger man, causing minor injuries. He did not require treatment.
Hess said prosecutors expected to decide how to charge the older man today.
E-mail John Tunison: firstname.lastname@example.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/johntunison