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March 9, 2009
Northwestern Oklahoma State University usually is very busy working on its own image and community to improve itself. However, once in a while, Northwestern will make a lasting impact on other schools and communities.
Charlie Burns, Sayre junior, did just that when he designed the logo for the Greater Kerrville Center of Alamo Community Colleges in Kerrville, Texas.
This institution works directly with the workforce in the greater Kerrville area to educate people and put them back into the community and workforce. It specializes in workforce training along with general education courses. The Center targets high school students in the area who want to quickly join the workforce within the greater Kerrville area and to keep them and promote community retention.
Burns' aunt works for the college and had mentioned to him over Christmas break they were working on a new logo. When school resumed in the spring, Burns was assigned in one of his classes to redesign a logo for a group or organization of his choice. Remembering what his aunt said, he designed a logo for the Kerrville Center.
"Their logo was very temporary and outdated, and I wanted their logo to seem as professional as the education they provide," Burns said.
He began by trying to find the correct font and then called for opinions from people working for the greater Kerrville area on what graphics they wanted to use.
"It was quite a journey," Burns said, "to find [something] that would represent the institution well."
After designing several options, he sent them back to his aunt, who put them up on her personal bulletin board and waited for reactions.
"Upon the supervisor seeing the logos, they instantly chose what they thought best represented the school," Burns said. "All other faculty, staff and community members loved the design. They couldn't wait to see it displayed for their school."
After Burns' logo was selected, Dr. Jo Tucker, director of Workforce Administration and Special Projects at Alamo Community Colleges, e-mailed Dr. Janet Cunningham, Northwestern president, telling her how happy they were a student from Northwestern devoted his time to help them create their new logo, and that he showed not only talent, but real leadership by stepping up and solving their problem.
"To make a long story short, today we have a logo we love, all thanks to Charles Gregory Burns," Tucker said.
President Cunningham replied to Tucker saying she was very pleased to know that Burns had done this for their school and was glad he impacted their campus in such a positive way.
"Northwestern is very proud of him," Cunningham said.
Burns was very happy they accepted his design and were willing to appreciate his work.
"I feel very privileged to be able to make such a mark on the history of their institution," Burns said.
MISSION STATEMENT: Northwestern Oklahoma State University provides quality educational and cultural opportunities to learners with diverse needs by cultivating ethical leadership and service, critical thinking and fiscal responsibility.


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The Bouzouki Book
A Workshop Guide to Building Irish Bouzoukis and Citterns
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Preview (read now) Add to my own site Give this ebook to a friend Add to my wishlist Author's page Publisher's page
About the authorGraham McDonald has been building mandolins, bouzoukis and other stringed instruments for over 25 years, and has published The Bouzouki Book, on building Irish bouzoukis and citterns and The Mandolin Project, a manual for building four styles of mandolin. He lives in Canberra, Australia.
A workshop guide to building Irish bouzoukis and citterns. In the past forty years bouzoukis, citterns and octave mandolins have become an essential part of acoustic music. The Bouzouki Book is the first, and only, book to guides the reader through the steps to build one of these fascinating stringed musical instruments. The book includes nearly 200 colour and B&W illustrations as well as plans for all major components.
Graham McDonald Stringed Instruments; January 2012
127 pages; ISBN 9780980476224
Read online, or download in secure EPUB
Title: The Bouzouki Book
Author: Graham McDonald
127 pages; ISBN 9780980476224
Read online, or download in secure EPUB
Title: The Bouzouki Book
Author: Graham McDonald
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From the doghouse to the Grand Old Oprey, Charlie Landsborough has certainly come a long way.
When his song 'What Colour Is The Wind' took the Irish charts by storm in 1995 he became a household name virtually overnight.
The song marked the beginning of an amazing new chapter in Charlie's life. It's seen him play all over the world, becoming one of the all-time biggest-selling artists in Irish music history, performing at Nashville's Grand Old Oprey to a full house (unprecedented for a UK artist), notching up chart successes, awards and songwriting credits.
The performance starts at 7.45pm and tickets cost £15.50. Call the box office on 01252 329155.


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|1,300 sq. ft.
|Property type
|Minimum Stay
|4 - 7 nights
Our clean and peaceful cottage is located on the desired north end of Anna Maria Island, just across the white sandy beach that stretches along the Gulf Coast.
The house was completely renovated in 2006, now featuring new modern furnishing, stainless steel appliances, a fully equipped kitchen, linen and towels, home entertainment system and an outdoor shower. It is a ground level home with open- floor plan, 3 BR and 2 BA, sleeping maximum 6 people.
Outside, there is a screened-in pool to cool you down on a hot, sunny day. Sit back and relax in either your own private garden or wooden patio.
Anna Maria Island is an amazing location for any vacation. The property rental was lovely, clean, well equipped both for the kitchen and the beach. There were plenty of of bath and beach towels for every guest. Although small, the pool was a great asset for adults and toddlers. What can I say about the location, it was perfect literally a 5 minute walk to an amazing beach, perfect for morning coffee. We hope to be back next year.
Lovely cottage in an ideal location just a few minutes walk to the white sandy beach and a little further to Pine Street & the Piers. Very quiet neighbourhood.
The cottage has a bright open plan kitchen / living area and high ceilings in one of the bedrooms. I was dubious about the memory foam mattress but it was actually very comfy.
Everything was clean and well maintained & the owner responded quickly to queries when booking and sent out all the arrival information in good time.
In October the patio area got the sun in the morning & the enclosed pool area was shaded most of the day.
Hoping to be back soon!
I would definitely rent this home again! We have been to Anna Maria Island every year for the last 10 years and have rented many places but this one tops the list. It is in a great location, it is secluded and has everything you need for a wonderful, relaxing time. My favorite part of the house is the plunge pool and lanai. The barbeque area is wonderful too. The kitchen and family rooms are gorgeous. The kitchen is awesome and everything is right at your fingertips. The bedrooms are cute and comfortable. The house is so bright and cheerful and decorated beautifully. Place was sqeeky clean. Short walk or bike ride to quaint little shops and to the beach. We spent a lot of time in the pool and had a fantastic time. The price was reasonable. Great value for the amenities this house has. The owner was very nice and easy to work with. I have already recommended this place to my friends.
This property is a real gem. My wife and I spent a week here with our four teenage children in late July 2011 and had a truly amazing time. The whole family enjoyed the most restful and fun week. We were stunned by the beauty of the beaches and couldn't get over the
temperature of the sea! We were lucky enough to see dolphins swimming, and some beautiful sunsets.
The property is top quality, well maintained, bright and airy and well equipped. The plunge pool with hydro jets is an excellent place to chill out and the barbecue area is very pleasant. The owner, AnaMaria, is very helpful and friendly. It is a 2 minute walk to the beautiful beach and is also an easy walk to some excellent restaurants. We visited the Sandbar, the Waterfront and The City Pier Restaurant and would recommend all three.
We had great fun fishing from both the City and the Rod and Reel piers, spent hours riding around the island on our bikes from Fun and More Rentals and enjoyed a very productive day of off shore fishing on board The Magic with Captain Todd out of Cortez, catching more snapper and tuna than we could eat! We also enjoyed visiting the Salvador Dali museum in St Petersburg but mainly spent our days at the beach enjoying the laid back vibe of the island - a great tonic after two weeks of roller coasters in Orlando. We would have no hesitation in recommending this property and will use it ourselves if we ever visit the area again.
We enjoyed the house very much! It is so nice to have a light, clean, comfortable and tastefully furnished home away from home!
This part of Anna Maria Island is so nice, there were just pelicans, dolphins, great blue herons and ....us! We will definetely come back!
After two weeks in Orlando this was the ideal place for a little relaxation and the ideal spot to recuperate.The cottage is ideally located to access the beach, only a two minute work away, and provides easy access to all the restaurants on the northern tip of AnnaMarie Island. We found the whole place extremely friendly and very laid back thers's plenty of opportunity to hire kayaks or boats but most people seem to kick back and enjoy the relaxed atmosphere on the island. It truely is picturesque and we will certainly be back in years to come.
|Rate Period
|Weekend Night
Off Peak
Jun 1 2017 - Nov 30 2017
4 night minimum stay
Dec 1 2017 - May 31 2018
7 night minimum stay
My Standard Rate
7 night minimum stay
|Refundable damage deposit
|Pool Heating
|$40 + Tax
|Cleaning Fee
|$100 + Tax
|Tax Rate


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Date(s) - June 12, 2017 - July 28, 2017
All Day
Colorado State University
Categories No Categories
2017 Session: June 12 – July 28
Our Archaeology Field School takes place each summer in various locations throughout northern Colorado.
This field school offers hands-on training in a variety of archaeological field methods and exposure to many types of sites focused around specific research goals. It is also an opportunity to learn valuable life lessons as students live in close quarters and must learn how to work together as a team.
The course begins with a week on campus, learning essential skills such as map reading and navigation with a compass and GPS, total station map-making and survey techniques. Next, students have a chance to apply those skills at various sites around Fort Collins, where the crew will work on survey, shovel testing, and other site recording tasks. The final session allows the crew time to work near Dinosaur, CO recording previously documented sites and surveying for new sites.
Field Course Instructor
Dr. Jason LaBelle, Associate Professor, Archaeology
Out in the Field
Check out our photos from the 2016 field school.
Please contact Dr. Jason LaBelle at firstname.lastname@example.com or (970) 491-7360 for more information.


