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Mark Wrona received his B.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry/Biotechnology at the University of Waterloo (Canada) and his M.Sc. in Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario (Canada). After university, he joined the Merck Frosst Medicinal Chemistry department in Montreal in 2004 to support compound lead optimization as well as to manage open access chemistry and bioanalysis facilities. From here he made a jump to the Global Department of Drug Metabolism at Merck and took a more active role in developing high resolution mass spectrometry as a powerful and routine tool for screening, characterizing and quantifying metabolites.
In 2010, Mark joined the Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences Group at Waters Corporation (MA; USA) and continues to seek and develop solutions for drug development. His primary interest is the development and practical use of LC-MS technologies and informatics for the identification, characterization and quantitation of metabolic and degradation pathways for small molecules and biotherapeutics. He currently manages a team of 8 scientists based in the US and UK developing and marketing pharmaceutical applications and solutions for discovery and development. The team studies and develops applications in a wide variety of areas including Bioanalysis, Drug Metabolism, Pharmaceutical Development, Quality Control, Method Development for small molecules, biotherapeutics as well as natural products.
Could you tell us a little about your career to date and how you ended up in your current role?
I originally started out on the synthetic chemistry side working on small molecules and then later synthesis of cyclic and hybridized peptide molecules. My graduate supervisor Gilles Lajoie was an organic chemist who started up a core mass spectrometry facility for the characterization of peptides and later proteins, so I had a lot of early exposure to high end mass spectrometry as well as capillary LC technologies. I then joined Merck Frosst in Montreal in 2004 under Kevin Bateman and Debbie Nicoll-Griffith in the DMPK department, which was at the time rapidly updating and upgrading its LC-MS capabilities. In this time, I worked on various drug programs with tandem quadrupoles, traps and a number of Quadrupole TOF instruments doing quantitative work and progressively more and more characterization and profiling. In 2010, I decided to join Waters as part of the metabolic profiling team that focussed primarily on HRMS technologies for screening, profiling and imaging. A few years ago I started managing a small team of scientists focussed on DMPK applications. This team has progressively grown and I now manage a larger applications team split between the UK and US, which focusses on most areas of pharma, discovery, and natural products research all the way through development.
Do you believe the use of low flow LC (micro flow and nano flow) will continue to increase?
Yes, I think there is a really long term trend here. We are dealing with more complex problems and matrices, and at the same time we are targeting lower concentrations of conventional small molecule drugs. We are also working with proteins or protein-based drugs which can be very low concentration, very heterogeneous and also very analytically challenging. As these reagents are also incredibly expensive and in some cases highly toxic, learning to work with smaller amounts is very important. I think laboratories are starting to look for smaller platforms with more sophisticated integration, using less solvent and creating less waste. I think the most important thing is ease of use, and making this type of technology accessible and reproducible. With tile base low flow technologies such as ionKey, we have a lot of future capabilities to scale down analytical methods, build innovative assays and also explore diagnostics which are easily transportable from laboratory to laboratory.
What new technology/instrumentation do you believe has had the biggest impact during your time working with LC-MS for the identification, characterization and quantitation of metabolic and degradation pathways?
There are actually two things; one is that the LC-MS hardware just gets better, faster and more sensitive. However the biggest change in science generally is probably the use of informatics. How we build technologies to not only analyze samples, but derive and cross correlate meaningful information from the analysis of 1000s of patients and samples is getting more and more important as we target more complex diseases.
What are the challenges faced when using LC-MS technologies in the identification of metabolites?
We always say everything is compound dependent and it's true – every time you get a new molecule to analyse you have to use many different instruments. Humans and animals have evolved many different mechanisms to metabolize drugs and it's hard to predict the precise pathways ahead of time. You may be trying to solve separations problems as well. Finally, molecules are getting more complex all the time, especially within the area of drug development where complex biotherapeutics such as ADCs are common place in DMPK departments.
How can enantiomers of active metabolites be separated?
The best technologies we have at the moment are supercritical fluidic chromatography (SFC) for separations, systems like our UPC2 for analytical separations, or Prep SFC systems for larger scale separations. The Chemistry Group also has quite an active program putting out new chiral column technologies such as the Trefoil line. These technologies have a significant impact on understanding and isolating molecules, and also improving chemical manufacturing processes in pharmaceutical companies and in the natural product space.
You employ LC-MS in the identification of biotherapeutics; do you see LC-MS as a complimentary method to LBAs for biotherapeutic identification?
Yes, absolutely – I think LC-MS is actually a great complementary technology to many existing gold standard technologies. LBAs are very sensitive and amenable to high throughput screening and generally have very defined end points. On the other hand, LC-MS is able to develop assays very rapidly and you also have an element of teasing apart and interrogating the results. LBAs can vary in selectivity and cross selectivity, while LC-MS can help you assess heterogeneity and specificity of therapeutics and targets by direct interpretation of the data.
What are you looking forward to working on over the coming year?
I think that we're going to continue to drive detection limits down even further for all of our technologies. What I always look forward to is working with as many collaborators as I can with my team, to see how far we can push our technologies in the real world. Then, to take this information and work with the developments, engineers and scientists at Waters to help develop the next generation of technology you'll get to see in the next few years.


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Yes people, we have joined Team Blue! This is (almost) a foreign concept to me. I know girls very well. Having grown up with 8 sisters and having 4 nieces and a daughter of my own, I am well in tune with all things "sugar and spice and everything nice." As my Dad said, when I told him on the phone yesterday morning what we are having, "A little boy, what's that?!" ;)
I say "almost" a foreign concept because I do have 2 brothers somewhere in that mix of estrogen. They're now 20 and 14 years old so its been a while since I've had to change a little boy diaper or help wash...things...in the bath. Ha ha! I think that's the only thing at this point that's throwing me for a loop. There's one (small) thing to consider when you have a boy. Do you circumcise or not? And if you don't circumcise, how do you handle hygiene? Ah well, I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Andrew may have a little insight into this matter too considering he is a guy after all. :)
Well I'll be on here later to post some Photo-A-Day pictures to catch up from the weekend. In the meantime I'm off to research football, Tonka trucks and bugs.

subset: commoncrawl


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Mallory and I are having a lovely day together. Man, were we due for that. We ran errands this morning, to the grocery store and the nursery, and came home with a copy of the newly-released Snow White on DVD. Popped some popcorn and sat down for a movie on a bleary, rainy day. (I have some ideas for some photos I'd like to try with Mallory and I thought today would be the perfect opportunity to do them. So much for that idea.)
Right now, she is napping, and when she gets up we will be off to pick Liam up from school. I talked to his teacher this morning when we dropped him off and she informed me that yes, he actually did do show and tell. He didn't want to tell the kids anything about what he chose to take in, but he answered their questions. So why did he tell me he didn't do it at all? The child can't be trusted.
Oh, and the last ten minutes of last night's The Office was probably the best TV I've seen since the season 3 finale of Lost ("We have to go back, Kate! We have to go back!") I've watched it about ten times now. It was perfect.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Girls' day in
Posted by Carrie at 2:09 p.m.


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Enter your work address to calculate commute times to and from 312 Frio Ln.
Quiet street, tons of trees, exceptional schools! Beautifully upgraded, 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath WITH OFFICE & BONUS loft/game room in great Leander neighborhood. Gorgeous hardwood floors and tile in main first floor living spaces, berber carpet in bedrooms, fresh interior paint throughout. Kitchen recently renovated w/ huge fireclay farmhouse apron sink, subway tile, butcher block countertops! Main floor master, sprinkler system, indoor/outdoor surround sound entertainment. BEST VALUE HOME IN NEIGHBORHOOD!
|8320668 - Residential
|Sold - 36 days (42 days total)
|8320668 - Residential
|Pending - Taking Backups - 6 days
|8320668 - Residential
Property Listed by: City View Realty
The information being provided is for consumers' personal, non-commercial use and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing. Based on information from the Austin Board of REALTORS® (alternatively, from ACTRIS) from June 25th, 2018 at 6:40am CDT. Neither the Board nor ACTRIS guarantees or is in any way responsible for its accuracy. The Austin Board of REALTORS®, ACTRIS and their affiliates provide the MLS and all content therein "AS IS" and without any warranty, express or implied. Data maintained by the Board or ACTRIS may not reflect all real estate activity in the market. All information provided is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified.


