text:
Source: Red Sox To Hire Farrell As ManagerResume
The Red Sox are preparing to announce that John Farrell will be their new manager, according to a baseball official with knowledge of the deal to bring the former Boston pitching coach back one year after the ballclub first tried to give him the top job.
The announcement was delayed by the unusual logistics of hiring a manager under contract with another team, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the final procedural steps had not been cleared. But the three-year deal to replace Bobby Valentine could be announced as soon as Sunday, the official said.
Red Sox spokeswoman Pam Kenn said the team had no announcement to make. Blue Jays spokesman Jay Stenhouse did not immediately respond to a voice mail seeking comment.
Comcast SportsNet New England was first to report the deal.
Farrell had one year remaining on his contract with Toronto, where he went 154-170 over the past two seasons. The Red Sox have agreed to send the Blue Jays compensation for letting Farrell leave for their AL East rivals.
Farrell was the Red Sox pitching coach for four seasons before Toronto hired him as manager two years ago. He was Boston's top target when Terry Francona was let go after the team's September collapse in 2011, but the Blue Jays would not allow him to leave.
But the Red Sox found themselves looking for a manager again just one season later, after Valentine led the team to a last-place finish and a 69-93 record that was the franchise's worst since 1965. And, after Toronto went 73-89 in 2012, the Blue Jays were willing to part with Farrell.
The Red Sox also interviewed San Diego Padres special assistant Brad Ausmus, New York Yankees bench coach Tony Pena, Los Angeles Dodgers third base coach Tim Wallach and Baltimore Orioles third base coach DeMarlo Hale.
Farrell is familiar with Red Sox management from his time in Boston and has worked with many of the club's pitchers, including starters Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz.
Even before the announcement, news of the deal trickled out over Twitter, where Blue Jays reliever Casey Janssen wrote: "Want to wish our skipper the best in Boston, good luck!"
The 50-year-old Farrell had a promising pitching career with the Cleveland Indians before an injury kept him out for the entire 1991 and '92 seasons. He returned to pitch sparingly in four more seasons, finishing his career with a 36-46 record and a 4.56 ERA.
He coached at Oklahoma State, where he pitched in college, from 1997-2001 and then spent five years in the Indians' front office before Francona, a former Cleveland teammate, brought him to Boston as pitching coach. Farrell had been Francona's heir apparent but took the Toronto job when it appeared Francona, a two-time World Series champion in Boston, would remain indefinitely.
However, the team parted ways with Francona after its unprecedented collapse in September 2011, when it went 7-20 over the final month to miss a playoff appearance by one game. In response to overtures from the Red Sox, Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos created a policy prohibiting employees from moving laterally to another organization.
But Farrell, who led Toronto to an 81-81 record and fourth-place finish in his first year, fell to 16 games below .500 in his second. Veteran infielder Omar Vizquel complained that Farrell didn't do enough to help younger players correct their mistakes.
Farrell called a closed-door meeting, and Vizquel apologized.
This program aired on October 21, 2012.


text:
Young Ethiopian Girl at the Water Pump
A young Ethiopian girl with beautiful eyes at a water pump en route from Bahir Dar to Gondar, Ethiopia.
Young Mother at Lalibela, Ethiopia
A young mother outside the rock hewn churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Our Simien Mountain Guide - Ethiopia
Our guide in the Simien Mountains of northern Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Mother and Child in Village Near Lalibela, Ethiopia
Ethiopian mother and child in a village near Lalibela preparing for a 500-person wedding.
Selling Enset (Southern Ethiopian Food) at the Merkato, Ethiopia
A vendor sells enset (known as the false banana), a southern Ethiopian food, at the Merkato in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Our Simien Mountain Scout - Ethiopia
Our scout came with us on our treks through the Simien Mountains with his big gun.
Ethiopian Girls in Lalibela, Ethiopia
We met a couple of Ethiopian girls on our way out of St. George Church in Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Our Guide to the Gondar Castles - Ethiopia
Our trusty guide to take us around all the castles and churches in Gondar, Ethiopia.
Brother and Sister Meet Us on Road Near Lalibela, Ethiopia
A brother and sister come up to the bus to say hello on a road near Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Elder Ethiopian Man Cutting Meat - Lalibela, Ethiopia
An elder Ethiopian man (supposedly 100 years old) cuts up meat to prepare for a wedding for 500 people in a village near Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Woman with Tatoos - Gondar, Ethiopia
An Ethiopian woman with tatoos of the Ethiopian Orthodox Cross on her face. At Four Sisters Restaurant in Gondar, Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Priest on Mobile Phone - Gondar, Ethiopia
Even Ethiopian Orthodox Priests have important calls they can't miss. Gondar, Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Man at Gondar Market
An Ethiopian man we meet at the Gondar market.
Ethiopian School Kids Goofing Around - Gondar Market, Ethiopia
A group of Ethiopian school kids good around at the Gondar Market.
Friendly Face at the Gondar Market - Ethiopia
A friendly Ethiopian man at the Gondar Market in Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Man at the Gondar Market - Ethiopia
An Ethiopian man at the Gondar market. Ethiopian
Man and his Rooster - Gondar Market, Ethiopia
A man and his rooster at the Gondar market in Ethiopia.
A Kid at the Gondar Market - Ethiopia
A young girl at the Gondar food market in Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Priest at Biete Medhane Alem Church - Lalibela, Ethiopia
The Ethiopian Orthodox priest with the Lalibela cross at Biete Medhane Alem Church in Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Priest with Religious Paintings - Lalibela, Ethiopia
Ethiopian priest brings out old Ethiopian religious paintings at Ashetan Maryam church near Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Man Helps with Wedding Preparation - Lalibela, Ethiopia
Ethiopian men come together to help with wedding preparations near Lalibela, Ethiopia.
An Ethiopian Welcome, Injera and Berbere - Lalibela, Ethiopia
Our G Adventures CEO (guide) takes some of injera (Ethiopian flatbread) with berbere sauce, a sign of welcome in Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Man, Wedding Preparation - Lalibela, Ethiopia
Ethiopian Girl at the Water Pump
Ethiopian girl we met at the water pump en route from Bahir Dar to Gondar, Ethiopia.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
A powerful programming language built to be easy for children to use. Logo is essentially a dialect of LISP without the parentheses that traditional LISP requires. It has been implemented in many versions including Brian Harvey's UCBLogo and the multimedia authoring toolkit Hyperstudio. (A bit of Logo history can be found here: https://logothings.wikispaces.com/.)
Sometimes there is confusion between the full-fledged programming language and the graphics module that implements turtle graphics.
There are lessons to be learned in all of these systems if OLPC application developers wish to stand on the shoulders of giants rather than reinvent the wheel. It can be considered one of the Predecessors of OLPC.
To see the broad scope of this software around the world look at the In other languages section of the Wikipedia
XO activities
LOGO, LOGO-inspired, and turtle-graphics activities for the XO:
- Turtle Art is included in current builds. It is a visual programming language with snap-together elements. The programs control a turtle.
- Etoys, is on the XO, inspired by LOGO, includes turtle-like cars and things.
- Python is on the XO, allowing installation of PyoLogo, PyLogo, or xturtle.py (see below)
- Loggerhead is a software idea, with many of the concepts already implemented in the above software.
- LogoWiki
- http://www.logowiki.net
Recently developed by Alan Kay and friends. Built on top of JavaScript.
xturtle.py is a new turtle graphics module, which could (or should?) replace the old turtle.py—if not in python's standard distribution, then at least in practical work.
- Logo inside Flash (in Spanish)
- http://mondragon.angeltowns.net/paradiso/LogoFlash.html
It can't save procedures from session to session but it doesn't need to be installed (which is sometimes forbidden in school computer labs). Probably saving of sessions could be implemented given a server-side piece to communicate with.
Works under Python (which, it seems, will be a given in the laptop). A fairly traditional Logo implementation, but without much of a GUI (maybe useful with xturtle)
- PyoLogo
- PyoLogo
- Scratch
- http://llk.media.mit.edu/projects/summaries/scratch.shtml
Runs under Squeak.
Needs a better GUI (Brian Harvey is working on one, but he is working on it alone and as a hobby. He wrote this message about it. He said he might have it ready by fall). It can be translated (without recompilation) to languages that have their character sets in 1-byte encodings. It was been translated to Spanish (LogoES). The only essential work needed is to add support for GTK I/O which is a relatively simple task. UCBLogo was written with the constraints of 640k PCs in mind, so it's very small. (glogo is a logo interpreter, using ucblogo as the core and the GNOME libraries to provide a graphical user interface—if I remember correctly this actually runs ucblogo as a subprocess, and redefines the graphical commands to print output that is then interpreted by the GUI frontend; as such it is rather limited.)
Needs testing, packaging and materials (maybe it's still too beta). Looks like turtle graphics but a C-like language.
Needs a migration to Linux. Has lots of learning material on the Internet. Based on the UCBLogo interpreter.
Needs a migration to Linux
Freeware, but not open-source. Requires Java. Actively developed; high quality. Like StarLogo, it emphasizes highly concurrent multi-agent (multi-turtle) programming.
- TurtleTracks Logo (by Daniel Azuma)
- http://turtletracks.sf.net
UCBLogo compatible. Open source, written in Java (so supports Unicode) by a PhD student of Brian Harvey's. Has full TurtleGraphics implementation and extra features like multithreading
- E-Slate Logo (by George Birbilis and RA.CTI)
- http://e-slate.cti.gr
Open source extension of TurtleTracks Logo (source for the extended TurtleTracks Logo is included in the E-Slate distribution) for talking to Java components (TELL, ASK, EACH, TELLALL commands) and added support for dynamic localization of commands (via Java resourcebundles), where the base (English) language and one other language can be intermixed freely in Logo programs
- KTurtle
- http://edu.kde.org/kturtle
Actually not a LOGO clone, but a programming environment for kids. Main features: translatable programming commands (currently around 20 supported languages) using unicode. The next version will be a full rewrite, a preview of this will ship with KDE4. No 1.0 release yet. This programming language is purely educational.
Necessary features
- Standard Language syntax (as close as possible to Brian Harveys' UCBLogo)
- No funny parentheses: fd(10)
- I don't mind having to add spaces between words: 1 + 2, instead of 1+2 (as in UCBLogo)
- Multilingual support
- Stable and attrative GUI
- Trigonometric functions, sqrt, exp, power, log, ln (to be able to draw at least figure 24 accurately)
- Friendly error messages: No "syntax error #342342" (No trace backs?)
Requested Features
- Optional inputs, like UCBLogo
- Write a basic GTK interface for UCBLogo so that it can be run as a Sugar Activity
- ColorUnder (or "Pixel"). This is useful to solve this kind of problems.
- SetPenColor. With RGB colors too (not just 16 basic colors)
- Extensions to exploit hardware features (eg. ways to read and write to the ports)
- Extensions to interact with OS to allow scripting
- XML-RPC Interface to enable inter-application communication
- LOGO could be an excellent way to introduce programming and logic. I started with it!! I think this should be a starter way, but definitely and improved new version (with more than one "turtle" at least). Today's children can understand easily and faster everything related to computers. And could be some kind of art too if are given the proper tools. (filling closed shapes, or maybe object oriented). Could be a very nice piece of soft!! --Gandolfi
- LOGO is certainly a fun way to learn programming and/or to just play with a computer. Many modern implementations have multiple screen turtles. Perhaps at its simplest this can be found in MSWLogo (for Windows). - FREE. Newer flavors of LOGO are StarLogo and NetLogo. They offer powerful ways of controlling large swarms of turtles and their environment - the great benefit being to encourage truly distributed ways of thinking and programming. --L Pfeffer
- PyLogo is a bit rough in some places, but I'll try to speak to its advantages and disadvantages. In this context the key advantage is really that environments built for Python are available to PyLogo (and vice versa), including some neat interfaces like xturtle. I think offers some real potential for a gradual learning curve to more advanced programming. A negative is that it's kind of slow (though lots of Logo implementations are on the slow side). Another negative is that it uses Python's execution model, which means that you can't have high levels of concurrency ala NetLogo (without using an alternate interpreter like Stackless). A positive is that reimplementing Logo without using Python's callstack is probably not a big deal (Logo is, after all, a simple language). A positive is that it's a low risk, since it is simply a small library on top of a platform OLPC will already be using. A negative is that Python doesn't do well running untrusted code, and this is just as true for PyLogo. A reimplementation could resolve this as well. In its current state PyLogo should be okay for doing multilingual programming, though no one has tried that; nevertheless it can be unicode aware and the primitives can have both aliases and be renamed arbitrarily, unlike Python. -- Ian Bicking (PyLogo author)
- Vaporware?
- There are more than 150 different versions of LOGO. Few of them are free, fewer are multi-language, fewer have a nice GUI, none? On top of that Turtle Graphics is not really LOGO. Kturtle is just Turtle Graphics and with the current version of KTurtle not even construct 24 can be drawn accurately. Basic information on the 161 known Logos can be found Logo Atlas including their manuals. Interesting work has been done in French, Portuguese and Spanish speaking countries that are more language independent.
Both NetLogo and StarLogo need Java, no? So Logo is still vaporware for our practical purposes.
- NOTE that any and all software is grist for the mill. If NetLogo would be an asset to the OLPC, then we should try to set up a project to write a subset of NetLogo in Python which is supported by OLPC.
- And if two versions of LOGO are vaporware that does not mean the OLPC can't run LOGO. UCBLogo will run perfectly well on the OLPC as it stands. The only essential work in adapting UCBLogo is to make it use GTK for it's I/O.
Etoys comes with a multi-agent system which is inspired by StarLogo and NetLogo. To try it out, launch Etoys on the B1 machine or in the emulator, press the "All" button, navigate to ParticleDyeInWater.pr, and press OK.
External Links
- Why Use Logo? An Overview of Logo in Education
- http://www.terrapinlogo.com/why-use-logo.php
- Logo Web Site in Spanish
- http://mondragon.angeltowns.net/paradiso/
- Logo Web Site in Brazil
- http://br.geocities.com/projetologo/logo/index.html


