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In a fast-paced world where convenience trumps healthy home cooking, the battle is on to protect your heart. The food choices you make can drastically affect your heart health, energy and appetite control. Keep your heart in tip-top shape with choices that are tasty, healthy and convenient for the entire family. From berries and nuts, to fish and leafy greens, find out which foods are best for your heart.
Best foods for Heart health
Research shows yogurt may protect against gum disease. Left unchecked, gum disease may elevate a person's risk for heart disease. Researchers from Japan analyzed dietary intakes from nearly 1,000 adults and found those who consumed the highest levels of dairy—specifically yogurt and yogurt-type drinks—had the healthiest gums. Their report, published in the Journal of Periodontology, credits probiotics (a.k.a. "good bacteria") as one possible champion of gum health. Experts believe that probiotics may help to counter growth of the "unfriendly" bacteria in the mouth. Probiotics are live active cultures used to ferment foods, such as yogurt and kefir (fermented milk), and studies suggest that they may improve digestion and boost immunity too. As for gum health, it's not yet clear how much yogurt (or other fermented dairy foods) one needs to consume to reap the benefits, says Yoshihiro Shimazaki, D.D.S., Ph.D., of Kyushu University, the study's lead author.
(read more: Health Benefits of Yogurts)
(read more: Health Benefits of Yogurts)
Salmon and other fatty fish such as sardines and mackerel are the superstars of heart-healthy foods. That's because they contain copious amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, shown in studies to lower the risk of arrhythmia (irregular heart beat) and atherosclerosis (plaque build-up in the arteries) and decrease triglycerides. The American Heart Association recommends eating fish and preferably fatty fish at least twice a week. Omega-3 fatty acids are also available as dietary supplements.
Start your day with a steaming bowl of oats, which are full of omega-3 fatty acids, folate, and potassium. This fiber-rich superfood can lower levels of LDL (or bad) cholesterol and help keep arteries clear. Opt for coarse or steel-cut oats over instant varieties—which contain more fiber—and top your bowl off with a banana for another 4 grams of fiber.
(read more: Oatmeal Scrub for Clean Healthy Skin)
(read more: Oatmeal Scrub for Clean Healthy Skin)
Add a bit of avocado to a sandwich or spinach salad to up the amount of heart-healthy fats in your diet. Packed with monounsaturated fat, avocados can help lower LDL levels while raising the amount of HDL cholesterol in your body.
Dark chocolate
Several studies have now shown that dark chocolate may benefit your heart, including one in 2012 that found that daily chocolate consumption could reduce nonfatal heart attacks and stroke in people at high risk for these problems. The findings applied only to dark chocolate, meaning chocolate made up of at least 60-70% cocoa. Dark chocolate contains flavonoids called polyphenols, which may help blood pressure, clotting, and inflammation. Unfortunately, milk chocolate and most candy bars don't make the grade when it comes to protecting your heart.
Research has shown that antioxidants in raisins fight the growth of a type of bacteria that can cause inflammation and gum disease. People with gum disease—which affects up to 50 percent of American adults—are twice as likely to suffer from heart problems. So, dealing with one can help people avoid the other. Last summer, a major heart journal and a major periodontal journal simultaneously published a consensus paper that outlines the link between the two diseases: inflammation. As a result, choosing certain foods, such as raisins, may help you protect both your gums and your heart.
Eating beans regularly is good for your heart, and you don't need to eat a lot of them to benefit. A study published in the Journal of Nutrition suggests having just 1⁄2 cup of cooked pinto beans daily might lower cholesterol. As the fiber is fermented, it produces changes in short-chain fatty acids that can inhibit cholesterol formation. (By-products of this same fermentation process are what cause the gas so often associated with eating beans.) Other components in beans also may be responsible for the cholesterol-lowering effect. Beans contain a variety of heart-protective chemicals, including flavonoids, compounds also found in wine, berries and chocolate that inhibit the adhesion of platelets in the blood, which can help lower risk for heart attack and strokes.
Nuts are chock-full of vitamins, minerals, heart-healthy monounsaturated fats and low levels of saturated fats. Research suggests that people who eat nuts—walnuts, pecans, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, pine nuts and peanuts (which actually are legumes)—two to four days or more per week have a lower incidence of heart disease than people who eat them less often.
Citrus fruits
Women who consume high amounts of the flavonoids found in oranges and grapefruits have a 19% lower risk of ischemic stroke (caused by a clot) than women who don't get as much of these compounds, a recent study found. Citrus fruits are also high in vitamin C, which has been linked with a lower risk of heart disease. Beware of citrus juices that contain added sugar. And be aware that grapefruit products may interfere with the action of the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins.
An excellent source of vitamin C, plus vitamin A, potassium and fiber, tomatoes are high in lycopene, which works with other vitamins and minerals to aid in disease prevention. Research suggests that the combination of nutrients in tomatoes may help prevent cardiovascular disease. Cooking may actually increase the health benefits of this lush fruit because although cooked tomatoes have less vitamin C, their lycopene is more available and antioxidant activity is undiminished by cooking.
(read more: Tomato - An excellent remedy for tanned skin )
(read more: Tomato - An excellent remedy for tanned skin )
Apples were associated with a lower risk of death from both coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease in the Iowa Women's Health Study, which has been tracking 34,000-plus women for nearly 20 years. Finnish researchers studying dietary data collected over 28 years from 9,208 men and women found that frequent apple eaters had the lowest risk of suffering strokes compared with nonapple eaters. Apples are also rich in pectin, a form of soluble fiber known to help lower cholesterol, and they provide a decent amount of vitamin C, another antioxidant.
Soy products, including tofu and soy milk, are a good way to add protein to your diet without unhealthy fats and cholesterol. Soy products contain high levels of polyunsaturated fats (good for your health), fiber, vitamins, and minerals. What's more, soy may reduce blood pressure in people who eat a diet high in refined carbohydrates. And compared with milk or other proteins, soy protein can actually decrease LDL or "bad" cholesterol.
Full of monounsaturated fats, olive oil lowers bad LDL cholesterol and reduces your risk of developing heart disease. Results from the Seven Countries Study, which looked at cardiovascular disease incidences across the globe, showed that while men in Crete had a predisposition for high cholesterol levels, relatively few died of heart disease because their diet focused on heart-healthy fats found in olive oil. Look for extra-virgin or virgin varieties—they're the least processed—and use them instead of butter when cooking.


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Paul Drew takes a look and listen to the new Universal Audio UAD Marshall Bluesbreaker 1962 guitar amp plugin.
The Marshall Bluesbreaker 1962 plug-in is an expert emulation of the ultra-rare 2x12 combo tube amplifier used on the highly influential 1966 album Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton. All Marshall plug-ins include UA's Unison technology; Apollo user's guitar pickups will see the exact impedance load as if they're plugged into a vintage Marshall Bluesbreaker — a feature found only on Apollo audio interfaces.
Marshall Bluesbreaker 1962 Plug-In Key Features:
The world's only authentic and licensed plug-in emulation of the classic Marshall Bluesbreaker 1962 combo amplifier
- Unison™ technology for Apollo interfaces offers authentic tone, touch, and feel of original Bluesbreaker
- Three different virtual microphone combinations — FET, Valve, and Dynamic
- Onboard mixer features microphone level and pan
- 50 presets designed by legendary AC/DC engineer Tony Platt
Now go to Studio One Expert and check out Paul's review of the UAD Marshall Silver Jubilee from Softube.

