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It doesn't take much to turn your freshly cleaned kitchen into a food-splattered disaster area, especially if you cook often. Kitchens are hotbeds for grimy buildup, spills, and other messes, so keeping up on the cleaning can seem like a constant hassle. To spend less time cleaning and more time doing what you enjoy, try these easy clean kitchen hacks and restore your kitchen back to its clean and mess-free state!
Get Your Sink Sparkling Clean
You can easily clean your kitchen sink by wetting it down and sprinkling it with baking soda. The high pH level of the baking soda will remove stains, soap scum, and caked-on foods. Use an old toothbrush to scrub the sink, including the caulked sealing around the sink and faucet. Then, after you rinse the entire basin with water, removing all the baking soda residue, you'll be left with a clean, shiny sink.
Prevent Clogs: By periodically pouring boiling water down your drain, you could prevent clogs from forming. For an even more effective cleaning method, you can also pour baking soda down the drain before dumping the boiling water down.
Easily Clean Your Microwave
It can be hard to prevent food from popping and splattering inside your microwave, and it can be even more difficult to clean your microwave once the exploded food has caked on to the walls. For a simple fix, put a cup of water and lemon juice (or a cup of white vinegar) into the microwave and microwave it for up to 3 minutes. Once your timer sounds, you can easily scrub off the softened gunk and food splatter.
Solve Stuck-On Food Problems
To easily wipe away baked-on foods, fill your dirty dish or pan with warm water and soak a dryer sheet in it. Let your water-filled dish sit overnight. In the morning, you should be able to take a sponge and wipe away the stuck-on food with no trouble at all.
Give Your Blender A Bath
Starting your day with a freshly blended smoothie sounds great, but the messy cleanup afterward can be enough to steer you away from using your blender. Easily clean your blender by filling it half full with warm water and adding in a few drops of dish soap. Put on the cap, turn your blender on, and watch the sudsy concoction do all the hard work for you. Be sure to thoroughly rinse your blender to remove soap residue and return it to its sparkling clean state.
Thwart Mildew With Binder Clips
Kitchen sponges are often one of the germiest items in the kitchen. When you set them down on the edge of your sink, the damp environment creates an ideal breeding ground for mold and mildew. Keep your sponges clean, dry, and mildew-free by propping them up with a binder clip. Letting air get to your sponge will help it dry faster and fend off unsightly mildew buildup around your sink.
Streak-Free Stainless Steel
You can keep down on the number of cleaning products in your RV by using simple glass cleaner to clean all of your stainless steel appliances. This will give them the same streak-free shine of a specialty cleaning product. If you are concerned about the chemicals in cleaning products, you can also buff your stainless steel appliances with flour before rinsing them off with water. Though this method requires a bit more effort, it works just as well as glass cleaner and it might be safer for you too!
Reduce Mess With A Cutting Board
Using an over-the-sink cutting board will not only maximize your countertop space, but it will also help to prevent veggie scraps, fruit peelings, and meat juices from making a mess during meal prep. As an added bonus, you can also use the cutting board to hide dirty dishes if you don't feel like washing them right away!
Clean Cutting Boards: Even if your cutting board appears clean, it could still be coated with a layer of grime. Give your cutting board a deep cleaning by sprinkling it with coarse salt and scrubbing it with half a lemon. Let it sit for 5 minutes before rinsing it off with water.
Get Rid of Rust Spots
If you notice spots of rust forming on your silverware, there is a simple solution! Soak your stained silverware in a glass of lemon juice, and then rinse them off before drying. As you hand dry them, the rust stains should magically wipe away!
Clean Your Oven With Ease
The self-cleaning cycle on your oven can cause your range to reach dangerously high temperatures. Skip the strain it causes to your stove and try this simple method of cleaning your oven. Just put a 1/2 cup of ammonia in a bowl and place it inside of your fully-cooled oven. Let it sit there overnight, without turning your oven on, and easily wipe away the grimy buildup in the morning.
While these easy clean kitchen hacks won't make cleaning your kitchen more fun, they can simplify the job. For the ultimate RV kitchen cleaning hack though, just do all your camp cooking outside! Check out these recipes for in-the-fire baked potatoes and campfire chicken, and let Mother Nature handle the messy meal prep so your kitchen can stay clean!
Do you have a unique kitchen cleaning hack that you rely on? Share it with us in the Comments below!


