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Carolina Accents Makenzie Chocolate Corner Chair
Materials: Wood frame, poly-foam, fabric
Finish: Espresso legs
Upholstery materials: 100-percent polyester micro-suede
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Flip the unused house in any nook of your own home into additional seatingwith the wealthy chocolate Makenzie nook chair. Completely formed tofit into angled areas, the chair's building is as relaxed as itis handy. Benefit from the plush microsuede, which covers a solidbase of Wooden framing and cushiony foam padding. 4 strong picket legs supply improve and steadiness to thistransitional chair, and a wealthy Coffee End makes this designelegant and elegant. Stuffed with plush poly foam, this versatileaccent piece supplies more advantageous convenience. Durably crafted in theUnited States, this chair includes a cast-coloured layout to blendeasily into your environment and Accessory piping for a sophisticated glance. Fabrics: Wooden body, poly-foam, cloth End: Coffee legs Upholstery Fabrics: one hundred-p.c polyester micro-suede Upholstery colour: Chocolate brown Upholstery fill: Poly-foam Transitional layout Accessory piping Sturdy, simple blank one hundred-p.c polyester cloth Can stand by myself or combine with different Makenzie pieces to shape a sectional staff Coffee completed Wooden legs Seat dimensions: 18 inches top x 21 inches huge x 21 inches deep Dimensions: 29 inches top x 29 inches huge x 29 inches deep Meeting required, legs most effective
Fabrics: Wooden body, poly-foam, cloth
End: Coffee legs
Upholstery Fabrics: one hundred-p.c polyester micro-suede
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I kept a written text from Slow Food on my bulletin board for many years pertaining to the subject:
Today, thirty plants feed 95% of the world's population.
In the past century, two hundred and fifty hundred thousand plant varieties have gone extinct, and one plant variety disappears every six hours.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Europe has lost more than 75% of its agricultural biodiversity, whereas the US have lost 93% of their crop species diversity.
One third of native cow, sheep, and pig breeds has gone extinct or is on the road to extinction.
Three quarters of the world's fishery reserves are at risk of extension.
In winter, lettuce travels from California to London and carrots are flown from South Afric to Sweden. In the US, a product on a supermarket shelf has traveled on average 1288 kilometers.
These figures show what is wrong with the hyper-productive agricultural model that is common today. This approach has not succeeded in ridding the world of hunger, actually, it is responsible for widespread pollution, and it has made the variety of food available around the world sadly limited. This model has also facilitated the destruction of the cultural and gastronomic identity of entire populations, and has dramatically reduced the diversity of available food.
This is why Slow Food is fighting for a new model of sustainable agriculture: one that focuses on quality products. This is why Slow Food defines itself as a movement of "eco-gastronomes", individuals that believe in that the ecological defense of our planet and the defense of traditional agriculture are links and that to enjoy the pleasure of fine food one must be cognizant of the environmental impact of its production.
These are very serious words not to be taken lightly....
Biodiversity exists in Lebanon too. We have a duty to safeguard every aspect of it. Here are but a few, in photos of course...
|The plains of the Bekaa Valley
|Street merchants from Tripoli
|Traditional bread-making
|The cedars of Lebanon
|Harvest of olives
|Grapes for wine in Bhamdoun
|Fishermen teaching the young
|A woman from the south of Lebanon
|Farming the old-fashion way
|Traditional lifestyle
|Youth, our only hope
|Apricot season

subset: commoncrawl


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It's time to clue you in on my new favorite time of year.... birthday time! The little man has always been fun to plan parties for. Starting with the gender reveal and going through his last birthday, they have all been great. This birthday was even more fun than normal though because he was so excited about it. All of the anticipation and watching him get excited about each little thing made it that much better.
We love making treats to bring to his friends at daycare. It was our chance to make something not pirate themed. So we made banana cupcakes instead. Renae, his daycare provider, loves to feed the kids things that are healthy. Of course cupcakes aren't super healthy, but at least these are homemade and have fruit in them! And banana is always popular with the kids. It was kind of a win-win. They are easy to make too, so maybe a triple win!
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Put a paper liner in each of 12 wells in a cupcake pan.
- In a mixing bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, banana, oil and egg.
- Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Scoop evenly into each paper lined cupcake well (an ice cream scoop works well for this)
- Bake for 17-19 minutes or until a toothpick tests mostly clean. Cool on a wire rack.


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MONROE — A Monroe Township woman entered a plea of not guilty this afternoon to charges she poisoned her husband, who died last month, with thallium, a highly toxic metal.
Tianle Li, 40, dressed in green jail garb and wearing gold glasses, calmly listened as Superior Court Judge Michael Toto explained her rights and what legal procedures would follow today's hearing.
Li was charged Tuesday with the murder of Xiaoye Wang, 39, who died Jan. 26 at University Medical Center in Princeton. He brought himself to the hospital Jan. 14 with what authorities now call "virus-like" symptoms.
After the hearing, Nicholas Sewitch, deputy first assistant Middlesex County prosecutor, said Wang received a "lethal, massive dose of thallium," but said he could not comment on how it was administered or whether it was all given at once or over a period of time.
"There are additional toxicological tests being run on the victim's tissues and bodily fluids that will give us more information about that," Sewitch said.
Sewitch said it was a nurse at the hospital who, remembering a case of thallium poisoning in the 1990s in China, suggested doctors include a test for thallium when Wang did not respond to treatment and continued to worsen. He said Wang lapsed into a coma Jan. 22 or 23.
• Monroe woman is charged with fatally poisoning husband
• Authorities investigate death of 39-year-old Monroe man
He said Li, who was a research chemist in the Lawrenceville office of Bristol-Myers Squib, had access to thallium at work, but he would not comment on whether or not that's where she may have allegedly obtained it.
Sewitch said the estranged couple, who were living together in the home they purchased in September 2008, were due to have their divorce finalized on Jan. 14, the day Wang took himself to the hospital.
Steven Altman, Li's attorney, said his client denies having anything to do with her husband's death.
Neither Altman nor Sewitch would comment on why police were called to the couple's home several times, beginning in April 2009, for "domestic disturbances."
Sewitch did say no one was injured and no restraining orders were ever filed as a result of the police visits.
Li was remanded to the Middlesex County jail in lieu of $4.15 million bail and is also charged with hindering her own apprehension by "lying to police" when they began investigating Wang's death, Sewitch said.


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FLAC Simulation Of Split-Pipe Tests On An Instrumented Cable Bolt
Published Date:0/1/1900
Personal Authors:
Description:A new instrumented cable bolt has been developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at the Spokane Research Laboratory in Spokane, WA. Although various instruments are available to measure load distribution and magnitude along a grouted cable, this instrument is innovative in that it uses strain gauges internal to the cable as load-measuring sensors. The instrument has been successfully tested in the field at FMC s Granger Mine, Meikle Mine, and Getchell Mine. A split-pipe laboratory pull test was performed on each of three cable bolts instrumented with the new device. Each test consisted of grouting a 1.83-m-long cable in two 0.91-m-long sections of schedule 80 pipe. A numerical analysis was then performed in which laboratory boundary conditions were simulated and model properties derived from textbook guidelines. The loads calculated by the model were then compared to the measured loads.
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Take Action Change Your Life: Personal Finance, Parenting, Work, Happiness,Success, Healthy Lifestyle,Self Development.
Monday, April 20, 2015
15 Time Quotes to Treasure Every Moment of Your Life
1. My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time. -Steve Jobs
2. Time and tide wait for no man. -Geoffrey Chaucer
3. At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent. -Barbara Bush
4. The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -Bertrand Russell
5. We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. -Nelson Mandela
6. Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. -Earl Nightingale
7. We must use time creatively -Martin Luther King, Jr.
8. Time = Life, Therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life. -Alan Lakein
9. Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life. -Michael LeBoeuf
10. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. -Steve Jobs
11. When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it's make good grades in school, be a good athlete, be a good person, go down and do some community service and help somebody who's in need, whatever it is you choose to do, you're investing your time in that. -Nick Saban
12. If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of. -Bruce Lee
13. Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. -Carl Sandburg
14. Our time is brief, and it will pass no matter what we do. So let us have purpose in spending it. Let us spend it so that our time matters to each of us, and matters to all those whose lives we touch. -PHILIP ZIMBARDO
15. Time is the longest distance between two places. -Tennessee Williams
Posted by Charles Chua at 8:00 AM
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Hall of Fame 2006
Monica (Lepper) Rodriquez
Women's Volleyball 1994-1997
In her four years as a member of the Simpson volleyball team, Monica was named NCCAA DII All West Region three times, including Region MVP in 1996. Lepper was also a three-time all conference standout at setter, earning the honor twice in the California Coastal Conference and in 1996 as All California Pacific Conference. In that 1996 season, Monica was also rewarded as a NCCAA All-American and NAIA Academic All-American. The Academic honor was repeated a second year, proving that Lepper was a leader on and off the court.
Paul Kress
Men's Basketball 1969-1989
Coach Paul Kress heading up the men's basketball program for the majority of time on the San Francisco campus. For 20 years,he was the face of Simpson basketball and Simpson athletics. He coached in over 450 games, far and away a school record. Coach Kress won a school record 177 games, which included two 20 wins season in 1986-87 and 1987-88, the only back-to-back 20 win seasons in the school history.