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About Us:
Bleacher Report is one of Turner's leading digital businesses. B/R is the site and app of choice for the next generation of sports fans. The company attracts millions of sports fans every month with its fun, comprehensive, and entertaining team-based content. Since being acquired by Turner Sports in August 2012, the company has gained all the advantages of a large media company while maintaining its vibrant start-up culture.
About the Role:
B/R is seeking a temporary UK copy editor, aka sub-editor, to review sports content remotely (work from home) for the B/R app and social channels, supplementing our editorial quality control coverage during a four-month period that will most importantly include the World Cup and the world football transfer windows.
Copy editors are responsible for reviewing all content bound for these channels, assuring the highest quality in regard to writing mechanics, analytical arguments, factual/statistical support, copy editing, multimedia elements and formatting prior to approval.
Copy editors, aka sub-editors, must also communicate efficiently and effectively across teams to fix substantive issues. Successful candidates will possess the right balance of sports expertise, prior editing experience, familiarity with established editorial standards and practices, exceptional communication skills, and dedication to the team's mission to grow and protect the site.
This is a temporary position requiring 20 hours per week. Telecommuting will be considered for exceptional candidates.
The position requires a flexible work schedule, including the ability to work nights and weekends.
Required Skills/Experience:
- 1-2 years of prior editing experience in journalism
- Expert knowledge in football and comfort in working with content about some of the U.S. sports covered by Bleacher Report
- Exceptional verbal and written communication skills
- High attention to detail
- Experience with all forms of digital and social media; ability to quickly fact-check content and evaluate the credibility of source material
- Positive attitude, patient demeanor and ability to maintain composure in stressful situations
- Ability to work remotely and multi-task without sacrificing attention to detail
- Proficiency with the following (or similar) resources: Gmail, Slack, Google Hangout, Google Docs/Forms
- Degree in journalism, English, communication studies or related field
Preferred skills/experience
- 1-3 years of prior editing experience in sports journalism, including football (World Cup, Champions League, etc.)
- Direct prior experience or familiarity with Bleacher Report content, writers and programming channels (B/R app, social media pages, site homepage, newsletters, etc.)
How to apply
To proceed with your application please click the "Apply Online" button below
Interested applicants should submit a resume AND a brief cover letter describing their specific qualifications for the position. Applicants who do not include a brief cover letter with their resume will not be considered.
Subscribe to our email job alerts to get more jobs like this and/or follow @journalism_jobs on Twitter.


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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The Grumpy Old Men
I recently turned 28 which (at age ten I informed my 29 year old cousin) is really, really, really old. The thing is I don't feel that old except that my body occasionally hurts now after I play basketball for three hours. Unfortunately little things have made me more and more aware of how I'm much different then five years ago. Like the fact that Brown Guy and I have conversations about things like furnishing, cutlery and retirement plans and less discussions of female anatomy, eating large amounts of food in one sitting, video games and shots at the bar. The worst part is that it feels normal not to talk about these things as much. Any attempt to recapture youth is dangerously close to being "those old creepy guys" trying to act 20.
In an attempt to recapture my "youth" I went with three other 27 year-olds and purchased an Xbox 360 for myself for my birthday. (My wife has yet to get me a gift, a story for another day) And no I haven't gotten Halo 3 yet, it's sold out in the DC area apparently . . .
6 comments:
- Brown Guy said...
I REALLY need some new cutlery!
That's real.
- November 27, 2007 at 4:41 PM
- Swami Says said...
Is it sad that at 25 I already prefer to have those conversations? You should see my kitchenware. No lie. It's hot to death.
- November 27, 2007 at 4:50 PM
I'm in the prime of my life but it feels like its about to end
- November 28, 2007 at 2:38 AM
- mike cochran said...
I hear ya... I played football on Friday, and my legs still hurt 5 days later! Let me know when you get halo3!
-Taco Bell Mike
- November 28, 2007 at 9:04 AM
- Muki said...
I still mix in the former conversations with the latter, but everyone I go to school with is 22. Taco Bell Mike - Let's play some Halo. You know, two weeks from now, that is.
- November 28, 2007 at 10:39 AM
- mike cochran said...
What is your live account? Mine is 'Mike Eats Tacos'
- November 28, 2007 at 10:48 AM
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


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|This long range forecast for the winter, issued by
U.S. government forecasters in November
did not capture how cold the winter would be
in the eastern half of the nation.
If that came true, maybe my fuel heating bill wouldn't be as high and nasty as it otherwise might have been.
Well, as you all know, that forecast was pretty much wrong.
Much of the nation east of the Rockies has had a good old fashioned cold winter. Not the coldest ever, not the most extreme, but pretty darn cold.
The entire winter wasn't exactly one Big Fat Giant January thaw.
The not-so-great forecast from the Cimate Prediction Center is more evidence that mid-range forecasts, weeks and months out are lousy. A lot more research needs to be done to make them better.
It would be extremely helpful to have reliable forecasts for weeks and months down the road. Yeah, the accurate forecast for tomorrow can tell us whether to bring an overcoat or an umbrella, but in the grand scheme of things that's not totally crucial for the greater good of society.
What if long range forecasts for weeks or months down the road were reliable and accurate? Water managers in California, for instance, would be able to tell how stringent water regulations should be because they'd know whether the drought there was going to get worse or not.
Midwest farmers would have a good idea about what kind of rainfall and heat the summer would bring, which would inform them as to what crops to plant, when to plant them, which pests will most need controlling and when to harvest.
Less important but still crucial, here in Vermont, ski resorts would know in advance if an upcoming winter would bring lots of snow or not, which would influence their long term plans on snowmaking and how much staff to hire to serve skiers and riders.
And yes, if long range forecasters were accurate, I would have been better able to predict how much cash I would have had to fork over to keep my house warm all winter.
The reason long range forecasts weeks or months down the road are so lame is scientists don't have a great understanding as to why large scale weather patterns set up the way they do, and when they do.
For instance, forecasters didn't count on a persistent ridge of high pressure along the West Coast of the United States this winter.
That ridge worsened the California drought, and re-arranged the jet stream so that it delivered repeated Arctic blasts of frigid air to the eastern half of the nation this winter.
Scientists want to better understand why things like the western ridge developed. It has to do with a complex web of changing ocean currents and temperatures, poorly understood weather phenomenon on one side of the globe that affect much of the rest of the planet, and probably atmospheric mysteries that scientists don't even realize exist yet.
The Climate Prediction Center does implicitly acknowledge their long range forecasts are iffy. Back in the fall, they did have vast swaths of the country in an "equal chances" catagory when the December-February forecast came out, reflecting the inherent uncertainty of predictions two or three months out.
There were bits and pieces of the forecast that were accurate, so it's not all bad. The prediction called for below normal temperatures in the northern Plains, which was right. It also said New England would probably be on the warm side.
This winter, New England wasn't warm, necessarily, but the region wasn't as far below normal temperature wise as the Midwest, Middle Atlantic States and South. Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, for instance, are only slightly cooler than average for this winter.
Given the unreliability of long range forecasts, don't ask me what kind of spring and summer we're going to have. All I can tell you is we will have bright days and dark nights, most afternoons will be warmer than most nights, and if the wind blows, the breeze will come out of a direction.
That's about as good as anybody can do.


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This article describes how to read the Tally Server Response after a XML request is sent using the Send() function. To begin with, let us see the C language declaration of the Send() function.
C language declaration of the Send() function
int __stdcall Send(message);
- The send function returns an Integer value (Zero for success, otherwise the error-code).
- If the return value is Zero, it implies that the XML request has been successfully sent to the Tally server.
Analysing the Tally Server Response
As mentioned above, if the Send() function returns 0 (Zero), it implies that the XML Request has been successfully sent to the Tally Server. The XML requested can be either reading or writing data to the Tally' database. Example of XML Request:-
- Export (read) any report data (Trial balance, Ledger etc.)
- Import (write) any master or voucher data to Tally's database
- If you had requested for any Report, the Tally Server response will contain the Report data.
- If you had requested for writing data to Tally's database, the Tally Server response will contain details whether a new records is created; or altered or deleted.
C language declaration of ResponseText() function
LPSTR __stdcall ResponseText(void);
You can either display the response message in a Message-Box or parse it using XML DOM. Use the following VB code to parse the response message and check if any errors are there or not.
Sample VB code
Set ChildNodes = XMLDOM.SelectNodes("/RESPONSE/LINEERROR")
if (ChildNodes.Length > 0) then
MsgBox "Tally write error"
MsgBox "Success"
end if
For more information about using XML DOM, please refer the topic "Using XML DOM" in "RTSlink - An Insight" document which can be downloaded from www.rtslink.com/downloads.html
Shweta Computers


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Updates On Swift Secrets For moving company
Tips to Picking the most effective Relocating Company
Like within any industry, the household goods company has its share of rogue firms that have actually been understood to prey on the general public. From turned downing for cases, shed items and also holding the customer's products for "ransom", files of abuse by moving business happen all too often.
Most of these consumer abuses occur by those moving companies that are running under their very own authority and also are normally not associated with a significant van line. These rogue movers will often work under their own generic "van line" name.
Forty million individuals relocate yearly and also the large bulk are completed with customer satisfaction by both, van lines and independent moving companies. These moving companies also often tend with the adverse effect positioned on them and also the market by the deceptive companies that make use of the consumer.
The major cause for the customer who gets caught in among these relocating scams usually lies with working with the most affordable priced moving company. Economics is certainly reasonable, but opting for the most inexpensive cost is normally a dish for catastrophe. Substantial study as well as understanding just how the moving sector operates, play key factors in working with the best relocating business for your relocation.
With May through October being the busiest time for moving companies, the optimal moving period will soon be coming close to and there are actions that customers can take to raise their possibilities of obtaining a care-free action:
Never ever employ a relocating broker
Make certain the moving firm has actually been in business for at least 7-10 years
See their office to make certain they are that they say they are
Never ever allow an "estimate" over the phone
Make certain their trucks reveal the suitable markings as needed under federal regulation
Check them out with the Bbb (BBB).
Inspect their ICC number against the FMCSA documents.
These are merely a few actions that customers can require to verify a relocating company's credibility and document especially when it concerns saving your home products.
The majority of relocating companies supply storage establishments must you have to save your things up until your home awaits the move-in procedure. Moving firms holding the consumer's items in storage space for "ransom" have actually been documented as well as the FMCSA is now implementing regulations against these sort of movers through the Map-21 Act.
Although these kind of incidents do occur, it is most often done by independent moving companies not associated with a significant van line. If you should position your valuables in storage space, it is advised to deal only with a significant van line that is famous; not with an independent moving firm or a business which operates under its own "van moving vans lines" name.
Although lots of independents can be trusted, the vital factor below is for you, the customer, to have assurance. The greatest peace of mind you can have is to position your storage in a storage space center that you have complete control over such as a mini-storage establishment.
By utilizing a self-storage center, you and also only you will certainly hold the trick and accessibility rights to your items. If you are concerned with a feasible "ransom money" fraud by movers, this would relieve any type of concerns of such an incident happening.
Via study and examination and also completely recognizing the household items moving process, customers could avoid ending up being the following victim to moving fraud.