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Results of Project Move Out: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Relocate
Jun 23, 2014
Results are in—and they're good! Project Move Out 2014 helped reduce overall waste as members of the North Central College campus community moved out of residence hall rooms, offices and more at the end of 2013-2014 academic year.
Here's the good news:
• 1,000-plus lbs. of electronics, from TVs to lamps, were recycled.
• 721 square feet of carpet were set aside for recycling.
• 600 lbs. of food were collected and donated to Loaves & Fishes Community Pantry.
• Eight couches, one futon, two chairs and two TV stands were collected and donated.
• 12 plates, 18 cups, seven bowls and 34 utensils that were "borrowed" from the dining hall were collected in the Kaufman Dish Return.
• 342 lbs. of unwanted clothing were collected for donation or recycling.
Your cooperation and participation make a difference. "Let's continue to reduce our waste in environmentally safe ways and educate our campus on ways to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Relocate," says Brittany Graham, North Central's sustainability coordinator.


text:
Story highlights
Reddit shuts down community created to seek Navy Yard shooters
Site, which was embarrassed in the wake of Boston bombings, says it violated its terms
Reddit bans the posting of personal information about others
Aaron Alexis, 34, has been named the lone shooter and was killed in the attack
Months after apologizing for overeager users fingering innocent people as potential suspects in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Reddit on Monday shut down a section devoted to chasing down the Washington Navy Yard shooter.
Clicking on the page, or "subreddit" as specialized communities are called on the site, "FindNavyYardShooters" now leads to an image of a closed door wrapped in yellow "Caution" tape and a message saying it has been banned.
"We banned it because it violated site rules by encouraging the posting of personal information," Reddit general manager Erik Martin said in a prepared statement. "We don't allow the posting of personal information under any circumstances."
The subreddit was created when authorities were still searching for suspects and it was unclear whether there was one shooter or multiple shooters. But Reddit shut it down almost immediately.
Police have since named Aaron Alexis, 34, as the lone gunman. He was killed Monday in a shootout with security at the naval yard.
In separate subreddit about Washington D.C., a related post, "Active Shooter Washington Navy Yard," continued with Reddit's blessing. Users posted links to news sources, information from law enforcement and other official information in an effort to keep people informed in the shooting's aftermath.
On Tuesday, some were speculating that the Navy Yard subreddit may have been a joke. The user who created it uses the name "uglyredditors" and may have just been trolling – doing something stupid or cruel just to get a reaction out of others.
Brian Merchant at Vice captured a screen shot of early conversation in the subreddit, which was mostly jokes, profanity and people saying the subreddit was a bad idea in light of Boston.
"Yes, nothing bad is going to come of this, surely" one user wrote. "Are they really going to let this s*** happen twice?"
In April, redditors banded together to try to piece together what happened in the Boston bombings, which killed three people and injured more than 260 others. What resulted was the sharing of photos of "suspects" that had been taken near the marathon's finish line.
Among other theories, users speculated that Sunil Tripathi, a Brown University student who had been missing since March, could be a possible suspect in the bombings. Tripathi's family temporarily took down a Facebook page asking for help finding him after they were bombarded by ugly comments.
Tripathi's body was found later that month in Rhode Island's Providence River. No foul play was suspected, police said, although an official cause of death has still not been reported.
Amid the confusion over the Boston bombings, other Reddit users focused on two young men with heavy-looking bags, one of whom wore a blue track suit. The New York Post even splashed a photo of the two marathon spectators on its front page with the headline, "Bag Men: Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon."
The guy in the track suit turned out to be a 17-year-old suburban Boston track star who told The Associated Press he was afraid to leave his house because of the scrutiny.
"We hoped that the crowdsourced search for new information would not spark exactly this type of witch hunt," Reddit's Martin said at the time. "We were wrong."
Founded in 2005, Reddit has become a hugely popular site divided into more than 5,400 communities that have essentially revamped the early Web's bulletin boards, with users posting information, links and thoughts rapidly in real time. It has almost 70 million monthly users.