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Blog Archives
Chapter 9 White's Law of Reciprocity
Superintendent White was the second biggest dog in the pack that was Senior Admin of the Granite District School Board. Only the Director of Education was more Alpha than him But the position of Director kept changing hands. In the past few years the job had passed between Carl Holzbein, who had run off to British Columbia with an elementary teacher at least half his age, Angela Testaverdi, who had more or less been run out of town by the Trustees for suggesting that country kids weren't getting the same opportunities as those in Granite City and Gilles Crapaud who had been running things for a few years now. Or so it seemed.
The reality was that White was running things as he always had. Sure the Director got the good office, the nice car and the bigger golden parachute when his time was up. But the Director's position had become a lot like being the Governor General. You went to cocktail parties; you made appearances at important fund-raisers and you cut ribbons at important openings of new schools; well, you would if there were new schools to open.
Director Crapaud had arrived from Toronto. The Trustees, in a surprise move, had gone outside the GDSB for its current director. That had rubbed a few noses the wrong way. When a new director is named from inside the GDSB, a lot of people get bumped up the career ladder. If the director was a superintendent, then a principal is made superintendent, a vice principal is made principal and a department head is made vice principal. But when the Trustees go to another board for the new director, all that career bumping goes on in the other board.
Now don't feel bad for Angela Testaverdi. When they run a Director out of town, they do it nice and gently. She got to keep her BMW, she and her husband got to go to two "conferences" in Las Vegas and Bermuda and she got a nice retirement gratuity. So don't feel sorry for her. Could the Board afford all this? They just took it out of the French grant. After Testaverdi the next in line was Superintendent White. Now he would have to wait it out until Director Crapaud left and Crapaud was younger than he was. But Superintendent White wasn't going to wait quietly.
He had to put his stamp on a lot of innovative programs that would call attention to him and make it clear in the minds of the Trustees that he was the chosen one, the crown prince.
A few years ago it was the dog plan. It worked like this. Put a big happy friendly dog in every Guidance Department in the Board. Students walk in with their problems and the first thing to greet them is a big goofy smile, a wet tongue and a whole big coat of fur just waiting to be petted. Who would care about their worries after that? And what a beautiful photo op. White next to a cute 15 year-old girl and an even cuter dog. That would make the first page of the Granite City Gazette-Times. And it did. Mind you anyone looking at it was going to pay attention to the girl or the dog and ignore Superintendent White, but the people who really counted would see him there and know who was responsible for the good PR.
Meleesa Cook walked slowly one day on her way to Guidance. She didn't usually go to Guidance. It wasn't because she didn't have problems she could discuss with a counsellor. She didn't feel right talking about her shyness with a stranger. But she was bursting inside. There was this boy that she liked, really liked. He didn't seem to know she existed. She could talk to her mother about him, but what did her mother know about boys? She could talk to her father, but what did her father know about anything? Some of her friends went to Guidance when they had problems. Some of the girls at her school had a new problem every week and spent more time in Guidance than they did in class. She wasn't friends with any of those girls though.
The cameras and reporters weren't around when Meleesa, who was feeling a little more nervous than usual entered Guidance and was surprised to have a black lab jumping up on her. What was a dog doing at school? She didn't like dogs, even the quiet ones. And this one wasn't quiet at all. He was big and very excitable. An outsider might have said that here was one big ol' friendly dog with a big ol' wagging tail. Meleesa didn't see it that way though. She saw paws as big as her face and a tail that could knock her right over. She screamed, the dog got excited and did knock her over, she screamed some more, the dog got more excited and you know that the only place this vicious circle is going to go is where she runs out of the room in tears and the dog pisses all over the floor.
Bad boy.
Mr. Cook phoned the school as soon as he heard about the incident and demanded to know what the fuck the school was doing using dogs as guidance counsellors. Had they gone nuts? What idiot had thought that one up? Why can't schools just do what they're supposed to do? He was going to go to the press and see what they had to say about girls being attacked by school board dogs.
Bunny managed to calm him down and avoided the bad publicity but that was in end of the dogs in Guidance at LBSS. The program continued for quite some time at the schools in Granite City were perhaps dogs and 15 year old girls are less excitable.
Next came the obesity initiative. It hadn't been his idea. The idea had apparently come from the phys ed head at Lord Byron, but he was quick to jump on the band wagon. When the idea proved popular, Tanker had been pushed aside and replaced with a more pliable newby. The obesity initiative brought in a lot of positive press and enquiries from other boards. Like most things in education it didn't run long enough for there to be any measurable results. But of course that didn't stop the Board from claiming victory before shutting down the program. Students who had lost weight were paraded in front of the camera. It was never really clear if it had been because of the program, in spite of program or the result of something altogether divorced of the program. In education you take credit for anything that appears to work and blame others for everything else. The most extreme case was the kid who had lost 48 pounds due to chemotherapy who was shown to the press as one of the success stories. They threw a baseball cap on his head to cover his lack of hair. Anything for good press.
But the obesity initiative was a cow that could only be milked so much.
So last year Phil White went looking for a way to hit the ball out of the park. He needed something big and bold. Something that would bring lots of positive press, would be associated directly with his name and would have all the appearances of being pedagogically innovative. After thumbing through some educational journals, Superintendent White came upon a brochure from the Colorado Institute of Learning. It was bright and glossy. It had colour pictures of good-looking, smiling students from racial diverse backgrounds having fun while learning. It promised great results. It seemed almost too good to be true.
So Superintendent White called the toll-free number and was impressed when it was Ken Smith himself who answered the phone. According to the brochure Ken Smith was a guru of evaluation. It was Smith who had invented the concept of Potential intelligence. And, for a small fee, he was willing to share the results of his research.
Superintendent White explained to Smith that he was looking for innovation, that he wanted to make a statement that would have a lasting impression and that he wanted to take the Granite District School Board in an entirely new direction.
Smith said that he had found his man. White had hardly put the phone down when there in front of him was the man himself, wearing a broad smile and a stetson hat. He had apparently got the first plane out of Colorado. Mrs Oliver, Superintendent White's secretary showed him to a chair and set down herself. White wanted a written report of the negotiations.
"You bettya. We can put something together for you all. Our philosophy is that it's not how smart you are that counts. It's how smart you look."
"I don't get it"
"Are you the smartest person in the Board?"
"Probably not." White forced himself to be humble.
"So why are you number two in all the Board?"
White thought about answering honestly. He was where he was today because he had kissed all the right ass, play golf-a really stupid game- with all the right people; because he knew how to take credit for the work of others. He had gotten drunk with the most boring people in the world, called them all by stupid nicknames and allowed them to do the same to him. He joined every committee going and lived by the rule of three meetings. It stated that if you had three places to be at the same time, you used each one as a reason to not be at the others and just went home early. It didn't matter that you went to the meetings-nothing was ever accomplished at them anyway. It mattered that you had your name on the paper that the committee eventually would write. He had coached the right sports too. The ones like football that got plenty of good press. And here it mattered that you knew what you were doing, for it is a widely held believe that leaders come from the coaching ranks. Artsy-fartsy English teachers don't make good leaders. Jocks do.
"Number two in the Board" how he hated being called that. Number two was the first loser. The silver medal is just a piece of jewellery. He was smarter than Crapaud and all the ones before him. He certainly worked harder than Crapaud. Hell, even the little statue of Buddha on his desk worked harder than Crapaud.
"You're where you are in the Board 'coz they'll think you look smart. Don't matter chicken's teeth iffen y'are. Just so long as you look it. Now y'all listen up and I'll explain how everything works. It ain't rocket science, y'know."
"You seem more like you're from Texas than Colorado."
"Oh yeah, that. Well y'all gotta understand that it might be called the Colorado Institute of Learning, but it's located in Littletown, Texas."
"Why not call it the Texas Institute of Learning?"
"Well y'all gotta understand that recent research has shown that people don't associate 'Texas' with education very much any more. I dunno why that is. Colorado sounds a lot better. Any way lemme tell y'all about our research."
"Go on, then."
"Lemme tell all about P I Q."
"Potential Intelligence Quotient. We judge students not by how smart they are, but how smart they look. Successful people look smart, whether they are or not. Y'all want to go to a doctor who hems and hawls. Even if he knows what he's doing, he don't make you feel confident. Who are the best politicians? The best bankers? The best lawyers?. As I say to my wife all the time: It's not the meat, it's the motion, baby!" And with that he slapped his knee.
"Go on"
"Y'all want success in life for your students?"
"Y'all want your schools to be the best in the country?"
"y'all want your parents to be happy with the job that the school system is doing?"
"Y'all want to be number one?"
Well, then lemme show y'all a couple of forms to fill out and we'll git ya on your way to tomorrow. Now, y' all will excuse me a moment." he said as he walked out of the office. As soon as he was alone, Education Guru Ed Smith took out his cell phone and made a brief call: "Edwina, it worked like a charm. He bought it all, hook, line and sinker. It's been a pleasure doing business with y'all. Got any other potential customers, like Phil here?"
About twenty minutes and $100,000 later, the Granite District School Board was on its way to the education nirvana that the Colorado Institute of Learning was promising. Now you might ask if a superintendent can just spend $100 000 like that without checking with the Director and the Trustees. Well he might not have the authority; but he does certainly have the ability. Neither the Director nor the Trustees were really watching what he did, so he did as he pleased.
After that followed a lot of training sessions for senior management, so they could get their minds around the idea that the kid who worked hard, did homework faithfully, studied for tests and handed assignments in on time was now the new delinquent of the school system. These training sessions couldn't happen at the Learning Centre. The Learning Centre was full of offices and busy people running from point A to point Z. Anyway the Colorado Institute of Learning had a number of clients, mostly in the US and was running sessions almost constantly. Not in Colorado, mind you, or Texas. Hawaii seemed like a more appropriate place.
After Crapaud and White and their girlfriends or wives or whatever came back from being in-serviced in Hawaii, their assistants who also went to Hawaii, rented space in the best hotel in Granite City and trained the Principals and Vice-Principals. Now you might wonder how the Board Office became the Learning Centre at a cost of $3 million in renovations, which they didn't take out of the French grant this time and yet there's no space for Principals and Vice Principals to meet. You might wonder that and if you're a tax payer in the area controlled by the Granite District School Board, you might want to phone someone in authority and demand an answer. Good luck with that.
Phoning the Learning Centre is an adventure and by 'adventure' I mean something you would do if you decided that your life was too good, you were too happy and you needed to feel like the majority of people who live miserable lives. If you enjoy frustration, please go ahead and attempt to connect with the appropriate person at the Learning Centre. First you'll get a menu. Not a menu like in a fancy restaurant. You get a very mechanical sounding woman, who is on at least half of all phones in North America. Let's call her Betty. I think you already know Betty. The first choice Betty will give you is press one for English and two for French. Why you are given that choice by the GDSB who by definition is an English language school board isn't clear. Some Trustee obviously thought it was important for national unity. Perhaps Gilles Ducheppe and other Bloquistes have changed their entire view of English Canada knowing that the GDSB offers phone frustration in both official languages.
Now Betty will ask you if you know the extension of the person who you are calling. Of course you don't. If you did, you would have dialled it. Don't try arguing with Betty on this point. You won't win. Next she will suggest that you punch in the first three letters of the person's name. Of course the phone isn't really good for spelling as each number has at least three letters. But Betty doesn't give up easily. She'll guess away until you find a familiar name or you give up. Betty must be hard of hearing because she says "I'm sorry I didn't hear your selection." an awful lot. Betty will also promise that you can talk to a real person any time you want. Don't believe her. Of course you don't know who to talk to. It's not like there's a Superintendent of Complaints. If you do get through to someone's extension, they won't be there. No it's true. They are never there. Or at least they have taken a vow to never answer a ringing phone. You will be invited to leave a message in the voice mail box. But since they never answer their phone, their voice mail box is full. And you are kicked back to Betty who repeats "Thank you for calling the Granite District School Board. Press one for English et composez le numéro 2 pour service en français." So there you are. Don't say I didn't warn you.
You wanted to know why there isn't room for meetings at the new and improved Learning Centre. The answer you would get, if you actually found someone to ask and this someone was prepared to tell you would be that there is in fact room at the Learning Centre, but that it's nice to get out once in a while and hotels in Granite City are a good deal compared to those in the big city.
Principal Bunny loved the concept of Potential Intelligence. He thought that he would have done a whole lot better at school if he had been evaluated along Potential Intelligence lines. Bunny dressed well, spoke well and came across as a charismatic guy. If you can if fact be charismatic and at the same time afraid of people. In school, and especially at university he didn't make every class or meet every deadline. It had had no effect whatsoever in his ability to do his job. Randy Doyle felt a little different about rewarding the lazy kids and penalizing the hard working ones. Doyle had always worked hard at school and on the job. He thought that so called 'charming' people got a free ride and this was just going to add to it. Why shouldn't deadlines count? Why should kids get away with cheating or plagiarizing? Yet all this was part of Potential Intelligence. Oh well, he thought, at least I won't be the one that has to sell it to the staff. Doyle looked forward to watching Bunny explain all this to the staff.
One of the students who should have benefited from Potential Intelligence was Jordan White, Phil's second son. He could be best described by two expressions: gifted athlete and complete dink. As well as being middle line on the senior football team, Jordan played open side flanker on the school rugby team and was a champion wrestler. He had athletic ability to spare. As a linebacker he seemed to be a part of every tackle. There was a rage about him that on the football field or rugby pitch was directed and focused. He scored more points on interceptions than the team's receivers did . When the team lost as it always did, the joke was that the defence hadn't managed to score enough points. And by defence everyone meant Jordan. His coaches loved him, not because of who he was but what he could do for the team. Well most of his coaches loved him; his wrestling coach was a little afraid of him and was always glad when his bout was over and no one was hurt. Jordan was always on the edge and Coach Gillingham's biggest fear that he would one day go too far and injure his opponent.
It's hard to say what made Jordan a complete dink, assuming of course that dinks are made and not born. All the attention paid to him as an athlete since the age of six had certainly gone to his head. But there are a lot of gifted athletes who are humble, polite and friendly individuals. No one had ever accused Jordan of being humble or polite or even friendly. So it could have been that what made him the dink that he was, well was the fact that at school he got away with murder. Every teacher and every Principal that he ever had had realized early on who his father was. Even before he made Superintendent, it was very apparent that he was in the express line to promotion and it would be wise not to cross him.
Jordan had been recruited by several football programs, Queen's, Ottawa U, Acadia among others. And by the University of Western Ontario. The Western football program had won six Vanier Cups and looked like a good bet for the next few years to come. Western was far and away his first choice. These days university players have to be good athletes and good students. Nowhere was this more true than at Western.
Problem was Jordan was not a good student. None of his teachers thought that he was smart and he spent so much time out of class-time he couldn't afford to miss- that he never got good marks. And that was going to be a problem because as much as the football program at Western wanted him, he still needed to be accepted by the university admissions office. And his current marks weren't going to do the job.
But what was the point of being Superintendent, if you couldn't get your kid into the university of his choice? Years ago, when White wasn't Superintendent White, not even Principal White just biology teacher White, the then Director of Education had come to White one parents' night and asked what he had against his daughter, why he was giving her such low marks, why he wanted to ruin her life. White had been trying for several years to get into Administration. He was trying so hard that it had become a joke among his colleagues. They called him Brown nose White. There wasn't a committee he wouldn't join, including Status of Women and Aboriginal Education, even though as a black male, he was neither woman nor aboriginal. Even the Interdisciplinary Curriculum Initiatives. He never even found out what that committee did.
The Director's daughter's marks took a quick turn upwards and so did White's career. The next year he was Vice-Principal at Chevalier.
Superintendent White didn't see where things had changed. Jordan needed help in English and Biology. The other four marks weren't going to be a problem. There were enough light courses on offer to give him a good average. Mrs Witherforce , his English teacher, was easy enough to influence. It only took one complaint to Bunny about a couple of essay marks. Could she justify such a low mark? Could he have them reassessed by another English teacher. When Witherforce heard of all this from Bunny, she could see the writing on the wall and just changed the marks upwards. She had always wanted to be in Administration.
Biology was another matter. He had Perkins for senior biology. Perkins had been around the block once or twice. He had seen all the games being played. He had seen the kind of people selected for Admin and he didn't care what they did to him. They couldn't touch him.
"He gets the marks he earns. Like everyone else in my class."
"But he looks smart."
"And I look rich!" which he didn't unless dishevelled is the new chic.
"Things could get a little hot around here." Bunny said without much conviction. He felt awkward about the whole thing. But White was good at putting pressure on his underlings. Bunny wasn't the type to stand up to White or anyone else for that matter. Bunny liked being in charge of a school; he liked having an office; he liked the way people listened to what he had to say; but he really wasn't a people person. At least not a people-with-a-complaint person. He wanted mostly just to be left alone. He really didn't like dealing with all those problems that the students caused. Give them a punishment and the first thing they do as soon as they're out of the office is phone their parents and start getting out of it. Sometimes they wouldn't even wait to be out of his office. Take a firm stand with the parents and they just go over your head to the Board. If Bunny was afraid of students, the Board was even more afraid of parents. They always gave in to them. So what was the point? Bunny was really only happy being Principal when he wasn't at the school.
"What exactly are you saying?"
"I think you understand me perfectly. Either the mark improves or…"
"Or what? Is that a threat?"
"Let me finish. Either the mark improves or White will be on my back."
"Is that my problem? What is White going to do to me?
"Do you really want to find out?"
"Yeah, you know. I think it might be kind of fun to see where he goes with this." Perkins was enjoying himself. "Tell him if he wants results he is going to have to talk to me personally."
"Come on. Don't make it worse than it is."
"Worse for me or worse for you?"
The new day Mrs. P. informed Perkins that he had an appointment with Superintendent White.
"Four o'clock Tuesday."
"Tell him I can't make it. My mom is sick right now and I'm spending all my free time looking after her. Ask him to come here."
"Oh I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"I'd like to keep it quiet." Perkins was a bit of a military history buff and he knew that the General who picked the good ground usually won the battle.
Sure enough, Tuesday at four o'clock White was there. Perkins was paged to come to the office. He phoned down instead and said he couldn't leave the room as he was in the middle of setting up a lab and had a number of specimens about.
Begrudgingly, Superintendent White walked up to the second floor biology lab. The ripe smell of formaldehyde greeted him at the door. Throughout the room were fifteen or so dead cats waiting for dissection. Dressed in his old dirty lab coat, Perkins looked up from his front desk.
"Ah, Superintendent White, how are you?" Perkins wondered if it was going to be the carrot or the stick
His eyes started to sting. "Please call me Phil." So it was going to be the carrot to start. "We need to talk about Jordan's progress."
"Oh, is Jordan your son? I didn't realize." Perkins lied. "Well it's pretty easy to discuss his progress. There hasn't been any. He started the semester slow and hasn't changed."
"Do you check homework very often?" White has looking for something to blame on the teacher.
"No, they're in grade twelve. They're almost adults and no one is going to make them do their homework next year. But he doesn't appear to do it very often. Do you check his homework at home?" Perkins deflected the blame back.
"He's very busy with football right now."
"Too busy to come in at lunch for extra help?"
"There's football meetings at lunch."
"His choice. He gets the mark he earns."
"How can we make this problem go away?"
"Well." Perkins paused a moment before going on. "I'd like to go away to Montreal over the holidays. Stay at the Queen Elizabeth at Board expense."
"That can be arranged. And my son gets an A?"
"Hold on. I'm not done. And I want a different hooker every night. Also at Board expense."
White looked at him for a good minute. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Damn right I'm serious. If this got out, it could ruin my career."
"I don't know how we can arrange that. I mean it's not like they take credit cards."
"The upscale ones do. Just get me your Board credit card and I'll take care of the rest."
"And for all that my son gets an A." Half question half statement.
"A plus." And offered him his hand
"Pleasure doing business with you." With that Superintendent White left the room. A minute later Barovsky walked in and" was surprised by the formaldehyde and the cats.
"You're not leaving these cats out overnight, are you?"
"I'm at the dentist tomorrow first thing. I'm showing a movie. Help me put these cats back in storage." Said Perkins as he walked over to a camcorder attached to a tripod and shut the machine off. "Say do you know anything about posting to Youtube?"
Chapter 7 Ryan's Taxonomy
Ryan's Taxonomy
Most teachers divide kids up into three categories. Where the difference of opinion lies is in what those categories should be. Mrs. Templeton would say there are kids who get it and therefore have a chance at doing science at university. Those who don't get it and probably won't go to university and those is the middle who should study geography. As for Barovsky, who was descended from Russian nobility, it was a question of social ranking. One should not hope to rise above one's station in life. Children of doctors, lawyers and university professors could expect to become doctors, lawyers and university professors. Plumbers and other trades people should be happy where they are. Wishing to be something else would only bring disappointment. He included teachers in this category as by and large, he viewed his colleagues with contempt. (his case was different; he was only teaching until the family estates near Nizhny Novogorod were restored to their rightful owners) Then there was the third category: the masses, the uneducated, the ignorant, the stupid, the unemployed. He called them the rabble. He coddled the first group; he tolerated the second and he prided himself in showing disdain for the last.
Cohen, the dramatic arts teacher, sorted kids this way: The few good enough to appear in one of his productions; the several good enough to be stage hands; and the many needed to fill up the numbers so that he could remain a full-time drama teacher and not have to teach his other subject which was English. Most drama teachers think that way. Anything to avoid English. The difference between teaching drama and teaching English is night and day. No one forces you to take drama. English classes are full of people wishing they were somewhere, anywhere else. Drama is fun. English is something between sleeping on a concrete mattress and having your nails pulled out. Drama has almost no homework, and more importantly, drama has almost no marking. English has 2 000 word essays and they need to be marked. Full time English teachers are just walking and talking time bombs. The kids have to take the subject. They have to read long, boring books written by some dead guys. They have to write long, boring essays about those books and worse, the teacher has to mark them. Check the stats. The vast majority of teachers who are on long term disability are there for mental reasons and the vast majority of teachers who are have mental problems are English teachers. You have to be nuts to want to teach English. And if you are not nuts when you start, wait, you will be.
So Cohen would do anything to get out of teaching English. On the first day of grade nine, he'd tell the class that two drama credits were required to graduate. (in reality one arts credit is required). Even though the drama room had a no food policy, he would bring doughnuts every Friday. Being department Head of Arts gave him the power to decide what classes ran and what didn't. Drama classes of 12 would be safe while visual art classes of 20 were closed. Grade 11 and 12 music were grouped together to make one class of 35. Anything to avoid having to teach English.
Ryan, the new guy, was going to save the world. His kids were going to help him do that, Just as soon as they understood the problem. So he only grouped kids two ways. Those who already knew that they were environmentalists and were ready to get to work and those who didn't yet know that they were environmentalists. The kids in his class might have seen it slightly different. There were kids who were browners, suck-ups and geeks and then there was the normal kids. Poor Ryan, no one had the heart to tell him.
Roberts, who was only teaching science until some phys ed periods were available, grouped kids by how likely were they to ask a question that he didn't know the answer to. As there was a lot he didn't know, most students fit into the very likely category.
There were all sorts of ways of categorizing students. Murph, the rugby coach, would walk down the hall and mentally divide kids into forwards and backs, based on their body type. Miss Santino, the sweet young Spanish teacher who needed a boyfriend and spent way too much time thinking about it, would subconsciously divide the boys into hot and not categories. One time she became aware that she was doing that and turned beat red and tried thinking about her dog.
For all her faults, one thing good about Mad-as-Hell Tremblay was that she treated all students equally. She hated them all. If any of them had the slightest idea of what she called them or what she made them call themselves, they would have understood how much she hated them.
"Répétez après moi, les amis. Je suis nul."
"Je suis nul." came the chorus
"Nous sommes nuls."
"Nous sommes nuls."
"Madame, what are we saying. I don't get it?
"Oui, mon petit. Il y a beaucoup de choses que tu ne piges pas."
"Madame, we didn't do any French last year . We just played games and did crosswords."
"Je sais mes amis. Vous n'avez rien fait. Vous ne comprenez rien. Vous n'aimez rien sauf vos stupides téléphones cellulaires. Et vos Ipods. Vous n'êtes pas même pas capable de penser.. Bonne chance dans la vie."
It mattered little that they didn't understand a word of what she was saying. Any other French teacher would have had them hanging off the ceiling, leaning out the window, throwing split balls . Not Mad-as-Hell Tremblay. According to legend, she packed a mickey of whiskey and a switch blade in her purse. She used the mickey every day and she had used the switch blade on a few occasions. She had total control.
Randy Doyle, the vice-principal, had to be concerned about important things. Like were the halls empty during class time? Did we score well (or at least better than last year) on fire drills. Kids mostly fell into three categories: good kids, bad kids and the followers who could go either way. Ryland Hammersmith, in one of his sociology courses, more or less proved what kids have been saying for years. Reputation with teachers is everything. If they think you're a good kid, one can get away with murder. A few girls with stellar reputations and the marks to go along, were asked to go out into the halls in the English wing and make as much noise as possible. Lyndsey Baggott who played the lead in last year's production of You Can't Get There from Here, set herself up at one end of the hall and started reciting Portia's speech from The Merchant of Venice. At the other end of the hall, Kaileigh Streemtrubre went through the starting line up for the offence, the defence and special teams for both the senior and junior football teams, complete with their vital stats. Kaileigh was the third Streemtrubre in a row to be editor of the Leaping Lord, the school yearbook. Both Kaileigh and Lyndsey had scholarships lined up for next year at McGill and Dalhousie. This cacophony went on for a good ten minutes. Two doors were closed and a couple of teachers stuck their heads into the hall to see what was going on. No one said a word to the girls.
In the mean time, Scottie Van Doornedorp, who had been asked to seek educational opportunities elsewhere on more than one occasion. (seeking educational opportunities elsewhere is eduspeak for suspended) organized a card game in the math wing. He and his buddies weren't there more than two minutes before Doyle was on him, sending him back to class despite his protestations that Hammersmith had given him permission to play cards in the hall.
The next day the boys and girls switched. Kaileigh and Lyndsey played cards for the entire period without a word being said to them. And Scottie and the boys tried yelling at both ends of the English hall, though there weren't any speeches from Shakespeare. Well that lasted a minute, barely, before Mrs Noseworthy sent them packing. The next day a discussion followed in sociology about things like fairness, stereotypes and the importance of maintaining a good reputation.
"Man, Doyle is so jag." started Scottie Van Doornedorp. "He kicked me out of the hall and like he didn't care that I had permission to be there. What an SQ."
"I think he's kinda cute" said Honey-Leigh.
"Ooh, yuck. He's a teacher. He's not supposed to be cute." retorted Buffy
"Can we return to the topic of the importance of reputation?" Ryland Hammersmith tried to reel the discussion back to where it was supposed to be.
"I like totally agree." said Honey-Leigh
"Agree with what?" asked Scottie.
"Like your reputation is real important." Honey-Leigh added. "If you sleep with your best friend's boyfriend, you should not let people know or else you'll get a reputation."
"You should know." came a voice from the back.
"Can we please stay on topic?" asked Ryland Hammersmith hoping to regain control
"What d'ya mean, you bitch?"
"Like I said. You heard me fine, slut. You should know 'bout sleeping with someone's boyfriend."
"Hey, you and Kyle were broken up then. It's not my fault that you got back together"
" Honey-Leigh, Brianna, I need you two to get back on topic." Ryland Hammersmith, hoping to minimize the damage.
"Sir, we are so on topic. You wanted us to discuss reputation and we are doing just that. And her reputation is that she's a slut who sleeps with people's boyfriends."
"Bitch" said Honey-Leigh as she got out of her seat and went straight for her throat.
"Cat fight!" yelled the boys in the back.
"Grrrrrrawl!" added Scottie
Ryland went for the phone to get back up from the office, but the receiver had been ripped off long ago. Breaking up a fight is one of the most sticky things that teachers have to do. First rule don't touch the kids. And if you do pull one kid off the other be sure that you're not just holding the one kid so that the other gets a few free shots. Second rule, is don't touch the kids, especially if they are girls and you're a male teacher. Despite all good intentions, a hand can slip. A boob can be grapped and the next thing you know the College of Ontario Teachers is phoning and suggestion you get a lawyer. So what are you going to do? Ask for help from the class? Ain't going to happen. They are enjoying themselves and don't want the show to end. Yell at them to stop? At this point their ears aren't working. Phone for help? Well we saw how easy that is.
After several minutes of "Please stop", Ryland ran across the hall and got Miss Delpeca. All of five feet tall and 95 pounds, Luisa Delpeca had a diaphragm and knew how to use it. Having done drama productions all through high school and university, she had done a hundred thousand breathing exercises. Out of her tiny mouth came a roar whose origins were from deep inside her. The boys at the back stopped cheering. The girls who were watching stopped screaming. The combatants stopped in mid blow and looked for the source of the noise.
Luisa took advantage of the relative calm to utter two short words: "Office! Now!"
The two girls, sufficiently cowed, packed up their books and headed to the office. Miss Delpeca looked up at the six-foot two-inch Hammersmith with a glance half full of contempt and half full of disbelief and said: "It's okay I got this. Just keep an eye on my class while I'm gone." and followed the girls down to the office.
Now the girls had picked a good day to have a fight. For a change Randy Doyle was out of the building, gone to an in-service at the Learning Centre. On his way in to Granite City, Doyle couldn't remember if today's topic was Motivating the Under-motivated, Living with Asbestos or Five Really Good Habits of Really Good Administrators. It didn't matter. It was a day away from the school. A day away from chasing kids who didn't want to go to class. A day away from the dagger stares of the teaching staff who wanted desperately to take marks off for being late, to give zeros for work not handed in and fail a kid who gets caught cheating, who wanted to evaluate the way they always had. They blamed the new Potential Intelligence program on Randy and not on the Learning Centre people who were really responsible.
And it was a day away from doing all the work of the Principal and not getting any of the credit for it.
It was also a free lunch.
On the other hand, today was exceptional because it was one of those rare days when Anthony Bunny, Principal Anthony Bunny was actually in the building. He wasn't at Yoga and the Modern Administrator. He wasn't at You and your inner wicka. He wasn't at the Learning Centre pretending to have all day meetings with Superintendents who were not even there. Having found no excuse to not be at school, he had to actually be there. He had thought of calling in sick.
"Who has October 2?" asked Perkins who ran an office pool where the objective was to predict when Bunny would appear for the first time that school year.
"I do." answered Mrs. Templeton "How much did I win?"
"You again! You won last year! It's fixed!"
"You gotta know your principals. So Perkins, how much?
"$76.54. Are you going to take me to dinner?"
"I might. What are you proposing?"
"Le Chien Qui Fume, this Saturday night."
"76.54 wouldn't buy you an hors d'oeuvre, there. Are you paying for the rest?"
Miss Delpeca arrived at the office with her two detainees in tow: "I need to see Doyle." she said curtly to Mrs P
"Not here." said Mrs P without looking up from her magazine.
"Alright, then Swift, I guess."
"Not here, either."
"Then who's in charge? Noseworthy, again? Or it is Benthover?"
"Nope, it's the big guy."
"Bunny? He's in the building?"
"In flesh and blood. Should I get a camera? Call the press? Declare a national holiday?"
"Call America's Most Wanted? Anyway I need to talk to him? Is he free?"
"I'll check. Mr Bunny, are you free?" She called out to his office without aid of an intercom. Bunny was sitting at his desk with his feet up wearing one of those sleep mask they give you when you fly first class. He was listening to ABBA's greatest hits on a cassette tape playing in his Sony Walkman. The fact that it was the self same Walkman that he bought while at university is a testament to Japanese engineering. And a testament to the frozen state of affairs with Bunny. In direct opposition to the geriatric nature of his listening device, was the catalogue from Creative Innovation that he had been perusing. Creative Innovation billed itself as the leader in Educational Technologies. They promised all kinds of positive results for schools who bought their tablettes, their smartboards and their laptops. Principal Bunny had close to $30,000 to spend on technology, but he had to do it today. Well, actually he had until the end of the month, but he wasn't sure if he was going to be back in the building again this month.
"Give me a minute, would you?' He just couldn't decide between a bank of the SmartBoard 6456i with turbo drive and a class set of Orange's 797 tablette nouvelle. Both were just so ….
"What I have can't wait!'" Miss Delpeca burst into the room and interrupted Bunny's electronic wet dream.
"Lisa, good to see you again" responded Bunny when he had fully returned to reality. Luisa Delpeca motioned with her head as if to say, "Don't use my first name, there are students present."
"What can I help you with, Lisa?" Bunny continued, oblivious to her gesture.
"I broke these two up."
"They're a couple?" asked Bunny.
"No, I broke up a fight between the two of them. In Mr Hammersmith's class." she added as if to say "I don't really have to be here."
"You got this? Cause I really need to go back to class." and she left without waiting for a reply.
"Well, well." said Bunny, turning to the girls "Why don't you two tell me about it?"
"That bitch called me a slut." said Brianna
"That slut called me a bitch." added Honey-Leigh
"Now, girls."
"Well, you are a slut."
"And you're a bitch."
"I'm gonna rip your eyes out."
"I'm gonna make you eat your own face."
"Girls, please stop." Despite Bunny's less than stern admonishments, Brianna was on Honey-Leigh in a flash. Bunny continued to try to get them to stop with a series of 'please don't' and 'stop please'. But the hair pulling and face gouging continued unabated until Mrs P' walked into Bunny's office and ended the fight with: "You two should be ashamed. I'm calling your mothers." This was no insincere threat. Mrs P being a grad of LBSS knew both their mothers, had been to school with both their mothers and continued to bowl with them every Tuesday. Their mothers had baby sat her children and she had baby sat Brianna and Honey-Leigh.
"Sorry, Mrs. P. Please don't call my mother." said the girls in unison.
"Well, what is this silly fight about?"
"Nothing" said Brianna
"Just a boy." said Honey-Leigh
"Not Kyle, I hope. You know he is really not worth it."
"Tell me about it! I'm going to dump him. You want him Honey-Leigh?
"Hell no, Brianna. He's too jag for me."
"Me too."
"Now, you two, go on now, get back to class."
"Thanks, Mrs P
Bunny, who should have invited the girls to seek educational opportunities elsewhere for at least three days, just sat there and watched Mrs. P take care of the whole thing.
Principals think they are in charge, but they're not.
Administrators and Principals probably sort teachers in the same way that teachers sort students. Categories like compliant and non-compliant or useful and useless, clueless and not clueless come to mind. As for teachers in the useless or clueless categories you'd think that Administrators would do what they could to get rid of them. Well, they don't.
The public image is that teachers' unions will fight tooth and nail to keep a member employed. Any member no matter how bad they are. But the truth is that they don't have to. Admin never makes them We all have had a teacher or two who, when all is said and done, should probably have picked another profession. And Principals will recognize them easily enough. Principals will take action to get them out of their school. But they won't get them out of the profession. They will do what they can to have them made surplus to the school and therefore transfered to another school. Sometimes they will make trades with other principals. You take our dud and we'll take yours. Sometimes they'll give the guy such a lousy timetable that he'll see the writing on the wall and find something else to do.
Warren Pettitfour had been at Lord Byron for several years. He wasn't especially happy doing what he did. He could have looked for another school-heaven knows there were lots of people who would be glad if he did-but he just never seemed to have the ambition. The devil you know and all that… He had started in English. But the marking seemed to overwhelm him. He was always behind and never able to catch up. Stuff would stay in the trunk of his car for days, then the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months and then…Well at some point it was just easier to make up a mark; use his professional judgement. And, you know, if he had always given them higher marks than they deserved, no one would have complained. But there was always some smart-assed kid whose behaviour was worse than his ability and Warren would use marks to punish him. Do that often enough and a parent will complain to the Principal that the mark is too low and where did it come from anyway. Next thing you know the Principal is asking to see the mark book and Warren has to make up a whole set of marks and it starts getting to be more work than the work he was trying to avoid and he can't keep up the charade and the Principal has to fix things with the parent. And Principals don't like to be made to look foolish Well the end result is that the Principal starts looking for a place to put Warren. But nobody else will take him so where can he hide him?
Wilberforce, the head of the English department, managed to farm him off to the Social Sciences department. But it wasn't cheap. Wilberforce had to give up her south-facing, away from the road corner room, which had been in the department for decades. (When she moved out she found projects with newspaper clippings from when the Leafs last won the Stanley Cup and you know that wasn't yesterday) and all the tech grants that Wilberforce got were transfered to Social Science. Hammersmith had no idea where he was going to spend this tech money. But he wasn't going take Warren for nothing.
After a few years they couldn't stomach Warren any more. History assignments not marked aren't significantly different from unmarked English ones. But who would take him? Student Services? Would you want him advising students? Co-op? Would you want him dealing with employers? If Ryland Hammersmith was going to unload Warren Pettitfour the price was going to be high.
The Co-op people weren't at all interested. Social Science had nothing they needed.. They didn't need a classroom, even if it was the nicest one in the building. And if you don't need a classroom, you don't need a lot of technology. Guidance people were pretty much in the same boat. You couldn't suddenly turn him into a French teacher. Hammersmith was desperate. Couldn't English take him back? No way was answer from Wilberforce. They had paid their dues.
Hammersmith went to Bunny and begged. He pleaded. Social Science wasn't like English. They've got to take English all the way through. Warren was driving kids out of their courses. Sure, he didn't get to teach the senior ones. But a lot of students felt very unprepared to take senior social sciences after taking history from Warren. He was good for numbers in other subjects, but deadly for social sciences. Bunny wasn't totally unsympathetic. He said he would shop him around. Other schools might jump at the chance to have a teacher with that much experience on their team.
Once Hammersmith heard the word team, he knew it was hopeless. Bunny has speaking eduspeak and was only trying to placate him. Ryland told himself that while he had to continue putting up with Warren Pettitfour, he at least got to keep his corner classroom.
If Admin doesn't care much one way or the other about useless teachers, they do care a lot about the non-compliant ones. When the various theories of the Colorado Institute of Learning were introduced to the Granite District School Board (GDSB for short- some of the locals say that the GD stands for God Damn), many teachers thought they were a crock of shit. And who wouldn't? Potential Intelligence? What the hell is that? Evaluate students based on how smart they appear. Lates don't matter. Cheating is okay. Hand stuff in if you feel like it. What are they smoking out in Colorado?
Jones hated these stupid theories. Perkins hated them. Mrs Templeton couldn't find the words to describe how much she hated them. You can imagine how Barovsky felt. Not one of them said anything. They all just closed their doors and carried on like they always did. It was the passive resistance of a people who didn't believe they had any power to change things at all.
Ryan didn't know any better.
Ryan wrote emails to Superintendent White, to Director of Education Crapaud, to Chairperson of the Board Loveless and to Trustee Lindenhauser. Ryan mistakenly thought that an educational institution such as the GDSB was open to a free and informed debate on the pros and cons of such a wide-sweeping change as Potential Intelligence. He found studies from as far away places as Finland and Taiwan. He crunched the numbers, chewed up all the facts and drew his own conclusions. He actually liked a big chunk of the Potential Intelligence theory, but thought that it needed to be twigged a great bit.
He thought he had a voice.
At first the emails he fired off came back with short albeit polite responses. Then a few didn't come back at all and finally his emails came back as undeliverable. Superintendent White, Director of Education Crapaud, Chairman of the Board Loveless and Trustee Lindenhauser had all blocked him. They didn't want to debate, they didn't want to discuss, they didn't want to listen to his ideas. They just wanted him to shut up.
Despite, several emails, phone calls and (out of sheer desperation) a singing telegram… okay you just can't mention a singing telegram without giving the details. So here goes.
Mrs Oliver, who was Superintendent White's secretary, was pretty good at not letting just anyone into the Superintendent's office. But the young lady in a UPS suit looked harmless enough. Normally, UPS would drop its deliveries at the receptionist desk at the main doors. But in this case the young lady had insisted that the package was of a personal nature and only Mr. White could sign for it.
When the "UPS" lady walked into his office, Superintendent White was busily perusing Attack Dog Monthly. -he liked to read ADM because it gave him ideas about how to handle his minions.
"Superintendent White?" asked the young lady in a very sultry voice
Intrigued, White answered: "I sure am. What can I do for you?"
"Here hold this." she said handing him the package which had been her excuse into his office. She then undid the first two buttons of her blouse and began to sing:
(to the tune of frère Jacques) Potential, Potential
Intelligence, Intelligence
Is a stupid
A very, very stupid
With that she hopped up on his desk, undid another button and asked in a voice that was sexy and dippy at the same time: "Would you like the second verse, Mr Superintendent, sir?"
White's gaze went up to her face and back to the unbuttoned blouse. Either by choice or necessity he remained silent, but made it clear that he would like that very much. The young lady removed her hand from the next button and gently placed it on the hem of her already short skirt. Ever so slightly she readjusted the hem toward the north and recommenced singing:
Mister White, Mister White
Please desist
Please desist
Before you ruin
Yes you're gonna ruin
All our schools,
All our schools
Sure it wasn't the best poetry. But you had to admire Ryan's chutzpa. The UPS lady with the short skirt and the unbuttoned blouse continued: "Sign here, please. Mr. Superintendent, sir." She had produced a clipboard from somewhere. She brought a pen to her lips, gave it the slightest of licks and passed it to Superintendent White, who on the second or third try managed to sign the paper close to the right spot.
"Gotta go now." she said as she hopped off the desk, straightened her skirt, did up her blouse and popped out the door. White sat there in silence for the longest time. Whether from shock or the desire to not have the moment pass or just because he didn't know what to do wasn't clear.
After a certain amount of time, White regained his composure and called for Mrs. Oliver.
"Find out who sent that telegram."
"Telegram, sir?"
"Yes, that woman who was just here delivered a singing telegram."
"A singing telegram,sir? I don't think they do that anymore. But I'll check."
"And Mrs. Oliver?"
"If that woman ever comes back…"
"Yes sir?"
"By all means is she not to be refused admittance. Do I make myself clear?
"Yes, sir."
Well the answer about the origin of the telegram came back very quickly. There was nowhere in Granite City to get a singing telegram and for that matter any kind of telegram. But that didn't stop Superintendent White from concluding that the telegram must have come from that trouble maker Ryan up in Byronville. He was going to have to deal with him once and for all.
A meeting was announced. An open forum for all staff at Lord Byron Secondary School who had concerns about the new evaluation policy. Questions were to be submitted in advance and Senior Admin, headed by Superintendent White would do their best to clarify everything. Many members of the staff saw this as a bright new development. Staff would have a voice and maybe, just maybe they would be listened to and these stupid reforms would be stopped. Several members of various departments submitted questions. Mrs Templeton didn't submit any. Neither did Barovsky. Perkins intended to go to the Legion that day and get drunk with old timers. Ryan, on the other hand, prepared a Powerpoint presentation of all the 37 questions that he wanted to asked. (Actually it wasn't a Powerpoint; he was boycotting Microsoft products because of … Um well he had some reason for the boycott)
The day of the big meeting soon came and the staff was abuzz with anticipation. The staff were assembled in the library at the end of the school day and there they waited. And waited. And waited.
About three-quarters of an hour after the meeting should have started in walked Superintendent White escorted by three two-footed attack dogs, Thelma Peacock, Supervising Principal of Human Resources, Connie Hammerstrom, Supervising Principal of Finance and Henry Farling, Supervising Principal at large. White sat down while his entourage remained standing behind him in a semi-circle not unlike a Pharaoh with three stylized statues of dogs at the rear. Only these dogs had bite. Farling was wearing a dark blue suit whose colour came dangerously close to black, a plain white shirt and a neat sky blue tie, tied with a full Windsor knot. He would have easily fit in at any board meeting on Bay Street or Wall Street. Hammerstrom was dressed like the female equivalent of Farling. She wore a navy dress suit and pants with a red scarf tied around her neck providing the only colour. Peacock was something different though. While still professional looking, she had made no attempt to hide her sexuality. The tight skirt which went a little beyond the knees, the purple sweater which left no doubt of the shape below the surface and the fish net stockings were all very clear evidence of her gender. Her open-toed high heels were anything but sensible.
For one brief moment it looked like high noon with each side trying to stare the other down. But White wasn't interested in confrontation; he was interested in dictation. With a nod of the head he summoned Peacock who moved to the front and took out a book which she didn't open. "This book is the rules and regulations which govern your relations with your employer, the Granite District School Board. Let me paraphrase it for you. You are all employees of the Board. In regards to decisions made by Senior Admin, you will not give your opinion. If we wanted your opinion and we don't, we would ask for it and we won't. You will do as you are told. You can smile if you wish while you are doing it. That is the only thing that you have any control over. In all other matters you will shut the fuck up. I trust that I have made myself clear."
With that she turned around and went back to her spot.
"What audacity." thought Ryan.
"What arrogance." thought Barovsky
"What an ass." thought Roberts
White looked at his entourage and concluded: "I think we're done here. Have a nice day."
So much for Ryan, the new guy. New guys are full of optimism, hope and belief in the possible. New guys believe they can change the world. New guys are full of energy. New guys are refreshingly naive.
From now on it was just Ryan.
And it was no more Mister Nice Guy. If it was a fight they wanted, he was ready to give them one.


