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Pacific Premier Bancorp Ranked as a Top Performing Community Bank by S&P Global Market Intelligence
IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Pacific Premier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: PPBI), the holding company of Pacific Premier Bank, announced today that it was named as a top performing community bank by S&P Global Market Intelligence based on its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2017. Pacific Premier Bancorp was ranked as the sixth best performing community bank in the United States with total assets between $1 billion and $10 billion. This is the third consecutive year that Pacific Premier Bancorp has been ranked as one of the 10 best performing community banks in this size range.
S&P Global Market Intelligence's rankings are based on six metrics: pretax return on average tangible common equity, net charge-offs as a percentage of average loans, efficiency ratio, adjusted Texas ratio, net interest margin on a fully taxable equivalent basis and loan growth. More than 530 companies were eligible for the S&P Global Market Intelligence rankings.
"We are pleased to once again be recognized as one of the top performing banks in the country," said Steven R. Gardner, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Premier Bancorp. "As we have increased in scale and expanded our market footprint, we have worked to maintain a high level of performance and create value for our shareholders. With our pending acquisition of Grandpoint Bank and projected growth into a regional bank with nearly $12 billion in total assets, we believe we can continue our track record of strong financial performance."
About Pacific Premier Bancorp, Inc.
Pacific Premier Bancorp is the holding company for Pacific Premier Bank, one of the largest banks headquartered in Southern California with approximately $8.0 billion in assets. Pacific Premier Bank is a business bank primarily focused on serving small and middle market businesses in the counties of Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, California as well as Clark County, Nevada. Through its 33 depository branches, Pacific Premier Bank offers a diverse range of lending products including commercial, commercial real estate, construction, and SBA loans, as well as specialty banking products for homeowners associations and franchise lending nationwide.
Forward-Looking Comments
The statements contained herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements based on management's current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects on Pacific Premier Bancorp, Inc. (the "Company" or "Pacific Premier") including, without limitation, plans, strategies and goals, and statements about the Company's expectations regarding revenue and asset growth, financial performance and profitability, loan and deposit growth, yields and returns, loan diversification and credit management, shareholder value creation and the impact of the proposed acquisition of Grandpoint Capital, Inc. ("Grandpoint") and its wholly owned subsidiary, Grandpoint Bank, and other acquisitions.
Such statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and are generally beyond the control of the Company. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting the Company will be the same as those anticipated by management. The Company cautions readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the following: the expected cost savings, synergies and other financial benefits from the Grandpoint acquisition or any other acquisition the Company has made or may make might not be realized within the expected time frames or at all; governmental approval of the Grandpoint acquisition may not be obtained or adverse regulatory conditions may be imposed in connection with governmental approvals of the acquisition; conditions to the closing of the Grandpoint acquisition may not be satisfied; Grandpoint's shareholders may fail to provide the requisite consents to approve the consummation of the acquisition; Pacific Premier's shareholders may fail to approve the issuance of Pacific Premier common stock in connection with the proposed Grandpoint acquisition; the strength of the United States economy in general and the strength of the local economies in which the Company conducts operations; the effects of, and changes in, trade, monetary and fiscal policies and laws, including interest rate policies of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; inflation, interest rate, market and monetary fluctuations; the timely development of competitive new products and services and the acceptance of these products and services by new and existing customers; the willingness of users to substitute competitors' products and services for the Company's products and services; the impact of changes in financial services policies, laws and regulations (including the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act) and of governmental efforts to restructure the U.S. financial regulatory system; technological changes; changes in the level of the Company's nonperforming assets and charge offs; any oversupply of inventory and deterioration in values of California real estate, both residential and commercial; the effect of changes in accounting policies and practices, as may be adopted from time-to-time by bank regulatory agencies, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Financial Accounting Standards Board or other accounting standards setters; possible other-than-temporary impairment of securities held by us; changes in consumer spending, borrowing and savings habits; the effects of the Company's lack of a diversified loan portfolio, including the risks of geographic and industry concentrations; ability to attract deposits and other sources of liquidity; changes in the financial performance and/or condition of our borrowers; changes in the competitive environment among financial and bank holding companies and other financial service providers; unanticipated regulatory or judicial proceedings; and the Company's ability to manage the risks involved in the foregoing. Additional factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements are discussed in the 2017 Annual Report on Form 10-K of Pacific Premier Bancorp, Inc. filed with the SEC and available at the SEC's Internet site (http://www.sec.gov).
Pacific Premier and Grandpoint undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release any revision or update to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date on which such statements were made.
Additional Information About the Proposed Acquisition of Grandpoint
This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or a solicitation of any vote or approval. In connection with the proposed acquisition transaction, Pacific Premier will file a registration statement on Form S-4 with the SEC that will include a consent solicitation and proxy statement/prospectus to be distributed to the shareholders of Grandpoint and Pacific Premier in connection with their vote on the acquisition. SHAREHOLDERS OF GRANDPOINT AND PACIFIC PREMIER ARE ENCOURAGED TO READ THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC, INCLUDING THE CONSENT SOLICITATION AND PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS THAT WILL BE PART OF THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT, BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED ACQUISITION. The final consent solicitation and proxy statement/prospectus will be mailed to shareholders of Grandpoint and Pacific Premier. Investors and security holders will be able to obtain the documents, and any other documents Pacific Premier has filed with the SEC, free of charge at the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. In addition, documents filed with the SEC by Pacific Premier will be available free of charge by (1) accessing Pacific Premier's website at www.ppbi.com under the "Investor Relations" link and then under the heading "SEC Filings", (2) writing Pacific Premier at 17901 Von Karman Avenue, Suite 1200, Irvine, CA 92614, Attention: Investor Relations, or (3) writing Grandpoint at 333 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90071, Attention: Corporate Secretary.
The directors, executive officers and certain other members of management and employees of Pacific Premier may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies in respect of the proposed acquisition. Information about Pacific Premier's directors and executive officers is included in the proxy statement for its 2017 annual meeting of Pacific Premier's shareholders, which was filed with the SEC on April 27, 2017. The directors, executive officers and certain other members of management and employees of Grandpoint may also be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of consents in favor of the acquisition from the shareholders of Grandpoint. Additional information regarding the interests of those participants and other persons who may be deemed participants in the transaction may be obtained by reading the consent solicitation and proxy statement/prospectus regarding the proposed acquisition when it becomes available. Free copies of this document may be obtained as described in the preceding paragraph.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180326005227/en/
Pacific Premier Bancorp, Inc.
Steven R. Gardner, 949-864-8000
Chairman, President and CEO
Ronald J. Nicolas, Jr., 949-864-8000
Senior Executive Vice President & CFO
Source: Pacific Premier Bancorp, Inc.