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Contact Us
New York, NY 10017
We are conveniently located in Midtown East, near Rockefeller Center and Grand Central Station, just minutes from the 4, 5, 6, B, D, F, M, 7, and E trains. Also easily reached by the M1, M2, M3, or M4 buses.
Hours of Operation:
M-Th 12pm - 8pm
Fri 8am - 3pm
New York, NY 10013
Located in beautiful TriBeCa, a very short walk from the A, C, E (blue font) and 1 (red) trains. Also close to the N, Q, R, W (yellow) and 6 (green) trains.
Hours of Operation:
M/W 12pm - 8pm
T/Th 7am - 8pm
Fri 9am - 4pm


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I feel it's time to speak openly about erectile dysfunction. This can be the only technique to explain all the present doubts concerning this condition and to search for a definitive Alternative. It really is embarrassing, I do know, no one likes referring to it and even admiting it, but the reality is that almost all Males are likely to expertise … Read More
The Erectile Booster Method will not only help your sexual daily life, but it surely will likely assist you attain again the confidence you shed when struggling from this condition.Believe me, I've been there. My erectile dysfunction was causing all kind of difficulties in my existence. I even obtained divorced. It was not The difficulty by itsel… Read More
I think it is time to talk brazenly about erectile dysfunction. This is actually the only strategy to make clear all the present uncertainties relating to this condition and to search for a definitive Answer. It's uncomfortable, I understand, no-one likes discussing it or maybe admiting it, but the truth is that many Males are more likely to practi… Read More
A guy named Alex, which for privacy factors determined not to reveal his final identify, is the creator on the Erectile Booster Method.Numerous folks worldwide suffer from erectile dysfunction at some point inside their lives, no matter if It truly is an ongoing issue or perhaps a momentary surprise. However, when is a single time a lot of, and it … Read More
The ED only appears to be finding even worse. I detest that it doesn't do the job like it accustomed to. What a dive do you have for me. I exercise four times weekly and appear like I am in my early forty's. Be sure to aid me.Trust me, I've been there. My erectile dysfunction was triggering all type of problems in my lifestyle. I even acquire… Read More