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At first, rumor had it that there would be no Christmas Door Decorating Contest. Then five days before judging, they announce there will be a contest. Five days is not enough time. The previous year took me three weeks to handcraft a well decorated door. And I won 1st place in H6.
This year I'm in H3, and I got 3rd place. Good enough for a dozen cookies as a prize.
The guy who won 1st place cheated. He got his door decorations from his buddy who won the H3 contest in a previous year. Then he put those same decorations on his door for this contest. It took him all of 20 minutes. The second he won, he took down the decorations and boxed them up for the next year, while everyone else still had their doors decorated. What does that tell you?
While the 1st place door only took about 20 minutes, I spent about 25 hours hand crafting a 3D snowman and cutting out approximately 100 snowflakes! Among other things. I wanted to make a beautiful 3D Christmas tree, but there simply wasn't enough time.
It was nice to enjoy the Christmas Spirit with my wife, Suzie. She is the one who always encourages me to participate in the annual Christmas Door Decorating Contest. She brings so much warmth to my days. Suzie loves Christmas music during the holidays, so as I decorated the door, I also listened to Christmas music.
Although I'm thankful for all my blessings and my heart is filled with joy and gratitude, I must admit that it sucks that a guy can break out a winning door from last year and win again this year, with no real effort.
Then, on top of that, I didn't even get to take a real picture with my door. I don't know what happened. Usually they post a date and time for pictures. It seems as if they didn't even want to do the contest at all…as a result they just rushed through it.
Oh well, it's prison. What do you expect?
Better luck next year.
I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays!