subset: commoncrawl


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Last week I blogged about questions raised in the UK Parliament by the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kerry McCarthy MP (Bristol East, Labour Party) regarding Thailand's use of its infamous lese majeste laws and the treatment/death of Ampon Tangnoppakul aka Ah Kong (a Thai political prisoner who died on May 8, 2012). My original posting, with Kerry McCarthy MP's questions, can be found here.
Yesterday, the Minister of State (South East Asia/Far East, Caribbean, Central/South America, Australasia and Pacific) at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Jeremy Browne MP (Taunton Deane, Liberal Democrat) published the UK government's response to these questions (the full answers can be found here, here, here and here).
What is clear from these responses is that the UK is very uneasy about the lese majeste law itself, the disproportionate sentences meted out by the courts for those found guilty of LM and the general treatment of prisoners.
What is also becoming evident is that the USA is increasingly isolated in its continued and persistent failure to hold Thailand – an important military ally of the USA – to account for its human rights breaches. Given that the USA have been long-term backers of Thailand's most powerful and least democratic element and biggest supporter of the lese majeste law – the Thai Army – this should come as no surprise to commentators.
Furthermore, a US citizen, Joe Gordon, remains imprisoned in Thailand on lese majeste charges for comments he posted online whilst he was resident in the USA. The USA's Bangkok mission has been noted for its lack of response to the imprisonment of one its nationals under one of the most draconian censorship laws on earth and the UK's statement further underlines US failures on this issue.
On Ah Kong the UK Minister of State responded that:
With our European Union partners, the UK expressed concern last year at the conviction and imprisonment for 20 years of Ampon Tangnoppakul for violating the lese-majeste laws.
[This] statement reiterated the importance attached by the EU [the UK were co-signatories of an EU statement] to the rule of law, democracy and respect for human rights.
On lese majeste the Minister stated:
We are closely following the development of freedom of expression in Thailand and are concerned by the significant increase of lese-majeste cases in the country and the application of the laws and length of sentences in recent cases.
Our embassy in Bangkok continues to monitor the ongoing trials of high-profile lese-majeste and freedom of expression on the internet cases. We have urged the Thai Government to ensure that the rule of law is applied in a non-discriminatory and proportionate manner consistent with upholding basic human rights, and will continue to take appropriate opportunities to do so.
More importantly the UK government also makes clear its call for Thailand to review the lese majeste laws:
In October 2011 at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the human rights situation in Thailand was reviewed as part of the Universal Periodic Review process. The UK played an active role, including raising our concerns about freedom of expression and specifically recommending that the Thai Government seek to review its lese-majeste laws.
What impact these comments will have is, of course, debatable.
The wider international community – with the exception of the USA – is now explicit in its eagerness for Thailand to make more headway in meeting its legal obligations under international law. To do this it would seem that the democratically elected Thai government will need to bring the Thai Army – the biggest supporters of lese majeste – under civilian control. This civilian control is also unlikely to be achieved without US assistance and the longer the US fail to act to bring their clients in the Thai Army to heel the longer Thailand's slide away from democracy will be.
It can also be said that since the death of Ah Kong Thai domestic opinion has hardened at both ends of the lese majeste debate. Such hardening will likely only lead to more conflict, something only those who benefit from a widening of Thailand's political crisis would seek. It's time for the US to step-up and demand the Thai Army allow for proper reform to take place.
All I can say is – don't hold your breath.
Couple of claims here in the comments that the US has actually made an equivalent formal call for Thailand's lese majeste laws to be reformed. They haven't. What actually happened is that Kristie Kenney made a couple of very bland comments on twitter, while the Embassy made one short statement about the imprisonment of Joe Gordon. Then there was a strange and almost orchestrated over-reaction to these very banal comments by various Thai neo-fascist patriot groups. Since then the US has been mostly silent, despite one of their citizens remaining in prison after what can only be called a deeply flawed trial.
As pointed out by myself in the comments below when the Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council was conducted last year in Geneva – the moment when LM came under the closest international scrutiny – the US refused to sign a statement, something a number of other governments did, which called for Thailand's 112 law to be reformed. If the USA had done it would have given considerable more weight to the statement. The US didn't. Question is, why?
What the US govt have actually said formally was they were "troubled by recent prosecutions and court decisions that are not consistent with international standards of freedom of expression."
This is a relatively bland and meaningless statement and when set against the UK, EU and other governments' calls for reform of LM, increasingly isolates the US in their one-eyed stance on lese majeste.


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Up close, its not so pretty!
Since we have horses, we compost their manure. If you have some kind of livestock, composting their waste makes sense. Even if you only have chickens or rabbits. Every little bit helps. I also add raw food waste, like when you peel a fruit or vegetable or have some go bad. Don't throw them out! Put them in your composter. I even empty coffee grounds in mine.
Adding bedding hay and manure
Cleaning the horses' barn gives us a lot of manure. A lot more than what this little composter will hold! We only add it to that when it needs it. Most of it will go into our bigger compost pile out back. This composter has a little drawer at the bottom to take the composted dirt out of. Pretty simple design and easy to use.
The Big Composting Area
I have told on this blog before, but will tell it again in case someone new has arrived here. We have three basic piles. One for the new compost that we are adding today. That will just sit and compost. Then we have another pile that is from last year and the year before. That pile is not composted enough to use. Then the last pile is the one that has been composting for three years or more. That is the one we will be using this year.
Rich, Black Dirt full of Worms!
Two years ago we had a massive summer squash plant growing in this compost pile. I could not believe how many squash I got from it, or the size of some of them. It did not look like any certain type, kind of a cross between a zucchini and the yellow squash. I canned them up and we have a huge supply that we are still eating from. Of course, it was kind of hard to get to the compost piles due to that plant. The other plant that grows in massive amounts in this compost pile is jewel weed. Jewel weed is a valuable medicinal plant to have around, especially if you get into poison ivy. Fortunately, I have never needed it!
Final Result!
Copyright © 2013 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2013 Kathleen G. Lupole


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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow…
Woah, so there were more than a few of us that guessed correctly about what could have been possibly going on with Violet and her "staying in her room and missing weeks of school" deal, but I don't think that took all that much away from the revelation that, yes, she's been dead for the past four episodes. I think that, with a show filled with mysteries like American Horror Story, fans try to guess and predict every single outcome. And so there's a good chance that one of the theories will probably be on the money. Hell, until Ben actually appeared outside of the house last week in "Spooky Little Girl," many thought he was dead too. Because we never actually saw him living in his motel room, or wherever he was banished to, and only saw him in or around the house.
But even though many of us guessed that Violet was a ghost, and that she actually died when she tried to commit suicide back in "Halloween, Part 2," the actual sight of her dead, rotting corpse was pretty horrifying. And it was even more disturbing to watch her see her own dead body. And also to hear Tate tell her that she "died crying." Ugh. There's just such a delicious awfulness to this series. It really doesn't shy away from being brutally ugly. And while the big twist here might have been a tad predictable (even EW.com managed to spoil it a few weeks back), it still didn't come off as overly gimmicky since the only tell-tale sign to springboard off of her was Violet not being seen outside the house. The ghosts are able to act like real people and can physically exist normally within the walls of the Murder House, so Violet, technically, is alive when she's indoors. Also, we had a bit of a precursor pre-twist to warm us up to this revelation in the form of Tate, back when we found out he was really dead.
I was curious to see what would happen if Violet tried to leave the house, from a visual standpoint. I mean we knew Hayden vanished in the back of Luke's car that one time, but I wanted to know what it would feel like to be trapped. And no, you don't bump into an invisible barrier or anything, you just get sucked back inside instantly. What "Smoldering Children" did so well was play out the actual discovery of Violet being dead. Because that's what was going to really sell it. How she found out. And how she took the news. I'm still not sure if she's completely okay with it since the notion of living with Tate forever seemed to put a tiny bit of worry on her face even though she's still in somewhat of a "smitten kitten" phase with him. She likes him, but is also aware that he's totally unbalanced. And that this entire situation might get old really fast.
Tate's plan, to have Violet kill herself as a ghost before she could find out that she was already a ghost, was a bold one, but there was really no way it was going to go off without a hitch. Mostly because he's such a psycho-spaz about everything. At least his clumsy strategy to drug Ben gave us out first ever Ben vs. Gimp fight! It's still strange to think that Ben doesn't even fully know there are ghosts in the house. To him, he was just fighting the rubber rapist. I did like seeing Violet, in a moment of panic, run to find her dad so that he could protect her from Tate. I'd like to think that, despite every horrible thing Ben's done, she still loves him and will run to him when she's in danger. "I know it's important to you to be a good father," Violet tells him, hiding the fact that she's happy that he wants to be a good father.
The institutionalized Vivien, and the Satan spawn story, took the back seat in this episode as Constance resurfaced, only to be a prime suspect in the murder of Travis – dubbed the "Boy Dahlia" in the media. Constance's story with Larry wasn't the best, since it seems overly obvious to everyone except Larry that she never loved him, but the opening scene, from 1994 cleared up a ton of questions and corrected a bunch of assumptions I made a few episodes back when we saw Constance and Larry talking about social services coming in to take her child away. I assumed that entire thing happened after Tate when on a shooting rampage, and that she was somehow now living next door to her old house.
It turns out that she was really only talking about Beau (and not Tate) and that whole story took place before the shootings. I also thought Larry got the burns while trying to save his family from the fire, but now…man, oh man. Tate was a vicious, coked-up motherf***er, wasn't he? So while it's always fun to watch Jessica Lange chew up the scenery a little, this episode really acted as Larry's farewell I suppose – with him coming to terms with his part in his wife and children's death. Even though, you know, a case can certainly be made that Larry's wife might have over-reacted a teensy bit. It's hard to put so much blame on his shoulders when no sane man could have anticipated that his wife would have burned their children alive. But still, Larry accepted his awfulness and took the fall for Travis' death just so Constance wouldn't get wrongfully accused.
A fun game to play on this show is "which extraneous outsider will be murdered this week?" And while the two new police detectives or the truant officer would have made for some good logs for the fire, it looks like the prize went to Phil the "Verminator." Of course, there was a moment when I assumed that the body he saw underneath the house belonged to Hugo, and that Constance was about to land in some deep 30-year-old murder doo-doo. But then we discovered the actual fate of Hugo's remains as it was revealed that Constance ground him up and fed her to some dogs in the basement. Why were there dogs in the basement? To eat some savory Hugo-chuck of course!
Matt Fowler is an Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @MattIGN.
IGN TV Episode Reviews:


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With modernization of old and development of new nuclear power plants (NPPs) relying more and more on SW-based systems (instrumentation and control systems), the need for ensuring their safety has become an issue of highest importance. The electrical and automation systems department at STUK – the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Finland, is in charge of overseeing the safety of the instrumentation and control (I&C) systems in Finnish nuclear power plants. STUK oversees regulatory requirements on architecture of such systems, their qualification for use and their design process, necessitating the need for third party independent experts qualified for assessing the critical I&C systems.
SSF's understanding of safety critical product development has enabled the participation in many different safety critical projects by assessing activities using the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards for different applications. These include the IEC Nuclear Standards (e.g. ISO/IEC 12207, IEC 60880; IEC 60987, IEC 61226, IEC 61513, IEC 62138). SSF has collaborated with numerous NPP suppliers in various assessments of systems for NPPs, where in addition to above mentioned nuclear standards, also the regulatory YVL guides of STUK have been used.
SSF has supported STUK as independent experts on I&C safety: SSF has assisted STUK in audits of suppliers of I&C systems, checking compliance to the applicable standards, analysing the adequacy of software design and testing documentation, and evaluating the appropriateness of quality management and quality process documentation. Although the appropriate competence for the assessment is important, equally important has been SSF's successful and efficient project execution.