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Data from classroom testing. Frequency vs. test score for mental rotation (PVRT) and embedded figures (hidden figures) tests, UW-Madison Physical Geology and Structural Geology classes, spring 2010. Image created by Carol Ormand.
Originally uploaded in Spatial Thinking Workbook.
Image 33588 is a 530 by 755 pixel PNG
Uploaded: May15 12


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text:
With the death last week of Patriarch Alexy II, Russian Orthodox Christians lost their first "post-Soviet" leader. The patriarch presided over the resurrection of the world's largest Orthodox Church, a faith community that had been targeted for annihilation by communist regimes that would brook no rival to their own promises of salvation through "world revolution."
While Patriarch Alexy led the Church out of the rubble of the Soviet Union, his own history has been clouded with allegations that he worked with the secret police, was even decorated by them. In this, his career reflects the recent history of the Church, which after the first vicious period of persecution was openly criticized by many Russians for being too pliable, too accommodating with its old adversaries in the Kremlin. In some cases, critics said, the Church had even assisted the authorities in the suppression of believers and their communities.
In choosing a new patriarch, the Russian Church now has an opportunity to come to grips with this past, and with other questions: nationalism, the status of minority ethnic and religious groups, secularization, and consumerist materialism. Will the new patriarch lead the Church into a future of growth and spiritual renewal, or will he strike another "Faustian bargain" with autocratic leaders?
In the Beginning
In October 1917, Felix Dzherzhinsky, the founder of the Bolshevik secret police, spelled out in cold-blooded terms how the use of terror would become the governing principle of Russia for the next 70 years:
Do not imagine that I have any concern with formal law. We need no justice now. What we need is a fight to the bone. I order, I demand the forging of the revolutionary sword which shall destroy all counter-revolutionaries.
The persecution of the Russian Church began with the Bolshevik Revolution, with mass arrests of clergy and believers, confiscation of Church property; conversion of monasteries and churches into stables, workshops, and prison barracks; and the public desecration of the relics of saints. In 1922, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Tikhon, was arrested and ultimately sent into exile. The Metropolitan of Petrograd, Veniamin, was arrested, condemned to death, and shot. By the end of 1923, some 2,700 Orthodox priests, 3,400 nuns, and 2,000 monks were killed.
Estimates of the numbers of Orthodox clergy who perished, as with the precise numbers of those millions who died in the vast Soviet gulag system, are notoriously unreliable. But one estimate puts the total number of Church people killed during the Soviet period at 600 bishops, 40,000 priests, and 120,000 monks and nuns. Many died in the inhumane conditions of the gulag work camps, in prisons, or were executed and buried in unmarked mass graves. This went on for long, bloody decades. Some point to Fr. Alexander Men, a charismatic Russian Orthodox priest who was murdered in 1990, as one of the last martyrs of the faith under Soviet rule.
The persecution of the Russian Church crested during the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s, at which point the Soviets had virtually destroyed the Church's institutional capabilities. In his 1967 book The Rule of Terror, Austrian journalist Hellmut Andics estimated that the number of religious institutions in Russia fell from 30,000 to 20,000 from 1937 to 1938. "In 1937 alone, at the peak of the anti-religious campaign, 1,100 Orthodox, 240 Catholic, 61 Protestant, and 110 Muslim places of worship were closed during the year," Andics wrote.
The campaign of annihilation lifted during WWII, when Stalin needed the Orthodox Church to prop up patriotic spirits in the face of an invasion by Hitler's Wehrmacht. The repression of believers continued in the postwar period. Slowly, some Russians began to speak out about the futility of imposing atheism on a land that had been Christian for 1,000 years – and the failures of their Church.
Craven Clerics
In 1974, a book of essays published by prominent Russian dissidents, including Alexander Solzhenitsyn, looked at the state of modern day Russia and its religious life. In the essay "The Schism Between the Church and the World," Evgeny Barbanov explored the crisis in the Russian Church and its tendency – always strong in Orthodoxy – toward renunciation of the world at the expense of its mission to transform the culture.
Barbanov praised the priests Nikolai Eshilman and Gleb Yakunin for a 1965 public letter of protest to Patriarch Alexius. The priests, Barbanov said, rightly criticized church officials for the "craven, hypocritical position adopted by the higher administration. They showed convincingly how a significant part of the governing episcopate, with voluntary silence or cunning connivance, had assisted atheists to close churches, monasteries and religious schools, to liquidate religious communities, to establish the illegal practice of registering christenings, and had yielded to them control over the appointment and transfer of priests." But accountability was not to be found.
"It seems at times that we Christians deliberately do not wish to understand our historical failure or to admit our historical sins," Barbanov said. "We shift the blame onto anyone else we can find -- the state, atheism, secularization – but ourselves only remain innocent victims."
More recently, human rights activist Sergei Kovalev blamed the Russian "mentality" for refusing to accept responsibility for crimes committed during the nation's "bloody, cruel, shameful" history. "We didn't want to know about the gulag, we didn't want to see it," Kovalev wrote. "We believed the propaganda that anyone who was arrested was an 'enemy of the people.' We hated them. We went out into the streets with huge placards reading: 'Death to the Trotskyite dogs!' We shouted out at rallies and demanded their death – huge crowds of us."
Historian James Billington has suggested ways that Russians can move past the "massive past complicity in unprecedented evil" connected to their Soviet history. Evil, of course, is a theological concept and on this matter he charged the Russian Church with failing to accept accountability and self-scrutiny. "As an institution, it ended up in the late Soviet period accepting a defensible, but ultimately Faustian, bargain with an atheistic state," Billington said. "It secured a limited survival to perform liturgical rituals as long as it sought no educational role in society, supported state policies when requested, and cleared all major appointments with the state. As a result, the Russian Church played a role in perpetuating and even at times legitimizing a system bent on its destruction."
That system ultimately exhausted itself with the heavy burden of violence and repression, the long assault on human dignity, and the unsustainable socialist economy. But for decades there were many in the West who were convinced that it was here to stay. Some saw through it as a false Gospel. In his 1953 book Communism and Christ, Charles W. Lowry observed that it was not the "naive simplicity" of Marxism that gave it such power, but its appeal to people as a revolutionary faith. "The miracle of Marxism is its social and institutional embodiment and its transformation into an aggressive, universal religion of salvation," Lowry wrote.
A phony religion, having no reality of its own, must borrow its expressions from true faith. In 1936, the newspaper Pravda published a Communist anthem written for Stalin that evoked the tones of Byzantine hymnody:
O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth,
Thou who purifiest the earth,
Thou who restoreth the centuries,
Thou who maketh bloom the Spring,
Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords.
Thou splendor of my Spring, O Thou
Sun reflected of millions of hearts.
The Russian Church today is growing, nourished by the blood of millions of martyrs who perished under the Soviet regime. Their deaths, as St. John Chrysostom put it in another age, is a "proof of the resurrection, mocking at demons." Orthodox parishes, at 6,000 in late 1980s, now number almost 30,000, the Church says. Where there were three institutions of theological training, there are now more than 100. Monasteries, reduced to a mere 18, have grown to more than 750. The Church claims a strong interest in vocations.
In a slender book on the subject of nihilism, the priest-monk Fr. Seraphim Rose showed how radically materialist ideologies such as communism and fascism will always fail as long as a single believer remains. In the person of the believer, all the arguments against God will be refuted.
"Man's mind is supple, and it can be made to believe anything to which his will inclines," Fr. Rose wrote. "In an atmosphere permeated with nihilistic fervor, such as [existed] in the Soviet Union, the soundest argument can do nothing to induce belief in God, in immortality, in faith; but a man of faith, even in this atmosphere, can speak to the heart of man and show, by his example, that what is impossible to the world and to the best of human intentions, is still possible to God and to faith."
Now we wait to see if Russia, with the best of intentions and the help of God, can show the world what is possible.