text: On Thursday 01 October 2009 01:08:28 Patrick Sabin wrote: > Thanks for the tip. Got it work, although it was a bit tricky, as > resizing doesn't seem to be supported by python-rsvg and > cairo.ImageSurface.create_from_png doesn't allow StringIO or My best suggestions are to visit the Cairo website -- inside there somewhere is a recipe page with many samples in Python. Next would be http://www.tortall.net/mu/wiki/CairoTutorial. Third is a tutorial I made (perhaps less useful) on my site http://otherwise.relics.co.za/wiki/Tuts/Python/Cairo/ links at bottom of that page Fourth is to join the cairo at cairographics.org mailing list at http://lists.cairographics.org/mailman/listinfo/cairo they are super helpful. Lastly is my animation API (in sig)which is also Python and may help you with the source. The general idea for scaling is to use matrices (cairo provides all commands) and then output the surface to a file-like object. My animation API brings selected snippets of SVG in from an Inkscape file (tagged by id), animates them by tweening and can output each frame to another SVG or to a PNG. HTH, \d -- home: http://otherwise.relics.co.za/ 2D vector animation : https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/things/ Font manager : https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/fontypython/

subset: commoncrawl


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Reality TV show Don't Tell the Bride is looking for North East couples to take part in the production.
The show will now be on Sky 1 and grooms will be given a budget of £14,000 to organise a wedding for their wife-to-be in three weeks — without any bride input.
If you are interested in taking part, email your details to email@example.com


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Saturday Night Live recently aired a piece that featured performers playing the roles of Bronco quarterback Tim Tebow, and Jesus Christ. It was standard SNL fare that was mocking, edgy, and over-the-top. Criticism has poured in, and SNL will probably disregard all of it as they continue down their path of relatively low ratings, kept only in place by their saturday night time slot.
In all fairness, SNL should probably now air a skit that includes a Muslim and Muhammad in some type of edgy repartee as well. In this multicultural age, no religion should be given a pass. They should be equally humiliated, abused and slapped. It won't happen. Why? Because Muslims kill people that insult their religion; Christians don't.
We are told frequently that all religions and ideologies are equal, and that Islam is the religion of peace. It's not. No sooner does the U.S. pull out of Iraq, then they set about killing each other. This year Pakistan has had nearly 700 Islamic "honor killings" of mainly women that were considered as either rebellious or "too westernized" in their viewpoints. The U.S. State Department has said nothing condemning these atrocities. Once again, Islam gets a pass because they will intimidate, attack and kill anyone that dares to condemn them.
The next time someone tries to tell you that Islam is inoffensive and equal to other religions, point to Tebow, Jesus and SNL. Ask them what would happen if that were to be done live in New York against Islam on a saturday night. By sunday morning there would be hell to pay. Because Islam is not a religion of peace. It never has been, it never will be, and sooner or later the United States is going to have to deal with it in her cities and towns.


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Director's Guild Screening of "Woman's Picture"
Last Monday, I attended a screening of a new film, Woman's Picture, at the Director's Guild of America in Hollywood as the guest of a cast member, DC-based actress/singer/model Gia Mora. Mora's popular jazz cabaret "Laugh it Up, Funny Girl" is currently playing at Germano's Trattoria in Baltimore's Little Italy.
After seeing the trailer for the film by writer/director Brian Pera (The Way I See Things) I knew the film was be an anthology inspired by classic women's films of the thirties, forties, and fifties. I also knew the story was divided into three sections, each of which deals with its own specific female character.
What I didn't know is that it was part of Los Angeles' 29th Annual Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, called "Outfest," which I only bring up because the festival's mission of "fostering artistic expression of gender, sexuality and LGBTQ culture and its transformative social impact on the world" was achieved in the first section of Pera's powerful film. The character "Ingrid," is played by Calpernia Addams ("The Vagina Monologues,") also known for her work in and for the transsexual community through Deep Stealth Productions. In Woman's Picture, her character is a transwoman who visits the suburban Memphis home of her mother after ten years of estrangement. The last time she was there, Ingrid was a young man named Eddie.
The subtle nuances in the storytelling carried throughout the film into each of the three segments, offering thematic connections between these complex women whose immediate experiences seem very far removed from one another. Most notably, this was done using an unsuspected fourth element that was weaved throughout the stories – perfume – which became a character in and of itself.
"It's tied to identity," Pera said of perfume during a Q&A after the screening. "I had a fascination with my grandmothers and they were fascinated with perfumes and identities of women in films of the twenties, thirties, and forties too. This film is an homage to them."
In fact, perfume was the glue that held all three distinct stories together, and without giving too much away for future filmgoers, it is the nostalgia of smell that brings peace, happiness, intrigue, and calm to the various characters at different times throughout the stories. At times, perfume paved the way for an altered reality or dream sequence that transports the audience into the heads of the characters. The subject matter is so important to Pera in fact, that he is currently working with perfumer Andy Tauer to create a fragrance line — Tableau de Parfums™ – based on the characters in the film.
What struck me most about the film was the captivating talent of the cast. Many of the films seen in theatres today are action-based and designed for our short attention-spanned culture. The quiet moments in Woman's Picture, of which there are many, are anything but boring but solely reliant on the performances by Addams, and the two lead actors in the final two segments – Amy Lavere (Walk the Line) and Ann Magnuson (Making Mr. Right, Panic Room, "Anything But Love").
One of the best moments in the film was during the second segment when Lavere ("Loretta") breaks out into a dreamlike song sequence, the only black and white scene in the film that featured her own original music. Louisiana-born Lavere is known to play an upright bass and released her third album Stranger Me in July 2011. I so enjoyed her sound, I later downloaded the song used in the film, "Never Been Sadder," from iTunes. Lavere was unable to make the screening due to her touring schedule.
Here's a taste, courtesy of YouTube:
My host, Mora, was featured in the second segment of the film, playing a role that allows for the mystery and identity crisis through which Lavere's character is navigating, as was Angela Dee, whose theatre credits include Leaves of Glass, King Lear, and Much Ado About Nothing. Magnusson, although making appearances throughout each segment, was the main focus in the third and final section of the film. Quiet subtlety fades into reactionary rage when her character can no longer remain quiet in her life. This again draws on the theme of identity about which writer/director Pera is so clearly passionate.
It's rare that a film has an impact that leaves you thinking about the characters long after you see it, but this was one. Clearly a labor of love for Pera, he hopes to continue working with the same cast and characters for years to come, both on his website and in future films.
Watch the trailer for "Woman's Picture" here:
Woman's Picture Trailer from brian pera on Vimeo.
Lindsay Taub is an LA-based writer/editor who covers travel, lifestyle, culture, music/arts, food, wellness, and more. She calls Los Angeles home when she's there, but prefers to leave the city for the mountains and open spaces as often as possible. She loves cooking, gardening, live music, hiking with her three rescue dogs, and rustic luxury. Follow her on instagram/twitter @lindsaytaub and follow the Pacific Punch @ThePacificPunch or email email@example.com. Learn more at www.lindsaytaub.com and www.voyagevixens.com .***


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Bernie Sanders
These same young people flock to the events where Bernie Sanders speaks. His attendance is impressive and the majority are young people.
Young voters are not apathetic but there is something about regular politicians that leaves them completely cold. There is something about Bernie Sanders that interests and attracts them.
It is not difficult to see what that something is.
The news reports about Hillary Clinton record almost daily the kinds of compromises she makes in order to attract very rich donors. Her program is so far fairly vague. In the initial stages of her campaign she is catering to the very rich, she is building an enormous campaign fund to match those being constructed by Jeb Bush, Donald Trump and other Republican candidates. She is being cagey in her answers to the press; her policy statements are very general. Not offending anyone sitting on bags of money is the dominant strategy at the moment.
Given our current state of democracy that is clearly the right thing to be doing. We are so used to it, we no longer notice the stench of corruption.
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, is talking policy. He is talking about justice, about inequality. He is talking about what he sees as our major problems and what he would do about them, were he elected president.
He is talking about change and what changes need to be made. He is talking about making America better.
Bernie Sanders is talking about running the country. According to press reports, Hillary Clinton is running an electoral campaign. He wants to make the country better. She wants to better her position by becoming president.
Sanders' democracy has to do with all of us running our country together. Her democracy has to do with getting the rich to support her.
Among the young, Sanders' democracy is more appealing. Democracy as usual, they think, is not worth wasting your time on unless you too are sitting on bags of money.