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Results = Regimentation + Repetition + Ritualization
- Amir Siddiqui (Check him out on FB https://www.facebook.com/amirofthebody/posts/816216408438322?fref=nf&pnref=story )
While he was talking about training in the gym, isn't the same true for training in writing too? To see any results in writing, we need to have to regiment our day, repeat it everyday and have a ritual that spurs us on to write. Read http://www.copyblogger.com/writing-rituals/ to know more about some popular writing rituals.
"Rituals that bring us together and that help us map out the patterns of our days are far more vital than you'd think. Without mundane time-milestones like breakfast, lunch, dinner, weekends, a yearly vacation, and a periodic raise, we can go crazy. Those who suffer from structure deprivation fill the emptiness of chaotic hours with alcohol, gambling, compulsive shopping, compulsive eating, and even with compulsive picking at every micro-hillock of skin their restless fingers can find and try to pry loose." --- Howard Bloom
I hated being regimented during my childhood. My mother had these strict hours she followed (and made us follow) everyday for meals and sleep. Our study time and TV time were fixed and unchangeable. This bled into the weekends too. While we fought and argued about it with her many times, it did bring in big results in my life and my brother's too. For starters, we were toppers in school and college all through our life. We were healthy and happy. We had various family rituals of togetherness, festival rituals and vacation rituals which are a part of our most cherished memories now. As the years sped by, these rituals became habits and they remained so till we got married.
Suddenly, we were no longer in the military rule. We were completely free. We could sleep in the entire day, have a bath at any odd hour, no one will ask us to switch off the television, we can order in any day, any time we like and we could eat anywhere (even on our bed) at anytime we please. Since my brother and I are self employed, this also means we can goof off as no one monitors the hours we work. This seemed like the ultimate bliss. I did live by this laissez-faire approach for a few years till I realised babies thrive on routine. Either you create a routine for them or else they would create one that might not be so pleasant for you. Rituals and routines came back into my life but were never regimented like before. If they had been, then my writing would have been on another plane now.
I sorely miss the order and routine my mother had got into my life. My brother and I had such perfect habits as children. We woke up at the same time every day, we watched half an hour of television at the same time every day, we studied for the same number of hours at the same time every day irrespective of whether we had exams the next day or not and we went to bed at the same time too. (We got an extra hour on weekends!)
I think it is time I regimented my life again. The last experiment I had tried was to write every day, at least a 100 words, in the current fiction project on hand and I have been successfully pulling it off for the last few months. The mental peace and emotional satisfaction from this achievement have been awesome. Now, the next challenge is to take it further. I'm planning to have a daily routine and structure, that will be followed with strict discipline, for all those mundane every day activities like sleep, meals, etc. so that my time can give way for those life-changing dreams like writing, a fit body and knowledge. I'll keep you all updated on how it goes.
Meanwhile, do you have daily routines, writing rituals, etc.? Share them here to inspire me.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Monday, December 1, 2014
Lessons learnt from Nanowrimo - Wordcount Obsession
'What is this obsession with wordcount? Does wordcount count?' I have wondered many times. Did Shakespeare think of it? Did Doris Lessing count her words every day? Does Jhumpa Lahiri do it? Is NaNoWriMo actually making a big difference in the lives of innumerable writers? Are we sacrificing quality for quantity? With all these questions haunting my mind, I picked up 'Ernest Hemingway on Writing' yesterday. It has a place right in the front of my bookshelf because I pick it up often, open any page randomly for a dose of inspiration. You can compare this to taking a cowboy taking a swig out of the whisky flask just before he kicks off on his horse. This time, I got this…
"I loved to write very much and was never happier than doing it. Charlie's (Scribner's) ridiculing of my daily word count was because he did not understand me or writing especially well nor could know how happy one felt to have put down properly 422 words as you wanted them to be. And days of 1200 or 2700 were something that made you happier than you could believe. Since I found that 400 to 600 well done was a pace I could hold much better was always happy with that number. But if I only had 320 I felt good."
- Ernest Hemingway
Then the prolific Stephen King says in his book 'Stephen King on Writing',
"I like to get 10 pages a day – amounts to 2000 words – only under dire circumstances do I allow myself to shut down before I get my 2000 words."
Suddenly it struck me that R.K.Narayan also says in his book 'My Days' that he sticks to 1000 words a day every day. Nanowrimo asks for just 1667 words a day. It's just that we have days when we skip it, laze it and then end up doing 5000 – 10000 words to catch up. When we skip these goals in our everyday life, there is no Nanowrimo to hold us accountable. We should have a Nanowrimo every month.
Writing is a lonely profession with no fixed salaries, recognition or instant credit. It is easy for one to lose focus on the way and go astray. It is easy to grow lazy and hard to overcome the tedium. Every November, a jolt hits us, shakes us up, gets us writing and reaffirms our faith in ourselves. Even today, I had to force myself to say 'no' to an outing with friends. Writing needs to shift from my back seat to my front seat. In fact, I think I should allow it into the driver's seat and take my life in the direction that it should actually be going.
"If you have the opportunity to live an extraordinary life, you have no right to keep it to yourself"
- Jacques Cousteau
December has now dawned on us – the month of revisions and editing. I wonder what the new year is to bring and I pray and hope that it is writing, writing and more writing with a bit of publishing (*fingers crossed) thrown in.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Mastery by Robert Greene – A Summary (Part IV)
Chapter IV See People as they are: Social Intelligence
The greatest obstacle to the pursuit of mastery comes from the emotional drain we experience in dealing with the resistance and manipulations of the people around us. Social Intelligence is the ability to see people in the most realistic light possible. Navigating smoothly the social environment, we have more time and energy to focus on learning and acquiring skills. Success attained without this intelligence is not true mastery, and will not last.
When interacting with people, view them from a detached position and do not get emotional. Focus completely on the people and cut off your own insecurities and desires from the equation. Have complete and radical acceptance of human nature just as how one accepts the thorns on a rose. To get upset or try to alter them is futile – it will only make them bitter and resentful.
"You must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be: and all you should strive to do is to make use of this character in such a way as its kind of nature permits, rather than to hope for any alteration in it, or to condemn it offhand for what it is. This is the truest sense of the maxim – Live and let live… To become indignant at (people's) conduct is as foolish as to be angry with a stone because it rolls into your path. And with many people the wisest thing you can do, is to resolve to make use of those whom you cannot alter."
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Benjamin Franklin was hopelessly naïve and completely misread the intentions of people around him. After facing many problems, he took efforts to gain social intelligence and that became the turning point of his career. With tranquil and productive social relations, he could focus more of his time and attention to writing, to questions of science, ti his endless inventions – to mastery.
Your view of people is dominated by the Naïve Perspective. Following Franklin's example, you can reach this awareness by reviewing your past, paying particular attention to any battles, mistakes, tensions, or disappointments on the social front. If you look at these events from the Naïve Perspective, you will focus only on what other people have done to you – the mistreatments you endured fr5om them, the slights or injuries you felt. Instead you must turn this around and begin with yourself – how you saw in others qualities they did not possess, or how you ignored signs of a dark side to their nature. In doing this, you will be able to see the discrepancy between your illusions about who they are and the reality, and the role you played in creating this discrepancy. If you look closely enough, you can often perceive in your relationships with bosses or superiors re-enactments of the childhood family dynamic – the idealizing or demonizing that has become habitual.
Adjust your attitude but do not become cynical. The best attitude is one of supreme acceptance. Observe the human comedy and be as tolerant as possible. Social intelligence contains two components – general knowledge of human nature and specific knowledge of human nature. The deep analysis of these two components need to be read in full and practised as they are too valuable to be summarised.
Strategies for acquiring Social Intelligence
1. Speak through your work
Understand that your work is the single greatest means at your disposal for expressing your social intelligence. By being efficient and detail oriented in what you do, you demonstrate that you are thinking of the group at large and advancing its cause. By making what you write or present clear and easy to follow, you show your care for the audience or public at large. By involving other people in your projects and gracefully accepting their feedback, you reveal your comfort with the group dynamic. Work that is solid also protects you from the political conniving and malevolence of others – it is hard to argue with the results you produce. If you are experiencing the pressures of political manoeuvring within the group, do not lose your head and become consumed with all of the pettiness. By remaining focused and speaking socially through your work, you will both continue to raise your skill level and stand out among all others who make a lot of noise but produce nothing.
2. Craft the appropriate persona
Understand that people will tend to judge you based on your outward appearance. If you are not careful and simply assume that it is best to be yourself, they will begin to ascribe to you all kinds of qualities that have little to do with who you are but correspond to what they want to see. All of this can confuse you, make you feel insecure, and consume your attention. Internalizing their judgements, you will find it hard to focus on your work. Your only protection is to turn this around by consciously moulding these appearances, creating the image that suits you, and controlling people's judgments. At times you will find it appropriate to stand back and create some mystery around you, heightening your presence. At other times you will want to be more direct and impose a more specific appearance. In general, you never settle on one image or give people the power to completely figure you out. You are always one step ahead of the public.
Creating such a persona is not evil or demonic. We all wear masks in the social arena, playing different roles in different environments. You are simply becoming more conscious of the process. Play to the public. Give them something compelling and pleasurable to witness.
3. See yourself as others see you
We all have social flaws like that we talk too much or are too honest in our criticisms of people offense too easily when others do not respond positively to our ideas. If we repeat instances of such behaviour often enough, we tend to offend people without ever really knowing why.
We need to learn to see ourselves objectively. To do this, we should look at negative events in the past unemotionally. Dissect these occurrences and see what you did that either triggered or worsened the dynamic. In looking at several such incidents, we might begin to see a pattern that indicates a particular flaw in our character. We can also elicit opinions from those we trust about our behaviour, making certain to first reassure them that we want their criticisms.
4. Suffer fools gladly
Fools have a different scale of values. They place importance on short term matters – grabbing immediate money, getting attention from the public or media, and looking good. They are ruled by their ego and insecurities. They tend to enjoy drama and political intrigue for their own sake. When they criticize, they always emphasize matters that are irrelevant to the overall picture or argument. They are more interested in career or position than in the truth. You can distinguish them by how little they get done, or by how hard they make it for others to get results. They lack a certain common sense, getting worked up about things that are not really important while ignoring problems that will spell doom in the long term.
The natural tendency with fools is to lower yourself to their level. They annoy you, get under your skin, and draw you into a battle. In the process, you feel petty and confused. You simply waste valuable time and emotional energy.
In dealing with fools you must adopt the following philosophy: they are simply a part of life, like rocks or furniture. Smile at their antics and tolerate their presence as you would a foolish child. Avoid the madness of trying to change them. It is all part of human comedy, and it is nothing to get upset about or lose sleep over. If they are causing you trouble, you must neutralize the harm they do by keeping a steady eye on your goals and what is important, and ignoring them if you can.
"It is a great folly to hope that other men will harmonize with us; I have never hoped this. I have always regarded each man as an independent individual, whom I endeavoured to understand with all his peculiarities, but from whom I desired no further sympathy. In this way have I been enabled to converse with every man, and thus alone is produced the knowledge of various characters and the dexterity necessary for the conduct of life."
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Mysteries behind the Writing Process
"You learn writing by writing." I have so often heard this phrase and as the days go by, I understand the truths underlying behind it. When I wrote a first draft and completed it last year, it was futile to try and edit it. I didn't know where to start and how to proceed further. It was because I can never write a book linearly, chronologically. I might be writing about how they had broken up yesterday and then write about how they fell in love today. So, at the end of the first draft, I had these massive bunch of pages that talk about the various scenes in people's lives. The point of view and voices might change a lot between the scenes too. That's why, short stories and poetry pretty much fitted me easily. I could hardly wander much there. Even if I did tend to, like the loyal sheep dog herding sheep, my pen would be herded by my stoic left brain to get back into the fence.
Something changed this time around. I started thinking about plotting and structure. My good bunch of NaNoWriMo friends told me plotting was not so bad for a pantser like me. So, after writing about nearly half of the first draft, I took a break to think. NaNoWriMo is just writing – just word count – thinking is not permitted. For 2-3 days, as my WC backlogged, I mulled over my story and then made some index cards. I wrote down a few lines about each scene I had written. Then, I placed them into the three act structure and marked the scenes pivotal to the hero's journey. Quickly, I realised the scenes that were missing. Along the way, a perfectly thrilling climax showed itself up in my brain. I jotted it all down in more cards and placed them in their right slots. Hey presto, I was holding a cohesive draft in my hand.
I am still a pantser. It was after writing some 25000 words that I found out how the story ended. By the way, I have another early draft done some years ago for which I could never find an ending. So, at times, I shudder when I think what if I hadn't found an end to this too. Then I remember Stephen King's advice to keep writing as the characters do have to come out somewhere. Now, for the first time, I have an interconnected organised consistent draft. It still needs tons of editing but that is another story altogether.
Once this story is done, I am going back to those two drafts. They were wonderful tales, close to my heart and I'm going to give it my all to help them see the light of the day. Wish me luck!
Friday, November 21, 2014
Mastery by Robert Greene – A Summary (Part III)
Chapter III Absorb the Master's Power: The Mentor Dynamic
Though it is rare luck to actually find a successful writer to mentor you, agents and publishers can be a huge help. Similarly, Greene says, if your circumstances limit your contacts, books can serve as temporary mentors. In such a case you will want to convert such books and writers into living mentors as much as possible. You personalize their voice, interact with the material, taking notes or writing in the margins. You analyse what they write and try to make it come alive – the spirit and not just the letter of their work.
To reach mastery requires some toughness and a constant connection to reality. As an apprentice, it can be hard for us to challenge ourselves on our own in the proper way, and to get a clear sense of our own weaknesses. Developing discipline through challenging situations and perhaps suffering along the way are no longer values that are promoted in our culture. People are increasingly reluctant to tell each other the truth about themselves – their weaknesses, their inadequacies, flaws in their work. This is abusive in the long run. It makes it hard for people to gauge where they are or to develop self-discipline. It makes them unsuited for the rigors of the journey to mastery. It weakens people's will.
Strategies for deepening the mentor dynamic
1. Choose the mentor according to your needs and inclinations
2. Gaze deep into the mentor's mirror
3. Transfigure their ideas
4. Create a back-and-forth dynamic
Thomas Alva Edison had no schools or teachers in his life. He turned to books, particularly anything he could find on science. In every city he spent time in, he frequented the public library. when he found Michael Faraday's two-volume Experimental Researches in Electricity, he followed all the experiments laid out in it and absorbed Faraday's philosophical approach to science. Faraday became his role model.
Through books, experiments and practical experience at various jobs, Edison gave himself a rigorous education that lasted about 10 years. What made this successful was his relentless desire to learn through whatever crossed his path, as well as his self-discipline. He had developed the habit of overcoming his lack of an organized education by sheer determination and persistence.
If you are forced into this path, you must follow Edison's example by developing extreme self-reliance. You become your own teacher and mentor. You push yourself to learn from every possible source. You read more books than those who have a formal education, developing this into a lifelong habit. As much as possible, you try to apply your knowledge in some form of experiment or practice. You find for yourself second degree mentors in the form of public figures who can serve as role models. Reading and reflecting on their experiences, you can gain some guidance.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Mastery by Robert Greene – A Summary (Part II)
Chapter II Submit to Reality: The Ideal Apprenticeship
Though writing is not provided as an apprenticeship, still there can be lots learned from reading and analysing the works of great writers, which in turn is a kind of passive apprenticeship.
The Apprenticeship Phase has 3 stages:
1) Deep Observation - The Passive Mode
In this stage, we see how things work here, the rules of the land, the power relationships, and communications flow. For a would-be author, this could mean the way publishing works, the major players, the way to approach publishers, queries, formats, etc.
2) Skills Acquisition - The Practice Mode
Apprentices usually learn the trade by watching the masters and imitating them as closely as possible. They learn through endless repetition and hands-on work. They need to focus deeply and not make mistakes, as the materials they worked on were expensive in the Middle Ages. Our brain is most suited to this kind of learning.