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|516 sq. ft.
|Property type
|Minimum Stay
|7 nights
Once a traditional barn attached to the farmers cottage, Rose Barn is now a beautifully converted, open plan, high ceilinged luxury holiday gîte. From the exterior, the original wood beams and the timber cladding remain, but the inside has been beautifully transformed. The whole of the 10mx 5m downstairs is a wonderful living, kitchen and dining space. The large patio doors can be flung open to overlook the meadow and bring in the fresh country air. For the early and late season visitors there is a wood burning stove warming the whole house making it cosy and romantic.
Sit outside on the pebble and oak terrace which surrounds the Barn. Shelter from the sun under the 'abri' and appreciate the sunset in the evening with a panoramic view over the meadows, play areas, woodlands and pool.
Inside, Rose Barn has three elegant and comfortable bedrooms sleeping 6 +baby in cot and a bathroom with separate shower and full size bath.
Sol du Mazel is situated in a most beautiful, quiet rural setting, yet it is close enough to the village to take a morning stroll down the age old footpath to the local boulangerie for fresh croissants.
Situated in the Dordogne, near Domme, Daglan and Castlenaud, nestled in 4 acres of its own land the two gîtes overlook a walnut orchard and wild flower and grass meadow. On the other side of the valley the woods are the home to deer and wild boars which can often be seen at dawn if you manage to get up that early.
Rest and relax by the gorgeous 12 x 5 m swimming pool (heated from May through to end Sept - so that it is still pleasant).
Watch the children play on the trampoline or the climbing frame while the grown-ups might build up the energy to read a book in a hammock.
Later enjoy a barbecue outside sitting under the shade of the abri, or perhaps visit the gourmet restaurant in the village (remember to book). From the end of June to the end of August every Saturday evening the village square and road is taken over by the 'Marché Gourmand Nocturne' which can best be described as a street party where everyone is welcome and all sorts of food and drink are on tap.
We wanted to create a holiday home that was a happy place; overflowing with love and laughter; safe but filled with adventure. We wanted a place that can be special for someone at every age. Whether still feeding from a high-chair; learning to dive or swim a width for the first time; climb a tree fort; explore the woods; sunbathe ,read, walk, cycle or canoe; or simply drink fine wines and taste gourmet local cheeses.
We designed our holiday home to be like this because we knew that as our family grew we wanted it to be the place each person could look forward to returning to the following year. We wanted a place where memories could be created, where the photos are simply aide-memoirs to the joyful experiences shared together.
Katie & Andy Tanswell purchased this barn in 2010
Sol du Mazel is nestled into an idyllic rural setting , with the two gîtes looking over the meadow up towards a small woodland from which deer and wild boar can sometimes be seen at dawn. Sol du Mazel is just a short walk from the beautiful village of St Pompon, is nestled into the lovely mix of undulating land covered in woods and meadows, where poppies add a splash of colour to every roadside. The textured sandstone houses of the villages in the area are so picturesque they could easily be described as the 'Cotswolds' of France. Yet when we bought the place in 2010 the property was a far cry from what it is now. The cottage was, to say the least, in 'a state' and the barn was just that, a barn which years ago had been used to dry tobacco.
We set about not just restoring but re-invigorating. The two gîtes at Sol du Mazel are Hope Cottage and Rose Barn. Both have huge open-plan downstairs rooms built to the highest of standards and quality. Large doors connect you with the outside living space where many a meal is enjoyed in the cool of the morning or warmth of the evening sun. The bedrooms, with the chestnut wood floors and wrought iron beds are so quiet and peaceful it is hard not to have a wonderful night of sleep.
Its a simply beautiful setting. Somehow we manage to notice how loud the birdsong seems to be, yet never breakings the peace and quiet we feel.
Normally the loudest noise is the splashes from the pool and the laughter of our children.
In June this year we enjoyed a fantastic week at Rose Barn, the cottage was lovely. Comfortable, clean, spacious and furnished and equipped to a very high standard. The weather was great very hot and sunny and the lovely pool was a real blessing! Lots of toys and swimming aids provided and plenty of loungers and hammocks to relax in. Our party didn't include anyone under 18yrs but the grounds had lots of toys and equipment to keep children amused and happy. There were also plenty of toys and games inside for cooler/rainy days. I have been recommending the cottages to everyone I know with a young family! The Dordogne is a beautiful area, the Chateau at Castlenaud was worth a visit. We also enjoyed Sarlat, which we visited on market day and canoeing on the river was great fun. We had a wonderful holiday at Rose Barn and would definitely love to return!
This is a lovely house in a beautiful and quiet spot. The grounds are extensive, the pool large and everything you could need being provided. We will be back for a third time.
We stay in the Dordogne every summer and this is the best gite we have found. The barn is beautifully positioned, away from it all but not too far from local facilities, on a large plot with a good size pool, beautifully finished and well equipped with everything you could ask for. Our children are 19, 17 and 14 and they loved the gite, pool and local area too. The owners are very helpful. We aim to be back!
We went canoeing twice from Castelnaud (Bernard, the pool maintainer, recommended it and got us a discount) and visited the castle at Castelnaud. Monpazier on market day was fun as was market day in Daglan (a beautiful little village close by).
We rented out Rose barn and Hope cottage with friends. There was everything and more we could need especially with young children (potty, high chairs, toys, kids cutlery etc). There is a large outdoor space with lots to keep the kids amused in a peaceful setting. There is a boulangerie (highly recommend the almond croissant)and lovely restaurant within walking distance (15 min). It was a real home from home.
In June this year we enjoyed a fantastic week at Rose Barn, the cottage was lovely. Comfortable, clean, spacious and furnished and equipped to a very high standard. The weather was great very hot and sunny and the lovely pool was a real blessing! Lots of toys and swimming aids provided and plenty of loungers and hammocks to relax in. Our party didn't include anyone under 18yrs but the grounds had lots of toys and equipment to keep children amused and happy. There were also plenty of toys and games inside for cooler/rainy days. I have been recommending the cottages to everyone I know with a young family!
The Dordogne is a beautiful area, the Chateau at Castlenaud was worth a visit. We also enjoyed Sarlat, which we visited on market day and canoeing on the river was great fun.
We had a wonderful holiday at Rose Barn and would definitely love to return!
I dont' know if it's better to write in french or in italian, my family live in Brussels and we are franch/italian speaking!Anyway it was a fantastic holiday....
Questa brave settimana è stata troppo corta, poichè contiamo ritornarci, per visitare ancora Londra, che non è tanto lontana, in treno, il resto del Kent, (detto il giardino dell'Inghilterra) e perchè no anche la costa.Per quanto riguarda l'accoglienza e la pulizia del cottage niente da ridire, il giardino, che è in effetti, un parco, è l'ideale per bambini piccoli e grandi con tente attività da sfruttare, tutto è andato nel migliore dei modi, il tempo era in più dalla nostra parte!!!Ed anche la traversata Calais/Dover è stata perfetta!!!Da rifare in compagnia di amici, visto che hanno altri 2 cottage vicino!
The accommodation was first class. Literally everything has been thought of and there was nothing we needed that wasn't there. The cottage was bright and beautifully decorated. The kitchen was well equipped. The lounge area was perfect for comfortable evenings in. There is even English TV! The pool area is very well thought out with plenty of seating and toys for the children. The kids loved the trampoline and swings and being able to ride their bikes around the vast garden space. We really enjoyed a bike ride from Daglan to Chateaunaud, it was flat so very easy to cycle and beautiful scenery all through the corn fields. We had an excellent week and will definitely be going back!
The area is fabulous for those looking for fun activities or who want to explore the beauties of the region. Kayaking on the Dordogne is very popular with tours that allow you to start upstream and be collected hours later downstream. You could start in the amazing town of Castlenaud where three fairytale castles stand guard over the river beaches. Alternatively, Domme is the enchanting medieval market town which overlooks the river as it bends through the rich landscape below, explore the caves or take the miniature train around the town. La Roque-Gageac, on the northern shore is described as 'outrageously picturesque' and has an artist studio where you can certainly bargain to get a good deal on a beautiful original watercolour.
There are some wonderful vineyards in the area, some are very commercial - others very artisan and off the beaten track - certainly worth exploring.
Cyclists love the area and St Pompon is even host to the exciting and horizontally–challenged, dramatic, annual French VTT competition.
There are all sorts of caves with evidence of habitation dating to pre-historic times, châteaus and castles galore - check them out by hot air balloon; 5* gourmet restaurants the suspended gardens of Marqueyssac. The animal reserve at Calviac has some lovely lemurs but at Conquil they look back in time to the dinosaurs and cavemen (as well as tree adventure park).
There are town markets to explore pretty well every day of the week – you just need to know which day they are on.