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ALISHA ROBERTSON-STEPHENS, foundER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Originally from a small town in Texas, Alisha has spent the last 10 years volunteering and working across seven countries and four continents – in Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, India, South Sudan, Uganda and Indonesia. Her natural curiosity, coupled with her deep belief in global citizenship, propelled her to travel to and work with under-resourced communities in different parts of the world, listening and learning from each experience abroad.
Alisha has over 10 years of combined professional experience in the for-profit and non-profit sector, including numerous years working with multiple organizations where she played a key role in the human relations and training and development departments. She has worked and volunteered, with both small and large multicultural and multilingual teams, in many different areas including education, gender equality, community health and AIDS awareness, community development, and micro-finance.
As the Founding Director of The Kikulu Foundation, Alisha leads the strategic direction and operations for programs both in the United States and Uganda.
Beyond working to ensure all children have access to quality education, she enjoys traveling, biking, acroyoga, and being near the water. She currently splits her time between Texas, Seattle, and Uganda and is determined to master the ability to speak Lusoga and play the Ukulele.
You can read more of Alisha's story here.
Justin nezda, board president
Justin is a Vice President of Asset Performance at Caliber Home Loans. In his capacity of managing Asset Performance, Justin also focuses internally developing and managing the various execution strategies that work across all servicing aspects and business units within Caliber Home Loans. In addition to mortgage banking strategy development, Justin also routinely develops and implements process improvement to address financial and legal challenges presented in a constantly changing banking environment.
Justin has a BS in Management Information Systems from the University of Texas at Dallas. Justin previously served as Treasurer on the board of directors for Dallas Social Venture Partners (DSVP), a North Texas Philanthropic Charity focusing on Education and Children at Risk. He remains a partner with DSVP and due to his interest in supporting causes focused on children and education he has also been fortunate to work with Room to Read to build and then visit a R2R school in Nepal. Justin plays a key role in the strategic direction and planning for The Kikulu Foundation.
Justin is an active triathlete and long distance runner. An avid traveler, having traveled to all 50 states and 28 countries. He's climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain in the world. In his spare time, according to Kikulu team members, he also brews the best craft beer around!
anne hanisch, secretary
Anne currently serves as Board Secretary and leads the efforts in fundraising and product strategy. Her primary focus is on securing funding and building partnerships to support the mission of The Kikulu Foundation. Having spent the majority of her professional career working with various nonprofits, she has experienced firsthand how important fundraising is and how rewarding it is to connect with the community. She loves meeting new people and building their enthusiasm regarding Kikulu's mission.
A native of Washington State, she spent her summers working with schools established for the children of migrant workers. Living and working with the families, she quickly realized education is not equal in this country, nor globally. This eventually led her to become an active advocate for The Kikulu Foundation and is personally driven to increase awareness of and participation in solving the education crisis. By combining life experiences with her formal education and professional background, she brings more than ten years of experience working with multicultural community engagement, marketing, fundraising, and merchandise management to The Kikulu Foundation.
When she is not working on all things nonprofit, she enjoys road trips, exploring history, and traveling to see her expanding family. Although she misses the Pacific Northwest, she is glad she moved south to the sunshine.
lauren landes, board member
The love of people, the love of learning, and the love of change is what brought Lauren Landes to be a part of the the Kikulu team. Before landing in Dallas, Lauren attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville to study pre-Med and where she joined the Chi Omega Pi Chapter. Being involved with the university allowed her to work with various non-profits and local community groups and stirred her passion for helping those in need. She later transferred to Ouachita Baptist University and was given the opportunity to travel to Zambia, Cambodia and Malaysia assisting with building projects, community development and international relations. But, her greatest love was being able to interact and engage with the orphans, children and young adults she worked with along the way. After spending time overseas, she knew international work would always be a significant part of her life.
Lauren holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and is a certified Emergency Medical Technician. Working as an EMT, she gained yet another perspective on the human condition and developed an even greater passion for engaging with people. In 2010, Lauren moved to Dallas to work with her family's business and continues to work there full time.
Throughout all her travels and experiences, Lauren found the best way to document, express and communicate the world around her was through photography. What started out as a simple creative outlet, it has now grown into a meaningful side profession. Lauren has photographed professional athletes, a number of main stream musicians and various events around Dallas but more importantly she has been able to capture the faces of Kikulu – here in the states and in Uganda. For her, nothing could be more fulfilling than to visually represent the work that Kikulu does but also the hearts behind it. Aside from her day job and love of photography, Lauren is a music enthusiast, a huge fan of road trips, can spin a basketball on her fingers and will use any excuse to be outdoors.
Barakatou Kone, Board Member
In 2001 after ranking 2nd in the National Exam in Tourism and top of her school Barakatou Kone was selected by the United Nation Development Program (UNDP) in conjunction with the Women World Banking (WWB) for a Leadership Program in New York. After she completed the program she returned to Senegal, West Africa with the drive to create a community center to help women who wanted to become business owner. At age 22, Barakatou wanted to realize another dream of her which was to complete a post graduate education in the U.S.A and against her father's wish she packed her suitcase and landed in Oklahoma City to make her dream come true.
12 years later, after an Undergraduate degree in Economics, a Master Degree in Managerial Economics, A license in Business Education for the state of Oklahoma, and working in Corporate America she wanted to share her passion for education and her life experience to help others that were facing challenges to make their dream of a better education come true.
When she heard of The Kikulu foundation in 2013 she thought of it as a platform to give to children from Africa the same opportunity that was given to her over a decade ago; without the vehicle of a foundation she would not have been able to get an education in the United States.
Although Barakatou strongly believes that her own education has not been completed yet she enjoys raising her 5 year old boy and exposing him to different cultures, dancing to Latin American music, and being in a kitchen which she finds the art of cooking therapeutic. Today she is thankful to be part of a foundation that as cares deeply about education as she does.
Faye Dunaway, Board Member
Faye has been an educator for twelve years and currently teaches third grade at the Momentous Institute- a lab school focusing on social and emotional learning. Before Momentous, she spent ten years in "traditionally underserved" urban public schools, teaching English as a Second Language, Special Education and two-way dual language immersion. Her background includes political organizing and education programs coordinator for an AZA zoo.
In 2010, Faye visited Cuba as an education delegate, where she first read the words of civil rights activist Howard Thurman, which came to define much of life since: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and do that; because, what they world needs is people who have come alive."
In 2013, she was able to spend time with Kikulu in Uganda and "came alive" when immersed with the people and the mission. She returned the following year and began work with an NGO that provides education to East African refugees.
Faye attended Kansas State University where she majored in Psychology and Elementary Education with an emphasis in Special Education. Currently, Faye is working on her Masters at SMU, where she is designing her own degree in the Masters of Liberal studies program, focused on education coaching and international human rights.
While not in the world of schools, she loves the arts, her bicycle, her quirky neighborhood and nature.
Lindsay Whittemore, Board Member
Born and raised in the DFW area, Lindsay graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a degree in Biology. She is a Financial Advisor by profession and has worked with clients to help them achieve their financial goals and secure a sound financial future.
Lindsay quickly developed a passion for the nonprofit sector while volunteering in Mexico 19 years ago. Experiencing how others live and survive in challenging conditions, and seeing what a difference one person can make in so many people's lives, set a lifelong passion for her in the philanthropic world. Since then, she has devoted her time and efforts to various children's organizations and animal rescues in the Dallas area.
In addition to volunteering for her community, Lindsay spends her time outdoors, enjoys painting and cooking, and loves spending time with the most adorable baby (and husband) in the world.
Douglas Whittemore, Board Member
Douglas is a Utah native but has lived in and worked in Minneapolis, Dallas and Warsaw, Poland. Today he resides in Dallas, TX and serves as the Senior Vice President of Default Servicing at US Bank. In his role Douglas manages the back-end servicing functions of US Bank's mortgage operations which consists of over 700 employees in five states. Prior to joining US Bank Douglas held several different executive roles with JP Morgan Chase, Nationstar Mortgage, Springleaf Financial, and has worked internationally with Citibank. While with Citibank he led a group that launched Citibank's first successful mortgage in Poland which was the first mortgage product in the CEE region.
Douglas is also a partner with Dallas Social Venture Partners (DSVP), he has been a top fundraiser for the Dallas March of Dimes and has fundraised for several cancer research non-profits.
When Douglas is not working he enjoys in his free time traveling, racing Porsches, fishing, climbing, hiking, backpacking, snow skiing, biking and running with his wife and 1 year old daughter. Douglas is a huge proponent of global education, our national parks and environmental conservation.
Dr. Christine Blackburn, Board Member
Dr. Blackburn is an Assistant Research Scientist with the Scowcroft Institute for International Affairs in the Bush School of Government & Public Service and an adjunct faculty member at in the Department of Health Promotion and Community Health Sciences in the School for Public Health at Texas A&M University. In these roles she conducts research on issues related to pandemics, zoonotic diseases, and health of vulnerable populations. Dr. Blackburn teaches course on infectious disease in the developing world, refugee health, the social and political impacts of pandemics, and bioterrorism.
Prior to her position at the Scowcroft Institute she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Field Disease Investigation Unit in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University. Dr. Blackburn received her PhD in 2015 from Washington State University as part of the Individual Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program, a degree program that requires three major fields of study. Dr. Blackburn's doctoral fields were Political Science, Communication, and Veterinary Clinical Sciences.
stanton j. stephens, Board Member
Stanton is a third generation photographer and film director who works nationally. He currently lives in Seattle, but he grew up in rural Missouri and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the University of North Texas. He has worked on national campaigns and shot for magazines in the US and Europe. Utilizing his background in fine art, photography, and storytelling, he specializes in finding the humanity of his his subjects, ranging from the intensely intimate to larger societal issues. His skills help in communicating the context of the children The Kikulu Foundation helps to educate, as well as their progress in school. Stanton traveled to Africa in 2017 to meet with the students and the community in Uganda prior to joining our Board of Directors.