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Please select a wishlist you wish to add selected product(s) to:
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MBLM delivers Sharjah's new tourism website
SHARJAH, May 17, 2018
MBLM, a brand intimacy agency, has successfully completed the setup of Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority's (SCTDA) new tourism website, which aims to showcase the emirate's tourism credentials to a wider audience.
The process began by collaborating with key stakeholders through a series of work sessions and interviews to develop a comprehensive digital strategy that set clear objectives regarding audience archetypes and user experience. MBLM's expertise in creating deep bonds served in defining a personalised journey that organically attracts traffic by developing content curated to the personas.
The revamped platform organises all of Sharjah's offerings into focused areas that cover local beaches, hotels, dining destinations, wildlife reserves and more. Visitors have access to pre-assembled itineraries that break down activities day by day, and a trip planner tool that customises travel plans according to the visitor's budget and interests.
The website engages Sharjah's tourism partners with an easy-to-use portal where hotel, activity and restaurant operators can upload and market their products and services on the website. The functionality allows visitors to directly communicate with local businesses to organise events and activities.
"We worked to create a website that focused on attracting qualified traffic, rather than pushing information out to people that didn't want it," said David Clover, MBLM's associate partner. "This project gave us the opportunity to identify what information visitors are looking for in order to keep enhancing the platform to accommodate our intended audience and support SCTDA's long-term initiatives." - TradeArabia News Service


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I got my yuletide assignment, and there's three fandoms I could write for. (one of which I didn't even offer for, but it's for a show i've come to love already.)
Just not sure if my idea for one of the three would be something my recipient would actually like.


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Have you ever wished to disconnect from reality, hit the road, and to be free to go anywhere?
In August of 2015, I couldn't take thinking about the open road any longer. After months of weighing my options, I purchased a recreational vehicle (RV). At 23' long, it's small and agile enough to go anywhere I want, but big enough to live in.
So, now that it's winter, how has the RV done as the temperatures have plummeted? Is an RV the best cold-weather option for you? What other options are there?
To help you decide, I've listed five popular adventure vehicles I see on the ski hill.
1. Customize the Back of Your Car or Truck
After an epic ski trip to Canada, I dropped off my friend Dan in the parking lot where he'd left his truck. I felt guilty leaving him there. He isn't a bum, isn't homeless either, but he had chosen to live in his truck.
Your home doesn't need to be a big RV. You can live small and still be comfortable. This holds true at a ski area as well. Here are some tips for living out of your vehicle:
- Build a bed, which is often just a platform with storage underneath. Build cabinets in the space below if you are extra handy.
- If you have a car, just fold your seats down. Before I bought my pre-RV wagon, I made sure to test this out and crawled in to see if I could sleep there.
- Buy a small cookstove. Some stoves can struggle in the cold, so it can help to put a pad underneath the fuel canister if using on top of snow.
- Have a nice chair and table you can set up outside on those clear days when it isn't snowing.
- Storage is important. Buy waterproof boxes in case you have to leave them outside at night. Better yet, buy a roofbox for extra storage. Having wet skis in your car is never ideal.
2. #VanLife
If you are handy, customizing a new or used van yourself is cheaper than buying one already outfitted for adventure. You can customize nearly anything, and can find countless resources online for the details you need to know.
- Keeping warm in the winter is always an issue. Besides insulation, a cheap and simple option is to buy a propane heater—but be sure it's rated for indoor use. (A carbon monoxide detector can be a good idea even for an indoor-rated one.)
- If possible, find a van with a chassis with four-wheel-drive. This will make it a lot easier to get your vehicle out of the parking lot after five feet of snow has fallen!
- If you are customizing your van, insulating your pipes against the cold is paramount. If water isn't important to you, then you can do what most RVs end up doing whenever it gets colder than 15-20 degrees out—you either leave your heat on full time (which can be risky if power or heat fails and your pipes freeze) or you remove all the water. Some vehicles come with a winter package or are built to withstand all four seasons, but even they can freeze up.
- Ski storage is important and a roof rack isn't always a practical option. Take a look at hitch boxes. Personally I'm building a hitch rack that'll hold my rooftop box for extra storage.
3. Build a Homemade Camper onto a Truck or Trailer
My friend Adam has an old pickup truck with 250,000 miles on it. On the back of the truck he built a miniature home with a peaked roof, chimney and even a mudroom porch! It's lovingly called the Gypsy Wagon. Adam's version 2.0 is a miniature house built onto a trailer. I asked him for advice and what he loves about his setups.
- In the winter, a must-have is a fan for moving heat around, as well as windows that open and close for controlling the temperature.
- Make use of old windows, doors and other homebuilding supplies; salvaging saves money and keeps waste out of landfills.
- You get to build a unique home on wheels with your own two hands.
- You can customize the space for your gear, and you can build on additions.
4. Buy a Four-Season Camper
Buying a truck and camper is a versatile option. When I was in Southwest Utah, my RV couldn't manage many of the narrow dirt roads that are commonly washed out by flash floods. Worse yet, when I established my camp and ran out of propane or food, I had to pack up everything in order to drive to town.
Having a camper avoids uprooting your camp. You can detach your camper and make runs to town (or to climbing crags) without having to bring your entire home with you.
- There are great options for cold-weather use that you won't find in many RVs or trailers.
- If you already have a truck, then buying a camper can be a great option. You won't need to maintain two separate vehicles.
- A camper is compact and comes with all the comforts of home, such as a stove, fridge and microwave. Homemade meals save you money—lunch in the ski lodge will become a thing of the past.
- You can easily have four-wheel-drive to get you onto the mountain passes and into snowy ski area lots.
5. Go Big and Get an RV
An RV is a big purchase. Not only do you have to store it and/or park it, but there is the added cost of maintaining a second vehicle.
However, unlike the heading suggests, an RV can be small and efficient. My 23' Winnebago View averaged 15 to 16.5 mpg on a 6-week road trip throughout the Southwest. By and large, though, if you are looking to save money an RV is hardly the way to go. But, if you are looking for added comfort, space and amenities, then the pluses can outweigh the negatives. Often, those conveniences make all the difference as to whether your family comes along with you to the mountain.
- Rent an RV or two and see what they're like in the cold. It's worth the money and time to see if an RV is really for you.
- Be sure that you have the space to park your RV at home, under a cover if possible.
- RVs are challenging in the snow, but they can do better than you'd expect with good tires and chains.
- Keep a big shovel on hand to dig yourself out and keep ice/snow off your roof. If cleaning your roof use a broom, plastic shovel or your hands.
- Understand your power system and consider backup sources, such as an external generator or shore power. Some resorts have shore power that ranges in cost from $20 to $40 per night.
- If you have water in your RV, then be sure to have backup sources of heat. I have an indoor-rated propane heater, my coach generator and an external generator. Having your RV freeze in the winter is a very real problem. Every vehicle is different, but often the safest course of action in really cold regions is to run your RV dry, which means no water. As such, carrying 5-gallon jugs is common.
- Be prepared to always be working on one problem or another. RVs are a work in progress and take a certain amount of love and consistent maintenance.
- Skip the line at the lodge and make your own food in your RV.
No matter what vehicle you choose, the mountains are calling. Hit the road, open the windows and let the air of freedom soothe your soul. Take it from a newly initiated RV greenhorn—I haven't looked in the rearview mirror yet.
Have any other winter adventure vehicle tips? Please share them in the comments below.