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Land Conservancy preserved more than 4,000 acres in 2013
The Land Conservancy permanently preserved another 51 properties and more than 4,000 acres in 2013, marking one of the organization's best years ever.
The preserved property total was only one short of the Land Conservancy's high-water mark in 2011, while the 4,011 acres permanently protected in 2013 represented the organization's fourth-best year behind 2012 (5,525 acres), 2011 (5,524) and 2007 (5,249). In addition, the Land Conservancy's Thriving Communities Institute, which is helping revitalize urban centers throughout Ohio, assisted in the formation of new land banks in Ashtabula and Richland counties in 2013.
"In many ways, it has been a remarkable year for our organization and for the communities we serve," said Rich Cochran, the Land Conservancy's president and CEO. "We strive to create a cleaner and greener world that nourishes people, plants and animals, and our results in 2013 show we are making progress toward that goal. We are providing our communities with assets that, like the rising tide that lifts all vessels, give rise to enduring prosperity for all living things, including people. We could not do this without those who support our work, and we are grateful for that support."
To date, the Land Conservancy has preserved 533 properties and 38,494 acres.
Here are some of the highlights of the Land Conservancy's work in 2013:
- The Land Conservancy worked with Lake Metroparks to complete the acquisition of Lake Erie Bluffs, a nationally significant preserve with more than two miles of undeveloped shoreline in Lake County. This 600-acre park, which was opened to the public this fall, is home to 20 documented rare plant and wildlife species.
- In Medina Township, the Land Conservancy partnered with the Medina County Park District to acquire the 87-acre Medina Marsh property off Fenn Road. The parkland is the latest link in a two-mile, 600-acre corridor of conserved land in Medina Township and the city of Medina.
- In Cuyahoga County, the Land Conservancy helped Cleveland Metroparks acquire the 30-acre Sulphur Springs Headwaters property in Solon. The project protects more than a mile of headwater streams feeding the South Branch of Sulphur Creek, a coldwater tributary to the Chagrin River where native brook trout may one day be reintroduced.
- In Lorain County, the Land Conservancy permanently preserved an 88-acre property containing a heron rookery and a section of the East Branch of the Black River. The land, which is in Grafton and LaGrange townships, has become part of the Lorain County Metro Parks system.
- Near Kent, a rare sphagnum peat bog – a remnant of the last ice age – was preserved as the result of a project completed by the Land Conservancy and Portage Park District. The 58-acre Franklin Bog, located in Franklin Township, is adjacent to Akron's 2,334-acre Lake Rockwell Reservoir, from which the city draws drinking water.
- The Land Conservancy's work with Mill Creek Metroparks enabled the park district to acquire a 58-acre parcel in Mahoning County's Green Township. It was the Land Conservancy's largest project to date in Mahoning County.
- Property owners Bob and Deborah Bumb – fifth- and sixth-generation farmers, respectively – granted conservation easements to the Land Conservancy preserving 750 acres of farmland in Huron, Erie and Sandusky counties. The Bumbs granted a total of 11 conservation easements. The easements marked the first protected properties in Sandusky County for the Land Conservancy, and the properties contain some of the most fertile soils in Ohio.
- In eastern Erie County, John Nuhn preserved a total of 563 acres of predominantly rich agricultural land in an area his family has farmed for generations. Three conservation easements granted to the Land Conservancy preserved farmland in Florence and Vermilion townships. The property is currently used for grain production and is part of a larger grain operation across hundreds of additional acres.
- In Richland County, the Land Conservancy helped preserve a 154-acre grain farm and greenhouse operation. A conservation easement now protects the Daron family farm, which is northwest of Mansfield. It was the first farm in Richland County to be accepted into the Ohio Department of Agriculture's Clean Ohio Agricultural Easement Purchase Program (AEPP).
- In Lorain County, Lawry Babbit preserved 211 acres of farmland in Rochester Township within the Black River watershed. The farm – part of a 1,700-acre operation that produces corn, wheat and soybeans to support a large black angus beef herd – is between three other properties on which the Land Conservancy holds conservation easements. This project was also made possible by funding from ODA's Clean Ohio AEPP.
- Another 568 acres of farmland were protected in Huron County when Scott and Kathy Butts granted conservation easements to the Land Conservancy. The protected property, located in Hartland Township, is the base of operations for a 2,800 acre grain farm that includes land in Huron and Lorain counties. The property is primarily active agricultural land but also includes wooded areas containing forested wetlands and sits nearly on the divide between the Vermilion and Huron River watersheds.
Urban revitalization
- With the addition of new land banks in Ashtabula and Richland counties, there are now 17 such entities in Ohio. Thriving Communities Institute and its director, Jim Rokakis, who, as Cuyahoga County treasurer, crafted the state law enabling the creation of county land banks, have been the driving force behind this movement. County land banks can safely hold distressed properties until they can be put back into productive use.
- Thriving Communities and Rokakis worked with the United States Department of the Treasury to make $60 million in federal Hardest Hit funds available for demolition in Ohio. The Hardest Hit Fund was established in 2008 as a foreclosure prevention tool for 18 states identified as being hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis, but by 2013 very little of the allocated resources were spent. Using preliminary results of a research study commissioned by Thriving Communities Institute, Treasury Department officials agreed to make a portion of the funds available for demolition. Since 2012, Thriving Communities has helped bring $182 million in demolition money to Ohio.
- Thriving Communities Institute completed its first vacant property survey in Lorain, where residents supplied with electronic parcel data and mobile devices walked the streets to evaluate the city's 28,000 parcels. A detailed report was then submitted to the city. In the wake of this project, Thriving Communities has received numerous requests to do surveys in other cities, including Akron, Cleveland, East Cleveland, Sandusky and Mansfield.
- In 2013, the Land Conservancy partnered with the village of Highland Hills, raising more than $400,000 in federal funding to acquire and protect a 10-acre wetland. This project presented a rare opportunity to preserve wetland habitat and upland forest buffers in central Cuyahoga County, one of Ohio's most densely developed counties. Once the project is complete, the village will manage it as a nature preserve and provide public access for passive recreational use. It will also serve as an outdoor education laboratory for the Warrensville Heights School District.
- In Akron, the Land Conservancy completed the acquisition of a 16-acre parcel that will be added to the South Akron Greenway, a corridor of protected property along Adam's and Haley's runs. The original greenway project was a partnership with the Land Conservancy, Lockheed Martin Corp. and others.
- In 2013, Frank Ford, a nationally renowned vacant property researcher and chairman of the Vacant and Abandoned Property Action Council (VAPAC), joined the Thriving Communities staff as senior policy advisor. Ford has been featured in numerous local and national publications as an authority on vacancy, and recently completed a study for Harvard University.
From the countryside to the city, the Land Conservancy provides our region with natural places that nourish and support vibrant and prosperous communities by identifying, preserving, restoring and maintaining essential assets like clean water, working farms, wildlife areas, and parks. The Land Conservancy is based in Moreland Hills and has field offices in Cleveland, Akron, Medina, Oberlin, Orrville and Chardon.


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San Pasqual junior left-hander Preston Hartvigsen made some big pitches to escape several jams in a 6A Division Lions Baseball Tournament triumph over visiting Coronado.
ESCONDIDO For six innings, San Pasqual High left-hander Preston Hartvigsen walked a tightrope.
And Coronado couldn't push the junior off as San Pasqual scored two runs in the first inning, two more in the third and hung on for a 4-2 win Tuesday in a 6A Division game in the 63rd annual Lions Baseball Tournament.
"We had chances, had him on the ropes and let him off the hook," Coronado coach Sam Ceci said after his team saw a four-game winning streak come to an end.
"We hit some balls hard, but their kid settled in, and we couldn't break through."
The Islanders (5-5) scored a run in the first but left the bases loaded when Hartvigsen got a popup and fly ball to end the inning.
Coronado had a runner thrown out at the plate in the fourth, but still had the bases loaded with two outs when Hartvigsen got a fly ball to end the threat.
The Islanders scored a run and had runners on first and second in the seventh against a reliever when San Pasqual coach Tony Colantono summoned Hayden Wright from the bullpen. Wright got a strikeout and popup to end the game.
"I didn't have my best stuff, but I was able to make some adjustments," Hartvigsen said. "I was able to locate some pitches and get out of some jams."
Coronado had just five hits, but left 10 runners on base, seven of those in scoring position.
"Our little left-hander was tough," Colantono said of the 5-foot-9 Hartvigsen. "He's not big in stature, but he has a big heart. He has given us all we've asked for, been the big gun in our rotation."
San Pasqual (6-4) banged out 14 hits against four Coronado pitchers.
David Gutierrez led the way with three hits, including his second home run of the season, and two RBIs. Justin Vogt, Jo Jo Escarcega, Zack Zevenbergen and Clay Morgan all had two hits for the Eagles.
"I wish we had gotten a little more production, but we hit the ball pretty well," Colantono said. "We let a good team hang in, and it almost cost us. It got a little hairy there at the end."
Coronado and San Pasqual are both 1-1 in pool play and have a chance to advance to Thursday's semifinals, depending on today's results.
San Pasqual hosts The Rock Academy while Coronado hosts Westview.
"We need help to advance, but anything can happen in tournament play," Colantono said. "Our goal right now is to go 2-1, take care of our business, and see what happens."
Tag(s): News Coronado San Pasqual News


text: The New England Spahtens has the sole purpose to support the growth of the sport of obstacle course racing in the New England region. We have members of all abilities and levels – from weekend warriors pushing for their first trifecta, to the seasoned competitive athlete qualifying for Worlds. We partner with local obstacle course races through our #racelocal program, regional training facilities with discounted drop in programs, and more. You can purchase team gear, or become an annual member – all members save 10% off everything in the store!


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Heroin addicts have higher pain sensitivity, even during treatment
(HealthDay) -- Heroin addicts often have an increased sensitivity to pain, and this sensitivity does not subside over the course of treatment with methadone or other opioids, new research finds.
Researchers from the University of California-Los Angeles sought to determine how increased sensitivity to pain (also called hyperalgesia) might change as a heroin addict moves from drug abuse to stabilization and eventually to maintenance on a pain-treatment opioid such as methadone or buprenorphine.
The investigators assessed the pain responses of 82 heroin addicts who sought treatment and were given either methadone or buprenorphine. The addicts' pain responses were compared to people who didn't use drugs.
Pain responses in both groups were measured using electrical stimulation and the cold pressor test, in which a hand is placed in ice cold water.
The results showed no significant changes in pain response among heroin addicts who took either methadone or buprenorphine for maintenance therapy.
The study appears in The Journal of Pain.
Doctors need to be aware of opioid-induced pain sensitivity associated with addiction in patients prescribed opioids as well as those taking the drugs illegally, according to the study.
More information: The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about treatments for drug addiction.
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.