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text: Very nice dresses for wedding and such as bridal wear looking like gorgeous. If you have any other option for wedding shopping for wedding dress, then I have suggested you Manish Malhotra's collection has the best collection in India. He becomes one of the most popular designers Bollywood has ever. Also, He one of the most favorite designers of the Bollywood actresses, including Kajol, the Kapoor sisters, Madhuri Dixit and Priyanka Chopra to name a few.


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My wife and I went to a live shooting of Jim Cramers Mad Money yesterday. It was a blast. He's got a ton of energy and puts on a great show. He stayed late and made sure everyone had autographs, he even signed my rubber bull!
I didn't really want to have my picture taken with him, but the little woman insisted so here it is:
Update: forgot to mention that the low res on the picture is because it was taken with my new Treo 700w (which totally rocks BTW)


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French aerospace industries association.
Keys figures
- 265 firms members
- 32 milliards (75 % export)
- 132.000 employees in France.
- Claude BRESSON – Human resources manager
- Philippe DUJARIC – Deputy director of the human resources.
GIFAS, the French aerospace industries association, has 265 members, from major prime contractors' and system suppliers to small specialist companies. They cover the full spectrum of skills form the design development an production of aerospace systems and equipment to maintenance and operation.
Activities extend from civil and military aircraft and helicopters to engines, missiles and armament, satellites and launch vehicles, plus aerospace, defense and security major systems, equipment, subassemblies and associated software.
The analysis and defence of the industry's interests is a key GIFAS mission.
GIFAS critically examines any economic, social, financial, environmental and technical regulations likely to affect its members' general interests whether proposed at French, Europeanor international level. This work covers the Europe of Defense, R&D, transatlantic relations, SME support, international intelligence, public markets, environment and sustainable development, security, certifications and standards, tax, risk prevention and insurances, information on careers an training in partnership with the education system.
Jobs, careers and training in aerospace indutries : www.aeroemploiformation.com
News of the Challenge
How to take part?
With the agreement of their teaching institution, teams (two to five students) can apply online, on this website, to work on one of the 10 Work Packages proposed by the Challenge. These projects can be led completely autonomously ...
Who can apply to the Challenge?
The Challenge aims to European college students.
If you are currently studying any of the following subjects, the Challenge is for you:
- Mechanical engineering
- Aerospace engineering
- Economy
- Law
- Communication
- Design
- Medicine
- Etc.


text:
This journal documents our retirement and journeys in our RV.
Please join us as we describe our travel and life experiences.
We are in Borrego Springs California for the winter!
Stay tuned for the latest entries, and click on "last post" on this page!
If you want to contact us, please leave a message in the guest book or E-mail us at email@example.com, we will get back to you!
Enjoy the website!


text: No surprise here — Sacramento Kings rookie forward Thomas Robinson has been suspended two games for tossing an elbow at Jonas Jerebko throat area. Per the Sac Bee: "Robinson was ejected by game officials in the fourth quarter after throwing an elbow to the head of Jonas Jerebko. NBA executive vice president Stu Jackson said the suspension is without pay, and that Robinson will miss the next two games, Friday at home against San Antonio, and Sunday at the Los Angeles Lakers. Robinson will be docked $82,308 for the two games missed. He scored two points and grabbed seven rebounds Wednesday night before his ejection. He's averaging 4.4 points in 13.6 minutes in his first five NBA games out of Kansas. Thursday afternoon at the Kings' practice facility, Robinson apologized for his actions. 'I've got to be smarter in my decisions. It was a bad decision, a bad choice I made,' Robinson said. 'I made it already, I can't change it. If I could I would but it's something I have to live with and move on from here.'"