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This is a fabulous pattern. The tea-cosy looks many times better than the photo suggests, but it is difficult to photograph. The cat is very lifelike and a real eye-catcher. The end result is worth the effort of doing all those increases with such a lot of yarn. The head in particular was a trial to make. Even so, excellent and I love it!
Our knitting patterns can be ordered online using this website and we'll post them to you. Alternatively, you can buy these knitting patterns from our Shop on Etsy.com where you can then download them yourself and start knitting today! The knitting patterns are also available from: Our eBay Store | Downloadable patterns on Craftsy Own a Kindle? Download the patterns as an e-book from our new Kindle Store.
We now have our patterns available for download at Ravelry.com


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With 60% less foam and other manmade materials, each Spink & Edgar sofa is powered by revolutionary, award-winning pocket sprung core technology.
At Spink & Edgar we are in tune with nature and are committed to reducing our impact on the environment. Discover how this ethos has inspired us to create a unique sofa range.
Build your perfect sofa with our sofa configuration - select the sofa style and fabric that suits you
© 2015 Powered by PURE


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Thursday mornings practice was indicative of the current State of the Longhorn Union: the DBs absolutely dominate, while head coach Mack Brown is still looking for separation among both his WRs and place-kickers.
"Our defense had a really good morning," Brown said. "They forced more turnovers. I think we have a chance to be better on defense than we were, for sure, at the start of last year."
LCB Aaron Ross worked with the Ones and shows little evidence of conceding his spot to Tarell Brown, even though Brown started all 12 games there last season while Ross nursed a hamstring.
Brown "had a great interception" Thursday morning, but his head coach reports "(Ross) is playing like he was before he pulled his hamstring. Hes having a great camp. He returned a punt (Wednesday) for a touchdown. He caught it well and did a good job with it. Hes just so confident. He has great hands. Weve got five guys in the secondary who are all starters. Weve rolled Michael Huff to corner and then back at safety, and weve rolled Cedric Griffin to safety and back to corner. Were trying to get those five to be interchangeable."
Two weeks before the home opener, Brown is still looking for a reliable WR.
"We just need to have more consistent play from each one of them because they all have ability," Brown said. "One will look great one day and come back the next day and drop two balls. Were looking for consistency at a high level."
Same goes for the PKs. For example, David Pino and Greg Johnson will "look great and then miss one." For example, the pair "made all but one" on Wednesday and were "more inconsistent" Thursday morning. Senior Richmond McGee is holding on to his starting job on both the punt and kickoff teams but "Greg Johnson is kicking off really well with Richmond, so thats a fight right now. Gregs punting well. Hes doing much better. Were excited where Greg is headed, but we still havent decided on a field goal kicker."
Coaches are charting every kick in pre-practice, during practice and during scrimmages but "right now there is no separation," Brown said. "Thats going to be a close battle. Were not consistent enough right now to say whos going to be the starter."
Although he got a late start due to NCAA clearinghouse issues, freshman Jamaal Charles has shown some separation from the other RBs in his class.
"Jamaal Charles is probably ahead of the others," Brown noted. "Hes playing really well. Henry (Melton) has made some great plays. And Jerrell (Wilkerson) has made some great plays. Weve got to figure out where they fit with Ramonce (Taylor)."
Brown does not make final redshirt decisions until mid-season but the next two scrimmages (Saturday, Wednesday) will help solidify which freshmen will play in September.
"Id like to get through Wednesday because, about the time I say a freshman would be ready to play, he might quit and not show up for practice. Ive been doing this long enough to know you never know about freshmen until youre ready to start."
RB Ramonce Taylor has a pulled muscle and saw limited action Thursday. ("Hes still practicing every day but you cant go every snap in this heat with a pull," Brown said.)
DT Derek Lokey has begun rehab on his left ankle (a fracture suffered in late July during voluntary workouts).
Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch writer Tim May has been on campus all week and expressed surprise that Longhorns were only willing to talk about Louisiana-Lafayette instead of the September clash at Ohio State.
"If you dont win the opener, the second one is not as important," Brown said. "In fact, we (coaches) wouldnt be here for the second one."
Brown continued: "When people ask, Is this your year? they said it last year, too. Theyve probably said it for the past 30 years but I know the last seven. Our guys live with that pressure every day. Weve got a chance to win every game, and thats exciting, but it sure doesnt mean youre going to. You still have to prove it on the field. We have to quit talking about the end of the season and start focusing on day-to-day practice."
The Horns will practice in pads Thursday afternoon and again Friday morning. The Fan Appreciation Day scrimmage is set for 9 a.m., Saturday, at DKR, followed by an 11:30 a.m. autograph session. It will be the last chance fans have to see the Horns before the September 3 home opener against Louisiana-Lafayette.


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09134862, Spacer
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This is a spacer for Saturn cars. This spacer fits 1 General Motors car models which have been manufactured for US market. This part is genuine General Motors part with GM OEM part number 09134862.
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It's been a while, hasn't it?
The major trailer releases are tailing off. The release of The Last Airbender is less than a month away, there are still a lot of smaller goodies than have come up in the month since the release of the last really important trailer. Here are some of the more recent ones:
- The Last Airbender has created a presence on social networks. Facebook has a new application/game called Become the Avatar, with a great lot of detail more than you would expect for the average film tie-in. (The official Facebook page is here.) There is also a Myspace soundtrack page - here - with the music by James Newton Howard.
- There have been a few more trailers, and many can be found in our main film article. A lot of these have been TV spots, but there is one very long and "epic" Japanese trailer, shown to the right. You really have to see it to know why it described that way.
- Aasif Mandvi was interviewed by 30 Ninjas. The interview can be read here.
In the meantime, we probably are all looking forward to the movie in July, which I can hardly believe is just next month!
Please stay civil. You should not harass other users or their views.


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25 May 2008,
Hong Kong
Price realised HKD 391,500
(KIM DUK YOUNG, Born in 1961)
Time Together
mixed media on wood
193.5 x 100 cm. (76 x 39 1/4 in.)
Executed in 2007
New York +1 212 636 2000
London +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Hong Kong +852 2760 1766
Shanghai +86 21 6355 1766
Kim's works are contemporary art that depict traditional Korean culture in a unique medium and style. The artist strives to express personal nostalgia through traditional vocabulary. He was inspired by the Dan-Chung (traditional Korean red and blue colors) of old wooden structures and wanted to express these colors in his work. Kim experimented with different painting techniques and media to express the atmosphere of faded Dan-Chung on wooden backings. He uses layers of the traditional medium Sukche and Bunche, which are natural minerals, and then applies sand between the layers of the wood, sometimes using eggshells to imitate the surface of ceramics.
Kim uses wood pieces from drawers, closets and tables that were handed down from previous generations to represent the past. By preserving the original traces of the wood, he creates a connection between the past and the present. He paints images on the wood, not to cover its grain but to bring it to life. The images in his works vary from portraits to still-life, and the poetic and meditative quality is enhanced by these images and the grain of the wood.
In Time Together (Lot 469), his portrayal of thirteen young girls is the beautiful synthesis of all these elements. Dressed in similar pastel colored dresses, the girls are sitting in two rows, as if waiting to have their picture taken. The warm and harmonious atmosphere is created by their intimate closeness, expressions and posture. Comfortably kneeling on the floor, they look at, lean against and listen to each other, smile shyly, or simply daydream while waiting. Kim's skillful manipulation of the grainy wood draws out and enhances the gentle contours of the girls, whose delicate softness is emphasized by their skin and dress color on the on hand, and the black background on the other hand. Kim's careful observation of the girls becomes apparent, as he is eager to maintain their individuality within the group, painting each girl with her own unique particularities.
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2008-01-09 15:45:40
Need More LiveCD Space?Most of you have read the article on how to create a custom Fedora LiveCD. Well, by default, Revisor creates the "filesystem" with a 3GB limit (2.8GB usable). I ran into this problem while trying to inject a 7GB VMWare image onto my LiveCD and getting a "filesystem full" error.
So let's refresh... When you mount the ISO you get the squashed filesystem, squashfs.img. You unsquash that with `unsquashfs` and are then presented with os.img. That is the actual filesystem. It was a blank file that Revisor created, added the system files to, fsck'd, then resized to 3GB. This was found by checking out /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/revisor/pilgrim.py, line 882. So, using the same commands, I fsck'd os.img:
# e2fsck -f os.imgThen I resized it to 10GB:
# resize2fs os.img 10485760KVoila! Now your live filesystem can contain up to 10GB of data instead of the measly 3GB that was initially allocated.
6 comments
2008-05-29 08:28:22
Matt says...
but....shouldn't the real limit be how much space the media has? 10GB of data on a liveCD doesn't do any good unless all you're doing is virtual machines, right?
2008-05-29 08:47:06
slonkak says...
Not necessarily. `squashfs` (the utility that compresses live CD filesystems) does an awesome job at compression. You get better than a 2:1 ratio most of the time (hence being able to fit 10GB onto a single layer DVD). I actually needed to make it bigger to include some custom applications, Eclipse, and some other development tools. Then I needed to make it bigger again when I needed to include a VM.
2008-05-29 08:54:39
Matt says...
Interesting. How does that affect the RAM footprint?
2008-05-29 11:40:21
slonkak says...
Live CDs have a super efficient memory manager, so it only loads things it needs and discards them when it's done. I just keep the RAM dedicated to the VM at 256MB and let the rest for the actual system. RAM is really only a problem if you want to run the Live CD from RAM, because it requires you have as much RAM as you have data on the disc.
2010-12-14 13:37:40
Brooke says...
Hi Shelden whats up im bored right now there is nothing to do!!!!!!! (:
2014-01-28 17:02:35
sAWp says...
Anchor klonopin high feel like - klonopin 2mg dosage


text:
City Living Starts Here
City Living Starts Here is a $5,000 incentive to use toward buying a home anywhere in Baltimore City. You must attend a City Living Starts Here Tour to become eligible for the $5,000 incentive. Every year, there are up to four opportunities to get $5,000 toward buying your home! See when the next City Living Starts Here Tour is in the Upcoming Events section of this website.
The mortgage amount cannot exceed $517,000.
10 individuals will be selected by lottery to receive awards, following each event, from a pool of eligible applicants.
Incentive applicants have 10 business days after attending the City Living Starts Here event to to make an offer on a home, have the offer accepted, obtain a contract of sale on a home and submit paperwork to become eligible for the lottery drawing.
Incentive winners must close on their purchase within 60 days of being selected in the lottery drawing. [Closing Date < Event Date + 10 Business Days (lottery drawing) + 60 Days]
Contracts signed prior to the event will not be eligible for the City Living Starts Here incentive.
Co-signers, cash sales, or owner financing are not permitted.
Short sale, foreclosure transactions, and new constructions do not qualify.
|Homebuyer must earn their Homeownership Counseling Certificate from a City-approved counseling agency before writing a sales contract.
|The home must be the homebuyer's primary residence.
|Homebuyer must invest a minimum of $1,000 from personal resources.
|Incentive may be used toward downpayment and closing costs.
|Incentive is a five-year forgivable loan (Your balance is forgiven by 20% each year, at the end of five years you no longer have a balance).
|This incentive may be used in addition to other incentives.
|Incentive appears as a second lien on property until the balance is forgiven or repaid.
For More Information
Baltimore City Housing
(410) 396-3124