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Coming off another season where their playoff fate came down to the final weekend, Marc Dobell's Mount Royal Cougars appear to have added at least two formidable pieces designed to push Calgary's other CIS program into Canada West contention. MRU finished strong last season, winning 5 of their last 6 to finish at 10-10 and tied for third with MacEwan but lost the tie-breaker and missed the post-season. With the commitment of 6'4″ CCAA Player-of-the-Year Josh Ross, the Cougars have a potential Canada West all-star candidate to join 6'8″ sophomore Brett Layton (17 ppg as a freshman), already one of the emerging stars in the league. Recall Layton returned from a two year Mission to start his CIS career last season after starring in high school at Calgary's Sir Winston Churchill, graduating in 2013. Ross, originally from Burlington, Iowa, will have two seasons of eligibility remaining after starting his post-secondary career with two seasons at Southeastern C.C., a NCJAA program from West Burlington, IA. In his second season, he was one of the top players in the ICCAC, averaging 15.7 ppg, 7.3 rpg including a 42% three-point shooting percentage. Last season, Ross, who projects as a combo 3/4 forward at the CIS level, led Vancouver Island U to a fourth-place finish at the Canadian College national championships, averaging 20 points, 11 rebounds and 4 assists per game. Joining Ross as a second potential-impact newcomer is 6'0″ Craig Martin, who completed his high school career at Dallas, TX Woodrow Wilson High in 2014-15, averaging 10 ppg as a senior before sitting out last season. Martin has a strong reputation as a pit-bull-esque ball defender and should immediately help the Cougars back court. MRU loses only 6'4″ James Lefebvre from their starting lineup from last season, returning conference all-star Layton, 6'2″ Derek Wolf, 6'2″ Glen Yang plus 6'5″ Neil Phillip. 6'4″ Noah Lewis, who started the first 4 Canada West regular season games before missing the remainder of last season is also scheduled to return. Cougars also added some depth to their front court with the transfer from Trinity Western of 6'7″ Nick Tancon, who was an all-star at the '13-'14 B.C. Provincial championships when he averaged 33 points and 25 rebounds per game. Tancon also has international experience playing in Denmark. Tancon averaged 13.4 minutes and 4.1 points per game in his only season with the Spartans in 2014-15.
Canada West '15-'16
Canada West: All-Stars announced
Although major award winners were not announced, usually conferences list first the top vote getting player in the All-Star announcement. If that indeed is the case with Canada West, it appears that 6'5″ Thomas Cooper of Calgary is the odds-on favorite to win the Canada West Player-of-the-Year and Toronto native Brody Clarke will be named Rookie-of-the-Year.
At first glance, six of the 15 all-stars named come from the Explorer Division including three from Thompson Rivers – with 4 of the 6 teams in that division having representation. Of the 11 teams in the Pioneer, 7 teams are repped – all non-playoff teams (Saskatchewan, Victoria, Brandon and Trinity Western) did not have a player named.
Very glad to see coaches recognize how important Keith Omoerah is to Manitoba's success despite less than resounding pure offensive numbers. Brandon Brine at Lethbridge is also extremely deserving of a First-Team selection.
In all, 11 of the 15 All-Stars are Canadian with the U.S.A., Austrailia, Germany and Ukraine also being represented.
Calgary's Cooper and Lars Schleuter, UBC's Jordan Jensen-Whyte and Conor Morgan, Manitoba's Omoerah and TRU's Josh Wolfram, Reece Pribilsky and Volodymyr Iegorov all will appear at the Canada West Final 4 at the Jack in Calgary this coming weekend.