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The ancient geographical region of Lycia situates on the Teke Peninsula on the Mediterranean region of Turkey. Ancient Lycia was surrounded by Mediterranean Sea on the south, Caria on the west and Pamphylia on the east. Lycian Civilization is well-known by many remains in this area dated to 5th and 4th century B.C. belonging to Hellenistic and Roman Period. The written Egyptian and Hittite sources of dated back to the 2th millennium B.C. mentions a tribe called "Luka" or "Lukka" and Hittite king Suppiluliuma mentions his conquer the "Lycia Country" in 14th century B.C. Also, written sources about the Kadesh Battle calls these people as "Lukkies the sea people". According to the historians "Lukka" means "Land of the Light". Lycia was ruled by Syrian king Antiochus III starting from the end of the 2nd century B.C. until mid 2nd century B.C. In the mid 1st century B.C. "Lycian League" was established which comprised of 23 cities. This union was the first known democratic federation in the history which inspired the modern day democratic systems. In this system, principle cities had 3 votes while the others had 2 votes or 1 depending on their size.
Major cities of this federation were Patara (being the capital city), Xanthos, Pinara, Olympos, Myra and Tlos which had three votes later joined Phaselis. Teke Peninsula also holds the other cities of Lycian League, many of those are well known from the systematic excavations, also form the coins and inscriptions namely Andriake, Sura, Kyaenai, Limyra, Theimmusa, Simena, Istlada, Trebende, Aperlae.
1- Myra
2- Olympos
3- Patara
4- Phaselis