The cycle of accelerated returns occurs when practice becomes easier and more interesting, leading to the ability to practice for longer hours which increases skill level and makes practice even more interesting. Reaching this stage should be our goal and this is how we can do it:
a) Begin with one skill that you can master and that serves as foundation for acquiring others. Develop concentration and avoid multi-tasking. For an author, this could mean concentrating on character development before moving on to dialogue, point of view, voice, plot, structure, description and so on.
b) The initial stages of learning a skill involve tedium. We need to accept and embrace this pain and boredom. Greene says researchers have found out that it takes around 10,000 hours (around 7-10 years of solid practice) to attain this level of expertise and this applies to not only composers, chess players and athletes but writers too.
3) Experimentation – The Active Mode
This is the stage wherein we expose our work to public, get criticism and work on it. We invent our own style, move past fears and develop a detachment to the work – looking at it through the eyes of others.
Strategies for completing the Ideal Apprenticeship
1) Value learning over money
When Benjamin Franklin turned down the proposal to get into his father's lucrative candle making business and entered his brother's fickle printing business, no one knew that he did it because he was determined to become a writer. The new books all around him gave him a chance to study the texts in detail and teach himself how to imitate their style in his own work. Martha Graham says, 'train yourself to get by with little money and make the most of your youthful energy.' Your thoughts will tend to revolve around what you value most and you must value learning above everything else.
2) Keep expanding your horizons
Zora Neale Hurston lost her mother when she was 13 and was abandoned by her father. She wandered among her various relatives and supported herself doing housekeeping. In spite of it all, the mind is free and it can wander across time and space. She did not let go of her dream to become a writer. She chose the homes of the wealthiest white people who had plenty of books for her housecleaning jobs. She memorised portions on the sly and went over it in her head whenever she had free time. She got a strange sort of literary education. As the years passed by, she advanced her knowledge, gained formal knowledge and became the first black female writer ever to make a living from her work. Her story tells us that
Ø No one will give you direction
Ø You have to do it yourself, and
Ø With great energy
Ø Reading books and materials that go beyond what is required is always a good starting point.
Ø Mingle with different types of people
Ø Outside schooling helps
Ø Be relentless in your pursuit for expansion.
3) Revert to a feeling of inferiority
Learning disabilities tend to fester and grow in our minds as we grow older. This includes smugness and superiority as well as rigid ideas about what is real or true. Revert to a feeling of dependence.
4) Trust the process
What separates Masters from others is often something surprisingly simple. Whenever we learn a skill, we frequently reach a point of frustration – what we are learning seems beyond our capabilities. It is not just a matter of determination but also trust and faith. We need to overcome this frustration and enter the cycle of accelerated returns.
When it comes to mastering a skill, time is the magic ingredient. Impatience, boredom, panic, frustration and insecurity are the real impediments.
5) Move toward resistance and pain
When John Keats was 8, his father passed away and his mother died 7 years later. Being the eldest child, he was taken out of school and enrolled as an apprentice to a surgeon. However, he had developed a love for literature in the last few terms at school and he returned to school during off-hours and read as many book as he could in the library. He wanted to try his hand at writing poetry. So, he read the works of all the greatest poets of the 17th and 18th centuries. He then wrote his own poems, using the poetic form and style of the particular writer he was trying to model himself after. He had a knack for imitation and soon he was creating verses in dozens of different styles, always tweaking them a little with his own voice.
Several years into this process, Keats decided to devote his life to writing poetry. He needed to make a living at it. To complete the rigorous apprenticeship he had already put himself through, he decided that what he needed was to write a very long poem about 4000 lines in seven months. He will write 50 lines a day, until he had a first draft. After some 3000 lines, he hated the poem he was writing but still he willed his way through and met the deadline he had set.
In the aftermath of writing what he considered to be a mediocre poem, Keats learned some valuable lessons:
a) He would never ever suffer from writer's block again – he had trained himself to write past any obstacle
b) He had acquired now the habit of writing quickly, with intensity and focus – concentrating his work in a few hours.
c) He could revise with equal speed
d) He had learned how to criticize himself and his overly romantic tendencies.
e) He could look at his own work with a cold eye.
f) He had learned that it was in the actual writing of the poem that the best ideas would often come to him, and that he had to boldly keep writing or he would miss such discoveries.
g) He had also hit upon the style that suited him – language as compact and dense with imagery as possible, with not a single wasted line.
By nature, we humans shrink from anything that seems possibly painful or overtly difficult. Knowing that in our practice we can let down our guard, since we are not being watched or under pressure to perform, we bring to this a kind of dispersed attention. We tend to get conventional in our practice routines and follow what others have done. To attain mastery, you must adopt RESISTANCE PRACTICE:
1) You resist the temptation to be nice to yourself. You become your own worst critic. You recognise your weaknesses and you work on it. You find a kind of perverse pleasure in moving past the pain this might bring.
2) You resist the lure of easing up on your focus. Concentrate in practice with double the intensity. You give yourself arbitrary deadlines to meet certain standards, constantly pushing yourself past perceived limits. In this way you develop your own standards for excellence, generally higher than those of others.
6) Apprentice yourself in failure
There are two kinds of failure-
1) Failure from never trying out ideas since you are afraid or because you are waiting for the perfect time. This timidity will destroy you as you can never learn from this kind of failure.
2) Failure from a bold and venturesome spirit. The hit to your reputation in this case will be far outweighed by what you learn. So, act on your ideas as early as possible, expose them to public and have a part of you hope they will fail.
7) Combine the "how" and the "what"
We live in two worlds - the world of appearances, the forms of things that captivate our eye and the world of "how", how things function, their anatomy, the parts that work together to form the whole. Some five hundred years ago, art and science split. Renaissance combined these two forms of knowledge and this is why the works of Leonardo da Vinci still fascinates us. A more rounded knowledge is the way of the future as so much information is now available to us. This should be a part of our apprenticeship.
8) Advance through trial and error
You must learn as many skills as possible. You should avoid the trap of following one set career path. Though you don't know where it will lead, you should take full advantage of the openness of information. You see what kind of work suits you and what you want to avoid at all costs. You move by trial and error.
There are no shortcuts or ways to bypass the apprenticeship phase. Mozart and Einstein seem to appear like creative geniuses out of nowhere. Mozart started when he was four. He wrote his original and substantial piece of music after 10 years of composing. Einstein began his serious thought experiments when he was 16 and came up with his first revolutionary theory of relativity after 10 years.
"It is like chopping down a huge tree of immense girth. You won't accomplish it with one swing of your axe. If you keep chopping away at it, though, and do not let up, eventually, whether it wants to or not, it will suddenly topple down. When that time comes, you round up everyone you could find and pay them to hold the tree up, but they wouldn't be able to do it. It would still come crushing to the ground… But if the woodcutter stopped after one or two strokes of his axe to ask the third son of Mr. Chang, "Why doesn't this tree fall?" And after three or four more strokes stopped again to ask the fourth son of Mr. Li, "Why doesn't this tree fall?" he would never succeed in felling the tree. It is no different for someone who is practicing the Way."
- Zen Master Hakun
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Mastery by Robert Greene – A Summary (Part I)
Mastery by Robert Greene – A Summary (Part I)
I have reviewed this book before but after the second reading, I realised that the concepts within its pages are intense and the ideas too many that having a summary would definitely help me.
Disclaimer: This summary is my interpretation of the book to suit my pursuits, dreams and goals.
"Why do we need mastery? Why work years when you can achieve so much power with so little effort? Technology will solve everything." Do not have this passivity. Do not believe the moral stance that says, 'mastery and power are evil'. You will unconsciously lower your sights as to what you can accomplish in life. This can diminish your levels of effort and discipline below the point of effectiveness. Do not listen more to others than to your own voice. Do not choose a career based on what peers and parents tell you or on what seems lucrative. Lack of true desire will catch up with you and your work will become mechanical. So,
a) See your attempt at attaining mastery as something extremely necessary and positive. The passive ironic attitude is not cool or romantic, but pathetic and destructive.
b) People get the mind and quality of brain that they deserve through their actions in life. Work to see how far you can extend control of your circumstances and create the kind of mind you desire.
As you progress, old ideas and perspectives die off; as new powers are unleashed, you are initiated into higher levels of seeing the world. Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay.
"The geniuses all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman who first learns to construct the parts properly before he ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole." – Friedrich Nietzsche.
Section I Discover your calling: The Life's Task
"Just as a well-filled day brings blessed sleep, so a well-employed life brings a blessed death." – Leonardo da Vinci.
The way to mastery can begin at any point in life. The process of realizing your Life's Task comes in 3 stages:
1) You must connect or reconnect with your inclinations - that sense of uniqueness. This step is inward. Clear away confusing voices (parents and peers) and look for an underlying pattern, a core to your character that you must understand as deeply as possible.
2) Look at the career path you already on or are about to begin. The choice of this path – or redirection of it – is critical. Talking about work-life balance seems illogical as work forms a large part of life. To see work as a means to earn money to seek pleasure in the hours after work is a sad way of experiencing life. Work should be inspiring and engaging. (I have some reservations with this view of Greene. Isn't it said that an artist works better on a filled stomach? Also, this may be more applicable when you start out in life as a 15-18 year old not as a married with kids 30+ year old. I'm not going into the arguments as this is just a summary and not an analysis.)
3) Finally, you must see your career more as a journey with twists and turns rather than a straight line.
Ø Begin by choosing a field or position that roughly corresponds to your inclinations. Don't start with something too lofty or too ambitious.
Ø Make a living and establish some confidence. Discover side routes that attract you and discard ones that leave you cold. Keep expanding your skill base.
Ø Eventually, you will hit upon a particular field, niche, or opportunity that suits you perfectly. You will recognise it when you find it because it will spark that childlike sense of wonder and excitement; it will feel right.
Ø Once found, everything will fall in place. You will learn more quickly and more deeply. Your skill level will reach a point where you will be able to claim your independence from within the group you work for and move out on your own.
Ø You will no longer be subject to the whims of tyrannical bosses or scheming peers.
What we lack most in the modern world is a sense of a larger purpose to our lives. "Become who you are by learning who you are" – Pindar.
Strategies for finding your Life's Task
"Whoever is born with a talent, or to a talent, must surely find in that the most pleasing of occupations!" Wolfgang Goethe
1) Return to your origins – The primal inclination strategy
In order to master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it. Your interest must transcend the field itself and border on the religious.
2) Occupy the perfect niche – The Darwinian strategy
Choose a niche that corresponds to your deepest inclinations – one that you can dominate. It is not a simple process to find such a niche. It requires patience and a particular strategy:
Ø Choose a field that corresponds to your interests.
Ø From there, you can look for side paths that attract you and move into a narrower field. You keep doing this till you hit an unoccupied niche.
Ø Or, you master one field, then another and create a new field combining both or you make novel connections between them.
3) Avoid the false path- The rebellion strategy
Do not choose a path for money, fame, attention, etc. Don't act out anxieties and the need to please parents. Scoff at the need for attention and approval – they will lead you astray. Let your sense of rebellion fill you with energy and purpose.
4) Let go of the past – The adaptation strategy
If change is forced on you, do not overreact or feel sorry for yourself. Don't abandon the skills and experience gained but find a new way to apply them. These creative readjustments might lead to a superior path.
5) Find your way back – The life-or-death strategy
No good can ever come from deviating from the path you are destinied to follow. Don't deviate on the lure of money. It will take you further away from the path. Keep your focus on 5-10 years down the road, when you will reap the rewards of your efforts. The process of getting there is full of challenges and pleasures.
Ignore weaknesses and resist the temptation to be more like others. Direct yourself towards the simple things you are good at rather than making grand plans for the future. Concentrate on becoming proficient in these skills and develop confidence. Learn the value of discipline and reap the rewards.
"Sooner or later something seems to call us onto a particular path. You may remember this "something" as a signal calling in childhood when an urge out of nowhere, a fascination, a peculiar turn of events struck like an anunciation: This is what I must do, this is what I've got to have. This is who I am… if not this vivid or sure, the call may have been more like gentle pushings in the stream in which you drifted unknowingly to a particular spot on the bank. Looking back, you sense that fate had a hand in it… A calling may be postponed, avoided, intermittently missed, it may also possess you completely. Whatever; eventually it will out. It makes its claim… extraordinary people display calling most evidently. Perhaps that's why they fascinate. Perhaps, too, they are extraordinary because their calling comes through so clearly and they are so loyal to it… extraordinary people bear the better witness because they show what ordinary mortals simply can't. We seem to have less motivation and more distraction. Yet our destiny is driven by the same universal engine. Extraordinary people are not a different category; the workings of this engine in them are simply more transparent…"
- James Hillman
Thursday, October 30, 2014
One more day to go...
Just a day to go for NaNoWriMo…
What an exciting place to be! The TATA LitLive Fest is on with dozens of interesting authors, books and programmes. Now that I have decided on my story and worked out a rough outline, shouldn't all my thoughts be on writing it down? Is this literary fest an opportunity for procrastination?
The last 50 or so days I had written every day. I told myself that it is just like brushing my teeth. There are no holidays for that and so it is going to be with writing. The intelligent procrastinator within me argued that brushing doesn't take more than 10 minutes a day, even if I include gargling and flossing and multiply it by two. So, I told myself it is okay even if I write for just 10 minutes a day but there was one rule – the writing should be on the latest fiction piece I'm working on and I need to write at least 100 words. No blog articles, no journaling, no poetry, no new story, no idea outlines, etc. Only stuff relating to the current piece permitted.
"You have to finish things – that's what you learn from, you learn by finishing things." Neil Gaimann.
I am trying to do just that for the last month. Sometimes, I wind up in 10 minutes but sometimes I get into the flow. However, that putting the 'butt-in-the-chair' part every day is the hardest of all. It is only now I'm getting used to that! At last, in time for NaNoWriMo! Since I have started this regularly, I have started recognising my usual chores as invented 'resistance' (procrastinators). I have grown wary of my headaches, drowsiness, cleaning sprees, cooking sprees, partying mode and lots more. So, I'm wondering and hoping that this yearning to attend the litfest is not another procrastination stunt! What do you think?
Saturday, October 18, 2014
NaNoWriMo - Getting Geared
I have decided to take the plunge this year too. It was an absolute fun to do last year. It was a huge challenge too as I was away from home, my usual writing zone, and the kids were running amok enjoying their vacations. Still, I had done it. 50000 words in 30 days. There were days I had done 100 and days when I had gone beyond 7000. There were write-ins in Chennai, workshops in Mumbai and I had met other writers for the first time. I loved every moment of it. Now, I am going to do it again.
The challenges this time are going to be different. School is going to resume by the end of the first week of November. Hopefully, there would be some structure to the day, a routine and a bit of silent peace. However, now I am working. Though it is from the comfort of my home, a solid chunk of 7-8 hours flies away. I love what I'm doing and I've decided never to give it up. Similarly, I've decided to never give up writing too. So, I need to work out a way.
NaNoWriMo is doable. It is just 1667 words a day. Most professional writers write more than this every day of their lives. My favourite prolific writer Isaac Asimov works on his books from 7am to 11 pm every day. So squeezing in 2-3 hours shouldn't be difficult. (*crosses fingers hopefully)
The next biggest challenge this time has been to decide on a story. There are three whirling around my head and they are giving me headaches all day and night. If I work on one, the other haunts me. If I work on that, a scene from the other stamps my brain. I need to focus and zero in on one to have some basic outline in place before November. Any ideas, folks?
Apart from these minor(?) glitches, things are in place and I'm hopeful and excited about November. I will keep you updated about the journey.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 6th Jul 2011 14:00 UTC
Well, paint me red and call me a girl scout, I totally did not see this one coming at all. This is so utterly surprising it made my brain explode. Hold on to your panties, because this will rock your world. After pressuring several smaller Android vendors into submission (and yes, HTC is still relatively small compared to other players), Microsoft is now moving on to the big one: Redmond is demanding $15 for every Samsung Android device sold. Samsung's choices are simple: pay up, or face another epic lawsuit.
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Good post Thom
by asharism on Wed 6th Jul 2011 14:34 UTC
RE: Good post Thom
by sathishmls on Wed 6th Jul 2011 16:12 in reply to "Good post Thom"
RE[2]: Good post Thom
by ggeldenhuys on Thu 7th Jul 2011 07:58 in reply to "RE: Good post Thom"