2015-16 Canada West Men's Basketball First All-Star Team
Thomas Cooper / G / University of Calgary / 4th / Chattanooga, Tennessee
Kevon Parchment / G / University of the Fraser Valley / 5th / Scarborough, ON
Jordan Jensen-Whyte / G / University of British Columbia / 4th / Calgary, AB
Josh Wolfram / F / Thompson Rivers University / 5th / Kamloops, BC
Brandon Brine / F / University of Lethbridge / 5th / Adelaide, Australia
2015-16 Canada West Men's Basketball Second All-Star Team
Mamadou Gueye / F / University of Alberta / 3rd / Quebec City, QC
Keith Omoerah / G / University of Manitoba / 3rd / Winnipeg, MB
Brett Layton / F / Mount Royal University / 1st / Calgary, AB
Jonathan Tull / G / University of Regina / 5th / Ajax, ON
Conor Morgan / G/F / University of British Columbia / 3rd / Victoria, BC
2015-16 Canada West Men's Basketball Third All-Star Team
Reese Pribilsky / G / Thompson Rivers University / 5th / Victoria, BC
Denzel James / F / MacEwan University / 4th / Edmonton, AB
Denzel Lynch-Blair / G / University of Winnipeg / 2nd / Toronto, ON
Volodymyr Iegorov / F / Thompson Rivers University / 4th / Donetsk, Ukraine
Lars Schlueter / F / University of Calgary / 2nd / Ulm, Germany
2015-16 Canada West Men's Basketball All-Rookie Team
Brody Clarke / F / University of Alberta / Toronto, ON
Chan De Ciman / G / University of Saskatchewan / Regina, SK
William Sesay / G / University of Winnipeg / Winnipeg, MB
Jeff Tubbs / G / Thompson Rivers University / Kelowna, BC
Taylor Browne / G / University of British Columbia / Surrey, BC
Final Four – hosted by the University of Calgary
Friday, March 11
UBC vs. Thompson Rivers / 6 PM MST / CW Final Four semifinal 1
Manitoba vs. Calgary / 8 PM MST / CW Final Four semifinal 2
Saturday, March 12
Loser semifinal 1 vs. Loser semifinal 2 / 6 PM MST / CW bronze medal game
Winner semifinal 1 vs. Winner semifinal 2 / 8 PM MST / CW championship game
Canada West: Krown U video
Excellent recap and production summarizing the Canada West play-in series plus a great interview with UBC Head Coach Kevin Hansen – top-notch professionally done product.
Canada West Quarter-Finals start tonight
Canada West is the only one of the four conferences that deploys a Best-of-3 quarter-final – rationale being that they want to make sure that the 4 "best" teams make it through to have the "best" representatives nationally. The format makes it prohibitively difficult for a visiting team to advance. My fleeting memory tells me that only once in the history of this format has a visiting team captured a Best-of-3 although Alberta technically did that last weekend.
There are 3 games this evening:
Fraser Valley at Manitoba (7 PM Central; 8 PM ET)
Lethbridge at UBC (7 PM Pacific; 10 PM ET)
Regina at Thompson Rivers (7 PM Pacific, 10 PM ET)
The fourth series: Alberta at Calgary gets underway tomorrow night.
As always, the go-to place for all things Canada West is Wayne Thomas's great site (although our trusted Canada West source is another great resource).
Canada West: Both road teams take 1-0 leads
Both Alberta Golden Bears and Winnipeg Wesmen had big second-half comebacks in their opening game wins at MacEwan and Regina respectively.
Wayne Thomas of Canada West Hoops provides more detail
For those interested in Regina-centric video highlights, see below. Readers comments on whether these highlights are worth your time are welcomed.
Battle of Edmonton highlights Canada West "play-in" series
Canada West playoff bracket is set (see below for league-released bracket graphics – pretty slick) and begins with next weekend's so-called "play-in" round that features the #3 team in the Explorer and the 5th, 6th and 7th place teams from the Pioneer.
While both series should be exciting, the more interesting setting is the Alberta at MacEwan series with the multi-time National champion Golden Bears facing off against fellow Edmonton-based program MacEwan Griffins. Using the term "cross-town rivals" may be a bit premature as Bears and Griffins have not yet met as CIS opponents in the two seasons MacEwan has been officially part of Canada West. However, expect that descriptor to become much more appropriate quickly.
Griffins qualified for the Canada West post-season with a 10-10 record, good for third place in the Pioneer, under Head Coach Eric Magdanz after going 7-13 last season. Ironically, Magdanz is a former assistant coach at Alberta (2010-12) working under Greg Francis. Magdanz played at McMaster for legendary Marauders Head Coach Joe Raso (4 seasons: 2005-09) and is one of at least 4 CIS coaches who either played for or coached on Raso's staffs.
Although Griffins and Golden Bears have never met as CIS opponents, Griffins have been competitive against Pioneer division teams this season, going a collective 3-3 including an 80-54 victory over Brandon and a tight 3 point loss to Lethbridge, both over the Holidays at the Wesmen Classic in Winnipeg. Earlier the Griffins won at Manitoba – the first game of the year for both teams – and lost at Winnipeg and at Brandon also in early October.