text:
|2,900 sq. ft.
|Property type
|Minimum Stay
|7 nights
Pelican Retreat is a luxurious Oceanfront Beach Home on Vilano Beach in St. Augustine, Florida.
The home has been recently upgraded with granite countertops in the bathrooms, new carpet, Italian tile, and top of the line stainless steel kitchen appliances.
It's immaculate condition, spacious design, and modern decor make this home a true rarity among vacation rental homes. The master bedroom boasts views of the ocean, and the inlet. The master bath has new garden tub with a rain bath shower head. The entire house has NEW Furniture.
The main floor has panoramic views of the ocean with a wrap-around porch and 3 sliding glass doors. The first floor has a designer bath and two very private bedrooms. This unique home is situated in a private cul-de-sac and yet is walking distance from restaurants and the Vilano pier. There is also a Hampton Inn one block away. The nearby marina is a 5 minute walk and offers jet ski rentals as well as fishing and parasailing excursions.
Marina and Pier on Intracoastal is a 5 minute walk: The West end of the neighborhood is on the intracoastal waterway. Amenities on the waterway include a fishing pier, a restaurant and nautical store, and marina that offers fishing charters, jet ski rentals, and parasailing.
Beach access has extra features: The neighborhood has a public beach access that is a block away where the public can drive on to the beach. The access has a gazebo. A water fountain with jets from the ground used by beachgoers to cool of and rinse the sand, and bathrooms.
Historic St. Augustine is 3 miles away: The historic district is as close as it can be from an oceanfront home. The area offers cobbled stoned streets with specialty shops and restaurants European style. The historic spanish fort, the original Riply's Believe It or Not, and 3D world are located in that area.
Wanda, the place was fantastic! Thanks so much for a wonderful home for our vacation, Chris
This was our first time to St. Augustine. This house could not have been in a more perfect location. Quiet, yet close to everything. Having the Publix close by is awesome. We also walked twice to Beaches for dinner & drinks (with our toes in the sand!) to watch the sunset. The house is very clean (I am neat-freak); PLENTY of towels and all the amenities. Nice to have plenty of dishsoap, handsoap and washing detergent there. The beach is closer than it appears in the picture. About a 1 minute walk. Be sure to hunt for sharks teeth and other treasures! Be warned - no alcohol is allowed on the beach (we received a written warning) - but ours was very visible. We put our drinks in Tervis & Yedi's the rest of the week and were not bothered - just be sure it's not in it's original container. The waves were perfect for boogie boarding, surfing and body surfing. We saw dolphins everyday!! We brought our bicycles and it was fun biking through the Vilano Beach neighborhood. If you're a runner - be sure to run the bridge over to St. Augustine - breath taking during sunrise! Thank you Wanda for answering all of our questions and being such a pleasure to work with. (...and thank you for sending my favorite sweatshirt back to me that I left behind!) We will definitely be back the next time St. Augustine is on our radar!
We rented the house for spring break. The house was recently renovated and very clean. The layout of the house is perfect for adults and teens (who need there own space). The master bedroom was large with the maser bedroom loft offering spectacular views of the Atlantic.
The location of the house was perfect for our needs. it was on a quiet street but close to Publix. A few minute drive to the historic area of St. Augustine made it very convenient for multiple trips back and forth. I highly recommend this house for families that want beach time as well as convenience to downtown St Augustine
My wife and I just completed our second (2015 & 2016) 1 month winter stay at Pelican Retreat and cannot be any happier. The house has everything you need regarding cooking, eating, drinking etc. All bed items were great, washer and dryer excellent! All kitchen appliances worked fine as did the supplied gas grill and A/C / heat (when needed). Its nice for parking with a two stall garage with good overhead doors. The location of this house is great for morning sunrise, ease to the beach, you can walk to Publix and the small stores and restaurants in the Vilano Town center.The property offers 3 baths (1 on each floor) hot water is good for all showers with an exceptional master. The bedrooms are good and the master suite is large and has a great closet. When you open the bedroom doors of the master first thing in the morning, the view well you have to experience it! Vilano has much to offer for a relaxing time and this property is right in the middle of it. The surroundings of the house are quiet and safe, neighbors are friendly. You are just a quick jump to downtown St Augustine as well as Anastasia Island. Many recreations areas, things to do and options for golfers.The owner is a top shelf person if you need anything and the manager of this property is great to deal with and very friendly and also considerate of your needs. I would highly recommend this place to anyone for a week or extended stay believe me you will enjoy! We most definitely will go for the third trip in 2017!
I wholeheartedly recommend Pelican House. We had our extended family stay there and everyone had a comfortable bed and all really liked the house. It has a well stocked kitchen and plentiful towels, sheets, and blankets. The view of the beach is stunning, especially in the evening. It was a worry free week and we would return again.
Our family has a reunion every year at a different beach site, so we have a great deal of experience with beach rentals. This was probably the best beach rental we have ever stayed in. The kitchen had everything you could need at hand. The only complaint we had about the kitchen was that the stove and oven were not the greatest, but it wasn't bad enough that we requested any service. The house was stocked with about a dozen and a half beach towels, about 10 beach chairs, and several blow up mattresses. The beds were comfortable and the layout was great! We had 9 people sleeping in the house and 5 others staying in a nearby hotel who would spend time during the day and for dinner at the house. The house accommodated all of us comfortably. We also took advantage of the Serenata Beach Club offer and found that to be a very nice place to work out and to swim in their pool. There is not a cover on the deck, so it was difficult to spend time out there, so if you have a portable beach tent, I recommend you bring that to use as cover on the deck. We saw neighbors doing that and thought it was a great idea. The beach for the house is a public beach where cars can park. We did not love that part, but if you turn to the right once you get on the beach there is a beautiful area of beach without cars. There is also a lifeguard on duty. We loved our time in this house and would highly recommend it!
We were so impressed with Pelican Retreat in summer of 2012 that we came back! I can't express how nice it is having EVERYTHING you might need for a week at the beach at this rental! Air mattresses, beach toys, high chairs, pack n plays, etc. They provide linens and towels (at no extra charge), there was laundry detergent, dish soap, trash bags, all provided for us. The furnishings are well kept, the unit clean (not new, but much better than you'd expect from a waterfront beach rental), the location perfect! The view from inside the main living area of the house with the three sliding glass doors is amazing. Sitting on the porch for morning coffee and cocktails is just divine. Plenty of porch seating for everyone. So, so nice to have lifeguard station on the beach in front of the rental. No worries about someone getting swept out to sea! Short walk over the dunes from the oceanfront porch to the beach. Love this area too...no big commercial hotels, just private homes and rental properties. Grocery shopping and restaurants close by. Downtown St Augustine and all it has to offer a short 10 minute drive. Owner Ahmed and property manager Wanda respond quickly to emails and concerns and made our stay a delight! Thank you for another great week!!!
The Vilano pier is a 5 minute walk. It intracoastal front restaurants and a marina offering parasailing, jet ski and boat rentals, or fishing trips. Historic St. Augustine is a 10 minute drive- no other oceanside neighborhood is this close. Disney is 2 hours away. Less than 30 minutes away, you can drive to famous golf courses, including the TPC golf course and the King and the Bear. Two large outlet malls are 15 minutes from the house. Anastasia state park (10 minutes by car) offers kayak ECO Tours (best at night or at sunrise) and windsurf rentals.
Other Activities: jet ski, fishing trips, parasailing, to be had- walk to local marina
Golf: Please inquire about Golfing.
|Rate Period
|Weekend Night
May 27 2017 - Aug 12 2017
7 night minimum stay
My Standard Rate
7 night minimum stay
|cleaning fee
|Refundable damage deposit
|Tax Rate
$300 refundable damages deposit is not included in price quotes
Summer and Major holiday rental is weekly only, at $4050/week. Summer is Saturday to Saturday rental only.
The rest of the year, the rate is $2890/week