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It's the stuff of nightmares at first glance, but there is some positive news about two huge earthquakes that struck several hundred miles offshore of Banda Aceh in Sumatra this morning. At 8:38 UTC (1:38 AM in the Pacific time zone) there was a magnitude 8.6 event with an estimated depth of about 14 miles. It was followed by a magnitude 8.2 event in the same region a little over two hours later. Given the horrific tragedy of 2004 when a tsunami generated in the region killed a quarter million people, this surely caused a sense of concern and panic. But there is a huge difference in the quakes that happened this morning.
Preliminary news reports indicate that warning systems worked as people moved away from low ground along the coast. A sense of panic, no doubt, but at least there were warnings given, unlike in 2004.
For some details on the somewhat odd nature of these earthquakes, check out this analysis at Lithics.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
A Pair of Large Earthquakes in the Indian Ocean
Posted by Garry Hayes at 8:11 AM
2 comments:
I mentioned the 'quakes to my classes this morning, but I kind of glossed over the fact that they weren't at a plate boundary -- which was embarrassing, since the topic of today's lecture was plate boundaries!
But the analysis at Lithics cleared things up for me. Thank you for posting this!
- April 11, 2012 at 12:53 PM
By the way -- the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said that there was a tsunami, but the highest wave height on landfall was just over 1 meter.
These earthquakes were very unusual, so I guess it's fitting that these strike slip 'quakes did generate a tsunami!
- April 11, 2012 at 1:22 PM
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Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Vince's Must Eat in 2006
I hate New Year's Resolutions and since they usually involve eating less or exercising more I thought it only appropriate for my non-resolution to involve eating more - or at least at some new places. Here are 12 spots in the Bay Area I've yet to try. Let me know what you think of these or hit my comments with other suggestions.
- Manresa, Zagat's new #3 in the SF Bay Area. I've been to Mina, Danko and French Laundry and Zagat's got it wrong by the way. Danko doesn't really fit in the same paragraph as French Laundry. Whoops ... i just did it myself. OK, Danko was good -- just different than French Laundry, as was Mina in San Francisco.
- A16, Sadly I'm in the Marina at least once a month and yet I've not been able to keep a reservation here. I've been to Pizza Antica, Zaccahry's and Tomasso's and I can't wait to see if A16 measures up.
- Pizzaiolo in Oakland, another budding Pizza & more joint that doesn't take reservations. Oakland's dining scene is coming along and I want to check it out.
- The Cheese Steak Shop, I've never been to Philly but rumor is this is just as good if not better. If they can top Jersey Joe's in Belmont I'll be impressed.
- Kirala in Berkeley, I can't expect their Sushi to top Sonny's but I can't wait to try it since 13 Yahoo! Local Reviewers all gave it 4+ Stars. Even Mikey likes it.
- Sushi Groove, one of Stoey's favorites. 'nuff said.
- What's up Dog?, I've been to Top Dog and Pink's but can this place really stand up to the West Coast's elite Hot Dog venues? We'll see.
- Burma Superstar another one of Stoey's favorites, and Carmen's and everyone that's reviewed it on Yahoo! Local. No reservations ... wait in line.
- Everett & Jones Barbecue, Gayot says "If you could have one last soul food dinner, you should choose E&J" - I'm game.
- COCO500, which is Bizou refactored. I liked Bizou the first time around quite a bit, so I can't wait to try Bizou 2.0.
- The last 2 are going to come from you, so hit my comments and tell me where in the Bay Area I should be eating. Dives, Fast Casual or Gourmet-Deluxe I'll give it a try.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Stan's Donuts in Santa Clara, Be Careful it's Very Hot
Stan's Donuts lives up to Local folklore
On any given morning you can take a drive by Stan's Donuts and there you should find some serious breakfast treats. Among them:
- The raised glazed are HOT, tasty, a little greasy and HUGE
- Buttermilk Bar + Peet's Coffee (bring your own) need I say more?
- Chocolate Old Fashioned, great chocolate, great donut
- Cake w/ Chocolate & Sprinkles, again -- great cake and great Chocolate
Stan's Dont's:
- Nothing here is organic, that's for sure
- They've got what they've got, for isntance they didn't seem to have apple fritters that day
- No soda
- No bottled water for sale
Finally, they kicked us out for bringing our own coffee, so I'd like to thank Armadillo Willy's for providing us a place to enjoy Hot Donuts, Taco Bell for providing Pepsi for those who needed more caffeine and Quizno's who sold bottled water. This is one mini mall that had it all.
Sometimes there's nothing better than fresh, hot donut not made by Krispy Kreme and Stan's delivers. They may not be #1 in customer service but their donuts are top notch and made by hand, so bring your own beverages and plan on taking them to go or sitting outside.
Where's your favorite Donut shop? hit my comments.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Yahoo's New Annotated Maps API Rules
I'm a huge fan of the movie Sideways so my first map captures the adventures of Jack & Mile's through the Santa Barbara Hills.
Yahoo's new annotated maps API rules, so check out my Sideways map and see what I mean: Vince's Sideways in Santa Barbara Map Still haven't seen Sideways? Netflixs it
What kind of map will you make?
Monday, May 23, 2005
Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Impresses and Delights
I must say I never really liked Bobby Flay all that much. Not that I knew him personally, but way back when he got started he had a show on FoodTV where he'd grill with a hillbilly, let's call him Billy. Bobby would treat Billy like trailer trash on national TV and and Billy, being the southern gentlemen he appeared to be would just take Bobby's crap. Whether Bobby Flay could grill or not, he certainly came off like a real jerk.
After seeing Bobby on Iron Chef America and watching his Vegas restaurant come to life on the Food Network I couldn't help but be impressed by what I saw. His culinary genius really seemed to come through in his recent work and I wanted to try everything I saw him prepare. A recent trip out to Vegas for a friend's bachelor party afforded me the very opportunity to see what Bobby Flay was up to. It's not all that often I get out to the desert and Bobby's other restaurants are way out in New York.
The restaurants atmosphere left nothing to chance, it was bold and dazzling from the get-go. The charming, futuristically-retro interior sported multi-colored stained glass "walls" facing the Caesar's sports book, a small bar and 4 or 5 small areas of dining tables surronding the giant copper rotisserie where Bobby brings so many of his creative entrees to life. The staff was attentive and knowledgable without being doting. When it came time to choose a beverage, not only did they agree with my wine choice but they assured me it would be wonderful with my entree -- and they were right. So enough, let's eat.
At first glance the menu doesn't seem all that lengthy, in fact you don't realize how daunting your choices are until you find that you want to order everything. I bought us some time with a quesadilla: Smoked Chicken + Black Bean with Avocado + Toasted Garlic Crème Fraiche and some Southwestern Fries. These 2 items we're a smash, even though the quesadilla was tough to split between 5 we really enjoyed it. The fries were fine, but if I want fried food I'll go elsewhere.
Go time. After serious discussion between the 5 of us I ordered the Pork, as did Sean. Lyle and Gordon each had the Tuna and Dale went with the Salmon. They were prepared as follows:
- Ancho Chile- Honey Glazed Salmon with Spicy Black Bean Sauce + Jalapeño Crema
- New Mexican Spice Rubbed Pork Tenderloinwith Bourbon-Ancho Chile Sauce + Sweet Potato Tamale with Crushed Pecan Butter
- Grilled Tuna Steakwith Apricot-Mustard-Mint Glaze + Green Chile-Pine Nut Couscous
The PorkThe pork was spectacular. The loin were cut into small rounds, cooked medium-rare and tender to the fork. Smoky, grilled, sweet, spicy, BBQey, buttery, succulent and almost chocolatey are adjectives that come to mind. I went with a spicy Sonoma Zinfandel to go with the pork which was (luckily) right-on. The Zin stood up to the spice like a champ. It goes to show, when in doubt, go with a good Zin. Don't skip the corn husk! The sweet potato tamale is perfect, rich corn embodies sweet potato and the occasional pecan crunch. Buttery sweet and blissful, you don't want to miss this tamale. I for one cannot wait to have this dish again, in fact I think I'll have to see if Bobby will give me the recipe.
The Tuna
The tuna was really good -- and I'm glad since I think I convinced a few folks it would be. The rich, buttery tuna steak comes alive beneath the Apricot-Mustard-Mint Glaze and the flavorful Couscous offered a welcome departure from the fish's rich texture. This was Tuna done right (and even rivals my favorite Sashimi at Sonny's).
I didn't try the Salmon nor did I get a shot of it (since it was pretty clear my camera-phone was sucking wind at this point). Dale swears it was great, it was gone faster than my pork and I must admit a little Jalapeño Crema on my Salmon sounds good right about now. Maybe next time, but there were some other "regrets" that I hope we can make room for at the table next time:
- Coffee Spice Rubbed Rotisserie Filet Mignonwith Wild Mushroom-Ancho Chile Sauce + Horseradish Potato Gratin (they leave the fat on this filet to protect it in the rottiserie, this fact and the coffee rub has me interested)
- Sixteen Spice Rotisserie Chicken with Caramelized Mango Sauce + Buttermilk-Chive Mashed Potatoes (I know it's chicken, but this sounds to me like exceptional chicken)
- Aged Buffalo Ribeye with Mustard-Habanero Barbecue Sauce + Cayenne-Sour Cream Onion Rings (I'm a sucker for a good ribeye, and double for a Buffalo steak)
We didn't want to do it. We already overdid it the night before at Emeril's. We shouldn't have done it. We ordered dessert. Hey, we needed to have a little something with our coffee and Bobby was already batting a thousand, so why not? Why not is because the night before they had to roll us out of Emeril's Steak House after bread and potatoes and wine and ribeye steaks and crazy desserts with coconut chocolate and cream. Ugggggh.
So, we only got one dessert. One bite each we said. We arm wrestled for quite a while with the decision but concluded on a peach cobbler of sorts.
Peach pound-cake croutons, small scoops of peach ice-cream and a few blackberries all drizzled in warm caramel sauce. Sure, it sounds good but I didn't expect it to taste like peaches. Was I wrong, the ice cream must have been made fresh - outstanding. The pound cake croutons were rich and fruity, like a perfect peach without the pit. With a warm caramel sunset drowning the tall goblet of greatness, this dessert reminded me of summer and tasted no less sweet.
What's left to say? Mesa Grill exceeded my already inflated expectations. The food was great and we enjoyed chatting with the staff about their menu, Wine and Local events. Given its Las Vegas location where even Big Macs cost more, the prices were fair and the portions large enough to satisfy. I don't know when I'll be back to Sin City but when I am you can be sure the first reservation I'll make is Mesa Grill. Did somebody say Vegas?
-Vince Eats
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Restaurant Michael Mina Scores with Local Food Addicts
Last Saturday night will go down in history, or at least my own memory, as a great meal. This was the first time I was lucky enough to try a restaurant often referred to as "Mina." You know the place. We had waited months to get in as Chef Michael Mina's restaurant in San Francisco, CA (near Union Square), as his staff had been plagued by a hotel strike in the preceding months. But this is the restaurant I had heard so very much about, often breathed in sentences along side French Laundry, Gary Danko and other wonders of creation. It was worth waiting for, and we're just glad we got in when we did.
The evening started by being seated promptly, just before our reservation time. Service was impeccable to start, not that I really noticed as I drooled over the 2000+ bottle wine list, but we were pleased with our table and the level of attention from the staff. Let's cut to the substance here, the menu. Michael Mina offers you 3 options: The standard menu consists of 3 courses each prepared in 3 unique ways -- that's right, it appears you dine on 3 small portions per course (the exception here maybe dessert). He also offer 2 7-course options, a Seasonal and Chef's Tasting menu. We all opted for the Chef's Tasting menu, one vegetarian and the rest of us had some minor substitutions. Here's what we ate and what I thought of each dish. We also took a few pictures along the way, but the camera just wasn't behaving all that well in low-light.
- A wonderful terrine with Caviar, house-cured Salmon, cooked egg and chives mixed with creme freche. This should really be course 0, because it wasn't on the menu. This was outstanding. Not unlike Keller's Salmon tartar ice-cream cones with creme fresche, the first thing I was served absolutely knocked my socks off.
- This was a tuna tartar with Quail egg, pine nuts, sesame oil and a hint of pear. IN keeping with fine French service, the server explained each dish that brought to the table and then did any final prep. In this case the egg was blended into the tartar right on our plates. I wasn't crazy about watching them do this, but this dish really tasted great. There's something so right about raw fish and egg yolk mixed with the subtle crunch of pine nuts that really hits the spot.
- Most guests had the Lobster Pot Pie. Presented in a copper dish, then plated. Use your imagination with the following blur:
I decided to opt for a substitution on this course (turns out the lobster was good but a little bit chewy, anyway). I went with the blue cheese souffle, this was served along side a pear-Roquefort dressing. The waitress had me at blue cheese souffle. Here she is in all her glory:
It just doesn't get any better than this. Rich blue cheese, baked into a souffle and then blended with more blue cheese and pear melted to perfection. I lack the vocabulary to explain just how very much I enjoyed this dish.
- The requisite foie gras course. I knew it was coming, I'd been looking forward to it since I ordered that Joel Gott Zinfandel from Amador County. In this case we were each served 2 portions, 1 seared and 1 not. Pineapple and ginger accompanied each and a small wedge of toast adorned the middle of the dish. I really enjoy the complexity the seared foie gras brought to this course, but as another diner pointed out, the "simple" foie gras really hit the spot with a wonderful texture and alluring mouth-feel. This was a very good dish.
- Next we were treated to the miso-glazed sea-bass w/ scallop wonton. The sea-bass was done perfectly and the delicate balance of flavors made us wonder if the recipe had snuck it's way over from Pisces or Aqua. I steered clear of the wonton due to allergies, but others seemed to enjoy it. This fish was truly succulent.
- This course marked my first time having Poussin. Poussin is a very tender chicken, similar to the French spring chicken, with a very refined flavor and light colored meat throughout.
As you can see above, we had a small portion of the chicken which was served with truffle Mac & cheese and a small bowl of steamed vegetables. I liked this dish, the Mac & Cheese was creamy and decadent and the vegetables lightened the dish up nicely. I think I'll need some more practice though, that is before I'm eating "the veal of chicken" on a regular basis.
- Here comes the beef. That's Kobe beef (filet cut?) served with seared foie gras and a potato asiago gratin.
I can't say I wasn't looking forward to this. It's not all that often I get have Kobe beef. The beef was tender and made a wonderfully complex pair with the foie gras. If you look closely you can even see that the potato gratin is made up of a dozen-plus thin layers of potato. I loved this dish, everything about it was right.
- Let's get started w/ Dessert, shall we? The boys got the key lime pie and the girls went with the chocolate dessert.
At this point I can barely hold the camera straight, I just want to sink my teeth into that pie. The key lime pie was beautifully finished with a meringue topping and served along side it, a mascarpone sorbet w/ kaffir lime syrup. The pie was very well done, but the sorbet -- with it's too-cool-for-school miniature lime-section buried beneath the mascarpone -- really took the cake. Sweet, creamy and refreshing all at once.
Above is the molten chocolate-cake with peanut butter center served with a Peanut Butter milkshake. The cake reminded me of a rich chocolate souffle with a peanut-butter surprise inside. The shake was creamy and rich with fresh-roasted peanut flavor. Again, another great dessert from Mina.
- Another bonus course! I had heard about these. These were Mina's signature way to finish a meal. Each guest was served one each of 2 bon-bons. The first, a malted ice cream covered in milk chocolate followed by its companion, a Dark Chocolate bon bon with Mexican chocolate ice cream. Both were served atop crumbled butter toffee bits for rolling. Mina again takes the mundane and makes it great -- chocolate bon-bons creatively executed, nothing like you'd see over at Baskin Robbins or the DQ. This was dessert.
In closing, the coffee we had with dessert was a dark roast served piping hot. My only complaint about the service was here, when I only received one cup. Perhaps this was a simple oversight on their part or just a sign that it was time to go. Or, perhaps we had overstayed our welcome, having been seated now 3 hours on our culinary journey. Whichever the case, I can't wait to see what Michael Mina has in store for me next time around.
-Vince Eats