MacEwan was more than worthy of their third place finish, clinching the playoff berth on the next to last night of the season after winning 5 of 6 games (Saturday night's loss to UNBC was meaningless in the standings). Griffins also boast a 20 point win over second-place Fraser Valley and are the only team to defeat Thompson Rivers in Kamloops, winning by 14 points in November. MacEwan went 1-3 vs. both teams ahead of them in the Explorer standings.
Golden Bears finished 6th under fourth-year Head Coach Barnaby Craddock and have played two Explorer Division teams, hammering UNBC 99-45 at their own Golden Bear Invitational in October after having lost two weekend's prior to Mount Royal by 3 at the Calgary Cup when Bears roster was depleted.
We will have more on Canada West as the week progresses.
Canada West: Emotional weekend for many reasons at Lethbridge
A confluence of events from several different angles have put this weekend's final two games of the season for the Lethbridge Pronghorns in a very emotional context. To start, a pair of wins over last place Trinity Western would clinch 4th place in the Pioneer Division and a first-round bye in the playoffs – although at present it appears that the Horns would be travelling to Vancouver for a Best-of-3 vs. UBC Thunderbirds. On top of locking in Lethbridge's best finish in several years, a number of other happenings added to the celebration including:
- the return to the gym of 6'11" Brent Watkins, who was a victim in a near-fatal automobile accident last summer and after much rehab is getting back to normal – this piece from the Lethbridge Herald describes how inspiring Watkins' return was
- 5th year wing Rob Olsen, who missed last weekend's trip to Winnipeg, celebrated the birth of his daughter last weekend and last night was his first game back since becoming a proud Papa
- Tonight is Senior's Night for Olsen, Jared Baker and Brandon Brine, who is poised to be a Canada West First Team all-star selection
- On the not-so-positive side and likely the biggest story of last night's game 6'1″ Dejon Burdeaux who went down with an ankle injury 1:45 into the game and did not return. His status for this evening is uncertain.
Lethbridge needs tonight's game to finish 4th. Below are the CW standings at present.
Canada West Pioneer Playoff Seedings/Standings
Calgary 16-3
Manitoba 15-5
Lethbridge 11-8
Winnipeg 10-9
Alberta 10-9
Regina 10-9
Explorer: Thompson Rivers clinched 1st, Fraser Valley clinched 2nd, MacEwan needs to defeat last place UNBC to claim third and final playoff spot.
Assuming: Calgary, UBC, Lethbridge, MacEwan and Regina (at home over Saskatchewan) win this evening, the following would be the Canada West playoff set-up as I understand it:
Dinos, Horns each sign a brother
The deep, emotional southern Alberta rivalry between Calgary Dinos and Lethbridge Pronghorns just took on an entirely new, family-based dimension as it was announced today that the Rodehutskors brothers from Chestermere High School on the outskirts of Calgary have made their university program committment: one to each of the Dinos and Horns.
Jeff Rodehutskors, a 6-8 forward, considered one of the top high school prospects in Western Canada, chose Calgary after considering several other schools. Jeff's brother, Mark, although younger, is also graduating this spring, and the 6-4 wing has decided to go to Lethbridge to play for the Pronghorns. Mark represented Alberta at the Western Canada summer games and is only turning 17.
"I look forward to playing in the Dinos program for Coach Vanhooren," said Rodehutskors told Calgary's Sixth Man Dinos News. " Calgary has a top program, and I'm excited to join this team and test myself at the next level." Jeff is widely expected to make an immediate impact as a freshman given his scoring, rebounding and shot-blocking abilities.
The boys' Mum, Beth, said, "I'm very happy for both of them ! I guess I'll wear red in Calgary and blue in Lethbridge !"
Both Jeff and Mark are sons of the late Steve Rodehutskors, a two-sport star in CIS who went on to have an eight-year career in the Canadian Football League. The elder Rodehutskors had not played organized football before joining the Dinos in 1984 and quickly became a key cog on the Calgary offensive line, starting on the team that won the Vanier Cup in 1985. He previously played basketball for the University of Lethbridge, appearing in the national championship tournament with the Pronghorns in 1984. Tragically, their father Steve died almost 9 years ago at the tender age of 43 after contracting a rare form of cancer.
The Dinos also announced the commitment of another German import, 6'4″ point guard Maximilian Eisele, a close friend of current Dino Lars Schlueter.
Eisele hails from Ulm, Germany and is currently playing with Ehingen Urspring, where he comes off the bench for a 15-4 team that leads the South Division of the German Pro-A league (German Second Division). Eisele brings a championship pedigree to Calgary, having won a pair of national championships with Urspring. Eisele would presumably replaced Josh Owen-Thomas, the Australian import currently on the Dinos roster in his fifth and final season of eligibility.