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Neo-Nazis Deface Baby Jesus in Huntington Beach with Hitler Mustache, Swastika and "Heil Hitler"
Oh, Huntington Beach: your neo-Nazi ways never cease to amaze and disgust the rest of Orange County. Whether it was the white-power music scene of the 1980s and 1990s, the apartment complexes taken over by PEN1 hanger-oners, the hate crimes or the random swastikas placed near the beach, you put the "Shitty" in Surf City. But you put the icing on the Hitler cake this past weekend, with news that vandals vandalized not one but TWO nativity scenes in HB with a trifecta of Totenkopf: a Hitler mustache, "Heil Hitler" AND swastikas. And not on the black wise man but on baby Jesus.
The defaced Nazarene at right comes from the manger of one Richard Candlish, an HB resident who told KCAL-TV Channel 9 reporter Jeff Nguyen that he was seriously disturbed at the idiots who did this. The other scene was at the scene at St. Bonaventure Church.
Some might think HB's neo-nitwits are innocent. See, there weren't other telltale valentines, like all the numbers that they like signifying David Lane this or Hitler birthday that, left at the scene of the crimes (investigators just might classify them as hate crimes). Instead, there was general juvenile doodling, like genitalia, pentagrams, and other crap.
But still: ain't it telling that in Huntington Beach, when it comes to vandalizing a fucking image of baby Jesus, that they'd make him up to be Hitler? That's gonna make adult Jesus made, just you wait...
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What are the features of parliament house!! THE SENATE THE HOUSE OF REPS when was it built How long is it? Who's Who Australia's head of state!! CANBERRA LOCAL STATE FEDRAL SENATE HOUSE OF REPS JULIA GILLARD TONY ABBOT the old parliament the new parliament The senate is red > The senate has 76 >
members The House of Reps > It has 150 members > It is 300 meters long and 300 meters . head of state. Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce Governor General. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 Australian's By:
2 broken girls
hilter Nethma Helped from:
miss pither
my friends
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Page 33
He looks at me like he wants to tug me into his hard chest and hold me tightly, like he's seconds from sucking on my bottom lip, from biting and then plunging his tongue inside. He'll rock against me and whisper my name until my back arches. Until I cry into his shoulder.
My n**ples stand at attention, his gaze intensifying parts of my body that haven't been lit up in months. His eyes return to mine, and they're swimming with eagerness. Phone sex could never work with us. I would miss the looks and glances and the way he devours my body with his amber eyes. He makes me feel utterly and unequivocally gorgeous.
He alone can claim that feat.
Slowly, he begins to slide off his track pants, and I start unbuttoning my jeans. We glimpse each other often, trying to catch the other's sensual, measured, unhurried movements. Everything below my waist is blocked from his sight, and likewise, the screen cuts him off at his lower abs. The allure of what lies beneath heightens my pulse, heat gathering across my brow.
Clumsily, I wiggle out of my jeans and kick them off the bed. Now on my knees, Lo has a nice view of my green cotton panties. I plop back on my butt so he can only see me waist-up. While Lo undresses, I catch a view of the bulge in his black boxer-briefs. The spot between my legs starts to throb again, aching for something hard to fill it and to thrust for a long, long while.
The silence drags out the tension, nothing but our heavy and shallow breathing. I wait motionless while he removes his last piece of clothing. My eyes fix on the screen in case I can glimpse his cock. But it doesn't make an appearance. Lo successfully strips off his boxer-briefs without flashing me. Boo.
He raises his boxer-briefs to the camera, dangling them from a finger victoriously before tossing them aside. His eyes meet mine in challenge. My turn.
With one hand, I brace myself on the mattress, and with the other, I roll my panties down my ankles. I bend forward to pull them over my feet, and I think I end up giving Lo a full-screen shot of my boobs in the process. He's getting way more out of this deal than me. That's for sure.
My panties rest in my hand, but they are way too soaked for me to lift them up in triumph. I'm about to fling them on the floor when Lo says, "You're not going to show me?"
Great. I turn them around so he has a view of the butt and hold them to the camera for a split second.
"Let me see the crotch," he urges in a soft voice. So demanding.
My eyes widen, and I shake my head quickly. No, no that will not be happening.
The corner of his lip rises. "Come on, Lil," he breathes. "I can't touch you. How else am I going to know how wet you are?"
I exhale a long, deep breath. I swallow hard and have the sudden longing to run my fingers right over my sweet spot. To feed the monster inside of me.
I take a trained breath and focus on Lo. "Let me see your c*ck first." My voice comes across more pleading and desperate than I intended. I don't even know why I want to see it. It's not like he can enter me through the computer screen. Really, it'll only torture me more.
"Not yet, love," he tells me sweetly.
"Then I'm not showing you my panties again," I refute stubbornly. I cross my arms over my br**sts. For as long as I can remember, I always get what I want during sex. Or at least, I try to. And since I've been with Lo, he's been more than welcoming to give in to my desires. I didn't realize how difficult succumbing to his orders would be until now. I have to relinquish my control to him—to trust him, to put all my sexual needs into his care.
It's not so easy for me.
"That's not how this works," Lo says. "I'm in charge. If I tell you to come, you'll come. If I tell you to stop, you'll stop."
I need boundaries to harness my compulsions. We've talked about this, I remind myself. I drop my arms, exposing my br**sts again for him. That's a start. Lo will provide the guidelines for my limits so I don't overdo it. I just need to learn how to accept them.
Lo has given himself completely to me. It's my turn to let him have me.
I obey his first command and turn my panties inside out and raise them to the screen, silently hoping the computer isn't high-definition. Though, clearly, they're soaked.
"Satisfied?" I ask after a few seconds.
"Immeasurably." His grin softens my heart, and my stomach flutters, weakening my resolve. This taunting can't go on for much longer.
I toss the panties on the floor, and he shifts a little on his bed. But I still can't see below his waist.
"Hold up your hands," Lo orders.
I frown and raise my palms to the computer. He gazes at me for a long moment, and I suddenly realize what he's about to do. I open my mouth to complain, but he cuts me off. "I want us to come together," he says seriously. "Keep your hands up and when I tell you to touch yourself, you can."
I surrender at the words come together. I can't stop nodding, and another smile quirks his lips. Slowly, his hand lowers, and his eyes flicker down a little. His camera is still angled so I can't see anything below his waist. Maybe that's the point. Some things are hotter left unseen.
His eyes rise back to mine, penetrating me, not tearing away even as his breathing deepens, the rise and fall of his ribs quickening. His body rocks forward a bit, and small grunts escape his parted lips. My eyes dance around his arm that moves in fast succession, his chest glistening with a layer of sweat, sultry and hot.
"Hands up," he says in a hoarse tone. I raise them again, not realizing I even dropped them.
I squirm on the bed as I feel the wetness slide down my inner thigh. I grab a pillow and press it between my legs, the spot throbbing for more pressure, more weight, more friction—begging for touch.
"Hands," he orders.
I raise them for the third time, practically tearing out my hair. I tremble and let out a small whimper.
I can't wait anymore.
"Lo," I cry out.
"Hold on, love," he encourages kindly, but his eyes say something different. Hold the f**k on. He's testing me. I know it. And I want to pass and succeed and show him that I can fight my compulsions.
I keep my eyes on his and try not to look anywhere else. It barely helps since he stares at me like he wants to be deep inside of me. God, what I'd give for that…
After another long moment he says, "Drop your hands."
That's all it takes.
My hands fall and slide down, feeling the wetness for the first time. I gasp and moan all at once and nearly collapse backwards onto my pillow. I need you, I want to scream. Please.
"Eyes on me, Lil."
I prop my body on a weak elbow and try to keep my focus on him without tilting my head back, without my eyelids fluttering closed. I am so…close to being completely and utterly gone. I alternate between rubbing and sliding my fingers inside. The pressure mounts, spiking my nerves on every surface of my skin. Even though he wants me to look at him, his eyes begin to drift from mine. They lower from my br**sts to my abdomen to my wrist where the screen ends.
At the same time my h*ps buck, he jerks forward a little. Our breathing synchronizes with our heady movements. And all of a sudden, it feels as though he's really here. Inside of me.
He reaches up and tilts the screen down. For a mere second, he lets me see what he's doing—his hand grips the base of his c*ck and runs up and down along the shaft. The camera moves back up to his face, and I'm lit on fire. I need to come. I need to release now.
His arm quickens, and my moans grow louder. I hear him groan in a deep husky breath. My body tightens, clenches and squeezes while my toes curl. The whole world rotates. I claw at the sheets with my free hand and ride the high out.
A few moments later, I flop against the bed, my elbow giving way to exhaustion and my staggered, heavy breathing. My stomach, br**sts, thighs and ass are slick with sweat. God…that was incredible.
I want to feel it again.
Impulsively, my hand trails down my body and touches my tender mound. A moan escapes my lips, and I rub harder.
"Lily." Lo's voice fills my head. I close my eyes and slip my fingers inside.
"Lily. Stop."
My eyes snap open, but I keep my hand between my thighs. Gently, I prop myself up to look at the screen. In the little box to the left, I see myself sprawled on my bed in this position, but Lo only has a view of my belly button up, my legs drifting past the computer. But I suppose it's obvious what I was doing.
I avoid his gaze. "Give me a second," I tell him in a soft, guilty whisper. I lie down and disappear fully from his sight, the screen tilted towards my headboard, not the mattress. My fingers move once more. I need to feel it again.
"Fuck," Lo curses. "Lily! I said stop." I hear him. I do, but listening is so f**king hard. And a selfish, horrible part of me wants to kick the computer closed to drown out his demands. The pressure intensifies as I stand on another precipice, preparing to jump. Oh God…
"Lily, sit up so I can see you," he orders.
I can't. I rub faster and harder and longer. I need more. I've always needed more. I cry, my bony shoulders digging into the mattress, my body writhing. I want his hands to pick me up, to throw me into his chest, his muscles to meld into me. My eyes clench closed, and I imagine it all. That he's hard against me—that he's inside, waiting for me to come, whispering in my ear that everything is going to be okay if I just release while I'm filled with him.
Yes! I scream, my spine arching, my body prickling with a fire so hot that I can barely breathe. I hit it. Again. And then…I begin to come down. My open mouth closes, and my heartbeat slows, moving past the irregular, erratic pace and towards something I hate.
"Goddammit, Lily," Lo snaps. "Sit the f**k up, now."
My eyes widen in horror at what I've done, burning with guilty tears. Everything feels different this time. I pull my hand away and mechanically hoist my sluggish body to a sitting position. I hunch forward and hold a nearby throw blanket to my chest. "I didn't mean…" I bite my fingernail and wipe an escaped tear. Shame crashes into me like a hundred pound wave. I can't even look at the screen to meet Lo's disappointed gaze.
I understand now. Why he wanted me to listen to him from the beginning. So we could avoid this. What's even worse is beneath the festering shame and guilt, there's a small part of me that wants to do it again. Maybe after we end the Skype conversation…no!
"Did that feel good?" he asks in a tense voice.
Which part? And why do I have to ruin everything? I stare pathetically at my hands. "Don't look at me like that," I whisper.
"You haven't even looked at me yet," he murmurs.
I inhale a strained breath and finally embrace the courage to meet his gaze. No judgment crosses his features. Instead, his amber eyes swim with empathy that I do not deserve. And I see the worry, as though I broke his heart, as though the extremity and horror of my compulsions just fully registered in his head.