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Tagged: Fernando Tatis
Uneven Performance
Those of us that were not part of the mass exodus at the stunning conclusion of the seventh inning last night were rewarded in some small part yesterday, if not given the pleasure of a Mets win.
Not a Good Night for the Tenor
Often, at the MET, if a singer is feeling "under the weather", an official comes out onstage prior to the performance to announce that so-and-so "is suffering from a cold but has graciously decided to sing and asks for your understanding."
Those of us sitting in the orchestra pit have heard these announcements more than just occasionally and often joke to each other that, in spite of not having any good reeds, we will each nonetheless perform.
No such disclaimers would ever occur in baseball, of course: announcing to the opposition that your starting pitcher might not be having his best day would be tantamount to forfeiting the game. However, when your starter is not consistently getting his regular velocity on his fast ball, it doesn't take an announcement over the public address system for fans to notice.
And such was the case last night with John Maine's first outing of the season on "Opening Night 2010" at Citi Field.
While he wasn't awful, last night's performance did not actually inspire you, if you are a Mets fan.
Major Memory Lapse
If there was one lesson the team and, specifically, Jerry Manuel and the coaching staff would've taken away from last season, I would've hoped it would have been the need to address what were some terrible base-running decisions and lapses of concentration on the base paths.
While Razor Shines certainly cannot be blamed for last night's seventh-inning fatal error on Fernando Tatis's part, the sight of Fernando being thrown out at the plate in an attempt to take advantage of a wild pitch by Veras–with David Wright up to bat with the bases loaded–seemed a continuation of last season's faulty judgements.
Ringing High Notes
In spite of the huge disappointment that was the end of the seventh, and the less-than-stellar outing by Maine, there were a few highlights worth the Yankees/Red Sox-length of the game:
- A triple by Cora: an exciting start to the bottom of the first.
- An amazing catch by Jason Bay in the top of the fourth.
- The excitement of seeing Mejia's (pictured, at right; speed pitch, photo below) and Tejada's first Major League appearances.
- A Jose Reyes-like rattling of Marlins pitcher Nunez by Gary Matthews, Jr., invoking a balk.
- Watching a comeback–during which time a "We Believe in Comebacks" promo played on the scoreboard. While the power surge did not result in a win, it did show a collective resolve and grit that I do not remember seeing much of last season.
Although I woke up this morning feeling tired and somewhat frustrated that I had stayed at the stadium so late with so little to show for it, I'm trying to focus on these "high notes" and hope the team will build on those.
Super Subs
Nothing personal or anything, Carlos Delgado.
I don't know if your recent benching by Willie Randolph has enabled you to "clear your head" or not, but I do know that it has allowed for some MAJORLY impressive contributions from the bench.
Collectively referred to on-air as the "Super Subs" by Keith Hernandez in last night's SNY-TV coverage, bench players have played a huge role in the past two games.
Last night, Damion Easley had several hits, and his comrades Endy Chavez and Fernando Tatis obviously kept us in the game and then some through extra innings for an oh-so-rare come-from-behind win!
How about that for some extra RELISH?!
The previous evening–also a win–saw terrific production by those three players as well as Ramon Castro.
Not only did we get some great stuff from the bench the past two nights, but–reading between the lines–it also seems that perhaps a fire has been lit under Omar Minaya: he may not be content to just sit back and wait for Delgado to get out of the slump he's been in for what seems like forever.
Apparently, Omar's GOING SHOPPING!
In the meantime, whatever the lineup, I look forward to going to Shea tonight to cheer the Mets on for–dare I say it?–a possible THIRD win in a row!
Thanks, guys, for an exciting couple of nights of baseball!
And particular thanks to those "Super Subs"
for helping us WRAP up a come-from-behind win!
You are my HEROES!