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I finally played a new Pikmin game yesterday, which I've been waiting to do for eight years. The game looks great, but the tiny sliver I played got me wondering what the best way to play the game will be.
Pikmin 3, like the GameCube Pikmin games before it, is about playing as a tiny space-man who can command a bunch of little brightly-colored guys called Pikmin to haul giant boulders, break down walls and pounce, like a swarm of bipedal ants, on giant enemy creatures (the visual joke of it all is that the game's characters are nearly microscopic and the so-called giants of the naturalistic game world would be the size of grasshoppers and ladybugs.)
The E3 demo I tried runs on the Wii U and lets you control the game with either the Wii Remote and Nunchuk or with the Wii U GamePad (that's the controller with the big screen in it). The demo is showing a special challenge mode that runs on a timer and tests the player's ability to command the Pikmin to find objects that they can cash in at their base for coins. You can't plant Pikmin to grow more of the little guys. You can't build a spaceship. Not in this mode. It's all about combat, collecting and finding sleeping packs of more Pikmin.
If you play the game with a Wii Remote and Nunchuk you move your spaceman leader around with the analog stick, direct a cursor to point the Pikmin to their next objective by pointing the Wii Remote at your TV, and use buttons on the Wii Remote to either whistle the Pikmin to attention or toss them at the enemy you want them to fight, the pellet you want them to collect, the wall you want them to break, etc. You can re-center the game's camera with a button on the Nunchuk, if memory serves, but I couldn't find a key input that I used when I played the first two games on the GameCube: the ability to stretch your Pikmin swarm into a straight line and wrap that line around enemies, pellets or against walls, all of which was mapped to the GameCube's yellow C-Stick.
If you play with the Wii U GamePad, you actually do have access to two analog sticks. The left one still moves the spaceman, but the right... well, it doesn't do the GameCube C-Stick thing either. It rotates the camera. (The d-pad in both configurations, I should note, can make the spaceman roll laterally, left or right). The Nintendo rep who showed me the game wasn't sure if Pikmin 3 will have the C-Stick-like functionality, so he advised me to just use the cursor to point the Pikmin at their goal and toss them. But how to point the cursor using the GamePad, which has no Wii Remote-like pointer sensor? You tilt the GamePad as if you were tilting a mirror to move a spot of reflected light around on a wall. This feels good, but, as with some other Wii U games, it requires manual re-calibration, fairly often, in order to re-set the cursors at the center point of the TV screen. You tap a button on the GamePad to re-center. It's not the end of the world, but it's another sign that the Wii U could use a tech upgrade in this regard.
Whether you're using the Wii Remote configuration or the GamePad, a 2D world map will be displayed on the GamePad's screen. A rectangle on that screen represents the portion of the level that is displayed on your TV. You can drag your finger on the map and move the rectangle to quickly look at other parts of the game world. This is exactly like moving the viewing window in a real-time-strategy game, which, ultimately is what Pikmin is.
I'd have to play more to determine which controller configuration I prefer. One Nintendo rep told me he likes the Remote version. Nintendo's chief game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, told me internal Nintendo developers have been mostly playing with the GamePad version. I instinctively have an affinity for the old GameCube controls, but Nintendo typically doesn't ship a game before its controls have been perfected. Hopefully they'll figure out the best scheme or schemes before launch. Regardless, this game looks and plays like a Pikmin. Sure, the rock Pikmin are new, but this game seems like one of those sequels that is more evolution than revolution. It's been absent so long, I don't mind that a bit.
We'll have more on Pikmin 3 in the near future.