text:
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Masergy Communications Acquired By Private Equity Firm
Dallas-based Masergy Communications said late Monday that it has agreed to be acquired by private equity firm ABRY Partners, LLC. According to Masergy, ABRY has agreed to purchase 100 percent of the existing equity of Masergy for an undisclosed price. The purchase comes just four months after Masergy said it would delay its attempt for an IPO, citing "market conditions". Masergy was venture backed by Centennial Ventures, Meritage Funds, and Special Private Equity Partners.


text:
Connecting Families to Senior Living
Talk to a local advisor for FREE
Talk to a local Advisor about this community
Contact this community at:
(866) 333-2174
101 Overvive Path
Caretypes Provided: Senior Apartments
Pricing is available for the following rooms:
*Prices quoted are monthly rental charges and are provided by the communities themselves. Actual prices may differ due to one-time fees, timing and care services required. Speak with your Senior Living Advisor to learn more.
Our apologies. Pricing is currently unavailable for this particular community.
Situated in Georgetown, Kentucky, Overlook at Elkhorn Creek is an excellent choice for seniors who want to live comfortable lives in small-town surroundings. Our senior apartments sit on Turning Leaf Path, which combines with their lawns to create the picture-perfect scene of the American home. Overall, Georgetown's climate tends to be towards the warmer end of the spectrum, making it a good choice for people who are afraid of the cold.
Our residents retain their full independence. However, we want them to be comfortable in our senior apartments, which is why we have chosen our team for their sense of commitment as much as their skills. It is this combination that ensures not just good service but the best service.
Here are some examples of how we help make our residents comfortable:
We believe that living at Overlook at Elkhorn Creek is sure to prove pleasant for our residents, not least because of our peaceful surroundings. Better still, there is no chance of them feeling stifled because of their curtailed independence.
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|Message view
|« Date » · « Thread »
|« Date » · « Thread »
|Christopher Schultz <ch...@christopherschultz.net>
|Re: Uniquely identifying an servlet runner instance...
|Wed, 25 Oct 2006 14:34:48 GMT
Peter, > I need to store in our database (along with other information) which > of our servers that made the save. Is it possibly to dynamically find > a property that identifies it? Or will I have to have separate > web.xmls with init parameters that I can use? The purpose is to be > able to see (in the database) on what server/instance a user is > logged on. > > The server name is not really enough, we could run multiple Tomcats > on the same machine. If you have several instances of Tomcat, you ought to have different server.xml files for each instance. You could put a <GlobalNamingParameter> entry into server.xml that identifies the server. You can get this value out using JNDI at runtime. The Tomcat 4.1 sample server.xml files contain an example of an Integer value in the GlobalNamingResources: <GlobalNamingResources> <!-- Test entry for demonstration purposes --> <Environment name="simpleValue" type="java.lang.Integer" value="30"/> . . . </GlobalNamingResources> I would imagine that later versions of Tomcat (5.x) would have the same capability, and that you could adopt this technique to suit your needs. -chris
|View raw message


text:
Ashden Rivers – She better like her face full of cum
Released: September 11, 2012
For your pleasure is another fine Facial Fest. Ashden Rivers was one cute blondie with a nice fat ass. When she showed up in Preston's office, she was super excited to see what it was like to be a porn star. Having only lost her virginity a short while before filming with us, Ashden sure showed some natural talent, giving a great blowjob and taking Preston's dick like a pro. Enjoy!