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News Releases
SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Expands in Dallas, San Francisco and Chicago
PR Newswire
Nov 4, 2013
ATLANTA, Nov. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey (STRH) is establishing corporate banking offices in Dallas, San Francisco and Chicago to enhance its ability to deliver a comprehensive suite of banking solutions to middle-market businesses and corporate clients in those regions. STRH is the trade name for the corporate and investment banking services of SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI), which are conducted through its wholly-owned subsidiaries SunTrust Bank and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.
"SunTrust Robinson Humphrey is a leading, full-service, middle-market investment bank that offers high-quality, differentiated service to clients nationwide," said Mark A. Chancy, wholesale banking executive at SunTrust. "Expanding our physical presence builds on the strong STRH foundation to meet growing market needs by bringing our industry-specific expertise, client-first focus, and breadth of financial solutions to help businesses achieve their goals."
The STRH teams in Dallas, San Francisco and Chicago will cover nearby states and offer a full range of corporate and investment banking products and services, including debt and equity capital markets, treasury and payment solutions, financial risk management, foreign exchange, employee benefits solutions, M&A advisory, and liquidity and investment products.
The Dallas-based Southwest office, San Francisco-based Western office and Chicago-based Midwest office recently opened, and will complement SunTrust's existing presence in all three markets. STRH has existing asset-based lending and equipment finance leasing teams in Texas and Chicago, and a capital markets and wealth management presence in California.
The Dallas-based corporate banking team is led by industry veteran Clint Bryant, who joined STRH from Fifth Third Bank, where he served as its Southwest mid-corporate market manager. Prior to that, he was a senior relationship manager for Wells Fargo based in Dallas.
Joining Bryant are Julia Harman and Don Besch. Harman previously served as a corporate banking senior relationship manager for Fifth Third's Southwest operations in Dallas, as well as a relationship manager at Wells Fargo. A 13-year STRH veteran, Besch has extensive experience in corporate and investment banking, and most recently served as a managing director in the firm's consumer and retail investment banking group. Previously, Besch spent 18 years at BankBoston in various positions, both domestically and internationally.
The San Francisco-based Western corporate banking team is led by industry veteran Jim Deichen, who joined STRH after 34 years with Bank of America, where he most recently served as the west coast head of technology corporate banking.
The Midwest corporate banking team in Chicago is led by industry veteran Ted Heldring, who joined STRH after 12 years at J.P. Morgan, where he most recently served as the head of the Chicago office for debt capital markets. Prior to that, Heldring was a Managing Director for Wachovia and was also with Chemical Securities.
All three offices will add bankers to their teams in the near future.
About SunTrust Robinson Humphrey
SunTrust Robinson Humphrey is the trade name for the corporate and investment banking services of SunTrust Banks, Inc., including SunTrust Bank and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey provides comprehensive capital raising, strategic advisory, risk management, and investment solutions to serve the needs of corporate clients across the nation. Fixed income and equity research, sales and trading for institutional investors and M&A advisory are provided by SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.
SunTrust Robinson Humphrey has extensive experience working with public and private companies of all sizes – from emerging growth to the Fortune 500. While it offers a complete array of solutions and advice for companies across all industries, it provides in-depth industry expertise and dedicated corporate and investment banking practices for certain core sectors, including business services, financial sponsors, building products, healthcare, consumer and retail, media and communications, energy, transportation, financial services and technology, and real estate.
About SunTrust Banks, Inc.
SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI), headquartered in Atlanta, is one of the nation's largest banking organizations, serving a broad range of consumer, commercial, corporate and institutional clients. As of September 30, 2013, SunTrust had total assets of $171.8 billion and total deposits of $128.9 billion. Through its flagship subsidiary, SunTrust Bank, the company operates an extensive branch and ATM network throughout the high-growth Southeast and Mid-Atlantic States and a full array of technology-based, 24-hour delivery channels. The company also serves clients in selected markets nationally. Its primary businesses include deposit, credit, trust and investment services. Through its various subsidiaries, the company provides mortgage banking, asset management, securities brokerage, and capital market services. SunTrust's Internet address is suntrust.com.
SOURCE SunTrust Banks, Inc.