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(all photos by jonpauldouglass)
Lifestyles Of The Beat And Sleepless (Murphy's Law, The Domino And
Chaos Effects, And Other Treats)
(photo by JPWD)
I write to you from an aerial suppository lodged somewhere in between Newark and Kansas City. The band and crew alike have just returned from a multi-country stop unlike one I've ever experienced before, and now our grizzly frames are stuffed like sardines into a tiny regional jet-thing. We've just gotten word (via email) that our bus is broken down about 400 miles away from where we're flying to be picked up from - and we have a few thousand pounds of gear with us to boot. Let us backtrack…
So this won't be a food blog (as I've hinted at before, the "blog" is about to start becoming a multi-format platform of ramblings) but a memoir of sorts of some intense times.
We had just finished our "turn" of main stage slots at Mayhem (In Flames, Machine Head, and Trivium were all to do 1/3's of the different 3 stages on the tour) when a few days before, In Flames had to leave due to a family emergency. So with that recent occurrence, MH and ourselves divvied up the IF dates - and this was our final side stage show before being all main stage shows. Raleigh, NC was our home for the day - and it had been a little bit since we'd played the side stages. Today was a hot day - one of the hottest I could remember on the tour. Our discount bus's A.C. was half working, outside was varying from hot and dry to hot and humid, the well-done cooked porto-potty back yard, and gravel front yard were our challenging landscapes of the day.
It was quite a trek back and forth to main stage (to eat and use bathrooms and do press and all that) and this tour has been a hot one the whole time. The show ended up being fantastic - and afterwards, we had to pack our stuff to ship off to a hotel in order to fly to Germany the next early morning. We pulled up to a half-scary joint where we unloaded and headed to our rooms.
I had this peculiar hot tub thing in my concrete-walled cell.
Everyone got about 3-6 hours of sleep (the magic number of foreshadowing of the days to come) and we headed to the airport. The whole deal with this major show thing was that we were to miss 3 Mayhem shows in order to play Wacken Open Air in Wacken, Germany (the biggest metal festival in the world - we were to play direct support to Judas Priest) and a support slot to Iron Maiden at the O2 Arena.
We did our first flight, then the long one (I believe I got about 3-6 hours or so of sleep; the other dudes all couldn't sleep) - and it's funny - most people always say "ah man, it must be great flying in first class!" Ha. We're always coach, back of the bus, cheapest tickets and airlines possible. My first seat that I was assigned was a non-reclining seat with a power box in front of my feet - so there was no room. I pleaded with the flight attendant and was able to get an exit row aisle for a price (airlines charge for everything nowadays… it's a little scary they charge for exit rows - isn't that where "able bodied" people are supposed to assist in case of emergency? I'm "able") and then I zonked out for a bit.
Arriving in Hamburg at 7:30am, we stayed at a real decent hotel across the airport - got free breakfast and everyone napped a bit. We headed down after the short doze, and met for lobby call where they sent too few vans; once sorted - we were on our way.
Wacken is probably the nicest set up festival we have ever played. The attendance of the weekend had been ranging between 80,000 - 110,000 per day, the catering was great, the dressing rooms were well equipped and stocked, and the back stage had the nicest damn bathroom trailer I have ever seen (it had TV's playing previous years' performances, nice lighting, AC'd, cleaned every 15 minutes, etc). I've seen a lot of murder-scene-esque bathrooms in my life time - and this one was a welcoming treat.
The show was by far one of the greatest of our lives - 80,000 plus people all rocking their asses off. It went off without a hitch - it was perfect (I think we will be releasing the footage as a live DVD some day). Next was a signing…
So, I have done a lot of signings in my day - and I know what works: no direct photos with the band (if you do photos, plus signings, plus chatting with each person… what inevitably ends up happening is that 100's of people get completely skipped due to each person's time taking so long), and one or just a few items to sign per person. Now - I know this seems intense… but it's far far far worse to skip 100's of people who have been waiting for an hour to meet you… so I briefed the signing people - and did they listen? No.
It was chaos. No line, people setting up cameras while trying to greet others (and this is not the fault of the concert goer), and in the end - lots of people left out. I told this jerk running the thing "We do not want to miss anyone waiting for us - so you need to get the line in order, and tell people no pictures unfortunately due to the length of the line." The prick didn't give a shit - they were useless and unhelpful and I am very sorry to the people who we missed out signing for, the kids who got pushed around by bully-ass security (once they finally got off their ass to assist in helping the line move - but too little too late, my friends). I was angry. I keep my cool most of the time - but the signing Genius pulled me by my shoulder and said we needed to wrap up - I gave him a piece of my mind.
Still fuming from the signing's unfortunate ending - we collected our things, did some other bits, ate, and prepped to leave.
Easy right? No.
Our next dickhead of the night was some cocky little-prick who ran the shuttles back to the hotel. The hotel was an hour plus away, and the festival was in the middle of nowhere - so naturally - we needed a ride. Ol' Nice Guy told us that we missed our shuttle and there was nothing we could do (apparently we had one booked, but we missed it due to the signing running late) - our manager and I exchanged some heated words with the gentleman, and basically he told us to go F ourselves. Thankfully, our booking agent called that dudes' boss and it got sorted after a while.
Arriving back in the room far later than initially intended, we got 3-6 and woke up for a 4:30 or something a.m. lobby call to fly to London.
1.5 hour flight to London after some whacky customs and - did I forget to mention that we are all lugging 1000's of pounds of flyable gear (getting charged at each airline) to pull these shows off - we got picked up in our van to go to the hotel.
We drove to the Holiday Inn at Heathrow to check in; we lugged it all in - wrong Holiday Inn - there's another one. Loaded back in to the van and went to the "other" Holiday Inn. After a few minutes of trying to check us in, our tour manager Brian Griffin (real name) found out there is a third Holiday Inn; by this point we were all just laughing at fate's cruelty - piled in and went to the third Holiday Inn at Heathrow airport.
The rooms weren't ready, so everyone laid across chairs, the floor, anything they could to grab some z's. We slept for a couple minutes, got into our rooms, slept a couple minutes, and piled back into the vans to go to the O2. The ride to the O2 took 2 hours in London traffic - we arrived with compressed coccyx and all, deliriously fading in and out of consciousness - dropped our bags and I had to head to a guitar clinic.
The clinic was amazing. I loved it. I love to teach. I love teaching guitar, and some day I would like to get my yoga teacher's certification. The people who attended were super nice, and I hope they all had a good time - I had a great time.
Jon Paul was on this trip to photo and document our adventures, and both he and I decided to hit one of the very few chain restaurants that I'll eat at. We hit up Nando's (a Portuguese style chicken "fast" food place in the U.K. and Australia and a few other places around the world) with some dear friends, for grilled chicken and fries - we felt we deserved it.
Next was soundcheck, warm up, then one of the best damn shows we've ever done supporting a band. Roughly 10,000 people when we started - it grew to about 15,000 or so during mid-set; and everyone we talked to said it was the best reaction they'd ever seen for a band opening up for Iron Maiden. It was intense - we came out all guns blazing… my voice during the whole day was completely shot (from singing, lack of sleep, flying, lack of sleep, playing, lack of sleep, flying, lack of sleep) and should have sucked - thankfully, the old-vocal-cords were running on all cylinders, and it was some of the best singing I feel I've pulled off in a while.
We came off stage, celebrated (before and after - rare occasion) with some shots and beers, grabbed delicious catering (Eat To The Beat is an amazing touring catering company) and watched Maiden from the standing area on the floor. Iron Maiden is without a doubt, one of the greatest live bands on the earth - they were unbelievable.
We hung with label, agents, band, crew, friends and had a good time. We hit up this after party thing (initially, I was completely unsure if I wanted to leave immediately after the set, or stay around due to being so groggy… the show was so damn good though - I had to… plus my wife said "Hun, sleep when you're dead - you're going to hang out with Iron Maiden!") Hung out a bit, then I was crashing…
A good friend of ours, Morgan (RRInternational) got me and JP into a cab and we took the 2 hour cab back to the hotel. 3-6 hours or so of sleep… woke up so tired that I had to actually pull my eye-lids open; got ready, went to lobby call - got in the vans and headed to the airport.
Long check in, nutty airport, nutty security - got to the gate - got in the plane.
Aisle. Check.
Bags. Check.
Infant next to me? Shit…
I saw JP was initially supposed to be next to me, but was upgraded to Business First - I went up to see what happened, and ya know what the nice best pal-o-mine does? Insists I take his seat. I refused a few times… then we swapped. Thank you Jon Paul. I slept the 3-6, woke up, ate decent plane food (which I never do unless I'm in this class - which is never as well), and enjoyed the trip.
Arriving in Newark, we cleared customs, had to re-check all the gear and stuff- get new tickets, head to the gate - did all that; then we showed up to the gate.
Granted this was only about 30-45 minutes ago - you can see why the tone of some of this chapter was a little heated… Brian Griffin tells us our bus is broken down.
Back track a touch.
We were initially flying into Kansas City to play an off-date with In Flames. In Flames had to leave the tour, so that cancels the show - Trivium Ent books non-refundable tickets, so we had to use those tickets, get picked up, drive to Oklahoma City for the next mayhem show (which is Tuesday; it's Sunday today).
This bus company… every time something has gone wrong - the owner has actually told our tour manager things like: "light it on fire - I don't care, I'm losing my ass on this company anyway" or "roll it off a cliff for all I care."
So Brian gets an email that says "Bus is broken down, it won't be picking you up, probably can't make it to Oklahoma." That's it. Our driver evaded Brian's calls; I eventually get him on my cell - we find out that the bus broke down (since it's a cheap, unfit-to-drive bus that we're getting at a "steal") and it's immobile. Then our gate starts to board.
So that's where we are now, my friends… what is the next chapter of our fateful story? Will our heroes make it to the next show in time? Will tempers flare so bad that we actually do try to light the bus on fire? Or ourselves? Only time will tell…