text:
The best way to learn is to do; the worst way to teach is to talk.
Archives For teaching
Whenever I'm teaching via inquiry-based learning (IBL), it is important to get student buy-in. I often refer to this as "marketing IBL". My typical approach to marketing involves having a dialogue with my students, where I ask them leading questions in the hope that at the end of our discussion the students will have told me that something like IBL is exactly what we should be doing.
In the past, I would just wing it on day one and it's been different every time. However, I've had lots of people ask me to describe exactly what I do and I also thought it would be a good exercise for me to sit down and think carefully about the activity. So, in the fall of 2014, I created some slides to guide the activity, which I am now calling "Setting the Stage". Since then I have shortened the activity and made some improvements. The current version of the activity is inspired by TJ Hitchman, Mike Starbird, and Brian Katz.
The main idea is that I want to get students thinking about why we there and what we should really be striving to get out of the course. In addition, it helps students understand why I take an IBL approach in my classes. Below is an outline of the the activity.
Directions to the Students
- Get in groups of size 3–4.
- Group members should introduce themselves.
- For each of the questions that follow, I will ask you to:
- Think about a possible answer on your own.
- Discuss your answers with the rest of your group.
- Share a summary of each group's discussion.
- What are the goals of a university education?
- How does a person learn something new?
- What do you reasonably expect to remember from your courses in 20 years?
- What is the value of making mistakes in the learning process?
- How do we create a safe environment where risk taking is encouraged and productive failure is valued?
Each time I've run the activity, the responses are slightly different. The responses to the first two questions are usually what you would expect. Question 3 always generates great discussions. The idea of "productive failure" naturally arises when discussing question 4 and I provide them with this language sometime while discussing this question. Listening to the students' responses to question 4 is awesome. It's really nice to get the students establishing the necessary culture of the class without me having to tell them what to do.
After we are done discussing the 5 questions, I elaborate on the importance of productive failure and inform that I will often tag things in class with the hashtag #pf in an attempt to emphasize its value. I also provide them with the following quote from Mike Starbird:
"Any creative endeavor is built on the ash heap of failure."
I wrap up the activity by conveying some claims I make about education and stating some of my goals as a teacher.
- An education must prepare a student to ask and explore questions in contexts that do not yet exist. That is, we need individuals capable of tackling problems they have never encountered and to ask questions no one has yet thought of.
- If we really want students to be independent, inquisitive, & persistent, then we need to provide them with the means to acquire these skills.
Lofty Goals
- Transition students from consumers to producers!
- I want to provide the opportunity for a transformative experience.
- I want to change my students' lives!
Below is the Spring 2015 version of the slides that accompany the activity.
You can always find the current version of the LaTeX source at my GitHub repo located here. Note that I'm using the beamer m theme for the slides, which require the Mozilla Fira fonts by default. Feel fee to steal, modify, and improve. And please let me know if do.
Prior to this summer's MathFest in Portland, I was a co-facilitator for a four-day workshop on inquiry-based learning. My co-facilitators were Stan Yoshinobu (Cal Poly, SLO), Matt Jones (CSU Dominguez Hills), and Angie Hodge (University of Nebraska at Omaha). I love being a part of these workshops. Even though I'm there to help others get started on implementing IBL, I benefit tremendously from the experience and always leave feeling energized and fired up to teach. If you are an aspiring practitioner or a newish user of IBL, I highly encourage you to look into attending a future IBL Workshop, which is run as an MAA PREP workshop.
On day three of the workshop, I gave a 30-minute plenary talk. Most of the sessions are designed to be highly interactive and this was one of the few times that we "talked at" the participants. At the end of day two, I had given the participants a choice of topics for the plenary and the request was to describe the general overview of my approach to IBL in proof-based classes versus a class like calculus. So, that's what I set out to do. The slides I used for my talk can be found below.
I'd like to think that my talk was more than the content of the slides, however, the slides ought be useful on their own for someone that is curious about IBL. This talk was similar to others about IBL that I've given in the past.
Here's a classic quote from RL Moore:
That student is taught the best who is told the least.
During his talk yesterday at the RL Moore Conference, David Clark provided a slight modification:
The student is taught the best who is told only enough to ensure that he or she will continue to work hard, stay engaged, and make progress.
I think David's revision does an excellent job of capturing the experience I hope to provide the students in my inquiry-based learning (IBL) classes with.
The past two years, Angie Hodge, Stan Yoshinobu, and I have organized an Inquiry-Based Learning Best Practices special session at MathFest. We've had a fantastic turn out in terms of speakers and attendees both years. This year we thought we would try something new and decided to organize a poster session instead. Here's the abstract for the session:
New and experienced instructors implementing inquiry-based learning methods are invited to share their experiences, resources, and insights in this poster session. The posters in this session will focus on IBL best practices. We seek both novel ideas and effective approaches to IBL. Claims made should be supported by data (student responses, sample work, test scores, survey results, etc.). This session will be of interest to instructors new to IBL, as well as experienced practitioners looking for new ideas. Presenters should have their materials prepared in advance and will be provided with a self-standing, trifold tabletop poster approximately 48 in wide by 36 in high.
One of our goals of the poster session is to increase interaction between presenters and attendees. We hope that someone can wander around and gather a lot of information about implementing IBL in a short period of time. I'm not usually a fan of poster sessions, but I'm looking forward to this one. The poster session takes place on Thursday, August 7 at 3:30-5:00PM in the Hilton Portland, Plaza Level, Plaza Foyer. If you are attending MathFest, please stop by the poster session. Also, if you think you have something interesting to share, we encourage you to submit an abstract. The deadline for submission is Friday, June 13, 2014.
Questions regarding this session should be sent to the organizers:
Angie Hodge, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Dana Ernst, Northern Arizona University
Stan Yoshinobu, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
If you want to learn more about IBL, check my "What the Heck is IBL?" post over on the Math Ed Matters blog.
A few weeks ago, Stan Yoshinobu asked me to round up a few student quotes about their experience with inquiry-based learning (IBL). The intention is to use some of the material he gets for pamphlets and flyers for the Academy of Inquiry-Based Learning. I contacted a few of the students from the abstract algebra course that I taught in the fall and here is what they had to say.
"I'm a very shy person. Presenting math problems in front of an audience of math students was at first excruciating, but by the end of the course I realized I had gained an enormous amount of confidence. I truly feel that the IBL process has given me access to internal resources I didn't realize I had available."
"IBL created an environment for me where I felt comfortable enough to try proofs without the pressure of needing to be 100% right on the first try. So now in later upper division courses I am more comfortable with trying more complex problems, which ultimately lead me to do undergraduate research. And in all honesty, the classroom culture created by the IBL setup is what sold me on pure mathematics and has made me a better independent learner."
"IBL helps prepare the student for the real world by teaching them how to create intuition. When you get to the real world or higher level mathematics courses, you will not always have someone there to tell you how to solve the problem."
"By far, and without a doubt, inquiry-based learning is the best way to learn mathematics. Most methods for teaching math involve an instructor showing how to "do" various problems often involving computations and formulas, and then the students mimic the process for similar problems. IBL, however, asks the students to use what they know (or assume) to be true in order to create their own ways to solve problems or form logical arguments to validate other ideas. And logical arguments, not computations, not formulas, are the basis of all mathematics. Being able to form logical arguments is not something that can be mimicked, it must be discovered on one's own, which is exactly how IBL works. Hence, when it comes to math, real math, and not just computations, IBL is the way to go."
It would be a crime if I didn't mention my all-time favorite student quote about IBL that was written on a course evaluation at the end of my introduction to proof course from the spring 2013 semester.
"Try, fail, understand, win."
I believe that this last quote perfectly captures the essence of an effective IBL experience for a student. If you want to know about IBL, check out my post, What the Heck is IBL?, over on Math Ed Matters.
This past Thursday was the first day of student presentations in my calculus class. It went awesome! The plan is to spend one whole class period each week having students present and discuss problems. The remaining three classes each week will be predominately spent on direct instruction and some small group work. I was emotionally prepared for a crash and burn session as it is often the case that the first day of student presentations in my calculus classes can be a bit rough. I'm totally okay with this as it always improves. But Thursday didn't leave much room for improvement.
Class started by me asking for volunteers to present their proposed solutions to the problems from their Weekly Homework assignments. I anticipated being met with silence while students stared at their desks. The plan was to then gently nudge people to present. Instead, I had more people volunteer than we had problems. That wasn't a problem I was expecting. I think I have a good group of students, so I maybe I had nothing to do with this. However, I am suspicious that the heavy marketing that I did helped a lot. Also, I'm curious how much my Achievement Points experiment played into the number of volunteers. Whatever the case, the students were ready to rumble.
In case you are interested, here is the general format for student presentation days, which will typically occur on Thursdays. A few days before the students are to present, I assign a Weekly Homework assignment. You can find the first one that the students did by going here (it's not terribly exciting). For the most part, the problems on the Weekly Homework assignments are a subset of the material covered the previous week. I'm a big fan of having the students circle back on concepts as much as possible. The students also have Daily Homework assignments that consist almost entirely of problems from WeBWorK.
When the students arrive to class on presentation days, they are supposed to have completed or done their best to complete all of the problems from the Weekly Homework. Upon entering the room, students should grab a colored felt tip pen. I have a box of pens in a variety of colors. The students love the sky blue and purple ones and hardly anyone ever chooses the red ones. During class students can annotate their work only with their felt tip pen. My approach to this is nearly identical to what is described in my Math Ed Matters post located here. The big picture is that I want students to be able to process what they have on their paper as other students are presenting. However, I also want to make sure that I know what work students had done before they entered the room.
One difference between what I describe in the Math Ed Matters post is how I grade the homework that students are presenting problems from. In my other classes where presentations play a more prominent role, the students are presenting problems from their Daily Homework and it is these problems that they annotate with the felt tip pens. In this case, I grade the Daily Homework with a $\checkmark-$, $\checkmark$, $\checkmark+$ system. But in my calculus class, since the students are presenting problems from their Weekly Homework, the students are annotating these problems. Moreover, since students are revisiting topics from the previous week, I feel comfortable weighting the Weekly Homework in calculus more and grading it harshly.
There is no penalty for students using the felt tip pen and I encourage them to annotate to their heart's content. However, when grading the assignment, the annotations are more or less ignored. That is, they are graded on the work they had done before class. The students need some coaching with how to use the felt tip pen, but they seem to dig it.
At the beginning of class, I usually write down all the problems that I'd like to see presented and then I ask for volunteers. In the case that more than one person wants to present a particular problem, the student with the fewest presentations has priority. If there is no priority, I try to choose one of the volunteers at random.
Depending on the number of problems and their difficulty, I will either have the students all come to the board at once to write down their solution while I bounce around the room answering questions or we'll have one student come to the board at a time to present their proposed solution. In the first case, after the solutions are on the board, we will discuss each problem. In most cases, I'll have the student that wrote down their proposed solution lead a discussion with the whole class about the problem and their solution.
Here is where my approach likely differs from many others. I don't want all the solutions to be correct. I'd rather have students make mistakes. Ideally, I'd like to see a mixture of correct answers, answers with small mistakes, and answers with huge errors. It's not that I want students to screw up. What I want is to have something to talk about. One of the greatest advantages of doing student presentations is that the audience should take on the role of skeptic. This makes the student engage with the material in a much different way than if they watch me. I'm an authority and usually the students just believe everything I say. I encourage the students to be willing to share what they have. It's a low stakes endeavor for them. Just being willing to present is what they get credit for. (This is different in my upper-level proof-based courses.) On the other hand, I don't want students to present total crap either.
This semester I have 48 students enrolled in calculus. I'd prefer a smaller class, but I can make it work. The goal is to get as many students to the board as possible. On Thursday, 9 students presented. I'm always concerned about how many students in class are engaged on presentation days. However, I'm confident that it is many orders of magnitude more than when I lecture (and I like lecturing and I think the students like it, too).
On Thursday, most of the solutions where flawless, but we also had a few that led to excellent discussions. In each of these cases, the presenters did a good job at fielding questions and comments from the audience and from me. This works because I make it a point to develop a community of trust. The audience has to behave appropriately. I encourage students to clap after each presenter and they clapped loudest after the two students that were at the board the longest due to flawed solutions. One of these students had told me before class that she did not understand function transformations (last week we were still reviewing precalculus). I encouraged her to volunteer for a problem related to function transformations, so that she could show us what we had. Indeed, she did have some misunderstanding, but in my view, this was the most beneficial presentation.
The fall semester starts in a couple days and I'll be teaching Calculus 1 (for like the 15th time) and our undergraduate Abstract Algebra course. Despite my relatively low teaching load, I'll also be advising 3 undergraduate research students (on two different projects) and 2 masters thesis students. Combined with the fact that I'm still frantically trying to prepare brand new IBL materials for my Abstract Algebra class, I expect a very busy semester. For this reason, I decided not to mess with the format of my calculus class very much. I think it has room for improvement—namely ramping up the IBL aspect of the course—but this will have to wait until a later semester. I feel a little guilty about this, but I'm no use to anyone if I'm trying to do too much.
Notice that I said that I wouldn't mess with the format "very much." I am going to make some small changes. In previous semesters, I always devoted one class period a week to students presenting problems at the board. This has always worked well for me, but last semester I tried something else that I don't think was as successful. So, I've decided that I'll return to presentation days. In the past, I had a fairly nebulous way of assessing student presentations. I want to encourage students to present, so I make it worth something. But on the other hand, I don't want it to be a high stakes thing. A class typically benefits more from the discussion surrounding a less than perfect solution to a problem than they do from a presentation that is flawless. So, I encourage students to share what they have. Of course, I don't want students putting crap up on the board on a regular basis either. In a small class, this isn't very hard to manage, but in a class with 45 students (which is what I currently have enrolled in my calculus class), it gets a little trickier. I've been thinking about how to manage this for a few weeks.
The latest version of WeBWorK—which we use for our online homework platform—has a new feature called "Achievements." You can read more about this here. This basic idea is this:
Instructors now have the ability to create and award "Math Achievements" and "Math Levels" to students for solving homework problems and for practicing good WeBWorK behavior. In a nutshell, students can earn achievements by meeting preset goals. For example, they might earn an achievement for solving 3 homework problems in a row without any incorrect submissions, or for solving a problem after taking an 8 hour break. Earning achievements and solving problems earns students points and after a student gets enough points they will be given a new "Math Level".
I have zero experience with the WeBWorK Achievements, but I thought I would give it a try. I don't want to make earning them mandatory and I don't want to offer extra credit either. So, I've been passively brainstorming how to handle them.
Northern Arizona University now requires faculty to take daily attendance in all freshman-level courses. However, how we take this data into account is up the instructor. It just has to count for something. The past couple semesters, I've been diligent about taking attendance, but I've always been a little bit vague about how it does or does not impact a student's grade. Policies like, "you'll lose a letter grade if you miss X number of classes," drive me nuts.
Yesterday, I decided it was time to sort out what the plan should be for presentations, WeBWorK Achievements, and attendance. I had read a short article about gamification in education (I can't remember which article) recently and I thought, "hey, why don't I just gamify this stuff that I'm not sure what to do with." In general, I'm not a fan of offering points for things that students should naturally do (and I'm also sure I have tons of counterexamples to what I just said), but I'm going for it anyway. Maybe this is a horrible idea. Here is what I currently have on their syllabus.
As per university policy, attendance is mandatory in all 100-level courses, and in particular, I am required to record attendance each class session. Daily attendance is vital to success in this course! You are responsible for all material covered in class, regardless of whether it is in the textbook. Repeated absences may impact your grade (see the section on Achievements). You can find more information about NAU's attendance policy on the Academic Policies page.
Presentations and Participation
Throughout the semester, class time will be devoted to students presenting problems to the rest of the class. In addition, we will occasionally make use of in-class activities whose purpose is to either reinforce/synthesize previously introduced concepts or to introduce new concepts via student-driven inquiry. If necessary, these activities will be explicitly graded.
I expect each student to participate and engage in class discussion. Moreover, I will occasionally ask for volunteers (or call on students) to present problems at the board. No one should have anxiety about being able to present a perfect solution to a problem. In fact, we can gain so much more from the discussion surrounding a slightly flawed solution. However, you should not volunteer to present a problem that you have not spent time thinking about. Your overall participation includes your willingness to present, engagement in and out of class, and consistent attendance record. Your grade for this category will be worth 8% of your overall grade and will be based on Achievements (see below).
This semester I've decided to "gamify" good student behavior. Here is the gist. I've generated a list of items that I deem good student behavior. Every time you achieve one of the items on the list, you earn some points. The more points you earn, the higher your Presentation and Participation grade (worth 8% of your overall grade in the course). So, how do you earn achievement points? Here's a list.
|Stop by my office sometime during the first two weeks of classes. This is a one time offer and stopping by to just say hello is fine.
|Stop by my office hours to get help. This goes into effect after the first visit and you can earn points for this up to 4 times.
|Attend class, arrive on time, and stay the whole class meeting.
|Attend class but arrive late.
|Attend class but leave early.
|Attend a review session offered by our Peer TA. You can earn points for this multiple times.
|Stop by the Math Achievement Program to get help. This is a one time offer and you must get a "prescription" form from me in advance for a tutor to sign.
|Find a typo anywhere on the course webpage, homework, exam, etc. These points are first come, first earned, but there is no limit to the number of times you can earn points for this.
|Volunteer to present a problem to the class on presentation days.
|Agree to present a problem to the class on presentation days after I've called on you.
|Earn a non-secret Achievement in WeBWork. You can see list of possible non-secret Achievements by clicking on the appropriate link in the sidebar after logging in to WeBWorK.
|Earn a secret Achievement in WeBWork. These shall remain a mystery.
|Post a useful resource such as a video or link to a math-related website on our course forum.
|Post a relevant question on our course forum.
|Post a useful response to a question on the course forum that does not just give an answer away.
|Earn at least an 8/10 on your highest score for a Gateway Quiz.
Important: Any time I feel you are taking advantage of the spirit of this, I reserve the right to take away an achievement point.
To calculate your grade for the Presentation and Participation category, I will divide your Achievement points by the maximum number of Achievement points earned by a student and then convert to a percent.
Feedback is extremely welcome. I'll let y'all know how it goes.
Edit: One thing that I forgot to add is that I have a Peer TA for 10 hours per week. She attends class and has access to the course forum, etc. So, I'll let her do most of the point tracking. Otherwise, I'd have trouble with the bookkeeping. Also, I decided to use the highest number of Achievement points earned by a student to calculate a percentage for each student. In the comments below, Strider suggested that I use the average of the top 3 instead. I like this idea, but I think I'll use the top 5.
On Thursday, August 22, I was one of four speakers that gave a 20 minute talk during the Department of Mathematics and Statistics Teaching Showcase at Northern Arizona University. My talk was titled "An Introduction to Inquiry-Based Learning" and was intended to be a "high altitude" view of IBL and to inspire dialogue. I was impressed with the turn out. I think there were roughly 40 people in attendance, from graduate students to tenured faculty and even some administrators. Here are the slides for my talk.
If you take a look at the slides, you'll see that I mention some recent research about the effectiveness of IBL by Sandra Laursen, et. al. During my talk, I provided a two-page summary of this research, which you can grab here (PDF).
After about 15 minutes, I transitioned into an exercise whose purpose was to get the audience thinking about appropriate ways to engage in dialogue with students in an IBL class. I provided the participants with the handout located here that contains a dialogue between three students that are working together on exploring the notions of convergence and divergence of series. After the dialogue, five possible responses for the instructor are provided. I invited the participants to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each possible response. It is clear that some responses are better than others, but all of the responses listed intentionally have some weaknesses. We were able to spend a couple of minutes having audience members share their thoughts. It would have been better to spend more time on this exercise. I wish I could take credit for the exercise, but I borrowed it from the folks over at Discovering the Art of Mathematics.
If you want to know more about IBL, check out my What the Heck is IBL? blog post over on Math Ed Matters.
When I was preparing my talk for the Legacy of R.L. Moore Conference a couple weeks ago, I reread the student evaluations for my introduction to proof course from Spring 2013. I was really pleased with all the comments, but two of them stood out because they capture the essence of what I want an inquiry-based learning (IBL) experience to be.
Here's the first comment.
[…] he has found the perfect way to teach this course. […] The way Professor Ernst had us struggle through homework and then come together as a group and discuss the topics was very beneficial. I personally struggled through most of the material and when I finally got to the right concept I felt like I fully understood it because I personally came to that conclusion. Also, when I didn't fully understand a topic, coming together and discussing it connected all the gaps I was missing. […] As a future educator, I would love to mimic his style of teaching so I can share with my students the same satisfaction that I got out of this style of teaching.
I stripped out a couple complimentary sentences that addressed me rather than the course. Of course, I'm thrilled about this student's desire to incorporate IBL in their future teaching, but what I really appreciate about this comment is how the student reflects on both his/her independence and collaboration.
Here is the second, very short comment.
Try, fail, understand, win.
Four words of awesomeness. I couldn't hope for more. This second comment inspired a recent post that Angie Hodge and I recently wrote for Math Ed Matters.