Canada West: Alberta clinches, Cascades sweep TRU
6'7″ Mamadou Gueye had a season-high 33 points and the Golden Bears jumped out to a comfortable double digit lead and then hung on late for a six point win at Saskatchewan, eliminating the Huskies from the Canada West playoff race and clinching their own spot in the post-season. Alberta's win also officially eliminates Victoria Vikes from the post-season meaning both of last season's Canada West representatives at the CIS Nationals did not make the post-season. Alberta got 6'2″ Dwan Williams (Toronto Oakwood), who had been out with a wrist injury for since before Christmas, back in the lineup – Williams had a big basket down the stretch – and also got 20 points from fellow-Oakwood/GTA product Brody Clarke.
Winnipeg clinched their spot in the playoffs with a 9 point win over Lethbridge, gaining a split of the weekend series as Wesmen enjoyed the return of 6'3″ Denzel Lynch-Blair (15 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists) who sat out Friday's loss due to excess technical fouls accrued throughout the season. Pronghorns have also clinched after their win on Friday and played the weekend without their star 6'2″ fifth-year guard Rob Oslen (15.1 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 2.8 apg and shooting 42% from 3 point range) who remained home in Lethbridge to be with his wife who is expecting their first child. Congratulations in advance to Rob and new young family.
By virtue of Alberta's win at Saskatchewan, the 7 playoff teams from the Pioneer Division are set however positioning is not. In the Explorer, MacEwan firmly grabbed the reigns for 3rd spot with a sweep at UBC-O and needs only one win in their final two games – home fixtures against last place UNBC – to clinch third spot. Despite another win by Fraser Valley over Thompson Rivers, the WolfPack will finish in top spot while Cascades are locked in second place OR in the nomenclature below E1 = Thompson Rivers, E2 = Fraser Valley, E3= MacEwan.
Much thanks for the multiple readers who rightfully reminded that I got the playoff match-ups incorrect in recent posts. Here is the skeleton format:
XX = eliminated from playoffs
P1: Calgary 16-3 (one game remaining at Alberta next Saturday)
P2: UBC 14-4 (home to Winnipeg for two next weekend)
P3: Manitoba 15-5
P4/P5/P6: Lethbridge 10-8 (home to TWU twice next weekend)
P4/P5/P6: Regina 10-8 (home to Saskatchewan twice next weekend)
P4/P5/P6: Winnipeg 10-8 (at UBC twice)
P7: Alberta 10-9 (home to Calgary next Saturday)
XX=Saskatchewan 7-11 (at Regina for two)
XX=Victoria 7-11 (home to Brandon for two next weekend)
XX=Brandon 1-17
XX=Trinity Western 1-17.
With a victory over Alberta next Saturday, Calgary will put themselves in position to host the Canada West Final Four assuming that Dinos can win their CW quarter-final series.
Canada West: Lethbridge clinches, Alberta struggles
Not much more clarity in the Canada West standings after last night's action other than Calgary, UBC and Manitoba will finish in the Top 3 and that Thompson Rivers, despite their 3rd loss in Explorer Division play, have clinched top spot in that loop – and a quarter-final date with the winner of fifth place vs. seventh place "play-in" series in the Pioneer. Spots 4 through 6 in the Pioneer remain fluid however Lethbridge is in charge of their own destiny for fourth place after their impressive win over a Winnipeg team that was without Denzel Lynch-Blair last night. Losses in each of their final three games by the Wesmen – they meet Horns again tonight and then travel to UBC nex weekend – and they may be eliminated ?! (see more speculation and possibilities below). As well, one can legitimately question how desirable finishing fourth is when the fifth-place team can face an unproven Thompson Rivers team in the quarters while fourth-place travels to third-place in Pioneer (probably Manitoba) – but then again that 5th place team will have to win their "play-in" series against what could be Saskatchewan (see more below). Spots 5 through 7 in Pioneer participate in the Canada West "play-in" round. Clarity at this point ?? hardly…
After sweeping Regina this weekend, Calgary travels to Edmonton next Saturday to finish the season at Alberta, where a win clinches first place and, assuming Calgary wins their Best-of-3 quarter final playoff series (which only counts as one game to the ranking committee as decreed by Canada West), the Canada West Final Four will take place at the Jack Simpson Gym, where Dinos attracted almost 3,000 fans on Thursday night.