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Being funny every week? That's a challenge. Sometimes it doesn't always work out. I deeply regret Sid Meier's Lawn Mower. But I soldier on.
All good columns begin with a hot topic in the gaming industry today. John Keefer, GameSpy's Managing Editor, throws me a bone: "What about Age of Empires III?" he asks.
"COMEDY GOLD!" I shout. Ensemble's new game of New World colonization, exploration, and conflict makes ideal fodder for my weekly column.
"But you can't make any tasteless genocide references," John cautions.
"Aw wait," I grumble. "Now we're talking comedy silver at best, more likely comedy bronze."
Nevertheless, my job is clear: I have just a few hours in which to make Age of Empires III funny. It's a hot topic. AoE III sounds like an awesome game, and the screenshots make me tingle in special places. Besides, I've made Age of Empires funny before, and I can do it again!
Fortunately GameSpy has invested heavily in funny this past year, so I am not alone. Our infrastructure and capital assets are among the funniest you'll find in any gaming publication, online or off. For instance, I have a team of unpaid humor interns located in our offshore humorist facility who eagerly awaited news about the latest topic. "Age of Empires III," I announced to them over the intercom. "Get cracking!"
Spectacled youths scrambled to and fro within a white-walled complex filled with room after room of merrymaking equipment. By the time I had choppered onto the roof, several interns had already completed the first step in writing any of my humor columns: They had gathered information about the topic.
"Age of Empires III will feature real historical figures such as George Washington," I stated aloud, reading off of a dot-matrix printout as I entered the complex, flanked by lab-coated comedy interns. "Ladies and gentlemen, listen up. George Washington, alone, is not funny. However: what if he were to inadvertently place a live raccoon onto his head instead of a raccoon skin cap?"
I snapped my fingers and interns rushed to nearby computer terminals. It's a little known fact that I refuse to use Photoshop on any images placed in my PlanetFargo column, but within minutes one of my disciples has located a previously unpublished picture of General George Washington in just such a predicament from the Smithsonian archives in Washington D.C. Excited, I called everyone to gather around.
"Look here," I said to the people clustered around me. "George Washington, wearing a live raccoon." Sustained polite applause followed. "Yes ladies and gentlemen, we march, inexorably toward funny. But we are not there yet."
Still, early breakthroughs are promising. Next up: High technology.


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Brandon Brewer
Fairborn High Class of 1997
Personal Info
- Name:
- Brandon Brewer
- Graduation Year:
- 1997
Register to view Current location, Gender, Birthday, Relationship Status, Children, Employer, Military, College, and Interests
Memories of Brandon Brewer
What I'm doing now:Register to see what Brandon Brewer is up to now!
Brandon Brewer's Latest Activity:
|- Registered as a FHS Class of 1997 alumni. 2011


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[Editor's note: Deathmatch pairs two artists who have something in common, and determines who is better. It's a concept we sort-of ripped off from MTV, except that instead of claymation it's the printed word!]
Every couple of years, garage rock rears its head again, whack-a-mole-style. Garage per se isn't the problem, but rather kitschy blues rock. Hello Black Keys! On the other hand, there's pub rock, a key component of British proto-punk. British R&B made even more rough, grimy and dangerous, it includes bands like Ducks Deluxe, Dr. Feelgood and The Count Bishops.
They forged the network of clubs and pubs that later made punk possible, while also providing a template for the attitude. Before The Sex Pistols, The Adverts and The Damned, the British pub rock scene boasted raunchy riffs, bad attitudes and missing teeth. And so, for this deathmatch we have five separate match-ups, garage rock vs. pub rock for the crown of White Boy Blues champion.
The Black Keys Vs. The Count Bishops
The Count Bishops were as punk as R&B gets. They made a cover of "I Want Candy" seem positively grimy. Check out their take on "Wang Dang Doodle" and "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight." More bonus points? They actually had a member named "Johnny Guitar."
The Black Keys were great in that one scene in Ghost World where they played their alter ego "Blueshammer."
Point: Pub rock
Left Lane Cruiser vs. Dr. Feelgood
I first heard Dr. Feelgood's "Milk and Alchol" on a compilation called The Best Punk Album In the World... Ever. The album didn't live up to its name, but I was definitely curious about pub rock thing. Frontman Lee Brilleaux's dirty white suit was ten times more threatening than Johnny Rotten's subversive couture fashion. Guitarist Wilko Johnson was ten times the wild man Sid Vicious ever was, and perhaps the best white pretender to the throne of Robert Johnson. These guys looked like a bunch of criminals and sounded like a prison riot.
The first time I heard Left Lane Cruiser I thought, "Are they joking around? They're like some kind of hipster version of Government Mule."
Point: Pub rock
Radio Moscow vs. Ducks Deluxe
Ducks Deluxe are a hard-driving band with a silly name. Imagine the bastard child of Bob Dylan and Lou Read bleating over amped-up Chuck Berry riffs. Perhaps the most "pub rock" of all pub rock bands, The Ducks did everything from gritty proto-punk ("Coast To Coast") to lazy country ballads ("West Texas Trucking Board"). Emblematic of the entire pub rock movement, Ducks Deluxe just couldn't get it together long enough to matter much.
Regarding Radio Moscow: In the words of Howlin' Wolf, "Why don't you take them wah-wahs and all that other shit and go throw it off in the lake -- on your way to the barber shop?"
Point: Pub rock
Soledad Brothers vs. Lew Lewis Reformer
How many of these new jack white boy blues punk bands have a harp player, let alone one who went to jail for armed robbery? Answer: None. Lew Lewis Reformer featured the one and only Lew Lewis, the most dangerous man in pub rock. I'll put "Mr. Bartender" or "Do Just What You Want" up against anything to come out of the post-White Stripes attempt to suck the life out of blues.
Soledad Brothers are named after some dudes who went to prison. That's kind of cool, I guess. Or it's just a pretty lame attempt at cultural appropriation from a band already making their living at it. Sorry, guys; even a million dollars in plastic surgery won't make you black.
Point: Pub rock
Black Diamond Heavies vs. The Inmates
The Inmates took their inspiration not from John Lee Hooker, Junior Wells and Little Richard but from first-wave American garage punk bands like The Music Machine, The Standells and The Shadows of Knight. Their hard-edged brand of R&B makes it hard not to try pass off stomping on the ground with all your might as dancing.
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Here's a hint regarding a gruff R&B voice, Black Diamond Heavies: If you force it, it's never going to work.
Point: Pub rock
Conclusion: Pub Rock is the Last Bastion of Hipster-Free Existence
The North American hipster has made a career out of "rediscovering" old forms of music and turning them into ironic twee shit. Yet, no one in the flannel shirt brigade has yet to tackle pub rock. Why not? Because pub rock is too aggressively real and authentic. The stylized ironic detachment of nouveau garage blues comes across in every lick and every "oooooooalllllrightnow." It has all the energy and vitality of roadkill. The undisputed champ of white boy blues? Pub rock, of course.


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Wild dogs have become an increasingly significant livestock biosecurity and welfare issue in recent years. Dog packs preying on vulnerable lambs and calves in particular are now threatening the viability of the sheep industry in some regions of Australia.
The problem has become so large that WoolProducers Australia has brought together critical industry stakeholders* to develop a national action plan to combat the economic and personal devastation caused by wild dogs across rural Australia.
Apart from the obvious threat of death and injury in livestock, dogs are also a source of the spread of animal-borne diseases, including hydatids and neospora (a protozoan pathogen in cattle and dogs).
To protect the health of your livestock, crops and plantations it is important to minimise the risks associated with feral animals by adopting the following biosecurity practices:
A regional approach
Wild dogs, like other pests, do not acknowledge state borders or property boundaries. The most important thing you can do to limit their impact is to work with neighbours, community and other producers in your local area to implement a coordinated approach to feral animal control.
Start by joining or forming a local steering committee to develop a management plan for the whole affected region. This could be done through existing structures like the local council, Landcare or invasive species control group. Then consider which existing and new strategies may be effective in your area. These include:
For more information visit our Feral & Weeds page or WoolProducers Australia National Wild Dog Action Plan.
* Chaired by WoolProducers Australia vice-president Jim McKenzie, the Steering group also includes: Animal Health Australia Australian Association of Stud Merino Breeders Australian Pest Animal Strategy Cattle Council of Australia; Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry; Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities; Invasive Animal CRC; Meat and Livestock Australia; National Farmers Federation; National Wild Dog Management Advisory Group (NWDMAG); Sheepmeat Council of Australia; Vertebrate Pests Committee.