text:
Barcelona midfielder Sergio Busquets has said he is prepared to play in central defence if needed as Barca look to move one step closer to the Liga title with a win at Real Zaragoza on Sunday.
The Catalans progressed to the semi-finals of the Champions League for a record sixth consecutive season on Wednesday night as they eliminated Paris Saint-Germain on away goals, but suffered another injury blow in defence as Adriano, who had just returned from a hamstring injury, was carried off in the second half.
With Carles Puyol and Javier Mascherano already sidelined, playing the inexperienced Marc Bartra or moving Busquets back into the centre of the defence seem the only two options available to coach Tito Vilanova, but the Spanish international insists he would be comfortable in the back four.
"If I need to play at centre-back, I will do whatever is necessary for the team," he told Barca TV.
"We still have two league games before the semi-finals of the Champions League. If we can pick up six points in these two games in the league, we will take a huge step towards winning the title."
The Catalans were far from their best in midweek as they struggled without their talisman Lionel Messi, who started on the bench to protect a hamstring injury.
Messi, though, was required to turn the tie in Barca's favour in the second half as he came on to help set up Pedro's goal which took Vilanova's men through.
And with the Argentine likely to be rested on Sunday given Barca's 13-point advantage at the top of the table, Busquets admitted his presence will be sorely missed.
"It is clear that Messi is the best player in the world and when he is not there, you notice it," he added.
Zaragoza, meanwhile, are desperate for the points after a horrendous run of 14 games without a victory which has left them just a point above the relegation zone.
However, midfielder Victor Rodriguez believes they can take heart from their 1-1 draw against Real Madrid two weeks ago when they welcome the league leaders to La Romareda.
"You can't play the same way against Real Madrid and Barcelona because they play completely differently, but we need to play with the same attitude," said the 23-year-old former Barca youth-teamer.
Victor welcomed the fact that Messi is unlikely to be in the Barca squad and said gaining a positive result would be key for momentum heading into their huge relegation clash with Celta Vigo next weekend.
"It is a relief for everyone if Messi doesn't play because he is one of the best in the world.
"We need to take advantage of our chances and come out of the game with a good taste in our mouth to then go to Vigo with confidence."
However, Zaragoza have injury concerns of their own as their two top goalscorers Apono and Helder Postiga are both doubtful.
Elsewhere, Real Madrid face a tricky trip to Athletic Bilbao looking to extend their three-point gap over third-placed Atletico Madrid.
Jose Mourinho is expected to rotate his side after their exertions in also reaching the Champions League semi-finals with a 5-3 aggregate win over Galatasaray despite losing the second leg 3-2 in Istanbul on Tuesday.
Sergio Ramos and Xabi Alonso should return to the starting line-up after both were suspended for the game in Turkey, whilst Alvaro Arbeloa is expected to come in for the injured Michael Essien at right-back.
However, the game of the round is on Friday night as Sevilla and Real Betis clash in the Seville derby.
Sevilla hold the bragging rights having won the first clash between the two 5-1 earlier in the season, but a win for Betis would move them to within a point of the top four.