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If you have student loans and are considering a Bucks County bankruptcy, the future may be a little brighter since the last time I blogged about student loans. Currently, it is very difficult to discharge student loans in a bankruptcy. Even if you're a senior citizen with limited future earning potential (despite senior citizen's maintaining 4.2% of total student loan debt). As law student Jason Iuliano studied, only 300 out of 69,000 student loan borrowers who entered a bankruptcy attempted a discharge of their student loans.
Now, however, a bit more movement towards justice, equality, and debt forgiveness is occurring. Recently, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (out of California) softened the hard-line stance. In a nutshell, after reading the opinion, the influential 9th Circuit has slightly relaxed the standards of the Brunner test.
Some practical takeaways for Bucks County bankruptcy lawyers and their filers:
1) Look to fight for a discharge if you are "tapped" out on your budget
2) Prior to filing, don't give the court any reason to believe you are not "tapped" out -- get rid of Comcast, timeshare payments, etc.
Friday, June 14, 2013
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Heart disease (also called cardiovascular disease) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) can interact in ways that can be devastating. Cardiorenal Syndrome actually refers to several conditions, all of which involve the failure of both the kidneys and the heart. When one organ fails, the other often follows. The relationship between kidney failure and heart failure works in both directions – someone with heart disease is at increased risk for having a problem with their kidneys; and kidney disease can cause or worsen heart disease. Some medical conditions can also cause both organs to fail at the same time.
HOW HEART DISEASE IMPACTS THE KIDNEYS: Hypertension, high blood pressure, and heart failure can all lead to kidney disease. Even mild forms of hypertension can damage the kidneys over several short years; and severe high blood pressure will cause kidney malfunction over a relatively short period of time. High blood pressure makes the heart work harder and, over time, can damage blood vessels throughout the body, including those that are used by the kidneys.
HOW KIDNEY DISEASE CAN IMPACT THE HEART: Kidney failure compromises heart health, potentially leading to heart failure or stroke. Individuals with kidney disease are 10-20 times more likely than those without kidney disease to experience heart disease; and we now know that these patients are more likely to die of heart failure before complications directly related to their kidneys.
MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: This website contains general health and medical information for patients and health professionals. The site is for educational and informational purposes only. If you are experiencing a medical problem, you should immediately seek medical attention from a professional healthcare provider.


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InterWorx NFS Guide
by InterWorx LLC
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Preface
Chapter 2: Basic NFS Usage via InterWorx
Section 2.1: NFS Overview
Section 2.2: Exports
Section 2.3: Mounts
Chapter 3: Advanced via Command-Line
This guide is intended to introduce and instruct a server admin on use of the NFS features of the InterWorx Control Panel. It is designed to give a quick overview without going into too much depth.
In order to gain the most benefit from this guide, it is recommended that the reader familiarize themselves with the basics of NFS. NFS allows you to expose subtrees of the filesystem on an NFS server to an NFS client, which is then able to utilize the NFS share as if it were local to the client. More information about the system can be found online on the NFS Overview, FAQ, and howto documentation on SourceForge
Basic NFS Usage via InterWorx
The NFS feature is accessible under System Services ▷ NFS Server in NodeWorx. It is here that you can control basic aspects of the NFS service as well as mount NFS shares from other servers on the InterWorx server.
NFS Overview
The overview section allows you basic control over the NFS server daemon that runs on your server. On this page you can see a statistics graph of usage generated by RRDTool, as well as the service controls for the NFS service. Starting/Stopping/Restarting the service is possible here - in addition you can set the service to start on boot which is important if your server is hosting files to an NFS client on another machine. In addition, we display the NFS version that the local NFS server is capable of supporting.
This section is the interface to the /etc/exports file which controls access to your filesystem via NFS. To create an NFS export, you simply need the following information:
Directory To Export
This is the part of the linux directory tree which be visible to an NFS client which mounts your share. Keep in mind that permissions are important - in that if directories are not at minimum read-execute for all users and files aren't at minimum read for all users, the machine you are sharing with may have difficulty utilizing the share effectively unless you have sync'd the UID's and GID's for the user/group that owns the directories and files in the share.
IP Allow List
This is the list of hosts or alternatively, subnets that may utilize the share. You may specify hosts in the following manner:
Single host - simply enter the IP address of the host you want to export to.
FQDN's - such as host.example.com. You can also use wildcards with FQDN's such as *.example.com which will allow any host with reverse-dns setup to be inside the example.com second-level domain zone.
Subnets - specify with CIDR notation like so: 192.168.1.0/24 which is essentially the same as saying any host in 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.254 range is permitted to mount the share. Wikipedia's article on CIDR notation does a good job of explaining the mechanics.
Read/Write Access
dictates if the hosts that mount this share are permitted to make changes to the filesystem. You want to generally limit who can make changes to the filesystem to very specific hosts that you know need access.
Root User Access
determines if the root linux user on the NFS client system is allowed to behave as root when doing things on the NFS share, or if any actions they take will be mapped to the "nobody" linux user on the local NFS server filesystem.
Sync Options
determine how much care NFS takes in storing changes made by the client locally on the NFS server. Typically when a client makes a request, the NFS client has to send the request from the server, then the server has to write the data to local disk, then it has to notify the client that the change was successfully made. There are two options here that determine when the client is notified that the changes were made:
which says that a client will not get a response that the change has been made until the server has safetly written the data disk - which basically means the hard disk acknowledges the data is safe on disk.
says that the client will recieve the OK as soon as the NFS server has scheduled the data to be updated on disk. Basically if the NFS server is recieving a bunch of requests to write changes to the share, it will maintain a queue of operations it needs to perform on the disk. It will try to re-arrange the operations such that they can be completed by the disk as fast as possible. In asynchronous mode, as soon as the operation is queued, the NFS server will notify the client that the change has been completed instead of when it is written to disk. This provides better performance as there is less delay waiting on disk. On the otherhand, a crash or failure on the server side may lose data that has not been comitted to disk with the client believing that it was. In other words, it's riskier, but faster
When you're done filling the form out on the Exports page, clicking add will modify the /etc/exports file and add the export entry. You can then view/edit/delete the entry in the "Exported NFS Shares" table.
Mounts are your server acting as an NFS client to another NFS server elsewhere. This is you have data stored on a server elsewhere and you want it accessible locally. In order to mount a remote partition you need the following information:
Is obviously the IP or hostname of the machine that contains the NFS share you are trying to access. As discussed above in Exports, the remote machine must be permitting your server's IP or hostname to connect and mount the share or the mount will fail.
Remote Directory
is the directory on the remote NFS server's filesystem that you wish to mount. This is necessary because the NFS server may be exporting multiple directories and you need to specify which one you want.
Mount Point
is the directory on your local system where you wish to have the NFS mount "appear". Much like when inserting a USB thumb drive or adding a new hard disk on any linux system, you need to choose an existing directory to make the USB thumb driver or hard disk "appear" so you can access it. When mounting to a directory, any subdirectories or files in that directory become hidden and inaccessible while there is something mounted on that directory. You typically use an empty directory for a mount point.
determines which IP data transmission protocol the NFS server and client will use to communicate. Typically TCP is recommened because it is able to account for lost packets as well as packets arriving out of order. TCP is generally more widely used when it comes to data integrity. UDP is a lighter, faster protocol but probably shouldn't be used unless the server and client are connected via a secure highly reliable network - such as a crossover cable betweeen the two machines.
Mount Type
determines how the client reacts in the event of a failure. If a program is reading or writing from the share and the connection goes down for some reason,
will force the program to wait until the server comes back online.
on the other hand will report an error to the program and allow it to continue execution.
functions in tandem with the Interrupt Handling option.
Remount Options
are used to determine the behavior of the system to remount the share when there is an error.
indicates that the share should be dropped from the mount table should an error occur.
indicates that the share should remain mounted as it could be a temporary failure.
Interrupt Handling
functions in combination with the
mount type. When you have the hard mount type and the connection drops, allowing interrupts gives you the ability to interrupt the operation that is waiting on the connection to come back and allow the program to continue. Without allowing interrupts, processes that are waiting on I/O on the NFS share will be unable to execute until the NFS export comes back online or the NFS client is restarted.
After you have entered the data for your NFS mount into the form, InterWorx will do a quick verification to ensure that the data you entered made sense, and then attempt to mount the device. If the mount fails, Interworx will notify you with an error.
Advanced via Command-Line
This part of the guide is still under development. We highly recommend looking into CentOS/RedHat's NFS guide if you wish to dive down deeper in the system and configure NFS with more granularity.
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text:
Learning - Cooperation - Friendship - Future
In this section you will find information about our school events. You can also access past copies of our school newsletter and read the latest news stories. Information regarding term dates is also available here.
© The State of Queensland (Department of Education) 2019