text: Recent Posts in Mercedes-Benz Recall Category Mercedes-Benz Owners: Is Your Vehicle Cheating Emissions Standards? Posted By Maloney & Campolo || 24-Feb-2016 Attention Mercedes-Benz owners: contrary to the claims of the automaker, your vehicle may be producing illegal nitrogen oxide emissions. That is what is alleged in a new lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey. As reported by AutoBlog, the alleged fraud closely mirrors the same scandal that hit German automaker Volkswagen last year, when company leaders admitted to outfitting many ... Continue Reading


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How to eat mindfully – Kevala yoga way
Everybody has to eat every day. There is breakfast, lunch and dinner. Meals are often tasks we undertake with every little thought and effort. Sometimes if our schedule is too busy, we lose awareness and it is possible to forget that we are even eating in the first place. This is bad because you could eat up overeating or skip meals without even realising it.
If this sounds like your approach to eating, then why not give eating mindfully a fair go? Eating mindfully can not only improve your relationship with food but can help balance and refresh the mind, body and spirit. This spiritual process of eating can also increase your chances of successful weight loss long term.
At Kevala Yoga, weight loss is not just a goal in order to live a healthier lifestyle, it is a way of living and a mindful way of eating is simply the best way to tackle unwanted kilos. You can eat mindfully by following these five steps;
- It is all about taste. Focusing on the taste of food alone can trick your mind to think you are fuller than you realise because by focusing on taste, you are taking your time and eating less. Try to guess what the extra flavouring is and focus on the texture of the food.
- Build your awareness of food. Become aware of what you eat specifically and how much you eat. Keeping a food diary is a great start to build your awareness with food. Yoga is all about awareness as well because you are learning about what your body can and cannot do while you improve your health.
- Try to eat your meals without distractions. Have you ever noticed that when you eat dinner in the front of the tv, you find yourself wondering where did your meal go and you are still feeling hungry? Without distractions you can be more mindful about how much you eat in a much calmer way. Mindfulness is being objective and you learn how to do this through the vastness of meditation.
- Don't turn to food when you are feeling down. Emotional eating can lessen your chances at weight loss, so instead of curbing your stress with chocolate give a few yoga poses a fair go. Curb your stress the natural way, through the power of your body.
- Improve your relationship with food and do not see it as the enemy. If you hate your fresh fruit and vegetables because they are not as sugary as chocolate, then focus on what food can do for you. As the saying goes, you are what you eat. So do you want to be as lively and healthy as an energising banana or soft and sluggish like chocolate moose? Just like with yoga, you can restart your commitment to eat mindfully by reminding yourself why you are doing this.
To practise mindful eating is to feel at peace with food and it is ultimately a conscious decision. The results are a new way of living, weight loss and an improved understanding about yoga – it is not just a pose.
Kevala Yoga can give you these results with no worries. Classes are run at Upper Coomera, Oxenford and Helensvale on Gold Coast.
Tags: body and mind, DETOX, gold coast yoga, health, healthy eating, stress, weight loss, wellbeing