Assuming UBC defeats Brandon (1-16) again this evening, the Thunderbirds need a sweep next weekend over Winnipeg to ensure a second place finish. Second place is key because it sets the Birds up with the second place finisher in the Explorer. Manitoba, which scored 70 second-half points last night at Trinity Western, would thus finish third and meet 4th place team in Pioneer and Bisons would have home court advantage.
Saskatchewan has a legitimate chance to pull a rabbit out of the hat and qualify for the playoffs after a 4-10 start with 3 more wins which could move the Huskies as high as 6th place – assuming Alberta can't get it done at home next weekend at home vs. Calgary. Sixth place in Pioneer is also somewhat desirable as it sets up a first-round series with the 3rd place team in the Explorer. 7th place Pioneer meets 5th place Pioneer in one of the two "play-in" series… assuming I've got all this figured out properly which is debatable.
Speaking of 7th place in Pioneer, there is a distinct possibility if:
- Sask beats Alberta tonight and sweeps Regina
- Calgary beats Alberta
- Winnipeg loses again tonight vs. Lethbridge and gets swept at UBC
that there could be a three-way tie for the final Pioneer division playoff spot between Victoria, Alberta and Winnipeg – all at 9-11.
Ph.D. analysis (maybe we can truck in the architect of the RPI) may be required to solve which team gets that coveted 7th playoff spot with a sub .500 record.
Thompson Rivers will now officially be eliminated from my Top 10 after losing at Fraser Valley where Cascades Kevon Parchment, celebrating his Senior weekend, busted out for 33 points against the WolfPack which struggled amid foul trouble all night for 6'10" Josh Wolfram. This does not appear to be a very deep TRU team which in the unique 3-games-in-3-days format (which has been decreed to count as one real long game in the national rankings) could be taxing during the second half of a series-deciding game three.
Here are Canada West Pioneer standings after Friday night's action:
Calgary 16-3 (one game remaining at Alberta next Saturday)
UBC 13-4 (at Brandon tonight then home to Winnipeg for two next weekend)
Manitoba 14-5 (completes their regular season at Trinity Western tonight)
Lethbridge 10-7 (at Winnipeg tonight and then home to TWU twice next weekend)
Regina 10-8 (home to Saskatchewan twice next weekend)
Winnipeg 9-8 (home to Lethbridge tonight then at UBC twice)
Alberta 9-9 (at Saskatchewan tonight then home to Calgary next Saturday)
Saskatchewan 7-10 (Alberta at home; at Regina for two)
Victoria 7-11 (home to Brandon for two next weekend)
Brandon 1-16
Trinity Western 1-16

subset: commoncrawl


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The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) presented awards to three Penn State students April 17 at the SWE banquet.
Lauren Knobloch, an industrial engineering senior, received the Priscilla Guthrie World-Class Engineer Award. The award provides a $1,000 scholarship for a student who best personifies the characteristics of a "World-Class Engineer," defined as being aware of the world, solidly grounded, technically broad, innovative, effective in teams and successful as a leader.
An honorable mention was given to civil engineering junior Kanupriya Samarendra, who received a $250 scholarship.
Kim Harrison, a mechanical and nuclear engineering senior, received the Nucor Big 11 Scholarship. The award includes a $1,000 scholarship recognizing a student that best personifies the 11 key success factors defined by Nucor Steel, which include integrity, courage, thinking skills, interest in others, listening and communication, fostering teamwork, commitment, accountability and personal responsibility, passion and energy, leadership presence and profitability.


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Our first day consisted of brainstorming and delegating ministry plans, orienting ourselves to the stunning city of Cambridge, and rehearsing the drama we'll be performing.
The ministry ahead of us still feels like a daunting task and we could use all the prayers we can get! For tomorrow (Wednesday), pray specifically for the following requests:
- We are trying out for the first time our "sports ministry." Pray that God will open doors for good conversations with people we play with.
- It is the first time witnessing for some of us. Pray for boldness is proclaiming the gospel while at the same time cultural discernment so that we may know what to say when.
- We are still finalizing our schedule. Pray for wisdom as we plan out the next week and a half.
Team Cambridge, signing off...


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Professional Negligence
We act for both receiving and paying parties in all manner of costs disputes arising out of professional negligence claims.
Whether we are defending or opposing a Bill of Costs, we will present you at the outset with a clear strategy to either maximise or minimise (as the case may be) the costs payable by the unsuccessful party.