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Dave and I moved to the Cincinnati area in August 2002 in the final days of Riverfront Stadium. During the off-season, an attorney with whom I worked invited us to join a group buying season tickets in the new stadium, Great American Ball Park. The good news--the tickets were awesome club seats close to the visitors dugout. The bad news--they were pricey. (But nothing compared to the equivalent seats in other stadiums. See my recent FB status.)
And so began our love affair with the Cincinnati Reds. Dave had been a longtime Cardinals fan, having gone to high school and college in the St. Louis area, but had always been a local sports fan. At our first game against the Cardinals, Dave went ballistic heckling Tony LaRussa. It was official. Dave had a new team. Me--I enjoyed the experience of going to the baseball game--drinking beer, eating ballpark food, and talking with friends for three hours in the sun. We called GABP my favorite bar with an outdoor patio.
Each season, we went to more games. Gradually, I learned enough about baseball to be trusted with the scorebook during restroom breaks. We began to travel to see the team. And all this time, the Reds were not good. The 2003 season, our first in GABP, the Reds were 69-93. As of last night's win against Arizona, the Reds have won 70 games, and there are 41 games remaining. In 2007, we traveled to the West Coast to see Cincinnati get pummeled by Los Angeles and San Diego. The Reds were 1-5 on that road trip. Luckily, we saw the win, which was not an easy one with Harang balking in the tying run in the 8th (that's not a typo) and Junior homering in the 12th inning for the win. Through it all--the losses on Opening Day, losing an eight-run lead in the 9th inning to the Cardinals, Janish pitching--we loved our mediocre Reds.
And I grew to despise the negative fans. You know the ones. The longtime Cincinnati Reds fans who know everything about baseball, call in to radio shows to complain, and demand Dusty Baker's firing at every perceived mistake, but don't actually go to the games.
Now, for the first time in my brief history as a fan, the Reds are a contending team--first place in the NL Central. With last night's win, the Reds have extended their lead over the Cardinals to 3.5 games. My feelings about this development are mixed. Sure, I'm thrilled that the Reds are doing well and that the players are getting the attention that they deserve. But every game is stressful. Before, win or lose, I had a great time at the ballpark. Now, if the team wins, good, but if they lose, devastating. Getting swept by the Cardinals last week was heartbreaking. More than that, the sweep brought out those negative fans who quickly wrote off this amazing team. Every negative comment on the Internet feels like a personal affront. I stay up late to watch the West Coast games and check scores in the middle of the night. My favorite iPhone app is the MLB one, as I am constantly checking the scores and standings. What was a fun hobby has now become an obsession.
Do I want the Reds to make the playoffs? Of course. Will I have a heart attack if they do? Likely. Regardless of what happens, I will continue to root for the Reds, and I hope that those other fans will too.
Free Preview, 8/16/12
1 month ago