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We recently wrote about a security advisory from Cryptocat, an open-source web-based secure messaging project.
Cryptocat's hacktivist credibility was cemented in 2012 when its Canadian developer, Nadim Kobeissi, was stopped at the US border and interviewed about his Cryptocat-related programming activities.
The software enjoyed a surge in popularity as a result, which made last week's Fourth-of-July vulnerability announcement all the more worrying.
It turned out that the Cryptocat code had for some time contained a number of cryptographic flaws that made it measurably less secure than its users might reasonably have assumed.
One of these flaws was found in the heart of Cryptocat's PRNG (pseudo-random number generator).
PRNGs are a key component of cryptographic software
For the same reason that you don't use the same password on more than one website, so that one cracked password doesn't open up your whole online life, Cryptocat generates new keys every time you chat to someone.
So, to generate a steady supply of unpredictable, unguessable, one-use encryption keys, Cryptocat needs a steady supply of high-quality random numbers.
With this in mind, I thought it might be interesting, and educational, to drill into one of Cryptocat's now-patched PRNG bugs.
Cryptocat random numbers, old-style
Cryptocat is written in JavaScript, which represents numbers internally as 8-byte IEEE-754 floating point numbers.
Usefully, 8-byte floats allow you to represent integers up to and beyond 32 bits, though annoyingly this numeric range doesn't extend all the way to 64 bit integers.
For technical reasons, IEEE-754 numbers run out of integer precision at 253, which corresponds to nearly, but not quite, 16 decimal digits of precision.
Since Cryptocat's core PRNG function, Cryptocat.random(), returns a JavaScript number, the coders made sure they extracted all possible variability every time it was called.
They constructed a text string representing a random 16-digit (53 bit) decimal number somewhere from 0 to 0.999999999999999 inclusive. In pseudocode:
// Start building a number (0<=N<1) as a text string numstr = '0.' // tack on 16 random ASCII digits for i = 1 to 16 do numstr = numstr + randomASCIIdigit() end // Convert the string to an 8-byte float return stringtonumber(numstr)
Curiously, the coders generated each random ASCII digit by extracting a random byte from a stream cipher of excellent repute known as Salsa20, and converting that byte into one of the characters from '0' to '9'.
But a byte (8 bits) can take on 256 (28) different values, and 256 isn't a multiple of 10.
Since they couldn't divide 256 bytes into 10 equally-sized groups of values, the coders resorted to a trick:
repeat byte250 = randomSalsaByte() until byte250 <= 250 randomdigit = remainder(byte250,10)
The idea is simple: 250 is evenly divisible by 10, so it's easy to map the numbers from 1..250 onto the digits 0..9.
And 250 is very close to 256, so by simply throwing away random bytes from 251..255, the problem of indivisibility by 10 is sidestepped.
The problem
The code above is certainly an inelegant solution, since it is, in theory, at least, a potentially infinite loop.
→ If the randomSalsaByte() function is truly random, there is no mathematical guarantee that it won't continue to return values above 250 for seconds, or minutes, or months.
It is also flat-out wrong.
The less-than-or-equal-to sign should be a less-than sign.
There are 251 different integers such that 0 ≤ X ≤ 250.
The programmer meant to specify that 0 ≤ X < 250 or, equivalently, that 0 ≤ X ≤ 249.
This is known as a fencepost error, by analogy with the fact that it takes seven fenceposts one metre apart to create a fence six metres long.
That's because you need an extra fencepost at the far end of the sixth section:
Quantifying the error
When you divide numbers from 0..249 by 10 and take the remainder, the values 0 to 9 come out on average 25 times each, or 10% of the time, for a uniform distribution of digits.
But when you do the same with numbers from 0..250, there are 25 ways to come up with each of the digits 1..9, and 26 ways to come up with 0.
Instead of coming up on average 10% of the time (25/250, or 0.1), 0 will come up approximately 10.36% of the time (26/251, or 0.1036), and 1..9 will come up 9.96% each (25/251, or 0.0996).
The difference is easily visualised.
Here is a graph showing three tests, each generating 1,000,000 random digits using a good PRNG (the file /dev/urandom on OS X).
You'd expect each digit to come up about 100,000 times, and that's what happened:
But the Cryptocat generator, with its one-part-in-251 inaccuracy, gives a graph that on casual inspection doesn't look right.
Each time, the count for 0 is somewhere around 103,500 – approximately 10.36% of the 1,000,000 digits in each sample:
Of course, the visible differences between the red graphs and the blue graphs might not be statistically significant, since they could have arisen by chance.
There is, after all, no law that prevents unusual looking results, just as there is nothing that stops a casino's roulette wheel from landing on red 20 times in a row.
But there are statistical tools we can use to measure the likelihood that a set of non-random-looking results really did happen by chance, not due to some flaw in the PRNG.
One common method is known as the Chi-squared test.
You compute the difference between each reading and the average value you expected.
Then you square the differences, divide each one by the expected value, and add those scaled-squares-of-differences together.
Because you square the differences, readings that are unusually far from what you expected have a much larger effect on the Chi-squared value than readings that were close to correct.
You then do some fancy mathematical calculations (or look up the result in a pre-computed table) to convert the Chi-squared value into a probability figure; the lower the probability, the worse your PRNG looks.
Loosely speaking, the Chi-squared probability tells you the chance that the variation in results that you observed really did happen by accident.
So, the lower the figure, the less likely that the inaccuracies you observed can be explained away as natural and reasonable.
→ Lower than 0.1% is considered very suspicious, since it suggests that your observed result should only happen "against the odds" once in every 1000 tries. So there's a 99.9% chance that your weird results are down to a flaw in your assumptions. In this case our assumption is that the numbers come from a reliable PRNG; if we reject that hypothesis, we effectively accept that the PRNG is faulty.
Generating 30 sets of 100,000 samples using the /dev/urandom generator produced a wide range of probability figures, none particularly alarming:
But similar results for 30 sets of Cryptocat PRNG digits have a much shabbier look:
Stepping up the number of samples in each test – simply put, giving more time for genuinely random variations to even themselves out – polarises the results even further.
With 30 sets of 1,000,000 samples, /dev/urandom seems to satisfy our assumption, namely that it is a decent PRNG:
Cryptocat's fencepost error, however, has really put a spanner in the works:
The error propagated
Clearly, the PRNG's bias towards 0 is consistent and quantifiable: it's off-kilter by 1/251, as we showed above.
Does that sort of bias still cause a problem when we combine sixteen digits into a floating point string and convert it back to a 53-bit number?
What if we generate 53 bits of floating point precision, and then do this:
number = rounddown(Cryptocat.random()*100) + 1
Since the random() function produces a number from 0 to 0.9999999999999999, multiplying by 100 and rounding down limits us to numbers from 0..99, and adding 1 produces an integer from 1..100.
We've converted 16 flawed digits into 53 bits of IEEE-754 floating point fraction, then converted that again to fewer than seven bits' worth of positive integer.
Perhaps that is enough to hide the bias we saw above?
It isn't.
Visualising the flaw
Below, I created a 100×100 grid and then generated 10,000,000 pairs of Cryptocat-style floats.
I mapped each pair of 53-bit numbers to a pair of integers from 1..100, as explained above, and used that pair as an (X,Y) co-ordinate in my 100×100 grid, keeping tally of how many times each point in the grid got a "hit".
I then used those counts to choose a colour for each point in the grid; more "hits" meant a brighter colour.
Using /dev/urandom to produce my digits from 0..9 in my PRNG, I ended up with what looks like (and, indeed, is) just so much random noise:
But using the flawed Cryptocat PRNG produced a ghostly grid of colours that clearly reveals the systematic prejudices in the PRNG:
And that, my friends, is why PRNGs are important, and why they should be tested thoroughly every time you build and ship the latest version of your software.
A PRNG which passes the Chi-squared test may very well still be deeply flawed, but one that fails, and which produces such clear visual regularities, is definitely unfit for purpose.
Random number generators, as the joke goes, are far too important to be left to chance.


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Obama Urges Iranian President to Release Pastor Saeed
In the first communication between the leaders of the United States and Iran since 1979, President Barack Obama on Friday spoke to President Hassan Rouhani by phone and called for the release of American Pastor Saeed Abedini, who is in an Iranian prison because of his Christian faith and has been tortured.
Obama, the first American leader to speak with an Iranian president since the Islamic revolution, noted the nation's concern about three American citizens who have been held within Iran in his 15-minute conversation with the Iranian president.
The three include the missing U.S. citizen Robert Levinson, Pastor Saeed Abedini, and alleged CIA spy Amir Hekmati, according to Fox News. Obama "noted our interest in seeing those Americans reunited with their families," a senior Obama Administration official was quoted as saying.
Rouhani, who spent the last few days at the U.N. General Assembly, was on his way to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport when Obama called him at about 2:30 p.m. on Friday. The conversation was focused mostly on the nuclear issue.
This is the first time that Obama has spoken out about the imprisonment of Saeed. Pastor's wife, Naghmeh, said it was "the most encouraging news I have heard since Saeed was imprisoned one year ago."
"I am very grateful to President Obama for standing up for Saeed and for the other Americans who are held captive in Iran," Naghmeh added. "This development is truly an answer to prayer. I urge President Rouhani, as I have done throughout this week, to release Saeed so he can return to our home and our family in the United States. In recent days, Iran has released 80 prisoners being held because of their beliefs. I pray that we can add Saeed to that list very soon."
"After 35 years of great tensions between Iran and the United States, and very numerous issues that persist in the relationship, a meeting of the presidents for the first time in this period would naturally come along with certain complications of their own," Rouhani said at a press conference.
"We're very encouraged by President Obama raising the illegal imprisonment of American Saeed Abedini with Iranian President Rouhani," said Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, which represents Naghmeh and their two children. "President Obama's call to President Rouhani to release Saeed so he can be reunited with his family is a significant step forward in this critical case."
The State Department has repeatedly condemned Iran for holding Pastor Saeed, and more than 100,000 people have written letters to President Rouhani for Saeed's release.
Naghmeh has spoken at the United Nation to seek member states' action on behalf of her husband.
Saeed – who grew up in Iran before converting to Christianity at the age of 20 – traveled with his family back and forth between Iran and the U.S. several times over the past few years to meet his family and for Christian work. During one such trip in 2009, he was detained by Iranian officials and interrogated for his conversion. While he was released with a warning against engaging in underground church activities, he was once again arrested last July while working on a non-sectarian orphanage project.
Saeed was sentenced to eight years in prison earlier this year for endangering "national security," but the ACLJ believes the punishment has more to do with Saeed's Christian faith.
Rouhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was president from 2005 until last month, became authoritarian and began to curtail civil liberties following mass protests, known as the Green Revolution, over his claimed victory in the 2009 elections that were believed to be rigged. Persecution of Christians and other religious minorities was also part of Ahmadinejad's attempt to tighten control over all aspects of people's lives in the face of domestic insecurity.
It is not clear if Rouhani, a former commander of the Iranian air defenses, has much say in matters of national security, which is the domain of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Christians in Iran are persecuted under the garb of "national security."