Services include preparing Costs Budgets, Bills of Costs, Points of Dispute and Points in Reply, and attending detailed assessment hearings anywhere in the country.


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Slovakian jailed for raping teenager branded 'monster' by victim's family
A Slovakian man who destroyed the life of an 18-year-old woman he raped and battered with a stone has been branded a "monster" by the victim's family.
Zdenko Turtak, 22, was jailed for 14 years at Leeds Crown Court today for the "ferocious" attack on the young woman who he dragged from a bus stop in Leeds.
Turtak, who may have been high on a glue-like substance, fled to Slovakia as a huge search was launched by West Yorkshire Police but was extradited back to the UK after a DNA match was found in his home country.
Zdenko Turtak, pictured in a custody cell at Leeds' Elland Road police station after his arrest, has been given a 20-year extended jail sentence (West Yorkshire Police/PA)
The woman's family gathered in the public gallery of the court to watch Turtak's sentencing after he admitted rape and grievous bodily harm with intent.
After the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC, handed Turtak a 20-year extended sentence, to include the custodial period of 14 years and an extension period of six, family members shouted "monster" and "rapist" as he was led from the dock.
Judge Collier said the eight-minute attack would affect the victim, who was from a strict Muslim background, for the rest of her life, including her prospects of marriage.
He said: " In those short eight minutes you destroyed her young life.
"All her youthful hopes and dreams ebbed away in those few minutes."
The attack took place in March as the victim waited for a bus in the Beeston area of Leeds.
Judge Collier said Turtak seized the woman, who was just 5ft, slim and wearing traditional Muslim dress, and overwhelmed her "by sheer brute force", bundling her into a garden hidden from the road by a hedge.
He then beat her 18 times about her head with "ferocious blows" with a stone, which he had in his pocket, and raped her in an attack which was caught by a CCTV camera.
The judge said the victim had "no chance" of resisting Turtak, who he described as "dangerous".
After the attack, the woman, who suffered severe head injuries, collapsed on a path, where she was found covered in blood by passers-by.
Turtak was caught on CCTV approaching other women in Leeds in the hours leading up to the attack and police believe he may have been high on a substance called toluene - a chemical found in glue and paint thinners which is commonly used by some Roma youths in Slovakia who often carry it with them on a rag.
The woman had told officers of a distinctive smell that she had been unable to get out of her nose and mouth after the attack and she had an "emotional reaction" when police brought her a sample of toluene to smell.
Turtak, from Velka Ida, in the Kosice region of Slovakia, was eventually tracked down after a DNA search in Slovakia found a match from when he was arrested years before for a burglary.
The international inquiry to find him after no UK DNA matches were made involved more than 100 officers and was the biggest conducted by West Yorkshire Police since the disappearance of Shannon Matthews in 2008.
Turtak had lived in Leeds, on-and-off, for about four years - travelling home to Slovakia on the regular Bratislava to Bradford direct bus service - but had left almost no trace of himself in the UK.
His almost complete invisibility meant the search for him was one of West Yorkshire Police's most challenging investigations and detectives said it was "frustrating" there was no Europe-wide DNA database.
Judge Collier told Turtak he would serve at least two-thirds of his jail sentence before being eligible for release.
Zdenko Turtak received a 20-year extended sentence
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A Spring Jump Start, Part 2
WebWork is another MVC framework. Like Struts and Spring, it supports multiple view technologies. One of the biggest differentiators for WebWork is that it adds another layer of abstraction for handling web requests. The core interface for handling requests is the Action interface, which has one method: execute(). Notice that this interface is not tied to the web layer in any way. The WebWork designers went out of their way to make the Action interface unaware that it could be used in a web context. This is good or bad, depending on your perspective. Most of the time it will be used in a web application, so hiding this fact through abstraction does not buy you much.
A feature that WebWork provides that Spring does not (at least, not explicitly) is action chaining. This allows you to map a logical request to a series of Actions. This means you can create several Action objects that all perform discrete tasks and chain them together to execute a single web request.
The idea behind Tapestry is to relieve the developer from thinking about Session attributes and URLs, and instead think of web applications in terms of components and methods. Tapestry takes on the other responsibilities, such as managing user state and mapping URLs to methods and objects.