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The point of sale hardware and software are essential tools that every savvy business owner must possess. POS tools, at the bare minimum, are cash registers, a calculator, and a cash drawer, or an iPad that allows customers to purchase goods. Over the years as technology has advanced, POS tools have evolved to the point where the software provides far more sophisticated services.
How sophisticated should your POS hardware and software solution be? It really depends on the size and profitability of your business. Smaller businesses might not be able to afford and might not actually need a sophisticated POS system that is tied together by Point of sale software.
There are large collections of small businesses and entrepreneurs that can function just fine with Bronze Age level point of sale technology. Just be aware. Businesses can outgrow their Point of sale business solutions. While successful business can dodge adopting modern POS software, failing to shift to more high-tech practices when the need arises might handicap a business.
There are large collections of small businesses and entrepreneurs that can function just fine with Bronze Age level point of sale technology. Just be aware. Businesses can outgrow their Point of sale business solutions. While successful business can dodge adopting modern POS software, failing to shift to more high-tech practices when the need arises might handicap a business.
Below are six signs you should upgrade your point of sale processes.
Below are six signs you should upgrade your point of sale processes.
Sales Have Ballooned
While tracking sales by hand might work for tiny businesses, it can be too time-consuming to continue as a business becomes more successful. If you spend ten or more hours every week tracking down receipts and then logging the purchases made into an excel sheet, now might be the time to consider investing in a POS software solution.
You can, with a small investment, spend that time on more productive projects. Not to mention it would eliminate the chance of losing track of a large number of receipts. An accounting nightmare waiting to happen.
You Over or Understock
The ability to stock the proper number of products can be a tricky guessing game. (Especially if the product is a perishable good). If you overstock, you can lose money and waste valuable shelf space. If you understock, you can lose out on potential sales.
POS software can let businesses know in real time how much of an item is on the shelf, notify the business when they should restock, and track (through data science) how well a product has historically sold.
Messy, Unsophisticated Marketing Campaigns
Have your past marketing campaigns been the weak sauce? Not sure how to fix that problem? The right point of sale software can help.
POS software can store basic customer data (names, addresses, and purchase history). The data once stored can be utilized to create more targeted marketing campaigns. Once you know exactly who your key demographic is and what they like that can be utilized to create a successful marketing campaign.
Tracking Employee Hours is a Nightmare
Have you been tracking employee hours by hand? That's fine when you have a few employees that you trust. It can be a tad more difficult when you suddenly have 10, 20, or 30 employees. (Some of who probably have no problem fudging their hours worked a tad.)
POS software can be utilized to allow employees to log in and out of work. No extra work needed. As an added bonus, the hours each employee worked is updated daily. That can be an extra safeguard against an employee accidentally dipping into overtime.
Can't Seem to Invest the Time in Creating Regular Financial Reports
Do you spend a long period of time logging the financial data? Do you spend a little time creating and analyzing financial reports? That might be a major red flag that you need to update your processes.
While it's great you have the data logged, successful business owners regularly analyze their financial reports. Businesses who don't analyze reports are navigating their business blind. They don't truly know what's successful and unsuccessful. They can't create financial strategies tied to facts. Instead, they rely on hunches and feelings. That's not a great way to navigate towards business success.
POS software can easily create financial reports for you to analyze. If POS software is the only way you can get your hands on financial reports, it might be worth it.
Every business should have a point of sale tools. How sophisticated the POS software and hardware is, really depends on the state of your business. Businesses who utilize basic POS tools should keep their eye out for signs that they have outgrown their current POS solution. Successful businesses adapt and course correct as they grow.
Similar Posts:
- The Enthusiastic Employee: 16 Myths on Employee and Performance Management
- Hiring and Retaining Good Employees
- How to Use Business Intelligence in Your Small Business
- Dangers of Hiring Part-Time Employees
- The Costs of Pay Scale and Employee Turnover on the Bottomline


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Courses in Informatics
INFO-I 101 Introduction to Informatics (4 cr)
Topics of this course include: problem solving with information technology, introduction to information representation, relational databases, system design, propositional logic, cooperating systems, and networks. The course includes a laboratory component emphasizing information technology including webpage design, word processing, and databases.
- Offered online and in class in fall and spring semesters
- Sample Syllabus: Online
INFO-I 202 Social Informatics (3 cr)
Introduction to key social research perspectives and the use of information and communication technologies. Discusses current topics such as information ethics, relevant legal frameworks, popular and controversial uses of technology (e.g. peer-to-peer file sharing), digital divides, etc. Outlines research methodologies for social informatics.
- Offered online and in class in spring semester
- Sample Syllabus: Online
INFO-I 210 Information Infrastructure I (4 cr)
First in a two-course sequence of intensive computer programming. In this course, students will design, develop, test, and debug software solutions using the Java programming language.
- Offered online and inclass in fall semester
- Prerequisite: INFO-I 101
INFO-I 211 Information Infrastructure II (4 cr)
Second course in a two-course sequence of intensive computer programming. In this course, students will learn and apply object oriented computer programming concepts and techniques. The course will also provide a brief introduction to data structures and files.
- Offered online and in class in spring semester
- Prerequisite: INFO-I 210
INFO-I 241 Health Informatics (3 cr)
This course provides an overview of project management for health information technology, quality improvement in healthcare, specialized public health applications such as patient and provider registries, epidemiological databases, biosurveillance, situational awareness, and emergency responsesystems. The course also covers rapid prototyping, user-centered design and evaluation, usability, and the effects of new technology and workflow on downstream processes. The skills necessary to communicate effectively across the full range of roles that will be encountered in healthcare and public health settings are discussed, as is working in teams - including essentials of good communication skills and group cohesion.
- Offered online in spring semester of odd numbered years
- Prerequisite: INFO-I 101
- Sample Syllabus: Online
INFO-I 300 Human Computer Interaction Design and Programming (3 cr)
This is an intermediate course that teaches students how to assess the usability of software through quantitative and qualitative methods, including conducting task analyses, usability studies, heuristic inspections, interviews, surveys, and focus groups. The course also introduces students to the tools and techniques for designing and testing user interfaces based on a human-centered methodology.
- Offered online and in class in fall semester
- Sample Syllabus: Online
INFO-I 308 Information Representation (3 cr)
The basic structure of information representation in digital information systems. Begins with low-level computer representations such as common character and numeric encodings. Introduces formal design and query languages through entity relationship modeling, the relational model, XML, XHTML, SQL and XPath querying.
- Offered online and in class in spring semester
- Prerequisite: INFO-I 210
INFO-I 491 Capstone Project Internship (3 or 6 cr)
Students put theirinformatics education in practice through the development of a substantial project while working in a professional information technology environment.
- Offered every semester
- Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
INFO-I 492 Senior Theses or Project - Part 1 (3 cr)
The student prepares and presents a substantial, typically multi-chapter paper based on a well-planned research or scholarly project, as determined by the student and a sponsoring faculty member, or the student prepares an informatics project for use. This course is part 1 of a 2 part series. Grades for the course will not be given until part 2 is completed.
- Offered every semester
- Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
INFO-I 493 Senior Theses or Project - Part 2 (3 cr)
This course is a continuation of INFO-I 492. Students must take INFO-I 492 Senior Thesis or Project –Part 1 before taking this course.
- Offered every semester
- Prerequisites: INFO-I 492, Permission of instructor


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The unofficial web site of
Faith Bible Baptist Church
Pastor Lester Hobbs, JR
1200 Dickens Road
P.O. Box 180
Oakdale, LA 71463-3177
(318) 335-3626
This page last updated 01/23/2014
You Can Be Saved and Know It
Provided Free by FamilyNet International Powered by Ekklesia-Online
Is this your church? Here's some important information for you: http://www.online-churches.org/Unofficial.htm
Unofficial Web Pages" are a ministry of Bob and Maureen Hoffman (http://www.cyber-missions.com)
Independent Baptist Web Portal http://www.baptist-ministries.org