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Are surplus stores worthwhile?
Answers Given
Answers Favorited
Now with eBay is there any point to government surplus? Are surplus auctions worthwhile?0
The American Science and Surplus mail order catalog is really something. See the CT review here:
There's also a positive CT review of the Boeing & Pratt & Whitney surplus stores: https://www.google.com/url?q=http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/927&sa=U&ei=QyJLU_H2MITi2AXZkYDwCA&ved=0CAgQFjAB&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNGt4uG4LmH2733JIJ36wKXoMhpniA
You might want to check out the Habitat for Humanity ReStores. In addition to used furniture, I've seen hardware from over runs and over purchases by contractors.
A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.Tell us what you love.
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text:
The Christmas Hutch...
My hutch is officially decorated for Christmas! It still is done in white, black, and silverplate, and I've added some touches of dark green and Christmas accents...
The little wood sign at the top was one I made many years ago~ and I added some greenery...
There are snowy houses and reindeer...
some fun vintage rick rack...
vintage beaded garland filled the apothecary jars...
I used this little bottle brush tree and put it on a base made of an old typewriter spool topped with a punched tin light reflector. I added vintage faux pearls and a silvery paper star at the top...
The silverplate bride's basket and bowl are filled with shimmery ornaments and beaded garlands...
I love this charming old photo Christmas card with three pups...
I love the feeling it gives to the room!
I am linking to the Boardwalk Bragfest
and Savvy Southern Style's Boring to Better Party
Until next time...
57 comments
Oh it's exquisite! Everything works so perfectly together. Just beautiful.ReplyDelete
Well I love all your vintage ric rac too! It is perfectly displayed too Linda. Love that scale mixed in...what a great job you did. I think I would want to leave it like that for a bit after the holidays!ReplyDelete
I love it! Great knack for display you have.ReplyDelete
I love it all, Linda. Those little houses are cute.ReplyDelete
It is just beautiful. I love that vintage look and the ric rac how cool is that. Gave me a new idea! Blessings,ReplyDelete
Gosh Linda, this is all so pretty. So much to look at. I LOVE the little snowy houses and that puppy postcard :)ReplyDelete
I love your little winter wish...the tiny house and tree...the Ric rac is so sweet...And I've enjoyed your leisurely decorating...it seems like you have enjoyed doing it a piece at a time. LezleeReplyDelete
Linda, I love the way you decorate. I wish we lived closer! I love, love, love how you put out the green vintage rick rack. That bottle brush tree is fabulous and that sweet postcard makes me crazy. The whites, silvers and greens really work. It is gorgeous.ReplyDelete
Oh that looks great - old silverplate is one of my favorite things lately...ReplyDelete
Very pretty! These are some of my favorite color combos. And all your dishes are beautiful! Everything is gorgeous!ReplyDelete
It's really beautiful!!ReplyDelete
I love it! I'm almost certain that it belongs in MY house! ;)ReplyDelete
Very Sweet! i love your little glitter homes you have displayed! I tried to incorporate my silver into my all white hutch & it didn't turn out as put together as yours...mine went back in the box!ReplyDelete
Very pretty! I wish I could put together things like you do.ReplyDelete
Wow! You have outdone yourself! It's breathtaking.ReplyDelete
Love the little houses and reindeer.
Hi LindaReplyDelete
There are so many things that I love in your hutch! The glittered star, deer, all of the silver pieces, and the rick rac, too! Such a great idea to use that as a decorative element! I never would have thought of that! And your tree is so fun, too! What a great idea!
What a perfect combination! Love it!ReplyDelete
you hutch looks dreamy! It all looks so nice.
It's beautiful and vintage! Sweet details! Hugs, MaryjaneReplyDelete
That is stunning Linda! I love how it looks, and agree, it could be that way for a long while:)ReplyDelete
Oh my gosh, I love this display so much! And you got me with another great scale!ReplyDelete
Oh I wish I had a hutch (and a mantle, and a wrap around porch, and a sunroom . . .) to put pretty things on! You should be a stylist in a magazine Linda! Okay, I'm going to go 'tweek' my Christmas decor now! You inspired me!ReplyDelete
Great display. I like the bowl with the glitter star and the puppy photo best.ReplyDelete
Oh Linda I just love your vintage Christmas hutch. All of the white and silver are just divine!!!!ReplyDelete
Very lovely. I love the soft antique colors.ReplyDelete
Linda everything looks so beautiful!!ReplyDelete
Gorgeous Linda!!ReplyDelete
I Love Everything about it! The scale is Perfect!
Happy Tuesday!
Here's more rick rack. Love all the cardboard houses and bowls of silver.ReplyDelete
Let's see ~ what shall I put on the top of my list of favorites? The transferware platter, the scale, the silverplate, the little houses or the trees??? Oh, I just LOVE it all!! You really put together a beautiful display!! I'm still working on cleaning yet!!! Hugs, JulieReplyDelete
I love it all...and especially the Merry Christmas sign!!!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousDecember 7, 2010 at 5:48 PM
Well Linda -- I'm simply engrossed and sad that your post is over! Truly exquisite. Girl, there is NO WAY I would take that down at Christmas. It is far too pretty to put away. Beautiful pieces tied together in a marvelous vignette.ReplyDelete
Also -- if you have the time, why don't you do a tutorial on how you put the numbers on your comments? See how you are? Everything about you is so cool!
Thank you so much for linking to the Boardwalk Bragfest!
Hi lovely lady I love your Vintage so Beautiful !!and your displayed works perfectly !!~~~~ Im your newest follower come see my Vintage Tablescapes on my Blog. If you can maybe you can become one of my followers for me. Thanks so much.ReplyDelete
Hi, you just became a follower of my page, so I had to come check you out! lol great blog, love the way you decorate. i'll take one of each! thanks for stopping by and checking me out.ReplyDelete
Tammy @ typeA
I love it all! Enjoy your decor and have a Happy Christmas!ReplyDelete
Hugs, Lisa
I love every single itsy bit of it! LOL I blew up every picture, you did my favorite color scheme. Or shall I say lack of color. Just perfect. Love the 3 pups too. Lisa
Linda, I appreciate you joining the party this week. Enjoyed looking at this again. So pretty.ReplyDelete
Beautiful Linda...ReplyDelete
I feel right at home here in your home!
Your vintage pieces are wonderful...love the ric rack.
Happy Holidays to you and yours,
xoxo~Kathy @
Sweet Up-North Mornings...
Such a wonderful job mixing all of your lovely things on your hutch. It all looks great. Thanks for stopping by my blog.ReplyDelete
Merry Christmas
Your hutch looks awesome all decorated for Christmas Linda...love your color scheme! ~Deb~ReplyDelete
Hi Linda,ReplyDelete
The hutch is beautiful!! I love all of the little details. The ric rac in the bowl was a great little surprise element...love it!
Oh I just love this Linda! It looks beautiful, the sweet vintage pieces tucked here and there are perfect! Theresa xoxoReplyDelete
LOVE LOVE THIS! I swear a themed hutch has SUCH appeal! This one is terrific. Love the close ups, especially the pottery--so sculptural. The muted colors work so well together, and you have such an interesting mix of objects. So fun isn't it? JacquelineReplyDelete
Truly beautiful and perfectly displayed, Linda! And thank you for your nice words and get well wishes!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousDecember 8, 2010 at 2:35 PM
Wow where do you live, we should be like hanging out. I have so many of the same stuff in my house. I love reindeer, mercury glass, bottle brush trees, just to name a few.ReplyDelete
You have put together a very festive look!ReplyDelete
Linda, your hutch looks absolutely beautiful! I love the vintage touches and the rick rack!ReplyDelete
Kat :)
I love that hutch and all the Xmas decorations you've added! Now can you please tell me how you figured out the numbering of the comments? It's driving me crazy trying to get it right!ReplyDelete
Brenda firstname.lastname@example.com
Hi Linda, Your hutch looks great! I love all your vintage pieces especially the scale and the ric rac. Thanks for sharing.ReplyDelete
Enjoy your evening,
Oh Linda, thank you so much for your advice and for "favoriting" my shop! It means so much, really! I'm definitely going to do the "Etsy Mini" and of course, favorite your shop (as soon as I figure out how!).ReplyDelete
Every time I come visit your blog I see another thing that's in my house too. We must have great taste, don't you think? Your hutch is lovely. Love that vintage look. MimiReplyDelete
Very pretty!ReplyDelete
That looks just gorgeous! wow.ReplyDelete
Just found your fun blog, I love vintage stuff, and you do a fabulous job of displaying it! I'm still puttsing with Christmas decorating around my house! It's just too much fun! We are in S.D. click on over for a visit anytime! I'll be your newest follower.ReplyDelete
Hi Linda,ReplyDelete
Your hutch is so charming, but the puppy photo is my favorite part. Thanks for stopping by and welcoming me back to blogland. It feels really good to have my head above water and see your sweet friendly face looking back my computer screen.
Every little detail of your hutch is just awesome! You have wonderful things and you know just how to place them!!!! I love it!ReplyDelete
Linda, it is all so beautifull- I love the tarnished silver-and SOOOOOO much the small glitter houses-wish I could buy them here, or just cardboard houses, for doing it myself...ReplyDelete
Hugs, Dorthe
Thanks so much for visiting my blog! I love hearing from you and always enjoy reading your comments!


text:
Notice: Shop closure on 7th-26th Sep overseas training trip. Business will resume on 27th Sep.
Peonies x Tulips x Hydrangea
Some flowers are seasonal, if any blooms are not available, we will substitute them with flowers of similar value. Each arrangement is individually made uniquely, variances may occur and the final product may not resemble the picture shown completely. *For same day delivery, please WhatsApp us at
+65 8938 9686 to check for availability.*