Tapestry provides a view mechanism as well. That is, Tapestry is not a framework for using JSPs—it is an alternative to JSPs. Much of Tapestry's power lies in its custom tags that are embedded with HTML documents and used by the Tapestry framework. Needless to say, Tapestry provides a unique web application framework. To learn more about Tapestry, take a look at Tapestry in Action (Manning, 2004).
1.6.4 Persistence frameworks
There really isn't a direct comparison between Spring and any persistence framework. As mentioned earlier, Spring does not contain any built-in persistence framework. Instead, Spring's developers recognized there were already several good frameworks for this and felt no need to reinvent the wheel. They created an ORM module that integrates these frameworks with rest of Spring. Spring provides integration points for Hibernate, JDO, OJB, and iBATIS.
Spring also provides a very rich framework for writing JDBC. JDBC requires a lot of boilerplate code (getting resources, executing statements, iterating though query results, exception handling, cleaning up resources). Spring's JDBC module handles this boilerplate, allowing you to focus on writing queries and handling the results.
Spring's JDBC and ORM frameworks work within Spring's transaction management framework. This means you can use declarative transactions with just about any persistence framework you choose.
1.7 Summary
You should now have a pretty good idea of what Spring brings to the table. Spring aims to make J2EE development easier, and central to this is its inversion of control. This enables you to develop enterprise applications using simple Java objects that collaborate with each other through interfaces. These beans will be wired together at runtime by the Spring container. It lets you maintain loosely coupled code with minimal cost.
On top of Spring's inversion control, Spring's container also offers AOP. This allows you place code that would otherwise be scattered throughout you application in one place—an aspect. When your beans are wired together, these aspects can be woven in at runtime, giving these beans new behavior.
Staying true to aiding enterprise development, Spring offers integration to several persistence technologies. Whether you persist data using JDBC, Hibernate, or JDO, Spring's DAO frameworks ease your development by providing a consistent model for error handling and resource management for each of these persistence frameworks.
Complementing the persistence integration is Spring's transaction support. Through AOP, you can add declarative transaction support to your application without EJB. Spring also supports a variety of transaction scenarios, including integration with JTA transactions for distributed transactions.Filling out its support for the middle tier, Spring offers integration with other various J2EE services, such as mail, EJBs, web services, and JNDI. With its inversion of control, Spring can easily configure these services and provide your application objects with simpler interfaces.
To help with the presentation tier, Spring supports multiple view technologies. This includes web presentation technologies like Velocity and JSP as well as support for creating Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) files. And on top of the presentation, Spring comes with a built-in MVC framework. This offers an alternative to other web frameworks like Struts and WebWork and more easily integrates with all of the Spring services.
End Notes
5 Think of minstrels as musically inclined logging systems of medieval times.
About the Authors
Craig Walls is a software developer with over 10 years' experience and co-author of XDoclet in Action. He has sucessfully implemented a number of Spring applications. Craig lives in Denton, Texas.
An avid supporter of open source Java technologies, Ryan Breidenbach has been developing Java web applications for the past five years. He lives in Coppell, Texas.
About the Book
Spring in Action by Craig Walls and Ryan Breidenbach
Published February 2005, Softbound, 472 pages
Published by Manning Publications Co.
Retail price: $44.95
Ebook price: $22.50. To purchase the ebook go to http://www.manning.com/walls2.
This material is from Chapter 1 of the book.
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text:
In the text "What Are Shares?", the author tries to introduce the concept of company shares. He supplies a key to invest in shares and stocks by analyzing the most important concepts. This text is aimed at an inexpert audience.
The important part of a share is the dividend, which is the amount of money that an investor earns by holding shares. Dividends are paid once or twice a year.
Also, a shareholder is proportionally entitled to a company's assets. Assets are all the company's properties, from cash-in-hand, to payments to creditors. Finally, shares give the shareholder a right to co-decision through voting. There also exist shares without a vote, but for obvious reasons those are generally unpopular with investors.
Shares have a nominal price which originally represents the asset value. However, this price can change depending on the company's potential to make profit. Shares are also known by the terms equity, or stock.
Dividends are the part of the profits paid to the shareholders. The other part becomes part of the internal growth of the company. The coverage rate of the dividend is calculated by looking at how many times the company could have paid this dividend.
We can also calculate "the earnings per shares" dividing the total earnings by the number of shares in existance, we also have the price to earning which gives us the number of years needed by earnings per share to pay for the share at current price.
Finally we have the yield that gives the company's performance, they are usually lower and safer than profits given by other investments but it reflects the potential growth of its dividends.
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