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HP and TNW are giving you a chance to win an Officejet Pro X and a trip to the Indy 500
It's not every day that we here at TNW get the chance to make your life faster, easier and more productive. So when HP approached us with a contest where you could win its new Officejet Pro X printer, as well as a trip to the Indy 500, we knew that we had to take the plunge.
The Officejet Pro X is billed as the world's fastest desktop printer, printing up to twice the speed, with half the cost of a laser printer. Want one of your very own? Here's your chance.
With the "Business Accelerated" campaign, HP is giving away the chance to speed all the way to the Indy 500. From April 1st to 21st, share your business expertise by answering a question of the day and gain one entry. Answer all 15 to accelerate your chances with two bonus entries for the grand prize — a trip for 2 to the Indy 500. Get in the race now at the Business Accelerated site. To stay updated, make sure you're following @TheNextWeb on Twitter, and that you've liked our page on Facebook.
Each week, answer questions about boosting your productivity, accelerating your business and more. HP will be giving away an Officejet Pro X every week, valued at $799.99. The grand prize, valued at up to $5,000, gives you and a friend a two-person trip to the Indy500, with air travel and accommodations included.
So join us over the next three weeks as we help to speed up your business while giving you a shot at an unforgettable vacation. Start now.
This post is part of our contributor series. The views expressed are the author's own and not necessarily shared by TNW.
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text: A persnickety house-mouse frets about the size of her burrow in this colorful beginning reader. Mildred and Sam inhabit a snug burrow that is just right for two tiny mice. When Mildred worries about the lack of room for guests, the two try out a sampling of habitats. The ever-practical Sam, who points out the inherent vulnerabilities of such abodes, quickly grounds Mildred's flights of fancy regarding residing in the branches of a towering oak, floating on an oversized lily pad, and nestling in a rose thicket. Rather than move out, the pair decide to expand, adding deeper levels to their burrow. Mildred's fantastical dreams persist, now involving the appearance of animated baby gourds that spring up from her garden and take over her little house. In the final chapter, Mildred embarks upon a frenzied fit of decorating. Collicott (Toestomper and the Caterpillars, 1999, etc.) slyly reveals the reason for Mildred's fractiousness at tale's end, with the arrival of her octuplets. The full-color illustrations are an engaging composite of bright colors and whimsical drawings that lend an immense visual appeal to the tale. While the length of the chapters and complexity of language is better suited for more assured readers, the fanciful themes and vibrant illustrations make this an enjoyable romp to share as a read aloud. (Easy reader. 5-8)


text:
Just how far gone are we? In what has been called the greatest forensic scandal ever to be – so far – revealed in the United States, the once highly-respected FBI and their crime lab has been forced to admit to perjury on a massive scale:
"…agents and technicians lied under oath in over 95% of cases resulting in convictions about just how cocksure they were that hair from crime scenes pointed to the guilt of the accused.
"Throughout the 1980s and '90s,"…all this was going on even then. And now it's just part of the noise, with scandal and outrage which don't even last long enough to register before being superseded by the next public betrayal.
Meanwhile, the Woman Who Would Be King, a former US Secretary of State who apparently has successfully gotten away not only with treason, by destroying tens of thousands of likely incriminating emails, seems to be guilty of massive fraud to incredible levels of bribery as well. At least that part is nothing new; she evidently follows the family tradition.
Yet, while this horrific, once unthinkable, level of criminal behavior in government at all levels goes unopposed, and even more incredibly, unashamed, Congress quietly works to encourage even more intrusive "Big Brother is Watching" wiretapping of just about everyone else in the world. (Those who cannot afford Secret Servers, in other words.) And the courts subborn perjury and punish small businesses whose primary crime seems to be an ability to read the Bible, and say "no, thanks" to support for abomination masquerading as Caesar-licensed "marriage".
There is a common thread here. Although hardly new – after all, YHVH and the Bible have not been allowed in schools for decades, and now not courts or oval-shaped offices either – the utter rejection of God and His Word, as Written, world-wide, is now so extreme that people's homes, businesses, freedom, and even lives are being openly taken.
And the contrast becomes even more dramatic when we compare what now passes for the 'rule of law' in the world with the instruction of Scripture. Let's start with an easy one:
"One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established." (Deuteronomy 19:15)
Well, now that Big Brother knows all, sees all, and listens to all, we don't need ANY witnesses. But, given the Great God Science, as the FBI fraud made so clear, no alternative witnesses often mattered anyway. However, it is the verses which FOLLOW that instruction that really demonstrate just how far gone we really are:
"If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing…
[once he is show to be a] false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother,
"then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you."
Oh, really? So, when "justice" is perverted by false testimony (a concept that was once called "perjury", before it became what now amounts to S.O.P. *) the oath-breaking "officer" who lied to the court in order to secure the conviction of a "scumbag" should serve his sentence? Fat chance!
Which brings us to this one, that really demonstrates "just how far gone" the Rule of Law really is:
"You shall have one law, for you and the stranger who dwells among you." (Repeated almost verbatim, in Exodus 12:49, Leviticus 24:22, and twice in Numbers chapter 15)
Hardly. Some people, to paraphrase George Orwell's Animal Farm, are more equal than others.
Perhaps we have gotten 'conditioned' to the idea that, as the prophet Isaiah warned against, some would try to call evil, 'good', and vice-versa. But it would seem that much of the world has now gone far beyond such garden-variety lies.
"Justice, justice you shall pursue, that you may live and possess the land which YHVH Elohekah is giving you." (Deuteronomy 16:20)
But there is a sequence of verses in Proverbs, employing a poignant Hebrew form of overstatement, that truly makes clear, "just how far gone we are" when it comes to perverting "justice" with the evident intent of literally treating the Word of our Creator with pure spite. Note that literally every single thing that "Yah hates" has been in recent news, and not only do those who perpetrate such behavior continue in office, but do so with brazen contempt for God as well:
Proverbs 6:16-19
"These six things the LORD hates,
Yes, seven are an abomination to Him:
A proud look,
A lying tongue,
Hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that are swift in running to evil,
A false witness who speaks lies,
And one who sows discord among brethren."
It certainly looks like some who routinely break their oaths and bear false witness in order to sow discord might want to proudly hold up Proverbs 6:16 and declare "hey, I got a PERFECT SCORE!"
Just how far gone are we?
Far enough that it's past time to "come out of her," and declare, as Joshua did (24:15), "as for me and my house, we will serve YHVH." The plagues are coming, and the season of harvest is near.
* "S.O.P" – Sadly, an acronym for "Standard Operation Procedure"
Tags: Big Brother, Terror State, torah


text:
Barrow's former Leigh forward Anthony Bate is facing a ban of between five and eight matches after allegedly confronting spectators at a Kingstone Press League 1 match earlier this month.
The player was sent off during the Raiders' 18-16 win over the Knights at Heworth for a high tackle and, after being apparently taunted by home fans, went into the terracing and had to be escorted by club officials to the dressing room.
The Rugby Football League held an investigation and on Monday its match-review panel charged Bate with a grade E offence of contrary behaviour and ordered him to appear before an independent disciplinary tribunal on Tuesday evening.
In Super League, Salford centre Josh Griffin and Widnes stand-off Kevin Brown have both been charged with grade A offences of punching during Red Devils' 24-10 win in the Super 8s Qualifiers on Sunday.
The panel also issued formal cautions to Wigan captain Sean O'Loughlin, Catalans Dragons second rower Benjamin Garcia, St Helens centre Mark Percival, Hull KR hooker John Boudebza and Leigh players Bob Beswick and Adam Higson.


text:
I tried Jukes 188.8.131.52 to see how it handles XSPF files (I am trying
to write an XSPF plug-in for foobar2000, and I would like to make it
compatible with other software). It seems that Jukes is writing
incorrect XSPF files on Windows. I found three problems:
1. The duration of the tracks should be given in milliseconds, not
seconds as Jukes does currently.
http://xspf.org/xspf-v1.html#rfc.sectio ... 22.214.171.124.10
2. File URLs on Windows should be specified as
and not as
(Note the three slashes after "file:")
Read about file URLs here: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/fileurl.html
3. If I understand correctly, non-ascii characters should be
percent-encoded in URLs.
I noticed that the character ă (a with breve, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%82 ), which appeared in the title of
a song, was not encoded correctly to UTF-8 when it was written to the
XSPF playlist.