text: Your message dated Wed, 02 Mar 2005 10:47:35 -0500 with message-id <email@example.com> and subject line Bug#197934: fixed in xpaint 2.7.3-1 has caused the attached Bug report to be marked as done. This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with. If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith. (NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what I am talking about this indicates a serious mail system misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact me immediately.) Debian bug tracking system administrator (administrator, Debian Bugs database) -------------------------------------- Received: (at submit) by bugs.debian.org; 18 Jun 2003 16:06:14 +0000 >From firstname.lastname@example.com Wed Jun 18 11:06:13 2003 Return-path: <email@example.com> Received: from swat.thok.org [188.8.131.52] by master.debian.org with smtp (Exim 3.35 1 (Debian)) id 19SfRs-0005tk-00; Wed, 18 Jun 2003 11:06:12 -0500 Received: (qmail 32496 invoked by uid 3382); 18 Jun 2003 16:06:09 -0000 Sender: firstname.lastname@example.com To: firstname.lastname@example.com Subject: xpaint - new upstream release From: email@example.com Date: 18 Jun 2003 12:06:08 -0400 Message-ID: <firstname.lastname@example.com> Lines: 29 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=-=-=" Delivered-To: firstname.lastname@example.com X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-10.8 required=4.0 tests=BAYES_20,HAS_PACKAGE,NO_REAL_NAME,USER_AGENT_GNUS_UA autolearn=ham version=2.53-bugs.debian.org_2003_06_18 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.53-bugs.debian.org_2003_06_18 (220.127.116.11-2003-03-30-exp) --=-=-= Package: xpaint Version: 2.7.0 New upstream. I'll try and get around to it, but would welcome a motivate NMUer. _Mark_ --=-=-= Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Subject: xpaint Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 09:39:12 +0200 (MEST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi, I'd like to mention that there have been a lot of changes, improvements, GUI overhaul and additional functionality in xpaint (last version is 2.7.0, located on SourceForge, http://sourceforge.net/projects/sf-xpaint/). Debian's current version 2.6.2 thus appears quite dated. New functionality is expected to come in the next months (vector format, especially, maybe some DTP features as well). Sincerely yours, Jean-Pierre Demailly (current maintainer) PS1. Although there are obviously still some bugs, there are probably less of them than there were in version 2.6.2... PS2. Slackware, Mandrake and several other distros have moved to 2.6.9 (2.7.0 was released only a few days ago). --=-=-=-- --------------------------------------- Received: (at 197934-close) by bugs.debian.org; 2 Mar 2005 15:53:14 +0000 >From firstname.lastname@example.com Wed Mar 02 07:53:14 2005 Return-path: <email@example.com> Received: from newraff.debian.org [184.108.40.206] (mail) by spohr.debian.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 1 (Debian)) id 1D6W9y-0002FT-00; Wed, 02 Mar 2005 07:53:14 -0800 Received: from katie by newraff.debian.org with local (Exim 3.35 1 (Debian)) id 1D6W4V-0000xe-00; Wed, 02 Mar 2005 10:47:35 -0500 From: Hugo Vanwoerkom <firstname.lastname@example.com> To: firstname.lastname@example.com X-Katie: $Revision: 1.55 $ Subject: Bug#197934: fixed in xpaint 2.7.3-1 Message-Id: <firstname.lastname@example.com> Sender: Archive Administrator <firstname.lastname@example.com> Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 10:47:35 -0500 Delivered-To: firstname.lastname@example.com X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.60-bugs.debian.org_2005_01_02 (1.212-2003-09-23-exp) on spohr.debian.org X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.3 required=4.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_YAHOO_RCVD, HAS_BUG_NUMBER autolearn=no version=2.60-bugs.debian.org_2005_01_02 X-Spam-Level: Source: xpaint Source-Version: 2.7.3-1 We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of xpaint, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive: xpaint_2.7.3-1.diff.gz to pool/main/x/xpaint/xpaint_2.7.3-1.diff.gz xpaint_2.7.3-1.dsc to pool/main/x/xpaint/xpaint_2.7.3-1.dsc xpaint_2.7.3-1_i386.deb to pool/main/x/xpaint/xpaint_2.7.3-1_i386.deb xpaint_2.7.3.orig.tar.gz to pool/main/x/xpaint/xpaint_2.7.3.orig.tar.gz A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is attached. Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed. If you have further comments please address them to email@example.com, and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate. Debian distribution maintenance software pp. Hugo Vanwoerkom <firstname.lastname@example.com> (supplier of updated xpaint package) (This message was generated automatically at their request; if you believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive administrators by mailing firstname.lastname@example.com) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Format: 1.7 Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 09:59:13 -0600 Source: xpaint Binary: xpaint Architecture: source i386 Version: 2.7.3-1 Distribution: unstable Urgency: low Maintainer: Hugo Vanwoerkom <email@example.com> Changed-By: Hugo Vanwoerkom <firstname.lastname@example.com> Description: xpaint - simple paint program for X Closes: 197934 268910 Changes: xpaint (2.7.3-1) unstable; urgency=low . * New upstream release * New maintainer (Closes: #268910) * New upstream release (Closes: #197934) + incorporates patches from previous .diff.gz, thus dropping those, except for the errno patch from Goswin + added patch for manpage section * debian/README.Debian: rewritten, explaining why not using the included Xaw95 widgets but the default (ugly) Xaw Athena widgets * debian/{conffiles,dirs}: dropped, not needed * debian/control: + updated Standards-Version + no more Suggests: on eeyes as that package doesn't exist anymore + added Suggests: on gs for PS/PDF reading and on lpr for printing + new description, added upstream homepage + added soft dependency of C Script Editor->file->External editor on x-terminal-emulator -e sensible-editor + redid Build-Depends * debian/copyright: extended to reflect upstream changes, updated * debian/menu: longtitle and binary path adjusted * debian/rules: + DH_COMPAT -> debian/compat, raised to 4 + complete redo, exporting some stuff to debian/docs, moving files out of /usr/X11R6 Files: 67334265e549748ac9186c13a01a7a91 657 graphics optional xpaint_2.7.3-1.dsc 0063b49ce516f2af67d25338dc284e27 793111 graphics optional xpaint_2.7.3.orig.tar.gz 17acdabeb8cc37dc209ba6da259bc6c9 6098 graphics optional xpaint_2.7.3-1.diff.gz 1fd2e0c14596986fdc697c4c6d990fd2 380188 graphics optional xpaint_2.7.3-1_i386.deb -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCI3iUs3U+TVFLPnwRAoU4AJ9Np7B1ahIIL632e5yOe41w06IQ+QCfb9bg KUerVLl7Q4H1qW68Ge9oR1k= =YQL6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