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Alex Fine is a gifted eighteen-year-old with an extraordinary ability to transport himself through the optical passageways of the Internet. While inside the digital web, Alex is capable of downloading databases, manipulating archived data, and traveling to any destination in the world. Alex discovers his powers just as he is ready to enroll in his freshman year at a prestigious West Coast university, causing an unexpected detour in his plans. In a short period of time, Alex Fine becomes one of the richest people in the world, with virtually limitless power. In a hastily arranged scheme, Alex becomes a digital Robin Hood, as he steals money from a criminal oligarch to fulfill his philanthropic goals. It is the story of a young man who wants to use his powers for good, but makes mistakes en route to discovering the truth behind his supernatural abilities.
This is how the author describes his book. Is he teasing you? He could be, this description does not begin to hint at the action and intrigue that Alex Fine is about to go through as his life undergoes radical changes. He struggles to make sense of his newfound abilities and makes a number of life altering decisions that affects not just him but those around him.
You are going to love this book, Fine goes through so many changes in such a short time. The book is very well written, however I did find several spelling errors of the homonym type (that is my specialty, after all). I rate this 4.9 stars of 5, only because of the spelling errors. I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
The book is available on Amazon and Goodreads:
You can follow Alex Fayman:


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Your investments are secured, says Malaysian minister
Malaysian Trade Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on Tuesday assured foreign businesses his country remained safe for investments, despite political changes after March general elections, reported AFP.
"As far as we are concerned there is some slight change in the political landscape, it is something which maybe Malaysians have to get used to," Muhyiddin said at a press conference in Singapore.
"So I think it's just needing some reassurance from the government -- and I am here to reassure them -- that the political situation is very well managed and we treasure very much the peace and security that we have been enjoying for many, many decades," he said.
"We know that they (investors) need government assurance to say that politically things are in order... and that whatever investments that they have put in Malaysia will be secured."
Muhyiddin was in Singapore for a seminar with potential investors on business opportunities in Malaysia.
The two neighbours enjoy close business ties with total trade up an annual 11 percent to 57.9 billion Singapore dollars ($42.2 billion) in the first-half of 2008.
Malaysia's ruling Barisan Nasional coalition failed to secure a two-thirds majority in March elections for the first time in almost 40 years.
The ruling coalition also lost four states in addition to one the political opposition already held, and Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's popularity has fallen to a new low.
Revitalised opposition figurehead and former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has said he has the numbers to take power with the help of government defectors, despite being hit with sodomy allegations recently.
But Muhyiddin belittled Anwar's claims, saying the opposition politician needs a "massive exodus" from the ruling coalition to gain power.
"I think he has got a bigger agenda to create an impression that something is seriously happening at home, that people are not happy and everything can happen," the trade minister said.
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Supergiant Games' Greg Kasavin talks about Transistor's build, design, and narrative direction.
In 2011 Supergiant Games rocked the indie scene with their critically acclaimed action role-playing game, Bastion. As their first title, the game provided players with a touching experience through a vibrant environment and an amusing (and somewhat enigmatic) narrator who called out their every move. This year, Supergiant announced their next title,Transistor, a game we have been adamantly following since its first reveal at PAX East.Transistor, which appears to be a spiritual relative of Bastion, follows the story of a young woman named Red and the Transistor, a sword that aids her in combating the totalitarian entity known as the Process. Though we still know little about the narrative, the culmination of art direction, music, and gameplay provides a sense of where the game is going; compared to Bastion, Transistor seems to be taking on a slightly darker theme.
At this year's PAX Prime Supergiant had a different build of Transistor on the show floor. While we were at their booth I had the pleasure of chatting with the game's director, Greg Kasavin about the new build, the game's overall aesthetic, and the possible narrative direction Transistor will ultimately be taking.
So can you tell us a little bit about the new build you guys have here at PAX Prime?
Greg: What we had at E3 was very similar to what we had at PAX East, which was six months ago. This build shows what we have been up to since then. It still takes place in the same part of the game, which is near the very beginning, but it provides us with a better sense of the structure, like the RPG elements as it were. We called it an action RPG but we didn't show much of the RPG stuff the first time around. There are all sorts of little bits and pieces that we improved and modified because we are always tuning and tweaking to make ourselves better. Hopefully it reflects some of that.
It definitely does. It [Transistor] is similar to Bastion, but it is also extremely different. Bastion is very pastel-colored and bright, more fantasy-based. This [Transistor] is a little darker with shadows and darker colors. Was this an idea that resonated with the entire team from the beginning?
Greg: I think we naturally wanted to make a game in response to Bastion. In a lot of waysBastion, for us, was an exploration of the action RPG genre. We really wanted to make an action RPG, but we knew we weren't going to make a game like Diablo, because we would just make a worse version of Diablo, right? We needed to find our own angle on this so we ended up with the narration and the action-oriented combat. So with Transistor, we really had a lot of fun making the weird fantasy world of Bastion, and we wanted to see if we could do it again with more of a science fiction theme—starting with a sort of cyberpunk atheistic, as the genre trope, and then proceeding to twist that in hopefully interesting ways… also taking the gameplay in a more strategic direction, in which we found fertile ground for a deeper combat system which was something appealing to us.
One thing I love about the combat is that it varies so much depending on the player. If someone wants to make it a hack-and-slash they can, but there is also a heavy strategic element to it. Would it possible to go through the game without using the time-pause ability?
Greg: Yeah, that's kind of the idea. Whether you'll be able to avoid it entirely, I don't know. The idea is that we want you to be compelled to use it on your own terms so we aren't going to force it on you. We want the real-time combat to be fun and viable; having this really powerful ability opens up this opportunity for us in terms of designing combat and encounters with enemies, stuff like that. To make them really intense because you always have this option to say 'No, no, no, wait. Time out. Now I'm going to turn the tables on these guys. I'm going to take these guys out, do that..' and we find out that players use it in very different ways—that's when we felt that we were really onto something. Not everyone was just using it every single time, because we didn't want to make just a straight-up turn based game, because of the things we wanted to do with the narrative and our desire to make an immediate-feeling game. We wanted to capture some of the sensation of turn-based games and the drama of contemplating your next move and the anticipation of pressing the go-button and seeing whether the plan is going to happen or whether it is going to screw up. Those are fun moments for us.
In terms of the game's narrative….with the demo we see that Red is this character who has essentially lost her voice, and yet she finds the inanimate object, the Transistor, that has a voice. How does this contrast play into the narrative goal of the game?
Greg: It's actually an idea we came back around to, but one of the first ideas we had on the project was having the story around this pair of characters. We found it to have a naturally rich potential—with a silent protagonist, where the silence of the protagonist is actually part of the story. Having just done a game in a more traditional way with Bastion, where he doesn't talk just because of the story structure, whereas here [in Transistor] it's part of the whole premise. And in addition to that the symbiotic relationship with someone who is forced to only take action and can no longer have a voice versus someone who is only a voice and what that kind of character can do in that situation. We really just wanted to develop the relationship between them throughout the course of the story. I'm beating around the bush a little bit. I don't want to say too much about it because it's very central to the story.
*laughs* I completely understand. I feel like everything in the game, from the art and music to the gameplay and story, come together to paint this massive narrative. Was this sort of culmination of design a goal from the beginning?
Absolutely. We try to make games that feel complete, where everything fits together, maybe in kind of a weird way, but it still fits. And in this case we want to create this idea that Red was this kind of living legend of singer in this world, and now her voice has been taken from her. So what happens to a person whose whole life was her voice? Now that it's gone, what is she going to do? We wanted to create that kind of character and put her in this situation and see where we would go with that.
In the end, what do you want players to take away from playing Transistor?
I mean, I would be very happy if it were received similar to the way Bastion was received. We have been just overwhelmed with the response to Bastion and it's the reason we can be here again making a game on our own terms. With Bastion we wanted to make a game that would leave a lasting and positive impression on people, and be more than just fun to play, but leave people with something. We like games that do that, and we want to see if we can do it again. Hopefully we can surprise people along the way once more.
And then the burning question everyone has been asking you…. When and on what can we expect to see Transistor?
Transistor is coming to PS4 and PC early next year.
(Article Published on Gameranx.)