text:
Two Central New York businessmen are in line to get $10.8 million in federal money to build a small airstrip in the Oswego County town of Hastings.
The Hastings airport is eight miles from a former small, taxpayer-built airport — Michael Airfield in Cicero — that the same businessmen have bought and shut down. Essentially they'll be spending nearly $11 million in federal money to replace one generally unused airport with another airstrip.
There are some differences. The Hastings airport will have more buffer land around it and its runway will be 15 feet wider. It doesn't have the Cicero airport's close proximity to Route 81 and power lines. The Hastings airport would eventually have new hangars and fuel storage.
But the whole episode sheds some light into the curious way the federal government finances small airports, a system criticized by federal budget watchdogs at least as far back as 1994.
The Federal Aviation Administration has already spent $2.8 million on the project for which there is no demonstrated need, which doesn't meet the FAA's minimum quota for air traffic, which could hurt nearby airports, and which has been opposed by local planners and the airstrip's neighbors in Hastings. The FAA expects to spend another $8 million on the project.
The money comes from a fund set up to relieve air traffic congestion at major airports, a $200 million-a-year pot of money fed through taxes on tickets and aviation fuel paid by anyone who flies or sends a package via air.
The new airstrip, named Syracuse Suburban Airport, is 11 miles from Hancock International Airport, which runs at 50 percent of its air traffic capacity and needs no relief.
The Hastings airfield is also minutes away by air from Oswego County Airport in Volney, which, like Hancock, has been helped by taxpayers for decades and has no air traffic congestion.
If it weren't for help from a U.S. senator and congressman who successfully encouraged the FAA to bypass its own rules, the Hastings project might not be happening at all.
"This just doesn't make sense and never did," said Fred Beardsley, an Oswego County legislator who represents most of Hastings.
Beardsley was Hastings supervisor in the late 1990s when the first group of businessmen proposed the Hastings airport at the site of an overgrown airstrip that, by many accounts, hadn't been used for years. Town officials considered it abandoned. One plane landed and took off in 2004, records show.
A few weeks ago, the developers — David E. Pizio, of Jamesville, and Kenneth V. Coon Jr., of Cato, operating as Gildner Road Associates LLC — started work. Before that, the property had the peacefulness of a wildlife preserve. Weeds grew thickly through and around old runway pavement. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, after surveying the land, said trees marked for removal may be home to the endangered Indiana brown bat.
John Dahl, a former neighbor who sold property to the new airport owners, said he usually gets a big deer from the airport land each hunting season. "There's some nice ones in there," he said.
In 1996, an initial group of businessmen, under the name of Syracuse Airport North Inc., began working to buy the airstrip in Cicero, Michael Airfield and the airstrip in Hastings.
For the deal to work, the buyers had to transfer Michael's FAA funding status to the overgrown airport in Hastings. That would allow the new airport to receive FAA money. The FAA's northeast regional office approved that plan in May 2001, but the FAA's national office said no.
So Syracuse Airport North and the Michael family, one of whom lives in Manhattan, enlisted the help of U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York City Democrat. Both wrote letters to the FAA, encouraging approval and a waiver of federal standards.
"This opportunity could be a tremendous shot in the arm for Central New York aviation," Schumer wrote in 2001.
The Cicero airfield had been barely active since 1996, when its principal operator, Mickey Michael, died in an air crash. Michael's siblings tried to sell the airfield, but were stymied by two factors.
The first was a 20-year obligation to the FAA to keep the property in use as an airport, one of the strings attached when Michael Airfield received $841,000 in federal funds for a new runway and access road. The second was a steep decline in private aviation. No prospective buyers wanted to keep the property an airport, although its runway was and remains in good shape.
Under the plan supported by Schumer and Nadler, the FAA freed Michael Airfield for private, nonairport development three years ahead of schedule.
That made the whole deal sweeter for the airport developers. Michael Airfield, just off Route 11 in Cicero with a quarter-mile of road frontage and nearly 35 flat acres, is prime property for development. In 2005, the new set of investors known as Gildner Road Associates, bought Michael Airfield in Cicero for $350,000. They are offering it for sale. Asking price: $750,000.
FAA makes an exception
The FAA made another exception for the new owners, letting them play by older, less-strict rules.
One of those rules required anyone selling an airport built with federal money to reinvest their sale proceeds in a new airport. The FAA released Gildner Road Associates from that obligation.
Other guidelines, passed by Congress in 2000 to prevent millions of dollars of federal money from pouring into barely used airfields, were waived by the FAA for Syracuse Suburban.
Under those rules, airfields seeking "reliever airport" status — the designation that starts the money flow — must start with a minimum of 100 based aircraft and 25,000 operations a year. Each takeoff and each landing counts as an operation.
Hastings' recent history of air traffic was virtually nonexistent.
Skirting its own standards was acceptable to the FAA, which tries to avoid losing reliever airports.
"It's a benefit to us and to users because when they reopen and clean everything up, then it becomes an alternate for them (pilots) to land if we're in a volume-delayed situation in Syracuse," said Jim Peters, FAA spokesman.
Since 1990, small plane air traffic at Hancock — the kind Syracuse Suburban will be able to handle — has decreased 25 percent, according to FAA records.
Local planning officials opposed the Hastings airport. David Bottar, executive director of the Central New York Regional Planning Board, raised concerns five years ago that the proposed Hastings airport could hurt the county-owned Oswego County airport 10 minutes away. Oswego's airport has received $12.8 million in federal and state money since 1983.
"The existing level of air transportation activity is a very long way from being able to support duplicate general aviation facilities in close proximity to each other," Bottar wrote in letters to the FAA and to state and local officials.
No welcome from neighbors
Gildner Road Associates began digging up the old runway in 2006.
The group had FAA approval, but it did not have a town of Hastings construction permit. Because the airstrip had been inactive for so long, town officials had considered the airport abandoned and denied the company a permit request to build a new airport. Town officials issued a stop-work order.
FAA money was already flowing. Without town approval, airport engineers were getting nervous. In July 2006, after hearing concerns from FAA officials, Dan Cregan, an engineer for Passero Associates of Rochester, wrote an urgent memo to the airport's owners.
The FAA "will not continue to fund an airport with no runway," he wrote.
Meanwhile, 132 neighbors had signed a petition against the airport. For as long as many could remember, no airplanes had taken off or landed there, and they liked it that way.
In 1986, then-owner Robert Weichert, of Baldwinsville, a disbarred lawyer who had served time in federal prison for bankruptcy fraud, painted white Xs on the runway to keep public planes from landing there. He rented his airport hangar as a warehouse for local Tupperware salespeople.
Pizio and Coon, the current owners, took their case to state Supreme Court, where they persuaded Justice John C. Cherundolo that the neglected and unused airport was still an airport and could not be denied a building permit. In his decision, Cherundolo noted that the FAA had designated the Hastings airport a reliever airport, so it must be an airport.
The town issued a permit for a scaled-down version of the airport. Instead of the two long runways originally planned, it will have one 2,500-foot runway, the same length as the Cicero runway the owners are shutting down.
Neither of the new airport owners are pilots, but they want to be, Pizio said.
Coon is chief executive officer of AFD Inc., a trucking company in Liverpool. Pizio's family ran Pizio's Drive-in Restaurants and later Captain Ahab's Seafood & Steak on Erie Boulevard East.
Pizio said the airport opportunity will be good for all involved.
"We're trying to put some money into the community," Pizio said . "We're trying to make an income off it — that won't happen for a few years. We're just two little guys trying to do something we like to do. I always wanted to fly. It's a good way to do both."
Project without a need
Under the FAA's cost-sharing guidelines, the federal agency pays 95 percent of a reliever airport project's costs. The state and the owners each pay 2.5 percent. New York state's money (slated at $262,000) comes from its dedicated highway and bridge trust fund, which is partially fed by motor vehicle driver's license fees.
For their cost share, Pizio and Coon are credited what they spent buying the Hastings airport — $350,000 in 2005.
A General Accounting Office report in the mid-1990s said that most of the FAA's 329 reliever airports weren't near congested airports and didn't relieve congestion. Since then, the number of reliever airports has declined to 270.
The volume of small plane traffic has not increased, yet the FAA continues to fund reliever airports like the one in Hastings. The FAA expected to spend $202.7 million on 208 grants in 2008.
Syracuse Suburban Airport's master plan, created by Passero Associates in 2002, projects no increase in aircraft based in Central New York in coming years and acknowledged the new airstrip might hurt existing airports.
"The facility at Syracuse Suburban will likely draw aircraft away from other airports in the region," the master plan said.
At best, the new Hastings airport will serve a handful of private pilots. In all of Onondaga County, there are 296 registered small planes. In Oswego County, 121, according to FAA data.
Beardsley, the Oswego County legislator, has a pipe dream: diverting FAA money to something like water pipes or sewer lines. At a time of dwindling public resources, he'd put $10 million targeted for a small airfield in Hastings toward something else.
"I can think of a whole lot of other infrastructure that the town and the county can use," he said.
Dave Tobin can be reached at email@example.com or 470-3277.


text:
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Estate Agent


text:
The California Friday Night Live Partnership (CFNLP) serves as a technical assistance (TA) intermediary, with a focus on providing the Friday Night Live (FNL) field the most relevant training opportunities in an effort to support the successful implementation of FNL programs throughout California. Training is offered through various modalities, each with the aim of building the capacity of FNL coordinators, staff, agency and community partners, and of course, FNL youth.
Please scroll down to view all CFNLP training in our Training Library.
Training Opportunities
In-person training is available upon request, free of charge, to each county or region, as needed. For an in-person training request, click on the green button below or call the CFNLP office.
Various webinar trainings are available and offered on a continuous cycle. All scheduled webinars can be found on the calendar below. Please check back often for newly available training opportunities.
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The technical assistance library houses PowerPoint presentations from in-person trainings and webinar trainings, training videos and electronic toolkits. Please feel free to browse through and utilize the many resources available to support quality program implementation.
- FNL: Engaging Youth – Tools for Connecting
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- A Guide to Youth-Led Town Hall Meetings
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text:
Tag Archives: Spirituality
Essence of Ramana Maharshi's Teachings
Everything is transient.
Our body, mind, perceptions of the world and how we see others are always in flux.
Even our ideas of who we are, tend to change over time.
We have the inherent capacity to notice our pure sense of existence, the feeling of "I AM" that never changes and is always with us.
This awareness is subtle and intangible and in the background.
If we bring it to the forefront, pay attention to it, cultivate it, It leads to the Heart and becomes the door to eternity.
It leads us beyond duality to our Self. This is the essence of Sri Ramana's teaching.
All Are In God
"Whether you make dhyana of God or of Self, it is immaterial. The goal is the same. But you cannot escape the Self. You want to see God in all, but not in yourself? If all are God, are you not included in that all?" Sri Ramana speaking in Talk 254 (Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi).
Devotee: Is the Universal Soul (Paramatma) always different from us?
Sri Ramana: That is the common belief, but it is wrong. Think of Him as not different from you, and then you achieve identity of Self with God. (Talk 31).