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We all think we are kind, don't we? How do we become kind though? Is it a natural stage of development that just happens with maturity? Maybe not quite.
I started babysitting when I was 12 and by the time I was 15 I decided I never wanted to have children because they were all so mean! Why are little kids so mean sometimes? They seem to think it's great fun to be mean. Does anyone ever think it's great fun to be kind?
Children need to see kindness in action and feel the benefit of it often in order for it to become a natural state of being. Some personality types may seem naturally more kind than others, but kindness is not specifically a
personality trait, it's more of a learned habit. Just as we teach our children to walk, talk and care for themselves, we have to put some daily focused effort into teaching kindness through our words and actions. Here are some tips to help you bring out the kindness in your kids.
Have A Motto or Rule
When I was growing up it was the "Golden Rule - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." For very young children (or if you don't like cliches) you might want to make it more simple, like: "Being kind spreads happiness". When your child asks you, "Why?", you can explain that kindness attracts kindness. If we hurt people's feelings, are rude or mean, then it is more likely that people will also treat us that way. Also, we get a good feeling inside when we act in a kind way, even if the other person isn't kind.
Use Teachable Moments
Open doors for others, be a considerate driver, say please and thank you, and remember that your example is your child's best teacher. There are also moments when we can reinforce the kindness message by asking our child for their opinion, especially when others behave poorly. "Do you think that was a nice thing to do?" (No) "How do you think Becky feels about what Susie said to her?" or "What would you have done if you were in that situation?" Discussing the kindness you see or don't see on a day to day basis helps your child learn how they can modify their own unkind impulses.
Talk About Benefits or Results
In your daily activities and conversations, when the topic of kindness comes up, be sure to point out when a kindness toward someone is rewarded by kindness in return. We don't always get rewarded for being kind, but another thing to point out is that we feel better about ourselves when we treat others with respect, regardless of whether they do likewise. This is a difficult point for young children to understand at first, so it's worth talking about on more than one occasion.
Provide Opportunities
"Would you bring this blanket to Grandpa? I think he might be cold." "Can you share your cookies with Dad? Maybe he would like something sweet too." "We grew so many tomatoes this summer, lets see if our neighbors would like some." At home, in the neighborhood and in our community there are many opportunities to express kindness toward others. Without much trouble parents can create small opportunities on a daily or weekly basis for their child to practice random acts of kindness. Making a suggestion with a little bit of encouragement will help your child become more aware of these opportunities.
Watch Yourself
With the pressures and responsibilities of being a parent we don't always see ourselves the way our children do. Our frustrations, or tired and cranky moods, can be perceived as meanness and taken personally by our children. One way to avoid this is by labeling your feelings, and clarifying that the cause of your feelings is not your child. Then try to do a kind act, or say something kind to your child. This will provide a powerful example for your child of how it's possible to be kind even when you don't feel like it.
Feel free to share some of your own random acts of kindness in the comments.


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Interview on Swindon105.5 with Lisa Coleman - Jan 2011
"These mantras, beautifully rendered in a contemporary fashion that retains the spirit of the originals, provide a profound, musical introduction to the basics of Tibetan tantra and to heartfelt Buddhism in general. The singer-composer is to be warmly congratulated on this innovation."
John Crook , Chuan deng Jing Di. Teacher: Western Chan Fellowship.
Mantrasphere -the album. By Barry Andrews.
'an album of devotional buddhist songs scored for acoustic guitar and voices' is not perhaps the sexiest strapline you'll ever hear but you would surely be a creature of hide and ice to resist the ravishments of Mantrasphere's debut collection.
This is Hughie Carroll (for it is he) doing his first ever album and you would think that might imply hesitancy; perhaps an aesthetic not yet entirely developed but not at all so. The whole thing seemed to appear fully formed and with that quality you get from the best art that 'it could not be any other way'.
I should say here that I produced Mantrasphere but I can take no credit for anything apart from what I hope is a worthy job of tweaking and varnishing: as I say, the songs seemed to have already made up their minds what they wanted to sound like.
Do you have to be a Buddhist to dig Mantrasphere? I confess to a sympathy in this direction -the only religion I feel the remotest affinity to- but I don't think that matters any more than Mozart's Requiem or Bob Marley's Exodus require that you listen as a Catholic or a Rasta.
It's not often that you get involved in a project like this: it's Hughie's brainchild totally but seems about a lot more than his own inner landscape. There's something almost impersonal about some of the songs which you find, say, in Bach or Islamic music. Thus, in a single bound, he avoids that serpent of self-indulgence whose coils await all unwary singer/songwriters with acoustic guitars.
And, all that apart, it is just very beautiful - full of shade and nuance and some very fine musicianship. I commend it to Hungry Ghosts everywhere.u`ll text on 'rottenmeats'
Green Man Review
"The real beauty of the album is that whilst being spiritual it doesn't aim to preach yet is still able to speak to everyone. And speak it does, seemingly in a language that is both personal yet universal, minimal yet comprehensive. It is at once music to chill out to yet energizing, music of the here and now yet timeless. You can't ask a lot more from a musician can you?"
*****"..not only is it very moving in its own right, but it forced me to take a longer look at my own musical preconceptions and restrictions."
- Sam Bucca f
"Ive been listening to the clips on your website and loving it, its a wonderful blend of heartfulness and devotion with your majical guitar playing and rich composition." - Vicky
Brilliantly original, Buddhist inspired music, energizing, chilled and evocative stuff - Dave F
cool new album of an unidentifiable genre - Rebecca
A Bodhisattva of sound...listen with innocent ears - Ned
Mantrasphere musical album is blissful, romantic and soothing. The softness of the guitar strings, the enigma of the vocalists, the depth of the Buddhist mantras all fuse together to appeal to all types of audience -be it a layman, Westerner or an Easterner, a yogi or a Buddhist or of any religious affinity, equally.
The songs of this album can be listened to for healing as these mantras stand for, or they can be used as background to immerse & relax into while you have to do some routine chores! The attempt to modify the tunes of these mantras to reach the wider public, while restoring their essence, is commendable. The images & meanings of the mantras given on your website are also useful. - Latha


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Our third short feature video is with Anisa Tejpar, ProArteDanza dancer and Summer Intensive Program Coordinator. Anisa takes us behind the scenes of a SHORT STORIES rehearsal and gives us a glimpse of the creation process with Robert Glumbek.
SHORT STORIES hits the stage May 29-31, 2014 at Artscape Wychwood Barns in Toronto, Ontario.
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/639006


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Thanks to our players, billions of dollars have supported communities and help B.C. grow.
Senior Executive Team
Jim Lightbody
CEO and President
On March 31, 2015, BCLC's Board of Directors appointed Jim as President and Chief Executive Officer of the corporation. He held the role on an Interim basis since January 30, 2014.
Over the past 17 years, Jim has also served as Vice President of Lottery Gaming and Vice President of Casino and Community Gaming. He has provided leadership and direction in strategy, marketing and product development as well as operational responsibility for the provision of products, services and support for players and business partners.
Prior to joining BCLC, Jim held a wide range of responsibilities in the retail and hospitality industries with companies such as Procter & Gamble, Nabob Foods, BC Hot House and Sun Rich Fresh Foods. This has instilled in him a keen sense of creating value for customers through innovation and partnering with key stakeholders in the delivery of the customer experience.
Jim holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of British Columbia with a major in marketing. He sits on the Thompson Rivers University School of Business and Economics Advisory Board, the Kamloops Blazers Ownership Advisory Group, and also volunteers as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the BC Sports Hall of Fame, and the Chair of the BC Horseracing Management Committee.


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Always a highlight of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo, and almost always the closing event, Facetasm brand delivers season after season with a hyper-dynamic show packed with whimsical details and tons of street-style cool.
At the same time brand designers often go for giving those present in the audience a memorable, highly dramatic, theatrical production that incorporates unusual lighting and a killer soundtrack. The downside to all of this production? Sometimes lighting that looks fantastic in person doesn't translate well into photography, which means our audience back in the USA might miss out some of the amazing details of the pieces.
All images: C.Hope for Style Wylde
Looking for more Tokyo fashion? Go here for complete coverage of the Spring 2015 season.


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Tomorrow is the weekend! Why don't you stay here while I'm giving you an outfit inspiration? Of wearing match outfit to go out on the weekend? Good Idea? Well, finally I post about fashion after (again and again) I post about beauty and stuff. This photo was actually taken in February when I went to Surabaya on a trip and extended to visit my relatives (and sister).
One day, we decided to go out, looking for some fresh air (and I was pretending to be a tourist). We didn't plan to wear the matching outfit at the time, but I think it's a good time to take #ootd photos with my sister.
I wore a blue overall culotte (but wearing it inside), with a vintage white blouse, and a black cami as the outerwear.
My sister wore a black culotte, a cream shirt, completed with a sleeveless outer.
Here is the palette...
We wore the same palette, as you see in the picture above, the color we wore wasn't the same. We wore the light color of the tops, dark for the outer and the bottom. For the bottom, we both wore the culotte, but mine is overall, and hers is pants. And again, accidentally, we wore the same color of bags. We both wore sneakers as well. How matching!
Twinning is not that hard, and we don't have to wear the exact clothes or even color to look matched each other. In my case, we don't wear anything that's exactly the same. We wear the similar items that we have (accidentally). It also can save your budget, just look into your closet and see which items are similar to your sister/friend. I can show you some tips to wear a matching outfit:
- Don't have to wear exactly the same items, but wear the same layers as what we do.
- Match it with color.
- Wear matching accessories, such as bags, shoes, necklaces, watch, bracelet, etc.
That's pretty much it. It's super easy, isn't it?
Which one is the younger and the older? 😜