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WWE Monday Night Raw - July 3, 2017 - Talking Stick Resort in Phoenix, AZ
WWE SmackDown - July 4, 2017 – Talking Stick Resort in Phoenix, AZ
RAW vs. SMACKDOWN
With both shows being in the same arena with the same energy I think the crowd is based strictly on the show itself. What Superstars are on what show, and how they're being used. In this case, I think the Raw crowd was much hotter and ready which makes sense with the pre pay-per-view energy.
WINNER: Raw
Where is David Otunga? I feel like its definitely been six weeks since they said he would be back in six weeks. Not that I'm complaining, but I must have missed something. Nonetheless, even though I really enjoy Corey Graves, I am still enjoying SmackDowns team much more.
WINNER: SmackDown
In terms of matches, I really don't believe Raw offered much. Not really anything besides Cesaro vs. Finn Balor. The main even was cool to see Braun and Apollo Crews, but other than that it was rather blah. SmackDown was much better. AJ vs. Chad Gable was cool, and the main event battle royal was a nice change of pace.
WINNER: SmackDown
The promos Enzo has been cutting lately have been really good. Emotional and charged up. The one on this Monday may have been a little repetitive, but I still enjoyed it. Miz TV was good as usual, and the Miz-tourage better stay a real thing because I think that fits Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel's roles beautifully. The odd split screen interview with both Joe and Lesnar was alright, and I think Joe shined in it.
The champ returned on SmackDown!! To announce he isn't really a part of SmackDown anymore, but that he is a free agent. Rusev comes out, and it isn't a bad promo. Just your typical, "4th of July! Merica!" stuff. The promos with Carmellsworth and Daniel Bryan were okay, but that Rap Battle was just awful. Raw wins.
WINNER: Raw
Need I say more than Brock Lesnar vs. Samoa Joe or Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns? Because I honestly believe thats enough for me. Yes, we get AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens again which will be fun, but another Randy Orton vs. Jinder Mahal match isn't at the top of my list even if it is a Punjabi Prison match. And another Rusev(without Lana?) and John Cena feud isn't a huge grab for me either. However, the build and feud of Lesnar and Joe has been second to none and that one alone is the winner for me. Also, we can't forget the great Enzo & Cass stuff as well. I've been a huge fan of it since the heel turn, and the promos are making it better.
WINNER: Raw
Another Monday, another 50% commercials for Raw. A three hour show that has one hour and thirty minutes of commercials is simply unjust and ridiculous in my opinion.
WINNER: SmackDown
The only thing to note here was in the Chad Gable vs. AJ Styles match it read that Chad Gable was being accompanied by Jason Jordan when he was on his way to the ring. Which, didn't happen. That cracked me up, and for that reason I'll give Raw the point.
WINNER: Raw
POINT ADJUSTMENTS: Raw (+0 / -0) / SmackDown (+0 / -0)
THIS WEEK'S WINNER = Raw
Raw has been on some sort of a role as of late. I think its the combo of great feuds with Joe & Lesnar, Reigns & Strowman, and Enzo & Cass bringing a strong show together. Great promos, believability, and also some great action in all three. Is this just proof that having a proven guy like Lesnar on top is better than the surprise guy Jinder on top of a show? Or is it that Orton & Jinder have been watered down, while Joe & Lesnar is something of a dream match for wrestling fans? Either way, Raw gets the 4-3 win.
That's my pick for the better show of the week, but how do YOU stand?
Which was better, Raw or SmackDown?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!


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MOVI Inc. / Splash News
Aaron Rodgers scores major "Awwww" points with us for these comments.
The 30-year-old NFL star has finally opened up about his new relationship with Olivia Munn, saying he's "real happy."
Both the notably private Green Bay Packers quarterback and the 33-year-old star, who plays sassy financial news anchor Sloan Sabbith on The Newsroom, certainly looked that way while they were photographed packing on the PDA on an outdoor set of the HBO series on June 6.


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PARIS (AP) America's Cup skipper Franck Cammas of Groupama Team underwent successful surgery after sustaining a double shinbone fracture in a training accident.
Cammas will be sidelined for several weeks before starting rehabilitation in January, the team said on Tuesday.
The 42-year-old Frenchman was injured when he fell off his high performance catamaran and the rudder sliced into his right ankle.
The accident happened Monday when he and his team were training on two foiling GC32 catamarans at the National Sailing School in Quiberon Bay. Cammas was thrown overboard while the catamaran was going full speed in 17 knots of wind.
Cammas was rushed to shore and then flown by a medical helicopter to a hospital in Nantes, where he had surgery on Monday evening.
''Thanks to all of you. These messages touch my heart and give me even more courage to come back as soon as possible,'' Cammas said on the team's website.
Cammas was traveling at 25 knots (31 miles per hour), and his foot was reportedly partially severed after the accident.
Following the operation, doctors told Cammas that he would not lose the use of his right foot, and that the arteries and nerves had not been impacted.
His team is hopeful he can resume competing at some point next year, although only after ''a long period of rehabilitation''- appearing to rule him out of next year's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
''Words aren't easy to find in times of crisis,'' Groupama Team France manager Bruno Dubois said. ''We'll keep focusing on our common goals. Of course I hope to see Franck back at the helm as soon as possible.''
The GC32s are the new boat for the Extreme Sailing Series. The boats are smaller than the 45-foot catamarans used in the America's Cup World Series, which are regattas leading up to the 2017 America's Cup, which will be sailed in 48-foot catamarans.
When foiling catamarans reach a certain speed, they rise up on the rudders and daggerboards, with the hulls completely out of the water to increase speed.
Cammas is one of the world's leading multihull sailors.
On Nov. 21, Cammas became the first sailor to round Cape Horn on a foiling catamaran. He did it on a Nacra F20 Carbon FCS, accompanied by novice sailor Johannes Wiebel of Germany.
Groupama Team France is a new team this America's Cup cycle. It finished a distant last place in the six-boat fleet after the first three America's Cup World Series regattas.