text:
As 2011 comes to an end I can only reflect on the miracle the raw foods lifestyle has brought to my life....
My name is Retha Cheek but I am also known by my pen name Roxy Harte. Over the past three years I have experienced a myriad of health problems that left me unable to work or enjoy life to its fullest. At the suggestion of my friend Tricia, I tried a raw food diet. I am down 55 pounds, off all medications and pain relievers, my high blood pressure and high cholesterol are back to healthy ranges, my migraines from food allergies and joint pain from Rheumatoid Arthritis are gone, and my psoriasis is clearing up. I'd say the raw food diet is definitely working for me!!
Please LIKE my page on Facebook and help me spread the word that raw food changes lives!!
Here's to 2012 and a Healthy, Happy, Mostly-Raw New Year!!


text:
Thursday, September 13, 2007
GN #1: Blue Streak gets AWESOME gas mileage. He was just over half full when I got him--and now, almost a week later, he's just UNDER half full. A whole week of driving! I know! (And yes, they didn't give him to me with a full tank of gas. The guy drove it down to the station to put in 8 gallons or so but come on--it's KIA, not Mercedes.) ;)
GN #2: I'm off today and tomorrow for Rosh Hashana. A 4-day weekend--sweet. I love Jewish people.
GN #3: I'm down another 3 pounds, for a total of 5 so far. I'm now at a weight (146) I haven't been in over a year that wasn't flu- or heartbreak-induced. 6 more pounds, baby! If this keeps up I should be there by my 31st, easily.
GN #4: Yesterday was a pretty big day. It was the official one-month mark since I quit this last time. I haven't made it a month in....well, a while. And I'm still going strong. I needed the gum pretty heavily that first couple of weeks, but it hit me the other day that I haven't needed it in a while. I still carry it around with me, though. Just in case.
There's a funny story with this, though. Yesterday after work, I went out with 2 guy teachers, M. and C. When M. asked how the quitting was going, I realized that that day was my 1-month, and I told them so. "And I've only slipped a couple times in the whole month!" I proudly told them.
They looked at each other. "So you HAVE smoked in the last month?" M. asked with an evil glint in his eye. I could tell that these boys, aka The Brothers I Never Wanted, were about to bust my balls.
"Well, yeah," I said. "But I only had, like, 2 cigarettes. In a MONTH. Normally, I would have smoked 500 in that time."
"So you haven't QUIT," said C. "You're just smoking LESS."
"Oh, please!" I defended myself. "2 cigarettes does not a smoker make. From 500 to 2?? I'm doing AWESOME. Plus, my online support group says that it's okay, even normal, to have a slip. That doesn't count."
They looked at each other. "So..." said C. "I could cheat on my wife"--note: C. is single-- "and I could say, 'But it was just one time! It doesn't count! And baby, I'm doing it a lot less than I was! Isn't that great??' "
The boys are both snickering now.
"AND," added M., "even if you DID, you could just go online to your support group and they'd say, 'Hey! Don't beat yourself up! It was just a slip!' "
By this point, of course, the guys were laughing their asses off. They thought they were hysterical. I just crossed my arms and silently stared at them--it was the "teacher stare" that I've mastered this last month.
M. caught my eye and suddenly stopped laughing. "Sorry, Jen," he mumbled. "You're right. Congratulations."
Ha! The teacher stare even works on OTHER TEACHERS!
(It WAS funny, though.)
And finally, GN #5: When you put #3 and #4 together, I have actually lost 5 pounds WHILE quitting smoking! (Soon to be 10 pounds!) Whoo hoo!!!
10 comments:
- Nik said...
I have to agree with the boys in the smoking discussion. They did bring up a very valid opint, if you think about it.
But, anyways, congrats to ya on the smoking and weight loss. You Can Do IT!!!!
- Jen said...
- Jen said...
GN #6: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico!
(No, seriously.)
- keesh said...
I say screw those boys. they haven't known you long enough to know how much of a "crutch" smoking can be for you and you are doing an amazing job!! 2 cigarettes isn't bad and any less is better than nothing so really, you are doing WONDERFUL!! Be proud, very proud! Glad to hear the good news!! You have had enough bad shit happen that you deserve this more than anyone!
And I think to myself - What a Wonderful World!
(Sing it now, people!)
- Jen said...
I love that song.
I used to think I'd want that at my wedding for my dance with Dad. Now, I suspect, it'll be me dancing with my 20 cats in my large flowered moo-moo.
(Did I spell that wrong? LOL)
- keesh said...
That song. oh that song. First of all it is my brother's all time favorite song and they played it at my wedding while people were being seated and I could hear it in the room I was in, so I cried...yup, tears welled up on me. Then my step sister asked me last year if it would be ok if she danced with my Dad at her reception, I said of course and she chose that song. Tears tears tears...it is an amazing song!
How come when I say that I get accused of not being supportive??
But I AM still proud of you.
Keep it up!! (the not smoking, not the smoking.) :-)
and please DC.
- Jen said...
Um...how come when you say WHAT, crazy lady?


text:
Local hair products are on the rise, all natural and organic, made right here in Jamaica. Ettenio is one of them and I am very excited to share with you one of my favourites from their line.
♥ 80Z jar container (easy access to product)
♥ PH balanced 4-4.5
♥ For relaxed and natural hair (stated on the label)
♥ Thick consistency (no mess, no spilling)
♥ Mild wheaty fragrance
♥ COST ranges from $1300-$1730
Ettenio Moisture Infusion is a deep penetrating moisture conditioner that is formulated to infuse very dry, brittle, damaged hair with moisture packed emollients. Penetrating Coconut and Avocado oils team up with ceramide rich Wheat Germ oil to provide deep moisture penetration. Castor oil cleans the scalp of impurities, while Honey, Aloe and botanical extracts gives a soothing infusion to each strand.
I did an overnight deep conditioning treatment, rinsed my hair the following morning with just water. My hair felt soft and smooth, well moisturized. The product lived up to its name- infused moisture! I was so impressed, but to make a firm decision I used it several times after and the results were the same. My hair was moisturized for days. So now I am sold, I LOVE THIS STUFF! It is the bom.com.org.lol
The Moisture Infusion was, is and will always be a great buy. Value for money so the next time you are shopping for hair products and you spot Ettenio's Moisture Infusion, step on the brakes, pick it up, then proceed. Your hair will thank you.
Product review courtesy of my friend Aneesha aka Jamaicankinks
Check her out on IG @jamaicankinks


text:
Chat <
Pregnancy & Birth Clubs <
of 3
09/04/2014 at 11:30
I'm sure the symptoms I have been experiencing are nothing but just wanted to see what you all think....
Kidney pains (Dr checked last week and I dont have any infections), shooting/twinge pains in the pubic area, an unoffensive but definite odour of discharge when i wipe, general back ache, thirsty, pain under right ribs, the odd occasional floater in my eyes.
09/04/2014 at 12:32
I often feel achey on both sides where my kidneys are- don't have any UTIs this pregnancy (phew) and have been getting the odd twinge down stairs too! Baby was breech at my last MW appt. and we think he's been giving me little kicks in my cervix causing the twinges lol I can also relate to the odour and the backache so would put it all down to pregnancy related things but if you're worried about anything then maybe give your midwife a ring or pop down to the local drop in clinic? x
09/04/2014 at 12:36
Im not unduly worried as I have learnt the rule of if I can feel the baby moving (which I can and the pattern hasnt changed (which it hasnt) and there are no severe pains or blood then it's all just normal. Just wanted to check that people think it's just run of the mill pregnancy related.
Thanks for your reply x
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text:
There are not many words that come to my mind when I see this face other than "God, You are so good. She is stunning. Those eyes are absolutely stunning."
Nora, baby, we will see you oh so soon and we can't wait to hold your little self in our arms for the first time! Lily & Toby both smile so big when they see your face. They can't wait to have you join this crew. I'm sure Quinn would agree if he could express that better. Your Daddy and I are pretty ecstatic about that moment too...no matter how long that takes (although closer to the one year mark would be nicer than 2). Love you, baby girl.


text: I was discouraged by the fact that the pre-order pricing at Amazon and Barnes & Noble had gone up to about $57 from its low of $45. But I am told by the publisher that it is not uncommon for the price to rise right before release, and for cuts to come back after shipments arrive. I am therefore hopeful that the book will come down again. I'm going to begin selling some of my copies, when they arrive, at a loss for $39. Should be in about a few weeks.


text:
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The 3rd American Poker Awards wraps up in Beverly Hills27 February 2017
(PRESS RELEASE) -- The Third annual American Poker Awards and Conference, sponsored by PokerStars, has recently concluded at the Sofitel Hotel in Beverly Hills in a night celebrating the game's brightest stars, breakout players, and standout industry influencers and media persons throughout the Americas. Over 150 top players and industry figures were in attendance both to discuss the future of the poker ecosystem as it moves into 2017 and to celebrate last year's biggest achievements in the game.
David Peters took the most prestigious trophy in a competitive category – GPI Player of the Year – honored for a world-topping performance on the live tournament scene in 2016 that culminated with a 3rd finish at the last-ever EPT Main Event to edge past Fedor Holz in the yearly rankings.
In a night full of recognition, the emotional high water mark arguably came with Mori Eskandani's acceptance (in absentia) of the APA Lifetime Achievement Award, with everyone in attendance opting to give the televised poker pioneer a standing ovation out of respect, regardless. Eskandani, along with his production company PokerPROductions, were instrumental in ushering in the modern age of poker shows on television, having a hand in a majority of the most popular poker programs aired during the last decade – from WSOP coverage, to NBC's National Heads-Up Championship and High Stakes Poker, among others.
In a running theme with the American Poker Awards, this year's categories reflected the game's quick evolution into new media as well, with awards for Twitch Streamer of the Year and Poker Podcast of the Year added alongside established categories. The night was an apt distillation of poker's progress through 2016, and the industry's continued focus on cooperation and innovation was plainly visible.
Here is a complete list of all 2017 American Poker Awards winners:
GPI Player of the Year: David Peters
GPI Female Player of the Year: Cate Hall
Media Person of the Year: Joe Stapleton
Industry Person of the Year: Sean McCormack (Director of Poker Operations – ARIA)
Breakout Performance of the Year: Maurice Hawkins
Tournament Performance of the Year: Ari Engel (winning the 2016 Aussie Millions Main Event)
Mid-Major Circuit of the Year: World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC)
Event of the Year: Super High Roller Bowl
Charitable Initiative of the Year: Dan Smith Charity Drive
APA Lifetime Achievement Award: Mori Eskandani
Moment of the Year: Jason Mercier goes on a heaters: Captures 2 WSOP bracelets and a 2nd place finish in a single week to secure the GPI WSOP Player of the Year award in 2016.
Poker Media Content of the Year: Bob, Charlie and a life-changing WSOP Main Event Journey (Lance Bradley, PocketFives)
Twitch Streamer of the Year: Jason Somerville (jcarverpoker)
Poker Podcast of the Year: Joe Ingram (Poker Life Podcast with Joe Ingram)
PocketFives Legacy Award: Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy
The Hendon Mob Award: John Holley
APA Jury Prize: Matt Savage
The 3rd American Poker Awards wraps up in Beverly Hills is republished from Online.CasinoCity.com.