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was it westwood, or was it Stoofer the blue(?) cat on Harry Hill?
Ethan Johnson a teenager from Brisbane with mild Asperger's syndrome was the focus of a nationwide police search when he went missing two weeks ago. Spotted on cctv cameras riding his mountain bike along the Pacific Highway he kept going, unaware of his parent's pleas for him to return home. He lived on fast food and slept in truck stops and when found in Sydney on Good Friday told his parents that he 'rode from when I woke up to when I went to sleep'.
As the legendary Tim Westwood used to say, and possibly still does, respect is due.
Read more about Ethan's adventure in the Times online.
Plucked from the obscurity of his London commute back in the mid-Nineties to live in Bath and edit bike mags our man made the jump to the interweb back in 2006 as launch editor of a large cycling website somewhat confusingly named after a piece of navigational equipment. He came up with the idea for road.cc mainly to avoid being told what to do… Oh dear, issues there then. Tony tries to ride his bike every day and if he doesn't he gets grumpy, he likes carbon, but owns steel, and wants titanium. When not on his bike or eating cake Tony spends his time looking for new ways to annoy the road.cc team. He's remarkably good at it.
Sometimes its a shame that drive-by didn't finish him off all those years ago. When I saw Eminen at Milton Keynes Bowl years ago, he was a warm up DJ. Seemed like he was dj-ing for about 8 hours, and he nevered tired of playing a gun cocking sound effect and a bomb dropping. Irkesome.
Another thing, his presenting skill'z' on the UK version of Pimp My Ride are also terrible. Then again PMR as a UK show just doesnt cut the mustard. A garage in Slough with Westwood and some other awkwardly acting/dressed wrench monkeys is nothing compared to Xzibit and West Coast Customs.....
He must be mid 40's now too. Radio 1, the yoof station seems to be employing over the hill idiots. Moyles (please let the Sun story be true) Wiley, Bowman, Westwood. Sigh.
Enough from me.
I get annoyed just at the sound of Westwoods name, he really is a bufoon. The bit I really don't get is how he seems to get taken seriously by some of the big hip hop stars from the US?
Perhaps they think that is what we are all like over here, and they just decided to pretend he doesn't sound like some sort of Catherine Tate version of a bad bwoy...
David Rodigan manages to be both extremely credible, and still remains a normal person. He is still one of the best dancehall DeeJays, plays and wins clashes all over the globe, including Jamaica. He's way past 50, but he is not, nor has he ever been the twunt that Westwood is.
Going back a good few years, Westwood was at Notting Hill and I happened to be passing the stage when he was calling for all the white boys to move back and the black boys to come to the front, as there were cameras there and I think he thought it suited his image better for it to appear to be a black audience. The group of mainly black guys I was with were about as impressed as I was. I called him a twat back then (as loud as I could, not sure if he heard, but everyone else around did, and seemed to agree), and I still feel the same today.


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Breaking Inertia
Inertia, in terms of physics, is a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force (Google).
In lamens terms, it means that an object in motion will stay in motion unless changed by some external force (gravity, wind resistance, etc.). On the flip side of that, an object at rest will remain at rest unless also acted on by an external force (a push or a pull by someone or something). In short, any object, whether moving or stationary, will continue to do what it's doing until someone or something forces it to stop.
If we applied this physics notion to our own lives, we could say that inertia can be a good or a bad thing. If we're moving in the right direction in life, we'll keep moving in that direction unless some external force stops us from doing so. Alternatively, if we have been stuck and stagnant for a while in our lives, we will continue to do so until a force drags us out of it.
The latter instance is more concerning, and it's definitely something I can relate to. There have been many times where I felt stagnant and waited for some force to come and save me. What I've learned over the years is that those external forces can do a lot of the work of shaking us from a stationary state, but we have to do the work in finding them. I can't learn anything from books if I don't seek out books that will help me. I can't find new perspectives from a wise mentor if I don't feel the need to ask. Over time I realized that by sitting and waiting for the forces to come to me, I was extending my state of static inertia.
What we all need is a bit of action to get the ball rolling. Yes, external forces can change your life if you let them. What we all need to do is find those forces that will push us in the right direction and get us moving. Just like continuously standing still is one form of inertia, creating motion and action in our lives holds the same property: we will keep doing what we're doing until someone or something stops us. Get moving people!


text: Get your hands on the new Star Wars villain, Kylo Ren. From Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this 10" plush character is perfect for play. Made from high quality plush with embroidered detailing, Kylo Ren looks just like he does in the movie. Suitable for ages 0+, this soft toy is a great gift for Star Wars fans of all ages.


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It was sometime between my first battle with an Uruk captain and overthrowing my first war chief that I realized something was special about Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. While the gameplay itself was fantastic, it was something in particular about the game's enemies that struck me. Each Uruk had a unique name, appearance, and set of weaknesses, strengths and fears. Each Uruk had its own personality that was only present in my game. If I fell in battle to one, he made sure to let me know the next time I saw him — in alarmingly specific detail.
This is all thanks to Monolith's Nemesis System. What the Nemesis System has managed to accomplish is something extraordinary — and noticeably lacking in many other of its AAA game brethren: perceived personalization. It wasn't a matter of going after these Uruks because the game said I had to — I went after them because I wanted to. For sweet, sweet vengeance. It was no longer purely a game mechanic. It was personal. It was as if I KNEW the Uruk and he existed purely to antagonize me and make my life more difficult. All of this made it that much more satisfying by the time I was able to exact my revenge by parting his head with his shoulders.
So what does this all have to do with digital marketing? Everything.
You see, Monolith has stumbled onto something utterly brilliant. Mechanics that go a long way in making you, the consumer, feel like you're having a completely unique experience. At its core, the Nemesis system is essentially a bank of possible names, attributes, personalities and sound bytes that combine to form randomly created characters. But it's how it all comes together to form a cohesive experience that's where it really shines.
You could apply this same logic to attributes in product design, custom web experiences, or experiential events. If you feel like you're the first and/or only person to experience something, how much better of an experience is that compared to a one-size-fits-all approach? By creating something truly unique, you're creating social currency and empowering your consumers to speak on your behalf.
But why perceived personalization? Isn't it just personalization? Yes and no. Yes, the experience is unique and personalized to me, the end user. But where I see the differentiation is the fact that it's unique without any additional input from either the development side OR the user side. It's a highly sophisticated automated system that makes me FEEL like it's built specifically for me. That's the magic. And something I believe we are going to start seeing even more in 2015.